BREAKING MY RULES

“Luna? I’m back.”

I trot back into our bedroom, and as the door closes behind me I finally let myself relax. My shoulders slump down and I exhale a deep, sighing breath as I rub the exhaustion from my eyes. The last two weeks have been hard, and part of me wishes I hadn’t let what happened back there at the train station happen the way it did. Since then, my scouts report that the endless blizzards around the Crystal Empire have become even more intense than usual. Not a bad first line of defense against an army of exothermic bug monsters, and that’s not even taking into account Shining Armor’s shield around the whole city. Now that they know we’re coming, they’re watching the ponies coming into and out of the Empire more carefully, and the few infiltrators I have managed to slip in there wouldn’t be enough to cause much damage on their own.

And I still can’t seem to stomp out this stupid rebellion! It’s gone from a minor annoyance to a major thorn in my side with my forces shifting the way they are. Where are they all even coming from, anyway? One cell seemed to have links back to Fillydelphia, and I sent a wave of drones out to discourage their meddling in my city’s affairs. Plus they brought back quite a bit of extra food, just what a growing swarm needs. Even so, the rebels keep popping up, sabotaging my infrastructure and spreading the baseless lie that I’m a tyrant, or that Luna’s gone for good, or all these other ridiculous allegations I have to spend the time I don’t have to correct. You would think the public executions would help, but no. All the ones I’ve bothered to attend have just started blurring together in my mind. Yesterday the executioner beheaded a pony that I would have sworn was the exact same stallion as one I’d laid eggs in a month ago.

When I’m not dealing with military affairs or the political machinations of the few ponies who still show up to my court, I’m in the lab trying to figure out how to give my drones resistance to the arctic temperatures we’ll be invading through. I don’t mind that so much, I’ve always loved experimentation, and I have a wealth of subjects who are more than happy to volunteer. Just yesterday I managed to graft a freshly severed unicorn horn onto a drone and actually integrate our two species’ magical aptitudes together. It only had the chance to try out a few new types of spells before it expired, but just the proof of concept opens up a whole new world of possibilities that I could spend centuries teasing out. If there were only a few more hours in the day!

None of those things are my absolute top priority, though. That is, always has been, and always will be coming back to this room to snuggle with my wife. I haven’t missed a night yet, and I just know that Luna appreciates the attention.

She’s lying in the bed just like always, not reacting to my appearance at all. I trot over and when I give her a gentle kiss on the cheek, a little spark of life appears in her blank stare. She jolts back, slamming her back into the headboard as she awakens from whatever trance-like state she was in. “How are you feeling tonight, love?”

She glares at me in silence, not answering.

“I’m sorry I haven’t been here very much lately, everything’s been so busy,” I continue, pushing her aside and climbing into the bed with her. She tries to crawl to the other side, but I’m having none of that and wrap my forelegs over her chest, pulling her back against me. I close my eyes and take a deep whiff of her stringy, faded blue mane. Running a hoof over her side, she trembles slightly as I brush over her wing. “Almost better. That’s good. And it looks like it’s set right this time. I’d hate to have to break it a third time and keep you cooped up here for even longer.”

“I think it’s well enough to fly again,” says Luna. “Why don’t you let me out of here a little earlier? I’d like to see the stars again.”

“I know you would,” I say to her, “don’t worry, I’m doing my best with them each night. I even thought maybe we could talk about designing a new constellation, dedicate it to Celestia. We could even roll it out whenever we finally get around to giving her a proper funeral.”

She turns over to face me, putting one of her forelegs between her chest and mine and pushing me back a bit. “You haven’t buried her yet?”

I shake my head. “I can still use the body. It’s what she would want; one last lesson she can teach by my cutting her up and examining her physiology.”

Luna wrinkles up her nose and looks away again, saying nothing.

“Luna? Is something wrong, hon?” I ask, nuzzling at her neck. “I feel like we never talk anymore. I miss that so much. You don’t want our marriage to fall apart because we don’t communicate, do you?”

She lets out a bitter laugh. “Trust me, if our ‘marriage’ doesn’t work out, that won’t be why.”

“Oh, well that’s good,” I say, a bit nervous at her tone. Then I grin. “Somepony sounds cranky. I would be too, being stuck in here all the time. But I know juuuust how to cheer you up.”

Luna’s eyes go wide, and she tries to push off of my chest. My forelegs wrap her up tight, though, and I flip her onto her stomach. Rolling on top of her, I press her face down into the bedding until her struggles stop. Then I lean down and run my tongue along the very edge of her ear, making her shudder with anticipation. “I’ve got a lot of steam to blow off,” I whisper, “so things might get a little bit rougher than usual.”

“Twilight, please don’t. I don’t want this. I don’t—” her words devolve into a series of short gasps as I wrap my hind legs around her midsection and squeeze with my thighs. I feel her ribs threatening to snap inward as they press into her lungs, forcing the life-giving air out of her body.

“Oh, that’s what you always say at first,” I say with a giggle. “I’ve used an awful lot of venom today, so I’m afraid I’m not up for any love bites. I’ll make it up to you, though.” With a few quick twists of my wrist I wrap a chunk of her mane up around my hoof and yank. She lets out a strangled scream as her neck bends, forcing her to stare up at the ceiling. I take a deep breath and cover her open mouth with my own, easing the pressure on her barrel as I exhale straight into her lungs while I wrestle her tongue into submission with my own.

I am just such a hopeless romantic sometimes.

-------------------------

When I finally roll off of her a half an hour later, I’m the one gasping for breath. About halfway through she went a bit limp, I guess unable to keep up with my insatiable need for her. Didn’t slow me down too much, though.

She slowly comes back around as I study all the new welts and bruises I’ve just given her, taking in each and every one so I’ll be able to call to mind the moments of ecstasy each one gave me long after they’ve healed. “Wow,” I say, unable to suppress my goofy smile. “I think that was the best yet. Think we’ll be able to top that tomorrow?” When there’s no answer forthcoming I lift her up like a ragdoll, and place her straddling my belly so I can just gaze up at her. I can feel her body shaking against me. It kind of tickles. She’s so happy that she’s even crying as I brush a loose hair out of her face. “I love you.”

She bursts into even more tears, shuddering as I hug her and stroke her back until she calms down. “You... you... I...”

I giggle and nuzzle the tip of her nose with mine, feeling her short, hot breaths against my lips. “Don’t be embarrassed to talk about your feelings. Not with me. I want to hear exactly how you feel about me.”

She looks down and there’s a little twitch at the corner of her eye. “You want to know how I feel about you?”

“Of course. I know you have a way with words. I even read one of the books of sonnets that I’m not supposed to know you put out under a fake name. They were beautiful. Although what else would I expect when they came from such a beautiful soul?”

“You... really don’t want me to say it,” says Luna, but I can tell just a little more encouragement will break down those last few defenses.

“I don’t mind if it’s a little sappy,” I say. “Come on, woo me. Take everything you feel and put it into words as best you can. I bet I’ll fall in love with you all over again.”

She just looks at me for a few more seconds, and I can see the gears turning in her head. Then, ever so slowly, her blank expression morphs into more of a snarl. “Twilight Sparkle,” she spits the name at me, “you are—”

And then everything goes black.

The next thing I know, I’m sitting against the wall on the far side of the now-destroyed bedroom. I look down and my hooves are covered in gore. But... but what...

Something on the other side of the room stirs, a figure lying on the ground wrapped in sheets so red with blood you’d never guess they used to be white. I rush over, staggering as my mind races trying to figure out what just happened. “No!” I scream when I confirm that the broken mare is Luna. She looks like she’s been almost torn apart by whatever attacked us. One of her hind legs is twisted at the knee, the lower half of it hanging off of her by just a string of ligament. Splintered ends of broken bones jut out of her side. “Luna? Luna, hold on. I’ll fix this. I can fix it.”

“Don’t... you dare...” she wheezes, coughing up blood as she does. “You’ve... done plenty already.”

My breath catches in my throat as I begin to channel a huge surge of healing magic, fueled by a panicked burst of adrenaline. Light bursts out from my horn and into her body, and Luna starts to scream in agony. Having flesh tugged and yanked back together is just as painful as the wounds that caused the damage in the first place, if not more. I don’t have time for anything more delicate, and when her eyes roll back into her head I think I may have lost her for good anyway. When my magic finally fades, completely spent, Luna’s covered in scars. I doubt she’ll ever walk again, either. But she’s alive. I grab her and pull her against me, rocking back and forth as we both sob in one another’s grasp. “I thought... I thought I lost you, Luna,” I whimper. I sniffle and wipe my eyes as I gently lower her back to the floor. “Who did this to you? What happened?”

She gives me a funny look, confused and scared. “You really don’t remember?”

I shake my head. “You were about to say how you felt about me, and then nothing. Did somepony hit me from behind?” I feel at the back of my head, but can’t find any injury there. “Was it the rebels? Assassins from the Crystal Empire?” She goes quiet. “I’m sorry. It doesn’t matter. Don’t try to remember it right now, just hold me.” I cling to her even as I send out the command for my changelings to scour the city. Turn the whole place upside down if they have to. I don’t know what I’d do if I ever lost her. “I bet it was the Crystal Empire,” I mutter. “The cowards are scared of me. You should have seen the look Cadance gave me when the train pulled away. If that racist bitch had anything to do with this, and I find out, she’ll wish she were dead. When I take the city, I’m not just going to kill her. I’m going to slice her open, rip out her baby, and make her watch me stomp it into paste.” The anger rising up in me is like nothing I’ve ever felt before. Sitting there on the floor holding the sobbing Luna against me, though, it slowly begins to taper off. The rage cools down, but it doesn’t go away. “I only wish I remembered what you said.”

“What I said?” repeats Luna, her breath quickening.

“About how you feel about me. You have such a way with words, I’m sure it was absolutely wonderful. You don’t happen to remember exactly what it was, do you?”

Luna goes silent, and for a while I suspect that the memory is just too painful for her. After what she’s just been through, she doesn’t have to tell me what it was if she doesn’t want to. I open my mouth to tell her so when she gives me a forced smile. “I said you were great.”

“Great?” I raise a quizzical eyebrow. I’ve seen this mare launch into a spur of the moment ode to a well-cooked meal, complete with iambic pentameter. I was expecting something a bit more flowery.

“Yep. Just... great. Really great.”

I shrug, and smile. The mare just came back from death’s door. It’s only fair to cut her a break instead of trying to fish some elaborate compliment out of her. “Well, you’re pretty great too.” I kiss her now-scarred neck, and just hold her for a few more minutes. I’m far too wired to sleep now, my earlier exhaustion wiped away. She’s still weak and shaking, so I bundle up the sheets and blankets into a makeshift nest to replace the destroyed bed. I’ll bring new furniture down tomorrow. She passes out on the floor while I’m doing that, so I gently carry her over and settle her into them with my magic. It’s a strain to even carry her after all the power I expended on that healing spell. With one last kiss on the forehead, I shut off the light and leave, locking the door behind me just to be safe.

“Sounded like you two were having fun in there,” says Chrysalis from the nearby cell.

“Did you see anypony leave this room before I did? Or hear any voices besides ours?”

She frowns. “No, just you two. I’ve gotten pretty good at identifying the two of you by just your screams after all this time.”

I shake my head, wishing I could remember what happened during this strange gap in my memory, or what would have triggered it. “Inform me right away if anypony tries to get in. What I do to them will pale before what I do to you if you try to hide any information from me, you understand?”

“Of course, my Queen,” she says, a sneer spread across the face that used to belong to me. “I live to serve.”

With one last glare at her, my mind trying to puzzle out just when everything went so wrong, I head upstairs to get back to work. This stupid world isn't going to fix itself, after all.

----------------------

By the following morning, the strain of the all-nighter is starting to get to me. I wish I could take the day off and head back down to my bedroom, already under repair, and just hold Luna for hours. Maybe that would help make this strange ache in my chest and the accompanying migraine fade a bit. But there's no rest for the wicked, and even though my heart's down there with her the rest of me is in my lab examining the latest clutch of modified hatchlings.

"You have a good eye for color," I say to the pony glaring at me from her cage in the corner, "what do you think of this shade? Decent camouflage against the snow?" I hold up the struggling infant by the scruff of its neck, its pale grey chitin still soft to the touch. It cries out at the disturbance, flailing uselessly in the hopes I’ll return it to where it was cuddled up with its broodmates.

Rarity just scoffs, tossing her dirty mane over her shoulder with what little dignity she can still cling to. “...Still too dark,” she eventually says. She’s learned the hard way what happens when she doesn’t cooperate with my questions. Really, she used to be such a courteous and respectful pony, at least from what I remember about the time before this loop started so long ago. Maybe my imagination’s just playing tricks on me.

I sigh. I was afraid of that. I didn’t want to squander any more of my most limited resources, but I don’t see how I have a choice in this case. I’ll just have to be judicious with their use. I compel the pair of drones who I use as lab assistants, affectionately nicknamed Two and Three, to go retrieve something for me from storage. Glancing over at Rarity, who doesn’t notice me looking at her since all she really does these days is stare at the floor, the beginnings of a scheme start to form in my head. I send Three to the vaults instead, to retrieve a pair of items that just might prove useful. They scamper off to obey their orders, like good assistants should. “Oh, Rarity,” I call to her in an overly cheerful tone. She perks up. “How would you like to see an old friend?”

Her eyes narrow, justifiably suspicious. "I can't say I would. I would prefer my friends as far from you as possible, if it's all the same."

"Don't be like that, it's someone who's been just dying to see you," I explain with a smirk as Two returns carrying a sac of viscous semi-opaque green slime on his back. He drops it down onto the stainless steel table. I take it and prop it against the side of her cage. Despite herself, she approaches it and peers closer trying to make out the identity of the shape floating inside. I wait for her to get close to it before sending a bolt of magic through it, popping it like an overfilled water balloon and showering her with goo through the bars. I chuckle as she shrieks in horror at the green mess clinging to her coat and mane, but quickly enough she quiets down and returns to glaring at me.

"Not amusing, Twilight. And if you think a little mess is going to get me to do what you want, prepare yourself to be disappointed."

I shrug. That wasn't my intention at all, I just thought it would be amusing. And maybe shake her up enough to make what's coming next more effective. Three returns from the vault with what I ordered him to retrieve, and I take the Element of Generosity from him. Unlike Magic, this one doesn't have any sting to it, and I fasten it around my neck. "What do you think? Looks good on me, doesn't it? Matches my coat. Of course..." a flash of green fire while I take Rarity's shape and voice, "...you really do pull it off better than I do."

"Oh please," she scoffs. "You really think stealing my appearance is going to bother me?"

"Isn't that what you're all about? Appearances? It's easy for me to change mine, but yours is a bit more resistant." A burner hovers off the counter and floats over to me. From inside the cage Rarity winces as I used a spark from my horn to ignite it. "Changing appearances is my new specialty. What do you think you would look like with half of your face burned off? Should we find out, or are you going to break the Element for me?"

"Do your worst, Twilight. Morph into whatever you wish, disfigure me if that's the only thing you can think of to change my mind. No matter what you do, you'll still be the truly ugly one here."

There's a throbbing pain forming at the back of my head. Why is she making me do this? I thrust the lit burner towards her, but at the last second it twists in my magic and clatters against the bars. I blink a few times in confusion and straighten it out to try again. Every time it gets close to the cage, though, it twists again and refuses to go in. "How are you doing that?" I growl at her.

Rarity looks as confused as I am. "I'm not doing anything." Then her mouth slowly creeps into the most infuriating smirk. "I knew you were bluffing."

I don't know why my magic isn't working right, but I can disabuse her of that idea pretty quickly. "Bluffing?" I ask her as I sort through the folds of the collapsed sac for its preserved contents. In one move I yank the slimy corpse of Spike, drained of blood with its rib cage torn open, out and hold it up for her to see. "Does this look like a bluff to you?" The effect on Rarity is immediate. Her resolve vanishes and she spins away from me, but I follow her around the cage so she has to look. "What's the matter, Rarity? Upset that somepony else besides you found a way to take advantage of his heart?"

When she realizes I'm not going to let her look away, she takes a deep breath and steels herself. Even so, staring into his lifeless face leaves her trembling. "Oh Spike, what has she done to you?"

"I needed the parts. And he brought this on himself. Every loop I woke up in, he'd always say the same thing. Always mocking me for another failure." I shake the body, and it takes everything I have not to slam it into the wall. "Guess what, Spike? Looks like this time it did work."

"Twilight, you know that can't be true," says Rarity as I quietly seethe in place. "I'm not the pony he loved the most. You are. Sure, he had a bit of a crush on me, but you know it was you he was truly devoted to."

"Nopony loves me." The words slip out unbidden. Why would I say that? Lots of ponies love me, I know that. I shake my head to try to clear away the pain in my head that's becoming sharper by the minute. "Why don't we ask him?"

"Ask him? How could we possibly—"

"Magic!" I interrupt. "Here. Hold onto this for a second." The Element of Generosity vanishes from around my neck and reappears in the cage with her. Hopefully she won't suspect anything until it's too late. I take the other item Three brought up from the vault. "Look familiar?" I ask as I hold up the fire ruby brooch for Rarity to see. "Technically, any sufficiently large gemstone would work as a focus, but this one felt the most appropriate. I hope you don't mind it getting a little messy in the process." I channel some dark power through my horn, and little black spots start to dance across it. Matching magic courses through the amethyst rhombus at the front of the Element of Generosity until the gem starts to glow.

“What are you doing to my Element?”

“Resonant frequencies!”

Rarity blinks. “Uh, if you could maybe clarify exactly what that’s supposed to mean?”

I chuckle a bit, and clear my throat. “It’s just basic science. Every solid object has its own natural frequency that it oscillates at when something strikes it. Energy at that frequency is transmitted more efficiently. The spell expands on that principle, and allows energy at the right frequency to be moved between two different objects.”

She furrows her brow. “I’m afraid you’ve lost me.”

“Basically...” I lift the Element of Generosity with my foreleg, appreciating its weight for a moment, then smack the necklace down on the surface of the table. A sharp crack sounds out through the room, followed by a gentle hum from the gemstone in its center. “Listen close, and you’ll hear it.” I take the fire ruby, feeling its vibration crawl into my hooves despite my efforts to block them out. Moving it from one hoof to the other and shaking out the first one which has gone numb for some reason, I place it up against the cage. An unpleasant tone rings out through the room and I wince.

“Beautiful,” says Rarity, smiling a bit at the note.

“Awful.” That noise is making my headache worse. I pass the necklace through the cage bars, and Rarity accepts it. Now for step two.

“You know,” I say in a fashion that she cannot possibly be dumb enough to construe as ‘casually,’ “if you wanted to, I could give you a chance to say goodbye to him.

Rarity is, understandably, cautious. She narrows her eyes and glares at me, while I put on my most innocent smile. The fangs probably aren’t helping. “Ah, it’s all becoming clearer,” she says, and it’s all I can do not to burst out laughing when I feel the wave of smug self-satisfaction billowing off of her. She thinks she’s got me figured out? I can hardly wait for her to find out how wrong she is. “You must have something you want to say to him yourself. An apology, perhaps?”

My smile vanishes. “No. I did what I had to do. It wasn’t pleasant, but I made my decision. I made it again and again and again and always the same way. I needed the potion, so he had to die. No apologies.”

“Did he fight back?”

My eyes snap open and the memories, the hundreds of different moments I drove the knife with hundreds of different cuts, growing quicker and more methodical with practice. “No,” I whisper, “he was just... he didn’t even have time to be angry at me. Just... he was always so confused at the end. Confused and a little..”

“Twilight,” Rarity says softly as she reaches through the bars, resting a hoof on my back. My ephemeral wings twitch at the touch, but I don’t pull away. “It’s alright to admit that you made the wrong choice.”

I yank myself away from her. “Wrong choice?” I ask. I almost thought, for just a second, that she really understood. “Wrong choice? I made every choice! Thousands upon thousands of them spiraling outward from that stupid restart point. Right choice or wrong choice, right or wrong, it doesn’t matter.” I remember my plan and snatch the fire ruby up off the table again. My black, twisted horn grows even darker as dark magic appears in the air around me, and I channel it into the ruby. When the heart-shaped gem throbs with an angry inner darkness of its own, I shove it into the gap in Spike’s chest.

The necromantic enchantment I wove into the jewel reacts immediately. Flesh and bone starts to twist itself back together as Rarity looks on, horrified but fascinated. “Why don’t I give you two some alone time?” I ask as I turn back to my workbench. A glow of my horn and Spike’s mending body winks out and reappears in the cage with Rarity. I feign nonchalance and start fiddling with beakers and measurements without any real direction. Anything to keep my horn glowing.

Despite herself, Rarity edges a bit closer to investigate the body. Until it twitches. “What did you do?” she asks. Then after a moment’s hesitation, “Spike?”

Spike moans. The second movement is a lot more definitive this time, his claw reaching for something unseen. Rarity takes a cautious step towards him, and reaches out with a hoof to brush against the very edge of his fin.

The next moan is louder, and far more harrowing. “There may have been a little necrotic decay to his synapses, did I forget to mention that? The higher brain functions are the first thing to go. But I’m sure he still has most of his... baser... instincts.”

Rarity’s eyes go wide in alarm as Spike rises up, his expression blank and and milky-white calluses blocking out all the color from his eyes. He stands there for a moment, then takes an experimental whiff of the air around him. Then he turns to Rarity and stares at her. Not with adoration, but with hunger. And then he takes a single, staggering step in her direction. “Spike, it’s me. It’s Rarity, dear. Don’t do anything you’ll regret.”

“Trust me, he knows,” I call back to her over my shoulder. “I’m sure if he were still capable of higher thought he’d be happy to know that his first time was with the mare he’s always had a crush on. It’s not really my place to comment, but I do hope you’ll be a generous lover.”

“No!” cries Rarity, pressing right up against the threshold of absolute panic as he draws closer. “Spike, stop this right now!”

“If you want him to stop, you’ll have to stop him yourself.” I turn my full attention back to the cage. “Free magic tip: destroying the gemstone I used for a focus will end the reanimation spell. Of course, you don’t have anything to cut into his chest and get it out so that doesn’t wor—”

A beakerful of some solvent or another crashes to the ground as my magic cuts out for a moment, and for the next several seconds all I can do is stand there frozen as I try, with little success, to breathe. Even Spike’s stopped walking across the cage.

“So... so that isn’t really an option,” I say. Those words don’t hurt. Spike’s advance resumes as Rarity presses herself against the bars trying to get away. “But gosh, if only you had something else that was enchanted to transmit energy through resonant frequencies you could break instead.”

Finally, she gets it. I don’t know how I could have spelled it out any more clearly. Her eyes go wide as she looks down at the Element of Generosity clutched in her grasp. Then she looks up at me and glares. She drops the necklace just as Spike’s claw reaches out and grabs her tail. Closing her eyes, and with tears streaming down her cheeks, she stomps down and breaks the gem.

Energy courses out, into Spike, Rarity, and dancing up and down the bars of the cage. The surge is deafening, but not quite loud enough to drown out her screams. It takes a minute or so for the magic to stop pouring out of it, but when it does she collapses with an empty, vacant stare that matches Spike’s.

For his part, Spike is still standing in the middle of the cage. What a great assistant. Helpful to the end, and even beyond. The glow of my horn ceases, and my little puppet collapses now that the strings have been cut. “Zombie dragons. Geez, I can’t believe she bought that,” I say to myself with a little chuckle. That’s all five of the Elements, their reign of terror ended at last. I turn back to my workstation and start humming a random little ditty. It’s a load off my mind, now I need to focus on—

“Well that didn’t work.”

I spin back around. That sounded like Spike, but that’s impossible. He’s dead. “Who’s there? Who said that? Two, Three, if that was one of you I’ll...” I trail off when I realize that there isn’t anypony else there. The hivemind tells me that my assistants are across the hall in another room altogether, while Spike and Rarity lay motionless in the cage right where I left them. Must have imagined—

“Well that didn’t work.”

“Shut up!” I scream. Now I’m sure I heard that. It definitely came from the cage, and it was definitely his voice. I take a few deep breaths to try to slow my racing heartbeat. This is a trick. Somepony with a ventriloquism spell, or... or... or something. When you’ve eliminated the impossible, then whatever remains must be the—

“Well that didn’t work.”

“I said shut up! Stop saying that! Stop it!” I lift Spike’s corpse off the floor in my magic and pull it up against the bars, right in front of my face. There must a clue somewhere in the aura, a hint of who’s mocking me like this, but I can’t find any—

“Well that didn’t work.”

Right out of his mouth, even if his lips never move and his jaw just hangs there. “Stop saying that, Spike. It worked this time. It did. It did work.”

“Well that didn’t work.”

I scream. Out of control, I wrap my field around his tail and swing, his head arcing downward until it bashes into the floor. Ichor and brain tissue spatter all over Rarity’s coat as his skull splits with a sickening crack. I glare at the mess. I didn’t really want to do that, but if it was the only way to make his voice stop than it was worth—

“Well that didn’t work.”

This time I don’t stop swinging until there’s nothing but a bloody mound of pulp left.

Silence, sweet blessed silence, descends over the lab. I walk away from the cage, sending out a mental command for Two and Three to do something about the resulting mess. So much for the alchemical value of the rest of his body. Maybe I’ll be able to salvage something later, but for the time being there’s one other thing I can try. Another source of potentially viable parts.

Alicorn parts

---------------

I enter the makeshift mortuary behind a door with an ornate golden '6' scribed into the wood, a relic from its previous use as castle barracks for the royal guard, and pass by the vats that hold the remains of the failed hosts for some of my previous creations. They don't have any new answers for me, but maybe I can find some in the one body I've been putting off examining all this time. The very last vat at the end of the row sticks out, bigger than the others. It has to be, since the pony inside of it is larger than most.

I tip the vat over the grated floor and the liquid inside rushes out and drains away. Celestia's corpse, dyed a messy orange from her stay in the preservative fluid, flops wetly onto the floor. Looking her over, I can tell the concoction has done a serviceable, if not perfect, job. The body wasn't in such great shape when Chrysalis finished with it anyway. Deep burns run along her left side, her wing torn away completely. That half of her face is charred and warped almost beyond recognition, as well. I look down on her and give her a brief moment of silence, then lift the body onto the dissection table, laying her out so I'll have access to her intact side. It's then that I realize that I've left the instruments on the cart over by the entrance, and I trot back over to retrieve them.

"Twilight."

I freeze in an instant. I know that voice all too well, although it wasn't one I ever expected to hear again. It's not possible.

"Twilight, look at me when I'm speaking to you." I slowly turn back towards the table. Celestia is sitting up, the broken-off tip of her horn nearly scraping the ceiling. She glares at me with her one remaining eye for a moment while the scene before me sinks in. "I'm so disappointed in you."

"Princess?" I manage to squeak. "Are you real? Am I imagining this?"

"The answers to those questions are yes, and no. Not necessarily in that order however." A little hint of the playful smile I remember so well plays at the corner of her mouth, but it's gone as quickly as it appeared leaving her looking grimmer than I've ever seen her. "More importantly, though, do you really think this behavior is acceptable? That this course of action is one I approve of? You stupid, deluded little filly."

I stagger back from her, suddenly on the defensive. "The loop... I didn't have a choice."

Celestia is having none of it. "You were the only one who did have a choice. I never thought you would choose this, though. I figured even you would be smart enough to have found a correct solution by now."

My incredulous stare does nothing to dull the edge in her expression. "This is a test?"

She scoffs. "Everything is a test, Twilight. Every conversation we've ever had, every game we ever played, every lesson you struggled to grasp. I watched you, judging your every move and cataloging all the ways you came up wanting. All the thousands of mistakes and failures. I never forgot a single one. This one certainly tops the list."

"But... but... You always called me your most faithful student."

She raises her eyebrow. "You're my only student. Don't tell me you didn't know, deep down, that you weren't good enough? Wow, that's even more pathetic."

"None of this is my fault. I had to be stronger, that's why I made myself this way. Once the rebellion is gone—"

"What rebellion?" she asks.

"The ponies who don't want me to be queen. There are more of them than I expected, but I'm sure they'll run out soon."

Celestia doesn't answer me right away. Instead she steps down from the table and walks over to me, scraps of torn skin flaking off her side. Has she always towered over me like this? "Fine, I'll spell it out for you. There were a few ponies fighting back against you at first, but you massacred them easily enough. Nothing left to fight. No pony left to blame. Couldn't have that, now could you? You'd have to take responsibility for once. But you had all these drones that could look like whatever you wanted them to. A part of you got so used to fighting the monsters, it never stopped. The only rebellion left is right up here." She reaches out and taps my head, and that awful pain is back. I flash back to the executions I saw last week, except the stage is green and black with the corpses of broken drones. That's not what happened. They were pony traitors. The blood was red, not green. Why am I remembering it wrong?

"Stop it. Stop telling me things that aren't true," I mutter as I look anywhere except up at her.

"I'm only telling you what you already know, I'm just not bothering to sugarcoat it for you anymore," she replies. "You've always known you weren't really worth the time I put into teaching you. You just faked it and tried to convince yourself I wouldn't notice. I gave you every conceivable advantage, when the whole time you knew they were wasted on you."

"Please stop." I cover my head and try to block out her voice, but it feels like now it's coming from inside my own head.

"You haven't changed a bit since the day I met you. You're still the scared little filly who can't pass the test without outside help. Of course the Elements rejected you. You deceitful, cruel, selfish..."

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry Princess, I'll do better. I'll try harder. Please, stop." I blubber through my hooves.

She doesn't. "...unfeeling, treacherous little failure. I should have left you friendless. Certainly you don't deserve friendship, or understand it in the least."

It's all too much. I spin on my hooves and run for the open door. No matter how fast I run, the door doesn't seem to be getting any closer. All the while I hear the Princess screaming at me from somewhere behind, hurling insults at me that hurt all the more because deep down I know they’re true. I squeeze my eyes closed and teleport ahead blindly, toppling into the basement hallway as I arrive. Taking a moment to catch my breath, I look at the blank patch of wall at my back. There isn't a door there. Nope, just a bare patch of wall, an aberration in the regular spacing of the other doors. I don't know why the architect who designed this place originally skipped from door '5' to door '7.' Probably some silly, irrational superstition, but for whatever reason there's just a featureless stone wall where you might expect door '6' to be. There isn't any door, and there certainly isn't a room behind that door, and since there's no room it would be ridiculous to believe that there could be anything to worry about inside a room that isn't there behind a door that doesn't exist.

I shake my head, rousing myself from this silly little train of thought. I had... something important I came down here to do, but now I can't remember what it was. Oh well, I'm sure I'll remember later if it was really important. For now, onto other business. That invincible changeling army isn't going to breed itself.

I walk away from the bare wall, and as I leave I hear the squeak of rusty hinges as a door closes somewhere behind me.