The pain in Fluttershy's limbs - at least, what remained of them - was beginning to fade somewhat from its initial shock inflicted as a result of the applied chemicals. What had occurred thus far was more than the pegasus could ever imagine she'd have to bear, and if Twilight's words were true, this was only the start of it.

Before this, she had figured that the worst sort of pain she might endure in her life would be though an attack from an animal that she couldn't control, but this - she would never have imagined that pain like this could exist aside from the pits of Tartarus. But Twilight's insane actions had shocked her into a whole new understanding of their reality - then again, at this point, who's to say she wasn't in one of the Circles of Tartarus? That a demon hadn't dragged her down to this place? It would at least provide some explanation for all this - perhaps the one doing this to her was a demon posing as Twilight...

But something in Twilight's gaze told Fluttershy that this was indeed, the pony who had been her friend. Behind this madness, the intelligent unicorn was there, just as she had always been. Fluttershy could sense that...

The question was why.

As Twilight removed the chemical vials from Fluttershy's sight and placed them in their ordinary holding cabinet for later use, Fluttershy managed to voice her question through the shock. Perhaps this time she'd get at least some answer.

"Wh-Why... a-are you...?"

Twilight snorted, not even turning around as she addressed her subject, too absorbed in her work "I've told you, Fluttershy, you'll find out later. I'll explain it to you when my work is nearly finished - I can't have the procedures be messed up by you protesting against the full details of my plan, so it's safest for me to wait until you're more filled with anger." The captive pony couldn't see the smirk that graced Twilight's face as she said the words. "You'll learn, believe me, you'll learn..."

Fluttershy really didn't like the sound of that. Twilight's refusal to explain right away and the tone in which she said it led the pegasus to believe that her grand plan was something truly evil, no matter how great the other mare thought it was. Surely not something that would make Fluttershy's pain end.

But she knew that she had to endure the torment - for the sake of trying to learn Twilight's plan and bring the unicorn back to her senses, if nothing else. Despite the agony she had been put through thus far, Fluttershy resolved that she wasn't going to give up as long as the will to live remained.

Though a small part of her mind feared that it wouldn't take much more to break.

Even with her suffering, the pegasus took a minuscule comfort in one fact: she still had her mind. It seemed as if it was primarily in her mind, her memories, where the Element resided, what Twilight was after. As long as she held on to that, even in the smallest amount, she could rebel against Twilight's deranged antics. And, perhaps, find a way to get through to her.

Twilight, meanwhile, had finished getting her equipment set up for the next step and returned to Fluttershy's view. The deranged smile was back after her strange mental affliction, clearly reminding her captive that the torment was far from over.

"Now, time to get a move on with 'D'!" the unicorn exclaimed. "And in this case, 'D' stands for Drowning!"

"Oh really?" Rainbow Dash muttered with a disgusted snarl, saying the words at a loud enough volume so the living pony could hear her. "I consider it to mean how 'dead' I wish you were, or I hope you're 'doomed' to burn in Tartarus forever."

Twilight ignored the dead pegasus's spite-filled words, focusing her attention on the pony strapped to the table in front of her. "If I were you, Fluttershy, I'd hope that you can hold your breath for a long period of time! Though honestly," she added, "I think that it might at least bring you a small sense of relief after those chemicals being poured on you!"

Her horn radiated with its dark mana, and sudden fields of magical energy manifested around the equipment connected to Fluttershy, as well as the top of the trapped pegasus's head, protecting the equipment and the brain from any outside interference as a dome appeared around Fluttershy, rising with a mechanical hum as it began encasing her within, save for a round hole near the top.

"That energy that I just encased the equipment in will protect it and your brain from what I'm about to do, so I can still take measurements while I fill your chamber with water!" Twilight explained with a giddy tone, trotting over to her control panel to continue with her sinister procedures.

Before Fluttershy had time to react, the all-too-eager mare pressed a button and caused a large pump to fill the gap at the top of the dome, water quickly beginning to pour down from it and steadily rise in the sealed chamber.

"Unfortunately, I can't mess with the past memories stored in your brain at this stage," the scientist said in an almost pouting tone, "but I will for almost everything else, and it's all to get kindness from you, in any case. It evens out!"

Fluttershy could barely hear Twilight through the glass encasing and the water that was collecting at the bottom of the dome where she was encased, steadily rising in height.

Twilight smiled and turned up the speed of the water flow, the level rising to come to the tips of Fluttershy's tail, then soaking it in the water as the liquid reached her hind hooves, submerging them.

Fluttershy tried to struggle, but at most she could only move her head very slightly. She had no limbs to aid in her escape, and her wings and torso were strapped down tightly as well. Her heartbeat and respiratory rate went up significantly though she tried to quell them, attempting to force herself to keep her breath steady.

"Tw-Twilight... p-please no..."

"Don't worry!" Twilight responded with a grin. "I'll make sure it doesn't kill you, I still have so much to do before that can be allowed to happen!"

The water level rose to Fluttershy's tail-tip, then steadily up to her hooves, as if teasing her that she was going to be surrounded by its depths soon enough.

Amazingly, as the water flow increased and with it the level, Fluttershy realized that Twilight was admittedly right - she did feel the slightest sense of peace from the agony she had already suffered. The phantom limb pain in her disintegrated left hind leg seemed lessened slightly, the burning feeling that remained somewhat quenched by the cool water that submerged the stumps of her hooves and the places where her legs had once been.

Somehow, it was almost refreshing after what she had gone though, and her ache seemed to take on a slightly less painful throb. It wasn't as if her legs were growing back - though she did recall Twilight mentioning something about being able to repair them before this all started - but any release from agony was welcome.

Of course, the scientist noticed the slight change in thought, primarily from the brainwave measurements along with Fluttershy's facial expression.

"I see the water is bringing at least some sense of relief!" Twilight noted. "Savor it while you can," she laughed, "it won't be that way for much longer!"

The water crept up higher and higher, surrounding Fluttershy's torso and remains of her legs, feeling the burning of her former torment soothed somewhat by the liquid's cooled surroundings. But the feeling was quickly replaced by terror as the water climbed upward at a faster pace, quickly pouring down to move up toward her head, the wave-like motions of the water rising to just below her chin.

Her heartbeat increased as nerve-wracked sweat mixed with the water, her brainwaves clearly distressed as she seemed to look for some way to get out. Oh, if only "The Stare" could work on Twilight, even with one eye! But realizing the water's pace only appeared to speed up more, Fluttershy did the only thing she could at that moment.

She took a deep breath and held it just as the water was reaching her mouth, quickly submerging the rest of her head under the watery depths. Flutttershy squeezed her remaining good eye shut while attempting to prevent water from getting in through her nose, the water causing a sting on the eye that had been subjected to abacination. The raw condition of that spot only made the pain worse.

Twilight saw Fluttershy's brainwaves pulse as a result of the surrounding liquid, though it was nowhere near as great as the terror-stricken delirium when she had had the chemicals poured onto her. "This will only take a few minutes, just to see how long you can take it for."

With nothing to be able to truly focus on except the water surrounding her, Fluttershy could only stare helplessly in front of her. Seeing Twilight at the corner of her vision, and the animals encased on the other side of the room. The caretaker wanted to call out to them, to find some reassurance so that she could comfort both them and herself. But though several tried to break free of the cage that contained them, their enclosure didn't budge. And even if it did, there was still Twilight's magic to get through, and for them that would prove impossible.

All Fluttershy could do in those moments was hold her breath and think.

Why has Twilight done all this to me... to our friends?! Besides this torture stuff she still seems like her, but what's causing her to do this?

Twilight arched her brow as she noticed Fluttershy's brainwave slow to an almost placid pace, as if she were thinking hard about something. Considering something.

No, she couldn't be... Her head whipped up as she carefully scrutinized the Element bearer's expression and facial movements. If Fluttershy willingly opened her mouth to drown herself, something that the injections might not be able to keep her alive for.... Nonononono! Don't you even think about it, Fluttershy!

A burning flash briefly afflicted the unicorn, causing her to wince as paranoia began rising within her. In that moment, the scientist felt an urge to dart over to her control panel and drain the water at a near instantaneous rate. She couldn't lose Fluttershy, not like that, not now, not so early... Don't you dare think about killing yourself! I will get that Element from you! You won't die until I say so!

Fluttershy continued with her inner monologue, oblivious for the moment to her captor's internal struggle. S-She said she wants Kindness... she won't stop until she gets it... i-if I die here th-then...

The pegasus didn't dare complete the thought, not considering even for a fleeting incident to go through with it. No matter how much pain she was in, no matter how much she was suffering, she never would consider suicide to be an option. It didn't matter if giving herself up to the surrounding water would take the pain away - she had to endure it somehow.

And in any case, she dimly recalled Twilight stating that the injections would keep her alive through all of this, no matter what. Knowing the lavender unicorn's ingenuity, Fluttershy wouldn't be surprised if her former friend also had some way to prevent her from drowning even if it was self-inflicted.

I... I'll fight with my last breath if I have to! the yellow pegasus convinced herself, though she realized that her last breath might soon occur - she was beginning to feel faint from holding her breath for so long, and wondered how much longer it would last.

Twilight, of course, took notice of this, observing her subject's life-signs fluctuate as a lack of proper air threatened to cause the subject to slip into unconsciousness. Not to mention the still lingering unease in the back of her mind that Fluttershy would intentionally attempt to drown herself. "I think that's enough for now!"

With that, the clicking and clacking of the control panel's buttons sounded to allow the water level of the chamber to be lowered at last, the pulsing magical protection around the equipment and Fluttershy's brain being removed as well.

Fluttershy took in desperate gasps for air as the water level drained, finally allowing her to breathe once more. The remnants of her limbs still stung and burned, and she was coughing from having nearly swallowed water, but aside from that she was merely waiting in fear for the next phase of Twilight's sick torture.

"It's kind of a shame that the method I just used on you is going to make the next procedure more painful," Twilight said casually as she gathered up several of the instruments that she had used previously on Applejack. "Because next is 'E' - electric shocks!"

She turned to the lined-up corpses of her friends and smiled at the limp body of Applejack, staring into the vacant green eyes as she suspected the pony's spirit was listening. "You remember that, don't you, Applejack?"

From inside the void that the dead ponies were trapped in, the pony being addressed shuddered, but said nothing in response. Everypony knew that the electrical shock therapy had been forever ingrained into her subconscious, and words were unneeded to express it.

While the electrical wires with the pointed, needle-like edges were levitated over, their sharp points embedded themselves into various points on Fluttershy's chest, rather than her hooves as had been done with Applejack.

"Ouch!"

The needles were only a mild discomfort in comparison to the chemicals that had been poured on to her, but Fluttershy still was pained by the sensation of them digging into strategically placed points on her skin, small drops of blood collecting around the. Almost like a form of acupuncture, except this could be expected to bring no sense of meditative peace. It was almost as if Fluttershy had gotten more of that by nearly drowning.

"Most of the nerves in your hooves are pretty much disconnected from the rest of you at this point thanks to the chemicals," Twilight explained as she rose onto the nearby platform to manipulate Fluttershy's memories once again, "so the current wouldn't really go through if I attached the wires to your hooves. Besides, I have another plan for them."

The captive pegasus didn't like the sound of that at all. The thought her hooves being assaulted with electricity was bad enough, but the fact that Twilight explained she had something much worse planned only increased Fluttershy's fear.

"And don't worry, I've made sure the electricity's current and voltage doesn't run through your heart! I've gotta keep you alive, remember?"

Fluttershy whimpered, squeezing her working eye shut as she braced herself for the shock that she knew was coming.

The next thing she felt was a powerful voltage coursing through her body, the equipment sparking slightly where the various needles pierced her chest. The voltage itself wasn't at too terribly high a level - about 20 volts. But the fact that the pegasus was still wet from the near-drowning caused the pain from the shocks to intensify from the electrical current making contact with the remaining vestiges of water.

The parts of Fluttershy's body that still had nerves convulsed from the shock, and burn marks already appearing on the subject's chest as a result of the powerful surge, Twilight switched her neuron manipulator on and set to work. As had been done with the other instances of alteration, the current operated on the most minuscule of levels, altering the neural pathways according to the monitor that revealed Fluttershy's memories.

As Twilight looked back and forth from her manipulation instrument to the monitor, her rapidly-filling notepad scribbling notes all the while, she adjusted memories of Fluttershy when she was younger. The scientist made the pegasus believe that she had been sent to a prison for an act that had been believed by them to be dangerous, being electrocuted in an electric chair that caused her to nearly lose her life in that memory.

"You meant to put everypony in danger didn't you?! You had a malicious intent in interacting with those creatures and bringing your so-called friends along! You wanted those other ponies to die!"

Violet eyes staring intently, Twilight made sure to let the memory's events reoccur multiple times for Fluttershy. This way, the pony would believe that, again and again, she had been tortured for a crime she didn't commit.

A thought briefly flashed in the mind of the unicorn. But I'm committing a crime that would call for measures like that...

Twilight closed her eyes and shook the thought away the moment it had come, focusing her atention back on her work. Now was the time to further progress for her plan, not to question the morals of her actions.

Besides, she thought to herself, it's for a greater good, for Harmony to reign over chaos - that will be worth causing these deaths, right?!

Fluttershy's mind was awhirl with with the pain of this new, implanted memory. She tried to insist to herself that it was just Twilight messing with her head, that none of it was real.

But her memory told her otherwise, cementing itself into her mind.

The fabricated memory began to take a hold on Fluttershy's consciousness, thoughts beginning to creep up concerning the white-suited ponies of the prison which she had been confined to. "Wh-Why are you doing this to me?!" The manipulation and the present shocks were causing her tormented mind to be thrown back into the memory, speaking not to Twilight but to the ponies she remembered torturing her. "I-I've done n-nothing wrong! I'VE DONE NOTHING WRONG!"

The words struck a chord with Twilight, her eyes widening as she repeated the words to herself. "I've done nothing wrong, I've done nothing wrong..." The words turned almost like a mantra in her mind, constant like the rapid beating of a drum. Her thoughts raced, slowly consuming her... consequences for her actions... the fear of Celestia finding out...

Twilight closed her eyes, her head reeling as her words became frenzied. She found herself drifting to the thought of Celestia's disappointed face, her reaction if she found out... imagining the terrors of her own mind... "I've done nothing wrong, please, I've done nothing wrong, Princess Celestia!"

Fluttershy was nearly jolted out of the constant torment of her memories by Twilight's frantic mantra, the rhythm of her brain waves fluctuating as her attention moved between the terror of the past and the pain of the present.

Realizing what she had just said, Twilight forced her mind to snap back to the reality of the situation. Celestia wouldn't find out, she couldn't find out... The unicorn's voice faltered as she spoke, but she forced a smile.

"Oh-Okay, I think that's enough for that part of the experiment!"

Quickly, she used her magic to switch off the electrical voltage assaulting Fluttershy, the damage to the subject's memory having been completed for that segment. The magical aura manifested around the needles sticking into Fluttershy's scorched stomach, removing the metal from her flesh and setting it aside.

Leaping down from her perch, Twilight hurried over to the brain-scanning monitor to check up on things, taking her mind off of her doubts. She could see the monitor well enough from her elevation over Fluttershy's head, but she wanted a closer look just in case. To find the faintest of flashes, the smallest of indications...

No Kindness spark yet.

Twilight scowled, making a note on the lack of a spark. "Nothing yet... that's okay, that's okay..." Even as she said the words, her eyes darted around as her mind disagreed with her vocalizations. No, it's not okay! I need to go through the alphabetical procedures and get that Kindness as soon as I can! Any delays are too risky - my work has to be completed tonight!

Regaining her focus, Twilight looked over at Fluttershy before trotting to her worktable, whifting through a few papers to find what she was searching for. "Your Kindness is pretty resilient Fluttershy, but I'll make sure to get what I need from you one way or another! Now that I'm done with 'E', it's time for 'F'!" The grin was starting to return as the scientist levitated a container of oil and four metal plates in front of her. "And 'F' stands for foot-roasting!" Her eyes narrowed, though much more so in a way that was scrutinizing detail rather than a threatening expression, using her magic to cover Fluttershy's hooves with the oil, remanants of it dripping onto the laboratory's metal tiles. "This technique has been used since ancient times, based on the medical fact that the bottom of the hoof or foot is one of the most heat-sensitive parts on a pony's body, and the oil on it will cause it to hurt even more!"

Rainbow Dash spat, again considering her personal alphabet toward Twilight. "I'd say that F stands for the fact that I hate your feathering guts."

"Are you tryin' to create two alphabets here or somethin'?" Applejack inquired, daring to step a little closer to Rainbow.

The pegasus whipped around to face the farming pony, magenta eyes hostile toward what she saw as an attempt to confront her. "Shut up. I can do what I want, and you're too much of a confidence-drained weakling to stop me. You know that's true." She let out a slight growl as she emphasized the last word, moving her face closer to the orange earth pony as she did so.

Applejack flinched slightly at the word 'true', and she fell silent, having lost the confidence to argue.

Dash rolled her eyes. "All I know is that when I get free, she won't be getting away. I'll make sure of it."

Twilight had heard the words of the disdainful pegasus, but only looked in that direction with a glare before turning her focus to retrieving the equipment she'd need.

Fluttershy had noticed Twilight's glance behind her, but her attention was more focused on imagining the pain of the anticipated flames burning her coat and skin. She knew that it probably wouldn't compare to the torture she had endured with the chemicals - she couldn't think of what could be worse than that - but the thought of burning beyond that of the chemicals wasn't at all pleasant to think about. It was this uncertainty, she realized, that was truly the worst part of this torture psychologically - she didn't know what was coming, and even when the methods were revealed, how Twilight would execute them remained a complete mystery until they were explained and performed.

Returning to her placement overlooking Fluttershy's exposed brain, Twilight used her magic to set the circular slabs of iron alight with a burning heat of several hundred degrees, similar to the metal plate that had been used to abacinate Fluttershy's eye earlier.

"Huh, seems like your hooves will be getting the same sort of treatment as your eye!" A small smile rose up on Twilight's face. "You know, I read that 'foot-roasting' is the original name for it because griffins used to use it as a method to get traitors to confess their crimes and heresy - ponies like us adopted the practice later."

"I think by 'ponies like us', she means 'insane psycopaths'," Rainbow Dash commented.

Pinkie looked at the pegasus curiously, remembering that she apparently remembered living an entirely different life. She tapped Rainbow on the shoulder and started gesturing. "Have you ever seen it happen?"

Dash shook her head. "I've seen a lot, Voiceless, but this griffin-torture stuff is new to me. I know that the griffins can be somewhat brutal though... bet there'd be at least one who'd love to tear apart a pony like her." With that thought in her brain, Rainbow and the others resumed focusing on the unicorn's deadly work.

Already beginning to alter Fluttershy's memories, Twilight lowered the torch to Fluttershy's right hind hoof - the hoof attached to the leg which was for the most part unharmed - and roughly forced the burning iron to press against Fluttershy's oil-covered hooves.

Fluttershy cried out in pain from the sensation of the red-hot iron burning her skin, the oil only further causing it to sting her coat and scorch the skin underneath. The burning heat extended beyond the victim's epidermis to reach into the deeper muscular tissue, only increasing the pain for the already suffering pony.

"STOP, TWILIGHT, STOP!" Through her desperate cries as the burns increased, Fluttershy held onto the hope that some how she could bring Twilight back. The old Twilight, the friendly, bookish Twilight... not this monster. The temperature was kept at such precision that it remained constant, causing Fluttershy to scream at the top of her lungs. "PLEASE!"

But the only response to her cries was the chitter of the animals whom she cared for, some of them attempting to break out of their confinement. It was clear from their expressions that they wanted to help her, but they were just as trapped as their caretaker was. As for Twilight, it was as if she didn't hear the shrieks of agony at all.

The unicorn in question smirked, beginning to use her neuron manipulator to carefully adjust Fluttershy's memories. The limb was out of Fluttershy's view, but her tormentor made sure that the burns would be permanent on her skin - third-degree burns for certain.

As the torch moved to the hoof connected to the boneless left foreleg, Twilight watched the monitor that showed Fluttershy's memories as she altered them, setting her sights on a memory when Fluttershy was in her early teen years.

She had been working with other ponies to help take care of animals in a shelter, a task that she seemed all too happy too accomplish. But in Fluttershy's consciousness, the memory became warped and twisted. She "remembered" there being a fire in the shelter... a fire that began to consume the entire building.

"HELP!" Fluttershy screamed within the memory, hurrying out of the burning building with a small rabbit close to her. Panting, slowing to a stop, she looked at the ponies who she believed worked there with her. "There's a fire!"

One of the ponies in front of her, a yellow-coated, green-maned mare, narrowed her emerald eyes. "We know... we caused it."

Before Fluttershy could escape, the mare used her unicorn magic to roughly toss Fluttershy into the flames, holding her hooves firmly in place as they became scorched, just as Twilight was doing in the present.

Twilight glanced over at the brain scanner again, analyzing the constant measurements. Eyes narrowed, scrutinizing for a small flash, a faint spark, anything...

Nothing yet.

Twilight forced herself to stay calm, though she could feel her breath grow tight in her chest. "There's nothing yet, okay, calm down, calm down.... still a good chunk of the alphabet left to go, it's all gonna be fine. I'll get it, I'll get it...."

Trying to focus again by jolting Fluttershy back into the present, Twilight noticed the captive pony breathing quickly, eyes darting to the placement of each of her hooves as if remembering them being forcibly burned.

"Well, it's time for 'G' now!" the unicorn called out cheerfully as the iron plates were removed, revealing terrible blisters throbbing on the bottom of Fluttershy's hooves. "And for 'G', I'll use a technique called garroting!" With a smirk, a wire and a string of chains were levitated from the side over to Fluttershy, the cold metal pressing firmly against the pony's neck as they extended past the sides of the table to which she was strapped.

Fluttershy gulped, feeling the cold metal press tighter against her throat as she swallowed.

"Now, normally the victim would have their larynx crushed as a result of the pressure, causing them to suffocate," Twilight explained, "but I don't want to suffocate you - that would end my work far too soon."

Before Fluttershy could make a sound, Twilight telekinetically used her magic to pull the wire and chain taut in a forceful tug, cutting off any sound that her captive could attempt to make. She smiled at the pegasus's attempts at producing choked gasps, unable to get the air she needed due to the firm pressure of the metal tightly around her neck, threatening to strangle the pegasus.

Warping Fluttershy's mind further, Twilight allowed another fabricated memory to come forth in Fluttershy's consciousness. This time, Fluttershy was being held down by the white-suited asylum ponies from before, encircling a wire around Fluttershy's neck before it was roughly jerked back, cutting off air from her lungs to her throat. Adding further pain to what she was experiencing in reality, more ponies in the memory grabbed a second string of wire and pulled it in the opposite direction, causing Fluttershy's throat to bleed from the conflicting forces.

"This is for your own good," said one of the suited ponies. "You threatened the order of the City - a pegasus who prefers to stay on the ground. How foolish. Don't you know you could lead creatures from the ground straight up here?!"

"Th-They can't fly!"

"There are some that can!" retorted the pegasus. "We've risked being found out because of you!"

Fluttershy attempted to tell the asylum ponies that they were sick and twisted for doing such procedures, to punish those who threatened the order of the City... whatever kind of place it was she had been in.

Rainbow Dash flinched at the mention of 'the City', figuring the only one those ponies could be talking about was Cloudsdale. "She should have known they were evil."

"That's a false memory." Rarity said flatly. "It didn't happen."

Rainbow whirled around to glare at the emotionless white unicorn. "The brain fills in gaps and can mess with memories. For all we know, part of that memory might be true." And it was clear by the glare in those rose eyes that she believed that the memory did, indeed, have some truth to it.

Twilight smirked at the reaction, observing the monitors as Fluttershy's emotions shifted between fear and anger. She had corrupted Fluttershy's memories quite a bit already, and the extent of her warping would eventually cause the subject to fabricate an entirely new, pain-filled life for herself in an attempt to fill in the gaps. Such a plan had worked for the others.

When she noted the amount of time it took for the afflicted pony to nearly experience suffocation, Twilight released her magical hold on the wire and chains, letting the torture devices fall to the ground. The indents of a straight line and links of chains were clearly visible around Fluttershy's neck, blood beginning to collect a little at the points where the garroting tools had broken the skin.

"Th-They...." the yellow pegasus gasped out, "they were e-evil..."

As Fluttershy struggled to regain her breath, Twilight whipped her head toward the monitor again upon registering the other's words. There had to be something now... even just a small sign of progress...

A small pink spark, an abnormality, briefly lit up on the brain scanning monitor, on the amygdala more on the side of the pony's exposed brain. It was faint, and so quick that if a pony blinked they would have missed it. But Twilight had managed to spot it, brief as it was.

Her eyes grew wide upon seeing the spark, an almost elated laugh escaping her. "Haha, yesyesyes! It's working, it's working! Kindness is just beginning to reveal itself!"

But she knew that this wasn't enough to fully bring the Element out. Fluttershy was holding onto that Kindness as much as she could, though that resolve was beginning to fade, even if just a little.

Well, she'd break Fluttershy's mind fully soon enough.

"Okay Fluttershy, time for 'H' now!" Twilight announced, turning her attention to the side of her lab that now harbored her myriad of torture devices. Focusing on one in particular, the aura of Twilight's magic illuminated a small instrument which looked like a pair of bi-pronged forks in opposite directions. As it levitated off of the table where it rested and into Fluttershy's view, a loop of metal could be seen in the center of the device, with a dark red strap wrapped around it "This is what's known as a Heretic's fork!"

Noticing the other pony's faintly inquiring look, the scientist elaborated. "Basically, it was positioned between the breast plate and the chin of a pony, making them unable to really fall asleep. If they drooped their head from being too fatigued, those little prongs there would dig into their chest or throat - which is just what I'll be doing to you!" She smiled. "It was used to eventually get criminals to confess their heresy - see the inscription?"

As the double-forked tool moved closer to Fluttershy, the pegasus was able to barely make out the word etched on the surface of the object: abiuro.

"It's in an ancient language," Twilight clarified. "It means 'I recant', which means they'd withdraw a former belief or statement. Of course, you don't have anything to recant..." She paused, getting an idea as a thin smile spread across her face.

With Fluttershy unable to move her head in the first place, there wasn't much resistance from the trapped pony as Twilight wedged the double-pronged mechanism between the broken pony's chest and chin, keeping them in a steady position as the dark red belt was tied around Fluttershy's neck, keeping the Heretic's fork firmly in place.

"There we go!" Twilight exclaimed, pleased with her work as she raised herself back up to her platform. "Don't breathe too heavily, now - that will just cause the prongs to dig into your skin!"

Though she was becoming increasingly nervous and angry, not to mention the agony from what she had suffered so far, Fluttershy forced herself to keep her breath steady. She didn't want to cause herself anymore pain when Twilight was already causing unendurable agony. She glared hostilely at Twilight, but otherwise forced herself to keep still.

The unicorn paused, neuron-manipulator hovering nearby. "Remember how I said you didn't have anything to recant?" She chuckled, already manipulating Fluttershy's mind to create more false memories. "I lied... you just forget them..."

Using her equipment as before, she altered Fluttershy's mind to send her into another false recollection. Within the events of the "memory" Fluttershy was being stabbed with the Heretic's fork, her chest and chin painfully torn from the impact of the prongs in her skin. She felt anger, fury at the other ponies for inflicting this torment on her.

"Confess!" demanded a light blue unicorn stallion, leering close to Fluttershy. "Confess that you were the one who burnt down that building! You wanted to murder those ponies in revenge!"

"I-It wasn't me!" Fluttershy screamed. "It was one of th-the others-"

"Silence!" roared the other pony, forcing Fluttershy's head down so it was roughly impacted by the prongs. "You've had a bad track record, we know that you should be punished!"

"I didn't do anything wrong!"

The prison-ponies of the manufactured recollection didn't heed Fluttershy's pleas, continuing their torment and further cementing the idea that the normally timid, innocent pony had experienced cruelty her entire life. The memories would rewrite themselves, just as had been done for the others - she was just having a little fun to help things along.

Smirking, Twilight brought her subject out of the "memory" to bring her attention to the next letter of her torture alphabet. "Time for 'I' now, Fluttershy! And 'I' is for 'Iron Maiden'!"

Lowering herself to the floor again, Twilight moved out of Fluttershy's sight once again, allowing her magical aura to surround a large metal casing, large enough to encase the table that Fluttershy was strapped to.

"Releasing you and putting you fully into this Iron Maiden wouldn't work for this," Twilight explained as she brought the mechanism in question behind the table where Fluttershy was strapped, "otherwise you might try to get away. I know it's near impossible, but I can't take any chances on even the slightest possibility of you escaping." A sigh. "Unfortunately, I can't really mess with your brain at this stage either so I'll let the psychological ramifications of being trapped in there do the work for me!"

Fluttershy was trying to regulate her breathing, lest she run the risk of the forked prongs digging into her. She looked firmly at Twilight with her single eye, desperate to have her former friend look her in the eyes, she what she had become... "T-Twilight... you don't n-need to do this!"

Twilight didn't let Fluttershy say anything more as she quickly closed the Iron Maiden with the pointed shards of glass sticking from the inside, briefly seeing the horrified and betrayed expression in Fluttershy's eye. As she heard Fluttershy cry out from the pain of the glass shards that were no doubt digging into her skin, a frown crossed Twilight's face.

She had seen the terrified and anguished look in Fluttershy's eyes, a deep despair that seemed more prevalent in her than any of the others thus far. Perhaps it was because of the way the shadows of the Iron Maiden's door had fallen over the pony's face before being shut in, but she knew how much pain her friend was going through... and she was the cause.

And now the hot and cold flashes were back...

Twilight fought through the sensations and shook her head, putting Fluttershy's expression out of her mind. She looked straight at the Iron Maiden, where she heard Fluttershy's cries from within. "I can't say I'm sorry for my actions! You have to die after all this! It's the ONLY way! Getting the Elements to analyze them must be done!"

Panting, knowing that she'd have to speed up the process while working to get that Kindness, Twilight opened the Iron Maiden to bring the scarred, mangled Fluttershy into view, her limbs and chest impaled by several glass shards. "I think that's done enough damage for you here." Levitating the metal chamber away from the table to free her workspace, a small smile crept up on Twilight's face. "Now here comes the fun one...."

Leaping down to retrieve the next form of torment she needed, the unicorn looked over at her captive. This was something that she specifically wanted to see Fluttershy's reaction to.

"Now, Fluttershy," Twilight said with a giddy expression, "it's time for the letter 'J'!" The mare looked especially excited about this one, bouncing on her hooves a little. "This one's actually one I've been eagerly waiting to use, because I get to introduce you to an animal for once!"

Another object was magically brought over to where Fluttershy was held. It was a large container of jellyfish, but these were much smaller than the average jellyfish a normal beach visitor would see. The main bodies of the jellyfish were barely visible as a result of their side, their long tentacles trailing like thin wisps of silk.

"J is for 'Jellyfish'! And I'm almost certain that they're a kind that even you have never seen - they're special!"

Fluttershy knew by the eager tone in Twilight's voice that this wasn't a good sign at all. At this point, however, she was less in the mood to run away and get help, and more filled with a desire to attack and make sure her former friend payed for her crimes.

The scientist grinned, levitating the container of small jellyfish toward Fluttershy so that the creatures could clearly be seen. They were so minuscule that it looked like a large group could fit on a pony's hoof. "Don't you see them, Fluttershy? These jellyfish are so tiny, aren't they? Only about .9 cubic centimeters, actually." She tilted her head curiously, hoping her "animal introduction surprise" hadn't been spoiled by the animal caretaker having a previous interaction. "You've never seen these kind before, have you?"

The yellow pegasus was unable to shake her head with the strength she had remaining, but her gaze and brainwaves clearly expressed that she didn't know what kind of jellyfish they were - and that only increased her mounting terror and anger. Jellyfish were one kind of animal that she didn't have much expertise in, but she knew that many were poisonous. That fact alone prompted her to ordinarily stay away from them whenever she went toward water where they resided. "N-No..."

"Great! Then I get to teach you a little something new about animals!" Twilight's voice became more authoritative, as if she were a biology professor talking to her student, "these are called Irukandji jellyfish, and one sting from these little guys has the capability to cause every unpleasant symptom under the sun. And no amount of morphine will cure the venom that's already in the body. Oh, that medication will dull the pain somewhat, but it will never completely go away."

A pause from the unicorn as she glanced at the creatures swimming around in the container, her gaze almost mesmerized. For a moment, her expression and voice turned kind. Too kind. "Want to hear a story, Fluttershy? Well, it's not really a story - more of a history and biology lesson."

Fluttershy would have shaken her head to protest, but the metal clamp around her forehead made the desired movement impossible. All she could do was listen to Twilight's words.

Smiling, the unicorn began. "Once there was a small group of ponies traveling across the oceans, who soon found themselves on a foreign land. The land was populated by many different creatures, the likes of which nopony of their group had ever seen before. And a few of their group were stung by the most minescule of creatures, small jellyfish that they didn't think would be able to hurt them much. But you know what?" Twilight's voice lowered to a whisper. "They were wrong!"

Fluttershy was aware of the increasingly steady merging of fear and anger that she felt as she watched her captor begin to circle around her, engrossed in the gruesome speech as if she were dictating a tale on Nightmare Night.

"Soon enough, the ponies began to feel terrible symptoms. They were overcome with spasms and pain that rocked their bodies, but their minds were also affected - like a natural form of what I do here!" Twilight held her head high as if pleased with herself. "Their very minds becoming so warped from the toxins that some of the ponies had begged to be killed to get the pain to stop. They were in so much agony and turmoil in body and in mind that they wanted to die!"

Twilight harbored a bright expression in her eyes, as if she found the very idea of that to be wonderful. "A number of the ponies died from the jellyfish encounter alone - for various reasons. For several of them, the stings had been fatal and eventually took its toll on them. The others..." her eyes grew bright as she stepped closer to Fluttershy, "killed themselves because they couldn't take the agony anymore."

Satisfied by the horrified expression on Fluttershy's face, the scientist concluded her tale. "Those that survived gave the jellyfish their name, after the Irukandji tribe that had feared it and attempted to warn the travelers. They really should have listened..."

A pause as the lavender unicorn completed her tale, before clapping her hooves together.

"Obviously, I can't have them stinging me," Twilight pointed out, "that would basically render everything null and void for me, and there's no way I'm going to risk that happening. So, I figured that you could at least help me with testing out the effects of their venom!"

Despite Fluttershy's own memories being affected by the mental manipulation, she still retained the memories of what she knew about flora and fauna. She never knew that a jellyfish could cause that sort of terrible psychological torment. And the feeling only grew when she realized that Twilight was going to inflict the same sort of procedure onto her.

"And the best part is, it's like they'll be doing some of the present mental manipulation for me. I can focus more on the past that way!" The unicorn removed the top of the container, violet eyes narrowed as she stared at the jellyfish swimming around within it.

Before Fluttershy could shout in anger or protest, Twilight roughly forced her mouth open, as if she were a dentist looking over a patient. Opening the small container of jellyfish and tilting it forward slightly, she forced the water to spill into Fluttershy's resisting mouth, and with it, a large number of the tiny creatures.

Fluttershy began to cough and gag as much as she could, trying to do anything to expunge those jellyfish from her system. But even as she tried, she felt the pinpricks of their stings in her mouth and sooj had no choice but to swallow them, sobbing in fear and rage as she felt their gelatinous forms slide down her throat, feeling a few more stings as they went down.

"Good!" Twilight said with a grin. "Now I can really observe juuust the kind of effects those jellyfish will have on you as I resume the rest of my procedures!"

The yellow pegasus whimpered, tears falling down her face as she failed in her attempts to cough the jellyfish back up. It didn't matter—she had felt the stings on her insides, and it seemed that some had stung the inside corners of her mouth, one of the more sensitive spots for a pony.

She tried to at least hold onto the hope that the effects of the jellyfish stings wouldn't be too painful. She knew, at the very least, that their venom wouldn't kill her. If Twilight wanted to get Kindness, after all—as terrifying as the thought was—there was no way that the unicorn would let her die at this point.

That lingering thought suddenly replaced Fluttershy's hope with a terrible sense of horror, even though some of her former shy, timid yet kind persona had been torn away as a result of Twilight's actions. If being forced to ingest jellyfish was only about halfway down the deadly list of what the unicorn had planned for her, what else would she be forced to endure before it was all over? And the stings that she could still feel within her only increased her discomfort, but being unable to cough too many of them out, she had no choice but to swallow those that remained.

"Now," Twilight spoke as she removed the container, "The symptoms of the jellyfish stings start up within 5 to 120 minutes, usually 30 minutes on average. That should be enough time for me to perform a few more tactics before the stings really start to take effect!"

Fluttershy, still shuddering after being forced to swallow the gelatinous forms, shot a hostile glare at Twilight, but said nothing.

"With that done for now," Twilight went on, "it's time for 'K'! Do you know what 'K' stands for?"

The substance "krokodil" instantly came to Fluttershy's mind upon hearing that letter, but she forced herself to remember that that stage of the torture was over. So what else could it be? The only other torture-like option that Fluttershy could rapidly think of was kicking, but she knew that Twilight definitely wouldn't go for something so simple.

With that, the scientific mare used her magic to materialize a long metal pole. She levitated it closer, grinning at Fluttershy as she climbed up to her platform to prepare to manipulate more of Fluttershy's memories. "'K' stands for 'Kneecapping'! That's where somepony uses a blunt instrument like this metal pole here to smash the nerves around the kneecap!" She laughed a little, getting her neuron manipulator at the ready. "Funny thing is though, the patella - that's the more formal name for the kneecap - isn't usually smashed traditionally, just the nerves and tissues close to it."

Fluttershy cringed slightly, already thinking about the anticipated pain. How could her former friend talk about torture like this so casually?

Twilight's face took on an expression that was an indicator of giving an anatomical lesson. "However, with ponies like us, it's a bit more complicated than just smashing the joints in our legs like it is for others." The scientist looked absolutely thrilled to be explaining this. "You see, in equines like ourselves, the part of the skeleton that's officially recognized as the patella is right here, where the leg meets the flank." Looking down, she lightly tapped Fluttershy with the metal pole at the point in question. "Only an equine's forelimbs really have a 'knee', and considering I disintegrated your bones in your left foreleg, I only truly have your right foreleg to work with as far as knees go." Twilight frowned slightly in thought, putting a hoof to her chin as if reconsidering her options. "Considering I'm not slamming where the equivalent of your patella actually is, this process isn't really living up to its name," Twilight explained. "And that foreleg is just bone now so I'm not hitting nerves either..."

Remembering that she had to focus on her task and just get through this before the night was out, Twilight shrugged and decided to go along with her original plan, levitating the cylindrical metal closer to Fluttershy. "But I suppose I can apply the same kind of process on the hock of your right hind leg to make up for it! Okay, so the tarsus bones in the middle of the hind legs are more where a knee would be placement wise, but if I smash your hock then you wouldn't be able to walk even if you did get free!" The unicorn lightly tapped the upper part of the hind leg to point out just where the section of pony anatomy was. "Nothing like a little anatomy lesson while I work!"

The neuron manipulation tool sparked to life once agains as Twilight adjusted the neurons in the hippocampus, while at the same time the large metal pole was slammed against Fluttershy's skeletal foreleg, just below the knee.

Any attempt made by Fluttershy to glare at her former friend was cut off by a loud cry of pain as the joint below her knee was roughly impacted by the blunt instrument, hearing and feeling the crack of bone. The force nearly caused her knee to give out and dislocate, throwing it forward slightly against the joint's natural inclination as a result of the force. Quickly moving toward the joint above the 'knee' to smash that as well, the metal pole smashed against the bone with such a strong force that the bone cracked completely, snapping in two and causing the lower bone to tilt from the separating impact.

Ignoring Fluttershy's screams, the scientist was humming a little song that she had learned when she was a filly, a fast-paced little tune about the parts of the pony body that seemed far too upbeat for Fluttershy's liking in the situation. She laughed. "I just love anatomy!"

Hurriedly injecting Fluttershy with a quick shot of adrenaline to prevent the risk of her losing consciousness, Twilight retrived her next torture device. When she returned to showcase her newest tool in front of Fluttershy, it didn't seem complex like some of the other tortures had been - in fact, it was just a sharpened knife. But it was clear by the sadistic look on Twilight's face as she levitated the weapon close to Fluttershy that it wasn't going to be that simple at all.

"Now, 'L' is for a little tactic called 'Ling Chi'," Twilight exclaimed, getting up onto her platform as she levitated the knife and container close to Fluttershy's face. "It was used as a method of execution hundreds of years ago where the executioner would hack off parts of the victim's body over an extended period of time!"

Fluttershy started breathing heavily at the thought, but cried out as the Heretic's fork dug into her skin, beginning to bleed from the points of impact.

"While I could use my magic to put limbs back into place if I cut them off, I won't," Twilight reassured her subject, knife hovering close to Fluttershy's skin. "But I can allow your skin to sustain some damage!"

With that, Twilight used her magical control over the knife to cut into Fluttershy's scorched abdomen, causing the charred coat to be stained with the dark red of her blood dripping down from the incision. Despite Fluttershy's cries and the desperate chatter of the animals, Twilight let her knife pierce Fluttershy's epidermis and slowly scrape along her body, skinning her in a similar matter to what had been done to Spike. Twilight smiled a little to herself as the knife was magically brought close to Fluttershy's remaining limbs, scraping them down to the muscle and not seeming to care that the blood of one of her best friends was covering the laboratory floor.

The incisions cut deep lashes across Fluttershy's limbs. Then a few slices to her yet unmarred side, just above where the untainted butterfly cutie marks rest on her flanks. That final reminder of Fluttershy's former innocence and peace was damaged as well, as the blood from Fluttershy's fresh wounds obscured the cutie marks' view.

"AAAHHHH! PLEASE, S-S-STOP!" Fluttershy screamed, the repeated lashes of the knife only seeming to serve as a fresh reminder of the pain she had already endured. It seemed as if Twilight had placed a spell on the knife to cause the afflicted to feel every pain that had been felt before - or perhaps it was simply another psychological effect at work that called her mind's attention. But she knew the worst part was that Twilight was likely going to completely alter her mind permanently if she continued with this process. "I'LL DO ANYTHING, TWILIGHT!"

"Nothing you can say will change my mind," Twilight said coldly. "I have to do this for my work." Fluttershy's cries seemed to be deafened to her. "It's a good thing I've given you all those injections, or else you would have been dead looonng ago."

Quickly using her neuron manipulator once again as she took notes, Twilight altered Fluttershy's brain with another memory - a memory of being nearly executed for the "crime" of trying to help others. One by one, her limbs were slowly and painfully hacked off, only for a unicorn medic to attach them back together once again. And then, the torment would simply repeat in a seemingly endless cycle.

Fluttershy screamed so loudly that Twilight was certain she'd be heard if they had been in the library's basement, soundproofed walls or not. "It's a good thing I have this place so far down," Twilight muttered, releasing her hold on the knife and her mental alteration of Fluttershy's mind.

She glanced down at the suffering pony, whose neck was marred as a result of a failed attempt to keep her breaths even, her screams having caused the metal to dig deep into her. As Twilight listened closely, she could hear the pegasus faintly muttering.

"They're evil... they tortured me for being k-k-kind... "

Laughing gleefully at those words, Twilight whipped her head around to the monitor that measured the genetic signature of Fluttershy's brain. There had to be something...

Yes, yes, there was! The pink spark of Kidness had been there briefly, but it was there.

"The flash lasted a big longer this time, perfect!" Twilight exclaimed, grinning. "We're nearly halfway through, Fluttershy, so now it's time for 'M'! And the 'M' is for 'magnetics'! To be specific, magnetic fields." She levitated her notepad and neuron manipulation apparatus close to her as she leapt from her platform, moving it out of the way to make way for a new mechanism that Fluttershy hadn't expected - four large, magnetic plates, placed strategically around the table, each with a system of wires that was clearly controlled by another mechanism nearby.

"A magnetic field that's static can't really do much harm," Twilight began, smiling at Fluttershy before moving out of sight, "but if it's at a high tesla measurement - that's the magnetic flux density - it can be very dangerous." She twirled her neuron manipulator in the air beside her as she went over to the control panel that would operate the magnetic flux, hoof hovering over one of the dials. "So I can't do the same sort of manipulation as I've been doing to your brain."

A thin smile as the equipment began to start up, a low hum accompanying the steadily increasing magnetic power. The plates containing the magnetic fields began to rotate, so that the magnetic flux had as much of an effect on Fluttershy's brain as possible.

"It doesn't really matter though," the unicorn called out over the sound of the rising frequencies of the magnetic pulses, "the magnetic effects will do the brain alterations for me!"

As the amplified magnetic waves pounded against Fluttershy, a droning whir filling her ears as the movement of the plates continued to increase, the yellow pegasus could feel her sense of reality altering as a result of the fields. messing up her brainwave frequencies so much that it seemed as if she couldn't tell which way was up and which was down. It all felt so disorienting, and the waves of nausea and pain that joined it as a result of the Irukandji syndrome wasn't helping matters

"Now here's a little something I bet you didn't know," Twilight said with a sense of pride in her tone, "if magnetic frequencies are applied to the brain like this, it can alter a pony's sense of morality!" She laughed. "That just makes my job even easier - getting Kindness from you will come to fruition soon enough!"

Pinkie's eyes widened, and she quickly tapped Rainbow on the shoulder, attempting not to flinch when the cannibalistic pegasus tore of some skin from her own wing in exasperation before shooting the earth pony a glare. Hurriedly, before Rainbow could get too angry at her, she began to gesture-speak for Rainbow to translate. "Maybe Twilight used some magnet things that made her morality get all messed up like this!"

"Unlikely," Rarity responded once the gestures had been translated. "It seems that this is her first time using magnetic waves like this at this frequency. Whatever's causing her to behave this way, it couldn't be that."

Applejack glanced inquiringly at the marred unicorn. "Then what the hay is it?"

"I'm not sure. Perhaps it's her ambition," Rarity theorized in her monotone. "Ambition can cause a pony to do drastic things."

"And I have a certain ambition to do drastic things," Rainbow Dash said quietly, most of her attention seeming to be drawn toward Twilight. Backing up a few paces, she charged full-speed at the barrier, only to bounce right off of it as if it were a force field.

"Darn it!" With a dazed shake of her head, Rainbow used her teeth to roughly tear some skin from her hoof, forcing herself to primarily focus for now on watching what was going on. There'd be a way out soon enough.

Meanwhile, Fluttershy had her own thoughts to dwell on. Perhaps it was because of that sudden new knowledge ingrained into her head concerning magnetism and morality, but the more this confusion of her brainwaves occurred, the angrier Fluttershy became. It wouldn't be enough to run and make sure the psychopathic unicorn was locked away for good. She had to be taught a lesson, make sure that she went through the same sort of pain and torment that Fluttershy herself went through.

While ponies didn't have the same sort of ways of magnetic navigation as birds and other animals did, brainwaves were affected by strong magnetic frequencies. And with ones this strong, Twilight knew that it could really mess with Fluttershy's brainwaves - and hopefully alter her morality enough to further aid the process of extracting Kindness.

As Twilight watched the effects of the magnetic frequency waves affecting Fluttershy, the unicorn unwillingly felt a wave of her own - the flashes of hot and cold again, the temperature extremes coming and going at a much more rapid pace.

Twilight frowned, shutting her eyes as the sensations grew. "No... no, no nonono, not again!" She put a hoof to her head, hoping that would dull the pain somehow, but it only seeming to make things worse.

And as she attempted to fight through the pain, the unicorn heard a voice, pleading from the other side of the laboratory. A voice that was getting increasingly closer as it spoke, as if the speaker was rushing straight at her. Planning to push her away, knock some sense into her.

"LISTEN! You can stop this, Twilight! Just please, STOP!"

Twilight nearly jumped out of the way as she turned to see the apparition of herself charging at her in a wild rush, but she stood her ground as the ethereal-Twilight went right through her and nearly impacted the machinery at the velocity she was going. Of course, Twilight knew that the vision would just go right through the mechanism she had been heading toward - her meddlesome conscience was back.

A shudder as a violent chill of cold afflicted the lavender unicorn, followed by a surge that felt like she had been burned by hot coals. "I-I know you're connected to this!" Twilight exclaimed to the apparition of herself, wincing in pain as a burning discomfort afflicted her as well. "AGGHH! What's happening to me?!"

"I don't know!" the other Twilight exclaimed, sounding genuinely uncertain. "I don't have anything to do with this!"

"LIAR!" Twilight screeched, voice high and desperate as if she were trying to convince herself more than anything else, feeling waves of heat overtake her as her conscience-self stepped a little closer. "It only started getting worse when you showed up!"

"It happened before!"

"Not like this!" Twilight retorted. She clenched her eyes shut, the pain growing worse as she nearly crouched to the floor. "Go away, stop it, stop it, STOP IT!" She whirled around around at her conscience, glaring as she tried to resist the temperature fluctuations that were still afflicting her. "I know you're not real! You're just an illusion, an hallucination that's a result of my desperation for this!"

"If I was an illusion, do you think I'd appear over and over again to you like this?! I'm trying to help you!"

Twilight scowled, stepping closer and fighting through the temperature fluctuations that she seemed to be overcoming. "It's just a result of stress to complete my goal! THAT'S ALL!" Desperate to do anything to get her conscience to leave, she fired a blast of magic in the direction of her other self, though the more rational part of her mind knew that the magic energy would just go through it - she just had to do something to free her mind from this irritating presence. "NOTHING MORE!"

Fluttershy wasn't sure what was going on - why Twilight seemed to be in pain, why the lavender mare was talking to herself, why all this was happening in the first place. But as the Irukandji stings began to warp her mind still further, she began to repeat a despondent mantra.

I'm going to die, Fluttershy thought as the brain-altering properties of the jellyfish's stings began to take effect even more, the spastic pain from the venom running through her bloodstream. It was as if the jellyfish were twisting her thoughts into ones that weren't her own, controlling what she said, what she thought... "She should kill me.... kill me, Twilight... end it for me... I'm going to die, I'm going to die..." She didn't want to say those words, but it was as if her mind was being taken over by something that she couldn't control.

Twilight heard Fluttershy's words and managed a triumphant smile at her other self. "Hehe, see? The jellyfish venom is working properly, and is beginning to take effect on her psyche! It won't be too much longer now!"

But as Twilight spoke, Fluttershy then convinced herself to slowly channel that fear, turning it into anger. The inner mantra changed, to something that was becoming increasingly positive to her in those moments.

No... she's going to die, the captive pony insisted to herself. She's going to die, I'll make sure she'll die! The pegasus shakily voiced her thoughts, as if somepony else was forcing her to say the words. "I'll m-make sure you'll die!"

The words both surprised and hurt Fluttershy to say, but she was beginning to care less and less. For the first few seconds following her vocalization, the normally timid pegasus had felt horrified at saying and even thinking such a terrible thing. And yet, as the seconds began to pass, that horror at her own words and thoughts steadily dissipated, for she knew in her heart that the words were true.

And a part of her - a very small part - was actually thrilled by it.

Forcing her eyes wide open as the temperature extremes started to lessen, Twilight looked over at Fluttershy at her words, then at the brain scanner as the signature of Kindness had begun to increase and separate. Rather than looking unsettled by Fluttershy's assertiveness, a thin smile crept up on her face. She forced a shaky laugh.

"Heheh, you don't know how happy I am to hear you say those words!" The unicorn managed a sinister grin, fighting past the extremes of heat and cold that were afflicting her. "Just a bit more, Fluttershy." She turned to work a few more of the mechanics at her disposal, her voice adopting an almost sing-song tone. "You just have to hold on a little while longer...."

An intently fixed gaze directed at the monitor. An expression that looked increasingly desperate. Desperate to get her hooves on what she craved, desperate to put her plan into action, desperate to be rid of these awful sensations...

"Just until Kindness is completely separated from you. Then my work will be complete... tonight will be the night..."

The scientist trembled, her words accentuated by unhinged laughter, looking back and forth from Fluttershy to the direction of her conscience. "You will die.... heheh, you'll die! You hear that?! You will have to die for Harmony to live! Chaos will die, and Harmony will reign forever!" Her eyes were darting around so much in that instant that the true recipient of her words wasn't entirely clear. The scientist forced her gaze on the monitor again, eyes so hungry for the signature of the Element that she was so desperately searching for.

As another flash of a spark became visible on the monitor, Twilight was so fixated on its presence that she didn't notice her fading conscience-self close her eyes, her own horn glowing with magic. The normal color of magic that Twilight had. For a brief second, she looked more solidified as her horn shone brighter.

"Somehow I'll stop this..." Twilight heard the apparition whisper before she seemed to fade once again.

Fluttershy felt herself grow disoriented and faint from the magnetic waves in conjunction with the torture that had been inflicted on her throughout this terrible night. But she knew that even through the injections keeping her alive and conscious, she still had to suffer through the other half of the alphabet. She was only on M.

M...

The letter seemed to echo in Fluttershy's head as she became steadily aware of the magnetic frequencies being turned down. There was another key thing that M stood for.

M for... Magic. The Element of Magic.

Fluttershy's heart practically stopped as it hit her. Twilight wanted to harness all the Elements... but she harbored the energy of an Element herself - extraordinarily strong aptitude in Magic.

So what will happen to Twilight? Fluttershy thought to herself. After all these terrible, awful things she's tried to justify... is it all for nothing? Is she just going to kill herself if she does reach her goal? But if that's the case, then why doesn't she seem to be concerned at all?

Weakened as she was, Fluttershy was aware that what Kindness she had was being drained from her - while she tried to tell herself that the memories were false, her mind demanded otherwise. But either way, the part of her mind not blinded by fear or rage knew one thing:

Twilight would have to get her own Element somehow.

"What about y-your Element?!"

Twilight stiffened, appearing to be frozen to the spot. Fluttershy couldn't see the unicorn's expression, but she could dimly hear the other pony's slow breathing. "Wh-What?"

"Your E-Element,... M-Magic..." Fluttershy raised her voice, summoning what strength she had to voice her inquiry, a major flaw she witnessed in Twilight's plan. "You're getting all the Elements... but wh-what about y-your own?"

Twilight's vision had appeared to become somewhat glassy, her irises small and out of focus. Fluttershy's words rang within her mind. The pegasus had a very valid point - Twilight did have an Element herself.

She had no idea, however, that that particular facet hadn't been an oversight on Twilight's part.

Rainbow was the only one of the deceased ponies who smiled, and a sadistic smile, at that. "I was right that the marks would curse you! Seems like you failed to see a major flaw in your plan you wretched unicorn! Now you'll just end up-"

But the smile instantly dropped from the cyan pony's face at what she saw next.

Twilight was trembling, her hooves shaking, her mane hung low over her face as her head drooped, tilted toward the ground. It looked as if she were having a complete breakdown from what Fluttershy had pointed out.

But the unicorn wasn't trembling in sadness or anger, letting out her regret in the form of tears. Rather, there was something else.

Twilight was laughing. And it was the most jarring laugh that any of them had heard from her. It was a high-pitched sound, a wild cackle that was part laugh and part shriek, as if a powerful force had overtaken her. As if she were in a mental ward for those who committed murder and were criminally insane.

"Heheheheh... hehehahahaha! You think I would oversee that?" The unicorn was practically doubled over in her deluded shrieks of laughter. "You think that, heheh, I would overlook such an important detail?!" Her horn glowed as she glanced upward, looking nearly possessed. "I know that I have one of the Elements! In fact, I harbor the Element of Magic, which aids in what I'm planning to do! You think I'd be so deluded to forget the key aspect of the Elements to repel chaos?! Hahahahaha!"

"Yes," Rainbow growled, her expression both disappointed and enraged. Her frustration at the situation consumed her to the point that she was unaware of Pinkie and Applejack stepping away from the outside view to hide behind her.

The dark aura from Twilight's horn seemed to increase, briefly glancing over to the corpses of her other friends. Her gaze turned back to Fluttershy and she smiled. A dangerous, unhinged smile spread across her face as her horn grew brighter.

"I have a special plan for that!"