The time had finally come. Once again, Shining Armor found himself walking through the disorganized and strangely decorated halls of the Pocket, looking for the only pony who could help him. If he had still had a heart, it would have been pounding in his chest.

He could not help but feel that Blackest Night had seen this coming. Shining Armor was aware of her powers, the remnants of the unfathomable magic she had wielded in life, and he shuddered to imagine what kind of creature she might have been before she had been reduced to a parasitic shadow.

On some level, he did not want to find her. Somehow, though, he could not help himself. Moving through the poorly lit, brick-lined walls was like drifting through a dream, the kind where the end was inevitable. In a way, he supposed that he already knew the end. It was locked somewhere inside him, in the crystal where his mind resided. The memory was tearing at him internally, like an unknown and obscured animal clawing at the inside of a cage, trying to get out and destroy him- -and produce the fate that Satin Veil craved, his eternal damnation.

Thebes words still echoed inside his head. She was clearly insane, and Shining Armor knew she had to be- -and yet she was so lucid at the same time. All her attacks had failed to destroy him- -but from the way he felt, it seemed that she might yet succeed with a single sentence.

In the dimness of the Pocket, a shadow appeared, one that was distorted by the lights that lined the lower corners of this particular hallway. Shining Armor stopped, and saw Five turn the corner, Philomena riding on her back.

“Shining Armor,” she said, completely nonchalantly, as though seeing a lich in her house was an ordinary occurrence. “I see you are still here.”

“I am,” said Shining Armor.

“I suppose I should thank you,” she said. “The armor you harvested will fetch a substantial price.”

“Really?” said Shining Armor. “You thank me for the armor, and not saving my life?”

“We both know that my live holds very, very little value.”

“All life has value.”

“Hollow words from a necromancer.”

“You know why I am here.”

“Yes,” said Five. “Because you are finally starting to internalize the inconsistencies of your story.”

“Inconsistencies?”

“If you haven’t seen them, you soon will. Come. She has picked out a room for you. To be honest, she has strange tastes.”

The two of them started walking. Shining Armor could not help but look downward at Five’s flank- -not because he could possibly be attracted to such a cold, perpetually semi-teenage pony, but because he knew that the black stain that surrounded Five’s cutie mark was itself a pony all its own. It- -or rather she- -had a distinct mind, a distinct personality, and distinct powers. Shining Armor could not help but feel that the stain was watching him.

“You failed to respond to my question,” said Five.

“Which is what?”

“Are you willing to help me?”

“To construct a device that can defeat Thebe, you mean?”

“In theory.” Five looked backward over her shoulder. “It could be used to that end. Why?”

“I faced her,” said Shining Armor. “And I don’t like her.”

Five nearly stumbled. “What?” she said, her eyes widening. “You left me to fight THEBE? Directly?!”

“Yes. She is ravaging Equestria. As King of the Crystal Empire, it was my duty.”

“Thebe. As in, Thebe. You saw Thebe- -no, fought Thebe- -and survived?”

“So to speak.”

“Wow,” said Five. “The war in Equestria must be far worse than I expected.”

“The answer is yes,” said Shining Armor. “I will help you. I will do whatever I have to. That mare must die. But this is conditional.”

“Conditional?”

“Yes.” Shining Armor arguably hated Thebe, but for some reason, he could not remember what hatred felt like. He had become empty inside, and it took most of his mental energy to cling even to the fear that saturated his mind. “If Blackest Night restores my memory, and I survive, I will help you. Please. Make me whole again.”

“You will get your wish. But be sure, Shining Armor: be sure that this is what you truly desire.”

“I have nothing left to desire.”

“So be it.” Five pushed open a large, wooden door and motioned for Shining Armor to enter.

The room on the other side was dark, but Shining Armor was no stranger to low light. Like much of the Pocket, it matched poorly with the rest of the architecture, even if it had been well designed. The room had been laid out something like an old-fashioned study, complete with wooden-paneled walls with pictures of ponies hanging from them that even Five probably could not identify. There was even a decorative stand with one of Gell’s ferns on it.

Five motioned toward several matching chairs that had been placed in front of a fireplace. The fire was burning, but Shining Armor could detect that it was spectrally aberrant; most likely, it was just a hologram meant to look like flames. Even if it had been a real fire, though, he would not have felt any warmth. He had been dead too long.

“Sit,” said Five, almost sounding bored, as if this whole task was an inconvenience to her. Shining Armor sat on one side of the couch and watched as Five set Philomena on a perch. The bird ruffled her feathers and tucked her head against her neck, as if going to sleep.

Five sat down in one of the chairs and looked at Shining Armor. “Are you prepared?”

“I am,” said Shining Armor, nodded. “I think I finally am.”

“Do not say that I did not warn you.” Five suddenly grimaced, and gasped for breath from the pain as the shadow around her cutie mark expanded, covering her body. Her eyes closed, and then opened again. They were no longer blue, but now green: the eyes of Nightmare Moon.

Blackest Night looked around the room, smiling, her glossy black hair seeming to shimmer in the faux-firelight. “Well,” she said in a voice that was nearly Five’s. “It appears that she set up the room precisely to my specifications.”

“Hello, Blackest,” said Shining Armor.

Blackest Night turned her attention toward Shining Armor and leaned back in her chair, smiling toward him seductively. “Greetings, Shining Armor,” she said. “I see you have returned to me.”

“I have. And I need your help.”

“With what, specifically?”

“I was told you can help me recover my lost memories.”

Blackest Night stared at him for a moment. Her smile was replaced with a pensive expression.

“The violent removal of a phylactery can cause damage to the mind inside. Theoretically,” she said.

“I know that,” said Shining Armor. “I did build it.”

“Indeed you did. And you survived the removal. Which means the memories are still inside you. I would think you would have recovered them by now.”

“I’ve tried, but I can’t.”

“Really?” said Blackest Night, sounding intrigued. “And why not?”

“I don’t know,” said Shining Armor, looking away, toward the fire. He did not know why, but he felt ashamed, as if his failure to recover his own memories represented his own incompetence. “They…they hurt.”

“Hurt? In a lich? How interesting…and unusual.”

“Do you have painful memories?” he asked suddenly, turning back to her.

“Me?” Blackest Night paused, thinking. “I have existed for well over one million years. I have acquired a great many memories, far more than any mortal could. Some are happy. Many are sad. None hurt me.”

“Blackest,” said Shining Armor, looking into her slit-pupiled eyes. “Do you consider yourself my friend?”

“Friend?” said Blackest Night, sounding almost surprised. “Shining Armor, we are both necromancers. No, we are both liches, even. We are far more than friends simply by our very existence.”

“Then can you help me, Blackest? Please.”

She paused for a long moment. “Yes. I believe I may be able to.”

Blackest Night rose from her chair and crossed the room until she was standing between the fire and Shining Armor, her body becoming a bright-eyed silhouette.

“The power I retained from life,” she said, “it is not true telepathy. It is a product of my necromancy, the ability to reach out with my soul into the souls of others. When I was Luna, the power of the moon gave me the strength to reach into ponies’ dreams. I no longer have that power, but I am still strong enough to help you.”

“I understand,” said Shining Armor, separating his arms and exposing his phylactery to her. He knew what she was saying, because, as she had said, he was a necromancer. In order to recover the memory, Blackest Night would reach into his soul, just as Luna had reached into dreams- -and she would see the memories that were too horrible for him to face alone.

Blackest Night took a seat in the center of the couch and leaned over Shining Armor, running her hoof over his chest. Then, finally, she reached the space where his skin gave way to metal, and the metal gave way to pink-violet cystal.

Shining Armor saw the blackness that covered her body seem to shift, reaching out into the light of the crystal, infecting it and staining it like ink in water. He felt her inside him, on a level that he had never felt with a pony before, not even with his wife- -and then he was falling.

The headless drones moved aside as Shining Armor passed through his central laboratory, his numerous mechanical legs clicking on the ground below him. The facility was shrouded in almost pure darkness, but it did not matter to Shining Armor. He had long ago given up his organic eyes; his mostly necrotic and electronic brain was now linked to a system of powerful optic sensors.

The only light came from the array of machines visible through the windows, the sparks generated as his machines assembled the metallic components of his soldiers, knitting together flesh and steel and bone into an undying army.

His core laboratory, however, was by far the most valuable portion of his lair. It was where he had collected so much scientific equipment, and where his research continued. Through his magic, he had removed his need to rest and his ability to tire. Now, his work continued perpetually, his inspiration and labor driving further advancements into the art of necromancy.

“Report,” he said as he crossed near one of his functional soldiers.

The orange Pegasus looked up at him with cold, synthetic eyes and produced a small data-chip in his mechanical claw. Shining Armor reached out with one of his numerous narrow robotic arms and took it form him.

“Our findings, Captain Armor,” he said. His voice sounded pained, and Shining Armor momentarily paused. “Is something wrong?” he asked, feeling the intention harshness in his robotically generated voice.

“It…it hurts,” said the orange Pegasus. “I…I don’t know where I am. I miss Twilight…”

Shining Armor sighed- -or would have, had his lungs not been replaced by exchange membranes. One of the inherent tradeoffs in creating necromantic constructs was how much of the soul to leave intact. Most of what he created were devoid of real souls, instead running on synthetic ones of his own design. That made them obedient, but it also left them without the capacity for extensive independent thought. Bodies that were converted while they were still alive- -as Flash Sentry had been- -easily overcame that deficit. The resulting constructs were intelligent, at least by undead standards, and capable of serving as officers. The problem, however, was that they tended to remember their previous lives and eventually understand what they had become.

“Did you not swear your eternal allegiance to me?” asked Shining Armor.

“I…I did,” he said. “But I’m…so cold. I want to go home…”

“Do you not understand the definition of ‘eternal’?”

“Please…just let me die…”

Shining Armor made a mental note to convert Flash Sentry into one of his spectral guard, and to ensure that he his mouth was sealed in the process. He despised whining.

“Leave me,” said Shining Armor.

“Yes, Captain Armor,” whispered Flash Sentry, his eyes widening as if he already knew what his final fate would be.

As the Pegasus walked off through the hordes of drones, Shining Armor inserted the memory chip into the port in clasp system that held what remained of his skull over his largely disembodied spine. The internal computation system engaged and fed the data into his horn, projecting it to the air so that he could understand it.

Most of it was relatively ordinary information. There were manifests of what the scouting parties had returned with, ranging from more equipment and metal to bodies and organ components. Shining Armor was pleased to see that there were a number of unicorns brought in, as well as some crystals that could be down-cut into power reactors.

Some of the rest of the data was disjoined bits of current events, the sort of data that the ghost soldiers tended to believe was useful. Shining Armor ignored most of it, because most of it was pointless. Even if he was still alive, if only barely, he had long ago departed the world of the living.

Then, suddenly, he stopped, freezing the image on a newspaper article. The article itself had been picked from the Stallions & Mares Press, and appeared to be the front page. What had attracted Shining Armor’s attention was the large color photograph on the front page.

It was a picture of two ponies. One of them was Cadence, dressed in royal garb and smiling as she stood on a marble staircase. Standing near her was a second pony, a yellow colored stallion dressed in gleaming white armor. Even with the armor, Shining Armor could tell that the stallion was not even entirely a pony; the yellow bands on his legs indicated that he was part zebra.

Several of Shining Armor’s optic assemblies shifted toward the headline while the other scanned the article. “Royal Wedding Announced!” read the title. The article indicated that Princess Cadence of the Crystal Empire, nearly thirty years after divorcing her now ex-husband Shining Armor, had finally decided to remarry. The yellow half-zebra in the photograph was her bridegroom, a pony by the name of White Knight.

Shining Armor froze as he looked at the date of the paper, and the date when the wedding was supposed to be. For him, hardly any time had passed since the day when Cadence had rejected his love, exiling him permanently from the Crystal Empire. He had not realized that over thirty years had passed since then.

To his horror, he realized that what he had thought was a “newspaper” was actually archival data. The wedding had occurred nearly five years earlier.

Shining Armor stared at the photograph for a moment, allowing the information to sink in. He looked into the image of his wife’s smiling face- -and how her smile was directed at another stallion He saw the joy in her eyes, even if it was tinged with just a tiny bit of sadness, and for a long moment he was silent.

Then he screamed in rage. He tore through the magical projection and smashed the desk before him with one of his appendages. At the same time, he drew several across the surface of the laboratory benches, shattering his equipment and bisecting several drones.

“CADENCE!” he screamed. “How could you! How could you betray me like this!”

Thoughts rushed through his mind, images of that filthy half-zebra lying with his wife in his bed, in the palace that he had built. Those thoughts only increased his rage, he cried out again.

“Why?” he screamed, “why have you done this? Cadence, I love you! Why couldn’t you understand that? I gave you everything! EVERYTHING! And you do this to me? You stab me in the back?”

He broke down into sobbing- -which quickly became laughter. The thoughts were connecting, resolving in his mind. The initial shock had been paralyzing, but now his brain was beginning to form a recourse, to understand what he needed to do next.

“No…Cadence, I know you still love me. You are my wife. You promised to love me. You do love me, I know you do. You’ve just forgotten. I will fix this, Cadence. Yes. Fix it. Just like I fixed myself, for you. For your love. I will win back your love. I will take you back. Don’t worry Cadence, I can forgive you for what you’ve done…and we’ll be in love again. Yes. I will take you back.”

There were flaws in his plan, though, and he knew it. In order to take back his wife, and his Empire, he would need an army. That was not a problem; the problem was himself. Necromancy had enabled him to prolong his life, but he had been reduced to little more than a spine and skull linked to a walker assembly. He was far too weak to join the battle himself, not in his present state.

Then the idea occurred to him. The mad, terrifying idea that had haunted him for years. There had never truly been a way to accomplish it, but something inside his mind triggered a connection, a single, brilliant idea. Something so elegant and so simple, but at the same time so powerful.

Shining Armor was forced to laugh. The path to immortality was clear- -and it had been staring him in the face for so long. He momentarily wondered if Satin Veil had known that this would be the outcome when she had given him that stone so long ago, but he did not care. The process would be dangerous, perhaps even fatal, but he knew that he had to succeed. In order to rescue Cadence, he would need to shed everything that made him a pony and embrace his true destiny.

He pulled himself upward, ascending through the complex toward the upper laboratories. Only there would he find the necessary equipment for his idea- -but he was not headed there immediately. Seeing his wife had stirred in him feelings that he had not felt for so long, and his insides seemed to suddenly be tearing him apart.

Instead, he detoured to a large storage room, one that smelled even more strongly of preservatives than the others. In the center of this room were a number of stainless steel tanks. Shining Armor looked at them, recalling their contents, and selected one that he liked. With his magic, he engaged the crank that allowed it to open, revealing a vat of reddish, greasy fluid inside.

As if realizing that her tank had been opened, a pony arose from the embalming fluid. She was one of a special type that Shining Armor had constructed, sewn together in such a way that her mechanical components were purely internal, giving her the appearance of reasonably complete mare. On her sides, Shining Armor had sewn a pair of wings, and on her forehead, he had attached a horn. He had long ago discovered that attempting to create alicorns almost inevitably resulted in the construct self-destructing, but in this case, the alterations were purely ornamental.

The mare looked back at him, her eyeless sockets seeming to recognize him, and she smiled as she spread her wings and lifted her tail. Shining Armor approached her from behind and leaned over her body, kissing her, feeling the formaldehyde and phenol that filled her mouth flowing through the exposed bones of his own. Then he mounted her cold, dead body and envisioned his wife’s smiling face as he began thrusting into her.

The memory shifted, passing forward. Shining Armor found himself moving up a large, spiral staircase. Beside him, the core of the Crystal Heart transmitter was beginning to darken. Outside, war was raging in the Crystal Empire- -if it could even be called a proper war. The population had been unprepared for the assault, and the crystal ponies were slaughtered easily.

Shining Armor felt no regret. They had chosen their fate when they had betrayed him, when they had allowed his Princess to marry another stallion, to be taken away from him. Their guilt could not be forgiven. They would all die, and the Crystal Empire would be purged of such treachery.

A group of ponies descended the stairs quickly, and Pegasi swarmed upward from below. Their armor indicated that they were of the core guard, the final defense of Princess Cadence. Some of them were old, and Shining Armor distantly recalled their faces. They had been nothing more than green recruits when he had been their leader- -and now even they had turned against him.

A barrage of beams from crystal rifles rained down from above. Shining Armor recoiled, but simultaneously hardened his carapace. He felt the crystal in the center of his chest surge with power, and a pink-violet shield formed around his body. The ball of magic expanded rapidly until it reached the ponies around him, incinerating their bodies instantly. Armor and charred bones dropped down the pit, corroding into dust as they fell, and Shining Armor continued upward.

Outside, he heard an explosion rock the Crystal Palace and felt several of his soldiers loose connection. The forces of the Crystal Empire were still continuing to fight, even if the battle had already been decided. Shining Armor was not concerned with their inferior force; the only potential threat to his forces was a single pony in the midst of the battle, one wielding shadow and crystal in a way that no other pony could. Shining Armor wondered if perhaps he had done too good of a job constructing Blackened Shield, but it hardly mattered now. Not when he was so close.

Shining Armor burst through the final door into the throne room. He had finally reached his goal; he could feel Cadence’s magic nearby. Soon they would be together again.

The instant he entered the large, circular room, Shining Armor was attacked. A white-armored pony wielding a sword brought it down on one of his front claws. Even though the sword was made of nothing more than ironwood, it cleaved through the lodesteel of Shining Armor’s body as though it were paper. It seemed the half-breed actually knew some zebra magic after all.

White Knight was also quick. He struck repeatedly, actually driving the much larger Shining Armor backward.

“You!” hissed Shining Armor, feeling his rage rising as he began to comprehend who exactly this pony was, and what he had down. “YOU!”

He projected a blade of magic and slammed it down on White Knight like a great cleaver. The half-zebra’s sword shattered from the blow, but his armor absorbed the impact, preventing him from being cut in two. Even though he survived, the resonance of the spell badly damaged his ivorywood armor and he was sent sprawling backward.

Shining Armor turned his attention toward the other pony in the room.

“Cadence,” he said, stepping closer to her. She looked just as she had all those years ago, and just as she had when he had first met her as a colt almost eighty years earlier. She looked different for some reason, though. Shining Armor could not understand why she was looking at him with such rage, and such fear.

“Get away from her!” cried White Knight, drawing a dagger and attempting to charge Shining Armor’s back.

Shining Armor responded effortlessly, turning and firing a blade of mithril into the half-zebra’s gut. He saw the stallion’s eyes widen as he was thrown backward, his body pierced and transfixed into the crystal wall of the throne room.

“White Knight! No!” screamed Cadence. Her horn glowed with alicorn magic, and she fired a powerful beam toward Shining Armor. Normally, Cadence’s offensive spells were especially poor. This time, though, she fought with all her strength, not understanding that Shining Armor was only trying to help her.

Shining Armor generated a shield, absorbing the blow easily and reflecting it back toward her. The feedback impacted her horn with a resounding explosion. She cried out as her spell failed, and collapsed to her knees.

“Cadence!” cried White Knight. Even impaled, he still seemed to be alive. He may have been evil, but Shining Armor was able to admit that he was persistent.

Cadence started to stand, but the feedback from her spell had already taken its toll on her. Shining Armor paced the room patiently, waiting for her to regain her composure. He looked out the windows at what was rightfully his kingdom, and saw the crystal city burning beneath him. Never before had a city so deserved destruction. For what they had done to him- -what they all had done to him- -there would be no survivors.

“What do you want?” said Cadence, standing. “What kind of monster are you?” Her horn flickered, and Shining Armor could tell that she was trying to return to what she had been doing: lending support to the troops across the kingdom. Her magic remained unusable, though, and she could generate little more than sparks.

“Monster? I am not a monster,” said Shining Armor.

“Those ponies down there. They never did anything to you. Why are you doing this?”

“Never did anything,” chuckled Shining Armor. Then a realization struck him. “You…you don’t recognize me, do you?”

“Cadence, run!” cried White Night, clawing at the infinitely sharp sword that held him. All he succeeded in doing was cutting apart his hooves. “Get out of here!”

“I’m not leaving you,” she said. “Just hold on!”

The tone in Cadence’s voice angered Shining Armor greatly. She sounded genuinely concerned and afraid for that other pony. She clearly believed she loved him, and yet she had attacked her true husband with the intent to kill.

“Cadence, it’s me,” said Shining Armor. He separated the central cleft of his body and extended his skull outward. As he did, he activated a spell that extended the undead flesh of his body over it, forming a semblance of his original face. Although he had changed his body drastically, his new nature would always enable him to return to a semblance of a pony. He had created that feature for her.

Cadence’s eyes widened, and the color drained from her face. She stepped backward, shaking her head.

“No…no, it can’t be you…”

“It’s me. Shining Armor. I did it, Cadence. I finally succeeded.” He pointed at the crystal in his chest. “I finally became immortal. Just like you. Now we can be together forever!”

“Shining- -the kingdom…”

“I know! Once I remove the traitors, my army will help us rebuild it. Just like we did with the Crystal Palace. It will be new, and better, and perhaps this time they WON’T TURN ON ME LIKE YOU DID!”

He slammed one of his legs into the ground, cracking the tile, and sealed his skull back into the center of his body. Cadence took several more steps backward until she bumped into the pair of thrones in the center of the room- -the thrones that she and Shining Armor had once ruled from.

“Shining…what have you done?”

“I have defeated death itself!” laughed Shining Armor. “I tore my soul itself out of my body! All for you, Cadence! My love, my true and only love!” He dropped to a whisper. “So that we, we can be together…together again, just like we used to be.”

“Cadence,” said White Knight, his voice faltering as the pool of blood beneath him grew larger. “I am not going to survive this, but you have to. Please, Cadence, just run!”

“I will not abandon you, and I will not abandon my kingdom!” cried Cadence. She charged her horn again, and pointed it at Shining Armor.

“Why, Cadence?” said Shining Armor, suddenly overcome with sorrow. “I gave you everything. I gave this kingdom everything! I gave you my eternal love, an unstoppable army! Security, peace, everything. And you rejected it. All of it. And you rejected me…why? Why would you do this to me?”

“Shining Armor,” she said firmly. “I loved him. With all my heart. And I will love him until the day I die. But you…you are not Shining Armor!”

She fired the spell, but this time Shining Armor did more than deflect it. He felt rage surging through his body, and he struck the spell with his own, channeling his own magic through the center of hers. Cadence screamed as her horn fractured from the blow.

Shining Armor crossed the room quickly and took his wife in his many undead arms.

“You are my wife!” he screamed, shaking her as the blood ran from her horn down her face. “YOU ARE MY WIFE! You just don’t remember, by you will! You will love me!”

“Shining,” she said, groggily. “Please…stop this. You’re hurting me…”

“You will love me,” said Shining Armor, lowering his wife and turning her around. Her consciousness was beginning to return, and she started to resist.

“YOU WILL LOVE ME!”

“Cadence, no!” cried White Knight, using his last bit of strength to claw at the blade that held him. “Let her go! LET HER GO!”

“YOU WILL LOVE ME!” screamed Shining Armor. “YOU WILL LOVE ME YOU WILL LOVE ME YOU WILL LOVE ME!”

“Shining! No, please! Stop! Shining, please- -”

“YOU WILL LOVE ME!” The rage suddenly overwhelmed Shining Armor. H could not understand why his wife was resisting him, why she refused to be his again. To his side, he saw one of his larger limbs extend, and saw the cerorite claws emerge. Then, in blind fury, he brought it down.

There was a clunk as Cadence’s head fell against the floor and rolled away, her wide eyes fixed in surprise. Hairs from her mane rained down as her body went slack and fell to the floor.

“NOOO!” cried White Night. “No, Cadence! Cadence!”

Shining Armor stepped back. His mind seemed to move in slow motion as he realized what he had done. His mind began to shift, as though it had been pulled out from him. Clarity began to return, clarity that he did not think was possible.

He stepped back from his wife’s body, her blood now pouring out onto the floor. Outside, he saw the flames and heard the screams, the screams of his kingdom dying- -dying by his own hoof. Across the room, White Knight had finally expired, still clutching the blade that held him. His love had been what had kept him alive, what had gave him such persistence. Now, with Cadence gone, he had left his mortal body.

“No,” said Shining Armor. “I can’t…I didn’t mean to…” He tried to look away from Cadence’s corpse, at her limp legs and wings, but he could not. His optical sensors would not allow it; he could not close his eyes. “Cadence…Cadence! No! What have I done? I have to, I have to- -” But there was nothing he could do, and he knew it. Despite all his power, and despite his immortality, he had never learned how to resurrect the dead- -and he knew it to be impossible for an ordinary pony, or even a lich like himself. Cadence as gone.

He dropped to his knees over the body, weeping. For the first time, he understood what he had done to her. Not just there in that moment, but for so many years before. He had traded a happy life with her for the possibility of an eternal one. Now he had that capacity, and he would live forever as a lich- -but the reason for doing so was gone. He had, in his rage, destroyed the very thing he lived and died for.

“Cadence,” he sobbed. “Why…why did I do this to you? My wife…my love…” He picked up her limp, hairless body, but was forced to put it back down. Shining Armor had handled so many corpses in his life, but this one was different. He could not bear to touch it, to look at it.

His desperation grew, and he stood up.

“No!” he screamed. “I can’t- -not like this. Cadence! CADENCE!”

He plunged his claw into his chest, grasping the crystal that contained his soul. There was no longer any point in existing, and he could not bear to continue his undead existence knowing what he had done- -the weight was too horrible.

With a swift motion, he tore out his own phylactery, severing its connection to his body. He felt his mind tearing, and then the world vanished around him. The last thing he heard was the sound of the screaming ponies below, and the last thing he saw was the flames of the Crystal Empire.