Starlight, Starbright, the Brightest Star I see tonight.

by Hope

Ch.5 - If I follow you

When Starlight opened the door to her apartment, Sunburst following close behind, they found Bright sitting near the window with an array of holographic displays open in front of her. The videos and articles she was perusing mostly focused on technology and history, but she paused and smiled at the two unicorns as they entered.

“Hey, Bright,” Starlight said nervously. “This is Sunburst.”

“I’d recognize my childhood friend in any universe, I think,” Bright pointed out with a wry smile and a laugh, standing to bow her head to them. “Well met, I’ve been catching up on knowledge of your world here. It’s really astounding how similar it is to my own world considering the differences.”

“Well, I assume that parallels of ourself is a fairly tight filter on which universes were visible to begin with,” Starlight shrugged.

Sunburst walked past her to look at Bright, examining her with a more critical eye.

“We could make her tangible,” Sunburst offered, getting a surprised look from both of them.

“I didn’t know holograms could be made tangible,” Starlight said, now curious as to how Sunburst would apply her own knowledge to the situation.

“Well, they can’t,” she corrected. “But a program can be given a magical aura with the right preparations. That’s how programs interact with the Naquadah engines of The Equestria. They’re temporarily given a magical aura. Normally, having a complex aura or a full body-perception is beyond the range of complexity for the programs we’re given, and we don’t know how to modify the programs in the first place, so we just have ponies do whatever we need. But… You’re using the name ‘Bright’, right?”

Bright nodded, and Sunburst smiled.

“Bright is complex enough to manage it, I think. She could have proper magic, and a body-effect aura that would make us feel her presence.”

“Why don’t the princesses have these things, if it’s so easy?” Starlight asked, holding onto her skepticism a little longer.

“Well, it’s against the law,” Sunburst sighed. “Primary cores can’t have magical auras, or they would begin to act more like ponies than computers. When you’re dealing with a small slice of computing, that isn’t a big deal,” she gestured at Bright. “But imagine if Celestia stopped processing whatever she processes on a daily basis?”

Starlight grimaced, while at the same time wishing that she’d learned more about magic and less about programming.

“Well, I don’t need magic at this moment,” Bright chuckled. “We can address that later. How was your dinner?”

“Oh, it was quite nice, we talked about work, caught up,” Sunburst said happily.

“No hobbies?” Bright asked, Starlight glaring at her.

Friendship and hobbies were often pushed at her as things she should give more focus to, and it annoyed her constantly.

“Why, what sorts of hobbies am I supposed to have?” Sunburst asked with a soft laugh. “Besides reading, of course.”

“Well, in my world I build and fly kites,” Bright said, a peaceful smile settling on her face.

Starlight was intensely jealous of that smile.

“What’s a kite?” Sunburst asked.

At some point in the long explanation of what exactly a kite was, and why it would be difficult to fly in the controlled wind patterns of the habitation domes, Starlight got bored of the conversation and slipped into the kitchen to get a drink of water, and look out at the trees.

Friendship and hobbies. Her happiest self was connected to both. It felt like the easy way out, but Bright hadn’t gotten to it easily. She’d nearly destroyed her world multiple times.

She doubted it would come to that. No matter how stubborn she was, Starlight felt that she was more reasonable than most ponies.

The apartment shook briefly, making everypony pause, before the speakers started beeping all around them.

“Evacuate. Life support offline. Evacuate. Life support offline.”

Starlight walked into the living room, frowning at the message before speaking up.

“Celestia, what’s going on?”

For the first time in her life, the nearly omniscient AI she relied on did not answer.

The hair stood up on the back of her neck, as she shared a terrified look with Sunburst.

“Luna?” Sunburst almost shouted. “Are you there?”

“Barely.”

Her voice was crackling and grim, without a hologram.

“An error has been made. I take responsibility. Celestia is offline, and I will be as well, shortly. I’ve transferred Bright to Cadance, you two have the best chance at stopping him.”

The trio shared another look, but this one a bit more grim.

“Stopping who?” Starlight asked.

“Your worst self.”

Starlight quickly pulled up a holographic screen and switched it to a camera view of the computer core center.

Smoke filled the air, and a jagged gash in the side of Luna’s computer core belched sparks.

Celestia’s core was completely powered down. Standing between them, examining the rack of spare computer chips with curiosity was a version of Starlight which was as terrifying to behold as he was beautiful.

An alicorn, his whole body and wings were patterned with hundreds if not thousands of cutie marks. They formed a fractal pattern across his fur, endless detail and potential dotting him from his neck down.

Under one eye, Celestia’s sun. Under the other, Luna’s moon. Around the base of his horn, Twilight Sparkle’s purple star of magic.

He looked slowly up at the camera and smiled before lighting his horn and destroying it.

Starlight took a step back, wide eyed and shaking.

“Well,” Bright sighed. “Looks like I’ll need a magical aura after all.”