Zedok and Starlight both emerged from the Spectre medical bay at the same time. They said nothing to each other. They had no spoken since they had gotten Sbaya to the suite. The situation had been dire at the time, but had since stabilized. Sbaya was now resting, and there was apparently no indication that she had suffered any debilitating permanent damage.

As soon as the door closed behind them, Zedok stopped and turned to Starlight. There was a flash of blue light and Starlight was knocked sideways, her head sharply to the left by the punch to her face. It was not a light blow either. It had been a fully charged biotic punch, which only compounded the fact that Zedok’s arm bones from the elbow down were made of metal. Starlight’s vision erupted with light, and though she did not fall she stumbled to the side. The pain pulled her back into reality, and when she regained he balance spit a surprising amount of blood onto the floor along with two molars.

“What the hell, Starlight?” shouted Zedok. “I thought you were my friend!”

“I am your friend, Zedok. I just- -”

“You’re my friend? Really? So I didn’t just walk in on you fucking my only daughter?!”

Starlight wiped her mouth on her hoof. She was still naked, and the blood stained darkly on her violet fur. “Do you want me to deny it? Because I’m not going to lie to you. Yeah. I was. But it was a shared decision.”

“Shared decision- -Star, did you see her?” Zedok pointed angrily at the door to the medical bay. “That isn’t sex! You almost Ardat-Yakshied her!”

“I didn’t know that would happen!”

“No, because you didn’t ask! Neither of you have any idea how this is supposed to work! You could have killed her, or gotten her pregnant!” Zedok angrily punched one of the metal walls, her fist creating a substantial dent. “But that’s not even what I’m fucking pissed about, Star. My. DAUGHTER. How could you?!”

“I was frightened! She was there and- -”

“So what is she to you, then? A cheap slut? Just another asari whore for you to have your way with? Is that how you see us? Is that how you see ME?”

“That isn’t fair!” cried Starlight, her tone moving from one of apology to one of anger. “That’s not what was happening! I’ll be damned if I wasn’t respectful- -”

“Oh, so its’s ‘respectful’ now to thrust all the way down into the bottom of someone’s mind? Because clearly the Great and Powerful High Priestess can do whatever she wants to her partner’s mind! Risk is for us commoners to deal with! She’s just a sack of meat, after all, who cares if she gets lobotomized in the process?”

Starlight felt herself losing control. She knew that what she had done was wrong, but Zedok was taking it too far. Enraged, Starlight lowered her head. She had no capacity for magic, but she still had a horn, and it was still mildly pointy. She charged Zedok with the intention of goring her, only for Zedok to easily sidestep and land a powerful biotic kick into Starlight’s side that sent her sprawling across the floor.

“I trusted you, Starlight,” said Zedok. “And then you go and do this to me. To her. I don’t- -”

Zedok suddenly twisted, raising one of her arms to block an incoming sphere of biotic energy. Starlight, who had likely broken at least one rib, looked up to see Sbaya standing in the door to the medical bay. She was pale and a bit shaky, bracing herself on the doorframe, but she looked even angrier than her mother.

“Stop,” she said. “Mother. Just STOP.”

“Go back to bed, Sbaya,” said Zedok. “You need to rest.”

“First of all,” said Sbaya, “my name is SBAYADVLAG. It’s only one syllable extra. I HATE being called Sbaya.” She stepped into the room. “Second, how could I rest when you are doing this to Starlight?”

“This isn’t your problem.”

“No, it is. I created it.”

Zedok faced her daughter. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re too young- -”

“I’m two hundred and seventy five years old! And you had me, when? When you were in your twenties?”

“That doesn’t matter! She- -”

“We had sex! I know! I was there! It’s not like I proposed marriage to her, or eloped, or attempted to bear her children! I wanted to make love to a person that I have respect and admiration for and who has a pretty if unusual body. Is that so wrong?”

“I taught you better than that, Sbaya,” said Zedok, darkly. Starlight, who was still overcoming her windedness, watched up from the floor, hoping that this argument did not come to blows. If it did, she would have no way to stop it. “WE are better than that.”

Sbaya gaped, but then paused and took a breath. “I never realized what a hypocrite you are, mother, until now.”

“Excuse me? I’m your mother! You can’t say that to me!”

“But you are!” said Sbaya sharply. “Every day reminding me that I should be rebellious, that the life that I want to live is too boring, to narrow. Then, when I finally do something on my own accord, you tell me it’s wrong! I never wanted to be here! I wanted to stay on Parnack, to farm, to hunt, to live a simple, ordinary yahg life. But you want me to be some sort of intergalactic adventurer or soldier or something pointless and draining!”

“I want you to experience the galaxy,” replied Zedok. “To see the universe, like I did!”

“No. You don’t want a rebel, mother, you want YOU. And I’m not you! Stop trying to live vicariously through me. It’s not my fault you got pregnant off the first man you could get to have you at a ridiculously young age and could not be the itinerant warrior you wished you could be! I’M NOT YOU!”

The two stared at each other for a moment, and Starlight found herself holding her breath as much from the tension as from the broken ribs and mouth filled with blood. She was sure they were going to attack each other.

Then Zedok smiled. “I’m so frigging pissed at you,” she said to her daughter. “At the same time, though?” She put her hand on her daughter’s shoulder. “I’m way more proud. Is that weird?”

“Yes,” said Sbaya, suddenly seeming to deflate, as if she had only barely been able to be confrontational for less than a minute. In fact, she looked horrified. “Mother, I didn’t mean- -”

“No, you did. And that’s fine. Damn, though. If your father had been here he would have fainted. I think he’d be proud too, though. At least when he woke up.” She turned her attention to Starlight. “I’m still mad at you, though. But to be honest? Yeah. My daughter’s almost as hot as I am. I can understand the temptation.”

“It was still a jerk move,” said Starlight. “I shouldn’t have put any of us in this situation.”

“Is this something that is going to happen again, though? I mean, if you want to make a relationship out of this, I might be able to learn to live with it in three or four hundred years.” A look of realization suddenly came over Zedok’s face. “By the Goddess…this must be why Darien was so terrified of dad! And…this must be how dad felt. Damn.” She shook her head. “Not a day goes by where I do not admire him more and more.”

Starlight and Sbaya looked at each other, and Sbaya turned to her mother. “I don’t think so,” she said. “To be absolutely honest, Starlight is too rough for me. That and, frankly, I’m not attracted to ponies. I just wanted to be prepared so that I don’t look like a foolish virgin when the time really does come. I assumed Starlight would be understanding of my naïveté, and she was.”

“Well, there goes your ego, Star.”

“It’s fine,” said Starlight. “Sbayadvlag, you are a good friend, but I just can’t get over the fact that you’re a girl.”

“But I’m not!”

“No, you are. And I’m not a lesbian.”

“I can hear that,” said Zedok, kneeling down and taking Starlight’s hoof, helping her up. “I’ve never really got how that whole thing works.” She shrugged. “I guess I just like penises.”

“Really?” said Starlight. “Because I thought your genitals were ‘exit-only’.”

“What?” Zedok looked over her shoulder at Sbaya, who had now become the color of a plum. “Oh. Yeah. They are. In the same sense that Jurneu’s ass is.”

Starlight laughed unexpectedly and splattered blood onto Zedok. “Oh crap! I’m so sorry!”

“Eh. I get covered in blood all the time. Either I’m shooting someone or pulling the bullets back out.” She led Starlight toward the medical area. “But I probably overreacted a bit. That would be the krogan DNA. Now I have to fix you.”

“‘Fix’ me?”

“Don’t tempt me.” She turned to her daughter. “Sbaya…Sbayadvlag, you can go walk around if you think you’re up for it.”

“Yes, I will,” said Sbaya, nodding. “Perhaps I can find a tree to hide in while I recover from the glorious reaming of my mind. Perhaps I will speak to Jurneu concerning the matter of unicorn-asari relations.”

“Just keep your hand of his horn, okay?”

“Wait, what?” said Zedok, immediately concerned. She reversed to face Sbaya, but Sbaya had already silently departed.

“Damn,” said Zedok. “I hate when she does that. It’s so weird.”

Zedok led Starlight into the front part of the medical area and immediately started scanning her. “Wow,” she said. “You’re really fragile, aren’t you?”

“With no biotics and no tech? Yes. I’m about as tough as you would expect a horse with a forty centimeter shoulder height to be.” A thought suddenly occurred to her as Zedok reached for some medical tools and yet another dispenser of medigel. “Actually,” she said. “Zedok, can you look for something?”

“Apart from the missing teeth and the broken ribs? You mean like the internal bleeding? Because I’m working on that.”

“Not…” Starlight paused. “No, not that. I need you to check my brain.”

Zedok blinked. “Do you think I gave you a concussion?”

“No.” Starlight paused, knowing how insane it sounded. “I need to you to look for an implant.”

Zedok raised where an eyebrow would have been if she had possessed any. “Star, you know your body’s full of implants, right? All that Core stuff? Twilight took most of it out of you, but not all of it. They don’t work, but they’re still there.”

“I mean an active one.”

“There are no active implants. I would have detected that already.”

“Then look again. Please,” begged Starlight, surprised at how suddenly imperative this seemed to her.

“All right,” said Zedok, opening her omnitool and scanning Starlight’s head. There was a momentary pause, and then she sighed. “Yeah. Nothing there.”

“None one made out of metal,” said Starlight. “It would be Equestrian technology.”

“So biotech?” Zedok paused for a moment and clicked at her omnitool. “That would be almost impossible to detect, but if it’s in your brain I guess I could do a metabolic scan at high resolution. And then cross reference that to an absorptive matrix. It’s normally how I diagnose eezio poisoning in yahg, but…” she adjusted her omnitool and scanned again. “See?” she said. “Nothing…what the hell?”

“What? What is it?”

“Holy shit,” said Zedok, almost in awe of what she was seeing. She looked over her omnitool at Starlight. “Star, how did you know this would even be there?”

Starlight felt her heart sink. “There…there actually is an implant?”

“Yeah,” said Zedok. “Hold on.” She typed into her omnitool for a moment more, and several smaller screens showing images of Starlight’s brain appeared beside her. “It’s almost impossible to detect,” said Zedok. “Entirly organic. Like some sort of parasite.”

“You’re not making me feel better, Zedok.”

“I’m not supposed to. I’m just so impressed. In any other brain, this would be completely undetectable. The only reason I’m seeing it here is because your neurons have ungodly levels of eezio in them. See?” she pointed at one of the scans. “It shows up as a dead spot. Negative space.”

Starlight looked at the scan. It was an image of her skull in sagittal cross section. Starlight could see her brain and her horn, which extended into her skull roughly as far as it extended out of it. It should have been connected to her frontal lobe by a rich array of nerve connections, but instead she saw a black spot where those nerves should have been.

She broke out into a cold sweat. “What…what is that thing? What is it doing?”

“I don’t know. But if I had to guess? I would say it’s blocking the efferent nerves to your horn.” She looked up over her omnitool. “It’s blocking your magic.”

“No,” said Starlight, desperately trying to rationalize. “It can’t be. I lost my magic when my Core implants were removed.”

“Not necessarily,” said Zedok, changing her scan again. “I mean, your body is still saturated with eezio. At levels that would be lethal to asari. You’re marrow, your nerves, your everything.” She paused. “And it would explain why you almost killed my daughter when you deflowered her. Which I still haven’t forgiven you for, by the way. If you were some kind of dormant biotic…”

Starlight felt her breathing accelerate. The image she had seen had been true. It had not been a hallucination caused by Sbaya’s mind’s last desperate attempts to preserve itself. It was a real memory. But it could not be- -because if it was, it meant that Twilight had knowingly taken Starlight’s magic. That from the very beginning her best friend had betrayed her.

That night, Starlight returned to the medical bay. It had become so late that even Zedok had gone to bed after spending most of her time in the bay reviewing her scans. Starlight stopped and looked at her friend’s notes. She had mapped the exact structure of the implant, and her conclusions were not good. It was fused with much of Starlight’s frontal lobe, ingraining itself into and around individual neurons. There was no way to remove it with the equipment at the Spectre base, and Starlight knew Equestrian technology well enough to know that it had grown to the point where not pony doctor would be able to remove it either. Not without taking the front half of her brain and her entire horn with it.

The results were not what she had come to the medical suite to look for, though. Instead, she made her way to the back of the facility.

“Quatre?” she said, softly. “Can I talk to you?”

“I told you already,” said the other pony without hesitation. She was still uncovered on the bed and facing the wall away from Starlight, putting herself in a position where Starlight was forced to look at the scarred stumps where her wings had once been. “I have nothing to say to you.”

“You were here. You heard. What’s in my head.”

“An implant that suppresses your biotics. So what. If I even try to move a coffee mug with my mind, my brain hemorrhages. I have no sympathy for you.”

“And I don’t expect you to. Or even to talk to me. If you want to just lay there? Fine. Please just listen.” Quatre did not say anything, and Starlight continued. “When I first asked you why you looked like Twilight, back on your ship. You hardly seemed to care. Until I mentioned that she had pointed teeth.” Starlight paused, but there was no response. “There is something else. I remember her. From a very long time ago. She’s the one that put the implant in my head. And she spoke with a French accent. The same as yours.”

Quatre was one again still, and after several moments Starlight prepared to leave. As she did, though, Quatre stirred and looked over her shoulder. Starlight was immediately surprised by the expression of fear on her face. Quatre looked at Twlight, and then rolled over, tucking her legs below her body as she sat upright.

“The implant,” she said. “It’s made of Equestrian technology, but it was built by Cerberus.”

“Cerberus? What do they have to do with this? Why would they make an implant like that?”

“You already know the answer to that. You’ve met Subject Zero.”

“They built it to control biotics.”

“Control was the heart of all of Cerberus’s desires from the very beginning- -and it was the loss of control that destroyed them.”

“But that doesn’t make sense. Why would Cerberus put an implant in my head? They don’t have anything to gain…and it wasn’t even Cerberus. If I’m right…” She took a breath. “If I’m right, it was Twilight.”

“Because implants were not the only thing Cerberus made.” Quatre’s eyes met Starlight’s. “They also made me.”

Starlight stared at the pony in front of her. “‘Made’?”

“I am a clone. My genetic source was taken from Twilight Sparkle during the Agrostation Six incident. I was incubated in the womb of a woman of human descent. That is the answer to your very first question. I look like Twilight Sparkle because I am genetically identical to her.”

“Your…a clone…” As disturbing as that was, it made sense. Starlight also immediately grasped the implications of it, as horrible as they were. “So if Cerberus made one clone- -”

“They didn’t make one clone,” said Quatre. “They made eight in two batches of four. Hence my name. ‘Quatre’ is French for ‘Four’. I was the youngest sister of the first batch.”

“Eigh- -eight clones?” Starlight felt faint. “They cloned her without her permission EIGHT times?” Quatre nodded. “Then there are seven others…”

“No. I am the last survivor of my batch. I have four sisters. Two of them are currently assisting the pony called ‘Scootaloo’. The other two have likely joined them by now, though.” She paused. “The second batch was always very close to one another.”

Starlight considered what this meant to her mission, if it was even still ongoing. “That’s not good,” she said. “But if they are all as sickly as you- -”

“They aren’t,” snapped Quatre. “I’m not like this because of defective cloning. My sisters are as strong as any alicorn. My condition is simply…unique.”

“You were injured,” said Starlight, remembering what Zedok had told her. “Very badly.”

Quatre sighed, and her violet eyes seemed to become distant. “This is not something I like speaking of,” she said, turning her gaze back to Starlight. “Even the memories are so very painful. I know it is a sign of weakness, but the scars from the event are deep and not just physical. But it is relevant here, I think, and it bears repeating.”

Starlight pulled up a wheeled stool and sat beside Quatre’s bed. “I’m willing to listen,” she said.

Quatre paused. “Yes,” she sighed. “Perhaps it is time someone else knew. The reason I am like this is because of what Cerberus did to me.”

“Your own creators? They did this?”

“No,” said Quatre, “and yes.” She looked upward, and Starlight saw that she was crying. “I had three sisters. Two, she was my best friend. I was smaller and weaker than them, but Two did not care. She protected me, watched over me, helped me when I needed it. Three was much more coarse. Violent, aggressive, loud. I think something was wrong in her mind, but she loved me too. She would scream or be mean, but deep inside I knew she cared.

“But then there was One. I didn’t know her well. She almost never spoke to me, or to the others. She would just watch. I think even Three was afraid of her. Every test Cerberus gave us, I would come in last- -and One would outpace the rest of us by far.” Quatre looked back at her wings. “She’s the one who did this to me.”

“She…she took your wings? Your sister did this to you?”

Quatre nodded. “Cerberus only needed one clone. That is why four were made. One day they came to us and…they ordered us to kill each other. Because they only wanted the one strong enough to win.”

“That…” Starlight shook her head. “That’s horrible.”

Quatre stared down at her bed and the cables connected to her body. “One and Three immediately leapt on each other. Three was stronger and more vicious, but One was smarter and more proficient. Three died. Two tried to get me away, knowing that I couldn’t save myself. She died trying to protect me.”

“And you…”

“I watched as she tore me apart. Toying with me because I wasn’t strong enough to resist. Do you know what it feels like, Starlight Glimmer? To have your wings torn out of your body? It hurts, but that’s not the worst pain. To watch them pulled free of you?” Several tears fell onto the bed, but she continued. “They were long, and they were beautiful. I was once beautiful. I once had so much potential! I could have…I could have done so much, BEEN so much.”

“You’re still beautiful, Quatre.”

Quatre’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t patronize me. My body is ruined. I can’t even survive on a planet without risking my life. Using my biotics is almost lethal- -I can’t even survive sudden changes in temperature.” She looked down. “And Marc Antony…Starlight, have you ever heard the story of Edi and Jefferson Moreau?”

“I can’t say that I have.”

“Not surprising. The galaxy worships Shepard, but forgets about those that made his victory possible. In short, Moreau was afflicted by a rare and incurable skeletal disease that made his bones like chalk. Even the slightest motion could break him if done wrong. And Edi was a pre-synth AI, an evolutionary dead end. They were lovers.”

“I see,” said Starlight. “And you’re in the same position as him.”

“Which is why the story always affected me so. That’s I’m the same as he was.” Quatre suddenly cried out and struck a hoof into the bed, nearly tearing out the IVs from that arm. “But I SHOULDN’T BE! He- -he’s always so careful. He makes sure never to push me too hard, never to get my heartrate too high when we make love, but I…I always want to push harder, I SHOULD be able to push harder. I just want to be a real pony, but she took that from me! My sisters, my body, my future! That goddamn whore, she didn’t even have the pity to kill me then and there!”

“And what would Marc Antony think if he heard you talking like that?”

Quatre’s anger suddenly ceased, and she relaxed, her energy replaced by sadness. “He…he would tell me that it’s not that bad.” She looked up at Starlight. “He’s the reason I survived. As I lay dying, he intervened just in time. He almost died, but he picked me up and pulled me out before One could finish the job. And my mother confronted One.” She paused, and then shook her head. “I’ve never seen her like that, how angry she was. No biotics, no tech, and she just walked up to her.”

“And…what happened to her?”

Quatre looked up. “My mother was forced to kill her own daughter. Or at least that’s what I thought. Until now.”

“No,” said Starlight, sharply. “What you’re saying, it’s not true. It can’t be possible.”

“The accent? The pointed teeth? Those aren’t elements of the original Twilight Sparkle. The accent is from our mother, and the teeth from a defect in the cloning process.”

Starlight shook her head. “But Twilight isn’t like that! I’ve lived with her for so long. She’s my friend!”

“And One is a perfect killer. The ultimate clone, built by and programmed by Cerberus. You said she was the one who took your magic, didn’t you? Why would your ‘friend’ do that?”

“I don’t- -I don’t know, but there had to be a reason for it!”

“Two and Three are dead. I saw their bodies. I never saw One’s.” She smiled. “At least tolerate it in the hypothetical. If she survived. If somehow Cerberus eliminated and replaced the original Twilight Sparkle. What would they have to gain? Apart from a ruler who would create an Equestria that favors the Alliance. Which seems to me to have been what happened.”

“So then she’s…she’s not the real Twilight…”

“I can’t say for certain, but based on your description, yes. I would assume that is the case.”

“She lied to me…”

Quatre leaned forward. “That’s what she does. One is not a pleasant person. She a murderer. Built to kill not just without remorse but to find joy in it. She murdered two our sisters and was content to torture me and leave me in this cursed state. And she laughed while doing it. She goddamn laughed.” Her eyes focused on Starlight’s. “Whatever she is, she’s not a pony. She’s a monster. Cerberus’s most vile abomination. A perfect success. Built to lie and cheat and kill and do whatever she must to reach her goals. She was never your friend, Starlight Glimmer. She was just using you. Perhaps even enjoying watching you suffer without your magic.”

“She wouldn’t do that!”

“And yet she has.”

“No,” said Starlight, turning away from Quatre on her stool. “She’s not like that. She isn’t. She can’t be.”

Except that there was no other alternative. There was no other reason she could think of for Twilight robbing her of magic except to cripple her ability to fight back, and she had always known that Twilight’s teeth could not really be the result of her time as a Core. What convinced her, though, was the look in the eye of the version of Twilight in her memory. The coldness in her gaze was so profound that it could only have come from the kind of pony who was willing to murder her sisters without hesitation and enjoy the process of doing it.

As hard as Starlight’s mind tried to reject the belief that her entire life had been a lie, in her heart she knew that Quatre was correct: the current rular of Equestria was not Twilight Sparkle. She never had been.