Tlilxochitl and Chocolatl moved through forest rapidly, skimming over the soft ground and silently passing over the small rivers and shallow gorges that dotted the Everfree forest. Their motion was quick and silent; the struggling of two of the fillies they were carrying did not disturb them, and neither did the darkness or the monsters that lurked within. The Dark Sister had made the moon especially bright that night, and ahuizotl were, despite being sun worshippers, masters of the navigation of darkness. The monsters seemed to comprehend this, and remained in the deeper shadows.

The two doubled back on their tracks, in case they were being tracked, and then proceeded more slowly in a different direction. As they did, Tlilxochitl felt the until then limp creature in her arms move slightly.

“I want to be pretty like Rarity,” it mumbled.

Applebloom turned her head when she heard Sweetie Belle’s voice. She was immensely relieved that she was alive; it seemed that she was only asleep. With that fact in mind, she summoned the remainder of her strength and twisted with as much strength as she could muster. Her previous struggling had done nothing against the brown cat-creature’s strong grip, but this time, the force was strong enough to force it to drop her into the mud below.

The fall winded her, but she was able to turn her head and force off the thin rope from around her muzzle.

“You’re not going to get away with this!” she cried. “Ponies will come looking for us! My sister Applejack will kick your- -”

“Silence, beast!” hissed the white creature, and Applebloom’s head was knocked back with enough force that a blast of light filled her vision. The creature had struck her in the head with something metal held on the end of its tail. The force was incredibly, and though painful, the blow was disorienting and all Applebloom could do in response was release a new set of silent tears. “Do not attempt to play on our sympathy, creature. You have assumed the form of children, assuming we shall give you quarter. I assure you: we have no qualms with killing fillies.”

“Tlilxochitl, I have doubts,” said the other. The tiny orange Pegasus in his grasp was fluttering wildly, and he momentarily held her toward his face. With his now free hand, he pinched the base of one of the filly’s wings and watched as her eyes widened in pain. “My friend,” he said. “Your resistance is not helpful to you, and annoying to me. Disconnecting your wings from your body, it would be trivial to me. Please stop this…useless buzzing.”

The Pegasus stopped resisting. Instead she simply shook with fear.

“Their flanks bear the mark,” maintained Tlilxochitl, lifting the dazed Applebloom with her free hand. A bruise was already forming around her eye from where she had been struck.

“But what if they actually are pony children?”

“The goddess gave us permission to slay those assisting the creature. We simply kill them regardless, and claim that they were impeding our operation.”

“Please,” muttered the bruised pony in her grasp. “We won’t tell anyone…we’re just three fillies…take me if you want, just let my friends go.”

“A test,” said Tlilxochitl, smiling. “Chocolatl, we shall perform a test.”

She dropped the two ponies she was carrying unceremoniously onto the ground. Applebloom squeaked in pain as she landed on some rocks, but Sweetie Belle only smiled.

“No more gemstones, Spike, I’m so pretty already,” she said, taking a rock in her arms and hugging it.

“What manner of test, Tlilxochitl?” asked the brown one, setting down his burden far more carefully.

The white ahuizotl drew a long blade from a scabbard on her back. Swords were hardly ever used by ponies, but in the dexterous hands of an ahuizotl, it seemed oddly elegant, and Applebloom could do nothing but stare at the long, metallic blade as it glinted in the moonlight.

“Simple,” said the creature, smiling as she admired the blade. “If they truly are the creature the goddess has entrusted us to destroy, they will be strong, and not die when I cut them. If they are ponies, they will die, and we feed the remains to the creatures of the forest.”

Chocolatl sighed. “That seems to be a good test.”

“You lack resolve, husband.”

“No. I simply do not take the killing of children lightly. If the goddess wills it, however, I recognize that it must be done.”

“The goddess most defiantly wills it,” said Tlilxochitl.

“Then take this one, the bearer of the triangle-mark,” said Chocolatl, motioning toward the orange Pegasus on the ground before him. Realizing what was going on, she immediately started fluttering her wings, which did nothing but drive her in narrow circles. “A Pegasus that cannot fly arouses my suspicion greatly.”

“My dear husband, I fully intend to test all three. This one I will test first, though. Now, monster, enemy of the Light, stop moving: I intend to remove your head cleanly with a single stroke.”

Contrary to what Tlilxochitl ordered, the Pegasus only tried to escape more vehemently. Tlilxochitl sighed, and transferred the object in her tail hand to her free hand. She used the hand on her tail to hold down the Pegasus, and she raised the blade.

Something rustled in the bushes, and the two ahuizotl both turned, raising their weapons defensively toward the sound. A nearby bush continued to shake and vibrate.

“Who is there?” said Chocolatl. “Who dares to interrupt us?”

A small creature burst through the edge of the bushes. It was a tiny octahedral crystal with tiny crystalline legs. As it fell from the bush it collapsed one side of itself, only to stand again and scuttle across the mud squeaking loudly. Chocolatl and Tlilxochitl watched it silently; it seemed to ignore them completely, and instead scuttled over the unconscious white unicorn and rapidly disappeared into a different bush.

Tlilxochitl turned back to where it had arisen from, and to her surprise, saw a pair of strangely triangular eyes reflecting from the darkness.

“Wait,” said a voice from the darkness. A pony stepped forward into the moonlight. He was blue, with odd structures on his head and spine in the place of his mane, and a shaved tail. “Please, don’t hurt them.”

“Are you attempting to assist them?”

“Yes, I am,” said the blue pony.

Tlilxochitl smiled. She raised the item in her left hand, a metal gift from the Divine Goddess of Light herself, and squeezed the trigger.

There was a small explosion, and D27 screamed in angony. The two creatures before him recoiled slightly, clearly not suspecting a scream of that nature to arise from a pony. The blow was agonizing, though, and when D27 looked down at his shoulder he saw his tissue bubbling and hissing. It started to rapidly necrotize and darken, dripping onto the ground below.

It had been silver. The damage the bullet had induced to his body was impressive, but he had been saved by the fact that his pony form was relatively soft; the bullet had gone through him, leaving a trail of residue and tissue destruction in its wake. If it had become lodged within him, it would have continually reacted with his structure, burning away most of his body.
The use of silver bullets concerned D27 greatly, and not just because catalytic metals were one of the only things actually toxic to him. The silver concerned him because it meant they knew.

“You shot me,” he said, stepping forward. The reaction was still ongoing, and he could not regenerate the wound, but it had been in an area non-critical to his function. It still hurt, though, and quite a bit.

“And I am surprised by your resilience, pony. Few would be standing after that blow.”

“Please,” said D27. “Release them.”

“I am afraid we cannot. We have a warrant for their execution.”

“Of adorable child-ponies? From where does…ow…” the wound in D27’s shoulder continued to bubble, but his body was rapidly metabolizing the silver. The process was restorative, but painful. He braced himself. He was angry, and in pain, but he had to be careful. Two of the fillies were conscious, and watching. He had to resolve the situation peacefully. He took a breath. “Where did this order originate.”

“From the Goddess of Divine Light,” said the brown creature. “The ruler of the sun, and the true Queen of Equestria. You would be wise to obey her orders. These are not at all children. They bear the marks. They are monsters, and a threat to your kind.”

“Marks?” said D27, looking down at the children. They had geometric-like shapes painted on their flanks, where their cutie marks would have been. A wave of shock ran through D27’s mind; he realized that their fate had been meant for him. This was his fault.

“Please. I can pay you. I have gemstones, lots of them.”

“Money?” laughed the white creature. “Money? We have no desire for such…material filth. We only seek the pleasure of Her Divine Glory.”

“Chimeric idiots,” said D27. “I am trying to help you. I do not want to fight you.”

“Fight us?” It was now the brown creature’s turn to laugh. “You?”

“You amuse us, blue pony,” said the white creature. “But you will share their fate as well. Witnesses cannot be permitted.” She raised her gun, and D27 braced for another silver impact. It did not come, though.

“Actually, husband,” said the white one. “Perhaps…”

“He should watch as we administer the test.”

“D27, help us!” cried Applebloom.

D27 sighed. “I’m trying to be reasonable!” he cried. “We can all leave this alive! You have the wrong ponies!”

The white creature smiled as she raised the blade over Scootaloo’s neck.

“Do something!” screamed Applebloom.

D27 sighed. “Fine. Fine, you forced my hand. I didn’t want to do this in front of mortals, especially those three. But you brought this upon yourselves.”

D27 shifted all three tons of his accucmulated mass into his singular form, expanding rapidly. His body liquefied and reconfigured, becoming broad and bipedial, then narrowing as his tissue was converted into an array of long spines and blades.

“By the goddess!” cried the white creature as she stepped back from Scootaloo. Her hand her partner’s weapons rang out through darkness as silver bullets pounded into D27’s surface. They were innefective, though; the firearms that the two wielded were so much smaller and weaker than the cerorian rounds he had become accustomed to in times long past. Silver was useless if it could not penetrate a Choggoth’s body, and the bullets simply rebounded off the thick armored plates that D27 had developed.

“I tried to warn you,” said D27, his voice immense and booming. “I tried to help you, so that everyone could survive! I gave you a chance!” He stepped forward, his shadow in the moonlight falling over them. “Those children are not the ones you are looking for. I am.”

The right side of his body disrupted, the tissue separating and stretching as his mass poured into the opening. What had been an arm distorted and separated into a writhing mass of tentacles. He snapped out toward the two creatures.

The creatures were fast, and the brown one managed to dodge. The white one was too slow, though, and a barbed tendril pierced her chest. She cried out and dropped her gun, a single, final, fatal mistake. D27 pulled her toward himself, merging her body into his flesh, pulling her inside himself.

“Tlilxochitl!” cried the other, stretching out his hand. D27 thought that for a moment he saw tears in the creature’s eyes. He realized that he had just taken its mate.

The chocolate-colored creature dropped to his knees; it seemed that he had surrendered. D27 reached down and pulled him up, tearing his gun away from him, and pulled him in as well.

D27 reconfigured his body to a more symmetrical format, and slowly crept forward. He could not bear to look down at the fillies, because he knew that they would fear him. Instead, he simply reached forward with one massive claw that burst forth with tiny, insect-like arms. He used them to cut their bindings, and then restored his normal form.

“Are you uninjured?” he asked, hesitantly.

“My head hurts,” said Applebloom. “But I think I’m good. Scootaloo?”

“I’m fine,” whispered Scootaloo, even though it was apparent she was rather shaken.

“Applebloom,” said D27, noticing that her pupils were not dilating equally, and that she had a significant black eye. “I am seeing indications that you may have a concussion. ”

“Yeah, she hit me with that…thing.” An expression of nausea seemed to cross her face, and she looked up at D27’s massive form. “You’re not a pony, are you?”

“No. I am not.” He paused, and asked the question that he already knew the answer to. “Are you afraid of me?”

“Buck no,” said Applebloom, smiling. “You just saved us!”

“I’ll admit,” said Scootaloo, standing shakily. “That was pretty awesome. It also explains how you beat Rainbow Dash.”

“No,” said D27, “I defeated Miss Dash because I used a very cheap move. I was on my way to apologize when I saw those two creatures absconding with you three.”

“Are they…” began Scootaloo. She started shaking again. “Did you?”

“You mean have I terminated them? Not at present. They are currently contained within this form until I determine if they have further silver on their persons. Then I will absorb them.”

“You mean eat them?” said Applebloom.

“Functionally, yes.”

“Please don’t.”

D27 was surprised by the request. He had expected the ponies to want vengeance for their ordeal. “You are aware that they attempted to hurt you, and your friends, are you not?”

“I know,” said Applebloom. “And I’m mad as hay at them right now, but it just doesn’t seem right to…you know.”

“I’m not so sure, Applebloom,” said Scootaloo.

“I know how you feel,” she said. “But I don’t think I could sleep at night if we did…not if we let D27 do that to them.”

“What is the recourse you suggest?” asked D27. “I cannot take them to Ponyville in this form for imprisonment. My goal has been to keep my…situation…a secret.”

“Then release them.”

“Are you sure?”

“I don’t know. But that’s all we can do, right?”

“If that is your wish.” D27’s turned around and his chest separated. He vomited the two ahuizotls onto the ground. They were covered in liquid and weak from suffocation. The female had a large scar in the center of her chest; D27 had done his best to heal her, but she had an unusual amount of residual magic in her body.

The brown one was the first to regain consciousness. As he looked around, he saw his mate lying beside him, and took her in his arms. He seemed to be weeping for her. That display confirmed what D27 had felt before. He had never expected that they had further silver weapons; he had only been unable to consume them because of the male’s tears for its fallen mate.

The white creature slowly opened her eyes, and the tears of anguish from the brown one became tears of joy. He held his mate close and offered a prayer to their mutual goddess, thanking her.

“Strange dog creatures,” boomed D27. “I have released you at the request of one Applebloom.” He pointed with an enormous pointed finger at the tiny pony. “Had it been my choice, I would have stripped you of flesh and stored your bones as trophies. Return to your master with the shame of defeat. But first.” He stepped aside. “You will apologize to these children for your mistake.”

The brown creature looked up to D27, and then stood, helping its mate to stand. She was quite weak; the injury D27 had induced had likely damaged her heart. There was a possibility that the effect was permanent.

The brown creature faced the fillies. “Children of our Queen,” he stated. “Please, if you can, forgive me, and my wife. We had mistaken you for…him.” He turned to Scootaloo. “Especially you, orange one. Your resistance was actually admirable. Had I severed your wings, I would have been plagued by nightmares for at least a week.” He turned his attention to D27. “And you…you are one of few who realizes that we are dogs, not cats. But your reprieve will be short. More will come. The Goddess of the Sun will not be stopped by our failure.”

“Then your ‘goddess’ will perish. She will not be the first god I have slain. And if you cross me again, you will not survive either.”

“Then you are surely a fool,” said the ahuizotl. He helped his mate across the field and into darkness beyond. Within seconds, they were gone.

D27 recompressed his mass, reducing his size and resolving into a pony.

“I shall also apologize,” he said. “This is my fault. Those two were surely targeting me.”

“Why would they come after you?”

“They must have somehow realized what I am. That itself would not be a problem, but my instance on attempting to be a pony put you three in danger. You three, who were the only ones who showed me kindness. I am truly sorry.”

“You can’t blame yourself for what they did,” said Scootaloo, seeming to regain some of her confidence. “Plus, you did just save us. Turning into a giant monster was pretty epic!”

“Monster, you say.”

“No, no,” said Applebloom. “She didn’t mean it- -”

“I thought the spines might have been a bit overboard,” said D27. “But I wanted to try to shock them.”

“No way, the spines were the best part! And then when your side opened up and all those tentacles came out!”

“So that’s not what you actually look like?” said Applebloom.

“No, of course not. I actually have no true form. I simply create what I need.”

“Mayble just one more,” said Sweetie Belle, putting leaves into her mouth and chewing them absently. The other two ponies and one Choggoth watched, and then laughed.

“Come,” said D27, lifting Sweetie Belle onto his back. “I need to get you back to town, and do your respective guardians. Also, Rainbow Dash took a poison dart, and I had to leave her sleeping in the middle of the street.”

“Rainbow Dash?” said Scootaloo.

“Yes. If I had not followed her, I would never have seen you being stolen. I am sure that had she not been poisoned as your friend here was, she would have saved you just as adequately as I did. Perhaps even better.”

“She sure would have!” said Scootaloo. Applebloom glared at her. “Of course, your rescue wasn’t bad either.”

“Thank you,” said D27. “Unfortunately, since you are now aware of my true nature, I will have to depart from Ponyville.”

“Why?” said Applebloom.

“Because when the other ponies realize what I am, they will fear me, and try to stop me from reaching my goals. So I will need to hide.”

“Not if we don’t tell them,” said Applelboom.

“Yeah!” said Scootaloo. “It won’t be fair if you had to get sent away after you saved us!”

“Muffins!” said Sweetie Belle. “So many muffins!”

“Thank you,” said D27. “I greatly appreciate the gesture.”

D27 truly did. Once again, where he had expected fear, he received kindness in return. This had been a surprise to him, and he was profoundly grateful to the three. Even knowing that he was a monstrosity, they still offered to help him, ignoring the fact that he was not like them.

Of course, they did not truly comprehend that he was a device whose only true purpose was destruction, or what his true goals actually were. If they had understood either of those things, they surely would have shown him no kindness. They would have stood against him, and betrayed him to those who would kill him. D27 resolved that those three must never know those things about him.

Rainbow Dash turned over in her sleep, taking hold of an overstuffed brown pillow.

“Commander Spitfire,” she muttered, “another metal? Yes, I am pretty awesome...” She grunted and turned in her sleep. “But ma’am, you’re not in uniform either…”

The sound of giggling caused her to snap awake.

“What? Where?” she said, sitting upright. Her mind started to slowly return, and suddenly she rose from the couch she had been lying on suddenly. “Scootaloo!” she called, looking around. She did not know where she was, and was prepared for attack. Then, slowly, she recognized the soft clouds that constituted the walls around her, and the tall ceilings and columns of elegant Pegasus architecture. When her eyes finally focused on the posters and numerous trophies around her, she realized that she was in her own living room.

“I’m right here,” said Scootaloo, bounding as best as she could across the surface of the cloud floor. As a Pegasus, she was able to stand on clouds without falling through, but she seemed not yet used to how plush Rainbow Dash’s carpet was, what with being made of puffy water vapor.

“Scootaloo,” cried Rainbow Dash, taking up Scootaloo in a hug so tight that the tiny pony released a squeak as her lungs deflated. “Ahuizotl- -poison dart- -foalnapping- -” she paused. “Hey, wait a minute,” she said, putting down Scootaloo. “How did you get in my house? How did I get in my house?”

“D27 brought me,” said Scootaloo, lifting up a saucer with a cup of purified cloud distillate in it. The drink was steaming and in one of Rainbow Dash’s few coffee mugs- -it was meant to be served cold, in a short glass, and ideally mixed with rainbow gin- -but Rainbow Dash took it gratefully and drained half the cup. Rainbow Dash frowned. Being poisoned had made her surprisingly thirsty. “D27? What does he have to do with this?”

“He’s the one that saved us- -the one that helped you save us, I mean, from those two dog things.”

“Ahuizotl!” cried Rainbow Dash, dropping the cup. Scootaloo dove to catch it, and sunk halfway into the cloud floor in the process. “Where are they?”

“Those were ahuizotl?” said Scootaloo, surprised. “Like in Daring Do?”

“Exactly!”

“I thought they were smaller,” said Scootaloo. “Like, pony sized or something.”

“Where are they? What did they do to you? I bet they were going to eat you! D27- -that freak- -he was probably in on it, wasn’t he?”

“No, no,” said Scootaloo through the saucer in her mouth as she unburied herself from the floor. She set the saucer and cup back on the cloud end table, only to watch it slowly sink through. “And they didn’t hurt us.” Scootaloo shivered slightly at her partial-truth and hoped that Rainbow Dash did not notice; although she had not been hurt physically, she had been severely shaken by having nearly died. She doubted she would be able to sleep without terrible nightmares ever again. Her whole body was sore, and she kept flashing back to seeing the glint of the sword over her head- -but she could not let Rainbow Dash know that. Not yet, anyway.

“So, wait. Let me get this straight- -D27 saved you?”

“You helped, before they got you.”

“The dart…Oh! Stupid! I just read that in Daring Do and the Porphyric Conspiracy! The Shadowy Assassin used the same darts!” She realized that she was getting off topic. “Wait…again. You mean that one pony took on two ahuizotl?”

“He used…” Scootaloo searched her mind for an explanation that did not depict D27 as a monstrous amebeoid version of Saddle Rager. “He used magic.”

“But Ahuizotl was always resistant to magic in the books,” said Rainbow Dash, almost complaining. “It hardly had an effect on him…parasites, on the other hand…”

“It was some powerful magic,” said Scootaloo, smiling suspiciously.

“Well, what was he doing out there anyway?”

Scootaloo picked up a piece of parchment that was actually managing to float on the end table properly. “He came to Ponyville to apologize to you,” she said, giving the paper to Rainbow Dash. “But he saw your rainbow, and followed you to us.”

Rainbow Dash picked up the letter. It was written in square but oddly ornate letters, as if the writer was more obsessed with perfect handwriting than Twilight but did not know all the letters.

“Dear Rainbow Dash,” the letter began. “You were injected with poison. Its primary effect was to render you unconscious (asleep). Due to your hearty constitution and athletic build, I decided that you would be able to survive it without medical attention. I therefore returned you to your home. The pony Scootaloo, who I assume to be your sister, refused to leave your side, and as such, I left her to watch over you with instructions to contact me should your condition worsen. Which, assuming you are reading this, it did not. Because you would have died.

“Anyway: I would like to apologize for our altercation today. I was afraid of your prowess in flight, and because of my concern, I did not engage you in a fair fight. Also, Scootaloo informs me that what I did to your wings was considered rather inappropriate and distressing, a fact that I did not realize.

“I believe I was too harsh with regards to my words toward you and your friends. Except toward Twilight. I realize she is probably a nice pony, but alicorns disgust me. Nothing against her, just her species, if two individuals can be called a species. I will find you when you are healed (assuming, again, that you did not die in your sleep) and possibly speak further. Your enemy, D27.”

Rainbow Dash folded the note into a paper airplane, and threw it across the room where it lodged into a cloud wall. That was her usual way of organizing mail.

“Well?” said Scootaloo, looking up expectantly.

“Well what?”

“Do you accept his apology? Can you two be friends now?”

“I don’t know if we can be friends…” Rainbow Dash looked down at Scootaloo’s proportionally enormous eyes. “But hey, if he helped you fight off those two, he probably can’t be all bad.” Scootaloo smiled broadly, and Rainbow Dash lifted her from her sinking position on the floor and set her on the couch next to herself. “So,” she said. “You just fought two ahuizotls. That beats my record by one. So you have got to tell me what happened!”

D27 stood at the edge of the cemetery, facing east. He watched as the sun slowly began to creep into the sky, driven by the power of some unseen and unknown mage. As it rose, it cast out rays of iridescent pink through the clouds. D27 remembered that glow from his own era. It was the color of death and pain.

Still, in its own way, it was beautiful. The peacefulness of the well maintained cemetery improved the feeling as well. The air was moist and humid, and smelled almost minty. The call of the earliest of birds was just starting, and a rooster crowed in the distance. This, D27 realized, was the world that he had very nearly destroyed, and the one that he in all likelihood would come to destroy once more.

The two ponies who maintained the cemetery were raking and digging and removing decayed flowers from the graves, occasionally looking up at D27 but generally staying as far away from him as possible. When D27 had arrived, the one with three legs had hit him in the face with a shovel. D27 had then spent almost half an hour explaining that he was not, in fact, dead, an opinion that was in its own way untrue.

As he watched the sunrise, he felt a presence beside him. At first he suspected that it was one of the gravediggers, coming to tell him to leave, but he realized that the heat signature was much smaller. He looked down to see a pale yellow filly with red hair, and his mind identified her as Applebloom.

She stood next to him, putting her forelegs on the lower rung of the wooden fence, but neither of them spoke.

After several minutes, the edge of the sun appeared in the sky, and D27 spoke.

“You should be sleeping right now,” he said.

“Can’t sleep,” said Applebloom. “Besides, my sister and brother and Granny Smith are in all kinds of a tizzy. I just needed to step out for a bit.” She looked up at him. “What about you?”

D27 shifted his eyes behind him, making sure that the other two ponies were out of earshot.

“I don’t sleep.”

They were both silent for a moment. “How did you know I would be here?”

“I didn’t,” said Applebloom. “I just come here sometimes. To be with them…” she looked back at her family’s plot. D27 had read the epitaphs on each of the graves, and he knew the two that she was looking at. One belonged to a stallion named Applewood, and the other a mare named Sea Apple.

“Why are they like that?” asked D27.

“You mean dead?”

“Yes.”

Applebloom sighed. “Applejack doesn’t like to talk about it, and Big Mac, he still hasn’t gotten over it. I was so little at the time…they don’t think I know. They got sick…”

“Town records indicate that there was a glanders epidemic at that time,” said D27, recalling some of what he had read in Twilight’s library. The disease was deadly, but treatable, assuming that one was treated quickly. He assumed that Applebloom’s parents had not received care timely enough to save their lives.

“There wasn’t enough medicine,” said Applebloom. “Not enough for all of us…”

“Tell me,” said D27, staring at the sunset. “Your people have gods, am I correct?”

“Gods?” said Applebloom, looking somewhat confused. “I guess so. Why?”

“Why do these beings allow bad things to happen?”

“I can’t rightfully answer that. But I don’t think even Celestia is powerful enough to save everyone. Nopony is.”

“I can,” said D27.

“How?” asked Applebloom.

“You saw a small piece of my power. This form…it is because I choose to limit myself. If I desired, I could spread infinitely. I could cover this whole world, and consume everything, and convert everything and everypony into myself.”

“Wouldn’t that cause more suffering?” said Applebloom. She did not seem perturbed by the thought; either she was far more tired than she let on, or was treating the idea as purely hypothetical.

“Yes, at first. But then there would be nothing left. I would end the suffering of countless billions of ponies into the future. There would be no disease, disaster, loss. There would be no one left to feel pain or fear or death. I could save so much…”

“I still don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“Why not?”

Applebloom though for a moment. “Well, if you did that, there’d be nopony left. You’d be all alone.”

“And is that wrong?”

“Well, yeah. What would the point be if you would just be lonely? Sure, bad things happen, but what’s the point in living if there’s no good things as well? I have my sister and brother and Granny Smith, and Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle, and we’re happy when where together. I couldn’t imagine being alone like what you said.”

“Your argument is persuasive, mortal,” said D27. He sighed and looked out at the sun. He held up his claw, and it looked as though he could hold it between two of his fingers. He pretended to pinch it; if only destroying it were that easy. “You know, I doubt those two creatures would worship the sun if they knew what it actually was.”

“I don’t think they were worshipping the sun itself,” said Applebloom. “Seemed almost like they meant Celestia when they were talking.”

“Celstia?” said D27, confused. “That is your goddess, is it not?”

“I…I guess so. I mean, she’s powerful, and people use her name when they say stuff like ‘oh Celestia’ or ‘by Celestia’ or ‘Celestia dam- -”

“You’re too young for that one,” reminded D27.

“Sorry. But she’s really just a pony, like the rest of us. Well, except that she has wings and a horn.”

D27 cringed. “You mean she’s an alicorn? There’s more of them?”

“Well, yeah,” said Applebloom, as if it were obvious. “There’s Twilight here in town, and Princess Cadence in the Crystal Empire, and then there’s Celestia and Luna. Celestia raises the sun, and Luna the moon.”

“But how can- -” D27 felt an icy shock run through him, and he froze. He suddenly understood. An alicorn associated with the sun, and one with the moon.

“No,” he whispered. “No, it can’t be…they couldn’t…” But it was the only way; it was the only conclusion. “NO!” he shouted, standing on his hind legs and slashing the fence with his claws. It ripped from the ground, and the logs flew into the forest a distance away.

“D27!” cried Applebloom, frightened. D27 hardly noticed.

“Why?” he said, “why would they do it? How could they be so arrogant?!”

“D27, calm down!”

“They activated it!” he screamed. His mind was racing. “When I came here, when I first woke up, I saw life, and I assumed that it was still quiescent, or destroyed, but no, they must have reconfigured it somehow! That changes the basic function, but not the outcome…” he looked up at the sun, and realized that the whole time it had been counting down. Waiting, watching.

“What’s wrong?” said one of the gravediggers, trotting over.

“All that death,” said D27, clutching his head, his pupils reduced to triangular pinpricks. “All that pain…I killed two entire races…millions died by my hand…and then they go and undo everything!” He realized that tears of black, viscous substance were dripping from his eyes. “What they all died for…what I died for…what greed could possess them, what avarice, to become gods?”

His mind hardened, and calculated. He had finally found the piece of information that he needed, what he had been searching for. The alicorn “Cadence” was a slave to a deceased Lord of Order, and the one called “Twilight” was still unknown, but now he knew the names and natures of his true enemies: “Celestia” and “Luna”, synthetic gods bound to the celestial spheres, powered and risen by the dark Finality Core. They had to be stopped.

“I need to go,” he said calmly, stepping away from the terrified Applebloom. “There is work to be done.”