The trapped pony grimaced the moment Twilight had voiced her inquiry concerning the next letter. "Boiling tar?" Fluttershy glared, instantly loathing the thought of the aforementioned substance as she used the experiences she had suffered and Twilight's revelation to further fuel her anger. "Wh-What would I want to be around b-boiling tar for?" She swallowed, voice accentuated with a venomous tone, the look in her eyes matching it. "Except to dunk somepony like you in it?!"

"Just intrigue," Twilight responded placidly with a pleased smile, injecting Fluttershy with a powerful shot of adreneline to keep her awake - no point in losing her to unconsciousness. A multitude of small measuring tools and syringes were quickly levitated over, running a quick check on Fluttershy's systems to make sure the injuries would not yet kill her. "And if you wanted to try to kill me with it, I wouldn't say no to that threat in your state!" She laughed, a disturbingly wide smile on her face, as if she considered the prospect of attempted murder toward her to be the greatest possible option - though internally she was hoping that an attack from Fluttershy would not occur and was merely trying to get her subject angrier. "That would help your anger manifest more quickly and allow me to get Kindness faster, maybe even without going through all the lefts! And once that's done, I can continue with the last phases of my preparations to make my harmonious dream a reality!" Her eyes appeared to literally shine at the thought, her mind turning earnestly with thoughts about how she'd change the world for the better.

While the scientist in question viewed her aims as honorable, just and moral despite the heinous actions she took to reach them, nopony else aware of her actions shared that view. Rarity considered it rash and illogical despite understanding Twilight's motives, Pinkie and Applejack were horrified, and Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy found the living unicorn's ambition to be utterly sickening.

"Th-This isn't intriguing - it's evil!" The formerly shy and quiet pegasus was shaking in rage, her efforts to be free nearly causing the table to comply with her movements. The enraged side of her taking over, for a second, completely took the upper hoof as she cried out in an uncontrolled rage. "I-I'LL MAKE SURE TO KILL YOU!"

Rainbow Dash looked to be oddly intrigued at the other winged pony's defiant demeanor. "Heh, she's turning out quite a bit like me."

A certain companion spoke in her jaw-clattering monotone. "It's reasonable to guess that it's because Twilight used a similar process that caused you to become-"

"I wasn't talking to you!" Rainbow Dash snapped at Rarity, her gaze clearly disdainful. It was clear by the look that she gave the emotionless unicorn that she viewed everypony with an air of disdain and hatred, but her uncontrollable rage and desire for vengeance could only be firmly directed at one target, and was directed at Twilight alone. "Now shut up with your logic!"

In the living world, Twilight was lightly chuckling, not feeling threatened at all. "I expected this reaction, so don't try just yet," she said with a grin, her horn alight with darkned magic as she gathered up the materials she needed, including a lighter, a propane burner, and a large cylindrical container filled with a dark, sticky-looking substance. "I need to get Kindness before I can set you free, and considering how well you've been holding up so far with my enhancements, I'll likely need to let all my procedures do their work before that!"

"You'll never r-r-really set me free!" the pale yellow pony shouted, part of her regretting her accusatory tone but a bigger part of her genuinely meaning it, especially with the agony she had suffered. And she was fully aware that her torment was far from over - even though the procedures had briefly ceased, she could feel a plethora of uncomfortable symptoms plaguing her, knowing that the effects of the venom within her were only going to get worse. "You're probably just g-going to keep me alive... and torture me more for f-fun!"

"Fun?! No, no, no, no, no!" Twilight shook her head rapidly, looking apalled at the idea, wanting to banish the thought from Fluttershy's mind. "You think I consider this fun? I don't!" Her voice faltered. "It's not for fun, it's out of necessity!" Time seemed to slow to a crawl as Twilight stepped closer to Fluttershy, her gaze not quite as calculating as before. Her expression were insistent and intent, pupils wide, voice growing shrill. "I can't have anypony find out! Not yet! I wouldn't be killing you if it wasn't necessary!"

There was a pause between the two, the silence only broken by sharp intakes of breath from pain and desperation. The others realized that Twilight was, indeed, fully aware of the pain and suffering which she was causing, but she still proceeded in her task as a result of her deluded ideals.

Twilight finally spoke again, composure somewhat regained as her hooves steadied, pushing her desperation and lingering guilt aside. "I'll set you free, I will," she assured, levitating the container of tar and the burner a good distance in front of the table which Fluttershy was strapped to. "Bit by bit, I'll free you from your mortal pain..."

"Really, you liar?! You WON'T!" Rainbow shouted so that Twilight could clearly hear her exclamation. She knew very well that, if the trend held true, the bearer of Kindness would merely end up in this limbo just like the rest of them had. "Not in the way she's thinking! She'll just end up trapped with us!" Her words weren't out of defense for Fluttershy's suffering, but out of her ever-growing rage toward the unicorn she wanted to painfully destroy.

Applejack had flinched briefly at the word "liar", but still dared herself to speak. "Do y'all really think she'll end up trapped here?"

"I would assume so," Rarity responded. "It seems that everypony she kills who has an Element within them ends up being trapped here."

Pinkie gestured to convey her own inquiry, her movements abrupt and bright blue eyes clearly puzzled. "Do ya know why?"

As Rainbow translated Pinkie's words aloud, her gaze turned thoughtful. The other former bearers of the Elements did indeed have a point. Veil destabilizing or not, the only beings which Twilight had killed that were sent into the strange sub-limbo were their small group.

Twilight ignored the words of her accuser, lighting the propane burner underneath the tar in order to cause the temperature to rise. The substance remained motionless at first, but soon enough small bubbles of air began to form on its surface as the unicorn adjusted the temperature accordingly. "The boiling point of the kind of tar I have here - pine tar, specifically - is 637 degrees Fahrenheit, or 337 degrees Celsius to use the more scientific form," Twilight explained cheerfully as the rate of bubbles on the tar's surface began to increase. "Now I can lower you a little into it and manipulate your memory-"

"You're an... idiot," Fluttershy hissed, her formerly kind persona lessening by the second as she became more filled with the hatred Twilight longed for her to feel. "I'm strapped to this table."

"True," Twilight agreed, "but don't forget that I have my magic!" With her quill scribbling away notes as she muttered to herself, Twilight released Fluttershy from her hoofcuffs, causing the fragmented hooftip of her dissolved left hind leg, which had remained due to the hoofcuffs, to fall to the ground in a bloody stump just before Twilight began enveloping her subject's entire body with magic in the same manner as she had done when Fluttershy was in Photo Finish's fashion show, but with a far more sinister purpose in mind.

Fluttershy attempted to flail, to free herself from the magical hold around her and lunge at the first thing she saw, sharp stabs of pain rising anew from the further disconnection of parts of her body and the spilling of more blood from her hind hoof. But even attempting to look around to see the entirety of her surroundings was no use - the magical hold was too strong. As her body remained still as Twilight willed it, the devices to monitor her brainwaves and memories remained fixed on her head as her hooves began to be lowered into the boiling substance. She screamed, the scorching tar coating her left hind hoof and adding to the further agony of the earlier foot roasting, once the tar had submerged the remnants of hooftips. She snarled from pain and anger, attempting to bite her mouth to hold back her cries. But she still held an expression of hatred as the hooked tool to manipulate her neural pathways set to work once again, out of her direct viewpoint. With nerve endings not present in quite the same matter that a pony's hooves were, it wasn't an intense physical pain that primarily manifested through its sharp touch, but rather effects that were realized through the corrupted memories that it brought.

Twilight adjusted the neural paths with the skilled air of a professional as the subject's memories were altered yet another time. Ponies like those of the previous visions were present with a slightly younger Fluttershy, her body battered from previous torments, being lowered into tar of a more intense heat than what Twilight was doing. The boiling caused intense burns on Fluttershy's skin in both agonizing present and fabricated past, to the point that the subject was uncertain which was occurring when. This wasn't helped by the fact that she felt a sharp pain occurring within her body, as the venom of the Irukandji jellyfish was beginning to take effect to a rapid degree, and she attempted to ignore the added pain. She would soon find, however, that it would be increasingly difficult to banish the agony from her mind, especially with the effects of the jellyfish venom beginning to steadily increase in its severity.

At last, Fluttershy's body was lifted out of the tar and encased in her restraints once more, her hoof stumps and right hind leg raw from the burns, but no longer bleeding. As painful as the tar had been, it seemed that the heat had cauterized the wounds, halting the blood flow. With the monitoring equipment still firmy in place, the smile that flickered across Twilight's face wasn't at all comforting, only seeming to increase Fluttershy's anger as the pain from the tar began to subside.

"Just a few more, Fluttershy! It'll be over soon!" Twilight trotted over to the far right of the laboratory, the farthest point from the door which Fluttershy could not see. "Just six more letters to go!"

"J-Just six?" Fluttershy frankly could barely take another letter of this torture, let alone six. Her rising anger at Twilight's actions, however, was helping to eclipse a portion of the pain. "Why don't you just stop your stupid torture?!"

"Not until I get Kindness!" Twilight insisted, seeming to ignore her subject's distress. "It's not just for research, it's for the good of all reality!" Out of Fluttershy's view for the moment, Twilight took a deep breath, trying to calm her pounding heart and racing mind.

She's still holding on, but what if my magic and injections are too strong? The fact that Fluttershy seemed to still be managing to hold on despite all she had suffered was beginning to worry the scientist as she prepared to levitate her next instruments over - what looked like a large white box with a concave center an overhanging lamp, and a small oblong rectangular device with a counter reflected on its surface. What if- No - s-she won't have the strength to kill me by the time this is over. Adrenaline or not, she can't combat me, I'm in better physical condition, I'll be able to bring her down, then finish up my preparations! Her horn shimmered with magic as she began to levitate her radiation mechanism toward the forefront of Fluttershy's view. Just gotta keep reminding myself of that fact, and not let my emotions and desperation get in the way!

With that thought firmly in her mind, Twilight focused once more on her task as she returned to Fluttershy's view with her newest mechanisms and circular mirrors in tow. "It's time to start with the letter U now, and 'U' stands for 'ultraviolet radiation'!". She seemed to become more relaxed as she spoke, settling her mind back into her routine. With her subject watching, Twilight gestured a hoof to the main cluster of her lab equipment. "You see, lab equipment like this emits UV rays all the time, so technically we've already been exposed to it," Twilight explained. "But now I'll get to observe the effects of intense concentrated UV rays on a pony's body!"

Rainbow Dash briefly wore a twisted smile at the thought of Twilight frying to a crisp from intense radiation. "That means you'll eventually die from your own radiation, yes!" The fractured pegasus bit off a chunk of her hoof almost as if it were popcorn, ignoring the pain that accompanied it and glaring intently at her nemesis.

"Just in small amounts though," Twilight added as she moved the box-like construct into position, her voice having risen slightly in volume, briefly glancing over to her left where she heard Rainbow Dash's voice. "So as long as I check my physical symptoms and cure them, I should be fine!"

The vengeful spirit narrowed her magenta eyes as she let out a growl, smile vanishing completely, knowing full well that Twilight had said that to counter her desired theory of the unicorn's death. "I hate you so much."

The part of Fluttershy which still held Kindness attempted to take control again, and when she next spoke, her voice was much more pleading than accusatory, her eyes wide even as the high levels of radiation were causing painful burns and blisters all over her body and the light threatening to blind her. "Y-You were different once... I remember... what happened to you? Why are you killing those who were..." she twitched in her restraints from the increasing pain before continuing, even as the last remnants of Kindness began to fade, "who were the ones you had harmony with?"

In that moment, Twilight stared at Fluttershy carefully, quill halted above her notepad as if it had been frozen through a time spell. For an instant, the violet eyes that stared into Fluttershy's weren't meanacing or scrutinizing, staring at Fluttershy as though she was nothing more than a means to an end. Instead, the brightness of her eyes actually seemed to hold her former, caring expression. As if the old Twilight had briefly returned.

Despite her fluctuating rage, Fluttershy felt her heart stop. The part of her which still remained kind was holding on to a last shred of hope with the final portions of her old memory that remained. That the old Twilight was still there, that she would snap out of her deranged ways.

But pinpricks of doubt stung even those portions of Fluttershy's consciousness. What if Twilight had secretly been that way all along? What if she had just been waiting, biding her time until the other ponies trusted her?

As the remnants of memory left Fluttershy's eyes, so too did the gaze of past thought from Twilight's. The scientist narrowed her eyes and turned harshly away from her fading captive. "My eyes were opened to the way the world and the nature of my so-called friends really were, that I forgave them too easily. I realized what seemed to be harmony was chaos in disguise, and knew there was only one way to cleanse it..." Twilight shook herself out of the thought, brushing the past away as if it were nothing more than a bothersome fly.

Pausing as her own mind was brought back into the present moment and the urgency of her task, Twilight forced her focus to return as she began demonstrating her instrument for measuring the radiation. "Now this little device is used to measure the radiation's intensity in two forms." She raised the tip of her quill to point to each one. "This one here at the top measures UV rays in milliwatts per square centimeter, which is the energy emitted in a second." The tip of her quill moved to the bottom screen. "While this one measures the rays in units of millijoules per square centimeter, which is the energy received per unit area in a given frame of time."

"You and your stupid science," Rainbow spat in disgust. "When I get out of here, and I will, I'll make sure that-"

"You want to kill her, don't you?" Applejack questioned. Her green eyes were scared but curious, her head a little more upward to look more steadily at Rainbow Dash.

The look that the cerulean equine gave her unsure companion would have likely killed the earth pony a second time if looks alone had such a power. "Not just kill her. I want her to suffer. Forever, with as much pain as she inflicted on us, tenfold!" The pegasus looked at Pinkie and Applejack, wide-eyed and terrified of the scientist before them as well as Rainbow herself, and the resentful mare rolled her eyes. "Cowardice will get you nowhere! If you don't have any will to fight back, ponies end up in a pretty bad life... afterlife... whatever."

"I don't think it can get much worse," Pinkie gestured sadly.

Back in the living realm, Twilight was further describing her scientific knowledge has she positioned the various mirrors on her UV machine, poised to position Fluttershy directly into their reflective power. "Here's a fun fact," the unstable equine went on, "UV rays are directly emitted by something that we see almost every day - the Sun that Princess Celestia raises!" Her expression momentarily twisted into a grimace as her gaze looked upward, as if seeing the accursed sunlight itself. "How does it feel, to know that even our own Princess has subtly been betraying us with an invisible chaotic harm all this time?" Her voice was laced with bitterness, the thought clearly lingering in her own mind. Head still tilted upward, Twilight's eyes shone with an expression that signified she intended to do something about it.

And with what Kindness remained in her, Fluttershy found a part of her momentarily fearing for the Sun Princess's life.

"Obviously though, I can't put you in the sunlight for various reasons, let alone the fact that it's night," Twilight went on, the circular concave mirrors rising before her, "so I'm using indirect means instead!"

"Is that what... the mirrors are for?" Fluttershy asked, her rising anger joined by puzzlement. "Reflecting the rays at me?"

The expression on Twilight's face turned somewhat brighter. "Exactly! Mirrors such as these can just greatly intensify ultraviolet rays because of the way light reflects off of them!" She pat a hoof on the silver construct with pride. "Snow, sand, and concrete can do that too in some amounts, but they're nowhere near as stable or efficient as mirrors are, so I decided to just use those."

Humming to herself, Twilight adjust the lamp to reflect the light from the UV rays, which bounced off the mirrors in turn to further magnify them. After the light and energy bounced from one mirror to the next from their in-place positions on the large mechanism, the final mirror reflected the accumulation of intense UV rays directly at Fluttershy's body.

"This way I get to observe the way light reflects off mirrors, and the extent to which radiation can effect somepony at the same time!" Twilight exclaimed brightly, rubbing her hooves together as her quill scribbled down her observations, knowing that what was transpiring was evil in the eyes of others but necessary in her own.

Fluttershy squinted as the brightness of the reflected light shone in her one remaining functional eye, not fully closing it so she could keep an eye on her captor and try to figure out a way to distract her and escape.

"I can see your eye following me," Twilight commented as her notepad and radiation calculator were raised in the air alongside her. "I wouldn't do that if I were you. Ultraviolet rays enter someone most easily through their eyes, and could cause cataracts or blindness."

Fluttershy didn't want to obey an order from Twilight, or even a suggestion. But just as Twilight had said, the light became too strong, and the rage-filled pony was unable to tilt her head down to shield her one-eyed gaze from the light. With no other choice if she wanted to reduce the risk of blindness, the subject was forced to close her eye fully and let the darkness overtake her for the moment. She could feel the effects of the intense radiation through her, however, as it burned her already scorched skin - Twilight must have turned it up to full intensity.

The pegasus was unfamiliar with the different types of ultraviolet radiation, but she could feel the waves of UV-B begin to effect her skin and cause intense burns, as if she needed further burning sensations to accompany all that she had suffered thus far. She felt weaker, attempting to fight through the discomfort which she knew was caused by the increasing symptoms of the jellyfish venom. But she was unaware that this weakness had another cause, one which Twilight noticed.

"You know, the UV rays that are affecting you right now are causing damage to your cells which keep your immune system in check," the scientist commented, making sure to stay out of the UV rays' concentrated path as she brought herself to the top of her platform to more accurately bring Fluttershy into another fabricated memory.

The next instant, it seemed as if Twilight had taken her knowledge of UV rays and the Sun to an extreme level. Fluttershy was trapped in a brightly lit room of white walls and mirrors, Celestia's suun itself shining through the window, closer than it ever seemed in life, it's beams almost seeming to reach out and grab the imprisoned pegasus in a burning embrace.

The increased levels of heat and radiation felt all-too familiar to Fluttershy as she bit back a cry, her memory-self curled on on the ground as she covered her eyes with her hooves.

After about another two minutes of the agonizing heat and light, Twilight switched off the construct with the lamp and mirrors, and with it the simulation vanished as well.

"Maybe when I get out of here, I could just use one of her other machines to radiate her to death!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed, metaphorical gears turning in her head for an entirely different reason from Twilight's as she watched the unicorn retrieve her next means of torture.

"That wouldn't work," Rarity spoke up, stepping closer. "The radiation from the other machines is only being emitted in small amounts so unless she-"

Applejack chanced a glance at her, incredulous. "You know about that stuff?"

"It's simply a logical assumption based off of what I've seen so far," Rarity replied in her even tone. "The rest of you are too... caring."

Rainbow Dash turned sharpy to face Rarity at her comment. "I do not care! I don't feel an ounce of sympathy for any of you ponies here, for myself, or for anypony else!" She firmly pointed a hoof in Twilight's direction, eyes glimmering with hatred. "Especially her!"

The scientist in question had returned to Fluttershy with her next device, the mechanism with the UV lamp and mirrors returned to its former position near the back of the room. "Next up is V, and V stands for something a little unusual - a VX nerve agent!" Here Twilight levitated forth another canister that she had retrieved from a cabinet, the cylindrical container surprisingly small and containing a strange clear liquid. "It's a special nerve agent that's one of the deadliest components ever created, only used for things like chemical warfare." Her smile grew. "And just 30 micrograms of this stuff can be lethal if you're not careful! Of course, it's primarily the gaseous form of this stuff that kills you quickest, but a drop of this the size of the fraction of a bit can still have devastating effects before you die!"

"M-More chemicals?" Fluttershy managed hostilely, her previous exposure to chemical substances still fresh in her delirious mind and not at all eager to experience more of them.

Twilight noticed Fluttershy's confused demeanor in her mounting anger. "This nerve agent has the properties of warping the brain and causing delirium as a result of the convulsions and eventual respiratory failure that will result if not treated!"

"Like you haven't already warped brains like that, you wretch," Rainbow hissed from her position, her eyes trained on the scientist alone and the determined look in her violet gaze.

"And don't worry," Twilight assured, "a VX nerve agent can be countered by drugs like atropine and 2-PAM CL, or pralidoxine chloride, as well as diazepam, as long as you have them directly on hoof to administer immediately." The studious mare looked far too happy as she drew the small canister closer. "So with those at hoof, I can reverse the effects before they kill you, and move on to the next aspects of my work!"

Twilight's assurance wasn't at all comforting for Fluttershy, in fact only serving to anger her more. This sick, twisted, deranged mare seemed to get a warped satisfaction out of her pain, supposedly noble motives aside.

"I guess the good news for you is that I don't have time to let you experience another memory for any longer than a minute or so," the scientist commented almost sadly as she returned to her position overlooking Fluttershy's brain. "This stuff works so fast that you'd be dead before I could get any reasonable results after more than three minutes!" With her pointed tool poised to bring Fluttershy into another memory, the unicorn used her magic to twist open the bottle and slowly pour a minuscule drop of the liquid, which seeped into the skin on Fluttershy's boneless left front leg.

The nerve agent took effect almost immediately. Within a matter of seconds a wave of nausea overtook Fluttershy, as if the uncomfortable feeling from the jellyfish venom was magnified tenfold. Her body began to convulse and jerk from wild spasms as a result of the nerve agent's effects, the exposed bones of her right front leg nearly cracking as a result.

The memory which Twilight sent Fluttershy into was brief, but no less painful. The fabric of her mind which held the pony's memories and personality together wove in this new memory, as real to her as any other, as the pegasus found herself frantically trying to escape a laboratory filled with a steady stream of VX nerve agent, other ponies attempting to shove her out of the way in their frenzied task to get free and save themselves.

Warning sirens were audible to Fluttershy as flashes of red shone through her vision, attempting to stay low to the ground in her desperate state as she decided to use her resentful feelings to good use, fighting against these other ponies all she could to escape through the small steel door through the gas's haze.

Spots began to appear in front of Fluttershy's vision as colors shifted before her eyes, feeling her body begin to seize up with paralysis. Her chest felt tight, both from the stress of what was occurring in the memory and the nerve agent beginning to cause a rapid respiratory failure in her lungs, these effects occurring in the real world as well.

Much to Twilight's intrigue, Fluttershy's attempts to escape in her vision became more violent, shoving through and even beating other ponies to within an inch of their fading lives as she rapidly made her way to the exit. And she could tell that her captive came to a realization in that moment:

Violence works.

Twilight could tell through Fluttershy's brainwaves and heart rate that the bearer of Kindness would likely be dead soon if the antidote wasn't administered soon, magic enhancements or not. Her heart pounding as the spark of Kindness briefly appeared once more, the scientist set to work and relieving her subject from the nerve agent's effects.

Fluttershy let out a sharp intake of breath as Twilight injected a needle into her, emptying the syringe's contents into its impact point close to her right thigh as the false memory faded away. The pain of the needle was only an added sting in addition to her previous tortures and the steadily increasing effects of the venom, but she felt the effects of the VX nerve agent slowly begin to dissipate.

"There we go!" Twilight exclaimed, cleaning the syringe and seeming to only see Fluttershy's suffering as something worthy of taking notes on. "Just an injection of atrophine there to solve that nerve agent problem!"

Fluttershy attempted to take deep, choking breathes, the memory of violence helping her increase her chances of escape still fresh in her mind.

"Now W," Twilight went on, "stands for a certain substance called white phosphorus." With those words, Twilight brought forth a substance which looked like a lump of white wax. "Ponies weaponized this stuff, because white phosphorus catches fire in contact with moisture, like that in the air for instance - just 10 to 15 degrees above the normal room temperature. And if fragments of white phosphorous hit a pony like you, and it ignites itself. it only burns hotter if you try to douse the flame in water." The waxy substance levitated closer to her captive. "So, clearly you deserve some white phosphorous in your open wounds."

It was one particular phrase that Twilight used which filled Rainbow Dash with a cold disgust - "a pony like you". In a flash, the vengeful pegasus suspected what that meant, and she could tell a similar assumption had occurred with the others. From what Rainbow Dash could tell, Twilight was already beginning to consider herself at a level above that of ordinary ponies, seeing them as ignorant students that had to be taught - and that was the best supposed option of the meaning of her words. At worst, she saw them as no more than simple mortals whereas she was practically a deity, or at least aspired to obtain such a power - no matter how much she denied it.

With the volatile substance at her disposal and Fluttershy unable to retaliate, Twilight levitated the wax-like substance close to Fluttershy's wound in her abdomen from the rat torture, and with a burst of magic to raise the temperature surrounding it, the solid was instantly set aflame. Her subject screamed as flames licked at her body, stinging the skin and muscle of her abdomen that the rat had burrowed through, threatening to reach her organs. The majority of the flames were red and orange, the flame colors of the lowest temperature, but several instances revealed that fragments of yellow, blue, and even white flame were visible.

Fluttershy cried out in agony, attempting to move and be able to put out the flames, but no relief followed. The only sense of release from the flames surrounding her and stinging her exposed muscle with their heat was Twilight leading Fluttershy's mind into another memory once again. This one involved a younger Fluttershy with a group of earth ponies, their bodies and faces masked so they were unrecognizable, as they constricted the helpless pegasus tightly, her limbs and wings encased in large wax-like forms.

"Never again will ya be able to fly properly without pain," said one, a smaller pony in the group that seemed to be no more than a filly. "A pegasus, showing kindness?" The earth pony removed one of her padded hoofguards, revealing her bright orange hoof as a quick blur to sock Fluttershy in the jaw, then lighting the substance surrounding her wings and setting it aflame, the substance on her limbs soon following.

The memory-fire surrounded the trapped pegasus more completely than in the present real timeframe, and as Twilight poured water on the white phosphorus-driven flames, they only burned hotter, nearly all the flames become blue or white within seconds and surely leading to third-degree burns all over Fluttershy's body. The twisting of Fluttershy's face and limbs as she screamed, as well as the frantic fluctuation of brainwaves, were confirming Twilight's suspicions that it wouldn't be much longer before there wasn't an ounce of kindness left within her formerly shy and quiet friend.

Within the memory's landscape, Fluttershy clenched the muscles of her hooves tightly as she attempted to ignore the pain, eventually managing enough pressure to break her right forelimb out of the burning, wax-like substance before the flames could consume her. She was soon able to do the same to one of her hind hooves as she kicked one of her assailants in the face, the concealed mare grunting from the impact even as Fluttershy cried out from her burns. Despite the flames nearly encasing her body, however, Fluttershy's cries were no longer dominated by disbelieving agony, but by rage.

The spark of Kindness appeared once more, the DNA signature appearing to separate. The pulse of late remained for a matter of seconds, during which Twilight's heart leapt in her chest. Even though Kindness still eluded her, it was close.
Yes, yes! Just a little more to go...

The unicorn didn't waste any time as she brought Fluttershy's awareness back into the waking world, trotting over to her cabinet once again. "Now, for X... I was going to use X-rays for this," Twilight admitted with a thoughtful grin, "but then I thought 'no, that's too simple, too expected, be creative, Twilight!" The excited expression on her face briefly looked like the normal Twilight that everypony in the city above was familiar with, but that quickly vanished. "So I decided to listen to my inner voice and go with this little chemical called xylene!"

"You're kidding me..." Rainbow Dash snapped. "Another chemical?!"

"It makes sense, in a way, that she'd want to experiment with it given her interest," Rarity pointed out, seeming to be oblivious to Rainbow's irritated glare.

"You seem to be... pretty chemical-happy... don't you?" Fluttershy growled, her teeth bared even as she tried to ignore the pounding in her head and the pain in her abdomen from the Irukandji syndrome afflicting her.

"I just find it interesting," Twilight assured, bringing forth a small bottle that looked similar to a medicine container, shaking it around so Fluttershy could see that the substance contained within was a liquid. "Now, xylene is a colorless and odorless hydrocarbon compound that's often used to help create dyes, rubber cement, that sort of thing. If used improperly, however, you can get burned, since it's extremely flammable."

"More fire?!" Fluttershy growled, seething both from anger and the rising intensity of the pain she felt.

"Just a little," Twilight said brightly.

The pegasus's mint-green eye burned into the violet eyes of her captor. "Just burn your whole lab down, why don't you?"

Twilight ignored Fluttershy's words of spite, standing atop her platform to manipulate Fluttershy's mind as the liquid was poured onto the helpless pegasus, a scream erupting from the captive's throat as Twilight held a lighted match to the residue of the liquid. Fluttershy felt the flames along her skin at an even greater intensity than her previous torments, certain that the flames were beyond her skin and scorching her muscles and insides.

The treatment within her memories was much the same, ponies coating her flailing body in the liquid before lighting matches all around her, causing her to scream and writhe in agony and rage. Failing in her rapid attempts to put the flames out, Fluttershy took the next course of action which her enraged mind could think of - brutally maul her attackers and have the heat of the flames spread to them as well.

"You think you can stop me?!" Fluttershy screamed, snapping the neck of a light green pegasus who attempted to restrain her, causing his ice blue eyes to rapidly lose all signs of life. "YOU'LL ALL PAY!"

There was yet another pulse of the Element's spark fading in and out, the shimmering pink glow remaining for slightly longer than it had been before. It wasn't completely manifest, not yet... but it was almost free, almost separate... Twilight's goal of extracting Kindness was nearly complete. The unicorn smiled from an eager happiness as she saw the spark of Kindness subtly remain, its presence visible but not yet tangible. As if waiting for the final tipping point, the last thing that would push the the formerly kind pegasus over the edge into eternal hatred and cruelty. "Just about done, Fluttershy!"

Fluttershy didn't respond to the unicorn's words as she was brought back into the present moment, fighting back the growing intensity of her suffering. She had abandoned the initial attempt to get Twilight to stop her methods by pleading or threats. The memories resuracing in her mind turned her stare cold and calculating. Her working eye fixed on Twilight.

"Violence works..." Fluttershy whispered, at a volume that Twilight couldn't hear on the opposite side of the room. "Violence always w-works..."

Rainbow Dash, however, did manage to hear her. "That's something I figured out long ago."

Out of Fluttershy's sight, Twilight went over to the corner of the room and brought forth another device, this one not made of metal at all. It was a wooden crossbar, with two U-shaped pieces positioned at either end, each clearly designed to fit around somepony's neck. "This thing here is what I'll use for 'Y', which stands for 'yoke'!" She smiled, placing one of the U-shaped portions around Fluttershy's neck, the wood scraping the pegasus's skin as well as the metal of the table to which she was restricted.

"These things are usually used for oxen when they're traveling heavy loads," Twilight explained, "but I had a different purpose in mind so I made this one myself to make sure I got the dimensions accurate!"

Fluttershy growled in pain, the added discomfort of the wood against her not at all welcome. As she carefully moved the gaze of her eye to attempt to look at it, she noticed what looked to be a pair of cranks on the side, one for each U-shaped extension. She immediately guessed its purpose. "Why don't you just use that crank there on your own neck?!"

"Not a bad idea," Rainbow Dash commented, actually enjoying the thought of Twilight's neck being crushed by the instrument.

"You know I can't do that," Twilight scolded, making sure the yoke was positioned securely enough before ascending onto her platform to overlook Fluttershy's brain once more. "Those cranks on the side aren't normally on a yoke, by the way, that was just an addition of my own!"

With that, one of the cranks on the yoke which Twilight constructed began to turn, the U-shaped prong seeming to slowly tighten around Fluttershy's neck, choking off her air supply even as she cried out. She could feel her lungs desperately working to provide her body with air, but the effects of the venom and UV rays, weakening her immune system and adding new pain, only seemed to hinder any chance of her being able to breathe.

Pinkie subconsciously put her hooves on her own throat, having vivid, post-traumatic flashbacks of what Twilight had done to her. She kew first hoof just how painful it was to have one's throat torn, and even though Fluttershy had suffered far worse than Pinkie herself ever had, the reemergence of the memory was unwelcome.

As Fluttershy's means of breathing were cut off, her vision of the real world faded as another memory took hold in her mind, courtesy of Twilight. Fluttershy found herself in what appeared to be a mining gorge, metals being created as coals were heated in the fires. She was trapped, chained down, with several of the same ponies from before, including the orange earth filly, now a mare about her age, from her memory of being trapped in the burning white phosphorus.. The mare in question helped the others ensnare Fluttershy's neck with the yoke, another pegasus pony attached to the opposing side - a light blue stallion who was clearly a prisoner just as much as Fluttershy was. Now that the concealing suit had been shed from the earlier memory, the full appearance of Fluttershy's former assailant was visible.

And the appearance of the pony in question caused a moment of recognition to ripple through the group of dead ponies. The mare's coat was a dark orange color, her eyes an emerald green, and her mane and tail a light yellow shade, tied back with red bands.

The pony was Applejack.

With the other ponies holding the squirming Fluttershy in place, Applejack in the memory looked into Fluttershy's eyes, the memory of her earlier actions strong in the pegasus's mind. "Ya thought you'd gotten' away before, didn't ya?" the orange mare asked as she roughly turned the crank. "Not anymore ya won't!"

"Is that..." Applejack trailed off, her own green eyes widening. She didn't think she remembered that, attempting to crrush the necks of imprisoned ponnies... but did she? Did it happen and she merely blocked it from her mind? She wasn't sure of anything anymore. She looked uncertainly at Rainbow Dash, the one of them who seemed to have the lead authority. "Did 'Ah do that?"

"Maybe you did, and maybe you didn't," Rainbow snapped. "I don't know what went on with your life - why should it matter to me?"

"It's not real!" Pinkie insisted in her gesture-talk, the look in her eyes conveying her sorrow from what Twilight had done. None of the other spirits acknowledged her.

Applejack's confused mind twisted the memory's appearance to tie in with her own, uncertain recollections. Twilight's psychological procedures had worked in a way that not even the scientist had expected when this all started. Her fragmented mind attempted to fit the pieces together, grasping for matching threads to weave into the tapestry that was her collection of memories and confusion on truth and lies. Her eyes narrowed.

"... Ah think Ah remember... don' Ah?...."

The memory continued as the vision of Applejack cranked the wooden construct to tighten around Fluttershy's throat, forcing the pegasus to gasp for breath. Her trapped companion had the crank turned by a a large red earth pony with a cutie mark of a green apple - a false image of Applejack's brother, Big Macintosh.

Pinkie Pie trembled as the trachea of the light blue pegasus was cut off by Big Mac in the memory, causing the stallion's head to fall to the side. Applejack and Big Macintosh as she knew them would never do such terrible things, working in a mining gorge to secretly kill ponies as they saw fit... but she had to remind herself that Twilight had forged these memories, and their experiences became burned into the subconscious of the pony who was experiencing them.

"Ya alright there, sis?" Big Mac questioned, arching his brow.

Fluttershy seemed to halt in her struggles, her gaze cold and calculating as she purposefully let her guard down.

"Don' worry, Big Mac," Applejack said as she turned the crank harder, straining herself a little as Fluttershy attempted to knock away the group of earth ponies that were restraining her. "We got her good an'- AH!"

The fabricated vision of Applejack didn't finish her sentence as Fluttershy managed to knock the other earth ponies away, her sudden movements of defiance surprising them as she broke free of the construct encircling her neck. She lashed out in a wild rage as sirens blared, warning that a prisoner set for slaughter had escaped. The pegasus struck out with a powerful force fueled purely by her adrenaline, burning with a hatred of these ponies and a desire to see them die.

The monitoring equipment pulsed wildly as Fluttershy became consumed with rage, her only focus on attacking those who had wronged her and showing them no mercy. With every blow and tear that resulted in another pony being marred, crushed, torn, or burned to a crisp, the pink spark of Kindness began to manifest. It faded in and out, but it was clear that the energy was nearly free.

Twilight's eyes shown as she watched, her quill scribbling away furiously as she looked from the monitor of Fluttershy's memories to the surface of her subject's brain where she could see Kindness's glow. "Yes, YES! Come on!"

Fluttershy moved within the memory with a speed that she could never accomplish in her state in the real world, unbalancing the earth ponies and forcefully tearing them apart, or at least making them incapable for the moment of restraining her once more. Her eyes searched until they found Applejack, managing to tackle the earth pony to the ground as Applejack defended against her attacker with kicks to her face and stomach.

The enraged pegasus managed quick glances at her surroundings through the mess of fur, soot, and fire, her gaze finally coming to rest on the burning coals. Keeping up her attacks against Applejack as much as possible, she finally managed to knock the orange earth pony into the flames, letting the fire burn her coat just as Fluttershy remembered having been done to her.

"YOU CAN'T TRAP ME!" Fluttershy roared, giving Applejack a further kick even as earth ponies reached her to restrain her once more, joined by unicorns who tied her down. "YOU'LL DIE BEFORE YOU RESTRAIN ME!" This insistence seemed to fill Fluttershy with a renewed vigor as she broke free, lashing out at everypony she could and filling her mind with anger, no room for kindness or compassion.

Twilight's breath caught in her throat as she could see the Element of Kindness coming out of the front-most part of her friend's brain, finally stabilizing into a separated form as it was released from the neural center of kindness and moral decisions. Her desperate eyes met its glow with a starving expression in her gaze as she felt a sense of triumph and pride.

"YES!" the unicorn exclaimed with a joyful grin, her eyes shining in happiness, "Kindness is finally free!"

Before Fluttershy could make any movements, Twilight hurriedly snatched up the spherical essence of the Element of Kindness, and darted off to her table, placing the energy sphere in a containment jar just like the rest. The scientists eyes shone the moment that that the five essences of the Elements were brought together. The final extraction was complete, and the myriad of drugs and injections barely keeping Fluttershy alive were beginning to rapidly fade. Twilight had done it. She had succeeded.

But it wasn't time to release the prisoner of her pain and her mortal body. Not just yet. One more quick thing...

Time to bring the experiment to its final step, Twilight thought. Then I can finally complete the analytical procedures... I need to observe the full effects of my work before I move on. She pushed a small red lever on one of her control panels that opened all the cages holding Fluttershy's pets. Though they were now free from the enclosures that had held them, they didn't flee, too paralyzed by the magic that Twilight had used on them and the terrifying view of the pegasus who had once been their kind caretaker.

Before releasing Fluttershy from the hold of her fabricated memory, Twilight took away the monitoring equipment to measure her subject's vital signs, moving the wires, platform, and monitors into their old holding positions. She then released Fluttershy's hoofcuffs and the strap around her subject's head, letting the broken and bleeding pony fall to the ground as Rainbow had done during her session, which seemed like forever ago. Twilight used a field of her magical energy to stabilize Fluttershy to stand on her hooves, tortured eyes filled with a fury unmatched by any other pony. Twilight made sure to stay out of Fluttershys view, but projected her voice enough to whisper to the tortured pony. "There's always a final emotion that somepony feels before they die. A strong emotion... What do you feel, Fluttershy?" The unicorn smirked.

A series of heavy, ragged breaths were Fluttershy's only response.

"Not Kindness, right?" Twilight's question was accompanied by a desperate tone, as if to make sure that the appearance of the Element's pure signature wasn't a hallucination brought about by the desperation she felt and her lack of sleep. Proving that she herself was still wakeful, still conscious, still on the road to achieving her ultimate goal of a pure reality...

Fluttershy slowly, hoarsely, opened her mouth. "Need..." Despite the torture she had been forced to endure, there seemed to be a new brightness in the rage-filled pony's single working eye. And anger was the only emotion that seemed to be present, a state that appeared to radiate from her very being as the forms of her pets twisted into images of the ponies who had wronged her. "Need to... show th-them... KILL THEM ALL!"

The pegasus, in a blind rage, broke away from Twilight as the magic hold released her, while furiously rushing to her meal: her pets.

The timid animals were petrified, through both fear and magic as their internal systems froze up, unable to properly escape from the snarling, enraged equine before them. Though Fluttershy was facing in a direction that couldn't allow Twilight to see her face, it was clear to the lesser animals in the tortured pony's furious expression exactly what was on her mind. Fluttershy wanted to tear apart those creatures who faced her, to free herself of their potential offense, show them that even in her broken state she couldn't be stopped. She would mutilate and murder them with the relentless fury of a timberwolf - and once her remaining strength was fueled by the endorphins and adrenaline rush of the slaughter, with no one else to stop her, it would be Twilight who would meet her end in a manner even more painful.

Fixing her sights on her first target, Fluttershy approached Angel, stuck in the room's far left corner with nowhere to go, Twilight's magic forcing him to stay put. His former caretaker in front, the deranged unicorn overlooking from a distance - either way, he'd be caught and killed mercilessly. The bunny, scared to death, stood on his knees in a begging like position, his message clearly getting across to even one who wasn't as in tune to the language of animals as Fluttershy was: Please tell me you feel pity...

Fluttershy stood quiet for one second and stared down at the rabbit she used to care for, the small animal hoping that the pony would show some form of recognition despite her memories being completely altered. But the look Fluttershy gave was simply the expression of a predator gazing down at its prey, and she finally spoke, voice strained. "You want pity?! After everything that's happened to me, I DON'T KNOW THE USE OF THAT WORD!" She swiftly gripped the squealing rabbit in her teeth and, with some effort, crushed his skull, spitting out the bone and brain matter that remained. The wild expression in her eyes showed that the animals she cared for were only seen to her as visions of all those who had wronged her, who could threaten her, who deserved to die.

Freeing the other animals from her magic and allowing them to run free to give the former bearer of Kindness a final challenge, Twilight hurried over, watching with a disturbing glee as she took quick observational notes at the steadily growing massacre before her. She made sure to stand far enough away so that, for the moment, she wouldn't be caught up in Fluttershy's blind rage. She was a spectator, looking intently at the final efforts Fluttershy was accomplishing in her last minutes of life. The injections keeping her subject on the thin edge of life would likely fade away very soon.

Fluttershy was screaming, though whether it was from the Irukandji jellyfish taking full effect at last or the rage she felt toward each being in her path, Twilight couldn't be sure. If the screams were from pain, it was clear that the altered pony wasn't letting that stop her - the rage she felt was too complete, causing her to will the pain away.

Even her imagining might play a part in her pain resistance, Twilight thought to herself as she made notes on Fluttershy's violent actions. The simple act of imagination can help reduce pain levels, so she could be imagining tearing everyone and everything to shreds as she's inflicting this on her animals. A dim warning bell rang in Twilight's head as she realized that part of the imagined massacre was likely being inflicted on visions of Twilight herself. But she let the feeling pass, convincing herself that the injections and magic would soon wear off, and she'd be able to finish Fluttershy off rather quickly.

The laboratory interior was a wild mess of fur, blood, and bone, the pegasus tearing through each of her former companions with the skill and ease of a timberwolf.

Herbivorous teeth or not, it's clear tha any living thing can be mutilated with enough force of teeth, hoof, and will? Twilight thought as she observed the rage-filled slaughter. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy are prime examples of that...

"Fluttershy! Fluttershy, can you hear me?"

Twilight's gaze became instantly more alert toward the rest of her surroundings, tearing her gaze from her notepad and Fluttershy as she glanced around. It was her own voice again, calling to Fluttershy... why? Did that hallucination really think anypony else would hear her? Twilight placed a hoof to her forehead, wincing as a flash of cold then heat occurred yet again, but a stronger in intensity this time. Her duplicate's unwelcome appearance wasn't helping matters either, and she briefly wondered if the two really were somehow connected and her double wasn't letting her in on the truth. But her pained expression was soon replaced by a manic grin as the uncomfortable sensation faded away. Trying to focus more on Fluttershy's rampage at the animals she cared for.

Amidst the rampage, she saw the translucent form of herself close to Fluttershy, attempting to plead with the pegasus. "Think about what you've turned into! We- well, Twilight and you were friends, remember?"

Of course, Fluttershy simply passed through the specter with no indication of having heard her, but her words briefly resonated in Twilight's head. She and Fluttershy had been friends once... but the thought of their friendship was quickly banished from the mare's mind. No, they never showed me true friendship! That was FALSE!.

With that conviction firmly in her brain, Twilight continued to watch as Fluttershy brutally tore off the wing of an owl - the winged animals were somewhat more difficult to grasp, especially in her weakened state, but the pegasus was still managing to manifest her rage-filled persona through the reckless slaughter. She bit and tore everything in slight, and thus Twilight managed to keep out of her view. She didn't want to be a recipient to Flutershy's blind fury, knowing it would take time before the pegasus's rage was concentrated on a single target - her subject was too delirious to register anything in her mind aside from attaching the first thing she saw.

And yet there was still the voices of her former friends and her conscience to deal with...

But nopony had any way of knowing that the images of the animals, to Fluttershy, had slowly shifted. No longer did they appear to her as the various ponies she remembered inflicting pain on her. As she chased after each one, tearing them apart without mercy in any way she could, her view of them shifted into the form of a certain lavender equine. Wild-eyed, laughing, daring the broken pegasus to attack. Even if Twilight's spirit-double had been visible to Fluttershy, it would have made no difference. All pain seemed to be erased from Fluttershy's mind.

Twilight was her true nemesis above all others.

Twilight was the one who brought back all the pain and misery and suffering that she had ever gone though.

Twilight was the one who deserved nothing less than death and an eternal, agonizing punishment.

The manifestation of Twilight appeared to give up attempting to get through to Fluttershy, and huried in Twilight's direction. "Twilight, stop it!" she begged from within Twilight's head, her ethereal mouth remaining motionless. "NOW!" The other Twilight's expession was fixed into a firm resolve, though Twilight herself didn't bat an eye at her counterpart's approach. Unable to make yet any concrete impact on the physical world, or be detected by any other pony, she used the only resource that she could - trying to talk Twilight out of this. "Just listen to me, and stop doing this! They were your friends! Remember!"

How could she... that dang apparition... "You're saying that like you think I've lost my memory. Well, my mind and memories are perfectly intact! Nothing you can say can stop me!" Twilight figured that if she shouted at the form visible only to her long enough, she would snap out of her hallucinatory state which caused the vision to repeatedly return and could continue her work in peace. It would be just a matter of focus. "My world will bring about the polar opposite of the world Discord was going to create! It will be a world, a reality, of harmony and order, making sure that those alive are only those I've deemed to be worthy!"

Much to Twilight's surprise, the wraith-like entity didn't plead with her anymore, or fade, as had occurred during her previous appearances. In fact, as Twilight had spoken, her double's posture and expression had shifted from pleading to one of anger and disbelief at Twilight's apparent disregard for the lives of billions of life forms. With a determined look written on her face, the conscience-form of Twilight braced herself, attempting to appear less translucent before she charged directly at the machinery, attempting to slam into it with her hooves. As expected from Twilight, the hooves of her counterpart went right through the mechanics as if they weren't even there.

The eyes of the spirit-double were intent and focused, hooves attempting to slam and tear at the complex mechanics, to cause anything to happen that would halt Twilight's progress for good. When that didn't work, her own horn began to glow as a steady stream of magic fired directly at the machinery, attempting to destroy the monitoring equipment, or at the very least put it out of commission.

When that didn't work, the spirit-form of Twilight let out a cry as she then turned the trajectory of her bright magenta beam of magic on the contained Elements themselves.

Twilight instantly realized what was going on just before the beam of energy left her spirit-self's horn, and she became instantly defensive, shouting as she teleported in front of her containers, hoping to guard them from anything that might harm or threaten them. "NO!"

Luckily for Twilight, there was no effect. The magical energy passed through the physical objects as if they weren't even there.

Time seemed to stop for the physical unicorn as she tried to stop her hooves from shaking. That specter of herself had dared to aim at the Elements... at her work, at the components needed for reality's salvation! Twilight's mind was a whirl of anger and desperation, but the turmoil of emotions and desire to protect her work with her life manifested verbally in a sharp yet shaky laugh. "Ha, you're an oddly presistant hallucination, and I don't have time for that right now! I have only my work to think about! And you tried to destroy it!" A feeling of unease seemed to overcome her at the thought of something going wrong, and she stepped even closer to the Elements' containers in case she needed to protect them. But as she watched Fluttershy land a harsh blow to the wing of a falcon, her mind drew back to the very real threat that could destroy the Elements - and Twilight herself - as she moved away accordingly. "Now let me WORK!"

"I'm not... a... hallucination!" the wisp of a form shouted between attempts through magic and slams of her hooves to make some sort of physical dent in the machinery. Some form of contact in the physical world. As expected, her attempts at impacting the earthly plane were still futilely met, no matter how determined she appeared to be to break into the physical realm, cut off from the living and dead. "Do you think a hallucination would be able to do any of this?!"

Twilight knew in her panicked state that her conscience was right. She knew about hallucinations and delusions, and though she had tried to convince herself that was all that her double was, her rational mind couldn't deny it any longer. Hallucinations didn't appear over and over like this with such direct interaction when everything else remained as normal. They didn't try to reach out so directly to the ones who they appeared to.

Twilight wasn't sure how, or why, but her conscience wasn't just a delirious manifestation. Just like what she had long-accepted about the spirits of her dead friends, though the explanation for their presence was lost on her as well. Her spirit-self was real. She existed. And she had to be gotten rid of.

"Okay... okay, you're real..." The living scientist whirled around, eyes wild and teeth grinding, horn shimmering with darkened magic. The words of he conscience - or whatever it was - seemed to batter her mind with waves of useless pleas and distractions, when she had to keep an eye on Fluttershy's actions. "But what. Are. You?!"

Twilight's conscience-self looked at her, presistent. "Call me your conscience. Call me your sane self. Call me what you like. But identities aren't important right now - I'm trying to save you!"

"Save me? Ha!" Twilight cried out as her body was overcome by a surge of heat. "Save me from what? Myself?" Her expression morphed into a twisted disgust as her conscience's nod confirmed her guess. "I don't need 'saving' from my own ambition! If anything, other ponies are the ones who need saving from chaos and disharmony! And stop afflicting me with these symptoms!" The feeling of overheating was replaced by a chill that froze the mare's insides - she was fighting it, but at the same time it was getting worse.

"It's not my fault!" the ethereal form protested, rushing closer to Twilight. "The symptoms aren't my doing!"

"Oh really? Then what is responsible?!" Twilight's violet gaze was hostile, even as she was almost able to physically feel the gazes of her friends staring at her in incomprehension and anger, considering her to be even more unstable than she already seemed. "This sure isn't from stress and a lack of sleep!"

The specter's expression was firm as she attempted to get through to her disheveled physical self, her gaze pensive. "I think what's responsible is your own lust for power and control!" She looked at Twilight with an insistent demeanor, raising her voice as she subconsciously moved from the Kindness-drained pony's massacre. "That's what I'm trying to save you from! I think your power is disagreeing with your own essence! You're impure!"

"ARGH!" It was those words, the accusation of impurity that sent Twilight into a fury, firing a powerful blast of magic in her rage, impacting the wall and causing the energy to bounce off. The impulsive blast did not hit any equipment as Twilight had feared, but passing right through the form of her double and blasting the raging Fluttershy backward. "You're calling my motives impure?! My drive is NOT a lust for power! The only power I long for is whatever is necessary to achieve my goal! I intend to teach all beings the true way to create a reality of harmony and peace!" Her limbs shook in her mounting anger, her composure beginning to slip. "How can that be wrong?!" Her voice rose to a roar that drew even Fluttershy's attention as the broken pony struck at each illusory form of Twilight she saw. "I'm NOT impure! I'M FINE!"

"You've tortured and murdered your friends!" the wraith insisted, standing her ground in front of her. "Don't you feel anything about that?! Don't you have any sense of your old morality?!"

"They were not true friends!" Twilight retorted, staring down the form of herself. "The old me was blind to the truth! There are cases when the ends justify the means, and this is one of those- AH!"

The cry wasn't from another pulsating sensation in her head, but rather the rough impact of Fluttershy slamming into her side, sending the unprepared unicorn careening across the laboratory floor. She glanced toward the source of the impact, the fractured yellow pegasus staring her down with enraged eyes. Her pets were torn and mutilated, their flesh and bone littering the floor - now that she had found the real Twilight, it was her tormentor's turn to suffer a fate infinitely more horrible.

"Talking to the air, huh?!" Fluttershy growled, her breathing ragged from rage and exhaustion, the last remnants of Twilight's drugs and magic the only thing keeping her alive when she would have perished ages ago. "You really are a psycho wretch!" Her teeth were bared in a snarl much like Rainbow's had once been, though her face was contorted into an expression of pain as she fought back screams from the jellyfish venom and the stress of keeping her fragmented body upright. "But I found you in that mess of false Twilights - they're all gone, and you're the real one..." Fluttershy managed to crouch low to the ground, like a feral cat about to pounce. "You're the one who needs to pay... YOU'RE THE ONE WHO NEEDS TO DIE!"

Steadying herself, Twilight let out a sharp laugh, hiding her surprise at how well Fluttershy was holding up even now. "Heh, my apparent psychosis is all for a greater good, Fluttershy! And I think now you should know what Z stands for..." Time seemed to stop as she stared her subject down. "Zero. The number of minutes you have left to live."

Fluttershy, strength rapidly fading, managed to look Twilight dead in the eyes. "Yes, zero..." Her voice was quiet - not the timid manner of her old self, but dangerously so, the kind of tone that was clear that the recipient of such words would soon be torn to pieces. Her eyes filled with an expression of pure rage. "But if I go down.... YOU'RE GOING DOWN WITH ME!"

Twilight barely had time to teleport away as the fractured pegasus leapt at her with all her strength, the broken pony appeared to have gained a new surge of energy with the boiling rage inside her head. Her eyes burned with fury, gaze only seeming to focus on Twilight's disheveled form as she leapt at her with far more force than the last time.

The scientist was dimly aware of her conscience's form seeming to follow the battle that ensued between the pair of living ponies. Whoever and whatever the spirit-double was, her expression as she followeed the pair was steady, her bright violet eyes fixed on her living counterpart. Oddly enough, her expression changed from anger to worry.

"Be careful, Twilight."

Twilight had tried to ignore her conscience-self, only training her focus on the pegasus who was attempting to kill her with impacts of tooth, head, and the only stump of a hoof that remained applicable for combat purposes against another equine she aimed to kill, but the spirit's words stopped her dead in her tracks. "What?!" She quickly glanced around to see the normal-looking form of herself before she continued to avoid Fluttershy's furious blows. "Now you suddenly want to help me?!"

Out of the corner of Twilight's vision, the apparition's eyes narrowed desperately as she stomped a front hoof firmly on the lab's floor. "You don't know what kind of further consequences your actions might have!"

But Twilight didn't listen, too preoccupied on fighting her enraged subject. With every impact to her skin, Twilight countered with a blast of magic or some blows from her own hooves, even as she cried out from the rough tears of Fluttershy's teeth on her flesh.

Fluttershy's mouth was fixed like a vice as she managed to grip the ends of Twilight's mane encircling her neck, her teeth digging into the unicorn's skin with all the force she could muster and tearing a chunk away. Twilight instantly pressed a forehoof against her neck, gritting her teeth in pain and feeling torn skin and blood underhoof. With such a mess of fur and muscle and blood, her mane looked even more disheveled than it already had been. Now that she felt Fluttershy was free to die, a part of Twilight was regretting giving the pegasus that many drugs to keep Fluttershy alive. "Heheh... you're putting up a... good fight..." She winced from the throbbing in her neck, putting more pressure on it as she relied on her magical prowess for combating her dying subject's blows. "Gonna have to patch that up..."

In the limbo-realm, the spirits looked onward. Pinkie was partially covering her eyes with her hooves and straightened mane, too terrified to watch yet unable to look away. Rarity stared with a cold calculation, eyeing the spectacle with an analytical standpoint. Applejack looked uneasy, fearful, and somewhat disgusted, trying to avoid looking at the pegasus beside her. Rainbow, however, paid no attention to the nearby earth pony, instead appearing intrigued. Her eyes were intent on the sparring pair, staring hungrily at the battle before her. Her smile grew as she noticed the pain that the unicorn was in from her wounds - it wasn't enough to bring her down, but any pain felt on Twilight's part was just fine with Rainbow Dash.

"COME ON, DIE!" Rainbow screamed, a burning desire to see her unicorn enemy perish present in her eyes, her magenta irises almost visibly set aflame.

Applejack looked surprised at Rainbow Dash's insistence, and dared herself to speak up. "Are you... supportin' that pegasus?"

"Of course not!" Rainbow snapped, not taking her eyes off the two living ponies. "I just want that Traitor Sparkle to DIE! Have her end up here so I can tear her to bits myself, and then watch her remains burn in Tartarus for all eternity!"

The dead ponies could tell that the very same intent was on Fluttershy's mind. "Y-You're..." Fluttershy gasped, the tone of her fading voice dripping with pure hatred, "you're becoming the very kind of pony you're trying to eliminate..."

"SHUT UP!"

The only reply Twilight received was a glare so cold and spiteful that it surpassed Rainbow's delirious gaze. With a wild cry, Fluttershy slammed into her target before she could react, and Twilight felt the impact of Fluttershy's hoof and teeth on her ribcage. The teeth tore through her side to leave a deep, jagged gash, greater than the injury to her neck and the impact of Fluttershy's limb nearly jolting the bone out of place. Twilight grit her teeth in pain, but instead of collapsing to the ground as her onlookers had hoped, she backed away from Fluttershy and turned to look at the wound in her side, the crimson blood staining her lavender coat...

And she laughed.

It wasn't a small, nervous chuckle, about her life and work being put in danger of obliteration, or of unease concerning the fact that Fluttershy, though Twilight's own methods, was still able to fight and catch the scientist off guard. Twilight's laughter was loud and maniacal, seeming to be out of control as her body shook with her guffaws. The fact that she was staring at her own blood-soaked hooves didn't seem to phase her, and the pain didn't seem to affect her as much as it had been moments before.

"Heheheh... hahahahahahaha!"

"... You're laughing..." Fluttershy murmured in disbelief. "You're laughing..." Her eyes remained fixed on the insane unicorn, who was doubled over in wild laughter despite her injuries as the former Kindness-bearer knocked roughly into Twilight, trying to unbalance her so Fluttershy herself could tear apart her target more easily. "WHY are you laughing?!" She kicked the other mare in the side with the hoof stump attached to her left hind leg, the limb the least damaged. "You should be dying and screaming on the ground while I tear your bones and skin and get chemicals to burn you alive!" The magic and drug effects were fading, but Fluttershy's ferocity was allowing her to hold on to her last remnants of strength. "Are you just deluded in your crazy little episodes of psychosis that you don't recognize your own pain?!"

As Twilight was shoved against the surface of one of her mechanisms, breath knocked out of her from the impact, she could feel the pointed tip of one of the measuring tools dig into her flesh, threatening to tear it. She pressed a hoof to the gash on her side as blood pooled on its surface, her eyes unfocused in apparent delirium. "Hahahahaha, of course I'm laughing, hahaha, don't you get it?! Of course I see the blood on my hooves from this injury! Hahaha!"

"Oh great, I bet now she's turned into a feathering masochist," Rainbow Dash snarled, hoof pressed firmly against the surface of the unyeilding barrier as she tore of another chunk of her own flesh, letting out a slight growl of self-induced pain as the blue-furred skin tore away. A small stream of blood flowing down her leg, but to Rainbow the pain was nonexistent. "She enjoys her own suffering."

"It would seem that you're a masochist as well to another observer, then," Rarity deadpanned.

"Oh shut up," Rainbow muttered, refusing to give any acknowledgement of confirming or denying Rarity's statement. She simply stared outward as the others did, fixing her gaze on the cackling, insane, apparently masochistic unicorn in the living world. "You think I enjoy tearing my own body to pieces?"

"Well-"

"Then congratulations, that's the closest thing you've been right about."

Twilight's reply, however, was the opposite. "Ha, I'm no masochist, my friend!" Twilight was shaking her head in response to the other pony's inquiry, gasping for breath from her half-shrieks. "Heheh, haven't you heard that, hahaha, laughter a way to trick your body into, haha, not feeling pain?!" Her smile widened as she managed to dodge Fluttershy's frenzied attacks, angling herself to more easily control the blood flow from her wound. "Heheheh, that's why I laugh, Fluttershy! It enhances me! I sill feel pain, but, heheheh, it's not enough to kill me!" Her eyes were bright despite the obvious pain in her body, practically drunk with the imagined extent of her plan and the laughter which accompanied it. "Imagining helps too, just as I'm doing now, ha, thinking of just how existence will be when I've helped purify it under my guidance as a good friend and teacher! HahahahaHA!"

Twilight's laughter was cut off as Fluttershy managed to leap at her enemy in a wild frenzy, and once more the pair were locked in a whirlwind of hooves and teeth. The cracking of Fluttershy's bones, the rough tearing of skin from one of Twilight's hind hooves, the attempts by the unicorn to knock her attacker backward into her chemical-containing cabinet with a powerful burst of magic.

As she heard the bones of Fluttershy's back jolt out of place from the impact and cause the doors to open and spill the contents of several vials onto the floor, Twilight was granted a moment to collect herself as she was free from the whirlwind of attempts to cause an injury that would end her life. At this point, from the sharps stings on her body from the bite marks and hoof impacts, Twilight was unaware how much of the blood staining the floor was Fluttershy's, and how much was her own. Shakily, she rose to her hooves and walked over to where the former bearer of Kindness was collapsed next to the metallic cupboard.

From her position just out of reach of the fallen chemicals, unable to stand, Fluttershy growled in rage, but it was clear the last remnants of the substances keeping her alive were fading. She attempted to land a further attack on Twilight, but the unicorn was out of reach so her hoof met only air. The rage in Fluttershy's eyes was consuming, barely having the strength to move but being able to scream at the pony who had tortured and mutilated her. She struggled with all of her might to stabilize her broken body.

"Y-You... you'll PAY for this!... You'll... b-burn in Tartarus! You're n-n-nothing... b-but..."

What remained of the pegasus's legs buckled, bringing the pony crashing to the ground as her bones shattered with a sickening crunch. She let out a final strangled gasp from all that had been inflicted - the chemicals, the venom, the fragments of bone snapping, wounds bleeding out at last - all of it was finally too much for Fluttershy to bear as the final effects of both drugs and magic faded. With a final look of hatred directed at Twilight, the pegasus's eyes grew glass-like as her body crumpled to the ground, motionless. Her eyes became glassy as a final breath escaped her mouth.

Fluttershy's rage-filled soul had finally departed from the earthly plane, and there was a calm in the laboratory at last.

With that, the scientist let out a low sigh as she glanced at Fluttershy's lifeless body, the Element of Kindness safely tucked away in its containment chamber as she had with the others. The genetic coding of most of the others had caused them to be a pure, shimmering white now, so for the moment, Kindness stood out more with its bright pink aura.

Twilight swallowed, her hooves steady as the silence brought the pain of her wounds to her awareness once again, but she ignored the needle-like stinging. Gathering her strength, she walked over to the counter where the Elements were kept, one blood stained hoof resting next to Kindness's containment chamber.

With a smile as she quickly wrapped a bandage around her bleeding neck and side, knowing she'd have to heal herself as soon as she could - self-stitching, if necessary, hide it so nopony would notice... Twilight made use of her magic to lift her knife, glancing at her dead subject and turning Fluttershy's body so that the butterfly cutie marks were visible. With a heavy sigh, she resigned herself to the fact that this time, she'd have to wait.

I can take care of Fluttershy's remains later, she told herself. I can preserve her body for later... now's the time to patch myself up and prepare for the morning. A multitude of cleansers, and laminations were hurriedly brought over, preserving Fluttershy's body so it would be in that same condition when she was able to return. She'd have time for a more complete analysis later - for now it was only the interconnectivity of the Elements which she cared about.

"Well, heheh... I'll say that was pretty much a success!" Twilight announced brightly, laughing in a mixture of relief and delirious euphoria, using it to attempt to fight through the sting of her own wounds as she gathered supplies to help heal her injuries. "Fluttershy put up an extremely good fight... even with the drugs and procedures I inflicted on her... wearing off!" She glanced around at the mess of the floor, littered with the remaining corpses of Fluttershy's animals and the blood from their heated battle. Her double, for the moment, had vanished.

The various torture devices and cleaning supplies were all separately surrounded by the darkened aura of her magic as she worked to clean up the laboratory. As she let her magic do its work, sterilizing everything to clean it up as fast as she could while she gathered first aid supplies to tend to her own wounds, Twilight Sparkle gazed at all the Element containers with a triumphant expression, their very energy seeming to seep into her and help her ignore the pain.

"Heheheh... now Kindness, the last of my friends' Elements, has been taken!" The look in Twilight's eyes was one of the purest excitement, of an ambition bigger than anypony in Equestria could ever imagine, her injuries from her combat with Fluttershy seemingly ignored. Her horn shone with a swirling black aura, one that seemed to have a peculiar brightness in its depths all the same. "I've done it, heheheh, I've finally done it! I can track all their genetic signatures now!" the unicorn exclaimed happily. "Soon, everything will be pure just like it should be!"

The Elements almost seemed to shine a little brighter in response, as if the very fabric of their DNA itself was rejoicing in Twilight's plan. As if they were cheering her on, supporting her desire to rid all of existence of any traces of chaos and let harmony and order be the driving force of existence.

"Now, I just have to make sure everything is prepared..." the mare chuckled, violet eyes bright with triumph and her horn glowing almost completely black. "The others won't be waking up in the same world they went to sleep in." She chortled with a sinister smirk, magically bringing forth scrolls and a quill, setting her notebook aside.. "Or at least, they'll be awake just in time to be able to see it vanish..."

And as Twilight sat down and began to look over the Elements, straighten up her proper equipment, and retrive supplies to tend to her injuries, she was ever aware that the clock was ticking. Steadily counting down to a new day, a new world, a new reality...

Her reality.

"Soon, very soon... everypony will bear witness to a dawning reality of harmony and peace. A world I shall help them create..."

She could almost hear the sound of another minute ticking by in her head as a darkened aura shimmered around her horn. An ethereal vision of the sun and the moon were brought into view, one eclipsing the other as the crystaline form of a purple unicorn levitated triumphantly, white lines of energy bellow her mirroring the ley lines of the planet's energy itself.

She was unaware, however, of a fragmented yellow pegasus having faded into the invisible void to join the others... and unaware of the fact that this spirit held a vendetta against her that was just as strong, if not stronger, than Rainbow Dash's. But to Twilight, the void-like realm was of no concern - she had grander things on her mind.

"In just a few hours... I'll show them... I'm fine, heheh... it'll be fine..."

The false stars seemed to swirl above Twilight in a celestial dance as she briefly glanced at her own battered, blood-covered form on the table's reflection.

"Everything'll be just fine..."

With the thoughts of her plan firmly in her conscious thoughts, the threads of her subconscious cast aside the words that both her conscience and Fluttershy had said, the fragment of a thought that Twilight insisted to herself wasn't true. Her horn briefly shimmered as the magically-conjured vision vanished from sight.

"I am many things... and I'll show everypony that impure is not one of them!" The smile on her face widened as she laughed - whether from triumph or as a way to relieve her pain, she didn't know. "Hahahaha! I shall help a world to remain where everything is harmonious, orderly, and pure, hahaha, and nopony will ever stop me! Hahahaha!"

Steadying herself despite her injuries, her gaze fell on the contained Elements as the blood on her hooves collected on the side of the table.

"Have a good night's sleep, everypony, heheheh... because you certainly will be waking up in a new world... but , heheh, don't worry..." She circled around the contained Elements, speaking as if she was adressing them as ponies. "Heheheh, your dear friend and teacher Twilight will take good care of you!"