//------------------------------//
// Chapter 72: The Last Exmoor Pony 
// Story: Daring Do and the Hand of Doom 
// by Unwhole Hole 
//------------------------------//

The icy wind was strong and endless, but Rainbow Dash hardly noticed. She stared out across the frozen landscape. The snow and ice had already started to cover the once proud buildings, and some had crumbled and collapsed- -but the keep still looked familiar. The great center of the endless floating city of Cloudstantinople, a city that had long since broken into many smaller fragments that now drifted through the world. Some of those fragments had already faded, dissipated by the wind and elements. Rainbow Dash supposed they would all dissipate eventually. But this city never would. The capital city built atop the twin peaks of Lyskymm. 
She drew the Spear, but did not activate it. For a moment she looked up at the statue below her, the one of her, cast in bronze, holding the very same spear. Perhaps that was how ponies would remember her when centuries and millennia had passed. Or perhaps they would only remember her failures. 
Then she turned back. Away from the statues, and away from the city she had failed to save- -and toward a pony. 
She stared at him for a long moment, watching. He stared back. The pony was shorter than most, and far more squat- -but not as short or as muscular as the rest of his kind. He bore no wings and no horn, and the long fluffy fur that covered his body had been trimmed back. What was left of it hung shaggily over an absurdly heavy suit of Pegasus battle armor, a suit that he seemed to not even remotely find a burden. 
Their eyes met. His eyes were deep violet. 
“So,” said Rainbow Dash, but not in her own voice. The voice of sompeony similar- -too similar- -but not the same. “This is how it has to be, then?”
The other pony nodded. When he spoke, his voice was oddly high yet somehow still carried immense and ancient authority. “Yes. There is no alternative. Draw your spear, Hurricane. And if you can, strike me down.”
“So be it.”
Rainbow Dash- -Commander Hurricane- -drew the weapon that in a matter of minutes would earn its eternal name. She twisted it, activating the intricately wrought internal mechanism and the complex machine-spells contained within. The blade of the Spear ignited with white light, and as Hurricane brought it into attack position, it grew brighter and seemed to flow with ethereal rainbows. 
The other pony took a breath, and he drew his weapon. A simple sword, forged by earth-ponies, the farmer-race. No ornamentation, no spells, no lineage or history. Just a piece of cold steel. 
And Hurricane understood that this would be the end, and why- -even if Rainbow Dash did not. 
With a cry, she lunged forward, drawing back the Spear as the pony- -the last child of Exmoor- -raised his sword, a look of grim resolve on his face- -and something else. Something else that Rainbow Dash did not understand, but that made tears begin to well in Hurricane’s eyes as she brought the Spear of Extinction down on him. 

Rainbow Dash gasped and grabbed the hoof the hoof on her shoulder. She looked up into a different pair of violet eyes. 
“Rainbow Dash,” said Daring Do. “Get your stuff. It’s time.” 

Caballeron stood at the entrance to the ancient structure, shivering in the cold. He was playing with his watch, or what most ponies took to look like a watch. The tiny gem inside was warm, but of course not warm enough to force away the icy chill of Hyperborea. He cursed under his breath, but he had been through worse. Jungles were his preference, but ice was nothing new.
The shadows moved beside him, and the room seemed to grow even colder. Scarlet Mist appeared, as if out of the blackness itself. She regarded Caballeron for a moment though the slit-like apertures of her mask, and then at his “watch”.
“Do you intend to so something with that phoenix star, or is it simply sentimental?”
“If I use it, it will be where and when I chose to,” snapped Caballeron. “Or perhaps I should use it on you?”
“It is unwise to threaten me.”
“Is it even a threat? Would it even hurt you?”
“No. It might damage this body, but I would be quite safe. Few things in this world can damage me, and none can destroy me. Not until I am whole again.”
“And when you are?”
Scarlet Mist paused. “Then this mask will fall away, empty. As it should be.” 
There was a flash of light beside her. The other wizard appeared. Daring Do was at his side. Caballeron felt a peculiar emotion well inside him. Most of it, he supposed, was disgust. The red wizard horrified him, but the black one was somehow worse. He recognized the deviousness in its disgusting mutated eyes, how it was constantly planning calculating. The red wizard would not betray them, at least not for any particular reason. Perhaps out of anger, or for the sake of amusement. But the black wizard would betray them out of habit. There was no doubt in Caballeron’s mind. 
Or, perhaps, it angered him because Daring Do had chosen to side with such a filthy thing. 
“I am growing impatient,” said Scarlet Mist. “Remember, unless you intend to give me a new body, you have limited time. And from my understanding, you have no unicorns.”
“Could you inhabit a different one?” asked Flock.
“Yes. But I would be unable to use powerful magic. Even this body is barely competent.”
Caballeron felt himself growing angry, and sad. He wished he had an antacid. This whole ordeal was giving him an ulcer. 
“They’re almost ready on the other side,” explained Daring Do.
“Which leaves only one simple fact,” said Caballeron, his exasperation growing. “Where exactly is it that we are going? Or do you not know?”
“I have no idea,” said Daring Do. “But I know somepony that does.” 

The dead facility had immediately grown uninhabitable and nearly hostile. The ancient cell where the Hand of Doom had once been still managed to generate some heat as the ancient spells and structures located there clung to life for a little longer, burning what little power they had. That facility was dying, but ran out of habit only.
The Exmoori machinery, though, was far more blunt in its reaction. It no longer had a purpose, and had stopped post haste. It saw no reason to persist, and seemed to rapidly accept its fate. Perhaps the whole of it would crumble soon, entombing the ancient structure below it in rusting fragments of broken and pointless machinery. Perhaps when Wun finally did reach this place, she would find nothing but wreckage. 
Daring Do cared little. Many such tombs and temples had crumbled in her wake. It was an unfortunate truth. What mattered was that the artifacts within could be preserved- -or, in this case, that they could be destroyed. 
Past where the massive door had once stood, the room grew much, much colder. It was a temperature so low that no pony would be able to survive it for very long, but it came with a sterile lack of snow or ice. Simply dry, deathly cold. 
Somewhere above, a forest was dying. Hordes of ancient, infected zebras would be left without their ancient home. Daring Do had been told that they would head underground, into the endless dark catacombs of the lost city that surrounded and had once supported this whole facility after its original creators had departed. That facility would grow cold, too, but somehow Daring Do expected that there were things within it that would maintain warmth. Things that were best left to the protection of the infected zebras, never to be seen by pony eyes again. 
Neither Flock nor Scarlet Mist noticed the cold. Flock, because he was wearing the dial; Scarlet Mist, because she was a mask, and masks felt neither pain nor discomfort. 
Daring Do, however, shivered. Caballeron sighed and extended his wrist. He tapped what appeared to be a watch, and the area around them filled with warmth. Daring Do saw that it was a phoenix star, and she recognized it well.
“You still have that thing?” she said, almost smirking. 
“It has gotten me out of a number of unfortunate situations,” shrugged Caballeron, annoyed by the question. “So I have not bothered to throw it away yet.”
“I remember when I gave that to you.”
Despite the cold, Caballeron blushed. He coughed. “So that is where it came from. I had forgotten.” 
Daring Do smiled. She had always wondered if he had kept it, but understood why he was embarrassed. She remembered what was inscribed on the bottom. It was a fragment of a life that might have been. 
They stopped. They were at the entrance, where the remains of Fuzzypoof had asked her riddle. The remains of the machines that had bound Caballeron still sat there, charred and smoking from where they had been torn apart by Carillon’s magic. Cabaleron shuddered slightly, realizing what had almost become of  him. What always almost became of  him. 
Yet, sitting in the center of the circle, untouched and undamaged, was exactly what Daring Do had come to find. A skeleton lay there, linked to robotic innards and machinery that suddenly seemed to be oxidizing and corroding at a rapid rate. 
Daring Do approached the inactive skeleton. It was a pitiful sight. Somehow, she looked so small. 
“Interface,” she said. Nothing happened. So she repeated herself, more vigorously. “INTERFACE.”
Light flickered around the skeleton. It did not for a full body, but a shadow of one. The robotics twitched, but perhaps not voluntarily. The revenant did not have the strength to stand.
One holographic eye looked up at Daring Do. There was so much sadness in that eye, far too much for a machine. Daring Do had a suspicion that she had been lied to.  
“Why?” said the skeleton. Her voice was quiet and distorted. It sounded as pained as she looked. “Why not just leave me? Let me enter the forever-sleep. My purpose has ended. I have failed. As I always knew I would…”
“I’m surprised,” said Daring Do, kneeling beside the remains. “To the Exmoor ponies, death is the ultimate dishonor.”
Fuzzypoof sighed. “You understand nothing. Fuzzypoof had no honor to relinquish. What a beautiful life she might have lived, had she not obsessed with this thing. This thing…built too late for a pointless purpose.”
“All the power in the world, and it wouldn’t have brought them back.”
The hologram looked away. “No. It wouldn’t have.” 
“I intend to destroy it. You know that.”
“It will destroy itself. Look now. Even I am failing. The last spark of magic burns in this body. It will not be long now. Perhaps I will see my son again. I miss him…” 
“You will.” Daring Do put her hoof on the skeleton’s shoulder. It was frozen bone and metal. It had not known life for centuries, yet memories of what life was still echoed through it. It was a horrible thing to see. “But I don’t mean this place. I mean the Hand itself.”
“Destroying it is not possible. If it were, I would have done so long ago.” 
“We think we know a way. But we need to know where it is. Can you find it?”
What remained of Fuzzypoof stared at the dark ceiling for a long moment. “I can. I suppose it will be fitting. The wizard. Born-of-White-Steel. Bring him here.” 
Daring Do motioned for Flock to come closer, and he did so, although hesitantly. 
The holographic eye stared up at him. “I pity you,” she said. 
“I’m not the one at the end of this world.”
“No,” agreed the remains. “You will never know the forever-sleep. Hence my pity.”
“Don’t be so sure.”
Fuzzypoof turned her attention toward Daring Do. “You were the one that understood.”
“Your riddle. I know. I’m pretty good at them.”
The hologram smiled. “Yet maybe I was generous. But the blood of Exmoor still flows. No matter how dilute. Maybe we will rise again someday.” 
“I don’t understand.”
“You don’t need to.” She closed her eye. The dial on Flock’s chest suddenly whirred and twisted under its own accord as the hologram flickered. She searched, and found what she needed- -and transferred the coordinates to a piece of machinery that was all too familiar to her.
Then it was done.
Flock looked down at his dial, and at Daring Do. “It worked. I can translate this pattern. I know where it is.”
Daring Do smiled, and then looked down at the skeleton. The hologram had gone, and Daring Do knew that it would never return. Fuzzypoof had used her last portion of power to show them the way. 
“Thank you,” said Daring Do. It was all that needed to be said.