Chapter 1: Experimentation
Mercy holds the broken sword, and separates true kings from tyrants.
The lab was bustling with ponies in white coats, some holding clipboards, some just trying to get into the viewing room. A very important DNA scientist was working on a large project, and a select few trainees had been given the privilege to watch. As the viewing room filled with ponies, the lights finally came on in the small lab room. The trainees immediately began writing down notes on their observations, as they began seeing what was going on.
The room was sterile white, with no windows and a single door on the opposite side of the room. In the centre of the room was an operating table, with an unconscious person lying on it. The person seemed alive according to the vital signs, but was under anaesthetics. She was strapped down to the table as well, which seemed suspicious for an unconscious patient. Soon, the door opened, and the DNA scientist walked in, leading a different patient, a woman who looked extremely different from the first.
The DNA scientist sat the new patient down in a small armchair, and moved to the operating table. Here, she grabbed an empty syringe and gently injected into the unconscious patients arm. Once she had left it in for quite some time, she drew it out, showing it had filled with blood. When she had observed the red substance substantially, she placed it onto a small metal table nearby, next to a vial that contained a blue liquid inside it.
She pulled out a book, and began reading incantations from it, waving her horn over the vial of blue liquid. It began emitting strange wisps of black smoke that mixed in with the substance, changing it from light blue to a dark red. Then she once again grabbed the syringe, and put the red liquid inside it into the red liquid in the vial. The liquids merged into a black, vile substance that swirled inside of the vial as if it were a living being, thrashing into the walls, attempting to escape confinement.
The DNA scientist smiled at her creation, and held the vial into the light. As she swirled it around, the liquid seemed to turn the light that went through it into a black beam, shading a small patch of the floor. The trainees in the viewing room looked at the entire thing with disgust, as the light seemed unable to penetrate the thickness of the liquid. Once the DNA scientist was satisfied, she carried the vial to the second patient she had brought in earlier, smiling with a devilish grin.
She lifted her other hoof, standing on her hind legs as she used it to open the patient’s mouth. The patient didn’t resist, but this seemed to be because of the fact she was bruised almost everywhere and seemed weakened already. The DNA scientist poured the black liquid into her mouth, and then forced it down her throat by blocking her nose, and throwing her head back. As she swallowed, the patient seemed to look as though she had seen a ghost.
The DNA scientist stood back a few paces as the patient fell to the floor. The air around her seemed to go dark red, and she opened her mouth as she began scream. A blood-wrenching screeching sound that filled the entire building. Her body looked as if it was being torn apart from the inside out. The ground was shaking slightly, and it began turning the same black as the liquid she had just consumed.
And then, it stopped. The patient was lying on the ground, not speaking a word. She was already too weak to withstand what had occurred, and so her frail body was limp. But, it wasn’t the patient that had drunk the potion that was lying on the floor. It was the one that was strapped down onto the operating table. Both of the patients looked exactly the same now. The trainees watching were horrified at what they had just seen. The DNA scientist however, was ecstatic at the results.
Suddenly, the door on the other side of the room burst open, revealing 3 armed royal guards. “Don’t move ma’am! You’re under arrest!” they shouted. The DNA scientist simply gave them a look of fury, lighting up her horn and lifting the book off the metal table and into her coat. Then, she lit it up again, sending a massive red aura over her body, before it popped loudly, and she was gone. The royal guards simply stood there, confused as to where she had gone.
After clearing everyone out of the building so they could set up a crime scene, guards began asking the trainees what they had seen. They received various stories, most of them seemed gibberish, but they all described the event as disgusting and horrible, even as a defilement of nature. Whatever this person did, it wasn’t good. Many of them spoke of dark magic, which was very unnerving. Dark magic had been removed long ago, and if it had returned…
The guardsmen immediately began soaring off toward Canterlot, to give their grave news to the Princess. The trainees began heading home, others staying to help with cleaning up. The building was quiet now, the silence amplifying the horror and dread that the ponies in it were feeling. The guards that had stayed behind were keeping them out of the crime scene, though none of them wanted to touch the patients anyway, fearing they would be contaminated by the evil.
As for the DNA scientist, she disappeared. But many trainees were scared of what she was capable of. The power to change one person into another was a very dangerous one, and it could be used for various evil deeds. There was no doubt she wasn’t gone for good, and even less doubt that she would be back. But they did not dwell on this too much, as it brought back the painful memories of what she had done, and the evil she had toyed with in the small room they looked into.
