//------------------------------//
// Chapter 28: Remains of the Creator 
// Story: Equestria 485,000 
// by Unwhole Hole 
//------------------------------//

The Map room was exactly as Twilight had left it. It was a large, dome shaped room that stood completely empty save for the map in the center and the crystal chairs that surrounded it. The chairs, like everything else, were covered in thick dust. The Map, though, remained as crisp and clear as it had been on the day Twilight had first seen it. A dull blue glow filled the room, and even from a distance Twilight could see the tiny holographic representations of mountains and lakes.

            The ponies approached it in awe and looked at the representation. Even Silken seemed to be impressed by the detail.

            “Oh my,” said Rarity. “It doesn’t look anything like it used to!”

            “Look!” said Rainbow Dash, pointing. The others had already seen what she was referring to, though. Floating above the castle were six insignias. Five cutie marks orbited around one; it was the result of the map calling to them. As Twilight watched, the marks faded and vanished.

            “It was calling us here,” said Fluttershy.

            “I think it was just calling,” said Twilight. “Hoping that it would find somepony. I guess it did. After all this time.” She did not pause much longer. She began to cast a spell to interface herself to the map. She was horrified at how little power the map still had left in it, but there was enough. A grid appeared over the map of what Equestria had become, and she began her search.

            “What are you doing?” asked Applejack.

            “There’s something I need to find,” said Twilight, refusing to elaborate. “The Map can help me find it.”

            “But shouldn’t we help with the friendship problem here, first?”

            “We’re the only ponies here. Is anypony here having a friendship problem.”

            Silken raised a pointed hoof. “I feel like I sometimes have trouble interacting with others.”

            “Oh, darling, you’re fine,” said Rarity.

            “Oh,” said Silken, lowering her hoof. “Never mind, then. Rarity say’s its fine.”

            The map flickered slightly. “Darn it,” swore Twilight. “The power supply is really, really low.”

            “Well, yeah,” said Pinkie Pie. “It’s probably leaking out of the cables.”

            “Cables?” Twilight looked up. “What cables?”

            Pinkie Pie pointed. “Cables on the table.”

            At first, Twilight though that Pinkie Pie was making a joke. Then she tilted her head and looked around the edge of the map and, to her great surprise, saw a pair of thick, rusty conduit cables linked to it.

            “What in Equestria…” She approached them. They were a flexible type, but they had badly rusted. They were indeed very old.

            Fluttershy approached them from the other side, and then looked up at Twilight. “Didn’t you say you were using the map to provide power to your spell?”

            “Backup processing,” corrected Twilight, “and I did. But those cables were vaporized when the spell failed. And they wouldn’t have lasted this long…”

            “So what are you saying?”

            “Somepony installed these here. Much, much later.” Curiosity overtook her, and she began to follow the cables. The others joined her, although they probably did not really understand the significance of what these long conduits meant.

            “They do not appear to be active,” said Silken. “They are not currently draining the Map.”

            “I know,” said Twilight. “Whatever they were for is no longer functional.”

            “Perhaps those other ponies built it?” suggested Rarity.

            “No,” said Twilight. “They would not have had the knowledge necessary. Very few ponies understood enough about the magic of the Map to actually be able to use it.”

            The rusted, decayed cables led down a long hallway and up a set of stairs. That was where they suddenly stopped. They appeared to have been jaggedly cut, and lay on the floor inert. Twilight stared at them for a moment, and then looked up at a wide door that was partially ajar. Her blood suddenly felt cold as she realized where she was.

            “That’s the library,” said Applejack. “Do you think any of the books are still in there?”

            “They aren’t,” said Twilight. “We need to go.”

            “Go? Why? Twilight, this is your castle. There isn’t anything dangerous here.”

            “Except all those bones,” said Pinkie Pie. “I guess you could slip. Or maybe even trip.”

            “That was where we conducted the spell,” said Twilight, turning away from the door. “Starlight, Trixie and I. All those years ago. It’s were Starlight…” She could not bring herself to finish the sentence, and just shook her head. “I never went back into that room again. Not even to collect a book. Or the books that were left. We did it in there so that we would have access to the notes we needed. And…there was nothing left. Nothing but a hemispherical hole in the floor. The floor, parts of the shelves, Starlight…they all got vaporized.”

            “It doesn’t look like a hole to me,” said Pinkie Pie.

            Twilight whirled around to see that Pinkie had opened the door and put her head through. “Pinkie!”

            “What! It’s true!”

            Twilight rushed forward, intending to close the door to the room- -but she froze when she saw that Pinkie Pie had been right. In the light of her horn, Twilight could see that the characteristic hole that had haunted her dreams for so long was not present. The floor was not quite normal, though; there was a circular pattern where the hole had been, and a rim around it where the floor within the hole was higher than the rest. As if it there had been a hole, and it had been filled with a perfectly shape hemisphere of crystal that had been dropped in crooked, leaving a lip on one side and a dropoff on the other.

            “Wh…what?” gasped Twilight. She stepped into the room, her hooves clicking on the crystal floor. “This isn’t possible!” She looked around, but it was. There were parts of the shelves that should have been gone, now separated from the others as though they had been cut and then replaced.

            The others filed in. They all stared at the strange circular pattern at the floor. Silken, though, stopped suddenly. “This room has an unusual degree of residual magical resonance.”

            “This doesn’t make sense,” said Twilight, stepping onto the part of the floor that was supposed to be missing. “This whole area, it was all gone!”

            “Well,” said Pinkie Pie, “it’s here now.”

            Twilight looked down, still deeply confused- -and spied a crystal. She approached it and observed it without picking it up. It was clear and perfectly formed, and the same color as the castle overall. Despite this, however, it did not appear to have broken free from any part of the ceiling, floor, or walls. In fact, it seemed to have been placed there.

            Carefully, Twilight picked it up in her magic. As soon as she did, she immediately understood. She spread her wings and jumped back, watching as the crystal continued to hover in the center of the room.

            Suddenly, the darkness of the library was purged by a surge of bright light. In the center of the room, some of the light took on a blue hue and assembled itself into the shape of a pony. The shape then rapidly tightened, and a hologram of Starlight Glimmer appeared before them.

            “St…starlight!” cried Twilight.

            “Twilight! What’s going on?!” cried Rarity from behind.

            “It’s a recording crystal,” said Twilight. “It responded to my magic when I picked it up, it’s playing back whatever was put on it, I didn’t mean to- -”

            The recording of Starlight suddenly spoke. “Finally,” she said with great relief. All the ponies turned to her. She looked just as she had when they had known her, although dirtier and with her hair more disheveled than usual. “It’s actually working! It took me the better part of the day to find a piece of castle that I could cut into a proper memory crystal. It’s not exactly easy, these things need to be magnificent quality or higher.” Her relief faded, and she looked around. “That said, this is bad. Really, really bad. Somethings wrong. I can’t find Twilight. Or anypony, for that matter. The whole castle’s empty. And on the first floor…” She paused, and then shook her head. “Nevermind. The last thing I remember is the oracle spell entering an amplification cascade. The spell’s calculation parameters grew exponentially, we couldn’t keep up. Trixie got knocked back, and…” She paused again. “I had to direct the spell at myself. That was the only way to contain it. To absorb the full force and attempt to teleport it.”

            “Teleport it?” said Twilight, as though Starlight were still there. “At that level of power?! That’s insane- -”

            “And it worked. I collapsed the blast into a form of dimensional resonance. But what it did to me…well, I don’t know. I don’t know where I am. It’s the castle, but not the same castle.” She paused for a long time, staring off into the distance. “I think there is a chance that when I absorbed the energy from the spell, I was displaced. But since I’m still in the library…” She turned suddenly toward Twilight, even though there was no way that the hologram was able to see. “…I was displaced in time. Forward, I think. I have no idea how far. It could be a hundred years, or a thousand. I haven’t tried to venture outside yet. It’s cold, and something is wrong with the air. But there’s no food here, and I thought I saw smoke over the horizon. I think there are ponies out there. I’m going to try to find them.

            “I’m leaving this crystal behind as a record. In case the others are still out there. Twilight, if you’ve found this, I went west. I’ll come back soon. I’m afraid, but I know this is going to turn out okay.” She smiled. “Everything is going to be alright. I’m sure of it.”

            The hologram suddenly fizzled and vanished. The crystal lost its upward lift, and fell. Twilight caught it before it could slam on the floor and crack, protecting it in her magic like it was the greatest treasure she had ever held. Only then did she realize that she was crying.

            “What…was that?” asked Rainbow Dash, softly.

            “I thought…for all this time I thought I had lost her.” Twilight turned toward them, unsure if she was supposed to smile. “The spell. I thought it had vaporized her. If it had been any other pony, it would have, but she found a way! She survived!” Twilight pointed at the floor. “This, she pulled it forward in time. She rode out the energy of the spell like a wave until it put her right back where she started!”

            “That may be true,” said Silken, “but there is no guarantee that she came to THIS time. That record is stored in crystal. It could be hundreds of thousands of years old.”

            “Or she could still be out there.”

            “No,” said Silken. “She is not. You know what is west.”

            Twilight’s heart sank. “The dead city…”

            Silken nodded. “Your friend survived, but no doubt lived out the rest of her life in this world. However long that may have been. I am sorry.”

            “Don’t be,” muttered Twilight. She let out a long sigh. “I shouldn’t have been optimistic.” She looked up at her friends. “Let’s get back to the Map.”



            They returned to it, but they did not speak much. Twilight was more focused on a chain of thoughts that she knew was ultimately fruitless. She knew that, logically, Silken was right. If Starlight had indeed emerged when the now long-abandoned civilization was in its heyday- -or perhaps the civilization before it, or even when there were still living ponies that walked Equestria- -she would surely have long-since passed. Emotionally, though, this was a challenge to one of the most formative events in her life. It challenged a fundamental pillar of her being. Her own failure had not resulted in the demise of her friend, at least not in the way she had intended. It was the fact that she had never returned to collect Starlight that had left her to live out her life all alone.

            Because of this, Twilight took several steps into the central Map room before she ground to a slow halt. The other ponies did as well; Twilight had only slowed because they had. It took her a moment to realize why, though, and to understand why each of them suddenly looked so afraid.

            The room had grown dim, and as Twilight looked up she realized it was because an object had been placed between her and the glow of the map. On closer inspection, though, she realized that it was not an object at all, but a figure. For one brief, ecstatic moment Twilight found herself seeing Starlight. For an infinitesimal fraction of a second, she even saw her old friend standing there. She would turn around with a smile on her face and greet them, and then explain how she had come to be here with a sense of unintentional condescendence.

            Except it was not Starlight. What stood looking at the table was indeed a pony of some sort, but she was far too tall. Not tall in the way Silken or the Empire alicorns were, though. They were narrow and elongated, while this figure was simply large.

            For a moment, Twilight was unable to move. She had been frozen to one spot as adrenaline raced through her body. The figure did not appear to notice that others had entered the room, or to care. It was watching the map below, facing away from the others.

            “Who…who is that?” whispered Rarity.

            “I don’t know,” said Fluttershy. “But we need to leave. Right now!”

            Instead, Twilight stepped forward. The others fell silent as the tension in the room suddenly began to rise.

            “Hello?” she said.

            The figure did not respond. As Twilight grew closer, she started to see the armor that covered the figure’s body. Plates and machinery of various sizes, much of it rusted but a few pieces painted midnight black. It had been worn for a long time, but was well made by the pony who had created it.

            “Excuse me,” said Twilight. “My name is Twilight Sparkle. I…I’m afraid I don’t know who you are. If you don’t mind, I’d like to greet you. Maybe we can even help each other- -”

            Part of the figure shifted. A set of three long, flesh-colored tentacles emerged from slits in the rear part of its armor, beneath where its spine was covered in a number of long, organic spikes. The tentacles reached out behind the creature. Their bulbous ends then opened into madly grinning mouths, their needle-like teeth dripping with dark saliva. Inside each of the mouths was a single, violet-irised eye.

            A low, warbling groan escaped the figure. Then she turned. Her motions were strange; they were fast and almost mechanical, performed with an insect-like precision that indicated a mind that ran at a far higher pace than any pony’s ever could.

            Then Twilight saw the face of the creature, and she heard screaming from behind her. This thing, though shaped like a pony, was not. Where a head should have been, it wore a grotesque mask of carved structum that vaguely resembled the face of a pony. There were no holes for a mouth, or eyes: instead, the surface of the side of the mask was overgrown with flesh covered in numerous eyes of various sizes. All were violet in color, and all had horizontal pupils- -but as Twilight watched, the eyes turned in their sockets, forcing the pupils to become vertical, narrow slits.

            A deep sound emerged from its body, one of impossible volume but at a frequency that Twilight could only barely hear it. Then the creature spoke. It did not have just one voice, but rather many speaking all at once. They seemed to come from every part of its body, with some even coming from far below its armor. Almost all of them sounded as though they were choking on something wet but far thicker than water.

            “Vortog,” it said with great difficulty. “Plath idena…thanthakta.”

            It then screamed. The sound was horrible, filled with pain and absolute hatred. As Twilight watched, flesh burst form the rear of the creature’s body, rapidly forming four long wings that sprouted with violet feathers. Then it raced forward, reaching for Twilight.

            Silken moved quickly. Twilight barely saw her move: one moment she was at the rear of the room, and the next she had interposed herself between Twilight and the creature. She braced herself against the floor, which suddenly cracked under her extreme weight as she deactivated her internal gravity centrifuge. Silken then leaned into the creature, intending to shoulder-check it.

            The creature struck her, but it did not slow. Its body seemed to splatter, disassembling itself into snake-like tendrils of flesh and chunks of unidentifiable machinery. These poured over Silken’s body, crawling over her and emerging on the far side. They immediately reformed into a unified, quadrupedal body, ignoring the fact that any sort of obstacle had been in their way.

            “Twilight!” cried Silken. “I cannot touch it! It will not let me!”

            “Great,” muttered Twilight. She stepped forward and raised a shield. The creature stopped suddenly at the sight of the violet light, and Twilight began to modulate power away from the shield to prepare an attack. Her power was still limited; she could not perform both spells at once.

            The creature did not hesitate. It reacted as though it had known what she was attempting to do, and before Twilight could react a narrow armor-plated robotic limb struck her from below. The already compromised shield spell shattered, and the feedback knocked Twilight backward several feet and into Rarity.

            “Twilight!” cried Rarity, catching her friend.

            “Run!” said Twilight. “Get out of here!”

            The creature stepped forward, moving its wings as though it were preparing to pounce. When it saw Rarity, though, it stopped. Every one of its eyes turned to her, and it stood perfectly still. Rarity squeaked in discomfort.

            Then the creature spoke, with even more difficulty than before. “Rare- -ITY!” it said. It then screamed and struck out at her with one of its hooves.

            Rarity squealed and covered her face. She did not have the wherewithal to even attempt to generate a shield spell. Before the blow hit, though, the morphiplasm that covered her body sensed the danger and reacted promptly. It spread across Rarity’s body, instantly covering every inch of her and increasing in density to form heavy, pearl-white armor. The creature did indeed strike Rarity, but with the armor surrounding her body what would have been a catastrophic impact simply threw here backward. She slammed into Pinkie Pie and both ponies collapsed in a heap.

            The momentary distraction allowed Twilight to regain some of her composure. She fired a spell at the creature. It shifted, absorbing the blast with a plate of armor on its shoulder- -a plate that Twilight, to her horror, realized was covered in crudely drawn runes. The runes lit up with pink-violet light, and the spell flared without penetrating.

            “Well, then, I guess we have to do this the hard way,” said Twilight as she fired a barrage of flare spells into the air. They ignited with blinding light. The creature, with all of its eyes, screamed in pain and stepped back. Before it could react, Twilight was already on top of it. She struck at its chest with her hoof, but found that its armor was too thick for her to do any real damage. That, and the flesh beneath seemed to be made of pure muscle. Still, she recoiled, dodging an attack from a robotic limb and pirouetting on her front limbs to attempt a kick at the creature’s exposed eyes. She succeeded, forcing it back, but in the process left herself open. She was thrown backward by a blow to the chest that made several things inside her snap.

            Rainbow Dash caught her. “Holy foal nuggets, Twi!” she cried, “where did you learn how to do that?!”

            “I’ve had a lot of time to learn new things,” groaned Twilight as her internal organs began to regenerate from the blow. “And a lot of wars to fight.” She turned to Rarity, who was still more or less cowering. “Rarity! Get in there!”

            “M- -ME?!”

            “You have the morphiplasm on! Use the power assist!”

            “Darkling, I’m a creature of fashion, not violence! I wound’t know the first thing- -”

            Twilight reached out with her magic and literally threw Rarity against the creature. Rarity screamed, but the creature hesitated. It did not seem to like to attack ponies that were not Twilight.

            “Vortog…plath idena…thanthakta,” it said, turning its face to Rarity, its injury from Twilight’s spell and kick already healed. It reached out from its armor with several long tentacles that rapidly sprouted with spines and blades.

            Rarity looked at the creature with her eyes wide, and then closed them. She squealed in panic, and brought her hoof back. As she did, the morphiplasm thickened into a complex robotic assist unit. Rarity slapped the creature. It was the most inefficient sort of attack conceivable, but with the power assist active the impact produced a resounding thud that sent the creature reeling backward.

            Silken then attempted to attack again, but to no avail. She struck at the creature, but her hoof simply passed through- -until it stopped halfway. Then the creature disassembled itself, its flesh and armor pushing over Silken’s body until it reassembled behind her. Silken, surprised, was unbalanced. The creature easily pushed her into Rarity. Had Rarity not been wearing the morphiplasm, she would have been crushed.

            The creature spread its long violet wings and took to the air. Twilight prepared another spell to take it down, but Rainbow Dash pushed past her.

            “Rainbow, get back!” ordered Twilight.

            “There’s no way I’m missing this,” she said. “You get back! Get the others out of here!”

            “Rainbow, no, don’t- -”

            Before Twilight could do anything to stop her, Rainbow Dash shot forward, leaving a rainbow-colored contrail in her wake. She quickly circled the room, drawing the creature’s attention- -and then struck.

            The creature cried out in pain and dropped to the floor- -in two pieces. One was an armored leg,  now writing and twitching, and the remainder was the creature’s body, which was pouring out a fluorescent yellow fluid from the wound. Even Twilight was surprised; so far, nopony had managed to injure the creature like this.

            “Stop!” cried Fluttershy. “Rainbow, this isn’t the way!”

            Rainbow Dash either did not hear or did not listen. She circled the room again and struck the creature’s side, sending it tilting onto the side where it only had one leg. It nearly fell, but it remained standing. As Rainbow Dash prepared for a third strike, Twilight saw the creature change. Flesh seeped out from its armor, forming hundreds of eyes that roved and flitted about before trailing Rainbow Dash. Twilight knew what was happening immediately.

            “RAINBOW DAH!” she cried. “LOOK OUT!”

            It was too late. Rainbow Dash charged the creature, and it dodged. As Rainbow Dash inadvertently sailed past it, a tentacle shot forth from the place where it had been wounded, wrapping itself around Rainbow Dash’s neck.

            “Gah!” cried Rainbow Dash as her wings buzzed and she struggled. “Let go of me!”

            The creature lifted her, and the tentacle that it had caught Rainbow Dash in began to shift. There was a cracking sound as it formed bones and joints, and as it sprouted fingers. It still held her, but as Twilight watched it became a long, thin arm with narrow pointed fingers around the Pegasus’s neck.

            It held her close to her face, and it spoke. “Rainb…ow…DASH! Not the…not the…not real! NOT REAL!”

            Without warning, the creature lifted Rainbow Dash and slammed her into the ground.

            “NO!” cried Twilight. She started to run forward, but Applejack tackled her from behind. “Let me go!”

            “There isn’t anything you can do! Magic, Twilight, use magic!”

            Twilight understood, and she tried to aim. It was almost impossible, though. All the spells seemed to have left her a the creature slammed Rainbow Dash into the floor again and again, each time with greater force. The only spells that came to mind were impossible to use without risking hurting Rainbow Dash. For the first time in many centuries, Twilight had drawn a blank.

            Rainbow Dash was slammed against the ground again, and then again. The creature kept repeating it until the crystal tiles had cracked. Then it lifted her, and examined what it held. Rainbow Dash had become limp, and her battered wings hung at angles that they were not supposed to bend. Seeming to have lost amusement, the creature threw Rainbow Dash away. She sailed through the air before her back struck one of the crystal chairs that surrounded the Map. There was a loud crack as her back bent around the corner, and Rainbow Dash screamed weakly. Then she dropped to the ground and did not move.

            “RAINBOW!” cried Twilight. She wormed her way out of Applejack’s grip, and leveled her horn at the creature. She did not even try to form a spell; instead, she just put every ounce of energy she had into a single beam. The pink-violet light shot out from her horn and passed through the room. The creature attempted to dodge again, but the beam bent at a right angle and took a different path. The creature dodged again, but this time it was too late. It struck the creature in the head, tearing through the structum mask it wore. The creature screamed and took a step back.

            Except that it did not fall. The wound was extensive, and the beam had passed completely through its head- -but there was nothing inside. No skull, and no brain. The head was no more a critical part of its being than the rest of it. It had not central nervous system.

            The creature then turned to Twilight. Its body undulated slightly, and then without warning tore open in a way that for one mad moment made Twilight consider whether or not these creatures might be plants of some kind. When she looked into the center of its flower-like body, though, she immediately snapped back to reality: there, in the center, were three long, needle-like spirals of bones. They were surrounded by intense pink-violet energy, and Twilight could feel the raw magical power rising off of them.

            All she could do was cast a shield spell in an attempt to defend Applejack and Fluttershy. From the energy that the creature was emitting, though, the blast would be impossible to block. Dodging was possible, but it would leave her friends exposed.

            The blast rang out, and Twilight felt an impact against her body. She was not thrown backward, but rather to the side. She looked down to see a narrow white leg against her body, and Fluttershy and Applejack pressed against her. Silken had pushed them out of the way fast enough to protect them from the beam, but not fast enough to protect herself. Her rear legs were instantly vaporized.

            The beam did not stop. It struck the crystal wall of the castle and rebounded in every direction. Smaller, divided beams shot out in every direction. Rarity cried out, and Pinkie Pie contorted her body in several different bizarre patterns in an attempt to avoid the beams. Twilight managed to keep her shield running to prevent her friends from being injured, but she could not reach Rainbow Dash. Fortunately, although the beams struck close to her, none of struck Rainbow Dash’s unconscious body.

            The creature closed its body, but its magic did not cease. Instead of projecting a beam, plates of pink-violet armor began to form over the metal it wore. It did not seem to have a consistent spell; the plates sparked and hissed as pure, unaltered energy was poured into them. This creature clearly had no idea beyond pure instinct of how to use magic, but the fact that it could still create constructs was absolutely terrifying.

            It paused, and approached its severed limb. The limb sprouted several limbs of its own, and then returned to its mother, fusing with her body. It did return to its original place, though; a thin robotic arm was moved in to replace it instead. The organic arm that it had used to thrash Rainbow Dash retracted and surrounded the artificial limb, providing it with support.

            “You have to get out of here,” said Silken. As a remnus, she could not experience pain, even with her legs removed. “I can attempt to cover you.”

            “No you can’t! And we’re not leaving Rainbow Dash!” Twilight turned to Rarity. “Rarity! I need you to go at it again!”

            Rarity, though, did not respond. She was crouched and clasping one limb, gasping in pain. Pinkie was trying to comfort her, and only then did Twilight notice the large black circle burned through one of Rarity’s shoulders. One of the beams had struck her. With the morphiplasm’s central processor in Twilight’s portion of the suit, it had not been able to compensate for a magical attack.

            Twilight swore in the modern Empire language. “I’ia,” she hissed before turning to Applejack. “AJ, I have a plan, but I need help! I need somepony to fight it head on!”

            “Head on? You can count on me!”

            “But you- -wait, what?”

            “I’m madder than a rattlesnake at a squardancin’ tournament after what it did to Rainbow Dash.” Applejack stood up and started walking forward. “You just don’t do that to my friends and get away with it. You just don’t. Somepony’s in for a world of hurt.”

            “It’s not a pony!” cried Pinkie Pie. “I’m pretty sure it’s a shoggoth!”

            “I don’t care if it’s Cadence’s pillowcase full of hot biscuit dough, I’m gonna hit it!”

            The creature allowed Applejack to approach. Again, it seemed not to consider her a high priority. In fact, it had frozen completely. No part of it moved except some of its eyes, which followed Applejack as she approached. The rest were focused on Twilight.

            “Ap…pleja…CK,” it said, its voice rising several octaves as it tried to speak.

            “Now, you may have had an easy time with Rainbow Dash,” said Applejack, “but I’m not Rainbow Dash!”

            She lunged forward and struck at the creature’s leg. The creature parried, but was still knocked back slightly. Applejack was not nearly as strong as the power assist in Rarity’s morphiplasm suit, but she still possessed a the same earth-pony vigor as she had her entire life. The creature had not seemed to expect this, and when Applejack pivoted and bucked it squarely in the chest, it was thrown back significantly.

            The creature slid on its heels back toward the table. Twilight, likewise, had moved there. She passed Rainbow Dash without looking- -she knew that if she did, there was no way she could bring herself to keep fighting- -and quickly found her way to the back of the Map where the large cables had been assembled. She charged her horn, and cried out. The spell that she had used against the creature in retaliation for what it did to Rainbow Dash as well as the later shield spell had overexerted her, and she had re-injured herself.

            Still, she forced herself to continue. She focused her energy into a narrow laser and began to cut the coil, being careful to leave the internal section intact. At the same time, Applejack continued to fight the creature. Her winning streak, though, did not last long.

            Applejack attempted another punch, but the creature dodged. It then struck back at her, striking a blow to her face that sent her reeling. With one continuous motion, it stepped forward and struck again- -and then again. Only on the fourth attempt did Applejack manage a proper block.

            By this time, Applejack had just taken several head blows. One of her eyes was already starting to blacken. Instead of giving up, though, she turned her head and spit. “Really? Come on! I’ve gotten into harder fights at the Appleloosa Salt Lick! Hit me like you mean it!”

            She threw herself forward again, and once again got several good hits on the creature. Unfortunately, she was too short to reach its head, and it was too heavily armored for her to do anything except knock it toward the Map. The charge cost her, though, when it struck her hard enough to send her flying back across the room.

            This was when Twilight struck. She ran forward, the enormous coaxial cable suspended in her magic, and took a flying leap into the air. With a scream, she leapt onto the creature’s back.

            It resisted, attempting to spread its wings. The magical armor it wore burned into Twilight’s body, charring her fur but arcing away from her vital organs through the aetherite she wore. Twilight held on, and with her magic charged slammed the needle of the coaxial cable into the space between the creature’s wings. It let out a low, calm moan and then threw her off.

            Twilight landed hard on the map. There was a sharp pain in her wings, and then numbness. The creature then leapt at her, tearing at her with its hooves and claws. Its impassive golden face looked on as it did so, and Twilight could not help but feel that something equally disinterested was watching her through the hole in this creature’s head.

            There was no choice. Twilight had hoped to have a chance to get away, but it was impossible now. She instead charged her horn, and rather than attacking activated a sequence of spells within the Map itself.

            A sudden flash of blue light filled the room. The creature cried out and convulsed as pure magical energy was forced into its back. It tried to reach for the plug in its back, but every limb it formed destabilized and was reduced to liquid before it could grasp it.

            It had been too close, though. Twilight was caught in the blast as well. She gritted her teeth and tried to keep herself from being torn asunder from the charge. The creature by far assumed the brunt of it, but Twilight still felt the marrow within her bones starting to heat up from the extreme excess of magical energy.

            The reaction suddenly reached an exponential phase, and the resulting explosion knocked Twilight off the Map. She struck a chair that long ago she had once sat in, and then fell to the floor. The energy from the Map flickered and dimmed, and the plug fell from the creature.

            It was injured, and badly. It stumbled, and the liquid of its burned, undifferentiated flesh began to drip from its body. Every part of it that was robotic hung limply.

            Then it began to move. With every step it took it grew more stable. The dripping of the flesh began to slow, and the robotics began to twitch.

            “Twilight…Sparkle,” it said. It’s voice was clear and almost perfect, as though a real pony had spoken it. “Twilight…SPARKLE.”

            Twilight sat up, but only managed to throw her weight on the chair. Through her blurred and bleary vision, she saw the creature moving around the edge of the map, coming toward her, regenerating as it did. Twilight gasped, and did not resist. She could not run, and her magic had been depleted. She had failed.

            Only then did she notice that the map had changed. Floating over the tiny representation of the crystal castle was a single cutie mark, one that Twilight did not immediately recognize apart from the fact that it did not belong to any of her immediate friends. With her vision distorted, it was just not possible to identify it clearly.

            The air suddenly grew cold. The creature stopped. What few eyes it had regenerated suddenly began to scan around the room in a panic as it let out a low, frustrated growl. Twilight was sure that she could feel whatever it was feeling. With the cold came something else: a sensation of sickness, of anger and despair. She could have sworn that she heard a low wail from somewhere in the distance.

            Then, suddenly, the doors to the room burst open as if pushed apart by an immense gust of wind. The ponies who were closest to the door were thrown back by the icy blast, and through her hazy vision Twilight saw a sudden surge of blue light, like a mist made up of translucent plates and cubes.

            The air hummed with intense magic as the blue windigo crossed the room in an instant, dragging itself along with forming and re-forming limbs of light. It looked forward, and Twilight saw it momentarily form a single massive eye. It looked madly to her, and then to the creature, which had now taken a defensive stance.

            As sturdy as the creature was, it was picked up and torn in half in an instant. This barely affected it, though, as each half began to independently attack the windigo, firing magic into it and rebuilding its magical armor. The windigo cried out as the armor arced with energy, and it dropped the halves. The smaller part immediately fired tendrils to the other, dragging them back together and forming a unified unit that opened and fired a beam of unmodulated magic. The windigo’s body swirled, forming a vortex around the beam and absorbing charge from it to advance forward. It struck with such force that Twilight could feel the impact in the form of an icy chill that knocked her back from the Map.

            From below the table, she heard the battle continuing. The blue windigo was relentless, but the unnamable creature it was fighting was incapable of tiring. Twilight was not even sure she wanted to witness a defeat on either side, because it would be up to her to face the victor.

            Neither side seemed to be able to achieve victory, though. The closest thing they reached was for the blue windigo to shove its opponent out of the Map room and into one of the main hallways. Twilight heard a low-frequency hum, followed by a sound of shattering crystal and the whinnies of many windigoes from outside. The battle had been moved out there, giving the ponies within the castle a temporary reprieve.

            Twilight lay in the quiet for a moment, stunned. Slowly, though, her vision began to return to her and the world started to clear. She sat up, and suppressed a cry as she forced her damaged wings back into the correct position. The bones inside immediately began to heal, as did Twilight’s other injuries. In her long life, she had suffered far worse, and she knew that she would suffer worse again. Every time, though, she would heal, for all eternity.

            That was not true of the others, though. Twilight stood on shaking legs and pulled herself forward to the unmoving heap of rainbow hair and blue feathers that lay near her.

            “Rainbow Dash? Rainbow Dash!”

            Twilight turned Rainbow Dash over. When she saw the injuries that her friends had sustained, though, she screamed and jumped back.

            It was not that they were extensive. They were- -but what concerned Twilight far more was what their appearance. Rainbow Dash was bleeding badly, but the blood was not red as it should have been. It was fluorescent yellow.

            At first, Twilight tried to dismiss this. The creature that had attacked them had possessed yellow blood, and some of it must have gotten onto Rainbow Dash. Except that she knew that such had not been the case. This was Rainbow Dash’s blood, and she was still losing it.

            Twilight could not stop herself from looking closer. Around the wounds, Rainbow Dash’s skin had been peeled partially away to reveal hard, black chitin. Where her wings sat broken, Twilight saw the gleam of metal.

            “Twilight…” Applejack stumbled quickly toward them. Twilight looked up, hoping that her friend would explain this, that it would all be okay. Instead, she saw that Applejack had been badly beaten- -and that fluorescent yellow fluid was dripping from the corner of her mouth. In some places, black chitin was visible through her skin.

            “She’s- -she’s- -she’s- -”

            “She’s hurt, Twilight!” Applejack took a step forward, but her rear knee buckled and she fell to the floor with a grunt.

            “She’s not the only one!” Twilight turned to see Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy carrying Rarity. Her morphiplasm had retracted, revealing a charred hole in her shoulder. The wound was darkened, but Twilight could see the glint of metal inside and a thin line of yellow fluid that ran down Rarity’s perfect white coat.

            “Oh, wow, Applejack!” said Pinkie. “You look like you lost a fight with a boxing glove wearing boxing gloves!”

            “That’s debatable,” said Applejack, taking a deep breath. “I think I did pretty okay. Nopony’s been able to lick me yet, ‘cept Rainbow Dash.” Pinkie Pie stifled a giggle, and Applejack turned to Rarity. “Is it bad?”

            “Eeh…maybe?”

            “Well it doesn’t matter. Twilight, we need to help Rainbow Dash.”

            Twilight looked from one of them to the other, panicking. She could not speak, and her mind was reeling. For a moment, she was frozen, because if she moved she felt like her whole world would fall down on her.

            “Twilight!” cried Applejack. She was now holding Rainbow Dash in her front legs, getting herself covered with whatever substance it was leaking from Rainbow Dash. “Twilight! Come on! It’s not that bad, she’s been in worse crashes hundreds of times!”

            “But it’s never been this bad,” said Pinkie Pie, suddenly seeing Rainbow Dash and losing all aspects of humor. Her voice wavered. “It’s never been this bad before…”

            “I can help!” called Silken. The ponies turned to see her dragging herself forward on her front legs. Silken’s automatic repair system had already engaged, and although the core portions of her rear legs had already been rebuilt up to the knee she was still able to use them. Despite this, she was oddly quick using just her front ones.

            “Silken! Do something!”

            “Is she still breathing?”

            “Y- -yes, she is, but really slowly!”

            “Good! That will make this a lot easier.”

            Silken approached Rainbow Dash and propped herself up. Then she extended her front legs, which split into various effectors. Even in her stupor, Twilight could tell that not one of them was meant to be used as a surgical tool.

            Before Silken could even touch Rainbow Dash, though, the pony cried out. Her whole body tensed and spasmed, thrashing about.

            “What did you do?!” cried Pinkie Pie. “What did you DO?!”

            “I did not do anything yet!” said Silken.

            Rainbow Dash screamed, and as she did, her tissues began to change. The black chitinous shell inside her began to break apart, and the skin that covered it began to grow- -but not as skin. It grew without color, forming gray tendrils of amorphous flesh. Rainbow Dash’s mouth opened wide- -and then wider than any pony’s mouth should have. Her teeth were surprisingly sharp, and her voice dropped several octaves.

            “What is happening?” demanded Applejack.

            “I don’t know,” said Silken, looking up at the ponies in a panic. “I am not familiar with pony physiology and- -incoming transmission!”

            This snapped Twilight back to reality, although only partially. “From the ship?”

            “No. From underground.” One of Silken’s eyes narrowed to a point and moved independently of the other. The pupil changed from blue to violet, and a hologram appeared beside Twilight. It rendered itself quickly, forming the outline of a violet alicorn with cold, empty eyes.

            “A medical emergency has been detected in unit two,” it said in an emotionless version of Twilight’s voice that came from Silken.

            “What is happening?!” demanded Applejack. “Tell us! NOW!”

            The hologram appeared to look at Rainbow Dash, even though as a trick of light it was actually unable to see. “Unit two has been exposed to seventy six times the recommended safe dose of maginuclides,” it said.

            “Fallout poisoning?” said Silken.

            “But she hasn’t taken any more than the rest of us!” said Rarity, wincing from the pain in her shoulder.

            “The toxcicity most likely resulted from ingestion.”

            “Food?” said Silken. “No. Water.” She turned to the other ponies, her projecting eye staying focused on the hologram it was creating. “Did she drink any water?”

            “She- -she did,” said Pinkie. “Just a little, though, it wasn’t- -”

            “And you didn’t stop her?”

            “I didn’t know!” screamed Pinkie, her voice rising shrilly as tears formed in her eyes. “I didn’t know! Please, save her! I can’t- -I can’t lose any more friends!”

            “The process has been accelerated by severe tissue injury,” said the hologram. “The differentiation lock has been damaged. Unit two’s body is attempting to repair.”

            “That’s good, right? RIGHT?”

            The hologram looked Silken in the eye. “If the process continues, failure will result.”

            “Failure?”

            The hologram nodded solemnly. “What will be left will not be recognizable. And my Creator’s dream will have failed. All five units must persist. Vortog’plath idena’thanthakta.”

            “How do we stop it?” said Fluttershy, stepping forward with an expression so surprising that it surprised every other pony there. “What do we need to do?”

            “The unit must be returned to a gestation tank. But first, it must be stabilized. At the current rate, critical mutability will be achieved in four minutes and eight seconds. By then, the process will be irreversible.”

            “That is not enough time,” said Silken.

            “I know,” said the hologram. “But I can teach you to stabilize her. Uploading now.”

            Silken shuddered, and the hologram flickered and went out. Silken’s pupil then dilated, and her eye resynchronized with the other.

            “I know what to do,” she said. She turned to Twilight. “Goddess, I can perform the technical aspects, but the process requires magic. I need your help.”

            Twilight looked at Silken, and then at Rainbow Dash. Then she took a step back. “N…no,” she said.

            “Twilight, please, we need- -”

            “NO!” screamed Twilight, causing her friends to jump back. Twilight, shaking and dripping tears from her eyes, looked down at what she had thought was Rainbow Dash. “You’re not- -you’re not ponies! None of you!” She looked up at them. The injuries Applejack, Rarity, and especially Rainbow Dash had received had confirmed it, although Twilight was sure that there was nothing but black chitin and yellow fluid beneath Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy’s exteriors as well. “You’re not ponies…and you’re not my friends!”

            They all stared back wide-eyed, and their eyes looked just like Twilight’s friends had looked. “You’re just- -I don’t know what you are, but you’re not them! You’re just copies…” Twilight looked at Silken.

            “Goddess, please. If you do not help, she will die.”

            Twilight stared at Silken, and then at Rainbow Dash. She shook her head. “I- -I can’t…”

            Then she ran. Her hooves clicked against the stone floor, and her tears dripped onto the dust as she sprinted out of the Map room.

            “Twilight!” cried Applejack, attempting to stand to follow her.

            “There is not time,” said Silken. She turned to Rarity. “Ms. Rarity, if the Goddess cannot perform, I need you.”

            “M…me?!”

            “You are the only one here who can wield magic.”

            “But I- -I wouldn’t even know where to start!”

            “I can show you. Just do exactly what I say. Please. She is your friend. My friend. And Twilight’s. I do not want to lose her.”

            Rarity looked into Silken’s eyes, and then nodded. She allowed herself to be led to Rainbow Dash’s side.

            “Alright,” said Silken, calmly, the same way she had long ago talked to her daughter. “Start by casting a square, right here…”