Sweetie Belle screamed.

Sweetie Belle screamed as if there was nothing left to her life except for the memory that had just been restored to her. The memory of her murdering another pony. Another pony with thoughts, dreams, hopes, ambitions, likes, interests, a family. With one swing of a knife, Sweetie Belle had taken all of that away from her forever. She could never take it back; she could never say she was sorry to Scarlet Tomato. It was done. Forever.

Sweetie Belle screamed. She screamed the scream of a mare who had committed the ultimate act of evil. She had killed another pony. Celestia would give her the needle if she ever found out.

Sweetie Belle found herself backed into a corner, sitting on the floor and screaming. The very depths of her soul were tortured with what she now remembered. She wanted it to go away, but it wouldn't.

Through the screams that pierced the clinic, she vaguely heard somepony talking to her and it was only a few seconds before she felt a pair of hooves on her shoulders. Somepony was shaking her, but Sweetie Belle wasn't quite sure who.

Well, it wasn't like it mattered very much to Sweetie Belle at the moment. All there was for her now was her memory, the single most horrifying memory that she had ever had. The one that she would desperately want to go away, but never would.

"SWEETIE BELLE, SNAP OUT OF IT!!!!!"

The sudden sharp noise snapped Sweetie Belle out of her shock and she quickly looked up at the pony who turned out to be Dr. Mind.

"Sweetie Belle, I need you to calm down, please. Carrying on like this isn't going to help you at all!"

Sweetie Belle did stop screaming, but her screams merely dissolved into quick hyperventilation and heavy sobbing. Mere words could not solve the damage to her soul that the unveiling had caused. Nothing ever would.

"Is everything okay?" asked another voice. "I heard screaming."

"Ah yes, June Star, I believe everything is under control, thank you."

Sweetie Belle's eyes shot up and what she saw somehow exacerbated her pain. It was June Star; the first pony who had defended her during the memorial for Rarity's victims. She had said that Sweetie Belle wasn't to blame for what Rarity had done and that she hadn't done anything wrong herself. She didn't know it, but she was staring directly at her sister's killer.

"Oh no," whispered Sweetie Belle. "June Star..."

"Yes, Sweetie Belle?" said June Star who began walking up to Sweetie Belle. "Are you--"

"STAY AWAY FROM ME!" Sweetie Belle screeched. "GO AWAY! GET OUT!"

June Star took a few shocked steps back and it seemed that she was suddenly fighting back tears. "Sweetie Belle, I--"

"PLEASE DON'T MAKE ME LOOK AT YOU!!!"

"Sweetie Belle I cannot allow you to speak that way to my secretary!" said Working Mind crossly. "Now, you need to calm... calm..." Working Mind's words faded away as the cogs in his head began to turn. He looked at Sweetie Belle who was still huddled in a corner, crying her eyes out and trying to avoid contact with June Star. It only took a few ticks of the clock on the wall for the harsh reality to slowly creep into Working Mind's understanding.

"June Star, would you please leave us?" he mumbled. June Star seemed just as hurt by Working Mind's insistence that she leave as she was by Sweetie Belle's. "June Star, please just trust me on this. I'll talk to you about it more later, but I'm afraid that you aren't doing Sweetie Belle any good by being here."

June Star looked at Sweetie Belle for a few more seconds before slowly nodding and dejectedly walking out the door. When she closed the door behind her, Working Mind gingerly walked up to Sweetie Belle and put a comforting hoof on her shoulder.

"You killed her, Scarlet Tomato I mean, didn't you?" The question only increased the intensity of Sweetie Belle's sobs and she swatted Working Mind's hoof away.

"Go away," she groaned. "Leave me alone."

"Sweetie Belle, I need you to listen to me. I need you to tell me what it is that happened that night in Rarity's basement. Why did you kill Scarlet Tomato?"

Sweetie Belle's only response was to shrink away from the psychiatrist even more and swat his hoof away. No, he shouldn't ask her, it wasn't any business of his. He was a stranger and she just couldn't open up to him about that. Anything but that. It wasn't for him to know, he shouldn't pry. Yet he did.

"Sweetie Belle, please--"

"SHUT UP!" Sweetie Belle screeched. "I TOLD YOU TO LEAVE ME ALONE!!!"

"Sweetie Belle, please control your temper!" said Working Mind.

Sweetie Belle ignored his order and stood up from the floor. "I told you to go away, you're not going to help me anymore, you've done enough of that, you and Twilight have messed around with my mind too much!"

Twilight.

This was all her fault. It was all her fault that she was feeling this way! She should have tried harder to stop her, to explain why she shouldn't get the memory reversed! There was still Working Mind, though.

"Sweetie Belle, I'm trying to help you!"

"Help me?" Sweetie Belle let out a joyless caw of a laugh. "That's rich. You don't want to help me; you just want to help yourself! Imagine the glory that would come from curing Rarity's psychotic sister! That's the only reason you took my case on, so you could get famous later!"

"Sweetie Belle, that's enough! I am not trying to exploit you; I'm trying to help you!"

Sweetie Belle advanced towards her psychiatrist with a fire in her eyes that caused him to take a few nervous steps back. "You're lying. You shouldn't have restored my memory! Didn't you know that Twilight... uh, Twilight, this is all her fault! She..." Sweetie Belle gripped her head with one hoof before slamming it on the ground hard enough to leave a small dent in the floor. The action only caused her to remember how a similar motion had ended the life of Scarlet Tomato and she let out another shriek. This was all Twilight's fault. Working Mind should just leave her alone and not pry in her business!

"Sweetie Belle, you're not right in the head right now! You've had one of the worst shocks that a pony can get and it's made you unstable; please try to calm yourself down! We can talk about this if you just calm down!"

"No, you want to delve deeper into my mind so you can exploit what you find out about me for later! You and Twilight are both the same. You don't care about me, you only care about yourselves!"

"Sweetie Belle you know that is not true! I don't know Twilight personally, but I can assure you that she only had your best interests at heart! You're shifting blame to avoid some of the worst emotions you have ever felt!"

"SHUT UP!!"

"Sweetie Belle, you know that Twilight is not to blame for what you did! For Faust's sake, listen to what you are saying! It makes absolutely no sense!"

Sweetie Belle took another threatening step forward and Working Mind began to wonder if he needed to subdue her for his own safety. "Sweetie Belle, you're unstable right now. If you aren't careful then you are going to do something that you regret!"

"I already did and Celestia will kill me if she finds out!" said Sweetie Belle. "She'll strap me to a table and snuff my life out like it was nothing! She doesn't care why I did it and neither do you or Twilight. You just want to use me for your own gains!"

"Sweetie Belle, you are shifting blame here. We are not your enemies. Think about what you are saying; it makes absolutely no sense! Why would Twilight or I do anything to harm you? Twilight tried to prevent this very thing if I understand you right. She didn't want this to happen."

"Well she should have tried harder," growled Sweetie Belle. "She should have known that I... I..." Sweetie Belle let loose a half gurgle, half cry of sorrow before she fired up her horn and smashed a bright beam of light into Working Mind's desk. The desk flew backwards and crashed into the wall, knocking a large hole into it.

Working Mind gasped and flinched back when the desk hit the wall. "Sweetie Belle, that was absolutely uncalled for!"

Sweetie Belle stared at the broken portion of the wall. "Just another way I'm a bad pony. I... I'm evil. I know that. Good ponies don't kill other ponies."

Sweetie Belle turned tail and ran. She ran right out of Working Mind's office. She vaguely heard him call out to her, but thankfully he did little to pursue her. She couldn't be around him right now. He would try to talk her out of it; he would try to convince her that she wasn't a bad pony. She was a bad pony, though, and he was just out to help himself.

"He's just out to help himself." Sweetie Belle's lower jaw quivered as a pair of tears streaked down her face. "He doesn't care about me any more than Twilight does! He's just out to help himself! He doesn't care how I feel about slaughtering Scarlet Tomato like..." The words caught in Sweetie Belle's throat and she let out a sob. "Like an animal. I slaughtered her like she wasn't even a pony."

Sweetie Belle ran down the streets of Ponyville. Where, she didn't know, but she had a good idea. If she ended up there, fine. If not, well, Twilight Sparkle would get her reckoning somehow. Somehow this was all her fault. She knew that Sweetie Belle had killed Scarlet Tomato. It had been an accident, though. She certainly didn't mean to sever her femoral artery. She had only meant to give her a little cut, just enough to get a taste of what Rarity did.

The library. Yes, the library was coming into view now. Sweetie Belle ran towards it with the same singularity of purpose that she had had when she had ran towards Dr. Mind to get the memory spell reversed. Twilight shouldn't have even put the memory spell on her in the first place!

Sweetie Belle burst through the door of the library, looking for one of the mares who had ruined her life. As luck would have it, Twilight was dejectedly organizing a few shelves of her library. The bang of the opening door caused the librarian to yelp in shock and her concentration broke, causing dozens of books to crash to the ground.

"TWILIGHT SPARKLE!!!" Twilight turned and saw Sweetie Belle standing in her doorway. When she saw her, her ears flattened and she let out a small whimper. The weakness she displayed only strengthened Sweetie Belle's resolve. What did she resolve to do? She didn't know, but Twilight had to pay somehow.

"Hello, Sweetie Belle," Twilight whispered.

"I killed her." Sweetie Belle stomped into the library. "I killed Scarlet Tomato."

Upon hearing Sweetie Belle utter those words, Twilight broke down into sobs. Seeing Twilight, a mare she had looked up to in her fillyhood, cry like she was a filly herself caused Sweetie Belle's anger to falter slightly. She seemed kind of pathetic. Almost as if it wasn't right to get mad at her.

Yes, yes it was. She had toyed around with her memories and that was going too far for Sweetie Belle. She ignited her horn and slammed the door shut, hoping in the back of her mind that Spike wouldn't be around.

"He restored my memory, you know," said Sweetie Belle. "I remember it now as if it had just happened. I took a scalpel and I stabbed her in the leg, bleeding her out like a stuck pig!"

The words caused Twilight to collapse on the ground, wailing in sorrow. It was a day that she had hoped for years would never come, yet one that she knew would come eventually. However, the furious mare had no sympathy for her.

"What do you have to say for yourself?" she growled.

Twilight looked up at Sweetie Belle with wide, watery eyes. "M-m-m-me? What d-d-did I d-do?"

"You altered my memory when you had no right to do that!"

"I only wanted to protect you!" Twilight wailed. "You were just a filly; you didn't need to live with the memories that you had killed another pony!"

"What, were you worried that if I did remember killing at eight then I'd turn out just like my sister?"

"No, Sweetie Belle, that isn't it at all! I know you, you are a good mare and you were a good filly! You didn't need that on your conscience! You still don't!"

"Well it's too late for that!" said Sweetie Belle. "My memories are back and you can't change them anymore!"

Twilight shakily got to her hooves and did her best to meet Sweetie Belle's piercing gaze. "What did you want me to do? Would you want Scootaloo or Apple Bloom to live with those kinds of memories?"

"DON'T YOU DARE BRING THEM INTO THIS!" Sweetie Belle stomped her hoof on the floor so hard it left a slight indentation in the wood. "YOU DON'T GET TO JUSTIFY YOURSELF BY MANIPULATING ME!!!"

"No, I'm not manipulating you, I'm trying to make you understand why I did what I did! I wanted to protect you; Rarity wanted to protect you! She thanked me when I told her that I was going to do it!"

Sweetie Belle increased her glare and slowly started advancing on Twilight who took a step back for each one that Sweetie Belle took. "You're lying. My sister would never betray me like that."

"Betray you? Sweetie Belle, listen to yourself! She didn't betray you; she never wanted you to have those memories either! She wanted to protect you and so did I!"

Sweetie Belle opened her mouth to retort, but before she could she took one more step forward, causing Twilight to take her step back. Unfortunately for her, she had left her basement door open and in her attempts to get away from Sweetie Belle's wrath, she had unknowingly backed towards the basement door. That final step backwards was all it took and Twilight suddenly found herself without balance. With a yelp of shock, she tumbled backwards down the stairs and out of Sweetie Belle's view.

Seeing that Twilight had fallen, Sweetie Belle quickly rushed towards the basement door to see the purple mare's fate. She looked down the stairs and saw the unmoving librarian lying in a crumpled heap at the foot of the stairs.

Sweetie Belle quickly rushed down the stairs and checked Twilight's pulse. She was alive, just unconscious. Still, a simple fall wasn't enough. She had been injured, it was true, but a small thought in Sweetie Belle's mind told her that more drastic measures needed to be taken with her.

Twilight Sparkle awoke a few hours later to find herself lying on a table in her basement. Her mind was fuzzy at first, an after effect of being knocked out from the fall, but she was vaguely aware that she couldn't move. Her first terrifying thoughts were that she had broken her spine in the fall as she couldn't feel anything below her neck.

"Good, you're awake," said a voice beside her.

"Sweetie Belle?" Twilight groaned and tried to move her head. "Where are you?"

"It's just you and me now, Twilight." Sweetie Belle scoffed. "Well, more specifically it's you, me, and this knife here."

"Knife?"

The shock instantly returned all clarity to Twilight. Her vision cleared and she saw Sweetie Belle standing next to her with a blank expression on her face. True to her word, she was levitating a large knife next to her. A singular whimper escaped from Twilight's throat.

"Please don't do this," she whispered.

"Do you want to know something interesting?" said Sweetie Belle, ignoring Twilight's plea. "When I saw you lying on the floor after your fall, I think I finally began to truly understand why Rarity did what she did. As I saw you lying there, I realized that I had complete and total control of your fate. You were unconscious, and no matter what I wanted to do to you, you couldn't stop me. In fact, you still can't. I still hold complete power over you, just like you held complete power over me when I was unconscious in the hospital after the bad memory spell. Well, you used that power to tamper with my mind when you shouldn't have. And now..."

Twilight looked down at her body. It wasn't strapped down to the table, but she couldn't move all the same.

"Sweetie Belle--"

"So, I placed a freezing spell on you and put you on the table. It only took a few seconds of rummaging around in your kitchen to find this right here," Sweetie Belle continued in the same blank tone. "And now I continue my total power over you."

Twilight's tears began anew as she realized that she would die down here, slaughtered in her own library by one of the kindest fillies she had ever known. She was going to be murdered. The thought briefly crossed her mind that Sweetie Belle was right, that she did indeed deserve the fate that was rapidly approaching. She quickly pushed it out of her mind as Sweetie Belle drew closer with the raised knife. Nopony deserved this.

With one last burst of strength and will, she turned her head up towards Sweetie Belle, who had stopped moving forwards and was standing over her victim, ready to bring the knife down to end her life. With tears pouring from her eyes, she opened her mouth and stuttered out what she knew would be her last words.

"Sweetie Belle... make it quick."

That simple phrase seemed to hit Sweetie Belle like a punch to the gut. She let out a small gasp and began blinking rapidly, showing expression for the first time since she had set up the kill. Twilight was surprised to see the magical aura around the handle of the knife quickly sputter out until it disappeared altogether. The knife clattered to the floor with a loud clang.

"Twilight..." Sweetie Belle whispered. "I..."

Sweetie Belle backed up until she hit the wall of the basement. Colliding with the solid wall seemed to drain her strength from her and she collapsed on the ground. Twilight found that warmth spread over her body as the freezing spell was lifted. When she regained full control, she quickly jumped off of the table and backed away slightly from Sweetie Belle.

Seeing Twilight back away, Sweetie Belle's jaw began to quiver until she let loose a full blown wail that shattered the previous silence of the basement. Twilight flinched back as the sound pierced her ears, but she quickly recovered and rushed over to her.

"Sweetie Belle?"

Sweetie Belle looked up at her and before she could do anything, Sweetie Belle wrapped her forelegs around Twilight and pulled her into a tight hug.

"Twilight, please forgive me! I'm so sorry; I didn't mean to hurt you! Please forgive me, I didn't mean it. I'll do whatever you ask, just forgive me! I know I don't deserve it, I'll never deserve it for as long as I live and I don't blame you if you hate me forever! I'll hate me forever too if that's what you want from me!"

Twilight gingerly touched Sweetie Belle's mouth with her hoof to stem the apologies. She allowed herself a comforting smile and returned Sweetie Belle's hug. Sweetie Belle buried her head in Twilight's shoulder and began sobbing, soaking Twilight's fur with her tears.

"Shhh, it's okay," said Twilight softly, stroking Sweetie Belle's mane. "I do forgive you, Sweetie Belle. I don't hate you and I don't want you to hate yourself either."

Sweetie Belle looked up at Twilight, her huge watery eyes filled with disbelief. "But I just tried to kill you! I really, really wanted to, Twilight. I was gonna do it! I was gonna kill you just like I killed Scarlet Tomato, but on purpose!"

Twilight flashed her comforting smile once more and helped Sweetie Belle to her hooves.

"Sweetie Belle, I know that you wanted to and part of me us unsure if you would have if you weren't brought to your senses." Twilight held up a hoof to stop Sweetie Belle from replying. "But, I know that you aren't a killer. You are not the mare that your sister was. I truly believe that you will not turn out like her, that you will go on to do great things. Yes, you killed a mare in your sister's basement. Yes, that guilt will haunt you for the rest of your life. I'm sorry, Sweetie Belle, but you're going to have to live with that forever." Twilight sighed and sat down on her haunches. "I wouldn't cast a memory spell on you again if you asked me to. A lot of me thinks that it was a mistake to do it in the first place. You could have begun to heal earlier instead of allowing a scar you didn't know you had to fester. For that I will be sorry until the day I die."

"Which was almost today," said Sweetie Belle bitterly.

"But it wasn't," said Twilight. "You stopped before you killed me." Sweetie Belle nodded.

"I just... I don't know. After you said that, something just clicked. I began to realize that you were like Scarlet Tomato. You had a life and everything that goes with it, something that I had absolutely no right to take from you, whatever it was that you had done. You didn't mean to cause me all this pain, and I brought most of it on myself, and I shouldn't kill you for that."

"And that is what makes you different from your sister. If Rarity was in your position, she would have torn me to shreds before she killed me." The words caused Sweetie Belle to flinch and she glanced briefly at the knife and took three steps away from it. Twilight flattened her ears. "I'm sorry, those were poorly chosen words." Sweetie Belle shook her head.

"No, no you're right," she whispered. "I need to stop it, Twilight. I need to stop lying to myself about what kind of mare my sister really was. She was a serial killer, Twilight. She kidnapped, tortured, and murdered dozens of ponies. After her death, I... I guess I still kind of saw her as a victim in all of this. I felt like I needed to protect her reputation, even if she might not have deserved it. Heck, she didn't deserve it. Not at all as a matter of fact."

"Sweetie Belle, she was your sister, whatever else she was. You were just a filly when you found out about all of that. I think that to cope you tried to justify your sister's actions to yourself. You took out most of the evil of what she was doing and you allowed yourself to keep her on the pedestal of a wonderful big sister who loved and cared for you with everything that she was. You were eight years old. You could hardly be expected to deal with that in a rational way."

"You were twenty and you didn't really do that either," said Sweetie Belle. "You did your best to hide it and fix it too."

"I know I did," said Twilight. "And I'll regret that forever too."

A veil of silence fell over the basement once more. The two mares sat on the floor, each wondering what to do now. It was Sweetie Belle who broke the silence.

"Well, I think I have to go now. I have a lot to think about," she said.

"Of course!" said Twilight. "If you ever need somepony to talk to, you know where I am." Sweetie Belle thanked Twilight and after a goodbye hug, she walked out of the library.

Sweetie Belle laid down in her bed, desperately wishing that she could fall asleep. However, the events of that day had thwarted the many attempts of the sandpony to whisk her off to the dreamworld she longed for so much. Twilight had told her that to live with her sins; she needed to take it one day at a time. Right now she wished that today would just be over so she could move on to the next one. She mused that she needed to go see Dr. Mind and June Star to apologize to them, maybe even fork over some bits to repair the damage she had done to his office.

It took a while, but eventually she felt her eyelids become heavy as she pushed the memories of the day out of her mind. But before she could fall asleep completely, she felt what seemed to be somepony sitting on the edge of her bed.

"I'm so sorry, Sweetie Belle," whispered a voice. Sweetie Belle opened her eyes and sat up in bed to see Rarity sitting at the foot of her bed.

"Hello, sis." Rarity smiled a small, sad smile at her younger sister and stood up to walk closer to her.

"Hello, Sweetie Belle," said Rarity. Sweetie Belle had to fight back tears at the sight of her sister. For once in her life, she was the last pony that Sweetie Belle wanted to see.

"I... I don't know if I want to talk to you right now," she said. Rarity's eyes widened and she took a few steps back.

"Sweetie Belle, I know that I was a terrible sister who did a wretched job of protecting you from what I did, but--"

"Rarity, it's like I told Twilight: I can't keep lying to myself about what kind of pony you were. You were a serial killer who relished in torturing ponies and slowly murdering them. When you got caught, it left me without a sister to take care of me and I had to deal with the fallout." The tears that had been welling up in her eyes began falling as she prepared her next statement. "Rarity... you ruined my life."

Rarity's jaw dropped at the declaration and tears began pouring from her eyes as well.

"Sweetie Belle I..." Rarity burst into tears and rushed over to wrap her little sister in a hug. "I know I ruined your life, Sweetie Belle and I'm sorry. I'll be sorry until the end of time! I deserve worse than Tartarus and I never deserved Paradise! You deserved a much better sister than I could ever be! You were right to want Applejack as your sister over me. She wouldn't have destroyed any chance you had at a happy life, but I did! I did, and I deserve every bad thing said about me and much, much more! I'm so sorry, Sweetie Belle! Big sister is sorry!"

Rarity sobbed into Sweetie Belle's shoulder much like Sweetie Belle had done to Twilight earlier that day. Sweetie Belle awkwardly wrapped her forelegs around her sobbing serial killer sister and held her as she cried.

"I don't hate you, Rarity," she whispered.

"But you should!" Rarity insisted. "You should hate me for the rest of time! I don't deserve any love or admiration that I get from you, now or then! I let you watch me mutilate a pony and you killed her later! You almost killed Twilight today because of that and it is all my fault! I'm the worst pony in the history of Equestria!"

Sweetie Belle took a deep breath before responding. "Yeah, sis, you were. I hate to admit it to myself, you were one of the worst and you did ruin my life as a result. But I've been doing a lot of thinking and I think I realized something: you only ruined my life because I let you. I held on to the anger and fear and resentment of you and everypony else for over ten years and those ten years have been the worst of my life. But if I let go, if I let you go and move on, then maybe I can have a chance for a better life, one that doesn't rest in the shadow of what you did."

Rarity broke away from the hug and stared at Sweetie Belle with wide, watery eyes.

"Sweetie Belle, I would wish nothing less for you. I think that letting me go and doing your best to move on... well, it's what I've wanted from you for years. You deserve better than what I gave you, and I never wanted my death to control your life."

Sweetie Belle smiled at her sister who returned one. "Even though you were a serial killer, I still love you, sis, and I wish it could have been different."

"I love you too, Sweetie Belle. I wish that too."

Sweetie Belle closed her eyes to blink once and when she opened them, Rarity was gone.

Author's Notes:

I added two new chapters to a story I should have finished long ago. Also, I have a threequel in mind if you guys want it. I know that it is bad to extend a story too much, to milk a story long after it's run its course, but I have ideas if you guys want to see them.

As before, these next few chapters are the last ones. I really hope that you guys liked this one and I hope that you like what I do going forward, particularly as it relates to the third one. Like I said, if you're tired of the killer Rarity story then I can just leave it as is and not write another one. Although, the ending I have planned might leave you begging for a third. Neither of us can know until we get there, I suppose.