Some great battle had been fought here. The walls were pockmarked from bullet strikes and the ceilings were blackened, indicating some fire had blazed. The Advanced Earth Pony Science wing had been the site of a major battle, and something about it left Tarnish feeling cold, so very cold. With every step, he thought of Maud, Octavia, and Pebble, all earth ponies that he loved, not to mention all of the Pies. Yes, earth ponies were very dear to him.

There were bones here, strewn all over the floors, broken bits of bone fragments, some of them quite decayed. From the state of the bones, it seemed that the ponies hadn’t just been killed, it looked as though they had been hacked apart, torn limb from limb, and their remains scattered through the many twisting passages.

Burned into the wall, perhaps by some unicorn, were words that Tarnish and the others could read: Our gods will not be made from earth ponies!

Perplexed, Tarnish stared at the words for a time, and he did so in silence. Rainbow, disturbed, clung to his leg, rubbing her neck against his knee in a desperate attempt to comfort herself. Vinyl, looking grim, pulled out her camera, aimed it at the words burned into the stone, and took a picture.

“What do you think that means?” Daring Do asked while she stared up at the words, her head tilted off to one side in the manner of puzzled equines everywhere. Her lips stiffened as her ears pivoted around, facing forward, and her face became wizened from concentration.

The room was cavernous and dim. The overhead lights were dying their slow death, and spent more time dark than lit. Tarnish, cautious, had a good look around, checking for danger, and he cringed from what he saw on the floor, which was covered in old, rotten bones. In the center of the room was a glowing crystal column, it still held a faint, flickering light, and in the corner, the familiar purple glow of a crystal recording rod could be seen.

A tickle-prickle advanced up Tarnish’s spine, starting at his dock, going up each vertebrae, up his neck, into his skull, and bouncing into his horn. There was magic here, and Tarnish wasn’t sure if it was good magic. It might have been at some point, but this felt sour, wrong, unpleasant.

Vinyl sent several light orbs into orbit around her head and they made slow, lazy circles. She stepped over some bones and began moving towards the center of the room so that her light spell would have the most effect. She paused and began to examine the tall crystal column that went from floor to ceiling. A web of crystalline fibres could be seen in both the floor and the ceiling, radiating outwards from where the column was located.

It was Rainbow who went over to where the crystal rod was, buried beneath a pile of half-disintegrated bones. She picked it up with her wing and was quite startled when it began to play. She held it in her primaries, her eyes wide, a soft wicker of confusion could be heard deep in her throat.

“—Skyreach. Every day, we find more and more secrets in the vaults of this place. I know what it is though, yes… I have figured this out. Skyreach is a factory that makes gods. It seems to be too good to be true. The centaurs began creating gods to guide us as we go into an unknown future. The truth has unhinged the pegasus ponies of this place, that these gods are made from the three tribes merged together. I’ve never seen nor heard of these… alicorns… but they are miraculous creatures engineered by the centaurs. The knowledge has driven Spear Breaker to the very brink of insanity. She plans to use the machinery of this place to ascend, but she refuses to accept earth pony essence, saying she will not pollute herself with such filth. Perhaps I can succeed where she will soon fail. Spear Breaker is a brute, just like all pegasus ponies, and she is so easy to manipulate. She will be my first test subject for this… ascension project. But first, I need to figure out what makes earth ponies so special, so I can determine why they are a necessity—”

The crystal crumbled in Rainbow’s grasp, and the powdery flakes sprinkled down from her feathers like snowflakes. She shook her wing and looked at her companions, apologetic. “I didn’t know it would activate,” she said in a raspy whine.

“Your wings are magic,” Tarnish said, doing his best to sound reassuring. “It is how you fly through the air, Rainbow. I think any sort of magic will activate them in their current decayed state.”

“A factory for gods.” Daring Do’s lips pressed into a tight, straight line. “So much of what was said was coloured by perception. The truth of it is debatable.”

Nodding, Tarnish found himself in agreement. “We know that the ancient alicorns were originally just ponies with both a horn and a pair of wings. They were the perfect template for improvements, having the right body type. The centaurs took what was there and made it better. I saw them… in visions… they were little ponies, just like us. Little things.”

“I envy you your time with Maledico, Tarnish.” Daring Do looked up at Tarnish and she let out a sigh. “So, the centaurs looked ahead, saw a future that they didn’t like, and began creating godlike beings to preserve life. Nothing can go wrong with that, right?”

“They had good intentions—” The words died in Tarnish’s throat, he knew all too well about good intentions. He swallowed a painful lump growing in his throat and shook his head.

“Any creature with sufficient power to save the world can also destroy it,” Daring Do said to Tarnish, and then to clarify her words, she added, “Nightmare Moon.”

Much to his own dismay, Tarnish did not have a suitable argument, but he wanted to refute Daring’s words, to prove her wrong. His mouth opened, and he almost said something, but then thought better of it. Try as he might, he could not come up with an adequate rebuttal, and after several failed attempts, his ears drooped in acquiescence.

Vinyl, who had listened to the exchange, had nothing she was willing to say. Saying something took effort, time, and she had nothing worthwhile to add. She focused her efforts on the crystal column instead, and began to examine the damaged structure. There were cracks in it, fissures, and it appeared as though some of the crystalline fibre connections had been damaged. There were craters in the floor and gouges in the ceiling.

The column still functioned, however, a testament to centaur engineering.

There was a standard unicorn interface port, a horn-hole, but she didn’t dare stick her horn in there, not knowing if it had been sabotaged or not. Not all crystalline computational columns had a standard unicorn interface port, and this was only the second time she had seen such a thing. Vinyl imagined that the unicorns must have served as intelligence vessels, seeing as they had the means to connect directly to magical machines like this one. Had unicorns been born with this ability, or was this something engineered? A bio-interface device designed with convenience in mind that had a direct connection to the brain?

Reaching out with her telekinesis, Vinyl did her best to create a feedback shield and then began to probe the standard unicorn interface port. Nothing happened, not at first, and she had to tickle the hidden nodes with different frequencies of magic. When that failed, she bombarded it with brute force, and that was when something happened.

The cracked column glowed and an ancient crystalline projector thrummed to life. Strange words were spoken, but none of the companions understood the female voice. An image flickered to life, an earth pony, projected as a three dimensional construct. Vinyl looked up in awe, and watched as the ancient hologram began to play out.

The voice continued her narration, her strange unknown words causing each of the companions’ ears to twitch. The hologram buzzed and flickered, then took on a more lifelike appearance as the machinery warmed up. It was an earth pony, a common stock earth pony, or appeared to be.

The hooves glowed for a minute, as if to draw attention to them, and the voice sounded excited. The body became transparent, revealing the skeleton. The joints in the legs glowed, and showed a change. Smaller joints grew thicker, stronger looking, and then changed back to the smaller versions. Then the spine flashed, revealing that it too, had been made stronger, better, and it flashed between the two versions.

Then, much to Vinyl’s awkward embarrassment, the genitals flashed. The first display was a womb, with larger ovaries that had a direct connection to the thaumaturgical system, something Vinyl knew how to recognise because she had paid attention in school. A system of glands highlighted themselves, flashing red, but Vinyl had no idea what it meant.

The genitals changed, becoming male. The protruding penis grew longer, thicker, and showed signs of reinforcement. The male genitals also connected to the thaumaturgical system, and like the female’s ovaries, the male had enlarged testicles. The hologram ejaculated without any kind of warning, producing an enormous load of virtual spunk that floated just above Vinyl’s head.

Vinyl stuck out her tongue in disgust while she cringed beneath the hovering spunk puddle.

The hologram changed once more, becoming unisex, and now, various muscle groups were being highlighted. The muscles were wired into the thaumaturgical system and the endocrine system. The image shifted, changing, most notably in the brain. The muscles shrank a little bit, but the thaumaturgical system that framed the brain grew considerably. With no horn or associated organs in the way, the earth pony’s brain was able to grow to a larger size, filling their skull and taking up every available inch of space.

The voice droned on, no doubt giving some ancient lecture.

More of the brain was highlighted, and different sections as well, no doubt revealing improvements, changes, and explaining the way that earth pony brains functioned. Vinyl had a pretty good understanding of earth pony brains, or so she believed. Octavia had devastating intelligence—she could write entire symphonies inside of her own head—and there were plenty of times that Vinyl was downright jealous of how much smarter Octavia was.

After seeing the hologram and all of its changes, it was clear that Octavia was a model made for cogitation, not power or speed. The increased brain function by design was now all too obvious, and it explained why there were so many smart earth ponies. It was now also clear that earth pony intelligence was powered by magic—earth ponies had an extensive thaumaturgical system, but no horn as an outlet. Instead, the thaumaturgical system was connected to their joints, their muscles, their bones, their sexual organs, and their brains.

Octavia was designed to be a smart, sexy beast, and Vinyl felt like a lucky mare.

The ancient hologram vanished and the voice from the past now stretched out into terrifying distortion. After a few more unintelligible words, it went silent, and there was nothing to see nor hear.

“That was amazing,” Tarnish said to his companions. “The centaurs could make awesome porn with this technology! Just think about it! You could see the ding-dong poking around inside of there!”

Vinyl turned to glare at Tarnish, only to discover that her fellow mares were already doing it. She rolled her eyes, let out a sigh, and after a moment, relented. She began laughing, her signature soft wheeze, and when she saw Daring Do’s stern expression, she lost it completely. Sometimes, Tarnish was just too funny for his own good.

Author's Notes:

A lot of conclusions can be drawn from this chapter.