Mass Core 3: Thebe Paridigm

The ship shook slightly as Starlight completed the docking initialization sequence. The circular unit in the center of her omnitool shifted as she transferred credits to the docking facility. Once she was synchronized with the extremely obsolete computer on the other side, she leaned back and took a breath before disconnecting her ship’s cables from her omnitool and collapsing it. She swiveled in her chair and nearly jumped out of it when she saw Jurneu standing behind her.

“Sorry,” he said, realizing that he had surprised her. “I tend to move quietly.”

“That’s an understatement,” said Starlight, sliding out of the chair. “I’m old, Jurneu. You’re going to give me a heart attack.”

“You’re not physically any older than I am. Younger, even.” He smiled, but then paused. Starlight saw him staring at her.

“What?” she said.

“Your eyes.”

Starlight at first did not understand, but then realized that she was not wearing her obligatory contact lenses. Without them, Jurneu could no doubt see that her eyes were both slightly different shades of red, and he was certainly intelligent enough to realize where they had come from.

“They’re transplants,” she said.

“From one of us,” noted Jurneu. He did not sound as though he was judging her, but just making a note of a fact.

“Yeah,” admitted Starlight after a moment. “I got them so long ago, Equestria didn’t know how to transplant non-breeder parts, so…” She trailed off. She was not sure if she needed to explain, or what good it would do for her cause.

“No, I understand. Antigenically, we match other ponies very well.” He paused. “And…well, they are very pretty. I think they suit you.”

“I miss my cybernetic ones,” muttered Starlight, picking up her eyepiece as she walked past the closet where she had left it. She paused, wondering if she should take her contact lenses as well. Her red eye-color was something shocking on Equestria Prime, but she doubted that anyone other than Jurneu would even notice as far from home as she was. After a second of consideration, she decided against it. She fit the eyepiece around her head and turned to the tall, white unicorn beside her. “So. Why exactly are we here?”

“Because there’s a reason the salarians used to call this location “the Place of Secrets”. If you want to find information on a criminal, you need to start somewhere. And there is no better place to start than Omega.” He turned slightly toward Starlight. “Have you ever been?”

“Once,” said Starlight. “A long time ago. I didn’t much like it.”

“Then you will most likely not like it much now. It hasn’t really changed much in the past, oh, three thousand years or so. I don’t even think they’ve cleaned it since the Protheans were here. You are welcome to stay on the ship, of course- -”

“Like hell,” said Starlight. “I’ve seen MUCH worse. Have you ever met a Chaos Wizard? Trust me, Omega is the Fluttershy of the universe in comparison.”

“Fluttershy? You mean the mass murderer?”

Starlight almost started to explain, but as they turned the corner toward the exit of the vessel she saw a sight that made her almost snort with laughter. The door was already open, and Zedok was literally attempting to pull Sbaya out of the door. The latter was clinging to the edge of the door with her fingertips, desperately struggling to stay on board.

“Come- -ON!” cried Zedok, tugging at her daughter but not pulling her loose. “The first time I went to Omega I was a TEENAGER! You’re almost three hundred!”

“NO!” squeaked Sbaya, struggling to hold her grip. “I don’t want to go! I want to stay on the ship!”

“No, you are GOING to go and you are GOING to LIKE IT!”

“But- -but what if there are SALARIANS?” wailed Sbaya. “What if they try to- -what if they try to PROBE me?!”

“Salarians?” said Beri, emerging from the hallway behind Starlight and already coated in her turian holographic shell. “Pfft. You’d probably hardly notice.”

“You would definitely know,” groaned Zedok.

“Actually, yeah,” said Beri, sliding a turian straight-sword into one of the scabbards on her back and placing a long Zetan pistol at her side. “Weirdest thing. I’ve been metal since I was fourteen, and you would not BELIEVE how many salarians I end up attracting. Something about being mostly machine turns them on waaaay too much. Not that I could ever even touch one of those frogs without blowing my mechanical cookies.” She pointed at Jurneu. “If you want to know what it’s like to get probed by a salarian? Ask him.”

Starlight’s eyes widened and she looked to the unicorn. “You didn’t.”

“I’m a Spectre specializing in information gathering. That sometimes requires some…special techniques.”

“‘Special Techniques’ is right,” chuckled Beri. “You’ve like a modern Garrus Vakarian!” Laughing, Beri then struck Sbaya’s knuckles, forcing the girl to release her deathgrip on the hull. With a cry, she fell backward onto her mother, knocking the pair of them down.

“Ow, my fingers!” said Sbaya, rubbing the digits. She looked up at Beri. “Why do you have to be so mean?”

“Because it’s my job,” said Beri, shrugging. She stepped past Sbaya, pausing to look back at her. “Yeah. Definitely Darien’s daughter. Good job there, asari.”

Zedok lifted her hand and raised her middle-finger to Beri, who just laughed it off.

Starlight sighed and helped Sbaya up. “It’s not that bad,” she said.

“That’s easy for you to say! You’re a unicorn!”

“A unicorn with no magic, no way to fire a gun, swing a sword, and maybe one or two tech attacks that still work. And do I look afraid?”

“I’m not so concerned with you looking afraid. I’m concerned with me BEING afraid.”

“Why would you be afraid? You’ve got two Spectres, a Harmony Priestess, and her with you,” said Starlight, pointing at Zedok. “Just stay close to at least one of you and you’ll be fine.”

“Probably,” said Beri from ahead. She looked over her shoulder. “And are we going to MOVE or not? I’m not getting any younger. I can literally feel my mortality sinking in. You are making me die. Of boredom.”

“I’m starting to wonder why I let her come with us,” said Starlight. “She’s not even that useful, and I certainly didn’t bring her for her looks.” She looked up and saw that Sbaya smiled slightly and tried to disguise it by covering her mouth. “Are you good?”

Sbaya nodded. “Yes. I am good.”

Jurneu, it seemed, had been correct. Starlight only distantly remembered Omega; in fact, it was one of her first memories apart from the hazy, distant and confused ones of her early childhood and the much more vivid memories of anesthetic-free surgery she had whenever she tried to sleep. Despite having not visited it in nearly three centuries, though, it hardly looked different at all. It was still the dirty, stinking quasi-industrial city it always had been, populated by the impoverished, the addicted, and most importantly the criminal.

The only major difference that Starlight could see was that while the people were the same, their species had changed. A substantial number of the new residents seemed to be dirtier and more criminal looking versions of several of the sentient- -and a few marginally sentient- -Equestrian species. The diamond dogs, griffons, ponies, and others, though, were hardly as frightening as the tall blondes that seemed to be the only ones taking note of Starlight’s presence.

“Are those…are those synths?” squeaked Sbaya.

“Yeah,” said Zedok, looking suspiciously back at the androids as if trying to intimidate them. “Yeah, I think they are.”

“Well, they’re certainly not human,” said Jurneu, almost joking.

“But- -but why are they here?”

“Because they live here.” Jurneu shrugged. “That’s why I love Omega. Aria gets a seat on the Council, and what does she do? She leverages it to get LESS regulation and oversight. Even the Governors don’t bother to come out this far except for the relay.”

Starlight looked around uncomfortably. She had toned down her uniform to downplay her role as an agent of the Cult, but that had the effect of making the people around her seem less wary than she was accustomed to. Without magic, she was extremely vulnerable, something that she had not had to face after so long in palace life.

Looking over her shoulder, Starlight scanned the crowd quickly and saw Beri lurking in the shadows in the distance. Even at such a great distance, Beri saw Starlight watching and nodded, putting her hand on her alien pistol. The gesture made Starlight feel somewhat better.

Still, as the group made their way deeper into the city, it became apparent that the vast majority of individuals were focused on more pressing matters. A number of people were walking around looking more nervous than normal, toting weapons and gripping them tightly. In other places, large groups had gathered, and in a few cases Starlight thought she saw abandoned storefronts that had been temporarily converted into small, makeshift hospitals.

“Something happened here,” said Jurneu.

“Ya think?” said Zedok, pulling her daughter aside as a pair of baterians pulled a stretcher past them with the remnants of what might have been a third baterian who now seemed mostly to consist of vorcha bites and biotic burns. Sbaya almost threw up.

The chaos only seemed to increase as Jurneu led them toward the Afterlife Club. Starlight could not help but wince when she saw the club itself. It was in shambles. The wounded were lying all over the floor, and the tables, chairs, and bar were all badly damaged. Some parts were even on fire. Apart from the few dancers standing far to the side of the carnage, and although none of them were dancing, Sbaya could not seem to take her eyes off them as she passed. Apart from the dancers, the only individual that seemed largely uninjured was an extremely happy and blood-slathered krogan drinking a bottle of ryncol at the bar.

“Yes,” said Jurneu. “This confirms my hypothesis. Something did, indeed, happen.”

Almost as soon as Jurneu stated that, he ducked. A krogan sailed over his head, trailing blue biotic energy as he went until he landed on a rather unfortunate diamond dog who yipped and began struggling to escape from beneath the now unconscious and bleeding krogan’s girth.

Starlight looked up to see an extremely angry asari approach the krogan. It was not hard to tell who she was; her dark blue skin, unique facial features, and most of all the cold, horrible anger in her every motion was enough to remind Starlight of the one time that the two of them had ever met.

“You COULD’T?” she hissed, the anger in her voice making even Starlight want to take an involuntary step back. “What do you mean ‘COULDN’T’? I paid you, didn’t I? And now LOOK AT MY GODDAMN CLUB!”

Her body bristled with biotic energy as she approached the krogan, and Starlight actually did step back. Even without the ability to use magic, she could still sense Aria’s outpouring of energy- -and that was not a good sign.

“Aria T’Loak?” said Jurneu, stepping forward.

Aria’s blue eyes slowly shifted to him, a look of pure hatred on her face at being interrupted. They, when they fell on Jurneu, her expression changed. If anything, it became even darker.

“NO,” she said.

“But I didn’t- -”

“I said NO.”

“I’m here on Spectre business- -”

“And you have NO business with me,” spat Aria. “In case you haven’t noticed? I’m having a very, VERY bad day. You have three seconds before I tear out your horn and shove it up your ass. Spectre or not.”

“I’m going to have to insist,” said Jurneu.

Aria sighed, and then turned away from the now whimpering krogan she had thrown out moments before. “Fine. I was going to tear out that one’s quad, but yours will do instead.”

Aria took several fast steps toward Jurneu, and Jurneu, to Starlight’s shock, took a defensive stance, charging his horn with pink-violet magic.

“Watching a Spectre get his insides turned into outsides by Aria T’Loak?” said Zedok, almost surprised by the thought. She opened her omnitool. “I’m so going to film this. I’ll be extranet famous.”

Aria turned to Zedok suddenly, prepared to strike. Instead, though, her eyes widened with recognition.

“Holy fuck,” she said. “You’re….you’re Fenok’s little girl.”

“Don’t let me stop you,” she said.

“It’s hardly you that’s stopping me,” said Aria, lowering her hands and allowing her corona of energy to dissipate. She turned to Starlight. “You can tell your turian to stop aiming that ridiculous Zetan artifact at my head.”

Starlight, soaked in her own sweat from being powerless in this situation, just nodded. Aria turned back to Zedok.

“I really didn’t expect to see you here. You’ve grown. A lot.”

“You haven’t. You’re, what, pushing eight hundred now? If you were on Thessia, you could be a matriarch. Damn. I wish I’m that hot when I get old.”

“Ha. ‘Matriarch’ would be a downgrade. Although probably less goddamn stressful.” Aria seemed to be calming down. “Now, just to be clear, I’m not happy right now. I’m happy to see you, but things are not going well. It’s not a good time to be on Omega.”

“Why am I here?” Zedok pointed at Jurneu. “Because this dolt is too cheap to pay the Shadow Broker for information. That, and to finally let my daughter, you know, see the galaxy and stuff.”

Aria’s eyes widened. “Daughter?”

Zedok sighed and stepped to the side. Sbaya, who had been huddled behind her out of sight, let out a squeak as she realized that her presence had been revealed. “Aria, this is Sbayadvlag.”

Aria winced. “That’s a name. What is with your family?” She looked down at Sbaya, then up at Zedok. “Krogan?”

Zedok shook her head. “Yahg.”

Aria winced again and then suddenly burst out laughing. “You’re kidding?”

“Does this look like my kidding face?”

“Wow,” said Aria. “You are definitely Alaelia’s daughter. She used to have the same motto for men and guns: go big or go home.” Aria turned her attention to Sbaya, who stood hesitantly. “Hello,” she said, calmly.

“Hello,” said Sbaya weakly.

“My name is Aria. I was a…very good friend to your grandmother.”

“Oh. It’s…it’s nice to meet you.”

Aria raised an eyebrow. “You’re very polite, aren’t you?”

“It is always important to treat authority figures with great respect.”

Aria looked at Zedok. “Yeah. I’m guessing she takes after her father.”

“You have no idea.”

Starlight stepped forward. “Aria T’Loak, my name is Starlight Glimmer- -”

“Yes, I know who you are,” said Aria. “The pony Priestess. Second in command to the purple-Princess herself. Now, let me take a guess. You are going to ask me to help you, just like your eugenic sex-toy just did.”

“I wasn’t going to ask that,” said Starlight. She gestured to the destroyed club. “I just wanted to know what the hell happened here?”

“What happened? Scootaloo happened.” Aria looked out over the room. “First, she starts a bar fight when we’re packed to quadruple capacity. The guards couldn’t handle it, and I had to go down to stop a vorcha riot in the basement. Then there’s the wounded- -a LOT of wounded- -especially since she apparently decided that it was perfectly okay and normal to fire a damn Equestrian particle beam THROUGH. MY. STATION. Do you have any idea how much damage that did and how goddamn expensive it will be to fix?” She sighed and shook her head. “And that’s not even THAT bad. There’s what she did not the planet…”

“What did she do?” asked Sbaya. “That is, if you don’t mind me asking.”

“She took the fight down there. The casualties, those I don’t care about. But then she mass-jumped in the planet’s atmosphere. I have twenty eight refining companies telling me the mass-surge wiped out all of their equipment and half of their eezio stock- -which means I’m not getting paid. Not to mention the dead synth…”

Starlight’s eyes widened. “A dead synth? She actually killed a synth?”

“Apparently. And you have no idea how much paperwork I’m going to need to fill out on that. The thing about synths is, when one actually DOES die, they get extremely agitated. Omega is on the verge of falling apart right now.”

Zedok laughed. Starlight looked up at her, surprised at her friend’s reaction. Aria seemed to be equally surprised.

“It’s not funny,” she said.

“No, it isn’t, but YOU are,” laughed Zedok. “Look at you! Worrying about Omega as a whole and things like ‘rebuilding’! You’re a politician!”

For a moment, Starlight thought that Aria was about to punch Zedok. After a few moments, though, the elder asari smiled.

“You know what? You’re right. Why the fuck do I care? I guess I am a damn Matriarch. None of that stuff really involves me, does it?”

“Is this the part where you suddenly get angry and hurt us?” whimpered Sbaya.

“What? No. I wasn’t being sarcastic. This time. It really isn’t my problem. Except that my club will be out of commission for a while. I will be gelding some people for that. Slowly. But later.” She put her hand on Sbaya’s shoulder. “But right now? I need a break. We’re going to get drinks, and get YOU a lap dance.”

“Lap- -but- -” Sbaya blushed. “I don’t think- -”

“Are you questioning me, little Sbaya?”

Zedok nudged her daughter. “Omega’s only gone one rule, Sbaya. ‘Don’t fuck with Aria’. You’re going to want to avoid questioning her, okay?”

“O…okay…”

Zedok and Sbaya were led off, with Aria ignoring the two unicorns beside her and stopping only to kick the krogan lying on the ground in side. Starlight and Jurneu were left alone.

“She was here,” said Starlight after a moment.

“Yes, she was,” said Jurneu, turning and exiting the club. Starlight followed. “And this level of damage is impressive.”

“Scootaloo was once a very close friend of mine,” said Starlight, “at least, before I knew who she REALLY was. She was something of a prodigy in our military before becoming a Priestess.”

“I know. I read the dossier. But we are at an advantage.”

“Really? How do we possibly have the advantage here?”

“Because she is unfamiliar with the modern world. She came here because she didn’t know where else to go. All kinds of places have opened up since her era to hide in: Kar’shan, the Sur’kesh quarantine zone, the Alliance-Council border zone, any of the pirate nebulas- -but she only knows Omega.”

“But she’s not here now.”

“No. But you heard Aria. She mass-jumped. I can only assume that she doesn’t realize that the dimension-flux can be traced. Especially if the resinance process was completed in an eezio-rich environment.”

Starlight turned to him. “You mean you can trace her.”

“I think so. We have the software for it, but it will take time.”

“How much time?”

“I won’t know until I start, but if the resonance was detected by the diagnostic equipment in the factories on the planet, then it could take as little as two days.”

“Two days,” mused Starlight. “If she moves in that time, would we be able to…” she trailed off as something in the distance caught her eye. Her blood seemed to run cold as she saw a face staring back at her from the distance. She only saw it for a moment, but there was no mistaking the impossibility of what she had just seen.

“High Priestess?” said Jurneu, concerned. “Is something the matter?”

“No,” said Starlight, stepping past him. “I just…” She turned back to him. “Get on it. Have Beri help you. Use my personal funds to rent quants if you need to, just get it done.” She started walking again.

“And where are you going?”

“I’ll be back soon to help.”

She started running through the crowd of aliens after the cloaked figure she had seen. Jurneu was left slightly confused, but he just smiled and shrugged as he planned out his exciting day of information gathering.

Starlight pushed through the crowd. She was not entirely sure shy she was in such a rush. Logically, she knew that what she saw had been an impossibility, and that part of her brain dismissed the person she had seen as a synth. The woman Starlight had thought she had seen had looked like a synth, but was also different. Synths were invariably similar: almost all of them were tall, and all of them had pale skin, blond hair, and blue eyes. Theoretically, yes; the skin synths wore was synthetic and it could look like anything- -but they always chose to look the same.

Through the crowd, Starlight saw the figure once again, waiting on the other side of a group crowding in front of a water spigot. She turned her head, and in the distance Starlight saw her dark-colored lips turn upward in a small smile. Starlight’s heart raced, and she continued to move through the swarm of aliens and ponies.

After nearly getting squashed by an unusually large geth, Starlight found herself at the junction of a pair of utility hallways. Disgusting smelling hot air was moving upward through them, and through one Starlight caught a glimpse of a cloak turning a far corner. Without hesitation, Starlight splashed through the liquid in the tunnel, passing a number of vorcha who slowly turned their heads, watching her pass.

This path was surprisingly narrow in parts, and Starlight was surprised that a biped was able to move through it, and even more surprised that no matter how fast she seemed to sprint, the person in front of her never got closer- -or escaped. She always seemed just far enough to be almost out of sight.

Starlight knew that she was being led somewhere, but she could not help herself. While the logical part of her mind was now screaming that this was a trap, it was drowned out by an almost obsessive hope that drove Starlight to keep going, just so that she could know.

In time, Starlight was led to what appeared to be a new development. The walls were incomplete, and the area almost completely abandoned. Even the vorcha had not come this far, preferring to stay in the dark and damp areas where they could procreate unseen. The only occupants of this area were bipedal quants at work building the station.

At this point, the trail went cold, and Starlight began to panic. She did not know where she was, but that hardly mattered. What mattered was that she would not be able to know, that she would be left with the thought and possibility of what she had seen.

She wandered around for a moment and, just when she thought that she would have to give up, she saw her. The figure was standing in what appeared to be an unfinished office amongst the aluminum-framed walls. She was facing away from Starlight, looking out a large window.

At that point, Starlight felt herself suddenly freeze. Her words caught in her throat, and despite breathing hard from having run to catch the woman, she suddenly wanted to spring away. After a few moments, though, she spoke.

“J…Jack?” she said.

The figure did not move at first, but then slowly turned toward Starlight. Starlight gaped in awe as she saw her best friend’s face, and she took a step forward, intending to run crying into Jack’s arms. That was when she realized that something about Jack was not right. She was too young, and there were no signs of tattoos on her neck or head. The most telling sighs, though, was her excessively large blue-green eyes.

“You know,” she said in Jack’s exact voice, “I haven’t used this form in so very long. I had forgotten about it until I saw you. But it truly is my favorite.”

Starlight felt her heart breaking from the realization that this was not her friend, and she screamed in anger. As unexpected tears poured down her face, she raised her left hoof and fired an incineration beam at the woman. Chrysalis simply raised her hand and swiped away the beam with a small puff of green biotic energy.

“You are a lot weaker than I recall, too,” she said. “To think, you were once able to challenge Princess Cadence.”

“Why are you here?!” demanded Starlight. “WHY?!”

“No,” said Chrysalis, simply.

Starlight sputtered, confused. “Wh- -what?”

“I said ‘no’. I am not going to tell you that. I do not have to.” She smiled, showing that the only part of her body apart from her eyes that she did not bother to convert to Jack’s was her teeth. “Especially after you just tried to kill me.”

“You deserve it. You knew- -”

“Knew that the love you felt for this one is just as strong as it was when she was still breathing? Yes. I can feel it.”

“Then how dare you look like her? Why?!”

“Why not? She’s clearly not using the form anymore. By this time? I’m assuming she’s a skeleton somewhere. Rotted. Cold. Dead. Very, very dead.” She paused, cocking her head. “No…those words hurt you, but there’s another word. One you don’t want to hear. More than anything, you don’t want me to say that word…”

“Don’t you dare, Chrysalis- -”

“ALONE.”

Starlight winced, and Chrysalis smiled. The changeling stepped forward, her rapid and jerking motion breaking the illusion that she was anything even close to human. “That is the word. There is so much pain in that word.”

“Just stop,” said Starlight, quietly. She looked up, now fully crying. “Just stop. Why are you doing this?”

“Why wouldn’t I? I’m a creature that feeds on love. And love is the greatest form of pain known to exist.”

“She was my best friend,” said Starlight. “I…” She closed her eyes. “I promised her that I would come back. That she wouldn’t be alone anymore…and then…then I didn’t. She died. Without me. All alone. While I GOD-DAMN keep on LIVING!” She stomped her hoof into the floor with enough force that pain ran up her leg and into her shoulder. She ignored it. “If I didn’t…if I had just died on time…maybe I would have remembered.”

Chrysalis smiled, but not with the threatening, sardonic smile she had used before. “There is a reason why so very few of us are immortal,” she said. “Because it is not nearly as pleasant as many think it is.”

“I just…I just wanted to be there. With her. For her.” She sighed. “But that wouldn’t have stopped it, would it? If she died in my arms or died alone on some distant planet wishing to see me…I would still keep going, wouldn’t I?”
Chrysalis nodded. “You would. Until everyone you love is long dead.”

“So…so what is the solution?”

“That is the question,” said Chrysalis, turning back to her window. “It is not something I can answer. It is not something I have answered. You at least still have some friends. A second chance, if you will.”

“And you don’t?”

Her expression, visible through her reflection in the mirror, darkened. “No. Not anymore. My species is dead. I am the last of my kind. And with Shining Armor and Cadence gone…I am no longer bound to the Crystal Empire. I am free. But for what?” She turned to Starlight. “It’s my version of your question. Our question.”

“And that is why you are here,” reasoned Starlight.

“Yes…and no. I’ve been watching.” Her expression became even more serious. “You shouldn’t be here, Starlight. There are things happening that you don’t understand.”

“I’m here because I am pursuing a criminal,” said Starlight.

“Yes, Scootaloo, I know. And my advice: stop. Stop looking into this, Starlight Glimmer.”

“Stop?” Starlight felt a surge of misplaced anger, further aggravated by the fact that Chrysalis still insisted on stealing the face of one of the people who had been most dear to her. “Do you have any idea what she did?”

“Yes. But I also know what you might find if you keep digging. And I suspect you might not like it.”

“What kind of things?”

Chrysalis was about to speak, but then stopped herself. “No,” she said, reconsidering. “Let me just tell you part. As I’m sure you know by now, a synth died here.”

“Yes. Scootaloo killed it.”

“Her. Not ‘it’. A woman with parents, siblings, and loved ones. Hopes, dreams, ambitions, fears.”

Starlight raised an eyebrow. “I thought you hated synthetic lifeforms.”

“Times change, Starlight. As I’m sure you know.”

“It is all the more reason Scootaloo needs to be stopped. She is a murderer. She killed one of my closest friends.”

“But what if I told you that it wasn’t her that killed that synth?”

Starlight paused. “Well, then who did?”

“I don’t know,” said Chrysalis, “in the sense that I don’t know their name. Or who they are. But I know that they’re moving. Doing…something. And they have been for a long, long time. Only recently have they gotten more and more active.” Something in her voice was chillingly agitated.

“You’re not telling me something.”

“I’m not telling you a lot of things.” Chrysalis paused. “But…there is one thing. I did see one once. Almost a decade ago, wandering a vorcha-controlled scrap planet. Black armor. Star symbol. And…”

“And what?”

“The feeling. The love…there was so much love. But it was wrong. Broken.” She pointed to her head. “Like…like he was screaming inside, like he didn’t understand WHY he loved her.”

“Who is ‘her’?”

“That I will not tell you. Simply because I don’t know. But suffice it to say: your friend is involved with some very powerful and very dangerous people. She’s already in too deep to get back out, but you’re not. Not yet. Turn back, Starlight Glimmer, while you still can.”