The Forest was eternal. Once, in times long-past, it had been given the title “Everfree”- -but even in the modern age it lived up the name it had once held. Nothing seemed to stop it or kill it, though so many had tried. They had brought chemicals and fire, but even the most brilliant ponies failed to ever truly tame it. Rather, the encroachment of civilization had only increased its virulence, causing it to spread into the newly constructed cities like a powerful, metastatic cancer.

Few, if any, bothered to wander amongst the ancient trees and strange moss. Though none alive could understand what had unnerved their ancestors so, they still felt the atavistic rejection of the forest- -of the disorder that seemed so harmonious and so strange, as if driven by some unseen and vaguely malevolent force.

One pony, however, walked beneath the darkened canopy with neither thought nor recognition of this ancient fear. She could hear the monsters moving around her, and see them sometimes, but she saw no reason to be afraid. It had been so long since she had taste the exhilaration of fear.

This pony had no name, at least not one of her own. The only part of her that held any semblance of individuality to differentiate herself from her predecessors was her number: Five. Her first name, at least as far as she was concerned, was irrelevant, a pointless relic of a dying culture. Its very meaning had been erased from the world- -she doubted if anypony would even comprehend what it meant.

She looked up at the trees. They were warped and spindly, with pale trunks. They either had massive, overgrown leaves, or none at all- -instead having adapted to a life as a kind of fungus rather than a true plant, feeding on mineral veins somewhere deep in the ground or the rot of ancient and long buried mud. Even without sunlight, they had still managed to survive.

In time, however, the land began to change and the trees along with it. Their randomness and untamedness started decrease as a new kind of tree began to dominate, standing like sentries against their ancient and wild rivals. Looking up, Five saw that the tops of the gnarled stems and masses of suckers were adorned with bright red fruits. These trees were arguably ancient- -far older than any apple trees should have been, let alone ones abandoned to the will of nature- -and yet they still stood. Five could only imagine that whoever had planted them so long ago had done so with the greatest care and love, if they were to still be standing in their old age.

Feeling somewhat hungry, she spread her leathery wings. Despite the weight of her saddlebags, she was able to take flight with relative ease, rising through the canopy and taking a place on a thick branch. The manipulator gauntlets on her forelegs shifted, projecting as set of claws to dig into the gnarled and peeling bark.

All around her, swarms of bats took off from the trees- -both fruit bats and vampire fruit bats. They swarmed around her for a moment, seemingly displeased at her presence, but upon seeing her featherless wings and pointed, fluffy ears, they seemed to accept that she at least resembled on of their own.

Five sighed, and reached up and picked one of the apples. It gleamed for a moment in the dim, eternal twilight of Equestria, and Five contemplated it for a moment, the red-skinned fruit between the mechanical claws attached to her hoof. Then she brought the claws together, causing the apple to explode in a mass of juice that caused the vampire fruit bats to swarm around her. She wiped her claw off on the branch below. She was hungry, but not desperate. The idea of food that had any sort of flavor disgusted her desperately.

Instead of eating the apples, she flew higher to the top of the tree and looked out at the land surrounding her. All she saw was an endless sea of treetops beneath a dark sky. All the light that filled the sky came from its edge, which was dimly illuminated blue, as if the sun had just set. It had not, of course- -there was no sun, nor any moon. The two stationary black circles in the center of the sky attested to that- -two holes in the firmament itself, blacker by far than even the darkened sky above. Neither Three, Four, nor Five had ever witnessed the sun, nor had they witnessed the moon. Both had been destroyed before their time, long ago, leaving behind holes into the Beyond- -and yet Five still had memories of what they had looked like, when those holes had been filled with orbs of light, one of heat and one of cool light.

Five stretched out her foreleg and projected a holographic map. Based on historical records, she was close to her target.

How long it had been since ponies had walked where Five now did now. In the time that the Forest had spread and grown and survived, the bastion of peace and pastoral life within had decayed and rotted, slowly being taken back to the Forest, being reborn as something new.

Five pushed through the border of the trees and onto what had probably once been a street. The soil, even after centuries of disuse, had been thoroughly compacted, and only sparse grass grew from it. All around her were non-native trees, planted as ornamentals long ago but now monstrous and alien, alongside the first vanguard of the forest.

In the time of the first- -the only one of them whose name had never bourn a number- -this empty, silent waste had once been a thriving, beautiful town. By the end of her life, it had grown into a city, but still maintained its slowness and tranquility- -things that no modern pony could likely remember every having known. Five could remember what was once there, long before she was born. Where there were now crumbling stone foundations, there had been peaked roof houses and ornate shops. Ponies had once walked through the streets, laughing, playing, living out simple and ignorant lives beneath the sun and moon. On some level, Five could even remember their faces as they stood in the town that had long-since faded from existence.

Those memories lived in her mind, but they were not hers. She hated them more than anything.

As she walked, a tall structure came into view, one that had only partially decayed. In the distance, Five could see the darkened shadow of the Palace of Friendship looming over the remnants of the town.

Five smiled. She had always been a fan of history, and studied it carefully for most of her life. It was her belief that, in part, that urge to understand the past came from the memories of other ponies that seeped into her mind- -but it had served her well. There were countless numbers of artifacts and weapons that had been long forgotten beneath Equestria, leaving their own individual maps across history, tracing their location.

Using one of her gauntlets, Five projected a small hologram of what the Palace of Friendship had once looked like. Physically, the structure had not changed substantially. The building was made of Order-derived stone, and it would take longer than a few centuries for it to decay. The Forest had been trying, though. Moss and vines had climbed up the building, pushing into it and through its windows. No doubt the inside was now filled with nothing but roots and animals.

All the important artifacts had long been removed, though. The enchanted table, or the thrones of Twilight Sparkle and her five friends, her library, and any personal belongings had been collected shortly after her death and distributed to museums and private collections across the land. The Twilight Sparkle Memorial Library was even built in a replica of the castle.

Even after so long, the population retained a strong reverence for the youngest of the four Princesses whose deaths had marked the end of the Third Era. Five knew, however, that few if any realized that the real castle still existed, or if they even cared. Nopony seemed to hold any real desire to walk where the alicorn and her heroic friends had once walked, to see the world that they had seen, or they had simply all forgotten.

The Castle was an interesting relic, but relatively useless to Five. It was not her target, although she considered the possibility of taking a walk through it after she had competed her mission. She, personally, though that Princess Twilight was weak and that the very idea of “friendship” was too dangerous for any pony to wield- -it had, after all, been the deaths of the five that had let to Twilight Sparkle’ suicide close to four centuries earlier.

As Five checked the map again, she heard a familiar call from the sky and saw a small light pass overhead. Five looked up, and then back at her hologram, extending one of her bat-like wings. The bird swooped down and landed gently upon it.

“Philomena,” she said, not taking her eyes of the hologram, attempting to cross-reference two incomplete maps to determine where her target- -which was not on any of the maps- -probably was. “Sister, am I to assume you have sighted something?”

The bird squeaked somewhat annoyed. She did not like being referred to as Five’s “sister”, despite the fact that both of them bore remarkable similarities. Unfortunately, however, the bird could not talk.

Five lowered the hologram and focused her mind. The world shifted as she felt her pupils constrict into green-bordered slits, and she focused her mind on Philomena’s, slowly lowering herself into it. The bird’s feathers ruffled, but she was not in pain- -Five’s intrusion was never dangerous unless she pushed too far, back to the memories of Celestia.

“I see,” said Five, her eyes returning to their normal blue. “I suspected as much. They certainly are unquiet.” She took the bird in her hoof and threw it into the air. “You ought to depart from me. This shall become rapidly violent.”

The bird nodded and flew away, taking up a wide circle in the sky- -prepared to drop down on Five’s enemy with burning claws at a moment’s notice, should it be required.

Five sighed. She had hoped that her mission would be easy, giving her a chance to meander through the remnants of famous but forgotten Ponyville and reflect on the numerous battles that the Princess of Friendship had fought- -perhaps to contemplate some philosophy, or to admire particularly odd specimens of flora. Her occupation was never that easy, though.

“You can come, now,” she said, her large eyes focusing on the figures lurking in the trees and whatever piles of remnants might have happened to remain. “If you desire something, then you may ask.”

The figures suddenly emerged from where they had been “hiding”. Two sets emerged, trapping Five between two large hedgerows- -as if they had completely forgotten that she had wings.

There were four of them. As was to be expected with any location outside of the control of Thebe, two of them were diamond dogs- -ugly, slobbering creatures not nearly as elegant as their ahuizotl cousins, dressed in torn and unwashed camouflage combat fatigues overlaid with their traditional heavy iron armor, each one holding a rusted but still quite deadly rifle.

The other two were ponies of some persuasion. One was a rather scarred individual, smiling wildly, his dark green coat and cutie mark- -a cracking whip- -stained with dirt and covered in the same kind of armor as the diamond dogs. The other was pony shaped, but substantially higher- -at least twelve feet tall, complete with a pair of tiny goat-like horns and a cutie mark of a brick on his orange and pale green coat. He was a demon- -but from his unusual size, lack of wings, and the blank but angry expression on his face, he was clearly also part mortal pony. Five was aware of such hybrids- -many of her living cousins were part demon- -but momentarily found herself wondering how such a pairing would work, considering the size difference. From what she knew about demons, though, she knew that they always found a way when it came to copulation.

Five looked at one side, and then the other. She assessed the situation, and found it somewhat dull. Diamond dogs were the primary race outside of the domes or cities, forming vast underground empires, but even their real military was as primitive as it was aggressive. These were not their military.

“Welcome,” said one of the diamond dogs, the largest of them, stepping forward, smiling. “You enter land of Has-No-Oil. A beautiful land, indeed.” His expression converted to a mocking frown. “But this is trespass.” He shook his head, as did the others, save for the demon pony, who did not seem to understand what was going on. The pony amongst them giggled slightly. “So, if you could,” said the diamond dog. “We collect toll now.”

“Six,” said Five. “I have no money. No bits, no jewels.”

“Have pretty earring!” said the large pony, his angry expression breaking down into an oafish smile. He pointed with one massive cloven hoof at the three rings in Five’s right ear.

“They are stainless steel,” sighed Five. “Not worth anything to you. Five.”

The two diamond dogs snickered. The wild-eyed pony stepped forward. “I believe I can…oh!” He broke out into laughter. “Come on guys! I can’t keep a straight face when your laughing!”

“We sorry! We…pffff!” The diamond dogs doubled over. “You say- -when you say toll- -”

“Ohhhh,” said the pony, wiping away the tears of laughter form his eyes. “Oh…but no. You see, we own you now.”

Five felt several pricks in her flank, and looked down to see several darts in rear. It seemed that they had targeted her cutie mark- -a white image of an orthoclase feldspar crystal- -but had instead struck the extensive black stain that surrounded that mark. Five smiled, realizing how close she had just come to a severe delay in her mission.

“With a rock cutie mark, you must be some kind of a miner. And a bat, no less,” said the pony, smiling even wider. “Of course, we will have to remove those wings.”

“I am not a miner. Four. However, I will make you an offer.”

“An offer?” said the pony, suddenly seeming to become nervous. His eyes flicked to the diamond dog across from him, and the diamond dog shrugged, not understanding why the darts were not working.

“Everything you have,” said Five. “Three. All your gems, weapons, ammunition. And…” she pointed at the smallest of the diamond dogs. “His legs.”

“My legs?” he said, suddenly panicking, although even he probably did not know why.

“Sever them. I want them.”

“That’s not an offer,” said the lead diamond dog.

“Idiot!” snapped the pony. “We already have her, and everything she has.” His eyes darted about, possibly because of a chemical addiction or possibly because he could sense that the situation was rapidly degrading- -even though he did not know why.

“Give me everything. It is all mine now. Two.”

“Why she counting?” said the demon, seeming to be the only one to notice.

They all looked at her, confused, perhaps still waiting for the darts to take effect- -even though they had never really penetrated Five’s skin.

Finally, she sighed. “One.”

Five moved quickly and effortlessly. Little of her own life had been spent training for combat, but the other four had learned the old ways- -but it was more than that. She was born to a long line of killers, of assassins stretching back to the days of Nightmare Moon, the Eternal Queen, warriors who had carefully chosen their mating to breed only the best killers to serve as protectors to Princess Luna. Five’s motions were clean and clinical: she reached beneath her saddlebags and drew a short rifle, holding it in the claws that she had spent over half a century mastering.

The pony was the first to realize that something had gone wrong- -and also seemed to be the only one of them that was unarmed. That was a major defect of earth ponies- -they had magic and no hands, and holding or carrying weapons was difficult for them.

Even as evolutionarily inferior as earth ponies were, they were strong. They valued their strong legs more than anything- -so Five fired a bullet through his front knee, ensuring that he would never walk again with that leg.

He screamed, not so much in pain but in surprise. Five immediately dropped and rolled to her side, dodging the surge of automatic fire that came from behind her. The bullets meant for her instead struck the demon pony standing next to his friend. He cried out and stepped back, even though the tiny crystalline bullets had no effect on his demonic skin.

“Why you shoot Brick?” he cried. “Brick is friend!”

“You idiot,” hissed the pony on the ground. “Get her!”

Five moved swiftly, rising from her roll and shifting ammunition. There was a whine as the crystal generator in her rifle charged. She opened her eyes- -her real eyes- -and saw each of their minds, localized in her view. They were all confused, but not really afraid- -more of angry. None of the ponies they had captured or robbed had ever actually fought back before. That was not what ponies did- -they solved their problems peacefully, with negotiations and “friendship”. They had no idea what was happening.

Five focused on the smaller of the two diamond dogs and fired. She had not bothered to raise the power capacity of her rifle- -there was really no need to actually murder anypony- -but watched as the diamond dog’s front burst into carbon. He cried out as he was burned, dropping his own rifle and running away.

“Coward!” said the other. He reached for something on his back.

“No, you idiot!” cried the slaver pony, trying to stand. “If she- -”

“You hurt Bullwhip!” cried the demon, bringing down one of his nearly pony-sized hoofs down on Five’s position. She had not seen it coming- -even a half demon was still difficult to read- -and she barely dodged in time.

As she did, she suddenly felt the diamond dog smiling behind her- -and felt a sudden surge of burning pain in her left foreleg. She started falling to one side.

She adapted and rolled, tucking her gun under her wing and releasing her saddlebags to balance the weight. As she stood, she looked down- -only to see that her arm had been completely torn away, leaving only a gushing wound, the fragments of her bone and twitching of her muscle still visible.

“You- -you moron!” she screamed, taking the gun in her wing and adjusting the setting with her mouth. “Do you know the cost of that gauntlet? I just purchased it!”

She turned the weapon on the diamond dog, aiming to take from him roughly what had been taken from her. In her haste- -and perhaps distracted by the pain- -she did not bother to check her target; instead of striking his shoulder, she struck the large iron pauldron that covered it. The metal instantly liquefied and burst forth with a plume of red-hot metal, but the energy did not penetrate to flesh.

Before she could react further, however, something incredibly heavy struck her from behind. The wind was knocked out of her, and she felt something insider her crack. She became distantly aware that she could no longer feel her rear legs.

She fell to the ground, and the dust got into her wound, causing her to cry out. Her rifle clattered to the ground, but she still managed to stand on the one leg she had remaining and tried to crawl away.

“Bat pony have pretty rump,” giggled the demon. Five was vaguely aware that her tail had been flipped up, even though she had no feeling in the lower half of her body.

“I am not mildly displeased,” she said, watching as blood dripped from her mouth. “Perhaps I will not let you- -”

The ground before her suddenly shifted, causing the diamond dog to jump back. The soil itself swirled and shifted, forming a complex shape that ignited and began to bleed a deep crimson fluid from the grouond, as though it had been wounded.

“No!” screamed Five. “Gell, not now! I’m not finished yet!”

It was too late. The pentagram finished its construction and roared as the universe was momentarily rended apart. In the smoldering, sulfurous ground, surrounded by the burning pentagram, stood a hooded, cloaked pony.

“What this?” said Brick, pushing Five aside, her rear turning at an angle from her body that it was not supposed to. “Brick smash smelly pony!”

“You idiot, don’t- -” cried his associate.

Brick brought his hoof down on the pony with all his might. There was a sickening crack, and then a scream. Brick jumped back, blubbering as blood began to seep from his cracked hoof.

“Half…BREED!” shouted the figure, her voice far deeper than any Equestrian mare’s should have been. She tore away her cloak, revealing her true nature.

She was not nearly as tall as Brick, but from her features it was apparent that she, unlike him, was a pureblood demon form Tartarus. Her thick body- -almost twice as tall as a normal pony- -was light pink. Taken in combination with her oversized, bat like ears, her long, ibex-like horns, tusks, fangs, and even the image of an ornate meat tenderizer hammer as cutie mark should have seemed ridiculous togather. Paired with her black, segmented armor, cloven hoofs, and expression in her face, she terrified even Five.

With a swift motion, she uppercut the much larger half-demon, exposing the part of him that she really wanted. The pink demon promptly turned and bucked him in the crotch with enough force to send him sailing backward through the trees, crashing through feet-thick trunks as he wept in pain.

“Oh…ooohhhhh,” she said, crossing her rear legs and putting her hoof between her rear legs. “Oh An…I felt one of them burst. Ohhh…you have no idea how pleasurable castration is…”

“Do not call me An,” said Five. “Go home Gell. I need not your help.”

“Really?” said Gell. “Because it looked to me like you were about to get butt-bungled by a filthy halfbreed.”

“I wouldn’t have felt it anyway.” Five pointed to her legs. “Paralyzed.”

“Really? Seriously? I take a nap for like, thirty hours, and this happens?”

“D-demon!” cried the remaining pony. He seemed to realize that his situation was now beyond repair and limped away down the path that had been cleared by Brick, who was now blubbering in the distance.

Gell picked up Five’s gun. It looked tiny in her massive hooves. She aimed at the pony running.

“Aw, there,” she said, dropping the gun. “His tail’s too bushy. Can’t get a good and proper nut-shot.”

There was a clink of metal against metal as chunk of scrap iron struck Gell’s armor. She turned slowly to see the diamond dog still holding the mass accelerator that had taken Five’s leg.

“A doggy,” she said, suddenly seeming rather bored. “Oh, joy.” She waked toward it slowly, receiving multiple blows from its projectiles. Most of them struck her armor, but the shaking, terrified diamond dog- -still too foolish to run- -finally managed to strike her face.

“Ow,” she said as putrid, stinking fluid bubbled form the wound. Then she smiled, her mouth drawing apart far wider than a pony’s should have, revealing the several rows of shark-like teeth characteristic of females of her species. “Is that all? You do realize that I am a demon, eh? As in we enjoy pain? And pleasure…well, everything, really.”

The diamond dog tried to fire again, but he was out of ammunition. Rather than try to reload from the sack of rebar on his back, he immediately started trying to dig downward, only to suddenly freeze just as he took his first handful of soil from the street below.

“See?” said Gell, turning back to Five. “You could have done that from the start.”

“You know I don’t like using her power for things like that,” said Five. With a crack- -and significant pain- -she relocated her spine. Internally, she felt the nerves begin reconnecting, restoring what had once been. Then she stood. “This was intended as a training exercise.”

“You failed it, I think,” said Gell, looking down at the terrified diamond dog. She picked him up and leaned him back, gently reaching between his legs.

“Oh yeah,” said Gell, once again shaking with anticipation. “Such a nice pair…I can’t decide if I’ll burst them slowly and feed you the wreckage, or if I’ll use my mouth and have them myself.” Her long, forked black tongue licked her lips.

“Don’t,” said Five, retrieving her rifle. “The last time I observed such, I was given nightmares for a month.”

“Then don’t watch me. Besides, I’m hungry. I need meat.” She looked directly into the diamond dog’s eyes. “And by meat, yes, I do mean that meat. Nothing like a…hot dog.” She cackled deeply. Then she turned back to Five. “And when did you have nightmares? You don’t sleep!”

“One does not need to sleep to possess nightmares.” After a moment of searching, she found her severed arm. It had not been nearly as cleanly removed as she thought- -the entire upper section had been shattered and shredded, but the gauntlet seemed relatively undamaged.

“Hah,” said the diamond dog, finding himself distantly able to speak through the magical binds on his mind. “At least I took one thing from you!”

“No,” said Five, turning her severed arm over in her remaining claw to check the metal of the gauntlet’s frame. “It looks serviceable.”

“I think he means the arm,” said Gell, smiling as the diamond dog started to whine as she squeezed.

“The arm?” said Five, looking at it. “Oh.”

She held the wreckage of the arm near her bleeding stump. Much to her disappointment, the bleeding had still not stopped. She begrudgingly admitted- -but only to herself- -that she only had a few more minutes until lethal exsanguination.

Her hair moved as she summoned the power in the numerous small lumps that lined the top of her skull and upper vertebrae. Sparks of Order poured out of her stump, reaching into the severed arm, pulling the entropy from it, forcing the damaged flesh and bone to reconfigure itself into its proper shape. Her own flesh distorted and reached out, attaching to the arm, rebuilding the connections to it.

There was a sudden surge of pain as the nerves reconnected, and the limb suddenly became uncomfortably tingly, as if it had been asleep for a long time. She flexed the mechanical fingers, and then shifted the tool into a long blade.

“I suppose we can cut part of him off,” she said, turning toward the diamond dog.

“Noooooo,” howled the diamond dog, suddenly realizing just how bad things were for him. Five sighed. Those that the diamond dog emirates ejected were, indeed, quite slow.

“Fine,” said Five, retracting the blade. “Leave him whole.”

“Squeamish,” muttered Gell, the diamond dog letting out a wide-eyed yelp as she gave him one last squeeze.”

“Go through his possessions,” said Five. “Take his gems.”

“Gems?” said the diamond dog, his eyes widening. “What? No, no! No please! Take parts, take legs, take life. But please, not touch my gems!”

Five stepped over to him and rummaged through his supplies. She took found a prodigious quantity of gemstones and jewels, probably several pounds of them crammed into every possible pocket at the expense of actual, practical items.

When she believed she had found them all, she set them in a pile before the diamond dog. He was now weeping, struggling to escape, to take back those precious glittery stones. “Please…don’t take my gems. I give you everything…”

“There is nothing this world can provide,” said Five. “What I want, I can never have. And I do not intend to take these.”

“N-no?”

Five focused her energy. A bolt of blue Order shot from her, and she used it to rearrange the facets on the crystals- -instantly reducing them to microscopic dust.

“NOOOOOO!” howled the diamond dog. “You didn’t even- -you didn’t even try to love them!”

“Love is a disease,” said Five, calmly. “A disease that I refuse to be afflicted by. Six.”

The diamond dog collapsed to the ground, suddenly finding himself able to move. Five sighed- -although she did not show it, using the dark power within her to do any more than hear was extremely draining.

“My gems,” said the diamond dog, not seeming to realize what was going on.

“Five,” said Five.

The diamond dog suddenly seemed to realize that Five was counting down again. He looked up at Gell, who sighed and nodded. Then he took to the ground, digging into the mud his tears had made. Within seconds, he was gone.

Gell watched him leave, then turned to Five.

“Well, that went well,” said Five. “Although I- -”

She was cut off as a cloven hoof slammed into the side of her head, catching it and ramming into the dirt below.

“You idiot,” screamed Gell, virtually standing on Five’s head, driving her muzzle into the dust below. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

Five turned her head, leaving a small pool of blood from her injured nose. “You know as well as I do,” she said. “My only purpose in life is to die. It was what I was born for, and the sole reason I have value.”

Gell could tell that she was serious.

“You should not have assisted,” said Five. “You should have stayed in the Pocket.”

“Like Tartarus,” spat Gell, twisting her hoof on Five’s head, grinding the dust into her mouth. “We have a contract, remember, An?”

“You have no contract with me,” said Five.

“I do not need your consent. An, how long have we been working together?”

“Since the death of Four.”

“That’s what? Sixty years or somesuch?” she released Five’s head, her anger having been mostly resolved. “By Satin, I’m old. But I virtually raised you.”

“Poorly,” said Five, standing, feeling her arm returning to normal after its reattachment.

“Who cares? My mother ate half my siblings. Not half by number- -half their bodies. Each.”

“I was not in any real danger.”

“Yes, you were. You know I can’t let you die.”

“Because you are concerned for me, or because I am not yet pregnant with Six?”

“Both. The two are not mutually exclusive.” She looked around her. “Now, where the there are we?”

“It used to be called Ponyville,” said Five.

“I know the name,” said Gell. “My father was stationed here. Which reminds me. He invited you to our family gathering on Satinmass.”

“I accept,” sighed Five. She was actually somewhat fond of Gell’s family, especially her father, Spiny Violation. He had the most beautiful garden of cactuses that Five had ever seen.

“So why are we in this dump?”

“Just follow me,” said Five, reprojecting her map and continuing with her work.

It took nearly an hour of searching to find the target. It was actually Philomena who spotted it first- -a field on a distant hill, apart from the main town, a place where no trees grew. It was a place that was empty in all the maps, but that Five knew to exist. It had to- -but because of its nature, no pony would include it in any element of the town’s history.

The fence that had surrounded the cemetery had long-since rotted away to dust, but some of the stones still stood. Many had eroded to virtual nothingness, and most had fallen and disappeared. Nearly all of them stood crooked, the ground beneath having been shifted by so many cycles of frost and by the encroaching roots of the trees- -or by something more sinister.

Five walked between the stones, searching, occasionally stopping to wipe away the centuries-old lichen or moss that grew upon them.

“A graveyard,” said Gell, shivering. “This is very you.”

“Shut it,” said Five. “I am trying to concentrate.”

“What are we looking for?”

“A stone that will likely appear different from the others. No doubt enchanted to resist decay.”

Philamena spread her wings and took flight, travelling to a distinct section in the rear of the cemetery and standing atop one of the graves. Five walked over and carefully examined it, but she already knew that it was the correct one.

It stood beside a pair of stones, amongst several others, all of them corroded to unreadability, save for that singular stone, its white and incorruptible stone seeming to resonate with magic. A final parting gift, no doubt, from Twilight Sparkle.

“Oh, wow,” said Gell, looking at the inscription on the headstone. “She died in her mid-thirties.”

“Bone cancer,” said Five, recalling her history. “Rainbow Dash was first. She died in a flight accident. Applejack was second.”

“I’m actually kind of surprised,” said Gell, admiring the stone. “I mean, she was one of the Six. And they gave her this dinky grave? I mean, New Cloudsdale had a Rainbow Dash monument.”

“I knew her, I think,” said Five, contemplating the headstone. “This would be the sort of thing she would ask for. A simple grave, beside her parents.”

Five reached into her supplies and withdrew a metal tool. She extended the handle and folded out a long flat blade. She paused for a moment, no so much out of respect but out of trying to imagine the best way to go about her task. Then she plunged the shovel blade into the weedy, rocky soil.

It took nearly two hours to dig through the soil. Gell simply watched, with Philomena sitting on the tip of one of her long horns. Five did not want their assistance anyway. This was a task meant for her, and her alone.

“Be sure to save some of the dirt,” said Gell, now sitting on a nearby grave that probably belonged to one of Applejack’s siblings. “You can use it for some neat potions.”

“I am aware,” said Five. She plunged the shovel into the ground and it struck wood. Five dropped her shovel and put her hoof against the rotted lid. Her claws dug into it and she tore away the top of the coffin.

After several centuries in the ground, bodies ceased to have the smell of rot- -but they still had a smell, one that Five did not find entirely unpleasant. She felt the dust and long-trapped air from the coffin rise up and took a moment to appreciate the aroma. Then she looked inside.

There was not much left. All the flesh had rotted away long ago, and only minor remnants of clothing still clung to the corpse- -no doubt, Five knew, a dress that had been manufactured by Rarity expressly for this purpose.

Five reached into the grave and felt her metal claw surround soft, ancient bone. She pulled upward, and the skull gleamed in the light.

“The skull of the Element of Harmony,” she said, admiring it, even with its structure so badly ravaged by the vicious metastatic bone destruction that had terminated the skull’s original user.

“Great,” sighed Gell. “Just four more to go.”

“I have a lead on Rarity,” said Five, placing the skull carefully in a specialized case and folding her shovel back to its collapsed position. “But it is a weak one.”

“And the other three?”

“We’re not going to get much from Dash,” said Five, climbing out of the hole. “She was apparently vaporized in the accident. Nothing left to use. The nature of Fluttershy’s death is unknown, as is her grave.”

“And Princess Sparkle?”

“An alicorn skull alone correctly manipulated could level a continent,” said Five, brushing herself off. She did not bother to refill the grave; rain and erosion would eventually do it for her. “So we can safely assume that it is now possessed by Thebe.”

“Dude. I am not going to try to steal from her,” said Gell.

“Then we leave the Element of Magic for last.”