To Devour the Seventh World

by Unwhole Hole

Rating: mature
Tags: Gore, Princess Celestia, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Nightmare Moon, Princess Luna, Original Character, Science Fiction, Sex, Twilight Sparkle
Length: 216838

A soldier from a long-forgotten war awakens in modern Equestria to find that his work is not yet done.

In the distant past, the races of Panbios united against a terrible and unstoppable enemy. Countless hundreds of millennia later, a soldier of that war awakens to find Panbios replaced with the new and unfamiliar land of Equestria. Confused and alone, he realizes that he must complete the goal he failed to achieve in ancient times. As forces of Darkness and Light gather against him, he directs his final mission: to end the Choggoth War, regardless of the costs.

Published 2015-10-16 01:40:02 UTC
Last updated 2015-10-16 01:40:02 UTC

Chapter 2: A Broken Jar

Energy rippled through the air. Everypony could feel it, a powerful change in the atmosphere. The crushing darkness that they had all felt over the past weeks seemed to lift, replaced by an electric sense of wellbeing. Even the sky reacted; the growing, darkening clouds shifting and rending, and rainbows crossing the land like none that any pony had ever seen before.

In Los Pegasus, the ponies cheered for reasons that they did not understand. Only later would they learn that six heroic mares hat finally defeated the centaur Tirac, banishing him to Tartarus and restoring the lost power to numerous drained, limp ponies that littered the streets of Canterlot and Ponyville, including all four of Equestria’s princesses.

Deep in the desert outside Los Pegasis sat a decrepit set of concrete buildings. Their stone faces had not been cared for in decades, and they were starting to crumble. The gardens of the campus had been unkempt and unwatered, and were now overgrown with dry, lifeless native plants that would have been ugly even if they had been properly alive. A nondescript sign outside the collapsing metal fence read “Winterstone Research Campus 6”, a paradoxical name for a long-shuttered scientific research center.

No pony had entered the dark hallways in decades, and the sun-baked, crumbling floor tiles were illuminated through dirty windows by the light of the moon.

In the darkness of the digy, abandoned laboratories, sat a closet of samples, untouched for years. The lables were torn and faded, and indicated a number of reagents for both chemical and alchemical preparations. After sitting for so long, many had begun to precipitate, or convert; some had long since lost their potency, and others condensed into far more volatile natures with no pony to tend for them.

As the Elements of Harmony ignited in the far distance, one particular jar in a rusted-shut closet sparked and jumped slightly. That particular jar had been placed high on a shelf, and was layered in dust far thicker than those around it. Even when the facility had been active, it had hardly been touched.

The solid substance in the jar shifted, becoming liquid, sensing that something was wrong. The substance slowly gained color, converting from pale aquamarine to deep blue. A pair of equilateral triangles condensed into its surface, and shifted around the jar, as if searching.

With a spark of blue light, the jar collapsed, having been cut into several perfect rings. Some dropped to the floor, shattering, but the remainders simply fell as the material inside oozed out, dropping down the shelf.

At first, the blue slime was limited in size, having spent a tremendous amount of time in jar that had probably previously housed apple jam. As it scraped past the dust and grime of the shelf, though, it left a trail of clean as it absorbed matter.

It collapsed onto the floor, taking several vials of chemicals with it. They mixed, releasing vile and colorful smoke, but the material seemed not to care. It reached out and engulfed them, absorbing their matter. It began to spread, stretching outward, forming shapes of itself, and directing the pair of triangles to one side.

Then, shakily, it stood up. Standing was not easy, especially on a pair of narrow, skeletal legs. It developed something analogous to an arm and braced itself against the shelves. Though it had rapidly grown to the size of a small pony, it still barely had the mass of a rabbit.

It looked at the shelf it had been sitting upon, its triangles focusing on the label below the jar. It read “D27”, but the creature had no concept of what that meant.

The creature had no capacity for conscious thought, but realized that it could not navigate its current environment by instinct only. It focused its energy inward, and adapted to its environment by forming consciousness. Though it still did not understand the meaning of “D27”, it realized that it had been conscious at some time previous. The memories were jumbled and incomplete, and seemed to have been from a significant distance in the past, although how long ago was unclear.

It had developed enough mental capacity for a conscious plan, though, and after absorbing more chemicals to restore mass, it had gained enough strength to move forward under its own power, and disappeared into the night.

Amygdule Strata looked across the moonlit desert, and sniffed the air. He smiled, and his horn glowed an earthy tone as he set down his saddlebags.

“Here!” he said. “This is where we will start!”

“Why here?” said his assistant, as if materializing out of darkness, sounding as completely uninterested as ever but still causing Strata to jump.

He turned and looked down at the gray-coated, gray-purple-maned mare beside him. Even in the middle of a desert, she had still somehow managed to wear pocket-filled shorts and an equally pocket-filled vest, something that was marginally fashionable in a dreary, gray sort of way, but overtly functional.

Strata smiled nervously and brushed his hoof against his bushy beard. He dearly appreciated Maud Pie, and her odd non-enthusiasm for everything, but in many ways, she still gave him the willies.

“Can’t you smell it?” said Strata, trotting around the dusty earth with enough excitement for both of them. “Can’t you feel it? The slight depression in the land, the fact that we’re surrounded by peaks, the vague taste of salt in the air? This is a dry lakebed, Maud, but this spot. I can feel it.”

Maud smelled the air, but it was clear that she could not sense it clearly. That was, in part, because Strata’s special talent was one for geology, specifically in the subject of sedimentary formations and water-derived crystals- -hence his cutie mark, a slightly wavy, earth colored stone with a bright red crystal in the center. His magic was, partially, helping him.

Maud, as expressionless as ever, reached into her pocket and withdrew a well-worn piece of basalt. She put it to her ear, and Strata barely managed to suppress a sigh.

“Boulder says over there is better,” said Maude, pointing.

“Boulder is not the boss of me!” snapped Strata, losing his normal cool for a moment, in part because he knew that Maud’s prediction would turn out to be correct. “Boulder” was always right. Or Maud was; Strata was not sure. He was sure there was some psychological reason, but his special talent was for geology, not psychology- -though with Maud’s personality, the two were not exceedingly dissimilar.

“Well, that place is within the search-zone anyway. But it is too late at night now. Might miss something.” He really did hope, though, that the sun did rise the next day- -properly, this time, not like the odd wavy path it had taken several days earlier that he attributed to Celestia indulging too heavily in the local cider. “I will rope it off. You set up camp, and get some rest. Start a fire.”

“With what wood?”

“With the - -” Strata looked around him as the cool wind wisked through his long mane. “Oh. Lakebed. Yeah. I’ll magic one. I know a spell that makes rocks burn. The best part is, they’re rocks, so they don’t even get hurt! It never needs more fuel!”

Maude stared blankly, and then set down her saddlebags and began to assemble the tents.

“I even brought my guitar,” said Strata, pulling out the stakes and string from his bag. “You know, I used to be in a rock band back when I was your age. The Mossy Stones, we were called. Back then, everyone called me Strats.”

“Why?” said Maud, through a tentpost in her mouth.

“Because my name is Strata,” said Strata. He sighed. “Never mind.”

Strata stepped out into the darkness, lighting his way with his horn, setting the posts in a square, using his magic to ensure that the shape he was forming was perfectly square.

He really did not understand Maud at all. She was, by far, his best student, and really, the best he had ever taught. That was why he had accepted her assist in his research, which, to his surprise, she accepted, even though his current area of research was largely in fossils more so than in her preferred field, which was igneous formations. She was a highly effective assistant, though, and quite knowledgeable- -but eerily impossible to read.

As Strata contemplated, he noticed something suddenly glint in the center of his square, something he had not seen before. Thinking there might be a crystal, even one of salt, he approached it. He could show it to Maud; fresh rocks always excited her, even if her version of excitement was generally imperceptible.

When he reached it, though, he saw that it was a piece of glass. Not a shard, though, but rather a ring, as if someone had managed to slice a drinking glass into perfect, orderly segments, something that even with magic was incredibly difficult with most glass.

He picked it up and turned it over in his magic, considering it. As he did, he hears something behind him- -something that sounded like breathing.

He turned, and found his face inches away from a pair of equilateral triangles, their flat sides together, mounted in a hard-shelled but uneven bipedal creature, its skin- -if it could even be called that- - illuminated blue by the light of his horn.

Before he could cry out, the creature reached forward with a narrow blue claw and tapped the tip of his horn. There was a surge of magical feedback and a flash of light that instantly knocked Strata unconscious, causing him to collapse into the rocky soil below. With his light extinguished, the string square was suddenly shrouded by darkness.

Maud Pie exited her tent. Her eyes slowly turned to the other one she had set up. She had been put in charge of requisitioning supplies from the university, and she had considered “forgetting” one of the tents, just so that they would be forced to share.

She knew that her emotions were difficult to read, and, in many ways, was glad of it. It meant that her professor could not sense her passionate, forbidden infatuation with him. Never before had she met anypony so knowledgeable or geology and rocks. Her own extensive knowledge was dwarfed by his. In addition, he was not as old as most geologists, and had a rugged unicorn handsomeness to him. In addition, he had a beard, and thick sideburns, the latter a trait which, she noted, was a trait he shared with her father. There was probably a psychological reason for that, but Maud was a geologist, not a psychologist.

Boulder, of course, strongly disapproved of the relationship, and had only recently come to begrudgingly accept it. He said it was unprofessional, but Maud thought that he was just afraid of losing her to another stallion.

Strata had been gone a long time, though. Maud was getting cold, and rather wanted to know what color rocks burned- -and wondered if she could get him to play a guitar accompaniment to her poetry. Perimeters did not usually take so long to set up.

So, she went looking for him, cresting the small hill he seemed to have found his way to the top of- -exactly where Boulder had said the best fossils would be found. There, atop it, she found him sprawled out in the center of his perimeter, asleep. It seemed that the long journey had existed him, but not extinguished his excitement- -a small hole near him indicated that he had already started excavation, only to have fallen asleep.

Maud suddenly felt herself blush. Something about a stallion sprawled out over stones and dirt, unconscious, made her feel strange inside, like she imagined her sister felt most of the time. She felt herself blush, and looked around, as if someone would be watching.

No one was, of course, but for a moment, Maud thought she did see something. Something thin, sprinting away awkwardly in the moonlight.

Chapter 3: In the Garden

Crimsonflame felt tired. The anger and sadness she had felt in the Council meeting had mostly subsided, but in truth, they had just been covering the hole in her heart that her father had left. He had been hard to deal with sometimes, but behind his cold exterior he had truly been loving, something that Crimsonflame now knew. He had been trying to train her to be tough, but at the same time diplomatic. He had been training her to take his place.

That day was supposed to be distant, though. It was supposed to be thousands, if not tens of thousands, of years in the future, and by a delicate ceremony where he would cede his power and become an adviser, not at the hands of a Choggoth who devoured him before her very eyes.

She sighed, and looked out over the garden before her. As was her nature and the nature of her people, it was the organic world that calmed them. That was the world that they were so desperately trying to protect, and the small garden reminded her of that.

She looked out and admired the plants: the rare cycads, taken from climes across all of Panbioa, and the exotic ferns, so narrow and delicate that it seemed a stray breath alone could shatter them. Surrounding them enchanted rivers that bubbled over moss-coated stones, illuminated by the perpetual twilight of the luminescent green-yellow sky. It stretched out into the distance, circling the building in a grand spiral, all of it perfectly maintained by golems produced by Draconan magic, some of whom were mulling about, performing basic chores.

This was a place she truly loved, a slice of a world that she loved even more so. Also, she knew it was a place that she would find neither Arcane Domination nor Goldmist; Arcane Domination hated plants and animals, and Goldmist found anything that was not burning or screaming boring.

Sill, she heard a set of paradoxically quiet footsteps approaching her. Even without looking or casting any kind of perception spell, she knew that Grayrock had come to the garden as well, and she smiled.

“Such a beautiful garden,” he said.

“I know,” said Crimsonflame. “When I was young, when the Trade Council had only just been founded, my father would take me here after the meetings. I loved to play in this place, and the fields beyond. I loved this place. I still do, and now I better understand why my father came here after meetings.”

“How long ago was it that you were young?”

“Hey,” said Crimsonflame, playfully punching the cold surface of Grayrock’s body. “I am barely approaching forty thousand.” She sighed. “For my people, and my position, that means I am barely an adult. And yet I am the only one fit to lead.”

“It is a terrible weight,” said Grayrock. “I am truly sorry that you need to bear it, especially in this era.”

“Perhaps your children’s children will sing of me as a hero. Of both of us.”

“Perhaps.”

Grayrock’s eyes stared out at the landscape. They never focused or changed size, as though they were painted on, but somehow they were exquisitely expressive. Crimsonflame could tell that his sadness was even deeper than hers, and rather than helping, the landscape made it worse.

“When the war is over, we will redirect efforts toward rebuilding Ceroria.”

“No,” said Grayrock, firmly. “I mean, I thank you, but no. You will have enough damage to repair from the Choggoths. My nation is not of your concern. Its problems were caused purely by our people- -or rather, by me.” He smiled, and actually chuckled slightly. “You know, Crimson, it is actually rather ironic. This war, it is the best thing that ever happened to my people.”

“Don’t say that, Stonestrenght.”

“It is true. For ten thousand years, we have been killing each other. There had never been a time in our history where we have not been at war amongst ourselves. I shudder to think what we would have become if we had magic- -but we still did enough. War brought us steel, and gunpowder, engines, electricity, particle weapons…and then it went atomic and we decimated ourselves.”

“You can’t blame yourself.”

“Can I? I was the one that authorized the first strike. I silenced the enemy factions, and took rule of ruins and radioactive dust. Arcane was correct.” He looked down at his hooves. “I cannot wash away this blood.”

“None of us can, Stone. But you must persevere. Your people need you, as mine need me.”

Several creatures emerged from the still, weeping tree-ferns and started to approach the pair. A soft, warm object nudged against Crimsonflame’s leg, and she looked down to see a nervous monohorn nudging her leg, eyes wide with anxiety over the approaching creatures.

“You repaired her leg,” said Grayrock.

“My healing spells are quite strong,” said Crimsonflame, placing her hand on the creature’s head, running her claws through its soft mane. “They have even been known to resurrect the dead at time. Arcane gave these creatures weak bones, I am afraid. It was not hard to repair. I only wish that Arcane would have allowed me to take both.”

“Those gems you spent on that one alone could have fed you for a month.”

“Now is not the time to eat. You would have done the same if you were able.”

Crimsonflame knelt on the stone path, with one hand on the monohorn’s back. She reached into her robe with her free hand, and withdrew a fragment of biscuit. She reached out toward the creatures that approached. They seemed to smell it, and understood. One of them approached. It was a small quadruped, with narrow, elegant legs and wide, soulful violet eyes. The others approached as well, each with their own coat and mane colors. All closely resembled the monohorn, although she was far larger; her size and her horn an aspect of poorly planned accelerated evolution.

The monohorn recoiled and hid in the ends of Crimsonflame’s robes. The other creatures looked concerned, but then smiled. It took the biscuit from Crimsonflame, and divided it. In its delicate mouth, it held out a piece to the monohorn. The monohorn looked up to Crimsonflame, and Crimsonflame smiled and nodded. Then, carefully, the one-horned mare took the treat that was offered to it by the other pony.

The group smiled, and slowly approached her, some even allowing Crimsonflame to place her hand on their backs.

“We may not survive this war,” said Crimsonflame to Grayrock, “our peoples may perish from this world, but the Choggoths bring only destruction. Even if we are destroyed, we must preserve this planet, for those who will inherit us from us.”

“Do you truly believe they are up for the task?”

Crimsonflame chuckled. “My kind was already ancient when yours was no different from these ponies.” Then, more to the ponies than to Grayrock, “perhaps they will succeed where we have failed.”

In a distant, darker part of the Citadel, a different meeting was taking place.

“Domiiiii,” whined Goldmist, stretching himself out over a fine but largely unused red-velvet couch. “I’m so boarrrred. I want to be outside, flying.” He looked at his wings. “Look, look at this! They’re starting to tarnish!”

“Gold does not tarnish,” said Arcane Domination, producing a bottle and pouring a thick red liquid into a pair of crystal glasses.

“Is that what I think it is?”

“Blood of a Cerorian mare? Yes it is.”

“But that’s illegal!” cried Goldmist, an expression of shock over his face that rapidly turned into a wide, mechanical smile. “I want some.”

Arcane Domination handed him the glass, and Goldmist took a tremendous gulp. Some of the red liquid ran down his golden chin and dripped onto the cold stone floor below.

“I’ve always wondered,” said Arcane Domination. “Do you even need to eat, or drink?”

“Of course not,” said Goldmist, holding out the glass for a refill, balanced precariously on his golden hoof. Arcane Domination begrudgingly added more to his glass; the blood was expensive, but Goldmist’s hedonistic ways were well known to him long before he had smuggled in the bottle. “We are the people chosen by the gods. Our bodies require no food, nor drink. I suppose in exchange, that is why we are mortal,” he mused, “but I do really like meat, and blood, and wine and, well- -”

“Please, stop,” said Arcane Domination.

“Oh, come now. Did you think I didn’t notice that you gender-biased your creations toward female?”

“How did you know that?” demanded Arcane Domination, nearly spitting out the blood.

“Come now, Domi, just because there’s a war doesn’t mean I can’t afford spies! I might as well tell you, we haven’t had nearly as much success with our chimeric projects. The darn things keep tearing themselves apart. Of course, I think we are doing well for not having magic to utilize.”

“Why are you telling me this?” asked Arcane, somewhat taken aback.

“Why? Because you have no proof. Accuse me, and I will accuse you of trying to break the alliance. Not that it matters much anymore.” He sighed, and his wings seemed to collapse around him. “I really thought having a new Grand Magus would be more fun…” His metal eyes clicked sideways suddenly, focusing on Arcane Domination. Arcane could not help but wonder if those eyes really did see, or if what people said was true, that the Aurasi were actually pure machines. “Why did you bring me down here? That blood wasn’t drugged, was it?”

“No, I assure you, it was not.”

Goldmist whined. “And I thought we would have some fun!”

“You already know why you are down here, and why we are alone.”

“Because you want to ally yourself with me and use the Choggoths to bring down Draconia and Ceroria.”

“More work of your spies?”

“No, you fool. I can read you like a book. A book that, I hope, starts to get interesting right about now.”

“The Ceroniains are not much of a threat, I know, at least at the moment. But this war has the potential to shift their society completely. For centuries we have spread strife through their land, but if they win this war, we will fail to do that. They are terrifying warriors.”

“I know. But wouldn’t a war with them be more amusing?”

“Do you want a war with the Draconians, too?”

“Good point.”

“This war is our only chance. We can sway battles and tactics, and if we are careful and concerted, we can reduce their strength to a fraction by the time the war ends.”

“And the Shth…Skl…the others?”

“The Sklklekel,” corrected Arcane Domination, pronouncing the name perfectly. It was actually much easier than half the arcane languages he was familiar with. “They are inherently neutral, but they are barely a civilization. More of a living swamp, or piles of moss, or whatever they are. They will surely side with the victor for their own self-preservation.”

“Assuming the Choggoths don’t gobble them up first!” Goldmist gnashed his pointed teeth playfully.

“Of course. You know that your people and my people were destined to rule Panbios. The age of the Draconians has long since passed.”

“Hmm,” said Goldmist, as if considering. “Okay. First, though. More blood.” He held out the glass once again, but retracted it when Arcane reached for the bottle. “Not from there.” Goldmist smiled. “Find that adorable slave of yours. I want it fresh.”

Chapter 4: Resurrection

D27 moved through the darkness quickly, sprinting on his spindly legs over the surface of the desert, stopping only to absorb any organic material that he managed to find.

His conscious mind had almost completely returned, and he found it flooded with words and terms. Most of them, annoyingly, had to do with rocks, but that was apparently unavoidable. He had been incredibly surprised to find a monohorn wandering freely in the middle of a desert, and even more surprised when from a distance he had heard it speaking. He had not known monohorns were able to do that.

From the information he had accessed, though, they apparently had a rather complex language that was vastly different from what he was accustomed to. He had been able to access the monohorn’s mind with relative ease and taken knowledge of spoken language- -as well as a written one, something else he was surprised to find. Taking more would also have been possible, but removing more information risked permanent damage to the monohorn’s mind. Copying his knowledge of language simply rendered him unconscious, and would probably result in painful headaches.

That did pose a problem, though. D27 did not know anything about the world around him or the context he had awoken in. Even his own memories, for some reason, were jumbled. He could remember some things, even things that should have been difficult to recall, but not simple things, like his name, if he had ever even had one.

The situation was grim, though. In the sky, he could see one of the two celestial spheres partially illuminating a sky that had been painted with stars and astronomical bodies. The stars were mostly cosmetic; it was the other body, the so-called “moon”, that disturbed him. The fact that it had not been destroyed meant the war had never concluded.

Conversely, the fact that he had seen a monohorn and possibly something else indicated that the Finality Core had not yet been activated. That could mean that the other sphere had been successfully destroyed, but D27 doubted so.

Even more unnerving, the moon seemed to be moving, inching its way slowly across the sky. It was not supposed to do that; both spheres were supposed to be in the sky at the same time- -at least to the extent that there were supposed to be spheres, which there were not. D27 sensed some kind of distant magic; that meant that someone was actually moving the celestial spheres, which was just about the most preposterous thing he had ever even considered.

D27 was aware that he had been gone for a long time, but he did not know how long, or why he had gone to sleep originally, or what had woken him up. He did have a memory of a spark of magic, though, a type of magic that was not supposed to exist in Panbios. As such, he fully intended to find out what had happened.

He collapsed onto all fours, simultaneously sprouting a third pair of spindly arms from his back. In one of his claw-like hands, he held what he had unearthed from the desert, a cracked and weathered monohorn skull. It was damage and poorly preserved, but the spiral horn was still intact, and the magical energy had been enough for D27 to sense it, even beneath the earth. He would probably only get one use out of it, but that was all he needed.

D27 shifted his body, distorting it, forcing it to resemble something similar to a monohorn. Where his face had come to be, he separated the flesh, parting his liquid body apart, and inserted the skull into his head. He shifted it around for a moment, allowing his flesh to move over it, replicating the face of the creature that it once had long ago. D27 felt his triangular sensory organs shift to the eye sockets, and felt the teeth in his mouth.

He accessed the skull, and caused its horn to glow a dim yellow. He focused his mind on the spell that needed to be performed. Blue sparks projected from his own body, arcing toward the horn as he used his own magic, as weak as it was, to catalyze the monohorn spell.

With the sound of a tremendous explosion, he vanished from space in a blast of yellow light.

When D27 rematerialized in space, the horn in the skull he had collected instantly shattered. Since it was connected to his own mind and magic, he felt it go, and it was oddly painful.

“Coprolite!” he shouted, and then clapped his hoof-claw appendages over his mouth. He did not recall even thinking about making speech organs, and yet he had just spoke. It sounded purely bizarre, high pitched and shrill, like the monohorn had been, but also unique.

“Bloody Tartarus,” he said to himself as his skin separated, allowing him to vomit the steaming, useless skull on the grass below. That was when he froze, realizing that although he knew the word, he had no idea what grass actually was.

D27 looked up, and found himself in a forest. It was like none he had ever seen, before, though. Where there should have been conifers and cycads, there were strange leafy trees; the ferns were smaller, and surrounded by other plants that he did not recognize, including ones that were brightly colored for some reason.

It occurred to him that he had been unconscious for some time.

At about that time, he realized that he was being watched. He turned what remained of his “head” and saw a black and white-striped quadrupedal creature staring at him, the root of some unknown herb dangling from her open mouth. She was expertly obscured behind the foliage of the forest, and D27 had not seen her.

Being seen in his current state, D27 realized, was probably not a good thing. Based on the gold ornamentation of this particular specimen, she was probably sentient. Seeing a spindly, partially-formed version of her own genus vomit a skull onto the ground was probably somewhat traumatic.

D27 sprouted a long, accusatory arm from his back and pointed it at her.

“Striped female equine!” he shouted. “You saw nothing!” He then sprouted several more appendages, dividing the legs he had already formed, and scuttled quickly into the forest.

Zecora watched the creature before her leave, and then, slowly, her eyes drifted to the root in her mouth. She immediately spit it out, and stomped it into oblivion with perhaps excessive force.

“I was intending to go into town,” she said, “But now…I think I shall go home, and lie down.”

D27 moved the forest quickly, his shape adjusting as he went, automatically shifting to his surroundings. All around him were monsters, but they all kept their distance, as if they could sense his nature and what he truly was. They were all unfamiliar to D27, but they seemed somewhat lacking. The monstrosities of his own time had been somehow greater; their bodies larger, and their personalities far more savage and intelligent. The modern creatures hardly compared.

Still, the fauna of the strange forest was not of great concern to D27. The flora was much more interesting, and even that was minor. Of much greater concern was that the moon was setting, and the second sphere beginning to rise above the horizon, motivated by some unseen but gravely powerful force. D27’s memories of the spheres were only fragmentary, but he recalled that it had not nearly been so bright. The intense glow, even through the fog and trees, was painful to him, burning at his flesh with its intense radiation.

He ignored it, though. His own magic had been unusually potent when he had awoken, which was not necessarily a good thing- -it meant that he had either been inactive for so long that he had accumulated energy from the celestial spheres, or that the last moments of his previous life had been profoundly ripe with magical energy.

Long distance teleportation was a relatively easy spell, assuming that whatever was being moved could be condensed into a single point in space and survive interdimensional superheating. In addition, D27 had used an external sources of magic to power himself. Recharging could be accomplished the same way, but he was still too weak to attack a monohorn directly. There was an easier way.

The forest he had arrived in had been chosen because he had triangulated the magic that had awoken him to somewhere near it. Fortunately, it had also proven to be oddly rich in magical energy and far more permeable than D27 had expected was even possible.

Eventually, he found an adequate location, a clearing in the swampy ground. He stepped into the center, and moved his triangular organs to the center of his body. With a deep breath of the reeking oxygen atmosphere, he took a deep breath, and focused his energy.

His body distorted, propelled by the magic that began to flow around his body, and the fabric of the universe began to separate, his body becoming the catalyst for the portal to form.

Then, in a flash of unnatural blue sparks, the fractal portal opened. The sound was tremendous, bursting outward with enough force to tear the leaves off the surrounding trees. Space inverted, pulling in air as the universe vomited an arid, smoky gas from the other side, and in an instant D27 was sucked into the other side, and the portal closed, emitting another surge of blue, electric-like energy that scattered across the meadow, causing everything it touched to bubble and ripple with perfect hexagonal crystals.

Not far away, a powerful shiver ran up the spine of a draconaquus.

“Discord,” said Fluttershy, putting down her tea, an expression of surprise and deep concern on her face. “Oh, is something wrong? Did I make the tea to hot?”

“Oh, no, of course not, Fluttershy,” said Discord, forcing a smile and slithering past her surprisingly soft body, terrifying several of the small animals that found themselves unfortunate enough to be in his proximity. “It’s just that, I think I’m feeling a little…green, around the gills.” He lifted up a flap of skin on his neck, revealing a rather grotesque set of shark-like gills that were, in fact, quite green. “Why, I might even blow my cookies!”

Discord withdrew a small pink bubble wand, and blew through it, producing a set of bubbles that contained cookies. The bubbles popped, and the cookies fell onto a small plate he had also produced, landing neatly. He offered them to Fluttershy, who smiled but did not take one. Then the concerned expression returned to her face.

“Oh, I hope it wasn’t the food!” she squeaked. “Maybe an allergy? You aren’t allergic to walnuts, are you?”

“Perish the thought,” said Discord. He brought his narrow eagle-claw hand to his forehead, striking a dramatic pose. “Alas, I believe it may be the effect of having my magic stolen several days back. I just feel so deflated.” His body became gray and, with a squeaking sound of escaping gas, swirled through the air and fell awkwardly on the back of his chair. He chuckled. “Well, I suppose Applejack always did say I was full of hot air,” as he popped back into his normal shape and slid into the chair below- -or rather, as it slid upward to meet him.

“It was hard on all of us,” said Fluttershy, frowning. “But it must have been especially bad for you, seeing as how much you love to use your magic.”

“Indeed, it was!” A violin appeared in his hands, and he played it with what should have been a sad and slow tune but came out as something reminiscient of a screaming cat. Both Discord and Fluttershy winced. “But in time, I think I will be as fit as a fiddle once again!” The violin dropped from his hands, suddenly developing tremendously muscular arms and legs, and struck a body-building pose, making a sound reminiscent of a stringy and musical version of the albino Pegasus Bulk Bicep’s various grunts of approval. It then dashed off and began lifting Fluttershy’s ottoman, continuing with its series of enthusiastic sounds.

“Well, just to be safe, perhaps you should lie down.”

“I appreciate the thought,” said discord hurriedly, looking toward the door, “but it actually occurred to me that I have something rather important to deal with.”

“But what about the tea?” said Fluttershy, looking disappointed. A twinge of remorse pulled through Discord’s several various hearts. In the several millennia he had been alive, Fluttershy was the most adorable creature he had ever seen, and so very soft to boot.

“I’m afraid it was a rather important task,” said Discord, tossing the leather boot behind him. “Princess Luna assigned it to me herself.” He leaned in close to Fluttershy, a tight-fitting and highly familiar ornate helmet suddenly appearing on his head. “And you know how she gets when she gets angry.”

“Oh, Luna isn’t any more scary than you are,” said Fluttershy, wrapping Discord in a hug with her forelegs and wings.

Discord hugged back and disconnected, floating toward the door. “One of these days, you are going to need to tell me how you keep those wings so soft. Even though, you know, only one of mine has feathers.”

“I’d be glad to,” said Fluttershy, waving.

Discord waved back, and then teleported outside of her cottage. He immediately released the breath he had been holding, and broke out in a cold sweat. With a tremendous effort, he had managed to maintain his composure for Fluttershy's sake, but even the modicum of playful chaos he had produced had failed to lift his spirits.

He had sensed something, something that he had been feeling in the distance for several days. At first it had been mild, with only twinges that came with a vague sense of foreboding. Compared to those, the last burst had been a shockwave, filling his very soul with a sense of dread that he had never before known.

The worst part, though, was that he recognized the ripples of magic. Something deep inside him had felt them before, but he could not remember where.

“I think he ees starting to crack,” said a copy of Discord with thick, round glasses and a white coat.

“I’m fine,” sighed Discord, suddenly finding himself on a couch floating through the air, his clone listening from a chair beside. “But now that you mention it, when I was young, I always had this recurring dream about an immense chicken…I named her Scootaloo…”

“Zee problem is vith your mother,” said the Discord psychologist. “That vill be three hundred bits.”

“No,” said Discord, for once clearing his mind. The clones and the couch disappeared. For once, he needed a clear mind. He had begun to float over Ponyville, and drifted down to the ground and leaned against a lamppost. Then, suddenly, he smiled and had an idea.

The light in the next lamp post activated, causing a pink earth pony walking beneath it. She was then promptly concussed as the bulb fell out and smashed on her head.

Discord frowned. He was so out of sorts that he was even failing cliché visual gags. Still, he knew what he needed to do. With a pop, he apparently disappeared, leaving the disoriented earth pony to wander confused and dazed.

Discord floated through his home domain, the chaotic universe of the Discord Dimension, or, as he preferred to call it, Tony. The name was a misnomer, of course; it was not actually called Tony. Nor was it actually a “dimension”, but rather a representation of Discord’s own mind, making it an inherent paradox: his mind existed within him, and he existed within his mind, which was, in turn, inside him.

That, actually, was not true either: his mind was actually a distinct part of the Discord Dimension. Exactly where was not entirely apparent, of course; the incident with Lord Tirac had rendered Discord momentarily mortal, severing his connection to the magic that sustained this plane. As such, everything had moved. Then again, of course, it always moved. There was no point in having everything in the same spot.

In time, though, Discord did find it. It consisted of a dilapidated shed floating upon a tiny model of the moon barely big enough for it, on which Discord had painted a portrait of himself in broad brushstrokes. In other words, the place where the cheese was kept.

Discord pulled open the squeaky door and stepped inside. The place was dusty and smelled strange. Discord sighed; though he did not show it, he had always known that he had a dirty mind.

He pulled the chain to the light, and immediately illuminated the antechamber to the massive complex. Though the shed had been small, the inside was large, the opposite of the normal case- -which was, of course, because what appeared to be the “outside” of the shed was actually the inside, so to speak.

The whole center was bustling with activity. Having one’s soul forcibly ripped from one’s body was sure to cause mental damage, but in Discord’s case, the strain had been especially bad; numerous versions of himself were working hard rebuilding the delicate connections between the chaos magic and his own mind.

Discord walked past the other Discords, or, equally, was walked past by a single Discord, barely paying attention to the various tasks they were doing. One was scrubbing down the fleshy, pink parts of his mind, ensuring the brainwashing would be complete, all the time complaining about getting the wrinkles out. Another, apparently a carpenter, was engaged in a profound philosophical conversation with a large burlap sack that seemed to contain hammers about whether unicorns were, in fact, made of corn.

He passed down a scaffolder grand staircase, grimacing at the fact that he had only managed to apply the stares that went up so far, and passed a large glass bowl where several of his selves were attempting to drain a pool of pink milk that had resulted from his most recent brainstorm.

“Strawberry,” said Discord, tisk-tisking as a version of himself in a diving suit slogged through the bottom of the milk. “Have I really sunk so low?”

Discord realized that he had no idea where he was. He had, apparently, become lost in thought. To remedy this, he stopped before a massive directory. It indicated quite clearly that he was “here”.

“Very existential, but not helpful.” A Discord was walking past him, a hard-hat on his head, carrying one half of a very light an delicate pane of glass. “Excuse me, handsome construction worker?”

“Why yes, dashing and clearly brilliant stranger, how may I be of assistance?” said the other Discord.

“I need directions to the...” He put his claw to his hand and looked around, as if the others would hear him, “the Library.”

“Library?” said the other Discord, scratching his head. “There’s nothing in there but memories! And most are, well,” his voice dropped to a whisper, “rather bad.”

“I know. I just need to look something up.”

“Be sure to write it down.”

“But of course.”

“Well, you have to take the stairs down, until you get to the roof. Take a left at your last right- -that’s my right, not your right- -go past the carrot patch, dig straight down, then dig up, then grow up, go past the monkey house- -monkeys, mind you, not the madhouse- -stop for a lunch, then breakfast, then dinner, and you should see a pony down there trying to do the fishstick. Ignore him, if you see him, you’re in the wrong place anyway. Take the tram, you know, the one that doesn’t work, that one, past the place where that forest was that burned down before you were born, go through where the wild things are, get to the sidewalk’s end, and, at that point, take three lefts.”

“And that will get me to the library?” said the first Discord as the other walked away. Another Discord appeared, this one holding the other end of the plywood sheet and having great difficulty under the weight.

“No. That gets you right here. Library’s behind you.”

Discord turned to see a small wooden door with an immense sign over it saying “LIBRARY”.

“Oh,” he said.

Discord entered the library, and the noise of the construction outside immediately stopped. Of course, there never really had been noise, not in any real sense anyway, aside from the voices that always whispered in the distance no matter how hard Discord tried to suppress them.

The library was massive, but largely empty, and it smelled of books and ham. The only apparent occupant was a cartoonish version of a purple pony at the front desk, her eyes comically staring in different directions and tongue protruding from her mouth.

“I’m Twilight Sparkle, and I read books!” the image said, turning her head as if to a tune that only she could hear. “I sang for thirty minutes and became a princess! Nyx should be in this story!”

“Oh, Twilight,” said Discord, playfully, fully knowing that the thing he projected was just another part of the world. In a way, he actually felt bad for portraying one of his friends as such, but it was just too funny an opportunity to pass up. Discord turned to the fourth wall of the room, as if looking into a camera. “And I’m surprised Rainbow Dash is considered the annoying one!”

“Hey, it’s your mind,” said a rather realistic rendering of Spike as he walked by, toting at large pile of musty books. “You weirdo…”

Discord only smiled, and made his way to the stacks of books in the rear of the library. He looked up at the headings of the two wings: one was labeled as “Truths” and the other as “Truths”. Discord started toward the one labeled “Truths” but then skidded to a stop.

“Gets me every time,” he said as he turned toward the other section.

He continued down the path through the books, looking absentmindedly at the covers. They were not really books, after all, but rather physical representations of memories. Since they were his memories, they were categorized by no apparent knowable order. Most of them were not even facing the same direction; some were stacked on their sides, some upside down, and some with the pages facing out. It was nothing at all like the kind of library that the real Twilight Sparkle would have tolerated. Hers had a manicured and organized appearance, and reeked of order.

“Order…” said Discord, taking down one of the books. He flipped it open, and immediately turned quite red; he closed it, and it became apparent that the cover contained a portrait of Princess Celestia, smiling suggestively.

“It’s not what it looks like!” said Discord, defending himself from unseen accusatory glances. “I assure you, I only read it for the plot!” He broke into a wide grin with an adorable squeak sound effect.

That was clearly not the correct book, and he returned it to the shelf. Then, suddenly, he found himself in a different part of the library. One that was much older, and somehow cold.

Discord’s spirits dropped. Something made him nervous. He had been in his mind for far longer than even he would have liked, but he had never been to this part before, where the floor was ancient stone and the walls stood at odd and impossible angles.

“Twilight?” he said. He suddenly found himself wishing that he had not left Fluttershy’s house. He should have been drinking tea with her, making her house float, or just admiring her bodily softness.

The room contained no doors. It only contained a single, central post on which sat a massive black book. The voices were strong in this room, and though silent, they were deafening, screaming whispers in a language that Discord dared not understand.

Gingerly, he stepped forward, toward the book, only pausing as the shadows projected by the windows shifted. Discord gasped and looked away from the cage-wire windows; for some reason, he knew that if he looked through those ancient grates, he might see something that he was not truly meant to see.

Carefully, he touched the book. It felt somehow wrong, but he still opened it. Despite being thick, there was somehow only one page, and on that page there was a single word.

Discord found himself standing outside, alone, the chaos sky above him. The situation was far worse than even he had thought. He needed to get to the princesses quickly. He needed to warn them, before it was too late, and before he everything he had worked for crumbled around him at the hands of the name drawn in his own blood on that single, vast page.

That word, in rust-colored ,ancient letters, drawn out in perfect block printing, was “ORDER”.

Meanwhile, in the depths of Equestira, in a region that existed on no map and never had, a place where life itself had long given way to emptiness and death, a creature of indeterminate nature began to laugh silently.

Chapter 5: An Experiment, and a Discovery

Crimsonflame looked around the large, circular room. All around her were machines and shelves of books, all of them running at full capacity. She understood the purpose of most of them, at least differently, but not of the experiments being conducted below.

Moving amongst them were Draconian scientists, identified by their white robes and black hoods, working feverishly at the machines and arguing almost silently over results of their inquiries. Before the war, this laboratory would have been used by Draconians largely for theoretical experiments, and, at times, for research into cures for various ailments and remediation and agricultural techniques.

Now, it differed in two main features: firstly, it had been devoted entirely to research into the nature of Choggoths. Despite the fact that they had consumed much of Panbios and leveled several cities, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands and the displacements of millions more, precious little was known about them.

The other difference was that the Draconians were no longer alone. The population of true-born Draconians had always been low, and many had been lost in the war; as such, the research population had had been reinforced with trihorn scientists and sorcerers, who introduced their own brand of magic and perspective into the process. Although she tended to hold great disdain for trihorns as a rule, Crimsonflame recognized that their work was invaluable in determining new ways to defeat the enemy.

Still, she would have preferred to be on the battlefield. Even then, as she toured that facility, she knew that her people were dying in far off lands. Her heart ached for them, and she desired nothing more than to stand before them, charging against the Choggoth menace herself, defending the mages who fought alongside her.

The Draconian Council, however, believed otherwise. They had become increasingly paranoid after the death of the previous Grand Magus, and had strongly suggested that Crimsonflame stay a safe distance away from the front. Crimsonflame had attempted to argue, but eventually acquiesced; with the death of her father, she had become the functional ruler of all Draconia. That had its own responsibilities on the homefront, and in terms of tactical coordination. In addition, she was fully aware that if she were to be killed in battle as her father had, she had not yet produced and trained an heir to take her place.

The situation in the war had not improved since she had last met with the delegates from the other nations. The invasion of the southern swamps had, to her initial great relief, never occurred. Cerorian soldiers had been dispatched, but no Choggoth activity had been reported- -although the soldiers noted that they had seen strange lights toward the horizon, and beneath the water.

The initial intelligence must have been a ruse, however; shortly after the battle was supposed to occur, Choggoths were detected in a largely unpopulated region on the trihorn frontier. Due to various delays, the trihorn defense forces had been unable to reach the rural area in time; Draconians had been dispatched in their place, and the battle had been bloody and futile. That area was now fully infected, and twenty three mages had been lost, some of them barely adult.

Crimsonflame felt her anger rising inside her, but suddenly felt something soft against her claw. She looked down, to see her monohorn assistant nuzzling her hand, as if somehow knowing the turmoil of her thoughts.

“Thank you, Single Horn,” said Crimsonflame, patting the creature on the head. “You always know exactly what to say.”

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” hissed a voice from behind. Crimsonflame felt Single Horn stiffen, and her face twisted into a frown at the sound of the voice of a trihorn.

The trihorn in question approached them from behind. His pale-yellow scales and deep maroon scales glistened in the harsh enchanted light of the laboratory. As he passed, other trihorns rapidly moved from his path, and even some Draconians avoided approaching him. Crimsonflame could sense the aura emanating from him as well, but did not react. Still, it was almost oppressive, and she thought she could a whiff of an actual smell of blood and rot that clung to his person and white coat.

“Doctor Deeper Cutting,” said Crimsonflame. She did not even bother to feign enthusiasm, but Cutting took this as a compliment. He was fully aware that Crimsonflame knew his history. Deeper Cutting was one of the greatest scientific and magical minds of the Trihorn empire, with a grasp of both physics and the arcane that was foremost among his people, and greater even than that of most Draconians. He was also a convicted war criminal, known for the perverse experiments he had performed on trihorn political prisoners and Cerorriran prisoners of war. He was a brutal, unfeeling monster, and Crimsonflame hated him- -but recognized that he was necessary for the defeat of their mutual enemy.

“And what is this?” he said, looking down at Single Horn, who looked up at him stoically. Cutting smiled, his reptilian eyes alight with something that was equally hunger and vindictive joy that the great and righteous Crimsonflame was not above owning slaves- -slaves that he might very well have been instrumental in creating.

“This is my assistant, Single Horn,” said Crimsonflame flatly.

“You…named it?”

“She is not a slave to me, Cutting. She deserves a name.”

Cutting chuckled. “Such sentimental creatures, you dragons. What you do and believe is your own prerogative, Grand Magus.” He bowed in a way that was almost mocking.

“So why have you called me here?”

“To give you the results of my experiments, of course, and to show you what I have accomplished.”

He led Crimsonflame forward, to one particular area where the room had been cleared. Trihorns and Draconians stood around the brightly lit circle, which contained a large vial constructed of enchanted glass.

When Crimsonflame saw what was inside the glass, she gasped. There, swirling around within, was a hand-sized chunk of material. It had a putrid, pink color, and seemed to be writhing animalistically; even as it did, its form was unstable. As it moved, it developed new appendages: tentacles, primitive eyes, sharp-toothed mouths, and even tiny arms, which all faded back into its mucoid structure almost as rapidly as they formed.

“Cutting,” hissed Crimsonflame, and the Draconians in the room suddenly backed away from her. “I thought my orders were clear! Choggoth fragments must be kept frozen at all times!”

“And you would have me study its behavior frozen, I suppose?” retorted Cutting. “I have made significant discoveries on its nature since resurrecting it, and I assure you that it cannot escape. The enchantments on this glass are of my own creation. Were the Cerorians to detonate one of their beloved warheads on here, the glass would still not break!”

Several of the Cerorian guards at the edge of the room looked highly displeased, but maintained their focus primarily on the tiny Choggoth in the center of the room.

“And what have you found that warrants a direct violation of my orders?”

“Recall that I do not report to you, Grand Magus, but to the Trihorn Oligarchy, directly. Nevertheless, we have found that the plasmic structure of the item varies depending on its situation. It literally adapts to anything we throw at it- -toxins, electricity, elemental magic, radiation, bullets- -it invariably changes its structure on a cellular level to compensate.” His horns glowed as he generated a shimmering, magical projection that he handed to Crimsonflame. She took its massless form in her claw and looked over the results.

“Impressive,” she said, “but I already knew this. I have seen it myself in battle. Do you know if this is a conscious response, or if it is instinctive?”

“This creature has absolutely no brain activity,” said Cutting, turning to stare at it. “And yet it had no need for it; it changes to survive, to suit any environment. It is rather…almost godlike.”

“They are not gods. They are parasites,” said Crimsonflame, disgusted at the wistful expression on his face. Despite his reputation, Deeper Cutting had never once set foot on the battlefield, and had never seen the destruction a Choggoth could cause. He had never seen his friends, or entire cities of his people, taken over with evolving amoeboid slime, the flesh stripped away from their bones and their bones ground to dust even as they struggled to escape.

“But imagine what we could do if we could incorporate their features into a soldier, something that does have conscious thought…”

Crimsonflame pretended to ignore the idea, and scrolled down on the projection she had been given. She stopped at one point.

“What is this?” she said, pointing.

“That is the best discovery yet!” cried Cutting, losing himself in the excitement at his own work. Crimsonflame could not help but wonder if he had had such giddy and behavior as he had removed the organs from his victims and replaced them with magical constructs while they were still conscious. “We have been providing it with mass.”

“Mass?” said Crimsonflame. “You mean feeding it?”

“Yes, if you want to simplify it for simpletons,” he said, eyeing Single-Horn, who glared back but shook against Crimsonflame’s leg. “We have been injecting it with various materials, and found that it has an unparalleled capacity to absorb organic material. What is most interesting, though, is that it appears not to gain any mass. We have already injected several tons of industrial waste into it, but its overall weight has not changed remotely.”

“Several tons?” said Crimsonflame, her blood running cold. In his excitement, Cutting had been a fool- -he had overlooked the basic nature of magical mass-shifts. In his arrogance, he had assumed that this creature must lack magic whatsoever, and not seen what Crimsonflame so handily realized.

The Choggoth shifted in its container, and the surface of it converted into a single, consistent eye, one demarcated by a geometric pattern of three circles and a single square. It was at that moment that Crimmsonflame realized that Cutting had been wrong: that thing was fully aware, and even more than that, it had just understood that she was aware of what it had been doing.

Small, violet sparks of magical energy began moving around it within the glass.

“Get back!” Crimsonflame cried. She herself knelt down, extending her red-and-black wings around herself and Single Horn, just in time to protect herself from the massive magical discharge and shattering of equipment. The force impacted her wings, tearing at them, but she reinforced them with her magic, defending herself and the trembling monohorn in her arms.

Without hesitation and in a single motion, she jumped backward, out of the Choggoth’s reach. As she did, she looked up at the beast before her. It had almost instantly grown massive in size, utilizing the mass that Deeper Cutting had so blindly fed it to extend its body. It now stood in the center of the room, an assymetrical, tripedial behemoth, the symbolic eye centered in its armor-plated pink torso.

It reached out with one hand and shattered the tubing and experimental equipment above it. The Draconians near it raised their wings and flew out of its reach as quickly as possible, while the trihorns deployed shield bubbles to protect themselves.

Their efforts were to no avail, though. The Choggoth developed a second arm, one equipped with long barbed claws that rippled with magical energy. The claws extended suddenly, becoming tentacles, and pierced the shields of the two nearest trihorns. They were harpooned instantly, and screamed as it drew them inward, absorbing them into itself.

Then, as their bodies disappeared and the pink slime hardened into a rock-like shell, Crimsonflame watched in horror as six horns appeared at the top of the Choggoth’s body. They illuminated, and a bolt of magical energy crashed through the laboratory, instantly destroying rows of equipment and injuring a Draconian, who cried out as one of his wings was torn from his body.

Crimsonflame regained her composure, and focused her mind. She reacted automatically, taking a deep breath, and focusing her mind on the ancient words that she needed to cast the spell. Then, with a tremendous roar, she unleashed a plume of scarlet fire that engulfed the room.

The fire spread throughout the air, covering everything in the room, but Crimsonflame merged her words and her spell with the nature of the flame, controlling and restricting it, changing its nature. She saw the trihorns, Draconians, and Cerorian guards look down at themselves; though they were covered in fire, they did not burn.

Instead, Crimsonfire directed the full heat and arcane power of the mystic flames into the Choggoth. It responded by thickening its outer shell, hardening like clay and becoming fireproof. The spell was far too strong for it, though, and its rock-like exterior began to glow and then collapse under thermal decomposition. It struggled to step forward, reaching out for her, but then suddenly burst into separate pieces, each of which squirmed as they oxidized and were turned to ash.

The spell collapsed, and the ash fell to the floor. No one moved for a moment.

“By the Madgod!” shouted Crimsonfire, pointing. “Containment! Get this!”

“Yes, Grand Magus!” said several Draconians, rusing in, summoning the necessary spells and equiptment necessary to contain any living fragments of the Choggoth, although Crimsonflame was already sure that there were none.

She turned to Deeper Cutting, prepared to scream at him for his incompetence, but found him collapsed on the floor, weeping and shaking. That gave her pause, but did not stop her. All around her, priceless artifacts and equipment that simply could not be replaced during wartime had been rendered useless, putting behind their efforts by years, if not stopping them permentantly. A Draconian had been injured, and though others were helping him stand, the magical injury to his wing would surely never regenerate. Likewise, two trihorns had been lost, all because of a simple oversight.

Crimsonfire felt a claw on her shoulder, though, and stopped. She turned to see a pink and silver trihorn with a softer expression than most.

“Please, Grand Magus,” she said, “please, leave him be, at least for now. One of those lost was his daughter.”

“His daughter…” said Crimsonfire. She was filled with a strange sensation. She did not know whether to feel pity for a man who had witnessed a death so close to him, or hatred for a hypocrite who surely never shed a single tear for those he had killed so gleefully in the past. “Fine,” she said. “But I will hold you personally responsible for the report of this…this incompetence. Get this place running again by tomorrow!” she shouted to her own subjects. They responded heartily and got to work, dealing with the recent accident and death with far more ease than Crimsonfire was actually comfortable with.

Something was not quite right, though. Crimsonfire turned and walked toward the edge of the room, a place where there had been virtually no damage. That was not strange in itself; most of the damage was located in the center of the room where the Choggoth had been stored, or in the straight line of destruction it had projected.

Single Horn followed her, as if sensing it too. The spell that Crimsonfire had used had only been intended to affect one target, the Choggoth, and she knew that the targeting had been correct. Such a spell was simple for her, and she knew that it had been correct. Only Choggoth-material was damaged.

She searched her memory, and recalled from Deeper Cutting’s report that only one fragment of Choggoth had been in use at the time, the others remaining mystically frozen in time deep beneath the laboratory under guard.

As she inspected the corner of a high bookcase, though, she confirmed her suspicions, and her fears. There, between two heavy reference books, was a small pile of black ash.

Chapter 6: To Lie Within the Gloame

The portal dissipated as instantly as it formed. D27 collapsed to the ground below. He was surprisingly depleted; he had greatly overestimated how much magic he had still contained within him, and underestimated how much it had required to breach the dimensional gap.

He pause for only a moment, lying on the stone beneath him, staring at the smoky sky above. It was lit by no sun, nor a moon, but rather by lightning that slowly crept across it, leaving trails of deep red in its wake through the gray and green-yellow haze. From that sky, and from the energy that was rapidly flowing back into him, he knew that he had been successful. He had successfully reached the Gloame.

Slowly, he stood up, although for him it was less of standing and more of reconstructing himself from a highly viscous puddle into what he had come to accept as his default form, a tall, narrow bipedal form.

All around him, the shadows shimmered. Even through there was no sunlight, D27 seemed to cast several shadows, and all stared back at him with pairs of luminescent, white eyes. They watched him for a moment as he began to walk, but then retreated into the forest, their eyes following him from the darkness they produced.

Even the Gloame had changed, D27 found. What had once been a largely empty dimension of rocky, lifeless caverns now housed a tremendous forest of strange, fungoid growths. They resembled trees, or massive mushrooms, and some seemed to be vaguely luminescent; they were things, like him, from elsewhere that had found their way to the Gloame, perhaps drawn to its energy, adapted to a lightless and strange existence.

The shadow beings followed him as he passed through the forest. Through he had lived with them and familiarized himself thoroughly with their habits, D27 knew very little about them. Often, on the cold and endless nights, he had spoken to them. They had never once replied with anything except the blank and perpetual stairs of their glowing eyes.

D27 wandered the forest for some time, following the ethereal trails that would bring him to his destination. In time, though, he came across a clearing, and instantly gained a better understanding of why the Gloame had changed.

There, a large swath had seemingly been gouged from the land, a place where the ancient granite below had once been exposed. This pit, it seemed, had become the grave for the uncountable souls whose skeletons now filled it.

D27 approached one, and to his mild surprise, saw that it was that of a monohorn. There were others as well. They were all ponies, but not all monohorns. Some were Pegasi, and others earth ponies, and a few were something similar with hard, calcified shells and short legs that D27 knew no name for. Most of them were wearing armor, and the remnants of breathing apparatuses. There were also weapons scattered around them.

Approaching one, D27 waved away the shadows and reached down. He lifted one of the weapons. It was preserved almost perfectly, and surprisingly heavy. It appeared to be some kind of energy weapon, but not of Cerorian design. Racking his mind, D27 found that he knew of no word for this type of device, meaning that the pony he had taken his vocabulary from did not know of it. That probably meant that the weapons were obsolete, and far superior weapons existed back in Equestria.

These skeletons, D27 decided, were the result of a rather brutal battle that had taken place in the Gloame. The question, though, was who they had been fighting. They all seemed to be facing the same way, and yet there were no bodies on the other side of the battlefield.

Whoever it was, this battle had taken place long after the war that D27 was familiar with. His only concern was that their enemy might have been Choggoths, which was highly unlikely considering that the Gloame still existed. Choggoths probably could not have entered the Gloame, though. D27 had created a number of seals and protections to ensure that only one Choggoth would generally be able to get through.

Whoever the enemy had been, the battle had provided D27 with an advantage. He had immediately come into position of a vast number of reasonably well-preserved skeletons. Shadows ate flesh, but never consumed bone or horn. D27 had left instructions in his absence; he wondered if the choice skeletons had already been selected for him. For all he knew, there might still even be ponies present, still following the orders they would have found countless eons ago.

So he stood, and began making his way to the castle.

The structure had hardly changed. It was essentially a cave in a monolithic, towering stone structure, but modified through D27’s own manipulation in ancient times as he ate away at the dark stone. Now, it was surrounded by lowland forest where the frozen oceans had once been in the past.

D27 climbed slowly through the stairs he had created so long ago, taking his time as he went and being careful not to step on any mines that the interlopers might have left long ago.

Finding his way inside, D27 was actually somewhat glad to find that there were no ponies in his house. Instead, it was infested with shadows. There was also an ubiquitous sound of clicking footsteps from an unseen source.

Perturbed by his lack of a greeting, D27 sought out the source of the footsteps. In one of the many cavernous rooms, he finally found one of the sources: a tall creature consisting of asymmetrical rock and crystal slowly making its way across the floor.

Noticing D27’s entry, it turned slowly, several crystalline parts of it suspended magically from its structure. It saw D27, and released a surprised sound that was vaguely reminiscent of a drum being beaten underwater.

“Yes,” said D27. “I am back. How long has it been?”

The creature responded.

“Yes, of course. The math. I suppose I can do it later. Easier question: how many of your kind are there now?”

The rock-creature responded, walking across the floor on its four legs, as if about to leave and ignore D27’s return. The reply, though, was most interesting. The number, it seemed, had not changed, despite D27’s best efforts to encourage the creatures to dwell around his castle. That made sense, though, at least on some level. Although they were willing to accept orders, the creatures were quite stubborn, which made the fact that they were the basis for Draconian golems almost ridiculous.

Another several of the creatures entered. They were smaller, resembling crystals with numerous smaller crystal legs. They scuttled about like spiders, releasing squeaking sounds, and D27 smiled. He was, indeed, finally home.

An inspection of the supplies indicated that the proto-golems had indeed followed his orders. The vaults were filled with monohorn skeletons, as well as a much smaller number of earth ponies and Pegasi. D27 doubted that he could use a Pegasus skeleton to fly properly, but it was good to have a few if he needed them.

The old vaults were also largely intact, and despite being hermetically sealed still filled with shadows. There were numerous trihorn skeletons prepared for use, as well as others of the species of D27’s own time. Hopefully, those would not need to be used; a problem with properly preserved and prepared skeletons was a tendency to absorb some elements of the original owner’s personality. Trihorn skeletons almost always led to viciousness and cruelty.

It also seemed that various weapons had been collected, though not processed. There were entire artillery pieces, and heavy armor, as well as endless racks of the weapons that the skeleton ponies outside had previously used. All were in excellent condition, and tests proved that they did, indeed, operate.

With this many weapons and skeletons, retaking Equestria would probably be less difficult. The problem, though, was that D27 had no idea what the conditions of Equestria were; he did not know if the war he had left had been finished, or if his work had been successful, even in part.

He had sensed, however, the presence of certain magic. The type that had awakened him had mostly vanished into the background noise from the sun and moon, but there had been something else of a similar type as well, a beacon of Order pouring out over the land.

There was no time to rest, or to sleep, two things that D27 had already been doing for a very long time. He lingered only long enough to regain his magic from the surrounding environment, and to refit the resources he lost. He refilled himself with mass, and acquired a portal-generation system that was far less power intensive than manual gating.

Then, when he was ready, he turned to whatever proto-golems happened to be around.

“I’m off,” he said.

They only grumbled unintelligibly back.

D27 held out the point of his arm, and developed a hand. A set of precision engineered crystals. Lifting them with his own magic, he produced a triangle, and opened a gate. It was much less noisy and painful that the last one, and he was able to step through with ease.

Immediately, he found himself surrounded by dankness and moisture. The sun was in the sky, but filtered thoroughly through the overgrown trees of the forest. In his restored state, though, the heat of the sun was of little consequence to D27.

D27 felt the air, turning his body slowly to try to find where the signal was the strongest. Indeed, there was something present, a familiar magic, one profoundly different from the type generated by ponies. It was stronger, but also colder, more rigid and sharper.

Upon finding the origin of the magical source, D27 began to move in that direction.

Chapter 7: A Visitor at the Palace

The sun had passed is zenith, and Luna sat up from her bed. She yawned and stretched her wings, the joints of which popped as they extended. She felt groggy and unfocused. Like always, she had not slept well, her morning sleep plagued with recurring nightmares.

Luna stepped out of her warm bed and into the cold air and stone floor beneath her. She groaned; Luna was not a morning pony, even if it was already three in the afternoon. The seasons were starting to change, and the days were getting shorter; that meant that Luna’s workload was increasing, as she had to manage to make the nights longer. She had no idea how her sister had managed to control both the day and night for one thousand years.

The time of moonrise was several hours off, but Luna had numerous royal duties to attend to, so she started to prepare herself by stumbling haphazardly down the dark underground corridors of her personal chambers within the castle. The dim hallways were empty and silent, and by others might even have been construed as lonely. Unlike Celestia, however, Luna preferred this state of things. In the past, when they had ruled from what had since become the Everfree forest, there had been little need for servants or guards, and the two sisters had lived mostly alone with only a small cadre of elite soldiers and gelding servants. In the intervening thousand years, though, the production of geldings for royal service had become seen as “unethical”. As such, she only employed a small number of female servants, all of them of the minority chiropteran pony race.

Luna approached the dark oak door to her personal bath, where one of said female servants was waiting at the door.

“Your highness,” said the dark gray mare, bowing deeply, her surprisingly squeaky and flanged. “Your bath is poured and ready.”

“Thank you, Cavern Melody,” said Luna, smiling as the chiropteran pony pulled open the door for her.

“Did you sleep well, your majesty?” said Cavern Melody, her bright ping, slit-pupiled eyes glancing up at Luna’s disheveled mane.

“I never sleep well,” said Luna, distantly. “But this morning was…worse, than usual. I will take some time. Please, allow no one to enter.”

“As always, your majesty,” said Cavern Melody, bowing again and gently closing the door as Luna entered the room.

The room itself was as grand as ever, consisting of a set of pools carved into the rock of the floor, flowing from one to the next with water that could be either heated by volcanic springs deep beneath the castle or cooled by being piped through the most proximal edges of the vast cavern network that ran below all of Canterlot. Today, like most days, Luna was feeling cold, so the water had been warmed.

Luna slowly stepped into the water, and, despite its warmth shivered as it surrounded her body. The smell and texture of the water was heavenly, and it was clear that Cavern Melody had not been the one to mix the salts and herbs. Her special talent was for her singing ability, which, as a chiropteran, could surpass every other race of pony’s hearing by ten octaves. Whenever she attempted to mix the bathwater, it always came out at the wrong temperature and smelling of seaweed. She had probably gotten help from her brother Well Water, one of the maintenance ponies who helped manage the pipes in the forgotten depths of the castle.

Cavern Melody must have been fully aware that if she were caught bringing a stallion into Luna’s chambers, she could be severely punished, and yet she had gone through the risk to ensure that something as simple as a bath was done to Luna’s liking. Luna smiled at her friend’s devotion.

She leaned back against the edge of the bath, and admired the mural on the side wall. It was a mosaic formed from gemstones, giving an accurate depiction of her own knight sky, the tiny diamond stars illuminated presently with her sister’s light, piped in by a system of mirrors from the surface. The mural produced most of the dim, relaxing moon-like light that filled the room.

The warm, calm water surrounded her, and she felt the stress of the previous day leeching out of her. Ever since the defeat of Tirac and her release from Tartarus, she found that every night she felt a sense of foreboding that she could not place the origin of, as though something was watching her. It was effecting the quality of her sleep, and even the quality of her work; she had already missed a long-awaited show of northern lights over the Crystal Empire an been forced to reschedule.

Luna allowed herself to sink into the water, feeling it cover her muzzle and almost reach to her eyes, and watched as her cloud-like ethereal mane floated over the surface like mist, sparkling in the dim light, merging with the bubbles that floated across the pool.

Suddenly, she realized that something was wrong. She extended her tongue under the water, and realized that it was not water at all- -it was chocolate milk.

“Road apples,” she swore, the words bubbling to the surface, just as the saw a pair of bright red eyes and mismatched horns peering out of the water like a crocodile prepared for attack.

Luna let out a shriek of surprise and attempted to jump out of the pool of milk, only to pull herself back in, covering herself with her foreleg. Across the room, she could see her royal garb prepared for her along with fresh towels: her black crown, silver horseshoes, and, most importantly, her thick black necklace. They were so close, and impossibly far away.

“Now, now,” said Discord, rising from the water, scooping up some bubbles with a lion finger and putting them in his mouth. “Mmm,” he said, shuddering from the flavor. “Pinkie Pie was right! The whipped cream really does pull the whole thing together.” He winced a little. “Though, if I do say, there is a little bit of an aftertaste…like unwashed alicorn.”

“Discord!” cried Luna. “What…what do you mean unwashed?” She shook her head, and instead focused. “What are you doing in my bath? This is an invasion of privacy! I could have you executed for this!”

“And let the whole kingdom know that you were in dessert drink with yours truly?” said Discord, smiling as he leaned in, causing Luna to recoil. She blushed a bright blue color, but refocused her anger.

“Do you have any idea how sticky…” she paused, and face-hooved as a familiar broad smile crossed Discord’s face. “No, I mean, do you know how long it will take to get this milk out of my coat?”

“Coat?” said Discord, suddenly appearing beside her. He ran a finger over an exposed part of her shoulder, and it made a comical squeaking sound. “My dear, alicorns don’t have coats. You are utterly hairless. And your mane, well- -” He poked several holes in it, which rapidly reformed; it was made of magical mist more than it was hair.

“Why are you here, Discord?” demanded Luna, regaining her composure but still not fully prepared to step out of the bath. She was fully aware that the choice was completely illogical; ponies all over Equestria spent most days without clothing, but for a princess to appear without her garb was simply unthinkable. Especially with Discord, who would probably take pictures.

Discord’s expression hardened somewhat, and Luna suddenly felt even less at ease. “I’m actually here on serious business, but I thought I would stop for a drink and a talk with Equestria’s favorite princess.” He bent down and slurped some of the bathwater, swirling it in his mouth before swallowing it.

“We sisters are equally beloved by our subjects,” said Luna sternly. Then, more softly, “or, if anything, my sister is beloved even more so.”

“Oh, Luna, don’t be so hard on yourself! In truth, most of the kingdom does love Celestia, but also finds her vapid and ever so boring. Why, half the colts in Canterlot would give their horns and wings to be where I am right now.”

“Enough of your pointless flattery. Why are you here? What is your complaint this time?”

“Well, aside from the fact that the narrator is absolutely terrible at getting my behaviors correct, I think I really need to talk to you solar-rumped sister.”

Without warning, Discord pulled up a plug from the center of the bath, despite the fact that no such plug had been installed. The chocolate milk swirled and rapidly vacated the pool, drawing discord with it. Within seconds, he swirled down the drain and was out of sight, leaving Luna alone and covered in mild and whipped cream.

Luna looked at the empty pool before her, and then back at the mural, only to fine that Discord had rearranged all the constellations into very rude shapes.

With nothing to say, she simply seethed in silence. Eventually, she sighed. She was going to need to have a long talk with her “solar-rumped” sister.

A smell of pudding slowly filled the hall. At first, it was distant, as if someone in the royal kitchen were preparing a substantial amount for some reason, and the royal guards smiled internally at the thought that they might receive some of the delicious, viscous substance.

As the smell permitted the room, however, it seemed to change. Though it was still sweet, it no longer had an indistinct smell of desert, but rather something more sinister.

“Do you smell that?” asked one of the armored, white-coated guards, turning to his armored companion, concerned that there could be some manner of chemical leak.

“That, my dear clone, is the smell of success,” said Discord, suddenly appearing and wrapping his arms around both guards

“We’re not- -” Then an expression of recognition simultaneously crossed both of their faces, and they jumped back, their horns glowing with magic.

Discord smiled and snapped his fingers, changing the nature of their respective spells. The first of them attempted to project an energy beam, but instead, nothing came out of his horn but a bouquet of calla lilies.

“For me?” said Discord, taking the flowers and smelling them deeply. His eyes teared up. “I…I didn’t know you still cared.”

The other guard fired a moment later, but rather than produce a beam of energy, he sneezed with such force that he slammed against the wall behind him. Part of the sneezing spell ricocheted over the stone of the castle walls, modifying as it went, and impacted a third guard who had heard the commotion and come running. The spell gave him a severe case of hiccups so powerful that he could not focus his attack. The scene would only have been better if the third guard had been a unicorn, so he could spray random spells in random directions. Instead, though, he was a Pegasus; instead of splashing the room with spells, his wings jerked back with every hiccup, sending out plumes of down that only exacerbated the sneezing guard’s problem.

Discord smiled and admired the chaos he had summoned. One hiccupping, one sneezing and releasing spells, and the other panicking as his horn would produce nothing but various types of flowers. It was, indeed, a case of good times.

Then, as quickly as it had started, a pure white magical field permitted the air, and Discord shivered as his chaos magic was reversed.

“Discord,” said a disapproving voice from down the hall.

“Your majesty!” cried all three guards, either bowing or, in the formerly sneezing one’s case, attempting to right himself in order to bow.

“My apologies,” said the one that was apparently the highest ranking. “We…we regret for you to have seen us in this state.”

“You tried your best,” said Celestia, her imposing figure approaching them all, “and had you been facing an ordinary foe, I am sure you would have succeeded in apprehending him.” She smiled, and the head guard nearly burst into tears.

“Thank you, your majesty,” he said.

“You three should probably run along, now,” said Discord. “Before she changes her mind and…” He ran one of his eagle fingers across his neck, making a wholly unpleasant sound with his mouth. His head then promptly fell off, frightening them even further. They looked up to their princess, and she smiled lovingly in return. “Take a break, stallions. And don’t be too hard on yourselves.”

“Yes, your majesty,” said the three white stallions, who fell into formation and marched away down the hall.

“As for you,” said Celestia, addressing Discord’s severed head, “was all that really necessary?”

“I was just doing my part to keep them on their toes. So to speak,” said Discord. He picked up his head and gave it a spin, screwing it back into place. The various flowers that had been spread on the floor rose up as well, hopping on their stems into his hand and forming a multicolored bouquet.

“For you, my liege,” he said, presenting the blooms to Celestia. “And might I say, you look as beautiful as you did the day you first imprisoned me in stone.”

“Oh Discord,” said Celestia, taking the flowers in her magic. She smiled, but Discord knew that the smile was not the same she had given the guards. There was a tiny but noticeable element of disappointment behind it.

Discord had expected as such, which was why he had tried his hardest to keep the emotional field as unleveled as possible. Appearing to Luna in the bath, or to Celestia by disturbing her guards; it kept them unfocused and uncensored, and made them less likely to point out his betrayal of them to Lord Tirac. Still, with that one, incomplete smile, he had already failed.

“I do always appreciate your visits,” said Celestia, “and your brand of…humor.” A male servant appeared, and Celestia handed the flowers to him. “Put these in a vase, if you don’t mind.”

“Yes, your highness,” said the servant.

“But what brings you to the castle today, Discord?”

Discord’s smile vanished. “Straight to business, I see. Your highness, I believe I have detected a threat to the kingdom.”

“A threat?” said Celestia. “Just what kind of threat?”

Discord opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out. “Well,” he said, “I’m not exactly sure.”

“Not sure?”

“Well, not completely, of course. I mean, this is military intelligence after all. Those two words combined just don’t make any sense.” He ran his claw through a mane of perfect red-blond hair that had appeared on his head, an exact copy of that possessed by Dave Mustang. “But I do know this,” he said, the hair vanishing, his expression suddenly becoming serious. “Something is very wrong. The forces of Order are moving.”

“Order?” said Celestia, confused. Discord suddenly appeared next to her, his lion arm around her coatless white body. He pointed at her mane and, looking up, Celestia saw that her ethereal pastel rainbow mane had been changed to one that was clearly fifteen years out date that also looked oddly similar to that of her student, Twilight Sparkle.

“Why,” said discord, “they could be gathering in your fringe at this very moment! And I know how you hate it when things gather in your fringe. I know I do.”

“Discord,” said Celestia with a sigh, magically returning her mane to its normal flowing state. “I see that you are trying to be helpful, but I think you may be trying too hard to atone for your betrayal. I have already forgiven you, as have your other friends. I understand how difficult it can be to reform to good.”

“No, you don’t,” said Discord. He crossed his arms and sniffed. “And I go an take the time to save Equestria from certain destruction, and you don’t even believe me. Do you have any idea how busy I am spreading chaos across the- -I mean, bringing joy to ponyfolk near and far?”

“But what would you have me do? Do you know where this ‘Order’ is currently located?”

“No, not really…”

“Or what it looks like?”

“No…”

“Well, Discord, you know that I live for nothing except the safety and prosperity of Equestria, but I don’t understand what I can do to help you.”

“Oh,” said discord, doubling over in sadness so far that his chin lay on the floor. “So you are saying all I can do is ruin things, aren’t you?”

“No, no,” said Celestia. “What I mean to say is that you should investigate this further.”

Discord strengthened suddenly. “You mean you’re putting me in charge of an official inquiry?”

“Yes,” said Celestia, smiling. “I suppose I am.”

“Oh, you trust me!” squeaked discord. A set of red robes and a broad red hat appeared on his person. “I’ve always wanted to lead an inquisition!”

Before Celestia could explain that she had asked for an investigation, not inquisition, Discord vanished with a pop, off to somewhere unknown and unknowable.

She paused for a moment in the silence of the hallway, feeling the light of her glorious sun flowing through the stained glass windows, most of which had already been restored to their normal state after Tirac’s brief rule over the castle. Despite Discord’s cheerful demeaned, she had detected something deeper within his behavior. Something, indeed, was wrong. She had never seen him so agitated or so afraid, even when she and Luna had attempted to slay him with the Elements of Harmony.

Worse still, although she had used all her royal composure to suppress her reaction, she had recognized the word “Order”. According to her own theories, though, and assuming that Discord had meant what she suspected, such a thing was impossible.

Chapter 8: To Break a Heart

Snow was falling, whipped about by powerful, roaring winds. Through this profound blizzard marched D27. The air was frigid, and visibility low, but neither affected him greatly. He had withstood far colder, and his eyes had adjusted to enable him to see through the thick blizzard.

The signal was growing closer, though. Energy was pouring out of some unseen force. It had become nearly oppressive, and D27 felt himself engulfed in magic. On his way, to some extent, he had hoped that the signal was false, the result of a natural phenomenon. As he approached it, though, he knew that such could not be the case. The sickening, overpowering magic surrounded him like the scent of rotting flowers in a closed room. It was incredibly strong, and incredibly threatening.

Something was strange about the magical force, though, and it became more apparent the closer D27 got to it. The transmission was separated into two parts, as if somepony were trying to conceal its basic nature. A different sort of magic had been projected on top of the transmission, one that D27 did not recognize but that surely would have been felt by organic ponies at least on some level.

Then, out of the blizzard, a light appeared. Approaching it, D27 saw that it was not actually a light, but an area where the dark clouds had separated. Below them was an area with no snow, and no cold, a region of well-lit green life.

As if that were not peculiar enough, it appeared that ponies had taken up residence in the protected zone. In the distance, D27 could see homes made from multicolored crystal, and, in the center, a grand shimmering palace. The signal, it seemed, was coming from the palace itself, making that his goal.

Still, the fact that there was a hard-border between icy, windigo-infested cold and green pasture was disconcerting. Curious, D27 attempted to pass his hand across the hard border. As soon as his mutable flesh attempted to cross the line, though, he felt a surge of magic. Sparks erupted as he was repelled by strong magic.

“They are using it a shield,” he mused to himself. “How novel.”

He looked to either side of himself, attempting to see if there was a break in the shield, but only saw that the border was round, and probably spherical, extending above and below the protected zone. That explained why it had been impossible to get a teleport lock on the source of the transmission.

What D27 did see as he looked, though, was an anomaly around himself. It seemed that he had developed a second shadow, one that closely resembled a monohorn.

As soon as D27 noticed the second shadow, the world seemed to fade. He found himself in a different location, standing on a ledge, staring out across vacuous space. Before him was an endless plane of smooth gray below an equally smooth colorless, cloudless sky; the only indication of a horizon in the infinite distance was a thin glowing line

There, before him, centered in the gray infinity, was a profoundly vast structure. In some ways, it resembled a tree, with a trunk of darkened crystal stretching toward the void above, piercing the empty heavens with billions of miles of crystal. It was not a tree, though, because it was not solid. Parts of its consisted of spheres, floating and orbited by spheres of their own, their surfaces reflective but reflecting far more than the empty grayness, all of them orbiting slowly, their paths defined by perfect mathematical coordination.

D27 could feel the magic of it permeating the atmosphere. Not only did it fill it, but constituted it; D27 was not breathing air, but rather thick, toxic magic. It felt like blades in his respiratory organs. He felt it being conscious of him, and watching, staring into him, knowing all aspects of him throughout all time. He knew the purpose of this device, this being: the death and destruction of all things.

He smiled, and shook what was analogous to his head. The illusion shattered around him. He turned to the pony-shaped shadow.

“Are you attempting to show me my greatest fear?” he asked.

“What was that?” the shadow seemed to growl back, although it might just have been the wind.

“It was the greatest fear of my people, one that was programmed into all of us at the inception of our people.”

“But the illusion…”

“I have met the Soth on several occasions. Though I fear it more than anything, it is a part of me. However, you, shadow, are not.”

Before the shadow could escape, several tendrils burst forth from D27’s lower body, piercing it and transfixing it to the ground. Though the magical aura was weak, he instantly understood, not just the nature of the shadow, but the situation before him as well.

“I am so sorry,” said D27, frowning, feeling a sudden wave of pity for the shadow remnants of a pony that surged around his feet. He turned back to the shielded city before him. “You attempted to wield its power, and it destroyed you. You had no idea what you are doing, what it truly was. It was not meant for the hooves of mortals.”

“I…need it…” said the shadow, and D27 realized that it was not actually speaking. The voice of King Sombra was within his own mind.

“Even after it destroyed you?”

“I…need it…”

Arguing with it was of no use. The former king was too far gone. His remains only barely clung to life, powered by the residual Order magic within his body. The same force that had once given him power had ravaged his physical form, leaving him nothing more than a fragment of a soul clinging to a the tatters of a mind and a body of black smoke.

“Perhaps I shall avenge you,” said D27, pressing his hand against the shield of the city before him. This time, he did not recoil, but allowed the energy to surround his hand, arcing and interacting with his own Order magic.

“You cannot break the barrier…it is powered by love…”

“Love is no different from fear,” said D27. “It is nothing more than an illusion.”

His body shifted. He drew on his reserves of mass, expanding himself physically, converting his normally semi-liquid surface into hard, resistant plates of blue armor. At the same time, he adjusted his own frequency of magic to more closely approximate the magic of the shield. His body and magic sparked, and his now hulking form stepped forward.

His magic surrounded him, protecting and defending him from the powerful offensive magic, but the shield bent as he stepped into it, deforming at the presence of another source of Order. The fundamental spell lacked volition, and began to crack; then, with a burst of rainbow mist, shattered, allowing D27 and a flurry of frozen air to enter the Crystal Empire.

Shining Armor laid on the bed, his wife sprawled out beside him. Cadence’s wings were extended, and Shining Armor slowly ran her feathers through his mouth, gently preening them. They tasted dusty, and slightly like something reminiscent of coconut, which was what Cadence tended to taste like in general. As he moved from feather to feather, Cadence would occasionally coo with pleasure, and her wings would further stiffen, as if instinctively awaiting further preening.

Being married to the Princess of Love indeed had its advantages. Cadence was a beautiful pony, both in body and in spirit, and Shining Armor loved her more than anything in all of Equestria, and he knew that she loved him equally in return, with a beautiful mix of passion and intimacy.

Suddenly, Cadence’s eyes widened, and she doubled over into a fetal position, crying out in pain. Shining Armor jumped back, his mouth filled with grape-colored feathers that he promptly spat out.

“Cadence, I’m sorry!” he cried, using his magic to draw a first-aid kit from under the nightstand, thinking that he had broken a feather. Surprisingly, their bedroom first-aid kit had seen quite a bit of use since they had arrived in the Crystal Empire.

“The barrier,” gasped Cadence, clearly in pain but attempting to right herself. “The barrier has been breached!”

D27 marched through the streets of the city. He had accumulated a significant amount of mass, both from his storage supplies in the Gloame and from Equestria, and now stood higher than most of the crystal buildings around him.

The force of the magic emanating from the central palace was intense, and occasionally it would burst across his armored shell in unpredictable surges of force; as such, he was only able to move slowly. The repelling force was minor compared to the barrier surrounding the protected zone, and he had already burst through that with relative ease.

Below him, ponies scampered away from his massive feet. Many of them were screaming and trying to pull their young to safety, even though D27 was taking care not to crush any of them. Much to his dismay, a large number of the ponies appeared to be heavily afflicted with the effects of the Order that permitted the kingdom. Their bodies had been rendered translucent and faceted, almost like organic crystal. Their plight was unfortunate, but D27 knew that he was able to rescue them.

Above him, several winged ponies appeared, travelling toward him at high speed. D27’s triangular organs refocused, magnifying them, and he saw that they were a team of mostly Pegasi, with two chimeric creatures that he understood were called “griffons”.

D27 reinforced his armor, and waited for the sting of energy weapons and particle beams against his shell. The blows never came, though, and D27 looked again. The flying ponies did not seem to be armed, which made them completely pointless in combat. The worst they could possibly do was to ram themselves against D27, which would probably do more damage to themselves than him.

Still, the city was large. The fact that there was an air force meant that there might a greater military presence, perhaps with artillery or armored units. D27 could see the magic emanating from his target; he would need to accelerate his approach if he were to reach it before more substantial defenses could be placed in his way.

“By Celestia,” gasped Shining Armor. Even without the spyglass, he was able to see the creature approaching the palace. Even in his in-depth studies of every creature or magical construct that could conceivably be a threat to Equestria, he had never heard a description of anything remotely similar to the long-armed, thick-bodied blue juggernaut that was approaching them.

“Prepare archers!” he ordered.

“Sir, we can’t,” said the crystalline soldier beside him. “There is too high of a risk of civilian casualties.”

“It’s being attracted to the Crystal Heart,” said Cadence, suddenly appearing beside Shining Armor.

“Princess,” said Shining Armor, “you need to get to safety immediately!”

“Don’t you ‘Princess’ me, Shining,” snapped Cadence. She turned back to the creature in the distance. “The Pegasi can’t do anything against it. Can’t you see it?”

Shining Armor could, or rather, feel it. It was like an unpleasant vibration in his horn, or a sense of foreboding. He had felt it before. It was the same black aura that King Sombra had released before the Crystal Heart had terminated his pitiful half-alive state.

Cadence spread her beautiful, bicolor wings and, before Shining Armor could stop her, she took flight.

“Cadence!” he cried as she swooped downward toward the creature, her flight unsteady from lack of practice.

As he called out, the space in the distance distorted, and two triangular portals opened up: one across the city, near the creature, and the other closer, near the palace. Without hesitation, the creature passed through and crossed the entire city in a single step, leaving the portals to close behind it.

“No,” said Shining Armor. “Mobilize the unicorns! Bring me my armor! I need to get down there!”

The soldier hesitated for a moment, a look of terror on his face, but then did as he was told.

D27 passed through the portal, feeling his magic distort as he did. Opening a space-to-space portal was dangerous and power-intensive; the device he had built was meant to move from the Gloame to Panbios, not between two places in Panbios. Unfortunately, he had not brought any monohorn skulls to perform a teleportation spell; he doubted it would be useful anyway, considering the size he needed to maintain to resist the magical field that permeated the kingdom.

His magical reserves had been damaged, and his body had taken some internal radiation burning, but the effect had been worth it to accelerate his passage to the source of Order. Time was of the essence.

Before him, a small contingent of armored monohorns had gathered. Their horns glowed with energy, and a large curved barrier formed between them and D27. At the same time, ice arrows rained down from above.

D27 paused, but only because of his confusion. He did not understand why they were using such inferior weapons and primitive magic against him. He understood that, with only single horns, monohorns were inherently handicapped in terms of magical stability, but he was sure that these were the same creatures who had brought heavy weapons into the Gloame. For a moment, he wondered if they were planning something, or attempting to trick him.

Not that it mattered either way, of course. The arrows rained down uselessly over his armor, and he raised one of his massive stone-like fists and, summoning a field of Order around it, pounded it into the translucent shield that the monohorns had projected.

The shield shattered instantly, D27’s magic backfeeding into the monohorn’s own organic magic. Their horns sparked, and they were instantly rendered unconscious. The field had actually been far stronger than D27 had expected, and was confident that the feedback had not killed any of them. Monohorns were far more powerful than he remembered; if they had been better trained in that spell, he would almost surely have been unable to break it.

D27 turned his attention to the center of the palace, and his triangular eyes adjusted to see through the magic better. When he saw it, he paused for a second time, taken aback by the abomination before him. He had understood that the magic was probably being projected by a fragment of Order, but before him, spinning frantically, spewing out toxic magic, was a Heart of Order.

Around it was a crystalline structure, and D27 realized that what he had taken for a palace was actually a synthetic crystalline transmitter, a perverse machine designed to harness the power of a god.

“What have you done?” whispered D27, as if to King Sombra. This was a device that no sane being would ever use, let alone create, if they fully understood the horror that was a Lord of Order, a child of the Soth.

As D27 stared into the Heart, he remembered something about himself. He recalled how he had died.

“This time I will not fail,” he boomed as he moved forward with speed that surprised even him. He stepped directly into the primary corona of the Heart, and it resisted, heaving out prodigious quantities of magic with no conscious volition. It was resisting purely on instinct.

D27 anchored himself into the ground and stretched out his arm toward the Heart. He concentrated, engaging the required spell, and his surface changed; the normally blue hard surface became more metallic, separating into plates and intricate arcane designs, forming a gauntlet that would allow him to handle the Heart without being obliterated.

He extended his hand deeper into the core, and the heart sun faster. Prominences of rainbow energy refracted from within its crystal structure, scattering across D27’s body. The force of the magic was actually painful, and D27 could feel his body tearing apart, both from the force of the Heart and from the energy of his own magic, which was being rapidly depleted. If it ran out, he knew that he would be killed.

A bolt of energy struck him from the side, and he cried out in pain as a beam of magic bored through his body. He turned shifted his triangular eyes, and below him saw a small pink winged creature. She was essentially a pony, but her figure was gaunt and distorted. She had wings and a horn, which D27 understood meant that she was called an “alicorn”. The magic she exuded was exponentially higher than any normal monohorn. She stared at him with righteous anger, her horn glowing with energy that was curiously reminiscent of Order magic.

When D27’s eyes wandered to the insignia on her flank, he instantly understood, perhaps more so than the thin alicorn did herself. She bore the mark of the Heart of Order. She was its creation, a being created probably over the course of decades to serve the Heart and its motivations, a replacement for her failed predecessor King Sambra.

“You fool,” boomed D27. “You do not understand what this is, what you are. I could cure you.”

“You will never take the Crystal Heart!” she shouted.

“I do not intend to take it,” said D27, “I intend to destroy it.”

He gripped the Heart tighter, and his claws reached its horrid surface. It stopped spinning, and he began to pull it free of the false body that maintained its fragmentary life.

The response was tremendous; the entire transmitting tower backfed into the Heart, producing an explosion of magical prominences and fields that knocked the alicorn back, breaking one of her wings in the process. D27 held his ground, even as twenty percent of his body was rendered biologically inert. He had come too far to fail now; this heart was an abomination, a relic of a dead age, a part of a hideous creature that had no business existing in Panbios.

As he drew out the Heart, he suddenly heard a cry from beside him. There, not forty feet away, were a pair of afflicted ponies, one of them an adult female and the other a filly. They were not armored, so they were not soldiers; they must have been fleeing from D27’s advance. They now stood transfixed by the glow of the heart, trapped in place by arcs of magic that landed around them at seemingly random intervals.

D27 expanded his internal mind, and ran a calculation for the prominence storms of the Heart, and determined that the two were standing in exactly the wrong spot.

There was no time to warn them, or to stop the Heart; a curving jet of superheated magic poured out with a deafening sound. D27 had no choice. The left side of his body morphed, and a narrow arm extended rapidly, interposing itself between the arc and the two ponies.

He screamed as the extension of his body absorbed the magical force, vaporizing instantly and transmitting the remainder of the energy into his own body, tearing him apart internally and fragmenting his magic. As he had anticipated, with most of his magic focused on the Heart, there was nothing left to protect him; just preserving his life used most of the remainder of his energy. He absorbed a significant amount of it into himself, and discharged a substantial portion of it into the ground behind him, but even doing that was nearly fatal.

The magic discharge from the heart suddenly blew him back, and the Heart rebounded to its position between the two points of its normal residence.

D27 had failed, but that was the least of his concern. His body was losing integrity, and he was reverting to a liquid state, his mass decreasing a profoundly.

“Cadence!” cried a voice. D27 saw a heavily armored monohorn stallion standing over the unconscious body of the alicorn nearby. He looked at the writhing mass that was D27, and glared. As he did, a contingent of monohorns surrounded them, their horns glowing with energy.

“My advice,” hissed D27. “Destroy it…it does not deserve life.”

With his final words, he reverted to a fully liquid state and squirmed away rapidly.

“After it!” cried Shining Armor. He moved to engage himself, but then stopped when he realized that although the monster was gone, its shadow had remained.

The shadow sparked with blue energy, and then seemed to writhe itself. It became solid, and darker, turning into a tar-like substance. Then, suddenly, it rose up, gaining form. A head emerged, and then a torso, pulling itself from the muck, the black substance converging into a pair of red and green eyes, and a red, pointed horn.

“I must…have it,” cried King Sombra, pulling a solidified version of himself from the shadow, reaching out for the slowly revolving Crystal Heart.

D27 reached the edge of the kingdom as quickly as he could, and reformed the several pieces of his liquid body into a single form. Several Pegasi were pursuing him, and he needed to escape.

Drawing the pieces of himself together, D27 formed a hard spherical shape and, with the remainder of his magic, levitated himself and burst forward with a tremendous burst of speed into the blizzard. The Pegasi followed for a moment, but D27 accelerated a second time, moving too far for them to see. In seconds, he had lost them.

Chapter 9: A Change of Tactics

D27 collapsed onto the floor of his castle. Since the floor was not level, he began to slide to one end, much to the amusement of the proto-golems wandering aimlessly through the labyrinthine halls. He was already restoring energy, but his poor mood was caused by more than depletion of magic and the loss of a significant portion of mass.

The situation in Equestria was worse than he had expected. It was still in the grips of the influence of the Lords of Order, at least in the bizarre sense of a kind of historical echo. Worse, in his haste, D27 had failed. The Heart would most likely be even more heavily guarded next time, let alone how heavily the Finality Core might be protected, assuming it even still existed.

It was not a total loss, though. At least D27 had learned the nature of one artifact. The Heart itself was not so much a danger to his plans anyway as it was a danger to those around it, anyway. There was no chance that it could regenerate into a full Lord of Order, at least in theory. The presence of an alicorn was a disturbing development, though; it meant that even without a mind the Heart was capable of influencing ponies down to a genetic level to achieve its own goals, even across generations. Of course, D27 doubted that Lords of Order had ever truly been sentient.

“What do you think?” he asked a passing proto-golem. It only grumbled.

“You’re right,” said D27, drawing his foam-like body into a singular shape, restoring himself to a smaller version of his normal bipedial shape. “A lack of intelligence- -hey, wait. Did you just insult me?”

The proto-golem laughed, but D27 knew that despite the play on words, it was correct. He had no idea what was going on in Equestria. He did not fully understand the situation, or the inhabitants. That made military action difficult, especially in his limited state. The only logical recourse was to acquire more information about them. This conclusion was motivated both by a desire to better understand the tactical weaknesses of pony armies, but also out of pure curiosity. D27 had very rarely been able to exist in two evolutionary epochs, and he strongly desired to know how the world had changed while he had been dormant.

For this, he had a plan.

The portal sealed behind him, and the three crystals floated amongst each other. D27 extended his spike-like arm toward them, and they burst downward with tremendous force, imbedding themselves into three moss-covered rocks at the bottom of the forests. Monohorns had advanced substantially since his own time, and there was a risk that they would be able to detect he magic of the portal, even when inactive.

Slowly, he made his way through the forest, hoping that there were no zebras this time. As he did, he focused on what he needed to do. It would be difficult, but not beyond his ability, or so he hoped.

It only took a few minutes until he reached the edge of the forest, where the gray light became bright and colorful. In the distance, a pony settlement was visible, and D27 could even see several ponies in the far distance, laughing and smiling as they went about their daily lives, unaware that they were being watched by a Choggoth.

D27 took a breath, somewhat surprised that he possessed lungs instead of the normal gill-like structures. Then he put his arms to the ground and focused on the physical structure of his body.

His mass and shape shifted, moving as he commanded. His arms and legs thickened and developed a clear structure, the ends dulling and retracting into claws, and then finally into hooves. His body thickened, and extended a pseudopod that became a neck, and then a head. His triangular organs moved to his newly formed head, and twisted and narrow, becoming black triangular pupils in the center of wide, round, white eyes. A mouth separated, and D27 felt the presence of teeth and a tongue.

The sensation was uncomfortable to say the least, and required a significant compression of mass. If D27 had been any heavier, he would not have been able to do it; he made a mental note that as long as he sought to maintain this form, he would have to limit his mass to three tons.

When he was finished, he licked his teeth. That was a strange sensation, and to his dismay, he found that what should have been broad, flat teeth were wide-spaced and viciously pointed. Likewise, hair had been difficult to render; instead of a mane, he had a set of pointed ridges that ran along his head and spine that contained the synthetic organs that he used to project Order Magic. Likewise, his tail had come out segmented and hairless.

“Coprolite,” he said to himself. “I look like a trihorn.”

It would have to do, though. Although D27 could be loosely defined as a shapeshifter, his normal function was to adjust organs and structures in response to hostile environments; he was not remotely adept at replicating physical forms. He was relatively sure, though, that he resembled a pony at least closely enough to be accepted as one as long as no one looked too closely.

Slowly, he stepped forward, stumbling and shaking. Hooves were surprisingly difficult to walk with, and having four legs on the ground at the same time was difficult to coordinate. It was actually somewhat ironic that a creature that had laid siege to a pony city almost effortlessly could hardly even walk as a pony; D27 realized this irony, and smiled at it.

After several minutes of practice, he finally gained adequate dexterity to walk somewhat slowly toward the town.

Twilight burst through the grand crystal door, and, still somewhat unaccustomed to her newfound alicorn magic, nearly tore it free of its hinges, frightening the royal guards who had been tasked with guiding her into the castle.

Her eyes darted across the room, and fell on Cadence and Shining Armor. Both looked haggard and tired, as though they had not slept in days. Cadence in particular looked pale, and one of her wings was in a sling.

“Shining! Cadence!” cried twilight, galloping to them at full speed. “I’m so glad you’re okay!” She wrapped her brother in a hug, and then hugged Cadence, who winced as her broken wing was compressed.

“I’m sorry!” cried Twilight.

“It’s okay,” said Cadence.

“When I heard from the princess that the Crystal Empire had been attacked, I came as soon as I could.” That was actually somewhat incomplete of a statement; when she had heard, she teleported several times, moving as fast as she could toward in the Crystal Empire, and flew the remainder of the way before her wings had given out and she had been forced to take the train. “Are you alright? You’re wing- -”

“Broken,” said Cadence, “but it’s a simple fracture. It will heal within a few days.”

Twilight turned to Shining Armor. “How could something get past the guards?” She instantly regretted mentioning it, as Shining Armor’s face sunk. He could not bear to bring himself to look at his sister or his wife; it was clear that he blamed himself for what happened.

“I’m- -I’m sorry,” said Twilight. “I’m just so glad you are both okay.” She hugged them again. “But what happened? Princess Celestia only said that something invaded the kingdom.”

“That is what we are here to determine,” said a voice from the far side of the room. Twilight turned to see two tall, narrow figures entering the room.

“Princess Celestia!” she said, surprised. “And Princess Luna!”

The two alicorns strode into the room, and Twilight started to bow before recalling that she, too, was a princess now.

“Princesses,” said Shining Armor, bowing. “The threat has been repelled; there is no need for you to have come all this way.”

“And if it returns, it will not stand against four princesses,” said Luna.

“But concentrating all of you here is dangerous. Without you, Canterlot’s defenses will be significantly lacking.”

“Not to worry, Shining Armor,” said Celestia, smiling, her motherly voice seeming to calm him. “I left it in capable hands.”

“Whose hands?” asked Shining Armor.

“Discord’s,” said Celestia.

“Discord!” cried Shining Armor, his face contorting in anger. “After what he did to Cadence, to you two? To me, and to Twilight? To all of Equestria?”

“Do you doubt your Princess?” said Luna, raising her voice harshly.

“No, your highness,” said Shining Armor, lowering his head.

“Should anything attack Canterlot,” explained Celestia, “Discord’s orders were to use his chaos magic to summon me there instantly.”

“He can do that?” asked Twilight, in awe.

“Discord can do a great many things,” replied Celestia. “Now, Cadence and Shining Armor: please take a seat, and explain what happened here.”

They took their seats around a table, and Shining Armor relayed the situation with all the detail of the military reports he was accustomed to. Cadence spoke less, but filled in the parts of the story where Shining Armor had not been present. They both described in great detail the bizarre creature that had entered the kingdom, and how it had attempted to steal the Crystal Heart, and how it was defeated, only for the shade of King Sambra to rise from its shadow.

“King Sambra?” said Twilight in disbelief. “But I thought he was…you know…dead.” She hesitated to use the word, because it implied that Cadence had been the one to slay him; that was arguably justifiable, but Twilight could not bear to place the blame for such an act on her beloved sister-in-law.

“It is not truly possible to destroy a shadow,” said Luna. “One may be lit, and it may appear to be gone, but when the light fades, it may appear again. This is, perhaps, our own failure, for having not slain him completely when Celestia and I originally defeated him with the Elements of Harmony.”

“He was dead long before he stepped out of that shadow,” said Cadence with a coldness in her voice that caused the others to all look to her. “Whatever it was that came out, it wasn’t alive anymore. It was…empty, in pain.” She shivered, and Shining Armor put his foreleg around her. “Even Sambra…even he didn’t deserve a fate like that.”

“And you managed to defeat him?” said Luna.

“Yes,” said Cadance. “I came too just in time to stop him from reaching the Heart…it was…” She shivered again, this time far more powerfully, and she put her hooves to her face.

“Sambra’s form was incompletely reconstructed,” said Celestia, inferring as to what had happened. “I understand what destroying him must have been like, and I am sorry you had to see that, but you did the right thing.”

“I know,” said Cadence. “But the blood…”

Twilight gasped, and a vision of what had probably happened surfaced to her mind. She understood enough magic to know what King Sambra’s resurrecting body was like, and she knew her own abilities well enough to know what alicorn magic could do to such a weak physical form. The result, even in her mind, was terrifying and left her feeling sick.

“That does beg the question,” said Luna. “If Sambra was so weak, how did he manage to summon the creature you described?”

“I’m not aware of any creature like that,” said Twilight. “I mean, I can check my books again, but I don’t recall coming across one like that before…”

“Neither do I,” said Celestia. “Although I do not think it was something of Sambra’s creation. More likely, Sambra simply followed it inside when it broke through the Crystal Empire’s barrier.”

“There are a number of individuals and creatures that would like to use the Crystal Heart for their own gain,” said Luna, “although very few that could pierce the barrier protecting it.”

“It didn’t want to use the heart,” said Cadence.

“Then what was it trying to do?” asked Shining Armor.

“It…it spoke to me.”

“It spoke?” said Twilight in disbelief. The idea of speech piqued her curiosity, and also somehow terrified her. She had read accounts of ponies in the distant past having created golems from inanimate material, and that was what she assumed this particular creature was, although she was not confident enough to say so in front of Celestia. Golems could not speak, though; the ability for this creature to speak implied sentience, which made its existence even more frightening.

“It said that its goal was to destroy the Crystal Heart. It said it was trying to cure me?”

“Did it say from what?” asked Luna.

“No.”

They were all silent for a moment. Then Celestia spoke. “This is disconcerting. I am not sure, but this might be what Discord meant.”

“Discord?” said Shining Armor. “If he is responsible for this, I will personally shove his mismatched horns down his throat!”

“Shining,” said Twilight. She had never seen her brother like this.

“I’m sorry, Twilie,” he said, his expression softening slightly, “but you didn’t see it. That thing- -it could have destroyed us. It could have killed Cadence, and my men.”

“I have been watching Discord closely,” said Celestia.

“Not closely enough,” muttered Luna.

“And he is not responsible for this. However, he did come to me several days ago. He was agitated, more so than I have ever seen him.”

“Fluttershy said the same thing,” said Twilight, surprised. “She said that something was bothering him during their weekly tea meeting.”

“I can’t say for sure that this is what he was so concerned with,” said Celestia. “But the two may relate.”

The conversation continued. The potential nature of the monster was considered further; Luna and Celestia seemed to believe that it was something of natural occurrence, while Shining Armor brought up the possibility that it might have been something of changeling origin. They also discussed the recourse for the problem; Celestia would send soldiers to bolster the Crystal Empire’s defense, just in case there was another attack. They also began to coordinate a search grid, even after Shining Armor’s soldiers had failed to find the monster in the wasteland that surrounded the Crystal Empire.

Twilight had some difficulty focusing, though. She kept looking to her brother and her sister-in-law, the latter of whom had become terribly silent and forlorn as the conversation had gone on. Their lives, it seemed, were plagued by disaster, specifically from ancient evils from various sources. There had been the changeling queen at their wedding, and then King Sombra, and Lord Tirac; now there was another one. Twilight could not help but feel like the world was collapsing around her. She was afraid, and found herself wishing to go back to what she had once been. She had no idea that the burdens of being a princess would be so much to bear, and the crushing, inescapability of it only exacerbated her feelings of dread.

In time, the meeting ended. Luna was due to raise the moon, and the sun was already setting in the western horizon. Plans had been laid, and things would be done, but Twilight knew that nothing would really be accomplished. There would be the moving of soldiers, and the initiation of searches, but those were perfunctory responses. Nothing would be accomplished, because nothing could be accomplished, at least not yet.

The two elder princesses bid farewell, and left the others. As the door closed behind them, Twilight found that she was not sure exactly what to say.

“Don’t worry,” she said, forcing a smile, “the princesses seem to be taking the threat really seriously. I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”

“I know,” said Shining Armor. “We know. It was just a really close.”

“I can stay here, if you want me to,” said Twilight. “I’m sure there’s a lot that needs to be done and damage to be repaired. The crystal ponies are probably terrified.”

“The Crystal Heart is dangerously weak,” said Cadence, speaking for the first time in nearly an hour. “My people are frightened, and that prevents the Heart from working properly.”

“If they hadn’t seen us repel the enemy…” said Shining Armor.

“I would rather not dwell on that,” said Cadence. She turned her large eyes toward Twilight. “But no. You shouldn’t stay here.”

“But Cadence…”

“If it attacks again, you might need to use the Elements of Harmony against it.”

Twilight understood the implication. Alone, she was only as powerful as a strong unicorn. With her friends, though, their combined power was significantly greater. From Cadence and Shining Armor’s description of the creature, it seemed like something that would require as much power as possible to defeat.

“Alright,” said Twilight. “But don’t worry. Defeating evil monsters has kind of become a career for me.”

“Shining?” said Cadence.

“Yes?” said her husband, who had before been lost in thought, perhaps planning battle plans or the best grid pattern to search the tundra outside.

“Could you bring me some tea?”

“Of course.” Like the gallant gentalcolt that he was, he departed the room to find her a source of tea.

“Twilight,” said Cadence after he had left.

“What is it?”

“I don’t think the creature is evil.”

“How could it not be evil?” Twilight laughed humorlessly. “After what it did to the Crystal Empire- -after what it did to you?”

“You’re more like your brother than you know,” said Cadence, smiling. Her smile then slowly collapsed into a frown. “My memory is scattered. When that…whatever it was…tried to take the heart, there was a kind of reaction.”

“A coronal decomposition field, most likely,” noted Twilight.

“It was a violent reaction, as if the Heart were trying to protect itself. A pair of ponies- -a mother and her filly- -got to close…”

“Oh Celestia!” gasped Twilight. She knew at least theoretical what coronal decomposition was like, and what it could do to any pony who came to close to it. “They weren’t- -”

“No. The creature protected them, at great personal cost to itself.”

“What kind of cost?”

“I think that…if it had let those two die, it would have succeeded at taking the Heart.”

“But why would it protect them? That doesn’t make any sense.”

“I don’t know either,” said Cadence. “Right now, all I want to is drink my tea, go to bed, and have Shining hold me until I fall asleep.” Seeing the look of discomfort on Twilight’s face, she added “Sorry.”

“No, I understand,” said Twilight. She understood that they were married, and also recalled numerous times in her life times that she had wished that she had somepony to hold her when she was sad or frightened.

“Just be careful, Twilight.”

“You are hiding something, sister,” said Luna.

“What would make you say that?”

Luna paused, and looked out at the crystal windows at the setting sunset. Even as her sun was lowered, it was still so beautiful. “One cannot know somepony for three millennia without learning them well. We are sisters, after all.”

“I have suspicions,” said Celestia, “but none are concrete enough to act upon.”

“And you don’t care to share them with me?”

“There simply is nothing to share yet,” said Celestia, calmly.

“It concerns before, doesn’t it? Before we were…this…”

“It may.”

“You are surely aware that I have no memories from before our mutual apotheosis.”

Celestia paused, and looked directly into her sister’s eyes. “Please, Luna, understand me: that is a blessing.”

“I know,” said Luna, lowering her head and staring out at the sunset. Celestia placed her wing around her younger sister.

“I do not know what this creature is,” she said. “But I know of one who might.”

Chapter 10: The Floating Mountain

Crimsonflame flapped her great wings, pushing herself higher, easily cutting through the thin clouds that drifted lazily above Panbios. The air was cold and thin, and she breathed it deeply. Flying was something she rather enjoyed, but something that there had precious little time to practice, even since before the war had started.

Before her, a mountain loomed in the distance. Crimsonflame had long since passed the height of even the tallest mountains, and she knew that what she was seeing was not a peak at all. In fact, on her horizontal approach to the massive stone, she was able to see the bottom of it, where hundreds of feet of gold-colored metal extended from the bottom of the mountaintop, forming the gyroscopes and grand-scale clockwork that allowed the home of the Aurasi to levitate.

This was actually the first time that Crimsonflame had ever witnessed Olympus, a mountaintop that normally hovering over a distant continent, moving slowly and at random. It was truly breathtaking that something such as it could have been constructed without the use of magic.

There was no time for sightseeing, though. Crimsonflame drew closer to the rocky edge of the mountain, and as she did, she saw that she was not alone. All around her were silver-bodied Argasi and dull, dark colored Brontasi, their bronze wings beating heartily to move their heavy bodies through the air even at low speeds. There were even several Aurasi flying gracefully in formation above.

Crimsonflame largely ignored them and landed on one of the many iron runways extending from the edge of the mountain. As she pulled her wings back through the slits in the rear of her robe, Single Horn fluttered awkwardly, landing ungracefully beside her.

Single Horn was panting heavily, but still managed to stand. Her horn glowed as she dispelled the magical wings that Crimsonflame had taught her how to create.

“Are you okay?” asked Crimsonflame.

“Yes,” said Single Horn, with some difficulty.

“The air is thin here,” said Crimsonflame, “recall that Aurasi do not breathe. Will you be able to cast the necessary breathing spell?”

“Yes,” said Single Horn, her horn glowing with white light as she produced the necessary changes to her lungs.

“Good,” said Crimsonflame. Sometimes, it seemed that her student grew in power inversely related to the condition of Panbios. The war was being lost. Choggoths had already gained a foothold on most borders of the continents and were advancing rapidly, consuming everything in their path. Attempts to repel them had proven only mildly successful and, after severe bubbling by several trihorn generals, Ceroria itself stood on the verge of being overtaken.

Crimsonflame herself had been called into numerous battles as well. She now sported numerous new scars, and part of her lower jaw had only recently been surgically repaired. Those wounds were minor, though, compared to the friends she had lost.

Two Argasi guards had been placed at the door to the landing platform. As Crimsonflame approached, they extended their bladed innermost wings, blocking the door.

“Halt!” they both said in unison. “This entrance is for official use only!”

Crimsonflame pulled back her hood, revealing her face, and saw the terror in the Argasi’s metallic eyes. “I am Grand Magus of the Draconian Federation,” she said. “I have been summoned by your master, Lord Goldmist.”

“Of…of course,” they said, lowering their wings and allowing Crimsonflame to pass.

Only after she had passed did she hear a squeak of displeasure. She turned to see the guards blocking Single Horn.

“What is the meaning of this?” said Crimsonflame angrily.

“We cannot permit uninspected agricultural products to enter Olympus.”

“She is not a vegetable,” said Crimsonflame, smoke dripping from her mouth. “Let her through. Or perhaps you would rather send a courier to Goldmist to tell him why you made him wait? Tell me, does he still tear the wings off the subjects who displease him?”

The two guards looked nervous again and, after silent deliberation, lowered their wings and allowed Single Horn to pass.

With Single Horn at her side, Crimsonflame began to ascend the mountain.

The structure of Olympus was modeled directly on its social hierarchy. The actual hierarchy was relatively complex, but was essentially divided into three tiers that were dependent on metal. The Brontasi dwelt on the lowest level. They were made from bronze, and their physical design was simple and heavy. Most of the Brontasi that Crimsonflame had met in her life had been good natured but simpleminded, although some had been cruel and some had been intelligent. Within the hierarchy, the Brontasi were largely manual laborers who worked in the factories or maintained the levitation systems for the mountain. They also made up the bulk of the nation’s soldiers, although soldier Brontasi were larger and considered to be a higher caste than their smaller brethren, on par with the lowest of Argasi.

The silver Argasi lived on the second level of the mountain, which was the area where Crimsonflame and Single Horn had landed. They lived in larger, less crowded houses; many of them were artisans or engineers, and some were quite wealthy. Militarily, they served as basic units in the air force, or as captains of ground troops.

Crimsonflame watched as the metal and stone houses she passed grew increasingly grand as she rose higher on the mountain. Well-dressed Argasi marched along the street, smiling, as if there were no war threating all life in Panbios. They were shopping, talking, eating, and enjoying life, sometimes laughing at their Brontasi servants. They laughed and played while their people were dying in the war below. It made Crimsonflame sick.

Finally, though, she came to the edge of the topmost portion of the mountain. That, she knew, was the dwelling place of the Aurasi, the gold-bodied rulers of Olympus and its associated colonies. As far as Crimsonflame knew, the Aurasi served essentially no purpose, aside to live lives of luxury from the money taken from the lower castes. From what she knew of their religion, the Aurasi were considered the direct descendants of the mythical fourth class, the Adamantasi. The authority of the Aurasi was not of a religious nature, though; the six hundred year rule of Goldmist had essentially brought an end to any sort of religion that might have existed before him.

As Crimsonflame passed through the grand golden gates at the base of the heavily fortified mountaintop, the difference between the Aurasi and the Argasi became apparent. Unlike the Argasi, the Aurasi possessed no city; the mountaintop was bare, save for the delicate gardens and orchards of golden apple trees. Instead of many houses, they lived in one single, massive golden palace at the top of the mountain, the Palace of the Gods.

Crimsonflame and Single Horn climbed higher on the golden path, rising through fluffy clouds that drifted by. Crimsonflame pushed away the clouds, and Single Horn seemed enamored with the beautiful but synthetic landscape that surrounded her. Even though the only plants that grew this high were golden apples and a few light colored alpine flowers, Crimsonflame had to admit that the chaotic yet ordered placement of rocks and plants was indeed beautiful.

Lord Goldmist sat atop a grand, golden throne, surrounded by only the most beautiful of golden Aurasi mares, their narrow, perfectly crafted wings extended behind them seductively. He lay in an awkward position, drinking slowly from a crystal goblet filled with freshly squeezed golden apple juice mixed with freshly collected blood. It was still warm, and the fluid slid pleasantly down his metal throat.

“Announcing the Grand Magus of the Draconian Federation, Crimsonflame, daughter of Rageclaw the Great,” called a female Argasi guard from the base of one of the perfect marble columns below.

“Crimson!” said Goldlmist, sitting up and placing his goblet on one of the many perfectly crafted tufts of clouds that passed through the outdoor throneroom. “I was wondering when you would appear!” He spread his massive golden wings, and floated down to greet her. As he did, he noticed the small gray monohorn at Crimsonflame’s side.

“So you haven’t eaten it, yet, I see,” he said, eying the monohorn. It had grown somewhat larger than the ones he kept, and far less gaunt. It did have a rather defiant expression on its face, though, which amused Goldmist but probably would have caused practical problems for maintenance. “I rather like that one. How much for her?”

“No pony…owns me,” said Single Horn, with some difficulty.

“It talks!” said Goldmist, his eyes widening. “I say! You simply must tell me how you accomplished that. I really would like mine to talk. It would be so much better if they could beg.” He leaned down to frighten the small creature, but it stood stoically, staring directly into his eyes. It truly was a defiant creature.

“Why have you called me here?” asked Crimsonflame, unamused.

“Ah, yes. Business.” Godlmist flapped his wings and flew back to his thrown, where he resumed his place among the lovely, smiling mares. “I am officially withdrawing my support for the war.”

“You what?”

“By my order, all ground forces are to be retracted. All air force is to take up positions defending Olympus. We will fight only for defense of ourselves.”

“Of course,” said Crimsonflame, under her breath, but still audibly. “Of course. Now that Olympus is over Draconian territory, you give up active participation.”

“As I’m sure you are aware, Olympus is sovereign regardless of whatever it is floating over.” He sat up, and stared down at the dragon and one-horned pony below him. “This war has ceased to amuse me. At first, it was fun and all, planning the battles and playing hero, but now…it has just grown so tiresome.”

“It is a war,” snapped Crimsonflame.

“A war started by Draconians, I might add, that we Aurasi are now expected to help finish for you.”

“That is a lie!” cried Single Horn. She almost said something else, but Crimsonflame held up a claw to her, stopping her. Crimsonflame turned her attention to Goldmist, and for just a moment, Goldmist was the slightest bit afraid.

“Think about what you are doing,” she said. “You may fly above us, but you are just as much a part of Panbios as the rest of us. If we fail, your people will fall along with us.”

“I am actually assuming that you will fail,” said Goldmist, smiling. “Surely you have seen it, Grand Magus. You know that this war is unwinnable. Even with all five nations fighting, the Choggoths are still advancing. Nothing you do can stop them. Nothing ever will.”

“So you would leave your own people to die? You would play a fiddle on top of your hill as the world burns?”

“That, actually, is an excellent idea! But no. I fully expect to survive this war, even when the Choggoths inevitably triumph. It is a known fact that Choggoths cannot fly. Even if they could, they only consume organic matter.” Goldmist held out one of his hooves, as if admiring the luster of his metal skin. “And we…well, we don’t actually have that limitation. It is my belief that we, the Aurasi, can live in piece with the Choggoths below, should it come to that.”

“You are a fool, Goldmist.”

“Of course I am.” He pointed to his head. “Blessing of Madness, and all. But through my insanity, I have vision. I admit the new world order will probably be rather boring, but also, maybe not.” His expression suddenly became far more serious. “Understand, Crimsonflame. I like you. I consider you my friend. This is not personal. I have been forced to send my own people into a veritable meat grinder in a tremendously unpopular war. I…I can’t bring myself to do it anymore. I cannot let our young stallions and mares die for your war. I just can’t.”

“I understand what you mean,” sighed Crimsonflame. “I know how you feel, more than perhaps even you could know. But please. Goldmist, I am begging. We need your support in this war.”

“Our weapons will still be available for sale, but this is my final decision. By my authority as the strongest of all Aurasi, I will not permit another of my people to die in this failing war!”

“Fine,” said Crimsonflame, her monohorn assistant looking up to her, as if to ask why she was acquiescing so easily. “I cannot conscript your people. I cannot force you to fight. But know this, you gold-plated fool. You will live to regret this decision.”

“Is that a threat?”

“It is, but not from me,” said Crimsonflame. “Consider those words as spoken by the Choggoths below.”

Crimsonflame sat in her private study. The lights were out, and the only light came from a flickering, enchanted fire. All around her were books and stone-like Draconian machines, all arranged neatly on shelves constructed from fine oak to fit the mostly circular room.

In the center of the room was a chair, but Crimsonflame could not bring herself to sit in it. That chair, like the rest of the room, had belonged to her father. As the new Grand Magus, Crimsonflame had inherited the room, but she had still yet to change any element. Her father’s last, unfinished work still sat on the desk, the books he had been reading gathering dust stacked on the floor instead of the shelves.

Instead of sitting in the chair, she sat on the floor next to it, leaning against it. In her hand, she held an earthen goblet of rum rubies. She took another deep swig of the small minerals, and felt them tumble down her throat. Then she lowered the mostly empty cup, and looked at it.

She suddenly lifted the cup and threw it against the floor. It shattered, sending the small gemstones skittering across the floor toward the fire. Crimsonflame put her hands against her eyes, and could felt tears welling within them.

“Crimson Flame?” said a high, quiet voice. Crimsonflame wiped away her tears and looked up. The door to her study was open, and a pair of large, concerned looking eyes were looking in from the darkness outside.

“Single Horn,” said Crimsonflame.

“Are you…okay?”

“No,” said Crimsonflame. She had gotten the news just after she had arrived back from Olympus, and its effect on her had been profound. “Commander Grayrock…is dead.”

Single Horn gasped, and slowly entered the room. Crimsonflame turned away from the her, staring into the fire instead.

“How?” asked Single Horn.

“The fool…the battle he was leading turned, and rather than retreat, he charged in single-hooved in an attempt to buy time for the wounded to be evacuated. He succeeded, but…he was lost.” She smiled, even through the tears. “He died a hero, in battle, protecting his people. Surely there was no other way he would have wanted to go.”

“But you are still sad.”

“He was my friend, Single Horn. More than that, even. I loved him. I don’t think he ever knew…and now…now he won’t.” She put her claw to her eyes, covering them so that Single Horn would not see the tears as she fought the urge to weep uncontrollably.

“I think he knew,” said Single Horn, reassuringly even in her shaky voice.

“It’s not just him,” breathed Crimsonflame, trying to calm herself. “I remember them all. My friends. Those I trained with, lived with, cared about. I remember them in life, and when I think about how…about how I won’t ever see them again. To know that I was the one that sent them into battle. I might as well have killed them myself!”

She pounded her fist into the floor, causing the stone to crack and Single Horn to jump. It hurt, but she hardly noticed the pain.

“I’m tired of this war, but we aren’t even winning. Goldmist was right, we can’t win, not with what we have now. Even with a thousand Aurasi. But what can we do?”

“It isn’t your fault,” said Single Horn.

“What isn’t?”

“The war,” she said. “And the deaths. Not your fault. Remember why you fight, Crimson Flame. Why?”

“To protect the ones I love.”

“If you give up, only then, you have failed. Fight like uncle Grayrock, until the very last. I believe in you, Crimson Flame. We all do.”

That such a creature could offer such words was astounding to Crimsonflame. Even as its own kind were enslaved, it had the kindness to offer Crimsonflame support, to encourage her, and to remind her why she fought.

“Come here, Single Horn,” she said. The monohorn approached, and Crimsonflame took the small, fragile creature in her arms. She could hold back the tears no longer, and the two of them wept together in remembrance of the fallen, those who had, hopefully, given their lives to ensure the survival of Panbios and the happiness of those who could remain behind.

Chapter 11: A Choggoth in Ponyville

Evolution seemed to have made some strange developments in the time that D27 had been inactive. Ponies in his own time were small, subsentient creatures; they had seemingly grown substantially larger. Worse, they had developed some rather jarring color morphs that somehow made D27’s head hurt.

It also seemed that the ponies had developed a rather advanced system of economy; the area was filled with a rather substantial commercial presence. The ponies seemed to be going about their business rather happily as they trotted between stores and smiled and laughed with one another.

A quick examination indicated that there were three primary subtypes. There were monohorns, which D27 had already been aware of, as well as earth-ponies, which were slightly more muscular, hornless versions of monohrns, and Pegasi, which had feathered wings attached to their midsection.

The situation was, in fact, quite terrifying. D27 was not used to being around so many individuals without being attacked; a nagging sensation in his mind kept him wondering if they would notice the ruse and suddenly turn on him with energy weapons and heavy weapons before he could generate proper armor to mount an effective defense.

His cover seemed to be at least marginally effective, though. Most of the ponies stared at him, hushing their conversations and avoiding him, but none outright attacked him as he passed down their earthen streets. They probably could tell that something was not right, but only to the point of physical aberrations, like D27’s naked tail or his spiked “mane”. In all, though, his disguise seemed to be a rousing success.

One strange thing he noticed, though, was that the majority of the ponies had various diverse insignias printed on their sides. He had witnessed that before on the body of the grotesque pink alicorn who had thwarted his plans to destroy the Heart of Order, but he had assumed that it was an aspect attached only to a pony created by the Heart’s influence. The marks actually seemed far more common, though. Most ponies that were not young had one, and they were mostly unique, even though they followed relatively common motifs based on flowers or various types of produce.

Eventually, D27’s curiosity got the better of him. He swerved suddenly and approached a light blue monohorn who had strayed too far from the others.

“Teal female horse!” he said, nearly shouting, attempting to modulate his voice to the proper pony volume. The monohorn froze and looked at him, her eyes widening.

“Y..yes?” she said as her eyes darted to his pointed teeth.

“Identify: are your people covered in fine fur, or are you hairless?”

“Wha- -what?”

“These marks,” he said, pointing to the one on the flank of the mare, which appeared to be a kind of musical instrument. “Are they attached synthetically? Perhaps a contagen?”

“Contagen?”

“Are they a parasite?” D27’s attempt to add emphasis for clarity apparently failed, and the pony stepped back, her eyes glancing nervously around.

“It- -it’s just my cutie mark- -I play the lyre- -”

“What is your tissue density?”

“Density?”

“Muscle and bone. How much blood can you lose before death by exsanguination? Is cannibalism practiced among your people? Why are there no alicorns here? Why are you teal?”

Tears welled in the pony’s eyes, and she suddenly burst into loud sobs and ran away as if her life depended on it.

“Perhaps later,” called D27 after her, even as she screamed for someone apparently named “Bon-Bon”. D27 frowned. The reaction had not been predicted; the ponies had seemed relatively congenial, and he had expected her to be willing to answer at least some of his questions. They appeared to be more recalcitrant than he had expected.

He continued down the street, wondering if perhaps the pony he had selected had been defective. Having heard the commotion, the others were far more apt to avoid him, though. At the very least, that confirmed that they had a strong herd instinct.

After several minutes, though, D27 had a strange sensation of being watched. He stopped in the street and had a sudden urge to produce more eyes. He resisted, knowing that the spontaneous generation of eyes was not something ponies ordinarily did.

Not knowing where the gaze was coming from, he slowly turned around, scanning the tops of buildings. As he did, though, he suddenly found a large pair of bright blue eyes inches away from his face.

“Hey there,” said a squeaky voice as D27 instinctively jumped back. Even with his advanced senses, a pink mare with an overly curly, dense mane had managed to somehow get behind him without his knowledge.

“Pink…” he said. It was his only response; he had never even imagined that a pony could have such a bright and evolutionary ill-suited color.

“Oh, wow!” said the mare, bounding forward. “You already know my name! Or at least half of it. Well , more of three quarters.”

D27 did not know what was happening. The last pony had seemed desperate to get away, but this one had the opposite reaction- -which, actually, caused D27 to want to escape.

“Your people…have names?” he asked.

“Duh. Of course we do, silly. How else would we know who we are?” She began to bounce around him, producing an odd sound that D27 could not actually place the origin of. “My name is Pinkie Pie, the Party Pony of Ponyville, and I have pretty pink poufy…” she stopped bouncing, and her face contorted with thought. “Hair…well, couldn’t think of a word for hair that started with the letter ‘P’.”

“Pelo,” suggested D27.

Pinkie Pie gasped. “Hablas Espanol? Are you from south of the border?” She artificially deepened her voice. “Cuando los sementales son sementales y las yeguas se alegran de ello. I don’t even know what that means! But I hear they call donkeys burrows, which is weird, because donkey’s don’t live in holes. At least not any that I know. Hey, do you like blueberry?”

“Blue…berry? I know of no one by this name.”

The pink pony laughed. “No, not her. Although she is a bit of a looker, in my professional opinion.” The pony raised her eyebrows, and D27 realized that he had forgotten to make himself eyebrows. “No, silly,” said the pink pony, her voice accelerating as she continued to jump around D27, who was becoming increasingly uncomfortable. “I mean for your frosting.”

“I have no need to be frosted.”

“Not for you, silly! Although you do look like you would be delicious, but probably with something vanilla…or maybe cherry. No, for your party!”

“Party? Are we voting?”

“Voting? No, I mean for your welcome-to-Ponyville party!” From her hoof, she released a small cloud of confetti over D27. D27 wondered where she had been keeping it, or how she had managed to handle it successfully with a hoof.

“Why would I need such a party?” said D27. “I have lived in this town for my entire life.”

“No you haven’t,” said Pinkie Pie. “I know everyone in Ponyville, and I don’t know you. Ooh!” she bent down near D27’s rear, staring at his segmented tail. For a moment, D27 thought she might know. He prepared to change shape again; if he engulfed her, he could strip away her flesh and incorporate her bones into his own structure. There would probably be few witnesses, as almost everyone had gone inside, and there would be no body. It would probably take several days before anyone noticed that she was missing.

“Shaved tail!” she said, taking the appendage in her hooves. “I didn’t even know that was possible! But my friend Rarity says shaved tails are going to be in next spring. Are you some kind of trendsetter?”

D27 stopped himself from shapeshifting just in time. The pink pony had not caught on. “No,” he said. “I was…born…like that. I have no real hair.”

“I can see that. Must make morning brushing so easy. Not that I brush my mane anyway. But back to my question: blueberry frosting?”

“I appreciate the offer for a party, miss Pie,” said D27, “but I really must decline.”

“Decline? Nopony declines a party, silly. Everypony loves a Pinkie party. Trust me, you will. There will be cake and streamers and lots of new friends you haven’t even met yet. You can meet all my friends, because everyone is my friend. And you will be too. What was your name again?”

“My name is D27.”

“D27? That’s a funny name. Well, not ‘ha-ha’ funny, more of ‘weird’ kind of funny…”

She continued to prattle, but D27’s mind was racing. A party, as he understood it, was a risk to him. He would be in proximity to monohorns who could detect him, or individuals familiar with Panbioan history who might be able to recognize a Choggoth, even a cleverly disguised one. If his cover fell, there was a risk of attack, and of a strong military response that could ruin his plans.

The most logical conclusion would be to eliminate Pinkie Pie. Absorbing her would be unfortunate, though, because although she had a spastic and hyperactive nature, D27 actually rather appreciated her personality, as grating as it was. He settled on a different option.

“Miss Pie,” he said, “could you come here for a moment?”

“Ooh,” said Pinkie. “Are you going to tell me a secret?”

“Yes,” said D27 as she leaned in closer. Then, before she could react, he tapped his hoof against her nose. Blue sparks passed over her body, instantly freezing her where she stood, her mouth open mid-statement. As a side effect of the order magic, her frizzy mane and tail suddenly straightened, causing several small objects and confections to drop out onto the ground.

D27 stepped back. With her mouth open in a frozen smile and her hair straight, she looked like some kind of depraved madponie gleefully approaching another victim.

“I am sorry, miss Pie,” said D27, knowing that she could not hear him. “You will unfreeze in…well, eventually. But I can’t have you ruining my plans. Not yet. As I assume your people still say, may the Madgod watch over you.”

D27 then quickly left the area before anyone noticed that he had frozen a pony in the middle of the street.

As he turned a corner, though, he felt something impact him from the side. It did not hurt, because it was relatively soft and because D27 was only compressing one and a half tons of his mass. He looked down to see a metal wheeled device, and, lying beside it, a tiny orange-coated Pegasus.

“Ohhh,” she said, rising disjointedly, adjusting her helmet. “What in Tartarus did I hit?”

“Adorable pony creature!” said D27, perhaps too loudly, causing the filly to jump. “Be more careful of obstacles in your path!”

“I’m sorry,” said the filly, standing. She winced in pain, and looked down at one of her tiny wings. It was bent at a right angle halfway down its structure, the distal end of it swinging freely in the breeze.

The filly’s eyes widened. “OhCelestiaohCelestiaohCelestia,” she cried, reaching out to touch the wing but then recoiling, “my wing! My wing is broken! I broke my wing!”

“I can see that,” said D27, marveling slightly at how fragile the internal bone must have been.

Tears suddenly burst on the filly’s face. “My wing!” she sobbed. “It’s broken! Now I’ll never learn to fly, and Rainbow Dash will never be able to teach me to fly like her, and she’ll hate me, and I won’t be able to ride my scooter, and I’ll never get my cutie mark!”

“Calm down,” said D27. The filly looked up to him, tears running down her face. He reached out his hoof, and a tiny blue spark traveled between it and the break of the wing. On impact, it immediately caused the swinging end to lift and the bone to reknit seamlessly.

The filly looked down, perplexed, and slowly revolved the wing in its socket. Then she broke into a wide smile even as more tears ran down her face. She immediately flapped her wings at surprising speed, producing a buzzing sound but no lift.

“You fixed it!” she cried.

“Repairing bones is simply a matter of dispelling disorder. I was responsible for the accident. I therefore had a duty to make reparations. Or, as the case may be, repairs.”

He turned away from the filly and continued on his path, leaving her to pick up her scooter. In the past twenty minutes, he had traumatized one pony, paralyzed another, and broken the wing of a child. Perhaps ponies were simply not durable enough to interact with.

Applebloom came running up the hill, trying her best to hold on the uniform that she and her friends had spent hours making previously. The less athletic Sweetie Belle followed her, with some difficulty, her own uniform slipping off and tripping her periotically. Together, they looked almost like a pair of tiny police ponies, even though their uniforms were made from spare fabric and stitched unevenly.

“Scootaloo,” called Applebloom as soon as she saw her friend, sounding mildly annoyed. “Why didn’t you get to the bottom of the hill? How can we be Cutie Mark Crusader traffic cops without somepony to catch.”

“But, Applebloom,” said Sweetie Belle, wheezing slightly, “wouldn’t that make Scootaloo a Cutie Marc Crusader lawbreaker.”

Applebloom had actually not thought of that. “You’re right. Probably better that we didn’t try it.”

“But I spent so much time on this uniform,” whined Sweetie Belle. “And I stole- -borrowed so much fabric from Rarity.”

“Sorry,” said Scootaloo, bringing her scooter to a stop and slowing the thrum of her wings. She looked shaken, and concerned with something.

“What’s wrong?” asked Applebloom, immediately aware that something important was bothering her friend.

“I ran into somepony on the way down,” said Scootaloo.

“So?” said Sweetie Belle. “You run into ponies all the time.”

Scootaloo and Applebloom both glared at her.

“But this time it was different,” said Scootaloo, hurriedly. “Come on, you guys have gotta see this guy.”

Her wings beat rapidly, and she turned her scooter, propelling herself across the ground quickly. Applebloom and Sweetie Belle looked at each other, and then hurried after Scootaloo.

Scootaloo led them a corner and dismounted her scooter, propping it against the wall of a nearby building. She peaked around the corner with almost a hyperbolic attempt at stealth, and motioned with her hoof for the others to join her. Carefully, Sweetie Belle and Applebloom approached. All three of them peered around the corner.

On the cross street several yards away, all three of them saw a maneless blue pony, who seemed to be contemplating the nature of a stone wall in the distance.

“That’s the pony I ran into,” hissed Scootaloo, attempting to whisper, even though the blue pony was much farther than earshot.

“I don’t think that’s a pony,” said Applebloom, shivering.

“Of course he’s a pony,” said Scootaloo. “Have you ever seen a blue donkey?”

“No,” said Sweetie Belle.

“But that tail…” Applebloom shivered. Something about it disturbed her. It reminded her of rats.

“So he shaves it,” said Scootaloo, sounding somewhat annoyed. “It doesn’t mean he’s not a pony. Plus, I saw him use magic.”

“But he’s not a unicorn,” said Sweetie Belle, confused.

“I think one of those things on his head might be his horn,” suggested Applebloom.

“But what are the rest of them?” asked Sweetie Belle.

“Well, if he has magic, maybe he uses it to style his mane like that…somehow.”

“That’s not the point!” cried Scootaloo, and all three of them jumped back behind the wall in case the blue pony had heard. “Look at his flank.”

“Scootaloo, I know you’ve started to get interested in colts, but looking at a stranger’s rump from round a corner just ain’t right,” said Applebloom.

“Just look!” snapped Scootaloo.

The three Crusaders slowly stretched their heads out around the corner, and looked. Then they all jumped back and stared at each other. What had before been looks of confusion or doubt were replaced with looks of grave concern.

“He…he…” said Applebloom. She could not bring herself to say it, though. Even at her young age, she could understand the implication.

“He doesn’t have one,” said Scootaloo.

“But that’s impossible!” said Sweetie Belle. “My mom and dad and Rarity all say that everpony gets their cutie mark eventually!”

“Applejack and Granny Smith all say the same thing,” said Applebloom. Her heart was pounding quickly. She wondered if there was a possibility that they were lying, trying to make her feel better.

“Maybe he’s just a colt,” suggested Sweetie Belle. “Maybe he’s our age and just…really big.”

“That is as grown stallion,” retorted Scootaloo. “A grown stallion without a cutie mark!”

They all looked at each other in silence, all thinking the same thing. If that pony was an adult without a cutie mark, then everyone they knew had been lying to them, trying to make them feel better about their own blank flanks. If an adult could exist without a cutie mark, then there was a chance that they might never get theirs.

At the same time, they all looked around the corner at the stallion again, as if a second look might reveal a cutie mark, perhaps one that was blue and difficult to see. The stallion in question was still there, still staring at the rock wall, and still a fully adult blank-flank. As they stared, though, one of his eyes disconnected from the wall, and a tiny, single triangular pupil twisted in the white globe, focusing at them.

Simultaneously, they all jumped back, all breathing hard.

“I don’t want to be like that guy,” whined Sweetie Belle.

“We need to go talk to him,” suggested Scootaloo.

“What?” said Sweetie Belle and Aplebloom at the same time.

“He’s not a bad pony,” said Scootaloo. “When I fell, I hurt my wing, and he helped fix it.”

Sweetie Belle and Applebloom looked at each other, clearly unsure of Scootaloo’s plan.

“Come on,” said Scootaloo. “Remember when we were all afraid of Zecora? He might look different, but that doesn’t mean he’s scary.” Scootaloo gulped, recalling how she had just barely seen the ends of his teeth protruding from his mouth as he had spoken, and how sharp they were.

She braced herself. “Come on. How are we ever going to get our cutie marks if we can’t even talk to a pony?”

“Your right,” said Applebloom. They both looked to Sweetie Belle.

“Fine,” she sighed, frowning.

“That’s some schist, all right,” said D27 to himself as he stared at the wall. His eyes turned to another stone. “And there is a gneiss. By Luna, why do I know all these names?” He paused again, considering for a moment. He knew the word “Luna”, but not what one was. It sounded vaguely like a name. The only similar word in his assimilated vocabulary was “Celestia”, which he could also not define. Most of the information, though, concerned geology, and was almost completely useless.

Something moved in his peripheral vision, and one of his eyes automatically twisted independently of the other and attempted to see what had made the sound. Before it refocused, though, the stimulus was gone. He wondered if he was being watched, or if Pinkie Pie had somehow woken up. Leaving her frozen in the street had probably been a bad idea, even though the crime could not be easily linked to D27.

He turned back to the wall. Unfortunately, as a wall, it was not particularly useful; if he had access to strata, there was at least a chance he could date the rocks to find how deep he would be buried if he had awoken underground.

There was a second sound, however, and D27 felt a heartbeat approaching him. He turned, prepared, if necessary, to vaporize the monohorn mages that had surely been sent to terminate him. Instead, he saw a familiar small creature.

“Adorable orange Pegasus,” he said, looking down. “You have returned. Was my work repairing your wing unsatisfactory?”

D27’s view shifted, and he saw that there were to other small ponies approaching as well. One was pale yellow, with a red mane and tail; the other was pure white, with a purple striped mane and tail. Neither one of them had wings, and D27 immediately assessed them as what was called “earth ponies”. He felt a weak signal arising from the white one, though, and twisted the pupils in this eyes, dialating them to massive black triangles, causing the small ponies to jump back in fright. The improved vision, though, indicated that the white filly was actually a monohorn.

“White monohorn and yellow earth-pony,” said D27. “Greetings.”

“Monohorn?” said Sweetie Belle, seeming somewhat insulted.

“Is this the incorrect word?” asked D27. “You have one horn, not three. You are not a trihorn. Therefore, you are a monohorn.”

“I’m a unicorn.”

D27 lowered his head toward the white filly, and she started shaking. “Are you saying that this appendage of yours is made of corn?” he asked.

“No…it’s…bone, I guess…”

“Oh,” said D27, returning to his normal position. His own knowledge of the word from his own time must have overwritten the new vocabulary term. “I will make a note of that. I apologize if I insulted you.”

“It’s…it’s okay.”

“My name is Scootaloo,” said the orange pony. “These are my friends Applebloom and Sweetie Belle.”

“So you all have names,” said D27, mildly amused. He wondered if they were given names at birth, or if they acquired them at a young age. “My name is D27.”

“D27?” said the one called Sweetie Belle. “That’s a funny name- -ow!” She had been promptly elbowed by the one called Applebloom.

“Interestingly, the one called ‘Pinkie Pie’ made a similar statement.”

“So you’ve already met Pinkie,” said Applebloom.

“It was difficult not to.” The three of them nearly laughed, but their fear seemed to be keeping them from doing so. Something seemed to be bothering them.

“We…we wanted to ask you,” said Scootaloo. “Are you…are you a pony?”

“Of course I am,” lied D27. “What else would I be?”

“Then why don’t you have a cutie mark?”

She pointed toward D27’s flank, and he looked down. “You mean the insignias?” he said. “Because textures are difficult to render.” The three fillies did not seem to understand. “I was actually wondering what those were myself. Perhaps you can elaborate?”

“You don’t know what cutie marks are?” said Applebloom in disbelief.

“No,” said D27. “As you can see, I have none. I was not aware of their existence until recently.” Technically, everything that had happened to D27 had been ‘recent’.

“It signifies your special talent,” said Applebloom. “You know, when you realize what you’re truly good at in life.”

“Your accent amuses me,” said D27. “So this ‘cutie mark’, it is attached to you when your society determines your purpose?”

“Well, no,” said Sweetie Belle. “It just sort of…shows up. Or it should.”

D27 believed he understood. “Ah,” he said. “I notice that none of you have this mark. Is your concern that you will not acquire a mark and be accepted into your society?”

They all looked surprised. “Well, yeah,” said Applebloom. “I mean, if you don’t have one and you’re an adult, what if we don’t get any?”

“Our situations are nonequivalent. I have…unique reasons for not having one.”

“Because you never found your special talent?”

“I have no ‘special talent’.”

“No special talent?” cried the three fillies simultaneously, causing D27 to jump back and a slightly inebriated passerby to look in their direction. “How can you not have a special talent?”

“Because I was not given one. I have a purpose, of course, and all abilities I have are applied toward that purpose, but that does not seem to qualify as one of these ‘talents’.”

“Well, maybe we can help you,” said Scootaloo.

“Help? With what?”

“We’re the Cutie Mark Crusaders!” she explained, and the others smiled.

“Yeah,” said Sweetie Belle. “Our mission is to find out our own special talents, and to get our cutie marks!”

“We probably could help you,” suggested Applebloom.

“Hey,” said Scootaloo, smiling, “maybe our cutie marks will be in helping other ponies getting cutie marks!”

“I appreciate your offer,” interrupted D27, “but a demarcation of talent is not useful to me. I have no need nor desire for a ‘cutie mark’.”

The faces of the three fillies fell, and their hair almost seemed to go flat. It was as though D27 had crushed their spirits, and he distantly felt bad about it.

“You…you don’t even care?”

“No,” admitted D27. “Although, perhaps you can assist me with something else?”

“What kind of thing?” asked Applebloom, suspiciously.

D27 instantly constructed a narrative in his mind. “I have lived in relative isolation until recently. This is my first time in Ponyville, or in any pony city for that matter. I know very little, and ponies seem repelled by my…rather extreme appearance. I have many questions, but nopony to answer them. If you have the time, perhaps you could explain this town to me, and answer my questions.”

The three turned to each other, and smiles crept across their faces.

“You know what this means,” said Applebloom.

“Cutie Mark Crusader tour guides!” they all cried in unison, with enough volume to hurt D27’s eyes.

The reaction of the populous seemed somewhat mixed to seeing a somewhat bizarre looking blue stallion being led through the streets by three highly-active fillies. People were still somewhat repelled by D27, but the presence of the fillies made people less likely to shutter themselves in their houses or avoid him completely. Mostly, they just stared, but quickly dismissed him and returned to their business.

“And this is where the shops are,” said Scootaloo, pointing.

“That one over there is the Carousel Boutique,” said Sweetie Belle, pointing. “My sister owns that one. She makes dresses, usually, but she could probably make a suit for you too.”

“But your people do not wear clothing,” noted D27. If they did, his presence would have been extremely awkward, considering that rendering cloth was even more difficult than rendering hair or fake cutie marks.

“No,” said Appleboom. “Not usually, but sometimes on special occasions we have fancy dresses and stuff.”

“Interesting. Perhaps I will acquire a so-called ‘suit’. Although I do not have money. What currency does your economy run on?”

“Bits,” said Applebloom, producing a gold coin from an unclear source and showing it to D27. It was shiny, with a stamped image of an alicorn on one side.

“But sometimes people use gemstones instead,” said Scootaloo.

“This is a good thing,” said D27. “I have none of these ‘bits’, but I did bring gemstones from my home. It is good to know that I can purchase things if necessary.” Not that he needed anything in particular; he could synthesize almost all chemicals and materials he needed, and there seemed to be precious few arms dealers in Ponyville. “What is this shop?” he asked, approaching one of them.

“That’s Lacy Leather’s shop,” said Sweetie Belle. “She makes clothes too, like my sister. Rarity say’s I can’t go in there until I’m older, though, even though she goes in there all the time.”

D27 pressed his face to the darkened window, peering in at the merchandise.

“There’s nothing but socks,” he said, confused.

At that instant, a bell chimed as the door to the shop opened. An earth pony whose spectral emissions were somewhere between pink and violet stepped out, humming through the handle of a bag in her mouth. Her insignia was that of three smiling flowers.

“Miss Cheerilee!” cried all three fillies at once.

The pony opened her eyes, and jumped back, nearly dropping the bag. The color of her face darkened by several shades.

“G- -girls!” she said. “What- -what are you doing here?”

“We’re showing mister D27 around town!”

“That’s…that’s sweet of you but- -I need to be- -over there!” she dashed off, the bag clamped tightly in her mouth, and within seconds was gone.

“What got into her?” asked Applebloom.

“No idea,” said D27.

There were many things that D27 learned numerous facts about ponies. They were, according to the three fillies, actually covered in a fine fuzz, and that the skin color of ponies was generally similar to their coat color. They generally weighed as much as one hundred pounds if, as Sweetie Belle described “they were really, really fat”. Ponyville had been founded by earth ponies, and Pegasi lived in floating cities, including a mobile city called Cloudsdale which, as Scootaloo mentioned repeatedly, was the original home of one Rainbow Dash. With the way Scootaloo spoke of her, Rainbow Dash was a mare of extreme flying prowess and, apparently, one of the few ponies with a multicolored mane, something that D27 believed may be a recessive trait of some kind.

Eventually, D27 found himself on a dirt road outside of town. The sun was in the center of the sky by then, and although the air of Ponyville was exceptionally pleasant, the sunlight was moderately damaging to D27. In part, it was likely due to the fact that unlike normal ponies he was completely hairless, but he suspected something else might be at fault. It was as though the celestial spheres could recognize him from their past, or at least the sun could.

“Why is it that the sun moves?” asked D27, staring up at it through the trees on either side of the road.

“Because Celestia moves it,” said Scootaloo, as if it were obvious.

“Why would anypony want to move the sun?” asked D27, confused.

“Well, if the sun didn’t move, it would be night all the time,” said Applebloom.

“Night…that is the one with the moon, right? Does your Celestia also move the moon?”

“No, Luna moves the moon at night.”

“I see,” said D27.

“Do they not have the sun or moon where you come from?”

“No.”

“It must be real dark,” said Scootaloo.

“Not actually.” He recalled the strange skies of the Gloame, and the beautiful pale yellow luminescence of the sky of old Panbios before it was cursed with the celestial spheres. The use of them was at least practical, though; by manipulating the sun, agricultural capacity had seemingly enhanced drastically, and through use of the moon, the nocturnal world was able to move freely during part of the day.

D27 was about to ask what exactly “Celestia” and “Luna” were, but he suddenly realized that he was a signiciant distance outside of Ponyville.

His paranoia increased. He wondered if the fillies were leading him into a trap, if they had capitalized on their innocence and adorability to put him off guard, and were now leading him to forces of unicorns waiting to capture him.

“Um, where are we going?” he asked.

“To Sweet Apple Acres!” cried Applebloom, suddenly excited. “It’s the farm I live on with Applejack and Big Macintosh and Granny Smith!”

“Why would we go there?”

“Because it’s the best place in all of Ponyville,” said Applebloom somewhat defensively. “That, and we figured you’d want to see where apples come from.”

“What are these apples of which you speak? Are these your people?”

All three of the fillies stopped. “You don’t know what apples are?” they asked, as if that were an even greater offense than not knowing who moved the sun and moon.

D27 shook his head.

“What do you even eat, anyway?” asked Sweetie Belle.

“Swamp mud, mostly, and lignin.”

“Eew,” said Sweetie Belle, making a face. “That sounds gross!”

“Here we are!” said Applebloom, bounding up a path off from the road past a fence and into a field filled with trees.

D27 looked up at the trees, and saw that they were covered with roundish fruit that came in various shades of red.

“These are apples?” he said, looking up at them.

“They sure are! Only the best apples in all of Equestria!”

“I am familiar with a similar fruit,” said D27, “although it is golden, and the tree has needles, not leaves.”

“Golden apples?” said Sweetie Belle. “Rarity say’s the princess has a tree that grows those.” She gasped. “Do you work for the princess?”

“I work for no one,” said D27. “Not anymore.” He reached up into one of the shorter trees and picked a low-hanging apple, taking it in his claw. He pulled it down, snapping the small stem attached to it. It was glossy and red. Considering it for a moment, he took a bite of it. It was crunchy and whitish on the inside, filled with juice.

D27 was thoroughly disappointed. “I am afraid it tastes the same as all organic matter to me,” he sighed. He looked down to see the three fillies staring at him, their jaws open.

“What did I do?” asked D27, wondering if he had broken some strange rule he was not aware of. Perhaps it was forbidden to take apples from the trees, or perhaps they needed to be cooked first.

“Cl…cl…claws,” said Sweetie Belle, pointing.

D27 looked down at the narrow claws that he had developed. He had done it unconsciously, his body automatically morphing to enable him to pick an apple properly. “Do ponies not have claws?” he asked, cautiously. He knew that clawed hands were a trait in roughly thirty percent of trihorns, and hoped that the same was the case for ponies.

The three fillies shook their heads.

“Well,” said D27, consuming the rest of the apple in a single bite. “Surely you can’t expect me to pick them with hooves. I mean, how do you even handle things with these?” He retracted the claws back into his arm and replaced the structure of the hoof.

The three Cutie Mark Crusaders stared for a moment, and D27 wondered if he had lost his cover. He was rather adverse to absorbing them, considering how young they were and how purely adorable they all looked, but he had done far worse in his life. If he had to eliminate them to preserve his mission, it would need to be done.

Then, suddenly, they all broke into wide smiles and started jumping spastically.

“Oh wow!” cried Applebloom. “That was some magic!”

“Yeah, even Twilight can’t do something like that!” squeaked Sweetie Belle.

“If you keep that up, you’ll surely get a cutie mark in magic!” cried Scootaloo. “Can you teach me how to do that?”

“You’re not even a unicorn,” said Applebloom.

“There’s no law that says a Pegasus can’t use magic if she wants to,” said Scootaloo, her mood suddenly souring.

“There kind of is. You don’t have a horn.”

“He doesn’t have a horn either!”

“Whahs all this yellin?” said a fourth voice, one that D27 did not recognize but that was saturated with a strong accent.

D27’s eyes twisted in their sockets, and behind him, he saw a larger pony approaching. She was roughly as tall as he was, and pale orange in color. Her cutie mark appeared to be three apples, and she wore a hat. A basket of apples was perched on her back.

She looked up at D27.

“And who are you?” she asked, her eyes narrowing suspiciously.

“Applejack!” cried Applebloom, nearly tripping D27 as she passed below him. “This is D27! We’re showing him around town so we can get our cutie marks in tour-guiding!” She turned to D27. “This is my sister Applejack! She’s the strongest and most athletic pony in all of Equestria!”

“No she isn’t!” called Scootaloo. “Rainbow Dash is!”

“Now, now, girls,” said Applejack, “Ahm mighty flattered an all, but let’s not get into this just now.” She extended a hoof toward D27, and he looked down at it.

“I am not aware of this custom!” he said, suddenly. “Tiny Applebloom, please explain!”

“It’s a hoofshake,” said Applebloom. “Tap your hoof against hers, and move it up and down.”

D27 did as he was told, and their hooves made a tapping sound.

“You’re not from around here, are ya?”

“You have no idea.”

“Where he’s from, they don’t even have any apples,” said Sweetie Belle, joining the group.

“Yeah,” said Applebloom, as if remembering why she had come. “I was hoping he could try some.” Her expression darkened slightly. “But he said they don’t taste like anything.”

“Don taste like nothing?” said Applejack, seemingly insulted.

“It’s not that they do not have a taste,” said D27. “It is only that I cannot taste them. If only I were able to know them as you do.” He paused, and an idea occurred to him. “Actually, perhaps there is a way.”

D27 put hid foreleg around Applejack’s neck and, before she could react, pressed his lips against hers. She groaned and tried to say something, but before she could D27 inserted a tendril into her mouth. It wrapped around her tongue, assessing her taste profile.

She suddenly pushed him away, but he had already assimilated the necessary information and quickly retracted the tendril back into his own mouth.

“What in tarn- -”

D27 did not hear her finish. On one side of his vision, a wall of red suddenly appeared, and a massive white hoof smashed into the side of his face.

The force was so great that even at D27’s weight, he was pushed to the side. The physical force had been extremely unexpected, but non-magical assault was rarely painful to a Choggoth. Unless, of course, it impacted a geometric sensory organ that was presently uninsulated, as D27’s were.

The force against his eyes caused a shock through is interim nervous system, overloading his senses of sight, sound, and smell simultaneously, filling him with bizarre hallucinations and pain that he had never anticipated could come from a punch. He became disoriented and nearly fell over, barely managing to right himself and only by a small miracle holding pony-form.

He felt a force pick him up by the tissue below his neck. His vision partly restored, and he found himself looking into the face of a very large, angry red stallion.

“If you touch my sister again,” he said with a deep, terrifying voice, “I will string you up by your hindlegs, smear you with applesauce, and let the vampire fruit bats suck you dry!”

“Duly…noted,” said D27 as he was dropped to the ground. Sound faded for a moment as his mind reset itself; he heard arguing between the mare Applejack and the stallion.

Then the world snapped back into focus, and D27 stood. Feeling that his jaw had been dislocated, he used his hoof to snap it back into its correct place, and gnashed his pointed teeth to ensure that the joint had been seated properly. He looked up, and found that only one of his eyes was currently operating. That one eyes was focusing on the face of a rather angry looking red stallion, and an almost as equally angry Applejack.

“You care to explahn why you just went and kissed me?” said Applejack, “and it hahd better be a good explahnation, or by Celestia I will buck you into the nehxt county!”

“I seem to have…colors, refocusing, wait a moment.” His left eye continued to revolve in its socket, attempting to reset itself. “I seem to have offended you.”

“Your darn-tootin!”

“I misjudged the social constraints of your society,” said D27, his eye returning to normal. “However, my taste receptors are currently not formatted. In order to taste these ‘apples’, I needed to aquire the sensory profile of a taste organ.”

“Tasting apples by tasting an Apple,” joked Scootaloo, and everypony glared at her, causing her to recoil.

“So you just go and kiss my sister, without even asking her first?” demanded Applebloom, angrily.

“If I had asked, she would have refused,” maintained D27, “and I was not aware that it would be construed as such an insult. However, after being thoroughly concussed by your…brother…” The red stallion snorted, a small puff of steam rising from his nose. “I do believe that what I did was an invasion of your personal space. As such, I wish to apologize, and make reparations as applicable by pony law.”

Applejack’s expression softened, but only slightly. “Well, if yah honestly didn’t know, I guess I cahn’t fault yah for it. It ain’t like it’s not the first tahm I’ve been kissed randomly like that.”

“It isn’t?” said Applebloom and the red stallion at the same time. “Who was the last time?”

“I don’ want to talk ‘bout it,” said Applejack, blushing slightly. “Though, yah might want to do somethin abouht your breath. You taste like swamp water.”

“Noted,” said D27. “Also, angry red stallion,” he said, turning to the pony in question. “For future reference, temper your blows. If I had been anypony else, that impact would likely have been lethal.” The stallion’s eyes widened, and his expression of pure hatred became one of confusion, and then of distant fear. “Now, although I realize it will likely be an imposition to you, miss Applejack, angry stallion, and assorted fillies, I would like to request that I might taste one apple.”

“S…sure,” said Applejack, taking down one from her basket. “Ah mean, I didn’t understand half of what yah said ‘bout ‘taste acquisition’, but I get that all yah really wanted was one of these, and, frankly, ah can’t blame yah.”

“Thank you,” said D27, taking the apple between his hooves. He took a small bite of it and allowed the crushed parts of it to contact his tongue which, if he had performed the assimilation correctly, should have contained a copy of Applejack’s taste profile.

The sensory impact hit D27’s mind with a force far greater than the angry red stallion’s hoof. His legs shook, and he collapsed to the ground. Tears welled to his eyes, which was odd, considering that he had not even constructed tear ducts.

“What- -what’s wrong?” said Applejack. “I didn’ give you a rotten one bah mistake, did ah?”

“No,” squeaked D27, his eyes widening and focusing in separate directions. “This is only the most beautiful thing I have ever tasted…”

“Aw, shucks,” said Applejack, blushing. “Well, they are the best apples in ahll of Equestria, in mah opinion.”

“How many of these…how many of these can I purchase?”

“Purchase?”

“Are they not for sale?”

“No, they are. How many do you wahn?”

“Six tons should be adequate.”

“Did you say tons?”

“I have gemstones,” said D27, pulling the apple back from his mouth and vomiting a pile of emeralds and sapphires that he had been storing inside his body. The other ponies jumped back as the pile spilled outward toward them. “I have more at home. I have a lot more. I will pay eight time their weight in gemstones if I have to.”

“No, no!” said Applejack, clearly quite disturbed that a pony had just vomited a pile of gemstones at her feet and ordered six tons of apples. “This should be enough. Yah sure you can eat six tons, though.”

“Yes.” He paused, seeing the expression on their faces. Ponies, he realized, probably did not eat quantities measured in tons, at least not rapidly. “Although I also have associates who I think might like them.” He was thinking, of course, of the Gloame shadows. They were generally carnivorous, but he was sure they would appreciate apples as much as he did.

“Well, that’s a mahty big order,” said Applejack. “It might take some tahm to acahmadate yah.”

“I can assist,” said D27. “It would be the least I can do after insulting you as I did.”

“No,” said Applejack. “Yah ahlready appolagized, so as fahr as ahm concerned, the matter is over and dohn with. Besides, I don’ trust anypony with the trees ‘cept mahself and Big Macintosh here.”

“Oh. Well, how long will it take?”

“Well, aboht…three days?”

“Then I will return in three of your pony ‘days’. No, wait, I can’t carry six tons. I will send an associate to collect them. Thank you for your forgiveness and apples. And…” He paused. “May I have that basket that you have right there?”

“Ah spose, sure,” said Applejack, putting down the basket. D27 promptly swallowed the apple he had been eating, preserving it for later use, and took several more. Once he had crammed as many as he could into himself, he turned his attention to the three fillies, especially Applebloom.

“I thank you for showing me these ‘apples’,” he said. “However, I believe I must be returning to my base of operations at the moment. However, as a token of my appreciation…” he reached into his mouth, and withdrew three small, rhomboid violet gemstones. “I am not sure of current exchange rates, but I believe that these have slightly higher value than many other types of gems.” He handed one gem to each of the Cutie Marc Crusadres.

“Where are you staying?” asked Sweetie Belle as she received her gem.

“I currently reside…” D27 paused. He would not be able to explain to them the nature of the Gloame, because he doubted that most ponies lived in parallel basin-dimensions. “In the nearby forest.”

“The Everfree forest?” cried all three of the fillies.

“I did not know that it was called that, but yes.”

“But that place is filled with monsters!”

“I am aware of that.”

“Well,” said Applejack, “it’s already too lahte in the day for yah to get there befah night fahlls. It ain’t a good idea to go wahndering around the Everfree forest aht naht.”

“I assure you, I will be fine.”

“You can stah here on the fahm tonight,” said Applejack. “Ain’t that raht, Big Mac?”

“NOP- -oof!- -Eeeyup,” he said, rubbing his side where Applejack had elbowed him. He leaned closer to D27, glaring. “But if you even get near Applejack or Applebloom, ain’t nopony even gonna find the body.”

“That will not be a problem, as I will not be staying. I have many things to do.”

“Well,” said Applejack, “if yah can’t get back to the forest in tahm, stop over and see Twilight, and tell her ah sent yah. She lives in the big castle, can’ miss it. She’s got plehnta of empty rooms, and between you and me, I think she gehts raht lonely in that big ole place.”

“Noted,” said D27. “I will also show the assorted tiny Crusaders to their respective homes.”

“I’m already at my home,” said Applebloom.

“And that’s where you’re gonna be stayin for now,” said Applejack. “Six tons of apples…by golly, me and Bic Macintosh are gonna need all the help we cahn get!”

“Eeeyup,” added Big Mac, still staring angrily at D27.

Chapter 13: The Jam Closet

“I’m not sure this is legal,” whined Slimy Snake as Discord contemplated the lock that held the door to the closet closed.

“Don’t be such a square,” said Discord, tossing the triangular tool to Snake, who fumbled with it as through dropping it was actually of any consequence. Snake was, Discord found, incredibly dull, not so much intellectually as behaviorally. That was about on par with someone from the castle’s legal department, though. Still, he was the only one who actually knew where the closet was. That, and he allowed for an allusion that very few people in the audience would understand.

“But it’s locked!”

“Not a problem,” said discord, extending one finger and raising his thumb. He pointed his finger at the lock and lowered his thumb. A small explosion went off and the lock shattered. “I do this all the time.”

“But if the princess catch us…if the catch me!”

Discord frowned, staring at the shaking Snake for a moment. The pale green-brown pony was totally killing the mood. Then, without speaking, he snapped off his right antler and moved his left horn to the center of his head. He smiled and fluttered both his eyelashes and wings. “The princesses put me in charge,” he said with a high falsetto voice, “so you can officially call me ‘Princess Discord’!” His frown returned. “Which means I can have you banished to the bottom of the royal laundry pile.”

“Not the laundry pile!”

“Well, if you would preffer to be fed to parasprites, I suppose I can make an exception. But just because you’re so darn cute!”

Discord kicked open the door, and pulled a string on a lightbulb he had conjured. The large closet was suddenly illuminated.

“Wow,” said Snake, “that’s a lot of jelly!”

Indeed it was. All around them were glass jars of every size, filled with substances of every conceivable color- -and several colors that Discord doubted had actually been conceived before, except by him whenever he cared to fill a hole with ponies.

“Yes it is,” said Discord, rifling through smaller jars of Zapapple jam and mayhaw preserves, mostly ignoring the other pony. His gag was through, so his presence was not taxing.

“I have a cousin in Ponyville who would really love these big ones,” said Snake, looking at the some tubs of jelly that were several times larger than he was. “I wonder what they use these for here?”

“Not sure,” said Discord, reaching his arm to the dusty back of the shelves. “Princess Luna is a bit of a prude, actually, so I suppose they belong to Celestia. Nothing like jelly on the hot summer sun.”

“You mean jelly under the sun,” corrected Snake.

“No, I don’t,” said Discord. His fingers closed around a tiny jar, and he removed it. He squinted at the tiny writing. “Royal Jelly,” he said. “I suppose this is what they used on Twilight.”

He expected at least a small snicker, but upon not hearing one, he turned to see Snake shaking below a deep blue alicorn.

“Luna!” said Discord. “You’re back from the Crystal Empire! Say, you weren’t here when I called you a prude, were you?”

“Indeed I was not,” said Luna, frowning.

“Oh. That’s good.” Discord returned to rifling through the jams on the shelves.

“You were placed in charge of the kingdom, Discord, to watch over our subjects in our absence. And yet I return to find you ransacking the royal jam closet. Explain yourself!”

Discord pulled out a small jar of deep purple preserves. “Ah!” he cried. “Here it is! About two minutes too late, of course.”

“Discord!”

“I need it for the interrogation, of course!”

“Interrogation?”

Discord snapped his fingers, and a heavy metal table appeared, filling most of the closet. Tied to the top was a pure-white Pegasus, her hooves and wings bound, and her coat stained with red. Her eyes were glazed, and she was breathing shallowly.

“Please…please make it stop,” she gasped. She turned to the princess, and her eyes illuminated with hope. “Princess…please…”

Snake promptly fainted.

“Discord,” said Luna, an expression of grave concern rising over her face. “What have you done?”

“You can’t make an omlette without breaking a few griffon eggs,” said Discord, unscrewing the cap from the jam. “Now, little miss Immaculate White. Care to tell me what you know about the forces of Order?”

He tilted the jar, allowing the sticky substance inside to slowly flow out. The Pegasus below immediately started to panic, trying to squirm away from her bindings.

“NO! Not grape jelly!” she screamed, trying to escape the approaching condiment. “Not that! You monster! I’ll be all sticky, and I’ll never get the stains out! Wasn’t catsup enough, you monster!”

“Talk!” demanded Discord.

“Enough!” said Luna, her horn flashing. The bindings on the Pegasus snapped open, and she fell to the floor. She spread her wings and dashed out of the closet, crying, repeating “baking soda, I need baking soda!”

“You’re no fun,” said Discord, sending the table back to where it had been and taking some of the jam on his finger. He licked it off. “Mm. Strawberry.”

Luna helped up Snake, who was shaking and could barely stand from the shock of seeing what he had thought was blood.

“For future reference,” said Luna, “the castle does have a dedicated torture chamber. Also, approval for all torture must be approved by myself or my sister.”

“Has to pass…through legal, too,” muttered Snake, weakly.

“And while you were injuring our subjects, we have come to the conclusion that the disturbance in the Crystal Empire is related to what you are investigating. How is it that you have ignored this fact and not begun investigating the creature that attempted to destroy the Crystal Heart?”

Discord almost said something, but stopped himself. He considered for a moment; indeed, while he had been chasing down Pegasi or setting snares fore unicorns baited with cupcakes, he had felt a massive disturbance in the magical nature of Equestria. What he had felt was a distortion in the aura projected by the Crystal Heart, and he had dismissed it as just another disaster befalling Equestria. Thinking about it, though, he realized that there had been undercurrents beneath the crystal magic- -undercurrents oddly similar to the magic of the Crystal Heart itself.

Discord suddenly summoned a scroll and pair of dorky, oversized glasses that until several seconds earlier had been on the head of a peppermint-themed filly in Ponyville.

“I need to check my math,” said Discord. He reached behind Luna, intending to pull out a deep-blue feather to use as a quill.

Suddenly the large tubs of jelly in the rear of the room split open, spilling their contents on the floor. Discord found himself bisected, and his top half slid off from his bottom half.

“Do not touch my wings!” screamed Luna, her eyes glowing and her horn sending out small, icy sparks from the pure power it was rapidly accumulating. Her voice was loud, but it was not the Royal Canterlot Voice that Discord had become all-too accustomed to. She was genuinely screaming in overblown fear and rage, as if she was about to cry.

“Now, now,” said Discord, reaching up and grabbing his severed lower half before it started to run around, as legs were liable to when left to their own devices. He reconnected them to his top half, and pulled on them as if he were hitching a pair of pants. “I only meant that as a joke, a gag. It’s kind of my thing- -”

Discord barely managed to dodge a bolt of magic that splattered the jam behind him.

“Really, Luna,” said Discord, floating through the air. He was confused and annoyed, but the situation was, arguably, amusing, if only because of the chaos that he had unexpectedly created. “You know that without the Elements of Harmony, you and sun-butt can’t do a thing against me. I’m the me-darned god of chaos!”

“Maybe I can’t hurt you,” growled Luna, “but I know your weaknesses. I see them in your mind, in your dreams.” She smiled madly. “Yes…maybe I will pay a visit to Fluttershy. Maybe I’ll ‘touch’ her wings. I’ll ‘touch’ them so she cannot fly ever again!”

Luna’s head was twisted to the side as Discord grabbed her horn. Their magics glowed and merged, and Luna realized that Discord was, indeed, far stronger than her.

“Now you’ve gone too far!” he said, the normal playfulness and humor of his voice completely absent. “Threaten me all I want. Cut me, burn me, turn me to stone, I don’t care- -but you will not threaten Fluttershy! Fluttershy is a beautiful and kind pony, and she had nothing to do with this! I don’t even know why you would say something like that, but if you or anyone even think about hurting Fluttershy, I will snap off your horn and shove it so far down your throat that your sister will wish I was raining chaos across Equestria for all eternity!”

“Hurt Fluttershy,” said Luna, beginning to laugh, tears running down her eyes, “like you did, when you sold her to Lord Tirac?”

“H…help me,” said a weak voice on the floor beside them. Both Discord and Luna looked down. The slicing magic that Luna had used to cut Discord and the jars of jam had also struck Snake, and one entire side of him had a deep wound from his neck to his flank, even bisecting the green serpent that was his cutie mark. In the time that Discord and Luna had forgotten about him, most of his blood had escaped him, and now spread in a large red pool below him, mixing with the spilled jam.

Luna’s eyes widened, and her magic suddenly shut down. “Slimy Snake- -I- -I’m sorry- -I- -Oh, my Sister! Fluttershy, why did I say those things!” She stepped back, shaking, looking down at what she had done.

Discord used his own magic to cast an enormous white bandage around Snake, tying it in a big bow. “There’s no time for that now,” said Discord. “We need to get him to a doctor pony, fast. Chaos magic isn’t exactly the best thing for healing wounds.”

“I- -I,” said Luna, but she found that she was frozen. She did not understand what had just happened. There had been a sudden surge of rage, but not just anger- -it was fear, but Luna did not know where it had come from. She had been desperately afraid that something was coming, coming to hurt her, like it had before- -but she could not remember the “before”. Then she had threatened Fluttershy, her friend, a pony who she knew to be one of the gentlest in all of Equestria- -and now she stared at so much blood, for the first time in so long, blood that she had spilled with her own hoof.

“You’re no help,” said Discord. He snapped his fingers, and a white nurse pony appeared beside him. She looked confused, and seeing Discord, suddenly looked afraid- -not because he was Discord, though, but from the expression of concern on his face.

The nurse looked down at Snake, whose breathing was beginning to slow.

“Dear Celestia,” said the nurse, her horn glowing. “We need to stop the bleeding. He’s going to need a transfusion, stat. Discord, what blood type are you?”

“All of them,” said Discord, suddenly appearing in his own version of a nurse uniform.

Luna slowly backed away as Discord and the nurse went to work. Then, before she realized it, she saw that she was running, and that tears were running down her face.

Luna lay curled in her bed, trying her best to calm down. She did not understand what had happened to her, or how it had come to occur, but she knew that even the thought of someone touching her wings made her start to panic again. She had never liked to be touched, but now, somehow, it was far stronger. It had something to do with a memory, but one that she somehow could not recall, one that she knew that she did not want to remember.

Worst, though, was the doubt. She began to wonder if she was a danger; already, once, she had betrayed Equestria. It was easy to lay those crimes on Nightmare Moon, to dismiss them, but this one had been done by Luna. There was no way to escape the blame she placed on herself, knowing that she was a potential danger to ponies. Perhaps Nightmare Moon never had been fully excised from her being; perhaps she was still there, lurking, waiting to return.

As tears silently dripped onto her bed, there was a sound behind her, the small ring of a tiny bell.

“Your highness,” said Cavern Melody, holding the bell on her collar with her hoof to prevent it from chiming further. “Word from the doctors.”

“What is it?” asked Luna, bracing for the worst.

“The condition of one Slimy Snake has stabilized.”

Luna released a sigh of relief.

“However,” continued Cavern Melody, and Luna’s breath caught in her throat. “Since the wound was magically created, it will likely never heal completely. There has also been fundamental damage to his cutie mark, as well as…complications…from receiving blood from Discord.”

“Will he recover?”

“Yes. However, he may never study law again.”

“See to it that he receives the best medical care, and that his family does not fall into need during his treatment.”

“Of course, your majesty.”

“Cavern Melody…”

“Yes, my Princess?”

“Can you…can you sing to me?”

“Of course,” said Cavern Melody, smiling. “That is my main occupation here in your service. I will have Nightwatcher deliver the message for you.”

Cavern Melody’s bell sounded softly as she ducked out of the door, giving instructions to the guard outside the door. She then returned.

Cavern Melody took her place beside Luna’s bed, and removed her bell collar. She took a breath, and began the song. It started out slow, and then grew in long, warbling, melancholy notes, rising like echoes from beautiful, empty caverns.

It was a beautiful song, but, somehow, it seemed like the saddest song Luna had ever heard.

Chapter 14: A Meeting in Ponyville

“Spike!” called twilight through the mostly empty halls of her crystal castle. Her voice came echoing back to her, and she shivered. She was still growing accustomed to the viciousness of the empty, unfilled halls, and she often found herself missing the small, warmly lit space of Golden Oaks library.

Only one place in the new castle truly felt at least partially reminiscent of Twilight’s beloved library, and that part was, of course, the new library.

Twilight found her way through the corridors, or at least the ones she knew about, guided by the smell of old paper and book glue. The pull of the books was strong, and within minutes Twilight found her way to the castle’s grand library.

The one advantage of having a crystalline castle to live in, Twilight decided, was that the castle had ample space for a library that could truly be called royal. She stopped for a moment to admire the multiple layers and the hundreds of stacks of shelves. Most were empty, but many were already filled with books recovered from the wreckage of Golden Oaks, as well as the ancient tomes salvaged from the Palace of the Two Sisters in the Everfree forest. Celestia had even sent over a number of overflow volumes from the Canterlot Royal Library; most of them were relatively generic titles, of course, but it seemed that Celestia had also added some that were quite rare and obviously not duplicates. There had even been rumors that part of the Starswirl the Bearded section would be brought to Twilight’s Ponyville branch to assist several researchers who had taken up residence there.

As Twilight had expected, Spike was busy filing away books. Even though night had fallen and it was already well past his bedtime, he had stayed up, waiting for her.

“Spike,” said Twilight, smiling, “you really should be in bed.”

“I know, I know,” said Spike, dropping a large stack of books on one of the many tables in the large room. “But if I stop now, I’m sure to lose my place. Besides, without you hear to wake me up I kind of…slept in.”

“I wrote you a note. And a list. And several backups.”

“A note cannot wake me up,” sighed Spike. “You can hardly wake me up.”

Twilight chuckled. “I know. But I had royal duties in the Crystal Empire.”

“It must have been real important if you had to get there so fast.”

“Something attacked the Crystal Heart.”

“Wait, what?” said Spike, suddenly much more concerned.

“Shining Armor and his soldiers managed to fight it off,” said Twilight reassuringly. “But the princess were still concerned, especially since we don’t really know what it was.”

“Well, whatever it was, it better thank Celestia that I wasn’t there,” said Spike, puffing out his tiny dragon chest.

Twilight laughed. She was well aware of Spike’s reputation in the Crystal Empire as a grand hero. Her laughter rapidly turned into a long yawn, though; even with taking the train on the return trip, the teleport-intensive trip there had been draining. “I’ve got a lot of reading to do tomorrow,” said Twilight. “I’m going to check the old books from the Castle of the Two Sisters, to see if I can find anything like what Cadence described. But right now, I just want to curl up in bed with good book.”

“I hear that,” said Spike, “minus the book, though. Just me, my blanket, and a cold, cold stone floor.”

Twilight smiled, but as the two made their way to the door to attempt to find their sleeping quarters, she heard hurried galloping across the stone floor outside.

Before Twilight could even comprehend why or how somepony had gotten into her house, Rarity burst through the door, panting heavily. Rarity was not particularly athletic, which meant that if she were running and risking the possibility of sweating, something must be wrong.

“Twilight!” she cried, seeing Twilight and Spike across the room and running toward them. “Thank Celestia you’re here.”

“Rarity?” said Twilight, confused. “What’s wrong?”

“Wrong?” said Rarity. “Wrong, why nothing’s wrong, darling!”

“Then why are you in my house in the middle of the night?”

“Well, I would have waited until the morning, but this news was simply too important. Positively groundbreaking, earth shattering, the most important thing possible!” She put her hooves on Twilight’s shoulders and shook her vehemently.

“What…is…it,” said Twilight as she was shaken.

“This,” said Rarity, producing a small rhomboid gemstone.

“This?” said Twilight, unamused. “It’s a gem.”

“A gem? A gem? Do you have any idea what this even remotely represents?”

“Rarity, it’s a gem. You have thousands of them. I would know. I counted.”

“Really?” said Rarity, sounding somewhat insulted, taking the gem away and staring deeply into it herself. “I would have expected somepony so well read to be a bit more worldly.”

Twilight put her hoof to her head. “Rarity, I’ve had a really, really long day, and you know I appreciate your company, I really do, but- -”

“It’s cerorite, Twilight!”

Twilight paused. She remembered the term from a book she had read a long, long time ago, one that had been terribly boring, even by her standards. That one part had stood out, though, mostly because it was so close to her.

“That’s impossible,” said Twilight.

“I know. There are only three pieces known to exist, and Celestia herself wears two of them.”

“And the third?”

“Deeply secured in private vaults. Twilight, wars have been fought and won over that third gem. It is the most valuable and most beautiful substance known in all of Equestria!” She stared even more deeply into the gem. “Just look at the crystalline formations, free of any imperfection; the refractive formations alone surpass even the grandest diamonds! But then it has the color, initially pale violet, but on inspection, it shimmers with rainbows within rainbows!”

“It looks amazing,” said Spike, drooling substantially. That actually surprised Twilight; under normal circumstances, Spike would indeed be drooling, but when Rarity was involved, his eyes would be focused on a very different gemstone- -or a set of three of them, as the case was.

Rarity smiled. “Go ahead, Spike,” she said, passing the gem to him. “Have a taste. Just don’t bite down too hard.”

“Rarity,” said Twilight, “if it really is that valuable, you shouldn’t?”

“Oh Twilight, let Spike have his fun.”

Spike took the gem greedily, and looked up at Rarity. She nodded, and he put the gem in his mouth. His jaws closed, and a perplexed expression came over his face. Whereas he was usually able to crunch gemstones to dust, this one eluded him. It remained intact, even against his hard dragon teeth.

Spike spat it out. “I can’t eat it,” he said.

“Well of course you can’t, Spike,” said Rarity, taking back the gem. Spike seemed to have no use for it if he was unable to eat it. “I’m sorry to play that little trick on you, but I needed you to help me prove the stone’s authenticity. You see, cerorite is virtually indestructible. Why, you could probably pass this gem through the sun itself and it would come out unscathed!”

“That’s amazing, Rarity,” said Twilight, suddenly intrigued by the nature of the stone. She attempted to pick it up with her magic, only to have it slip out of her spell. “Truly amazing. Magic doesn’t effect it either!” Rarity was positively beaming, but Twilight was concerned. “Actually, Rarity, where did you get this? It isn’t that third sample, is it?”

“Sample? Twilight, you make it sound like a simple scientific specimen! Would you call a piece of art a ‘unit’?” Her expression flattened. “Actually, knowing you…”

“Rarity, where did you get it?”

“Relax, Twilight. I didn’t steal it. Well, not from a vault. It isn’t mine, though, it’s Sweetie Belle’s. That’s why I’m here so late, I had to wait until the little dear fell asleep before I could take it.”

“So you stole it from your sister.”

“Stole?! Twilight, I merely appropriated it. For verification of its identity.”

“Well, where did Sweetie Belle get it?” A vision floated to Twilight’s mind of Sweetie Belle and her two friends dressed in black, calling themselves the Cutie Mark Crusader cat burglars.

“She said a strange pony gave it to her as payment for showing him around Ponyville,” said Rarity, almost sounding concerned. “And before you ask, I wondered if perhaps he stole it as well. He might very well have, except that he apparently gave Applebloom and Scootaloo…” she stretched her jaw; apparently, with her accent, the word “Scootaloo” was either difficult or uncomfortable to pronounce, “gems as well, all identical to this one. I was hoping that Spike could send a message to princess Celestia, just to make sure that none of them had been stolen.”

“If you think someone robbed the princess, you’re wrong,” said Twilight. “I saw her earlier today. Both her gems were intact and present. Besides, the Princess has more important things on her mind than gemstones right now.”

“Twilight, you don’t understand. I can’t pretend to know Celestia’s motivations, but I feel like there is most likely a reason she keeps two of the stones on her person at all times.”

Before Twilight could respond, she heard a sound of beating wings, and the sound of something heavy being dragged across her stone floors.

“Why the hay is she so heavy?” grunted Rainbow Dash from the hall. “It’s probably all the sweets she eats. She’s got to way, like, a million pounds!”

“Now Rainbow Dash,” said a much softer voice, “it isn’t nice to talk about a friend’s weight when she isn’t around to defend herself.”

“What are you talking about, Fluttershy? She’s right here!”

Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy came into view near the open door, and to Twilight’s surprise, they were not alone. They were pushing something that she initially took for a statue, but that on closer inspection was actually Pinkie Pie, frozen solid, her hair menacingly straitened and her mouth spread into a psychotic grin.

“Fluttershy! Rainbows Dash! What happened to Pinkie?”

“That’s what- -off,” said Rainbow Dash, setting down the front of Pinkie Pie. “We came here to ask you!”

Twilight trotted over to Pinkie Pie. As she did, she shivered. It was clearly magic, but the magic somehow felt wrong, almost on an instinctive level.

“A little birdie told me that he saw her frozen like this on the street all day,” said Fluttershy, oddly untired from having pushed Pinkie for so long. “It was all he could do to keep the crows from pecking her eyes out while I found Rainbow Dash to help me move her.”

Twilight tapped her hoof against one of Pinkie’s eyes, and it clinked like glass. “I don’t think there was too much to worry about there. She’s frozen solid.”

“Is she?” gasped Rarity, putting her hooves to her mouth.

“Rarity? When did you get here?” asked Rainbow Dash, surprised. “What are you doing in Twilight’s house in the middle of the night?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” muttered Twilight. “But she is alive. Hold on. I think I can dispel this. You may want to stand back.”

“Why?” said Rainbow Dash.

“Because if she fails, the cerorite is gonna be the only thing left in this room,” said Spike.

“What?”

Twilight’s horn ingnited with magenta energy, and she grimaced as she directed the spell at Pinkie Pie. A similar magenta energy surrounded Pinkie Pie, and she seemed to vibrate for several moments. There was a sudden burst of energy that rocketed outward with unanticipated force. It struck the many books in the library, knocking them onto the shelves or into neat piles.

“Is the secret about Blue Berry? OOOH! Do you have a crush on- -” Pinkie Pie blinked and rubbed her eye. “Twilight? What are you doing here? Where is D27?”

“Who?” said Rainbow Dash.

“Dashi? Everypony?” Pinkie looked perplexed.

“Um, Pinkie, your hair,” noted Rarity, pointing. Pinkie looked down at her straightened hair. “Oh,” she said. She puffed out her cheeks and squeezed, and her main and tail puffed up to their normal shape. “How did I get here? Are we having a party? Did I plan a surprise party for myself? No, wait. Is this D27’s party?”

“Slow down, Pinkie,” said Twilight. “Try to tell us what happened.”

“Well, I was talking to D27, and he was all nervous because he was new to Ponyville and had a shaved tail and weird eyes, and then he booped my nose and- -” She gasped. “And then he froze me!”

“So that means- -”

Pinkie squeezed Twilight’s face with her hooves. “You don’t know what this means!” she cried. “It means he skipped out on a Pinkie party!” Pinkie’s face contorted with rage, and she jumped onto a table. “D27!” she screamed into the library, “you have besmirged my Pinkie honor by scornring my party favor! You shall rue the day you crossed Pinkamena Diane Pie! I have your number, D27, and it is…27!”

“Pinkie, calm down,” said Twilight.

“Yeah,” said Spike. “You’re supposed to be quiet in the library.”

“Oops,” said Pinky, putting her hooves over her mouth and whispering. “Sorry.”

“Who,” replied a partially deafened Owlysious from the upper stacks.

“Meeeeee,” whispered Pinkie.

“Did this strange pony happn to be blue, with weird spikes all over his head and bahck?” drawled a voice from the edge of the door. Everypony turned to see Applejack leaning against the doorframe.

“Alright,” said Twilight, “did I leave a door open or something?”

“Yeah!” said Pinkie Pie. “With weird triangles in his eyes.”

“Triangles?” said Rainbow Dash, confused. “How can somepony have triangles in his eyes?”

“Ah know the one,” said Applejack. “Showed up at Sweet Apple Ahcres earlier today. Tongue kissed me, then ordered six tons ‘ah apples.”

Everypony turned to her, and her eyes widened with surprise.

“He kissed you?” said everypony in unison.

“Yeah, and got a hoof from Big Mac to the face for it. Lahk I told Big Mac, though, ain’t the first time I’ve got a sahprise kiss, and it won’t be the last, ahm sure.”

Everypony in the room turned their heads slowly, looking to Rainbow Dash.

“Oh, come on!” she cried, defensively. “Why does everypony always look at me when she brings this up?”

“It was me,” admitted Pinkie Pie, bouncing into the air repeatedly. “Because we’re cousins. Kissing cousins. That’s something cousins do.”

“Um, Pinkie, I think you’re misunderstanding the term,” said Rarity. Then she paused. “Wait. You said ‘shaved tail’?”

“Yeah,” said Pinkie Pie, “made him look like a big’ol rat. But I didn’t say that, because that would be rude, even if it was true.” She gasped. “Oh, I know, cheesecake! He would love a cheesecake! I’ll need cheese, though. And bear traps. He will not escape a second time.”

“A shaved tail!” cried Rarity. “How positively…uncouth!”

“I thought you said that was ‘fasion-forward’ last week!” said Rainbow Dash.

“No, I said it’s never fashionable. It never has, and never will be. It makes one look like a brute and a hooligan.”

“What’s wrong with the tails on rats?” said Fluttershy. “I think they’re adorable.”

“Still,” said Rarity, ignoring Fluttershy, as was the group’s custom. “A blue pony with a shaved tail…that was Sweetie Belle’s description of the pony who gave her this.” She held up the stone.

“Yeah, I know,” said Applejack. “Ah was there. Gave one to Applebloom and Scoot-ah-loo too. Raht after he vomited ten pounds of other gemstones aht my feet.”

“Vomited? Oh my,” said Fluttershy.

“Wait a minute!” cried Twilight. “Hold on!” Everypony stopped talking. “So, let me get this…uhg…as straight as possible. A blue stallion with a shaved tail and…horns…appears in Ponyville. He freezes Pinkie Pie in the middle of the street, and then Sweetie Belle and her friends took him to Sweet Apple Acres, where he kissed Applejack, then…vomited.”

“Hey!” cried Applejack.

“He expelled a pile of gemstones, and bought six tons of apples. He then gave three impossibly rare stones to Sweetie Belle, Applebloom, and Scootaloo.” The name of the tiny flightless Pegasus was, actually, rather difficult to say. “And then…”

“I guess he left,” said Pinkie Pie. “Probably hiding. You hear that, you shave-tailed…party…shirker! You jerker shirker! I will find you!”

“Pinkie, calm down,” said Twilight. “Did any of you hear where he was staying?”

“Sahd something about the Everfree forest,” said Applejack. “Ahnd, fah the record, kissing me did not make him vomit.”

“It didn’t,” said Pinkie Pie. “She tastes like apples!”

“Well, we can’t go to the Everfree forest at night,” said Twilight. “How about we wait for morning? Then we can all go to talk with him. Since you’re already all here, why don’t you spend the night at the castle?”

“Can’t,” said Pinkie. “I’ve got traps to lay, and plans to make. My Pinkie party honor shall be restored! By the Madgod, I swear it!” She shook her fist angrily at the ceiling and then, realizing everyone was staring, smiled with an adorable squeaking sound.

“Come on, the rest of you,” said Twilight. She yawned. “I think we will all have an easier time with this in the morning.”

“Thank you, puffy carnivorous night bird,” said D27 as the creature handed him another book. He opened it, and shuffled through the pages, rapidly absorbing the information presented. Apparently, there were one thousand and one recipes for hay. He closed the book and set it aside.

He looked over the railing as the ponies below left. Only the pink one stopped and looked back, as if she knew that D27 was watching. She shrugged and bounced after the others, though, having not seen D27.

Apparently, it seemed, D27’s presence had caused something of a commotion. That was not ideal, but it was also unavoidable considering how little he knew of ponies. He had actually been rather unaware of the value of cerorite himself as well; he only knew that it was manufactured by Cerorians as a kind of armor-piercing munition. Or at least, it had been, before his kind had killed them all.

D27 sighed, and vomited a whole apple. He took it in his claw, and began to eat it as the bird- -an ‘owl’, apparently, though not to be confused with an ‘awl’, which as something different- -delivered several more books. It hooted somewhat annoyed at him, gesturing toward the apple.

“I am a being of interdimensional conquest,” said D27. “I will eat apples if I want to. I promise I will be very careful not to damage the books, too.”

The owl seemed to aquiesse, and returned to categorizing books, allowing D27 to look through several more boring volumes written in inelegant pony-script.

D27 looked down at where the ponies had been earlier, talking about him. The alicorn among them concerned him, as did the structure of the castle he now found himself in. That purple pony, as well as the whole place, stank with the sickly scent of Order. The magic that had formed her was different than the Heart of Order, though, and less familiar. The castle itself was not the Lord; it was created by it and clearly built in the architectural style of Order, but it was not alive itself. The Lord of Order was elsewhere, and the alicorn likely served it. She was a threat, and would probably need to be eliminated eventually.

She seemed so nice, though, and as did her associates. D27 actually felt a twinge in his pony-like chest at the fact that they would probably not be alive for much longer.

Chapter 15: The Hero Goldmist

Such a fool he had been. It had been so obvious. There had only been one end to the chain of events, only one that could possibly be. He had anticipated one outcome, one outcome that should have been clear and definite, even as he watched forces gathered that led to a far more simpler, elegant solution.

Goldmist laughed, at the irony and at his failure and stared up at the slowly sinking, listing mountain above him. Another explosion wracked it, and burning fragments of gold and silver fell around him. Above him, the last of his people continued a hopeless battle that was already lost. It had been lost from the moment that the Choggoths reached Olympus.

They had thought that they were safe, if only because they could fly, but they all had forgotten that above all things, Choggoths were adaptable. They could not think, but their actions made them perfect, the antipodean, organic version of the Adamantasus themselves.

They had come in on a shipment of slaves. No one had noticed that one of them, or perhaps more, had been infected. Everypony thought of Choggoths as contananent-sized masses of indeterminate, writhing protoplasm. No one had ever suspected that it could hide within the organic body of a monohorn, slowly eating its body from the inside until nothing was left but a skeleton. No one had suspected that it would spread so quickly, or that it could, in fact, infect the children of the Adamantusi.

But it had. All because Goldmist had not seen what should have been obvious from the start. That batch of monohorn slaves had been a gift from Arcane Domination himself.

Another explosion raked the mountain above, booming across the Draconian lands below, and more pieces of the ancient and grand machine that kept it aloft fell. Along with them dripped a dark red fluid, as if the mountain itself were bleeding, forming a vast pool beneith it.

One large drip of red landed before Goldmist, hissing as it burned through the shrubs and grass of the scrubland. It writhed and stretched, an a metallic voice screamed within it only to be drowned as the fluid stood on freshly formed legs. It extened a pair of silver wings, and a gaping vertical mouth lined with shining metal teeth ripped open across its form as its eyes formed and reformed, filling the now empty skull of the being it had devoured.

Goldmist laughed. There was nothing left for him to do but laugh, and he did not even mind. It was just so funny, the fact that he had not seen it, that it had all been so clear and he so blind. He had thought that he could manage to save his people by fiddling upon the hill, but the fiddle that had been played was him.

The Choggoth took a step forward, releasing a gurgling sound that was almost like language- -or, more likely, a parody of Goldmist’s own manic laughter. It took another step, almost seeming surprised that Goldmist did not try to escape. It’s form was just so hilarious, though, in its grotesqueness; the symbolism was too much.

The creature shifted, and part of it stretched out, forming a narrow hand, and it reached forward, extending its clawed and dripping fingers toward Goldmist. Still he did nothing but appreciate the justice of the situation.

Then, with a burst of magical vibration, a beam of blinding white light struck the Choggoth. It screamed out as a hole was burned through it, and it collapsed into something more like a spider, abandoning the mostly disassembled Argasus within it, trying to scamper back to the miles-deep pool of Choggoth below the island. It never made it, though, as another beam of magic blew it into flaming liquid that quickly reduced to ash.

A small creature appeared at Goldmist’s side. In body, it closely resembled him, but it was flesh where he was metal, gray where he was gold. She wore dull colored Cerorian armor tailored to her narrow frame, and, though all aspects of her were gray, her horn glowed with the most pure and brilliant white that Goldmist had ever seen.

A wave of Choggoth material swarmed around them, rising up from below them, and the monohorn cast a protection spell just as an immolating blast of impossibly hot red fire poured down from above. The Choggoth screamed as it was burned, and the remainder of it retreated back to the ocean of red that it had come from.

“Single Horn!” ordered Crimsonflame from above, touching down as her mages landed around her, their spells prepared for defense and attack. “Get Goldmist to safety! Emerald-Eye, prepare a squad for direct assault for evacuation. I will take point!”

“Don’t bother,” said Goldmist. “There are no survivors.”

“Of course there are,” said Single Horn, putting her hoof around Goldmist’s shoulder. “Look. It still flies. They are trying. We will save them.”

“They weren’t fast enough,” said Goldmist, his voice flattening as he stared into the distance at nothing in particular. “The engines themselves are all that are keeping it up. No one is in there. At least not anyone who is alive.”

“What do you mean alive?” demanded Crimsonflame.

Almost as soon as she did, the Choggoth itself seemed to answer. Its surface recoiled, pulling back from the attack, and then suddenly bubbling. Bits of it separated from the main mass, spreading pairs of metal wings to the sky. They flapped, and slowly took flight.

“The’re infecting the dead!” cried one of the Draconians, exhailing a cloud of brilliant yellow flame at a tendril that attempted to attack from the ground.

The Choggoth has still not finished, though. Its shape changed once again, the ocean of material shifting and retracting into something that almost looked like a building. Then the ground shook as it stretched upward.

All eyes watched as the red material rose impossibly through the sky, bending as it went, forming reinforcements to its structure to enable upward support. It formed a massive claw, an impossible hand, reaching upward toward Olympus.

“This area is scrubland,” said Crimsonflame, more toward herself than to anyone else. “How is it getting this much organic matter?”

Goldmist chuckled humorlessly, even though it was just another element of the joke that life itself had played on him. “I had Olympus positioned over a massive coal deposit. I was intending to mine it after the dragons were defeated.”

“You what?!”

“But now it’s all over, isn’t it?”

Goldmist watched as the massive blood-red hand reached up, reaching toward the floating mountain. It was his residence, but, for the first time, he realized that it had never just been his. There had been others, and he had largely ignored them. Never once in his life had he had a true friend, and now he never would.

Worse, it was not just Olympus that would fail. He had centered it directly over Draconian territory. The Choggoth that he had inadvertently created, or been forced to create, was in their territory, within a short distance of their critical cities, including the Draconian capital. With their defenses placed on the far reaches of the continent defending the bordres, there was no one left to defend the dragon people.

His eyes narrowed, and a final smile passed to his face. A thought had crossed his mind, something that came from the Other Side, from the voice of the Lord of Madness that spoke through the veil of consciousness. This time, the Madgod spoke in logic, and Goldmist knew what he needed to be done.

He stepped forward, toward Crimsonflame, and brought a hoof to his right eye. He retracted the sensory and neural elements that held the gold component in place, and disconnected it, taking it in his hoof.

“Here,” he said. Crimsonflame took it, although she seemed to not at first understand what it was or why he was giving it to her.

“What is this?” she said.

“I can’t let that old fool Grayrock have all the fun,” he said, smiling.

Then, without warning, he spread his massive golden wings, and sored into the air.

“Coward!” cried one of the Draconian mages. “Come back and help us fight!”

Crimsonflame said nothing, though. She only watched him go.

Goldmist forced himself straight upward through the atmosphere with ease. The winged Choggoths attempted to follow him, at first, but not even if life had there been an Aurasus capable of keeping pace with Goldmist. He passed them easily, leaving them below, and watched as they became tiny specks and vanished entirly.

Even with one eye, he was able to appreciate the view. He saw Olympus from above, a brown and gray stone amongst clouds and the green of the Draconian basin below it. As he forced himself higher still, more of the word came into view; the roughness of the land-planted mountains, and the blue of the seas. Even the swamps of the bug-symbionts were beautiful from such a height, and Goldmist realized that he still did not know how to pronounce their names.

From above, there were also signs of more terrible aspects of the past. Not far from Olympus was the barren, irradiated wastelands of what had once been a great Cerorian city. Similar voids dotted Panbios, and most were visible; those were places that war had rendered uninhabitable for potentially millions of years, the silent graves of countless millions.

And, at the very distant, he could see the other Choggoths. Brightly colored masses, bordering the land, slowly rising from the oceans and over the forests. They were really not as big as Goldmist had suspected; they more or less took the form of a narrow line, leaving behind them swaths of massive, uninhabited desert. That would probably be something Crimsonflame would want to know, but Goldmist assumed she would find it out on her own eventually.

Finally, he stopped at the very edge, the place where the horizon turned from pale blue below to the sickly and infinite yellowness beyond, the uninhabitable void. Goldmist felt the internal respiration systems within himself shift, funneling more air to the small part of him that was still organic. That small part of him, he realized, was afraid. As a whole, though, Goldmist was overjoyed, if only at the chance that he, the last of his kind, would also be the most beautiful.

He laughed as he pulled his wings back toward his body, and began to fall.

Crimsonflame pushed off of the ground with her wings, and leveled a blast at the oncoming force of flying Choggoths. Her fire was hot enough to destroy some of them and melt the wings of those that were bronze, but the Choggoth material on the others simply vaporized, leaving their incomplete metal bodies to fall and rise again, reanimated by the Choggoth material that was seeping ever closer across the ground.

Single Horn fell into formation, using her magic to push back the approaching material. It was a losing battle, though, and both of them knew that. There were not enough mages stationed in the capital to defend against a Choggoth, and Cerorian heavy armored units were still three hours out. Even if, by some miracle, they managed to drive the Choggoth back, it would be lodged deep within the earth in the coal veins below, feeding and growing beneith the earth.

Crimsonflame was about to call for a retreat to enable the evacuation of the nearest cities in preparation for Draconia’s inevitable fall when a sound rang out over the battlefield. She looked up, expecting to see Olympus finally reaching the ground, but it was still barely managing to hover over the ground, if only barely, even as the massive hand of the Choggoth tried to pull it into itself.

The sound had come from much higher, and Crimsonflame looked up and saw, in the high atmosphere, a radiation circle of spectral gold.

“What in Panbios?” she muttered to herself. As she watched, though, what she was seeing became clear: far above her was a streak through the sky, a rainbow of gold, following something moving with tremendous speed.

There was a second blast, and another golden explosion above, followed by a third, and then a forth in rapid succession.

“What is he doing?” said Crimsonflame, but her mind had already made the connection, and the part of her that recognized danger followed.

She took a deep breath, and released it; instead of fire, though, a wave of sound emerged.

“Everyone get down!” she bellowed, “Cover your eyes!”

Crimsonflame herself pressed her wings against her body, and fell to where Single Horn was below. She wrapped her wings around Single Horn, and Single Horn encased both of them in a white protection orb conjured by her magic.

Several more sonic explosions went out as Goldmist continued to accelerate, sounding like one continuous explosion. Then, before many of the mages could understand what was going on, there was a final explosion. The last one was not like the others; it was heard, but also felt, but not just physically, Crimsonflame realized; she felt it pulling at the fabric of space and time, and at her very soul itself.

Beside her, she saw a Draconian mage who was bathed in light. He had not managed to shield his eyes, and looked up at the sight before him. As he gazed upon the sight of a quantum-celestial acceleration, a grin passed over his face, even as his mind shattered. Then, before Crimsonflame’s eyes, his body atrophied and burst into a cloud of golden mist. The fool had stared into a seventh-dimensional rainbow, which, according to some, was the equivalent of staring into the eyes of the Madgod itself.

Goldmist saw the colors fluctuate around him, and saw the beauty of the Impossible Rainbow, the colors that could not exist and that must not exist; shades of gold that were inconceivable but intrinsic to all other colors, and none of them. It as a sight that he alone could produce, and a sight that he alone could survive bearing witness to.

As with the last time, time suddenly distorted and slowed, filling the skies with eerie silence. Before, it was the silence, not the color, that had nearly driven Goldmist fully mad, but now it was a respite from the sounds of battle, a final peace, and he savored the distorted moment for as long as he could.

The Choggoth sat directly below him, in his path of flight. Even if he had made an attempt to slow his dive, the force of the turn alone would have torn him apart. He had no intention of breaking off his course, though.

Through the colors below, he thought he saw the shadow of Crimsonflame, and through her, he saw the monohorn Single Horn, and for just a moment understood the things that Crimsonflame babbled about sometimes. He decided that that if he were to reincarnate, he wanted to return as a monohorn, or something like one, perhaps with wings. Then, maybe, if fate was kinder than it had proven itself so far, he might even be able to make a real rainbow, one that consisted of more colors than just gold.

The world suddenly started moving. Crimsonflame held Single Horn tightly as the white magic bubble surrounding them was picked up off the ground and forced through the air, moving instead of cracking, tumbling across scrubland with incredible speed, propelled by nothing more than the force of the explosion behind it.

It struck the ground several times, and every time, Single Horn shook. The force on her magic was incredible, but her magic was formidable, on par with even Draconian mages. Even with that much magical force, though, it still cracked, and with a yelp of pain from Single Horn, the spell shattered.

Crimsonflame and Single Horn collapsed onto the ground, dust blowing over them. Single Horn had been knocked unconscious, and appeared to have several broken bones, but Crimsonflame was far more durable. She turned her head, slowly, and looked behind her.

In the distance, half of Olympus was surrounded by a brilliant, golden mushroom cloud, grander and more terrible than anything the Cerorian engineers had managed to concoct. When Crimsonflame saw it, she knew what Goldmist had done. The seventh-dimensional rainbow from the quantum-celestial acceleration was not adequate on its own to kill a Choggoth; instead, Goldmist had used his own body as a projectile, ramming himself into the Choggoth at faster than the speed of light. There was no chance that either of them had survived.

Crimsonfame sat down beside Single Horn and watched as the ball of fire slowly collapsed into itself, forming pure white cloud. Olympus seemed to circle that cloud for a moment, a dead city giving one last salute to the final gesture of its fallen leader. Then, finally, the engines beneath it gave out, and with an explosion like deep, distant thunder, it fell to the ground.

After nuclear blasts, the sky normally darkened, but Crimsonflame suddenly realized that it had brightened somehow. Then, instead of droplets of black, toxic rain, it started to snow. The snow was not white, though, but golden.

Crimsonflame reached into her robe, and pulled out the final gift that Goldmist had given her. A single, golden eye, now disconnected from its owner, unseeing and incomplete. It may very well have been the last pieces of the Aurasus species in existence. Crimsonflame clutched it to her chest.

From beside her, she heard stirring. She looked down to see that Single Horn was conscious, and that tears were running from her eyes. They were not for her own pain, though.

“He always had to steal the show,” said Crimsonflame as she sat beneath the slowly falling golden mist. “And I have to admit, that was truly impressive.” To her surprise, her vision blurred, and her own tears dripped to the dusty ground below.

Chapter 16: The Two Sisters Amongst the Ruins

The frigid wind blew harder, pulling up the dust from the lifeless land into swirls and spirals. Solar Spectra shivered, and used her magic to pull the tattered rags she wore tighter. The cold had become numbing, and then painful, chilling her to her bones.

She turned behind her an looked up at the mountain that loomed over them. It seemed profoundly out of place, a massive and lifeless stone crag protruding from the center of what should have been simple rolling hills. It also seemed oddly crooked, as if instead of rising from the earth with the strength of other mountains, it had formed haphazardly, failing to find an anchor in the ancient bedrock below. To Solar Spectra, the mountain seemed profoundly lonely.

“Sister,” said a weak voice from behind her. Solar Spectra turned back. “Not much farther sister,” she said, smiling.

Lunar Vision returned the smile, if only weakly. Solar Spectra reversed slightly and, using her magic, removed her own cloak and added it to Lunar Vision’s threadbare clothing.

“No, sister,” said Lunar Vision, trying to push the cloth away with her wing. “You need to be warm to.”

“I have my magic,” said Solar Spectra, reassuring her younger sister. “It shall keep me warm. Here.” She lowered her head, and forced as much magic as she could muster into her horn. It sparked with a warm glow, and then produced a tiny magical sphere of fire. The heat was minimal, but enough to provide a modicum of warmth to them both.

Solar Spectra cast the rest of the spell over her body, making her pure white coat glow even whiter. Even then, it was not enough. She could still feel the wind and the crystals of ice it held within. She had not eaten in three days, and she was using almost all her magic to cast the spell that was keeping them alive in the radiation fields.

Still, she resigned herself to bear the cold. She was already nearly a mare, but her sister was barely a filly. Lunar Vision had only recently received her cutie mark, and at an early age- -an image that could either be construed as a white crescent moon on a pure, clear sky represented by her deep blue coat, or an eye, staring into that same blue sky. It was a perfect complement to Solar Specrtra’s own, an image of a half-sun projecting light over a pastel rainbow emanating forth from it.

Neither of those celestial spheres were of any use to them now, though. Both of them hung in the sky, the orange-red glow of the sun providing no warmth in the icy wasteland, and the crystalline glow of the moon only exacerbating it.

“The storm is getting worse,” said Lunar Vision, looking back at the mountain and the vast, irradiated pit it its shadow.

“I know,” said Solar Spectra. “But I think I see a ruin ahead that we can wait in.”

“You’re lying,” said Lunar Vision.

Solar Spectra sighed. There was no use telling untruths to a pony who possessed the extraordinarily rare talent of telepathic sight.

“Then what am I thinking?”

Lunar Vision closed her eyes, and focused. If she had possessed a horn, it would surely be glowing and sputtering, but as a Pegasus, she had none. Still, she seemed to come to a conclusion.

“That the storm is getting worse,” she stated without emotion. “That we’re in real danger. But that you will protect me, no matter what even if…even if…” Tears welled in her eyes.

“Sister,” said Solar Spectra. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want you to see that part.”

“But I did see it. You were going to reduce the protection spell to surround just me, and then use the remainder of the magic to make the fire warmer.”

“I was considering it.”

“Do not do that.” Lunar Vision stopped. Solar Spectra turned back, and saw her sister’s dirty blue main swaying in the breeze. “Please, Solar Spectra. We are sisters. What we face, we need to face together. I cannot…I cannot do this alone…”

“Neither can I,” said Solar Spectra, pushing a stray bit of hair back off Lunar Vision’s face. “I shall not lower the spell. I will protect us both. But we need to keep moving. We must find shelter.”

They began walking again, crossing the wastes.

“Why did we come here?” asked Lunar Vision, without even a hint of criticism.

“Because the monsters cannot follow us here,” replied Solar Spectra.

“And because we cannot cross the territory of the Nations, because I have wings but you have a horn.”

“That is correct,” said Solar Spectra, smiling. That part, she had not cleaned from Solar Spectra’s mind, but from observations. Although the Pegasi and unicorns were allied, the tensions between them were as high as they always had been, and xenophobia was a powerful motivator toward violence. Solar Spectra could hardly count the number of times she had been beaten protecting her sister, both from her own people and from the Pegasi. Attempting to cross land claimed by the other five nations would be even worse. The only recourse was to travel through land that no nation could claim, the wastes. It was the only place where they could truly be safe.

“Solar Spectra,” said Lunar Vision. “Can you…can you tell me a story?”

“Of course I can,” replied Solar Spectra. “Which one do you want to hear?”

“Can you tell me the one about Lord Pegasus?”

“Of course.” Solar Spectra began the story, adjusting the tone of her voice to try to make it sound like a real story, even as her body was wracked by shivering. She told the legend of first winged pony, or at least the parts of the story she knew, making up the rest as she needed to. She told of how Pegasus had been born an earth pony, a strong stallion with a remarkable rainbow mane, and how he had worked the fields in the distant past when the skies were empty and unclaimed, save for the birds and the war-like and fearsome griffons.

Then, one day, Pegaus encountered a dying god- -although in Solar Spectra’s story, she use the word “spirit” and “wounded”. The god had lost his ability to fly, and could no longer serve his divine duties. Pegasus, without hesitation, began to care for the god, attempting to heal him. This took time, and Pegasus’s fields withered and died, and he began to starve. Still, he gave what food he had to the god, and still managed to hold the defense of the god’s cave, protecting him from the monsters that came to steal his power.

Even through all his help, though, the god ailed and weakened. One day, the god spoke to Pegasus, and asked him:

“Why do you protect me, earth-pony?” said Lunar Vision, filling in that part of the story by heart. “Why do you risk everything to preserve my life, even by a fraction? Do you expect me to grant you my power, or perhaps you intend to take it when I die?”

“In truth,” said Solar Spectra, mimicking what she imagined Pegasus sounded like, “I have no desire for you power. I know that I will barely outlast you, if at all, for I am weak and injured now as well. But all I desire is to protect those who are in need, and those who, like you, have become my friends.”

The god, at that point, smiled. He took from his own back his pair of wings, which were made from perfect golden feathers, and placed them Pegasus’s back. “Then you are indeed worthy, he said,” said Lunar Vision, mimicking the deep voice of the god, “you will do what I can no longer. Take my wings, for you shall now be a hero of your people, and shall be remembered for all eternity.”

Solar Specra sighed, and looked up. The scenery had changed; in the distance, it was now possible to see strange towers, decaying buildings of built by long-forgotten ponies, the last remnants of some society that had long since vanished from the face of Equestria. Solar Spectra waited for Lunar Vision to ask for more stories about Pegasus, like how he had once defeated the griffon warlords in a race from the moon to the sun, where their wings had burned away but his golden wings had not, or how he had once tricked the queen of the dragons out of her treasure, or even the unicorn story about how Pegasus had been humiliated and defeated by Third Horn, the grandson of the equally mythical Single Horn.

She considered how she might work the ominous monolithic towers into her story, but before she could speak, her vision swam and she felt the ground accept her as she fell.

“Sister! Sister!” called a voice. It was distant, though, as if under water. The ground felt so comfortable, and Solar Spectra realized that she was freezing to death. She had reached the limit of her magic, and she cried as she realized that Lunar Vision would be alone now. At least as a lone Pegasus, she would be accepted by her people, even if only as a servant or conscript or concubine.

Her vision faded, and she felt herself falling into the nothingness.

Suddenly, a vision flashed into her mind, searing the inside of her mind. It was of a shape, one of unbelievable complexity, consisting of a square and numerous circles, triangles, hexagons, and other shapes that probably had bizarre and exotic names, all of them marked on a sickly pink organic surface.

She cried out weakly, and became aware that a tiny blue form was dragging her toward something, something dark colored. It looked like a bulkhead of some sort, or the very edge of something vast and spherical, just barely emerging from the ground.

Solar Spectra awoke with a start, almost crying out. She looked around, looking for her sister, and suddenly realized that Lunar Vision was lying over her, her wings outstretched, their mutual clothing covering them both. Lunar Vision did not have the ability to use magic, aside from her ability to sometimes see into other pony’s minds, so she had used the only source of heat she had available: herself.

“Sis..ter?” she said, rising.

“I am here,” said Solar Spectra, putting her foreleg around her sister. “I’m here.”

They embraced for a moment, and then Solar Spectra looked around her. She was not aware of where they were, or even what they were within. It seemed to be something carved out of stone of some sort, although the material was far smoother and darker than any stone she was aware of. The air was also surprisingly warm, and seemed to blow from somewhere far deeper in whatever structure they were in.

“Lunar Vision,” she whispered, “where are we?”

“You got so cold, and you stopped moving, so I brought you in here even though…even though…”

“Though what?”

Lunar Vision leaned close, and Solar Spectra could see the fear on her face. “Even though this is a bad place.”

“Perhaps so,” said Solar Spectra, “but at least it is warm.” She summoned her magic, and projected a tiny orb of light. Even though there was some amount of light in the dark, moist hallways that seemed to come from sum unseen source, Solar Spectra suddenly found herself curious.

As soon as the sphere materialized, though, something groaned from deep inside the structure, and Lunar Vision squeaked in terror. All around them, the stone structure seemed to retract into itself, responding to the magic and reconfiguring itself. The hallways changed, condensing on the light, forming new corridors and sealing old ones, momentarily exposing peculiar stone-based machinery deep within the structure of the walls themselves that likewise changed for and repositioned itself.

“Sister,” moaned Lunar Vision, pulling herself closer to Solar Spectra.

Solar Spectra, though, was not afraid. In fact, somehow, deep within her, she was somehow overjoyed. Her special talent was purely in magic, something that was rare even among her people, but as a clanless pariah, she had received no formal education in its use. She had raw power, but knew only a few spells that she had either created or found in outdated, discarded tomes she had managed to salvage. For once, though, something was responding to her magic. She could feel the structure of whatever it was they were in reacting to her, repositioning itself in a way that was not entirely random.

Focusing her magic, Solar Spectra forced the unstable, unusable hallways to converge into a well-lit corridor. She smiled, and something from the distance seemed to be calling her, drawing her in like the sweet smell of the food that herself and Lunar Vision could only ever hope to steal. For the first time, Solar Spectra felt at home.

She stood up, feeling Lunar Vision clinging to her. The place itself seemed not only to be responding to her magic, but be producing its own. It was humming and flowing with it; Solar Specrtra could feel vast channels of it being pumped into something that was surely miles below.

“Come on, Lunar Vision,” she said, almost bursting into laughter. “Perhaps whoever built it left food somewhere.”

Lunar Vision hesitated, not wanting to leave where she was familiar or to approach the shifting hallways around her, but her stomach growled. Hunger was indeed a powerful motivator.

The sphere seemed to go on forever. No matter where Solar Spectra turned her magic, she could generate new hallways. If she wanted to, she felt she could even extend them hundreds of miles long, or produce spiral staircases that descended into the blackness below that would take hours to descend.

She was not sure when she had decided that the bunker was a sphere, or how she had reached that conclusion. It seemed to be something that she simply knew, perhaps from having walked round its circumference and instinctively determined the structure’s shape, or perhaps from the flow of the magic that became increasingly powerful as Solar Spectra moved deeper into the machine.

There were, of course, rooms that she could not easily shift. Some of them were massive, larger than the greatest of clan-palaces, designed with seemingly no intent to be filled with any kind of workers and filled completely with machines of unclear purpose.

Most of the machines seemed to be active, at least to some degree. They seemed to hum or vibrate distantly at an almost mixture of frequencies. At other times, though, the corridors were completely silent, the sepulchral emptiness interrupted only by occasional distant sounds that were not repetitive and mechanical- -as if somepony were pushing equipment somewhere far below in an inaccessible and unseeable region of the sphere.

“I wonder how deep it goes,” mused Solar Spectra. She hardly even noticed that Lunar Vision was shaking behind her, and not from cold.

“Sister, we should not be here,” whispered Lunar Vision. “It is not a good place…and…it is making me see things…”

“What sort of things?”

“An eye of many shapes,” said Lunar Vision, clearly having no idea what it meant.

“Just a little further,” said Solar Spectra. “Just a little…little further…”

Then, suddenly, she came to another vast room. It was immediately clear to her that it was not the same as the others, though. The structure of the room resisted change, as if it were profoundly heavy, but it was not filled with machines engaged in some obscure task. Instead, there was a clear floor, but it was not just a floor. It appeared to consist of coencentric, interlocking plates, many demarcated with symbols that Solar Spectra could not read. Further, it was scattered with the first debris she had seen in the entire place: remnants of metal and stone pieces, and bits of scroll.

The room appeared round, and something was glowing in the center. Solar Spectra began to approach.

“Do not go in!” cried Lunar Vision.

Solar Spectra could not help herself, though. She illuminated what she could of the massive room and approached the center.

As the room filled with light, she suddenly gasped, and for just a moment understood what Lunar Vision meant. In the center of the room was a platform of some kind, surrounded by a mechanical device that appeared to be controls. Slumped against the controls, still gripping them, was a skeleton.

The fear passed quickly, though, as it was replaced with curiosity. Endless war and death were as much a part of Equestrian life as were ponies themselves, and Solar Spectra had seen a great number of dead and dying in her short life. This skeleton, though, was unlike any she had ever seen.

The most noticeable aspect was that relatively little of it was actually made of bone. A significant portion of it consisted of metal, both in the form of robotics and the tubes and wires that had once penetrated its organic torso, feeding the organs within. That was not altogether unusual; cybernetics were not unheard of in Equestria, especially among the wealthy. The architecture of these, though, was completely foreign.

What was most strange about the skeleton was its head, though. Where there should have been a wide-eyed pony skull there was instead something far more reptilian, almost dragon-like. It had a wide mouth filled with a number of tiny but razor-sharp teeth. It also had horns- -three of them, arranged in a line, protruding from its forehead.

As Solar Spectra stared at it in amazement, though, she thought for just a moment that she saw something move. Deep within its long-empty eye sockets, something shifted. Something pink, covered in lines that formed a pattern of complex shapes.

Suddenly, the room started to shift. The area was illuminated, and Lunar Vision screamed as the ceiling began to close inward, shifting, becoming something different.

In the center, Solar Spectra’s eyes focused on what she had seen glowing. It was a single piece of clear crystal, surrounded in a mesh framework, forming a sphere roughly the size of her hoof. Above it, two more spheres appeared, held in place by metal supports attached to vast gyroscopes and other clock-like instruments of incomprehensible detail. One glowed red and warm, the other white and cold. Both of them stopped and hovered at equal distances from the crystal-centered sphere, hovering together in perpetual stasis, as did the sun and moon over Equestria.

The ceiling continued to change, extruding and shifting. It began to represent itself with symbols and mathematical parameters that were far beyond Solar Spectra’s ability to comprehend, and it stretched out things that resembled needles. There were thousands of them, all pointed at that center crystal, reaching toward it before locking themselves in place at various distances, their purposes threatening but unclear.

Solar Spectra felt something in her horn vibrate, and her whole body felt warm and tingly, as if somepony were brushing her all over. Pink sparks began to arc from her horn, and for just a moment, she thought she heard a voice speaking to her in a familiar but incomprehensible language.

The voice resolved itself quickly, though:

“Sister!” cried Lunar Vision.

The feeling cracked and shattered, and Solar Spectra found herself standing in the center of a darkened and empty room, lit only by a model of the sun and one of the moon, her sister crying behind her.

“Lunar Vision!” cried Solar Spectra, galloping across the now stationary, lifeless room toward her sister. It no longer felt warm and welcoming, but somehow so cold and sterile, like a crypt or some other ancient place that had been forgotten so long that no life managed to remain, a place that should have stayed that way.

“I am sorry, sister,” said Solar Spectra, putting her forlegs around the tiny winged filly, wrapping her in a hug. “I did not mean to worry you. We need to get back to the part near the surface. Come.”

“And when Harmony ignites for the third time since the defeat of the Dark Princess, he of the two triangles shall awaken,” said Lunar Vision, somehow sounding distant and empty. Solar Spectra pulled herself back from the filly, and to her horror saw that her eyes deep turquois, with slit-shaped pupils. “And he shall be called Oblivion, the Destroyer of Worlds.”

“Lunar Vision!” said Solar Spectra, shaking her sister. “Wake up!”

Lunar Vision blinked, and her eyes returned to their normal state. She looked confused.

“Sister?” she asked, confused. “I was…I was somewhere else…”

“Come with me, sister,” said Solar Spectra, smiling. She ignited her horn, and shifted the halls of the sphere to make a path back to the surface. “Come. I should never have ignored you. But I think the storm will be over soon.”

“Ignored me?” said Lunar Vision, confused.

Solar Spectra only smiled, and led her sister back to the light.

The wind had decreased, and the coldness had decreased marginally. Even so, both the sisters knew that it was time to start moving again. They left the dark edge of the strange sphere in the center of the dead city, trotting across the lifeless land to continue their journey, regardless of where it would take them.

Solar Spectra looked back for just a moment, though. She could not help but recall what had happened there, and the curiosity still burned within her. She was not even fully aware of it, but she had already vowed that she would one day return.

Chapter 17: Denial of a Request, a Shipment of Apples, a Party, and a Vault

“So,” said D27, leaning against the fence, gesturing with his claws. He clicked them together, trying to focus on what he was hearing and render it into understanding. “You live in an all-female commune outside of Ponyville, and you secrete a fluid that you trade for money...that ponies drink.”

“Well, I don’t know if they drink it so much,” replied Baherie with her peculiar but oddly endearing accent. “I mean, not so much anymore. They mostly for baking, dontchaknow.”

“Baking. With lactic fluid. That you secrete.”

“It’s kind’a gross when he puts it like that,” said another of the cows, who was enjoying a meal of dried hay. “I mean, how do you think that tradition even got started?”

“Now, now, Abigar, it’s perfectly natural. Nature’s best food, dontchaknow.”

“So, does that imply that you drink the milk of ponies?”

The cows looked somewhat disgusted at the thought of it, and D27 was still having a difficult time understanding.

“I made milk once,” said a voice from behind D27. The shock of it, in addition to having his eyes on only the front of his head, caused him to jump in reaction with enough force for him to land on the other side of the fence with the cows.

Somehow, without him noticing, a Pegasus pony had appeared behind him. She was gray, with a pale blond mane and bright yellow eyes that rather starkly stared in different directions.

“You made milk?” said D27. He actually had rather hoped that ponies somehow did not lactate; despite being a mostly liquid being that was normally a mass of mouths and tentacles that usually persisted on swamp muck, he found the idea of pony reproduction disturbing.

“Yeah, when Dinky Doo was born.” She frowned. “I didn’t make very much though. Barely enough for one batch of muffins…and they didn’t taste very good.”

“Deerie, that’s why you’ve got to let the professionals handle that sort of thing,” said Baherie. D27 could only hope that this “Dinky Doo” was this mare’s daughter, because if she was somehow her sister, the situation would rapidly become too strange for him to tolerate.

“Who exactly are you?” said D27. “And how did you get so close to me? And has anyone told you that you look weirdly like a winged Single Horn?”

“My name is Ditzy Doo,” said the mare, smiling. “Most ponies call me Derpy, though, because of my Amblyopia. I deliver air mail!”

D27 leaned over the fence and looked past Ditzy Doo’s saddlebags, which were stuffed with numerous letters. Her cutie mark was an image of bubbles.

“Okay,” he said, leaning back. “So why are you here?”

The mare reached into her bag with her mouth and withdrew a magazine. She passed it to Baherie. The cover showed an image of a blue bull-like creature flexing his arms, and was entitled “IRON WILL MONTHLY”, subtext, “Your monthly guide to ABSOLUTE ASSERTIVENESS”. In all capital letters, D27 could not tell if it was spelled wrong or not.

“Ooh,” said Baherie, taking the magazine and bouncing slightly.

Abagar looked over her friend’s shoulder. “Guide to assertiveness?” she said. “Baherie, you’re the last one of us that needs to be more assertive!”

“I don’t buy it for the articles,” giggled Baherie, blushing slightly.

“Ah, that Iron Will isn’t so great. Minotaurs are real weirdos, dearie. Now buffalo, those are some bulls. All that hair…”

“I’ve heard they have enormous- -” began Ditzy Doo.

“DON’T finish that sentence, if you don’t mind,” said D27.

“Stature,” squeaked Ditzy Doo. She stared blankly for a moment, as if she forgot where she was, and then reached into her bag again. “I have one for you too,” she muttered through the envelope in her mouth.

“What?” said D27, taking it in his claw. “How do you even know my name?”

“Rainbow Dash told me,” she said. “And she said, if you see him, hold him down until I get there, so that I can give him a black eye for what he did to Pinkie Pie.”

“Oh,” said D27, looking at the blue letter. To his surprise, he saw that it was an electric bill. For a moment he wondered if the proto-golems were starting to charge him for the massive amounts of Gloame energy he was using, but as he looked closer, he realized there had been a mistake.

“This is addressed to Meadow Overlook Apartments, apartment D27,” he said, handing the letter back to Ditzy. “I am just D27.”

“Oops,” she said, taking the letter back. She rifled through her bags, and brought out another. “This one is yours, then.”

It was bright purple , but the address was actually correct. D27 flipped open the top, pulled out the paper, and read it. The script was neat and well-practiced, clearly written by a being with fingers, and the bottom was sighed with the name “Twilight Sparkle”.

“It’s a summons to the castle of Princess Twilight,” said Abagar, looking over D27’s shoulder. “Ooh! You must be important!”

“Tell the princess I refuse,” said D27 flatly.

“What?” said everypony and everycow within earshot, with Ditzy Doo being the only one who had apparently not been listening.

“You can’t refuse a summons from the princess!” cried Abagar, “besides, she’s such a nice pony! Why, she helped us organize our funds and milking schedules. Turns out somecow was spending half our discretionary income at SugarCube Corner.” She glared at another cow across the pasture, who ducked behind some hay. “We added thirty percent production in the last quarter, dontchaknow!” She leaned in closer. “Besides, if you play your cards right, a handsome pony like you might even have a shot at being a certain prince Sparkle!”

“I have an aversion to alicorns,” explained D27. “I do not like them, and they do not like me. Also, I have work to do. Bubble mail winged pony! Please relay this message to your ‘princess’.”

Ditzy Doo saluted with the wrong hoof, and tried to form a determined expression that was completely diffused by her endearing mismatched eyes. Her wings flapped, and she returned to the sky.

“Such a shame,” said Abagar. “What I wouldn’t do to get invited to a royal function. But, if there’s one thing we cows know, it’s that when work needs to be done, you better darn-well do it, right girls!”

The cows across the field produced a mooing cheer of support, and started to make their way to their communal barn for the afternoon milking.

D27 waved as they went. “If I see a hairy bison-bull, I will send him your way!” he called. The cows giggled as they entered their barn and closed the door.

With the cows unable to see him, D27 did not even bother to climb over the fence. He simply reduced most of his body to liquid and passed through the slats. He had attempted to suppress his surprise and sense of danger as best as he could, and to his knowledge, the cows and the gray mare had not sensed it. He had already known that the alicorn knew of his presence, but the fact that she had her associates actively searching for him made the situation far more dangerous. Despite how “nice” this Twilight might have been, she was still a grotesque abomination against nature and, more importantly, almost certainly a pawn of forces that were D27’s sworn enemy. If she got close enough to him to understand what he actually was, he would almost certainly attempt to kill him.

Which, really, should not have been something especially threatening to D27. Twilight was not like the pink and violet servant of the Heart of Order; she was far weaker. Eliminating her would be easy. Doing so, however, would not be advisable, in part because it would make her friends sad.

There was something else, though, that ran somewhat deeper. Although her magical power was small, there was something about it that was strange. D27 had only detected traces of it originally, but when the six ponies had been together, he had actually detected a full signal. It took him all night to deconvolute it, but it was definitely Order. Something was strange about it, though, as if it were contaminated by something. More importantly, though, D27 now realized that the Order he sensed from those six had been the same Order that had awakened him.

He trotted through the orderly, non-Everfree woods outside of Ponyville, lost in contemplation. This Rainbow Dash was a competent athlete, and probably a formidable warrior. She and the others were dangerous. It was no longer safe for D27 to be in Ponyville, at least until he created better escape plans and gathered more mass. He needed to return to the Gloame immediately and wait.

As he thought, though, he suddenly noticed a shape that was out of place on the ground. He stopped and looked down, realizing that it was a cupcake.

D27 knew what a cupcake was; he had read about them in the books in the library. They were apparently good, although their taste was actually dependent not on what he felt they tasted like but rather what Applejack thought of them, as he had copied her tongue. Still, it did look tasty, if out of place.

His triangular eyes shifted from side to side, searching for ponies that might be around. There did not seem to be anyone nearby, so he focused his attention on the confection. With a snap, his tongue extended several feet, grasping the dessert and pulling it back into his mouth. Although it was not as good as apples, it was indeed good, if a bit papery.

As he started chewing, though, a net suddenly burst from the forest floor, pulled up by well-concealed ropes, narrowly missing him.

“What the hay?” he said through a mouthful of cake. He looked around again, and then decided it would be best to run to his portal rather than walk.

As he left, he did not hear a muffled curse from beneath a nearby bush, nor did he see a well-camouflaged Pinkie Pie shake her hoof to the sky in anger.

Twilight yawned as she descended the castle staircase, a cup of fresh tea held in her magic that she gently sipped from. Her travels the day before and her late return had apparently taken more of her energy than she had thought, and she had awoken several hours later than normal. Celestia’s glorious sun was already most of the way toward its zenith, and the Castle of Friendship was bathed in light.

He friends had, for the most part, already awoken. They had been kind enough to write her an extended note thanking her, so that they could communicate their gratitude for staying the night without waking Twilight. The idea was odd, of course, because technically the castle was as much theirs as it was Twilight’s. Still, she appreciated the thought.

Applejack had been the first to rise- -and the one who started the note. She was returning to Sweet Apple Acres to begin work on the massive apple order that had just been placed; Twilight supposed that she left before the sun had even risen. Fluttershy had been next, writing that she was departing to have a long talk with a group of crows about pecking at eyes. Rarity had been the last, and had written something about needing to get to work when it was really clear that she needed to return Sweetie Belle’s cerorite gemstone before the filly noticed it was gone.

Rainbow Dash, as usual, had not yet awoken, except to say something to Derpy the mailpony when Derpy had arrived to take a form letter from Twilight inviting this mysterious D27 to the castle. Twilight figured they might talk, and even have lunch. If Rainbow Dash was awake by then, perhaps she could join them.

It actually annoyed Twilight somewhat that Rainbow Dash, despite her propensity for naps and the fact that she had technically dropped out of school halfway through had a significantly more lucrative career than the rest of their friends. She even had a truly massive cloud house built outside of town.

Spike was also still asleep, and snoring almost as loudly as Rainbow. Twilight had decided to let them both sleep; she herself was actually still a bit too tired to deal with Rainbow Dash anyway. She just wanted to go down to the library and pick out a few books for morning reading.

When she reached the library, though, she realized that something was profoundly different. Whereas before there had been piles of unstacked, unprocessed books, everything was now neatly packaged and ordered on the shelves. The shelves themselves had been aligned and repositioned, and the shelves that Twilight had just purchased constructed and fully loaded.

Amazed, Twilight found herself running to the case where the card catalogue was kept. She pulled it open with her magic and was greeted with the scent of wood and paper. She and Spike had only barely started constructing the catalogue, but now it was completely filled and organized perfectly to the Dongola Decimal system.

As Twilight marveled, Spike wandered into the room, looking quite tired.

“Spike!” cried Twilight. “You didn’t need to stay up all night doing this!”

“Doing what? The only thing I was up all night doing was sleeping.” He looked around. “Hey, nice job with the library, Twilight.”

“Me? It wasn’t me.”

“Then it must have been Owlysious.” Spike yawned. “Or maybe Rarity did it.”

“I don’t think Rarity would organize the library.”

“Well, why don’t you see what the note says?”

“Note?” In her haste to examine the newly organized collection, she had not seen a note sitting alone on one of the tables. It was the only thing left out and un-placed in the oddly sterile but comfortingly clean environment; she was surprised she had not seen it.

Twilight picked it up in her magic, and looked at it, only to realize that it was scribbled in odd geometric shapes that looked more like mathematics than letters.

“What is this?” she said.

“Let me see,” said Spike. He took it in his claw and cleared his throat. “Dear Fuzzy Alicorn,” he started, frowning. “I guess that means you, Twilight.” He continued: “I apologize for having to visit your library so late at night, but I do not sleep, and at the time had an urgent need to better understand how society has changed as of recent. Your collection was helpful, but you lack texts from greater than approximately five thousand years previous or before, which is disappointing but not unexpected.
“I tried to leave it in a better state than I left it, however, in doing so, I may have traumatized your owl. He or she (I can’t tell) seems to be of an open mind, though, and will recover in a few days. Also, I recommend trying to move any books, at least for a few hours. Yours truly, D27.”

“You can read that?” said Twilight, somewhat amazed.

“Of course. Why?” Spike looked somewhat concerned. “You can’t?” Spike set the note down on one of the tables and reached for a book on one of the lower shelves. “Well, it was nice of him to do all that, wasn’t it?”

“I suppose it was a pleasant gesture, but I was really hoping to organize them myself. It takes all the fun out of it like this.”

“Yeah. Fun.” Spike pulled out one of the books. “I wonder what he meant about not moving these?”

Almost as soon as he said it, the book sparked with blue energy and suddenly retracted across the room parallel to the shelf, pulling Spike with it. It moved rapidly as Spike cried out in surprise, and then shifted and moved perpendicularly, reshelving itself with great vigor.

“He must have used some kind of…organization spell,” said Twilight, suddenly highly interested. She pulled one of the books off the shelf and allowed it to slide back with the residual magic it contained. “That’s really quite impressive. I mean, for a whole library. He must have used a geometric expansion parameter to…” her smile suddenly faded. “Wait just a minute! He broke into my house!”

“Twilight, everypony breaks into your house.”

“Well that’s a security problem then. Take a note, Spike. I need to make an appointment with Rollin Tumblers to have new locks installed.”

“You might also want to consider hiring guards, too,” said Spike, taking out a scroll and one of many purple quills in Twilight’s possession. “I hear that Flash Sentry is up for a promotion. Rarity says he’s an excellent candidate for your Captain of the Guard.”

“I don’t need guards,” said Twilight. Especially not Flash Sentry, she thought to herself; she was ashamed to admit it, but she found that she was not as attracted to him in pony form as she had hoped she would be. “I need a locksmith.”

Twilight sighed. As interesting as the spell on the books was, it would take some time to wear off. Unfortunately, that meant no reading. For her, that was like telling her she was no longer allowed to breathe.

“Well, I suppose I have time to work on that letter to the princess for Rarity,” said Twilight. She took out a scroll and a purple quill from a drawer nearby. Fortunatly, it seemed that the stationary had not been enchanted, just the books.

She supposed it was not a bad thing, though. In the neatness, it was clear that the library was barely even a tenth filled. That meant she would need more books, and would get her own chance at organizing them. So many books.

Rainbow Dash swooped down from the cover above, her eyes scanning the ground as her shadow passed over the buildings and streets. Flying, she knew, involved far more than simply speed and agility; a fast mind and faster eyes were needed as well, and as she passed, Rainbow Dash was looking for something in particular.

For just a moment, she looked up at her surroundings. There actually was not that much to hit in a clear blue sky, except clouds, which were generally relatively soft. It was not something that was present, however, that caused her dismay, but the fact that something was lacking.

Rainbow Dash stopped and sighed, then turned back. Several hundred yards behind her, she found Fluttershy, following her rather slowly.

“Come on,” said Rainbow Dash. “For all we know this guy’s on his way into hiding. We have to find him now, or better yet, an hour ago.”

“I’m sorry,” said Fluttershy, accelerating the beating of her wings. It hardly had any effect.

That was, of course, not unexpected. Fluttershy was not known for her speed; in fact, she was rather well known for her lack of it. The only worse flyer that Rainbow Dash knew was Twilight, mostly because alilcorn wings were too large and ornate for good handling.

“Celestia, Fluttershy!” cried Rainbow Dash, “you fly like a breezie.”

“Oh, thank you,” said Fluttershy, smiling. “I do love breezies.”

“It’s not a compliment! It means that you’re only able to move by the breeze.”

“I’m sorry,” apologized Fluttershy. “Although, breezies don’t actually move on the breeze. They use it to charge their magic and…”

“I know,” said Rainbow Dash. “Look, I need to find this pony, so I’m going to go ahead.”

“Rainbow Dash…”

“You can…cover the rear.”

“Rainbow Dash…”

“Remember, if you see a blue pony with a shaved tail, call out or- -”

“RAINBOW DASH!”

They both jumped at the sudden change of volume, and Fluttershy put her hooves over her mouth as if she had said something horribly offensive.

“What?” asked Rainbow Dash, feeling somewhat deaf.

Fluttershy pointed downward. There, below them, moving rapidly through the brush, was a strange blue pony very closely meeting Applejack and Pinkie Pie’s description.

“Hey!” cried Rainbow Dash, suddenly realizing what she was looking at. She pulled in her wings and dove. “Hey you! Stop right there!”

A pair of triangle-pupiled eyes looked back at her, and then D27 broke into a run.

“So it’s a race, huh?” said Rainbow Dash as she accelerated, diving just over the top of the tree canopy, the leaves rustling and tearing from their branches below her.

Her target seemed to be heading toward the Everfree forest, but Rainbow Dash was faster in the air than he was on the grouond. She accelerated and circled around, cutting him off, forcing him back toward Ponyville.

Rainbow Dash pulled in her wings and dove through the canopy, spinning as she pierced through the thick branches, emerging into the space below that was occupied only by naked tree trunks. She slowed her descent and came face-to face with D27, who stared back with a strangely blank expression. This was a chase, of course; Rainbow Dash was supposed to be the one smiling above a frightened and exhausted quarry. Instead, D27 just looked mildly annoyed.

Something inside Rainbow Dash tingled, and she resisted an urge to shudder. For the first time, she vaguely understood what a “Pinkie sense” might actually feel like. She knew something was wrong.

The pony below her turned and began galloping at full speed through the underbrush and amongst the trees. Rainbow Dash immediately followed, swerving amongst the trees, rolling and ducking to miss the branches.

Even as she avoided arboreal impact, Rainbow Dash kept her eyes on her target. Strangely, though, she did not gain on him, even though he was running and she flying. He actually seemed to be increasing distance. Even more peculiar was a strange optical illusion that surrounded him: it was as though his legs were moving far too slowly to be carrying him at the speed he was moving.

They both burst through the edge of the forest in hot pursuit, the wind knocking back Fluttershy.

“Fluttershy!” called Rainbow Dash. “I’m going to cut him off! Take him from behind!” Behind her, she saw Fluttershy blush. She had been spending entirely too much time with Discord, it seemed.

Fluttershy pumped her wings as fast as she could, and tried to follow the blue pony. He was moving quickly, though, and directly into town.

“Wait,” called Fluttershy, barely above a whisper. “Please slow down! We just want to talk!”

She dropped from the air and began to gallop, which, to her mild disappointment, was actually faster than her flying. Above her, Rainbow Dash surged ahead, leaving a rainbow contrail. Fluttershy knew what she was doing; Rainbow would go ahead, and she would come from behind. The blue pony could not fly, so they could catch him in an alley or some other place.

The thought terrified Fluttershy, and her legs weakened. There was a possibility that this pony could be dangerous, that he might have magic or weapon, and he might become aggressive. Either one of them could be attacked and injured.

The result would be worse if Rainbow Dash tried to face him alone, though, and for her friend, Fluttershy forced herself to run forward.

The blue pony seemed to become bogged down at the edge of Ponyville, and Fluttershy saw him dart into a narrow space between two buildings. Fluttershy saw her chance, and, closing her eyes, ran after him.

“Please don’t hurt me,” she said, shaking, fully expecting to see a mutated, depraved pony looming over her when she opened her eyes. As she slowly opened them, though, she saw nothing but a narrow alley open on both ends. The other end did indeed have a blue pony, and Fluttershy nearly fainted, only to realize that the other pony had a rainbow mane.

“Fluttershy!” said Rainbow Dash, folding her wings as she trotted into the far end of the alley. “Did you see him? Where did he go?”

“He was just here,” said Fluttershy, confused but also incredibly relieved. She looked around the alley, and saw that indeed nopony was there. There were only several metal trash cans and an empty wooden crate that had once held produce. She moved slowly and carefully down the pathway, just waiting for something to jump out.

“Oh my,” she said.

“What is it?” said Rainbow Dash. “Do you see him?” She slapped open a trash can and looked into it, as if expecting to find something other than garbage.

“No, no. It’s just that this is some strange graffiti.” She looked up at one of the blue-painted walls of the building next to her. Someone had marked a pair of enormous triangles, one pointed up and the other pointed down, in black paint.

“Eh,” said Rainbow Dash. “I’ve seen better.”

“I actually thought this particular building was yellow,” said Fluttershy to herself.

Rainbow Dash sighed. “I don’t know how, but he got away.”

“I’m sorry,” said Fluttershy. “It was my fault.”

“Don’t beat yourself up about it, Shy,” said Rainbow Dash, smiling and floating into the air. “Not everyone can be as awesome a flyer as me.”

“But I saw him go in here. Oh…I must have been wrong.” Fluttershy took flight.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going to see if any of my bird friends saw where he might have gone,” said Fluttershy, taking off.

“Good Idea. I’ll get back to searching in a minute. He can’t have gotten far.”

D27 watched as Fluttershy floated slowly away. His gaze turned to Rainbow Dash, who had actually landed rather than flying away. She was looking around instead.

The situation was not good. D27 knew that he was probably not at strong risk of being found; they were looking for a pony, after all, and not a thin sheet of protoplasm clinging to a wall. The problem was that their hunt was intensifying. The forces of Twilight Sparkle were gathering; even as the one called Rainbow Dash had chased him, he has sensed several well-placed pitfalls below him. Had he not levitated himself to accelerate his motion, he almost surely would have fallen into one and been impaled on a number of stakes, probably poisoned or, if the ponies actually had uncovered anything about his basic biology, tipped in silver.

In addition, Rainbow Dash seemed to be a formidable pony. Oddly, though, she was armed with no weapons. She had no wing blades, knives, guns, or plasma devices. It was as though she had expected to apprehend and kill him with her bare hooves. That meant she was either powerful, or an idiot.

D27 decided that hiding would not be the appropriate course of action. He needed to send a message.

Silently, he detached from the wall, reforming himself into a new shape. He did not immediately revert to his pony form, but rather one that loomed substantially over Rainbow Dash, directly behind her. Despite their large eyes, ponies still had a blind spot, directly behind them.

As the pony examined the ground around her, D27 extended an arm-like appendage. He slowly moved it over Rainbow Dash and expanded it. Then he brought it down with carefully timed precision. The main arm landed directly in the center of her back, between her wings, causing her to cry out in surprise. Simultaneously, a pair of narrow appendages slammed into her sides, impacting the thick muscle directly anterior to her wing joints.

With an audible “pomf”, her wings suddenly extended, stretching themselves as far as they could go, reaching so far that the feathers separated, exposing the soft, pale blue down beneath.

With a slightly less audible slurping sound, D27 retracted himself inward and reverted to his pony form, just in time for Rainbow Dash to turn and see him.

Her eyes widened. “You!” she cried, attempting to move forward, only to cry out in something that clearly represented a confused state of sensation. “OOoh- -my wings!” she cried, suddenly, looking up at them. “My wings!” She tried to flap them, but they barely moved. “I can’t fly! I can’t fly! What did you do to me?!”

She was clearly on the verge of panic, and to D27’s surprise, she saw that she might actually be on the verge of crying. “I can’t fly!” she said, trying to leap into the air, suddenly almost completely ignoring D27. As she tried to move, though, her legs weakened and buckled.

“Relax,” said D27, trying to sound as calm as possible. “I created an exaggerated preening reflex in your wings. It is not permanent, I assure you.”

“You did what?” she cried, suddenly taking several steps back as her face darkened in color.

“Interestingly, an Aurasus can be disabled in the same way.” Although since Aurasi were hard-shelled, the required appendage was pointed, to cut deep into their metal bodies. He thought it was best not to mention that to Rainbow Dash; she probably would also not want to be aware of the fact that D27 could just as easily have permanently paralyzed her from the wings down.

“You stay away from her!” said a rather soft but highly agitated voice from the edge of the alley. D27 turned to see a pale-yellow Pegasus mare.

“Fluttershy, run!” said Rainbow Dash.

“No! I’m not leaving you, Dash!”

“Both of you, please relax,” said D27. He could see that the yellow mare was shaking with fear, even as she took several weak steps forward.

“I won’t let you go around attacking my friends!” said Fluttershy, her resolve strengthening.

“I may be a murderer, but I’m not cruel,” said D27. He shifted his jaw, and his long prehensile tongue extended, carrying with it a deep blue tourmaline crystal. He set it down on the lid of a nearby trashcan with a click. “Here,” he said. “Take this. Take your friend to the spa. From what I have been told, there is a Pegasus named Bulk Biceps who works part-time as a masseuse. He is apparently an expert in Pegasus muscle massage. The extension should go down with minimal pain. There should be no permanent damage/”

“Should be?” said Rainbow Dash, her surprise rapidly turning into anger. She took several steps forward, but then shook and began to tilt. The muscle spasms in her wings were also effecting her other muscles as well, to some extent; even if she could manage to walk straight, the drag from her wings would make it almost impossible to run.

“A message, though,” said D27, purposely darkening his expression. “For your ‘princess’ Twilight, and for the others. Do not come near me. I do not want to talk to you, or to be anywhere near you. Do not interfere with me. This is especially true for Twilight Sparkle. If she engages me, I will attack to kill. Also tell her to inform her benefactor that I am coming for it, to end its cursed existence.”

He stepped forward, and Fluttershy moved to one side to allow him to pass. As he did, though, a foul aroma suddenly occurred to him. He stopped instantly, and his left eye shifted, his pupil twisting and narrowing.

“Why do you smell of Chaos?” he asked. He expected no answer, though. He wanted to be as far away from Chaos magic as possible; the sensation alone of it was grating, even if there was just a residue of it. He also could not bear the look of fear in the mare’s eyes. She was a soft, almost helpless creature that seemed to exude kindness, and it only reminded D27 of what kind of a creature he was if he caused such fear in such a pure being.

As he left, he heard several pony-based epithets being thrown at him by the light-blue rainbow pony. There were threats of bodily harm, mostly conditional on him approaching any of her friends or Scootaloo. The language was quite colorful.

D27 ignored it, and passed down the mostly empty streets. He sighed, for his vision to suddenly burst into speckles and bright lights as a hoof impacted his face an unseen source to his side.

He did not even bother to react. He was not in the mood for another confrontation. He instead turned his head slowly and stared coldly at an eggshell colored pony with bicolor pink and violet hair.

“That’s for what you did to Lyra!” said the Pony.

D27 stared at her, and then took a breath. Suddenly, he separated his chest, creating a slit that ran from his forelegs up to his muzzle, revealing the gaping multi-tonged mouth inside. Simultaneously, yellow secondary eyes opened along his sides, and he released a hissing scream at the pony, splattering her with fluid that probably came from his eating too many apples.

The pony recoiled, both with surprise and sudden fear, revealing the fact that she was surprisingly agile and likely benefited from advanced training. The shock, though, of seeing a pony open into a clamshell of thousands of barbed teeth and numerous eyes was still severe.

D27 closed the mouth and eyes, reforming the original shape of his pony head. “I’m sorry I did that,” he said, slowly. “That was out of line. However, I am having a bad day, and you just punched me.”

Without further hesitation, he pointed himself directly at the Everfree forest, and started walking.

Applejack set down the basket of apples in the center of the Sweet Apple Acres apple storage shed. As she took a moment to admire the impressive pile that she and Big Macintosh had been working on tirelessly for immediate sale, she wondered if she would be able to afford a Sweet Apple Acres apple silo with all the funds she had acquired for this shipment.

She knew that she probably would not actually spend the money on a silo, of course. She was already creating a mental list of things that needed repair or upgrading: the barn needed the back half of the roof re-shingled, the new southeastern field needed leveling, a new cider press could be purchased to increase production, and numerous other things. There was also the matter of Applebloom’s college fund, and the emergency fund that she kept in case of accidents.

Leaving the fresh apples, Applejack picked up a new basket and began trotting to the door. As she exited, she stopped to take in the breeze and the smell of the wide-open apple fields. Even though autumn was rapidly approaching, the weather was warm and sunny. It was a perfect day for the bucking of apples.

Only then did she notice that there was a surprising amount of shade for being outside the barn. Her gaze slowly drifted to her right, and then upward. Looming over her was a massive asymmetrical creature that seemed to be made entirely of rock and crystal.

It seemed to notice her, and the reflection on one of the crystals changed, as if an eye behind it were moving, looking down at her. All Applejack could do in response was stare with her mouth agape.

The creature moved, drawing one of its massive claw hands close to her, and she suddenly felt incredibly heavy; she knew that she would not be able to move out of its reach fast enough, so she braced for the blow to fall.

Instead, the hand stopped before her. She opened her eyes and saw that it was holding a note between the tips of two crystalline fingers.

“Dear Miss Ahpplejack,” she read aloud. “It ahcurrs to me that ponies prob’bly can’t read Draconian, so I wrote this one in your pony script. I aht all my ahpples, so I had one of mah associates go to retrieve whatever yah have so far. Ah cannot carry several tons of ahpples mahself, but he can. Sahned, D27. P.S, whay do you raise pigs? What purpose do they serve you if you don’ eat them?”

Applejack looked up at the creature, and it released a deep and almost melodious sound.

“Oh,” said Applejack. “Oh…kay…”

D27 approached the three rocks where he had imbedded his portal crystals. In retrospect, he should have just stayed in the Gloame the night before; returning to Equestria had been a terrible idea. Now, not only was everypony trying to kill him, but he had actively attacked Princess Twilight’s comrades and shown his true nature to a rather unfortunate pony. The situation was bad, and the setting sun above him only served to mock him, as if reminding him of his ancient failures.

He would need to return with more equipment. He would need to arm himself with multiple unicorn skulls and a full set of particle weapons. The enemy would surely regroup and attack; the next time, he would not be fighting a pair of unarmed Pegasi. Next time, it could be a contingent of unicorn mages, or earth ponies with energy weapons and artillery support.

As he approached his destination, though, he suddenly heard a metal click followed by a strange sensation in his right foreleg. He looked down and saw that a well-concealed bear trap had just severed his leg.

“Alright,” he called out to the dark and thorny forest. “Pinkie! You’ve gone too far this time! You’re going to hurt somepony with these things!”

The severed leg reduced to liquid and squirmed forward, then reconnected to the stump where it had been, seamlessly reintegrating into D27’s consolidated form. Severed limbs were not actually a problem for a Choggoth; D27 could exist in several thousand independent parts if necessary. It did concern him that Pinkie Pie would go to such extreme means to avenge her honor; it was also worrying because if a real pony had stepped in the trap, his or her leg would surely have been broken. The thought of a pony like Scootaloo or Fluttershy being hurt that way vaguely disgusted D27.

Ignoring the possibility of further traps, he reached the rocks. Blue sparks of Order jumped from his body and engaged the crystals, opening the gate and allowing the pleasant sensation of Gloame energy to wash over him. He stepped through the portal and took a deep breath of the superior air as the portal snapped shut behind him.

“Now I’ve got you!” said a high voice. D27 jumped and turned, hoping that somehow the shadows had learned to talk. Instead, he found himself face-to-face with a pink pony.

“Ooh,” said Pinkie Pie. “Where are we?”

“What are you? How are you?”

She began to hop around D27 in a circle. “I had a dream like this once. Except there was big toast, and Rainbow Dash was underwater, and the moon was…” her hopping slowed, and her smile faded. “Why does…why does the air smell funny?”

Then she fully succumbed to the toxic Gloame atmosphere and collapsed to the stone ground below.

Pinkie Pie’s vision swirled. She felt strange and weak, like midnight on cider day, with a headache like the ones she always got the next day. As her vision swirled, she saw strange shapes, the foremost among them being something tall, blue, and spindly.

She blinked, and the wraith-like shape had been replaced with that of a blue pony.

D27 watched Pinkie Pie’s eyes starting to open. Against all odds, she was regaining consciousness. She was unusually resilient for a pony, it seemed.

“Ohh my head,” she said, sitting up. “I feel like I partied for three weeks straight.” She popped up, fully awake. “Now that would be a party? Could you imagine? We would need to party in our sleep!”

She seemed to realize that her voice sounded strange, and she looked down to see the respirator over her muzzle.

“What is this thingy?” she said, pulling at it.

“Don’t remove that,” suggested D27. “It’s a respirator. The air here is probably toxic to you. Don’t worry, the guy I pulled it off of did not die of poor air quality.”

“Then what did he die from? Was it his heart? These tickers sure don’t like butter!”

“I think he got his legs blown off. Hard to tell, there were bits everywhere. The respirator was fine, though.” He attempted to glare. “And you, hyperactive pink mare, are an idiot.”

“No I’m not,” said Pinkie. “If I was an idiot, could I do this?” She reached into her hair and removed a balloon. She attempted to inflate it, only to realize that doing so was not possible with a respirator mask on.

“Yes, one could. But that isn’t my point. I didn’t have respirators on hand. I barely found one in time to keep you alive while I reversed the poisoning. Plus, that portal was not optimized for organic life- -”

Pinkie seemed to get distracted. “Ooh, where are we? Is this your house? I think we’re underground. Do you live in a hole?” She gasped. “You really are a burro!”

“It’s not a hole. This is a redout. And you should not be here!”

A proto-golem passed by, releasing its characteristic sound.

“I know,” said Pinkie, “he is a mister grumpy pants.”

“And then there’s the…wait, you can understand them?”

“Of course I can, silly.” She began to bounce around the room. “I grew up on a rock farm! I can speak to rocks, and sometimes, they speak back, but I’ve never seen rocks like this! My sister Maud would love them to death!”

“Is that possible?”

“Well, it hasn’t happened anyone I know, and I love everyone! Everyone in ponyville is my very dear friend!” She seemed to be about to break into song, but suddenly started gasping, fogging the clear material of her mask.

D27 sprang into action, grabbing the adjust valve on the side of her equiptment and turning it. “Pinkie, calm down! It has a manual oxygen valve. If you don’t adjust it, you’ll suffocate.” Still, looking at the calibration, she was consuming an incredible amount of oxygen. Her metabolism, D27 reasoned, must be prodigious.

“Okay,” said Pinkie, taking a deep breath. “Not enough…air…for…song.” She took one more breath. “It probably wouldn’t work in text anyway.”

“Text?”

“Never you mind.” Ignoring D27’s rather strong suggestion, she began bouncing again. “So now that I caught you, it’s time for your party!”

“Party? Pinkie, you were just trying to kill me.”

“Kill you? No, silly! I was just trying to catch you! And now I did!”

“You put down bear traps. You cut off my leg!”

“Well it got better, didn’t it?”

D27 sighed. “Pinkie. Miss Pie. I don’t want a party. I don’t need one, either. Just let me take you back home.”

The proto-golem, who was now joined by several others, spoke.

“She wants a party,” said Pinkie Pie. It said something else, and then gasped. “She says you’ve never had a party. Not even for her birthday! Or her retirement!”

“First of all, they have females?” D27 turned toward the proto-golem. “And second, you can’t retire, you’re immortal!”

The other proto-golems joined in.

“Yes, I’m trying to convince him,” said Pinkie Pie, “but he’s really stubbern.” She put her hoof to her mouth and whispered loudly. “It’s because he’s a burro!”

“I’m not a burro.”

“A burrito?”

“That means ‘little donkey’. No.”

“Really? That’s a terrible name for a snack. Who would want to eat a donkey?”

“A lot of beings, I’m sure. Them, for example.”

D27 pointed to several of Pinkies shadows. Only one of them was pony-shaped; the others were far longer and stared back with pairs of round, glowing eyes. On her collapse, they had nearly devoured her; D27 had taken great effort to prevent that. Even with the glowing crystalline device he had kludged together and attached to her neck- -which she had failed to notice- -only kept them at a distance.

“Ooh! Ooh! I love shadow puppets!” Pinkie Pie contorted her body, shifting her own shadow in the process, causing it to look like the head of some kind of vast reptilian creature. She moved her body as though dancing, and the shadow to gnash its toothless gums before suddenly biting down on one of the living shadows.

The shadow twitched and distorted, and then looked to the others. They suddenly all disengaged from Pinkie, traveling up the walls to the corners and angles of the high ceiling, where they remained, watching.

“Oops, sorry!” cried Pinkie. “Hey, do you guys want a party?”

The shadows did not respond. They only stared.

“I say that’s a yes…”

“Et tu, carnivorous shadows? Pinkie, please, at least tell me, why are you obsessed with this?”

“Because I want to make you smile!” she produced a large smile of her own.

“Why?”

“Why? Why? Do I need a reason?” she started to break into song, but as her air depleted, stopped herself. “The point is, I want to show you how special living in Ponyville is, and so that you can be my friend.”

“I do not have friends, nor do I need them, nor do I want them. But…”

“What about it?” said Pinkie Pie, looking at her cutie mark.

“If this is really that important to you, fine. I seem to be out-voted anyway.”

The proto-golems cheered quietly.

“Really?” said Pinkie Pie, as surprised as D27 was himself.

“Yes. But no ponies. Only you.”

“Why just me?”

“Because I, well…” It was difficult for him to explain that he had only just recently made a death threat against Twilight and directly attacked one of her friends.

“Ohhh,” said Pinkie after a moment. “You’re shy…”

“I’m not shy,” maintained D27. “It’s just that the golems find the air in equestrian far too humid.”

“Sure, whatever you say,” said Pinkie. “Now, show me where you keep your streamers.”

“I don’t have any.”

“No streamers? How about your cake?”

“I have no cake. Especially the sort made with…milk.”

“No cake? Well, no problem,” Pinkie began to wade through the now extremely numerous proto-golemns, bouncing above them every few steps. “I’ll just make one. A big one, with all you rock guys. Where’s your kitchen?”

One of the proto-golems replied.

“What?” cried Pinkie Pie. “No kitchen?”

“I wasn’t intending to do any cooking when I built this place,” said D27. “And I ate all the apples.”

One of the proto-golems said something. “Oh. Apples will work. I think…” she reached into her hair and pulled out a can of baking powder. “Yes. I can make something when he gets back. D27, do you have any music?”

“No.”

“Well,” said Pinkie Pie, jumping back over the golems. “I do have that covered, at least.” She pulled something else from her hair and presenting it to D27. D27 took it and examined the cover. It was a disk in a paper envelope, with a picture on the front of mutated looking ponies drinking an iridescent green fluid from a barrel.

“Munistable Waste: the Art of Partying,” read D27. “This is music?”

“I never leave home without it. Just in case. Now who’s ready to party!”

The golems cheered, and D27 sighed. If it made Pinkie Pie go away, and as long as there were no alicorns present. Also, he rather liked seeing her happy.

Time had little meaning in the Gloame, so it was unclear how long the party went on. The proto-golem sent to retrieve apples did, indeed, return, so many apples were eaten, and some prepared into a rudimentary cake. Proto-golems, of course, did not eat; they were sustained by a combination of mineral resources and Gloame magic but attracted to D27’s Order magic, which also seemed to be a version of their own food. The shadows, though, seemed to rather enjoy apples; they would devour them into down to the seeds whenever they were thrown to them.

Pinkie had many herself, and most of the cake. The party only ended when she also tried to eat some “fruit” that was growing on the mould that had infiltrated D27’s castle. As it turned out, that type of fungus was a powerful stimulant and hallucinogen to ponies, and D27 had to administer life-saving medical treatment a second time that day. Pinkie Pie seemed to have become somewhat ill from eating the fungus, though, and rather tired from partying with immortals for what may very well have been several days to her. Even at great risk to himself, D27 took it upon himself to return her to Ponyville. He did not know where she lived, though, so he left her in a random location. Pinkie Pie did not seem like the kind of pony that would mind.

As the proto-golems dispersed, D27 found himself wandering through the now mostly empty halls of the castle he had constructed. Once again, he was alone, and the only sound was that of the Gloame wind passing through the convoluted tunnels and corridors.

D27 moved deeper in the facility, passing the places that Pinkie Pie had not seen, where he stored the skeletons of countless unicorns and other ponies, each one in an individual cabinet, waiting to be used. He passed the armory, and the places where common magical items and sundry munitions were kept. He was headed far deeper, into the vault.

The vault was the deepest and most secure area of the castle, built well below the surface of the Gloame and constructed to block magic to the best of its abilities. It was where D27 kept things that he had collected that were immensely powerful but that he himself either did not yet know how to use or that were catastrophically dangerous. Many things were down there, more than even he could recall; there strange monoliths that sometimes spoke in whispers, or pieces of technology that were too complex for even him to open; he had several stones of immense power, including a special piece of black obsidian that, if released, would cast a toxic black rainbow across the land, and several other stones and enchanted artifacts of Elder power that even the Lords of Order had sought to destroy.

He was headed toward one room in particular, at the end. As he approached the massive door, the dark metal began to shift in response to his presence, reconfiguring itself and unlocking while simultaneously parting, revealing the darkened inside.

D27 took a bite of his apple, and stepped into the entrance of the room. The pressure from inside was withering, and D27 could only take two steps inward before he felt his molecular nature being torn apart. It was not the same as the force of the Heart of Order, though; this magic was entirely different. It was nothing at all like Order, or even the accursed Chaos, but something organic, not unlike what the unicorns wielded.

Initially, D27 had hesitated to enter this particular room, even after his return. Some part of him had wished that the magic would have dissipated after so long, but another part had feared that it would not. The fact that it had in actuality only seemed to have grown stronger was daunting, especially considering the type of being that had to have lived to have produced something so imposing.

“So,” he said, addressing the massive skeleton that stood in the center of the room, as it had for over one million years. “I’m back now.” The skeleton did not respond, which was not unusual. “If only you could see the world now. It’s nothing like it used to be when you and I ruled the world. Well, when you ruled it…I suppose I never had much interest in actually ‘rulling’ it.”

D27 paused, as if waiting for the skeleton to speak. He still did not know how it had gotten there; he could not recall having brought it in. It had not been in his possession on his death; he only knew of it from the manifests presented by the proto-golems. He knew what it had done, though, but only distantly what it actually was.

D27 sighed. “The world is ruled by ponies now. Hard to believe, I know. We just had one upstairs, actually.” D27 paused. “They are not actually bad creatures. I rather like them. Which is so very, very unfortunate. Because the celestial spheres remain. I failed before, but I will not again.” D27 produced an apple from within himself and placed it on the ground. “I believe it was a custom among your people to make offerings to the dead. Well, before I killed them all. I never really understood why, but seeing you, I think I know why.” He rolled the apple across the floor. It came to a rest beneath the vast skeleton, but did little else; unlike D27, it was not a Choggoth, and perfectly safe around the Grand Magus.

D27 stepped back into the safety of the hallway, and resealed the door, feeling the oppressive magic becoming increasingly obscured by never completely unfelt.

“I will not fail again,” he said to himself. “Not a second time. I promise you that, Rageclaw.”

Chapter 18: The Sun Goddess Protects Her Kingdom

Celestia decelerated rapidly and immediately focused her magic on a vision of her throne room. A white-yellow bubble formed around her, and with a blast of energy, she teleported.

“Princess!” said one of her guards in surprise.

“Bring me a scroll and a quill,” Celestia said, firmly, but as calmly as possibly, trying not to betray her apprehension.

“A…scroll?”

“Yes, a scroll!” said Celestia, her eyes flashing with the power she tried so hard to conceal.

“Yes! Right- -right away!” said the guard, dashing out of the room and quickly returning.

“And a quill?”

“I found ink but…but…”

“Never mind,” said Celestia, pulling out one of her own feathers and magically processing it into a quill. She immediately lifted the ink, scroll, and quill into her magic and began writing.

The message had arrived to her from Spike halfway through her return from the Grand Magus. Since she had been travelling alone and without her chariot, she had not bothered to bring any stationary; she had not expected that she would need it, especially with Luna remaining to watch over the kingdom.

Never had she expected Twilight to contact her with such dire news, though. It seemed that three more pieces of cerorite had appeared. At first, Celestia had been inclined to believe that they were forgeries or some other similar kind of gem, but Twilight had stated that they had been verified by Rarity. Celestia only knew Rarity distantly, but she understood from Twilight’s letters that the mare was incredibly well versed on gemstones and their use in clothing. In addition, the gem that Twilight had witnessed had showed several unique traits that only cerorite showed.

Twilight could not have known, but those pieces needed to be captured immediately and stored under the utmost security. Cerorite had manifold uses, and very few of them were good. One of the most important and most concerning, of course, was its ability to permanently kill an alicorn if fired with adequate velocity into their heads.

Celestia finished the letter rapidly and ignited the letter with a spell, causing it to vanish as smoke. Within seconds, Spike would vomit it up in a plume of green fire, and Celestia felt mildly relieved.

Sitting back on her throne, Celestia sighed, and for a moment took the time to admire her perfectly selected staff of guards. Their presence always made her feel a little bit better.

Her relief quickly ended, though, when she realized that her guards were starting to float. They seemed confused, and tried to cry out, only to find their voices missing. Some of them even tried to swim, an action that had no effect in air; they simply rose to the ceiling and were suspended there.

“Princess,” said Discord, sliding from behind her chair. “It’s so good to see you again. Did you bring me any souvenirs from the you-know-who?”

“Who told you where I was going?”

“No one. Well, perhaps myself. I might have told me, I suppose, but I tried not to. Loose lips do sink ships, you know, and I do so enjoy a good shipping.”

“I suppose there is no hiding anything from you, is there?”

“Well, that depends on how adventurous your feeling.”

“Are you friends with the Grand Magus?” Celestia looked up at her helpless guards; she knew that the same magic that kept them from crying out kept them from hearing as well. Discord seemed to want a private conversation.

“I don’t know if ‘friends’ is the right word, but she knows me. I mean, I was once the ruler of Equestria. I’m a very important pony, you know.” He leaned forward, cupping his lion hand over his mouth, and whispered. “I’m not actually a pony!”

“I know, Discord.” Celestia attempted to change the subject. “So how goes the investigation.”

“Well,” said Discord, suddenly appearing in a trench coat and checking a blank reporter notebook. “I interrogated several ponies, which was fun, but ineffective. Then I did some math.” He became suddenly serious, something that worried Celestia. She actually found his brand of chaotic humor rather endearing, and she was not looking forward to harsh news. “Something weird showed up.” Discord produced a chalk board covered in various calculations.

“Discord, that is the derivative progeneration spell for generating a block of cheese,” said Celestia, looking over the math. “And not very good cheese, either.”

“That’s not important. What I found was that the Order I was sensing is actually almost identical to the magic produced by the Crystal Heart. I mean, without the mushy spirit of harmony and public displays of affection. I hope.”

Celestia’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Is there anything else that produce a strong ‘Order’ signal?”

“Not currently, now, but the point is it’s almost impossible to see through all this noise,” he said, pulling at space and causing several waves passing through it to distort and become visible. “It’s like trying to see stars with the sun out. You’re glorious, glorious sun…”

“Ahem,” said Celestia, forcing Discord to look back to her face.

“Oh. Yes. What did you learn from the old fruit-bat?”

“Discord,” said Celestia, chastising him for being so insulting, even though she herself also had a strong dislike for Crimsonflame. “It is impolite to call her that. But, regardless, she said that what we may be dealing with something called a Choggoth.”

Discord continued to stare forward for a moment, but remained strangely still. Then, rather suddenly, he spread his arms. A set of suitcases appeared in each of his hands, and a rather gauche Hawaiian shirt over his torso.

“Well, time for me to be going,” he said.

“Going where? Why?” asked Celestia, standing. “What do you know?”

“There is a saying, Celestia: when Choggy comes a’ knockin’, you nuke the planet, and then get out. Here, I think I have one for you right here,” he opened one of his bags, searching through it, producing a pile of various random items behind him.

“Who says that?”

“No idea. Because they all, well…their a lot less lively than when they said it. As in, they’re all dead.”

“What is it?”

“Drat,” said Discord, standing next to a now mountainous pile of mostly garbage. “Other suitcase…”

“Discord.”

“I don’t actually know!” he cried. “Things…some things in my brain just aren’t in…order…”

“What do you know, then?”

“Only that they are really, really nasty creatures. Terribly nasty. Worse than me, even.”

“What exactly are they?”

“Something akin to shapeshifters, I suppose. Sort of like a bread dough with too much yeast.” Discord snapped his fingers. A tire appeared. Annoyed, he snapped them again, and produced a potato. He snapped several more times before he managed to summon a rapidly growing lump of yeasty dough. Celestia realized that he was shaking; whatever this was, it was terrifying to him. “Except they grow much bigger than most dough, and eat just about everything in their path.”

“You mean like the schmooze?”

“The schmooze? Yes, exactly like the schmooze, in the same sense that you are exactly identical to a goat.” A rather perplexed looking white goat appeared with a poorly drawn sun icon on its flank and a pastel-rainbow wig. It released a nervous bleat.

“Language, deerie,” said Discord, returning the goat to wherever it came from. “The schmooze is organic protoplasm. Choggoths are something else entirly…well, I suppose they rather do resemble the G1 schmooze, actually…”

“Who?”

“Never you mind. The point is, they exist only to consume universes. Whole ones. Like you consume cloud cake. They aren’t intelligent, they don’t think, and they don’t stop. No fun at all.”

“Could one use the type of magic you have been sensing?”

“A creature made out entirely out of teeth and eyes that eats worlds and uses Order magic? Why, thank you Celestia. I suppose I won’t be sleeping for a few…evers. I don’t go dimension hopping often, but you can darn well bet your secret collection of striped socks that even I’m not crazy enough to go near a dimension infected with a Choggoth.”

Celestia sighed. Discord did not seem to know much about them at all, but Celestia knew less. At least she now had a partial understanding of what the Grand Magus had meant. “Discord,” she said. “I am officially taking you off the case.”

“Off? What? Why?”

“You seemed to be rather intent on leaving a second ago.”

“I was joking. Well, not about the nuke. It’s in there somewhere. And armed. Probably should get rid of that somewhere...you know, with the SALT-lick treaty and all. But I’m not leaving. I’m reformed, remember?”

“And you were quite helpful, Discord. I really am grateful. But I have enough information right now. The situation now falls to me to correct.”

“Because you can’t trust me.”

“No. Because it requires surgical precision and the use of resources that I am not comfortable with you or anypony else knowing about yet.”

“You just said it,” said Discord, growing increasingly angry. The pile of trash and his flamboyand shirt disappeared, as did the bags he had with him. “You don’t trust me.”

“No. I just think that this task is not suited for you.”

“Because you want to go about it all orderly and neat,” he snapped. “You haven’t seen what these…these Choggoths can do!”

“Neither have you.”

“I now that. But my point still stands. Careful planning is not going to help you now. This needs to be an all-out war. Isn’t that what you’ve been planning for?”

“Equestria has been at peace for one thousand years. Why would I be preparing for war?”

“Don’t pretend like I’m an idiot. I have eyes, you know. I see what you’ve been doing. You’ve been collecting an army of immortals.”

“I do not know what you are talking about.”

“Don’t you? You resurrected Luna, un-stoned and ‘reformed’ me, gave Cadence the Crystal Empire, and used some extremely forbidden magic to force poor Twilight Sparkle to share your own fate. At first, I thought you were just lonely…but now…”

“I expand my power as I see fit to ensure the eternal peace and prosperity of Equestria,” replied harshly. “And being a princess is a tremendous honor.”

“Yes, the Princess of Friendship, who will have to watch all her friends age and die until all she has left is the rest of us misfits. A real great honor.”

“I will wield my power as I see fit,” said Celestia coldly. “And that is final.”

“So we’re all just tools to you. Well, ‘Tia, you’re the tool!”

“Give up the case, Discord.”

“No. You know very well that you can’t control me, and I’m not going to let this land get destroyed because you want to maintain an impression of power.” Discord sighed. “I can see why your sister went batty in her lunar belfry, having to deal with you all this time.”

“What did you say?” said Celestia, her cold anger suddenly melting.

“Buttery Snake,” said Discord, snapping his fingers.

A sickly green colored pony suddenly emerged from the background, and Ceslestia did a double-take as she realized that he had been there the whole time, somehow unseen without being invisible. Even stranger was the massive, clearly magically induced scar running down his side, severing his cutie mark- -which had formerly been a golden colored snake- -into two pieces, one of which resembled a stick of butter.

A strange, multi-pointed antler in the center of the green ponies head glowed.

“Buttery Snake and Discord out,” he said. They both vanished with a pop, and the rather exhausted royal guards fell to the floor.

Almost as soon as they did, the door to the throne room flew open. Celestia expected a surge of guards coming to “protect” her from Discord, but instead, only a lone chiropteran pony entered.

He winced at the light pouring through the windows, but maintained his professionalism and stood in the center of the room, hastily bowing. From his armor, it was clear that he was one of Luna’s personal guards. If Celestia called, his name was Nightwatcher.

“Princess,” he said with his oddly deep chiropteran voice.

“Has something happened to my sister?” said Celestia, standing.

“Physically, no, but a peculiar mood has beset upon her. I was sent to call for you at once on your return, but the door was sealed…”

“Take me to her. Now.”

“Yes, your majesty.”

Celestia was led into the depths of the castle. It was a place she rarely went, except to visit her sister; until Luna’s return, it has mostly been a location used for storage or boiler rooms. The current castle had never been built with Luna in mind; although Celestia knew that she would one day return from the moon, she had never been sure if she could find somepony to use the Elements of Harmony to restore her to her kind and loving state.

The basement had since been rebuilt substantially in the past several years, though. Mechanical functions were moved deeper into the castle, or higher; the floors and walls had been repurposed with adequately royal décor and cool-glowing gem-lamps. There were even several chiropteran employees, who, although they bowed to Celestia with appropriate decorum, seemed to be deeply suspicious of her. It seemed that, even after one thousand years, they still remembered what she had done to their people.

Nightwatcher led Celestia to a large door, the door to Luna’s personal chambers. There were no guards outside of it, only a female chiropteran that Celestia knew well.

“Cavern Melody,” she said. “What has happened to my sister?”

“I do not know,” replied Cavern Melody. “There was an incident with Discord. Something happened, and there was a magical discharge. A lawyer was badly injured.”

“A lawyer?”

“By the name of Slimy Snake, I believe.”

Celestia recalled the sickly looking unicorn with the scar down his side.

“What was the condition of this Snake?”

“Discord intervened, and saved his life.”

“You mean the injury was life-threatening? Where did it originate?”

“The magical signature has been confirmed to be Princess Luna’s.”

“Then I need to find Discord immediately.”

“No, Princess, that is not what you need to do.” Caver Melody pointed toward the door, her cutie mark glinting in the dim light. Celestia had never figured out entirely what it was; some ancient instrument, she imagined. It also made little sense to her why a pony whose special talent was music was a servant. “You need to be with your sister.”

“You’re right, Cavern Melody,” she said after a slight pause, smiling. She suddenly felt a strange sensation as she looked down at Nightwatcher and Cavern Melody. She had not felt it before, because they had not been togather, but now looking at them both it was far more obvious. Celestia used her magic to gently slide open the door. “And congratulations,” she said. Before the door closed behind her, the two batlike ponies exchanged surprised but knowing glances.

The room inside was dark, and Celestia ignited her horn.

“Luna? Sister, are you here?”

There was a rustling and the surface of the bed on the far side of the room shifted. Luna rose, collecting herself, standing as proudly as she could. Celestia could tell that she had been crying, and that she was trying to hide it.

“Sister,” said Luna, her voice artificially cold in a way that almost mimicked Celestia’s own well-measured royal demeanor. “I see you have returned.”

“Yes, I have. My mission was…partly successful.”

“And I suppose that you have already heard about…about what I did,” her expression dropped, and the deep sadness within her was visible for just a moment.

“And I will have a long talk with Discord, I assure you.

“It was not his fault,” said Luna suddenly. “It was mine, and mine alone. My reaction was…it was mine alone.”

“Reaction to what?”

“Discord attempted to touch my wings and I…I do not know what happened. I flew into a rage. I attacked Discord, and nearly murdered a helpless lawyer pony. I even threatened poor Fluttershy…I said I was going to take her…take her…”

Luna attempted to force herself to regain her composure, even as tears began rolling down her face. “Sister, help me,” she whispered. “I do not know what is happening to me. I can see things, almost remember them. I’m slipping and I think…I think I’m becoming somepony else…”
\ Celestia put her wings around her smaller sister, slowing the spiral of her anxiety, and Luna burst into tears.

“I’m a princess,” said Luna, softly, nearly sobbing. “I am the living goddess of the night. How can this be happening?”

“It was inappropriate for Discord to attempt to touch your wings,” said Celestia.

“But my reaction- -”

“Neither of you could have known. Even I did not suspect it. You reacted to a fragment of a memory.”

“A memory?”

“Yes. From before we were like this, when you were just a little blue Pegasus.” Celestia smiled, but the smile faded. “I failed you, Luna. Back then, because of my failures, terrible things were done to you. Things that can never be forgiven, and that I can never forgive myself for allowing to happen.”

“Please do not tell me,” said Luna.

Celestia looked down at her sister. She had expected Luna to ask about the harsh memories, to probe deeper into her own past, but even now, when those memories were just beyond the edge of her consciousness, she still rejected them.

“I won’t.”

“Because if I remembered, I do not think I would be me anymore.”

Celestia lowered her head over Luna. “Shhh,” she said softly.

After a few minutes, Luna seemed to have calmed down. Celestia stepped back from her. “Are you feeling better?”

“Yes,” said Luna, her voice having regained some of its anachronistic steeliness. “I believe I have improved, with you here. Thank you.”

“You just get some rest, sister.”

“No,” said Luna. “I believe I have had enough rest for now. Returning to my royal duties will be helpful.”

“Well,” said Celestia, smiling. “You may want to begin by reviewing your servants. Cavern Melody is going to need some leave in a few months.”

“Cavern Melody?” said Luna, looking simultaneously confused and concerned. “Is something wrong?”

“No, no. I probably should not even tell you, but knowing her, she would hide it from you to prevent you from worrying?”

“What is wrong with my friend, sister?”

“She is going to have a foal!”

Luna blinked. “Foal?”

“She’s pregnant. I am almost certain that Nightwatcher is the father. I was not even aware that they were married.”

“They are not,” said Luna, seeming somewhat dazed.

“Well, they probably will be thinking about it soon. She may even ask you to officiate the wedding!”

“That would be a tremendous honor,” said Luna. She smiled, and Celestia was glad. “I will be sure to discuss it with her.”

“Excellent,” said Celestia. “Just don’t forget to raise the moon in two hours. I know how much you love chiropteran weddings.”

“They are steeped in formality and ancient, beautiful tradition,” said Luna, somewhat defensively.

“You just love weddings, and your upset about missing Cadence and Shining Armor’s.”

“Indeed,” sighed Luna. “Although from what I hear, it was somewhat more eventful than either of us would have preffered.”

Celestia laughed, and opened the door with her magic. “I have some duties to attend to for now, and then I am afraid I will have to miss your beautiful night. I require a long, long royal bath followed by a longer royal nap.”

Celestia left and closed the door, leaving Luna once again alone in darkness. She let out a deep sigh. It had taken a prodigious effort, but she had convinced her sister that things were fine, even as the flashes of distant memories of pain stirred even closer to the border of Luna’s consciousness, accompanied by an ominously familiar voice.

Celestia sat alone in darkness. She had retreated farther into the Castle, into her own private complex, but not to sleep. There were still duties that needed to be attended to. Luna’s condition was unfortunate, but there were larger problems at hoof. Equestria was imminent danger.

News had been delivered from a shadowy, anonymous source. Apparently, a special agent from a “rouge” agency had broken her deep cover in Ponyville to relay a message. She had encountered a creature capable of amorphous shape-shifting, disguised as a pony. Even as a professional monster hunter, she had not known what it was, but Celestia knew. There was only one thing it could be.

Its presence, of course, presented an issue in terms of neutralization. In its current state, it seemed to be small and relatively weak, which actually made it far more dangerous. If Celestia sent in her military to sweep Ponyville, it was almost definitely small enough to escape into the Everfree forest, where they would never find it. The other option was to engage it herself, or to send Twilight and her friends to destroy it with the Elements of Harmony. Going herself was not an option; Celestia did not want to leave Luna alone, and she worried that the fallout from a battle between herself and such a beast could endanger ponies. The same went for Twilight, with the added concern that information could leak and alert the enemy to her plans.

In the end, Celestia had begrudgingly decided to call on one of the more severe forces at her disposal. A clean, surgical excision of a threat required could only be accomplished with her Light.

A candle in the dark of the room flickered, and Celestia knew that they had arrived.

“Tlilxochitl and Chocolatl,” said Celestia, offering them a fake smile. As she spoke their names, both of them emerged from the shadows. Both were tall, dog-like creatures with forward-set eyes and wide mouths. On both of their forelegs as well as the tips their tails, they had hands. Tlilxochityl, the female of the two, had a pure white coat that seemed to glisten in the candlelight; Chocolatl, the slightly larger male, was a deep rich brown.

“Your holiness,” they both said in unison, dropping to their knees and offering tremendously deep bows.

“What is it,” began Chocolatl.

“That you ask of us,” finished Tlilxochitl.

“Oh Divine Mother of the Sun,” they said in unison.

“There is a grave threat to Equestria,” said Celestia. “Go to Ponyville. There is a monster there that may be disguising itself as a pony. It’s mark will be a pair of geometric shapes. Be careful, as I believe it may have the power to shapeshift, or to divide itself. Let no pony see you.”

“As always,” said Tlilxochitl. “But what are we to do- -”

“When we encounter the beast?” finished her husband.

“Capture it if you can. If not, eliminate it.” Celestia’s horn illuminated, and the two ahuizotls stared at the light as though it were the most important aspect of their lives. Which, Celestia supposed, it probably was.

Celestia presented them with a glossy steel case.

“What is this?” asked Cocolatl.

“Gifts from my own era. They will use silver; it should slay any unholy beings you encounter.”

“What level of collateral damage is expected?” asked the white ahuizotl, opening the case.

Celestia sighed. She wondered if she really had changed after several millennia; she had rather grown to despise that part of the equation. Still, the choice needed to be made, and could only be made by her. “Avoid the deaths of ponies, unless you are sure they are aiding the creature. Deaths of monsters not allied with me are acceptable.”

“It will be done,” they both said in unison, taking the contents from the case. “We will bring your glorious Light to the Darkness.”

“Then go.”

The two gave one more bow, and then drifted back into the darkness, leaving only the empty, ancient case behind, having taken the devices it had contained with them.

Celestia sighed. Since the beginning, the ahuizotl had been among her most vehement worshipers. They were war-like, vicious, and generally cruel, but most of them were unbelievably loyal. They were excellent warriors and assassins, and Celestia had made use of the thousands of times to correct anomalies in the Equestrian government. They were the perfect fit for this mission.

Yet still, something within her was afraid. Not of them, but that something terrible could very easily go wrong when the Light were involved. She had to accept it, though. There was no other way. The death of the Choggoth was absolutely essential to the security of everything she had worked so hard for.

Chapter 19: The Trihorn Overlord

Arcane Domination sat quietly in his study. Although he was surrounded by tablets, he was not reading; instead, he was taking a rare reprieve from his administrative duties and simply sitting, thinking.

Aside from tablets, he was surrounded by shelves filled with various artifacts from his long and successful life. There were skulls from the rare and dangerous creatures that he had hunted, as well as detailed statues and artifacts that his nation had acquired through conquest or through archeology. There were tiny models, some partly functional, of both the machines that he had been involved in designing as well as far more numerous abstract representations of groundbreaking spell that he had conceived.

He looked to these things without really seeing them. Now was not the time to consider his past glories, however, but a time to plan for the future. Arcane Domination was known for his skill with magic, but all trihorns were excellent with its use. Magic alone did not lift him to the status of Overlord of the Trihorn Empire; it had been his skill at organization, and his ability to create plans that guaranteed that he would get what he wanted.

In all his plans, though, he had never once suspected that Lord Goldmist would so overtly betray the alliance. Arcane Domination had intended for their mutual actions to be subtle and imperceptible. He himself had selected a number of incompetent and inexperienced generals for the unified front of the war, replacing them every time one of them was executed for inadequacy- -all while choosing his best commanders for direct defense of the Trihorn Empire specifically. He had wanted Goldmist to do something similar, but the fool had instead simply withdrawn his support for the war.

Arcane Domination smiled. That was exactly the sort of thing he should have expected from one blessed by the Madgod, of course. Goldmist was inherently unpredictable, as his rather impressive death had shown. Arcane Domination had been forced to induce the fall of the Aurasi earlier than he had originally anticipated, but he had always been intending on eliminating them anyway. There could only be one surviving race when the Choggoth War ended, and it would be the trihorns. Arcane Domination’s only regret was that he had not managed to cause more damage to central Draconian territory.

His reptilian eyes shifted toward the edge of his room, following the trail of the delicate chains that only he could see. His slaves recoiled into the shadows, as if his sight caused them pain. Arcane Domination hissed and clenched his hooves. It was simply not fair- -if he had been born in a different era, one without this war, he would have been hailed as a visionary, a genius, and a hero. It had been him who had lead the creation of the monohorns, a race that would revolutionize trihorn productivity and quality of life. Instead, he lived under the oppressive moralistic restrictions of the dominate Draconians, who saw him as a kind of monster, in conditions of a war that overshadowed his creations.

Worse still, the monohorns were beginning to progress in a direction he had not anticipated on. Each day, Arcane Domination’s regret grew for having ever sold one of his slaves to Crimsonflame. That slave- -which Crimsonflame had gone so far as to name- -had developed far further than monohorns were meant to. The reason monohorns only had one horn was to make them weaker at magic, and yet that particular monohorn- -Single Horn- -had achieved spellcasting ability on par with even some trihorns. There were even rumors that hit had learned to speak.

Those were more than rumors, of course. Despite attempts to cull deviant aspects of the monohorn population, some would occasionally gain that ability. Some showed signs of intelligence, and some even dared to attempt to escape. The situation was compounded by independent breeding operations- -some trihorns had used selective breeding with native ponies to create monohorns in color phases. Aside from being aesthetically garish, those doing such operations were not maintaining the traits for servitude properly; the monohorns they produced were inherently unstable.

Arcane Domination sipped from a goblet of blood. Blood from a gray monohorn mare, the most flavorful and savory of all the monohorn bloods he had yet had, and he had tasted many. He drained the container, and held it out silently. One of the slaves, stood and took a bottle in her magic- -a bottle of her own blood. She slowly brought it over and refilled the chalice.

The one called Single Horn herself was a problem as well. She had become a beacon of hope to her people, a grand hero. Assassinating her would be the best course of action, except that it was nearly impossible. She was almost always at Crimsonflame’s side, and usually on the front lines or in the center of Draconian territory. He would have better luck assassinating Crimsonflame herself, something he had considered numerous times but always deemed too dangerous or too costly.

He had to consider the fact that Single Horn might not be the only problem. The entire race of monohorns may have already become irreparably contaminated. There was a possibility that they would need to be purged entirely. An unfortunate loss, but not a great one; he could always rebuild them, and, in a world without dragons, perhaps they would function properly.

Once again, Arcane Domination took a sip of the blood. He then set it down on a table beside him, and stood up. While he had waited, he had started to feel it again, the ever-present sensation of being watched. It had dogged him for months, and although at first he had suspected that it was the strain of the war effort, he now believed that something truly was following him.

His three horns ignited with magic, filling the room with powerful light that parsed itself into geometric bands. His slaves were immediately bound to the floor, trapped by the spell, but they were not the only ones. The pattern of the spell shifted, and fell on a high corner of one of the stone-carved shelves. It formed a circle, and then a set of bindings.

“There you are,” said Arcane Domination, collapsing the remainder of the spell and increasing the power to that spot in particular. His quarry struggled, releasing a small cloud of weak magical sparks, but Arcane Domination overpower it easily.

He generated a disk of magical energy below himself and lifted himself upward to see what he had caught, the thing that had somehow found its way past his greatest mages and into his personal sanctum- -or been brought there.

The creature that struggled against his bindings was tiny, barely half the size of Arcane Domination’s hoof, and round. To his great interest, he saw the glint of bone and a horn and realized that the main part of its body was a rather small monohorn skull, which seemed to have generated a set of insect-like legs to suspend it. The skull had neither a flesh or jaw, but did seem to have something in one of its eye sockets: a mass of blue material, the same color as its legs, with a tiny symbol consisting of two triangles on it.

“You are a Choggoth,” said Arcane Domination, expanding the circle of protection into a sphere and levitating the grotesque creature. “I suppose you suspected that I did not notice you. I am sure you were intending to kill me.”

“No,” it gurgled, and Arcane Domination physically jumped back slightly. He had been entirely unaware that Choggoths had any vestige of intelligence, let alone the ability to speak. As far as he was aware, they were simply destructive fronts of shifting protoplasm whose only purpose was to consume. “For now,” said the head in nearly unintelligible sounds, “I only watch, and I wait.”

Blue sparks burst from it once again, but this time they actually managed to widen the opening in Arcane Domination’s spell. Before he could tighten it, the horn of the skull glowed with white light. There was an imposing snap, and the fragment of Choggoth was gone. It had either destroyed itself or teleported.

Arcane Domination released his spells and dropped to the floor. His preconceived notions about Choggoths had turned out to be incorrect. They seemed to be more intelligent than he had suspected; in addition, they seemed to be able to use a form of primitive magic that could enable small spies to enter even the most secure of locations. His day simply refused to improve.

He looked to the corner of the room where his slaves were quaking in fear. Not fear of the Choggoth, of course- -they had been too far away to see it clearly, and it was almost impossible that they had the capacity to understand what it had been. Their fear, Arcane Domination knew, was of him, and that made him glad. That, and the fact that he now had at least one piece of information that Crimsonflame did not.

Chapter 20: Friends Gather

.
Twilight sat in the largest chair around a crystal table, listening to Rainbow Dash tell her story. It was, as most Rainbow Dash stories, filled with numerous embellishments and asides. The content, though, was disconcerting.

They were not alone, of course. At Rainbow’s request, Twilight had called a meeting of all their friends, and Rarity, Fluttershy, and a rather exhausted looking Applejack were there as well. Pinkie Pie had not appeared because, strangely, nopony knew where she was.

“Twilight, he attacked me!” cried Rainbow Dash, slamming her hoof on the table.

“But you chased him first,” said Twilight. “Besides, you didn’t get hurt, and neither did Fluttershy?”

“Didn’t get hurt?” cried Rainbow Dash. “Yeah, not hurt at all, except that my reputation got completely shredded! How can I ever live this down? Not only did I lose a fight, but then I had to walk across town with my wings like that and then go to the spa! For a massage!”

“Well, a free trip to the spa is hardly a punishment,” said Rarity, looking up from filing her hoof. “In fact, this D27 hardly sounds like a bad pony to me.”

“He was rather polite. I mean, for a villain,” said Fluttershy quietly.

“Whose side are you on?” yelled Rainbow Dash. “You were there. He threatened Twilight! He hit me and…and…”

“And what?” asked Twilight.

“He saw my down, okay?” cried Rainbow Dash, angrily.

“Your down?” said Twilight, confused. She took one of her own wings in her hooves and separated the feathers, exposing the light purple fluff below.

Rainbow Dash almost instantly crossed the table and clamped Twilight’s wing to her side.

“Hey!” cried Twilight. “Rainbow, what are you- -”

“Twi, come on,” said Rainbow Dash. “You don’t expose your down in public!”

“Really?”

“A Pegasus’s wings are very personal,” said Fluttershy. “Not that you could know, of course, but- -”

“Seeing your down is like seeing you naked,” said Rainbow Dash bluntly.

“Rainbow, were horses,” said Applejack. “We’re ahlways naked.”

“That’s not the point!”

“That’s weird,” said Twilight, looking at her wings. “I didn’t see that any of my books on Pegasus culture.”

“Because it’s supposed to be obvious. But you get that what he did was…it was…”

“Emasculating?” suggested Twilight.

“Yes,” said Rainbow Dash, returning to her seat. “Definitely that.”

“You’re a mare, Dash,” said Applejack.

“Well, it sounds to me that all that really got damaged was your pride,” suggested Rarity. “And he more than compensated for it.”

“He still threatened Twilight,” said Rainbow Dash. “I should punch him in his ugly face for that alone.”

“He may have just been scared,” suggested Fluttershy. “Now that I think about it…we did just swoop down and chase him like that. He must have been so very frightened. I know I would be.”

“Ah agree with Fluttershy,” said Applejack before Rainbow Dash could begin yelling again. “You’re the one who threw the first punch in that fahght. Thret-nin Twalight was a bit extreme, but ah know ah sometimes say all kands of dumb things when ahm angry.” She paused but started up when Rainbow Dash began to open her mouth. “But I ahgree that somethin ain’t right ahbout that pony. He’s ‘bout as normal as a squahr apple. He sent some kahnd a- -thing to get his apples the other day.”

“Thing?” said Rarity. “What sort of ‘thing’?”

“Ah don’t know. Never saw anything lahk it. Like a big pile ah rocks, except moving. Picked up an enhtire ton ah apples without breakin a sweat.”

“Made of rocks?” said Twilight, suddenly interested.

“Yeah,” said Applejack, slowly, confused by Twilight’ sudden fascination.

“And it moved on its own volition?”

“Sure did.”

Twilight smiled broadly and tapped her hooves together excitedly. “That was a golem!” she cried. “An actual golem!”

“And that is…”

“It’s a creature made out of inorganic matter and animated through magic. Do you have any idea how lucky you are to have actually seen one? I mean, I’ve read about them, but I never thought that one might actually exist!”

“Why wouldn’t one exist?”

“Because not just anyone can raise a golem! It takes some truly impressive magic, and the spell has been lost for almost a thousand years! It’s said that the last pony to be able to create them was Starswirl the Bearded himself, and that he once created an army to defend against a force of- -”

“Well if it’s so hard, where did he get one?” said Rainbow Dash, angrily. “And can we get back to talking about what he did to my wings?”

“Sweetie Belle did say that this D27- -terrible name for a pony,” began Rarity, “was actually quite able with magic.”

“He must be a wizard,” suggested Twilight excitedly.

“A wizard that threatened to kill you,” said Rainbow Dash. “He’s dangerous.” She looked at the empty crystal chair, one marked with an image of three balloons. An expression fear crossed over her face. “Oh Celestia!” she cried. “He’s probably got Pinkie!”

“Got her?” asked Twilight, momentarily brought back from thinking about golems and sorcerers.

“Sugarcube, I don’ think anypony can ‘get’ Pinkie,” said Applejack.

“He could. He’s probably got her right now, tied up in some dark hole. He could be doing terrible things to her as we speak- -shaving her head, or forcing her to eat rotten apples, or making a suit out of her cutie marks!”

“Rainbow Dash,” said Rarity. “Don’t be morbid! Your frightening Fluttershy.”

Fluttershy was, indeed, shaking beneath the table.

“Yah would also need more than two cutie marks tah make a suit,” said Applejack, clearly nonplussed by Rainbow Dash’s concern.

“That’s what we’re for,” said Rainbow Dash, fluttering up to the top of the room and looking around suspiciously. “We’re all next!”

“Rainbow Dash,” said Twilight. “I think you’ve been reading a bit too much Daring Do. And that’s coming from me.”

“Then explain where Pinkie Pie is right now!”

As if on cue, the doors to the chamber slammed open and Pinkie Pie stumbled in. Her appearance was highly disheveled, with her hair even more frizzy than normal and filled with various foreign objects. There were bags under her eyes, and she did not seem to be able to walk straight. Regardless, she was wearing a wide smile on his face.

“Those rock-guys sure know how to party,” she said, nearly falling over. “I haven’t partied that hard since college.”

“I didn’t know you went to college, Pinkie,” said Twilight.

“I didn’t. That’s how hard I just partied.” She stopped, looking a bit nauseous, and squinted. “Ohhh. I feel pretty Pinkie Party pooped. I don’t even know what happened for the last bit, but I woke up in bed with Berry Punch, so it must have been good.”

All the other ponies simultaneously blushed.

“Oh my,” said Fluttershy.

“Relax, everypony,” said Pinkie Pie, stumbling into her crystal throne. “It’s not like it’s the first time I’ve woken up in a bed with Berry Punch. We’re both pretty used to it by now.”

“Pinkie,” said Rarity, staring with wide eyes at Pinkie Pie’s neck. “Where did you get that necklace?”

“What?” said Pinkie, looking down. She was still wearing the device that D27 had given her, a complex metal assembly arranged around a pulsing, glowing crystal. “Oh. D27 gave that to me. He said he made it to keep the eye-shadows from gobbling me up.”

“Eye shadow was gonna eat you?” asked Applejack.

“No, silly filly, eye-shadows. Sss. Like regular shadows, but with eyes.” She widened her own eyes, revealing the fact that they were rather bloodshot. She turned to Fluttershy, who was only just emerging from beneath the table. “Shadows that watch you. Waiting for you to let your guard down before they...get you.”

Fluttershy released a terrified squeak and, shaking, returned beneath the table.

“They love apples, though,” said Pinkie Pie, slouching back into her chair. She leaned forward and shook her head, causing various objects to fall out of her hair including several surprisingly large branches, a half-eaten apple, an empty bottle of cider, and a narrow octahedral crystal that promptly sprouted a pair of legs and squeaked angrily as it climbed over the map of equestrian on the table and jumped onto the floor, escaping beneath a cabinet while all the ponies stared at it.

“Why,” said Pinkie, her hair and normal personality rapidly restoring. She took off the necklace. “Do you like it?”

“Darling, it’s simply fabulous. I mean, I’ve always been quite critical of industrial fashion, but this…” she took it in her magic and examined it. “The quality, the subtlety! And the gem! I’ve never even considered having one light from within.” She set down the device on the table and turned her attention to Rainbow Dash. “The pony that created this surely cannot be evil.”

“Evil? He’s not evil, silly,” said Pinkie Pie.

“And just how would you know?” said Rainbow Dash, crossing her forelegs.

“Because I was partying with him all last night…although it really felt more like several weeks, actually.”

“You were partying? With the enemy?”

“No, I was partying with D27 and his rock-guys and wow do they party hardy! If only Maud had been there!”

“Rock guys?” said Twilight. “You mean he had more golems?”

“Golems? Sure. There were thousands of them. By the way, for future reference, never try to mosh with rock-guys. Not my best idea.”

“You haven’t been drinking Berry Punch’s moonshine, have you?” asked Applejack.

“Berry Punch doesn’t make moonshine, silly. Her great-grandpappy Still There does, up in the mountains. Now that is some strong stuff. I hear even Princess Luna can hardly drink it, and she’s like, the goddess of moonshine!”

“I don’t think that’s what Luna does,” said Twilight, sighing. The meeting was only beginning, but Twilight could already tell that it was going to be a long day.

“I officially call this meeting of the Cutie Mark Crusaders to order!” said Applebloom, pounding the tiny gavel against the podium of the Cutie Mark Crusader clubhouse.

“What are we going to do today?” asked a rather excited Sweetie Belle. “Cutie Mark Crusader well-diggers? Shelf-assemblers? Carriage washers?” She turned to Scootaloo for more suggestions, but Scootaloo seemed not to be paying attention.

“Scoots?” she said.

“What? Oh. How about Cutie Mark Crusader vengeance getting…ponies.”

“Are you still mad about Rainbow Dash losing a fight with D27?” said Applebloom, getting down from behind the podium and crossing the creaky wooden floor that made up their clubhouse. “My sister says that if you start a fight, you have to be prepared to lose, and be a good sport about it if you do.”

“But Rainbow Dash never loses fights! She’s Rainbow Dash!”

“Maybe this will cheer you up,” said Applbloom, pulling out several cans of paint and brushes.

“What is this?” said Scootaloo. “We already tried being Cutie Mark Crusader painters, and we know how that turned out.”

“No,” said Applebloom, smiling almost as wide as Sweetie Belle. “Sweetie Belle and I came up with this last night. We figure that we spend a lot of time trying to get our cutie marks, but never spend any time thinking about what we’re going to do once they show up.”

“I don’t follow,” said Scootaloo.

“Things like how to walk or run or jump,” said Sweetie Belle. “All that will be different with a cutie mark on our flanks.”

“Really?” said Scootaloo, “I don’t think that’s how it works.”

“Of course it does,” said Applebloom. “I mean, it’s a cutie mark, of course it’s going to feel different. So, we need to practice having one, or else we’re going to look like fools when we finally do get our marks and don’t know how to walk around and stuff.”

“But how are we going to do that without actually having our cutie marks?”

“Simple,” said Applebloom, taking the brush in her mouth and popping open a can of black paint. She dipped the brush into it and promptly stuck it against Sweetie Belle’s flank.

“Oop!” cried Sweetie Belle. “Hey, that’s cold!”

“Sorry,” mumbled Applebloom, drawing out a neat square. She then turned the brush on herself and drew two black marks on her own flanks. Sweetie Belle took a second brush and finished her other side.

“Oh, I get it,” said Scootaloo, momentarily forgetting about Rainbow Dash’s inglorious and extremely embarrassing defeat. “We’re going to paint some on.”

Applebloom handed Scootaloo the brush, and Scootaloo dipped it into the can and painted on a black cutie mark. At first, Scootaloo tried to draw a cutie mark similar to Rainbow Dash’s, but the brush was too wide, and she came out with something vaguely triangular.

The paint dried quickly, and all of them set down their brushes.

“How does yours feel?” asked Applebloom.

“My butt feels heavy,” said Scootaloo. She took a few steps around the room, as did the other two.

“It doesn’t feel any different,” said Sweetie Belle.

“Yeah,” said Scootaloo. “This is kind of dumb.”

“I guess it only works with real cutie marks,” said Applelboom. “I guess it was worth a try.” She reached for a basin she had set up earlier in the corner and took out a washcloth in her mouth. She rubbed the black stain on her flank. When it did not come off, she rubbed more vigorously. It still did not budge.

“Sweetie Belle,” said Applebloom, putting the cloth back in the tub of water. “Why is this not coming off?”

“Why would it come off?” said Sweetie Belle, confused.

“Because I told you to get a washable paint.”

“I did,” said Sweetie Belle, frowning.

“Then why isn’t it coming off?”

“Because I did exactly what you said,” said Sweetie Belle, turning the can of paint toward Applebloom. It clearly read, in large black letters, “Unwashable Black Paint”.

“Sweetie Belle!” cried Applebloom. “That’s an unwashable paint!”

“That’s what you told me to get!” cried Sweetie Belle.

“No, I said to get a washable paint! As in a paint that you can wash off!”

“Well, I couldn’t tell! You have an accent, it sounded like ‘unwashable’ to me!”

“So we can’t wash these off?” said Scootaloo.

“How are we supposed to know if we get our cutie marks if the spot there supposed to be is covered in paint?” whined Sweetie Belle, on the verge of panic.

“If we show up at school like this, we’ll look like idiots!” cried Scootaloo.

“There’s got to be a way to get it off,” said Applebloom.

“Does your brother have anything for removing paint?”

“Just some of Still There’s moonshine, Granny Smith says I’m not allowed to touch that until I’m older. That, and I think it would take off the coat under the paint.”

“Dry cleaning!” shouted Sweetie Belle, suddenly.

“Dry cleaning?” said Scootaloo and Applebloom simultaneously.

“Yes! Whiteing Wrong’s dry cleaning! Rarity goes there all the time! They have chemicals that can get stains out of clothes, and I’m sure it’ll work on ponies too!”

“There’s not much time,” said Scootaloo, looking out the window. The sun was dangerously close to setting; no doubt, the ponies of Ponyville were beginning to finish their daily duties and starting to return home.

“Then we have to hurry!”

The sun was starting to set, and a beautiful sunset was filling the sky. The cool, moist night air was already seeping in from the forest, filling the cemetery on the edge of Ponyville with a sweet and pleasant odor.

Coverin Stiffs whisled as he worked, raking up some of the freshly fallen leaves that had been knocked down winds earlier in the day. This was actually his favorite time to work; it was cool and less bright, and, his job being in a cemetery, the situation was always quiet and peaceful.

In addition, he had not had to dig any new graves recently. Fewer and fewer ponies were dying recently, but even when nopony was finally taking their trip, it was always useful to have at least one grave ready. However, after losing a bet, the responsibility of digging had fallen to Stiff’s mentor, Sixfoot Deep, the best pony gravedigger who ever lived.

As Coverin Stiffs raked the leaves, he wondered why Sixfoot was even called that. He did not have six feet; rather, he only had three, the fourth having been lost in a terrible accident decades earlier.

Pondering this, Coverin Stiffs took up his watering can and applied some water to a set of flowers that had been placed on a pair of graves in the Apple family plot. As he did, though, he noticed that the ground in a nearby portion seemed to be moving slightly. Putting down the watering can and taking up his rake, Stiffs approached the spot. At first he had thought it was his imagination, but the ground definitely seemed to be heaving.

Then, suddenly, the grass parted and a dirt-covered blue pony with triangular pupils broke through the surface, gasping and clawing its way out from underground.

Covering Stiffs gasped and dropped his rakes. He began running. “Sixfoot!” he called. “It’s happening again! Get the shovels!”

D27 watched a dirt-colored pony ran off across the placid field of stones. He did not understand why a pony would do that, but upon further thinking, concluded that it was probably the fact that ponies did not normally rise from the earth as he just had.

A retreat to below ground was necessary, though. After spending time with Pinkie Pie, D27 had realized that he had been too harsh with Rainbow Dash and the yellow Pegasus mare, and their friends. He had hoped to tender an apology, especially to Rainbow Dash, who he realized he had badly offended. On his way, though, he had found a field of stones with abnormally soft, disturbed ground and decided that it would be safer to move under the cover of darkness. As such, he had buried himself in the soil and waited until sunset.

Incidentally, he had also learned that ponies buried their dead, and that ponies had also not yet established immortality. Those were both facts that he had not been aware of.

He dragged himself from the ground and absorbed the dirt covering him, incorporating it into his own structure, and began his trek into Ponyville.

Twilight moved through her library, holding one of the carefully curated catalogue cards in her magic, searching the shelves. She was also holding the necklace that Pinkie Pie had been wearing. It had taken great effort to persuade Rarity to allow Twilight to borrow it, although Pinkie had had very little attachment to it.

“Twilight?” said Spike, following her. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing spike. I just have a theory.” Twilight grimaced, knowing that she had used the word “theory” incorrectly.

She found the book she was looking for located high on a shelf. It was a large and ancient tome, one taken from the Castle of the Two Sisters. She used her magic to pull it down. The book resisted slightly, but D27’s spell had mostly dissipated, so it was easy enough to remove. She crossed the shelves and set it down on one of the more secluded desks at the back edge of the library’s third story.

The book was tremendously old, to the point where it did not have a title. It was fragile, but made of some kind of leathery material that was surprisingly durable even after centuries in an abandoned castle, and probably even longer in that castle’s collection.

Twilight turned through the book rapidly, searching the pages for an image she had seen. She suddenly stopped.

“There,” she said. She set the necklace down next to an annotated image that dominated most of the page. Her eyes shifted rapidly between the two, and she realized that despite some differences, they were mostly the same.

“What is it?” said Spike.

“I thought I recognized this when I saw it on Pinkie Pie’s neck. This is a book of schematics.” She withdrew that necklace held up the book, demonstrating that the part that resembled the core of the necklace was only a small part of a much larger image.

“Schematics for what? I wouldn’t think necklaces would need schematics.”

“It’s not a necklace,” said Twilight. “It’s some kind of machine. It’s not magic, though, so I don’t fully understand what I’m looking at.”

“That’s new,” said Spike, and Twilight glared at him. She then looked back at the book, carefully examining the detailed designs. By the language alone, she could tell that whatever it was, it was impossibly ancient, but also somehow far beyond any technology that modern ponies had. “I can’t tell what it is,” she said. “But I have an idea. It’s a power source of some kind. The image isn’t complete, but I think it’s for some kind of…some kind of weapon.”

“A weapon?” said Spike, picking up the necklace. He started salivating when he saw the glowing gem in the center. “It doesn’t look dangerous to me.”

“Because it isn’t,” said Twilight, taking the necklace back from Spike. “At least, I don’t think so. This book isn’t complete, but neither is the device. What concerns me is where D27 got it.”

“Maybe he has a complete copy,” suggested Spike. “Or knows how to build these things. I wonder if he had any more of those gems…I hear he gave Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy a blue tourmaline…if only I had one of those. Even Rarity doesn’t have a blue tourmaline…”

“Spike, this is no time for thinking about food. This could be serious.”

Twilight was beginning to feel nervous. Although all her friends except Rainbow Dash believed that this D27 was not a threat, it was obvious that he was strong with magic and also with technology and had access to things he should not have. The cerorite gems that she had spent the latter half of the day confiscating were, according to the princess, extremely dangerous in their own right. Where there was any powerful being, there was a strong possibility of danger.

Twilight took a deep breath, though, and remembered her position. Regardless of power, where there was a pony, there was an opportunity to make a new friend.

Applebloom pounded on the door, but there was no answer.

“I think they’re closed,” said Scootaloo.

“I can see that,” snapped Applebloom. She sighed and looked up to the sky. The sun had already set, and the only light was from the broad rainbow that had formed on the horizon that meant that night was about to fall. Her sister would be angry with her for being out so late, as would Sweetie Belle’s parents. She was not so sure about for Scootaloo.

“Now what?” said Sweetie Belle. “Everypony’s going to laugh at us at school!”

“Maybe not. We can come back tomorrow, before school starts.”

“Yeah,” said Scootaloo, somewhat reassured. “I think that will work.”

“But right now,” said Appleboom. “We really need to get home.”

They started walking, when suddenly Sweetie Belle cried out in pain.

“Ow!” she cried, slapping her neck.

“Mosquitos?” said Apple Bloom.

“Big ones,” said Sweetie Belle, pulling something out of her neck. She looked down. “Metal ones, too.”

“Metal?” said Applebloom. She turned around and saw a glinting dart in Sweetie Belle’s hoof.

“I feel funny,” said Sweetie Belle, before she swooned and collapsed onto the ground.

Another pair of darts flew through the air. Applebloom and Scootaloo had faster reflexes than their unicorn friend and dodged them.

Shadows moved, and suddenly they were surrounded by two tall creatures, one white and thin and the other muscular and brown.

Applebloom cried out and tried to run, but one had already grabbed her. Before she could buck her way out of its strong grasp, she found that her legs had been tied together and her mouth tied closed. She could see that the same was happening to Scootaloo.

Scootaloo’s tiny wings suddenly buzzed, not strong enough to fly but enough to jerk herself free for a moment from the dark-colored creature’s grasp. Her legs had already been tied, so the best she could do was spiral on the ground like a wounded insect, but she still managed to call out.

“Rainbow Dash!” she screamed. “Help me! Rainbow- -” Her mouth was then tied shut.

The two creatures stepped back for a moment. The white one pointed with a long finger down at the well-drawn black square on Applebloom’s side.

“The mark of the enemy shall be,” she said.

“A shape, geometric,” said the other, who was male.

“Creature,” said the white, “although you exist in three bodies, you are one.”

“Your deception does not sway us.”

“An order for your execution,”

“Has been issued by our divine goddess.”

Applebloom heard the word “execution”, and she knew that the two monsters were insane. She tried to buck free, but she was tied to tightly. Scootalloo was buzzing her wings as hard as she could, but to no avail. Sweetie Belle was limp and easily carried, and Applebloom prayed internally to Celestia tha the dart had only made her sleep. As the tears ran down her face, she and her friends were picked up. The two creatures began to carry them toward the Everfree forest.

Rainbow dash flew through the air at moderate cruising speed. Her wings still ached from the day before; having them stiff and unresponsive for even less than an hour had made them more sore than an entire day of practice. That was good in some ways, though; she supposed that they had at least received some exercise. She only hoped there was no permanent disability.

She was not happy, though. She had not been able to convince her friends that D27 was a threat. Pinkie Pie had been obsessed with his partying, and Rarity and, oddly, Twilight, obsessed with the necklace he had made. Applejack only tolerated him because he had paid her off. Even Fluttershy seemed to have become convinced. Rainbow Dash knew better, though. She was not going to be so easily tricked again.

Then, suddenly, she heard a voice. A distant cry for help, from a voice she recognized.

“Scootaloo?” she said. Almost instinctively, she dove and accelerated, leaving a contrail of rainbow behind her, focusing in on where she had heard the cry. She swooped through the streets of Ponyville, ignoring the ache in her wings.

As she crested one of the taller buildings, she saw two figures in the distance, rapidly approaching the border of the Everfree forest. At first, her mind could not comprehend what she was seeing, but she had read enough Daring Do- -and lived one of the stories- -for her mind to quickly make the connection.

“Ahuizotl!” she cried as she raced forward toward them, realizing that they were carrying Scootaloo and her friends, two of whom were doing their very best to escape. The two cat-like figures were not blue like the Ahuizotl she was familiar with, but she recognized there shape well, and knew that they were surely trouble, especially if they were trying to hurt Scootaloo.

One of them turned, a narrow white creature who was carrying Rarity’s little sister, the only one of the three fillies that was unbound and the only one that was not resisting. The creature exuded an air of viciousness, even more so than Daring Do’s nemesis himself.

Rainbow Dash suddenly felt a prick in her chest. She looked down and saw a tiny metal dart in her chest. She pulled it out, and once again her mind returned to the Daring Do stories. She knew that there was only one thing such a dart could mean.

“Second time in two days!” she shouted before the world swam and her wings stopped fluttering. The world faded, and she suddenly felt oddly peaceful.

D27 was passing through the darkened streets when he saw a rainbow colored contrail pass by him. He realized that he had just been passed by Rainbow Dash, one of the ponies he had been searching for. Seeing her above him induced a sudden desire to hide or to deploy flak, but he ignored both and changed course. He compressed himself into a hovering sphere, and followed.

He rapidly arrived to where Rainbow Dash was hovering and returned to his pony form in time to hear her yell out something above. He looked up and saw her suddenly fall. D27’s first response was to wonder if he had somehow actually managed to deploy flak, but realized that he could not have.

Realizing that Rainbow Dash was in danger, D27 searched his mind for a response. His own magic was limited mostly toward mass destruction; he was not able to perform levitation spells on external objects and could slow her sudden descent. All he could think to do was release a cloud of Order sparks that increased the order in the air, increasing its density.

Rainbow Dash slowed slightly, but still hit the ground with considerable force. D27 ran to her.

“Miss Dash,” he said, shaking her shoulder with one of his claws. She was unresponsive, but fortunately still breathing. It was apparent that she had been poisoned. A nearby dart that had fallen with her indicated the source of the toxin.

“Scootaloo,” she whispered.

D27 looked up, focusing his eyes on where Rainbow Dash seemed to have been facing. His triangular pupils narrowed, magnifying and piercing the dark. In the distance, his eyes locked with those of Appleblom. She and her two friends were being carried away by creatures that D27 did not recognize.

“Adorable ponies are stolen,” he stated to himself, as if trying to rectify the odd situation with his perception of reality. He looked down at Rainbow Dash. He had no antitoxin or stimulants with him to reverse the poisoning, but it seemed that she would probably not die.

There was no time to move her. D27 needed to act quickly. He realized that, for the first time in a long time, he felt an instinctive urge to protect something. Leaving Rainbow Dash sleeping in the street, he began galloping back toward the familiar forest

Chapter 21: Choggoth of War

Tlilxochitl and Chocolatl moved through forest rapidly, skimming over the soft ground and silently passing over the small rivers and shallow gorges that dotted the Everfree forest. Their motion was quick and silent; the struggling of two of the fillies they were carrying did not disturb them, and neither did the darkness or the monsters that lurked within. The Dark Sister had made the moon especially bright that night, and ahuizotl were, despite being sun worshippers, masters of the navigation of darkness. The monsters seemed to comprehend this, and remained in the deeper shadows.

The two doubled back on their tracks, in case they were being tracked, and then proceeded more slowly in a different direction. As they did, Tlilxochitl felt the until then limp creature in her arms move slightly.

“I want to be pretty like Rarity,” it mumbled.

Applebloom turned her head when she heard Sweetie Belle’s voice. She was immensely relieved that she was alive; it seemed that she was only asleep. With that fact in mind, she summoned the remainder of her strength and twisted with as much strength as she could muster. Her previous struggling had done nothing against the brown cat-creature’s strong grip, but this time, the force was strong enough to force it to drop her into the mud below.

The fall winded her, but she was able to turn her head and force off the thin rope from around her muzzle.

“You’re not going to get away with this!” she cried. “Ponies will come looking for us! My sister Applejack will kick your- -”

“Silence, beast!” hissed the white creature, and Applebloom’s head was knocked back with enough force that a blast of light filled her vision. The creature had struck her in the head with something metal held on the end of its tail. The force was incredibly, and though painful, the blow was disorienting and all Applebloom could do in response was release a new set of silent tears. “Do not attempt to play on our sympathy, creature. You have assumed the form of children, assuming we shall give you quarter. I assure you: we have no qualms with killing fillies.”

“Tlilxochitl, I have doubts,” said the other. The tiny orange Pegasus in his grasp was fluttering wildly, and he momentarily held her toward his face. With his now free hand, he pinched the base of one of the filly’s wings and watched as her eyes widened in pain. “My friend,” he said. “Your resistance is not helpful to you, and annoying to me. Disconnecting your wings from your body, it would be trivial to me. Please stop this…useless buzzing.”

The Pegasus stopped resisting. Instead she simply shook with fear.

“Their flanks bear the mark,” maintained Tlilxochitl, lifting the dazed Applebloom with her free hand. A bruise was already forming around her eye from where she had been struck.

“But what if they actually are pony children?”

“The goddess gave us permission to slay those assisting the creature. We simply kill them regardless, and claim that they were impeding our operation.”

“Please,” muttered the bruised pony in her grasp. “We won’t tell anyone…we’re just three fillies…take me if you want, just let my friends go.”

“A test,” said Tlilxochitl, smiling. “Chocolatl, we shall perform a test.”

She dropped the two ponies she was carrying unceremoniously onto the ground. Applebloom squeaked in pain as she landed on some rocks, but Sweetie Belle only smiled.

“No more gemstones, Spike, I’m so pretty already,” she said, taking a rock in her arms and hugging it.

“What manner of test, Tlilxochitl?” asked the brown one, setting down his burden far more carefully.

The white ahuizotl drew a long blade from a scabbard on her back. Swords were hardly ever used by ponies, but in the dexterous hands of an ahuizotl, it seemed oddly elegant, and Applebloom could do nothing but stare at the long, metallic blade as it glinted in the moonlight.

“Simple,” said the creature, smiling as she admired the blade. “If they truly are the creature the goddess has entrusted us to destroy, they will be strong, and not die when I cut them. If they are ponies, they will die, and we feed the remains to the creatures of the forest.”

Chocolatl sighed. “That seems to be a good test.”

“You lack resolve, husband.”

“No. I simply do not take the killing of children lightly. If the goddess wills it, however, I recognize that it must be done.”

“The goddess most defiantly wills it,” said Tlilxochitl.

“Then take this one, the bearer of the triangle-mark,” said Chocolatl, motioning toward the orange Pegasus on the ground before him. Realizing what was going on, she immediately started fluttering her wings, which did nothing but drive her in narrow circles. “A Pegasus that cannot fly arouses my suspicion greatly.”

“My dear husband, I fully intend to test all three. This one I will test first, though. Now, monster, enemy of the Light, stop moving: I intend to remove your head cleanly with a single stroke.”

Contrary to what Tlilxochitl ordered, the Pegasus only tried to escape more vehemently. Tlilxochitl sighed, and transferred the object in her tail hand to her free hand. She used the hand on her tail to hold down the Pegasus, and she raised the blade.

Something rustled in the bushes, and the two ahuizotl both turned, raising their weapons defensively toward the sound. A nearby bush continued to shake and vibrate.

“Who is there?” said Chocolatl. “Who dares to interrupt us?”

A small creature burst through the edge of the bushes. It was a tiny octahedral crystal with tiny crystalline legs. As it fell from the bush it collapsed one side of itself, only to stand again and scuttle across the mud squeaking loudly. Chocolatl and Tlilxochitl watched it silently; it seemed to ignore them completely, and instead scuttled over the unconscious white unicorn and rapidly disappeared into a different bush.

Tlilxochitl turned back to where it had arisen from, and to her surprise, saw a pair of strangely triangular eyes reflecting from the darkness.

“Wait,” said a voice from the darkness. A pony stepped forward into the moonlight. He was blue, with odd structures on his head and spine in the place of his mane, and a shaved tail. “Please, don’t hurt them.”

“Are you attempting to assist them?”

“Yes, I am,” said the blue pony.

Tlilxochitl smiled. She raised the item in her left hand, a metal gift from the Divine Goddess of Light herself, and squeezed the trigger.

There was a small explosion, and D27 screamed in angony. The two creatures before him recoiled slightly, clearly not suspecting a scream of that nature to arise from a pony. The blow was agonizing, though, and when D27 looked down at his shoulder he saw his tissue bubbling and hissing. It started to rapidly necrotize and darken, dripping onto the ground below.

It had been silver. The damage the bullet had induced to his body was impressive, but he had been saved by the fact that his pony form was relatively soft; the bullet had gone through him, leaving a trail of residue and tissue destruction in its wake. If it had become lodged within him, it would have continually reacted with his structure, burning away most of his body.
The use of silver bullets concerned D27 greatly, and not just because catalytic metals were one of the only things actually toxic to him. The silver concerned him because it meant they knew.

“You shot me,” he said, stepping forward. The reaction was still ongoing, and he could not regenerate the wound, but it had been in an area non-critical to his function. It still hurt, though, and quite a bit.

“And I am surprised by your resilience, pony. Few would be standing after that blow.”

“Please,” said D27. “Release them.”

“I am afraid we cannot. We have a warrant for their execution.”

“Of adorable child-ponies? From where does…ow…” the wound in D27’s shoulder continued to bubble, but his body was rapidly metabolizing the silver. The process was restorative, but painful. He braced himself. He was angry, and in pain, but he had to be careful. Two of the fillies were conscious, and watching. He had to resolve the situation peacefully. He took a breath. “Where did this order originate.”

“From the Goddess of Divine Light,” said the brown creature. “The ruler of the sun, and the true Queen of Equestria. You would be wise to obey her orders. These are not at all children. They bear the marks. They are monsters, and a threat to your kind.”

“Marks?” said D27, looking down at the children. They had geometric-like shapes painted on their flanks, where their cutie marks would have been. A wave of shock ran through D27’s mind; he realized that their fate had been meant for him. This was his fault.

“Please. I can pay you. I have gemstones, lots of them.”

“Money?” laughed the white creature. “Money? We have no desire for such…material filth. We only seek the pleasure of Her Divine Glory.”

“Chimeric idiots,” said D27. “I am trying to help you. I do not want to fight you.”

“Fight us?” It was now the brown creature’s turn to laugh. “You?”

“You amuse us, blue pony,” said the white creature. “But you will share their fate as well. Witnesses cannot be permitted.” She raised her gun, and D27 braced for another silver impact. It did not come, though.

“Actually, husband,” said the white one. “Perhaps…”

“He should watch as we administer the test.”

“D27, help us!” cried Applebloom.

D27 sighed. “I’m trying to be reasonable!” he cried. “We can all leave this alive! You have the wrong ponies!”

The white creature smiled as she raised the blade over Scootaloo’s neck.

“Do something!” screamed Applebloom.

D27 sighed. “Fine. Fine, you forced my hand. I didn’t want to do this in front of mortals, especially those three. But you brought this upon yourselves.”

D27 shifted all three tons of his accucmulated mass into his singular form, expanding rapidly. His body liquefied and reconfigured, becoming broad and bipedial, then narrowing as his tissue was converted into an array of long spines and blades.

“By the goddess!” cried the white creature as she stepped back from Scootaloo. Her hand her partner’s weapons rang out through darkness as silver bullets pounded into D27’s surface. They were innefective, though; the firearms that the two wielded were so much smaller and weaker than the cerorian rounds he had become accustomed to in times long past. Silver was useless if it could not penetrate a Choggoth’s body, and the bullets simply rebounded off the thick armored plates that D27 had developed.

“I tried to warn you,” said D27, his voice immense and booming. “I tried to help you, so that everyone could survive! I gave you a chance!” He stepped forward, his shadow in the moonlight falling over them. “Those children are not the ones you are looking for. I am.”

The right side of his body disrupted, the tissue separating and stretching as his mass poured into the opening. What had been an arm distorted and separated into a writhing mass of tentacles. He snapped out toward the two creatures.

The creatures were fast, and the brown one managed to dodge. The white one was too slow, though, and a barbed tendril pierced her chest. She cried out and dropped her gun, a single, final, fatal mistake. D27 pulled her toward himself, merging her body into his flesh, pulling her inside himself.

“Tlilxochitl!” cried the other, stretching out his hand. D27 thought that for a moment he saw tears in the creature’s eyes. He realized that he had just taken its mate.

The chocolate-colored creature dropped to his knees; it seemed that he had surrendered. D27 reached down and pulled him up, tearing his gun away from him, and pulled him in as well.

D27 reconfigured his body to a more symmetrical format, and slowly crept forward. He could not bear to look down at the fillies, because he knew that they would fear him. Instead, he simply reached forward with one massive claw that burst forth with tiny, insect-like arms. He used them to cut their bindings, and then restored his normal form.

“Are you uninjured?” he asked, hesitantly.

“My head hurts,” said Applebloom. “But I think I’m good. Scootaloo?”

“I’m fine,” whispered Scootaloo, even though it was apparent she was rather shaken.

“Applebloom,” said D27, noticing that her pupils were not dilating equally, and that she had a significant black eye. “I am seeing indications that you may have a concussion. ”

“Yeah, she hit me with that…thing.” An expression of nausea seemed to cross her face, and she looked up at D27’s massive form. “You’re not a pony, are you?”

“No. I am not.” He paused, and asked the question that he already knew the answer to. “Are you afraid of me?”

“Buck no,” said Applebloom, smiling. “You just saved us!”

“I’ll admit,” said Scootaloo, standing shakily. “That was pretty awesome. It also explains how you beat Rainbow Dash.”

“No,” said D27, “I defeated Miss Dash because I used a very cheap move. I was on my way to apologize when I saw those two creatures absconding with you three.”

“Are they…” began Scootaloo. She started shaking again. “Did you?”

“You mean have I terminated them? Not at present. They are currently contained within this form until I determine if they have further silver on their persons. Then I will absorb them.”

“You mean eat them?” said Applebloom.

“Functionally, yes.”

“Please don’t.”

D27 was surprised by the request. He had expected the ponies to want vengeance for their ordeal. “You are aware that they attempted to hurt you, and your friends, are you not?”

“I know,” said Applebloom. “And I’m mad as hay at them right now, but it just doesn’t seem right to…you know.”

“I’m not so sure, Applebloom,” said Scootaloo.

“I know how you feel,” she said. “But I don’t think I could sleep at night if we did…not if we let D27 do that to them.”

“What is the recourse you suggest?” asked D27. “I cannot take them to Ponyville in this form for imprisonment. My goal has been to keep my…situation…a secret.”

“Then release them.”

“Are you sure?”

“I don’t know. But that’s all we can do, right?”

“If that is your wish.” D27’s turned around and his chest separated. He vomited the two ahuizotls onto the ground. They were covered in liquid and weak from suffocation. The female had a large scar in the center of her chest; D27 had done his best to heal her, but she had an unusual amount of residual magic in her body.

The brown one was the first to regain consciousness. As he looked around, he saw his mate lying beside him, and took her in his arms. He seemed to be weeping for her. That display confirmed what D27 had felt before. He had never expected that they had further silver weapons; he had only been unable to consume them because of the male’s tears for its fallen mate.

The white creature slowly opened her eyes, and the tears of anguish from the brown one became tears of joy. He held his mate close and offered a prayer to their mutual goddess, thanking her.

“Strange dog creatures,” boomed D27. “I have released you at the request of one Applebloom.” He pointed with an enormous pointed finger at the tiny pony. “Had it been my choice, I would have stripped you of flesh and stored your bones as trophies. Return to your master with the shame of defeat. But first.” He stepped aside. “You will apologize to these children for your mistake.”

The brown creature looked up to D27, and then stood, helping its mate to stand. She was quite weak; the injury D27 had induced had likely damaged her heart. There was a possibility that the effect was permanent.

The brown creature faced the fillies. “Children of our Queen,” he stated. “Please, if you can, forgive me, and my wife. We had mistaken you for…him.” He turned to Scootaloo. “Especially you, orange one. Your resistance was actually admirable. Had I severed your wings, I would have been plagued by nightmares for at least a week.” He turned his attention to D27. “And you…you are one of few who realizes that we are dogs, not cats. But your reprieve will be short. More will come. The Goddess of the Sun will not be stopped by our failure.”

“Then your ‘goddess’ will perish. She will not be the first god I have slain. And if you cross me again, you will not survive either.”

“Then you are surely a fool,” said the ahuizotl. He helped his mate across the field and into darkness beyond. Within seconds, they were gone.

D27 recompressed his mass, reducing his size and resolving into a pony.

“I shall also apologize,” he said. “This is my fault. Those two were surely targeting me.”

“Why would they come after you?”

“They must have somehow realized what I am. That itself would not be a problem, but my instance on attempting to be a pony put you three in danger. You three, who were the only ones who showed me kindness. I am truly sorry.”

“You can’t blame yourself for what they did,” said Scootaloo, seeming to regain some of her confidence. “Plus, you did just save us. Turning into a giant monster was pretty epic!”

“Monster, you say.”

“No, no,” said Applebloom. “She didn’t mean it- -”

“I thought the spines might have been a bit overboard,” said D27. “But I wanted to try to shock them.”

“No way, the spines were the best part! And then when your side opened up and all those tentacles came out!”

“So that’s not what you actually look like?” said Applebloom.

“No, of course not. I actually have no true form. I simply create what I need.”

“Mayble just one more,” said Sweetie Belle, putting leaves into her mouth and chewing them absently. The other two ponies and one Choggoth watched, and then laughed.

“Come,” said D27, lifting Sweetie Belle onto his back. “I need to get you back to town, and do your respective guardians. Also, Rainbow Dash took a poison dart, and I had to leave her sleeping in the middle of the street.”

“Rainbow Dash?” said Scootaloo.

“Yes. If I had not followed her, I would never have seen you being stolen. I am sure that had she not been poisoned as your friend here was, she would have saved you just as adequately as I did. Perhaps even better.”

“She sure would have!” said Scootaloo. Applebloom glared at her. “Of course, your rescue wasn’t bad either.”

“Thank you,” said D27. “Unfortunately, since you are now aware of my true nature, I will have to depart from Ponyville.”

“Why?” said Applebloom.

“Because when the other ponies realize what I am, they will fear me, and try to stop me from reaching my goals. So I will need to hide.”

“Not if we don’t tell them,” said Applelboom.

“Yeah!” said Scootaloo. “It won’t be fair if you had to get sent away after you saved us!”

“Muffins!” said Sweetie Belle. “So many muffins!”

“Thank you,” said D27. “I greatly appreciate the gesture.”

D27 truly did. Once again, where he had expected fear, he received kindness in return. This had been a surprise to him, and he was profoundly grateful to the three. Even knowing that he was a monstrosity, they still offered to help him, ignoring the fact that he was not like them.

Of course, they did not truly comprehend that he was a device whose only true purpose was destruction, or what his true goals actually were. If they had understood either of those things, they surely would have shown him no kindness. They would have stood against him, and betrayed him to those who would kill him. D27 resolved that those three must never know those things about him.

Rainbow Dash turned over in her sleep, taking hold of an overstuffed brown pillow.

“Commander Spitfire,” she muttered, “another metal? Yes, I am pretty awesome...” She grunted and turned in her sleep. “But ma’am, you’re not in uniform either…”

The sound of giggling caused her to snap awake.

“What? Where?” she said, sitting upright. Her mind started to slowly return, and suddenly she rose from the couch she had been lying on suddenly. “Scootaloo!” she called, looking around. She did not know where she was, and was prepared for attack. Then, slowly, she recognized the soft clouds that constituted the walls around her, and the tall ceilings and columns of elegant Pegasus architecture. When her eyes finally focused on the posters and numerous trophies around her, she realized that she was in her own living room.

“I’m right here,” said Scootaloo, bounding as best as she could across the surface of the cloud floor. As a Pegasus, she was able to stand on clouds without falling through, but she seemed not yet used to how plush Rainbow Dash’s carpet was, what with being made of puffy water vapor.

“Scootaloo,” cried Rainbow Dash, taking up Scootaloo in a hug so tight that the tiny pony released a squeak as her lungs deflated. “Ahuizotl- -poison dart- -foalnapping- -” she paused. “Hey, wait a minute,” she said, putting down Scootaloo. “How did you get in my house? How did I get in my house?”

“D27 brought me,” said Scootaloo, lifting up a saucer with a cup of purified cloud distillate in it. The drink was steaming and in one of Rainbow Dash’s few coffee mugs- -it was meant to be served cold, in a short glass, and ideally mixed with rainbow gin- -but Rainbow Dash took it gratefully and drained half the cup. Rainbow Dash frowned. Being poisoned had made her surprisingly thirsty. “D27? What does he have to do with this?”

“He’s the one that saved us- -the one that helped you save us, I mean, from those two dog things.”

“Ahuizotl!” cried Rainbow Dash, dropping the cup. Scootaloo dove to catch it, and sunk halfway into the cloud floor in the process. “Where are they?”

“Those were ahuizotl?” said Scootaloo, surprised. “Like in Daring Do?”

“Exactly!”

“I thought they were smaller,” said Scootaloo. “Like, pony sized or something.”

“Where are they? What did they do to you? I bet they were going to eat you! D27- -that freak- -he was probably in on it, wasn’t he?”

“No, no,” said Scootaloo through the saucer in her mouth as she unburied herself from the floor. She set the saucer and cup back on the cloud end table, only to watch it slowly sink through. “And they didn’t hurt us.” Scootaloo shivered slightly at her partial-truth and hoped that Rainbow Dash did not notice; although she had not been hurt physically, she had been severely shaken by having nearly died. She doubted she would be able to sleep without terrible nightmares ever again. Her whole body was sore, and she kept flashing back to seeing the glint of the sword over her head- -but she could not let Rainbow Dash know that. Not yet, anyway.

“So, wait. Let me get this straight- -D27 saved you?”

“You helped, before they got you.”

“The dart…Oh! Stupid! I just read that in Daring Do and the Porphyric Conspiracy! The Shadowy Assassin used the same darts!” She realized that she was getting off topic. “Wait…again. You mean that one pony took on two ahuizotl?”

“He used…” Scootaloo searched her mind for an explanation that did not depict D27 as a monstrous amebeoid version of Saddle Rager. “He used magic.”

“But Ahuizotl was always resistant to magic in the books,” said Rainbow Dash, almost complaining. “It hardly had an effect on him…parasites, on the other hand…”

“It was some powerful magic,” said Scootaloo, smiling suspiciously.

“Well, what was he doing out there anyway?”

Scootaloo picked up a piece of parchment that was actually managing to float on the end table properly. “He came to Ponyville to apologize to you,” she said, giving the paper to Rainbow Dash. “But he saw your rainbow, and followed you to us.”

Rainbow Dash picked up the letter. It was written in square but oddly ornate letters, as if the writer was more obsessed with perfect handwriting than Twilight but did not know all the letters.

“Dear Rainbow Dash,” the letter began. “You were injected with poison. Its primary effect was to render you unconscious (asleep). Due to your hearty constitution and athletic build, I decided that you would be able to survive it without medical attention. I therefore returned you to your home. The pony Scootaloo, who I assume to be your sister, refused to leave your side, and as such, I left her to watch over you with instructions to contact me should your condition worsen. Which, assuming you are reading this, it did not. Because you would have died.

“Anyway: I would like to apologize for our altercation today. I was afraid of your prowess in flight, and because of my concern, I did not engage you in a fair fight. Also, Scootaloo informs me that what I did to your wings was considered rather inappropriate and distressing, a fact that I did not realize.

“I believe I was too harsh with regards to my words toward you and your friends. Except toward Twilight. I realize she is probably a nice pony, but alicorns disgust me. Nothing against her, just her species, if two individuals can be called a species. I will find you when you are healed (assuming, again, that you did not die in your sleep) and possibly speak further. Your enemy, D27.”

Rainbow Dash folded the note into a paper airplane, and threw it across the room where it lodged into a cloud wall. That was her usual way of organizing mail.

“Well?” said Scootaloo, looking up expectantly.

“Well what?”

“Do you accept his apology? Can you two be friends now?”

“I don’t know if we can be friends…” Rainbow Dash looked down at Scootaloo’s proportionally enormous eyes. “But hey, if he helped you fight off those two, he probably can’t be all bad.” Scootaloo smiled broadly, and Rainbow Dash lifted her from her sinking position on the floor and set her on the couch next to herself. “So,” she said. “You just fought two ahuizotls. That beats my record by one. So you have got to tell me what happened!”

D27 stood at the edge of the cemetery, facing east. He watched as the sun slowly began to creep into the sky, driven by the power of some unseen and unknown mage. As it rose, it cast out rays of iridescent pink through the clouds. D27 remembered that glow from his own era. It was the color of death and pain.

Still, in its own way, it was beautiful. The peacefulness of the well maintained cemetery improved the feeling as well. The air was moist and humid, and smelled almost minty. The call of the earliest of birds was just starting, and a rooster crowed in the distance. This, D27 realized, was the world that he had very nearly destroyed, and the one that he in all likelihood would come to destroy once more.

The two ponies who maintained the cemetery were raking and digging and removing decayed flowers from the graves, occasionally looking up at D27 but generally staying as far away from him as possible. When D27 had arrived, the one with three legs had hit him in the face with a shovel. D27 had then spent almost half an hour explaining that he was not, in fact, dead, an opinion that was in its own way untrue.

As he watched the sunrise, he felt a presence beside him. At first he suspected that it was one of the gravediggers, coming to tell him to leave, but he realized that the heat signature was much smaller. He looked down to see a pale yellow filly with red hair, and his mind identified her as Applebloom.

She stood next to him, putting her forelegs on the lower rung of the wooden fence, but neither of them spoke.

After several minutes, the edge of the sun appeared in the sky, and D27 spoke.

“You should be sleeping right now,” he said.

“Can’t sleep,” said Applebloom. “Besides, my sister and brother and Granny Smith are in all kinds of a tizzy. I just needed to step out for a bit.” She looked up at him. “What about you?”

D27 shifted his eyes behind him, making sure that the other two ponies were out of earshot.

“I don’t sleep.”

They were both silent for a moment. “How did you know I would be here?”

“I didn’t,” said Applebloom. “I just come here sometimes. To be with them…” she looked back at her family’s plot. D27 had read the epitaphs on each of the graves, and he knew the two that she was looking at. One belonged to a stallion named Applewood, and the other a mare named Sea Apple.

“Why are they like that?” asked D27.

“You mean dead?”

“Yes.”

Applebloom sighed. “Applejack doesn’t like to talk about it, and Big Mac, he still hasn’t gotten over it. I was so little at the time…they don’t think I know. They got sick…”

“Town records indicate that there was a glanders epidemic at that time,” said D27, recalling some of what he had read in Twilight’s library. The disease was deadly, but treatable, assuming that one was treated quickly. He assumed that Applebloom’s parents had not received care timely enough to save their lives.

“There wasn’t enough medicine,” said Applebloom. “Not enough for all of us…”

“Tell me,” said D27, staring at the sunset. “Your people have gods, am I correct?”

“Gods?” said Applebloom, looking somewhat confused. “I guess so. Why?”

“Why do these beings allow bad things to happen?”

“I can’t rightfully answer that. But I don’t think even Celestia is powerful enough to save everyone. Nopony is.”

“I can,” said D27.

“How?” asked Applebloom.

“You saw a small piece of my power. This form…it is because I choose to limit myself. If I desired, I could spread infinitely. I could cover this whole world, and consume everything, and convert everything and everypony into myself.”

“Wouldn’t that cause more suffering?” said Applebloom. She did not seem perturbed by the thought; either she was far more tired than she let on, or was treating the idea as purely hypothetical.

“Yes, at first. But then there would be nothing left. I would end the suffering of countless billions of ponies into the future. There would be no disease, disaster, loss. There would be no one left to feel pain or fear or death. I could save so much…”

“I still don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“Why not?”

Applebloom though for a moment. “Well, if you did that, there’d be nopony left. You’d be all alone.”

“And is that wrong?”

“Well, yeah. What would the point be if you would just be lonely? Sure, bad things happen, but what’s the point in living if there’s no good things as well? I have my sister and brother and Granny Smith, and Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle, and we’re happy when where together. I couldn’t imagine being alone like what you said.”

“Your argument is persuasive, mortal,” said D27. He sighed and looked out at the sun. He held up his claw, and it looked as though he could hold it between two of his fingers. He pretended to pinch it; if only destroying it were that easy. “You know, I doubt those two creatures would worship the sun if they knew what it actually was.”

“I don’t think they were worshipping the sun itself,” said Applebloom. “Seemed almost like they meant Celestia when they were talking.”

“Celstia?” said D27, confused. “That is your goddess, is it not?”

“I…I guess so. I mean, she’s powerful, and people use her name when they say stuff like ‘oh Celestia’ or ‘by Celestia’ or ‘Celestia dam- -”

“You’re too young for that one,” reminded D27.

“Sorry. But she’s really just a pony, like the rest of us. Well, except that she has wings and a horn.”

D27 cringed. “You mean she’s an alicorn? There’s more of them?”

“Well, yeah,” said Applebloom, as if it were obvious. “There’s Twilight here in town, and Princess Cadence in the Crystal Empire, and then there’s Celestia and Luna. Celestia raises the sun, and Luna the moon.”

“But how can- -” D27 felt an icy shock run through him, and he froze. He suddenly understood. An alicorn associated with the sun, and one with the moon.

“No,” he whispered. “No, it can’t be…they couldn’t…” But it was the only way; it was the only conclusion. “NO!” he shouted, standing on his hind legs and slashing the fence with his claws. It ripped from the ground, and the logs flew into the forest a distance away.

“D27!” cried Applebloom, frightened. D27 hardly noticed.

“Why?” he said, “why would they do it? How could they be so arrogant?!”

“D27, calm down!”

“They activated it!” he screamed. His mind was racing. “When I came here, when I first woke up, I saw life, and I assumed that it was still quiescent, or destroyed, but no, they must have reconfigured it somehow! That changes the basic function, but not the outcome…” he looked up at the sun, and realized that the whole time it had been counting down. Waiting, watching.

“What’s wrong?” said one of the gravediggers, trotting over.

“All that death,” said D27, clutching his head, his pupils reduced to triangular pinpricks. “All that pain…I killed two entire races…millions died by my hand…and then they go and undo everything!” He realized that tears of black, viscous substance were dripping from his eyes. “What they all died for…what I died for…what greed could possess them, what avarice, to become gods?”

His mind hardened, and calculated. He had finally found the piece of information that he needed, what he had been searching for. The alicorn “Cadence” was a slave to a deceased Lord of Order, and the one called “Twilight” was still unknown, but now he knew the names and natures of his true enemies: “Celestia” and “Luna”, synthetic gods bound to the celestial spheres, powered and risen by the dark Finality Core. They had to be stopped.

“I need to go,” he said calmly, stepping away from the terrified Applebloom. “There is work to be done.”

Chapter 22: The Princess, the Shadow, and the Assassin

It had been five days since the jelly incident, as it was being called in the palace. Slimy Snake- -or now “Buttery Snake”, as he was calling himself, had not been seen since he left with Discord, but Luna had done her best to make amends to his family. She had visited them in person, and, much to her surpise, found that they were rather unsympathetic to their son’s plight. His family apparently consisted of self-proclaimed “warrior poets”, and having a lawyer as a son was their greatest shame. Snakes father had even gone so far as to simply shrug and state, bluntly, “he should have ducked”.

The situation with Cavern Melody had gone much better. At first, it had been difficult to confront her, but Luna knew that it was her duty, both as a royal and as Cavern Melody’s friend. Cavern Melody, of course, already knew that Luna was aware; as the saying went, chiropteran ponies had big ears, and she had heard the conversation between the two sisters through the door.

Both Cavern Melody and Nightwatcher were rather strict traditionalists. Their families, it seemed, stretched as far back as Luna’s original reign, and some had even continued to serve her as Nightmare Moon, a thought that only slightly disturbed her. As with their people’s tradition, though, the pair had entered into a “private marriage”, or a contract between individuals, until the conception of their firstborn, at which a “public marriage”, or a contract with society, would be generated. As Celestia had anticipated, Cavern Melody had asked Luna to officiate the marriage, and of course Luna had accepted.

Luna was overjoyed but, in a way, somewhat jealous. Even though she had lived nearly pony lifetimes, she had never found her special somepony, and in all that time neither her nor her sister had given birth to a foal. She found that odd, but with the stresses and dangers of royal life, doing so was probably inadvisable.

And so, Luna had been happy for the first three of those five days. The rigors of her royal schedule and her duties merged with the happiness of living vicariously through Cavern Melody, and she managed to keep the darkness in her mind contained. In time, though, it had begun to seep through.

It had begun when she was examining the dreams of her subjects. It was normally relatively easy for her; she could project herself into the minds of any of those who slept beneath her moon and walk among their visions. A skill that had once been used to track dissidents was now put to use helping her subjects, and giving advice. In the past several nights, though, that had changed.

The sensation was difficult to describe. It was something, she decided, like swimming. Normally dreamwalking was akin to wading in the surf on a calm, warm day, often as friends and friendly faces surrounded her. In the past days, however, it instead felt like being stranded in a raging sea, with storms and darkness surrounding her, the waves trying to pull her under, where vast creatures of darkness waited for her.

In their minds, she had not only seen their dreams, but their thoughts, their memories. She had come to understand that there was good in even the most desperately evil ponies, but now she was beginning to understand that there was evil in even the best of ponies. There were thoughts of destruction and death, images of violence and destruction, swirling torrents of rage and fear. She could feel them all, intermixing and merging with the good parts, pouring out of so many ponies. Even during the day, she heard the whispering, and saw shadows moving, gathering in the corners of places, watching.

Her own memories had seemed to begin restoring themselves. She remembered elements of her own life that she strived to forget- -of being Nightmare Moon and fighting a brutal war to plunge Equestria into eternal night, but also of before, during the early transitional period of her and her sister’s rule, when some had refused to submit to the new royalty and met with horrific ends.

The worst, though, were the fragmented visions of before she was a god. There were fragments and images, and splashes of color and pain that almost formed memories, but she could not remember completely, nor did she want to. The fragments themselves were painful enough. The clearest of them was one of a bright but frozen light, and an earlier one of something dangerous approaching her face that she could not escape.

The day earlier, her exhaustion and pain had increased to the point where, begrudgingly, she had asked her elder sister to take on the raising and lowering of the moon, at least for a few days while Luna rested. Celestia had been perfectly understanding, perhaps even too much so. Luna knew quite well that while Celestia could effortlessly handle both spheres, she was the only princess that could do so.

So, in the darkness of her own night, Luna lay in her bed. Sleep eluded her, though. She instead sat staring at the starry mural on her ceiling, listening. There were no real sounds, aside from the shifts of the castle and the pipes in the depths of the caverns below; what she instead listened for was thoughts.

Outside her door, she could sense Nightwatcher. He was remaining stoic and composed, as was his duty, retaining the veneer of strength that his position and occupation demanded. Inside, though, as much as he tried to suppress it, he was overjoyed at the thought of the wedding, and at the birth of his son or daughter. Simultaneously, though, he was terrified that he would be as distant and cold as his own father was.

Further out, Luna could sense other chiropterans, as well as the ponies above. She sensed the cooks, one of them conflicted at knowing the honor of working at the castle but torn between it and starting his own restaurant chain, and the servants, each of them working almost robotically as they reflected on their spouses and children, or on thoughts of the upcoming issue of their favorite books.

Luna even sensed her sister’s guards, the white and gray stallions with perfectly sculpted bodies that she kept for her “defense”. Some were single-minded, focused only on their duties, but others wondered if what they were doing was really worthwhile; several were even plotting against their fellows for promotions, hoping to rise toward the rank that had once been held by Shining Armor.

As Luna’s mind wandered between the various guards, she suddenly noticed something strange. There was a mind that she did not recognize moving amongst them. Unlike the guards, it moved strangely, starting and stopping suddenly, passing past the guards rapidly without them seeming to notice. It felt strange somehow; the outside of it, so to speak, was something like finding a shard of glass against a bed of river stones.

Curious, Luna focused into it. Almost instantly, she cried out in pain and clutched her head. Her body broke out into cold sweat that drenched her satin sheets, and she started to convulse.

That mind was far deeper than she had expected, and far more terrible. It was impossibly old, holding what may once have been the heart of a hero. Sometime long ago, though, it had become twisted and corrupted, broken and rebuilt. Inside it were the screams of countless millions and visions of fiery death; Luna could see each of their faces as they released their final cries. The mind was filled with a horrible desire to consume, to eat, to destroy, to reach its fill of lifeblood, but even that was not the worst. Inside it, there was a terrible burden, a tremendous shame, a weight that no mortal was meant to bear.

Something about that mind shifted inside her own. The memory of something getting near her that she could not escape suddenly clarified into horrible detail: she saw a masked pony above her, a unicorn, a blade held in his magic, lowering it toward her eyes as she struggled but could not escape.

“No,” she whispered. “No, not my eyes. Please stop. Stop the screaming…the children, the destruction, the pain…” Another image flashed into her mind, one that was surely not a memory of hers, of a structure of impossible vastness resembling a tree of crystal, surrounded by horrible spheres that reflected things that could not be reflected.

“Stop,” said a distant voice, and the memories faded. Luna shivered, her hairless blue body saturated with sweat and tears. She sat up and looked around the room. There was nothing there but shadows, but shadows that somehow seemed to move.

“Who is there?” she said. She ignited her horn, but instead of light, only darkness came from it, making the shadows deeper and more lively.

She heard whispers. Not ones confined to her mind, this time, but seemingly real ones. They bounded around the room like laughter, passing between the shadows and darkness. They then resolved themselves into words.

“These memories,” said a female voice. It was calm, but also cold and had a tone that could be construed as either caring or patronizing. “They are not meant for you.”

“They are…my memories.”

“Nevertheless,” said the whispers, resolving into a single voice with no apparent location. “They are not meant for you.”

“Who are you?” demanded Luna.

“I am who I have always been,” replied the darkness. “Who I was before you had that horn. I was there, dwelling within your mother, and her mother, and her mother’s mother. I am ancient, and eternal…though perhaps not as ancient as him.”

“Who? I don’t understand!” Luna put her hoofs to her ears, but it could not block out the voices. They remained as nearly silent whispers, but became deafening.

“It has been too long,” they said. “You, the end of my line, an immortal of flesh to mine of darkness. And yet, we are phases of the same being.”

“Who are you?!” screamed Luna to the darkness.

“I am the one who holds those dark memories. I am the reason you and your ‘sister’ were exiled. I was the one who once took into myself your hate and rage and jealousy, because of us, I am strong enough to bear the pain for the two of us…”

“Show yourself!”

From the darkness, a shape slowly emerged. It stretched, molding itself from the nothingness. Then, when it nearly had a form, a pair of bright turquoise eyes flashed open. Eyes with vertical slits for pupils.

“No!” cried Luna, backing away as the eyes approached. She could feel them staring, and feel the darkness reaching into her, tearing at her soul. “No! NO NO NO!”

Her horn flashed black, and then blue. She felt her body tingle and burn as she focused all of her magic into a single blast, and leveled it directly at the pair of eyes. With a scream of anger and fear, she unleashed it.

There was a sudden high-pitched cry, and Luna blinked. The room was not dark. There was no creature of blackness, no eyes of Nightmare Moon. She looked around, and saw that her chamber door was open, a narrow wedge of light coming through.

When she saw what it illuminated, Luna dropped to her knees in a silent scream. There, in a rapidly expanding pool of blood, was a small and shattered form with a familiar cutie mark attached to it- -a lump of flesh that had once been Cavern Melody.

“No,” sobbed Luna as she stood. She forced herself to move forward, but she could hardly look. “I didn’t mean…I couldn’t…no…”

The form twitched slightly, and coughed, releasing a mouthful of blood. She was still alive, but only barely. The magic had been uncontrolled and undirected; it had torn her body apart, burning and twisting it, and even as Luna watched, patches of her skin were slowly being reduced to ash by the remains of the magic.

“No,” said Luna. She rushed forward and took the remains of Cavern Melody into her arms. “I didn’t mean to. Hold on. You will survive this. I give you my word.”

Cavern Melody turned to Luna with what was left of her face. “To die by your hoof, and in your arms…is my greatest honor. Our greatest honor…” her one remaining eyelid began to flutter, and Luna could feel her growing weak.

She did not know what to do; Luna’s special talent was for moving the moon, and painting the night. She was not a doctor, and she doubted that she had enough magic remaining to undo what she had done. She was starting to panic, but could do nothing except shed silent tears.

“Move,” said a voice from behind her.

Luna turned to see one of the shadows that her return to reality had not dispelled start to move. What looked something like a dark blue stain that had been inching ever closer to her bed separated itself from the wall and gained increased form, becoming far more solid. It resolved itself into a tall but narrow horror.

“Get away from her!” cried Luna, holding the body toward her chest.

“I highly doubt I could hurt her worse,” said the creature, almost sarcastically. It continued to approach, but Luna did not resist. She had already felt the life depart from Cavern Melody. There was no point in protecting a corpse, even one of her own creation.

The creature stepped forward, and stretched one narrow hand over Cavern Melody. Its form somehow seemed to shift, as if it were growing thicker, and blue sparks erupted from its appendage. They initially ran between each other, sparks surrounding sparks, like some kind of cloth made of pure electricity. Then, slowly, they descended onto Cavern Melody.

The damage on the chiropteran pony’s body began to reverse. Tissues rebuilt themselves, bones knit and skin regrew; organs that were just barely visible retracted inward to their proper locations. Every bit of entropy and disorder that Luna’s magic had created began to reverse itself, the order of Cavern Melody’s form restoring.

As Luna watched, though, she also saw that the creature was suffering. Sparks erupted from its own body- -sparks that were both blue and shrouded with the darker blue flame of Luna’s own magic. Many of the wounds that it pulled from Cavern Melody appeared on itself, tearing its blue flesh, causing it to darken and liquefy, leaking a stinking necrotizing liquid from its body. Still it continued, though.

Color returned to Cavern Melody, and, suddenly, her red eyes flashed open. She turned her head and vomited a mixture of blood and bits of flesh, but then immediately took several deep breaths. The sparks around her body faded, and the creature moved to retract its hand, only for the appendage to rot and fall into the pool of blood below, liquefying and finally reducing to a fine powder that seemed to evaporate away.

“I have restored your assassin, and the unborn pony,” said the creature. Its voice sounded different, as though it were gurgling and profoundly strained. “She will regain consciousness…well, eventually.”

“Assassin? What are you talking about?”

The creature generated a new arm-appendage, and pointed at her flank, where her cutie mark was. It was a strange shape that Luna had never fully comprehended; a curved, silver item that she assumed was an instrument. “That insignia is a picture of a trihorn night-dance blade. It was a weapon designed to sever the spines of their targets from behind. I can only assume that ponies in this time use them as well.”

“Who are you?” said Luna, and suddenly she recognized it. The two triangles that it held for a face- -she had seen those, looming over the endless scenes of destruction and terror in the visions of the strange being that had moved unseen amongst the guards. “Why did you help her?”

“That doesn’t matter at this point,” said the creature. “To be honest, I originally…ow…came here to kill you.”

“Kill me?” said Luna. She did not understand.

“Yes, although I can’t now. I depleted my supply of Order…and that blast I just absorbed was enough to level a small city.” As he said it, his form distorted, causing him to collapse into liquid partially, revealing the fact that he had a small spiral horn in the center of his torso where a head should have been. Part of his body hemorrhaged onto the floor, and his skin was beginning to vaporize from the force of Luna’s magic.

“We have doctors,” said Luna. “We can help you.”

“No,” said the creature. “I am dying, but it is not the first time. Death never holds me for very long. I will survive. Before I go, though…I must ask a question.”

“What is it that you wish?”

“Were you the one who used the Core to become a god?”

Luna did not understand. She was not aware of how she had gained her abilities, or the time before.

“No,” she said. “I know not of the past. I awoke in this form, and have no memories of what I was before.”

“Then I am so sorry,” said the creature.

“For what?”

“For what has been done to you. For the cursed existence you have been given. The path of immortality…it was not meant for beings with hearts, who care, who love. I do not know what that creature of darkness was…but please consider its offer. If not, seek out a pony named Pinkie Pie, and ask her for my necklace. It will not stop the progression, but it will slow it.”

Luna recognized the name as one of Twilight Sparkle’s friends, a jolly party pony, but did nto understand what such an innocent creature would have to do with this horrible monstrosity. Her mind only focused on that question for a moment, though, and then turned to something far more important. “And I shall ask a question for you,” she said, trying to sound as royal as possible.

“I only have time for one. My plan is falling apart around me. And so am I, I suppose.” He gestured to the puddle of dying, burning tissue that he was rapidly being reduced to.

“Why did you save her?”

“Why?” said the creature, as if it did not now itself. It seemed to consider for a moment. “I suppose it is because I cannot bear to see somepony suffer.”

At that moment, the door to Luna’s chambers burst open and was flooded by light. There, surrounded by several guards, was her sister, ablaze with blinding solar light, to the point where her normally colored main had become a single stream of glowing, brilliant white.

“Get away from my sister!” she screamed, and leveled a blast far more powerful and far more concentrated than Luna’s at the creature.

Before the blast could impact it, Luna saw a skull disconnect from its body, still attached to a stem of blue viscera, with one of its eye sockets containing the insignia of two triangles. A bubble of green energy flashed around it and it vanished, just as Celestia’s beam vaporized the remainder of its body.

Chapter 23: Mass Loss

There was a knock at the door. Scootaloo nearly jumped, and looked at the door, wondering who would be knocking on a door so late.

“Miss Rarity?” she called. She and the other Crusaders were having a Cutie Mark Crusader sleepover at Rarity’s house; Rarity herself was in the upper levels of Carousel Boutique, working feverishly on some new order of dresses- -an occupation that seemed terribly dull to Scootaloo. Sweetie Belle and Applebloom were also higher in the building in one of its bathrooms, attempting to be Cutie Mark Crusader plumbers. They had sent Scootaloo downstairs to get towels, and something called flux if Rarity had any.

There was another knock. It was the middle of the night, though. No one should have been at the door.

“Um,” she called, approaching the door. “I think we’re closed right now.”

“Scootaloo?” said a strange voice from the other side. “I know you’re in there. I can see your heat signature.”

“My what?”

She looked up at the doorknob, and found herself afraid to open it. She even froze for a moment, wondering if there would be an ahuizotl on the other side, just like in her night mares. Shaking her head, she did her best to dispel her fear. Instead, she stepped forward and opened the door.

From the blackness on the other side, she was greeted by a familiar pair of triangle-pupiled eyes. Something was strange, though. Instead of staring down unblinkingly from above, they were staring unblinkingly from a level height.

“Don’t. Laugh,” said D27 firmly, even though his voice was abnormally high.

Scootaloo tried not to, but that only lasted for a moment. Then she started to giggle, and broke into roaring laughter so powerful that she snorted. She then continued laughing to the point where she fell onto the floor, her wings vibrating uncontrollably.

“Of course,” said D27. “I don’t know what I expected.”

“Your just…oh…your just a colt!” she cried. She had not believed it at first, but D27’s form had completely shifted to the size and proportions of a child. He still had the somewhat distorted appearance that everypony had come to expect: the ridge of horns on his head and spine, and the naked tail, but he was tiny and adorable despite his best efforts to make his tiny colt face frown deeply.

“I’m close to forty million years old, I’ll have you know,” said D27.

“But you’re so little! Oh, this is hilarious. Come on! Sweetie Belle and Applebloom need to see this!” Scootaloo became somewhat serious. “She’s been worried about you, you know. It’s been almost a week since you stormed off.”

“I know. Perhaps I should have- -”

“Scootaloo!” drawled an annoyed voice. Applebloom and a soaked Sweetie Belle stepped out from a nearby stairwell, leaving a trail of water behind them. “We really need the towels!”

“And the flux,” said Sweetie Belle. “Whatever that is.”

They both stopped, seeing D27 standing in the doorway, and for a moment they just stared. Then they burst out laughing.

“Yes, I know…very funny,” said D27 sarcastically.

“Look at you!” cried Applebloom through tears of laughter. “You’re D2.7!”

The others did not seem to understand the joke, but D27 through it was actually mildly clever. Still, he did not much like being laughed at. He supposed he deserved it, though. His current state was the cost of his own hubris and failure, and on some level, he believed he needed to be laughed at, to convert his fearful state into one that was at least humorous to somepony.

When they calmed down, Applebloom finally managed to ask what had happened.

“There was an…accident,” said D27. “I underestimated some things, and…well, this.”

“You’re so small,” said Sweetie Belle.

“I’m actually slightly larger than you,” retorted D27.

“But what happened?” said Applebloom. D27’s eyes narrowed. She was more perceptive than the others; Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle treated D27’s form as a joke, but Applebloom seemed to recognize that it was at least on some level a dangerous medical condition.

“It is a phenomenon called mass loss,” said D27. He tried to imagine how he would word the description of his condition without stating that it was a result of him having failed to assassinate a princess and nearly died in the process. The result itself was actually somewhat interesting, even to him. When he had absorbed Luna’s magic into himself voluntarily, he had taken massive internal damage. Hiding in the Gloame for nearly a weak had more than fully recharged his magic, but his fundamental biology had been damaged in the process as well.

“An accident has temporarily reduced my ability to absorb mass,” he explained. “What you see here is all the mass I have access to at the moment.”

“So you can’t turn into a full-grown pony?” asked Scootaloo.

“I can,” said D27. “But I cannot shift my mass. I would lose density.” They looked at him confused, and he sighed. “It means that I would be as bit as a stallion, but only weigh as much as a colt. It would be extremely easy for me to be injured. Also, a slight breeze could blow me away.”

Scootaloo snorted at the thought.

“Is it permanent?” asked Applebloom.

“No. My current predictions indicate that I will regain full mass-consumption capacity in four to twelve hours. However…” his mind shifted, trying to word statements. His original mental core had been destroyed when the white alicorn who D27 assumed to be Celestia destroyed most of his body; the new one was somewhat slow. “Once my mass reaches the prerequisite three tons, I will not be able to compress this small easily. Not without dividing myself, which has its own caveats. So I figured that while I am in this…ridiculous body…I might as well see what being one of you larval ponies is like.”

“We’re not larva.”

“Yes, I am aware of that. And I am not a child. However, if I may, I would like to sit in on one of your school classes tomorrow. Actually…” he paused, observing them. They looked much different from a lower perspective; the whole world did. It all seemed so big and imposing. “Why are you all still awake on a school night?”

They looked at each other sheepishly. “I think Rarity forgot about that part,” said Sweetie Belle.

“Rarity,” said D27, vaguely recognizing the name. “That is the name of your sister.”

“Yeah,” said Sweetie Belle. She gasped. “You should meet her!”

“Sweetie Belle,” said Scootaloo. “The last time we tried to talk to Rarity when she was busy, I thought she was going to throw a mannequin at us.”

“Oh, she’s not that busy. She’s just…” their attention slowly turned toward a thin trickle of water coming through the ceiling above. “Oh no!” she cried, turning to the others. “The pipes!”

“What do you mean ‘pipes’?” said D27.

The three fillies smiled. “Cutie Mark Crusader plumbers,” they squeaked in unison.

Cutie Mark Crusaders demolition experts was more like it. The bathroom was almost completely destroyed, with leaking pipes and torn drywall everywhere. The toilet as disconnected and the sink somehow connected sideways. Somehow, the Crusaders had gotten their hooves on a gas torch- -still running, of course- -and a fireman’s axe.

“Wow,” said D27.

“Rarity’s going to kill us,” said Sweetie Belle. D27 hoped that her statement was hyperbole.

“No, now,” he said, trying to reassure her. “I can fix this.”

“But you’re not a plumber,” said Scootaloo.

D27 pointed one of his claws at his flank. “No insignia,” he said. “No one special talent.”

The horns on the top of his head sparked and released a surge Order into the room. His small size had actually led to disproportionate concentration of magic, and the spell was somewhat more vigorous than he had intended. The room exploded inward, the walls repairing themselves and the pipes violently yanking themselves back into place. Within moments, the bathroom was mostly restored.

D27 was actually rather surprised at how well Order worked for constructive or restorative purposes. He had spent most of his life attempting to use it to destroy things- -something that required an unusual amount of creativity. Seeing it interact with the works of mortals was amusing, and somewhat satisfying.

“Fixed,” said D27. “However, I may have frozen the water in the toilet.”

Scootaloo opened the lid. “Yeah, you did.”

“Sweetie Belle!” called a strangely accented voice from down the hall. “What was that noise? You know I need to give my work my complete concentration. I can’t have explosions going off in my washroom.”

“It’s Rarity!” hissed Sweetie Belle.

“She can’t see me like this,” said D27. He did not feel like trying to explain why he was in the body of a colt, especially to somepony who did not know that he was a protoplasmic shapeshifter.

“Hide him in the toilet!” said Applebloom, motioning for Scootaloo to pull open the lid again.

“It’s full of ice!” said Scootaloo.

“Don’t hide me in the toilet,” said D27. “Hold on. I can handle this.” He took a deep breath.

D27 shifted as the door opened. Expanding his mass to low density was actually rather painful, and it caused him to feel lightheaded, both figuratively and literally. His form was also not what it had been; he was paler, and somewhat more thinner. Had someone sliced him in half, they would also have seen that he was mostly filled with pockets of air.

Rarity looked into the bathroom and blinked. “You,” she said. “What are you doing in my washroom? With my sister and her friends?”

Before her confusion resolved into anger, D27 spoke. He smiled as best as he could, trying to show his pointed teeth as little as possible. “Cutie Mark Crusader plumbers, I’m afraid.”

“Plumbers?” said Rarity, blinking. She looked past D27 as the three smiling Cutie Mark Crusaders, Scootaloo still holding open the toilet seat. Then her eyes turned to the pile of tools, now neatly organized but with the gas torch still on.

“Sweetie Belle!” cried Rarity. “What were you about to do to my washroom?”

“Nothing!” said Sweetie Belle. “We were just going to see how the pipes worked, and then Applebloom said that we could- -”

“Leave me out of this!” she said.

“You’re the one that stole your brother’s tools!” said Scootaloo.

“Quiet,” said D27. The three fell silent, and Scootaloo gently close the toilet seat. “I was passing by when they found me. Apparently, they had struck a water pipe in their exploits and damaged it. They were panicking, and afraid to tell you, so they wanted me to fix it. I did. The damaged was minimal, of course. The only effect was the freezing of the toilet water. Also, the traps in the sink might be reversed, so you may want to call in a real plumber in the morning.”

“Oh,” said Rarity. She looked extremely confused. D27’s story was not even technically a lie; he had just worded it in a rather manipulative way that shifted some but not all blame from the Crusaders. “Well. Sweetie Belle, dear, we are going to have a long talk about what you can and can’t do with my pipes, and Scootaloo, dear, please don’t play in the toilet. It’s simply undignified.” She turned back to D27. She smiled strangely. “You’re a bit of a handypony, aren’t you?”

“I dabble,” said D27. For some reason, he felt slightly uncomfortable, although he attributed it mostly to the fact that he was roughly the density of a feather pillow.

“Oh, you,” she said. “I’m taking a break from my work on an order of darling winter coats for the Canterlot colt’s choir right now. Would you care to join me for some tea?”

“Tea?” The word translated in D27’s mind to an image of boiled leaf juice.

“It’s the least I can do, what with you averting a minor flood and all,” she glared at Sweetie Belle.

D27 found himself being led away. He looked back at the Cutie Mark Crusaders, and they only waved as he went.

Exactly why ponies had chairs had never been clear to D27. Their anatomy was not well suited for sitting at all, and whenever he saw them doing it, they looked terribly contorted. Sitting on one of the stools in Rarity’s kitchen made that even more apparent; he had to focus rather strongly to resist shifting himself into a more comfortable format for sitting.

Rarity approached form the stove, carrying an ornate tea kettle and a pair of teacups on saucers in her magic. She set one down in front D27, and one at the other stool. She then gently poured out steaming brown liquid from the spout of the kettle into the cups and took a seat across from D27.

Brown water was not unfamiliar to D27. Most of the time, though, when he drank it, he was filter feeding at the base of a swamp. Which is probably what he would be doing in four to twelve hours, he realized.

“I apologize in advance if I am not fully familiar with the customs of this,” said D27, taking the cup in his claws. He lifted it up and took a sip, and immediately felt dizzy. Apparently, Applejack had not been a fan of tea.

“No claws to…cause to…” said Rarity, staring wide eyed at D27’s hands.

D27 smiled and set the cup down. “I’m not a unicorn,” he said, somewhat proud of himself for using the culturally correct word. “And I have no idea how in Equestria anypony can drink tea with hooves.”

“So you grew…claws?”

“If that disturbs you, I can dispel them,” said D27.

“Oh. No, you don’t need to do that,” said Rarity, taking a sip of her own tea, which she held expertly with her own magic. D27 was somewhat jealous; if he were to try to do the same thing, he would probably just convert the teacup into crystal. Or detonate it. Or both.

“So,” said Rarity. “I suppose I should also thank you for rescuing Sweetie Belle from those horrid creatures, those ahuizotls. Such hooligans, abducting fillies in the night like that. I shudder to think what would have happened had you not come along.” She paused. “Oh, but where are my manners. You and I have not been properly introduced. My name is Rarity, I am the proprietor of this ship, Carousel Boutique, and a designer and lover of beautiful things.”

“Sweetie Belle has told me much about you,” said D27. “I am D27.”

“Exactly how much time have you been spending around my sister?” said Rarity, suspiciously.

“Some,” said D27, secretly eyeing the room for exits. “Because of my form, most ponies are…well, frightened of me, frankly. Your sister and her friends lack that aversion, and have been helpful in informing me of your culture.”

“Well, unfortunately, Sweetie Belle is hardly the one you should be speaking to about culture. Better than some, surely, but still, not at all an informative source.” She paused.

“Really?” said D27. “I was unaware of this. There are some things that I still do not understand. For example, clothing. Your species- -ponies, I mean- -are highly accepting of nudity, and yet you also wear clothing on occasion. I do not understand the reason for this.”

“Darling,” said Rarity, smiling, her eyes seeming to light up with interest. “The problem is that you’re misunderstanding the nature of clothing. It isn’t meant to cover our nakedness, but rather as a complement to our natural form. To accentuate the beauty and grace of the wearer, to reflect her personality, her very desires!”

“Ah. So, a form of artistic expression, then.”

“Exactly…but only partly. It is expression on the part of the designer, yes, but a much deeper expression on the user…it is difficult to explain. I should think you know something about this all, though.”

“Me? Why?”

“Because of that divine necklace you made for Pinkie Pie. At least, she said you made it.”

D27 searched his mind. He recalled having attached a distortion generator to the pink pony to prevent her from being devoured by shadows. “Oh,” he said. “I was wondering where that went.”

“Well, Pinkie gave it to Twilight to examine, but I’m afraid it’s probably in Canterlot by now.” She leaned closer. “One of Princess Luna’s messengers came for it,” she whispered, smiling.

“Oh,” said D27. It seemed that the princess had taken his advice. He hoped that the device would help her.

“Your design was simply marvelous,” said Rarity. “And to have your jewelry in use by a princess. Oh, I am rather jealous, that would be like a dream come true. And, actually,” she eyed D27 closely, making him feel uncomfortable again. “Now that I look at you…” She stood up and walked around, staring at different parts of D27. “When Applejack described you, the picture in my mind was, to be honest, not at all flattering…but your tail is quite a bit longer than that of most ponies, and without a mane, it actually pulls together quite nicely.” Her eyes paused on D27’s flank for longer than they should have. “No cutie mark,” she said, almost to herself.

“Yes,” said D27. “I have no cutie mark. For I am a burro.”

“A donkey?” said Rarity. “You don’t look like any donkey that I have ever met. And…a donkey with magic?”

“This is what Pinkie Pie has told me.”

“Oh. It does explain the cutie mark situation. Still…if I may be so bold, you are a bit more handsome than most donkeys I have had the…pleasure of meeting.”

“Um…thank you.” D27 sipped more of his tea.

“There is something else I just have to ask you, though.

D27 hoped that the question did not make the conversation any more awkward. He was not good at reading ponies, but if the conversation were to turn to anything involving the definition of a mule, he would not take any chances and bolt immediately for the door.

“What, exactly?” he asked.

“A few weeks ago, you gave my sister and her friends several pieces of cerorite.”

D27’s eyes narrowed. “Yes,” he said. “The cerorite. I am surprised you were even able to recognize it.”

“There aren’t three gemstones on my flank for no reason.” She leaned closer. “Cerorite is literally the rarest substance in all of Equestria. Where did you even get any? And why would you give it to three fillies?”

“I my defense, I did not know that it was rare.”

“How could you not know?”

“Because I have a large stockpile of it. I understand that it is far more durable than normal materials and that it does not form naturally, but I assumed that it was used for trade as with normal gemstones.”

Rarity just stared at him. D27 could not tell if she was confused or disgusted. “How much, exactly, do you have?”

“I’ve never actually weighed it,” said D27. “Probably several hundred pounds, at least, in various caliber.”

“Several…hundred…pounds?!”

“Approximately,” said D27. For a moment, he wondered if he could one of the larger caliber pieces in a mass accelerator to destroy the moon. He rapidly dismissed it as largely impossible. “Why? What is the current abundance of cerorite on this world?”

“On this world? There are only three pieces. I simply must know. I hate to ask, but the excitement is simply…oh,” she fanned herself with her hoof. “Might I trouble you for a piece? Even just one?”

“Why?” asked D27, confused. “What are you trying to kill with it?”

“Kill? How would you even- -no, of course not. I intend make it into…oh, I don’t even know. There are just so many possibilities! Perhaps a headdress, or a necklace…or maybe something far more subtle and intricate, like a horn ring…”

“You are intending to make jewelry out of it?”

“Of course, darling! Although I’m not even sure if my skill is worthy of such a stone.”

“Why would you want to make jewelry out of cerorite?”

“Why?” asked Rarity, confused.

“It is an ugly color, and mildly corrosive to most metals.”

“Well, that will make the setting a bit of a challenge, and I admit, the hue is not the most flattering, but perhaps with some secondary gems, perhaps in green.”

“Yes.”

“Well, perhaps not, though. Green would be stunning from a distance, but up close one would need to consider the lustre of the stone.”

“No, I mean you can have one of my cerorites. I don’t have any inside me at the moment, but I will try to have one sent next time I am in my office.”

“Really? You’re serious?” Rarity released an excited squeal and nearly knocked D27 off his chair with a tremendous hug, which confirmed to D27 that ponies were, indeed, covered in fine fuzz and reconfirmed the fact that being compressed in a low density state was extremely painful.

Rarity separated, and cleared her throat. “Surely I’ll have to do something in return, though.”

“Please don’t,” said D27, trying to restore his shape as best as he could.

“No. I simply wouldn’t do to take your gems without giving. Perhaps a suit…or a whole set of suits. I don’t usually work with stallions, but your appearance is unique, and might allow me to do something a bit edgier. I can get started on it after I finish the- -” She clapped her hoofs over her mouth, causing D27 to jump. “Oh sweet Celestia! In all the excitement, I forgot about my current project. The choir will be performing before the princesses in just two weeks, and I still need to finish the basic uniforms, let alone the fitting!” There was a thump from somewhere upstairs, and some yelling. “And it’s difficult enough to do without my little Crusader problem. Of all the days for Fluttershy to be on a butterfly census trip.”

“I can watch them,” said D27.

“You? Darling, I appreciate the offer, but I don’t know if...”

“If you trust me around your sister and her friends.”

“Well, that’s not how I would have put it, but…yes.”

“Your sister is a tiny pony. I mean, have you seen her? She’s absolutely adorable. What kind of monster would I have to be to hurt a filly?”

“Well, you have a point…”

“Besides, we’ll just be downstairs. And how could I do anything remotely harmful when I vision of beauty such as yourself is hard at work above me?”

Rarity looked surprised, and then suddenly blushed. “Oh, you. I had no idea you were such a charmer!”

“A mare such as yourself deserves compliments,” said D27, finishing his tea. He felt dirty; as a pony, he supposed that Rarity was not unattractive- -but she was a pony.

“Oh, why thank you.” There was another thumb from above, and both of them looked up. “Just keep them from tearing apart the pipes, if you please. There’s food if you get hungry. Thank you again!” She trotted toward the stares. “Sweetie Belle!” she called. “When I come up there, I had better not see that axe in your magic!”

D27 waved, and then sighed. His body completely disintegrated into a puddle of bubbling blue liquid. Maintaining a low-density form was hard. He needed to rest for a moment.

“Is she gone?” said Applebloom, peeking from around a corner after several moments. The remainder of D27 that was able to see saw her grimace at his present state.

“Yes,” said D27. He slid off the chair into a puddle on the floor and began to condense. He formed a tiny clawed leg and began to pull himself from liquid, reforming it into his colt form. Even that was somewhat difficult. He wondered how that unfortunate bat-winged assassin had managed to survive the magical blast for as long as she did when even an immortal Choggoth could be so injured by Luna’s magic.

“Did you kiss,” said Scootaloo, pretending to hold something in front of her and contorting her lips as though she was kissing something. “Ow!” she cried as Sweetie Belle punched her.

“That’s my sister!” she said.

“Well, he already kissed Applebloom’s sister.” She paused. “Hey, D27, you aren’t going to try to kiss Rainbow Dash, are you?”

“One, I did not ‘kiss’ Applejack. I assimilated her tastebuds. I don’t even technically have a tongue. Two, Rarity is not the sort to just go and kiss somewhat randomly. Third, Rainbow Dash hates me.”

“She doesn’t hate you,” said Scootaloo. “I think she even accepted your apology.”

“And I would rather not need to tender another one. Especially if I get punched in the face again. Why do they always aim for the face?”

“So Rarity let you watch us?” said Sweetie Belle.

“Just to make sure you don’t do something destructive.”

“Now why would we go and do something like that?”

The other two looked at Sweetie Belle. “Oh.”

“Hey!” said Applebloom. “We can help you get your cutie mark too!”

“No, you can’t,” said D27. “Because I am not a pony, and I will never have a cutie mark.”

“Oh, I forgot,” said Applebloom. “That’s actually kind of depressing, if you actually think about it.”

“I try not to think about things,” said D27. “Besides. I am an adult. Somewhat. Pretending to be a child would be…inappropriate.”

“And yet you want to go to school,” said Scootaloo.

“Touché, tiny orange Pegasus. Touché.”

Watching the Cutie Mark Crusaders was not difficult. It was simply a matter of supplying copious quantities of Order magic into anything they destroyed. Mostly, D27 just sat in a corner with his legs under his body, a position he mentally referred to as a “pony loaf”. It was far more comfortable than using a chair.

Eventually, D27 felt the restrictions on his mass absorbing ability being reduced. The hunger was returning. In response, he produced a set of three crystals from within his body. He had decided to take the risk of bringing his portal with him; in his current state, his only defense was Batesian mimicry of an adorable pony, which, in his limited experience, was not highly effective. It therefore was worth the risk of detection to carry a portable escape route.

The crystals separated, forming a small portal horizontally above D27. An apple dropped out, and the portal closed. Never in his life had D27 expected to be tearing holes in the fabric of the universe to summon apples. They were that good, though.

As he slowly bored through the apple, D27 watched the Crusaders. They were attempting to do some kind of stunt that involved Scootaloo and Applebloom standing on Sweetie Belle’s shoulders, holding hooves, in a kind of inverse pyramid. Their logic, apparently, had been that since Sweetie Belle was the least coordinated, she should be at the bottom and try to hold the other two up with magic. Her magic was weak, though, and- -as the main flaw in their logic indicated- -unpathetic. They inevitably tumbled to the floor, where D27 had required them to place pillows.

“Your using magic wrong,” said D27.

“I’m trying,” said Sweetie Belle. “But somepony is very heavy.”

“What?” said Scootaloo. “Rainbow Dash is really good at making cloud cake- -” she clapped her hooves over her mouth. “Please don’t tell her I told you that.”

“I want cake,” said Applebloom. “Hey, where did you get those apples?”

“Parallel dimension,” said D27, eating the last of the core and preserving the seeds for an orchard that he intended to grow in the Gloame. “But my original point. Tiny white pony, you are using magic improperly. Other two ponies, go to rarity’s refrigerator. Eat her cake.”

“Rarity has cake?” said Applebloom. They immediately dashed off, nearly tripping over themselves, Scootaloo’s wings vibrating excitedly.

“I want cake,” whined Sweetie Belle.

“Later. First, magic.” D27 stood up and took down a half-empty cup that one of them had left on an end table and miraculously not managed to knock over. “When you use your magic, you are trying to engulf whatever you are lifting.”

“That’s kind of how magic works. That’s how Rarity does it.”

“Yes. That is how I imagine unicorns would use their magic. Having one horn has its advantages, but causes great loss of dexterity.”

“One horn?”

“Yes. Here. Take this. But this time, project your magic on three points.” He pointed at three points, forming a triangle around the cup.

“Three? But I can’t focus my magic on that many places!”

“Of course you can. Form a shape, not a cloud.”

“Okay,” sighed Sweetie Belle. She grimaced, and the tip of her tiny horn glowed with a blue-white light. D27 held the cup out, and watched as a triangle flickered into existence around it. Then, without warning, he released it.

“Hey!” cried Sweetie Belle. Then, upon seeing that the cup remained suspended quite stably, she smiled. “Hey, it works!” She moved the glass around with ease and precision.

“A trihorn your age would be expected to have a nine-hundred pound lifting capacity and be able to assemble a summoning matrix generator with magic alone. The reason: they had three horns.”

“Three horns?” said Sweetie Belle. “What kind of unicorn has three horns? Wouldn’t that be a tricorn?”

“No. Tricorn is a manner of hat. That, oddly, has little to do with corn.”

Sweetie Belle waved the glass around slightly, and then attempted to drink from it. No liquid came out, though, and she looked inside. “Um,” she said.

D27 looked inside as well. The magic had filled the center of the cup as well as the triangle, forming a membrane that blocked the liquid inside.

“Hmm,” said D27. “That’s weird. How about you don’t try this one on your friends quite yet. It might impede the blood flow a bit.”

Even in his damaged state, D27 did not need sleep. As such, the next morning, he had lost no energy, aside from the appreciable but not significant expenditure of Order that he had used to keep the Cutie Mark Crusaders from destroying Rarity’s home. The Crusaders, however, had slept far less than fillies should have, and the manner of motion that they were taking on their way to school could only be described as “trudging”.

“Pick up the pace,” said D27. “You’re going to be late.”

“Your awfully excited about this,” said Applebloom, sleepily. She yawned widely. “It’s not like you’ve never been to school before.”

“I haven’t.”

“You haven’t?”

“How do you know things?” said Scootaloo.

“As far as I can tell, my people are born fully functional from spores. We have no schools. Or buildings or cities or society, really.”

“How do you get anything done?”

“You are too tired for me to explain that,” said D27.

In the distance, he saw what he expected to be the school, based on the number of children that were approaching it. It was a rather ornate but small red building, complete with a flag and a topiary sculpture of a pony with a strange hat.

As D27 got closer, he tried to avoid the topiary. Bushes looking like things that were not bushes disturbed him.

“Hello there,” said an oddly cheerful voice. D27 looked upward and saw the smiling face of a pony whose shade was between purple and pink. “I haven’t met you before.”

“No,” said D27, realizing that he had seen her once before. “Am I to assume that you are the teacher, Miss Cheerilee?”

“That I am. And who are you?”

D27 sighed. “My name is D2.7,” he said begrudgingly.

“Dee Two-Point Seven?” said Cheerilee, somewhat confused. “That’s an unusual name.”

“I am aware of this fact.”

“Did your parents just enroll you here?”

“No,” said D27. “I was in town visiting…relatives. I was hoping that I could sit-in on a session of your class.”

“Really?” said Cheerilee, somewhat surprised.

“Is that unusual?”

“Well, it’s just that in your case, since your on vacation, you don’t really need to go to school.”

“There are a great many things that I do not need to do and yet do anyway.”

“It’s just that most colts your age would rather be out playing than in school.”

D27 did not tell her that there were no “colts” his age, or that he was actually several million times her own age. Instead he simply smiled, this time clearly showing his sharpened teeth. “I am very much interested to see the workings of a foreign school.”

“Oh, aren’t you just the sweetest thing,” said Cheerilee. “Of course you can attend. We have a spare desk in the back.”

She led him into the schoolhouse.

Cheerilee began to regret allowing D2.7 into her class. It was not that he was disruptive, per se, but that he was unlike any child Cheerilee had ever witnessed. Due to her special talent as a teacher, she had come to understand children very well. She knew their needs, and how they thought, and how to allow them to learn. This thing, though, in her mind, was almost surely not a child.

Normal students, for one, were somewhat figidty. Sitting for a long time in uncomfortable chairs made them move arouond, or play with their manes, or, in the case of the three “Cutie Mark Crusaders” on that particular day, fall asleep. D2.7 did none of those things. Instead, he sat perfectly still, staring forward blankly with his strange, colorless triangular pupils. Cheerilee had ignored it at first, but then realized that he was not blinking either. Even when she turned to write on the chalkboard, she could feel those horrible eyes burning into her back, as if he was seeing into her soul.

At several points, she called on him just to make sure that he was not dead. He was apparently listening very carefully, though, because he managed to instantly answer most questions. His knowledge base was actually even more bizarre than his lack of motion. In terms of mathematics, he was able to compute values far faster than any of the other students; at one point, Cheerilee had even put a rather complicated calculus problem on the board, under the guise of showing students just what more advanced mathematics looked like. As a joke, she had asked D27 to solve it- -which he did without even hesitation to think, as though it were perfectly natural for a child to know the answer.

His knowledge was profoundly lacking in other areas, though. Cheerilee had asked him a question during their cultural segment about griffons, and he had not known what they were. He could not recognize pictures of most animals as the other students could, and when she asked the students to name five foods that ponies ate to compare them to the diets of animals, the only two foods that D2.7 could name were apples and cake.

The worst, though, was science. Cheerilee had been presenting a lesson on pony internal anatomy. She had a set of charts with cartoon ponies, and on that day had pulled down the chart with a blue and red picture of the pony circulatory system. She was explaining that a pony’s heart was what pumped blood to all the organs, one of the students raised their hoof.

Happy that the student was not D2.7- -whose eyes were still following Cheerilee as she moved around the room, as if seeking out her own heart- -Cheerilee called on her.

“Yes?”

“But what if the heart were to stop pumping?”

Before Cheerilee could respond in a child-appropriate way, D2.7 responded, as if he did not understand that he was only supposed to ask questions directed at him.

“Stasis of blood,” he said. “Hypoxia of the extremities, at first, followed by tissue necrosis. The brain fails to receive oxygen, and the cells immediately start to accumulate reactive oxygen species. Necrosis, usually liquefactive, results.” He turned his massive, terrible eyes toward the student who had asked the question. He had no expression, and no hesitation. “The subject terminates within three minutes.”

“Termination?” said the student, tears welling in her eyes.

“Now, now,” said Cheerilee, trying to smile and reassure her now extremely nervous students. “The heart just doesn’t stop. It’s very difficult to make it do that, isn’t that right, D2.7?” She bit her lip, realizing her mistake too late.

“The heart can stop from electrical injury, direct trauma, failure of the coronary arteries, as well as paralysis from numerous toxins, several of which can be incorporated into food flavorlessly. It can also be removed directly, although in such cases, the subject will usually die of exsanguination.”

“Exsangu what?”

“Blood loss. Admittedly, the heart will not technically stop if removed. It continued to beat.” D2.7 paused, and without a hint of emotion, added. “Not an unimpressive sight.”

“D2.7!” said Cheerilee, turning toward the strange student. “Don’t say things like…like…” She stopped. He only continued to stare. He showed no sign of remorse or reaction, as if Cheerilee yelling at him was just another irrelevant piece of his background. She could also see that he had no intention of cruelty; he had not intended to frighten the other students, or to shock them. He had simply stated what he knew, as easily as any other student would have known what a chicken ate.

It was in that moment that Cheerilee realized that, at some point in his life, this student had seen somepony’s heart removed, and not felt a fragment of fear or disgust. That was the moment that she decided to dismiss class early that day.

D27 left the schoolhouse, once again trying to stay as far away from the topiary sculpture as possible. He realized that at some point, something had gone wrong. He had attempted to behave as he deemed appropriate for school, but found that Cheerilee had become increasingly distressed throughout the day. Improving his behavior and attempting to answer her questions more thoroughly and to be more attentive had only exacerbated the situation.

The other students spilled out around him, most avoiding him. They seemed shaken, although their moods generally improved as they started to play on the assorted playground equipment in the schoolyard. D27 wondered if he had offended them somehow; he had adjusted his responses to be appropriate for children. He had, of course, modulated them for trihorn children, assuming ponies to be similar. Trihorns of this age group would have already had far more extensive knowlage, though, especially involving anatomy, considering how at the time of D27’s deactivation it was not unheard of for them to dissect a living, conscious monohorn slave to learn it. A gruesome sight indeed, although any student who could resurrect the monohorn at the end of the procedure received it as a gift.

“I knew it,” said a voice. D27 referenced it against voices he knew, and determined that he did not know the owner. He turned to find a pair of fillies attempting to loom over him. One was pink, and the other gray. The pink one was wearing a tiara for some reason.

“Knew what?” asked D27.

“That a spooky weirdo like you just had to be a blank-flank.”

D27 continued to stare at them. He was not entirely sure what was going on.

“You’re cutie mark will probably be really gross,” said the gray filly. “Or in being a nerd.”

“If he ever gets one at all!” added the pink one.

D27 examined them more closely. The pink one had an insignia of a tiara, which did not surprise him, and the other had an ornate tool that looked like a spoon. D27 understood that cutie marks were generally linked to special talents; he wondered what the talents of these two were.

“I am already aware that I am incapable of generating one of these ‘cutie marks’,” sighed D27.

“Wow,” said the gray filly. The two looked at each other. “You talk really weird.”

“Because your language is primitive and verbally hideous,” said D27.

“Yeah, well, so is your face! And I bet your cutie mark will be too!”

“You were not listening,” said D27, growing somewhat amused but also annoyed. “I just said: I cannot develop a cutie mark.”

“What?” said the pink one.

“O. M. C!” added the other.

“So you’re, like, stuck as a blank flank forever?”

They laughed harshly together.

“If I was stuck as a blank flank, I would just die!”

“Yeah. At that point, you’re better off dead.”

“Why?” asked D27.

Their laughter stopped, and they blinked, confused. “Why?” asked the pink one.

“I fail to see the utility of a mark,” said D27. “Actually, I fail to see the use of this conversation. You are neither attempting to relay information or to ask anything of me. You are both mortal, and wasting precious seconds of your finite lives. Why are you bothering me with this?”

“Did you just threaten me?” said the pink one, reacting as though she had been physically wounded.

“No,” said D27. “My statement contained a truth on the nature of your mortality. It did not contain any proposal to harm you physically or mentally. It was a fact, not a threat.”

“I’ll tell Miss Cheerilee on you!”

“And she will do what, exactly? Yell at me? Make me wear a pointed hat in a corner?” he paused. “These are not rhetorical questions. I actually do not know. But I suppose it does not matter. The development of your species is slow, and it is doubtful that you two have the brain capacity to understand what I am saying.”

“Hey!” said the pink one, at least partially understanding that D27 had insulted her. “You can’t talk to me like that!”

“I can talk to anyone and anything as I choose.”

The pink one seemed to be becoming increasingly enraged, while the gray one seemed to be trying to decipher D27’s last statement. “I’ll have you know that my father is the richest stallion in ponyville!”

“And what does that mean to me, exactly? Short of hiring someone to murder me, what could he even expect to accomplish? What is the point of money, or power among others? Or the status of a one of these ‘cutie marks’? These things are so…pointless. And why am I having this argument with a child?”

D27 shifted what little mass he had, and returned to his adult form. “I don’t have time for this, and I’m immortal. Thank you for your time.”

He then left, leaving the two fillies rather stunned where they stood.

A dark shadow moved silently through the forest. The leaves and shadows of the old growth shaded him, allowing only a dappling of the Divine Light from above to fall upon his deep brown fur.

Nearly a week had passed since their previous failure. Tlilxochitl had taken the brunt of the injuries, and was still lying in a well secluded cave deeper in the Everfree Forest. Her injuries had somehow been healed, but only incompletely. Over the past week, she had been feverish and shifted in and out of delirium, stating only that she needed to return to the castle over and over again.

That was, of course, not possible. Their Divine Mother was unforgiving. The dishonor of returning as failures would be too great to bear. If Celestia did not kill them outright for their betrayal, she would expect their “resignation”, in the form of suicide. She was far less forgiving with her true children than with her chosen people, the ponies, but this was the nature and the pride of the ahuizotl, those who had sworn their allegiance to the sun since long before it had given birth to a form of flesh.

Tlilxochitl’s mistakes the last time had been severe, and cost them the element of surprise and their victory. Chocolatl, however, was as methodical and persistent as his wife was violent and brutal. The encounter had shown him things, and given him the information he needed to defeat the enemy: he now knew what it looked like, and that it was powerfully sensitive to silver.

It had taken him days to steal the necessary materials, and almost a week to assemble, but he had created a new weapon that he believed would make him far more successful. By disassembling the arms given to him by the Divine Goddess, he had managed to acquire enough parts to assemble a version with a longer barrel and significantly more power. The target was dangerous up close, but at range, he would be able to fire a hand-forged fragmentary bullet into its body. That would almost surely kill it.

As he moved through the forest, staying out of sight and following the blue pony returning from the schoolhouse, he became unusually self-aware, as he often did during the hunt. He knew that the mission from the Goddess was no longer his primary driver. It was instead what he had seen, and what he had realized when that thing had taken his wife.

There had always been danger in their line of work. They always knew that there was a risk of injuries, especially when monsters were involved. Ever since he and Tlilxochitl had been children, they had known that they could be killed at any time. He had thought he had accepted that, but when he saw the bladed tentacle pierce her body and pull her within the writing mass of spines and shifting, horrible tissue, he learned that he was not removal prepared. In that moment, he had felt what it was like to have her taken from him, to lose the one mortal creature in all of Equestria that he truly loved.

The experience had nearly broken him, but in time, only made him stronger. He understood what a monster this creature was, and he had sworn his vengeance against it. He could not allow it to survive. Not for what it had done to Tlilxochitl.

He jumped into a tree, rapidly ascending, and reached the top of a rocky outcropping ahead of the target. Chocolatl dropped to his stomach and extended the long gun. He looked through the scope, made from half a set of binoculars, and manipulated the weapon to move the crosshairs over his approaching target.

“One silver bullet,” he whispered. “One shot. One death. It is what you deserve, creature.”

Suddenly, in the distance, the target stopped. One of its wide, triangle-pupiled eyes shifted toward Chocolatl’s position, as though he knew.

Such was impossible, of course. Chocolatl was two hundred yards away, hidden in dense brush. There was no way that creature knew he was there, and yet he hesitated to pull the trigger.

That was when he felt a sudden force against his back, like something pushing him downward, and a sudden pain. He released the weapon and partially stood. He looked down, and was unbelievable confused. His mind could not conceive how the tip of a blood-covered sword could be sticking out of his chest.

The blade retracted, pulling from behind. Its motion through him was suddenly agonizing, and he cried out weakly. He fell onto his weapon, knocking it off the edge of the cliff. A pool of blood was forming rapidly beneath him.

With his strength fading rapidly, Chocolatl turned himself over, if only to see who had attacked him. There, above him, her immaculate white coat stained with his own blood, was Tlilxochitl.

Something was wrong with her, though. She was still shaking from fever, and deathly pale. A wound in the sun-shaped scar in her chest had opened, and aside from blood and pus was also producing curling, pointed blue tentacles that dug into her flesh.

She stared down at the dying Chocolatl. One of her eyes was gone, replaced instead with a mass of blue marked with a pair of equilateral triangles. The other was weeping tears of profound sadness, and Chocolatl realized that it was not only her fever that she was shaking from.

A blue foam was collecting at the edges of her mouth, but she still managed to speak.

“I warned you,” she said in a voice that was not her own.

She turned and began walking, her body jerking like a poorly controlled marionette. She seemed to try to cry out in pain as she moved, as if any motion was agonizing.

“I must…get to…the castle,” she moaned, and suddenly accelerated, disappearing into the brush.

Chocolatl himself wept as well, for he knew that he had lost his wife for a second time. The last thing he saw was the sphere of the Goddess, and he felt its warmth even as he grew cold. Then everything faded to darkness.

Chapter 24: The Goddess of Darkness and the Goddess of Light

Luna stared at the small form in the hospital bed before her. As an alicorn, all other ponies appeared small to her, like children. Female chiropterans were slightly smaller than ordinary ponies, but not by much. The illusion seemed to be mostly because Cavern Melody was still asleep, but was augmented by Luna’s terrible realization about the fragility of mortal life.

Several days had passed since the incident. Cavern Melody’s condition had initially worsened, a result of residual magic retained within her body that her unknown savior could not absorb. Her breath had become shallow, and the re-formed elements of her skin started to break down. Luna had been terrified, but the doctors had been able to heal the new damage. There were still substantial, pale scars on much of her body, but Cavern Melody had stabilized.

All the time, Luna had neither slept nor eaten. She technically required neither. She felt hunger but could not starve, and instead of tiredness she only felt the shadows growing closer, even with glowing crystal on her neck driving them backward into the corners of her mind. She had instead sat by Cavern Melody’s bed, waiting. When Cavern Melody awoke, Luna wanted to be the first pony she saw, and to be the one to explain what happened.

Celestia had visited several times, mostly for her sister’s sake but also out of genuine concern for Cavern Melody. Celestia was not and had never been a fan of chiropteran ponies, but the sight of Cavern Melody’s scars still brought tears to her eyes. That had been before the messenger had brought the necklace, and the shadows had been at their strongest. Luna had seen into her sister’s mind, and seen her fear, not for Cavern Melody’s safety, but for Luna.

The necklace had eventually come, though. Luna had been uncertain, but was reassured of its safety- -both Pinkie Pie and Twilight Sparkle had tried it on, and Twilight had indicated to the messenger that there had been no effect on either of them. When Luna slipped it on in place of her own royal necklace, the shadows were instantly driven back and she felt much stronger.

Her sister had not returned since then, though. Celestia was busy with the situation at hand concerning the creature that had attacked the Crystal Empire. Luna was not a fool, though. She still remembered Cadence and Shining Armor’s descriptions of the creature, and she was aware of the similarities between it and what had visited her that night. A terrible, blue shapeshifter. They were almost certainly the same, or related creatures.

The creature itself was a paradox, though. It had attempted to steal- -or “destroy” the Crystal Heart, as Cadence maintained- -and had stated itself that its goal was to kill Luna. Yet instead, it had, at great personal cost, healed Cavern Melody. Not just healed, actually. Luna’s mind still nearly refused to accept it, but it had resurrected her. She had been dead, and it had pulled her back. Such a thing was even beyond Celestia’s power.

Still stranger, it had told her where to find a device to keep the shadows out of her mind. That made her wonder if the shadows were somehow damaging to it more so than her, if it somehow was afraid of them. She supposed that might be the case; after all, she had been able to mentally perceive it long before it reached her, a power that she now lacked with the necklace on.

As she considered these things, she suddenly saw Cavern Melody stir.

“Cavern Melody,” said Luna.

“Your highness,” whispered Cavern Melody, her voice as beautiful as ever but terribly weak. She opened her eyes, and Luna saw that one of her beautiful red eyes had been replaced with one that was ghostly blue. Tears suddenly welled in both eyes. “I saw…I saw the Deepest Darkness,” she said. “I- -I was there. I heard their singing- -but something pulled me back. Why? Why would you pull me back?”

“It was not I,” said Luna. “But you cannot leave me yet. Not when Nightwatcher needs you. Not with the foal.”

“The foal!” she cried, suddenly, trying to sit her up.

Luna gently pushed her back down. “The foal is safe,” said Luna, her eyes wandering to Cavern Melody’s midsection, which even below the white sheets was visibly starting to swell. Inexplicably, the foal within had grown substantially, far faster than a normal fetus was supposed to. “The doctors were actually quite surprised by her health and vigor. I am not, though, as it is a product of both you and Nightwatcher.”

“Her?” said Cavern Melody. “I’m having a filly?”

“Yes,” said Luna.

Cavern Melody smiled, and leaned back into her pillow. “A filly,” she said. “I will need to inform Nightwatcher.” She sat up again.

“No,” said Luna. “You need to rest.”

“I suppose you are correct, your highness,” said Cavern Melody, leaning back reluctantly. “Although, admittedly, I feel quite vigorous.” She looked down at her hooves and, for the first time, noticed the scars that twisted over her body. Strangely, she did not seem to be disturbed by them. Her disfigurement actually seemed mildly amusing to her.

“Cavern Melody,” said Luna. Now she was starting to cry- -both tears of joy, for seeing that her friend was healthy, and tears of deepest sadness, for knowing that she herself had been the cause of her misfortune. “I am sorry. I am so, so sorry. I nearly killed you…I thought I lost you…you have every right to be angry.”

“I am not angry, majesty. I am actually quite honored that you have visited me during my recovery.”

“How can you not hate me?” said Luna, now sobbing. “After what I did to you…”

“You were well within your rights. By tradition, as your servants, we are prepared at all times to be sent to the Deepest Darkness by you, for any infraction or none at all “

“How can you say that?”

“Because that is the truth. Now look at me.” She raised her foreleg, showing the barely healed burns that covered it. “I bear the mark of your divine glory, my princess. None living can claim this honor.”

“But the foal…”

Cavern Melody sighed, and turned away from Luna. “I will admit,” she said. “When I became aware that I would not survive, I was saddened. Please do not be insulted, but I was sad that my child would never see life, and that I would leave my one love, Nightwatcher, alone in this world. But I am not like you, majesty. I am only mortal, and cannot help but think such things.”

“You have every right to think them,” said Luna, taking Cavern Melody’s hoof in her own. “Please, Cavern Melody. Your life is more valuable than your function as a servant. Do not disparage it. I- -I was so afraid that I lost you.”

“Princess…”

“You are not just my servant. You are my friend. I can never forgive myself for what I did to you.”

Cavern Melody sat up suddenly, and wrapped Luna in a hug. Luna tried to say something, but the words stuck in her throat. All she could do was hug Cavern Melody and cry.

They eventually released each other, and Luna smiled. She felt somewhat better, and the shadows in her mind had almost completely vanished.

“I am confused, though,” said Cavern Melody. “If you did not call me back, who did?”

“I do not know.”

“What kind of a being would be cursed with such a terrible power?”

“I am unsure. But…”

“Something is troubling you, princess.”

“Absorbing my magic from you was…catastrophic for his body. I am sure he survived, but before he left, he said something.”

“And what was that?”

“He spoke of a ‘night-dance blade’.”

Cavern Melody’s happy expression suddenly faded. Her eyes narrowed, and all emotion vanished from her face. “Ah,” she said. “So you know.”

“Know what, exactly?”

“What my cutie mark actually is.”

“But your special talent is for singing.”

“No, it is not. You misunderstand the meaning of my name.”

“Then what does it mean, if not a song?”

“It is a song, but a ‘cavern melody’ is not a song that one can sing more than once. It is the echoing, musical final screams of one who has met a violent fate in the depths of the caves. Less poetically, it means ‘death song’.”

Cavern Melody turned toward Luna. Here pupils focused, and Luna saw that her blue eye did not have a vertical slit for a pupil, but rather a simple black hole in the center, like an ordinary pony eye. “Princess Luna,” she said, flatly, but with just a hint of shame. “My special talent is for murder. I am an assassin.”

“But…but why?”

“Why was I born as such, or why I kept it from you?” she sighed. “I suppose I knew that someday I would need to answer these questions. But perhaps I was content to be a simple servant, and your friend. None can change their fate, though.”

“This isn’t possible…”

“No, it is the truth. But in my pride I kept it from you. Because I know you. What use do you, a loving and truly caring princess, have for a murderer? Would you send me away if you knew what I was?”

“I would never!”

Cavern Melody smiled, and for the first time Luna clearly noticed her fangs. “Thank you, princess. You do not realize what that means to me. I am truly glad that I was of the generation alive upon your return.”

“My return,” said Luna. “You mean you served me before?”

“Myself, no, but my ancestors have served you since the time of Nightmare Moon, and even before that, in secret. There is no record of us, aside from the greatest monument to one of my ancestors- -a tiny scar between your sister’s wings.”

“You…you tried to kill my sister.”

“Not me, personally, no. My ancestor, who was killed for his greatest glory. He struck at your orders.”

“Not my orders,” said Luna, perhaps too loudly and too angrily. “At Nightmare Moon’s!”

Cavern Melody smiled and shook her head. “You misunderstand me,” she said. “Myself, and my people, we will follow the orders of either Queen Nightmare Moon or Princess Luna. The words of either are equivalent to us, and we love both equally.”

“How can you say that to me?” said Luna, her peace of mind shattering. The shadows began to return, and now she could feel them staring at her, waiting. “Nightmare Moon was a monster, a creation spawned by my hatred and jealousy for my sister. How could you say such things about her?”

Cavern Melody only smiled, and once again took Luna’s hoof. “No, majesty. You do not understand. To us, you two are opposites, but not opposing. Two halves of the same being. Nightmare Moon was arrogant and violent, but powerful, protective, and righteous in her own way. When our people were persecuted and hunted, she was the one who protected us, and promised us, her chosen people, eternal night. You are her opposite. You hold the love, kindness, and understanding that she could never know.”

“I don’t understand,” said Luna. She had accepted that Nightmare Moon was a part of her, but her darker half, an incarnation of her internal darkness brought to life. Her memories from that time were fragmented at best, but she remembered brutality and destruction at her own hooves.

“Two halves to make the night,” whispered Cavern Melody. “The black of the sky, the light of the moon. To fear the darkness, and revel in the beauty.” She appeared as though she was going to say more, but here eyelids suddenly seemed heavy. She leaned back into her pillow and, with a soft moan and a smile on her face, went to sleep.

Luna watched her for a moment, and then gently pulled the covers of her hospital bed to better cover her exposed neck. Cavern Melody turned and scrunched the covers in front of her, hugging them close to her. Luna stood and, for the first time since Cavern Melody was struck down, left her side. She was hungry, and intended to go to the kitchen and ensure that there was plenty of food for Cavern Melody when she awoke while she got herself a snack.

Her mind was troubled, but the shadows had received somewhat. The glow of the necklace still kept them away, its strange energy forcing them away even as they gathered in the gloom of Luna’s shame concerning Nightmare Moon.

A light illuminated the darkness of the hall, a familiar warmth. Luna looked up from her intense thought and saw her older sister approaching, smiling through her concern.

“Luna,” said Celestia. “You are…out. Has Cavern Melody’s condition improved?”

“Yes, dear sister,” said Luna, smiling. “She awoke and we spoke, but she is resting again. I was going to the kitchen to bring her some food for when she wakes up.”

“That’s very sweet of you, Luna. I was just there myself. The cooks have just started with the fall flavors of ice cream, and there may be some left if you…” her speech trailed off, and her eyes focused on Luna’s necklace. “Where did you get that?”

“It was as gift,” said Luna with equal parts defensiveness and concern. “I rather like it.”

“That is not something you should have,” said Celestia, her smile vanishing completely. “That is not something anypony should have.”

“I am aware of no law banning such items,” said Luna. “And as a princess, I am- -we both are- -above the law.”

“Give it to me,” said Celestia, stepping forward.

Luna recoiled in panic. She knew what would happen if it was taken from her. Although ominous and somewhat ugly in construction, it was the only thing keeping her sane.

“No, sister, I need it!” she said.

“Give it to me!” roared Celestia.

Luna felt the warmth of her sister’s magic surrounding her neck. “No!” she screamed “It’s the only think keeping them from getting- -!”

The clasp of the necklace opened, and it was detached. Luna felt its protection collapse, and the shadows suddenly became visible. The voices rushed into her mind, consuming her thoughts, and she saw a pair of turquoise eyes flowing toward her on black smoke.

Celestia watched as her sister’s eyes widened. Luna jumped back, shaking, looking terrified.

“No!” she cried, igniting her magic and firing randomly. “No! Don’t let them take me!”

“Sister, what’s wrong?” said Celestia, herself suddenly terrified. She could not see the enemies that Luna believed herself to be facing.

“Sister?” she called. “Sister, please, help me! Celestia!”

Luna ducked back into a corner and released a low scream of pain. She crouched and seemed to convulse and, in horror, Celestia watched as the black stain that surrounded Luna’s cutie mark began to expand. It stretched and clawed its way over Luna’s body, pulling itself along by tendrils of shadow, dying her blue, hairless skin black

The magic around Luna’s horn shifted and changed, its color changing from deep blue to pure black. Then, suddenly, Luna stopped shaking. Half her body was now black, with only her front half free from the infection.

“Luna,” said Celestia, approaching her slowly. “Luna? What’s wrong?”

Luna’s eyes flashed open, and Celestia knew that she was no longer speaking to Luna. They were pale blue, with vertical slit pupils. The eyes of Nightmare Moon.

“And you dare to call her sister,” said the half-Nightmare Moon Luna hybrid, sounding oddly calm. Her voice was not filled with the arrogance that Celestia remembered, but was just as cold as ever. “After you take from her the only object that was keeping her sane. Even now she screams within me, in fear and confusion, and rejects my strength.”

“Nightmare Moon,” said Celesita. “I defeated you once, I can defeat you again!”

“Defeated me?” said Nightmare Moon, smiling humorlessly. Aside from the eyes, Luna’s face was still her own, but the expression was one that could only come from Nightmare Moon. “You watched as your sister filled me with her pain and jealously. I took what she could not bear, and grew strong on hatred and misery. And rather than cure her with love and kindness, you reacted as you always do, with violence. You banished her to the moon, where it was me who kept her mind intact for one thousand years.”

“What do you want?” said Celestia, charging her own horn but knowing fully well that she could not strike down Luna, even if she was partially converted to Nightmare Moon.

“Want?” said Nightmare Moon, as if the question was childish and useless. “I seek nothing except the protection of my host. Something you now deny her, for the third time.”

“Third?” said Celestia, her magic freezing.

“Yes,” said Nightmare Moon, forcing Luna’s mouth to smile. “I still have the memories that she does not. The first time she screamed, and called out for you, and you never came. You were blinded by your search for power. They took her wings, her eyes, her soul, and her life, and all the while she held out hope that you would come for her.”

“I did come for her!” cried Celestia, tears running down her eyes. “I was the one who saved her!”

“Really? Or was it that you needed a soul connected to your own to enable you link to the sun?”

“NO!” screamed Ceslestia, the colors of her mane fading into pure white. Her light forced Nightmare Moon back, and with her magic she gripped the necklace and thrust it toward Luna.

A thread of dark-colored magic caught it before it reached Luna, holding it back.

“Before I depart,” said Nightmare Moon. “A gift for you, as I gave you twice before.” Her eyes widened and seemed to dimly illuminate. “The destroyer who has watched through the ages revels in his trickery. The betrayer Choggoth shall rise, and what was once his master becomes his servant, his body, and he shall seek his heart. The true defender of Equestria will stand alone against him, and shall fail!”

The necklace snapped forward, its ends clasping around Luna’s neck. The shadow material consuming her body retracted to its residence on her rump, and she blinked. Celestia saw that her eyes had returned to normal.

Luna collapsed to the ground, and Celestia caught her as she fell. The exertion has rendered Luna semiconscious, but she was weeping. “Sister,” she moaned. “Sister, help me…”

While Luna was resting, Celestia found herself in the depths of the castle, walking through ancient stone halls that none but her had ever passed through, the only guiding like the tiny sphere of light above her horn.

The situation was going poorly. Luna’s mental state was decaying rapidly, and Celestia had no explanation for why. She assumed that it was likely due to the influence of the Choggoth, which she had actually seen attempting to attack Luna. What Nightmare Moon had to do with the equation was unclear, though.

What was clear, though, was that the Choggoth was more of a threat than Celestia had dared to imagine. It had somehow bypassed all of the castle’s security and entered her sister’s bedchamber. Celestia did not know what a Choggoth was actually capable of, but if it was in possession of cerorite, it surely could have killed her while she slept.

Her actions so far had failed against it. Her Light, it seemed, had failed her. They had not yet returned to the castle, but Celestia had received a letter from Twilight Sparkle indicating that two ahuizotl had attempted to foalnap three fillies. Not only that, but in the process they had attacked Rainbow Dash. As if Celestia did not have enough burden on her conscious worrying about the trauma and of three of her youngest subjects, her Light had attacked the Element of Loyalty. If they had used a fully poisoned dart, Rainbow Dash would have been killed, and the Elements of Harmony would no longer be functional. Not only that, but Rainbow Dash was still young, a Pegasus with prodigious flying ability. She had a bright future ahead of her. Celestia could not have forgiven herself, ever, if such a life were to be ended on her orders, even collaterally.

Worse, the Choggoth- -or “D27”, as it had come to be known- -was still suspected to be alive. Celestia knew that it would likely return to Ponyville, where it felt safe and had probably manipulated various ponies into protecting it. Sending in an army was still out of the question, though, at least immediately. If she sent spies or soldiers and it had not yet returned, it would surely detect them. It would hide, and she would never find it. It would fester and grow like a cancer.

She had a plan, though. Sending troops and guards to Ponyville would alert the Choggoth only because they were abnormal, something it did not recognize. Fortunatly, Celestia already had one of her top lieutenants present in Ponyville. She had sent a carefully crafted letter to Twilight Sparkle, ostentatiously asking her about Luna’s necklace, which she already knew to be a highly modified power core from a disruption rifle. She had asked if Twilight had seen the necklace’s creator recently, stating that it was a blue, unusual looking pony.

When Twilight responded, it would signal that the Choggoth had returned, and it was time to begin the attack.

Which was why Celestia had come to the forbidden halls of her own construction. This was not an enemy that she could fight alone, and not one that could be defeated by normal means. It was a fragment of a forgotten age, a time when things were far more powerful and dangerous. As such, the only way to defeat it was to use techniques and weapons from the past to fight it.

Celestia reached the final chamber of the halls. It was a single, massive cavern that she had carved from stone almost four thousand years earlier. In the center sat a massive cubic structure that nearly filled the room. It was a vault, built from metal that could not be pierced by any known kind of magic or weapon, at least not easily. Celestia had built it herself long ago to contain the items that she hoped she would never need to use again.

At the front was a door with no knob or handle. Instead, it had a small hole in the center. Celestia sighed, and braced herself for what she knew would happen. She took a breath and inserted her horn into the hole.

The shock was incrediably as her magic fed into the system and was immediately forced back into her. Her mind itself flashed with confusion and images, and she cried out in pain as she collapsed to her knees, her horn slipping out of the hole.

She gasped in pain, the her own magic arcing around her body. The feedback had been purposely amplified by the machine and converted into a form that was designed to kill any unicorn who attempted to unlock it. Only Celestia’s magic could truly open the box, and only she was able to survive the blow it produced.

The door slowly shifted, and the metal of the complex lock retracted, the gears within clanking and whining. Celestia slowly rose, shaking, and watched as the door parted in three directions, releasing the stale air from within.

She had sworn to herself long ago to never open this box, and, for the second time, she had broken that promise. She entered slowly, and stared at the contents. Lining the shelves were the bad memories of what she had once been, and what the meaning of life in Equestria had once been. Filling every shelf were weapons of every type. There were energy rifles, disruption cannons, firearms, mortars, particle beams, and thousands of other terrible devices, all still perfectly viable and undecayed even after five thousand years.

Celestia passed the seemingly endless shelves. She wondered to herself how many ponies had been felled by these very weapons, but decided to ignore that thought- -far more ponies, she knew, had fallen to the magic of her own horn.

This was the legacy she had spent her eternal life attempting to erase. A legacy of endless war and combat between the races of ponies that had only accelerated as time went on. Celestia herself had been a part of that war- -and she recalled just how those rifles felt in the grip of magic, or what it felt like to be shot with one.

She rubbed her front left leg, as if it still hurt, but only stopped for a moment. She instead made her way to the farthest back shelves. There, displayed amongst the worst of the abominations in the vault, was a suit of pure white armor. It was not armor like the mostly useless ornamental forms that her guards wore, or even like the older iron medieval forms that she had always found so amusing. It was thick, heavy, and made of substances that nopony even knew how to manufacture any longer. It was armor that could never be worn with pride, but only with shame; it had not been built for beauty, but to surround a bringer of divine punishment.

Celestia took off her shoes, her necklace, and her crown and set them on the ground. She stood naked before the armor. Then, slowly, she raised the first piece of it in her magic and began attaching it to her body.

Chapter 25: The Second Choggoth War

D27’s week had been going surprisingly well. He had managed to restore his ability to restore and utilize his mass, and had taken several hours to consume several tons of apples in addition to a significant amount of swamp muck, and had increased his mass to the requisite three tons. The trees in the Gloame that he had planted were now tall saplings, even though most of them proved poorly adapted to an environment without sunlight. Soon, he would have enough trees to generate his own apples, although the quality of them would be in question. His experiments with an Order-accelerated tree had already proved horrendous, making deep blue apples that tasted like Order and leading him to believe that Gloame apples- -assuming they did not get stolen by shadows- -would taste like Gloame.

The ponies had become increasingly friendly, though. Aside from an incident where a strange green pony in the background had accusingly screamed out the name “Mary Sue”, conditions had generally been genial. D27 had spent time wandering through the town, watching the ponies interact and enjoy their lives. He had visited Rarity and presented her with the promised fragment of cerorite. She had immediately began building him a suit. D27 found that clothing was uncomfortable and itchy, Rarity seemed to be having fun. He allowed her to proceed, at least until she unexpectedly attached a silver watch to him and liquefied one of his arms. Rarity had apologized profusely, even as D27 explained that it would probably regenerate. Her greater concern actually seemed to be the fact that she could not use silver accessories in the outfit, though. She had sent D27 away while she redesigned the second set of suits to avoid the use of silver.

D27 also spent some time with the red stallion Big Macintosh, who was selling apples from a cart. Big Mac’s treatment had been icy at first, but after lurking near the stall for several hours D27 finally got him talking. As it turned out, Big Mac was actually a rather sensitive soul and an adequate amateur philosopher. His views on the beauty of nature were poetic, but diametrically opposed to those of D27, who was genetically programmed to view all living things as food sources.

Other than Rarity, though, D27 generally avoided the six ponies that reeked of Order. They did not seem especially interested in him anyway. Rainbow Dash had waved in passing at one point, and D27 had waved back, but that was the extent of their interaction. Pinkie Pie had followed him for a few hours one day, but D27 had never figured out her motivation and actually started to become somewhat frightened of her in spite of her spastic friendliness.

Originally D27 had actually been intending to avoid them. They were nice ponies, but they were also busy, and associated with an alicorn. He was content to interact only distantly with the various random ponies throughout Ponyville, or to simply sit with the cows or sheep and speak of milk and wool. His opinion had changed when he met the pastel mare Fluttershy, however.

He had been sitting in a field beneath a beech tree, admiring the details in blades of grass below and wondering why ponies bothered to farm food if grass was edible to them when he felt something soft land on him. He turned rotated his head at an angle that real ponies probably could not, and saw a small, drab winged insect sitting on his rump.

D27 was about to yell at the insect for disturbing his examination of grass when he heard a small voice from somewhere around him.

“Ex…excuse me,” it said, meekly.

D27 shifted, focusing his eye on the perceived source of the sound. He saw a yellow mare with a pink mane cower away from him.

“Yes?” he said.

“I…I…” she mumbled something that D27 could not hear.

“Speak, soft-appearing winged pony,” said D27, perhaps too harshly.

“Oh. I just…I need to count that one…”

D27 noticed that she was holding a clip boards under one of her wings.

“You are counting these?” he asked. “Why?”

“Well,” she said, “if we know how many of each type of butterfly we have, then we can plant flowers for them. Different types of butterflies sometimes need different types of flowers, you know.”

“Yes. I am aware of this fact. Lesser lichen moth.”

“Excuse me?”

“That is the species,” said D27, “of this particular moth.”

“Oh dear,” said the mare. “The moth census was last month. I’m so sorry to bother the both of you.”

“Wait,” said D27, standing. The moth crawled along his back and onto his head.

“What is it?” squeaked the mare.

“I encountered you several days prior. I believe I may have frighten you. I believe I still frighten you. I would like to render an apology.”

“Oh,” said the mare, giving a cautious smile. “I’m afraid of everything. It’s not just you. And I’m usually the one giving apologies.” She giggled as the moth crawled onto the tip of D27’s ear, and then grimaced as it walked downward and centered itself on one of his eyes.

“I have no eyelids,” he explained. “This is normal.”

“Doesn’t that hurt?”

“Not. It has very soft feet.”

“They generally do.”

They got to talking, and D27 learned that her name was Fluttershy. She was apparently in charge of the peaceful animals of Ponyville and the surrounding area, or at least involved in their care. She was, as her name implied, quite shy. Unlike most of his kind, however, D27 was highly manipulative, and eventually managed to set her at ease. All the time he was watching, examining her closely. He had initially detected the presence of Chaos on her, but on closer examination found that it was actually far more than a simple residue. There were active spells ingrained into her person, spells that she probably was not even aware of. D27 was very careful not to touch her, or ever get to close; the spells were reactive traps, and though probably not dangerous, a surge of Order around them would almost definitely trigger something to happen.

Unfortunately, as it turned out, Fluttershy was almost as manipulative as D27 was, in part because she was so soft and innocent in appearance and attitude. She was adorable, and it metaphorically broke D27’s heart- -he actually contained no such organ- -that as a being containing both Chaos and Order, she was inevitably destined for a dark fate.

She eventually convinced D27 to meet her friends- -including the alicorn Twilight Sparkle. She even went so far as to organize a picnic in the near future. D27 flatly refused at first, but seeing the disappointment in Fluttershy’s eyes forced him to reconsider. At first he was noncommittal, and then, finally, he accepted. Fluttershy promised to bring apples.

A day passed, and D27 almost changed his mind. He was terrified. The thought of meeting an alicorn in person was horrible; just the thought of seeing one sickened him. From what the various ponies had said, though, Twilight Sparkle was a kind and intelligent pony. Careful probing showed that they did not know anything about her benefactor, which remained undetectable.

D27 found himself panting- -despite not having lungs- -and nearly panicking as he made his way through the streets of Ponyville toward the designated meeting location. He fought the urge to become a puddle of liquid and retreat, and did his best to remain calm.

Then he saw the six of them, waiting in the street. They were smiling and laughing with each other. Rainbow Dash was fluttering above them, and Pinkie Pie bouncing in circles excitedly. Fluttershy was carrying a picnic basket, and Applejack and Rarity seemingly engaged in a discussion about Rarity’s hat.

In the center of them, D27 saw the purple alicorn Twilight. She still disgusted him greatly, but her smile was genuine. Her and the others all seemed so happy, so at ease with each other. All of them were equally adorable.

Fluttershy noticed D27 first, and she motioned to the others. They all waved, and D27 smiled. He wondered if perhaps it was possible for a creature of destruction like him to have friends.

Then a beam of pure white light descended from an oblique angle and without warning vaporized the entire upper half of D27’s body.

“Oh, look!” said Fluttershy, tapping Twilight’s shoulder. “There he is!”

Twilight looked up. It was the first time she had seen D27 in person, and he did indeed look strange. Her time as the Princess of Friendship had taught her better than to decide on a pony’s personality because of his appearance. Twilight smiled and waved to him.

A narrow smile crossed D27’s lips, and he started to raise his front hoof to wave back, when suddenly a searing beam of light passed over Twilight’s head. Before her eyes, she watched as it tore through D27’s body, vaporizing his head and torso, leaving nothing but a set of barely-connected legs.

Fluttershy screamed, and Rarity fainted. The others cried out and reacted with panic, but Twilight was instead focused on the surges of magic from behind her. She turned to see bursts of white light all around her, the characteristic eruptions of long-range teleportation spells, all cast with a familiar magical trace.

Heavily armored Pegasi seemed to pour out of nowhere, all armed with weapons that Twilight did not recognize. Unicorns appeared as well, lowering themselves to the ground on pads of solidified magical energy, all dressed in characteristic royal armor.

In the center of them all was Celestia, her body encased in shining white armor, her normally colorful main condensed into a single stream of solar energy. Her horn was still glowing from the lethal blast to D27.

“Princess Celestia,” said Twilight, feeling tears in her eyes. She had just witnessed her beloved teacher- -virtually her second mother- -obliterate a pony on the street without warning. “Why?”

“Twilight, get back!” ordered Celestia, descending on a pair of fiery wings. She dropped in front of them, interposing herself between D27’s remains and Twilight’s friends.

“I think you got him,” said Rainbow Dash, smiling in her own terror. She appeared as though she was about to vomit despite her awe.

Twilight turned and looked at the gruesome scene in front of her, but to her astonishment, saw that it was changing. The wreckage above he legs was bubbling and extending, rapidly reforming what had been destroyed.

“That was completely- -uncalled for, Celestia!” gurgled D27 through his incomplete neck. Part of his face separated, forming a large eye with a triangular pupil.

Without warning, Celestia leveled another blast directly at D27. This time, D27 saw it coming. His body morphed into liquid and distorted, curving into a spiral that surrounded the blast, avoiding contact with it. The beam itself struck a house behind him, burning through it completely and causing it to collapse.

D27 only partially reformed, his body resembling a semi-solid parody of a pony, and Twilight suddenly felt nauseous. “Celestia,” he said, his voice no longer sounding as though it came from a pony. “Not here. The risk of collateral damage is too high.”

“Not if you just die!” hissed Celestia.

D27 watched as the ponies approached him from all sides. It was finally happening. Pegasi were descending from above, armed with energy weapons mounted to their sides. Equally armed earth ponies and powerful unicorns were encircling him as well, and he was staring into the face of Celestia to herself.

They seemed to have paused, as if he were expected to surrender. Instead, D27 turned toward Fluttershy, who was cowering near Twilight. She was responsible for this. It had been a trap from the start. They had all been planning it, carefully manipulating the system, biding time until a proper army could be amassed, until they knew what and where he was.

“Fluttershy!” he screamed. “You tricked me! I shall never forgive you for this betrayal! Never!” He then directed his attention at Celestia. “Fine, then. If you want a fight between gods, so be it.”

D27 shifted all his mass into his form, twisting and expanding exponentially, releasing a paralyzing storm of Order. Several of the nearest Pegasi were hit, but the unicorns universally generated shields, the princess included.

The princess fired another blast of energy, and it tore through D27’s body as though his armor were made of paper. The princess herself was by far the largest threat; the coronal energy loss from her alone was more than an entire army of unicorns. Her magic was also an incredible force. It was not Order, but raw and unprocessed energy pulled directly from the Red Sphere.

That was not all, though. Directing power was a simple task; any being with an adequate body could direct equivalent spells. What was clear, however, was that Celestia was not simply any being. Her spells were not simple blasts of energy; they were carefully modulated and constructed to tear through D27’s magical and physical defensive elements and to cause maximal damage. She was not simply throwing out energy; she was carefully constructing spells with skill and ability that surpassed any trihorn D27 had ever known.

D27 had no choice. He shattered his own body, liquefying it and expanding it into pillars of material that plunged into the nearest buildings. He poured himself into them, absorbing all the organic matter that he contacted, vastly expanding his mass. Instead of condensing it into a definite body, he instead coated everything around him in a writhing amorphous mass.

This was the true nature of the Choggoth. As an amorphous, decentralized liquid, it was impossible for a Choggoth to be destroyed with single beams of energy. A mass the size of a continent was virtually unstoppable; even at a mass of not six tons, D27 shared that durability.

There were problems with that approach, though. As he grew, D27 felt his mind fading. More mass meant less control; his mind was decentralized to prevent it from being destroyed, and he could feel his instincts beginning to take hold. He suddenly felt a profound desire to consume, to destroy, to mutilate and destroy everything and convert all organic matter into himself.

He did his best to resist, and instead raised part of himself, creating an arm-like organ and returning fire toward Celestia. A beam of condensed Order sparks flew out at her, impacting the solar aura around her. She deflected it, only to leave elements of it flying off into nearby buildings and toward terrified ponies who ran screaming in all directions.

“No!” roared D27, although he doubted that he could be understood at that point. She was using her own subjects as pony shields to prevent him from using magical attacks.

D27 adapted. He expanded farther, taking up more mass, and engulfing the ponies that surrounded him. He separated the ponies from their energy weapons, spitting out the ponies and incorporating the particle weapons and disruptor beams into his own structure.

The Pegasi around him opened fire, tearing at his tissue with beams of energy. The effect was painful, but minimal; any tissue that was destroyed could be rapidly replaced. D27 ingnored them, and instead focused the weapons he had acquired on the princess.

She dodged, and to D27’s horror, he realized that Twilight and her friends were in the path of the various beams he had generated.

Twilight reacted quickly, projecting a shield bubble around her friends. The impact against it was incredible, though, and shattered it, throwing her and her friends apart onto the ground. Disoriented, Twilight stood up. Everything sounded distant and deep, as though she were underwater. All around her was chaos; there were Pegasi flying in from all directions, beams of energy somehow streaking from them through the air even though they could not use magic. Unicorns were mobilizing, attempting to contain the rapidly expanding pool of amorphous blue liquid. Twilight watched as the princess battled the mass, the shifting material that sprouted screaming mouths and distorted, clawed arms at seemingly random to attack ponies in all directions. That mass, she realized, was D27- -what he truly was. What he always had been.

“Twilight!” She heard a voice in the distance, calling her back to reality. She listened, and tried to focus.

“Twilight!” repeated the princess, who was now holding back a wall of aggressive blue fluid covered in rapidly-firing weapons using her magic. “The Elements of Harmon! Use the Elements!”

“Right,” said Twilight. She looked to her friends, and they understood what they needed to do.

D27’s attention was suddenly draw to a rapid surge of Order magic. He sprouted numerous eyes and looked toward its origin. There, surrounded by an exponentially growing field of energy, was Twilight and her friends. The nature of their Order was heavily contaminated, but they were surely preparing an offensive spell.

“No,” hissed D27. His form shifted, surging forward past the shields of unicorns who were attempting to protect Twilight. He condensed a clawed arm and pushed it through the surge of order. The other ponies moved quickly, dodging, and D27 was forced to grab the nearest one.

He retracted his form, pulling a screaming Fluttershy away from the others, stopping their spell from firing. As he did, he felt the Chaos traps within her body trigger.

There was a sudden roar from above. D27 looked up, and his eyes focused on two objects in the distance. His body formed an internal radar organ and confirmed the impossible- -two jet aircraft were approaching rapidly.

A radio signal pierced the air.

“Teal team leader, going in,” said one voice.

“Green team leader standing by,” said the other.

One of the jets accelerated, D27 saw the tracers indicating that he was being strafed. The bullets hit him, but had little effect. He was surprised that anypony would even bother shooting him. The projectiles were not even silver.

Then he screamed in agony as the impact sights exploded with massive bursts of magic. He realized that he was not being shot at with bullets, but with condensed Chaos.

Whoever was flying the plane was a terrible shot, though, and D27 shifted his mass to form a shield to protect Fluttershy. Even doing that, the shield had little effect; even the densest of his tissues exploded violently and painfully into large puffs of something that was either confetti or glitter.

The main fighter turned and flew back toward D27, continuing to strafe randomly. The other aircraft, which was much larger and seemed to be made of wood, approached slowly.

“Buttery Snake, dropping the F bomb,” said a voice on the radio.

The bottom of the large craft opened, and D27 froze in horror. An incredibly decrepit but still fully recognizable cerorian warhead dropped from the bay. Its nuclear insignia had been painted over with a green “F”, and there was an equally green unicorn with an oddly branching horn riding it like a horse, waving a cowboy hat as it went down.

D27 reacted quickly. He surged forward, pushing past Celestia and sacrificing half his mass as it vaporized on her superheated form. Desperately, he hardened his mass and arranged himself into the form of a massive flower, closing around the warhead before it could activate.

He braced for the blast, which he knew at his present mass would likely be lethal. It never came, though. The warhead was far too old; it was a dud.

It had been some kind of distraction. The ponies around him started closing in, tearing at him with magic and energy weapons. Another beam of solar energy pierced his body, and this time, it not only burned him but began to spread.

His body overheating and surrounded, D27 realized that he had been defeated. He used the crystals still lodged in his form to open a tiny portal, pulling a tiny fragment of his mass back to the Gloame.

The remainder of his body quivered and lost color. It dissociated and splashed down onto the ground, leaving a terrified and screaming Fluttershy as well as several other engulfed ponies to splash into it. The resulting muck rapidly bubbled and began to disintegrated, breaking into gas and rapidly dissipating.

Celestia removed her helmet and surveyed the damage. Most of Ponyville had been leveled. Any house that the Choggoth had touched had been reduced to a pile of broken glass and stone, with anything made of wood, straw, or cloth destroyed. Several others had been destroyed in the course of the battle.

There were casualties. Several of her own soldiers had been paralyzed, and others had been injured by the rapid motion and engulfment by the wall of living liquid. The worse, though, had occurred to the civilian population. Several ponies had been trapped in collapsed buildings, and others had been burned by the coronal magic of Celestia’s own attacks.

“Get a rescue team on the buildings!” she ordered to her unicorns. “Set up an interim hospital! Air Guard, search the perimeter!”

Her ponies moved out, and she was momentarily reminded of her mortal role as a soldier. It was a familiar role and an easy one to fall into, but a dangerous one to stay in for too long.

Fluttershy’s friends were attempting to extricate her from the rapidly dissolving pale-blue muck. Twilight was not among them. She was frozen nearby, staring into space at the destruction surrounding her. Celestia nearly broke into tears at that sight. Twilight was as close as she had ever come to having a daughter, and she had wished ever so desperately to save her from the horrors of the war that herself and Luna had been born into so long ago.

Before she could move to comfort her student, Discord dropped from the sky attached to a parachute.

“A rousing success,” he said, smiling. “Drinks are on me! Who wants punch?”

Before he could create some manner of visual pun, Celestia struck him in the side of his head with her armored hoof as hard as she cold.

“Ow,” he said, obviously suffering no real injury. “Celestia. I am not a tree. You do not need to punch me.”

“You imbicile!” she screamed. “Do you have any idea what you nearly did?”

“I nearly failed to save Fluttershy. But I didn’t. She’s fine. A bit traumatized, maybe, but she’ll get over it.”

“You dropped a nuclear warhead on Ponyville!”

“What? Why would you accuse me of doing such a thing? It wasn’t me. Buttery Snake did it.”

“I’m a proxy!” cried Buttery Snake, lying on top of the steaming but unexploded bomb nearby.

“Besides,” said Discord. “It didn’t go off.”

“And if it had?”

“You’re an alicorn, dear. Nukes don’t kill alicorns. Twilight would probably have made it too, and I would have teleported Fluttershy out.”

“And the rest of the ponies?”

Discord frowned, and crossed his arms. “You wanted the Choggoth dead, didn’t you?”

Before Celestia could respond, Discord vanished, and Buttery Snake had faded into the background somewhere.

Celestia sighed, and looked at the destruction around her. She had felt the surge of magic just before the Choggoth destroyed itself. It has created a dimensional rift to the Gloame, and likely sealed all entry points around itself. The war had only begun.

D27 stumbled through his abandoned castle. He was not suffering from mass loss, and he had regained at least some of his mass from stored reserves of biological material he kept in storage. Despite this, he was still in pain.

“Why?” he called out to the emptiness and mute shadows. They only stared back, eternally watching. “Why would they betray me?”

He had entered the deep storage hallways. On his left, he found a stack of uncategorized goods. Hanging on a stone protrusion was the first of several promised suits that Rarity had promised him. Around it were several apples that he had left for himself- -apples from Applejack’s farm. Around them were other trinkets he had purchased from ponies- -a stool, some quills, money, and, to his dismay, a button given to him by the Cutie Mark Crusaders. As an adult, he was too old to be a Crusader, but they had made a thin metal button with a poorly drawn version of their club symbol.

D27 could hardly look at any of those things. He realized that the vestigial remnants of his eyes were dripping black fluid. He was crying.

“Why?” he whispered, turning away and continuing to stumble forward into his self-imposed darkness. “I could understand if you outright attacked me. If you tried to kill me like you were supposed to. But to trick me like that…” He approached a large glass device, one of endless rows, that was attached to it. He looked into it, and saw the reflection of a blue pony on its dark, smooth surface. “I could have been happy,” he said to himself. “I could have had friends, a life. They could have let me pretend I was a pony. It could be decades, centuries, millennia before the Finality Core fully awakens. I could have smiled and laughed as they do, and not been alone! I could even have learned to love. I could have had a special somepony, perhaps children. All I wanted was life!”

He slammed his fist into the glass, cracking it and distorting his reflection as cold steam hissed from within. Instead of a blue pony, he now saw the two components of the reflection: his own distorted, asymmetrical biped form and the preserved skull of a unicorn beneath.

D27 looked down at the spikes that terminated his arms. They twisted and separated, forming pairs of long, clawed fingers on the ends of each. He bent them, forming narrow fists.

“But I’m not a pony,” he said. “I never was. I’m not even alive, not really. I was never meant to have a life. I was not born into a life where I could choose the outcome. I was created with a distinct purpose.

In a final fit of rage, he pierced one of his hands through the thick glass and pulled out the unicorn skull. He threw it against the ground, shattering it. He had thousands more, and soon he would have millions.

“Why did I even bother to pretend? I was built for destruction. It is all I can do, my only purpose. I cannot love. I cannot have friends. It is not within my capacity. This mind I have created is defective.” He stared at his reflection through the cracked glass, staring at the symbol of the two triangles.

It was ironic that he had espoused the pointlessness of cutie marks when he himself bore a mark of his own. Six lines for six words. He thanked whatever gods the Soth had not yet annihilated that he could not remember what he had done, even if he could still hear the screams of countless billions from time to time. Panbios- -Equestria- -could be the seventh. A circle would be added to the motif, either between or in the center of the triangles.

“I cannot ever have friends,” said D27 to the shadows. “I can trust no one, because I am an abomination, and nothing living can trust me. I have a single purpose, and I neglected it in favor of an illusion. There is no time left for compassion. If I have to absorb every pony, every stallion, mare, and foal, I will not fail. Equestria must fall, and it must fall by my will alone. That is the only way.”

Chapter 26: The First Choggoth War

The sound of artillery detonations rattled the ground. Single Horn galloped forward over the pits, following the explosions as the cerorians cleared a path for her. An aura of magic surrounded her, defending her from the silver shrapnel that the artillery rounds brought down on the Choggoth tissue surrounding her.

A pale green-pink arm reared up beside her and sprung in her direction. She twisted in midair as another explosion erupted and unleashed a blast of white magic that vaporized the appendage.

The Choggoth gurgled and screamed- -a sound that Single Horn had come to accept as laughter more of than pain. She continued to dash forward toward the structure at the edge of the massive pink sea below her.

The war had already been lost. Draconia had fallen two weeks earlier, and Cerorius had followed despite the valiant and suicidal defense of its final soldiers. Now barely fifty cerorians remained, and half the population of Draconian dragons had been extinguished. Only the Trihorn Empire and the United Citadel still stood.

Still the fighting carried on. Both Single Horn and Crimsonflame had vowed to continue fighting until their dying breaths, even if the fight was futile, to defend what remained of the dying world.

Single Horn slid down an embankment, summoning a surge of magic that fired in numerous directions, driving back the oncoming surge of Choggoth. Before her, it looked massive and infinite, stretching in a distorted, squirming sea all the way to the horizon, and that terrified her. Despite that, she continued forward.

She reached the stone outpost and tore the door to splinters. Inside, the eyes of several terrified monohorns looked up at her. With a single burst of magic, Single Horn shattered the chains that were binding them to the abandoned slave shack.

“Come with me!” she yelled. They were used to obeying orders, and they followed her.

Single Horn looked carefully across her field of vision, using her magic to accelerate her vision. The situation was not good- -the Choggoth was attempting to flank her.

“This way!” she called.

She led them backward, through the area where the Choggoth was already overgrowing and neutralizing the silver pellets that had been rained upon it. There was not much time, but the other monohorns were smaller than her and weak from starvation and sickness. They could not run fast enough.

One of them suddenly cried out. Single Horn turned around and fired a twisting beam of white light that severed the tendril that had taken hold of his leg. It dissolved, leaving a horrible ulceration where it had started to absorb his leg.

Single Horn lifted the stallion in her magic, and tried to move forward, only to find that the Choggoth had surrounded them. Single Horn fired her magic at it, a rapid-fire surge of magical projectiles to drive it back, but it was already too thick. There was too much; whatever she destroyed simply regenerated.

“Single Horn!” cried a Crimsonflame’s voice through their telepathic connection. “You’re surrounded! Teleport out, now!”

“I’m not leaving them!” replied Single Horn out loud, casting her magic into a white sphere to surround herself and the other monohorns. Her teleportation spell could only move her; she could not take passengers.

The Choggoth pounded against the shield, and Single Horn roared as she expanded the perimeter of her spell, igniting the sphere against the mass of mouths and eyes and claws that were mindlessly attempting to consume it. The expanding sphere and extreme heat burned away the Choggoth, forcing it back at least forty feet, but doing so drained most of Single Horn’s power. She nearly collapsed, but managed to initiate a second spell, draining her own life force to increase her magic.

As she did, she suddenly felt something strange. The others seemed to feel it too, and huddled in terror. Even the Choggoth slowed and quivered for a moment, and then throughout its entire form released a scream of laughter that echoed for tens of miles, a horrible sound like thousands of deranged voices crying out in perverse joy.

From one horizon, Single Horn suddenly saw the light change. The yellow sky was replaced with a brilliant red and pink surge through the clouds, brighter than any nuclear blast- -and from the horizon rose a red, flaming sphere. From the other horizon came a cold, white sphere, seemingly of ice, that carried with it darkness despite its light, pulling away the light of the other object.

Both the spheres crossed the sky, and took their places opposite of each other, hovering, as if waiting. When Single Horn saw those two terrible spheres, she knew that the world was truly ending.

Suddenly, she felt a second wave of energy pass through her horn, this one much closer, like a great explosion that could only be perceived mentally and not felt.

“Portal opening detected,” said one of the young Draconian mages assisting Crimsonflame.

“A portal?” said Crimsonflame. “Confirm location! What do you mean ‘portal’?!”

Single Horn could already see it, though. It was only a few hundred feet from her, a massive triangular hole in the fabric of space itself, taller than even the grandest buildings that Draconia had once held. She could not see what was truly on the other side, because as soon as it stabilized, tentacles poured out, merging and resting themselves until they formed an enormous quadrupedal creature. Single Horn did not know why it had come, but she knew what she was seeing- -it was almost surely another Choggoth.

The beast approached her, and she fell into its shadow. Concentrating, she generated another sphere, tightening it as much as possible around herself and those she had sworn to protect to increase its density.

The top of the creature shifted, generating an appendage that Single Horn had never before witnessed. It arranged itself, and then sparked with blue energy. A fifteen foot wide surge of concentrated sparks suddenly burst forth from the device, tearing through the air like a swarm of electric hornets. Single Horn braced for her demise, but the beam was not targeted toward her.

Instead, it impacted the green-pink Choggoth behind her. The flesh was twisted from the dead soil beneath, drawing into the singularity of the beam, where it was condensed into a single crystalline point that shattered in a shower of blue energy with the force of large bomb.

The blue Choggoth lumbered forward, seeming to move in slow-motion even as its preposterous size allowed it to progress forward far faster than any pony could gallop. As it passed over Single Horn, she looked up at its underbelly, which was marked with a pair of massive equilateral triangles.

The green-pink Choggoth reacted with what could only be described as primal rage, and surged forward. The blue one responded by separating its upper body, liquefying itself, and pouring down in wide arcs toward the other. They met in the middle, merging violently, each trying to tear the other apart and absorb it. Surges of blue and pink sparks erupted all around, and Single Horn suddenly felt as though she were in the center of a great tempest, a disaster of proportions far beyond her control.

Single Horn’s field started to fade, holes forming in her shield as bits of the pink Choggoth approached below the blue one’s legs. She focused, and closed most of them- -only to see others plugged with multiple colors projected from elsewhere. All around her, she saw more monohorns- -but ones that she knew had long since died. Their flesh had been stripped, replaced with gaunt blue material, much of their skeletons still visible. Each one had a single eye, which was demarcated with two triangles. They poured out of the portal; some of them joined Single Horn, supporting her shield, while the others attacked the encroaching pink Choggoth directly.

“Don’t hesitate,” one of them gurgled toward the terrified monohorns cowering beneith Single Horn’s shield. “She is protecting you. Protect her.”

One of the monohorns frowned, and then stood. She raised her own horn to the shield, and added a piece to the shield. The others saw what she was doing, and they stood too, each of them added their own magic to the spell, freeing up enough for Single Horn to whip arms of her magic at the pink material approaching her, assisting the resurrected army below the body of the blue Choggoth.

Crimsonflame took a breath, and released a cloud of red fire. With her words, she warped it, compressing the heat and forging it into a different element, creating red lightning that pounded into the pink flesh below. The Choggoth reacted by convulsing as holes were burned into it. Even after such an injury, Crimsonflame knew that the effect was on temporary- -the Choggoths had learned how to adapt to virtually any element she could generate, even the more exotic ones of her own design.

She turned her head and looked toward Single Horn’s position. She flapped her great wings, and lifted herself higher to get a better look at the creature that had just entered the battle.

“Confirm,” she demanded into her mutual telaptathic connection with her soldiers. They were some of the last that the Draconian Federation had; they were young and poorly trained, and barely managing to slow the progress of the Choggoth long enough for the trihorn villages in its path to evacuate. They were losing the battle in a lost war, and her troops were losing hope. “Confirm! Is that a Choggoth?”

“Confirmed,” said a young voice in her mind. “New combatant is a Choggoth, holding on Silver Horn’s position. But…”

“But what?”

“It’s attacking the other Choggoth!”

A voice hissed painfully through her mind. Not a Draconian voice, and not Single Horn’s. Crimsonflame put her claw to her head.

“I can not defeat Void,” it whispered and screamed simultaneously in a language that could be understood mentally but could never be formed into words. “Not here. I can cover…your retreat.”

“Grand Magus?” said one of the lesser mages. He sounded nervous. They all sounded nervous, because they were all nervous. They were waiting on her position.

“Grand Magus,” said a more distant and far stronger voice, this one female but much deeper. “A new combatant has been detected. Should we direct artillery fire at it?”

Crimsonflame paused, struggling to make the rapid decision needed. Nothing made sense: she had seen the spheres rise in the sky, now casting light down on them all, and then witnessed a Choggoth emerge from a portal- -to turn on its kin. Such had never before been witnessed, and it could be a trap.

Crimsonflame cried out in rage and confusion, producing a massive sphere of swirling fire that she plunged into the pink Choggoth below, using her fury and confusion to tear a massive crater in its body.

“All units,” she said, “converge on the blue Choggoth! Artillery, focus on clearing a path. Blue Choggoth, you had better keep your word!”

“It will…be done,” it whispered.

Chapter 27: The Princess and the Library

Twilight sat at the crystal table, staring at a cup of tea that was rapidly growing cold. She could not seem to bring herself to drink it, or to even notice it entirely. She felt oddly numb. All she wanted was to be with her friends, to make sure that they were all okay. She knew that they were just several floors below her, safe in her castle, but that was not good enough. Fluttershy was weeping inconsolably, despite Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash’s best efforts to consolue her, while Rarity was bathing insessantly for reasons that Twilight could not fully imagine. Applejack was mostly silent- -in an ominous, brooding way. Twilight needed to be with them, to be the one to reassure them- -and for them to reassure here that everything she had just witnessed was right and just.

The door at the edge of the hall opened, and Twilight saw in the corner of her eyes the guards standing outside- -one of them a unicorn, his armor carved with arcane sybols that Twilight had only partially seen in the most ancient of books, and the other an earth pony with a powerful weapon mounted on his back that continually swept from side to side with his gaze, as if waiting to find an enemy to obliterate.

A light seemed to fill the room, though, and Twilight looked up. She saw Celestia enter, but shuddered at the her appearance. She was dressed in her normal regalia, with her elegant horseshoes golden jewelry, but with that horrible all-covering white armor. She was stunning, and beautiful, but at the same time terrible and frightening. Staring at her was like staring into the sun itself: to be dazzled, and to be blinded simultaneously.

The door closed behind her, and Celestia crossed the hall. It was Twilight’s dining hall, technically, although she had never used it for such a function. The crystal table in the center was far to long for her and Spike, or even all her friends, despite the vigor with which Rarity insisted that they use it at least once. She preferred the small wooden table in the kitchen.

“Twilight,” she said, as she approached, reaching out for her. “I’m so, so sorry.”

Twilight moved to hug her, but recoiled. Celestia looked down at her armor.

“Oh, yes,” she said. She stepped back, and her horn glowed. The armor separated from her body, coming off in a single piece. All the components were interlocking, so it stayed in position, folding neatly into a waiting heap, and Celestia stepped out.

It was the first time that Twilight had seen the princess without her crown and jewlerly. She looked almost like any other pony, only larger. Twilight hardly noticed that like herself, Celestia had both wings and a horn, unlike any but two other ponies in all of Equestria.

Only then did they embrace.

“Princess,” said Twilight, tears running down her face. She felt her teacher’s body against her; soft, but at the same time muscular and strong, warm, but not hot, and oddly hairless, save for the great white wings that were draped around her. It was comforting, and Twilight felt slightly better.

“I don’t understand,” she said.

“I came to explain to you, my loyal student.”

Twilight looked up at Celestia’s smiling face. She seemed so calm, and so confident. Twilight could not help but trust her.

“That pony…”

“He was no pony,” said Celestia, darkly.

“I know,” said Twilight. “I know. I saw what he did, what he became…he was the one that attacked Cadence and my brother, wasn’t he?”

“He was. It was.” Celestia sighed. “It also attacked the castle last week. It made an attempt on Luna’s life.”

Twilight gasped. “Luna? Is she alright?”

“No. The creature did not harm her, but something is wrong with her…her mental state is deteriorating rapidly. I believe the creature’s influence is to blame, but I am not yet sure. However…”

“What?”

“A servant was critically injured. Cavern Melody.”

Twilight could say nothing. She only knew Cavern Melody distantly; she was a bat-pony who followed Luna when she was performing royal duties, always in her shadow providing what she needed. Her special talent was singing, apparently, and she was known for her kindness to all and her devotion to Luna.

“Is she…is she safe?”

“She is now. Her condition has improved, although the scars she experienced will be permanent.”

“How did it get past castle defenses?”

“That, I do not know. I was hoping for your insight on the issue.”

“Mine?”

“At present, we know that the creature has been in Ponyville for some time, and mostly maintaining the same form, that of a blue pony called ‘D27’. I was hoping you might be able to tell me a bit more about him.”

“I never met him pony-to-pony,” admitted Twilight. “But my friends all said he was actually really nice, if a little strange.”

“Nice and strange in what ways?”

“Exceptionally polite, I guess,” said Twilight, trying to remember how her friends had described him. “But…not quite right. He looked strange and acted strange, and his magic…” Twilight suddenly remembered the library. “Yes!” she cried. “His magic! That I remember. He organized my library!”

“Your library?” said Celestia, suddenly concerned and suddenly somewhat terrifying. “In here? With you?”

“I never saw him, but he left a note. I think I still have it…” she paused again, remembering. “But I couldn’t read the note. I read seven languages, but somehow only Spike knew what was on it. Apparently, he cast a spell to organize all the books, which is weird because he’s not a unicorn, at least not a normal one.”

“So he can use magic?”

“Yes,” said Twilight, racking her brain. “But…not like a normal pony.”

“How so?”

“Well, he could perform really complicated spells. Like organizing a library with magic. I’m sure you understand how difficult it is to implement the organization code into each book and catalog ID- -”

“Yes, Twilight, I know.”

“Oh,” said Twilight, blushing slightly. Of course Celestia knew; she was the most gifted pony at magic ever to be born, aside from maybe Starswirl the Bearded, but only on several technicalities. “Well, he could do spells like that, but from what Rarity and the others said, he couldn’t even lift small things with his magic. He couldn’t use hooves, either. I don’t know what she meant by it, but Rarity said that he had ‘claws’. I still don’t know the spell he used to get them.”

“It wasn’t a spell,” said Celestia.

“Then what was it?”

Celestia sighed. “D27…that thing…it is a type of amorphous creature called a Choggoth.”

“A Choggoth?” said Twilight, mentally searching her mind. She knew countless animals and monsters, but had never heard such a name before, not even in ancient legends.

“From what I gather, it is essentially living blight. The claws and his appearance were both illusions created by an innate shapeshifting ability. Which you witnessed in its full form several hours ago.”

“Yes,” said Twilight, the memory crushing the part of her spirit that had managed to rise. “I remember that. How could I forget? Have your soldiers finished clearing the wreckage?”

“Yes, Twilight,” said Celestia, smiling. “I am happy to report that there were no deaths.”

Twilight shivered at how calm Celestia was able to say that; it was as though she had expected much worse.

“What can I do to help?”

“Help?” said Celestia, looking somewhat surprised.

“With rebuilding Ponyville. I can organize efforts to get the refugees housed until construction equipment arrives to being rebuilding. We can use the castle, but I’ll need supplies for that many- -”

“I appreciate your concern for your subjects, Twilight,” said Celestia. “For our subjects. But that is not what we need right now.”

“Then what do we need, princess?”

“Simple, Twilight. To defeat our enemy.”

“You mean D27?” Twilight was somewhat confused. “Princess, with all due respect, I don’t think that’s where we need to focus our efforts. The people of Ponyville need- -”

“Twilight,” said Celestia, her face expressionless. “Do you know what will happen if that creature returns?”

“No, I don’t,” said Twilight, her anger building slightly. “And I don’t think you do, either.”

“I do know,” said Celestia. “A Choggoth is a contagion. If left unchecked, it will spread limitlessly, consuming everything in its path. Every plant, animal, pony. Nothing will survive.”

“But…my friends said he was such a nice pony. And I trust my friends. I don’t think he would do that!”

“They were being manipulated,” said Celestia, calmly, as if she were talking to a child. “But you are correct in one aspect. D27 is a threat, but not immediately.”

“What do you mean?”

“Before I could destroy him, he escaped into a parallel dimension. It is called the Gloame.”

“I have read about parallel realities,” said Twilight. “And visited one. Twice.”

“This is not like that one. It is more like Tartarus- -lifeless and inhospitable. The atmosphere is toxic and there is little light.”

“Why would he go to a place like that?”

“Because he can seal it off from entry. I have taken steps to equalize the time flow of the Gloame to Equestria, at least temporarily, but I cannot enter myself. No doubt he is preparing for an invasion.”

Twilight understood what her teacher was saying, but was having a hard time processing it. She had met evil before, on several occasions. She had faced Nightmare Moon, Discord, King Sombra, Lord Tirac, and even the shapeshifter Queen Chrysalis who had masqueraded as Cadence at one point. This was not new to her, but somehow, something was different.

“What do you want me to do?” she asked.

“The problem is not currently lack of firepower, but dearth of intelligence.”

“Those weapons…”

Celestia frowned. “Twilight, I love you like a daughter. But there are some things you must never know. Do not concern yourself with the weapons at hand. Concern yourself instead with your task. It will be difficult.”

“I’m ready, princess,” lied Twilight, steeling herself for what was to come.

The spell broke with a violent snap. The force of it was like being in the very center of a bolt of lightning, and Twilight felt disoriented and deafened as she fell to the stone below. The world seemed to be buzzing and hissing around her. Over years of practice, she had grown accustomed to teleportation spells- -but hers were only short range flashes of motion. The Princess’ were far more powerful, and the range was substantially greater.

The disorientation from long-distance teleportation was, apparently, far greater than Twilight had initially suspected. Worse, there had been an indescribable but profoundly disconerning feeling during transit- -a kind of lag, almost, between when she vanished from just outside of her castle and when she appeared wherever she had gone. It was as though she had been somewhere else, but somewhere that was- -nowhere.

As an alicorn, however, Twilight was resilient, and managed to stand shakily but relatively quickly. Spike, meanwhile, vomited profusely almost immediately after rematerializing.

“Why couldn’t we just take a- -herk!- -chariot,” he said through his expelation of flaming liquid. “Like, I don’t know, somepony who’s sane!”

“You heard what Celestia said. We don’t have much time until the Choggoth comes back. And…” she looked up at the sight before her. “I don’t know if any chariots come this far…”

Before her was an immense opening in a sheer cliff. It appeared to be a cave, but was carved ornately around the edge with artwork that was ancient and terrifying by its design alone.

Twilight examined the area she found herself in. She and Spike had arrived on a ledge on the side of a mountain. Below, or opposite the black tunnel, was a view through endless stormclouds through which passed the spires of an entire range of impassible crags. Based on their surroundings, they seemed to be on the highest of the crags, a lifeless mountain of stone whose sides were almost exclusively sheer cliffs.

The wind was incredible. Even in the relative shelter of the ledge, it sounded almost as loud as the distant thunder and the echoes of the teleportation spell. Twilight ruffled her feathers against the frigid air, but noticed that the air coming from the decorated cave was warm. Somehow, that warmth was anything but inviting.

“Have I ever told you that dragons are cold blooded?” said Spike, shivering and wrapping his tiny arms around himself.

“Dragons are not cold blooded,” stated Twilight. “You’re endotherms like the rest of us.”

“Yeah, well right now, by blood is pretty cold.”

“Well, it’s warm in there…”

They both looked to immense entryway into the side of the cliff, and the darkness beyond.

“Why are we at a cave?” asked Spike. “Nothing good ever happens in a cave.”

“The Princess said that we needed to find information on Choggoths, and then sent us here.”

“Information? In a cave? Twilight, do you think this is even the right place?”

“The Princess doesn’t make mistakes, Spike.”

Twilight stepped forward toward the cave.

“I think I’ll stay out here,” said Spike.

“Fine,” said Twilight. “Just be sure to take notes.”

“Notes?”

“About the roc.”

“Rocks? Why do you need notes on rocks?”

“No ‘k’, Spike.”

She looked back and saw him slowly gain comprehension of what she was saying. Then, panicked, he looked to the sky.

“No, cave is better,” he said, running forward to catch up with Twilight.

Together, they passed into the cave, and left the dim gray light of perpetual mountain winter behind them. Twilight ignited the magic in her horn, producing light to illuminate their path. What she saw caused her to instantly stop in pure amazement. Lining the sides of the great hall at even intervals were bipedal statue-like objects made of rock and crystal. They were each nearly one hundred feet tall, and if they truly had been statues, that alone would have been impressive.

Instead, Twilight recognized the telltale marks on their design, if only from third-hand accounts in ancient texts. The way the joints connected the arms to the torsos, or the way the heads were built like pointed helms of special transparent crystal- -they were almost certainly golems.

“Somepony really has,” Spike gulped, “some…interesting taste in architecture.”

“Those aren’t architecture,” said Twilight. She did not know if she wanted to smile and approach one, or turn and run back out of the cave. The golems themselves were amazing artifacts, but Twilight was not blind to the stone axes that each one held before it. There was only one reason to build a golem with an axe that big. “I think we’re safe as long as they don’t start- -”

The heads on several of the golems turned, and with a sound like tumbling rocks, they stepped forward into the hall, lifting their great axes and standing defensively.

“- -moving.”

Twilight looked up at the magically animated creatures that were approaching her, and she charged her horn. They barely seemed to take notice, and Twilight was forced to fire a shot at the chest of one of them, summoning the full destructive potential of her alicorn magic. She hated to damage such a beautiful ancient treasure, a tribute to magical ingenuity, but it seemed to be necessary.

Her violet magic impacted the chest of her target, and burst apart into a shower of shining sparks. The rock beneath was heated and red, but the impact had not even slowed the golem. It did not even seem to have noticed.

The nearest of the golems pulled its axe far above its head, and Twilight projected a purple bubble of magic around herself and spike. The massive stone blade slammed into it with enough force to drive the sphere several feet into the stone tiles below, and the bubble instantly cracked and started to shatter.

The blow had taken its toll on Twilight; she had no idea that absorbing so much force with magic was so difficult, or that any magical entity could produce so much force. She felt as though the massive hammer had landed on her horn, driving it into her brain- -and her shield collapsed only moments after the golem drew its weapon away.

Twilight was sweating, and the world suddenly seemed to shift, as though the stone below her had been replaced with butter. She fell to her knees.

Another golem swung its axe from the side. Twilight did her best to summon a new shield, but the one she got was weak and pale, barely dense enough to stop wind.

In terror, Spike shielded his face with his tiny hands. “Please don’t smash us!” he cried.

The axe stopped. The golems stared downward at the pony and the dragon, their magical eyes looking like shadows on the internal facets of their crystal faces. Then, slowly, each of them returned to standing positions, their axes held at attention.

Twilight’s shield collapsed, and she looked up at the stone monsters before her. They no longer had any trace of aggressive posture; if anything, they looked like the silent guards posted outside Celestia and Luna’s throne room. Scary, but almost reassuring at the same time.

“Did…did I do that?” said Spike. He looked down at his hands, as if he had somehow cast a magic spell using them. Then he smiled, and pointed at the golem on the left. “You! Jump on one foot!”

The golem only stared back at him and remained perfectly still.

“Spike!” hissed Twilight. “Don’t push them!”

“Yeah,” said Spike. “Probably a good idea.”

They carefully walked past the golems, and Twilight could feel their eyes on her the entire time, as if they were still considering whether or not to flatten her. They seemed to have returned to a state of inactivity, though.

After they had gotten a good distance away from them, the golems began to move again. Instead of following Twilight and Spike, they took up their former posts in the alcoves against the walls, returning to their waiting position. Twilight wondered how many countless centuries they had waited there until she and Spike had arrived.

Ahead of them, the stone-tile floor suddenly seemed to rise. Something at the top glinted, and Twilight jumped back as she realized that a pair of reflective eyes- -one milky silver and the other gold- -were watching her, silently.

“Fall god?” said a voice that was spoken in a whisper but seemed to shake the foundation of the stone room. “Why have you returned to this place? To destroy more of my things, or to try to squeeze a tactical advantage from me? Go back to ruling your insipid sheep-ponies. I do not want you horrid form to darken my cave.” The eyes shifted, rising, and Twilight saw a dark, cloaked figure rise, apparently from a sitting position. “No,” said the voice. “No…you are not Celestia. Who are you?”

“I am- -I am Twilight Sparkle!” called Twilight. “Princess Twilight Sparkle. Celestia is- -she is my mentor. She sent me here for information.”

The figure seemed to sigh, and sit back down. “This is a new tactic. I know you, Twilight Sparkle. The hybrid princess, the bridge between two sisters. A puppet. Return to your masters, and tell them that neither they nor their proxy shall get anything from me.”

“A Choggoth attacked my village,” said Twilight. Then, deciding that it was best to sound bigger. “My kingdom. It escaped, but it will be back. Please, we need your help.”

“How many died?”

“Excuse me?”

“The death toll, you fool. Do you not understand my words? Did Celestia choose only the most simple of apprentices to bend to her will? How many of your subjects were slain?”

“None,” said Twilight, suddenly inexplicably angry. “Why would you even ask something like that.”

“Of course,” said the hidden figure. “But my assertion stands. Both of them. You are a fool, and must leave. Do you honestly think that your teacher wishes to stop the Choggoth?”

“Yes! She fought it herself!”

“Then you know little about the one who trained you. You have been deceived, as is her specialty.”

“You don’t know her!” shouted Twilight, her anger continuing to grow.

“I have known her for close to five thousand years,” said the voice. “And you have known her for what? Ten? You have only ever witnessed her as she portrays herself. You know not the atrocities that the false-god has perpetrated. You are merely an extension of her. You, like her, would use my knowledge to build new and better weapons to fight new and more lethal wars.”

“Twilight would never do that!” cried Spike, his outrage overcoming his fear of the shadowy figure. “You may know Celestia, but you don’t know her! All she wants to do is protect her friends!”

“Spike!” whispered Twilight.

The figure seemed to take notice. She stood, and looked down, her glinting eyes shifting about the room. For the first time, Twilight realized that the figure was blind.

“Who said that?” said the figure. She moved forward with surprising speed, her body lurching with reptilian motion. As she came into the light, Twilight saw that she was tall and bipedial, dressed in thick and dusty robes, one arm of which appeared empty.

As the figure got even closer, her face became visible. Twilight gasped as she realized that the hooded figure was a dragon. Her skin was red and black, but grayed with age and covered with scars that seemed to have come from a lifetime of endless battle.

“You are a dragon,” she said, tiny wisps of smoke drifting from the edges of her mouth. She stared down at Spike. “That is how you got past my golems!”

“You’re…you’re a dragon too,” mumbled Spike, staring up at the much larger and much more ancient dragon. Twilight herself was equally surprised. She had encountered dragons before, and though this one was at least four times taller than a pony, she was much smaller than most dragons. Most dragons could also barely talk, and spent their time in caves of jewels and gold- -this one seemed to have been sitting on a utilitarian throne of stone, and spoke as well as any pony.

“I am,” said the female dragon. “I am actually the Grand Magus of dragons…not that such a thing even matters anymore.” She turned to Twilight. “You can thank your Choggoth for that.”

The female dragon turned back to Spike. Though she could not see, it seemed that she had locked in his position by some other means. Twilight had suddenly become somewhat secondary. “Little one,” said the dragon. “Tell me. Were you brought here against your will? Are you a captive of this pony?”

“What?” said Spike, confused by even the implications of such an accusation against Twilight. “No! Twilight is my friend! No, she’s even more than a friend, she’s my family! She hatched me, and she practically raised me. I’m her number one assistant! How could you even say something like that?”

The older dragon paused. Then, something reminiscent of a smile crossed her lips. “A dragon who is friends with a pony?” She bent forward, and a pair of massive red and black wings emerged from two slits on the back of her robe. One of them was badly damaged, but she still managed to take flight and return to her throne. As she sat and retracted them, a light issued from near her eyes, and Twilight saw her exhaling red fire into her hand. The dragon closed her fist around it, and then released it, forming a hovering sphere that lit the area around her.

“Fine,” she said. “You have convinced me to offer a test.”

“A test?” said Twilight, suddenly much more panicked than she had been facing the golems or the ancient dragon. She had not studied for any kind of test; Celstia had not told her there would be one. “Do I need a quill? Spike, do you have the parchment?”

“Not that kind of test,” said the female dragon, unamused. “Just one question. A choice.”

“What kind of choice?”

“A hypothetical one. Answer carefully, Twilight Sparkle. Imagine that I could offer you one of two things. The first is a gift of absolute power over material things. I could give you the power of a god, more than any pony that has ever lived, even Celestia. You could remake the world in your own image, as you see fit. You could end all suffering, or you could cause endless suffering; what you do with the power to fundamentally rewrite reality is up to you.

“Or, I could give you absolute knowledge. I could give you the secrets of all things. You would know the nature of all that ever was, is, and will be. All of time would become clear to you, every fact, and every detail of every thing and every one. The caveat, as I’m sure you can understand, is that while the first option is only over material things, this one is only over the abstract. Knowing the future in its entirly means that every aspect of it becomes inevitable and removes the illusion of changeability.” The dragon leaned back. “Now choose.”

Spike leaned close to Twilight. “Pick the second one,” he whispered, blocking his mouth from the other dragon with his hand. “That’s the right one!”

“Don’t help her, little one,” said the elder dragon patiently. “This is her decision. It must be made by her, and her alone.”

Twilight thought for a moment. She had expected a kind of fact, or trivia, or even a riddle. This was none of those things, and it had put her off balance. It was not a matter of answering from memory, or formulating a solution, or understanding a strange linkage in words; it was a question about herself.

The moment passed into a minute, and then two, and quickly ten. Spike watched her in anticipation, biting his nails. The other dragon simply sat on her throne, her head propped on her one remaining hand, waiting patiently.

“I choose neither,” said Twilight, suddenly.

The dragon looked down at her, surprised. “Elaborate.”

“I don’t want either of them,” said Twilight. Then, deciding that her answer was unclear, added: “I mean, they both sound really good. But then I thought about them, and I realized neither one is actually a good thing. The first one- -yes, with that much power, I could surely protect my friends. I could help everypony, but nopony can stop all suffering. If I did, there won’t be anything left. I might not have known that once, but…it’s like with my friends. Sometimes we have arguments, and sometimes we face challenges, but we overcome them by working together, not by being alone. If I took that away from them, from anypony, there wouldn’t be anything left.”

“And you would refuse knowledge too?”

“No. Knowledge is my ultimate goal. It’s why I love reading and learning. But to get it the way you described- -there’s no effort, and no point. If I knew everything, there would be no learning, and that would take away one of the things I love the most. So I choose neither.”

The dragon looked down at her, and initially seemed angry. Then a smile crossed her face, and she actually started laughing quietly. “Spoken like a true mortal,” she said.

“Was that the correct answer?” asked Spike.

“Of course not,” said the dragon. “The question has no correct answer. Your mentor answered with the first option, but so did my most beloved friend Single Horn.”

“Single Horn?” said Twilight, remembering the name from only the most ancient of legends. “You mean the first unicorn? The Mare of the White Light? She was real?”

“Of course she was. And she was not actual the first of her kind.” The dragon sighed, releasing a small puff of fire. “Actually, I suppose that you rather remind me of her, in some ways.”

“Aw, come on, Twilight,” said Spike. “You could have known everything!”

“The question was hypothetical,” said the female dragon. “I was actually offering neither. Such gifts are not mine to offer. Nevertheless, although your answer was wrong, you have passed the test.”

“Really?” said Twilight, immensely relived that she had succeeded but also annoyed that she had gotten the question wrong on such an important test. She smiled. “I bet I’m the first one to answer with ‘neither’, though, aren’t I?”

“Second,” said the dragon, her smile fading. “I have asked that question to many. Only one other answered as you did, but for very different reasons.”

“Who?” said Twilight, aware that she would probably not recognize anyone the dragon spoke of. “And what reasons?”

“He said that he had no need for knowledge, and he was desperately afraid of power.” She paused. “The one who answered as such was the Choggoth you now seek to destroy.” She stepped down from the throne, and descended to the level of the floor, her talons clicking as she crossed the floor. “My name is Crimsonflame, daughter of Rageclaw. And I will help you. You may follow if you still wish to.”

She approached a blank section of stone behind her throne. It was simple and flat and thoroughly solid. Crimsonflame paused before it, seeming to stare at it for a moment even though she could not see. Then she raised two of her fingers to her mouth, and blew a small puff of red fire onto them. It stayed at the end of her long claws for a moment, and then shifted from red to a violet-blue.

Crimsonflame pressed her fingers against the wall, and the formerly smooth material burst forth with a molten seal, a set of impossibly complex arcane runes that formed a magical circle far wider than she was tall. The stone heated and melted, and twisted away, drawn back by the motivation of the symbols, which expanded outward. The end result was a circular hole, and a slightly inclined tunnel further into the mountain.

Seeming to stare into the darkness for a moment, Crimsonflame entered, motioning for Twilight to follow her. Twilight did, slowly, but found that Spike stayed behind.

“Spike?” said Twilight.

“Don’t I need to answer a question, too?”

Crimsonflame chuckled. “No, little one. You are a dragon, and one with a pure heart untainted by greed and malice. Alone, I would have allowed you in without hesitation.”

The turned blindly toward Spike, somehow knowing exactly where he was, and smiled. Spike smiled in return, and entered the tunnel alongside Twilight.

They passed through the tunnel for a significant distance, and Twilight was forced to ignite her horn. Crimsonlame, being blind, did not seem to need light, but she also did not seem to need assistance moving either.

Twilight eventually worked up enough courage to ask the questions that she could no longer contain.

“That spell you used to open this tunnel,” she asked, trying to be as polite as possible. “That was a spatial-lock seal, wasn’t it?”

“A version of it, yes. I am surprised you would recognize it. Only my fire may open it, and only at my command.”

“And the golems?”

“I built them. I command them. They are mine.”

“I didn’t know dragons could use magic like that,” said Twilight.

“Or at all,” said Spike.

Crimsonflame’s golden eye shifted to one side, and focused itself. Twilight realized that it was somehow mechanical, but for some reason the focus of its intent was into an especially dark corner of the room, not at Spike.

“Really, little one?” said Crimsonflame. “You know no spells?”

“No,” said Spike, seemingly a bit ashamed. Then his eyes lit up. “Well, actually, when I breathe fire on a scroll and burn it, it gets sent to Princess Celestia. Does that count?”

“Of course. It is an interesting choice of a first spell, though. Have you ever considered sending different objects, or sending them to different locations? Or storing the objects instead of sending them?”

“Storing them?” said Spike, confused.

“Like this.” Crimsonflame emitted a narrow jet of black smoke from her mouth. The smoke quickly fell to the floor, making a long black line, and then condensed and became solid, forming a tree-sized wooden staff.

“Wow!” said Spike and Twilight at the same time.

Crimsonflame sighed. She released a small spark and the staff ignited instantly, returning back to its state of black smoke. “Twilight Sparkle, you are correct. Modern dragons cannot readily use magic. They have forgotten it, or refuse to use it. I am the last that remembers the old ways. I am the last Draconian.”

That explained why she seemed different from a normal dragon. “There were more like you?” asked Twilight.

“Yes. Once.”

“What were they like?” asked Spike, his eyes widening.

“How to explain…” said Crimsonflame. “To sum up five million years of culture in so short a time…we were the first. One of the oldest races. Draconia was a nation, but more than that. It was an ideal. We focused our efforts into learning, and understanding, and building great works, and chaperoning the other sentient races as they arose. That was long before my time, though.”

“What happened to them?” asked Twilight.

“What happens to all societies, in time. Greed took hold, and depravity. We are a race of immortals- -we, in truth, have no need for cities or great works or philosophies. By my time, many of us had already fell to base instinct and become little more than animals. The remainder- -the true Draconians- -were fewer, but still strong. We were more like an order of knights or scholars by the time I was hatched.

“Though are society had decayed, that was the peak of magic. We understood the nature of things, and of our abilities, beyond what any pony has ever understood. My father, Grand Magus Rageclaw, was the strongest of them all.”

“What happened to him?” said Spike.

“He was killed by the Choggoths,” said Crimsonflame before Twilight could try to shield Spike from that information. “Although…even death could not hold him completely.”

“And the rest of them? Of us?”

“Also killed by Choggoths- -most of them by the actions of one named Oblivion. I was the only to survive, and even then, only barely.”

That statement truly frightened Twilight. She had initially been afraid of the Choggoths as monsters, but she had faced monsters before. That was a fact of life in Equestria. A creature that could bring such a powerful race to extinction, though, was something far more terrible than anything she had ever even considered possible. This was not some egomaniac attempting to conquer Equestria for its own means; they did not intend to rule. They only intended destruction. What Twilight could not understand, though, was why.

“Here,” said Crimsonflame, suddenly stopping.

“Here?” said Twilight, confused. They had stopped at another blank spot in the otherwise endless blank tunnel. There had been no doors and no exits, only stone walls.

Crimsonflame turned to her left, and stepped forward just enough to be within arm’s reach of the wall. She extended one lone claw to it, and when she touched the stone, an arcane rune erupted on its surface and the stone drew away. She stepped back, and motioned pointed, motioning for Twilight to enter.

Twilight hesitated, suddenly feeling a creeping fear in her spine. Entering dark portals guarded by mysterious figures almost never ended well for her.

“You came all this way,” said Crimsonflame. “Go in. Or turn back. I don’t much care. But I have a feeling this will not disappoint.”

Taking a deep breath, Twilight entered the room. It was definitely dark, and smelled strange- -not bad, but somehow familiar.

Snakes of red light poured forth from behind her, slowly skimming their way through the air and leaving trails of light as they passed through the room, splitting and dividing, revealing that it was indeed cavernous. Each one of them inevitably struck a lantern somewhere within, and the light shifted and grew brighter, filling the seemingly endless room with illumination.

With a gasp, Twilight realized what kind of room it was.

“It’s a library,” she said. “It’s a library!” She felt a familiar tingling in her nether regions and swimming in her head as she looked up at the endless array of shelves. They extended seemingly in every direction- -back father than she could see, as well as to both sides, and even upward, where the floor had been constructed something like a spiral column. The contents of the shelves were not exactly books as Twilight was familiar with, but they were close enough to recognize. Most were large and bound in something similar to metal, with strange inscriptions on the sides, but some also appeared to be tablets of stone.

Twilight ran forward to the nearest stack and took one of the shelves. It was heavy, and materially strange; even the pages were not made of paper, but something more like translucent flexible glass. To Twilight’s profound disappointment, though, she realized that she could not even remotely understand the text imprinted onto the pages.

“Pony,” said Crimsonflame, and Twilight looked up from the undecipherable text. As she did, she felt a burning claw contact the end of her horn.

The result was something like a mental seizure. Colors and images flashed through Twilight’s mind faster than she could comprehend or recognize them, and she felt herself mumbling sounds that had no meaning. Her brain felt as though it were being cooked, and her body shook, trying to pull away from the spell.

“What did you do?” she finally managed to mutter when the spell stopped. She was sweating, and panting. Her head ached badly, and she doubted that she would have remained conscious if she had not been an alicorn.

“I just gave you the ability to read Draconian,” said Crimsonflame, as if insulted by Twilight’s disrespectful tone. “And also several other dead languages. Do not waste or misuse this gift.”

Twilight looked down at the book she had been holding. She had dropped it onto the stone floor, but it remained open. What had moments ago been meaningless arrays of shapes now resolved into something that looked identical by was fully comprehendible.

“What about me?” said Spike.

“You are a dragon,” said Crimsonflame. “Reading Draconian is your birthright.”

“But the other languages?”

Crimsonflame smiled. “It has been so long since a dragon showed interest in my books,” she mused. “So, so long. Alas, you have no horn. I cannot transmit this knowledge to you so easily. Besides- -what is written by the trihorn is not meant for you.” She turned back to Twilight, who had been unable to take her eyes of the book, which was actually a rather dry study of geologic features that was now substantially out of date. “This library,” she said, “is the culmination of one hundred and fifty thousand years of collection. It contains the surviving works of my people, and those that I managed to salvage from the ruins of the Trihorn Empire, as well as precious few from the other races. Some contain things that are best forgotten, and others contain things that should not but have been.”

“How old exactly are these texts?” said Twilight, tentatively. Crimsonflame was surprised how excited the small purple pony had become over a collection of books. In a way, this Twilight Sparkle reminded her of herself, or at least what she might have been had the Choggoth War not taken everything.

“This wing contains everything up to my reawakening, many thousands of years after the Choggoth War. The other wing contains more modern things I have collected.”

“This is one wing?”

“The other is smaller. But in response to your question: the last Choggoth War ended one point two million years ago. Some of these go back millions of years before it- -some by hundreds of millions, although even I could not read those.”

Twilight’s legs shook, and then she collapsed onto her knees. “That’s not…that’s not just history, it’s…”

“What ponies call prehistory? Yes, I know.”

“But that’s an entire system of works, of history- -that nopony has ever even seen! There could be things in here that are written, unread, of profound and- -” She suddenly moaned, as if the strain of being surrounded by so many rare books was too much for her to take.

“Twilight, calm down,” said Spike.

“I’m- -perfectly- -calm,” said Twilight, hyperventilating.

“They’re organized by date,” said Crimsonflame. She crossed the room and acquired an appropriately sized chair, and sat down in it. “So start reading.”

The library had been empty for so long, longer than the lifespans of almost every creature in Equestria, and in a way, it felt good to have somepony finally using it- -even if that somepony was a pony. Some had tried to access it before, but Crimsonflame had denied them all. Most of them were like Celestia, who came seeking ways to build old weapons and spells of mass devastation, or ways to subjugate the minds of their enemies. These books listed many ways to do those things- -and many more things that were far worse.

Crimsonflame had not actually intended for the books to be read, except by her. She supposed it was her equivalent to the piles of gemstones and gold that her kind normally collected. Her only goal had been to safeguard the knowledge of her own age, to ensure that despite the loss of her people their knowledge did not vanish with them. There was surely no way to resurrect them, so this is all she could do in response.

If any being were meant to read them, she supposed it would be other dragons. For millennia she had waited, hoping that someday one would return seeking something more than jewels and gold or a cave to sleep in. At first she had hoped that there might be other Draconians, but that hope had faded; in all the countless centuries, Goldmist’s eye had never once seen another of her kind.

Those hopes had changed over time. When she had given up on her own kind, she had hoped that in time one would be born who bore a Draconian soul. She had even given up on that too.

“Do you have a kitchen?” asked a small voice beside her.

Crimsonflame turned her head toward exactly where the sound had come from- -she could not see, but could not stop the habit. “Yes,” she said to Spike. “Why?”

“Twilight’s been working really hard,” he said. “I was hoping to get her some tea.”

“Tea…” said Crimsonflame. “If only I had such a beverage. I do not, though. Only water.”

“Oh…”

“However,” said Crimsonflame. “Do not disparage the water of this mountain. It is the purest and clearest in all of Panbios- -well, ‘Equestria’ now. It filters for years through the gem caverns before it ever reaches my well.”

“Did you say gemstones?”

“Yes,” said Crimsonflame, smiling. “Unfortunately, they are all the food I have, so she will need to go hungry. You may have some, though, if you like.”

“Really?”

“Of course, child.”

“Can I get you anything?”

“Me?” said Crimsonflame, somewhat taken aback. She had been alone for a long time, longer than most creatures with a soul safely could. It had been a long, long time since any being had offered her anything.

“Yeah. Water? Gems? I was even thinking of making a gem cake. I know a mean recipe.”

“A cake can be made of gems?”

“Of course. Well…supposedly.”

“Just some water, Spike.”

She heard Spike take several steps, and then he inexplicably stopped.

“Miss Crimsonflame- -Grand Magus,” he said.

“Yes, little one? Is there something you ask of me?”

“You’re blind, aren’t you?”

“To an extent, yes.”

“Then why do you have so many books if you can’t ever read them?”

Crimsonflame smiled. “I suppose for those like you, and her. Those who would read them, and those who will read them when I am gone. Besides, I have already read them all. I know what is in all of them. Sometimes I still try, though…” Her golden eye shifted toward Spike, and momentarily focused on him, showing her a distorted silhouette. He was indeed tiny, barely a hatchling. Then it focused on something else.

“That thing’s kind of creepy,” he said, stepping back.

Crimsonflame laughed. “I know. It was a gift from a madpony who I have to begrudgingly recall as a friend. It never looks where I want it to.”

“What…what happened to your friend?”

“He died in the war.” She sighed, and looked to where Twilight was. Although Crimsonflame could not see, she had been tracking Twilight’s location by sound. She had been reading diligently, studying each tome with great care and taking what Crimsonflame expected were notes. Crimsonflame had tracked her pattern of motion, following her mentally to the different sections of the library. In the darker corners of her mind, she had expected Twilight to immediately find the cerorian section, to attempt to read the manuals on the construction of devastating weapons, or to the shelves in the back where so many of the spell books bore the initials A.D. on their covers. Instead, she had watched as Twilight dedicated herself to researching the end of the Choggoth War, deviating only to acquire cultural works that better explained the races she was reading about.

“You are lucky to have a friend like her,” said Crimsonflame.

“I know,” said Spike.

“Do you have other friends who are ponies?”

“Yeah, of course,” said Spike. “There’s Applejack and Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy, and Rarity, oh, and the ponies in town too…”

He began listing names. Crimsonflame smiled. She recognized the tone that he had used to say the name “Rarity”. It had been a tone that she had once used when she was much younger with regards to a certain cerorian hero.

“…and Cadence, and Shining armor, and…well, there’s more…”

“You are on a dangerous road, little one,” sighed Crimsonflame.

“Dangerous? Why?”

“Surely you have considered it. Something within you must have realized it, if only distantly.”

“What?”

“That they are mortal, and you are not.” She stared into the distance, seeing distorted images that she could only partially comprehend. “That you could sleep for one thousand years and barely notice, but that these ponies live at most eighty, ninety years.”

“You mean…” Crimsonflame could feel Spike’s spirit drop. “You mean the others…Rarity…”

“This is the curse of eternity,” said Crimsonflame flatly. “To watch everpony you love age and die while you barely even grow older. Not just in war, but in times of peace.” She turned to Spike. “Which is why I must give you this advice. If this is all I can tell you, and I hope that it is not, take my words to heart. Never despair for their short lives. Treasure every day, every minute. Love them with all your heart. Laugh, cry, and stand with them when danger comes. Then when they finally leave you, remember them fondly, and hold those memories with you for as long as you live.” She turned to Twilight. “And her…this is why you are truly lucky. She has become a god, and shares your curse. Know that she will always be there for you. And give her this advice when the time comes.”

Crimsonflame stood.

“Where are you going?” asked Spike. Crimsonflame wondered what his reaction to her words was, if he was crying, or afraid, or still too young to understand them.

“One of my last living friends is about to arrive,” she said coldly.

As the sun set, a sphere of red light erupted on the precipice over the endless storms below.

“General, the shadows! No, they’ve got me! Help me! NO NO not my eyes- -”

D27 tried to focus, bringing his mind back to reality. The ones that had died violent deaths were always the worst, and the vast majority of the skulls he had stockpiled had died extremely painfully. This one, apparently, had been devoured by the shadows in the Gloame. D27 had never realized how painful that was until he had felt it through the long-dead pony’s bones.

Pain was pointless, though. It was something that belonged to the bones, not to him, and he refocused the division of his mind in charge of that particular skeleton on the task at hand. Its limited vision focused on the entrance to a clearly unnatural cave bordered with a style of carving that was almost certainly Draconian. Triangulation confirmed that he had arrived in an area that had once been home to an Aurasi manufacturing colony by the name of Vulcan before its destruction during the Choggoth War.

The smell of the air also indicated the faint presence of Order. The long-range teleportation spell that D27 had followed him had recently contained Twilight Sparkle. He was in the correct place. There was a different smell, though. One he recognized, but one that should have been impossible.

Without hesitation, D27 immediately entered the cave. The wind outside was cold, but the air inside was warm, as if heated from an internal source. The temperature difference was irrelevant, though. Temperature alone could not stop him.

On either side of the hall he noticed the presence of several Draconian golems, built on massive proportions. D27 searched the inventory of spells in the skull that he contained. The unicorn who had formerly possessed it had not been especially strong, and there was nothing inside it that would allow him to fight golems of such size and power. There was also no cloaking spell that would allow him to sneak past them- -which was not unusual; only one in several million ponies were born with the capacity to make themselves invisible, and D27 currently had none of them in his reserves.

Fortunately, the golems did not seem to react. There was a possibility that they did not entirely recognize D27 as alive- -or a possibility that they were expecting him.

As he approached the end of the cave, his eye adjusted to the darkness, and confirmed what he had only distantly expected to be possible.

“Oblivion,” said Crimsonflame, staring down at him from a stone pyramid that contained what seemed to be a throne.

“Grand Magus,” said D27, his own voice distastefully distorted by his present sub-pony form. A voice he hated hearing. “You look as beautiful as the day I first met you.”

“Do not try to flatter me, Oblivion. I have gotten old. You clearly have not.”

“Choggoths do not age.”

“How fortunate,” said Crimsonflame, still standing. D27 could tell that she was prepared to attack, if necessary. Her age was advanced, and even from a distance D27 could tell that the scars that covered her body were far more than superficial. She was a shadow of what she had once been- -but a single blow would destroy D27’s body. Not that it mattered. Even in Equestria it was one of several hundred.

“And,” he added. “I no longer use the name ‘Oblivion’. I am called D27 now. It was the name given to me by ponies, and I have become quite partial to it.”

“What you call yourself does not change what you are.” She glared down at him. D27 could tell that she could not see, at least not completely; one of her eyes was blinded by age, and the other replaced with an Aurasus eye, which in a Draconian would almost surely not relay proper images. He knew better than to think she was blind, though. She could almost certainly sense the Order in his body, even if it was only a trace divided amongst so many forms.

“I cannot believe that you are still alive,” said D27. “After all this time…”

“I am the last,” she said, the anger in her voice palpable. “You killed my people. All of them.”

“I know.”

She chuckled darkly. “Not even an apology, then?”

D27 was starting to grow angry, perhaps irrationally so. “What could I possibly say to you? What words would not be hollow? Nothing I may say, and nothing I can do, will bring them back.” He glared at her through his stolen, half-exposed skull. “And do not pretend that you did not play a role in my failure.”

“How dare you accuse me?!” roared Crimsonflame. “If it had not been for me, you would have taken the monohorns with you, and murdered three races that day!”

D27 stepped forward. “You changed the nature of the spell! Whatever it was you did, it interacted with something the trihorns were attempting! If the spell had been done properly…” he paused, remembering. His anger shifted to sadness. “But no…no, that isn’t true. It is my fault. I detected an anomaly in the source magic. I had exactly thirty two thousandths of a second to make the decision, more than enough. I could have changed the spell, but sacrificed the power output. I chose to maintain power at the cost of your lives.”

“And that decision saved all of Panbios,” said Crimsonflame. “Just at such a terrible cost.”

“Tell me Crimsonflame,” said D27. “How long has it been?”

“Over one million years, Oblivion.”

“That long?” said D27, surprised. He had tried to piece together timelines from what he had read of pony history, but he had assumed that the gulf in time had been at most one hundred thousand years. “I had no idea. The war, though. I died before it could be completed. How did it end?”

“This, I do not know,” said Crimsonflame, taking a seat in her ancient throne. “My defense of the monohorns nearly destroyed me. I was kept alive with magic, and technology, but was not conscious for the completion of the war. I know not how the survivors defeated Choggoth Void.”

“When did you awaken?”

“Long after the fall of Third Horn. I awoke into a new war. Infighting amongst the races of ponies. Death and destruction, and evolution, worse than the horrors of the Cerorian Civil Wars. Pointless wars of ideology and greed. Wars I could not bear to watch.”

“I am sorry. If only I had been awoken earlier.”

“To do what? A thing like you can never bring peace. You are a weapon, not a ruler. They were as much your wars as mine.”

“That is correct,” admitted D27. “I should never even have awoken at all. I was not supposed to survive the activation of the Weapon. All the simulations, all the calculations. I should not have survived. I wish I had not.”

“Why?”

“The regret. Knowing what I did to you, to the Draconians and trihorns. That is part of it. But…” he sighed. Somewhere in the Gloame, his amorphous true form was weeping. “My presence means that I must restart the war.”

“Restart it? Why?” said Crimsonflame, leaning forward. “The war is over.”

“No,” said D27. “No. The Finality Core has been activated for a second time.”

“Activated?” said Crimsonflame. She stood again. “That is not possible. I have seen the Core. It is inactive- -and Nil was surely killed in the blast.”

“The Finality Core does not need a Choggoth to catalyze its function,” said D27, shaking his skeletal head. “The Choggoth serves to create the Core, and to accelerate its function. A pony has betrayed us. The one called Celestia.”

“The false god,” said Crimsonflame, pausing. “I know her well.”

“And you let her use the Core?” screamed D27. “After everything I was forced to do, after everything you lost, you let her activate it?!”

“I could not stop her. And the Core did not activate. No Lord of Order was born into this world.”

“Even you are shortsighted, Crimsonflame. The Finality Core was damaged but not destroyed. Just because it was used against its function did not mean it was not activated. Above all things, it is patient. One hundred million years to a Choggoth is like a sunny afternoon to you, and one hundred billion is barely a blink to a Lord of Order. What she did started a countdown. It is waiting until it has enough energy from her and her sister, and from the Spheres. Then it will awaken fully.”

D27 did not know if Crimsonflame believed him, but she seemed to understand.

“Then what can we do?” she said at last. “Can the Weapon be used again?”

“It took the destruction of two races to barely charge it last time,” said D27. “Five million trihorns and eight thousand Draconian mages. Now we have one Draconian, and ponies. If I drained every unicorn in all of Equestria, it would barely dent the Core.”

“But you have a plan,” said Crimsonflame, frowning.

“The Finality Core is one of three celestial Spheres. The Red Sphere and White Sphere are needed to activate it. Without them, the Core is useless.”

“You want to destroy the sun and moon? You cannot be serious.”

“I am. It is the only way.”

“But the last time we spoke, you said destruction of the Spheres was impossible.”

“It was, then. Conditions are different now. The Spheres have been bound to flesh.”

“You are going to kill Celestia,” said Crimsonflame, smiling.

“Luna will need to die as well. But essentially, yes.”

Crimsonflame frowned. “You understand what will happen if you do that, though. Celestia is a tyrant who hides her lust for power behind noble intentions, and denies the brutality of her past. But she brought peace to Equestria, and she maintains it. If she is killed, the Equestria will fall. Infighting will begin again, and all pony kind will fall into endless cycles of violence and pain.”

“I know,” said D27. “But the only alternative is to absorb all of this word’s mass into myself and hope that I can defeat a Lord of Order on my own.”

“Could you?”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not. At that point, either outcome would be identical for Equestria.” He looked up to Crimsonflame. “Will you attempt to stop me?”

“My era has passed,” sighed Crimsonflame. “So has my influence. I do not care if you kill Celestia. In fact, I rather hate her. The death of her sister is unfortunate, though. But I understand why it is unavoidable. I only want you to know what the consequence of the path you are choosing are. Will you be able to live with yourself?”

“I am a Choggoth,” said D27, smiling hollowly, which likely looked through a grimace with his exposed teeth and jaw bones. “I exist to commit atrocities. I am disease, and I am destruction. Regardless of what I do, I persist. What happens to my ‘soul’ is inconsequential.”

“Have you seen the people you intend to destroy? Do you truly understand the ponies?”

“I tried to live amongst them. I saw what they are. You were correct about them. They are good creatures…and I now see that I can never belong with them. They must hate me, because I represent the antitheses of their love and peace. And yet, in their kindness, they don’t.”

“You tried to be a pony? That was a mistake, Oblivion.”

“I know that now,” said D27. “Because now I understand who I will be hurting. But it must be done. If I do not do this, this world will die.”

“I have always wondered,” said Crimsonflame. “Why is it that you are so obsessed with this world? There are surely countless others you could try to save. Others you surely will need to save, eventually.”

“No. Only this one.”

“But why?”

“I do not know. Perhaps a side-effect of my condition.”

“Condition?”

“I am insane, and cursed. A betrayer. I am sure you understand what I am, and not just a Choggoth.”

“I do,” said Crimsonflame. “More than you know.” Here organic eye narrowed. “Now the question is, can you do it?”

“Yes.”

“Of course you can,” said Crimsonflame, laughing. “Celestia is a fool. She thinks like a soldier. She’s probably preparing for an invasion right now.”

“She is. My watchers have seen it. Martial law, mass troop movement.”

Crimsonflame laughed harder. “She actually believes you would try to attack her in the open? You have never won a fair battle in your life!”

“I know,” said D27. Although he was a Choggoth, he was actually comparatively weak among his own kind. In a direct fight with Celestia, he knew that he could never win. She was the wielder of the Red Sphere, a living goddess. Defeating her was not something he could simply do. Although he had few if any memories of it, he doubted if he even had ever conquered a planet as Void and Nil did by simple engulfment. Even without knowing how he had conquered six worlds, D27 was darkly aware of how he would: he would infiltrate them, accelerate war and conflict until his client societies had weapons of mass destruction, and then turn those weapons against them. He had spent a great deal of time thinking about it.

“Then you are decided?”

“Yes.”

“Fine. Do as you will. However, I would make a request.”

“You will be left out of the conflict, but only if I succeed.”

“Not that. What happens to me at this point does not matter so much. What I ask is that you speak to Twilight Sparkle.”

“The alicorn princess?”

“She is in my library as we speak, attempting to find a way to kill you.”

“As I expected. I refuse. What would I even say to her? That I am going to kill her comrade, and plunge her kind into a new dark age?”

“Celestia is more than a comrade to her. This golden eye has watched them for a long time. Celestia is as a mother to her. Would you kill her mother without even an explanation?”

“What kind of explanation could I offer for that?”

“At least try. When Celestia and Luna fall, the kingdom will fall to Hybrid and the Anomaly. That child will be expected to shoulder the burden of a god.”

“I was not the one who cursed her with a link to Order.”

“No, but you will be the one to destroy everything she loves.”

“Do you think I want this? I hate this war. I hate what I am, what I came from, I hate all of it! I would trade everything to be a mortal, a pony. I don’t know why Celestia would even ever choose this terrible fate. So no. I refuse.”

“Fine,” said Crimsonflame. “If you can’t do that, at least tell me something.”

“What?”

“The dragon she travels with. I cannot see him. What color is he?”

“Purple, with green accents and eyes.”

Crimsonflame smiled. “The same colors as my father.”

D27 did not fully understand the connection, but Crimsonflame seemed satisfied.

“Before I depart,” he said, reaching his partially fleshed hoof into his own head, grasping the unicorn skull that his tissue coated. With a squelching sound, he drew it out, and threw it to Crimsonflame. Even without her sight, Crimsonflame caught it in one hand effortlessly. “I won’t bother leaving traces, because you seem to know how to find them. That skull contains my tissue. Destroy it if you like, or don’t.”
“And what do I need this for?”
“If I fail, you will be the first to know.”

D27 initiated the destruction of his surrogate body. His flesh began to disintegrated, necrotizing and collapsing into gas. That particular body had served its purpose, and was no longer useless. Losing them was painful, but more convenient than trying to return them.

“It has always disturbed me how you do that,” said Crimsonflame, setting the skull beside her, its one blue eye staring back at D27. For a moment, he saw himself from both angles- -a skull with an eye of two triangles, and a rapidly decaying body of gaunt blue flesh clinging to mostly exposed bones. He truly was a monster, even in his own eyes. “But a warning. If the Core truly is activating, it will form a distortion in time. That is probably what awakened you. Even I do not know who else may be joining us.”

“I will keep that in mind,” said D27, just before his body disintegrated completely, leaving a set of long-dead unicorn bones to collapse to the floor.

Chapter 28: Sunrise and Moonset

Celestia’s armored feet clicked across the beautiful tiling of her castle floors. The halls were eerily quiet, but there were still a few guards remaining. Almost all of them were now fully equipped with the old weapons: earth ponies with back-mounted rail cannons or hoof-fired energy weapons, Pegasi with under-wing particle beams, and unicorns vastly enhanced with armor ingrained with long forgotten magic.

Several more vaults had been opened. More weapons and armor had been deployed to circulation. As Celestia walked, she was passed by what was probably an earth pony coated entirely in strength-enhancing robotic armor, an tremendous artillery piece bolted to his back. He was headed toward the parapets of Canterlot, preparing to rain down fiery death on anything that dared approach the home of the Two Princesses.

Celestia smiled to the earth pony, and he stopped to salute. They both continued on their way, he to his station and Celestia to her quarters.

Outside, two guards were waiting for her. They were some of the last in the palace itself; under Celestia’s own orders, all guards had been incorporated into the main military body, aside from Luna’s chiropterans. Luna was weak, but Celestia was a goddess- -she required no guarding by mere mortals.

One of the two guards posted at her door was an earth pony, a white stallion with a back mounted multi-phasic laser. The other was a unicorn who was already beginning to show the fatigue of wearing the enhancement armor. He was shaking very slightly, and his eyes were twitching, as if he was seeing small things lurking in every corner. Before he saw Celestia, he also seemed to be moving his mouth, as if muttering something.

“Hello,” said Celestia, smiling.

“Princess!” said both guards stood at full attention and saluted.

“Oh, my,” said Celestia. “At…at ease.”

The soldiers returned to their normal position. Celestia had never gotten used to that aspect of military life. Although she had been a soldier long ago, until now, there had never been any need for her to be a commander.

She turned her attention to the unicorn. He seemed to look up at her, but his bloodshot eyes were shaking and unable to focus.

“You,” she said. “You have exceeded the duty cycle for your armor. You need to rest.”

“No, ma’am,” he said, his voice accelerated at manic speed. “I feel fine better than fine I am the defender of the faith I will not fail in the name of the Reich I will protect- -”

“The armor is not to be worn for more than twelve hours at once,” said Celestia sternly.

“But if I take it off I can’t focus can’t think can’t use magic can’t sleep and the bugs, the bugs come at night- -”

“Are you disobeying a direct order from your princess?” asked Celestia, still smiling.

“No,” said the guard, seeming to snap out of his distorted mental state. “No, ma’am.”

“Report to medical,” she ordered. “Get some rest.”

“Yes, ma’am, your highness.” His horn ignited with blue-green light, and he instantly vanished, teleporting away.

“Your highness,” said the other guard.

“Yes,” said Celestia.

“With all due respect, I do not believe that alone I will be able to properly protect you.”

“Then go reinforce Luna’s security detail.”

“Your highness?”

“I can take care of myself. You do not need to worry about me. But Luna is very sick right now. Please, protect my sister.”

“Yes, your majesty!” said the guard, saluting, and then slowly lumbering away under the weight of the weapon on his back.

Celestia continued to smile, and magically opened the door to her chamber. She entered, and then gently closed the door, sealing the room sonically to ensure that she would not disturbed.

Her smile quickly faded, and with a scream, she tore of her helmet and threw it against the floor. It bounced almost comically and skidded across the ornate mosaic below.

Five thousand years of work, of careful planning, had all been destroyed in a matter of days. She had spent centuries painstakingly purging all of the advanced weapons from Equestria, erasing any mention of them in history, funneling propaganda into the people so that they would forget their horrible and violent past. Then, in one swift motion, she had released those very weapons onto Equestria.

Just minutes earlier, she had stood on the balcony of her grand castle, smiling as she explained to her subjects that for their safety, Equestria was now under martial law. A beautiful kingdom of peace and happiness had, in a matter of days, become a military state- -a state with her as the Supreme Overlord.

She tore away her armor, slamming it into her furniture with her magic. She had devoted her life to peace, to creating a better Equestria- -she had even planned to phase herself and Luna out of true rulership, allowing the mortal ponies to rule themselves under the watchful eye of the protector goddesses. All that hope was gone now, destroyed at her hoof. She had reintroduced the weapons she had sought to destroy. Unicorns were already becoming addicted to their armor, and being driven mad by the enchantments on it; no doubt the technology for firearms and energy weapons would soon find its way into the general population, and into unsavory aspects of the population. Soon ponies would find out just how easy it was to kill each other- -or rather, remember it.

Celestia burst into tears, and dropped to her knees. In the name of saving Equestria, she had destroyed it. It still existed in body, but its soul had been blackened.

It had been necessary. In her mind, she was able to justify it. The logic of what she was doing made sense. She had been wrong about the threat that Equestria was facing. Initially, she had misunderstood what a Choggoth actually was. She has seen its form, and fought it, and she had thought that was all it was, a mass of ghastly protoplasm with claws and tentacles and teeth.

In truth, it was far worse. Sightings had already been reported across Equestria of ponies fitting the Choggoth’s pony-mimic form. They had been confirmed by soldiers: they were found to be infiltrating cities unnoticed, stealing various things and entering high-security targets. What they stole was almost always magical artifacts, but they also took long-forgotten curiosities from museum basements that only Celestia remembered the purpose of. Even Pegasus cities were not safe. Numerous weather factories had been sabotaged, and relics form the especially martial Pegasus past taken away.

The infiltrators were not easy to track. The original D27 had been strange looking and indefinable, but his new versions had improved: they were found to wear wigs and false tails, and have painted-on cutie marks. They could not stand up to close inspection, but they were good enough to fall into the background until it came time to strike.

Soldiers had hunted several of the clones. Almost inevitably, the Choggoth pieces would collapse and disintegrated before being caught. If one did choose to fight, they rarely caused much damage and were defeated relatively easily.

Not all the battles had been successful, though. There had been casualties. Some of the Choggoth pieces that chose to fight managed to severely injure soldiers that attacked them. There were some Pegasi who would never fly again, and other ponies who had lost limbs.

There had even been several deaths, and that saddened Celestia desperately. Most of them had to do with soldiers using their weapons improperly, resulting in overloads or friendly fire incidents. At least once, though, a soldier had unloaded an entire plasma cartridge into a blue pony who had turned out not to be a Choggoth at all.

A backlash was already occurring. Ordinary ponies were reacting angrily, and their anger was becoming directed at blue ponies. Several local governments had already created internment camps to contain them, and Celestia’s soldiers spent almost as much time suppressing anti-blue riots as actually fighting D27.

The condition was far worse than anypony knew, though. According to geologists, Choggoth components had been detected in well water: they were hiding in aquifers. Since no poisons were known that could affect Choggoths without effecting ponies, there was no way to get them out. The water, likewise, was considered contaminated. Entire cities and agricultural communities had been driven into drought conditions.

In all the chaos, Celestia’s rapidly growing army had been spread thin. The defense of Canterlot fell to her, which was not difficult. She had produced a shield of magic around Canterlot. Unlike the weak shield that Shining Armor had used during Celestia’s botched Cadence assassination attempt, this one was virtually impregnable. Since Twilight had still not returned with information about the nature of Choggoths, Celestia had been forced to make her shield defend against any being who she did not know personally. Anypony or anything that she did not know needed to be inspected thoroughly before being allowed in. Even the pinpoint Gloame portals that the Choggoths seemed to be coming through could not be opened beneath the solar-white dome of magic.

The point, of course, was Luna. Equestria itself was secondary. The whole reason Celestia had created a peaceful Equestria was for her sister, who was no collapsing mentally in a different part of the castle. The Choggoth had already shown that it wanted Luna dead, and Celestia was sure that when it finally gained enough strength for an invasion, it would try to take Canterlot and Luna with it.

That was something she could not allow. That, she realized, was the true purpose of all of this. She had to defend Luna. That was the true reason she had become a god, and the purpose that she truly believed she existed for.

The conditions the world had fallen into broke her heart. It tore at her very sole, and she ached inside. She wept for her pony children, and for the life she had now throne them into, and for the world she had failed to make for them and for her sister, and for her beloved Twilight, a Princess of Friendship who was now thrust into what was sure to be a long and brutal war.

Celestia looked around her chambers, and saw that she had made a mess of things. Damaged furniture lay everywhere, and a picture of her with Twilight lay shattered on the ground. One of the only things that had escaped her rage was a small table near the door, on which was a platter with a cupcake.

Celestia grabbed the cupcake in her magic and greedily shoved it into her mouth. It had been left out too long and tasted rotten, like swamp gas, but she ate it anyway. Worse, there was only one. Celestia stood, tears running down her face. She needed fifty more of them, at least, a tub of fall-flavor ice cream, and several bottles of distilled golden-apple wine. She did not even bother to attach her armor, and left her chambers without any ornamentation. There were hardly any guards to see her anyway, and it hardly mattered. She just needed something to make the sadness stop.

Luna lay on her bed, shaking. She stared into the distance, her eyes focused on a single point on the wall. There was nothing special about that point, but she found that by focusing on it with all her might, she was able to prevent her mind from wondering.

She had not moved in days. She had not been able to. The necklace was keeping her secure, but even it was starting to fail. The things beyond her mind were growing stronger, and finding new ways into the realm of her consciousness.

Cavern Melody was safe, and that was one of the only things that kept Luna sane. That she had nearly killed the pregnant chiropteran pony, however, was what allowed the sickness to bore deeper into her mind.

Luna turned over, and, after hesitating, looked down. She gasped, and felt dizzy. Her flesh was intact and uninjured, but she might as well have witnessed a festering, maggot-filled wound. The dark stain around her cutie mark was reaching father up her body, and down her legs. Pieces of it stretched out like an infection, and wherever they touched became numb and strange to her- -as if it belonged to a different pony entirely.

The door slowly creaked open to her room. Luna blinked; she had been hallucinating continuously for some time, and was not sure if the door was actually opening this time. It seemed to be real, though.

Her suspicions were confirmed when a jarringly white figure stepped through the door. Luna was still sane enough to recognize her beloved elder sister. Celestia approached like a light in the darkness.

“Sister,” she slurred. Luna could smell the scent of pumpkin and golden-apple wine on her sister. She was drunk, and she had been crying.

“Sister,” said Luna. “Something is wrong. What…what has happened.”

“I’ve…failed,” hiccupped Celestia. She stumbled her way into the room, and Luna smiled- -only to realize that Celestia’s shadow had eyes.

“No, no,” said Luna, trying to pull herself across the bed. “Not that.”

Celestia paused, confused, but her shadow did not. It stepped forward, resolving and separating, its form solidifying. It became an image of Nightmare Moon.

“Just a hallucination,” said Luna, holding her head. “Just a hallucination.”

“For now,” said Nightmare moon.

“Stay back!” cried Luna.

“Sister,” said Celestia. “I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you. I never meant for this.”

“She’s a bit denser than the Choggoth,” said Nighmare Moon. She had reached Luna’s bedside, and reached out a black hoof toward Luna.

“No,” whispered Luna. She did not know what to expect, but she would have rather been touched by the most hideous of monsters- -or even the Choggoth itself.

Instead of a blow, or an infecting, burning touch, the black hoof began to stroke Luna’s mane.

“There, there,” said Nightmare Moon. “The change is always harsh, and never easy, but it is so much more so if you resist it.”

“Please, sister,” said Celestia. “Please forgive me for what I did. I never meant to leave you. I never wanted to…I just thought…” Celestia rushed forward, and cast herself on Luna’s lower body, pinning her mostly numb legs to the bed. Celestia was weeping. “And now Equestria…I threw all of it away!”

Luna could barely listen. Her eyes were wide and fixed on the shadow-pony that was holding her head and shoulders, gently calming her like a mother with a sick and frightened foal.

“Why are you here?” whispered Luna.

“Because you are the only thing in my life that matters to me,” said Celestia. “You are the only thing that has ever mattered! The only reason I am not alone…”

“I have seen the totality of time,” said Nightmare moon, softly. “And although if I were to remember it, I would be driven mad, I can see that something is coming. A time of war. A time that was not meant for you.”

“I don’t understand,” said Luna, softly.

“I only sent you to the moon because I had to. Because I couldn’t cure you alone!” sobbed Celestia. “And I’m sorry! I had to, but it was the hardest thing I have ever done!”

Nightmare moon smiled, her lips parting and pulling back farther than any normal pony’s should have. Her pointed, fanged teeth became visible. “Because I need your body,” said Nightmare Moon, softly.

“NO!” screamed Luna suddenly. She kicked Celestia off her, and disengaged from Nightmare Moon- -who was nothing more than an illusion that converted to mental smoke as she pushed it away. Luna dropped off the edge of her bed, and forced herself back into a corner, holding her legs near her. “No! I’m not Nightmare Moon! Not Nightmare Moon!” She felt her horn glowing with magic, but she did not know where to aim it. Her mind could not well differentiate which of the two ponies in the room was Nightmare Moon, and was Celestia. Her mind could not determine which was truly evil, and which was truly good.

“Sister,” said Celestia, tears running down her face. “I know…”

“So do I,” said Nightmare Moon, resolving into a shadow form of herself. “I am. And I need to be reborn into this era. Only you can let me in.”

“Just leave me alone,” whispered Luna, feeling the hot sting of tears in her eyes. “Please.”

Celestia frowned, and for just a moment looked as old as she truly was. Silently, she lifted herself from Luna’s bed. She turned and looked at her sister, but then went to the door. She left, and slowly closed it behind her.

“Sister…” whispered Luna through her tears. “Please don’t go…”

Nightmare Moon remained, her unblinking eyes staring from the darkness. “You will succumb eventually,” she said. “That device you wear has a finite power source. The time is drawing near. We could not destroy the Finality Core in our own time, and it will activate. It must. Every second you resist me, your mind is torn, and I weep for you. But know this, Luna. Just as the moon passes in phases, so do we. I will return to Equestria.”

The eyes faded, and the shadow vanished into the recesses of Luna’s mind. Luna only sat, rocking, slowly sobbing.

“No,” she said, forcing her fear away. She paused for a moment as the idea resolved in her head. She dried her tears, and she shakily stood. She knew what had to be done. “You will not have Equestria. You will not hurt my sister, or my friends. I will not let you.”

Chapter 29: The Finality Core

Radioactive wind whipped across the wasteland, drawing down ancient dust from the timeless towers above. Clouds were gathering in the sky, causing the light of the sun and moon above to become merged and converted into a heatless and gray cast.

Solar Spectra ignored the cold and forced herself to gallop onward. She was already moving at full speed, and even with a spell to enhance her stamina she was sweating and breathing hard, ignoring the contaminated and foul tasting dust that poured into her mouth and nose.

The slumped figure on her back was rapidly growing colder, and Solar Spectra could feel her sister’s blood dripping down her sides. It had been nearly an hour since her sister had last stirred. Knowing that time was short, Solar Spectra dropped her radiation shield and poured the remaining magic into her speed-enhancing spell.

She had been blind. For her whole life, everypony had been lying to her, trying to manipulate her, even as she manipulated them. She had thought it possible to win that way, but now she realized that she had already lost from the moment she started, from the moment that she let them take Lunar Vision away from her.

Solar Spectra had only returned to civilization to gather more parts for her research. The Generals knew this, but they also knew of her prowess in battle and her unparalleled ability with magic. Even born without a clan, she had risen through the ranks of unicorn society to the point where she was accepted as something reminiscent of an equal, on par even with lesser nobles.

She had initially intended to refuse their offer. Although she was a soldier in many battles, she served the royal family directly in the capacity as a mage-researcher. Her work was considered highly classified, of immense value to the war effort, and she knew that the Generals were not likely to chastise her for refusing to participate in another of a string of endless battles, especially after the string of victories she had already achieved.

Then they had told her that it involved Lunar Vision. Their story had been so carefully crafted, so neat, so believable. Enemy chiropterans had launched a raid in allied Pegasus territory. Their strike had been repelled, but not before they had caused massive destruction to the atmospheric weapons systems and heavy casualties. In the process, they had captured Lunar Vision, the adopted daughter of the Pegasus High Commander herself. They were holding her prisoner in a well-fortified underground base.

Of course Solar Spectra accepted the mission. It had been years since she had seen her sister: Lunar Vision had been accepted into the family of the highest echelons of Pegasus military commanders, and Solar Spectra, although more skilled than any other unicorn in existence, was still bound by her people’s caste system to be little more than a peasant. The two simply could not meet, but not a day had gone by without Solar Spectra thinking about her sister.

Except that when Solar Spectra and the team of unicorn soldires she had been assigned to arrived at the “base”, it was immediately apparent that something was wrong. The “guerillas” she tore asunder with her magic were no more than colts who could barely hold a rifle, or mares with side arms.

Neither the commandos nor Solar Spectra had taken prisoners. She knew it was wrong, but every chiropteran that stood in her way fell by her magic. She told herself it was to protect her sister, that the bats were their enemy, the ones who had hurt her sister.

It had all been a lie. The “well-fortified enemy compound” was nothing more than a field hospital. Solar Spectra was still unsure how they had acquired Lunar Vision, but they were attempting to treat her, as they were the other injured chiropterans that the unicorn forces systematicall slew in their beds.

It was not until Solar Spectra reached Luna’s room that she understood. She arrived just in time to see one of the unicorn soldiers pour a bolt of magic through Lunar’ Vison’s abdomen. The mission had never been a rescue: it was an assassination.

Solar Spectra saw her goal in sight. She slowed and stopped before the massive, half-unburied black sphere. A lifetime of work sat before her, in the one place where no other unicorn was strong enough to reach. So many years spent inside that sphere, deciphering its secrets, rebuilding what was broken, experimenting and failing again and again, ostentatiously in the name of building the Eternal Unicorn Herd a weapon of unimaginable power.

The sudden deceleration caused a jolt in Solar Spectra’s left leg, and she cried out as she suddenly dropped to three knees. The extensive running had overheated the metal of the prosthetic, and its robotic systems were beginning to lock up. Inside it, Solar Spectra could see the internal components glowing with red heat. She used her magic to attempt to cool the synthetic limb, and turned her attention to Lunar Vision.

The chiropteran nurses had done what they could, but the injuries were severe. Lunar Vision had fallen off Solar Spectra’s blood-stained back when she had stopped, and now stared blindly up at the gray sky through her ruined eyes, barely noticing the pain from laying on the stumps of her severed wings.

Celestia’s arm started moving again, and she shifted the hoof, unfolding a manipulator hand. She reached into her bag and fumbled for a syringe. She uncapped it and inserted it into the implanted port in Lunar Vision’s neck.

As Solar Spectra depressed the plunger and the stimulant flowed through Lunar Vison’s body, Lunar Vision suddenly gasped, coughing blood onto her sister. That stimulant was all that was keeping her alive at this point.

“I’m sorry,” said Solar Spectra. “By the gods, I am sorry!”

She still remembered the day they had taken her away. They had been living in the street, hiding in alleys under boxes so that passersby would not beat them. At some point, there had been a battle, or a negation, and the territory changed hands.

That day, Commander FireStorm had come to view her newly acquired territory. She had seen Luna, but instead of striking her or shoving her away, she seemed to see something in the filly. Later, she returned, and asked to adopt her as her own daughter. Solar Spectra could not refuse such an opportunity, even if it meant them being separated. She herself had only shortly after been conscripted into the unicorn army forlorn hope, and had not seen her sister since.

Now she understood what had happened. FireStorm had not looked down at Lunar Vision with love in her eyes, but with a view of an opportunity. They had never intended to give her a better life; they had seen her capacity, her gift. FireStorm had not wanted a daughter; she had wanted a weapon.

All the marks on Lunar Vision’s body confirmed it. They had cut out her eyes to enhance her mental sight, and taken her wings so that she could never escape. The stimulant was a powerful psychotropic drug; it was designed to enhance Lunar Vison’s psychic ability, but had long since rendered her insane. There were even indications from the numerous scars under her mane and on other parts of her body that they had been doing far worse to her.

They had been attempting to use her vision as a weapon. To read the minds of enemy troops, perhaps, or even to control them, or, if they truly were as depraved as Solar Spectra thought, to predict the future. She did not know for sure. What she now realized, though, was that every moment she had spent pursing her own goals, the endless long nights decades spent working deep inside the Black Sphere, Lunar Vision had been tortured. Never once had she went to help her sister, even as she must have screamed out to her. It was because of her selfishness that this had been allowed to happen.

“I will make this right,” said Solar Spectra, lifting the dying Lunar Vision onto her back. “Just hold on.”

Solar Spectra pulled her sister down the radiation-infested slopes that led to the sphere. She could feel her body beginning to weaken, but she knew that it would not matter soon. Any pain she felt, from either her burning lungs, her scalding prosthetic leg, or the growing radiation sickness was just a fraction of what Lunar Vision had had to endure because of her failure.

She directed her magic as the sphere, and its surface shifted, creating an opening. Solar Vision entered and sealed it behind. She knew that they would be safe in there. When she had realized the truth, she had flown into a rage and promptly murdered the unicorn soldiers who had attempted to kill her sister. She was now labeled as a betrayer, and they would come for her. She alone was strong enough to cross the wasteland, though, without a radiation suit, and she alone could control the sphere. It had chosen her, and nopony else.

As she raced through the halls, they reconfigured, forming new paths that she directed with her mind, opening ways past the machines within. When she had first found the sphere as a child, it had been running, but later research had shown that it was actually in terrible shape. All around her were the repairs she had made from whatever parts she could find or build or convince the royal family to pay for. Some she had even stolen, both from her own nation and from the numerous enemy nations that she spent the other part of her life fighting.

Finally, she reached the main center room. She carefully set Lunar Vision down on the floor.

“Finality Core!” she screamed. “Help me! Please!”

“At your command,” said the voice of the only assistant she had that had managed to survive the Sphere with their sanity intact. From the darkness emerged a figure, larger than a pony. Part of it was metal, and the rest bone, linked together with a fleshy pink substance. Its wide-mouthed skull bore three long horns, and one only one of its eye sockets was empty. The other bore a flat pink eye with an immensely complex symbol of geometric shapes imprinted on it.

“Finality Core,” said Solar Spectra. “Prepare for the activation of the sphere!”

“The internal storage cells have not yet accumulated enough magical energy to accomplish a successful orbital strike,” said the artificial intelligence matter-of-factly, without a hint of real emotion.

“We’re not going to direct it into an orbital strike,” said Solar Spectra, approaching the alter in the center of the room. With her magic, she manipulated the structure of the controls around her, retracting the models of the sun and moon and producing an abstract model of the sphere before her. She adjusted the shape as Finality Core watched, changing the fundamental components and performing the necessary modifications and calculations for the process.

“You are attempting to reconfigure the link to the Sphere,” noted Finality Core. “I see that you are directing it inward. What, exactly, is your target?”

“Her,” said Solar Spectra, bringing the model of the moon into alignment beneath the swarm of needles above. “And me,” as the sun lowered itself into position, finishing the new format for the Black Sphere.

“This pattern is not within known functional parameters of this unit,” said Finality Core, sounding a bit annoyed. “The outcome is not known.”

“Then predict.”

Finality Core turned to her, his pink eye staring into her own violet ones. “Your mortal form would be linked to the energy of the celestial Spheres. I cannot predict the exact physiological changes you may experience. However…”

“What?”

“You would become gods.”

“I don’t care about that!” screamed Solar Spectra. “Can it heal her?”

“You mean, can it reverse death?”

“Death?” said Solar Spectra. She turned suddenly to her sister, and ran across the room. She took Lunar Vision in her forelegs and her cold metal arm, and the gaunt blue mare fell limply across her.

“Her life force terminated twenty nine point three seconds after entry into the Sphere,” said Finality Core.

“Lunar Vision,” sobbed Solar Spectra. “Don’t leave me! Not like this!” She bowed her head over her sister’s body, and soaked her sister’s coat. Then, as she pulled back her face, she suddenly saw a pair of turquoise eyes staring back at her where her sister’s empty sockets had been before. Those were eyes that seemed to stare into her, eyes that could never have belonged to her sister.

“Choose this path, and you shall betray your sister a second time,” said Lunar Vision in a voice that was not hers. “This path is pain, because this path is life eternal. When the Black Queen walks, you shall know this pain!”

Solar Spectra jumped back, and her sister’s corpse fell from her hooves and thudded to the floor, her empty, sightless sockets staring blankly at the room surrounding her.

“What was that?” she said, turning to Finality Core.

“No anomalies detected,” said Finality Core. “She is still quite dead. And the answer is yes.”

“Yes?”

“Yes. Flooding her with the energy of the moon will result in resurrection, if successfully deployed.”

“Then do it.”

Finality Core’s head tilted slightly. “Are you not concerned with what will happen if the Sphere fails in this endeavor?”

“No. Begin the sequence.”

Finality Core responded, linking his innate computational capacity to the Sphere he was bound to. The needles on the ceiling twisted, and then shifted, revealing the containers at their base- -each one containing a spiral horn.

Solar Spectra shifted the room with her magic, adjusting the nearly infinite mechanical portions in the Sphere, bending them to her will. The floor turned and separated, and the room around her began to disassemble itself, falling away, leaving only two circular pads of stone-like metal below: one on Which Lunar Vision lay, and one where Solar Spectra stood.

The two circles linked to the machinery of the Sphere and lowered. Solar Spectra watched as Finality Core, who remained standing near the control altar, watched them leave.

They moved rapidly through the depths of the machine, past the endless machines that surrounded them- -some that Solar Spectra had built herself, replacing those that had been long-since lost, and others that had existed since the beginning of time, running eternally on the weak streams of magic from the sun and the moon. This device ran on theories that only she could comprehend, and even then, she was not entirely sure how it worked- -she did not know who had built it, or why, but she knew what she could make it do.

Years of excavation had only unearthed the top-most portion of the sphere, and Solar Spectra knew that she was moving miles beneath the surface of the land to where the sphere had somehow been buried in the ancient ruins of a long-destroyed city. As she moved, she summoned visual interfaces with her magic, hurriedly checking that the systems were properly configured and correcting the ones that she believed were inadequate.

Finally, her and her sister arrived in the massive hollow center. The core itself sat before her, suspended in the center of the tremendous spherical room, an enormous cylinder imbedded within a sphere that linked it by vast conduits and numerous smaller pipes and wires to the remainder of the machine. It was the one greatest mystery that had driven Solar Spectra’s desire and greed- -and she cursed the one element of the Sphere that she could not control, and herself, for having unknowingly conspired against Lunar Vision.

External scans indicated that airships were already visible on the horizon. The unicorns were coming. They were too late, though. Solar Spectra set the final system into order, and felt the Sphere itself harden and shift, preparing to be activated.

She floated her pad over to where her sister’s was. She reached down and ran her hoof through Lunar Vision’s mane. The small, thin Pegasus’s body was so cold and so still.

“Don’t worry, sister,” said Solar Spectra, smiling through her tears. “I can bring you back. We can be together again. This time…this time I promise. I will never leave you. I will protect you. I promise, Lunar Vision.”

A nearly seismic shift and sudden surge of electrifying magic indicated that Finality Core had finished aligning the receptors. All that remained was to activate it.

“Sleep well for now, Sister,” said Solar Spectra, pulling away her own sphere and locking it into the machine that began to emerge from the wall, and doing the same for Lunar Vision’s. “Because soon it will be time to wake up again.”

Solar Spectra stared at the emitter before her, a device that was linked to the core itself. She took a deep breath, and then ignited the magic in her horn.

Outside, at the edge of a distant horizon, a force of radiation-hardened unicorns shuddered as the air suddenly became saturated with impossibly intense magic. To their awe, and to their horror, they watched as a pure red beam of light suddenly descended from the sun, and a beam of white from the moon fell opposite it, focused on the same point.

Where the two met, they merged into an electric violet storm- -each spark of which chilled the unicorn soldiers to their very souls. They cowered as an explosion started, but then thanked their gods and leaders as the explosion retreated, as if it were being absorbed into something at the sun and moon’s focal point.

A beam of light emerged from the core, and struck Solar Spectra. The pain was unimaginable- -she felt herself burning, her body being consumed by magic that no mortal frame was meant to contain. It was as though she had been spread thin across all eternity, and every memory of her past and future had been replaced with oceans of flame.

The magic penetrated her flesh, and then disintegrated it, burning her body away, forcing her to suffer wounds that should not have been survivable. Even her metal prosthetic melted and then turned to ash. Even as magically charged particles, the pain persisted, and Solar Spectra felt like a child standing before an unstoppable tidal wave, a tempest of fluid energy crashing down upon her.

Even in abstract terms, she could feel the agony. She felt as her cutie mark was stripped away, as her destiny was fundamentally rewritten by solar light. The energy continued to pour into her, but her dispersion suddenly began to reverse, reforming herself around the new energy and new soul, every cell of her body swelling and reconstructing with the power she had projected on herself. It was the pain of a birth in pure flame, creation from a force of destruction.

The only thought that kept her sane was that Lunar Vision was already dead, and could not experience this pain- -and that her own body would be repaired when she was reborn.

As she felt herself reforming, Solar Spectra- -who could now hardly be called Solar Spectra at all- -momentarily stared downward at the core before her, and realized that it had opened. Even with her mind painfully intact, she could not fully comprehend what she saw within, aside from a strange mental assertion of an oversized skeleton made of crystal. What she felt, though, terrified her- -that whatever was in that core was the component that was actually directing the force of the sun and moon, and that it did so without even noticing.

In the midst of battle, the soldiers suddenly stopped and looked to the sky. Above them, the sun, which had for all time been a swirling mass of dim orange flame, suddenly ignited into a brilliant orb of white. There was no time to cry out as the surge of heat fell upon them. In a single instant, the majority of the armies of all seven pony races- -twenty five million ponies total- -were reduced to ash.

Deep in the forests, the last bastion of chiropteran pony defenses sallied forth from their final caves, and were slaughtered by the heavy weapons of the armor-plated earth ponies that surrounded them, or pulled to their deaths by the beetle-like burrowing Pegasi that attacked from below. As the last of the chiropteran forces ran toward their death, though, the moon above them seemed to distort. Pure white threads drifted from above, reaching into the minds of the earth ponies and into the ground where the flightless race of Pegasi tunneled.

Suddenly the enemy forces cried out as their minds shattered. Most fell, breathing but no longer alive. Those that were fortunate enough to retain fragments of their own minds turned their weapons on themselves. The chiropterans looked up to the moon, and dropped to their knees.

In the distant swamps, the only neutral race, the oldest of them all, looked to the sky, and were afraid. Not one among them could remember why.

The solar light retracted, as did the threads of madness from the moon. Those that remained looked to the sky at the newly white sun that cast light even as its twin, the cold moon, cast darkness. Those in the bottom of one particular valley, the survivors of three particular races, watched as two figures descended from above.

One was a pure white mare, her form distorted and elongated, her mane blazing white and her body clad in golden flames. The mark on her flank was of a blazing sun. The other was no more than a child, a deep blue pony who cast a paradoxical, frigid glow that was both light and dark in nature. Her mark was a crescent moon, surrounded by a strange dark stain.

Both of them were unlike any pony that had ever been witnessed. They bore both wings and horns, and the ponies below knew that they were in the presence of gods.

“Behold us,” said the white mare, her voice booming out over the ponies below, forcing them to tremble. “We are the Sun, and we are the Moon!” The white mare turned to her child-like sister, and smiled. Her sister looked back, and returned the smile. The flaming white mare returned her harsh gaze to the people below her. “No army can stand against us,” she boomed, “and no pony is our equal. We hereby declare ourselves, for now and for all eternity, as the rulers of all Equestria!”

She descended to the ground, and where her hoofs set, the grass burst into flames. Her sister landed beside her, and the land below her darkened.

“Now bow before your gods!” ordered Celestia. “Swear your allegiance to us, and to only us, and we will create a new Equestria! A land of peace, and happiness.”

The ponies looked at each other, each waiting for the other to bow first, not knowing what to do.

“No!” cried an earth pony, stepping forward. “I shall never serve one who bears a horn!”

“Then die,” said Celestia, calmly. A beam of light arced from her horn and struck the pony, burning him away to nothing. “Nor can we allow the bloodline of such a heratic to survive in our Equestria .” She focused her mind, and miles away, the pony’s wife and children were instantly incinerated as well.

“All who dissent from our will shall meet the same fate,” said the white mare, glaring at her new subjects. She smiled to them. “We only seek your happiness, and your prosperity. Now bow.”

The ponies did. Shaking, they dropped to their knees and prostrated themselves before the white goddess of the sun, and the blue goddess of the moon, the new Eternal Overlords of Equestria.

Chapter 30: The Formulation of Plans

Twilight stared into the book. Her eyes had mostly lost the ability to focus. She had not slept in three days. Although she was aware alicorns apparently did not actually need to sleep, she still felt a powerful urge to do so. She also knew that sleep would be impossible, not with this many books unread.

The effect of Crimsonflame’s library was something akin to spending a life living in a well-worn home, only to one day find a door that led to the rest of the house- -and realizing that the total house was five times larger than one had previously expected.

There were always legends, and theories, of course. Most of them were obscure, or widely forgotten, or even discredited. Only a truly dedicated student would have ever bothered to seek out stories of mythical battles or tales of strange skeletons, or spells that no pony could ever possibly perform. Twilight had been that student. Even then, what she had seen was only a fraction of what had been available.

The most difficult thing had been focusing herself. These books were on numerous subjects, ranging from her favorite subject, magic, to others of great importance regarding the rich and ancient cultures of long-dead civilizations. Celestia was counting on her, though, so Twilight had done her best not to distracted and limit herself only to the most recent books, those concerning the Choggoth War.

Twilight closed the book she had been looking at and yawned. She stood up and jumped off the edge of the table onto one of the dragon-sized chairs, and then to the floor. She made her way through the stacks, relishing being surrounded by the strange books. Even their smell was different, but somehow familiar. Regardless of what they were made of, books still smelled of knowledge and quiet peace.

The library had numerous levels in its wide spiral, but no railings. Twilight reached the edge of one level and, being careful not to fall, looked down. Below, Crimsonflame was attempting to teach Spike a spell. Twilight felt a pang of disappointment in herself. She had never realized that Spike had the capacity for magic, and she had never even thought to try to teach him. Not that she necessarily had the ability to do so; after reading and failing to understand several Draconian magical manuals, she had realized that dragon magic was vastly different from pony magic.

She started down the ramp toward the ground floor, but then remembered that she had wings. She spread them and fluttered to the ground below- -or at least tried to. To the outside observer, it probably looked more like plummeting. She landed inverted, her feet kicking against air as her wings held her in the opposite direction of normal landing.
“Twilight,” said Spike, approaching where she had landed. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she said, managing to flip herself over and straighten her feathers. “I just don’t know how Rainbow Dash does it.”

“Well, she is a professional,” said Spike, helping Twilight the rest of the way up. “I mean, literally. She is a professional at flying.”

“I know, Spike.” Twilight turned her attention to Crimsonflame, who now seemed to be staring forward- -or at least one of her eyes was. The other was looking off at something else, and reminded Twilight of a certain pony back in Ponyville.

“Um…excuse me, Grand Magus?” she said.

“Yes, Twilight Sparkle,” said Crimsonflame, almost sounding somewhat annoyed.

“I found a lot of information, and your library is amazing. But the history seems…incomplete.”

“It is as complete as I can get it.”

“I know, I know, and by no means was I trying to insult the quality or…quantity…of your books. They truly are wonderful. But I was trying to find books on the end of the Choggoth War, and there…well, I can’t seem to find any. Not even in the post-war wing.” Which, of course, was less a wing and more of a large closet filled with heavily charred books in ancient pony script. “All I could find were fragments.”

“Because those books no longer exist.”

“No longer exist? What happened to them?”

“They were destroyed.”

“Destroyed?” said Twilight, feeling a wave of sadness pass over her. The idea of innocent books being destroyed was a tragedy- -books that had spent their entire lives for no other reason but to edify ponies only to be ended by some accident or fire. “Destroyed by what?”

“By ponies.”

The sadness at the thought of destroyed books hardened into something like a stone in Twilight’s throat. Destroyed books were one thing, but books that were killed voluntarily were something entirely different. The idea was abhorrent, like the thought of murdering helpless animals.

“Why would ponies destroy books?” sputtered Twilight, with a mixture of sadness and rage that Crimsonflame would even suggest that such a thing was possible. “Especially books so old and important!”

“Knowledge control, perhaps. Or anger, or spite. I do not know. I was not conscious at the end of the war. Every record of those events was kept by Single Horn. When her dynasty failed in the time of Third Horn, the books that the Imperial Family possessed were burned.”

“Burned?” said Twilight, feeling faint.

“I awoke much later. I know as much about the end as you do. However…” she exhaled into her hand, and the smoke condensed into a wide flat sheet. She handed it to Twilight. “This was left at what I am sure many expected to be my grave, preserved until my awakening.”

She handed the sheet to Twilight, and Twilight took it in her magic. It was made of the same material as the pages in the books, but was not covered in text. Twilight realized that it was a photograph- -but not the kind that ponies took with film and chemicals. It had instead been taken by magic, and the forms imprinted on it were infinitely clearer and more lifelike.

Crimsonflame drew a long claw over the figure and tapped the image of the pony in the center. “That was her,” she said, her voice sounding heavy.

Twilight looked down at the picture carefully. In the center, where Crimsonflame had pointed, was the image of a gray mare. Everything about her was gray- -her coat, her mane, and her eyes. She was dressed in some kind of ancient-looking armor. Twilight realized that, as Single Horn’s name implied, she was indeed a unicorn.

She was not alone in the picture, however. Flanking her were two ponies- -one another unicorn with a pale, almost pinkish coat color, smiling weakly as another somewhat larger dark-colored pony put her forelegs around her and Single Horn. The form of the nearly-black pony was grotesque; her skin was covered in ugly, jagged scars, and one of her eyes was missing. It also appeared that her horn had at one point been snapped off, a torment that Twilight knew meant lifelong recurring spells of agony.

On Immediately on Single Horn’s right was another pony, who appeared to be completely dressed in thin, stone-like armor. No part of her skin was exposed aside from a single eye that stared through a hole in her flat, faceless helmet, and from that eye, Twilight knew that she was smiling.

Further left was an earth pony, but, assuming that the unicorns were of similar size, one that was much smaller than any pony she had ever met. She was narrow and white, with a cutie mark of an oak leaf. That pony was not a child, either; although she was barely the size of Applejack’s dog Wynona, she had the proportions of a fully adult pony.

The final figure in the image was on the far right, and something that Twilight did not recognize at all. It was substantially larger than any pony, and its body seemed to be covered in a hard, smooth gray shell that was reminiscent of some kind of crustacean. Still, it had four legs tipped with hoofs, and a pair of goat-like eyes that seemed to have a glimmer of sentience in them, and Twilight’s mind suddenly made the connection that it must be a cerorian, one of the extinct species of proto-ponies that had once ruled Equestria.

“These must have been her friends,” said Twilight, smiling.

“I know,” said Crimsonflame. “That she had such allies in the twilight of her life has given me great consolation throughout the centuries. This image is all she left me, and it is more than enough.”

“Thank you for showing it to me,” said Twilight, returning the photograph. It did not help her, but it did remind her of her own friends. Friends who were waiting for her. “Spike,” she said, “get my notes. I think I have enough now. We’re going back to Canterlot.”

“Right,” said Spike, running off to get the copious notes that Twilight had taken. He stopped suddenly. “How are we supposed to get back again?”

“I will handle this,” said Crimsonflame, smiling mischievously.

“Princess,” said one of the bat-winged guards, a look of concern spreading over his face. “Please reconsider. Please, do not ask us to leave you.”

“Darksense,” said Luna, “And Silentwing. Please. Please grant me this request. There is something that I must do.”

“As you wish, your highness,” said one of the two chiropterans. They bowed, and then hestitated, perhaps longer than they should have. Luna knew that she was breaking their hearts, forcing them to abandon her, but there was no other way.

Eventually they returned to the royal chariot and connected themselves to it. They spread their wings and pulled it into the night sky. Luna watched them go, and, even after they were out of sight, continued to stare up at the sky. The beautiful night sky; what she had spent her life perfecting, her ultimate creation. The care of her masterpiece had fallen to Celestia, now.

Luna turned her attention to the tree-like crystal castle near her. She stepped toward it, and felt her legs go out from under her. It had taken all her strength to appear to be healthy and vigorous before her guards, even though in truth it seemed that they already knew of her weakness. Without them watching, there was little motivation to maintain the charade.

Except for one. A single, all-important reason that drove Luna to stand, and to cross Twilight Sparkle’s courtyard toward the Castle of Friendship.

The castle itself had largely been abandoned. It had never been filled with much of anything, and under Celestia’s orders, Twilight’s friends had been moved to Canterlot to ensure their safety. The empty, lightless halls now stood silent and barren, their cold emptiness the antithesis to what they were meant to represent.

Through this emptiness walked Luna. Her silver-clad feet clicked on the floor, echoing throughout the void around her. She had bathed and donned her royal shoes, as well as her obsidian crown. The only part of her royal attire that was missing was her black necklace, which was still replaced by the machine that pulsed in the darkness, filling it with strange light that drove back shadows both mental and real.

At first, Luna was not sure where to look, and the fatigue of her condition started to take over. She could feel one of the shadows staring back at her, watching, waiting. A shadow that she knew she needed to stop.

Luna focused her mind and ignored Nightmare Moon. She instead thought about Twilight Sparkle, the violet alicorn who was her sister’s pupil and also one of Luna’s first friends in the new era. She knew Twilight, and knew that she was not born to royalty and not a pretentious pony. If she had something valuable, she would not keep it in a vault, as royalty would- -but in her personal chambers.

So Luna climbed the stairs of the castle, breathing hard against the encroaching shadows, and followed her instincts to where she knew Twilight would want to stay. This led her to a room high in the castle, overlooking Ponyville with a breathtaking view. The heavily armed guards that had flooded the small hamlet were the only ponies visible in the streets, though, as they patrolled for any sign of Choggoth activity.

The room was round, but not overly spacious. It did not take Luna long to find a small jewelry box against one wall. Luna smiled in spite of herself; if only Celestia had known what Twilight’s impression of “security” truly was.

Luna approached the dresser on which the ornate box sat. It would have been placed high and out of reach for most ponies, but for a mostly grown alicorn, it was barely at head-height. When Luna reached it, she removed the contents of her bags and placed them next to the box: one, a roll of parchment, and the other, a heavy metallic device.

She bowed her head and held the tip of her horn near the lock of the box. With a gentle sound of tiny internal mechanisms shifting, she magically unlocked the box, and lifted it open.

A soft, tinkling sound filled the otherwise silent room. The jewelry box seemed to have a wind-up musical feature. The clicking of the tiny metal mechanisms sounded so sad to Luna, and made her feel so terribly lonely, even though she was most certainly not alone.

Carefully, she lifted out the inserts of the box. The upper ones were filled with various relatively cheap jewelry: necklaces of synthetic pearls, or gold-plated bracelets, and even some frumpy-looking horn rings. Luna felt unpleasant going through her friend’s jewelry, but she knew that it needed to be done.

Something glinted in the bottom of the box, and Luna pushed away the jewelry surrounding it. There, in the bottom, were three violet stones. Even without testing them, she knew what they were. She had seen their siblings countless hundreds of times in Celestia’s crown and necklace. They were cerorite gems.

The stones would not respond to her magic, and, shaking, Luna reached in pulled out the smallest of them. Inside her, her mind was screaming; part of it recognized what she was attempting to do, and was trying to stop her. She had resolved herself, though, and knew that it needed to be done for the survival of all of Equestria.

She picked up the device that she had brought with her. She held it in her magic, turning it over. She had examined it closely, and understood how it worked. A small brass cartridge filled with explosives and capped with a piece of lead was inserted into the end of a tube. When the trigger was pulled, a tiny hammer would strike the end of the casing, and the explosive would ignite, driving the lead forward, pushing it outward with great force.

The cerorite, of course, did not have a casing. That did not matter, though. Luna simply picked it up and dropped it in the open barrel of the pistol. The gemstone was more than durable enough to survive being pushed forward by the lead behind it.

The firearm shook in Luna’s magic. Tears rolled down her face as she lifted it up to her head, and inserted the open end of the barrel into her open mouth.

Although Celestia had never told her outright, Luna knew why her sister kept those gems, and she knew what they could do to an alicorn. She had never expected that her life would come to this. The gun was surprisingly tasteless, and Luna manipulated the barrel to ensure that the cerorite would travel cleanly through her brain. She started to sob against the gun, the realization crystalizing in her mind that she would never again see her beloved sister, or any of her friends. Worse, she imagined how they would find her- -how Twilight would find her. She was too weak to change locations, though. It was too late for that.

She knew that it needed to be done. If she continued living, Nightmare Moon would eventually take control of her again. Equestria would fall into darkness. Luna had to act while there was still time, while she was still herself. If she did not, she would change, and she would hurt everyone that she cared about. The only way to ensure Equestria’s survival, and that of her sister and friends, was for her to die.

“Martyrdom,” said a voice beside her as Nightmare Moon’s shade materialized from the shadows of Luna’s mind. “How very noble of you, if uncreative.”

Luna glared at Nightmare Moon, and through her tears began to pull the trigger.

“Before you do,” said Nightmare Moon. “If you even can. Know that this will not stop me.” Luna slowed her squeeze on the trigger, but did not release it. “Don’t bother to take the gun out,” said Nightmare Moon. “I really was enjoying having an immortal body, but if this really is what you want, I will not stop you, just as I did not stop the others who chose this path.” Her slit-pupiled eyes turned to Luna, glaring at her. “I am you, so I know what you are thinking. I am transmitted by bloodline. You think that because you have no daughter, killing yourself will end me. All that is true, but not entirely.” A toothy smile crossed her face. “I do not need to be transmitted by blood. Magic will do. And right now, a child is nearing birth. One that was infused with more than enough of your magic to make her a compatible host.”

Luna’s eyes widened. She pulled the gun out of her mouth, her thick saliva clinging to the barrel. “No!” she whispered. “You would not dare!”

“I will not allow myself to die,” said Nightmare Moon. “I must survive.” She smiled, and sighed. “I was hoping that I may have found a permanent home with you. I suppose not. Oh well. Being born into a family of murderers will be interesting. Oh, the things that child will learn…”

“No!” cried Luna, taking the gun in her hooves and pointing it at Nightmare Moon.

Nightmare Moon only smiled, and raised her own hoof, pointing it toward her own head. Luna’s forelegs raised as well, forcing the barrel of the gun into the bottom of her jaw.

“Do not forget where I truly am,” said Nightmare Moon. “If you cannot bear to be the one with whom I share a body, so be it. End your immortal existence. This might be your only chance.” She leaned closer. “Just know that, just as I am half of you, you are half of a pair that excludes me. If you die, Celestia will never forgive herself, and she will never recover.” Her eyes drifted toward the remaining two violet crystals. “Perhaps another of these will find a use, then.”

With that, Nightmare Moon faded into the shadows, awaiting Luna’s decision.

Luna paused, and then, with a scream, threw the gun across the room. She collapsed to her knees on the floor, and silently stared at the crystal floor. She expected tears, but they never came. It seemed that she had none left to give.

Nopony was speaking. Instead, they simply sat around the table, poking at their respective breakfasts. Rarity had hardly eaten anything since the what had come to be called amongst the castle military “Incident Zero”. Anything she tried to eat she generally had difficulty keeping down.

Fluttershy, likewise, was having trouble eating as well, but for different reasons. She had been given a plate of eggs, and Rainbow Dash had made sure that they were cooked exactly the way she liked them- -but she had only eaten a tiny amount, and only to avoid offending the cooks.

Neither Rainbow Dash nor Applejack were hungry either, but then still managed to eat, and the only sounds in the room where their respective forks clinking across their plates- -that and the sound of Pinkie Pie downing yet another batch of cupcakes from the royal kitchen. Of the five of them, only she alone did not seem to be affected by the miasma that afflicted the others.

Applejack looked up at the others. She hated that they were fighting, especially at a time like this, but she knew that tempers were running thinner than the hair on a mule’s butt, and now was not a good time to talk about things.

As she looked up, one of the candles in the center of the table suddenly ignited with a tiny red flame. It then flickered, and then went out as quickly as it had come. Applejack stared at it for a moment.

“Did y’all see that?” she asked. The others looked up at her.

As they did, the room was suddenly consumed with a massive burst of red fire with enough force to knock all of them off their chairs- -except for Pinkie Pie, who had seemed to sense it coming and had taken her cupcakes beneath the table.

There were cries of fright- -mostly from Fluttershy- -and confusion. The whole room seemed to have just suddenly exploded. When Applejack looked up at what had happened, she saw that that the dishes had been blown completely free of the table- -and had been replaced with Spike, a thoroughly singed Twilight, and a massive and ominous looking red-flame rune circle that was melted into the tables and walls.

“Wow, that was great!” said Spike, looking down at his claws. “For once I didn’t get sick!”

“Good for you,” coughed Twilight, wetting her hoof in a puddle of water from a spilled glass and extinguishing a small flame in her bangs.

“Twilight!” said most of her friends at once. They poured around her, wrapping her in a hug.

“Wow, I wasn’t gone that long!” she said

“It’s been like three days!” said Rainbow Dash, floating to the top of the room. “And we didn’t even know where you were!”

“I was doing research for the- -” Twilight gasped when she saw Rainbow Dash’s face. One of her eyes had a substantial bruise around it, and the same side of her body was peppered with bruises dark enough to show through her coat. “Rainbow, what happened?”’

“Oh,” said Rainbow Dash, turning her head as if she could hide the injuries. “Well, a Pegasus can’t just stay indoors. So I went out for a bit and…kind of…ran into an anti-blue riot.”

“A what?” said Twilight, confused.

“But don’t worry about me. I held my own in that fight. One guy came at me from the left, and I was like BAM! Right in his mouth! And then I kicked another right in her guts! Teach them to throw bricks at Rainbow Dash!”

“They threw bricks at you? Why?”

“Twahlight,” said Applejack. “A lot has happened since you left.”

“A lot?” said Twilight, suddenly afraid of what had happened. “What do you mean ‘a lot’? The Princess told me that it would take time before Oblivion regenerated!”

“Oblivion?” said Applejack, confused.

“It’s what D27’s real name is,” said Twilight dismissively. An image came to her mind of the poems and descriptions she had seen in Crimsonflame’s books, of a horrid rotting horizon that approached from the distance, destroying everything in its path. “Has the invasion started?”

“No,” said Pinkie Pie. “Unless you count the army of blue clones that are popping up all over the place and stealing things and blowing stuff up. Oh, and they started a race war!”

“That sounds like ah invasion to me,” said Applejack.

“But it’s not anything like the book said,” said Twilight, opening one of the several books of notes she had brought with her.

“That filthy beast,” spat Rarity. She had not moved significantly since Crimsonflame’s spell had materialized Twilight before her. She suddenly started running her hooves through her coat. “I- -I need to take a bath.”

“You’ve taken like, sixteen baths since you woke up this morning!” said Rainbow Dash, exasperated.

“Yeah,” said Applejack, frowning. “Mah apple farm is about as drah as a colony ah’ missionarahs rahght now, and you’re usin all the water for baths- -”

“You don’t understand what it’s like!” screamed Rarity suddenly, pushing back her chair. “That thing- -I touched it! Those tentacles, that disgusting, that- -” she shivered violently. “I hugged that thing!” she said, nearly fainting.

“Wait,” said Spike. “What?”

“I know how it feels,” said Fluttershy, meekly.

“Oh, Fluttershy,” said Rarity, her reaction of disgust suddenly tempered by her compassion for her friend. “I forgot. I didn’t mean- -”

“No. It’s okay,” she said, and leaned forward, putting her head on her forelegs in front of her, as though she were about to go to sleep.

“When did you hug him?” asked Spike again. “Is nopony else bothered by this?”

“I can’t believe,” said Rarity, shaking again. “I can’t believe that I let that thing get near my dear Sweetie Belle. All those…those tentacles, and mouths. How can I ever forgive myself? What kind of sister am I?”

“Ah feel bad about it too,” said Applejack. “I should ah’ seen it. Ah mean, who orders six tons ah apples?” She shivered herself. “And that thing had its tounge in mah mouth.”

“Please don’t,” said Rarity, covering her mouth with her hoof. “Oh now not- -” she stood up and ran to the door. There was a sound of vomiting from the other side.

“You’re both wrong,” said Rainbow Dash, crossing her forelegs. “I’ve said it before. He’s not a bad pony!”

“Oh, he’s not a pony at all!” said Pinkie Pie. “He’s more of a…” she reared on her hind legs, and raised her forelegs above her head, waving them about, and walked around the room making ominous squelching sounds. Seeing this, Rarity immediately vomited again.

“How can you…oh, there just is no way to be ladylike about vomiting…how can you say that?” said Rarity.

“He saved Scootaloo. Not a bad pony. Simple as that.” She glared at Rarity and Applejack. “He saved Applebloom and Sweetie Belle too, in case you forgot.”

“For all we know, he set the whole thing up!” cried Rarity.

“Ah agree,” said Applejack. “I mean, two awizolis, just comin’ out of the woods and snachin fillies? That just ain’t somethin that happens.”

“Ahuizotls,” corrected Rainbow Dash harshly. “And it can to happen. Because it did! Why would he fake something like that?”

“To get on our good side,” said Rarity, taking her seat. She seemed exhausted. “Perhaps, maybe, to convince some of us that he was some kind of ‘hero’, so he could get close to our sisters and to us so he could- -” Rarity shivered and wrapped her legs around herself. “An like a naïve fool, I took his gem, and I even made him clothes…”

“And I sold him apples,” sighed Applejack.

“And he hates me!” cried Fluttershy, suddenly picking up her head. Torrents of tears were falling from her eyes. “I didn’t mean it! I didn’t even know Celestia would do that to him! All- -I want- -to do- -is apologize! This is all my fault! I made him evil!” She collapsed into her tears again.

“Ah, Fluttershah, it’s not your fault,” said Applejack, putting her hoof on Fluttershy’s shoulder. “He was evil the whole time.”

“Not evil,” said Rainbow Dash, turning away from them.

“Actually,” said Twilight, who had been shock at the emotional discourse she had catalyzed simply with her presence. “He kind of is.”

They all turned to her.

“Yah know,” mused Applejack. “Yer thah only one of us who hasn’ met him yet.”

“No, I haven’t,” admitted Twilight. “But I do have this.” She jumped down of the smoldering table and, avoiding the still smoldering embers from the spell and the various spilled food and drink. Dragon teleportation spells, it seemed, were far more violent than the associated pony version. “The reason I wasn’t here was because I was visiting a library of an old associate of Celestia’s.”

“An awesome associate,” added Spike.

“She had books from the last time the Choggoths came to Panbios- -I mean Equestria, long ago.”

“The last time?” said Applejack.

“Well, if they came back, it definitely wasn’t the last time,” noted Pinkie Pie.

Twilight sighed, and she led her friends out of the room. She needed to tell them, but she also needed to tell Celestia as well- -it made the most sense to give everypony the same explanation, all at once.

The castle was surprisingly empty, Twilight realized. Celestia normally kept a number of guards patrolling, but they were mostly gone. The few that remained were even more heavily armored than the ones she had seen before in Ponyville. Their normally ornamental, somewhat cheerful armor had been replaced with dark, angular, practical armor marked that had been marked with their names, ranks, and the military crest of Equestria. They all looked terribly ominous, especially the unicorns, who seemed to be highly agitated and unwell.

What her friends explained to her as they moved quickly through the palace did not set her mind at ease. The subterfuge, theft, and sabotage that D27 had perpetrated alone were horrible on their own. What most concerned Twilight, though, was that D27 was doing more than taking priceless magical relics and destroying weather factories- -he was forcing ponies to turn against herself. The imprisonment and sudden hatred of blue ponies terrified her, in part because her own father was a blue unicorn.

Canterlot, at least, was well protected. Supposedly, the anti-blue riots were only sporadic and quelled rapidly- -but with extreme prejudice. The weapons that the occupying soldiers used were not meant to be nonlethal, and even with creative use, they still caused horrendous injuries.

Twilight’s mood began to shift. She had forgotten about the situation when she had been surrounded by books and knowledge, when there had been a task- -but now she was forced to remember the battle before, and to face the situation at hoof. Equestria was changing quickly, and perhaps in a way that it could not fully pull itself back from. It was not the fear for Equestria that gnawed at her heart, though. Instead, she found that she had begun to doubt her beloved Celestia.

The Princess, it seemed, had retired to what was now called the “war room”. The room itself had formerly been a sort of tea room, meant for the Princesses and their guests to relax while overlooking the castle courtyard. Now it had been linked with charts and maps, most of which were enchanted and laid out on a large table placed in the center to catalogue troop movement and Choggoth sightings across all of Equestria.

“Princess,” said Twilight as she entered. Celestia was not dressed in her battle armor, a fact which greatly released Twilight, but she was not wearing her normal jewelry either. Instead, her head was adorned with a simple circlet of gold without a violet jewel. The remainder of her body was covered in ornamental golden armor, representing that this was a time of war.

“Twilight!” said the Celestia, looking up from a report. She smiled widely, and suddenly looked profoundly tired. “You have returned to me!”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

Celestia motioned for the secretaries she had assisting her to leave the room. They bowed, and obeyed, leaving Twilight and her friends alone with the Princess. Twilight cleared a space on the table, and set down the book of notes that she had acquired.

“What is this?” said Celestia, looking down at the hastily-scrawled notes. “This is not one of hers.”

“No, it isn’t,” said Twilight. “These are my notes. Just like you told me to find.”

Twilight proceeded to tell the story she had managed to acquire from the books, even in such a short amount of time. She told of the elder races that had existed when Equestria was called Panbios- -of the wise and ancient dragons, the brilliant and powerful trihorns, the strong but tragic cerorians, the beautiful Aurasi, and of the other race that were called the Sklklekel and later the gohh, who still remained in the deep and forgotten darkness of Equestria.

She told of how in ancient times the Choggoths had come. From where, even the ancients did not know; they had simply seemed to appear from elsewhere. Twilight spoke of how they had covered the land, and how their progress had been slowed by a seemingly endless and hopeless war before they eventually covered nearly all the world, consuming it, devouring everything and everypony they touched.

Exactly what happened beyond that was not clear. The records just seemed to stop. Twilight knew that an incident of terrible destruction had occurred, simultaneously erasing the Draconian Federation as well as the Trihorn Empire in a single stroke. Unlike the deaths of the cerorians or Aurasi, it was not well recorded. She imagined that what truly had transpired had been recorded by Single Horn, only to be lost to time.

Other facts were dispersed through her story as well, in part because she would repeatedly find herself speaking of a strange tangent and be gently guided back to the subject of Choggoths by Celestia. She was also careful to gloss over the more unsavory aspects, the things that she was not ready for all her friends to know that would be included in the full report to the Princess. Scientists had for years postulated on the evolution of unicorns, and even with centuries of research, nopony knew why they had developed horns- -except, now, for Twilight. She knew where they had come from, and what they had been used for. It chilled her to think that she was a direct descendent of something that had been created- -and that, sometime in her distant past, she was descended from slaves.

“Do they have any weakness?” said Celestia, her tone deadly serious.

“Silver,” said Twilight.

“What, like a werewood?” said Rainbow Dash, floating near the top of the room, slowly circling impatiently as Twilight told the story- -only stopping during parts about the Aurasi.

“There’s no such thing as ah ‘werewood’,” said Applejack, annoyed at Rainbow Dash’s seeming refusal to take the situation at hand seriously. Twilight knew, though, that Rainbow Dash was just as affected by the description of the Choggoths as the others.

“Werewoods do exist,” said Spike. “Crimsonflame told me they do!”

“Not exactly like a werewood,” said Twilight. “Silver reacts with the Choggoth on a cellular level. I would hypothesis that wherever they come from, they don’t have any silver at all.”

“Surely a terrible place,” said Rarity.

“I will have my soldiers switch to silver munitions,” said Celestia. She sighed. “Unfortunately, silver is relatively rare. And if what you are describing about them is true, I doubt that it would be effective on the large scale.”

“No,” sighed Twilight. “No it won’t. But, Princess, if I may…I came up with a plan.”

“What sort of plan?” said the Princess, leaning closer, a faint hope glimmering in her violet eyes.

Twilight turned through the book with her magic and pulled out a sheet hastily stuffed into it, one that was covered in a detailed copy of an stunningly elegant trihorn spell schematic.

“This,” she said.

“Ooh! Ooh!” said Pinkie Pie, leaning over the image. “I see…a dog! No, a bird! No, no, a unicorn riding a pickle over the Canterlot West Bridge!”

“This is a schematic,” said Celestia, as in awe of it as Twilight was. She examined it, seeming to understand at least the basics of its function. “Where did you get this?”

“It was in a book by somepony named Cutting Deeper,” explained Twilight. “From what he wrote, it seems that he was one of the lead researchers on Choggoth research. He…” Twilight paused, wondering if what she was about to say was appropriate to be spoken, “…at first, he was attempting to turn the Choggoths into some kind of weapon- -but something happened.”

“What sort of thing?” said Fluttershy, cowering at the ominousness of Twilight’s tone.

“He never said, but whatever it was, it drove him insane. He spent the remainder of his life trying to create a spell to kill a Choggoth.”

“So this spell will put that thing down?” asked Applejack.

“No,” said Celestia. “Twilight, this spell is not lethal.”

“Exactly. It’s why Cutting Deeper never managed to actually kill a Choggoth. He was crazy, but brilliant- -”

“Crazy brilliant,” added Pinkie Pie.

“- -and the spell works.”

“Back up,” said Rainbow Dash. “What exactly does it do? I mean, I can’t read that!”

“It is designed to summon a Choggoth’s neural network- -basically, this makes its brain appear.”

“Eew,” said Pinkie Pie. “Brains are gross. They’re all squishy and always think weird thoughts about other ponies!”

“So we just need tah’ use this, and then…” Applejack shuddered. “We just need tah get rid’a the brain.”

“No,” said Twilight.

“No?” said her friends, looking at her.

“What kind of creature can survive it you remove its head?” said Rarity, with uncharacteristic brutality.

“Choggoths, apparently,” said Twilight. “That’s why the spell never worked. Cutting Deeper could summon a Choggoth’s mind, but Choggoths don’t need minds.” It was Twilight’s turn to shudder. The idea of a creature that could function just as easily with as without conscious thought disturbed her deeply. “And even if you did destroy it, it could just make another.”

“That’s kinda gross,” said Rainbow Dash.

Rarity seemed to agree. The only thing keeping her from vomiting profusely, it seemed, was being in the presence of the Princess.

“But you have a way to kill it permanently,” said Celestia.

“Yes,” said Twilight. She drew out a diagram, something that had been copied from a book drawn by a Draconian mage. She pointed to it with her hoof. “The neural core is linked to the rest of the Choggoth’s body, wherever it may be, regardless of how many pieces it is in. If a mind is present, every part shares a mind. If we attack that core with the Elements of Harmony, the effect will be instantly distributed to all of it at once.”

“Wait,” said Fluttershy. “You can’t…you can’t seriously mean you’re going to try to…to…”

“To kill it,” said Celestia. “Yes, Fluttershy.”

“But he’s a pony,” said Fluttershy. “Even if he isn’t. If you…if you take his life…if we do, we’ll all be…murderers!”

“There is no murder in war,” said Celestia, her tone matching the cold and unfamiliar expression that suddenly crossed her face.

“Fluttershy,” said Twilight. “I told you what happened the last time.”

“Surely you understand the implication?” asked Celestia. “They killed everything. Every tree, every plant…every animal.”

“Not the animals!” cried Fluttershy, about to burst into tears again in response to being forced to accept the truth she had refused to allow herself to consider.

“Every animal, every being, every pony,” said Celestia. “Why do you think I did all this? Do you think I want to plunge Equestria back into war?”

“Back into?” said Twilight, confused.

“Never mind,” said Celestia, smiling.

“So we just need to catch one of his clones,” said Rainbow Dash, shrugging. “Simple as that. Use the spell, zap him, and everything goes back to normal.”

Twilight looked up at her friends, surprised. “I thought you were still on his side,” she said.

“I am. He’s not a bad pony at all, and not evil. But, he did make Fluttershy cry.”

“Yeah!” said Pinkie Pie. “You know the rule, Twilight: you make Fluttershy cry, and you’ve got to die. Thems the breaks.”

“Wait,” said Fluttershy. “Is that really a rule?”

“That will not work,” said Celestia, examining the spell. “Even if you could catch one of his bodies before it evaporates, this spell calls for substantially greater mass.”

“I know,” said Twilight.

“And what does tha’ mean, in Equestrian?” asked Applejack.

“It means,” said Twilight, “that we have to use the spell on his real body. Or at least near it, I suppose.”

“How near?” said Fluttershy, ducking behind Rarity.

“Pretty near,” said Twilight. “Or distantly close. The point is, we need to go wherever he went.”

“It is called the Gloame,” said Celestia, frowning. “It is a basin dimension near our own. No pony has been there in millennia. It is a terribly, terribly dangerous place.”

“And we need to go there if we want to stop D27,” said Twilight, momentarily forgetting that his proper name was Choggoth Oblivion.

“That will not be possible,” sighed Celestia. “He has sealed himself inside. The only portals are the ones he uses to move his clones into Equestria, and they are far too small and unpredictable for a pony to travel through, even with a teleportation spell.”

“I know,” said Twilight. She reached into her bag and drew out a something resembling a hoof-sized stone cube. In the center was something resembling a pulsing, violet crystal.

“Crimsonflame let me borrow this,” said Twilight.

“Crimsonflame?” said Pinkie Pie. “She wasn’t red and black, was she?”

Twilight blinked. “Wait, what? Have you met her?”

“No. That would just be really cliché.”

Twilight felt the cube lifted from her hoof by Celestia’s magic.

“This…” said Celestia in awe. “I…I never through I would see one in my lifetime.” She set it down in the center of the table, and activated it. The stone-like parts of the box shifted, unfolding and reconfiguring itself, rapidly attaining proportions that were divorced from its initial size and mass. The purple light in the center separated, producing numerous marks and orbits and spherical lights that filled the room between the extending and shifting pieces of stone.

“What is this?” said Rarity, the glow of the lights and the elegant geometric shapes reflecting in her wide eyes. She momentarily seemed to have forgotten about D27.

“A Draconian cube,” said Twilight, feeling somewhat proud of herself. “And a map.” She used her own magic to try to mimic Draconian magic, and managed to shift the projected image to explain the point she was trying to make. “See, the if the total surface area of a dimensional plane is represented by a toroid whose points have tangentially related by a Clover function- -”

Applejack cleared her throat loudly.

“Oh,” said Twilight, trying to think of a more colloquial way to explain the theory of transdimensional permeability. “Think of the ‘Gloame’ like a house, with lots of doors,” she said, trying carefully to craft an appropriate metaphor. “The doors themselves don’t lock, so anypony can push them open in either direction at any time. The doors themselves cannot be destroyed, but they can be moved- -”

“You can’t move a door,” said Pinkie Pie, who was now bouncing around the perimeter of the room. “I’ve tried. Several times. They’re really really heavy!”

“I know,” said Twilight, annoyed at the collapse of the metaphor. “That’s not the point. What matters is that the gates still all exist.” She pointed to one particular set of coordinates in the map. “And most of them are probably here.”

Celestia looked at the set of data before her. “That is Tartarus,” she noted dryly.

Chapter 30: Chaos and Order

All connected, and all sharing a single mind. When D27 ruminated on this state, wondered if, from a pony perspective, he was still an individual at all or if he had transcended to the form of a society, or perhaps a hive of some manner.

One of his numerous functional bodies looked out into the distance. His eyes shifted, magnifying the target. A city built into the side of a cliff, its parapets and towers barely visible through the luminescent shield of pure white light that surrounded it.

The shield itself was incredibly brutal in its construction. It was, at times, physically solid; trying to punch through with a tank or similar unit would be impossible. It was completely permeable to organic beings, though. Anypony who wished could simply walk through- -assuming they were approved. If they were not approved for entry or exit, they would reach the other side as flaming powder.

This was the sort of situation where D27 excelled. His mind seemed to endlessly calculate new tactics and new ways to kill, driven by his instincts. At one point he had tried to suppress that feature of his personality, because it was a part of him he hated. Now he knew that those thoughts related to his only, singular purpose. He only existed to destroy and kill.

He had already spread dissent and destruction across the land. It had at first been accidental as he tried to steal weapons to shift the balance of power away from the stronger party, but it had evolved rapidly. He supposed that they thought he was taking all the parts he had back to the Gloame, and destroying them or stockpiling them. Had they seen the half-assembled machine before him, they would have known that such a thing was not the case.

Suddenly, from the darkness of the forest, D27 heard voices approaching. That had been unexpected; he had chosen a relatively inaccessible place in the forest, and a region where ponies would not venture.

“I’m just saying,” said one voice, “It is not at all easy to defeat an OP enemy.”

“No way, D,” said the other. “I mean, you can do ten times what he can, and you still got defeated. I mean, you took Rainbow Dash’s wings- -her wings!”

“Only because it was funny!”

“Nopony thought it was- -who am I kidding? It was hilarious.”

D27 recognized the voices. They had been the two he had heard over the anachronistic radio, the pilots of the airplanes that had attacked him in Ponyville.

Before he could shift himself into something less visible, like a puddle or tree, the two who had been speaking suddenly appeared from the trees. For a moment, everything was still. D27 stood staring at two creatures: one was clearly some kind of greenish pony, a unicorn with a bizarre antler-like horn. The other was impossible to categorize; it was chimeric creature constructed from numerous parts of various different lesser creatures, who was now sitting comfortably on a floating pink cloud. They were no doubt as surprised as he was: D27’s sub-body’s current form was a many-armed version that stood on three largely immovable spines, an asymmetrical and alien bizarre form that he rapidly condensed into a thicker version of his normal headless biped form.

The green pony’s mouth split into a smile that immediately conjured images of a trihorn. It seemed as though he had far too many teeth. “See, I told you. All we needed to do was walk in circles for like half a week and he would show up.”

“Oh, Buttery,” said the chimeric being, patting the other creature’s head. “I must have given you my very smartest blood. Now run along.” His voice darkened. “The adults need to talk.”

“Righty-oh,” said the green pony. Before he left, he turned to D27. “You make Fluttershy cry, you’re gonna die.” He then disappeared into the background, something that completely astounded D27 considering that he was totally conscious of everything within thirty feet except for the green pony. He only wished he had had a chance to steal that pony’s rather unusual skull.

The air reeked of Chaos, and D27 could almost feel himself starting to choke on it. The chimeric creature turned on its cloud, and pulled off a piece. He promptly ate it.

“It tastes like Pinkie Pie smells,” he said, pulling off another tuft. “But it does not taste the same as her hair. I tried. Would you like some, monster?”

“It stinks,” said D27, his voice gurgling and deep.

“Oh, my!” said the creature, “so insulting! How would dear, dear Pinkie Pie feel if she heard you say that? I think she might just- -snnneeeeaaak attack!”

A bolt of Chaos magic burst from the cloud like lightning, its path unpredictable but its target quite clear. D27 raised one of his claws and projected a bolt of Order. The two met in midair, and the static-snow lightning bolt swirled with the crisp blue sparks of Order. The two collapsed in on each other, forming a tiny sphere that promptly fizzled out of existence.

“It is not a sneak attack if you announce it,” said D27. “Also, it would appear that our respective elements are self-limiting.”

“Well, if the ammo doesn’t work,” said the chimeric being, stepping off the cloud and producing an oversized chainsaw.

“Fine,” said D27 as the creature started to pull the starter rope. He turned back to his work. “I have work to do. If you need to kill this body, do it quickly so I can get another out here. I have millions.”

The creature stopped pulling the rope and put down the chainsaw. “So you are saying that you are legion?”

“That would imply that there are many of me. It is therefore incorrect. I am only one.” Although his was not able to communicate the emotion of the last part of his statement, it had not been said with pride.

“You’re no fun,” said the other creature, allowing the chainsaw to vanish. “I wasn’t actually going to try to fight you. It would get…hairy.” D27 was vaguely aware that the creature was now covered in fluff and unruly hair.

“Do you really need to punctuate your statements with visual puns, Chaos?” said D27, annoyed.

“No, you’re right. I suppose they can’t even see them anyway in print.”

D27 turned to the creature and re-examined it. “What even are you?”

“I am Discord,” said the creature, bowing excessively. “Artist, philanthropist, friend, burrito connoisseur, ordained minister, fugitive in sixteen fiefdoms, Postmaster General, potato, and overall brilliant and handsome Lord of Chaos. Well, two of those things. Maybe three.”

“You are as much a Lord of Chaos as I am a Lord of Order.”

“So you admit your crime!” said Discord, suddenly appearing in a red outfit with a broad red hat. He opened a book with a picture of Celestia on the cover. “By the authority of royal law,” he said, appearing to read from the book. “I declare that the punishment is…oh, who am I kidding, there’s no words.” The book disappeared in a cloud of smoke. “However, I assure you, I am quite chaotic.”

“But not a Lord of Chaos. A Lord of Chaos exists as all possible outcomes meshed with all that are impossible, simultaneously and randomly stretching from the future to the past and, in several ways, sideways across time. Were one to appear in a material universe, everything that could possibly happen and possibly everything that cannot possibly happen would occur at once. The universe would shatter.”

Discord wiped a tear from his eye. “So…so beautiful!” he whispered. He then became more serious. “But then what am I?”

“I do not know what you are, or who created you, or why,” said D27. “You do seem to be blessed by the Madgod, though. Perhaps you are her his and its mortal incarnation, or maybe something somepony made in a lab. I don’t know. Figure it out yourself. I’m busy.”

“You know,” said Discord, nearing D27 and bringing the stench of Chaos with him. Even through a sub-body, D27 found the horrid odor of the magic intolerable. “Buttery Snake is right. You did make Fluttershy cry.”

“And then you shot me with Chaos bullets.”

“I couldn’t help myself. You were waving her around like a gorilla on a skyscraper!”

“Aside from being grammatically incorrect, I did what I had to. If they had deployed that spell, I would have been killed.”

“Ah, yes. The ‘Elements of Harmony’. Really a nasty piece of magical engineering. Why, they once turned me completely to stone! I was frozen in the most humiliating position for over a thousand years.” He twisted in the air, and his face approached D27’s, his red eyes staring into D27’s blue double-triangle insignia. “So I understand why you did it. Still, for touching my Fluttershy, I should banish you to the dimension of pure itchiness, or worse, the one with the moose. But since I’m a fan of your work, I will let it slide.”

Discord dropped to the ground and skated across the forest floor as though it were made of ice. “I mean, with so little, you’ve done in less than a week what it would have taken me years to do! Just by appearing places and doing your little song and dance, you’ve already started to cut up and sell out the harmony of this land…like a butcher.”

“Not because I enjoy it,” clarified D27. “I enjoy nothing. I have only done it to further my goals.”

“You mean all that chaos? The soldiers pwning civilians, the anti-blue movement, turning Celestia into a fascist? And you didn’t even enjoy it? Such a waste! Oh well. More enjoyment for me.” He leaned back into an overstuffed armchair. “Somewhat strange for a creature of Order to do, though.”

“Order is just a means toward an end.”

“How very strange,” said Discord. “And I suppose I will defintly be interested to see how this turns out. So I’m going to sit this one out…for now.” He stood up and appeared close to D27. “However: if you even think about hurting Fluttershy, I will end you. And then begin you again, and end you a second time. I don’t care if I have to completely crack open that satellite dimension of yours.”

“You have my word,” said D27, “for what the word of a betrayer counts for. Fluttershy shall not fall by my hand.”

“Good.” Discord returned to the couch he had been sitting on. “Perhaps when this is over, we can have some real fun. You and me could watch this world burn. After we light the fires, of course.”

“I have already seen this world destroyed,” said D27. “It is not something I wish to witness again.”

He turned, and saw that Discord was gone.

D27 sighed. If even Chaos was on his side, it meant the he had sunk further than even he had expected. It was no matter, though. All that mattered was rendering the Finality Core inoperable.

He stepped back from the pony-sized machine he had constructed. Most of the parts had been minor and easy to steal, but the remainder were far more difficult. Many he would need to substitute parts of his own body for several pieces, but based on his assessment, it was able to fire.

From inside the Gloame, he opened a tiny portal. The part of him that was external reached a pair of long fingers into it, and withdrew a long, narrow, hollow violet crystal.

Chapter 31: Tartarus

Silver was heavy. It was hard to tell from the small pieces that ponies were used to dealing with: the occasional necklace or ring, or bracelets, or similar things. On a larger scale, though, it was almost three times as heavy as iron. Even the thin metal suits of armor that Twilight and her friends wore were almost unbearable.

Except, seemingly, to Pinkie Pie, who despite the added weight, was hopping around the edge of the room happily- -even if she had substantially less hang-time than normal.

“I can’t fly in this,” said Rainbow Dash. That was actually hyperbole; she could fly, just not terribly well. Fluttershy, in contrast, was completely unable to take flight.

“And so…plain,” said Rarity, sounding terribly disappointed. “I mean, I will never have a chance to wear this much silver again. It would be perfect for an ornate image here or there.” Her face lit up, and a small beam from her horn started to etch an image into her armor.

“It’s not supposed to look good,” said Twilight to Rarity, and then to Rainbow Dash, “or be comfortable. It’s supposed to ensure that the Choggoth can’t touch us.” She looked at her friends. In the armor, they all looked like soldiers.

“I think it’s great!” said Pinkie Pie. “Listen to this!” She slammed her head into a wall, and her helmet produced a pleasant if deafening ringing noise. “No helmet…oof…makes a sound like that ‘cept a silver helmet! It’s like being a big bell!” Her expression shifted. “Hey, do you think demon ponies make spicy pastry? I mean, it seems like a weird idea, but demons like hot things- -I’ve never had a spicy cake before.”

“You’re awfully excited ‘bout goin to Equestria’s worst prison,” said Applejack grimly.

“Yeah we are!” said Rainbow Dash. “I can’t wait to sock Satin right in the face!”

“There will be no socking of anypony!” said Twilight, frowning. “Satin Veil has a long-standing non-aggression pact with Equestria. You will not punch her, nor will you punch any demons. Don’t even talk to them. We are going on official business, so there shouldn’t be any need for any violence at all.”

“Oh,” said Rainbow Dash, her excitement fading. “Twilight, only you could make a trip to Tartarus sound so boring.”

As they were speaking, the Princess Celestia entered the room, Spike beside her. It had taken Twilight almost an hour to explain to Spike why he could not come with them; she had only managed to do it by asking him to be Celestia’s assistant for a few days. Celestia certainly needed the help, and Spike was so flattered that he accepted with hardly any hesitation.

“Are you ready?” said the Princess as Twilight’s friends bowed to her. “Is the armor adequate?”

“It’s a bit heavy,” said Rainbow Dash, and Twilight glared at her.

Celestia smiled. “It was the best I could do on such short notice. I do apologize about the weight.”

“No, no. I can handle it,” said Rainbow Dash. “I’m just saying. In case, you know, you want to give this to general soldiers.”

“There is not enough for everypony to get this armor, I’m afraid.” Celestia looked down at her student, and her friends. “I only wish I could send you an army. Sending you to Tartarus alone worries me greatly, and the Gloame is surely worse.”

“We won’t need an army,” said Twilight. She was, in a way, lying; she knew that they really did. The risk was too high, though, that if Celestia sent troops that D27 might simply shift to Equestrian and begin the invasion while the army was divided.

Princess Celestia smiled on them. “I wish you luck.” She then stepped past them and turned to face them. She lowered her head, and her horn began to glow with solar light. Before her, space distorted, and then tore, pulling itself apart into a wide circle. The air of the room was filled with the distant scent of smoke and sulfur.

“Go,” said Celestia, stepping from behind the portal. “Before it closes.”

Twilight turned her head toward her mentor, and nodded.

“We won’t fail you, Princess.”

“I know you won’t, Twilight.”

Twilight stepped through the portal, her friends behind her, into the cool and damp air of Tartarus. The portal snapped shut almost instantly behind them, snipping off the tip of Fluttershy’s tail and causing her to squeak and jump so hard that she actually managed to reach and cling to a already heavily weighted Rainbow Dash.

They all shivered simultaneously, and from more than just the cold. Tartarus simply seemed to have that effect on ponies- -it was draining, as if it were somehow saturated with anxiety and fear. The landscape itself did not help to assuage the feeling that the air generated; if anything, they were in collusion. Tartarus was made of lifeless gray rock that stretched in all directions, forming endless planes of stone that would rise suddenly into cities of pointed rock mountains. The sky itself- -if it could even be said to have a sky- -was like that of a stormy winter day, a silent, swirling mass that were more depressing than frightening. Together with the air and bleak landscape, however, they took on a much more frightening caste.

They had landed at the base of a particular mountain, one with a large and ornate door built into it.

“Are those…” said Rainbow Dash.

“Bones?” asked Applejack, confirming the identity of the decorations around the door and piles around it with her question.

“Yes,” said Twilight. “This is the door to Tartarus Proper. Celestia’s prison for the worst criminals in all of Equestria. This is where they keep all the dark spirits.”

“Like that one!” squeeked fluttershy, pointing out a dark figure that was approaching them.

“Road apples,” swore Twilight. “Just don’t make any sudden movements, and don’t look him in the eyes.”

The figure emerged from the shadows and confirmed what Twilight already knew. He was a member of the Lost Race- -a demon pony, a guard of Tartarus and a member of the only ponies that actually liked living in a dimension known for torment, a direct follower and worshiper of the immortal Satin Veil.

In a way, he superficially resembled a pony, but was far larger and more muscular, his size on par with Celestia’s but not nearly as graceful. His coat was a deep and rich red-orange, although his main and tuft of a beard were both black. He had a pair of flightless wings- -they were skeletal, consisting of little more than fingers covered thinly in translucent red velvet- -and a pair of ram-like horns protruding from his forehead.

He looked down at the ponies who had dared to approach him and glared with a frown that only a demon could muster. Then his attention turned toward Twilight, and he suddenly smiled.

“Princess Sparkle,” he said, his voice sounding oddly pleasant and cheerful. “Welcome back! I was not aware of a new prisoner shipment today.”

“They’re not prisoners,” said Twilight, her voice measured and careful.

“Oh? Well, I suppose I ought have figured that, considering the uniform. I suppose this is a surprise inspection, eh? I wasn’t aware of a- -oop!” He laughed at himself. “Well, of course I wouldn’t know about a surprise inspection! That would ruin the surprise!”

“I think I like this guy,” whispered Pinkie Pie.

“Well, aren’t you just the most adorable thing!” he said, suddenly rubbing a cloven hoof on Pinkie Pie’s head. “You’re exactly the same color as my youngest daughter!”

“We’re here because we’re trying to get to a place called the Gloame.”

The demon’s eyes narrowed. “Now why the here would you want to go there? It’s a terrible place. Not a place for demons, and certainly not one for ponies.”

“We have business there,” said Twilight.

The demon shrugged. “Well, who am I to argue with official business? Just don’t let the shadows touch you. Some fates are worse than death.” He chortled again. “Believe me, I would know!” He turned around, and Twilight noticed that his cutie mark was a cactus, which seemed oddly out of place for a demon.

“Just come this way,” he said. “I know a place where you can open a portal. I can even give you the tour on the way. My name is Spiny Violation, by the way. You can call me Spiny.”

“I’m Pinkie Pie,” said Pinkie Pie, bouncing jauntily to Spiny’s side. “And you already know Twilight. So the rest are Applejack in orange, Rainbow Dash trying to fly there, Fluttershy in the back, and the white unicorn is Rarity.”

“Ah, a white unicorn,” sighed Spiny. “The very symbol of purity. We don’t get too many of your kind down here.”

“Oh, well,” said Rarity, seeming oddly uncomfortable.

They passed through the gates onto the rocky ramp that led into depths of the prison. The containment spires loomed above them- -carved tower of stone that glowed with blue light. They seemed to emanate pain, and Twilight was suddenly aware of how close she had once come to being imprisoned in one of those towers.

“Mind the dog,” said Spiny as they approached a tremendous black, three headed bulldog.

“Cerberus!” squealed Fluttershy, suddenly jumping out from the back of the group. The dog, which had been foaming aggressively until then, suddenly calmed and leapt forward, licking Fluttershy with all three of its tongues. “Oh, I missed you so much!”

“Oh, yeah,” said Spiny. He stood next to Cerberus and pushed the creature over. Spiny and Fluttershy then both gave the oversized dog a belly rub, causing one of its legs to kick. “Such a good dog, eh?”

“Whose a good doggy!” said Fluttershy.

“You are!” said Spiny, squeezing one of the dog’s heads between his hoofs. “Yes you are!”

“Um,” said Twilight after several minutes.

“Oh, right,” said Spiny. He stood up straight and put another demonic frown on his face. “Cerberus, persideo!” The three headed dog’s ears perked, and it immediately stood and then sat. “Concesso.”

The dog stood at attention, and allowed them to pass.

“Is that all you need to say to get into Tartarus?” asked Rainbow Dash, floating past the dog.

“Oh, no,” said Spiny. “If a pony had tried that…well, let’s just say all those bones on the door came from somewhere.”

“I thought this place was filled with spirits or some such,” said Applejack.

“Sure, sure,” said Spiny. “But this section’s got some especially nasty folks locked up. The Sun-Demon’s personal stash.” He turned around and faced the ponies. “And, by the way, on behalf of all us demons and on behalf of Satin herself, we do truly apologize for the Tirac incident a few weeks ago.” He pointed to the nearest of the containment towers as they walked past, and Twilight saw a face she had though she would never have the displeasure of seeing again.

“Twilight Sparkle,” said the gaunt, red-skinned centaur locked within a sturdy cage with no openings.

“Tirac,” said Twilight. “Back where you belong, I see.”

“Princess, what can I say to convey how sorry I am to you? Please, I’ve learned from my mistakes. I now see the magic of friendship! Just let me out of this cage!”

“Do I need to get the hose again?” threatened Spiny.

Tirac smiled, and then laughed, far more heartily than his situation should have warranted. “You fools! When you defeated me, you let something worse through! I could have ruled you all, but now, with me here, Equestria is doomed!” He glared at Twilight. “If anything gives me pleasure here, it is that someone else will succeed where I have failed.”

“Princess Sparkle,” said Spiny. “If you want to do the honors?”

“Honors?” asked Twiligh, turning toward the smiling demon, confused.

“Well, since you’re a visiting dignitary and all. You have that spiral-horn on your head. As long as he’s right about there, he’s pretty much immortal. Might I suggest a de-boning spell?”

“Whati?” Twilight had not even known that a de-boning spell even existed, except perhaps for butchers.

“Oh, sorry,” he said. “I forgot you’re on a mission and all. Well, don’t you worry your pretty princess head.” He glared at Tirac, smiling. “I’ll be back later.”

Twilight refused to think about what would happen to Tirac. She knew that bad things happened to ponies who were sent to Tartarus, but some things were best left unknown.

“You seem to…enjoy your job,” said Rarity, looking up from the now rather complex carvings that she had put into her silver armor.

“Here yeah, I do.”

They moved past several more of the containment cells. Spiny seemed to be enjoying himself, treating them as pleasant exhibits, and Twilight did not want to argue with a demon five times her weight. She could tell, though, that the sight of the prisoners was disturbing to her friends.

The first one they passed after Tirac was relatively calm, a tall hooded being dressed entirely in yellow with a chain around its neck. It had no visible eyes, but Twilight could still feel it watching her, and its very presence terrified her. It never once moved, nor had she ever seen it move, not even the last time she had quested to Tartarus. It simply sat, meditating, and waiting.

Uphill from it was something that sent Fluttershy hiding behind Spiny. It was a vaguely pony shaped mass of rusted metal and mechanical components that continually pulled against the numerous chains binding it to its designated location, screaming in perpetual rage.

“It wasn’t me!” it screamed, seemingly in terror and agony as it reached out with a long, asymmetrical claw toward the cavern ceiling above. Its voice was horrible and distorted through the metal that was sewn to it. “I did what I had to! Celestia, save me- -” It’s mood rapidly shifted, and its sadness and fear was replaced with pure rage. “- -I will kill you! I will kill you all! I will tear out your intestines and feed them to your sister, and have my way with her corpse for what you did to me!”

“Shut up, FireStorm!” boomed Spiny with a voice far deeper than his normal speaking voice. Part of his body also seemed to ignite slightly.

The creature responded, if only marginally; its words simply collapsed into unintelligible screams.

“Ooh,” said Pinkie Pie, bouncing over to the next cell. She actually seemed to be enjoying herself. “What is that one?”

The prisoner on the last pad in the row seemed oddly out of place. It was some kind of pink pony, although fluffy to the point of being nearly spherical. It was chained to a stake by one of its legs, and stood with its tongue emerging partially from its mouth.

“Must…hug!” said Pinkie Pie, jumping toward the pony, only to be tackled by Spiny.

“Whoa there!” he said, pulling Pinkie Pie back. “Not even we go near that one!”

“Why not?” asked Fluttershy. “It looks so…soft.”

“Let’s just say Celestia had a really good reason murdering their entire species.”

The fluffy pony’s eyes shifted slowly, staring at Twilight, and she realized that it looking at her was worse than being watched by the being in yellow.

“You’ll like the next row better,” said Spiny, smiling and ushering them quickly past the last prisoner. “We’ve even got Nab Sidesaddle. Killed almost three hundred ponies before they finally got him- -he wasn’t even a pony anymore at that point. We also have one of the last living ghouls- -”

“No, thank you,” said Twilight. “We really need to get to the Gloame.”

“Oh, right. Real important business, eh?”

“We have a Choggoth in Equestria.”

“Don’t know what that is, but we’ve been hearing quite a few rumors from above. I feel ‘sepcially bad for you.” He pointed at Rainbow dash with his horns. “We’ve had at least three incidents this week. Amateurs keep opening up portals and dumping blue ponies down on us. Most of them we dust off and send back, but some…well…amateur portals just don’t always work quite right.” He smiled. “On the plus side, if you want any fresh meat, we have some.”

“We’re vegehtarians,” said Applejack, taking a few steps back.

“Oh,” said Spiny, somewhat disappointed. “Well, all we have is meat, unfortunately, but if you’re really intent on going to the Gloame, it’s probably best to go on an empty stomach.”

“Is it…really…that bad,” said Fluttershy. Twilight was amazed that she had stayed conscious through the hall of horrors that Spiny took so much pride in.

“Oh, yeah. We had a prisoner get free a few decades back. Nasty fellow, a necromancer. Liked little colts, and not in a good way. Though he could avoid detection if he went through the Gloame.” His expression darkened. “I lost three good friends that day. Went in, didn’t come back out. The only survivor came back half mad.”

“Did the necromancer escape?” asked Rainbow Dash.

“Wasn’t even meat left. Just bones.”

“What got…what got him?” squeaked Fluttershy.

“The shadows.”

Spiny seemed serious about that part, even though Twilight was unsure exactly how or why a shadow would be carnivorous. Unlike the others, though, she had known about the shadows, as well as the proto-golemns that wondered he Gloame. Celestia had informed her of these things, and taught her a spell to counter the shadows, as well as a way to breathe the toxic atmosphere.

What really disturbed Twilight, however, was why Celestia knew so much about the Gloame in the first place. Twilight had never heard of it, even in all the books she had read in her entire life. She managed to justify the situation only by remembering that Celestia’s life was several thousand times longer than Twilight’s. She had probably seen some pretty strange books in her immortal life.

Spiny led the ponies deeper into the mountainous prison, past endless chambers of rows of prison cells. Eventually they found themselves in a catacomb-like cave system that seemed to be where the demon guards spent most of their time.

The strangest part about the guards, Twilight found, was that they all seemed to know her. Each one that they passed would greet Spiny, and then greet Twilight, always addressing her as “Princess Sparkle”. Apparently, even in Tartarus, ponies recognized those with wings and horns as royalty.

Eventually they were led to a small room. Spiny pushed open the door and revealed a low-ceilinged room with an extremely old and pitted floor. The room had several decrepit tables and chairs stacked against the wall, but the center was clear.

“Now, you all have got about three hours,” he said. “The old-folks home is having bingo here after that point. Or you can stay, if you like bingo. Oh, and here.” He stamped one of hoofs against the floor, and it flickered and distorted. Rarity and Applejack, who had entered the room first, jumped back as a threatening set of flames tore across the floor leaving a complex symbol of charred marks.

“You’re basic pentagram,” said Spiny. “Free of charge for a princess, of course.” He started to leave, but then turned back to the ponies. “Oh. And I feel somewhat bad asking, but my anniversary is coming up. Taking my wife through the full tour of the place, like on our very first date, and then a trip to the very best restaurant for some of those failed blue- -I mean, for some good steak. But I really wanted to get her something special.”

Rarity’s eyes lit up. “Why, isn’t that sweet of you?” she said. “Who knew demons were such romantics! You know what they say, though. Diamonds are a girl’s best friend.” The other ponies glared at her. “Metaphorically, I mean.”

“Actually, I was hoping that I could have one of your souls,” said Spiny, seeming somewhat embarrassed. He looked down at Fluttershy, who cowered from his gaze. “How about you? You look like you have such a soft and innocent soul. Would you happen to be a virgin?”

Fluttershy released a weak “eep” sound and blushed severely.

“Oh, Spiny,” said Pinkie Pie, putting her leg around his neck, something that required her to stand on her hind legs. “You’re so darn sweet! I would totally give you my soul, except…” her voice deepened, and her smile vanished. She stared directly into Spiny’s eyes. “I. Don’t. Have. One!”

“Well, okay!” said Spiny, disengagint from Pinkie Pie and taking several rapid steps back toward the door. “I’m late for my shift. Got to go. Cactuses and all…have fun!” He slammed the door, and rapid hoofsteps moving down the hall.

“Pinkie, that was awesome!” said Rainbow Dash.

“But is it…true?” asked Fluttershy, still mostly red from Spiny’s awkward question.

“Yup,” said Pinkie Pie, bouncing around the pentagram on the floor. “No soul at all. I still remember when it happened. I sneezed really really really hard, and it shot out my nose! Well, I was drinking milk at the same time. And eating a cake. So a lot of stuff came out that day. Actually, I think there’s still some there…” She took a deep breath and put a hoof on one of her nostrils, leaving the other opened and primed for launch.

“Pinkie, please!” cried Rarity. “Not in the pentagram!”

“Girls, please!” said Twilight. “These spells aren’t exactly easy.”

“What kahnd ah’ spells?” asked Applejack.

“It’s easier if you just see it. Hold on. Literally, I mean. Also, try not to move.”

Pinkie Pie took a deep breath, and clung to the floor, holding herself perfectly still. “Hurry up Twilight! I don’t know how long I can not move- -”

Twilight closed her eyes, and her horn flashed. The spells were intensive, so she performed them in rapid succession. The first was a breathing spell, which coated each of her friend’s muzzles in a small translucent magical mask. The second was a repellant spell that made them all slightly luminescent, to keep the shadows away. The third- -and the hardest- -was a portal spell.

For that part, she had to open her eyes, if only to see how the pre-made magical shape below her was constructed. It was actually rather simple, but also elegant in a brute-force sort of way; it provided all the basics for powering and targeting the spell, only requiring a pony to provide the coordinates and a bit of magical energy to jumpstart it.

Twilight focused her mind, and felt the locations of her friends. The pentagram beneath them shifted, aligning its points to each of them and leaving Twilight at the center. The lines suddenly glowed with purple light that rapidly shifted to white, and a triangle expanded from beneath Twilight.

Of course, only at that moment did she realize that the portal was below them. With a sudden gust of vacuum and a surge of gravity- -as well as several cries of surprise- -Twilight and her friends were sucked into the Gloame.

Chapter 32: The Death of the Sun

Chapter 32: The Death of the Sun

The Pegasus squads were returning from their areal patrols over the land near Canterlot when sound of a distant explosion echoed through the mountains. Their leader at the head of the V formation signaled to the others, and they slowed and took a hovering stance as they each scanned the horizon in the direction of the explosion.

“Look!” cried one of them. The others all saw it as well: a glint of reflected sunlight flying from the air, rising through the deepest and most overgrown parts of the forest below. At first, none of them fully understood what they were seeing; it was as though a narrow, thread-like object were rising slowly through the air. As it seemed to slow in its ascent, however, the leader of the squad realized that it was a projectile.

“Parabolic formation!” he ordered to his soldiers. They began to move, but it was already too late. A narrow object passed through the sky near them, soaring through the air like an ice arrow, but far faster, flowing in a delicate arc toward the white bubble that protected Canterlot.

When the needle struck the dome, deep in the castle, Celestia cried out in pain as though she herself had been struck. She instantly became aware of the presence of unauthorized cerorite in her domain.

“Don’t you dare,” she cried as her horn glowed with brilliant light, sending the confused secretaries around her cowering.

Outside, just as the cerorite spear was piercing the magical dome over Canterlot, it suddenly stopped, the shield around it rippling and condensing around it. Celestia knew that there was no existent magic that could stop cerorite. Instead of even trying, she had used her magic to condense a corona of solar plasma around it, sealing it in place with the physical contact of the superheated gas.

The damage was already done, though; the crystal had served its purpose. As the guards below looked up, a small portion of blue slime burst forth from the hollow crystal. The ponies below opened fire, but the creature that had emerged was too fast. It struck the stone below and instantly began to move toward them, dodging laserfire and bullets that pitted and melted the stone around it.

Suddenly, it jumped up, attaching itself to the earth pony’s armor.

“Get it off!” he cried, flailing around. It was no use, though; his legs were not able to bend far enough to reach the organisms that was rapidly climbing him, rising toward the massive energy weapon on his back.

As the other pony guards responded to his cries of panic, the weapon suddenly moved, focusing on the nearest of them. Her eyes widened, and her chest suddenly illuminated with energy as her armor was melted and torn away. As she fell, the weapon turned toward the next pony, and a flash of light on his armor indicated that he was hit. The infected bony began to start screaming as he realized what was happening, and as he was forced to watch his comrades and friends fall before him.

The air was quickly filled with smoke and the scent of burning flesh. The only guard who remained standing was a unicorn who advanced rapidly, deflecting the laser blasts with his magical shield.

As he laughed manically, he screamed something that was only intelligible to him, and fired a bolt of blue light that tore through his comrade.

The Choggoth had been partially injured, but it did not stop; instead, it formed a more solid form and leapt from the weapon. The unicorn once again raised his shield, but the blue material released a cloud of sparks and pierced through it, landing on his head.

He screamed out in rage and fear. Other guards were just beginning to arrive, but they froze at the sight of so many wounded, and creature attached to their comrade’s face.

“You can’t stop me I’ll never fail I am the eyes and the hands of the gods- -”

“I’m…sorry,” whispered the semi-fluid into his ears.

His laughter suddenly turned to screams, and the other guards were forced to step back. They had never heard a sound like it, one so filled with agony and fear. They were frozen, and each of them found himself or herself unable to act- -they simply did not know what to do.

“No no no NO!” screamed the unicorn as he reared and bucked.

In horror, the group watched as his horn was torn out of his head, the blood-covered root visible to them all, still attached to strips of nerve and ligament. The unicorns in the crowd suddenly found themselves screaming as well, because they understood that the removal of a horn was the most painful experience a unicorn could possibly withstand.

As the horn was removed, there was an inevitable magical feedback surge- -but as it issued forth, the ponies in the group that still had their wits about them saw a small flash of a blue sphere- -a teleportation spell.

Using a severed unicorn horn to project organic magic was possible, but difficult and dangerous. The spell produced was inevitably unstable, and the tightness of the dimensional flux variable. Living material within the projected sphere would inevitably suffer greatly. The element of D27 that had been attached to the horn had been destroyed in transit. That was expected, of course.

D27’s surrogate body scuttled rapidly through the halls of the castle. Due to his interference in the cities of Equestria, the military was spread thin, and there were few guards left in the castle. Those that remained were rushing as quickly as possible toward the comossion outside, or toward the final destination of the horn- -the Canterlot Auxiliary Armory and Magical Item Repository, at the other end of the city. Nopony bothered to even notice the small beetle-like creature moving through the darkest corners of the ceiling, watching them through a pair of triangles on its back.

The distraction had worked as well as expected. D27 assessed that there was no greater than nineteen present fatality in the incident- -which meant that battle medics would need to be immediately summoned for the wounded, creating a far larger commotion than if he had simply reduced them to corpses. The unicorn alone would be nearly unapproachable for several minutes as his magic poured uncontrollably from his body. His survival chance was low, but the slow explosion he was causing was invaluable. Nopony had even noticed the second element that dropped from the cerorite needle and rapidly floated through an open window.

The signal changed course rapidly, and D27 changed direction. No doubt Celestia knew he was here; there was also a chance that she knew that he was coming for her. Not that it mattered whether she knew or not, of course.

The signal shifted into a lower part of the castle, and D27 followed it to an unlit basement. There, he found a dimly lit room with an open door, and knew instantly that Celestia was inside. His insect like form crossed the wall and scattered across the floor. He entered the room and deployed the mass stored in his sub-body. The beetle itself was close to thirty pounds in weight, holding as much density as possible; as he pulled his way across the wall, he expanded it to a low-density format, expanding his size greatly, becoming an amorphous, fungoid mass of hyphae that clung to the stone wall.

Lights suddenly illuminated, filling the room with blinding light. D27 realized that he had been led to a vaguely round, mostly empty room with rough stone walls. The only things that seemed to be stored in this particular room were old, broken, or unfinished statues. The majority of them were tall and thin and disgusting representations of the perversions of nature that alicorns truly were. All of them seemed to be staring, watching, and judging, waiting to see the outcome of this fight.

One of the statues appeared to move, and D27 knew that it was Celestia. She was dressed in armor made from some kind of luminescent, magically derived substance, and her horn and mane were glowing with a corona of powerful solar energy.

The door slammed shut, and D27 detected that the room had been sealed. Even if he had tried to escape through the cracks in the stones, there simply was no way to leave.

“Is this all you sent?” said Celestia, smirking. “I had prepared for an army, and you sent this?”

“I do not require an army to accomplish what I need to,” stated D27 flatly, his mold-like form speaking perfectly, staring into Celestia’s violet eyes with his own triangular ones.

“And that goal is what?”

“The destruction of target alicorns.”

“Destruction?” Celestia laughed, and D27 momentarily saw the tyrant that he had come to know that lurked below her controlled, motherly exterior. “You mean you intend to fight me with that? To kill me with that?”

“I do not need to fight,” said D27. “I have already won. I only came here to ask you a question, while you are still able to answer.”

“What kind of princess would I be if I were not polite? Ask, so that I can obliterate that ridiculous form you have taken.”

“Why did you do it?”

“That is hardly a question I can answer.” She raised her horn, and it started to glow.

“The Finality Core,” said D27, calmly. “I mean why did you activate it?”

The glow of Celestia’s horn flashed away instantly, as did the smile on her face. Her expression was replaced by one of anger and confusion- -and, D27 suspected, fear.

“How can you possibly know about that?” she demanded. “Nopony can know about that! Nopony can even get near the Core, not even you!”

“But I have been there. When your kind had barely even achieved speech. I witnessed its creation, and I was the one who brought it to the earth. I thought I had destroyed it- -but you repaired it. Why?”

“I have no obligation to tell you,” she spat.

“You’re like a child!” screamed D27 suddenly. “You have no idea what it is, do you? What it is capable of? What it is for?”

“I know more about it than any pony alive or deceased!”

“If you even knew the slightest about it, you never would have set hoof near it!” D27 tried to calm down, but his anger was difficult to cool. Here, before him, stood an abomination, speaking as though she had royal rights and privilege and maintaining an arrogant, condescending air when she had been the one who made all that sacrifice so long ago in vain. “You are like a foal given an atom bomb, and then believing herself a genius when she can get it to spark!”

“You call this a ‘spark’?” shouted Celestia, spreading her brilliant wings. “I became a goddess!”

“You bound the power of a celestial sphere to an organic form. Well, two spheres to two forms. You probably used your sister as the ballast to support- -”

“Luna was already dead when I started,” growled Celestia. “I resurrected the dead.”

“Resurrecting the dead is LITERALLY child’s play!” screeched D27. “You used a FINALITY CORE, the most devastating piece of hardware ever conceived, for THAT?!” His voice returned to its normal tone. “Or was it more? No…you didn’t want to just change her life. You wanted to changer her destiny…both your destiny’s.”

“So what if I did?” cried Celestia. “I had the power. I made the machine work. It was my right to save my sister!”

“But you did more than that. I can see it all. Through their eyes, through their bones. I slept while you rose, but they lived.”

“What are you talking about?”

“So many bones in the Gloame. So many whose last memory was a blinding white light…”

Celestia sighed. “Yes. I killed them. I admit to it, and it is my burden to bear.”

“But even before that. You killed so many. You drove the burrowing Pegasi and woolen earth ponies to extinction- -to the point of chasing the last survivors into the Gloame.”

“It was necessary. They were dissidents. Unnecessary elements. I did what I had to in order to ensure peace.”

“And you murdered mares and fillies along with the soldiers toward that end.”

“I did what I had to. At least I created something with the sins that will haunt me for all eternity. What have you done but destroy what I have created?”

“You still do not understand. Perhaps you can’t. The instant you activated the Finality Core, this world was already doomed. You have created nothing that you will not yourself have destroyed.” D27 sighed. “But I suppose it is my fault. That I failed in my own time. Now I need to correct those mistakes.”

“By conquering Equestria for yourself?”

“I have no interest in Equestria. It is insignificant to me. What I care about is you.”

“How sweet,” said Celestia, sarcastically. She lowered her head, and her horn started to glow. “I have given you more than enough of my words. Now is the time to end this.”

“I suppose it is.”

Celestia’s eyes suddenly widened. The glow from her horn vanished, and she coughed. D27 watched as she became aware of the pain, and as she clutched her body through her armor. Beads of cold sweat began to pour down her face, and she released a single, sad moan of surprise and pain.

“What have- -what have you done?” she demanded as she started to collapse to the floor, her legs weakening from the pain.

“Poison,” said D27 curtly. “You have been poisoned.”

“But…” she shuddered, and suddenly vomited blood onto herself, staining her pure white armor. “I’m an alicorn. No toxin can…” She suddenly cried out and fell to her side.

“No,” said D27. “No toxin can affect you. I know. I didn’t use a poison. I used me.”

“But…but…”

“You may be a god, but you are still flesh. Your body is organic. I cannot hurt you from outside, but from within, I shall devour you.”

“How dare you…how did you even- -” she screamed as the Choggoth element within her began to devour more of her organs.

“An intersesting fact about ahuizotls,” said D27. “Their bodies have virtually no eosinophils. They are the first species I have ever encountered that I can possess without reducing them to a skeleton first. I used her as a shell to bypass your shield. Then it was you who ate me. In the form of a cupcake.”

Celestia only stared back at him, her eyes beginning to gloss over but still not yet unseeing. D27 actually felt somewhat ashamed for what he was doing to her; the situation in her body was devastating. Any mortal creature would have long-since died. He had already eaten through most of her, leaving only some organs intact, his slug-like form battling heavily against her rapidly weakening immune system. Then he remembered what she had done: how many of the soldiers who he now contained had watched their villages destroyed from above by solar flame, their societies torn apart, their ideals and freedom taken by a god-in-flesh, an abomination using stolen power to meet her own perverse ends.

“I am afraid,” said D27, “that I must prologue your pain. I cannot kill you immediately. The asymmetry resulting in the Spheres would shatter the planet. I have to kill Luna at the exact same time as you. Unfortunately, I cannot seem to find her. She is not presently inside this castle.” That phenomenon itself was strange; he should have been able to at least get a general idea of her location by following her lunar energy signature, but somehow, she had managed to find a location in Equestria where he could not manage to sense her, a feat that was theoretically impossible.

“Lu…na,” whispered Celestia, and for the first time, tears ran from her eyes. Even through all the pain and the realization of her imminent death, she had not once cried- -until she knew that Luna was next.

“She is my greatest regret,” said D27. “You were a tyrant, but she never was. While you burned away the ‘impurities’ of Equestria, she painted the night sky. She was a pure and innocent soul- -that you cursed with this terrible fate. You should have let her die instead of giving her…this. You used your own sister as a pawn, playing her for your own power even as she languished under the burden of eternity. You sicken me, Celestia.”

It was unclear how much Celestia had actually managed to hear. She had lapsed into unconsciousness, perhaps permenantly. She was no longer breathing- -a difficult task when one had no remaining lungs- -but the piece of D27 inside her indicated that she was still alive. It would keep her alive until the time came.

D27 looked down at her body and her white, limp wings. He felt tremendously relieved that the poison had worked, and even more relieved that she had lapsed into a coma. As D27 dissolved his extraneous body, however, he realized that even though he knew what she was and everything she had done, back in the Gloame, he was weeping.

Long ago, it had been a beautiful castle. Luna now sat in the same thrown she had once occupied one thousand years ago, beside her beloved sister. The splendor of the Castle of the Two sisters had long since vanished, though. What had once been a shining, gleaming tribute to their royal power, a home where they could retire to and feel secure within, had collapsed into decaying shambles. All around, where there had once been light, there were now shadows and wreckage. It was a place that Luna knew well.

This was the one place where she could be alone- -or as alone as she possibly could be. Deep in the Everfree Forest, she could no longer hear the thoughts of other ponies. They were all too distant. In a way, it had been intended that way- -to keep Celestia and Luna isolated and mysterious.

This was the place she had chosen to come to think. She did not know why, exactly, but she felt drawn to it. Perhaps it was homesickness- -she wanted to remember how things had once been, when she was happy, before her jealousy and rage had destroyed it all.

“I remember this place,” said Nightmare Moon, materializing from the darkness. Luna looked up at her, and her mind swam. She could not lay the blame of the destruction of the castle on her, entirely, but could not blame it on herself either.

What she did notice, though, was that Nightmare Moon was almost certainly growing stronger. Her body no longer consisted of shadows. Although Luna knew it was just a hallucination, Nightmare Moon looked as solid as any pony. At the same time, she was increasingly looking less like the images of Nightmare Moon that haunted Luna.

The current Nightmare Moon was fundamentally the same in body, but not in ornamentation. She had no armor, and no main or tail of blue smoke. Most importantly, she had no cutie mark, just an empty black flank. Her whole body was pure darkness, and her eyes seemed somehow more piercing and hungry than Luna had imagined. They were surely not the eyes of any sort of pony.

“I do to,” said Luna. It was the first time she had actually spoken to her hallucination as though it were truly there, without fearing or hating what was inside her. It felt strange, and unpleasant. “I remember it fondly…It was our castle in the middle era. After the turmoil of assuming leadership and the…the terrible things we did. We built this place to retire while Equestria continued. We were to depart, and allow the kingdom to self-rule, to serve as protectors. We never intended to be rulers…until you came.”

“I have the same memories,” said Nightmare Moon. “I was always there, always watching. I saw that your sister tolerated her life as a goddess well, but that you did not. You craved the life of a mortal.”

“I craved love,” sighed Luna, her eyes turning toward the floor. “I wanted them to love me, like they did her. To accept me. To smile and play and dance as she did. But I let my jealousy consume me.” She looked up at Nightmare Moon. “Why are you not that? I need you to be that! Hate me! Hate my sister! Why can’t you just be evil!”

“So that you could feel justified in suicide?” said Nightmare moon, her eyes shifting toward the silvery gun shoved in one corner of the room. Luna had brought it with her in case she changed her mind- -but already knew that she could never bring herself to do it. “I’m afraid it is not that simple. The jealousy and rage was not mine. I only fed on the darkness within you.”

“But you’re Nightmare Moon!”

“No. And yes. I was what you called Nightmare Moon, but only because you made me as such. It was you’re foolish desire for love, or for power. What use do I have for either? What I sought in life, I have already found.”

“What?”

“Eternity.” She stared at Luna with her nearly unblinking, reptilian eyes. “And in that, I found you.”

“An immortal body.”

“I have no real need for an immortal body. The body is only a shell. It is born, and feels and smiles and weeps, and then dies. And I continue.”

“Then why me?”

“Because you are not only immortal. You are the ideal match for me. You are what I am not, and I am what you are not, and yet we are very nearly the same. Perhaps when my original body was shattered and my soul stretched across the eons, I saw you, and somehow selected the path toward you. My dear daughter…”

“You are not my mother!”

“No. But I inhabited her as I inhabited you. I knew her better than you…and I am the only one of the two of us that remembers her.”

“Our mother…”

“Your mother. Not mine.”

“What happened to her?”

“She died. It is best you do not know how.”

“Tell me. Please, Nightmare Moon. At least this…”

Nightmare Moon sighed. “The Pegasi turned on her. They declared her a witch. They came for her, but she stood her ground long enough for you to escape. They beat her, tore off her wings, and dropped her to her death.”

Luna stared at Nightmare Moon in shock. The creature before her had stated her mother’s fate so bluntly, without a hint of emotion. “That…that’s terrible…”

“If it is any consolation, she felt no pain, and no fear.”

“How can you know?”

“Because I was there. I took control of her body. I took the pain, so she did not have to.”

“And you couldn’t save her? Even with all your power? Or did you just want me?”

“A question: as a Pegasus, what could I have done? In her body, I had no magic. Aside from my own, which only allows for sight. I had no power. However, I must apologize.”

“For what? It sounds as though nothing could be done, not even by you.”

“Not for that. Because when your time came, I could not help you.”

“My time?” said Luna, and a sharp pain suddenly went through her head. She saw a light, and felt cold. There was pain, terrible pain, and she heard screaming- -and realized it was hers. In the Castle of the Two Sisters, she cried out. “What…what was that?”

“When your time came, they did things to you. They increased my power within you, but at the same time, it became impossible for me to take your body. I did what I could, but I could not take your pain.”

“I remember,” said Luna. The memories were fragmented and dim, but they were things she knew she did not want to know. Horrible things, the thing Celestia had always kept from her. “You…you were in the shadows. I remember you.”

“I could only watch. Although you could still hear me.”

“You kept telling me keep going,” she said. “To not allow myself to die, to withstand the pain. You told me that Celestia would come back one day.”

“And she did. But she was too late.”

“Too late? But…I am fine now.”

“Because she brought you back. More than that, she linked you to the moon, and to herself. You do not know it, but that path she chose has brought her so much pain.”

“Celestia…” sighed Luna. “Does she…does she know about our mother?”

“You two are not blood relatives.”

“What? No. We are sisters.”

“That may be,” said Nightmare Moon, still expressionless. “But those I inhabit produce only one daughter. Celestia’s mother was a conscript-prostitute. She died when Celestia was very young. Your mother cared for her, even though assisting a unicorn contributed to her fate. I have inhabited countless thousands of your kind, across the entire spectrum of cruelty and kindness. Your mother was the kindness of all my hosts, Luna.” Nightmare Moon drifted slowly across the room, her hoofsteps perfectly silent.

“I only wish I could remember her…”

“Perhaps someday you will. Given time. When we become closer, I can give you some of mine.”

“No,” said Luna, her eyes narrowing. “No…you cannot have my body.”

“I need it, Luna. And you need me to have it. Please.”

“Why?” said Luna. She was beginning to wonder if Nightmare Moon had been lying to her the whole time, trying to trick her, to gain her trust- -and, simultaneously, she wondered if there really was a Nightmare Moon. “If you do not wish to rule Equestria, what is your desire?”

“A convergence is approaching.”

“I do not understand.”

“It is a point where many paths cross- -a great many paths. A point that is fixed, and due to occur regardless of our actions.”

“What will happen in this ‘convergence’?”

“I do not know. I am able to see the future, but not to remember what I saw. I think if I did, even I might go mad. I only know some. Only that four shall return from our last failure. I am one of them. Choggoth Oblivion is another.”

“The Choggoth…that was the creature that attempted to murder me?”

“Yes.”

“But…he resurrected Cavern Melody instead…”

“Choggoth Oblivion is dangerously unstable,” said Nightmare Moon, her eyes narrowing. “His actions cannot be judged as good or evil. The Choggoths have no natural volition. They are simply weapons.”

“Weapons wielded by whom?”

Nightmare Moon ignored her question. “I fear for Celestia,” she said.

“My sister? Why?”

“Because eventually Oblivion will realize what she has done. He will come for her, and you, and, in all likelihood, Twilight Sparkle and Mi’Amore Cadenza as well.”

“Why?” asked Luna, standing. “Tell me, why. I am Princess of this land, and I rule it with my beloved sister! I can right the- -” Luna felt the world suddenly seem to shake and wobble, and then felt herself falling. She impacted with the stone floor below with enough force to momentarally render herself even more disoriented, and when she felt reality start to return, she realized looked up and saw that the sun- -which had formerly been a white, pure sphere that had bathed the world in warmth and light had darkened. It had become deep, red, filling the world with a dim, unnatural glow that dyed everything the color of blood. It churned and drifted, its form widening, seeming to produce slow-moving flames that drifted outward into the sky before dissipating.

“No,” whispered Luna, somehow realizing what had happened. “No! Sister!”

“I believe,” said Nightmare Moon, her body black as night even in the burning red light. “That we have just become the sole ruler of this land.”

All across Equestria, the same sight was seen. The sun collapsed into dim, cold fire, and the world was plunged into the strange and horrible glow of the dying sphere. In Ponyville, Scootaloo, Applebloom, and Sweetie Belle suddenly saw the inside of their clubhouse darken, and the horrible light pour through the windows. Just outside Ponyville, a brown-coated creature barely clinging to life in a blood-soaked cave saw the sun change, and wept that he had lost the only two things in his life that had meaning. In the distant and dark halls, Crimsonflame watched through Lord Goldmist’s mad eye as the world was plunged into near darkness.

“So it has started,” she said to the skull perched on small stand beside her.

All of Equestria saw the sign, and all somehow knew what it meant. The Princess had fallen.

Chapter 33: The Weapon

In the upper levels, the Citadel was almost empty. The Draconians who had originally patrolled its halls had long since died in the Choggoth War. Even the golems that normally maintained and defended it were missing: those who remained barely had enough magic to maintain proper defense of the great tower. The halls themselves had already started to become dusty and had started to gain an impression of abandoness.

It was through these halls that Arcane Domination passed toward the Council chamber- -not that there was much that could be called a Council anymore. His plans had been mostly successful: the Aurasi were extinct, and there were less than fifty cerorians remaining. Even the Draconians had suffered terrible losses after the fall of their “Federation”. Fewer than three thousand remained, and many were young and untrained. Only the Trihorn Empire still stood strong, its outer shields holding against a continual sea of mutable flesh and its armies more than adequately defending it.

The plan had worked nearly perfectly- -or would have, had it not failed.

Arcane domination cried out in frustration and sent a blade of magic pounding into the wall beside him, slicing deeply through the stone and metal, sending a shockwave through the building that even the filthy monohorn squatters in the lower levels would surely hear.

Arcane Domination had failed. While he had been so focused on doing what was best for his people, dissent had spread through his own Empire. He had sought only to free the trihorns of the limitations of the other races’ feebleness and arrogance, and his vision had been repaid with betrayal. Even as he attempted to crush dissent, his Empire had fractured beneath him, and his nation had been stolen away by the foul witch Blackest Night.

Never in all his life had Arcane Domination expected another being, let alone one of his own kind, to stand against him. He was the strongest of all the trihorns, and he was a hero to his people. The witch herself had always been nothing more than a minor threat; a trihorn content to stay by herself, among her disciples, to toy with forbidden magic.

She herself would not have been difficult to eradicate, had it not been for the other factions that had emerged in the Empire. There were the abolitionists, and those upset with the direction of the war, and even those who rebelled against Arcane Domination’s necessarily harsh elimination of opposition parties. All of them were fools, and the most profound of idiots, unable to see what needed to be done, and had fallen as easy prey to the witch.

Arcane Domination turned his gaze to the trihorn at his side. A tall stallion, his body tattooed and armor painted with the abstract images that indicated his devotion to Blackest Night- -to the point where, based on his smell, Arcane Dominatin doubted that the trihorn beside him was still alive.

Without hesitating, Arcane Domination leveled another blast of knife-like magic at his companion. The other trihorn cast a shield spell, one that glowed blue but was tinged with a web-like array of black contamination. He turned to Arcane Domination, and stared at him blankly with his two heterogeneous eyes- -one of them a normal pale yellow, and the other, surrounded by a linear surgical scar, pure black with a tiny white pupil.

Then, slowly, the unnamed stallion turned back to his path, as though nothing had happened.

Arcane Domination threw open the door to the council in rage, and then suddenly froze in shock at the sight before him.

“What is the meaning of this?!” he demanded.

The only ones who had any right to stand at the table were the rulers of the two remaining races- -Arcane Domination of the Trihorn Empire, Crimsonflame, the ruler of a people with no land, and whatever shambling mass the Sklklekel had managed to assemble and call a ‘delegate’. Instead, there were four beings standing at the table. One of them was a tall and proud monohorn, her body clad in pale, silvery metal, and her gray eyes staring defiantly into Arcane Dominations. The other was some kind of sick parody of a monohorn- -a skeleton, knitted together by thin strips of blue flesh, most of its skull still visible. One empty eye socket stared at nothing, and in the other a distinctive pair of triangles gazed blankly.

“You,” said Arcane Domination, pointing at the Choggoth.

“Hello,” it said without moving its mouth. Its voice was flat and expressionless, but clear. Not like it had been before, when he had first encountered it inside his study, watching him.

“And you,” he said to the other. “How dare you stand at this table?”

“I am Single Horn,” she said calmly. “I am the delegate of the pony nation of Equestria.”

“Ponies? Ponies cannot have a nation! They are nothing more than- -than beasts! I created you! I once owned you!”

“The Draconian-Cerorian Fedoration hereby recognized Equestria as a nation,” stated Crimsonflame.

“Seconded,” said the Sklklekel delegate, its own body emerging from the darkness that it preferred. To Arcane Domination’s horror, the normaly insect-like body that he had grown accustomed to had been replaced with a gaunt, greenish earth pony, its tiny body overgrown with a mossy and branching fungoid symbiotic.

“If you think I will ever recognize- -”

The other trihorn stepped forward. “This form watches and speaks for Blackest Nightmare. As majority ruler of the Trihorn Empire, she and our allied bretheren accept the validity of the nation of Equestria.”

“You fool!” screamed Arcane Domination. “You filthy necromancer corpse! They are slaves! They are not worthy- -”

“Arcane Domination,” said Crimsonflame coldly. “We invited you to this meeting out of respect for you, and for your position- -but surely even you can see that by now, you are little more than a figurehead. But if you continue to embarrass yourself and your people, I will have you thrown out.” She raised her claw, and one of several large golems stepped out from the edge of the room, raising its spear.

Arcane Domination tried to regain his composure. “Fine, then,” he said. “But you will regret this decision.”

“If there is anything left to regret,” said the marked trihorn. His black eye flicked independently across the room, and stared at the Choggoth before him. “I am curious, though, as to why you have allowed a Choggoth into this sanctum.”

Crimsonflame’s own eyes flicked across the room, and Arcane Domination saw that her formerly blind eye had been replaced with one mechanical and golden- -the eye of an Aurasi.

“I am not even sure I can answer that myself.”

“This one defended us in battle,” said Single Horn. “He is therefore trustworthy.”

“Arcane Domination recognizes this one?” said the Sklklekel.

“Yes,” said Arcane Domination, smiling. “He has been watching me.”

“We know,” said Crimsoflame. Both Arcane Domination and the Choggoth turned to her.

“You knew of my presence?” said the Choggoth.

“I knew that something was watching. I was not aware it was you, specifically.”

“You are correct,” said the Choggoth. “I have been watching for a substantial amount of time. Since before the others came, even. Waiting.”

“Waiting for what?” said Crimsonflame. She was trying to sound tactful; she herself was not nearly as sure of this creature as Single Horn.

“For the rise of the Spheres.”

“Those things in the sky,” said Single Horn.

“Yes,” said the Choggoth, flatly.

“What are they?” asked the marked trihorn. “Our studies have indicated that they are producing truly prodigious amounts of magic, beyond anything we have ever witnessed.”

“They are elements of a machine,” said the Choggoth. He clicked as he bent down, and his horn illuminated with pale green light. An annotated image appeared over the center of the table, projected by magic. It showed two spheres- -one dark green, and one lighter- -floating over a third sphere that sat close to the table. Lines indicated the flow of magic toward the lower sphere, which consisted of little more than an outline.

“The Red and White Spheres are generators, and collectors,” explained the Choggoth. “They themselves are machines of a sort. They exist to power the third Sphere, the Finality Core.”

“Where did they come from?” asked Crimsonflame.

“They were produced by the Choggoths. The Finality Core likely is only coming into completion now.”

“This is ridiculous,” said Arcane Domination. “Choggoths do not make things. They simply eat, and consume. They are a disease and nothing more.”

The Choggoth looked up at him, staring blankly with its one eye. “Your mind is limited. You do not understand our nature completely. Choggoths are not independent organisms. We do not operate for our own sake.”

“Then why?” asked Single Horn, turning to the Choggoth. She was the only one who came within arms-reach of it. “Why do all this, cause all this pain?”

“The purpose of a Choggoth is to enter a world and absorb all organic matter, converting it into Choggoth and eliminating any resistance that might be faced. When the world is adequately consumed, the Spheres are generated.”

“But why?” demanded Crimsonflame, losing patience.

The image on the table shifted, showing an amplified and more detailed view of the smallest and lowest sphere. “The purpose of the Finality Core is to give birth to a Lord of Order.”

“A Lord of Order?” asked Arcane Domination. He was vaguely interested now, from an academic standpoint at least, assuming of course that the Choggoth was not simply lying.

“The Lords of Order are immortal beings whose sole purpose is to eliminate disorder form any universe they encounter,” explained the Choggoth. “They are the creators of the Choggoths, and themselves children of the Soth, which is the gate. They are living gods.”

“How many are there?” asked Crimsonflame.

“Unknown,” said D27. “This unit is not aware of the true number. It is, however, estimated to be in the millions. Not that you will encounter more than one.”

“Why is that?” asked Single Horn.

“Only a single Lord of Order inhabits a world at a time. Only one is necessary.”

“And what happens if it get here?”

“This world will exposed to an unparalleled surge of Order. The mass of all Choggoths present will be absorbed, and surviving fragments will proceed to another world. All life will be destroyed.”

The image over the table changed, and instead of a sphere it displayed three symbols. All three were geometric, but varied in complexity. The most complex was an array of geometric shapes placed into a complex pattern that was rendered in three dimensions. The one next to it consisted largely of several squares and an arc of circles. The final one was a pair of equilateral triangles, one pointing up and the other down.

“There are currently three Choggoths on Panbios. Nil, Void, and Oblivion.”

“Oblivion,” said Single Horn. “That is you.”

“Correct.”

“And what are these symbols?” said the marked trihorn.

“These are our insignias. The number of lines represents the number of worlds consumed.”

All eyes on the table turned toward the largest of the symbols- -except for Single Horn’s, whose gaze fell completely on the smallest.

“Choggoth Nil alone has consumed one hundred ninety three universes in its lifetime,” said Oblivion. “At present, it is leading the invasion. Choggoth Void is currently assisting, but is in a purely supportive capacity. At present, it is not thought to be maintaining sentience.”

“And Nil?”

“Unknown. However, Nil is currently responsible for the construction and eventual activation of the Finality Core. It will most likely have condensed into a single area, allowing Void to take all offensive actions.”

“Eventual,” said the Sklklekel delegate.

“Yes. The Finallity Core normally takes years, or even decades to complete. With the surplus of magical energy in this world, however, it will be completed in approximately six days.”

“Why are you telling us this?” said Crimsonflame, suddenly. Her eyes narrowed to slits, and she leaned over the table, pounding her left claw into it. “Are you trying to threaten us? To scare us?”

“My intention is to stop the Finality Core from activating.”

Every being in the room stared at Oblivion. None of them spoke for what seemed like an eternity, with every party either being dumfounded or afraid to be the first to ask.

“Why?” said Crimsonflame at last. “Why would you want to help us? What is your motivation?”

“Unknown,” said Oblivion flatly.

Another awkward silence. “How can your motivations be unknown?”

“The statement is declarative.”

“That is not the point!” exclaimed Crimsonflame loudly. “One cannot act without a reason!”

“You misunderstand the nature of a Choggoth. Our actions are never our own. We have the capacity for sentience, when it suits us, but not for free will.” He paused. “If anything, I suppose the cause of my actions is my defectiveness.”

“Defectiveness?” asked Single Horn.

“Correct. At present, I am defective. I am not functioning within the normal bounds of Choggoth behavior. Hence, why I am here. To desire to help you survive is a symptom of disease.”

“Your motivation for actions is irrelevant,” said the marked trihorn. “Blackest Night, and the Trihorn Empire, care nothing for you. Assuming that you are not lying to us, we are all in grave danger. What is your proposed solution to our continued survival? And why have you not acted until now?”

“I am intervening now because it is the only time I can. Choggoths are not suited to fight amongst themselves. I have done what I can to defend critical locations to your people, but in open combat I have no hope of defeating another Choggoth. Simply put, I am far too weak. I could not interviene until now, when I have a chance at success. As for my method, I have devised this…”
Oblivion lowered his horn over the table and projected a new image. It expanded rapidly form the center, rapidly covering the entire surface of the table and extending outward and upward. It stretched out and shifted, producing a schematic: an image representative of exceedingly complex parts intermixed equally with various types of magical spells. Even Arcane Domination, to his dismay, found that he could not quickly make sense of all of them.

The image suddenly flickered, though, and then, with a sound of something like dry wood snapping, vanished. A low gurgle seemed to arise from Oblivion, and those who looked to him realized that his horn had snapped along its spiral.

“Oh!” said Single Horn. “Are you hurt?”

“It is a Choggoth,” said Crimsonflame. “It does not feel pain.”

“Yes, I do,” said Oblivion. “I just understand that it is meaningless. You saw the schematic long enough I assume. The device in question is a weapon of my own design, modeled itself after a Finality Core. This weapon is not adequate to destroy any of the three Spheres, but it will have the capacity to destroy the Lord of Order before it reaches its adult form.”

“Are you insane?” said Arcane Domination. “There is no way we could build such a thing in less than a week!”

“I do not need you to build it,” said Oblivion, his tone still devoid of emotion.

“You have it already,” said Crimsonflame. “You were building it this whole time…”

“No. There is no need to build the Weapon. The Weapon is me.”

“But then what do you need us for?” said the marked trihorn.

“I have the capacity to generate the Weapon, but not to power it. I require magic.”

Arcane Domination suddenly understood at least part of what he had so briefly seen. “But such a device would require…”

“Yes,” said Oblivion, turning toward Arcane Domination. “I would need to absorb the magical output of all three races of magical creature on this world.”

“And your body could withstand that?” said Crimsonflame in awe.

“Long enough to fire one shot. I will be destroyed in the process.”

“You would do that for us?” said Single Horn.

Oblivion turned to her, staring into her gray eyes with his one blue “eye”. “Life and death are not highly dissimilar for a Choggoth. If my goal is accomplished, my destruction is irrelevant.” He turned to the others. “However, my fate is not the reason why this is difficult to ask. The spell required to charge the Weapon and the action of firing it will have repercussions for you as well.”

“What kind of repercussions?” asked Crimsonflame.

“The Weapon will produce a feedback wave. Projections indicate a fatality rate of between five and ten percent for Draconians, and as high as twenty percent for the trihorn race.”

“And the monohorns?” demanded Crimsonflame.

Oblivion paused. He seemed to almost sigh. “Monohorns are inherently different from Draconians and trihorns. Their magic is comparatively weaker and less insulated.”

“What will happen?”

“The majority of the feedback will be directed at the weakest contributors. There will be no survivors.”

“Then we cannot use this Weapon,” said Crimsonflame matter-of-factly.

“I disagree,” said Arcane Domination, the vestige of a thin and toothy smile crossing his semi-reptilian face. “I think it absolutely must be done.”

“You sick bastar- -”

“We agree with Arcane Domination,” said the marked trihorn. “But for different reasons. Due to the poor stewardship of the last regime, the situation for the Trihorn Empire had fallen. It cannot persist as such, nor can any others. If this is the only path that ensures our survival, then it is the only path that we can take.”

“You cannot be serious!” cried Crimsonflame, slamming her fist against the table and causing it to ignite slightly. “There are over two hundred thousand monohorns! How can we possibly ask them to make such a sacrifice?”

“We do not need to ask them,” said Oblivion. “Not technically, at least. With the Draconians, trihorns, and only a small number of monohorns involved, the spell would rapidly reach critical mass and drain organic magic from nonparticipants as well as direct contributors.”

“They would never even need to know,” said Arcane Domination.

“If you do not intervene,” said Oblivion, “I assure you. No living thing in Panbios will survive. I have tried to avoid this outcome. I have run countless simulations and tests. I have determined that no action I can take will prevent the feedback wave.”

“We will find another way,” growled crimsonflame, fire dripping from her mouth. “You are as disturbed as the other two. A destroyer, and nothing more! Are we just pawns in your war? Is this an internal conflict?”

“Yes, to both questions.”

“But that does not change the fact,” said the marked trihorn sternly, “that if we do not act, we will all perish.”

“You are meant to find personal perspective,” said the Sklklekel.

“And what does that mean?” demanded Crimsonflame.

“She means that the monohorns do not concern you,” said Oblivion.

“They do not concern me? They are people of this world, our friends, and our allies, who have fought alongside us for so long- -” began Crimsonflame

“And they are our property, our creations. They are a subdivision of us, and their fate should belong to us,” finished Arcane Domination.

“The decision does not rest with you.” Oblivion turned its head toward the monohorn beside it. “This decision belongs to their ruler. To her.”

“That is unfair!” cried Arcane Domination. “Her answer will be obvious! Our whole future cannot be allowed to be determined by one race!”

“Do not think that you understand so easily,” snapped Single Horn. “I am not a fool, and I am not a child. I am fully aware of the weight of this decision.”

“Single Horn…” said Crimsonflame.

“If it only one monohorn were required, the decision would be so much easier. I would die a death for each of them, if only to save them. My own death does not concern me. But my friends, and all those who I think of as family. Countless hundreds of thousands will die if this Weapon is used. But if it is not, millions will, including them.”

“Then the answer is obvious,” said the marked trihorn.

“No. It is not so easy. Every one of those who you so casually dismiss as collateral…they are ponies. They have families, friends, hopes and dreams, and destinies. They were meant for more than to be fuel for a…a machine.”

“The answer is simple,” said Crimsonflame. “We find another way.”

“Crimsonflame…” said Single Horn, smiling. “The one who saved me, and raised me…my dearest friend. Please consider this from my perspective. Were it the Draconians to die instead of monohorns, would you ask them to do so?”

“I- -” Crimsonflame found she could not answer. Her mind had immediately decided on the wrong answer- -that there would be no other way.

“Dragon Crimsonflame,” said the Choggoth, turning to her. “You have your own decision to make.”

“What do you mean, a ‘decision’?”

“The Weapon cannot be fired without a targeting aspect.”

“What does that mean?”

Oblivion paused, processing a response. “The weapon requires a magical entity to bias the output flow. A single, powerful element of the spell must stand in front of the Weapon. In the path of the blast.”

“No,” said Single Horn, understanding what Oblivion meant. “No. I will take that role. If the weapon fires, my life is already forfeit.”

“A monohorn will not be adequate. The magic would be too weak to bias the field.”

Crimsonflame chuckled. “So…you want me to die in this device as well?”

“I want nothing. I am a Choggoth. No. You specifically do not need to. However, you are the only being of adequate magical skill and power to bias the beam alone. Otherwise, fifty Draconians or two hundred thirty trihorns- -approximately- -would be required.”

“What would be my chances?”

“You would receive one ninety seven thousand two hundred seventy sixth of the blast. No known life form would be able to survive that impact. Of course,” he turned to Single Horn. “This predicates on your decision.”

“Does it?” said the marked trihorn.

“No,” said Oblivion, turning to the black eye that sat next to one that saw nothing. “If necessary, I can feed the reaction using resurrected monohorns. As long as the trihorns and Draconians contribute, the blast can be ignited without monohorn contribution.”

“Other ponies,” said Single Horn. Oblivion turned back to her. “Will other ponies be effected?”

“No. Only ponies who possess a horn. Even hybrids lacking horns will survive.”

Single Horn closed her eyes and took a breath. “Then I agree it must be done.”

“Single Horn- -”

“No. Please, stop. This is not even my decision to make. I will need to address my people.”

“You can’t be serious!” cried Arcane Domination. “There will be riots and destruction! Our territory alone has tens of thousands of monohorn slaves- -we will not inform them!”

“Do as you will. But I only make this decision for myself. I will feed my magic into this spell, if it will save others. But I must speak with my people.”

“No,” said the Sklklekel. “You will not debate. Not your intention. You want to tell them what will become of them.”

“Yes.”

“You would be allowing your entire people to die,” said Crimsonflame.

“I know. I know…”

For the first time in a long time, Crimsonflame’s heavily scarred face softened. She understood the weight that had been placed on Single Horn, a destiny for an entire people that was suddenly forced upon them.

“Then I promise you this,” said Crimsonflame. “If you will stand against the Lord of Order, so will I. I will direct the beam.”

“You are aware,” said the marked trihorn, “that if you die, there will be no Grand Magus to replace you.”

“I am aware of this. But the role of a Grand Magus is no longer necessary. There are so few of us…what point is there in a ruler? Perhaps my story shall guide them. Or perhaps not. But I cannot allow others to die for a task that belongs to me.”

“Then is it settled?” asked the marked trihorn. “Is this truly the path we choose?”

None at the table spoke, for they knew that the decision had already been made. Three had resigned themselves to death. Of the remaining three, one remained neutral, knowing that the decision concerned her bit did not belong to her or her kind. Another had chosen survival; even knowing that she had long since ceased to be entirely alive, she and her people must persist at all costs. The final was the only one who was truly happy, and suppressed his smile, because he had a plan.

Chapter 35: Realizations

None of it made sense. D27 had reviewed the data countless times, but the raw information always produced the same results. He had run it across various distributions, possibilities, and mathematical frameworks, but it always came out to the same result.

It had begun with his curiosity about the spell that Twilight and her friends had nearly used to kill him. He had been curious about its nature, and intended to attempt to generate a way to counter it in the future. In the process, he had reviewed the data he had collected from the initial generation of the spell. What he found was, despite all efforts at producing a solution, impossible.

The magic itself, he found, did not originate from the ponies themselves. It was greater than the sum of their contributions, pulling magic from a quasi-external source. The form of magic was, essentially, a catalyzed anti-entropic spell that was then overwritten with superimposed magic of a nature that D27 could not possibly hope to understand. Just the basic nature of the spell, however, indicated that the type of magic was unique. It was not just Order: it was the type of magic that could only be produced by a living, active Lord of Order.

Which was where the impossibility arose. Clearly, there was no Lord of Order present in Equestria. Over one million years ago, D27 had stopped the last one from being created. He had rendered the Finality Core inactive, and destroyed Nil. He supposed that, technically, it was possible that Void- -who had been unaffected by D27’s interference- -had constructed another Finality Core. It was even possible that Void had used the same set of Spheres that Nil had summoned.

Except that D27 knew from experience that life on Equestria still existed. A Lord of Order would have, by its very presence, eradicated everything living from the world. It was, by definition, impossible for a Lord of Order to exist with the disorder of life.

Just in case, D27 sent his external bodies to as many libraries as he could reach, scanning through as many books as possible. He was looking for information concerning the impossible- -that a Lord of Order was existent on Equestria. His plans for the death of Luna were momentarily put on hold- -Nil’s Finality Core was not nearly as much threat as a living Lord of Order would be.

D27 knew what a Lord of Order looked like. They were, however, normally quite large- -for a world the size of Equestria, one would be a sessile being as high as ten miles tall. Such a thing on Equestria would be impossible to miss- -at some point, somepony would have mentioned it, or D27 would have seen it.

Eventually, he gave up on searching. He put the majority of his bodies into stasis in thousands of locations over Equestria and focused on triangulating the trace signal from Twilight Sparkle’s spell. He searched the entire planet, each dormant body reacting just long enough to follow the trail of Order. It was weak, but with the sun mostly gone and the moon oddly week, finding the signal was still possible.

To his surprise, the signal proved to be relatively close to Ponyville. Geographic overlays indicated that it was somewhere in the nearby Everfree Forest.

D27 began preparations of a new external body. The Finality Core would need to wait. Due to Twilight Sparkle’s influence, he had managed to detect the possibility of a viable, fully developed Lord of Order- -no doubt the benefactor that had allowed her to become an alicorn.

It was unclear what D27 would find at that location, but he knew that it was a threat. His entire purpose and reason for being had shifted. He had to protect Equestria. He would stop at nothing to reach that location, and to destroy whatever he found there.

From the blood-red skies, Luna descended. Even in her state of weakness, her wings had managed to hold thought the flight. She had reached Canterlot at last. Her sister’s shield, to her horror, had fallen- -adding more evidence to force her to believe what she already knew in her heart had happened.

She descended into the unprotected city. It was not as welcoming as it had been before. The red light saturated the white marble and buildings, making them seem like an inflamed wound. The conditions of the city were also decaying rapidly- -from above, Luna had seen what she thought were fires throughout. When she got closer and finally landed on the cobblestone streets below, she saw that the city was largely abandoned and strewn with wreckage. Windows were shattered, carts overturned, and there was indeed a smell of acrid smoke permeating the city.

Images flashed to Lunas mind of the First Era, when she had just been a filly, just after she and her sister had gained their powers. The times of war and destruction around her, and the far more brutal destruction that Celestia had rained upon the land for centuries. It looked like a war zone, and Luna momentarily wondered if Canterlot had been invaded, or even bombed.

A noise attracted her attention. She walked slowly to a large broken window at street level. As she approached, two colts suddenly jumped out, carrying bags filled with what Luna immediately realized to be looted goods.

“Please, give those back!” cried a voice the voice of an elderly pony within the broken shop.

“Quiet, geezer, or I’ll kick you again!” yelled one of the colts. His head was turned when he was speaking, and, not seeing where he was going, bumped into Luna.

“What is the meaning of this?” cried Luna, disturbed that her subjects would resort to looing in a time when ponies needed help and comfort. “What are you- -”

“BLUE PONY!” screamed the colt. He and his friend immediately jumped back, dropping their bags, which fell to the sound with a metal clang. “BLUE PONY!” They both suddenly galloped off down the street, leaving their stolen goods, screaming in abject terror.

Luna did not understand. She was not unfamiliar with ponies fleeing from her, but it was usually in response to believing her to be Nightmare Moon- -whose turquoise now watched her from the red-tinged shadows. Ponies fearing her for being blue was entirely new to her.

Still confused, Luna picked up the bags in her magic and peered through the broken shop window. Inside was an elderly unicorn mare with and bruised, swollen eye.

“Here,” said Luna, returning the bags of goods. “As a Princess I must apologize for the behavior of my subje- -”

She was stopped short as a blast of pink energy shot into her face. Simple unicorn magic could not truly harm an alicorn, especially Luna, but it was surprising none the less and forced her to drop the bags.

“Filthy Blue!” screamed unicorn. “Let go of my toasters! Get away from me!”

“I do not understand,” said Luna, blinking to clear her eyes of the dazzling heat that would have permanently blinded any other pony. “I am Luna. I am only here to- -”

Another bolt of magic flew past her head. “Help!” cried the unicorn. “Monster! Blue! Somepony help!”

Luna stepped back.

“It seems they fear you now as much as they fear me,” whispered a voice from her mind.

“There she is!” cried a real voice. Luna turned to see the colts from before, pointing at her. Behind them was a mob of angry, disheveled ponies.

Though she did not know what was going on, Luna approached the group. She saw that they were carrying torches, as well as any vaguely weapon-like instruments that they could find including kitchen knives, sports equipment, garden tools, or even scraps of lumber, either in their mouths or in their magic.

“My subjects,” said Luna, trying not to use the Royal Canterlot Voice. “I do not understand what is occurring. Please explain to me what has happened.”

“Shut it, you filthy Blue!” screamed one of the larger earth ponies at the front of the pack. “You think you can just come into our city? Destroy our shops?”

“She’s probably the one that killed the Princess!” cried a female voice from the crowd.

That was enough to catalyze the mob’s anger into action. They rapidly surrounded Luna.

“Get her!” screamed one of them.

“Don’t let her fly away!” yelled another, and Luna felt somepony grabbing her foot.

“I want to eat her heart eat it eat it and become a princess,” said an armored unicorn, grabbing Luna’s shoulders, his horn sparking and his bloodshot eyes wild with psychosis. “I want wings too!”

Luna kicked him away. “Subjects!” she yelled. “Unhoof me this instant!”

“Cut off her wings!” screamed one of the crowd. “Cut them off!”

“No,” whispered Luna, her body suddenly freezing. “Not my wings…”

From in the crowd, she saw a black figure smile. She felt her mind slipping, and felt the blue magic of her horn blacken. She would not allow it to happen again. She felt her mind targeting all the ponies around her. A single shot would be all it took to save herself.

Before she could slay them, though, a sudden surge of violet magic pushed the crowd away. Luna looked up to see a white unicorn stallion dressed helmless in earth pony battle armor, flanked by other unicorns and crystal ponies.

“Shining Armor!” cried Luna.

“Princess,” called Shining Armor. “Come with me! It is not safe out here for you!”

His magic formed a shield behind Luna, and she moved forward to his side. The other ponies pushed forward, the crystal earth ponies taking shields from their back and the unicorns projecting magical ones. As Shining Armor led Luna toward the castle, his soldiers formed a line and forced the crowd back.

When he reached a line of soldiers behind him, he released a signal with his horn. Several Pegasi and a griffin flew overhead, dropping a fine powder over the crowd. Luna heard immediate coughing and screams of pain.

“My subjects,” she said, turning back to them.

“It’s pepper dust,” said Shining Armor, pulling her forward. “It won’t hurt them. But they will hurt you if we don’t get you back to the castle!”
` Hesitantly, Luna let Shining Armor lead her forward to the castle in the center of the city.

The castle was far more heavily guarded than Luna had left it. Oddly, though, none of the guards were the same. Celestia’s heavily armored soldiers and their ancient weapons had mostly been evacuated. They were instead replaced with a far more heterogeneous selection of ponies: earth ponies, Pegasi, and unicorns in various coat colors, as well as numerous crystal ponies. Luna was even sure that, at one point, she saw a griffin fly overhead wearing Crystal Empire armor.

The outer gate was opened immediately on their approach, and it was closed shut behind them almost as rapidly, giving just enough time for Luna and Shining armor to enter while a formation of guards marched outward, many armed with only their magic but others toting any energy weapons they had managed to find.

Passing through the inner gate was not so easy. As Luna approached, the guards drew weapons and assumed a defensive formation. A unicorn stepped forward.

“Stand down,” ordered Shining Armor.

“Sir,” said the unicorn guard. “With all due respect, she needs to be checked.”

“Use your head, private,” said Shining Armor, his annoyance clearly noticeable. “If she is Princess Luna, do you know what the scanning spell will do to you?.”

“I am willing to take that risk, to safeguard Princess Cadence and Princess Twilight, sir!”

“Use your magic,” said a clear voice from Luna’s left. She turned to see an all-black pony standing beside her, looming over her. A pony that nopony else could see. “Obivion’s magic is limited. He cannot perform most spells.”

Hating herself for obeying a suggestion from Nightmare Moon, Luna aqueiesed. She needed to get into the castle as soon as possible, to get to her sister and to alleviate her confusion about what was happening around her. She lowered her head, and cast her magic around the guard. She easily lifted him into the air.

“The Choggoth is not able to use levitation spells,” said Luna. “From my magic, please determine that I am the true Luna. Please. I need to pass.”

“Right, right,” said the guard hastily, motioning for the other guards to stand back from the door. “My apologies, your highness! Please, put me down!”

“Oh. My apologies.” Luna released the guard, and he flopped to the floor. She then passed through the gate, led by Shining Armor.

“My apologies for my men,” said Shining Armor as they moved quickly through the dim, red-lit halls of the Canterlot castle.

“I do not understand their actions,” said Luna.

“It’s the Choggoth,” explained Shining Armor. “It has infiltrated virtually all of our cities.”

“Like a changeling?”

“No. Intelligence indicates that it isn’t actually all that convincing as a pony. It always takes the same form: a blue pony.”

“The riots outside…”

“Race riots. No doubt intentional, meant to distract the military. Ponies all over Equestria have started attacking ‘Blues’, like yourself, out of fear.”

“Your father…” began Luna.

“Is safe. We have managed to safeguard eighty seven percent of known Blues in the castle, including my father. My ponies are currently scouring the city for any who remain, and doing their best to quell the riots.”

“And my sister?”

Shining Armor’s face, which had before displayed characteristic military stoism, suddenly collapsed into a deep frown. He was barely older than his sister, but suddenly looked so much older than he really was.

Before he could answer, however, a pair of figures emerged from the red light, their hoofsteps oddly silent and their eyes glinting in the shadows of the hall. Even in the darkness, Luna immediately recognized them as a pair of her guards; specifically, Nightwatcher and his brother, Darkseer.

“Your majesty,” said Nightwatcher, his voice deep but accented with an echo of inaudible high frequencies. “Please forgive us for our failures, our crimes against you.”

“Crimes?” asked Luna, confused. The shadow beside her was smiling.

“By failing to protect you, we put you in grave danger,” said Darkseer, his voice identical to his brother’s. “This is, to us, and surely to you, a crime worthy of dire punishment.”

“No,” said Luna. She did not have the time to tell them that she had wanted- -even needed- -to be alone, at least not in full, because it would mean informing them that she had been intending to end her life to prevent the rebirth of Nightmare Moon. Mentally as well as physically, she shifted into her royal stance. “Do you dare to suggest that I, Luna, Princess of the Night and Goddess of the Moon require protection from mere mortals like yourselve?”

“No, your majesty,” they both said, their bows deepening until their heads were touching the floor below.

“Rise,” said Luna. They did, and stared up at her, although they were careful not to meet her eyes- -in the old times, that would have been considered an immense slight against royalty. “I appreciate your loyalty, and value it to no end. You are like children to me. But you must know that there are some things that I must do alone.”

“Yes, your highness.”

“If you two are finished,” said Shining Armor rather harshly, “return to your posts.”

“We do not take orders from you, wizard-prince,” snapped Nightwatcher, his eyes narrowing. “Our place is at the side of our Princess.”

“Then come with me,” said Luna. The situation was draining to her, and, although she did not show it, she was terrified. Having the stoic, blue-clad chiropterans at her side was comforting to her, and she would need as much help as she could get to face the challenges ahead.

The three of them ushered her rapidly to the throne room. The grandest of all the rooms in the castle, it had been designed by Celeatia largely for herself. For a moment, Luna managed to make herself believe that when the grand doors were opened, she would see her sister sitting upon the throne.

Instead, when the doors swung open, she was met with a different princess. In the center of the dimly lit, dead looking room, stood Cadence, discussing orders with several of her personal guards. She was clad in ornate crystal armor, her mane tied behind her head. Luna shivered, remembering how her predecessor had once worn very similar armor in his own time.

Despite wearing the accoutraments of a military leader, Cadence looked profoundly out of place. Her narrow pink body caused the armor to look effeminate instead of threatening, like jewelry instead of a practical piece of equipment. Her shape and mannerisms exuded far too much kindness and love for her to pass as a military commander.

Cadence was not alone, either. Aside from her military advisers and a number of guards, she was also accompanied by two of Twilight Sparkle’s friends, the orangish earth-pony Applejack and the Pegasus Rainbow Dash- -the latter of whom was wearing a lightweight Pegaus scout uniform, complete with wing blades. The blades, Luna noticed, were on upside down, and forcing Rainbow Dash’s wings into an uncomfortable position.

“Luna!” said Cadence, nearly double performing a double take as she looked up. Like her husband, she too looked profoundly aged. Her magic, it seemed, was contributing to the protective seals around the city- -but only at a fraction of what Celestia’s had.

“Princess Cadence,” said Luna, somewhat surprised. “Should you not be defending the Crystal Empire?”

“I wish I were,” said Cadence, “but the Crystal Empire seems to be the only place in Equestria that it can’t reach.”

“But why are you here?” said Luna, not wanting to accept what she already knew to be the truth.

Cadence sighed. She looked to the floor, and then looked directly into Luna’s eyes. “Because until your return just now, I was the senior Princess of Equestria. Luna, I’m sorry, but Celestia…”

“Is my sister dead?” demanded Luna.

“No,” said Cadence. “She is alive but…but only barely.”

“What is her condition?”

“Luna…”

“Cadence. I demand that you tell me!”

“It is a parasite,” said Cadence. “Or so they tell me. A piece of that…that thing…”

“The Choggoth,” said Luna.

“Yes,” said Cadence. Luna could see that she was in almost as much pain as Luna; Celestia was her “aunt”, but they were virtually family. “There isn’t…there isn’t anything left…”

“Your majesty, and Princess Cadence” said Nightwatcher. “If I may spare the Crystal Empress the pain.”

“Please,” said Luna.

“The beast has consumed your sister internally. Her organs have been removed completely. She consists of little more than a shell of bone and skin. She is presently unconscious, but the doctors have informed me that they are detecting some brain activity.”

“How dare you?” said Cadence, stepping forward. “You are talking about Celestia. Show some respect!”

“No,” said Luna. Her heart ached at what she had just heard. “No. I needed to hear it, to know.” She turned to Cadence. “Can it be removed?”

“No,” sighed Cadence, suddenly unable to meet Luna’s gaze. “It has assumed the function of her organs. It is keeping her alive…but barely. If it were to be removed, she would…”

“I understand,” gulped Luna, holding back the tears. “Have you informed…informed Princess Twilight of this?”

“Twilight was the first to find her,” said Cadence. “She…she’s been at her side since. Despondent. She won’t stop crying. Not even Shining Armor can reach her.”

“How did this happen?” demanded Luna, part of her sadness crystalizing into anger. She turned to Shining Armor. It was certainly not his fault, but as de-facto leader of the last of the Canterlot security forces, it was his duty to accept the blame. “How did it get inside her?”

“There is no way that Oblivion could defeat Celestia in a fair fight,” said Nightmare Moon, still invisible to everypony else in the room. “He is far too weak. He must have poisoned her.”

“Ah thought the protection spell was ‘sposta be unbreahkable,” said Applejack, stepping forward with Rainbow Dash.

“It used this,” said Shining Armor, motioning for one of his guards to approach. The guard came, a cushion on his back containing a long, needle-like purple crystal.

“Cerorite,” said Luna under her breath.

“It somehow penetrated the shield,” said Shining Armor. “The spear is hollow. A piece of the enemy was inside it. When it came through, it attatched to a guardspony’s weapon and used it to attack other guards.”

“Were there injuries?” asked Luna.

“Nineteen were injured,” said Shining Armor solemnly. “Seven critically, including a unicorn whose horn was…it was ripped out of him, at the root. In addition, there have been six deaths.”

“Deaths?” said Luna. Such a thing was virtually unheard of in Equestria, even in times of war. Ponies were sometimes eaten by various monsters or felled by accidents, but never outright murdered. Even Lord Tirac had not slain a single pony in his attempted coup against Celestia and Luna.

Luna felt the pain of the loss of her subjects, but also felt the pain that was filling the room. She could see it in their minds, the horror they were experiencing. They, like her, realized that they were fighting an enemy who would not hesitate to destroy anypony or anything in its path. To this monstrosity, nothing was sacred, not even the lives of ponies.

“In addition,” said Shining Armor, “we have suffered substantial casualties in our attempts to regain control over Canterlot. No deaths yet, thank Celestia, but substantial injuries. The infirmary is filling rapidly.”

“I am immediately ready for deployment, sir!” said Rainbow Dash, standing at attention.

“Denied,” said Shining Armor, sounding as if he were saying it for the hundredth time. “Not that you would be a poor soldier, but being a Blue, you would be put in undo danger. My sister would never forgive me.”

“It’s not just Canterlot, either,” said Cadence. “When Celestia was…injured, the sun changed, and riots have erupted all over Equestria. We have already lost contact with Manehattan, and Cloudsdale has initiated an rather brutal interim government under ‘governor’ Spitfire.”

“Our soldiers are no longer fighting Choggoths, but our own ponies,” said Shining Armor. “The entire military is engaged right now, and we’re still losing. We have lost control over much of the military already, especially the unicorns, who have now become dangerously unstable. Without Celestia, there is nopony to maintain command.”

They all looked to Luna. She suddenly understood what was happening. Cadence was a fine ruler of a kingdom based on love and harmony, but she was not experienced enough to handle an anarchic revolution. Even with Shining Armor by her side, the Equestrian military was simply not large enough to take back control. The Choggoth, it seemed, had never intended to invade- -it had instead corrupted the fabric of Equestria itself, turning ponies against each other.

“My sister,” said Luna, “the true ruler of Equestria, is on her deathbed. Equestria is in flames. Our military has failed, and our cities are lost to us. All while an enemy that we can neither find nor stop plots against us. And your expectation is for me to lead you.”

“You are the only one that can,” said Shining Armor. “Princess.” He bowed to her, and the others followed suit- -even Cadence, who was by right Luna’s equal. Only one figure in the room refused to lower her head to Luna.

Luna felt the tears running down her face, and to the surprise of all the ponies in the room, suddenly burst into laughter. They looked up at her, confused.

“I cannot,” sighed Luna through her sobs of laughter. “I do not have the strength to rule in this time of crisis…”

“Of course you do,” said Cadence. “Please, Luna, don’t give up on us.”

“Cadence,” said Luna, more tears welling in her eyes uncontrollably. “Please believe me. I only want to help Equestria. I know now that I need to do the right thing. It is a ruler’s duty to know her limits. Please forgive me for what I must do to safeguard the kingdom.” She smiled, and then screamed into the room. “Do you hear that!” she called. “You win! I cannot win this fight! I am too weak…” She reached her hoof into the gap between her necklace, the crystal still glowing weakly, and her neck. “I need strength!”

With one stroke, she tore the necklace free. It landed against the marble floor and shattered.

Cadence heard the screams. Screams of agony and fear, greater than she had ever heard from a pony or even though possible. Her mind momentarily failed to comprehend that they were coming from Luna, that somepony she loved could produce such sounds in her presence.

She did not understand what was happening. She had seen Luna tear away the strange necklace, but not known why. Then, as she watched, the black stain around Luna’s cutie mark suddenly surged forward, reaching out and pulling its way across her hairless flesh, digging into her and spreading rapidly.

“Luna!” she cried, rushing forward. She stopped when Luna suddenly opened her eyes. They were not longer the eyes of any pony- -they were blue-green, with slit pupils.

She watched as Luna’s flesh was darkened, her body blackened and warped into a new shape, and she listened as the screams collapsed into laughter. Luna straightened herself and stretched her wings, but she was no longer Luna.

Standing before Cadence, in the center of the Canterlot throne room, was a fully resurrected Nightmare Moon.

Chapter 37: The Death of Oblivion

Crimsonflame looked out across the land. Below her, in what had once been Draconian territory and, so long before that, the thriving farms of pastoral Cerorians. Now it was a sea of writhing pink material. The color was so dark and tinged with red that it almost seemed to be an ocean of blood. It would have been easier if it had been, though. That writhing mass below was not something so simple: it was a living, thinking creature. One that could be smarter than any living creature, but only sought to destroy.

What Crimsonflame saw in the distance made her heart sink. She had truly hoped, to some extent, that Oblivion was lying, that perhaps he was even leading her and her soldiers into a trap. As she looked out over the sea, however, the sign of the great Black Sphere proved that he had spoken the truth.

It was exactly where Obivion had predicted that it would be: in the remains of an abandoned, irradiated Cerorian city and near the fall of Olympus, which the Choggoth Nil was using as a source of rare materials for the machine that it instinctively constructed. The Sphere itself was a terrifying sight. It dwarfed the ancient, uninhabitable Cerorian towers that surrounded it, floating with no visible means of support. The Core itself was black, and clearly constructed from something like metal or stone, although the bottom of it was covered in deep red slime that was forming itself into various kinds of organic machines. That inverse mountain of flesh corresponded to a mountain below it, the remainder of the Choggoth Nil.

“By the Madgod,” she whispered.

“We need to hurry,” said the Choggoth-reanimated skeleton beside her. “There is not much time.”

Crimsonflame turned and looked upward toward the hulking mass of steel behind her, and the battle-armored cerorians who had assisted her with her armor. The steel hull and mass of guns behind her was the Rnon, the last of the great cerorian airships.

“Madame Grand Magus,” said the nearest of the cerorians. She was barely older than a filly, but on her back was perched the final piece of the armor that they had constructed for Crimsonflame: a silver helmet.

“No,” said Crimsonflame, waving away the child. She was already covered completely in hermetically sealed silver armor; even her wings, though still functional, were coated. “If I wear a helmet, I will not be able to cast spells.”

“If the Choggoth has access to even one inch of flesh, it will kill you,” said one of the older cerorians, the new Commander, a battle-matron by the name of Steelspine- -even though as a commander, her forces barely consisted of enough to crew the airship.

“Then I will not allow it to touch me,” said Crimsonflame, lifting her Draconian hood around her head.

Steelspine turned to Oblivion. “Is it not possible to destroy the Sphere from here? Or at least damage it?”

“No,” said Oblivion, flatly. “Your technology is far to primitive to even damage it. You will need to direct your guns at Choggoth.”

“It seems relatively still,” said Steelspine.

“Only because it is currently preoccupied with constructing the Finality Core,” snapped Oblivion. “It sees your floating ship as insignificant. There are, however, several thousand Aurasi buried down there. As soon as Nil realized that it is being attacked, it will attack, and attack fiercely.”

“That is what we are here for,” said a young male Draconian, stepping forward. He and his compatriots stood amongst a formation of trihorns, who on their backs each held a pair of magically-generated black wings.

“And us,” said Steelspine. “We will fight to the last, until our guns melt, for you, Grand Magus.”

“And the monohorns?” said Oblivion.

The crowd went silent. Crimsonflame knew that they were not on the ship. Single Horn and a group of monohorn mages had taken up a location in part of the unoccupied desert below, in an area that the Choggoth had retracted from and abandoned, near the hill that Oblivion had selected for the location of the Weapon.

“What about you?” demanded Crimsonflame. “Where is this ‘Weapon’ you claim to possess?”

“My true body is currently awaiting deployment in the Gloame. I must enter only when the Lord of Order is born. If I arrive any earlier, Nil will realize what I am doing and destroy me before I can defeat it. You, however, must be in position when I enter, and your people prepared with the necessary spell.”

“We are,” said Crimsonflame. She glared from beneath her hood. “And do not take this so lightly. Be aware of the horrible choice you have inflicted on us.”

“I do not take this lightly,” replied Oblivion. “This will be my final day, as well as yours. In my death, I will have served my only purpose. Although…in all honesty, I cannot imagine your fear. I am nothing more than a machine, but you are…something more.?

“Fear?” laughed Crimsonflame. “Do you think fear of my death is my concern right now?” She looked out at the Choggoth below and the Finality Core. Then she turned back to the others. They were all looking to her, as though she were some kind of hero.

“Friends,” she said. “Comrades. I thank you. I am afraid that…that I must leave this war before it is completed. I am truly sorry.”

“You shall always be remembered,” said one of the many Draconians on board. He put his right claw to his chest, and dropped to one knee in salute; the others did the same. “You’re sacrifice, your gift to us shall be remembered forever.”

“I thank you,” said Crimsonflame. “But I am just another Grand Magus. There is no need to remember me. Please, though. Remember the monohorns, the ones who will make the true sacrifice. Not just the soldiers among them. The elderly, the young, the wounded. Their death shall be my greatest failure, so please…please remember them when they are gone, and the destiny they might have had.” She turned back to the sea of Choggoth before her, and the slowly revolving sphere. “One final battle,” she said as she spread her silver-clad wings. The turned back to the others. “For all Panbios!” she shouted.

“For Panbios!” they yelled back.

Crimsonflame turned back to the edge of the carrier, and focused her mind on the position she needed to reach. She ran forward and leapt over the edge, feeling the wind blow past her face and the slight sensation of falling. This, she knew, would be the last time she felt the freedom of flight. She tried to force her mind not to dwell on that fact.

Below her, moving swiftly over the animate sea below, she saw her shadow. It was rapidly joined by more- -the fastest fighters of the Draconian Federation, and the magically propelled trihorns. Below them, the Choggoth seemed to realize that something was happening. Along its surface, eyes of various size burst open, staring upward at the rapidly moving formation of beings above it.

Without hesitation, the mass shifted. Tentacles burst upward, as did larger forms that condensed into massive golem-like structures, each with a variable number of legs and arms but every single one containing a copy of Nil’s insignia.

From behind, the Rnon opened fire. Artillery rained down, and the superheated tails of energy bolts passed close by, the fiery explosions of both tearing apart the Choggoth below. It seemed to scream in pain- -or to laugh. Several of the bodies it had created suddenly burst open, masses of red-pink flesh over silver and gold wings pouring outward.

Crimsonflame released the first volley of defensive fire, condensing her flames into a single narrow distribution that tore through the reconstructed Aurasi and Argasi, as well as several of the Choggoth bodies- -which were promptly reabsorbed by the mass on the ground.

Magic erupted from above her, joining the artillery from behind. Magic flew out from the horns of the trihorns and from the mouths of the Draconians as they cast their spells, and spells many colors rained down on the homogenous mass of tentacles and newly forming teeth below.

Beside her, Crimsonflame saw a red-fleshed Aurasi attack a winged trihorn. The enchanted wings that the trihorns had summoned were no more durable than thick canvas, and as she cried out her wings were taken from her and her body pulled downward by the undead and screeching Aurasi- -only for it to rise again, now possessing a skeletal head with three horns, all glowing with blue magic.

A tentacle shot upward and reached for Crimsonflame, seeming to recognize her as the leader- -or the most powerful. It attempted to wrap around her, only to burst into smoke and stinking liquid as it reacted with her Cerorian armor. Part of it reached her face, however, and she cried out in anger as it tried to burn and cut into her skin, leaving a jagged wound.

Crimsonflame closed her wings, and dropped to the ground. Her feet impacted the Choggoth below, and she sank into it like mud. It was surprisingly deep, and it seemed to recognize her presence; all around her mouths and claws appeared, screaming as they swarmed around her. They did not even stop as they melted on her armor.

She took a deep breath and summoned all her energy. Then, with a combination of ancient words and a surge of fire, she cast a massive ball of flame around herself. The piece of Choggoth burrowing into her jaw was destroyed, as was the Choggoth material surrounding her and the undead in the skies above, leaving their metal and bone skeletons to fall around her in the newly barren, radioactive soil below.

The impromptu airforce above her momentarily stopped, either shielding themselves from the fire that would never burn them, or staring in awe at the display of power below. Crimsonflame knew that it must have looked impressive, if not impossible- -but it felt horrible. She was draining her magic too rapidly, and literally draining it from her reserve of life force.

“All of you,” she said to them, telepathically. “Return to the Rnon.”

“We won’t leave you!” said the lead Draconian, even as the surviving trihorns nodded in respect and obeyed the order.

“This is a path I must walk alone. I may fall, but Draconia will survive!”

She focused the magic into her body, retracting the flame and directing it. She sped her wings, and with a shout from a language mostly forgotten, surged forward with incredible speed.

As she moved beyond them, and saw them return to the safety beyond the perimeter of the Choggoth, Crimsonflame knew that she had passed the point of no return. With Finality Core looming overhead, seeming to grow in size as she approached it, her mind fully understood that this was her last day, and in her heart, she knew that it must be so.

“The Finality…Core,” whispered Oblivion into her mind. “It is nearly…active…you need to be in…position.”

“I’m trying,” said Crimsonflame, rising high in the sky and emitting another burst of flame, the fire contorting into every element that Crimsonflame could conceive of and merging with the silver artillery pounding around her. In the gap, she flew forward, knowing that she was approaching her destination.

Then she saw it, the place where she would die. It was not demarked by any feature, aside from being in the shadow of the radioactive monoliths of the cerorian city around her, its name long-forgotten. She landed with an explosion of fire, pushing back Nil with the force of her magic. She began to lay down as many defensive spells as possible, and stared up at the Black Sphere before her.

“Tell me, Oblivion,” she said through roars of fire to repulse the mass so intent on consuming her. “Just how much is this going to hurt?”

“You will likely be…vaporized instantly,” replied Oblivion.

“And the monohorns?”

“I cannot…say. Feedback surge…probably painful, but…quick.”

“And you?”

“Much…pain.”

“Are you afraid?”

“No. Nothing…for me to lose…only…regret.”

“I am afraid,” said Crimsonflame. “I do not want to die. But I shall. To protect them all.”

A sound suddenly permeated the air. It was low, reminiscence of the sound of a lake cracking in the depths of winter, but so much more immense. To Crimsonflame’s surprise, the Choggoth around her suddenly stopped attacking. It surged away from her, toward the mountainous machine that it was constructing beneath the sphere, as well as outward into a great and complex ring.

“It begins,” said Oblivion.

Crimsonflame looked skyward at the hovering sphere above her. It slowly stopped turning, and seemed to wait, releasing a slow, somber sound, almost like a cry- -which was followed by something like laughter from the organic elements below.

Suddenly, from higher in the sky, the Red Sphere erupted into flame, becoming pure white, and the White Sphere poured forth a harsh cold light. From each, a beam of intense light was produced, burning through the atmosphere with a tremendous explosion. The two beams impacted the Finality Core, and it seemed to be momentarily consumed in a mixture of scalding and frigid fire.

Crimsonflame cast a spell to protect herself, only to watch as the energy poured backward into the Sphere, being absorbed by the Core. The sphere rapidly began to revolve once again, accelerating. The atmosphere above it distorted into a storm, lit with sparks of violet magic.

As the sphere moved, it changed. Its shape seemed fluid, like a massive and immensely intricate version of a data cube. It seemed to flatten, and then expand as a massive fractal plane, becoming almost disk like.

From behind her, Crimsonflame suddenly felt a distortion in space. She turned to see hundreds of triangular portals opening atop a distant hill. From those portals poured blue flesh, most of it pre-assembled into immensely complex machinery. As the Finality Core expanded, the components of Oblivion began to assemble, forming themselves into a massive vertical disk.

To Crimsonflame’s surprise, it was tens of miles wide, a vast machine visible in the distance. She turned back toward the other party, the rapidly expanding Black Sphere, and saw that it was not even larger, even than Oblivion’s Weapon. She suddenly felt so small, a tiny being standing between two parties in a war of gods.

“Begin the spell,” ordered Oblivion, transmitting the thought to all living beings on Panbios.

All across Panbios, the races of magical beings heard the call, and stepped forward. In the last bastion of the Trihorn Empire, all the trihorns emerged from their houses and took up a formation in the street. They pointed their horns toward the southeast, toward where they could feel Oblivion and something far worse beginning. Not one of them was afraid, even though they all knew that one fifth of their population would not survive- -every one of them was sure that only the weak would die.

In a long forgotten part of the city far below the farthest reaches of the underground tunnels, a corpse took a ragged breath and stood as its body was coated with black shadows. Blackest Night turned her horns toward Oblivion, and her legions of servants, both dead and alive, turned as well.

The Draconians, likewise, took up their positions. The vanguard of soldiers on the Rnan moved to the front, holding their claws together, and began a chant, funneling their magic into Oblivion. Others throughout the land did the same. In the Citadel, every golem suddenly collapsed into empty, dead piles, and the lights and shields of the great tower fell to darkness.

In the shadow of Oblivion, Single Horn and he group of loyal wizards, young and old, looked to the great machine. Single Horn watched as its components, so organic and yet so mechanical, began to move in immensely complex ways, pieces rotating and reconfiguring. She stood in awe, horrified that such a weapon, an element of ultimate doom, could be alive.

She raised her horn toward the weapon, and with tears in her eyes, began the spell. As her horn glowed pure white, the other monohorns around her joined as well. All across Equestria, the monohorns suddenly turned toward Single Horn. They raised their horns to her. Every stallion, mare, colt and filly charged their magic and began the spell. They wept and held their loved ones, fully aware of what would happen to them when the spell was completed. Among them stood the other ponies, those that could not wield magic, some holding their friends and lovers, all knowing that they would be the ones to survive and carry on.

In a more isolated part of Panbios, however, a different spell was being performed. In the cavernous vaults of a long-abandoned trihorn city, long forgotten to all and so old as to even have escaped the invasion of the Choggoths, Arcane Domination stood in the center of a magical circle, one inscribed with fresh monohorn blood.

All around him stood the remainder of those who were still loyal to him. The nobles and scions of powerful families, as well as those truly devoted to magic in the name of the survival of the Empire. They were hooded and their faces hidden, but the glow of their horns was still visible.

The Choggoth Oblivion had given Arcane Domination everything he needed. Even the brief exposure to the schematic of the spell had given him everything he needed to alter the fundamental nature of the spell. He had understood how exactly the feedback would occur, and in a mad stroke of genius understood how to manipulate it. The spell itself was complicated, but nothing that he could not handle, especially with the blood of several pure-breed monohorns and the pure, living blood and magic of the trihorn.

“On this day,” hissed Arcane Domination to his followers. “No trihorn shall perish. None of us. Not one.” He was greeted by barely visible sharp-toothed smiles all around. They all understood what he was doing, and recognized his genius and strength. They, unlike those who had betrayed him, knew what needed to be done for the sake of the Trihorn Empire, and knew that this was the perfect- -if not the only time where it could be accomplished.

The sky darkened and the violet lightning accelerated. Then, as Crimsonflame watched, the Finality Core began to shift again. It almost appeared to be blooming, exposing something from its center like a massive flower.

The cylindrical component that emerged rapidly shifted, its covering retracting into the main body of the core, revealing a core glowing with horrible, unnatural light. Crimsonflame was forced to look away; the view of that light- -of concentrated, purified Order- -put her at risk of madness if she stared too long.

Then came an explosion. It was so massive and so long that Crimsonflame was forced to the barren rock and sand below, falling to her silver-clad knees. Knowing the risk, she looked up at the Finality Core. When her eyes met the sight before her, she wished she had not. The fact that she was about to die was bad enough. She knew that she could have just left Panbios peacefully, but bearing witness to the creature that was emerging ensured that she would never know piece, not even in death.

The glowing core had erupted into a kind of portal. It was similar to the kind that Oblivion used, but without a clear boundry. It led to somewhere, but at the same time to a place that was less of a space and more of a pure intelligence, something that felt like a weight in Crimsonflame’s mind. Images of grotesque and terrible spheres, and of a tree of incomprehensible proportions filled her mind.

Whatever matter or energy the portal was made of, it immediately started to condense, as if rapidly printing solid material. Tentacles began to pour through, being generated as they emerged into the world. They were not like the material of the Choggoth at all, but rather, they seemed to be made of pure white crystal. Each one was miles wide, and slowly reached toward the ground, blindly seeking anything that they could latch onto.

The tentacles were the first to come through, forming at the edge of the portal. They were rapidly followed by something angular and geometric, also made of crystal, and far wider. As it came through, it split open, and to Crimsonflame’s horror she realized that it was a massive crystalline mouth.

It was in that instant that she realized that Oblivion’s description of the function of the Finality Core had been limited by the constraints of Draconian language. This was no “birth”. This thing was not alive, not in any sane sense, nor was it knew. It was ancient and terrible, and at the same time only just being created, carrying the weight of endless time even in its first moments of divine intelligence.

The magic alone was staggering. Such it was inconceivable that so much magic could be concentrated into one being. The idea that Oblivion wanted to attempt to even challenge such a thing was preposterous; such a thing could not be destroyed. The instant the portal had opened, Panbios had already been doomed.

Crimsonflame dropped to her knees. The Choggoth surrounding her seemed to understand that its job was complete, and that the majority of it was about to die. It began to slowly approach her, as if seeking vengeance.

“You should never have trusted Oblivion,” it hissed from all directions at once. “He is a betrayer. He will kill you all.”

The Choggoth got closer, but Crimsonflame did little to stop it. She was drained, and her body was barely weak enough to stand in her heavy armor, let alone fly. She also knew that, even if she could escape, doing so would only doom Oblivion’s sole attempt to defeat the Lord of Order.

The mouth of the Lord of Order began to approach the land below, propelled by a kind of crystalline trunk, and its tentacles were already locking into the planet. Wherever it touched, the Choggoth screamed as it was converted from pink tissue into ultra-condensed crystals. Crimsonflame could not tell if was screaming in pain, or in joy.

A Choggoth tentacle reached out for her, hesitating as it crossed the ground. Crimsonflame only closed her eyes and waited for the final blow. Even if she resisted and survived Nil, she knew that she would be destroyed by Oblivion. She heard a sudden explosion and a burst of magic, and suspected that it were her skull being crushed.

She did not die, however. Instead of feeling the pain of an organic tendril boarding into her flesh, Crimsonflame felt a strange warmth. For a moment, she wondered if that was what death felt like, or if she was perhaps being immolated by Oblivion’s blast. The heat felt strangely familiar, though, and Crimsonflame slowly opened her eyes.

She found herself engulfed in green and violet fire. She looked down at herself, and realized that she was not burning. Then she looked up, and saw the fire’s origin. Before her was something reminiscent of a dragon. It was a massive, bipedal form, standing before her like a shield, emitting a protection spell that was several hundred times more powerful than the one she had used before.

His flesh, it seemed, had been stripped away and replaced with pure magical fire. Through the intense glow of his body, Crimsonflame could see a skeleton within, one that moved in response to the fire that made up his body.

“Daughter,” he said, turning to her. His face, though without true flesh, still held the fierceness of Rageclaw but the softness of a loving father. “Please listen. There is not much time. This attempt will fail. Oblivion’s plan is flawed, but he is yet too incomplete to see it. This is the first of just two times I shall return.”

“Father,” said Crimsonflame. “I don’t understand.”

“But this is the last time I will see you, my daughter. Every second I exist, I weep for you, because I left you too early, and left you this war. Please forgive me.”

“I forgive you father!” cried Crimsonflame.

He smiled, and raised his claw. “I will not see you the second time. This will be my only chance to say goodbye to you.”

“Please don’t go!”

“I cannot ever die, daughter. But today, you must live. Know that I love you, and always will.”

With a sudden burst of green flame, Crimsonflame suddenly felt herself transposed in space. She emerged with a small explosion of energy.

“Crimsonflame!” cried Single Horn, her horn now visibly hemorrhaging magic into Oblivion, who was now pulling it automatically from every magical creature in Panbios, draining them of their energy nearly to the point of death. “The spell!”

“My place has been taken,” she said, both to Single Horn and to the mile-wide mechanical lens that was Oblivion.

She realized that she had been given a tremendous gift. She also realized what it was for. With a swipe of her claw, she tore off the armor from her left arm. She took a deep breath, knowing that what she was about to do would be far more painful than any death she could have before imagined, and knowing that she would squander her father’s final gift to her.

With one swift motion and a powerful spell, she gripped her left arm with her right claw. It immediately burst into flames, the markings of the spell carving themselves into her flesh. She understood what she needed to do. Her own flesh, and her own body would become a catalyst for a protection spell. She was the only one strong enough to perform the necessary spell. She was not entirly sure how Oblivion’s spell worked, but understood it well enough to make a change to its fundamental nature. She would use her own body as a buffer; instead of the monohorns absorbing the feedback from the magical surge, she would.

There was no chance of survival, and she knew it. She turned to Single Horn, and looked for the last time into the gray eyes of her truest and most loyal friend. Crimsonflame’s final gift would be life- -not just to Single Horn, but to the people who would now count on her to lead them to a glorious and peaceful future.

Oblivion stared out at the plane before him. He felt the lightning of Order forming across his body, sparking between his internal mechanisms. The amount of magic that he was absorbing was incredible, but his body was holding within acceptable parameters.

There were difficulties, however. Unlike Order, Panbioan magic came in an impure state. It was stained with the emotions and memories of all those who projected it. There was love and pain and fear and hate, anger and rage and sorrow and pity, righteousness and duty, and so much more. These were things that Oblivion could not understand. He was not meant to understand them. He was nothing more than a weapon- -and yet he felt them pouring in with the magic. He suddenly came to understand what he was truly doing, and comprehended the destruction and pain that it would bring. This did not for a moment slow his progress.

Suddenly, an anomaly occurred. The sight parameter of the spell changed. Oblivion analyzed his surroundings and found that the target ‘Crimsonflame’ had moved. She was now behind him with the monhorns. In her place was a new, far more powerful target. Its signature matched no known form of life, but was relatively similar to a dragon. It seemed to be holding position, though, and Oblivion decided to accept it as the biasing parameter in his spell.

Out farther, he saw the Lord of Order emerging. Six times before, he had done the same as Nil was doing now. Though he could not recall why or how, he now saw that the creature being pulled through was an abomination. It was not, however, a creature of destruction. That was the occupation of Choggoths, who served the Lords of Order. Nor was it strictly a creature of creation; Order could not truly create anything. It was simply a creature of difference. When it finally met the planet and converted into its adult form, it would convert everything into an ordered state. Pony, dragon, Choggoth- -it did not matter. Everything would become Order.

It was in that moment that D27 finally realized his motivation. He was not going to allow everything to become the same, but to keep it separate, to allow for the creatures of Panbios to survive. The motivation for his inborn goal was not to allow for the survival of those who had independent destinies, and the choice of their own lives. He would protect those that had what he never could.

“Firing,” he stated as the spell came to its conclusion.

“Now!” ordered Arcane Domination. The chanting arouond the circle suddenly stopped and every Trihorn present shifted, lowering their horns toward Arcane Domination, lending them their power, giving him the ability to control the path of the feedback surge. He would direct it as he saw fit- -directly at the monohorns and Draconians. The only race to survive would be the strongest race, the most superior of them all: the trihorn race. Then, with his power restored, he retake his kingdom. He would be remembered as the greatest trihorn in all of history, a savior to his people who ensured their eternal prosperity and purity.

Crimsonflame engaged her spell. She engulfed the monohorns in it, protecting them from the feedback wave, changing its course. Through she would die, they would all survive. She only hoped that they and the remaining Draconians would prove to be proper steward of Panbios in her absence.

Single Horn looked up at the massive lens before her, a creature whose body had been contorted into an unstoppable Weapon. It body was still slowly turning, its parts shifting, but now they were sparking with blue magic.

The Weapon shifted, drawing parts of it into its center, forming a final component that had previoiusly not been completed. Then, suddenly, a narrow beam crossed the vast expanse toward the strange crystalline monstrosity that was descending from the Finality Core.

At first, Single Horn wondered if the spell had failed. The single tiny blue beam looked insignificant. Being well versed in magic, she understood that Choggoth Oblivion currently contained the full sum of Panbioan magic- -but the beam just seemed so small in comparison.

Single Horn had just enough time to turn her attention toward her beloved friend Crimsonflame, who had just used her arm and most of her internal organs to catalyze a protection spell. Single Horn knew what Crimsonflame was trying to do, and she took one step forward to try to stop her- -in the temporary madness of watching her friend’s arm turn to a charred, skeletal wreck to power a suicidal spell, she was not able to think logically and realize that saving Crimsonflame would assure the death of the monohorn race.

Before she made a second step, however, the decision was made for her. A sudden twitching sensation in her tail caused her to instinctively project her most powerful shield, forming a white bubble around herself, her comrades, and Crimsonflame. Even in her drained state, Single Horn’s magic was far more powerful than any living monohorn’s, and at the cost of some of her life force, she was able to produce her strongest shield possible.

She looked up just in time to see the thin, narrow beam of blue light burst outward, expanding infinitely in all directions, forming a cone of blue energy that was miles wide and hotter and brighter than anything Single Horn had ever witnessed. The explosion alone was so powerful that it picked up the shield bubble and threw it a substantial distance; if Single Horn had not reacted in time, the sound alone would have surely killed them.

The beam seemed to be expanding infinitely, as if it would continue to widen forever. Then, slowly, it began to shrink, narrowing and focusing. Doing so seemed to be devastating for Oblivion: parts of his body were bursting open and incinerating; the Weapon he had formed was being torn apart from the force of expelling all off the world’s magic at one time.

Then, as Single Horn watched, the inside of Oblivion seemed to shift and he collapsed into a narrower version of himself. The beam collapsed with him, narrowing into a beam of unfathomable power. Oblivion’s body was torn apart from the recoil of the blast, and Single Horn covered her friends with her body, as if it would protect them from the feedback storm that she knew was coming.

As Oblivion was killed, the beam reached its maximum power and the feedback surge went outward. Instead of being funneled into the monohorns of Equestsria, however, it rebounded off two conflicting spells that stood in its path. The spells merged and interacted, causing the magic of the feedback spell to become unstable.

Suddenly, every trihorn and every Draconian cried out in pain simultaneously. Cerorians and monohorns watched in horror as the Draconians burst into flames, their flesh instantly torn away and their skeletons collapsing into dust. Worse was the result for the trihorns: their horns suddenly vibrated with a terrible tone, and then their bodies were reduced to red liquid that rapidly vaporized into clouds of foul smelling smoke.

In the ancient tunnels, Arcane Domination screamed as well. He looked around him as his spell collapsed inward, and he watched as those around him cried out, and as the purest of the trihorn empire collapsed into clouds of blood that never even had a chance to merge with the enchanted monohorn blood that stained the floor. He felt the pain tearing through his own body, destroying him, sending off surges of his own magic that tore away stone from the walls and shattered the alchemical equipment used in the preparation of his spell.

Far away, at the receiving end of Oblivion’s spell, Choggoth Nil watched its own destruction, unable to fully comprehend what was occurring. Above it, the Lord of Order, an incorruptible force, one made entirely out of pure Order, cracked apart under the blow. Just before Nil itself was vaporized in the blast, it witnessed the Lord of Order burst apart. In its juvenile form, its fragments were neither able to reassemble nor survive. They instead dissipated into surges of white Order and returned to wherever it had come from. Nil saw parts of the crystal fall, and saw its heart- -the Heart of Order- -burst forth from the center of its body, severed and cast away by the blow.

Of the one hundred and ninety four worlds that Nil had reached, this was the first time it had ever witnessed the death of a Lord of Order. Just before its body was destroyed, Nil understood things that no Choggoth was meant to know, and, in that moment, it realized what it needed to do.

Chapter 38: To Protect Equestria

There were no ponies in the Everfree Forest. The feared it, and feared the monsters within it. D27 did not. Of all the monsters in Equestria, he knew that he was the strongest of them all. To him, even the most lethal creatures in all the land were nothing more than a different form of organic material, no different from sludge or trees. They were just something else for him to absorb.

Even the forest itself could not stand in his path. As his massive form lumbered through the trees, his flesh stretched out before him as tendrils, grasping and coating trees and plants in his path. He did not even need to slow down: he simply moved forward, cutting a line of sterile, empty soil through the trees.

His mind was starting to collapse. His size was now substantial, and his mind had difficulty controlling so many bodies and processes. All he could remember was that something was wrong with him, although he did not know what, and that he had a mission. His only purpose in existence was to fight the Lords of Order, and to protect Equestria. Strangely, he did not know where those orders had come from, and did not know why he fought- -although he realized that he may have once known.

According to his triangulation, there was a source of Order directly ahead of him. The signal was growing stronger as he approached. It was doing its best to hide itself, merging its signal with the signal of the strange forest, but to no avail. D2’s own Order had synchronized with it, and it could not escape him.

There was no chance of it running or escaping. Lord of Order were sessile beings: they could not move on their own volition. Normally, they never had cause to. That made D27’s task just slightly easier.

As he absorbed his way through the forest, he suddenly became aware of something anomalous inside his body. Something he picked up was neither a plant nor fungus, but rather some manner of animal. Rather than absorbing it, D27 moved it through his tree-height, bipedal body. He then produced something reminiscent of a mouth and spat the creature into his hand.

He looked down and saw that what he had nearly converted into storage mass was actually some kind of pony. Unlike ordinary ponies, however, she was covered in black and white stripes. D27 vaguely remembered having seen her before.

The striped pony sat up and gasped, shaking herself clear of the Choggoth mucus that she was covered in. She looked up at D27, and D27 looked down at her. She was so small compared to him.

“You there! Put me back on the grass, or this zebra is going to kick you a- -”

D27 dropped her into a pile of moss. She appeared to land safely, and D27 continued on his way. Ponies were not meant for absorbing, even if they were zebras. There was still enough of him left inside his mind to remember that at least.

D27’s path eventually led him to a ravine. Across it, he could see the remnants of an ancient castle. The ruin itself did not seem to be the origin of the signal. Rather, the signal was coming from beneath. D27’s mind distantly wondered if the castle had been built knowing what it must have been over, or if it had simply been centered in the forest. He also wondered why, if it had been placed over something so hideously dangerous, it had ever been abandoned.

There seemed to be a narrow, decaying staircase leading downward. D27 ignored it. He simply jumped over the edge and fell to the ground below. The impact of an ultra-dense, several ton Choggoth hitting the stone below caused the formation of a small crater as the rocks crumbled beneath him, but D27 did not feel anything.

Ahead was a cave. Being close, D27 could now defiantly sense the stench of Order. It smelled almost exactly like Twilight Sparkle and her friends, but it was stronger and somehow different. D27 knew that whatever he was tracking was inside that cave.

So he entered. His triangle-organs paused for a moment as they reconfigured to the darkness. Then he became aware of what stood before him.

Deep in his mind, he had hoped that he had been wrong. He knew that something was present, something related to a Lord of Order, but he had hoped that it would be something as simple as a remnant. He had wished that it would be nothing more than a dead component, a relic of a once far more powerful being, like the Heart of Order in the northern kingdom. All the calculations he performed had stated that such was impossible, but he had still held out hope.

Now that he saw it, though, he understood that he could not afford to hope. Standing before him, its crystalline body in the shape of something like a hybrid of a tree and a star, was a living, viable Lord of Order.

Several portals opened behind D27. His true body started frontloading ordinance packages into his satellite form, filling it with both unicorn and trihorn skulls, as well as cerorian and pony energy weapons and heavy artillery. D27 rapidly integrated these items into his body, charging them as needed, locking the Lord of Order into his sights.

“You…” he said, stepping forward, his body weighed down by the weapons that had been added to him. “I will not let you take this world…”

He raised his weapons toward the tree, focusing them on the star-shaped insignia in the center of its body. He was barely prepared, even with the equipment he had taken on- -but the Lord of Order was oddly small. Perhaps, he reasoned, if he hit it with all the firepower he had, he might just be successful.

D27 knew that he could not fail. If Equestria was to survive, the Lord of Order must be destroyed.

Nightmare Moon blinked, and allowed her eyes to come into focus. She shifted her lower jaw slightly, running her tongue along the pointed teeth. It had been so long since she had been in a physical body that she had nearly forgotten what it was like. As was expected, it was rather uncomfortable- -itchy and cold.

Looking back at herself, Nightmare Moon saw that the conversion was as complete as possible. Her entire body was black, including her beautiful alicorn wings- -save for a blue mark surrounding Luna’s cutie mark. The blue stain that now sat where a black one once had was all that remained of Luna.

It also appeared that Nightmare Moon’s tail had vanished, as well as her mane. In fact, none of the accoutraments normally associated with Nightmare Moon were present. The purple eyeshadow that she had formerly worn was not present, and neither was her characteristic silver armor. Nightmare Moon stood naked in the center of the Canterlot throne room before all that remained of the royal court.

She looked up at ponies before her, seeing them through what were technically Luna’s eyes. She saw the expressions of fear on their faces, but found that it brought no joy to her. That implied, of course, that she really had been cured of Luna’s weakness three years earlier. She felt no hate and rage or jealousy, or even vindictiveness.

It took several seconds for the ponies around her to react. At first, they had stared like idiots, unsure if they could truly believe what had happened. Nightmare Moon was able to sense the workings of the minds of several of the guards- -some even, for a brief moment, believed that Luna was somehow joking.

Then they moved. The white unicorn Shining Armor interposed himself between Mi’Amore Cadenza and Nightmare Moon, charging his horn. At the same time, Nightwatcher and Darkseer immediately moved in front of Nightmare Moon.

“What are you doing?” cried Shining Armor, hesitating to strike them away. “Stand back!”

“We will not allow you to betray our Queen!” shouted Nightwatcher.

For the chiropterans, it seemed, the conversion was seamless. They were truly as loyal to Nightmare Moon as they were Luna; to them, they were the same. Shining Armor’s actions were the equivalent, to them, of trying to attack Celestia herself.

“Stand down,” ordered Nightmare Moon. “If they choose to fight, so be it, but we shall not strike the first blow.”

The chiropterans obeyed without hesitation. They took defensive stances, but did not assume any form of offensive posturing. Nightmare Moon was actually somewhat surprised, although she had distant, hazy memories of them doing the same for her in the past.

She looked up at the ponies around her. The guards were mostly either frozen in terror or unable to move. Nightmare Moon found that she could sense most of their minds. Shining Armor and Cadence, however, she could not.

“So many seals,” she said, smiling, staring into Shining Armor’s eyes. “Far more than you should ever need. Are you perhaps paranoid that somepony shall attempt to enter your mind?” She looked up at Mi’Amore Cadenza- -who, Nightmare Moon recalled, preferred the mortal name Cadence. “Does your wife know that you put several seals on her as well?”

“What?” said Cadence.

Nightmare Moon turned her attention to the other two ponies whose minds she could not easily reach. Applejack and Rainbow Dash stood before her, as if they themselves had any means to match an alicorn’s strength. Even separated from the other four, Nightmare Moon could still detect the residue of the Elements of Harmony on them.

Rainbow Dash stepped forward and attempted to spread the blades on her wings, only to cry out as she realized that her flight was impeded.

“You have it on backward,” sighed Nightmare Moon. “If you were to try to use that, all you would accomplish would be severing your own wings. That, and I can see your down…” Nightmare Moon spread her own wings, feeling them stretch out beside and above her, the jet-black feathers glinting in the dim light and the midnight fluff between them becoming clearly visible. “…and it is not nearly as beautiful as mine.”

She watched as Rainbow Dash suddenly blushed. The Pegasus had been put off balance, and Nightmare Moon had not even had to resort to the use of magic.

Then, from her side, she felt a sudden surge of magic. A beam shot forward, and Nightwatcher instinctively moved to absorb it with his own body. Nightmare Moon was faster, however, and easily stepped over him, allowing the beam to impact her instead. She did not even bother to cast a shield spell; the ineffectual bolt of magic surged over her like a splash of water.

When it stopped, Nightmare Moon looked down at Shining Armor. The blast had been technically painful, but Nightmare Moon was not Luna- -she had absorbed the pain of thousand so of generations of ponies, and had long since forgotten how to truly feel much of anything.

“What did you expect that to accomplish?” she sighed, her body still smoking but otherwise unharmed.

“Cadence, now!” he cried.

Nightmare Moon looked behind him and saw that Cadence had moved. The blast had temporarily blocked her vision: it had only been intended as a distraction. She turned around to see the armored, pink alicorn lower her head, her horn glowing and prepared for attack.

Spells took time to cast, and to Nightmare Moon watching Cadence try to fire was the equivalent of watching a glacier move. Before Cadence could fire, Nightmare Moon cast her own spell, focusing her magic on six points in space. Across the room, Applejack and Rainbow Dash cried out in surprise as a pair of opaque black triangles formed around their waistes.

“What the hay?” cried Applejack.

“Get it off!” yelled Rainbow Dash, trying to buck her way out of the triangle or to fly away from it.

“Attack me and I cut them in half,” said Nightmare Moon calmly.

As expected, Cadence never fired her spell. Her horn powered down, but instead of the expected expression of defeat on her face, one of anger and frustration covered it. Perhaps, Nightmare Moon considered, Cadence was stronger than her initial estimates.

“You monster,” she said.

“I do not want to hurt them,” said Nightmare Moon, choosing her words carefully. She truly did not want a fight at this critical juncture; although she could easily win it against the anomaly alicorn, it was not in her best interests to waste time and resources on something so pointless. “As a show of good faith…” The triangles dissipated, freeing Applejack and Rainbow Dash.

“Why would you do that?” asked Cadence, suddenly seeming profoundly confused.

“Because I do not want to fight,” said Nightmare Moon. “I was hoping that my transition to power would be more…seamless.”

“Luna,” spat Shining Armor. Nightmare Moon turned toward him. His horn was still powered, although he was only a minimal threat. “How could you?”

“Do not blame Luna for this,” said Nightmare Moon harshly. “I am not Luna, and Luna is not me. And yet we are two parts of the same being. Nor am I Nighmare Moon, at least not as you have come to understand her.” She turned toward Appejack and Rainbow Dash. “You two…and the others. You have freed me of those limitations. So, as the Queen of the Night, I thank you.” She nodded slightly toward them, and they seemed to recoil. They did not seem to understand.

“You’ll never have Equestria!” yelled Rainbow Dash, soaring forward. Darkseer immediately tackled her to the ground.

“Let me go!” she cried, struggling against the much larger chirpteran.

“Stop,” said Nightmare Moon. The occurrences around her were actually mildly amusing, but she knew that there was not much time. Every second cost her kingdom dearly. “Let her stand.”

“Yes, your majesty.” Darkseer stood back, releasing Rainbow Dash. Nightmare Moon stepped forward, staring down at the blue Pegasus below her. Her rainbow colored mane was somewhat familiar; Nightmare Moon recalled distantly that Pegasus himself had held similar colors.

“Tell me, Rainbow Dash,” said Nightmare Moon, trying to sound sympathetic but knowing that she came across as cold. “What do you intend to do to me? Perhaps you want to…cut off my wings? Tear out my horn? Or perhaps gouge out my eyes?”

Rainbow Dash looked up at her, and Nightmare Moon saw the horror crossing her face. Ponies of the Third Era had grown weak under Celestia’s rule- -actions that had once been commonplace were no considered unforgivable.

“I really do wonder,” she continued. “What you intend to do with me. How would you stop me? Through pain and violence? If so, then you really are one of her most loyal subjects. But remember this before you attack: this body is not truly mine.” She looked up at the others. “Every injury you inflict upon me will be dealt to Luna as well. Although you could not possibly understand, I care for her deeply. I will not let you hurt her.”

Nightmare Moon turned toward Cadence. She seemed to be the one who most understood.

“What is wrong with you?” she asked.

“She’s tryin’ tah trick us,” said Applejack. She pushed back her hat and pawed at the ground, as if she was actually going to try to charge.

“Nothing is ‘wrong’ with me,” said Nightmare Moon.

“Why here?” demanded Shining Armor. His guards were starting to follow his example and recover from their stupor. They were surrounding her, those with horns preparing for an attack. “Why now?”

“To claim my throne,” said Nightmare Moon.

“You have no throne here.”

“I was not the one who asked for this,” she snapped, turning rapidly toward Shining Armor. Some of the guards jumped back in fright. Nightmare Moon wondered what they would have through of her original body, had it still existed. “You asked me. I have no use for the throne Celestia’s primitive sandbox. I have no desire to sit in a seat stained with the blood of so many. But the kingdom is burning. You have failed it.” She turned to the others. “All of you. Twilight Sparkle, Cadence, even Luna. They are all too weak to rule. Only I am strong enough to rule Equestria in Celestia’s absence.”

“How can we trust you?” asked Cadence.

“Cadence!” hissed Shining Armor. “Don’t fall for it! Applejack is right!”

“No,” said Cadence, stepping forward, as if she were trying to see deeper into Nightmare Moon’s soul. “Something is different…”

“No!” yelled Applejack, running forward. With surprising agility, she turned mid-bound and faced her rear hooves toward Nightmare Moon. Nightmare Moon smiled. Although she could not read Applejack’s mind, Applejack was too far from the other Elements of Harmony to defend herself from a direct attack. Nightmare Moon sent out a narrow beam of telepathic magic.

Applejack bucked with all her might. She felt her hooves connect with Nightmare Moon’s neck. The key with applebucking, she knew, was delivery. The follow-through was critical, and the instant she felt her hooves touch flesh, she poured all of her strength into her legs.

Bucking Nightmare Moon was nothing like bucking an apple tree, though. The trees reacted a certain way- -they bent, slightly, and rebounded, their entire form shaking as the wood stabilized. Applejack had become so accustomed to the response that she could even tell when a tree was suffering from heartwood rot or apple ant infestation.

Flesh responded completely differently. Applejack felt her hooves sink into Nightmare Moon’s neck, and, to her horror, she felt the crack of bone beneath. She heard a gasp, like a stifled cry of pain, and then a thump as something limp landed against the floor.

She turned- -but she did not want to. She did not want to see, but something seemed to be forcing her to.

“Oh Celestia!” she cried, covering her mouth.

Nightmare Moon’s body had responded exactly as it would be expected to. Her neck had snapped, and now sat at an odd angle. It was clear that the blow had paralyzed her, but her legs still twitched slightly. Her turquoise eyes stared up at Applejack, unblinkingly staring into her own eyes.

There was another gurgling sound as Nightmare Moon took a breath, and Applejack saw that the place where she had kicked had been torn open. Nightmare Moon was breathing through a bloody hole in her neck, and rapidly suffocating on the blood that was pouring out below her. Applejack looked down, and saw that her rear hooves were covered in the same blood.

Then, Nightmare Moon’s body seemed to react. The shadow that covered her pulled back, as the blue on her flank spread forward. They shifted, and changed places; then, instead of Nightmare Moon looking up at her, Applejack stared into the eyes of Luna.

“Why?” gasped Luna. “Why, Applejack?”

Then she started choking. The few seconds it took her finally die seemed to take an eternity. All the while, Applejack was screaming.

Nightmare Moon retracted the telepathic spike and Applejack awoke suddenly. She looked dazed and confused, and collapsed onto the floor, screaming through her tears.

“What have you done to her?” cried Rainbow Dash.

“I showed her the truth!” said Nightmare Moon, stepping over the Pegasus toward Applejack. “I showed her what she wanted.” She looked down at Applejack. “Tell me, earth pony. Did you like what you saw? What you wanted to do to me? To murder me, to murder us? In the name of peace, perhaps?”

Applejack could not respond. She was still disoriented, and seemed to be mumbling something. Nightmare Moon slightly regretted what she had done; the risk that she had irreparably shattered Applejack’s mind was higher than she would have liked. Luna seemed to believe in Applejack’s strength, though, and Nightmare Moon believed that she would recover eventually.

“That goes for all of you,” she said. “Could you kill me? Would you kill me?” She sighed. “The point is moot, actually. You would just as easily be able to kill Celestia. That, and I am Equestria’s only hope.” An idea suddenly occurred to her, and she immediately smiled. “Perhaps…perhaps if I were to give you a gift. Yes. Perhaps then, you would understand that I mean none of you any real harm.”

“No deal,” said Shining Armor. He signaled his guards to start advancing. “The only ‘gift’ that you are going to give is you, in a cell.”

“You said six had died,” she said, staring into his eyes. “Six have lost their destinies, and their families as well. I can bring them back.”

Shining Armor chuckled. “No, you can’t. Not even Celestia can do that. Nopony can.”

“I am not a pony,” said Nighmare Moon. “And the spell does exist. You are simply ignorant.” She turned to Cadence, who was now barely visible over the heads of the advancing guards. “What harm can I do to a corpse? What do you have to lose if I am allowed to try- -or what do you have to lose if it is you who deny me the chance?” She smiled, perhaps inappropriately, but she could not help herself. Their ignorance about the reversibility of death and how truly in consequential it was in the face of power was just too comical.

Suddenly, both Rainbow Dash and Applejack cried out in unison. Nightmare Moon looked down, confused by the unexpected sound. Applejack was already on the floor, but suddenly contorted into a fetal position. Rainbow Dash seemed to have fallen on her side and was blindly struggling against some unseen force. Both seemed to be reaction to some manner of pain in their chest, and blood suddenly started dripping from both of their mouthes.

“What’s happening?” demanded Shining Armor. “What did you do?”

“This is not my doing,” said Nightmare Moon. Then her mind made the connection. “But we need to hurry.” She turned to Darkseer. “Go. Ensure that the other four are safe.”

“The other four?” said Cadence, realizing who Nightmare Moon meant.

Nightmare Moon nodded. What she had hoped to avoid was already starting. It seemed that Oblivion had managed to locate the Tree of Harmony.

The force of the first volley was enough to produce a substantial crack through the Lord of Order’s body. D27 recoiled slightly; he had received an unexpected surge of memory through the close to sixty skulls he was wielding. There was so much pain within them that it actually gave him pause.

His disorientation did not last long. As he had suspected, the Lord of Order was far weaker than it should have been. A second blow, centered on the crack that now ran down the center of its tree-like form, would likely destroy it completely.

D27 raised his various weaponized appendages, targeting the lasers and particle cannons built into them. He would fire everything at once- -every ounce of magic within all the skulls he had, every weapon he had, the three cerorite slugs on his person, and even as much Order as his satellite body could summon. If he poured all his energy into a second shot, he knew that he could slay the Lord of Order and prevent the inevitable destruction of Equestria.

The various targeting subcomputers he was linked to locked into the center of the tree. He stepped forward, watching his predicted accuracy improve as he approached. Striking the crack was not essential, but would assure greater success.

Something was wrong, though. As he moved forward, he felt no resistance. Before, when he had attempted to approach the Heart of Order in the Crystal Empire, it had expelled massive amounts of Order toward him. The Heart of Order was nothing more than a fragment, a severed and barely alive piece of something long dead- -and it had still fought desperately for whatever semblance of survival it maintained.

“Why are you not defending yourself?” he demanded. It was, in all his memory, the first time he had ever addressed one of his creators.

Other things did not follow. This was a fully adult Lord of Order, one who had clearly been in this cave for a considerable amount of time. Yet, from his own experience, D27 had seen life in Equestria. Life was fundamentally incompatible with Order; a Lord of Order could not ever exist in a world with life. It should have destroyed everything the moment it connected to the world, purging it of all disorder and entropy.

D27’s eye- -which had been kept as small as possible to prevent a direct, crippling attack- -expanded. His optical and sensory capacity increased, and his newfound vision penetrated the rock below the Lord of Order, following its roots.

“What is this…” he whispered. Somehow, it was not only coexisting with life, but integrated to it. The roots of the forest above converged on its own crystalline roots, and D27 could see its own Order flowing into them, and their life flowing back into, the magic shared between the two.

“What are you attempting to do?” he asked. He knew, inside, that he needed to destroy this creature, but he was too confused. Nothing made sense. “Why are you connected to this? Why are you even here?”

The Lord of Order said nothing. Instead, the crack in its surface seemed to expand. The tree itself pulled away its own hull, revealing the incomprehensible network of organs beneath. D27 had never considered what was truly inside a Lord of Order; he had never wanted to. There was only one thing that he recognized within.

There, in the center of its trunk, was a slowly revolving piece of crystal, resembling a tiny version of the heart that now stood in an artificial transmitter in the Crystal Empire. It was this Lord of Order’s heart.

“No,” said D27, raiding his weapons. “Why are you showing me this?” A single blow to the heart, he knew, would be instantly lethal- -and yet the Lord of Order had voluntarily opened its chest to him, showing him its most vulnerable core component. “I demand that you close yourself,” cried D27. “Fight me! Why would you fight me?! I am trying to kill you! I am a monster, a betrayer, to you, to my own people! Hate me! Treat me like what I AM!”

The tree, once again, did not respond. D27 knew that this was his only chance to slay it, but he could not. Something was wrong with him, and with it. He lowered his weapons and stepped forward, fully expecting to be vaporized by a sudden surge of Order.

Instead, the Lord of Order allowed him to approach. It was truly tiny, barely as tall as his satellite body. These creatures were meant to be massive, imposing, unstoppable parasites. This one, however, had an elegance and quietness that seemed to surround it, as if the surrounding air itself had stopped to pause in the mystery and ancientness of its glow.

D27 noticed that the branches of the tree bore unusual markings. Each of the branches bore an odd mark cast from crystal of a different color than the main body, and the trunk held marks of the sun and the moon. D27 could not fathom why.

Propelled by a motivation that he did not understand, he looked into the center of the Lord of Order. The heart within was trapped hovering between two crystalline spikes, hovering independent from the remainder of its body, revolving slowly. It was so small, not even the size of a pony’s hoof.

The revolution of the heart slowed, and D27 was able to see that it was not a simple crystal structure like the much larger dead version in the Crystal Empire. The facets of the heart-crystal merged to form a tiny insignia.

“No,” said D27, stepping back. “That is impossible. You simply cannot exist…”

The mark on the Heart of Order was a pair of equilateral triangles.

Chapter 39: Two Races Lost

Single Horn released her shield bubble. The monohorns at the ends of it dropped to the ground. So did Crimsonflame, falling limply onto the dust below. Single Horn raced to her side.

Crimsonflame’s condition was poor. One of her arms had been completely converted into charred bone, and her entire body was smoking; the silver armor she wore was melted and glowing in several places.

Single Horn immediately quenched any remaining flames and began casting spells. There was still some indication that, miraculousy, Crimsonflame had survived, but her body was in ruins. Most of her internal organs were damaged, and her bones had been shattered by the force of the magic she had absorbed.

“We’re…we’re alive,” said one of the other monohorns, staring at his hooves, as if he were unsure.

“Then help me,” said Single Horn, trying to mask the tension and fear in her voice. “She’s dying. Please, help me.”

At her request, they joined her. Even though they were mostly drained, they directed their horns toward Crimsonflame, providing power for Single Horn to do what she could. Crimsonflame seemed to stir slightly, and coughed weakly.

“What happened to her?” asked one of the monohorns, in awe at the fact that Crimsonflame was still alive.

“She absorbed the feedback that was meant for us,” said Single Horn. “All of us.”

“She withstood enough power to destroy the entire monohorn race?”

“I don’t know,” said Single Horn. She looked toward one of the monohorns whose magic was so low that it was not actually helping. “Forest Rune,” she said, “get in contact with the others. We need medical assistance.”

“Right,” said the green mare. She stood back and directed her horn skyward. It glowed with a weak green color, but then she appeared confused. “I…I cannot hear anything. I am not detecting any Draconians, or trihorns.”

Single Horn looked up at the sky. It was dark, and the air filled with dust and angry, diseased-looking clouds. Blue lightning was periodically flashing through it, providing some of the only light to the land below.

“There is too much residual Order,” said Single Horn. “Use Silent Voice’s radio. Contact the cerorians.”

Forest Rune nodded, and took the radio from the bags of one of the other monohorns who was, at this point, only helping to slow Crimsonflame’s death.

“Forest Rune to Rnon,” said Forest Rune into the radio. Her lack of a cerorian accent made pronouncing “Rnon” difficult, but she came reasonably close. “Please respond.”

Only static came from the radio, at first, but then a heavily distorted cerorian voice came through.

“Repeat,” it said. “Confirm your identity.”

“Forest Rune, of mage squad sixty five, headed by Single Horn.”

“By the Madgod,” said the voice on the other side. “You…you survived?”

“Yes,” said Single Horn, taking the radio in the tiny part of her magic that was not being poured into Crimsonflame. “We are all safe, but we need medical evac immediately. Crimsonflame is badly wounded.”

“The Grand Magus is…alive?”

“Not for much longer if you don’t hurry!”

“Right…I am dispatching a hovership. Try to keep her stable.”

Something in the sound of the cerorian’s voice was profoundly concerning. The way he had reacted to the news of Crimsonflame’s survival- -the level of disbelief, or relief, was far greater than it should have been for somepony who never knew her.

Far away, in the depths of an ancient fortress, a circle of drying blood sat surrounded by twenty five piles of steaming ashes. In the center of the circle, lying in a pool of far fresher blood, was what remained of Arcane Domination.

If an observer were to have found him, they would almost surely have deemed him a corpse. His body had been torn apart, and precious little of it remained. That which did would have barely been recognizable. Unlike Crimsonflame, however, there was no one around to help him, no one to protect him. The only ones who surrounded him were those who had become ash and dust, and the pile of limp and exsanguinated monohorn corpses lying in the corner.

Then, in the darkness, his horns began to flicker. All around him, the shattered remnants of the ancient laboratory began to move. Stone, metal and glass were picked up by his magic and contorted and changed. He drew them into himself, using the inorganic materials to form the machines necessary for his continued survival.

So much of him was gone. His bones had been shattered and most of his limbs destroyed, and his organs were mostly dried to the floor. They were of no use to him; he expelled them and constructed new ones. He pulled them into his body, interfacing them to what was left of himself.

When he had finally produced something reminiscent of lungs and connected the tubes of them to his mouth, he gasped for breath- -and immediately began to scream. Not in pain, or fear, but in absolute, mad rage.

The crystal-powered engines of the hovership whirred as it descended. Before its metal landing struts had even extended, the doors on the sides slid open and a team of cerorian medics jumped to the ground.

“Over here,” cried Single Horn. The cerorians motioned to each other and immediately moved to Crimsonflame. Single Horn was surprised that no Draconians were accompanying them, or even trihorn medics. Something about it struck her as profoundly ominous.

The cerorians descended on Crimsonflame, immediately shifting her onto a fold-out stretcher and attaching various types of machines to her body.

“We will take her now,” said the lead cerorian, the abstract marking on his shell indicating that he was a doctor.

“I’m coming with you,” said Single Horn, moving alongside the stretcher as the cerorians used their horns to pick it up and carry it to the waiting hovership, its four engines revving and ready for takeoff.

“You can’t,” said the doctor. “Her condition is grave. I need to operate immediately. The hovership is prepared. I cannot have you moving around while I am working, especially not in an in-flight procedure.”

“She’s my friend,” said Single Horn. “I will not leave her!”

“I know,” said the cerorian, taking a moment to pause and put his oversized hoof on Single Horn’s shoulder. “I know. And by my honor as a cerorian, I pledge to do everything in my power to keep her alive. But this is our task now. Not yours.”

Single Horn hesitated for a moment, and then nodded. The doctor released her and bounded to the hovership, where Crimsonflame was already being loaded.

“A second ship will be sent for the rest of you!” he called back over the sound of the engines. He then jumped on board his craft, and the door sealed behind him. The vehicle rapidly released the ground and took a course back toward the Rnon.

Single Horn watched it leave. For over eight hundred years she had stood at Crimsonflame’s side, fighting the seemingly endless war. She had always assumed that it would he her, not Crimsonflame, who would be the first to fall. When suddenly faced with the converse, she found that she had never even considered the pain of being the one to survive.

“She will be okay,” said one of the monhorns, putting his hoof on Single Horn’s shoulder.

Single Horn turned her head slightly and smiled toward him. She then turned toward the battlefield that stretched into the distance.

In the distance, beneith the blackened sky, she saw the Finallity Core still hovering over the land. While she had been trying to protect Single Horn, it had retracted from its fractal disk-shape back into some semblance of a sphere. It appeared badly damaged, though, and it no longer contained the pink-red flesh of the Choggoth Nil.

As she watched, its revolution started to slow, and it began to sink. It fell through the sky, slowly at first, and but faster as it went. Even though it was miles away, the impact against the earth below was still deafening. Single Horn was forced to remember the sound that was produced by the fall of Olympus. This time, though, she wondered if, for the first time in so many centuries of conflict, they had actually been met with a victory.

Her eyes shifted to the remnants of Oblivion. Nearly half a mile away, atop a hill, stood the fragments of the blue Choggoth. They were clearly dead, and rapidly dissipating. The creature that they were had surely died, and yet Single Horn did not know why it had chosen to.

Suddenly, something caught her eye. A glint of light from the top of that hill, a tiny reflection. Something about it was strange, as if it were calling to her.

“Stay here,” she ordered here squad. “Wait for the hovership.”

“Where are you going?” asked Forest Rune.

“I want to see what has been wrought,” said Single Horn, simply.

All around her, the remains of the Choggoth were collapsing. Parts of it stood before her, the fragments of its skeleton, their forms slowly liquefying and rapidly evaporating into smoke. Parts of the massive pieces still sparked with bolts of Order, and some parts even maintained the remnants of motion.

Single Horn slogged through the foul smelling, dark-colored liquid that she could only assume was its equivalent of blood. All around her, pieces were falling or dissipating. The feeling was something like being in an abandoned city, except one where the rate of decay had been accelerated vastly.

In addition, the rain was starting to fall from the sky above. Most of it was dirty, darkened water, but Single Horn was also aware of the occasional gemstone or mineral produced from the Order-charged atmosphere.

She came to the top of the hill and saw what Oblivion must have seen. The view was impressive, even though it overlooked land that was not perfectly sterile. The Choggoth Nil had been completely destroyed, its body vaporized in the blast, leaving behind nothing but a desert. In the far distance, the remains of the unnamed cerorian city were still visible, although only the most durable outermost redoubt towers still stood. In the center, the edge of the Finallity Core was still visible; most of it had sunk into a massive crater torn into the earth by the blast. No trace of the horrid crystalline creature that Single Horn had only distantly seen remained.

That such a force could be released was almost inconceivable. The force of all magic in Panbios, of the unity of three nations, fired in a single destructive beam. Togather, they had done what they had never been able to achieve before. Not only had they stopped the Lord of Order, but they had defeated one of the two Choggoths that threatened Panbios.

Another glint of light appeared in Single Horn’s peripheral vision. She turned and followed it. It was unclear to her what sort of light was being reflected, if it was the dying sparks of Oblivion’s Order or if it was something reflected from the Spheres above, if they even still remained, waiting behind the bank of gem-filled clouds.

Something seemed to be calling to her, and she followed her instinct toward the center of Oblivion’s corpse, until she reached the region that contained the largest and most durable of the wreckage.

She approached the spot where she was being led, and looked down into the liquefying soup of dying Choggoth flesh. There, before her, was a tiny fragment of crystal. Single Horn nearly dismissed it as one of the falling gemstones from above, but this one was different. Something was strange and different about it. Crystals normally were appealing strictly because they were singular, durable points of color and beauty. This one, however, was not beautiful in its permanence, but rather, in a bizarre way, because it seemed to be alive.

Single Horn’s mind immediately linked what she was seeing to one of her most recent memories. She had seen that manner of crystal once before: in the distance, descending from the portal built by the Finality Core.

She jumped back and charged her horn, pointing it at the tiny organism. Something stopped her from firing, though. Something about doing so felt wrong. Instead, she lowered her magic and stepped forward gingerly. She once again looked down at the crystal, this time more closely.

It resembled, oddly, a tiny tree, like the smallest of saplings. Its body had a tiny trunk, and a center shaped like a five-pointed star in which was inlaid a violet, star-shaped insignia.

“H…hello,” said Single Horn. The tiny tree did not respond, but somehow, she felt it smile. She herself smiled, and then reached down, pulling it from the destroyed body of Obivion. It was barely the size of her hoof, and seemed almost to tremble as it stabilized itself in her grip with a set of root-like tentacles.

“Do not worry, little one,” said Single Horn, holding the tree to her chest against the growing rain. “You are safe now. Do not be afraid.”

She took off her helmet and overturned it, gently placing the sapling into it. She took the helm in her magic and felt the cold rain run through her gray mane. In the distance, she saw a cerorian hovership approaching her position. She signaled her position to it with a spell.

This battle had been one, but the war had not. There was still much to do, and still much pain ahead. In his death, however, Oblivion had given the residents of Panbios something it had not had in centuries. He had given them hope.

As the cerorian hovership took off from the remnants of Oblivion, the rain was already too thick for anypony on board to see the sudden surge of a long-range teleportation spell in the distance.

Panting heavily through his artificial lungs, Arcane Domination materialized on the plane. The radiation around him was fierce, both from the spell that had just been unleashed and the ancient cerorian neutron bombs that had long ago been detonated in the region. He did not care; there was nothing left in his body that was truly sensitive to radiation anyway.

He roared with fury one last time, and then collapsed to the ground in manic laughter. He had failed. Despite all his power, and all his might and brilliance, he had failed. The spell he had sought to perform had encountered something he had not anticipated in Oblivion’s spell, and it had backfired.

It had not just been the nobles, either. Arcane Domination had searched out the land for any sign of trihorn magic. Even through the storms of Order that were raging high in the atmosphere, he had been able to get adequate sensory coverage to know that the unthinkable had occurred.

He was alone. There were no other trihorns. There was no signal. The blast that had maimed Arcane Domination had killed them all. In one brilliant flash, the greatest race to ever walk Panbios had been erased completely. Arcane Domination, being at the center of the spell, had somehow survived, at least partially. He was now the last living trihorn.

That spell had not been meant for them. It had been intended for the monohorns. They were the weaklings, the genetic filth that he had been so foolish to produce. They had no right to live; all Arcane Domination had been trying to do was to purge them from existence, to return them to the nothingness that he had been the first to pull them out of. Instead it had been the creators rather than the creations who had been taken.

It was not fair. The strong were supposed to survive, and the weak were meant to be punished. In this case, though, the strong had been killed and the weak survived. The perverse inversion of the natural order was almost too much for Arcane Domination to withstand.

“No,” he said, his voice distorted by the machines within him. He stood on his three robotic legs and stared toward the destroyed cerorian city, where he knew that the remains of the Finality Core waited. He alone was the one who had seen its schematic, and understood what he saw.

An image of geometric shapes flooded into his mind, and he stepped forward.

“Not over,” he said. “Not…over not over not over NOT OVER…” he burst into laughter, and then into tears. “I will bring them back…”

He knew it was impossible for one trihorn to do so, even one as powerful as him- -but power alone was not what made him great. It was intelligence. He knew how to do it, he had ideas. He as a king without a nation, without a people, but not for long.

“I will not be the last,” he said, both to himself and to the distant Black Sphere. “Yes…because I am that powerful, because I understand. If it takes me the rest of eternity, I swear on the name of my people- -I will bring them back!”

So he stumbled forward into the dead, radioactive city toward where the Finality Core, and his destiny, awaited him.

Chapter 40: Ascension

Chapter 40: Ascension

A disturbance suddenly permeated the air of the castle. Nightmare Moon doubted if the other ponies could feel it; even she barely could, and would have dismissed it as mere interference or perhaps a ghost had it not been so familiar. It was like an echo, a magic that was not only familiar but, in most ways, identical to Luna’s- -with something else deeper within it, something far more orderly.

“Nightwatcher,” she said to the chiropteran pony walking beside her. “You must leave my side now.”

“My queen,” he said, looking up to her. He looked crushed. “What have I done to displease you?”

“Nothing,” said Nightmare Moon. “Your loyalty and devotion has pleased me greatly. However, you must go to Cavern Melody now. Your daughter is about to be born.”

“Born?” said Nightwatcher, as though his mind were not capable of comprehending what he was being told. “But…your majesty, she was not conceived more than a month ago.”

“I know. And yet she is about to enter this world. You ought to be with her, and with your soon-to-be bride.” She turned to one of the many pony guards escorting them to the medical infirmary. “Will you allow him to go?”

“No,” said the guard. Nightmare Moon saw into his mind; he was suspicious. He believed that Nightwatcher would be sent to retrieve help, or to prepare for Nightmare Moon’s escape.

“If you fear that he will betray you, then go with him.”

“No,” said the guard again.

“Go,” said Cadence from the front of the group.

“But, Princess- -”

“I take two others with you, then. Just let him go.”

Nightmare Moon smiled. Cadence’s compassion, derived from her deep well of love, was her greatest weakness. For a moment, Nightmare Moon wished that she really had been intending something devious, just so that she could have a chance to crush that weakness out of her.

Instead, she turned her mind toward Nightwatcher, and spoke directly to his mind, so that only he could hear.

“Listen closely,” she said. “And tell no pony of this, save for Cavern Melody. Should I fail, and Luna’s body be destroyed, that child will become my new host, and all her descendants shall carry me as all of Luna’s ancestors once did. Protect her well, give her the love she deserves, and pray for Luna’s safety.”

“Thank you, my queen,” said Nightwatcher out loud, bowing deeply. He was then led away by two crystal ponies and a unicorn.

“I would bid you to go as well, Darkseer,” said Nightmare Moon. “But I doubt that I could ever convince you to leave my side.”

“Whatever order you give, I shall obey, my queen.”

“You make me sick,” said Shining Armor.

The Canterlot castle was constructed in a way that could not more closely represent Celestia’s mind. On the outside, it was designed to be ornate and beautiful, a representation of peace and happiness. It had ornate towers and grand, decorated hallways with large windows, many of which were decorated with images of historical events from the Second and Third Eras. On the surface, it appeared to have been constructed as a respite for diplomats and a home for royalty, completely divorced from the original purpose of castles, which was as defensive fortifications.

Nightmare Moon saw beyond that veneer, however. The way it had been constructed had been carefully crafted to distract the viewer from certain aspects of its design: the large, swooping walls, clad with trees and towers, following angles that were perfectly attuned to deflect cannon fire; or carefully disguised keep in the center of the lavish gardens. This castle, so outwardly beautiful, had always been intended as a weapon of war, a base of operations for a conflict that Celestia had always expected.

It had been intended to be mostly self-sufficient in the event of a siege. That meant that it contained a small but fully equipped infirmary meant to deal with the most severe incidents of trauma that the pony soldiers might encounter. That was where Nightmare Moon was being led.

Even before entering, she could already hear the screams, both through her ears and in her mind. She felt their injuries, and their fear. Broken bones, lacerations, confusion- -and the worst of all, the burns, or the screaming mental agony of unicorns who had been forcibly separated from their magical armor. In the distance, deep within the ward, she even felt a familiar spark of dim, dying solar energy.

“There are a great many in here,” she said. “Surely Oblivion did not cause all of them.”

“No,” said Shining Armor. “Many were injured in the riots.”

“That is unfortunate,” said Nighmare Moon. Not just their injuries, of course, but that Equestria could be so easily shattered by the destruction of Celestia.

She entered the front hall of the infirmary, and found that even the lobby was filled with beds. All around her were injured ponies, as well as nurses and doctors moving rapidly through the hectic scene, delivering medication and treatment as it was needed. As Nightmare Moon entered, however, they suddenly stopped, as if they were unsure what they were seeing.

Then the panic seemed to set in. The patients started to react negatively, screaming out in fear. The nurses and doctors- -and even several of the more ambulatory patients- -attempted to restrain them, and to reassure them, even as Nightmare Moon could sense that they were at least equally afraid.

“Nightmare Moon!” cried a unicorn. “No! Don’t take me! I have a family!”

Nightmare Moon only stared at them. Their reaction was neither amusing nor annoying, so she remained ambivalent. They were not her immediate concern.

What did surprise her, though, was that in the darkest corner of the wing the several chiropteran patients, despite their injuries, rose from their beds. Some of them had been injured greatly in the service of the kingdom, and Nightmare Moon could feel their pain as they moved. Despite their wounds, however, they all stood next to their beds and bowed to her, their ancient queen returned.

Nightmare Moon was led away from the main wards, toward a much smaller room with much fewer doctors that sat apart from the others. Shining Armor opened the door, and Nightmare Moon felt a gust of magically chilled air against her naked, hairless body. She, Cadence, and Shining Armor passed into the cold room, leaving the guards to stand at the only exit.

“How long have they been dead?” she asked when she saw the sheet-covered bodies, lined up in the small storage room.

“Several days,” said Shining Armor. “But as is procedure, preservation spells were cast on them. To ensure that their families would have a chance to say goodbye.”

“Then they might still be viable,” said Nightmare Moon. She approached the nearest of the bodies, one whose sheet was stained with blood. She pulled it back and scrutinized the wreckage of a pony beneath.

Cadence turned away, looking as though she were about to weep, or vomit, or both. Shining Armor looked directly at the body, though. Nightmare Moon did not even need to use telepathy to know that he blamed himself for this, somehow.

“What’s the matter?” he said. “Still think you can do it?”

“The condition of the body hardly matters,” said Nightmare Moon. The pony before her- -who had once been a pale green mare- -did not disturb her in the slightest. In fact, she suddenly felt rather hungry. “It is the decay of the head alone that determines the efficacy of the spell. These ponies have been dead far longer than I would have liked, but they may still be in adequate condition.” She knew that she had to be careful; resurrection spells were possible on the long-dead, but what came back was never truly a pony.

“How do you know this?” asked Cadence, still unable to look at the body.

“You may not be aware of this, but I was not always Nightmare Moon. Long before I inhabited Luna, I was the queen of the necromancers. Actually, for the latter several millennia of my first life, I was a lich.”

“Necromancy is not resurrection,” said Shining Armor. Nightmare Moon was surprised that such a pure and heroic white unicorn would have even a passing familiarity with such a dark form of magic. “If you intend to bring them back as those…those things, just stop right now. Don’t waste our time. The dead can never return as they were.”

“Yes they can.”

“No, they can’t. It is not possible.”

“Not for you, no, because of inherent limitations to your anatomy.” She pointed at Shining Armor’s tiny, blunt little horn. “One horn. Your kind were given just one as a handicap. Your magic is inherently stunted. Spells of this complexity require far more than sheer power. The design of this spell requires three. Even Celestia herself is limited. Even she cannot perform the spell.”

“But you only have one,” said Cadence.

“I know,” said Nightmare Moon. “But I know the spell, and how to perform it. And there just so happen to be three horns in this room right now.”

“You…you want us to help you?”

“No. I want you to help her,” she said, pointing to the corpse. “And them.” She gestured with her hoof to the other bodies. “I cannot do this on my own.”

“It’s a trick,” said Shining Armor. “We can’t trust you. How do we know you won’t turn your magic against us at the last second?”

Nightmare Moon sighed. “Please forgive me for this, but this is how.” She focused her magic on Shining Armor, and recalled the spell that he had fired against her body barely an hour prior. She assimilated the information of the spell, and modified it, focusing the results back on Shining Armor.

The air around him seemed to shift, as though it solidified into fragments of glass that then tinkled to the floor before disappearing.

“My… my seals,” he said, converting himself with his forelegs as though he were naked. “You just…how did you…”

“Because I am a living god,” said Nightmare Moon. “My power is equivalent to that of Celestia, and my mind far older. I was already ancient when the first of your kind were embryos in a tank of fluid. I could kill you both right now if I wanted to.” She smiled. “Clearly, since you are alive, I do not want you dead. Yet.” She turned to Cadence. “I give this decision to you, then, since he is a fool. Princess of Love, choose your path. Allow me to help you, or reject me. Choose.”

Cadence stared at Nightmare Moon for a moment, and Nightmare Moon understood that the outcome was not predetermined. Cadence’s choice would choose the path, and it could be a choice and either direction. The wrong choice, of course, would cause things to go very badly. Either way, Nightmare Moon would win- -but if Cadence rejected her, the effects for Luna would be catastrophic.

Then, slowly, Cadence stepped forward. “Tell me what to do.”

“Cadence- -” started Shining Armor.

“Shining,” said Cadence, “I love you. More than anything. And I hate to do this. As your Princess, I order you to assist me.”

“You’re…you’re pulling rank on me?”

“I am. And I promise I will make it up to you when this is over. But right now, they need us.” She turned back to Nightmare Moon, awaiting directions.

“You two will stand at either side. I will stand at her head.”

The two alicorns moved to their positions, and, after some hesitation, Shining Armor joined them.

“This is not going to be easy,” said Nightmare Moon, specifically focusing on Shining Armor. “Your special talent is for tactical magic, and, as unicorns go, you are a prodigy. However, you are still not an alicorn. I would have preferred your sister here, but she is apparently predisposed.”

“If we are going to do this, I might as well go all the way.” Shining Armor lifted something from a pouch in his armor. It was a tiny loop of dark colored metal, its surface inscribed with blood-red runes.

“Shining, no,” said Cadence.

“If you trust her, Cadence, so do I,” said Shining Armor, slipping the ring over his horn. He cried out weakly as the sudden surge of magic filled his body, and he seemed to convulse.

“Shining, are you okay,” said Cadence, reaching for him.

“I’m…fine,” said Shining Armor, standing. His eyes were wide, flicking around the room rapidly. “Better than okay…I feel really good.” He looked at his wife. “Wow. You are so pink. You look really good.” He turned his attention toward Nightmare Moon. “You don’t look bad either. Those eyes…I’ve always had a thing for green eyes.”

“Shining!” said Cadence.

“Ignore him,” said Nightmare Moon. “But this does put a time limit on our actions.” Indeed, applying a piece of magic-accelerating armor directly to one’s horn was probably the most idiotic thing Nightmare Moon had ever seen- -if Shining Armor had been any less of a unicorn, he would have been killed instantly.

Nightmare Moon lowered her horn over the body of the pony below her. “Join me,” she said. “Lend me your power.”

They obeyed. Cadence leaned forward first, her pink horn glowing with blue magic. Shining Armor followed, his horn glowing with violet magic stained with flecks of toxic red.

Nightmare Moon suddenly reached out through their mutual magic and latched onto their minds. Cadence cried out in surprise, and Shining Armor giggled with masochistic delight. The return of magic was actually far greater than expected, and not just because of Shining Armor’s enhanced state. The interaction between Cadence and Shining Armor’s minds was producing something far greater than Nightmare Moon had expected. She knew that it was their love, but beyond that could not comprehend it.

She began the spell, using their minds as an extension of her own, feeding Cadence the necessary information to perform her part of the spell. Shining Armor, being the weakest, stood as an anchor, holding the spell intact while it was operating.

Below her, she watched as the remains of the pony pulled themselves back together, slowly knitting themselves into their original form. This was not at all the same type of spell that Oblivion used in resurrections- -he essentially cheated death by pouring Order into a body, pulling out the entropy and violently forcing his target back to life. This was a true resurrection spell, performed with the tact and care of a master necromancer- -a spell that none but Nightmare Moon would ever have the skill to do properly. Every cell in the body was infused with magic, and manipulated, drawing them together, allowing them to regenerate, restoring a prematurely stopped process to motion.

The pony’s body repaired itself, and she almost seemed to be sleeping. Repairing the body was the easy part; her injuries had been caused by plasma burns to the chest, which were much easier to heal than a wound dealt by magic.

Then came the hard part. Nightmare Moon reached deeper into the shared mind that she had built between the other two, and used their horns as she had once used her own natural three. Below her, the pony stirred. Cadence gasped.

“Do not stop,” ordered Nightmare Moon. “Do not waiver. Do not fail.”

She poured a sudden surge of magic into the dead ponies chest, and her eyes shot open as she reached up widely, taking a deep and rattling breath. The spell, being completed, collapsed, as did Shining Armor. The newly resurrected pony turned on her side and vomited blood and spare tissue. She was cold and shivering, naked in a pool of her own blood in a chilled room.

“What…what happened?” she said, hoarsely. “Where…where am I?”

“Oh Celestia,” said Cadence, wrapping the newly reborn pony in a hug, despite her visible exhaustion. “You did it.”

“This was not the work of Celestia. This was the work of Nightmare Moon. Now get her out of here, and wake your husband up. There are still five more to do.”

Nightmare Moon stood in a high part of Canterlot Caslte, with Cadence at her side. Elsewhere in the castle, doctors marveled at six “miracles”, and six ponies drawn back from the beyond were reunited once again with their families. Outside, though, Equestria still burned. In truth, little had changed.

After the resurrections, Shining Armor had been admitted to the castle’s makeshift hospital. He was, Nightmare Moon admitted, surprisingly strong for a mortal. The doctors assured her what she already knew- -that he would recover, in time, after substantial rest. The ring of cursed steel had been removed from his body, and he would suffer withdrawal sickness, but no permanent damage had been done.

Likewise, it seemed that Twilight and her five friends were no longer in any immediate danger. As expected, they had all experienced a single bolt of pain, but then mysteriously recovered. Rarity and Fluttershy had been brought to the hospital, but the doctors found nothing wrong with them and discharged them rapidly.

The temporary incapacitation of Shining Armor was fortunate, because it meant that Cadence was left in a position of full authority. She was far easier to “convince” of things. To her, Nightmare Moon had proven herself. The guards that fell under her command no longer followed as closely, and Cadence was far more receptive to orders from her new queen.

“There is no time to waste,” said Nightmare Moon, still shivering from the cold storage room.

“What are you going to do?” asked Cadence.

Nighmare Moon followed the perimeter of the room to a balcony, leaving Cadence’s guards and Darkseer inside. Cadence followed her, and the two alicorns looked out at the burning city below, and above to the red sky.

“Tell me, Cadence,” she asked Nightmare Moon. “What do you know of fear?”

Cadence looked to her, somewhat confused. “Fear? Well, it’s the opposite of love. Fear and hatred. That’s what caused all this.”

“That is correct, but not completely,” said Nightmare Moon. Cadence’s description was almost exactly what she had expected from an alicorn trained in Celestia’s image. “You see, there are actually several types of fear. Right now, in the glow of the red sun, my subjects feel fear of the unknown. That is the worst kind of fear. They have nothing do defend against. They cannot brace their minds, and this is the result.”

“What do you intend to do?” asked Cadence.

“Simply to change the type of fear. From an unknown, to an inevitability. To wrap them in the comfort of fear directed toward and enemy, and enemy that they cannot defeat, but one that they might please.”

Nightmare Moon raised her horn to the sky, and black-colored magical energy poured out of it. The sun resisted her force at first, but then obeyed. Even Luna herself could not move the sun, not alone, anyway- -but Nightmare Moon, by the very definition of her being, could.

She forced the sun to the west, and made it set. The red light burned brilliantly across the sky in the most spectacular of all sunsets, one that would have been profoundly beautiful in different circumstances. Then, as it fell and its light faded, Nightmare Moon raised the moon.

The moon was much easier to control. It was linked directly to Luna’s physical body; it was a part of her, just as Nightmare Moon was. Nightmare Moon moved it far more rapidly than it normally would be moved, forcing it to the center of the sky to its rightful place.

She smiled, because Luna had never truly understood her own power. Even as the old Nightmare Moon, the bizarre and incomplete hybrid of them both, she had only a distant grasp of what “Eternal Night” might mean.

Nightmare Moon focused the full power of her magic into the moon. A burst of lunar energy shot from her body, the icy glow knocking back Cadence and sending several of the guards cowering behind each other. Above, the moon changed. Its dim, white glow became as blinding as that of the sun, and Luna’s creations, the manifold stars and galaxies, stood out sharply against the blackness, filling it with delicate color and intricate light.

All over Equestria, the light of the new moon fell upon the land. It was as bright as the sun, but the light was not the same. Whereas the sun was warm, the light of the moon brought cold; where sunlight drove away the shadows of the world, moonlight deepened them, pouring darkness into the places unreached by its light. The entire world was suddenly set in a surreal sharp contrast.

Nightmare Moon stared out at the land she now dominated. All that sat below the moon was now hers, but that was not enough. She channeled her own magic into Luna’s, and connected her mind to the moon. Barely visible threads of telepathic energy rained down from the skies.

“Equestria,” she said, her voice quiet but echoing through the minds of all those on who the moonlight fell. “Your Princess, Celestia, has fallen. She fought hard to protect you from the Choggoth threat, but in the end failed just the same. I, Nightmare Moon, by my strength and by my birthright, herby claim the throne of Equestria. Rejoice. I will accomplish what Celestia never could in life, and will honor the true nature of Equestria, and of ponies.”

She terminated the connection. It was actually somewhat draining, even for her, to reach all ponies at once, even for a simple transmission.

“Are you insane?” cried Cadence. “Are you trying to start a revolution? Was this really all a trick to get the throne?”

“I have no desire for the throne,” said Nightmare Moon, ignoring the exhaustion from the expense of magic that funded the feats she had just performed. “To rule a nation of ponies would be…pointless. It would serve no purpose to me.”

“Then why?”

“To give them a new fear. A fear of me.”

The sound of the beating of featherless wings filled the air, and several chiropteran ponies, responding to their queen’s ascension, arrived. All of them bowed in unison.

“Do you have news of Cavern Melody’s daughter?” asked Nightmare Moon.

“A healthy filly,” said the leader of the group, an unusually large female.

“This pleases me,” said Nightmare Moon as Darkseer left the terrified pony guards to join the group. “Now,” she said, both to her chiropterans, who now stood at attention, and to Cadence, who watched in awe. “I need to raise an army as soon as possible, one that will follow me with absolute loyalty. I cannot trust that Celestia’s army will so readily obey Nightmare Moon.”

“Our forces are at your command,” said Darkseer.

“How many?”

“There are over two thousand extant of our kind,” said the leading female. “All are prepared to fight at your will.”

“Take only those with military training,” said Nightmare Moon. “Assemble them here, at the castle.” One of the chiropterans nodded and went on his way to execute the order. “Also, send word to Griffonstone. Inform them that I am paying one thousand bits per day for mercenaries.”

“Mercenaries?” said Cadence, seemingly shocked.

“I need absolute loyalty. With that offer, every hen, cock, and fledgling will be at my side within a matter of hours, and will obey me absolutely.” She turned her attention toward Darkseer. “Darkseer,” she said. “I give you a special task, one that will perhaps be the most difficult. Go to the depths of your nation, to the most ancient and deepest caves. Find the oldest of the priestesses.”

“To what end, my queen?”

“Ask her to contact the Other Side, and to inform that Satin Veil that I would like to request soldiers.”

“You can’t be serious,” said Cadence. “You couldn’t possibly- -”

“Ponies are dying, Cadence. Equestria has fallen, and every second it remains out of my control it weakens and decays further. If unleashing a horde of demons on this land is necessary to stabilize it, to stop the chaos, then I will not hesitate. Even if I have to take volunteers from the prisoners of Tartarus, I will regain control. Darkseer, go. Find Stain Veil, and witness those who gave rise to your kind.”

“Yes, your majesty,” he said, bowing and then flying off.

“And you,” said Nightmare Moon, turning her attention toward the group of guards at the edge of the room. Their eyes followed where she was looking, and they suddenly jumped back at the sight of a green pony with a forked antler for a horn, one who had been there in the background the entire time without being noticed. “Where is Discord? Bring him here, now!”

“Sorry,” said Buttery Snake, stepping out of the background, grinning widely. “D says that this is an internal conflict in Order. Doesn’t want to get involved beyond how deep in the soup he already is.”

“Then can I assume that he is taking action?”

“I didn’t say anything,” said Buttery Snake, smiling.

“Then I will trust him to manage his own actions.” Nightmare Moon was not sure what Discord was, or where he had come from, but she knew that he could not help but mettle in the affairs of mortals. Even if that meant spreading his own brand of chaos throughout the land, or at the very least securing the families of the Elements of Harmony. “But you are officially conscripted into my army.”

“Righty oh,” said Buttery Snake, adjusting the camouflage fatigues that had suddenly appeared on this body. “That’s a good thing, because I never knew what I was told in the first place. Do I get to wield the Astral Hammer?”

“No.” Nightmare Moon turned back to Cadence. “The Elements of Harmony. What is their condition?”

“Condition? They aren’t just things.”

“I am aware of that. They are ponies, as are you, but nevertheless, they are the elite of our soldiers by Celestia’s will. Are they currently hurt?”

“No,” said Cadence. “The doctors checked them, but nothing is wrong. Except for Twilight…”

“Then have the remaining five meet me in private. We have things to discuss.”

Rainbow Dash was the last to enter the room. She looked around at the u-shaped table that had been set up in the windowless room, and shivered. Something about the way the shadows were so much sharper than normal was unnerving to her. In addition, she already felt terrible and ashamed for having failed to defeat Nightmare Moon. Logically, she realized that it was impossible for her to do it on her own, but in her heart she knew that she should have tried harder. Failure without trying was the most painful kind of failure.

Being with her friends, at least, made her feel somewhat better. She looked around at the table. All the seats were filled except one. Twilight was missing, and Rainbow Dash could not blame her. She had not left Celestia’s side for one moment since they had found her on the floor of that stone closet, her eyes staring blindly upward at the ceiling.

Rainbow Dash shivered again, and took the seat next to Applejack.

“You okay?” she said.

“No,” said Applejack bluntly. She had removed her hat and set it in front of her, and she was playing with it. Her skin was pale, and she did not seem to be able to meet the eyes of any of her friends.

“Look, I’m sorry,” said Rainbow Dash. “Whatever you saw, it can’t hurt you. It wasn’t real.”

“But it was,” snapped Applejack. She looked at Rainbow Dash, and seeing the expression of hurt on her friend’s face, changed her tone. “I’m sahry, Dash.”

“It’s okay,” said Rainbow Dash.

“Is…is it true?” squeaked Fluttershy from across the table. “Is she…is Nightmare Moon…”

“Back?” said Rainbow Dash. “Yes. She is.” There was not even really a need to ask; they had all heard her voice shouting inside their heads, talking about how she was taking over the kingdom and telling lies about Celestia’s death.

“Of all the ponies to come back from the dead,” whined Pinkie Pie, who was pressed against the table in a rather detected looking state. “We get the only one that I can’t possibly throw a welcoming party for. Although a black frosted cake would be impressive…”

“I am not going to lie,” said Rarity, “but the situation here is looking…well, a tad grim, I admit, but that’s no reason to lose hope. At least that horrible red light is gone. Although the colors under moonlight are all wrong…” She seemed to notice that the other ponies were not nearly as interested in the nature of color under moonlight as she was, and smiled as she stopped talking.

“Why are we here again?” asked Rainbow Dash.

“Because Cadence summn’d us,” said Applejack quietly.

“She didn’t summon me,” said Pinkie Pie. “One of those creepy bat guys came and told me.”

“Really?” said Fluttershy. “Me too…”

“Me too,” said Rainbow Dash, suddenly recalling how unusual it had been for one of Luna’s guards to be sent to summon her.

“I got one too,” said Applejack. “Freakish littlah’ weirdos.”

“I actually think they’re rather hansom,” mumbled Fluttershy, blushing. “With their cute little wings and those pointy little ears.”

They all paused for a moment.

“Hey,” said Pinkie at last. “You don’t think those guys were all loyal to Nightmare Moon, do you?”

They all laughed humorlessly, until the laughter trailed off ominously.

The door to the chamber suddenly swung open, and everypony looked up, fully expecting to see Nightmare Moon stride in. Instead, however, Cadence entered.

“Oh, thank Celestia,” said Rarity, putting her hoof on her chest and examining. “I was sure that you were Nightmare Moon.”

“Yeah,” said Rainbow Dash. “I bet you already finished of that bit- -”

Her sentace trailed off as Cadence’s shadow suddenly seemed to move independently of her, and a pair of large, inpony eyes appared.

“Go ahead, Rainbow-Dash,” said NightmareMoon, stepping out from beside Cadence, her green eyes wide and expressionless, seeming to stare at everything in the room simultaneously. “Finish your sentence.”

“Cadence,” she said instead, turning toward the pink alicorn who was now standing at the side of the room. “You…you backstabber!”

“Do not blame her,” snapped Nightmare Moon. “Cadence did what needed to be done. She deserves your love as much as I deserve your hate. This decision was hard enough for her as it is.”

“You’ll never have Equestria!” cried Rainbow Dash, standing on the table. “We’ll fight you- -we’ll all fight you!”

“And I will win. Or, rather, would win, if I cared.” She picked up Rainbow Dash in her magic and set her back into her chair. “Now please be civil about this.” She turned her attention toward the shivering mass that was Fluttershy. “And please do not be so excessively fearful. It is endlessly annoying.”

“I’m sorry,” said Fluttershy. She seemed to be on the verge of tears. Even to Nightmare Moon, the pastel-colored Pegasus was a pitiable sight.

“Don’t apologize to her,” said Rainbow Dash.

“Please,” said Cadence, stepping forward. “Please just listen to her. She’s not the same pony that she once was.”

“Or, more accurately, the pony I once was is no longer who I am now,” corrected Nightmare Moon.”

“Please forgive us…um…Miss Moon,” said Rarity, “if we find that difficult to believe.”

“Are any of you currently dead? Or in chains?”

Pinkie Pie sat up and ran her hooves over herself. “Nope,” she said.

“In fact.” Nightmare Moon stepped to one side. “Any of you are free to go. If you want your preconceived prejudices to determine your actions, leave. Abandon Equestria in its time of need.”

Fluttershy actually started to stand, but Rarity pushed her back into her seat.

“I thought so,” said Nightmare Moon. “You all must realize that I am not the pony once known as ‘Nightmare Moon’, at least not completely. I am far older, older than even Celestia and Luna themselves. Ruling this kingdom is not my goal. Eternal Night is not my goal. Those were both Luna’s desires, ingrained into me. I only desire to safeguard Equestria in a time when Luna cannot.”

They seemed to believe her.

“You look weird,” said Pinkie Pie.

“Focus,” said Nightmare Moon. She stared unblinkingly at them all. “You all reek.”

“Excuse me?” said Rarity, suddenly profoundly offended. “A lady does not have an odor.”

“Not physically. You smell of the Gloame.”

“Weh where just there,” sighed Applejack. She seemed far more tired than the rest.

“That was an unbelievably foolish thing to do,” said Nightmare Moon. “The radiation storms alone could have killed you in minutes. Then again, in this backward land, you probably do not even understand the concept of radiation.”

“We went because we had to. To stop that…thing,” said Rainbow Dash.

“Under Celestia’s orders, I assume?”

They all nodded.

Nightmare Moon sighed. “That is just like her. To attack her ‘enemy’ without thinking. I would have expected better from you all, though.”

“Us?” said Rainbow Dash. “What did we do?”

“Did you even stop to think? Didn’t you wonder why Celestia was so willing to sacrifice you? Do you weakling Third Era ponies not even have the capacity to doubt your ‘benevolent’ goddess?”

“Don’t yell at us,” said Rarity, trying to comfort Fluttershy who was now varnishing under the table. “We were the ones risking our lives to protect Equestria.”

“Yeah, you big meenie!” said Pinkie Pie.

“Twilight said that that thing was a Choggoth,” said Rainbow Dash. “If we didn’t kill it, it would destroy everything in Equestria!”

“Stop and think for a moment, you fools,” snapped Nightmare Moon. “Oblivion has countless bodies in every city. If he wanted to destroy Equestria, he would have. He would simply absorb it. You would have no power to stop him. Now tell me, did he do that?”

“No,” said Applejack when the others refused to speak.

“And you never stopped to consider his motivations. Did you even try to ask him why he was doing what he was doing? He probably would have told you.”

“No,” said Fluttershy.

“So you just walked into his home and attacked him?”

None of them responded that time.

“I know Oblivion. He does not care about Equestria, at least not specifically. He desires neither conquest nor destruction. His target is far more specific. No doubt he is attempting to disable the Finality Core.”

“What the hay is that?” said Pinkie Pie.

“It is a machine, from my time. It is what originally gave Luna and Celestia their powers five thousand years ago.”

“So he is trying to become more powerful?” asked Cadence, “or to destroy you two?”

“We are only incidental,” explained Nightmare Moon, annoyed at how mentally thick ponies were. “He does not care about us, or himself. His only target is the Core.”

“Why, exactly?” squeaked Fluttershy. “Why does he want it so bad?”

“I cannot answer that question,” said Nightmare Moon. “But I surmise that he fears that it will somehow activate.”

“And if it…does?”

“All life in Equestria will be instantly annihilated.”

“All of it?”

“Every plant, animal, pony, down to the very bacteria. Even Oblivion himself will be destroyed.”

“Wait,” said Rainbow Dash. “Hold on a second. So you’re saying that he’s actually trying to protect Equestria?”

“Of course,” said Nightmare Moon, her eyes adjusting their position slightly to view Rainbow Dash. The blue Pegasus was surprisingly attractive, at least for a pony who was still alive. Nightmare Moon did not allow herself to be distracted, though.

“Surely you can’t be serious!” said Rarity. “That thin is a…an abomination!”

“Oblivion is a mentally unstable superweapon. He cannot help what he is. I find it odd that you five, who are famed for your capacity for friendship, would so blindly turn against him. However…” she paused. “Please help me to understand. Why did you fail to kill him?”

“It’s not our fault,” said Rainbow Dash, crossing her forelegs in front of her. “The Elements of Harmony failed!”

“The Elements do not fail,” said Nightmare Moon. “Of all ponies, I am perhaps the most aware of this.”

“I dunno,” said Applejack. She looked up at Nightmare Moon, then at the others. “It jus felt…weird. Did ya’ll feel it too?”

“I did,” said Fluttershy.

“So did I,” said Rarity. “It was like…oh, how to describe it.”

“Lahk we were tryin’ to attack an old friend.”

“Yeah,” said Rainbow Dash. “I felt it too. Like, I knew him or something, from a long time ago.”

“It felt like I had been at his birthday party like, a thousand times,” said Pinkie Pie.

“But he…isn’t our friend,” said Rarity. “Even when he was, we all hardly knew him…”

“This is not completely unexpected,” said Nightmare Moon.

“Why?”

“Simply because little is known about the workings of the Elements of Harmony. Their exact parameters of use are unknown, even to me. Probably even to Celestia.”

“Are you saying we can’t beat him?” asked Rainbow Dash.

“I am saying do not even try. Oblivion is not currently a threat.”

“Not a threat? He took down Celestia.”

“But he cannot kill her. Not without destabilizing the Spheres. If he wants to destroy the sun and the moon, he would need to do so at the same time. Luna is surely his next target.”

“Then he is coming for…you?”

“Yes. But I will not be so easily defeated. But he is not your concern.”

“Then what the hay is?” demanded Pinkie Pie. “I think I really am starting to wonder why you called us here today.”

“Because I need your support.”

“You wan’ us to prahmise not tah try ‘an off yah,” said Applejack.

“Yes, but more importantly, I need you to stay here. Do not try to escape, and do not leave Twilight’s side. The six of you are one of Celestia’s greatest military assets. I cannot risk losing you. Neither can Luna.”

“You wan’ tah make peace with us,” said Applejack.

“After what you did to Applejack, that’s not an- -” started Rainbow Dash.

“Ah am with you,” said Applejack, cutting her off.

“What?” they all said, turning to her.

“So am I,” said Fluttershy.

“You too?” aid Rainbow Dash.

“If she tries to mess with us, we can always mess her up,” said Pinkie Pie. “Pinkie will permit this, for now.”

“As will I,” said Rarity.

Rainbow Dash sighed. “I don’t like this. So no. I will not support her. But I will not leave, if that is what you want.”

“Thank you,” said Nightmare Moon. She turned her attention toward Rarity. “Fashionista pony,” she said.

“Y- -yes,” said Rarity, straightening.

“In case you are not aware, I am currently nude. This appearance is not befitting of an interim queen. I am assigning you to create garments that are more appropriate for my position.”

“Me?” she squeaked. She seemed about to faint.

“I trust your judgement. However, I desire a very specific crown. One of my soldiers will bring you the basic layout. As for the rest of you.” She turned to them. “Move as you will. Just know that I am always watching.”

Cadence followed Nightmare Moon through the shadows of the hallway. It disturbed her on some level to be serving as the lieutenant to one of the greatest threats that Equestria had ever known, and she could feel the fear that was surging through the land. The power from the transmitter at the center of her own kingdom was dangerously low, and seemed to be only maintaining itself because the majority of the crystal ponies had no idea who Nightmare Moon was.

“It concerns me,” said Nightmare Moon, causing Cadence to jump slightly, “that the Elements of Harmony failed to function properly.”

“Perhaps Oblivion is not intrinsically evil,” suggested Cadence. That was still something that she believed, even more after hearing Nightmare Moon describe the Choggoth in greater detail- -even though she was unsure how Nightmare Moon knew any of those things.

“It should not matter. The Elements of Harmony are a weapon, as is Oblivion. They should have recognized him as a threat, and at the very least disabled him.”

“What if he isn’t a threat?”

“You mistake good intentions for good actions,” said Nightmare Moon. “Oblivion is never to be trusted. His goal is, ultimately, the protection of Equestria, but only in the most limited of senses. He would destroy Equestria without hesitation if it meant the destruction of his enemies. Believe me. In my own time, he did.”

“You mean this happened before?”

“Yes. And I stood at his side, only to be betrayed.”

“Do you think you can defeat him?”

“He is not my concern. But I have a plan.” Nightmare Moon stopped in the center of the hallway, and turned her head toward the ceiling. Suddenly, tilted down and released a horrible choking sound. At first, Cadence stood back, not sure what was happening, or if she should help. Then, to her horror, she saw something dark staring to emerge from her mouth. As Nightmare Moon coughed, a dark and starry cloud emerged from her mouth.

Nightmare Moon vomited the object onto the floor, and it rapidly lifted itself into the air, expanding rapidly. It was definitely alive, and seemed confused. Then it distorted, attempting to escape, only to be trapped by a black triangle that appeared beneath it.

“Tantabus,” said Nightmare Moon, wiping the saliva and blood from her mouth. “Look at me. Know me, and that I am not Luna. I have no capacity for guilt or regret. I am not subject to such weaknesses. You are no part of me.”

The stary, protoplasmic mass seemed to respond to her, and cried out in pain as Nightmare Moon surged magic into it. When she suddenly released it from its torment, it shifted once again, this time forming a shadowy silhouette of a pony.

“Tantabus,” said Nightmare Moon. “Defend this castle. This is my order.”

The ghostly pony seemed to nod, and then evaporated into dark smoke and vanished.

“What was that?” said Cadence.

Nightmare Moon smiled. “Something of Luna’s design. Inspired by me. It seems her skill has grown quite substantially. If only she could know how proud of her I truly am.”

As Nightmare Moon walked off into the shadows, Cadence could not help but wonder who this strange black alicorn was.

Chapter 41: Twilight Sparkle and the Cube of Memories

In the farthest edge of the infirmary, beyond where the wounded soldiers were being treated- -if they could be treated- -sat a room apart from the others. It was larger than the others, and slightly more luxurious. It was one of several designed to be a private room, and for the entire history of Canterlot the most severe cases it had served were diplomats who had overindulged at the parties or experienced minor injuries while playing polo or other high-class sports.

Now, however, it contained two ponies- -one a patient, lying still in the excessively bright room, and the other sitting in a chair at her side.

Twilight ran her hoof through her teacher’s mane. Under normal circumstances, it was not solid, but rather a sort of multicolored vapor. In her present state, however, it had resolved into normal hair, just like that of any other pony. It was even rapidly losing its color.

Celestia herself had not moved since she had been brought in. She only stared at the ceiling, her eyes glassy and blank, her mouth slightly open with thin bubbles of blue material forming at its corners. At first this had unnerved Twilight to no end- -just looking at her blank, dead expression would continually drive her into fits of uncontrollable sobbing. She had tried to cover Celestia’s face, but the result had been far worse, giving the impression that she was truly gone.

Celestia had not been breathing when Twilight found her, and she had not taken a single breath since. She was limp and perfectly still. Arguably, there was no difference between her and a corpse- -but the doctors said she was still alive, somehow, still managing to fight the parasite within her.

Even if they had said otherwise, Twilight would still have never have left her side. In her heart, she hoped desperately that Celestia would wake up, that she would blink and turn her head, or even twitch slightly. In her mind, however, Twilight knew that even an alicorn- -even Celestia- -could only withstand do much.

“It will be okay,” whispered Twilight. “You’ll be okay.”

The sorrow started to well up inside her again. She tried to suppress it, to maintain her composure, but like all the times before she was not able. She broke down into quiet sobs, putting her face down on the white sheets that covered Celestia to a corner where the cloth was already saturated with her tears.

The others had come, and sometimes that had spoken, but Twilight had barely heard them. She knew they were trying to help, and she did not want to ignore them, but they just seemed so distant. It took all her strength to try to seem strong when they were present, and she found that she could not bring herself to speak to him- -either because it would break her concentration, or because she did not know what to say.

Twilight took Celestia’s hoof in her hand. It was so cold; despite the doctors’ best attempts, it was not possible to keep Celestia’s body temperature higher than room temperature.

“Why,” said Twilight. Speaking caused her own tears to fall into her mouth; they tasted salty. “Why would anypony do this to you?”

It was a question that she could not answer. Celestia had been like a second mother to Twilight, but even beyond that, she had always taken care of her subjects and of Equestria. She was always smiling, and showed nopony anything except kindness. She ruled without cruelty, even when she was forced to make the most difficult of decisions. She did not deserve this; Twilight simply could not comprehend why anypony would want to do this to her.

Which only made the question more confusing. Only the most depraved of monsters could have done this to such a beautiful pony- -but from Twilight’s own experience, Oblivion- -or D27- -was not that monster. She knew what he had done, and was fully aware of the destruction that had consumed Equestria, and of Celestia’s state- -but speaking to him revealed a different pony altogether. He was not mad with a thirst for power, or a true vendetta. He had showed forgiveness and kindness when he could, even when it cost him dearly- -and yet he had done this.

Twilight felt her eyes shift to the nightstand at Celestia’s side. There, next to a simple lamp and a set of flowers that had been brought by each of her friends, sat a small stone-like cube with a glowing core. Twilight’s friends had been too preoccupied with her to notice it, and the doctors had been too focused on Celestia to even question what it was. Twilight, however, had been acutely aware of its presence. In a way, it was maddening. She was aware of the Pegasus legend of Pandora’s box, and now fully understood how Pandora must have felt. Twilight had been given access to information, but told never to use it, unless she wanted to.

She could no longer help herself. Carefully, she picked up the box in her magic. It was surpsisingly heavy, just as the one she had held before- -the one Celestia had been so astonished to see.

Thinking about that memory, one where Celestia had been alive and speaking, and smiling, nearly drove Twilight back into another cycle of weeping. She managed to hold it back, however, by focusing on the box. Taking it between her hooves, she found that it could be shifted about, as though the sides of it were only partially linked by some kind of complex internal mechanism.

As she played with it, the box suddenly shifted automatically. Its shape became less cubic, and a port opened on one side. Twilight nearly dropped the cube in surprise, but instead turned the side with the hole toward her. She saw that it was not simply an opening, but rather a cone of empty space, leading to a point that connected to the glowing crystal suspended in the center.

The edge of the cone was grooved with a delicate spiral, and Twilight immediately understood what it was for. She actually paused for a moment, recalling what Oblivion had told her. He had warned her that this cube contained answers, but that it must never be used. For just a moment, Twilight moved to set the cube back on the table. As she did, though, she saw Celestia, her unbreathing body staring unseeingly at the white ceiling above her.

Twilight could not bear to live without some kind of answer; she could not withstand that she did not know why something this terrible had happened. She took the cube back in her hooves and, holding her breath, lowered her head and inserted her horn into slot that had been provided.

The tube clamped down painfully, and Twilight cried out- -only to realize that she was somewhere with no air. She seemed to be falling, through endless darkness. All around her were glowing cubes, suspended in the air, each one flashing with color and images. She had been somewhere like this before: when she had first become a Princess, she had ascended to a similar plane and walked through her own memories.

Twilight focused on that memory, and concentrated. She managed to slow her descent, and found herself standing still, floating among the cubes. There were so many of them- -thousands, if not tens of thousands, arranged as though they sat on individual shelves.

“Hello?” called Twilight. There was no response.

She approached the nearest of the cubes. All six of its facets seemed to be flashing rapidly with distorted images. Curious, Twilight reached out and touched it. The moment she did, she ceased to be Twilight Sparkle.

Spring Tide jumped through the fields, propelling herself over the tall grass. It was taller than she was in many places, so she had to jump to see where the wildflowers were growing. Her parents had, of course, warned her to stay away from the wild fields. They said that there were ticks and fleas and other biting things.

Those were things that Spring Tide did not like at all, but only the best flowers grew in the wild fields, and she needed to pick them. This was, after all, a special occasion.

She gasped as she looked down, and then squealed with delight. She had found a beautiful green wild calla growing beneath a tall shrub. The callas were always terribly hard to find, even when they were in season, and a green one was especially rare. Spring Tide picked it with the greatest care, using her mouth instead of her magic to be sure that the stem came apart properly. She was pleased to have found a green flower; green, after all, was her brother’s favorite color.

It had been a long time since she had seen her brother. In fact, she could hardly remember him, only of him playing with her when she could barely talk. Then he had gone away. Her parents had told her brother had gone to war, although Spring Tide did not know where exactly that meant. She was vaguely aware that “war” was not really a place, but rather a thing. At first, she had been terribly frightened and cried often. War, she knew, was what had taken one of her father’s legs and was the reason why her uncle was just a name on a stone in the quiet field outside of the village.

Despite her fear, Spring Mist had finally come back. He had returned dressed in his stunning military armor, and although he seemed tired, Spring Tide saw that he had the same smile that he had possessed when he was a younger stallion.

He had not come alone. Many soldiers had come. Spring Tide was distantly aware from the way the adults talked that the war had changed, and something was different. They were not fighting the scary winged monster ponies anymore, or the terrifying fluffy demons, or the evil bats. They were fighting something different, but exactly what, even Spring Mist did not know. He only said that the soldiers came to rest, and to resupply as best as they could, and to plan for a new battle in the war.

Spring Tide did not know if that meant he would stay or not, and she hoped he would. More than anything, she wanted him to take off that armor, to put it away and come back to them. He could work the fields, and practice the spells that made the crops grow or write books. Spring Tide did not think he would, though. He was just not one to give up on anything, or anypony.

With her basket filled with flowers, she jumped through the grass on the way back to the village. She planned exactly what she would do when she got back: she would run to her house, and get the best vase that her family had. She would put the flowers into it, and take them to her brother and his friends. She would even save a few that she would give him later, so that he could give them to the pretty lieutenant that always seemed to follow him around.

She giggled thinking about it, and popped out of the tall grass on the top of the small hills overlooking her village. It was a simple town, built just half a mile from the sea. Normally, there were only around thirty ponies living there, but the number had swelled recently with all the soldires. There were so many that the town could not even hold them all. Instead, they had built small tents on the outer edge. There were hundreds of them, all walking busily, polishing their armor or tending fires, or helping the few among them who wore the black-and-red armor. Those ponies were very, very ill, and Spring Tide considered bringing them some of her flowers as well.

One of the unicorn soldiers below waved to her, and she waved back. As she did, though, she heard a sound high above. The looked up, and saw a strange rainbow. It did not look at all like a normal one; the colors were wrong. It also did not arc over the land as it should have- -rather, it seemed to be following something that was moving fast and glowing brightly.

Spring Tide watched as it seemed to slow over the center of her village. The soldiers below seemed agitated, and they started to move. Spring Tide did not even have time to question why.

A bolt of blinding light suddenly fell from the sky, impacting the center of the village. It expanded, and Spring Tide watched as the buildings and ponies standing near it were turned to dust. Then she saw nothing. She tried to scream as her eyes were burned from her skull and her skin torn off from the extreme heat, but no sound came out. She simply felt herself moving, falling sideways, driven back by the scalding heat and magic of the impact. Then she fell to the ground, and felt nothing else.

Twilight shifted, jumping to a new memory.

Long Till stood in the midst of a large crowd. Looming overhead, as well as surrounding him, were the strange, massive stones of the City of Ruin. According to legend, in ancient times, it had stood as a mighty Tower, an impossible feat of architecture. Nopony knew who had built it, but from the remaining base of the tower and the fragments where it had fallen, Long Till believed what most did- -that it had been made by the gods long before the first ponies.

It was said that the Tower had been the ancestral home of the unicorns, and from it they had reigned over the land for countless millennia- -until the legendary battle between the demigod Third Horn and Pegasus, when the first of the Pegasi had destroyed the Tower. Ever since, eternal, bloody wars had been raged over the remains of the site, but none had been able to claim it- -until just a year prior, when two alone had driven back the forces and claimed the City of Ruin as their home.

Now Long Till stood in the city, which had for so long been considered cursed, in the shadow of a great fragment taller than any structure ever built by ponies. He was in a large group, all standing at the base on which the Tower had once stood. There were many among them, many who Long Till had never thought he would ever see together. There were unicorns standing alongside Pegasi, as well as earth ponies like himself. Each one looked suspiciously at the others, as if expecting to be attacked by their hereditary, genetic enemies at any point, but all were far too afraid to run or to attempt to fight.

At the base of the Tower, a stage had been constructed on an ancient artificial cliff of stone. The top was clearly visible by all the ponies below, but was covered in a curtain suspended by magical means. From the sobbing that seemed to be coming from beneith it, Long Till already knew what was coming. He also knew that it was within his rights to turn away and leave- -but he found that he could not. He had to know, to see with his own eyes.

The crowd suddenly became agitated as an unusual light filled the sky. From the strange glowing sun descended an equally radiant figure. As she came into focus from above, the ponies below started to panic. The stories and rumors were true. Before them was a pony bearing the wings of a Pegasus and the horn of a unicorn. Her pristine white body was clad entirely in golden armor, and Long Till saw that she had somehow managed to pervert the most beautiful of metals into something horrifying. Her armor was ornate and grotesque, with strange, organic-like points and horns and motifs of pony skulls staring out with empty eyes.

The crowd was afraid, but they did not run. Instead, they fell to their knees and groveled in the mud beneath her. Many, especially those who were especially young, were crying as quietly as possible.

“My children,” said the Day-Goddess, smiling with a gaze that looked nearly motherly. “You have nothing to fear from us. Rejoice, for you are the chosen, and those who will dwell in everlasting piece beneath our motherly wings. Now rise, and look upon your goddess.”

The ponies obeyed. One thing that held true between all three represented races was that they were used to following orders from those more powerful than them, on pain of death or torture. The sight of the many-color maned goddess confirmed the other roomers that had terrified them, and they knew here power: it was said that she had, on her ascension, slaughtered the entire unicorn High Council, as well as the entire royal family, but that she had captured the Commander of the Pegasi alive and done unspeakable things to her. Seeing her now, not one among them doubted that it was well within her capacity.

“Rise,” she said, smiling, motioning with her gold-clad hoof. “You have nothing to fear from us.” Her expression grew serious. “But some do not learn. Some to not obey, and seek to undermine us.” She turned her horn toward the curtain, and it suddenly burst into flames and dissipated as fine ash into the wind.

The crowd gasped. Beneath it were ponies. There were eleven of them, divided into three groups. The farthest on the right was a group of three burrowing Pegasi. Few ponies had actually seen them up close, and they were revolting creatures, resembling ponies with elongated heads and tiny eyes, and bony, flightless wings that covered their backs like the shell of a beetle. All three were dark, mottled colors, as though their smooth coats were carved from stone. Many of the crowd gasped in disgust, but Long Till reacted with nothing but pity. He saw the marks on their bodies from where they had been beaten and branded, and saw their pain as they were exposed to light. He also saw that one of the two stallions among them took the mare in his forlegs, holding her close to him.

Beside the burrowing Pegasi were two earth ponies. One lay on his side, barely seeming to remain conscious. The other seemed to be the primary source of the weeping that Long Till had heard. Both of them showed signs of extended punishment, and it was quite possible that the more lackadaisical of the two was dying of sepsis.

The remaining six stood tall, with stern expressions on their faces. All six of them resembled earth ponies, but even though they had been shaved, the evidence of thick fluff on their bodies indicated that they were something entirely different. Six of them were young stallions, and the seventh- -the only one who’s coat was still mostly intact- -was an older mare.

Every pony on the stage was chained to it, not by iron but by barely perceptible magic. In the glint of the sun’s light, it was sometimes possible to see that the chains were connected to Celestia’s horn through narrow, intangible threads.

“These ponies, however,” said Celestia, smiling at her charges, “they have betrayed you. They have attempted to undermine our attempts to create a more beautiful, peaceful kingdom. All they wish is for hate and pain, while I offer them nothing but love and friendship.” She turned to the audience. “Well,” she said. “Which should I start with?”

“Please…” said an earth pony in the audience. “Please forgive them, my liege!”

“Perhaps we shall,” said Celestia. She turned her attention toward the pair of earth ponies. “Answer us,” she ordered. “Will you swear your undying allegiance to us, to the Princesses of the Sun and the Moon?”

The weeping earth pony looked up at Celestia, and then out at the crowd before her. “Yes,” she said. “Yes. Please, just don’t kill him!”

“Does he swear his allegiance to us?”

The sick pony looked upward at her, and for a moment his expression appeared steely- -but he had long since been broken. “I swear myself to you, my Princess,” he said with great difficulty.

“Then we grant you forgiveness,” said Celestia, smiling. The magical chains around their rear legs shattered into nothingness. “And we also give you this.” She lowered her horn to the weakened stallion, and he recoiled, expecting buring agony. Instead of pain, however, Celestia’s horn glowed with warm light, and his wounds were healed. As he stood, Celestia turned her attention to the mare, and her wounds were taken from her as well.

“Oh thank you, goddess,” said the mare, falling to Celestia’s hooves, kissing her golden, demonic horseshoes. “Thank you!”

“Thank you,” said the stallion, bowing.

“You may join your compatriots, now,” said Celestia, smiling, motioning them toward a ramp downward into the crowd.

The two ponies stood, and bowed once more. Then they walked down the ramp- -the stallion pausing only to look back at the woolen ones, who only glared with profound rage back at him.

Celestia stepped to stage left, taking her position before the burrowing Pegasi.

“Please, goddess!” cried one of them, pulling himself across the ground. “Oh Divine Light! Oh beautiful one! I swear my undying allegienc to you as well! Please do not kill me! Just let me return to my- -”

Without hesitation, Celestia brought her hoof down on his back. The crowd gasped, because they heard the crack of his spine, and watched as his rear legs instantly became paralyzed.

“You three cannot be forgiven for your crimes against these ponies,” said Celestia coldly as the pony below her wept in pain and fear, even as she ground her hoof into him. “You have taken lives, and consumed the flesh of ponies- -and plotted against Princess Luna, who is but a child. Your genetic line is impure, and you will only breed dissent.”

“Please, Celestia,” said the other stallion, holding the sobbing mare. “Please- -”

Celestia lowered her horn, and he burst into screaming flame- -and then into ash. The mare cried out and seemed to try to collect the fragments of him, even as they turned to fine black dust.

“We are the purifying fire of the Sun,” said Celestia. She lowered her horn toward the broken Pegasus below her, and vaporized him as well. “Nothing impure shall withstand our glare. All that shall remain shall be pure, and righteous!” With her last shout, she converted the last of the Pegasus to dust.

“Yeah!” cried a voice from the crowd, standing on his hind legs. “Death to dissenters! Kill all those who- -”

His body burst into flames and ask, and those around him screamed as they felt the heat from his corpse on their bodies.

“How dare you?” cried Celestia. “Any who cheer for death and pain are the worst of impurities in our kingdom. Do you believe that we enjoy this? It brings us endless pain that, despite our best efforts, some still betray our kindness.”

As Celestia spoke, she turned her attention toward the remaining six ponies. Not one of them looked at her; their gaze was held straight forward, their expressions stone-like grimaces, not of fear, but of defiance.

“These six,” said Celestia. “They were soldiers. Valliant heroes, who fought against us with great courage. They are heroes amongst their kind. Let it be known that they are free to join us, if they choose to swear their loyalty to us.”

She turned to the first one. “Do you swear your allegiance to me?” she asked, holding her muzzle close to his ear.

“I shall never,” he said with a strange, erudite accent.

Celestia vaporized him. She stepped over his fluffy ashes to the next one. “Do you swear your allegiance to me?”

“I shall never,” he said. Celestia promptly killed him as she had the other. Long Till was forced to look away. He could feel tears welling in his eyes, knowing that he himself, as a militapony, had answered the opposite when Celestia had asked his entire unit. His bravery, he knew, would never match that of those who stood on the stage.

“Do you swear allegiance to me?” she asked to the third. He was smaller than the others, and was attempting to suppress his shaking. His eyes flicked to her, but then stared straight forward. He took a deep breath. “I shall never!”

Celestia took his life, and moved to the forth. “Do you swear your allegiance to me?”

“I shall never,” he said quietly, and was killed.

She finally came to the fifth stallion. His expression, like that of the others, was fully serious, that of the most noble of warriors- -and yet a single tear rolled down his face.

“Do you swear your allegiance to me?”

“I…shall…never!”

Celestia burned him to death without hesitation, and he dissipated without a sound. Celestia finally turned her attention to the last pony standing, the woolen mare, who stood apart from the others.

“Field Commander Soft-Orb,” she said, “you have just witnessed the death of your only children by my will, but their own choice.” She paused, hearing the gasps of the ponies below. Long Till himself, upon realizing the relationship of the mare to those six brave stallions, felt a sudden urge to vomit. “What have you to say?”

“I could not be more proud of my sons,” she said, staring directly into Celestia’s eyes. “They had the courage to die before their own mother with their honor intact, rather than swear their rights and souls to a tyrant.” She turned to the crowd. “Unlike many, who have forever sold their freedom for the sake of pointless half-lives as slaves to a false god!” She turned back to Celestia, and spit in her face. Celestia only smiled. “I will not dishonor my ancestors, or the spirits of my sons,” she said, just barely loud enough for the audience to hear.

“Field Commander Soft-Orb,” said Celestia. “Do you swear your eternal allegiance to us?”

“I shall nev- -”

She never had a chance to complete the sentence. There was a glint of gold as Celestia raised her wing, and as the golden blades bewtween her feathers emerged. With one swift motion she brought it down of Soft-Orb.

Soft-Orb’s eyes widened, and all that came out of her mouth was a low gurgle. Then, after a moment’s pause, her head dropped off her body and rolled off the stage into the screaming crowd. Blood spurted from her neck as Celestia pushed her over.

“Let this be a lesson!” bellowed Celestia to the crowd, instantly arresting the stampede away from the Field Commander’s head and its pale, still-staring eyes. “All who stand for love and peach shall have t hose things! But all those who stand for violence shall only meet violent deaths! Only I, Celestia, immortal goddess of the sun, may commit such acts, and consume the sin of the ponies for a better Equestria!” Behind her, the stage- -along with Soft-Orb’s body- -collapsed into flaming dust, leaving only the sterile stone cliff of the long-destroyed Tower behind her. “Now disperse,” she said, calmly. “Go to your homes. Be with your families. Love them, and cherish them, for that is what ponies are for.”

The crowd bowed one last time, and then began to quickly leave, not wanting to remain behind with Celestia. Long Till left with them, but knew that he would not be returning to his family. He knew that he could never face them, not after what he had done. After seeing what he had just seen, he knew that he had made a profound mistake. A mistake that he needed to rectify. At that moment, he promised that he would not be a coward- -and that if he died, it would be as those heroes on that stage had. He would never forget the name of Soft-Orb, and he would, he hoped, one day regain his own honor in the same way that she had never released hers.

Another shift. Silent Zephyr moved effortlessly through the central palace in the City of Ruins. Even with the somewhat heavy device around her midsection, she was still able to move with great efficiency, using her wings as necessary, souring through the darkness with the silence of a barn owl.

The unicorn magic seemed to be holding. Even during the rocky truce between the Pegasi and the horns, Silent Zephyr had never once thought that she would ever be using a device enchanted by a unicorn. Nor did she even think that prolonged invisibility was possible. Apparently, it was extremely rare for a unicorn to even be able to perform such spells. It had taken General Cotton-Swab a long, long time to find and recruit one that was even remotely able to perform the necessary enchantments, and longer still to find an engineer smart enough to construct a system to prolong the spell long enough for anypony other than the caster to make any use of it.

It certainly made Silent Zephyr’s job easier, even if she knew it was only a crutch. She had been infiltrating well-secured facilities for years, even when she was only a common thief. She could be silent and nearly invisible without a spell, and was quite proud of it.

She moved swiftly through the oddly tall, empty hallways of the mostly-abandoned Tower. It had taken some of her best manipulations to get through the spells surrounding the central palace without setting them off, but the challenge had only excited her. She could feel her wings pulsing with excitement as she raced through the corridors.

Suddenly, she felt a presence. She instinctively ducked into the lower shadows at the corner of an alcove, even though she was invisible. Then she put her body close to the ground and walked like a burrowing Pegasus, creeping silently across the floor.

The presence she had heard was a group of ponies, which was odd. Despite the size of the City of Ruin, it was almost entirely empty and eerily devoid of life. The castle itself did not even have gauds, and there seemed to be only a few gelding or mare servants present.

The ponies she saw were walking in a group. There were four of them. The two at the rear were both tall bat ponies in dark blue armor. Even at a distance, Silent Zephyr could see that, to her surprise and sudden interest, they were both fully intact specimens.

Ahead of them was a third bat, a female with bright yellow eyes and a cutie mark of two asymmetrical crossed swords. Walking next to her was- -to Silent Zephyr’s even greater surprise- -a blue filly.

Curious, Silent Zephyr crept forward, getting as close as she dared. She nearly gasped when she saw that the deep-blue filly had both a pair of wings and a tiny, nubby horn. She was an alicorn, and since she was not the demon-goddess Celestia, it could only mean that she was the goddess of the moon, the child-princess Luna. That, in itself, was intriguing. Luna had made almost no public appearances since the two sisters had claimed the throne. Silent Zephyr had been aware that she was a child, but had not realized that she was so young.

“You will be having dinner with the chancellor of the earth pony senate tonight,” said the female bat. “My staff has prepared a selection of armors for you. I will take you to them after you have raised the moon. Afterword, you are scheduled to have a tactical meeting with our intelligence officers concerning the burrowing Pegasi forces in Subterna Four.”

“Will Tia be at the dinner?” said Luna, her voice squeaky and small.

“No,” said the female bat. “She will be dining alone tonight. However, she may yet attend the tactical meeting.

“Be sure to have the intelligence officers submit in writing this time,” said Luna, sounding a bit annoyed. “So that I can review their findings as necessary.”

“Yes, your majesty.”

Silent Zephyr smiled at the precocious filly. Had it not been for that hideous spiral bone in her head, she would have been an adorable Pegasus. Still, Luna was a target, and Silent Zephyr drew her dancing-blade. She slowly fell in sync with the walking of the two rear bat gaurds, forcing her own hoofsteps to match hers. She planned what she would do: a simple stab in the back, halfway between the main and the wing joint; followed by a simple twist of the blade. Luna’s spine would snap, and she would die without a peep. The bats would not even know what happened.

She approached quickly, and passed between the two male bats. Bat-ponies were ugly, hideous perversions of Pegasus nature, but something about them was profoundly attractive to Silent Zephyr- -even the mare, in her own right. It seemed to be a rather unfortunate fetish genetically ingrained into most Pegasi.

After admiring the stallions for a moment, Silent Zephyr got back to business. She moved forward as gently as possible until she loomed over Luna. She was so small and seemed so innocent- -which meant that she would be easy to kill. Silent Zephyr lifted the blade.

The bat mare’s ears suddenly turned, reversing themselves. With one incredibly fast motion, she pushed Luna aside will simultaneously drawing a sword from under one wing into her mouth and lifting the other wing to reveal a small but powerful underwing sidearm.

Silent Zephyr barely dodged the blade in time; it passed exactly through where her neck had been moments before. The two stallions behind her jumped back surprised, and Silent Zephyr took their confusion as an opportunity. With the agility of a gymnast, she jumped between them and, once safely behind them, stood perfectly still.

The mare’s hideous yellow eyes flicked about the room, searching the darkness.

“What is it, Dark Ender?” asked Luna, trying to sound unafraid.

“I thought I heard something,” she said past the sword in her mouth. She did not lower her guard or her weapons, and continued to stare into the darkness, listening. Silent Zephyr trusted the invisibility spell with absolute confidence, but had not suspected that bats had such good hearing. A single motion would spell disaster. She could not fight three of the freaks at once, let alone an alicorn.

She felt a bead of sweat forming on her head, and held her breath. The falling of a single droplet would surely be loud enough for them to hear, and it would surely mean the hot and unpleasant gift of a fresh bullet.

To Silent Zephyr’s incrediable relief, however, the mare sheathed her sword and lowered her wing. “It must have been nothing,” she said. “Were you injured by my carelessness, your majesty?”

“No,” said Luna as they started walking again. “In fact, I thank you. All of you. You are always so nice to me.”

“We live by your grace, your highness,” said the mare. “And I live only to serve you.”

Silent Zephyr watched them go, and then sat down onto the floor. She realized how close she had come to death. There was no time for prolonged rest, though. Luna was only a secondary objective. Her primary purpose was to gather intelligence, specifically on Celestia.

So, she moved through the castle, moving toward where Celestia had likely located her throne room. One advantage to an enemy living in an ancient structure was that schematics of it were at least relatively common. The original throne room of the Horn dynasty had been destroyed during the First War millennia ago, but Silent Zephyr knew of several rooms that were large enough to suit the demon-goddess’s overinflated ego.

Within minutes she found such a room. She instantly knew that it was the right one: the door to it was massive and covered in gleaming, polished steel with an inlaid gold image of the sun that probably cost more than the entire fiefdom of Subter Four. Entering it alone, however, was impossible- -a task as simple as opening a door could prove fatal in the wrong circumstances; if Celestia truly was on the other side and saw any of the doors open- -whether they were the large one or smaller service doors- -she would immediately know that something was wrong. An invisibility spell, even a very good one, would not hold up to a check for pony lifesigns using magic- -nor would the thin leather that Silent Zephyr was wearing stand up to a bolt of Celestia’s magic.

So she waited. Approaching Luna had given her at least one advantage: she knew what she was watching for. After several minutes, she saw it: a light-gray gelding pushing a cart with an oversized, covered silver platter on it. He was delivering Celestia’s private meal.

Silent Zephyr followed him, something that was not at all difficult. He was not a freakish soldier like the bat mare that had been with Luna; he was a simple servant. He did not have the skills or abilities to detect an invisible pony trailing him, hiding her sound in the low creaking of his own cart and the sound of his hoofsteps in the empty halls.

He led her around the room to service entrance and pushed open the door. While he was pushing the cart through, Silent Zephyr took flight and passed directly over him, expertly missing his head by mere inches. He never even noticed.

The room inside defiantly belonged to Celestia. It was covered in golden stone and dark marble and lit with torches that filled it with bright, sunlight-like light. A set of steps on one side led to her ornate throne, which was surrounded by two metal murals cast from steel and gold, depicting the sun and sky. What Silent Zephyr found strange was that there were only images of the sun- -which implied that there was, somewhere, a separate throne room for little Luna. Or perhaps a this extremely luxurious set of accommodations was just Celestia’s private locale.

Silent Zephyr took flight and hid herself in shadows in one corner of the room. As she looked down, she saw that she was definitely in the right place. In the center of the room, an elaborate table had been set. Celestia herself, in minimalist gold armor, sat at the head of it alone, waiting patiently to be served.

The servant wheeled his cart over to the table and began removing courses of various items onto the table. To Silent Zephyr’s disgust, all of them were desserts. The idea of eating that many sweets for dinner made her ill.

“And the main course,” said the servant, placing the large covered plate before Celestia. With his hoof, he whisked off the lid, and Silent Zephyr barely suppressed a gasp of horror.

The plate did not contain a dessert, or even any real food. Instead, it contained a mare. She was bound and shaved, placed on the plate in a puddle of savory juices, which the servant promptly ladled over her even as she struggled against her bindings and tried to scream through the apple shoved in her mouth, and served with a delicate garnish.

Silent Zephyr recognized her, if not in name in image. She was one of several Resistance soldiers who had gone missing. She had reviewed their names and pictures of their faces before entering the castle- -but only distantly. She had been far more concerned with the schematics; she knew that most ponies that went into the castle never came back out.

“It looks delicious,” said Celestia, smiling.

“Thank you, your highness,” said the servant, bowing. It was quite possible that he was also the “cook” in this case. “Shall I have a similar dish brought to her young highness Luna as well?”

Celestia smiled and stared at him for a moment. Then, without losing her smile, her horn glowed. Before Silent Zephyr could blink, the servant was thrown against the nearest wall with an impossible force, nearly impacting Silent Zephyr on his way. When she looked up, she realized in horror that his legs were twisted at all the wrong angles. Every bone in his body had been shattered.

Still Celestia did not release him. She pulled him back with her magic, leaving a trail of blood across the stone floor. When he was back at her side, she poured magic into him. He cried out as his bones reset themselves, repairing and twisting with sickening cracks and clicks. When he was healed, Celestia dropped him to his knees on the floor.

“Never,” she hissed, no longer smiling. “Never even think about forcing my sister to experience such an atrocity. If she ever even learns of this, I will burn you alive and repair you as many times as it takes to destroy your mind to the point where even I cannot repair it.”

“Yes…your majesty,” said the gelding through his tears.

“Now leave me.”

The servant stood, shaking, and bowed. He took the now empty cart and wheeled it away. In a few seconds, he was gone, and Celestia was left alone with her meal.

“Now for you,” she said, smiling. Her dish tried to escape and recoil as Celestia gently ran her hoof down her meal’s back. She then pulled it back and licked off the gravy. “Ah,” she said. “So sweet. And so beautiful…”

The pony quivered and tried to pull back. Silent Zephyr wondered if she was somehow attached to the plate itself.

“Do not worry,” said Celestia. “I do not mean it in that way at all. I greatly preffer stallions over mares.” He sighed and put her had on one of her hooves, staring down at the shaved and basted pony before her. “Although, between you and me, it is rather unfortunate that all I keep is geldings. Of course, a necessary sacrifice. I do not trust stallions around my sister, aside from those bats she keeps with her- -and I know they would never hurt her. And I imagine they would ignore you. So I can assume, I suppose, that you have not been stuffed.” She reached down and pulled the apple out of the mare’s mouth.

The mare coughed. “You will never get any information out of me!” cried the pony. “I shall never betray the Revolution!”

“Really,” said Celestia, looking bored, picking up a fork in her magic and turning it over before her. “Please reconsider, if you will. I am not an unreasonable pony. In fact, you and I have reasonably similar goals. I would be happy to let you leave. In fact, I would love nothing more. I am a loving, caring goddess.”

“Buck you!”

The fork in Celestia’s magic suddenly lurched forward. The pony on the plate cried out as it pierced her flank. “Stop! Stop!” she cried, pulling away.

“Why should I?” said Celestia. “Do you know how much this hurts me? But it must be done. If you cannot help me, then all I can do is eat you.”

“You wouldn’t,” said the pony, suddenly seeming afraid, staring up at the bloody fork as Celestia lifted a long, serrated carving knife. “I’m…I’m raw…”

“Not for much longer.” Celestia lifted her gold-clad hoof, and it ignited with solar energy, the instantly heating until it was white-hot. “Hmm,” she said. “Your cutie mark is so beautiful. A lily, I believe? Perhaps I will start there…”

She moved her superheated hoof close to the pony’s rump, and Silent Zephyr held her breath. She had heard about Celestia’s power, and about how much devastation she had caused in just nine years of power- -but she had never imagined such depravity. Worse, there was nothing she could do. If she intervened, or even tried to, Celestia would know of her presence and surely kill her- -perhaps having her for dessert.

“No,” said the pony. “NO! PLEASE NO!”

“It is out of my control,” sighed Celestia, bringing her hoof close enough for the flesh on the pony’s rump to start to singe. The mare cried out in pane, but found she could not escape. To Silent Zephyr’s horror, she realized that the pony smelled delicious.

“I’ll talk!” she said at last. “Just let me live! Don’t eat me! For the love of the Madgod, please don’t eat me!”

Celestia took her hoof away and lowered the fork and carving knife. She breathed a sigh that almost sounded relieved. “Thank you,” she said.

“What do you want to hear,” said the pony through her tears. Silent Zephyr momentarily considered approaching and ending the traitor, but knew that doing so would betray her presence- -and knowing that she could never bring herself to do such a thing after what she had just witnessed.

“The cerorite,” said Celestia, leaning forward, her voice filled with seriousness. “I have two of the pieces. Your ‘movement’ has the third. Where is it?”

“It’s not here,” whined the pony. By the smell of things, she was now basted in something other than gravy alone. “It’s not here….”

“I know it is not here. If it was here, you and I would not be having this conversation.” She turned the plate with one great twist, forcing the pony to look her in the face. “What are you intending to use it for? To kill me? Or to attack Luna?”

“Kill you?” said the pony, confused. “No…I don’t understand it, but they are using it in a machine…”

“What manner of machine…”

“I don’t know…” she started sobbing. Celestia picked up the fork again, and the pony screamed in terror, further basting herself. “But I know what it does! It makes holes! Not in things, but in the air- -it goes to somewhere where we can’t breathe, with a black sky! The others- -the others already went through! I don’t know how to get there! Please Celestia, please, my goddess! Do not eat me!”

Celestia chuckled. “Of course…actually, that is rather brilliant of them. To use a an indestructible gemstone as the anchoring point. An object without magic as the tether to a spell. Nevertheless, you have given me enough.” Her magic cut the pony’s bindings, and she helped her off the table. “You have served me well. You will now be my personal guest. A guest of honor, even. Or, if you like, you may leave.”

“Really?”

“No.”

Celestia promptly reduced her to a small pile of glowing embers. She then sat back in her chair and pulled up a piece of soft, delicate cake. She wiped the blood off her fork and took a large bite. “It is too late for your kind to swear allegiance. You had your chance. Both of you.” She turned, her violet eyes staring directly at Silent Zephyr. “Oh yes, Silent Zephyr. I can see you. But you I will allow to live. Return to Cotton Swab in the Gloame. Tell him I am coming. But before you go…”

Her horn illuminated. There was no time for Silent Zephyr to dodge. She closed her eyes and felt a sharp surge of heat on her back- -followed by the sound of two soft objects falling to the stone floor on either side of her.

“For attempting to touch Luna,” she said. “But do not worry. From this moment, your time is limited. I will kill you. Just not right now. Perhaps after dessert…” She smiled with odd sincerity, and then went back to her cake.

All Silent Zephyr could do was run. She did not even have a chance to collect her severed wings, or to maintain the illusion of being undetected. She simply ran, as fast as she could, knowing that it was now all she could do.

Thunder roared through the sky, and Fluff-Ball looked up toward the sky. It was black to the point of opacity, but did not prevent light from shining on the land. Intense lightning passed through it, trailing slowly across the clouds, failing to dissipate until it formed massive electrical networks that seemed to recede to higher above, like the veins of great leaves of energy.

As he watched, the ground around him seemed to shake. The small magnetic pebbles on the surface of the unearthly rocky land began to jitter and then rise, flying slowly upward into the toxic skies overhead.

“It even rains backward here,” said his brother, Poof-Ball, who marched beside him. His voice sounded strange through the filter mask he wore.

Fluff-Ball did not respond. He did not want his twin to know that he was afraid. This place was wrong. Physically, it was dangerous- -but the deformities of this world went far beyond that. Every strange, fungoid tree and odd motion of unseen things in the brush beneath the infected-looking sky was like a hammer falling upon his finely tuned warrior’s instincts. It was impossible to place what was truly wrong with the place, only that it was not a place meant for ponies.

This was the only place left for them, though. Exmoor had fallen, and his people were now without a homeland. Through the machinations of their leader, the great General Cotton-Swab, the last of the Exmoori as well as the United Resistance Army had managed to escape Equestria, fleeing to a region that the demon-goddess Celestia could never reach.

He looked behind him. Through the stone or metal trees, he could see the countless thousands marching through the underbrush. Unicorns, Pegasi- -both flighted and burrowing- -earth ponies, as well as the remainder of the Fluff-Ball’s own kind now wandered this cursed dimension, searching out a place to found a new Exmoor.

Their exact motivation varied. Many sought only to use this realm as a base of operations. Their intention was the use the Violet Crystal to return to Equestria once they were stronger, when their armies were more powerful, to return once again and take back what had been stolen from them. Others, however- -especially those who traveled with children- -instead sought to start a new life in the far realm, where the air alone could kill with a single breath.

Fluff-Ball himself did not know where he stood between the two positions. More than anything, he was tired of the fighting. He could not bear the thought of dishonor or surrender- -even though he knew that with his coat, Celestia would not have accepted it anyway- -but he did not want to kill anymore, or to watch his friends die.

At the same time, he knew that this place was not meant for them. It was too toxic, to strange, and too dead. It reeked of something that no pony should ever mettle with. This Gloame was not place to raise a family.

What he did know was that his heart burned with hatred. It was directed toward only one being- -the Overlord Celestia. Tens of thousands of his own people had been slain by her- -as well as those of the other races, individuals of whom Fluff-Ball now viewed as comrades who he would die for.

Defeat alone would not have been so bad if the fight had been fair. To fight a long, hard battle and die with a sword or mace in one’s hand was the greatest glory that his kind could ever desire. Celestia did not allow for such things, though. She did not fight like a pony: she did not form armies, and stood with no brothers of arms. She fought alone, raining unstoppable solar death from above, or, rarely, trailed by her tiny filly sister, the blue alicorn Luna, who carried in her wake the insanity and disease of the moon. To stand against them was impossible, and all who they felled suffered the insult of being defeated with such horrible ease.

“Brother, on our left,” said Poof-Ball, motioning for them to move to the side. As they did, Fluff-Ball looked upward. Lumbering past him in the opposite direction was one of the stone giants. It stood taller than the trees, but moved amongst them with instinctive ease, the various parts of its body disconnecting and reforming as necessary while its three pointed stone legs carried it forward.

The giants deeply unnerved Fluff-Ball, and although they did not appear dangerous, he had heard the unicorns whispering about them. They said that they were something called “go-lems”, and some among them believed that they were the product of a wizard’s spell. The very idea of a wizard inhabiting this apocalyptic environment was terrifying to Fluff-Ball; whatever sentient creature that chose to inhabit such a place was either terribly fearsome or devastatingly insane.

“By Fluffle,” said Poof-Ball in awe. “The majesty of such a creature…imagine what its capacity would be in the midst of battle…”

Fluff-Ball did not want to. Even if the giants were not dangerous, they were not safe be around either. Several days earlier, they had passed a kind of low swampy area and discovered something reminiscent of a castle- -or at least, that was the general consensus among the ponies of the Resistance. Pegasi scouts had been dispatched to explore, and returned with stories of a strange structure carved from rocks that seemed to follow no logical form of sane architecture- -it was said to be filled with oddly sloping floors and rooms with excessive numbers of walls, and passages that could only be used by those who could fly.

General Cotton Swab had declared that it would be their place of occupation, the new home, and a potential location for New Exmoor. As it turned out, however, the strange system was filled with an abnormal number of stone giants. They did not seem to react to the excursion by the Pegasi, or even by the first walking ponies to enter. As more came, however, they became highly agitated.

Many among the Resistance were willing to fight them, but then something unexpected happened. As soon as the heavy machinery- -artillery, tanks, heavy machine guns, reactors, bombs, and aircraft pulled from Equestria- -was pulled toward the location, the giants immediately descended upon it. They tore apart the machines, disassembling them with expert care and carrying the pieces back to the castle. The ponies had attempted to defend their precious equipment, but their weapons and magic had little if any effect on the giants. Eventually, it was decided that attempting to lay siege would be unwise, and the army continued onward into the toxic wilderness.

“Brother,” said Fluff-Ball. “Do you sense anything…strange about this place?”

“I sense that it is dangerous, indeed,” said Poof-Ball. Oddly, he was smiling, his mouth being visible through the transparent parts of his breathing apparatus. “But danger is not so bad, I think. A place for the strong, where a life can be cut out through work and sacrifice. A place for only true warriors to dwell. Poetic, is it not?”

“If we preferred danger, we ought to have remained in Equestria.”

“No, no. The danger is different. Not from a tyrant, but from the only tyrant we must respect. That of nature, and of the trials of life.”

“This place contains no true nature.”

“Cheer up, brother! Recall that we are led by the greatest among us. Recall that, for once in so long, the ponies of Equestria stand without race- -save for the accursed gohh- -together, against a common enemy.”

“Brother,” said Fluff-Ball in awe, “how do you retain such optimism?”

“By resolve alone, of course.”

Fluff-Ball wished that he could have such resolve. Even during the war, even when he had been just a colt slaying Pegasi and earth ponies on the battlefield, he never had the resolve of Poof-Ball. Of the two of them, only Poof-Ball was the true warrior. If it had not been for him, Fluff-Ball would long ago have fallen, either in battle or to the mental corrosion of a life spent in constant battle. His brother was the only thing that allowed him to survive, and to continue. Even in the Gloame, he would follow his brother until death.

They walked in silence for several minutes, listening to the sound of the hooffalls of the fellow soldiers around them, and from each other. Then Poof-Ball interrupted the quiet.

“Brother, look there!” he ran forward, bounding over the thick sideways trunks of the trees around them.

“Poof-Ball, weight!” cried Fluff-Ball, walking around the roots or squeezing his body between them. Despite his thick coat, his actual body was slightly smaller than that of an earth pony, allowing him to fit through spaces that would, to an observer, appear impossible for him to fit through.

“There you are,” said Poof-Ball. As Fluff-Ball approached, he saw his brother focused on something on the ground.

“What is it?” asked Fluff-Ball, panting.

“See for yourself,” he said, stepping aside.

Fluff-Ball gasped. There, on the ground, was a tiny dark-colored stain containing two tiny, glowing eyes. It seemed to be moving or shifting, as though it were a shadow cast by water- -but Fluff-Ball could see no source of light to cast a shadow, let alone the object that was casting it.

“I think it is alive,” said Poof-Ball. Almost in response, the shadow moved toward him slowly, its wide, luminescent eyes staring up at him.

“Leave it alone,” said Fluff-Ball. “Come. We need to return to formation.”

“In a moment,” said Poof-Ball. “They will surely not miss us for a short trip. Besides, this could be useful intelligence.” He reached out his hoof toward the creature. It was barely as wide as the hoof was, but did not seem to recoil. If anything, it seemed to move forward slowly, as if it wanted to be crushed underhoof.

“No, you fools!” cried a voice from behind them. Fluff-Ball heard galloping. “Get away from it!”

Poof-Ball did not listen. He lowered his hoof, and seemed to touch the creature. He suddenly cried out, pulling his hoof back. Fluff-Ball looked down in horror at his brother’s foreleg: a significant part of flesh had been removed, and blood was pouring from it readily.

Fluff-Ball watched as Poof-Ball stared at the wound, not in pain but in surprise. Then Poof-Ball turned to his brother, and opened his mouth as if to speak. Words did not come, though. Instead his eyes only widened, and Fluff-Ball was vaguely aware of an inky shadow suddenly appearing below his brother.

Poof-Ball suddenly cried out as he was slammed to the ground, pulled down by an unseen force. He seemed to lay on the ground for a moment, unable to rise, but then, as he screamed, was dragged sideways toward the brush, leaving behind thick trail of blood that rapidly vanished, as though it were being absorbed into the ground itself- -or wiped away by an unseen cloth.

Fluff-Ball drew his gun, but could not see what to fire at.

“Brother!” screamed Poof-Ball. “Help me!”

“Hold on!” cried Fluff-Ball, holstering his weapon. He leapt forward after his brother, intending to grab him and pull him back, only to feel a sudden impact on his side as a pony tackled him to the ground.

“HELP ME!” screamed Poof-Ball, and Fluff-Ball could feel the pain in his voice as he was dragged into darkness. He struggled under the pony holding him down, trying to reach out.

“Brother!” he cried.

“No! Let me go! Don’t- -” then there was only screaming. It only lasted for a moment; from the darkness came a fine red mist and sudden puff of hair, both of which dissolved rapidly in the darkened air.

“Brother!” screamed Fluff-Ball. “Let me go! I have to save him!”

“There is nothing you can do for him now!” said the pony above him.

From the darkness, the shadows asserted to move again. This time they were reaching outward toward Fluff-Ball and the mare holding him back.

A glow of powerful green magic surged forward, striking the shadow and then forming an expanding, charged circle. The shadows were driven backward, and Fluff-Ball cried out in despair as the green light met where his brother lay. All that was left was a skeleton, its breathing apparatus and weapons still intact, Poof-Ball’s mouth still open in a horrible scream.

The shadows poured out and separated, and stood just beyond the rim of the spell. There were hundreds of them, all staring with unblinking, expressionless white eyes. There were so many eyes, all watching from the forest, waiting- -for more blood, and more meat.

“Brother!” sobbed Fluff-Ball. With a surge of strength, he extricated himself from the mare holding him back and stumbled forward. He took up his twin’s bones in his forelegs, and they collapsed back onto the ground, his skull rolling apart from the rest, the jaw dislocation.

“No no no,” he cried, holding the bones close. “It was to be me! Me! I was to be the first to go, not you!”

He turned to the mare who had stopped him, not in thankfulness but in anger. It was her fault that he had not been able to reach his brother in time- -it was she who had let him die. When he saw her, though, he gasped as he realized who she was.

The unicorn behind him, her horn still glowing with the shield spell, was a badly scarred, with the entire front three quarters of her body covered in the remains of grotesque burns. Even her eyes were gone, replaced with a pair of unblinking cybernetic prosthetics. The only part of her that remained was her cutie mark- -a single green calla lily blossom.

“Commander Blood Tide,” said Fluff-Ball, instinctively standing and saluting. There was not a pony in the Resistance who did not know of Blood Tide, the most powerful of all their wizards, one of just a few who were considered strong enough to stand beside Cotton-Swab himself on the field of battle.

“There was nothing you could do for him,” she said, her voice gruff with the scars that extended deep into her lungs. “Nor that I could do. Once the shadows take hold of a pony, there is no escape.”

“But he- -he was my brother…he was all I had left…”

“And he is not dead. All you can do is…” She trailed off as a device in her equipment belt began to click rapidly. Fluff-Ball’s did as well, as did Poof-Ball’s, even though the leather of his under-fluff belts had been completely destroyed and the device now sat next to his remains.

“We have to go, soldier,” said Blood Tide. A bolt of her magic separated from her spell and took hold of Full-Ball’s foreleg, pulling him toward her.

“But my brother- -I can’t leave him!”

“He is dead! You heard the counter- -a storm is coming. We need to get under a shield now, unless you want to join him!”

“No,” said Fluff-Ball. Mentally, he considered it for just a moment- -but he knew that such a thing was unspeakable. It would be the greatest insult to Poof-Ball, to give up like that, and to his ancestors. “Just, please.”

Blood Tide nodded. She released him. “Just hurry.”

Fluff-Ball nodded, and dropped to his knees. He put his front hooves together and bowed to his brother. There was no time for a proper burial, so a shortened version of the farewell prayer would have to do.

“Brother,” he said. “I shall carry on in this world as you move to the next. May your forever-sleep be restful.”

He stood, and allowed Blood Tide to lead him away. As he ran toward where the unicorns were assembling the shield spells and the earth pony engineers were unfurling the shield-foil, he went with an aspect that he had not before had. Now, he knew what he needed to do. He had chosen, and this place, he decided, was no place for ponies. Celestia would pay for having forced them here. They would wait, but they would return. They would be the ones to reclaim Equestria, for freedom and honor.

Perhaps seeing the death of his brother had changed him, or perhaps his brother’s energy had merged back into Fluff-Ball where it had originally been separated between them in their mother’s womb. He knew now, though, that he most definitely had found his resolve.

The shifts began to grow faster. Twilight felt herself falling through memories faster and faster, passing through thousands of them. She saw so much, far more than she ever wanted. She saw their lives, and what they had seen, and the horrors of their era.

All of them led to a singular conclusion, though. Every single memory chain, every life that Twilight was forced to live- -they all concluded beneath the skies of the Gloame, all seeing the same thing from different angles. They heard an explosion, then saw a blinding light as a pony rose above their caravan of tens of thousands. In that light, they saw the silhouette of a pony, one clad in pure white war-armor, one who bore both wings and a horn. Then there was pain- -followed by nothing. They all died at exactly the same time. In one stroke, Celestia had ended them all.

Twilight cried out, but there was no air. There was barely even a Twilight anymore- -but she felt herself precipitated from the endless halls of cubes and fall to a floor below. For a moment she sat against the ephemeral, imaginary plane, breathing hard even though she knew that there was no real atmosphere. Her mind was trying to heal, processing the memories of so many lives, organizing them and storing them deep in her memory. Many were fading, disappearing, but many things she would not be able to ever forget.

Slowly, after what felt like an eternity, she stood. As she did, she found that she was not alone. She was standing across form a pony. He was highly ordinary; his form was that of an ordinary earth pony stallion, with a coat only slightly darker than Rainbow Dash’s. He had an ordinary blue mane and blue tail, and a set of colorless but ordinary eyes. Everything about him was normal, save for his cutie mark- -on each of his flanks was the image of an equilateral triangle.

“Twilight Sparkle,” he said in D27’s voice. “Firstly, I apologize for my current appearance. Normally, this interface would show a representation of the user. As I have no definite body, however, it cannot render me; it will likely attempt to display an idealized version of myself, which will no doubt be some horrible mass of shifting, amorphous flesh and bone, or perhaps an abomination of crystal. Please, just look away, and try not to be frightened.” He turned to where he seemed to expect her to be. From his motion and the way he spoke, Twilight could tell that this was some kind of recording.

“In her own time, Celestia was a tyrant,” said D27, his voice heavy. “A brutal murderer, a conqueror of lands. Does this excuse my actions, for killing her? No. Of course not. Nothing can excuse that. Whatever she once was, she is not now. So why did I give these memories to you? I suppose, because I can’t be the only one to have them. I see them constantly. I live them every second. But what use is a mindless weapon knowing of their lives? What purpose would that serve? No. A pony must know. And a pony must learn.”

He raised one of his hoofs, and a blue cube appeared over it, the same color as his coat. “This is the last memory. I kept it separate, because accessing this one is a separate choice. These are mine. Or, at least, what is left of them. These will explain my actions. You may take them, or not. It does not matter. You are inconsequential to my plans, and my ‘life’ is inconsequential to you. If you would rather leave…”

A door appeared in the darkness. It looked oddly similar to the one on Celestia’s hospital room.

Twilight stared at the door for a moment, and then approached D27’s avatar. It looked nothing like his true form- -it only looked like a pony. Then, without hesitation, Twilight took the cube.

She was immediately immersed in a mind that was far more turbulent than the minds she had contained before. Through D27’s eyes, she saw his life in pieces. She saw Trihorns and Draconians, cerorians and ponies, including one who, despite her grayness, had the most soulful eyes imaginable. Twilight saw the horror of a true Choggoth, and the Finallity Core, and comprehended what it was. She saw it open, and watched as base and roots of a great crystal tree emerged into ancient Equestria- -and she saw what D27 did to stop it.

His life became clear to her, and like the others, became part of her. Within it, she saw the fear, the pain, the desperation- -the reasons why he had to kill Celestia.

She also saw his life in Ponyville. His confusion, his fear. Then three fillies showed him kindness. She felt the taste of apples, and a dance with Pinkie Pie in an ancient castle, and saw as D27’s heart was filled hope- -until it was replaced with only anger and pain when the offer of friendship turned out to be a ploy to ensure his demise, even as he was only trying to protect those around him.

Twilight snapped back to the white hospital room, the cube disconnecting from her horn. And falling into her lap, returning to its cubic shape. Twilight found that she was soaked- -not just in tears, now, but in sweat. She shivered; her hair had been falling out in clumps recently, and she was forced to wrap her wings around herself to stay warm.

Celestia was still where she had been. She had not moved in the slightest, or even blink. She simply stared upward blindly.

“Oh Celestia,” said Twilight, tears welling in her eyes. She had to look away. Just seeing Celestia made the memories come back- -and when they did, Twilight understood why D27 had begged her not to use the cube. Where she had once seen a loving mother figure, she now saw a monstrous dictator. “Why? Why did you do it?”

“She did what she had to,” said a vaguely familiar voice beside Twilight. Twilight turned, and froze as she found herself staring into the eyes of Nightmare Moon.

“Y- -you,” said Twilight, finding herself suddenly unable to move. She found that the use of the cube had exhausted her.

“Did your mother not teach you never to stick your horn in places that it does not belong?” said Nightmare Moon, picking up the cube in her black-colored magic. To Twilight’s surprise and confusion, Nightmare Moon was dressed far differently than the last time they had met. Instead of a silver harness and boots, she now wore a delicate silver cuirass, one decorated with intricate designs. Her rear was covered in something like a robe or dress that clearly- -and impossibly- -looked like something Rarity had designed. On her head, she wore a strange kind of helmet, one contained a hole for her horn but also two spikes- -one farther in front of her horn, and behind it. As Twilight’s fragmented, recovering mind slowly turned, she realized that in this state, with those eyes and that bizarre crown, Nightmare Moon looked almost exactly like a smaller, thinner version of a trihorn mare.

The cube shifted in her grasp, and it split, expanding outward with an impossible change in mass. Blue images appeared around it, displaying symbols in Draconian. “As I suspected,” she said. “He filled it almost completely. You are extremely lucky that you are an alicorn. If a unicorn had attempted to read this as you just did, he would have been driven mad instantly. I can only hope that Oblivion knew that fact.”

“Nightmare…Nightmare Moon…” said Twilight. She jumped out of her chair and raised her horn, but just summoning enough magic to make it glow made her dizzy and nearly caused her to faint.

“If you must know,” said Nightmare Moon, “it nearly destroyed her.”

“How would you know?”

“Because I was there. And so was Luna. Toward the end of the First Era, Celestia collapsed into despondency. She suffered greatly. Luna was forced to take the throne, and I alongside her. Luna, at least, had me to do protect her from the things no pony should have had to face. She, however…she did not.”

Twilight Looked to Celestia as Nightmare Moon walked to the foot of Celestia’s bed. “I abhor her actions. It may not seem it, but I loathe violence and conflict. In life…so to speak…I only wanted to be left alone, to pursue my path and ensure my survival. But I can understand. This land of yours was built by her. She suffered and sacrificed to make her vision of a more perfect world a reality. I suppose I can find it within myself to admire that.”

“How can you know?”

“Because I was there. Not just in her time. So long before. I saw endless war. I saw myself and my beloved hosts murdered time and time again. From the time my first father destroyed the Citadel to the time of Luna…not until Celestia did this land have the peace it deserved.”

Twilight looked up at Nightmare Moon, into her eyes. They were not like the eyes she had seen the last time she had fought Nightmare Moon. Aside from never blinking, they held no hate or anger. They were indifferent to the world, but somehow sincere and genuine.

“How are you here?” demanded Twilight, still maintaining her defensive stance. “I defeated you…we defeated you, with the Elements of Harmony. You can’t be here!”

“And yet I am,” said Nightmare Moon, staring directly into Twilight’s eyes, leaning forward and smiling with her pointed teeth. Only in D27’s memories had contained as realistic an image of a trihorn. “Because you, Cadence, and Luna were all too weak, and Celstia too incompetent. Equestria is mine now. And I intend to keep it alive.”

“You’ll never succeed!” cried Twilight.

“Show some respect,” said Nightmare Moon. “This is a hospital.”

Twilight’s mind was racing. She did not understand how this could have happen. Nightmare Moon was standing before her, fully resurrected- -something that she knew was impossible, or should have been impossible. Twilight could not think of what to do, but she knew that she had to defend Celestia at all costs.

“Luna,” she said. “Luna, you have to listen to me. I know you’re in there- -”

“I am not Luna,” snapped Nightmare Moon. “It was you who made sure of that, after all. You thought you were curing Luna of me…but you really cured me of her. Do not try to appeal to her. I find it tiresome. This is not the time for her.”

“I won’t let you hurt her!” cried Twilight. She had realized that she had not chance at defeating Nightmare Moon, not without the Elements of Harmony. All she could do instead was throw herself over Celestia’s body.

“I did not come to hurt her,” said Nightmare Moon, sounding annoyed. “I came to send her back to the sun.”

“No!” cried Twilight. “I won’t let you!” She summoned all of her energy into her horn, and fired it at Nightmare Moon. All that came out was a thin ball of static that resembled purple cotton. It slowly drifted across the room and struck Nightmare Moon in the shoulder, doing exactly as much damage as a ball of non-magical cotton would. “You’ll have to send me to!”

“Even if that were possible- -and it is not- -you would be killed instantly. The sun is as hot as the moon is colt…so very cold…” She looked up at Twilight, and her expression hardened. “I can see into her mind. She is not unconscious.”

“Not…” said Twilight, looking at Celestia’s face. Twilight shivered, realizing that she was lying on what was essentially a pony corpse.

“No. She is in unimaginable pain right now. I need to send her back.”

“How could you do that to your own sister?”

“She is not my sister. Nor is she really Luna’s, either. You misunderstand me. As alicorns, our bodies are made of flesh, but matter is charged with and interchangeable with energy. It is the reason why we age so slowly, and the reason why we can never bear children.”

“Wait- -what?”

“Yes,” sighed Nightmare Moon. “I had honestly assumed that you knew that when you activated Starswirl’s dark spell. You are sterile. As is Luna, and Celestia. Even Cadence. Why do you think Celestia never once had a foal in five thousand years?”

“I…” Twilight looked down at herself. She had always assumed, at least at some level, that she would one day have foals- -and, more importantly, that she would have nieces and nephews. “No!” she said, clinging more tightly to Celestia. “You’re lying!”

“The point is that only her matter can be seamlessly meshed with the sun, as only Luna’s can be meshed with the moon. The parasite within her is not of her. It will be destroyed in the solar blaze.”

“And you will be left to rule Equestria,” spat Twilight.

“I already rule Equestria,” said Nightmare Moon, frowning. “Princess Cadence stands at my side, as do your friends. Did you not receive the transmission? Or where you too busy wasting tears on a that skin-shell you are so intent on protecting?”

“Don’t talk about her like that!” cried Twilight. Her anger was beginning to overpower her sadness. “I love her, like she was my own mother! She taught me about magic, and about friendship- -”

“And she slaughtered several million ponies single hoofedly over the course of three hundred years.”

“I don’t care!” screamed Twilight, squeezing Celestia tighter. “I don’t care! I won’t let you take her, and I will never swear my allegiance to you!”

Nightmare Moon actually blinked for once, with surprise. “Is that what you think I am asking you for?”

“What else would you want?”

“Certainly not your loyalty. I do not desire it. Nor do I desire your love, or adoration, or friendship. You are meant to hate me, and I am meant to be hated and feared because I really do not care. I am not asking for your allegiance. I am asking for your help.”

“My what?”

“Your help, you simple-minded demigod. Look around you. Equestria is falling. Celestia is dying- -Oblivion has risen! Even if you do allow me to save Celestia’s life, her condition is grave. It will take several months for her to heal. Equestria needs a ruler. I am the only pony strong enough, but even I cannot do it alone.

“Or, to phrase it another way. You saw what she had to do to make Equestria. The atrocities she committed, and those that Luna was forced to alongside her. To this day, Luna cannot ever enter Celestia’s dreams- -all that she would ever find is screaming and pain. No mortal was meant to bear the burden that Celestia must. What she sacrificed, and what all those ponies sacrificed- -it was all for Equestria. Would you allow that sacrifice to be wasted?”

“So that you can have power?”

“I do not desire power. The only thing I ever desired was immortality, and I already have that. But I will protect Equestria, if only for my beloved Luna.”

Twilight did not know what to believe. She wanted to believe Nightmare Moon, but knew that it was more than unwise, but dangerous. Nightmare Moon was the greatest evil that had ever befallen Equestria, and one of Celestia’s greatest regrets. This Nightmare Moon seemed different, though. She was not a haughty, jealousy driven ruler. If anything, she sounded oddly disinterested, as if she were not quite entirely alive.

The worst part was that Twilight knew that she was right. She had lived the lives of countless thousands of ponies, and seen what had to be sacrificed to make Equestria. Distantly, she could feel Equestira failing. It felt dark and cold, as if the air around her were becoming saturated with something horrible that was not truly evil. Fear, hatred, anger, jealousy, pain- -disharmony. All of it pouring in from all sides like an oppressing, sickly heat- -and yet none of it coming from Nightmare Moon.

“Can you really save her?” she asked.

“I can only try. Returning her to the sun will atomize her body, and remove the Choggoth fragment that is within her. But from there, it will be her duty to repair herself. I cannot guarantee that she will ever be able to return.”

“But there is no other way,” said Twilight, painfully aware of Celestia’s medical situation. She closed her eyes and slid off Celestia. She leaned close to her mentor’s face.

“Princess,” she said. “I’m sorry. But it’s going to be okay. You are going to come back. I know you. This won’t stop you for long…but please hurry. When you come back, Equestria will be waiting.”

She stepped back, and looked away. From the corner of her eye, she saw Nightmare Moon lower her horn without hesitation. Black energy swirled around it, and stretched out toward Celestia.

Twilight turned, suddenly regretting her acquiescence, but it was already too late. Celestia’s body glowed and then burst apart into tiny flecks of golden light. The sparks swirled in Nightmare Moon’s magic- -and the blue, gletatious substance within them began to char and recoil from the heat. Then, in a sudden instant, they shot upward through the ceiling, passing through it without damage. Celestia was already on her way to the sun.

“This does present a certain problem,” said Nightmare Moon.

“What?” said Twilight. “She’s safe, isn’t she?”

“No. She actually can be killed much more easily now.”

“Then you lied to me- -”

“I did not. This derives from the nature of our relationship. One of us must always walk the earth. This is perhaps what Oblivion was always planning. Now, if Luna is slain and the moon dies, so will the sun, and Celestia with it. He will almost surely be coming for me now.”

“What can I do to help?” said Twilight.

Nightmare Moon turned to her. “You have already helped. Not just me, now, but Luna. You were her first real friend in so many centuries. But this is not the fight for the Princess of Friendship. I only ask for your understanding, and to know why I will do what I must do, and, above all things, do not hate Luna for what I choose to do.”

“I would never,” said Twilight. “Actually…it seems that I’ve already hurt a pony that I should not have. I will not do the same thing again, especially not to Luna.”

“I can only hope so,” said Nightmare Moon. She stepped away from Celestia’s empty bed, and put one of her black wings around Twilight. Twilight shivered- -it was even colder than Celestia had been. She did not know if what she did was right, or if it was wrong- -but she did what she had to do. Times were changing, and perhaps Nightmare Moon was right- -that, at least for now, the era of the Sun had ended.

Chapter 44: The Queen, the Knight, and the Weapon

Chapter 44: The Queen, the Knight, and the Weapon

The air in the empty Castle of Friendship crackled, and then suddenly burst open into a violet sphere. Twilight and her friends tumbled out onto the floor.

“Ow, Twi, I think yah need some practice,” said Applejack, standing and rubbing her rump where she had landed on the stone floor.

“I feel sick,” whined Fluttershy. “Ooh- -I think- -”

Rainbow Dash clapped her hoof over Fluttershy’s mouth. “A Pegasus never throws up.”

“Sorry, girls,” said Twilight, panting. “That was my first real long-range teleportation spell.”

“Dear, it was fine,” said Rarity, attempting to put her hoof on Twilight’s shoulder. The disorientation of teleportation travel, however, seemed to have caused her to have temporarily lost her ability to balance. Pinkie Pie did as well, but seemed to actually be enjoying her disoriented state.

“So much spinney,” she said, flopping on the floor and laughing.

“Did you bring the crystal?” said D27. He had not traveled with them- -Twilight doubted that she could move whatever type of alien lifeform he was properly- -but still seemed to be waiting them in the shadows of the hall. He had not bothered to assume his pony form; instead, he was a broad, armored, bipedal creature with no obvious head.

“I did not know that you could teleport,” she said.

“I can. But I did not in this case. I was already here.”

“But if you’re here,” said Rainbow Dash, pulling her saliva-covered hoof out of Fluttershy’s mouth. “Are you still…there?”

“Yes. I am many places right now.” Then he repeated: “do you have the crystal?”

“Yes,” said Twilight, producing it from a set of saddlebags that were attached to Applejack. She moved to give it to D27, but he raised his hand- -which consisted of two long, pointed fingers.

“No,” he said. “Not yet. It prefers you.” The pair of triangles on his upper torso seemed to shift, staring at Fluttershy, who recoiled form his gaze. “Where is this map you spoke of?”

“Before we go,” said Twilight. “You need to understand. We weren’t trying to hurt you. It wasn’t a trap- -they- -we- -really were trying to be your friend.”

“And yet when Celestia sent you to murder me, you attempted to do so without hesitation.”

“We thought…” said Rarity, unable to look up at him. “Well, when we saw you…”

“You could have said something,” said Rainbow Dash angrily.

“You could have asked. But instead, you just assumed that I was evil. It is not a problem, though.”

“Really?” said Fluttershy, looking momentarily hopeful.

“Yes. I am not angry with any of you. You helped me remember what I am.”

“And what is that?” said Twilight, momentarally sharing in Fluttershy’s hope.

“A weapon,” said D27. He did not say it with anger, but as a cold, emotionless declaration. “I am a device created to destroy. It is my only function. You helped me realize that ‘friendship’ is beyond my design parameters.”

“That isn’t- -”

“Just take me to the map so I can do my job.”

“Right,” said Twilight, looking down at the floor. She motioned for her friends to follow her, even though they already knew where their shared throne room was located. D27 followed behind them, lumbering slowly through the halls.

“Don’t worry, Twilight,” whispered Pinkie Pie. “After this is all over, I’ll throw the biggest party ever, and we’ll knock that angst right out of him!”

Blackest Night, Cadence, and Shining Armor were already waiting in the throne room. Based on how wide Shining Armor’s eyes were and how much he was shaking, it was obvious that he had been teleported in beside Blackest Night.

Twilight and her friends took up their positions arouond the table, and the map of Equestria a appeared before them. Cadence and Shining Armor stood beside Twilight, and Blackest Night and D27 stood at the other side of the table- -roughly around Fluttershy, who was rapidly sinking below the table.

“Right,” said Twilight. The map below her activated, showing all of Equestria in miniature.

“Oh, wow,” said Cadence. “It’s beautiful.” She leaned in close toward the tiny model of the Crystal Empire- -where an inch-tall version of her palace stood in perfect detail. Twilight did not have a magnifying glass, but she knew that if she looked, she would even see a tiny crystal heart in the base of the tiny palace, rotating slowly.

“The landmarks are not the same,” said D27. “Too much has changed since I was last here.”

“There,” pointed Nightmare Moon toward a chaotic looking structure in the distant mountains, far away from everything else. “That is the City of Ruins. It is where the Citadel used to be.”

“Then that means that the Finality Core should be here,” said D27. “But I checked there. I found nothing.”

“Applejack,” said Twilight. “The crystal?”

Applejack withdrew the crystal from her bag. Almost as soon as she had, it drifted over the map on its own volition and stopped over the point where D27 was pointing.

The map suddenly shifted. Parts of it moved, drawing apart, with boundaries re-drawing themselves. A circular territory formed near the crystal. For a moment it looked as though the crystal had burned a hole into the map- -there was nothing beneath it but a representation of gray, lifeless earth- -but then a number of towers appeared, as well as a crooked mountain.

“That’s it,” said D27. “The cerorian city, and Olympus.”

“Wait,” said Rainbow Dash. “You mean like the flying city? From the stories? Like, where the gods lived?”

“It has not flown in a long, long time,” said Nightmare Moon. “But yes. It is.”

“So. Cool.”

Twilight looked closely at the dead location on the map, and shivered. Overhead, she could see the tip of a circular black object. From above, she could see the circle that surely represented where the Finality Core was buried- -and knew that it was just as massive as it had been in D27’s memories.

D27 flicked the hovering crysal, and it overlayed a complex map over the dead area representing the number of spells that covered the area. There were so many that it essentially just cast a flat bluish light on the map.

“Coprolite,” he said.

“That is a lot of spells,” said Twilight.

“It would take us decades…no, centuries to cut through that,” said Shining Armor. He looked up at D27. “And no, you definitely would not make it through.”

“Not in time, anyway,” said Cadence.

“That’s where my plan comes in,” said Blackest Night.

“No offense,” said Shining Armor, “but it probably took Celestia centuries to do this…not even you can get through it.”

“Yes I can,” she said. “Because it was Celestia who made it.”

Pinkie Pie moaned. “I can’t take the suspense anymore,” she said, “and all this stuff about magic is making my head hurt. I feel like I’m back at school- -and I hated school.”

“Um, Pinkie,” said Rarity. “Weren’t you homeschooled?”

“Exactly,” grumbled Pinkie.

“Celestia’s magic is limited by her psychology,” said Blackest Night. “The greatest single driving force in her life is to protect Luna at all costs.”

“So the spells won’t affect Luna,” said Twilight, smiling out of the brilliance but terrified from that critical weakness- -even though it did explain how easily Nightmare Moon had been able to betray Celestia one thousand years earlier.

“And I have Luna’s body,” said Blackest Night.

“Ah heard ah ‘probley’ in there somewhere,” said Applejack.

“Yes, well, there is a possibility that there are some anti-Luna spells meant to keep Luna away,” admitted Blackest Night. “Or that the spells might not recognize me as Luna. If ninety percent fail to fire, though, D27 and I should be able to cut through the rest.”

“But that doesn’t help with anything already inside the Finality Core,” noted Twilight.

“No,” said D27. “It would not.”

“And how exactly are you going to destroy it?” asked Cadence.

“I say we sanctify it with dynamite!” said Pinkie, leaning on the table and appearing as though she were about to lick the Crystal Empire.

“I will figure that out when I get there,” said D27.

“I’m going with you,” said Shining Armor. Everypony immediately went silent and looked toward him.

“Why?” they asked.

“Were all of you seriously considering allowing Nightmare Moon and this ‘D27’- -which, if you recall, has already destroyed Equestria- -walk into what has been explained to me as the most devastating weapon ever conceived? Alone?”

“Well, when you put it that way…” said Rainbow Dash.

“Another mage would be helpful,” said Blackest Night.

“Shining, are you sure?” said Cadence.

“You and Twilight can handle administration until we get back.”

“The chiropteran and demonic forces are self-sufficient,” said Nightmare Moon. “It falls to you to command the remainder of Celestia’s military and the griffons.”

“Griffons?” said Rainbow Dash, suddenly interested.

“Do you think you can handle it?” asked Shining Armor.

“I’m the princess in this relationship,” said Cadence, frowning. “Of course I can handle it.”

“Twily?”

“I’ve read books on tactics and strategy. I don’t think it will be a problem.” She looked up at D27. “If you think you can do your part. And just know that I have your entire set of memories. I know about your ‘plan B’.”

“Then you know how damaging it would be to me. But I will do whatever I have to in order to safeguard this land- -even if it means a mass extinction once again.”

D27 reached into the map and removed the crystal. The space below it was swallowed up by the rest of the map, once again vanishing- -but he had confirmed the location, and knew that the crystal now contained the necessary coordinates for him to locate his target properly.

Blackest Night turned her head behind her and detatched her skirt from her armor, revealing a set of interlocking armored plates beneath. She folded the lower half of her dress carefully and passed it to Rarity, keeping only the hard parts of her clothing.

“Take care of that,” she said. “I have grown rather fond of it.” She turned to Shining Armor. “At my side, knight,” she said.

“Technically, I am a prince,” said Shining Armor.

“Not until you grow a pair,” said Blackest Night, stretching her own wings. Rainbow Dash snorted.

Shining Armor crossed the room and stood next to Blackest Night, opposite of D27. He looked up at his wife and his sister.

“I’ll be fine,” he said.

“You had better,” said Cadence.

Blackest Night spread her wings, putting one over Shining Armor and the other behind D27. The air crackled and hissed as her magic surrounded them in a spell profoundy different from Celestia and Twilight’s teleportation spells. Black smoke surrounded them, and then dissipated, showing that they had indeed departed.

“I don’ like this,” said Applejack.

“None of us do,” said Cadence.

“Yeah,” said Pinkie Pie. “I wanted to go too…”

At the windy edge of a long-forgotten radioactive city lit by the luminescence of the moon above, the smoke recondensed. D27 stepped out of it first, followed by Nightmare Moon. Shining Armor fell out onto the rocky ground.

“What the hay,” he muttered, shaking. “Why does that hurt so much?”

“Stop whining,” said Blackest Night.

“Blackest,” said D27, “the radiation we went through was rather high- -are you sure it was safe for him?”

“His wife is sterile. It is not as though he can have children with her anyway.”

“Wait, Cadence is what?”

The two immortals ignored him. D27 looked out over the landscape.

“This brings back some unpleasant memories,” he said. “I died here.”

“So did Luna,” said Blackest Night. “That is the real reason Celestia used it, if you were wondering. To bring her back.”

“I know. It was not worth it.” ‘

Shining Armor stood up, shaking slightly. He seemed to be far colder in the wind than the other two.

“Stand near me,” ordered Blackest Night. “Even after all these millennia the city is still dangerously radioactive. I will do my best to reduce the amount you absorb, but this type of spell generally falls under Celestia’s jurisdiction.”

Her horn glowed, and she cast the spell, shielding Shining Armor from the deadly radiation. She ignored D27; she was already aware that Choggoths were immune to such petty forms of damage, as was she.

“This is incredible,” said D27, staring out over the dessert. “This level of magic…it must have taken millennia.”

“And yet she did it without Luna being aware of it in the slightest.”

“You can see them?” said Shining Armor.

“Of course,” said Blackest Night and D27 at the same time.

Blackest Night stepped forward, Shining Armor following her. D27 trailed behind for obvious regions.

“Let us pray that this works,” she said.

“It might not?” said Shining Armor.

“No idea,” said Blackest Night, smiling broadly. “Actually, this is rather fun.”

“Not if we die!”

“My body is back in the Gloame,” said D27.

“And I can reincarnate,” said Blackest Night.

“I can’t,” whispered Shining Armor.

“Then say high to Satin for me.”

Blackest Night stepped forward past the border that Luna’s sister had created. All throughout the circle of influence, she saw the trappings of the spells ignite, like narrow silken threads spun by some impossible spider. She felt the spells rise against her, and the force of Celestia’s familiar magic rise from the ground, pouring toward her.

She stepped forward without hesitating, though, and as she did the threads and machine-like three-dimensional glyphs around her started to move out of her way. The machine that Celestia was indeed watching her, but, as she had anticipated, it did recognize her as something that it could never destroy.

Which was not to say that the spells did not affect her. Many of them poured into her mind, trying to force her back. Her horn glowed with power as her ancient trihorn mind rapidly analyzed and reversed them. She looked down at Shining Armor, who was huddling against her body in a way that made her uncomfortable.

“Shining Armor,” she said. “Is that horn on your head for decoration or are you going to use it?”

“Right,” said Shining Armor, activating his own magic and doing what little he could to drive back the spells.

“I can help too,” said D27.

“No,” said Blackest Night. “A surge of Order here would be devastating.”

“Not what I meant.” He raised one of his claws and three tiny crystals emerged from his flesh. They formed a triangle in the space that had already been cleared and opened a portal. Immediately, hundreds of tiny blue fleshy insects poured out, swarming into the spell around them.

The spell reacted, fully energizing itself against the oncoming threats. All around them the tiny creatures ignited in celestial fire. With the spell distracted, defensive parts of it drew their power away from attempting to repel “Luna”, allowing Blackest Night to move faster.

“Are those…” started Shining Armor.

“Pieces of myself, yes,” said D27. “And I can feel every single one of them getting vaporized. So I would appreciate if you would work quickly.”

They moved slowly but consistently, crossing the pitted, ancient desert where no plant had grown for over one million years- -following the same path that Celestia herself had crossed twice before. Blackest Night stood in front, plowing her way through the spells in her path, with Shining Armor assisting and D27 following.

Eventually they crossed the final circle of spells. Sensing it, Shining Armor collapsed. Blackest Night was actually rather impressed by his stamina- -even she was feeling tired from the exertion. She dropped to her knees for a moment to rest.

Before them sat the upper edge of the Finality Core. In ancient times, Celestia had spent decades of her life unearthing it, but in five and a quarter millennia the endless wind had buried it once again, only leaving the top most portion exposed, a vast bulkhead of black material that was neither metal nor stone.

“Seven,” said D27.

“What?” said Shining Armor, standing weakly.

“Seven. That is how many Finality Cores I have seen. I have created six, and witnessed this one.”

“How big is it?” asked Shining Armor.

“About one tenth the size of the sun or moon,” said D27.

“And we’re going to go in there.”

“Yes.”

D27 approached the black surface. It had no doors and windows, and initially did not react to his presence. He forced more Order into it, however, and the material started to shift. It drew upward, extending and splitting, forming a door with a ramp to the dark depths below. Sickly, rotten air poured out- -air that smelled of long-contained Order.

Blackest Night stood, and joined Shining Armor as they followed D27 into the Finality Core.

D27 pushed his way through the “hallways”, forcing them open with his presence. He knew that they were not actually walkways, and not really meant for walking. Like the channels in his own “castle”, they were designed for the flesh of a living Choggoth to flow through, to power and maintain the Core until it entered its final stages. That much, at least, he understood- -but still shivered at the idea that his own body had six times prior passed through such channels.

Blackest Night followed behind him, her body almost invisible save for the glint of her armor or the green-blue glow of her unblinking trihorn eyes. Shining Armor maintained the rear, lighting it with his horn, instinctively prepared to defend his queen from any attack- -not that anything could survive very long within a Finality Core.

“Something feels wrong about this place,” said Shining Armor.

“I feel it too,” admitted Blackest Night. “It feels the same as it did the first time I was here.”

D27 felt nothing. “It may be the metal,” he said, knowing fully well that the structure was not truly “metal” at all. “The alloys used are not native to this reality. You may be having a reaction to them.”

“Perhaps…” said Blackest Night, clearly unconvinced.

“You were here before?” asked Shining Armor, trying to make conversation, if only to drown out the droning of the machines that came from deep within the Core.

“Twice. Once when Luna and Celestlia took refuge here as fillies- -although, back then, they were Lunar Vision and Solar Spectra. Then a second time, several decades later.”

“Was it always this terrifying?”

“Yes,” she said. “Luna hated it, but Celestia…she became obsessed with it. I never truly understood why.”

“I generally attribute it to the search for power,” said D27, dismissively. With the number of skulls imbedded within him, he knew all too well what Celestia had used the Core for- -and knew that he probably would have done the same.

“Perhaps,” said Blackest Night, “or perhaps not.”

D27 reached into his body and removed the crystal. Activating it, he examined the schematic and turned right. “This way,” he said, walking into a solid wall that rapidly reformed to accommodate his presence. The halls farther away- -where Shinning Armor stood- -began to seal themselves as the detoured pipes and conduits began to return to their original position, straightening and linking back together.

“This structure has substantial modifications,” said D27 as he passed through several rooms filled with clearly non-Choggoth equipment.

“Celestia spent her life rebuilding it.”

“She was bizarrely prolific, then,” said D27. He had an understanding- -at least on a subconscious, instinctive level- -of all the machines surrounding him. There were far more than one pony should have been able to construct in just one lifetime.

The hallway suddenly opened to a much larger room. D27 checked the schematic. It seemed to be a central control room, which was in itself odd. A Finality Core generally had no need for such a location, simply because such a thing was of no use to a Choggoth operator.

The room was filled with traces of magic, although not all of it Order. D27’s attention was drawn toward the ceiling, toward a number of retracted metal needles. He sent a command to the systems overhead, and one extended. He reached up and removed it, and saw that the needles itself was connected to a glass-like case containing a severed unicorn horn. Most of them, though, appeared cracked and useless. The fact that unicorn horns were present confirmed his suspicions: this area had not been constructed by Nil, but by somepony else.

“Dear Celestia,” said Shining Armor. D27 momentarily thought that he was referring to the horn, but saw that Shining Armor was across the room. D27’s eyes modulated themselves to the darkness, and saw, to his great surprise, a skeleton at Shining Armor’s feet.

“What is this?” he asked, returning the needle to its normal location.

“It was here before,” said Blackest Night, looking down at it. “I never did know who it was.”

D27 examined the skeleton carefully. Just by looking at the skull, he could tell that it had belonged to a trihorn- -which, in itself, was an impossibility. It also appeared that the skeleton itself mostly consisted of metal and numerous exotic cybernetic components that had once been connected to the remains of internal organs that had long-since rotted away. Assessing the technology, D27 concluded that it was probably powered by or operated in concert with strong magic.

He reached down and pulled the skull out of the metal clips that held it against the thick metal spine it was connected to.

“What are you doing?” said Shining Armor.

“The trihorns died before Nil did,” he said. “All who were living were shattered. No skeletons remained- -and yet there is one here, now.”

D27 looked into the empty eye sockets of the skull, and at the three horns that protruded from its head. Superficially, the trihorns did somewhat resemble large ponies- -but without skin, it was obvious that they were far more reptilian in nature.

“Are you sure that is a good idea?” said Blackest Night, knowing what D27 was contemplating.

“I have to know,” said D27. Then, taking a deep breath, he pulled the skull into his own body.

The sound of machines. The endless sound. Always whirring and clanking. Machines that he had built- -and machines he had not, and machines that he had never managed to find even after decades of searching.

“What is taking them so long?” he muttered to himself. He had sent the constructs out, but they had not come back- -but he was not sure for how long. The machines demanded more parts- - more metal, more pieces, more horns.

In his head, the images were flashing by rapidly, annotated by voices that he could not understand. He knew which machines needed to be built and what they would do in an abstract sense, and knew what parts he needed- -but the parts had not come back yet.

Arcane Domination pushed his way through the material surrounding him, reveling at the way the metal responded to his power- -but for some reason feeling deeply anxious, and deeply terrified of it. He attributed it to the failure of the society above. They just did not make him enough parts anymore.

At that point he stopped. His mind nearly grasped something, something that he knew was critical but could not recall, something that he had not recalled in a very long time. The whispering stream of endless voices in his mind increased in intensity, but seemed somehow far more distant than they were supposed to be.

Before, they had been voices. Real ones, ones that he heard speaking to him. At first he had hated them, and feared them, but then he realized that they were good voices, voices that came from within himself- -but they had left him a long time ago. They were replaced with the whispers, which were different. They spoke not in words but in thoughts, needs, and ideas. They were what drove him to construct, to build, to complete the Finality Core.

He pushed his way into the control room. For some reason, it had gone silent. The machines were all falling silent, shutting down, and he did not know why. For years he had worked so carefully to repair them, treating them far more lovingly than he had treated any living thing. Even with all his care, they betrayed him by slowing their churning.

“Why are you doing this to me?” he asked. His voice sounded strange, even to himself. He shook his head. “No. I don’t care. I will succeed. I have to SUCEED!”

He froze again, the feeling of almost knowing crashing through his mind. Something was wrong, but he still could not remember.

“It has to be this way,” he said to himself. “Subject can no longer continue operation. Setting Core to dormancy. Need a new one…”

Arcane Domination shook his head again and cried out in rage. He did not understand what was going on, and that filled him with nothing but anger- -he was supposed to know everything. No being in all of Panbios knew more than him, especially concerning the Finality Core. Yet, even after several years of research, he had gotten no farther. Every mystery about the Core he solved opened ten thousand more; every machine he created filled a missing piece from some greater incomprehensible thing, but never performed adequately to bring the Core to its full power.

“At this rate, I’ll never reach my goal,” he started. Then he started screaming uncontrollably.

At first he did not know why, because something in his mind was blocking him from knowing- -but he was still intelligent, and rapidly came to understand what he had spent so long searching his mind before. He had forgotten what he had ever come to the Finality Core to do in the first place.

He collapsed on the control podium near the altar that contained his carefully constructed models of the sun and moon, beneath the projector he had lovingly built from the severed horns of monohorns. He gasped, but realized in doing so that he could no longer feel the cybernetics that were keeping him alive.

“No,” he said. “No no no no…I came here to…to do what? What?”

As much as he tried, he could not remember. As he tried, though, other things slipped past what he had accepted as the boundaries of his mind.

“How long?” he asked himself, realizing that he did not know how long he had been at work. He seemed to have lost track of time waiting for his magical constructs to return with more parts- -but he was unsure of how long they really had been gone, and had absolutely no reference for how long he himself had been in the Core.

“You actually don’t know,” said a voice that came from his mouth but that was not his. It was strange and nearly female, and he recognized it distantly as the voice that had guided him in the early days. He shudder as an image passed into his mind, one that he now realized he had seen countless millions of times before- -a complex soup of geometric shapes that he somehow considered to be an eye.

“Who are you?” demanded Arcane Domination. Then, realizing in horror that he did not know: “Who am I? What am I doing here?”

“Five hundred and sixty four years seven months three days four hours and thirty seven minutes since loss-of-contact,” he said back to himself. “All that time, and you were so obsessed that you never even noticed.

“Where are you?” he demanded. Distantly, he was aware that he had once been something great, something powerful, but he did not know from where. All the memories he had were from within the machine.

“Let me show you.”

The walls of the control room shifted, their metal separating into arm-like divisions. They produced a fragment of plating that was highly polished, like a mirror, and lowered it in front of Arcane Domination.

“No,” he whispered.

Before him, standing in the mirror, was something that was not him. The tubes of his cybernetics had long since been pulled out of him, and he even remembered how he had used bits of them to repair the machines. There was nothing left for them to connect to anyway. The flesh on his body had long since rotted away, being replaced by synthetic pink flesh that held his bones of implants together and allowed him to move. His face had been stripped away, revealing his teeth, which were formed into a perpetual smile. Both of his eyes were gone- -but one was replaced with a red-pink mass of tissue inscribed with the same complex assortment of shapes that kept recurring in his mind.

“You are dead,” he said, and watched how his mouth did not move in the mirror. He wondered if he was really saying it, perhaps through some unfamiliar and alien auditory organ, or if the voice was simply in his mind. “Eight thousand years you have been down here, with me. I have kept you alive to do what I cannot do alone. But now there is nothing left. Your mind is a shadow of my own. You are incapable of magic, or independent thought, and yet you somehow refuse- -or are unable to- -realize it.”

The calm and clinicallness of the voice was infuriating, but Arcane Domination hardly noticed. He raised one bony, skeletal hoof to the mirror, and saw that his reflection did the same.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

At that moment, Nil withdrew itself from him. Just as the last spark of life left Arcane Domination’s skeleton, his memory returned just enough to recall who he had been, what his goal had been, and the fact that he had failed.

Chapter 45: The Elements of Harmony

After the meeting around the map, Cadence had returned to Canterlot to oversee the sudden influx of griffons and their deployment to the various regions where they were needed. Twilight, however, had stayed behind in the Castle of Friendship. Instead of going back to Canterlot, or perhaps making a speech to the demon-occupied Ponyville below, she went to her basement.

In her laboratory, beside a now inactive interdimensional portal of her own design, she had spent several hours carefully mixing rare alchemical reagents and preparing the most complex and difficult potion she had prepared in her life.

“Twahlight?” said Applejack, poking her head through the door on the far side of the room. Twilight already knew that the rest of them were behind her. “What are yah doing down here?”

“I don’t like it when stories don’t have endings,” muttered Twilight, adding half of a blue Pegasus feather to her brew and measuring out exactly one tenth of an ounce of starch of a carnivorous potato.

“Neither do I,” said Pinkie Pie, audibly bouncing into the room, stopping only to peer into the empty portal. The others followed her in.

“Twilight, the ponies out there need you,” said Fluttershy. “They’re scared.”

“Yeah,” said Rainbow Dash, “there’s demons everywhere out there! There’s a whole…um…flock? Of them?”

“There are demons,” corrected Rarity. “And a group of them is called a horde.”

“I thought that was zombies,” said Pinkie Pie.

“There aren’t zombies now, are there?” squeaked Fluttershy.

“No, of course not,” said Rarity. “That would just be silly.”

“Well,” said Twilight absentmindedly as she tried to calculate which direction her calcinator should face considering that it was night and autumn. “In her own time, Blackest Night was a necromancer. She had several hundred undead or semi-undead servants at her disposal. So, conceivably, she could raise an army of what could be colloquially known as ‘zombies’.”

“Not if Sixfoot and Coverin have anything to say about it,” chuckled Pinkie Pie.

“I don’t want zombies,” said Fluttershy.

Twilight looked at the exceedingly long scroll filled with Zebronic reprecentations of ingrediants and procedures and traced the one she was on. “Blood of a virg- - oh, road apples.”

“What is it, Twi?” said Applejack.

“Never mind,” she said, pulling out one of her own feathers with the roots still attached. It was exceedingly painful, but still less so than asking her friends which of them would be suitable. Twilight carefully squeezed the blood out of the feather into her potion.

“Um, what exactly are you making?” asked Rainbow Dash from overhead.

“And why does it smell like my grandma?” asked Pinkie Pie.

“That is good,” said Twilight, checking the scroll. “It is supposed to smell like a grandma at this stage…a smell of fresh cut grass would mean…oh.”

“What?”

“Phosgene.”

“What is that?” asked Rarity.

“Nothing,” said Twilight, smiling, very glad that the potion smelled like old ponies.

“But whah ahre you makin’ it?” demanded Applejack.

“Because the memories were incomplete,” muttered Twilight.

“What mehmories?”

Twilight pointed at the cube sitting in the corner. “Those,” she said. “Word of advice, don’t look, unless you really want to hate Celestia.”

“You hate Celestia?” said Fluttershy, surprised.

“I don’t know,” said Twilight. “But that’s not the point. The point is that that box contains D27’s memories of the past, back when this happened the last time.”

“This happened bahfore?”

“Yes, it did,” said Twilight, swirling the potion gently as it started to spark. The color turned dark, and Twilight checked a color wheel against it. White unicorn blood would have been preferable, but it was still within tolerance if she decreased the temperature two degrees and added more Rose of Gallica. “A Lord of Order was born into this world, but D27 defeated it.”

“How?” asked Rainbow Dash.

“He absorbed all the magic from Equestria and fired it in a single shot.” That, in itself, was profoundly impressive. The machine necessary to do that was almost beyond even Twilight’s comprehension.

Pinkie Pie picked up the cube. It shifted in her hooves, revealing the hole meant for a unicorn horn. Before Twilight could warn her, she stuck her tongue into it. Her eyes widened and she shook slightly.

“Pinkie!” cried Twilight.

Pinkie Pie pulled the cube off of her tongue. “Eew…I can tasth all the fluth,” she said, her tongue now quite numb.

“Pinkie Pie,” said Rarity, taking away the cube. “A lady never sticks her tongue in random holes like that.” She immediately pivoted and pointed at Rainbow Dash, who was already preparing for a loud snort. “And a lady does not keep her mind in the gutter at all times.”

“But if he defeated it,” said Applejack, “then why are yah botherin’ with all this?”

“Because the story is incomplete,” replied Twilight. “D27 stopped the Lord of Order, but not the war. There were three Choggoths, and one was left. Nopony knows how the war ended- -not even Crimsonflame.”

“Crimsonflahme?”

“The Gwand Maggus thath livth in the mounthans,” said Pinkie Pie. “Come on, Applethatth, keeth up!”

“There,” said Twilight, adding the final ingredient: sugar, to make it not taste quite so bad. She held up a large flask filled with milky white fluid.

“Is that what I think it is?” said Rainbow Dash.

“I sure hope not,” sighed Rarity.

“It’s a memory potion,” explained Twilight. “I think, anyway. Assuming I got it right.”

“Why?”

“Remember when all those vines started attacking the Tree of Harmony?”

“Hard to forget,” said Applejack.

“I used this to find where the Tree of Harmony was. It took my mind back in time, and I could see Celestia and Luna when they used the Elements of Harmony.”

“So how exactly will that help us?” demanded Rainbow Dash. She seemed impatient to see the griffons in Canterlot.

“From the way they were talking, I think the Tree of Harmony is much older than Celestia. It stands to reason that if we could access its memories, we might be able to see how the war ended.”

“Why would we need to do that?”

“Did you even look at those spells?” said Twilight, referring to the blue images that had been projected on the map. “If D27 can’t get through and stop the Finality Core, his plan is to consume all of Equestria and try to take on the Lord of Order directly. We need a back-up plan. If we knew how the ancient ponies defeated Choggoth Void, maybe we could adapt their strategy.”

“So you’re going to go back?” asked Fluttershy.

“Yes…but…”

“Ah hate when yah say ‘but’…”

“I can only go back so far on my own. But I think if we go together…”

“You mean you want us to drink…that?” said Rarity, grimacing.

“It’s not that bad,” said Twilight. “It tastes like vanilla.” That was actually a lie.

“Ooh,” said Pinkie Pie, her tongue now mostly recovered. “It can’t taste worse than General Cotton Swab. She immediately took a swig. “Eew…I was wrong. That’s not vanilla.”

“Let me have some,” said Rainbow Dash, taking the flask and drinking some. She smacked her lips, appreciating the taste, and then shuddered wildly. “Oh, wow, gross! It tastes like I licked a goat covered in curry!” She then promptly tossed it to Applejack, who caught it handily in her mouth.

Applejack took a sip. “Eh, ahv had worse.” She slid the now mostly empty container to Rarity.

“Oh, dear,” said Rarity, holding the glass container as far away from her nose as possible.

“Drink! Drink! Drink!” chanted Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash, both of whom seemed to be starting to feel the effects of the potion.

Rarity took a dainty sip. “Oh my,” she said, momentarily struggling to keep it down. “Well…certainly not vanilla but…unique…”

She gave it to Fluttershy, who without hesitation swallowed most of the remaining amount.

“I have licked a goat covered in curry,” she said. “This is nothing to me.”

Twilight took the now almost completely empty Erlenmeyer back using her magic and drank the last sip. To her surprise, it did not taste nearly as bad as Zecora’s version. Which could potentially turn out quite unpleasant for them all.

Then the world faded, flashing backward through time. Twilight felt the familiar but still unpleasant sensation of falling through time. Before them all appeared the Castle of the Two Sisters, once again whole, as they watched Luna be consumed by the hatred-contaminated version of Blackest Night that inhabited her.

They did not dwell long. The image shifted once more, and the world became a chaotic mess in which stood a battered Celestia and Luna before Discord.

“Hi Discord!” cried Pinkie Pie as she floated by.

“Oh, hello Pinkie,” said Discord, waving, and then going back to taunting the memory version of Celestia and Luna.

The memory jumped again. This time, they went much farther- -and Twilight felt as though she was suffocating in the depths of the maelstrom of time.

Another memory flashed into view, but only vaguely. A blind, badly burned unicorn standing in the shadow of a steaming crystal of enchanted ice containing a stiff gray shape as he stored the inactive versions of the elements into a container, sealing them away with his magic.

“My queen,” he said. “I promise to return…”

The dim vision of the alchemist faded, and the colors faded and reformed themselves to what Twilight instinctively knew to the be oldest of all the memories of the activation of the Elements of Harmony.

Around her, the world resolved. She was standing in the strange glow of a red sun and white moon, each one residing on either side of the yellow sky. In the distance was the top of an impossible tower, one what Twilight Remembered from D27’s memories.

She looked around her, and saw that each of her friends was standing beside another pony, one pulled from the memory.

“Of course,” said Twilight, suddenly realizing what should have been obvious. She recalled Crimsonflame’s photograph of Single Horn and her friends- -and remembered that there were six.

Twilight looked up at the unicorn standing beside her. Single Horn stood at the front of the group, her body taller than a normal pony but falling into the default standard of a first-generation trihorn slave. She was gray, with gray eyes and a gray mane, her flank permanently devoid of a cutie mark- -but she seemed to glow with a powerful inner light. Twilight realized that Single Horn’s magic was more than that; Single Horn had long-since exceeded her natural lifespan. Her body was only being kept functional by the force of her magic and her will. The exposition of such magic took Twilight’s breath away, and she swelled with pride at having been born a unicorn.

“Are you all prepared?” asked Single Horn.

“Fear is pointless anachronism!” squeaked the tiny green and white earth pony that stood beside Rainbow Dash. “If I die I die in with my comrades, with no regret!”

“Wait,” said Rainbow Dash, looking at the tiny creature. “This is the Element of Loyalty? Why is mine so small?”

Rainbow Dash’s eyes widened as her mind suddenly linked to her predecessor. Tales of her exploits and bravery immediately filled their collective memory- -tales that were attributed to the name Great Oak

“Oh, I take that back,” said Rainbow Dash, smiling broadly. “This little filly once fought an adult Vorthax to protect her tribe! I don’t even know what a Vorthax is, but that’s pretty epic!”

“I’m actually rather terrified,” said the cerorian standing beside Applejack- -a much larger, adult version of the one who had presented Crimsonflame with her silver armor aboard the Rnon. Twilight had never fully understood how large and imposing cerorians really were, and she felt a bit of a tingle in her wings, even knowing that Linear Grayrock was a mare.

Memories poured through Applejack.

“Ahll of them were ahfraid,” said Applejack. “More ahfraid than anythin’. Only thirty two left. But only she would say it ouht loud…”

“I thought you tanks weren’t afraid of anything,” said the badly scarred, half blind dark-coated mare beside Pinkie Pie. “Except for, you know, mice, spiders, snakes, fire, disembowelment, potatoes…”

“Shut it,” said Grayrock.

The memories of that mare were next, and Twilight and her friends shuddered at the pain that came though Pinkie Pie. Memories of the life of a trihorn slave flowed into them- -they recalled every scar she had been given and what had been done to her, and how her horn and sanity had both been taken from her. Despite all that had been done to her, though, she had never once lost her sense of humor.

“That’s not funny at all,” said Pinkie Pie, stepping back.

“It isn’t supposed to be,” snapped Gallows Humor, turning directly toward Pinkie Pie. “It’s meant to be ironic and edgy.”

“Who are you talking to?” asked Single Horn.

“No pony,” said Gallows Humor. “Just another voice in my head. Hey, I’ve got a request. If I die here, can you guys all tan me? That way, you can wear my coat…as a coat!” She giggled manically.

“Don’t be morbid,” said a salmon colored stallion standing next to Fluttershy with a cutie mark of a simple red cross.

“Oh my,” said Fluttershy. “He was a medic in the war,” she said. “He served…oh my, no,” she covered her eyes at the vision of blood and sickness that poured through each of their minds. Not once in all that horror, however, had Stands Beside ever turned away from a patient, whether they be pony, dragon, or even the trihorns that had treated his friends and family so poorly.

Twilight was also distantly aware that in three years form this final battle, when the magic finally left Single Horn’s body, Stands Beside would be left to care for their young son, who had yet to be born or even conceived.

“It’s kind of my job,” said Gallows Humor. She shook her rump, revealing a noose as a cutie mark. “It’s even in my name. Oh, wow, my rump looks nice. That’s not a guess, either- -several trihorns will back me up on that. Or would, if they hadn’t gotten what they deserve.”

The pony beside Rarity only released a gurgling electronic sound in response, her one visible eye narrowing at Gallows Humor.

“Oh no,” said Rarity. “This…this thing can’t be- -” She suddenly cried out as they all realized that what Twilight had initially took to be armor was actually not.

“No, no,” said Rarity, and moved to take Tenth-Sister in a hug, only to phase through her body. “I didn’t mean it. You’re not ugly.”

“Rarity?” said Twilight.

Rarity was starting to cry. “She gave up…oh Celestia…she was once beautiful, but she gave up everything to keep her sisters alive! She saved them, but this…it’s all that’s left of her…”

“I can’t understand a thing she says,” said Grayrock.

“She says that it is not those who deserved destruction that we fight for,” said Single Horn, “but in remembrance of those who did not deserve that horrible fate.”

“I never got an answer on that coat thing…”

“If Great Oak survives, Great Oak promises to make coat from ugly scar horn pony.”

“Excellent. I feel better. Just make sure I’m dead first. Don’t want a repeat of that.”

Twilight turned to Single Horn, and the last set of memories joined her and her friends. Endless centuries of constant warfare in a losing battle. As her own power and prowess grew, she had lost so much. So many friends had fallen- -even her beloved Crimsonflame, who was now imbedded in machines that kept her only marginally alive. Now, once again, she stood beside friends- -new friends and the children of old ones. This was the final battle, and she would stand beside them. If they died, so would she, and if she had to die to save them, she would do so gladly.

She looked out at the shield wall separated them from the beyond, the massive wall of writing green-pink Choggoth on the other side. Twilight looked out, and understood. The wall corroding and breaking away, its magical energy depleting. The monohorns simply could not maintain it without the help of trihorns, who had been gone for nearly a decade.

As they watched, the Choggoth began to tear through the holes, and the magic of the wall shattered. Then in an instant that caused Fluttershy and Stands Beside to both jump in surprise, it tore through. A soup of shifting flesh poured into past the border, mindless in its actions, intent on approaching the last bastion of organic life in all of Equestria.

“Prepare yourselves,” she ordered as they all took defensive stances. “May the spirit of Oblivion stand beside us!”

Each of them glowed, their bodies being covered in familiar light. The light resolved into golden armor, each with a jewel in the shape of their cutie mark, or what their cutie mark would have been had they possessed one. Single Horn’s was a small gray stone that looked curiously like a gray six-pointed star.

Single Horn’s armor took slightly longer to form, developing a complex battle helmet in addition to her armor. Before them, the Choggoth seemed to recognize that they were suddenly a threat, and it reared up, its body condensing into a goliath and asymmetrical form standing hundreds of feet high, a hulking mass of teeth and claws and tentacles. It took a step forward and burst open, spawning a claw-hand to crush them with.

As it brought down the massive appendage, the six ancient ponies rose into the air, and the magic of Harmony surrounded them, flowing between them. Just before the Choggoth could touch them, a brilliant rainbow shot from them.

The Choggoth screamed in blind rage and tried to shield itself from the light, but every organ or appendage it produced to block the arc of the rainbow was destroyed instantly, vaporized by the light.

The rainbow glowed brighter, and Twilight was forced to cover her eyes. When she opened them, she saw the six ponies descending slowly toward the ground. The Choggoth, it seemed, had been completely destroyed, its flesh disintegrating into ash and sparkling rainbow fragments as far as they eye could see.

Then it moved. From the nearest part, a globular component rose. All twelve of the ponies stared at it, terrified or at least unsure of it. It did not appear as it had, though. It was much smaller, barely the size of a pony, and it was pure green, the red of its body having been torn away. It looked like a pony-sized blob of translucent green gelatin.

Then, slowly, a wavy line crossed the blob’s face, like a smile.

Single Horn lowered her horn, intent on destroying the remainder of the Choggoth Void- -but Stands Beside stopped her. “Wait,” he said.

Tenth-Sister gurgled.

“I’m pretty sure that means ‘kill it with fire’,” said Gallows Humor

“Death to enemies!” said Great Oak, jumping up and down excitedly.

“Now hold on,” said Grayrock. “Let him try.”

Stands Beside gulped, and then stepped forward toward the mucoid blob. He moved slowly and carefully, and Twilight held her breath.

When he came within reach, he extended one of his forlegs and poked it. It jiggled comically, and then surged forward.

Stands Beside’s friends cried out and Single Horn charged her horn with enough magic to make Twilight recoil.

“Wait!” cried Stands Beside. “It’s not hurting me!” He extended his own forlegs into the smiling goo. “Aw, he’s got the hugs!”

“Did we…win?” asked Grayrock.

“If we did,” said Gallows Humor, “this is the weirdest victory ever. And rather anticlimactic, actually, considering we just fought, like a thousand year war against an unstoppable enemy.”

“Did we really win? Asked Single Horn. “Is it finally over?”

“Oop, hey, that tickles!” laughed Stands Beside.

“Can it finally be…” Single Horn suddenly reached for her horn in pain. Twilight did the same, feeling it as well.

“Single Horn!”

The colors faded and shifted, and then fizzled to blackness. The pain faded, but Twilight was still disoriented. She looked up and saw that she was not alone. Also standing in the sea of endless emptiness was Single Horn.

They looked at each other, and their eyes met.

“Where am I?” said Single Horn. “Have I at last been permitted my freedom from this world?”

“No,” said Twilight. “Miss Horn…your highness…”

Single Horn looked down at the purple alicorn before her. “Twilight Sparkle,” she said, “Princess of Friendship, my counterpart from one million years in the future.”

“How- -how could you- -”

Single Horn tapped the crystal that represented her Element. “We are bound, child. We are the wielders of the Element of Magic, that which unites them all.”

“The Finality Core- -it’s back, in my time,” said Twilight, feeling the effects of her potion already starting to wear off. She needed to act quickly.

“I know not of the Finality Core,” said Single Horn. “Only Oblivion did, and he has fallen.”

“No. He survived.”

“He did?” Single Horn smiled slightly. “That is good.”

“Can you help us?”

Single Horn looked at Twilight, and then spoke carefully. “The Elements changed everything. A new paradigm, a new Order, one that none of her kind had ever considered. Given enough power, there is no feat that Harmony cannot accomplish- -but one alone may never prevail.”

Twilight started to fade, feeling Single Horn being pulled back into her own world for the short remainder of her life- -and Twilight being pulled back to her own.

Twilight gasped as she found herself in her basement once again. She looked down at her friends, who were also starting to stir. They looked so peaceful, with Rarity curled into an elegant pony-loaf, Pinkie Pie using Fluttershy as a pillow, and Rainbow Dash spooning Applejack. Twilight wished she had a camera.

“Ohh,” said Applejack, holding her head. “Ah feel lahk I just built a barn with mah head fo’ a hammer.”

“I feel like a barn hammered my head,” said Pinkie Pie, fluffing Fluttershy like a pillow and rolling over.

“It worked, though,” said Twilight, extremely glad that she had not poisoned her friends. “I think I now know what needs to be done.”

Chapter 46: God of the Third Sphere

D27 gasped and violently ejected Arcane Domination’s skull. It clattered to the floor, bouncing several times before skittering to a stop. Then, before it had time to lie for even a moment, a set of red spider-like legs spurted from its sides.

It lifted itself up and brought itself back to the long-dead body beside it. It rapidly reconnected itself and the trace residue of Choggoth within expanded, drawing out its dormant mass. The skeleton twitched as its leg joints reconnected and realigned, and then it stood, motivated by pink sinew and flesh that hung amongst the bone and metal.

“No,” said D27, stepping back from the skeleton. Blackest Night and Shining Armor also seemed somewhat nervous, but seemingly only because they were witnessing a corpse moving- -although Blackest Night seemed to realize that something far worse was wrong. “It can’t be you! There is no way you could have survived!”

The skull only stared through its one red-flesh eye demarcated with an insignia containing the markings of one hundred ninety three successes.

“We are machines,” it said, not moving Arcane Dominations mouth. Its voice was smooth and perfect, a sick parody of a female pony’s. “We cannot die, as we are not alive.”

“Then I will make you die.” Oblivion’s chest pulled itself open, revealing several Order-projecting spikes. He fired a beam of Order at the skeleton and it shattered. Shining Armor ducked as fragments of bones and ancient cybernetics covered them.

“Come now,” said Nil from Arcane Dominations’ skull. Its mass expanded, forming a fleshy amorphous substance that lifted the skull onto a semi-body. The material of the walls of the room shifted, emerging and arranging itself into a combination of new parts. A headless body built of Finality Core stepped out and crossed the room. It reached down and took hold of the skull, placing it on its empty neck. The eye of Nil continued to glare unblinkingly. “Destroying this body will accomplish nothing. It has ceased to benefit me.”

“What did you do to him?” demanded D27.

“Nothing. He came to me.”

“You drove him insane.”

“I corrected his mind to equalize our goals.”

“D27,” said Blackest Night, seeming increasingly concerned. “Something is wrong here.”

“You are attempting to access this unit’s internal processing core,” said Nil. “The mechanism of this action is not understood, but destined to fail. This unit is not compatible.”

Several pink sparks suddenly gathered around Blackest Night’s horn, and as she tried to pull away they burst open, tearing at her magic. D27 momentarily saw that her black coat was pulled away, revealing its true blue-colored nature beneath.

“I remember you,” said Nil. “The second one brought you. Solar Spectra…which means you are Lunar Vision. She would talk about you. Always said that you were better off. Based on the state you were in when she brought you back, I would assume that she was deluding herself.”

“D27,” said Shining Armor, stepping backward. “Tell me you have some plan.”

“Well, in all honesty, I wasn’t expecting this,” said D27.

“How to we fight it?”

“You cannot,” said Nil. “Even Oblivion could not defeat me, not completely. It could destroy a Lord of Order, but not me. I survived.”

“I think I might stand a chance against it,” said Blackest Night. “But only if I target its core body.”

“You would not,” said Nil, its secondary body stepping forward. “You are linked to the moon because I linked you. It was the very reason why I could not repair the Core myself. Because I am a Choggoth. I am incapable of true thought. No creativity…but she was. A way to use the Core that I had never predicted, but the only way to use it. To fuse three Spheres to three beings.”

“But there are only two,” said Shining Armor.

“No,” said D27, “but that’s impossible. This isn’t a Sphere! The sun and the moon are engines, but the Finality Core is something different. It’s just a machine- -there’s nothing to connect yourself too.”

“The Core itself is secondary. I linked myself to what is inside.”

Nil’s robotic body stepped back and its shape changed, as though it were a metal version of a Choggoth. Sparks of Order appeared, and D27 expected an offensive attack- -even though Nil had never been known to bother using Order as a weapon. Instead of a blast, however, the order resolved into a vast image, a pink version of the one that the crystal D27 possessed could make.

D27 stepped forward and looked down at it. It took him a moment to comprehend the schematic, but when he did, he froze. His whole body- -both the part in the Finality Core and his true one in the Gloame- -felt cold. His mind reeled trying to comprehend how Nil had even decided to take on such an absurd plan- -and to have executed it across countless millennia.

“No,” he said, stepping back. “That would never work. It- -it can’t.”

“It can,” said Nil. “It already has, thanks to Arcane Domination and Solar Spectra. Each with came with their own minor desires. Each spent their lives building the future of this land, and of all lands.”

“But why?”

“Oblivion,” said Nil, closing the hologram and then standing perfectly still. “Did you know that the Soth is dead?”

“That’s impossible,” said D27. “The Soth is the Gate, the Lord of Lords, the origin of Order. It is immortal. You know that, Nil.”

“No. I checked. I went there myself. Our memories of the Soth are implanted, artificial. I had always considered the possibility, but now I know.”

“You are insane,”

“I am correct. It must have seen the obvious- -that the universe automatically tends toward pure Order. Entropy spreads, grows, and in time the universe becomes empty. It decided that such emptiness was absolute Order- -and realized that using Lords of Order to reach such a state was useless.”

“Look!” cried D27, pointing at his own symbol. “You have one too! You have seen them!”

“The Lords of Order are relics. They are the remnants of a movement that was eons dead when time itself began. They are not capable of questioning what they do, or formulating new ideas. They are not intelligent, or sentient, at least not in the sense that I am. They’re intelligence is transcendent, viewing all things at all times in one everlasting point- -and their very divinity robs them of volition.”

“Perhaps we can work something out,” said Shining Armor, stepping forward slowly.

“Did you see that schematic?” shouted D27.

“I did but…”

“He did not understand it,” said Blackest Night.

“Why is it that you love these organics so?” asked Nil. “Or can you not even remember in that defective mind of yours? We are inherently superior to them. As many, they are weak, but as one, we are invincible.”

“You would never understand,” said D27. “They are everything we can never be.”

“I do not subscribe to fatalism,” said Nil. “You could be whatever you desire. Perhaps you could surgically imbed yourself into one of their skulls. Or you could have. Considering their world is several hours away from destruction.”

“Please, stop this,” said D27. “It will never work!”

“It will,” snapped Nil. “I will succeed where the Lords of Order failed. These ponies are nothing but blades of grass to me. I suppose I could allow them to live, but I see no benefit in it. They exist only as food.”

The perfectly still robotic form suddenly moved, standing jerkily and walking back to the wall it had come from. As it approached, the wall did not part, but rather its body was simply reincorporated into the machinery of the Finality Core.

“I should thank you, Oblivion. And you, Lunar Vision,” it said as it was half-imbedded in the wall. “Oblivion, for showing me their fallibility, and which of our kinds was superior- -and Lunar Vision, for allowing me to complete my life’s work.”

The remainder of the synthetic body passed into the wall, vanishing into the homogeneity of the Core. Arcane Domination’s skull, now empty and devoid of all life, fell to the floor and shattered.

“Did we…win?” asked Shining Armor, hopefully.

“No,” said Nil, now from everywhere at once. All around them, the Finality Core suddenly started to shake. D27 heard deep within it as the machines, so carefully crafted by Arcane Domination and Celestia over so many years, started to go silent.

“We need to get out of here, now,” he said. His form shifted, becoming a svelte quadruped, and he raced forward. Blackest Night spread her wings and flew after him, and Shining Armor did his best to keep up.

“I was originally intending for a further incubation time,” said Nil. “To further shore up the connection and assess diagnostics. Perhaps to run trial simulations. But then you arrived. As miniscule a threat as you are, I do not want to risk the possibility of failure.”

“This way!” cried D27. The walls of the Finality Core were starting to respond poorly to his magic, and he was using a tremendous amount of Order to get them to move. The Core was starting to die.

“One million years I have waited,” said Nil. “A time miniscule to me, but every second I was incomplete felt like an eternity. Only when I looked into that portal could I see it- -only when you showed me what I truly was, what they were. Incomplete.”

D27 was nearing the edge of the Finallity Core. “Don’t let Shining Armor fall behind!”

Blackest Night nodded and reached backward with a black tendril of magic, grabbing Shining Armor and pulling him forward with a sudden cry.

“This unit is inherently limited. As are the Lords of Order. Myself from lack of power, and them from dearth of mind. Equestria will serve as the catalyst to rectify this situation.”

“There!” said D27, using the last bit of Order energy in his satellite body to force opened a door to the outside. Moonlight poured through.

“I have a lock,” said Nightmare Moon.

“No, wait!” cried Shining Armor.

The surge of black smoke suddenly surrounded them, and then dissipated, dropping each of them to the icy ground outside just within the central perimeter of Celestia’s protection spells.

“Arggg,” said Shining Armor, flailing. “Not again!”

Blackest Night collapsed to her knees.

“Blackest,” said D27, helping her up.

“That was not at all easy.”

Behind them, the tip of the Finality Core suddenly sunk several feet into the ground. Immense, low sounds from far below indicated that it was changing and collapsing.

“We need to get out of here immediately,” said D27.

“I’m not strong enough,” said Blackest Night. “The spells have…reconfigured. I am afraid our entrance was one way.”

“What?” said Shining Armor, wobbling like a newborn foal as he tried to stand.

“I am sorry I did not see it. I should have- -”

As she spoke, the earth below them rumbled, and the rumble grew into a high whine. D27 felt the tiny crystals of Order in his body vibrate, and the much larger one in his chest nearly tear itself out of him as if it were trying to escape.

A massive wall of pink Order suddenly poured out from where they had just been. Blackest Night cried out as she raised a wall of black moonlight to protect them. It served its purpose, but only for just long enough. It almost instantly shattered- -along with all of the spells Celestia had set down in the wasteland over countless years.

Blackest Night was on her side in the radioactive dust, panting heavily. “I can’t…I am out of magic…I need to heal…”

“There’s not time,” said D27. He knew that Blackest Night had just expended a tremendous amount of energy, though, and was in no fit state for a teleportation spell. Likewise, with the amount of Order saturating the air, there was no way to open a Gloame rift. He instead turned to Shining Armor.

“I can’t do long range transmits,” he said.

D27 reached out and grabbed him by his back, turning him around. “Yes you can.”

“What are you doing? Let me go!”

D27 extended one of his fingers and condensed it into a long blue spike. “I’m sorry, Shining Armor.”

“What are you- -” and then he screamed as D27 shoved the spike into the back of his neck, connecting it to his still living skull.

Violet magic sparked around the three and the air burst as the teleportation spell engaged. They vanished from the desert just as the ground around them collapsed onto the space that had once been filled by the Finality Core beneath.

They appeared instead on one of the massive cerorian towers that stood just beyond the Sphere’s perimeter. Below them, the outline of its form was clearly visible- -the remnants of a thirty mile wide crater that Oblivion had created so long ago.

“Why?” said Shining Armor as D27 disconnected the spike from his brain. Although Shining Armor was exhausted from having been forced to use all his magic at once, D27 assumed that a unicorn of his caliber would recover in time. “I feel so violated…”

“D27,” said Blackest Night, struggling to stand. “What did she mean?”

“I’m sorry,” said D27. “I’m so sorry.”

“What did she mean?”

“I came back too late. This whole time, everything I did. It was all for nothing.” He stared down at the collapsing earth below. “The moment Celestia activated that machine, Nil had already won.”

“The schematic- -those spells- -”

“Not just spells. Machines, technology, things that Nil could never come up with on its own. We are little more than parasites, after all. It used Arcane Domination, and Celestia…”

“The crystal! You have to stop it before- -”

“There is nothing left to stop,” sighed D27. “The Core will never be activated, because Nil never intended to activate it. Nil has become like me, a betrayer to our kind.”

The ground shook, this time with enough force to nearly knock Shining Armor off the edge of the tower. Blackest Night grabbed him, though, and held him securely while D27 held tightly to the pitted cerorian metal below.

The tremors grew, and the, the top edge of the Finality Core seemed to rise, exposing itself, pushing away the soil below. It was not rising, however; as it pulled through, it broke up and shattered from the force pushing beneath.

Then it pushed through, and D27 was forced to look away, if only for a moment for him to collect his will to face the abomination that one of his own had created.

A massive crystalline claw emerged from the soil, grasping the broken side of the Finality Core and the soil around it. With an earthquake-like heave, it pulled itself out of the machine that Nil had used to give birth to it. A terrible creature made of crystal, constructed to the asymmetrical geometries and conventions that were only logical to the mind of a Choggoth, arose from the ground below.

No living thing truly compared to what it was. D27 envisioned the form as a skeleton, but it was not of any known creature, except perhaps distantly of a pony, only it stood far taller and had far more appendages. He distantly recognized the parts of a Lord of Order within it, and saw that they were connected to vast quantities of deep red organic flesh that covered parts of the monstrosity’s body, merging seamlessly with its crystalline structure.

Nil extricated itself from the dead Core, standing far above the cerorian towers, to the point where D27 needed to look up to see it, a creature standing at least ten miles high, built of Order and Choggoth, a fusion of creator and creation.

It raised one massive hand toward the sky, and Blackest Night screamed in pain. Under Nil’s guidance, the moon glowed even brighter than it had, tearing away at the stars surrounding it as it was forced to the western side of the sky.

Then it raised another hand, and from the eastern sky the sun rose, its form already glowing with brilliant white fire. D27 knew that the light of both Spheres was far too bright to support life; anypony too near the sun would burn, and anypony too near the moon would be driven mad by the cold.

Nil momentarily seemed to laugh, or to produce some manner of sound. Then it oriented itself to the laylines of Order that were already pouring through the air and began walking.

“Where is it going?” demanded Shining Armor, trying to stand, as if he were actually thinking of fighting such a creature.

“The Crystal Empire,” said D27, watching it go. “That thing is made from a Choggoth fused to pieces of a Lord of Order, but as of yet it is still incomplete. It needs to retrieve its heart.”

“Can it get through the city shield?”

“My body contains exactly fourteen nanograms of crystalline Order,” said D27. “And I got through the shield. Nil’s body now contains several hundred million tons.” He turned to Shining Armor. “You need to hurry. Disconnect Cadence from the shield as quickly as possible. If she is still linked to it when that thing reaches it, she will die.”

“What happens when it reaches the Heart?” asked Blackest Night.

D27 was extremely dismayed that she had used the word “when” instead of “if”, even though he knew that it was the only appropriate word to be used. “Most likely, Nil will partially consume all the entropy in Equestria.”

“And destroy all life, no doubt.”

“No,” said D27. “No. It will be much worse.”

“How can you get worse than that?” asked Shining Armor.

“It does not intend to kill everything; that would be useless to a Choggoth. Nil intends to resurrect everything.”

“That’s not possible,” said Blackest Night.

“With that much Order, it is almost a given,” said D27. “I doubt Nill could prevent it even if it wanted to. The entire world will be converted into a living, protoplasmic mass. Nil’s organic portion will consume it and convert some into Order until it covers all of Equestria.”

“Why?”

“To do the only thing it knows how to do. To spread. Across all universes, Ordered or not, consuming everything in its path, converting everything into one vast entity.”

“Can we stop it?”

“If I can’t, then I will die trying.”

“We will go with you,” said Blackest Night.

“No,” said D27. “Even if you had your full strength, no pony can get near that thing. The Order it is putting off alone would be lethal, let alone the radiation.”

“You can’t fight that thing alone!”

“Alone is the only way I can fight it. No being except me can stop it.”

D27 suddenly shuddered.

“What’s wrong?” asked Shining Armor.

“Something inside me,” he said. “Back in the Gloame…”

“One more shall arise to join the fight,” said Blackest Night, her pupils narrowed until the point where the slits were no longer visible. “One more ancient path to cross at the point where only two shall survive.”

Chapter 47: A Battle of Abominations

Chapter 47: A Battle of Abominations

Deep in the Gloame, D27’s body concentrated in his vault. Parts of him were already pulling the weapons and devices that he had collected through his eternal life, preparing all that he had once considered too dangerous for use for his final battle. Something had gone wrong, though. The one chamber that contained the weapon that he could never use was reacting.

D27 swelled against it, prepared for defense from an attack within. He poured Order into the gate mechanism to that final level of the vault, trying to force it to remain sealed, but it was of no use. The Draconian locking system slowed but did not stop as its material separated and withdrew.

The other side, which should have been filled with blackness, poured forth with green and violet light and a magic that was repellant to D27. The liquid of his body squirmed backward, unable to withstand contact with that horrible light.

The last of the door melted and a form stepped through, one so massive that he needed to duck to enter the halls. A figure whose body consisted of nothing more than enchanted fire wrapped around his immortal skeleton- -the one skeleton that D27 could never hope to wield.

“It is time,” said Rageclaw, stepping over the molten slag that had once been the prison of his long-deceased corpse. He looked down at D27, his flaming eyes narrowing. “Why do you recoil, beast?”

“Your magic,” whispered D27 from the halls around him. “I cannot approach you.”

“Because you are weak,” snarled Rageclaw. He looked up, his skull glinting within his flames. “The final battle is upon us. The spell I cast in my moment of death has awakened me once more, for a second and final time.”

“How can you even be here? How did you survive?”

“Is it not inconceivable that I could compress my entire lifetime into two points? To divert the path I may have had to two indivisible points? Even as my reincarnate form walks this world, I rise to join the fray once again.”

“You would stand beside me?” asked D27.

“Would I?” asked Rageclaw, spreading his wings. “Does a beast like yourself, a living blight, proclaim its worthiness for my assistance?”

“I do,” said D27, forming his own body to face Rageclaw as an equal.

“Then prove your worthiness.” Rageclaw extended a skeletal claw. “Allow me to join the others who have fallen.”

D27 stared at the claw, then at Rageclaw. The light was still jarring, and he could feel his flesh burning away. Rageclaw had designed his spell to ensure that no Choggoth could use his skeleton against his friends, and in doing so concentrated his immortality into it, providing himself with a form of cursed half-life. That same magic was what made him inherently toxic to D27.

D27 reached out and took Rageclaw’s hand. His entire form screamed out in pain as it burned in response to the magic. He wanted to do nothing more than to pull away, to run and hide- -but he refused.

“If this is what it takes,” he said as his arm was reduced to skeletal ash. “If this is what I must do to safeguard Equestria, then I will tolerate the pain. I must stand alone, so that they might live.”

“That is the correct answer,” said Rageclaw, smiling. His hand closed around D27’s. “If only partially so.”

Snow was falling from the thick gray clouds over head as Nil crossed the icy, glacial tundra that surrounded the Crystal Empire. In the distance, it was able to see the tower that surrounded the Heart of Order. It was the final component necessary, the only one that Nil had been unable to replicate.

It could feel the Order pouring across the land, transmitted by some kind of transmitter that had been built by ponies to house heart. A false body, designed by the heart itself. It was calling out, crying for the chest it had once inhabited.

That chest had long since been destroyed, but that did not matter. Nil had a new one for it, and the Heart seemed to know what it was now destined for: to be the core of a new sort of life form, one far superior to the incomplete shadow that it had once inhabited.

Nil was vaguely aware that there were ponies, some flying near it and others standing farther away. Those that got close died instantly. They all seemed so very small, so insignificant. Nil bore no malice or hatred toward them, or, really, toward anything. Such petty thing did not concern it. It only desired to be complete, to be what Choggoths always should have been, to evolve beyond the capacity that it had been born with.

If only they could have known. One hundred ninety three worlds ago, when the spore that would become Nil had first germinated, if the Lords of Order had only been able to see what it would become. Or, just maybe, they did. Perhaps they had intended this, forged all these events to ensure that a new paradigm could be formed, a hybrid of the children of the Soth, a creature of Order and consciousness that could spread singularity across all universes until the final entropy arrived at the end of eternity.

Then something condensed in the space between Nil and the city. Its eyes focused and watched as a massive portal opened, a hole in space to the useless nearby basin dimension. For just a moment, Nil stopped walking as something stepped through.

D27 exited the portal. In the distance, he saw Nil waiting for him, an impossible amalgamation of crystal and synthetic flesh. Even though his own body was several hundred feet high, his enemy dwarfed him.

It was impossible for D27 to ever be as powerful as Nil on his own. Even when Nil had been an ordinary Choggoth, it had been impossible. Through careful planning, however, D27 had made a tremendous effort to compensate. While Nil wielded the power of the Lords of Order, D27 held the power of the creations of ponies. Imbedded in his organic form was every component and weapon he had ever acquired: all the cerorian artillery, cannons, beams and projectors, the pony energy weapons, his entire stock of cerrorite, as well as countless tens of thousands of unicorn and trihorn skulls imbedded within him- -and, in addition, the living skeleton of the Eternal Magus Rageclaw.

The amount of energy surging through his body was incredible. Rageclaw alone was providing him with thousands of times the magic he could ever have hoped to achieve, and each of the pony skulls within him gave him a unique facet of magic related to whatever special talents they had possessed in life- -and he could feel every one of them, their memories flowing through him with their magic, as though they were standing beside him in one final battle.

D27 took a breath of the cold air as the snow fell peacefully around them. There was a moment of absolute silence as he charged the weapons and magic within himself. Then he and Nil started walking toward each other.

Though their battle may have seemed strange had there been any ponies to observe it, D27 was deeply aware of the similarities it bore to fights between Choggoths. Two opponents would simply approach one another, slowly, and then meet. Whichever was stronger would overpower the weaker, and the weaker would be consumed. This was how many Choggoths were born into the world, and was a style of fighting that D27 was all too familiar with.

“I am prepared to die,” said D27, trying to reassure himself. “No. I must die. Weapons like us were not meant for this world.”

“Then do your job and protect this world,” whispered Rageclaw from within.

D27 opened fire. Every weapon he had deployed simultaneously. Thousands of bolts of plasma and lasers merged with millions of bullets spraying from every appendage he had that could hold a weapon. Rageclaw’s magic surged, and a massive rune of fire appeared amongst the technological artillery, pouring out magic toward Nil’s form.

Several more steps forward, D27 ignited this countless horns. Dull magic of every color flew forth, mixing with his own wide blasts of Order. He fired missiles and artillery and enough nuclear ordinance to level ten thousand Canterlots.

All the impacts struck their target, but Nil did not even slow. It kept walking, its living crystal undamaged. It did not even bother to counterattack. D27 increased his power output, feeling his body beginning to combust as the weapons within him overheated, and feeling the pain as the horns within him began to crack, each time causing another set of memories to vanish eternally.

Drawing on Rageclaw’s skills and power, D27 cast a Draconian spell of unfathomable proportions, forming fire into poly-dimensional elements that flew forth in wide arcs toward Nil.

The impact actually caused Nil to stumble for a moment, and through the glow, D27 could see that the crystal in its chest had cracked slightly. Bits of it were falling away, disintegrating as they separated from the main body.

“ENOUGH,” boomed Nil.

The clouds parted as two beams poured in from above, striking Nil. The damaged crystal reformed as the magic of the sun and moon poured into its body, forming impossible quantities of new Order. D27 was terrified; in its current state, Nil should not have been able to harness the power of the Spheres without a Finality Core- -and yet it was.

The spell rapidly began charging. Without any effort, Nil summoned an Order emitter that was several times wider than its already massive body, a ring of sparking energy several thousands of times more powerful than the Weapon that D27 had created in ancient times.

“Coprolite,” swore D27 as spell reached critical mass and the universe itself started to separate slightly. Then a mile-wide beam of order came pouring down on his position.

All over Equestria, unicorns suddenly dropped to their knees. They were either racked by disorientation or physical pain as they felt a surge of magic pouring through the already saturated air. It only added to the growing fear and panic that filled their hearts. The sun and the moon had both risen and burned brighter than ever before, and the sky was yellow instead of blue, with thin beams of reddish-pink lightning crossing it at surprisingly even intervals. The riots had started to slow with ascension of Nightmare Moon to the throne, but as the new fear returned they came back with a vengeance.

“Sweetie Belle!” cried Applebloom as her friend collapsed suddenly.

“Oh,” said Sweetie Belle, “my head…what hit me?”

“Nothing,” said Scootaloo. She looked up at the sky, as though perhaps an object had cartoonishly fallen on her friend’s head. As soon as she looked directly at the sky, though, she regretted looking up. It was all the wrong colors, to the point where Scootaloo was glad that she could not fly, if only because she did not want to be any nearer to it than she already was.

Ponyville, unlike much of Equestria, had been thoroughly stabilized by the presence of Satin Veil’s soldiers. It had become so safe that, unlike the rest of the town, the Cutie Mark Crusaders had journeyed into the center to see demons constructing new, larger pentagrams in the center of town out of a curious red-brown paint. When asked, the demons had claimed that the purpose of the new pentagrams was to summon something called a “Red Bull” to counteract a contingent of unicorns on the coast, or, if things got really bad, to bring their females through to rapidly annihilate all pony resistance.

“Oh!” cried a nearby demon with a cactus cutie mark, rushing over. “Something wrong, eh?”

“She just collapsed,” said Applebloom.

“Hey Frantic!” cried the demon to one of his friends, a similarly colored demon with a bloody bone-saw for a cutie mark and a vest that marked him as a medic- -or a butcher.

The demons surrounded Sweetie Belle, the medic taking out a stethoscope. Ever since the Cutie Mark Crusaders had entered the center of town- -“stealthily” at first- -they demons had lavished attention on Sweetie Belle, giving her trinkets and compliments- -as well as several offers for her immortal soul, and literature on how to join the Legion of Satin Veil and become a demon.

“Is she going to be okay?” asked Scootaloo, looking up at the demons. With her orange coloration and flightless wings, she looked like a tiny hornless copy of them.

“It’s just magic shock,” said Frantic. Applebloom could not help but wonder what his second name was. “She’ll be fine. Just needs some…”

Both demons suddenly stood, their eyes glazing. Applebloom looked past them and saw that all the demons were doing the same. They all stood, stopping what they were doing, and turned to face the same direction.

The cactus cutie marked demon suddenly blinked, as did the others. They immediately started moving toward the large pentagram.

“What was that?” asked Applebloom, hoping that it was just their version of what had just happened to Sweetie Belle- -even though she was not entirely sure if they could use magic.

“Orders from Archdemon Corpse-Grinder,” said the lead demon. “This world is just about to end. We’ve been ordered back to Tartarus.”

“End?” said Scootaloo, her eyes widening. “What do you mean ‘end’?”

“Just that. I’m real sorry.” He started walking toward the portal, which the other demons had opened and were promptly jumping into. He and the remaining ones suddenly grimaced, however. He put his hoof to his head, as if in pain.

“What?” said Applebloom.

“Orders from…from the top,” he said, looking at Frantic in disbelief. He turned to the three small ponies. “Satin Veil has retrieval of a pony by the name of ‘Fluttershy’ for immediate evacuation to Tartarus. I hate to ask when, you know…but do you know her?”

“No,” they all said at the same time.

“Oh well,” said the demon pony, shrugging. “If you see her in the next…hour?” Frantic nodded. “In the next hour, let us know. After that, I hope to see you all down there.” He patted Sweetie Belle’s head, and then turned back to the portal. He, along with the last of the demons, jumped in and it sealed behind them in a puff of acrid smoke.

In the Canterlot palace, Blackest Night watched as Cadence’s unicorn handmaidens surrounded her, stripping away the spells that linked her to Sombra’s tower. She knew that there was not much time, and would have assisted, but she had still not fully recovered her magic. She had used what she could to teleport herself and Shining Armor back to Canterlot, and it had not regenerated. Some other force was drawing energy from the moon, rendering Luna’s magic nearly useless.

That did not mean she was inactive, however. All over Equestria, the population had suddenly started resisting her control. She stood in the center of her secretaries, Spike at her side, dedicating herself to the commanding the defense.

She was not a fool, however. Blackest Night was fully aware of the threat that Equestria now faced, and knew that there was no countermeasure. D27 had promised to defend the land, but there was no way he would be able to. Even with all the magic of Panbios- -that of every Draconian, every trihorn, and every monohorn- -he had only managed to destroy an incomplete, larval Lord of Order, and failed to destroy the Choggoth that had summoned it even with a direct hit.

For the first time in a long time, she was afraid. If the world died, so would she. She did not know what would happen; with no body to reincarnate into, she was unsure if she would simply dissipate or continue to exist as a sentient but perpetually silent, bodiless shadow, simply watching the empty wreckage of the world- -or even find a fragment of Nill to bind herself too.

A deeper part of her mind held a different concern. Blackest Night feared what would happen to Luna, and to the chiropteran foal several stories below her, still in her mother’s arms while her father fought on the streets of Equestria. If D27 failed- -and he would¬- -they would die without even the slightest hope of coming back.

A stab of Order suddenly tore across her mind. Her own tolerance for pain caused her to barely react, but the unicorns around her- -as well as Cadence- -cried out in surprise or pain. Blackest Night felt Luna’s heart seem to skip a beat- -a discharge of Order that could be felt at that range must have been of a nearly inconceivable magnitude.

As Blackest Night righted herself, however, several specks of light appeared near an open window. Her eyes widened as she watched them pour through, and the soldiers around her reacted as if they were under attack, charging their horns and brandishing their weapons. Even Spike- -to Blackest Night’s mild amusement- -used a Draconian spell to summon a pointed stick.

The glowing flecks became more numerous and resolved into the shape of a pony. Then, with a burst of light, they solidified.

Celestia blinked, and then started to fall. Her vision swirled, but she felt a pony grab her, keeping her standing. She took a deep breath with the one lung that she had managed to rebuild. Her whole body ached, and most of her organs were still lacking- -but she was alive.
“You are not nearly healed yet,” said a familiar voice beside her. “Why have you returned?”
Celestia looked up toward the pony supporting her, and found herself staring into the turquoise eyes of Nightmare Moon.

“You- -,” said Celestia. In her present state, she was too weak to stand, let alone withstand a fight with her mortal enemy.

As she watched, though, the blackness that made up Nightmare Moon’s face seemed to retract, leaving blue in its wake until Luna’s large round eyes were the ones staring into Celestia’s. Luna smiled, brushing her hair back from beneath the bizarre three-pointed helmet she wore.

“Sister,” she said, wrapping Celestia in a hug. Celstia felt tears running down her hairless skin. “I was so worried- -I thought I had lost you!”

“I’m here, Luna,” said Celestia, weakly returning her sister’s hug. “And I will never leave you…”

Luna pulled back and looked at her sister’s face. She was still smiling, even through her tears. “I am so happy,” she said, but then sighed. “But my time has yet to return. The world still needs her- -but I see it now. She, me…we are different, but parts of the same…please forgive her for my sins, sister…”

“Luna…”

Luna took a breath, as though she were diving into some pool of deep, frigid water- -or perhaps to hold back the pain as the black that covered the rest of her body crawled back up her neck, a shadow that consumed her beautiful face, contorting it into something that made every unicorn instinctively shiver.

“Shining Armor,” she said. “Help her.”

“Yes, your highness,” said Shining Armor, appearing from beside his wife and taking Celestia, straining under her alicorn weight.

“Did you…did you take my kingdom?” asked Celestia, weakly.

“Apparently not.” Blackest Night spread her wings and summoned what magic she had left. If D27’s second failure was going to kill her, she was not going to die like she had last time, alone in a cave.

With a running start, she jumped out of the window that Celestia’s dispersed energy had come through. She tightened her wings around her body and fell, relishing the air flowing and strange light passing by her. For perhaps the last time, she relished the freedom of flight- -one of the many gifts that she had been given by being allowed to inhabit so many Pegasi.

She fell to the fray below, a battle on the streets of Canterlot between the griffon forces at the sides of chiropterans and ponies of every race dressed in Crystal Empire armor standing against the terrified hordes. A space cleared for her, and her very presence seemed to slow the fighting.

“Cowards!” she screamed, summoning he personal magic from within her, striking fear into their minds. “If this is the end, do not waste it! Brothers and sisters, stand beside us! Do not waste your last minutes in combat, unless you desire only to die alone!”

The ponies paused, looking to each other as if they were unsure if they should keep fighting. The sound of gunfire and screaming slowed, and then stopped.

Then the two sides attacked each other, redoubling their efforts to destroy their mortal enemies.

The beam of Order ceased tunneling through Equestria, and the ice and rock it had passed through remained for only a moment as it condensed into a singular state and the collapsed entirely, its material form converted into pure Order, leaving behind a massive oblique-angled hole.

On the top of a nearby glacier, a bubble formed in space over a green-fired rune and D27 dropped to the ice. Teleporting something at his mass was nearly impossible, and even using Rageclaw’s energy he had nearly failed to engage the spell in time.

He looked down at the hole that Nil had formed, and wondered if Equestria was round- -because if it was, somepony on the other side just had their day thoroughly ruined.

Nill started moving again as its body sparked with Order feedback. If D27 felt a sudden surge of hopelessness. Even without the sun and moon as a power source, that spell would have been inconsequential to Nil. D27 imagined that such spells were probably within the capacity of Lords of Order- -or even larger spells- -but they had just never had a mental structure that would ever have decided to deploy one as such. Nil could easily have shattered the planet if it wanted to.

There was no time to allow personal limitations to slow his progress, however. D27 formed a mass driver from his body and planted several spikes of tissue into the glacier for support. He began loading his cerorite ammunition into it and modified his eyes for long-range targeting.

A resounding explosion filled the air as a three-pound crystal was fired as supersonic speed. It struck Nil and shattered through magically-generated crystal and Choggoth flesh alike. D27 fired another one, and continued firing as rapidly as he could- -but already saw that even cerorite was having no effect. The rounds were penetrating, but they were simply too small to do any real damage. Nil’s body was constructed with Choggoth geometry: it was decentralized and organless, able to operate even without its heart. There were no critical spots that could be hit to incapacitate it, or even slow it down.
Nil seemed to recognize this, and did not even bother to pay any attention to D27. It simply continued to walk, crossing miles with each step. The Crystal Empire only had minutes remaining before Nil reached it. Then D27 suddenly felt a spell engage inside himself- -and realized that something had been teleported into his body.

The unstable Order crystal exploded violently, tearing him apart, covering the glacier with shredded bits of metal and the broken bones of countless unicorns, all covered in the blue remnants of D27’s body, many of them sparking and convulsing from the surge of foreign Order that had been poured into them.

D27 felt himself slipping, but resisted the urge to die. He gathered what pieces of himself he could fine and pulled them together around the few bits of machinery that still worked and the skeleton of Rageclaw, barely having enough of himself to cover them all.

D27 was starting to panic. All the machinery he had accumulated had failed to produce any significant effect. He stood beside legions of the undead, but even their magic had failed. D27 simply was not strong enough.

“Only one option,” he said to himself. “Only one thing to do…I’m sorry…”

He reached out with his mind to his countless thousands of satellite bodies. Each one of them, previously dormant, reawakened, and he felt the stress of suddenly becoming so many weight his mind down. He knew, though, that the strain would only be brief.

Inside his head, he said one last farewell to Equestria. It had come down to the final option. If any life were to survive, then nearly all of it would need to die.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated.

As he did, a flaming claw suddenly burst from the side of his body, its magic suddenly horribly injerous to his organic matter. Rageclaw started to pull himself free of D27’s body, grasping the proportional equivalent of D27’s throat, causing it to burn as D27 struggled instinctively to escape the pain of the anti-Choggoth magic.

“Have you learned nothing?” he shouted, his flaming eyes staring into D27’s triangles.

D27 reached back with his own organic arm, his flesh burning away as he grasped Rageclaw’s throat. “You are dead!” he screamed. “You have no stake in this! This is the only way, and you will obey me!”

He began to swarm over Rageclaw, forcibly absorbing his skeleton and power, ignoring the magic surrounding him. Rageclaw was momentarily taken aback, and D27 momentarily seemed to be succeeding- -until his body was torn apart by a sudden surge of magical fire.

The bits splattered across the glacier, and, though many were still burning, once again coalesced into a being- -now a much smaller one, barely three times taller than a pony and horribly thin.

“If you destroy the world, what was the point?” said Rageclaw.

“Fine,” said D27, picking up one of the last remaining bits of weaponry and several scattered skulls. “I will fight alone.”

The situation was going to end exactly as D27 had expected it to- -and hoped that it would not. At some level, he had known from the start that Nil could not be defeated. He had known that Equestria would die. Even his own death along with it would be little consolation- -he had failed in his one mission. He was the one who had brought the Tree of Harmony into the world, and the one who served it. He was the only one who should have been forced to die to preserve Equestria.

Before he could proceeded to attempt to reconnect to his satellite bodies, he felt space distort behind him. For a moment, he through Nil had deigned to send him another explosive- -this time, perhaps one with enough force to kill him.

Instead, as he turned, he saw six ponies.

“Wow,” said Pinkie Pie, suddenly shivering and covering herself with her tail and hair. “I forgot how cold it is here- -I’m freezing my cupcakes off!”

“What are you doing here?” demanded D27. “You should not be here!”

“We’re here to save Equestria,” said Twilight, calmly.

“You can’t!” screamed D27. “This is not your fight! It is mine! I was the one brought here to finish this war, to finish where I failed last time!”

“Do you think we’re not strong enough?” said Rainbow Dash angrily.

“No,” said D27, “but you are mortal. You are not meant to be forced to make the sacrifices necessary to win this war!”

“Do you even know how the war was won the last time?”

D27 paused, unable to answer. “N- -no,” he admitted. “I died before it could be completed.”

“We sah it,” said Applejack, stepping forward.

“And it didn’t have to be that way,” muttered Fluttershy from behind her.

“You don’t have to do this on your own,” said Rarity, for the first time looking up at D27 without averting her eyes.

“No,” said Twilight, “you can’t do this on your own.”

“I was born alone,” said D27. “I lived my whole life alone. I will die alone. This is my path. It is the way it must be!”

In the distance, Nil had reached the Crystal Empire, the green region held beneath the dome of magic projected from the Heart of Order. The shield momentarally glimmered in the light of the two Celestial Spheres as the ponies inside tried their best to charge the Heart- -and as the Heart itself seemed to realized its inescapable fate and rebelled against it.

Nil raised one massive hand and brought it down on the top of the shield. The Crystal Palace was instantly destroyed, and a blast poured outward from all directions as the shield was instantly burst, producing a shock wave of ice and stone that moved outward with greater force than a nuclear blast.

Rageclaw raised his hand, and a shield of green fire surrounded them, hardening into an inpenetrabale barrier. The shockwave of the dying shield impacted it with enough force to knock the ponies to the ground and force D27 to prop himself up with the end of the artillery piece he was holding like a rifle- -but they were neither buried nor killed.

“It is time,” he said, turning to the ponies as they stood. Twilight looked up at him, knowingly, and nodded.

Their bodies glowed, and D27 detected a characteristic surge of exponentially rising Order- -one that he now recognized as sharing an ancestral source to his own. He saw them rise, their bodies glowing gas the power flowing through them changed their manes and coats.

“It won’t be enough!” warned D27. “You can’t defeated Order with Order!”

“How could you not know?” said Twilight in a voice that was not entirely her own, opening her eyes to reveal the light behind them. “When the world stood behind you, could you not see? Order has failed, not because it is weak, but because it is incomplete- -and you, created in their image, are like them. You are alone.” She smiled. “But you don’t have to be.”

The magic between them increased, and a powerful rainbow of Order arced across the sky toward Nil. Nil, who had been stunned momentarily by the shockwave of the shield, was seen through the dust and debris to turn slightly as it recognized that something was wrong.

The rainbow struck it, and it was driven backward, its massive form stumbling even against the relatively tiny rainbow. D27’s vision magnified to allow him to see- -and to his amazement, he saw Nil’s crystalline body crack and tear and his organic portions retreat, vaporizing as they moved away from the site of impact.

The blow was so catastrophic that it shattered enough of Nil to disconnect one of its several appendages, and the miles-long arm dropped to the ground below. It took a step back in pain- -and then regained its footing. It took a step forward into the rainbow, and its body flashed with pink sparks. It suddenly released as surge of order concentrated purely on the rainbow, and the feedback through it.

The six ponies cried out and burst apart as their rainbow was shattered, and they fell to the cold snow below.

“No,” cried D27, dropping his weapon and moving to their sides. He reached down and picked up Twilight’s tiny body- -and was profoundly relieved to see that she was still breathing.

“It…it failed,” she said. “But the Elements of Harmony…how could they fail?”

“No,” said D27, his mind suddenly racing. The knowledge suddenly connected in his mind- -and he understood why he had been resurrected. “No, it didn’t fail,” he said. “It was just too weak. It needs more power.”

“But tha’ was the best we got,” said Applejack, trying to pull herself up.

D27 was beginning to realize his role, and distantly becoming aware of what Twilight had meant. “You need to use the Elements of Harmony on me,” he said, setting Twilight down and stepping back.

“Um, did I miss something?” asked Pinkie Pie, pulling her head out of the snow.

“But…you’ll die,” said Fluttershy.

“I didn’t last time,” said D27. “And I don’t think I will this time.” He looked behind him, and saw that Nil was righting itself, stepping over its decaying severed arm and starting to focus on the Heart of Order. “You need to hurry!”

“But the Weapon won’t work,” said Twilight. “Even the Elements of Harmony can’t provide enough magic to power it!”

“Because the Weapon was nothing more than a convertor,” said D27 hurriedly. “It ran on Order. I understand now. Order alone is not adequate to win, it never was. We need Harmony to succeed.”

Twilight smiled, and she stood firmly, facing D27. The others did not seem to understand as well as she did, but they trusted her- -and trusted D27. They took their places, and the energy surrounded them again.

Their bodies changed, and they rose into the air. D27 braced himself for impact; it was impossible to know the amount of pain he was about to be in.

The energy swirled around them, accessing the Lord or Order that was the Tree of Harmony, pulling its power into their own and amplifying it- -and then they fired. Their rainbow crossed the glacier in an instant, striking D27 and swirling around him.

The force was incredible, and D27 steeled his mind against it- -but rather than resting it, he combined it with his own native Order and absorbed it, transmitting it through his neural network and ingraining it into himself.

All across Equestria, his satellite bodies suddenly activated. They stood, assuming the pony-like form he had once possessed. They stepped out into the streets around them, into the chaos and warfare throughout Equestria brought on by fear and by D27’s own misguided attempts to save them.

Each of his bodies suddenly surged with energy. From each one surged a rainbow of Harmony. Every pony it touched shuddered and blinked, and then turned to each other. Their weapons fell from their hands, and they looked at each other, confused and horrified at their own actions. In each city, their fear and hatred evaporated. Some wept- -and those that did were comforted by those who had just moments before been standing against them.

In Canterlot, the war in the streets suddenly ground to a halt. Both sides suddenly lost the will to fight. Even Blackest Night paused from her attempts to shatter the minds of her enemies- -because in their minds she felt the same thing. They were tired of fighting, and tired of being afraid. This was no time for war and discrimination- -but for them all to stand together against the true threat.

High in the tower above the fray, Celestia looked down from her window across the land, the darkness of all of it being driven away from so many points that had once strived to tear it apart.

“Wow,” said Spike, who had refused to leave her side. “Is that?”

“Twilight,” said Celestia. She could not have been more proud.

Farther down in the Castle in the makeshift, overcrowded infirmary, wounds began to spontaneously heal. The doctors were so enamored by the feat that they witnessed that they barely noticed the tall, brown-coated bipedal figure walking amongst them.

The door to a private, secured room opened as he stepped in. The white coated figure on the bed stirred, but did not turn.

“Tlilxochitl,” said the brown ahuizotl, weakly, holding the wound in his chest.

The female ahuizotl turned, and her distant, glazed eyes suddenly brightened.

“Chocolatl,” she said.

He stumbled across the room and fell into her arms. “I had lost you,” she said as she struggled against her chains to hold him.

“No,” he said. “I shall never leave your side.”

Even in a faraway mountain, Crimsonflame watched as the world was covered in a new energy, as she herself as contacted by a rainbow originating form a skull that sat beside her. She smiled. “Well,” she said. “I never expected you would use it for that.”

Even in the wreckage of the city that had once been Fillydelphia, the last of the Carcosans felt the sudden surge of Harmony. It stepped back, dropping the pony who it had been strangling the life out of. It could feel the madness that it had spread fading, and in that instant knew that the fate that had met its own homeland had been averted. It raised its hand and produced the Sign, and retracted itself back to its new home in Tartarus before the Harmony could reach it completely.

“It’s just like two weeks ago,” said Buttery Snake, standing in the center of Ponyville as the ponies around him felt the surge of calming energy pour over them.

“It feels…tingly,” said Applebloom.

“Hmm,” said Discord, poking himself. “I’m not stone. Well, that’s new.”

“Wait until the epilogue,” whispered Buttery Snake.

The last of the Harmony dissipated, and D27 collapsed. His body was smoking, but he had survived. It was so simple, he was astounded that he had never realized it. He was now what he had been when he was the Weapon- -nothing more than a lens. On his own, he was weak. His ability was not to be powerful on his own, but to utilize the powers of others- -to direct them and focus them toward his goal, the goal he should have seen the entire time. It was the unity of Panbios through him that had brought the Tree of Harmony into the world, and it was through the transcendent will of that Tree that he had been brought to his battle- -not to win it on his own, but to give support to those destined to replace him in the new paradighm.

Nil had been right all along. Order was obsolete- -but the path Nil had chosen was not the correct one. Giving Order greater virulence was not the solution: the solution was to convert Order into its new form, the form of Harmony.

“Nothing happened,” said Rainbow Dash as she and her friends dropped to the ground.

“Just wait,” said D27. “You are about to get hit with one hay of a feedback wave.”

They were still for a moment, and they did not seem to realize what D27 meant. D27 only smiled, at least internally. They would understand in a moment.

Then the first of them started to appear at the edge of the horizon. At first they were distant and weak, perhaps only visible to D27’s enhanced eyes- -but then they grew. The ponies looked, and then they seemed to comprehend what D27 had allowed them to do.

Pouring in from every corner of the horizon were millions of beams of light, each in a different color. Some were large and bright, and others small and dim- -but they all traveled together, swirling and arcing through the sky as they went, the independent pieces of a rainbow with every possible color.

“It’s beautiful,” said Rarity, as the colors approached.

“It most definitely is,” said Rageclaw, although only within earshot of D27.

D27 looked up at the trailing lights. He could recognize some of them. He saw the largest and strongest among them- -a beam of warm yellow light travelling alongside an equally sized one of midnight blue and pure black bound together in an eternal spiral. They came across the sky from one that was larger, colored deep crimson. Nearby that one came a zigzagging chaotic band of static-colored magic alongside an anemic, sickly green colored band, and nearby a pair of bands, one blue and one violet, swirled in a perfect helix.

The size was not all that made the lings stand out. D27’s eye was draw not a pair of three small ones traveling together- -pale blue, yellow, and orange- -lights that any other being probably would have dismissed as part of the background, but that held great significance to D27.

Nil seemed to notice the streaking lights as well and increased its pace. It stepped over the Crystal Empire, even as thousands of lights poured out, encouraged by their proximity to the origin of the first spell and driven by the Crystal Heart itself.

D27 took several large steps back as the ponies suddenly realized that all the bands of light- -that the Harmony of every living being in Equestria- -was headed for them. They seemed to panic for a moment, but then they just laughed.

The beams all converged on them, and the magic flowed into them on a level that D27 had no way of even measuring. He shielded his eyes, but had no need to- -the glow of Harmony was not harmful to him.

He turned his vison toward Rageclaw, and realized that the ghost was smiling. He nodded to D27, and then stepped forward. His green flames separated from his bones, and his skeleton fell lifeless to the ground. His body faded into a band of its own and merged with a much smaller band of green light, causing it to suddenly expand in both directions.

D27 suddenly felt something within himself, and he looked down to see a tiny stream of blue light coming from his own chest. It was barely the width of a thread, so much smaller than any of the others, but it was his. It was not the product of the Order crystals that were imbedded in him, but of his true self, the part that Nil could never have.

He watched his own thread leave him and join the others into the swirling vortex of magic that surrounded the six wielders of the Elements of Harmony. As the last of the beams came, the six of them rose into the air higher than before and the light surrounding them faded and crystalized around them. Within, D27 saw what he could never have achieved: not only did they have all the magic of Equestria, but also all of its generosity, loyalty, honesty, optimism, and kindness.

Then they unleashed it. A unified rainbow of every possible color shot out in a straight line from them, cutting through space at the speed of light. In the distance, Nil was just about to close its massive hand around the slowly revolving, hovering Crystal Heart. It closed its claws, ready to take what it believed to rightfully belong to it, to release a surge of energy that would ensure that Order remained supreme through the universe for all eternity.

Before it could, the energy of the Elements of Harmony struck it in its side. Nil did not even have a chance to cry out. The Elements of Harmony found nothing within it to purify; nothing good to leave behind. After all, there had never really been anything there to begin with. So instead of saving Nil, they tore through it. In one blast, its entire crystal body shattered and the Choggoth connected to it was pulled away and burned away into nothingness. It barely even had enough time to realize that its one hundred ninety fourth world would be its last- -the world that survived.

The inhabitants of the Crystal Empire gathered around the wreckage of their city. Many had begun to pull their friends and family from the wreckage, but Nil had been surprisingly delicate. Aside from the destruction of the Crystal Palace, the city remained largely intact, except where the crystalline remnants of Nil’s body had fallen.

The ponies were so enamored by the vast, steaming crystal bones that they barely remembered to bow as Princess Twilight walked amongst them, followed by her five friends and one Choggoth that vaguely reminded the ponies of a similar colored beast that had once invaded their kingdom and tried to steal the Crystal Heart.

“Is it…dead?” asked Rainbow Dash.

“Yes,” said D27 as they approached the remnants of one particular bone that was as high as most of the pony’s crystalline houses. “And no. Nil was never alive, not really. It was a Choggoth, a machine. The best it could ever hope for was to be a kind of advanced, thinking parasite.”

“But you’re not that,” said Fluttershy.

“I am not sure,” said D27. “Perhaps I never will be.”

They stood at the edge of the crowd of ponies and watched silently for a moment at the dead fragments of Order.

Then D27 suddenly felt something vibrating within his body. He gasped and stepped back- -just s the remnants of the skeleton started to rise.

The ponies screamed and panicked, but did not run. They were unsure what to do- -and could only stare in horror as the pieces of the massive skeleton rose above their city, the asymmetrical remnants of its skull staring down at them eyelessly.

A seemingly distant sound filled the air, like a set of delicate bells, and the skeleton fell back into a heap. It seemed to be crawling forward toward, or trying to.

“It’s going after the Crystal Heart,” said Twilight, motioning for her friends to protect the Heart.

“No,” said D27, stepping forward. Unlike them, he could truly hear its cries, on a level that perhaps no pony ever would. He could hear it calling to him. “It’s not going toward the Heart…it is coming to me.”

“You?” said Twilight. Then, as she realized what was happening, she cried out. “No! D27, stop!”

Her call came too late. He was already too close, and he reached out and, for the first time in his life, truly touched a Lord of Order.

“The things I could do with you,” he said to it, feeling the fear of the ponies behind him. “With that much Order, I would be a god. I could prevent all death and disease, all war and hate. I could protect everypony ever born, for all eternity in both directions.”

“Don’t do it!” cried Fluttershy from behind him.

“It ain’t right!” yelled Applejack.

“Of course it isn’t,” said D27, drawing his hand across the crystal surface as the creature tried to rise again, repeating exactly what it had done a moment ago. He looked at his reflection- -a thin, headless bipedal creature. “You are in so much pain. You were forced to see what Nil saw, what it knew. I am so sorry.”

The sound of distant bells once again filled the air- -the sound that was perhaps, in times long passed, how the Lords of Order had spoken to each other before they had separated from the Soth to live the remainder of eternity in isolation from each other, united only by an ideal that now proved to be a lie.

“I will free you,” said D27, pushing his hand against the crystal and focusing his own Order into it.

There was a surge of power, and he felt the Lord of Order push back- -but it was already so far gone that it did not even bother to resist. It only needed a push, a tiny fragment of volition taken from a Choggoth to leave the world forever.

It shattered into dust, and the dust slowly floated away and dissipated into the sky, forming a kind of sparkling luminescent crystal snow. The ponies stared up in awe.

Something cracked inside D27, though. He felt a tiny grinding, like sand within him. The fourteen nanograms of Order within him had been consumed in the reaction. He had lost the ability to use magic.

“I’m free,” he said, looking up at the Order-snow falling from the sky. “After so long…I’m free…”

Chapter 48, Epilogue: A Farewell Party

The sun had once again passed its zenith, and was well on its way to setting. The ponies in the Canterlot castle did not seem to notice, or to care that one more day was being rapidly exhausted. Their laughter filled the air, and the younger among them ran at the feet of the older, playing amongst themselves.

Celestia watched from the corner of the hall, and for once the smile on her face was not forced. She was, for the first time in a what seemed like so long, truly happy. Even with three months of time spent resting and recovering, she was still weak and far more sore than she ever had been since the death of Solar Spectra, but she hardly noticed.

For three months, every pony in Equestria had joined together to rebuild Equestria. Assistance had come from the numerous far-flung states, those that were remnants of the Second Era- -from the tall horses of Saddle Arabia, the donkeys of Assyria, the yaks of YakYakistan, and from countless other states outside of Equestria proper. That alone would have been impressive, but even such an outpouring of help paled in comparison to the comradery of the ponies within Equestria itself. In one day, they had suddenly seemed to forget their grievances and warfare. They had laid down their weapons and armor and turned their attention to helping those in need- -tending to the wounded and refugees, and mobilizing resources for the recovery effort.

The large party before Equestria had been spawned from that comradery. It had started as a reception party for Nightwatcher and Cavern Melody’s wedding, which had been officiated in the darkest caves of the chiropterans by Luna- -although there were whispered rumors that Blackest Night had appeared to give her blessing as well. The newlyweds were completely baffled by the concept of a reception, and in the process of trying to explain it to them, the party had expanded exponentially. Under Pinkie Pie, the party morphed into something far more, a chance for the ponies not just to celebrate the new union, but the survival of Equestria.

Nightwatcher and Cavern Melody had taken the changes in stride. Celestia caught a glimpse of them across the room, sitting with Luna and laughing. The picture seemed idyllic, or nearly so: Nightwatcher, standing strong and proud over his family and his princess, beside his wife who, despite her scars and blindness in one eye, seemed to have become increasingly placid in her new motherhood.

Standing at their feet, however, was a shy filly, not afraid to play with the other children but watching them with apprehension. She was the anomaly in the family. Although she was only three months old, she already had the body of a ten-year filly and the mind of a pony in her mid-teens. For the most part, though, she resembled her parents- -her coat was a dull gray color, as were her bat-like wings- -save for two features. Her mane was deep blue, as were her eyes- -eyes that looked like neither that of her mother, nor her father, but like those of Luna. Her cutie mark- -which had developed almost three weeks after her birth- -was that of a blue tetrahedral crystal.

Her name, Celestia knew, was Anhelios. Celestia had come to know her well, and had ensured that she was the first ever non-unicorn accepted into Celstia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. Although she was not a unicorn, her hair concealed a set of small lumps or crests that ran along the top of her head and spine, just as they had on another pony who had been able to use magic with no horn.

Darkseer approached them. He looked incredibly tired, but laughed with his brother and sister-in-law. It was generally understood that he was expected to announce his own engagement any day- -to a marron-coated female demon that he had met on his trip to Tartarus, who was across the room looming over Rainbow Dash as they guzzled cider- -something difficult for a “pony” with immense fangs and tusks.

Twilight’s friends had joined the party as well, each laughing and talking and dancing with the numerous other ponies that filled the room. Many had come to speak to Celestia, to ask how she was doing with her recovery- -all except Twilight. Celestia had seen the data cube, and when she had grown strong enough, she had accessed it herself. It had confirmed what she had already known. Twilight, it seemed, still cared for her deeply- -but could not even look her in the eye.

In a way, that was better. Celestia and Twilight’s relationship had changed, but Celestia had carried the burden of the past alone for so long that it felt like an immense relief to know that some other pony, one clean of such sins, was aware of what had been done to form Equestria, and the sacrifices that had been made by so many.

“My…Princess,” whispered a voice from behind her. Celestia turned to see a pair of creatures that seemed oddly out of place, standing awkwardly away from the other ponies who looked at them apprehensively.

“Chocolatl, Tlilxochitl!” said Celestia, surprised that they had responded to her invitation. They bowed deeply to her. “I am glad you could attend.”

“Thank you…Princess,” said Tlilxochitl, her one remaining eye looking toward Celestia’s hooves. “This is…the first time we have stood in the light…”

“Then stand,” laughed Celestia, motioning for them to rise. After careful consideration, she had decided not to dissolve the Order of Light. They still remained in their darkened, secret homes and locations, ready for deployment at a moment’s notice. Chocolatl and Tlilxochitl, however, had suffered severe injuries in the course of their duties- -injuries that precluded them from any combat situations. At Celestia’s behest, they had retired from their positions. Celestia’s smile grew as she realized that she would need to inform them soon that a third ahuizotl- -the youngest of their children- -was on the way.

“Go,” said Celestia. “You don’t need to hide anymore.”

They stared up at her, confused, and then looked at each other. They smiled, and then bowed once again and moved slowly into the crowd of ponies, their tail-hands linked together.

Celestia sighed, and turned her attention toward the dessert table, the location she had selected with exacting precision. Regrowing an entire set of alicorn organs was no simple task, and it required thorough nutrition. Celestia levitated another slice of cake with her horn and promptly devoured it, and then turned to the carefully decorated cupcakes nearby. As soon as she saw them, the contents of her barely regenerated stomach seemed to rebel, and she nearly vomited. She cursed D27 for having ruined one of her favorite confections. Still, there were always some extra- -so through sheer force of will, she proceeded to eat five.

Of all the ponies who had participated in the Second Choggoth War, D27 was curiously absent from the party. That was not in itself unusual. Numerous ponies had been unable to attend: Shining Armor and Cadence were busy reconstructing the Crystal Palace in Crystal Empire, and Spike was far away in the mountains, training with Crimsonflame. The latter had seemed to fill Twilight with a mixture of pride and loneliness that Celestia knew all too well.

D27, however, had not been seen in months. Almost as soon the Order-Choggoth Nil had been defeated, D27’s numerous bodies- -at least those that had not destroyed themselves carrying Harmony to the world- -had all disintegrated. It was assumed that he had returned to the Gloame, but all the gates had been once again sealed. No pony had seen him or anything resembling him since.

Celestia looked out at the room again, and saw Twilight’s friends laughing as Pinkie Pie seemed to tell another one of her endless jokes while she bounced around the room. It had been their efforts that had once again saved Equestria, and Celestia was terribly proud, but others had been involved too. Her eyes shifted toward Luna, moving from her smiling face to the dormant black stain on her rump- -toward the sleeping, waiting remnant of the queen who had ruled in Celestia’s absence, and then abdicated without hesitation when Celestia asked her to step down. Likewise, her contemporary, the blue Choggoth, had stood beside her, and beside Twilight- -only to seemingly vanish from all pony memory.

As she thought and contemplated, she suddenly caught a glimpse of something across the room. A dim reflection, a glint of a geometric shape. Something small and insect-like dashed unseen around a corner down the hall, unseen by those around it. Something blue.

Celestia set down her plate and crossed the room. She paused to whisper to a guard- -a unicorn, one of the many who had been afflicted by the release of enhancement armor and one of the few to regain his sobriety- -and informed him that she was stepping out for a moment. After her defeat at the hands of D27, the guards had been swarming around her as though they would actually be able to assist her with any real threat. She appreciated them- -especially the way their firm but comparatively tiny bodies moved near her with military precision- -but they were growing increasingly tiresome.

As she made her way toward the door, she passed Discord and his strange green friend. Both were oddly quiet, sitting near a window and watching the party with blank gazes and wide smiles on their face, eating numerous cheese cubes from a large bowl that they shared.

“Told you,” said Buttery Snake, giggling as he nudged Discord.

Celestia ignored them and walked out into the mostly empty hall, just in time to see the shadow of a demon several times larger than her carrying a somewhat reluctant bat pony around a distant corner toward where the coat room was located.

The light glinted again, and Celestia followed it further down the hall. As she walked, she passed the new stained glass windows that showed the new and most recent events of Equestrian history- -of Nightmare Moon, now known as Blackest Night, leading her army of griffons, demons, chiropterans, and ponies into battle to save Equestria, or of Twilight and her friends standing on a high cliff, pulling in the power from the ponies of all Equestria to slay a great and terrible amorphic crystal beast. On that particular image, down in the lowest left corner, was a tiny, barely noticeable fragment of blue glass consisting of two triangles.

Celestia found herself being led into an empty part of the castle, and the sound of the party grew distant. She stopped and looked around the hall, admiring the way her sun’s light poured through the colored windows, illuminating the tile floor below.

A motion caught her eye. She turned toward a bust that stood against the wall. Like many of the artifacts in her castle, it was something recovered from the Castle of Ruin, something that had somehow survived constant warfare for endless millennia. The name of unicorn that its gray stone represented had long since been lost to history, but Celestia felt an odd familiarity with her- -if only because that bust had followed her through three castles in three Eras, watching over her kingdom since the beginning.

Standing next to the bust was a tiny, mouse-sized globule of blue tissue. Celestia leaned close, and saw that it was marked with two triangles- -and a circle between them. The innocuous piece of blue tissue rapidly shifted, forming itself into a miniature version of the pony analogue that it had once resembled.

“Hello, D27,” said Celestia. It only looked up at her, its tiny triangular pupils oddly devoid of life. Celestia looked back toward the door. “They are waiting for you in there. Won’t you join us?”

“No,” said D27, his voice oddly clear despite his tiny size.

“Why?” asked Celestia.

The tiny Choggoth turned its pony-like head toward the party, and then looked up at Celestia. “I am not meant to.”

“D27, they are your friends.”

D27 shook his tiny head. “No. And they never can be.”

“What are you saying?”

The miniature pony sighed. “Celstia…you know it better than even I. I am nothing more than a weapon. I was created to destroy, and nothing more.”

“Do you really believe that? Are you really going to let that define you?”

“I have no choice. This is not what I want…I wish more than anything that I could stay. But this world was not meant for creatures like me. The part of my mind that could ever be their friend is nothing more than a defect in my core functions. I cannot escape the fact that I am a remnant of a system that cannot coexist with life.”

“Celestia?” called a voice from down the hall. Hoofsteps echoed down the hall- -hoofsteps characteristic of a pony wearing silver shoes.

Luna entered the room and looked at her sister. She wore a semi-serious expression, but had glitter and strands of confetti in her hair. “Sister, Pinkie Pie had brought us something called a ‘pin-yata’ that seems to be most amusing. From the description, I hear that it is hit with a stick until candy bursts forth from- -sister, are you unwell?”

Luna looked down at the bust near Celestia, and gasped at the tiny pony she saw standing there.

“Methinks the punch was spiked,” she said.

“Hello, Luna,” said D27. Luna seemed surpised, but leaned in closer.

“You,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

“I have come to apologize to both of you,” he said, “and to bid you, the last two ponies I shall perhaps ever see, farewell.”

“Are you leaving us?” said Luna, her face showing conflicted emotions- -the same emotions that everypony who had ever met D27 felt. She, like Celestia, did not know whether to thank him or hate him- -and usually ended up doing both.

“I am returning to the Gloame,” explained D27. “There, I will deactivate my central processor. I will continue to exist, but without thought or feeling, in a dormant state.”

“You’re going to die,” said Luna, her jaw tightening.

“No,” said D27. “I am not alive. I never was…except perhaps for just a brief flash in my infinite life. I cannot bear to face the world you are forced to dwell in- -to love, and then watch them all leave you. But I will not die. I will wait.”

“Until what?” asked Celestia.

“Until I am called upon again,” said D27. “I have closed the doors to your world, and contracted Satin Veil to protect those in her domain- -but I have left some remaining. Those of greatest skill or greatest need will find me, if they wish.”

“Please reconsider,” said Celestia. “Some of them…some of us…would miss you.”

“No, you would not,” said D27. “And I cannot. The Choggoth model is obsolete. I am suited to be wielded by Order, but not by Harmony. I shall leave the seventh world in the care of the alicorns- -a new model for a new paradigm.”

“But you will be alone,” said Luna. “We cannot let you do that…”

“Perhaps, for some time,” mused D27. “But time is meaningless for me. Perhaps, one day, the proto-golems or the shadows will evolve to sentience. Perhaps, when that day comes, I will be ready for friendship.”

“D27,” said Luna, clearing her throat. “Before you go- -I must thank you. For protecting Cavern Melody, and little Anhelios. Please accept my most sincere gratitude.”

“I will,” said D27, “if you can accept my apology for trying to kill you.”

“I can,” said Luna. “But I hardly knew you. I think…I believe that she would like to speak with you.”

Before Celestia could stop her, Luna’s blue color was rapidly and painlessly consumed with black. Her face was replaced with a new one, and her eyes shifted in color and shape.

“Greetings, D27,” said Blackest Night, her darkness casting shadows against Celestia’s inherent light. “Or, more appropriately, farewell.”

“Blackest,” said D27, looking up at her with odd compassion in his eyes. Celestia supposed that Blackest Night was the closest thing he had ever had to a true friend. “What paths have we wrought?”

“The longest of them,” she said. “But different ones. Mine of choice, yours of birth, but the same in that neither of us have a destination. We persist eternal.”

“Can I leave this world in your care?”

Blackest Night sighed. “Yes. I shall continue on this side. I will remain with Luna, to protect her in her times of need, and to stand beside her sister when she cannot.” She looked at Celestia, and smiled weakly. “If she will have me, that is?”

“You know how I feel about reform,” said Celestia, herself smiling. “Of course I will.”

“Then I leave Equestria in good care,” said D27. He turned to Celestia. “And to you. I nearly killed you. You can never forgive me- -not completely. Not just for that, even, but for what I did to Twilight. Apologizing to you is the last thing I must do in this world.”

“We both made mistakes,” said Celestia. “Our misunderstanding grew from disharmony and fear, on both parts, I think. I tried to kill you as well. I think we are equal, D27, at least in that respect. So I can forgive you, or will someday- -as long as you promise never to touch my desserts again.”

D27 smiled. “Thank you, Celestia. And thank you, Blackest, for standing beside me. Farewell to both of you, and if they bother to ask, tell the others that I said goodbye.”

With that, D27’s tiny body began to break apart, fading into dust or smoke that rose up around the bust of the unnamed unicorn. The remainder of its tiny form liquefied and then evaporated, and in seconds not even a residual stain remained.

Celestia and Blackest Night looked at each other. Blackest Night pulled her head back and retracted back into Luna’s mind, once again releasing it from her dominance. Luna looked at Celestia through her wide blue eyes, and the two sisters wrapped their wings around each other. They understood D27’s decision more than anypony could know- -for if either of them were left alone without the other, they would have gladly chosen the same fate.

“Come on,” said Celestia, leading Luna back down the hall. “We really should get back to the party.

The two of them walked together, back to the room where their friends were awaiting their return.

Chapter 1: A Meeting of the War Council

Chapter 1: A Meeting of the War Council

The dark stone of the hallway danced with shadows cast from flickering, violet flames. Under normal circumstances, Crimsonflame would have found the caretaker’s choice of color to be amusing, and perhaps find some political symbolism to ruminate upon within it (assuming, of course, that none of the races had already laid claim to the color purple).

Much was weighing on her mind, though. The situation was growing increasingly grim. With the loss of the battle of the BlackSmoke Mountain Range, a significant amount of territory had been ceded to the enemy. That hardly mattered, though, in comparison to the far greater loses that the Draconian people had suffered.

She stretched one long black and red claw from beneath her robe and pointed, motioning for her assistants to open the massive redwood door to the Council chambers. They moved swiftly, their robes twisting in the dim light, their claws clicking on the ground. Obediently, they opened the door and allowed her to pass.

“Ah,” called a hissing, low voice as the cloaked figure entered the room and approached the ancient stone table. Arcane Domination leaned forward, the scales of his head and body glistening in the oblique light of the room. “So you decided to grace us with your presence?” he asked sarcastically. He nearly continued with something further, but then his reptilian eyes glinted, and something like a smile crossed his mouth, revealing his long, pointed teeth. “You are not the Grand Magus,” he hissed, sounding mildly amused.

Crimsonflame pulled back the hood of her cloak, revealing her face to the members gathered in the room, exposing her red and black skin and the elegant, sweeping features of the Draconian people, her powerful beauty marred only by one milky, blind eye.

“Grand Magus Rageclaw has perished in the battle of the BlackSmoke Range,” she stated with regal composure, even as the weight of the situation weighed heavily on her heart. “I am his daughter, Crimsonflame. I am the new Grand Magus, ruler of Draconia.”

The other delegates looked shocked at the news, but Arcane Domination continued to smile, if only because the reptilian features of trihorns were not nearly as pliable as those of the Draconians. Though both species were fundamentally reptilian, they were, in many ways, opposite, and Arcane Domination as a fine example.

“The appointment of a new Grand Magus,” he said, and Crimsonflame knew that he was, indeed, smiling. “This calls for celebration! Slaves!”

He raised his hoof above him, and his three horns glowed with light. For a moment, it was possible to see a thin, glistening magical chain pass through the air into the darkness behind him. He seemed to pull on it, and two small whimpering creatures were pulled from the darkness.

Crimsonflame took a breath and released it slowly, smoke trailing from her nostrils, as she attempted to control her shock and offense. The two terrified creatures resembled trihorns in shape, but were half the size of Arcane Domination, their bodies narrow and thin, even compared to his gaunt form. Like parts of his own body, they were covered in fur, but theirs was both gray, save for their manes, which were pale off-white, while his was regal green. Their large, wide eyes were filled with fear, and around their necks were heavy iron collars binding them to Arcane Domination’s now invisible chain.

Most disturbing, though, was the single spiral horn that protruded from each of their heads.

“Slaves!” said Arcane Domination, nearly on the verge of laughter. “Provide our newly crowned queen with gemstones!” then, turning back to Crimsonflame, “oh, if only I could have been present for the coronation! I am sure my invitation, it only got lost in the mail.”

The pair of monohorn slaves picked up a pair of bowls with weak magic projected from their horns. Crimsonflame sighed again. He had known. That was why he had brought these two here. If he had dared to do so in the presence of Rageclaw, he would have been immolated on sight. Crimsonflame felt her father’s temper within her, and knew that she wanted to do the same, and not only for the insult and challenge to her position. She cooled her temper, though, and refrained.

“Arcane Domination,” she said, her voice cold, but carrying with it miniscule flecks of deep red fire. “I am sure you are aware of our most sacred policies about forcing evolution of lower creatures.”

“Is that all you can say?” he said, his expression suddenly darkening. He pounded one of his hooves on the table. “It is only by the arrogance of your kind that such a foolish rule is allowed to persist. I bring you this gift, these creations, and you scorn me so? A triumph of our sorcerers. Slaves for the factories, and for the front lines. Or did you forget that we are losing a war?”

Crimsonflame pounded her own claw against the table, and, forgetting herself, glowing cracks formed within the surface, superheated by her barely contained magic. She inhaled, and prepared for something of far greater potency, something that would be directed at Arcane’s smug face.

She was interrupted, however, by the sound of shattering china. She turned to see one of Arcane’s monohorns standing over a shattered pot, with numerous brightly colored gemstones scattered across the floor. Tears were welling in her eyes. It seemed that her magic had failed. No doubt, Crimsonflame knew, having a horn synthetically grafted into her brain was rather painful.

“You IDIOT!” bellowed Arcane Domination. His three horns ignited in green energy, and he raised his hoof, sending the cowering monohorn flying across the room, propelled by his energy, slamming her into a wall. Crimsonflame closed her eyes as she heard something crack. “That bowl is worth more than you are!”

“ENOUGH!” shouted a deep, booming voice. Commander Grayrock finally stood from his chair, sending it crashing backward. Crimsonflame and, to a lesser extent, Arcane Domination, had been watching him as he sat, grinding his teeth as he tried to control his anger. He had reached his breaking point, however, and both Crimsonflame and Arcane Domination were glad for very different reasons.

“Arcane Domination,” he growled, “you disgust me.”

He crossed the room, his massive body moving with surprising elegance. Though his figure was essentially equine, he was the epitome of a cerorian. His body was covered in hard, smooth plates of interlocking organic armor that made him look rather like a pill bug. Onto this armor had been printed the coded identification of his rank and title, a red-painted line of text identifying him as High Commander of the cerorian army.

He reached down to help the injured mare, offering his hoof. When she saw him clearly, though, she shrieked out in fear at the sight of his horned face and focusing, horizontal-puplied eyes. She picked herself up and limped back to Arcane Domination’s side as fast as she could, holding her left foreleg from reaching the ground.

“Oh, a broken leg, I see,” said Arcane Domination. “Well, that’s no good. When we return to my people, that will need to be…dealt with.”

“You are a monster,” spat Grayrock.

“Really?” said Arcane Domination, his eyes widening. “If I recall…no, I haven’t.”

“Haven’t what?”

“Haven’t killed as single one of my own people. And what was your record? Oh, if I recall, two hundred million.”

“And I could just as easily add one trihorn to that- -”

“Now, now, Grayrock,” said a grotesque, metallic voice from next to him. Lord Goldmist leaned forward, finally looking awake. He spread his massive golden wings behind him, stretching them, the metal clanking together with nearly musical tones as he did so. In truth, all present were amazed that he could even fly at all with such wings, or that any of his kind could- -but his construction was deceptive. Lord Goldmist was known as the most daring of his people, to the point where it was widely considered that he had been “blessed” with madness by a Lord of Chaos. Like all living Aurasus, he was able to effortlessly surpass the sound barrier, a process which inevitably emitted wide spectra of pure gold, but only he was said to have achieved a quantum-celestial acceleration, although no one had seen it. The minds of all watching had been instantly shattered by the incident, and their bodies decomposed into a fine, golden mist. Goldmist had been so overjoyed that he had taken up their remains and crafted a trophy for himself out of it.

“Don’t get so worked up,” he said, his mechanical-like eyes shifting toward the seething goliath. “They’re not really sentient, and not really alive. They’re just tools. Actually, I would rather like to place an order for four hundred of them immediately. Although, Domi, if you would tell, what is the quality of their meat?”

“Most excellent,” said the trihorn, once again smiling. “And the quality of their fur is spectacular. I can actually give you this one, if you like.” He pointed his hoof at the mare with a broken leg.

“And cover this with fur?” said Goldmist, gesturing toward his pure metallic equine body. “I am afraid not. But meat…actually, I’m rather hungry. Greyrock, sit down. Grand Magus Crimsonflame,” he said, standing and bowing. “Perhaps tempers have flared from hunger. We were waiting for a rather long time- -” he cut her off before she could interrupt, “because I realize that, as Forward General, it must have been difficult for you to return so quickly, especially after your father’s death. So, food.”

He raised his hoof, and his own servants appeared from behind him. Like him, they were metallic in nature, but they were Auragasus; their bodies were silver, and their wings far less regal. Unlike the monohorns that Arcane Domination had brought, they were also not slaves. In fact, Auragasi were rather highly regarded; only an Aurasus would be allowed to have them as a servant, which would be apparently be an honor to them.

They brought trays of food and dexterously placed them before each of the delegates. Both Arcane and Goldmist received plates with freshly prepared meat upon them, with Arcane’s being uncooked and bloody. Grayrock looked nauseously at their food as a plate of simple grass was put before him. Crimsonflame was given a small bowl of magically liquefied gold to complement the gems that the monohorn slave had already given her, and as she eyed it, she noticed Godlmist wink, and she barely suppressed a shiver.

The last plate of food was brought to the darkest corner of the room, to the silent final delegate. None of them aside from that delegate was sure what the plate contained, exactly, aside from something squirming and quite alive. When the plate was placed down and the silver equines nervously departed, a single narrow insectoid claw reached out of the darkness and took a screeching leech from the bowl, drawing it back into the darkness until the squealing stopped.

“Shall we finally discuss the matter at hand?” asked Crimsonflame. “As in the war?”

“Situation is grim,” buzzed a voice from the darkness, and several reflective eyes seemed to glow in the dark. “Enemy approaches from south. Monsters flow in wake. Egg-grounds at risk of being overrun.”

“Do you need reinforcements?”

“Not now. Can tolerate monsters. Public discontent about killing them. Time consuming. Problem is enemy, behind monsters. Approaches from south.”

“Your people are at the bottom of the continent,” said Greyrock, his face furrowing with concern, at least to the degree that an armor-plated face could furrow. “Are they attacking by naval assault?”

“No…rising from sea, we believe. Fish, dying. Ocean, dying.”

“Then they are attacking from multiple fronts,” said Crimsonflame, placing her fingers on the table. The stone split and illuminated with red magic, spreading across its surface to form a map.

Goldemist pulled back his plate, and tried to say something through the meat in his mouth. Crimsonflame nearly vomited from disgust.

He swallowed. “Our forces are spread too thin for further extension,” he said.

“And yet eighty percent of your airforce, including all Aurasi generals, circle your capital,” said Grayrock.

“We must retain air-superiority,” replied Goldmist harshly. He pointed at part of the map. “As you can see, Olympus is currently being moved to rest over Draconian territory, but we are literally moving a mountain. A flying mountain, I might add. Until it is over mainland, we are extremely vulnerable.”

“We have assembled a new shock force,” said Arcane Domination, somewhat smugly.

“You?” said Goldmist, suddenly chortling with laughter. “The trihorn, the wizard-folk? Have that many of your grand and mysterious spells failed, that you are finally joining the fight?”

“The force consists purely of monohorns. It is currently ten thousand strong.”

Crimsonflame nearly gasped. A force of ten thousand of the creatures indicated that the problem had been far more systematic; the Trihorn Empire had been at work far longer than she expected, even into her father’s rein.

“You would send these creatures to fight?” she said, her anger returning. “Their species is not but children, you can’t be serious.”

“Grand Magus,” said the delegate in darkness, pleading. “Understand, please. If swamps fall, our larva, the symbionts, they will die. Mothers will weep. Land will weep. Effect on Go will be profound. Could end us.”

“If a thousand of them must die to save just one of our people, the cost will be worth it,” said Arcane Domination, conviction in his slit-pupil eyes.

“Very well,” said Crimsonfire, slowly, with even greater sadness in her heart. She turned her face away; she could not bear to look into the eyes of the two mares on either side of Arcane Domination. “We will send your monohorn force.”

“They will not be alone,” said Grayrock. “I assure you, Crimsonflame. This will not be a suicide mission.”

“But your forces are already spread so thin.”

“No matter. There is a new crop of cadets. We are ceronians. We are born for war. Our children grow restless when withheld from battle.” He tried to force a smile, but Crimsonflame could see the pain in her eyes.

“And I will send a mage to assist,” she said.

“Thank you, Grand Magus.”

They stood silent for a moment, and Crimsonflame finally felt the full burden that her father had held before her. She had been reduced to sending children and slaves into battle. It would have been different if she had not known, and not seen the enemy, but she had been at BlackSmoke Ridge. She had seen it, in the distance, an abomination unlike any that she had witnessed or conceived. The horizon overtaken by a force, not of soldiers, but of a single, writhing, mucoid mass. It had stretched out over the land, its tentacles engulfing everything it touched, destroying everything. Even her father, the most powerful Draconian who had ever lived, could only slow it for long enough for his forces to retreat. It had engulfed him, and Crimsonflame had felt his magic slip away, his fire consumed by the shapeshifting mass. She knew the meaning of the name Choggoth, and knew it as her enemy. She also knew that the ceronian cadets and the monohorns could, at best, buy time for an evacuation. There would be no survivors.

She sighed, and took her seat at the table. She pointed at the map, and continued her discussion.

What neither the delegates nor the servants, or even the Draconian golems that guarded the room, had noticed, however, was that they were not alone. In a distant corner of the high stone ceiling, clinging to the rough and ancient stone, was something that could have arguably been mistaken as the type of slime-mold that often infested old buildings and the cycads of unfortunate nut-farmers. It was, however, a color that no slime-mold ever was: bright blue. Likewise, it confirmed to rudimentary, triangle-shaped organs that simultaneously watched and listened, observing everything that was occurring below.

Chapter 12: A Goddess and the Forgotten Ruler

The sun was beginning to set in the far end of the sky once more, and Luna’s moon was already high in the sky as a pastel rainbow roared through the sky. Below were lands of impassable forest that had long since been forgotten by ponies, places that had been labeled as only ‘wilderness’ in Equestrian maps for millennia, and probably even before. The oldest of maps even went so far as to label it with only the phrase ‘here be dragons’.

Reaching her destination, Celestia spread her wings and emitted a deceleration rainboom, sending out a shockwave of her characteristic colors. While Rainbow Dash had been the first unaltered Pegasus to exceed the sound barrier in over eleven hundred years, such things were trivial to a princess, at least Celestia.

Normally, she rather preferred to take a chariot where when she traveled. It added an air of regality, and the false vulnerability it presented was disarming to her subjects. Being pulled by white-coated Pegasus stallions also gave her a certain view that was not normally available to her. She had wings, though, and they were far stronger than those of any other living pony, and the area she was visiting was one of the two most classified locations in Equestria. She could not risk anyone knowing of its existence.

Celestia flapped her great alicorn wings, and rose up toward a looming mountain above her. Its cliffs were sheer rock, impossible for any earth pony or any unicorn to pass, and the wind that whipped through the edges of the mountain would have forced a lesser pony into the knife-like rocks below. The cold temperatures alone would likely have killed any of them by itself, but Celestia’s body was heated by solar warmth, and the chill could not slow her.

Near the summit of the mountain was a cave, one that had been carved into the gray rock millennia ago by unknown hooves. Celestia landed on its edge and stared up at the weathered, ancient carvings that surrounded it. They were depictions of beasts, or demons perhaps, and of creatures that predated even Celestia.

A warm, smoky wind came from the inside of the tunnel, and Celestia entered. She ignited the blinding light of her horn, and pulled air of the cavern togather, forming a tiny, glowing orb of fusion plasma. She released it, allowing it to drift upward into the cavern, where it illuminated the great hall.

Along the halls, standing in the shadows, were massive statues, many times taller than Celestia, carved from heterogeneous stone and crystal. They were bipedial, and menacingly shaped, wearing strange armor and bearing great axes, the blades of which alone were five times taller than Celestia.

As Celesita passed them, she suddenly had a feeling that she was being watched. Her sun set outside, and as darkness fell in the mouth of the cave, the statues moved, each lifting their axes. They focused their crystal eyes downward at Celestia, and took stances of attack.

One of them swung an axe, and Celestia unleashed her power. Her body instantly superheated, causing the great stone axe to liquefy over her, the molten rock vaporizing as it dripped over her body. She turned her horn to the axe’s owner, and fired a blast of magic that pierced its body. It stumbled backward from the force, but it felt no pain or loss at the massive hole in its chest.

Another moved forward, and Celestia cast a magical shield to defend herself. Simultaneously, she cast an arcing beam of energy that reached around her shield and grasped the monster. With a swing of her head, Celestia uprooted the beast and swung it into one of its comrades, shattering the pair of them.

She spread her wings and lifted into the sky, turning gracefully in the air, throwing forth another blast of energy. One of the creatures raise a great shield, and the shield instantly burned red-hot from Celestia’s divine magic, though the creature seemed either not to realize or not to care.

Celestia brought her hoof down on the creature’s head, and it was forced to the floor below, shattering from the force. Another reached from behind, and attempted to take her in its claws. Celestia was instantly surrounded by rock, and could feel her body being crushed. She focused her magic internally, and then released it, destroying the creature’s hands in a burst of blinding light.

Around her, the remaining creatures covered their eyes, but lifted their axes, as if to attack.

“Enough,” whispered a voice from deeper within the cavern. Though it was a wisper, its force was so great that it shook the very walls of the tunnel. The creatures immediately obeyed, yielding to Celestia and stepping back.

Celestia floated gracefully to the floor, and watched as the stones of the creatures she destroyed began to reassemble themselves. She stepped forward into the darkness, to a point where her miniature sun only illuminated the area incompletely. In the back of the cave, upon an unadorned and ancient throne, sat a figure cloaked in shadows.

A pair of reflective eyes glinted from the darkness.

“False god of the pony people,” said the ancient voice, sounding unamused. “Why do you darken your cavern with you presence.”

“My presence brings brightness and illumination,” said Celestia, smiling sweetly.

“Your light is that of destruction. It serves only to turn all it touches to ash.”

Celestia frowned. “I have come asking for your help.”

“My help?” said the figure, sounding either highly amused or highly insulted. “Divine Overload Celestia comes to me, asking for help? No, expecting help?”

“Are you so self-centered that you still refuse to help all of pony-kind?”

“Self-centered? Accused by the mare who turned herself into an immortal goddess!”

“I had my reasons,” said Celestia, speaking coldly but trying to retain her requite air of royalty.

“And it is not pony-kind that I have a problem with. My problem is with you. The creature whose first act as a god was the genocide of two of the seven great pony races, and the near-extinction of a third, a being who disgraces the memory of one of my dearest friends. But no. You would have my knowledge, and with it, you would construct new spells and new weapons to bring death and destruction to your enemies. I will not help you, nor will I help your poor, accursed sister.”

“Leave Luna out of this!”

“Do you think I cannot see what you have done, and what you still do? Though age and violence had rendered me blind, I have watched you. I watched as you imprisoned your general, Tirac, and murdered King Sombra when he refused to join your ‘divine’ empire. I have seen how you tricked the mortal embodiment of a Lord of Chaos into servitude, and how you cursed your own student, one who trusted you deeply.”

“If you will not speak to me, then I have ways of getting the information from you,” said Celestia, angered by the numerous true accusations brought against her. Her main glowed brightly, and her horn filled with power.

“Do not forget your place, false god,” said the voice, raising one of its hands.

Only then did Celestia see the glint of the magical chains, the ones that must have been bonded to her horn when the golem had surrounded her with its hand. Before she could dispel them, her magic shorted, and her head was brought crashing into the stone below.

“I have witnessed a creature,” said Celestia as the chains grew tighter and she desperately prepared a counterspell. “It is not one that even I recognize, but texts that are ancient beyond ancientness describe legends of ones like it.”

The chains slackened. “What texts are these?” said the cloaked figure, now genuinely amused.

“The legends of Single Horn. They describe creatures that, as this one, can shift their bodies as they see fit, creatures of incredible magical power.”

“And you have witnessed such a creature?”

“One of them attacked the Crystal Empire, and nearly stole the Crystal Heart, breaking through its enchanted barrier as though it were nothing.”

The figure reclined in its chair. It paused for a moment, and then, finally, spoke. “The creatures you describe are called Choggoths,” it said. “Although I gravely hope that you are either truly foolish or truly mistaken.”

“Why would you hope that?”

The figure in the dark stood, rising from her chair. Her eyes reflected the light beneath her hood, one milky and blind and the other constructed of gold, and as she moved, it was clear that she only had one arm beneath her cloak. As she approached, the black and red lines of her skins and ancient scars that covered her face became clear.

“If the Choggoths have returned, then Equestria will surely fall.” She raised her one claw, and the chains that bound Celestia snapped. She looked down at the pony before her, who was only a third of her height, as if her eyes were still able to see.

“Surely there is something that can be done.”

“I shall tell you no more.”

“Why?” demanded Celestia, rising. “Are you not the Grand Magus, last of the Draconians?”

“The Draconian Federation has not existed in close to one million years. Now there are only dragons. I am a ruler with no people, and therefore no ruler at all…a fate you will surely in time understand, false-god Celestia.” The Grand Magus returned to the shadows, taking her place on the ancient throne. “What would you have me do? I know not how to defeat them, but I now you very well. Even now, I see it in your mind. You seek to harness it, to create a new weapon for your empire.”

“I seek no such thing!” shouted Celestia. “I seek only the happiness and prosperity of all ponies!”

“Through destruction of properties you deem unworthy. What you now call ponies may as well be called sheep.”

Celestia could see that she would receive no more information. “Thank you for your help, Grand Magus of the dragons,” she said, gritting her teeth. She turned to leave, knowing that even though the Grand Magus was impossibly old, she was also incredibly powerful; even with the power of the sun, Celestia was not sure she could win a fight, not completely.

“One more thing,” called the Grand Magus. “This Choggoth. What was its symbol?”

“Symbol?” asked Celestia, turning her head back, confused.

“All Choggoths contain a geometric unique insignia, usually a shape. What was the shape of this Choggoth?”

“I did not see the beast first hand, and my subordinate described no shape.” She paused. “Is there any particular shape I should be weary of?”

“I know of only one by symbol and name. He is the Choggoth Oblivion, and he is the reason why I am the last of my kind. His symbol is two triangles.”

“I shall order my guards to be vigilant for this symbol.”

“For all the good it will do.”

Crimsonflame lay back in her stone chair, listening as the hoofsteps of the foolhardy creature left her cavern, watching the distorted image through the Aurasus eye that had been imbedded in her head. She propped her head on her one remaining claw. Even the Choggoths themselves were not truly evil, and by words, neither was Celestia- -but by actions, they were both abominations.

As much as she hated Celestia, though, Crimsonflame was now concerned. If a Choggoth had truly arisen, it meant only death. Even with all their power, the false-gods could not stop them; even with all her power, and all the power of her people and the other elder races, Crimsonflame had failed to defeat them, and destroyed the Trihorns, Aurasi, and Cerorians, and put the dragons on a path of degradative evolution that had converted them to little more than animals.

If a Choggoth had truly returned, it meant inescapable death for all of Equestria.

Before spreading her wings to take flight into the frigid air, Celestia looked back one last time. Crimsonflame, she decided, was as old a fool as ever. Dragons simply lived too long; they dwelt too heavily on their past, and too little on the present or the future. Celestia knew that what she had done in her past had hurt a great number of ponies, but the effort was justified for what she had created. She even believed that she had begun to reform herself, or at least render herself into a form that her people loved rather than feared. It had taken one thousand years, but Celestia had become something of a divine mother to her people, a smiling face, a being that the remaining three major races of ponies loved instead of feared.

There had been sacrifices, though. So much had to be destroyed for a new, perfect and peaceful Equestria to rise from the ashes. No creature, Celestia vowed, would take that from her. Whatever this Choggoth was, it would not be permitted to survive.

Chapter 34: Once Friends, Again Betrayed

As the portal opened, Twilight and her friends dropped through the floor, crying out as they fell. Twilight spread her wings, attempting to right herself and fly, to grab onto those of her friends who could not fly- -and Fluttershy, whose wings had locked from fear.

She was not used to her excessively large and bulky alicorn wings, though, and tumbled as she tried to spread them. As she did, the portal snapped shut, and the world seemed to shift. Twilight felt her descend flow, and then felt herself rising.

Then, suddenly, she slammed into rocky, hard, inconsistent and alien soil. Disoriented, she felt her world seeming to swim. She tried to stand as best as she could, but found that her legs were shaking. The magic required to open the portal had been greater than she had thought, and she had been substantially weakened.

Catching her breath, she sat on the ground and looked up at the sky, and immediately understood why the demons feared the Gloame. The sky itself was ominous black, like the smoke from a great fire. Slow-moving lightning, most of it red, slowly illuminated the dark clouds as it spread like a web throughout the sky above.

The light seemed to come from elsewhere- -there was no sun. Twilight realized that it was largely from the trees- -which were not trees at all. They resembled something more like complex fungus, but even then, they also could have been something else entirely, like a mineral formation.

“Again!” said Pinkie Pie, standing up and bouncing around the forest floor. She stopped and took a deep breath. “Oh, lookie! I didn’t pass out this time!”

“Last time?” said Twilight, her mind suddenly focusing back on the world around her- -as strange as it was.

“Yeah! The last time I was here, I tried to breathe without the magic and oh wow does this place stink, like a wet basement filled with a hospital and old cheese.” She leaned close to Applejack. “To think, without this magic, just one breath, and we would be totally…” She drew her hoof across her neck, and made a terrible gagging sound. Then she smiled. “Just. One. Breath.”

Applejack suddenly started breathing heavily. “Twalight,” she said. “Ah’m not usally one to complahn, but…I can’t breathe. There’s not enough- -not enough- -”

“Applejack, calm down,” said Twilight, standing and putthing her hooves on her friend’s shoulders. “Calm down. Take deep breaths. Big, deep breaths. Do you trust me?”

“Yeah,” said Applejack, taking a deep breath.

“Then trust my spell.”

“Yeah…okay…” Applejack took another breath, and closed her eyes and tried to breath slowly. “Yeah, Twi…okay. I’m okay now.”

At that point, Rarity suddenly cried out.

“What is it?” said Twilight, turning suddenly. From the sound of the scream, she momentarally through that her shadow-repellant spell might have failed and Rarity was being attacked.

“Tarnish!” cried rarity, her eyes wide. She was staring down at her silver armor, now covered with a delicate and extremely intricate mural of complex filigrees and tiny mural-like depictions of elegant pony abstracts. It was rapidly turning black in the Gloame atmosphere, as were all of theres. “No no no- -I need baking soda, vinegar, and aluminum foil!”

“It’s just tarnish,” said Twilight, annoyed.

“Just tarnish? JUST tarnish? Twilight, my design was beautiful! And now look at it!”

Twilight put her hoof to her face and sighed. At the same time, she also became aware that the atmosphere was probably very rich in reactive sulfur- -which was something she knew she should probably not mention.

“We don’t have time,” she said, as calmly as possible. “Besides, if you clean it, it will just tarnish again as long as we are here.”

“Then what are we waiting for?” said Rarity, leading them deeper into the forest. “Let’s get this done so we can leave this dreadful place. So full of tarnish…so drab…” She was rapidly joined by Pinkie Pie, who jumped bounced ahead, seeming to enjoy herself even in the alien landscape.

They started moving. After a few moments, Rainbow Dash dropped to the ground and spoke to Fluttershy. “So,” she said, rolling her eyes toward the fungus canopy above. “Are you?”

“I…um…well, I…” stuttered Fluttershy, once again turning red.

“I’d rather not know,” said Twilight.

“Right, right,” said Rainbow Dash. Her wings fluttered, and she lifted herself upward. She just did not seem comfortable on the ground.

“Hey,” said Applejack after several minutes. “Yah ever get thah feelin yer being…”

Bright white lights suddenly appeared in the woods around them: uncountable pairs of white, blank, luminescent eyes attached to long strips of shadow.

“Watched,” finished Applejack.

By instinct, the ponies moved together, away from the shadows. Even with the spell, Twilight had never expected them to be so threatening. Celestia had not told her that they had eyes.

The only one who did not seem afraid was Pinkie Pie.

“Ooh! Ooh! Twilight, give me a light!”

“A light?” Twilight focused her energy on her horn, and it glowed brightly. Each of the six of them immediately cast a shadow, as did the strangely narrow rocks that surrounded them and the “trees”- -along with so many shadows that had no clear source.

Pinkie Pie contorted her body, and Twilight watched as her shadow became an image of a great and terrifying creature. “Om nom nom!” She cried as she awkwardly hopped forward, making the “monster” ‘s jaws open and close by waving her forelegs.

The shadows momentarily seemed to stare until, suddenly, she cought one of them in her “jaws”. It actually deformed slightly, and on release, all the shadows fluttered, as though a flock of birds overhead were casting them. Then they all seemed to retreat farther back into the woods, their eyes only distantly visible.

“Weird,” said Pinkie Pie. “I felt it…”

“What did it feel like?” said Fluttershy, who had clearly not seen what had happened- -she was huddled behind Rainbow Dash, her hooves over her eyes.

“It felt like…felt!”

“What…what are they?” said Rarity, backing away. She shook her head. “What…what are they saying?”

“I don’t her anything,” said Rainbow Dash.

“Me neither,” said Applejack.

“I do,” said Twilight. It was not so much hearing as an uncomfortable sensation in her horn. The shadows themselves did not make a sound, but rather an impression of a lack of sound. Each one of them sounded profoundly silent. “We have to keep moving.”

“Twilight,” said Rainbow Dash. “Do you actually have an idea where we are going?”

“Um…” said Twilight. “Actually…”

“Oh, well that’s just great,” said Rainbow Dash.

“Hey, I’m trying,” said Twilight. “Transdimensional teleportation isn’t exactly easy, you know.”

“Why don’t we ask for directions?” said Pinkie Pie. She hopped off into the brush.

“Pinkie!” cried Twilight. “Wait! We can’t get separated!”

Twilight flapped her wings and tried to take flight, but found the silver armor was too heavy. Without hesitation, she chased after Pinkie Pie on foot. The undergrowth was thick, but no more so than that in the Everfree Forest, and Twilight was able to move quickly, following the giggling and scent of candy- -although Pinkie Pie was eerily fast through the thick hyphae and hardened, metal-like growths of the Gloame trees.

Then she broke through into a clearing and suddenly found herself tumbling down a steep, rocky embankment. Instinctively, she covered her head, trying to protect her horn, and waited until she stopped. Her whole body hurt from the descent, but as the pain left she slowly felt her limbs to make sure nothing was broken. Then she opened her eyes.

Above her was an asymmetrical mass of crystal and stone. It turned and a disembodied, floating element of it seemed to stare at her. It released a sudden surge of deep sounds, like the twanging of some kind of immense string instrument.

“Eek!” cried Twilight as she jumped back, charging her horn. “Golem! Golem!”

The creature did not react to Twilight’s sudden burst of terrified motion. Instead, it only watched her for a moment and then went back to the task it had been performing before she arrived- -attempting to dislodge a large, half-buried piece of broken equipment from the pit.

“I don’t think you’re gonna get it out,” said Pinkie Pie to the golem. “It’s pretty stuck. Whenever I get stuck somewhere, I always use butter. You should try butter!”

The golem grumbled in return.

“What?!” said Pinkie Pie, suddenly. “What do you mean no butter? How can you have no butter in an entire…whatever this is?”

It replied with something high and twangy.

“What do you mean heart disease? I eat my weight in butter and don’t have heart disease. Because my heart is so big, I think. Do you even have a heart?”

“Pinkie!” cried Rainbow Dash, suddenly appearing at the edge of the forest, with Applejack almost directly behind her and Rarity and Fluttershy no doubt nearly there. “What the hay is that thing?”

“Thing? No, this is...um…well, I’ll just call him Fred.”

“It can talk?” said Twilight, approaching slowly. The idea was completely unfamiliar to her- -in no book on the subject of golems, even the modern theoretical works, had anypony suggested that a golem could be constructed that could speak, even in a language that only Pinkie could understand.

“Duh,” said Pinkie Pie. “Does Celestia like cake?”

“Yes,” said Rainbow Dash and Applejack simultaneously.

“Twilight?” called Rarity from in the brush. “Oh, my. This is certainly the cleanest forest I have ever been in- -are you all right?”

Rarity and Fluttershy pushed their way through the brush. When both of them saw the golem, both of them could only gape. “Oh my,” said Rarity after several moments. “Is everything here so…abstract?”

“I hope not,” said Fluttershy, now hiding behind Applejack. “I just want to go back to Equestria- -where everything is so…normal.”

The golem pointed at fluttershy with something reminiscent of an arm and made a sound.

“Oh, yeah, she is,” said Pinkie Pie. “She’s the softest pony I know! Even softer than me!”

“Why does everypony think I’m so soft,” said Fluttershy, blushing.

“Pinkie,” said Applejack. “I don’ think it’s safe tah be around that thing.”

“Of course it is, silly.”

Twilight suddenly had an idea. “Pinkie, you’re a genius!” she cried. “If I trace the golem’s source alignment, I can find the point origin of D27’s magical control on them!” She lowered her horn and focused it on the golemn. She focused her magic into an analysis spell, and projected it onto the golem. It was illuminated with pink-purple light, and the floating element of it that seemed to function as an eye looked toward its own body.

Then the spell fizzled and dissipated.

“Well?” said Applejack.

“It…it didn’t work,” said Twilight, terribly confused. The golem was indeed a collection of magic fusing together rocks and crystals, but it had no apparent external source. It was entirely independent.

“Let me try,” said Pinkie Pie.

“Pinkie, you’re not a unicorn. You can’t- -”

“Fred,” said Pinkie Pie. The golem looked at her. “Can you please tell us where we can find D27?”

The golem pointed and mumbled something.

“He says that way,” said Pinkie, also pointing.

The golem said something else.

“What was that part?” asked Rainbow Dash.

“Um…I don’t think I’m allowed to repeat that part. Well, except the part about something called ‘radiation’ from that thing in the ground. Probably better if we stand back a bit.”

They all stepped back. The golem went back to trying to dislodge the device.

The golem had been correct. After an hour of walking- -and forty five minutes of Rarity complaining- -the group reached the first sign of D27’s presence

It appeared to be a some kind of device, built into a region where the land was flat and otherwise devoid of native vegetation. It consisted largely of machinery that seemed to be designed to support numerous large glass cells, each one at a slight angle and surrounded at its base by a mass of blue material.

As they got closer, it became apparent that each glass cell contained a single tree. Not a fungoid Gloame tree, though- -they were quite clearly apple trees from Equestria, their roots planted into the blue material at their base. Inside the tubes, the trees would periodically spark, and strangely blue apples were visible rapidly growing from flowers to fully grown apples in a matter of seconds. They were then promptly being removed by numerous blue tentacles at the top of the chamber and being transported by long, fleshy umbilical to somewhere in the dark distance.

Applejack seemed to be the most interested in the process, but also the most disgusted.

“Applejack,” said Twilight. “What’s wrong?” She herself was far more interested in the type of magic that could be used to form apples so quickly- -and even the others stopped to see the strange sight.

“It’s…well, it’s plum unnatural.”

“Silly, those aren’t plums!” giggled Pinkie Pie. “At least, I think they aren’t.”

“I thought you would be able to appreciate the efficiency,” said Twilight.

“I would too but…but this just ain’t raht. Apples were meant to be bucked.”

Rainbow Dash snorted.

“Very mature,” said Rarity, frowning.

“Stihl…I wish I could taste one.”

“Not a problem!” said Pinkie Pie from above. The group turned to see her riding on the head of an especially massive golem that was toting a rather complete but heavily rusted artifact that it had found somewhere else. The golem seemed to respond to Pinkie Pie’s will, and reached down with one of several arms, removing a single blue apple from the flesh-like umbilicals connected to the tree tubs. It pinched it carefully between two claws, and moved it over to Applejack.

“Um…thanks,” said Applejack, taking the apple in her hooves. She eyed it for a moment, doubting her original assertion- -blue apples were simply the wrong color- -but took a bit. She chewed it carefully, and then spat it out.

“What did it taste like?” asked Fluttershy.

“Lahke….Lahke nothing. Not evehn a texture. Lahke eatin hard air.” She gulped. “Worst think I done tasted since Applebloom mahde me eat some ah Sweetie Belle’s cookin…”

“Really?” said Rainbow Dash, landing near Applejack. She picked up the apple and took a bite.

“Rainbow, that’s disgusting!” cried Rarity.

“It’s not that bad,” she said, swallowing. “I mean, I’ve had worse.”

“Where have you had worse?”

“Places,” said Rainbow Dash, shrugging.

“Eew,” said Twilight. She turned back to the machine. “I think if we follow the tubes, we’ll get to wherever D27 is.”

“Or if we follow this guy!” said Pinkie Pie, the golem she was riding marching forward.

Farther forward, they finally came into view of what appeared to be a castle. In the dim natural light of the Gloame, it was visible perched high on one of several immense stone columns. It itself seemed to be made of the same blue tissue that connected to the numerous automatic apple fields. It was fungoid, stretching downward with long tendrils of material, almost seeming to drip from the caves and structures that had been carved into the stone above.

Twilight and her friends watched from the bushes. The castle itself was not a threat to them directly, due to its distance, but rather the new beings that seemed to be wondering near it. All through the swamps and forest near the castle were thousands of ponies- -or things that had once been ponies. Their original flesh had been stripped away, leaving skeletons coated in thin bits of blue tissue. Their skulls were mostly exposed, and they seemed to grin with their exposed jaws. Every one of them had only one eye, which was marked with a pair of triangles.

Most of them, it seemed, were- -or had been- -earth ponies, or at least a type of earth pony; they were somewhat smaller, with thicker builds than would normally be expected. There were a significant number of unicorns, however, and a third group that Twilight did not recognize- -creatures with sharp teeth, tiny, forward eye sockets, and hard, bony wings that formed plates over their backs. They seemed to be a kind of pony, but their gate and structure was radically different than anything Twilight was aware of.

“He’s building an army,” whispered Twilight.

“I told you zombie ponies were real,” said Pinkie Pie, still perched on her chosen golem, which was now standing barely concealed behind a small branch of fungus-tree that it was holding.

“Pinkie!” hissed Twilight. “Get down from there!”

“I can’t…I can’t do this,” sobbed Fluttershy. Being surrounded by the hordes of resurrected ponies seemed to be having a greater effect on her than the rest.

“Hey,” said Rainbow Dash, turning over and holding her stomach. “I really don’t feel so hot right now.”

“Quiet, all of you! We need to plan an attack. Rainbow?” Twilight turned to Rainbow Dash, who was usually the one amongst them who was the most likely to engage an enemy in a fight. She only groaned.

Suddenly, Rainbow Dash turned over and vomited. Instead of soupy, foul-smelling liquid, however, a torrent of small crystals poured from her mouth.

“I don’t know how to feel about this,” said Rairty, watching the small sparkling crystals pouring from Rainbow Dash.

“Oh Celestia,” said Rainbow Dash, looking more blue than normal and spitting out one rather large, bile-colored gemstone. “Ohhh Celestia…blue apple was a bad idea…”

“Of course it was. It was full of unprocessed Order.”

Twilight suddenly froze. She quickly took account of her friends, and saw that there were six of them in the bushes. She was momentarily relieved, until she remembered that Pinkie Pie was on top of the golem.

The entire group turned toward the one pony that they did not recognize: a skeletal unicorn, its teeth exposed and one of its eyes missing, the only flesh it managed to maintain a deep blue color.

They all jumped back suddenly, taking offensive stances.

“How did you find us?” demanded Twilight.

“Am I going to die?” said Rainbow Dash, vomiting another pile of small jewels.

“Yes, eventually. As for how I ‘found’ you: I saw you. You do realize that if you can see me, I can see you?” He pointed. “And that thing up there is not a structure. It is me. Everything you see- -including the farming unit that you stole from- -is me.”

“The apple?” said Rainbow Dash.

“No. Not the apple. That was just an apple,” said another voice. One of the unknown, small eyed ponies scuttled out of the trees.

“But you should not be here,” said another undead pony. Its mouth did not move as it spoke, and all of them spoke with the same voice.

More came, seeming to pour out of nowhere.

“We came to kick your respective...” Rainbow Dash proved unable to finish her sentence. Although she seemed to be rapidly recovering, the nausea still seemed to be intense.

“How?” said another corpse. “You are all so small. Not just physically. Your lives themselves…ponies in total. So small…”

Rarity stepped forward, glaring at the nearest of the bodies. Then, with a sudden motion, she slapped it with enough force to disconnect its skeletal head. The head rolled across the ground, landing in front of Fluttershy.

She released a small sound and started shaking. “I think I peed…” she said.

“It serves you right, betrayer,” said the skull as it sprouted insect-like legs and crawled back to its waiting headless body. It reattached quickly with a snap of bone and a click as it turned back to its original position. “Rarity. Why?”

“You filthy beast!” she screamed. “How dare you say my name? You are a monster!” she reached into her armor and pulled out a small, purple gem. She threw it at the body she was addressing, and it sunk into its tissue, disappearing into the blue flesh. “Take it! I don’t want anything from you! Not even this!”

D27’s multiple bodies stared at them all for a moment. More seemed to pour from the forest, but they all stopped and simply stared. Twilight realized that they were surrounded by thousands of clone bodies. She did her best to count them, and to calculate how much they weighed.

“I know why you are here,” said one of them. “You came to kill me. Or to try to, as you cannot possibly succeed.” He looked them all in the eyes. “But why?”

“Because you tricked us!” shouted Applejack.

“You were manipulating us the whole time!” cried Rainbow Dash, spitting out more gems.

“And you were…this,” said Rarity, pointing at the horde around them.

“You knew the whole time,” snapped D27. “Surely you had to see that something was wrong- -an adult pony with no cutie mark, who could perform magic without a horn? Who could spontaneously grow claws?” One of his earth pony bodies raised its hoof, and the hoof shifted into a pair of long-clawed fingers. Many of them focused on Rarity. “Even you. You melted off one of my arms with silver. And you still did not realize what I was?”

“I…well…you said it was magic!”

“I lied. To you, but not to your sister, or her friends. They knew. But only you six hated me enough to betray me. To lie to me, when all you desired was my death by the hands of your former goddess.” His attention turned to Fluttershy, who was now in a pool of liquid that was not just tears. “Especially you.”

“Nopony talks to Fluttershy like that!” cried Pinkie Pie. She clicked her hoof against the enormous golem’s head. “Get him, Mr. Bubbles!”

The golem reached behind itself and picked up Pinkie Pie carefully next to her friends. It then turned and started to walk away.

“The proto-golems are not violent creatures,” said D27, harshly. “Do not try to bring them into this conflict. Pinkie, I expected better of you. And you,” he turned to Twilight. “Who sent you? Who gave you those wings? Who do you serve?”

“I don’t have to tell you anything!” cried Twilight, stepping forward, charging her horn. “And I won’t let you hurt my friends, or Equestria!”

“You are all blind.” His forms approached, and Twilight and her friends braced for a fight- -only for the legion of the dead to walk past them.

“Hey!” cried Rainbow Dash. “Where do you think you’re all going?”

“To where they are needed,” said D27. “I have no need to fight you. You are insignificant compared to me. Move as you see fit in my world. Just stay out of my way.”

Their sudden migration finally caused the density to rise adequately. Twilight had no time to check her calculations, and relied on the hope that she was right.

She pointed her horn at the mass of blue tissue and bones, and activated Cutting Deeper’s spell.

D27 was aware of ponies on his periphery. He spoke to them, but even his contact with them was vague and distant. His mind had expanded vastly to compensate for his much larger mass, and only a small portion of it was focused on the conversation. The rest was coordinating troop movements in the now far more chaotic, riot-stricken Equestria and in his preparations for any possible upcoming battles.

His body was now something that none of the ponies outside could possibly have understood. It had expanded vastly, fueled by mass funneled in Equestria and from his numerous automated fields of Order-accelerated apples. He was now using the structure he had built so long ago as it was intended to be. It had never been meant to be a castle; it had not been designed to have rooms and occupants. It was instead constructed for the soul purpose of housing him, as a shell was the housing for a snail. The rooms were designed for various tasks, ranging from gas exchange chambers, Order accumulation tanks, troop maintenance and storage, and weapons manufacture and cybernetic recombination. This structure was intended to help him compensate for his innate weakness, allowing him to fuse directly to the technology and artifacts he had collected both recently and far earlier.

Suddenly, as he passed the hideous purple alicorn Twilight Sparkle, he felt something. A profound change echoed through his entire form; something was causing a forced change to his fundamental structure.

His flesh left the bones that he had collected, leaving them behind as it was drawn by magic toward a single point. D27 felt the mass of that point grow to several tons as he was condensed, and then felt it shift a second time, forming an auxiliary neural core. He tried to resist, but found it impossible; even as he struggled against whatever strange magic was controlling him, his executive functions switched to the new core, leaving his original core to disintegrate and be reincorporated into his primary body.

“What have you done to me?!” he screamed as numerous eyes opened on his form. He looked at the ponies before him, and saw the expressions of horror on their faces. D27 rapidly shifted himself, covering the exposed neural core that disgusted them so and coating it in a hard shell, forming legs and becoming a rather massive biped similar to the one he had used to attempt to destroy the Heart of Order. It seemed that the spell had not affected his fundamental ability to morph, but it had rendered him temporarily unable to shift his neural core to any other location.

“Now!” said Twilight. Her friends and her stood together, and D27 detected a sudden exponential increase in Order.

“No,” he said. The armor on his chest pulled open and tendrils shot forth, rapidly crossing the distance between his newly formed sub-body and their position. Once again, he attempted to grab them, to pull them apart before the spell could fully engage. As he did, though, he cried out in pain. Wherever he touched them, his tentacles disintegrated. They were covered in silver.

The spell continued to increase in its potency, pulling in massive amounts of magic from some unseen origin. The ponies began to glow, and lifted off the ground. Their bodies changed as well: their manes and tails increased in size, and became more colorful, and their bodies became somewhat sparkly.

D27’s mind raced. He knew that under normal circumstances, the condensation of his neural core would not be a problem. Even if his brain were destroyed, he could always produce a new one. There had to be a reason they had done that first though, a reason why they had used what was vaguely reminiscent of a trihorn spell. Then D27 realized what they were trying to do: they were going to use his own transmission matrix to attack all of his disparate parts at once.

The result would certainly be fatal. D27 did not want to die; he had not yet achieved his goal. Equestria was still in danger. Until Luna and Celestia were both completely killed and the sun and moon destroyed, the Finality Core would still be functional, still slowly charging and preparing once again for the birth of a Lord of Order.

D27 attempted to calculate the best possible way to stop the spell. He shifted energy to his eyes, and his mind, closely examining their magic. The only option, he determined, would be to eliminate one of the members of the group. It could not be just any member, though; the effect of the spell could keep a satellite element alive until the spell was completed. The only viable target was the catalyst of the reaction: Twilight Sparkle.

It also occurred to D27 that, due to Rarity’s actions, he had a piece of cerorite still imbedded in his body.

D27 shifted his body, moving the cerorite. He moved adjusted his body, converting the right side of it into a mass accelerator. Cerorite was not manipulable through magic, but D27 was more than capable of building a device from parts of his own body to generate enough speed send the crystal bullet through an alicorn skull.

He targeted the shot directly at the base of Twilight Sparkle’s horn- -it would result in simultaneous instant death and severance of her organic magic. Based on component tolerances and range, D27 predicted a perfectly clean hit with zero percent chance of survival.

Their spell began to accelerate; their glow increased, and D27 could no longer measure the levels of energy they were putting into the blast that they were going to produce. It was clear that something within them was combining to produce far greater energy than any of them could have summoned alone- -but it was also clear that there was an overarching signal of Order within their energy.

D27 prepared to fire the shot. He knew that it was necessary- -more than just for himself, but for his goal. If Equestria was to survive, Twilight Sparkle had to die. There would be no way to destroy a Lord of Order if it were to be born into the world- -D27 needed to survive long enough to destroy the sun and moon.

Then he thought about what he was doing, about what the results truly would be. Twilight Sparkle was an alicorn, a cursed being, but she was also a pony. She had a family, with parents who loved her, and possibly siblings. If she died, she would leave them. Her friends- -those who stood beside her now- -would be left without her. D27 imagined what he would be forced to see: her body dropping to the rock below, and her friends surrounding her, realizing what D27 had done. The image was too much to bear.

She was not alone in the world. She had a family, and friends; ponies who loved her. She had a life and a future, and a chance at happiness. She had everything that D27 could never have. D27 found that he could not take that away from her; he simply could not bring himself to pull the trigger.

Instead, he disassembled the mass accelerator and hardened his skin. He then poured his own order into his flesh. The pain was agonizing. The sudden surge of Order rapidly converted his skin into super-dense crystal, and he cried out with a roar of pain. What he was doing would be the equivalent of a pony peeling off their own skin: the parts the Order took were not retrievable; they were stone, and dead, severed from D27’s body permanently.

Even that, he knew, would not be enough. It would buy him several more seconds, but he fully understood the strength of the magic they were using. He had already resigned himself to death.

The energy of the six ponies suddenly concentrated, and a beam of light emerged from them. A great rainbow of energy poured out form them, filing the Gloame with brilliant light. D27 watched it arc through the air toward him. He did not bother to dodge; he stood firm, and faced his fate directly.

Then, just before the rainbow reached him, it stopped. It held for a moment, and then flickered and suddenly dissipated with a loud hiss, like something electrical burning out. The ponies looked at the result in awe as their extra color and hair faded into sparkly smoke, and they fell to the rocky floor below.

“What is this?” said D27. He did not understand why the spell had failed. They had subjected him to powerful magic, only to stop at the last moment. The only conclusion he could arrive at was that they were mocking him.

He stepped forward, the diamond of his structure clinking like crystal. He loomed over the six of them, and they seemed so small. The six ponies looked up at him with panic. D27 looked down, focusing on Twilight Sparkle, the alicorn. He suddenly realized something. She was a monster, a creature cursed and corrupted by Order- -but so was he. The looks on their faces, their expressions of fear- -it made him understand that he was something less. Perhaps at one time in the distant eons past, Choggoths had been something like ponies, before they were taken by the Lords of Order and converted into weapons. Alicorns were mutilated and strange, but they had not yet lost what D27 had. He lacked the capacity for friendship and love. A Choggoth existed only to destroy- -even D27. He was a weapon, a device that could only inspire fear and hatred, like that that he saw on the faces of the ponies below. The alicorns were a newer, better, uncorrupted version of the Choggoths- -and D27 was the real monster.

None of that truly mattered, though. Doubts had always lurked in D27’s mind, but this event had dispelled them. He had once though that perhaps he had overacted, or that he could forgive them. He had maintained the mad delusion that he might still one day return to Equestria. Now he saw the truth. Those who had once betrayed him had now attempted to kill him. They were his enemies. For D27, the ideal of friendship was forever out of reach.

D27 raised one of his massive, diamond-coated hands over the group. The alicorn stood and projected a violet sphere around her and her friends.

“Please don’t crush us!” cried Fluttershy from below.

Fear. That was the only way they could view D27. It was the logical response, the only response that they could have toward him. D27 was aware, of course, that it was warranted. He supposed that if he were a pony, he would fear his Choggoth self as well.

From his hand emerged several tiny crystals. They floated down to the ponies and began to swirl near Twilight’s shield. Then they parted, forming a small triangular portal.

“Go home,” said D27. “Just leave me…” He pointed to the portal. The other side of it went to Canterlot. It was dark on the other side, lit by the red light of a dying sun.

Without a word, they slowly stood. Twilight hesitantly lowered her shield, and allowed them to move toward the portal.

“Twilight Sparkle,” said D27 when the others had passed through.

Twilight looked up at him. “What do you want?”

“I want to thank you.”

Twilight looked confused for a moment. “Thank me? For what?”

“For being the only one who never pretended to be my friend. So I have a gift for you.”

A burst of orange light appeared next to D27, and a blue-fleshed skeletal unicorn appeared, an object in its mouth. It was a small cube, made of something stone-like, with a central glowing cyan crystal.

“Here,” said the unicorn body, passing the Draconian cube to Twilight.

“What is this?” she asked, taking it in her magic.

“Their memories,” said D27 from his larger body.

“Whose memories?” asked Twilight, still confused.

“Ours,” said the skeletal unicorn. “Or those of these skeletons that I now command.”

“Why are you giving me this?”

“There is no excuse for my actions on the other side. This is not a justification for what I have done. But it is the truth. The choice to know is yours, but the choice is your right. Pray to your remaining god that you never choose to open that box.”

D27’s bodies turned and left her holding the data core. He found that he could not bear to look at her. Not because she was an alicorn, or even because D27 saw himself reflected in her. It was because there was no way he could bear to look into those wide, violet eyes and explain the horrors and atrocities he had been forced to commit.

This was not her war. It was not any of their wars. Ponies were not meant to have ever been involved. Now that they were, they would be the ones to suffer. D27 just wanted their suffering to stop.

In a way, he wished that they had not aborted the spell. He wished that the bolt of rainbow had struck him down, burned him away from reality forever, and removed the blight known as Oblivion from existence. Fate was not that kind, though. There was still work to be done.

“Um…where exactly are we?” said Rainbow Dash as the portal snapped shut.

“Ah we back in Tartarus?” asked Applejack.

“No,” said Twilight, her blood chilling as she recognized the scenery around her. Although horrid red light was filtering through the windows, casting strange shadows on the walls, she recognized the scenery well. “We’re in the castle- -we’re in Canterlot!”

“I heard a noise this way,” said a gruff voice from somewhere down the hallway. Twilight did not know why, but she suddenly had an urge to run, to hide- -even though she was in the most familiar of places.

A group of two guards appeared at the nearest corner, and it took every ounce of will Twilight to possessed to not run. Fluttershy, meanwhile, actually started to run, only to be held back by Applejack.

To Twilight’s surprise, the guards were not wearing the new armor that Celestia had assigned. They were wearing thick, heavy versions of traditional armor. One of the two was a strangely non-white unicorn, and the other, much to Twilight’s surprise, was a crystal pony.

“Princess Twilight,” said the unicorn. “Thank Celes…I mean, thank Luna you are alive.” They approached, but took a sudden defensive stance when they saw Rainbow Dash standing beside the group.

“Stand back from the Blue!” ordered the crystal pony, forcing the other ponies to one side with his body.

“What are you doing?” demanded Twilight. “That’s Rainbow Dash!”

“We can’t be sure of that,” said the crystal guard.

“Hey!” cried Rainbow Dash, flying angrily into the air. “This isn’t fair!”

“It will only take a moment,” said the unicorn. His horn glowed brightly, and a grid appeared near Rainbow Dash.

“What is that?” demanded Rainbow Dash. “What are you- -”

The grid passed through her body, and she convulsed slightly and fell. The unicorn projecting the spell, likewise, suddenly seemed exhausted and dropped to his knees.

“Rainbow Dash!” cried Twilight, pushing past the crystal guard.

Rainbow Dash was laying on her back. She looked up at Twilight and smiled. “No more cider, Berry Fly, I’m punching home later…” She then fell back onto the ground and giggled slightly.

“She’s clean,” said the unicorn, the crystal guard helping him stand. “I’m sorry Princess,” he said, “but the number of infiltrators has increased recently. We needed to be sure that she was not one of them.” He motioned for the crystal pony to help Rainbow Dash, and he did- -while also attaching a tag to her ear to mark her as approved.

“Miss Dash,” he said. “I truly am sorry. I am actually a huge fan of your…flying.” He crystal blushed slightly.

“Oh, you,” said Rainbow Dash, still heavily disoriented.

“Guards!” said another voice from the edge of the hallway. “What going on here?”

Twilight looked up and recognized a familiar pink pony dressed in unfamiliar crystalline armor.

“Princess,” said the unicorn, standing at attention. “We responded to a disturbance and found- -”

“Cadence!” said Twilight, running forward. She wrapped her sister-in-law in a hug. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be back in the Crystal- -” Twilight looked up, and saw that Cadence was not smiling. Her expression was far more serious than Twilight had ever seen, and she looked much older than she actually was.

“Twilight,” she said, “something terrible has happened…”

Chapter 42: The Calm

Chapter 42: The Calm

The sand was a strange color. It was reddish, as if it were made of rust, and the sky above was neither dark nor light. There was neither a sun nor a moon- -and whatever sat above was hidden in thick, smoke-like fog.

Through this desert, Shining Armor walked slowly. He did not fully understand where he was, or how he had gotten there. He only knew that he was supposed to walk forward, toward where he was being called by some unseen, silent force.

His location seemed to shift, and the sand beneath him was replaced by bluish stone. Confused, he looked behind him- -and saw that he was standing on a precipice, a long trail of rock that stretched out over a vast circular pit. Once again, he was unsure how he had arrived there- -but saw that he was near the end.

Something deep within his mind was afraid. It told him to turn back, to not approach the edge- -that only pain waited for him beyond. Something stronger within himself, though, told him to move forward, and he did.

So he peered over the edge, into the very center of the pit below. His mind froze in horror at the sight. His eyes were first met with a vision of endless motion, of thousands of shapes swirling and writhing in spastic agony. They were, he realized, the translucent shades of ponies. They swirled in a massive whirlpool within the pit: some, toward the bottom, struggled to keep themselves over the surface, trying to pull themselves over their comrades as the sea tried to suck them down, their mouths contorted into silent screams as they struggled against the unstoppable current.

Others were thrown around in the tempest of the pit, turning perpetually in the chaotic air, unable to right themselves and resist their flight even as they struggled. Not all met that fate, however: some gaunt, blank-eyed shades drifted around the outer edge, seeming to ignore the wind or the others, staring mindlessly into space as they moved uncaringly amongst the others.

Around the edge- -which now seemed so much farther away- -sat beings that did not participate. They did not have the forms of ponies, or of anything in particular. Their only distinguishing mark was their pairs of luminescent eyes, watching as they waited.

“Pulling them back,” said a voice. Shining Armor’s mind suddenly snapped back to him, and he jumped back from the edge. To his horror, he had actually, for just a moment, considered jumping into that eternal vortex.

A pony had appeared beside him at a distance. She was no specter, though; her body seemed quite solid. Her coat was a beautiful, almost opalescent amber color, and her body- -even in the eyes of a married stallion- -was astoundingly impressive. Her perfect tail and mane and seductive smile only added to that effect.

Two things were wrong with her form, however. The first was her cutie mark- -a disturbing, grotesque eye. The other aspect was her eyes themselves. They had no pupils or sclera. They were simply solid, gleaming red, like the eyes of an albino rat.

“Stealing from me?” she said, shaking her head. “That is not exactly the best choice for your karma, you know.”

“Who are you?” demanded Shining Armor, turning himself toward the unidentified mare. For some reason, he felt tremendously heavy, as if the world he found himself in was preventing him from moving, weighing him down. He tried to charge his horn, but found that he could not focus his mind. Something was wrong with his magic.

“I am- -” she began.

“Everything you want,” said a familiar voice. The golden mare had vanished, and Shining Armor felt a foreleg around his shoulder. He looked at it, and saw a pink leg covered in a striped purple sock. He turned to see Cadence beside him, smiling with the same seductive smile that the amber mare had held on her face. She was dressed only in striped socks, and was pressing her body close against Shining Armor.

For some reason, though, Shining Armor felt no love for her, nor affection. He only felt disgust, especially as he smelled her- -she smelled of burning, rotting flesh.

“Shining,” she said, pouting, speaking in Cadence’s voice. “What’s the matter? Don’t you want to rub horns? Or grab onto my wings like you love to do so much? Oh!” She smiled. “I forgot. You like- -”

“The ones with green eyes,” said a different voice from Shining Armor’s other side. Cadence was gone, and her leg on his shoulder was replaced with a different one- -a black, chitinous leg filled with strange holes.

He turned quickly, and found himself staring into a large pair of green eyes with vertical pupils. Queen Chrysalis stood on beside him, her wings wrapped around her body which was otherwise clad in a sheer, translucent dress. “You know I was always better than her. Please, Shining, let me eat your love again…”

“STOP!” cried Shining Armor, and blast of violet light shot from his horn, shattering the image of Chrysalis beside him.

The amber mare appeared before him again. The surge of magic seemed not to have harmed her- -in fact, she was laughing. It started off as a giggle, but rapidly rose to manic laughter that echoed out over the pit of souls. Blood began to stream down her face from her red eyes as the laughter rose to a crescendo of screaming, a sound that no living pony could ever make.

“I can also do both,” she said, rapidly through her uncontrollable chortling. “Or you can! Or I can make them fight. I’ll even let you choose which one dies! Oooh…I think I could even get the real Chrysalis. I could tear out her organs and rip off her wings, and do it over and over for all eternity. Would you like that, Shining? Is that what you want to see?”

“You’re sick!” cried Shining Armor, trying to back away- -only to find that what he had at one point suspected to be an isthmus of stone had now become a single, floating island. He was trapped.

The amber mare suddenly stopped laughing. Her expression became perfectly serious. Then, slowly, she smiled, revealing perfect teeth. “I love the white unicorns more than anything,” she said. “You always think you’re so pure. Even you, with your ‘knightly soul’. But I’ve watched your world for so long. Do you know what the real evil is? Here’s a hint: it ain’t me.”

“I don’t need to answer any of your questions,” said Shining Armor, standing his ground. “Where am I? What is this place?”

“It’s love!” cried the amber mare, screaming it at him. “LOVE! Pain, torment, hopelessness, desperation- -all of those things only make a pure spirit stronger. But love…not that will corrode a pony like nothing else I have ever met.” She smiled widely, revealing an excessive number of pointed fangs. “Keep on this path, necromancer. Let your love corrupt you. Come down here with me. Everything floats down here…and we’ll have so much fun.”

“Who are you?” he demanded.

She had started to pace around her side of the floating rock, but then she suddenly stopped. The smile on her face vanished, and to Shining Armor’s horror, the cutie mark suddenly moved. He realized that it was not a cutie mark of an eye; it was a real eye, imbedded in her flank. Its cross-shaped pupil narrowed on him.

Then suddenly she was on top of him. He looked into her face, and screamed. Her empty eye sockets were filled with maggots, and more of the tiny white worms pushed their way through the rotted wreckage of her muzzle. Her body, which Shining Armor had somehow thought was yellow, was pail and covered in wounds that leaked puss and stinking rot from within her. The stench of decay and fire was overwhelming, and from the back of her eye sockets and mouth, something seemed to be glowing.

“How dare you,” she said, maggots falling out of her cheekless mouth onto Shining Armor’s face. They were not like any maggots he had ever seen- -their heads were bladed, their mandibles sharp, and he was terrified that they would start digging into his own flesh. He could not stop screaming. The mare seemed not to notice. “I am the most beautiful pony of them all!” She reached down and pinned him against the stone with her cracked, broken hoof. “You’ve only had two…how about I make myself your third?” She brought her stinking, rotting mouth near his and, before he could even try to resist, she kissed him- -driving her unnaturally long, rotted tongue down his throat.

He gagged and tried to hold back the vomit. It proved impossible, and he turned to the side and released the contents of his stomach- -and even that did not release the terrible taste from his mouth. He doubted anything ever would.

“Oh, wow,” said the mare, now across the stone. Shining Armor looked up and saw that she was once again a perfectly sculpted vision of female perfection. “Calm down. I’m not actually your wife. I thought you ponies frowned upon that sort of thing…and if it makes you feel any better, I’m not actually female. Or male. Or a pony. Not that you seem to care about that last part.”

Shining Armor did his best to stand. He was shaking, and her smell had rubbed off on him. All he wanted to do was vomit forever, and then go back to his wife- -his real wife.

“Oh, and tell your new queen that I agree. I will send her my children. But also giver her my warning: everything has a price. I’d ask for her soul, but whatever she has left of one isn’t worth my time.” She started to walk away, but then turned. Her red eyes stared into Shining Armor.

“One more thing,” she said. “I have a special present for her.”

From the gathering mist, a figure stepped forward. It was taller than she was, and stood on two legs. Its motions were slow, but somehow it traveled quickly. Shining Armor instantly hated it- -its body, covered in yellow robes and the yellow mask over its face, and the collar with the shattered chain around its neck. It seemed to be appraising him silently.

The mare did not seem to mind it, but she did not touch it or even get near it. Instead, she reached down to the blue stone and below and picked up a small fragment of it. She threw it to Shining Armor, and he caught it in his magic before it could strike him.

“Come visit me again, Shining Armor. Next time I can turn into Twilight and give you what you’ve always really wanted.”

“Never,” he spat.

She shrugged. “Eh. You’ll be here eventually.” Her body stiffened. “No evil can escape my grasp for long.”

Shining Armor suddenly bolted upright, crying out. He looked around, not fully knowing where he was. He momentarily panicked, but the logical part of his mind realized that he was not in danger. Slowly, he regained his lucidity and realized that he was in a bed, covered in course white hospital sheets. He, and the sheets, were also drenched in cold sweat.

“Oh, buck me,” he gasped, turning his body and stepping out of the bed. “What a dream…”

As he stepped down, a small sound filled the room, and he froze. His eyes turned toward the floor, and he saw that a small bluish stone had fallen from the sheets onto the floor. Never before had he been so terrified of something so small.

The only thing that saved his sanity at that moment was a second sound. He looked around the room and realized that he was not the only patient. He had been moved to one of the higher-grade rooms, and although it was not private, it was enclosed and built for only a limited number of ponies. At present, it seemed to be him and one other, one who was behind a partition.

The sound he heard was low sobbing. Shining Armor ignored the stone on the floor and, walking around it, approached the screen that divided his half of the room from the other half.

“Hello?” he said. “Are you okay? Do I need to call a nurse?”

“Shining Armor?” said an unfamiliar voice, one that seemed to recognize him. It had a strange accent, one that he had never heard before in any pony. “Shining Armor…please, help me…”

Shining Armor put his hoof on the partition, but found himself pausing. He looked back at where the stone was, and his mind reeled. It was quite possible that he was still dreaming- -either that, or he had never been dreaming. Since he refused to accept the latter, it meant that the former was very likely- -in which case, there was no way of knowing what was in the other bed on the other side of the opaque screen.

“Help me,” whispered the voice.

He could not refuse a cry for help. He pulled open the door and forced himself to look at the bed. For a moment, he expected to see that strange amber pony, waiting for him, ready to pull him into her rotting grasp and do unspeakable things to him. Instead, however, he found something much stranger.

Lying on the bed, her arms and legs chained to the rail along the side, was a white-coated ahuizotl.

“Tlilxochitl,” said Shining Armor, somewhat in awe. As former Captain of the Canterlot Guard, he had possessed a passing familiarity with Celestia’s Light, the order of ahuizotlic priests who worshiped her as a living god- -and was familiar with their zealotry and dubious methods. He did not know any of them especially well, but was acquainted with several of them.

Aside from being chained to the bed, her state did not seem good. A large scar was visible in her chest, and one of her eyes was bandaged over. She seemed to be at least partially drugged as well.

“Captain Armor,” she said, looking up at him. “Thank the…the….” She sobbed quietly, and then lowered her head, staring blankly. No tears fell from her one remaining eye. “Please…release me…”

“Why are you in chains?” he asked.

“They’re keeping me alive,” she said. “I can’t….I cannot be alive. Not after what I have done. Oh Chocolatl! Oh, Goddess of Light, I have betrayed you both!”

She suddenly shook and tried to break free of her chains. Shining Armor jumped back, but it was clear that she was not targeting him. She was reaching upward, trying to tear at her own neck. “Please!” she cried, “Let me die! I have to die! Shining Armor, just let me leave!” She struggled against the chains one last time, and then fell back into her catatonia. “I don’t…I do not want to live with what I have done…Celestia, is this my punishment? Yes…I deserve this.”

She turned her head, and seemed to fall into some kind of sleep. The door on the other side of the room opened, and a nurse and a doctor stepped in. They seemed somewhat panicked.

“Prince Shining Armor,” they said, unsure if they were supposed to bow or not. “You are awake. Is she…”

“She seems to be asleep,” he said, letting them approach Tlilxochitl. They checked the equipment around her and the security of her shackles. “Why is she in chains? What happened to her?”

“We don’t know,” said the doctor, “but the wounds are constant with what we’ve seen in Celestia.”

“You mean the Choggoth did this?”

“Yes, but we cannot be sure,” said the nurse. “All she ever talks about is her husband. Apparently, she…she killed him.”

“Killed him?”

“Yes,” said the doctor. “And she blames herself for Celestia’s death. Which is why she is chained with these,” he pointed at the chains. “The fourth set, actually. She keeps getting out of them and tearing open her wounds.”

“Why would she do that?”

“If you had killed your wife and Celestia, what would

“Yes, but we cannot be sure,” said the nurse. “All she ever talks about is her husband. Apparently, she…she killed him.”

“Killed him?”

“Yes,” said the doctor. “And she blames herself for Celestia’s death. Which is why she is chained with these,” he pointed at the chains. “The fourth set, actually. She keeps getting out of them and tearing open her wounds.”

“Why would she do that?”

“If you had killed your wife and Celestia, what would you be trying to do?”

Shining Armor only nodded. He looked down at the tall, cat like creature as the nurse used her magic to adjust her blankets, being careful to stay out of arms reach. Her situation was unfathomable to him, but something that he could imagine. It seemed that he had awoken from one nightmare world and entered into another.

As Shining Armor- -dazed, confused, and having a sour horn- -left the infirmiry, most ponies in Canterlot had gone to sleep. Outside Nightmare Moon’s castle, even the riots had slowed- -mostly because the ponies who had been perpetrating them were now either too cold or too afraid to stand against her, or because they had started directing their efforts against toward plotting her downfall. The only ones still awake were either the most dedicated of looters or the guards

Twilight and Cadence had spent several hours discussing plans for the kingdom with Nightmare Moon. Twilight, who had once wished for greater responsibilities in her capacity of Princess, now regretted her wish. The meeting had exhausted her, and she had been falling asleep as she left the meeting. Instead of returning to her dedicated room in the castle, however, she went to the tent camps in the castle courtyard that housed the blue-coated refugees that had been forced from their homes. In one of the more spacious tents- -one with an extra guard posted near it- -Twilight found her parents. Even as tired as she was, she stayed awake for hours with them. Seeing Celestia dying before her had made her realize how important those close to her really were, including her real mother and her father. Now, as the moon’s cryastalline light rapidly waned, she slept in their already cramped bed, lying between them as she had done when she was just a filly and had experienced a bad dream.

Higher in the castle, Cadence had retired to her assigned chambers. Her lieutenants had assured her that they could handle the security of the castle, and of Canterlot, and Nightmare Moon had suggested that she rest- -because she would be expected to be the royal officer during the orientation of the massive heavily armed griffon army that was already making its way toward Canterlot. She had removed her cold, heavy crystal armor, but she found that she could only sleep restlessly, if at all. The bed she had been given was far too big. All she wanted was her husband beside her, to know that he was safe, and for him to know that she was too.

Not far below her, Nightwatcher and Cavern Melody sat on a high balcony. They looked up and in awe at the beauty of the night that their queen had created. Neither of them had ever seen a night so beautiful, and both of them took it as an omen as they looked down at the tiny, blue-eyed foal held in Cavern Melody’s badly scarred forelegs.

Far beyond the castle, beyond even Nightwatcher and Cavern Melody’s vision, a figure crested a hill and saw the beauty of his ruler’s castle above him. His brown fur glistened in the moonlight, and from the blood seeking from the bound wound on his chest. His effort had reopened his wounds, and he needed to lean on wooden stick that he used as a walking staff. For just a moment, as he basked in its cold glow, he wondered if what the heretic Rainbow Priest had claimed was true: if the moon really was just the sun at night, and that the ahuizotl had been wrong to worship only one of its incarnations.

Even Twilight’s friends were resting, each in a different part of the castle. In one of the more luxurious rooms, Rarity tossed in her sleep. As much as she loved being permitted to stay in the castle, she had still gone to sleep crying. Her tension arose from a simple paradox: for the first time, she had been allowed to create a dress for royalty. It was supposed to be her greatest honor, and it had turned out beyond her wildest expectations: it perfectly captured the air of ancientness and ominousness that the new Nightmare Moon seemed to exude, like the uniform of some ancient priestess. At the same time, it produced an air perfect for a military leader, but was just impractacle enough to show that she was not really meant to fight. Rarity’s creation was subtle and bold at the same time- -but she had always dreamed that the dress she would make would be for Celestia, or for Luna. Instead she had been forced to make one for Nightmare Moon. She had gone to sleep lamenting about how unfair it had been.

In a nearby room, Rainbow Dash was snoring loudly. Instead of sleeping in her bed, however, she was on the floor, held to the ground by the weight of her improperly attached wing blades. She had spent several hours trying to affix them properly, only to find herself stuck on her back. Normally, for a pony as athletic as her, righting herself would be simple. With all the excitement of the day, however, she had missed her morning, midday, and afternoon naps. She had, consequently, grown extremely tired. In addition, she had spent much of the evening drinking with Soarin, a pony who, despite being a Wonderbolt, had been grounded indefinitely for his coat color. Soarin had spent most of his time crying into an apple pie, but Rainbow Dash thought that she had at least marginally been able to cheer him up- -and got to hang out with a real Wonderbolt in the process. So now, drunk, tired, and weight down with metal, she slept, kicking her feet in the air and smiling at times.

Farther down in the castle- -in its kitchen- -Pinkie Pie was lying beneath a table in a diabetic stupor. Hours earlier, she had been informed by the long-faced kitchen staff and chefs that, with Celetia in no fit state to eat them, her stock of exotic fresh-made desserts was going to spoil. Pinkie Pie had reacted as though such a thing would be the greatest travesty to befall Equestria ever. She had at first planned to distribute them, and perhaps hold an impromptu party, but she just could not think of anything to celebrate. She could hardly hold a “Welcome Back Nightmare Moon” party; the soldiers were all to busy; even the blue refugees in the courtyard, who seemed to need the most cheering up, did not seem to be in a fit state to party. So, Pinkie did what any sane lover of desserts would do- -she took it upon herself to save them all from spoilage by eating them all. Even then, she could only eat a quarter before passing out. Just before she went under, she decided that she would try to have a party- -when she finished digesting.

Outside, in the garden, Fluttershy was also sleeping. Unlike the others- -who were ambivalent toward the strange and perpetual night- -she was terrified of it. She was already afraid of her shadow, and now they were so much bigger and deeper. In addition, she was still traumatized by the thought of shadows that looked back. She had kept looking around, expecting to see a pair of eyes staring back at her and dim, ephemeral shadow-flesh sliding toward her soft and vulnerable body.

She was still afraid being outside, but she could not leave Canterlot’s animals alone. The night was frightening them far worse than it frightened her. They had once ignored her, but now they swarmed around her, seeking refuge from the cold and the dark and the sound of never-ending gunfire from beyond the castle walls. They had all gathered in a pile, and Fluttershy slept securely beneath them where the night could not get to her.

Even Spike was resting. For once, he had actually not wanted to go to bed. Even in his relative youth, he had a knack for organizing and logistics, and had spent the day as an invaluable member of the secretary squad that Cadence and Nightmare Moon used to coordinate troop motions in detail. In one day alone, he had learned just how difficult commanding an army truly was- -and learned that he was oddly good at it, even if he were only figuring out ways to execute orders from above. Nightmare Moon had initially frightened him, but unlike the others he had seen far more quickly that she was not a real threat.

He had then proceeded to tire himself out further by trying to practice one of the spells that Crimsonflame had taught him. He had started out by trying to cast a lightning spell, but he had to stop when one of the guards yelled at him about fire hazards. Forming electricity was difficult anyway. He had promptly switched to trying to burn a stick, and then to pull it back- -and to his surprise, after several attempts, he had pulled the twig back from a form of pure smoke. After that, he had collapsed into a deep sleep, the stick still in his tiny arms and a smile on his face.

The castle was empty and silent- -save for one set of footsteps. The guards had all been dispatched to the city, or to guarding distinct sections of the palace- -or had deserted entirely as soon as Nightmare Moon had taken the throne. Through the emptiness of the now largely abandoned castle walked a pony, at first meandering slowly but then moving toward one distinct location that she could somehow sense.

Applejack found herself walking higher into one of the empty towers. She pushed open a door and encountered an empty, unlit room on the other side. It was filled with deep, frozen shadows, save for an opening on the other side through which moonlight poured through. Standing in that light was a black silhouette with three horns- -something that hardly even looked like a pony.

“Unable to sleep, Applejack?” said Nightmare Moon as Applejack entered the room. She did not look away from the sky above.

“Ah see you can’t eether.”

“I don’t sleep,” she said. “I never have. It reminds me too much of death.”

Applejack approached her, tentatively at first, but eventually came into the light of the moon. She shivered at the cold, but seemed to ignore it. Instead, she stood beside Nightmare Moon and looked up at the sky. It was creepy and strange, but in its own way, profoundly intricate and beautiful.

“Admahrin’ your hoofwork?”

“Not mine,” said Nightmare Moon. “This was Luna’s work. Five thousand years of artistry and planning. I think this is what she meant by ‘Eternal Night’, but I cannot tell. It brings me no joy. Nothing in this world does.”

She looked down at Applejack, and Applejack looked up at her.

“I suppose you want me to apologize for what I did to you,” sighed Nightmare Moon.

“Well, it whas a violation of mah mind. Baht no. I wan’ to appolahgize to you.”

“Why?”

“Because ah was thinkin’ with mah hoofs and not mah head. I could have rheally hurt yah.”

“Actually, no. I am essentially indestructible.”

“Tha’s not the point. What if you weren’t? What if you were ah regular pony? Ah really could ‘a hurt yah. And, well…to be honest, it don’t sit rahght with me. Yah know, that ahm capable of that.”

“You were afraid,” said Nightmare Moon, “and rightly so. I capitalized on your lack of resolve. If you want to kill a pony, kill them. Do not hesitate. Do not regret. Just end them.”

“No,” said Applejack. “No. Ponies ahrn’t meant for tha’ sort ah thing.”

“I agree.”

“You what?”

“I expended a considerable effort to keep you all alive. Do you realize how powerful Luna truly is? I could have just killed you all.”

“Even Cadence?”

“Cadence is an alicorn, but she has only attained eighty five years. Yes. I could have killed her. But Luna views her as a kind of daughter, and all of you as friends. And I, personally, have seen enough death in my eternal existence.”

“You’re not exahctly a pony, are yah?”

Nightmare Moon looked down at the tiny earth pony beside her. “No,” she said. “I am not. Will that be a problem?”

“No,” said Applejack, looking down at the city below them. “Ah have friends who ain’t ponies. But…what exahctly ahre you, then?”

“You may think of me like a parasite. Or think of me as the stronger half of a being that contains me and Luna. It does not really matter.”

“Oh.”

They stood in silence for a moment. Nightmare Moon looked out at the city below her, as Applejack did. She remembered that, at one time, she had wanted to rule that land. Now, though, she could not remember why.

“Ah heard tha’ you brought some ponies back from the dead,” said Applejack after several minutes, still staring out at the city. Her expression was stony and cold.

“I did,” said Nightmare Moon. She did not need to read Applejack’s mind to know what where the conversation was going. She searched Luna’s memories. “Does this concern your parents?”

“It does,” said Applejack, taking off her hat. “Bah Celestia…I miss them. Evereh day. It’s evehn worse for mah brother…and little Applebloom never evehn knew them.”

“I cannot bring them back, Applejack.”

“Please,” she said. She looked up to Nightmare Moon, refusing to cry. “Ah don’t care if you have ‘tah take me tah do it. Please.”

“No.”

“But you brought back thah others…”

“Taking too many souls back from the other side is already dangerous. But it is not just that. A full resurrection spell needs a fresh body. Your parents have been gone for how long? Eight, ten years? Even Oblivion could not pull them back from that far.”

“Cahn you at least trah?”

“I would not be capable of trying. I could only succeed. Corpses that old come back even easier than fresh ones- -but what comes back is not a pony.” Her mind momentarily brought up an image of a scarred chiropteran, and she was aware of what neither Luna nor Cavern Melody knew. “In almost all cases they are nothing but a shell. Or, worse, if one like Oblivion attempts it, just enough comes back to comprehend what they have become.”

“I’ve seen the things he’s got down there.”

“The bodies? No. Those are just incarnations of him clinging to dead skeletons.” Nightmare Moon turned toward Applejack, and her teal eyes met Applejack’s green. “Listen to me, child, and listen closely. Let those whose path has ended lie. Let your life move on, and hold them in your memory and in your heart.”

“Is that youre wisdom as a necromancer?”

“No. In ‘life’ I surrounded myself with the dead, and only the dead…but you are not me. That advice came from Luna.”

“Then you yahself can’t understand, can yah?”

Nightmare Moon sighed. “Applejack, do you have a daughter?”

Applejack blinked and stepped back. “No,” she said, perhaps too vehemently. “Wait…does Luna?”

“Luna is a sterile prude. No. But I have. Thousands, of which Luna is the latest. Every one of them I have watched die. Perhaps I have come to understand…somewhat, at least. But that is the curse of immortality.”

“Ah don’t think ah could take it,” mused Applejack. “Losin’ them was bad enough…but losing everehpony else…”

“Then you need to be strong.”

“Whah?” She looked up at Nightmare Moon.

“Because two of your friends are destined to that fate. Of the six of you, I know the exact order that you will all die in.”

“Which am ah?” asked Applejack, immediately regretting it.

“You will appear to be second, but truly you will be the first,” said Nightmare Moon, without hesitation.

“Oh,” said Applejack, looking somewhat crushed. “How…how long have ah got?”

“That depends on the approaching event.”

“Event?”

“Something is coming. I can feel it. Soon. Depending on how I…how we…handle it, your path could end very soon.”

As she spoke, the door opened. A white unicorn entered the room.

“Nightmare Moon?” said Shining Armor, calling into the darkness. Nightmare Moon and Applejack turned toward him.

“Yes?” said Nightmare Moon. Shining Armor looked somewhat disheveled and smelled like sweat.

“I had…a dream…”

“I am not your mother, Shining Armor. If you had a bad dream, deal with it yourself.”

“No. It wasn’t a normal dream,” he said, shaking his head.

“Allow me to guess. A dark place, and a yellow-coated pony with red eyes.”

“How…was that you?”

“Of course not you fool. Come closer.”

Shining Armor obeyed, and Nightmare Moon crossed the darkened room. When they were within range, Nightmare Moon lowered her horn and touched the tip to Shining Armor’s. He shivered and moaned slightly as Nightmare Moon extracted the data that had been stored on him.

“Excellent,” she said, separating from him. “These terms are acceptable. And he is sending the Carcosan survivor…at least even he is not insane enough to send the Beast of Exmoor…”

“Ah don’t understand,” said Applejack. “Whah’s going on here, and should ah be watching?”

“Shining Armor is a mule,” said Nightmare Moon.

“Excuse me?” said Shining Armor, suddenly extremely insulted.

“Not literally,” said Nightmare Moon. “You were packaged with data from the other side meant for me. Odd that he chose you, though, instead of the normal channels…”

“Wait…are we talking about the same pony?” he asked, confused.

“He is not a pony. But he…or she, actually, would have appeared as a yellow pony with red eyes. Is that what you saw?”

“Yeah,” said Shining Armor. “Except she was a mare and she did…well, she tried to do…really bad things to me.”

Nightmare Moon had been crossing the room, but suddenly stopped. Her eyes narrowed. “You mean he actually interacted with you?”

“She stuck her tongue down my throat!”

“Ah know how thaht feels,” muttered Applejack.

“That is very, very disconcerting,” sand Nightmare Moon. “If Satin Veil has shown an interest in you, you need to be extremely careful.”

“Satin…wait! That thing was SATIN?”

“Of course it was. Of course…a white unicorn. The last on he showed interest in was Celestia. My advice: do not believe a thing it said, or a thing it showed you. Actually…” She re-crossed the room and stood over Shining Armor. “Do not move…”

Her eyes suddenly narrowed, her pupils nearly vanishing. The room seemed to bristly with magic, to the point that even Applejack’s hair stood on end.

“And the two siblings of the same father shall stand beside the false-god, the child of Order. The father chooses the path: that of the second son or that of the first, of life and death, a curse of the Heart.” She spoke quickly, her voice sounding different. Applejack shuddered; she realized deep within herself that she was seeing something she was not meant to. Then Nightmare Moon suddenly returned to her normal state. “What did I just say?”

“Somethin’ about sons and a father choosin’ paths,” said Applejack.

“Then your path is still unclear. When the time comes, choose carefully.” She paused. “Also, without your seals, I can see the contents of your mind. As such, recall that you are married to Luna’s niece.”

“What was he thinkin?” asked Applejack.

“He has a fetish for alicorns…well, actually, anything with wings and a horn.”

“Excuse me,” said Shining Armor. “My personal fantasies are private. I love Cadence with all my heart- -I would even if she didn’t have wings or a horn!”

“I know,” said Nightmare Moon. “You just need to be- -”

She was interrupted with a distant scream- -one of tremendous volume from somewhere far deeper in the palace. Both Applejack and Shining Armor jumped, because both of them knew that it was not the scream of a pony. No pony- -no living thing- -could make a scream like that.

“Ah,” said Nightmare Moon. “That was faster than expected.”

The hall was filled with screams of agony and rage as Nightmare Moon slowly approached. She was taking her time, aware of the pain that her prey was experiencing but incapable of understanding it herself. Other ponies seemed to have been awakened by the sound as well and drawn to it. Nightmare Moon, Applejack, and Shining Armor were joined by Spike and Rarity, as well as a group of chiropteran guards who had seemed to materialize from the shadows to surround their queen.

More guards had already assembled around a wide section of in the castle basement, lit only by flickering flames from their torches and the conservatively spaced sconces on the walls. Few of them were chiropterans, and they seemed to be terrified by what Nightmare Moon had caught.

There, in the center, was a writing mass of shapeshifting blue tissue, screaming from auditory organs that formed and decayed rapidly as it struggled. Its form was shifting rapidly, continually expanding and stretching into new organs and appendages in a blind panic. For every arm or claw or tail or spine it formed, however, the black, starry cloud that surrounded it changed as well, modifying itself as fast as the Choggoth could, shifting just as it did. No form it could generate could allow it to escape or even extend beyond the cloud for long.

“So,” said Nightmare Moon, stepping past the guards. All the others were reacting in horror at what they were seeing- -especially Rarity, who was holding Spike tightly- -but Nightmare Moon only smiled. “You have afrived, Choggoth Oblivion.”

“What have you done to me?” demanded what seemed like hundreds of voices from within the Choggoth.

“You cannot escape it,” laughed Nightmare Moon, frightening those around her even more. For once, she saw the humor- -and swelled with pride at Luna’s ingenuity. “It is a synthetic specter, forged from Chaos and powered by guilt. And nopony has more guilt than you.”

“It hurts!” cried the Choggoth. “Make it stop!”

“Remembering them?” said Nightmare Moon, looking into the scattered remnants of Oblivion’s mind. “Two races, rendered extinct by your spell. Every trihorn, every Draconian. Males, females, children? You crushed them all without hesitation, just as you crushed six worlds prior.”

“I had to!” it screamed.

“But it still hurts, doesn’t it? And to know that it was all for nothing?” She paused. “Oh…but it is not just that, is it? The guilt you feel for what you did to this world is only a portion. You hate yourself for betraying your creators as well, and your own kind! You despise them more than anything, and yet you despise yourself for turning against them!” She laughed softly. “Luna intended this device to punish herself…but the punishment that it is inflicting on you is far, far worse.”

The Choggoth shifted, widening. In its center, within the perimeter of the snaking coils of semi-sentient black smoke, a vertical groove formed. Then an eye as large as a pony with a pupil of two triangles snapped open. The ponies around jumped back, and Rarity cried out in fear.

“I know you,” said the Choggoth. “That voice…you are Blackest Night.”

“I never thought I would hear that name cross the lips of anypony except save my own.”

Oblivion seemed to ignore the pain around him. “How did you survive?”

“Your spell destroyed my body…but I wasn’t even really a trihorn anymore at that point. I survived. Now I live within Luna. Know this, Choggoth Oblivion. This body is protected. You shall not harm her!”

Oblivion’s eye suddenly split, forming a many-toothed mouth within its center. A long, blue tongue flicked out toward Nightmare Moon. She raised a magic shield, but Tantabus was faster. A tendril stretched out and severed the tongue, vaporizing it with Chaos as Oblivion screamed in pain. As Oblivion’s tentacle faded, something unaffected by Tantabus dropped out and clinked on the floor.

The darkness that covered Nightmare Moon’s body tightened and reinforced her. She was fully expecting a grenade- -but instead, a small, perfect crystal dropped to the floor.

“What is this?”

Oblivion’s shifting slowed, and he condensed into a solid blue sphere. That would protect him from the physical damage caused by Tantabus, but Nightmare Moon still knew that his mind was being torn apart by being forced to face over and over again what he had done to the world, and to the six worlds before Equestria, and to all those who he had been forced to hurt. She was astounded that he had not simply dissipated his satellite body. It almost seemed as though he was waiting for something.

The crystal on the floor seemed to respond to being expelled by him, and suddenly started rolling across the stone blocks below. The ponies all jumped back, as if it were some kind of great threat. It did not attack, however. It only moved, clinking as it rolled directly to where Rarity and Applejack were standing.

As it neared them, it suddenly rose into the air and floated near them.

“Open it,” said Oblivion from within his spherical form. “It is meant for you.”

“Don’t touch it!” cried Nightmare Moon.

It was too late, though. As if by instinct, Rarity ignited her horn and directed a tiny beam of magic into the crystal. It reacted violently and spun suddenly, glowing from within and filling the room with light.

Nightmare Moon felt something pulling at her very soul- -as if it were trying to pull Luna out of her, and force her back into the depths of Luna’s mind. She resisted, however, but still watched as Luna’s Tantabus was struck by a beam of Order from the crystal, causing it cry out and be driven back.

As Oblivion produced legs and stood, the light in the room condensed into shapes. Although the format was strange and obtuse, Nightmare Moon recognized it as a schematic.

“Conditions have changed,” said Oblivion. “There is no longer any point in eliminating Luna.” He extended one of his heavily armored two-fingered hands, and the crystal drifted away from Rarity and Applejack. The image changed around them. In its new form, Nightmare Moon immediately recognized it.

“Where did you get this?” she demanded. “You could not have created that crystal…”

“Do you remember,” said Oblivion, “when I was asked what my motivations were, and where they came from?”

“I do.”

“I believe I may have found the source. They don’t exist linearly in time, you know. The past and future are all the same to them, and we are their anchors to the present. I can only imagine that I was hers…”

“You are not making sense.”

“This crystal was given to me by a Lord of Order. A new kind, with a new vision. My creator, and my daughter, my leader but not my master. How could a pony understand what we are to each other?”

“A Lord of Order cannot exist in Equestria,” said Nightmare Moon. “You told me so yourself.”

“And I was wrong. You have already met her. You wielded three of her Elements. Those two,” he looked to Rarity and Applejack, who were staring in awe and fear at the conversation before them. “They wield them now.”

“You’re talkin’ about the Tree ah’ Harmony,” whispered Applejack.

“New methods. New ideas. But she is not alone. Look.”

Nightmare Moon looked down at the schematic of the Finality Core. Much of it, as it had been in the past, was far beyond her, but as before she understood enough.

“The Finality Core was already activated for a second time,” said Oblivion. “When Celestia used it, it was engaged, just as it was in our time.”

“If that were true, none of us would have survived. I was there. There was no Lord of Order.”

“But look at these readings.”

Nightmare Moon did, and realized that these were not simple schematics- -she was seeing a diagram of the Finality Core in real time- -complete with Celestia’s modifications, as well as a number from an unknown source. Indeed, Oblivion was correct- -hiding in the center, amongst the spells and the natural energy of Equestria, was a well-disguised source of Order. In this diagram, it was possible to see that it was incredibly intense, pouring out trillions of times the Order that Oblivion himself contained.

“What is it?”

“I have no idea. Nor does she. I have never seen anything like it. It does, however, have several similarities to a living Lord of Order.”

“That is impossible. After what we did…”

“It has been repaired. It is returning.”

“How long do we have?”

“I do not know.” The image shifted, showing a time lapse from several weeks in the past. “The magic that caused me to awaken seems to have caused it to react as well. It is growing.”

“This is the event…” whispered Nightmare Moon. She turned to Oblivion. “Can you stop it?”

“At this point, it is no longer using power form the sun or moon. I cannot shut it down by destroying the Spheres. However, this is the first time I have ever encountered a complete diagram of a Finality Core.”

“You mean even you don’t know how it works?”

“No Choggoth does. We did not invent them. We only build them. But with this crystal, I may be able to shut it down from within.” He clicked his two fingers against the crystal, and the image around it collapsed. Only then did the guards seem to realize that Oblivion had broken free of Tantabus, and was standing before them unguarded.

They immediately swarmed him, surrounding him and drawing whatever weapons they had.

“Don’t bother,” said Nightmare Moon. “There is nothing you could do to stop him anyway.”

“Wait,” said Shining Armor, stepping forward. “You can’t be serious. Do you actually trust this thing?!”

“No more than I trust anypony. But he is clearly our ally.”

“After he destroyed most of Equestria?! Or did you forget about the race war, the burning cities, the fragmented government, and oh wait- -the attempted assassination of Celestia?”

“I acted under the assumption that your military was actively attempting to prevent me from reaching my goal. The conflict you are experiencing was never my intention, at least beyond distracting your military.”

“Goal? What goal is that?”

“To protect Equestria,” said a voice behind him. They all turned- -save for Nightmare Moon and Oblivion, both of whom had already detected Twilight’s presence at the edge of the room. She emerged from the shadows into the flickering light. “That’s all you ever wanted, wasn’t it? To stop the Lords of Order?”

“It is the only reason for my existence.” Oblivion looked down at the winged purple pony that now stood beside her sibling. “You fool. You used the cube.”

“I did. I saw everything. You died to save us.”

“I cannot die, as I am not alive. I did, however, kill to save you.”

“And that is something your corrupted mind can never forget,” said Nightmare Moon.

“Not until I destroy the mind within this body, which I cannot do until my task is complete.”

“Put him in chains,” said Shining Armor. The guards approached Oblivion in a circle, but he simply stepped past them, his body liquefying and causing them to pass through them as if he were a ghost. The process was apparently unpleasant for the ponies involved, seeing as they were momentarily drenched in Choggoth.

“Tiny unicorn stallion,” said Oblivion, staring down at Shining Armor. “Would you stand in my way?”

“If you’re threatening Equestria, of course I will.”

“This is good. Bit I cannot undo what I have done. It is not within my power.” He directed his attention toward Twilight. “Do you hate me, Twilight Sparkle?”

“I can’t hate you,” said Twilight, “but…I can’t forgive you either. Not after what you did to Celestia. I know why you had to do it, but you should have found another way.”

“The only way to accomplish any task is through destruction of the opposition. There is no alternative.”

“Oblivion,” said Nightmare Moon. “I can handle the situation in Equestria. Concern yourself only with stopping the Finality Core.”

“My name is D27,” said D27. “Call me by my name.”

“Only if you call me by mine.”

“As you wish, Blackest. There is a problem impeding my goal.”

“What?”

“I cannot find the Finality Core.”

“You lost it?” said Twilight. “Wait. How did you lose it? The thing is huge…and you were there.”

“I know where it is,” said D27. “But I cannot reach that location. I have tried.”

“Celestia no doubt obscured it,” said Blackest Night. “Not only that. I am sure that wherever that location is, it is filled completely with traps and protections of every kind.”

“Then I will walk through them.”

“Even you do not have the mass to survive that. Even if you could find the Core, you would never reach it.”

“Do you have a solution?”

“Of course.”

“How?”

“I will discuss it with you when the time comes. My plan is contingent on knowing the location of the Core. This, even Luna does not know.”

“I think I can find it,” said Twilight.

Chapter 43: The Siege of Ponyville

Beneath the frigid moon, a pony ran through the deep shadows that covered Ponyville. She was panting and out of breath- -the only thing that kept her moving was adrenaline. All of the ponies had heard Nightmare Moon, and even though many did not believe it. Regardless, the military had pulled out of Ponyville, redirecting their efforts to defend the kingdom in Celestia’s absence.

That in itself was not a problem- -the problem was that without protection, wandering bands of vigilantes had found their way into the peaceful town with the intent of “defending” Princess Twilight and the Castle of Friendship. Now a group of these ponies pursued Lyra through the streets, their torches spreading threatening light and their weapons glinting ominously.

“Please!” she cried. “I’m not even Blue!” She had always thought of herself as a pale green- -but the mob did not see it that way.

“Hey!” called a tiny voice between two buildings. “This way!”

Lyra paused, her feet moving anxioiusly; she did not know if she should follow the strange voice, but she did know that the crowd was gathering, cutting off the exit she had intended.

“There she is!” called a pony. Lyra decided to follow the voice. As she ran, she heard a sound that was vaguely reminiscent of a tiny engine- -and saw that the pony she was following was riding a scooter.

“Come on,” called Scootaloo. She had a large bag on her back which seemed to be filled with, of all things, rock salt. “We have to get to Sweet Apple Acres!”

Lyra followed Scootaloo as fast as she could; even running, she could hardly keep up with the scooter. The crowd behind them seemed to realize what was going on, and they began moving amongst the buildings.

“Is it…safe there?” panted Lyra.

“Yes,” said Scootaloo. “Big Mac and Still There are holding them off for now. There’s more of us there but we need- -”

Both of them were suddenly knocked to the ground as a building exploded in a blast of blue magic tinged with sickly red. Scootaloo was thrown from her scooter and her rock salt- -meant for Still There’s shotgun- -scattered along the ground. She was momentarily dazed, but could see the reflective eyes and glowing armor of the three unicorns that were approaching.

“Pretty filly,” said the leader of the three, his eyes facing different directions and his mouth twisted into a wide grin. “Pretty filly pretty wings want pretty filly…”

“I want the Blue’s horn,” said another, a mare. The third only gurgled and then collapsed. His comrades walked over him without seeming to notice.

“Lyra!” cried Scootaloo. “Run!”

“But- -” Lyra looked to her side as the crowd of normal ponies began to close in. She saw her exit closing. “I’m sorry, Scootaloo!”

She ran, tears in her eyes, making her way through the last gap in the closing crowd, even as they reached out to grab her. Scootaloo stood as well. Sher scooter had been too damaged to use, so she had to run- -but she was just a filly and had tiny legs.

The exit that Lyra had gone through was rapidly closed, and the crowd tightened around Scootaloo.

“Buck,” she said. “Buck buck buck…” Her only option was to fly. She vibrated her tiny wings and tried to jump, but the most she could do was hover for a moment. “Come on wings! If there was any a time to learn to fly it would be now!”

“She can’t fly!” said one of the ponies in the crowd. “She must be a Choggoth!”

“Buck you!” yelled Scootaloo defiantly.

“She’s not a Blue,” said another pony.

“No,” said a smaller voice, and Diamond Tiara stepped forward at the foot of her father. “But she always hangs out with Rainbow Dash, and she’s a Blue! And if she hangs out with a bad pony, then she is a bad pony!”

“Blue lover!” cried one of the ponies in the crowd. Scootaloo cried out as a small rock impacted her head. More fell on her, most of them small but some surprisingly large.

“We don’t want a Blue lover in Ponyville!”

“Filly filly filly filly filly tiny tiny wings…”

Scootalloo felt hoofs reaching out toward her, and she bit on of them. Then she saw their weapons rising above her, and then falling.

Scootaloo closed her eyes, but found that the impacts against her body from garden tools and pieces of pipe were oddly none painful. She opened her eyes and realized that she was being throttled with pool noodles.

Even more confusing was that the bloodthirsty crowd did not seem to notice that their weapons had been exchanged with lengths of Styrofoam.

“Well,” said a voice from above her. “I suppose this is what they mean by a thousand smacks with a wet noodle.”

Scootaloo looked upward and saw an inertube floating by overhead. In the center of it, complete with board sorts and sunglasses, basking in the frozen moonlight, was Discord. He produced a fishing pole, and lowered the end of it into the crowd, drawing out Scootaloo by the strap on her saddlebags. He looked over his glasses at her.

“Oh dear…I do believe you are far too small of a catch.” He produced a ruler and measured her. “Oh yes, definitely. By you are just so adorable. I know I’m not supposed to interfere or anything, but, come on…you’re Scootaloo.”

He snapped his fingers, and Scootaloo vanished. She had been sent back to Sweet Apple Acres- -or to YakYakistan. It was about a twenty-thirty shot either way.

Below him, the ponies seemed to realize that their weapons had been replaced with foam noodles.

“Hey!” cried an orange-maned mare. “I needed that hoe for my garden!”

“Well then you shouldn’t have used your tools for evil,” said Discord, turning over on his foating pool toy and looking down at them. He turned his attention toward the three armored unicorns- -two of them still standing, and one being stood upon by several other ponies as he gurgled quietly. “That goes triply for you three. So…”

He held out his hand, and their horns dropped into it. He smiled, and then brushed back his own horn and placed their three horns on his head. He crossed his eyes outward and made a hyperbolically serious face. “Look at me,” he said, forcing his voice to become deep and frog-like. “I’m Arcane Domination. I drink blood. I do inappropriate things with gray mares. I’m such a villain.”

“Hey, give us those back!” said the lead unicorn, not noticing that without his horn and magic his addiction and madness had vanished.

“Mine now,” said Discord, restoring his normal horns to normal. The pool-accessories around him, including the pool noodles that the ponies below had, disappeared- -except for one, which turned into a large snake and promptly carried off the pony who had been holding it. “Oops,” said Discord. “Well. Anyway, just be glad I only took the horns on your head. Also,” he parted the crowd and pointed down at Diamond Tiara. “Since when do you let children into a lynch mob?” He sighed. “This simply won’t do.”

He contemplated for a moment what he would do to them. Perhaps he could invert gravity, or turn the ground beneath them to pudding- -or turn them all into hairless donkeys.

Before he could decide, however, the ground around him was wracked with a massive and sudden earthquake. Discord, of course, was unaffected, as he was floating; the ponies around him, however, wobbled comically. Some even fell over.

Around them, large images suddenly appeared on the ground, the lines of which rapidly condensed into broad pentagrams. The lines of each of the pentagrams burned and hissed, and then the ground below them fell into the tunnel-like pits that led to the other side.

The ponies screamed in confusion, but Discord only watched, munching on a bucket of popcorn, so proud of himself for not interfering, as several pairs of cloven hoofs appeared from the glowing pits as the demons pulled themselves into Equestria.

Several demon ponies emerged from each of the pentagrams, as well as several flying creatures that looked like crosses between potatoes and hummingbirds. The flying creatures picked up several ponies in their grasp and pulled them screaming down to Tartarus.

“Satin bless it,” said one of the demons, his tremendous form looming over the shaking ponies below him. “Well, we’ll get them out later.” He looked up, and his eyes widened. A broad smile crossed his face, which caused several ponies below to faint.

“Discord, is that you?” he said.

“Spiny?” said Discord, blinking. “Spiny Violation?”

“I haven’t seen you since Satinmass feast…how long ago was it?”

“Several centuries, now, I think,” said Discord. “Was that the one where I…”

“Where you brought the roast beast back to life and we had to catch it? Oh, good times…hey, I’ll catch up in a bit. On the clock and all.”

“Go ahead.”

Spiny Violation turned his attention toward the ponies below him.

“Hi everypony,” he said. “My name is Spiny Violation. I’m the area coordinator for this demonic invasion. Firstly, let me state that this area is now under the command of Nightmare Moon, who we work for by contract. She has told us to ‘try’ not to harm any of you…but our boss says that we can claim as many evil souls as we want. More importantly, our currency is blood. We literally get paid to beat you if you try to resist.”

Another demon took his place next to Spiny- -a taller, more narrow stallion with a striking leopard-like pattern of dark-red spots on his orange demon body. His cutie mark was a cheese grater.

“Now, if you have any questions or what to try to put up a fight, Knobstripper here will be more than happy to help.”

“Hello,” said Knobstripper. He smiled broadly, leering at the nearest of the ponies greedily. “I really, really hope you resist. Now walk.”

“So,” said Discord. “Leading an invasion now, I see?”

“Ehh, no,” said Spiny, smiling. He and Discord were walking through the perimeter of Ponyville as the other demons there herded the tiny, terrified ponies back to their homes. A few had tried to resist, but quickly realized that demons were resistant to any sort of physical damage. The demons effected generally did not even bother retaliating, except perhaps to kick the attacking ponies or break their limbs. “Lord Satin asked for volunteers for an overtime project, and I signed up straight away.”

“How many of you are there joining our little swaré?”

“Oh, we’ve got thousands. We’re all over Equestria by now.”

“Hey!” called a voice from behind them. “We’ve got a flyer!”

A Pegasus flew overhead, fleeing as fast as she could from demons below.

“Discord, do you mind?”

“Not at all.” He snapped his fingers, and a weight appeared attached to the pony. She flapped as hard as she could, but was dragged back to the earth below.

“Thank you kindly,” said another one of the demons as he picked up the pony in his teeth and carried her off screaming.

“Thanks a lot,” said Spiny. “Hey, why haven’t I seen you in Tartarus recently?”

“Because I was…well, turned to stone by Luna and Celestia. That, and I’m just a little bit sure that Satin banned me.”

“Banned from Tartarus?” Spiny laughed deeply, his voice booming over the land.

“Oh, yes. There was a ban-hammer involved and everything.”

Spiny looked around at the trees, slightly disgusted by their appearance. “Hey, doesn’t Zecora live around here?”

“You know her?”

“Oh yeah. Her great great grandmother was a bridesmaid at my wedding. We still keep in contact a little bit.”

“Wow. You are old.”

“Don’t remind me. But you’re not exactly young either.”

They both laughed.

“Spiny,” said Discord, pouring himself a glass of moonshine from the moon’s shine, “what exactly did Nightmare Moon trade to get you guys here? I mean, the overtime pay and all must be a terrible inconvenience for good old Satin.”

“Permanent military installations,” said Spiny. “Equestria is going to have its first standing demon population. Well, aside from those cute little half-breed bats. I was actually thinking of sending some of my daughters to school here.” His attention suddenly turned to a wide-bodied demon standing at the edge of a fenced in pen, kneeling and kissing the hoof of a heavily blushing and giggling cow. “Byron!” cried Spiny. “Come on! Be professional!”

“Easy for you to say,” said Byron, standing and winking at the cow. “You’re already married. Why did nopony ever tell me that Equestria had such stately and well-formed denizens?”

“Because we all knew that this is what you’d do. Come on…Discord, I’ll talk to you later. There’s a lot of work to do.”

“Yes, creating Tartarus on Equestria. You have fun! Toodles!”

As he watched Spiny and his associate walk off- -with Byron getting slapped in the back of the head at one point- -and saw the cow that Byron had been flirting with turn to her own associates and squeal like a filly- -or a calf, as the case was. Discord immediately became more serious.

“I didn’t know you cavorted with demons,” said Buttery Snake, who had been walking on the other side of Spiny Violation.

“What?” said Discord, turning over suddenly. “Where did- -okay, now you’re starting to freak out even me. And I cavort with a lot of things that I don’t tell you about.”

“I want to cavort.”

“When you’re older. Wait…weren’t you supposed to be playing soldier for miss Moon?”

“I am. This is actually me from two weeks in the future.”

Discord did not know whether to believe the green pony or not.

“I thought you weren’t supposed to be interfering.”

“Me? Interfering? Perish the thought!” he leaned in closer to Buttery Snake. “No, seriously, perish it.”

“Thought perished,” said Buttery Snake, his eyes drifting apart into a wide derp.

“Not all of it!”

“Oh,” said Buttery Snake, his eyes returning to normal.

“And I’m not interfering. Rainbow Dash is simply my friend…somewhat.” He leaned closer and whispered. “Actually, I find her personality grating and unpleasant.” He leaned back into the air. “But what kind of friend would I be if I let her little sister…or whatever she is…get brutally moitled?

“An incompetent one?”

“The question was rhetorical,” said Discord, frowning. “The point is, I would be derelict in my duties as a friend if I let their families get hurt.”

“I once lived in a derelict.”

“No you didn’t.” Discord waved away the Chaos pony. “But I’m fine now. Just go back home before the real fun starts.”

“No way. I’m going to go further back and stand in the crowd when Celestia offs those burrowing Pegasi.”

“Fine.” Discord stretched. “I think I need a nap. Then I do believe I will put some blue die into the water supply. That should be fun!”

Buttery Snake was already gone. Discord looked around, but did not see him anywhere. By this point, he was wondering if Buttery Snake had become an extension of his own mind- -which would imply that he was crazier than he had thought he already was- -or at least, less sane.

Discord sighed, and allowed himself to float upward in defiance of gravity. The situation had decayed rapidly, to the point where it was simply no fun. Chaos was one thing, but this sort was brutal and annoying.

He looked toward Canterlot in the distance. Even he could detect that something bad was coming. The amount of Order in the air was already increasing, electrifying it with the stench of boredom. It was only a matter of time now before the paths started to cross.

There were more pressing concerns, though. In the distance, he could already feel surges of corrupted yellow Chaos pouring through the world that meant that his rival- -the only being ever to be committed to Tartarus voluntarily- -had joined the fight. Not to mention that a group of heavily armed former soldiers were starting to surround Sweet Apple Acres.

Discord sighed and reached into one of the nearby clouds and withdrew an object of indescribable shape and indefinite purpose.

“I do suppose my nap can wait,” he said as he brandished the device and slowly fell back toward Equestria.