Princess Twilight Sparkle's senses were swimming. One moment, she was meeting a stranger at Canterlot High for information on how magic worked in this world. The next moment, she was just... waking up.

She had gone almost alone to this meeting at the request of the stranger who had contacted her. She had brought Spike with, and figured that if there was a threat, she could flee into Equestria and take any sort of fight there. The portal was open for free travel between the worlds, so she would be fine as long as she stayed near the horse statue.

Spike had been with her too.... what happened?

A voice was speaking, clinically. The voice sounded somehow familiar, and yet off somehow.

"She appears to be waking up as I speak.... this is hours before I expected to be interacting with her...."

Twilight attempted to stir, but felt herself restrained by some sort of leather straps. Her arms, torso, and legs were restrained.

Wherever she was, she was not free to come and go as she pleased.

"This begins the first interaction with an Equestrian for the purpose of this study."

She opened her eyes.

And was face to face with herself.

Twilight gasped. She didn't recognize herself at first, but the coloration of the hair and the wide, curious eyes hidden behind thick glasses were indeed her own.

This girl was different from her, however. Her posture was odd, with it being mostly straight but her shoulders slightly hunched. Her hair was tied back into a bun, and of course there were the glasses. And upon slightly closer inspection at the hair, the pink stripe was much thicker than it was in Twilight's own hair.

It was like an imperfect doppelganger of herself.

No, it was an imperfect doppelganger.

The doppelganger smiled, although something was off about this smile.

Something was off about this whole situation, and it wasn't just the fact she was tied down to a table.

Wait, she was tied down to table! The fact registered itself in her head again.

"Hello Princess Twilight. I hope you are feeling well-rested," she began.

Twilight was flabbergasted. This girl was acting like it was a completely normal situation to be speaking to someone restrained against a table!

"Why am I strapped to a table?! What's going on?! Who are you? Where am I?! Where's Spike?!" Twilight was panicked. The doppelganger merely raised her hand in a stop gesture. Twilight fell silent, although she was starting to hyperventilate.

"My name is also Twilight Sparkle, and you don't need to worry about any of those other questions right now. I'm sure once we have a calm, rational conversation about all this, we can cooperate in the name of science," The doppelganger put on another weird smile, although it was warmer than her previous one.

"I've been looking forward to meeting you for awhile, Princess, and I look forward to your cooperation,"

Twilight realized what was weird about the smile.

Behind those glasses may be the same deep purple eyes, but they were much different from her own, which was the shade of a comforting summer night outside the library.

The doppelganger's eyes were in all ways the same color, but the smile she was wearing was missing entirely from those eyes.

There was only coldness, and a crazed glint.

Author's Note

oh boy end of first chapter! next chapter will be showing how fucking creepy scitwi is and explaining how she knocked twilight out, since fun fact chloroform doesn't actually werk. Oh, and we might find out where the heckie Spike is. Hopefully it'll be longer than this.
after that, we get to the nice part of experiments, where the most invasive thing is a cheek swab.

I got this idea from Extraction by GhostXb and Wubcake. It's a fun song and golly I like writing hecked up stuff!

Things are going to get explicitly violent and gory in about chapter 5. Don't read after that if it would harm you.

It's been actual years since I've written a multichapter fic, so I hope you enjoy!