A/N: Third chapter, ahoy! Now that Twilight's had her, um, "fun" with Rainbow Dash, it's time to see which more torture for the sake of finding the Elements, procedures, and a nightmare sequence along the way! Like the previous chapter, there will be blood, gore, detailed organ terminology, and psychological trauma along with physical. So, without further ado, let's get this party started!
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Chapter 3: Suffocating Laughter
If I ever stop laughing, I'm dead.
-Tom Knapp
Sometime later, Twilight Sparkle's hidden laboratory was all cleaned up from the experimentation on her friend. The blood and muscle from Rainbow Dash's body was cleaned up from the ground, and there was a shiny new pedestal with its occupant already on display.
Rainbow Dash's skeleton wasn't quite as flawless-looking as the others - tooth marks could be seen where the mentally altered pegasus had gnawed at her own bones in delirium, and parts of her wings looked like they were about to collapse from where she had torn at their structures. Luckily, she hadn't quite bitten through them, so aside from those bite marks and the place where the skull was re-attached, the skeletal structure was intact. And in the scientific unicorn's view, even that was a showcase of the pony's mental break.
Sure, with what Twilight had planned it was going to be a bit more crowded when she was done, but she wanted to preserve her friends as much as she could. As more of a way to remember them by.
The purple pony used her magic to scribble down a few last notes to jot down, before letting her quill rest on the table's surface and smiling in satisfaction.
"Ah, there we go!"
The now fur-covered book had successfully been completed, having cleaned all the blood off and attached the coat and epidermis to the original front and back. Flipping through, Rainbow Dash's organs were sealed tight in laminations as the "pages". The book was pretty big, after all - it needed to be. It was easily expandable, good enough to house all the organs without damaging them. The intestines had to especially be coiled upon each other to fit into their laminated section. Them being many times the length of a pony was a bit irritating to sort out, unravelling them from Rainbow's corpse just to stuff them back into something again, but it was necessary to properly cleanse the organs to prevent decay.
Following the array of laminated organs, the tome's last section held the pages of notes that Twilight had written down on the athletic pegasus. While a few were scribblings of details of her normal behavior and body structure, the majority of notes were on Rainbow's loyalty alteration and mental breakdown at Twilight's hooves. The reactions to the treatments, the equipment used, the appearance of the Element of Loyalty, finally culminating in detailed descriptions of Rainbow Dash's deranged suicide through self-cannibalism.
And of course, there were the pages on the Element of Loyalty itself - how long it took to appear, it's genetic signature in comparison to other aspects of Rainbow's DNA, sighting in extra to compare to other ponies, where it was found... she'd do a bit more research later, to which more pages would eagerly be added, but for now, the basics were there.
It was brilliant.
The unicorn levitated the tome over to her large bookshelf and gently placed it in its proper slot - the far left of the top shelf, where only her completed works on the Elements of Harmony would be placed. She vowed to tidy up that shelf more often than any other - she needed to in order to properly preserve her friends, and of course keep her notes on the Elements intact.
But full analyzing would come later. Time to decide on the next subject.
"I have to plan this out well," Twilight said to herself. "If I don't do this right, ponies might start getting suspicious and I'd get found out!" She knocked her right front hoof against her forehead several times, trying to get an idea. "I've got to pick the one who would be the most likely one to pop in and find this all by accident..."
Suddenly, Twilight figured knew just the one. Her violet eyes grew bright as the idea formed more in her head. Yeah, it's gotta be her! She's always jumping around places and surprising everypony - if she could find me in a mirror like before, she might be able to...
The young mare's eyes darted around, eyeing every inch of her equipment as if the pony she thought of would jump out at any moment. If that pony saw... if she found out and told everypony what she saw...
No, no, NO! That can't happen, I won't let it!
The unicorn's mind was made up. Regaining confidence, she looked at the less-than-perfect skeleton by her side, grinning brightly. "I know a certain pony who would just loveto see you, Dashie! We ought to bring Pinkie Pie here to liven things up!"
Glancing back toward her main shelf, she eyed the empty bindings that were to be reserved for the rest of her friends. Lingered on a sketched-out pink cover with three balloons.
"But how to get her here..."
Twilight knew full-well that doing this procedure twice in one day would be way too risky - ponies would start wondering where she was. Bbesides, she needed to get some of her apparatuses down here rearranged, set up for their next target. After all, taking Laughter would be different from taking Loyalty. And she had an interesting idea on the type of procedure she wanted to use.
But of course, the pony needed to be here first.
"Trying to bring her over with a book bribe like Rainbow wouldn't work, she'll tell everypony that she's coming over here, and then when she disappears..." Twilight shook her head. "It needs to be subtle, enough so Pinkie won't see it coming."
The scientist knew that Pinkie loved sweets - it was almost a wonder that the energetic earth pony didn't eat everything at the bakery she worked at. But if there was a sugar-coated substance offered to her, Pinkie would almost always eat it without question.
And that gave Twilight an idea.
"I may not be good at making cupcakes... but if I place an order for some..."
As she exited her laboratory, locked it up tight, and began her ascent up the stairs, the unicorn chuckled, the plan already clear in her mind. The actual execution - pardon the pun - of getting Pinkie there would come for tomorrow, but she had quite a bit of time to think about the plan.
"I'll just ask for some for Spike and I, I'll keep one hidden, inject it with a little drug, offer it to her and..." Twilight grinned in anticipation. The plan, as she saw it, was flawless.
Upon reaching the bookcase that was her passage between here and the welcoming expanse of the library, Twilight listened very closely. No footsteps on the library floor, no voices calling out for her. She pressed her hoof against a place in the wall, the direct horizontal correspondent to the button on the library's side, and the bookcase soundlessly rotated to let her through. Passing through the opening, satisfied that no one had seen her, she pressed the hidden button on the library wall to rotate the bookcase back to its ordinary state.
Pleased with herself, she opened the door and started to go out-
- And nearly crashed into Spike.
"Woah, Twilight!" the purple dragon exclaimed at his friend's sudden appearance. "Wasn't expecting to see ya rush out!"
Twilight blinked as she noticed that the sun's light had left the horizon, the moon risen into the sky. Wow, I was down there a while.She arched her brow. "Were you at Sugarcube Corner that whole time?"
"Well, not the whole time!" Spike laughed. "But man, Pinkie sure does know how to make a bakery more exciting!"
Twilight had to agree. "Yup, sure does!"
As he walked past her into the library, Spike looked at the unicorn, bemused. "Did you lose track of time from studying again?"
"Well, yeah," Twilight admitted, shutting the door behind her. "Something like that."
The baby dragon grinned. "What were you studying?"
"Equine psychology," the mare affirmed without hesitation. This at least was true - she hadbeen studying psychology, but in a more direct way than almost anypony would dare to go.
Spike had moved a ladder over to one of the bookcases and was climbing up to reach the top. "Find anything interesting?"
"Oh, I did," Twilight smiled to herself, thinking of how she had performed those procedures to find the Element of Loyalty, and soon she'd find-
"What was it?"
"Huh?" Twilight snapped out of her thoughts.
"What was the interesting stuff?"
"Memories and how they're stored," she answered, glad to be able to come up with a true answer quickly enough.
"In that case, do you think you could help me remember where I put Gigantesque Gemstones?" Spike scratched his head. "I'm sure it's supposed to be right-"
The unicorn looked over at her assistant and laughed. "If I remember correctly Spike, isn't that the book you had by your bed earlier?"
Spike's green eyes widened slightly as he remembered, climbing down the ladder. "Oh yeah!" Leaping off upon getting to the last few rungs, he yawned slightly. "Speaking of bed, it is getting kinda late..." he yawned again, looking as if he were about to fall asleep right then and there..
Twilight allowed a smile to cross her face as she levitated Spike onto her back, climbing up the stairs. "Then let's get you to sleep."
Reaching their room, Twilight gently set Spike down into his own bed (where, indeed, the book he had been searching for rested) before getting into her own. Her gaze turned briefly toward her assistant, who had already fallen asleep, before she turned on her side toward the window.
The mare watched the moonlight shining through before closing her eyes, secretly hoping to dream about her little plan for tomorrow.
And while something did come to her in her sleep, it wasn't at all what the unicorn expected it to be.
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Twilight found herself suddenly standing in a mysterious void. Nothing could be seen around her except darkness, though she herself could be seen as clear as day. It was a little unnerving, being in what seemed like an infinite blackness.
"Hello?" she called, taking a cautious step forward as she looked around, her voice echoing.
All that she heard was the silence, smothering any other sound besides her own voice and hoofsteps.
"Hello?" she repeated, looking closely for any signs of others. "Anypony here?"
This time, to her surprise, she got an answer to her call.
"I am," said a strained-yet-familiar voice from behind her.
"Ah!" Twilight whirled around, startled, to face the other pony that had suddenly appeared from the darkness. The pegasus was torn up, mangled and bleeding. Her flanks were nothing more than deep, gaping holes, one wing had been nearly torn off of all matter, and there were smaller but no-less-painful cuts that stained the newcomer's blue coat.
It was a sight that would have filled anypony else with terror and revulsion. But not so much for Twilight, for it was the last she had seen of this pony. Even so, the pony's appearance still surprised her, amazed that she was there at all.
"... Rainbow Dash?"
"What's it to you?" the pegasus said in an irritated tone, her eyes staring at Twilight. There was no compassion in those rose eyes, only mistrust, anger, and unease. "I remember you're the one who killed me." Her gaze was unwavering. "That's point number 586 on why I kept myself away most of my life.
Twilight was surprised at this revelation that Rainbow's fractured memories still remained here, but she stood her ground. "I found the Element of Loyalty."
"Loyalty," Rainbow spat, as if the word left a foul taste in her mouth - clearly her dislike of the concept hadn't lessened since the painful experience. "Loyalty is just an excuse to bind yourself to another and have them trapped with you when they'll stab you in the back. I tried to purge myself of that, even to myself." As if to demonstrate, the pegasus took another bite out of her already mutilated right flank, crying out at the pain but swallowing her own muscle, blood dripping down her mouth and wearing a twisted grimace. "See? And just in case the placement of the marks wasn't enough, I felt I had to attack the other parts too. You know, since they bleed within me? At least, that's what I remember."
Though the pegasus was speaking much more coherently, not in the screaming, frantic laughter she had before her death, she still retained that lack of loyalty. That anger at others and herself. It was clear that her fractured state had carried over to... wherever this was. To anypony else who would happen to be there, the eerie calm in how Rainbow spoke would seem almost more terrifying than the screaming words in her last moments in Equestria..
The unicorn decided she'd at least question what was going on. "W-What are you doing here?" Twilight asked, coming to terms with the fact that her former friend was present in this void-place with her. Wherever it was.
"I could ask you the same thing," Rainbow Dash snarled, tilting her head toward her mutilated left wing and, with effort, snapping off part of the bone, cracking it open.
The pegasus let out a shout of pain, but within a few seconds she had enough energy to talk again. "I figured I'd at least give some acknowledgement, since you're the last one I saw before I died. Besides, it's almost better to see another pony than to just see the dark." She nudged a little of the bone's marrow out in front of her - it seemed that here, the pain only lasted for a few seconds.
The unicorn was stunned. "Why are you still doing that?"
Licking up part of her own bone marrow, Rainbow glared at her, spitting some out in defiance. "Why not?'
"You'll just devour yourself if you keep doing that!" the unicorn insisted. She was unnerved at the fact that, though the torture to get the Element of Loyalty had ceased, Rainbow still had the mental effects intact, as well as her injuries.
"No I won't," the pegasus growled, standing up as her newly-dripping blood collected into a small puddle on the "floor". "It'll heal quick as long as its something from here." She looked at her flanks in particular, laughing in a mentally-unstable way. "Glad the ones from before don't though, or at least very slowly. I'd hate to have them back." She snarled out the word "hate" as if she were an Ursa Major about to charge. "If they do grow back, or I find out there's any trace of loyalty or former ties in my blood, I'll take it out by force and it will not. Ever. Come. Back."
Twilight was getting more disturbed the more she watched Rainbow Dash's actions and listened to her words. Rainbow had gone from being a boisterous, competitive pegasus to a loathing pony who was mistrusting of everypony including her own blood.
But this was all just a dream... right?
That's right. It was.
This is just a dream, Twilight assured herself. The events of yesterday are sticking in my head along with my nervousness that I'll get found out. She closed her eyes.I'll wake up, and then I can just focus on-
"You're going to kill that balloon-marked pony tomorrow, aren't you?" Rainbow broke Twilight out of her thoughts.
Twilight blinked in surprise. "How did you-?"
"Just because you haven't seen me 'til now doesn't mean it doesn't work the other way around," Rainbow pointed out, swallowing the rest of the bone marrow. She bared her teeth and huffed at the other pony, smoke seeming to come out of her nostrils, before turning away. "Guess I'll see you around. Or not. It doesn't really matter."
With that, the pegasus turned and walked away from Twilight Sparkle, vanishing into the dark as the blackness seemed to swallow her up. Not looking back at the one who had broken her on a deeper level than Discord ever had.
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Twilight woke up to morning sunlight in a cold sweat, the dream still fresh in her mind. She was quick to realize that Spike was up from his bed and had likely gone downstairs. That was good for the mare - it gave her time to think. She didn't want Spike pestering her about it.
She tried to shake the dream out of her mind and forget about it. But she couldn't just yet. Rainbow's appearance and words had stuck with her hard. How the effects of the torments had lasted beyond the pony's death.
"Get ahold of yourself, Twilight," she told herself once she got out from under the covers and let her hooves land on the wooden floor, shaking her head. "It was just a dream. If I just focus on the mission everything should go just fine."
Then she remembered precisely what she had to do. Getting the Element of Laughter.
She pushed the words and actions of Dream-Rainbow Dash out of her mind. Time to get ready. The unicorn had a small stash of books in her room, namely some of the ones on psychology she had been reading late into the night. She put one of them, a book with a dark green cover called Psychology and Memoryinto a small bag she hoisted onto her back. Following that, she hurriedly reached into a compartment to pull out a small container filled with tablets of benzodiazepine and place it hidden in the bag as well. A syringe wouldn't work too well for a cupcake.
Trotting down the stairs into the central area of the library, she noticed that Spike was next to one of the bookcases, comparing his stash of crystals and gems to the ones described in the book. "Hey, Spike," she called out.
Spike looked up from his own studying. "Oh, hey Twilight!"
"I'm going over to Sugarcube Corner to get a few cupcakes, alright?"
The dragon smiled. "Oh, could you get some for me?" There was a hopeful look in his eyes. "Gem-covered, maybe?"
Opening the door, Twilight chuckled lightly. She had suspected that Spike would say that, and it only further helped to set her plan into motion. "Sure thing!"
Luckily for Twilight, the purple dragon didn't even suspect that within Twilight's innocent-looking bag was a little medicine that would aid in the second of the Elements being contained.
Twilight quickly reached Ponyville's well-known bakery, arriving to see a gray, cross-eyed pegasus exit the building's door, munching on a muffin as she went. After the pegasus had departed, Twilight pushed open the bakery door and was almost automatically greeted by the hyperactive pony whom she sought.
The establishment was for the most part empty of inhabitants, save for the two of them. Perfect.
"Ooh, hi Twilight!" Pinkie Pie exclaimed as her friend entered the bakery, bouncing on her hooves as she was quite prone to doing. "I'm so glad you came! It's been really quiet in here today, though yesterday Spike came over and we had a cupcake-eating contest and I beat him by 15 cupcakes, can you believe it?" She laughed - not a crazed laugh like Rainbow or a somewhat sinister laugh like Twilight herself had done, but laughter of true excitement.
Element of Laughter indeed.
Even so, Twilight noticed there was something a little off about Pinkie. Like something was bothering her in the deepest corners of her mind but she was trying to hide it.
Twilight put on an innocent smile. "Speaking of cupcakes, Pinkie, I was hoping that you would make a few for Spike and I. You know how he likes those gem-filled ones."
"Oh, kaleidoscope gems!" Pinkie announced brightly. She eagerly looked at her friend, her blue eyes shining, the concerned look no longer visible. "What about you, Twilight? Strawberry, vanilla, chocolate? Or maybe a combo flavor! Or-"
"Just chocolate," the unicorn said hurriedly. The quicker this happened, the sooner that she'd be able to get to work. The quicker she worked, the less of a chance she'd be found out, but not too quick or hastiness might ruin everything...
"Okie dokie Loki!" the party pony exclaimed, "I'll make five for you, and five for Spike!" As the energetic pony seemed to hop from place to place in an instant to get the ingredients (which was one of the things that provoked Twilight to have her be next in the lineup), she began to hum a little tune to herself.
With Pinkie doing the baking, the chocolate ones were done pretty quickly. With Twilight waiting anxiously, the party pony squeezed some chocolate icing on the top to finish them off and placed them all on a large tray. "All done! Double chocolate!"
A smile. "Thanks, Pinkie Pie, these look delicious!"
"Well wait till you tastethem!" Pinkie exclaimed, getting to work on Spike's cupcakes. "I bet they don't look half as great as they taste!"
While the pink earth pony was preoccupied with her second batch, Twilight put her plan into action. Taking one of the chocolate cupcakes, she placed it onto one of the counters and gently nudged some of the top icing aside. Now having a little bit of space, she gently eased a benzo tablet into the cupcake before moving the icing back to the center. She had just enough time to place it back on the tray before Pinkie had Spike's batch of cupcakes all ready.
"Aaand batch #2 is done!" Pinkie exclaimed.
Twilight watched Pinkie clatter the cupcakes onto a tray and place it next to the chocolate ones. At that point, she noticed that Pinkie looked... distinctly worried. Now she was certain something was up.
"What's wrong, Pinkie?"
"Twilight," Pinkie still had that worried look on her face, "have you seen Rainbow Dash?"
The unicorn tried not to flinch. "Not today." Which was true, unless she counted the nightmare in all technicality.
"Oh, well I was looking for her yesterday, and I couldn't find her. She wasn't at her house, anyway."
"You know Rainbow," Twilight said placidly. "She's always flying around doing something." She waved a hoof aimlessly. "Probably just off by herself somewhere."
The unicorn then thought of her dream where Rainbow was, in fact, alone. But she pushed the thought away as soon as it had come - that couldn't be the case, that was just a dream. She was letting her nervousness get the best of her. All she had to do was give Pinkie that cupcake...
The look on Pinkie's face didn't waver, and she put her front hooves on the counter. "But yesterday when I was looking for her, my knee started feeling all pinchy! You remember what a pinchy knee means, right?"
Twilight almost face-hoofed. Of course - her Pinkie Sense! I can't believe I forgot about that!But she couldn't recall what that particular sign meant.
"A pinchy knee means something scary's gonna happen!"
Twilight gulped.
"It happened when I was looking for her," Pinkie Pie explained. "My knee got all pinchy in the middle of the day, so I started thinking that maybe something scary happened to Dashie. I looked over and over for her," here the pink pony moved her head quickly in various directions to demonstrate, "and my knee was still pinching like crazy, but I couldn't find her!"
Oh no oh no oh no."D-Did it eventually stop?"
"Well, yeah," the earth pony admitted. "There was a construction site on the other side of town and somepony had gotten trapped under some wood beam thingies. It stopped after that when I helped save him."
Twilight tried to keep her composure. That had likely been around the time when Rainbow had died. "Maybe that was just it?"
"Could be," Pinkie said with a twinge of concern. "But what if it wasn't?"
The unicorn understood Pinkie's nervousness - she had all right to be. But the sooner this was done, the better. Smiling a little, she held the drugged cupcake out to Pinkie. "Here, Pinkie Pie, why don't you eat this? Maybe eating a cupcake will make you feel better."
Pinkie tilted her head. "But, that's one of yourcupcakes."
"Pinkie, I insist." The unicorn's smile was warm. "You look like you need cheering up."
She got a smile in return as Pinkie took the cupcake from her friend. "Aw, thanks, Twilight!"
Just as the eager unicorn had hoped, the sweet-loving earth pony devoured the cupcake in one bite. "Hey, I was right - this cupcake doestaste better than it lo- ow!"
Twilight saw Pinkie's left back knee seem to get a pinch to it.
"There it is again!" Pinkie's eyes widened. "My pinchy knee's back! That means something scary's gonna-"
The party pony didn't get to finish as the drug took effect, causing her to wobble before collapsing to the ground in unconsciousness, one knee giving a jerking twitch before she hit the ground.
Twilight let out a big sigh of relief. Just about the biggest threat to her whole operation being subdued was out of commission. And now it was time to get her back to her hidden base of operation. But how? Everypony would notice if she were levitating Pinkie with her magic, and there would automatically be questions. Questions that it might be hard for Twilight to answer. And in any event, Spike would surely notice.
Suddenly, her eyes fell on the large wheeled cart where the trays of cupcakes sat. The space below was rather big - big enough for a pony to fit under if they were curled up. And she could imagine Pinkie Pie doing that in any event just as a surprise.
The unicorn smiled, thinking of just the way to get Pinkie back. Taking the two trays of cupcakes off of the cart, she placed the unconscious Pinkie Pie in the lower part. Then retrieving a large tablecloth, she draped it over the cart to cover it completely and placed the trays of cupcakes back on top.
"I have a bit of laughter to get."
-0-0-
Managing to distract Spike with the cupcakes (pointing out that there might be some rarer gems in there for extra points), the dragon didn't notice the silent movements of the bookcase passageway rotating to let the sinister scientist through, levitating the pink party pony as she went downward into her laboratory.
"That was a pretty close call," Twilight said as she reached the bottom of the stairwell, "but at least I'm safe." She used her code to open the door to her lab and levitated Pinkie over to the table, securing her hooves and head before releasing her at last. "Time for the Element of Laughter to be snuffed out."
Knowing that laughter was partially linked with various parts of the brain, Twilight had her scalping machine all set up again, just as had been done for Rainbow. She would likely use the same form of procedure for that - if she used the egg-beater apparatus to dig all the way through the skull, it might either have the skull break in wrong ways or damage the fragile brain. She couldn't have that.
However, she had another machine set up that would be her primary form of Element extraction - a machine that looked almost like a laser gun with a myriad of sharp tools on the end. This mechanism was to be used for properly manipulating and removing Pinkie's larynx, or voice box as it was more commonly termed. Even though it looked much more like a tube than a box.
That was going to be fun.
But in order for the fun to start, the subject had to be woken up first.
Going over to her table, Twilight picked up a small electric needle and turned up the intensity a little. It wouldn't hurt Pinkie much, just wake her up from being knocked out. Coming over to her unconscious captive, she prodded Pinkie with it, sending an electric shock through her.
"YAH!" Pinkie was jolted out of her unconscious state, though for the most part unable to move. She looked around wildly, her eyes blurring into focus as the strong scent out alcohol and the very faint trace of something else - blood? - reached her nostrils, and she sniffed in confusion. This definitelywasn't Sugarcube Corner.
"Huh? Where am I?"
Suddenly, her eyes landed on Twilight, now facing her, and she relaxed slightly. "Oh, hey Twilight! Where are we? Why am I tied down? Are we in that laboratory you took me to when you tried to check my Pinkie Sense?"
Twilight shook her head. "Nope. That was in the library basement, we're way deeper. We're in a different laboratory for what I need to do." She forced a smile. "But don't worry, Rainbow's here to see you."
That statement seemed to brighten Pinkie's mood instantly, in spite of her confused circumstances. "Oooh, so ya didfind her! That's a relief!" She laughed. "I was worried that-" She stopped short as she felt a pinch in her knee. "Wait, then why's my knee still all pinchy?" She laughed, but it wasn't happiness-filled. It was slightly nervous, unsettled. "Rainbow's fine, isn't she?"
"Oh Pinkie," Twilight said gently, moving out of the way. "She's right here!" She pointed at the skeleton now in Pinkie's view, the skeleton with bite marks on its surface and a clearly once-removed cranial cap.
Pinkie tried to cover her mouth with her hooves, but she couldn't, and nearly screamed aloud. While she had thought, hoped, and prayed for a fraction of a second that it was just a prank, just a model, that her friend would come out laughing any second for fooling her, she felt a pang in her knee as she cried out, stinging her with the horrifying reality. This was the scary thing. This was what happened to Rainbow... Twilight had... "W-What did you do to her?"
"I did what I had to," Twilight said simply. "I did it in order to get the Element of Loyalty." She grinned, releasing the table from its holders on the floor and wheeling it over to her scalping mechanism. "And now I'm going to have to do the same to you. Taking Laughter, I mean."
The other pony's blue eyes widened in terror as she saw the egg-beater-like thing and scalpel up above her, as the mad scientist tilted the table upward to prepare her for the scalping. "Twilight! W-Why are you doing all this?"
"To preserve the Elements," Twilight explained, getting the equipment started up. "The Elements were forgotten for years, and only now all this more sinister stuff has been happening. So I knew that I had to extract them to preserve knowledge of them and have their power be remembered, to know what to look for to detect the next ponies who had their power. If I could do that, then I could analyze their signature properly and-"
"But why kill Rainbow?" Pinkie interrupted, blue eyes no longer filled with intrigue but rather with terror.
"I told you, I had to extract the Element of Loyalty," Twilight explained cooly, "and to do that I had to capture her and force it out. So, I had to fracture her loyalty to observe it surfacing from her.". She briefly put a helmet on Pinkie's head to measure her breathing and heart rate, just as with Rainbow. "And technically, I didn't kill her. After I did proper procedures on her, I just left the rest up to her."
"What do you mean?"
"She killed herself."
A shriek of horrified disbelief flew out of Pinkie Pie's throat. "No... no... D-D-Dashie wouldn't... she'd never-"
"Want proof?" Twilight Sparkle went over to her special bookshelf and pulled out the large comprehensive tome adorned with Rainbow Dash's cutie marks, earning another stifled cry from the restrained pony. "Let's see here... 'tore at herself even after marks were removed... all loyalty fractured and destroyed... death came from extreme blood loss, injury, and self-cannibalism...'"
Pinkie was unable to move her head, but she closed her eyes, tears pricking at the edges. Begging herself that the book wasn't covered with Rainbow Dash's cutie mark; refusing to consider the possibility that Rainbow Dash had killed herself through any means. "No, no, you're wrong... that can't be..."
The scientific unicorn groaned. "Need visuals too? Fine." Transporting the large book back to its proper place, Twilight fiddled with several of the screens, which had recorded precisely what had happened to Rainbow Dash. The visuals showed Rainbow in her last few minutes of life, tearing at herself and screaming in pained anger.
"All connections - they'll be SEVERED!" Rainbow shouted on the recording as she tore at her own body, breaking the tendons of her muscle, laughing in a deranged, psychotic manner, loyalty fractured completely.
The captive pony opened one eye, but as soon as she witnessed Rainbow's mangled, mutilated form, her eyes were shut tightly again. But she couldn't ignore Rainbow Dash's screaming, crying, fractured voice as she tore and spat at everything, including herself.
"She was so broken and confused after the experiments that she didn't even have loyalty to herself anymore. But enough talk, Pinkie." She switched off the replay monitor and began starting up the scalping mechanism. "It's time to get down to business."
Already horrified from seeing Rainbow in such a terrible, suicidal state, Pinkie stared up in horror as the egg-beater-looking apparatus steadily lowered the #10 scalpel attached to it. The surgical instrument dug under the pink pony's mane and under her coat, finally reaching her skin.
"AAAAAHHH!" The pony screamed in agony as the sharp blade went down through her epidermis, severing the blood vessels and muscle on the way to the pony's skull. The blade's metal burned like a fire at its sharpened slice, and when it finally impacted the bone, Pinkie's cries increased at the vibration.
Picking up a syringe on her worktable, Twilight made sure to inject Pinkie Pie with the adrenaline used before to keep Dash awake. Getting another notepad, she took a few notes as she watched Pinkie's terrified reactions.
"SOMEPONY HELP ME!" When her eyes weren't closed, they darted around wildly, as if hoping that somepony would come and save her from this nightmare-ish place. "PLEASE! HELP!" Tears rolled down her face as she screamed, the scalpel following its circle-shaped path to fully scalp her, a crimson flow of blood in its wake. Its path only left the very front of her mane intact by the painful conclusion, as had been done with Rainbow Dash. What was left of her bubbly mane deflated and fell straight, mane and body turning a slightly darker shade as tears flowed freely from her eyes.
"NO, PLEASE, STOP! HELP ME! ANYPONY, PLEASE!" Her eyesight seemed blurred with sobs. "CAN'T ANYPONY HEAR ME?"
"Nopony can hear you," her captor countered. "I've soundproofed the walls."
The ordinarily cheerful pony most certainly wasn't laughing now... and Twilight Sparkle was going to make it so Laughter would be the next Element to truly harness, bringing out Pinkie Pie's laughter for good.
The unicorn hurried over to remove and cleanse the scalpel as before once it was raised, watching the claw-grip perform its jack-o'-lantern procedure by lowering into Pinkie's head, severing what was left of connections between muscle and bone. The adrenaline shot was keeping her conscious, and would do so for everything that Twilight had planned.
"Now," Twilight said, moving her raised platform close to Pinkie as the removed scalp was tossed aside, "time to get inside your head."
"N-N-No..." Pinkie Pie choked out, both from fear and pain.
"Sorry Pinkie. I have to.". With that, Twilight picked up the cleansed scalpel and dug it into Pinkie's skull, breaking the bone as she went in a carved circle to expose the brain. "If I tried to have my machine do this," the unicorn went on, ignoring Pinkie's gasps and cries, "it might cut your skull in the wrong places, or worse, damage your brain. And I can't have that."
"TWILIGHT, STOP" Pinkie sobbed. "P-PLEASE!"
The time that it took for Twilight to cut away the top of the skull was almost too much for Pinkie to bear, but the shot prevented the darkness of unconsciousness from taking her away. However, the pain did lessen somewhat as the scalpel's blade was removed from the skull, exposing the brain fully for Twilight to examine.
With the skull cut away, the scientist placed the headphones-like mechanism on the sides of Pinkie Pie's head, measuring the earth pony's brainwaves and mental imagery just as she had for Rainbow Dash. Then, shock tool at the ready as she turned the dial, she examined Pinkie's brain carefully.
"Do you know where laughter is said to be associated with in the brain?"
Pinkie whimpered, unable to shake her head. "... N-No..."
"It's linked to the parts of the brain that deal with memories and emotions." She smiled. "So, I think we ought to play with that a bit."
With Pinkie begging her not to, Twilight reached with her electrical tool and zapped the amygdala at the top of the struggling pony's brain, carefully adjusting the neurons.
To Pinkie, she suddenly experienced a rush of fear as darkness enveloped her view, shadowy creatures stalking around her. Trying to make her afraid. As Twilight kept editing her memories and fear reactions, rearranging neural pathways, Pinkie Pie's bubbly life suddenly became much more fear-filled. Always in the dark, creatures following her with their cold eyes.
Despite the pain and the fear, Pinkie closed her eyes and tried to sing. "G-Giggle at the gh-ghostly... g-guffaw a-at the g-g-grossly..." There was a bit of laughter. Nervous laughter, scared laughter in an attempt to release tension she felt. But there was still laughter. It was the paradoxical kind of laughter sometimes induced when the "fight-or-flight response" kicked in. And right now the "flight response" was attempting to come through.
Twilight then got another idea, a way to bring out another bit of fear into Pinkie Pie's sensory input. Adjusting it so that Pinkie saw Rainbow Dash.
Bloodied, scarred, frothing Rainbow Dash.
The laughter broke, Pinkie no longer able to take it as her friend started coming after her as well. "D-Dashie, NO! NO!" It was as if somepony had thrown a switch and stopped the pony's attempt to laugh her fears away. She tried, frantically, to run, out of touch with reality for an instant, but her restraints held the fear-filled pony tight.
There was a very slight change on the monitor once Pinkie's laughter had abruptly ceased. It was a very very small, genetic change, but it was there.
Twilight smiled as she took notes on the circumstances, removing the electric tool from Pinkie's brain. Stopping Pinkie's laughter through slight alteration of memory had, indeed, been the right track. Plus, it was entertaining to mess with her head.
Time for the really fun part.
Moving the table holding the whimpering Pinkie Pie a little bit away from its former position, the unicorn brought her laser-like mechanism up close, sharp surgical tools directed right at Pinkie Pie's throat.
"Now that I've instilled a bit of fear within your memories," she said, "I think it's time to really get to that Laughter. I just messed with your brain to try to make it a bit easier for myself."
"Twuh... Twilight," Pinkie begged. "P-Pleaee no..." She was trembling in her bounds, eyes wide. "J-just let me g-g-go..."
"Pinkie, Pinkie, Pinkie," the other chided, growing noticeably irritated and just wanted to get to the point, "I'm doing it to preserve. It's the only way this can work out. If I let you go after extracting your Element, everypony would question your injuries, and I'd get found out. Now, let's just start this machine up, shall we?"
Pressing a button on the machine, one of its instruments, a knife, came forward, aimed right for Pinkie's throat.
"Don't worry, they're clean," the insane scientist assured her captive, smiling in eagerness. "I always make sure to properly sterilize equipment like this before using it!"
Pinkie didn't care about whether the equipment was sterilized or not. All she cared about was that there was a knife coming toward her throat. She tried her best to struggle.
"Pinkie Pie, just stay still or it's going to hurt more than it needs to."
That statement got Pinkie to be still, though her eyes were still terrified. However, she cried out in pain as she felt the sharp pinch of the knife stick into her throat, moving in a path to form a long rectangular shape as blood flowed down her neck, muscle fallen in a strip as it was carved just enough away to get to the larynx without damaging the muscles necessary for the organ itself to function.
"STOP!". Pinkie Pie screamed, the oxygen inhaled into her lunges increasing as she took in deep breaths. "JUST ST-STOP!" She raised her voice louder, screech rising to a higher pitch. "HELP!"
"You're lucky that I need to do work with your larynx for this," Twilight sighed, easing open the hole in Pinkie's neck and bringing the instruments closer. She hooked a few sticky wires to the sides of Pinkie's neck, testing them. "It seems your voice level is at about 259 Hz right now. You don't want to strain the pitch of your voice, do you?"
Pinkie wasn't sure what to say, this all was too traumatizing. She only trembled, making small whimpering noises in fear of the metal knife-like instrument.
"First, time to do some work near those vocal folds." Twilight gently eased the metal instruments to carefully examine Pinkie's vocal folds stretched horizontally across her larynx, watching them open at the struggling earth pony's breaths and close as she cried out and pleaded with Twilight to stop. "And yes, I said vocal folds not cords." She shook her head in confusion. "I don't get it, why do so many ponies call then vocal cords? They clearly aren't cords, they're folds. Like a second mouth. And the voice box isn't even box-shaped, it's a tube." A sigh of exasperation. "Who comes up with this terminology?"
She carefully eased them apart, causing Pinkie Pie to cough at the sudden ability to only breathe, then closed them to allow her to talk. Opening and closing them again, she manipulated when her captive had the ability to breathe or talk, manipulating when the passage of air from her lungs was allowed through her trachea, the closing of the vocal folds acting like guards so that air couldn't really get through. She left them open a little of course - if she completely stretched the transverse arytenoid muscle to shut them, Pinkie would have no way to breathe or speak, and would suffocate. No use for that at the moment. She needed to find that elusive Element.
There was a bit more of a change, a pulse in the genetic signature. There was something abnormal in here - well, abnormal for a pony who didn't have the proper qualities.
"Aha, now I'm really on the right track!" Twilight exclaimed, bringing a long, hooked instrument closer.
"P-Plea - ah - ese!" Pinkie choked out, gasping in between the syllables as Twilight stretched and contracted her vocal folds again. "St-ah-op!"
From the measurements and viewpoint of her brainwaves and thoughts, Twilight knew that this was breaking her more psychologically than the slight memory alteration had. It filled Pinkie with a new, terrifying psychological fear: an inability to breath or talk. Gasping, fearful, her world spinning, she imagined herself unable to laugh, being suffocated into darkness as her mental fear overcame her.
Another blip on the radar. Okay, so this was going well.
Twilight had threatened, now, to suffocate any potential laughter. But she decided to do one other procedure - going straight for suffocation might not be enough, and if the pink mare died before the Element was found...
No, no, that won't happen! I WILL find it!
After giving her subject another shot of adrenaline just in case, she brought a curved metal tool closer to Pinkie's open neck, talking as the earth pony could only watch with terrified eyes, her chest heaving as a large amount of sweat dripped over her face and mixed with tears. The captive seemed to be well aware that if she attempted to scream anymore, the dangerous instruments might poke her in a wrong place, damaging her more.
"The larynx is actually the part of the body where sound, pitch, and volume are generated to control anypony's voice," the scientist explained, turning on a switch on the hooked instrument to reveal an electrical charge. "I ought to change that."
Tears fell from Pinkie's eyes in fear. "Twilight... p-please..."
Twilight ignored her, prodding the vocal folds with an electrical charge. There was a strangled sob as Pinkie uncontrollably fluctuated between breathing and speaking. Choking, she looked at Twilight in terror, trying to gasp out the word "don't", but was stopped.
A brief blue flash within the larynx. A pulse in the signature.
"There you are, Laughter," Twilight said softly. "Just gotta coax you out a bit more..." Chucking, Twilight roughly used two of the tools at her disposal to prod at several of Pinkie's larynx muscles, controlling the pitch, volume, and overall tone of her voice, also controlling the muscles of her vocal folds.
Pinkie Pie screamed aloud from the agony, but she realized to her growing horror that her voice was moving in all sorts of pitches, volumes and tones. Sometimes high, sometimes low. Sometimes piercing loud and sometimes so soft you could barely hear it. The pony's brainwaves registered nothing but terror and psychological trauma, a pony who had once loved to laugh and talk horrified by another pony controlling everything about her voice, including whether she breathed or spoke, her screams coming out varied, pained, and suffocated.
The blue light increased, just about fully manifesting itself.
Working quickly, eager to make the Laughter fully reveal itself at last, the deranged scientist began to tear through part of the pony's vocal flaps, soon severing them completely, earning a strangled, blood-filled cry of pain from Pinkie as her ability to laugh, let alone speak, was torn away for good.
The pulsing blue light manifested itself in a solidified form.
"There you are, Laughter!" Twilight exclaimed, grabbing a pair of tongs and lifting the Element into a containment jar. Glad that she had the second Element contained, Twilight laughed herself.
Pinkie, still alive but barely, looked pleadingly at Twilight. She was utterly terrified of her former friend.
Patting the containment jar, Twilight looked straight into Pinkie's sky-blue eyes, their light fading. "I'm sorry it had to be this way, Pinkie," she said. "But it was fun having a laugh with you."
With that, the scientist sliced through Pinkie's larynx completely, severing every connection, nearly reaching her trachea and cutting off any chance Pinkie could have of breathing. But it didn't matter, the fact that her larynx was completely severed caused blood to spill from her neck wound, having cut off quite a bit of what allowed her to breathe.
Just before Pinkie's final breath left her lungs, blood pouring heavily from her head and throat, her eyes gazed at Twilight. Even without speaking, her gaze told one single word, a word that Twilight could almost hear within her head as Pinkie's ordinary voice.
"Why?"
With that, Pinkie's head fell limp, her limbs growing still as life left her eyes. When Twilight released the mare from her bounds, her body fell limply to the ground, what was left of her straightened mane hanging over her eyes.
Twilight smiled in satisfaction. Getting the Element of Laughter had been easier than she expected, and it was interesting to properly manipulate the sound that came from a pony's mouth. She was actually quite pleased with herself.
But... oh, right - she had to cut off the cutie marks to prepare them for the book.
Retrieving a knife, the unicorn bent over by Pinkie's flanks and began slicing away the cutie marks. A few stray hairs of her mane sticking in random positions, Twilight was breathing heavily, trying to stay calm as the cutie marks were being carefully severed. Not out of exertion, but out of concern for her plan. Two Elements were down; two Ponyville residents were now dead. If anypony found out about all this, Princess Celestia would be informed of it straight away. And Spike stayed in the library a lot of the time, near the entrance to the hideaway. She had been able to distract him enough with the gemstones to get her once-laugh-filled friend down here, but she couldn't pull that ploy forever; the young dragon might suspect something. He wasn't anywhere near stupid,; in fact he was quite intelligent. He was like the library's guard, in a way. A guard who risked her maintaining proper access to her base of operation.
Her eyes darted. Drastic measures might need to be taken.
It's not paranoia, she told herself, it's caution in progress. If I get rid of him, nopony will stand in my way to get to the others. He won't be able to send a message out. But whatever I do, I have to be stealthy. Then I'll be, heheh, free to do what I want. I'll harness the signature of all the Elements. It'll all be fine... and calm down, he might not even notice... just gotta be careful...
But that decision would come in time. She had a book to create, notes to compile, and an Element to examine.
Unknown to her, the cannibalistic pegasus from her nightmare was now joined by the spectre of a pink earth pony rendered unable to speak or make a sound. And now the two of them would watch and observe as the next one was taken.
"Two Elements down, four to go."
-0-0-
A/N: And, another chapter done! Whew, this one was a bit of a doozy of a length, but I still enjoyed writing it. By the way, I was originally going to have Pinkie's larynx be partially torn near the end to have a small black box connected as a sort of speaker, but I scrapped that idea when I realized that would still render her able to speak (albiet in a corrupt way), and thus wouldn't make any progress. As for the nightmare sequence thing, I just came up with yesterday morning - when I first got the nightmare idea in my head I just really liked the idea of writing more for Fractured-Dash (or whatever it is I decide to call her), but after I thought about it, I realized that I could write more for her through that, and I figured "Hey, why have the ponies totally disappear from the story after they die?" so, a bit of a plot point developed from that! And through that, there's gonna also be a bit of interaction between the broken ponies themselves, so yay for developed plot points! Anyway, remember to review!
