D27 gasped and violently ejected Arcane Domination’s skull. It clattered to the floor, bouncing several times before skittering to a stop. Then, before it had time to lie for even a moment, a set of red spider-like legs spurted from its sides.

It lifted itself up and brought itself back to the long-dead body beside it. It rapidly reconnected itself and the trace residue of Choggoth within expanded, drawing out its dormant mass. The skeleton twitched as its leg joints reconnected and realigned, and then it stood, motivated by pink sinew and flesh that hung amongst the bone and metal.

“No,” said D27, stepping back from the skeleton. Blackest Night and Shining Armor also seemed somewhat nervous, but seemingly only because they were witnessing a corpse moving- -although Blackest Night seemed to realize that something far worse was wrong. “It can’t be you! There is no way you could have survived!”

The skull only stared through its one red-flesh eye demarcated with an insignia containing the markings of one hundred ninety three successes.

“We are machines,” it said, not moving Arcane Dominations mouth. Its voice was smooth and perfect, a sick parody of a female pony’s. “We cannot die, as we are not alive.”

“Then I will make you die.” Oblivion’s chest pulled itself open, revealing several Order-projecting spikes. He fired a beam of Order at the skeleton and it shattered. Shining Armor ducked as fragments of bones and ancient cybernetics covered them.

“Come now,” said Nil from Arcane Dominations’ skull. Its mass expanded, forming a fleshy amorphous substance that lifted the skull onto a semi-body. The material of the walls of the room shifted, emerging and arranging itself into a combination of new parts. A headless body built of Finality Core stepped out and crossed the room. It reached down and took hold of the skull, placing it on its empty neck. The eye of Nil continued to glare unblinkingly. “Destroying this body will accomplish nothing. It has ceased to benefit me.”

“What did you do to him?” demanded D27.

“Nothing. He came to me.”

“You drove him insane.”

“I corrected his mind to equalize our goals.”

“D27,” said Blackest Night, seeming increasingly concerned. “Something is wrong here.”

“You are attempting to access this unit’s internal processing core,” said Nil. “The mechanism of this action is not understood, but destined to fail. This unit is not compatible.”

Several pink sparks suddenly gathered around Blackest Night’s horn, and as she tried to pull away they burst open, tearing at her magic. D27 momentarily saw that her black coat was pulled away, revealing its true blue-colored nature beneath.

“I remember you,” said Nil. “The second one brought you. Solar Spectra…which means you are Lunar Vision. She would talk about you. Always said that you were better off. Based on the state you were in when she brought you back, I would assume that she was deluding herself.”

“D27,” said Shining Armor, stepping backward. “Tell me you have some plan.”

“Well, in all honesty, I wasn’t expecting this,” said D27.

“How to we fight it?”

“You cannot,” said Nil. “Even Oblivion could not defeat me, not completely. It could destroy a Lord of Order, but not me. I survived.”

“I think I might stand a chance against it,” said Blackest Night. “But only if I target its core body.”

“You would not,” said Nil, its secondary body stepping forward. “You are linked to the moon because I linked you. It was the very reason why I could not repair the Core myself. Because I am a Choggoth. I am incapable of true thought. No creativity…but she was. A way to use the Core that I had never predicted, but the only way to use it. To fuse three Spheres to three beings.”

“But there are only two,” said Shining Armor.

“No,” said D27, “but that’s impossible. This isn’t a Sphere! The sun and the moon are engines, but the Finality Core is something different. It’s just a machine- -there’s nothing to connect yourself too.”

“The Core itself is secondary. I linked myself to what is inside.”

Nil’s robotic body stepped back and its shape changed, as though it were a metal version of a Choggoth. Sparks of Order appeared, and D27 expected an offensive attack- -even though Nil had never been known to bother using Order as a weapon. Instead of a blast, however, the order resolved into a vast image, a pink version of the one that the crystal D27 possessed could make.

D27 stepped forward and looked down at it. It took him a moment to comprehend the schematic, but when he did, he froze. His whole body- -both the part in the Finality Core and his true one in the Gloame- -felt cold. His mind reeled trying to comprehend how Nil had even decided to take on such an absurd plan- -and to have executed it across countless millennia.

“No,” he said, stepping back. “That would never work. It- -it can’t.”

“It can,” said Nil. “It already has, thanks to Arcane Domination and Solar Spectra. Each with came with their own minor desires. Each spent their lives building the future of this land, and of all lands.”

“But why?”

“Oblivion,” said Nil, closing the hologram and then standing perfectly still. “Did you know that the Soth is dead?”

“That’s impossible,” said D27. “The Soth is the Gate, the Lord of Lords, the origin of Order. It is immortal. You know that, Nil.”

“No. I checked. I went there myself. Our memories of the Soth are implanted, artificial. I had always considered the possibility, but now I know.”

“You are insane,”

“I am correct. It must have seen the obvious- -that the universe automatically tends toward pure Order. Entropy spreads, grows, and in time the universe becomes empty. It decided that such emptiness was absolute Order- -and realized that using Lords of Order to reach such a state was useless.”

“Look!” cried D27, pointing at his own symbol. “You have one too! You have seen them!”

“The Lords of Order are relics. They are the remnants of a movement that was eons dead when time itself began. They are not capable of questioning what they do, or formulating new ideas. They are not intelligent, or sentient, at least not in the sense that I am. They’re intelligence is transcendent, viewing all things at all times in one everlasting point- -and their very divinity robs them of volition.”

“Perhaps we can work something out,” said Shining Armor, stepping forward slowly.

“Did you see that schematic?” shouted D27.

“I did but…”

“He did not understand it,” said Blackest Night.

“Why is it that you love these organics so?” asked Nil. “Or can you not even remember in that defective mind of yours? We are inherently superior to them. As many, they are weak, but as one, we are invincible.”

“You would never understand,” said D27. “They are everything we can never be.”

“I do not subscribe to fatalism,” said Nil. “You could be whatever you desire. Perhaps you could surgically imbed yourself into one of their skulls. Or you could have. Considering their world is several hours away from destruction.”

“Please, stop this,” said D27. “It will never work!”

“It will,” snapped Nil. “I will succeed where the Lords of Order failed. These ponies are nothing but blades of grass to me. I suppose I could allow them to live, but I see no benefit in it. They exist only as food.”

The perfectly still robotic form suddenly moved, standing jerkily and walking back to the wall it had come from. As it approached, the wall did not part, but rather its body was simply reincorporated into the machinery of the Finality Core.

“I should thank you, Oblivion. And you, Lunar Vision,” it said as it was half-imbedded in the wall. “Oblivion, for showing me their fallibility, and which of our kinds was superior- -and Lunar Vision, for allowing me to complete my life’s work.”

The remainder of the synthetic body passed into the wall, vanishing into the homogeneity of the Core. Arcane Domination’s skull, now empty and devoid of all life, fell to the floor and shattered.

“Did we…win?” asked Shining Armor, hopefully.

“No,” said Nil, now from everywhere at once. All around them, the Finality Core suddenly started to shake. D27 heard deep within it as the machines, so carefully crafted by Arcane Domination and Celestia over so many years, started to go silent.

“We need to get out of here, now,” he said. His form shifted, becoming a svelte quadruped, and he raced forward. Blackest Night spread her wings and flew after him, and Shining Armor did his best to keep up.

“I was originally intending for a further incubation time,” said Nil. “To further shore up the connection and assess diagnostics. Perhaps to run trial simulations. But then you arrived. As miniscule a threat as you are, I do not want to risk the possibility of failure.”

“This way!” cried D27. The walls of the Finality Core were starting to respond poorly to his magic, and he was using a tremendous amount of Order to get them to move. The Core was starting to die.

“One million years I have waited,” said Nil. “A time miniscule to me, but every second I was incomplete felt like an eternity. Only when I looked into that portal could I see it- -only when you showed me what I truly was, what they were. Incomplete.”

D27 was nearing the edge of the Finallity Core. “Don’t let Shining Armor fall behind!”

Blackest Night nodded and reached backward with a black tendril of magic, grabbing Shining Armor and pulling him forward with a sudden cry.

“This unit is inherently limited. As are the Lords of Order. Myself from lack of power, and them from dearth of mind. Equestria will serve as the catalyst to rectify this situation.”

“There!” said D27, using the last bit of Order energy in his satellite body to force opened a door to the outside. Moonlight poured through.

“I have a lock,” said Nightmare Moon.

“No, wait!” cried Shining Armor.

The surge of black smoke suddenly surrounded them, and then dissipated, dropping each of them to the icy ground outside just within the central perimeter of Celestia’s protection spells.

“Arggg,” said Shining Armor, flailing. “Not again!”

Blackest Night collapsed to her knees.

“Blackest,” said D27, helping her up.

“That was not at all easy.”

Behind them, the tip of the Finality Core suddenly sunk several feet into the ground. Immense, low sounds from far below indicated that it was changing and collapsing.

“We need to get out of here immediately,” said D27.

“I’m not strong enough,” said Blackest Night. “The spells have…reconfigured. I am afraid our entrance was one way.”

“What?” said Shining Armor, wobbling like a newborn foal as he tried to stand.

“I am sorry I did not see it. I should have- -”

As she spoke, the earth below them rumbled, and the rumble grew into a high whine. D27 felt the tiny crystals of Order in his body vibrate, and the much larger one in his chest nearly tear itself out of him as if it were trying to escape.

A massive wall of pink Order suddenly poured out from where they had just been. Blackest Night cried out as she raised a wall of black moonlight to protect them. It served its purpose, but only for just long enough. It almost instantly shattered- -along with all of the spells Celestia had set down in the wasteland over countless years.

Blackest Night was on her side in the radioactive dust, panting heavily. “I can’t…I am out of magic…I need to heal…”

“There’s not time,” said D27. He knew that Blackest Night had just expended a tremendous amount of energy, though, and was in no fit state for a teleportation spell. Likewise, with the amount of Order saturating the air, there was no way to open a Gloame rift. He instead turned to Shining Armor.

“I can’t do long range transmits,” he said.

D27 reached out and grabbed him by his back, turning him around. “Yes you can.”

“What are you doing? Let me go!”

D27 extended one of his fingers and condensed it into a long blue spike. “I’m sorry, Shining Armor.”

“What are you- -” and then he screamed as D27 shoved the spike into the back of his neck, connecting it to his still living skull.

Violet magic sparked around the three and the air burst as the teleportation spell engaged. They vanished from the desert just as the ground around them collapsed onto the space that had once been filled by the Finality Core beneath.

They appeared instead on one of the massive cerorian towers that stood just beyond the Sphere’s perimeter. Below them, the outline of its form was clearly visible- -the remnants of a thirty mile wide crater that Oblivion had created so long ago.

“Why?” said Shining Armor as D27 disconnected the spike from his brain. Although Shining Armor was exhausted from having been forced to use all his magic at once, D27 assumed that a unicorn of his caliber would recover in time. “I feel so violated…”

“D27,” said Blackest Night, struggling to stand. “What did she mean?”

“I’m sorry,” said D27. “I’m so sorry.”

“What did she mean?”

“I came back too late. This whole time, everything I did. It was all for nothing.” He stared down at the collapsing earth below. “The moment Celestia activated that machine, Nil had already won.”

“The schematic- -those spells- -”

“Not just spells. Machines, technology, things that Nil could never come up with on its own. We are little more than parasites, after all. It used Arcane Domination, and Celestia…”

“The crystal! You have to stop it before- -”

“There is nothing left to stop,” sighed D27. “The Core will never be activated, because Nil never intended to activate it. Nil has become like me, a betrayer to our kind.”

The ground shook, this time with enough force to nearly knock Shining Armor off the edge of the tower. Blackest Night grabbed him, though, and held him securely while D27 held tightly to the pitted cerorian metal below.

The tremors grew, and the, the top edge of the Finality Core seemed to rise, exposing itself, pushing away the soil below. It was not rising, however; as it pulled through, it broke up and shattered from the force pushing beneath.

Then it pushed through, and D27 was forced to look away, if only for a moment for him to collect his will to face the abomination that one of his own had created.

A massive crystalline claw emerged from the soil, grasping the broken side of the Finality Core and the soil around it. With an earthquake-like heave, it pulled itself out of the machine that Nil had used to give birth to it. A terrible creature made of crystal, constructed to the asymmetrical geometries and conventions that were only logical to the mind of a Choggoth, arose from the ground below.

No living thing truly compared to what it was. D27 envisioned the form as a skeleton, but it was not of any known creature, except perhaps distantly of a pony, only it stood far taller and had far more appendages. He distantly recognized the parts of a Lord of Order within it, and saw that they were connected to vast quantities of deep red organic flesh that covered parts of the monstrosity’s body, merging seamlessly with its crystalline structure.

Nil extricated itself from the dead Core, standing far above the cerorian towers, to the point where D27 needed to look up to see it, a creature standing at least ten miles high, built of Order and Choggoth, a fusion of creator and creation.

It raised one massive hand toward the sky, and Blackest Night screamed in pain. Under Nil’s guidance, the moon glowed even brighter than it had, tearing away at the stars surrounding it as it was forced to the western side of the sky.

Then it raised another hand, and from the eastern sky the sun rose, its form already glowing with brilliant white fire. D27 knew that the light of both Spheres was far too bright to support life; anypony too near the sun would burn, and anypony too near the moon would be driven mad by the cold.

Nil momentarily seemed to laugh, or to produce some manner of sound. Then it oriented itself to the laylines of Order that were already pouring through the air and began walking.

“Where is it going?” demanded Shining Armor, trying to stand, as if he were actually thinking of fighting such a creature.

“The Crystal Empire,” said D27, watching it go. “That thing is made from a Choggoth fused to pieces of a Lord of Order, but as of yet it is still incomplete. It needs to retrieve its heart.”

“Can it get through the city shield?”

“My body contains exactly fourteen nanograms of crystalline Order,” said D27. “And I got through the shield. Nil’s body now contains several hundred million tons.” He turned to Shining Armor. “You need to hurry. Disconnect Cadence from the shield as quickly as possible. If she is still linked to it when that thing reaches it, she will die.”

“What happens when it reaches the Heart?” asked Blackest Night.

D27 was extremely dismayed that she had used the word “when” instead of “if”, even though he knew that it was the only appropriate word to be used. “Most likely, Nil will partially consume all the entropy in Equestria.”

“And destroy all life, no doubt.”

“No,” said D27. “No. It will be much worse.”

“How can you get worse than that?” asked Shining Armor.

“It does not intend to kill everything; that would be useless to a Choggoth. Nil intends to resurrect everything.”

“That’s not possible,” said Blackest Night.

“With that much Order, it is almost a given,” said D27. “I doubt Nill could prevent it even if it wanted to. The entire world will be converted into a living, protoplasmic mass. Nil’s organic portion will consume it and convert some into Order until it covers all of Equestria.”

“Why?”

“To do the only thing it knows how to do. To spread. Across all universes, Ordered or not, consuming everything in its path, converting everything into one vast entity.”

“Can we stop it?”

“If I can’t, then I will die trying.”

“We will go with you,” said Blackest Night.

“No,” said D27. “Even if you had your full strength, no pony can get near that thing. The Order it is putting off alone would be lethal, let alone the radiation.”

“You can’t fight that thing alone!”

“Alone is the only way I can fight it. No being except me can stop it.”

D27 suddenly shuddered.

“What’s wrong?” asked Shining Armor.

“Something inside me,” he said. “Back in the Gloame…”

“One more shall arise to join the fight,” said Blackest Night, her pupils narrowed until the point where the slits were no longer visible. “One more ancient path to cross at the point where only two shall survive.”