Sparkswirl's empire

"Wake up! Wake up!"

Cadence opens her eyes, only to find a troubled looking Twilight shaking her and two gas masks laying next to her, on the ground.

"What happened, did they leave us alone? You showed them how to cook it and they actually left us alone?" asks Cadence slowly pushing herself up from the ground.

"No, I they didn't. Oh Celestia, I'm a horrible pony!" shouts Twilight, clearly stressed out.

Cadence looks around the room. She walks up to the two ponies lying on the ground and starts touching them with her hoof. "Are they...are they...?"

"Yes!" shouts Twilight, as tears start dropping from her eyes.

"What happened?" asks Cadence, still unaware of how things ended up the way they did.

Twilight answers through sobbing "Sparklamyne. I mixed sparklamyne with a cooling liquid at high temperature. Then I poured the liquid into water. It causes a mini explosion and lots of dangerous fumes. It was the best solution to get us out of the given situation. The explosion served as distraction and the fumes were too colorful to see through."

"O...okay," looks Cadence around, still confused by the given situation "what now?"

Twilight lifts her head "what to you mean by what now?"

"Well, we have two dead ponies and...well, that's pretty much it, we have teo dead ponies. We just can't leave them here."

Twilight starts sobbing even more "I don't know, hide them, for now, I need to gather my thoughts. I'll think up something by tomorrow."

"H...hide the bodies? Th...that's illegal, we could both get into big trouble for this," starts Cadence trembling.

Twilight looks up to Cadence with a sad and desperate face: "And you think killing ponies isn't? Cadence, I'm a criminal now. I hace commited a crime, worst crime there is, taken a ponies life. I need to live with this knowledge for the last few years I have left. You were the one eho dragged me into this, you were the pony who caused me to do this. You have to help me out now, we're in this together!"

Cadence starts excusing herself: "Hey I didn't ask you to sneak into my house!"

Twilight looks up at Cadence and Cadence can detect a bit of anger in her eyes and tone "If I wouldn't have shown up, you would've been dead by now. Show some gratitude!"

"Fine, I'll hide the bodies. But you promise that you figure out what to do by tomorrow?"

"I Pinkie promise!"

Twilight slowly and quietly levitates open the castle door. She sneaks through the hallway, to the medical room. "Now lets see" says Twilight opening a book "Treating bullet wounds". She followed every step in the book step by step. As the bullet was out, she quickly put bandage around it. The bullet didn't go to deep, hopefully it'll heal up fast. She closed the door of the medical room and sneaked into her bedroom.

"Who disturbs the great and powerful Trixie in the middle of the night?!"

Twilight gets shocked, that she had woken up Trixie "Umm, it's me Twilight."

Trixie looks at Twilight "And why are you here so late? You think it's funny to mock Trixie by showing up late at night? I was worried, you know. Where were you"

Twilight, trying to avoid any further questions answers "I...I visited Cadence. We have some money problems, I thought she could help out a bit."

"Hmmph, whatever, I'm going back to sleep. No snuggling tonight, makes you think about not doing things like that again."

"Fine," answers Twilight, making herself comfortable in the bed.

Twilight opens up her eyes, the sun is already shining bright upon Equestria. A new day, a new hope. A hope, that yesterday never hapened. Twilight jumps out of her bed, badly hurting her backhoof. "Ouch! It's...it's still there. The bandage is there and that means...I'm a killer." Twilight quickly took a shower and threw on her bathrobe. She went to the hallway and started walking towards the castle door, going to pick up her mail and then read it and then eat and then..."No! I can't do it, I can't waste time here with this! She pushed open the library door and gazed upon the large selection of books. Sne quickly went around, picking up every single book about acids that she could find. "Dissolving a pony? What acid should I use to dissolve a full entire pony body?" After some searching she finds what she was looking for "hydrofluoric acid."

Twilight quickly takes out her hoofphone and calls Cadence: "Cadence, lets meet at the lab, I know what to do!"

Cadence pushes open the lab door and after she and Twilight enter the room, Twilight locks the door behind her. "Now, Cadence, it's important that nopony would enter this room, not until the reaction has finished." Twilight looks through the lab equipment and chemicals and asks: "Umm, Cadence? Where's hydrofluoric acid?"

Cadence looks at Twilight with a confused face and asks "hydro what now?"

Twilight looses control: "Hydrofluoric acid. The chemical we were supposed to use to dissolve these bodies. I thought this lab had those!"

"And I thought you were gonna turn yourself in!"

There's a silence in the lab. Twilight's face turns from angry to worried to desperate to sad, "You thought what?"

Cadence realises she had said something she shouldn't have: "I thought you were gonna take this time to say goodbye to everypony you cared about and just give yourself in, for killing those ponies."

Twilight sat down and rested her back against the wall, "you thought...you thought that I was gonna give myself in? Go to jail, for...for this. What would Spike think of me? What would Trixie think of me? What would Rainbow Dash think of me? What would...what would...what would princess Celestia think of me?! You thought, that I was just gonna go out there and admit to everypony, that I, the princess of friendship, former student of princess Celestia...am a murderer?"

"Well, I thought it was the right thing to do."

Twilight looks at Cadence "Right thing to do? You want to hear what is a right thing to do? Save yourself and your friend from murderous psychopats. And I did it! I saved both of our lives and you just thought, that I was gonna give myself in? Tell me exactly, what did those two ponies want from you anyway?"

"The spark. The very thing you said you were going to cook for them. I used to work in the spark market. I was a small part of a big business, I was the one who got the supplies. All the compounds needed to make a batch," explains Cadence.

"Wait, this Spark...tell me, how much can you earn from it?"

Cadence looks at Twilight with a surprised face, "Well, all I know is that there is big momey moving in the business. The purer the product, the more you can earn."

"And you know all the compounds?" asks Twilight.

Cadence nods. Twilight makes up a plan, "In that case...we have a lab, we have the compounds and we have...the cook."

Cadence looks at Twilight, "The cook? We don't have...-"

"I'm the cook!" interupts Twilight.

There's silence in the room, until Twilight breaks it, "Get me sulfur, fluorite and water. Leave the rest to me."

Twilight walks into the lab early the next day. She can see that Cadence had got her the things she had asked for. "Time to do chemistry."

Twilight burns the sulfur, to produce sulfur dioxide. From there on, she uses oxygen with vanadium(V) oxide as catalyst. She then proceeds, to hydrate the obtained sulfur trioxide into sulfuric acid. And condensation to finish it off. Twilight looks at the finished product - 20 gallons of sulfuric acid. "Okay, according to the book, all I have to do now, is combine the sulfuric acid with fluorite and I'll have the finished product - hydrofluoric acid."

As Twilight finally finishes the batch of hydrofluoric acid, her excitement of the chemical process slowly starts to fade and she starts to remember why she had to obtain it in the first place. She looked at the blanket, covering the two ponies lying on the ground. Not the bast way to hide dead bodies, but neither she or Cadence where familiar with doing anything like that. Twilight walked to the plastic barrel, sitting in the corner of the room. She gulped, "No going back after this." As she started to move the barrel, she started to have a moment of doubt, "Is that what I truly want to do? Dissolve the bodies of two ponies?" She looked at the blanket, hidding two dead ponies underneath it. "No, I have to be strong, I have to go through with this. Not just for myself, but also for everypony I care about. I can't let everypony down like that. It was a moment of self defence, there was nothing else I could've done. If I'd have to relive yesterday again, I would do absolutely the same thing!" She dragged the plastic barrel across the room to the dead bodies. She took off the blanket and started lifting the dark blue pony with a levitation spell. "Ding ding, dinga ding, ding ding, dinga ding!" Twilight was startled by an unexpected sound and dropped the pony onto the ground. "No, how could've this all gone so wrong?!" She dropped onto the ground and slowly lifted her front hoofs to the air. "I give up! I know what I've done is horrible, but I didn't have another choice." The sound kept on going and Twilight slowly turned to the source of the sound - her pocket. She slowly levitated her phone out of her pocket, lifted it to her head and answered the phone, "Yes, this is Twilight Sparkle speaking."

"Hey Twilight, where are you? I said Lyra's gonna have a birthday and I said I was gonna come and pick you up, so be ready," can Twilight hear Rainbow Dash's voice.

Twilight is still a bit shocked by what had just happened, but tries to answer calmly, "O-Oh, the birthday? Well, you didn't realy specify in the letter, when it was going to be,"

"I sent you the letter two days ago. Which means you got it yesterday, so it's only logical I'd show up today. You know, one day to prepare, buy a gift."

"Dash, I can't really speak at the moment, I'm in the middle of something. You can go on without me, I know where Lyra lives, I'll show up a bit later. Pick up a gift on the way there..."

"Wait, you haven't bought a gift yet? But I told you---" Dash's phone call is cut off by Twilight.

Twilight sighs in relief, relief of not getting caught, relief of it just being a simple phone call. But there wasn't time to waste, there was job to be done, a job which no one in their right mind would look forward to doing - disposal of corpses. Twilight began with the same process she was cut off from, by an unexpected call from Dash. Twilight lifts up the pony and throws him into the plastic barrel. Then Twilight puts on her gas mask and starts emptying gallon after gallon into the barrel.

Twilight runs through the streets of ponyville. "What could I possibly buy for Lyra? She stops in front of a candy store. "That!" She quickly runs inside, "10 Kg of candy, fast! Any flavour, just candy!" The shopkeeper looks suspiciously at Twilight, but fills the bag with candy anyhow. "That'll be 50 bits!" Twilight picked out her wallet, reminding her of again of the money trouble she had, "Umm...you know, I only have 47 bits, perhaps I could get a discount or pay up next time I'll be here?" The shopkeep looks at Twilight with a grumpy face and pours back 1 Kg from the bag, "Now it's 45 bits, you get to keep the 2."

Twilight looks at shopkeep with a disappointed face, but takes the candy, "You have a very friendly service here. I am so going to tell about this place to my friends," says Twilight when walking out of the door.

"What's that smell?" asks a filly walking past Twilight.

"Shush, you can't talk about a princess like that," bickers the fillies mother with the young filly.

"But she's one of the useless princesses, you know, the one who---"

"Keep your mouth!" whispers the fillies mother at an angry tone.

Twilight felt sudden anger flow through her, "The useless princess? That's what they call her nowadays? And it's all cause of princess Celestia..."

But Twilight's train of thought was ended by something rather unexpected, Twilight actually realised that the filly was right, she smelled, smelled badly. "How could've I forgot? The chemistry I've been working with for the full day, and I would've almost went to Lyra's house smelling like this. Boy, that wouldn't have raised a ton of questions."

She pushed opened the SPA door. "I need perfume, strong one, fast!" Aloe looked at her and quickly brought out a pink perfume bottle from the back room, "Only the best for a princess." Twilight opened the wallet, only to see  2 bits lying in it. "Umm, I have a SPA card, could I use it? I don't have any money with me right now..."

"Of course you can use it!" answered Aloe, taking the card from Twilight's hand and registering the purchase. "Have a nice day!" shouted she after Twilight, who had quickly ran out after getting the card back.

Knock, knock.

Lyra opened the door, "Twilight, you made it! I thought you weren't coming, when I saw Dash show up alone."

"Oh, I had to run a few errands and you know...busy life..."

"Nah, I totally understand. It's Dash you should be worried about, she seems kinda sad, she's usually more active."

Twilight hands Lyra her bag of candy, "Oh. Hey here's your present, do you mind if I go talk to Dash for a while?"

"Sure. Hey, those are from candy emporium, I love this place. Great candy and friendly workers," looks Lyra at the bag of candy, "How much did you exactly buy?"

Twilight hesitates for awhile, "I bought... 10 kilos, 10 kilos of candy"

"Heh, that's a lot, I'm gonna get a sugar rush out of this," talks Lyra through a mouthful of candy.

Twilight walks up to Dash.

"Hey, there buddy, you made it!" shouts Dash with a tone, that is pretending hapiness, while trying to hide actual sadness.

Twilight looks at Dash with a concerned look, "Hey is something wrong, I'm sorry I wasn't home..."

"No, no, it isn't cause of you. It's...it's just work troubles..."

Twilight sits down next to Dash, "So, what's wrong with work?"

"I, I thought I had a good lead. You see, me and Lyra had been keeping an eye on that scumbag for awhile now and yesterday, she just slipped out of our sight. We haven't seen him since..."

Twilight tries to comfort Dash, "Hey, don't worry about it, you're a good EDEA agent, I'm sure you'll find him eventually. Maybe you could describe him to me, I could give you a call if I happen to see him."

"Heh, well I doubt you'll see him, but he's dark blue colored, hidden cutie mark, dark hair and---"

Twilight interrupts, "Red eyes?"

"Yeah, red eyes, how did you know?" asked Dash surprisedly.

Twilight thinks about the pony she left soaking in the barrel, before she left the lab, "I...I think I saw him...in...Crystal Empire...when I was visiting Cadence...he walked past me on the street."

"Heh, that super brain of your remembers every little detail doesn't it?" starts Rainbow Dash poking fun.

"Not everything, that pony, he just seemed off, kinda different," starts Twilight explaining herself.

"You got a good eye for scumbags. You know, I know you love your safe little job at the university, but maybe, one day, I could take you on a ride along? You know, hanging out, having an adventure again, like back in the days, when we had our group together."

"Yeah, maybe one day," replies Twilight, letting out a small chuckle.

"Hey, what's this?" asks Cadence pointing at the plastic barrel in the middle of the room.

"It's where I dissolved one of them and it's where I'm going to dissolve the other one as well," answers Twilight.

Cadence's face turns worried as she says, "Yeah, that's gonna be a problem."

Twilight starts feeling everything inside her grumble, like something bad has happened, "What? Why? I got enough hydrofluoric acid left..."

"He woke up!" shouts Cadence.

"What?" asks Twilight, feeling the grumbling inside her getting worse.

As the door opens up, Cadence points at a dark green pony, tied against a tube. "He started to wake up, I felt it was a good idea to tie him up, who knows what he would do in a situation like that. Right, Twilight? Twilight?"

Twilight's heart had started bumping at an incredible speed and she tried to breathe deeply, to get it back to normal. As her heart pulse returned to normal, she started stressimg out, "Oh Celestia, no, this was not supposed to happen. This was not supposed to happen..."

Cadence looked at her and decided to ask the question, "Isn't it a good thing? That means you're only half the murderer you thought you were."

"Half the murderer?" asks Twilight from Cadence, "You know what this pony is going to do, once he gets his health back to normal? He's going to escape and he's going to send dangerous people after us, after the ponies we care about...No! We can't let him live!"

"Can't let him live? What are you trying to say here, murder him?" asks Cadence from Twilight.

"This, at the given circumstances, seems to be our best option," answers Twilight.

"Well, I ain't gonna do it. I don't know about you, but I'm not that comfortable with murdering other ponies," points out Cadence.

"What? You think I liked poisoning these two? Do you think I get some kind of pleasure out of making sure this guy here dies? No, I'm doing this, because this is our best option. Our only option, so to say, cause if we don't do it, he's gonna hurt us and everybody we care about."

Cadence sighs, "I'm not capable of murder."

"I know you aren't and that's why...," Twilight gulps, "I have to do it."