Author's Notes:

Because medical school is hard...

Spiciness

“There’s actually been a precedent for ponies dying from eating spicy food,” said Twilight excitedly when this particular idea had been proposed.

“Plus it’s hardly a secret that you don’t handle spiciness very well,” Spike pointed out, fondly recalling the instance in which she drank an entire bottle of hot sauce. He remembered the sauce apparently being spicy enough to inexplicably ignite her mane.

Twilight didn’t think much of this and gave Spike a meaningful frown. He quickly fell silent.

“Anyway,” Twilight turned to Starlight and Discord. “There’s actually system to measure the spiciness of a food. The only problem with it is that it’s a bit subjective so if we want to use it, we’ll have to take the results with a grain of salt so I’m reluctant on relying heavily on it.”

“It’s better than nothing,” Discord shrugged. “We can start with mild and then feed you progressively more spicy things until we either run out or it kills you.”

“Right,” Twilight nodded. “Let’s get started.”

“I figured we can start with something mild,” said Spike, nodding to the bell peppers, “and then work our way up until you either die or finish them all.”

“Okay, well I’m ready when you are,” Twilight nodded, raising the sliced bell peppers to her mouth and bit into them. Not spicy at all. She shot a withering glare at Spike who shrugged helplessly. Twilight hadn’t cared much for spicy food but the bell peppers were easy enough to handle.

After finishing off the bell peppers, they’d moved up to banana peppers, then to pimento, paprika and the like. While only mildly uncomfortable, Twilight still hadn’t been moved by them. So they tried spicier products but even those didn’t seem to phase her. However, it did lead to an upset stomach so they allowed her to take a temporary break to get over the pain before resuming.

“The weird thing is that Twilight doesn’t even like spicy food,” Starlight paused. “At least, I don’t think she does.”

“She doesn’t care for it but she’ll eat it if she doesn’t have any other choices,” Spike shrugged. “She’s choked some of it down for my sake when I was firsting learning how to cook. I liked making things spicy back then so she had to learn how to manage it until I figured out that she didn’t like spicy food and stopped using so many of them when I was cooking.”

“It’s an acquired taste, I think,” Twilight’s voice signaled her entering the conversation. “It’s not my favorite thing in the world but I certainly don’t hate it as much as I did when I was a filly.” She paused. “If anything, it’s been useful since a lot of foreign dignitaries seem to like it so it helps me build a rapport with them.”

“You don’t think Spike having made spicy food for you back then is going to bias your perception now, is it?” Starlight asked.

“It might,” said Twilight thoughtfully. “We can make a note of it and then check it against the others and see if there’s any inconsistencies and go from there. Plus there’s also the matter the scale we’re using to test this is still a little weak to subjectivity when it comes to how spicy something happens to be.”

This being said, they were still far from done. Spike still had several secret weapons at his disposal and he was keen on seeing how Twilight would handle them; especially the ones that Ember had agreed to share when he mentioned a fondness for spicy food.

“So what kind are these?” Twilight asked, eyeing the strange looking peppers cautiously. She’d long since learned to regard everything with suspicion. After all, one never knew what could possibly kill them after all.

Spike had explained that these peppers were among the spiciest in the entire world. “At least that’s what Ember told me when she recommended them.” That bit made Twilight pause and regard the once strange but innocent looking peppers with renewed cautiousness and suspicion. Still, it sounded promising.

“Right so where should I start?” Twilight asked, scanning the array of peppers. Spike picked one seemingly at random at passed it to Twilight.

“Cheers.” She bit into the pepper.

The effect was instantaneous. Spike stared as Twilight shot a stream of fire out of her mouth. Repeatedly. Realizing that simply shooting flames from her mouth was not an effective form of cooling, her body spontaneously burst into flames. Spike would have been more concerned had he not seen Twilight flare up like this before and was safe in the knowledge that she was fireproof.

When all was said and done, his once proud kitchen was reduced a smouldering heap. Spike wasn’t sure whether he wanted to laugh at the sheer absurdity of the situation or cry because his beloved kitchen had taken the brunt of Twilight’s chili pepper induced ire. Irrespective of his feelings, a tear came to Spike’s eye as he took everything in and remembered that the castle came equipped with more than one kitchen.

With that came solace and later laughter.

“Spike?” Her voice sounded far thicker than he’d ever heard it, only serving to compound his laughter. “I can’t feel my mouth.” His laughter died abruptly as he let that bit sink in.

“Wait what?” Spike stared as Twilight opened her mouth. Spike peered inside. Sure enough, her tongue didn’t exactly look great. It couldn’t be more obvious that the pepper had done a number on her tongue if the absence of taste buds was anything to go by. That was to say nothing of the redness and swelling of her tongue. He grabbed a metal teaspoon, one of the only things to survive the fiery onslaught, and pressed it against her tongue while asking if she could feel anything.

“Still nothing,” she replied thickly.

“Try moving it around,” Spike suggested. She did so without any problems.

“Well,” said Spike, “it’s a good thing we have that salve. Ember said that non-dragons who’ve eaten this stuff don’t fare very well.”

“When you say not well…” Twilight started.

“They end up losing their tongues entirely or at least have extensive nerve damage or something like that,” Spike replied then paused, “although I couldn’t tell if Ember was joking or serious when she wrote that bit.”

Irrespective of whether Ember was joking or not, Spike still applied the salve. The effect was immediate. Twilight had to stop herself from swallowing the salve on the whole. She had grown fond of the taste of apples after all. It was a prerequisite of being friends with Applejack.

“Much better,” Twilight grinned once the salve had done its work for what felt like the umpteenth time that afternoon. She grimaced. “I can tell I’m going to going to the bathroom a lot tonight.”

Spike wisely kept his mouth shut at the risk of letting more laughter loose. So instead he asked, “so now that we know that no matter what pepper or spice you eat, we can be sure that it’s not going to kill you.”

“Exactly. Strike it from the list but keep the peppers. There’s something I want to try with them later.” Spike wasn’t sure how he felt about that glint in Twilight’s eye and silently lamented toward the unfortunate victim.

Inflation

“This one is actually very easy,” Discord pointed out. “I’ve done stuff like this before with a snap of my fingers no less.”

“Yes but didn’t you break a ton of laws of science to make that happen so that they don’t rupture the lungs?” Starlight asked curiously.

“Yes, after all, why would I want to kill them?” Discord asked. “Fluttershy would be very cross with me if I killed ponies.”

“Very cross,” Spike agreed, nodding sagely.

“That aside,” Twilight nodded. “We can knock this out in an afternoon, you’d just have to inflate me and then see what happens, right?”

“More or less,” Discord shrugged. “I mean, I had to build some failsafes in so that ponies didn’t die when I played with them after all. Dead ponies make poor playmates. It'll take me a bit to undo the failsafes but it shouldn't take long, I think.”

"Glad to hear it."

It was a very underwhelming experience. All Discord had to do tap Twilight on the horn and watched as she slowly inflated.

They watched in fascination as she slowly rose and began to float like a Twilight shaped balloon. They continued to watch as she continued to float and occasionally drift from one end of the room to the other thanks to her tail. After five minutes of this, Starlight turned to Discord.

“You did make sure to allow air to be able to escape her lungs if there’s too much in there right?”

“Of course I did but lungs are a lot more resilient that we think they are,” Discord replied. As he said this, however, they could hear the familiar sound of air escaping. Looking up, they could see Twilight rapidly deflating before landing in a heap on the ground. They stared at her unmoving body before exchanging glances with each other. Eventually after a series of nudges, Starlight was elected to check whether Twilight survived.

“Looks like her ribs punctured her lungs that in part led to her death,” said Starlight blankly after a thorough inspection of her teacher. “I didn’t think it would happen so quickly.”

“Well, if you can’t breathe and have gas exchange then you’re not going to be living very long,” Spike pointed out. “Especially when you considered that it not only ruptured her lung but it looked like there was some kind of exit wound for the air to escape that wasn’t her mouth.”

As if to prove the point, the angel descended down in the familiar golden light to cast the same spells. By this point, Starlight had considered asking her to teach her the spells as to not inconvenience the angel but could not for the life of her work up the courage to ask.

Nodding to them, the angel vanished.

“Did it work?” Twilight asked. “Because I can’t remember anything from that experience.” Spike, Discord, and Starlight exchanged uncertainly. That was probably for the best, they expected it to more than a little complicated and possibly traumatic.

“So that’s how it happened,” said Twilight thoughtfully five minutes later after hearing the three renditions. “Well, at least it was a relatively quick way to go.”

“It was. You were initially floating like a balloon but then it seemed that your ribs pierced your lung and led to this whole thing.”

Twilight could only stare into the middle distance before insisting that they try again.

“This isn’t nearly as traumatic as you made it out to be,” Twilight remarked after several repetitions. “I mean, this wasn’t nearly as terrifying as jumping from that cloud or that house of horrors.”

“It was traumatic for us,” said Starlight defensively. “The most dangerous thing I’ve done was facing Chrysalis and her changeling army.” She paused. “That and fighting you during my revenge arc.”

“That’s fair,” Twilight conceded. “But regardless of traumatic experiences, I think we can say that I could die from being inflated overly so. Granted, Discord’s the only one who could really pull this off so that’s not especially useful information.”

“I disagree,” said Discord, rolling his eyes. “It means I have to be even more careful when pulling these stunts after all, Fluttershy would be most cross with me if I somehow managed to kill you.”

“She sure would be,” Twilight agreed, silently thankful that the timid pegasus succeeded in befriending the spirit of chaos.

Blood Boiling

“Ever heard of that phrase, ‘so angry that it makes my blood boil’?” Discord asked lazily, tossing the list at Twilight.

“We’ve been known to use it more than a little often,” Twilight nodded, catching the list in her magic. “But it has got me thinking about whether I would survive if my blood was actually boiled from the inside.”

“But how’re we going to do that?” Spike asked. “We already proved that you’re immune fire, being boiled, and lava.”

“Magic,” said Twilight simply.

“Of course,” Spike rolled his eyes once he was sure Twilight wasn’t looking.

“Whenever you’re ready, Twilight,” said Discord. Twilight stood opposite him, her face and her hind legs reared back, bracing for what was to come. Starlight and Spike stood off to the side. Discord had produced objects that told them Twilight’s blood temperature as they proceeded through the experiment.

“Start slowly and then increase the temperature incrementally,” Twilight replied.

Discord snapped his fingers and Twilight promptly gasped in shock as she collapsed in a heap on the floor. The only difference between this and previous iterations is that while in the past, she’d either been dead or knocked out, this time Twilight was conscious.

But in those moments, all she knew was pain.

It was pain unlike anything she’d experienced before. She wanted so badly to scream but her mouth clenched itself shut in an futile attempt at stifling it. Realizing that screaming was lost to her, Twilight’s body writhed in yet another feeble attempt at fighting it off. When it became clear that nothing Twilight did would help, she had gone in on herself, attempting to claw at the site hoping that removing this imaginary source would help.

It didn’t.

“That was only twenty degrees,” said Starlight, stunned as she and Spike stared disbelievingly at the gauge. She quickly found herself thankful that Discord was a good friend of hers and not an enemy.

They watched as her writhing grew more violent as Discord incrementally ramped up the temperature in her blood. It wasn’t long before Twilight’s body eventually gave out and she slumped to the floor, dead.

They stared at her unconscious form before looking back at the gauge.

“One hundred and twenty cantergrade,” Spike informed them. “She was able to last up until her blood actually boiled… I think.”

“Well, we won’t know that until we conduct that biopsy,” Discord pointed out, donning a set of gloves.

“No need,” said Starlight quickly, lifting her up and setting her onto her own back. “She’s drastically lighter now than she was when she was alive.”

“And how would you know that?” asked Discord curiously.

“Who do you think carried Twilight back to bed when she spent the better part of the night reading?” she asked dryly.

Rather than answer, Discord opted to watch as the angel they’d come to know and respect descend down upon them. They watched as she stared at Twilight for several seconds before going to work, casting her spells.

“Right,” she said briskly. “I trust you feel better now?” It wasn’t something she did often but she occasionally chatted with souls that she escorted onward. The only difference being that she was sending Twilight back to Equestria.

“Yeah,” Twilight nodded. “I really appreciate your help. I know it's not exactly easy but we all really appreciate it.”

“Working with souls is what I do,” she shrugged. “But thanks.”

With a final kiss on the cheek, the angel sent Twilight back.

“You’re okay!”

Twilight blinked as she sat up and immediately wished she hadn’t. She could feel her head spinning and felt the beginnings of nausea set in. Spike was at her side in an instant, armed with a large container. He patted her back while pointedly looking away while Twilight emptied what little was left in her stomach.

“How do you feel?” Starlight asked cautiously.

“Wishing that I hadn’t sat up so quickly,” Twilight grimaced, accepting the mint tea Spike passed her. She watched as Starlight scribbled across her notepad, all the while gurgling and reveling in the minty taste. “But much better on the whole.”

At their shared request, she went into the pain she felt when she felt her blood warm and described just how much worse it got as they increased the temperature. It couldn’t be plainer that the experience would stick with Twilight if the slightly haunted look in her eyes was any indication.

“I know that we’re going to need to repeat it again,” said Twilight, “but do you think it’s possible if we can flash boil my blood this time? I know it might be a little selfish but I’d rather not endure the pain if I can avoid it.”

“I don’t mind,” said Discord, shrugging. “I mean, the only reason we hadn’t tried it straight off was because we didn’t know what temperature alicorn blood boils and that you wanted us to increase incrementally.”

“Right,” she nodded, embarrassed. “Well since we’ve got those notes now, should we try a flash boil?”

Flash boiling, Twilight decided after several iterations, was not a terrible way to die. At least, certainly wasn’t painful or at least, it was certainly quick. Her blood boiled and her vision quickly turned to black before any pain or self-induced body damage could be dealt. A swift and clean death promptly followed by revival thanks to the angel.

It was just the way Twilight liked it. Or at least as much as anyone could like death anyway.

Unicorn Horn Attack

“So when we’re saying being attacked by a unicorn’s horn, is this by way of being stabbed or by being attacked by a spell at close range?” Twilight asked.

“I don’t know,” Starlight replied, taking the list from Twilight and looking at it for herself. “It doesn’t specify.”

“Well, in the interest of covering our bases, why don’t we test both?” Discord suggested. “It’s not like we’d have a hard time acquiring unicorn horns or anything. To prove his point, Discord casually plucked Starlight’s horn off her head. Alarmed, she tried to force Discord to return her horn to its rightful place.

Discord pointedly ignored her now nonverbal pleas and looked to Twilight who heaved a sigh and turned to her miserable student.

“Don’t worry, Starlight,” she murmured, patting her on the back. “Discord did the same thing to me when we first met. It was all part of his game and he eventually returned them to us.”

“You better believe it,” Discord grinned, now plucking Twilight’s wings from her sides. This only served to make her chuckle as Discord finally attached the horn and wings to his own body. This obviously made him look even more ridiculous than he already looked.

“Mind if I take on the stabbing, Twilight?” Discord asked casually. He already knew that Starlight couldn’t be persuaded.

I’ve already slit her throat and snapped her neck earlier! She would no doubt protest had they approach her. To his credit, he wasn’t exactly wrong about his prediction as he watched Starlight protest despite the fact that she no longer possessed her horn.

“Do it, Discord,” said Twilight, resigned.

Discord didn’t need to be told twice as he gripped Starlight’s horn and stabbed Twilight in the chest. Unlike most of the other weapons that they’d tried, the horn pierced Twilight’s chest. However, despite this, the horn penetrated only slightly further than the arrows.

“Huh…” Twilight stared down at the horn now embedded in her chest. “This hurts a lot more than I thought it would…”

“Do you think we should build something so that we can get a consistent thrust each time?” Spike voiced from his place on the table. “We don’t want differences in the force exerted to cause problems for us later on, right?”

Twilight agreed and once Discord returned Starlight’s horn, taking care not to wipe the blood off, she had drafted her assistant and student to gather supplies and draw up plans. This left Discord with some time to acquire more unicorn horns to use. Producing a pair of binoculars, Discord’s eyes soon spotted the cemetery.

“Surely no one will mind if I borrow some horns from there…” Discord chuckled before teleporting away.

“I think building it will be simple,” Twilight commented as they looked through their various plans. “The only hard part will be whether we should build two models equine and biped creatures or just build a single device that can switch between the two.”

“Would the equine versus biped body structure really matter though?” Starlight asked curiously. “I mean, the stabbing motion that we’re going for is going to be the same regardless, right?”

Twilight nodded in agreement but then pointed out that the force from the stabbing would be coming from different muscles between the two types. It was here that Spike pointed out that it didn’t really matter where the force was coming from since the main idea was to see how far a unicorn’s horn can pierce.

“We can use those leftover gas tanks from the flatulence experiment to make it simulate the same speed as a standard stab. We’re going to need some way to measure how quickly we can stab something though…” Spike trailed off.

“I think we can make that happen,” said Twilight, smiling.

They’d each taken turns stabbing a block of foam Twilight had made beforehand. Twilight and Starlight had done the math and recorded their findings while Spike went to work building their machine.

“Now all that’s left is making sure that it works the way we want it to,” said Spike eagerly as he showed off his creation. The ponies quickly went to work, testing their machine and running calculations. It was all very boring and menial work until they finally managed to make it work consistently.

“Finally, I thought that would take forever...” Starlight sighed after what felt like several hours later. In all actuality, it had only been ten minutes.

“I’m back!” said Discord loudly as he dropped a box of horns at Twilight hooves. “I thought you might appreciate these.”

Twilight opened the box and stared at the horns messily piled inside. She look back at Discord, eyebrow raised.

“I can’t just go around and steal other unicorns’ horns, Twilight,” said Discord, shaking his head, “and I can only use Starlight’s horn for so long before it gets boring. Besides, she doesn’t even seem bothered by it anymore and that just takes the fun out of it.”

Discord could see the conflicted look on Twilight’s face and added, “I didn’t steal them from a graveyard. I just made a lot of exact replicas.”

Twilight’s expression brightened before taking the replicas and installing the first horn into their machine. Starlight and Spike and took cover behind a barrier while Discord, seeing no point, just floated several inches from the ground in something approaching morbid fascination. Twilight nodded to Spike who pulled the string and led their machine go to work.

Twilight’s yelp of pain had them looking back at Twilight who had a horn partially impaled into her chest.

“I think we’re going to need some of that salve,” said Twilight in what she thought was a conversational tone. On closer inspection, the horn penetrated deeper than anything else they’d tried but it still only just barely broke the skin. She hadn’t even bled!

While Spike had been more than a little skeptical about the necessity, he ultimately gave in to her pained expression and agreed to apply the salve.

“Much better,” Twilight sighed in relief. Privately, Spike thought that Twilight was being just a little overdramatic. To Twilight’s credit, she had died several times before and Spike wasn’t crazy enough to try to argue. “It’s not the most painful thing I’ve ever dealt with but it’s painful in that way when you cut yourself on parchment.”

“Well, wanna try again?”

Twilight sighed. “Whenever you’re ready, I guess.”

There had been something vaguely entertaining by hearing Twilight yelp in pain that second time he pulled that string. Much like their previous attempt, the horn impaled Twilight’s flesh in much the same way and caused more or less the same degree of damage. It didn’t seem to matter how the long the horns or how sharp they used happened to be, Twilight seemed to always sustain the same degree of damage. No one seemed to understand why this seemed to be the case, least of all Twilight.

“I don’t really understand it either,” Twilight admitted when they asked. “My guess is that they’re all made out of the same material so maybe my innate alicorn magic doesn’t distinguish length but material?”

“If that’s the case, then you’re magic’s weirder than I thought it was,” said Starlight blandly.

“To be fair, I don’t know if what I said was actually true but I think it’s definitely worth looking into if nothing else because now I’m curious,” Twilight shrugged. “But we’ll have to save that for another time. I think we safely say no matter what tool we use, nothing save for a knife made of orichalcum itself is going to really work.”

“So we can strike it from the list then,” Starlight grinned, pulling out a quill, a bottle of ink and the list of methods.

“I would,” Twilight nodded. “At least for now, anyway.”

Microwaving

“I think this would be a really simple way to test this,” Twilight remarked. “All I’d have to do is just walk into a microwave and wait for death or possibly nasty burns.”

“The hardest part would be finding a big enough microwave,” said Spike, “and even that is pretty easy. I’m sure we could ask Discord for help on that front.”

“Well we might as well tackle this now. I can’t see it taking very long.”

"The way things have been going so far, nothing's taken very long to finish."

“How long do I set this to run?” Spike asked, staring at the buttons on the enlarged microwave while Twilight opened the door and stared at the interior.

“Start at five minutes and if I survive, increase incrementally by five minutes until I die or until we hit an ninety nine minutes and fifty nine seconds,” Twilight replied.

“Okay,” Spike nodded, pressing the buttons while Twilight hopped inside before closing the door behind her. “We’re good to go.”

He could see Twilight nodding on the other side of the soundproof glass and gestured for him to start the microwave. Spike gave her one last thumbs up before pressing the start button.

This isn’t so bad Twilight thought for about five seconds before she felt pain. Thankfully, this type of pain was one with which she happened to be very familiar.

Didn’t this happen when we boiled my blood? Twilight wondered as she stared at the slowly revolving walls almost hypnotically. Curiously, while the pain was as painful as it ever, it felt easier to deal with. Twilight suspected that after all the techniques they tested, her pain tolerance had drastically increased in the time since they’d begun. The more she thought about it, the more it made sense.

Rather than shriek and writhe in pain as a normal pony likely would have in the same situation, Twilight contemplated everything she’d done up until that point: from being set on fire, electrocuted, facing her greatest fears. Rather than sob and beg for all manner of mercy like a normal pony would have done, Twilight instead smiled, satisfied in all of the things she’d learned ever since taking on this endeavor.

At least I can say that I’ve learned more about alicorns than anybody has before me. Twilight couldn’t help but think smugly as she felt pain overtake her senses. Accompanying that pain was the ever familiar cold she’d come to associated with death.

Spike opened the door five minutes later to find a fully cooked and dead Twilight Sparkle before him.

“That actually smells pretty good,” Spike admittedly to himself. Before he could do so much as move a muscle, the familiar gold light descend down upon them. He watched the Angel materialize, eying him with some remarkably like disdain before going to shame.

While Spike looked down in shame and questioned several life choices leading to this moment, the Angel went to work casting the same spells she always cast to revive Twilight. It had become something of a routine by this point if she was being honest with herself.

That said, it was still satisfying to watch Twilight slowly stand up and move around as though she’d never been microwaved.

Indeed, she watched Twilight turn to her and smile appreciatively at her. It somehow made her feel happy in a roundabout sort of way. The Angel gave a single nod before disappearing. She wouldn’t be far, if there was one thing she knew about Twilight it was that she was a scientist and that one attempt would not be enough to prove anything. As a result, she’d taken to watching subsequent attempts if only she happened to find it curious about the various ways ponies die. Some of the things she’d seen were more absurd than some of what she dealt with regularly.

Indeed, Angel watched from the window while also concealing her golden light and by extension herself. She watched as Twilight stepped into the oversized microwave.

Death by Cadance

“You want me to do what?” Cadance half asked and half shrieked when Twilight appeared at her front door.

“I figured that since you’re the princess of love, I figured you’d be able to kill me with love,” said Twilight simply.

Cadance didn’t know what to expect when she received Twilight’s letter but being asked to channel the power of love through the crystal heart in an attempt to kill Twilight was not what Cadance had in mind.

So much for Twilight wanting to spend some quality bonding time with me with me… she thought sadly. Still, it wasn’t every day she got to see her sister in law. She supposed that she could make something happen if Twilight insisted on it.

“Fine,” she conceded. She supposed she could be sympathetic. Cadance had been trying out methods of her own with help from Shining Armor and Sunburst and it was thanks to Discord and to a lesser extent, Twilight, that she’d learned of a way to revive herself.

“I should probably warn you that I’m not exactly experienced with using the crystal heart as a means of destroying things,” Cadance pointed out as she scanned the area for any of her subjects. Thankfully, it seemed that Shining Armor had done as she had asked and was running interference for them via a training exercise in the plaza.

“I know,” Twilight replied. “Ever since you and Shining took the throne, there haven't been any major incidence in the Crystal Empire.” She paused. “Barring the changelings foalnapping all of us, of course.”

“Of course,” Cadance nodded, aiming the Crystal Heart at Twilight. Twilight braced herself as Cadance pulsed her magic into the artifact. They watched as it began to glow brighter and brighter and spinning faster and faster.

Then it let out a burst of energy.

To the surprise of no one, Twilight and Cadance had turned into their crystalline forms. This had come as no surprise to either of them as this is what had happened in the past.

“That was me making sure that it was working properly,” Cadance grinned, nodding approvingly. “Good to know that letting Thorax feed off some of the residual love magic wasn’t a bad call.”

“You let him?!” Twilight shrieked.

“Of course,” Cadance shrugged. “It didn’t exactly hurt anybody. Besides,” she cast a sidelong look at Twilight, “if Thorax hadn’t been there, I don’t think Starlight or the others would have been able to overthrow Chrysalis and rescue us much less reform the vast majority of Chrysalis’s hive.”

Twilight would have loved nothing more than to disagree but couldn’t find it in herself to do so.

Deciding to leave that aside, Twilight nodded to Cadance who closed her eyes before pulsing her magic into the crystal heart. The only difference was that this time, she was channeling the artifact to protect. While she was hardly the scientist Twilight was, Cadance was no slouch when it came to research and coupled with Shining’s one track mind when it came to something having to do with defending the Crystal empire, learning how to use the Crystal Heart to defend it was a relatively simple task.

Actually doing so had proved to be significantly more difficult.

No need to tell Twilight that though. Cadance shook her head. No, it was best to keep that information to herself.

“I’m ready when you are, Cadance!” she could hear Twilight called. Cadance nodded as she pulsed her magic into the artifact. This time, she allowed her protective feelings to envelope her. She would do whatever it took to protect the Crystal Empire even if it meant wiping someone from the face of Equestria.

Twilight watched apprehensively as Crystal heart pulsed an angry red. She wasn’t sure if she liked the sight of an angry red crystal heart. In Twilight’s experience, whenever an ancient magical artifact turned an angry shade of red, it usually meant something bad was about to happen.

Twilight did not bother with shielding herself as she watched the beam of protective magic blast through her. She could feel the protective feelings Cadance felt as they slashed at her in a way that no weapon could ever hope to accomplish.

At least we know that the Crystal Heart will be able to save us. Twilight thought as her vision turned to black and slumping to the ground with an unceremonious thump.

“Twilight!” Cadance shrieked, galloping over to the lifeless body of her sister-in-law. The rational part of her brain told her that she was being stupid. Twilight had already tested over fifty different ways to kill herself and yet she still lived among the living even after encountering several successful attempts on her life. Still, she was the princess of love and she had just murdered her beloved sister.

Cadance suspected she would have started on a self-loathing campaign that would have likely led to the demise of the Crystal Empire had the angel not come down and brought about something of a miracle.

Bringing Twilight back.

Again, Cadance shouldn’t have been surprised. She was intimately familiar with the process, having been revived in much the same way several times herself. Still, she couldn’t help but watch in awe as the charred remains of what had been her sister knitted the wounds back together and into shape. A second flash of light and Twilight returned.

Before Twilight could so much as get a word in, she soon found herself in the loving embrace of Cadance’s wings. Twilight for her part was confused on why Cadance was so emotional about the whole thing. Surely the same had happened to her when she happened to find a way to successfully kill herself.

Nonetheless, Twilight wisely kept those thoughts to herself and instead hugged her sister tightly. Once Cadance’s sniffling had stopped, Twilight looked up at her.

“Ready to go again?” she asked.

Cadance sighed. It was going to be a long day.

“Have you collected enough data, yet?” It was all Cadance could do to keep the acid out of her voice. “I would have thought that it would have been obvious after the first time.”

“I’ve got enough data to say for sure that I can be killed by love if there’s enough of it and it's being channeled by an ancient magical artifact,” said Twilight, uncharacteristically cheerfully.

“I still think that it should have been obvious after the first time,” Cadance stated dryly.

“A single instance can be argued but with several trials with consistent results, it’s harder to argue it,” Twilight replied. “I want to know this beyond the shadow of a doubt. Now I can safely say that I can die by being blasted with love magic.”

“Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way,” Cadance grinned, depositing the recently used Crystal Heart back onto its spire, “let’s catch up!”

Twilight couldn’t so much as protest before she found herself being whisked away into the palace for she would later describe as a day of merriment.

Death by Luna

“How exactly do you think Princess Luna would try to kill you?” Spike asked, looking up from the list. It was currently just him and Twilight in the throne room. Discord had his tea date with Fluttershy and Starlight had mentioned having a small get-together with Maud. How she managed to pull Maud away from her beloved rocks is anybody’s guess. “I figured it would have something to do with the moon, but I can’t really imagine it.”

“Succumbing to everlasting darkness?” Twilight could help joke. “Can she do that?”

Spike shrugged. “You know her better than I do. But I guess the best way to figure that out would be to ask her, right?”

“It’s as good an idea as any,” said Twilight. Nodding to herself, she snatched up Spike in her magic and teleported away.

“Welcome Princess Twilight Sparkle,” said Luna warmly. “To what do I owe this late pleasure?”

Twilight decided to just get to the point. “I need you to kill me.”

Luna stared down at the pair of them, her face a mask of serenity to hide the incredulous expression she bore. She was well aware of Twilight’s ambition to test ways to kill herself. She, her sister, and her niece had taken up the endeavor at her request and while it had been a wonderful bonding opportunity, outside of that it had not been the least bit enjoyable regardless of her role.

Instead of saying any of this though, Luna opted for something simpler.

“How do you intend for me to do that?” she asked.

“With your powers of the night,” Twilight explained cautiously. “I figured that it might be possible to kill me if you were to pool the powers of darkness and hurl them at me…”

Luna wanted to scowl. She didn’t appreciate the horribly inaccurate description of her magic but she wisely kept that thought to herself. To be fair, no one knew how her magic worked especially when it came to her transformation into Nightmare Moon and then her return and subsequent reformation. Luna herself only had theories about it all.

“My powers do not work that way, Twilight,” Luna pointed out dryly. “At least not on their own. I suppose I could manipulate my powers to work like that if I really wanted to.”

Alarm bells started going off in Twilight’s head. Luna’s tone had been a dead giveaway that she was standing on thin ice at the moment and what she said next could make or break her. Possibly literally.

But that’s what I want! Twilight thought. Why do I feel so scared about it?

Heaving a sigh, Twilight looked back at Luna. “I’m really sorry. I guess I didn’t really understand how your powers worked outside the dream realm and taking care of the moon.”

Luna shook her head. “Do not fret. Well not anymore than you already have, anyway.”

“Right,” Twilight nodded. “But the request still stands: I need you to kill me.”

“Have my sister or Princess Cadance tried?” Luna asked curiously.

“Yes,” Twilight nodded. “We had Cadance kill me using the ponified power from the Crystal Heart and Princess Celestia by stealing her cake.”

“And she let you get away with it?” Luna asked, impressed. “I must admit that I am surprised to hear that. Sister guards her caches of sweets most jealously and seldom takes kindly to anyone who tries to steal from them.” Luna suppressed a shudder as the memory of the last poor soul to invoke Celestia’s wrath sprang forth in her mind.

It was all very unsettling despite being an immortal pony.

“Very well then,” Luna decided abruptly. “I will agree to try but in exchange, you must attempt the same for me.”

“Sure, by why?” Twilight asked.

“You were on our list,” Luna nodded to the scroll sitting on the table next to them. “We needed to test ways of dying by way of our fellow princesses.” She paused. “In retrospect, that type of information would be vital in case we ever had a civil war…”

Shaking her head, Luna looked back to Twilight. “While Celestia may provoked to murder by someone foolish enough to steal her cake, mine will not be quite so simple, Twilight. Sweet dreams.”

Taken aback by the abrupt end to the conversation, Twilight and Spike stared at each other and then out the window where, indeed, night arose across Canterlot.

“When did that happen?” Spike asked, stunned.

As was the normal case for Twilight when she slept, she dreamed. What she dreamt about typically depended on her day and her subconscious thoughts throughout them. That said, books were a safe bet for an appearance in her dreams.

“This is nice,” Twilight murmured, leaning against several plush pillows she’d found inexplicably in her “reading space”. Indeed, all around her, volumes upon volumes of various tombs could be found stacked high on the shelves around her ranging from children’s fiction to obscure pony history.

Despite delight that reading brought her, Twilight couldn’t but be on edge: Luna had not given her any clues on how she was going to kill her so even in this haven, Twilight didn’t feel completely safe given that she knew that Luna could influence her dreams on a whim.

It was here that things started to change and not for the better. One by one, Twilight’s books started to disappear. At first, Twilight, having been so engrossed in her volume about reversing a mind control spell, failed to notice this but as more and more books vanished, Twilight’s eyes peered up from the corner of her book to spot the book free shelves.

“Looks like she’s going with the dream route: dying in a dream leads to dying for real and all that,” Twilight observed. Had she not tackled the trials that she’d had thus far, having a space in the absence of books would have been approaching Tartarus for her. Now, however, this was only a mild to moderate inconvenience.

Things began to escalate when she soon found herself face to face with her one of her worst fears.

Or at least had been a few weeks ago when she had been forced to face her worst fears in the form of a haunted house. She still remembered being cornered by snakes and it was only by hissing at them that they backed off. Now that she found herself in a similar situation, Twilight hoped that the same thing would apply here.

So she tried hissing. To her disappointment, it didn’t work. She frantically tried several iterations of the hissing that inexplicably worked against the snakes in the real world. Still, no matter what she tried, it only seemed to provoke the snakes into attacking her. Twilight was certain that it would have ended badly for her had she not remembered that she was in a dream and that she had some measure of control of what happened here. At this epiphany, the snakes vanished and the creepy iteration of the room she’d been in returned to normal.

“You ruined my attempt,” came Luna’s voice, part amused and disappointed.

“Sorry,” said Twilight. “It’s just that if you were going to try killing me by facing my fears, it’s not going to work. We already tested that weeks ago and even bringing everything that could have scared me into a single place, while terrifying, was not enough to kill me.”

“Oh…” said Luna’s voice blankly. “Well… then… I suppose I will have to be more creative with my next attempt.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” Twilight responded but Luna’s voice had already gone.

Luna’s next attempt was, in Twilight’s opinion, far more creative. Of course, it still operated on the assumption of dying in a dream meant dying for real but still it was beautiful for its simplicity as most everything had been up until now. That said, it was still incredibly anti-climactic when she felt her heart suddenly stop. Twilight wasn’t sure how she felt since she was aware that it was a dream but she wasn’t sure whether she would actually be dead in the real world.

Regardless, it certainly felt real when she felt the familiar sensation of death creep upon her. Instead of being sent to wherever her soul went before being pulsed back into her body by the nameless angel, she found herself waking up in a cold sweat.

“I’m alive,” she heaved sigh of relief. “I am actually alive.”

“Pretty sure that dying in a dream does not necessarily mean you die for real,” Spike’s deadpanned reply came somewhere next to her.

“Who can really say?” Twilight shot back. “As far as we know, dreams can translate into the physiological responses that could be potentially lethal like dying in sleep which is probably the most peaceful way to go, I think.”

“Are we sure that Luna can’t kill you with pure darkness?” Spike asked.

“She said she couldn’t and it’s not like we can force her even if she could. Besides, I don’t want my dreams turning into living nightmares so I think it best not to press the issue.”

Spike wisely kept his mouth shut. He also didn’t want his dreams plagued with nightmares. He happened to enjoy sleeping in general as a pastime and didn’t appreciate influences made to ruin it. Then another thought occurred to him.

“Did Luna want you to kill her too?”

“Oh yeah.”

Boredom

“I think we’ve all heard that saying ‘I think I might just die of boredom’,” said Discord, looking up from the list.

“Is there any precedent for this happening?” Twilight asked.

“No, but since when has that ever stopped us?”

The setup was deceptively simple. Twilight was going to live the dream of several law abiding elderly ponies.

She was going to live in jail. Well, not exactly jail per say but rather in complete isolation: sensory deprivation and all. Enter the sensory deprivation pod.

“So what am I supposed to do?” Twilight asked, staring at the sleek pod that would soon become her prison.

“Just relax,” Discord shrugged. “We made sure that you get air so you don’t suffocate. The fluid has also been infused with the necessary nutrients will keep you fed and watered. Also even though you’re magic’s already been blocked but I should out that this won’t respond to your magic even if you could.”

“That’s reassuring,” Twilight sighed as Spike helped in. Once Twilight was situated in the water and certain that all her senses were cut off, she flashed a reassuring smile to Spike before nodding to Discord who sealed the pod with a faint snap.

“Can Twilight hear us?” Starlight couldn’t help but whisper when the pod sealed itself.

“Nope,” Discord replied confidently. “I made sure that she wouldn’t be able to see, hear, smell, touch, or taste anything while inside that thing. Originally, I considered sealing her in a room but I didn’t think that would have gone far enough so after a lot of thinking, I came across one of those things: they’re apparently supposed to be quite therapeutic.”

“Hmm…” Starlight hummed thoughtfully, staring speculatively at the container. “Maybe I should give it a shot sometime…”

“That’s for later,” said Spike, “for now, we can take turns keep watch on Twilight while the others play that game that you wanted to try, Starlight.”

Starlight and Discord’s eyes lit up. However, both remembered that friendship demanded they make sure. Likely, guilt would make them pay for neglecting this later.

“Are you sure?” Starlight asked.

“Go on,” said Spike, shrugging. “There were some comics I wanted to catch up on while I was here but these experiments tend to take a while.”

“Okay,” she said slowly. Before she could so much as say another word, Discord snatched her up and teleported her away. Spike grinned before grabbing the crystal mirror to keep an eye on a sensory deprived Twilight. The other claw plucked a comic from the stack he’d brought with him and began reading.

All in all it was a good day to be Spike the Dragon: Twilight was finally in a state approaching proper rest, he had the room to himself, and he had several good comics in hand. Now if only he had some sapphires then things would be perfect.

It was a boring day to be Twilight Sparkle. To be fair, that was the intent of being in this pod and to some extent it was pretty relaxing to simply float in the fluid. Now if only she could only feel what was around her.

How long am I going to be in here? Did we ever discuss that? I don’t think we did actually. It seems like they just wait until I die or that some literature mentions that a certain point is what qualifies as survival or a failure for me to die.

Still, Twilight supposed. I suppose that this is less violent compared to some of the other stuff I’ve tried even if I have a wonderful angel friend who can bring me back when I die. I just wish there’s something I can do.

In retrospect, Twilight found something nice about being in isolation. It gave her time with her times. In other words, she got to think more about things that didn’t involve her own demise. It had been nice to think about all the spells she’d like to try out once this was all of these methods of killing herself.

It wasn’t long before Twilight jumped off that train of thought and onto another one. This regarding her friends. Initially it had started as an idle thought about how they were doing with their respective lives.

She remembered Rainbow had Wonderbolts training that day and wondered what maneuvers she’d learned. She made a mental note to ask about those once she had a chance. She thought about how Rarity was managing with her three stores in Equestria and how she was dealing with the stress.

Hopefully better than I do. She could help but think with a self-deprecating smile. I think my friends know not follow my example on how to deal with stress.

It wasn’t long before she found herself stuck in a mental loop of her thoughts. It was all very boring. By the time Twilight realized that she’d been thinking about the same things for the fourth time, she decided to follow Rainbow’s example and take a nap.

Shame I don’t have a pillow or blanket or anything… Twilight lamented, closing her eyes.

No one was entirely sure how long it had been since Twilight was put into isolation despite being closely by her friends. All they were sure about was a week having since past since she went under. The three friends looked at each other uncertainly.

“Should we open the pod?” Starlight asked uncertainly. “I don’t want to risk causing a problem in the test and have to do this again.”

“It can’t really hurt,” Discord shrugged. “But it’s not strictly speaking necessary since we’re, y’know, checking all of her vitals.” He nodded to the machine attached to the pod. “From what I can tell, she’s not dead.”

“Well, there’s not really much point keeping her in isolation anymore, is there?” Starlight nodded to the pod. “We’ve already established that she’s not going to die from being isolated for any extended period of time particular if she’s going to be taken care of while she’s down under.”

“We might as well,” Discord shrugged. He pushed a button and they watched in morbid fascination as the pod opened slowly, releasing several puffs of steam. They all poked their heads into the pod where the princess of friendship lay fast asleep.

“Twilight,” Discord whispered, prodding her eyelids. “Wake up.”

As though on command, Twilight’s eyes seemed to snap open. She mechanically rose from the pod and stretched her legs and wings before making her way clumsily out of the pod.

“How long have I been out?” she asked groggily.

“About a week,” Starlight replied, nodding to the calendar on the wall.

Rather than express alarm at the realization that she’d been asleep for a week. Twilight gave another lazy stretch and stood up, mumbling about caffeine. It was such a stark contrast to how they expected her to react that they did nothing as they watched her go. Starlight was the first to break the silence.

“Just to save time for future tests like this, can we keep Twilight suspended in limbo in a place where time travels faster?”

“It’s something worth looking into,” Discord agreed. “But I think that we can strike isolation off the list. At least after we’ve conducted more trials.”

So they did. Twilight survived. It was all very boring but very enlightening. Being isolated did drive the Princess of Friendship mad after a time which was encouraging.

“Strike it from the list,” said Twilight . Discord did so gleefully.

Excess Milk

“So I’ve heard several instances of ponies vomiting when they drink a lot of milk really quickly but I’ve never heard of ponies or anybody dying from drinking a lot of milk really quickly,” Twilight remarked, looking up from her list.

“I think the vomiting would be a pretty strong deterrent for all but the craziest ponies,” Spike replied dryly. “The ones that go out of their way to try such stunts as eating a spoonful of cinnamon.”

Twilight looked on thoughtfully before looking back at Spike. “I’m ready when you are.”

“So that’s all I have to do? Just drink as much milk as I can?” Twilight queried, staring at the jugs of milk in front of her.

“Pretty much. We’ll start with a gallon and go from there,” Spike shrugged. “Ready?”

Twilight nodded as she poured a glass of milk and drank it. Of course, neither expected anything which prompted Twilight to continue onward, finishing off the first jug of milk.

“I’m not feeling too great, Spike,” Twilight reported, her head pressed against the table. “I can see why all those other ponies vomited after finishing off a whole jug so quickly. I think I’m going to need a bucket soon…”

Spike wisely pushed the bucket toward Twilight who gave what Spike supposed passed for a nod and empty the contents of her stomach before banishing it. No one needed to smell that ever again.

“I guess we can do it again?” Twilight said uncertainly.

“We might as well,” Spike nodded. So they did again but this time around, Twilight would be drinking continuously from a bottle with a refilling charm on it. It was nice on one hand in that Twilight wouldn’t have to face the intimidation of staring down several jugs of milk that seemed to taunt her psyche with their mere presence. On the other side however, there was at least a finite amount of milk that she would have to drink until she either died or managed to drink it all. With the refilling charm, Twilight could potentially be drinking the stuff forever assuming it didn’t kill her first.

To the surprise of no one, the only problem was that Twilight was getting tired of drinking milk continuously for close to half an hour. Other than the taste, all of Twilight’s vitals seemed normal. That said, there had been concerns about more fat and calcium content but did not warrant enough concern to investigate further. Even after all the milk she’d drunk, all it had served to do was annoy her stomach and force her to spend several minutes in the bathroom.

“I think it’s pretty safe to say that you’re not going to die from drinking too much milk, right Twilight?” Spike looked over to see her holding a frying pan aloft in her magic and smashing the self-refilling bottle into barely recognizable pieces. Not possessing a death wish himself, Spike wisely kept attention away from himself and scratched out milk as a possible killing method.

Fever

“Doesn’t this work in the same as your blood boiling?” Spike asked curiously.

“Not necessarily,” Twilight shook her head. “In the blood boiling case, we targeted specifically for my blood to boil. This time around, we’re going to see how high an average fever would have to be before I either suffered severe organ damage or died. Think of it as my body basically trying to set itself on fire without actually setting itself on fire.” Spike considered this for several seconds before nodding to himself. He would just do as he was told. If asked, he would say that he was simply following Twilight's commands.

Such were the perks of plausible deniability.

“So I guess the first step would be to get sick?” Spike asked uncertainly.

“We could try that,” Twilight nodded while levitating a scroll up to eye level, “or we can modify this heating spell and make it work like a fever. I think it would be much more reliable using this heating charm than relying on a pathogen to induce a fever. Now, Spike,” she said, eyes glinting, “hook me up to the thermometer. I need you to take down the temperature at which I end up dead or with some form of organ damage.”

“Okay,” Spike agreed, sticking the thermometer under Twilight’s tongue before grabbing his notepad, quill, and parchment. “I’m ready!”

Twilight’s horn lit up with her magic as she cast the charm. The effect was immediate: Spike watched as her temperature jumped several degrees. In the few seconds since Twilight cast the spell, Spike could tell that she was already showing the all too familiar signs of fever.

“Don’t do anything, Spike,” said Twilight hoarsely. “Doing so would undermine the point of this exercise.”

I don’t think I’d call this an exercise, Twilight. This is about as far from any exercise as you could possibly get. Spike wanted to retort but decided against arguing with a ‘sick’ person. Besides, it wasn’t like Twilight was going to listen.

Spike watched as Twilight’s temperature slowly but steadily increased. He could see more and more signs start to emerge: the sweat, her coat turning a paler shade of lavender, and her progressively more disheveled. It wasn’t long before Twilight’s breathing became progressively more shallow and slowly her eyes closed.

It didn’t take long for the rise and fall of her chest to stop. That coupled with the lack of a heartbeat was all Spike needed to know that Twilight was dead. He quickly took down the temperature at which her body failed and then waited patiently for the angel to come and bring Twilight back.

Sure enough, the familiar appearance of the angel appeared and without sparing Spike anything more than a glance, cast the now familiar spells. Even after sixty iterations, it was still a magical experience for Spike to see his friend arise from the dead. Even after sixty iterations, it still didn’t stop him from tackling her in a hug, at least when they were alone.

When the angel disappeared, they looked back at each other and a single thought passed through their minds.

Again.

So they did it again. Unsurprisingly, the same thing happened.

After several rounds of induced fever, they had come to the conclusion that if a fever was hot enough, Twilight could die likely for the same way as flash boiling or blood boiling could kill her: it made her internal organs not work either the way they were supposed or not at all.