Friendship consists in forgetting what one gives and remembering what one receives. ~ Alexander Dumas
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I was shifting my gaze back and forth between Celestia and ‘Xavier’, as she had called him while I moved off to the side so that they could see each other more clearly. Celestia took the motion to step forward, now only a few feet away from the hologram as I studied them both for any sudden reactions. I could see the edges of Celestia’s eyes beginning to water although not crying, she wasn’t far from it as she continued to stare at him while Xavier in turn seemed to look speechless although he hid it well due to his old age as you could only tell by the way he looked at her with his clear blue eyes.
“Celestia? After all these years…,” The doctor seemed to trail off, stroking his beard as he closed his eyes, contemplating what was happening in front of him. Meanwhile I was trying to figure out how Dr Light would know Celestia personally due to her being a pony while the doctor was a human being apart from the fact that Celestia was on an entirely different planet.
“You’re…alive!” I could feel the joy radiating from Celestia’s voice as she spoke those words in awe, said words had also gotten Light’s attention back, looking at her with a smile.
“My dear Celestia…it has been a very long time since I had last seen you and yet…you haven’t aged a day. I guess you truly are immortal after all,” Celestia gave a small chuckle at that, soon dissolving into tears of both sadness and happiness, the tears beginning to fall as her emotions began to mix into one another.
“I-I thought that…that you had died hundreds of years ago. You were the only one close to a father I ever had and now all of a sudden you’re right in front of me, after all those years of thinking that you had died, that I was alone for all those years. Crying myself to sleep thinking about my sister almost every day with no one to comfort me…because the only thing my ponies see is a perfect princess who has no faults, not a normal mare…,” As she emptied out her sorrows in front of us, the doctor’s smile turned into a sad one as he began to move outside the capsule –shocking Cadence and myself- until he stopped right in front of Celestia whose head was looking down at the ground, eyes shut tightly while the tears had finally stopped.
He moved his hand under her chin, lifting it up so that Celestia’s face was facing his even though her eyes were still closed. “My dear Celestia, we both knew that one day I would have had to pass away for I was not immortal like you or your sister,” He moved his hand away from her chin as her eyes began to open but she refused to look at Thomas. “It was due to the fact that I had to take care of X once he had awakened from his slumber that I am in this state now,” Celestias’ eyes were now focused on Lights at the new information, her thoughts thinking about the one being that was the reason that Thomas was still alive. X.
“Xavier…why did you create X?” Thomas gave a small sigh, his voice hlding a sad tone.
“Celestia, the main reason I created X was that I thought it was time to finally complete the bridge between man and machine. You see, X is no ordinary robot. His mind is far more advanced than others so much that he is able to think like us, feel emotions and express them and act on his own to benefit the future. Just like us, but unfortunately that is not what happened.”
“Ok, Ok…Sorry for being so selfish, but I am glad that you’re in this state…I missed you,” Dr. Light began to stroke Celestia’s mane as I raised eyebrow in confusion at how he was able to do that although Celestia didn’t mind as she seemed to enjoy it.
“I missed you to Celestia.”
“Dr. Light?” Light turned to face me, having stopped stroking Celestia’s mane because of it –Celestia having given a slight disappointed look of having him stop-.
“Yes Zero?”
“I was wondering how you were able to touch Celestia without your hand going through her,” Light gave a small chuckle.
“Well you see Zero, Alicorn magic is different to unicorn magic as it is able to reach into the world of cyberspace. Due to my capsule showing my image through the hologram, it is able to connect to Celestia’s magic flow for it is similar to that of cyberspace, therefore allowing me to actually reach out to her as she is covered in Alicorn magic to which is similar to that of cyberspace. I doubt you know of cyber space yet due to your memories having yet to fully restore, if not at all, am I right?” I gave the doctor a nod, satisfied with the information as well as confirming to him that I still had not regained my memories.
“I just,” We both turned back to look at Celestia. “I just wish that I could have saved her. I was too caught up in keeping everypony happy that I didn’t even know that the pony that needed to be happy the most was my sister. If I was more aware of my-”
Dr. Light gave a deep, tired sigh causing Celestia to stop her depressing speech as he gave her an almost sad look. “None of us are perfect Celestia, no matter how much you try to help those in need it will never be enough as we all have flaws, everyone does. I created the robot masters to begin to bridge a connection between man and machine…however it only led to the future waging wars again and again,” Celestia shook her head.
“No…no that was not you that caused that to happen, it was that monster Wily who created the virus that caused the robots to become evil,” Light turned to face me, his face studying mine for a few seconds.
“You told her?” I just nodded as he hummed in thought. “I am glad that you told her about the virus but enough about that…I prefer to talk about something else,” Celestia gave the doctor a small nuzzle, hoping to stop him from thinking about the scourge that ruined his vision of peace between robots and humans. Said nuzzle worked as he began to stroke the side of Celestia’s neck again, happy that she was there to comfort him while a felt a strange energy radiating off of the two of them.
Love.
The love of a close friend, perhaps even the love of a father and daughter. Looks like Cadence’s magic did react to love after all and I now knew what it must have been like for Celestia for all those years, no one to be comforted by other than her citizens who probably treated her as a immortal goddess rather than just a normal pony when she was just as normal as them.
“Awwww,” I heard Cadence coo affectionately as she watched the scene unfold before her, causing a small smile to form on my lips.
Light looked over at Cadence, his eyebrows rose slightly as he looked her over. “Who might you be young one,” As soon as he finished his sentence, I instantly felt a large amount of weight on top of my head which almost caused me to fall over. Turns out that ponies with horns could teleport…how about that.
“Hi Mister Xavier! My name is Mi Amore Cadenza…but Cadence is just fine if that is okay with you!” She yelled/squeaked causing Light to smile. “Oh and Celestia is my aunty while Zero is now my adoptive brother!” This caused him to look over at Celestia, a smile on his face.
“Oh, I didn’t know that you had a niece Celestia. Since when do-“
“No, it’s not like that dad! She’s my adoptive niece and please don’t talk about that subject in front of her! Besides it has been hundreds of years!” Celestia’s face was blushing madly while Light just gave a hearty laugh which made me realise that this image of Light was younger than the ones I had found in the third maverick war.
“Oh Celestia…you always remind me of the time when you were just a filly when you blush like that,” Celestia tried to hide her blush but Cadence was already giggling while I just gave her a comforting smile while she shot Thomas an angry glare, said glare only lasted a few seconds before she gave a sheepish smile.
After that Cadence told Light the story of how she became an Alicorn in which he paid her the utmost attention, asking her questions through certain parts of the story whether it was about her life or what it felt like to become an Alicorn, all the while going over the information again and again.
“I don’t know actually. When I did though I felt stronger, although I think that it was probably just because of the horn…,” I gave Cadence a worried glance as she seemed like she wanted to tell us something else. Celestia just looked on, sadness adorned on her features, obviously knowing what Cadence was going to say when Thomas spoke up.
“Well I find that quite interesting Cadence because from what I know,” Thomas turned towards Celestia. “You two were born alicorns,” I knew that Thomas was talking about the royal sisters as Celestia nodded her head in conformation. He turned back to Cadence, a smile on his face.
“Cadence…I am glad that a filly like you has a family to care for you especially if one of those family members is Celestia,” His face turned serious. “But be careful on how you use your power for as they say, power corrupts,” Cadence –despite being too young to know what exactly he meant- gave him a determind nod.
Celestia looked towards the stairs that led outside before turning back to us. “Shoot…It’s time for me to lower the sun. Xavier, I’m sorry that I have to cut this short but it’s getting late,” Thomas gave a nod to Celestia while I motioned Cadence to come next to me, Celestia did the same. Thomas waved us goodbye as we teleported back.
~~~
*Bang Bang*
Doctor Cossack woke up to the sound of banging on the front door of his house, having fallen asleep while writing down the workings on the latest project that he and his colleagues Dr. Light and Dr. Wily were working on to take the next step in robotics: DLN 000. As he slowly started to rouse his body from its drowsy state, getting out of bed and putting his glasses on he descended the stairs towards the front door, taking a look outside he could see no sign of life other than the street lights flickering on and off.
Supressing a groan, he closed the door and began to walk back up the stairs that led to his room and closed the door. Just as he got back into bed, the sound of knocking again reached his ears although this time it came from his bedroom door but he also knew who it was this time.
“Kalinka…what is it?” He groaned in frustration of being disturbed from his sleep yet again but this time by his daughter.
“Sorry Dad! I just want to show you something amazing that I just found in the backyard!” Although that the fact that his daughter was only ten years old, she seemed very cheerful about this ‘discovery’ of hers. Getting out of bed again he opened the door to find his daughter to have one of the largest smiles on her face as well as keeping the object she found behind her back even though that he was able to see that the object was the colour blue.
“Yes Kalinka I’m here. Why were you outside in the- oh never mind…so what is it that you wanted to show me that was so important to get…me…out of…bed…,” Cossack stopped what he was going to say as soon as his daughter held the object in front of his face or more presumably a blue foal with wings and a horn attached to it. Said foal hugged his face.
“Dad Da!”