Far in the distance of the lifeless hub city, a golem watched from the heights of a tall tower. It’s narrow body was coated in a shell of red magic, but to an outside observer, it would have been entirely invisible. Invisibility was trivial to Thebe, but this was far more than that. The golem itself was ghosting, its body only tangentially touching the realm of Equestria, held outside and secure by a powerful spell. It could not touch, and not be touched; and although it could watch, it was absolutely impossible for any outside observer to be aware of its presence.

Thebe controlled legions of golems, but this one, for the time being, was unique. With the situation at hand, she had forced through the Tantabus prototypes. This was the first of what she hoped to become a new line, a kind of golem that march through cities unhindered, to watch the very minds of her subjects as the goddess Luna once had.

That, of course, was only part of its uniqueness. Most of Thebe’s golems functioned on a lower level of her consciousness; that is, they were largely autonomous. It was seldom that she brought one to her true mind to see through its eyes, to use it as a puppet, but in this case, it was necessary. Her true body- -if it could even be called that anymore- -produced far too much magic to remain undetected, even with the containment suit. The time would indeed come when she would reveal herself, but not now: now, it was time to watch, to learn, and to know what she would face when she finally brought the might of Equestria’s one true goddess against this new enemy.

What she had learned had excited her greatly. She felt as though she had been asleep so long, with so little to do. The ponies that surrounded her were dull, ephemeral, and exceedingly fragile- -but this thing seemed to be so much more.

She had watched as it moved through the streets, her red-shelled golem following it from the shadows beyond reality. Its form alone had been breathtakingly horrid: a skeletal, eyeless biped with ashen gray skin covered in fine hair, the shadows of black machines visible beneath its translucent flesh, sometimes ulcerating through and liking to one half-formed gauntlet on its left hand. It was truly a monster, a creature not meant to exist- -but it had moved with such grace and power, as if in defiance of a world where it did not belong, and in defiance of death itself, which surely should have claimed such a horror long ago.

That alone was interesting, but not highly relevant. If Thebe had wanted a monster, she could easily have easily created one. It was what it did that made it special. She had watched as it had, without any visible effort, destroyed an entire city of equidroids, wiping over two hundred AIs before they even knew what was bringing about their death.

Then it had walked through the wreckage, alone, unaffected by what it had done- -or perhaps admiring the carnage, until it had reached and decrepit wearhouse. There, Thebe had witnessed a display of magic that brought a powerful tingling sensation to parts of herself that she had long forgotten that she even had. It had pulled together such disparate disciplines, drawing on matter from around itself. There was clairvoyance, telekinesis, material conversion, and so many others- -but even that was eclipsed by what Thebe momentarily felt from within it. This creature could do the impossible: it had the capacity to wield both Order and Chaos. No known creature could do such a thing; doing so should have been lethal. The few users of Chaos- -Discord, Buttery Snake, and the King in Yellow- -had no capacity to use Order; likewise, the only users of Order- -Choggoth Oblivion, the bloodline of Cavern Melody, and the deceased Six- -could never wield Chaos. This creature, somehow, had manipulated both so effortlessly, so procedurally; Thebe had never witnessed something so beautiful.

When it was done, it had constructed a kind of shell around itself- -although such a description was hardly appropriate. Thebe had watched carefully, and understood the nature of the armor, at least to the extent that her golem was able to witness without being detected. From her perspective, it seemed that the sickly semi-organic creature inside the armor was actually little more than an accessory to the armor itself, used as a kind of source of magic, or as a point to reset it into its true form. The irony was somewhat poetic- -both she, Thebe, and it, the creature, were sealed forever in suits of metal- -and yet could not be more different. Thebe’s was made of magic, an extension of herself, a correction of her limited pony form, while the creature’s was purely physical, made entirely out of machines that it had built to some kind of internal schematic, merging machine and flesh into a single pure form.

Then it had simply started walking. That had confused Thebe. For a creature of that power, teleportation should have been a simple task. It was possible that it simply did not know the spell, or lacked the mental facilities necessary to target or construct one. Thebe still did not know if this thing was truly alive, or a construct, or of there was any thoughts within its mind- -but she had a feeling that there were. By some kind of instinct, she seemed to know that it could teleport to its destination, if it wanted to. It simply did not want to: it wanted to walk, just as its twin had, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake.

Thebe’s golem looked down from the fractioning tower, and moved follow, to see where it truly was going- -but Thebe suddenly found that her construct was unable to move. She rotated her range of view, and suddenly the golem’s vision was filled with the sight of a black mask with a pair of wide, luminescent eyes. Thebe looked down, and saw that its fist had broken through the golem. Her mind scrambled to understand what was happening: how it had seen its pursuer, and how it had so easily broken through the dimensional bubble, or managed to wound something that was meant to be intangible.

She looked back and saw that that the creature was still walking. For a moment, she wondered if they were different, if the one who had attacked her was a separate entity, one who had struck while she had been distracted watching the other. Then she saw the space around the one walking away from her shift and flicker. Thebe instantly recognized the spell: it had just jumped backward in time.

The golem was losing power quickly. Unlike its siblings, it was mostly constructed of magic, which the creature seemed to somehow be syphoning off. The creature seemed to have torn through the special field, moving across time and polydimensional space as though it were walking through air, without even hesitating.

The golem flickered out of existence. Just before it went, Thebe felt its final transmission: its confusion, not knowing why it was hurt, and its sudden fear as it faced unavoidable death. Then it was gone. There had not even been time to attempt to rescue it.

That was, of course, not a problem. Thebe could always make more. The only unfortunate aspect was that she was sure to lose her lock on the creature now. That, though, was also not a problem: there would be more. Thebe was not a fool. She knew how they reproduced, at least in general. They spread by an infection, one that existed as a kind of magic that even she was unfamiliar with. It had been fully within her capacity to quarantine the city, to prevent he infected from leaving- -but she had not. To do so would be illogical and counterproductive to progress. She had even taken steps to isolate the one uninfected survivor, having members of one of her shell corporations take him away so that he could not interfere.

The infection would spread. It had to. All those who fell to it would be cease to be ponies; instead, they would be converted into these creatures. Thebe had decided to allow this, to ensure that she had a surplus of test subjects. The ponies that changed were already condemned to death by their mortality; having them serve a benefit to an immortal would give them at least the vestige of a true purpose. Equestria would burn, and Thebe would watch over the flames, allowing them to spread and grow. When, once again, nothing remained except ashes, she would simply rebuild, herself smarter, better, and eternal.

This was the only logical course of action, and Thebe had no doubts in her mind of its course. The hunt would continue.