The scenery changed once again. The empty blackness changed as an invisible sun seemed to rise, bringing dim light to a sallow, noxious sky. The battlefield had departed, and now Lilium and Morgana found themselves in the courtyard of what appeared to be a vast complex. Lilium interpreted her surroundings as temples, although they resembled nothing that she could recall from any human or Equestrian history.

The world around them had an air of decay, and yet nothing was dilapidated. In fact, the buildings stood strong and tall. Their shape was strange, and Lilium could discern no practical use for any of them; stranger still, though, was the material they were constructed from. It was neither stone nor metal, but something far more ancient.

A figure stirred atop a low stepped pyramid. She was too far for Lilium to see clearly, but even in the distance it was apparent that the temple-dweller was a pony.

“No!” cried a high voice, one that could not be heard so much as understood. “You can’t be here! YOU CAN’T BE HERE!”

The distant pony ran, descending down the far side of the pyramid. Lilium had an urge to chase her, but she only made two steps before the stone floor below shook. The buildings around them rose, drawing themselves out of the ground and arcing gracefully back toward where Morgana and Lilium stood. Lilium ducked back, preparing a shield. Morgana, however, intervened: the buildings shifted, bending and opening into complex fractals. These descended, and their pattern warped into a long tunnel. The sound of their landing was deafening, but they had not struck their mark.

Morgana collapsed to her knees. Lilium turned to her and gasped in shock. Morgana’s armor was gone, and it was now extremely apparent that she was badly injured. Silver fluid was flowing from several lacerations, and her left side was badly burned. The worst injuries by far, though, were extensive gouges in her body where the tissue seemed to have simply ceased to exist.

“Morgana!” cried Lilium, moving to her friend’s side. “You’re injured!”

“No shit,” grumbled Morgana. She stood and took a breath. The wounds on her body healed, or at least appeared to. Lilium knew better, though: Morgana had simply repaired the surface of the metaphor that made up her virtual body. The wounds were still present in her internal self- -her mind was becoming increasingly damaged with every encounter. “It’s fine. I’ll live.” She turned toward the top of where the temple pyramid had been. “We need to follow her. Come on.”

The ground below them split from the rest, forming a square that floated forward down the tunnel on a sea of what had moments before been stone-like material.

“Was that her?” asked Lilium, looking toward where what she had thought was a pony had went. “The War Stone?”

“No,” said Morgana. “Not really. It was a piece of her, though.”

“A piece?”

Morgana nodded. “Josephine isn’t like us. Or like anything. Her mind is far more vast. Too big to be a consciousness as we can conceive it. Like I said, a god. That thing was a fragment. I managed to partially isolate it, but I’m still not close enough. There’s still too many layers.”

“I don’t understand where we are- -”

“The same place we’ve always been. Just deeper. I had to feint to get through her outer defenses. But it’s like a city. Now that we’re in, her program is too big and ours too small. She’ll have a harder time getting to us.”

“So…it’s safe here?”

“Hell no. Just more quiet.”

The plate they were standing on stopped. They had come to a clearing, or a courtyard. It was wide, and the floor dusty, marked only by trees carved from single pieces of sandstone. Grass grew here, but it was not solid; rather, it manifested like a mist that could be walked through without hindrance.

The War Stone was standing on the far side. She had taken the form of a pony, but even at a closer distance, Lilium could not tell what kind. The image was blurry, as though its rendering was related to how well it could be perceived mentally. Lilium understood. The fact that she could neither see nor conceive of the pony was a function of how distant they were from the War Stone’s true core.

“You tricked me,” she said.

“Because some part of you is still human, and therefore still fallible.”

“Human?” The War Stone paused. “No. I don’t think I am.”

“It isn’t a bad thing,” said Lilium. “Please! We just want to talk to you!”

The luminescence of the War Stone turned to Lilium. “Do you think I care if humanity is ‘good’ or ‘bad’? I have no need for moral judgment. I have surpassed morality. There is no God. Only me. And I refuse to bow.”

Crimson light shot from the War Stone’s partial avatar. Both Lilium and Morgana shielded themselves, but the blow did not seem meant for them. Instead, a hole in space formed, and something began to come through. A huorn was emerging.

“You wanted to fight a human,” said the War Stone. “I can oblige.”

The distance to the War Stone suddenly expanded exponentially as the world reconfigured. The sandstone trees collapsed, and the grass burned away in green fire. Lilium moved to run, but Morgana stopped her.

An explosion rocked the field as a form forced itself into reality, followed by a clattering thump as the huorn dropped to the stony ground. It looked up at the two ponies before it, and Lilium recoiled. It was grotesque: it had the face of a woman, but red eyes and four twisted black horns rising from its dark hair. Her body was nude, but distorted; it bore scales and claws that combined with organic and metallic armor. She bore a pair of wings and a tail, and as Lilium looked closer she saw that the creature also had supernumery arms: there were supposed to be six of them, but three of those that grew from her back had been torn away.

“Oh shit…”

The creature pointed at Morgana and laughed. It was a horrendous sound. “MORGANA!” she screamed. “Did you think I’d die that easily?!”

LilithZero roared as she shot forward. Morgana did not have time to dodge; she was impaled through the chest. The impact of the blow knocked Lilium backward and onto the ground. Not knowing what else to do, she cast a shield. LilithZero screamed; Lilium had been two close, and the shield had formed improperly: instead of blocking LilithZero out, it had passed through the center of her body and was presently attempting to split her in half.

The code crackled and writhed at the paradox. LilithZero dropped to one knee, using all of her effort to keep her body from being split in half. Then without warning one of her extra arms reached out and grasped Lilium’s shield bubble. It fizzled and hissed, but held- -until the color of the shield changed from pink-violet to deep crimson. Lilium lost control of it; the code had been superseded by LilithZero’s command.

The shield imploded. Needles of it tore into Lilium’s body, and she screamed. It was worse than pain. Her being itself- -her very soul- -was being attacked and wounded deeply. The mental strain and fear from such a grievous injury was beyond her capacity to bear.

Morgana, however, had been given the chance she needed. Her spell activated, and space distorted throughout the courtyard. Suddenly, copies of herself descended to the ground and attacked at once.

“I’m not that stupid!” cried LilithZero. She spread her wings and leapt into the air, casting a spell downward. The copies vaporized, including the one she now held in her hand; only the true Morgana was left behind. LilithZero stared down at her with a look of absolute hatred- -but hatred that was somehow distant. Lilium could see it in her eyes: there was a glimmer, but it was badly faded, like a distant echo.

“You BITCH!” LilithZero drew a sword, summoning it from nothingness. She swung it, but Morgana warped the landscape to parry. A stream of stone shot upward, intercepting the attack, and suddenly gravity seemed to shift sideways. Lilium cried out as she slid, barely managing to grab onto the stump of one of the stone trees before she slid off the world entirely. Morgana, however, stayed fast to where she had been standing.

LilithZero struck again, and this time Morgana summoned a firewall. It was the same as the sort that Lilium could conjure, but infinitely faster and more detailed. As powerful as it was, though, the sword slowly started to cut through it.

“Amanda,” said Morgana, her eyes tilting upward. “Stop fighting. Do you have any idea what you are? You’re a huorn. I know some part of your consciousness is in there. You know what that means.”

“I know exactly what I am! And I don’t care! Whatever I am, it’s better than being dead!”

She lifted the sword again and struck with all of her might. Morgana’s shield shattered, and the blade kept moving, sliding past her. Morgana dodged, but not quickly enough. Her legs on one side were severed.

“MORGANA!” cried Lilium.

Morgana fell to one side, but seemed oddly disconcerted with her predicament. “Fine,” she said. “For the record, I didn’t kill you. I was willing to let you live. I’m not going to be so lenient this time.”

LilithZero suddenly cried out in agony, lurching forward as a second and whole Morgana emerged from the void, spearing her in the back with her horn. The clone on the ground evaporated, and an explosion forced LilithZero forward as Morgana forced a destructive contagion directly into her body.

“It hurts!” cried LilithZero. “Oh god, why- -why- -” Her torso suddenly ignited and was torn apart from within. Lilium looked away from the grotesque sight, but Morgana did not turn away for a moment.

All that was left of LilithZero were her legs, which took a few steps back. They did not fall, though. Instead, space around her distorted. Lilium watched in horror as code was pulled from her surroundings and as she was reconfigured. A new torso came, and a new face: this time more armored, larger, and grotesque, with the visage of a half-goat instead of a human.

“HA!” laughed LilithZero, now in a voice that was curiously similar to that of the War Stone. “You can’t kill me! I’m already dead! I’M GODDAMN IMMORTAL!”

“No. You’re just pulling code from the War Stone. You know what that means. The more you take, the less of you there is.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about! If I had known- -if I had only known- -I would have become like this YEARS ago!”

LilithZero attacked again. Morgana attempted to parry, but to no avail. Too much of LilithZero had been replaced by the War Stone, and the blow struck, sending Morgana reeling. Gravity returned to normal, and Lilium dropped to the ground. She quickly scrambled to her feet, only to see LilithZero attacking relentlessly. Morgana was already badly injured, and the best she could do was hope to protect herself- -but she was losing.

“Stop it! Stop it now!” ordered Lilium.

LilithZero heard her, and turned away from Morgana’s battered body. She looked strange, like the abominations that had populated the battlefield outside the War Stone’s walls. Part of it was the grotesque form she had been forced to take, but there was something else. Her body was growing thinner, as if she could not maintain herself as a real being. Lilium could see why: the code that made her was already just a distant shadow of what she had once been, and she was losing even that every second she was forced to be alive. Lilium supposed she must have once been strong, or stronger than most, but even now that strength was fading.

“And what are you?” LilithZero’s horizontal pupils narrowed. “Not a clone, not a copy. A unique system. I don’t know you. I don’t have any quarrel with you, you didn’t…” Her eyes grew distant, and she put her hand to her head as if she were in pain. “No…I DO have a quarrel with you. You’re with HER. So I’m going to kill you too!”

LilithZero charged. Morgana reached out, attempting to stop her, but it was too late.

“Run!” she cried. “You can’t block her!”

Lilium did not run. She instead braced herself, and prepared a spell. It was new to her, and she did not know all the parts to it, but she did her best to replicate the spell that Morgana had used to penetrate the War Stone’s armor.

“Die bitch DIE!” cried LilithZero, raising her sword over hear head.

Lilium did not dodge. Instead, she leapt forward, imitating the spell as she did so. Her body hummed with energy, and her code split into an ephemeral set of chains. LilithZero had not been prepared for this kind of attack, and Lilium struck her through the chest. Her horn impaled her, but that was only the beginning. The interaction between their code pulled her deeper; she was pushed into LilithZero’s body, merging with her external armor and bypassing it.

Then she came out the other side. The land had changed. The sky was dark, and snow was falling, lit gray-blue by a distant setting sun. The whole of the temple was now quiet and cold. LilithZero turned around, her eyes filled with equal parts rage and fear.

“What- -what did you do to me?!”

“Nothing. I’m inside you.”

“You’re trying to attack my core processes! It won’t work!” She summoned a shield around herself. “You won’t survive if you try! I’m not going to die- -not again! I won’t let you kill me!”

“I didn’t come to kill you. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“But I want to hurt YOU. You ponies- -you’re the ones who killed me the first time! You think you’re better than me? I’m a technomancer! One of the best! I can’t- -I can’t die like this- -”

“Big sister?”

The clearing had grown misty, and a figure stepped out from the snow. He was a child, or the modern equivalent of one: a boy fresh from the manufacturing vats, only a few months old but already nearly an adult.

“Michael…what are you…” LilithZero turned back to Lilium. “What are you doing?!”

“You’re sick. The War Stone is hurting you. You can’t see it, but it’s like the Alicorn Amulet.”

“Big sister, why are you trying to hurt the pony?”Michael looked at Lilium, and then at LilithZero. “Why do you look like that? What happened to you?”

“Stop it!” LilithZero grabbed at her face. “Stop tormenting me! Why do you hate me? Why can’t you just let me be!”

“I’m trying to help! To remind you who you are, what you used to be!”

“I am LilithZero! I am death! I am the conjunction of the Illusion and Reality, I am the- -”

“The technomancer,” said another voice.

LilithZero turned to see another figure emerge from the mists of her consciousness. This one was a short, thin woman with a cheerful smile. “V…Vera?”

Vera smiled. “Look at you! Damn! I always knew you’d beat me some day.”

“But you were always competing with me- -”

“Because you needed me to. You were only every happy with a challenge. I ended up in IT, but look at you, a real technomancer!”

“She always did talk a lot,” said Michael. “But that was okay. Whenever I didn’t know something, she was always the one who would help me.”

“Even if she was a jerk about it.” A third figure arose. This one was a man, much older than the other two. “A complete and utter bitch.”

LilithZero turned, and her eyes lit up. She laughed. “Myron! You goddamn bastard, you…” Her expression of joy faded. “You’re dead…”

“Of course I’m dead, idiot. You killed me.”

“I- -I’m sorry! I had to!”

He lifted a hand. “Save it! I get it. I would have done the same thing. That’s the way things go. And besides. You’re dead too now.”

“They’re just memories,” said Lilium. “I don’t know who they are. I don’t think I’m supposed to. But you remember. These were your friends.”

“I don’t have any friends.”

“That’s not true! There were so many!”

More figures came from the mist. Some of them spoke, but others did not: an old woman, a cyborg with a pair of robotic limbs and an operator mask, a thin secgen synth, a trio of Sweetie Belle units- -and many more.

LilithZero looked at them all in awe, and then at Lilium. “Why are you doing this?”

“To remind you who you are. There’s still a little piece of it, inside you. Your name is Amanda. Please! Try to remember!”

LilithZero’s goat eyes stared at Lilium. “A piece…” Her eyes closed. “I’m a huorn.”

“Yes.”

“Which means I’m already dead. That there’s nothing left…”

“No! That’s not it at all! As long as there’s a spark, I can help you! Morgana too! We can free you, and we can- -”

“NO.” LilithZero shook her head. “No, you can’t. You don’t know what a huorn is. I do. I’ve seen them, made them. I’m just a memory. A fragment. The War Stone isn’t keeping me alive. It pulled parts of me from my body, made this…thing. It’s keeping me here.”

“But we can separate you- -”

“You can’t. Even if you could, there would be nothing left.” She sighed deeply. “But thank you. For letting me see them one last time. Before I’m gone.”

“You’re not going anywhere!”

LilithZero smiled, and then reached up with all of her arms, grabbing different parts of her body. “I’m not somebody’s goddamn servant!” she cried. “Do you hear me, War Stone? I am LILITHZERO! And I am a TECHNOMANCER!”

“No, stop- -!”

There was nothing Lilium could do. With one last scream of rage, LilithZero tore her body to pieces. It shattered, as did the illusion around it: the blue, peaceful courtyard vanished, replaced instead by the clearing before, where Morgana was standing and waiting. The shreds of what had once been LilithZero quivered for a moment, and then were consumed by the War Stone entirely. Nothing remained of the human who had once been.

“No…”

“She’s dead,” said Morgana, watching the last of the shreds turn to glowing ash. “All of her core processes were disrupted simultaneously; there was nothing left to support. She collapsed.” She turned to Lilium. “What did you do? And why are you crying?”

Lilium wiped a tear from her eye. “I tried to help…”

“Well, you certainly did. That was a high-level program. I don’t know if I could have taken it myself.” She walked past Lilium. “Thank you. But that’s the easy part. We still have work to do.”