As the portal opened, Twilight and her friends dropped through the floor, crying out as they fell. Twilight spread her wings, attempting to right herself and fly, to grab onto those of her friends who could not fly- -and Fluttershy, whose wings had locked from fear.

She was not used to her excessively large and bulky alicorn wings, though, and tumbled as she tried to spread them. As she did, the portal snapped shut, and the world seemed to shift. Twilight felt her descend flow, and then felt herself rising.

Then, suddenly, she slammed into rocky, hard, inconsistent and alien soil. Disoriented, she felt her world seeming to swim. She tried to stand as best as she could, but found that her legs were shaking. The magic required to open the portal had been greater than she had thought, and she had been substantially weakened.

Catching her breath, she sat on the ground and looked up at the sky, and immediately understood why the demons feared the Gloame. The sky itself was ominous black, like the smoke from a great fire. Slow-moving lightning, most of it red, slowly illuminated the dark clouds as it spread like a web throughout the sky above.

The light seemed to come from elsewhere- -there was no sun. Twilight realized that it was largely from the trees- -which were not trees at all. They resembled something more like complex fungus, but even then, they also could have been something else entirely, like a mineral formation.

“Again!” said Pinkie Pie, standing up and bouncing around the forest floor. She stopped and took a deep breath. “Oh, lookie! I didn’t pass out this time!”

“Last time?” said Twilight, her mind suddenly focusing back on the world around her- -as strange as it was.

“Yeah! The last time I was here, I tried to breathe without the magic and oh wow does this place stink, like a wet basement filled with a hospital and old cheese.” She leaned close to Applejack. “To think, without this magic, just one breath, and we would be totally…” She drew her hoof across her neck, and made a terrible gagging sound. Then she smiled. “Just. One. Breath.”

Applejack suddenly started breathing heavily. “Twalight,” she said. “Ah’m not usally one to complahn, but…I can’t breathe. There’s not enough- -not enough- -”

“Applejack, calm down,” said Twilight, standing and putthing her hooves on her friend’s shoulders. “Calm down. Take deep breaths. Big, deep breaths. Do you trust me?”

“Yeah,” said Applejack, taking a deep breath.

“Then trust my spell.”

“Yeah…okay…” Applejack took another breath, and closed her eyes and tried to breath slowly. “Yeah, Twi…okay. I’m okay now.”

At that point, Rarity suddenly cried out.

“What is it?” said Twilight, turning suddenly. From the sound of the scream, she momentarally through that her shadow-repellant spell might have failed and Rarity was being attacked.

“Tarnish!” cried rarity, her eyes wide. She was staring down at her silver armor, now covered with a delicate and extremely intricate mural of complex filigrees and tiny mural-like depictions of elegant pony abstracts. It was rapidly turning black in the Gloame atmosphere, as were all of theres. “No no no- -I need baking soda, vinegar, and aluminum foil!”

“It’s just tarnish,” said Twilight, annoyed.

“Just tarnish? JUST tarnish? Twilight, my design was beautiful! And now look at it!”

Twilight put her hoof to her face and sighed. At the same time, she also became aware that the atmosphere was probably very rich in reactive sulfur- -which was something she knew she should probably not mention.

“We don’t have time,” she said, as calmly as possible. “Besides, if you clean it, it will just tarnish again as long as we are here.”

“Then what are we waiting for?” said Rarity, leading them deeper into the forest. “Let’s get this done so we can leave this dreadful place. So full of tarnish…so drab…” She was rapidly joined by Pinkie Pie, who jumped bounced ahead, seeming to enjoy herself even in the alien landscape.

They started moving. After a few moments, Rainbow Dash dropped to the ground and spoke to Fluttershy. “So,” she said, rolling her eyes toward the fungus canopy above. “Are you?”

“I…um…well, I…” stuttered Fluttershy, once again turning red.

“I’d rather not know,” said Twilight.

“Right, right,” said Rainbow Dash. Her wings fluttered, and she lifted herself upward. She just did not seem comfortable on the ground.

“Hey,” said Applejack after several minutes. “Yah ever get thah feelin yer being…”

Bright white lights suddenly appeared in the woods around them: uncountable pairs of white, blank, luminescent eyes attached to long strips of shadow.

“Watched,” finished Applejack.

By instinct, the ponies moved together, away from the shadows. Even with the spell, Twilight had never expected them to be so threatening. Celestia had not told her that they had eyes.

The only one who did not seem afraid was Pinkie Pie.

“Ooh! Ooh! Twilight, give me a light!”

“A light?” Twilight focused her energy on her horn, and it glowed brightly. Each of the six of them immediately cast a shadow, as did the strangely narrow rocks that surrounded them and the “trees”- -along with so many shadows that had no clear source.

Pinkie Pie contorted her body, and Twilight watched as her shadow became an image of a great and terrifying creature. “Om nom nom!” She cried as she awkwardly hopped forward, making the “monster” ‘s jaws open and close by waving her forelegs.

The shadows momentarily seemed to stare until, suddenly, she cought one of them in her “jaws”. It actually deformed slightly, and on release, all the shadows fluttered, as though a flock of birds overhead were casting them. Then they all seemed to retreat farther back into the woods, their eyes only distantly visible.

“Weird,” said Pinkie Pie. “I felt it…”

“What did it feel like?” said Fluttershy, who had clearly not seen what had happened- -she was huddled behind Rainbow Dash, her hooves over her eyes.

“It felt like…felt!”

“What…what are they?” said Rarity, backing away. She shook her head. “What…what are they saying?”

“I don’t her anything,” said Rainbow Dash.

“Me neither,” said Applejack.

“I do,” said Twilight. It was not so much hearing as an uncomfortable sensation in her horn. The shadows themselves did not make a sound, but rather an impression of a lack of sound. Each one of them sounded profoundly silent. “We have to keep moving.”

“Twilight,” said Rainbow Dash. “Do you actually have an idea where we are going?”

“Um…” said Twilight. “Actually…”

“Oh, well that’s just great,” said Rainbow Dash.

“Hey, I’m trying,” said Twilight. “Transdimensional teleportation isn’t exactly easy, you know.”

“Why don’t we ask for directions?” said Pinkie Pie. She hopped off into the brush.

“Pinkie!” cried Twilight. “Wait! We can’t get separated!”

Twilight flapped her wings and tried to take flight, but found the silver armor was too heavy. Without hesitation, she chased after Pinkie Pie on foot. The undergrowth was thick, but no more so than that in the Everfree Forest, and Twilight was able to move quickly, following the giggling and scent of candy- -although Pinkie Pie was eerily fast through the thick hyphae and hardened, metal-like growths of the Gloame trees.

Then she broke through into a clearing and suddenly found herself tumbling down a steep, rocky embankment. Instinctively, she covered her head, trying to protect her horn, and waited until she stopped. Her whole body hurt from the descent, but as the pain left she slowly felt her limbs to make sure nothing was broken. Then she opened her eyes.

Above her was an asymmetrical mass of crystal and stone. It turned and a disembodied, floating element of it seemed to stare at her. It released a sudden surge of deep sounds, like the twanging of some kind of immense string instrument.

“Eek!” cried Twilight as she jumped back, charging her horn. “Golem! Golem!”

The creature did not react to Twilight’s sudden burst of terrified motion. Instead, it only watched her for a moment and then went back to the task it had been performing before she arrived- -attempting to dislodge a large, half-buried piece of broken equipment from the pit.

“I don’t think you’re gonna get it out,” said Pinkie Pie to the golem. “It’s pretty stuck. Whenever I get stuck somewhere, I always use butter. You should try butter!”

The golem grumbled in return.

“What?!” said Pinkie Pie, suddenly. “What do you mean no butter? How can you have no butter in an entire…whatever this is?”

It replied with something high and twangy.

“What do you mean heart disease? I eat my weight in butter and don’t have heart disease. Because my heart is so big, I think. Do you even have a heart?”

“Pinkie!” cried Rainbow Dash, suddenly appearing at the edge of the forest, with Applejack almost directly behind her and Rarity and Fluttershy no doubt nearly there. “What the hay is that thing?”

“Thing? No, this is...um…well, I’ll just call him Fred.”

“It can talk?” said Twilight, approaching slowly. The idea was completely unfamiliar to her- -in no book on the subject of golems, even the modern theoretical works, had anypony suggested that a golem could be constructed that could speak, even in a language that only Pinkie could understand.

“Duh,” said Pinkie Pie. “Does Celestia like cake?”

“Yes,” said Rainbow Dash and Applejack simultaneously.

“Twilight?” called Rarity from in the brush. “Oh, my. This is certainly the cleanest forest I have ever been in- -are you all right?”

Rarity and Fluttershy pushed their way through the brush. When both of them saw the golem, both of them could only gape. “Oh my,” said Rarity after several moments. “Is everything here so…abstract?”

“I hope not,” said Fluttershy, now hiding behind Applejack. “I just want to go back to Equestria- -where everything is so…normal.”

The golem pointed at fluttershy with something reminiscent of an arm and made a sound.

“Oh, yeah, she is,” said Pinkie Pie. “She’s the softest pony I know! Even softer than me!”

“Why does everypony think I’m so soft,” said Fluttershy, blushing.

“Pinkie,” said Applejack. “I don’ think it’s safe tah be around that thing.”

“Of course it is, silly.”

Twilight suddenly had an idea. “Pinkie, you’re a genius!” she cried. “If I trace the golem’s source alignment, I can find the point origin of D27’s magical control on them!” She lowered her horn and focused it on the golemn. She focused her magic into an analysis spell, and projected it onto the golem. It was illuminated with pink-purple light, and the floating element of it that seemed to function as an eye looked toward its own body.

Then the spell fizzled and dissipated.

“Well?” said Applejack.

“It…it didn’t work,” said Twilight, terribly confused. The golem was indeed a collection of magic fusing together rocks and crystals, but it had no apparent external source. It was entirely independent.

“Let me try,” said Pinkie Pie.

“Pinkie, you’re not a unicorn. You can’t- -”

“Fred,” said Pinkie Pie. The golem looked at her. “Can you please tell us where we can find D27?”

The golem pointed and mumbled something.

“He says that way,” said Pinkie, also pointing.

The golem said something else.

“What was that part?” asked Rainbow Dash.

“Um…I don’t think I’m allowed to repeat that part. Well, except the part about something called ‘radiation’ from that thing in the ground. Probably better if we stand back a bit.”

They all stepped back. The golem went back to trying to dislodge the device.

The golem had been correct. After an hour of walking- -and forty five minutes of Rarity complaining- -the group reached the first sign of D27’s presence

It appeared to be a some kind of device, built into a region where the land was flat and otherwise devoid of native vegetation. It consisted largely of machinery that seemed to be designed to support numerous large glass cells, each one at a slight angle and surrounded at its base by a mass of blue material.

As they got closer, it became apparent that each glass cell contained a single tree. Not a fungoid Gloame tree, though- -they were quite clearly apple trees from Equestria, their roots planted into the blue material at their base. Inside the tubes, the trees would periodically spark, and strangely blue apples were visible rapidly growing from flowers to fully grown apples in a matter of seconds. They were then promptly being removed by numerous blue tentacles at the top of the chamber and being transported by long, fleshy umbilical to somewhere in the dark distance.

Applejack seemed to be the most interested in the process, but also the most disgusted.

“Applejack,” said Twilight. “What’s wrong?” She herself was far more interested in the type of magic that could be used to form apples so quickly- -and even the others stopped to see the strange sight.

“It’s…well, it’s plum unnatural.”

“Silly, those aren’t plums!” giggled Pinkie Pie. “At least, I think they aren’t.”

“I thought you would be able to appreciate the efficiency,” said Twilight.

“I would too but…but this just ain’t raht. Apples were meant to be bucked.”

Rainbow Dash snorted.

“Very mature,” said Rarity, frowning.

“Stihl…I wish I could taste one.”

“Not a problem!” said Pinkie Pie from above. The group turned to see her riding on the head of an especially massive golem that was toting a rather complete but heavily rusted artifact that it had found somewhere else. The golem seemed to respond to Pinkie Pie’s will, and reached down with one of several arms, removing a single blue apple from the flesh-like umbilicals connected to the tree tubs. It pinched it carefully between two claws, and moved it over to Applejack.

“Um…thanks,” said Applejack, taking the apple in her hooves. She eyed it for a moment, doubting her original assertion- -blue apples were simply the wrong color- -but took a bit. She chewed it carefully, and then spat it out.

“What did it taste like?” asked Fluttershy.

“Lahke….Lahke nothing. Not evehn a texture. Lahke eatin hard air.” She gulped. “Worst think I done tasted since Applebloom mahde me eat some ah Sweetie Belle’s cookin…”

“Really?” said Rainbow Dash, landing near Applejack. She picked up the apple and took a bite.

“Rainbow, that’s disgusting!” cried Rarity.

“It’s not that bad,” she said, swallowing. “I mean, I’ve had worse.”

“Where have you had worse?”

“Places,” said Rainbow Dash, shrugging.

“Eew,” said Twilight. She turned back to the machine. “I think if we follow the tubes, we’ll get to wherever D27 is.”

“Or if we follow this guy!” said Pinkie Pie, the golem she was riding marching forward.

Farther forward, they finally came into view of what appeared to be a castle. In the dim natural light of the Gloame, it was visible perched high on one of several immense stone columns. It itself seemed to be made of the same blue tissue that connected to the numerous automatic apple fields. It was fungoid, stretching downward with long tendrils of material, almost seeming to drip from the caves and structures that had been carved into the stone above.

Twilight and her friends watched from the bushes. The castle itself was not a threat to them directly, due to its distance, but rather the new beings that seemed to be wondering near it. All through the swamps and forest near the castle were thousands of ponies- -or things that had once been ponies. Their original flesh had been stripped away, leaving skeletons coated in thin bits of blue tissue. Their skulls were mostly exposed, and they seemed to grin with their exposed jaws. Every one of them had only one eye, which was marked with a pair of triangles.

Most of them, it seemed, were- -or had been- -earth ponies, or at least a type of earth pony; they were somewhat smaller, with thicker builds than would normally be expected. There were a significant number of unicorns, however, and a third group that Twilight did not recognize- -creatures with sharp teeth, tiny, forward eye sockets, and hard, bony wings that formed plates over their backs. They seemed to be a kind of pony, but their gate and structure was radically different than anything Twilight was aware of.

“He’s building an army,” whispered Twilight.

“I told you zombie ponies were real,” said Pinkie Pie, still perched on her chosen golem, which was now standing barely concealed behind a small branch of fungus-tree that it was holding.

“Pinkie!” hissed Twilight. “Get down from there!”

“I can’t…I can’t do this,” sobbed Fluttershy. Being surrounded by the hordes of resurrected ponies seemed to be having a greater effect on her than the rest.

“Hey,” said Rainbow Dash, turning over and holding her stomach. “I really don’t feel so hot right now.”

“Quiet, all of you! We need to plan an attack. Rainbow?” Twilight turned to Rainbow Dash, who was usually the one amongst them who was the most likely to engage an enemy in a fight. She only groaned.

Suddenly, Rainbow Dash turned over and vomited. Instead of soupy, foul-smelling liquid, however, a torrent of small crystals poured from her mouth.

“I don’t know how to feel about this,” said Rairty, watching the small sparkling crystals pouring from Rainbow Dash.

“Oh Celestia,” said Rainbow Dash, looking more blue than normal and spitting out one rather large, bile-colored gemstone. “Ohhh Celestia…blue apple was a bad idea…”

“Of course it was. It was full of unprocessed Order.”

Twilight suddenly froze. She quickly took account of her friends, and saw that there were six of them in the bushes. She was momentarily relieved, until she remembered that Pinkie Pie was on top of the golem.

The entire group turned toward the one pony that they did not recognize: a skeletal unicorn, its teeth exposed and one of its eyes missing, the only flesh it managed to maintain a deep blue color.

They all jumped back suddenly, taking offensive stances.

“How did you find us?” demanded Twilight.

“Am I going to die?” said Rainbow Dash, vomiting another pile of small jewels.

“Yes, eventually. As for how I ‘found’ you: I saw you. You do realize that if you can see me, I can see you?” He pointed. “And that thing up there is not a structure. It is me. Everything you see- -including the farming unit that you stole from- -is me.”

“The apple?” said Rainbow Dash.

“No. Not the apple. That was just an apple,” said another voice. One of the unknown, small eyed ponies scuttled out of the trees.

“But you should not be here,” said another undead pony. Its mouth did not move as it spoke, and all of them spoke with the same voice.

More came, seeming to pour out of nowhere.

“We came to kick your respective...” Rainbow Dash proved unable to finish her sentence. Although she seemed to be rapidly recovering, the nausea still seemed to be intense.

“How?” said another corpse. “You are all so small. Not just physically. Your lives themselves…ponies in total. So small…”

Rarity stepped forward, glaring at the nearest of the bodies. Then, with a sudden motion, she slapped it with enough force to disconnect its skeletal head. The head rolled across the ground, landing in front of Fluttershy.

She released a small sound and started shaking. “I think I peed…” she said.

“It serves you right, betrayer,” said the skull as it sprouted insect-like legs and crawled back to its waiting headless body. It reattached quickly with a snap of bone and a click as it turned back to its original position. “Rarity. Why?”

“You filthy beast!” she screamed. “How dare you say my name? You are a monster!” she reached into her armor and pulled out a small, purple gem. She threw it at the body she was addressing, and it sunk into its tissue, disappearing into the blue flesh. “Take it! I don’t want anything from you! Not even this!”

D27’s multiple bodies stared at them all for a moment. More seemed to pour from the forest, but they all stopped and simply stared. Twilight realized that they were surrounded by thousands of clone bodies. She did her best to count them, and to calculate how much they weighed.

“I know why you are here,” said one of them. “You came to kill me. Or to try to, as you cannot possibly succeed.” He looked them all in the eyes. “But why?”

“Because you tricked us!” shouted Applejack.

“You were manipulating us the whole time!” cried Rainbow Dash, spitting out more gems.

“And you were…this,” said Rarity, pointing at the horde around them.

“You knew the whole time,” snapped D27. “Surely you had to see that something was wrong- -an adult pony with no cutie mark, who could perform magic without a horn? Who could spontaneously grow claws?” One of his earth pony bodies raised its hoof, and the hoof shifted into a pair of long-clawed fingers. Many of them focused on Rarity. “Even you. You melted off one of my arms with silver. And you still did not realize what I was?”

“I…well…you said it was magic!”

“I lied. To you, but not to your sister, or her friends. They knew. But only you six hated me enough to betray me. To lie to me, when all you desired was my death by the hands of your former goddess.” His attention turned to Fluttershy, who was now in a pool of liquid that was not just tears. “Especially you.”

“Nopony talks to Fluttershy like that!” cried Pinkie Pie. She clicked her hoof against the enormous golem’s head. “Get him, Mr. Bubbles!”

The golem reached behind itself and picked up Pinkie Pie carefully next to her friends. It then turned and started to walk away.

“The proto-golems are not violent creatures,” said D27, harshly. “Do not try to bring them into this conflict. Pinkie, I expected better of you. And you,” he turned to Twilight. “Who sent you? Who gave you those wings? Who do you serve?”

“I don’t have to tell you anything!” cried Twilight, stepping forward, charging her horn. “And I won’t let you hurt my friends, or Equestria!”

“You are all blind.” His forms approached, and Twilight and her friends braced for a fight- -only for the legion of the dead to walk past them.

“Hey!” cried Rainbow Dash. “Where do you think you’re all going?”

“To where they are needed,” said D27. “I have no need to fight you. You are insignificant compared to me. Move as you see fit in my world. Just stay out of my way.”

Their sudden migration finally caused the density to rise adequately. Twilight had no time to check her calculations, and relied on the hope that she was right.

She pointed her horn at the mass of blue tissue and bones, and activated Cutting Deeper’s spell.

D27 was aware of ponies on his periphery. He spoke to them, but even his contact with them was vague and distant. His mind had expanded vastly to compensate for his much larger mass, and only a small portion of it was focused on the conversation. The rest was coordinating troop movements in the now far more chaotic, riot-stricken Equestria and in his preparations for any possible upcoming battles.

His body was now something that none of the ponies outside could possibly have understood. It had expanded vastly, fueled by mass funneled in Equestria and from his numerous automated fields of Order-accelerated apples. He was now using the structure he had built so long ago as it was intended to be. It had never been meant to be a castle; it had not been designed to have rooms and occupants. It was instead constructed for the soul purpose of housing him, as a shell was the housing for a snail. The rooms were designed for various tasks, ranging from gas exchange chambers, Order accumulation tanks, troop maintenance and storage, and weapons manufacture and cybernetic recombination. This structure was intended to help him compensate for his innate weakness, allowing him to fuse directly to the technology and artifacts he had collected both recently and far earlier.

Suddenly, as he passed the hideous purple alicorn Twilight Sparkle, he felt something. A profound change echoed through his entire form; something was causing a forced change to his fundamental structure.

His flesh left the bones that he had collected, leaving them behind as it was drawn by magic toward a single point. D27 felt the mass of that point grow to several tons as he was condensed, and then felt it shift a second time, forming an auxiliary neural core. He tried to resist, but found it impossible; even as he struggled against whatever strange magic was controlling him, his executive functions switched to the new core, leaving his original core to disintegrate and be reincorporated into his primary body.

“What have you done to me?!” he screamed as numerous eyes opened on his form. He looked at the ponies before him, and saw the expressions of horror on their faces. D27 rapidly shifted himself, covering the exposed neural core that disgusted them so and coating it in a hard shell, forming legs and becoming a rather massive biped similar to the one he had used to attempt to destroy the Heart of Order. It seemed that the spell had not affected his fundamental ability to morph, but it had rendered him temporarily unable to shift his neural core to any other location.

“Now!” said Twilight. Her friends and her stood together, and D27 detected a sudden exponential increase in Order.

“No,” he said. The armor on his chest pulled open and tendrils shot forth, rapidly crossing the distance between his newly formed sub-body and their position. Once again, he attempted to grab them, to pull them apart before the spell could fully engage. As he did, though, he cried out in pain. Wherever he touched them, his tentacles disintegrated. They were covered in silver.

The spell continued to increase in its potency, pulling in massive amounts of magic from some unseen origin. The ponies began to glow, and lifted off the ground. Their bodies changed as well: their manes and tails increased in size, and became more colorful, and their bodies became somewhat sparkly.

D27’s mind raced. He knew that under normal circumstances, the condensation of his neural core would not be a problem. Even if his brain were destroyed, he could always produce a new one. There had to be a reason they had done that first though, a reason why they had used what was vaguely reminiscent of a trihorn spell. Then D27 realized what they were trying to do: they were going to use his own transmission matrix to attack all of his disparate parts at once.

The result would certainly be fatal. D27 did not want to die; he had not yet achieved his goal. Equestria was still in danger. Until Luna and Celestia were both completely killed and the sun and moon destroyed, the Finality Core would still be functional, still slowly charging and preparing once again for the birth of a Lord of Order.

D27 attempted to calculate the best possible way to stop the spell. He shifted energy to his eyes, and his mind, closely examining their magic. The only option, he determined, would be to eliminate one of the members of the group. It could not be just any member, though; the effect of the spell could keep a satellite element alive until the spell was completed. The only viable target was the catalyst of the reaction: Twilight Sparkle.

It also occurred to D27 that, due to Rarity’s actions, he had a piece of cerorite still imbedded in his body.

D27 shifted his body, moving the cerorite. He moved adjusted his body, converting the right side of it into a mass accelerator. Cerorite was not manipulable through magic, but D27 was more than capable of building a device from parts of his own body to generate enough speed send the crystal bullet through an alicorn skull.

He targeted the shot directly at the base of Twilight Sparkle’s horn- -it would result in simultaneous instant death and severance of her organic magic. Based on component tolerances and range, D27 predicted a perfectly clean hit with zero percent chance of survival.

Their spell began to accelerate; their glow increased, and D27 could no longer measure the levels of energy they were putting into the blast that they were going to produce. It was clear that something within them was combining to produce far greater energy than any of them could have summoned alone- -but it was also clear that there was an overarching signal of Order within their energy.

D27 prepared to fire the shot. He knew that it was necessary- -more than just for himself, but for his goal. If Equestria was to survive, Twilight Sparkle had to die. There would be no way to destroy a Lord of Order if it were to be born into the world- -D27 needed to survive long enough to destroy the sun and moon.

Then he thought about what he was doing, about what the results truly would be. Twilight Sparkle was an alicorn, a cursed being, but she was also a pony. She had a family, with parents who loved her, and possibly siblings. If she died, she would leave them. Her friends- -those who stood beside her now- -would be left without her. D27 imagined what he would be forced to see: her body dropping to the rock below, and her friends surrounding her, realizing what D27 had done. The image was too much to bear.

She was not alone in the world. She had a family, and friends; ponies who loved her. She had a life and a future, and a chance at happiness. She had everything that D27 could never have. D27 found that he could not take that away from her; he simply could not bring himself to pull the trigger.

Instead, he disassembled the mass accelerator and hardened his skin. He then poured his own order into his flesh. The pain was agonizing. The sudden surge of Order rapidly converted his skin into super-dense crystal, and he cried out with a roar of pain. What he was doing would be the equivalent of a pony peeling off their own skin: the parts the Order took were not retrievable; they were stone, and dead, severed from D27’s body permanently.

Even that, he knew, would not be enough. It would buy him several more seconds, but he fully understood the strength of the magic they were using. He had already resigned himself to death.

The energy of the six ponies suddenly concentrated, and a beam of light emerged from them. A great rainbow of energy poured out form them, filing the Gloame with brilliant light. D27 watched it arc through the air toward him. He did not bother to dodge; he stood firm, and faced his fate directly.

Then, just before the rainbow reached him, it stopped. It held for a moment, and then flickered and suddenly dissipated with a loud hiss, like something electrical burning out. The ponies looked at the result in awe as their extra color and hair faded into sparkly smoke, and they fell to the rocky floor below.

“What is this?” said D27. He did not understand why the spell had failed. They had subjected him to powerful magic, only to stop at the last moment. The only conclusion he could arrive at was that they were mocking him.

He stepped forward, the diamond of his structure clinking like crystal. He loomed over the six of them, and they seemed so small. The six ponies looked up at him with panic. D27 looked down, focusing on Twilight Sparkle, the alicorn. He suddenly realized something. She was a monster, a creature cursed and corrupted by Order- -but so was he. The looks on their faces, their expressions of fear- -it made him understand that he was something less. Perhaps at one time in the distant eons past, Choggoths had been something like ponies, before they were taken by the Lords of Order and converted into weapons. Alicorns were mutilated and strange, but they had not yet lost what D27 had. He lacked the capacity for friendship and love. A Choggoth existed only to destroy- -even D27. He was a weapon, a device that could only inspire fear and hatred, like that that he saw on the faces of the ponies below. The alicorns were a newer, better, uncorrupted version of the Choggoths- -and D27 was the real monster.

None of that truly mattered, though. Doubts had always lurked in D27’s mind, but this event had dispelled them. He had once though that perhaps he had overacted, or that he could forgive them. He had maintained the mad delusion that he might still one day return to Equestria. Now he saw the truth. Those who had once betrayed him had now attempted to kill him. They were his enemies. For D27, the ideal of friendship was forever out of reach.

D27 raised one of his massive, diamond-coated hands over the group. The alicorn stood and projected a violet sphere around her and her friends.

“Please don’t crush us!” cried Fluttershy from below.

Fear. That was the only way they could view D27. It was the logical response, the only response that they could have toward him. D27 was aware, of course, that it was warranted. He supposed that if he were a pony, he would fear his Choggoth self as well.

From his hand emerged several tiny crystals. They floated down to the ponies and began to swirl near Twilight’s shield. Then they parted, forming a small triangular portal.

“Go home,” said D27. “Just leave me…” He pointed to the portal. The other side of it went to Canterlot. It was dark on the other side, lit by the red light of a dying sun.

Without a word, they slowly stood. Twilight hesitantly lowered her shield, and allowed them to move toward the portal.

“Twilight Sparkle,” said D27 when the others had passed through.

Twilight looked up at him. “What do you want?”

“I want to thank you.”

Twilight looked confused for a moment. “Thank me? For what?”

“For being the only one who never pretended to be my friend. So I have a gift for you.”

A burst of orange light appeared next to D27, and a blue-fleshed skeletal unicorn appeared, an object in its mouth. It was a small cube, made of something stone-like, with a central glowing cyan crystal.

“Here,” said the unicorn body, passing the Draconian cube to Twilight.

“What is this?” she asked, taking it in her magic.

“Their memories,” said D27 from his larger body.

“Whose memories?” asked Twilight, still confused.

“Ours,” said the skeletal unicorn. “Or those of these skeletons that I now command.”

“Why are you giving me this?”

“There is no excuse for my actions on the other side. This is not a justification for what I have done. But it is the truth. The choice to know is yours, but the choice is your right. Pray to your remaining god that you never choose to open that box.”

D27’s bodies turned and left her holding the data core. He found that he could not bear to look at her. Not because she was an alicorn, or even because D27 saw himself reflected in her. It was because there was no way he could bear to look into those wide, violet eyes and explain the horrors and atrocities he had been forced to commit.

This was not her war. It was not any of their wars. Ponies were not meant to have ever been involved. Now that they were, they would be the ones to suffer. D27 just wanted their suffering to stop.

In a way, he wished that they had not aborted the spell. He wished that the bolt of rainbow had struck him down, burned him away from reality forever, and removed the blight known as Oblivion from existence. Fate was not that kind, though. There was still work to be done.

“Um…where exactly are we?” said Rainbow Dash as the portal snapped shut.

“Ah we back in Tartarus?” asked Applejack.

“No,” said Twilight, her blood chilling as she recognized the scenery around her. Although horrid red light was filtering through the windows, casting strange shadows on the walls, she recognized the scenery well. “We’re in the castle- -we’re in Canterlot!”

“I heard a noise this way,” said a gruff voice from somewhere down the hallway. Twilight did not know why, but she suddenly had an urge to run, to hide- -even though she was in the most familiar of places.

A group of two guards appeared at the nearest corner, and it took every ounce of will Twilight to possessed to not run. Fluttershy, meanwhile, actually started to run, only to be held back by Applejack.

To Twilight’s surprise, the guards were not wearing the new armor that Celestia had assigned. They were wearing thick, heavy versions of traditional armor. One of the two was a strangely non-white unicorn, and the other, much to Twilight’s surprise, was a crystal pony.

“Princess Twilight,” said the unicorn. “Thank Celes…I mean, thank Luna you are alive.” They approached, but took a sudden defensive stance when they saw Rainbow Dash standing beside the group.

“Stand back from the Blue!” ordered the crystal pony, forcing the other ponies to one side with his body.

“What are you doing?” demanded Twilight. “That’s Rainbow Dash!”

“We can’t be sure of that,” said the crystal guard.

“Hey!” cried Rainbow Dash, flying angrily into the air. “This isn’t fair!”

“It will only take a moment,” said the unicorn. His horn glowed brightly, and a grid appeared near Rainbow Dash.

“What is that?” demanded Rainbow Dash. “What are you- -”

The grid passed through her body, and she convulsed slightly and fell. The unicorn projecting the spell, likewise, suddenly seemed exhausted and dropped to his knees.

“Rainbow Dash!” cried Twilight, pushing past the crystal guard.

Rainbow Dash was laying on her back. She looked up at Twilight and smiled. “No more cider, Berry Fly, I’m punching home later…” She then fell back onto the ground and giggled slightly.

“She’s clean,” said the unicorn, the crystal guard helping him stand. “I’m sorry Princess,” he said, “but the number of infiltrators has increased recently. We needed to be sure that she was not one of them.” He motioned for the crystal pony to help Rainbow Dash, and he did- -while also attaching a tag to her ear to mark her as approved.

“Miss Dash,” he said. “I truly am sorry. I am actually a huge fan of your…flying.” He crystal blushed slightly.

“Oh, you,” said Rainbow Dash, still heavily disoriented.

“Guards!” said another voice from the edge of the hallway. “What going on here?”

Twilight looked up and recognized a familiar pink pony dressed in unfamiliar crystalline armor.

“Princess,” said the unicorn, standing at attention. “We responded to a disturbance and found- -”

“Cadence!” said Twilight, running forward. She wrapped her sister-in-law in a hug. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be back in the Crystal- -” Twilight looked up, and saw that Cadence was not smiling. Her expression was far more serious than Twilight had ever seen, and she looked much older than she actually was.

“Twilight,” she said, “something terrible has happened…”