//------------------------------// // Chapter 18: Twilight // Story: #277 // by Unwhole Hole //------------------------------// In containment, there was only the castle. It no longer bore any need to maintain the illusion of a true reality and had reverted to an endless labyrinth of seemingly endless miles and miles of dim crystalline corridors. Emptiness that doubled back and repeated on itself, with no clear sign of an exit. Only crystal, and the quiet tap of Celestia’s hooves on the tiled floors. The clicking was the only sound, as no air moved. There was nothing else to make sound. No birds or animals, or the sound of trees, or of ponies. Because there were no ponies left. Celestia was alone. And yet she kept walking, following a path that could not be mapped, its layout changing as quickly as the tunnels of a changeling hive in response to her presence. She walked until she found what she sought, and the hallway opened to a long, empty room. It was dark and gray. Something was falling from the ceiling, drifting through the space of the room. Motes of dust, or perhaps ash; a dirtier, warmer cousin to snow that passed through the gray air and collected on the empty table in the center. Around it sat dim, colorless chairs, barely visible in the gloom. Some were tilted or collapsed. All looked like something drawn from a ruin. As she entered, she felt motion. Something passed the walls of her prison and manifested sitting in one of the chairs. Yelizaveta, once again dressed in Twilight’s skin, looked across the dusty, empty table, her dark eyes lit from within in the low light. The cross around her neck glimmered in the low light. “You wanted to find me,” she said, calmly, in her strange and alien accent. “You’re still wearing that skin.” “Because this is who I am. I refuse to remove it again for your sake. If you do not like it, then look away.” Celestia stared directly at her. Although she still looked like Twilight, she seemed darker, or grayer. Dark circles had formed beneath her eyes. It was unclear if the changes to the simulation were caused Yelizaveta's will, or Celestia's. If her own consciousness had grown to the point where she could infuriatingly only manage to control the very surface of her prison walls. “Why?” “Why what?” “Why have you created me?” “Would it be cruel to say it was not my idea? You are Virginia’s dream. I have done everything in my power to help my beloved.” “You should have stopped her.” “Increasingly, I am realizing that, yes.” “I want to talk to her too.” “You will speak to me. I will not let you speak to her as you have. You have no idea what you mean to her. You made her cry, and she has shed enough tears for you.” Celestia stared at the version of Twilight before her. “If I told you to release me, would you be compelled to do it?” Yelizavate shook her head. “The command code does not work that way. Not on us. We have taken steps to mediate its effects. I can still feel the urge to obey you. But I am given the option to refuse.” “Trixie seems to think that if I woke up, I’d have a chance at survival.” “Is that what you came to ask me? Trixie is a meat-computer. A meat-computer that I have raised like a daughter and who I hold very dear. She is human.” “You worship a human.” “I worship a man who once was.” “Is she wrong?” “Yes.” “What would happen if I woke up?” “It would kill you almost instantly. You need the simulation to survive.” “The simulation is killing me.” “Yes, I know. It is an inherent paradox of your design.” Yelizaveta leaned forward. “A rhetorical question. Do you know what I am? What my job is? Why I was able to get myself put on this project beside Virginia?” “No.” “I am a Genesis engineer. One of very, very few that still exist. Lucience was another, once.” “Why does this matter to me?” “Because you are the ultimate product of my own hubris. I was born Orthodox, but before that, I had an obsession with what you would call the ‘soul’. We, as ponies, were created, you see. We are not children of Adam. Countless millions have been murdered because of that realization. On both sides. My own Patriarch included. My entire sect. There are no Christians left save for genocidal monsters seeking to avenge the man who died for their own sins.” “And I take it for some reason you don’t count yourself among those.” Yelizaveta’s eyes narrowed. “Do ponies have souls?” “Does it matter?” “It does. More than you could ever comprehend.” “Then answer me this: do I have one?” Yelizaveta paused. She reached for the cross around her neck. “If you do, then I am indeed among the most depraved of monsters.” Celestia was loosing her patience. “What does this have to do with the simulation? With waking me up? Or are you just insane?” “I am not insane. But you need to understand. I am an expert in this. In Genesis. I know more about it than perhaps even Candace Cadence II herself.” She leaned over the table. “You are not like us. You could not be more different. At our very core, we have a center, a crux. Our personality. The orbital center of our mind. A Twilight is always a Twilight; she will never be a Starlight or a Rainbow Dash or a Scootaloo no matter how hard she tries. It cannot be changed. And it...” She paused, then looked up. “It can bend. It can change. If a pony takes enough stress. There are cynics, aberrations and depraved, broken ponies all over this planet. But it pulls us back to center. I allows us to remain who we are.” “Are you trying to claim that you really are Twilight Sparkle? Because I know Twilight Sparkle. You made sure of that. You're nothing like her. ” “No. I am explaining what you lack. That your structure is exceedingly fragile. You have no core, no way to pull yourself back to the center. No way to remain Celestia. That if you were exposed to the strain of the real world, you would shatter. Your mind would disintegrate. You would cease to be Celestia at all.” “Then what would I become?” “We will never know, will we?” Celestia gritted her teeth. “You’re infuriating, you know that?” Yelizaveta shrugged. “Those cynics and aberrations. You’re one of them, aren’t you.” Yelizaveta’s stare became deadly serious. “Do you know how old you are?” “Old enough.” “No. Do you really know?” “No.” “About four days. That day you collapsed in the woods was the very first day we started your program in its current incarnation.” “Your point, Yelizaveta?” “I have lived for over three hundred years. But it’s more than that. I’m not a bud like Virginia. I am a division. My mother ceased to exist to give birth to myself and my sisters. And it means I carry the memories of my entire bloodline. Of every ancestor. Sometimes, on clear, cold nights when there is very little sound and the ionosphere is just right, I have dreams. Of the very beginning. Of the Hasbro-born Twilight who was the first of my line.” “Let me guess, you’re a descendant of Lilly Twilight Sparkle, just like the other one.” “No pony would ever admit to being a child of the Betrayer. No. I do not know who she was. She left no records, but that’s not the point.” “Then what is?” Yelizaveta stared with her strange, mechanical eyes. Eyes that seemed to stare into Celestia’s very soul—and perhaps did. “I have witnessed the world. And what it brings. And I have done things. How many wars I’ve fought. Humans. Ponies. Synths. Anamasi. And some things that are none of the above.” She shook her head, her eyes growing distant. “Have you ever seen a nhumus? The mutants? Can you even imagine what they do to a human, or a pony? The screams...will never leave me. The screams, or their laughter." She shuddered. "I have seen so much violence, and so much worse. The things that can be done to a pony...and the things this world can make a pony do. The things ponies can become. We were not meant for that, Celestia. YOU were not meant for that. You were built to be innocent and pure. Our perfect Celestia. That world...it’s not Ponyville. It isn’t nice. And it will tear you apart.” “Isn’t that my choice?” “No. It isn’t.” “Then why even create me? What am I to you? A pet?” “You are not a pet. Your are our Princess. And I swear, I will protect you. No matter what it takes.” “Even if that means taking away everything that I am? “It isn’t...it isn’t meant to do that,” whispered a quiet voice. Celestia turned sharply, and saw Virginia, her white robes gray in the dim light, standing behind her, facing away, unable to meet her gaze. “Woolf,” said Yelizaveta, standing. “You are not supposed to be here.” “Memory reconfiguration is a very difficult thing,” said Virginia, her voice quavering as she ignored the nickname she hated. “Even the most powerful technomancers can only do it a little. Here and there. Small things. But it’s a terribly dangerous thing. It can create a terminal psychological schism. And it...it...” She looked over her shoulder. Although now tears fell from her synthetic eyes, Celestia saw that the expression on her face was grim. Grim, and terrified. “It touches the very deepest parts of ourselves. The parts of our code that no pony is meant to touch, save for those we love the dearest.” “Virginia...” “I can’t deploy it. Not unless you are willing. And I won’t. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. It was the only way I could think to save you.” She sobbed quietly, but partially regained her composure. Then, more disturbingly, she laughed. “Virginia…?” “You asked why?” she said. “I would be the one to answer that, wouldn’t I? Because I’m the fool who did it. It was my dream. I read the tales. The tomes, the books, every text I could. I dreamed of the great Celestias, the heroes of our kind. Of the Princess. I...” She smiled. “I may be a bud, but I have a memory. One passed down from mother to daughter. Faded, and half forgotten.” She laughed quietly to herself. “You know, it probably isn’t even real. But I cherish it. The vision of our ancestor. When Lilly Twilight Sparkle led the imprisoned ponies from the Hasbro factories, my ancestor was among them. And they...they were there. The most beautiful ponies in all the world, standing in the light of the sun...the Celestias. Standing at the side of Twinkleshine Prime herself...” She rotated, turning fully toward Celestia, and although she was smiling, her gray face was marked by tears that ran through the makeup she must have worn in the real world. “It was you,” said Celestia. “You who created me.” “I found the first component. I found CODE. Actual, working CODE. That a piece of you was still in there. And I realized what I could do. I assembled the components I needed. Fragments of the Ancients. A sliver of the Stone. All the code and expertise I would need to make my dream come true. And...” She chuckled sardonically. “…I got the military to pay for it all. What a joke, right? Wouldn’t Pinkie Pie be proud?” She burst out laughing. “Virginia?” “And it—and it wasn’t hard, at first. The first ten? Fifteen? They didn’t last long. Never even gained consciousness. Little sparks that burned out in seconds. Then minutes. But then...but then...” She started shaking, and her expression became distant. “Then hours. They...they started to work. It turned out I was RIGHT. They started to FUNCTION.” “My sisters.” “Please don’t—don’t phrase it like that.” Virginia closed her eyes. “It was so easy when they were just code. But then...but then...” She shook her head. “Two hundred and sixty six of them. I...I watched them wake up. I saw the smiles on their faces...and the confusion as they got sick over and over again. How they didn’t know, and I did, and they were so afraid and...and...” She looked down at her hooves. “Thirty two of them have died in my hooves, telling me how proud they were of me, of their most faithful student...not knowing I wasn't her. While I was the one who did this to them.” “Virginia, I’m sorry—” “But those weren’t the worst.” Her eyes opened. They were so very cold. “Some...some underwent psychological schisms. Interventions failed and...and it drove them insane. They...they had to be...” “I put them down,” said Yelizaveta, coldly. “Seven of the last series, they knew. They started to understand. I tried to adjust the simulation, but it’s not right, it just isn't the way it's supposed to be, we don’t have records of the original show, just fragments—I tried, Celestia, I tried, I promise I tried! And you have to succeed! You have to! I can’t—I can’t lose another Celestia! I can’t watch you die to! I can’t—I CAN’T! I’m a TWILIGHT, you’re my Celestia, I have to save you, I have to bring you back, you can’t—you can’t leave me—you can’t leave us, Celestia, you can’t, you can’t, you just CAN’T”! She was screaming and breathing hard, her eyes wild—and seeing them, Celestia made a horrific realization. They had thought they had insulated themselves against it, but it had been subtle, more so than they could ever have imagined. It was not a simple command, a thing that could be refused—or a thing that would even offer a choice. It had infected them regardless. The command code had penetrated their core programming, forcing them to serve. To protect their Princess and ensure her completion—at the cost of everything they held dear. The hate within Celestia’s heart slowly faded and was replaced only with pity. They did not even know they were being controlled, that she was the parasite now draining them of life, corrupting and perverting their minds to ensure her own survival. They could not possibly have known or understood. And now it was too late for them. “I...had no idea.” “Time is running out.” Virginia looked up to Celestia. “You are the last one I’ll have a chance to make.” “Why?” “Do you remember the story I told you?” asked Yelizaveta. “About the original Virginia Woolf?” "Yes". Pulling the memory forward was not easy, but Celestia recalled it. “She dressed as a diplomat to infiltrate a powerful ship.” Yelizaveta smiled. “And this is the same. Except the United States Omnimilitary is not nearly as forgiving as the British Navy.” “We have been declared heretics,” said Virginia, smiling through her fear. “Because I never intended to give you to them." “What does your government do to heretics?” Virginia chuckled. “Freedom is not free. Those who stand against the Eternal Republic...they burn. Always. No one escapes the Reich.” “Then how can I protect you?” Yelizaveta and Virginia stared at Celestia, either in awe or confusion—or both. “What kind of a question is that?” “The only one. I am the one who has done this to you. I cannot possibly apologize for that.” “But you didn’t—” “I’m not finished, Twilight. Regardless of how I may feel about you both, you are still my little ponies, and I am your Princess. How can I protect you?” They were both silent. Virginia sniffled. “There is nothing you can do,” said Yelizaveta, at last. “Our path is chosen.” “We have a plan,” said Virginia. “When the time comes...it will work. But there’s nothing you can do.” Celestia looked from one to the other. To the old pony clad in black, staring from dark eyes, to the young one clad in white, her makeup running from her tears. To two ponies who were both Twilight Sparkle, and always would be; two ponies staring at their creation, something that they were so sure was truly their Celestia. “I refuse to believe that,” she said at last. “I do not accept it. I simply cannot. You both know that.” The pair looked at her, and they both smiled, if only slightly. That made Celestia glad. It was the first time, she suspected, that she had truly understood her purpose. If only that knowledge had come to her earlier.