Liverpools, Oxers, Combinations, and TRIPLE BARS!
xxx
Everypony was dead and it was all Twilight's Fault.
Turned out it wasn't a good idea to create a linked circuit with the Elements of Harmony--the artifacts--and their bearers, the pony Elements of Harmony, to replicate a nuclear breeder reactor. Turned out she shouldn't have been inspired by things she'd seen in the mirror world with those tall humanes Sunset Shimmer hung out with. Devastation. Not jubilation. Power levels far lower than 9000. She had become death, destroyer of friends.
"But I can fix this!"
Cloning bodies started with a first step of swabs up the nose and rump. Extract those cells and eggs. Genetic DNA-that's Deoxyribonucleic Acid. Twilight put on her safety goggles and turned her lab into a clean room. No worries about radiation, thankfully. The Elements of Harmony hadn't been able to produce that--just death of her friends.
Thankfully, after looking out her balcony and glimpsing some flying pegasi, she realized the disaster had only managed to cause the death of everypony in the Throne Room, except her, of course. She looked at her hooves. No problem. She'd been shielded by her natural protective spell bubble that activated as a contingency. Her prior thoughts had been a bit overly-dramatic. Spend too much time with dramatic friends like Rarity and their mannerisms did truly intrude. Twilight smiled, then frowned. Rarity was dead. At least for the moment. She hadn't had a contingent bubble. And considering that... Twilight's protective bubble had only been up for the instant of the explosion and radiation was supposed to be longer-lasting than a mere moment. If any radiation was perpetuating, then maybe...
Twilight jumped across the mirror to Sunset's world and stole a Geiger counter.
Hoarseapples.
Twilight jumped back to Sunset's world, vomited on a sofa, ripped off a science lab door with her magic, swiped radiation pills and a couple radiation suits in case any other pony needed to join her in the Castle.
Hoarseapples.
Before crossing the barrier, she sliced up the humane-sized radiation suits with her magic and grafted them to fit pony anatomy. Would magic properly hermetically seal the suits? She coughed. Either it would, or... she couldn't do much else.
Hoarseapples.
She hadn't put up a warning sign or locked her doors and the door with all the Elements of Harmony was open and more dead ponies were at the door. Near it, rather. In pools of vomit. Rest in peace Cutie Mark Crusaders. But Twilight could fix it. Probably.
She dragged small corpses across the floor. Sweating. Dizzy.
"Ooops!" she took the pills. Potassium iodide. Great. Radiation would expel in her urine. Get some water. Chug-a-lug-chug-a-lug-chug-a-lug. And alcohol. That was supposed to help.
"Hello Granny Smith!"
"Why're ya' wearin' that ersatz apiarist get-up?"
"It's not an--actually--yes--yep. It is. Sure, an apiarist get-up. Ersatz--maybe. How'd you know that word--sorry, that's rude of me. Uh... we definitely got some deadly dangerous bees at the Castle."
"I hear ya'," Granny nodded. "Best not ta' be takin' chances wit' 'em."
Twilight nodded.
"How's Applejack doin'?"
"Lyin' around."
"Takin' a break?"
"Yep." No hesitation. Twilight had expected that question.
"That don't sound like Applejack. 'cept when she's gallivantin' off savin' Equestria or foolin' at tha' spa or foolin' off with some of ya' young fillies."
Best to change the conversation and focus on getting liquor into herself before death. "Got any cider? The hard stuff?"
"Foolin' around some more?" Granny raised an eyebrow.
"Heh-heh-heh. Fillies foolin'. That's me an' Applejack, definitely."
Granny shot Twilight a strange, perhaps evaluating look, but she pointed her in the right direction. And when Twilight returned, gave her a basket of "Useful fixin's": bread, eggs, cucumbers, eggplants, and a cantaloupe.
Alcoholic cider in hoof, figuratively--it was actually levitating behind her whacking into signboards and cracking one pony's portaged fishing pole completely in half, Twilight raced back to the castle and chugged it--the cider, not the shattered fishing pole. She hadn't even noticed that happen or the screeching pony who had been toting it. Then she double-checked ratty reference materials from the humanes' world.
Hoarseapples.
She needed red wine. Red. Red wine. Not this piss-colored cider percolating in her blood and pores. She shrieked.
Not quite yet drunk off her hooves, she raced over to Berry Punch's abode before the alcohol absorbed in her bloodstream. "Berry Punch! Berry Punch! Punch! Berry! Beary Punch" She shouted and pounded on the oaken front door. Then she ripped off the mare's door with her magic, tossing it aside like a mouth-yanked cork.
No pony was around, so Twilight Sparkle lifted with her magic a couple of casks of Berry Punch's sparkling "Private" Ponyville: Home of the Elements of Harmony Reserve: Return of Luna Blackberry Edition and went back to her castle.
She made sure to lock her door and all the windows. And to leave a note on her door ordering Spike to a long vacation to the Dragon Lands. And bits to fund it.
Then she got wasted.
Several days later, hungover and full of toast and juice of the non-alcoholic type, and eggs, and coffee and tea, Twilight continued her work even though the corpses had begun to smell.
"Don't worry, Rarity," she japed, to keep up her spirits and her sanity. She patted the white-coated mare on her head. "I won't tell anypony about your malodorous problem if you won't tell anypony about my teensey-weensey-ain't-nothing-of-a-thing mistake. Heh-heh. Ain't. Improper. Heh-heh. I'm stupid." It was unclear if the talking was helping or harming Twilight's sanity.
There had been pounding at her door. She hadn't checked it out.
Some pony had brought a bullhorn and yelled something that Twilight could barely hear. Rather, she could hear but the modulation was tough to understand. She took a break and tuned her ears to decipher it. "Sparkle... law... door... summons..." Not important. Rather, possibly important enough that addressing it might interrupt her absolutely direly important work. So she ignored it.
The cloning itself would not be particularly difficult. But the accelerated cell division would prove more problematic. Polymerase chain reactions needed to be multiplied. "MCS*, IPS*, PCR*, DNA, RNA, NDA for de-neigh-a-bil-ee-tay, la-la-la," she sang as she accelerated cell growth with her magic. Soon enough, she had embryos! But no hosts. Except herself. And some corpses. She looked down at her belly. Then at the bodies. Belly. Bodies. Belly. Bodies.
*MCS- Multiple Cloning Site
*IPS - Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells
*PCR - Polymerase Chain Reaction
Eight embryos inside her later, she lay in a lot of pain.
She'd just invented artificial surrogate motherhood. And it hurt like a kidney stone. Eight of them in her uterus. Ugh. She needed avocado toast. Chocolate. Lots of it. And candy--darn you Pinkie Pie 2.0!
There was a knock-knock-knocking at her door.
"Twilight! Twilight!" A young dragon's voice called. Spike was back! Early!
Panic.
Twilight grabbed her Geiger counter. Made the measurements.
The radiation suit wouldn't be needed. "The half-life has decayed!" She was triumphant. And she changed out of her radiation suit into something less bulky.
She set aside her Geiger counter. "Come on in Spike. Just the dragon I wanted to see. How was your vacation?" She slammed the door behind him with her magic, blocking the Mayor and two burly Royal Guards from pushing past.
"We're all worried about you," Spike started. His eyes bulged, taking in Twilight's dress--an oversized floral muumuu she'd fashioned from spare curtains and that was hiding her baby bump.
Twilight noted it. "Trying new fashions!"
Spike shook his head. "Not gonna pry... Now, the girls--how are they, Twilight?"
"Oh, the Elements, fine. Nifty. Dandy. Just where I left them."
"I mean the Cutie Mark Crusaders--they went into your castle and never came out, ponies say."
"Oh," Twilight said, cheeks reddening. "I'm sure they're going to be quite fine when they turn up."
"They went missing a week and a half ago."
"You don't say."
"I do," Spike nodded.
"Ah," Twilight nodded back, smiling wide.
"Yes," Spike nodded again. "The girls--"
"Heh-heh. They're closer than you think." She rubbed her belly. Then, she blinked. "Take a message for me, Spike."
"Okay," muscle memory kicked in, "what do you need?"
"To Nurse Redheart--"
Nurse Redheart arrived in dead of night, scowling as she climbed into a brown-papered-over back window as instructed. Twilight sealed it behind her.
"You needed me urgently?" Her scowl deepened into a deep frown. "There's a lot of angry ponies outside, Princess Twilight Sparkle. I... don't like to say this but, the three young fillies are my patients too and I share some of the crowd's concerns--"
"Heh-heh," Twilight laughed. "All will be fine. Trust me." Her teeth gleamed.
Redheart's eyes narrowed. "What do you want?"
"I'll disrobe. I already sent Spike away. Outside. He didn't want to go." Twilight murmured to herself.
"Uh-huh." Nurse Redheart looked around the room, saw a basket, some rotting chewed-at-one-end cucumbers, an eggplant, and a cantaloupe on one table. And some oils, and scented candles, incense, and grease on another. Casks of what smelled like alcohol on the ground. Stains all around. And a bedroll. The faint odor of... vomit and bleach? And books on... anatomy spread open detailing pony spreads--perhaps volumes of Neigh's Anatomy or the PonySutra? Redheart had studied one in Med School and the other last month. While the tomes had different purposes, details in some portions of one were quite reminiscent of--
Twilight coughed. "I'm ready for delivery, Nurse Redheart."
"Wha--Oh, by Celestia!" Redheart recoiled at Twilight's engorged belly. Then her medical training took over. "Is that--"
"Pregnancy."
"You're certain?"
Twilight bobbed her head.
"How long?"
Twilight bit her lower lip. "Long enough."
"But you weren't showing... I am sure I would have noticed or heard about this--"
"It all came on rather suddenly." Twilight's belly nearly scraped the ground.
"These... developments normally take many, many months," Redheart started, and she also began going through her medical bag. "We'll take some tests."
"I'm about to pop," Twilight said.
"We'll just see about that--"
Twilight's water broke.
Several hours later.
Redheart was sweating. "Congratulations, Twilight. You're a proud mother of... eight foals."
"Get me another spinal anesthetic!" Twilight demanded.
"...No," Redheart said. "But I have some ibuprofen."
Twilight snatched a bottle of pills with her magic from Redheart's hooves.
"How do mothers do this?" She demanded.
"Well... usually there aren't eight foals. And usually we're in a hospital..."
Later.
"For, um, registration purposes, is there a father?"
"No."
"Sorry. Um, yes, need to remember that. Of course, in this situation--" she dissembled. "Do you know the second parent? Genetically that is?"
"I suppose there might be eight. Depends on what you mean by parent."
Redheart quirked an eyebrow.
"But don't worry about registering them--I'll take care of this problem."
"Problem? Take care? What are you suggesting?"
"But..." Twilight trailed off. "I need to account for witnesses."
"Witnesses!" Redheart backed away. "Are you suggesting, Princess Twilight Sparkle, that you intend to harm these defenseless foals--"
Twilight Sparkle hit her with a keg.
Standing over the body, Twilight breathed hard, in and out through her nose, in and out, using the La Maze Method like Redheart had coached her. Then, wobbling willy-nilly, Twilight passed out.
Later.
Twilight had inserted the eight foals in magic-shaped crystal incubators, filled with supergrowth formula. "You all look so cute!" she said. "Especially you, baby Fluttershy." She booped the baby's nose through a tiny window in its incubator. Lil' Fluttershy made a squeal.
Then Twilight looked back to Nurse Redheart. How to deal with her? The incubation would take a few days and the witness couldn't just lie around until she merited another head whacking. And Twilight couldn't drug her into a stupor. But maybe... Redheart needed to forget.
Wheels spinned within wheels within Twilight's drug-soothed mind.
Drugs were the answer to everything! Nurse Redheart had to think she was hallucinating and imagined what had happened. And Twilight only needed to administer them once--much safer to only apply the prohibited substances upon a single occasion.
Nurses--Nurse Redheart had a lot of codeine. She'd not given it to Twilight. But she had it. In her bag. Her little green bag. And it could induce hallucinations. Twilight chuckled as she levitated the medication with her magic and easily undid the foal-proof lid.
Even later.
After Nurse Redheart had ingested codeine in her coffee and Coca-Cola from the Mirror World and gone on a trip on the galactic railroad, had too much to dream last night, and hallucinated about eight little princes marooned on teeny tiny planets, Twilight convinced her they'd paid the phantom tollbooth, so to speak and gone on a 'trip' together, which was a relatively easy concept to convince Nurse Redheart of since it made more sense than what had happened with the delivery of eight foals from a clearly virgin mare who in no way could possibly have been pregnant the last time she'd been seen at her gynecological visit two moons ago and since Nurse Redheart had awoken with lipstick smeared across her and red wine soaking all around her and Twilight on some messy bedding.
"But why," she asked Twilight.
"I've... got a nymphomania problem," Twilight shyly admitted. "We tried to treat it and one thing led to another and... it got lewd. This isn't going to work."
"I--I--"
"I'm sorry but we shouldn't have a relationship. I shouldn't have led you on. It's my fault you were overcome with passion and had your way with me. To be clear--I consented. Completely."
"A nurse shouldn't--her patient--with--"
"Don't worry," Twilight Sparkle smiled. "I won't say anything about this."
"I-"
"Would you like a memory spell to forget?"
"I don't recall what happened, regardless--"
"I mean you could completely forget this. You could wake up in your home or office--your choice! Wake as though nothing happened except you had a mild case of the flu after coming to see and treat me for a simple matter."
"...Please."
Permission granted to cast the memory spell, Twilight took care of matters. It would have been far easier to have started with the memory modification spell from the start, but that spell required full consent, and although her Nurse probably would have granted consent--the pile of dead bodies to explain may have encouraged her to not grant it--at least not immediately--and she'd become an ongoing complication, so Twilight determined this farce was more prudent.
Meanwhile, Twilight realized a flaw in her plan. She could clone the bodies, but there would be no mind. At least, not the same mind. Those were gone forever. And without them, were her friends really her friends at all any more?
But wait!
She stole some computers... and a generator and fuel and a solar panel from the mirror world because Equestria still didn't have anything better than coal power especially since nuclear reactions were, rather spectacularly, unfortunately out of the question. And Twilight didn't want to use polluting coal or oil extraction, besides she wasn't all that certain there had been several hundred million years of evolution on Equestria anyway that might have produced enough deceased matter to matter. Obviously there had been vegetative matter, thus the coal the diamond dogs used, but had there been plankton for oil? Of course, solar panels and wind turbines were options... but Equestria had not yet discovered lithium, so she used this shortcut... maybe in the long run, Equestria could trade with the other world.
Then she ~~stole~~ forcibly borrowed a few humanes who helped program the computers and she inserted the humanes in a time travel loop so not too much time would pass in the outside world that her friends' brains would irreversibly decay. Being quite bright, one of them asked that if she could do this, then why could she not time travel to prevent her friends' deaths?
"Of course, it is elementary, my dear humane," Twilight began, bleary eyed and tottering. She'd been away for several days already in a time loop. No sense in sleeping extra in a time loop because she exhausted her self even more resetting it, so the energy benefits--while worth it to a certain extent--were a diminishing return.
"My name is Rosalind."
"Of course Rosy Lined."
"Rosalind"
"Rosylined?"
"Ros-lind"
"Roselined. Got it," Twilight nodded.
"And my surname is--"
"Your Sire's name?"
"Sure. It is--"
Twilight heard some gobbletygook that sounded nothing at all like a pony's name and nodded and repeated it back. As Princess of Friendship, she wanted to understand the strange and to respect it, as she respected the names of other extra-Equestrian species, but her head was swimming and her empathy center--drowning. Closer and closer she crawled to her goal of restoring life, while her own brain and empathetic centers spiraled into a monstrous mess of flying spaghetti. Then, "as I was saying, my dear Roselined Watchson, it is elementary that if I traveled in time, attempting to prevent the initial unpleasantness, that the journey would create unpredictable side realities that invariably would end poorly."
* DNA... Rosalind Franklin, James Watson, Crick, etc.
* Elementary.
The scientists asked to see the math.
Twilight instead took them on a journey. When they returned, almost everyone, except Bob, had a good vomit and lie down since the reality they entered had been massaged into an anti-Newtonian physics nightmare.
"As has been demonstrated," Twilight breathed heavily. "Quod erat demonstratum. Et cetera and assumpsit and habeaus corpus and therefore." Eventually, she realized she was speaking Old Ponish.
She didn't burden them with the complete, complex path her experiential testing had twisted. In one future, all Equestria died due to a zombie Element-bearer apocalypse. In another ten, she didn't learn her lesson and blew everypony up in another nuclear explosion--which was not as foolish a conclusion as a know-it-all outsider might presume. Experiments needed replicable results and there were always permutations to try and contaminants to be contained. She still had other possibilities she ideally would like to examine. There were always variations and modifications she could... Nope! Head spinning, she closed her eyes ever-so-tight. This was the best possible future.
They, the humanes that is, still needed to jump back in time to the moment after the ponies had died. Before brain death. The first humane researchers got radiation poisoning despite iodine and suits, so Twilight shielded the "B" team while the "A" team recovered. Then she went back in time and saved "A" team the trouble of getting sick in the first place. All were thankful until they caught this malady called the SARS-PONY-2-coronavirus and several lives' were highly at risk, so she reversed that unfortunate spell before it got too much out of hoof and mutated to be even more deadly to ponies than it apparently was to humans. So, she had the less talented "B" team figure things out.
After quite a while, they had the solution. She stored memories in computers. Powered by solar power units. Not as powerful as nuclear power, but they worked--when the sun was shining and clouds were not obscuring. Installed in dead of night when the Royal Guard and Ponyville couldn't easily see her. She'd only had to teleport away a few particularly resourcefully observant ponies and Derpy before completing her task. Then she sent the scientists home.
The humanes had gained great knowledge from their time in Equestria, but their computer-stored notes corrupted when sent across the portal. And their backups fried. Time magic interacted badly with the mirror world barrier. Still, they were confident they could recreate their work. But they couldn't. Because Equestria had a lot of magic and their boring world only had a little.
Some of them despaired. Sought desperately to return to Equestria. But they couldn't. Teleporters, wormholes, drugs. Involuntary commitment to mental asylums. Irradiation. Death. Many premature passages. Amid SARS-PONY-2, which was a name that didn't catch on--humane government called it something else since they had no knowledge of any extradimensional world. Alas. But Twilight didn't know about any of that, about deaths or misattribution of the disease to bats. When she thought about her servitor scientists (rarely), she grinned, proud to have provided the humane beasts such great knowledge in return for their service to science! And she was sure they'd do well in their world. Together they had done something great!
Back in Equestria, Twilight recharged the electrical synapses connecting computers to brains. But even charged with memories, the larger vat-grown bodies just lay there.
This was not right, not right, NOT RIGHT!
She had the bodies. She'd transferred the minds but they didn't do anything--at least anything appropriate. Maybe what she needed was electricity to jump-start the meld, deliver it through a defibrillator? She'd taken that from the humanes. Hooked it to the solar array. It could only be used at the height of the sun since she had no batteries. But even if--even if that worked... it could also kill. Nuclear power was out. For obvious reasons. So many practical applications existed for it... In lieu of that, maybe she'd use a lightning strike? Definitely a killer proposition. What kind of mad scientist insane idiot would use a lightning strike even on a convicted murderer? Probably a humane, Twilight reflected. They still killed their villains--ponies didn't... except for Sombra, but he was essentially a smoke monster--not even a person. One couldn't be responsible for killing smoke, or a ghost! They weren't even alive. But her bodies were! They were breathing. She could force feed them, and after she did, they eliminated. She strapped on diapers and catheters. And got out her mop.
If electricity wasn't the answer, then she needed to read more. And fast. Ponyville was angry and it was only a matter of time before Celestia or Luna checked in. She had been lucky they were on that diplomatic delegation. Though distance was no delimiter for Luna, Twilight's dream wards had been working. Or, Luna had not been concerned enough to drop in. That luck could not last much longer.
Something needed to act as the connector between mind and body. She was sure she could teach the bodies to respond to stimuli but that wasn't the point. She wanted back her friends, not someponies in similar-looking bodies who couldn't access vital memories.
She frowned. She'd have to look to philosophy.
She didn't like philosophy.
It wasn't practical.
But.
It had an answer. Perhaps not the answer. But an answer.
Neightsche, Twilight's favorite philosopher, didn't believe in the immortality of souls, or even their existence. But Immanuel Canter had some interesting thoughts on the matter.
After reviewing Canter, the conclusion was quite clear. Twilight Sparkle was going to have to resurrect her friends' immortal souls. They had to have gone somewhere--because if they hadn't gone somewhere then she couldn't get back her friends because the souls would never have existed and without the souls she couldn't get back their personalities and she'd then sure be guilty of murder or maneslaughter or at least reckless neighlegence!
Another Golden Age philosopher, Brohock Stifle,* had writings that held the key to the solution. According to Stifle, the atom was within all ponies and all ponies had atoms within them. Atoms were the smallest piece of matter--assuming theoretical substances like Ponytrons, Neightrons, and Equestrons didn't exist.** And Twilight Sparkle was most certain that those unobserved phenomena couldn't possibly exist on a physical level at least. By its very definition, an atom was the smallest form of matter. Nothing could be smaller, thus nothing could make up an atom. Contradictions! To not believe in atoms was like not believing in phlogiston.
* Stifle- Body part of a pony, like a knee joint.
Hock- Between a stifle and fetlock, like a heel.
Baruch Spinoza - Philosopher.
** This begs the question of exactly what Twilight Sparkle was thinking when she attempted a NUCLEAR reaction.... In short, she believed an atom had a center of mass and that's what she split, like cell division.... keep in mind this madmare comes from a land of magic and scientific 'laws' work different there.***
*** But hubris and its fruits are harvested the same everywhere. 
Story (c) 2023 Sparkling Twilight!
Twilight Sparkle narrowed her eyes. Perhaps though, she was thinking too narrowly. What IF the general theory of phlogiston was wrong? What if combustion did not release mass? Twilight had always meant to study that more in-depth but she only had so much time--and the Academy was against unapproved empirical tests, so no one had even tested such a theory.... Except Darned Humor*, which was ironic since Darned Humor--perhaps Twilight's favorite philosopher when she had to admit to one even though Humor was, she felt, more of a scientist--was a great enemy of the concept of souls.
* David Hume
Twilight turned to her library and after some time plucked out a dingy leather-bound volume. She recoiled a bit and sniffed the air. Yes. Leather. From Humor's rumored dead bat pony husband. To immortalize him. Not from the wings of course, but from the more hide-like pony body. The Academy had said the binding couldn't be done. Shouldn't be done. Humor had thrown that back in their collective face, with an--obviously ironic--smile upon his face.
Twilight Sparkle needed to break the laws of convention to solve her problem. Humor suggested to test. And, in testing, Humor had determined no weight was lost when there was combustion. And if weight was not lost since some metals gained weight when burned, then perhaps phlogiston was not real. But how would that help Twilight Sparkle? She collapsed in her book. And her friends' bodies smoldered. And the leather's off-gassing stank. So many chemical preservatives. Preservatives! That was it! Something that preserved the soul!
Twilight Sparkle hunted for the pamphlet of Doctor Fränkenfurter, the hot dog-marked pony who aside from inventing a delectable mashed vegan delicacy had once given life to a "Modern Prometheus" as he called it, an automaton that disappeared from history too-soon after its creation. Doctor Fränkenfurter also passed into history close to publication amid a grand conflagration. But his epistolary pamphlet collection of letters had survived. His how-to. A guide banned by Princess Celestia and only present in this library because Twilight had smuggled it out of the Royal Library's restricted section carefully bagged and bulging within her cheeks.
The guide, however, had not worked before. She hadn't resurrected those animals for Fluttershy. And Fluttershy had cried. And, despite best intentions waylaid by an extremely busy work schedule, Twilight also had not been able to get the pamphlet back to Celestia's library. So, Twilight figured, although invocation of this wish was perhaps more mystical than appropriate--it probably was fated that she should be able to use that pamphlet to good effect in her greatest time of need. It was, perhaps, her only hope. Perhaps the guide hadn't been at fault with her previous failures. It might only work on ponies. Frankenfurter had scrawled warnings, however, about bringing to life soul-dead creatures with "stolen lives".
She'd ignored those warnings and attempted creation of a soul-dead animal--since she didn't quite believe in immortal souls and besides, if souls *did* exist, animals probably didn't have them since they weren't sentient. So, since they didn't have souls, not much could have gone wrong, probably, she figured. At least any damage wouldn't be large. What mischief could a resurrected squirrel get into?
Twilight narrowed her eyes. Squirrel. Mischief.
Fluttershy had had a mischievous white squirrel named Angel for a long time. Then, the squirrel died and Twilight resurrected... failed to resurrect it. But, soon after, a mischievous rabbit moved in with Fluttershy. A rabbit who acted very much like that terrible squirrel: stealing food, pulling pranks. A rabbit that Fluttershy also named "Angel". But the body that Twilight had incubated had been a squirrel, not a rabbit. Rabbits had been in an adjacent cage. They had been cloned yes, but. Was it possible? Could Twilight really have made a protocol mistake and injected the wrong species? She thought back to the night as much as she could. She had, of course, been quite tired.
She blinked.
That type of lab mistake was not one she would make. Even addled with--sleep. Stay awake. Codeine--the coffee. Sweating. No way she'd mix--she'd woken up on the floor. No. She shook her head. Stillbirth from the squirrel had been a squirrel... probably. She could tell the difference between species even though she didn't have much exposure to animals--she'd consulted a book. With bleary eyes. Fever. Sweats. But, a book.
* Don't give a horse or pony coffee.
Twilight Sparkle didn't make mistakes. She followed the method and the method directed the truth. As long as one followed the method, it would work. It always worked. If it could. Nuclear reactions and the elements of harmony weren't compatible, apparently. The method was flawless.
But it couldn't hurt to try the experiment again. Make a few changes. Permutations. Especially since as Twilight well knew, animals did not have souls, but perhaps ponies did. That was one variation. The experiment authoritatively claimed ponies had souls--a bizarre assertion, Twilight had figured, but she could not definitively explain the limited spirit in her newbirthed clones that were staring at her without recognition and demanding food and bidets and staring at her with weird recognition-that-was-more-like-nonrecognition. A soul hypothesis was a potential answer.
She cast the experimental spell.
Later, Twilight wrote notes concerning her friends' development. The experiment had worked. Her friends connected memory and motivation and the glass-eyed-stares were replaced with 'soul'. Twilight was a believer. But there had been side effects. Personality changes. And, she couldn't help but note there were potential correlations to explain same, and she needed to analyze them.:
"Applejack has really started enjoying strawberries--a strange side effect. She had no prior interest in strawberries and I do not enjoy them, so she could not have picked up such an affectation in my womb! Note self: consider recessive unactivated genes. An alternative hypothesis, however, relates to a uniquely terrible situation. On the day Applejack returned to us, eponymously strawberry-loving pegasus Strawberry Sunrise coincidentally died of a freak heart attack. At least, she fell dead from the sky. Everypony said she didn't seem to be able to work her wings. A heart attack would explain that complication. Or... it could be explained by the transfer of an immature earth pony clone's soul to an unexpected body-vessel! That's certainly an hypothesis, but it is impossible to prove. Her death certificate said "heart attack," and that clears my legal responsibility.
"But still... In addition to the strawberry-fancying, Applejack has had some other odd personality differences. Applejack keeps telling all sorts of strange tall tales--and Strawberry Sunrise was known for that. Of course, Applejack once admitted to me she'd been quit a filly fibber in her youth, so maybe this is just a return to that aspect of her personality... even though Applejack is... probably still is the Element of Honesty. Moreso than any other explanation, that takes care of the weird hypothesis of potential transmigration of souls. ... One other note--she's become much more irascible than before, threatening to hoof-wrestle anyone who insults her favorite foods. Still, at heart, even though she now has shared with us a belief that apples are a bit disgusting, which probably can be accounted for by some chemical imbalance in her cloned body, she is still at her core the same Apple, growing plants and harvesting them. Even if they're strawberries."
"Rarity's heart is not in dresses and gowns any more. She is really into--"
"Oops!" Twilight realized, and crossed out a pronoun. Twilight had been asked to revise that form of address:
"He is more into making donuts. Speaking of donuts: he had a good opening in Canterlot after converting its branch of Rarity-For-You into the best donut shop in Canterlot--some ponies say its donuts taste even better than the recently shuttered award-winning Donut Joe's Coffee and Donuts--Donut Joe having disappeared on a business trip to Saddle Arabia several months ago and not having paid his rent. This disappearance suggests a commonality with the Applejack/Strawberry situation above but it is not uncommon for ponies to go missing in the Saddle Arabian desert--succumbing to dehydration and/or being consumed by terror lizards. Ponies have been swearing Rarity's donuts are just as good, if not better than Joe's since they have added designer flair."
"The Cutie Mark Crusaders have not quite been as close as before. And their personalities might... just may be explained by the tragedy that befell Diamond Tiara, Silver Spoon and speech-impeded Twist on the train tracks several hours after the spell's execution. Scootaloo developed a lisp in affectation of Twist's--and got grief counseling for it. And Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle became quite the terrifying duo of bullies, filling the vacancy left by Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon but instead of attacking blank-flanks like the departed, they've been criticizing ponies who already had their cutie marks and repeatedly assert how much better the Cutie Mark Crusaders are than anypony else because they can try new activities and have all kinds of fun working out what they can do well in life while everypony else has to conform to what their cutie marks are telling them."
"Fluttershy is not afraid any more. Although her voice has become a bit monotone and she creepily stares into nothing from time to time, which reminds me of Maud--who disappeared during a caving expedition. But, Fluttershy cannot possibly be Maud because she doesn't answer to the name 'Maud'. She's Fluttershy through and through, with all of the delicate pony's many memories.... She's just added to her animal menagerie with a new assortment of igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary rocks. And, those additions are completely within the expected boundaries of her character--her reptiles quite appreciate the attention."
"Rainbow Dash is a more concerning case. After rebirth, she got quite romantic... which wasn't at all like the Rainbow I've known. At all. But reckless romance is just like Cloud Kicker... another pony who mysteriously died on the day of my friends' rebirths--a death that, thankfully for my hypothesis here, can be explained by Cloud Kicker's simple negligence. The pegasus' amour, who witnessed the horrible surprise, reported his partner had forgotten ropes' location and self-asphyxiated. Grim, but anypony popping that much mind-altering substances could pop off another way from a mistake--the mode of malignant maneslaughter did not mean a confused and newweaned drifting lost soul was responsible for the mistake.
"Still, it was not long before our new-styled "flying ace-sexual" herself--is that an oxymoron? Maybe Dash doesn't know what that means? Anyway, it was not long before Dash bolted off, informing us of an "assignation" with "you know who." I did not know who, and while the answer might be edifying, Dash's cloud-bed partners have been widespread and it's more likely I could list the ponies whom she has not recently expressed interest in. On top of that, she invited me to be a "bottom" for a menage-a-quatre. I did not have to look up that word and I realize not much has been written about such events in research papers, so participation would add important original experiential scientific research, like that championed by Darned Humor, to equine history by producing good quality research on the prurient phenomena! But, do I want to be known academically for something foals are prohibited from reading? I have a few hours to decide. There likely will be future occasions, so I am going to turn this one down."
"However, the best argument that resurrection activities only have an incidental relationship to unexplained deaths is that Pinkie Pie is pretty much the same. Mostly. She's been a bit more depressed... bemoaning the disappearance of her beloved sister Maud and dearth of letter replies from her favorite fellow party pony Cheese Sandwich. But, this is not the first time Pinkie has been a bit down since the Mirror Pool incident. Remember, though, as I filed in experimental notebook number 240, I have, with 98.3233% certainty, (repeating, of course), confirmed that this Pinkie Pie is certifiably the same Pinkie we started with and is not merely a depressingly dour charlatan copy. In case you do not have time to consult my prior experimental notebook: the real Pinkie Pie was sad she had been copied so many times--and that's why she was most motivated to survive when I conducted the paint dry-watching experiment!
"Also! It has been well proven that I did not murder any of the Pinkie Pies we destroyed during that debacle where there were hundreds of copies and the real one demonstrated her worth by being willing to focus on the utterly un-fun activity of watching paint dry. The phantasmal creations of water were never alive and never persons and since apparently souls exist and it's unclear whencefrom the simulacra would have gained souls, ergo I could not have killed them--they were figments of mass hallucinations. Besides, everypony saw me eliminate them and no one objected and therefore, the statute of limitations has passed. See Celestia's Revised Second Daybook Chapter 127.0.0.1.6180*. Thus, my decision then, like my decision now, cannot have been wrong."
*127.0.0.1 - IP addresses.
1.6180 - The Golden Ratio.
"I'm only kidding myself," Twilight gloomed. "My rebirth spells did something terrible. I cannot assert with a straight face that the coincidences have no correlation," she frowned. "The only way to know for certain, though," she speculated, "is to follow rational scientific principles." She broke open several of her books. According to Humor, when scientific results were unclear, to determine appropriate results, she should test again. "But assuming the procedure indeed results in somepony's death, then is it ethical to kill again?"
No. Twilight shook her head. It was certainly not okay. So, in order to do no harm, which was another important principle advocated by the famous veterinarian Hippopotamus II,(LINK) she'd not repeat the experiment and would instead adopt the opposing hypothesis and in lieu of proof other than circumstantial: she, Twilight Sparkle, could not be a murderer.
She had done a good deed to fix a problem that itself had been an unfortunate and entirely unexpected outcome of a procedure that could have produced [near] unlimited [electrical] power! Any side-effects were acts of unpredictable and unascertainable fate. Science solved the resurrection problem, as it solved all things in an inexorable forward moving line of progress, which all philosophers... well, the good ones, acknowledged.
Clearly unforeseeable side effects weren't her fault and nopony was dead because of Twilight. No pony at all.
xxx
