The air itself seemed to crack as Five pulled the small round handle with its glowing purple light. Rainbow Dash had watched Five remove the handle form her supplies, and at first had not understood why she was bothering with a small ring of pale metal, turning it in the air like some lame mime act.

Then it had opened. The universe itself had opened, a door in space, and for a moment Rainbow Dash forgot about the death and violence that she had witnessed.

“What…the hay,” she said, craning her neck arouond the door, flying up in the air and looking around it. It had no real supports, and was not visible by from the back, just the front, where it looked like a dim, square doorway. Air was coming out of it; it was warm and smelled like a very old building.

“Come on,” said Five, lifting her supplies and motioning for Rainbow Dash to carry her own box of loot. Rainbow Dash’s container was filled mostly with gems, precious metals, crystals, bits of electronics, and ammunition. Five had taken other things, but the most apparent thing she carried was a blood-stained sack containing the various dismembered body parts she had claimed- -including Flesh’s entire body.

Five stepped through the door. Rainbow Dash almost did, but paused at the threshold. “Is it…is it safe?”

“Safe?” said Five, poking her head out of the black void on the other side. “Says a pony who, if I recall, performs supersonic flight for a living? It’s just a door.”

“A door…yeah, right.” Rainbow Dash stepped through, and almost immediately felt strange. Something about the room she had stepped into made her vaguely anxious, although she did not know why. Her skin just seemed to be crawling- -even on her left limbs, which had “skin” made of some kind of golden, lightweight alloy- -and she just wanted to run.

The door closed behind her, and she saw Five turning the handle until the light became red. To her surprise, Rainbow Dash saw that there actually was a door, which looked like a storm door taken off somepony’s house.

“Someday I’m going to rewire this place,” said Five, and Rainbow Dash heard the sound of a hoof tapping against the wall. “Hmm. This is either the lights or the garbage disposal.”

There was a clicking sound, and the lights overhead ignited.

“Oh, wow!” said Rainbow Dash in awe. She realized that they were standing at the edge of a hallway of some kind, and one that was actually rather fancy. The walls were made of wood on their lower halves and strange floral wall paper on the tops, and there was some level of craftsmanship that Rarity probably would have appreciated.

Rainbow Dash turned back toward the door, and then looked down at the hallway- -and the two others that went to the left and right. “How did you- -this is awesome! What is this place?”

“The Pocket,” said Five, setting down her bags. Philomena poked her head out of one of them and looked around. She did not seem happy, but Five had insisted that the bird not be “outside” alone. “It is a synthetic Clover torus. Since you are not trained in theory of any type: essentially, a tiny synthetic dimension that I use.”

“Does…does everypony have one?”

Five shook her head. “No. They are...uncommon, I suppose, although not unheard of. They are usually used as portable warehouses for small places.”

“So its…how big is it in here?”

“No idea. Pretty big, but not infinite.”

“Let me get this straight- -you had this the whole time? This house thing? And you were having me sleep outside?”

“You can feel it, can’t you?”

Rainbow Dash nearly asked “what”, but realized that she did. A strange sense of unnervement, as though she were somewhere where she did not want to be. “Yeah,” she said. “It feels…” she tried to recall a similar situation. “Like back when me and Applejack went to the Castle of the Two Sisters on a dare…like somepony was watching, but not really anypony- -like being alone, but not.” She shivered. “I don’t like it.”

“Neither do I. Neither does Philomena. My grandmother used to live in here, but I do not know how. I mostly use it as a workshop, and for storage. She took a deep breath, as though she were about to yell.

“Don’t,” said Gell, materializing from one of the hallways that was especially dark. Rainbow Dash looked up, once again shocked by her appearance- -but oddly surprised that her long horns did not scrape on the tall ceiling. Gell’s large, batlike ears flicked slightly. “I can hear you, you know. And I smell something…tasty.”

Five threw the bag of body parts to Gell. “Here,” she said.

Gell looked at the bag, and then at Five. “You did something again, without me. You know how I feel about that, An.”

“Don’t call me An. And I was trying to be subtle.”

“You call what you did subtle?”

Gell looked at Rainbow Dash. “You brought her but not me?” She smiled. “Okay then. Hey, did you ‘break her in’?”

“No. She slew nopony. She did take an eye, though, and a leg.” She pointed to the bag. “As you will see.”

“A leg?” said Gell, visibly drooling. She opened the sack, and her eyes widened.

“No way!” she said. “You got me- -oh, Satin, there’s a whole pony in here!”

“Don’t eat it all at once. Smoke it or something.”

Gell reached into the bag and pulled out the remnants of the unicorn Flesh. He was now stiff, but still seeming to stare with glass-like eyes. Gell opened her mouth wide and brought it down on his skull. There was a horrible crunch as she cut through it, tearing away flesh and bone. Rainbow Dash was forced to look away.

“There is a wing in there as well,” said Five.

“I love wings,” said Gell, her mouth full of pony. “They are by far the best part…but don’t worry, Dashie,” she said to Rainbow Dash, “those wings of yours, destroying those would be like destroying a piece of fine art!”

“Could you…um, not eat that in front of me?”

Gell looked down at the corpse that she was holding. “Oh. Yeah. That’s probably pretty shocking for you. But hey, that’s where meat comes from.” She put Flesh back in the sack and closed it. “I’m going to take him upstairs and get the parts done up. I’ll be back down when I’m done. I can even give Dashie the grand tour of our home!”

She laughed as she threw the blood-stained sack over her back and started off down the hallway.

“At least take a box of chain ammo!” called Five.

“No way,” said Gell. “You picked it up, you deal with it.”

“Idiot demon,” muttered Five.

“I heard that! ‘A proper lady handles her own castrations!’”

“That is not a real idiom!”

Gell just waved, and then disappeared into the shadows.

“She…kind of scares me,” said Rainbow Dash.

“Really?” said Five. “I don’t see it. Besides, she really does like you.”

“I noticed.”

“Not just like that,” said Five, picking up a box of electronics and glowing crystals and putting it on her back. She started walking down the hallway, and Rainbow Dash followed. “She is attracted to you, but there is more than that.”

“Like what?”

“As in…hmm. Perhaps she sees in you her ideal daughter.”

“As opposed to…her real daughter?”

“Which would be me. Sort of. Although I did not hatch from her egg.”

“Demons…lay eggs?”

“Of course. Don’t be an idiot.”

“And, what about you,” said Rainbow Dash, rolling her eyes. “Do you…”

“Of course not,” said Five. She looked back at Rainbow Dash. “And you?”

“M- -me?” stuttered Rainbow Dash. “No, I don’t- -I haven’t even- -not with a…not with a stallion anyway…”

“Neither have I. Mostly because I can’t. The equipment isn’t optimized for it. Parthogen and all. Well, I probably could, it would just hurt a lot. But it is interesting. Some historians have wondered if Scootaloo was.”

“Scoots,” said Rainbow Dash. Once again, she felt the blow of sadness crushing against her. The pain returned, this time far harder, and her spirit sunk. Scootaloo had barely become a mare when Rainbow Dash had departed. She was a pony that Rainbow Dash considered a sister, her only real family- -and now, like all the others, she was long-dead. “Scootaloo…what happened to her?”

“No idea,” said Five. “I do not follow the side characters so much. I can look it up later.”

“She’s…she’s dead, though, isn’t she?”

“Of course. They all are.”

“Even Scoots…” Rainbow Dash felt tears welling in her eyes. Knowing that her friends had gone was bad enough, but that the little orange filly had gone too was crushing. Logically, she knew that Scootaloo had probably lived a good life, but it felt like she had died as a child. Rainbow Dash had missed every element of her life- -her first trip to Cloudsdale, winning her first race, even the first time she would ever fly- -she had never seen any of those things, and now she never would.

“Five,” she said. “What…what is the point? Without them, why…why should I be alive when they aren’t?”

“Did you really think that any of this had a point?” said Five. “But you’re young. Trust me on this, as I am an old mare by your kind’s standards: life has no point. It is a sick joke, to induce matter to believe that its course truly matters. Our consciousness only exists for the universe to torture us as we fight the inevitable- -and woe to those that cannot reach that fate.”

“That’s terrible. How can you even say something like that?”

“Because that is the truth. Of course, you are free to believe lies as you choose. I, however, am not.”

Five pushed open the door to one of her several offices and entered. A highly depressed Rainbow Dash entered behind her, and five heard the sound of a gasp that indicated that at least some of Rainbow Dash’s sadness had been subsumed by her awe at the number of artifacts and incomplete projects that lined the walls and shelves.

There certainly were plenty. The shelves were lined with various relics that Five had either failed to categorize or was presently working on, and the walls were lined with freshly repaired or constructed tools or weapons, many half completed. On the far end was a desk covered in a mess of power crystal circuits, magical rune systems, dispersion spikes, shell casings, and the like- -as well as an abundance of surplus test equipment and tools.

“Oh wow,” said Rainbow Dash, flying up through the air past the number of components that were dangling from the ceiling. She picked an arm of power armor that Five had been working on, its cords running into a supply set beneath a globe- -one not of Equestria, but the Gloame- -and a pot with an anemic sprig of poison joke beneath an infrared light. “What is all this stuff?”

“Parts for my job,” said Five. “Try not to contact anything that will break. Or explode. Or bite.”

Five pulled spread her wings and flapped hard, lifting the box of electronics that she was carrying to the area where power cells were stored, directly above the flammables/milk cabinet.

“Look at all this junk,” said Rainbow Dash, admiring a still-living severed pony arm under a bell jar and a slowly levitating black crystal.

“It’s not junk,” said Five, turning around. “Much of it is- -”

Her blood ran cold when she realized what Rainbow Dash was staring at: a pair of earth pony skulls, still sealed in transparent tubes, one showing the lesions of bone cancer and the other bashed in on one side. Five held her breath, realizing her mistake: she should never have brought Rainbow Dash into this room, not with those two artifacts present.

“Creepy,” said Rainbow Dash, moving to the next artifact. Five let out a long breath. Rainbow Dash seemed to have no idea how close she had just come to two of her beloved friends, or the significance of those skulls. “I don’t like skulls,” she said. “But those two…” she turned back to them. “I don’t know…somehow they feel really familiar…”

“Most earth pony skulls look similar,” said Five, feining calmness even though she was on the verge of panic. “Actually, somewhere around here, I possess the skull of a pygmy horse...”

“No way!” said Rainbow Dash, looking around the room excitedly. “Twilight always said that those were totally fake!”

“Oh, they are. But I still have it.”

Rainbow Dash looked confused, but then her eyes were caught by a golden glint. With a small rainbow contrail, she crossed the room, rattling the armor dangling from the ceiling and causing some of the living vines to retract in annoyance. “Sweet Celestia!” she said, picking up the pair of golden objects and placing them on her body. “These look just like the real thing!”

Five looked up and saw that Rainbow Dash had been drawn to a crown and a necklace, both of them made of something resembling gold, both with a single violet crystal set within them.

“No,” said Five, making her way over a pile of tiles taken from Canterlot Castle toward her desk in the back. “Those are the real thing.”

“No way,” said Rainbow Dash, suddenly appearing nervous, as if she had insulted the crown’s original user by putting it on. “They can’t be…are you telling me you stole Celestia’s crown?”

“And necklace. But now. It was not me, but rather my great grandmother, Second. There are currently three pieces of cerorite not in the possession of Thebe. Those are two of them. Apparently, Second decided that after Celestia’s death it was too dangerous for them to remain free. Try as I might, I cannot get them out of there.”

Rainbow Dash took off the crown and looked at it, nostalgia crossing her face. “You know, she really was a beautiful pony.”

“Yes, if you ignore the Exmoori genocide and the several centuries of brutal and totalitarian ruling.”

“The what?”

“Never mind. Put them back, please, and come down here.”

Rainbow Dash set the crown and necklace back in their place- -on an inactive equidroid husk being used as a mannequin- -and descended.

“Hey,” she said as she stepped over the well-organized mess so uncharacteristic of a guardian of Order. “Can I ask you something?”

“No, I do not have Luna’s.”

“Not that. Back at the…back there…”

“What?” asked Five, rummaging through a pail of tools, trying to find a pair of pliers that were not channel locks.

“When that guy beat you up with the hammer…you got pretty messed up.”

“You would not believe how much head trauma like that hurts,” said Five, shivering slightly at the thought of it. “Not as bad as burning, of course, but not fun.”

“But then there was that light, and those sparks, and you…you healed! Which was itself pretty awesome.”

Five dropped a wrench that had been misclassified as a spanner on her desk and turned around, facing Rainbow Dash. “None of these things are questions, Ms. Dash. If you are lonely and need conversation, see Gell, not me.”

“You used magic,” said Rainbow Dash, frowning.

“Yes, I did,” said Five. That was in its own way a question, but to her, it was obvious. She had been using magic since the instant she was born; it was not unusual for her.

“But you’re not a unicorn!”

Five sighed, and then motioned for Rainbow Dash to approach her. For some reason, the Pegasus insisted on staying at least six feet away at all times, perhaps without even being conscious of it.

“Run your hoof through my mane.”

Rainbow Dash, who had been approaching, suddenly backed up. “Eew, no,” she said. “First the demon, and now you?”

“It is not a sexual thing,” snapped Five, somewhat disgusted. “Just do it.”

Rainbow Dash released an annoyed whine, and Five lowered her head. She felt the hoof passing through her low-cut blue mane, softly at first, and then much harder as Rainbow Dash felt the pony protrusions along the cusp of her skull and cervical vertebrae.

“What the hay?” said Rainbow Dash, grabbing the horns tightly enough for it to be uncomfortable for Five. “You have- -” A glint of realization passed through her eyes. “I remember! Just like he had…that D27 guy!”

“Yes,” said Five, hating that name and the monster that bore it. She swiped away Rainbow Dash’s hoof. “The principle is the same. My power is a fragment of his.”

“So you’re…what, an alicorn?”

“No,” said Five, shivering at the thought. “Nor am I a unicorn. My abilities are far more narrow.”

“But you, I mean, I saw you heal yourself from like, twenty hammer hits!”

“It was eight. And yes, I can do that.” Five sighed, and stopped what she was doing completely. For some reason, she felt a strong desire to tell another pony, to have someopony understand her pain. “It is, unfortunately, my curse.”

“Curse? But it’s- -well, pretty much a superpower.”

“I have tried so many things,” said Five. “Burning, shooting, complete exsanguination, poison with toxins you could hardly imagine. I have been exposed to one hundred times the lethal dose of radiation for a pony, to explosive blasts. I have sought out the most vicious tumors and xenographed them into myself. I once even sawed off my own head. The same conclusion has always been reached.”

“Wh- -what is that?” said Rainbow Dash, suddenly rather pale.

“That this body will not allow me to die.”

“Well isn’t that- -but…why would you want to die?”

Five felt herself chuckle. “Such simplistic response to what I am telling you. So binary. To assume that life and death are what concern me…death is always bad, but sometimes less so.” She looked into Rainbow Dash’s eyes. “I want to live. More than anything, I want to live. But I would also give anything to be allowed to die on my own terms.” She turned back to her desk, and decided that with her gauntlets, she probably would not need pliers anyway. “Not that you could understand. But, thank you.”

“For what?”

“For listening.” Five drew a small horizontal circle in the air with her hoof. “Now turn around and spread your wings.”

“My…my what?”

“Wing blades. Are you wearing any?”

“No…”

“Then tell me, how did you cut those ponies?”

Rainbow Dash looked confused, but then looked down at her wings. “I don’t…I don’t know.”

“Exactly. Neither do I. Did the Wonderbolts engage you in any surgical upgrades?”

“Surgical what? Like, to my- -”

“Eew. No.” Five turned Rainbow Dash around forcibly, plunging her metal-coated hooves into the Peguas’s down.

“Nooo!” cried Rainbow Dash, trying to close her wings. “My down! This is- -ooooh, that tickles!”

“Relax, I’m a doctor,” said Five.

“Really?”

“No, of course not. That was a joke.”

“You’re basically molesting me, you know that, right?”

“No I’m not. Hold still.”

Five spread Rainbow Dash’s feathers, and suddenly saw a nick appear in her gauntlet. She moved much more slowly and carefully, and suddenly spied a row of unique feathers amongst the soft blue fluff. They were small, short, and appeared to be made of some kind of golden metal.

Carefully, Five clamped a gripping attachment of her gauntlet against one of the feathers and, with a swift motion, yanked it out.

“EEEP!” cried Rainbow Dash, suddenly jumping into the air. “What the hay!” she cried. “You just pulled one!”

Five held up the feather, and Rainbow Dash’s agitation suddenly vanished, descending from the air as they both stared at the small golden feather. It was about two inches long, small enough to be hidden among the other feathers, and definitely made of metal. Unlike a normal feather, it had two roots, and was geometrically shaped. Five turned it over in her claw, and noted that it was impossibly rigid for its thickness, which was nearly as flat as a sheet of tissue paper. The metal appeared- -but the fact that it had been growing out of Rainbow Dash’s wing- -to be of organic origin, but it was certainly metal of some kind.

“What in the wide world of Equestria is that?” whispered Rainbow Dash.

“For once, I have no idea,” said Five, herself feeling the volume of her voice decrease in awe. “But you have a lot of them.”

Rainbow Dash spread her wing, and gasped when she saw the glint of the golden feathers from within her down. “Sweet lusty Luna! I do!”

Five had never heard that expression, but considering her relation to Luna, found it distasteful.

“So…” she said. “Be really careful when you preen.” She picked up a piece of scrap pipe with her hand-like wing and slid the feather across it, cutting it cleanly in half. “Oop. Yeah. Mind your tongue.”

“Oh…okay…” said Rainbow Dash, lowering her wings and once again looking dejected. Five was getting tired of this.

“What is it now? I just informed you that you have some kind of biological metal growing out of you. A new weapon. This is a happy thing.”

“Well…it’s just that…” she looked up Five. “Okay. I’m going to tell you this….” She took a deep breath. “It means…” she blushed, “it means that my special somepony- -when I find him- -can’t ever preen me.” She grimaced, as if she were expecting to get hit.

“Oh,” said Five, suddenly feeling profoundly uncomfortable. “Um…yes, that is…um…true…”

“Well, it’s just that, for a Pegasus…no. Never mind. You would not understand.”

“No, I would not. You must figure that sort of problem out on your own, as I am of little help. However, I can help with the feather. I am going to run some tests, as this interests me. Until then, you are free to wander the Pocket. Just do not break anything- -and if you see a green pony with a antler-horn, tell him to stop sealing our cheese.”

“Okay…” said Rainbow Dash. Five turned back to her desk and began pulling out supplies, and she heard Rainbow Dash flutter off toward the door after several seconds.

As Rainbow Dash left, Philomena descended from the ceiling, landing on a large perch that had been set aside for her. Five looked up at the bird, then down at the feather.

“What business does she have speaking to me of such things?” she said. “As though I would know about ‘special-someponies’. That a parthogen even could.”

Philomena released a low chirp.

“She is not my friend. She never can be. Her only value to me is her skull, and with it her power.” Five glanced over her shoulder at the skinless skulls of Pinkie Pie and Applejack. “I can only ever be alone, because I was dead the instant I was born. Just a cursed shell.” She picked up the feather, and slit her throat with it. She watched as the blood poured onto the table, and felt the familiar sensation of drowning and the metal taste of blood- -and then felt the sparks of Order restoring her body, the wound closing, not even leaving a scar.

She coughed out the blood from her lungs, and looked at the bloody feather. “Hmm. Perhaps I can make a knife out of it.”

Rainbow Dash found that she had become incredibly lost, and that made her angry. This place she was in, this “Pocket”, made no logical sense. There were staircases that were too long, or not long enough, or that would lead to the same floor they had come from, and hallways that seemed to backtrack onto their own position. The architecture changed as well. Not all of it was as gaudy and old fashioned as the front part; much of it was diverse and strange to the point of being random, as though it had been constructed by a madpony- -which, for all Rainbow Dash knew, it had.

This inevitably led to a kind of panic. The way the area felt, how lifeless and yet so lively the building itself appeared, caused her to become increasingly frightened. She had started by running, and then by flying through the wide, Gell-sized halls, panting heavily. There was no way out; every window she found was fake, and every door she encounter was either locked or led to rooms filled wither with bunches of equipment or plants or things she couldn’t even recognize. One was even filled with spiders, perhaps unintentionally, and another filled with racks of bones and helmets, and one with a canoe in a pile of sand. All of it was unnerving to the point of being terrifying.

Then, when she finally felt like she was going to scream, she turned a corner and ran into something incredibly hard. The force knocked the wind out of her and sent her flying backward, splaying her limbs out along the ground. At first, she thought that she had struck a wall- -having a wall just behind a corner would not be out of the nature of the Pocket’s mad architecture- -but when her vision cleared, Rainbow Dash found herself looking up at the blood-stained visage of a pink demon.

Gell looked down at Rainbow Dash, her horizontal pupils widening, and then directing themselves at the raw strip of meat sticking out of the side of her mouth, part of a pure-white bone sticking out. She slurped it into her mouth and crouched it down quickly, but Rainbow Dash had already seen it.

“Hey,” she said, looking down. “Let me guess. Five told you to look around, didn’t she, eh?”

“Yes, but this place is crazy!”

“I know. Three was a bit…eccentric. Don’t get me long, I loved her, but she was batty. Unbelievable in bed though.”

Gell reached down and helped Rainbow Dash stand up. Rainbow Dash found herself staring at Gell’s coat, realizing how similar in color it was to Pinkie Pie’s.

“Oh,” said Gell. “The blood.”

Rainbow Dash had not realized it consciously, but Gell was drenched in blood.

“Yeah. If this was Nightmare Night, you would win the costume contest for sure.”

Gell laughed deeply and slapped Rainbow Dash on the shoulder, nearly crushing her. “I would, wouldn’t I? Except this is real. I just butchered a pony. Cut him up, ate half of him.”

Rainbow Dash shivered. The idea itself was terrible, but what made it worse was that she was now having a conversation with the pony who had done the butchering. Monsters did eat ponies, that was a fact of life; but ponies- -even demon ponies- -eating ponies was disturbing on a whole different level.

“I know, I know,” sighed Gell. “But I’m on my way to the showers so…” Her demon eye suddenly lit up. “Oh! I know! We should take a shower together!”

“What? Why- -why would we do that?”

“It would be sweet. And look at you. Blood on your wings, and you smell like horse sweat.”

“Um, no, I don’t think- -hey!” Rainbow Dash felt herself being picked up and was placed on Gell’s back.

“Come on, stinky,” she said, starting to walk forward. Rainbow Dash suddenly started slipping on the black segmented armor that covered Gell’s back, but grabbed onto it just in time to stop herself form falling off. She suddenly had an idea of what Spike must have felt like always riding on Twilight’s back- -it was actually pretty nice. Still, she did not like the idea of bathing with another mare.

She was carried down the hall a little bit farther, to an area that she had somehow not been to before- -one with white-painted brick walls and a synthetic tile floor. The lights there were harsh, but widely spaced.

Gell lifted her head and poked Rainbow Dash with one of her long, curving horns. “Off,” she said.

Rainbow Dash slid off. As she did, she heard a grinding sound going past her, and saw Five struggling to push a large box with her head down the hall.

“Taking a shower, I see,” grunted Five, pushing the box past them. “Don’t drop the soap.”

“Ha ha,” called Gell. “Very funny!” she turned her attention toward Rainbow Dash. “But seriously,” she said. “As gloriously stunning a she-stud as you are, you are a mare. So I give you my word, with Satin as my witness, that I won’t ever make a move on you without your permission. Got that?”

“Um…sure,” said Rainbow Dash, feeling herself blush. She did not find Gell attractive at all, but the attention felt nice, at least.

“Now come on,” said Gell, pushing Rainbow Dash through an opening that was not quite a door.

Rainbow Dash, upon entering, suddenly realized what Gell had meant. The bathroom was not small, like hers, but rather large, with multiple shower heads on both sides, much like the showers that the Wonderbolts had used. That sort of group shower was something that Rainbow Dash was actually used to; for some reason, she had imagined her and Gell in a cramped tub lathering each other.

She shook her head, and entered the room. The tiling was impressive, even to her. The floor consisted of almost random tiles of every size and color that all seemed to mesh into a unified shape, and the walls and ceiling were done in an exceedingly complex mosaic. It was a cool bathroom- -and Rainbow Dash decided that a shower would do her some good.

“Here,” said Gell, tossing Rainbow Dash a bar of soap on a neck-ring. Rainbow Dash caught it in her mouth, and slid it over her neck. Gell then pointed at the right side of the room. “You take that side. Now, a basic rule here. Keep your eyes in that direction. I’m going to be taking my clothing off, so try not to look at me.

“Um…” said Rainbow Dash, wondering why Gell had asked to bathe together in the first place, “okay…” Still confused, she faced the wall, and heard the characteristic sounds of straps being undone and metal clanking as Gell removed her armor. In order to resist the urge to look over her shoulder, Rainbow Dash turned the complicated faucet, turning on the water. It came out immediately warm.

“This is a nice shower,” she said, adjusting the temperature and relishing the feeling of the steaming water flowing through her feathers and mane.

“I know,” said Gell. “Three had a whole mosaic phase.” Rainbow Dash heard the other shower turn on. “But, weirdly, there was no water in the place back then. Five did that…she’s got some kind of recycling pump rigged up somewhere.”

“Neat,” said Rainbow Dash, turning her head just slightly.

“Hey!” said Gell, sharply.

“Sorry,” said Rainbow Dash, distantly aware that for Gell to have caught that, she must been watching rather closely. “But…you know, we are ponies. We’re naked all the time.”

“No, you are a pony. I am a demon.”

“But I’ve met demons. I never once saw one wearing clothes.”

“Because you probably never saw a female. We don’t usually come up here unless Satin really wants to punish the world, or if we get summoned. Basic cultural lesson, though: modesty for female demons is expected.”

“Why?”

“It should be obvious, shouldn’t it? Because our stallions are not allowed to wear clothes. I don’t know how the tradition started, but I guess we started wearing our clothes to differentiate ourselves from them. That eventually morphed into modesty, or something like that.”

“So…being naked is unpleasant for you?”

“In your culture, it would be like having a stallion wear a frilly dress. Or you wear a dress.”

“I’ve worn dressed before,” protested Rainbow Dash, lathering her hair. She was well trained to take quick showers, but the warm water helped to calm her, as if it were washing away her anger and sorrow. That, and Gell was actually far less abrasive than Five to talk to. “My friend Rarity used to make them…”

“No way!” said Gell, so loudly that it caused Rainbow Dash to jump. “You actually wore a Rarity?! Hold on…I need to calm down for a moment…just imagining you in one of those dresses is…I’m sorry. I was intending to do this with you…I guess as a way to show allegiance. It isn’t supposed to be sexual.”

“You really are a lespony, aren’t you?”

“Eh, not really. I like stallions too- -but they don’t survive very long. Overwhelming desire to violently remove their testicles and all.”

“So that’s your…” Rainbow Dash once again shivered, and felt an urge to look over her shoulder. She had only partially seen Gell’s cutie mark beneath her armor, and was aware that it was a menacing, demonic meat tenderizer.

“Special talent, yeah. Demons don’t get pretty ones like you do.”

“If it’s who you are…but, being honest here, the eating ponies thing is really disturbing.”

“I have to eat something.”

“What about hay? Or bread? Cookies?”

“Will make me very, very sick. I can have a piece of cake, but I get…drunk. I can only eat meat.”

“It’s just…not right, though.”

“I understand, but that’s only because you ponies are so backward.”

“What?”

“Well, when you eat meat, you always choose it based on sentience. Chickens or turkeys or the like are okay, because they are dumb. Dogs and cats are bad, ponies are forbidden. That’s backward.”

“Ponies don’t eat meat!” cried Rainbow Dash, nearly vomiting at the thought of slaughtering a poor, helpless animal. Such a thing was horrible to her; to a pony like Fluttershy, having to know that such a thing was perpetrated by ponies would be a fate worse than death.

“Not in your time,” grumbled Gell. “We introduced it with the occupation. Ponies eat it now, though, but backward. Demons do it correctly: the most sentient meat is best. Pony is best, then cows and sheep, dogs, cats, and so on. Turkey and chicken are bad meat.”

“What about demon?”

“No,” said Gell, harshly. “Demon meat must never be eaten!”

“Isn’t that a bit hypocritical?”

“No. You misunderstand. That honor is only reserved for Satin herself. To consume our flesh it to challenge our god- -and to face her divine and everlasting wrath.”

“That’s weird,” said Rainbow Dash.

“Perhaps, but you mortals are just as strange to us.”

“Is it true?” asked Rainbow Dash, suddenly.

“Is what true?”

“That you are immortal? That you live forever?”

“No. Well…no. I will die in time, when Satin deems fit to consume me, body and soul. But I am old. Very old.”

“How old?”

“I don’t remember. Five hundred something.”

“So you remember…back then. When I was young.”

“You still are young,” corrected Gell. “But yes, vaguely. I even recall reading about your death.”

“Wow,” said Rainbow Dash, somewhat impressed with herself. “I did not know I was that important. Can’t believe I got into the papers in Tartarus.”

“I was not in Tartarus at the time. I was at Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns.”

“But…you’re not a unicorn.”

“Not as a student. Think things through, Dashie. Anhelios- -you’re Anhelios- -summoned me. I was so young back then. I still had hair.”

Rainbow Dash could hear it in the tone of her voice. “You were her friend.”

“My best friend,” said Gell. “I loved her. More than anything in this world. And then she left me…”

“She died,” whispered Rainbow Dash.

“She had to. That’s the way it works with them.”

“I don’t understand,” said Rainbow Dash. “What do you mean? You mean us mortals?”

“No. I mean Anhelios.” Rainbow Dash felt demonic eye staring at the back of her neck. “She…she didn’t tell you, did she?”

“Tell me what?”

“Of course she wouldn’t. She sees it as unimportant, but it kind of is.”

“What is it?” demanded Rainbow Dash, suddenly feeling that knowing was of crucial importance.

“The amount of Order in her body is finite. It never runs out, but it cannot be divided, not ever. Only one can ever exist at a time.”

“You mean- -”

“The mother gets pregnant only once, and dies giving birth.”

Rainbow Dash was silent, not knowing what to say.

“Rainbow Dash,” said Gell. “Don’t hate Five.”

“It’s kind of hard not to.”

“I know, because she is trying.”

“She’s not doing a very good job.”

“No. She is trying to make you hate her.”

“Why? Why would she do that?”

“Because the process went wrong with her. For the first four, there was a system. They learn and grow far faster than normal ponies, but there were always others to help them. The chiropterans nearly worshiped them, and the priests would raise them. Only in their teen years would I appear, and offer my contract to them.”

“But something happened.”

“Yes. In the time of Four, things changed. The chiropterans changed, moved on. They forgot the old ways, and the priests died out. So she was alone. Born alone.”

“Wait,” said Rainbow Dash, turning off her water, suddenly angry. “So they just left a foal to fend for herself?!”

“She was not a foal. In a matter of days she would have been the equivalent of a toddler, with the mind of an adult, but…that thing inside her carried memories, all the way back from Two. She was fully functional, but alone and it changed her.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Psychological imprinting or some such. I eventually realized it and helped her, but it was too late. Her mind was broken. The way she thinks, it’s not like you do. Her mind is like a machine, clicking out outcomes from stimuli. She is obsessive, apathetic, and dangerous.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because she won’t. Because maybe I feel guilty for what happened, for raising her this way. I don’t know.” Gell switched off her own water. She sighed. “Wow, this got dark. You can turn around now.”

Rainbow Dash did, as if ordered, and as she did realized that Gell had not put her armor back on yet. She found herself staring at a massive, soaking, pink-coated demon who was staring down at her.

“What do you think?” she said, smiling softly. “How do I look?”

Rainbow Dash craned around and looked at Gell’s cutie mark, confirming that it was, in fact, a hammer. She also saw Gell’s tail.

Before she could stop herself, she blurted out the obvious. “You have a flappy little tail,” she said, in all seriousness.

Gell threw a towel into Rainbow Dash’s face, but it was apparent that she was smiling broadly. “Well, we can’t all have a pretty rainbow one, can we? Alright, enough of the free show! Out!”

She waved her cloven hooves at Rainbow Dash, and the latter laughed as Gell rolled a towel into a whip and snapped it at her rear. “Out! Let me get my armor back on, I’ll take you to the kitchen!”

Rainbow Dash jumped out into the hallway, taking refuge around the corner and finishing drying herself off. She felt better, even if the conversation had turned depressing, because she had somepony to talk to, perhaps even a friend, if a demon even really had the ability for such things.

Still, within her, a certain vision was nagging her. The idea of a young pony born by definition without family, friends, or anypony at all, and of the mind that had ossified into that style. It explained a lot, really, and was sad, and in a way terrifying, to know that such a creature could exist, or had been forced by circumstances to exist. At least Rainbow Dash had once had friends, even if they were all gone now. By the way Gell talked, it seemed like Five never had. The best parts of life, of laughing with others, going on adventures, having sompeony to talk to or be there when she needed it- -those had been scooped out of Five before she had even been two months old, leaving an unfortunate husk behind. Five could never understand what Rainbow Dash had lost, but Rainbow Dash could understand what Five had never experienced, and that frame of mind made her seem more pathetic than psychotic.

Five was cruel and strange, but Rainbow Dash knew that it might just be possible for them to manage to tolerate each other.

Five sat amongst the machines, the feather before her. Whatever it was made of was beyond her knowledge. Spectrometry indicated that it was literally solid gold, but it did not behave like gold. It was harder and stronger than any gold she had ever encountered, save perhaps the enchanted alloy that made up Celestia’s royal jewelry.

She was making no progress, so she had resorted to just staring at it, wondering if the thought would come to her. That was not likely, though. She was not an especially creative pony. If she were able to sleep, perhaps she would have dreamed the solution, but nopony in her bloodline since Nightwatcher had been able to reach such peace, not even Cavern Melody after she had lost her soul.

Five turned to Philomena, who was sleeping restlessly on her perch.

“Lucky,” said Five, swiveling on her chair, slowly revolving. “I never get to be unconscious. Awake for every minute, ever second aware. It’s so long…”

She suddenly stopped herself and looked out into the room. Gell and Rainbow Dash were using most of the nuclear reactor’s power to heat their water, so Five had turned out most of the lights. For some reason, though, the shadows seemed to be growing far more intense than usual.

Then she knew why, and smiled even though she was not happy.

“What do you want?” she said.

The shadows against the shelving racks seemed to condense, and to grow physical form, until something stepped out. Not from the shadows, but within the shadows. Something with bright green eyes.

“You already know,” said the shadow.

“No, I don’t,” said Five.

“Yes, you do, because you are me. You can feel it too.”

“I feel nothing.”

“Another point,” said the glowing-eyed shadow. “Like the one that formed you. Paths converging. Can’t you feel it?”

“No.”

“You will, in time.”

“Then why don’t you do something?” The eyes stared back, their blank vertical pupils more amused than confused, but there was no response. “You know you can. You can have this body if you want it. I am not using it for anything worthwhile anyway.”

The shadow shook her head. “No,” she said. “I have lived my life, and countless more. This one is yours, not mine.”

“You call this life?!” shouted Five, nearly waking Philomena. “A finite existence where I do nothing but wait to die? What point is there? You are immortal! When Six is born, you will pass to her, and to the rest of them! Why should I have to exist when you can?”

“Your path is chosen, and was chosen, long before you. You cannot escape it.”

“But I can try.”

“You can. But is that a worthwhile use of your time?”

“There is nothing else I would rather use it for.”

“So be it. But for now, I have no reason to interfere, save to warn you, and to lend you the use of my power, even if it is for such…trivial things. Tell me, though.” She paced across the room, her form obscured by the darkness Five knew was only perceived. “This machine you are building. Will it work?”

“I don’t know. I still need more parts, but I am working on it.”

“Fluttershy, Twilight Sparkle, Rarity. You still require three…and are you sure that Rainbow Dash will be compatible, even though she lives?”

“If she is not, I will kill her and take her skull,” said Five calmly. “Then she will be as compatible as the others.”

“What you are trying to do is unholy.”

“Says the Queen of the Necromancers.”

“I do not say that with judgement, as I cannot comprehend the morality of your age, or the ages subsequent. But know what you are building.”

“I do.”

The shadow smiled. “Then you now have my reason.”

“What?”

“I could never build such a device. I do not know how. So you must live now, to finish it. To build a machine that can murder Thebe herself.”

“No!” said Five, standing, frightening Philomena into awakens. As the Phoenix burned, the shadows were momentarily illuminated, and Five saw the skeletal three-horned shape within the shadows, if just for a moment, before they collapsed into the true shadows of the room.

Philomena squawked, angry at being awakened so abruptly, and sat back in her chair.

“It is okay, sister,” she said. “I apologize for waking you. I had one of the hallucinations again.” Five extended her hoof, and Philomena landed on it. She stroked the bird’s head with her other metal claw, but momentarily looked down at her own cutie mark, and the stain that surrounded it. Once again, her offer had been refused, and once again, she would continue onward.