In the dream, Rainbow Dash was flying. The air rushed by her body and under her quickly beating wings, and laughed in the freedom of flight as she soared high into the pale yellow sky. Her body felt so light, and her world so open, as if she were able to do anything, to go anywhere.

Somewhere in her mind, though, she knew that something felt wrong. She was moving too fast, and her agility was too great. Her motion was more flittering than true flying, as if she were so much smaller than she should have been.

A powerful gust blew against her, and she was suddenly terrified. She managed to correct herself, but decided that it was time to go back down. She rolled over in the air, momentarily watching the horizon shift, as if all of the world were turning around her at the command of her wings. Then she descended to the figure standing on the moss-covered rock below.

The figure extended a hand, and Rainbow Dash landed upon it. His fingers were longer than her entire body, and made of metal- -except his was dark while hers was beautiful gold.

“Look father! I flew! I really flew!” she said, jumping upon her father’s hand, terribly exited.

Her father looked back down at her, his glowing white eyes shining even more brightly than the luminescent sky. He had no mouth, at least none that Rainbow Dash could see, but he still spoke.

“Flight appendages are indicated as fully functional, and all internal systems are holding in support. Modification identified as a success. Further modifications fall within potential deviation induced by self-modifying evolutionary vector. Corrilary: yes, you really flew.”

“Oh,” said Rainbow Dash, saddened by his lack of emotion.

Her father looked down at her for a long moment, and then added: “You have flown. We are all proud of your accomplishment.”

“Really?” said Rainbow Dash, her eyes widening. She danced around in the palm of the great hand below her, her golden hooves clicking on her father’s steel. “You’re really proud of me? I’m so happy!”

Her father said nothing, but that was not unexpected. He often said nothing, sometimes for a long time. Instead, he lifted his head and looked out at the landscape before them. Rainbow Dash turned around too, and looked out at it with him, sitting on his hand. In the distance, she saw the endless rocky steppes, some of them growing with lush moss, some of it with leaves larger than she was. In the far distance, she saw the incomprehensible metal things that grew from the ground, their ever-changing metal surfaces lit from within with horrible blue light. Those things were scary, and she knew to avoid them- -even her parents did not go near them, just like she did not go near the lizard people with their fire breath and sharpened sticks.

“It’s so pretty,” she said, although inside, she wanted to fly high into the sky, to float above the world and see all of it at once from above. She did not want to leave her father’s hand, though, and she knew that he had no wings to fly. He had given them to her instead.

“You are the prototype of a new race,” her father said. “You are our children, and this world will be yours when we return to the void.”

“You’re leaving?” said Rainbow Dash. She immediately wrapped her forlegs around her father’s thumb, as if she would be able to hold him back and keep him from leaving. “Please don’t leave me!”

He looked down at here. “Do not fear, little one. When that time comes, you shall be ready.”

“So it’s not for a long time?”

Her father did not answer, but he did not have to. Rainbow Dash already knew, and she was satisfied.

“That’s good,” she said, pacing around in his palm. “But right now…I’m so sleepy.” She lay on her side and curled herself into a tiny golden ball, folding her new wings against herself. She felt herself drifting into sleep, but before she lapsed into unconsciousness, she offered one more expression to the one who was so large compared to her. “I love you, father.”

“We love you too,” he said.

An explosion rocked Rainbow Dash, and she covered her eyes with her golden hoof. Far above, the floating mountain shuddered, the golden machinery at its base beginning to break apart and fall into the writhing mass of indeterminate pink-red flesh below.

The sky was swarmed by hundreds of winged ponies. Their metal bodies glinted in the light from the spells that poured down from above, but they stared back blankly, charging into battle with no thought of survival.

There could be no survival, though. It had all happened so fast. Those that flew were long dead, their bodies infected, forced into the war against their former allies. There were none left. Nopony had survived.

Then, as Rainbow Dash watched, the material dripping from the mountain surged forward, climbing and assembling itself. Tentacles formed and wrapped around the growth like ropes, fusing to it and reinforcing the structure that was growing: a single immense claw, reaching upward toward the sky- -toward Olympus, to pull it back into the earth below.

Rainbow Dash burst out laughing. Through the deafening sound of flak and artillery and magic and detonating levitation cells, she laughed. It was all over. She was the last of her kind. Her people had been destroyed by her own actions. In her arrogance, she had been tricked into betraying her allies- -only to be betrayed in turn by one she had considered a friend. She had been the greatest of their people, their King, and she had failed to protect them. The Aurasi had fallen.

So she laughed, because she knew what needed to be done. The Madgod had given her a spark of divine inspiration, and she knew that there was only one path that might, in time, lead to redemption- -if the destruction of all she held dear was an act that she could ever truly be redeemed for.

The only solution was annihilation. To destroy everything and die as a hero, to end the Aurasi completely- -so that they might survive. It was a perfect paradox: to create by destruction. The very idea was so comical, so impossibly humorous in the most agonizing of ways. The funniest part by far was that the others would never even know.

She spread her long, golden wings and took to the air. The Aurasi would survive.

Rainbow Dash gasped as she awoke. For a moment, she looked around, but saw nothing except darkness. She half expected to see a pair of glowing eyes above her or a flying mountain falling as its engines died- -but then she remembered where she was.

She was breathing heavily, and held Brown more tightly. He had remained asleep, but he reacted to her touch by purring more loudly. His body was so warm and soft, and he made an excellent pillow. He was also surprisingly adorable when he slept, and just being near him- -and not being alone- -comforted Rainbow Dash.

She put her head back down on Brown’s shoulder and closed her eyes- -only to snap them open again when she saw the pony sitting in a chair across the room, watching her.

The chair was already large, but this pony dwarfed it- -and yet still seemed perfectly, aristocratically comfortable. His body, made entirely from gold, was at least three times larger than that of a normal pony, and his long, angular metal wings just barely brushed the hardwood below. Rainbow Dash recognized him- -and felt her heart beat faster.

“Really, Rainbow Dash,” he said, his voice sounding disappointed even through the distortion of whatever mechanical means he used to speak. “A fluffy pony? You’re not giving me much to work with here. Well, I suppose you could have done worse, but really…you could have done so much better. A nice Pegasus, perhaps. With supple, strong wings…” His own wings jerked upward slightly, and he grinned. As he did, Rainbow Dash saw that one of his eyes had been removed, leaving a gaping hole in his face.

“Who are you?” she said, pulling one of her hooves out from under Brown. He did not awaken- -his and Rainbow Dash’s activities had left him exceedingly tired. Rainbow Dash sat up in the bed.

“No need to get up on my account. You are going to be a bit sore. Sixteen hours is indeed admirable for your deflowering…but not to brag, but I once had a beautiful Argisus for over eleven months.”

“Who are you?”

“Who?” he seemed annoyed, but continued to smile. “So my name has not been passed down in song. Glory is ever so fleeting…”

“Who are you?” repeated Rainbow Dash, this time more firmly.

“It doesn’t matter,” said the golden pony. “Those times are passed, my daughter…or should I say my mother?”

“You’re not real,” said Rainbow Dash, closing her eyes.

“Oh no,” said the golden pony. “I am indeed no more than an illusion- -but I was once a stallion. And I will be again. The Aurasi will survive.”

“Those…those dreams. They’re yours?” Rainbow Dash opened her eyes, and saw the pony had somehow moved silently between that chair and a bench that had been propped against the wall. He shook his head.

“Where I end and where I begin. What I was, and who I became…all it led to was my glorious madness.”

“Just leave me alone.” She brushed her robotic hoof over Brown, and he smiled. “Leave us alone.”

The Aurasus smiled. “I will, if you can answer one question.”

“What?”

“How does a pony with a mechanical heart have a pulse?”

Rainbow Dash’s breath caught in her throat. In her ears, she could hear it- -a heartbeat- -but what the Aruasus said hit her mind like a hammer, driving away any possibility of sleep. She remembered what Five had told her- -she had nothing more than an electrical pump in her chest, something that whirred with an electrical hum instead of beating. Yet, at that very moment, she could hear her pulse.

The Aurasus smiled widely and his one pupil narrowed. He let out a dry, mechanical laugh- -and then was gone.

Rainbow Dash sat still for a moment, staring into the darkness and at the chair- -its layer of thick dust still intact and undisturbed. Then she slowly lay back down.

Brown stirred and opened his eyes.

“Rainbow?” he said, sleepily. “Is something wrong.”

“No, Brown,” lied Rainbow Dash. She pulled his head close to her chest, and he held her tightly. “Just go back to sleep.”