Mass Core 3: Thebe Paridigm

From the balcony, Starlight Glimmer looked out at the sprawling city below. It was night, and the sky over Canterlot was beautiful, lit by stars and the brilliant moon overhead. Below, the lights of the towers and structures of the city reached out to every horizon, filling it with its own glow to rival the sky.

The wind blew slightly, and Starlight’s vestments rustled. Summer had long since passed for this region of Equestria Prime, but the coldest parts of the winter had not yet arrived. The air was cold, but Starlight did not mind. She did not pull her collar higher or adjust her robes, instead, she looked solemnly out at the city that so long ago she believed she would never be permitted to return to.

After several minutes of silence and solitude, she sighed and reached into her clothing. From there, she removed a small card. It was a Hearthswarming card, printed on fine paper and complete with a pair of hoofwritten notes inside, addressed to her. What she focused on was the picture on the cover, though. Even in the moonlight, she could make it out. A tall, pale-pink young alicorn mare with unusually large wings standing beside a stately but elderly stallion, her husband. His mane and beard, which had once been bright orange, had almost completely passed to gray. Even as old as he was, Starlight still felt a distant spark within her heart- -but it quickly collapsed to sadness when she was forced to acknowledge the state that he was now in.

“Starlight?” said a familiar voice softly from behind Starlight. Without turning, Starlight already knew who it was, but she faced her friend anyway. Standing behind her was a violet alicorn, dressed in a more limited version of her public regalia over ceremonial armor.

“Oh, Twilight,” said Starlight.

“I thought I could find you here,” said Twilight, stepping out onto the balcony. She seemed to notice the tears in the corner of Starlight’s eyes. “Starlight, is something wrong?”

“No,” said Starlight, wiping her face. “Not at all.”

“What’s that?”

Starlight saw that Twilight was looking at the card. She held it up, and Twilight took it gently in her violet magic.

“Oh my,” she said, smiling as she looked at it. “My niece certainly has grown! And Sunburst is truly handsome, even at his advanced age. In all honesty, I don’t think those military stallions ever really lose that poise.”

“I don’t understand,” said Starlight.

“About…the poise?”

“No,” said Starlight, perhaps too harshly. She turned to her friend. “Why me? I understand with you, or Cadence, or Flurry Heart. You’re alicorns. It’s in your nature. But Sunburst and I- -we were childhood friends! I should…”

“Appear as old as he does?”

Starlight winced and nodded. Despite the intervening years, she appeared- -and for all biological purposes, WAS- -as young as she had been the day that she had been freed from slavery as a Core.

“I’m not going to lie, Starlight,” said Twilight, “I don’t know the answer to that. You’re an anomaly. But according to my books, it’s not unheard of for some rare unicorns to live for much, much longer than others. Starswirl the Bearded lived for nearly five thousand years.”

“But I’m not Starswirl the Bearded! Look!” Starlight’s horn flickered weakly, and she tried to tug the photograph away from Twilight. At most, it twitched slightly, as if it had been buffeted by a light breeze. “I can’t even use magic anymore! Not since…” She fell silent, and became conscious of the scars on her back. They always hurt, on some level, especially whenever she moved. Even after all this time, though, it was not the pain that bothered her but the sense of something missing. The protrusions of metal from her back and spine, the implants that had once permeated her body- -they were all gone, save for a single partially operational omnitool. The day that Twilight had taken her Core implants was the day that Starlight had lost her magic.

“I did what I had to do,” said Twilight. “You would have died. Starlight, you saved me. You pulled me away from that life, set me free. I couldn’t just let you…I couldn’t…”

Starlight sighed. “I know, Twilight. I’m not blaming you. It’s just…” She took the photograph from Twilight with her hoof. “It’s just that…him, me, and you? We’re the last three living Cores.”

“No,” said Twilight firmly. “We’re not Cores. Not anymore. You know that. We’re ponies now, the same as everypony else.” She leaned forward and took Starlight’s hoof in her own. “Because of you. Because of what we accomplished together. Look at all of this.” She gestured out at the sprawling metropolis below the Royal Spire. “We built this. A world where technology triumphs over magic. Where we don’t have to be slaves. Because of US. And because of you. You saved them, Starlight. You won.”

Starlight tried to force a smile, but her eyes diverted to her flank. The pair of equals signs were still tattooed there. Starlight still remembered the day she had gotten them from a surly salarian in a dirty Omega tattoo parlor. They were supposed to remind her of her single goal: to achieve equality between ponies, and to set her kind free.

“But now…” she paused. She could not bring herself to say it, that without that purpose, there was no longer a reason for her to continue. That she should have died long ago, but somehow was cursed to keep living without a purpose. Instead, though, she just smiled. “Never mind. Thanks, Twilight. You always know how to make me feel better.”

Twilight smiled. As she did, she revealed her teeth. That was something she almost never did, and even then, only with Starlight when they were alone. Starlight was not sure why, but Twilight did not have normal pony teeth. Instead, she had several rows of incredibly sharp, pointed teeth. The pair of them has spent many nights hypothesizing why that had happened- -a side-effect of ascention to alicornhood, or a result of being a Core in the Harmony for so many years- -but the real reason still eluded both of them. In any event, Twilight had chosen to keep it a closely-guarded secret. The only time she could truly smile was with Starlight.

“It is my job,” said Twilight, leaning against the rail and looking out over her empire. “I am the Princess of Harmony.” She looked up at the sky. “It’s a beautiful night. Luna has outdone herself.”

“You know that’s a myth,” chuckled Starlight, joining her best friend against the rail. “We’ve been to those stars. Remember? How long ago was that?”

“A long, long time,” sighed Twilight. She turned to Starlight. “You miss it.”

“I do,” admitted Starlight. “There was a time when I could summon an entire starship around myself out of thin air. And the freedom. The speed. Being able to go anywhere, or do anything…” she paused. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t like being here. With you.”

“Well,” said Twilight, her expression darkening, “I may have something you may enjoy.”

Starlight realized that something was wrong. “What is it? What happened?”

Twilight charged her horn, and a datapad dropped from a small surge of violet energy over her head. She caught it in her magic and extended it to Starlight. Starlight took it and began scrolling through the file that was already open on it.

“We’ve had a breach,” said Twilight. “From a cryostasis vault. Starlight, it’s Scootaloo.”

“Scootaloo,” muttered Starlight. Time was a strange thing, and the memory of the name was so distant that Starlight did not immediately recognize it. Then she saw the small image on the datapad, and her eyes widened as the memories came flooding back to her. “No,” she said, looking up at Twilight. “The heretic? But you had her executed!”

“I tried to have her executed,” said Twilight. “But her sister intervened. She begged me, Twilight. Rainbow Dash begged me to show mercy.”

“And you did? For what she did to us?”

“I had to. Rainbow Dash was a powerful pony when she was alive, and a dear friend. So I had Scootaloo sealed in cryostasis indefinitely.”

“Cryostasis?” Starlight scrolled down the page. Even without her magic, she was still far more intelligent than most ponies and was able to quickly read through paragraph after paragraph of text. “But I’ve never heard a case of a pony regaining consciousness after a full-body cryogenic freeze.”

“That’s because no pony has been foolish enough to try it on a living subject. It’s mostly just used for storing spare biological parts. And to be honest…” she sighed. “I had assumed that she would never regain consciousness. That the process would have killed her. And after Rainbow Dash stopped demanding visitation rights because of, well, her death, I kind of…forgot.”

“You forgot?” said Starlight, darkly.

“If you could, wouldn’t you?”

Starlight had to agree, but she went back to the pad. “She stole a ship, attacked several quant drones- -and then mass jumped out.”

“Yes,” said Twilight. “And our predictions indicate that she went directly into Council space.”

Starlight looked up, her eyes locking with Twilight’s. “Then this is bad. VERY bad.”

“I know,” said Twilight. “That’s why I’m telling you this. Because I trust you more than I trust any pony, more than I have trusted ANY pony.”

“You want me to bring her back.”

Twilight nodded. “But as you are aware, I have spent centuries securing our position of influence in that galaxy. At the moment, we are currently positioned in a state of neutrality. We are allied with both the Alliance and the New Council. This situation is unbelievably delicate.”

“And you don’t want to send in an army? I’ve heard that one before.”

“Do you think I need an army? I will give you one, if you ask.”

“No,” said Starlight, passing the datapad back to Twilight, having already committed it to memory. “Not for tracking down one heretic. But after what she did to Trixie, and what she tried to do to you? I’m not going to bring her back alive, Twilight.”

“Do what you have to, High Priestess. I’ve had a ship prepared for you. Fresh from the Martian shipyards. You can leave at your leisure.”

“Then I will be leaving immediately,” said Starlight.

Twilight smiled, not bearing her pointed teeth. “Excellent.”

With Starlight preparing for her mission, Twilight was once again left alone. Despite being the immortal ruler of countless billions of ponies and equivalent sentient creatures, she seemed to spend the majority of her time in isolation. Contrary to public opinion, the upper levels of the Spire only had a skeleton crew of staff and only two real residents.

Twilight marched through a grand, long chamber, her hoofsteps echoing off the granite-tiled floor and off the gold-colored walls and arches of the ceiling. It being night, almost all of the Grand Hall was kept in the dark. That was better; her eyes were sensitive to light.

At the far end of the hall was her throne. It was comparatively simple for a throne, but it conveyed the sense of authority and power that Twilight felt was necessary. She stared at it for a moment, contemplating what she had gone through to get to this point and the things she had been forced to do. Things that Starlight must never know about, that no one save for her would ever be aware of.

Then she sat down and looked out across the dark, empty room.

“She’s going to find out, you know,” whispered a voice. Twilight turned sharply to see a violet alicorn step out of the shadows to the left side of her throne. Her face was shrouded in darkness, but Twilight knew what she looked like down to the finest detail.

“And when she does, she’ll hate you,” said another alicorn, emerging from the right. She was identical to the first, and her face was equally as shrouded.

“There’s only one option. You know what you need to do.”

“Stop it,” said Twilight, pressing her hoof against the cold stone of the throne. “STOP. IT.”

“You have to kill her.”

“Yes. Kill her.”

“You know you want to do it. Every time you see her. That body, that flank. You want it.”

“She wants it.”

“Kill her. Kill her and eat her.”

“EAT HER.”

“STOP IT!” screamed Twilight, slamming her hoof against the side of the throne. She jumped off, breathing hard. “She’s my friend! My ONLY friend! I’m not a monster! I’m NOT!”

“Yes you are,” said the pair at the same time. “You were born a monster. You will die a monster.”

“You would know,” whispered Twilight.

“She will betray you,” said one of the pair.

“She will turn on you. Her friendship is a lie,” said the other.

“When she finds out, it will all collapse. She will hate you.”

“Maybe…maybe I want her to find out,” said Twilight. She looked up at the empty space behind her throne, and stood entirely alone in the room for a long minute. “Maybe I want her to know…”