There were no ponies in the Everfree Forest. The feared it, and feared the monsters within it. D27 did not. Of all the monsters in Equestria, he knew that he was the strongest of them all. To him, even the most lethal creatures in all the land were nothing more than a different form of organic material, no different from sludge or trees. They were just something else for him to absorb.

Even the forest itself could not stand in his path. As his massive form lumbered through the trees, his flesh stretched out before him as tendrils, grasping and coating trees and plants in his path. He did not even need to slow down: he simply moved forward, cutting a line of sterile, empty soil through the trees.

His mind was starting to collapse. His size was now substantial, and his mind had difficulty controlling so many bodies and processes. All he could remember was that something was wrong with him, although he did not know what, and that he had a mission. His only purpose in existence was to fight the Lords of Order, and to protect Equestria. Strangely, he did not know where those orders had come from, and did not know why he fought- -although he realized that he may have once known.

According to his triangulation, there was a source of Order directly ahead of him. The signal was growing stronger as he approached. It was doing its best to hide itself, merging its signal with the signal of the strange forest, but to no avail. D2’s own Order had synchronized with it, and it could not escape him.

There was no chance of it running or escaping. Lord of Order were sessile beings: they could not move on their own volition. Normally, they never had cause to. That made D27’s task just slightly easier.

As he absorbed his way through the forest, he suddenly became aware of something anomalous inside his body. Something he picked up was neither a plant nor fungus, but rather some manner of animal. Rather than absorbing it, D27 moved it through his tree-height, bipedal body. He then produced something reminiscent of a mouth and spat the creature into his hand.

He looked down and saw that what he had nearly converted into storage mass was actually some kind of pony. Unlike ordinary ponies, however, she was covered in black and white stripes. D27 vaguely remembered having seen her before.

The striped pony sat up and gasped, shaking herself clear of the Choggoth mucus that she was covered in. She looked up at D27, and D27 looked down at her. She was so small compared to him.

“You there! Put me back on the grass, or this zebra is going to kick you a- -”

D27 dropped her into a pile of moss. She appeared to land safely, and D27 continued on his way. Ponies were not meant for absorbing, even if they were zebras. There was still enough of him left inside his mind to remember that at least.

D27’s path eventually led him to a ravine. Across it, he could see the remnants of an ancient castle. The ruin itself did not seem to be the origin of the signal. Rather, the signal was coming from beneath. D27’s mind distantly wondered if the castle had been built knowing what it must have been over, or if it had simply been centered in the forest. He also wondered why, if it had been placed over something so hideously dangerous, it had ever been abandoned.

There seemed to be a narrow, decaying staircase leading downward. D27 ignored it. He simply jumped over the edge and fell to the ground below. The impact of an ultra-dense, several ton Choggoth hitting the stone below caused the formation of a small crater as the rocks crumbled beneath him, but D27 did not feel anything.

Ahead was a cave. Being close, D27 could now defiantly sense the stench of Order. It smelled almost exactly like Twilight Sparkle and her friends, but it was stronger and somehow different. D27 knew that whatever he was tracking was inside that cave.

So he entered. His triangle-organs paused for a moment as they reconfigured to the darkness. Then he became aware of what stood before him.

Deep in his mind, he had hoped that he had been wrong. He knew that something was present, something related to a Lord of Order, but he had hoped that it would be something as simple as a remnant. He had wished that it would be nothing more than a dead component, a relic of a once far more powerful being, like the Heart of Order in the northern kingdom. All the calculations he performed had stated that such was impossible, but he had still held out hope.

Now that he saw it, though, he understood that he could not afford to hope. Standing before him, its crystalline body in the shape of something like a hybrid of a tree and a star, was a living, viable Lord of Order.

Several portals opened behind D27. His true body started frontloading ordinance packages into his satellite form, filling it with both unicorn and trihorn skulls, as well as cerorian and pony energy weapons and heavy artillery. D27 rapidly integrated these items into his body, charging them as needed, locking the Lord of Order into his sights.

“You…” he said, stepping forward, his body weighed down by the weapons that had been added to him. “I will not let you take this world…”

He raised his weapons toward the tree, focusing them on the star-shaped insignia in the center of its body. He was barely prepared, even with the equipment he had taken on- -but the Lord of Order was oddly small. Perhaps, he reasoned, if he hit it with all the firepower he had, he might just be successful.

D27 knew that he could not fail. If Equestria was to survive, the Lord of Order must be destroyed.

Nightmare Moon blinked, and allowed her eyes to come into focus. She shifted her lower jaw slightly, running her tongue along the pointed teeth. It had been so long since she had been in a physical body that she had nearly forgotten what it was like. As was expected, it was rather uncomfortable- -itchy and cold.

Looking back at herself, Nightmare Moon saw that the conversion was as complete as possible. Her entire body was black, including her beautiful alicorn wings- -save for a blue mark surrounding Luna’s cutie mark. The blue stain that now sat where a black one once had was all that remained of Luna.

It also appeared that Nightmare Moon’s tail had vanished, as well as her mane. In fact, none of the accoutraments normally associated with Nightmare Moon were present. The purple eyeshadow that she had formerly worn was not present, and neither was her characteristic silver armor. Nightmare Moon stood naked in the center of the Canterlot throne room before all that remained of the royal court.

She looked up at ponies before her, seeing them through what were technically Luna’s eyes. She saw the expressions of fear on their faces, but found that it brought no joy to her. That implied, of course, that she really had been cured of Luna’s weakness three years earlier. She felt no hate and rage or jealousy, or even vindictiveness.

It took several seconds for the ponies around her to react. At first, they had stared like idiots, unsure if they could truly believe what had happened. Nightmare Moon was able to sense the workings of the minds of several of the guards- -some even, for a brief moment, believed that Luna was somehow joking.

Then they moved. The white unicorn Shining Armor interposed himself between Mi’Amore Cadenza and Nightmare Moon, charging his horn. At the same time, Nightwatcher and Darkseer immediately moved in front of Nightmare Moon.

“What are you doing?” cried Shining Armor, hesitating to strike them away. “Stand back!”

“We will not allow you to betray our Queen!” shouted Nightwatcher.

For the chiropterans, it seemed, the conversion was seamless. They were truly as loyal to Nightmare Moon as they were Luna; to them, they were the same. Shining Armor’s actions were the equivalent, to them, of trying to attack Celestia herself.

“Stand down,” ordered Nightmare Moon. “If they choose to fight, so be it, but we shall not strike the first blow.”

The chiropterans obeyed without hesitation. They took defensive stances, but did not assume any form of offensive posturing. Nightmare Moon was actually somewhat surprised, although she had distant, hazy memories of them doing the same for her in the past.

She looked up at the ponies around her. The guards were mostly either frozen in terror or unable to move. Nightmare Moon found that she could sense most of their minds. Shining Armor and Cadence, however, she could not.

“So many seals,” she said, smiling, staring into Shining Armor’s eyes. “Far more than you should ever need. Are you perhaps paranoid that somepony shall attempt to enter your mind?” She looked up at Mi’Amore Cadenza- -who, Nightmare Moon recalled, preferred the mortal name Cadence. “Does your wife know that you put several seals on her as well?”

“What?” said Cadence.

Nightmare Moon turned her attention to the other two ponies whose minds she could not easily reach. Applejack and Rainbow Dash stood before her, as if they themselves had any means to match an alicorn’s strength. Even separated from the other four, Nightmare Moon could still detect the residue of the Elements of Harmony on them.

Rainbow Dash stepped forward and attempted to spread the blades on her wings, only to cry out as she realized that her flight was impeded.

“You have it on backward,” sighed Nightmare Moon. “If you were to try to use that, all you would accomplish would be severing your own wings. That, and I can see your down…” Nightmare Moon spread her own wings, feeling them stretch out beside and above her, the jet-black feathers glinting in the dim light and the midnight fluff between them becoming clearly visible. “…and it is not nearly as beautiful as mine.”

She watched as Rainbow Dash suddenly blushed. The Pegasus had been put off balance, and Nightmare Moon had not even had to resort to the use of magic.

Then, from her side, she felt a sudden surge of magic. A beam shot forward, and Nightwatcher instinctively moved to absorb it with his own body. Nightmare Moon was faster, however, and easily stepped over him, allowing the beam to impact her instead. She did not even bother to cast a shield spell; the ineffectual bolt of magic surged over her like a splash of water.

When it stopped, Nightmare Moon looked down at Shining Armor. The blast had been technically painful, but Nightmare Moon was not Luna- -she had absorbed the pain of thousand so of generations of ponies, and had long since forgotten how to truly feel much of anything.

“What did you expect that to accomplish?” she sighed, her body still smoking but otherwise unharmed.

“Cadence, now!” he cried.

Nightmare Moon looked behind him and saw that Cadence had moved. The blast had temporarily blocked her vision: it had only been intended as a distraction. She turned around to see the armored, pink alicorn lower her head, her horn glowing and prepared for attack.

Spells took time to cast, and to Nightmare Moon watching Cadence try to fire was the equivalent of watching a glacier move. Before Cadence could fire, Nightmare Moon cast her own spell, focusing her magic on six points in space. Across the room, Applejack and Rainbow Dash cried out in surprise as a pair of opaque black triangles formed around their waistes.

“What the hay?” cried Applejack.

“Get it off!” yelled Rainbow Dash, trying to buck her way out of the triangle or to fly away from it.

“Attack me and I cut them in half,” said Nightmare Moon calmly.

As expected, Cadence never fired her spell. Her horn powered down, but instead of the expected expression of defeat on her face, one of anger and frustration covered it. Perhaps, Nightmare Moon considered, Cadence was stronger than her initial estimates.

“You monster,” she said.

“I do not want to hurt them,” said Nightmare Moon, choosing her words carefully. She truly did not want a fight at this critical juncture; although she could easily win it against the anomaly alicorn, it was not in her best interests to waste time and resources on something so pointless. “As a show of good faith…” The triangles dissipated, freeing Applejack and Rainbow Dash.

“Why would you do that?” asked Cadence, suddenly seeming profoundly confused.

“Because I do not want to fight,” said Nightmare Moon. “I was hoping that my transition to power would be more…seamless.”

“Luna,” spat Shining Armor. Nightmare Moon turned toward him. His horn was still powered, although he was only a minimal threat. “How could you?”

“Do not blame Luna for this,” said Nightmare Moon harshly. “I am not Luna, and Luna is not me. And yet we are two parts of the same being. Nor am I Nighmare Moon, at least not as you have come to understand her.” She turned toward Appejack and Rainbow Dash. “You two…and the others. You have freed me of those limitations. So, as the Queen of the Night, I thank you.” She nodded slightly toward them, and they seemed to recoil. They did not seem to understand.

“You’ll never have Equestria!” yelled Rainbow Dash, soaring forward. Darkseer immediately tackled her to the ground.

“Let me go!” she cried, struggling against the much larger chirpteran.

“Stop,” said Nightmare Moon. The occurrences around her were actually mildly amusing, but she knew that there was not much time. Every second cost her kingdom dearly. “Let her stand.”

“Yes, your majesty.” Darkseer stood back, releasing Rainbow Dash. Nightmare Moon stepped forward, staring down at the blue Pegasus below her. Her rainbow colored mane was somewhat familiar; Nightmare Moon recalled distantly that Pegasus himself had held similar colors.

“Tell me, Rainbow Dash,” said Nightmare Moon, trying to sound sympathetic but knowing that she came across as cold. “What do you intend to do to me? Perhaps you want to…cut off my wings? Tear out my horn? Or perhaps gouge out my eyes?”

Rainbow Dash looked up at her, and Nightmare Moon saw the horror crossing her face. Ponies of the Third Era had grown weak under Celestia’s rule- -actions that had once been commonplace were no considered unforgivable.

“I really do wonder,” she continued. “What you intend to do with me. How would you stop me? Through pain and violence? If so, then you really are one of her most loyal subjects. But remember this before you attack: this body is not truly mine.” She looked up at the others. “Every injury you inflict upon me will be dealt to Luna as well. Although you could not possibly understand, I care for her deeply. I will not let you hurt her.”

Nightmare Moon turned toward Cadence. She seemed to be the one who most understood.

“What is wrong with you?” she asked.

“She’s tryin’ tah trick us,” said Applejack. She pushed back her hat and pawed at the ground, as if she was actually going to try to charge.

“Nothing is ‘wrong’ with me,” said Nightmare Moon.

“Why here?” demanded Shining Armor. His guards were starting to follow his example and recover from their stupor. They were surrounding her, those with horns preparing for an attack. “Why now?”

“To claim my throne,” said Nightmare Moon.

“You have no throne here.”

“I was not the one who asked for this,” she snapped, turning rapidly toward Shining Armor. Some of the guards jumped back in fright. Nightmare Moon wondered what they would have through of her original body, had it still existed. “You asked me. I have no use for the throne Celestia’s primitive sandbox. I have no desire to sit in a seat stained with the blood of so many. But the kingdom is burning. You have failed it.” She turned to the others. “All of you. Twilight Sparkle, Cadence, even Luna. They are all too weak to rule. Only I am strong enough to rule Equestria in Celestia’s absence.”

“How can we trust you?” asked Cadence.

“Cadence!” hissed Shining Armor. “Don’t fall for it! Applejack is right!”

“No,” said Cadence, stepping forward, as if she were trying to see deeper into Nightmare Moon’s soul. “Something is different…”

“No!” yelled Applejack, running forward. With surprising agility, she turned mid-bound and faced her rear hooves toward Nightmare Moon. Nightmare Moon smiled. Although she could not read Applejack’s mind, Applejack was too far from the other Elements of Harmony to defend herself from a direct attack. Nightmare Moon sent out a narrow beam of telepathic magic.

Applejack bucked with all her might. She felt her hooves connect with Nightmare Moon’s neck. The key with applebucking, she knew, was delivery. The follow-through was critical, and the instant she felt her hooves touch flesh, she poured all of her strength into her legs.

Bucking Nightmare Moon was nothing like bucking an apple tree, though. The trees reacted a certain way- -they bent, slightly, and rebounded, their entire form shaking as the wood stabilized. Applejack had become so accustomed to the response that she could even tell when a tree was suffering from heartwood rot or apple ant infestation.

Flesh responded completely differently. Applejack felt her hooves sink into Nightmare Moon’s neck, and, to her horror, she felt the crack of bone beneath. She heard a gasp, like a stifled cry of pain, and then a thump as something limp landed against the floor.

She turned- -but she did not want to. She did not want to see, but something seemed to be forcing her to.

“Oh Celestia!” she cried, covering her mouth.

Nightmare Moon’s body had responded exactly as it would be expected to. Her neck had snapped, and now sat at an odd angle. It was clear that the blow had paralyzed her, but her legs still twitched slightly. Her turquoise eyes stared up at Applejack, unblinkingly staring into her own eyes.

There was another gurgling sound as Nightmare Moon took a breath, and Applejack saw that the place where she had kicked had been torn open. Nightmare Moon was breathing through a bloody hole in her neck, and rapidly suffocating on the blood that was pouring out below her. Applejack looked down, and saw that her rear hooves were covered in the same blood.

Then, Nightmare Moon’s body seemed to react. The shadow that covered her pulled back, as the blue on her flank spread forward. They shifted, and changed places; then, instead of Nightmare Moon looking up at her, Applejack stared into the eyes of Luna.

“Why?” gasped Luna. “Why, Applejack?”

Then she started choking. The few seconds it took her finally die seemed to take an eternity. All the while, Applejack was screaming.

Nightmare Moon retracted the telepathic spike and Applejack awoke suddenly. She looked dazed and confused, and collapsed onto the floor, screaming through her tears.

“What have you done to her?” cried Rainbow Dash.

“I showed her the truth!” said Nightmare Moon, stepping over the Pegasus toward Applejack. “I showed her what she wanted.” She looked down at Applejack. “Tell me, earth pony. Did you like what you saw? What you wanted to do to me? To murder me, to murder us? In the name of peace, perhaps?”

Applejack could not respond. She was still disoriented, and seemed to be mumbling something. Nightmare Moon slightly regretted what she had done; the risk that she had irreparably shattered Applejack’s mind was higher than she would have liked. Luna seemed to believe in Applejack’s strength, though, and Nightmare Moon believed that she would recover eventually.

“That goes for all of you,” she said. “Could you kill me? Would you kill me?” She sighed. “The point is moot, actually. You would just as easily be able to kill Celestia. That, and I am Equestria’s only hope.” An idea suddenly occurred to her, and she immediately smiled. “Perhaps…perhaps if I were to give you a gift. Yes. Perhaps then, you would understand that I mean none of you any real harm.”

“No deal,” said Shining Armor. He signaled his guards to start advancing. “The only ‘gift’ that you are going to give is you, in a cell.”

“You said six had died,” she said, staring into his eyes. “Six have lost their destinies, and their families as well. I can bring them back.”

Shining Armor chuckled. “No, you can’t. Not even Celestia can do that. Nopony can.”

“I am not a pony,” said Nighmare Moon. “And the spell does exist. You are simply ignorant.” She turned to Cadence, who was now barely visible over the heads of the advancing guards. “What harm can I do to a corpse? What do you have to lose if I am allowed to try- -or what do you have to lose if it is you who deny me the chance?” She smiled, perhaps inappropriately, but she could not help herself. Their ignorance about the reversibility of death and how truly in consequential it was in the face of power was just too comical.

Suddenly, both Rainbow Dash and Applejack cried out in unison. Nightmare Moon looked down, confused by the unexpected sound. Applejack was already on the floor, but suddenly contorted into a fetal position. Rainbow Dash seemed to have fallen on her side and was blindly struggling against some unseen force. Both seemed to be reaction to some manner of pain in their chest, and blood suddenly started dripping from both of their mouthes.

“What’s happening?” demanded Shining Armor. “What did you do?”

“This is not my doing,” said Nightmare Moon. Then her mind made the connection. “But we need to hurry.” She turned to Darkseer. “Go. Ensure that the other four are safe.”

“The other four?” said Cadence, realizing who Nightmare Moon meant.

Nightmare Moon nodded. What she had hoped to avoid was already starting. It seemed that Oblivion had managed to locate the Tree of Harmony.

The force of the first volley was enough to produce a substantial crack through the Lord of Order’s body. D27 recoiled slightly; he had received an unexpected surge of memory through the close to sixty skulls he was wielding. There was so much pain within them that it actually gave him pause.

His disorientation did not last long. As he had suspected, the Lord of Order was far weaker than it should have been. A second blow, centered on the crack that now ran down the center of its tree-like form, would likely destroy it completely.

D27 raised his various weaponized appendages, targeting the lasers and particle cannons built into them. He would fire everything at once- -every ounce of magic within all the skulls he had, every weapon he had, the three cerorite slugs on his person, and even as much Order as his satellite body could summon. If he poured all his energy into a second shot, he knew that he could slay the Lord of Order and prevent the inevitable destruction of Equestria.

The various targeting subcomputers he was linked to locked into the center of the tree. He stepped forward, watching his predicted accuracy improve as he approached. Striking the crack was not essential, but would assure greater success.

Something was wrong, though. As he moved forward, he felt no resistance. Before, when he had attempted to approach the Heart of Order in the Crystal Empire, it had expelled massive amounts of Order toward him. The Heart of Order was nothing more than a fragment, a severed and barely alive piece of something long dead- -and it had still fought desperately for whatever semblance of survival it maintained.

“Why are you not defending yourself?” he demanded. It was, in all his memory, the first time he had ever addressed one of his creators.

Other things did not follow. This was a fully adult Lord of Order, one who had clearly been in this cave for a considerable amount of time. Yet, from his own experience, D27 had seen life in Equestria. Life was fundamentally incompatible with Order; a Lord of Order could not ever exist in a world with life. It should have destroyed everything the moment it connected to the world, purging it of all disorder and entropy.

D27’s eye- -which had been kept as small as possible to prevent a direct, crippling attack- -expanded. His optical and sensory capacity increased, and his newfound vision penetrated the rock below the Lord of Order, following its roots.

“What is this…” he whispered. Somehow, it was not only coexisting with life, but integrated to it. The roots of the forest above converged on its own crystalline roots, and D27 could see its own Order flowing into them, and their life flowing back into, the magic shared between the two.

“What are you attempting to do?” he asked. He knew, inside, that he needed to destroy this creature, but he was too confused. Nothing made sense. “Why are you connected to this? Why are you even here?”

The Lord of Order said nothing. Instead, the crack in its surface seemed to expand. The tree itself pulled away its own hull, revealing the incomprehensible network of organs beneath. D27 had never considered what was truly inside a Lord of Order; he had never wanted to. There was only one thing that he recognized within.

There, in the center of its trunk, was a slowly revolving piece of crystal, resembling a tiny version of the heart that now stood in an artificial transmitter in the Crystal Empire. It was this Lord of Order’s heart.

“No,” said D27, raiding his weapons. “Why are you showing me this?” A single blow to the heart, he knew, would be instantly lethal- -and yet the Lord of Order had voluntarily opened its chest to him, showing him its most vulnerable core component. “I demand that you close yourself,” cried D27. “Fight me! Why would you fight me?! I am trying to kill you! I am a monster, a betrayer, to you, to my own people! Hate me! Treat me like what I AM!”

The tree, once again, did not respond. D27 knew that this was his only chance to slay it, but he could not. Something was wrong with him, and with it. He lowered his weapons and stepped forward, fully expecting to be vaporized by a sudden surge of Order.

Instead, the Lord of Order allowed him to approach. It was truly tiny, barely as tall as his satellite body. These creatures were meant to be massive, imposing, unstoppable parasites. This one, however, had an elegance and quietness that seemed to surround it, as if the surrounding air itself had stopped to pause in the mystery and ancientness of its glow.

D27 noticed that the branches of the tree bore unusual markings. Each of the branches bore an odd mark cast from crystal of a different color than the main body, and the trunk held marks of the sun and the moon. D27 could not fathom why.

Propelled by a motivation that he did not understand, he looked into the center of the Lord of Order. The heart within was trapped hovering between two crystalline spikes, hovering independent from the remainder of its body, revolving slowly. It was so small, not even the size of a pony’s hoof.

The revolution of the heart slowed, and D27 was able to see that it was not a simple crystal structure like the much larger dead version in the Crystal Empire. The facets of the heart-crystal merged to form a tiny insignia.

“No,” said D27, stepping back. “That is impossible. You simply cannot exist…”

The mark on the Heart of Order was a pair of equilateral triangles.