“What…what is that noise?” asked Shining Armor, wincing.

“I don’t hear anything,” liked Five, closing the door to the Pocket. In truth, she could hear it- -or feel it, or however she perceived the Pocket’s innate wrongness. Still, she had little time to worry about such trivialities. It was warm in the Pocket, or at least as warm as it ever was, and most of her body had severe frostbite. Her nerves were already beginning to regenerate, though, and she was healing- -which, when coming out of a freeze, was always horribly painful.

Pink-violet light surrounded Shining Armor’s horn. Five watched, vaguely amused. She had little knowledge of necromancy- -her counterpart kept those along with most of her own memories hidden- -but understood the basics of what Shining Armor was. What really interested her was how he was managing to use his horn, considering that his skull was more decorative than anything else. He had no true brain, and no true mind. Every part of him was in the crystal in his chest- -and yet he still used his horn for magic.

The “noise” of the Pocket suddenly stopped, and for the first time in her life Five realized just how loud and oppressive it had been. Losing it felt like getting hit by a truck.

“How- -how did you do that?” she demanded.

“You were running the system completely wrong,” said Shining Armor. “First off, this whole place was designed to be a warehouse. I think. Or something like that. Then somepony went and expanded its size. That, and the whole thing was full of ungated permeation corridors. It still doesn’t feel quite right, but I think I have fixed it for now. I also added a portal divergence system.”

“That’s…how did you do that?” Five was, for once, actually surprised. She had assumed the errors of the Pocket were just part of innate being, and she had ignored them. It had occurred to her that it might have been caused by a defect, but she had no mechanism to fix it.

“I virtually invented this spell,” said Shining Armor, smiling. “You were just executing it horrendously. And…something still feels off…”

“That is incorrect,” said Five, “from a historical perspective, at least. The Pocket technology was originally invented by the Pocket family.”

“Wait, what?” said Shining Armor, turning around and facing Five. She did not especially like looking at his face, but tolerated it. “Pocket? You mean Turned-Out Pocket?”

“That is correct.”

“He was my assistant in the early process,” said Shining Armor. “I mean, at least as much as he could be. His magic was so poor I didn’t even bother turning his horn into a rifle. I mean, the fool was very nearly an earth pony.”

“I assume you could sue for the patent,” noted Five.

“Sue- -what? Do I really look like I have a need for money? I am dead, miss…Anhelios?”

“Five,” said Five, coldly.

“Miss Five. It’s strange, you look exactly like her.”

“We all do.”

Five pushed past him, her body beginning to spark with Order. She was healing. Unfortunately, there was a risk that the very force keeping her alive was also accelerating her demise. She removed a small bottle of 5-fluoracil from one of her tactical pouches and swallowed the contents of the container.

The others had already entered the Pocket and gone elsewhere within it. Gell had stormed off after a substantial argument about whether Shining Armor should even be allowed in; she had probably buried herself in broken glass and unconsciousness by now.

She had, at least, hauled Proctor into the Pocket. Proctor now sat in an uncomfortable looking heap near the door, his eyes blank and his body limp, or as limp as an equidroid could be. Theoretically, it was possible that Five could have just left him outside with the wandering constructs. They were not going anywhere, because there was nopony on the outside to carry the Pocket. Five was no an idiot, though, and she knew that Proctor was in contact with something. At least in the Pocket, he was relatively well insulated.

Brown and Rainbow Dash had both disappeared as well. Brown, most likely, had gone to get something to eat. Likewise, Rainbow Dash had headed directly toward the kitchen, most likely to drown her newfound problems in alcohol- -or try to, at least. Five did not especially mind; she herself could not drink anything aside from distilled water, and a drunk Rainbow Dash was a Rainbow Dash that did not ask questions.

“So why am I here?” asked Shining Armor, his eyes narrowing.

“How? Because I told you to be here.”

“Now, Ms. Five. I’m trying to be polite. But you aren’t the one to give orders here. Remember, I could turn you into red mist at any moment.”

“No, you couldn’t,” said Five. “But that’s not the point. You claim to be Shining Armor. As in, Prince Shining Armor, Emperor-Consort to Empress Mi’Amore Cadenza, brother of Princess Twilight. Is that correct?”

“It used to be,” said Shining Amor, coldly.

“Good. Because I don’t care. My question is: can you teleport?”

Shining Armor looked confused, or as confused as a hybrid of dead flesh and alchemically animated machinery could look. He involuntarily rubbed the back of his neck. “Yes, I can,” he said.

“Long range?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Come with me.”

Five reached out with one of her gauntlets and flexed the claws. The oil had frozen and was starting to thaw, and she sighed. That meant more recalibration. It still worked enough for her to close the claws around the air near an empty wall.

The end of her hoof sparked with Order drawn from her horns, and demonic symbol activated on the wall, resolving into a complex pattern and finally a door.

“That explains the ungated cross-channels,” said Shining Armor. “I suppose your pet has been using that pointless demonic portal magic.”

“Gell? Yes. She has.”

“No wonder this place was a mess.”

Five pulled open the door and stepped into the darkness beyond. Shining Armor followed, the dim light form his phylactery illuminating the Basement as the door closed behind them.

“Well, this explains it,” said Shining Armor as the lights in the room flickered as they activated. “This room…where did you even get this? How did you even make this?”

“Carefully,” said Five.

Shining Armor looked around. “There’s not much I can do for this one, I’m afraid. It’s completely divorced from the main segment. I’m surprised it hasn’t drifted off yet, actually.”

“I don’t care. Leave it if you can’t fix it,” said Five. She pointed at the mess of equipment that filled the large room: the six podiums linked by wires and cables and tubes to a central assembly, two of the slots already populated with skulls and a third with a complex harness. “What do you think of this machine.”

Shining Armor looked toward the mess, and his mechanical pupils dilated. He actually seemed somewhat interested, and walked directly to the pair of skulls. He paused, and stared at them for a moment, smiling.

“Pinkie Pie,” he said to the first of them. He then turned to the other. “And Applejack. Hello, my friends…” He turned back to Five. “And four more spaces for four more skulls. Ms. Five, what exactly are you doing with this?”

“You are supposed to have been one of the greatest sorcerers ever to exist,” said Five. “On par with even an alicorn. Tell me, what do you think I am doing?”

“You are trying to use the Elements of Harmony.”

Five nodded. “Something like that.”

“Why? When the users of the Elements can no longer use them, they fall back to the Tree of Harmony. This is…”

“This is a weapon,” said Five, bluntly.

Shining Armor blinked, but did not react as Five had expected. She had studied history well, and had always rather disliked Shining Armor. He always seemed self-righteous and annoying. Now, though, he was anything but. He simply seemed to accept her words, and Five realized that he already knew- -he just did not care.

“The Elements of Harmony as a weapon,” he mused. “That’s an unusual thought.”

“You are aware of the fact that they were originally intended as weapons of mass destruction.”

Shining Armor chuckled. “Only in the most limited of senses.”

“They are products of a Lord of Order,” said Five, fully serious.

Shining Armor’s eyes narrowed. “I know. I know better than you ever could what those monstrosities are. I was there when Nil emerged from the Finality Core. The power of a god, and he was still already half-dead at birth.”

“Then you know what I could do if I had all six.”

“Or what the highest bidder could do with all six?”

Five smiled. “You know me well, I see. Am I that transparent?”

“Of course. Your personality is not much different from that of your ancestors.”

Five cringed, and suddenly wanted to strangle Shining Armor. She was forced to recall that he had no trachea, and no real brain, so strangling him would be pointless. She forced herself to calm down.

“But,” said Shining Armor, “you won’t get all six.”

“I won’t?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “Because I won’t let you.”

Five sat down. This was not going as expected. “Why?”

“Because I will not let you lay a hoof on my sister. Not for something like this.”

“She’s dead, Shining Armor. She has been for a long time.”

“So have I.”

Five sighed. “I was actually rather helping that you could help me finish this device.”

Shining Armor actually laughed, further angering Five. “Really? Surely you’re not serious.”

“I am,” said Five.

“No,” said Shining Armor. “Your invention does not concern me. Looking at it, I doubt it would even work.”

“You owe me this, Shining Armor.”

“Owe you?” he said, smiling. “Why would I owe you?”

“I brought you back. I put that crystal back in your chest.”

“Yes. You pulled me back into a world where my kingdom has collapsed, my wife has been murdered, and my sister resorted to suicide because I was not there for her. Thank you, Five. Thanks a lot.”

He crossed the room, stepping carefully over the cables, and found a bare spot on the wall. He ignited his horn, and slammed his hoof into the wall. It rapidly resolved a thick door of dark wood, complete with an engraved version of the same cutie mark that was cut into the metal of his flank.

“What did you just do?” demanded Five.

“I told you I basically designed this spell,” he said, pulling the heavy iron ring on the door. “This door confirms that my original laboratory has not been compromised. I am linking it to yours.”

“You’re going to leave me?” said Five, her anger finally showing through.

“No,” said Shining Armor. “I will always have a door here, but not for you. I don’t like you. But I do like Blackest Night. She was a very close friend of mine. We fought together in the Choggoth War. I even named my son after her. I have work to do rebuilding my armies, and my kingdom, but I will teleport your external anchor to a safe distance before I leave you.”

He pulled open the door, and the Basement was filled with the smell of death and exotic and inedible herbs. Shining Armor passed into the darkness, and the door faded behind him.

“He’ll be back,” whispered the shadow on the edge of Five’s mind that stared from the void with green eyes. “He most definitely will…”

Rainbow Dash took another sip from the bottle of alcohol. She was not sure what it was, exactly, but it was green in color and tasted terrible. Still, it made the pain go away, at least a little, so she kept drinking.

She had been getting better. In all the action, and with Brown and Proctor, she had started to forget about her friends. Then Shining Armor had come back, and she had been forced to face everything she had lost once again, and this time to see the fact that she had gained nothing, save ponies trying to kill her for no apparent reason.

The worst part was that she had seen this before. She knew exactly what alcohol would do to a pony; the same thing had happened to Soarin. Unlike Rainbow Dash, he was unable to tolerate the systematic anti-blue racism that had essentially ended his career. He had drowned his pain in cider and pie, to the point where he could no longer fly even if he were to try to. He had been the first stallion that Rainbow Dash had thought she loved, and she had watched him destroy himself- -just as she was doing now.

There was no other option, though. Her life had been stripped bare, just as Shining Armor’s had. There was no other way to stop the pain.

The green stuff was a bad choice, though. It made Rainbow Dash sick, and it barely made her drunk aside from the slightest buzz.

As she wandered down the halls of the Pocket, she suddenly felt the weird feeling that seemed to follow her end. It was like a huge weight being lifted off her, and she felt marginally better.

She turned a corner, and saw Brown approaching from the other direction. He was munching crackers as he walked. Never before had Rainbow Dash seen a pony that looked so sad to be eating crackers.

A thought occurred to Rainbow Dash, though, and it felt like electricity had been shot through her spine. She felt like she wanted to run, but Brown had already seen her.

“Hello, Rainbow,” said Brown, pulling a bottle of milk from his fluff and drinking some of it. “Are you feeling warmer?”

“Um- -yeah,” stuttered Rainbow Dash. “And…are you feeling…less penetrated- -I mean your sword wound.”

“Not even a scar,” said Brown, smiling, brushing his fluff with his hoof where he had been stabbed. “I know not what manner of magic has healed me, but I admire its thoroughness.”

“That’s good, Brown. Real good.”

Brown smiled, and then started to continue walking.

“Um- -Brown,” said Rainbow Dash, blushing.

“Yes, Rainbow?” he said, stepping backward to face her. He really was shorter, Rainbow Dash realized. Brown actually had to look up to look into her eyes.

“About…” She took a breath. “About what I said when we were fighting. I don’t want you to get the wrong impression, but…well, we were in the middle of a fight, I mean, and I thought we might not make it out. I think I got a little carried away and may have promised you something that I’d rather…not do.” She winced. It felt terrible, because she normally strived to be a pony of her word, but in this case she simply could not do what she had promised.

“Oh?” said Brown, looking perplexed. “What was that?”

Rainbow Dash sputtered and blushed. “You remember! Right after I kicked you out the door! I had the sword and stuff, remember?”

“Not really,” said Brown. He looked somewhat concerned. “I remember…my vision went red, and I started killing. I couldn’t stop myself. It just felt so good. But I don’t really remember much specifically. That, and I had a substantial loss of blood.”

“Oh,” said Rainbow Dash. “So you don’t…remember?”

“Not anything you said, no,” said Brown. “But,” he said, his blue eyes looking directly into hers. They did not look nearly as dead as they formerly had. “I do remember that when I was fighting, you were there. You were beside me. Because of you, I did not have to fight alone.” He bowed. “I truly thank you, Rainbow Dash.”

“No problem,” she said. “Any time.”

“You mean we could fight together again?” said Brown, looking up. “I think I would like that.” He sighed. “Also, while I am here. I want to apologize to you.”

“Apologize? For what?” Rainbow Dash was not sure if the green stuff was starting to work, but this conversation had taken a turn that she was not expecting. She had approached him to try to explain that she had not really meant what she said when she promised to “buck” him during the battle- -and now he was apologizing for something.

“For insulting your alicorn friend, Twilight Sparkle, as well as your flightless sister.” He winced slightly, realizing that he had just insulted Scootaloo again. “It’s just…I have not yet fully mastered language. I feel like my ancestors may have been a bit…condescending. In the future, I will try to be more sensitive to your feelings.”

“Oh,” said Rainbow Dash. When she thought about it, it kind of made sense. She had been angry at Brown for what she perceived as arrogance, but now she was not so sure that that was what it was. After all, she realized, Brown was not even a week old. It was a small miracle he could talk at all. That, in its own way, was both terrifying and saddening at the same time.

Brown pointed at the bottle she was carrying under her wing. “I do not wish to comment on your life choices, but be careful with that,” he said. He smiled again, and went on his way. “May the Fluffle smile upon you, Rainbow Dash,” he said.

“May the…yeah, you too!” she called back.

She continued to stumble down the hall as Brown went back to whatever it was he did. Apparently, as long as Rainbow Dash was in the Pocket, he did not feel a need to follow her like a fluffy brown shadow- -a behavior that Rainbow Dash detested, but somehow found herself missing. Being alone made the pain worse.

After draining half the bottle of alcohol, Rainbow Dash finally found herself in a part of the Pocket where she decided that she had never been. The lighting was dimmer and more subdued, lit by a combination of nearly orange track lights and strings of Hearthswarming’s lights. It seemed inviting, but also strange and disconcerting.

Rainbow Dash assumed that the sense of strangeness came from the green alcohol finally starting to work. She passed down the hallway slowly, looking at the strange, store-bought paintings on the walls. Most of them were abstract, or of things that Rainbow Dash hoped were abstract, drawn in dark reds and blacks. They made her feel afraid, but fit the mood of this hall perfectly.

There was a door in the hall, Rainbow Dash found, and it was partially open. Rainbow Dash looked up at the plaque written on the front and squinted for several seconds, only to remember that she could not read new-Equestrian. So, instead, she pushed the door open.

The light on the other side was equally subdued as that on the outside, but was better balanced. The room itself was large, with a floor made of what appeared to be large and highly polished concrete panels. The walls themselves were draped with flags and banners that seemed impossibly old and faded, inscribed with symbols and a language that was almost certainly not any kind of Equestrian.

All over the walls, however, were shelves. Many of them were filled with jars of various sizes and designs. Some were simple, the sort of thing that one might put jam in, but others were ornate, to the extent that Rairty would probably have swooned over their color or workmanship had she still been alive. All of them were similar, however, in that they contained pale organic objects floating in the fluid within.

Jars were not the only things that adorned the shelves, however. On many, there were rocks or crystals, half-broken skulls of things both pony and not. By far the most prevalent object, however, was a number of heterogeneous picture frames varying in size and design. All of them stood in stark contrast to the grim trophies around the room, as they all contained images of happy, smiling mares.

A sound pulled Rainbow Dash’s attention toward one side of the room, where the concrete sloped into a kind of pool. As she approached it, however, she recoiled; it was not filled with water, but rather with the glimmering color of thousands of shards of broken glass.

The glass shifted, and a pair of horns emerged from them, followed by a pair of large ears and a set of yellow eyes.

“Dashie,” said Gell, pulling the rest of her upper body out of the pool. The glass tinkled back onto itself as it fell from her. Despite being covered in glass, her body was absolutely devoid of cuts. “Coming to my room in the middle of the night? What’s a filly to think?”

“Oh,” said Rainbow Dash, looking around. “This is your room?”

Gell sighed. “Aww,” she said. “And I thought you came to visit me…” She sighed, “but I don’t have the proper equipment to deal with you here anyway. A mare like you deserves to be lain on the softest of beds, or into the pearlescent embrace of a cloud at sunset, not on concrete.”

Rainbow Dash blushed, and realized the significance of what coming to Gell’s room probably meant.

“I’ll just- -um- -sorry to disturb your- -bath?- -I’ll go now- -”

“Come on, Dashie,” said Gell, pulling herself fully out of the glass. Rainbow Dash saw that she was completely naked. She reached for her armor, which was hanging on a hook. “You know I am joking. A flower must be picked only when it is at the peak of perfection. Only then will its memory contain permenance.” She sighed. “An Three said that. Bit of a poet. Satin, I miss her.” strapped the armor around herself, attaching the leather straps dexterously with her cloven hooves and with her several rows of sharp teeth. “Besides,” she continued, “I’m not in the mood, for once. Not with that thing in my house.”

“You mean Shining Armor?”

Gell frowned as she nodded.

“Because he’s undead, right?”

Gell reached out her hoof and motioned with her hoof for Rainbow Dash to pass the bottle she was carrying. Rainbow Dash did so, and Gell took a long swig from it before pausing and returning it.

“It’s not just that,” said Gell. “I hate liches, but that’s just because I’m a demon. I could get over that. I would complain like There, but I could accept it. But not him.”

Rainbow Dash took another sip from the bottle, and found that it now tasted like Gell. It was a distinctive taste, but not entirely unpleasant.

“Shining Armor is not a bad guy,” she said. “I mean, a bit stiff, I guess, but I never had any problems with him.” She swirled the bottle, looking at what remained of the fluid within. She wanted to add more to her statement- -about how she did not think that the thing that had come back, that lich, really was Shining Armor. Not the real one, anyway.

Gell pointed at the bottle. “You know what that stuff is, right?” she asked.

“Um…absinthe?”

“No. Dish soap.”

“Oh,” said Rainbow Dash, looking down at the bottle. “That explains why it tastes so bad. And why I’m not drunk yet.”

Gell smiled. “You are just so adorable, you know that.” She sighed, and crossed the room. “But you’re wrong about Shining Armor. To be honest, this isn’t unexpected. I think I always knew, at some level, anyway.”

She reached upward to a high shelf to one particular picture, placed between two small plants. Gell took it down, and stared at it for a moment. She smiled, but in a way that was undeniably sad. She then passed the framed photograph to Rainbow Dash.

“What is this?”

“Just look at it,” said Gell.

Rainbow Dash did. It was a color photograph of four ponies. The first thing Rainbow Dash noticed was the pair of round blue eyes staring back at her in the center, and immediately recognized Five- -or a pony that looked nearly identical to Five, with slightly different hair.

Next to her was a rather stern, expressionless white unicorn stallion, staring at the camera with green eyes. He was being nearly knocked over by a much larger pony who had her hoof around him. On her other side, standing closer to Five, was a much younger looking unicorn, this one with a dark gray coat, black mane, and red eyes.

Rainbow Dash looked more closely at the pony in the center of the page, and her eyes widened. She was barely taller than the stallions, so Rainbow Dash had not noticed, but on closer inspection she saw the pink skin and the pair of tiny, blunt horns growing through a half-shaved mane of violet hair. With the expression on her face, complete with a seductive wink at the white unicorn, the identity of that figure was unmistakable.

“That’s- -that’s you!” she said, realizing that she was looking at a picture of young Gell.

Gell smiled. “I told you I used to have hair.”

“How- -how old were you? You look tiny!”

“I was tiny,” said Gell. “I was barely even one two hundred when that picture was taken. And that was…four hundred years ago?”

“Four hundred- -” Rainbow Dash looked back at the photograph, and realized that it did look old. It had not faded particularly, but it did show signs of aging. “Then…that’s not Five.”

“No,” chuckled Gell. “That is Anhelios. The first of them. My first friend.” She pointed at the picture, one point of her hoof falling over the white unicorn. “He is Holy Armament.” Her hoof drifted toward the younger, dark colored pony on the right side of the image. “And that is Blackened Shield.”

“Those were…your friends?”

Gell nodded. “Yes. My best friends, all three of them. We were inseparable.” She paused, as if unsure whether to continue. “Those were the only two stallions I ever had.”

“You- -you what?” said Rainbow Dash, blushing, taken aback by Gell’s forthrightness.

Gell nodded. “I loved them, Rainbow Dash. I truly did. Both of them. So I took them into my bed. Blackened Sheild…he only joined me a few times. I did love him, and he loved me, but not like that. He wanted what he could never have.”

Rainbow Dash looked down at the photograph, and saw how the younger unicorn had the slightest smile on his face as he looked up to the first Anhelios.

“And the other?”

“Holy Armament,” sighed Gell. “Yes. We were lovers. And let me tell you, Dashie…you have never felt true sex until you have had it with a changeling. He could be anything, anypony. Mare, stallion, both…but I would still have given up all of that for just another day with him.”

Gell wiped away a crimson tear from her eye. “Look at me,” she said. “I’m just a sentimental old fool now.”

“He was…a changeling?” said Rainbow Dash, trying to change the subject. She looked closely at the picture, but aside from his green eyes, saw nothing about him that revealed him as anything other than a white pony with blue hair- -blue hair with a pale stripe running through it.

“Half changeling,” said Gell. “And half unicorn.”

Rainbow Dash suddenly remembered what Gell had screamed at Shining Armor as she attempted to strange him. She gasped. “That’s- -that’s Shining Armor’s son?”

Gell nodded. “They both are,” she said. “Blackened Shield born from Cadence, and Holy Armament from Chrysalis.”

“Chrysalis?!” cried Rainbow Dash, recalling the queen of the changelings. She had only seen her once: a tall, alicorn-like insect. She was a grotesque monster. “How did he even- -” But then she remembered what had happened in Canterlot just before Shining Armor and Cadence’s wedding, and it made sense.

“They were brothers,” said Gell. “Half-brothers. Of course, they didn’t know that at first. Holy Armament never knew his father, and never cared. He said there was no point in devoting attention to somepony who had abandoned his mother- -even if he also hated her. But eventually they figured it out.”

“Wait- -you slept with two brothers?”

“Not at the same time,” said Gell defensively. “Well, maybe once. Really, one of my fondest dreams was to have a four-way and bring in Anhelios, but she…well, she wasn’t into that sort of thing.” She turned her attention back toward Rainbow Dash. “But that’s not the point. Blackened Shield was kind and noble. He would have died for Holy Armament. But guess what happened when he confronted his father about it?”

“What?”

“He was accused of murder and banished from the Crystal Empire. And never once would Shining Armor recognize his other son.”

“But you said Holy didn’t care.”

“He didn’t. Not really. But Blackened did. I did. I was furious. I still am. Did you know that Shining Armor tried to have Holy Armament killed?”

Rainbow Dash gasped. “No way,” she said. “I know Shining Armor, and there is no way he would have done that!”

“Believe what you want. Shining Armor was a cold and heartless father. Even before then, he was obsessed with his work. And…” Gell looked somewhat nervous.

“What?” asked Rainbow Dash.

“I…I don’t know. I loved Blackened Shield. He was like a little brother to me. But…something was wrong with him. Not always, but sometimes…sometimes I could smell it. Like he was rotting from the inside. I think…I think Shining Armor did something to him. Messed him up somehow.”

Rainbow Dash shivered. From the tone in Gell’s voice, she could tell that the thought of whatever Shining Armor might have done terrified even her.

“And what- -what happened to them?”

“They got old,” said Gell. “And they died. Ponies don’t live very long, not compared to demons.”

“You…you watched your friends die.”

“I did,” said Gell. “And so did she. And then I had to watch her die, and watch another one that looked just like her be born from the corpse. Satin, I hated Second. Not for any reason. I wish I could apologize to her. She didn’t even do anything, she just…she looked like my friend, my dead friend.”

“Gell,” said Rainbow Dash, putting her hoof on Gell’s. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” said Gell. “It’s how it works. I befriend them, and then they die, and a new one comes in their place. Always new, always different. That’s how it goes for me, and I won’t like and tell you it doesn’t work. But for them…I can’t help them, Dashie.”

“Help them from what?”

“That sickness, that black thing inside them. They were never supposed to remember their own deaths, their lives. It hurts them, and they can’t take the pain. Not like I can.” She stamped her hoof into the concrete floor, nearly cracking it. “Liches- -I hate liches,” she said, nearly on the verge of tears. “They take everything I love and corrupt it. I hate Shining Armor, Dashie. I hate him so much. If Satin would allow it, I would smash that crystal and send him to Her, even if he doesn’t deserve such an honor as eternal damnation!”

Rainbow Dash was shocked at how quickly Gell’s sadness had converted to anger, but it was something that she understood all too well. What her mind could not rectify, though, was the difference between Gell’s impression of Shining Armor and her own. Rainbow Dash had never been especially close to Shining Armor, but he was Twilight’s brother. He had never seemed like a bad pony, and Cadence had loved him dearly, and Cadence was not a bad pony. It was true that he had always seemed a bit stiff, and he did have an annoying voice- -but Rainbow Dash simply could not imagine him doing the things that Gell had described.

Yet, somehow, Shining Armor was a necromancer. That was undeniable. He had literally risen an army of the dead. This was an undeniable fact. Necromancers were supposed to be evil- -but Rainbow Dash knew in her heart that Shining Armor was not evil. She decided not to accept what Gell was saying, at least not yet.

Rainbow Dash fluttered into the air and set the picture back on the shelf. She could not help but remember her own friends, and the pain came back- -but it was different this time.

“They are kind of cute,” she said. Then she winced as her stomach started to gurgle painfully. “Annnnd there goes the soap.”

Gell laughed. “Come on. Let’s go pump that stomach and get some real alcohol in to you.”

The thought of alcohol made Rainbow Dash even more sick, but she nodded, smiling as best as she could, and joined Gell.

Before she left the room, though, she looked back at the picture on the high shelf, surrounded by a miniature black rose and a miniature white one, planted in small ceramic pots. She wondered, for a moment, why the Anhelios in that picture looked so much happier than theirs.

Time was something that Shining Armor had spent a considerable effort contemplating. It had been haunting him, dogging him throughout his existence. In time, his obsession had grown to the point where he could feel every second that passed stealing from him, weakening him, drawing away his strength.

In death, however, that burden had been lifted- -and he had not been prepared for the sensation. He had passed four hundred years in for him what had been a matter of seconds. The last thing he remembered was standing in the throne room, Cadence alive and smiling- -and then he awoke to a frozen void where the only things that moved were his creations, staring into the unblinking eyes of the pony he had once called Nightmare Moon.

He now continued, as though nothing had happened, his body incorrupt and eternal while so much had changed. This was even apparent in his laboratory. In all the time he had gone, not a thing had moved- -and yet it had all changed. The equipment- -the sort more at home in a high-tech university laboratory than a rational wizard’s lair- -had rusted and faded, the rubber seals on the samples of refrigerators having corroded by time. The solutions that lined the walls had long since dried or aged to the point of being useless, and many of his ingredients had long lost their potency.

Not all was lost, though. The fundamental glassware and endless automated machinery had aged well, and could be placed back into use relatively easily. The surgical tools he used for more precise work had also remained as shiny as ever, gleaming in his autopsy suites as though they were welcoming him back from a long trip. He supposed that, in a way, they were.

The freezers had also generally maintained their function. Shining Armor had never been a fan of electric compression refrigeration, and not his instincts had paid off. The enchanted ones had continued to function even after centuries of disuse, maintaining the parts inside in a magical stasis.

He approached one of the chambers and scraped the frost away from the surface. He was greeted by a face staring back at him, her face have converted into machinery. Even after all this time, her body was still embalmed properly, awaiting birth. So many of them were.

The laboratory itself was kept well below freezing. Shining Armor did not care; he had long ago lost the capacity to feel the chill. The parts and incomplete subjects that hung from the ceiling, however, had not aged well. Their spells had not been intact, and they had been lost.

Still, they were not necessarily a total waste. Components tended to age parabolicly. Using the freshest components led to the most life-like constructs; they would inevitavly be smarter, to the point where they sometimes failed simply from melancholy from realizing what they were- -something Shining Armor had learned to fix with heavy post-mortem cybernetics. Old parts, though, were just as useful. With the proper casings and spells, they build the most durable constructs. In a way, the number of now almost completely rotted corpses was a boon.

Shining Armor smiled. It felt good to be home.

“Rise,” he ordered, the light of his horn joining that of his phylactery. The complete bodies lying lifelessly against the equipment and tables stirred, and then Shining Armor’s servants rose. They seemed to stare toward him, as if they were surprised to see them- -even though Shining Armor had personally decapitated each of them, replacing their necks and heads with chimeric arrays of thousands of robotic manipulators that wired and writhed in the air like the antennae and mouthparts of thousands of metal insects.

They immediately responded to Shining Armor’s will, moving out throughout the laboratory. They rebuilt each other if they were damaged, and began cleaning and repairs. Based on their progress, Shining Armor believed that the laboratory would be fully function within a week.

The question, however, was how to deal with this newfound world. It was clear that things had changed, and society had progressed. The alicorns were dead, and the Third Era had been over for two hundred years. The extent of the change was uncertain, however.

“Flash Sentry,” ordered Shining Armor, engaging a different spell than the one that had resurrected his nameless servants.

The air around him resolved and hardened into a ghostly image. A translucent, gaunt, yellow Pegasus stallion appeared before him in black crystal armor. The stallion looked up at him with long-empty eye sockets, and then bowed. Behind him, the lesser souls were visible as skeletal apparitions, ready for orders.

“Go forth,” ordered Shining Armor. “Pass through this world, and observe how it has changed in my absence. Return swiftly.”

The long-dead shade nodded, and then turned to those under his command. All of them spread their ghostly wings and took to the air, their bodies dissipating into smoke as they left the laboratory into Equestria.

“A lemuramancer and a cadavremancer?” whispered a voice behind him. Shining Armor turned quickly, prepared to strike- -and saw a pair of nearly luminescent turquoise eyes in the blackness.

“Oh,” he said, lowering his offensive spell but not relenting on the defensive ones. “It’s you.”

“Shield spells, Shining Armor?” said Blackest Night, emerging from the shadows. She did not look at all like Shining Armor remembered her- -and yet looked identical. In his time, she had towered over him, wearing a distinctive crown that added two horns in-line with her own. Now she was small, shorter than him, with leathery wings and actual hair.

Despite this, she was still the same. Her skin was perfectly black, save for the gray area that surrounded the V-shaped crystal that made up her cutie mark. Even her silky hair was perfectly black, and her eyes were the same as they always had been. More than that, though, she moved the same way, spoke the same way. There was no denying that this was her, Blackest Night.

“This body, unfortunately, has no capacity to use magic,” she said. “At least not real magic. It is analogous to trying to use explosives to paint a masterpiece. It simply has no dexterity.”

“It does suit you, though.”

“I suppose it does,” she said, smiling, looking out over the large room where the servant drones had started repairing the machinery. “But I do miss being an alicorn. Having even one horn again was pleasant.”

They stood in silence for a moment, watching the undead work.

“You know,” said Shining Armor, “you may be the first living pony to witness the inside of this facility.”

Blackest Night smiled. “I am not a pony,” she said, “and I have not truly been alive since your kind were barely out of our test tubes.” She sighed, and her narrow slit pupils focused on Shining Armor. “To imagine that your species could have come this far.”

“Not far enough,” said Shining Armor.

“It is never possible to go far enough,” noted Blackest Night. “But still. I have existed for a long time. Far longer than anything else left alive in this world. Few things in it have impressed me. But you have.”

“I have done nothing,” said Shining Armor. The emotions he was feeling were strange. In a way, he was proud- -but at the same time disgusted and angry. The whole time, though, everything seemed so distant. He felt no real pain, not without actively trying. “Cadence is dead. My kingdom has been destroyed. I lost.”

“Have you?” asked Blackest Night. “Because I see only success. You have lost everything, and yet you continue.” She turned her face toward him, and she was smiling, her teeth sharp and pointed. “This is a feeling I know all too well.”

“Twilight told me, once,” said Shining Armor, happy to feel the pain that came with thinking of his beloved and now long-departed sister. “She told me what happened to your kind.”

“We were betrayed,” said Blackest Night, simply, her smile fading. “By my own student no less. But that is not the point, Shining Armor.” She gestured outward to his creations. “All this. You have built all this in the lifetime of a pony. Less, even. You have achieved what nopony- -not even of my kind- -have achieved in so long.” She pointed to the crystal in Shining Armor’s chest. “The simplicity, the beauty of it. A stone taken from Tartarus. Your soul is condemned to that stone, bound to it- -and you use that very fate to bind yourself to this reality.”

“It hurts.”

“No, it doesn’t,” said Blackest Night, smiling. “You just have not yet realized that. Congratulations, Shining Armor. You have created the first perpetual phylactery. You are now immortal.”

“This is not life,” he snapped.

Blackest Night only smiled. “You are wise for somepony so young. Wiser than a great many of my students. Failures, all of them. They died and became mine in the end.” She looked out at the constructs hard at work, running the organs they had in place of heads over the equipment, repairing it and cleaning it. “But this…this is absolute beauty, if a bit crude.”

“They are built to serve a function,” said Shining Armor, dismissively. “I’m not a real necromancer. If I was, I could bring them back. I could…” He could not bring himself to say it, because if he did, then it meant that his wife really was dead. For him, he had only seen her smiling face a few hours before. Now she lay as a forgotten and unburied skeleton in the tower where they had formerly ruled together.

“No,” said Blackest Night, shaking her head. “You already understand, even if you refuse to admit it. Your work betrays you. Resurrection is simple. A child can restore the dead to life, assuming that the source material is fresh enough- -and have an adequate number of horns. That is a parlor trick. True necromancy, however, is about creation. Not simply restoring the dead, but reshaping them, forming them, bending the dead to your will.”

“The dead exist to serve the living,” quoted Shining Armor.

“Indeed they do. And you have done this, and more. You have dominated them, bent death itself to your will. You are the first pony that I have not inhabited who I can say I am truly proud of.” She paused. “I have trained many necromancers, though. Many have seen that basic tenant, and many understood. Many sought to build armies like yours, to use necromancy to bolster their own power. All were destroyed by it.”

“Then I assume I was just lucky.”

“No,” said Blackest Night, rubbing Five’s hoof over Shining Armor’s back, feeling the metal spine just beneath the cold, dead skin. “Not at all. Those who seek to use our art for power are doomed to fail. The motivations of one who shall become a lich must be pure, primal, even. There is only one desire that can fuel a necromancer to go so far, to resign themselves to persist even after death. Do you know what that is?”

“Simple,” said Shining Armor. He had never considered it, but he supposed that he had always known, at least on some level. “The desire for life.”

It was a striking realization, and almost an agonizing one in its implications- -because it was so much more than that. Life alone was pointless. Shining Armor had enjoyed living, but as a soldier he had always known that his time to pass on would someday come. Or, that was how he once viewed the world, until he had met her. He had done something impossibly foolish: he had loved an immortal. Everything he had done he had done for life, yes, but life itself was just a means toward and end. That end was Love- -and it would now be forever beyond his immortal reach.

“Yes,” said Blackest Night, rubbing against Shining Armor’s body. He could not truly feel it, but he knew she was there.

“Don’t touch me,” he said, pushing her away.

Blackest Night continued to smile. “That body you have built. Your approach is so different, and yet…” She sighed and shook her head. “You have much work to do,” she said. “And the others will start looking for Anhelios soon enough. I will leave you to it. But…” she leaned in closer, to the point where their faces were nearly touching. “I will be here for you. And I will be speaking to you again.”

She retreated into the darkness, returning to her own world. Shining Armor did not watch her go. She was strange and dead, and he missed Cadence so much. For a moment, he considered allowing himself to fade and die, to complete what he had managed to avert. There was no point in living anymore.

The thought actually made him laugh. The irony of the statement was almost palpable, and he could hardly believe that he could be so easily taken in by his own illusion. He already was dead. He had been for a long time, and Blackest Night was right. Cadence was gone, and so was his kingdom- -but not his creations. They still persisted, as he did, transcending death.

As long as he still existed, then he could still continue. This was not the time to fail, or to faulter. That was not what Cadence would have wanted. He knew her well, and knew what she would have wanted. Cadence would have told him to rebuild, to restore the power of his army. She would have wanted him to retake the Crystal Empire, and to continue to kill and create in an endless cycle of eternal conquest. This Shining Armor knew with absolute confidence.