It had been days since Twilight had heard from her friends. When the event happened with Angel, Fluttershy was inconsolable, and the other Elements of Harmony chastised her. Twilight had felt horrible about the whole thing. The last thing she ever wanted to do was hurt a friend. This was more than just hurting, however. This was an utter betrayal of one of her best friend’s trust. Fluttershy’s whole purpose in life was to take care of animals. She could not have hurt Fluttershy more with her actions. They went against the fundamentals of what makes Fluttershy who she is. She had to make it right. She wanted to give up. She wanted to put this all behind her, apologize, beg for forgiveness and throw the book into the fire.

‘No. I can’t let Angel’s death be in vain. He died because I was in a rush and arrogant that this would just work out. I know now that it won’t and that I have to be extra careful, but most importantly, I have to make it work. I cannot let the death of one of my most dear friend’s loved ones mean nothing. I know I can figure this out,' she thought.

Trotting over to the book, she examined the equation again.

‘This doesn’t make sense. My calculations are correct, so what happened? What is the difference between everything else I teleported and Angel? I had made sure to try teleporting organic material, and that worked out perfectly. So, then, what happened? How did Angel die?!?’

Letting her anger finally boil over, she slammed her hoof against the desk where the book lied. She immediately regretted that decision, and pulled her hoof away after feeling intense pain. She examined where she banged her hoof, and saw a bruise starting to form.

‘Oh great Twilight Sparkle. First you kill your friends prized pet and now you are hurting yourse-‘
She never finished the statement in her head. Her eyes widened at the realization.

‘How could I have been so stupid?’

Flesh. That was the answer. In all the experiments she ran, even the ones with organic materials, none of them contained flesh. Meat. This changed everything. She hurriedly began to scratch out parts of the initial equation, and reform her ideas. With a huge smile on her face, she ran over to the control panel, and fed the new data into the computer.

-

Everything was done. All of the proper calculations were completed, the machines tested. All that was left was to find a test subject. Considering what happened with Angel, she knew she could never ask one of her friends. Spike was with the Princesses. She didn’t want to travel to Zecora’s home, as she would have to travel through town, which she wanted to avoid until she was sure everything worked the way it was supposed to work. Without any options, Twilight did the only thing she could. The one thing that every science class, every science book and personal lesson with the Princess warned her about; experiment on herself.

‘I can’t believe I’m going to go through with this. I have to though, it’s the only way. If I don’t prove that this machine works, Angel’s death would have been for nothing, and my friends will hate me forever. I have to do this. To gain their respect back… and their friendship.’

Twilight took a deep breath and used her magic to power up the machine. She quickly trotted over to the first Telepod, and locked the door, securing it shut.

‘That’s strange. There seems to be a buzzing in here. Is this what it’s supposed to sound like in here while the teleportation sequence is activating? Oh well, here it goes…’

A bright light appeared in front of her face, and in a flash, her eyes came back into focus, and she realized she was on the other side of the room. It had worked. She was in the other pod. Twilight used her magic to unlock the door to her pod, and stepped out.

‘Well, everything seems ok,’ she thought.

She looked down at herself, and sure enough, everything was in order. Twilight trotted over to a nearby mirror, and gazed at her reflection. She was normal. It had worked.

“YES! It worked! I can now teleport any organic materials, including ponies!”

Suddenly, she felt very tired.

‘I guess all that adrenalin that I had before is starting to dissipate.’

Twilight went upstairs, and settled down for the evening. Closing her eyes, she fell asleep. She let her thoughts drift to tomorrow, and how excited she was to reconcile with her friends. She needed to show them her breakthrough.

I know that this chapter was kinda short. Sorry, but I was trying to move things along, and I thought it was long enough not to dwell on the transition. See you all in chapter 4!