20 years earlier.

An eight year-old Azure Field stuck her head outside of her dormitory door into the poorly-lit hallway outside. The only sound that could be heard were the fillies sleeping peacefully in the dorm and the soft whirring sound of air filters in the hallway. With one look back into the only home that she had ever known, Azure Field stepped out into the hall.

She shivered. There was frost on the windows lining the hall. They were too high for her too look out of, but let in bright light that chased away the gloom. “Left, right, left, left, straight, right, down,” Azure whispered to herself. The directions she had memorized from the blueprints danced in her mind. She set off to the left, down the curving and empty hall.

Her hoofsteps echoed in the dimness. She came to a door at the end of the hallway that was twice as large as she was and immeasurably thick to a little filly. Like all filly dormitory doors, it had no lever, or wheel, or other means of opening it; only a small keycard slot.

The hall around Azure glowed silver. A keycard levitated out of her messy mane in a field of magic, and slid through the slot. The door whined for a moment, then clicked open. Azure slunk through, closing it behind her with a soft click.

Inside, Azure trotted down one of the inner levels of the Moon colony, away from the windows and the universe outside. All light was artificial, coming from buzzing fixtures hanging above her head. No adults were in sight, but Azure kept herself pressed to the walls. Her coat blended into the bluish-gray metal. The halls themselves were cramped and claustrophobic, but to a pony who had been born and raised on the moon they felt like home.

She didn’t meet any more keycard slots in her path, as she turned right, left, left, went straight until her legs felt like they’d collapse, right again, and then reached a single elevator. It was a freight elevator—long and bulky, with no required passes to get into. She’d seen earth ponies from below and pegasi from above using them to haul food from the protein farms, so she wasn’t surprised when the doors slid open at the touch of a button. Most pegasi and earth ponies didn’t rate keycard access anyway. She hopped inside, and gazed at a panel built into the elevator’s side.

Rows of buttons covered in chrome lined the panel, each with a number assigned to them. Azure had to try to think back to the blueprints she had found. The number for the floor she wanted, so desperately desired to see. After a moment, her face lit up and she mashed the one marked “44”.

The elevator groaned and began to slide downward into the bowels of the moon. The freight elevator was massive, as it was made to haul equally-large cargo, so Azure took to standing in the corner, away from so much open space. She shut her eyes and waited for the elevator to come to a rattling stop at its destination.

When it did, the doors slid open and let a burst of heat flood the elevator. Azure gasped and coughed before she was able to breathe in the sticky, muggy air. She stepped out of the elevator, and realized the reason for the heat.

Azure stood at one end of a massive chamber that stretched up toward a domed ceiling high above her head, coated in carefully-chiseled rock. In fact, the entire chamber was rock instead of the usual bland metal, complete with indentations and deformities a ponymade structure wouldn’t have. The chamber was bathed in orange light from bulbous fixtures built into the domed ceiling that illuminated the masses of Golems that covered the ground below.

Just as the blueprints said, Azure had found the Golem storage facility. Heat wafted from all of them as the metal bodies struggled to keep themselves running and cooled at the same time. Azure walked between them and, in spite of the heat, felt a shiver run down her spine. All fillies were forced to learn about the Golems, but they didn’t look nearly so large or imposing in picture books. The machines towered above her, their faces snarled like a timberwolf’s and metal covered in pockmarks and burns; signs of previous battles.

Almost all of the Golems surrounding her were Mark IIIs, ones that had been put in storage during the lull in fighting. Further toward the center of the chamber were the Mark IIs, what was left of them, and the few scraps of Mark Is that had been recovered after their first disastrous mission, before ponies realized putting ponies actually inside of them made them more vulnerable to attack. Each successive generation was larger and more imposing, less and less like a large pony and more like a nightmare vision of one, covered in deadly weapons. However, at the very center of the chamber was . . . something that Azure had never seen before.

It was like a Golem, but even more gargantuan, towering above all the rest. In appearance it was less like a timberwolf and more like a pony crossed with an ursa minor. Stranger, there were no visible weapons hanging off of it like the other Golems, just odd lines etched into its metallic skin.

Before Azure knew it, she had approached the massive Golem, and reached out with one hoof to touch it, if almost by instinct. Her whole body felt cold, and her horn glowed dimly. Before she could press her hoof to it, an action she didn’t even fully realize she was taking, she heard a crack coming from the roof of the dome.

She looked up to see bits of rock falling from the uneven ceiling, hurtling straight toward her. The magical feeling died, and Azure broke out of her trance with a cry of fear. She raised her hooves to cover her face and looked away.

Azure waited, and waited, and waited for the stones to hit her, but none ever did. When she chanced a peek, a single, gargantuan hoof was raised above her. It was as if the mighty Golem beside her had activated itself to protect her. It made no other movement, but Azure could swear it was staring right at her.

At the far end of the cavern, the elevator doors slid open again, and Azure looked over to see Princess Twilight step out. She gasped and got to her hooves, just in time to notice the behemoth Golem’s hoof was back in place. Had it ever moved in the first place? Maybe one of the rocks had hit her head.

She didn’t have much time to think it over, as Twilight teleported herself to the center of the domed room and stood in front of Azure. The usual stern look she reserved for most fillies was gone, replaced with tired eyes and an exhaustive sigh.

“If you’re going to keep doing this, Azure, we’re going to send you to isolation,” Princess Twilight said, taking a wing and wrapping Azure in it. She pulled the little filly away, taking her back to the elevator.

“I suppose I should punish you in some way,” Twilight said, “but I have a feeling you’d wriggle your way out of it. Dragging your own Princess down here to look for you, I swear . . .” She chuckled, but it wasn’t aimed at Azure. “Something tells me Pinkie Pie would have gotten a kick out of this.”

“Who?” Azure asked, looking up at the princess.

Twilight smiled slowly, then sighed. “Someone I used to know. Now, let’s get you back to Miss Sitter and back into bed. I understand you’re excited about the Golems, but.if you ever want to join the Golem Academy, you have to start by getting lots of sleep so you can grow up big and strong.”

Azure tilted her head. “But why do I need to be big and strong if the Golems can do it for me?”

“You'll find out soon enough,” Twilight said.