Author's Notes:

This is the first of two chapters being posted today: 3/25/2017

“This is probably the weirdest method I’ve ever tried,” said Twilight, staring around at their setup. She was tied down to a large pine board. A length of rope had been tied to each of her legs, her tail, and her wings.

Before tying Twilight down, they had done some research and attempted to figure out how much force it would take to pull a normal pony’s limbs off. Unsurprisingly, it required a great deal of force to dislodge a limb from its socket much less pull them off. They’d learned that thanks to their coats, muscle, tendons and ligaments, there had been no precedent for pony deaths by being torn limb from limb. None of them were very surprised; it was probably more trouble than it was worth.

“So how are we going to actually try this? None of us are physically strong enough to manage it,” Twilight asked. “Well… save for Discord,” she amended, noticing Discord’s pointed look. Noticing Spike’s offended expression, she added. “And Spike too.” She hadn’t forgotten the instances in which he’d been forced to carry all of their heavy luggage. She was more surprised that he hadn’t possessed more defined musculature by now given all the heavy lifting he did.

Must be the gems. Twilight mused.

“Well, instead of making Discord and Spike doing all the work,” Starlight glanced at the pair teasingly, “we’ve charmed the ropes to continue pulling your limbs with increasing force.”

“They’re rigged to either rip your limbs apart or give up if they’ve exceeded their break strength,” Starlight explained.

“Is wrong that I’d like to have something administered preemptively to avoid the pain that this is inevitably going to cause?” Twilight asked. “If anything, it would probably be wise to have something like that on hand just make sure my screams of agony don’t confound the experiment somehow. Or at least just knock me out beforehand.”

Starlight and Spike had no problem with this; they’d heard enough of Twilight screaming to last them a lifetime. Alicorn screams, as it turned out, tended to cause migraines twice as fast as opposed to normal screams.

And that was saying nothing of Flurry Heart’s screams destroying the Crystal Heart.

“We’ve got no problems casting a silencing charm,” Starlight replied, “but I don’t know whether administering anesthesia will skew the results of the experiment…”

“It can be something to test between trials but I don’t think anyone would be opposed to just knocking you out. I don’t see that messing with anything,” Spike offered helpfully. Twilight inclined her head in agreement. It was better than she could have hoped for as she laid back against the pine board. Now if only she had a pillow...

Almost instantly, the ropes snaked around her legs and tied themselves tightly around them. Twilight barely suppressed a wince. Starlight cast her silencing charm and prompted her teacher to speak. Twilight tried to speak but could produce no words.

“At least we know it works,” she said to Discord and Spike. “As much as I enjoy her dulcet tones, it does wear on me after a while.”

“Yes and it makes such a nice change too, I must say,” Discord remarked, ignoring Twilight’s heated glare. “Anyway, shall we get started?”

Receiving nods from his compatriots, Discord snapped his fingers and they all watched as the ropes promptly went to work. At first, Twilight hadn’t been phased. In fact, it looked like she was trying to stretch to make the process go faster. Whether that was for the sake of making sure this ended quickly or she truly happened to find being pulled apart an enjoyable pastime, no one was certain.

What was certain was that they were glad that they had cast silencing charm before starting. It wasn’t long before Twilight had started letting out grunts of pain. Or at least there would have been grunts had she not been silenced.

They watched in something akin to morbid fascination as the ropes tore themselves apart before Twilight’s limbs gave out.

Spike looked to Discord and Starlight. “Should we move on to something stronger?”

“I didn’t know we had lengths of chain just lying around in the castle,” said Twilight, twenty minutes later as she found herself tied down to a new steel board. Her legs were all locked to manacles latched with lengths of heavy-looking chain bolted to the board. It was a strange experience to have the cool metal against her back and Twilight soon found herself pining for the wood again.

“We didn’t,” Spike admitted. “Oddly enough we had to have it delivered from Fillydelphia.”

Twilight decided not to pursue this further as she nodded to Starlight cast the silencing charm again. She gave a second nod when she confirmed that she’d been silenced. With this prompt, Discord snapped his fingers and Twilight felt the familiar tug as she felt the cool metal of the manacles pull her limbs from her body.

Much like last time, she could feel the aching pain associated with limbs being pulled from their proper sockets. The fact that it was chain being used for this test only made it much more uncomfortable on the account of it not being soft, plushy, or warm to the touch.

Unlike last time though, when the chain had pulled hard enough, they heard several loud pops and Twilight could no longer feel anything at her limbs. If she was honest with herself, it felt like rubber and nothing she did made her limbs respond. She was certain she could heal it if her magic hadn’t been sealed.

“Sounds like she dislocated something,” Starlight remarked. “I know that this sort of thing happens with sports but I didn’t think it would happen so quickly.”

“Isn’t it usually swift movements that end up dislocating limbs?” Spike asked.

“It can be but that’s not always the case,” Starlight replied as she launched into an explanation for Spike’s sake.

“Still,” Discord chimed in as Starlight finished. “At least Twilight won’t have to worry as much about pain, right?”

Starlight checked the force gauge. By this point, while they could see Twilight hissing from the dislocation, she seemed no worse for wear from the chains. What’s more is that the chain was already at its maximum pull strength. Having the chain pull harder would just cause it to break and Starlight preferred to avoid that if possible.

“We might as well stop,” Starlight decided and prompted Discord to cancel the spell and watched the chain drop to the floor with a clatter. “Discord charmed these chains so I find it highly unlikely that if he couldn’t kill Twilight with these charmed chains, then no one else will be able to kill her with normal chains.”

“That’s good and all Starlight but shouldn’t we help Twilight first?” Spike asked, pointing to Twilight who lay flat on her back on the pine board. Not waiting for an answer, Spike grabbed another bottle of salve with Discord close by to put her right again.

“Much better,” said Twilight, shaking her legs. It was clear that she hadn’t enjoyed having or limbs dislocated. That much had been clear on her face. They went ahead and repeated their tests several times to confirm their findings and had gone ahead with the knockout and anaesthesia. Both had negated the need for the silencing charm. “So, we’ve learned that alicorns can’t be torn limb from limb, right?”

“Yeah,” Starlight nodded. “At least not from ropes or chain. We haven’t yet tested whether that’s true if you were to be ripped limb from limb by something like a hydra or a manticore.”

“That’s true,” said Twilight thoughtfully. She turned to Discord. “Are your manticores and hydras trained well enough to try this?”

“Of course they are,” said Discord, offended. “It took some time but I was able to exert will over the hydras and I can make them do whatever I want. The manticores were already trained for this sort of thing.” He paused. “Don’t tell Fluttershy I did that though. I don’t think she would approve.”

“Shall we start with the manticore?” Discord asked ten minutes later as he pulled up the flap of the circus tent where the manticore could be seen practicing some sort of tap dance routine. Twilight, Starlight, and Spike couldn’t help but break into a round of applause. The manticore, noticing it had guests, couldn’t help but look away bashfully.

“Right,” said Discord. “Twilight, you might want to get close to him. It’ll save us time for when things actually happen.”

Wary, Twilight moved toward the manticore who had done nothing so far.

“Ah, that reminds me,” said Discord, snapping his fingers. Twilight soon found herself unable to see and it wasn’t because of a blindfold. It seemed that Discord had taken her sight.

“Can’t have you being traumatized by what might happen,” he explained. He was just about to take away Twilight’s voice when Twilight interrupted.

“If I haven’t yet been traumatized by everything so far, why would I start now?” Twilight asked.

“I don’t know,” Discord shrugged. “But I don’t want trauma induced from this test to complicate anything we might try in the future. Starlight and Spike here need therapy and they’re not even the ones undergoing the testing.”

Twilight had to concede this point as Discord took away her voice. He could only treat Twilight’s screams as music for so long after all.

“Now,” he said, producing a pocket watch and staring into the now blank eyes of the manticore. For added effect, he gave his eyes the same swirling effect that the pocket watch was likely to induce. They didn’t have to wait long for the hypnosis to set in. Discord only had to say four words.

“Rip her to pieces.”

One part of Starlight was about to interject was that was not how hypnosis worked. A second part of her saw the manticore leap at Twilight. A third part of her mentally slapped herself for looking.

Instead of the gory bloodbath that they had expected based on their perceived perception of manticores, they watched in a sort of morbid fascination as the manticore struggled to pull at Twilight’s limbs. What’s more was that the manticore’s harsh tugs only merited hissing and not the outright screeching that they had been expecting.

“Tug harder,” Discord ordered. The manticore hastened to obey as tugged even harder only to produce the same results. Starlight and Spike periodically checked the force gauges that they’d set up on the manticore before they’d started. The evidence was all there: manticores were clearly not as strong as everyone made them out to be. Twilight hadn’t even dislocated anything from the exercise.

They had repeated the test several more times to confirm what their eyes had already seen; indeed, it was next to impossible not only by way of rope or chain but by manticore as well for Twilight to be torn limb from limb much less die from it.

“Well the only thing left is the hydra,” said Twilight when they’d managed to pull her away from the manticore. Discord dispelled the hypnosis before leading them to the hydra.

“If this doesn’t do it then I don’t think anything will,” said Spike, his notebook and quill ready. He watched as Starlight and Discord prepped Twilight and the hydra for what was to come.

Their expectations had been drastically lowered since their experience with the manticore. Sure enough, they were not disappointed when the hydra even with its more impressive strength still could not so much as pull on Twilight. It had taken another spell from Discord to get them to do what he needed them to do.

They watched in morbid fascination as the two heads on the far end grabbed a pair of Twilight’s legs in their mouths and tugged. Instead of being torn apart, Twilight’s torso seemed to stretch almost comically like rubber. Indeed, she didn’t seem to be yelling in pain from her hooves in the hydra’s mouth. Of course, Discord had explained that he’d made sure that the hydra’s teeth were dulled and softened so that Twilight wouldn’t incur any damage from the mouths themselves.

All in all it was a very underwhelming experience as they watched Twilight being stretched and then dropped several more times before concluding that Twilight wouldn’t be torn limb from limb any time soon. They were still at a loss at how Twilight’s body stretched in the hydra incident but not in any previous encounters.

“That just sounds disgusting,” Twilight grimaced, looking up. “How are we even going to test this? I don’t think that anyone can’t produce enough to make this feasible. It also sounds pretty vague: am I going to die from the release itself or from a high concentration of the components that make it up?”

“You’re wrong about nobody being able to produce enough,” Discord grinned. He produced a book and flipped through the pages before yelling a whoop of triumph and shoving it under Twilight’s nose.

The page in question showed an image of a rotund pony who apparently held the world record for both the most bouts produced in sixty seconds. This pony happened to boast a record of fifty nine seconds in the case of the longest one produced.

“Even still, I don’t feel comfortable inviting him to the castle,” said Twilight, shaking her head. “Confidentiality and all that.”

“About your second point,” Discord continued. “Why don’t we try both? It wouldn’t be hard for me to make you do it continuously and I can adjust it as needed.”

“It wouldn’t be all that hard to make our own too. Why don’t we also take all the components that make one up and create our own using the ventilation system?” Spike suggested. “We’d have to keep it contained, obviously, but there’s no reason why I can’t see it working especially since Twilight has permission from the Canterlot labs to use their chemicals as she saw fit.”

“It also helped that I agreed to collaborate with them in the future,” said Twilight eagerly.

“Just for simplicity sake, why don’t you two start with the continuous method while I go put in the order with the laboratory,” Starlight proposed. She wasn’t about to tell anyone else but she didn’t want to be anywhere near Twilight when the experiment got started if the stories she’d heard about her teacher’s… ah… flatulence were true.

It would certainly explain why Twilight didn’t like cheese.

“Sounds good to us,” Spike nodded in tandem with Discord.

“So how exactly does this spell work?” Twilight asked, her voice muffled by the oxygen mask covering her face.

“This one works by forcing all the gas in your GI tract out as flatulence and we’ll see what happens from there,” said Discord simply as he and Spike donned their own masks.

“Whenever you’re ready!” Spike called, having calibrated the anemometer next to Twilight.

Discord snapped his fingers and the effect was almost instantaneous. It had started off quietly at first but it didn’t take long for the sound to get louder. Indeed, it changed from quiet hiss to a booming noise at an alarming rate. A quick look into Twilight’s face told Spike that while she was alarmed at the volume of gas being released, her composure remained.

Her composure slipped when she started moving without raising a limb and begun sliding across the smooth floors. It seemed that the expelled gas had exited with enough force to actually get Twilight moving without walking.

“I don’t think I’d mind moving like this,” Twilight told them half an hour later. Twilight had taken to skating across the floors with the gas propelling her. It looked to Discord as though Twilight had figured out how to steer with it.

“That’s all well and good but I think it’s pretty clear that you aren’t dying from this,” said Discord. “We should probably take a look at your GI tract to make sure.”

Indeed, a quick scan of Twilight’s GI tract revealed no noticeable damage. Twilight was thankful for this as she didn’t want any longstanding complications from their testing.

“Should we try it again?” Twilight asked, grinning guiltily up at them. Discord and Spike exchanged a look and shrugged. They didn’t mind. Watching Twilight skate around the cool floors and occasionally making a fool of herself for their amusement was worth the notetaking involved.

Besides, Starlight had yet to return with the materials they’d needed for the second way for this to work.

Starlight had just hurled her filled out order form the materials they would need for their next set up into the charmed dragon fireplace when she heard the faint sound of cheering from the room she had just left. Curious, she poked her head through the door and happened upon the strange sight of Twilight sliding along the floors with the flatulence serving as a makeshift propulsion system.

Despite her best efforts, Starlight couldn’t help but watch in amazement as her teacher skated across the crystalline floors. On the side, she could see Spike taking notes and Discord offering suggestions for tricks for Twilight to attempt. She was half tempted to join them but a faint thunk outside drew her attention from her friends’ work.

Turning around, she could see a large box sitting in front of the fireplace. A several swipes with a nearby boxcutter and Starlight peeked inside the box.

“They sure do work quickly when it comes to Twilight,” Starlight remarked to the empty room. Indeed, she lifted up several canisters of the gases they would need to test their experiment. She’d also noticed the enclosed parchment with instructions on how to operate the canisters and read it closely.

After reading the last of the instructions, Starlight packed everything back into the box and then lifted that in her magic before carrying it off to another room. Surely no one would begrudge her if she decide to prepare everything beforehand, right?

“As much fun as this is,” Twilight stated after their umpteenth trial, “I think we can safely say that the duration nor the volume is going to have any impact on my GI tract much less kill me.” Spike nodded in agreement. Discord wondered aloud where Starlight was as he very much doubted it would take very long to fill out the necessary order forms.

This had caught Twilight’s interest as they stepped out of the room and moved toward the magical fireplace Twilight and Spike had set up. It was something that they had built together to save Spike the pain of having numerous correspondence coming at once. Spike, for his part, had been relieved of this duty as he remembered the last time he’d been flooded with correspondence.

A search had begun for the wayward unicorn. Twilight soon found herself wishing that she’d spent more time exploring her castle when she’d first moved in. Or at least asking Starlight to come back after she was done sending off the order forms.

It was only sheer luck that they found her before long, in fact, her cheers had been the biggest giveaway to her location. Curious, they’d knocked on the door where they heard her voice. Instead of the door peering open, Starlight teleported outside. The first thing she noticed was the heavy duty gas mask covering her face.

“I’ve done it,” she said simply. “I’ve mixed together the gases in such a way to create the same consistency and smell of the worst type of flatulence. As you could probably guess, it smells terrible but I’ve put a spell to prevent it from escape the room.”

Twilight was very impressed by this revelation and without waiting for a prompt from her student, Twilight teleported into the room.

Starlight certainly wasn’t lying. Twilight thought ruefully as a smell comparable to decaying corpses wafted up her nose. It smells awful but I don’t feel any different. In truth, Twilight had found a very simple way to inhaling the foul stench.

Breathing through her mouth.

Twilight knew that she would smell some measure of a foul odor but it was by and large her preferred method rather than inhaling through her nose.

“It smells terrible so good work Starlight for mixing up the most foul smelling substance I’ve ever smelled,” Twilight praised. Starlight couldn’t help but grin. It had taken the better part of an hour and a lot of math and science to work it all out but she’d done it!

Despite the foul stench, it seemed that Twilight was unlikely to be affected by the stench of the gas anytime soon much less be killed by it. Now that they knew the consistencies of the gases used, it was a simple matter to recreate the exact same conditions and try again. Indeed, they had repeated their experiments five more times just to be certain. Twilight complained about the consistently foul smell covering every inch of the rooms they used for testing but the scans taken before and after each test showed that the gases, however foul, hadn’t adversely affected her bodily functions.

Now the only thing that remained was how they were going to get the smell out of all those rooms…

“I feel like I should know this but what’s hyperglycemia?” Spike asked, looking up from the list.

“It means high blood sugar,” said Starlight before Twilight could so much as open her mouth. “It’s an especially big problem to those who have some form of diabetes.”

Spike, whose mouth was open to ask another question, was interrupted by Twilight who seemed capable of reading minds. “Diabetes is a disease that messes with our ability to handle sugar properly.”

“Oh…” said Spike blankly.

“So how exactly are we going to test this?” Starlight asked. “I mean, when I was doing my research on Twilight to exact my revenge plot, I checked her health records and she seemed to like a perfectly healthy mare.”

“It’s actually pretty simple,” said Twilight. “We just need to make the beta cells in my pancreas to fail on command. That way we can induce a state of diabetes and subsequently induce hyperglycemia.”

“How do we do that?”

“Discord.”

The draconequus looked up from his ice sculpture at the mention of his name and looked around. Spotting the trio staring at him keenly, he said the first thing that came to mind.

“What have I missed?”

“Are you sure there won’t be any lasting repercussions for this if I survive?” Twilight asked, staring at Discord’s ominously approaching figure warily.

Discord heaved a sigh. Would Twilight ever stop doubting his methods of getting things done. He shook his head. He doubted it. The day Twilight stopped questioning everything around her was the day she simply stopped being Twilight.

“I’ve tested this countless times and I’ve even made an antidote in case things go south,” said Discord patiently. He pointed to several vials of purple fluids that smelled vaguely of grapes. “So you really have nothing to worry about.”

“If you say so…” Twilight trailed off uncertainly. In truth, she really had no reason to doubt Discord now. He had been able to make quite a few miracles happen for the sake of their testing, the biggest of which allowed her the opportunity to come back to life should she die during testing.

She accepted the vial Discord handed her and drained it in one gulp. She didn’t feel any different now than she did before ingesting the fluid. The next thing she knew, Discord had taken a sample of her blood and had Starlight and Spike run some tests. Once those lab results came back, Discord, now equipped with the traditional physician’s white coat, produced a pair of glasses from his pocket and put them on.

Twilight watched as Discord examined the lab results. He grinned at her when he finished.

“Congratulations Twilight, you’ve got diabetes!”

“Now that we know for sure Twilight’s got diabetes, how’re we going to get to hyperglycemia?” Spike asked.

“That’ll be easy,” said Starlight dismissively. “All we’d need for her to do is eat something loaded with sugar and that’ll make her blood sugar shoot up. With no insulin to deal with it, she’ll be suffering the symptoms before long.”

Starlight’s words were prophetic. Procuring sweets for Twilight had been a simple matter. They’d stumbled upon a cache of sweets hidden within the head of a statue in the entrance hall. They’d just assumed that Pinkie stored there in case of candy emergencies.

In any case, they dumped the candy on Twilight with instructions to eat as much as she so desired or until she felt ready to burst, whichever came first.

They’d watched Twilight eat with table manners that would have surely made Rainbow Dash proud. Discord had taken the duty of monitoring her blood sugar at prescribed intervals.

“I think I can’t eat anymore,” she said thickly through a piece of licorice. Starlight’s eyes stared over the floor riddled with all manner of candy wrappers.

“That’s probably for the best,” said Starlight dryly. “You’re blood sugar is absurdly high right now so those symptoms should onset before long, I expect.”

Indeed, they had only had to wait a few hours for the symptoms to occur. The increased urination and fatigue had been the first to come. Quickly following this was the increased thirst and the headaches. The headaches had then lead to compromised concentration.

Thankfully, the urination frequency had decreased by daybreak but had left Twilight severely dehydrated no matter how much water Twilight drank. This continued for several days and Twilight’s ability to process sugar only continued to worsen as the days went by. Discord had informed them a week later that he’d conducted some testing and had discovered that Twilight’s nerves, colon, and kidneys had sustained serious damage.

“I’m not convinced that Twilight’s going to survive for very long if these symptoms persist,” said Discord, showing them his scans. “Her kidneys are on the verge of collapse and if Twilight wants to keep living, she’d need to go on dialysis at least three times a week.”

“So do you have an estimates for when she’ll die if we don’t perform any treatment?” Starlight asked.

“I’d be surprised if she makes it through the rest of today.”

No one was surprised when Twilight’s body, unable to handle the strain of having all manner of toxins without functional kidneys to filter them out, gave out from the pressure. They had watched as the light left her eyes and she slumped to the ground, dead.

They only needed to wait a few seconds for the now familiar golden light to appear and grace them with its comforting glow. They could see the familiar appearance of the angel who just stared, shook her head, and went to work. Time seemed to fly by as the angel cast her spells and kissed Twilight’s cheeks.

When Twilight was revived and the angel gone, Twilight looked back at her friends who had run another set of tests to confirm that all was well. With that sorted, she said a single word.

“Again?”

So they’d tried again. Discord’s potion worked just as well as it had the first time and they had used the exact same sweets that they had used in the first trial. Lo and behold, several days later, they had achieved the same results. They had gone on to repeat the experiment several more times, much to the indignation of Twilight’s internal organs before they were ready to confirm that Twilight could die by way of hyperglycemia.

“I’ve actually heard about this one,” said Twilight keenly when Spike brought up the idea from dying from fright. “I've read something about fear causing death that’s used a lot in some of the horror fiction that I’ve read.

“What kind of horror fiction have you been reading?” Discord and Starlight asked together but in different tones: the former of keen interest while the latter was clearly alarmed. Twilight’s mysterious smile only made them more persistent in seeking their answer. They didn’t have to wait long before Twilight produced a large leather bound book from behind her seat and hand it off to them. Discord grabbed it greedily, flipping through the pages eagerly for mentions of fear and death. Starlight contented himself with looking over his shoulder.

“But Twilight, how are we going to test this?” Starlight asked when she and Discord finished examining the book. “From this piece, it sounds like the fear from what happened led to something else that led to something that finished the character off. How are we going to test this such that we are sure that fear is what is responsible and not something else?”

“Well, we’ve checked Twilight’s health records,” said Discord thoughtfully. “By all counts, she’s a perfectly healthy mare no history of anything that could confound our results so I would say we’re good on that front.” He paused. “Though I don’t think it would hurt to make sure everything’s up to date before we proceed.”

Twilight shrugged. It couldn’t hurt. After all, it was all in the name of science.

“That wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be,” Twilight remarked as she led her friends back into the throne room. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised but I guess I hadn’t realized just how much medicine has improved since the last time I had my checkup.”

The others had elected to keep quiet. It was plain that they hadn’t enjoyed the experience anywhere near as much as Twilight had.

“So now that we’ve confirmed that I don’t have any family history of anything that could ruin this, shall we get started?”

“Do you have something in mind?” Discord asked keenly. Twilight’s eyes lit up at the question as she gestured for them to gather around as she laid out her plans. Discord’s growing grin made it plain that he wholeheartedly approved.

“A little more to the left!” Discord called.

Starlight bit back a snappy retort and did as she was told. She lifted the object in her magic and moved it to where Discord indicated. She was almost certain that Discord was messing with her as she was certain that she had just moved the object in that exact place earlier.

“Perfect!” Discord grinned, looking up from the construction plans. Starlight trotted over to Spike who’d passed her a water bottle as they admired their handiwork.

The final result bore more than a passing resemblance to the dilapidated building once called the Castle of the Two Sisters. Discord had even gone so far as to pull several clouds from the Everfree forest to add a spooky aura about it. Then Discord add several wards that would prevent anyone aside from themselves from even approaching the place.

They had initially considered using the dilapidated castle for their experiment but as Twilight had already established a familiarity with the castle, the idea was promptly thrown aside.

As for the building itself, aside from the flashes of lightning and thunder, Discord had set up all manner of booby traps including doors opening and closing at random, creaking stair steps, and sights and sounds of feral animals. He had also felt compelled to add several cheesy obstacles as he learned of her fear of all things cheesy.

“I think Twilight will have quite the scare in this place, don’t you think?” Discord grinned at his compatriots.

“It’s certainly got plenty of scary elements,” Starlight agreed. “I certainly don’t like Twilight’s chances in that place. I’m not even going in there and I've got chills just looking at it.”

“Okay, Twilight. This is the furthest I’m allowed to take you,” said Spike, pointing to the gate of the building that they’d built. Twilight nodded as she took in the woebegone state of the place. It reminded her of the two sisters’ castle when she’d first found the elements of harmony. She could feel a shiver of apprehension shoot up her spine at the sight of the building before walking toward the creaking gate.

Spike watched, mumbling a quiet ‘good luck’ under his breath as he retreated to the safety of the bunker.

While Spike, Starlight, and Discord watched from the bunker, Twilight pushed the gate open and walked forward. The bats that took up residence in the tree took flight at the sound of the creak, startling Twilight into take a step back as they flew off. Twilight allowed herself several deep breaths to calm herself before pressing on.

Pushing open the door, Twilight found herself standing in darkness. Had her magic not been sealed, Twilight would have simply lit up her horn for light. In lieu of that, Twilight waited patiently for her eyes to adjust while trying not let the sounds of the door opening and closing bother her.

She grinned as her eyes finally adjusted to the pitch blackness around her and moved forward.

As Twilight continued to explore, every bout of fear was matched by an equally strong bout of determination. She had dealt with things far worse than a haunted house and she would conquer this obstacle as well.

Her courage helped her through her exploration of the first floor which, after a thorough search, yielded nothing of importance.

The second landing had been where the real challenges started. She’d let out a startled yelp when she smelled rather than saw the cheesy liquid close at hoof. Her strong aversion to cheese gave her pause. Then it made her scowl. She wasn’t going to let her irrational fear of cheese stand between her and getting out of this place! This was further motivated by the sounding of growling close by stirring Twilight’s panic.

If Twilight had to pick between cheese and some feral animal, she would take cheese any day.

Thinking quickly, she snatched up the spear held in a nearby suit of armor’s grip and catapulted herself to what she supposed was safety.

Unfortunately, she had walked right into a trap when a figure emerged from the darkness, flying at her. Twilight only barely managed to dive out of the way before it landed in the puddle of cheese. Her heart was racing as she stared at the figure before making tracks deeper into the building.

Once she was certain she was alone, Twilight allowed her pace to slow to a stop as she took stock of her surroundings. It seemed that she had a few options where to go now. She could continue down the same path as before, turn left, or turn right.

Twilight sighed. She knew the building had four floors plus the roof and the basement. Twilight shivered. She was not looking forward to those excursions.

With no clues on which way to turn, Twilight opted to press on in the same direction she’d been traveling. Eventually, after searching every last room in an ultimately vain hope of finding clues to aid her journey, Twilight finally stumbled upon the next landing.

More creaking met her ears as she ascended the staircase. The difference this time was that she heard a new sound reach her ears.

Raise this barn.
Raise this barn.
1… 2… 3… 4…
Together we can raise this barn
1… 2… 3… 4….

Twilight’s breath hitched in her throat as her steps quickened. She recognized that tune. It took next to no time to find the source of the noise as she spotted the animated skeletons of Applejack and Apple Bloom dancing to the tune. Twilight’s eyes widened and slowly backed out of the room, her heart racing. She didn’t want to take any chances with them coming after her.

The rest of her investigation of the third floor yielded similar results, she encountered animated skeletons of all her friends and watched them dance to a song that they’d sung. It was more than a little unsettling especially when she’d only barely avoided detection.

“The sooner I get out of here, the better,” Twilight decided quietly as she scaled up the fourth floor and continued to explore.

Unfortunately, this is where all sorts of trouble started. She’d stumbled into an animated suit of armor that hadn’t appreciated the invasion of its personal space decided to swing its axe at her. Forgetting that bladed weapons would only phase through, Twilight had run for her life. Her noisy screams alerted everything else to her presence and soon a mad chase had begun.

It would have normally been an easy matter to simply teleport away but with her magic sealed and her wings bound, Twilight could only continue to run for her life and hope for a miracle.

Of course, a miracle came. Said miracle came in the form of a trick switch deploying her down a slide that led to the basement. Of course, none of the other occupants had any clue of this switch and after a cursory glance at the area, they all decided to get back to what they were doing.

She probably wasn’t worth bothering with anyway.

“Thank goodness for that,” Twilight whispered, standing up from the mattress at the end of the slide. It had only taken a quick look around to conclude that she was in the basement.

There were several differences between the basement and the rest of the house. The first being that the basement was well lit thanks to several glowing sapphires.

“That must be Spike’s work,” Twilight grinned. Her grin faded almost immediately at the sound of a hiss. Her heart pounded. It couldn’t be. Let be something, anything other than that.

The hissing was louder now and Twilight could see snakes slithering toward her in all directions, eyes glinting in the gem light. Her horrified shriek gave them pause but that was all Twilight needed to gallop away. The snakes naturally decided to give chase.

Twilight ran, periodically looking behind her to check whether she was still being chased. This only told her that they were still after her and had the side effect of inadvertently crash headlong into a wall. She recovered only to find herself surrounded yet again. She could hear her heart pounding louder than ever, trying to think of a way to get out of this situation.

Then she remembered something Fluttershy had mentioned. What was it?

Oh yeah. Asserting dominance.

Twilight, despite being the princess of friendship, hadn’t learned how to do that so she did the first thing that came to mind. She glared and then hissed back at them. To her astonishment, they stopped slithering and stared at her. The snake closest to her looked back to its compatriots before hissing at Twilight again.

Twilight hissed back, not having the faintest clue of what she might be saying.

Alarmed, the snake turned back to its comrades and hissed to them. As one, they all slithered away.

Twilight watched them, stunned. She gave herself a little time to breathe before standing up and leaving the building.

Meanwhile, Starlight, Discord, and Spike stared at the crystal before staring at each other, equally stunned.

In the end, no matter what Discord, Starlight, or Spike tried, even going so far as to dig up her worst fears and memories, it wasn’t enough to break her spirit much less kill her.

“I’m glad that it’s finally over,” said Twilight once they’d finished. “I think we can put this one to bed. It was terrifying but I think it only pushed me to fight harder than ever…”

When the idea of snapping Twilight’s neck was proposed, silence reigned. It was clear that everyone was mulling the idea over. They’d known from Twilight being crushed that it was within the realm of possibility to break Twilight’s bones if they were able apply enough pressure. The question now was how they would go about applying the same amount of force in a short space of time.

Starlight was the first to speak. “The way I see it, we have a few ways we could go about trying this,” she started. “We can try a collision, diving into a shallow body of water, and severe head or neck trauma.”

“I think we can rule out the diving since we’ve already had Twilight walk away from that fall with only minor injuries,” said Spike helpfully. “If we’re going to try head or neck trauma, we know blunt force and weapons won’t work there so that narrows it down to a swift kind of blow like the ones in my comics.” Spike picked up one such comic featuring Mistress Marevelous doing exactly what Spike had described to the Mane-iac.

“But what about a collision?” Starlight asked. “Discord’s world has two trains we can use to test this, right?” This question was aimed to the lord of chaos who grinned.

“I think I’ve got a few trains locked away in storage that we can use,” he said, rubbing his mismatched hands together mischievously. “I’ll need some time to get them up and running again though.”

“That’s fine, thanks Discord,” Twilight nodded. “We can test the swift breaking while we’re waiting. Let us know whenever you’re ready.”

Discord grinned and with a flash of light he was gone.

“Well,” she smiled, looking at Starlight and Spike. “We might as well get started.”

“Run that by me one more time, Spike,” said Twilight as she and Starlight poured over anatomy charts and models while Spike explained the swift break described in his comics complete with visual aids.

“So how it’s usually done in the comics,” Spike explained, pointing to a page in one such issue. “The good guy usually grabs the bad guy by the back of the neck and holds them tightly: one hoof on top of the head and the other on the bottom. Then the good pulls in opposing directions and it usually knocks the bad guy out in one go.”

“From the looks of the illustrations, it sounds like a fracture at C1 and C2 and the bone fractures could lead to spinal cord injury that could potentially kill me,” said Twilight thoughtfully. “I think the big question here is how much force is needed to make this feasible.”

“I think we already know that much from when you were crushed,” Starlight pointed out, sifting through her notes.

“That’s true but the next question is how are we going to be able to induce that much force in a swift blow?” Twilight asked.

“How about a strengthening solution?” Starlight proposed. “I read about it in a book Zecora lent me. It can temporarily strengthen a pony in case they need to carry out a strenuous task. They’re banned from official sporting events for obvious reasons but I can’t see why one of us can’t take it and then test to see if we can get somewhere close to the same force.”

In lieu of any ideas of her own, Twilight and Starlight had found the book in question in Twilight’s library. Finding the recipe had been the easy part, finding the ingredients had also been easy, the only hard part was how nuanced the brewing process happened to be. They had to change temperatures, stir the solution and add ingredients at specific times that lesser potioneers would have been befuddled.

It certainly explained why there were so few potion masters in Equestria.

“It looks and smells the way the book describes it,” Twilight observed, her eyes traveling from the pale pink potion to the book and back again.

“I’ve got the force plate ready,” Starlight announced, returning with a large metal rectangular plate. “But how are we going to replicate the same motion we want to test with this thing?”

“The motion is not important for what we’re trying to accomplish,” said Twilight. “This exercise is just to make sure that the potion does its job. So give this plate your best shot so that we can get a baseline of your normal strength as a point of comparison.”

On Twilight’s command, Starlight gave the plate her best whack. She attributed her above average score to weeks of bucking apples with Applejack and her training while planning her revenge against Twilight. Next, she took the vial of potion from Twilight and downed it in one gulp. She could feel a new power surging through her muscles now. Starlight felt that she could have run a marathon and still felt up to applebucking. Once more, she gave the plate her best whack.

Unlike last time, they heard the plate ring loudly. Twilight stared wide-eyed from her student to the number registered on the dented plate.

“Whoops,” she mumbled, blushing while looking away from the plate.

Everything was all set up, all Starlight had to do was do it.

“Whenever you’re ready, Starlight,” said Spike patiently.

Starlight heaved a sigh, pressing her hooves on Twilight’s shoulders more to relieve her own anxiety than Twilight’s who was less nervous about this than she was. Feeling the best way to go about this was faking herself out, Starlight continue to press Twilight’s shoulders before gripping her teacher’s head and with one swift movement, snapped her neck.

The effect was instantaneous, Twilight slumped forward. A cursory inspection told her that Starlight had dealt a very serious spinal cord injury that killed Twilight outright. That said, Spike and Discord still ran their tests and confirmed her death.

Fortunately, they didn’t have to wait long for the angel to appear and cast her spells. She stared at Starlight for several seconds before casting her spells to revive Twilight.

Once Twilight was back on her hooves, they immediately went to work repeating their experiments.

“Why am I the one snapping Twilight’s neck?” Starlight asked suddenly, several tests later. “Why can’t one of you give it a go?”

“I can’t because I’m not strong enough to snap Twilight’s neck with my claws and the strengthening solution only works on ponies,” said Spike.

“I’ve been preparing a few future methods to test for Twilight,” said Discord, shrugging. “So I’m a little busy at the moment.”

Starlight sighed as she snapped Twilight’s neck for the umpteenth time, killing her teacher.

“Can we call it confirmed, now?” Starlight asked, once Twilight had been revived.

“I think we can,” Twilight nodded. “We’ve certainly tested it enough to say as much. Thing is, they’d need a potent strengthening solution to make it work and those are already incredibly difficult to brew. The ones available commercially are not nearly potent enough to accomplish this feat so I don’t see myself in danger of this… yet.”

“Thank you for waiting!” Discord grinned as his three friends stepped onto the train tracks.

They stared at the two impressive sized trains, Discord had chosen for the experiment: both were a cool steel grey, sleek, and shiny.

Spike was practically drooling. “Are those real sapphires?” Spike asked, pointing to the windshield.

“They sure are,” said Discord proudly. “No you may not eat them… yet. Anyway, Twilight, pick a train. The rest of you go to the bunker and wait for me to get there.”

Once Starlight and Spike were out of earshot, he looked back at Twilight. “Just so you know the plan: Once you’ve boarded your train of choice, please sit at the conductor’s seat for maximum impact. Once you’re seated, you won’t have to do anything since I’ll be controlling the trains from the bunker. For your reference, I’ve already got everything set up when it comes to your gauges on the seat so all you need to do is sit and look pretty.”

Twilight could only nod as she selected one and boarded. She smiled as the train flashed from grey to lavender and bore the same six point star as her cutie mark. As soon as she boarded, the door shut behind her.

It didn’t take long for her to take her seat. As soon as she did so, the train began to move on its own. Twilight tried not to let it bother her as she soon found herself fastened into her seat. She contented herself by watching the wonderfully chaotic scene outside. While she would never agree with Discord’s ideals, she could admit that he knew how to have fun.

She watched blissfully ignorant of the second train coming right at her. In fact, she hadn’t noticed until they collided with a loud bang. Almost instantly, Twilight’s head slammed into the dashboard hard enough to concuss her. As it stood, she only suffered moderate bruising that was surely going to need some ice. Her neck certainly ached but it didn’t feel broken.

Discord had confirmed it when he checked her over for injuries. All he’d needed to do was tap her bruised head and the the injury vanished. Nonetheless, they repeated their tests several more times. Each time, Twilight only managed mild to moderate bruising and neck aches of varying severity but none of which proved remotely lethal.

“So it’s possible to kill me by snapping neck the way Starlight did but I’m not going to snap my neck from a collision?” Twilight clarified.

“That’s what our findings have told us,” Starlight nodded.

“Slitting my throat seems pretty easy to test,” Twilight remarked, looking up from the list. “I mean all we’d have to do is just go for it. No need for anything complicated.”

“I suppose,” Starlight agreed. “I mean it seems pretty simple. I can’t imagine how we would need to make things complicated. All we would need is a knife and about an hour for the sake of repeatable trials.”

“Why does it have to me,” Starlight lamented quietly. She held the knife aloft while lifting it to a blindfolded Twilight Sparkle’s neck.

She quickly remembered the last time they’d tried stabbing Twilight and took a deep breath. Either way, things would be alright. If it didn’t work then it didn’t work and Starlight wouldn’t have to bear the weight of having killed her teacher in cold blood. If it did work then she would have to consider whether there was something special about either the way she slit Twilight’s throat or about the knife that allowed it to happen. Regardless of whether or not she was successful, Twilight would be fine one way or another.

Banishing the remnants of her musings, Starlight met Twilight’s eyes, concealed by the blindfold. Twilight nodded decisively.

“Do it.”

Starlight took a deep breathe and slashed Twilight’s neck. Just as she suspected and to the surprise of no one, the knife phased through Twilight’s throat and left no traces blood or any signs that she’d just had a knife slashed across her neck.

“It didn’t work,” Starlight concluded after several attempts with various weapons commonly used to slit a pony’s throat. She’d also tested various ways to slit a throat and changing the angle of her blows. Nonetheless, All of her attempts had either inflicted minimal damage such was the case with the arrows or had inflicted no damage as had been the case with every other weapon used.

“That much should have been obvious no matter how it had been diced,” Spike sighed. “We’ve seen proof so many times while doing this. It makes me wonder why we even bothered trying it.”

“Well, it was on the list,” Twilight pointed out, “and I wanted to make sure I covered my bases. Maybe with the angle the knife pointed might have made a difference.”

“We can safely say that angling won’t make any difference in this case,” said Spike wryly. “Starlight tried every possible angle that could work in this setup and we were able to prove that none of them would be able to harm you much less kill you.”

“I didn’t realize that you had tested the angling of the weapons as well,” Twilight beamed at her student who grinned at the praise. “Good work, Starlight.”

“When can we safely say that any form of metal weapons won’t work?” Starlight asked wryly. “I mean, we’ve already tried stabbing, knife throwing, slashing, cutting, decapitation, and slitting. How many more can there possibly be?”

“I think you’d be surprised with how many more there could be,” said Spike, looking down at the list.

The two exchanged wary looks and went to look at the list with him.

“So I think the first question we need to answer is how long would you have to laugh in order for it to be considered lethal,” Starlight started thoughtfully. “In other words, how long would it take, everything else being equal, for Twilight’s airways to seize up and prevent the gas exchange that allows us to survive. I think that’d help us a lot when we conduct the test.”

“We also have to consider what it would take to induce such a sustained laughter for a prolonged period of time,” Spike added helpfully. “That way we can set up our testing facility armed with those things in mind.”

The four of them stared at each other.

“We’ll look into how to induce prolonged laughter while you two figure out how laughing can become lethal,” Spike finally said. “It will give this idea credence if there’s some sort of precedent we can follow as well.”

“Sounds good to me,” Twilight grinned. “We’ll do some research and talk to a few doctors to get a better idea of the biology at work here. I take it you’re going to do something similar?”

“Twilight, Discord’s already the most hilarious one here,” Spike replied dryly before Discord could retort. “But I guess we can talk to Pinkie and bounce some more ideas off her.”

“Great!” Twilight beamed.

“So you wanna make Twilight laugh and laugh hard?” Pinkie asked, scrutinizing Spike and Discord curiously. They had come to Sugarcube Corner in hopes of cornering Pinkie and extracting some useful advice. She was the element of laughter for a reason after all.

“Yeah,” Spike nodded.

“Hmm…” Pinkie trailed off as she scrutinized them more closely. Her expression turned suspicious as her eyes narrowed. Spike found himself sweating but Pinkie had either not noticed or didn’t care.

“Okay,” she said cheerfully. She hopped from her place behind the counter and gestured for them to follow her. Once they caught up, Pinkie pushed a switch at the base of the stairs, sending the three sliding down into her party cave.

Even Discord looked impressed as he quickly found his own file and found his respect for the party pony increase drastically as he read the documents. It seemed that Fluttershy wasn’t the only one who paid extra special attention to him. He would have to send a pudding river Pinkie’s way at the next available opportunity.

While Discord and Spike were preoccupied with their own files, Pinkie scrounged up Twilight’s file and passed it to Spike. They’d both suppressed their laughter when they read that she was afraid of quesadillas. Spike remembered the events that had led to this admittedly irrational fear but dragged his mind back to the present. When their eyes drifted over the things that made Twilight laugh, both pairs of eyes lit up.

“Since I can’t let you take the original files with you,” said Pinkie briskly. “I’ll lend you Twilight’s laughter list but make sure you take care of it before midnight tonight!” She cautioned. “That’s when they disintegrate!”

Spike and Discord hadn’t bothered wondering how Pinkie managed to make that happen. Spike silently folded the list and stuffed into his scales. They thanked Pinkie and with her help, left the cave and then Sugarcube Corner.

On other side of town, Twilight and Starlight sat in chairs as they listened to the doctor provide a crash course on pony respiratory systems. They each held clipboards loaded with parchment, quills, and ink as they listened to the doctor.

“So when we inhale,” he started as Starlight and Twilight took notes fervently. “You need to understand that several things happen during this time; the first thing is that we intake oxygen. Next it travels down our trachea to our bronchi where it branches out to our bronchioles and finally to our alveoli. It’s here that the gas exchange takes place.”

“What kinds of gases are usually exchanged during this process?” Starlight interrupted.

“For the purposes of your experiment, the main gases are carbon dioxide and oxygen. There is of course others but those are less relevant for determining the frequency with which a pony needs to breathe.”

“So what determines how often we need to breathe?” Starlight asked curiously.

“There’s a structure in our brain,” the doctor started patiently, “called the medulla oblongata. It regulates the respiratory system and it does this by taking stock of the carbon dioxide content and regulates respiratory ventilation as needed.”

“How does it determine carbon dioxide content?”

“It all depends on how acidic or how basic our blood happens to be,” he explained, his voice becoming more enthusiastic. “More carbon dioxide means more hydrogen ions in solution. These are the main players in acidity. The more of these ions present, the more acidic the blood pH will become. That said, ponies are very fortunate to have a bicarbonate buffer system that prevents blood pH from becoming too high or too low. Of course, with all buffers especially given that we are living creatures, there is a limit to which the buffers can maintain appropriate pH before it gives out.”

The teacher and the student spent the better part of an hour asking all sorts of questions tying laughter into context with what they’d learned and how that would affect a pony in theory.

Satisfied with their answers, the two ponies thanked the good doctor and left the hospital.

“That went well,” she beamed at her student who’d carried several stacks of parchment worth of notes.

Starlight gave a silent nod of agreement. She had learned more about the respiratory system than she would ever care to learn but supposed that in retrospect it would be useful information to know for future reference.

“We’ve got everything we need to make this all happen,” said Spike as he and Discord found Twilight and Starlight huddled around a pile of notes.

“So how did Pinkie go about suggesting you make me laugh?” Twilight asked curiously. “I imagine she must have all sorts of strategies for that sort of thing.”

“She did,” Spike agreed. “Discord and I went through the list and crossed out ones that would take too long and wouldn’t necessarily make you laugh.”

“So what did you ultimately decide to do?” Twilight asked keenly.

“Tickling,” said Spike simply. “We’re going to keep tickling you until you die.”

“Ignoring the problem of your claws getting tired, you don’t even know where my ticklish spots are so that idea’s moot,” said Twilight triumphantly. It was plain to see that she held a strong aversion to being tickled. Spike suspected some sort of foalhood trauma associated it. Maybe one of her relatives was just really bad at it?

“Ignoring the fact that my claws still going strong even after one of your extended study sessions or that none of us know your ticklish spots,” Spike started. Starlight felt a chill shoot up her spine at the mention of extended study sessions. “Who said we had to use my claws to tickle you? Or that I needed to know where your ticklish spots happened to be? We have a much simpler solution: magic.”

Twilight smacked her face with a hoof.

“Of course… can’t believe I forgot the tickling charm.”

“You forgot the tickling charm,” Starlight couldn’t help but tease her teacher. “It’s one of the first spells a unicorn learns. I know I’ve used it enough times...”

A pointed look from Twilight made Starlight fall silent.

Spike cleared his throat. “Anyway, since Starlight slit your throat, Discord will cast the charm.”

“Okay,” said Twilight reluctantly. It was something of an open secret between the three castle residents that Twilight loathed being tickled. She found it distracting and led to bouts of wheezing that she would have preferred to avoid. “Whenever you’re all ready.”

When Spike and Starlight had their quills and notepads primed and ready, Discord cast the spell. At first it seemed like nothing happened but upon closer inspection of Twilight, it seemed that she was fighting a losing battle against laughter.

Sure enough, not even a minute into the test, Twilight broke down into a fit of the giggles. The giggles had been quiet at first but they had quickly graduated to standard laughter. It wasn’t long before conventional laughter evolved into loud bellowing roars of laughter. It also got loud quite quickly. This prompted Starlight and Discord to erect wards around the room to prevent the noise escaping.

There was little doubt in their minds that if anyone got wind of hearing Twilight laughing so raucously, they’d want in on it too. They’d also want an explanation on why Twilight was laughing so hard when there was nothing around to explain it.

Still, as Twilight laughed without pause, they’d noticed several changes in her face. More specifically the color. Her face initially started out its normal violet color. This had soon changed to a deep red and then a deeper shade of purple before turning a very interesting shade of blue. Even when Twilight tried to catch her breath by coughing, she still couldn’t stop a small chuckle from passing through her lips.

It was a very subtle change but it was still visible to three onlookers as they took note of the weakening of Twilight’s laughter. They’d noticed that she had slumped forward, her eyes closed. They wasted no time in rushing toward her and checking for signs of life.

They found none. All in all none of them were surprised. Based on the scans they’d performed soon after, they had been able to confirm that Twilight had truly died of laughter and not of some other underlying condition like an aneurysm in her brain or a heart attack.

If that wasn’t enough proof that Twilight was dead, the angel descending toward them put any remaining doubts to rest.

“Never would have thought I’d see the day ponies would actually die from laughing so hard or for so long,” she remarked before going to work, casting her spells and then kissing Twilight’s cheeks.

The others had nothing to add to this. It had been surprising but yet not really a surprise at all. After all, they’d already proved that Twilight could die by way of asphyxiation back when they’d first started.

“It’s finally here!” Twilight chirped, levitating a large wooden box into the throne room. Spike, Discord, and Starlight all looked up from their respective readings to look at Twilight curiously.

“What’s here?” Starlight asked curiously. She and the other two moved from their places to look at the box curiously.

As though just waiting for someone for someone to ask, Twilight ripped the lid off the box. They all peered inside to get a closer look.

It was an an amulet. It reminded Spike greatly of the alicorn amulet that Trixie used in her revenge scheme against Twilight. The only difference being the metal was lined with sickly green colored emeralds that seemed to pulse at set intervals.

Although Spike was not nearly as tuned to magic as any of the others, he could still feel a nasty sensation come over him just looking at the amulet. He glanced around at the others, Twilight looked a bit sick looking as she held the amulet aloft in her magic. Starlight looked much worse than her teacher; her face turned a very interesting shade of green and appeared close to vomiting. Discord, for his part, seemed unharmed.

Plucking the decidedly cursed artifact out of Twilight’s grip, Discord examined it curiously.

“I’ve seen these before,” he murmured, scrutinizing it closely. “I remember these being used back when I ruled Equestria.”

The others leaned forward, interested. Discord seldom spoke about life prior to his escape and they were all very keen to hear more about his reign from his perspective. There was only so much that could be learned from books after all.

“So what are these things then?” Spike asked keenly.

“Well, one of my most devoted followers created these things,” Discord admitted. “They were something of a badge of honor among my followers. Much like the alicorn amulet, it granted them new powers and also corrupted them to be predisposed to what I felt like doing and making it happen quickly. They were also cursed such that if anyone who either didn’t identify with my ideals or fought against me, they would die on the spot. I didn’t know it would do that until after it had happened.”

Starlight and Spike eyed the artifact with greater wariness than before and both took several steps back. They didn’t want to take any chances on the off chance the cursed amulet somehow managed to kill them.

“So I just need to put it on?” Twilight asked, staring at it.

“Yep,” Discord nodded. “Since you don’t agree with my chaotic tendencies, it will likely trigger and kill you… assuming this thing works on alicorns.”

“Okay,” said Twilight uncertainly, donning the amulet. They all stared expectantly at it for several seconds before something happened. The gem set in the middle of the amulet began to glow. At first it was faint but soon it grew brighter and brighter before it began to blind everyone save for Discord.

Twilight’s eyes were clenched shut in anticipation for what was about to happen. She frowned when nothing happened. She wait several more seconds before cautiously opening her eyes. Sure enough, she was still in her castle with her three friends shaking their heads.

“It didn’t work,” Discord answered Twilight’s unasked question. “It tried but in the end, it didn’t work. The curse is still active but it doesn’t seem like alicorns are going to be affected by it. The fact that you aren’t dead is proof of that. You could wear that thing all day and it wouldn’t come any closer to killing you.”

So Twilight wore it for the rest of the day.

To the surprise of no one, Twilight survived. In the end, they figured it would be wise to destroy it. Twilight didn't want to risk someone stumbling upon it and harming them in the process.

“Does anyone know what exactly baked bads are?” Starlight asked, looking down at the list on the table.

She noticed that Twilight and Spike had to fight down a bout of laughter at the question. At the curious looks from Starlight and Discord, they explained. It was a term Pinkie coined when she and a severely exhausted Applejack baked together using ingredients that were almost certainly not used for baking.

Starlight was surprised that Pinkie hadn’t noticed. She’d pegged her as someone like Sugar Belle: a baking aficionado.

“She thought it was one of Applejack’s secret recipes so she didn’t question it,” Twilight explained. “Needless to say, it had ended up putting her along with about half the town in the hospital for various illnesses.”

“They’re all okay, right?” Starlight asked, worried.

“Of course they are!” Twilight replied. “Applejack didn’t use anything especially dangerous. Simply ingredients that were not meant to be consumed by ponies. Like mud for instance.”

Starlight went green at the mention of eating mud. Twilight pointedly ignored this as she clapped her hooves together. It was here that Spike raised a rather pertinent question.

“Do we even know the recipe?”

Twilight grinned at him. “How hard could it be?”

It had taken a good deal of reflection but Twilight had finally managed to recall the conversation in question she’d had with Applejack where the farmer told her the ingredients they’d used. Twilight didn’t need to be a princess of friendship to know that it had been a mortifying experience for her friend and made a point not to bring it up any more than was strictly necessary.

He could already see Discord just itching to try this recipe for himself if only to see what would happen.

After promising that Discord could try the recipe out for himself after they were finished, Twilight led her friends down to the kitchen where Spike had to stop himself from becoming a sobbing mess. As the self proclaimed head chef of the castle of friendship, he really didn’t want to see his kitchen being used to produce such nefarious concoctions.

Then he remembered that Twilight had died at least three times in this very kitchen and shook his head before turning to Twilight.

“So what was the recipe?” he asked, preheating the oven and grabbing his baking kit from beneath the stove.

“Potato chips, soda, lemon juice, and…” Twilight actually felt vomit rising up in her throat as she watched Spike collect the ingredients. She really didn’t want this last ingredient added but knew that her scientific mind wouldn’t allow for anything else.

“And…” Spike repeated, looking at her expectantly, having collecting everything he’d need.

“Earthworms,” Twilight ground out. “The last ingredient is earthworms.”

Spike stared at her for a full ten seconds before bursting into a fit of laughter. When she didn’t join him, he stared at her again.

“...You’re serious, aren’t you… the last ingredient is live earthworms.”

“Yes, Spike. I’m dead serious.”

Spike took a deep breath. “Okay, then.”

Deciding not to think about this anymore than he absolutely had to, Spike stepped outside and was instantly thankfully that he hadn’t needed to dig deep for earthworms. He’d collected enough for several batches, stuffed them in a large container and went back inside. He’d prepared them exactly as Pinkie did and loaded them in the oven.

“We’ve got a good half an hour to wait until everything’s done,” said Spike. “What do you want to do?”

“...That was fun,” Starlight couldn’t help but remark as they stepped out of Discord’s simulated reality based on that game she had seen Spike, Big Mac, and Discord playing. She turned to Spike and Discord. “Please make sure to invite me next time you have these game nights.”

Spike and Discord felt a chill shoot up their spines at the deadened look in Starlight’s eyes and quickly agreed. They were sure they could persuade Big Mac to let them invite Starlight for one of their future game nights.

It was here that they heard the oven timer go off.

“They’re ready,” said Spike.

When they returned to the kitchen, they could smell the deceptively pleasant smell of the baked bads.

“Are you sure you made these properly?” Twilight asked as Spike pulled them out from the oven. Indeed, the fragrance emitted was comparable to that of any baked goods produced at Sugarcube corner. “They smell too good to be poorly baked.”

“Of course I’m sure,” said Spike, offended. “But isn’t that how half the town ended up eating them in the first place? Because they smelled and probably tasted good?” He paused. “Pony taste buds are weird. Give me some sapphires any day.”

They stared from the wide selection of baked products to Spike and then back again, wondering if he’d done something with them to lure them all into a false sense of security.

“You’re going to have to try them if you want this test to actually go anywhere, Twilight,” Spike deadpanned. “I promise I didn’t do anything that would mess with the testing.”

That seemed to be good enough for Twilight as she picked up an innocent looking muffin from the platter and took a bite. Had Twilight not seen Spike mixing and preparing all the ingredients herself, she would have thought the muffin was just like any other muffin. She’d noticed that she’d bit into several chocolate chips when she took her bite.

She took another experimental bite. This one was vastly different from the previous one. Unlike the previous bite which boasted the chocolatey sweetness she’d expected from a muffin, this one she could taste the familiar crunch of a potato chip. Strangely enough, she didn’t find this the least bit disgusting as she swallowed and polished off the rest of her muffin.

“I should probably eat all of these then,” said Twilight, nodding to the rest of Spike’s creations. “Get the full range of what’s been prepared.”

The three watched in some sort of morbid fascination as Twilight ate her way through the cupcakes and proceeded to the cookies.

“I knew that Twilight’s standards for food were low,” said Starlight in an undertone to Spike and Discord, “but I didn’t realize they were this low.”

“It’s not surprising,” said Spike, shaking his head. “Twilight never really cared for anything more grandiose than those hay salads they have in town. She said something about pretentiousness… whatever that means.”

The others had nothing to add to that so instead they turned back to Twilight who’d polished off the small platter of cookies and started in on the last item: the cake.

Unlike the cake Pinkie had baked to induce a heart attack, this one was much smaller and thus much quicker to eat. Indeed, it had taken only a few minutes for Twilight to polish off the final slice before leaning back in her seat and let out a contented sigh.

“That tasted really good, Spike,” she complimented. “I really don’t see how half of Ponyville ended up in the hospital if they tasted as good as these did…”

“Then again, the ponies in town weren’t exactly alicorns were they?” Starlight pointed out. “Maybe you’ve got a stronger immune system than the average pony.”

“Hmm…” said Twilight thoughtfully. Her face suddenly morphed into the prime picture of a grimace as she felt stomach ache that subdued so many other ponies come over her. She’d rushed off to the bathroom as quick as a bolt of lightning. The three only had time to exchange surprised looks when Twilight returned, relieved.

“Seemed those baked bads only led to a relatively painful stomach ache rather than forcing me into the hospital,” said Twilight brightly but paused. “But I don’t know if that was because of how much I ate or because of the baked bads themselves…”

“It’s a good thing I made a lot of them then,” said Spike, nodding to the fresh batch of baked bads on the counter behind them. Starlight and Discord exchanged a look and it was Twilight who ultimately asked the question.

“When did you make more?”

“While you were eating the first batch,” said Spike. “I knew we were going to have to do this a bunch more times so I made more. It’s a good thing we have more ovens.”

“It’s a good thing you did,” Twilight beamed, sniffing the fresh batch eagerly.

From their trials, they had managed to prove two things: the first being that alicorns weren’t about to die from eating baked bads. If anything, they seemed to enjoy them more than normal ponies did. The second being that earthworms apparently didn’t taste nearly as awful as ponies had been led to believe.

At least, that’s what Discord thought when he tried one.

“Twilight wasn’t lying!” He said eagerly. “These are good!” Starlight and Spike exchanged wary looks. Tasty or not, neither had any intention of trying them. As much as they liked change, they needed some form of base to maintain their sanity.

Still, knowing that Twilight wouldn’t end up dead as a result of a botched baked confections was a load off of Spike’s mind.

Radiation

It took more time than Twilight would have liked to work out a design for testing radiation. It didn’t help that radiation barring the sun wasn’t an broadly explored area of science. That said, that wasn’t to say that it wasn't explored at all…

“This is weird,” Twilight remarked as she, Starlight, and Spike donned heavy lead jackets as Discord pressed the button to test the new machine Twilight acquired via Discord.

“It works!” said Discord excitedly, showing them the pictures of their insides. “We can toggle between the most common forms of radiation and see what happens in real time.”

“What are the most common forms of radiation?” Spike asked curiously.

“So for the purposes of this experiment, we’re going to be working with the three most dangerous and relatively common in a hospital: X-rays and ultraviolet light. We will also be using gamma rays as that happens to be the most dangerous of the lot and has the greatest potential for radiation poisoning,” Discord explained.

“Right,” said Twilight briskly. “I’m ready whenever you are.”

They hauled the machine into a separate chamber with Twilight. It had been previously agreed that Twilight would stand unprotected in each form of radiation for an hour and then assess for symptoms if she happened to survive. Regardless of survival, they would test each multiple times for consistency’s sake.

They started with ultraviolet light given that it was the weakest of three and watched and waited.

As it turned out, nothing happened at first but with continuous, prolonged exposure over several days they could see the symptoms arise. The first had been the subtle tanning of Twilight skin beneath her coat. It wasn’t something immediately noticeable but several days later, it became more prominent. With the continued exposure, sunburns came next and with it all manner of swelling, blisters, and peeling skin. Indeed, as the days went by and with continued exposure to ultraviolet light, it was plain to see that Twilight’s health was steadily declining. Her body couldn’t defend itself with its immune system now disabled.

Coupled with the skin cancer she had developed from prolonged exposure, it was hardly a surprise that Twilight died soon after. Still, it was worth noting that even without treatment, Twilight still survived longer than most normal ponies could have hoped.

As the angel cast her spells to revive Twilight, they watched on stunned. As soon as Twilight was revived, she looked to her friends and they knew just from her expression what needed to be done.

So they pressed on with the next type: X-rays.

“So from what I’ve been able to find out about X-rays, this seems to be a pretty low risk radiation exposure even if I don’t have a lead jacket,” Twilight remarked, standing in front of the X-ray machine.

“You’re partially correct,” Discord nodded. “I’m sure you already know this but age and area of imaging play important roles.” He paused. “And the dosing. Naturally, I’m going to be using the highest possible dose for this experiment.”

He continued, “Fair warning, when I inject this contrast dye, you might experience some nausea, itching, warm flushing, lightheadedness, et cetera.”

Twilight nodded. She could handle that.

The X-ray sessions had been largely uneventful. Barring the symptoms of the dye, Twilight hadn’t felt any different before versus after. It was only after several more runs with the X-ray machine was Discord forced to concede that Twilight would not die from one.

“So I know that gamma particles are the most dangerous but I can’t say I’m familiar with their use in medicine,” Twilight admitted, staring down the barrel of the gamma ray. “I spent most of my time studying magic and I’m pretty sure this one must be a recent discovery.”

“It’s certainly a recent discovery for oncology,” Starlight agreed. “It’s been an effective cancer therapy.” She grimaced. “The only problem being that it can cause cancer as well.”

“Plus high doses of this can kill you in days,” Discord added helpfully from his place behind the rays. “And the only way to block it is with a thick slab of lead.”

Twilight realized that she was likely going to die.

“Right,” she said, her voice resigned. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Discord flipped the switch. The machine whirred to life. Twilight couldn’t help but squeeze her eyes shut as the whirring grew louder. The machine went on like that for several minutes while Twilight kept her eyes clamped shut. It was after the first few minutes that she realized that she wasn’t feeling any sort of impact on her body that she tentatively opened her eyes.

The machine was clearly active and none of her friends were concerned about it. She had considered dismissing her panic as out of hand but couldn’t help but ask.

“Are you sure this thing is working? I can’t see anything come out.”

“Of course it’s working,” said Discord dismissively. “Gamma rays much like ultraviolet light is outside the visible light range so you won’t be able to see it coming. You will experience the symptoms before long though.”

An hour later and the ray was switched off.

“Right,” said Discord briskly, producing a clipboard from his lab coat. “So obviously we’ll be expecting side effects as a result of prolonged exposure to high doses of gamma radiation. “The most common ones are nausea, vomiting, fainting, confusion, mane loss, and bleeding. Any questions?”

Twilight shook her head and Discord nodded before rolling the machine into a nearby storage closet. He explained that they would repeat the experiment tomorrow at the same time for an hour.

Twilight didn’t have long to wait before she felt the symptoms occur. The nausea and vomiting had become a familiarity by this point and Twilight had long since learned to deal with it. The same was true of the rest of her symptoms. The only challenge was her premature mane loss. Being a mare in her prime, Twilight hadn’t anticipated any mane loss for a long time to come. She was honestly at a loss on how to cope. Her first inclination had been to take medication to stop it but wasn’t sure if the medicine would interfere with the experiment so had thought better of it. In lieu of any useful ideas, Twilight had been forced to tough it out through the next few days of radiation exposure. This had only served to aggravate her symptoms even worse.

What’s more she could feel her strength leaving her bit by bit. She could feel the familiar clutches of death reach out for her yet again. The others watched as Twilight slumped to the ground, dead midway through her gamma exposure.

They watched as the angel came down and stared briefly before casting her spells. She offered a brisk nod before disappearing.

Naturally, Discord insisted they repeat their experiments several more times just to be sure. Unsurprisingly, Twilight died each time. The only curious bit was how long it took for the gamma exposure to finish her off. There was little doubt that the gamma ray had done its job but they could not for the life of them find any sort of pattern.

“I guess it’s something we’ll have to look into once we’re done with this,” said Twilight when the others mentioned it to her.