It had been three days since Twilight had returned. Two days since she had last eaten anything. One second since the last delivery of notes. And yet, in all that time, she hadn’t stopped working for a moment. She’d just sip the water Spike brought, and ignore everything else. She’d send out requests through her door for books, reports, and other such things, but otherwise, it was like she had gone and died. Just like her enemy had. Twilight’s friends and family had of course passed by with concern, but Celestia had come to her rescue. The regal alicorn always seemed to understand the bigger picture. For now, Twilight was offered her privacy as she worked day and night on every single temporal, combat, and medical spell she could find.
The newest delivery of papers were autopsy reports. Twilight’s eyes blinked, and she showed some emotion for the first time in days. The alicorn massaged her face, and it only just occurred to her now how grimy her fur was. How must she look to everypony else? Like a criminal, she supposed. Twilight bit her lip, feeling a pain growing in her heart and brain. She immediately re-focused her attention on the reports and began to read them. No feeling if you just worked, after all. She skipped the one listing cause of death, she knew that one better than anypony. Instead, her eyes caught on a diagram of her victim’s body, seeing an arrow drawn on her skull with notes on it. Apparently, there had been a large lump beneath this unicorn’s horn, leading to an increased magic pool. That explained quite a bit, but wasn’t all that surprising. Twilight had had her suspicions that the unicorn had been a mutant of some kind. Twilight’s breath caught in her throat as she read the next note.
“The lump would have created pressure on her brain, leading to an erratic personality, unclear memories, and possible insanity. Combined with previously mentioned history of insanity in the family(see figure 6), it is unlikely the one called Starlight Glimmer possessed full sanity or responsibility for her actions”
That name seemed familiar, but how? Twilight looked up to the walls plastered with notes, and wondered if there had ever been a purpose to this. She had just set herself into work mode on researching...something, but she just couldn’t remember. It was as if she had been puppeteered the whole time. Twilight slowly touched her head, trying to get her prodigious brain to get out of work mode. She looked hard at the name, and the memories suddenly snapped back in with all the force of a thunderbolt. How could she have forgotten? Twilight took a look at the calendar and gasped. She couldn’t be too late for what she had to do. Twilight disappeared in a burst of purple, leaving the notes to flutter in the aftermath of her teleport.
The staff in the morgue all leaped into the air an inch as a wild eyed and grimy alicorn suddenly appeared in their midst. She turned to the closest pony and spoke out in a rough voice, eyes wide.
“Where is Starlight Glimmer?” she croaked. The terrified mare pointed to a door just behind her, leading to Twilight almost ripping the door off its hinges as she entered it. She couldn’t be too late for this. Slamming the door shut behind her with magic, Twilight trotted up to the stiff body. It was sewn up and the neck realigned so that she looked almost peaceful. Even so, Twilight couldn’t look at her victim for more than a second at a time without feeling like the world was collapsing on her. Then the corpse began to speak.
“You're worse than any villain you've ever fought” Starlight sighed, sitting up and glaring at Twilight with open eyes. “You don’t deserve your crown” Starlight continued, getting off the table she was laid on and keeping focus on Twilight. Twilight felt her heart flutter as the ghost got near to her, but she planted herself firm all the same. She’d just do what Cadance had always told her when she saw ghosts after all-nighters: breathe. Squeezing her eyes shut, Twilight did just that. She wasn't going to have her mission stopped by this. When she opened her eyes, Starlight was a corpse once more. It brought more sadness than it did peace to the alicorn. She deserved everything Starlight’s ghost(if it even existed) brought to her. She wasn’t here to listen to the prattlings of a sleep deprived brain, however. She was here to listen to a dead one.
“I need you to help me with this, Starlight. The pony who killed you, she’s going to get away without being punished at all. Just because she’s a princess, and because you were the enemy of all Equestria” Twilight spoke softly, touching her horn to Starlight’s. “We need to be equal with the justice we give out. I agreed with you on that, at least” Twilight said, taking another deep breath before beginning to pull with her magic. It was often said that somepony’s soul was magic. The reverse was true as well, and in that swollen tumor that gave Starlight her freakish power, Twilight found some magic. She cradled it in her own magenta aura, gently tugging it out of the body. Twilight suspended the magic in mid-air before focusing her magic onto the floor. One of her eyes turned pure white, the other to green and red with dark smoke. Light and dark magic, how fitting for her to use. From her right emerged a blueish crystal, where some of the teal magic that used to be Starlight was channeled and stored. Once Twilight sensed the teal magic would give no more, she promptly used the dark magic to shove the remaining teal magic into her left eye.
“You lunatic, do you have any idea what happened in these futures?!” somepony screamed before Twilight felt pain explode across her jaw. She staggered back only before further pain bloomed across her stomach, making her roll onto her back and wheeze. If any punishment fit the crime, this was it. Twilight would suffer exactly as Starlight had. Twilight felt herself beg, saw herself scream for help. She just wanted friends, that was all. She had been alone forever. And then the other pony, the cruel pony, laughed in her face. The alicorn grew larger as it taunted her, savagely mocking her life and mistakes. Twilight desperately lashed out, but it wasn’t enough, the pony was too quick.
The pony fired a beam at her, and Twilight felt her arm break. She almost vomited, but the dark magic kept her going. By now, her illusionary foe had become a vicious monster, wreathed in smoke and lightning. Twilight fired in panic at her, but the monster foiled her at every turn before wrapping its claws around her throat. The monster was saying something, but Twilight couldn’t listen, fear taking hold of every part of her mind. She ran and ran, even when it made no sense to. And then, just before Twilight went totally numb, a horrible agony exploded from her neck. The last thing she tasted was her own blood on her tongue.
Twilight didn’t know how long it had been since she had “died.” It could have been seconds, it could have been hours. In any case, she remembered every part of it. Just as she had wanted the spell to work. With a shaking hoof, Twilight picked up the light crystal and held it close to her chest as she hobbled for the door.
When she got home, she was going to get rid of anything dangerous in her vicinity, and open up to her friends. She had heard of ponies killing themselves over guilt, and she didn’t want that. That would be too easy. If no one else would punish the murderer, then she, as a princess, would administer punishment herself. And there was no death penalty in Equestria. Twilight gave one last look to the body before she opened the door and began to limp home.
