Blood dripped down from the ceiling, and Twilight wasn't exactly sure of how it had ended up there. She had been very careful with the sawing, after all.
Blood was on the walls and floor as well. That she could understand. Chopped off arteries did have a tendency to spray out. She could have drained it all away before cutting, but with that would have come the risk of damaging the tissues. Thankfully she'd managed to save most of the blood in the bathtub at her side, so she could keep the good limbs and organs there.
She studied the construct assembled on the table before her, cocking her head to a side. Munching on her lip, she removed its left eye with her magic and placed it in a jar with others, then fetched a new one from the bathtub. The green iris stared back at her as she slid it into its socket, right next to its purple twin.
Rubbing the blood on her hoof away on one of the few white stains left in her red lab coat, Twilight turned her attention to the various brain pieces lying at the side of the future pony's head. That was a whole other creation in and of itself, and it was quite bothersome to get it to work right. Not only did she have to find control centres for the wings and horn of sufficient quality, she had to make sure they were compatible.
Frowning, she sent a tentative spark of magic into the contraption, its various pieces connected by accurately colour-coded cables. The response was a bit underwhelming. With a sigh, she removed the frontal piece of cerebral matter, disconnecting it from the horn simulator.
"Sorry, Rarity," she said, throwing the chunk of brain back in the bathtub. She hoped she could at least keep some other parts of the mare, but her eyes were damaged and her muscles not that developed. Language centres were salvageable though, and unless she found something much better those would likely stay.
The pony clad in red turned, and fetched a sealed black bag from next to the wall. Walking to an empty table which had once been painted grey, she ripped open the bag and let its contents fall in front of her. "Greetings, Trixie."
The unicorn did not reply, as her lower jaw had rotted away, along with her tongue. And also because she was dead. Not that it was a big loss, Twilight thought, she wouldn't have used Trixie's mouth either way. Unlike what Starlight had done, she added, chuckling. "Isn't that right, Starlight?" she asked to the mare's face, nailed to the wall.
Starlight's face did not answer back, as she had no tongue or vocal chords or lungs or mouth with which to speak, and little muscles with which to move her lips. And also because she was dead.
Twilight turned back to Trixie, chuckling to herself. "Let's see..." She lifted up an hefty cleaver in her magic, and looked between it and the mare's head. Then, she angled Trixie's body to lie with its side towards her. Finally, she brought the cleaver down, and began to hack away at the mare's neck.
A few well placed cuts later, and the unicorn's head was finally ready to be removed from the rest of her body. It still took some pulling, but at least the bones were shattered and didn't offer much resistance. The two pieces of the corpse came apart with a plop, and Twilight fetched a bowl to set the head down inside it.
Having secured the piece she was interested in, she turned back to the rest of the body. Trixie never excelled in anything, so there wasn't really much to get out of it. With a shrug, she levitated the remains of the mare to rest near the bathtub, her cut off neck pouring new, fresh blood into the porcelain container. It was curious, how well pony blood preserved itself even years after death. And how much there was.
Her attention went once more to the head. Bringing the bowl to her, she emptied the blood which had dripped so far, again pouring it into the bathtub. Then her magic focused on a single point in mid air, and using the concentrated energy like a blade she circled Trixie's skull.
The dead mare's silver mane came off, along with the rest of her scalp, and it was neatly flung on the rack occupying the wall to Twilight's right, landing right between Fluttershy's and Rarity's.
Twilight's magic shifted, going from a point to a more proper blade-like shape. She pierced the outer layer of Trixie's skull, and began to trace lines on it, preparing to remove the chunks she was cutting off. Much to her surprise, the unicorn's head turned out to be no thicker than that of anypony else.
She found the fact hilarious, and began to laugh at her own mental joke.
The plates of bone came off, revealing a rather well-preserved brain, and Twilight moved to the front. Twin blades made of her magic went down the front of Trixie's face, circling around the eyes, and the two outer halves of her head were pulled away. Her eyes were cut out and thrown in the tub, her skin was peeled off, then Twilight turned her.
Most of her brain was exposed, but now came the most delicate part. Twilight had to remove the horn, without damaging the underlying nervous system. The process required the utmost precision, and the lowest number of cuts possible. She formed her magic into a ring around the base of the unicorn's horn. She had to be very careful about where she cut.
A knock came from the door.
Twilight's magic slipped, as the mare was startled, and Trixie's horn bounced around the room. The purple pony gave an angry look at the head, frowning, but upon picking it up found the cut had thankfully gone well.
"Princess Twilight?" a guard's voice came from behind the door. "Is everything alright? It sounds like... like there's an agonising crow being tortured in there."
Twilight finally stopped laughing. "Nothing of the sort," she replied after clearing her throat. "Please, leave me alone now, this is a very important experiment and I would rather not be disturbed."
The guard's reluctant steps moved away from the entrance, and Twilight focused once more on the remains of Trixie's skull. Shifting to a pair of thin strands, her magic slid between the brain and the last remains of bone, and pulled them apart, separating the two.
A pair of scissors drifted up in Twilight's telekinesis, and with brief precise cuts the horn's control centre came off. The rest of the brain was thrown in the tub, while the small chunk was instead brought to the assemblage of cables and flesh on the other table and quickly connected to the rest of the pony's future brain.
It appeared compatible with Starlight's horn, much to Twilight's delight, and with everything else as well. A spark of magic left her to enter the system and test it, and the results were better than she could have expected. It was particularly surprising how well a part of Trixie's brain was reacting to the central portion of the contraption, taken from Sunset's head.
Everything did seem to be in perfect order there. Rainbow's motion centres and wing control, Rarity's language centres (which were now reacting better than before, and she would definitely keep) mixed with Zecora's, a bit of Flim and Flam, Tempest's talent for strategy, Starswirl's intelligence, and absolutely no trace of Pinkie. She'd learned that last lesson the hard way, and the stains had never come off.
Almost all was ready on the body as well. Rainbow was probably not too happy about her wings not being used, but they had been kind of worn out after all she'd done with them. A mix of Gilda's structure, Lighting Dust's muscles and Soarin''s tendons and feathers worked rather nicely, and she was quite pleased with the result.
Not that the rest of the thing wasn't one of her finest works. Perfectly integrated fire-breathing glands in the throat, complete with dragon skin to protect the mouth. Hippogriff claws on the front, gently provided by a compliant corpse she'd found in the Storm King's ships, diamond dog muscles in the shoulders and minotaur muscles in the legs, Iron Will's specifically.
And that wasn't even mentioning the wired in changeling transformation network, or the autonomous aquatic adaptation thanks to a shard of the Pearl implanted inside the heart. And the yak back muscles for extra lifting strength, those had been a stroke of genius!
Maud's front legs were just perfect, and in surprisingly good condition when she'd dug up the mare. Same went for Autumn Blaze's vocal chords, and Sweetie Belle's ears. The hind legs had been mish-mashed a little from different creatures, but there was definitely a lot of Applejack in them, especially the thighs.
Shining's penis went rather nicely with Big Macintosh's testicles, and Fluttershy's vagina didn't look half bad either, even if the interior slowly transitioned into Apple Bloom's womb. She wouldn't need it anymore anyway. None of them would. Because they were dead.
Rainbow's mane and tail looked just perfect, especially after she'd combined them with strands of her own. Almost like a more vibrant version of Celestia's. They really helped give her creation the air of superiority it deserved to carry.
Pinkie's stomach was on the inside, where it belonged, and the rest of her digestive system had been only slightly modified to make sure the pony would be able to eat flesh and gems properly. The latter were not too far off from Cloudy's rock soup, but better safe than sorry. And of course, dragon teeth were in the mouth.
A love draining system had also been implanted. It had been such a pain to get Chrysalis to lay more eggs so she could harvest some unchanged changeling materials. But worth it, definitely. She'd even made a lovely set of plates, trays and cutlery out of the drones' shells.
The heart was perhaps her favourite detail. A perfect combination of all her friends. Applejack's strength, Rainbow's resistance, Pinkie's ability to become hyperactive, and hopefully some of Fluttershy's kindness and Rarity's generosity would bleed through as well. And the powerful muscles of a dragon, but that was a secondary detail.
A number of other creatures' bits made up her future friend as well, of course. A tendon here or there, some muscle fibres, patches of skin and coat, a chunk of connective tissue or two, some segments of various organs. Truly, the perfect representation of friendship. She would befriend every creature, together. And their friendship would be eternal.
And it really did have everything. Bugbear and manticore poison in its batpony fangs, star-spider silk glands on its abdomen, phoenix feathers mixed in on the wings, timberwolf magic holding some organs together, sections of a cragadile's thick hide. A marvelous creature, truly worthy of being her immortal friend.
She would sit on the throne, and it would sit by her side. And wherever she would go, it would follow. And it would be smart, and funny, and they would talk and talk, and it would not need to eat or sleep and would simply keep her company. Her best friend, forever.
It was almost complete. She just needed to finish up the connections, insert the brain, make sure the eyes were set up properly, patch up and uniformly paint the body, finish the formula for its magic blood and then infuse life into the creature.
No longer would she be alone then. No longer would she miss her dear friends. She was about to set herself to work on it, when the door slid open with an ominous clang.
"We really should put some oil on it," Spike commented, stepping in.
The alicorn turned with a scowl. "Spike, I've told you to knock first. Can't you see I'm in the middle of committing horrible crimes against nature itself?" she asked, pointing at her own blood-soaked coat and at the bloody carnage all around her.
"Sorry," replied the dragon, sheepishly rubbing his beck. "Celestia and Luna say you should hurry, you'll miss the dinner with Ember and Flurry otherwise."
"I'm busy," Twilight replied, pointing a hoof at the abomination lying on her table.
"Fine, fine. At least try to be there for the dessert." The dragon turned and walked out, sealing the door behind himself with an ominous clang.
"There's no respect for mad scientists these days," muttered Twilight to Fluttershy's skull, hanging from the ceiling.
To finish her creation, then. In time for dinner. How annoying of them to interrupt at a time like that, bending and breaking the laws of life and death was not a matter that could be rushed over insignificant details like dinner. But she would manage, in her infinite genius and benevolence.
Twilight trotted to the table, telekinetically took Trixie's tarnished trims to throw them towards the tub, then teleported the tools to the table's top. Tinting traces trailed the tucked tablecloth, troubling the tinkering, tissues took them to their termination. Time ticked, teasing Twilight, tension tormenting, the two together tampering, threatening to tear the tired tombrobber. Terrible tracks to terrible things twisted there, their twisting trunked tentacle tongues tasting tendons. Tempest thundered through the tall thick timber trees towering the tops. Twilight tensed, tattered tomes tempting to take the tension through, tiring tried tricks. Time ticked. Twilight trembled.
With the table now cleaned and her sanity sufficiently intact, the purple pony levitated up another body bag and dumped again its contents on the table. She took up her cleaver once more, when something caught her attention.
A sound.
A sound of snoring.
From the body which should have been dead.
Twilight tentatively gave a push to the stallion's head with the back of the blade.
"...uh?" sighed the pony, sleepily stretching his legs. "What is it?" he asked, his tone slurred and sluggish.
"Excuse me." Twilight cleared her throat to draw his attention. "It seems there has been a truly awful misunderstanding."
Slowly at first, he turned towards her. "Oh. Oh, Princess. Oh I apologise, I must have fallen asleep, how truly disrespectful of me. What is the matter, Your Highness?"
Twilight adjusted her lab coat. "Well, you see, I was working on an experiment, and it seems you ended up amongst the materials I was supposed to use. I was under the impression that you were dead."
"Oh that is truly truly horrible Princess. I apologise, I'm terribly sorry for the inconvenience." He looked over himself. "It does appear I am unfortunately not dead at the present time. Your Royal Highness may choose to remedy to that, if she so wishes."
Twilight shook her head, smiling. "Don't worry, it will not be necessary. I already have sufficient materials," she added, pointing both at the other body bags and at the remains of corpses all across the room with a sweeping motion of her wing.
"Oh, that is wonderful news, Princess. Terribly sorry about having inconvenienced you, I truly am." He got down from the table. "I will be going then," he said, giving a small bow and then walking to the door.
The rusty piece of metal opened and closed with ominous clangs, and Twilight was left alone with her future best friend. And many of her past friends and acquaintances, not to mention other ponies and creatures of all kinds. But those didn't count. Because they were dead.
The Princess sighed, then grabbed another body bag. This one was definitely dead, judging by the blood drops it leaked. Probably dead, at least. The zipper slid open and the body was dumped on the table, the two halves in which it was split rolling in opposite directions. Almost certainly dead, yes.
Swiftly, Twilight hacked off the pony's horned head and let it tumble off from the table. Satisfied with the cut, and with the resulting stream of blood, she set down her cleaver and picked up a hammer. And then brought down said hammer over the pony's corpse.
Repeatedly.
Bones broke and splintered, flesh was torn and reduced to mush, blood splattered in all directions. Some ended up in Twilight's floating mane, and formed into beautiful swirling patterns of bright crimson. Some ended up in her mouth. It didn't taste half bad. Pinkie had tasted better though, very sugary. Applejack had tasted like pears, somewhat oddly.
The corpse was soon reduced to an unrecognizable pile of tissues. Twilight cocked her head left and right, observing it. Maybe it was enough, but she wasn't sure, but it was better to add more and leave it unused. A second body was dumped over the puddle of equine materials.
A pegasus this time. A few brisk hacks, and the cleaved off head joined the other's on the floor. Then a saw was picked by Twilight's magic, and one after the other the wings were cut off. She couldn't risk interferences due to the race-specific material, or due to the brains.
Then the hammer came down, again and again. More matter was splattered across the walls and across the tall pony herself, and the red of the blood and twisted flesh was all that was left of the blue and green of the two beings, now together as part of the same pile of meat, impossible to tell apart one from the other.
That was definitely enough. Twilight set the hammer down, then turned back to the other table and to her creation. She needed to assemble and put in the brain first, she wouldn't want a brainless friend. She'd already had Rainbow for that.
"Right, Rainbow?" she asked to the pegasus' hollowed out and maneless head, staring at her from a shelf with pitch blacks holes where her eyes had been. Rainbow's eyes themselves also stared at her from their position inside the jar they'd been placed in.
Twilight shook her own head, chuckling. Of course the mare wouldn't reply. She was brainless, after all. And also because she was dead. But that was irrelevant. Or not. It was relevant to what was happening considering she'd taken pieces of her body. Her friend's body. Her dead friend's body. It was funny. Twilight decided that it was funny. Rainbow would have wanted her to find it funny. They all would have. All her friends. Her dead friends. The friends whose bodies she'd taken apart to build herself a new friend. It was funny. It was so damn funny. She couldn't stop laughing. She was laughing so hard it hurt her throat and made her cough and croak, so hard it drove her to tears. It was funny. So so funny. The funniest thing. So funny she was crying of laughter. It was very very funny indeed. Much fun was had.
Pondering just how unbelievably funny it all was, and wiping away the tears of pure laughter and joy and absolutely nothing else streaming down her eyes with her bloody forleg, Twilight reached the brain and began to put it together.
The cables and wires between the various sections were gingerly removed, their pointy metal ends sliding out of the cerebral folds they had been inserted in. Then the chunks of matter were lifted in the purple glow of the Princess' telekinesis, and brought to rest together, like a neat three-dimensional puzzle.
Once every single part lined up properly, Twilight, still holding the brain in her magic, fetched a small spool of thread from a shelf. Feeding zap apples to the bioengineered giant crystal spiders had been worth every single house they'd eaten afterwards, just for how well their silk conducted magic. Thankfully some of them had managed to escape into the Everfree before Flurry had decided to get rid of them in the Empire. It wasn't that bad, they'd only taken the castle and half of the town. Foals just needed to stop playing near them.
Coating the reflective material in her magic, the alicorn began to wrap it around and pass it through her friend's future mind, in accurately planned patterns as to avoid damaging her creation. It was soon done, and she set the now solidly held together piece of matter on the table.
With a flick of her horn, the top of the creature's head flipped open to reveal a slot in which she inserted the brain. Then came the delicate task of connecting the nervous system. Making sure the spine lined up properly, she took a double-ended crystal crystal screw from the nearby shelf and drove it between them, then did the same with the horn. A quick magic test showed the connection was successful, and so she flipped down her friend's skull.
As she walked back to the dripping pile of mashed together pony tissues, her horn flared up, and the amass of flesh and bones began to glow. The purple light grew stronger and stronger, reaching a searing white intensity, and within it energy thrummed through what had once been two corpses, and before then two ponies.
Ground up by the magical power, demolished further and reduced to a truly indistinguishable, uniform mass of average pony composition, the material melted into a non-Starswirlian stream of organic fluid which Twilight happily carried with her back to the crime against nature on the other table.
The spool of thread was picked up again. With precise movements of her magic, Twilight aligned all sections of the creature's body, and drove more of the thread through all of them. Then the fluid was poured in the cracks and holes, sometimes coating all around entire sections, and her magic forced it to mutate and adapt, creating perfect and seamless transition parts.
Twilight then looked at a vat filled with a bright turquoise liquid resting under the table. The creature's blood. She wasn't perfectly sure about her calculations, Zecora's book were hard to interpret, but dinner was soon. She shook her head. She was probably right, there was nothing to worry about.
Throwing some meteorite dust into the mixture, which shifted to a black-purple colour, she picked up a magical pump and stabbed the two large spikes into her friend's back, letting the blood flow into it. Then, once the vat was empty, she threw it away and removed the pump.
The creature was at last whole, and fully stable. But somewhat unpleasant to look at, due to the large amount of stitchings and clashing colours, not to mention the freshly added holes. Thankfully, Twilight had an easy remedy for that.
A tight-fitting full body suit woven from the same silk she'd used to sew the last bits of her friend together slid over its body, and was a moment later drenched in liquid rainbow. Then needles connected to cables were stabbed through it, and lighting was made to run through them, melting the suit to the creature's body and giving it a sharp electric blue colour.
All was ready then. Twilight took a step back to admire her glorious, terrible creation. It would make her so happy. The thing she'd dedicated months of sleepless nights to. The thing for which she'd defiled the graves of her friends and Trixie, dug up their corpses and used them as materials. The culmination of all her knowledge. The thing that would forever let her go down in history as she who had gone beyond the limits of life and death. The thing that would elevate her, make her like a God. The thing that would get wasted on vodka with her while Spike was away.
Only one thing missing. It was at last time to infuse life into the vessel she had built.
She took another step back, and flipped a switch near the wall. Runes began to glow below the table, powerful magic crackling through them and lifting through the air, entering the thing's body.
Her future friend rose from the table, its limbs splayed out, light flowing from its eyes, all the while more and more power drifted upwards from the runes.
The earth shook. The air grew dense and full of static. Power outages were had all through Equestria. Ponies got angry. The energy was so intense one could taste it if they stuck out their tongue, and it tasted like blueberries. Bolts of energy shimmered in the room, mirroring the lighting outside the mansion. The power was so intense it made the air crack and sing and boom. The structure itself of magic was being pulled at, wreaking havoc all across the country. More ponies got more angry.
There was a flicker of movement in the creature. A twitch, almost unnoticeable.
"Yes..." Twilight longingly sighed, stepping forward. "Oh, yes. Arise, my friend. Enter life, enter this world!"
The thing twitched again, trembling more visibly. Its head angled slightly, seemingly looking at Twilight through its shimmering eyes. Then its mouth appeared to move, and from it came a sound, almost inaudible at first. "A... Ah..."
Twilight stepped closer again, breathing faster, feeling her heart pound in her chest. "Yes. Come on. Please. You're almost there, you can do it!"
"Aaaah... Aaa... Aaaaaaaah..." The light in its eyes grew brighter, its twitching more evident.
Twilight was almost at the circle now, and held out a hoof. "Come on. Come my dearest! Come with me, rise from the nothingness I have wrought you from and become one of the living!"
"Aaaaaaaaah... AAAAAAAAH..." The creature's jaws snapped open, and its howl of pain resonated loud and clear into the chamber. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-" the thing screamed, and its voice became more distorted the more it did, morphing into a deafening, incomprehensible sound of pure agony piercing through the soul itself of all those who heard it.
The light in its eyes grew impossibly bright, and more light began to pour forth from its skin, as its body failed to contain the magic being poured into it. With a horrifying ripping sound, the thing blew up, showering Twilight and the room with blood and entrails.
And then there was silence, as the pony stood there, hoof outstretched and blood dripping from her body, for many minutes, until a single word finally left her lips.
"Fuck."
The creature did not answer back. Because it was now a layer of organic matter coating the interior. And also because it was dead. And also because it had never been alive in the first place, but that was a technicality and it clearly hadn't stopped it from expressing its discomfort at being made a part of creation.
As if on cue, a robotic pony stepped in through the metal door, which opened with an ominous clang. "I take it it didn't work out this time either," Twilight's voice said from its speakers, as the robot's eyes zoomed around the scene.
"You think so, Twilight?" the pony replied.
"You really should leave the mad scientist stuff to me. I even had a song about that," the robot replied.
"You never had magic other than telekinesis." Twilight stopped to remove a strand of intestines from her face, then corrected herself, "At least, not for long."
"Yeah, whatever. If you don't plan to reset the timestream right away I suggest you come upstairs, dinner will get cold. Flurry is already super drunk too, so you're missing out." The other Twilight turned and left the room, closing the door behind herself with an ominous clang.
Twilight stood there for a moment, then sighed and began to follow the once human robot.
Blood dripped down from the Princess, and the others at the table chose not to ask how it had ended up there. Not the alicorns, not Discord, not the dragons, not the ghosts of Twilight's friends and Trixie (who didn't actually eat anything, but kept great company). They thought they had seen enough already, after all.
