Twilight Sparkle was a lot of things. She was Viceroy of the largest empire in the galaxy. She was the third strongest psychic in human history. She was the commander in chief of the Imperial military. What Twilight Sparkle was NOT however, was a miracle worker. Pinkie Pie's mind proved to be a hedge maze constructed by a blind madman on psychoactive drugs. Every traditional psychological test turned up a woman who was bonkers fruit candy, and a brain wave detector seemed to be convinced Pinkie was dead.
The only information that yielded any insight was Pinkie's M.R.I. results. They noticed that Pinkie's brain was literally wired unusually. The connections instead of going the expected directions, seemed to go in random directions with no rhyme or reason. They asked Pinkie a series of questions during the M.R.I. and instead of her neurons firing from the expected cortexes, they seemed to fire from several different parts of the brain at once. An over enthusiastic doctor asked politely if they could perform a vivisection. Twilight promptly had him dismissed from practicing medicine.
They traveled to Pinkie's homeworld and Twilight was appalled at the conditions. Not to say that they were inhumane or unlivable. It was just baffling that someone like Pinkie Pie could've sprung up from a place like this. After the meeting Twilight couldn't remember the Pies smiling once, though they said they were happy to see her again. Twilight took samples of the soil, but nothing out of the ordinary was found. She examined the minds of each of the Pie family and for the very first time in her life was bored by what she found there. The more Twilight learned about Pinkie the less and less sense she seemed to make.
Twilight had just about decided that Pinkie was simply unknowable when a conversation with Celestia gave her another one of those terrible ideas she regretted thinking immediately. Celestia had told her about the conclusion of the investigation into the Diamond Group. With Rarity's testimonial her father had been found liable for billions of dollars worth of damage, and countless felonies. They had raided his labs and found dozens of psychics held against their will. Hondo Flanks, a name that raised one of Twilight's eyebrows, had been sentenced to life in prison and Celestia was delighted to have an excuse to remove his products from Twilight's military.
Rarity felt an odd sense of closure that the monster who had hurt her sister so badly would finally pay for what he'd done. Twilight ordered her and S.P.I.K.E. to immediately begin designing replacement control schemes for the fleets, and they poured themselves into the task. The breaking up and liquidation of the Diamond Group's assets yielded some horrifying, and for Twilight specifically, interesting finds. One of the last project's that they'd been working on was a certain drug that caused the brain to be more intimately connected. It boosted focus, reaction time, and in a few select cases, caused almost precognitive reactions to external stimuli.
Twilight looked diligently into the case and almost immediately became obsessed with the test results of the drug. It had been code named Discord, and its results only made Twilight more and more fascinated. She read up on every report available about it. When those didn't satisfy she hunted down every single member of the team that worked on it and probed their minds for anything about the drug and its effects.
Apparently Hondo had been playing this one rather close to the chest, so none of them actually knew the full recipe. According to them he felt like this was going to be his Magnum opus. Everything she learned horrified and fascinated her in a perverse struggle between wanting to destroy this knowledge, and wanting to use it.
Finally the temptation proved too great and Twilight demanded an audience with Hondo himself. He was sentenced to life in a cell with his arms behind his back in a painful position, both as a punishment, and as a security measure to ensure he didn't attempt suicide. Twilight steeled herself for the interview. She had hated this man long before she met Rarity, but everything she'd learned since sickened her to her core.
She entered his cell and stared at him for a long while. He hardly seemed like the type who could've founded an empire of horrors, emaciated and bedraggled as he was now. He couldn't lift his head all the way to look at her, but he was shocked to see a Viceroy in his dimly lit cell. He couldn't stand but he did try to crouch more upright on the floor. "Hello your~"
"SILENCE!" Echoed through the halls and in the mind of the prisoner. Twilight hated playing the big bad demigod ever since she'd gotten carried away on Pomum Dulce, but this man sickened her to such a degree that she couldn't treat him with any civility.
He could feel her probing his mind and saw she was looking for the Discord formula. "It's rude to root around in other people's minds without permission you know." Twilight sent a psychic shriek into his mind and he cried out in pain. He felt her find the memories associated with his work and he grinned through his tightly clenched teeth. "And why does the Viceroy want to know about secret illegal substances?"
She sent another shriek tearing through his mind and he writhed in pain on the floor. She continued her search and found that the experiments had yielded much more than his team had known. An entire battalion's worth of normal humans had been successfully mimicked psychic powers under the use of the Discord Serum. She looked and saw the results of several live fire tests and was astonished at the results. She found the recipe for the formula and was about to end her search when something caught her attention.
She looked in his mind and saw Admiral Davenport. What the hell was he doing speaking with someone like Hondo? Her eyes snapped open as the knowledge that Charles had commissioned him to make the Discord Serum on behalf of his client. Charles had explained in brief about a clone army that needed a bit of a boost. Twilight's eyes went wide and she grabbed Hondo by the sides of the head. "Where are they?" She growled her eyes glowing fiercely with rage.
Hondo squirmed in agony and terror. "I DON'T KNOW THEY NEVER TOLD ME. I NEVER ASKED! I CAN'T LIE TO YOU YOU KNOW THAT."
Twilight held the squirming man up for a long moment, contemplating the idea of just squishing this traitor's head between her hands. He was right, he didn't know, but that only made her more angry. "And I take it all of your contacts have conveniently abandoned you, haven't they?"
The traitor gasped for breath as he whimpered, "Yes! Yes they did." He rolled onto his side and looked up in terror. "I tried to run when that ungrateful little brat ratted on me but they~!"
Twilight threw him against the wall hard enough to snap the bar holding his arms behind his back, along with several bones. It took every ounce of self restraint not to kill him for his treason, much less for his insult to her friend. "You have no right to speak of her in such a manner." She levitated him closer. "She fought tooth and nail to save your life."
He spoke through his tightly clenched teeth. "And who do you think gave her those skills? I was trying to make them into something great! And she ran off after one little mistake! I never meant for any of that to happen, but mistakes are made in the pursuit of knowledge. Because of my technology the empire had the tools to gain peace." He grimaced. "You think I don't feel bad about what happened to Sweetie Belle? Well I can't lie to you little Ms. Viceroy, so take a look and see!" Twilight could feel the well of regret emanating from the broken man floating before her.
Twilight dropped him like a soiled rag. He hit the floor hard and he cried out as his broken bones shifted inside him. She stared down coldly at him. "You are simply the worst kind of person. We have rules in the scientific community. Rules to keep people safe! Informed consent, double blind tests, control groups, you broke every law the scientific community has and you blame your failure as a scientist on your subjects." She crouched down and got face to face with the wincing broken man. "Remember this. The only reason you're still alive is because Rarity asked me to spare you." She turned and walked out.
The second before she closed the door, Twilight heard him whimper. "Please Viceroy!" She, against her better judgment turned to look at him. "Tell her I'm sorry."
She looked him right in the eye as she whispered, "No."