The world had ended. Or, perhaps, in a different sense, it had begun. Or- -far more likely- -the worst had yet to come. Few ponies among them knew what was coming for their world, save for one- -and she was the one who cared the least what destruction her path had wrought.

Xyuka did not stop to consider the consequences of her actions. She had long ago learned that there were none. It was a horrible piece of knowledge that she wished she could forget.

Still, even this did not concern her especially much as she entered the castle. It was one of many. Some had fallen into ruin simply because of disrepair, but others- -like this one- -had stayed cold and silent for decades or centuries as they sat unoccupied and largely forgotten. This was one of many Castles of Discord. Discord himself had largely resided in his own private reality, but from time to time he had built earthly palaces. Exactly why was unclear. He seemed to spend a great deal of effort and expense on them, but then leave them abandoned and empty after finishing.

This one was one of many that had been built in seemingly random sections of the word. In its case, a rocky and frozen crag far to the north in Hyperboria. There was nothing habitable within hundreds of miles, as the permafrost could not be farmed or cultured. Yet, somehow, the castle was not empty. Xyuka saw hoofsteps in the thin snow and thick dust that covered parts of the floor, and through the cold her sensors could detect the distinct spectrographic signature of embalming fluid.

It was through this emptiness and coldness that Xyuka approached the central throne hall, a vast room lit only by the dim gray light of the storms above. This was where the new ruler of Equestria had come to reside.

Xyuka stepped forward without hesitation or fear. She moved at a constant rate, and she could see the eyes of those who stood in the shadows of the room watching her: the strange eyes hidden behind the glass lenses of their respirators, and the numerous eyes of the drooling and gibbering sewn-together creatures that prowled the edges of the hall. The worst among them, though, were those dressed in black armor who stared through formalin-fixed, stolen eyes. They were the ones that Xyuka watched more closely.

Then she reached the end and stood at the base of the throne of steel and bone. She did not bow, but instead looked up. A yellow Pegasus pony with long scarlet hair and a pair of thick black glasses looked back down. A smile slowly crossed Fluttershy’s face.

“What?” she said, somewhat sarcastically. “You’re not going to bow to your Queen?”

“My payment,” said Xyuka, not bothering to answer the ridiculous question.

Fluttershy stared at her for a moment through her glasses. “Fine,” she said, shrugging. “You certainly earned it.”

She stood up and leaned forward. Her mouth opened disgustingly wide, and a retching sound echoed through the halls. This was followed by something similar to choking, and the sound of fluids moving. None of the Consort Guard reacted in any way. They understood what was happening, and had no reason to even turn to see.

Fluttershy continued for a few moments until finally something came out of her mouth. It was largely a mixture of rotted blood and mucous, but something clinked against the marble floor. Fluttershy took several more deep breaths, and then stood up straight before returning to her seat. One of her rebodies- -a pale mare with her mouth sewn closed, the body of whom Xyuka recognized as having once belonged to a pony named Pear Butter- -approached the object that Fluttershy had vomited. Without even a hint of disgust, she reached into it and pulled out a hoof-sized object: a solid black gemstone.

“The Black Rainbow,” said Fluttershy, propping her head on one hoof. “Passed down from father to son in an ancient line of centaurs called the Black Stone Weilders. I retrieved it from the skull of Lord Tirac when I disincorporated him after his defeat. It had been at the core of his brain.”

The rebody walked to Xyuka and gave her the stone. Xyuka extended an armor-plated hoof and took the stone in it. The material never touched her armor, and instead was illuminated blue by a repulsor field. Direct contact with the gemstone was hazardous, and generally lethal. Even looking at it was harmful, but Xyuka’s mask shielded her completely from its effects.

“There is no other stone like it in the universe,” said Fluttershy.

“There are,” said Xyuka. “The throne of the Queen of the Changelings consists of the same material.”

“Yes,” admitted Fluttershy, “but only in a raw state. This is the only piece that has been cut. I don’t know by who. It certainly wasn’t the centaurs. Whoever it was is long gone now, and I’m actually happy. Because whoever was mad enough to create it is better off forgotten by history.” Fluttershy raised an eyebrow. “I can’t help but wonder why you wanted it so badly.”

“It is the final piece to my creation,” said Xyuka. She focused on the stone and began taking readings. Translucent orange hard-constructs began to form around it, warping and reassembling themselves into various shapes as they constructed a machine around the Black Rainbow.

“But your creation is already finished,” noted Fluttershy. “You released the Princesses.”

“Yes. I did. And now I have this.”

Fluttershy sat up and laughed. It was a horrible sound. “For payment! Seriously, for PAYMENT! Xyuka, do you have any idea what you’ve done, what havoc you’re unleashed on Equestria?”

“That is not my concern,” said Xyuka.

Fluttershy smiled. “Isn’t it?”

“No. No it isn’t.” Xyuka did not take her eye off the crystal as the machine continued construction. “I did a job. I got paid. The rest is up to you. Destroy this world if you want, or build a new one. I have no stake in it, and I’ve learned to keep a professional distance.”

“From reality itself?”

“Yes. Of course.”

Fluttershy frowned. “You don’t even want to know why I did it?”

“No. Your motives are your own, as are mine.”

Fluttershy paused. “You know,” she said. “I find your neutrality infuriating. I just ordered you to initiate a genocide, to start a war that could very well kill everypony you’ve ever loved. And you didn’t even hesitate, so long as I promised you that gem.”

“I needed the gem,” said Xyuka.

“Not only that,” said Fluttershy, her voice shifting enough to audibly show her displeasure. “But I DIDN’T order you to start a noncan revolution. Or did you think I wouldn’t find out?”

“I did the job you requested, didn’t I?”

“You did,” said Fluttershy through gritted teeth.

“And as I understand it, the noncans have sided with Celestia. That should make your war a bit more interesting.”

“It will,” sighed Fluttershy, seeming to take some solace in that fact. “But I will have to kill them all, you know that, right?”

“If you see it as necessary. They are beyond my control now.”

“My,” said Fluttershy. “You are greedy, aren’t you? You don’t even care about your own children.”

“No. Why would I?”

Fluttershy smiled again. “You know,” she said, “seeing as I will be running a war, I could use somepony with such a clear mind. Or, seeing as I am now lacking in one husband, I could use a consort. Or both. There is room for you in my empire, if you like.”

“I see no point in it,” said Xyuka. “The crystal was the last piece I needed. That, and your last lover is only ‘lacking’ because you orchestrated his assassination.”

“I would hardly call him a ‘lover,’” mused Fluttershy. “In fact, I rather hated him.”

“Odd that you would spread your wings every night for a person you hate.”

“At least my wings CAN be spread,” retorted Fluttershy. “And you have no idea what he did to me…”

“You are referring to the Cloudsdale Union-breaking.”

Fluttershy raised an eyebrow. “You’ve studied your history, haven’t’ you?”

“I am your history.”

“My adoptive father was there,” said Fluttershy. “He was part of the unionization effort for cloudmakers. He wasn’t part of the Pegasi trying to form the breakway government, or the radical isolationist factions. He was trying to negotiate better working conditions. All he cared about was the clouds, and the quality of the weather he made. He only wanted them to be beautiful.

“Except that the unionization effort got involved with the Consolidated Government, and my father ended up an officer in an organization he didn’t understand. And Discord can’t have internal governments forming with their own laws and order. So he sent a Watcher. Her name was Sunset Shimmer. She came into our house and fired four bullets. One for my mother, one for my father, one for my little brother…” She lifted her hair, revealing a faded circular scar at her temple, “and one for me.”

“A waste of ammunition,” said Xyuka. “It would take a lot more than that to kill a Tartaran Lord.”

Fluttershy frowned deeply, and some of the undead seemed perturbed. “You know an awful lot about me,” said Fluttershy, reaching for her glasses. “Far more than you reasonably should.” She removed her glasses, revealing her eyes. They were red. There was no sclera and no pupil; just solid crimson. Something moved behind the surface of those eyes, a strange mechanism that was perceptible but invisible. Xyuka felt Fluttershy staring into her. She knew those eyes, and knew that even among Tartarans they were rare. Only one other being in existence shared them.

“We haven’t met before,” said Fluttershy. “Not in person. You can’t have known. I’m VERY careful.”

“Because you’re ashamed?”

Fluttershy grinned. She did not bother to hide the fact that all of her teeth were far longer and pointed than any normal pony’s should have been. “Oh no,” she said. She threw her head back and rubbed her hoof through her long red hair, and changed her voice as she did. “It’s just that…ohh…well, I don’t mean to be deceptive, but…ponies tend to like me so much better when I’m, well, quiet. Demure. Cute.” Her voice returned to normal. “Not demon spawn.”

“My reaction toward you is neutral either way. What you are- -or your insipid backstory- -is not my concern.”

Fluttershy’s red eyes narrowed. “It isn’t ‘insipid’. You have no idea how difficult it was holding that stone down while I let him do things to me.” She suddenly smiled. “But I got my way in the end, didn’t I?”

“You aren’t supposed to be this way. You are supposed to be a kind, caring, gentle pony.”

“HA!” screamed Fluttershy, sending a shower of spit and blood from her mouth. “Yes! Maybe once! Maybe if Discord hadn’t ordered my adoptive father killed, and my mother along with him! Or my little brother, who was just a foal! Maybe if I wasn’t forced to return to my biological mother.” She laughed. “She was the one who showed me the TRUTH. That ponies are so much more beautiful when they are in pain! That’s what I want, Xyuka. Every second of every day. I HATE so much, I want to see the world suffer. I live for it. Every pony, every animal, they deserve pain by definition.”

“By definition?”

“They have the audacity to EXIST. Physical bodies, physical lives, waiting for eternal torment when my mother takes their souls…but what I can do to their bodies is SO MUCH SWEETER! The look on their face when bones are cut, or their skin sliced, or their spirits broken…” She shivered and her legs instinctively closed. “That is what I will bring to this word. I will continue Discord’s work in way he was too idiotic to comprehend. I will turn Equestria into a paradise. Ponies will exist to serve their one true purpose. And I will rule them. Fluttershy, the Element of Cruelty!”

The translucent machinery suddenly completed around the Black Rainbow, and it snapped shut into a long cylindrical system. Xyuka had barely been listening to whatever pointless thing Fluttershy had been babbling about, but now she saw from the readings that the connection with the stone had been established. Without hesitation or pause, she pointed it at Fluttershy and fired.

A black beam shot forward and struck Fluttershy in the gut. Her red eyes went wide and she bent forward, grasping the hole. Every rebody and masked demon suddenly began to move forward, to converge on Xyuka to tear her apart. Fluttershy stopped them, though, by raising a hoof. Then she laughed.

“Do you really think that something like that…would…even…” She trailed off, and her eyes suddenly widened with fear and pain. She looked down at the hole. It was the last thing she ever did. Her body immediately ignited into black energy as she was violently reduced to a splatter of black fluid and ash.

The entire room save for Xyuka stared in awe and shock. A male rebody- -his form having been the spouse of his female companion- -turned slowly to Xyuka. “You…you killed her,” he whispered.

“I needed to test the integration of the system,” said Xyuka as her optics finished observing the waveforms of Fluttershy’s death. “This test has confirmed that the crystal has been cut adequately to serve my needs.”

“But…why?”

“Because she was relatively close.”

Two portals opened behind Xyuka, and from each stepped a Stonie unit, the only two who had not joined the revolution of their kind. Those among the group of Consort Guards who had any urge to fight hesitated, having some understanding that despite having the advantage of numbers they were cataclysmically outgunned. The rebodies had already known that form the start, but they did not care anymore. They no longer had any reason to exist in this realm, and watched where the Holy Daughter had sat just moments ago with a level of despair and sadness that no mortal could hope to comprehend while they dwelt in the world of the living.

Xyuka collapsed the device containing the Black Rainbow into a cube and turned her back to them. She joined the pair of mindless, faceless drones and left the castle. The final piece had been acquired and confirmed to be operational. Now there was only one step remaining.