It was getting close to time for the factory to finish making all of their bodies. They had all failed to get through to Gerhardt and most of them had already lost hope.

“Mr. Mechanica, will we at least be allowed to retain our current appearances? Not that there’s anything wrong with being made of metal or the version of my future self you showed me, but I personally like the way I look.” Rarity inquired.

“Hm… Well the bodies currently being made by my factory will be made of metal. However, I’ll have to think about that. On the one hand, if you were allowed to retain your appearances you would resemble organic beings which could potentially be rather counter productive. On the other hand, you wouldn’t know that you resembled anything natural and the materials you would be made of would still be artificial so I could write it off as an artificial design meaning it wouldn’t leave any trace of the concept of nature… That is a solid maybe. As I said, I’ll need to think about it and truly determine whether or not that will propagate the concept of nature. So I’ll get back to you on that in a few days.” Gerhardt responded.

He then stood up and said, “Well, your new bodies are about ready. Come with me. While it will be horrible for a moment as I take your souls out of your current bodies, I promise the procedure won’t take more than a second.”

“Can you give us a few more moments to mentally prepare for this? I, for one, am absolutely terrified to undergo this process and I am not ashamed to admit it. I imagine everypony else is similarly scared.” Luna requested.

“If it makes you feel any better, I’ve already undergone this process myself a few months ago so I could get rid of that last little bit of organic matter I had left in the form of my frontal lobe. I wouldn’t be forcing you to do anything that I wouldn’t do myself. Though I suppose I could give you all a bit more time as I am aware that this is quite sudden, and besides which it’s not like we have any shortage of time. I’ll give you all fifteen minutes to yourselves. Just be aware that if you try to leave or if you damage anything in my factory, I will know it as my combat golems will be watching you the entire time. So while you all take some time to prepare, Isabelle I’m going to need you to come with me. Your actions in freeing that spirit were nothing short of traitorous, and you know full well how we deal with traitors in the Human Kingdom.” Gerhardt said, his tone becoming quite a bit more menacing as he addressed Isabelle.

Isabelle sighed and said, “Yes, I know… I sort of expected as much the moment it was revealed that Deus was on your side.” She then walked forwards towards Gerhardt who turned and started to lead her away, followed closely by Deus.

“Wait! Gerhardt, what do you mean by that? Surely you aren’t going to do what I think you are!” Celestia objected.

Gerhardt paused just long enough to say, “That depends. Do you think I’m going to execute her? Because that’s exactly what I’m going to do. Her crimes cannot be allowed to go unpunished. And since we’re both former High Lords of the Human Kingdom this is a human matter and will be dealt with as such.” He then continued on his way ignoring the protests of the Ponies and even King Aspen.

When the two of them rounded a corner and disappeared beyond a wall of crates, all of them fell silent. Eventually Rainbow Dash broke the silence, “Well this bucking sucks! We can’t just let him win! There’s gotta be something we can do about all of this! I mean we’ve always been able to find a solution in the past so there has to be something we can do this time too!”

Celestia sighed and said, “As much as I would like to say you’re right, I’m afraid you’re wrong. There’s nothing we can do. He’s not like any villain you or my sister and I have ever faced in the past. He’s far worse. He’s far more intelligent, cunning, and ruthless. He’s not afraid to kill us if he truly saw us as a genuine threat. He has every possible angle covered. If we do nothing, he wins. If we try to fight him he wins even if we somehow miraculously managed to defeat him. Even if he is killed, he still wins. He has us completely outmaneuvered. Anything we can do, he’s already thought of and has a perfect counter for. Not to mention, he’s holding all of Ponykind hostage so even if we could do something he would destroy all of Equestria… or whatever’s left of it after Natura’s rampage.”

“At this point I’m starting to question why we’re even against him in the first place. I mean the world he showed us doesn’t seem that bad. In fact it seems really nice! And I mean, the augmentations he gave me after my run in with that Manticore a few months ago aren’t that much different to the real things. Well, one of my eyes glows now, half of my vision has a slight purple tint, and it's slightly easier and takes a bit less energy to use magic but other than that my life honestly hasn’t changed at all. And Natura has killed who knows how many ponies and there’s no guarantee that she won’t do it again. And since we can’t imprison her without Discord’s help, we can’t imprison her again. And since a god was apparently helping her, even Discord needed help!” Twilight stated.

“Twilight, you can’t be serious!” Rarity exclaimed.

“I am. I mean if we can’t do anything anyways, we might as well try to look on the brightside right? Or maybe that’s just my way of coping with what’s going to happen, I honestly couldn’t say for certain…” Twilight sighed defeatedly.

[Elsewhere in the factory]

Gerhardt led Isabelle and Deus away from the ponies to another section of the factory. Once they arrived, he stopped and turned to face her. He then proceeded to punch her in the face sending her sprawling to the ground and ripping off several of the cursed crystals attached to her flesh and making her bleed profusely. “Stay down.” He ordered.

She complied, knowing that resisting would inevitably just make things worse on herself.

Shaking his head and pacing around her he said, “Isabelle, you have to realize what you’ve done is completely unacceptable. By freeing that gods forsaken Nature Spirit, you’re directly responsible for the deaths of the gods only know how many ponies. And more importantly, you’re directly responsible for that bitch attacking and nearly killing my daughter.” He then proceeded to kick her in the torso, shattering several of her ribs and causing several of the crystals attached to her to stab into her flesh. She couldn’t even cry out in pain as the wind was knocked out of her and she was sent into a coughing fit.

“Did you know Natura is working with Silvanus? Because according to Deus, Discord — the spirit who imprisoned her the first time around — said a god of nature was helping her. As far as I’m aware the only nature god who would have any reason to do so would be Silvanus since the gods of this universe seemed perfectly content to leave her imprisoned for eternity. So by freeing her, you were working with Silvanus, the very god who is destroying Humanity and the Human Kingdom as wespeak! As far as I’m concerned even if you were unaware of that fact, which I find unlikely, that’s treason. Now you’re going to have to pay for your crimes.” He then stomped on one of her legs, crushing the bones in her shin beneath his armored boot as if they were little more than thin twigs.

Grabbing her by the throat he lifted her into the air and said, “Now the only question is how should I kill you and how slow and painful should I make it? Perhaps I should burn you alive? Hm… No, that would be much too quick. So perhaps I should very slowly and methodically break each and every last bone in your body one by one? Yes, that sounds good. I think I’ll do that.”

With his free hand he proceeded to grab one of her hands by the fingers and squeezed hard enough to reduce the bones to splinters. He then continued to work his way up her arm, reducing every last inch of the bones in her hand and arm to splinters until he reached all the way to her shoulder. At first she gritted her teeth and tried to bear the pain but by the time he reached her elbow it had become too much for her and she began thrashing and screaming in his iron grip, trying to escape. She even began punching and kicking him with her good arm and leg, as futile as that was considering she couldn’t so much as scratch his armor.

Almost as soon as he reached her shoulder and was just about to switch hands to start on her other arm, Pixel — now wearing a similar suit of non-powered combat armor as Gerhardt — came running and saw what he was doing. “Daddy?! Why are you hurting Miss Isabelle?! Stop it! Please, stop!” She pleaded as she came running over to him.

“Pixel, go back to the other side of the factory please. You shouldn’t see this.” Gerhardt requested.

“No! Please put Miss Isabelle down and stop hurting her! What did she ever do to deserve this?!” Pixel begged, wrapping her arms around him tightly.

Gerhardt sighed and threw Isabelle off to the side. “Pixel, listen to me. She’s a traitor. She’s the one who freed the nature spirit. She is the one who caused all of this. Everyone who has died, died because of her. And more importantly you very nearly died because of her.”

“I don’t care! Even if all that’s true she doesn’t deserve this! Please!” Pixel pleaded desperately.

Gerhardt frowned at her underneath his helmet. On the one hand he couldn’t just let Isabelle get away with betraying them like this. On the other hand he knew Pixel would never understand that and he didn’t want to upset her if he didn’t have to. Especially since she had nearly died earlier that day.

“Fine. I’ll postpone her execution for now. Instead I’ll let her watch as I burn nature to the ground. She’s already proven that she cares more about nature than anything else so perhaps witnessing it’s total annihilation will be even worse of a punishment for her than torture. She’ll still be executed at a later date, but she’ll live for now. Deus, you make sure that Isabelle doesn’t try to escape or attempt to commit suicide while I go deal with our other guests. Pixel, stay here with Deus. That’s an order.” Gerhardt said before teleporting himself back to the area of the factory where he left the ponies.

He waited around a corner until the full fifteen minutes he let them have passed, then he walked out and said, “That’s it. Your fifteen minutes are up. It’s time to go. All of you follow me. Your new bodies are waiting for you.”

“Isabelle, did you really…?” King Aspen inquired.

“Unfortunately, no. My daughter came in while I was breaking Isabelle’s bones and begged me to stop. So she’s alive… for now. I’ll let Isabelle watch as I destroy that which she loves so much as to betray me, my family, and the ponies. Then when it’s all over and nature is dead, that’s when I will snap her neck. A faster death than she deserves, to be sure, but I wouldn’t want to upset my daughter too terribly much. And she’ll be upset about Isabelle’s death enough as it is so there is no need to make her even more upset by drawing out Isabelle’s death any more than strictly necessary.”

“I see… Well at least she’s alive for the moment…” King Aspen muttered.

Gerhardt then led them over to their new bodies. The princesses all insisted on undergoing the conversion before the others. So he started with Celestia as she had insisted on being converted first, and was surprised when her cutiemark appeared on her new body immediately after her soul had finished being transferred over. He took note of this and decided to study cutiemarks in depth at some point in the future since he hadn’t been expecting that. He then moved onto Luna, then Cadance, then Twilight, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, then Fluttershy. King Aspen underwent the conversion last.

“See? Now that wasn’t so bad was it?” Gerhardt inquired looking at them all.

“Are you kidding?! We were only ghosts for like a second but it was the worst bucking experience ever!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed.

Gerhardt rolled his eyes. “Yes, yes, I’m aware. Unfortunately there isn’t anything I can do to make the process any more comfortable. At least, not that I’m aware of. But as you said it didn’t last long and now you're all in bodies that are far superior to what you had before.” He then waved a hand and dispelled the cursed crystals covering the new horns of the unicorns and alicorns which he had preemptively cursed before beginning the transfer. Said crystals then fell off and clattered to the floor.

“There, you’re all free to go now. But remember what I said and don’t try to get in my way. And you,” He pointed at King Aspen. “When you’re back in the ruins of Ponyville, give Natura a message for me. Tell her that what happened to you is only the beginning. It’s exactly what’s going to happen to every other sapient species on the planet.”

He then proceeded to teleport King Aspen back to the ruins of Ponyville and the ponies back to Canterlot.

“Deus, I’m going to have my factories start producing golems to safely capture the organics for conversion and am going to get started on directing the construction golems in the building of the machine to automate the conversion process. Remember what I said, keep Isabelle alive but don’t let her escape. Don’t torture her either. Pixel can have limited interaction with her so long as she doesn’t try to help her escape. She’s also allowed to head to the Crystal Empire if she wants as long as she’s wearing her armor, but Canterlot is strictly off limits due to its proximity to Natura’s current location. I’ll come back to pick up the leftover bodies in a few hours after everything’s started and I’m confident there won’t be any errors.” Gerhardt said through his built-in communications systems.

“Understood.” Deus responded.

Gerhardt then teleported himself back to his underground lab in the ruins of Ponyville before grabbing the device to rotate his dimensional access and using it. He then teleported himself to one of his further away factories along the W,X,Y axis just to be safe and began the production of the golems that would capture the land based organic life forms and bring them to the machine for conversion. Then once that factory was set, he teleported himself to the factory in which he was storing most of his construction golems along this dimensional axis and had them begin building the machine he designed to automate the conversion process.

He had to have his construction golems build the machine because it had to be what was effectively a mobile factory capable of storing and moving enough materials to convert tens of thousands of people into machines and dispose of their bodies. Of course, it wouldn’t work for the dragons of this world as he had done some reading up on them and some of them grew to the size of particularly large Heavy Combat Golems if not particularly small Super Heavy Combat Golems. So teams of construction golems would have to build some of their bodies. But the younger and thus smaller ones could be converted the same way as everyone else.

He also sent signals to his construction drones in orbit along the X,Y,Z axis and had them begin building a doomsday weapon of sorts with a built in dimensional rotation device that would constantly bombard the surface of the planet with high powered and extremely destructive gamma rays. That would only kill all life on land as water was an excellent radiation shield. Thus the gamma radiation wouldn’t be what would kill the oceans, it would be the immense heat the doomsday weapon would generate on the planet turning the atmosphere into plasma and bringing even the deepest darkest depths of the oceans to a boil with just a few days of constant bombardment. The surface of the planet would be uninhabitable along the dimensional axes he used the doomsday weapon on even for artificial beings for quite some time as it would be far too hot, but he could build a device that would reduce the time required for it to cool back down to within a few decades.

Of course he wouldn’t use the doomsday weapon on the X,Y,Z axis as that would kill all of the sapient species he planned on converting into machines. He was just building it there because that was the only axis in which he had construction drones in orbit, and the device needed to be in orbit otherwise it would destroy itself and everything around it long before it destroyed all life on the planet. However it would speed up the destruction of nature along most other dimensional axes significantly thus making his job far easier. Assuming none of them had any more sapient life anyways. He would just have to be a bit slower and more methodical with the elimination of nature on the X,Y,Z axis and any other axis with sapient species..

[Pixel]

“Fine. I’ll postpone her execution for now. Instead I’ll let her watch as I burn nature to the ground. She’s already proven that she cares more about nature than anything else so perhaps witnessing it’s total annihilation will be even worse of a punishment for her than torture. She’ll still be executed at a later date, but she’ll live for now. Deus, you make sure that Isabelle doesn’t try to escape or attempt to commit suicide while I go deal with our other guests. Pixel, stay here with Deus. That’s an order.” Gerhardt stated in a firm tone that brokered no argument.

Pixel opened her mouth to protest Isabelle’s execution but before she could Gerhardt teleported away, leaving her with Isabelle and Deus. With him gone, Pixel immediately rushed over to Isabelle and kneeled down next to her before using biomancy to heal her broken arm. Fortunately all of the cursed crystals covering it had been crushed along with her bones so there was nothing obstructing Pixel from healing her. Pixel wasn’t nearly good enough at biomancy to heal such extensive damage, but she was good enough to stop the bleeding, to fix some of the bruising, to merge some of the larger splinters of bone back together, and to numb the pain to an extent. It would still hurt but it wouldn’t be quite as agonizing as it otherwise would be.

The moment she finished Deus cast King Sombra’s curse on Isabelle’s arm again. Pixel saw this and looked at him before demanding, “What are you doing?!”

“Following orders and preventing her from using magic to escape. The comfort or pain of a traitor is not a priority.” Deus said in his usual cold and emotionless tone.

Pixel frowned at him underneath her helmet but looked back at Isabelle. “Miss Isabelle, I tried to heal you as much as I could… I’m sorry I couldn’t do more… Are you alright?”

Isabelle gave Pixel a pained smile, trying her best to deal with the pain of her injuries. “It’s fine, little one. I’m very proud you were able to do as much as you did. You’re an excellent student. And I suppose I’m as alright as I possibly can be considering the circumstances. I mean it could be worse, I could be dead.”

“Why?! Did you really do the things that daddy accused you of? Even if you did, why would daddy hurt you like this rather than just killing you?!” Pixel asked, very scared and confused.

Isabelle sighed and gritted her teeth as she forced herself to sit up, her broken ribs causing her agony the entire time. When she was sitting up again she leaned herself against some wooden crates full of crystals and said, “Yes. I did… I betrayed everyone… And you want to know the worst part…? I don’t even understand why I did it… I knew what would happen if Natura got free, I knew how much destruction she would cause, how many ponies she would kill, but I did it anyway… What I did is unforgivable… I’m a horrible person. A traitor… I deserve all of this, and when Gerhardt finally gets around to my execution I’ll welcome death with open arms… As for why he didn’t just kill me, apparently he’s being corrupted by something called the ‘Alicorn Amulet’. Otherwise I’m sure he would have just shot me and got it over with… After all, he’s nothing if not efficient…”

Pixel shook her head. “No, whether he’s being corrupted or not I won’t let him kill you! You may have made a mistake… albeit a very large mistake, but that doesn’t mean you should die for it! Other than this one mistake, you have been one of the nicest people I know! If anyone deserves a second chance, it’s you!”

Isabelle chuckled slightly before grimacing and clutching her ribs in pain with her one good arm. “Pixel, you’re such a sweet girl… Even after all I’ve done, you still think I deserve a second chance… You’re so so sweet but still so incredibly naïve… No… When my time comes I want you to let it happen… And more than that when it finally happens, promise me you won’t blame your father… This is just how things are done in the Human Kingdom… He might be a bit of a stuck up asshole even without that amulet, but he’s not a bad person… He’s just doing what he thinks is right.”

“Miss Isabelle…” Pixel muttered sadly before wrapping her arms around Isabelle’s neck in a hug, being careful not to put any pressure on her broken shoulder or ribs.

Isabelle patted her on the back in a comforting manner. “It’s alright Pixel… Please promise me… Think of it as a last request of sorts.”

“I promise…” Pixel mumbled.

“Thank you… I really do appreciate it… Now, I’m afraid our time is rather limited so let me teach you a bit more about biomancy. I’m sorry I can’t give you a demonstration or let you practice on me this time, but I can still tell you the arcane equations and general theories and principles behind the magic.”

[In Canterlot]

“He just let us go… I can’t believe he did this to us then just let us go!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed.

“Well, it makes sense if you think about it. We can’t really stop him, so he’s not losing anything or putting himself in any danger by letting us go. Even if you six went back to go get the Elements of Harmony, we can’t really use them against him or else he’ll destroy Canterlot. Besides, we know he’s in a factory somewhere but we have absolutely no idea which factory that is. It could be anywhere from the Crystal Empire all the way to Minos. Not to mention, he could have teleported himself, Pixel, Deus, and Isabelle somewhere else entirely after he was done with us. So we still have no idea where he even is at the moment.” Celestia stated.

Cadance sighed and said, “Aunty, I think I’m going to go back home to the Crystal Empire and break the news to Shiny… I’m sort of worried how he’ll react to my new appearance…”

Celestia smiled at her and said, “I know how he’ll react… He’ll be surprised but he won’t love you any less for it.”

Cadance smiled back at her and said, “Thank you, that actually makes me feel a bit better. It’s just that this is such a large change that it’s a bit intimidating.”

“I understand. That’s perfectly natural, Gerhardt’s hatred of nature notwithstanding. Just have a little faith in him, he is your husband after all.” Celestia advised.

Candance nodded before taking a deep breath — or at least making the sounds of inhaling and exhaling out of force of habit despite no longer having lungs — and teleporting away.

“So… What now? We can’t exactly hide what’s going to happen considering our new appearances, but if we just announce it to everypony there’s going to be a panic. But even if we hide here in the castle and keep everypony in the dark about this, there will be a panic when Gerhardt suddenly shows up with an army of golems and whatever machine he’s going to use to convert them all within any sort of reasonable time frame.” Twilight inquired.

“Well, for now I can cast an illusion on all of you to make you look like your old selves. So you should all go be with your families. Just be aware the illusions will only be visual so be careful not to let anypony touch any of you and the spell will only last for a day. So after spending some time with your families, be sure to come back here before this time tomorrow. Actually, now that I think about it all the survivors from Ponyville are going to need shelter since their homes are gone. So if any of you are willing, I would appreciate it if you could help the Royal Guard in distributing tents to everypony and help in setting them up. Though I completely understand if you would rather not. In the meantime, my sister and I will be trying to come up with some sort of solution to this panic issue you pointed out.” Celestia said before casting the illusion on all of them.

[Two days later, on the border of the Changeling Hive]

After having officially located the Changeling Hive, Gerhardt decided to make the Changelings his first step on his path to converting all sapient species on the planet into mechanical lifeforms like him and his family. He would have started with the Ponies or perhaps even the Minotaurs as he had more ready access to them, but he decided to start with the Changelings instead. This was specifically because Queen Chrysalis had threatened him with Pixel, thus he decided to make this a bit of a display of force to show her exactly how bad of an idea it was to threaten him. So this was as much for revenge as it was to further his goal of eliminating all traces of Nature.

He had already detected that this area was a vacuum of sorts for arcane energy thus rendering it impossible to cast spells while within its vicinity. Thus the golems he had his factory build for this specific operation did not use magic. Instead they were built with tools such as net launchers and grenade launchers that fired canisters of paralytic gas to capture the changelings without harming them and a whole stock of mechanical rings filled with cursed crystals that they could launch at the changelings horns to render them incapable of using magic.

Standing next to the machine that would convert all of the changelings into mechanical life forms, Gerhardt stared out at the Changeling Hive. Behind him were hundreds of golems designed specifically for this mission. He continued to look at it for a few moments before finally taking a step forwards, crossing the border and entering the zone that would prevent him from using magic. Without faltering for even a moment, he continued to walk towards the hive with his golems marching along behind him in perfect formation and synchronization.

As soon as he came within several hundred feet of the hive, Changelings came swarming out by the hundreds. Along with them was Queen Chrysalis who landed directly in front of him.

Gerhardt came to a stop and crossed his arms behind him and said, “Ah, Queen Chrysalis. Good day.”

Queen Chrysalis snarled at him and said, “You! What are you doing here?! Did the ponies send you to invade us?! Don’t you dare think we will just take this without retaliation.”

“Oh no. They didn’t send me. I came here of my own volition. You see, after the recent attack on Equestria by Natura, the Spirit of Nature, I have come to a realization. Nature is a threat and thus needs to be eliminated. To that end, I plan on eradicating all animals and plant life and converting all sapient beings into fully mechanical lifeforms like myself or my children, as well as controlling the weather and seasons on a global scale. Then I will build a newer, better world on top of the ashes of nature but that’s besides the point.”

Gerhardt then motioned to his army of golems and said, “So I am here for two reasons. One, I’m going to convert your entire species into mechanical lifeforms. Two, I’m starting with your species as a display of force. You threatened to hurt my daughter and that can’t be allowed to stand. So this will show you that threatening me is a very bad idea. Because if I can capture your entire species and convert them into machines like me with there being absolutely nothing you can do to stop me, just imagine what I could do if I was genuinely trying to kill you. In fact, that’s actually part of the conversion process. Your souls will be ripped out of your bodies by my machines using necromantic magic and will then be placed inside your new bodies. So your organic bodies will essentially experience brain death and you as individuals will experience what actual death is like as your souls leave your bodies. Granted, being a ghost bound to the physical world is significantly more unpleasant than being dead in general but you get the idea.”

“I see what’s going on here… You’ve gone mad! Well if you think it will be that easy, you’ve got another thing coming!” Queen Chrysalis growled before turning to face her soldiers. “My Changelings, an enemy is at our very doorstep and he’s come to kill us all! Attack! Stop him! Show this foolish tin can and his buckets of bolts the might of the Changelings! For the Hive!”

““““For the hive!”””” Came the roaring response. The Changelings then began charging and flying towards Gerhardt and his golems.

Gerhardt sent a signal to his golems and ordered them to capture all of the Changelings. Thus his golems began charging past him to meet the changelings head on, firing nets and canisters of paralytic gas.

Chrysalis then turned back towards Gerhardt, her horn glowing with a specific type of magic unique to Changelings and could thus continue to function even in the arcane vacuum that was the area in and around the hive.. However, before she could cast any spells, Gerhardt brought his arms out from behind his back and casually tossed a grenade at her feet. She looked down at the grenade but before she could do anything it exploded unleashing a cloud of invisible gas. The moment she breathed it in, it started taking effect and she began losing strength in all of her limbs before collapsing to the ground moments later.

“W-what is this?!” She struggled to say even as she began losing control of the muscles in her mouth and jaw.

“A fast acting alchemical paralytic gas. The magic in it makes it work almost instantly and makes it very long lasting. In fact, it will last for a whole twenty four hours. Fortunately it will only take one hour to make your new body so you won’t have to wait that long to be able to move again. And this,” He held up what looked like a sheath of sorts made of a pitch black crystal. He then slipped it over her horn. “Is a cursed crystal that will prevent you from using magic. You didn’t honestly think I would come here unprepared, did you? Who do you think I am? Some sort of fool with no plan to guarantee my success? Now, I suppose you’ll be the first one to enter my machine. Be honored, you and your species will be the first step in the creation of something absolutely glorious! The ponies will be the next step, but you will always have the honor of being the first and I assure you that is something to be proud of.” He then proceeded to pick her up and start carrying her back towards his mobile factory. Once he got there he laid her down on a conveyor belt and activated the factory.

He watched with a sense of pride and satisfaction as she disappeared inside the machine. She would be stuck in a storage compartment inside the mobile factory for about an hour after her body was scanned until her new body was ready, but once it was she would be free to do as she pleased in her new mechanical body.

Of course he made sure the factory would curse each of the Changelings’ horns so they wouldn’t be able to do anything to damage it from the inside or out. He had several devices attached to the factory that could uncurse them once their entire species was converted and it was too late to do anything to stop him. He had never been one to take unnecessary risks.

In his attempts to create the love generators for them, he had read about Changelings and had thus considered in advance what to do about the unhatched eggs inside the hive and the freshly hatched larvae since they didn’t exactly have the greatest of intellects. His decision was that he would speed up the development of the souls of the unhatched ones and would upload some very basic knowledge into their minds, letting them all just skip past those stages of life and be children instead. Of course he would have them go last and would number them before and after they entered the mobile factory so the parents could actually track them since apparently the Changelings reproduced like normal mammals rather than most hive based insects despite being a species of insectoid equines, meaning Queen Chrysalis did not lay all of their eggs despite being the queen of the hive. Far from it.

Actually after their conversion he would round up all of the Changelings that were parents and would then lead them back into the hive to collect their eggs and larvae before bringing them to the factory for conversion, just to ensure there were absolutely no mix ups. He would also tell each of the parents their child or children’s respective numbers and with their new fully artificial brains they would be able to remember that number perfectly. So there would be no errors resulting in children being swapped.

He would do something similar for all species that laid eggs, such as the dragons. For species that didn’t lay eggs, he would just have the children of pregnant mothers come out directly alongside them, as in literally side by side rather than one being in front of or behind the other.

On the topic of reproduction, he would even let the adults retain artificial copies of their genitalia — just as he had done for Princess Cadance and the other princesses, Twilight and her friends, and King Aspen — despite the fact they would be incapable of reproducing that way as he was not one to dictate how couples should be intimate with one another and he didn’t have any issue with the idea of intercourse even if he never planned on participating in such an act himself. Of course they would have mechanisms to allow them to hide said genitalia when in public despite the fact they never wore clothes but that much was obvious. Children, however, would have male or female body structures but would lack genitals until they were adults and received new adult bodies, for reasons that should be rather obvious. Regardless, in his new world reproduction would be done just as he showed Princess Cadance, tiny fragments of both parents' souls would be taken by a machine and would then be used to create the soul of a brand new child which would then be placed into an artificial body designed to have random features in common with both parents, similar to how genetics worked.

If there were any issues with what he had planned he would find out in the future and would address them then. For now, however, he had much more important things to worry about.

[The next day]

Natura was sitting in the ashes of the Everfree forest looking around in a mixture of shock, horror, sadness, and absolute terror. Even now she could feel the beams from the sky burning away what little vegetation and animals that were left on this continent. In less than a day it would all be gone and the beams would move on to other continents. She tried everything she could to stop them but nothing worked. She even went so far as to fly up into space to attack the sources of the beams, but all of her attacks were intercepted by portals and redirected towards her. Their defenses were nigh impenetrable.

Even worse, when King Aspen returned from his meeting with the metal monster without Isabelle, she saw that Gerhardt had not been lying in the least when he claimed to be able to turn creatures into machines like him. He had done so to King Aspen as well as the ponies who went with him. She had personally visited the princesses in order to confirm this and it was true, they had been turned into machines as well. And just the previous day she had stopped being able to sense an entire species and when she finally realized she stopped being able to sense them and went to see what happened she saw that she was too late. They had all been converted into machines and the metal monster was already gone.

She had tried asking Silvanus for advice on what to do about a dozen times by now, but after her fight with Discord and the demigods was over he had stopped responding to her. She could still feel the “string” he tied to her, but no matter what she tried he wouldn’t respond to her. Thinking her greatest ally had abandoned her in her time of greatest need she had fallen into despair. Now she was at a loss as to what to do.

“My word, he really did destroy this place didn’t he? It’s actually rather boring now. I mean it’s completely lifeless!” Discord’s voice suddenly said from behind her.

Natura turned to face him, unable to even work up the effort to be angry or aggressive. “What do you want, Discord? Have you come to mock my inevitable demise?”

“Who, me? I would never… I’m actually insulted that you would think so low of me.” Discord said in mock offense. “No, actually I came here to see how things were going. I was also curious to see what sort of chaos was occurring here as I imagined there would be quite a lot considering the circumstances, but there’s none! No fighting, no cataclysmic events, no natural disasters, absolutely nothing! It’s honestly just a bit surprising. I mean really, what is even the point of all of this if there’s no chaos involved? That’s just boring.”

“Oh? Well you had best get used to it, because once the mechanical monster wins this will be what the whole world is like. You don’t seem to understand the gravity of the situation, Discord. There won’t be any room for chaos in the new world he’ll make any more than there will be room for nature. Granted, you might still exist in some form, unlike me, but you will surely lose quite a bit of power. That is if you don't lose your physical form and even your very sentience entirely. The fate of chaos is tied directly to the existence of nature as while there may be chaos on an atomic level, with nature gone anything on a larger scale will be completely devoid of chaos. So once I’m gone you’re as good as dead too.” Natura muttered before laying down in the ashes.

“Oh, pfft… You’re just being over dramatic to make yourself feel better. Chaos will still exist on a large enough scale for me to continue to exist even without you. You know, I might actually even feel bad about this whole situation if you weren’t so hostile whenever I mess with the weather or a few plants and animals. I never had anything against you, you know. And I still don’t.” Discord said in a dismissive tone.

“Oh, am I? Tell me, Discord, what happens when all of the animals are dead or turned into machines? What happens if there is no more conflict or disharmony in society? And if you think I’m bad when it comes to you messing with the weather or natural order of things, just wait. His machines will control everything and they will do it all on a perfect schedule that will no doubt be far more strict than even I am. In a world of machines there is no room for chaos in any form, except perhaps on the atomic or subatomic level, as everything will be completely orderly and planned out. And in a world without machines or nature there is nothing to cause any chaos at all. The world would just be a lifeless rock floating through space. So you are reliant upon my existence whether you would like to admit it or not. So this affects you just as much as it affects me. The only difference is that you will remain a concept while it will be as though I never existed to begin with.” Natura huffed in minor annoyance.

Discord blinked a couple of times and looked around at the lifeless wasteland surrounding him. It was odd. For some reason what Natura was saying was making him nervous. But that was ridiculous! Chaos would still have a place in the world even without nature… right? For some reason he was starting to get a very bad feeling about all of this and the more he looked at the ashen wasteland around him, completely devoid of any chaos whatsoever, the stronger that feeling grew. He chuckled nervously and said, “Right, right, suuuure… Excuse me, I just remembered I have somewhere I have to be. I’ll be back at some point later. We can continue this conversation then.”

He then teleported himself away and remembering the princesses saying something about the metal creature being corrupted by the Alicorn Amulet, he started searching for the largest source of discordant magic besides himself. Technically disharmony was a subset of chaos and fell under his jurisdiction, thus finding sources of discordant energy was as easy for him as trying to find one of his own limbs. So when teleporting himself to the largest source of discordant energy next to himself, he found himself just outside of the city of the Crystal Empire. There he saw one truly massive machine standing in front of which was the metal creature who was looking out towards the city with his arms crossed behind his back watching as metal ponies were produced by the dozens. Around the machine were hundreds of smaller machines all lined up in perfect formation.

Discord watched for a moment in curiosity before the last group of metal ponies were produced by the machine and no more came out after that. The metal creature then finally turned and looked directly at him despite the fact he hadn’t revealed his presence just yet. “I know you’re there, spirit. My sensors can detect your presence from a mile away… Or they would be able to if there weren’t so many arcane energy signatures around at the moment that they would explode if they were set to their maximum range.”

“Hmph, no fair. You cheated.” Discord said before making himself visible.

“This isn’t a game and there are no rules thus it is impossible to cheat. Now why are you here? What do you want? Can’t you see I’m busy?” Gerhardt inquired, crossing his arms impatiently.

“I can indeed. I just have a few questions for you, if you don’t mind.” Discord said, floating lazily towards him.

“Such as…?” Gerhardt asked in an annoyed tone.

“Well it’s about the world you’re going to build! You know, the more I hear about it the more impressed I am. So I’m just a bit curious… Will everything in the world be perfectly ordered? Will there really be no conflict or disharmony whatsoever? Even the weather will be controlled on a perfectly preplanned schedule?” Discord inquired.

“Yes… Why do you ask?” Gerhardt demanded in a suspicious tone.

“Well I’m just curious is all. And I’m so impressed by what I’ve heard about what you have planned that I would like to help you, of course! You know, that amulet is based on my magic and it isn’t nearly as powerful as it could be. Here, let me give it a little boost for you.” Discord lied before reaching forwards and touching the area of Gerhardt’s armor that covered the Amulet.

Or at least that’s what he would have done if Gerhardt hadn’t teleported away before Discord could touch him. “Bullshit. Tell me the truth. What type of spirit are you? Chaos, I assume?”

Discord sighed and said, “Yes, I am… Am I really that bad of a liar?”

“Well, I mean a spirit named ‘Discord’ suddenly appeared and asked if something I’m going to do is going to weaken the concept of Chaos drastically then suddenly offered to help me. You have to admit, anyone in my situation would find that highly suspicious. So why are you really here? Have you come to try to stop me? Because I warn you, I have a doomsday weapon in orbit at this very moment and it will soon be fully built and I have a deadman’s switch. So I could just wipe all life off this planet all together and eliminate all concepts including chaos all together. So kill me and I will take everything down with me and you will cease to exist entirely instead of just being weakened.”

“Fine… Yes, I admit it. I came here to stop you. But I would never go so far as to kill you. Honestly, who do you take me for? But, I wasn’t lying when I said that the amulet you’re wearing is based on a form of my magic. So instead, how about we strike a deal? You leave room for a little chaos in the world you’re trying to build and in exchange, I will teach you more about my magic. You could use it to do things far beyond your tiny mortal comprehension. So, what do you say? Do we have a deal?” Discord inquired, teleporting himself over to Gerhardt.

“Could I use it to become a god? I know mortals can ascend to being demigods in this universe, but I need to ascend beyond that so I can leave and return to my own universe.” Gerhardt inquired.

“A god? You want to become a god? Well, that would be rather difficult but I suppose it wouldn’t be impossible per say. In that case, let’s change the deal slightly. I help you become a god and you leave a bit of room in the world you plan to build for chaos.” Discord lied, holding out a claw for a handshake.

Gerhardt hesitated for a moment. On the one hand he found this “deal” suspicious as hell and he didn’t trust Discord in the least. On the other hand, his species was dying and he needed to find a way to achieve divinity as soon as possible and an opportunity to do just that was just presented to him on a silver platter. No matter how suspicious he was, he couldn’t just refuse considering what was at stake. So he sighed and reluctantly shook Discord’s claw.

Discord then smirked and used that opportunity to get rid of the corruption affecting Gerhardt’s mind instead of forming a magical contract. As soon as the corruption was gone he let go of Gerhardt’s hand.

“By the gods… What have I done?” Gerhardt muttered in horror as he realized the gravity of everything he had done. After a moment of thinking he immediately removed his helmet and the upper half of his armor so he could access the Alicorn Amulet to take it off. He then tossed the amulet to the ground and said, “I should never have put that cursed amulet on… Oh gods, no… The Changelings… I put an entire species through that gods forsaken machine against their will… And I did the same to everyone here in the Crystal Empire… What the fuck is wrong with me?! Even if I was being corrupted, how the hell could I have possibly justified going this far?! What have I done?!”

Watching this Discord chuckled and said, “Well, it seems my work here is done. I won’t be losing my physical form any time soon and I most certainly won’t be letting some metal fool with a god complex take it from me.” Discord said before vanishing into thin air, leaving Gerhardt alone with his machines.

Realizing that it was too late to stop his machine since it had just finished converting the entirety of the Crystal Empire and it had a built in plasma furnace that had already incinerated all of their bodies, he did the only thing he could at this point. He proceeded to put his armor back on and pick the amulet back up off the ground. Looking at the amulet he shook his head and said, “Never again… This cannot be allowed to happen again under any circumstances… Gods above… If I actually managed to find a way to become a god and returned to Earth in that state, I shudder to imagine what I would have done…” He then proceeded to teleport the amulet back to a specific location in his factory in the Crystal Empire.

After that he rounded up all of the unicorns and directed them to the section of the mobile factory that would uncurse all of their horns and told the others they were all free to go. Once the unicorns were all uncursed, Gerhardt let all of them go as well. He was going to have to make a public apology later, though he knew even that wouldn’t be enough to atone for his sins. Nothing would. But apologizing and effectively exiling himself from the Crystal Empire and Changeling Hive forever was the only thing he could do.

Finally he ordered all of his capture golems into their storage compartment inside the mobile factory and ordered the mobile factory to rotate it’s dimensional axis. He would come back for them later, but for now he just needed to get them out of the way until he had time to deal with them. He also sent an order to his orbital cannons to stop firing.

Right now he needed to think. He couldn’t actually justify following through with his plan but Natura was still a possible threat and if he just let her go then there was no guarantee she wouldn’t attack again. Thinking about it, he had already more than proven he had the capability to follow through on his threat to eliminate Nature in its entirety and he did have a deadman’s switch. So perhaps at this stage he could just threaten her into submission? Well there was only one way to find out.

Using his orbital cannons to find Natura’s location he opened a portal to the place the Everfree Forest used to be and just stepped through. He would have just teleported himself but because his armor was highly magic resistant and would thus drastically increase the amount of arcane energy required to teleport himself there opening a portal was just more energy efficient.

Seeing Natura lying in the ashes of the Forest he walked over to her and said, “So, have I made my point?”

Her head immediately shot up and her head snapped towards him. “You!”

“Ah, I wouldn’t try anything if I were you. If you haven’t noticed, my orbital cannons have stopped for the moment. But remember I have a deadman’s switch so if you try to kill me, they will start back up again and there will be no one to stop them. So if you want to continue to exist then I would strongly recommend that you hear me out at the very least.” Gerhardt said, putting a hand up defensively.

Natura then sighed and layed back down in the ashes. “What do you want from me, monster? You’ve already destroyed so much… What else could you possibly take from me, other than my life?”

“Oh I could do plenty more than just take your life, I assure you. For example, after the invention of Necromancy quite a few Nature Spirits were corrupted by the necromantic energy and became the first Spirits of Undeath during the First Necromantic War. It would be more difficult since you classify as a greater spirit but the same could be done to you. It would be a far worse fate than just killing you, I promise you that. However, I myself am not my former apprentice Caedes so I have no interest in such things. So that’s not why I’m here.” Gerhardt said in a menacing tone.

Gerhardt then crossed his arms behind his back again and started slowly walking around her in a big circle, much like a shark circling its prey. “No, I’m here because after removing that amulet I came to my senses and realized that by doing what I was doing I myself would be no better than you or that bastard Silvanus. I don’t want to lower myself to your level if I don’t have to. So I came here to give you an ultimatum. Never attack me, any member of my family, or the ponies again otherwise I will decide you are too great of a threat and will finish what I started. In fact, I have a doomsday weapon being built in orbit at this very moment and it could do what I did on this continent again to the entire planet in just a few days. It would turn the atmosphere into plasma and would cause even the deepest depths of the oceans to come to a boil, killing everything. The entire world along every possible dimensional axis would be completely sterilized of life. In a few days when it is finally complete I will be giving you a first hand demonstration of its capabilities along a dimensional axis with no sapient life, just so you know I’m telling the truth. So, do we have an understanding? I don’t care if you agree or not. I just need to know I made myself perfectly clear.”

“Yes… I understand… I won’t attack you, your family, or the ponies again… Is that all? If so, go away and leave me alone… All this destruction you caused… It’s just heartbreaking…” Natura muttered looking around at the ashen wasteland around her, tears welling up in her eyes.

“Actually, no. That’s not all. Despite everything you have done I do believe in being as fair as possible. So I’m going to do for you what I did for the Changelings. I will take you to Canterlot and have you negotiate a peace treaty between you and Equestria. You will be able to barter for better terms with the princesses. My ultimatum is just the force ensuring the peace treaty will last and that you won’t break it. I guarantee the ponies won’t break their end of the agreement either. You have my word on that.” Gerhardt said, deciding that considering everything he had done he should at least be the one to extend the olive branch in this situation instead of just beating her to death with it, metaphorically speaking.

Natura sighed and got up out of the ashes covering the ground. “I suppose it’s the best I’m going to get in this situation…”

Gerhardt nodded before opening a portal to the throne room of Canterlot Castle and motioning towards it. “After you.”

[The end of Natura’s attack, Silvanus]

Silvanus was about to object to Natura working together with the ponies at all but before he could he sensed something “grab hold” of the “strands” he had connected to Natura, Gerhardt, and Isabelle. Something of truly immense power. A greater god…

Panicking he tried to sever his connection to the strands but the god who had hijacked his control over them wouldn’t let him. He was trapped. Suddenly his vision was pulled away from Gerhardt, Natura, and Isabelle and instead he saw a blindingly bright white light. “We thought we sensed the influence of a foreign god in our universe… Ah… Your name is Silvanus… You can stop trying to sever the threads now, it won’t work. I have taken control over them. Know this, Silvanus. There will be retribution for your interference within our universe. We will be speaking with those you know as ‘The Greater Gods’ and will decide how to deal with this transgression. For now, bear witness to the consequences of your actions here. Bear witness to the destruction of nature that you caused, unable to do anything to stop it now that you have set it into motion.”

He was then frozen in place and forced to watch the entire time as Gerhardt proceeded to destroy every vegetated area on the continent and converted the Changelings and the Crystal Ponies into machines. Even then his visions did not stop. Instead of showing him what was actually happening, the visions switched to showing him what would have happened had Discord not intervened. Thus he had no idea that Gerhardt had actually stopped and decided to talk to Natura. Instead he was forced to sit there for days on end, unable to move or do anything but watch the complete and utter annihilation of the concept of nature in its entirety as Gerhardt built a world of nothing but machines.

The Serpents did come to check on him at some point and seeing him completely unresponsive they rushed to get the aid of several of the gods who had allied themselves with Silvanus. Those gods immediately recognized the influence of foreign greater gods at work and were able to make fairly accurate assumptions as to what happened from there. Thus knowing there was nothing they could do for him, Silvanus was left there for quite some time until he eventually disappeared in a flash of light, pulled into the divine realm by the greater gods for a formal trial for his crimes.

Author's Note

Hopefully this is a good compromise between Gerhardt winning and not completely eradicating the concept of Nature in its entirety. And hopefully it doesn't come off as too much of a Deus Ex Machina unlike the original version of Chapter 28, but if it does just tell me and I promise I will try to fix it to the very best of my abilities. Have a little faith in me. I have always tried to fix my mistakes in the past and I will continue to do so in the future.

Now on a somewhat brighter note, I have a question for all of you. What should Silvanus' punishment be? I was thinking straight up execution but that would be too easy. No, karma has to really come back to bite him in the ass, so I've thought of a few options for you all to vote on. Here's a link: Strawpoll Link

I'm sorry if you have any issues with that website, I would use strawpoll . me like I normally do, but I've been having issues with it lately. At least with this website I'll know the votes are all completely accurate rather than it not counting any of them at all like the other website.

Fun Fact: Certain types of spirits can be corrupted to other types of spirits as long as what they're being corrupted into have at least some relation to the concept they represent. Undeath has to do with death which is part of nature thus nature spirits can be corrupted to become spirits of undeath.

Fun Fact #2: After Natura's attack, all of the Changelings that survived and were still in Equestria fled back to the hive. So Gerhardt got their entire species.

Anyways, as always, constructive criticism is more than welcome. Please, tell me what you guys thought of this chapter and how you think I could improve if at all. I hope you all enjoyed reading this chapter as much if not more than I enjoyed writing it!

Stay safe out there everyone!