//------------------------------// // Twilight's life as Twilight Sparkle // Story: The Many Lives Of Twilight Sparkle // by Shitbewackyo //------------------------------// The bell rang through the small potion shop, and as the elderly storekeeper looked up he was pleasantly surprised. “Twilight? It’s nice to see you here again, why, I thought you had forgotten me.” Twilight herself calmly trotted through the store, a mix of both tension and happiness evident in her walk. She smiled at the old stallion and greeted him as she pulled out her purse out of the nearly overstuffed saddlebag “It’s nice to see you again, too, Green. And don’t worry, I could never forget you and how many potions and ingredients you store.” The old pegasus chuckled as Twilight carefully counted out the exact number of bits necessary.  “The usual?” Twilight was about to say yes, but caught herself, and visibly lost herself in thought. “No, not this time, I need to buy everything on this list.” Green Orchard took the list in his wing, carefully reading through it. He raised his eyebrows as he finished the text. “Are you planning on opening a store of your own?” “No, just stocking up.” Twilight replied with a chirp in her voice. The stallion nodded and disappeared into the storage. As the stallion went to retrieve the items Twilight breathed out. Her brain was running a thousand kilometers a minute. Thoughts colliding with themselves and with her brain, it was like a herd of buffalo was constantly stampeding through her mind. She had to constantly remind herself to breathe as she kept thinking on what she would do in just a few hours.  She was warring with herself.  ‘Twilight, that’s a stupid idea.’ ‘What if this goes wrong?’ ‘Are you really sure you want to do this? ‘Twilight, think of your friends, how will they feel?’ But even so, despite all the parts of her telling her “No!” a much greater part of herself was recklessly charging along. The scientific opportunities, a release from her months long miasma, all that she could see, and lastly doing something that nopony to date had ever done.  “I tell you Twilight, next time you plan on buying in bulk tell me in advance. You nearly drained my entire supply of several items.” Green Orchard said, placing a large box on the counter. He didn’t even bother saying the price, instead taking the bits already there, knowing that they would be sufficient.  Stepping outside of the cozy shop Twilight was greeted with the warm rays of another beautiful day in Ponyville. The streets were filled with ponies going about their business and Twilight drank it all in. The wooden houses, the friendly atmosphere, the fresh smell of a dozen ovens, stores and the fragrant aroma of carefully tended flowers. It might be some time until she could see it again after all. She realized with a start that the thought didn’t bother her as much as she feared, and Twilight felt at peace for what might have been the first time in days. ‘Now to get this home and finally get that last ingredient.’ Twilight thought. Later, when the sun was setting and everypony was going back to their homes to spend time with family and loved ones, Twilight was busy butchering a cockatrice deep in the damp and dense Everfree. With each movement of her knife she cursed all Alchemical stores in Equestria for not carrying the cockatrice's filtrational bladder, although the rational part of her mind understood why. Hunting down this cockatrice had taken her the better part of the evening, and she had only managed to avoid it’s gaze due to being the element of magic herself and coming prepared with a pair of enchanted goggles. For an overgrown chicken it sure did know how to fight, as proven by the singed clearing.  She breathed heavily and rose from her position, levitating a thin strip attached to a small bladder out of the butchered body. With scientific precision she put it inside of a glass tube where it was safely suspended inside of an additional magical field. Her quest was forgotten for a second as she studied the ingredient. Never before had she seen one, it was difficult to acquire, it was a pain to store safely, it went bad in only a few days and most of all it was almost completely useless. The cockatrices use these filters in order to cycle naturally retardant mana, which they can then cast through their eyes in the form of petrification spells as simple as ponies can breathe. Adding one of these filters to a potion can completely neutralize its effect and render the potion inert. You can’t even use it as an antidote as by the time a magical poison begins harming you it has already been absorbed by the body, unreachable by the bladder. Her even knowing of this quirk of cockatrice biology is nothing more than a miracle and her insistence on reading even the most obscure tomes in the royal library.  “It’s amazing what this world can keep hidden.” Twilight thought aloud, gazing at the filter with an almost reverent look. This ingredient was a complete poison for almost every single potion out there, every single one, except for the one she was making.  With no more left to gather Twilight incinerated the corpse and started her long walk back to ponyville. Cockatrice filters didn’t tolerate teleportation. Night had fallen by the time she came back to the library. “Spike!” she shouted into the library, and nearly instantly he came running down the stairs. “What’s up Twilight? I haven’t seen you for the entire day.”  “Nothing much, I was just getting ready for an important experiment.” “Oh jeez, are you going to stay awake all night again?” Twilight giggled at Spike’s remark, ruffling his head despite his protests. She flinched for less than a second, she knew that she shouldn’t do this, she shouldn’t sow suspicion but by this point she couldn’t resist. She pulled Spike into a tight hug, who after a second of confusion reciprocated and left them to share a pleasant moment in silence. “I might.” Twilight chuckled, keeping her tears hidden from Spike. Despite leaning into the hug Spike was a bit flushed after the hug so he ran upstairs, giving a stuttered excuse about comic books.  Twilight stood in the library hall, alone, savoring that familiar smell of wood, paper and the faint hint of flowers. It was nice. As she stepped over the threshold into the basement, Twilight made sure to lock the heavy oak doors before descending even further. But she didn’t stop when she came down to her basement, or atleast, the basement that other ponies had seen. It was spacious, with thick roots forming bulging walls and a floor that was covered by enchanted paneling. The walls and scattered tables were filled with machines, instruments and books. Her magic flared as she activated a lock buried inside of the wood, hidden to all but her. Clockwork stirred as one of the panels slid away, revealing a ladder going down a dimly lit shaft.  As she climbed down the ladder Twilight was deathly silent, and as she left the humming of the machines upstairs she was left alone with the metallic sounds of her hooves touching the stairs. The hatch above her slid back into its place. Finally on the bottom Twilight looked around the small cave she had excavated, and the steel door in front of her. Opening the second magical lock Twilight stepped into her true laboratory. She had originally constructed this place in order to conduct dangerous tests, stuff that could really harm ponies if the experiment went wrong, but a few months ago it came to serve a different purpose.  Across the room, cabinets were lined with chemicals, ingredients and dangerous tools. Machinery much more advanced than the ones upstairs gave out readings and statistics and there was a workstation for every scientific practice imaginable. But most shockingly of all, at the far end of the cave, a changeling was suspended in a humming magical field, tubes connected to each one of its orifices, going into its veins and several magical scanners were examining every inch over and over again.  Twilight chuckled, and to think that she was less ashamed of this than of what she would do. She wasn’t fully comfortable with keeping the Changeling here, but by this point she was mostly sure that it wasn’t sapient, and she told herself it was like keeping a lab rat for testing. Besides, considering what they had done to her brother and what they wanted to do to ponies everywhere, Twilight couldn’t let the opportunity pass. She laughed at the irony, a laugh that echoed across the cave. Twilight looked to the ceiling, playing out the exact same arguments she had for the past few days. Finally, she closed her eyes and breathed out. ‘It’s time.’ She came to a small cauldron, where the nearby table was already filled with the necessary ingredients. Much less than what she had bought at the potion store, she didn’t want anypony to make any connections after all. Twilight felt a bit paranoid, nopony would even notice anything different if she did it right.  Each ingredient went into the mixture, as it turned from brown to purple to yellow. Finally, as it began to boil, Twilight turned on the next machine. It whirred to life and immediately a dark cyan fluid was pulled out of the changeling at an alarming rate, it flew through the tubes until it reached the output and fell into Twilight's potion. Each drop would elicit a loud hiss from the concoction but soon enough the yellow liquid had taken on a faded gray color.  “Oh my Celestia! It’s working!” Twilight nearly jumped, this was a potion that she had designed from scratch, and to see it working exactly like planned was nearly as cathartic as what would follow. Twilight ran to the machine and turned it off. She looked back at the Changeling, she was nervous that she had hurt it but it seemed fine despite being visibly drier than before, the monitors showed a steady heartbeat. She walked over to the Changeling and placed her hoof on its head. With a loud whoosh Twilight began casting the spell. Ethereal energies swirled between her and the Changeling, it began to shake, then it turned a bright white as Twilight forced her mana into the Changelings body. As the spell reached its crescendo the now completely bright changelings form began to change. First its snout softened, teeth disappearing into its gums, then a mane sprouted from its head, growing until it fell down its neck and onto its side and settled in a straight cut in front. Its features softened, “meat” growing on the thin carapace until it's silhouette was that of a pony. As its wings disappeared, the horn shrank into the usual cone shape rather than the sickle like Changeling horn. Finally, the light faded and the changeling's new coat color was revealed, a soft lavender, which was accompanied by a dark blue and purple mane.  Twilight stared in awe at the changeling that had become a perfect, although slightly emaciated, copy of her. Even as the potion continued bubbling and hissing violently, Twilight didn’t stop it from examining every single inch of herself. Every part was exactly as she knew it, so much so that touching the second Twilight’s skin caused her to flinch as her hoof touched familiar spots yet her skin didn’t respond.  Twilight didn’t want to take the full credit for the spell, after all, the Changeling’s natural magic did most of the transformative work, but the things inside the Changeling’s head, Twilight would take credit for. She had inserted her entire life into the changeling, every single memory, every thought, preference, dislike, everything went into it. The only exceptions were the memories that had led her to this experiment. There was also the small detail of making her think that her state was due to a failed magic neutralization experiment, but compared to copying her very essence this was nothing. Twilight caressed her twin’s cheek, and softly pulled out a green wispy essence out of her head, storing it within herself without absorbing it just yet.   She shut off the containment field and carefully extracted the tubes, patching the wounds with a light application of healing magic. She levitated the unconscious changeling, now pony, next to herself, and cringed at the thought of what she had to do. “Sorry Twi...” and closing her eyes she threw the body back into a row of tables, breaking them and knocking the air out of her twin. She remained there, unconscious. “Sorry” she said, rubbing the back of her head.  As an hour passed the potion was finally ready. Ninety percent of the potion had boiled away, leaving only a small puddle of thick, viscous blue-green liquid. As Twilight levitated the mixture into a small bottle she considered for the last time to let it be, to pick another path, she could still say no. “Haa,haa, I can-I can still live a normal life, I don’t have to do this-” but even as she said those words the bottle came closer and closer to her mouth. Suddenly, Twilight shoved it into her own mouth and began digging in with reckless abandon, quickly consuming every trace of the liquid. The bottle shattered on the floor as Twilight staggered back, the nearly jelly-like substance burning as it made its way down her throat. A magical flare lit up inside of her, and Twilight fell to the floor, screaming as her body began to change. Her skin vibrated, and clumps started traversing her body, like insects skittering under her flesh. These clumps solidified into larger and larger plates as skin began to tear and from within vaporized blood rose in red gusts. Her screams grew as her limbs were paralyzed, bloodshot eyes staring at the ceiling.  The plates rose from the skin in greater and greater numbers, tearing away flesh and leaving behind a black carapace. Teeth jumped out of Twilight's gums and tore through her cheeks.  Then the transformation entered its final stage and Twilight's screams reached a crescendo. The little flesh that remained began to melt away, dripping down to the floor and turning into a sizzling liquid before again turning into smoke and small pieces of dust. But the worst came when her eyes disintegrated and from within the now empty pits, solid blue plates could be seen, her new eyes. Then Twilight's face detached, sliding cleanly off the black carapace and falling to the floor with a wet impact, remaining as a snapshot of her pain before disappearing along with the rest of her flesh. Finally, the transformation ended and Twilight’s beautiful pony body had been replaced by that of a Changeling drone: black carapace, hole filled legs and a pair of blue insectoid wings, nearly identical to every single other drone in existence. Her mane was gone, her coat was gone, her cutie mark had long since evaporated and been replaced by an empty black plate. Nopony would think that this was Twilight Sparkle.  Twilight turned herself over and tried summoning a mirror. To her relief her theories were correct, unicorns and changelings used magic in the same way, and the magical mirror hung over her as she studied her body. She wheezed, failing to vocalize as the mirror disappeared and she fell into a coughing fit. “Perfect.” She finally stammered out, voice changed from her soft tone to an alien rasp. She tried talking more but the sensation of having to maneuver fangs around was still foreign to her and she nearly cut herself several times, saved only by her new hard exoskeleton. Twilight's clone stirred, and Twilight had to cut the examination of her new body short. She’d have plenty of time to do it later anyway. She looked at her double for one final time. “Good luck, Twilight.” She said and teleported out. After the flash had subsided Twilight found herself in a cozy cave, located on a cliff deep within the everfree. It didn’t sport much, just a bed of leaves and a simple saddlebag containing the notes on the potion she had just used. She wanted this to be an opportunity for her to experience new things and live new lives, and for that she wanted a fresh start. The exhaustion hit Twilight like a freight train and she barely hobbled over to the bed before collapsing on it, alien muscles relaxing as the warm summer breeze blew over her. She was laying on a rough cave floor that was only marginally improved by the leaves while her clone would soon move to her comfortable and soft bed, and yet, Twilight smiled. She fell asleep as rain started to fall outside.