Pick entered the front room, stepping between the two potted, flowering chollas that framed the door to the rest of the house. He closed it gently, being careful not to disturb the pair of tall shrubs. Across the room, Silver Spoon was pretending to read a book and reviewing some notes that were placed on the coffee table.

“How is she?” asked Silver Spoon.

“Well, the first lamp missed but the second connected pretty hard. So at least she still has her aim.”

“You know, you really shouldn’t let her hurt you like that. It’s kind of abuse.”

“It’s not like I can feel it through my armor anyway. That’s kind of a big problem in our relationship.”

“Still,” said Silver Spoon. She got down off her couch and approached to where Pick was standing, but stopped suddenly and held her nose when she came in range of the large white flowers that adorned the cactus plants. “Oh, sweet Luna’s lumps! That smell!”

“I didn’t think I smelled that bad.”

“No, not you. The plants! Ugh, I don’t know why Diamond Tiara lets them bloom. They smell like a dead body that’s been exercising. Hold still.” She reached out with her mouth and hoof and expertly unlocked Pick’s helmut interlock, pulling out the front cover.

“Hey!” cried Pick as Silver Spoon put the helmet over her own head, breathing through Pick’s filter. “I need that to breathe!”

“No you don’t. I think you’re just afraid of intimacy.” She took off the helmet and gave it back to Pick, who did not immediately put it back on. The flowers just smelled like food to him.

Silver Spoon went back to the papers she had been sorting, and put her hoof on them as though she were about to start flipping through them. Instead, she just sighed. “Pick, this is bad. We have to do something.”

“I don’t know what we can do. You know how stubborn she is.” He looked back toward the door. “Frankly…I can’t help but wonder if it’s my fault.”

Silver Spoon looked back at him. “Your fault? How could this possibly be your fault?”

“Oh come on. You can see it as well as I can. She’s ashamed of me. She’s the richest filly in Ponyville. She could have anypony she wants. She could have YOU. And instead, she gets stuck with me.”

“It’s not you. I’ve never seen her like this, Pick. Something is seriously wrong. It’s bad. Trust me, it takes a special pony to love her. We’re few and far between..”

“I wish that was not the case. And I wish I could do SOMETHING for her. I’m the colt in this relationship, and I’m supposed to be the strong one, at least sometimes…but I just feel so insignificant.”

Silver Spoon smiled. “You’re not insignificant. She’s pushing us away because she’s scared. She’ll never show it, not to us, but she is. I think all we really can do is be there for her when she’s ready.”

“Will she ever be ready?”

Silver Spoon turned back to the papers, facing away from Pick. “That I don’t know.”

“Can I do at least something? Something small, even?”

Silver Spoon picked up the papers. “Well…I know that at this point, there’s pretty much no chance she’ll make it to the Prom, but she would want to make sure it’s completed. There was a mixup with the catering and the band, and it would help if you could take these over to Twist. I think I need to stay here with her.”

“Of course,” said Pick, levitating the papers and rolling them into a tight package.

“I’m sorry you won’t get to go to the Prom.”

“The Prom can…how do you surfacers say? ‘Plot itself’? I don’t even like dancing. I only came here because she asked me to.”

Silver Spoon smiled. “Oh, and also, stop by Sugarcube Corner on your way back. I don’t know if it will help, but their fall pumpkin always made Diamond Tiara feel a little better when she was younger. You know, from the public berating by her mother and the chronic loneliness.” Silver Spoon paused, and leaned in. “Also…if you could talk to Twilight. I don’t know what she said to Diamond, but if anypony can help, it’s her.”

“You mean the bisymmetric.”

“Oh. I forgot, you don’t like alicorns. Well, I can- -”

“No. For Diamond Tiara I would stare down the barrel of the Red-White Sphere itself. Assuming it had a barrel. Nevertheless, my romantic assertion stands! I shall speak to Twilight Sparkle!”

“Hurry back. And be careful, there’s a cold going around Ponyville right now.”

“I will.” Pick placed the papers in one of his pockets, and made his way toward the door. Just before he reached it, though, it slammed open. “Squeeek!” cried Pick as his wings instinctively unfolded, causing him to buzz into the air and bump into several objects before coming to a rest on his back, wings still buzzing, where he spun around for a moment. “Noooo!”

Silver Spoon helped him up, and looked over to the door to see a familiar but unwelcome pink visage entering the home.

“Well,” said Spoiled Rich, turning up her nose at the mostly redecorated front room and at the ponies it currently contained. “This place smells…awful.” She pulled off her scarf and jacket and tossed them to her elderly butler, who caught them with some difficulty. Spoiled herself looked somewhat off. Her makeup was thicker than usual, and she seemed to move more slowly, as though she were tired.

“Can I help you, Mrs. Rich?” asked Silver Spoon.

“Where is my daughter?”

“She isn’t feeling well right now. I can take a message- -”

“I’m her MOTHER. I can see her whenever I want to.” She sighed. “Sweet Cadence- -what does she pay you for, anyway? If I wanted to deal with incompetence, I would have stayed at the hospital.” She rubbed her flank.

“Are you hurt?” said Pick, actually sounding genuinely concerned.

“Do I look hurt? No. It was for a pregnancy test. That quack…he took FOREVER to get to me, even though I was the most important pony there. Dealing with all those ‘sick’ ponies who are probably just faking it for attention. What can I expect from a UNICORN, though. I seriously need to consider getting another doctor. Ideally one with smaller forelegs.”

“You’re trying to get pregnant?” said Pick. His wings vibrated and released a loud chirp.

“Eew,” whispered Silver Spoon. “Gross!”

“Of course I’m trying. Why else would I be spending forty thousand bits a visit on fertility treatments? All that work, and I don’t think Filthy is even TRYING.” She paused, and seemed to realize that she was venting about something extremely personal, at which point she blushed profusely. She cleared her throat. “But that’s not the point. I need to see Diamond Tiara NOW. Take me to her, servant girl.”

“I’m not a servant,” said Silver Spoon, struggling to keep her composure.

“Aww,” said Spoiled in a heavily patronizing way. “Isn’t that cute? You actually think she’s still your friend! Even though you’re a worthless, moneyless failure! Aren’t you just adorable!” Her ironic smile vanished. “You’re her maid. Now do. Your. JOB.”

“Madam,” interjected the butler. “Perhaps mistress Tiara truly is ill at the moment. Indeed, might I suggest that we return when she is feeling better? You know how…taxing your interactions can be for the both of you.”

“Are you talking back to me? ME?” Spoiled loomed over the aged Stallion. “It’s like you’re just ASKING for the sorry-stick.”

“P- -please, madam, not the sorry-stick! I- -I truly do apologize for having overstepped my boundaries!”

“I’m not making a second trip all the way out here.”

“It is true, Mrs. Rich,” said Pick, stepping forward. “Diamond Tiara really is ill. It’s that cold that has been going around Ponyville, and I would hate for it to spread to you, especially in your current situation, what with the fertility treatments. I would be happy to sit with you, though, if- -”

“You filthy little wretch! She’s probably only sick because of a disease YOU gave her!”

“What is THAT supposed to mean?” snapped Silver Spoon.

“Don’t think I don’t know what you’ve been doing,” said Spoiled, ignoring Silver Spoon. “Just the thought of you pawing all over my daughter- -it makes me sick! I should have squished you when I had the chance.”

“With all due respect, Mrs. Rich, what Diamond Tiara and I do together is none of your business.”

“Yeah,” added Silver Spoon. “Because some ponies don’t just walk into a room and start talking about what they do with their special somepony. Because that would be RUDE and GROSS.”

“Oh please. You’re one to talk.”

“And what is that supposed to mean?”

Spoiled assumed a real smile- -but not a caring one. It was the kind of smile she was about to be especially nasty, a self-assured grin at having trapped a pony into an impending verbal lashing. It was one of the only smiles she ever gave to Diamond Tiara.

Spoiled reached out and gently lifted the one pearl that remained on remained on her necklace. “Aww, you’ve only got one left. I can only guess you hocked the remainder. I’m terribly surprised.”

“I did what I had to.”

“Oh, not that. I know your family, little Silver. They’ll sell anything that’s not nailed down, just so long as they can fund the next party. No, it’s not that. It’s the fact that you never got a new one. You know, with all the stallion in town lining up to give you a new pearl necklace.”

Pick twisted the dial in his chest. “Oh wow. That translated perfectly.”

“Do you really think I don’t know how little whorses like you work?” asked Spoiled. “That cold isn’t the only thing that’s been passed all over Ponyville?”

“Your husband didn’t seem to mind.”

That retort was unexpected, and it hit hard. Spoiled Rich just blubbered for a second, confused, sputtering, and darkening by several shades of pink. Her butler lifted his hoofkerchief, pretending to caught to disguise his laughter.

“You- -you didn’t!”

“Oh, come on. It wouldn’t have been the first time one of you rich ponies ‘cleaned the windows’ with a ‘maid’, would it? Or… ‘maintained the pool’?”

“You- -you little- -” Spoiled raised her hoof to strike Silver Spoon, and Silver Spoon stood defiantly to take it. Pick intervened, though, coating Spoiled’s hoof in projected energy.

“Please don’t hurt Silver Spoon,” he said. “Watching her get hurt makes me cry. I mean, look at her, she’s adorable.”

“And I didn’t even need four pounds of plastic implants to get that way.”

“Oh, sure,” said Spoiled. “You talk real tough when your little client is here to protect you, but just you wait. Even if somepony doesn’t knock those stupid glasses off your face, you’ll get old, like I did. Except you won’t have any money to get it fixed.”

“You don’t look old,” said Pick. “Actually, you’re really, really attractive. If I wasn’t with your daughter, I would consider- -”

“Finish that sentence, and I will crack your helmet like an egg,” said Silver Spoon and Spoiled Rich simultaneously.

Spoiled and Silver Spoon looked at each other. “Just- -just get out of my way,” said Spoiled, shouldering past Silver Spoon. “I’ll just find her myself.”

“I told you, she- -”

“It’s MY house. If you get in the way, I’ll call the guard and have you both thrown in jail.”

Spoiled passed by, followed by her butler. Pick turned to Silver Spoon and whispered. “You didn’t actually…with Mr. Rich…”

“No, of course not! Filthy is like a second father to me! Or, really, an ACTUAL father to me. But did you see the look on her face?”

“Not really. The contrast between her shirt and coat color is really jarring to my sensors.”

“Trust me, she jars them just as much without it.” Silver Spoon whispered even more quietly. “Just think, that’s what Diamond Tiara is going to look like eventually.”

“I sure hope so. If Diamond looks like that in her sixties, rest assured, she will not be having fertility problems.”

“I’m forty two!” called Spoiled Rich from the edge of the room. “And I’m not deaf!”

“No, but apparently colorblind.”

“This shirt cost more than you will make in a LIFETIME! You can’t comment on taste when you and your little- -”

“What do you want, Spoiled?” whispered a voice from the shadow between the two cholla trees.

Every pony in the room jumped in surprise. None of them had heard the door open, and none of them knew exactly how long Diamond Tiara had been standing in the darkness. Diamond Tiara did not usually enter rooms silently and without fanfare, but to Silver Spoon, this thing standing in the doorway looked like little more than a shadow of her best friend.

Diamond Tiara had already looked off when she had come back from the spa, but Silver Spoon had dismissed it as her having walked through the cold without a jacket. Now, though, in the contrast of the dim light, the changes in her person were far more pronounced. Where Diamond Tiara was normally a healthy pink, she had now faded to almost gray, and seemed to have grown immensely and unhealthily thin. Silver Spoon suddenly realized that she had not seen Diamond Tiara eat anything at all in almost a week.

Worse, though, was the expression on her face. She no longer seemed interested in anything in particular, and held no expression apart from one of immense exhaustion and apathy. Her eyes, now nearly gray and pale, seemed to stare out far beyond the room without looking at any pony in particular. Even her Tiara was missing.

“Diamond Tiara!” said Spoiled Rich disapprovingly. “I knew I was getting here just in time- -look at the state you’re in! You’re not even wearing your tiara makeup, and your STILL letting ponies see you like this?!”

Slowly, Diamond Tiara’s eyes moved up to her mother. Facially, though, there was no response. She did not cower in fear and submission as she had as a filly, nor did she attempt to resist and retort as she did as an adult. Instead, she seemed to barely recognize that Spoiled was even there. Silver Spoon realized that something was terribly wrong.

“Just answer the question,” said Diamond Tiara, somewhat harshly but with surprising lack of emotion. “Why are you here?”

“I’m here because I’ve been hearing all sorts of rumors around town. Do you have any idea that damage you’ve done to our family reputation? First you go parading around town with this, this insect-mutant, and I thought I could just DIE. But then I have to hear that your sanity is now in dispute. I didn’t believe it, but looking at you now…” Spoiled looked down her nose at Diamond Tiara. “Well, just look at you!”

The Diamond Tiara that Silver Spoon knew would have said something and tried to defend herself. Silver Spoon was holding her breath waiting for it, but Diamond Tiara did not even seem to notice. Her eyes slowly drifted, and then focused hard- -but not on Spoiled. Instead, she seemed to be staring at an area of the room that was curiously empty.

“So you came to watch me fail? Typical.”

“Fail? You’ve already failed, Diamond! Look at you! LOOK AT YOU! Just when I didn’t think you could be MORE of a disappointment!”

“Yeah,” sighed Diamond Tiara, as if she did not even hear what Spoiled was saying.

“I took time out of my schedule because, apparently, you can’t be left alone. I’m here to take you home.”

“That won’t do any good. None of it will do any good.”

“Of course it will. We can’t- -we simply CAN’T- -have you walking around town like this. We can’t have the ponies talking about this, ruining our reputation- -just think of how much harder it will be to transfer the company to your brother when the board of advisors realizes that his sister is INSANE.”

“I’ve met my brother. He doesn’t care. And he won’t be my brother for much longer. Oh Harvestor…”

Spoiled’s expression changed, and she took a minute step backward. It was enough for Silver Spoon to realize that Spoiled was beginning to see what she had already realized. This was not simple changes in behavior, or stress, or a breakdown. Something had changed, and Diamond Tiara was cognizant of it.

“It’s worse than I thought,” said Spoiled. She reached out toward Diamond Tiara. “Come on, Diamond Tiara. We’re going home!”

Diamond Tiara’s eyes flashed toward her and for the first time focused on Spoiled Rich. The two cholla trees beside her immediately reacted, pushing out their spines and bending forward to block Spoiled’s path.

“Diamond Tiara!” said Silver Spoon.

“Worms…in my head. That’s what they told me. Eating my brain…but I don’t think they were the problem. I can’t tell, but I don’t- -I just don’t know anymore. I don’t care, either. I think they were trying to warn me. Even now, I can hear them screaming…”

“Diamond Tiara! How dare you! I’m only doing this for your own good!”

“My own good? Nothing you have ever done was for my good. You hated me, from the moment I was born. Every time you see me, you see a disappointment. Even when I was perfect, even when I still had a chance, everything I did was a failure to you.”

“That isn’t true! I was just trying to make you a better mare!”

“No. I was just an accessory to you, a toy. Take my advice, ‘mother’. Don’t have another kid. Because she’ll just be a ‘failure’ too.” A dry and humorless smile crossed Diamond Tiara’s face. “Unless Harvestor succeeds this time. Then you’ll get exactly what you wanted.”

Spoiled now seemed to actually grasp the gravity of the situation, and her demeanor changed completely. “Diamond Tiara, we can get you doctors. The best money can buy, we can get you better!”

“I don’t think you would even bother. But then again, I don’t even care anymore. Besides…” Diamond Tiara winced and dropped to her knees. She coughed, and wiped something dark away from her mouth. The trees at her side responded by retracting, allowing the other ponies to get to her. “At this point, the liver damage is irreversible.”

“D- -Diamond!” cried Silver Spoon, racing forward. “What did you do?”

Diamond Tiara produced a sad smile. “I won’t let them use me. I won’t let them take me. I won’t go. I’ll stabilize the rift myself. I’ll do it on my own terms!”

“WHAT DID YOU DO?”

Diamond Tiara’s smile faded. “I just took five bottles of pills. I’m sorry, Silver Spoon, but if they had succeeded…” Diamond Tiara lay down on the floor. “If they had…just take care of Pick for me…”

The world became something of a blur. Diamond Tiara felt herself moving in and out of consciousness, as though time were jumping around her.

At one point, she opened her eyes just enough to see ponies around her. There were lights overhead, and they were moving. Diamond Tiara realized that she was moving, rolling on a gurney. It felt like she was floating.

The ponies looked panicked, and a blurry unicorn doctor spoke to his nurses. “I need three doses of acetylcysteine, STAT!”

“We’re losing her!” said one of the nurses in a panic.

“Sweet Celestia- -get me a second unicorn! Prep her for surgery!”

Diamond Tiara closed her eyes. She was sad for making everypony worry so much, but it needed to be done.

Then she opened her eyes, and saw a silent, still room. Numerous ponies were standing around her, watching from the shadows. A light suddenly flashed on, and their unblinking eyes narrowed into horizontal slits.

Several of them leaned forward, strange machines held in their magic. One of them leaned in closest. His coat was gray, and his eyes pale purple- -but Diamond Tiara recognized him from his sickening smile.

“Diamond Tiara,” said Harvestor, “I did not give you PERMISSION to die.”

The image shifted again. Diamond Tiara felt herself being dragged. Above her, she saw a darkened multicolored sky. Then there was pressure on her chest, and Lucy came into view, tears streaming down her cheeks as she performed CPR.

“Come on, Diamond!” she pleaded, on the verge of breaking down. “Don’t give up on me! Not like this! Please don’t leave me!”

Then, all at once, the world collapsed to black. Diamond Tiara found herself floating, and she was not sure how long, but she eventually settled through the infinite space and found herself standing on a surface.

She looked beside her, and saw the face of a kindly pale horse, an all-white unicorn.

“Did it work? Am I…am I dead?”

He smiled, but it was a sad smile. “I don’t know. Dying is the one task I am never allowed to complete. She won’t allow it.”

“She? Who is ‘she’?”

“The one I love,” he said, simply, as though that were enough of an answer. He gestured forward, to where a light was developing in the distance. Diamond Tiara knew that this was the end, and she followed him toward it.

Then, suddenly, something wrapped itself around Diamond Tiara’s rear leg. She shrieked as she was pulled backward by an unseen force, a tentacle that she understood to be arising from a place filled with something strange and horrible.

“Help- - help me!” she cried to the Pale Horse.

He did not smile. Instead, he only looked ashamed. “I can’t,” he said. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. But a word of advice: listen to what they are saying this time. And…if you see Fluttershy, tell her that I love her.”

Diamond Tiara did not understand what he meant, but he was rapidly growing smaller as she was pulled away from him deeper into the darkness. In her fright, she made the mistake of turning around to face whatever it was that was attacking her.

There, in the void far below, sat a pair of impossibly large red eyes.

With a gasp and a start, Diamond Tiara awoke to a bright gray sky. She shivered in the wind, and looked around to find herself in the middle of a field somewhere outside of Ponyville. For a moment, she wondered if she really had died- -but she felt cold and sore, and knew that she had not been so lucky.

Looking down, she realized that she was dressed in a mud-stained hospital gown. An IV line was placed in her left foreleg, still attached but with the tubing charred and melted. Diamond Tiara had come from the hospital, but as far as she could tell, she was on the complete other side of town. She had no idea how she had gotten there.

With her teeth, she reached down and tore the IV out. She then stripped away the gown, intending to leave it there in the field. As she did, however, she realized that something was wrong with her right foreleg. She looked closely, and there, amongst the burn scars, were letters scratched lightly into her skin. At first, she could not read them. They were not in Equestrian, or really any language she recognized. Then, somehow, she realized that they made sense- -at least to the extent that she could read them. The phrase, however, had no meaning: just the words “yellow-red-eyes” written again and again into her flesh.

As Diamond Tiara contemplated this, the whole world suddenly seemed to shift. Everything came into sharp focus, and the ground seemed to shake. Diamond Tiara realized that, since she had failed, the end was coming. There was not much time left.

It was night by the time Diamond Tiara reached her house. Overhead, thick, dark clouds were swirling, lit with occasional flashes of blue light and an unearthly colored glow from just beyond. The whole way, the world had been shifting just slightly, trying to pull Diamond Tiara away. She had managed to make it back mostly through a combination of sheer luck and willpower. The effect was growing stronger, though, and the transition was becoming increasingly inevitable.

When she reached the door, Diamond Tiara paused. She was not entirely sure if she wanted to enter. Still, she realized that this would be her last chance, so she pushed the door open.

The house was dark inside, lit only by the glow from outside which itself might very well have only been imaginary. For a moment, Diamond Tiara wondered if nopony was home. Perhaps they had finally given up and gone their separate ways. The voices in her head denied that image, though. There was still living moisture in this house.

So, Diamond Tiara moved through the shadows, led by instinct and a light that only she could see. It did not take her long to find her friends. They were sitting together in one of the inner living rooms, Pick slowly sobbing into Silver Spoon’s shoulder.

When Diamond Tiara entered, Silver Spoon looked up and her eyes widened as though she were seeing a ghost. Pick, in turn, looked up in disbelief. Diamond Tiara said nothing, because there was nothing that she could say. There was no way she could apologize for what she had done to them, especially to Pick.

They stood in silence for a moment, and Diamond Tiara finally looked away. She once again considered leaving, but before she could go, something buzzed toward her across the ground and a pair of forelegs wrapped themselves around her.

“Diamond Tiara!” blubbered Pick, the sound of his weeping barely audible through his helmet. “Diamond- - Diamond Tiaaaara!”

“Yeah,” said Diamond Tiara at last, her voice cracking. She put one hoof around Pick. “Yeah, it’s me.”

She looked up to see Silver Spoon approaching her, wiping away her own tears. “The doctors told us…they said you were brain-dead. That you wouldn’t ever wake up.”

“Yeah. I thought I wouldn’t either. Apparently I can’t even die right.”

“Why would you- -why would you do that?!” wailed Pick, followed by sputtering choking sounds as his helmet started to fill up with tears. His grip had become somewhat crushing, as though if he were to let go, Diamond Tiara might leave him again. “WHY?”

“Because that was my last chance.” She turned to Silver Spoon. “I’m sorry. I really am. But I had to. Now…Silver Spoon, you need to get everypony out of Ponyville.”

“What? No.”

“Silver, you have to listen to me. There isn’t much time- -”

“No.” Silver Spoon stamped her hoof against the floor. “Diamond Tiara, do you have any idea what you just did? To me, him- -for Celestia’s sake, to yourself?! Do you know what it was like to lose you, what that felt like? I’m sorry for being selfish here, I really am, but you at least owe us an explanation!”

“There isn’t time. You need to- -”

“I’m not doing anything until talk. Tell me, do we really mean that little to you, Diamond Tiara?”

Diamond Tiara looked up at her. Silver spoon was crying, and Diamond Tiara felt tears running down her own face. Diamond Tiara sighed, and then explained. At first, she only wanted to give a brief summary, just enough to placate Silver Spoon. Once she started, though, it all came out. Every insane thing she had experienced- -the alicorns and Harvestor, the other realm and Lucy- -leaving out only the part she was to ashamed to tell Pick- -and everything else.

When she finally finished, Silver Spoon and Pick- -now without his helmet- -were listening with rapt attention. Diamond Tiara saw the expressions on their faces, though, and knew what they were thinking.

“You don’t believe me,” she said. “I knew you wouldn’t. I don’t even believe me. Now you probably think I’m insane. I would understand if you just want to take me over to the Ponyville psychiatric ward and just leave me there.”

“No,” said Silver Spoon. “There’s only one thing I want to know.”

“What?”

“How do we help?”

Diamond Tiara paused, finding herself wholly unprepared for that reaction. Then she burst into tears.

“Silver Spoon!” she wept, “I don’t- -I don’t know what’s happening to me! I don’t- -I don’t want to go! I never did! I’m sorry! I’m SORRY!”

Diamond Tiara continued to cry for what felt like a long time, until a sudden vibration pierced the night. The other side was calling.

“Silver, Pick, there- -there isn’t much time! You need to get everypony out!”

“But what about you? If you’re right, even if we make it, you’ll be trapped on the other side!”

“It doesn’t matter! Forget about me, YOU need to get out of here!”

“Wait,” said Pick, his ears perking up. “I have something that might help.”

There was a flash of white light, and Pick vanished. Then, a few seconds later, there was a second flash on the other side of the room and he reappeared, now holding an ornate box.

“I was going to give this to you at the Prom, but I think you could use it now.”

Pick brought the box over and opened it. Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon both gaped at its contents. Sitting inside, surrounded by felt, was a hoof-sized round object, a sleek disk of glimmering technetium and plated with white metal.

“This- -this is a dial. For…for me? You’re giving this to me?”

“What else would I be doing with it? Take it. I built it for you and you alone.”

Diamond Tiara picked it up, her hooves shaking. It was surprisingly heavy for its size, and it was obvious that it was well made- -even more so than Pick’s own.

“Oh my gersh,” said Silver Spoon. “This is beautiful.”

“There’s only one problem, though,” said Pick. “I didn’t intend for it to go into immediate operation- -it doesn’t have a crystal!”

Diamond Tiara winced from a sudden pain in her head, and the world momentarily flashed dark and strange before Pick and Silver Spoon reappeared. Time had run out.

She reached up toward her head, but found that her tiara was missing. “I- -I don’t have any!” she cried.

“Will this work?” Silver Spoon slid off her necklace and snapped it with her teeth. She slid off the one remaining pearl into her hoof.

“It should,” said Pick. “Nopony’s ever tried to use a pearl in a dial before, but- -yes. Yes, it will work.”

“But, Silver Spoon,” said Diamond Tiara. “Your last pearl…”

“It doesn’t matter. If it will help you, there’s nothing I would rather use it for. Take it.”

Silver Spoon held out the white sphere, and Diamond Tiara looked down at it. She hesitated, but then took it. She twisted the rim of her dial, and thousands of intricate mechanical parts burst forth, including one long silvery needle. Shaking, Diamond Tiara slid the threading hole of the pearl over the needle. The dial responded immediately, moving clasps into position as it retracted the sphere into itself. Once it was closed with only the upper rim of the sphere exposed, it hummed to life and began ticking.

“Thank you,” she said, holding the dial close to her chest. “Thank you both. Thank you- -”

The room went silent, and Diamond Tiara found herself standing in a field of ancient, eroded rubble beneath a darkened sky. “So much…”

Now alone, Diamond Tiara just stood still and cried in silence for a moment. Her clothing- -the cape and armor that Lucy had leant her- -had returned, and blew around her. Finally, she sat down against the half-carved marble blocks and stared up into the heavens, at the countless broken spheres, their dim light, and their remnants collapsing down to oblivion below.

It did not take long before a voice called out from behind. “Diamond Tiara?”

Diamond Tiara quickly slid her dial into one of her pockets and turned to see Lucy standing tall on one of the larger blocks behind her.

“Lucy.” Diamond Tiara stood up and turned to her friend. “You came.”

“Of course.”

Diamond Tiara slowly approached the older pony. Lucy jumped down from her block, and once they were close enough, Diamond Tiara hugged her.

“That was the last time,” she said. “My last chance. I won’t be able to get back. I’m like you now.”

“I’m sorry,” said Lucy. “I’m so sorry…”

Once again, Diamond Tiara found herself sitting outdoors around a bright artificial light. Behind her, Lucy was rummaging through a saddlebag.

“Are you sure you don’t want any?”

“No thanks. I’m not hungry.”

“I’m so hungry I could eat a horse. Not literally. Hopefully. Not again.”

Lucy removed a jar of something from the bag and smiled. She walked over to where a slightly alive log was sitting near the “fire”, brushing past Diamond Tiara as she went. Her smell was still as incredibly sweet as ever.

“Here,” said Lucy, dropping a small cube into Diamond Tiara’s grasp. “I was told this was yours.”

Diamond Tiara stared at the morlock cube, and then looked up at Lucy, who was gnawing at the lid of the jar she had gotten out.

“You know you have magic, right?”

“Yes. I have magic. But this yelly also has the flammable. And I want to eat it, not add more scars to myself. Although, scars are sexy, right?”

“Not really, no.”

“Yeah, didn’t think so.” Lucy finally managed to pop the top off the jar, and a hideous smell filled the air.

“Oh, buck!” cried Diamond Tiara, holding her nose. “What the hay is that?!”

“Food. Probably. Well, I eat it.” Lucy dipped her hoof into the gelatinous black fluid and licked it in a way that seemed calculated to be seductive but had the complete opposite effect.

“Is it supposed to smell like that?”

“Yeah. That’s how you know it is good. You have to ferment it to get the toxins out. Can’t cook. Tried it once, things came up from the ground to steal my fennel. Fire is a bad idea in this place.”

“Yeah, well, I’m now even less hungry than I was before.”

“Suit yourself. It tastes great.”

“More like you scraped it out of a grate,” muttered Diamond Tiara, picking up and examining the cube. It was no longer cold, and the facets had far more give than before. “Thank you for keeping the cube.”

“I keep a lot of things. But that cube is something special. I’ve seen a great many things fall through the storms, but never something like that. Got half a VCR once, though.”

“What the hay is a ‘VCR’?”

“I have no idea. Couldn’t eat it, though. At least not most of it.”

“Do you just eat anything?”

“I think you know the answer to that one.” Lucy winked awkwardly, and Diamond Tiara shuddered.

“If you do that again, I will hit you. I don’t care if you’re old, or Fluttershy’s mom. Don’t do that.”

“Sorry, sorry,” said Lucy. “And I don’t think I’m that old. I mean, I’m still pretty, right?”

Diamond Tiara sighed. “Yes, you are, but not in that way.”

“Aww, thanks.” Lucy looked over at the cube that Diamond Tiara was holding. “I tried opening it, but I couldn’t even get it to move.”

“It takes a certain amount of finesse.” Diamond Tiara easily shifted one of the sides into place.

“Do you think there’s more in there? More of…her?”

“There are. It’s in really good condition, it’s just- -hold on- -”

The cube opened, and released another blast of blue light. This time, Diamond Tiara managed to control the output and directed it outward, away from the light source. Once again, the image resolved into a translucent blue morlock mare. This time, her helmet was removed, and Diamond Tiara was surprised by how young she looked. Yttros must not have been much older than Diamond Tiara when she had made these recordings.

“Date is 7794.03,” she said. “Log entry number seventy two, Yttros Xenotime. Progress has been vastly slower than expected, stymied by the limited resources present in this world. I have been forced to fabricate all parts manually, which is in itself time and energy intensive. The far greater problem is the dearth of technetium. I have been forced to build my supply through biomagnification. Fortunately, viable game is plentiful here. It tastes…adequate. Reminiscent of fresh thestral veal.

“After much surveying, I have finally settled on a sight to repeat the experiment that I lost two years ago. That was a significant setback, but the new location should be relatively insulated from temporal sheer. “ One of the dials in Yttros’s chest clicked to the side suddenly, and an image appeared beside her. It was mostly an abstract diagram written out in morlock writing, filled with readouts and statistics.

Diamond Tiara suddenly froze the image. “Lucy…do you see that?”

“I see a lot of things, so…maybe?”

“Those are coordinates.”

“It just looks like a bunch of lines to me.”

“No, no, I know what it says.” Diamond Tiara set the cube on the ground and picked up a small stick and began scratching notes into the dirt, attempting to perform the calculations necessary to covert the numeric morlock written language into the phonetic Equestrian one. “Lucy, do you have a map?”

“Do I have a map!” Lucy laughed, and then suddenly became incredibly serious. “You bet your sweet filly flank I have a map.”

Lucy jumped up and sauntered over to her bags, which were propped against a tree. She rummaged through again and removed several rolls of various materials. She pushed the log she had been sitting on and laid down several of the sheets of material. Some were cloth, and others paper. A few were a smooth, dark material that Diamond Tiara did not recognize. All of them were covered in incredibly small hoofwritting, and several pages appeared to move against each other to shift the map in various ways.

“There’s a reason I never get lost,” said Lucy. “Well, not often. Not sometimes. Many, or few.”

“You’re really excited.”

“I never get a chance to show somepony my maps! And I worked so hard on them!”

“I can tell,” said Diamond Tiara, momentarily losing hope upon seeing just how indecipherable Lucy’s “maps” were. She was aware that there was actually a strong possibility that whatever Lucy had written was less cartological and more the ravings of a madmare.

After several hours of looking and Lucy attempting to explain what the various symbols and foldouts meant- -along with the pages and pages of supplemental mathematics- -Diamond Tiara did managed to finally get the most basic understanding of what the map meant.

“So,” said Diamond Tiara, checking her own math. “If the pink sphere is in retrograde- -”

“No, no. If the pink sphere is PINK. If the pink sphere is in retrograde, it turns kind of a burnt sienna and this panel would be over here.”

“Oh…well, that would mean that the latitude would be here…and the longitude- -”

“It would be at a diagonal, because that way is second west.”

“So Yttros’s coordinates would be…here.” Diamond Tiara put her hoof against a largely blank portion of the map, and Lucy’s eyes widened. Lucy suddenly stood up and backed away from the map.

“What’s wrong?”

“No no no no no,” said Lucy. “That place, no. Just no. Not there.”

“What is it? What is in that place?”

“She doesn’t know- -that place is a bad one. One of the worst. I’ve never even been there. The storms…before these storms, many were there. Many bad things came out of those storms, things that don’t ever survive long outside of where they came from.”

“That’s a good thing, then. It means we’re on the right track.”

“Wh- -what?”

“The storms.” Diamond Tiara looked back at the frozen image of Yttros, who appeared to be watching them silently. “Yttros was building a machine, a gate back to Equestria. I don’t know when she made these recordings or how long it’s been, but…” Diamond Tiara shivered at the thought. “What if she succeeded?”

“Succeeded?”

“What if the gate worked? The storms mean that something is there- -what if it was her machine?”

“Worked? You mean…you’re saying she got back to Equestria. That’s impossible. It just- -it just is!”

“There’s only one way to find out.”

“No, no, NO. You can’t be serious. You actually want to- -to go there? THERE? NO. No way in, well, here.”

“But what if I’m right? What if it IS a way out?”

“A…a way out?”

“You’ve been trying for thirty years. To get out. What if you could?” Diamond Tiara looked up at the sky. “As far as I can tell, Ponyville hasn’t fallen in yet. It’s still there. Fluttershy is still there.”

“Fluttershy?” “My Fluttershy?”

“Just imagine. What it would be like to see her. To be able to explain what happened to you, how she’s grown. To give her a hug. I hear she’s really soft. I know it’s a risk, but doesn’t that make it worth it?”

“I could…I could see my daughter again…”

“And I could get back to my friends. We could both have our lives back.”

“Mines too far. I don’t- -I don’t know if I could go back to living the way I did. Not after this.”

“Trust me, you will. I have a spare house. You can live with me until you get back on your feet. I can help you, Lucy, but I can’t get to the portal alone. I need your help. Please.”

Lucy looked down at the ground, and seemed to struggle with the thought. Then, finally, she looked back up at Diamond Tiara. “Arhg! Fine! You would probably go on your own anyway! At least I won’t have to die alone. But the spiral tangent ration of that area is really big. It will take us a while to get there.”

Diamond Tiara smiled. “Thank you.”

“No. You can thank me when we don’t die. Assuming we don’t.”

“I’ll do one better. I’ll thank you when we get back to Ponyville.”

Diamond Tiara went back to where she had set the morlock cube and picked it up. The image of Yttros Xenotime faded, and diamond Tiara put the device in her pocket. As she did, she patted the other pocket where her dial was slowly clicking. She did not actually know if Yttros had ever finished her machine, or if it would truly freed her from this place- -but she held out hope that she would return and see her friends again.

The journey indeed was long. How long, though, it was impossible to tell. The more time Diamond Tiara spent in this place, the more she began to perceive the world as Lucy did. Distances became less relevant than imperceptible parameters that were first impenetrable but that quickly became intuitive; time seemed to flow strangely, doubling back or slowing as it saw fit. Those changes in themselves were almost maddening, and if Diamond Tiara had not been with a pony who had already experienced it and survived, she would have sworn that she was losing her mind.

The scenery began to change. The area that Lucy preferred was mostly dark forest and wide, flowing fields. As they passed into less well-traveled territory, though, that began to change. The light in the sky became increasingly red, and the trees became remarkably evenly spaced and eventually were reduced to leafless, blade-like shards, all planted at an identical diagonal angle from the sandy clay below. Even stranger, out here, there were roads. They were ancient and overgrown with various unfamiliar grasses, but they existed- -meaning that they had been built by somepony at some time.

Some of these grasses, as it turned out, were in fact edible. However long passed, Diamond Tiara eventually started to become weak from hunger. Lucy showed her which ones were edible, although Lucy’s definition of “edible” was loose at best. They tasted horrible, like sulfur and blood, but Diamond Tiara choked them down. However bad they were, they were not nearly as bad as the rotting meat that Pick and his family tended to dine upon.

They stopped at several points along the way. Lucy, it seemed, needed neither rest nor sleep, but Diamond Tiara did. Every night, though, she would attempt to access more of Yttros’s recordings. Most of the times, she was unsuccessful. Sometimes it worked, but the result was nothing more than her taking notes and describing details of the machine she was building. Most of it was so technical that no pony short of Starswirl the Bearded likely could have understood what she was referring to. Even Diamond Tiara, who had the most knowledge of morlock technology of any pony short of a morlock, had no idea what she was talking about.

On one night, though- -the forth, if Diamond Tiara was counting correctly- -she unlocked a very different file. She had been sitting around the fire, leaning against Lucy who was lying down, apparently resting even though she did not need to. The image opened as it had before, and Diamond Tiara felt the exhilaration of having succeeded once again.

Yttros appeared once again. Her armor had changed since the earlier recordings; now instead of being new and clean, parts had been replaced and repaired. Some had been improved, but it was clear that Yttros had been working on limited material.

Likewise, her face looked different. Diamond Tiara was startled to see that she was no longer a young mare. In her place stood an aged morlock, the signs of her difficult life readily apparent on her face.

“7842.91. Log entry…I don’t even know.” She took a long breath, and then sighed. “Once again, the firing tests have failed. Even after all this time, I still cannot get the parts…and I still cannot reach my home.” She hung on the last word, and then looked at Diamond Tiara- -or rather, her drone’s camera. “But that’s nothing new. I won’t stop. It may take a few years, but I will rebuild what I’ve lost and try again. Because apparently that’s all I can do anymore. That’s not what this log entry is for, though.” She paused, and seemed to hesitate about what she was going to say next.

“I have had time to think. So, so much time. And I never stop. There’s no ponies here, no one to talk to. All I can do is think. And sometimes I think about myself. And I realized something. This whole time, the only thing that has kept me going has been the thought of vengeance. To do to Celestia what she did to me. But now…now…

“I helped build the Underking’s Incarnation, but I did not design it. Yes. Were I to return, I could complete Him. I could let the Underking loose upon Equestria and have my vengeance…but there is no way I could control Him. The weapon would be entirely unregulated. The entire world would perish. The entire world, save me.

“And when I was young, that was enough. I wanted that. But now…it’s been fifty three years. Those White-Sphere soldiers who drove me here, they were just colts back then…but now they’re old stallions, or dead. Does anypony even remember what the burrowing Pegasi were, what we had accomplished? Does any of it even matter anymore?

“I have decided. I can’t…I can’t do it. I can’t be like the Demon-Queen. I just…I just can’t. The Underking must not rise. He was meant to protect us, but there’s nothing left to protect. We lost. And when I finally return, I vow to destroy our last weapon. We don’t need it anymore. We haven’t needed it in fifty three years.

“And…there is something else. I have a new plan. As a First Princess and member of the Yttros bloodline, I am an incomplete parthogen. Perhaps this was destiny, that I would be my people’s failsafe. I am one of very few who can produce foals without male intervention. My attempts here have been…catastrophic. As though nothing with a proper soul can be born in this place. But in Equestria, I could repopulate the morlock race. In ten generations, my daughters could once again fill our cities. I have to return. I have to- -I’m our last chance.”

She paused, and Diamond Tiara thought the hologram would end- -but then Yttros added a further statement. “But…I don’t know how much time I have. The voices are getting louder, and…the shadows. They’re getting closer. The ones with white eyes, I can fight them. I always have been able to…but now there’s something else.” She appeared to look Diamond Tiara in the eye. “There is a shadow out there with red eyes. Her…her I cannot fight. The mother to the others…and I cannot help but wonder why she is watching me. I can’t help but believe that my time is growing short.”

The hologram closed, and the cube began to ice. Diamond Tiara turned to Lucy.

“Red eyes,” she said. “Lucy, have you ever seen something like that?”

Lucy looked up at her. “Something with red eyes? No. No I haven’t. But if little Xeno was afraid of it, I don’t think I want to. Although…” She looked at where the hologram had been. “She’s not so little anymore. She’s as old as me. Diamond, do you really think she made it out?”

“Of course. She had to. She just had to…”

In time, the forest ran out completely and was replaced with desert. Rocky, mossy soil gave way to endless dark sand and sterile stone. Even then, it was unlike anything in Equestria. The dunes were taller, and the rocks strange and jagged. Even stranger, there was something beneath those dunes. Sometimes it would groan and roar, and when standing atop them, Diamond Tiara could sometimes see a dune shake off its sand in the distance and wander across the desert or dive beneath the sand. Lucy was very hesitant to climb those dunes.

The sand itself was not empty either. Occasionally, Diamond Tiara would spy segmented black tentacles rising from between the stones, reaching out toward her and Lucy. Lucy, though, was prepared. When a tentacle would rise, she would extend her magic and grasp it and then bite it free with her teeth. They released a profoundly chemical-smelling clear solution that apparently contained water. The desert was not hot- -in fact, it was generally quite cold- -but Diamond Tiara was still thirsty, so she drank the water that Lucy gave her. It tasted bad, but Diamond Tiara was rapidly growing used to eating unpleasant things.

This continued for a long time. Diamond Tiara would have lost hope, had it not been for the storms gathering overhead. A vast, swirling cloud with solid blue lightning occasionally piercing through its dark mist meant that they were getting closer.

At one point, they reached the top of a dune and Lucy stopped Diamond Tiara.

“See that? That right there?” Lucy pointed at a generic spot in the desert.

“No.”

“Of course not! Because you can’t! But that’s the border. Beyond there, it gets hairier than Luna’s unshorn fetlocks.”

“It doesn’t matter. Whatever it is, we can face it together.”

Lucy smiled. “Yes. Yes we can. You watch my back…”

“And I’ll watch yours.”

Lucy nodded. “I’m going to scout ahead first, try to find a clear path. It’s easier for me because of my magic. You just wait right here and try not to make any sudden movements while I’m out there.”

“What will happen if I make a sudden movement?”

“You’ve seen the tentacles, right?”

“Considering I ate one, yeah.”

“They don’t like sudden movements. Or like them a whole lot. It’s a matter of perspective. So don’t do it. Unless you’re into that sort of thing.”

“Fine. Just don’t get yourself offed.”

Lucy smiled as she descended the far side of the hill. “I haven’t yet, I don’t think I will today.”

Lucy continued down the hill, and diamond Tiara sat down in the gravel. Several tentacles peeked out from beneath nearby rocks, as though watching her.

“What are you looking at?” she said, causing several of the smaller ones to retreat into whatever burrows they dwelt within.

While she was waiting, Diamond Tiara removed Yttros’s cube and began to adjust it again, mostly out of boredom. The last recording at fifty three years had been the last one she had found, and as far as she could tell, there were not any beyond that. Since then, manipulating the cube had become more of a habit.

After several minutes, an idea suddenly occurred to Diamond Tiara. Cautiously, she looked around. When she saw that nopony was around, she removed her dial from her jacket pocket. She was not entirely sure why, but she had never shown Lucy the dial or told her about it. There was no particular reason, at least consciously. Something told Diamond Tiara that showing Lucy the dial was a bad idea, and she had no reason not to listen.

Diamond Tiara opened the dial and reconfigured it. She had handled Pick’s dial before, but never terribly extensively. The infinite mechanical versatility was somewhat surprising. It was even more surprising that Pick had given her something this special. From what she had come to understand, the vast majority of morlocks used external machines. Technetium dials were something extremely rare, a pure distillation of morlock technological prowess reserved only for nobility or those with enough scientific prowess to construct their own.

The edges of the dial retracted to produce four leg-like clasps, and Diamond Tiara picked up the cube in her mouth. She inserted it into the waiting clasps, and the dial shifted in response to accommodate the newfound technology.

At first, nothing happened apart from wild clicking and whirring as the dial tried to interface. It seemed to know that what it had been combined with was morlock, but it was having trouble keeping up with the vastly more advanced technology that Yttros seemed to use. Then, suddenly, it stopped.

A hologram flashed out in front of Diamond Tiara. At first, there was nothing except static. Then it slowly resolved, and the image of Yttros stepped into view.

Diamond Tiara gasped and backed away in horror at what she saw. Yttros was no longer an old mare- -she was hardly even a mare at all. Her armor had grown increasingly extensive and ragged, only to be rebuilt again and again until it no longer seemed to make any logical sense. One of her technetium dials was missing, and another seemed to have hemorrhaged, covering the left side of her body with a wild overgrowth of machinery that seemed to replace most of the flesh below.

Yttros looked at the camera, and the mechanical pupil of her one remaining eye narrowed.

“I…it can’t be right,” she hissed, her voice cracking and distorted. “But is has to be. My chronometer reads that the year…the year is 11045.I didn’t…I didn’t feel the time pass. I didn’t notice. But now…now I understand. Oh how I understand.

“The voices, the voices became overwhelming,” she said in a sudden non-sequitor. “As such, I removed the offending organ. My sanity has been partially restored.” She tilted her head, and Diamond Tiara nearly vomited when she saw the hole where Yttros had hollowed out her own brain. “The voices stopped. I made them stop. But now…

“It’s too late for me. There’s nothing left. My body…I’ve been dead. Oh sweet gods, I’ve been DEAD FOR CENTURIES. I just didn’t notice. She…she did this. I don’t know why. I don’t know WHY!” She burst into tears, which rapidly decayed into laughter. “But it’s nearly complete. The irony. It’s nearly done, after all these years, after all this time- -but there’s nothing to send back! I don’t even remember why I built it, what I was trying to do in the first place. Just that I needed to finish the machine. If I did go back, what would the world even look like? Would I recognize it? Would it recognize me? I guess I’ll never know.”

“No, Yttros,” said Diamond Tiara. “Don’t say that…”

Yttros faced the camera. “It’s not that I could even use it anyway. The system, the failures…it all points to the same conclusion. I do not have the parts to finish the device. I require a core, a catalyst, and I neither have one nor can make it. And the machine…it requires two, but can only send one. And I am only one…the last one…

“But I will still finish. By the Underking I created, I WILL FINISH! I- -I wasted my whole life on this machine, dedicated every waking minute on its completion. Everything I could have been, could have done…that is lost to me. There is only this. My life’s work. And I must finish. I must complete it.”

She paused, and a tear rolled down from her eye. “This is…this is my last recording. When it is done, I will send my drone out to carry it away from this place. No one will ever find it. I know that. I’ve accepted it. But…if they do…then it means you are the one who has found me. I don’t know what you are. I encrypted this last message. It can only be played with a technetium dial. So you are either one of my kind- -a survivor, a clone, or a remnant like me- -or perhaps you are a pony from the new age who remembers us. I don’t know. But I’m sorry. Sorry I couldn’t be there for my people. Sorry I failed. But…” She looked directly at Diamond Tiara. “Heed my warning. I complete my final task with the knowledge that it will never be used- -and I pray that you consider the consequences of its activation, and know that there was more to its design than you could ever realize. More than I ever knew, until now. May the Underking have mercy on your soul.”

The hologram returned to static, and continued that way for several minutes. Yttros was gone.

“Diamond Tiara?” called Lucy from the other side of the hill. Diamond Tiara sat up with a start and fumbled to separate the cube from the dial. She slid the dial into her pocket just as Lucy crested the hill. “Oh,” said Lucy. “Still trying with the cube? Did you find anything new?”

“No,” lied Diamond Tiara. “Nothing.”

“Oh. Well, hey, you’ll never guess what grabbed my leg down there. Also, I found a good path. If we take that hill over there, it’s a half-day walk to the Structure.”

“Structure?”

“You’ll see. Hopefully. We’re almost there.”

Lucy lead Diamond Tiara down the hill, toward what Diamond Tiara was coming to increasingly envision as a vast spiral pit in the ground. As their elevation decreased, the air seemed to change. It began to feel as though it were charged with electricity, and smelled strongly of ozone. At the same time, it started to feel thicker and somehow heavier- -and that combination of factors made Diamond Tiara increasingly reluctant to continue.

Then, finally, the area leveled into a broad plane. “This is it,” said Lucy as she walked across the sand. “This is the closest I’ve ever gotten to it. There are just some places we were not meant to go. This is one of those places.”

Diamond Tiara looked out across the desert. The sand swirled around them, obscuring the area in front of them. As Lucy led her forward, though, the shape of a structure began to resolve from the dust. Then, as they got close enough for it to be seen clearly, Diamond Tiara gasped.

“No,” she said. “It can’t be…”

Except that it was. The architecture was different, but it was all still there. The structure was a massive stone fort, crooked and half-buried in the sand that had surrounded it for millennia. It was smaller than Diamond Tiara remembered it, because here, the additions had never been added. There had been no will to so. It remained as it must have been when it had first been constructed in a distant era lost to history.

“What is it?” said Lucy.

“This…this is my home,” said Diamond Tiara.

“It can’t be. You’ve never been here before.”

“Yes I have! In my world!” She looked around. The mountains in the distance were not quite the same; they were taller and more jagged here, but they were still the same mountains. “This…this is where I met Diamond Pick. Where the worms first got into my head. It’s…it’s my home.”

“No. It isn’t. It is…a reflection. Just an image. You can’t trust it. Look up, at the sky.”

Diamond Tiara did. The sky was perfectly clear, but only in a circle, a vast eye centered over the highest towers of the structure. Beyond that, a seemingly infinite vortex of intense lightning and clouds buzzed through the air, spewing out material in broad spirals throughout the desert.

“This is an area where space is thin,” explained Lucy. “Things can fall through easily, or they can come through easily.”

“That must be why Yttros built it here.”

“Or the effect of her activities. This is unholy, Diamond Tiara. I don’t like it.”

“It’s our only chance, Lucy. If you want to go back, you can. I can take it from here.”

“I’m not going back. I’ve come this far. I’m not leaving. Regardless of the outcome.”

“Right,” said Diamond Tiara, nodding. She took a deep breath, and continued through the storm toward the structure.

As they drew closer, the land began to change. All around them stood the remnants of trees and plants. Many of them were the netlike skeletons of chollas, hundreds of times larger than any that grew in the real world. All of them were stripped of their flesh and mostly knocked over. Nothing was alive, and Diamond Tiara could not hear their voices. She could not help but be reminded of some kind of a battle; the way the trunks and dried cactus husks stood, it was as though they had been laying siege to the castle before them. Except, unlike in Equestria, here they had been vanquished before they ever even reached the gate.

The dust became increasingly thick, and both Lucy and Diamond Tiara were forced to don masks as they made their way toward the castle door. When they finally made it through, Lucy charged her horn and slammed the oversized door closed. The pair were immediately shrouded in darkness until Lucy lit her horn.

“Did you see them?” she asked, pulling off her mask and shaking the sand out.

“See what?” Diamond Tiara pulled down the cloth that was covering her muzzle.

“Then you didn’t. Good. Let’s hope we don’t have to go back that way.” Lucy looked around at the vacuous stone room that surrounded them. “Wow. Is it this big in Equestria too?”

“No,” said Diamond Tiara, crossing the cracked and dusty stone tiles that led deeper into the ruin. “In my version, it kept getting built up every few decades. You can’t even really tell where the old fort used to be, except in the middle. It’s all buried now.”

“Fort?”

“Yeah. Apparently, it used to be a base of operations for Nightmare Moon’s troops.” Diamond Tiara paused, and them muttered to herself. “If the Red-Sphere is Celestia, then the White-Sphere…”

“You are not reassuring me. Reassure me, Diamond Tiara.”

“It’s not that bad. But…I don’t think it’s true.”

“What do you mean ‘not true’? So there weren’t really hundreds of soldiers of darkness wandering around doing all sorts of evil things in here?”

“Oh no, there were. But I don’t think the fort was built that late. I’ve overseen some additions on it myself. For reasons. Some of the stuff we hit when digging…it’s older. That’s what I’m trying to say. I don’t know what it was before then, but something was definitely there a long, long time before Nightmare Moon ever got there.”

“And now we’re here. Great.”

Now, Diamond Tiara took the lead. Lucy followed behind her, casting pale green light that caused Diamond Tiara to cast a long and irregular shadow down the stone corridors. Even with Lucy’s light at full, though, the corners of the hallways remained darkened. Diamond Tiara noticed that they seemed to be built to a much larger scale than she was accustomed to, but that was not entirely unexpected. The parts of the fort she was accustomed to were over a thousand years old. Many had been lost, replaced, or disassembled. This area was similar in terms of architectural theme- -which was, apparently, ‘crypt’- -but otherwise new to her.

“I don’t like this,” said Lucy.

“Well, we haven’t seen any jellenheimers yet,” said Diamond Tiara, peeking past one of the stone arches into one of the pitch-black rooms beyond. “That’s a good thing.”

“No, no its not. Everything here is infested…but this place isn’t. There’s nothing here. No sound, no life. It’s a dead place.”

“I know,” said Diamond Tiara, suddenly realizing that Lucy was right. “And to think…Yttros must have spent her whole life in here.”

“Until she finally escaped,” added Lucy.

“Yeah. When she finally went back to Equestria.”

“That must have been a huge relief. I don’t like this place.” Lucy turned her head, causing her light to shift. “I can’t believe you lived here.”

“Again, it looks different. I’ll show it to you when we get back.”

“No thank you. But hey, if you know the layout, then which way- -”

Before Lucy could finish her sentence, something suddenly ignited with blue light far down the long hallway. Diamond Tiara cried out and tried to jump out of the way, but the surge of light was too fast. It struck her with tangible force, and she felt space ripple. She immediately felt terribly nauseous and collapsed to the ground.

Then the sensation faded, and Diamond Tiara stood up. Lucy did the same behind her, her horn momentarily deactivated by the shock of whatever had hit them. The world seemed to swim, but resolved- -into something very different than it had been.

The hall was now reasonably well lit by high sconces that produced the cold blue-white glow of the artificial crystals they contained. The stonework was now no longer dusty and crumbling, but instead fresh and new, draped with tapestries and banners. All of them were in shades of black and dark blue, covered in elaborate, early versions of the insignias that Diamond Tiara had learned as a filly to associate with Nightmare Night.

“No way,” muttered Lucy, pressing against Diamond Tiara’s side. “This…this is…”

“What it must have looked like,” said Diamond Tiara, looking around the hall. “Back then, a thousand years ago.”

The scenery changed again. Air near the walls seemed to condense and gain solidity, and then numerous ghosts appeared. They were not like the ghosts that Diamond Tiara had seen before, though. They were still partially translucent, and partly grayed, but only slightly. Otherwise, they looked almost completely solid, complete with facial features and detailed Nightmare-Era armor.

Lucy and Diamond Tiara were suddenly surrounded by the images of Nightmare Moon’s followers. All around them were menacing looking bat stallions and seductive bat mares walking amongst sallow, robe and hood clad unicorns. Strangely, though, despite being almost complete, the ghosts still behaved as ghosts. Not one of them spoke, and none of them seemed to notice the two out-of-place mares standing in the middle of their castle.

“Damn,” said Diamond Tiara. “Silver Spoon would love this.”

Then, all at once, another wave hit and space suddenly became lighter. The trappings of the hallway vanished. The ghosts collapsed, in their place burst forth with skeletons. Lacking any source of animation, the bones clattered to the floor, scattering across the stone at Diamond Tiara’s feet.

“Oh BUCK!” cried Lucy, holding Diamond Tiara tightly. “Those- -those weren’t there before! How did- -how did they- -”

“It’s just illusions,” said Diamond Tiara, kicking the smashed-in remnants of a bat mare’s skull out of her way. “Just echoes. It isn’t even real.”

“But ghosts- -they’re supposed to be hollow! They don’t- -they don’t work like that!”

“I don’t think this place follows the normal rules. It’s no wonder Yttros went insane. But I think it means we’re close.”

Diamond Tiara continued on, pressing her way through the collapsing ruin. Lucy followed her, providing light but jumping at the shadows of her own creation. Diamond Tiara had not known Lucy long, but she had never seen her act quite like this before. Lucy’s nervousness only made Diamond Tiara more frightened- -and that fear made her stronger. This time, she was supposed to be the strong one. Her resolve was as unwavering as the slow ticking she felt against her breast.

In time, they ascended higher into the fortress into the complicated walls and ramparts above. Through the empty holes of windows, more light filtered in from the suns floating high above the eye of the eternal storm overhead.

“What exactly are we looking for?” asked Lucy.

“I don’t know,” said Diamond Tiara. “Knowing morlocks, it will probably be big and make a lot of machine sounds. But I don’t know, I guess it could be tiny too. It will definitely be made out of metal.”

“This place is larger than Celestia’s rump. How are we going to find it?”

“I’m guessing she put it in the middle. That’s what I would do. There.” Diamond Tiara pointed at the central tower. “That structure is kind of hollow, and it goes pretty deep. I’m betting she put it over there.”

“Can we even get there from here?”

“I think so.” Diamond Tiara looked down the long, wide hallway before them. “Yes. Yeah, if we take where the kitchen used to be…”

As Diamond Taira stopped to consider the path she needed to take, the air suddenly seemed to thicken. Now that she knew what was coming, Diamond Tiara dropped to the floor and held hear breath. As expected, another wave of blue light shot up from the long hallway before them and quickly swept through the air.

The nausea hit, and then passed. This time, Diamond Tiara could already sense the change from the smell. Whereas the ancient fort usually smelled like old stone and dry wood, now it smelled strongly of camphor and antiseptic.

Slowly, Diamond Tiara raised her head and saw that the long hallway was now clean and white, lit with bright sterile sunlight through the large glass windows on either side. The floor and walls had been pained and coated, and the emptiness had been filled with simple beds.

The air condensed, and ponies formed. Numerous mares seemed to emerge from the air, walking, some pushing small carts filled with surgical instruments and bottles of medication. All of them were dressed in long, starched white robes and habits. Diamond Tiara realized that they were nuns.

One of them slowly pushed a cart toward Diamond Tiara, and seemed to turn and smile. That was when Diamond Tiara realized that their faces were beautiful, but wrong. For a moment she almost panicked, until she realized that they were wearing porcelain masks with identical faces painted onto them.

“What…what is this?” squeaked Lucy.

“This is…this must be where the south ward used to be…”

“Ward?”

Diamond Tiara nodded. “About…about sixty years ago, this used to be a sanitarium for glanders patients. It was run by some weird order of nuns, Sisters of the Veil or something. This must be them.”

“Why does this keep getting worse?”

“It’s not worse. They’re just nuns.”

“No, they’re ghost nuns in creepy masks. I hallucinate this stuff, and it’s not FUN. And they’re not going AWAY.”

“Yeah, but they’re not IN the way. We can just walk past them.”

“But I don’t…I don’t want to.” Despite that statement, Lucy stood up and followed Diamond Tiara down the center of the hallway. As they did, Diamond Tiara tried not to look at the nuns, or their patients- -but it was inevitable. Antibiotics had rendered glanders largely eradicated in the latter half of the tenth century, but Diamond Tiara had still seen pictures in books. It did not compare to real life.

The ponies that lay in beds were largely bandaged, their faces and legs covered in gauze, some of it flattened in areas where there should have been noses and ears. A few of them were still exposed, with the nuns slowly changing the bandages or dabbing at the wounds with useless medicines as the patients’ bodies slowly rotted away from infection.

The nuns seemed to make it worse. They all looked the same, all with the same sculpted smile, the same glaring and unblinking eyes. Diamond Tiara was not sure why they wore the masks, and she did not want to know. Even though the nuns had been relatively recent historically, very little record remained concerning them or what they did. From what few records remained, though, Diamond Tiara had realized that they were one of the more malicious things that had dwelt in her home throughout its long and storied history.

What made it worse was that unlike the ghostly images of Nightmare Moon’s soldiers, the nuns seemed to be at least vaguely aware of Diamond Tiara’s presence. They turned, slowly, watching her pass.

Diamond Tiara watched them, and momentarally took her eyes off of the path ahead of her. Almost as soon as she did, Lucy cried out.

“Diamond Tiara! Watch out!”

Diamond Tiara looked toward Lucy, only to see a ghostly shape barreling toward her. Silently, it leapt up- -and connected. Diamond Tiara almost screamed when she realized that it had weight and mass, or at least seemed to. As she looked down at the figure, though, her breath caught in her throat. The figure that was holding her tightly was a morlock.

At first, Diamond Tiara thought that it was Yttros, somehow. Almost immediately, though, she recognized this morlock even though they had never met. She looked almost identical to Pick.

The morlock stared directly into Diamond Tiara’s eyes, and Diamond Tiara saw that she was panicked, terrified beyond belief. She had been stripped of her armor, and it had been replaced with an old-style hospital gown. Fresh surgical scars dotted her body, and one now-blind eye was heavily blackened.

“Iee’hii,” she whispered.

“I don’t- -I don’t understand!”

The morlock looked behind her, and then disengaged from Diamond Tiara, running down the hall as the image faded. This time, no bones fell from the ghosts, especially the morlock- -because, as Diamond Tiara already knew, she had survived. The only thing that remained were the beds, now rusting and covered in badly-stained, moth-eaten blankets.

“That was- -that was one of THEM,” said Lucy. “Was that little Xeno?”

“No,” said Diamond Tiara. “I think…I think that was Pick’s grandmother.”

“What did she say?”

“It…it doesn’t translate literally.” That, of course, was a lie. It translated directly and unambiguously to “the red eyes”. With the inflection tone, it had been meant as a warning- -but beyond that, Diamond Tiara was not sure what she meant.

“I think…I think we’re almost there,” said Lucy. “Do you want to finish this?”

“More than anything.”

“Then let’s do this. I’m so tired of this place. The last thing I want to do is stay here a minute longer than I have to.”

Diamond Tiara nodded, and they continued on their way.

The structure of the central tower was, in fact, different than it was in the real world. In Equestria, it consisted mostly of a segmented group of rooms with curving walls, complete with tall spiral staircases that led to the ramparts overhead. In this world, however, it had been completely hollowed.

When Diamond Tiara finally managed to find her way to it, she immediately knew that it was the correct location. There were no lights, but even from the smell and sound alone Diamond Tiara could tell. It smelled like metal and technetium, and there was a perpetual hum of machinery. This was the right place.

The room was initially dark, but when Diamond Tiara entered, the cadence of the machinery changed in response to her presence, whirring to life from an indeterminate slumber. The metal grates that covered the floor shook and vibrated, and high above her the lights flashed on one by one, revealing the room in which Diamond Tiara and Lucy now stood.

The center of the ancient fortress had once been a hollow tube, but was now filled with extensive morlock machinery. Millennia of work stretched out before Diamond Tiara, a mixture of endless cogs and conduits and synthetic crystal. It occupied nearly all the space it was given, clinging to and penetrating the stone walls of its housing with long tubes and channels that no doubt led to far deeper remnants. It’s magnitude alone was terrifying, but at the same time stunning.

“She…she built this,” said Lucy. “All alone…”

“She did,” said Diamond Tiara.

“It makes me feel…bad. All this time, and I’ve barely been able to survive…and she made THIS.”

“You’re not a morlock. Have you ever met a morlock mare? They are persistent little freaks.”

Diamond looked around at the machinery, trying to determine exactly how it was meant to operate. Finding it, she knew, was only part of the battle. Even the lesser part. Morlock technology was meant to be intuitive- -for morlocks. Diamond Tiara had a reasonable grasp of the basics, but something of this extent was far more complex than anything she was familiar with. She doubted that even modern morlocks could even come close to building even a fraction of this technology- -which only made it even more impressive that a single ancient morlock had built it in a single if technologically enhanced lifetime.

As Diamond Tiara approached the center of the room, the machine suddenly shifted. Part of the mass of gears and mechanisms began to reconfigure themselves, drawing out a form from what should have been solid material, assembling itself before them.

Lucy charged her horn, preparing to defend herself and Diamond Tiara from whatever it might be. The mass of machinery seemed to ignore her stance, and instead fully separated itself from its source, resolving itself into a single shape.

“Stand back, Diamond Tiara!” said Lucy, pushing Diamond Tiara away.

“Wait!” Diamond Tiara pushed back Lucy, and looked closer at the now pony-shaped machine standing before them. She gasped when she realized what it was. Imbedded in the mass of technetium and scales of armor was the remnants of a dry, white morlock skull- -and in its chest, a still ticking technetium dial.

“Celestia no,” whispered Diamond Tiara. “It…you didn’t…” She stepped toward the form, and its mechanical eye traced her path.

“What is that thing?” said Lucy. “Diamond Tiara…tell me what that is!”

Diamond Tiara looked up into the remains of a morlock standing before her. “Xenotime…is that you?”

The dial in the construct’s chest shifted, and it released a series of drone-programming ticks, indicating that it was awaiting orders.

“That can’t be her,” said Lucy, her voice accelerating from the realization. “She…she did it! She got back to Equestria, and she had a family, and she was okay! She didn’t- -she didn’t- -”

“She turned herself into a drone,” said Diamond Tiara, flatly. “She became part of the machine.”

“But you said she was okay!”

“I didn’t know if she made it out or not!” snapped Diamond Tiara. She turned back to Yttros’s remains. “I knew she was persistent, but this…she used herself to complete it. That must be what she meant…”

Lucy stepped forward. “Xeno? Is that…is that you? Are you in there?”

“She can’t hear you. There’s nothing left. Nothing except her dial. She’s no different than one of the ghosts now.” Diamond Tiara turned to Xenotime. “You’re supposed to be an interface, I’m guessing?”

Xenotime nodded solemnly.

“The machine. You finished it. Does it work?”

What was left of Xenotime did not respond. For a moment, Diamond Tiara wondered if she had asked too much, exceeding the capacity of what was essentially just a dial ticking down a final program. Then, responding silently to Diamond Tiara’s request.

The drone led Diamond Tiara and Lucy through the machine, toward its center. Although the machine was large, the main operating center seemed to be relatively low, a podium that stood with a clear view of the surrounding walls. In it, connected to numerous dusty and ancient tubes and conduits was what appeared to be a kind of harness, like the sort of device that might be used to restrain a resistant patient in a mental ward.

Xenotime’s drone stopped at the base, and seemed to gesture toward the chair.

“This is it,” said Diamond Tiara. She climbed the remaining several steps toward the device and turned back. Lucy was behind her, but had paused at the base of the stairs, her large blue eyes focused completely on the harness.

“There’s only one,” she said. “Diamond Tiara, there’s only one.”

“Lucy…”

Lucy looked up at Diamond Tiara. “You knew, didn’t you?”

Diamond Tiara winced, and felt her heart breaking. She had known, but had hoped that Yttros had been wrong, that there was a way to get past it, a loophole of some kind, a way to make it work. She had wished as hard as she could that she would not have to explain the truth.

“While you were checking the path…I found one last recording,” admitted Diamond Tiara. “Yttros died completing this machine…but she could never use it. She was too far gone by the time she finished.” Diamond Tiara looked up at what was left of Yttros, and the drone stared back blankly with no emotional recognitions of the trials that its former self must have gone through. “But it’s more than that. From what she said…I think the machine needs two ponies to work, but only one can go back.”

“Only one?”

Diamond Tiara nodded.

“Oh,” said Lucy. “Oh. I see. I understand, Diamond Tiara.” She looked down at the ground. “I get it.”

Diamond Tiara stared at Lucy for a moment, and then at the machine. It hurt so much, more than any of the headaches or injuries she had suffered during her ordeal- -but she turned back to Lucy. “Well?” she said.

“Well what?”

“Are you going to get in or not?”

Lucy’s eyes widened. “M…me?”

“Well I’m certainly not talking to the tech-zombie.”

“But if I go, you’ll be trapped here. What about your friends? Your coltfriend?”

Diamond Tiara shook her head. “I’ll be fine. This place isn’t that hard to deal with, I’ll get the hang of it. I’ll find another way back. I’m Diamond Dazzle Tiara for buck’s sake.” She smiled. “I’ll probably be out in a week, a month tops.”

“Diamond- -”

“Besides, it’s only fair. You’ve already spent so much time here. You deserve it. To go home. Fluttershy needs you. I’m just sorry I won’t be there to help you, but if you find my best friend, Silver Spoon, she’ll do what she can.”

“But I can’t- -”

“Just go!”

Lucy took a step back, surprised by Diamond Tiara’s sudden exclamation, and then nodded. She climbed the stairs and approached the harness. Diamond Tiara looked away. She felt terrible; she wanted to be the one to return more than anything, and she knew that she SHOULD have been shoving Lucy out of the way to get it. But Lucy was her friend, and this was the right thing to do.

Before Lucy reached the machine, though, she paused. She seemed to consider for a moment, and then groaned angrily. “I can’t,” she said. “I just can’t.”

“You have to,” said Diamond Tiara.

“How can I? I can’t leave you here, Diamond. I just can’t.”

“Yes you can. And you are going to.”

“But why? I want to go…but at the same time I don’t know if I can.” Lucy pointed back toward the drone. “I think…I think I’m more like her than I’m like you. This place…I’m more this place than I am me. I don’t know if there’s enough left to send back.”

“There is. You’re a good friend, Lucy. You’re caring and selfless to the point of idiocy.”

“But I’m old. I burnt out my whole life here…and you have your whole life ahead of you. I watched mine vanish, I saw what I became, and I- -I just can’t. I can’t do that to you. I can’t let you become me.” Lucy stepped back from the machine. “I’m not going. I’m just…not. Either you take it, or we both walk right back out of here. There’s just no way.”

“You stubborn mule! Get in that chair and get out of my dimension before I MAKE YOU!”

“It’s not yours,” said Lucy. “If anything, it’s mine. And I know I’m not your mother…but I am A mother. Do you think I would be able to look at my own daughter knowing I did this to you? I guess it’s whatever’s lest of my maternal instinct. Just go, Diamond. Just go.”

Lucy leaned forward and kissed Diamond Tiara on the lips. She then hugged her, and slowly walked down the stairs to stand next to Xenotime. “It’s really your choice,” she said. “Take the trip, go home, or walk back down those stairs. I won’t stop you. But we lose everything- -everything I’ve done, everything WE’VE done, if you waste this chance.”

Diamond Tiara looked down at Lucy, and felt herself crying. She wiped away her tears, and then finally nodded. She turned toward the harness and walked toward it. Her hooves felt heavy, as though she was just watching herself march toward the mass of metal and sensors. The feeling persisted as she lowered herself into it, and felt the device automatically lock around her torso and legs. The machinery began to whirr, retracting the platform from beneath her and moving her into firing position.

“I’ll tell Fluttershy about you. I’ll tell her everything!” promised Diamond Tiara. “And I’ll try to get you back. I’ll do everything I can!”

Lucy just smiled. “Just…have a good life.”

Diamond Tiara leaned back in the machine, waiting for it to charge- -when suddenly she noticed something. From her vantage point, she was able to see the opening of the door that they had just come through. It was an arch-shaped hole in the stone blocks that made up the majority of the castle, and like the rest of the area the stone was all identical- -except for the stone directly over the door. Somepony had hastily written something there in large, light-colored letters. It read “There Are Four Princesses”.

For a moment, Diamond Tiara just wondered how that had gotten there and who had written it- -but then her blood ran cold.

“Lucy,” she said, looking down at the yellow pony.

“Yes?”

“I just thought of something. Do you remember, back when I told you about the alicorns?”

“Of course. I remember lots of things.”

“I asked you if you had ever seen them, and you said no. You said that you only knew the four Princesses.” Lucy continued to look up, confused as to the significance of what Diamond Tiara was saying. “But…you’ve been here for thirty years. Twilight only became a Princess eight years ago.” Diamond Tiara felt herself breathing quickly. “How could you have known that?”

Diamond Tiara continued to look down at Lucy, desperately expecting an answer, some logical story that allowed that to make sense. Instead, Lucy remained silent- -and then smiled. The smile stretched much farther than a normal Pony’s face would have allowed, and Lucy’s lips parted to reveal a number of viciously pointed teeth.

“L- -Lucy?”

“I love it when they wait until the very last moment to get the hints.”

Lucy’s body shifted. She seemed to swell, and her skin burst open from within, rotting away and corrupting as it fell from her body. As her face was torn apart, a hoof reached through her open, screaming mouth and a new pony pulled itself from the shell.

As the remains of Lucy and her armored clothing fell to the metal grate below, Diamond Tiara watched as the new mare brushed herself off. Diamond Tiara was not sure what she was seeing. The new pony looked like Lucy, at least in some sense, although she was taller, much like the tall unicorns of Canterlot- -even though she was ostentatiously an earth pony. Her long red hair seemed to have grown far longer and silkier, but it was still styled in the same way that Lucy’s had been. In fact, the new pony looked almost identical to Lucy, although immensely more youthful and beautiful- -save for her eyes. Where Lucy had possessed beautiful, kind blue eyes, this pony- -this creature- -had glaring red, pupilless eyes, like those of an albino rodent.

“Lucy…WHAT DID YOU DO TO LUCY?”

The pony feigned being hurt. “But, Diamond Tiara,” she said. “I AM Lucy. Don’t you recognize me?” She smiled in a way that was supposed to look adorable, and would have had it not been for the several forked tongues that emerged from between her teeth.

“What…what are you?”

Lucy smiled wider. “I am the most beautiful pony.” She turned to the area behind her, and the walls vanished, revealing the remainder of the machine. Diamond Tiara gaped, not realizing how she had never seen it before. Instead of blank walls, the stone was instead covered in thousands of complicated symbols. Even as strange as that was, it was what was spaced evenly amongst those symbols that was truly terrifying. There, crucified to the structures built into the wall, were unicorn mares. Some of them even still had parts of their masks still attached, and they looked up at Diamond Tiara, barely registering that she was even there through their torment.

The crucified ponies were overgrown with what appeared to be tendrils of some enormous fungus. It covered them, writhing and penetrating their bodies and emerging from their gutted bellies. Diamond Tiara could hear at least one of them weeping quietly.

The tendrils of mold reached out toward Yttros’s machine, growing into and merging with it, producing its own structures as the organic interfaced with the technological. Even part of Diamond Tiara’s harness contained them, and she felt them slowly crawling over her body, seeking an area of her coat where they could enter her.

Higher above the unicorns, Diamond Tiara became aware of several enormous and seemingly out-of-place stained glass windows, and her eyes widened when she recognized them.

“It- -it’s YOU,” she said.

Lucy suppressed a laugh. “It has ALWAYS been me.” She walked along the circular platform, passing Xenotime, who appeared to be observing the world with an identical level of distdain as she had before. Lucy did not really look up at Diamond Tiara, but her cutie mark- -now wide, narrow-pupiled eye- -shifted in its socket, looking up at Diamond Tiara as its owner moved. “I’ve been watching you for a long time, my little Diamond Tiara,” she said. “Ever since I saw you, I knew you were something special. Admittedly, you are…unattractive. I normally prefer white unicorns, but I made an exception for you.” She sighed. “Oh, but you have no idea how hard it was for me to resist going all out on your little virgin body. Well…” she giggled. “Formerly virgin body, I mean.”

“Lucy, why? Why are you doing this? I know you’re still in there- -”

Lucy’s expression hardened. “Are you really that thick? Do you really think that there ever was a ‘Lucy’? That any of this is even real?”

“But…but she was my friend. You were my friend!”

“Aww, isn’t that adorable.” She turned toward Xenotime. “Well, little Xeno, I think I’ve waited long enough. Start the machine.”

Xenotime looked at Lucy, not seeming to recognize any difference in her at all. Then she nodded, and put her hoof against the machinery. It shifted, consuming her body until there was nothing left save for her dial.

“I haven’t actually been waiting that long,” said Lucy. “I mean, comparatively. Three thousand years for the morlock to build my machine for me, and then another two thousand to finally get the parts.” She looked over her shoulder at the mares hanging from the wall. “And even that wasn’t enough.”

“The nuns. Those are the nuns.”

“Yes. My nuns. My beautiful priestesses, who swore their bodies and souls to me for my own personal use. But even they were FAILURES!” The nuns recoiled as she screamed at them. “The fools attempted to summon me into your world. They thought they could control ME, the ONE TRUE GODDESS OF EQUESTRIA!” Lucy’s anger suddenly faded, and she smiled. “Of course, that’s not where they failed. Their magic powers the machine, but they aren’t enough. Not nearly enough.”

“You still need a catalyst.”

Lucy raised an eyebrow. “See, this is why I’m glad I picked you. You’re actually helpful. And I really did enjoy spending time with you, Ms. Tiara. You really are a dear friend to me.” Lucy’s body suddenly seemed to shift, and for a moment Diamond Tiara was looking at a festering corpse instead of a beautiful mare. As she stepped back toward Diamond Tiara, the shift ended as quickly as it had come. Once again, Diamond Tiara was overwhelmed with the smell of carnations- -but it was different. As though they had been left to rot underwater for a long, long time.

“Please forgive my sarcasm, though. You actually weren’t the first one I attempted. Of course, we both know how it turned out for poor Pith Helmut.”

“Pith…you didn’t- -” Diamond Tiara suddenly shivered, remembering a room in her summer home that she had only ever been to once. A room that contained a skeleton, a magic circle, and an idol that she had only ever willed herself to see once.

“I did. Unfortunately, he was too smart for his own good. He managed to control my power at the cost of his own mind and body. Of course, it’s because of his actions that I found you, my little squishy Diamond.”

“YOU were the one who did this to me!” shouted Diamond Tiara. “It wasn’t the worms- -YOU brought me here! YOU DID THIS!”

Lucy smirked, as though proud of herself. “Now she finally figures it out.”

“It was all you, from the start!”

“From the moment you approached my idol, your soul belonged to me and me alone.”

“And you’re- -you were grooming me the whole time, trying to get me into this machine!” Diamond Tiara looked up at the towering mass above her, then at Lucy, who seemed to be waiting, savoring every moment of Diamond Tiara realizing her betrayal. “You…you want to get off this world! You’re using me as a catalyst to get to Equestria!”

At this, Lucy burst out laughing. “You really are thick!” she said. She glared up at Diamond Tiara with her red, blank eyes- -eyes that Diamond Tiara had seen more than once before. “Firstly, I’m not trapped on this world. I can leave anytime I want to. I BUILT this world. Everything here, I constructed it. Even this machine. It was my divine inspiration that caused Xenotime to finish it. This entire world is the smallest fragment of my true being.

“And, second, I’ve already conquered Equestria. I WON. When a pony dies, where do they go? They go to ME for their eternal torment. The righteous, the sinners, I don’t care. They all belong to ME.” She smiled, showing the fact that she had several enormous fangs. “Besides…when my daughter finally realized her true potential, Equestria will fall into an eternal era of torment and debauchery. And oh, how I do so love debauchery. But you already know that.”

“Then what do you want?”

“I believe you already know that.”

“The alicorns!”

Lucy nodded gleefully. “Oh yes. You are a good choice. A mind complicated enough to actually comprehend what I’m doing, but simple enough to be manipulated perfectly every single time. I love you, Diamond Tiara. I want to have your pony babies.”

“Buck you!”

“Well…” Lucy suddenly appeared inches from Diamond Tiara’s face, her unblinking red eyes staring directly into Diamond Tiara’s eyes and her carnation order chokingly thick. “If you insist…”

Before Diamond Tiara could stop her, Lucy pressed their lips together and shoved her numerous lounges into Diamond Tiara’s throat. Diamond Tiara choked and coughed, her mind immediately panicking. Enraged, she bit down, and one of the tounges burst open, filling Diamond Tiara’s mouth with an acidic, foul fluid.

Lucy pulled herself away, and Diamond Tiara chocked and vomited.

“Oh, YES!” cried Lucy, pushing her body against Diamond Tiara’s. “Hurt me Diamond, hurt me!”

Diamond Tiara tried to move herself away, but she was held immobile by the harness. Only her right hoof had some give, and it was not very much.

Fortunately, Lucy did not persist any farther and pulled herself away. In a flash, she was once again down on the platform below. “Oh Diamond…I do so wish I could keep you. Such fire, such hatred…and such a fat little pig body. I think we would have so much fun. But...” she shrugged. “You’re probably not going to survive, this, so…”

“You won’t succeed,” said Diamond Tiara, spitting the remaining contents of her mouth at Lucy. “There’s millions of alicorns, and only one of you. If you even get there- -”

“I probably could not care less about the alicorns.”

Diamond Tiara blinked. “But you just said that’s what you wanted. The alicorn souls- -”

“Don’t be an idiot. Alicorns don’t have souls. They literally don’t. Becoming an alicorn is the single most destructive process a mortal can undergo. It destroys the one truly immortal part of them. In that sense, I suppose, alicorns are actually really just the most perfect possible mortals.” Lucy paused, amused by that thought. “But that means they are useless to an immortal like me. I should be able to exterminate them within a matter of seconds. No, it’s not them I want. It’s Dagon.”

“The machine in the sky…”

“The last of its kind. You’ve seen it. I know you have. I want THAT. I want it inside me. I want it so bad…and you are going to help me get it.” Then, with a smirk, she added. “Of course…assuming any of this is real.”

“What do you mean by that?” snapped Diamond Tiara.

“Oh, come on. You’ve surely realized that you are quite insane. All of this? Guess what? It isn’t real. None of it. It never was. Not me, not this world, not even the alicorns. It’s all a hallucination. It always has been. Which puts you in a really special situation.” Lucy pointed at the machine. “Who knows? Maybe this device will cure you. Maybe you’ll wake up in the arms of your loved ones…or…maybe it will pull you so far down the rabbit hole you’ll never find your way out.”

“And if this is real?”

“Then the alicorn implants in your body and my gift of dimensional flux will tear through Equestria and rip a hole clear into Dagon’s realm…and I win. Again. But that does, in effect, the same thing. Once every part of you is gone, your disease will be cured.”

Diamond Tiara struggled against the harness that was holding her, but found that she could not escape. Lucy crossed the platform to where Yttros’s dial sat. “Lucy,” pleaded Diamond Tiara. “Please. Don’t do this! I know you’re still in there, somewhere. I’m your friend! I can help you!”

“Yes,” said Lucy, smiling up at Diamond Tiara. “Yes you can.”

She drew back her hoof and slammed it into the dial, shattering it. With the last fragment of Yttros Xenotime destroyed, there was no longer any force left to stop the machine from activating. The crucified unicorns screamed in agony as their innards began to escape from their chests and their horns were forced to glow with an identical crimson light. The machine began to hum louder and move, awakening after millennia of slumber.

The harness tightened, and Diamond Tiara cried out as several large needles rammed into her spine. Red light surrounded her, lifting her into the air. The supports that held her chair in place atomized as she was lifted upward in the column of the machine. High above, the pylons and spires of the machine began to spark with red-tinted lightning. Space began to shift.

Then came the pain. It was worse than anything Diamond Tiara had ever experienced, and worse than anything she had even thought was possible. She screamed as the energy of the machine flowed through her and her body was spread thin across three separate realities.

As the waves of agony partially abated, Diamond Tiara was able to open her eyes. Through the tears, she saw the white-eyed shadows clinging to the walls, watching her from the walls beyond, thinking whatever silent thoughts they had always thought. Perhaps they were wondering why Diamond Tiara had not accepted their warnings.

Then Diamond Tiara looked up and gasped. The machine was now fully charged, and where there had once been a ceiling, there was now a swirling mass of air, a vortex of energy rising up and around Diamond Tiara. The stone ceiling of the castle was torn apart by the vortex, shattering and separating into infinite pieces of material that burnt away to ash as they swirled about.

There was a flash, and Diamond Tiara saw it- -the world of the aliconrs. Blue light flooded the room, and high above her, Diamond Tiara saw the edges of the immense and empty brutalist concrete towers stretching up almost endlessly. Snow began to fall through, and high in the sky, Diamond Tiara saw it- -the Blue-Lit Machine. It seemed to look down at her, and it seemed to know.

Below, Lucy stepped through the vortex. The extreme heat seemed to have no effect on her, apart from momentarily revealing something horrible beneath her beautiful veneer. She slowly marched to the center of the vortex, and looked up past Diamond Tiara. The smile on her face was horrific: a wide, hungry grin like a beast finally looking its wounded, bleeding prey in the eyes.

“I’m coming for you!” she called. “After all this time! YOU ARE MINE!”

Diamond Tiara summoned the remainder of her strength and tried to break free one more time. The straps were still too tight to release her body, but her sudden burst of motion was enough to dislodge her right hoof. She hoped that would be enough.

“Come on Pick,” she said, reaching into her front pocket. “Please be as smart as I think you are!”

She reached for her technetium dial and felt Silver Spoon’s pearl in the center. With one swift motion, she twisted it, hoping that it would do something.

It did. As soon as it was activated, the dial burst with white energy. Diamond Tiara was thrown to one side, and her harness was knocked partially free. The remainder of it struck the edge of the vortex and was incinerated instantly.

“What are you doing?!” cried Lucy. “What is that?!”

“Tracking,” said Yttros’s voice through Diamond Tiara’s dial. “Integrating…new destination isolated. Changing coordinates.”

A new vortex started to form, a spiral of white light within the tempest of the larger vortex. It surrounded Diamond Tiara, and she braced for more pain- -but this time, none came. Instead, a second portal opened overhead, a smaller and more narrow one. Diamond Tiara felt a warmth, and for a moment she thought she smelled the scent of cinnamon and the cool, clean smell of Silver Spoon’s mane.

Diamond Tiara laughed, and clung to her dial, lifting herself toward the second vortex overhead- -a channel produced between her dial and its twin, the one that Pick held. She had won. She was going home.

A yellow tentacles suddenly reached out and wrapped around her ankle. Diamond Tiara was suddenly jerked backward, and looked down. Below her, she saw Lucy- -or what she had always though was Lucy. The being had now mostly shed its pony veneer; bits of yellow coat still remained, but the figure was swollen and grotesque as the rotting skin and sinew stretched, barely managing to maintain a physical form.

The worst, though, was what was inside- -what always had been. A pair of red lights stared up at Diamond Tiara, their horrible glow pouring out through the illusion of Lucy. Diamond Tiara felt herself screaming as those lights cut into her mind, tearing her apart from within.

“I will not fail,” said Lucy, her voice perfectly clear even with her body destroyed. “I will have what I want, Diamond Tiara. I’m your friend, don’t you remember? I LOVE YOU! DIE FOR ME, DIAMOND TIARA!”

There was a sudden explosion, and something flashed past Diamond Tiara from above. The monster below her was knocked back as an alicorn suddenly struck Lucy, impaling her with his horn and driving her back. There was a second explosion and another magically propelled alicorn hit- -and then two more.

“NO! GET OFF ME!” Lucy tore at the alicorns, destroying one completely. The others were unfazed, and more struck her from above, driving her back.

Diamond Tiara looked up, and saw a gray, purple-eyed alicorn descend from above, his wings spread as he pulled himself free of his own reality.

“Harvestor!” called Diamond Tiara.

Harvestor looked at her, and then away. He charged his horn and produced a beam, striking the tentacle that held onto Diamond Tiara’s ankle and severing it.

“Go,” he said. “We will hold her here.”

“You can’t- -you have no idea what she is, what she can do!”

Harvestor looked up through the vortex at the strange world’s sky. “I will stop her.”

“How?”

His horn charged, and for the first time Diamond Tiara saw him visibly strain. His blue magic flashed with green energy, and his gray coat began to shift to dull salmon. “This world has a sun, doesn’t it? I’m going to set it- -right on top of her!”

Far above, the largest of the dying stars began to move. The remains of the green sun began to grow larger as it descended.

“You can’t!” cried Diamond Tiara. She held out her hoof. “Harvestor! Come with me! We have to get out of here!”

“Nothing can survive a direct solar impact. I will be destroyed in the descent,” he said, calmly. “And nothing of value will be lost.” His eyes shifted to Diamond Tiara. “But only if you get back. Please. I am…sorry. For everything.”

He reached out and kicked Diamond Tiara toward her portal home. She tried to swim through the air back toward him, and toward where Lucy had now torn apart the remainder of his comrades. The entire machine was suddenly bathed in bright and intensifying green light. It was no use, though. Diamond Tiara was pulled into the vortex, and the machine began to decay, tearing itself apart from the strain of bearing too many portals. In one last desperate attempt, Lucy reached out toward Diamond Tiara- -and was swallowed in an explosion of green light.

Then, finally, the portal sealed, and Diamond Tiara felt herself drop onto the damp ground below.