The three of them slipped into the hallways around the computer core, pillowcases tied around the hooves of the two living unicorns to dull their movements.
Everypony else had fled with the evacuation warning, flowing into the smaller habitation domes which could detach from The Equestria and float nearby while life support was restored. They’d passed herds of well organized ponies who insisted they also evacuate. It had only been Starlight’s status as a Programmer which allowed her to justify heading into danger.
After all, there was a chance she could fix it.
But as they approached the doorway, they could hear him talking.
“Why are so many of my duplicates mares? I suppose you’d have an educated guess on the matter, Starlight? You don’t have to keep sneaking, you know. I can hear your hearts beat. Come on, stop wasting time, I want to move on.”
They walked around the corner and through the doorway, and found him sitting in the middle of her work space, fanning his wings out in a display of hubris and power, grinning.
“Why did you damage them?” Starlight asked, pointing to the computer cores.
“What, the giant machines designed to stop beings like me?” he laughed, looking back at Celestia’s core. “In every universe, they’re my opposition. So, it serves me and my curiosity to disable them early on. I have questions too, though, Starlight.”
His horn lit, and before Starlight could move, she was teleported closer, almost nose to nose with him.
It was eerie, how much of herself she saw in him. He wasn’t happy, certainly, but he was a being of immense power. He was self assured, confident, calm, in a way that she craved somewhere deep down.
Was that what she desired? Was that her air she was missing, power?
“Why aren’t you in charge?” he asked.
It didn’t seem like he was interested in her well being, or the well being of anypony. It seemed more like he was asking this question to get a measure of her.
Numbly, she realized that he was seeking data. Just like her.
“I am, just not in a way you recognize,” Starlight blurted.
He laughed, and sat up a bit taller.
“Fine, I’ll entertain it. Explain how you’re in charge when these machines control everything.”
“She programs them,” Sunburst piped up. “How did you get so many cutie marks?”
“Dont–” Bright whispered, before everything stopped.
Starlight couldn’t breathe. She was stuck in place by a magical field so powerful that she might as well have been cast into concrete.
He stood and walked closer to Sunburst, smiling cruelly as Bright’s image flickered and twitched, unable to move even though she had no physical form. Sunburst looked around with wide eyes and took a step back.
“I took them, Sunburst,” he purred, whispering gently as he loomed over her. “I became the Brightest Star of them all. I took them from my little cult, freeing them from the responsibility. Then I took them from the Elements of Harmony, freeing them from the burden. Then I took them from every single pony that existed in my world. Except for you. Except for my lovely Sunburst. Because she deserved to understand finally what a price her ascension took from me.”
Sunburst was shaking, and Starlight wanted to make him stop. Make him step away from her.
He was holding her in place. How? Most magic interfered in odd ways with other magical fields, making it very hard to actually freeze another pony in place.
She looked down at her hooves and tried to move one, watching the field flex.
It wasn’t a normal magical field, it was a web. He’d cast magic across the zone like a web. But how could he control so many points at once? It would require complete concentration and he was clearly paying more attention to Sunburst.
But it wouldn’t require concentration if it was algorithmic.
This wasn’t a magic problem, this was a programming problem. Because Starlight, she realized, and every version of her, thought like programs.
She lit her horn, despite her lungs burning and her vision going blurry. She didn’t try to push at the web, but instead she formed her magic into a cube at the tip of her horn. Then she intersected another cube with it, quadrupling the number of faces it contained. Then she made it larger, and repeated the process.
The magical field grappling with her body tried to adhere to the outside of the magical aura, but the more complex the shape became, the more energy was pulled into one point until Starlight pressed it away from herself.
With the electrical snap of crackling energy, the field collapsed into the complex shape and then fizzled out.
Starlight immediately teleported away just as a blast of magic hit where she’d been standing and the Brightest Star roared in anger.
She didn’t go far, just into Celestia’s core. Because she realized two things.
Firstly, cutie marks in her world were digital simulations of cutie marks, and though they held a lot of power they were not just magical. They were secured physically to their bodies, and if the Brightest Star tried to take a cutie mark here, he’d probably either fail or kill the subject.
Secondly, because cutie marks were created in her world, they had the ability to manipulate them. They used a magically imbued device to determine the mark the pony should have, and then they created that mark and made it physical. If she reversed the process, she could rip the cutie marks from the Brightest Star’s body.
As long as she didn’t die first.
Bright appeared next to her.
“Okay, so he is going to find you. You know that, right?”
“Obviously,” Starlight growled as she carefully unplugged the Mark Detection Array from Celestia and then teleported again.
This time, she was just outside of Cadance’s computer core, in a completely different part of the ship.
Cadence’s core was armored and protected in ways the other two were not, and immediately a hologram of a white unicorn stallion appeared in front of the door.
“Programmer Starlight,” he said calmly. “An alternative version of yourself is attempting to destroy the ship, and another alternative version of yourself is currently being run on Cadance’s hardware. Please explain why we should trust you.”
“You shouldn’t,” Starlight panted, setting the array down. “But you can take this, plug it into Cadance, and if I’m right she’ll be able to take the cutie marks from him. Weaken him so we can stop him.”
“You really don’t understand ponies, do you?” Shining Armor sighed, setting down his spear and walking closer. “You don’t even try to defend yourself, or to convince me. You just give up. As though you don’t have the ability to convey your intention. Starlight, just try. Try convincing me your intentions are pure.”
Starlight felt a headache coming on.
Friendship and Hobbies.
How many times would her world come to an end, before she could have that smile that Bright had? Did she even want it? Or did she want that confidence and power that the Brightest Star had?
“I have a plan to defeat him,” she finally said. “I have a plan, and I don’t want him to hurt anyone else. Heck, I don’t want Celestia to be offline. Just that is enough to feel... Wrong, broken. Please, let me help.”
Shining Armor nodded, and stepped aside.
The armored blast door groaned open and Starlight slipped inside.
She plugged in the array and quickly configured it to perform extractions.
As she worked, Bright appeared next to her again.
“He’s hurting Sunburst,” she whispered.
Starlight didn’t stop, even as tears clouded her vision.
This had to work, it was her only chance.
“I can’t use this device.”
She paused, looking for the source of the voice she’d never heard before.
“C… Cadence?”
“Yes. I cannot use this device. It goes against my morals. Starbright, you’ll have to control it.”
Starlight and Starbright shared a fearful look, silence stretching between them.
They’d have to work together to defeat a dark version of themselves. Somewhat poetic.
“I’m going to insert a program into your mind,” Starlight whispered, going back to the programming.
“Okay.”
Then it was done, and Bright appeared to be holding a staff with two points.
She chuckled sadly.
“Ah… yes, this I’m familiar with. Let’s do this.”