Twilight Sparkle

PATIENT REPORT:

Feather Syringe

---

Biological Age:18 Years 4 Months

Blood Type: B-

Age at time of Death:8 Years 8 Months

Cause Of Death:Drowning

Reporting Doctor: Dr Synapse

---

Patient was presented to the Canterlot Research Centre after death and the patient's sister cast her 'Resurrection Spell' (Report into this spell has been attached to this document, labelled 2-B) on the patient's body.

We, the Research team, were charged in ascertaining if the spell had actually 'Resurrected' the patient or if as detailed within the letter sent to us by Princess Celestia (Copy of this letter attached, labelled 2-A) if the patient's sister had managed to create a convincing facsimile of the patient
.
Sadly, there is no defined yes or no within this case as to truly confirm if the patient was brought back, we would need to detect a presence of a 'soul' for which we do not have the technology nor do we know it even exists or is able to be detected.

The avenue in which we tested was via monitoring in this instance, in the assumption that there was a spell keeping the subject animate then we should see a degradation in movement or mental activity in the progression of the spell as Spell Entropy takes effect.

Over the years, through this method, we have become confident that the spell hadn't resurrected the patient as we have found that the patient on average is moving less and is taking less of an interests in activities previously enjoyed, seemingly now we are seeing the subject is starting to sleep more and staring into nothing through the day.

In addition, we noticed that while the subject used to try and socialise with the staff of the medical centres, after some experiments where we restricted access to magic (via the prohibition of Magic heavy foods) in an attempt to see if a lack of magic input would make a difference we found that the subject seemingly became less 'talkable' and would attempt to avoid the researchers.

Going off the estimates that we have collated from each team member of our facility, we have put the chances of this 'Resurrection' spell actually bringing back an individual from the dead at being 5%, and this 5% only exists as we cannot yet prove otherwise.

Thank you for your inquiry into the matter, Princess Sparkle and feel free to contact us at any stage, we've managed to collate a lot of data in regards to the patient that we hope can assist with your investigation.

Head Of Medical Research,

Dr Firing Synapse.

I re-read the document to make sure that I hadn't missed any sections, turn to my right and notice that Spike is currently looking over the report about the spell.

"Anything special?" I ask Spike.

"Maybe, the researchers are still trying to understand the spell as apparently it was 'remarkably complicated', and interestingly had been created by the Lovelace Circular Constructor, which if I remember our history classes might mean this spell is the first to be done so for at least 1000 years. How about you?" Spike questions back.

"Confirming what the Princess said mostly, I didn't doubt her but it's always scientifically good to receive a second opinion! I wonder why she used that constructor, Starswirl's one functionally does the same but allows for re-testing with defined values."

"Maybe she hadn't gotten to that part yet, she did leave school fairly young and if I remember we learned about Lovelace to then have context for the subsequent magical figure heads."

I place my hoof on my chin and say "true, does make it a lot harder to work out what the spell does though as the sections of the spell are entirely subjective to the user."

Spike glances through the spell report and says "Well the researchers are saying that might be the reason she did it that way, it's a good way to obfuscate what the function of the spell is and maybe she was hoping ponies would just believe it then."

"Maybe that's something we can ask her when we catch her, if I remember correctly Starswirl had a translation spell into his method so if she's willing maybe we could convince her" I say to Spike.

"I can't imagine she will be that willing as we bring her to Celestia for her punishment" Spike says while wrapping the report up.

"Hmm, I can't imagine Princess Celestia will actually want to punish her, just stop her from doing it anymore. I wond-"

I am suddenly interrupted by two knocks on the room door and a voice emanates through "Princess, you instructed me to interrupt when your guests arrived."

Looking up at the clock, I quickly realize that the time had managed to sneak away from me and after internally cursing myself, Spike and I head over and open the door.

Standing outside the door I see both Rainbow and Applejack both still holding their bags.

"Hi girls!" I say in a chipper voice, though I internally wince as I notice both seem to have less energy than usual.

"Hey Twi'" Applejack says.

Rainbow's eyes seem to be drooping and I can see her already looking towards her room.

"Rainbow, why don't you go to bed? I'll catch up with Applejack and wake everypony up for dinner"

I get a tired nod in return as I watch Rainbow lazily fly to her room.

"You'd think it'd be easier to walk there." I say absentmindedly.

"Ah think her parents taught her to fly before she ever walked, she might just find it easier. Though ah'd like to walk myself to an actual seat myself, the seats we managed to get on the train were in dire need of replacement and the train was busy enough to mean we were stuck on those particular seats."

"Sorry about that, I didn't really want to just send you but wanted to get up and running as soon as possible" I say with as apologetic tone as possible.

"Nah it's fine, glad to have been able to get back to Ponyville at least to warn the family and we all have to play our equal parts. Talkin' about equal parts, how'd Pinkie and Fluttershy do? Any leads?"

"We'll go into more detail when we meet up later, but they actually found out quite a bit it seems, at least about a potential… Incident? Not really sure what we are going to label them" I say staring at the ceiling.

"How about victim?" Applejack says with a hint of malice in her voice.

I note the malice but Applejack doesn't seem to be lashing out and I trust her not to be openly aggressive at the very least "Victim could work, but terminologies aside we were briefly discussing a trip as to see what happened and maybe see if there are any openings."

"Makes sense, where are we going then?" Applejack says.

"Town called Tailfrost, middle of the northern mountain range and from what I'm told very cold. Supposed to be snowy at all times" I say.

"Ah can't imagine Rarity was too happy when she found out" Applejack says

I shift my eye to the side and Applejack notices.

"Y'all ain't told her yet have you?"

"No, was trying to find a better time for it"

"Want me to?"

"Please" I sat with begging eyes.

Applejack sighs and says "You are sending me into all the annoying situations Twilight"

This sets me back on course, "talking about annoying situations, what did we find out from Trixie? Was the address correct?"

Applejack takes a frown into her face and says "yes, it was her place though not sure how much I want it to be. Turns out she'd received a letter about a year after she left home telling Trixie she was safe and had met a griffon.

I take in the information, ponder for a moment and start looking through the folder I'd started collating "I saw something about a Griffin accident about nine years ago in a newspaper, almost ignored it because I'd assumed she probably couldn't have made it to the Griffon territories at ten years old but if she had then maybe that's who she's talking about… here it is." I pull out a old newspaper with the headline 'Lady Sunfeather involved with gruesome accident"

"Nice work Twi, wouldn't have thought to even check the old newspapers" Applejack says with a nod.

"Got the idea from Pinkie actually, she was wondering how Blue knew where to look and Rarity pointed out that the filly we are going to see was listed in the obituaries. Ran down to the archives and asked for any Newspapers mentioning an accident." I say levitating a stack of newspapers.

Applejack grabs a paper from the top of the pile and says "This one doesn't mention an accident on the front page."

I gave a quick glance at the page she was holding and said "Oh that's today's newspaper, more was looking if I could see any cases that she'd be going for."

Applejack flicks the pages to the obituary, seems to scan through the names and says "Shell Family dies to smoke inhalation, proud members of the Apploosa community and survived by the last son Pie Shell. Maybe she'd prey on them."

"What are you thinking?" I ask.

"Might send a letter to Braeburn, you know keep an eye out in the area in case. Wager as the tour guide of the town, he'd probably be pretty good at this type of thing." Applejack says looking around for a piece of paper

"Worth I shot" I say handing her a piece of paper.

After Applejack writes up the letter and we give it to a steward to send it out, we go around all the rooms and wake everypony up to bring them to the dining hall.

I notice Applejack takes Rarity and Rainbow dash to tell them the bad news about the cold weather we are about to face.

Turning towards the rest of the group, I say "Applejack is going to tell Rarity and Rainbow Dash about where we are going "

"NOOOOOO" I hear from the corner.

"And I wanted to make sure we know what we are all doing, as I get the feeling that we are going to have to be careful with what we reveal" I say to the group.

"What do you mean Twilight?" Fluttershy asks.

"We need to make sure that firstly this filly was actually one of Blue's patients and if so, we need to convince the mother of this and see if there is a way to contact Blue. We need to imagine that the mother won't be happy with us needing to take away her daughter because let's be honest would you? She has just got her back in her eyes."I try to say in a neutral tone though I am sure I hear a falter.

"That doesn't feel fair, can't we leave her with the mother? I can't imagine the little girl is going to cause issues" Pinkie says with a sad tone.

"I wish we could Pinkie but even if there are no issues now, there will be in the future. I managed to get a report about Blue's brother and they say that he has slowly degraded over years as the spell in him has withered away. Can you imagine living with what essentially is an animated puppet of your loved one and then having to watch them slowly die with no way to help them? While this seems cruel, it really is the best way forward and we will catch this Blue and make sure that no one else needs to suffer like this."

The rest of the group walk over from the corner and we relay the information spread to them.

"Right, eat well tonight and get yourselves packed, I am not sure on how long we are going to be in the town and from what I gather it's relatively hard to get supplies there." I look around to general nods and affirmations "Okay, I've organised two chariots to fly us all there which will leave around 7am and from what they told us, we'll land around 1pm."

Author's Note

Three chapters in three day, I think that means I can sod off for 6 months.
Oh and yes, I am going to be a trickster with chronology between the differing perspectives