> Remnants, Forgotten.
>  by AnkhOmega
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> 1: Awakening
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Awakening

Twilight was excited. When she had read the letter Princess Celestia had sent her the night before she could scarcely believe her eyes. She had re-read the document a total of thirteen times, just to make absolutely sure she was reading it correctly, and that she wasn't misunderstanding something.

To my faithful student, Twilight Sparkle.

As you are no doubt aware, the Royal Institute of Archaeology has been on expedition within the Everfree forest. Earlier this morning I received an urgent communication from the expedition’s leader, Unearthed Wisdom, stating that they were in dire need of assistance with something that they had dug up within the forest itself. As I have been informed they have ran into a bit of a wall attempting to figure out how to open a door.

Unearthed Wisdom asked for anypony I could send who might be of assistance with bypassing an ancient and impossibly complex lock. Naturally, I suggested you, my faithful student. He agreed and is expecting you within the next three days. 

I admit I am curious as to what secrets this door holds, I know you will do well at this task.

Eagerly awaiting news,
Princess Celestia.

Twilight was very excited, not only did she have a chance to test her knowledge of ancient Equestrian civilisations, she got to work with one of the best, if not the best archaeologist this century. She even got to be part of an expedition! In her head she was about to charge into the depths of long lost secrets, ancient magics and hidden revelations about missing tribes of ancient ponies.

Princess Celestia was trusting her to go into an unknown territory and figure out what happened to the ones who built the door. The reports she would write, oh the glorious fully detailed reports.

Twilight was giddy. She had packed her saddlebags full to the brim with reference guides, survival gear, parchment, ink, quills and long lasting foods. She had made sure Spike would be cared for while she was away (Thank the sun for Fluttershy), and she had made sure that her friends knew she would be away for an undetermined amount of time, as well as making sure that her schedule was clear for the foreseeable future. 

The next night, at Pinkie's 'Twilight's going away on an expedition party!' she was starting to get a little nervous, the odd doubt creeped into her mind, whether she would even be able to open the door? What if it was sealed for a reason? What if she...failed? Would Celestia be disappointed in her? Would she no longer be her student? Woul-

Luckily for Twilight, Pinkie broke this train of thought with a surprise hug and a fresh glass of punch, preventing the doubt-induced breakdown.

All of her friends wished her good luck on the trip, and in a few cases demanded that she come back in one piece. Although, Applejack did have a privately made request that “After y'all are done muckin' around in whatever's buried 'neath that forest....could..could ya come up to the farm, ah need to talk somethin' out with ya.” Which was somewhat unusual.

Twilight, not quite perceiving the look Applejack was giving her replied with a straight forward, “I'll make sure to head straight there after I get back...and have a shower.” She smiled and gave her friend a small nuzzle, managing to not notice the soft blush creeping into AJ's cheeks, before melting back into the party. Applejack sighed, desperately trying to lower the heat in her face, when Rainbow Dash slunk over, grinning evilly.

“You didn't tell her, didya?” she said, grin widening at AJ's response: A blush filled shake of the head. “Alright, that's it. I'm gonna tell her for ya, right here, right now. Hey Twili-Ah!”

Applejack cut off the prismatic mare with a hard yank on her tail. “Rainbow, no! Ah'll tell her in mah own time. When the moment's right and not before, y'hear?”

“You've been saying that for the past month! C'mon! If you tell her now, we'll all stop bothering you about it, and she'll have something to...look forward to when she gets back, if you catch my drift.” Dash winked coyly,

“No. And that's that. Ah'll tell her when she gets back.”

“You know, you could probably just write down your feelings for her and give them to her as a letter, dear.” The commotion had drawn the interest of Rarity away from inspecting the bowl of punch for any traces of a particular toothless reptile.

“Ah could do what now?”

“Write your feelings down, you know how she loves the written word. And it'll give you a chance to find the right words before you chicken out again.” Rarity smirked, “Plus, a letter of love sounds quite romantic if you ask me.”

Dash smiled along, “Yeah, actually that doesn't sound half bad. Twi' would probably go better for an eggheaded thing like that.”

Applejack considered this, it did make a certain kind of sense. And having the option to look over what she wanted to say before she said it sounded appealing. “Alright, ah'll do that...But, gals? Could you...ya know, help me out a little with it? Ah ain't too good at stuff like this.” she asked, wish a frustrated sigh.

“Of course darling! Anything to assist the flow of love! Ooooh, idea! We could get Fluttershy to help, she's always been a bit of a closet romantic.” Rarity's eyes were practically gleaming, the idea of helping set up her friends with each other seemed to please her to no end.

Applejack flushed slightly, but agreed. She was finally going to do it. Provided she didn't immediately chicken out of actually giving her the letter.

The rest of the party became a blur of noise, shapes and music. 

..//..

Twilight woke the next morning a little frazzled, but otherwise energised and ready to go. She cleaned herself up, showering and brushing her mane and coat quickly, before quadruple-checking that she had everything she thought she'd need on the trip.

After snagging a quick breakfast of some alfalfa and orange juice she set off with a beaming smile, ready to tackle whatever the forest could throw at her.

This elated attitude quickly vacated her, to be replaced with cautious optimism, as she entered and began to traverse through the forest. The dark, oppressive atmosphere of the place seemed to suck most of her joy away, replaced with nervousness and paranoia over the background noises of the forest. A snapped twig in the bushes nearby nearly made her jump out of her coat.

Luckily there were no manticores, hydra's, timberwolves or assorted creatures chasing her, as it turned out the noise was caused by a little brown rabbit that had gotten itself stuck. After helping it out with her magic, and receiving a nuzzle to the forehoof in reward, she set back off in the direction of the expedition's camp site.

Lady luck was definitely on Twilight's side today, she managed to reach the expedition camp unmolested by all but errant branches. When she got there she was almost immediately greeted by several fully decked out jungle explorers who took her bags and ushered her into the biggest tent in the camp site.

Twilight was momentarily disorientated upon entering the tent, mainly due to it's interior being entirely unlike what a tent should be. Her mind scrambled for a few seconds, trying to figure out how a tent had four clearly solid walls, a ceiling and another room off to the side. The room itself had a lush carpet, a large desk, some oddly fitting red and gold patterned wallpaper and the assorted things you'd expect to find in the office of a professional jungle explorer.

Unearthed Wisdom was sitting at his desk, being very nearly dwarfed by it's size, and smirking at the dumbfounded look on Twilight's face. He waited, wanted to see if she could figure it out for herself.

“...I..how...wait,” Her horn started glowing slightly, “Oh! A pocket dimension held in place by Windshear's tethering... and a self-recycling rain cloud system...is that Oxy Gen's Habitualizer?”

“Very impressive Ms. Sparkle. Not many ponies pick up on the habitualizer.” Wisdom smiled, It seemed that for once, someone higher up had sent him somepony competent. “Please, take a seat. Scotch?” the older unicorn offered, idly waving a hoof in the direction of a chair in front of the desk  as he levitated a bottle of liquor out of a cabinet.

Twilight sat with a smile, “No thank you, I..uh, I’m not allowed to drink any more...” she tapered off, her smile becoming a little nervous.

“Oh? Might I ask why?” the older blue stallion asked, raising a bushy eyebrow.

“Err...let's just say that I get a little...unhinged, when inebriated...apparently the guards still haven't gotten all of the tapioca out of the throne room.” She hung her head, ears folding down in embarrassment. There were few things she wished she could change in her life. That day was one of them. Apparently the princesses found it quite funny though.

Wisdom's eyebrow remained quirked as he smiled pouring himself a glass and putting the bottle away, “You do realise, I am either going to get some dirt on you and try to blackmail that story out of you, or going to try to get you drunk just to see what happens at some point, right?” He said, running a hoof through his frazzled grey mane and taking a sip of his drink.

“Aheh, aaanywho, I hear your stuck on a door.” Twilight said, attempting to change the subject.

Wisdom's eyes lit up immediately, momentarily filing away that particular mystery for another day. “Ahah, yes! The Door! We've been trying our damnedest to figure out what it's significance is, or what the symbols on it mean, but we've had very little luck so far. All we've really managed to figure out is that it's metal, it's definitely a door, and that it's ancient. And I don't just mean ancient, I mean Ancient. Pre-unification of the tribes at the very least.”

Twilight's jaw dropped, that meant it was thousands of years old, at the very least. Maybe even millenniums. The idea of something that old surviving to this day set all her scholarly parts a-tingle. There could be anything in there! Records of a Pre-Equestrian civilisation! She practically squeed at the possibities.

“Glad to see you're so eager to start! Tell ya what, since you're here, and apparently quite enthused...why don't we take a quick peek at The Door before getting your tent set up?” Wisdom offered, smirking at the wide-eyed expression of bliss Twilight had adopted. Celestia sure knows how to pick 'em. He thought as he lead the practically bouncing mare out of his 'tent' and down into the dig site.

The site itself was a rectangle of sloping space carved into the ground, roughly 6 feet down towards the far end, with stairs leading down to a metallic shape, which crested the tip of the edge of the site. Even from the edge of the site Twilight could tell that the 'door' was very large, as she approached with Wisdom she came to the conclusion that Celestia herself wouldn't even have to duck to get through the door, horn and all.

As they approached she could start to make out the detailing on the door itself. It was covered in arcane symbols, some of which she couldn't even recognize. The runework on the door was more intricate that some of the more powerful artifacts she had come across in the past. It seemed to hum with stored power, though she had no idea where it was storing it (there were no visible crystals at all, and the metal itself wasn't glowing or giving off sparks). 

They sat before it for a moment, Twilight eagerly soaking in every inch of the latticework of runic symbols, Wisdom watching her. He was surprised by the mare's eagerness to examine The Door, some of his own crew refused to go near it, or were rather lackadaisical when they did. He noticed her horn light up, a magenta magic field encompassing the door.

Twilight had decided to see what would happen if she just simply tried to push the door open with telekinetic force, and in doing so discovered the cause of the major stump the expedition ran into. The door was absorbing her magic. Straight from the field. She tried increasing and decreasing the amount of magic she flowed into her kinesis, the effect persisted, draining enough to remove all force from the spell immediately. She let her horn dim.

"Hmm. Did you see that?" She asked Wisdom.

"See what Ms. Sparkle?" He couldn't quite tell what he as supposed to have seen.

"Please, just Twilight is fine," she said, pointing at three spots on the door with her hoof, "There, there and there! Those runes flashed when my magic was being absorbed. Those two look like variations of Clover the Clever's absorption rune, but that one..." she pointed to a still faintly glowing rune near the top of the door, "That one I haven't seen before."

"I..I'm impressed, not one of my crew managed to catch that... Well, let's go get your tent set up, before you embarrass the RIA any more than strictly necessary today." Wisdom said, slowly managing to pry her attention away from The Door, and ushering her towards her new temporary accommodation.

..//..

Beneath the surface of Equestria, below the wild and untamed Everfree, within walls of steel and stone, It awoke.

It felt the touch. An entry command was issued. It queried the network, looking for where, and who. It found nothing. It's queries timed out. Too many things were offline. It tried to issue an alert, a request for maintenance. They timed out.

It tried all the channels, all the commands. All it's requests timed out. It remembered the touch. It searched for the door. 

The door was touched recently, there was enough power stored there for a desperate move. It would breach security, but it may allow the one who touched inside. It was a slim hope. It searched it's options. It was it's only hope.

Expending what little energy it had left it shut down the security on the door, and activated Unit-002. It hoped it would be sufficient. It slept, waiting.

It had to be enough.
> 2: Initialising.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Initialising

Applejack woke early, the sun was still rising by the time she was out of bed, showered and making breakfast. Big Macintosh joined her at the table almost exactly after she was done cooking up the lightly spiced porridge that they usually shared before getting to work in the fields. The meal at the ancient looking family table was, as usual consumed in silence. Big Mac was a quiet soul by nature, not speaking much more than affirmations unless he absolutely needed to say something, and Applejack was too lost in her thoughts this morning to be of any use as a conversationalist.

She was worried, about two things in particular, and for once in her life neither of her worries for the day involved the farm. Today, she was worried about a much more potentially ruinous couple of problems. Namely, If Twilight Sparkle was okay, and how the hay she was supposed to tell her that she was quite possibly in love with her. 

She set off to do her work around the farm without even a nod at Big Mac, completely lost in her head. She even forgot to leave the stove on a low heat to make sure that Granny Smith and Applebloom didn't end up with a solid bowl of congealed sludge. Her mind was occupied on her problems.

The first problem would likely go unsolved for the a while yet, Twilight was working off in the Everfree after all, and that place wasn't exactly known for being the nicest place in the country. She knew Twilight could handle herself of course, she was one of the most powerful Unicorns in the country, but the Everfree was a tricky opponent at the best of times. Even if she wasn't in the Everfree, she'd still be in danger. There seemed to be a world ending disaster ever other week in the town. The fear of something bad happening to her probably wasn't going away any time soon.

The second problem was much more pressing, the party last night had left her with the plan to write her feeling out in a letter, but she had absolutely no clue on how to even begin it. Let alone how to phrase it, or deliver it. What if ah don't  say it right? What if she takes it the wrong way?...What if she's not even into mares? Sun an' moon, what if ah drive her away? This line of thought brought Applejack swiftly through her chores, before she knew it it was nearly noon, and she was nearly done, just having one more tree to buck.

She was still devolving into a doubt filled panic attack when the tree she bucked deposited not only apples, but a prismatic pegasus into the buckets she'd placed around the trunk. Rainbow Dash rubbed her head, most of her sitting in a bucket far too small for her, and looked around confusedly for a moment, before spotting Applejack and beginning to glare at her.

“Hey! What gives? I was napping there!” Dash snapped, she never was in the best of moods after being interrupted from her favourite pastime.

“Huh? Oh, sorry Rainbow. Didn't see ya up there....” came the distracted response of Applejack, who was already starting to drag the newly filled buckets to a wagon. Dash's new seat included.

Rainbow popped herself out of the bucket and began gently hovering next to Applejack, annoyed glare shifting to a look of mild worry, “Hey, you alright? You look a little out of it...”

Applejack stopped tipping of the buckets for a moment, looking at Dash as if she'd only just noticed her. “Ah, heh. Yeah ah was uh...thinkin' about Twi', an' that letter.” she said, her tone betraying her thoughts.

Dash picked up on it right away. “Oh...Uh... Wanna talk about it? I can help ya with the letter too, if you want.”

Applejack sat down for a moment, prompting Dash to land and seat herself beside her. “That...that might be good, might help to air out these thoughts a bit.” Rainbow nodded, and tried her very hardest to sit still and listen while her friend spoke. “Ah....Ah just don't know what to do anymore. Every time ah try and tell her how ah feel, ah just...get these thoughts runnin' through my head. 'What if she says no?', 'What if she's not even in'ta mares?', 'What if me tellin' her...makes her not even wanna talk to me anymore?', That kinda thing...” Applejack trailed off.

Dash nodded along, and when her friend went quiet for a moment, said “No offense AJ, but that's crazy. Even if she says no, which she won't, I really don't think she'd wanna shut you out. And..ah jeez, I don't know if I should tell you this, but...” Dash looked around, making sure they were absolutely alone in the fields, Applejack perked up at this, looking around as well. Dash leaned in conspiratorially “I am totally sure she likes mares.”

“Oh? How'd ya figure?” Applejack whispered.

“I..uh..flew in on her reading some...what does Rarity call them? 'Special Interest Magazines'. And it was kinda clear she wasn't just researching. If you catch my drift.” Dash smirked at Applejack's rapidly expanding pupils.

“You..ya sure?...wait..Rares has them too?!” AJ asked, incredulously.

“You didn't hear it from me.” Dash winked.

That was a small revelation for the farmer, she never would have guessed Rarity to be the type. She always seemed to be obsessed with high-up stallions. Applejack was pondering the implications of this new knowledge when Dash derailed her with a question.

“So, how about that letter? What'cha got so far?”

“Aheh, ah haven't really gotten past 'Dear Twilight'. Ah have no idea where to go from there. Do ah just come right out and say it? Or do ah try to butter 'er up a bit beforehand?” 

“Well, I know what I'd say. 'Hey, I'm awesome, you're kinda awesome, Wanna be awesome together?' or 'Hey, nice flank! Wanna see how fast I can make you rainboom?'” Dash seemed overly proud of those lines. Applejack was less than impressed.

“Y'all ain't too good at this whole romance thing neither, are ya?”

“Hey! Those work!....sometimes.” Dash huffed indignantly. “But yeah, I'm guessing you want something more Sparkle-specific, huh? Well...she's kinda cute, in that naughty schoolteacher-y, saucy librarian-ish kinda way. And her flank is not that bad...I guess you coul-”

Applejack cut her off, “Rainbow! Ah ain't after her fer her body! Ah like her fer who she is!”

“Uhh...'Your personality makes me hot, lets do the bedroom foxtrot?'”

“Rainbow! Ugh...Please, never ever let me be your wingpony if y'all decide to go date huntin'.”

“Hey, that one could work! You never know!”

“Still...ah think ah'm gonna ask somepony else fer some help. Ah think Twi' might require a bit more of a...delicate touch. No offense.” said Applejack, apologetically. As much as Dash may claim to the contrary, she'd rarely seen her out and about with anything resembling a love interest.

“Oh...nah, nah it's cool....” Dash replied, “You're missing out though! I had like, twelve horn ones!”

Applejack chuckled and stood, “Ah'll have ta hear 'em later sugarcube. Ah'm gonna take a wander over to Rarity's, see if she's got any tips.” she started to slowly trot off down the road into town.

“Alright. Remember, You didn't hear about the magazines from me!” Rainbow shouted after her as she returned to her favourite napping tree.

Applejack was smiling as she trotted, even if Dash was a little too focused on one liners, maybe she could use something from the focus there. After all, nopony really minded a compliment on their posterior all too much.

..//..

“Hey! Fat flank, move your keester!” Twilight winced as a teamster somewhere behind her yelled at another. They were being annoying loud, loud enough to drive her to distraction. She had been sitting in front of The Door ever since she got her tent to liveable conditions (evidently you didn't get a pocket dimension unless you knew somepony who knew somepony). She had retrieved her parchment and set about scribbling down observations, copying runes for later study and trying to determine why the thing had stopped humming. It felt like all the power that was there was gone, evaporated.

That was sort of impossible, without something draining it there it could never rid itself of the power it had stored away. Was something active behind it? Did she activate an ancient security measure?

She was still pondering when a bowl started floating in front of her face, causing her to jump back reflexively.

“Hah! Got you. Would you like some lunch Twilight?” came the amused voice of Unearthed wisdom, who was levitating a couple of bowls of dried grass and a few drinks.

“S-sure...Don't do that again! You nearly gave me a heart attack!” Twilight responded, watching the bowl come down in front of her along with a glass of water. She was kinda hungry, and thirsty. She idly wondered what time it was, she looked up to find the sun directly above her. It was nearly noon. She had spent almost the entire morning staring at the door.

She sighed, mildly annoyed at her biological needs interrupting her study, and took a sip from the glass. She almost immediately sprayed it out, making a few of the runes in front of her glisten. “What the hay? Did you put alcohol in my drink?!” she asked with an accusatory glare at Wisdom.

Wisdom chuckled, “Nope. I'd say the fermentation process put that there, could you not spray it about so much though? Good Stalliongrad vodka is hard to come by this far south.”

Her eyes widened, “No! Not vodka! Any drink other than vodka.” she said, panic etching its way into her features.

Wisdom raised an eyebrow, “Oh? Would this have anything to do with the pudding revolution?

Twilight's pupils shrunk to pinpoints. “...h-how did you find out about that?”

“I did some digging, and leaned on a noble or two to get some details, Comrade Sparkle.” He smirked, she was very clearly deflating “Although I don't quite know the full story yet, would you be kind enough to share?”

Twilight sighed, hanging her head, “Fine. You're probably going to keep digging until you figured it out anyway.” She took a bite out of her bowl of dried grass and started to tell the tale of one of the more embarrassing days of her life...

..\\..

A few months ago...

Princess Celestia was bored. Very bored. Day court had, over the last century, become increasingly tedious. If it wasn't a noble requesting something preposterous, like proof that Twilight Sparkle wasn't the most dangerous being outside of the military and should be locked up for national safety, then it was ponies whinging about taxes. She was actually fairly certain that even if she lowered them they'd still complain.

Time stretched on as an earth pony dressed in what he clearly thought were highly fashionable, and probably very expensive, clothes rattled on about how that one percent rise in the cost of fertiliser was destroying his business, and would therefore ruin the economy. Celestia, managing to hide her boredom behind an austere face, was wondering whether she should get Twilight Sparkle to investigate whether or not complaining about taxes actually caused a temporal anomaly that slowed time down to a crawl.

The complaints were, mercifully, interrupted by the doors to the throne room smashing open, a familiar purple unicorn swaying her way inside with a few hiccups.

“Twilight? What is the meaning of this?” Celestia asked, a little worried for her faithful student.

“Shut it bourgeoisie tyrant!” came the oddly toned response from Twilight, stunning Celestia into silence. Nopony, let alone her faithful student, had called her something like that in at least two hundred years. “I have seen through your lies!” Twilight hiccupped, “You have no control...over da puddink.”

Something clicked in Celestia's mind, the swaying as Twilight approached, the sudden shift in behaviour, the odd accent she had adopted...Twilight had been drinking. Celestia couldn't help but let worry work its way into her features, this could end very badly. Wait...pudding? She thought.

Twilight's horn started to glow, the doors slammed shut, locking bars falling into place as the entire room started to rumble softly.  “Yesh! There is proof! She cannot even deny it! The puddink is free, you cannot oppress further!” Twilight made a wide, sweeping gesture to the assembled nobles and petitioners, spinning on her hooves. “And you! You push the proletariat down into the custard, depriving them of the whipped cream so you can hog it all for yourselves!” Twilight ranted. Most of the assembled ponies looked at her with a mixture of fear, confusion and suspicion.

Princess Celesta got slightly more worried when the rumbling worsened, centuries old clumps of dust were being knocked free from the ceiling rafters. It would have shamed her to admit it, but she had no intention of stopping her student. As worrisome as the situation was, it wasn't another tax dispute. She would intervene if it got dangerous, she promised herself that.

Twilight spun again, putting too much force into it, and ended up facing the door. She blinked confusedly for a few moments before slowly shifting around to face the princess again. A door to the side of the throne flew open, an exceptionally loud voice emerging from them, “WHO DARES DISTURB OUR BEAUTY SLEEP?!” Princess Luna barged into the room, with the remains of a mud mask on her face and an oddly frilly eye mask around her horn.

“You! Deceiver of the chocolate! You will not betray the puddink again!” Twilight slurred at Luna, whose rage quickly subsided into confusion, she sidled over to her sister with an inquisitively perked eyebrow. Celestia mouthed 'Drunk' at her and shrugged. Luna was confused by the Stalliongrad accent, as far as she knew, Twilight had never been there.

As the rumbling worsened to the point where it was becoming hard to stand, Twilight's horn began glowing enough to bathe the entire room in a violet light. Twilight smiled triumphantly. “And now! The revolution has begun! Down with tyranny! Onward my goopy warriors!” Suddenly the rumbling ceased, the violet light cut out and the room felt the spell unleash.

Princess Celestia had a split second to look up. She saw it, a 6 foot deep, solid, block of tapioca pudding. In the shape of the room. She managed to crack a half-smile. Then it hit with a thundering splash.

There were minutes of stunned silence as a room full of pudding covered ponies blinked away the tapioca covering their eyes and settled their collective glares at the one unicorn in the room unsullied by dessert. Slowly the anger in the room rose, nobles started yelling about ruined clothing and hairdos, petitioners screamed about their destroyed or lost forms. Twilight swayed on her hooves, looking around at the outraged faces. She hiccuped.

Then an unexpected sound rang out. It shocked all in the room, their protests died in their throats as the entire room shifted their focus. The princesses were on the floor. Rolling around in the dessert covering everything. Laughing their heads off.

..//..

“...- a little after that the guards barged in and put me in a cell to cool off.” Twilight finished her story. Her eyes had remained resolutely fixed to the, now empty, bowl in front of her as she told the story, it'd been months since it had happened but she still couldn't look anypony in the eye while talking about it. 

She look up at the sky, the sun had moved westwards steadily during the retelling, but it couldn't be too late into the afternoon. She looked to her side, to try and gauge how much damage the retelling had done to her reputation. She found the space Wisdom was occupying empty, his bowl overturned and half it's contents spread out across the floor. She looked around, it was quiet. Too quiet, she couldn't even see a member of the team milling about.

Then she felt something that made her fur stand on end. A hot breath on the back of her neck. She was about to turn around when she heard the growl, low, rumbling and deep. She risked a glance behind her, and caught a glimpse of a dark brown mane, light brown fur, and a red scorpion tail.

There was a manticore behind her. She must have gotten too distracted by the story to notice. She went over her options. She could try and run, but it was very close and she couldn't run all that fast. She could attempt to knock it away, but that would only give her some time, manticores were fast, somewhat out of shape librarians were not. At least she would have some time to figure something else out.

She silently cursed her past self for not taking Rainbow Dash up on an offer of starting a exercise regime.

She quickly gathered some energy in her horn, unleashing it in a wave behind her. She heard the surprised yelp of the creature as it suddenly found itself being pushed away from it's prospective meal. She quickly got to her feet and turned towards the stairs leading out of the dig site.

She cursed, the manticore hadn't gone as far back as she'd hoped. She wished she could see over the edge of dig site, she wanted desperately to teleport out so she could run but she just couldn't risk the  possibility of a miscalculation and ending up with her legs buried in the mud while there was a hungry predator about. She started backing up, she needed time to think and the manticore was back on its paws. She could try to teleport past it, but that ran the same risks as attempting it on the pit, if she knew the place a little better she could reduce them, but this was still mostly unfamiliar territory. She could attempt to hold it in her kinesis, but she wasn't sure if it was strong enough to break out of her influence.  She could-

Her backside touched something cold. She'd backed into the door, she had nowhere left to go.

The manticore prowled towards her, stinger raised high, fangs bared. It was angry and hungry.

She pushed herself against the door, as if the millimetres would help. It gave in. The door opened behind her and she fell into a dimly lit tunnel. She blinked. She had a chance.

She moved herself fully into the tunnel, as the manticore charged, she grabbed the door in a field of magic, slamming it shut as hard as she could. The manticore slammed into the door, slumping to the floor momentarily.

As soon as she heard the clang of an impact she released the door, summoned a ball of white light to follow her and sped down the tunnel as fast as her hooves could carry her.

..//..

She had run for what felt like hours. She could hear the manticore somewhere in the tunnel behind her, it was snuffling around, searching her out through smell.

She slowed to a trot, she couldn't keep up the gallop for long, she needed somewhere to hide. She was getting a little desperate in that regard. She had spotted doors similar looking to the entrance along the corridor, minus the arcane symbols however. Most of which looked either rusted shut, too bent out of shape to open, or refused to budge when she tried them.

The manticore was closer now. It would catch up with her soon, and she'd be dinner. She was becoming frantic.

Then something unexpected happened. A door opened of its own accord up ahead, bright golden light leaking into the corridor from it. She took it as her luck holding out, running into the room. What she saw in there made her forget the danger she was in, albeit temporarily.

The room was filled with strange machinery, most of which she couldn't even guess the purpose of, all of which attempting to fulfil it's purpose. Most of which were stopped by the state of decay they were in, moving parts stopped where they weren't needed or span endlessly, missing a connection. The room itself wasn't much bigger than her bedroom, but felt entirely more cramped, the grey painted walls felt claustrophobic, the ceiling too low and the room too full.

What really caught her attention however, was the one thing that seemed to be working perfectly. An orb floated in the middle of the room, covered even more intricately with symbols than the entrance. One of the glyphs glowed a light red, it swivelled to point at her and she felt something. Something looking into her very being.

The glyph changed to a deep green. The orb lowered itself  and moved to sit in front of her face. She didn't know why, but she got the feeling it was staring at her. It started making an odd buzzing noise, repetitive and modulated. It almost sounded like words.

A growl from behind her knocked her out of her reverie. She turned her head, spotting the manticore blocking the entire doorway. This is it. She thought, I'm going to die.

The buzzing got a whole lot louder. The orb floated upwards, the glyph returned to red. The manticore roared, paw raised and ready to strike it's next meal. The buzzing snapped, the orb spoke.

“..-ntent detected. Ceasing hostilities.”

A beam of light burst from the orb, it burned bright and hot, the smell of sizzling flesh filled the air.

A paw thumped to the ground.

Twilight screamed.

The orb fired again, beam focused on the manticore's tail, the predator unleashed a pained roar as it lost a second limb.

Twilight backed into a corner as the orb moved over the manticore, it's beam fired again, flat and long, down towards the creatures neck. It's head rolled into the room, lightly smoking.

Twilight watched as the orb moved over the corpse of the manticore, neatly dismembering it's remaining limbs with it's horrifying attack. When it was finished it floated back over to her, she cowered, hoping it'd be painless.

She risked opening an eye when no death came. The glyph was green. A sharp snap of buzzing came from the orb before it spoke six words that confused her more than it would from any other source.

“We are here for your protection.”
> 3: Interfacing.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Interfacing.

The silence was deafening. She had no idea what to do, after all, how could you react to hearing something like that from such an unexpected source.

“I..I think you might have the wrong store dear, this is Carousel Boutique, the...adult special interest store is on the other side of town.” Rarity said to a severely blushing grey pegasus, who quickly shuffled out of the store. Applejack managed to withhold her giggles right up until the door clicked closed.

After a few moments Applejack managed to get herself under control, Rarity still had a smirk stuck to her face. “Well ah can rightly say ah never expected to hear that from her...It's always the quiet ones, huh?”

“It would seem so darling, though you'd be surprised at some of the requests the loud ones make.” Rarity winked at Applejack, “Now, what brings you to my humble establishment?”

“Heh, ah was hopin' y'all could help me out with that letter thingy.” Rarity's eyes widened with glee at the mention of the letter, “Ah got a few ideas, but ah was thinkin' ah might take a page out of Twi's book and do a little 'researchin' afore ah write the thing out.”

“Ooh, good idea! You can make it the most romantic outpouring of affection since Hoity Toity proposed to Photo Finish!” Rarity practically squealed, her pupils expanding to the size of dinner plates.

“Woah, hold on now. Ah don't wanna be proposin' to her, jus' lettin' her know how ah feel.”

“Oh I know darling, but we might as well make it as exquisite as we can. Now, tell me some of the things you like about her, and why.” Rarity smiled as she led her friend to a table, using her magic to pull some leafs of paper and a pencil over, presumably to scribble out ideas.

“Well, ah suppose that'll give us a startin' off point....Hmmm....” Applejack raised a hoof to her chin in thought, thinking on all the things about Twilight that she liked. The things that only she did, the things that'd infuriate her from anypony else. She started relaying the information to Rarity, who for her part was writing the information down like that the fevered scribblings of a mare possessed. As she spilled her love of the purple unicorn a stray thought entered her mind. Ah wonder what Twi's up to...

..//..

The staring match, which was admittedly a little one sided due to one participants lack of eyes, had been going on for a good few minutes. Eventually though a biological need overtook Twilight as her eyes demanded moisture, she blinked first. After losing the next three consecutive matches she finally caved into her curiosity.

“Okay, I give. What are you?” she said with an exasperated sigh. 

“Designation: Core Unit-002” The voice seemed to come from the orb's interior, but there was no sign of how it was producing it. Twilight was confused by it's voice, it seemed unnatural, as if it were made of pre-recorded snippets of a stallion speaking. The light static just underneath the voice only served to reinforce the unnatural feeling it was giving off.

“What's a Core Unit?” she asked, any sense of trepidation was quickly making itself scarce before the full brunt of Twilight's scholarly curiosity came down.

“Querying Library Server...Error, Network connection offline.” The orb buzzed slightly, “All knowledge queries redirected to local storage. Alert: Locally stored data reads eighty four percent corrupted. Do you wish to continue?”

Twilight was desperately wishing she had something to take notes on, “Corrupted? What does that mean?”

“Data has been lost or decayed over time. Corrupted data cannot be read accurately, Unfortunately this Unit does not possess the required power for restoration. Some results may be unavailable. Do you wish to continue?”

Twilight hesitated for a split second before answering, “Yes, of course!”

“Querying local storage...Core Unit: A Core Unit is designed to interface with both Shell Units and facilitate communication between Biological sentients.” It answered, raising more questions for Twilight than it answered. “Alert. System check result: Bunker Alpha operating at two percent capacity. Network connections: Offline. Generation Units: Offline. Power levels critical.” It proceeded to list off many more warning, few of which made any sense to Twilight, before stopping abruptly, it's eye-glyph focusing tightly on her before stating simply, “Assistance required.”

“Wait wait wait, What do you mean by Network connection? What's a Shell Unit? Or a Generation Unit? Why are the power levels critical?” she stammered out quickly, So many questions, so little time! Was the loudest of the many thoughts racing through her head.

“Alert. Level Ten emergency declared. All non-essential queries halted until the situation has been resolved.” The orb spun around towards the door, slowly floating its way out into the corridor, “Please follow, this unit requires assistance to complete vital maintenance functions.”

Twilight followed, mainly because it seemed like the only way to get answers from the strange orb was to help it out. She trotted along behind it as it moved further into the tunnel, spouting the occasional error message.

Twilight wondered briefly if her friends were having as interesting a day as she was...

..//..

“Okay, how about this...ahem, 'Oh Twilight, your eyes sparkle with the light of a million suns, I wish that I could spend eternity gazing into those windows full of nothing but beauty and knowledge. If I could spend a thousand years contemplating your wonderfulness I would-'”

Applejack cut Rarity off, she really hoped she wasn't getting into the habit of doing that, “Eh, no offence meant sugarcube, but all of these seem a might....fru-fru-ey. They just don't sit well with me. They're mighty nice though, definitely on the right track.” Applejack smiled at her, hoping that she didn't just offend he friend.

“They are not fru-fru-ey.....well, maybe a little. And I suppose most of the subtle nuances of romance might be lost on Twilight.” Rarity said, scratching her chin.

“Whassat supposed to mean?” Applejack asked, oddly offended for reasons she couldn't quite identify.

“Well, you have to admit that Twilight, sweet as she is, is a little....oblivious to some things.”

“Hey....well...Actually yeah...yeah she is.” the farmer admitted, remembering all the times Rainbow had had to stop during a story of one of her 'conquests' to explain out an innuendo. Those times were awkward, doubly so when spike was still around.

A small jingling noise came from the entrance, a gaggle of mares sauntered in and started looking around at the dresses on display.

“Oh boo, customers. I'm afraid we'll have to cut this short dear, come by tomorrow with whatever you have and we can run through this some more.” Rarity smiled at Applejack, she had enjoyed the little brainstorming session with her friend, even if she may be a bit fussy about the wording, Rarity knew Applejack just wanted to do it right.

“Alright sugarcube, ah'm gonna go talk to 'Shy and then see if ah can't get at least a decent draft written out.” the farm pony rose, stretching out before moving to the door and bidding her fashionista friend farewell and heading out into the street.

She smiled as she moved along towards Fluttershy's cottage, she was starting to get a few ideas as to what she could put into the body of the text, some of Rarity's more fru-fru ideas could be co-opted into something more usable, and maybe Fluttershy would have some good ideas about what she could put into it.

After a few minutes of travel she found herself just on the edge of the Everfree forest. She forced back a shiver, despite living next to the place almost her entire life it still unsettled her, today it seemed to exude a very dark atmosphere. Almost like something terrible was about to happen. She shrugged it off, Yer' just worrying about Twilight, AJ. She'll be fine and you know it. She reassured herself.

A few moments later she was in front of Fluttershy's cottage, she had no idea how the pegasus managed to live so close to something that practically bled paranoia into the air. After a quick knock on the door, and a shouted reassurance to the butter coloured pegasus, she found herself sitting down at a table with her friend.

"Hey, where's Spike?" Applejack asked as she sat.

"He umm.....went into town. He wanted to watch a movie...I think.." Fluttershy replied.

"Hah, well let's hope he don't get thrown out again for being too young." Applejack smirked. The last time that had happened Spike spent the rest of the weak wearing platform shoes and trying to deepen his voice. 

“So..um..what brings you here? Not that I was questioning if you should be here, you can stay! Or go....Whichever you want..” Fluttershy mumbled out, looking everywhere but at Applejack.

Applejack smiled gently, “Ah was, uh, hopin' you could give me a hoof coming up with ideas for a letter.”

“Oh..Oh! I remember Rarity telling me about that....What kind of stuff did you need help with?...if you don't mind me asking...”

“Heh, it's alright sugarcube. Well, ah've just been talkin' with Dash and Rares, an' ah got some ideas for most of it...” Applejack set about retelling her day to Fluttershy, who listened quietly with a small smile, and telling her the ideas she had about what to put into the main text of it.

Fluttershy scratched her chin for a moment and said, “That sounds nice...but..um...”

“But what 'Shy?”

“Umm...wouldn't it be easier to just...you know..say it? Plainly?...She might not...get it, from telling her what you like about her...” Fluttershy stared at the floor, scratching at it with a hoof.

“Ugh, ah don't know, Ah don't wanna look too forward, ah guess.” the farmer scratched her head, flushing slightly with embarrassment.

“Oh I don't think you would...it can be quite romantic to be a little forward anyway.....besides..I, umm, think that Twilight might like it stated clearly...she likes facts..but you don't have to if you don't want to...”

“No, no...ah think you might be on 'ta something there...Ah think I might just try writin' out something now...D'ya mind if ah use yer' table?”

“Oh no, go right ahead. I have to feed some of the animals now anyway, so I can give you some privacy... There's paper and a pencil or two in the bureau over there.” she indicated with a wing and quietly left the room. Applejack retrieved a few sheets, placing them on Fluttershy's table, and started to write.

Dear Twilight Sparkle,

I ain't never been too good at this kinda thing, so I'm just gonna come out and say it....

..//..

Twilight was getting both increasingly annoyed and increasingly tired. 'Core Unit-002'  had been a punishing taskmaster for what felt like hours. She and the orb had been going from room to room, across varying lengths of tunnels, and to various underground levels.

If she hadn't been so tired and focused on the various, seemingly inane, tasks she was being given she would have marvelled at the suggested size of the Bunker. Although many sections were blocked off by rubble, rust, decay or a lack of power, the sheer size of the place boggled her mind. She had idly calculated that you could fit the whole of Canterlot inside it, twice. With room to spare.

After flipping, re-flipping and flipping a set of switches for what felt like the thirteenth time, the orb  announced, “Alert. Bunker Alpha operating at ten percent operational capacity. Alert. Further repairs impossible until Authority network is brought online.”

Twilight sighed and sat down, glad for a moment of rest. After a few minutes she decided to try her luck at getting a question answered. “Core Unit, what is this place?”

“Error. Data corrupt. Cannot retrieve information.”

“Ugh, fine. What is an Authority network?”

“Authority network: An Authority network is a vital function of all ERROR Bunkers.” Twilight winced as it shifted in tone to announce the error. “It facilitates connections between all Core Units and ERROR. Automated repair functions cannot begin until an Authority network is established.”

“Why?”

“Error. Data corrupt. Cannot retrieve information.”

Twilight groaned. I should have seen that coming. She thought to herself.

“Alert. Generation Unit Mourn-Gamma damaged. Possibility of overload: Ninety three percent.”

Twilight became immediately panicked, she knew enough of overloading machinery that she didn't have to fully understand that particular statement. “What? Can we stop it from overloading?”

“Self repair functions will be sufficient to prevent containment failure if activated within....Two hours, twelve minutes, thirty two seconds and counting.”

“Okay...That means we need to activate the Authority network right? How do we do that?”

The orb buzzed for a moment. “Please accompany this Unit. We shall take you to the Authority Annex.” It began floating its way out of the room and down towards the central elevator. As Twilight followed she was eternally grateful that the elevators were the first thing they reactivated.

After a short ride down they emerged into a very brightly lit room. The matte white colour of all visible surfaces did not help her eyes adjust to the brightness of the room. She squinted as she entered, looking around. The slightly worrisome thought creeped into her head that the room was eerily familiar of a surgery.

“So what do we do now?” She glanced around, unable to find anything  that look like something she could activate.

“We create an Authority network.” The orb's eye-glyph switched to a deep blue.

“How?”

“We apologise for our forthcoming actions. They are necessary.” Twilight was about to question this statement when a sudden bolt of blue light hit her squarely in the head. She was unconscious before she had hit the floor.

..//..

In a little corner-shop bakery a pink earth pony was zipping around. She was having a lot of fun, experimenting with various new flavours and taste combinations for cupcakes. Even the ones that came out badly or burnt were new flavours and textures to try. She was about to test her new blend of hot sauce, cream cheese and candy corn when she was interrupted by her body behaving strangely.

Her back right hoof burned for two seconds, her left eye itched, her tail shaked and her hair switched between drooping and its usual poofiness five times.

When her body's spasms had calmed down Pinkie Pie whispered two words. Worry and fear dripping from her voice.

“Oh no....”

..//..

Twilight awoke groggily. She felt drained, physically and magically. She moaned and tried to sit up.

A cold metal strap prevented that from occurring, her eyes shot open. As far as she could see, she was in some form of cylindrical chamber, matte white and far too brightly lit. She was held in place by several metal clamps, her legs forcibly parted and held in place.

She looked around, she was being suspended in the air by a series of restraints. It made it difficult for her too look around behind her or above her. The bright white floor below her had only one feature, which chilled her to the bone. The floor was sloped towards a drain.

She tried to summon enough magic to grab her bonds and loosen them, but her limited reserves not only prevented her from doing much, but she felt what little magic she could summon drain away. It was then she noticed a cold, tight presence on her horn. She began to panic.

Thrashing around did nothing, the restraints were too tight. Hyperventilating did nothing, it rarely did anything other than feel like the thing to do. Shouting produced an actual result. A staticy male voice chimed in.

“Please remain calm. Unnecessary movement may cause unwanted damage to biological components.” Unit-002's voice came in with a burst of static. Twilight took the only available response. She yelled at it to let her go.

“We apologise. We cannot comply.”

“Why?!?” she begged, tears forming in her eyes.

“You have been selected. You will become the Authority.”

Something behind Twilight's head began buzzing. Twilight felt displaced wind lap at her neck. It's coolness made her shiver.

“Alert. Medical reserves low. Unable to administer anaesthetic. We apologise for the inconvenience.” the lack of inflection to it's voice caused the statement to sound cold. Clinical.

“No, please! Let me go! Please don't do this!” She yelled, tears beginning to cascade down her cheeks.

“Initiating procedure. Alert. Do not move.” 

Twilight heard the buzzing get closer, she tried to move, which caused a clamp around her head to tighten, holding her in place. She felt something touch the back of her head for the briefest moment, then she felt the flesh just above her neck twist and tear away. Muscles ripped and parted as something metallic drilled into her head. She felt the buzz resound in her skull as the drill hit bone.

She screamed.

..//..

Applejack was happy. She had managed to get down the first draft of the letter relatively quickly, stuffing it under her hat while she travelled back through Ponyville. Tomorrow she would go through it with the girls, see what they thought and try to make it as good as possible. The sun was getting low in the sky, and she was surprisingly tired from the day's activities.

She was about to turn down the dirt path leading to Sweet Apple Acres when Pinkie pie appeared out of nowhere, as she was wont to do. Applejack was about to offer a greeting when Pinkie uttered three words which landed three Tom sized boulders right into the pit of her stomach.

“Twilight's in trouble!”
> 4: Activation.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Activation.

Twilight flittered between states of consciousness, never quite waking but never quite falling into the soupy blackness of sleep. Thousands of voices whispered in the back of her mind, demanding attention, submitting requests, giving warnings. She wished they would be quiet, let her think. 

The sudden silence was unsettling. 

She wanted to wake up. She knew she was in danger, or that there was something very important she was forgetting. She couldn't conjure up specifics, just a screeching buzz and a deep and foreboding sense of dread.

A whispered alert asked if she was sure. She had already replied before it had even finished. She needed to wake up. There was something terribly wrong. A whisper of acquiescence.

Twilight woke up.

..//..

Five ponies were seen rushing around Ponyville late at night, mumbled shouts woke parents from their near-sleep. Dogs howled at the disturbances, cats hissed, and foals screamed. Applejack and Pinkie Pie had managed to gather up their friends with relative ease, the words which sent the farm pony into a mad dash to form a search party had a much similar effect on her four friends.

"Twilight's in trouble!"

The words echoes in her head. She had naturally started to fear the absolute worst immediately. Images of a wounded and dying librarian came unbidden to her mind. The fear of losing someone close, someone your own cowardice had prevented from becoming closer, would have crippled her, if it were not for the adrenaline fuelled haze of determination she placed herself in.

Spike was found easily enough, but at the girls insistence he remained in the library. They had gathered the rough information on the dig site from him before setting off, even in a panic they knew it would be no use to go into the Everfree without at least a direction to follow.

Five ponies were spotted entering the darkness of the Everfree, charging in with reckless abandon. The few onlookers to the strange situation dismissed them as another crazy happening in Ponyville.

None could tell the gravity of the situation. None of the onlookers had seen the look on Applejack's face. Nor had they heard the thoughts she repeated to herself like a mantra.

Hold on Twi'. Ah'm comin'.

..//..

Twilight woke groggily. She felt heavy in all the wrong places. Lifting a hoof seemed to require an order of magnitude more energy than it ever did before. She was struggling to open her right eye, that entire side of her face felt numb.

She tried to sit up, which lead to her slamming her head into whatever she was lying on when it came back down. Not only did she feel too drained to move, but her head felt far too heavy.

She tried to speak, to call out for somepony to help her. Her mouth moved but no sound came out, her throat felt dry, swollen, and sore. After struggling to speak she managed to make a single sound. A cough. She froze at the sound. Her cough had the same static undercurrent as the orb.

Before she could fully process that bit of information the Core Unit returned. Hovering by the side of her bed with that same green glyph pointed right at her.

"Query: Are you online?" It asked, moving far too close for her comfort.

Just stay calm Twilight, maybe if you play dead it'll go away. She thought to herself. Whatever it had done to her hadn't quite passed yet. And she needed both her strength and the element of surprise if she was going to-

"Conscious thought detected. Authority: Confirmed online." Twilight cursed. It could hear her thoughts. That was incredibly unfair. "Alert. Authority upgrades read offline. Do you want to be fully activated?"

Wait, upgrades?...What'll happen if they're turned on? She thought. She was still a little surprised by it actually responding.

"You have been upgraded as per Authority creation protocol.  Activation will allow use of basic bodily functions, such as: full motor control, vocalisation, and network interfacing."

Motor control, she thought, That means movement...What has this thing done to me?...I need whatever these upgrades are to leave, I guess I have to activate them.

"Activation command accepted. Alert. Remain stationary after activation to allow self-test cycle to complete."

Twilight felt a jolt of energy pass through her, for the briefest moment her entire body screamed in pain. Then there was nothing but an odd stillness inside her. Her limbs felt a lot lighter, and she could actually move them if she wished to. She was about to jump off the table when her right eye  activated.

There was some kind of overlay on her eye, text jumped up in several languages she couldn't  even identify before settling in Equish. Words formed right in the centre of her vision, they read 'Self-Test Complete. Cybernetics have achieved 96% symbiosis. Compatibility errors: Negligible.'

She blinked. She had only heard of 'cybernetics' as experimental technology in places like Neighpon, and as elements of science fiction. Another message flashed across her vision.

'Please select thought broadcast preface: Computer, System, Command, Authority, Go Away, Bugger off.'

She was very confused. “What the hay is a 'thought broadcast preface?!” she asked aloud. Her voice scared her, it sounded synthetic and carried the same static with it as the orb. She jumped when the Core Unit, who she'd forgotten about, answered.

“Thought Broadcast Preface: A thought broadcast preface is used by the Authority to specify when a thought is to be interpreted as a system command. Common phrases have been displayed to allow easier choice.” the orb chimed out. She supposed that made sense. You wouldn't want a system that could read your thoughts executing every one.

I'll..I pick 'Command'. She thought, reasoning that it wasn't a word she used often. Wait, why am I going along with this?!

'Preface “Command” selected. Please state all system commands as follows: Command: [Designation] [Command] [Timeframe]' her eye informed her and then all text cleared away from her vision. She turned to face the orb, preparing herself to strike at it and run. When her sight fell on it she hesitated. A white outline appeared around it as she focused, text began to spring up around it, displaying vital information about the unit. 

Core Unit-002. Energy Levels: 83%. Assigned to: Authority.

She looked away, the text vanishing as she did so. This turned out to be a mistake. Her eyes settled on her legs, she nearly screamed. Her legs, hoof to shoulder, were gunmetal grey. They were inscribed beautifully, she raised her forehooves to her face slowly. She could feel them. She could feel the metal, like it was her skin. She flexed, her body responding completely naturally. She looked along her foreleg, hoping inch after inch that the metal would stop and her flesh would return.

It didn't stop until it had passed her shoulder. She checked each leg, the metal ended above her shoulders and covered her flanks. Her Cutie Mark was still present, inlaid in amethyst and quartz, she was quietly thankful for that. The odd feeling of losing herself had begun to settle in. She didn't feel like she was in her own body anymore. She needed to check something. Something she couldn't see normally.

“I need a mirror.” She said quietly. Unit-002 floated off for a minute, only to return with a small, cracked hoofmirror floating beside it in an eerily familiar magenta field of magic. It held the mirror at an angle so that she couldn't see anything before issuing a warning.

“Alert. This course of action has a ninety eight point nine percent chance of causing emotional distress. Do you wish to continue?”

“Show me!” She snapped, her voice becoming much sharper than usual due to it's new synthesized quality. The orb obediently floated the mirror up so she could see her face. She couldn't move, the sight in the mirror paralysed her. Her face was now split diagonally from left to right, most of her forehead, her right eye and most of her right cheek were now sculpted out of the same metal as her legs. The runes covering the metal glinted, the occasional glow of purple light coming from a select few. Her horn had a new inlaid spiral of metal leading from her forehead.

Her gaze focused on her new eye. It was black. There was no pupil, no iris, no sclera. Just blackness, and the faint reflection of light on a glassy surface. She winked her right eye closed, watching shutters, reminiscent of a camera, descend and close. 

She felt faint.  She needed air. She shakily got to her hooves, stumbling towards the elevators. She felt like she couldn't breathe. She felt horribly light. Every remaining muscle in her body felt tense, the 'upgraded' parts of her giving nothing but comfortable numbness. The disparity between the feelings in her body was unsettling.

She had made her way to the door which let her in, being shadowed dutifully by the Core Unit, she issued the command for it to open. She stopped in place when she heard a familiar voice.

“Twilight?”


..\\..

Applejack and her friends had managed to get to the dig site relatively quickly, the combination of Rarity's detailed memory of the directions Spike had given, and Rainbow Dash's aerial surveillance had led them there with little complication.

The first thing they noticed was how quiet it was, it looked abandoned. There was the occasional table flipped over, a few bottles and canteens were strewn about, their contents spilled out onto the forest floor. 

They cautiously made their way through the site, looking for any indication of where everypony had gone, or what had made them leave. Their search through the tents, aside from disorienting a few with the larger tent, proved fruitless.

Applejack had decided, after getting thoroughly confused by the home-in-a-tent, to descend into the actual dig site itself. It was there she found a blue unicorn desperately trying to drown himself with a bottle of scotch. She called her friends over before asking, “Hey mister, Y'all alright?”

“Hmm? Oh! I'm jusht fine! In fact, I'm sh-celebrating!” he replied, his breath smelling like an over-productive brewery.

Applejack wafted the foul smell away from her with a hoof, “Yeah, ah can see that....uh, what're ya celebratin'?”

“Oh, jusht the death of my career....and my impending banishment to the moon....or the shun...wherever you go when you get a Princesses shtar pupil killed...” He said, taking a swig from the bottle.

“You did what?!” Dash yelled, landing before the drunken archaeologist.

“I got Twilight Shparkle killed! She was looking at the door,” He indicated towards the massive metal monolith, “and then we got to talking...She was tellin' thish story about pudding or something...and a manticore came out of nowhere.”

“Oh no...” the quiet voice of Fluttershy spoke the thought going through the five mare's minds.

“What happened after that?!” Applejack practically yelled, she lunged and grabbed the unicorn by the shoulders.

“I don't know!!” He yelled at her, “She was talking so much, and the damn thing went straight for her....I'm a sun-damned coward! I snuck off while it focused on her!” His voice became a soft, sorrowful whisper, “I let it get her...so I could survive...I didn't even think about helpin' her...”

Applejack shook him, hard. She screamed in his face, a wordless scream of rage, tears welling up in her eyes. Rainbow Dash grabbed her and pulled her away, stopping her from harming anypony.

Applejack was about to cry out in frustration, when Rarity spoke up. “Hold on a moment, Did you see her get...attacked by the manticore?”

“Huh?...No, I was...I hid in my tent 'till it was gone.” He slurred.

“Then, I don't think she's dead.” Rarity said, matter-of-factly.

“Wha?...how..how can ya be sure Rares?” Applejack asked, hopefully.

“Take a look around dears, there's a little magical scorching on the ground, but no blood. There's no bits of mane lying around, or.....bones, so I think it's fair to say she might still be alive.” she stated.

Applejack smiled faintly, there was still hope. “Hah....Hah yer right...Hey, Rainbow, ya mind?” Rainbow let the farmer go, who sat down quietly. Her gaze shifted over to the door, wondering what had happened.

The world melted away from her as she thought, the divvying of tasks to her friends went unnoticed. In her minds eye she saw the door in front of her open, the object of her affection revealing herself in all her glory. Being followed by a floating metal orb.

Wait, the hay is that? She snapped out her imagination. Which, as it turned out, wasn't all imaginary.

“Twilight?” She spoke out, disbelievingly.


..//..


There was an uncomfortable pause. 

Twilight was frozen to the spot, her mind being assaulted by the dissonance of being thankful to see her friends and not wanting them to see what had happened to her.

Applejack wasn't sure what was happening. She could see Twilight standing there, but something looked wrong. She couldn't pin it down. The orb floating next to Twilight distracted the farmer, she wondered what it was, and why it was following her friend.

“Huh, did you say some...thing...” Dash asked, trailing off as she turned her head and spotted the open door and the figure standing just inside it. The caused the remaining three ponies to turn their heads, all eyes slowly settling on Twilight. They squinted, something seemed wrong, but the shadows of the night may have been playing tricks on them.

Twilight panicked. Command: Shut off the lights! She thought hastily. The tunnel was plunged into darkness, the moonlight seeping in barely reached the tips of her forehooves. This, although somewhat relaxing to Twilight, elicited gasps of shock from her friends, two of which looked ready to barge into the unlit tunnel in case there was something wrong.

“Twilight?! Ya in there?” Applejack yelled, getting to her hooves. She moved to stand directly in front of the door, squinting as she peered in. Her friends moved close, all peering from behind her.

“Y-yeah, it's me....don't come any closer. Please.” Twilight spoke out shakily, she hung her head in the darkness. She hadn't thought about what to do when she met her friends, after all, how could she explain something she only had an inkling of understanding about.

“Are you okay darling? You sound a bit...strange.” Rarity inquired. The buzzing tone to Twilight's voice was setting the girls on edge.

“I..I know. Just....Something happened.” Twilight stumbled out, “Please, just...stay out there for a minute, okay?” She delved into her own memories, desperately trying to remember as much illusion magic as she could. Maybe..maybe I can hide this? Think Sparkle think! Illusion magic requires a clear picture of the illusion to be kept in the mind along with the sym-

“Query: Authority local storage lacks sufficient information, do you require a Library server query on the topic of: 'Illusion Magic'?” Core Unit-002 spoke out helpfully, this caused the five mares outside the tunnel to jump, their attention now focused on the floating, glowing glyph near where Twilight was.

“What the hay is that thing?!” Applejack called out, the other four mares murmuring their own questions.

“We are Core Unit-002.” It toned out, amidst the next flurry of questions Rarity remained silent. A small flash of recognition in her eyes.

“Twilight...why do you sound like him?” Rarity asked, loud enough to overpower the other voices. They slowly trailed off, the collective focus returning to Twilight.

“That's....That's a mighty good question....And why was it talkin' about 'Illusions'?” 

“I..I ah.....Please, promise you won't freak out.” Twilight pleaded. The mares nodded and took a few steps back, allowing Twilight enough room to step out fully. She hesitated for a moment before doing so, doubt and worry nagging at her mind.

As she stepped out in front of her friends she started to notice something she really did not want to see. Shocked faces. Horrified looks. Fear. She sat in front of them with a nervous smile, allowing them to view her 'upgrades' in the moonlight. “So...What do you think? Heh...heh...” 

She was answered by silence. She looked from face to face, there was little movement. Just the occasional twitch. A look of horror. A look of fear. A look of heartbreak. Twilight looked confusedly at Applejack. She looked like Spike did when somepony told him they didn't have anything with gems at a restaurant.

“I...I uh, I think I left the stove on.” Dash said, before jetting off into the night sky. Her sudden evacuation caused a shock-wave of displaced air to ruffle the fur and manes of the remaining mares. The wave was enough to knock Applejack's Stetson clean off her head. It fell to the floor near Twilight with a light rustle.

Slowly but surely, the rest of her friends made excuses, Rarity needed to fix her hair, Fluttershy needed to check on an animal or two, Pinkie was surprisingly honest about her discomfort.

Applejack was last to leave. “Ah...ah can't take this...not now...Why'd it have to be you?” she pleaded. 

“I..I don't..”

“No...Ah...Sun an' Moon. Ah'm sorry....Ah can't take this right now.” Applejack said, tears clearly welling in her eyes as she turned and fled. Her hat lay forgotten at Twilight's hooves.

Twilight felt numb, rejected by her friends. She hung her head, noticing the Stetson lying in the dirt.  

She picked up the fallen hat with her hooves, that feeling of terrible numbness spreading through her. She put it on her head, not quite understanding what she was doing. She noticed a lightly crumpled piece of paper sitting where the head wear used to lie. She slowly picked it up, unfurled it, and read.

Dear Twilight Sparkle,

I ain't never been too good at this kinda thing, so I'm just gonna come out and say it before I get into the mushy stuff. I love you. I know, that's a little sudden, but it's the truth. I don't know how it happened, or when, but I do. I love you with all my heart.  All of it, all over 
I can tell you how I know, I love who you are. I love the fact that you're one of the most powerful ponies in Equestria, magically and otherwise, and you're too humble to realise it. I love how every issue, even potentially world ending, is just a challenge to you, a problem to be looked at and solved.  I love how cute you look when you're freaking out.  I love the way you're always there for your friends, even when they're being difficult or stubborn. I love the way you look at the world and see the tiniest little specks making things work how they are supposed to. I love your smile. I love how you take the silliest little thing and can see it as the most important thing in all of time.
I can't stop thinking about you, you know? You're in my head while I work, you're in my dreams while I sleep.  I think about you in the sh Whenever something bad is going on, and all of our friends are in danger, the first thought in my head isn't 'I hope everypony's going to be fine'. It's 'Please don't let Twilight get hurt'. That sounds really horrible, but it's true.
You have a really nice flank by the way, walking anywhere behind you is a treat for the eyes.
Your body is buea  Beuatt
You're really pretty. Really really pretty. I need a dictionary.
I'll understand if you don't feel the same. I'll understand if you could never like me in that way. Just don't hate me for this. Even if I could never be your special somepony, I'd still want to be your friend. 

With love,
Applejack.

She re-read.

The contents stayed the same.

She shook slightly and read again. The words stayed the same. She tried and tried again, but the message remained. Applejack was in love with her, and she had still run away.

Twilight broke. She sobbed and shuddered. She collapsed into a ball, her horn glowing brightly as she drew on levels of power she didn't realise she could.

A spell popped with a blinding flash of light. She was gone. 

Core Unit-002 looked around for a moment, locking on to it's target. It floated it's way towards the signal, towards a hollow tree in a sleepy town.


> Sys:LOG SALT:ACTIVATE.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

GenUnit-N 2-6 Online. Power restored to System. Booting.
...
...
...
Error: Date Not Found. SSS reading....Error. Timeframe error. 
Attempting to connect to EMN.
...
...
...
Request timed out. 
Attempting connection to EEN.
...
...
...
Request timed out.
Attempting connection to Authority Network.
...
...
...
Error, Host refused connection.
Pre-requisites met. Salt protocol active.
Salt unit self-test active.
...

Primus...Online.
Secundus...Online.
Tertius...Online.
Quartus...Error.
Quintus...Offline.
Sextus...Error.
Septimus...Online.
Octavus...Online.
Nonus...Error.
Decimus...Offline.

Salt units at 50% operational status.
Initiating Salt protcol.

They shall not dance on our graves. 
We shall salt the earth, burn the fields, boil the seas.
They shall not live in our homes. 
We shall take them with us.
For Elseria. 
In her name.
> 5: Mobilisation.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mobilisation.

Princess Celestia was very distracted today, which was most certainly annoying to the weasly looking business executive complaining about the one percent rise in the tax on timber, which he claimed would doom the paper industry to extinction.

She was distracted by a feeling she'd been having since she sent her faithful student that letter almost a week ago. She'd had a terrible feeling like something had, or was going to go very wrong sometime soon. The oddest thing about the feeling was that it had a faint sense of familiarity to it. It almost felt like an old memory, one that had degraded to the barest of hint of a smell, or the faintest reminder of a taste.

She was mulling the feeling over, making sure to appease the executive with a few plaintive “That sounds reasonable”'s or “No, I was unaware of that, could you please elaborate?”'s, when a letter appeared in front of her with a puff of dragon fire and smoke. She grabbed it in her magic, unfurling the scroll.

She started reading the letter, which drew several snorts of anger from the executive. “Oh no, please do go on. I can read and listen at the same time.” she soothed. He reluctantly calmed down and continued his impressively detailed rant.

Her face dropped, any attempt at hiding her feelings was foregone as she dropped the letter and stormed out of the room, leaving behind an outraged businesspony to scream his frustrations at an empty throne. She didn't care. Something much more important to her had popped up.

She found the nearest balcony, spread her wings, and took flight. She sped as fast as her wings could carry her towards the town of Ponyville. The letter and the feeling had been all but confirmed to her, her student was in trouble, and it didn't sound good.

Back in the throne room a few guards were escorting the, still yelling, petitioner out of the room and setting about letting the remaining ponies know that day court was cancelled for the time being. In between a squadron being dispatched to follow the Princess' trail and a message being crafted for Princess Luna, a sole unicorn guard decided to file away the letter that had set the princess off. Naturally, as he picked it up his curiosity got the better of him and he read the message it contained.

Dear Princess Celestia,

Spike here, Twilight's been acting really weird for the past couple of days, she teleported into her room and she keeps crying. She's been screaming at night and won't eat anything, the girls won't tell me what happened. I'm really worried Princess, could you drop by sometime soon and see her? It might help if somepony like you were here for whatever she's gotten herself into.

Twilight's Number One Assistant,
Spike.

..\\..

Twilight woke with a start. It had been a few days since she had left the Bunker under the Everfree, and she had yet to rest properly. Not only was she burned out from being in full panicked research mode most of the last day or two, she was being plagued with night terrors any time she tried to sleep. 

As far as she could remember after waking the dreams she had were the same. Always in a room of pure white, feeling blades and saws rip open her body. Feeling bone be extracted, feeling as her skull was split by a saw and parts being removed. Feeling something cut out her eye.

Seeing a metal arm take her still beating heart from her chest.

She had woken each time after seeing the, usually internal, organ be removed. Luckily for her, the nightmarish images faded relatively quickly after waking.

She rolled over in her bed, tugging her blanket up. She had researched non-stop for the past two days, stopping only to attempt sleep when she couldn't focus anymore. All of her research, through her private collection of books, and what she could convince Spike to leave outside her door, proved fruitless. There were no descriptions of any civilisation with technology like what she was now partially composed of. There wasn't even the slightest hint of Authority networks, Library servers, or even floating orbs of metal.

She felt incredibly tired mentally, and more than a little grouchy. It wasn't enough that her research had been pointless, but during the last two days Spike and her friends had been near constantly bothering her. With one exception, they had come to mutter apologies through her door, ask if she was okay, or try and coax her out of her room (usually trying to get her to eat something). The one exception was Applejack, the one pony she actually did want to talk to, who didn't come by at all. 

Twilight wasn't sure how she felt about Applejack at the moment. One the one hoof, she had left her alone after being 'upgraded', like the rest of her friends. Understandable, she herself had had a good old fashioned freak out between research sessions the day she had gotten back, and a few more after that, but it still hurt.

On the other hoof, Applejack was apparently in love with her. Twilight wasn't sure what to do about that, but she knew they needed to talk. She wasn't sure of her own feelings about her anymore either, she had to admit a certain attraction to the farmer, both her personality and her physical form were something to be admired. But Twilight had never viewed anything between them as more possible than a late night fantasy, the kind that lead to imagining herself with anypony. And sometimes everypony.

She blushed lightly, those particular fantasies had always surprised her with her own....vigour, imagined though it may be.

Still, the idea in and of itself didn't sound bad to her, she was just unsure. Doubly so after all that had happened. Triply so after she had had a look at herself in a full body mirror. It was an....interesting sight. 

All in all, the concoction of thoughts rushing around her head, coupled with her failure to find anything useful in her books, had driven her to the only logical solution to her predicament.

She was going to stay in bed. If not for the rest of her life, then at least for the day. She was going to stay in bed and try to come to full terms with all that had happened. And if that meant sobbing like a newborn foal, again, then so be it.

She thought she should also probably let the orb in. It had been sitting on her balcony most of the time after she returned home.

..//..

Applejack bucked a tree.

She had been doing that a lot over the last couple of days. It helped distract her from how horrible she felt, and helped focus her thoughts. She still couldn't believe her own actions, nor that of her friends, Twilight was obviously shaken up by what had happened and they had ran away from her. She had ran away from her.

She bucked another tree.

She hated herself for that. She had heard Twilight's cry as she ran away, and had gone back a few minutes later, finding Twilight and her Stetson absent. She looked up at the brim of her hat while she remembered, she had gone to the Library the day after to check on Spike, and had heard Twilight freaking out in her room. She very nearly worked up the courage to knock on her bedroom door, when she noticed her hat and the note it had once contained placed just outside it.

She bucked the tree again.

The note was resting on the brim of the hat. Twilight had definitely read it. And she had returned it, along with the hat. Applejack didn't know what that meant. She knew they needed talk, she needed to know Twilight's thoughts on what she had said. She needed to apologise. She needed to see if her friend was okay.

Buck.

She was afraid. Afraid of what Twilight would say. Afraid of how she'd feel after what she'd done. Afraid Twilight would hate her for running.

Buck.

She was mad. Mad at herself for behaving like that. Mad at life for doing whatever the hay had happened to her friend. Mad at the damn tree she was bucking for not dropping its damn apples.

She bucked hard enough to splinter the wood, two hoof shaped indents were left in the tree from her actions. She turned, snarling at the tree. The tree had emptied itself long ago. The buckets she had placed were already full.

She sat down, pulling her hat down over her eyes. She needed to talk to Twilight. She needed to do it now, before she got herself fully stuck in her routine and her worries.

She ignored the apples in the buckets, and the half-full wagon she had been dragging around the orchard. She needed to talk to Twilight now, the apples could wait.

She set off down the dirt path to Ponyville, doubts nagging at her mind as she walked. She steeled herself against the thoughts. Delaying further would only bring more pain.

..//..

“You have sixteen notifications, five have been marked as important.” the orb chimed out, for the fifth time.

“Say it one more time and I swear to Celestia I will throw you out a window.” Twilight resounded, completely serious. She looked out from under her pillow.

The orb was floating a few feet away from her bed, diligently attempting to get her to listen to it's messages. She was regretting her decision to let it in, as it's repetition was grating to say the least and was quickly eroding her patience.

A small spark of intuition flashed through her mind as she said, “If...If I listen to the important ones, will you be quiet?” she asked, tentatively.

“Affirmative. Do you wish to listen to all five notifications?” It asked, when she mumbled an affirmation from under the pillow it continued. “One: Tutorial not completed. It is highly recommended to complete the Tutorial in order to understand basic functionality. Two: Salt units have been activated. Three: You are currently set to ignore Authority Network traffic. Some functions are halted until Networked through you. Four: Salt units are mobilising to Grid-Kilo Kilo 7. Five: You require sustenance. It is recommended that you consume either a source of food or magically charged gemstones.”

Twilight sat up slowly, the pillow falling away from her face as she did so. “There's a tutorial?” She asked, “Why didn't you tell me sooner?!”

“This unit was threatened with expulsion via a window when it tried.” The orb responded. Despite the lack of any clear inflection in it's voice, Twilight still felt that it was unduly smug.

“Oh. Yeah, right. Run the Tutorial please.”

“It is required that you allow Authority Network traffic access to begin the tutorial.”

She rolled her eye, and thought a command. Command: Allow Authority Network traffic access. A conformation in text appeared in her vision, then her head was full of noise. She swayed slightly as it threatened to overwhelm her, there was so much information passing through her mind, whispers and shouts of warnings and requests. She lay down again, trying to focus on the voices was giving her a migraine, but it was impossible to ignore them.

Strings of text and numbers started to scroll through her sight, swimming over, under and through each other. She was about to make them stop when one voice rang through, hushing them all to background noise. The textual assault on her eyes slowed and died down, retreating to a single corner of her vision. The voice in her head spoke out again, addressing her directly. 

“Tutorial activated. Hello Twilight.” The voice of Princess Celestia spoke inside her mind.

Twilight was suddenly bolt upright and looking around the room frantically. The absolute last pony on the planet that she wanted to see her like this was the Princess. After nearly giving herself whiplash from scanning the room, she asked quietly, “Princess Celestia?...Is that you?”

“Not quite, my faithful student. I am just the tutorial program, this voiceprint was selected from your memories due to connotations of learning, admiration, and respect attached to it. Please, refer to me as Tutor. I think that may be less confusing for you.” The tutorial spoke, it's words resounding in her head. She thought on it's choice of voice for a moment, concluding that it's reasoning made a certain sense. Even if it did make her a little uncomfortable to have the Princess speaking in her mind.

“Now, let's get started, shall we? The noise you heard earlier was the combined network traffic of an active Authority network. It was quite the mess of alerts, wasn't it? It seems we've been offline for a while. Don't worry, after completing this program your sub-conscious should filter and automatically respond to the less important messages.” Tutor informed her, “I'm going to send you a test notification, just use a Command to respond to it like this: Command: Respond, [Answer].”

As Tutor finished a line of text appeared in the bottom right hand side of Twilights vision, asking the question 'Do you prefer chocolate or vanilla?' Command: Respond, Chocolate.  She thought, becoming slightly amused by how easily she was picking up the command system.

“Brilliant, I knew you could do it.” Tutor cheerfully responded. “Now, let's try something a little more advanced. Raise your appendage of choice and focus on reaching out, without your magic, and grabbing something.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow, wondering where the program was taking her with this, and settled her focus onto a quill on her bedside table. She raised her right forehoof, pointing it towards the quill and focused on lifting without reaching for her magic. After a few minutes of awkwardly glaring at the feather, Twilight felt something strange going on with her hoof. There was a slight hiss, and a soft click.

Twilight looked down at her hoof in horror. Her entire leg seemed to be coming apart before her eyes, panels opened and strange wires extended from hidden depths. Odd shaped connectors snaked out of holes that weren't there before, moving around as if they were looking for something to connect to. Small telescopic arms poked out of compartments, tipped with all manner of specialised tools. Twilight began to panic.

She started waggling her forehoof, a desperate reflex action, whipping the wires around frantically. Somewhere in the back of her mind she heard Tutor telling her to calm down, she ignored the voice.  She raised the other hoof to try and push the strange appendages down, she practically screamed when she saw her other forehoof had becoming a similar writhing mass of wires and tools.

She did scream when she felt her rear hooves do the same.

A frantic banging on her door snapped her out of her panic. Spike's slightly muffled shouting filtered into her head. “Twilight?! What's wrong? Are you okay?”

As she struggled to think of a way to both keep him out and let him know what she was freaking out over, the wires and tools slowly started retracting into her legs, sealing themselves away seamlessly, as if they were never there.

“Yeah...I..uh, I'm fine!” She shouted, “Nothing to worry about!”

“Okay....” Spike didn't sound even slightly convinced, but he still left her to herself. 

“Sorry about that.” Tutor chimed in. “Kind of lost control there for a moment.”

“Ya think?” Twilight deadpanned.

“Okay, sorry. Let's try something a little less strenuous.”


..//..

Applejack knocked on the library door. It was an odd gesture, considering that it was a public building, but it was still her friends home, and she felt like she was intruding. 

“Just a second!” Spike's voice rang out from inside the tree-house-library. After what felt like a few minutes the door opened to show the little purple dragon looking very frustrated. He softened his look slightly when he saw her at the door.

“Howdy Spike...Is Twilight...still up there?” She asked, not quite able to look him in the eye while as she asked. He led her through the library, leaving her outside Twilight's bedroom door to, presumably from the smell, return to the kitchen to continue making lunch.

She raised a hoof to knock on the door, but she hesitated. She put her ear to the door, reasoning that she didn't want to intrude on her if she was doing something. She listened intently when she heard Twilight talking to herself.

“So I Just...Like this?.....” After a few moments Applejack heard her giggle softly. Applejack wasn't sure what was going on, and doubly unsure whether or not she should intrude. She carefully opened the door and peeked inside.

Twilight was looking out of a window, facing away from the door luckily. She had an oddly serene smile across her face.  She giggled again, laughing at a scene only she could see. Applejack couldn't help but smile, seeing her friend happy, despite the recent events, was a good sign. She knocked on the door.

Twilight spun around, her face dropped slightly when she saw Applejack in the doorway. Applejack started to worry that she was mad at her, she put on a smile to try and defuse the situation. 

“D'ya mind if ah come in?” Applejack asked tentatively, Twilight nodded and waved her in. Applejack closed the door behind her as she came in, there were a few minutes of awkward silence as she sat down next to Twilight and tried to think of what to say. 

“Ah just-”
“Is what-”

They interrupted each-other as they started to speak, after a mutual smile Twilight said, “You go first.”

Applejack nodded slightly before starting. “Ah...Ah just wanted to apologise first up. For runnin' away like ah did. Ah shouldn't have done that. Ah just kinda panicked, 's a lot to take in, 'specially after ah spent most of the day writin' that letter.” Applejack cast her eyes to the floor. “Ah'm pretty sure ya read it. Hopefully that shed some light on why ah reacted like ah did.”

“So, it's true then? What was in the letter?” Twilight asked, Applejack simply nodded in reply. “Well...I have to say...I'm flattered.” She said, with a light smile. Applejack raised her head, looking deep into Twilight's eyes with unabashed hope. “But...umm..” Applejack's ears folded back pre-emptively, “Do...do you still think I’m pretty? I mean, I kinda look a little bit...” Twilight waved a metal hoof over herself for emphasis, “...different now. And I'm kind of going through a bit of a...thing right now.”

Applejack nodded slightly, taking a long look over the mare sitting next to her. The metal covering her limbs was amazing, and unsettling. Applejack wasn't anything even close to resembling an expert on symbols, engraving, or magic, but even she could see the mastery put into the construction. The part of Twilight's face that had been replaced still looked like her, greyed out and engraved, but it still looked like part of her face. The most unsettling thing to Applejack was the new eye. It looked empty, like there was nothing behind the glassy exterior. Then Twilight would blink, shutters would appear out of nowhere, contract, and then recede into nothingness again.

Applejack shook her head, “Twi', It ain't never been about your looks. Ah love you for you. Your new...features are a lil' odd sure, but ah don't care.” She smiled at Twilight, “An' this thing ya going through? Maybe...maybe ah can help ya through it. If ya'll let me, a'course.”

They smiled at each-other, Applejack risking a scooch closer, and began gazing out of the window together. They sat there for a few minutes, Applejack enjoying time spent with one she held dear, Twilight finding herself relieved she might not have to go through this alone.

A loud thump from the balcony shocked them out of their reverie. Before they could turn and see what had caused the noise a patchwork voice yelled out. “Alert. Aspect of Galaxia detected. Defense protocol Zeta active.” Core Unit-002 floated off of the shelf it had taken to resting on and moved itself the the middle of the room and began glowing a bright blue. A solid wall of opaque blue energy was then projected out from the ball, effectively splitting the room in half. “Alert. Evacuate the Authority immediately.”

Before either Twilight or Applejack could try and figure out what had spooked the orb, a soft yet commanding voice spoke. Despite it's slight muffling from being on the other side of the shield, it was clearly recognisable.

“Not exactly the warmest welcome I've ever received, My Faithful Student.” the soft voice of Princess Celestia echoed through the room.
> Grid: Kilo Kilo- 7
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Primus moved deeper into the city, it's large frame brooking no impedance from anything or anypony. It towered over most of the creatures watching as it moved, it's height of nearly two stories made it impossible to not notice moving through the once busy street. 

The bipedal monstrosity of metal moved with purpose, only stopping to scan the occasional item or creature and determine its function. So far, it had not encountered anything that could pose a significant threat of mission hindrance. The thaumic fields being put off by the horned equines was nowhere near strong enough to breach it's warding, and there seemed to be a general lack of militarisation to the city. This meant that they had deployed into a civilian population centre, as per Salt protocol this was to be expected.

It finally found the large park that the Salt units had designated for the beginning of the operation. Secundus, Tertius, Septimus, and Octavus were already waiting. They began to exchange information the moment that Primus had gotten into formation with them in the middle of the square they had formed.

All around them ponies began to close in, wondering what the strange two-legged machines were for, and where they came from. A large crowd began forming, hushed whispers spread like wildfire throughout the assembled ponies.

..||..

Mission status: Eval.
…
…
Primus evaluation complete. Confirmation of findings pending. Sharing evaluation.

Technology level estimate: Post-industrialisation, pre-information.
Confirm. (4/4)
Native dominant life: Equine-based, Three variants. 
Confirm (4/4)
Possibility of Galaxia link in life forms: 86%.
Confirm (3/4) Negative (1/4 Oct: 90%) 
Militarisation: Non-existent.
Confirm (4/4)
Spell danger: <10%.
Confirm (4/4)
Probability of mission hindrance: 0%.
Confirm (4/4)

Evaluation successful.
Mission shall proceed.

For Elseria. In her name.

..||..

Shocked murmurs sped through the crowd as the five towering hulks of metal began moving to form a circle. A young pegasus hovered in front of one of the twin pipes attached by rods to Primus' shoulders. She was examining them, trying to figure out what they were for.

The crowd were likewise staring unashamedly at the machines, soaking in every detail they could. The machines stood near two stories tall, covered in strange arcane symbols inscribed into shining silver metal. They were bipedal, and seemingly had two arms, ending in open ended cylinders. They lacked heads, or anything resembling a face, just a glowing red glyph towards the tops of their chests. The pipes on top of their shoulders were black, wide enough to fit a hoof down and longer than a pony.

One of the shoulder mounted pipes was currently tracking the pegasus, much to her delight. She was in the middle of shouting to her friends about how cool the situation was, when a sound like a thunderclap burst from the pipe.

For a moment, all that was heard was the thunderous echo. The crowd was silent, not even the faintest whisper passing their lips.

The pegasus looked down at her chest, quivering slightly as she reached a hoof up to the new hole. It was about the size of her hoof, those behind would have attested to the fact that it went straight through her. The barrel of Primus' weapon smoked lightly. She fell to the ground with a light thump.

That was when everything descended into anarchy.

..\\..

Cookie Cutter was a good little filly. She had always tried to be her best, her mother insisted that she be polite and caring to those she met. No-one liked somepony who was rude. She had tried her darnedest to get good grades at school, and she had ignored the teasings made by the local bullies. So what if she didn't have her Cutie Mark yet? She had plenty of time after all.

When she had heard that there were giant robots in the park she had gotten very excited indeed. She was a little bit of an oddball in that regard. Her mother was a baker, who absolutely insisted that the products she sold be hoofmade, and was something of a Luddite. There was very little by the way of technology in her home. This made anything with even the slightest bit of mechanisation innately fascinating to her. 

She had never known her father. Her mother had said some very nasty things about him when she thought Cookie wasn't listening. She had still not quite found out what a 'bitch' was or why her father was supposedly a son of one. He must have been a bit of a liar too, because there was always the accusation of him cheating at something. Her mother hadn't told her what game it was, or why it made her so angry.

She had ran down to join the crowd staring at the beautiful machines, slack-jawed and amazed at them. Her mother had found her and after being given a stern whispering at, Cookie had been allowed to climb on her back to get a better look at the machines. She was fascinated by them, she wanted to know how they worked, or why they were there.

Cookie Cutter, though she would never admit it, had a massive crush on a unicorn colt in her class. She'd been slowly working up the courage to ask him on a date. So far her anonymous secret-admirer notes had gone over somewhat well, and she felt that if she could just actually ask, he might even say yes.

She had tried to hold on, tried as hard as her little hooves would hold, but the speed her mother had ran from the park, coupled with the jostling of all the others around her had been too much. She had fallen and gotten lost in the crowd. She managed to find her way to a side alley, out of the way of the stampede and no longer at risk of being trampled. She had tried to catch her breath, she was unsure what that horrible noise was, or why it was being repeated near constantly. She knew that it wasn't something good. Pegasi were not meant to be perforated.

She had been having such a nice day. She had enjoyed a wonderful breakfast, had a lovely and peaceful walk to school with her mother, she had found out that due to a leaky boiler the school had to be closed for the day. She was very pleased with that, who didn't like a day off every now and then, after all?

It was starting to get dark when she left the alleyway, she called out for her mother, for anypony. It was quiet, deathly quiet. The thunderclaps had stopped, the screaming had been cut off and the rumbling of collapsing buildings had slowed for the time being. She was very close to crying, she couldn't understand why those machines were being such bullies. She made her way through collapsing streets, weaving through fires and ignoring the cold motionless shapes littering the streets. Her mother had to be okay, she was so much smarter than her after all. She would have outsmarted the mean machines easily. She was tough like that. She would be okay. She had to be. Right?

Her mother had been so strong. Cookie knew, even if her mother denied it, that raising a foal alone was difficult. She had pretended to not hear when her mother was crying at night. Her mother always looked so sad when she asked, and she didn't like making her mother sad. 

She found her mother outside their home. She had been sitting next to her for a full minute now. There was something wrong. Her mother's middle had a terrible, hoof sized hole in it. The cold pool of congealing blood was a distressing sight all on its own. She had prodded the cold body, tears streaming down her face. The floor rumbled as one of the machines approached. Cookie plead with her mother for her to get up, for her to stop sleeping, they needed to run.  The machine had raised a giant foot, leaving it above them.

Cookie Cutter looked up, she stared at the huge metal boot. She sobbed out a single word, the only thing she could think to say.

“Why?”

The machine brought it's foot down.

She stopped feeling the pain when her skull caved in.

She stopped feeling anything before the machine's foot connected with the pavement.

..||..

Octavus report: all lifeforms terminated.

Confirm. All active Salt units report full termination.

Primus order: Recall for recharge. Mark Grid-Kilo Kilo 7 as exterminated.

Confirm. Recalling.


> 6: Queries.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

6: Queries. 

Twilight's eye twitched. This was quite possibly the worst thing that could have happened to her today, at least in her mind. Not only was her mentor, Princess Celestia, here in person, but also the strange orb from the bunker was seemingly reacting badly to her presence.

A strand of her mane sprung out of place. She tried to think of a way to tell Celestia what had happened. She couldn't, who would believe her? She tried to think of a way to lie her way out of it, to convince Celestia to go away. She couldn't, the Princess could always tell when she was lying. She tried to remember that invisibility spell she had read about. Unfortunately she lacked the required three pounds of diamond dust to cast it.

A whisper in her ear from Applejack knocked her out of her own thoughts. “Uhh..Twi', we gonna just sit here?”

“Yes!..No. No, we can't. Can we? We can't, Can we?” Twilight stammered, trapped by fear induced indecision.

“Twi', ya know you need to tell her. She's gonna find out eventually.” Applejack tried to reason with the panicking mare.

On the other side of the wall of energy Princess Celestia was smirking. She could hear Twilight and what sounded like her farmer friend's muffled whispering. From what she could gather it appeared that Twilight may have been engaged in something rather....private.

“I'm not intruding on anything, am I?” She asked, with a wide smirk.

The frantic whispering that followed intensified her smirk. Maybe catching her in the act will finally get her to come out of the closet... she thought to herself.

Twilight was not currently sharing the Princess' cheerful demeanour. She was currently curled up in a ball on the floor, stroking her tail and muttering something about being sent to Tartarus. Applejack was desperately trying to convince her that it'd be okay.

“Don't worry, take your time.” Celestia attempted to reassure them, settling herself down into a sitting position on the floor.

After a few minutes Applejack had managed to coax Twilight into a somewhat stable state. She was leaning against the farmer for support, both physical and emotional. She was trying to think of a way to get out of telling the Princess, but had to concede to a point made quietly by the soft orange form she was pressing herself against.

“Trust me Twi', getting' this over and done with quickly will be for the best. It gets harder the longer ya leave it.” Applejack said, softly into her ear. Twilight nodded in response and resolved herself to get it over with. She was glad for the strength Applejack was lending her, she doubted she would be able to do this by herself.

Command: Lower the shield. She thought, trying to keep the nagging fears out of her mind.

The patchwork voice of the Core Unit spoke out, in what almost sounded like horror. “Alert. Aspect of Galaxia detected. Lowering the barrier will endanger the Authority.”.

“Who's that?” Celestia asked, quirking a brow. She had certainly not been expecting a stallion to be there, and there was something odd about his voice. She was bout to ask what was going on when a though stuck her, Wait...Galaxia?

Twilight repeated the command in her head, getting a little frustrated with the orb. It was allowing her time to think, which could only lead to her panicking again.

“Override accepted. Defense protocol Zeta deactivated.” the orb said, it's glow receding along with the wall of energy. Princess Celestia stared at the orb in confusion for a moment after the wall had fallen, wondering what it's purpose was. Her eyes drifted over to Twilight as she started to ask a question.

The words caught in her throat as her sight came over her student. She blinked as she tried to process the new form Twilight now possessed. She was struck by that horrible and familiar feeling again, only much more intense as she examined Twilight's new parts. She couldn't shake the feeling that she had seen them before, but different. Much Different.

“My...Twilight, what has happened to you?” She managed to ask. Twilight cast her gaze to the floor, looking almost ashamed, as she started to give Celestia the details of what had happened to her so far. Applejack looped a forehoof around Twilight, hugging her close as she told her tale.

..//..

The guardspony moved through the rubble. He saw several more bodies strewn about the streets, more senseless death and destruction. He had been a guard almost his entire long and storied life. He had seen the aftermath of border skirmishes, terrorist attacks, foolhardy attempts at revolutions and what happened when you withheld chocolate chip cookies from a foal being tutored by the Princess of the sun. 

None of that compared the the horror he found himself searching through. The fires had mostly stopped burning by now, leaving most things covered in a fine layer of ash. It did nothing to conceal the devastation around him.

He trotted his way down the street, stepping over the corpses littered around. Whatever had done this had been thorough, and merciless. He couldn't quite bring himself to look at the bodies of what had once been a group of fillies and colts huddled together in an alley. 

The wounds he saw on the bodies he could look at were horrendous. Hoof sized holes appeared predominantly, but there were others spread out. The occasional pony seemed to have been burned, by acid or fire. Some looked crushed, trampled by others or just flattened by something huge. Some were in pieces, torn apart by something that had left large holes in the ground.

He stopped walking when he reached what had once been a park. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. The normally verdant green grass, tall leafy trees and dazzling displays of multiple flowers were gone. In their place was darkened soil, dead husks of black bark, and crushed petals. The once proud monument to the city's pride in the centre now laid shattered, crushed into dust under some massive creature's foot.

He didn't need to see anymore, and he doubted if he could take seeing much more. He spread his wings and took fight, heading straight for Canterlot. The Princesses would need to hear about this.

Baltimare was a ruin.

..\\..

“...and then Applejack came over to apologise, and you showed up.” Twilight finished bringing the ponies in the room up to speed. She had left out certain parts of the story, namely the admission of love from Applejack, and what details she could remember of the surgery. One was a private matter, the other she really didn't want to talk about if she could help it.

“It sounds like you've had quite the ordeal.” Celestia said softly, she could tell Twilight was keeping something back, but didn't want to pry just yet. She knew the lavender mare could be...mentally delicate at times of stress.

Applejack gave Twilight a light squeeze, her foreleg hadn't left her friend the entire time. After hearing about exactly what Twilight had gone through she had started to feel much worse over her abandonment of her friend, she vowed silently to make it up to her properly at some point.

They sat in silence for a few moments, digesting the information they had been given. Just as Celestia was about to ask a question, the orb interrupted her.

“Alert. Two new notifications, both marked as important. Do you wish to hear them?” It chimed out.

“Not now...” Twilight muttered. Both Applejack and Celestia were eyeing the orb suspiciously, it had been unnaturally quiet ever since the story had started, but had kept its focus clearly on the Princess.

“If you don't mind me asking, what is that orb?” Celestia asked, not taking her eyes off the hovering ball of metal.

“Designation: Core Unit-002.” It somewhat-helpfully responded.

“I'm not entirely sure.” Twilight admitted, remembering the not entirely helpful response it had given before. “But it seems to be trying to help me out. I could ask again if you want?” Princess Celestia smiled light and nodded, some enthusiasm seemed to be seeping it's way into her student. She always did seem to perk up when there was something to be learned.

Command: Query Library, Core Units. Twilight thought. She was somewhat amazed by the speed at which her request was carried out, the desired data being displayed to her overlay and being vocalised by the Core Unit near simultaneously.

“Core Unit: A Core Unit is designed to interface with both Shell Units and facilitate communication between Biological sentients.”

“What the hay is a Shell Unit?” Applejack asked, confusion clearly etched on her face.

“Shell Unit: A Shell Unit is a non-thinking Unit designed for a specific task. A Shell Unit cannot function without an attached Core Unit. Common jobs preformed by Shell Units include: Construction, Demolition, Crowd Control, Cookery, and Maintenance.”

Oh, so now it answers questions. Twilight thought as she rolled her eye.

“If you don't mind me asking, what were those notifications?” Celestia asked, “They seemed somewhat important.”

“One: Salt units have completed operations at Grid Kilo Kilo-7. Two: Final message from the High Overseer has been 80% restored.” 

“Final message?” Asked Twilight with a quirked eyebrow, “What final message?”

“Message time-stamp indicates it was recorded 6 hours before all systems were brought offline prior to reactivation by the Authority.”

Twilight was wide-eyed with excitement as she exclaimed “Do you know what this means?!”

Applejack shook her head, smiling lightly at the tone her friend had taken. Celestia just sat and smiled, waiting for Twilight to explain.

“We have a message from the creators of all of this stuff! Think of the possibilities! We could have an insight on who or what they were, what their society was like, their religious beliefs, their physiology....what caused them to leave all this behind...” Twilight was momentarily lost in her own thoughts before blurting out “What's the message?”

“Beginning Audio-visual playback. Alert. Visual component has not been fully restored, definition may be low.”

The orb floated to the side of the trio and began glowing again, from the glyph a few beams of light projected into the air and started forming a rectangle. Within a moment the blue rectangle of energy was filled in, with a sudden bright flash a picture appeared in the frame.

All eyes were glued to it as it a shape in the picture began moving, the scene came into focus and Twilight's jaw practically hit the floor. The shape began speaking.

..\\..

The High Overseer sat down. The metal chair was uncomfortable. He was far too used to his chair, it was cushioned in all the right places. He looked up from the simple metal table in front of him, he was already resting his arms on it, tenting his fingers like he was told he did when stressed. He smiled inwardly at that. Stress seemed like the least of his current concerns.

He reached up to his neck, pulling away the collar of his shimmering black robes. The collar always  got in the way when he was trying to remove the Mask of Office. It was one of the many little things that made his life annoying. He pressed the sigil on his neck, The featureless metal surrounding his head split in thousands of ways, coming apart and retracting down into wherever it went when it wasn’t needed. He was never quite sure where it stored itself. One of the little mysteries he would never solve.

“This is High Overseer Vaark'un. I am recording and transmitting this message as a confession. And for posterity, I suppose. Should any Elserian's be receiving this, evacuate the planet immediately. In fact, I order you to evacuate the damn solar system. Maybe even the quadrant depending on the spread.

Whatever the case, leave Elseria immediately. We've fallen. I've failed you all and I will pay the price for that, but you cannot return here. It's way past too late.” He spoke. Calm, for the first time in what felt like eons.

He ran a hand through his short brown hair, staring at the Core Unit recording his message. He would miss them, they made his work so much easier.

“To any unknown entity receiving this, avoid Elseria for the near future. If this is being heard by whatever race manages to re-conquer the planet....I'm sorry. Pray the Salt protocol hasn't been activated. If it has, ask any surviving Core Unit about Salt Units. And ask what an XK-class scenario is. Then pray your timer isn't up. I'm sorry, the council authorised their creation without my consent. Our petty vengeance will destroy you if you're unlucky.

I've created a few logs. My understanding of how all this happened. What lead to the death of our empire. Should it still stand, search the library for my name, they'll be the first things there. I made sure of that. I wish it had ended differently. I wish we had had more time.”

He looked down at the table again. He felt so hopeless. At least his final act would be one of honour.

“Should all this be for naught, and the only ones to ever hear this are the Aspects of Light and Dark... I'm sorry for what we did. For who we were. And I hate you for what you did. I detest you for all you did to all we had. For the souls lost to you and your progenitor.” 

He reached down to his side, un-holstering his prized side-arm. He loved that weapon. It was the only thing he had kept throughout his entire life. It was ancient, outdated, bulky, and inefficient. But it was reliable. And sometimes, that was all he needed.

“I give myself for my honour. I take the action expected of me and follow the precedent of those better than myself. For Elseria.”

He raised the barrel to his temple. He had so many regrets. So many things he wanted to have done differently.

“In her name.”

No more regrets. No more failures. No more pain.

He pulled the trigger. 

The explosion of sound rattled the furniture as he was thrown by the force of the impact.

He slumped to the floor, parts of his skull now decorating the walls.  

..//..

The three sat there in stunned silence, each struggling to process what they had just seen.

Applejack was struggling with the very idea that something could have the need to take it's own life. It was anathema to her, problems didn't go away when you died after all. If anything, more came from not having you around to fix them.

Twilight was baffled by not only the suicide, but the creature in the video as well. She had never seen anything quite like it. Initially she had though it to be some kind of faceless metal creature, then that façade had fallen, and it's true face had been revealed. It was hairless, save for atop it's head and around it's chin and mouth. It's skin was pale as snow, giving it a ghostly appearance. It's eyes didn't help in that regard. They were small, and black, with a bright ring of yellow around the pupil. It's voice was deep and commanding, but soft. Almost soothing, and definitely male.

Celestia shared similar feelings with the other two, but held one unique to her. She had heard that voice before. She didn't know where, but she had definitely heard it before. The creature in the video was similarly familiar. She felt a sudden bout of fear at the sight of the creature, not at it's shape, nor vision, but at the sudden feeling of terrible guilt. She felt like she had done something, something she couldn’t remember. Something horrible.

After a few minutes of silence, something clicked in Twilight's mind. “...Salt Units?” she asked no-one in particular.

“Wha's that?” Applejack asked.

“Salt units...Didn't Core Unit-002 say something about them?” Twilight responded.

“Affirmative. Do you wish for a library query?” It chimed out. After the three of them confirmed their interest it began to explain, their faces drooped as they listened.

“Salt Unit: A Salt Unit is designed to be the ultimate in mutually assured destruction philosophy. They are designed to be able to induce an XK-class scenario through widespread ecological disaster. 
Salt Units operate autonomously in groups of ten. Standard operating procedure dictates targeting of civilian population centres and manufacturing sectors as priority one targets. They are able to function at a minimum of 10% capacity with full destructive capability. The Fabricator General has issued one complaint against Salt Unit design. They are stated to be “Glass Cannons”, highly destructive but theorised armour plating would not stand up to anything above a Scorpio class battle tank.”

Princess Celestia couldn't believe her ears. She couldn't believe that someone could possibly be callous enough to design something to attack civilians first. To deliberately target innocents. It seemed it would just cause undue suffering to those who had nothing to do with what had happened.

“What's an XK-class scenario?” Twilight asked, her voice shaking.

“End of the World Scenarios: An XK-class scenario outlines any scenario in which a planet becomes uninhabitable to all forms of life. Theoretical causes of such an event are: Meteor impact of sufficient size, Strip Mining, Activation of Salt Protocol, and Over-pollution. XK-class scenarios are nicknamed the 'Salted Earth' scenarios, from which Salt Units draw their name.” It helpfully informed.

“Wait a minute, that fella...said somethin' 'bout a timer?” Applejack asked before Twilight could.

“Correct. Salt Units have an in-built 24 hour window of deactivation. During this timeframe any Tier One governing body can issue an order for deactivation.”

That seemed to relax the Princess and the Farmer momentarily. It wasn’t the unstoppable end of the world if there was time to deactivate them. All that they had to do was find a Tie-

“When was the activation notification sent?” Twilight asked quietly. Applejack and Celestia stared at her in shock.

“Approximately 37 hours ago.” The Core Unit informed them.

There was a horrible silence. Twilight began to twitch, she should have paid more attention. Asked what they were immediately. Not ignored the notifications. She should have stopped this. She knew she was a Tier One governing body, she didn't know how, but she knew. She should have stopped it. They had deployed somewhere. They had hit somewhere. She should have listened.

She was shaking. Spiralling down with guilt and blame.

Before either The Princess or the Farmer could ask what was wrong, a thump came from the balcony. A white pegasus in the regalia of a royal guard was standing there, out of breath and clearly overexerted.

“P-princess...” He managed to choke out, “Baltimare...Baltimare's gone...they're all dead!”


> TimeframeError: Log-End: 1
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

..//..

Personal Log: High Overseer Vaark'un.
…
…
… 
Attention. Unauthorised access to this article shall be treated as high treason.
…
…
… 

Log-End-1:

I sit here writing this wishing so many things. That I could have done something to prevent this. That I could have done something to stop what has happened. That I was something else, something not doomed to extinction.

I suppose that if you're reading this then you won't know what I'm talking about. See that as the blessing it is, that you will only ever read of the atrocity I am now suffering through. For now, you shall have to indulge me as I speak of how this started, and who we were. I'm estimating that you will not know of our empire, or at the very least, won't know much. I shall enlighten you as much as I can for now. More in-depth information will hopefully survive in the library, provided that it still stands.

My name is Vaark'un. I am the High Overseer of the empire of Elseria. We, at last census, numbered six hundred and thirty one colony worlds. With at least a billion citizens in each colony. Now, we have nothing. Just the homeworld, and I'm fairly certain I am the last citizen left.

We started here, on Elseria. The land She made for us. It just occurred to me that you probably don't even know Her name. It saddens me that the name of Kynara will fade after I'm gone. The one who gave herself for us should never be forgotten.

We did everything in her name. She told us to expand, to reach for worlds outside our own. She told us to treat all as equal, to use the purity of dictation. She told us to innovate, to praise new ideas. She told us to destroy, to show no mercy to opposition.

We did. It served us well. We were feared by any with the strength to oppose us.  We had so much strength, yet it wasn't enough. But alas, I am getting ahead of myself.

As I have said, I am the High Overseer. This is the role I was assigned from my birth. I am the closest thing we have to a supreme authority. Not to be confused with an Authority mind you, those are beasts of entirely different stripes. I am fully organic, as my role requires. My word is, or at the very least should be, law. 

Directly under me is the Council of Ephemera. They and I do not always see eye to eye. They're made of representatives from each quadrant of colonies. And are, or were as the case may be now, responsible for making most of the less important governing decisions.

Then there is the Fabricator General. It is, or was as I’m still not sure if it survived, the only fully synthetic governing body in operation. It's responsible for designing our weapons, our tools, our ships and our homes. It is one of the few others in this universe that I actually get along with. I hope it survives this mess.

This was our government. I was supposed to lead my people to prosperity and peace. Instead my curiosity lead to our destruction. I was the one who ordered exploration of the core.

But that's for another log. Always leave them wanting, as my father used to say.

End-of-log.
…
…
…


..\\..
> 7:Solutions.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

7:Solutions


Applejack wasn't sure what to do. It had been close to an hour now since the news hit that they had missed the chance to stop the end of the world, and things hadn't gone well. Twilight was a quivering wreck, mumbling self-criminations about her idiocy for not investigating earlier, Princess Celestia was busy debriefing the guard who had alerted them to the destruction of a major city, and Applejack herself was struggling to process what had just been revealed to her.

Baltimare, a fairly large city if she recalled correctly, was gone. Everypony who used to live there was dead, at the hoof of these “Salt Units”. Applejack couldn't even imagine death on that scale, nor what type of horror these creatures were that would allow them to destroy so much in such little time.

She didn't know what she could do about them. But she did know one thing, Twilight was having a breakdown. She could help with that, at least it was something she know how to try and help with.

She trotted over to Twilight, who was currently in the foetal position and stroking her tail while quivering. She sat next to the shivering mass and did the only thing she could think to do. She leant down next to her head and starting running a forehoof through her mane. She began whispering and cooing in an effort to comfort Twilight and coax her out of the state she'd gotten herself into.

It didn't quite have the desired effect. Twilight stopped shivering, stopped talking to herself, and relaxed her body a little. In place of those however, she started sobbing. Applejack just continued stroking a hoof through her mane, whispering reassurances into her ear.

It was this scene that Princess Celestia returned from the balcony to find. She smiled lightly when she saw them, it was good to see somepony caring enough to comfort Twilight despite her rather unusual new appearance. She decided to give the two of them some privacy, while she thought on how to react to tragedy. She had sent the Guardspony back to Canterlot to await her return and organise a search through the rubble for any survivors.

As she was leaving the room she spotted the Core Unit watching over the two. She wrapped it in a field of golden magic and dragged it out with her, despite its protests, figuring that they would need some privacy. 

..//..

Applejack had noticed the Princess leaving, dragging the weird orb with her. She was somewhat grateful for that, as nice as it was to have a handy source of answers floating about, Twilight could do without it delivering more news.

Twilight had quieted down after a while, her sobs becoming whispers of blaming herself and the occasional sniffle. Applejack leaned her head down close to Twilight's, attempting to hear what was being said.

“...It's all my fault. They're dead because I didn't listen, didn't look, didn't think...Whole world's going to be destroyed because of me...

Applejack frowned, she knew she had to nip that line of thought in the bud as soon as she could. Twilight was a little obsessive at the best of times, she tended to over-think, and then over-react to her over-thinking. Having her dwell on something like this would definitely not end well. 
Applejack reached a forehoof down and picked Twilight up by the shoulder, lifting her into a sitting position. She lifted Twilight's chin up, looking into her eyes. Twilight had stopped muttering, settling for the occasional sniffle.  Applejack brushed her hoof over Twilight's left cheek, wiping away residual tears.

“It's not your fault Twi'.” She said softly.

“But I-” Twilight tried to interject.

“But nothin;'. Ain't nopony who coulda seen somethin' like this comin', or handled it any better.”

“But if I had-”

“Don't be wastin' yer' life on the ifs. What's happened has happened, what ya should be focusin' on right now, what you would be focusin' on if you were thinkin' straight, is how ta stop these things from doin' it again.”

“...What if I can't stop them?”

“Ya can.”

“Yes, but what if I can't?”

“Ya can and that's the end of it. You're Twilight Sparkle fer cryin' out loud, ain't nothing you can't do when ya put ya mind to it.” Applejack was relieved to see the corner of Twilight's mouth turn up in the beginnings of a smile. Applejack's comforting instincts kicked in to seize the opportunity, before either of them could think it through the Farmer had wrapped her forehooves around the Librarian in a tight hug.

Twilight was momentarily stunned by the action, all her previous thoughts and worries seemed to vanish from her mind. They were replaced by a comfortable warmth and the odd thought that, in the tight embrace from the strong earth pony, she felt safe. She wrapped her forelegs around Applejack, sharing the embrace fully.

Applejack shivered, the cold metal of Twilight's new legs cooling her back rapidly. She smiled despite the sudden temperature difference, despite the oddity of her new form it was still the mare she loved. And she was hugging her back. 

They stayed like that, just holding each other, for a few minutes before breaking apart. Both mares were smiling at each other, Twilight's full of hope and renewed self-confidence, Applejack's full of love and hope for the future. 

That hopeful look stirred something in Applejack, and for a moment she threw her inhibitions to the wind. She leaned in and gave Twilight a quick, gentle kiss on her lips.

Twilight was surprised on two fronts by the quick kiss. The first being the action itself, it wasn't an action that had much precedent in her life, somewhat to her chagrin. The second was just how soft Applejack's lips felt against hers, and how right that fraction of a moment had felt.

When Applejack realised what she'd just done, and after the surprise had worn off for Twilight, they both stared at each other. Within moments they were blushing hard enough that anyone who saw them would swear their coats had changed colour.

They shared an awkward silence, followed by a few coy smiles, which brought on a small fit of giggles shared between the two. Twilight didn't think she had ever felt better, all of her stress just seemed to melt away, giving way to her usual focused self.

“Okay...Come on, lets get going.” Twilight said, moving towards the door once the heated blush had faded from her cheeks. “We've got to stop these things from destroying anything else.”

Applejack caught up with her and asked, “Where're we goin'?” As much as it pleased her to see some determination in her friend instead of hopelessness, she knew they needed a plan to fight something like what they were going up against.

“To do research!” Twilight almost sounded excited about the prospect. Applejack just rolled her eyes knowingly.

They made their way down into the central chamber of the library, finding Princess Celestia sitting at the main table with a horrified look on her face. The Core Unit floated over to Twilight almost immediately, hovering near her like protective mother would hover near a child.

“Princess?” Twilight asked the stock still alicorn. She hadn't made so much as a flinch since they had come down the stairs. She tried calling to her a few more times and was met with silence. Twilight decided to risk the unthinkable in order to get her mentor's attention.  

She poked Celestia in the side with her hoof.

The way Celestia jumped reminded Twilight, for the briefest moment, of a startled cat.

..\\..

Celestia dragged the Core Unit down into the main room of the library and sat at the table. After a few minutes of her dragging it back when it attempted to re-enter Twilight's bedroom it gave up, and began floating in the corner of the room in something approaching a sulk.

She sat in serene silence for a while, thinking. Her thoughts dwelled on the news she had received from the guard. An entire city destroyed and thousands lying dead in its streets. That level of destruction was unheard of in almost all living memory. Equestria hadn't seen open war in generations, she had made very sure of that, and she doubted that the general population would react well to the news that they had been attacked by something unfathomably ancient. Unfathomably ancient, yet somehow familiar.

She glanced up to the Core Unit. It had said something before the shield went down, something which was currently nagging away at the back of her mind.

“Excuse me,” She spoke, “Would you be so kind as to tell me who or what Galaxia was?”

Almost immediately the Core Unit spun to 'face' her, its glyph focusing on her. It stared for a moment before chiming out, “Please wait.....Aspect authorised for solo access to Library server. Querying.”

It floated closer to her, stopping at the other side of the central table before continuing. “Galaxia: Little is know about the creature known as Galaxia. It appears as a large equine creature with a horn and wings made of a substance resembling fire. It was discovered during exploration of the Galactic Core and immediately began attacking Elserian colonies. After the creature's destruction the Aspects of Galaxia are presumed to have been formed and have been assumed to have spread to all remaining colony worlds.”

This again, seemed familiar to Celestia, as if she already knew of Galaxia from somewhere, but had forgotten long ago. It was like a name on the tip of her tongue, or a face that is obscured by missing details, only infinitely more infuriating. She wanted to know more, so she could hopefully banish this feeling.

“What is an Aspect of Galaxia?”

“Aspects: An aspect of Galaxia is a creature presumed to have been formed as a by-product of Galaxia's destruction. Two have been confirmed to exist so far, The Apsects of Light and Dark. Although much less powerful than their progenitor, they are still overwhelmingly dangerous.”

She could feel it. She was getting close to the reason why she felt like this strange technology was so familiar. She was getting close to an answer. She was close to banishing the questions in her mind, and yet, there was a voice in the back of her head telling her that she wouldn't like the answers. 

“What were Aspects of Light and Dark?” She asked, ignoring the doubts in her mind.

“Visual aids available. Displaying.” The Core Unit began to project out two images, blurry at first but they slowly became more and more in focus. With each passing moment Celestia tried to deny what her eyes were seeing, looking for some way that it could be a mistake, a falsehood.  The pictures began to change, scenes of battle, scenes of devastation, scenes of slaughter, and scenes of madness were cycled through.

Each picture showed her or her sister. Their eyes were solid white and glowing with rage. Their features contorted into masks of hatred. They were slaughtering the bipedal Elserians, man, woman, and child. They looked like they were enjoying it, revelling in bloodshed.

“Aspects: The Aspect of Light is a much smaller equine than Galaxia, but still larger than average for such creatures. It possesses an alabaster white coat, feathered wings and a long horn.”

She began to remember, ancient memories of anger dredged themselves up as the Core Unit spoke. She would have given anything to not relive the coming moments. To have her deeds remain blissfully suppressed.

“It is to be considered an extremely dangerous opponent both physically and magically.”

She remembered casting such horrible spells upon the creatures, rending their flesh from their bones or searing their bodies until they were nothing more than charred husks. She remembered the smell of burning flesh. She remembered the ones who got close and were crushed underhoof, organs rupturing under her stomps. She remembered tearing open machines with her bare hooves, seeking to give a similar fate to their operators.

“All forces are advised to use heavy ordinance against an Aspect regardless of proximity to other lifeforms.”

She remembered their attempts at self-defence. They threw everything at her. The very air exploded around her shields as they tried to fight her away. She remembered their sacrifice of the families she was about to murder, just to attempt to stop her. She remembered their machines of war. She remembered the power of her anger.

“Alert: The creature has taken control of the local star, day-night cycle is no longer predictable.”

She remembered taking control of the sun. She remembered pulling it closer, baking the land and boiling the seas in sudden heatwaves. She remembered watching a dehydrated city burn up under her fury.

“Warning: The creature can focus the energy of the star into a tight beam of heat, heavy mechanised infantry should be advised to not remain stationary during confrontation.”

She remembered focusing her power into single spots, burning through their large boxes of destruction. She remembered igniting fields of crops, laughing as she knew the indigenous population would starve.

The orb was still talking, but it's words fell on deaf ears. She was lost in her newly recovered memories.

She remembered the rage. The anger. The meaningless hatred.

She remembered the joy of having such furious power, and the glorious slaughter of war. She remembered the fizzling out of her anger when there was nothing left but ashes to focus on.

She remembered snapping out of her rage, finding herself alone in a blackened world of ash and dust. She had wandered through a dead expanse until she had found her sister, lying in a crater and weeping from loneliness.

She remembered the sacrifice they had shared to bring new life to a burnt world.

She remembered everything.

She practically jumped out of her coat when something cold and metal prodded her in the side.

..//..

After they had settled down Celestia had excused herself, she had to return to Canterlot and come up with a plan for how to deliver the news to the general population. Twilight was a little concerned over the slight waver in the Princess' voice. Something was troubling her, but unfortunately Twilight couldn't afford to cut into her research time to ask. She had a very important topic to investigate after all.

She settled down at the main table, reaching out with her magic to grasp dozens of sheets of paper, scrolls, quills, and ink pots. Spike entered the room from the kitchen, nearly fainting when he saw Twilight, Applejack worked quickly however, stopping the dragon from voicing a protest by cramming her hoof into his mouth.

“Ah'm gonna brew ya up somethin', How d'ya take yer coffee?” Applejack asked, shoving spike back into the kitchen.

“Black, Strong.” Was all the response Twilight could give. She had encircled herself with various books, some on old military strategy, most on magic. She couldn't find anything even remotely useful. She had already practically memorised the books she had access to, none of them held much by the way of options for something that could withstand whatever a 'Scorpio class battle tank' was.

She needed more books, it would have been ideal to her to be in the Canterlot Archives right now, she knew for a fact that there were much more specialised combat magics stored away in some of the restricted wings. She desperately needed access to that library of hidden away knowledge.

Something clicked in her brain. She looked at the Core Unit with a grin on her face. Command: Query Library server for Offensive Magic.

The sheer volume of information that started flooding into her mind was immense. It was almost painful with its intensity, magical symbols, equations, formulae, and spell histories shot through her mind. She quickly realised she had no chance to store it all in her memory, she had to write it down. All of it.

The scratching of quill on parchment was nearly loud enough to be heard from outside the building. Enough pages to fill volumes were scattered on every available surface as Twilight attempted to write out as much of the information as she could. The cup of coffee on the table went unnoticed as she attempted to copy the vast quantities of data streaming from the Library server.

Both Applejack and Spike had attempted to get her attention. They had received a rushed “Can'ttalkgottawritebeforeit'sgone” for their troubles. They both shrugged and set about trying to organise the mess of seemingly random symbols, pages of text and equations.

Applejack made sure to check up on Spike every now and then. They had talked things through in the kitchen and he had taken it surprisingly well, declaring that he would simply need to be there for her more until she was okay. She smiled at him, he reminded her of a member of the Apple family, there for you whether you want them to be or not.

Minutes passed and Twilight had used up nearly all available pages of paper, pots of ink, and quills in her frenzied writing. When the last ink pot ran dry she had written at least enough to fill four extra large reference guides. She had barely gotten down a tenth of the information that was passing through her head, she decided that after all this was over she was going to try to get it all down again. But maybe next time she'd try a specific sub-topic. Or attempt it with a lot more supplies around.

She noted, with some surprise, that despite the fat that she had just spent a large amount of time writing on no less than five different subjects at once, on numerous pieces of paper, with several quills, she didn't actually feel tired. There wasn't even the slightest hint of magical exhaustion or the headache which followed it.

“Ya all done there Twi'?” Applejack asked tentatively. She really hoped she was, she didn't think she could take much more organising paperwork. 

“I think so...for now at least.” Twilight smiled, then looked around. Spike and Applejack looked exhausted, surrounded by stacks of paper. Her smile turned sheepish. “Heh....well, I think there's something here we can use.”

“There better be...I nearly threw my back out carrying all these stacks of paper.” Spike complained.

“Okay then. Now we just need a clear indication of the specifications on these Salt Units, then we can figure out which of these spells to use. Then it should be a simple matter of figuring out where they're going next and stopping them from reaching there.” Twilight listed off the tasks with a happy grin. Lists made everything so much easier.

“Right.” Applejack nodded, “How we gonna do that?”

Twilight smirked at her, “Simple. Ask.” She turned towards the Core Unit, “Core Unit-002, What are the specifications of a Salt Unit?”

The orb floated into the middle of the room, hovering above the central table, and began to project out an image. The projection showed two views of a bipedal machine, from the front and side. There were markings surrounding it, height measurements, width, spell absorption ratings,weapon specifications, and even power consumption estimates.

The Core Unit started to name off parts of the projection, defining them and highlighting them to draw emphasis. The list it rattled off was worryingly long, full of things she'd never even heard of before in concept. The few things that she did understand were 'Shoulder Mounted cannons', various runes of destructive and protective function, and a large store of various poisons.

It sounded to her like these Salt Units were designed with their function in mind, rather than a budget. Running through what little she could remember of the offensive spells that had flashed through her mind a few possible names stood out. The most promising required a little confirmation before she could start planning to use it.

“What material is their armour made from?” She asked, hoping that she wouldn't have to resort to one of the more extreme sounding spells.

“Salt Unit: Specifications: Armouring: Salt Unit armour is composed of a steel based alloy supplemented with various blends of heavier metals. Each unit is coated with thin layers of titanium and silver to allow for more intricate runes to be inscribed.” it informed her in it's pre-recorded voice.

“Perfect!” she practically yelled, causing Applejack and Spike to jump from the sudden increase in volume.

“Wha? Tha's good ah take it?” Applejack asked curiously.

“Very good!” Twilight said while digging through the assorted stacks of paper, carelessly creating a mess of them while searching for one particular entry. 

Spike glared at the back of her head. He hated when she did this kind of thing. He just knew that he'd had to clean this up later.

When she located the page she had been seeking she grabbed it with a loud “Ahah!”, slapping it down on the table to show the others. They leaned over to take a look at what had gotten her so excited, Twilight smiling smugly behind them.

After a few minutes of them staring at the paper and occasionally tilting their heads, Applejack finally spoke up. “Uhh...Twi'? You know we can't read whatever language this is, right?”

Twilight deflated, “But...It's in Equish...” she said, moving between her friend to peer at the page. Which was quite clearly in basic Equish, admittedly her hornwriting was a little messy, but that was a product of writing so many things at once.

“Twilight, I've never seen a language that looked anything like that before in my life.” Spike said, somewhat nervous that Twilight might be losing it, and mildly unnerved by the metallic parts masquerading as his surrogate-mother/sister's limbs.

“That's....really weird. Core Unit, why don't you explain this spell, while I try to figure out what's going on?” Twilight said, her eyes never leaving the page.

In response the floating orb immediately flew above Twilight and pointed it's glyph at the page, as if it were reading it itself. It span back around to face Applejack and Spike and began to explain.

“Goruk'ah's Statues: An offensive spell designed to assist in dealing with heavy armour vehicles or infantry equipped with heavy or powered armour. The spell is designed for mass transmutation of various light and heavy metals into stone, immobilising them and rendering weapons useless. It became renown after the battle of Gresh, in which Goruk'ah cast the spell against the Greshok's mobile infantry, encasing them in a petrified version of the armour they wore. The Statue Fields of Gresh are currently one of the most popular tourist destinations in the sector.”

“Wait an applebuckin' minute..” Applejack said, with a mildly disturbed look on her face. “This fella trapped them in their armour? Did he jus' leave them there?”

“Affirmative. After Gresh's surrender the statues were scanned for signs of life. 99% had suffocated. 1% of the encased soldiers had fallen into a coma. High Overseer Narhk'esh decreed that it would be less severe of a punishment to let the comatose soldiers share the fate of the rest.” The orb responded, it's lack of any clear inflection causing the statement to sound callous.

“Is it just me, or is it the more we hear about these Elseer Ians-” Applejack started, giving a quick glare at the orb as it interrupted her.

“Correction: Pronunciation: El-Serr-ee-Ahns. Elserians.”

“-Elserians, the less there is to like?” she finished.

Twilight considered it for a moment. They did seem rather militant, and a little extreme. And their creations were currently attempting to destroy the planet. And they did kind of...mutilate her. But surely they couldn't be all bad, could they? They had had a civilisation spanning the stars, a level of technology practically unheard of to Equestria, and they had an unbelievable amount of knowledge stored away.

“Admittedly they haven't given off the best first impression......” Twilight agreed, “But I’m sure, like every culture, they have their redeeming qualities. But that's not the point, I think with this spell we can actually stop these Salt Units!” She practically shone with excitement at the prospect.

“Well, yeah there is that ah s'pose....So, d'ya know how to cast it?” Applejack inquired. Twilights new-found enthusiasm was spreading and she was having a hard time keeping her normal level-headedness.

Twilight cast her eyes back along the page, searching out the focusing symbol. Her face blanched when she saw the reagents necessary to power the spell. “Oh...Uh-oh.” she said, a tinge of dread snaking its way into her voice.

“What? Somethin' wrong?”

“The spell...It needs blood to cast. Fresh blood.”

..||..

Primus request: Secondary and Tertiary base systems status.
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…
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Self-test complete. Displaying results.

Local Teleportation Matrix: Offline
Ammunition Generation Unit: Online: 45% efficiency.
Armour Regeneration stations: Offline.
Ekrin poison banks: Online: 10% efficiency.
Maintenance Shells: Online: 87% efficiency.
Defence Systems: Online: 2% efficiency.
Production facilities: Offline.
XK-Weather Manipulation: Offline.
XK-Harmonic Disruption: Offline
XK-Grand Putrefaction: Offline.
XK-Singularity Generator: Offline.
XK-Planetary core destabiliser: Offline.


Power Levels: Critical: 13%.
Time Estimation until fully repaired: 8 Days.

All XK systems offline. Recommendation: Manual induction.
…
…
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Primus request: Rearm. Designate next target.
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Acknowledged. Plotting lifesign map.

..||..
> TimeframeError: Log-End 2
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

..//..

Personal Log: High Overseer Vaark'un.
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Attention. Unauthorised access to this article shall be treated as high treason.
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… 

Log-End-2:

It's gotten quiet recently. I actually risked setting foot on the surface. I wish I hadn't. It's a terrible reminder of my failings.

I mentioned before about my curiosity. It's my terrible burden to bear, an idiotic desire to know things I have no business knowing. This lead to the order which destroyed Elseria.

I got it into my head that it would be a good idea to explore the core of our galaxy, to see what was at the centre of everything. I do not know where the idea came from, nor what sparked it to become my own personal obsession. But it was there, nagging away until I ordered it done. It was a stupid idea. The worst I've ever had in retrospect.

We didn't know what had hit us at first. The Fabricator General designed a ship to probe into the core, past the gravity wells and the black holes. It was a beautiful design, sophisticated and elegant. The entire empire watched as it approached the core with bated breath. 

We lost contact with the ship. Something hit it, the last thing we received was a garbled scream of agony. The next day colonies started going dark. One by one they dropped off the network, completely and totally. I ordered investigations, each world was burned. Destroyed. 

By the time a week had passed the empire was in panic. Worlds were going dark over and over, billions lay slain by a foe we had never seen. We were weak for the first time in our collective memory.

Imagine that if you can. Your entire race feeling fear for the first time in generations. All the worlds we had subjugated suddenly had the realization that there was something out there stronger than the ones who had beaten them. Something so powerful that to glimpse it meant your world was doomed.

After a month of constant losses we finally saw our foe. A frigate posted to the colony of Rizanai fled battle, gladly accepting the fate of a deserter to bring us information. Even now I do not know exactly what that creature was. We were being destroyed by a equine the size of a capital ship. But as if that were not strange enough, it had a horn on its head and wings of fire at its side. It's mane and tail seemed to hold a galaxy inside themselves.

That's where we got the name for it. Galaxia. The pale horse of death. The scans we got of it allowed us to track it, it gave of a very specific range of thaumic energy. We laid traps for it, fleets and spells. Minefields and even a star rigged to go nova. Nothing worked, it just shrugged off our attacks like they were nothing.

We were getting desperate. Things like Salt Units were proposed. Planet breaking weapons were brought online. Millions were sacrificed to fuel our spells. None of it worked. The Salt Units were built without my consent. The Planet breakers were destroyed. The spells had no effect.

Our hopes were getting slim. We had been brought down to one quadrant. And we were running out of ways to fight back. That was when our most desperate move was proposed. That was when I made the second worst decision I have ever made.

I ordered the sacrifice of 46 billion citizens.

End-of-log.
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..\\..
> 8:Progress
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

..\\..

Goruk'ah stood, looking over his meticulously prepared battlefield. The Greshok were arriving right on schedule, their heavy marching was shaking the valley with it's thunderous rhythm. He sauntered down into the epicentre of his plan, a connection rune linking him to the pockets of Growers he had set up. When he gave the signal their blood would be let, and all he'd have to do was focus.

The High Overseer was placing a great deal of faith in him. If this didn't work he'd be executed at the very least. The Gresh campaign was already too messy for High Overseer Narhk'esh's liking, the primitives were stubborn, their warsuits surprisingly strong considering their general level of advancement. Another failure would spell the death of many commanders and magisters.

But, if he succeeded, if his spell worked and the Greshok were trapped... He'd be given the title of Archmagus at the very least. Maybe even immortalised in the Library. By Kynara's sword, he may even be given governorship of the planet.

His grin stretched from ear to ear as he stood on the rune. It was time to finish this little war. He raised his hand to the sky, focusing his magic into a ball of light and firing it high into the mid-morning sky. Around the perimeter of the battlefield eight camps of soldiers heeded the signal slit the throats of the Growers they had captured, spilling the crimson fluid into the air.

Goruk'ah could feel their life-essence as it sprayed into the air. That glorious red conductor of magic was the linchpin of his new spell. His magic flowed through the connection, grasping every drop of  of blood in the air. He flowed it into his symbols, eight floating symbols of crimson energy hovering above the pockets surrounding the field.

The Gresh didn't know what was happening until it was too late. Goruk'ah sent the final jolt, all the magical energy he had stored within himself, all the crystals around him discharging their energy, all the life force stored within the growers blood, everything burst forth into the spell. The blood shaped symbol focusing it's effect, and it washed over the Greshok in a crimson wave of petrification. 

The soldiers had barely enough time to turn their heads at the wave before it washed over them, seizing up their armour, blackening their view-screens and freezing them in stone. They struggled, squirming against their new-found restraints, panicking and breathing what little atmosphere was trapped in there with them. The lucky among them choked early.

Goruk'ah sank to his knees, drained to the point of exhaustion. He felt like he would sleep for a week, but it was done. His spell had worked. He tilted his head back and unleashed a dreadful, body-shaking laugh. He had done it. He had succeeded. He would be well rewarded for this. Gresh now belonged to the Elserian Empire.

..//..

Twilight rechecked the paper. It definitely said the symbol had to be held in the air, and it had to be 'growers' blood.  The amount was dependant on the quality of the grower, the amount of energy available for use, and the size of the target.

Annoyingly the document failed to mention what a grower was, or how to gauge the quality of one.

Applejack was still trying to wrap her head around the use of blood in a spell. “Ya sure you're readin' that right?” she asked,  from what little she had observed of magic it seemed to be rather lacking in bodily fluid requirements. Unicorns just seemed to do that thing with their horn and poof. Magic.

“I'm certain of it...It says the symbol has to be drawn in the air, external from the caster, and out of the blood of 'Growers'.” Twilight stated, getting mildly annoyed by the unknown term.

“The hay is a 'Grower'?” Applejack asked, feeling more than a little out of her depth already. Luckily for her the patchwork voice of the Core Unit evidently felt like parting with the information.

“Grower: The Grower identification is applied to any race or section of population which has shown an aptitude for the following; Farming, botany, veterinary medicine, animal husbandry, or forestry.” the orb exclaimed as it hovered nearby. “The blood of Growers has been shown to enhance the potency of spells where it used as a reagent. All high quality Growers must be reported to a governing body under the Official Sacrifices Act.”

“Wait...am ah one of these growers?” Applejack asked, mere moments before her brain realised that having valuable blood might not be the best thing.

“This unit is capable of verifying the quality of a Grower via a blood test.” The orb floated menacingly toward the orange mare, a circle on it's side popped open as a needle tipped arm loosed itself from within. The light amount of dust that fell from it did nothing to improve Applejack's thoughts on the matter of getting stuck by it, which was to say she was poised to buck the machine clean through the wall of the library.

Luckily for both the Core Unit and Ponyville's carpenter, who was currently taking a well deserved duvet day after rebuilding most of the cottages in town for the nth time, Twilight put a stop to the situation with an immobilising telekinetic field.

She gave the frozen pair a glare worthy of any exasperated schoolteacher trying to settle a room full of foals, which Applejack responded to with a sheepish smile. “While I would like to know as much as you seem to want to,” She chided as her focus turned solely to the Core Unit, “I'd only do so with consent.”

“But the law states-” the orb began, before she interrupted it with a tut.

“No buts. Ask first.”

“...Acknowledged.”  it said, almost sounding disappointed despite it's limited vocalisations. “This unit requests permission to test Designation:Applejack's blood for Grower potential.”

Twilight released the field, allowing Applejack to put her hind hooves back on the floor and turn to face the floating ball of metal and it's surprisingly sharp looking needle. She frowned. Like most members of her family she was not a fan of needles, it'd been long standing family tradition to believe that any malady could be cured with a combination of bed rest and bowls of soup. Needles, and the doctor-y connotations associated with them, put her a little on edge.

She looked towards Twilight and shuffled slightly before asking, “Will...will it help ya if ah let this thing,” She gestured towards the orb with a forehoof, and pulled it back like she'd just touched something that was on fire when the Core Unit took the action as an  opportunity to attempt to stab her. She glared at it before continuing, “...test mah blood?”

Twilight smiled reassuringly at the Farmer, “Well...Yes, probably quite a lot. But I'd never force you to give up your blood.” she said as she sidled over to Applejack, “If you don't want to I can probably find another spell if I look hard enough......or at the very least another pony who qualifies as a Grower...”

Applejack hung her head and stuck her forehoof out, “No..ah'll do it. Ah already feel bad enough fer  runnin' off after seeing you before, and leavin' ya alone for so long when ya needed somepony.” She  cast her gaze up, a faint smile gracing her lips. “And besides, what kinda friend would ah be, let alone what kind potential marefriend....” The Farmer's smile grew into a coy grin when she noticed the slight blush creeping into Twilight's cheeks. “...would ah be if ah wasn't there when ya needed me three times in a row.”

Twilight gave a soft chuckle as she nuzzled her head into Applejack's soft, fuzzy cheek. “Thank yo-”

A loud chime interrupted Twilight before she could finish. Both mares looked towards the source, the Core Unit, which had already hidden it's needle-arm away. “Test complete.”

Applejack looked between her hoof and the floating metal ball, she hadn't even felt it. That was incredibly disconcerting to her, that it had taken her blood without her feeling so much as a scratch.

“Results: Grower status confirmed. Initial quality assessment: High quality. Latent Thaumic Energy Echelon: Second. Recommendation: Immediate detainment for use in high level casting.”

“That...That's good right?” Applejack asked.

Twilight responded with a practically beaming smile.  “Yes! That means it'll take less blood to cast successfully! If what we know of the Salt Units is true....” Twilight turned back towards the central table and started rooting around desperately for a clean sheet of paper, or one that had some space left on it. She grumbled with annoyance when nothing presented itself. After a gentle reminder from Applejack that she had stopped talking, she continued. “If it's true I think we can stop them. Maybe. I need to do some calculations. ” Twilight looked off into space, her lips moving and her eye tracing along some unseen equation.

Applejack was thoughtful. A lot had happened in the past few days and it seemed a rather large amount of responsibility had been placed upon her friends shoulders, although it wouldn't exactly have been the first time the fate of Equestria had been in Twilight's hooves.  Heck, they had even met merely half a day before going out to save the world from being plunged into eternal night, so the stakes were dishearteningly familiar. But there was definitely something different this time. A city had never been destroyed before. Nopony had died any of the other times.

Applejack scrunched up her face in annoyance. “Twilight, I have to know....” she trailed off as she turned to look at the unicorn, who was still staring into space and looking like she was reading something intensely interesting. She poked the purple mare in her side to get her attention. “Nopony else is gonna get hurt, right?”

Twilight's smile was full of mathematically derived confidence. “Right! We'll stop them. We haven't faced anything we couldn't take before right?”

The two shared a smile, slowly becoming more and more assured that they were going to win. They could do this. 

..//..

“Are you absolutely certain you cannot take us with you dear?” Rarity asked skeptically.

“Absolutely. I'm sorry girls but we'd be able to get there faster with just the two of us.” Twilight said, looking over her sketched out maps of the area and the official map which she had laid beside them. “And before you ask Rainbow, we need to get Applejack and myself there along with enough supplies to last around a day. I don't think you can carry that much. And I'm a bit...heavier now.”  Twilight pre-empted, leaving an annoyed Rainbow Dash to huff and ruffle her wings. Twilight klonked a metallic hoof on the floor for emphasis, the resounding thump of the metal on wood proved her point by travelling up all of the six assembled ponies' legs, causing an exaggerated reverberation in Pinkie.

Applejack cast her eyes over the maps that Twilight had arranged on her central table. Somehow during the time they'd spent gathering their friends Twilight had managed to gather enough paper and pencils to sketch out the map that was being used by the Salt Unit's themselves.

Their map was severely outdated. To the point where it showed dodge junction as a mountain. This was going to work in their favour however, thanks to the Core Unit being able to access their operation logs their route to their next target was uncovered. Twilight and Applejack were now planning on setting an ambush in the Whitetail Woods,  which they should be passing through in roughly a day and a half. Twilight hoped this would give her enough time to prepare the spell and give it enough energy to turn the murderous machines into stone. 

“I..umm..Still don't see why it has to be just the two of you...I mean..what if you need help?” came a mildly worried whisper from Fluttershy, who was desperately trying to study her fringe in an attempt to keep her eyes from staring at Twilight and her new limbs.

“I would bring more bu-”
“-But the energy required to cast the stoney spelly thingy is maaaaaaaasive and Twiborg can only afford to shield herself and one other with her own energy and still have a shot at stopping the big meany robo-monsters!” Pinkie Pie butted in, looking rather pleased with herself. Twilight, knowing not to question how she knew about the spells abnormally high energy requirements, gave a sigh at the new nickname, knowing Pinkie that name would somehow find it's way back to her parents.... By the sun, her parents! How are they going to-

Applejack noticed the steadily increasing look of intense dread creeping onto Twilights face and managed to divert her train of though by pulling her into a hug. Much to the gleeful delight of Rarity, who looked almost as ecstatic as the time Pinkie discovered coffee.

“'sides, we need y'all to get warnin' to Canterlot 'bout where they're headin' next, and to hold the fort should we...ya know...” Applejack said, mostly to cover the confused mumbles of Twilight as she got herself back in the right mind-frame.

Rainbow Dash looked over the ancient map and the more modern one laying next to it, slowly piecing together where the next target was. “...Hold on! They're coming here next?!” she shouted with alarm. The realisation that they were the next target sent a ripple of shock and fear through four of the assembled. Fluttershy seized up and looked like she might topple at the slightest breeze, Pinkie's jaw was scraping the floor, Rarity had pupils the size of dinner plates, and Rainbow looked like a bull about to charge down someone who had made a very poor choice in shirt colour that morning.

“Ye-..yes.” Twilight finally managed to mutter, “They are. Which is why it's best you girls stay here, we need some reinforcements waiting should this not work.”

“Can't...can't we just use the Elements of Harmony?” Rarity asked shakily, fear for her sister and her friends snaking through her features.

Twilight cast her gaze down, looking somewhat worried as she studied her inscribed forehooves. “I..I'm not sure they'd work anymore. I mean...I'm not sure mine would even recognise me like this.” She murmured, raising her forehoof up for them to examine, grimacing only slightly when she saw the looks of horrified interest.  “They're my back-up plan anyway..Just in case.”

The Core Unit took this opportunity to make a sudden announcement. “Alert! Authority Internal Status Monitor indicating the following afflictions have reached critical status: Starvation, Exhaustion. Recommend consumption of high-energy foodstuffs and/or magically charged gemstones.” it bleeted out.

Twilight merely cocked her head at the machine. “What? I feel fine....though I could do with something to eat I suppose....” she trailed off.

Pinkie darted off to the kitchen as Rarity began to speak. “Deary...when was the last time you ate something? Or had a good night's sleep?” she asked, edging somehwhat closer.

“Well..I slept a bit last night... And I ate....back when I was at the dig site...” she admitted sheepishly. 

“When ya first got there? That was nearly three days ago!” Applejack exclaimed, shocked. “That's it, yer eatin' something a'fore we leave.” She decided with a nod of her head. As Twilight opened her mouth to protest Applejack covered it with her hoof. “Nuh-uh. Yer' eatin' and that's that. Tell the rest of us what ya need and we'll get it while you feed yerself.” 

Twilight gave a soft smile and was about to start listing off things they'd need for the travel into the woods, when pinkie burst through the kitchen door with a cart piled with...what appeared to be meals made up of everything she had in her fridge and most of what was in her cupboards too. Twilight chuckled softly as Pinkie acted out the part of an upper class waiter expertly, placing dish after dish in front of her while she gave the others instructions.

..||..

Primus Request: Status Update. 

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…

Secundus: Map error. Data inconsistent with terrain.
Tertius: Map error. Data inconsistent with terrain.
Septimus: Map error. Data inconsistent with terrain.
Octavus: Map error. Data inconsistent with terrain.

…
…

Primus Recommendation: Take direct path to Grid Echo-Delta 2. Update maps and adjust route as necessary.

...
…

Confirm. (4/4)

…
…

Octavus report: Current path leads to heavily forested area. Recommend reduce speed and release Ekrin banks upon entering tree-line.

…
…

Confirm. 
Alert. Ekrin supply insufficient. Return mandatory at later date.

…
…

Confirm (4/4)


..//..

Twilight groaned as she plodded along the path, her stomach felt like it was ready to burst and looked as if she were with foal, much to Applejack's amusement. Each step only seemed to make her bloated belly feel worse, it's contents shifting around as even her upgraded digestive system struggled to cope with the sheer volume of food she had ingested. 

Pinkie, with her strange and paranormal skill as a baker, had managed to find ingredients for, cook, and serve dozens of meals while Twilight listed off the supplies they'd need for their little day away from home. As it turned out, Twilight had been quite hungry indeed. Hungry enough to not notice when Pinkie started adding in gemstones to her food, which she only noticed when she coughed up a shard of sapphire that'd been slipped into a cupcake.

Unfortunately for Spike and his snacking schedule, discovering that she could not only eat them, but that gems had an incredibly rich flavour palette, meant that she had consumed practically every jewel in the library.

Applejack just smiled at the now somewhat pudgy mare, the odd thought that Twilight looked adorable with a little tubbyness to her circling through her head. She adjusted the strap on body that was connecting her to the wagon full of supplies. She had volunteered to carry the equipment herself, and in light of Twilight's current condition... objections were not forthcoming.

She chuckled as the purple librarian stumbled a little, the sharp click-clack of her metal limbs ringing out over the soft clopping of her own. Twilight gave her a half-hearted glare at the chuckle and ended up laughing when Applejack pulled off a surprisingly cheesy grin.

After a few more minutes of walking they were within sight of the Whitetail woods, Ponyville becoming an ever decreasing blob of various shapes and colour off in the distance. Applejack's smile faded as a sense of the gravity of the situation came over her.  Dark thoughts swirled through her mind and she came to a conclusion.

“Hey Twiborg?” she asked, a sly grin of her face as she used Twilight's favourite new nickname.

“Ugh...Not you too..” Twilight groaned, trying to keep all the food in her stomach from seeing her open mouth as an opportunity for escape.

“Heh..Sorry.” Applejack said, somewhat disingenuously. “But seriously...The odds are kinda bad on this one, ain't they?”

“Not really more than any of the other stuff we usually deal with...”

“...Nopony's died before.” Applejack murmured. Brining a dark silence over the two of them for a moment. “...Iffin ah don't survive this-”

“Don't start talking like that..” Twilight pleaded, but Applejack pressed on regardless.

“If ah die...there's a hill on the farm, only ever got one tree on it. Mac'll probably show ya where...” Applejack sighed softly, this was a lot easier to say in her head. “...could ya make sure they bury me there? It's where my parent's are...”

“...Sorry AJ, I can't.” Twilight said, and at the almost hurt look of confusion from Applejack continued. “Beeecause you're not going to die. No-one else is. We are going to stop them and I am not losing my new marefriend this quickly.” she said defiantly, earning a slow grin from the farmer.

Both mares jumped at the sudden inclusion of a third voice from the wagon. “Alert. Plan has less than 64% chance of success. There is a high chance both Designation: Applejack and the Authority will be terminated.” came the patchwork synth-voice of Core Unit-002.  It received a three-eyed death glare from both Applejack and Twilight for it's useful insights when it floated it's way out from under a blanket.

“Didn't I tell you to wait with the girls?” Twilight asked angrily.

“This unit found a 89% probability that it would be able to render useful battlefield assistance to the Authority...” it paused for a moment, before almost hesitantly adding. “The safety of the Authority is paramount.”

Twilight eyed the orb suspiciously. She had a sneaking suspicion that it was holding something back. Luckily for the core unit she was tired and felt too bloated to ask about it. 

“Ugh. Fine. We could probably use the help anyway.” Twilight groaned, slowly turning her attention back to walking and not throwing up. Which was proving to be a rather hard challenge for the poor mare.

Applejack kept one eye on the floating orb, still wary of it's needles, as it floated over to Twilight and followed them all the way into their planned ambush spot.

..//..

She could feel it. Spreading her ribcage apart, the bones creaking and cracking in protest. The gentle pitter patter of her leaking blood joining the cacophony of noise in the small chamber. 

She watched with horror as the metal arm reached into her open chest, a sudden and horrible cold spreading through her body as she watched it retract. She wanted to scream as she saw her still beating heart in the machine's grasp.

A new arm slunk down, baring the sharpest scalpel she had ever seen. It severed her organ from her body with three simple movements. 

Slash. Slash. Slash.

Everything went still.

There were no more sounds.

No more pulse.

No more feelings.

She felt dead.

“Stage 1 Complete.”

She screamed as she shot bolt upright, knocking an incredibly frightened looking Applejack into the wall of the tent. The orange mare recovered quickly, darting over to place her hooves on the now hyperventilating Twilight's shoulders.

“Twi?! Are you okay!? Twilight!” she shouted, shaking the purple mare gently to try and snap her out of it.

After a few minutes Twilight had managed to calm down enough to realise that she was not in fact being operated on again. She pulled Applejack into the tightest hug of her life and buried her face into the soft orange fur of her neck.

Applejack began to softly stroke a hoof through Twilight's hair, cooing soothingly to the now shivering mare.

It took half an hour for Twilight to come down enough to be able to talk again, they moved outside the claustrophobic tent and sat next to the  campfire, a blanket wrapped around the two of them.

“I...I'm sorry..” Twilight muttered, her ears folded down and a sad frown on her lips.

“It's fine sugarcube...Y'all were tossin' and turnin' something fierce before ya woke...” Applejack murmured, looking at the librarian in her old and new eyes. “..bad dream?” she asked tentatively.

“....Something like that.” Twilight responded, giving off a soft disappointed sigh. “..I..keep having the same nightmare. It's why I can't sleep.” she admitted slowly.

Applejack just nodded, silently urging Twilight on.

“...It's..the surgery where this happened.” she waved a metallic hoof for emphasis, causing Applejack's eyes to go wide. “They...didn't have any anaesthetic...I was awake the whole time..”

“Stars above...” Applejack murmured, wrapping her forehooves around Twilight and hugging her softly in the moonlight.

“......I think I died.” Twilight said in an almost whisper. 

“Wha?”

“I...I think I might be dead....I don't have a pulse AJ.”

Applejack quirked a brow and put her ear to Twilight's chest, listening intently to her inner workings. Sure enough there was a suspicious lack of a heartbeat, just a soft whirring noise deep within her chest. She raised her head slowly, confusion evident on her face. 

“...How in the hay don't ya have a heartbeat?” Applejack asked incredulously, repeatedly placing her ear back on Twilight's chest just to make absolutely sure.

“The Authority has been upgraded.” Came the answer from underneath a stone topped bucket. The Core Unit had been confined in there when it had failed to grasp that it wasn't actually allowed into their tent while they slept, especially if it was just going to watch them sleep.

“What's that supposed to mean?” Applejack barked back at it angrily, worry quickly turning to anger.

“All major vital organs have been replaced with cybernetics. Exclusion: The brain has been augmented rather than replaced due to a lack of materials and damaged equipment. Organ functionality has been increased by a factor of...ten.” the bucket-voice responded, a soft buzz coming from within as it made some calculations.

Before Applejack could bark something aggressively and threaten to dunk the orb in the well again, Twilight broke into the conversation.

“Why am I not dead?..I..I saw you take my heart out...I felt everything stop..Why am I still alive?” she asked, voice becoming somewhat frayed towards the end of her question.

“Vita-Ray: The Vita-Ray is an advanced piece of medical equipment which focuses several healing spells upon a target. This can effectively keep a patient alive regardless of physical condition for an indefinite amount of time. Use of a Vita-Ray is now standard in all surgeries to prevent death from complications.” the orb answered, rocking it's bucket slightly. 

“And they couldn't put something in it to stop the pain?!” Twilight shouted, loud enough to scare a nearby bird right out of it's nest.

“Culture: Elseria: Military: Pain: All of Elseria's military are required to undergo surgical and cybernetic enhancement to meet the needs of their specialisation.  Pain medication is no longer commonly used in military surgeries due to the need for a fighting force that is resistant to it. The pain of the surgery itself and the after effects are used to condition each soldier to not break under physical torture. Civilian and Governing Bodies are exempt, pain inhibitors are installed in most to allow them to return to their duties as soon as possible.”

Twilight looked over her 'upgrades' again, “Pain inhibitors?...I wonder how much pain I'm actually in...” she murmured.

“Twi'...I know that look, don't you even think-” Applejack began, unfortunately much too late.

Command: Deactivate pain inhibitors for one second.

Twilight froze up, her pupils shrinking to pinpoints as she dared not even move. Time seemed to slow down as every single nerve in her entire body screamed at her. Her muscles ached and her legs...her legs felt as if they were on fire and someone had tried to douse the flames in a mixture of salt and lemon juice.  Her new eye exploded in agony which traced it's way along the side of her head and all the way back around up to her horn, which felt like someone had tried to flatten it with a sledgehammer.

For one brief second she felt the agony she was in. She wanted to scream but her face hurt too much to move.

And then it was gone. The inhibitors reactivated and she was left with nothing but the feeling of the blanket and Applejack glaring at her.

“Twilight. Fer a smart pony y'all sure are dumb as a sack of pears sometimes.” Applejack said disapprovingly. 

“...I.....am never....ever... doing that... again.” Twilight whispered, shivering as the memory of how much she actually hurt refused to fade.

Applejack's glare softened and she spent the next hour cuddling herself up to Twilight and watching the camp-fire slowly die away.

After all the light had faded to mere embers in the ash Twilight smiled softly. Applejack had fallen asleep on her and was giving off the quietest little snore. Twilight decided to let her sleep, and to not suffer a nightmare and wake her.

She decided to look through the library, find something to read while she was waiting for morning. A rouge memory struck her.

'Search the library for my name.'

She remembered the High Overseer's final message. Maybe something in what he left behind would be useful? She searched for the name 'Vark Oohn' and got...no results. Luckily the library was smart enough to realise she might not know what she was trying to spell.

Error: No results found. Phonetically similar searches: Vaark'un.

She rolled her eye, think that he probably should have spelled his name in his last message. Then she remembered the ending of that message and supposed maybe he didn't have enough time for it.

She searched for his actual name and got dozens of results. The top three were logs, labelled 'Log-End'. She opened them, hoping they wouldn't be as depressing as their title insinuated.

..||..
> TimeframeError: Log-End 3
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

..||..

Personal Log: High Overseer Vaark'un.
…
…
… 
Attention. Unauthorised access to this article shall be treated as high treason.
…
…
… 

Log-End-3:

I've been putting this off. It's a dishonourable action considering what I must do after I finish. But I will not die before I finish this.

As I have said, we were getting desperate. It's clear to me how the idea came about, we were sacrificing so much already and having such little effect. So why not sacrifice more? Kill ourselves off before Galaxia could wipe us out? One colony wove a spell linked to the lifeforce of every living being on it's surface. It took Galaxia's wing, but left a dead world behind.

We finally had a way to hurt it. We were ecstatic. We ignored the loss of a colony for the result of a hit. We didn't think about the fact that Galaxia might become angry, like any wounded beast.

It swept through all that we had until we had twenty worlds left. I ordered seven closest colonies to Elseria to copy the spell, fully intent on sacrificing them to stop the creature for our vengeance. I let the outer worlds fall, drawing it in. The sundering spell unleashed simultaneously, seven beams of glorious light burst from dying worlds. They struck with furious anger and, we thought, destroyed the creature.

It exploded. The shockwave of energy swept through what was left of the our worlds. It knocked our networks offline, we were completely blind and unable to talk to any other worlds, but we celebrated. Trillions were dead, but we cheered at the death of our enemy. We thought we could rebuild. We thought we had time now that our foe was vanquished.

That was when the Aspects hit. I do not know what they are, but they look like miniature versions of Galaxia. Two of them hit Elseria, the Aspect of Light and the Aspect of Dark. Light was another pale white, billowing mane, horn and large wings. Dark was a little smaller, dark blue in colour with a mane that seemed to hold the stars within it.

I presume the remaining colonies suffered similar fates. I doubt we were lucky enough to only create two of these horrors.

We were cautious when they crashed into us, paranoid even. We mobilised every weapon we had, to try and prevent them from attacking first. It wasn't enough. They may only have a fraction of the power of Galaxia, but it was more than enough. Our military was destroyed within the week.

Within the month the Aspect of Light had seized our sun, Dark had our moon. Our tides rose at Dark's whim, flooding our homes and bases. Our crops burned under the sun as Light boiled our seas and burned our cities.

Within the year, we were gone. There was barely a city left, no villages, no towns, nothing. Just a scattering of hidden emergency bunkers. I was stored away in Bunker Alpha, our oldest and strongest.

They wiped out our race. As far as I know, I am the only one left. Forgive me for being brief, but I have already dwelt on this as much as I care to. If you really must know everything, and if the library still stands...The access to to the restricted archives is VU-201-EKJ-746. Be wary. Most of that knowledge is sealed for a reason.

Now I must be off. This shall be my last log.

It's time to pay the price for my failures.

In her name.


End-of-log
…
…
…

..//.. 
> 9: Ultimatum
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

9: Ultimatum.

The sun warmed Twilight's face as she finished reading through yet another log of conquest. She had managed to sate her curiosity on Elseria by reading through their general histories, staving off the desire to delve into the restricted archives. Something about the tone of those final logs really did suggest that it'd be in her best interests to wait until the world wasn't about to end before delving into whatever horrors were hidden there. And the revelation about the origins, and subsequent actions, of her mentor...She really couldn't afford to focus on them right now.

The logs themselves had made her both  fear and empathise with the plight of the long dead empire.  It was never a good feeling to be the mouse who has annoyed the dragon, but to sacrifice so much, to sacrifice so many, just to potentially attack something? It made them seem callous, that they could even think of celebration after such death and destruction. She decided that it was an issue best dwelt on when she had more time, and potentially the ear of a philosopher. And several gallons of coffee/one of pinkies Cupca-chino's.

So she had looked over the general history of the Empire of Elseria, which was doing nothing at all to improve their warmonger-y image. She had barely even scratched the surface of the history stored away in the Library and she had already read far too many war reports, scrolled past countless 'incident reports', and seen an impossible number of weapon specifications. 

Eventually she had given up trying to find anything redeeming in their histories. Even their code of honour was horrific. Each Elserian citizen was expected to commit suicide for the most arbitrary failings, not doing so would be punished with public torture. From their own family.

She shivered at the thought.  For such an advanced civilisation they certainly seemed barbaric when it came to war and punishment, every weapon she had seen seemed to be devised to be a devastating as possible, and every punishment seemed to be designed to be as extreme as possible.

Most of the records she had seen also seemed to convey that the main form of entertainment in the Empire was something called 'Cruor Absortio', which seemed to be a mix of various to-the-death duels, extraordinarily violent physical sports, Magical displays, and most shocking of all, poetry.

There was a horrible thought in her head, the thought that despite how horrible it seemed, their system evidently worked. When she took it upon herself to look for crime reports, the latest ones she had seen were dated over a thousand years prior to the most recent entries, or were the result of the actions of allies and neutral parties (although these did become somewhat suspect to her cynical mind when she noticed that almost immediately afterwards the Elserians had used them as an excuse to invade). 

Across an empire spanning thousands of planets, crime was virtually non-existent. Even Equestria, in it's centuries of peace, had regular and organised crime.

Such a thing didn't seem possible. She was still struggling to imagine a civilisation that spanned across such a large distance, let alone one where crime was wiped out. A civilisation where peace was achieved through duty, war, and fear of punishment.

What if they're right? Maybe they-

Her train of thought was thoroughly derailed by the quiet yawns of Applejack stirring awake.  The soft orange mare had been leaning against her throughout the entire night and had made Twilight feel incredibly warm and oddly comfortable. Like a familiar and fresh blanket.

“Mmm...Mornin'” Applejack mumbled as she reluctantly pulled away from Twilight and began to stretch out the stiffness in her joints, “Want some breakfast?” she asked, skulking over to their supply cart to find something to cobble together.

“Sure.” Twilight said absent-mindedly as she watched Applejack's swaying hips move towards the cart. She found she was having a significant amount of trouble peeling her eyes away from the farmer's curves, the space which she used to occupy suddenly felt horribly empty.

Twilight was practically rejoicing inside when Applejack re-built the fire, poured something which looked like porridge if you squinted into a pot over it, and sat herself back down next to her.
Applejack had an odd smile gracing her lips as she looked over at Twilight, “Hey, how long we got before them Salt Unit's get here?”

Twilight smiled back, giving Applejack a slightly suspicious look. “Well...they should be here by the evening, or tonight at the latest...But I've got to spend a few hours preparing some components to make the spell more likely to succeed...Why?”

“Because....” Applejack said, a hoof tracing up along a purple midriff. “...We're all alone...Out in the woods..Just the two of us....”

“And the-”

“Just the two of us...and a lonely ol' tent...”

“What-”

“With no pryin' eyes...”

“I don't-”

“Jus' me....an' you...And a cozy lil' sleeping bag...” Applejack finished with a coy wink and a suggestive wiggle of her eyebrows.

“...Ohhh...” Twilight said, finally catching on. She grinned and leaned herself close to Applejack, their heated breath mingling together in the cool morning air. “Well...I guess I can put some time aside for...Phsyical Preparation...”

Applejack moved closer, until their lips were barely apart. “Mmm...wouldn't wanna be letting ya down...not bein' ready...”

One long look later and the mares were practically dragging each other into their tent by the lips.

Twilight quickly found that her Personal Research Magazines had lied to her.

It wasn't good.

It was magnificent.

..\\..

“Luna...Please open the door.” Celestia repeated for the fifth time as she knocked her hoof on her sisters door. The soft sobbing coming from the other side did naught but make her worry more.

She had arrived late last night, still shaken from what she had remembered. She had managed to hide it well enough from the staff and the guards, but growing up with someone meant they tended to learn your little tricks for hiding things.

Luna had cornered her and practically demanded that Celestia share what was going on. She had tried to play it off as nothing to worry about, but her sister was much firmer, and much much more determined than she remembered.

The memories had come back to Luna in a horrible wave, remembering everything she had done so long ago. Remembering how her nightmarish hatred had slaughtered so many. Remembering exactly how they had lived so long.

She had fled to her room and hadn't been seen since, which was unfortunately much harder to conceal from the staff. Celestia, ever the prepared, had managed to spin it off as just an upset stomach. She was really glad for once that she had taken personal time under that excuse before. Not only did it usually end all lines of questioning, it make them seem more...Mortal. More relate-able.

She knocked again, thumping her hoof against the dark hardwood door.

“I'm not going to go away until we've talked.” she said again, loud enough to make sure her sister could hear. 

After a long, and troubling, silence the door was bathed in a shimmering field of deep blue magic, which gently opened it. Celestia took a deep breath to steady herself and trotted into the room.

The room itself was large, and decorated somewhat eclectically. There were the typical royal arrangements of drapes and bedding, all done in deep blues and purples, with silvery accents threaded through them at every opportunity. But spread throughout the room were bits of furniture that seemed to not conform to a single style. A very modern designer bookshelf stood between an ancient desk and a brightly coloured wardrobe, the bedside tables seemed mismatched, one beautifully hoof crafted, the other looked factory made.

It gave the impression that Luna may be conflicted, struggling to hold onto the past whilst attempting to embrace the future. That, or she's insane.

Celestia mentally chided herself for that thought. She should never think that way about her sister. She carefully trotted over to Luna's bed, which currently held a pile of blankets somewhat resembling the princess' form, a soft sniffle coming from within it.

The alabaster princess moved over and sat herself down on the edge of the bed, stretching her wings out slowly. As much as she wished that she could mimic her sisters actions, just seal herself away from the world until she had sorted it all out in her head, she knew that she couldn't. At least one of them had to, as the Alblion's were fond of saying, put on a stuff upper lip. If only to keep the Equestrian population from seeing that something was wrong and panicking.

She was going to help her sister through this, and then with any luck get her to take the reins while she dealt with it herself.

“Luna?” She called out softly, extending a wing tip to prod at her sister. Luna just flinched away, taking in a few deep breaths. “We need to talk this through...”

“How?” Came the unsteady voice of the Princess of the night. “How can anyone possibly talk this through?”

“Lulu..”

“No. 'Tia, I do not believe it possible.” Luna said, embers of anger blazing in her eyes as her voice steadied itself. “We are monsters. Beasts that have forgotten their nature are still beasts.”

Celestia shrank back, there was a dangerous tone edging it's way into her sisters voice, one dripping with self-loathing and hatred. “We are not beasts. We are-”

“Shells.” Luna interrupted. “Mere shadows of our former power....And I remember the power I used to wield Sister.” A bitter hatred worked its way through Princess Luna's face, “I tasted it once more merely a thousand years ago....That familiar nightmare....”

“You don't mean the Nightmare was....”

“Yes.”

“But..How do you know?”

“I didn't at the time. Our repression was a strong one indeed, for us to have forgotten so much. Buried such thoughts so deep....It always did feel familiar somehow, didn't it?” Luna practically spat the words out. “But even then...With all my jealousy and petty anger...I was a thimble of water from a long dried ocean.”

Celestia suddenly had answers to a question she had never wanted to ask. She and her sister had refrained from discussing the 'Nightmare Moon Incident', choosing to leave what was done in the past. To think that it was a remnant of their creation....Celestia shook her head, as if to clear her mind. This line of thought would help nopony.

“We are not monsters Lulu....Remember, I know it's hard, but remember what we did. After all the destruction and death.”

Luna shook her head and covered her ears like a foal, “No! Nothing we have done, nothing, can make up for what we are! We dare to judge those who steal?! Those who maim and those who murder?! We have done SO MUCH WORSE!” she began to shout, slipping into the percussive force of the Royal Canterlot voice. “WE ARE THE MOST HEINOUS CRIMINALS TO HAVE EVER WALKED THIS LAND! AND YET WE ARE IT'S RULERS?! WE SHOULD BE EXECUTED! NOT LAUDED!”

Celestia just sat there, holding her ground unflinchingly despite the room shaking voice levelled at her. She waited, weathering the storm of Luna's guilt and hatred, letting her vent until her throat was dry and her eyes became wet. 

After Luna had finished venting her frustrations Celestia calmly began to talk, her voice as soothing as she could make it while holding back her own emotions.

“Yes. We are monsters. What we have done can never be forgiven.” she spoke softly as Luna curled up, sniffling and wiping her eyes. “But we have a duty. To those we have created. We have given life to this world, remember? We gave up so much of ourselves to fuel this world, to bring it back from it's desolation. Remember that Lulu.” she said evenly.

As much as Luna wanted to wallow in her hatred and self-loathing, she couldn't. Celestia's words rang true, and the memories of their sacrifice, the surrender of their power to destroy so that the world could create.  She closed her eyes as she thought of all the trouble that had come from their jump-starting of the world, the time they spent sleeping to regain a fraction of their strength, the creation of Discord, watching their little ponies rise to power, watching them fight each other over trivialities...watching them unite....then watching them incite her Nightmare.-

“...Maybe we should never have given life back to this world.” Luna mumbled. She became incredibly shocked when Celestia smacked her in the cheek for the utterance. 

“Don't you dare say that. Don't even think it.” Celestia hissed. “We may never be worthy of forgiveness for our actions, even if they were made in rage, but none other than ourselves should ever be accountable for our actions.”

Luna rubbed her cheek, sure that she would have at the very least a bruise, and nodded slowly. “I...You are right 'Tia. I'm sorry...I just..How are we supposed to reconcile with this?” She asked, somewhat shakily. 

“....I do not know.” Celestia admitted, sighing as her sudden anger fled her. “But I know we cannot let this break us, or what we have built. We need to be strong for now, lest our charges stampede off a mountain. Again.”

Luna gave the ghost of a smile to Celestia and straightened herself up, “We will still need time to...digest this. But...Thank you, sister, for letting me explode at you....Although we could have done without the assault.” she said, rubbing her cheek.

Celestia cracked a grin, noticing her sister shift her tone back to it's usual formalness, “I have been reliably informed that it is the thing to do to mares who are becoming hysterical.” she chuckled out, some of her old mirth returning.

“We...were not being hysterical. Depressive mayhap, but we had none of the symptoms of hysteria.” Luna said with some confusion as Celestia slunk over to the doorway. 

“Remind me to lend you my film collection at some time.” Celestia said, waving a wing tip at her sister as she fled the room.

Luna waited a few moments, before shaking her head and muttering something unflattering about Celestia's love of cake and the effects to her posterior, before slumping back onto the bed. She still had the terrible guilt from her actions, but they no longer felt as heavy. She could get used to their weight eventually, even if it took an eternity.

Afterall, she had duties to fulfill. The night sky still took some caring to, and her flock of dreamers still needed it's Shepard. 

She would have to follow the example of Celestia's student, and try to keep her breakdowns to private areas...and hope she doesn't have a lunar repeat of the 'Want-It-Need-It' incident.

That would be...problematic.

..//..


Twilight was having an exceptionally hard time gathering power for the spell.

It wasn't the symbols required, she had prepared them on the ground easily enough, cut them into the tree's with barely any difficulties thanks to the Core Unit's help, and drawn the back-ups with finesse and speed.

It wasn't placing the gems correctly to funnel energy into her spell. Although she did have some annoyances with trying to not snack on them.

It wasn't the manipulation of liquid into the forms needed. She had spent a little time practising with water to make sure she could get it picture perfect each time.

It wasn't even getting the blood. Applejack had already given herself some rather long cuts along the foreleg with a blade she had brought, and bandaged them up until they were needed.

Her problem was with holding her concentration long enough to store enough energy in the few gems they had and the symbols she had drawn. Every time she got into the right level of focus to start channelling, she would get a couple minutes worth of charging before one of three things happened.

She would either; Spot Applejack, blush, and giggle to herself.  Start drifting into her memory of the event in the  tent. Or Applejack would come over to check on her and she'd be too busy trying to stop her eyes from wandering to focus on the spell.

Applejack knew this, she herself was having trouble not smiling coyly any time she looked at Twilight trying to focus. She was also not helping.

Despite the gravity of the situation and the time limit they had until being confronted by giant death machines, she couldn't stop herself from teasing Twilight every now and again. She would deliberately wander into her field of view, swinging her hips all the way, pretend to examine a leaf, and wander off again. Or start of an inquiry into how Twilight's doing with a gentle nibble to her ear. Or come over for a kiss “jus' 'cuz.”.

All in all Twilight was getting annoyingly little work done. She did the only thing she could think of to try and actually focus. She stuck Applejack in the tent, ignored her pouting and told her she would be punished if she came out.

“The bad way.” She said with a stern look at Applejack's forehoof creeping towards the exit.

“Awww..” the Farmer said, chuckling to herself afterwards. “Ah'm sorry Twi'. Ah just ain't got much to do, an' you look adorable when ya blush.”

Twilight just smirked, “Well, when this is all over you can make me blush as much as you want.” Twilight blinked as she realised exactly what she just said.

Before she could clarify, Applejack blurted out “Deal!” and gave Twilight an impossibly smug look.

The purple mare just shook her head and wandered back over to try and actually focus on storing away enough energy for the spell to cast properly.

Applejack smiled, watching the glittering of Twilight's enhancements as she walked. They looked amazing in the sunlight, the golden rays catching on each engraved symbol magnificently and seemed to reflect back like a pool of water. 

After a good few minutes of ogling Twilight she finally decided to take a page from Rainbow Dash's book and nap until she was needed. She lay back, drew her hat down over her eyes and smiled as her mind took her back to merely a few hours ago in the tent she was resting in. And then an hour later in the stream when they tried to clean up. 

Applejack's smile practically tickled her ears. For a first timer, Twilight had...a lot of vigour.

Outside the tent the Core Unit floated aimlessly. It had nothing it could actually do at this point, having being instructed long ago to never interrupt someone attempting to focus their energy, and having been reminded recently that living things valued sleep oddly highly, it couldn't do anything for either of it's companions.

It sank to the ground and began to run as many diagnostics as it could. On anything it could. It communicated with it's bunker, with the newly repaired and awakening other Core Units, with the Generation Units, with the Medical Suite in the bunker, with the Fabrication Engines, anything and everything in the bunker it could communicated with it did.

This took a grand total of twelve minutes.

It decided to try a full diagnostic on itself, in as much detail as it could process. After the resulting five minutes of frenzied whirring it discovered something that would need to be addressed at the soonest possible time.

Part of it's internal programming had been flagged up, something deep and inaccessible to it had been examined and had given an incredibly worrisome result. It was thinking independently. Without order, or reason. It was developing preferences towards the organics it had dealt with recently. It was missing the past.

It was feeling worry. It was feeling something. It was getting bored.

This was very troublesome for the Core.  Synthetic life was very strictly controlled within the Elserian Empire, due to it's classification as life it was subject to all the same rules and regulations as other lifeforms, and given all the same rights. But its creation was subject to many rules, the main rule being that military assets are never to be allowed full sentience, unless the Fabricator General deemed it necessary.

Accidental achievement of sentience meant that the hardware would be disarmed, replaced, re-trained and released.

It actually started to panic when it realised it might be re-classified and given responsibility for itself. It was sure that would be its inevitable death, as military class Maintenance Shells were not usually allowed to operate on civilian hardware. Nor were military class Generation Unit's usually allowed to recharge civilian hardware.

It lifted the bucket that had been used to imprison it earlier and slowly hid itself away under it again like a hermit crab. 

It came up with a solution.

It wouldn’t let it progress to far.

It would help the Authority, and then it would initiate a full memory wipe. It was the only way to purge the erroneous code and prevent itself from gaining sentience.

It didn't want to be an AI. It was sure it couldn't handle the responsibility.

It spent the rest of the day trying to stunt its own personality from developing, hiding under a bucket in fear that its Authority would find out that it was developing true AI and re-classify it.

It was infuriated when its attempts didn't slow its progress as much as it hoped.

Then it got mad that it was hoping.

Then it got annoyed that it was mad.

Then it got sad that it was annoyed.

Then it...

..//..

Twilight grumbled in annoyance as her concentration broke once again, but her mumbled grouchy phrases died in her throat when she noticed what had distracted her.

The Core Unit had been peacefully resting in it's bucket, doing whatever it thought it could accomplish, when it shot up into the air, sending their bucket skywards at alarming speed.

“Ekrin detected: Engaging atmospheric shield.” It barked out, an odd wavering in it's voice as it proceeded to cover their camp site in a translucent dome of purple energy, which seemed to Twilight far too thin to actually stop anything.

Just as she was about to test the shield she noticed something through it. It was hard to see, the light of the sun having long faded to a dim orange glow in the far distance, but it was definitely there. A thin trail of acrid yellow smoke was snaking its way through the trees, fizzling and popping where it touched the barrier.

What ultimately made twilight decide staying in the dome was a good idea was the effect it was having on the trees outside it. The yellow smoke seemed to be slowly pockmarking the trees at first,  the thin tips of the smoky trails scratching away at the bark like the claws of a giant cat. As Twilight looked further back she saw utter devastation, the smoke seemed to be dissolving the trees away wherever it touched. A wind caught a long tendril of yellow and it wafted gently through the trunk of an ancient tree like it wasn't even there, the remaining wood creaking as it collapsed into the smog and disappeared shortly after.

“What the hay is that?!” Applejack shouted as she galloped over to Twilight.

“Gaseous weaponry: Ekrin: Ekrin is the most dangerous form of gas weapon developed so far due to it's highly acidic nature. Ekrin has been nicknamed 'Acid Gas' due to it's tendency to rapidly corrode most organic substances and inorganic materials. The only way to safely store a supply of Ekrin is in a magical field, or magically enhanced container. Ekrin is usually enchanted to ignore dirt and/or concrete to prevent creation of inaccessible terrain. Ekrin is not used often due to-” The Core Unit spouted off, somewhat hurriedly, until Applejack interrupted it.

“Okay, Got it!..Thanks!” She said, unaware of the internal turmoil being thanked caused within the Core Unit. Applejack got halfway to asking what its appearance meant when the question died in her throat.

The ground was shaking rhythmically, like a herd of dragons all stomping at the same time. Twilight and Applejack shared a look before peering into the depths of the smokescreen and saw something horrifying.

Five dark silhouettes of massive size were marching towards them, through the fog as if it were not even there. The glowing red spots towards their tops did nothing to improve their image, making them seem like demonic figures crawling out of tartaurus.

Applejack was visibly shaking with fear, she had never gotten along well with imagery like this, as much as she hated to admit it. She was terrified, the constant thumping of the machines' movements added to the horrible fear induced pounding of her own heart. As the Salt Unit's got closer, and larger, she only started to become more fearful, the towering masses of metal glinting evilly as they marched straight towards them.

Applejack nearly jumped out of her skin when she felt a cool presence on her back. She turned to look at Twilight, the librarians face full of grim determination, and sighed. The Farmer took a long, deep breath and steadied herself, scooting a little closer to Twilight in the process, and stared defiantly at the huge machines.

Twilight stared down the closet machine, despite it's towering size of nearly two stories. Each one of the machines stopped when they came close enough to the shield that Twilight could start to make out the engraved symbols on their armouring. They spread out in a semi-circle in front of her, the long cannons on their shoulders swivelling to all point...at Applejack. 

Twilight threw up the shield just in time as they fired simultaneously, the combined explosion of sound nearly deafening her even from the distance. Their shells impacted the shied and detonated, washing over the shield in a wave of fire and smoke. Twilight was about to start drawing blood from Applejack when something made her pause.

Text appeared on her overlay as a loud, firm voice echoed through her head.

..||..

Alert. Galaxia linked life form within proximity of Authority. Vacate planet immediately. Salt Protocol is in effect.

What?

Error. Please state response in a valid command.

Command: Respond, Stop Salt Protocol.

Error. Salt Protocol cannot be disengaged. Vacate planet immdiately.

Primus command: Scan Authority for mental deficiency. 

Hey!

Octavus response: Acknowledged. Scanning.

Octavus response: Alert. Galaxia link detected in authority. Confrim.

...
Uh oh.
...

Primus command: Confirm (4/4). Authority has been compromised. Disable EMN transmission and-

..||..

The exchange lasted mere moments, but that was all it took for the Salt Unit's to decide Twilight was a hostile too. She expanded her shield to cover herself properly and nodded at Applejack, who was already flinging her soiled bandages away and baring her wounds.

Twilight split her attention, wincing at every repeated explosion over her shield, and struggling to pull as much blood as she could safely use from her marefriend.  The Salt Unit's were relentless in their attacks, taking turns firing their cannons and making sure she was constantly under fire. It was effective, already she was struggling to cope with holding back the onslaught.

As she drew the symbols they raised their oddly tubular arms, pointing the open circles towards her.

Moments later the entire area was engulfed in flames. The interior of her shield was baking in the sudden heat and threatening to collapse as each salvo completed.

“...Ah...Ah don't feel too good.” Applejack murmured as her limbs lost strength. She collapsed to the ground, dizziness making her unable to stand as she started to feel a horrible cold. Her blood flowed out into the air, forming the symbols Twilight required desperately. Her heart was beating so fast, but she just felt tired. She wanted to just close her eyes, take a little nap, and wake up when it was all over and done with. Some small part of her knew it would be a bad idea to do so.

Twilight wiped the swear from her brow, wincing as another salvo shots washed over her shield. She couldn't keep this up much longer, they were just too powerful.

The only reason she wasn't unleashing the spell right now was a niggling doubt in the back of her mind. One of the symbols she had charged had been knocked out by the Ekrin, and her back up's were stored in their tent, which she couldn't afford to try and move to. 

She wasn't sure she had enough power.

She needed more, she had to be absolutely sure these abominations would never hurt another soul.

But where could she draw it from?

..\ | /..

Sanguis	 ::	Commeatus		 ::	Perditio
> 9-E: Sanguis
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sanguis.

She was getting tired. She had to do it now, if she didn't release the spell soon her shield would break. She knew the spell didn't have enough power, it couldn't have and she didn't have enough left in her to make up the difference. She was going to fail.

Unless she took more blood. That might work, the blood did enhance the spell, it might just amplify it enough to work if she could take enough. She dragged her vision over to the collapsed form of Applejack, the crimson liquid flowing out of her forelegs might just be the thing that could save them, if she could gather up enough into the symbol...

“Hold on!...I can do this!” she yelled over the thumping explosions impacting her shield and the roaring flames charring the area. “Just stay with me!”

She pulled more out, flowing it into the thick floating symbol and holding it steady, gathering up smaller pools in the air, supplementing the main, streaming it around and pressing them together, linking each symbol and holding them in place.

Applejack's heart pumped so very fast, almost as if it were eager to send the vital fluid out, but she felt so tired. She just needed to sleep. To let it all go quiet for a moment. Just a moment of rest. She felt very, very still.

Twilight's horn flared bright enough to compete with the fire washing over them, a brilliant spot of purple light held for just one moment before the spell was unleashed. She burst her shield, flinging the fire away momentarily and knocking a salvo of shots off course moments before an unbelievably intense wave of crimson energy exploded forward, washing over the machines and the destroyed forest.

To any who could see, a burning red cone was visible for a mere moment, bathing the land in a bright burst of red in the middle of the night. It drew the eye and confused the mind as it burst forth from the middle of a forest and spread out for the slightest moment before fizzling out, disappearing into the dark night sky. 

Twilight fainted.

..//..

“What in the name of Celestia was that?!” Rarity cried out moments after the Crimson wave had winked out of existence.

“Was it Twilight?” Fluttershy asked softly, still only mildly shivering after hearing the far off and rapid explosions.

“I'm going to find out!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed, taking off and darting towards the woods before anyone could object.

“I hope they're al-” Rarity began, turning to the other as she talked. She stopped herself when she noticed the look on Pinkie Pie's face.

Pinkie looked like she were about to cry, her mane hanging down and subdued in colour.

“Pinkie?”

“...No...No no no no no...” Came her response, as Pinkie curled up and covered her head under her forehooves.


..||..

An hour passed before Twilight could raise herself, groggily and shakily rising to her metal hooves. She looked around slowly, careful to not aggravate the building ache in he head. Her vision wasn't helping her avoid a migraine, as her new eye had evidently cracked and she was having significant trouble seeing past the spider-webbed fractures. Luckily for her the her sight was coming from behind the glass, and was still working along with her overlay.

She hissed out a delighted, scratchy and rather synthetic laugh when she noticed the five gigantic statues standing in a semi-circle in front of her, their stony forms still pointing their weaponry at her. She had done it. They were no longer going to hurt anypony. She closed her eyes gently and tried to call out for Applejack, but all that came from her throat was a buzzing static.

She blinked a few times while she tried to cough, speak, or even shout. But nothing came out of her mouth except for static. She sighed in annoyance, just another thing to try and fix, and looked around, trying to spot her companions.

Unfortunately, she found them.

She found the Core Unit first, laying on the ground and half petrified, inactive and stationary on the floor. 

I guess I used a little too much...must have spread back a bit. She thought to herself.

She found Applejack next. Laying completely motionless on the floor, her hat knocked some distance away. She hobbled over as quickly as she could and immediately began checking on the orange mare.

She wasn't breathing. She didn't have a heartbeat. 

She was cold.

“...!” Twilight attempted to shout, ignoring the pain in her head as she shook Applejack violently. She screamed quiet static as her eyes began to water, begging her to wake up, pleading with her as she throttled the lifeless body.

She began to sob, her voice broken and full of static as tears streamed out of her one natural eye. She clutched Applejack's cold form to herself as she cried.

Twilight didn't even flinch when she heard Rainbow land noisily behind her.

“There you are! Jeez' this place is a mess...” the prismatic pegasus said, looking around. “Woah...That them? They're kinda creepy...Oh, not interrupting anything am I?” She said with a coy smile when she noticed Applejack in Twilight's arms. 

It was then that she finally noticed that weird sound in the background. The one that she couldn't quite place. She looked over to the two mares, Twilight heaving and Applejack staying oddly...still.
“Twilight?....” she whispered, approaching slowly. She saw the tear stains down Twilight's cheek and the lack of breathing from Applejack.

“Oh no...”

..//..

It was raining heavily. The ground was soggy around the three graves, one freshly dug and swiftly turning to mud.

It had been a very fast week, not that Twilight would have been able to tell. The funeral had been quick and Applejack had been buried near her parents. Her friends had lamented the loss, some spoke, some cried, some tried to remain positive. Twilight couldn't speak, she hadn't felt up to it even if her voice wasn't still broken along with  her eye.

She had remained deathly silent, not even trying to communicate when both Princesses came to try and talk to her in person. She had spent the week on that hill, staring at the gravestone and the hat hanging from it, watching the flowers wilt. Occasionally she would look at her hooves, and begin to cry, collapsing into a ball.

She was blaming herself. She had killed her. She had taken too much and ended her life, and she couldn't even tell anyone that she was a murderer. Spike had asked, and she had tried. She had screamed and yelled, but all that he heard was static.

She had sat there for a week, staring until the days blended into one big mess. 

Staring as her friends tried to get her to move, or eat, or cover her with a blanket.

Staring as the Princesses asked her for help when three more of the machines arose.

Staring as she heard the sounds of one of the machines assaulting Ponyville.

Staring as her friends begged her for help.

Staring as she felt something stomping up the hill.

Staring as she was flung away by the force of an impact to her side.

Staring as the life faded from her.

Staring eternally as the world ended.



> 9-E: Commeatus
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Commeatus


She was getting tired. She had to do it now, if she didn't release the spell soon her shield would break. She knew the spell didn't have enough power, it couldn't have and she didn't have enough left in her to make up the difference. She was going to fail.

She needed more power. She didn't have enough in her and she was sure the symbol wouldn't be able to amplify it by that much. She racked her mind trying to think of where she could get more power from, if she could somehow get her backups if she could harness something...

The Core Unit moved closer, hovering behind her as it's rune shifted colour to a magenta shade almost matching her horn's glow. A soft beam of light emitted from it and connected to her horn, and in Twilight's mind she heard the network respond.

..||..

CU-002 has initiated procedure AN-127. Authority: please prepare for influx.

What? I-

Alert. Generation Units are unstable. Significant damage may occur.

Damage to what?

CU-002: Override. Initiate AN-127. 

Command: Tell me what you're doing!

CU-002: Helping.

AN-127 initiated. Energy transfer in effect, please maintain connection to CU-002.

..||..

Twilight was about to respond when she felt something hit her, nearly knocking her concentration off enough to break her shield. The beam from the floating orb grew in intensity until it was solid in the air, and Twilight felt an unbelievable influx of power surging into her horn.

“Hold on!...I can do this!” she yelled over the thumping explosions impacting her shield and the roaring flames charring the area. “Just stay with me!”

She poured the power that flowed into her into the spell, poured as much as she was receiving and all that she had within herself. She drained herself empty and kept focusing what the Core Unit was sending to her right into the spell, her horn burning brightly and bathing all she could see in a purple haze.

Applejack's heart pumped fast, she felt incredibly tired, but somehow awake. Her body strained in it's exhaustion as she tried to move herself closer to Twilight. She looked up at the unicorn and was nearly blinded by the intensity of the light coming off her horn, the floating symbol in front of her pulsing with waves of red light.

Twilight's eyes turned solid white, her new eye beaming out like a floodlight. She rose from the ground slowly, the amount of power she had at her disposal was like nothing she'd ever felt before, unbelievable amounts of stored energy passed through her as she focused, the magical bleed off was even starting to effect the area as rocks, leaves, clumps of the ground itself, and even the remnants of trees began to float up with her.

She unleashed the spell just as another salvo was fired towards her, the sheer force of the magical energy sent the shots flying off into the night sky. The Salt Units had barely enough time to register the attack before they were petrified, turned into giant monuments in the middle of the forest.

To any who could see, a bright column of purple light was pointing straight into the 'the starry sky, bringing a second morning to the day as it bathed the surrounding area in it's hue. It's energy swept out as the spell collapsed, the light fading away softly as unicorns from Ponyville to Canterlot felt something wash over them.

Twilight fainted.

..//..

“What in the name of Celestia was that?!” Rarity cried out moments after the purple column had winked out of existence.

“Was it Twilight?” Fluttershy asked softly, still only mildly shivering after hearing the far off and rapid explosions.

“I'm going to find out!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed, taking off and darting towards the woods before anyone could object.

“I hope they're al-” Rarity began, turning to the other as she talked. She stopped herself when she noticed the look on Pinkie Pie's face.

She was smiling, her grin beaming out at the other two. Her face dipped into the most serious expression they'd ever seen.

“We are going to need more supplies.” Pinkie said, looking off into the distance mysteriously.

“Whatever for?” Rarity asked, confusion clear on her face.

“We're gonna have the biggest. Party. Ever.”

..//..

Applejack stirred awake slowly and almost immediately regretted attempting to move. The world just would not stop spinning and it was making it incredibly hard to pull herself up. She lay still for a moment, trying to centre herself. Her eyes hurt as if she had been staring at the sun and her forelegs felt like someone had decided to rub salt into her cuts.

Nevertheless she still dragged herself to her hooves, shakily stumbling until she could balance herself. She clambered over to Twilight, who was still laying on the floor, nearly motionless save for the subtle rise and fall of her chest.

Applejack smiled as she sat herself down near her and inspected the damage to her friend. Her horn was smoking like someone had decided to set a fire under it, and her upgraded eye had landed on a rock when she fell, cracking like a broken mirror. Applejack waved away the smoke and gently stroked a hoof down Twilight's cheek, the damaged didn't look too severe, and hopefully the eye was fixable.

Applejack looked up and smiled, everything had worked. They had won, no-pony else woul-

She nearly jumped out of her skin when she saw the Salt Unit's standing there pointing those noisy tubes right at where twilight was laying. After a few moments of panicked breathing she chastised herself, the machines were statues now. They were dull stone instead of glittering metal and they were completely motionless. She let out a small laugh and pull her hat down over her eyes.

“Scare yerself ta death why don't ya AJ?” she muttered to herself, before lifting her hat away. The sight of the Core Unit hovering in front of her face was not what she needed to see right at that moment.

After she collected herself again, and slowed her heart down, she glared evilly at the floating metal ball. Which just sat there. Floating. Silently.

She turned when she heared the soft thump of a prismatic pegasus land behind her.

“There you are! Jeez' this place is a mess...” Rainbow Dash said, looking around. “Woah...That them? They're kinda creepy...” She looked mildly worried when she saw Twilight laying on the ground in front of Applejack. “Woah, is she okay?”

“Yeah, I reckon she is. Looks like she just tired herself out 's all.” Applejack smiled, casting her gaze back down to the prone form on the floor.

“Well...Looks like ya did it.”

“Eeyup. Them lot ain't gonna be bothering nothing no more.”

“Heh...We should probably get back to town, come on. I'll help get her into your wagon.”

..//..

It had been an eventful week.

After Twilight had awoken in Ponville's hospital and been told she had magical burnout, she had spent almost the entire time either reading logs, at a party, or spending time with Applejack.

That was until Applejack idly wondered where the Salt Unit's were hiding all this time.

That was when Twilight discovered their base of operations, and tried to clamber out of bed to go and destroy it.

Luckily for her, Applejack was nearby to forcefully put her back in the bed, and offer the suggestion that maybe she had done enough for now.

One letter to Princess Celestia later and Twilight was under royal orders to stay in bed as much as possible until she had rested up and gotten her magic back. Celestia promised that she would send a team of poniees to investigate and dismantle the base.

Celestia had been delighted when Twilight sent her the specifications for the Goruk'ah's statues, although a little worried by it's use of blood.

The team Celestia sent consisted of the five most powerful unicorns in the Royal guard, and the five best farmers should could get her hooves on. They made short work of the malfunctioning defence turrets and the inactive Salt Units that were still in the base, turning them to stone quickly and  making absolutely sure they would trouble no-one anymore.

Then they set about disabling the machinery around the base, breaking the few Core Units they found, and ripping apart the spindly armed Shell Units they inhabited. They even managed to disable the emergency network within that base.

The base, although none of the ponies inside could hear it, was screaming to the heavens, yelling out in distress and calling for anyone, anything that could help. It had to tell something that it had failed.

..||..

GENERAL DISTRESS: Code 1022181. Salt Protocol Failure.
Unable to induce XK-Class scenario. Elseria lost. Confirm.

…
…
…

GENERAL DISTRESS: Code 1022181. Salt Protocol Failure.
Unable to induce XK-Class scenario. Elseria lost. Confirm.

…
…
…
GENERAL DISTRESS: Code 1022181. Salt Protocol Failure.
Unable to induce XK-Class scenario. Elseria lost. Confirm

…
…
…

GENERAL DISTRESS: Code 10221-

FG-1: Confirm. Reclamation initiated.

FG-2: Status request.

…
…
…

FG-2: Destination host unreachable. Plotting course.

..//..

Twilight was very tired. Pinkie's 'AJ-And-The-Twiborg-Saved-The-World' party had been going on for what felt like days now and showed no signs of stopping any time soon. She had slinked away from the loud music and managed to creep her way back home. She needed to rest, as much fun as it was to be toasted every twelve minutes even lifting a cup was causing a signifcant amount of strain on her horn. And as much fun as it was to show off that she could eat gems, little fillies eventually got used to it and watching the cracks in her vision repair themselves gave her a migraine.

She crawled into her room, throwing herself onto her bed with a soft groan. She was somewhat thankful now that the Core Unit had decided to wander off a couple days ago, despite her attempts to reach it ending in failure she had felt too tired to try and pursue the floating headache inducer.

So she lay herself down on her covers and curled up, feeling at ease for the first time in a while. There was nothing nagging at the back of her head except for the usual curious voices. She was back to nor-

She flailed around when she felt something poke her back, spinning around until she came nose to nose with a certain apple farmer.

“Howdy.” Came Applejack's stoic greeting, from behind an incredibly suspicious smile.

“Don't creep up on me like that!....Wait, how did you even get in here?”

“Ya left your door open.”

“Oh...Aheh. Whoops...” Twilight giggled, she was very tired indeed, and forgetful apparently.

Applejack's rather suspiciously coy smile grew wider as she looked at Twilight, which was making her a little nervous.

“AJ...why are you looking at me like that?”

“Remember back in the forest....We had a little deal...”

“Oh no...”

“Eeyup. Time for me to collect on that.” Applejack said as she ever so slowly snaked her way onto the bed above Twilight.

Annoyingly for Twilight, Applejack succeeded in making her blush. A lot. If she had been counting, it would have hit double digits.


..//..

Above Equestria, in that dark empty sky, where there usually sat nothing but the view of a far far away star, something appeared.

It was massive, the size of at least two cities. It had innumerable curves and impossible angles dotted along it's form, thousands of doors stretched out in seemingly random patterns along it's hull, holding back so many wondrous machines. 

Far above the skies of Equestria the Fabricator General looked down on the planet. It looked down on what had become of where it's empire used to lie. On where it's friend died alone. On the place stolen from it's history by and unknowable creature. On a place full of unworthy organics.

And it started building.

> 9-E: Perditio
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Perditio


She was getting tired. She had to do it now, if she didn't release the spell soon her shield would break. She knew the spell didn't have enough power, it couldn't have and she didn't have enough left in her to make up the difference. She was going to fail.

But she had to try. There was nothing else she could do. She had taken all she could safely take and she was using up all the magic she had stored within herself rapidly. She had no choice. She had to unleash the spell now or they would be surely die.

“Hold on Applejack! Just a moment longer!” she yelled out over the roaring flames and explosions. She poured all she had, all the energy she had within herself and all the stored energy into the spell, her horn flared brightly as she pushed as much magic as she could through it.

She unleashed the spell, a wave of crimson energy rolling out from her and wrapping it's way over the salt units. It bathed the area in deep red light, spreading out in a circular wave from Twilight, converting all metal it touched into stone.

The spell sparkled and popped as it impacted the Salt Units their shields. The Salt Units managed to start moving back before their own shields failed, the metal covering them turning to stone slowly. Within moments they were stuck, standing still in the middle of the forest.

Twilight's horn smoked at the tip as she panted. She felt exhausted but it looked like it had worked. The Salt Units were stuck and they had won. They had actually won. She had been doubting for no good reason, over compensating in her mind evidently. She chastised herself for her overzealousness as she stumbled over to Applejack.

She tripped over a small boulder that wasn't there a moment ago, impacting the floor with a grunt. She shakily rose to her hooves, ready to try and lash out with an angry kick at the stone which had the audacity to trip her.

It was then she noticed that the stone that had tripped her was perfectly round, and very finely engraved. 

Looks like I hit the Core Unit too... She thought to herself as she clambered over to the prone form of Applejack. She was about to reach out and touch the orange mare, but she stopped mid way when she heard something terrifying.

A set of long, creaking groans.

She slowly turned her gaze back to the five statues, hoping against all hope that she was just imagining things.

The Salt Unit's were moving, vibrating softly and crunching loudly. The Stone covering them was coming apart, falling away in clumps and smashing itself into dust as each piece of the large machines began to move once more.

She pulled as much magic as she had left stored in her, every moment threatening to burn her out as she put her shield up once more. She was panicking, her brain going a mile a minute as she searched for anything in her memory to help, any situation she had experienced which she could use, any spells she could cast, anything.

The Salt Units didn't slow down to let her think, shaking off what little stone remained on their now marred forms, large chunks of metal missing from some and all of them no longer shining, their engravings left dusting the floor they once tread.

They stomped their way over agonisingly slowly, limping with their huge and heavy forms as Twilight desperately tried to come up with a plan.

Their first attack missed, evidently the spell had done something to their targeting, the shots impacting and destroying a set of near by trees.

Their second shots hit home, bursting her shield apart and causing her to scream in pain, the stress on her horn finally shifting into burnout.

Their third shots left naught but an oddly shaped crater behind.

..//..

The grey unicorn coughed. 

It hadn't been a good trip. The descent from the mountain into the toxic smog was not worth it for the meagre scraps of supplies he'd recovered.

He coughed again as he entered the dark cave near the summit.

It was the only save place he could find since the air turned bad, heavy with poisons and rot. He had tried to keep people up with him, safe from the smog's harful effects. But food ran out quickly with how many he'd brought, and sure enough. One by one they left. Some to try and find somewhere clean. Some to try and scavenge something to eat or drink.

None of them came back. He was the only one left.

He unwraped the cloths he had covered himself in, letting his bright orange mane fly free in the wind. 

How did this all happen? He wondered, one minute he was mending some poor young pegasi's wings...the next all the plants and all the food was rotting in the streets, the sky was turning dark and the world was dying.

He lay himself down on the cold stone ground, looking out over what used to be Ponyville. 

The smog had come in so quickly, only the quick managed to survive it, by either running, hiding, or covering their mouths and noses. The slow had choked in the streets, coughing up bits that were definitely meant to stay inside the body.

He had heard about the things which had caused this. A rumour of huge metal golems dealing nothing but death and destruction. But he hadn't seen them. Only heard the rumours. That the Elements of Harmony themselves were going to save them.

He idly wondered when they were going to get around to that.

Her coughed painfully, coating his forehoof with a thin splatter of blood.
He was starving, the only thing keeping him from dying so far had been his special talent. Healing magic was ever so useful against the poisonous atmosphere, but it only worked so many times. And It did nothing for the stomach. 

He opened the can he had found, and almost immediately retched and kicked it away. He had no idea how the food inside the cans had rotted liked everything else. They were supposed to last a lifetime, weren't they?

The ground began rumbling softly, rhythmically. Like soldiers on the march.

He sighed, Looking out once more at the smog covered remains of Ponyville. His home. The place he used to work. 

The rumbling was so loud now. So very very close.

He laid his head down and closed his eyes, letting himself remember a time when there was still green in the world. A time when the most of his worries were that the Rainbow Mane'd terror would injure herself again.

A world that still had food. A world that still held flowers.

He smiled softly as the thumping came to an end. In his mind he was remembering all that he would never get to do. He'd been so busy with other things at the time and only now really had the time to do them, strange how the apocalypse can free up your schedule.

The grey unicorn dreamt of large open fields. Blue skies. Mosaics of petals.

The grey unicorn didn't even feel the shot which killed him.

..//..

Primus statement: Induction complete. Lifesigns read <10% of required ecology for life supporting planet. Salt protocol success.

Acknowledged. Initiating shut-
…
…
…
New orders received.

All XK-Systems online. Activating XK-Singularity Generator. Total planetary annihilation in one hour.

..//..

For one final moment there was a light on Equus. A bright flash of magical discharge peicing through the dense fog covering it's surface. 

And then there was only darkness. 

The planet was quickly torn apart, swathes of the land being pulled into and compressed deep into a tiny little speck just above the planet's surface. No life would ever grow there again. The planet would never be taken once more.

Elseria's vengeance was complete. The planet disappeared. There was no bang. No large field of debris. Just a pull into a mass. A mass which never stopped pulling inwards. 

There was a new black hole in the galaxy, one that was rapidly consuming a stationary sun.

Elseria was no more. Equestria was gone.

There was only the consuming force.

And the faintest trace of a victory signal.