Five pulled herself into the air, propelled soley by magic and the technology installed in her new body. From her perspective, though, she was perfectly stationary- -it was the world itself that moved around her. Her mind traced through her surroundings, tracking the components she would need.

All throughout Equestria, she felt her newly acquired golems dying. On that front, she was losing- -but it did not bother her. The golems had been incidental, something she had taken from Thebe simply because she could. They would cause what to here was at most a distraction and at least petty vandalism. At the same time, the other Humans were attempting to cut off her access to her mass supply. Both phenomena were trivial to her, though.

Five burst through Thebe’s Pyramid with ease. There were protection spells, but her body shattered through them as though they were nothing. As she moved, she reached out into the numerous rooms. So much of what Thebe possessed was so useless, so pointless- -but there were some artifacts that the Pyramid contained that even Thebe herself did not understand the capacity of.

Once she had found what she needed, Five burst through the top of the Pyramid. She was followed by several immense pieces of dark-colored metal. Her mind scanned the area below, and she engaged a powerful spell that penetrated deep into the vast crater below, lifting the pieces that Thebe had not bothered or been unable to excavate.

The components of the Finality Core floated around her at her command, and she moved them into their appropriate locations. She deemed that there would be enough.

Five placed one of her five-fingered hands over her Crystal Heart, and accessed the internal magic within. The Humans had never realized the true nature of what they had been using. They saw Order as nothing more than another weapon, as another form of magic. Five knew better than that, though. She herself was Order, and Anhelios always had been. Order was more than magic, it was itself a schematic, a fragment of the Soth that contained all the information necessary to carry out its transcendent and immortal will.

Order poured out of Five’s body, and she adjusted and modulated it with her far more dexterous spells. She then focused her will into the fragments of the Finality Core. They shifted suddenly, and began to separate. Then they flew forward into the necessary configuration, rebuilding themselves as necessary.

The schematic showed what the Finality Core was supposed to look like, and what it was supposed to do. Normally, one would be assembled by a Choggoth at the end of a world’s life. They built them based on instinct, copying the internal schematic ingrained within their Order.

Unlike a Choggoth, however, Five had all the magic and power of a Human at her disposal. She did not need to summon the Spheres to power the Core- -her body alone was at least as powerful as the sun and moon combined. She would power it herself.

She also made one critical change to the design. As the pieces assembled themselves at her will, she inserted the black cerorite crystal into the framework, changing the fundamental design.

“It will work,” she said, laughing. “It will work. It has to work!”

She felt giddy, and afraid, and angry that the construction was not going as quickly as she wanted. Five had spent her entire life- -perhaps more, even, waiting for this moment, waiting to be born.

“Five,” whispered a strained voice from inside her head. A green-eyed shadow appeared on the edge of her mental vision. “Please…it is taking everything I have to keep your mind together…please, there is still time. If you reject the vector, you might still survive…”

“I don’t want to survive,” said Five. “I can’t survive. Because there is no me. I am not real- -but I will be. I have to be. All this time, all this pain- -I have to succeed. You won’t stop me, Blackest. No one shall.”

From the ground below, Rainbow Dash looked up at the sky. The ground shook as enormous pieces of metal lifted off the ground and from the nearby crater, some of them the size of entire cities. As they were lifted through the air, the disintegrated, their core parts moving ahead while the dead chaff fell behind.

“Rainbow,” said Brown, landing beside Rainbow Dash and helping her up. “Are you hurt?”

“I feel like I got hit with a bus,” said Rainbow Dash. She wobbled on her feet and nearly fell. “No. Scratch that. At least five busses.” She braced herself on Brown’s shoulder.

Rainbow Dash looked around the machine. The three skulls that had been connected to it had been shattered, and the podiums that had held them were charred and sparking. What was left of Proctor sat in the center, dead. Fluttershy was still lying on her side, and Rainbow Dash raced to her side. Her eyes were still open- -Rainbow Dash was pretty sure they could not close- -but she was not moving.

“Fluttersy!” she cried. “Wake up! Please wake up!”

“Move,” said Twilight, pushing Rainbow Dash aside. She lit her horns and cast a rapidly moving spell over Fluttershy’s body. Fluttershy moved slightly, groaning, and twitching. Several nictitating membranes flashed over the surface of her eyes. “What happened?”

“More importantly,” said Brown, looking up at the sky. “What is happening now?”

Twilight looked up at the sky as well, and her eyes narrowed.

“No,” she said. “She wouldn’t…”

“What?” said Rainbow Dash. She looked herself. In the distance, she saw a tiny figure standing in front of a much larger machine that was being rapidly assembled before her. That thing, that creature, was somehow Five- -and Rainbow Dash knew that Five had finally gone so far that she could not be brought back. “What is she doing up there?”

“She’s assembling the Finality Core,” said Thebe.

“The Finality Core?” said Rainbow Dash, taking a moment to realize the weight of that. “But it was destroyed!”

“I kept pieces of it,” said Twilight. “It can’t be rebuilt…not by me, but by her…I think she can.”

“And what will happen if she does rebuild it?” asked Brown, who was starting to sound nervous.

“The Finality Core is a planet-destroying weapon,” said Twilight, darkly. “It can do just about anything. It can turn a pony into a god, or a god into dust- -but it was designed for the express purpose of bringing a Lord of Order into existence.”

“But that doesn’t make sense!” said Rainbow Dash. “Five is trying to break free of her destiny, to get away from Order! If she makes a Lord of Order, all of Equestria would be Ordered! That would be the complete opposite of what she’s trying to do!”

“Unless she can no longer tell the difference,” said Brown coldly.

“No,” said Fluttershy.

“Fluttershy, don’t talk,” said Rainbow Dash. “You’re hurt. You need to rest.”

“She’s right,” said Twilight, looking up at the sky as it began to darken around Five, the clouds swirling as the sky sparked with lightning made of pure Order. “Can’t you feel it?”

“Feel what?”

“She’s changed the design.”

Suddenly, the sky seemed to tear apart. A powerful beam of light poured upward, and another shot downward from the partial sphere that Five had constructed. The lower one cut through the Pyramid below as though it were nothing, and as it tipped, Rainbow Dash was reminded of the mountain that had once fallen in this very location.

The upward surge of light struck the sky, and the clouds burnt away from the force. The color of the black sky shifted to a combination of muted, sickly colors. The force of the falling beam was so great that Rainbow Dash had to cover her face and hold tightly to the machines below her to keep from being knocked back.

The beam that passed into the sky separated, and the sky itself started to rend as space itself was bent. Then, with a sudden surge of force, it snapped, and a deafening sound filled Equestria: that of rapid, mad piping played on some incomprehensible instrument.

Rainbow Dash slammed her hooves over her ears, but the sound could not be blocked out. She was not actually hearing it- -it was in her soul itself, that horrible hauntingly random sound.

“What’s she doing?” she screamed over the noise.

“She’s recalibrated the Finality Core!” shouted Twilight, her eyes wide and panicked. “She’s changed the fundamental origin of the signal! She’s not trying to bring through a Lord of Order- -she’s trying to generate an incarnation of the Lord of Chaos!”

“Is that bad?” asked Brown, shielding his eyes from the light.

“The Thoghth is the embodiment of paradox! If it is brought into this word, everything that can possibly happen- -and everything that can’t- -will happen simultaneously eight different temporal directions! Time, space, reality itself will be cease to exist!”

Above them, space suddenly ripped, and Rainbow Dash momentarally glimpsed what was on the other side. There was no way of knowing what was there, but her mind translated it to at best the image of an immense eye unlike any of any living organism, shifting rapidly as it looked down upon Equestria in absolute and eternal confusion.

“Can you stop it?” cried Rainbow Dash, looking away.

“She’s too powerful,” said Twilight, “And right now, I’m too weak. I can’t possibly fight her, not like this…”

Then her eyes seemed to light up.

“That looks like an idea,” said Rainbow Dash.

“It is,” said Thebe.

“Now that’s the Twilight I know!”

“There is a spell I can use,” she said. “I only have enough energy left for one shot, but it…I think it will work. I can’t fight her, but I think I can move her!”

“Move her where?”

“To a place where there’s someone who can stop her.”

Twilight’s eyes shifted to red, and the runes of the enhancement metal implanted within her gray, sickly body began to glow. Her horns ignited with energy, most of it now red, but a small fraction remaining pink-violet. She channeled her full power into her three horns, and Rainbow Dash felt the spell expand rapidly around them.

The teleportation bubble expanded rapidly, far larger than any that Rainbow Dash had ever witnessed any pony produced, or even imagined was possible. It covered her, Fluttershy, Brown, as well as the Pyramid, expanding in a sphere until it reached as high as Five and the Finality Core. Then, in an instant, it snapped closed as they were moved through space.

Five felt her body shift as one of Thebe’s spells passed over her. She attempted to defend, but the nature of the spell was far different than she had expected. Where there should have been an attempt to kill her, or slow her magic, she instead found her special location being shifted. For some reason, instead of attempting to stop her, Thebe was using a teleportation spell.

The spell completed, and Five found herself floating high over an ocean instead of a desert. To her dismay, she also found that half the Finality Core had been severed by the hard-edge of the spell. The combination of the damage and the sudden and unexpected change in location had prevented the Finality Core from activating. Of course, Thebe had only managed to delay the inevitable. The damage to the Core was a setback at best.

Five focused on her Order, and the black metal of the Finality Core began to shift, reforming itself from the wound that Thebe had produced. As she worked, though, Five felt a strange sensation. An internal proximity alarm was going off within her mind.

Then, without warning, the Finality Core was torn apart by an unseen force. Five was knocked back, but a much larger creature wrapped its finger around her neck, holding her tightly. Five found herself staring into a pair of white, glowing eyes attached to Human whose body consisted of metal and crystal- -and whose shoulder was not marked.

The creature threw Five directly downward. She barely had time to reinforce her body with the appropriate spells before she struck the rocky shore below. The sudden shock produces severe damage to the organic components of her brain, but they were mostly superfluous and the cybernetic elements compensated. She stood, and looked up. Behind her, towering above the island, was an indescribably complex tower and network of machinery. Five recognized it, and understood it completely. It almost seemed to call to her, to want her to help build it, to help finish it- -and yet somehow, she had no idea what such a complicated system was actually used for.

As she stood, she looked around, and understood what Thebe had done to her. Surrounding her were tens of thousands of pairs of eyes, watching from every direction. She had been teleported to an island of Humans.

The eldest among them landed before her, staring down blindly. She knew what he was; Five had a connection to all of them. He was the oldest, the one who had come first, who had been left behind from the last time they had come to this world.

“Finality core detected,” said one of the legion.

“Aberration located,” said another.

“Heritic identified.”

“Protect the creation!”

“Protect the creation!”

“Protect the creation!”

The impulse spread through them, and each of their minds reflected it. They were all identical, and though all independent, they all obeyed the same will. They started walking toward Five, and she knew what was happening. She was one of them, and she understood. The existence of their collaboration was tenuous beyond measure: each of them hated all forms of life that differed in any way from themselves, but they hated each other most of all. Every second they wanted to murder all of their own kind, to be the last and most pure standing- -but the goal they shared kept them from doing so. Now, they were faced with one of their own kind that had defied that very goal. Their rage- -and unbridled joy- -seemed to permeate from all of them.

“You think you can kill me?” said Five, bracing herself. “You don’t even understand what you are, what I am!”

She focused her energy on the remnants of the Finallity Core that still floated overhead. They were badly damaged, and would no longer function in the way that she had wanted, but they were still partially serviceable. Five activated their residual energy.

Black rainbow energy poured down from above, tearing through the Human population, ripping their bodies apart as it crossed through them. Five drew it in a straight line from the shore inward until it pointed directly at the abomination that they had created.

The Humans reacted instinctively. They jumped into the air, projecting wings of light to propel themselves. They blocked its path with their own bodies, casting powerful shield spells to protect their creation from damage. Many of them died in the process.

Suddenly, one appeared directly adjacent to Five. There was no time to react, and barely enough time for Five to take note of the zero carved into her shoulder. She was hit with a powerful blow that tore the crystal away from the front of her body and sent her flying backward.

As she move, Five compensated. Her own Order began to rebuild her body, drawing on the mass reserves that the others had collected. At the same time, she fired several powerful spells form her own body, merging Chaos and Order in ways that the others could not even begin to comprehend. They attempted to sheild themselves, but the Chaos portion of the spell forced it to jump, passing over the shields and piercing their vital components with solidified Order. They were knocked back as their bodies began to decay from within, their flesh and metal leaking onto the sand below.

Thousands of spells rained down from above, and Five projected a shield spell to protect her. Deep inside her, she wondered why she was trying so hard to survive- -and realized that this was truly her chance. She rebounded several of the spells, mutilating their casters, and then stood before her people. She lowered her shields completely as they approached- -and knew that she was about to get what she wanted.

They surrounded her, and the largest of them stepped forward. For a moment, she just stared up at him, and him at her. Then she felt his spells activating, along with the rest of them. So many thousands of spells, each one more powerful than Thebe herself.

Before they could fire and complete Five, however, the atmosphere suddenly started to ring. The sound was almost silent, but through the emptiness, it was deafening. A single, crisp musical note, unlike any that had ever been heard or would be heard again.

The Humans’ spells stopped. There was no need for them anymore. Each of them turned toward their creation, and they looked up at it longingly. Even Five could not stop her head from turning. She understood what they did- -that it no longer needed protecting. Its internal systems had completed their metamorphosis. It had activated.

As Five watched, it began to collapse. Its parts began to tighten, and then tear apart under their own force. The tone shifted to a roar as the entire device began to implode, sucking its billions of tons of mass inward. Parts were incinerated and destroyed as others were sucked inward, compressed deep within the core of the machine.

Not one of the Humans knew what was happening, but they knew their role. A powerful light poured over them, and they stepped into it. As each approached, their bodies began to separate. Their armor fragmented, and their flesh peeled away. They were fragmented and separated into individual components, divided and processed as the white light left their eyes and entered the machine. They were giving their creation their bodies as the final component to its construction, killing themselves so that it might perform its unknown task.

Five suddenly felt the force of the implosion pulling on herself.

“NO!” she cried as she felt herself being pulled forward- -and not. Her vector was too young, her body still unstable. The machinery that she had become was being pulled from her, separated from the true form that Blackest Night held within her, protected by her ancient power. Instead of dying, Five’s immortal power was being taken. She watched her metal and crystal and white Order being stripped away as she became a pony again. “No! Please! Not yet! I’m not done!”

Screaming produced no effect. She watched as everything she had gained was peeled from her. Before she passed into unconsciousness, she looked down at her hooves, and felt her head, finding that the horns that indicated her curse of Order were still indeed present.

Epicenter watched the events unfold before her in horror. Their creation- -what they had built, what so many of them had died for, and what so many billions of ponies had been killed to produce- -was being destroyed, torn apart by its own mass. She did not understand, but inside, she knew that she had been tricked. They had failed because they were never meant to succeed.

She tried to join her brothers and sisters, to step forward into the light, but she felt a hand on her shoulder. The oldest of them stepped past her, and looked down at her as his body started to disintegrate- -and Epicenter knew. He watched him pass into the light, simply waking into it as his body disintegrated. She watched as his seemingly eternal life came to an end, and how he so graciously accepted it- -how this had been his one true goal, and how he, alone among them, had understood the purpose of what they were creating.

Epicenter tried to follow, to join them, to be consumed by the destruction of their false goal- -but even as she entered the light, nothing happened. Her body remained stable. It did not want her.

She was Patient Zero, the first infected, the epicenter of the infection- -and as she watched her predecessor fade away to dust, she knew that it had been her destiny since birth to take his place.

Rainbow Dash watched as the island grew closer. She had watched in awe as the thing that had built on it had been consumed internally, as it had collapsed into nothingness before them. It had been a sight to behold, and although she did not understand why it had done that, she knew that it had been significant.

Now she and her friends floated toward the shore on a raft made of Twilight’s magic. Brown was clinging to her side, desperately trying to avoid getting near the edge, and Fluttershy, who was recovering but still injured, sat on Twilight’s tall alicorn back. Fluttershy’s own wings covered the stumps where Twilight’s had once been, and where there wires and cables still clung to the stumps.

When they reached the shore, Rainbow Dash hopped off with Brown. Brown retracted the facemask on his bioarmor and looked at the ruin of the atoll they had arrived upon. Where there had once been trees, there was no nothing more than smoking rock. What had been built here had spanned distances as great as any Megatropolis in Equestria, connecting to numerous other islands, but it had all vanished in a less than a minute.

Silently, Rainbow Dash walked forward over the wreckage. Then, in the distance, she saw a lump lying in the sand. She took to the air and flew toward it.

“Rainbow, be careful!” cried Brown, following below.

Rainbow Dash nodded, and continued to approach the organic mass. When she got close, she realized that it was Five. She had been stripped of her power and reduced to what she had been before: a young looking bat pony, now lying in the sand.

“Five?” said Rainbow Dash, landing. She approached slowly, not knowing even what to expect would happen. Gently, she pushed Five over and found that Five was fully conscious. Her eyes were open, and tears were rolling down her face silently.

“I…I failed,” she whispered. “I failed…” Her hooves moved to her now visibly swollen belly. “I’m sorry, Six…I failed you…”

“Look,” said Twilight, standing beside them. Rainbow Dash looked up and to where Twilight was pointing. There, in the distance where the great machine had once stood, was a new object.

Standing before them was a tall obelisk. It solid, made of a single type of material that none among them recognized. The color of it was pure black, but still somehow seemed reddish in the way it reflected light. Although it was tall, it was nowhere near as tall as the machine had been.

Beneath it stood one of the creatures who had constructed it. She did not seem to be reacting in any way to their presence. Fluttershy got down of Twilight’s back, and Rainbow Dash and Twilight approached it.

Even as they got nearer, the creature did not move. Then, when they were within feet of it, it turned. Twilight charged her horns, preparing a spell, but the look on the creature’s face alone was enough to disarm her. Even though it had no true face apart from a pair of white, sightless eyes, Rainbow Dash has never seen an expression so sad.

“It…it used us,” she said, this time in a language that both Rainbow Dash and Twilight could understand. Her voice was that of a pony who was barely out of fillyhood. “I…I remember now. They found us in the dark, when we were broken…the Monolith…this…this is what it was all for…”

As she turned back to its creation, Rainbow Dash thought she saw a tear running down its artificial face, a result of the realization of what its true situation. Then, in a flash and with the sound of a small explosion, it was gone.

Rainbow Dash looked up at the immense monolith before her.

“What is it?” she asked.

Twilight approached, and ran her alicorn hoof across the smooth surface. Then she laughed. Rainbow Dash did not understand, even as the laughter collapsed into tears and Twilight dropped to her knees.

“This…this is what they were doing? Everything I did, everything I destroyed to stop them, for this? I failed, even, and…none of it even mattered…”

Fluttershy and Brown joined them, and helped Twilight to her feet. Fluttershy hugged her, and Twilight wept into her shoulder. Rainbow Dash continued to stare at the red-black surface. It did nothing. It was not threatening, nor nonthreatening. It simply was.

The conflict was over. The war had been won- -or rather lost- -and yet nothing had been accomplished by any side involved. If this could even be called victory, it was the hollowest kind.

The only consolation was that Rainbow Dash was with her friends, and she smiled. Even if so much had been lost…at least she had that.