Science Is For The Mad

Chapter 2: "I have made a grave mistake."

"Hardwire, pass the inorganic mercury." I ordered my assistant, Hardwire. The purple filly complied.

"Yes Professor!" she said, levitating a bottle towards me. I very carefully pored the precious liquid into a vial of arsenic. When I wasn't studying creatures, I was mixing together seemingly impossibly dangerous forms of poison. Hardwire hadn't any parents, so as her caretaker, she had my consent to work on it. I knew it was dangerous, but she was too smart to mess around with poison. And she wouldn't stop begging me anyway, so I just complied to get her to stop asking. I would be a horrible parent.

"You drink that, and you die a slow, painful, horrible death." I would warn her. Fortunately, she took me seriously. And if she drank it, she would die a horrible death. The poisons usually killed with paralysis, a horrendous death in which the victim is conscious the entire time it takes the poison to kill. During the process, the victim is paralyzed meaning their limbs wouldn't respond to their commands, so the victim couldn't move. These poisons took especially long to do their work, so it would be an especially long and painful death.

"Ha! The mixture is almost complete!" I laughed. Hardwire gave me a look.

"You're crazy, you know that?" she giggled.

"Don't you think otherwise!" I replied. "Ok, now I need a dangerous dose of Scopolamine." I instructed the filly. The reason behind 3 extremely dangerous ingredients was so even the strongest individuals would be affected by the poison. The filly returned with the ingredient. "Thank you, Hardwire."

"No problem, Professor!" she cheered. She certainly loved praise. I stopped her before she could put down the drug.

"Will you do the honors?" I offered. She gazed at me with awe.

"HECK YEAH!" she shouted. She then dropped the pill into the mixture, watching it disintegrate under the toxin's surface.

"Excellent work, my little scientist!" I praised the filly, patting her on the back. "Now, we can make a few more samples, and show our work to the army, they buy it and mass produce it, and we get money!" I declared. "Or, we could keep it to ourselves." I said. I liked that idea better, for some reason. You never know when poison will come in handy these days.

Frigidus membrum was completed. It has a simple meaning behind the name; limb freeze. I had a massive collection of poisons, the most effective items in the collection being Cyanide and Botulinum Toxin. Of course, Nightshade was in there too. No wonder everypony thought I was mad.

-2 Days Later-

"Hey professor, look at the paper!" Cinder said, levitating a newspaper over to me. It was lunch, and we were sitting outside Sugarcube corner. I stared at the paper, terrified by the front page;

"Murder victim burned to death! Authority goes crazy!"

On the morning of June 12th, 1411, a stallion's corpse was found in his house. Most of the flesh had been burned off, and all that remained was the black skeleton. Local forensics scientist Wildmane has determined it belongs to none other than Penciltip. His neighbor, Goose, says she knocked on his door after hearing some sort of crashing and screaming. "Nopony answered, so I so I just went and got the police." Says goose. The authority is on the look out for any suspects, but have almost no evidence to make an assumption. "Such a murder is strange," states chief of Ponyville police Heavyhoof. "as there was no burns found on the walls or floor. As though he was the only thing burning." Officers recommend to have a phone at the ready, in case the murder strikes again.

I was absolutely horrified.

"I have made a grave mistake." I mumbled.

"What?" Cinder asked, confused.

"Nothing." I replied. I failed the spell! My thoughts filled with images of the horrific things that were soon to come. Don't worry, Strangebrain, I told myself. Maybe it's just a coincidence. It probably is, and that means I just have to deal with a murder, not a supernatural being with the ability to stare at you until you burn to death. This thought calmed me a bit, and the growing tenseness in my body was gone. Of course, I still had my suspicions. If it was Tenebris, I knew how to stop him, and how to avoid his attacks. But nopony else knew. Of course, I wasn't going to tell them how to save themselves because of 2 things;

1) They would ignore me, simply thinking I was crazy.

2) I wasn't sure it was Tenebris anyway!

So, I decided to just disregard it in the meantime. Not a smart decision, on my half, but too late now. I scratched my mane, and decided I would go home to think, and try to understand what is to come.

"Well, Cinder, I have work to do, so I best take my leave." I told the mare, getting off the bench.

"Ok, see you soon!" she said, waving.

"Farewell." I replied, trotting away to my house. I opened the door to see Hardwire poking a stick into a cage. "Hardwire, stop tormenting the test subject!" I commanded. She complied.

"Sorry, professor!" she shrugged. I sighed.

"So, any notes on behavior?" I asked the filly.

"Well, he really likes berries." she mumbled, pointing at the berry stained, toad-like creature.

"Vegetarian..." I mumbled. "Well, anyhow, I have some thinking to do, so keep an eye on little Velox here." I instructed her. Velox meant "swift". The little toad got that name form his surprisingly fats running, for an amphibian. he ran in a manner similar to that of a crocodile, his legs flailing back and forth.

I walked into my thinking room, the lab, and sat in a padded chair. A computer console swung towards my face, still going no closer than 1 feet towards me. A voice like that of a robotic male's greeted me.

"Hello, professor!" the voice greeted, a smiling stallion appearing on the screen before me.

"Good day, Glistening Spark." I replied to the voice.

"What brings you into therapy today, my dear sir?" Spark asked.

"Oh, just a bit of strange things coming up in the news that concerned me." I answered, still calming down from reading the paper.

"Oh, is it perhaps that sex scandal about Carrot top?" Spark asked, the stallion on the screen's face going from a happy one to one that suggested he was snickering.

"Of course not, that stuff comes up in the news all the time!" I answered, a serious expression on my face. "It's about the murder."

The stallion's face went from laughing to frightened.

"Ah.... the murder..." Spark mumbled, his tone going from happy to cold, and quiet. A chill ran down my spine. On the screen, several pictures of whom I presumed to be Penciltip appeared on the screen. "Penciltip was a poliite young stallion, without many rivals, so finding a suspect is especially hard. What's even stranger is how he died. He was burned, but he seemed to be the only thing so much as touched by any sort of fire. What troubles you about the murder, sir?" asked the console, showing the stallion again, a sincere expression on his face. Spark scared me sometimes, with how calm he seemed sometimes.

"The fact that I feel it is linked with Tenebris Equum!" I declared. "First off, when I sent Tenebris "back", no time rifts appeared. There was almost always 2. Furthermore, Tenebris always kills through incineration of the flesh, correct? So I feel it is my fault by failing the spell to send him home. If anypony dies, it's my fault." I finished. The stallion put his hoof to his chin in thought.

"That's an interesting conclusion." Spark mumbled, deep in thought. "So, did explaining your fears to somepony help?" he asked. I had to think about this for a moment.

"I guess, a bit." I finally mumbled.

"Lovely, sir!" cheered Spark. "I am glad to be of use."

"Well, best be going now." I said, getting out of the chair and clicking a button on the monitor. The screen swung back to the wall, barely missing impact. I left to the living room. I saw that Hardwire was poking Velox through the gaps in the caging, giggling as it cuddled her finger. "Uh, Hardwire, I don't suppose you would do that if he was carnivorous, would you?" I asked. She looked at me.

"Of course not!" she replied, clearly serious. I uttered a simple "ok" and jotted down notes about Velox on a notepad.

Name: Velox

Test subject no. 25

Height: Aproximately 7 inches..

Weight: 89g.

Diet: Vegetarian.

Danger level: 2%

Gender: Male

Similar to: Toads, frogs.

Movement speed: 8mph maximum.

Methods of killing: None.

"Hardwire, that's all we need to know about Velox." I told the purple filly. "You may go home now."

"Bye, Velox!" she waved the toad-like creature goodbye. "Bye, Professor!"

"Farewell, Hardwire." I said in farewell. She pranced out the front door, shutting it behind her. I never did know where that foal was off to, nor did I know where she lived. Sometimes she would say something about her friend "Scootaloo" or something like that.

My horn flashed, and Velox was enveloped in a grey glow. With a sudden flash, he was gone. Back to looking for time rifts. How fun.

I was relieved to find 3 time rifts altogether, meaning that at least THIS time, the spell worked. I dealt with them as though they were almost nothing. If they had a chance to grow, however, they would be significantly harder to remove. Exhausted by paranoia and my extensive use of magic, I stumbled home, slumped through the door, and collapsed onto my bed as sleep enveloped me in a state of bliss.