Gerhardt’s undead army had forced Nightmare Moon to retreat. This was Gerhardt’s first victory since arriving in this world which was a major relief to him. He finally bought himself a bit of breathing room. He would not squander this luxury. He immediately got to work mining ores and crystals from a nearby cave he had found, and using a crude stone blast furnace heated by magic to refine the ore into metals. This took a few days. While he was doing this he considered what types of golems he should build.

He needed golems that were as powerful as possible but he didn’t have enough time or resources to build very many of even the smallest and most bare bones model of heavy combat golem possible, let alone even one of the skyscraper sized Super Heavy Combat Golems. He could build maybe three very basic Heavy Combat Golems at most. And that was if he kept his brain overclocked and had his perception of time drastically sped up for the entire month. He could have possibly built five by the end of the month but he didn’t have the resources. He could build maybe 15 to 30 basic Combat Golems or 50 Light Combat Drones, if he was lucky, but they lacked the power he needed and were too easily destroyed. So traditional Combat Golems in general were out of the question.

Also he had been in this world having to constantly abandon everything he made and flee for his life, all while stressing quite heavily over the situation the Human Kingdom was in and worrying that his species was going to be driven extinct and it was all his fault that it was starting to get to him. The psychological effects of all of these things combined manifested itself in a way that he never would have anticipated. If he were to be perfectly honest, for the first time in centuries he was actually feeling extremely lonely and found himself longing for human contact. He had spent his life disdaining wasting his time with anything other than his work, but now he would have given anything to at least have someone to talk to.

This world and the situation he was in on top of knowing the situation Humanity was in was his personal hell, his worst nightmare come to life, and he wanted something, anything, to distract him from it even for a mere moment. His work no longer sufficed in that regard as he constantly had to stress over if he was going to have to destroy it all and abandon everything again in a few days making his work nothing but a source of highly intense anxiety for him. The fact that he had been forced to use necromancy to raise an army of the undead only multiplied his stress and anxiety even further. He honestly felt like he was on the verge of having a mental breakdown. So he felt like he needed someone to talk to, who wasn’t out to kill him, just for the sake of his own sanity.

Thus he had an idea. Why not kill two birds with one stone? He needed powerful combat golems that weren’t particularly large or resource intensive and he definitely needed someone to talk to. So why not build a few sapient golems that were also extremely powerful mages? He had already violated the laws of the Human Kingdom and more importantly his own moral code by raising an army of the undead, so why not build some sapient golems too? It wasn’t like it could be any worse than anything he had already done in this world and if they turned on him and ended up killing him at least he would die at the hands of his own creations rather than some spiteful bitch of a demigod. So he could take some comfort in knowing that.

Thus after building the tools he needed he immediately got to work building four sapient golems. He chose four specifically so as to mimic the structure of the Human Kingdom, with him acting as the High Lord of the Research and Development branch once again. He did this because he really needed some sense of normalcy at the moment given his current mental state. With his brain overclocked and him working on all four simultaneously, it only took him a few hours to build them all. Then it took another ten minutes to give them some initial programming to make them loyal to him and download everything he knew into their brains. The only knowledge of his that he didn’t download into their brains were his own memories as he did not want to make mind clones of himself. Thus they were also perfectly aware of necromancy and how to use it since at this point Gerhardt had been forced to accept that it may actually be entirely necessary for them to use necromancy if they were to win this war.

When he was done, both a copper and ethereal green aura enveloped his hands as he activated them and used necromancy to ensure all of their souls would form in such a way as to make them as powerful mages as physically possible for mortals. All of their eyes snapped open at once and their eyes began to glow. Then they all began looking around curiously.

All of them looked pretty much the same. All of them were 6’5’’ just like him, all of them had silver exteriors, all of them had mostly androgynous features, and all of them had faces that looked more human and were much more expressive then Gerhardt’s. The only major difference was the color of the corundum crystals Gerhardt used for their eyes. This was mainly because they were the only ones of the batch he mined from a cave in a nearby mountain that were large and clear enough to use as eyes. One had two crimson rubies for eyes, another had green sapphires for eyes, another had pink sapphires for eyes, and the last one had purple sapphires for eyes.

The one with rubies for eyes was the one who looked at him first and said, “Hello father.” Its voice was very serious and surprisingly deep and masculine since golems were never truly male or female. It also seemed to have the most aggressive demeanor of the four.

The one with pink eyes looked at the one with red eyes and then followed its gaze to look at Gerhardt. Getting up off of the very basic table it was sitting on, it rapidly walked over to Gerhardt with a large smile on its face and wrapped its arms around him in a tight embrace. “Hi dad. Thank you so much for building us!” Unlike the one with red eyes, this one’s voice was surprisingly feminine. It’s voice also sounded a lot kinder than the one with red eyes.

Then the ones with purple and green eyes looked over at Gerhardt. The one with purple eyes raised a hand in greeting and said, “Hey, everyone.” It’s voice wasn’t as deep as that of the one with red eyes but it still very much sounded male. It’s voice sounded the calmest and most easy going out of all of them.

“Greetings, father, siblings.” Said the one with green eyes. It’s voice also sounded female though it was slightly deeper than the one with pink eyes. It’s voice sounded the most emotionless and professional of all of them.

Gerhardt just blinked in surprise. He had not been expecting them to consider him their father or each other as siblings. With his current mental state being as poor as it was he honestly sort of welcomed the prospect of having a family and enjoyed being called “father” even though that went completely counter to his views prior to his arrival in this world. Other than that, though, he supposed that would make it less likely for them to turn on him or each other if they all thought of each other as family. It was also strange how different each of their personalities were considering how they all had exactly the same knowledge downloaded into their brains. Well, since they thought of him as their father he decided he may as well address them in kind. “Hello my children. I’m sorry to ask so much of you so soon after your creation but I’m afraid we have a lot of work to do in order to prepare for war with a demigod. I’m going to need all of your help with this. However before we get started on working, I can’t let you all go on without names. Since you are all able to talk and all have the minds of adults, I shall allow you all to decide on your own names.”

The one with pink eyes released him and said, “Hm… Alright, I want to be called Alice!”

“My name will be Arthur, after the man who slayed the lich Caedes.” The one with red eyes declared.

“I shall be Elizabeth.” The one with green eyes stated.

“I guess that just leaves me. Hm… I guess I’ll be Jack.” The one with purple eyes stated.

“Huh… Surprising. Am I to assume you all consider yourself either male or female respectively?” Gerhardt inquired. It was strange to him that the ones with masculine voices chose male names while the ones with feminine voices chose female names.

“Yup.” Jack said with a small smile on his face.

“Enough of this. Now that we all have names we have work to do. Father, I would like to request a short briefing on our current situation.” Arthur requested.

“As you wish. Currently an equine demigod by the name of Nightmare Moon is trying to hunt me down and kill me. I have tried making hidden bases in multiple locations but somehow she kept finding me within a matter of days each and every time. I could not keep escaping her forever so given my lack of options I killed many animals in numerous different forests and used necromancy to raise an army of undead to fight her off. This worked. She could not harm the shade or the ghosts but they were able to harm her. So she fled. Now I estimate that we have perhaps a month to prepare before she returns. Before that happens, I would like to go on the offensive if at all possible. However I cannot build enough combat golems of sufficient power fast enough on my own. Plus I would like assistance in commanding my army. Also… Um… As much as I am loath to admit it… My current predicament is having a very negative impact on my mental health and I require companionship at the moment… Er… Anyways, that’s where you four come in.” Gerhardt explained.

“You built us to assist you in building and commanding your army, and for your own mental health. A logical decision based on our current circumstances. What are our orders then, father? Until our army is built you are the leader.” Elizabeth inquired.

“First the five of us need to go mining as I used up most of what few materials I had managed to collect in this area building you four. I’m afraid I do not have any mining equipment so we’ll have to use magic. After that we will need to refine the ores we gathered. Unfortunately my current smeltery is rather crude and primitive, but it will still work to refine the ores we collect. After that we need to build as many combat golems as possible. Finally we need to discuss our strategy for how we are going to approach this war as we cannot remain on the defensive forever.” Gerhardt responded. “Also, do not consider me a leader. As far as I am concerned the five of us are equals. We shall vote on what course of action we take and of course the majority vote wins. So do you agree on this current course of action I have proposed?”

All of them except Arthur nodded. “I do not.” Arthur stated.

“Oh? And why is that? Perhaps you have thought of a better suggestion?” Gerhardt asked, genuinely curious.

“I believe we should split the work and take shifts instead of all of us doing the exact same thing at once. Two or three of us should go mining and two or three of us should remain here to work on building up our forces. That way we can get more done at a more consistent rate rather than in bursts.”

“Hm. A fair point. Very well. All in favor of Arthur’s proposal?” Gerhardt asked before raising his hand. All of the others raised their hands as well. “Then the decision is unanimous. We will divide the work into shifts. Regardless, I still have to show all four of you where the mine is so you will know where to go when it is your turn in the mines. Please follow me.” With that he turned and led the four of them to the cave he had turned into his own personal mine. “Here it is. I suppose to begin with all five of us should go and mine resources until we have enough to refine and use. Otherwise two of us will be out here doing nothing while the other three work, which isn’t fair.”

“Very well then, father. However before we begin I have somewhat of an inquiry about what our approach to this war shall be. And depending on the answer I may have a suggestion as well.” Elizabeth stated in a very matter of fact tone.

“Very well. What is your inquiry, dear?” Gerhardt asked.

“How will we be dealing with this enemy kingdom? Will we be conquering it and seizing control over its populace by force of arms, will we be conducting a campaign of extermination, or will we simply be crushing its military and using force of arms to ensure it can never build up another military ever again rendering it unable to wage war on us in the future?”

“Hm… Personally I am considering conquering it. I see no reason to go so far as to exterminate the people for the actions of their leader. They have no control over what Nightmare Moon does and I’m sure none of them truly wish us harm. Hell, I’m pretty sure most of them don’t even know we exist in the first place.” Gerhardt explained. “Why? What is your suggestion?”

“I would like to recommend that we create our own kingdom. Or I suppose technocratic stratocracy would be more accurate since we would be forming a sort of military oligarchy rather than a monarchy, but for ease of conversation the word “Kingdom” should be fine. Regardless, I see your point about not eradicating the species, but that doesn’t mean we have to rule them either. Why should we have to put up with ruling a bunch of organics who aren’t even human and having to deal with all of the issues associated with organic beings in general when we could simply create our own kingdom of golems like us? Besides which, our army would be significantly stronger if it were made up of more sapient golems like us.”

“Hm… I must agree with Elizabeth, father. This would appear to be the best course of action. Perhaps we could start out conquering a few towns and cities until our numbers and infrastructure have grown significantly. Then after the war has concluded, we can give the conquered population centers back to the Equines. Or perhaps we can utilize these towns and cities for our own ends and send the entirety of the organic populations to whatever territory the Equines have left. That way we retain the territory without the organic civilian population.” Arthur added.

“A fine addition to the plan, Arthur. I agree with this notion.” Elizabeth stated with an affirmative nod.

“But if we did that we would be kicking them out of their homes and ruining their livelihoods!” Alice objected, clearly finding the idea morally reprehensible. “Sure, organic beings may come with quite a few issues, but ruling over them would be better then just taking everything away from them and their families.”

“That is entirely the fault of their current leader for forcing father into this situation to begin with. Even more importantly it is simply not our concern. Alice, this is war. Such things are unavoidable in war. Civilians will inevitably lose their homes and livelihoods regardless of what course of action we take. This way simply maximizes the potential benefit to our kingdom by ensuring we retain a large area of territory.” Arthur rebutted. “Jack, you have been silent up until this point. What is your opinion on the matter?”

Jack frowned to himself and hummed in thought. “Well… I’m not entirely sure to be honest. On the one hand, I see what you and Elizabeth are getting at. On the other hand, I see Alice’s point… Hm… Oh, I know! How about a compromise? We do as you and Elizabeth suggest, but instead of just leaving them all homeless we send a few construction golems to build them a few cities as a replacement? Or at the very least a few shelters to stay in until they can find new homes and businesses.”

Elizabeth frowned. “What a waste of useful materials and resources… Still, I suppose limited resources won't be an issue once we are able to start mining asteroids. So I suppose this would be an acceptable arrangement. So, are we all in agreement?” The other three nodded in response. They then looked at Gerhardt. “Father, do you agree as well or do you disagree?”

Gerhardt was a bit shocked. He had only intended to make four sapient golems since he had been hoping he would only need four. Yet his children had decided that they were going to make more and he was outnumbered four to one in the vote. Even more stress and anxiety began piling on top of the stress and anxiety that had driven him to build these four to begin with, putting even more strain on his already heavily strained mental state. “Y-yes… I… I suppose… It’s a good plan. A very good plan… I have no reason to disagree… Besides which you four already out number me in the vote, so even if I were to disagree I would have to go along with it anyways as the majority vote always wins.” The quality of his voice had degraded and his eyes had dimmed significantly. Were he still mostly organic he felt like he would be trying to keep himself from crying.

He couldn’t really argue with them. The plan was indeed very good. Plus sapient golems capable of using magic would be the best and most efficient golems he could possibly build. They would be as powerful, if not more so, than any Heavy Combat Golem could ever be while taking far less resources to build. So logically they would be his best option. He just didn’t want to have to resort to that because he had always hated sending people to their deaths. Making this even worse was the fact that he would be sending nothing but his own children and grandchildren to fight and die for him. Not even the Human Kingdom which was actually important, but him. Just some irrelevant technomancer who holds no real significance in the grand scheme of things. He didn’t want to… He didn’t want to… He didn’t want to… But, he had no choice… His children had already made the choice for him… He was starting to wonder if it wouldn’t be better to just give up and let Nightmare Moon kill him. Surely death had to be better than this… But it was too late now. He had already built his children so there was no longer any going back… At least he was no longer completely alone in this world…

All four of them noticed the change and gave him concerned looks. “Dad? What’s wrong?” Alice inquired walking over to him. She appeared to be the most concerned out of all of them.

“It’s… It’s nothing… The stress from the past couple of months is starting to get to me… That’s all… L-let’s just get to work… That will take my mind off of it… Hopefully…” Gerhardt stated before turning and immediately heading into the cave to get to mining.

The four of them stood there and watched for a moment. Once he disappeared inside the cave, Arthur growled furiously. “I don’t care if she is a demigod, that bitch is going to fucking pay for doing this to our father. I will force her to watch as everything she cares about burns down around her just before I flay her alive.”

“A waste of effort and more than she deserves. Simply destroying her soul and getting it over with is the optimal solution.” Elizabeth stated in a very professional tone.

“I don’t really agree with going to those sorts of extremes, but I do agree with you two in that she can’t be allowed to get away with this.” Alice stated.

“Hmm… Yeah that’s great and all and I definitely agree with the sentiment, but uh… Are we sure that dear old dad is in suitable condition for this?” Jack inquired, looking around at his siblings.

“No. He obviously isn’t. He is very clearly unstable at the moment and quite possibly emotionally compromised.” Elizabeth stated, crossing her arms. “We have to try our best to keep him out of any sort of stressful or anxiety inducing situations so his condition does not deteriorate any further. Unfortunately, I believe that means we are going to have to go behind his back quite a bit from here on out. He won’t like it if he finds out, but it's for his own good.”

“I’ll try my best to stay with him as much as possible and help him deal with what he’s going through. I’ll also be trying my best to distract him from anything too stressful. So, essentially, I’ll be trying to take the role of the high lord of the medical branch. That is if none of you object to this?” Alice stated.

“Very well. Medical treatment is typically only required by biological beings, but psychiatric issues can affect even us. Plus you can focus on conducting repairs to damaged soldiers instead of treating wounds. Also anything relating to biological technology can fall under your purview. So the position is still entirely viable even in our new society. In that case, I suppose I will take the role of the high lord of the aviation branch. I would have chosen the research and development branch but I assume father will claim that role.” Elizabeth stated. “That just leaves the army branch and the navy branch.”

“I’ll take the role of the high lord of the navy if you don’t mind, Arthur.” Jack said, looking at his brother.

“Hmph… Go ahead. I wanted to be the high lord of the army anyways. Though based on the incomplete map father has made of this land and downloaded into all of our heads, it would appear that the majority of the enemy kingdom is landlocked. Of course, once we have better infrastructure you could station ships off the coasts and provide long range artillery support. Or you could take most of your operations into orbit and thus provide orbital bombardment. Until then, however, our roles will likely have to be shared somewhat for the duration of this war. So you will assist in commanding our troops on land until we have ships and satellites for you to command. That goes for you as well, Elizabeth.”

“Eh, fair enough.” Jack shrugged.

“That is reasonable. Until we have vehicles at our command we cannot truly be considered a navy or an aviation force. Thus the army is the only viable option until that point… Actually, I believe I will be helping father with research and development until my aircraft are finally built. As I said, I would prefer to be the high lord of research and development but I suspect that will be father’s job.”

“Alright, well, now that that’s all decided, I think we should go help dad mine for resources. We can’t just stand here talking all day while he does all the work.” Alice said before turning and heading into the cave. The others quickly followed along behind her.

It took the rest of the month with the five of them working in shifts, alternating between mining and refining materials and building. This process started out slow but was sped up more and more as more sapient golems were built as they would also start assisting in the process of mining and refining materials or building more weapons or golems, after each batch were briefed on the situation by either Gerhardt himself or one of his first four children. Anyone working on building would spend the entire time with their brains overclocked and their perception of time drastically sped up as they built as many more weapons or golems as they could as fast as they possibly could. That was until their shifts were up and it was their turn to go into the mines. There were always more people in the mines than there were building so as to ensure the ones that were building never ran out of materials to build with.

By the end of the month there were a total of 125 sapient golems, not counting the first four Gerhardt had built, which were divided into groups of 25 and assigned to one of the five branches. Furthermore all of them were armed with weapons which were effectively the exact same as Gerhardt’s as their main weapon. However, some also carried heavier weapons capable of destroying Heavy Tanks and Heavy Combat Golems or blowing up buildings. All of them also carried sidearms in the form of pistols of varying types. Some carried teleportation pistols, others carried particle beam pistols, others carried magic pistols, and others carried laser pistols. What type of pistol they carried and if they used heavy weapons or not all depended on the individual golem’s preference.

Obviously 125 was an extremely small number for an army. However what they lacked in quantity they more than made up for in terms of quality as each and every last one were highly lethal soldiers on top of being the most powerful that mortal mages could possibly be. Gerhardt was actually the single weakest individual in the entire army by far. Each individual absolutely eclipsed him in terms of power. As long as they were working together they should be more than a match for the average demigod. Also their numbers were bolstered quite a bit by the army of ghosts and the feral Shade that Gerhardt had created to fight off Nightmare Moon.

So finally the month came to a close and they were as ready as they could possibly be. Thus they began marching to war under the command of Gerhardt, Arthur, Alice, Elizabeth, and Jack respectively.

[Meanwhile in Canterlot]

Like Gerhardt, Nightmare Moon had not spent that month sitting idly by doing nothing. Not at all. She had spent the entire time creating highly advanced weapons to combat Gerhardt’s army of golems and ghosts. Unfortunately she had to form a magically binding contract with Silvanus before he agreed to teach her how to build the weapons to fight the undead. This contract made it so that she was unable to use necromancy to raise the dead herself, to teach others how to use necromancy — at least not without forcing them into a very similar but much stricter magical contract than the one she was had been forced to agree to —, to let anyone try to reverse engineer the weapons to learn how necromancy worked, or to attempt to exploit any loopholes in the contract among several other things. She was, however, allowed to spread everything else he taught her as long as it had absolutely nothing to do with necromancy.

Still by the end of the month she had significantly upgraded the arms and armor of her soldiers and had put all the new technology Silvanus had told her how to make into mass production. She had a small army of unicorns working overtime to build it all since she knew exactly what Gerhardt was doing and the preparations he was making thanks to Silvanus.

She and Equestria were fully prepared for war. From the very beginning this war would be like nothing this relatively peaceful world had ever seen before and she knew it would only grow in intensity in the months and years to come. Yet she was not worried in the slightest as she was completely confident in her ability to win a war against a bunch of pathetic mortal apes made of metal. Even if her armies took heavy casualties, what did she care? They were mortal, lower life forms, and it would serve them all right for their lack of appreciation for her beautiful night. She knew her people still hated her and her night, though they would never voice this opinion for fear of execution, and she hated them all in kind. They always liked her sister better and they still did even a thousand years later, and that fact always infuriated her to no end. So the deaths of her people were of little consequence to her. Perhaps she would start caring about them and their deaths if and when future generations started appreciating her night as much as the current generation now longed for her sister and the sun.

[Tall Tale]

Gerhardt and his army had sent a few small bird shaped and sized drones to scout the area and find the nearest major population center. These drones found two separate cities in close proximity to each other. They had originally intended to take the population centers one at a time, however given how close the two cities were to each other they couldn’t take the risk of someone escaping from one of the cities and running to warn the other. Thus they were forced to split their army in two.

Arthur and Alice would be assaulting the city that was closest to them while Jack and Elizabeth would be assaulting the city that was slightly further away. 1000 of the ghosts would go with Jack and Elizabeth while the other 1000 would be going with Arthur and Alice. The feral Shade would be staying with Gerhardt as something of a bodyguard since he wasn’t nearly as powerful as any of his children or grandchildren and he would need the assistance to fight off Nightmare Moon, assuming she showed up.

Meanwhile Gerhardt’s forces would be managing communications and would be split among the two invasion forces to act as support. It was also decided rather unanimously by Alice, Arthur, Elizabeth, and Jack that Gerhardt himself would be staying in a secure location protected by at least five of his own soldiers and the feral Shade. He had no idea why they decided on this, but as much as he wanted to object the four of them had out voted him so he really didn’t have a say in the matter. He had tried his best to convince them to let him participate in one of the two battles but they firmly refused no matter what he said. Hell his guards were even under orders by his first four children to keep him there and to stop him if he tried to run off to join one of the battles. So for all intents and purposes his children had put him under house arrest and he couldn’t help but find the whole thing completely unreasonable. He knew he wasn’t exactly in the best state of mind at the moment, but as far as he was concerned his mental state did not warrant this.

Thus Gerhardt was currently sitting on a chair in the middle of his lab, looking through the eyes of the twenty of his soldiers that were assisting in the two battles — all of whom he was wirelessly connected to at the moment. He wasn’t allowed to participate in the battle in person but that didn’t mean he couldn’t participate in the battle at all. So he was watching what was happening and was giving orders to his soldiers based on what he saw through their eyes and information he was receiving. Meanwhile he was trying his best to keep Arthur, Elizabeth, Jack, and Alice updated on all the reports and information he was receiving so they could better strategize.

The local law enforcement and what little military forces were present in the cities were putting up some resistance and apparently they had upgraded their equipment quite a bit since the last time Gerhardt had encountered them. So the battles were not going nearly as smoothly as they had first anticipated. Still, between the ghosts and the mages they were winning. One of the first targets of both invasion forces had been the train stations. They didn’t want any of the inhabitants to escape, thus they captured the train stations and had several hundred ghosts patrolling around the outside of the cities and in the skies. Not even the Pegasi would be allowed to escape. If they tried they would be assaulted by dozens of ghosts and would likely be shot out of the sky by one of the golems for their trouble.

“Grandfather?” One of the golems guarding him asked.

“Yes, Walter? What is it?” Gerhardt knew each and every last one of the golems by name. The one who had spoken was Walter-0002. There was some overlap in the names the golems chose so they had decided to give themselves serial numbers as a sort of analogue for last names since technically all of their last names would be Mechanica since they were Gerhardt’s children and grandchildren. This one was the second golem to choose to name himself Walter, thus he was designated 0002.

“I just wanted to say how sorry I am… I realize you would probably rather be out there fighting with the rest of them than be sitting in here doing nothing…” Walter stated.

“You don’t have to apologize, Walter. It’s not your fault. You are just following orders. And considering our family is a military as well you should. I do not blame you for it. Nor do I blame Alice, Arthur, Elizabeth, or Jack. They were very clear in that they are doing this for my own mental health and I suppose they are right in a sense. This entire ordeal has been taking a heavy toll on me and I am perfectly well aware of that fact… Gods above… I was forced to use necromancy to raise an army of the undead just to survive long enough to start building all of you… Humanity is being destroyed by Silvanus and may in fact already have been destroyed by now for all I know… I may very well be the last human in existence… I constantly have to fear for my life and worry that I’m going to have to destroy and abandon all my work and start over again… And, of course, I have no choice but to send my own children and grandchildren to fight and die for me… And maybe I’m also wondering if it would be better to just let Nightmare Moon kill me and get it over with so all of you don’t have to suffer for my mistakes…”

Gerhardt trailed off for a moment before sighing and saying, “B-but… I’ve… I’ve faced worse… I’m still a soldier… I know I can still fight… I know I can still lead…” His voice didn’t sound very confident in those statements. Had he really ever faced anything worse than this? It was sort of debatable… This was definitely one of the worst experiences of his life and it was playing hell on his mind. There had been some other things that were quite close but none of them ever affected his mental state nearly as much as this was…

To put how bad it had been into perspective, the redundant systems and failsafes that were meant to forcibly keep him sane had been active constantly for the past month and a half and they were being pushed a little harder every “day”. He honestly wasn’t sure how much longer they would be able to hold up since they had never been designed to be active for this long or to be pushed as hard as they currently were. If something didn’t change and soon he was actually legitimately worried those systems might be overwhelmed and he may snap. He was trying his best to update and reinforce them as much as he could but there was only so much he could do with the framework that was already in place. And he couldn’t take out the framework and replace it with anything more robust with the failsafes currently active.

The five golems that were guarding him shared a concerned look and quietly sent messages to each other wirelessly without letting Gerhardt know what they were doing. Everyone in the family knew there was something very wrong with Gerhardt, however none of them knew how to help him. This was because they were all currently limited to the knowledge that had been downloaded into their brains and that they could share amongst each other. And unfortunately since Gerhardt knew very little about mental health care beyond some very basics he had been required to learn so he would know how to deal with traumatized civilians just long enough to get them to people in the Medical Branch, none of them knew any more about it than he did. So keeping him safe and away from battle like this was the best any of them could do for the moment.

As high lord of the medical branch, Alice would be researching psychology quite extensively. Especially after the cities were captured since she could read every book the equines had on psychology, biology, and medicine. She already knew how to repair damaged golems so she didn’t really need to conduct any further research in that department. Unfortunately, until that point she couldn’t do anything for him either.

About half an hour into the battles something rather unexpected happened. Hundreds of Equine soldiers appeared in a flash of blue light inside the city closest to Gerhardt’s base of operations. There were about 1000 in total. All were armed with highly advanced weapons and armor. Furthermore, Nightmare Moon herself also appeared above the city and she appeared to be wearing some sort of helmet with a glass visor. Mere seconds after she appeared, every single golem that had been assaulting the other city opened portals to the closest city and stepped through in preparation to fight her off. Arthur, Elizabeth, Alice, and Jack all ordered the ghosts to deal with the soldiers while they dealt with Nightmare Moon.

Not even waiting for the other golems to get there Arthur was the first to attack. Snarling in fury at the demigod he raised his hand towards her and fired a beam of powerful destructive necromantic energy towards her, intent on destroying her soul. He had decided Elizabeth was right, the bitch wasn’t worth the effort to torture and destroying her soul would be just as satisfying.

A wall of ethereal green energy appeared between Nightmare Moon and the attack, absorbing it as if it were nothing. The other golems all began an unrelenting barrage of devastatingly powerful and very clever attacks. Some opened portals around her and fired attacks through those, others fired their weapons at her — especially the ones that were carrying heavy weapons —, and so on.

She dodged and blocked the attacks with almost contemptuous ease, but she couldn’t keep it up forever and she knew it given their numbers and how powerful all of them were. Thus she began attacking the golems in kind. She unleashed devastating combat and war spells that the golems had to work together to defend against. Fortunately their brains were all wirelessly connected to each other and their brains were all overclocked so they could send, receive, and process information in nanoseconds so they could all operate in perfect synchronization. Plus their perceptions of time had been drastically sped up by their overclocked brains giving them all plenty of time to react to Nightmare Moon’s attacks and retaliate.

Meanwhile Nightmare Moon’s soldiers were actually dealing with the ghosts surprisingly well. They were taking quite a few casualties, of course, however they were all using weapons that fired destructive beams or bolts of necromantic energy that actually injured and were even able to destroy the ghosts. As such, the battle was surprisingly evenly matched. That was until more of Nightmare Moon’s soldiers began teleporting into the battle in squads of five to ten. Then the ghosts started being overwhelmed, until the ones that had been left in the other city started arriving as reinforcements. At that point the battle returned to a sort of equilibrium.

However the tides began to shift once again as Nightmare Moon unleashed a particularly powerful attack that destroyed a relatively large number of the golems. About 15 in total. Jack was included in those 15. With 6.4% of their fighting strength gone, it became that much harder for them to effectively combat Nightmare Moon.

Gerhardt was watching the entire thing. And as soon as Jack and the 14 other golems were destroyed his eyes dimmed to the point they weren’t emitting any light whatsoever. He knew this was a possibility from the very beginning, which is why he didn’t want to build this many sapient golems from the very start. Knowing he just sat there on the sidelines doing nothing as he watched his own children and grandchildren fight a demigod and die for him put further stress on his mind. He was just sitting there… He wasn’t even out there fighting alongside them… They had died for his mistakes… One of his first children had died for his mistakes… None of them had even been more than a month old…

“Uh oh… Now dad, all of us can tell you’re upset but just calm down… You know all of them were well aware of the risks and still decided to fight for you and our new kingdom willingly. If they didn’t want to do it, then they could have just left and none of us would have stopped them. So the fact they stayed to fight just proves they were willing to risk their lives.” Susie-0005 stated.

Gerhardt said nothing and continued to watch the battle through the eyes of those that were fighting it.

The golems sought bloody vengeance for their fallen brothers and sisters and managed to land a few hits on Nightmare Moon, inflicting horrific wounds. However, Nightmare Moon managed to damage or destroy even more of them in kind.

As more and more of the golems died, the more and more concerned the five that were guarding Gerhardt became. Short bursts of static began to fill Gerhardt’s vision as his failsafes were pushed to their very limits. He just felt so useless… So helpless… So worthless… He was sitting here under guard while his creations were dying for him… He wasn’t even there to help them… His E.P.U. began to overheat forcing the emergency cooling systems inside his head to kick in. Then Alice was also destroyed by Nightmare Moon, along with yet another group of the golems.

The redundant systems and failsafes meant to forcibly keep Gerhardt sane no matter what rapidly began failing one after the other. Emergency warnings began to fill Gerhardt’s vision only for the text to start being corrupted as the bursts of static filling his vision began growing more and more frequent. Finally Gerhardt felt something inside his head break.

Suddenly his vision cleared up entirely. His eyes rapidly began glowing brighter and brighter until they were shining like flashlights. Growling in unholy rage, Gerhardt stood up.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Grandfather, please just sit back—” Walter-0002 started only to be cut off by Gerhardt who didn’t even seem to notice he had said anything.

“ENOUGH! I AM DONE RUNNING AWAY! I AM DONE SITTING ON THE SIDELINES! I! AM! DONE! SHE WANTS TO KILL ME AND MY CHILDREN?! FINE! I’LL JUST HAVE TO SHOW HER HOW BIG OF A MISTAKE IT IS TO MAKE AN ENEMY OF ME! “NIGHTMARE MOON”?! SHE THINKS SHE’S A NIGHTMARE?! HAHAHAHA! I’LL SHOW HER WHAT A REAL NIGHTMARE LOOKS LIKE!” Gerhardt shouted. His voice was so heavily distorted that it was actually somewhat difficult to understand.

“You five! I am officially using my office as your high lord to completely override your previous orders to keep me here! I AM going out there, and I am going to make her PAY! All five of you are coming with me! Do I make myself clear?!”

All five of them had horrified looks on their faces at what was happening, but they hesitantly nodded. They would have forced him to stay anyways but at this point they were more worried about what he might do if they kept him here than what might happen out on the battlefield.

“Good! Now all of you come with me! That includes you, Shade!” He ordered before turning and opening a portal to the battlefield and stepping through it. The five golems and the Shade followed after him.

Almost as soon as he stepped through the portal many of the golems turned to look at him in a mixture of surprise and concern. Nightmare Moon also noticed him pretty much immediately.

“I see you’ve finally come out of hiding, you metal freak! Finally come to accept your death, I presume? I’ve already destroyed quite a few of your pathetic little toys!” Nightmare Moon said in a mocking tone.

A burst of static flashed across Gerhardt’s vision and his head twitched slightly as Nightmare Moon called his children and grandchildren “toys”. Snarling in fury an ethereal green aura enveloped his entire body as he began using necromancy to bring all the golems she destroyed back in the form of ghost based liches. Though a few of their souls he took and melded together to form two separate wraiths. He even used necromancy to turn all the dead equine soldiers and even some of the civilians into undead as well. For the unicorns he forcibly bound their souls to their corpses and transformed them into liches that were enslaved to his will. As for the rest he turned them into all manner of other forms of undead. Doing this to such a large number of creatures drained his Arcane Energy reserves all the way to 2%.

Seeing all of this happen a horrified look crossed Nightmare Moon’s face. Apparently she hadn’t been expecting him to use necromancy on sapient beings.

“No… I’ve come to make you suffer! KILL HER! MAKE HER SCREAM AS SHE DIES!”

“““Yes, father.””” All of the ghostly Liches, the golems, and even the two wraiths said almost in unison. Though some of the golems said ”grand father” instead of “father”. Similarly the undead Equines said, “““Yes, my lord.””” All of them then turned and began assaulting Nightmare Moon at once. All of them except two.

Elizabeth and Arthur came running up to him. “Father, requesting permission to kill the equine soldiers and to use necromancy to raise them as undead. Since you seem to have cleared necromancy for use in this war, judging by your use of it, we believe it would be good to bolster our forces even further in order to drive back the enemy forces and the demigod.” Elizabeth requested. They both assumed he was taking full command of their forces and thus decided they should likely follow his orders. They both knew he wasn’t well, but given his current behavior they thought better of questioning him at the moment. Especially since this was the middle of battle and countermanding his orders right now could spell disaster by causing confusion within their ranks.

“Permission granted. You may slaughter the civilians as well. The equines don’t seem to have any issue with slaughtering us, so why should we treat them with any form of respect or mercy?! Make them regret ever starting a war with us in the first place! She calls herself “Nightmare Moon” so show her a true nightmare! Let the streets run red with the blood of her people and let their screams of torment ring out through the night for all to hear! I want you all to avenge every last one of us that died here tonight!” Gerhardt exclaimed in a tone that was angry to the point he sounded deranged.

Both of them saluted and said, “Yes, father!” before turning and running off to go fulfill their orders.

As they left, Gerhardt immediately raised his rifle before pulling the trigger and unleashing a relentless salvo of high explosive bolts of arcane energy at Nightmare Moon. These explosive bolts of energy were easily blocked by Nightmare Moon’s shield. However, at the moment she wasn’t paying him even the slightest bit of attention. Instead all of her attention was focused on defending herself from the golems and undead that were now relentlessly assaulting her. She fought back, of course, and successfully destroyed a few of the liches. However the Wraiths were by far her largest concern as the two of them had the combined power of all the souls that had been used to create them which made them very powerful indeed since the souls of dozens of golems went into creating both of them.

She was able to hurt them with necromancy and potentially even kill them, yes. However, they were also very familiar with necromancy and were able to use it to defend against her attacks. And considering how powerful they both were, it wasn’t easy for her to break their defenses. She could do it, she was a demigod after all, but it was exceedingly difficult. And between them, the still living golems, and the ever increasing number of lesser undead she was decidedly put on the defensive.

Eventually her soldiers' resolve began to break as they saw their friends dying around them only to be reanimated moments later. Thus the highest ranking officers among them that were still alive called for a full retreat, and the unicorns among them began teleporting them all away in groups. Thus leaving Nightmare Moon to fight Gerhardt’s army on her own.

Knowing this had just turned into a losing battle, she growled in fury and shouted, “Fine! You win this round you bucking monster! But rest assured I will win this war, one way or another!”

“HA! I’m afraid you’re mistaken! This is no longer a war! THIS IS HELL AND I AM THE DEVIL! I AM THE NIGHTMARE THAT WILL SLAUGHTER YOUR DREAMS FOR I AM THE GREATEST CREATOR THIS WORLD HAS EVER SEEN! AND I WILL PERSONALLY SEE TO IT THAT YOU BURN UNTIL THE END OF TIME! EVEN IF YOU DIE, YOUR VERY SOUL SHALL KNOW NO END TO THE SUFFERING I WILL INFLICT UPON YOU!” Gerhardt roared back at her.

Nightmare Moon scowled at him and scoffed before finally teleporting away.

Author's Note

Hey! Sorry for the long delay. Anyways, my focus is still on the main version of the story. I just happened to finish this chapter for this story first since I'm having a little trouble with the next chapter of the main story since the chapter is focused on Pixel instead of Gerhardt and its a bit tricky figuring out what I should have her do. Regardless I promise the next chapter of the main story should be coming out very soon.

Fun Fact: There is a reference to a song in this chapter. It's fairly obscure so congrats if you find it!

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!