Nature vs Nurture

Princess Twilight was reeling at all this. Cooperation? Looking forward to meeting her? In the name of science?
That would teach her not to trust strange notes from anonymous senders.

"Cooperation? In what? What do you want from me?" Princess Twilight asked, still in a panic over waking up in this situation.

Her scientist doppelganger chuckled, "I just want to do some tests on you, Princess. I set everything up while you were sleeping, so I certainly hope you'll be willing to cooperate. After all, you're the first Equestrian in my lab! And hopefully the last, should these tests yield sufficient data. This will open up humanity's eyes to something bigger than we could ever comprehend!"

The princess narrowed her eyes, "Why am I strapped to a table if you're hoping to cooperate?"

"Oh Princess, the restraints are so you don't hurt yourself while we work!" The scientist said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Hurt myself?" Twilight asked.

"Oh yes. You may be a sentient horse in a girl's body, but you're a horse nonetheless, and it could be very dangerous for you to spook while I perform these tests," The scientist explained, a strange glee in her voice.

Twilight blew a raspberry at that. It was the only noise that could really convey how she was feeling, since human noises didn't translate as well for her brain, "I'm a pony, and an alicorn at that, thank you very much. We don't spook that easily!"

The scientist tilted her head at this, smiling a bit, "Oh, really? This doesn't scare you at all?" She pulled out a syringe.

Twilight gasped and jumped a little, "Is that... a needle? No no no no no!!" She struggled against the restraints, but they didn't budge.

"See? I don't want you to hurt yourself in my lab. That wouldn't look very good for my research, now would it?" The scientist reasoned.

"I... I guess. You never said where Spike is. Where is he?" Twilight asked.

"He's in a safe place right now. But I would rather your friends not know where you are for now. They might... misinterpret my intentions," Her doppelganger frowned at this thought.

This set alarms off in Twilight's head.

"Please let me go. Or at least let me tell my friends where I a--"

"No. You're here now, and that's what counts. Hopefully, you'll be on your merry way by the end of the week, no worse for wear!" The scientist smiled at this. She was not going to budge on keeping her location a secret.

Twilight decided to accept that for now. She didn't want to think about what would happen if the results weren't sufficient.

"You'll let me go once you have enough data?" Twilight asked.

"Yes. You'll be free to return to Equestria when all the data I need has been acquired," The scientist confirmed.

"Alright. I'll cooperate," Twilight said, reluctantly. Sometimes, cooperation was the best way out. Plus, if she kept her wits about her, she might be able to escape on her own. After all, Rarity was fearless in the face of the Diamond Dogs, and even got a ton of gems out of the deal.

Of course, the Diamond Dogs hadn't strapped Rarity to a table and run tests on her.

Also, the Diamond Dogs were pretty stupid. Twilight knew herself pretty well, even if she was faced with a different version of herself. She was clever and wouldn't fall for complaining-turned-whining. Her doppelganger might just gag her if she got too annoying.

Still, her wits may prove to be her escape.

She hoped so, anyway.

"Excellent! We'll begin immediately, then," Her other self seemed over the moon with the agreement.

Twilight wasn't sure what she was getting into, but she hoped the needle would be the most of her worries.

Thankfully, the needle seemed to be the most of Twilight's worries.

Her other self had started out by swabbing her cheek for cells. She put the q-tip in a small container for later testing. Then she hooked some electrodes up to Twilight's head.

"I saw you and the Rainbooms perform, and you "ponied up" from the music. I'm going to test your brainwaves while you sing, and compare them to my own when I sing," The scientist explained.

Twilight got a little excited at this. Singing was an everyday occurrence back home! She sang whole arias about tests!

She smiled, and started to sing:

Morning in Ponyville shimmers!
Morning in Ponyville shiiiiines!
And I know for absolute certain
That everything is certainly fine.

Twilight the scientist cocked her head at this, "Ponyville? Is that where you live?"

Twilight the princess nodded, "Yes. I'm originally from the royal city of Canterlot, where my mentor, Princess Celestia lives. My parents still live there too, of course. The princess sent me to Ponyville to make friends, which set into motion a very important chain of events. For one, the friends I made and I, we represent The Elements of Harmony, which are powerful artifacts used to protect Equestria from the various threats it faces. The song I was singing was the song I sang the day after completely screwing up my friends' Cutie Marks! I fixed them and that's how I got my wings and became a princess."

Her doppelganger seemed fascinated by all this.

"So you weren't born into royalty?"

"Absolutely not! I was just a regular unicorn with an aptitude for magic. Which, of course means my special talent is magic. That's what the stars on my saddlebags are,"

The scientist looked at the backpack. It had the same pink, six pointed star that was the insignia of her family. That was different from how it worked here.

"Our insignias are passed down through families. Conformity is encouraged but not required. Conformity can also mean just incorporating the insignia into a larger symbol that represents who you are. Those who deviate from their family insignia pass their own insignia down through their descendants. Which, deviation is fine if your family insignia doesn't truly describe who you are. That star has been in my family for generations, which is why it's all over my home,"

She paused,

"Though you wouldn't know that since you've never seen my home," the scientist added.

A silence passed between them.

"Anyway, I'm going to sing and see if the brainwaves are different."

She hooked up the electrodes to herself, and sang the same song as Twilight. Something printed out on a sheet of paper, and she set it aside for later examination.

It was time for the next test.

Twilight the scientist placed heart rate monitors on both their wrists.

"It probably won't be that useful of data, but it's good to get multiple biometrics," she explained.

Princess Twilight's heart rate was running several beats per minute higher than Scientist Twilight's.

"Are you still panicking from being strapped to a table?" The scientist asked.

"No, actually. Other than the restraints, this has been overall an almost pleasant experience, actually." Twilight smiled at the scientist. Worse things could happen while strapped to a table than singing together and getting your heart rate measured.

She was a little nervous about the needle, but it looked like that would be the worst thing from this experience.

Hopefully after she was released at the end of the week, she could file this away as a weird but overall okay experience. Maybe she could even correspond with herself on the results of the tests, and what she was doing to research how magic worked in this world!

"Interesting. Perhaps it's due to the magic flowing through your body," Twilight the scientist hypothesized.

"Maybe. What's next?" Princess Twilight asked.

"You're not going to like it. It's time for a blood draw," The scientist frowned.

Princess Twilight's heart rate spiked as she visibly tensed up. She hadn't expected the needle so soon.

"It's alright, it'll only take a second," Twilight the scientist reassured her.

The princess was skeptical, "....If you say so."

The restraints proved useful for this sample, since Twilight jumped on contact with the needle, and squirmed during the whole blood draw. Being forced to stay in once place was unpleasant, but overall better than being able to openly struggle.

Soon enough, it was all over and a bandage was on the inside of her elbow.

The scientist labeled the sample with a marker, and then took her own blood sample (with a different needle, of course). She placed the samples in the fridge for later analysis.

"Now that that's out of the way, we can get back to more benign samplings," the scientist said as she reached for some familiar small metal pinching device. She grabbed one of Twilight's fingers to hold it steady, before pinching the end of her finger claw (Twilight felt like Rarity had called them 'nails' but she was sure that had to be a fake thing to call them), which ended up cutting it.

Oh, that's why it was familiar! She'd seen Applejack use one of those to cut her fingerclaws to keep them short. It was a fingerclaw clipper.

A few more of her fingerclaws were cut and placed in a plastic bag.

"I'm going to need some of your hair. I'll brush it to get the hairs without just plucking them out," the scientist said as she switched the bag for a hair brush.

"Okay. This is starting to feel more like a spa treatment than experiments!" Twilight laughed a bit. The scientist gave her a large smile in response.

"Yes, it is nice that I can gather data in a non-invasive way so far," The scientist said as she started to brush Twilight's hair.

Twilight noticed the so far, and the only reason she wasn't more worried was because of how soothing it was to have her hair brushed. It was filed into the back of her mind as the brush gently untangled her hair, taking some shed hair with it.

When the scientist was done, she gently pulled the hairs (mostly blue, with a few purple and a few pink hairs) from the brush and put them in another plastic bag.

"These next tests are going to seem weird, but it can't hurt to try them," The scientist said.

Twilight found that the singing from earlier had been a bit weird, along with the hair brushing, so she wondered how much weirder it could get.

As it turned out, the scientist just shined different colors of light on her. The purple light seemed to have a slight reaction, as did a rainbow from a prism. The scientist wrote these results down.

Finally, she taped a tiny bead with two little wires sticking out of it to Twilight, along with electrodes to her head.

"This is a light emitting diode, or LED. It requires very little power to light. I want you to see if you can try light it, princess,"
Twilight looked at the little bead on her. Now that she knew it was supposed to emit light, she could see that it was a very tiny lightbulb. It was much tinier than the lightbulbs in Equestria!

"I'm not sure I can light it, but I'll do my best," Twilight said with determination. She was happy to help in the name of science.

Also, she really didn't want to know the meaning of so far in terms of testing.

She concentrated on the tiny light, but not having a horn was very surreal and uncomfortable. It was like having lost a limb, or lost a sense.

So, she really wasn't sure how she could concentrate enough magic to light the light. When straining herself as a filly, she would sort of... force her will through her horn, before learning that it was more of an intense desire to make something happen.

Feel the power within, focus it through your horn, and make possible what shouldn't be possible.

But she didn't have a horn.

Her forehead tingled where there was supposed to be a horn, but there wasn't the telltale prickle of magic to accompany the tingle. It was just the tingle of focusing too hard on a part of her body.

She furrowed her brow. Maybe if she concentrated on the part of her body where the light was? It was on her forearm.

Twilight tried to focus on that particular spot on her forearm, but it was still just that weird feeling of focusing too hard on a part of the body.

She let out the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.

"I don't think I can do it. I don't have a horn to focus my magic through. I'm not even sure I have magic without my friends," Twilight admitted. Obviously she had magic without her friends in Equestria, but this wasn't Equestria.

Something changed in the look in the scientist's eyes, but she wrote something down anyway and by the time she looked up again, whatever had changed was gone.

"That's okay. I'm sure that looking through my data will provide some valuable insights into magic in my world. But, for now that's all I need from you," The scientist said.

Twilight perked up, "Does this mean I'm free to go?"

Her doppelganger immediately laughed the suggestion off, "Oh, of course not! That would be ridiculous!"

"What? I don't understand, I thought I was free to go after your tests?" Twilight asked.

"Oh I'm not nearly done with you, Princess!" The scientist grinned, and a slightly off look was back in her eye.

Twilight had nearly forgotten she really didn't have a choice in the matter. It occurred to her that there must be worse tests coming if she wasn't let out of the restraints after the blood draw. She'd been cooperative the whole time, and there wasn't anything else she could think of that would cause her to spook (minus a quesadilla or something).

It probably would be good to get out of these restraints before things could get too crazy.

She had an idea on how she could escape, even if it was a slim chance.

"Okay, fine, but... I really have to use the bathroom!" Hopefully, that trump card would work.

"Oh, why didn't you say so sooner? Let me grab the bedpan!" The scientist said, almost gleefully.

Bed...pan...?

That was the most awkward experience Princess Twilight Sparkle had ever encountered in her life, and she hoped to relive that experience as infrequently as possible, if it ever had to be lived again.

The scientist had gotten a metal.... thing. She had called it a fracture bedpan, made for people who couldn't get on their side for a regular.... bedpan...

Twilight had seen where it was going as soon as that was explained.

There was just enough leeway in her restraints to get the bedpan into place and for her to uncomfortably relieve herself.

The whole experience had been extremely uncomfortable, both physically and socially, and her first hope in escape had been dashed, but...

She did feel a little better now that she didn't have to use the bathroom.

"Now that that's out of the way, are you hungry at all? Thirsty? I wouldn't want you to starve to death in my lab. That would leave so many questions unanswered for me," Her doppelganger said, washing her hands with hand sanitizer. She'd used rubber gloves during the process, but it couldn't hurt to be as sanitary as possible.

As soon as the word 'hungry' had been said, Twilight felt her stomach grumble, and also realized her throat was dry from having been without water for the past 12 hours. But the fact that the concern was only about results as opposed to her wellbeing was adding onto her overall uneasiness.

Even if she was released by the end of the week, Twilight had a feeling it would not be a very pleasant week.

"Yes, I'm starving. And parched. But I'm guessing you won't let me feed myself?" she asked.

"Correct. I'll be feeding you, and I'll make sure not to waterboard you when giving you water, nnnya-um, hehehe!" The scientist stuttered, almost like the last part of her sentence she realized was something she shouldn't say.

"Waterboard?"

"N-Nevermind, that's not relevant right now," she said, shaking her head, "I'll go make you some lunch," before quickly exiting the shed.

A lock clicked, which meant Twilight was essentially double trapped.

Twilight looked up, and for the first time noticed a few monitors that were surveying the inside of the shed, the outside of the shed, and a few places around what must be this Twilight's home.

She watched herself walk across a yard and disappear into a house. A fancy, architecturally pretty house, but still a house. Oh, there was the six pointed star they'd spoken of earlier in several places around and on the house.

A sort of anxiety started to rise in Twilight's chest.

What had her doppelganger stopped herself from saying? What was waterboarding? If it was something that could happen while she was being given water, would that be something that felt like drowning?

What if this was going to end up going too far? Into.... unethical territory? Like, seriously unethical territory?

Twilight did not want to be on either side of unethical research, but there was definitely a much worse side to be on in terms of health.

No, no. Twilight knew herself. She knew that she would never engage in unethical research. And this girl, this other Twilight Sparkle, she was very similar to her. They were the same person in different worlds. Different upbringings by nature of the whole alternate universe thing, but clearly they were similar if she was passionate enough about learning to have a lab. Maybe the next tests would be more unpleasant, require more restraint, but it's not like she would get seriously injured or traumatized.

Twilight Sparkle was not a pony to hurt anypony else, especially if they were innocent.

But Twilight Sparkle was also not a pony to ponynap someone and strap them to a table.

This Twilight Sparkle had ponynapped her and strapped her to a table...

The research was already unethical. Even if she'd given her consent for research, she'd never consented to coming here.
Her breathing quickened a bit.

Where was Spike?

She still didn't know that. But if she was relegated to a shed and not a basement, then it was probably research entirely contained in the shed.

"Spike?" she tried.

Nothing.

Twilight was strapped to a table, unable to move, with no magic, no friends to help her (nor would they know to come help her), and even if someone came looking for her they could get tricked by her doppelganger. And she was at the complete mercy of her doppelganger.

A doppelganger who didn't want her to leave, and who didn't even want to loosen the restraints or trust her with free limbs.

This was more dangerous than she had initially realized.

Maybe somepony would hear her if she shouted enough. Then again, the only pony (person) that she knew for sure was around was her doppelganger. And struggling and shouting might set her off. It might be best to continue cooperating, and lie in wait.

A common debate in philosophy is that of nature vs. nurture. Is a pony's entire fate decided at the moment of birth? Or is their upbringing what causes them to find their specific cutie mark? Twilight tended to lean more towards nurture after she'd screwed up her friends' cutie marks. If a cutie mark was the mark of destiny and of one's nature, and swapping cutie marks didn't make her friends suddenly talented at each others' jobs, then surely it had been their upbringing that brought them all fully into their destinies. Not to say that nature was meaningless, but nurture probably had a significant effect on a pony.

Thus, it was by this nurture side of the debate that Twilight figured she could outwit her doppelganger. They'd had different upbringings, so there was no way she could know eactly what she was thinking. If she could puzzle a way out of the situation without giving anything away, perhaps she could get the jump on the scientist and get home.

Of course, this was assuming malicious intent by the scientist. Maybe she really was just kind of awkward because if she was mostly similar to Twilight, then it was likely that she had no friends. Not yet anyway.

The door opened, and in came the scientist with a delicious looking salad.

"Sorry to make you wait like this. I just don't want to risk you disturbing some of my more delicate experiments. It would be a waste if leaving you unsupervised in here is what caused a disturbance in my data gathering," the scientist said, setting a chair next to the table Twilight was strapped to, "You might want to turn your head to the side to make feeding a little easier."

Twilight obeyed. She would need all the energy she could get to solve this puzzle.

Later that night, The Real and Original Twilight Sparkle who was a student at Crystal Prep was in her room poring over the data gathered that day. Her pony double was in the shed sleeping on the medical table. She'd added crushed up sleeping pills to her doppelganger's water to make her sleep on the table easier.

Twilight acknowledged that she was probably a little messed up, but jeez she had some standards. It would be cruel to make her double sleep on the table without any chemical help.

The data was frustratingly consistent. Everything was the same except their heart rate. This was the most controlled experiment possible, and still there was no answer. Why could the pony harness magic even in this nonmagical world?

Aside from the whole originating from different universes thing, they were the same. That should be trivial though, if travel through the portal changed their shape to conform to the universe they were in.

Twilight was certain that if she went through the portal, she'd have access to all the magic her pony version did, because she'd be a unicorn. Or alicorn, since her double mentioned that whole princess thing.

It was interesting that princesses were made and not born in Equestria. Did that mean all royalty in Equestria had to earn it? Did children of kings and queens have to truly prove themselves to ascend their thrones and claim what would be a birthright in the human world?

Even with this new information, Twilight couldn't help but hold contempt for her double. Her double was still weak.

Hm. If her double was weak, but was full of magic in Equestria and occasionally here, perhaps Twilight was approaching the problem wrong. She clearly had more mental strength than the pony. Maybe if she learned the technique for a spell, it would effortlessly flow from her head like water.

With a clear path for tomorrow, Twilight set her results down and lay in bed. Spike emerged from her closet and jumped on her bed to join her in Bedtime.

He didn't normally hang in the closet, but their new guest was holding his attention. It was good that she had been able to find a sensitive barker breaker. She hadn't been able to think of a better hiding spot for the pony's little pet, but walls were thick enough that the whimpers he could get out wouldn't alert her parents.

Things were going swimmingly so far. Hopefully they'd go even better tomorrow, when she demanded magic lessons from the pony.