As it turned out, a week’s worth of upsetting therapy was simply not enough time for Starlight, and to a lesser extent, Spike to move past what happened to Twilight the previous week. Starlight still blamed herself for even posing the question in the first place as it had been responsible for what happened thus far.

At least it hadn’t been messy… yet.

Having watched her teacher forgo her usual dainty trot in favor with a bounce in her skip comparable to a school age foal, Starlight decided that Twilight looked far too excited to test methods to bring about her demise. She found the discovery equal parts disturbing and reassuring. At least her teacher didn’t hold it against her...

At least it hasn’t changed her personality too much, Starlight thought grimly as she bit into her pancake. She knew that it was only a matter of time before they had to resume. Plus, in the time that she and Spike had their therapy sessions, it had apparently turned into something of a race between the four ruling princesses in Equestria.

And Twilight was in last place.

As far as Starlight knew, Twilight probably wouldn’t have let that bother her too much on a normal day. But what Starlight didn’t realize was that Rainbow Dash had rubbed off on Twilight. A lot. Add her neuroticism when it came to getting things done in a timely manner to her desire to impress her teacher and it formed a creature of seemingly unmatched potential for impatience.

But that was neither here nor there. What mattered now was that everything was as fine as it was going to get.

At least now they could get back to the important work of figuring out how to kill an alicorn.

“So now that everyone is here,” she smiled at Spike and Starlight. She knew that Discord already set aside the time to have his little tea date with Fluttershy. “I think it’s high time we get back to work and figure out how I’m going to die next!”

Spike unfurled the long list of methods they’d get to try. It was clear that he’d decided to pointedly ignore her unbridled enthusiasm.

“Sleep deprivation,” he heard Starlight decide over his shoulder. He glanced to see the words close to the bottom of the page. “And I already have a good plan to make it happen.”

As it turned out, Starlight’s setup had been almost as simple as Discord’s failsafe. All they’d needed to do was go to the castle of the two sisters, bring a lot of caffeine, latch a vibrator to Twilight’s neck if she closed her eyes for longer than a minute, and lots of books.

Naturally, Twilight wholeheartedly approved of the setup. There were plenty of unread tomes in the delipidated castle that Twilight had been itching to read. Add to the fact that they weren’t organized or even translated into modern equestrian, and Twilight has just figured out how she was spending her free time outside her princess responsibilities. Starlight and Spike on the other hand, had quickly realized how boring this method happened to be as they watched through a one-way mirror they set up so they could watch Twilight from the comfort of the castle of friendship.

They’d wished they could ask Discord to speed things up.

“Is something wrong Discord?” Fluttershy asked as Discord wiped his nose with a tea cozy. “I hope you aren’t coming down with something.”

Discord grinned at the pegasus. “I wouldn’t worry, Fluttershy. I’m quite fine and in good health.”

I’m not sure I can say the same for Princess Twilight. He thought, wondering idly what demise method they’d decided to try today. Whatever it is, it’s certainly not my problem!

“How has Twilight not lost it yet?” Starlight asked two weeks later as she stared at Twilight’s still perfect complexion. The only telltale sign were the bags under her eyes. She and Spike had alternating shifts watching the mirror. “Why didn’t we realize that we would have to watch her read when we suggested this one?”

“You mean when you suggested this one?” Spike grumbled as he snuggled deeper into his blanket as they camped out in front of the mirror. “I think it had something to do with it not being messy?”

Now it was just a question of who was going to snap first: Twilight or Starlight and Spike.

As it turned out, the unicorn and the dragon were the first to snap. They’d returned to the castle where they found Twilight hunched over a book, an almost demented giggle coming over her. The pair unconsciously took a fearful step back. Twilight had been in there for close to a month by that point, surviving primarily on daisy sandwiches and coffee. There was no telling what she might do in her sleep deprived state.

It didn’t help that her eyes were the baggiest they’d ever been in the time they’d known the purple pony. There was little doubt in anyone’s mind that Twilight looked like a wreck: her mane and tail stuck out in all directions, her coat had long since turned dull, and her wing feathers were bent out of place. It didn’t help that she smelled awful. Rarity would have had a heart attack coupled with an ulcer just looking at Twilight.

Starlight had never been more glad to be wearing a garish yellow hazmat suit as she and Spike removed the vibrator and dragged the now unconscious but still alive princess of friendship back to the castle. The stares they got from the ponies in town had been easily explained. However, their plan for a covert return to the castle had been derailed by a single unicorn.

Rarity.

While Rarity didn’t get a heart attack upon catching sight of Twilight’s disheveled appearance, she did shriek in equal parts shock and horror before dragging them all to the spa. They’d tried to refuse, knowing full well that she’d want to know why her friend looked disheveled, but Rarity was just stubborn as, if not more so than, Applejack and held firm despite their protests.

However, Starlight wasn’t one to give up easily. As Rarity led toward the spa, Starlight came up with a distraction.

“Is that Sapphire Shores over there?” Starlight asked loudly, catching several other ponies’ interest. Rarity, along with the other ponies present, had eagerly rushed off in search of the wayward musician. In the mayhem that followed, Starlight had teleported the three of them back to Twilight’s castle.

Hopefully Rarity would forgive her once this was all over. Or at the very least, forget that it had ever happened.

Twilight stretched as she entered the throne room the following morning. It was incredible how quickly she’d recovered from her sleep deprivation episode once she’d had a nice hot bath and a comfortable bed could combat the episode of insanity she’d experienced while sitting in that castle by herself. She’d make a mental note to spend more time with her friends once this madness was over.

Maybe she’d take a break once she caught up to the other princesses.

For now, her increasingly faithful student and Equestria’s #1 assistant would have to suffice.

“Good morning!” She chirped then blinked. It seemed Spike and Starlight were not nearly as upbeat as she was. She idly wondered what was bothering them before shrugging. If they wanted her to know, they would tell her.

“Good morning, Twilight,” Discord grinned from his perch on Fluttershy’s throne. “I heard about your little sleep deprivation episode.”

Twilight didn’t look the least bit embarrassed as she replied. “It was heaven there Discord!” She replied eagerly. “All of those books just begging to be read…” Discord snorted when he spotted her drooling at the memory of the ceiling stacks of books during her month long retreat into confinement.

“That’s all well and good,” Discord shook his head in amusement. “But perhaps we should get back to the issue at hoof: your next method of death.”

Twilight spotted the discarded list and picked it up before zeroing in on a single one.

“Superacids.”

A few hours later found the party of four in Twilight’s secret laboratory. The list had been pretty vague when it came to talking about death by acid so they decided to account for several different factors. First, which acid?

They were obviously going to need some incredibly potent acids and the three experimenters were going to need to be safely equipped before administering the acids of choice.

There was also the method of administration to consider.

Thankfully, Rarity had been there to save the day. As it turned out, the hype for Sapphire Shores had been real and Starlight had inadvertently pointed out the musician in question by pure luck. With Starlight’s advance notice, Rarity had been able to catch the musician and had gotten a large commission from her before she’d been assaulted by her fans. As a result, Rarity had been more than happy to produce three sets of hazmat suits, no questions asked!

“If it weren’t for you, Starlight, I don’t think I would have been able to catch her when I did!” Rarity trilled as she bustled about her shop, collecting her materials.

“I’m glad I was able to help,” Starlight replied carefully as she accepted the package. She felt no need to mention that she had pointed to a pony at random. Besides, who was she to turn down free stuff from a friend?

In any case, armed with three sets of stylish hazmat suits, Starlight, Spike, and Discord went to work preparing the high concentration acids. It was not long before Twilight had been hooked up to a machine to keep track of her body. She was then presented with three glasses, each filled with a different type of acid for her to drink.

“Well,” Twilight smiled nervously as she raised the first beaker to the air while eying her friends carefully for some manner of clue of which acid she’d been consuming. “Just to be clear, no matter what happens, I forbid any of you from contacting poison control.” With that being said, Twilight downed the first beaker of acid.

The effect was almost instantaneous. She could feel the stomach pain come on almost instantly and that was to say nothing of the pain her throat, cutting off her ability to speak or breathe. She’d coughed in what would ultimately be a vain attempt to clear her airways but only succeeded in coughing up small flecks of blood.

It didn’t take long for Twilight to slump onto her side as she curled into a fetal position in a futile attempt to make the pain stop. The tears trailing down her cheeks certainly didn’t help things as she felt her limbs go cold from the rapid drop in blood pressure. She could hear her heart pounding in a desperate attempt to keep her alive.

Unfortunately, it was not enough.

The three watched as the beaker in Twilight’s magic fell the ground and shattered and whatever contents spilled onto the floor.

Pointedly ignoring the shards of glass and the hissing from the acid eating at the floor, Discord teleported the trio back up into the throne room to revive her.

The angel had no name; she simply was and a single purpose: collect the souls of the dead. She stared at the mirror indicating the death of one Princess Twilight Sparkle. It had been a strange occurrence. She, much like all of the angels, had believed that the princesses were immortal and would henceforth never actually meet them.

The angel had long since filed the information away and carried on with her duties much like her fellow angels. After collecting what few souls had perished in Equestria that day, the angel had the strange experience of meeting the spirit of chaos: Discord. The angel hadn’t particularly cared for the draconequus. He’d wrecked havoc on the angels as much as he had on the ponies but after learning of his reformation and his mostly clean record following it, she’d willing to hear him out.

Plus the opportunity to get one over on Death himself was more than a little tempting if the angel was going to honest with herself. Death was notorious for being the biggest slacker on the team and that was to say nothing of his mischievousness. Needless to say, the angel agreed to what the draconequus proposed. Besides, how many other angels got to meet an alicorn?

It had been something of a long wait before it happened. Truthfully, it had almost been entirely accidental that she’d found the princess at all. She still suspected Discord had pointed the way out to her but didn’t care enough to pursue the matter. Needless to say, she wasn’t disappointed. Princess Twilight had been a very pleasant conversationalist: she’d asked her about herself and her friends.

“Angels don’t have friends,” she had explained simply. It was a fact of life. Still, seeing Princess Twilight being appalled by such a declaration and immediately declaring herself the angel’s first friend made her feel a warm fuzzy feeling in her chest.

Doing as Discord asked, the angel had redirected Twilight back into her body by way of two kisses: one on each cheek. It was an ability angels had when they deemed someone to have died before their time was up to redirect their souls back into their bodies. Most times, they stayed invisible to loved ones but Discord insisted on remaining visible as part of their unspoken agreement.

She only prayed that it didn’t become a recurrent theme.

It didn’t so far and that was something she could be grateful for. Still, on the few instances she’d met the princess, they talked about all sorts of things and the angel while preparing the spell to send her back, found herself enjoying Twilight’s company. It certainly beat the company she usually had to deal with. Plus the feeling of her lips of Twilight’s coat felt nice and the angel doubted she would mind if she had to do it more than a few times.

Moving on…

The angel looked up as she stared at Twilight’s soul from her latest death attempt. Twilight smiled sheepishly while the angel let out a faint snort before moving toward the princess and getting to work.

Duty calls and all that…

When Twilight regained consciousness, she found herself crowded around by her team. It had taken her a moment to recall what had happened but they had explained that consuming any type of acid would almost certainly kill an alicorn if ingested in high concentrations. They’d then revealed that she’d consumed hydrochloric, hydrofluoric, and hydrobromic acids. They’d told her that all three had essentially the same effect on her anatomy but the hydrofluoric was by far the most potent.

Following that, they’d tried bathing her in the same acids she’d tried to drink. They’d even taken a trip into one of Spike’s comic books to find a large enough container to fit her. After beating the Mane-iac again, they’d managed to secure one of her factories for their tests. As it turned out, even bathing in acid was just as lethal as drinking it since it led to all manner of chemical burns and could damage enough of the internal organs following the burns to be lethal.

Still, seeing the nameless angel float down and revive Twilight with kisses was always a reassuring sight.

“That was definitely unpleasant,” Twilight decided. “That was definitely one of the more painful ways to go.”

“It certainly looked painful,” Starlight added. “We all really wanted to ignore your orders and call poison control but we were all glued to our spots until after the fact…”

“Well, what’s done is done and all we can do now is keep moving forward,” Twilight replied, wrapping a foreleg around her faithful pupil. She turned to Spike, “So what’s the next method on the list?”

“Um…” Spike scanned the list. “What’s gassing?”

Rather than answer Spike’s question directly, Discord teleported them to an underground bunker complete with a large metal door. It was obvious to anyone look at it that the room was completely sealed and the only way out was by the door.

“Gassing was an execution method used prior to the unification of the pony tribes,” Twilight explained. “Ponies on death row were escorted into these chambers and sealed inside. The executioner would then release a valve and the room would quickly fill with a lethal gas that would kill anybody inside in a manner of minutes.”

“It certainly not a pleasant way to go but it certainly sounds quicker than the sleep deprivation one at least,” Starlight offered hesitantly. Twilight nodded in agreement as Discord teleported Starlight and Spike out of the chamber before sealing it shut behind him.

It wasn’t long before she could detect the gas that Discord had decided to use. To her surprise, it didn’t smell near as awful as she’d expected them to be. It was certainly a pleasant surprise after the acid burns.

Still, Twilight had to concede that she was going to die in the dank chamber as she felt the gas make its way into her airways and the symptoms went into effect.

Discord, Starlight, and Spike watched in morbid fascination as Twilight slowly succumbed to the effects of the gas. As they watched the angel revive Twilight, she’d insisted on trying the full range of gases that the ponies from the pre-unification age used. They’d confirmed that excess cyanide gas even when charmed to smell pleasant was still lethal. From there, they moved onto using carbon monoxide which also led to Twilight’s demise in much the same way, Twilight had told them after the fact.

They felt no need to try depriving Twilight of oxygen. They’d already proved that alicorns couldn’t survive asphyxiation thanks to Twilight’s trip to the moon. They’d been easily been able to counter Luna’s survival by way of her access to her magic as Nightmare Moon and that Luna’s special talent was relevant to the moon. Therefore, the four had concluded that it was unlikely that Luna would have been harmed by her own celestial body.

“There’s not really any need to use chlorine, either.” Starlight observed. “She already drank hydrochloric acid, and the only reason chlorine is lethal is because it forms aych-cee-el.”

“That took less time than I was expecting,” Starlight remarked as they led Twilight out of the chamber.

“It helps that this is one of the faster methods on that list,” Twilight quipped, a small smile on her face as Discord teleported them back to the throne room. She was about to ask what they were going to pick next but the pained grimaces on their faces gave her pause. It was here that she realized that none of them ate anything before they started the acid trials.

“How about we break for lunch and reconvene afterward,” Twilight proposed. An eager chorus of agreement was all she needed to hear as they went their separate ways for lunch.

It was a much happier Starlight Glimmer that made her way back to the throne room following lunch. It had not been fun searching for and setting up that chamber. Thankfully, Discord had managed to acquire the gases they needed for the next round of experimentation. She didn’t think that she could adequately explain why she needed all manner of poison gases for personal use. Ponies in Ponyville were starting warm up to her and she had no desire to lose any of her hard earned progress.

She found herself humming a ditty she’d attributed to Pinkie as she pushed the throne room door open.

“Is possible to die by miscasting a spell?” Spike asked, looking up at Twilight from his list.

“It depends on the spell,” Starlight heard herself answer before she realized it. Spotting the intrigued look on the young dragon’s face, Starlight continued. “Some spells are easy to control like standard levitation since they don’t require the use of a lot of magic to use. Others are more complicated but with practice can become easy to control like teleporting or turning invisible. Finally there are those that simply require an absurdly large magic pool in order to cast like raising the sun or moon and can have dire consequences if miscast.”

Twilight grinned proudly at her pupil, throwing a hoof around her shoulders as she picked up from where she left off. “I wouldn’t rule it out; but like Starlight said, it depends on the spell. If we could find one sufficiently complicated and magic intensive, the risk tends to increase exponentially.”

“So what about a mass or a long distance teleport?” Starlight proposed. “I mean it’s not a difficult spell per se but it is complicated in that you have to stay focused and make sure you don’t leave something behind when you cast it. Plus, you and I already know how to teleport so we could get started right away.

“You’re right, Starlight. So now that leaves us with question of which would you like to try first?”

“If I were doing a mass teleport, I would suggested other ponies but I don’t want them getting caught up in what we’re doing. That said, I propose we go with the next best thing: books.”

Twilight had mixed feelings about this idea. While she loved books and liked to have one nearby wherever she went, she didn’t like the possibility of potentially destroying a source of useful knowledge. She was still a librarian at heart after all and those books were as close as she had to her children prior to hatching Spike’s egg and later Flurry Heart.

Fixing a book would be fairly easy. Fixing a pony… not so much. Twilight had to concede.

Spike and Discord had been given the time off as Twilight and Starlight teleported all around Equestria. As they quickly discovered, a miscast teleport certainly wasn’t going to kill Twilight no matter how hard she tried to mess it up. That wasn’t to say that she got to walk away from that incident unscathed.

She’d been wounded rather badly from the miscast teleport but a liberal use of ointment had been sufficient to heal the wound and the surrounding pain. The wound itself, Starlight later determined, was not deep enough to constitute being lethal.

However, they repeated the trial for consistency’s sake and Starlight’s initial suspicions were confirmed. While a miscast teleport wouldn’t kill Twilight it certainly had the potential to grievously wound her.

This was consistent, as they later tested, with other spells of varying difficulty. However, if the magic was directed toward oneself when miscast, they had found that it had the potential to kill by way of extensive brain damage as they soon found out. Especially if the pony in question happen to force a large portion of their magic into that spell.

She needed to thank the angel for letting slip that little tidbit.

“I think it’s time we headed back,” Starlight decided as she dotted the last period of her notes before depositing the notebook into her saddlebags. Twilight nodded, leaning on Starlight for support as the student teleported the teacher back to her safe haven.

“That’s pretty much everything that happened,” Starlight summarized her Equestria wide teleport trip with Twilight. The mare had been sent to her room to rest up. She’d lost quite a bit of blood from her teleport wounds and they hadn’t yet tested blood loss to be lethal.

That would be the next method on their list.

Once Twilight was fully rested and had rejoined them, Discord laid out his plan for Twilight’s demise by way of blood loss. It was quite a simple plan really. All he was going to do was vanish the blood in Twilight’s body and see what happened.

“I suspect this one will be a high chance of death,” Discord finished. “But on the plus side, I would imagine that given that all your blood will be vanished simultaneously, it won’t a slow way to go.”

“Well…” Twilight considered. “I imagine it won’t be anywhere near as painful as what happened with the miscast teleports. Plus this way, we don’t have to worry about potential infections confounding our results.”

“That’s the spirit,” Discord grinned while patting the white table in front of him. “Shall we get started?”

Twilight knew she shouldn’t panic. She wouldn’t trust just anybody with vanishing all her blood. After all, Discord had been instrumental in rescuing them alongside Starlight, Trixie, and Thorax. She pointedly ignored the fact that the only reason he came was because of Fluttershy.

Besides, she knew that even if she died, she could count on the angel to bring her back. She’d been very clear on that the last time she’d died. At the same time, she liked to think that she’d at least become friends with her angel savior.

All that said, it still creeped her out that her hooves and wings had been cuffed to the table, her magic sealed, and three of her friends hovering over her with an absurdly bright spotlight directly overhead. It didn’t help that they were dressed in the standard white coats and face masks to prevent anything from messing with their data. It also didn’t help that Discord was chuckling in that malevolent way that still somehow made Twilight’s mane stand on end.

She had to breath in that age old technique Cadance had taught her. Once she’d built up her courage she’d said the words.

“Do it.”

That was all the encouragement Discord needed. With a snap of his chicken talons, Twilight could already feel the biting cold that came with lost circulation. It was certainly cold but she wouldn’t necessarily call it painful so to speak. Still, at least Discord hadn’t been lying about it being a quick way to go. Twilight had only been on that table for less than 30 seconds and she could already feel her consciousness fading as she fell yet again into the sweet embrace of death.

“You know as much as I’m starting to enjoy these little get-togethers, I do wish that they would come under happier circumstances,” the angel quipped almost playfully as she cast the preparatory spells needed to send Twilight back. This had been the fifth time that day, Twilight ended up in her presence via blood loss. The angel was almost certain that Twilight could now confirm blood loss as a method of death.

“Is such a thing even possible?” Twilight asked. “I mean we live in different dimensions entirely.”

“And since when has that ever stopped you from helping your friends?” She asked wryly. She shook her head in amusement. This playful bantering thing Twilight was teaching her was fun.

While Twilight stammered about for a suitable answer, the angel cast the final spell and with a swift kiss on the princess's cheeks, Twilight was gone.

“I think we can confirm blood loss,” Twilight moaned as she sat up on the table. Spike took pity on her and brought a large bucket. They all looked away as she emptied what little was left in her stomach.

“Just as well,” Discord nodded once Twilight had finished. “We were able to get your thoughts on the subject in real time so we kind of figured as much.”

“So what was the point of the other two trials?” Spike asked pointedly.

“Consistency,” he shrugged. “Plus, I won’t get a chance to do anything like this once we’re done so I want to savor every moment of it.” The ensuing smile made everyone else back up a bit.

Twilight decided not to acknowledge Discord using her experiments for his petty revenge schemes. She wasn’t all that surprised. Even though she and Discord had made peace with each other, she could still tell that he was still prickly about the whole thing. Only time would be able to tie up that loose end.

Well that and Fluttershy anyway.

“In any case,” Starlight cut in. “Since blood seems to be becoming something of our theme, I figured we could try death via infected wound: specifically, the Marburg virus which causes convulsions and bleeding of mucous membranes, skin and organs. It has a fatality rate of 90%.”

“That certainly sounds… promising when it comes to diseases…” Twilight said carefully. “The only problem is that it is a rare virus and there hasn’t been a documented case in Equestria in millenia.”

“There hasn’t in Equestria but it’s actually a fairly common condition in Zebrica,” Starlight explained. At the surprised looks on Twilight’s face, Starlight hastened to explain herself. “It came up in a conversation I had with Zecora. It was one of the reasons she mentioned when I asked why she left her home land.”

Surprised that Starlight had learned more about their zebra friend than she had, Twilight needed a minute to recompose itself.

“Well as much as I want to go to Zebrica and learn more, we are on a bit of a time crunch if we want to catch up to the over princesses,” Twilight replied. She didn’t even need to say the word before Discord produce a syringe filled with a fluid that Starlight assumed was filled with the deadly virus.

“We’ll need to keep the castle under quarantine if you’re going to do this, Twilight,” Starlight stated before Twilight could do anything. “I don’t want an outbreak in Ponyville because we weren’t careful enough.”

“We should probably clean up the castle before we get started,” Spike added. “Who knows what other germs could be around.”

The other nodded in agreement. That said, Discord was not one to clean up after himself. He may have been reformed but he wasn’t about to sacrifice his self respect in the name of science.

That’s why he animated several mops armed with buckets of charmed water to do it for him!

Besides, it’s not like he had to pay them for their work. No doubt Fluttershy would have lectured him about bestowing sentience haphazardly. Twilight had certainly tried but had been ignored.

Once the castle had been sufficiently cleaned to Twilight’s critical eye armed with a powerful microscope, they’d proceeded. Twilight found herself bound yet again to the table. She’d already produced a wound via a miscast teleport and they couldn’t help but stare at the blood.

“Hurry up!” Twilight snapped. “These things do heal after all.”

Spike plucked the syringe from Discord’s grip before injecting it into the wound. A wince from Twilight as the needle penetrated was the only indication Spike received before tossing the empty syringe into an open wastebin.

Instead of waiting the days that it would have taken for them to see the symptoms manifest, Discord had saved them that trouble by speeding up time and allowing the virus to move and reproduce throughout Twilight body. It was not long before Twilight was moaning, shivering, and convulsing. That was saying nothing of the blood coming out from her fur coat.

While Discord’s spell had sped up production of the virus, it had also had the effect of speeding up Twilight’s immune system response time. It was not long before the virus was forced into submission and a few hours later, Twilight declared herself a proud survivor of the most deadly virus in the world!

However, they’d quickly realized a couple flaws in their setup. The first being the speeding up time to amplify the viral symptoms as it worked to help Twilight’s immune system as well. The second being the unintended overcharge speeding up Twilight’s immune system gave her to combat the virus.

Thankfully, there was an easy fix: it was simple matter for Discord to purge the antibodies and memory cells of the virus from Twilight’s body. After a second cleaning, they were ready to try again. Only this time, Discord had cast his spell on the syringe’s contents prior to injection so they wouldn't have to worry about Twilight’s overcharged immune response.

Lo and behold, those changes made all the difference. They watched as Twilight slumped back against the table. A quick diagnostic spell - and a test for her pulse - confirmed Twilight’s death. They didn’t need to wait long before the angel they’d become accustomed to seeing come down and revive Twilight.

“So we know it works with the Marburg virus in high concentration,” Starlight noted. “Do you think it works for other viruses?”

“Depends on how the virus operates and what it targets,” Twilight shrugged. “Common viruses aren’t any more likely to kill me than they would anyone else but I’m not necessarily immune to them either. All the princesses have gotten sick plenty of times in our lives so it's not like this anything new.”

“So should we just try the more deadly diseases and go from there?” Spike asked.

“It’s as good of an idea as any,” Twilight shrugged. “I mean, we’d also have to do some research about them and where they’re most dangerous before collecting them.”

“You don’t need to bother with that,” Discord interrupted. “I’ve already got everything you need right here.” A flash of light materialized what looked to be an short booklet of deadly diseases.

Twilight grinned. This would be helpful.

It was several hours later of Twilight being subjected to each of the viruses in turn. As it turned out, alicorns had a more aggressive immune system than any of the other pony species and that was just in the innate immune response. None of the other viruses could even come close to comparing to what the Marburg had done.

Just to make sure that it was Twilight’s immune system and not some external source messing with their data, they’d repeated the experiments several times while making sure to purge the antibodies and memory cells from her body.

The results were in: while Twilight was certainly susceptible to all the same viruses as the rest of ponykind, her immune system was strong enough to ward off and subsequently defeat the viruses. That said, she did experience the same symptoms that everyone else felt albeit to a greater extent because of her more aggressive immune system at least when it came to the fever and chills.

“Okay,” Twilight prompted, waiting for some manner of news.

“So as far as we can tell and with interpretation from the health staff from Ponyville General Hospital,” Starlight started as everyone else gathered around. “Any diseases that could harm any other pony could harm an alicorn.”

Twilight nodded as Starlight continued. “As it turned out, in some cases, it not so much the disease itself that kills you although that severely weakens your body. As it turns out, it was more your body’s immune system’s response or a less dangerous disease that finishes you off.”

“And in the rest of the cases?” Twilight prompted.

“Same reaction as any other pony documented,” Starlight replied simply.

“Well should we move on?” Spike offered in an attempt to break the inexplicable tension in the air.

“Let’s try something different,” Discord suggested, the list in his talons. “Not that I didn’t enjoy watching Twilight drink acid or drain her blood or anything like that but it’s always good to shake things up.” When Twilight didn’t argue, Discord scanned the list and poked a taloned finger at one method entirely at random.

“This one,” he said firmly, letting the others crowd around him to get a better look at the list.

“Starvation,” Twilight read before looking back at Discord. “Seems a little… boring for your tastes doesn’t it? And won’t it take a long time before anything happens?”

“It IS a bit boring but inducing starvation will be easy for someone such as myself and besides, the sooner we finish the set, the sooner I can get to Fluttershy’s,” Discord stated, tapping a finger on his arm impatiently.

“That’s fair,” Twilight conceded. “The sleep deprivation method took a long time because of it plus trying to hide it from my friends was probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do in my life.” Starlight didn’t know if she felt offended or impressed by the proclamation. She’d liked to think that she at least gave Twilight a run for her money when they fought each other.

In any case, Starlight and Spike hooked Twilight up to several contraptions to keep track of her health while Discord cast his spell. As it turned out, all it took was a snap of Discord’s fingers as Twilight found herself slumping onto her side. She could feel the familiar hunger pangs she’d spent the vast majority of her life ignoring in favor of reading her books. It didn’t take long for her to feel the pain intensify as she slowly curled into a ball in a vain attempt to quell the pain.

All the while, Starlight, Discord, and Spike watched from a distance alternating between the gauges and Twilight’s moans of pain. While the dragon and the pony had been sorely tempted to at least bring something for Twilight to eat, a pointed look from Discord made them pause. If they interfered now, they’d have to redo the experiment even more times than would have been otherwise needed. And Discord was nothing if not impatient.

“That took much longer than it should have,” Discord observed as they watched the angel come down to revive Twilight yet again. He could see the traces of a smile on the angel’s face as she vanished before Twilight rose to her hooves. “It seems that her large magic reserve depleted itself to keep her alive in lieu of sustenance.”

“So we could also rule out dehydration too right?” Spike asked, looking at the list. “Assuming that her magic works the same way for everything.”

“I’d rather not make that assumption,” Twilight interrupted. “Since most foods tend to be solids while water is a liquid. Magic tends to interact with different states of matter in different ways.”

“We may have already done it, though.” Starlight interjected. “Sometimes foodstuffs have water content, otherwise everything would just be a saltine. Either way…”

“Before we move on to dehydration, I’d like to repeat our starvation tests,” Discord stated. “Consistent data and all that.” He was pleased when Starlight and Spike didn’t try to protest as he cast the spell again. Twilight’s moans were almost music to his ears.

Just because he was friends with Fluttershy and civil with everyone else didn’t mean he wouldn’t take advantage of an opportunity to hurt Twilight if such an opportunity presented itself.

Much like their testing with starvation, the setup for the dehydration was much the same with a couple of gauges swapped out.

“Ready when you are!” Twilight said thickly through the electrodes strapped to her tongue.

It had been an instantaneous thing: one moment, Twilight felt perfectly normally, the next she felt all the water being drained from her body. It was certainly a much slower transition than the starvation method. Discord explained that the speed he was casting at his fastest without losing control.

“Water is more chaotic after all and tends to be a bit harder to control,” he grinned toothily.

To her surprise, dehydration hadn’t been so much painful as it was uncomfortable. She could hear herself panting like a dog in the desert. It certainly didn’t help that her body felt warmer than it normally did or that her lips felt incredibly chapped. Her passive alicorn magic had been able to provide a modicum of a reprieve but with Discord’s spell still running, even that ran out in due time. She could see the corners of her vision turning dark as she felt unconsciousness reach out and grab her.

“I’d really hoped this wouldn’t become a recurring theme,” she heard the familiar voice of the angel tell her after what felt like the fifth trial of dehydration. “Not that I mind or anything but I don’t want the other angels getting suspicious of me and all that.”

“Well, it’s something my student and I have been wondering for quite some time,” Twilight replied. “And we wanted to make sure we had reliable data.”

“And you saw fit to try it out for yourself?” the angel’s voice was equal parts amused and incredulous as she cast the spell needed to send Twilight back. “You’re a strange pony, Twilight Sparkle.” Twilight couldn’t say anything to that as she shook her head and with help from her student and her assistant, stood up.

“I think we can confirm dehydration,” Twilight stated, shaking her head. “Does anyone mind if I take some time to rest to recharge my magic?” The silence that followed was all the permission Twilight needed as she pulled the last of her magic together for a final teleport to the sweet haven that was her bed.

"Do we have to try this?" Twilight moaned as she and her compatriots stepped off the train that evening, dressed in tight black spandex. Over this, they wore thick black cloaks. They would need all the help they could get if they wanted to sneak into Canterlot Castle. Why they wanted to do such thing should have been obvious.

They'd wanted to test to see whether Twilight would actually die were she to try to steal Princess Celestia's cake. The Princess of the sun had made the threat plenty of times in jest in the past. Now it was time to actually put it to the test.

As they slipped past the guards. Really, what's the point of having guards if they can't even detect intruders! Twilight had thought incredulously as she led the three conspirators down to the kitchens and their prize.

Much like the rest of the castle, it seemed the kitchens were devoid of the chefs. This suited the four of them quite well as they quickly scattered, quietly searching for Princess Celestia's stash of cake. As it turned out, Princess Celestia wasn't very good at hiding things. Particularly, things that happened to be important to her.

They'd found the three tiered chocolate cake in the castle's icebox. Twilight looked back her compatriots fearfully before looking back at the cake. She wouldn't lie: it looked very tasty and Twilight wouldn't be foolish enough to take a bite if such an opportunity were to make itself present. However, while that opportunity had emerged, the deterrent of potential death by her teacher seemed to be plenty a deterrent to make her pause.

A pointed and impatient look from Discord made her reconsider. While she didn't fear the draconequus, his powers were certainly dangerous and he was known for his creative methods of driving ponies insane.

She sighed. Such was the life a princess she supposed. Nonetheless, she conjured plates, knives, forks, and napkins before cutting herself a slice.

Princess Celestia shot up that night. She could feel her cake senses tingling. It seemed that someone had saw fit to try to invade her kitchens and steal her cake. Without sparing her regalia a second thought, she galloped out of the room. She wouldn't allow those cakes thieves to try to lay waste to her precious cake again.

Not if she had anything to say about it.

Twilight was starting to wonder if it was possible to die from the heart disease she was almost certain she'd contracted from the amount of cake she'd eaten thus far. She was already up to her fourth slice when she heard a loud bang.

Wildly turning around, she found herself facing the furious eyes of Princess Celestia.

The two alicorns stared at each other, shocked. Celestia was the first to recover. "Twilight, what are you and your friends doing here?" She noticed that Spike, Starlight Glimmer, and Discord also sat around the table, a slice cake on each of their plates.

"Um... well you see, Princess," Twilight started slowly. She produced the list from a pocket of her cloak. "This list mentioned that stealing your cake could be a potential method for death. We've been testing them, same as you. I remember you mentioned that you would kill anybody who would get in between you and your cake."

Celestia opened her mouth to say something but could not for the life of her figure out what to say. Was this what it felt like to be speechless? To not have any sort of witty comeback to reply with? In lieu of anything meaningful to say, she closed her mouth and took a second look at the scene before her. It seemed that the four had seen fit to lay waste to part of her precious cake. She looked down at her fellow princess who'd since bowed before her while shivering it fright. It didn't help that she refused to look her in the eye.

Celestia sighed.

"Twilight," she murmured, kneeling down while ignoring the pang in her chest at the chocolate frosting. "I was joking when I said I would kill anyone who got between me and my cake. I only said it to show how much I enjoyed eating it." She was pleased to see that Twilight had stopped shaking and had looked up at her in wonder. She continued.

"Besides, I was the element of generosity back when my sister and I wielded the elements of harmony."

"How could I forget," Discord sighed dramatically. "I was your target back then." Celestia pointedly ignored him.

"In any case, I do wish you'd have let me know in advance so that I could have saved my precious cake but alas, what's done is done."

Nonetheless, it still took more coaxing from Celestia, but now Twilight was back on her hooves, still amazed that she hadn't died via Princess Celestia's wrath or the heart disease she was almost certain she'd contracted from eating the cake.

"Well," she smiled, looking around at them all, a smile stretching out on her face. "Since you've seen fit to lay waste to a cake that I've been looking forward to eating." She didn't miss the embarrassed look that crossed Twilight's face. We may as well indulge now."

She teleported her sister in to join them as the six of them waged war on the cake that stood tall, seemingly mocking them. They'd all dug in with ravenous abandon.

“Anything on that list that you want to try, Twilight?” Spike couldn’t help but ask as they watched Twilight scanning the list the following day. They'd still be recovering from their battle against the three tiered cake that Princess Celestia had kept.

And what a battle it was Spike thought, drooling at the memory of the cake as it hit his taste buds. While it would probably never beat one made of sapphires, Spike had nevertheless enjoyed it immensely.

For the first few seconds, Spike had assumed she was simply mulling over which method of death she wanted to choose. After those ten seconds had passed, he’d quickly realized that they hadn’t exactly organized her list as per her usual instructions of alphabetical and date of origin. He’d half expected her to have an aneurysm about it. A quick glance at her told him that Twilight was more composed than he’d expected given the circumstances.

She’s already died loads of times by now, Spike mused, munching on a bowl of sapphires that happened to be sitting nearby. This is probably a minor inconvenience by comparison.

“Got it,” Twilight decided finally. “This one should be really simple to test: alcohol poisoning.”

“What’s that?” Spike asked.

“Wherein I drink as much alcohol as possible and see whether or not it kills me,” Twilight replied. “After the past few days I’ve had, I definitely need a pick-me up.”

Spike stared before heaving a sigh. “I’ll go get the alcohol then…”

“Ask Starlight and Discord if they’re interested in joining me,” she told him. “Not to the death but just as a drinking partner. It’ll be boring if I have to drink all of it by myself.” Spike shrugged. He was too young to drink but he would do as Twilight asked regardless.

Spike nodded as Twilight let out a breath onto the crystal. He gave her a thumbs up when it a read a big ‘0’ on its gauge. “Well we know that you’re sober Twilight so what we’re going to do now is after every five rounds, we’ll have you blow on the crystal again to see how high your blood alcohol concentration is. We’ll keep doing this until you either die or reach the concentration that would raise red flags for alcohol poisoning in ponies and then check you for symptoms.”

“Sounds good to me,” Twilight nodded as she spotted Starlight and Discord enter the room.

“Spike mentioned you wanted to see us?” Starlight asked. Twilight nodded as she explained what she wanted them to do. Discord had thought the idea of a drinking game to be hilarious if only to see what kind of drunk pony Twilight would end up being and that was to say nothing of the glorious blackmail. Starlight had been more cautious about the whole thing: she was by no means immortal so she’d have to be careful about how much alcohol she drank. Also, she’d never actually drank any before as she’d never thought to keep any in stock while she lived in her old village.

Starlight took a discrete whiff of the alcohol she, Twilight, and Discord were supposed to drink. As far as she could tell, it smelled lovely. She stared as she watched Twilight and Discord raise their glasses, toast to nothing in particular before chugging it down.

She stared at her own glass filled with a bright amber liquid before shrugging. If Discord and Twilight could handle it, surely she could do the same? With that as her last thought, Starlight followed her teacher’s lead as she did the same as her fellow compatriots and downed the contents of her glass.

She immediately regretted it as she felt the liquid burn her throat. That was enough motivation for her to spit out the contents of her glass, coughing all the while. Twilight and Discord who were already up to their second glass didn’t even notice as she silently slinked out of the room. She’d much rather watch the mayhem unfold from afar rather than get caught up in it herself.

Spike and Starlight watched in morbid fascination as they took notes on everything they’d seen and heard in between the intervals in which they’d forced Twilight to exhale on the crystal to get her blood alcohol content.

“Should we be worried?” Starlight asked. “It’s been well over an hour now and those two have already ploughed through four bottles!”

“The goal is to induce alcohol poisoning so what better way than to drink copious amounts of alcohol?” Spike asked.

“I don’t know,” Starlight replied. “But couldn’t Discord induce alcohol poisoning?”

“Probably,” Spike shrugged. “But I think he said something about wanting to see Twilight make a fool of herself. Plus, Twilight's been waiting for an excuse to try some of those for a while now.”

Starlight didn’t really understand why the draconequus wanted to see an inebriated Twilight make a fool of herself or why Twilight would deny herself the pleasure if she wanted it. Just as she was about to dismiss the whole idea as simple ludicrous, an image came unbidden of her teacher hiccupping as she started sweet talking a bush. Initially, she thought the idea more than a little unsettling, she was forced to concede that such a thing happening in real life would be vaguely amusing.

It was by this point that Discord and Twilight had started wrestling with each other and a loud crash prompted the two sober occupants to pull the two apart. Each had been yelling at the other about some made up offense they’d supposedly committed. Discord had accused Twilight of stealing Fluttershy away from him while Twilight accused Discord of taking away her friends like he had while she was on her book-sort-cation.

It was a very awkward few minutes for the pair to recompose themselves before they could continue.

By the time that Twilight had blown an alcohol concentration high enough to merit red flags for alcohol poisoning, no one was in any position to check for symptoms. Twilight and Discord were already heavily inebriated. Starlight was too preoccupied with keeping them from hurting themselves, each other, or her to cast the relevant spells and Spike didn’t know how to harness his magic to cast the spell.

In light of this incidence, they’d brought in a doctor from Ponyville’s hospital to check for alcohol poisoning in both victims.

“They’ve definitely had a lot to drink,” the doctor observed after conducting several tests and reading the lab results. “But even though their blood alcohol concentration is high enough to warrant the concern, we couldn’t parse out any noticeable symptoms or internal organ damage as a result of the excess alcohol. Incidentally, how did they come to be in this situation?”

“It was a very busy few weeks and they needed something to destress,” Spike lied quickly. “Princess duties and such.”

The doctor raised an eyebrow. “If that’s the case then why is she hooked to several gauges and such?”

“We wanted to make sure that she didn’t drink too much while she de-stressed,” Starlight replied quickly. The doctor stared her dubiously, prompting Starlight to continue. “Twilight’s always been a mare of science and it’s something she’s instilled in me whenever we do something that could be potentially dangerous, hence the gauges.”

“Ah…” the doctor nodded sympathetically. He could only imagine how much work the princess had what with her domestic and foreign policies and such. And that was to say nothing of that cutie map of hers. Still, it did his heart good to see that she was at least being responsible to some extent while she drank.

“Well in any case, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us,” the doctor gave them each a nod before trotting away.

Starlight and Spike let out a sigh of relief when they heard the door close with a faint snap before turning back to the unconscious Twilight and Discord on the table along with the mess in the room. They’d let out a simultaneous groan as they realized that they would have to be the ones to clean up. It wouldn’t have even been awful were it not for just how much damage had been done in their drunken stupors.

“Why’d it have to be us,” Starlight lamented to a sympathetic Spike as they went to work. As they worked, Spike pointed out a silver lining of this whole experience.

“At least we won’t have painful headaches to wake up to tomorrow morning,” said Spike grimly.

Spike’s claim was prophetic as Twilight woke up to the most blistering headache she’d ever felt. It was far worse than the ones she often get during her late night study sessions. At least at those, she’d have the welcome presence of a book to help ease her frustration. Now she had nothing but the admittedly comfortable sheets and her large bedroom to keep her company.

She cast a bleary eyed look at her nightstand where she spotted a glass of water and a pill. She downed the pill and the water and immediately felt her headache recede. A warm shower later and Twilight found herself in a much better mood as she trotted into the throne room. Starlight and Spike were already there, waiting for her.

“So what were the results?” she asked. She couldn’t remember much of anything from the previous night’s escapade and she was curious about how it all played out.

“Well…” Spike and Starlight exchanged a glance before deciding to simply weather it together. “You didn’t die or suffer any symptoms as a result of the alcohol poisoning. We even brought in a doctor to help interpret our results and he did a bunch of lab tests multiple times just to confirm it.”

“That’s good,” Twilight sighed as she slumped back in her seat. “I don’t think I ever want to do that again.”

“But don’t you want to hear about Discord’s results?”

Twilight raised a brow. She hadn’t been aware that they’d been keeping track of Discord as well.

Starlight pulled out the draconequus’s results and stared at them for several seconds.

“The doctors had no idea what to make of them.”

Author's Notes:

As always, thanks for reading and for submitting your suggestions! I'm currently compiling them all into a single list for reference.