Mass Core 2: Crimson Horizon

The air rushed away from Starlight’s presence with a loud pop, and she materialized in the halls of the Crimson Horizon. What first struck her was the air. It was warm and humid, with a strange sour smell that made it only marginally breathable. The second thing she realized was how dark it was. The convoluted, organic-looking walls had no lights, but instead glowed with the dim light from their magic distribution channels.

Starlight looked over her shoulder through a window forged from pure diamond. Outside, she could see the edges of the shell that surrounded the Crimson Horizon and, through a gap in them, the Earth below. Much of the largest northern continent had been pulled from the planet, upended by Sunset Shimmer’s biotic power. In the depths, Starlight watched in a mixture of awe and horror as something ignited with blue light the size of a country.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” said a voice. Starlight turned suddenly to see a tall woman with sickly yellow skin and orange and red hair standing not far from her. She looked just like she had in Starlight’s dream, except that in the place of her robes she wore a complex metal suit that was integrated with her Core implants.

“The planet can’t sustain something like that. It will tear itself apart.”

“And nothing of value will be lost.”

Starlight looked down again, and saw a number of lights pierce through the clouds. Thousands of rockets were pouring into the atmosphere from every landmass. Some appeared to reach the upper atmosphere, but those approaching near the Crimson Horizon were not so lucky. They were either shattered in the chaotic debris field between the ship and the planet or sucked back into the exponentially propagating singularity below.

“A lot of people are going to die because of you,” said Starlight.

“No. By my definitions, there is no sentient life on that planet.”

“Then you are either wrong or insane.”

“Am I really?”

“What even are you?” asked Starlight, slowly taking account of the room around her. It was a relatively large room, with her and Sunset apparently standing on platform. The size was certainly tolerable, but the absolute lack of cover was not. “You’re not a pony.”

“I am a Core. Just as you are.”

“Equestria doesn’t make Cores out of humans.”

“Because Equestria didn’t make me.”

“Then who did?”

“I DID. From the ashes of my pony self. From the fragments of my dying ship. From my weakness, I created strength. And from the look of the sheer amount of alien technology in your body, it looks like you have been trying to do the same.”

“That does bring up the question, doesn’t it?” said Starlight, bracing herself. “You’re this ship’s Core. Without all that steel and all those heavy guns, which one of us do you think is stronger?”

Sunset Shimmer smiled. “You’re actually intending to fight me, aren’t you?”

“You just blew a hole in my best friend’s homeworld and attacked the Crystal Empire, which I’m actually kind of fond of. So, yeah. I’m going to end this here. You’re going to die.”

Before Sunset Shimmer could react, Starlight jumped to the side, firing a beam from her horn. Sunset reacted by nonchalantly raising one of her hands, producing a solid shield of orange biotic energy that easily deflected the beam- -only for her to turn much more quickly as she was forced to block twelve simultaneous biotic bolts flying in from all angles.

Starlight watched her react, and saw the events unfolding in slow-motion as the implants in her brain compensated for the speed of the battle and redirected her core biotic energy into the numerous amplifiers implanted within her bones and brain. Her tech implants ran several calculations, and she watches as Sunset Shimmer slowly moved into her predicted least balanced position. That was when Starlight unleashed a shockwave that would have made Jack proud.

Sunset, however, was not as weak as her frail and sickly body made her seem. She effortlessly moved from blocking the bolt impact to projecting her own field, a v-shaped surge that slammed directly into Starlight’s shockwave, deflecting it and forcing Starlight to dodge.

“Are you really fighting for that planet, Starlight Glimmer?” said Sunset, calmly returning to a standing position and deflecting another beam from Starlight’s horn. “Are you actually fighting to protect anypony? Anyone at all? Or are you fighting to become me?”

Sunset raised her hand and space distorted as she fired her own attack. Starlight generated a simultaneous defense matrix and biotic shield, but both were shattered by only a glancing blow from the attack. For the first time, Starlight actually felt afraid. Sunset had barely been trying, but a direct impact from a blast like that would be lethal.

By showing her power, though, Sunset had also shown her weakness. Starlight was maintaining an active close-range scan, and a quick analysis of the data that she was recording indicated that Sunset’s armor charged with a massive subspace field just before firing.

Starlight smiled. “Yeah,” she said. “You’ve got me.”

“Then why are we fighting? I called you here for a reason, Starlight. I don’t want to fight you.”

“Too bad,” said Starlight, emerging from a sudden teleport in the air directly behind Sunset and kicking her squarely in the back of the head. Sunset turned, confused by Starlight’s sudden tactic, only to be attacked from behind again by a small horde of combat drones.

She screamed in rage and fired a burst of energy into the drones, destroying several while the others dodged. “What magic is this?” she cried.

“Not magic,” said Starlight. “Technology.” She jumped backward, lifting her front hooves and projecting symmetric omnitools. With one, she fired a cryo blast, freezing one of Sunset’s arms solid. With the other, she engaged the calculations for a tactical cloak.

Sunset Shimmer clawed at her frozen arm, now highly annoyed. “Do you really think I can’t see you, Starlight?” She raised her arm and fired a concentrated beam. It tore through the air, shattering the tactical field- -of a tech decoy Starlight.

“Nope,” said Starlight, appearing in her real location, once again behind Sunset. She pointed a hoof at the junction between Sunset’s containment suit and her Core implants and engaged a tech overload algorithm. The orange beam struck directly on target, and Sunset screamed as her suit sparked and began to lose power.

“No!” she cried. “Why would you- -”

Starlight barely gave her a chance to turn around, let alone to continue her useless conversation. With the suit damaged, Sunset Shimmer’s overall power output was dropping precipitously. With this in mind, Starlight summoned as much power as she could, her body momentarily bursting forth with tech and biotic components that were normally part of her ship. Then she fired.

Sunset tried to raise a shield, but in her weakened state the barrier she produced barely lasted a fraction of a second. Starlight’s beam hit her with enough force to take down a starship, and the resulting interaction between their two energies produced a flare that momentarily saturated the photoreceptors in Starlight’s artificial eyes, blinding her.

When her vision returned, she saw that she had won. Sunset had been completely overtaken by the blast, and the effect was actually quite gruesome. Her upper body had been completely incinerated, leaving a pair of smoking legs attached to the bottom of a ragged torso that had promptly fallen over. Her suit continued to spark, but it was immediately apparent that she was thoroughly dead.

Slowly, Starlight caught her breath, and then steadied herself. The battle was over, though, and she had won. She considered this for a moment, savoring the feeling of victory while simultaneously hating herself for being forced to do what she had just done. Then she slowly approached Sunset Shimmer’s remains.

Suddenly, the walls shifted. Starlight jumped back as several flexible, snake-like conduits of various sizes shot forth from the wall. They did not reach for her, though, but converged with their ends held in the air near each other a few yards from Sunset’s corpse.

Several of the conduits burst open, their endings filled with writhing robotic tendrils and vomiting organic fluid. The organic fluid poured down from them, forming a viscous pile as the ends of other cables split and propagated into machine components. An orange light surrounded the mass as it took on a red color and began to resolve. To Starlight’s horror, she watched as bones and muscle began to form around a rapidly self-assembling set of Core implants.

Within seconds, the organic mass has assembled itself into a humanoid shape, and the form dropped onto the floor. She flexed her fingers as the raw, skinless surface of her body bubbled and burst forth with patches of sickly yellow skin that quickly covered her entire body. Starlight watched eyes form, and hair, and even a set of ornate robes weave themselves from the tissues of her skin.

Then, finally, Sunset Shimmer looked down at Starlight with her wide blue eyes. Several of the cables clicked into the Core implants in her back, interfacing her to the ship as the others retracted.

“Well done,” she said. “You killed me. Or would have, if I still had the capacity to die.”

“What- -what the hell are you?”

“I already told you. I am a Core.” Sunset took a breath with her newly built lungs and smiled. “Now, Starlight, are you willing to listen to reason?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Of course. You can leave whenever you want. I won’t stop you.” She started walking. “Or you can come with me. You wanted my power, didn’t you? That was your reason for coming here? It may seem strange to you, but I’m actually willing to share.”

Sunset began walking, the cables in her back disconnecting from the walls and reconnecting as she moved, always retaining a connection and performing the function that her now destroyed remote suit had been before. Starlight looked behind her at the dying world below and charged her horn- -but found herself failing to complete the teleportation sequence. Instead, she began to follow Sunset Shimmer into the long and dark halls of the Crimson Horizon.

They did not speak. Sunset seemed to have no desire to, or even really to notice Starlight. She just kept walking deeper into the ship, and Starlight followed at a distance. Though Sunset seemed able to move without any source of light- -as if by memory alone- -Starlight needed to light her horn for her synthetic eyes to be able to see anything except gray static.

She quickly became aware of the fact that they were not alone. The ship was populated by strange, mutated constructs that wandered along the floor and ceilings. They would sometimes stop to watch Starlight, their eyes reflecting longingly in her magic. Despite their appearance, Starlight did not see them as any more threatening than a kind of insect. More disturbing to her were the surgical scars covering their bodies that indicated what they had once been.

The ship itself almost resembled the hollows of some enormous cave, or the center of some kind of convoluted plant. It was not like any ship Starlight had seen, with the sweeping walls as likely to end in a pool of water or other fluid as they were to terminate in ornate, fungoid interfaces of the kind that continually maintained their connection to Sunset Shimmer herself.

This design, however, did not stay constant. The organic, hive-like halls eventually became increasingly technological in nature and the architecture more orderly as many hundreds of paths of varying sizes converged. Starlight was not sure where they converged until she saw a light ahead. It was not a normal light, though. Not white, really, but not red either. It was somewhere between, like the bright orange glow of a setting sun.

She emerged into a brightly lit room. It was not quite dome-shaped, but it was open high, with a ceiling that must have been at least a hundred feet high, but from its curves it looked like it may have gone even beyond that. Its only primary feature was an enormous metal sphere linked to the walls and to the slope of the ceiling by thousands of cables and conduits.

The bottom of the room, likewise, was not unoccupied. The room seemed to be swarming with the constructs, which sat against the walls and sometimes meandered across the floor, accessing panels that were imbedded in it to perform their nameless and unspoken tasks. The constructs were not alone, though. Joining them were several more Sunset Shimmers, each identical to the first and each linked to a system of ports by the implants in their spines. They were far less common, but Starlight counted at least five, all overseeing the work of the others.

“You have impressed me,” said Sunset at last. “And not only by destroying one of my avatars. You were there. In the Crystal Empire.”

“I was,” admitted Starlight, eying the various aspects of the room and formulating several contingency plans for when this conversation inevitably went wrong.

“And you were beautiful. Such grace, such power. Enough mental fortitude to construct an entire starship around yourself. I could not help but want to take you for myself.” She smiled, looking up at the sphere. “There are very, very few like us, Starlight Glimmer,” she said. “Almost any unicorn can become a Core, but only a few were born for it.”

Starlight’s eyes narrowed. “No pony is born for this.”

“Aren’t we?” said Sunset, turning sharply. She was still smiling, and her dead eyes looked almost alive. “Surely you’ve felt it. The power. Or maybe you haven’t noticed.”

“Noticed what?”

“That most unicorns can barely hold a pen to write their own name with their magic. Have you ever realized just how powerful you are? Part of that power is from the unicorn you were, of course- -but most of it is from the Core you became.” Sunset Shimmer walked forward, the floor of the room clearing as she walked beneath the sphere in its center. “They are so weak compared to us. So small. Insignificant and limited by their primitive biology. They see us as their creations. And they’re wrong.”

“Then what are we.”

Sunset turned around sharply, facing Starlight. “We are the future!”

She raised her hands above her head, and the metal sphere occupying the center of the room split down its center. The shell shifted, pulling away from the connections that penetrated it, and the machinery that held it in place hummed to life to pull the casing away, revealing what was beneath.

The orange light that filled the room immediately became far more intense as it poured from the opening, and Starlight covered her eyes. Through the shadow of her hoof, she watched as the shell retracted, revealing that which it covered. Starlight watched, and when she finally comprehended what she was seeing, she felt the urge to scream- -but only a weak croak came from her mouth. Her horror was visceral and intense, but the implication that her logical mind still managed to comprehend was far worse.

The spherical shell had concealed a writhing mass of golden flesh. As Starlight watched, the torturous surface of the internal sphere shifted, its uneven surface opening in places with uneven and misplaced eyes, all blue, and all focused on Starlight. When it saw her, it shifted against the cables and pylons that bound, opening up numerous deformed mouths as if to speak. Only echoing, unintelligible language came out as its tongues dripped saliva and fluids. It seemed to reach out with a combination of tentacles and incompletely formed limbs, both hands and hooves, and far too many of them. Its entire surface- -whether it be raw, scaled, or covered in thick chitinous plate- -seemed to undulate and shake from the force of its motion within.

“We are the logical conclusion of Equestrian evolution!” proclaimed Sunset as her avatar connected to the cybernetic ports in her true body overhead.

“What- -what have you done?” cried Starlight, staring up at what Sunset truly was as she stared back down at the miniscule Core below her. “Oh god, what did you do to yourself?!”

Sunset frowned. “Ah. Well, I suppose the face of God is rarely beautiful. Beauty, after all, has no effect on power. But wouldn’t your own heart be hideous if viewed through your own open chest? Please, Starlight. I know you can understand. I am but the Core, the heart, the mind of the Crimson Horizon. I am it, and it is me. We are the same organism.”

Starlight was not sure what to say, but she could not look away. There was just a morbid fascination to watching the writhing and grotesque thing overhead. It was the Core of the Crimson Horizon, the source of its unimaginable power- -and it was Sunset Shimmer. Starlight found that she did, in fact, understand what Sunset meant. She understood all too well.

“I have seen your desires, Starlight,” said Sunset, now somewhat calmer. She stepped forward, backlit with her own glow. She really did look like an angel- -or a goddess. “Even now, I can see it. How hideous I must look to you, and yet you do not run. Or attack.”

“Where could I run? What damage could I do to you? You’re too powerful for me to fight.” Starlight felt herself saying it before her mind had fully acknowledged that fact, but she knew that it was true. She could feel the corona of energy pouring off of Core Sunset. It was more than a sensation of death. It was an apocalyptic glow- -and yet, somehow, Starlight still held out hope. Because something in that glow was wrong. Part of its horror, Starlight realized, was because something critical was missing. She was just not sure what.

“But we don’t have to be enemies. Our goals are the same. They always have been. That mark carved into your flank? You crave equality for our people. And I am their salvation. You would never have been powerful enough to free them, but I am.”

Starlight was still unsure, but Sunset seemed sincere. It occurred to her that if Sunset was telling the truth, then she was right. Starlight had been so fixated on taking on her enemies all alone that she had not even considered the possibility that the Crimson Horizon could be an ally more powerful than any Reaper implant could make her.

Sunset continued. “And I can repeat the process. If you wish it so, I can make you as powerful as I am. I can build you Equality.”

“But I would have to become like you,” said Starlight, addressing the spheroid mass of flesh. Its eyes were still on her, watching.

“Tell me, Starlight. If that gave you the power to defeat Equestria, would you?”

“Yes,” said Starlight without hesitation. “Yes I would.”

“Then you understand why I became what I became. I traded my pony form for power, and built myself a new body. And I have no regrets.”

“But it doesn’t justify what you did to Earth. Or the Crystal Empire.”

“Collateral damage,” said Sunset dismissively.

“No. Don’t give me that. They had no part in this war. The humans, the synths, the ponies, they didn’t need to get hurt.”

“Yes, they did,” sighed Sunset. “Do you think Cadence would simply allow me to take the Key? Or that the humans would simply let me use the Gate at my leisure? What would be the point in having all this power if I wasn’t able to simply take what I wanted?”

“The Gate?” said Starlight. “So it was a transportation device. The machine that Starswirl created.”

Sunset smiled. “You are even more promising than I expected. Such intelligence. Yes, it is a transportation system.”

“You intend to open a portal to Equestria. You’ll be able to bypass Celestia’s teleportation suppression field and attack directly.”

“You are correct,” said Sunset. “But not completely so. That is the beauty of this portal, and of the Crimson Horizon. There will be no battle, or war, or invasion. I will win our war in a single blow.”

“Forgive me if I remain incredulous.”

“Why? It is more than feasible.” Sunset turned around, twirling as she gestured to the room. “This ship has an internal energy dissemination matrix unlike any created before in all of history. With the portal open, I will take a single shot. The star that sustains Celestia will die, and with the Two Sisters being a symmetric pair, Luna will perish as well.”

Starlight’s eyes widened. “But that’s the star that Equestria Prime orbits- -if you destroy it, the entire system will be lost, and every pony on it!”

“Not every pony. At present, most Cores are contained in starships or in specialized casings. Assuming the planet is not in the direct path of my beam, the Cores will survive.”

“And the rest of the ponies?”

“If the planet does not shatter, they will freeze to death in a matter of hours.” Sunset laughed. “Which actually makes it easier on me. It’s far less work if they die on their own.”

“But there are tens of millions of ponies on- -”

“But that’s the point,” said Sunset, frowning. “I will kill the non-Cores on Equestria Prime. Then, with the galactic government crippled, I will remove the remainder and liberate our people.”

“What you’re talking about- -it’s genocide!”

“Exactly,” said Sunset. “Why do you say that like it’s a bad thing? We are the strong. The superior. Only we deserve to survive. It’s the only way to ensure the future of ponykind. Isn’t that what you wanted, Starlight? A world where all Cores could be equal?”

“NO!” shouted Starlight. “That’s not it- - not at all! I wanted to free them, but then to have them be EQUALS! To everypony else! To be treated like real ponies, not machines!”

The eyes on Sunset Shimmer’s true body narrowed. “Do you really think that is possible?” she hissed. “To live with inherently weak ponies? They would be afraid of you. Of your power. Yes, you could walk among them. You could pretend you were equal, but every time their eyes would go straight to the implants on your back. You can never be equal to them, Starlight. Because you are by definition their superior.”

“But I don’t want to be!” screamed Starlight. “You asked me if I would become like you to save our people? I would! But I would also give it all up! All I ever wanted was to be a pony, a REAL pony!”

“Why? Why would you want that?”

“Don’t you? Don’t you ever think about what your life would be like, if they hadn’t forced you to become a Core?”

“They didn’t force me. I was converted as an adult. It was the only way to evolve, the only path toward my destiny. I CHOSE to become a Core.”

Starlight’s jaw fell open. “You…you what?” she whispered. “You…you had everything. And you gave it up? For THIS?”

“I had nothing. Nothing of value. That life was worthless.”

“That life was everything I ever wanted! You- -you had a shot at everything I’ve ever dreamed of, and you THREW IT AWAY!”

Sunset did not respond, and Starlight just stood, panting in anger. Then Sunset sighed. “I suppose we are at an impasse, then,” she said. “Which is a pity. I had such HOPE for you, that you would see the truth. But even though I am a goddess, we are still Cores, and still equals. At least I succeeded with your counterpart.”

Starlight froze. “My counterpart?”

“There were three Cores in that battle, Starlight. One was badly damaged, an abortion infected by Cadence’s disease. Another was you. And a third was on the verge of death. It is her who will take the place you could have held. And she will be the one to kill you.”

Sunset took a step back, and Starlight suddenly felt something watching her from behind. She turned slowly to see a pony standing in the shadows of one of the room’s only entry corridor.

“Hello, Starlight,” said Trixie as she stepped into Sunset’s deep orange glow.

“Trixie?” said Starlight, confused at her presence- -and at her appearance. She had met Trixie before, but only once. Even after their brief time together, though, Starlight had come to think of Trixie as a friend. She had even offered her a chance to join her, but instead Trixie had chosen to return to Equestria, knowing fully well what that would mean for her as a Core.

She still had the same violet eyes and the same pale blue coat, but now those eyes had a glow of cruelty instead optimism and kindness. Her body was partially covered in external material. Part of it formed pieces of heavy armor, but a substantial portion of it was a brownish, contorted organic-looking mass that closely resembled what the Crimson Horizon appeared to be made out of. That machinery seemed to grow over her body, interfacing with the extensive implants in her spine. One tendril had even grown through the skin at her temple, where one of her neural access ports was installed. Starlight could see the tentacle-like protrusion beneath her skin, slowly twitching, and she realized that it was not alone. Various parts of her body were swollen where the machinery was burrowing beneath her skin.

“Lady Sunset,” she said, looking past Starlight. “She has refused your generosity?”

“We could not reach an arrangement. Do what you will to her.”

“I would be glad to,” said Trixie, grinning and slowly walking toward Starlight.

“Trixie, wait,” said Starlight, stepping back and to her side as the pair began to circle. “You’re my friend. I don’t want to fight you.”

“FRIEND? HA!” spat Trixie. “Do you really think you can call me that? After what you did?”

“I didn’t do anything! Don’t you remember? When I pulled you out of that ship? When we talked about what our lives were going to be like when we were free- -the horses, Trixie! Don’t you remember? We were going to see the non-talking Earth horses!”

Trixie’s horn ignited. There was not even a delay before Starlight felt the blow. Her armor largely withstood the blow, but it was a far greater impact than Starlight had been expecting. Trixie had always been much, much weaker than her- -but whatever Sunset Shimmer had done to her, her power output was now exponentially greater.

“What, were you expecting some weak, little attack?” mocked Trixie. “I’m not weak anymore, Starlight. You can’t look down on me now!”

Trixie struck again, but this time Starlight was ready. She teleported several feet to the left- -only to be struck by a biotic surge as she emerged from her spell. This blow hit with substantially more force, but unlike before, she had managed to summon a suit of tech-armor in time to dampen the blast.

“Trixie, why?” asked Starlight.

“Why? WHY? Because you left me with them! You left me to DIE!”

“No, I didn’t!” protested Starlight, “I offered to let you come with me!”

“I was scared! Terrified! I didn’t know how to live an independent life- -and you just let them take me!”

Trixie slammed another surge into Stralight’s position. It was less a beam and more of a fan, and Starlight managed to dodge it and avoid the remainder using a shield spell. She then parried by casting a much more powerful version of the same spell around Trixie, trapping her in an energy field that had the viscosity of solid crystal.

“What would you have me to? Kidnap you?”

Trixie’s eyes narrowed, and her horn glowed with blue energy as her body was surrounded by a blue corona that started to cut through Starlight’s spell effortlessly. “It doesn’t matter now. Because now you PAY.”

She fired a beam directly at Starlight, and Starlight blocked it with a tech barrier- -only to be sideswiped by a telekinetic surge that lifted her off her hooves and slammed her into a wall so hard that it knocked the wind out of her.

Trixie charged, screaming, her horn shining with intense white-light. She attempted to impale Starlight with it, but Starlight blocked it with her telekinetic field, holding Trixie back momentarily. She could feel the heat from Trixie’s horn washing over her, and she realized that Trixie really was trying to kill her.

“I’m sorry, Trixie,” said Starlight, summoning one of her omnitools and preparing an overload at the junction between Trixie’s Core implants and Sunset Shimmer’s technology.

“I would be careful if you choose to do that,” said Sunset over Trixie’s mad snarling and struggling. “If you separate the containment architecture from her implants, the feedback surge will kill her.”

For a fraction of a second, Starlight found herself still considering taking the shot. Horrified at herself, she instead teleported, replacing herself with a set of combat drones.

“Insects!” cried Trixie, striking at the drones as they fired their ineffective bolts of tech energy at her. “A worthless parlor trick at best!”

Starlight ignored her, instead charging toward Sunset- -only to be slammed from the side by a singularity. The impact hit with enough force that Starlight thought she felt something inside her crack, and she felt her automatic medigel channels activate.

“Don’t you touch her!” howled Trixie. “She’s the only one that ever helped me! I won’t let you hurt her!”

Starlight dodged another blast, but only barely. She was now beginning to understand the depth of her predicament. Even with her powers amplified, Trixie would still be little match for her, but only if she went all-out and unleashed her full power. If she did, though, there was no guarantee that Trixie would survive. In fact, the feedback of Starlight overcoming Trixie’s biotic defenses would likely be worse for her than a direct tech overload.

Looking at the bigger picture, though, Starlight quickly realized that her situation was much more dire- -and the fight far more pointless. Even if she had been heartless enough to murder Trixie, Sunset was still there, watching the fight as though it amused her. She was more than powerful enough to end Starlight with a mere thought. The fight was just a distraction. Sunset was only toying with her.

With this in mind, Starlight weighed her options and realized that there were none. She had already lost, since the moment she had set hoof on the Crimson Horizon. There had never really been any chance of intervening in the events that were unfolding, not without a more substantial plan. Starlight recognized her own arrogance, and cursed her failure for the number of lives it had likely cost.

She opened her omnitool and pointed it at Trixie. Trixie’s eyes widened, as if for a moment she thought that Starlight would actually kill her. Instead, Starlight fired of a cloud of ultra-bright but harmless flares. Trixie cried out and covered her eyes, and as she did, Starlight made her retreat, abandoning her efforts and teleporting off the Crimson Horizon.