The strange pony.

"What did you just say?" Twilight asked him. The stallion had introduced himself as Brain Storm. Twilight had invited her in the castle, while Applejack headed back to Sweet Apple Acres. He sounded too much like Twilight for words. A few questions were asked, and answers given. Then the story of Dusty started. Back to the present, Twilight was hoping that she'd heard wrong.

"I said that what she is is a golem. Mostly an earth type to be more accurate." Brain replied.

"What - wh - why?" Twilight sputtered. "How did - why would you?" Twilight was incredulous at the fact that an unicorn would want an earth golem, or any type of golem, in fact; Magic, Air or Earth. Golems are used for things that either the poor couldn't do or rich didn't want to do; pulling huge loads or slipping through cracks to fix leaks or (these days the most popular around villains back then) a humongous army. But nowadays they're just lost to most of the ponies, earth, Pegasi or unicorn. She'd only read a little about them because they aren't used much anymore.

"I - I'd wanted a sister." Brain replied. Twilight stared at Brain, her mouth open. Spike closed it for her. "I was just a yearling, and all that I had was my dad, after my mom died after a miscarriage of my little baby sister."

"I'm so sorry." Twilight said.

"It's ok. That's just why everything happened like it did. Dad took it the hardest, burying himself in his studies. He was a unicorn scientist, much like you, actually." He sighed "Dad saw how sad that I was, and showed me how to make an earth golem. It was a wondrous experience. The ground rose to my hight, and began to form. She didn't have eyes that blinked, a horn or a mouth, but she was beautiful all the same. A flowing mane and tail, and was shaped like what I'd remembered of my mother in every other way. I named her Brain, after me; again I was only a yearling.

"I told her what to do, and she did it. We walked through our garden, played hide and go seek, all the games that I would've played with my sister. She didn't have to eat, or sleep, or blink, but I loved her all the same. It was fun for a bit, but then I found one of Dad's spells. How to animate, or give the animated object a pony type personality. It was perfect for what I'd wanted, a sister. I cast it on Brain. The first thing that I noticed after I'd woken up from that trance that the spell made, was she had eyes. Big, blue eyes, just like mine. We stared at each other for a bit, and then she opened her mouth and said 'Hello'. I'd jumped around in joy, and she smiled. At the time, I didn't know how dangerous she would become. For a while we played, and walked through the garden.

"And then I started school, learning science and math, and I loved it. We tried to do an experiment that our homework outlined for us to do. That's how I got my cutie mark." Twilight looked at it again. A blue beaker with a cloud rising from it. "Brain got hers at the same time, the same type. Brain would look at my books and try to help me. Dad just started a study on the power of pony magic. Those days he got a little too much into his work, you know? Well, one night when he thought that there wasn't anything else that he could test, he got the idea to try a test on Brain. She was making sure that I was still okay while I was sleeping; he gave her a magical hunger spell, or something like that. (Thankfully nopony knows of it today.) Well, anyway, he gave her a very strong 'want for power' along with a unicorn horn, and everything went down hill from there. But this is the most important part: Chaos started when she tried to make herself into an Alicorn golem. It didn't work, of course, so she made the three types; thousands and thousands of them. She gave them personalities as well. Maybe she thought that they would give the Alicorn more power, I don't know. She would combine all of them into a great Alicorn, so that nothing could stop her from taking all of the power that she wanted. I was only learning a few powerful offensive spells. I was helpless. I'd done too much.

But in desperation, I gave the last a different personality. She was Dusty; I asked her to not listen to Brain,  and I gave her the power of my love and friendship for my sister. As she went with the others to be combined into Thunderbird, the Alicorn, something happened. All I know is that a cloud of dust enveloped them all; Brain, Dusty, and Thunderbird. When the dust blew away, Dusty was the only one there, laying down in a faint, not moving after what she'd done. Later on, after dad came back home, I told him what had happened. He smiled. He told me 'Good job.' and asked me where she was. After that, he put me into private school and took Dusty to the other side of the Everfree, and I never heard back from him. He died a few months back." He sighed.

"I'm sorry." Twilight said.

"No, don't be." Brain replied.

"Why?" Twilight asked.

"If you let me explain, you'll know." Twilight stayed silent. "I wanted to collect his things, so I braved the forest. I found her in there, or she found me. She pounced on me, hatred in her movements. I dodged her, thinking she was a wild animal. I noticed her cutie mark, and realized who it was. I held her back with a bit of magic. I asked her why she was doing this. She looked at my face. The eyes that I saw were so old, Princess, so full of fear and hatred. She backed down and called after me as I ran,  'You're father tried to undo what you did.' I didn't understand how she could talk so loud after such a distance, or what she'd said, and didn't want that to be true, if possible. I ran to his lab, and searched for his scientific journals. I needed to find out if what she'd said was true. Princess Twilight, (sniff) he butchered her. Every piece of her was separated, run through every scan possible and then sewn back together, along with other horrible things that I can't say. Thankfully she ran away from the monster that he'd turned into ages ago. But he opened up scars to deep to heal, and now she's haunted by Brain and Thunderbird. They threaten to come back at any time now." He blew his nose on the tissue he had. "It was my fault. I need to make it up to her."

"How?" Twilight asked, afraid of a pony that would do that for science. And was that golem same mare that she just saw a few hours ago?

"Just help me find her, please, Princess."