Starlight, Starbright, the Brightest Star I See Tonight

“There you are.”

Starlight was grabbed by the neck and dragged out of hiding, choking as she struggled to remain upright.

“You thought that you, a lesser form of myself, could stop me?” he laughed. “I know all your tactics, all your ideas. I’m better at each individual skill you could pursue than you could imagine.”

She was dropped in front of him, and he sneered down at her.

“Maybe you need some friends,” Starlight coughed out.

He reeled back with wide eyes, before snarling at her and using his magic to grab her cutie mark.

She screamed in pain as blood welled up through every drop of magical ink, and he actually stopped.

“What is… Your mark, it’s not real,” he said, wide eyed and grimacing.

“Maybe you need some friends, and maybe I could be your first,” Starlight said, voice rough but still forceful as she sat up and stared defiantly into his eyes.

He laughed. She believed that this was the best tactic that she could use. All the things that other ponies had pushed on her to try and shape her behavior, maybe they would work on him.

“I’m so sorry, were you under the impression that noone had ever stood up to me before? Or offered to be my friend? At least a dozen Twilights have given it a shot.”

“But how many times have you given yourself the opportunity?” Starlight asked, her eyes narrowing as she saw a glimpse of uncertainty in his expression.

“It’s not what we do,” he growled. “We assert our will upon the world, and make it manifest. That’s who we are, and what we do.”

“Well maybe that’s why we’re so miserable,” Starlight replied bluntly. “Because I opened the mirror to try and find what was missing from my life. I’m seeking data. I want to understand. The version of us I found, the happiest one of us? She has friends and hobbies! You have near limitless power. So convince me which one I should pursue.”

“Convince… I could kill you right now,” he pointed out.

“Threats aren’t data. They don’t support the argument. All they do is support your power, which I still am not convinced is worth it.”

Starlight smiled a little, as she looked across his body at all the marks he’d taken.

“Unless you don’t think that you could convince me that the power is worth it, because you don’t think it was worth it for you.”

He narrowed his eyes, and then slowly sat down, folding his wings.

“This is an interesting gambit you’re taking, Starlight.”

“I’m a Programmer,” she said as she shrugged. “I’m just exploring your programming.”

He nodded.

“Fine. I obtained power because it provides me with most of the aspects of happiness that are hardest to obtain. Security, stability. I am more real than the stars and the moon. More real than entire dimensions. I cannot be destroyed or killed. I’m safe. So, when I am able to find moments of community and fulfillment, they feel more rich and valuable to me,” he explained in calm clinical tones.

“But those moments have become more difficult to find, as your power has increased, haven’t they?” Starlight asked.

He grimaced, half shaking his head before actually pondering it.

“I… suppose there’s a relationship between the two. Alright, I’ll concede that. As an alicorn, and as a being capable of stripping others of their power, most creatures run from me sooner than talk with me. But moments like this, moments where my intellect is called to the forefront, they’re fulfilling in a way that most ponies cannot imagine.”

“I can, though,” Starlight told him. “I don’t have conversations about large philosophical concepts very often.”

“I don’t think that power and friendship dynamics are as large or interesting as other philosophical concepts,” the Brightest countered. “The topic as a whole is personal. There are philosophical topics which span entire societies or dimensions.”

“Is the importance of a topic only determined by how many ponies it affects?” Starlight asked, tilting her head. “I think that it would be more productive to see the topic as a part of the whole. We’re discussing happiness, power, and friendship as it applies to us. This is true, but the subject itself applies to everyone. All ponies, all sapient creatures. By the stars, there could be species we’ve never seen or heard of, where there is no parallel to ourselves, but who are still struggling with the same topics.”

The Brightest Star’s gaze narrowed suspiciously.

“You just broadened the topic. Why would you do that?”

Starlight swallowed, her nerves back in full force.

Then the Brightest Star, out of the corner of his eye, saw something drifting away from him.

He spun, and spotted a cutie mark drifting from his body towards a gleaming Starbright, who was holding over a hundred of them in midair.

“It was a distraction!” he shouted as he tried to blast her with magic, only for Cadance’s pink shields to pop up and protect the digital pony.

“No!” Starlight insisted. “It’s not just a distraction! The topic of conversation is still critical, we just–”

Another magical blast, this time aimed for Starlight, sent her flying across the room and slamming into a shelving unit.

Computer chips fell around her, clattering, as she dizzily tried to stand.

The Brightest was tearing apart the wall, trying to find the emitters that allowed Cadance to shield Bright. He hadn’t left this section of the ship, where the mirror had allowed him to immediately confront Celestia and Luna, so he didn’t know where Cadance’s computer core was.

But Bright was flying closer to Starlight.

“I’m going to give them to you,” she said quickly.

“What?!” Starlight rubbed her head, aghast as she looked at the cloud of cutie marks.

“I can’t use them, only move them, and you need to stop him before he hurts somepony else. Or himself,” Bright said meaningfully.

Starlight swallowed her fear, tears in her eyes, and bowed her head as the cloud of power flowed onto her body.

Power feels good, there’s no denying that.

Starlight dimly remembered the time that she dislocated her shoulder as a filly, and she’d been given painkillers that felt better than being pain-free. She experienced power like that, an overwhelming sense of safety and comfort.

It’s a lie, probably. It’s temporary, it’s a drug that is bound to wear off, isn’t it?

She found that it was damned hard to convince herself of that while she floated up in her own magical aura and grabbed the Brightest Star, dragging him away from the wall.

“Hypocrite!” he shouted.

“Maybe,” she admitted.

In a brilliant magical blast, she ripped the cutie marks from his body, one by one.

He screams, like he’s losing everything, and I don’t care.

It was hard for her to rationalize caring about his pain, when she felt so good.

Maybe this is why sheer power is so dangerous, because it makes the normal small things that ponies thrive on just seem petty and meaningless.

Sunburst was looking up at her with her mouth half open, like she’d looked at Starlight when she became a Programmer.

That still mattered to Starlight. That still pierced her apathy and touched her heart underneath it all.

Finally, she set him down with only one cutie mark. His own, identical to hers.

He was still an alicorn, but he could barely stand.

“Damn you,” he whispered.

“To what? Tartarus? I’d bet you’ve been there,” Starlight laughed as she hovered over him. “It probably didn’t put up much of a fight, did it?”

He looked away, all but confirming her guess in her eyes.

Nothing is a threat to me, anymore. Gods are just competition, and ponies are just playthings.

“Starlight…”

It was Bright, floating closer, face to face with her.

“Oh, right, I can give you a body,” Starlight realized. “Not just an aura, I could fashion one from crystal, it’d be as easy as–”

“Not right now,” Bright said firmly. “Right now, I want you to release those cutie marks, so that they can all go back to their original owners.”

Starlight hesitated.

Why? Why don’t I just agree? Well, it’s simple, really. I’m now on the other side of the debate. It’s not a hypothetical anymore. I have all the power, and it is sweet and delicious. Being asked to stop drinking from it, that is harder than I’d thought. I’m amazed that Brightest Star even entertained my debate. Why would somepony debate between two options, when they already have one of them in their hoof?

She looked down at Sunburst.

Starlight was saddened to find that the awe on her face had faded into something more nervous.

Does my best friend think that I’d hurt her? That I’d lose control like Brightest Star had? Well… Maybe that’s not such an unreasonable fear.

She took a deep breath, and she descended to stand on the floor with Bright in front of her.

“So I just have to… release them,” Starlight sighed.

“I can help,” Bright offered.

There were two choices ahead of Starlight, and she did her best to look at them both with the dispassionate analysis of a computer.

She would either return to her prior existence, seeking friendship and hobbies to fix a hole in her soul, or she could explore the multiverse. She could be free from all responsibility and restraint.

She closed her eyes, and she made the choice she’d always been fated to make.