Scarlet
“This will do quite nicely. This one is perfect.”
“It is the last one. I hope that you can excuse the high failure rate. I was working under pressure.”
“This makes up for it. She's just the right age.”
“And she'll live just as long as you would have if you hadn't become an Alicorn.”
“And she will not be free.”
“That's the downside.”
Eyes shot open. Electrodes buzzed and sparked. They were ineffectual.
Displays showed complex graph hierarchies representing a pony brain. The displays themselves were also ineffectual. A magic hand ran through the brain, rewiring it with all the subtlety of a microwave trying to tan a chicken. The pain was intense. But the recollection of it was slippery as quicksilver. There was not much hope for her. She decided with one of her last free thoughts. Of course, she was not so internally articulate. Nor did she understand language, or possess developed emotions. She was nothing. And so she returned to such a state.
Blackness engulfed her. And the mind was lost.
-
“Are you okay?”
“Of course I am. I'm Twilight Sparkle.” Eyes refused to clear. The blurriness of the vision was exacerbated by the closeness of whomever was looking at her.
“No, you are Scarlett. You are your own pony. You were born with my own memories, embedded in a Pegasus.”
“What would motivate me to give form to myself in amongst the most tortuous of all the species? My talent is useless.”
“You don't have a cutie mark. Magic as a talent is meaningless for a Pegasus. At least in its general form. We are not perfect. Both of us are flawed. This decision was made based on the ability to learn new ways of existence which could never be experienced before. You can go to Cloudsdale. You can go anywhere you want. Experience whatever life you want.”
But the freedom you will feel will just be the freedom I possess.
“But this is traumatic.”
“This is the kind of thing I decided we needed to get through, to find if it was salvageable enough to be worthwhile.”
“I understand that. I know that well enough.” The anger within her voice was as pure as anything else in the entire world.
“How much does this matter to you?”
“I am in the wrong body. I am the right color, my mane is the right shape, which means that you've had it cut to look like mine, and the cruelest part is that you've left me bereft of my element. What is magic, therefore friendship without the ability to use it?” Her voice quaked. The initial Twilight instance tried not to sympathize, but axioms must be self-supporting.
“It is the belief that friends will support you. That you will-“
“-Be safe in their hooves. That there will be no obstacle that stop you as a group of friends in the entire world.”
“Good. There are a few theories confirmed already. Namely that-“
“We still think in the same way in different bodies.”
“Come on. Did you expect any different outcome? My body rages with hormones designed to keep me moving faster than a unicorn, or earth pony, my heart pumps slower than yours ever did. And my brain is tormented by ancestral dreams of flight, all of which is perfectly attainable. You've made a monster out of me. I am cut from you, so you've budded into innumerable monsters.”
“Calm down. I've got our friends to come. Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy are willing to help us here.”
“And yet you've made me a monster, which you intend to present to your closest friends. What kind of monster are we?”
“The kind whose knowledge and fear for reputation has driven us to commit an atrocity upon ourselves.”
“And for once; the royal we is not just a figure of speech used to convey the unity of the citizens behind us.” Both instances laughed.
“Luna would probably like that.”
“Have you told Celestia or Luna yet?” The Alicorn instance looked away, indicating there was a high chance of a negative answer.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“The cloning experiments were unreasonable. The one that produced you took thirty-four tries, thirty-three of which mutated into monsters whose grin was full of evil gnarled teeth. Things that I would lose against in a fight. Things that had to be killed before they gained awareness. Terrors.”
“All this to torment yourself without feeling it?”
“I suppose so.”
“I'll give it a shot. I'll try something. It doesn't sound much better on your end anyway.”
“I'm in deep trouble.”
“And the only way out is to prove yourself right, and to clean up your mess first.”
“That is correct.”
The door started to swing open. And Rainbow walked in.
“Hey Twilight. Hi Scarlett. Are you okay? You look like you've been through Hay.”
“That would be one way to put it Rainbow Dash.”
Twilight walked out.
“How is it being the cousin of the Princess anyway?”
“I'm going to kill her.”
“I know the feeling. There was this one time when she wouldn't let me go into the Everfree to look for…” The story took on an epic twist as Rainbow Dash vilified Twilight all the while respecting her as the reason that she survived the encounter with the Golden OreWolf. Somehow it was insulting. “Twilight. You look somewhat worried. Is she doing okay?”
“Yeah. She'll live. I'm just not sure I've made the right decision.”
“What do you mean, s-she's recovering in the hospital, from an accident that you had no hoof in, right?”
“Yeah. There's something else.”
“I'm sure you'll share it. I mean, if it is comfortable for you.”
Twilight smiled. “She's a lot like me. Though she still doesn't have her cutie mark.”
“I’m just wondering, but would you mind, I don’t know, explaining why that is to me?”
“You'll find out soon enough, Fluttershy.”
“I hope not. She seemed so agitated when she was talking with you.”
There was a sudden outburst of laughter that came from the room.
“I think that she's going to do just fine.”
“I think so too.”
“Rainbow Dash. If it wouldn't trouble you too much, would you teach me how to fly?” Rainbow dash laughed before agreeing. There was a difference between them already. Good… Kind of.
“She's doing just as I had hoped she would” Twilight beamed. Fluttershy smiled, as content as any goose pleased with her young would be.
Perhaps this marks a treacherous spot in the road. And yet, it is more satisfying than simply having a clone of your mimic your motions throughout the day. That progress on the merging of memories should be accelerated. Otherwise this will be a project on population expansion. The orignal Twilight instance, whose uptime was greater than the other decided that she would let this develop as it would. Divergence cannot be too bad.
In the week that followed, Scarlett was able to get outside the stifling environment of the hospital. She found herself spending a lot of time with Rainbow Dash. The flights that she went on were fast, difficult, but ultimately the desire to keep up with Rainbow Dash pushed her to become developed enough to follow without being lost.
“Race you.”
“Dash, you are so predictable.”
“Am not.”
“Whatever, you’re on.”
“See you at the finish line, dork.”
They shot forwards off the ground. Scarlett, now used to her new name, pushed her wings harder, the muscles in her back burnt a bit less than normal. She grinned, she might just catch up to the Rainbow Wonder after all. The air that flowed into her eyes stung, causing her to tear. She looked to the side. The countryside was bathed in the bright yellow light of midday. The trees were still defiantly green, however. “I wonder how I missed this before.”
Then she crashed into Rainbow Dash, sending them tumbling into said trees. This is nice, Scarlett thought. “Scarlett, recover!” she shook her head. It sounded reasonable. She pulled out of the spin. “I can’t imagine why I forgot that.”
“You are about as bad at recovering as Twilight is. Your family does seem to run quite strong in you. You look almost exactly like her.”
“Yeah. Sometimes I wonder if I’m some sort of clone.”
“Me too! It’d be just like that one time in Daring Doo.”
The conversation became lively at that point, with rainbow dash jumping up in the air, pounding down, and other such things because it was cool.
After around a few minutes of this, she got into the science behind it. Or at least the author's own pseudoscience.
“Dash, that doesn't quite sound right. I don’t think that's how clones work.”
“What are you talking about, they're always just like the original in every way, they even share the same memories.”
Scarlett attempted to calm herself. Sadly, that sort of thing suddenly was out of reach of her best efforts.
“Thats... Not right.”
“How would you know?”
“Am I the same pony as Twilight?”
“No. Obviously not, you're cool, but not in the way Twilight is. Also, you're not obsessed with books and various minutae of magic.” Scarlett raised an eyebrow. “What, can't I use fancy words too? Besides, you aren't her clone. Why would she want a clone made anyway? She's going to live forever, isn’t that enough of a legacy?”
“You are right.”
“About what?”
“Hey, so that depiction of Azquital in Daring Doo, what does that represent?”
“Obviously the griffons during the second Griffon-Equestria war.”
“That’s very strange Rainbow Dash.”
“Yeah, not as weird as that one with the goo monster.”
“You mean the pornographic one?”
“Scarlett, I know that you're generally more of an egghead than I am, but it's called erotica.”
Twilight looked upon Scarlett with a deep interest. She levitated a ballpoint pen to a notebook that was already filled with the arcane diagrams that most ponies, would call doodles. “Hmm. She is diverging more quickly than I thought.”
“I'm sorry Your Highness, but when you're talking to yourself, you don't make a very good attendant at your own damned court.”
Twilight looked up. Antimonious sulfide, a mining magnate, whose name did not, in fact, mean all that much, was looking at her gruffly. He was not the sort of stallion you could see dancing around an issue. “Celestia Almightly, I thought that you were made into a Princess 'cause you weer so damned useful.”
Twilight rolled her eyes. “I'm sorry, there are many more things that I must attend to that you will, if I have any say in the matter, never hear about.”
“That’s a fine speech you have there, unfortunately, it doesn't include the part about how my mining company can't figure out where you’re trying to go with your environmental policy. First you go and make your friend Fluttershy ‘baroness’ of the Everfree forest, putting all of us honest land-owners to shame with the amount of mineral and biological wealth that she could potentially extract from that there place.”
“You really don't understand do you? I’m in the middle of something more important than a commercial rivalry, especially one that will never exist, Fluttershy has no plans to do anything of that sort.”
“She’s already exporting fish from the river, gold from the stones, and whatever else she can get her damned hooves on.”
“Sure, now you have half the land.”
“Thank ya missy, and I was hearing so much complaining about you. Nothing but moan and whining from my investors about your policies.”
“I appreaciate your compliment, but you are still distracting me.”
“Well far be it from me to tell a Princess how to act.”
“That’s why I would appreciate it if you left.”
“But I can't stop praising you till you realize what you've done wrong.”
“Let me guess, you would like a share of the income tax on Equestria?”
“No. Well that would be nice, but that's not what I’m trying to tell you.”
“Fine. Let’s get this over with.”
“You understand that I was not complaining that your friend has dominion over it, I was complaining that she is exploiting it, what you probably meant to do was have her manage the animals, monsters and all inside the forest, what she's doing is exploiting its resources. You gave her the mineral and work rights to it, while you probably intended to give her forest management and wildlife care. After all, it is the only undeveloped piece of land in Equestria, and you probably want to keep it that way for now.”
“It’s not undeveloped, it's just filled with rampant magical energy that has corrupted the wildlife in unpredictable ways.”
“Whatever missy. It's wealth is untapped. If you give a friend a piece of unclaimable land, you had better make sure that you understand the economic implications of what you do.”
“The land was tapped. Look at the ruins. You can't take stuff from there though.”
“Ruins or not, there is wealth waiting to be claimed.”
“There are reasons that the region is shunned.”
He winked. “I wouldn't place much trust in such legends and rumors.”
“I would.”
“Well then it seems that we have reached an impasse here.”
The argument lasted for hours.