Epicenter walked slowly across the surface of the water, the waves vanishing into pure calm at the force of her presence. Beneath her, she felt the presence of the cities of Beyond, now all abandoned. There was no point in bothering to descend below the surface; there was nothing to kill. Instead, she had simply trolled the resources from above, dredging up stones and monuments far larger than any Equestrian dwellings and tearing them apart, peeling away key components and allowing the chaff to descend back into the deep.

Then, finally, she set foot on land. She pulled herself onto the rocky shore, and through the strange forests of the remote atoll. From the smell in the air, she could tell that this was a land where no pony had set hoof in centuries, perhaps even in millennia. In fact, it was perfectly silent. No bird spoke, and no animal called. Only the gnarled, fungoid trees stood, their glossy and opalescent stems and trunks piercing the mist.

Epicenter was no alone, though. She could feel the other- -and feel her hatred and disgust welling within her. Without changing speed, she stepped through the forest, tearing a path through the trees as needed. Epicenter found that she did not like trees- -in fact, she rather hated them, but not these trees. These trees were small and inconsequential. She only hated one tree, but she could not remember anything more than a vast growth of white crystal looming hundreds of miles wide and thousands taller into the sky. She hated that tree, but she knew that it was dead. They had killed it. It had screamed. These trees did not scream. They died without a sound, or even a shudder. They were weak. As such, Epicenter could not hate them.

As she moved, the vestiges of the machines began to become apparent. Tentacle-like trunks of things that were not trees, made of dark-colored metal and luminescent white lights. She followed them, and followed the oppressive sensation of being near another of her kind.

Then she saw him. He was standing in the clearing, seeming to stare upward at the machine that was being constructed before him, at the writhing mass of engines and crystal that he was bringing into existence, pulling the mass of so many cities together to create the parts for their most sacred schematic.

He turned to her, his glowing eyes peering out of his extensive armor. She returned his gaze. Neither spoke, because neither needed to. Their minds were identical, and their goal the same.

Epicenter took her place beside him, and began unloading the mass she had collected. It printed above her, manipulated by her Order and her magic, assembling into combinations of machinery and crystal and flesh.

More would come. She had made sure that so many of them would be born into a world of truth and light. The creature- -the alicorn- -it had begun to try to fight them, but it was already too late. Enough had been created. They would march across this world, and gather the materials necessary. Others would come to join Epicenter and the original to build the machine. It was their goal, the one thing that united them all.

Even though, as Epicenter was distantly aware, not one of them knew what it was for.