The walls shook with a resounding explosion, and the gravity engines whined in protest against the sudden surge of kinetic energy in the outer hull. Futher explosions erupted as something burst through the nearly solid mass of the Pyramid, tearing through its structure with reckless abandon.

“THEBE!” called a voice, just barely audible through the structure.

Thebe sighed. She began moving the primary engines out of the way, clearing a path that would ensure that her rather rude intruder did not damage anything seriously. At the same time, she disconnected the leads into her spine and retracted the machine she had been working on, forcing it to be pulled back to where it would not be seen, or, more importantly, not be damaged.

She decreased the reinforcing spells on the walls, at least partially. Her guest likely barely noticed; the amount of energy he was expending on pounding through them was actually rather incredible- -if entirely pointless.

Then he finally burst through the final barrier, entering the room where Thebe was standing, waiting. The Grand Magus stepped through the hole he had knocked in her wall, his mouth dripping with liquid fire. He had discarded his robe before entering, and now appeared in Draconian battle armor- -an impressive sight, indeed, even if it was technically outside of traditional Draconian garment customs.

“Thebe!” he screamed, reaching for her. His claw cut through several of her shield spells- -again, something Thebe considered mildly impressive- -and he picked her up by the neck. “What have you done?!”

“I did not give you permission to touch me,” said Thebe, mildly annoyed. Fortunately, the suit prevented any actual contact between them. If Thebe actually made contact with another living being, she knew that she would be much less amenable to friendly conversation.

“Touch you? Touch you?!” His claw tightened, closing around her neck. “I should tear your head off! Do you have any idea what you- -”

“Yes, Grand Magus,” snapped Thebe. He was momentarily taken aback by her response. Even though he was crushing her, she still responded loudly and with confidence, speaking not through her long-inactive windpipe but through the magic that sustained her. “I know exactly what I did. You do to. You asked me to do it.”

“Asked you- -you just wiped out half the population of Equestria! When did I ever ask you to do that?!”

“The creature. You wanted help eliminating it. I recall this well. It reproduces through infection. I have eliminated all centers of infection. Or most of them, at least. Now they can no longer breed.”

“Breed- -they were breeding? There are more than one?”

“There are now hundreds. I think some died in the blast, but it proved far less effective than I had hoped. They are…durable.”

“But the other ponies! All those ponies! You killed them!”

“Spike,” said Thebe. “You of all being should know. They were already dead. From the moment they were born. Their lives are so short that they are trivial. Insignificant. Death now is no different from death in twenty, forty, two hundred years- -what could they even accomplish? I have destroyed nothing; only infinitesimally accelerated an unavoidable process.”

“Are you insane?!”

“No. My view of the world is correct, and logical. You are the one who just broke into my home and attempted to strangle me. And, in relation to that…”

She watched the Grand Magus’ eyes widen as he was suddenly forced backward away from her with tremendous force, thrown through the air by a burst of red magic. Behind him, Thebe reinforced one of the walls he was rapidly approaching and slammed him against it. She listened carefully, hoping to hear the sound of cracking bones and dislocating joints, but was disappointed to hear nothing more than a resounding thud and the sound of the air leaving his lungs. Draconians, it seemed, were more durable than she had expected.

The magic that had driven back the Grand Magus shifted, separating into a construct of a large mechanical claw. Its fingers spread out over him, pinning him to the wall, and divided to hold his arms, legs, and wings in place.

“What I am doing is right,” said Thebe, floating over, her robe extending and drifting behind her. “What I am doing is just. They are ponies- -they mean nothing to an alicorn.”

The Grand Magus did not bother resisting his bindings, although Thebe knew that with enough effort he could easily have shattered them. Instead, he looked into her eyes- -the blank, ever-staring sculpted eyes of her steel mask. “Is that really what you believe? Thebe, I know you. I have known you for a long time. Can you look at me and say, truly, that you will be able to live with yourself for this?”

“All I can do is live,” said Thebe. “It is all I have ever done. I am immortal. I cannot die.” She glared at him, feeling the hatred within herself growing. “And do not pretend to care about me, Grand Magus. It is growing…old.”

“Thebe,” said the Grand Magus. “I do care about you. I always have.”

“And yet you chose her instead of me,” she whispered, knowing fully well that the Grand Magus could hear her. “When I needed you- -you turned away from me. For a mortal.”

“Thebe,” said the Grand Magus, looking hurt. “I loved her- -”

“If anything,” said Thebe, trying to control the desperate homicidal rage that was welling within her. “You should be supporting my endeavor. I have no reason to hate ponies, but you do.”

“I can never hate them,” said the Grand Magus.

“Really? Reference the three before you, and what they did to your ‘beloved’ Rarity. The unfaithful husband who brought home the disease that rendered her sterile? He was a pony. The second husband, the one who beat her relentlessly? A pony. The third, who addicted her to enhancement metal in the name of ‘high-society’? A pony. How is it that you are foolish enough not to hate them?”

“And she was a pony. A pony that I loved, and will forever love. Even you were once a pony- -”

He gasped as Thebe closed her construct around him and forced him into the wall, crushing his armor around him.

“Do not compare me to them!” she cried. “They are nothing more than property! I own them- -I own all of them! If I desire to wipe them away from this world, it is my prerogative!”

The Grand Magus moved beneath the force of her magic. His right hand ignited with green fire, and he drove it forward, crushing through the red light, tearing apart the spell that held him in place. He was strong, far stronger than Thebe had expected.

With the spell compromised, the Grand Magus exploded into green flame, separating himself from Thebe and forcing her to float backward a distance.

“So that’s it?” he said, his mouth dripping flame. “You care that little for them? You don’t even remember, do you? When you had friends, what love even feels like.”

“I have never had friends. And I will never feel love. Only power, and the desire for more of it. This is the nature of the alicorn- -the nature that the other four refused to comprehend. That we can only be alone, because there is no equal. Not even you.”

“What is your intention, Thebe?” said the Grand Magus, stepping through her magic as though it were nothing.
“To correct my mistakes,” said Thebe. “A noble goal, I believe. My initial blow failed to exterminate my enemies- -so now I shall march across this land and purge the disease from within. Even if I have to eradicate every pony alive, I will succeed.”
“Am I going to have to fight you? To start a war between Draconia and Equestria?”

“War?” said Thebe, smiling beneath her mask. “Spike…you’ve already lost.”

“Really? Because right now, it looks like we’re pretty evenly matched.”

“Perhaps we are,” said Thebe. “Or, would be, if I were as limited by morality as you were.”

“What are you talking about?” said the Grand Magus, stopping his approach. His expression changed, just slightly, but enough to betray his emotions to Thebe.

“Vulcan Colony,” said Thebe. “Originally, it was an ancient mining outpost for the Aurasi, until Void and Nil rendered them extinct. Until Crimsonflame inherited it, and gave it to you when you inherited her title. How many dragons live there, I wonder?”

“Thebe…what are you implying?”

“That I ten orbital platforms loaded with Cerorian-type xenonuclear warheads pointed directly at it, ready to be fired at a moment’s notice.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“I just eradicated billions of my own subjects. What do twenty something Draconians mean to me?”

“Thebe, there are children there!”

“Children that will grow to hate me, to fight me, to be killed by me- -I am only saving them from that fate. Or would be. I suppose you have the true choice, here.”

The Grand Magus stared at her, glaring. “You…you are a monster, Thebe. I never wanted to admit it to myself…but I can see it now. Thebe…what happened to you?”

“Lower your shielding layers,” said Thebe. “I really would rather not waste my warheads today if I can avoid it.”

“Fine,” hissed the Grand Magus, and the cloak of fire surrounding him dropped.

“There we go. Nice and peaceful. Also.” She raised her hoof, and her magic condensed into a solid, forming a small memory chip. She levitated it to the Grand Magus, who took it from her.

“What is this?” he asked.

“My findings, so far, on what our mutual enemy is. You helped me. So now I have helped you. Fair is fair. Now…I suppose you will want to be investigating that pit it made when it took my legs. So…”

The space around the Grand Magus erupted into a bubble of red light, and he was instantly gone, teleported halfway across Equestria. Thebe watched him go, and then reinforced her external shields to ensure that he would not be able to enter her sanctum again.

There was still much work to be done. Eradicating the early infected would not be enough; Thebe needed a way to defeat the ones that already walked. She knew her limitations, though. She knew that alone, she was not strong enough. The only solution, therefore, was to increase her power.

She pulled the machine she had been building back into the room where she was working. A way to increase her power- -once again, irony had infiltrated her life. The Vandrare, by failing to kill her, had given her the means she needed to defeat them.

Thebe watched her reflection glinting off the slowly revolving item in the center of her device. The last relic or Order from a barely averted age, taken long ago from a forgotten kingdom. For the first time since King Sombra had ruled one and a half millennia before, it would finally be used for its true purpose.

Thebe smiled as the red light of her three horns glinted off the jewel-like facets of the still-living core of a long-deceased Lord of Order: the Crystal Heart itself. A weapon of unfathomable power; a device destined from its inception to stain the soil of Equestria red with pony blood- -a destiny that Thebe would ensure that it achieved.