"What was that?" the improved Twilight asked us.

"Just chanting, like the First Gods did, lovely beings, except for how they tried to tear us apart and stuff the remains into a star. Other than that lovely beings,"

"And how did that go for them?" she asked.

"We forged our forms from their blackened souls before Creation came crashing down upon itself," we replied. Twilight opened her mouth as if to reply when, despite her eyes being white voids seemed to focus on the now in comparison tiny Pinkie Pie who had somehow made her way onto her nose. We could have subsumed her there and then but we knew that someone was on their way and our little chant would make no sense if we had done something. That and the look of confusion on Twilight's face was in our opinion just adorable.

"Hey-Twi'! Lov-ing-the-new-look! So-when-do-we-stop-Ann-ie o-ver-there-and-go-home-for-cake?" she said hopping with each syllable so that she could remain at eye level with her colossal friend.

"Cake will have to come later Pinkie," her hands began to glow a deep violet shade that matched the field. "We'll celebrate after Sator's freed," her focus was quickly lost by a large pie impacting into the side of her head.

"Twilight I'm disappointed.What ever happened to the magic of friendship?"

"Discord, what brings you here?" we spoke as if welcoming an old friend.

"Oh just here to take in the scenery and pick up my friends," he snapped his talons and the bearers were gone along with the guards that had joined them. A shame really but we could always get them later. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'll be taking my leave,"

"You're just going to leave us like that Discord?" we said with false sorrow "Without getting a chance to learn about your mother,"

"Oh that isn't necessary,"

"Oh but we insist, sadly she can't meet us today though we're sure she'll visit soon," the rift began to glow brighter as we pour more of our power through it. "But we can share our earliest memories, at least the ones that will cause the least mental damage," our thoughts pushed against his own flooding his mind with images of our birth, his ancestor and the great deaths that spawned us. When he was reduced to a babbling mess on the floor we sent him back home where Celestia later found him cowering in a corner muttering about hiding from and we quote 'the things, horrible eldritch things that cast shadows upon the stars born at the death of Creation, that look upon me as a blasphemy and an offense to their being that shall tear down the veil and reach across time to hunt me'. Everyone else found it ominous but we found it endearing that there were those that feared us like others had long ago.

But that is the past, we must focus on the future we thought softly to ourself, then time will no longer bind us. This would require a better army, the one Silver had made had been sufficient at the time but... Ineffectual, what our army needed was an upgrade of sorts the undead were difficult to kill but also physically weak, the golems had been strong and resilient but lacked intelligence so we dredged up what information our souls had on automatons and made a new soldier to replace the army we once had. They would be shaped from an alloy that had been developed by a civilisation we had comsumed in the past, equal parts magnesium, titanium and lithium to make something light but stronger than anything this world had seen yet

These pieces would be arranged in a configuration of parts and segments linked by cables and crystals carrying charges from one point to another. Their components engraved with runes and circles to counteract what little weight they had and give them basic magical abilities as well as the capacity to sense their environment, and at the core of each one would be a soul plucked from our being to fuel it all. When we had presented the idea to Twilight she had been somewhat skeptical.

"The idea itself is quite impressive but where on Equss are we going to build these?"

"I'll get back to you on that in just a moment," we moved our perspective to outside of Equss and plucked a soul from our being, with a few alterations we made the soul into an emotionless sentience built upon logic and rules rather than emotion and a multilayered .

[what is this units purpose?]

"Serve Twilight Sparkle, and maintain your vessel unless commanded otherwise. Unit designation: Torem,"

[Designation accepted. Vessel required]

We poured more power through the rift converting it into matter and building for Torem a vessel, it was a great floating structure the size of a city, a great factory to construct and deploy our armies, though it would only be one of many.

"Well that answers the question of construction but how much magic will this use,"

"Your world is filled with roots stretching from one point to another all centering on the tree, this maintains the flow of magic and functions as our sister's body and cage." we explained "That is where we will get the magic from," Torem adapted to his situation well and integrated himself into the structure and began to build our army, it was efficient but it would take time for it to produce a sufficiently large force, so we decided to move onto the next phase of our plan.

"Twilight, take a letter. Dear Princess Celestia..."

It had been three days since the attack on our temple, three days since Twilight had been incorporated into our being and many months since Luna and Rarity had shared a similar fate. Now after all this time Celestia had a chance to mourn.

Before a procession of Canterlot natives, people that the elements had helped and their families. "My little ponies, we are gathered here today to mourn the loss of Rarity Belle, Element of Generosity and my sister Luna, Princess of Night and Sovereign of Dreams," she spoke softly trying to hide any weakness for few outside of the elements knew of what had caused their deaths all they knew was that it was in some way related to the strange phenomena that had occurred months before. "Though like any other pony they were flawed we must remember them by what they meant to us, as sisters, as guardians and as friends. Though it pains us all to see them go, I know that they..." Celestia bit her lower lip regretting what she was about to say "are in a better place."

Family members and other loved ones took turns to say their final goodbyes to the deceased, when they were done Celestia moved towards the coffins, having to pry Jacqueline away from a place I would have expected Spike to take, and began to lower them into their graves. In a small burst of magic a scroll appeared before her which she reached out to open, if she had not already lowered the coffins then what she saw would have made her drop them.

The letter was from Twilight.

With faltering magic she slowly rolled the scroll open and read its contents

Dear Princess Celestia,

Over the last few days I have learned so much about Creation now that I've been made into one of Sator's primary souls. Did you know that there used to be seven fundamental forces including magic? Now there are only five and two of them aren't even known to ponies yet! There's so much to learn about and I have forever to do so!

The Ancient Lords may be some the oldest beings in Creation and I get to be part of one. Words can not begin to describe what its like sifting through the knowledge and culture of millions of civilisations, its a scholar's dream come true and I can't wait till the rest of you can experience it.

Hope you'll join us soon,
Twilight 'Tiamat' Sparkle

P.S Sator asked me to send a crystal with this letter, he said its message he wanted to send with the scroll

Celestia's knees seemed ready to buckle in on themselves as she called the remaining elements to a private room. She lifted the crystal in her magic and poured a small amount of magic into it, the crystal glowed and projected an image of a small white sphere into the air.

"Hello Celestia, if you are hearing this then that means that Twilight has mastered long range teleportation and you should be terrified by that," some of the mares and the one young dragon in the room winced as they thought of the implications of that information.

"Sadly right now we're a bit busy re-building our army and planning the fall of Draconia so we won't be able to harass you for a while. So we made this recording, so that you could better understand why we're trying, and succeeding if we may add, to commit genocide on a scale unknown by your world." The image blinked out of existence and was replaced by an image of Equss cracking slowly before exploding "To understand our story you'll first have to go back to the beginning..."

Author's Note

WARNING! EXPOSITION INBOUND!!!!