The first thing she heard was somepony saying, "She's coming around!"

"Get the medicine."

"Make sure she's stable! She's been out of it for a really long time!"

Twilight groaned. If this was where bad ponies went, it sounded like... like a hospital. Which might make sense, actually. Bedridden for eternity, in a room far from home, with no one to visit. Throw in an evil nurse or something and it was actually plausible.

"Hurry up! She's almost awake!"

Twilight's eyes flickered open, and she recognized the ceiling of the palace infirmary. "Huh?" she managed.

"Easy." She looked over to see a tall pony with a heart on her flank. "You were out of it for a long time. Take it slow."

"What happened? Where am I?" Had her suicide attempted been stopped, somehow? Was Celestia even now preparing another try at putting Twilight in an immortal body?

"The palace, of course. We'll explain more once you've eaten and rested." The doctor waved over an orderly with a cart, who quickly put a large bowl of salad in front of her.

"Wait -- how long have I been here?"

"Five days," said the doctor. "Ever since you got in, I believe."

It took almost three minutes for Twilight to realize the implications of what the doctor had just said. If she'd been unconscious for five days, then she hadn't actually been killing other ponies. It had just been some deranged hallucination.

Twilight, before giving in to the joy at this realization, forced herself to consider the possibility that she was just hallucinating now instead of then. But she didn't fee like that was the case. The whole competition now seemed almost... dream-like. Like it hadn't happened at all .In fact, all those 'old memories' seemed like that. Thinking back, she was confident that she hadn't been training in combat since the age of six. She'd been the studious bookworm she'd always thought she was.

In fact, the more Twilight thought about it, the more she realized how impossible the 'trained soldier' thing was. Even if Princess Celestia had given her a whole new set of memories, there hadn't been anything about Celestia making her physically weaker. Yet when she went to Ponyville, she was still weaker than, say, Applejack, and therefore not the supersoldier she'd thought she was. Or take Spike. He wasn’t in the soldier memories, yet Spike, while in Ponyville, had known details of her childhood that he could only have known or seen by assisting her back at the castle.

She smiled. It had all been a dream! Then that meant she hadn't killed Rainbow Dash! Or Saberhoof, Slam, or anypony else! She wasn't a murderer after all!

"By the way," the doctor said, "Let me know if you have feel any side effects such as nausea or dizziness. The spell doesn't last nearly as long on most ponies..."

'The spell?' wondered Twilight. And then one additional memory surfaced in her mind, neatly edging out her hazy memories of being a soldier and her thoughts of brutal combat. She saw herself talking Princess Celestia, back in the throne room. She'd just arrived in Canterlot, and she was describing why Twilight had been summoned.

"Well... I suppose I can tell you now. I wanted you to take a certain test."

Twilight immediately began to panic.

"I -- of course, your majesty, of course, I will, but I -- I haven't studied, and I don't know--"

"Twilight!" Celestia seemed amused. "It is not that kind of test. You need not worry. It is more a test of... character. It is not the kind of exam that can be studied for."

That mollified Twilight a little. Very little. "Alright, your highness. I'm ready."

"Wait." Celestia smiled. "You should know this, first. This is a traditional test, one given to every pony who serves the princesses. It measures their ability to balance their duties as a servant of Equestria and their duties to others, such as family and friends. It also tests judgement, wisdom, compassion, and numerous other important traits. While I must warn you that it is a very difficult test, I do not believe you will have any trouble passing."

"What, exactly, does this test involve?" asked Twilight.

"I will put a spell on you," said Celestia. "You won't remember anything after agreeing to the trial, and you will think you're in other circumstances. Then, you'll need to make choices based on your own knowledge and conscience."

"Circumstances?"

Celestia nodded. "It is different for each pony. But one scenario might be deciding between giving the last of your food to a starving member of the royal household, or a hungry family member. Or it might entail choosing whether or not to execute a pony who has committed some horrible wrong. Of course, if you feel like you are not ready--"

"No. I'm always ready for a test." Twilight smiled. "Lead the way."

Twilight's mouth opened. So it hadn't happened... but... it hadn't been a dream either.

It had been a hallucination induced by the test. Of course. Celestia had been evaluating her. If she made her believe that, say, she had to execute her friend and a bunch of others for ill-defined, vaguely political machinations, she wanted to know how she would react.

As it turned out, she'd react by killing absolutely everypony, up to and almost include Luna herself. And even then, she'd held off on that not for Luna, but out of her own guilt.

So she hadn't killed Dash or the others. But she'd certainly wanted to and tried.

The nurses turned as she emitted a strangled scream and began tearing the blankets off of herself. The doctor ran forward. "Wait! You need medicine, you can't get up yet!"

Twilight leapt to her feet, and when the doctor stuck out a hoof to shove her back down, she rammed him aside and fled for the door. She no longer had the vast power that she'd thought she had (and of course she didn't, the magic she knew didn't work that way with blood sacrifices and she should have noticed that), but she was still reasonably fast. She managed to edge past the nurses and escape into the hallway.

The launch pad for the hot-air balloons and chariots wasn't too far away, if Twilight remembered correctly. Good. She could flee the castle without actually having to hear Celestia say how disappointed she was, how depraved Twilight had shown herself to be, and how she was both fired from being Celestia's student and probably exiled to the northern snowcaps.  Actually, that would be lenient. Celestia would probably exile her to the moon. Had even Nightmare Moon attempted such wholesale slaughter?

(Twilight rounded a corner, using her magic to form the air into a cushion so that she could bounce off a wall of rather than lose time slowing for the turn.)

No. Nightmare Moon hadn't tried that. Discord hadn't tried that. Twilight had probably set some kind of record for depravity in Equestria lands. Well, there was no reason to stick around, then, and be publically shamed for her own horrible failings. A few minutes and she would reach the balloons and chariots. It didn't even matter which one she chose. She'd go to Brismane, or Neigh Orleans, or Manehatten, or Fillydelphia... anywhere but where she was.

(One, two, three hallways completed, and then only a flight of stairs stood between her and the exit.)

She moved past the inhabitants of the castle in a dash that would probably put Rainbow Dash's records to shame. She almost collided with some old clerk, but jumped up in a magic-assisted leap that let her clear the mare with at least four inches to spare. The clerk yelled something as she fled, as if a minor annoyance like that would even be visible compared with all the things Twilight had imagined herself doing.

(Twilight saw the door to the launch pad and summoned a spell to let her bounce off a wall and shoot out onto the field like a rocket. A few were ready. She could simply hop in and flee).

She almost crashed into Princess Celestia.

Luna, standing a few feet away, looked away and poorly disguised a giggle. Celestia smiled as her horn glowed and she teleported a foot to the left so that Twilight wouldn't run into her. "Twilight, where are you going?" she asked.

Twilight felt like she was about to burst from shame. She resolved that she wouldn't hang around to be torn down. If she was already so evil as to turn against her friends and commit such crimes, what did blowing off a princess or two matter? She continued towards the balloons.

"Twilight, wait!" Celestia's voice was calm. "Please, you are not--"

Luna had floated up and floated over in front of Twilight. "Peace, young Twilight. Thou art not in trouble..."

Twilight heard the words but didn't process them. She couldn't understand why they would lie to her now. But it seemed like the princesses weren't going to let her leave without saying something, so she turned and briefly bowed to them. "Princesses, I regret that I have failed you. I see now that I am not fit to continue as your students or in any other capacity here, and that I have not learned any of the lessons I wrote to you about. I -- I will be leaving immediately. I will not bother you further."

"You have not failed us!" began Celestia, but Twilight knew platitudes when she heard them. Clearly, Celestia didn't have the heart to tell her the truth, but that didn't matter. She could at least do Celestia this one small favor and not force her to explain.

She hopped into one of the balloons, but nothing happened. The control system was completely unfamiliar to her. She recalled distantly that Celestia had wanted to modernize them, and unfortunately, Twilight didn't know the new controls. As for the chariots, she realized that there weren't any pegasi on the launchpad. It was just her and the princesses

She turned back to see Luna almost giggling again. "Dost thou know how to utilize such a vehicle? Wait, and let us explain."

Twilight turned away from her.

Celestia's voice sounded strained. "Twilight, please, listen to me. You aren't in trouble. You didn't fail--"

Twilight thought. How far could she teleport, anyway? Well, if it didn't work and she wounded up stranded in some dimensional rift, or thrown halfway across the world, it served her right.

She attempted to teleport, and a moment later, noted that she hadn't gone anywhere. Also, the world seemed to have rotated ninety degrees.

Celestia did a good job of pretending to sound concerned. "Twilight! Are you all right?"

"After thine ordeal, thou hast little magic. Thou should--" began Luna.

Twilight forced herself to her feet. Fine. She couldn't use the balloons or chariots, and she couldn't use magic, but she could still run.

She scrambled to the edge of the pad. The descent was steep, but not impossible.

"Wait!" called Celestia, and then Twilight was galloping down the hill.

The slope ended at a small walkway that looped back to the main entrance. Twilight zipped down the path and through the gate before the guards could even challenge her.

She only stopped running once she'd made her way to a deserted alley in the middle of Canterlot. She leaned against a wall for support. She felt famished and cold -- it was unusually cold for the season -- and didn't have a single bit. She couldn't even rent a room for the night.

Well, it didn't matter. She didn't plan on staying long anyway.

She paused for a moment, trying to figure out where to go. The events of the past few days had completely messed up her sense of geography (had she really thought there was a Dog Nation? She'd never heard of such a thing!) But she did recall a settlement of ponies far to the west, in a desert region. Like Applelooza, but even more in the middle of nowhere. They were trying to eke out a living there, in order to mine and process the valuable ores and gems in the region, but it was very hard. They were so far from any other settlement that they were on their own in any crisis. Twilight supposed that they could probably use a talented mage.

"Especially if it didn't matter if the mage was swallowed up by the sand," she muttered. She still found it hard to believe that she'd wanted to kill Rainbow Dash, but it had happened.

"Well, let's look on the bright side. I find it out now before it comes up in real life."

Over the next ten minutes, she worked out a plan. First, leave Canterlot, forge in the nearest field for grass and dandelions, and try to get some kind of sleep. When she woke up, ideally, her teleportation magic would return, and she could start making magical 'hops' to the desert. She wasn't strong enough to go all the way there in one go, but it probably wouldn't take more than a few days. Then she could begin her new life.

She began to trot out of Canterlot, hoping that she didn't run into anypony she knew. She didn't want to have to tell them what was going on or why she was fleeing. How did you say to a friend that, as it turned out, you were evil and a menace?

'Oh, hi Dash,' she imagined. Sorry, but I have to leave. Turns out it's really easy to get me to kill you. Yeah, just a few days of telling me it's for a good reason and I'd cut your head off right away. Say hi to Pinkie for me, would you?'

But her friends weren't in Canterlot. She'd left them behind in Ponyville. Well, she'd made one smart decision--

"Hey, Twilight! Twilight! Wait up!"

Twilight swiveled, feeling a jolt of genuine panic. She recognized that voice.

"Twilight! I've been trying to see you for, like, five days! But everypony just said you were busy, and they didn't even care that I took a week off and came all the way from Ponyville!" The cyan pony crossed her arms and looked stern for a moment, but then grinned. "But hey, we've met up now, right? So, what've you been up to? What's going on?"

Twilight could only stare at Rainbow Dash in horror. Next Chapter: Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash (Live it up) Estimated time remaining: 14 Minutes