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SPOILER SUMMARY The Preservation of Innocence Finale

By Wall-o-text
Created: 2025-08-24 04:52:52
Updated: 2025-08-24 05:08:25
Expiry: Never
anonapplejackwarfeelsanonymousviolenceadventure/tim/politicsfeelspoilerssummary

  1. 1.
    INTENDED STORY PATH SUMMARY BELOW
  2. 2.
     
  3. 3.
    This encompasses everything past part 14 onward to the very end since i don't intend on writing it all out for each part, sorry for blue balling you guys for 3 years now, you deserved better, give your thanks to this anon for making this thread which got me off my ass to finally do this
  4. 4.
    https://desuarchive.org/mlp/thread/42490405/#42490405
  5. 5.
    finally, my newfag self can rest in peace knowing my first fic is at least summarized and ended.
  6. 6.
    thanks again to battlefield 1, couldn't have done it without you during Christmas break buddy.
  7. 7.
    >essentially after anon gets home he would have ended up waking up to a slightly annoyed applejack
  8. 8.
    >wouldn’t throw a bitch fit because of how everyone finally assumed that everything was over so no more worries
  9. 9.
    >from here this is where things can be a bit iffy
  10. 10.
    >the only characters that would really matter after anon, aj, celestia, and maybe shining armour for the main story
  11. 11.
    >obviously family and side characters would matter and anon 100% was still intending to see how twilight was doing after the statement about worrying how she was doing was said
  12. 12.
    >but those would be more slice-of-life tier parts of the fic
  13. 13.
    >the big reveal was supposed to be that the disease was in fact king Sombra's second chance at staging an attack
  14. 14.
    >using the black cloud to infect everyone in order to gain energy was the main purpose
  15. 15.
    >using that energy he could field a large amount of what really boils down to being ‘smoke soldiers’
  16. 16.
    >literally just army ponies made out of the cloud
  17. 17.
    >more energy he stole = more of an army he could field
  18. 18.
    >due to being a sentient black cloud/smoke… (dear god i wish i came up with better terminology)
  19. 19.
    >due to that, he could read minds
  20. 20.
    >originally would have only been helpful for forming counters to current equestrian military strategy or wherever he invades
  21. 21.
    >keep in mind two things
  22. 22.
    >first, chrysalis got visions of other lands being invaded
  23. 23.
    >second, there was a chance that i was going to include the fact anon got infected meant sombra had access to a lot of military ideas but not necessarily straight up blueprints for shit like tanks and what not
  24. 24.
    >it really would have been more along the lines of taking what anon had now and giving that same tech level to sombra and his black smoke army
  25. 25.
    >you have to understand, i played a metric fuck ton of battlefield 1 while writing this during christmas break, literally all i did those 2 weeks was wake up at 8 pm, write, play bf1, write, bed
  26. 26.
    >so if any of the milsim shit made u cringe, first off i get it looking back lmao don’t worry, second blame battlefield 1
  27. 27.
    >sombra was using the weaker nations to further fuel his black smoke army (im sticking with that terminology)
  28. 28.
    >continuing on he snow balls onto bigger and bigger threats
  29. 29.
    >meanwhile no one in equestria knows yet as they’re finishing up pumping out the cure at record speed and finishing up reconstructions and civilian recovery
  30. 30.
    >so essentially none of this knowledge would be stated overtly in a hypothetical continuation anyways
  31. 31.
    >aj and anon would obviously have more lovey dovey moments
  32. 32.
    >once the whole disease blows over for equestria they start sending out envoys to help other nations (especially with how the cure was established to be retarded cheap to make and it’s the right thing to fuckin do anyways)
  33. 33.
    >nothing would come of this for a bit due to both travel times as well as sombra not snowballing fully yet, pretty early stages
  34. 34.
    >before i get into how it goes on from here i want to point out something very big about this fic in general
  35. 35.
    >since it was my first fic i never outlined shit at all, I LITERALLY just let the story play out line by line at a time
  36. 36.
    >this is why you will notice seemingly important details or something big being alluded too completely ignored
  37. 37.
    >the BIGGEST one i can remember clearly was the whole celestia sub-plot
  38. 38.
    >if you remember shining armours distrust of her back at the hospital when asking for anons help it will start to click once i explain
  39. 39.
    >the original intention was that celestia’s “military upgrading obsession” was an early symptom of her being infected but being such a wellspring of energy and magic that the debilitating symptoms of the disease had yet to manifest
  40. 40.
    >oh and by the way, no matter how the story ended up the sombra cloud disease thing would have always ended up like a hivemind of sombra
  41. 41.
    >but the celestia sub plot was also some what happening in a sense when she invaded the changelings and went full nuclear on them
  42. 42.
    >it was essentially ‘retconned’ (even though it wasn’t revealed in the first place) when shining armour became the only guy who knew why the changelings invaded in the first place but also didn’t trust celestia enough to divulge much information at the time
  43. 43.
    >even though it wasn’t explicitly stated that was intended to be the reason why shining armour knew the changelings were weak yet celestia still invaded full force
  44. 44.
    >also was meant to show off a sense of unusually aggressive violence but was still able to be written off as the changelings went infinitely too far by straight up going to the capitol city for a massacre
  45. 45.
    >since the whole ‘infected celestia’ thing didn’t happen and instead went about as part 14 showed, the rest of the fic up until a certain point would go as follows
  46. 46.
    >anon x aj shenanigans, a lot actually
  47. 47.
    >normal life stuff until equestria was right back to business as usual
  48. 48.
    >anon goes to check on twilight, most likely along with rest of the elements and spike
  49. 49.
    >probably would end up something like this…
  50. 50.
    >they visit her at the royal palace in canterlot
  51. 51.
    >lots of discussion about their experiences, especially since they haven’t talked to each other since they got off the train to the crystal empire when the battle began
  52. 52.
    >anon has a one to one moment with twilight
  53. 53.
    >ends up being a small situation where both of them were initially more concerned about each other than themselves in regards to their experience with the crystal empire battle with sombra
  54. 54.
    >obviously twilight doesn’t know anon was even there until you tell her
  55. 55.
    >and then she has a sperg moment with worrying how it went for anon and blah blah blah
  56. 56.
    >not in the same vein of how aj worries about anon but more of an assumption he was way out of his depth
  57. 57.
    >this would all have happened like RIGHT before, maybe a day or two, before everything 100% fully settled down for equestria so celestia nor anyone else had the chance to inform her of anons involvement
  58. 58.
    >once things fully settled after the twilight meet up celestia talks with anon about being a part of the military upgrading thing
  59. 59.
    >she said it would happen at a slower rate but that she would pay well for his weapon designs and such like whatever engineering thing related to the military that can be useful to them
  60. 60.
    >this leads to anon having a slow and steady side gig with no real pressure where he can come up with cool designs and let the /tim/ theme shine at its peak in the fic
  61. 61.
    >also gives a chance to have another anon x aj bonding moment over coming up with stuff
  62. 62.
    >especially on the topic of non-lethal stuff like simple support equipment
  63. 63.
    >it almost becomes like a fun thing anon and aj start doing together and bonding over
  64. 64.
    >anon would have gotten a run down on the military's current set up to work off of so he’s not just throwing literally random ideas at them
  65. 65.
    >one thing i wanna point out is this section of the fic would genuinely span at least 4 parts especially because the /tim/ theme was not pushed as heavily as i wanted it too
  66. 66.
    >oh and side note, little easter egg for ya, since this was my first fic and i only joined /mlp/ 4 months ago at the time, i actually posted part 1 and 2 in BOTH /tim/ threads and RGRE
  67. 67.
    >embarrassing i know… but a funny insight into the mind of a newfag
  68. 68.
    >so anyways, anon, without the limitation of small scale projects could actually create more efficient stuff like bullets with REAL casings so the gun didnt wear out fast as fuck or gunk up from the smoke of atomized fuel (think like spray bottle spray) that got lit on fire
  69. 69.
    >he would come up with simple shit still but definitely much more planning intensive
  70. 70.
    >more modern stuff instead of the jerry rigged rifle he had
  71. 71.
    >not crazy modern, but bearing a noticeable resemblance
  72. 72.
    >i made 100% sure, and i will never concede in this regard, that i made anon at least decently not OP in terms of engineering knowledge
  73. 73.
    >after this arc of slice of life stuff plus twilight meet up plus engineering side gig, other nations start getting their reports back to equestria about the continued spread of the sombra cloud
  74. 74.
    >at this point the reports were from months ago so he’s snowballed pretty hard at that point
  75. 75.
    >all panic ensues (to those in the know, as the general public didn’t know)
  76. 76.
    >the smoke is reported to be much more organized and bearing a semblance of an actual army at this point
  77. 77.
    >it takes time for the princesses to plan out stuff and figure out where the general path of sombras black smoke army is so there would be a duration of time in the fic with that tension being held
  78. 78.
    >in the mean time doc is in the know of anons engineering side gig for the military
  79. 79.
    >so he sends him as much data about the disease as he can in hopes that it translates to the same data holding true for the sombra black smoke army that manifested from it and that anon could make a counter to it
  80. 80.
    >again, anon wouldn’t be OP, he and doc would collaborate in person to make some kind of counter measure
  81. 81.
    >the initial idea for this counter measure in my mind was always going to be fire or heat of some kind
  82. 82.
    >the idea that heat was the main counter since it was still a smoke army that is animated by magic
  83. 83.
    >if the magic (all the stuff the disease leeched off the hosts) can be disrupted and split from the physical medium (the actual smoke itself) used to interact with the physical world, then the army essentially dies in an instant
  84. 84.
    >magic dissipates and so does the smoke if separated from eachother
  85. 85.
    >only happens to whatever section of the hivemind black smoke army is heated to the extent that it would happen, obviously you dont stick a lighter next to a singular manifestation of it and all of it dissipates boom world saved
  86. 86.
    >the big conundrum here is this
  87. 87.
    >doc knows how the black smoke army works
  88. 88.
    >they know a counter
  89. 89.
    >they really just dont know how to deploy this counter at the scale needed to win
  90. 90.
    >oh forgot to mention, during the slice of life arc before this section starts aj would have some relatives come over to help with chores that were needing to get done due to being put on back log
  91. 91.
    >as well as aj asking about the initial reason for making the rifle hence a conversation about the timberwolf hunting trip happens which also gets into how he lied a bit
  92. 92.
    >nothing crazy but does get a little tense, nothing major and aj is surprisingly understanding about it
  93. 93.
    >anyways scale is the issue in regards to defending against sombra
  94. 94.
    >while the rest of the government is working on prevention measures by using the cure as a partial preventive for people getting infected in the first place in border nations near sombras main front, the main issue becomes a moral debate between this…
  95. 95.
    >since the preventative means sombras black smoke army cant infect as efficiently, think somewhere around 60% as effective due to the cure (being used as a preventative now) being ingested by fuckin everyone, but still infecting them to the point he can siphon a decent amount of magic off them but not being able to stay in them as long due to the preventative (which again is just the cure from part 14 being taken pre-emptivly)
  96. 96.
    >this means sombra is slowed a lot but 100% still snowballing as he can still siphon off fuck loads of magic and energy just off the sheer scale of the black smoke army
  97. 97.
    >by the way i dont know if i mentioned this but the black smoke army is literally just the same exact black smoke from the start but now has the energy to take on the shape and form of soldiers
  98. 98.
    >sorry this summary is getting long forgive me if i repeat fuck loads of stuff
  99. 99.
    >and the black smoke army isn’t retarded, they coordinate strikes on cure shipments and shit like that since they can still interact with the world in their form which ends up netting them even more snowballing effect as time goes on
  100. 100.
    >anyways as time goes on anon and doc are having a back and forth on wtf to do
  101. 101.
    >not fighting mind you but just really trying to hone in on what method to go for
  102. 102.
    >electricity was thrown around as an idea by anon but even he knew he knew fuck all nothing about it to do it effectivly plus how expensive any equipment relating to it would be
  103. 103.
    >at this point in time both of them had reports of the black smoke armys capabilities to raid shipping of the cure so they knew permanent structures would likely be targeted anyways so it was too expensive and risky to build anything like that
  104. 104.
    >they come to the realization that the princesses would be there like the first time dealing with that range magic anyways
  105. 105.
    >and since the black smoke army was litterally just physical force (by the means of controting the smoke) and infecting individuals, they just needed a counter to that alone
  106. 106.
    >with this realization the main issue was two things
  107. 107.
    >firstly, yes, again, still needed to scale up the attack capability of heat in some way
  108. 108.
    >second, the black smoke army is highly fucking mobile, litterally went off shore to destroy a shipment
  109. 109.
    >it sounded like this thing could evade just about anything and on top of its sheer size it could replace any losses while equestrian forces got overwhelmed
  110. 110.
    >containment became a big focal point of the strategy
  111. 111.
    >this lead more so into doc talking about stuff that countered magic
  112. 112.
    >in the same way the cure used depleted crystals to combat the infection, being around large amounts of it without PPE (look it up) would quickly drain anypony of their energy and magic and kill them pretty quickly
  113. 113.
    >the existence of drained crystals isn’t something that occurs in nature since crystals naturally get charged from ambient magic over time and grow only when they are getting more charge than their current size can hold
  114. 114.
    >so having fuck loads of drained crystals as a mechanism for keeping them out of somewhere was entirely viable given they had enough
  115. 115.
    >only issue they have is if they set up a giant line of drained crystals on the border of equestria (anon and doc are thinking simply in a hypothetical at this point) sombra could simply wait for the crystals to get charged and eventually equestria would run out anyways since it’s industrial waste and wasn’t intended to be purposely produced for any real purpose
  116. 116.
    >so if drained crystals are on a timer for defensive, they could be used offensively
  117. 117.
    >the issue was how do you use it
  118. 118.
    >they brain storm some more and realize a few things
  119. 119.
    >surface areas is important
  120. 120.
    >if you crushed it up and blew it in a certain direction you could essentially fucking gas attack the entire black smoke army but instead of taking a minute to kill them like mustard gas, the lack of magic in the drained crystal dust is so barren that it would instantly suck up the magic of the black smoke army crushing them quickly
  121. 121.
    >but the trick is to get sombra in a position where he can’t intervene in that regard
  122. 122.
    >having the princesses deflect his retaliatory magic is the only method they got
  123. 123.
    >with that set, they send out a letter detailing the first phase of defense
  124. 124.
    >getting fuck loads of powdered drained crystals in storage and have pegasi teams blow it in the direction of oncoming black smoke army
  125. 125.
    >celestia is able to pull some griffons in for the plan as the whole world is already on the same page as to whats going on so no complications in regards to being able to do that
  126. 126.
    >second phase was sombra himself
  127. 127.
    >doc theorized that sombra could pretty easily pull the magic and energy from the black smoke army into himself to simply fuel his own magic
  128. 128.
    >so the first phase of the plan only really works as a massive surprise attack to suddenly weaken him of the excessive magic he has in store
  129. 129.
    >it will be a big blow to him but the second he catches wind of it (which will be pretty fast because of how it’s all connected to him anyways) he’ll just pull the magic to him to become some big OP version of sombra
  130. 130.
    >no foot soldier or pegasus or griffon can aid against that
  131. 131.
    >and the princesses cant defend against a literal half of the worlds combined magic on top of what sombra was capable of during the battle at the crystal empire as is
  132. 132.
    >so doc and anon after just sending their first piece of the plan in continued theorizing
  133. 133.
    >anon asked doc about his first initial success taking down sombra and asked how that even worked
  134. 134.
    >doc explained that mostly he just caught him off guard
  135. 135.
    >although his rifle had the power to break his horn if he knew there was a bullet coming at all he could’ve deflected with minimal effort
  136. 136.
    >so the next phase of the plan was how to counter big sombra
  137. 137.
    >since his only options were to either use the black smoke army or horde the magic all for himself and get super OP, if you can counter both of those it’s gonna be a win
  138. 138.
    >although it had to be a fast enough win or he could use his magic to take down everyone before enough of an attack is made to defeat him
  139. 139.
    >while a straight up mannhatten project nuke would be ideal anon can’t do that for fuck all
  140. 140.
    >still sticking with the drained crystal idea anon floats around the idea of artillery with drained crystal bullet tips (as in the lead bullet is all drained crystal not lead bullet with a tiny tip of drained crystal)
  141. 141.
    >doc says that shit might fly really close to the princesses and drain them faster than it would sombra since the princesses are gonna have to be up close to deflect any of his stuff early
  142. 142.
    >unlike with the black smoke army portion of the battle, the princesses can't stand back and intercept from far away while he lets the black smoke army make the push
  143. 143.
    >with him at full power they need to be up close as any kind of Area of Effect attack will spread Too far to be deflected efficiently if they’re not right up to the epicenter of the spell
  144. 144.
    >eve then the princesses cant deflect fucking EVERYTHING
  145. 145.
    >so having the foot soldiers up close with a drained crystal weapon or something wouldn’t work and also why just using the drained crystal powder method again would backfire HARD and kill fuck loads of equestrians since if he casted some kind of wind force, if even a decimal percentage of it wasn’t deflected then a fuck ton would go right back onto equestrian forces
  146. 146.
    >keep in mind, black smoke army is the majority of where the magic is, it’s spread out evenly in them, if sombra absorbs it, he has ALL that magic at disposal
  147. 147.
    >so some kind of range attack is needed
  148. 148.
    >plus it would help get some pressure off the princesses if you kept some counter pressure on him thru attacks of your own
  149. 149.
    >not going to keep explaining every detail but they eventually realize that quantity over quality is important
  150. 150.
    >since artillery is expensive and made of steel and all they need is a method to denature the magic in sombra through heat instead of drained crystals to weaken him overtime, ironically (and im being dead serious when i say i did not plan this idea right from the get go) fireworks are infinitely cheaper and easier to work with than a big artillery peice with specialized parts and big manufacturing times
  151. 151.
    >simply having a dirt cheap tube with rifling (the swirls inside a rifle so the bullet spins and goes straight) and a metric fuck ton of fire works for the intended purpose of repeatedly over heating small portions of him (keep in mind he’s made of black smoke so the firework can pass right through him unless he deliberately focuses to counter it and even then that leaves him open to an attack from the princesses which is far more deadly than a fucking fireworks barrage) so that his magic is on a faster decline than the princesses which would lead to an inevitable defeat
  152. 152.
    >plans simple, princesses deal with the majority of his magic while the rest of everyone spams fireworks (modified obviously for heat and not big fancy colors obviously) to overwhelm his defenses
  153. 153.
    >tubes with rifling are dumb easy to produce
  154. 154.
    >fireworks are made with dirt cheap stuff also just as easy to produce
  155. 155.
    >plan is sent to celestia and everything gets set into motion
  156. 156.
    >fuck tons of training happens in the background for shining armour troops (which is fucking all of the ones not involved in the powdered crystal plan btw) to use and fire the modified fireworks
  157. 157.
    >everythings prepped
  158. 158.
    >day of invasion happens
  159. 159.
    >powdered crystal plan happens with some tension due to delay in expected release
  160. 160.
    >come from the sides so sombra might feel it but not full understand what was happening
  161. 161.
    >does the obvious absorb all magic
  162. 162.
    >he goes big
  163. 163.
    >princesses get close and do the back and forth to deflect as much of his attacks as possible
  164. 164.
    >honestly the battle is much more about cinematics than action, painting an image over a truly crazy epic battle, beauty > brawns kinda thing in terms of how i wanted to write it out
  165. 165.
    >the quasi-firework-artillery barrage lights as you can see bursts of light underneath sombras smokey body
  166. 166.
    >eventually you notice his body becoming more and more see through signifying that he’s losing power due to the fireworks denaturing the magic from the smoke rendering it off of him
  167. 167.
    >sombra panics to flee presumably in hopes he can regain power over time
  168. 168.
    >but with how much of an opening that leaves the princesses do one final blow to him burning every last bit of magic he has ridding the world entirely of him
  169. 169.
    >(keep in mind there were no separate parts of him elsewhere in the world, all on big conglomerate)
  170. 170.
    >celebration boils down to the field soldiers burning off whats left of the quasi-firework-artillery into the air and laying on the hill
  171. 171.
    >if i took the time to write it out i would have used more flowery language and shit to paint a picture for ya but fuck you my break is almost up and i start college real friggin soon again
  172. 172.
    >the ending afterwards would involve one big festival similar to the gala where it takes place at the royal palace n shit
  173. 173.
    >conversation about anons role between celestia shining armour, anon, twilight, doc, luna, cadence and obviously other stuff
  174. 174.
    >celestia pulls anon to the side for a personal thank you (platonically obviously NTRfags get the rope)
  175. 175.
    >anon goes home and a bit of epilogue would be written which would boil down to the fact that now that it’s over it’s literally just the status quo and rainbow dash finally gets corrected by twilight about the biped thing and anon calls her a fucking retard which pisses her off
  176. 176.
    >seriously i hate epilogue that imply this retarded and detached ‘mature growth’ anon and aj would probably have a few make out sessions too and still act like their usual selves
  177. 177.
    >the end (except not because everything afterwards would just be easy as fuck to continue as the regularly scheduled AiE hijinks would ensue)
  178. 178.
    >secret ending, anon looks at the camera
  179. 179.
    >"heh, yeah, you're welcome for all the heavy lifting i did fending off sombra, you know, helping with... The Preservation of Innocence."
  180. 180.
    >https://youtu.be/UzjltM2qv_0?si=5Zqk51b2gQeSSthm&t=64 (ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING M-)

The Preservation of Innocence (Part 1)

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The Preservation of Innocence (Part 2)

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The Preservation of Innocence (Part 3)

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The Preservation of Innocence (Part 4)

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The Preservation of Innocence (Part 5)

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