Fanfic / To Serve In Hell

Art by miracle32.

Starlight Glimmer's attempts to stop the Rainboom pulled Twilight Sparkle into many possible timestreams.

In one, Rarity and Rainbow Dash survived Nightmare Moon's victory over the forces of light, eventually attaining positions of prominence and comfort in the Nightmare's service. But when the unexpected visit of an Alicorn and Dragon sheds light on a growing conspiracy against the wicked mistress of the night, Rarity and Rainbow Dash may yet be inspired to risk what they have gained to join the fight for a better world.

Yet darkness lingers even in the hearts of some who would oppose the Nightmare, and not all agree on what a better world would look like...

To Serve In Hell is a My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfic by CoffeeMinion, set in the Nightmare Moon-ruled Bad Future from the season five finale. It follows up immediately after Twilight escapes back to the past, following Rarity and Sassy Saddles as they're sent to investigate a potential conspiracy against their mistress, and Rainbow Dash as she's unexpectedly faced with a responsibility she is not ready for.

The first chapter was released in 2015, and the fic was completed in 2018.

Tropes

• Adaptational Badass: Not that Rainbow is weak in canon, but Alicorn Princess who governs the day-night cycle is a pretty big step up.
• Adaptational Expansion: The fic greatly expands on the Nightmare Moon timeline seen in the show, showing what the other mane six are up to in this world, what Nightmare's rule looks like, and why Ponyville isn't around.
• Adaptational Protagonist: Sassy Saddles is a minor supporting character in the show, but a POV character and Deuteragonist here.
• Adaptational Relationship Overhaul:
  • Rarity and Filthy Rich have a few interactions in the show and comics, but nothing implying any sort of relationship, platonic or otherwise. Here, they are lovers, though Rarity's work keeps them apart most of the time.
  • Likewise, Rainbow and Redheart are at best acquaintances in the show. Here, they have a certain history together, Redheart resenting Rainbow for having sworn herself to Nightmare Moon. They eventually develop a romantic relationship, and are together in the epilogue.
• Always a Bigger Fish: Nightmare Moon is an alicorn demigoddess who rules over Equestria and has thrown it into eternal night. Tirek, after eating the magic of two powerful unicorns and a Mad God, makes short work of her.
• Artifact of Doom: The Hellshard, a coffin-shaped black crystal often called the Key that is not a Key. It doesn't seem to have any particular power of corruption, but it can be used to open a portal into Tartarus, which is plenty horrifying on its own.
• The Atoner: In the epilogue, Rarity describes her raising Diamond Tiara as atonement for the deaths she's caused.
• Author Appeal: The author is a big fan of season 5 of the show, which is why many characters from that season (like Wind Rider and Sassy Saddles) play a big role in the fic.
• Badass and Child Duo: Rainbow and Scootaloo form the classic archetype of an older and grizzled loner having to learn to love and look after a young child. Unlike most versions of the trope, Rainbow does have help in the form of Redheart.
• Bat People: Thestrals, pegasi who have sworn fealty to Nightmare Moon and, as a result, undergone a physical transformation that gives them batwings, slit pupils, and lets them see clearly at night and need less sleep. Notable thestrals include Rainbow Dash and Wind Rider.
• Beleaguered Assistant: Kibitz, in the epilogue, is clearly a bit exasperated at Rainbow's more casual approach to her royal duties, though she does her job well enough that he can't object beyond some grumbling.
• Big Good: Reflective of the story's grim and dark tone, there is no overarching heroic figure; The resistance are simply good ponies doing their best in an awful situation, and Celestia is banished in the moon and getting her back is not considered a viable solution. Rainbow Dash ascending to alicornhood changes this, turning her into both Big Good and Hope Bringer.
• Bittersweet Ending: For both the characters and the overall setting, the ending is overall hopeful but with a bitter note.
  • For the setting; Equestria is under the rule of a benevolent princess who keeps the day-night cycle as it should be, is helping the ponies still trapped in Tartarus, and has people working on bringing Celestia back from the moon. However, the sudden shift in power has left the country in a tenuous situation geopolitically, Nightmare Moon loyalists are unwilling to accept the new princess' rule, and she needs to assert her rule lest the coalition keeping Sombra contained will fall apart. While Rainbow promises to be a benevolent ruler, she faces a lot of challenges in the future if she is to keep the peace.
  • For the characters; Rainbow Dash, Redheart, and Scootaloo are together and happy, and most of the surviving cast are happy or at least content, working to help the world recover. The exception is Rarity, who's emotionally broken by the loss of Filthy Rich and all the death she's witnessed and caused. She is surrounded by friends who want to help her heal, and she has dedicated herself to taking care of Diamond Tiara and support Rainbow's rule, but she will probably never recover from the trauma she's suffered, and she can't find much happiness even in a brighter future.
• Body Horror: Part of Diamond Tiara's torment in Tartarus was her tiara being physically fused with her head. She still has a crown of metal shards embeded in her scalp.
• Break Her Heart to Save Her: We don't see Sunset's view on things, but one of the intermissions shows that Celestia had the crystal mirror shattered to make sure she (and the human world) would be safe from Nightmare Moon, presumably leaving the poor girl trapped in another world with no idea why.
• Broken-System Dogmatist: Sassy Saddles is aware that the world under Nightmare Moon is messed up beyond words, but she still serves her mistress faithfully and helps uphold her rule because she believes that nothing can be done to change it.
• Cain and Abel: In-laws rather than direct siblings, but Limestone Pie hates her brother-in-law Cheese Sandwich for being an insane murderer who reanimated Pinkie's corpse. During the final battle, they have a final fight in the collapsing tower.
• The Cameo: The epilogue mentions a Manehattan businesswoman named Applejack Orange.
• Cannot Dream: A side-effect of the cutie un-marking spell is that the un-marked pony can't dream. The resistance uses this to hide from Nightmare Moon, since she'd otherwise be able to find them through their dreams.
• Canon Character All Along:
  • The mysterious assassin is Cheese Sandwich, gone insane after Pinkie's death.
  • The Guardian of Tartarus is Fluttershy, having become a Willing Channeler for the parts of Discord's essence that was thrown into Tartarus.
• Central Theme: The entire conflict of the fic centers around whether to give in and accept a broken world, or fight to make it better. Characters like Sassy Saddles and, at the start, Rainbow Dash have fully given up on any hope of the world being better and more or less accepted it as it is, and even Rarity is doubtful that she can make any meaningful change, but over time regain the hope for a better future. The resistance likewise is built on the belief that things can get better. Cheese Sandwich is motivated entirely by the belief that the world is so broken that nothing can fix it, and it's best to burn it all down. The fic ultimately sides with the idea that things can be better, even if it takes hard work and sacrifice to make it so.
• Character Development:
  • Rainbow Dash starts the fic as a depressed layabout going through the motions without really caring about anyone or anything, and neglecting her responsibilities. As she's suddenly saddled with the responsibility of looking after Scootaloo along with Redheart, she slowly learns to open herself up to caring about other ponies again, and take responsibility for the safety of her loved ones. It culminates in her taking on the ultimate responsibility both as Scootaloo's caretaker, and as ruler of Equestria.
  • Sassy Saddles starts the fic fully confident in her role as Nightmare Moon's servant, convinced that everything awful she does is justified because this is just how the world works and nothing can be done to fix it. Over the course of the fic, this worldview is challenged as she comes face to face with ponies who are trying to change things for the better, and still hold to their principles despite everything. It culminates in her joining Rarity in helping the Resistance make a grab at the elements of harmony, going against everything she's worked for in the hopes of making a better world.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • Rarity spots the Elements of Harmony in Nightmare's vault, long before they become important.
  • Rarity's keychain, which is enchanted to warn Nightmare if it's ever removed from its appointed wielder's person, is given to Rainbow early on. During the climax, she uses it to summon Nightmare Moon.
• The Chosen Many: The Elements of Harmony chose their wielders, though the messed up nature of the world means that some of the intended wielders are unavailable and replacement candidates are chosen instead; Rarity and Fluttershy retain their elements of Generosity and Kindness respectively, Sassy Saddles and Redheart become Honesty and Loyalty, and Cheese Sandwich, much to his despair, is Laughter due to Pinkie's death. Interestingly, even though she was in close proximity when it chose its wielder, Rainbow Dash is not the element of Loyalty; The name of hers isn't said out loud, but being the "spark" that brings the other elements together makes her the element of Magic.
• The Consigliere: Kibitz becomes this to Rainbow Dash in the epilogue, serving as her advisor since she's inexperienced in matters of state, and he has spent years serving Celestia and knows how things are run.
• Cryptic Background Reference: Since the story is focused around a small cast of characters and a few locations in central Equestria, the characters generally have little reason to discuss the larger geopolitical situation, leaving that to small scattered references. Pegasi enclaves are mentioned, and so is Equestria's relations with the changeling hive. There is also some kind of coalition working up north to keep King Sombra contained, but the details are vague.
• Cue the Sun: The epilogue opens on Rainbow Dash raising the sun, the ponies of Canterlot awstruck at the sight.
• Damaged Soul: Ponies who are returned from Tartarus are never quite right. Scootaloo has it comparatively good, suffering seizures and panic attacks but otherwise being okay mentally. Diamond Tiara was not as lucky, being a near catatonic Empty Shell and shows only slight recovery over a year after being returned.
• Deal with the Devil:
  • Becoming a thestral is seen as this by ponies who oppose Nightmare Moon. In return for a position of priviliege, pegasi are turned into thestral to serve their mistress. Redheart at one point compares it to selling your soul.
  • In the final chapter, Rarity makes one with Cheese Sandwich; He will be the Element of Laughter and help them defeat Tirek, and in return, she will kill him.
• Dramatic Irony: A lot of characters discuss the idea of finding the mysterious alicorn and her dragon companion after they escaped Nightmare Moon. The audience knows that she's already gone back in time and is out of reach.
• Dream Walker: Nightmare Moon can do it just as well as Luna could, but Nightmare uses it to spy on her underlings to make sure they're not getting rebellious.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: It takes a lot of work, suffering, and sacrifice, but by the end of the fic, all the main characters are alive and in a much better place than they were at the start. Equestria too is under the rule of a much more benevolent princess who is once again keeping the day night cycle as it should be and who has sent agents to Tartarus to help the ponies still trapped there, and Twilight is working on a way to bring Celestia back as well. Even Rarity, who's been broken by the loss of Filthy Rich, is at least in a place where she can heal and has the support of her friends.
• Ensemble Cast: All three are main characters and protagonists, but Rarity's storyline is the most impactful on the overall plot, with Sassy and Rainbow's stories dealing more with their personal character arcs at least until Rainbow becomes the Big Good in the final chapter.
• Equivalent Exchange: Whenever someone is thrown into Tartarus, the Guardian sends someone else out. Part of the fic's inciting incident is Zecora being thrown in, and Scootaloo being returned. Fluttershy explains that this was her doing, which Discord condoned since it would cause chaos.
• Everyone Can See It: After they return from Ponyville, even Scootaloo, a traumatized filly, can tell that Redheart and Rainbow have a thing for each other, comparing them to her aunts.
• Fallen Hero: Wind Rider explains that he fought against Nightmare Moon for a good while after her initial return, leading the Wonderbolts against her. He eventually saw the folly of his ways and joined her side, becoming one of her most fanatic followers.
• Fantastic Racism: A lot of thestrals consider themselves a Master Race due to being Nightmare Moon's favoured children, especially looking down on regular pegasi for being inferior.
• Fire and Brimstone Hell: Tartarus has become this in the years since the Guardian took it over, going from a cold desolate underground into a hellscape of fire and magma under a red sky, where the ponies trapped there suffer endless torment.
• Full-Circle Revolution: Starlight is looking to overthrow Nightmare Moon, by draining the Guardian's power and killing her, replacing her with herself. This is why the resistance don't like her. Ironically, the fic still ends with Nightmare Moon replaced by another alicorn God-Emperor, though Rainbow is significantly more benevolent than Starlight would be.
• Generic Doomsday Villain: Tirek, once Cheese Sandwich cuts his leash, becomes a destructive rampaging monster with few signs of even being sapient. He only starts talking once he's been depowered by the elements of harmony, and is subsequently killed.
• Godzilla Threshold: With Starlight, Blueblood, and Cheese Sandwich initiating their plan, slaughtering the resistance members, Rainbow decides that she has nothing to lose by throwing her keys, summoning Nightmare Moon.
• Happily Adopted: Scootaloo has no one in the world after being returned from Tartarus, but a lot of Rainbow's arc deals with her re-learning how to care for the filly. In the epilogue, she's happily watching Rainbow raise the sun, before Redheart takes her to school, implying that Rainbow and Redheart have adopted her. Technically a case of Adopted into Royalty as well.
• Hell Has New Management: Shortly after Nightmare Moon took the reins, Tartarus was turned from what it was in the show into a Fire and Brimstone Hell now ruled by the Guardian, who appears anytime a portal to it is opened.
• I Lied: Cheese Sandwich admits that he lied about a lot of stuff; He does not want to save the world, the ponies he saved Rarity from at the Canterlot Archives were actually working with him, and his wife is not stuck in Tartarus; She's dead, and he's reanimated her body.
• I See Dead People: Diamond Tiara at one point says that a dead pony entered the house, but is dismissed. Rarity herself later sees a vision of a horrifically mutilated mare. It turns out that this was not a magical vision but the actual reanimated corpse of Pinkie Pie.
• Kneel Before Frodo: In the epilogue, Rarity bows to Rainbow and calls her "Princess Dash." Rainbow immediately tells her that she should never call her that, since she's her friend and she did more to save Equestria than Rainbow herself did.
• Last-Name Basis:
  • Filthy Rich prefers to go by Rich, since "Filthy" is a rather rubbish name.
  • In the epilogue, Rainbow Dash is called Princess Dash rather than Princess Rainbow.
• Literally Shattered Lives: Nightmare Moon couldn't kill Discord permanently due to his Resurrective Immortality, but she dealt with him by breaking off the head of his statue, then throwing the body into Tartarus, keeping his essence sepparated on two different planes of existence.
• Literary Allusion Title: The title is a twist on the Paradise Lost quote "Better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven." The epilogue brings it full circle by being named "To Rule in Heaven."
• Living MacGuffin: An emaciated Tirek is brought out of Tartarus by Starlight Glimmer so she can use his magic-draining to empower herself, and is little more than a dog on a leash. After his leash is cut, he graduates to Generic Doomsday Villain.
• Living Shadow: One of Nightmare Moon's most feared powers is to create shadowy copies of herself that indiscriminately kill anything in their path. She used it in Ponyville during her initial return, and anyone who survived would rather not see it again. Using them against Tirek proves a mistake, since he's grown powerful enough by then to eat them, taking a big chunk of Nightmare's magic in the process.
• Magical Species Transformation:
  • Pegasi who swear fealty to Nightmare Moon are transformed into Thestrals, her "true children." Some see this as a blessing, to the point of viewing themselves as a Master Race, while others consider thestrals to be traitors who've sold their souls. Rainbow Dash accepted this transformation reluctantly for survival, and is deeply self-loathing as a result.
  • Rainbow Dash goes through another transformation in the final chapter, ascending to Alicornhood by being the focal point for all the magic that should have been in the world and is returned when she performs her sonic rainboom. This also gives her back her feathered wings.
• The Magnificent: Played for Laughs in the epilogue. Newly crowned Princess of Equestria Rainbow Dash jokingly asks Redheart if she should start calling herself "Princess of Awesomeness," "Radicalness," or "Red-hot smooching."
• Mercy Kill: The mysterious assassin gives Rarity a lesson on this after stabbing a bandit in an alleyway, telling her to pull out the knife to end his suffering rather than try to help him and prolong it needlessly. He calls back this when revealing that his true motive is to put the entire world out of its misery. In the end, however, it's Rarity who grants him the final mercy as her end of a deal to make him wield the element of Laughter.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Pinkie always felt that something was wrong with the world, which led to an insane Cheese Sandwich believing that the world was beyond saving and needed to be destroyed. Seeing Rainbow Dash perform the Sonic Rainboom and set things right led to him realizing that he was wrong, and everything he has done, up to and including reanimating the corpse of his wife as a horrid geist, was unnecesarry, much to his horror. After that, he just wants to die.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Half the devastation of Ponyville, including the countless ponies that were Dragged Off to Hell, was actually the fault of Celestia crossing the Godzilla Threshold when fighting Nightmare Moon. A lot of ponies died in solar fire.
• The Night That Never Ends: Being set in the Nightmare Moon timeline from "The Cutie Re-Mark," Equestria is swept up in eternal night under Nightmare Moon's reign. It ends after Rainbow Dash ascends to alicornhood and takes up Celestia's old duty of raising the sun.
• Not the Intended Use: The Cutie Un-marking spell was originally created to enforce equality upon Equestria, but the resistance discovered that it also makes it much more difficult to track a pony, and prevents them from dreaming, letting them hide from Nightmare much easier.
• Not Too Dead to Save the Day: Limestone Pie is crushed by Tirek's cage in the final battle, but gets up later to throw it right at Cheese Sandwich, though she still dies in the tower's collapse.
• Off with His Head!: The mysterious assassin decapitates a few ponies. Nightmare Moon dies when Tirek shoves her head through the portal to Tartarus and closes it.
• Orcus on His Throne: Inverted, in a sense; Nightmare Moon is out campaigning for most of the fic, and since the characters are either in the nearest city or in her castle, she's absent for most of the plot.
• Overranked Soldier: Rainbow Dash is sergeant, functionally the commander-in-chief of Nightmare Moon's guard alongside Wind Rider. This is in spite of her being both comparatively young, in her late 20s at oldest, and a depressed layabout. The former at least is justified since she was one of the first to swear loyalty to Nightmare Moon upon her return, meaning that her rank is a case of seniority (ironic since her fellow sergeant is much older than her, but joined long after she did).
• Painting the Frost on Windows: Under Nightmare's rule, pegasi are persecuted and no longer in charge of the weather, though the resistance pegasi still insist on doing it as much as they can to avoid losing the ability. They are presumably put back in charge after Rainbow takes over the raising of the sun, which is another example of this trope. Rainbow also half-jokingly says that she's not giving the sun back to Celestia even when they get her back from the moon because she enjoys raising it.
• Post-Final Boss: Nightmare Moon is set up to be the ultimate villain of the fic, but during the last few chapters she's killed and her magic consumed by an empowered Tirek, who becomes the final threat the elemenets of harmony must defeat.
• The Power of the Sun:
  • During her ifght with Nightmare Moon, Celestia drew on the power of the sun, crossing the Godzilla Threshold. Not that it did her much good, as Nightmare Moon just avoided and redirected the attacks, and she caused more damage to her subjects than to her sister.
  • The resistance, spearheaded by Twilight Sparkle, has managed to construct an artificial sun powered by unicorn magic that can do all the work of a normal sun on a smaller scale.
• Put Them All Out of My Misery: Cheese Sandwich believes that the world is so broken that nothing can ever fix it, so his goal is to unleash Tirek and let him destroy everything, because even death is better than living in this broken world.
• Rank Up: Nurse Redheart at one point became Doctor Redheart.
• The Remnant: After Nightmare Moon's death, Wind Rider leads the surviving loyalist thestrals to Hollow Shades. In the epilogue, months later, they are still unwilling to accept Princess Dash's rule, and dealing with them is her topmost priority.
• Rich Bitch: Implied to be the case with this timeline's Applejack, here called Applejack Orange since she never went back to her farm after moving to the Oranges in Manehattan. In the epilogue, she's suing the Crown for rebuilding Ponyville partially on land belonging to her, despite that land having gone untouched for years and rebuilding Ponyville being an objectively good thing.
• Right Hand Vs Left Hand: Nightmare Moon have two sergeants of her guard, Rainbow Dash and Wind Rider. They don't get along, mostly because Wind Rider is a diehard believer in their mistress, while Rainbow is a depressed layabout who really couldn't care less about their duty.
• Samus Is a Girl: Rarity finds an account from a survivor of Tartarus which reveals that the enigmatic Guardian is actually female.
• Sanity Slippage: It's explained that the more magic Tirek consumes, the hungrier he gets and the more his sanity gives way.
• Seers: Zebras are somehow able to sense that this world is wrong, having a saying that "this world is an anomaly." What more, Zecora could inherently tell that Rainbow Dash was somehow the tipping point for whatever is wrong with this world, that something involving her didn't go as it should have, and that whatever it was had to do with her flying and a rainbow.
• Sequel Hook: One that never happened due to the author deciding against it, but the fic ends with several loose threads that the author welcomes the readers to speculate on;
  • Rarity is being sent to Hollow Shades to negotiate with Wind Rider, leader of The Remnant. The author suggested that a potential sequel could revolve around Wind Rider trying to turn her against Princess Rainbow.
  • Equestria's geopolitical situation is precarious, and Rainbow faces a lot of challenges in the future as monarch. She needs to deal with the remaining Nightmare Moon loyalists soon, lest she will seem like a weak ruler and the coalition holding Sombra contained might fall apart.
  • Discord's essence is now all on one plane of existence, and at least one piece of it is in Blueblood, which is probably something that they'll have to deal with at some point.
• Spotting the Thread: When they're infiltrating the vault, Sassy Saddles notices that several of the resistance members have been replaced since they first left Canterlot. Unfortunately, she assumes it was part of the plan, not realizing that Blueblood has betrayed them.
• Switching P.O.V.: The point of view shifts between Rarity, Sassy Saddles, and Rainbow Dash. During the first and final book, it shifts repeatedly every chapter, while in the second and third, one chapter is one POV. Intermission chapters are flashbacks told from Celestia's perspective.
• Teleport Interdiction: At the climax, Cheese Sandwich does something to the resistance members' teleportation charms, ensuring that anyone who use them suffers a horrible death.
• This Is My Chair: In the epilogue, Princess Dash has taken over Blueblood's old office, and walks in to find someone lounging in what is now her chair. She resolves this by picking them up in her magic and dumping them in the visitor's chair.
• The Unchosen One: Redheart and Sassy become the elements of Loyalty and Honesty respectively, though both can feel that they weren't really meant for them, implying that it was more a case of them being the closest eligible candidates rather than the intended wielders. Cheese Sandwich, being a Laughing Mad murderer, really seems to be the last possible option for Laughter, but he was the only one available.
• Was Once a Man: The Guardian was once Fluttershy, a regular pegasus. Over the years, the essence of Discord she carried warped her to his whims, turning her into a bestial demonic figure. Even after the essence is drained from her, she remains monstrous in appearance, though is fully in control of her body and as kind as ever.
• Weaksauce Weakness: Being magically powerful does not make you invulnerable, or even especially physically resistant. Starlight Glimmer, even with all the power of Discord coursing through her, is killed by a simple stabwound.
• We ARE Struggling Together: The resistance against Nightmare Moon is not fully organized, and largely split in two; The group that's making the Underground Sun, and Starlight Glimmer's faction, who was the original that the latter split off from.
• Wild Card: The mysterious assassin is pointing Rarity towards the resistance and clearly wants to remove Nightmare Moon from power, but she's hesitant to trust him because he's an unstable lunatic who at one point tries to kill an informant before Rarity can get to her apparently on a whim. He ultimately turns out to be untrustworthy, as his goal is to end the world.
• Willing Channeler: Fluttershy saw the rageful part of Discord's essence that was trapped in Tartarus and offered to become a host for it, in return using her newfound position as Guardian to reduce the suffering Discord inflicted on the ponies in Tartarus as much as possible. The kindness of having sympathy for a Mad God earns her an element of harmony.