//------------------------------//
// Chapter 36: Extraction 
// Story: Equestria 485,000 
// by Unwhole Hole 
//------------------------------//

The halls were dark, but not to Light Gloom. He had become accustomed to moving through darkness. As a member of the Cult of Twilight Sparkle, it was something he was familiar with. The optics of his mask and implanted into his face allowed him to see everything. His perception never wavered, and he never blinked. He could never stop seeing, regardless of the conditions. This was something he had accepted: he was the eyes of the Goddess, and her hooves. He was the guardian of her Will.

            He did go alone. Beside him on his left stood Corona Fade, leading her force of naked remni and cultists in masks and armor. On his right stood the unnamed mare, who watched the darkness through her own optics intently.

            “Tell me,” said the mare. “What are your plans to do with the remains once you find them? The destruction of a pure alicorn- -even in death- -will not be easy.”

            “I will do whatever is necessary,” said Light Gloom. “In fact, I will do what my ancestors should have done before they departed this planet. I will give her the burial she deserves.”

            “As  you attempted to do with the dimensional hammer.”

            “Yes.”

            “Would you do the same if it was Twilight Sparkle lying there, instead of Cadence?”

            “It is our duty to ensure that such a state never befalls the One True Goddess. If she falls, we will rebuild her. We will do whatever it takes.”

            “Even if there is nothing that remains?”

            “We do not need her to have a physical form. In fact, gods work better when they are abstract.”

            The group suddenly paused. Before them stood a door flanked by a pair of crystal giants. As Light Gloom watched, an ancient and extremely powerful spell activated, and he smiled beneath his mask. The structure of the spell was unmistakable; it had obviously been created by the Goddess in her youth. Despite its age, though, it was no less impressive than any of her other achievements.

            The golems stepped forward and pointed their spears at the group.

            “Only those who bear relation to those who lie here in peace may enter,” said the first

            “Those who do not meet this requirement and who would disturb their eternal rest must face us,” added the second.

            Light Gloom looked to the mare beside him and nodded. She lowered her head, and then stepped back, taking a small portion of Corona Fade’s troops with her to guard the rear. Light Gloom himself stepped forward.

            “The shortest path I have to the Holy Mother is two hundred sixty seven generations,” he said. “My heritage may be thin, but my claim of descent is undeniable. You will find the same of all those assembled here who wish to pass you.”

            The golems paused. Although they did not have faces, Light Gloom felt the spell that gave them vision move from one pony to another, holding their vision for the longest time on those of the group who were remni.

            “You speak the truth,” said one of the golems. The pair of them stepped back.

            “This spell clearly did not function as intended,” said Corona Fade, joining Light Gloom in the lead as they walked toward the door.

            “No, it did. Even the Goddess could not have foreseen the current state of our evolution, nor could she have predicted the Holy Mother’s unparalleled fecundity.”

            None of them paused at the wall. They all understood the magic that it represented, and knew that each one of them would pass through it with ease. Light Gloom and Corona Fade went through first, and found themselves standing in a dark room on the other side. The others came through, but Light Gloom immediately stopped. In the darkness, he was able to see that this room was meant to have lights. There were luminescent crystal lamps spaced through the tomb- -but they were covered in a strange sort of organic film that blocked out most of the light.

            “I do not like this,” said Fade, her narrow pupils scanning the darkness. Almost as if to punctuate her sentence, a low groan issued from the darkness.

            “We are not alone,” said Light Gloom. He quickly attempted to scan the darkness, and although he detected signatures of magic, he could not find their source.

            “A defense mechanism?”

            “Not clear, I need more- -”

            There as a sudden thud as one of the cultists fell. Before he was dragged into the darkness, Light Gloom saw that a fleshy tentacle had wrapped itself around one of his legs. He did not scream as he was taken into the darkness, but Light Gloom heard the click of the cultist disconnecting that particular leg, followed by a sudden surge of orange technomagic- -orange that struck against pink-violent.

            Beneath his mask, Light Gloom’s eyes grew wide. He now understood, at least partially. That magic was unmistakable. It belonged to the Goddess- -but at the same time it did not. It was corrupted and different, uncontrolled in a way that was the antithesis to the Goddess’s skill and poise.

            Before he could even produce a hypothesis as to what was attacking them, a torrent of magic slammed into their formation. Light Gloom had seen it before it struck and performed a calculation of its intensity. Determining that it was far too great to block, he instead used his power assist to dodge. The other cultists, though, did not perform their calculations as quickly. Several attempted to block, summoning technomagic shields. Their shields were struck with the beam and instantly shattered, along with the implants that had been used to project them.

            Then Light Gloom saw it. As the beam faded, something emerged from an invisibility spell; the magic that had formerly hidden it changed to a form of glowing armor that had been constructed without any thought for efficiency of power. It spurted and hissed with plasma as the creature attacked. It was like a pony, but larger; its body was a mixture of strange robotics and flesh, a creature built into the form of a pony despite the fact that it most clearly was not or even had ever been one.

            It struck silently, and with a flash of gold one of the remni was sliced in half. The others attempted to use their technomagic on it, but it countered and parried those spells that would have harmed it without effort. Those that did strike it had no effect; its physiology was too robust for simple things like stun spells or confusion hexes to have any consequence.

            “Light Gloom, look out!” cried Corona Fade. Light Gloom’s rear optics picked up another one of the creatures emerging from the darkness. Fade leapt at it, intending to use her immense strength to push it back. Instead of striking it, though, her body passed through it; Light Gloom watched as the metal and flesh reconfigured themselves, flowing over her body effortlessly. In that instant Light Gloom realized what he was up against, and that they were a thing of beauty.

            He dodged, rolling easily away and casting a spell. Suddenly the room was illuminated with his magic, and twelve more of him appeared throughout it.

            The creature did not pause. Its eyes- -it had so many eyes- - never left the original, even as he moved to mesh with the crowd of false selves. In an instant, it struck out with lasers and organic spikes, spearing each of the false bodies and dissipating them, leaving Light Gloom alone once again.

            Behind him, Light Gloom saw that the battle was going poorly. His soldiers had been trapped in an ambush, and did not know how to compensate for this type of enemy. They were trained in magical dueling, not in facing down beautiful monstrosities.

            Light Gloom had an idea of what to do. He focused his magic on the creature and in a flash sliced it in half. It stopped for a moment, its sides nearly falling before they sent out thin strips of flesh that reconnected the two. They merged back together, and different robotic appendages sparked as its damaged armor was welded back together. Light Gloom saw a pair of narrow limbs reach for him- -limbs that were constructed like those of a remnus.

            Vortog…plath idena…thanthakta,” the creature said in a sick parody of Twilight Sparkle’s voice. “W…e ARE…TW…ilight…SPAR…kle…”

            Light Gloom understood, and he gave the order.

            “Fall back,” he said over his communication channel.

            “But the remains,” replied Corona Fade. She was not in a panic, but rather questioning the course of the mission.

            “Trying to get in is not worth the investment of time. We will tether the entire tomb, and extract it in once piece. Then dump it into the sun as-is.”



            Outside, Light Gloom’s orders were executed with precision and speed. The smaller ships moved into position, firing tethers to the central crystal. They could not harpoon it, but they could adhere to it. The cultists checked the lines and the spells that held them fast, and then stepped back as the mechs circled the tower, their beams directed downward. The central crystal and fundamental tomb was indestructible, but the paths that led to it underground had long since weakened from age. They were easy to cut with the spells that the mechs used.

            Five ponies watched this, still imprisoned in spheres of technomagic. A cultist attended them, and he watched as the work went on.

            “What- -what are you doing?” asked Applejack angrily.

            “Yeah,” said Pinkie Pie. “Seriously. We have no idea. We aren’t exactly from a high-technology era in history.”

            “The tomb is being removed,” said the cultist. “I would assume that such would be obvious from the fact that it is clearly being removed.”

            “Well, you don’t need to get snippy!” huffed Rarity. “If you treat your guests with such a level of disdain, then I have serious doubts about you cult’s standards!”

            “Rarity!” hissed Rainbow Dash. “Don’t mess with the weird masked guy! He’ll sacrifice us!”

            “I don’t want to be a sacrifice!” cried Fluttershy. “I- -I can’t be! I’m not right for it! Discord and I, we had a lot of cider one time, and then we went back to my cottage and- -”

            “I don’t want to know!” shouted Applejack, covering her ears.

            “I do,” said Rarity. The others looked at her and she cleared her throat. “But gossip later, yes. I see. First order of business is rescuing Twilight.”

            “We have no intention of sacrificing you,” said the cultist. “We are not that sort of cult. We are mostly dedicated to the study of arcane knowledge and research into future technologies, toward the betterment of pony knowledge and the Empire at large.”

            “Wow,” said Rainbow Dash. “Total buzzkill. That’s just about the worst description of a cult I’ve ever heard! So you just sit around and read books?”

            “We do that quite often, yes.”

            “Ugh.” Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “I’d rather have the sacrificing cult! Maybe tie me up on a stick, over a cool statue with flames and stuff. Some pony in a mask would say a really creepy ritual to an ancient forgotten god…” Her wings were starting to extend involuntarily. “Yeah. Just like Daring Do. That would be so epic!”

            “You could consider the Cult of Celestia. I hear they are into that sort of thing.”

            “We don’t care about sacrificing!” exclaimed Applejack suddenly, sounding exasperated.

            “I certainly do,” said Fluttershy. “I don’t want to be tied to a stick! Or anything else for that matter!”

            “Why are you doing this?” asked Applejack. “I just don’t get it! You’re supposed to be fighting for the ‘good of the Empire’- -whatever that means- -and well it just doesn’t look like you’re doing that at all to me!”

            “I assure you,” said the cultist, “we are.”

            “But Twilight is trying to help you,” said Rarity. “She needs to make a cure for that dreadful virus, so you won’t be sick anymore.”

            “Is that what she told you?” said the cultist, turning his masked face to them. “She lied.”

            “That’s a load of road-apple fritters!” swore Applejack. “Twilight wouldn’t lie to us!”

            “Yeah!” Rainbow Dash pressed herself against the bubble that contained her, and her wings beat uncontrollable. “If it weren’t for this magic bubble thing, I would bop you right in the nose!”

            “We abhor violence here,” said the cultist. “That is not the Cult way. But no. It is critical for the future of our kind that Twilight Sparkle must not create a cure for the Mortality Virus. Doing so would have disastrous implications. Such a course would lead to the fall of the Empire. We aim to ensure that the Empire remains eternal. Look.”

He pointed at the crystal tower. The mechs had finished their work and stepped back. As they did, the lower thrusts from the various ships began to hum with a high, almost musical sound before they moved upward, pulling the crystal with them. It shuddered and shook, but then was pulled free of the ground.

            “Oh no,” said Fluttersy. “What if- -what if Twilight is still in there?!”

            “If she is, somepony’s in for a world of hurt,” said Applejack.

            “Twilight Sparkle would indeed be a threat, but not one we are unprepared for.”

            “I wasn’t talkin’ about Twilight. I was talking about ME. I’m gonna buck you so hard you won’t be able to walk right for a MONTH!”

            Pinkie Pie snorted, and Rainbow Dash burst out laughing completely.

            “What are you- -” Applejack suddenly blushed when she realized what she had said. “Darn it, that wasn’t what I meant! Stop being immature, this isn’t a time for laughing! Rarity, you’ve got magic, can you cut open these bubbles?”

            “I’m a fashionista, not a pair of bolt cutters,” said Rarity, offended.

            “You realize I am right here,” said the cultist. “I can hear you.”

            “Nobody asked you what you can and can’t hear!” snapped Applejack. She looked up at the rising crystal, which was already more than eighty feet off the ground. “We have to do something,” she said. “And if we’re gonna do it, we have to do it right quick.”



            The tomb shuddered, and Twilight cried out as the floor suddenly tilted. She slid and started to fall, but Silken caught her.

            “We are rising in elevation,” said Silken.

            “But that’s not possible,” said Twilight. She stood up on her own and scrambled across the shifting floor. As she did, she engaged a spell that confirmed what her HUD had already told her- -that Silken was right. “There are several magical fields on the upper crystal, adhesive spells, which…oh no…”

            “They are lifting us,” said Silken. “That means we have little time. How fast can you extract the genetic sample?”

            “Do you have any idea how hard it is to successfully remove alicorn DNA?! I do, it’s almost impossible! The last time I did it, it took me the better part of a month!”

            “We do not have a month, unless your cult has extremely low-quality vessels.”

            “My Cult’s vessels are the best in the two hundred known galaxies!” said Twilight, knowing full well that the Empire contained far more galaxies than that and populated far less. “I can do it in three hours, minimum.”

            “Do we have that long?”

            “We don’t even have three minutes!” Twilight rushed to the door of the room.

            “Where are you going?”

            “I have to stop them! I have no idea what they’re trying to do, but I can’t let it happen! I need to buy us more time!”

            “How!”

            “I don’t know! I’ll think of something! You just stay here! Guard Cadence! I authorize you to do absolutely whatever is necessary to ensure the security of that body!” Twilight took a deep breath, and realized that her heart was racing. “The fate of all ponykind depends on it.”

            Silken nodded, accepting both the order and the permission, and Twilight raced forward through what remained of the tomb. It was shaking beneath her feet, but she managed to stay stable as she galloped ahead.

            The situation was almost immediately apparent. Twilight could see light pouring across the hallways, and not the sort that came from crystals. The entire tomb had been removed from the ground, cut away and excised. The lack of respect that her Cult had shown was disgusting, but also terrifying. If they were willing to go this far, Twilight knew, they must be desperate.

            Twilight reached the edge quickly. Both alternate versions of herself were already waiting in an area that showed signs of having been charred and burned from an intense magic battle. Both of the shoggoths had incorporated stolen remnus and Cult gear parts into their overall structures.

            Near them was the gap that led outside. In the distance, Twilight could see the canopy of the crystal forest from above, and the stormy mountains in the distance. Lightning was now striking prolifically through the clouds overhead, and the sound of thunder was intense.

            “We have to stop them from taking Cadence,” said Twilight. “Are you ready?”

            “Vortog…plath idena…thanthakta,” replied both of the creatures. Twilight wondered if they understood what it meant.

            Twilight spread her wings, and the pair of queen shoggoths spawned their own sets of four each. Then they leapt down, diving through the air toward the stumps of trees and army of cultists below.



            It only took Twilight a fraction of a second to swoop down over the hole that the tomb had left behind and land on its edge, noticing as she did so that it seemed strangely deeper than it should have. When she finally did reach the earth below, her cultists were already waiting for her. They gathered around: those that wore armor, those that stood as naked remni, and those whose brains resided within mechs. Twilight could instantly feel the spells flowing around them: each bore protection charms, and each was just one step away from completing an attack. They had come prepared for a fight, and if Twilight had been angry before, she was now enraged. These were members of her Cult; she knew many of them personally, and had taught so many of them. They had stood beside her in their search for knowledge, and she had trusted them. Now they stood ready to attack her.

            “Don’t think I can’t sense those spells,” she growled, stepping toward them. They did not retreat. “How could you? You would raise your magic against me? I…how could you?” Her anger collapsed into sadness. “How could you betray me like this? Candlepower!” she looked into the optics of one of the nearest cultists. “I officiated your parents’ wedding! I held you when you were a newborn!” She turned to another cultist. “Lucifra, I taught you levitation spells!” Twilight looked up to a tall remnus. “And you, Transcendence, I held your hoof when you were dying…”

            “It is only a precaution,” said Candlepower. “Please, Goddess, know that we only do this because we are in awe of your power.”

            “And concerned by those who you have chosen to ally yourself with,” said another, meaning the pair of queens that stood beside Twilight, both of whom had suddenly grown surprisingly impassive.

            “It’s not just that! Look!” Twilight pointed upward at the rising crystal tomb. “Look what you’re doing! Why?”

            “We are complaining your mission,” said Candlepower.

            “No you aren’t!” Twilight raised her voice. “I order you to put that crystal down NOW!”

            “I am sorry, Goddess. We cannot do that.”

            Twilight inhaled sharply. It had been one thing to hear it from a remnus, but to hear it from a cultist in full uniform- -complete with the One-and-Five on his mask- -was almost too shocking to hear. “You would disobey me?”

            “No. We are obeying your orders.”

            “But I just told you to put it down!”

            “Your implicit orders take precedence over your explicit ones.”

            “What is that even supposed to mean?!”

            “Calm yourself, please. There is no need for this to be disorderly.”

            “No. There isn’t. Where is Light Gloom?” The cultists did not respond. Twilight raised her voice again, roaring into the silence. “WHERE IS HE?! Don’t think I don’t know that he’s here!”

            “He is on his way now. He will be pleased to see you.”

            “I will tell him whether he should be pleased or not! Of all of you, HIM- -my personal student! Where is he?!”

            Twilight looked through the crowd. Although she did not see Light Gloom, she did spy five technomagic bubbles with ponies trapped within them.

            “High Twilight!” cried Pinkie Pie, waving.

            Twilight’s jaw clenched. She turned to Candlepower and walked forward. He raised his defensive spells, and Twilight lit her horn. With one swipe, she shattered all of his protective enchantment, leaving him with nothing more than the armor he wore.

            “What did you do to my friends?!”

            To his credit, Candlepower kept a level head. Despite being completely vulnerable, the cadence of his speech did not change and he did not step back. “They were sealed for their own protection.”

            “And freshness!” called Pinkie Pie.

            “Let them out,” demanded Twilight. “Release the crystal- -gently!- -and let my friends out. I will only ask once.”

            “We are not currently able to do that, Goddess.”

            The cultists suddenly moved forward in unison, and Twilight was forced to retreat to the side of the pair of queens. They each let out low, somber moans and bristled with energy. They were ready to fight. They were strong, of course- -as was Twilight- -but there were at least five heavy mechs as well as over fifty cultists and remni. It would not be an easy battle.

            “We will have to protect you,” said Lucifera. “It is for your own good.”

            “My own beard,” swore Twilight, charging her horn. “I’m not going to back down!”

            “Even if it means losing?”

            “Yes,” said Twilight, without any hesitation.

            The cultists prepared their spells, as did Twilight. She found great difficulty and sadness in doing it, though. These were her people; raising her magic against them in a setting like this was a travesty. It did not matter if they tried to hurt her; what made her want to weep was that she would have to hurt them- -but that would have to wait until the battle was over and Cadence’s genetic code had been recovered.

            Twilight raised her horn to strike, but stopped. Something was wrong. Her eyes detected it before her mind did: a blue, translucent pony standing amongst the crowd. Twilight felt herself inhale sharply, and almost on instinct her attack spell was converted into a defensive one.

            The cultists seemed to notice Starlight as well, but by then it was too late. Starlight turned to them, and her horn glimmered with ancient light. A surge of magic erupted from her entire body, shattering through the primary shields that each cultist had already directed toward Twilight. They were thrown back, their bodies arcing with magical energy as Starlight’s force impacted the runes ingrained in their armor.

            Part of the blast shot out to where the technomagic spheres had trapped Twilight’s friends. The impact immediately shorted the spell, causing each of the ponies within to drop onto the ground below.

            “Oh nuggets!” cried Rainbow Dash. “Celestia poke it to heck, I think I hit a stump!”

            “Well get off your stump and get to work!” ordered Applejack. “Twilight needs our help!”

            “I think she has plenty of help already,” said Fluttershy, pointing upward. “Look!”

            High above, windigoes began to descend from the clouds. Their call filled the air, and snow and ice had followed them. They advanced forward toward the cultists, who were then forced to defend themselves from the rear as well as from Twilight. The windigoes could only seem to attack randomly, though; they seemed to have trouble directing their magic and ice directly at the cultists. The cultists took advantage of this, returning fire with dispelment charms.

            “Something’s wrong,” said Applejack. “They have to pull back!”

            “No,” said Rainbow Dash, looking up at the crystal overhead. “I know what they have to do. Fluttershy, on me!”

            “M- -me- -?!”

            Rainbow Dash tugged Fluttershy into the air. “Come on! I need your help too!”

            Across the clearing, the cultists advanced on Twilight. The pair of queens that flanked her struck, injuring several in an instant. This almost immediately attracted the attention of a pair of heavy mechs, and they turned their stocky pony-like bodies toward the shoggoths. They opened fire with plasma beams, and Twilight rushed forward to cast a shield spell. It succeeded, but the strain of it knocked her back substantially.

            The creatures rolled out of the way, and took defensive stances. Instead of attacking, though, they each let out a low trill. As if in response, the ground began to rumble and all at once Twilight realized why the hole beneath the tomb had looked so deep.

            The queens had called, and those that they had been born to lead responded. They poured forth from the hole, their undifferentiated flesh and mechanical bodies rushing forward into the fray. Twilight heard some of the cultists scream in terror, and watched as one of the green-eyed shoggoths engaged a mech, quickly tearing one of its legs free of its body before both opened fire with plasma and lasers, tearing into each other’s armor plating.

            What was supposed to have been a peaceful recovery mission had devolved into a battle.   9U?��4