The Broken One

I had lost track of how long I was in the dungeons performing experiments. Twilight was beside me every time I had gone down there and to my surprise she was no longer squeamish about slitting a throat or two. She always kept her eyes on me when we went down unless I asked her to perform some manner of task.

“This experiment is a failure too”, she huffed as she spun around and kicked the horribly disfigured clone in the head. “The body just can’t handle the magic.”

“Maybe it’s because we’re using corpses”, I sighed. “Bring the last clone out.”

I heard a bang before the cell door opened and idly turned to see what happened. I caught sight of the clone trying to flee and he was instantly wrapped in my magic. I looked around the room and saw Twilight lying on the floor bleeding from a gash above her eyebrow.

“YOU MOTHERFUCKER”, I roared.

I slammed the clone into the wall and lifted him before slamming him to the floor repeatedly. I dragged him toward me and stared down at him with murderous intent. He began shaking and lost control of his bladder as he sobbed.

“I’m gonna fuckin’ kill you”, I said quietly as I knelt over him. “I’m gonna kill you nice and slow. You aren’t even worth using as a test subject.”

I drew back to punch him in the face but a groan from Twilight caught my attention. I ordered Audrey to secure the clone and the very floor rose up and encased him as I rushed to Twilight’s side.

“Where is he”, she growled as she sat up.

She walked over to the clone and stared at him before using the paralysis spell on him. I had Audrey release him before I dragged him to what looked like a table suspended vertically above a drainage grate and strapped his limbs to the table.

“It’s a good thing you cut their horns off”, she sighed as she rubbed her head.

“Yeah, that second clone blasting us wasn’t fun”, I replied.

“What to do with you”, Twilight sighed. “Well, I’ve never seen the inside of an actual pony before.”

“Let’s see just how long he can last before he passes out”, I grinned.

“Let’s be scientific about this”, Twilight sniffed. “Audrey, begin voice recording.”

I nodded and stepped back as twilight used her magic to pull a tray of surgical tools over. She picked up a scalpel and eyed the immobilized clone.

“Jackson, release the paralysis”, she asked.

As soon as I did he began to scream and beg for his life until Twilight sank the scalpel into his vocal cords. She assured him that it wouldn’t kill him but he wouldn’t be able to scream anymore. I asked how she knew that and she shrugged before telling me she had been reading surgical references. She decided to stop the voice recording but continued with the torture.

She used her magic to steady his head before using some kind of scoop thing to pull his left eye from its socket and neatly severed the nerves and blood vessels. She dropped the eye and slammed her hoof down on it smashing it flat.

“I’ve got my eye on you”, she grinned as she pressed up against the clone. “What’s the matter, cat got your tongue?”

She used her magic to stretch his tongue out until with a wet tearing sound it ripped in half. She tossed the tongue to the side and eyed the clone’s Cutie Mark. She mentioned that he wouldn’t be needing them anymore and slowly used the scalpel to cut them from his body.

As the first Mark came free he sobbed pitifully. Twilight told him to quit being a foal about it and slapped him with his own flesh which made me laugh. Tears and blood streamed down his face as she draped the piece of flesh over his one good eye and set to work on the other Mark.

“You know Jackson”, she said conversationally, “there has been some debate about the nature of Cutie Marks.”

“Really”, I asked intrigued.

“Oh yes”, she turned to me holding the severed Mark. “It’s a fascinating look into where they come from and the magic that makes them appear! Neightsche himself hypothesized that the appearance of Marks is, for the most part, a completely random occurrence!”

“That truly is interesting”, I said as I held out my hand for the scalpel. “Mind if I have a go?”

“Of course not”, she smiled and gave me the blade.

I stepped up grabbed the clone around his muzzle and slid the blade around the base of his left ear. As the blade passed through the last bit of flesh his ear fell to the floor. Fresh sobs slipped from the clone when I got an idea.

“Hey Twilight, wanna compare the effectiveness of true magic versus spells”, I grinned.

“Now that sounds like fun research”, she grinned.

I grinned back at her and led her away from the clone. We took turns blasting his limbs with combat magic and healing the damage to study the differences. Just as my mother had said, true magic was more potent than spells.

“I’m starting to get hungry”, Twilight said just before her stomach growled loudly.

I smiled down at the unicorn before me and looked her over. Blood was splattered across her muzzle and chest. It coated her hooves. She somehow managed to get a splash of blood on her flank.

“Let me finish this and clean up, then we’ll eat”, I smiled.

I turned to the sobbing clone as he tried to say something and scoffed. I flung my hand toward him and a black arc of magic streaked through the air from my fingers. It made contact just above the strap holding his neck still and passed straight through.

“What was that supposed to do”, she asked right before his head slid from his neck. “Oh, it does that.”

A fountain of blood sprayed from the clone’s neck and Twilight turned an almost loving gaze up to me. She pranced over to me and hopped up to rest her hooves over my shoulders.

“Does this mean that I won’t be able to help with the research anymore”, she asked quietly.

“I’ll get more clones tomorrow”, I replied.

She smiled happily before stretching up to kiss me on the lips. I returned the chaste kiss before she hopped down and I used my magic to pull the blood from Twilight’s fur and my skin and hair. I spared a glance at the corpse and with a thought it vanished.

“Oh, Cindra wanted us to join her for dinner tonight”, Twilight smiled as we left the dungeons. “She’s quite excited about it.”

“Why”, I asked.

“Queen Chrysalis is going to be here”, she replied.

“Well, fuck.”