::>Boot_System
Loading…
Engaging Proctor v[NA], node [redacted]
Hardware detected:
Initializing unidentified memory object
Engaging: Twilight_Sparkle- -> Initialized
Engaging: Rainbow_Dash- -> Initialized
Engaging: Fluttershy- -> Initialized
Engaging: Pinkie_Pie- -> Print(“Okie dokie lokai”)
Engaging: Rarity- -> Initialized

::>Implementing Proctor implementation
Attempting to overwrite core morality functions (setting to rear load process)
Uplink to Proctor Network failed
Uplink to outside communication failed

System checking:
Test integration diagnostic scan
[Return time 0.2ns]
Status:

Core power output: 21%

Energy reserves: 11%

[reactor condition: 6/8 fuel rods failed]

Core processor: functional

[Redacted]: functional (yay)

Hard_Light Projector 1: irreparable

Hard_Light Projector 2: irreparable

Hard_Light Projector 3: irreparable

Hard_Light Projector 4: irreparable

Hard_Light Projector 5: 10% functional

Beginning final startup...

The fragments of disjoined code that could be reasonably called “Proctor” spiked into his Draconian memory core, and he felt the chaos of six individual lives flood into his consciousness. As he subsumed them, linking them together by the single, web-like subconscious and directive that the organics around him perceived as a single entity, the chaos of being so many ponies began to fall into a pattern of discrete thoughts.

Proctor was actually somewhat surprised by the fact that he had remained even marginally functional. His body, however, had taken considerable damage. Most of it had been self-inflicted; he had drastically overestimated the extent of his body’s capacity and destroyed much of it. His processor, however, and, more importantly, the memory cube, were both completely undamaged. Technically, Proctor himself was entirely expendable, nor did he anticipate existing longer than it took to complete his objective. As long as the cube survived with some part of his directive intact within it, he knew that Anhelios could complete the rest.

As he considered this for several fractions of a nanosecond, he suddenly became aware of a presence near him. His program was still booting, so his proper eyes had not fully been engaged. He was unable to see, but knew that whatever was near him was indeed the size of a pony and surrounded by a powerful magical field. It also had no pulse, brain activity, or body temperature. Instead, it seemed to be mechanical in nature- -but there was also no sign of electricity, a processor, or the characteristic signals of a transmitter and robotics. The magic permeating it indicated that it must have been a magical machine, something that Proctor knew was actually nearly impossible to produce- -or he had thought was nearly impossible to produce until he had been swarmed by hundreds of them about a day earlier.

His eyes were largely undamaged, save for some color discrepancy produced by the freezing of the artificial retinas. So he activated them and looked at the machine before him. There, sitting before Proctor- -who had been thrown unceremoniously into an awkward heap- -was a pony in what Proctor called a “pony-loaf” sitting formation, his legs tucked under his body as he waited.

Proctor’s processor momentarily froze. As a machine, his perception worked by accumulating data and comparing it to pre-determined mental constructs, or memories. The pony he was looking at met some but not all markers of relating to his memories of one Shining Armor. This determination took a moment- -almost five one hundredths of a nanosecond- -as Proctor’s computerized brain weighed what he was seeing. For one, the pony before him had several features associated with Shining Armor, including hair hue, facial structure, body structure, coat color, and eye color. It was also apparent that he was not alive, and constructed mostly out of metal and something that was not identifiable by Proctor as ponyflesh.

Eventually, however, Proctor came to the conclusion that the figure staring intently at him was at least reasonably close to being Shining Armor. This, he realized, had a number of implications. The first and most pressing was that it caused the processes in his core to buck, driving Twilight Sparkle’s memories and personality directly to the surface.

“Shining Armor!” cried Twilight_Proctor, turning over and jumping up. He wrapped Shining Armor- -who had a strange look on his face of hurt and surprise- -in a tight hug, one that probably would have crushed a living pony to death.

“Twi- -Twily?” he whispered, suddenly hugging back. “Twilie…”

A surge of sadness cut through Proctor, mixing with the happiness that was pouring from the core already. Shining Armor pushed him away, but still held his shoulders with his hooves.

“Is it…is it really you?” he asked, and Proctor felt the pain increase again.

“Well,” he said. “N…no. I contain overarching memories of her entire life, as well as the fundamental elements of her personality. Her cares, fears, concerns, thoughts, hopes, dreams, I have them all- -but I am afraid that I am…” he actually found it difficult to admit, “I am not her. Not…not really.”

“But you recognized me,” he said. “Even…even like this.”

“Of course.” Proctor did his best to smile, even though his face was trapped perpetually in a carved, skeletal grin. “Because you’re my B.B.B.F.F.!”

Shining Armor looked like he was about to cry, and then he wrapped Proctor in a highly unexpected hug. There was a collective “aww” from his inactive personalities.

“Twily,” he said, nearly sobbing. “I’m so sorry!”

“I- -I don’t understand. You are my…her, I mean- -our brother. We love you, Shining Armor.”

He backed away from her slightly and gestured to the crystal on his chest. Proctor could see that the crystal was generating- -or built of- -a tremendous amount of magic, the same sort that was powering Shining Armor’s body. His horn was also active, but Proctor hypothesized that it would be fully possible for him to survive as nothing more than that crystal with minimal impact to his magical strength. “Even…even like this?”

“I do not understand why you are in your current state,” admitted Twilight_Proctor, “but it doesn’t matter. Your still Shining Armor, right?”

“Right,” he said, smiling- -and lying. Proctor was not sure what to think; he himself doubted exactly what this creature was, even if his Twilight persona was unshakable in its belief.

Shining Armor released Proctor and stepped back, sitting on the ground. Proctor instinctively copied the position, sitting and facing Shining Armor. He was not sure exactly what Shining Armor was, although his appearance indicated that he being kept alive by some manner of necromancy. That nature was not known to Proctor, but he imagined that it was possible if not probable that Shining Armor would have had access to the necessary texts.

“Anhelios has told me what you are,” he said. “You are…a machine, of some nature?”

“That is correct.”

“And you are built with all of my sister’s knowledge, her memories- -and those of her friends as well?”

“Only in an academic sense. For example, I know that you were hypnotized by Queen Chrysalis, eight queen of the Changeling Hive, during your wedding but dismissed her control as headache treatments. I can also calculate how the real Twilight probably felt in that circumstance. But I do not remember it in first person.”

“Oh,” said Shining Armor, frowning. “And of all things to bring up…can we please not talk about that?”

“Oh. Sorry,” said Twilight_Proctor, embarrassed. “But yes. I am equipped with Twilight’s memories, as well as an internal database of all of Equestria’s history, largely for conversational purposes.”

“And how do you fit all that in there?”

“The datacube that I contain can hold nine thousand five hundred petabytes of data at optimal temperature.”

“I do not know what that means,” said Shining Armor, shaking his head. “But pleas. I have questions.”

“I was designed to answer them,” said Proctor. It occurred to him that Shining Armor, if he was Shining Armor, was likely quite old. There was a strong possibility that he had been in stasis for an extended period. He also realized that these ideas were strange to a pony- -his personalities certainly thought so- -but, of course, Proctor viewed the world far more clearly than an inherently inferior organic would be able to.

“Is it true what she said,” asked Shining Armor. “That you…that you…took your own life?”

Proctor cringed. The Twilight persona wept within him, and he could hardly contain it. He fully expected her to retreat into himself, to allow a stronger personality forward. Applejack or Rainbow Dash, probably, even though Rainbow Dash’s persona was generally more sensitive than it appeared. Instead, however, Twilight remained in focus.

“I’m sorry, Shining,” he said, his voice wavering. “I…you have to understand. She was alone. So alone. All her friends were gone. Cadence was gone, and you were gone. Then the Princesses left her. She was so alone. It…it hurt.” Proctor could actually feel the computer-simulated pain within him as his core calculated the exact level of desperation that an immortal would encounter upon realizing that everything that had ever mattered to her had been destroyed before her eyes, leaving her eternally alone. “If she knew you would have come back, if she only knew you weren’t dead- -”

“I am dead,” said Shining Armor. “Please, Twily. Please answer the question.”

Proctor nodded. “Yes,” he said. “I- -no, she- -killed myself. I couldn’t take the pain. I couldn’t watch it happen again. I loaded a pistol with a cerorite slug, and I fired it into my brain. She was discovered next to a suicide note addressed to Celestia, who had died two days prior. If it- -no. It isn’t. I know it isn’t. But my death- -her death- -was instant and painless.”

“That means more than you could ever know,” said Shining Armor, once again hugging Proctor. “But- -Twily, I’m so sorry. I don’t know if you can ever forgive me for leaving you! I failed you, Twily!” He released a bizarre moaning sound that was probably crying. “You- -you must hate me for what I did to you!”

“No,” said Twilight_Proctor. “I- -I know I’m not really Twilight, but I know her, perhaps better than any pony can, and she could never hate you. She loved you, Shining Armor, until the very end. And- -and she’s with her friends now. Aside from Rainbow Dash, I mean.”

“I know,” said Shining Armor. “I know.” He paused for another moment, and then spoke. “The other thing I need to know, if you can answer.”

“It is the least I can do for hurting you like this.”

“Cadence,” he said. “She- -she’s dead.”

“That is correct, I’m afraid.” Proctor did not fully understand pony emotions, as he had never been intended to be empathetic, but the personality core within him ached- -he knew that what he was doing to Shining Armor was worse than torture, or even death.

“But my memory,” said Shining Armor. He sighed and pointed at the crystal in his chest. “This body of mine, it has no brain. My mind is encrypted into this crystal. When it was pulled from my chest, it was damaged.”

“Are you hurt?” gasped Twilight_Proctor. “I can- -” but he knew he could not. He had no true magic, and now only a marginal ability to use hard-light. There was nothing he could do with such an artifact, even if he did know as much as Twilight had.

“Not permanently,” said Shining Armor, smiling, trying to reassure Proctor. “It’ll take more than that to hurt me. But I did lose some memories. The entire battle, mostly. I remember the gist of it, but…not all of it. Please tell me what happened.”

“Right,” said Twilight_Proctor. He attempted to answer the question- -and froze.

Neither of them moved for a moment, and Shining Armor started to look confused.

“Is something wrong?” he asked.

“File not found,” said Twilight_Proctor, worried.

“What does that mean?” demanded Shining Armor, somewhat angrily.

“It- -it means that I don’t know,” stuttered Twilight_Proctor, strangely hurt by his brother’s response. “I- -I don’t know how this happened. Or how I never noticed. I must just not have been looking.”

“What?”

“My memory concerning the Crystal Empire. It ends in 1036.”

“1036?” asked Shining Armor. “Why 1036?”

“Does it have any significance to you?”

“No,” said Shining Armor, bluntly. “Nothing important happened that year. And it was definitely not the year of the battle.”

“No,” said Twilight_Proctor. “I do know that the Crystal Empire was declared a level L quarantine zone in 1072. I can only assume that the battle occurred then.”

“I- -I don’t know,” said Shining Armor. “It’s all so…hazy.”

“This is disconcerting,” said Twilight_Proctor, somewhat afraid. “For that span, I do have memories, or rather, recorded history- -but none of it involves you, Cadence, or the Crystal Empire.”

“It’s okay,” said Shining Armor.

“No, it isn’t,” said Twilight_Proctor, angrily. “Why is it missing? What happened?”

“Could they have been removed from you?”

“No. I would have a record of it. Even I can’t delete a memory, just like a pony. But…it is not there.” Proctor thought for a moment. “Which, by logical deduction, means that I never had the memory to begin with. It was simply never programmed into me.”

Shining Armor’s eyes narrowed. “Who programmed you? Anhelios?”

Proctor giggled slightly. “She barely has a basic understanding of computers, let alone Draconian systems. No. The core was built by a team of scientists, and given consultation by Thebe. But…” Proctor paused. “I can infer. Cadence’s death saddens me greatly, even though I have known of it since my inception. But she was your wife, Shining. You loved her, and she loved you. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

“Don’t be,” said Shining Armor, producing the most pained smile Proctor had ever witnessed. “You couldn’t have done anything to stop it. Even when you were a pony.”

“I could have fought with you. I could have been there!”

“And I would have lost you too! Or…I suppose I did. But how long did you…she…make it?”

“Twilight Sparkle lived to the age of one hundred twenty six, dying in year 1031. Which, I suppose…I suppose that’s a reasonable span for a pony, isn’t it?”

“It is,” said Shining Armor. He frowned. “To be honest, she’s far better off dead.”

Proctor felt cold inside. In order to understand the conversation, he was continually running a sub-simulation of Shining Armor within himself, predicting responses based on the memories programmed within him. Until that point, he had determined that Shining Armor’s responses were generally within normal parameters, considering his situation. The last one, however, frightened him.

“Thank you for your help,” he said, flatly, standing.

“Not- -not a problem. Are you going to leave?”

“For now,” said Shining Armor. “But you, I think I like you. Perhaps we will stay in touch.”

Proctor smiled internally- -even though he found himself unsure about that proposition.

The sign on the door read, in modern Equestrian, “Here be Daemons”. It was scrawled in the geometric pattern of Three’s hoofwriting- -the same hoofrwriting that all five of the Anhelii bore, that Five had spent her life trying to escape. The ink, however, had not been allowed to fade; in the nearly two centuries that had passed since that sign was written, Gell had continued to keep the ink sharp.

Five pushed on the door, and found that it was locked. Gell always locked the door, even though it was technically pointless. Five simply raised her hoof to the keyhole and released a spark of Order, forcing the tumbler to solve itself. It was a limited spell, and she could do it easily on the clunky, primitive lock that Gell had installed- -she just hated to use Order, and Gell knew that.

The door swung open, and Five stepped into the light inside. It was all warm and reddish, colors that she detested in light. Five was the sort of pony to prefer cold, even greenish fluorescent light- -the very type of light that Gell loathed.

“Wake up,” said Five.

The glass pit shifted, and a pair of eyes emerged.

“You,” groaned Gell, sleepily pulling herself partially out of the glass. She did not bother to reach for her clothing. “I’m still cross with you, you know. For bringing that thing into our home.”

“I have no home. This place is a warehouse intended to store weapons and supplies. That is why you are here.”

“Am I really just a weapon to you?”

“When you are convenient.”

“You know, of all five of them, I really don’t like you.”

“You aren’t supposed to. And you can leave whenever you want.”

“But I don’t want to. Satin, you are thick.”

Five sighed. “Do you have it, or not?”

Gell raised one of her hooves, and a yellow pentagram appeared over it. Space distorted slightly, and a skull emerged. The pentagram vanished, and the skull sat upon her hoof, staring with excessively large and strangely shaped sockets.

“I don’t know why you even need this,” she said, passing it to Five, who took it greedily, treating it with the most delicate care she could managed, turning it over in her hands. “Don’t we already have a room full of unicorn skulls?”

“It isn’t a unicorn,” said Five, smiling. She pointed the skull at Gell, gesturing toward the large eyes and pointed horn. “This is an alicorn skull.”

Gell’s eyebrows lifted, but she did not seem especially impressed. “So?”

“So? There are only three in existence, and one is maintained inside Thebe’s head.”

“But that one isn’t Twilight,” said Gell. “It won’t work.”

“Not in the machine, no,” said Five, turning the skull over in her hooves. The thought that a Princess could have been reduced to a simple piece of property so easily, her head cleaved from her body and cast into shadows where her husband had not even bothered to look. “But with an uplink, I could tear a city apart with this magic. I mean, give attention to the horn, how intact it is!”

“I don’t like it when you talk like that, An,” said Gell. “And besides, your uplinks barely even work.”

“No, but a true uplink is possible. You have witnessed it.”

Gell’s expression contorted in disgust. “Yeah…back during the war. When we saw…it.”

“So you know it is possible…Besides, I have another skull in mind for the machine.”

“Really?” said Gell, clearly not convinced. “Which one?”

“You’ve already seen it. Shining Armor will be more than adequate.”

“Um…An, he’s not exactly Twilight Sparkle.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Five, quickly. “They are direct siblings. The genetics alone are close enough, and their magical signatures are nearly identical. Even their cutie marks are similar.”

“And you are similar to most chiropterans. ‘Similar’ is not the same as ‘identical’.”

“Yes, but he doesn’t need to be. He is already dead. Linking Proctor to his skull should be adequate to summon the Elements of Harmony.”

“Okay,” said Gell. “I’m not saying I like that plan, but stripping the skull out of that adulterous corpse does sound fun. But you still need Rarity and Fluttershy.”

“Really? You accusing somepony of adultery? Isn’t that one of your Seven Blessed Virtues?”

“Lust,” snapped Gell. “Lust is. Adultery is frowned upon. Greatly. Such males are inferior and slain without mercy.”

“Slaying a partially animate corpse…”

“Never mind that,” said Gell. “If I know Shining Armor- -and I do- -you will never get him to agree to this.”

“He will,” said Five.

“No, he won’t…unless you know something.” Gell’s eyes narrowed, and she smiled. “You do.”

“I do indeed,” said Five, also smiling. “She gave me a prophesy.”

Gell’s smile immediately vanished, replaced with a frown. “And you believed it?”

“Blackest Night is never wrong,” said Five. “She is limited in her sight, but her sight is always true. Summarizing, she says that I will succeed.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

The actual prophesy was far more complex than Five was suggesting. Whatever mechanism allowed Blackest Night to see the future was imperfect. Apparently, looking across the vast scope of time was dangerous, even to a parasitic sub-pony. Everything that came out was cryptic, and Blackest Night was never aware of her prophesies directly- -something that Five had concluded was a defense mechanism, most likely, designed to keep her mind intact.

The actual prophesy, which Five did not bother to tell Gell, went: “And so, it shall come to pass that three and three make Six. In the battle shall dead, living, and immortal stand as one. Betrayed by the fifth, the goddess shall face Destruction. For those who stand there shall be one recourse, and when the end is reached, over the ashes shall stand victorious the Child of Order.”

To Five, it was mostly useless gibberish. It did, however, seem to imply that she would succeed at her ultimate goal. Of course, Blackest Night also did seem to be confident that Shining Armor would not escape so easily. Some of the thoughts of Five’s other self fell through into her mind, and they made her shiver.

“Trust me,” she said. “This will work. It has to.”

Shining Armor stayed true to his word. He took the handle to the Pocket and teleported it to a new location, one specified by Five. The area they were brought to was at the far edge of the snowy wastelands that contained the Crystal Empire, on the taiga border of the great forests beyond.

The area where they were brought was, specifically, a small and ancient stone building, long-forgotten amongst the large and snow-covered trees. In the past, it had once been a church; a simple building built from stone that was now aged and covered with moss. There was no civilization of any kind near it, the wooden buildings having long-since been devoured by time, leaving only the stone shell of a the disused chapel.

The church itself was designed for the worship of Celestia, at least originally. From its top stood a tall steeple, its copper surface now green and corroded, intended to cast shadows as the sun rose and fell; at each of the twelve markers representing the twelve hours, there had once been an inscription- -although they had now long since worn off.

In the front of the church sat a large statue of Celestia. It was pitted and stained by the rain, and overgrown with vines and moss. Parts of her wings had been chipped away, but to Rainbow Dash at least she looked at least somewhat similar to the original. Still, it was strange to see a pony like Celestia captured in stone as such. Whoever had carved her had done so with the wrong mood; instead of trying to capture Celestia’s kindness and benevolence, they had created one that radiated power and divine might. Rainbow Dash found it more than a little disturbing.

The inside of the building was damp and cold. It had been empty for some time, but had still found use since the fall of Celestia. The rotted pews had been pushed aside, and a new idol set in the center of the room: a set of laser-carved geometric shapes, made from a single log taken from some ancient tree. The shape itself was abstract, consisting of a pair of pyramids aligned vertically, their flat sides facing one another and containing between them a perfect sphere. According to Five, it was the symbol of the Savior Machine, an enigmatic figure that some AI’s believed was a kind of ideal. Rainbow Dash did not understand, but the symbol looked all-too familiar.

Even the equidroids had departed long ago, though, leaving behind nothing but rusted machine parts and several incomplete bodies that were filled with roots and ice. This place had been abandoned for a long time, and been forgotten as the world moved onward and Celestia and the sun were both forgotten.

Something about this location was important, though. None of the other ponies said it out loud, but Rainbow Dash could tell by the way that Five and Gell- -and even Proctor- -were acting that it was not a random location.

Of course, Five had always kept things from Rainbow Dash. After seeing what had happened to Shining Armor, Rainbow Dash knew why. There were some thing that she would rather not know.

So she walked around the perimeter, observing the crumbling stones, trying to read what was on them. She was still slightly drunk, a state which she decided she needed to maintain on some level at all times. Despite this, she was still functional enough to realize just how isolated they were, how there were no sounds from the forest, no signs of ponies, and not even stars in the sky that was neither that of day nor that of night.

Finally, she paused at the base of the Celestia statue. She was nearly life-sized, standing on a crumbling structure that had been torn apart by the trunks of the small shrubs that grew through the cracks, causing the statue to lean to one side slightly.

Rainbow Dash took to the air and rose to the statues face, brushing away the snow from its head and back. The way the stone was so rough and pitted made her sad. This statue had stood alone in the forest, her immortal stone body decaying slowly against the force of nature. There was nopony to watch over her, to take care of her- -even the pony she had been built in the image of had long since passed

“I know the feeling,” said Rainbow Dash. She landed in the cold snow, realizing that she could only feel the temperature through two of her legs. Even most of her own body had been left in the past. She wondered, just for a moment, if she really was just like the statue- -if at this point she was only a decaying image based upon a pony.

The sound of hoofteps came through the snow beside her, emerging from the cold forest. Rainbow Dash ignored them, and poured some of her alcohol into the offering dish at Celestia’s base.

“Alicorns don’t drink,” said Shining Armor.

“Yeah, they do,” argued Rainbow Dash. “I’ve seen Twilight do it loads of times.”

“But did she ever once get drunk?”

Rainbow Dash paused, trying to remember- -but knew that the answer was “no”.

Refusing to say that, Rainbow Dash sat down in the snow at the base of the statue. It was cold, but she hardly cared.

“So,” she said, taking a sip from her bottle. “Welcome to the future.” She attempted to pass it to Shining Armor, but he only stared at it with his nearly luminescent blue robotic eyes.

“I don’t drink,” he said. “No esophagus. Or stomach, really.”

“So,” said Rainbow Dash. “How to you feel?”

“I…don’t know,” admitted Shining Armor. “I miss Cadence. I miss her so much. And Twily…”

Rainbow Dash looked up at him, and something felt off. Some kind of gut instinct made her want to recoil from him, as though the way he was talking was wrong- -but she was not entirely sure just how. Something about him just made her angry, and frightened.

“I heard you talked to Proctor,” she said, changing the subject, at least marginally. Shining Armor nodded, the artificial muscles in his neck flexing beneath his pallid skin. Rainbow Dash sighed. “Yeah…it can be a bit of a shock.”

“It did not bother me,” said Shining Armor. “And…it was nice to be able to speak to Twilight again.”

Now Rainbow Dash did feel angry. “He isn’t Twilight,” she noted, trying to contain herself. “He’s just a computer, a copy- -not even a copy. Your sister is dead.” She clapped her hoof over her mouth, realizing what she had just said. Her anger now joined itself with sadness, and she took another rapid succession of swallows from her bottle, leaving it empty. She threw it into the forest angrily.

“I know,” said Shining Armor. “But life and death are not as black-and-white as you might expect. In fact- -and this took me decades to realize- -they are not even different states. What that machine contains is a ghost, a shadow of what Twilight was. It is not truly her, but it is like her. A shadow, if you will. I know I cannot see Twilight directly…but at least I came close.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“Of course. Rainbow, who do you think you are speaking right now?”

“Supposedly, Shining Armor.”

“But I am not Shining Armor. Not really. But I was. I am dead, Rainbow- -and yet I persist in this world. I am a shadow of the stallion, his ghost- -just as Proctor’s Twilight is a shadow of our Twilight.”

“But you are him,” said Rainbow Dash, suddenly feeling desperate not to release the association with the one pony that she could remember. She stood up. “I mean, I can see you, right there!”

“You see a body of my own construction,” he said. “It is nothing but mithril and lodesteel and magic.” He chuckled. “And I am aware of the irony. That I destroyed myself for immortality, and then lost everything worth living for.” His eyes narrowed. “But you. You made no such choice. You are not supposed to be here.”

“Do you think I don’t know that?” said Rainbow Dash, laughing humorlessly. “Every day…” she took a breath, “every day I wish I had died in that crash. Every day. They’re all dead. Everything I had…they’re all gone.” She felt herself starting to cry. “I just want to sleep. To be like I should be…”

“To die?” said Shining Armor, sounding oddly disgusted.

“Don’t you?”

“I am dead,” he hissed, stepping toward her, staring at her with narrowed pupils. “I didn’t get out of this with a pair of metal legs. I destroyed my body for my wife- -my dead wife. And now she is gone. You aren’t the only one alone, Rainbow Dash.”

“And you- -you can just deal with that?” she took to the air, her tears accelerating in her anger. “You can just accept that they are dead? That you will never see them again?”

“What choice do I have? Even with all my power, I cannot bring them back. Not in any form that they would want. I can’t go back to the past, so I keep going forward.”

“Even when you have nothing?”

“Nothing?” Shining Armor laughed grotesquely. “Nothing? Rainbow Dash, I hardly lost anything at all! I still have my army, my soldiers, my work. My state has hardly changed!”

“But what about your sister? Your wife? Your friends?”

Shining Armor paused, and his manic expression changed to one of pure sadness. For the first time, Rainbow Dash realized that Shining Armor’s situation might actually be worse than hers. She was at least still whole- -but he was not even a pony anymore. Even his body had been taken from him.

“You’re- -you’re right,” he said. “About me, at least. But not about yourself.”

“Really?” said Rainbow Dash, sarcastically. “Oh, yes! Because my friends aren’t dead, and I’m not in a world where most Pegasi can’t even fly and everpony is trying to kill me!”

“You still have some friends,” said Shining Armor, pointing toward the roof of the church. Rainbow Dash turned around to see a brown, fuzzy mass standing beside the church’s crumbling steeple, a slightly glowing orange bird on his head, both watching the conversation below.

“That jerk,” hissed Rainbow Dash.

“You are still alive, Rainbow Dash. Don’t waste this chance.”

Shining Armor seemed like he was going to say something else- -and hopefully something more inspiration than- -but suddenly turned sharply, looking up at the sky.

“What is it?” said Rainbow Dash, looking up through the forest canopy herself. She saw nothing.

“A radio signal,” said Shining Armor, somewhat in awe. “Reflected off the firmament…” His expression hardened, and he turned to Rainbow Dash. “I need to go,” he said.

With a burst of pink-violet energy and a thunder-like burst of sound, activated a teleportation spell and vanished from sight. Rainbow Dash blinked, and for a moment nearly panicked. He had left her, and she realized that there was no way for her to follow him.

Then, slowly, she regained her composure. She slowly turned back toward the church, where Proctor and Five were scavenging old equipment and where the Pocket door had been mounted. Brown was still atop the building, still executing his orders, spying on her.

The thought occurred to her, though, that Shining Armor might have been right. Perhaps Brown was not spying, but actually genuinely concerned for Rainbow Dash. It was clear that he did not trust Shining Armor, although less of his own volition and more because Gell did not.

Rainbow Dash spread her wings and flew quickly to the top of the building. As she did, Philomena took flight as well and descended, landing on Proctor’s head as he pushed half a pew out of the door and returned to Five, who was inside babbling about something technical.

“What are you doing, Brown?” she demanded, landing on the lichen-covered surface.

“Watching,” he said, not getting up. He continued to look out at the trees.

“Any particular reason?”

“I was hedging my bets,” he explained. “I did not and am not aware of Shining Armor’s intentions, and I have not yet determined if he is the Commander’s enemy yet. There was a chance he could hurt you, so I decided that I should observe.”

“So you thought he would try to kill me but are up here?”

Brown looked at her, his large blue eyes almost confused. “Of course. The conversation was yours, not mine. I did not want to press you or infringe upon your independent agency.”

Rainbow Dash sat on the summit of the roof beneath the steeple. “And you did this by spying on me?”

“Yes. That, and I like the view.”

Rainbow Dash looked out at the horizon. It was hardly visible through the trees, but the edge of the world seemed to stretch out around them, its rim filled with an eternal late-sunset that seemed to divide the sky into a vast circular rainbow. It was moderately appreciable at best, but Brown could not take his eyes away from it. His level of wonderment made him look almost like a foal- -and Rainbow Dash realized that, in a way, he was.

“Hey, Brown,” said Rainbow Dash, looking down at the lichen below her and scraping at some of it with her robotic claw. “Are we…are we friends?”

Brown blinked. “I…don’t know,” he said. He seemed to think for a moment. “I’ve never had a friend before.”

“What about Five? You seem pretty close to her.”

“She is Commander. Gelding is Subcommander. Proctor is equipment. I suppose the bird might be my friend, but she is a bird. That is not the same thing as a pony friend, though.”

“Then what exactly am I to you? Just baggage?”

Brown looked surprised. “No. You are a comrade.”

“Well…do you want to be my friend?”

Brown smiled. “Yes. I would like that.”

Rainbow Dash smiled. For some reason, she felt terribly nervous- -but at the same time, she actually felt better than before. Together, she and Brown looked out at the horizon in silence, admiring the remnants of a sunset that had lasted almost three hundred years.