“So,” said D27, leaning against the fence, gesturing with his claws. He clicked them together, trying to focus on what he was hearing and render it into understanding. “You live in an all-female commune outside of Ponyville, and you secrete a fluid that you trade for money...that ponies drink.”

“Well, I don’t know if they drink it so much,” replied Baherie with her peculiar but oddly endearing accent. “I mean, not so much anymore. They mostly for baking, dontchaknow.”

“Baking. With lactic fluid. That you secrete.”

“It’s kind’a gross when he puts it like that,” said another of the cows, who was enjoying a meal of dried hay. “I mean, how do you think that tradition even got started?”

“Now, now, Abigar, it’s perfectly natural. Nature’s best food, dontchaknow.”

“So, does that imply that you drink the milk of ponies?”

The cows looked somewhat disgusted at the thought of it, and D27 was still having a difficult time understanding.

“I made milk once,” said a voice from behind D27. The shock of it, in addition to having his eyes on only the front of his head, caused him to jump in reaction with enough force for him to land on the other side of the fence with the cows.

Somehow, without him noticing, a Pegasus pony had appeared behind him. She was gray, with a pale blond mane and bright yellow eyes that rather starkly stared in different directions.

“You made milk?” said D27. He actually had rather hoped that ponies somehow did not lactate; despite being a mostly liquid being that was normally a mass of mouths and tentacles that usually persisted on swamp muck, he found the idea of pony reproduction disturbing.

“Yeah, when Dinky Doo was born.” She frowned. “I didn’t make very much though. Barely enough for one batch of muffins…and they didn’t taste very good.”

“Deerie, that’s why you’ve got to let the professionals handle that sort of thing,” said Baherie. D27 could only hope that this “Dinky Doo” was this mare’s daughter, because if she was somehow her sister, the situation would rapidly become too strange for him to tolerate.

“Who exactly are you?” said D27. “And how did you get so close to me? And has anyone told you that you look weirdly like a winged Single Horn?”

“My name is Ditzy Doo,” said the mare, smiling. “Most ponies call me Derpy, though, because of my Amblyopia. I deliver air mail!”

D27 leaned over the fence and looked past Ditzy Doo’s saddlebags, which were stuffed with numerous letters. Her cutie mark was an image of bubbles.

“Okay,” he said, leaning back. “So why are you here?”

The mare reached into her bag with her mouth and withdrew a magazine. She passed it to Baherie. The cover showed an image of a blue bull-like creature flexing his arms, and was entitled “IRON WILL MONTHLY”, subtext, “Your monthly guide to ABSOLUTE ASSERTIVENESS”. In all capital letters, D27 could not tell if it was spelled wrong or not.

“Ooh,” said Baherie, taking the magazine and bouncing slightly.

Abagar looked over her friend’s shoulder. “Guide to assertiveness?” she said. “Baherie, you’re the last one of us that needs to be more assertive!”

“I don’t buy it for the articles,” giggled Baherie, blushing slightly.

“Ah, that Iron Will isn’t so great. Minotaurs are real weirdos, dearie. Now buffalo, those are some bulls. All that hair…”

“I’ve heard they have enormous- -” began Ditzy Doo.

“DON’T finish that sentence, if you don’t mind,” said D27.

“Stature,” squeaked Ditzy Doo. She stared blankly for a moment, as if she forgot where she was, and then reached into her bag again. “I have one for you too,” she muttered through the envelope in her mouth.

“What?” said D27, taking it in his claw. “How do you even know my name?”

“Rainbow Dash told me,” she said. “And she said, if you see him, hold him down until I get there, so that I can give him a black eye for what he did to Pinkie Pie.”

“Oh,” said D27, looking at the blue letter. To his surprise, he saw that it was an electric bill. For a moment he wondered if the proto-golems were starting to charge him for the massive amounts of Gloame energy he was using, but as he looked closer, he realized there had been a mistake.

“This is addressed to Meadow Overlook Apartments, apartment D27,” he said, handing the letter back to Ditzy. “I am just D27.”

“Oops,” she said, taking the letter back. She rifled through her bags, and brought out another. “This one is yours, then.”

It was bright purple , but the address was actually correct. D27 flipped open the top, pulled out the paper, and read it. The script was neat and well-practiced, clearly written by a being with fingers, and the bottom was sighed with the name “Twilight Sparkle”.

“It’s a summons to the castle of Princess Twilight,” said Abagar, looking over D27’s shoulder. “Ooh! You must be important!”

“Tell the princess I refuse,” said D27 flatly.

“What?” said everypony and everycow within earshot, with Ditzy Doo being the only one who had apparently not been listening.

“You can’t refuse a summons from the princess!” cried Abagar, “besides, she’s such a nice pony! Why, she helped us organize our funds and milking schedules. Turns out somecow was spending half our discretionary income at SugarCube Corner.” She glared at another cow across the pasture, who ducked behind some hay. “We added thirty percent production in the last quarter, dontchaknow!” She leaned in closer. “Besides, if you play your cards right, a handsome pony like you might even have a shot at being a certain prince Sparkle!”

“I have an aversion to alicorns,” explained D27. “I do not like them, and they do not like me. Also, I have work to do. Bubble mail winged pony! Please relay this message to your ‘princess’.”

Ditzy Doo saluted with the wrong hoof, and tried to form a determined expression that was completely diffused by her endearing mismatched eyes. Her wings flapped, and she returned to the sky.

“Such a shame,” said Abagar. “What I wouldn’t do to get invited to a royal function. But, if there’s one thing we cows know, it’s that when work needs to be done, you better darn-well do it, right girls!”

The cows across the field produced a mooing cheer of support, and started to make their way to their communal barn for the afternoon milking.

D27 waved as they went. “If I see a hairy bison-bull, I will send him your way!” he called. The cows giggled as they entered their barn and closed the door.

With the cows unable to see him, D27 did not even bother to climb over the fence. He simply reduced most of his body to liquid and passed through the slats. He had attempted to suppress his surprise and sense of danger as best as he could, and to his knowledge, the cows and the gray mare had not sensed it. He had already known that the alicorn knew of his presence, but the fact that she had her associates actively searching for him made the situation far more dangerous. Despite how “nice” this Twilight might have been, she was still a grotesque abomination against nature and, more importantly, almost certainly a pawn of forces that were D27’s sworn enemy. If she got close enough to him to understand what he actually was, he would almost certainly attempt to kill him.

Which, really, should not have been something especially threatening to D27. Twilight was not like the pink and violet servant of the Heart of Order; she was far weaker. Eliminating her would be easy. Doing so, however, would not be advisable, in part because it would make her friends sad.

There was something else, though, that ran somewhat deeper. Although her magical power was small, there was something about it that was strange. D27 had only detected traces of it originally, but when the six ponies had been together, he had actually detected a full signal. It took him all night to deconvolute it, but it was definitely Order. Something was strange about it, though, as if it were contaminated by something. More importantly, though, D27 now realized that the Order he sensed from those six had been the same Order that had awakened him.

He trotted through the orderly, non-Everfree woods outside of Ponyville, lost in contemplation. This Rainbow Dash was a competent athlete, and probably a formidable warrior. She and the others were dangerous. It was no longer safe for D27 to be in Ponyville, at least until he created better escape plans and gathered more mass. He needed to return to the Gloame immediately and wait.

As he thought, though, he suddenly noticed a shape that was out of place on the ground. He stopped and looked down, realizing that it was a cupcake.

D27 knew what a cupcake was; he had read about them in the books in the library. They were apparently good, although their taste was actually dependent not on what he felt they tasted like but rather what Applejack thought of them, as he had copied her tongue. Still, it did look tasty, if out of place.

His triangular eyes shifted from side to side, searching for ponies that might be around. There did not seem to be anyone nearby, so he focused his attention on the confection. With a snap, his tongue extended several feet, grasping the dessert and pulling it back into his mouth. Although it was not as good as apples, it was indeed good, if a bit papery.

As he started chewing, though, a net suddenly burst from the forest floor, pulled up by well-concealed ropes, narrowly missing him.

“What the hay?” he said through a mouthful of cake. He looked around again, and then decided it would be best to run to his portal rather than walk.

As he left, he did not hear a muffled curse from beneath a nearby bush, nor did he see a well-camouflaged Pinkie Pie shake her hoof to the sky in anger.

Twilight yawned as she descended the castle staircase, a cup of fresh tea held in her magic that she gently sipped from. Her travels the day before and her late return had apparently taken more of her energy than she had thought, and she had awoken several hours later than normal. Celestia’s glorious sun was already most of the way toward its zenith, and the Castle of Friendship was bathed in light.

He friends had, for the most part, already awoken. They had been kind enough to write her an extended note thanking her, so that they could communicate their gratitude for staying the night without waking Twilight. The idea was odd, of course, because technically the castle was as much theirs as it was Twilight’s. Still, she appreciated the thought.

Applejack had been the first to rise- -and the one who started the note. She was returning to Sweet Apple Acres to begin work on the massive apple order that had just been placed; Twilight supposed that she left before the sun had even risen. Fluttershy had been next, writing that she was departing to have a long talk with a group of crows about pecking at eyes. Rarity had been the last, and had written something about needing to get to work when it was really clear that she needed to return Sweetie Belle’s cerorite gemstone before the filly noticed it was gone.

Rainbow Dash, as usual, had not yet awoken, except to say something to Derpy the mailpony when Derpy had arrived to take a form letter from Twilight inviting this mysterious D27 to the castle. Twilight figured they might talk, and even have lunch. If Rainbow Dash was awake by then, perhaps she could join them.

It actually annoyed Twilight somewhat that Rainbow Dash, despite her propensity for naps and the fact that she had technically dropped out of school halfway through had a significantly more lucrative career than the rest of their friends. She even had a truly massive cloud house built outside of town.

Spike was also still asleep, and snoring almost as loudly as Rainbow. Twilight had decided to let them both sleep; she herself was actually still a bit too tired to deal with Rainbow Dash anyway. She just wanted to go down to the library and pick out a few books for morning reading.

When she reached the library, though, she realized that something was profoundly different. Whereas before there had been piles of unstacked, unprocessed books, everything was now neatly packaged and ordered on the shelves. The shelves themselves had been aligned and repositioned, and the shelves that Twilight had just purchased constructed and fully loaded.

Amazed, Twilight found herself running to the case where the card catalogue was kept. She pulled it open with her magic and was greeted with the scent of wood and paper. She and Spike had only barely started constructing the catalogue, but now it was completely filled and organized perfectly to the Dongola Decimal system.

As Twilight marveled, Spike wandered into the room, looking quite tired.

“Spike!” cried Twilight. “You didn’t need to stay up all night doing this!”

“Doing what? The only thing I was up all night doing was sleeping.” He looked around. “Hey, nice job with the library, Twilight.”

“Me? It wasn’t me.”

“Then it must have been Owlysious.” Spike yawned. “Or maybe Rarity did it.”

“I don’t think Rarity would organize the library.”

“Well, why don’t you see what the note says?”

“Note?” In her haste to examine the newly organized collection, she had not seen a note sitting alone on one of the tables. It was the only thing left out and un-placed in the oddly sterile but comfortingly clean environment; she was surprised she had not seen it.

Twilight picked it up in her magic, and looked at it, only to realize that it was scribbled in odd geometric shapes that looked more like mathematics than letters.

“What is this?” she said.

“Let me see,” said Spike. He took it in his claw and cleared his throat. “Dear Fuzzy Alicorn,” he started, frowning. “I guess that means you, Twilight.” He continued: “I apologize for having to visit your library so late at night, but I do not sleep, and at the time had an urgent need to better understand how society has changed as of recent. Your collection was helpful, but you lack texts from greater than approximately five thousand years previous or before, which is disappointing but not unexpected.
“I tried to leave it in a better state than I left it, however, in doing so, I may have traumatized your owl. He or she (I can’t tell) seems to be of an open mind, though, and will recover in a few days. Also, I recommend trying to move any books, at least for a few hours. Yours truly, D27.”

“You can read that?” said Twilight, somewhat amazed.

“Of course. Why?” Spike looked somewhat concerned. “You can’t?” Spike set the note down on one of the tables and reached for a book on one of the lower shelves. “Well, it was nice of him to do all that, wasn’t it?”

“I suppose it was a pleasant gesture, but I was really hoping to organize them myself. It takes all the fun out of it like this.”

“Yeah. Fun.” Spike pulled out one of the books. “I wonder what he meant about not moving these?”

Almost as soon as he said it, the book sparked with blue energy and suddenly retracted across the room parallel to the shelf, pulling Spike with it. It moved rapidly as Spike cried out in surprise, and then shifted and moved perpendicularly, reshelving itself with great vigor.

“He must have used some kind of…organization spell,” said Twilight, suddenly highly interested. She pulled one of the books off the shelf and allowed it to slide back with the residual magic it contained. “That’s really quite impressive. I mean, for a whole library. He must have used a geometric expansion parameter to…” her smile suddenly faded. “Wait just a minute! He broke into my house!”

“Twilight, everypony breaks into your house.”

“Well that’s a security problem then. Take a note, Spike. I need to make an appointment with Rollin Tumblers to have new locks installed.”

“You might also want to consider hiring guards, too,” said Spike, taking out a scroll and one of many purple quills in Twilight’s possession. “I hear that Flash Sentry is up for a promotion. Rarity says he’s an excellent candidate for your Captain of the Guard.”

“I don’t need guards,” said Twilight. Especially not Flash Sentry, she thought to herself; she was ashamed to admit it, but she found that she was not as attracted to him in pony form as she had hoped she would be. “I need a locksmith.”

Twilight sighed. As interesting as the spell on the books was, it would take some time to wear off. Unfortunately, that meant no reading. For her, that was like telling her she was no longer allowed to breathe.

“Well, I suppose I have time to work on that letter to the princess for Rarity,” said Twilight. She took out a scroll and a purple quill from a drawer nearby. Fortunatly, it seemed that the stationary had not been enchanted, just the books.

She supposed it was not a bad thing, though. In the neatness, it was clear that the library was barely even a tenth filled. That meant she would need more books, and would get her own chance at organizing them. So many books.

Rainbow Dash swooped down from the cover above, her eyes scanning the ground as her shadow passed over the buildings and streets. Flying, she knew, involved far more than simply speed and agility; a fast mind and faster eyes were needed as well, and as she passed, Rainbow Dash was looking for something in particular.

For just a moment, she looked up at her surroundings. There actually was not that much to hit in a clear blue sky, except clouds, which were generally relatively soft. It was not something that was present, however, that caused her dismay, but the fact that something was lacking.

Rainbow Dash stopped and sighed, then turned back. Several hundred yards behind her, she found Fluttershy, following her rather slowly.

“Come on,” said Rainbow Dash. “For all we know this guy’s on his way into hiding. We have to find him now, or better yet, an hour ago.”

“I’m sorry,” said Fluttershy, accelerating the beating of her wings. It hardly had any effect.

That was, of course, not unexpected. Fluttershy was not known for her speed; in fact, she was rather well known for her lack of it. The only worse flyer that Rainbow Dash knew was Twilight, mostly because alilcorn wings were too large and ornate for good handling.

“Celestia, Fluttershy!” cried Rainbow Dash, “you fly like a breezie.”

“Oh, thank you,” said Fluttershy, smiling. “I do love breezies.”

“It’s not a compliment! It means that you’re only able to move by the breeze.”

“I’m sorry,” apologized Fluttershy. “Although, breezies don’t actually move on the breeze. They use it to charge their magic and…”

“I know,” said Rainbow Dash. “Look, I need to find this pony, so I’m going to go ahead.”

“Rainbow Dash…”

“You can…cover the rear.”

“Rainbow Dash…”

“Remember, if you see a blue pony with a shaved tail, call out or- -”

“RAINBOW DASH!”

They both jumped at the sudden change of volume, and Fluttershy put her hooves over her mouth as if she had said something horribly offensive.

“What?” asked Rainbow Dash, feeling somewhat deaf.

Fluttershy pointed downward. There, below them, moving rapidly through the brush, was a strange blue pony very closely meeting Applejack and Pinkie Pie’s description.

“Hey!” cried Rainbow Dash, suddenly realizing what she was looking at. She pulled in her wings and dove. “Hey you! Stop right there!”

A pair of triangle-pupiled eyes looked back at her, and then D27 broke into a run.

“So it’s a race, huh?” said Rainbow Dash as she accelerated, diving just over the top of the tree canopy, the leaves rustling and tearing from their branches below her.

Her target seemed to be heading toward the Everfree forest, but Rainbow Dash was faster in the air than he was on the grouond. She accelerated and circled around, cutting him off, forcing him back toward Ponyville.

Rainbow Dash pulled in her wings and dove through the canopy, spinning as she pierced through the thick branches, emerging into the space below that was occupied only by naked tree trunks. She slowed her descent and came face-to face with D27, who stared back with a strangely blank expression. This was a chase, of course; Rainbow Dash was supposed to be the one smiling above a frightened and exhausted quarry. Instead, D27 just looked mildly annoyed.

Something inside Rainbow Dash tingled, and she resisted an urge to shudder. For the first time, she vaguely understood what a “Pinkie sense” might actually feel like. She knew something was wrong.

The pony below her turned and began galloping at full speed through the underbrush and amongst the trees. Rainbow Dash immediately followed, swerving amongst the trees, rolling and ducking to miss the branches.

Even as she avoided arboreal impact, Rainbow Dash kept her eyes on her target. Strangely, though, she did not gain on him, even though he was running and she flying. He actually seemed to be increasing distance. Even more peculiar was a strange optical illusion that surrounded him: it was as though his legs were moving far too slowly to be carrying him at the speed he was moving.

They both burst through the edge of the forest in hot pursuit, the wind knocking back Fluttershy.

“Fluttershy!” called Rainbow Dash. “I’m going to cut him off! Take him from behind!” Behind her, she saw Fluttershy blush. She had been spending entirely too much time with Discord, it seemed.

Fluttershy pumped her wings as fast as she could, and tried to follow the blue pony. He was moving quickly, though, and directly into town.

“Wait,” called Fluttershy, barely above a whisper. “Please slow down! We just want to talk!”

She dropped from the air and began to gallop, which, to her mild disappointment, was actually faster than her flying. Above her, Rainbow Dash surged ahead, leaving a rainbow contrail. Fluttershy knew what she was doing; Rainbow would go ahead, and she would come from behind. The blue pony could not fly, so they could catch him in an alley or some other place.

The thought terrified Fluttershy, and her legs weakened. There was a possibility that this pony could be dangerous, that he might have magic or weapon, and he might become aggressive. Either one of them could be attacked and injured.

The result would be worse if Rainbow Dash tried to face him alone, though, and for her friend, Fluttershy forced herself to run forward.

The blue pony seemed to become bogged down at the edge of Ponyville, and Fluttershy saw him dart into a narrow space between two buildings. Fluttershy saw her chance, and, closing her eyes, ran after him.

“Please don’t hurt me,” she said, shaking, fully expecting to see a mutated, depraved pony looming over her when she opened her eyes. As she slowly opened them, though, she saw nothing but a narrow alley open on both ends. The other end did indeed have a blue pony, and Fluttershy nearly fainted, only to realize that the other pony had a rainbow mane.

“Fluttershy!” said Rainbow Dash, folding her wings as she trotted into the far end of the alley. “Did you see him? Where did he go?”

“He was just here,” said Fluttershy, confused but also incredibly relieved. She looked around the alley, and saw that indeed nopony was there. There were only several metal trash cans and an empty wooden crate that had once held produce. She moved slowly and carefully down the pathway, just waiting for something to jump out.

“Oh my,” she said.

“What is it?” said Rainbow Dash. “Do you see him?” She slapped open a trash can and looked into it, as if expecting to find something other than garbage.

“No, no. It’s just that this is some strange graffiti.” She looked up at one of the blue-painted walls of the building next to her. Someone had marked a pair of enormous triangles, one pointed up and the other pointed down, in black paint.

“Eh,” said Rainbow Dash. “I’ve seen better.”

“I actually thought this particular building was yellow,” said Fluttershy to herself.

Rainbow Dash sighed. “I don’t know how, but he got away.”

“I’m sorry,” said Fluttershy. “It was my fault.”

“Don’t beat yourself up about it, Shy,” said Rainbow Dash, smiling and floating into the air. “Not everyone can be as awesome a flyer as me.”

“But I saw him go in here. Oh…I must have been wrong.” Fluttershy took flight.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going to see if any of my bird friends saw where he might have gone,” said Fluttershy, taking off.

“Good Idea. I’ll get back to searching in a minute. He can’t have gotten far.”

D27 watched as Fluttershy floated slowly away. His gaze turned to Rainbow Dash, who had actually landed rather than flying away. She was looking around instead.

The situation was not good. D27 knew that he was probably not at strong risk of being found; they were looking for a pony, after all, and not a thin sheet of protoplasm clinging to a wall. The problem was that their hunt was intensifying. The forces of Twilight Sparkle were gathering; even as the one called Rainbow Dash had chased him, he has sensed several well-placed pitfalls below him. Had he not levitated himself to accelerate his motion, he almost surely would have fallen into one and been impaled on a number of stakes, probably poisoned or, if the ponies actually had uncovered anything about his basic biology, tipped in silver.

In addition, Rainbow Dash seemed to be a formidable pony. Oddly, though, she was armed with no weapons. She had no wing blades, knives, guns, or plasma devices. It was as though she had expected to apprehend and kill him with her bare hooves. That meant she was either powerful, or an idiot.

D27 decided that hiding would not be the appropriate course of action. He needed to send a message.

Silently, he detached from the wall, reforming himself into a new shape. He did not immediately revert to his pony form, but rather one that loomed substantially over Rainbow Dash, directly behind her. Despite their large eyes, ponies still had a blind spot, directly behind them.

As the pony examined the ground around her, D27 extended an arm-like appendage. He slowly moved it over Rainbow Dash and expanded it. Then he brought it down with carefully timed precision. The main arm landed directly in the center of her back, between her wings, causing her to cry out in surprise. Simultaneously, a pair of narrow appendages slammed into her sides, impacting the thick muscle directly anterior to her wing joints.

With an audible “pomf”, her wings suddenly extended, stretching themselves as far as they could go, reaching so far that the feathers separated, exposing the soft, pale blue down beneath.

With a slightly less audible slurping sound, D27 retracted himself inward and reverted to his pony form, just in time for Rainbow Dash to turn and see him.

Her eyes widened. “You!” she cried, attempting to move forward, only to cry out in something that clearly represented a confused state of sensation. “OOoh- -my wings!” she cried, suddenly, looking up at them. “My wings!” She tried to flap them, but they barely moved. “I can’t fly! I can’t fly! What did you do to me?!”

She was clearly on the verge of panic, and to D27’s surprise, she saw that she might actually be on the verge of crying. “I can’t fly!” she said, trying to leap into the air, suddenly almost completely ignoring D27. As she tried to move, though, her legs weakened and buckled.

“Relax,” said D27, trying to sound as calm as possible. “I created an exaggerated preening reflex in your wings. It is not permanent, I assure you.”

“You did what?” she cried, suddenly taking several steps back as her face darkened in color.

“Interestingly, an Aurasus can be disabled in the same way.” Although since Aurasi were hard-shelled, the required appendage was pointed, to cut deep into their metal bodies. He thought it was best not to mention that to Rainbow Dash; she probably would also not want to be aware of the fact that D27 could just as easily have permanently paralyzed her from the wings down.

“You stay away from her!” said a rather soft but highly agitated voice from the edge of the alley. D27 turned to see a pale-yellow Pegasus mare.

“Fluttershy, run!” said Rainbow Dash.

“No! I’m not leaving you, Dash!”

“Both of you, please relax,” said D27. He could see that the yellow mare was shaking with fear, even as she took several weak steps forward.

“I won’t let you go around attacking my friends!” said Fluttershy, her resolve strengthening.

“I may be a murderer, but I’m not cruel,” said D27. He shifted his jaw, and his long prehensile tongue extended, carrying with it a deep blue tourmaline crystal. He set it down on the lid of a nearby trashcan with a click. “Here,” he said. “Take this. Take your friend to the spa. From what I have been told, there is a Pegasus named Bulk Biceps who works part-time as a masseuse. He is apparently an expert in Pegasus muscle massage. The extension should go down with minimal pain. There should be no permanent damage/”

“Should be?” said Rainbow Dash, her surprise rapidly turning into anger. She took several steps forward, but then shook and began to tilt. The muscle spasms in her wings were also effecting her other muscles as well, to some extent; even if she could manage to walk straight, the drag from her wings would make it almost impossible to run.

“A message, though,” said D27, purposely darkening his expression. “For your ‘princess’ Twilight, and for the others. Do not come near me. I do not want to talk to you, or to be anywhere near you. Do not interfere with me. This is especially true for Twilight Sparkle. If she engages me, I will attack to kill. Also tell her to inform her benefactor that I am coming for it, to end its cursed existence.”

He stepped forward, and Fluttershy moved to one side to allow him to pass. As he did, though, a foul aroma suddenly occurred to him. He stopped instantly, and his left eye shifted, his pupil twisting and narrowing.

“Why do you smell of Chaos?” he asked. He expected no answer, though. He wanted to be as far away from Chaos magic as possible; the sensation alone of it was grating, even if there was just a residue of it. He also could not bear the look of fear in the mare’s eyes. She was a soft, almost helpless creature that seemed to exude kindness, and it only reminded D27 of what kind of a creature he was if he caused such fear in such a pure being.

As he left, he heard several pony-based epithets being thrown at him by the light-blue rainbow pony. There were threats of bodily harm, mostly conditional on him approaching any of her friends or Scootaloo. The language was quite colorful.

D27 ignored it, and passed down the mostly empty streets. He sighed, for his vision to suddenly burst into speckles and bright lights as a hoof impacted his face an unseen source to his side.

He did not even bother to react. He was not in the mood for another confrontation. He instead turned his head slowly and stared coldly at an eggshell colored pony with bicolor pink and violet hair.

“That’s for what you did to Lyra!” said the Pony.

D27 stared at her, and then took a breath. Suddenly, he separated his chest, creating a slit that ran from his forelegs up to his muzzle, revealing the gaping multi-tonged mouth inside. Simultaneously, yellow secondary eyes opened along his sides, and he released a hissing scream at the pony, splattering her with fluid that probably came from his eating too many apples.

The pony recoiled, both with surprise and sudden fear, revealing the fact that she was surprisingly agile and likely benefited from advanced training. The shock, though, of seeing a pony open into a clamshell of thousands of barbed teeth and numerous eyes was still severe.

D27 closed the mouth and eyes, reforming the original shape of his pony head. “I’m sorry I did that,” he said, slowly. “That was out of line. However, I am having a bad day, and you just punched me.”

Without further hesitation, he pointed himself directly at the Everfree forest, and started walking.

Applejack set down the basket of apples in the center of the Sweet Apple Acres apple storage shed. As she took a moment to admire the impressive pile that she and Big Macintosh had been working on tirelessly for immediate sale, she wondered if she would be able to afford a Sweet Apple Acres apple silo with all the funds she had acquired for this shipment.

She knew that she probably would not actually spend the money on a silo, of course. She was already creating a mental list of things that needed repair or upgrading: the barn needed the back half of the roof re-shingled, the new southeastern field needed leveling, a new cider press could be purchased to increase production, and numerous other things. There was also the matter of Applebloom’s college fund, and the emergency fund that she kept in case of accidents.

Leaving the fresh apples, Applejack picked up a new basket and began trotting to the door. As she exited, she stopped to take in the breeze and the smell of the wide-open apple fields. Even though autumn was rapidly approaching, the weather was warm and sunny. It was a perfect day for the bucking of apples.

Only then did she notice that there was a surprising amount of shade for being outside the barn. Her gaze slowly drifted to her right, and then upward. Looming over her was a massive asymmetrical creature that seemed to be made entirely of rock and crystal.

It seemed to notice her, and the reflection on one of the crystals changed, as if an eye behind it were moving, looking down at her. All Applejack could do in response was stare with her mouth agape.

The creature moved, drawing one of its massive claw hands close to her, and she suddenly felt incredibly heavy; she knew that she would not be able to move out of its reach fast enough, so she braced for the blow to fall.

Instead, the hand stopped before her. She opened her eyes and saw that it was holding a note between the tips of two crystalline fingers.

“Dear Miss Ahpplejack,” she read aloud. “It ahcurrs to me that ponies prob’bly can’t read Draconian, so I wrote this one in your pony script. I aht all my ahpples, so I had one of mah associates go to retrieve whatever yah have so far. Ah cannot carry several tons of ahpples mahself, but he can. Sahned, D27. P.S, whay do you raise pigs? What purpose do they serve you if you don’ eat them?”

Applejack looked up at the creature, and it released a deep and almost melodious sound.

“Oh,” said Applejack. “Oh…kay…”

D27 approached the three rocks where he had imbedded his portal crystals. In retrospect, he should have just stayed in the Gloame the night before; returning to Equestria had been a terrible idea. Now, not only was everypony trying to kill him, but he had actively attacked Princess Twilight’s comrades and shown his true nature to a rather unfortunate pony. The situation was bad, and the setting sun above him only served to mock him, as if reminding him of his ancient failures.

He would need to return with more equipment. He would need to arm himself with multiple unicorn skulls and a full set of particle weapons. The enemy would surely regroup and attack; the next time, he would not be fighting a pair of unarmed Pegasi. Next time, it could be a contingent of unicorn mages, or earth ponies with energy weapons and artillery support.

As he approached his destination, though, he suddenly heard a metal click followed by a strange sensation in his right foreleg. He looked down and saw that a well-concealed bear trap had just severed his leg.

“Alright,” he called out to the dark and thorny forest. “Pinkie! You’ve gone too far this time! You’re going to hurt somepony with these things!”

The severed leg reduced to liquid and squirmed forward, then reconnected to the stump where it had been, seamlessly reintegrating into D27’s consolidated form. Severed limbs were not actually a problem for a Choggoth; D27 could exist in several thousand independent parts if necessary. It did concern him that Pinkie Pie would go to such extreme means to avenge her honor; it was also worrying because if a real pony had stepped in the trap, his or her leg would surely have been broken. The thought of a pony like Scootaloo or Fluttershy being hurt that way vaguely disgusted D27.

Ignoring the possibility of further traps, he reached the rocks. Blue sparks of Order jumped from his body and engaged the crystals, opening the gate and allowing the pleasant sensation of Gloame energy to wash over him. He stepped through the portal and took a deep breath of the superior air as the portal snapped shut behind him.

“Now I’ve got you!” said a high voice. D27 jumped and turned, hoping that somehow the shadows had learned to talk. Instead, he found himself face-to-face with a pink pony.

“Ooh,” said Pinkie Pie. “Where are we?”

“What are you? How are you?”

She began to hop around D27 in a circle. “I had a dream like this once. Except there was big toast, and Rainbow Dash was underwater, and the moon was…” her hopping slowed, and her smile faded. “Why does…why does the air smell funny?”

Then she fully succumbed to the toxic Gloame atmosphere and collapsed to the stone ground below.

Pinkie Pie’s vision swirled. She felt strange and weak, like midnight on cider day, with a headache like the ones she always got the next day. As her vision swirled, she saw strange shapes, the foremost among them being something tall, blue, and spindly.

She blinked, and the wraith-like shape had been replaced with that of a blue pony.

D27 watched Pinkie Pie’s eyes starting to open. Against all odds, she was regaining consciousness. She was unusually resilient for a pony, it seemed.

“Ohh my head,” she said, sitting up. “I feel like I partied for three weeks straight.” She popped up, fully awake. “Now that would be a party? Could you imagine? We would need to party in our sleep!”

She seemed to realize that her voice sounded strange, and she looked down to see the respirator over her muzzle.

“What is this thingy?” she said, pulling at it.

“Don’t remove that,” suggested D27. “It’s a respirator. The air here is probably toxic to you. Don’t worry, the guy I pulled it off of did not die of poor air quality.”

“Then what did he die from? Was it his heart? These tickers sure don’t like butter!”

“I think he got his legs blown off. Hard to tell, there were bits everywhere. The respirator was fine, though.” He attempted to glare. “And you, hyperactive pink mare, are an idiot.”

“No I’m not,” said Pinkie. “If I was an idiot, could I do this?” She reached into her hair and removed a balloon. She attempted to inflate it, only to realize that doing so was not possible with a respirator mask on.

“Yes, one could. But that isn’t my point. I didn’t have respirators on hand. I barely found one in time to keep you alive while I reversed the poisoning. Plus, that portal was not optimized for organic life- -”

Pinkie seemed to get distracted. “Ooh, where are we? Is this your house? I think we’re underground. Do you live in a hole?” She gasped. “You really are a burro!”

“It’s not a hole. This is a redout. And you should not be here!”

A proto-golem passed by, releasing its characteristic sound.

“I know,” said Pinkie, “he is a mister grumpy pants.”

“And then there’s the…wait, you can understand them?”

“Of course I can, silly.” She began to bounce around the room. “I grew up on a rock farm! I can speak to rocks, and sometimes, they speak back, but I’ve never seen rocks like this! My sister Maud would love them to death!”

“Is that possible?”

“Well, it hasn’t happened anyone I know, and I love everyone! Everyone in ponyville is my very dear friend!” She seemed to be about to break into song, but suddenly started gasping, fogging the clear material of her mask.

D27 sprang into action, grabbing the adjust valve on the side of her equiptment and turning it. “Pinkie, calm down! It has a manual oxygen valve. If you don’t adjust it, you’ll suffocate.” Still, looking at the calibration, she was consuming an incredible amount of oxygen. Her metabolism, D27 reasoned, must be prodigious.

“Okay,” said Pinkie, taking a deep breath. “Not enough…air…for…song.” She took one more breath. “It probably wouldn’t work in text anyway.”

“Text?”

“Never you mind.” Ignoring D27’s rather strong suggestion, she began bouncing again. “So now that I caught you, it’s time for your party!”

“Party? Pinkie, you were just trying to kill me.”

“Kill you? No, silly! I was just trying to catch you! And now I did!”

“You put down bear traps. You cut off my leg!”

“Well it got better, didn’t it?”

D27 sighed. “Pinkie. Miss Pie. I don’t want a party. I don’t need one, either. Just let me take you back home.”

The proto-golem, who was now joined by several others, spoke.

“She wants a party,” said Pinkie Pie. It said something else, and then gasped. “She says you’ve never had a party. Not even for her birthday! Or her retirement!”

“First of all, they have females?” D27 turned toward the proto-golem. “And second, you can’t retire, you’re immortal!”

The other proto-golems joined in.

“Yes, I’m trying to convince him,” said Pinkie Pie, “but he’s really stubbern.” She put her hoof to her mouth and whispered loudly. “It’s because he’s a burro!”

“I’m not a burro.”

“A burrito?”

“That means ‘little donkey’. No.”

“Really? That’s a terrible name for a snack. Who would want to eat a donkey?”

“A lot of beings, I’m sure. Them, for example.”

D27 pointed to several of Pinkies shadows. Only one of them was pony-shaped; the others were far longer and stared back with pairs of round, glowing eyes. On her collapse, they had nearly devoured her; D27 had taken great effort to prevent that. Even with the glowing crystalline device he had kludged together and attached to her neck- -which she had failed to notice- -only kept them at a distance.

“Ooh! Ooh! I love shadow puppets!” Pinkie Pie contorted her body, shifting her own shadow in the process, causing it to look like the head of some kind of vast reptilian creature. She moved her body as though dancing, and the shadow to gnash its toothless gums before suddenly biting down on one of the living shadows.

The shadow twitched and distorted, and then looked to the others. They suddenly all disengaged from Pinkie, traveling up the walls to the corners and angles of the high ceiling, where they remained, watching.

“Oops, sorry!” cried Pinkie. “Hey, do you guys want a party?”

The shadows did not respond. They only stared.

“I say that’s a yes…”

“Et tu, carnivorous shadows? Pinkie, please, at least tell me, why are you obsessed with this?”

“Because I want to make you smile!” she produced a large smile of her own.

“Why?”

“Why? Why? Do I need a reason?” she started to break into song, but as her air depleted, stopped herself. “The point is, I want to show you how special living in Ponyville is, and so that you can be my friend.”

“I do not have friends, nor do I need them, nor do I want them. But…”

“What about it?” said Pinkie Pie, looking at her cutie mark.

“If this is really that important to you, fine. I seem to be out-voted anyway.”

The proto-golems cheered quietly.

“Really?” said Pinkie Pie, as surprised as D27 was himself.

“Yes. But no ponies. Only you.”

“Why just me?”

“Because I, well…” It was difficult for him to explain that he had only just recently made a death threat against Twilight and directly attacked one of her friends.

“Ohhh,” said Pinkie after a moment. “You’re shy…”

“I’m not shy,” maintained D27. “It’s just that the golems find the air in equestrian far too humid.”

“Sure, whatever you say,” said Pinkie. “Now, show me where you keep your streamers.”

“I don’t have any.”

“No streamers? How about your cake?”

“I have no cake. Especially the sort made with…milk.”

“No cake? Well, no problem,” Pinkie began to wade through the now extremely numerous proto-golemns, bouncing above them every few steps. “I’ll just make one. A big one, with all you rock guys. Where’s your kitchen?”

One of the proto-golems replied.

“What?” cried Pinkie Pie. “No kitchen?”

“I wasn’t intending to do any cooking when I built this place,” said D27. “And I ate all the apples.”

One of the proto-golems said something. “Oh. Apples will work. I think…” she reached into her hair and pulled out a can of baking powder. “Yes. I can make something when he gets back. D27, do you have any music?”

“No.”

“Well,” said Pinkie Pie, jumping back over the golems. “I do have that covered, at least.” She pulled something else from her hair and presenting it to D27. D27 took it and examined the cover. It was a disk in a paper envelope, with a picture on the front of mutated looking ponies drinking an iridescent green fluid from a barrel.

“Munistable Waste: the Art of Partying,” read D27. “This is music?”

“I never leave home without it. Just in case. Now who’s ready to party!”

The golems cheered, and D27 sighed. If it made Pinkie Pie go away, and as long as there were no alicorns present. Also, he rather liked seeing her happy.

Time had little meaning in the Gloame, so it was unclear how long the party went on. The proto-golem sent to retrieve apples did, indeed, return, so many apples were eaten, and some prepared into a rudimentary cake. Proto-golems, of course, did not eat; they were sustained by a combination of mineral resources and Gloame magic but attracted to D27’s Order magic, which also seemed to be a version of their own food. The shadows, though, seemed to rather enjoy apples; they would devour them into down to the seeds whenever they were thrown to them.

Pinkie had many herself, and most of the cake. The party only ended when she also tried to eat some “fruit” that was growing on the mould that had infiltrated D27’s castle. As it turned out, that type of fungus was a powerful stimulant and hallucinogen to ponies, and D27 had to administer life-saving medical treatment a second time that day. Pinkie Pie seemed to have become somewhat ill from eating the fungus, though, and rather tired from partying with immortals for what may very well have been several days to her. Even at great risk to himself, D27 took it upon himself to return her to Ponyville. He did not know where she lived, though, so he left her in a random location. Pinkie Pie did not seem like the kind of pony that would mind.

As the proto-golems dispersed, D27 found himself wandering through the now mostly empty halls of the castle he had constructed. Once again, he was alone, and the only sound was that of the Gloame wind passing through the convoluted tunnels and corridors.

D27 moved deeper in the facility, passing the places that Pinkie Pie had not seen, where he stored the skeletons of countless unicorns and other ponies, each one in an individual cabinet, waiting to be used. He passed the armory, and the places where common magical items and sundry munitions were kept. He was headed far deeper, into the vault.

The vault was the deepest and most secure area of the castle, built well below the surface of the Gloame and constructed to block magic to the best of its abilities. It was where D27 kept things that he had collected that were immensely powerful but that he himself either did not yet know how to use or that were catastrophically dangerous. Many things were down there, more than even he could recall; there strange monoliths that sometimes spoke in whispers, or pieces of technology that were too complex for even him to open; he had several stones of immense power, including a special piece of black obsidian that, if released, would cast a toxic black rainbow across the land, and several other stones and enchanted artifacts of Elder power that even the Lords of Order had sought to destroy.

He was headed toward one room in particular, at the end. As he approached the massive door, the dark metal began to shift in response to his presence, reconfiguring itself and unlocking while simultaneously parting, revealing the darkened inside.

D27 took a bite of his apple, and stepped into the entrance of the room. The pressure from inside was withering, and D27 could only take two steps inward before he felt his molecular nature being torn apart. It was not the same as the force of the Heart of Order, though; this magic was entirely different. It was nothing at all like Order, or even the accursed Chaos, but something organic, not unlike what the unicorns wielded.

Initially, D27 had hesitated to enter this particular room, even after his return. Some part of him had wished that the magic would have dissipated after so long, but another part had feared that it would not. The fact that it had in actuality only seemed to have grown stronger was daunting, especially considering the type of being that had to have lived to have produced something so imposing.

“So,” he said, addressing the massive skeleton that stood in the center of the room, as it had for over one million years. “I’m back now.” The skeleton did not respond, which was not unusual. “If only you could see the world now. It’s nothing like it used to be when you and I ruled the world. Well, when you ruled it…I suppose I never had much interest in actually ‘rulling’ it.”

D27 paused, as if waiting for the skeleton to speak. He still did not know how it had gotten there; he could not recall having brought it in. It had not been in his possession on his death; he only knew of it from the manifests presented by the proto-golems. He knew what it had done, though, but only distantly what it actually was.

D27 sighed. “The world is ruled by ponies now. Hard to believe, I know. We just had one upstairs, actually.” D27 paused. “They are not actually bad creatures. I rather like them. Which is so very, very unfortunate. Because the celestial spheres remain. I failed before, but I will not again.” D27 produced an apple from within himself and placed it on the ground. “I believe it was a custom among your people to make offerings to the dead. Well, before I killed them all. I never really understood why, but seeing you, I think I know why.” He rolled the apple across the floor. It came to a rest beneath the vast skeleton, but did little else; unlike D27, it was not a Choggoth, and perfectly safe around the Grand Magus.

D27 stepped back into the safety of the hallway, and resealed the door, feeling the oppressive magic becoming increasingly obscured by never completely unfelt.

“I will not fail again,” he said to himself. “Not a second time. I promise you that, Rageclaw.”