//------------------------------// // The Monster's Creation // Story: Episode 3: Mageismoiras // by mr lovecolt //------------------------------// Vessel… check. Blood packets… check. Wing donor… check. Twilight Sparkle placed the third check mark on the small scroll that levitated in front of her and set it aside. Inside the laboratory of the Golden Oaks Library, Twilight Sparkle listened to the sound of the scientific instruments that surrounded her. A small graph machine in the corner of the room released reams of paper that piled onto the floor. The ECG and EEG monitors stood at the head of a metal table in the middle of the room, waiting for use. Airheart’s body lay prone on the table in front of Twilight Sparkle. The table was fitted with special wing fixation equipment, and they were already connected to Airheart, splaying her wings up into the air. Next to the table stood a book on top of a pedestal – Anatomy: Descriptive and Surgical, by Henry Bray. Next to that, Fluttershy’s body stood in the statant position with a clear view of the remains of her wing structure. Another smaller table lay on the other side of Twilight, but it was empty, save for a single scalpel. Twilight Sparkle shook her head and was reminded of the headache she had gotten from the amount of magic energy she had used. She turned her attention to the shelf of vials she kept next to her writing desk. Her attention turned to a small vial with a purple stopper on it. The liquid inside had a faint purple glow to it. Twilight Sparkle removed the topper and slowly consumed its contents. A moment later, she felt the effects as her magical energy returned to her. Twilight gave a sigh and returned to the table. Twilight Sparkle’s horn lit up, and she focused her energy on the corner of the room. She knew that the sounds of the machines weren’t necessary to listen to until the time came to work on Fluttershy. “No distractions.” Twilight Sparkle whispered to herself as she levitated a small needle, “Today is too important.” The needle fell and landed on the small record that lay on the phonograph. The music of Frederick Horseshoepin’s Nocturne’s filled the room, drowning out the noises of the machines that were unnecessary at this time. Twilight Sparkle adjusted her position so that she stood next to Fluttershy. The nubs that remained were encased in dried blood. “First things first,” Twilight Sparkle said, “I need to clean the area to find out what parts Fluttershy needs from the donor.” The tear of the bones had occurred at the location of the coracoid, near the acromion process. If she removed the remains of Fluttershy’s coracoid, she could better attach the entire wing from Airheart’s body and reattach it without running the risk of too many bones being mismatched. “Fluttershy’s spinal column appears intact,” Twilight Sparkle said, “But it is clear that I will have to reattach the biceps and triceps muscles from the donor. In regards to the reattachment of the arteries and veins, it would be best to keep as much of Fluttershy’s intact so as not to rely too much on the donor.” Twilight Sparkle turned from Fluttershy and to the body of Airheart. A purple aura enveloped the scapular and lesser covert feathers, and they fell, one by one, to the floor below. Twilight Sparkle had to make sure that she removed enough feathers to ensure a clean cut, but not too many to Fluttershy a strange appearance. The fur that rest in the area between the shoulder blade and the coracoid was next to go. They, too, joined the pink feathers on the floor. Twilight Sparkle took a deep breath and the scalpel levitated centimeters between her eyes and the bare skin that attached Airheart’s wings to her body. Judging from her position in the casket, Twilight Sparkle was correct in her unstated assumption that the blood flow had already left the wings for the most part. As she sliced into the skin, only trace amounts of blood oozed from the wound. She stopped for a moment to collect a tiny sample and place it into a vial that rest near her head and then continued with the incision. Twilight Sparkle was greeted with a series of arteries and veins that moved from the areas around the spine and the coracoid. Rather than risk having them be too short, she chose to make her cuts as close to the spinal column as possible. One by one, they were cut. As she stared at arteries and veins, Twilight Sparkle remembered once when Spike had pulled an earthworm out of a muffin that Applejack had made when she tried to buck an entire field of apples in one harvest season. The thought of Spike slurping down the earthworm made Twilight Sparkle wretch, but she immediately set down the scalpel and turned her mind back to the music. Was this opus 9, number 3, Twilight Sparkle asked herself in an attempt to distract the thought, or opus 15, number 1? Twilight cleared the previous thought out of her mind and resumed her work. The main parts of Airheart’s wing had been removed, and now all that was left was to remove the bone itself. Twilight Sparkle turned her attention to the connecting point at the spine and the coracoid, slowly pulling away the tendons and ligaments in such a way that they didn’t disrupt the function of the wing itself. Upon inspection, Twilight Sparkle realized that she had pulled away a little bit more than she would have liked from the spinal area, but she would manage. As she final vestiges of ligament were removed, she sighed in relief as bone finally detached from bone. A purple aura surrounded the wing and Twilight Sparkle set it down on the empty table. Twilight Sparkle looked up to the clock. It was nearing one o’clock. She had spent the better part of an hour working on just the one wing, but now that she knew what to expect, she could get to work more quickly on the other one. Better make preparations for the second part, Twilight Sparkle thought as she turned to the packets of blood and pulled a small scroll from her desk. “Let’s see,” Twilight Sparkle muttered, “According to the study done by Brunhilde Hoofensohn, the volume of blood a pony contains should be approximately seventy-one-point-five milliliters per kilogram, give or take six-point-two-eight. Of course, this study was done on earth ponies, so the actual volume for Fluttershy should be less, given her race and size. Still, it’s best to triple check rather than simply double check and miss something.” Twilight Sparkle looked at the notes she had taken. Fluttershy weighed one hundred and twenty-seven kilograms, so a liberal estimate would be nine thousand eight hundred and seventy-eight-point-zero-six milliliters. Twilight Sparkle lifted up a bag of blood. The package of blood states four hundred and fifty milliliters, so that means I need twenty-one-point-nine-five-one-two-five bags. She turned to the bags she had retrieved and counted out the twenty-two bags she had taken from the hospital. Twilight Sparkle pointed her head in the direction of a machine and wheeled it over to herself, where she attached the bags to an assembly line of holders. The machine whirred to life, and each bag began to drip blood into a large vat. Each time a drop hit the bottom, Twilight watched as the counter on the machine moved up by one digit. Now that the blood was being prepared, she turned back to her work on Airheart’s second wing. In no time, she had made complete work of the body, and she used her magic to wheel a small gurney from the corner of the room and placed the body of Airheart onto it. “Ah,” Twilight Sparkle sighed, “Opus forty-eight, number two; definitely a favorite.” As the music continued, Twilight Sparkle began to focus her concentration onto Airheart's body. She imagined the path that led up to the empty grave that lie in the Ponyville Cemetary, just a little past the statue. She opened her eyes as the aura surrounded the body. A moment later, the body was gone. Twilight Sparkle moved Fluttershy from where she stood to a supine position on the table where Airheart’s body lay moments ago. Twilight Sparkle realized that the first thing she needed to do was to clean up the tear from the attack into a proper incision. The gash in Fluttershy’s barrel slowly turned into an ‘I’, and Twilight Sparkle took a closer look at the organs once more. The main organs that had been damaged were the liver and the cecum. Twilight Sparkle levitated a small tray from the desk and set it beside her. The aura surrounded the gossamer thread and needle and she went to work piecing together the broken organs. As the time drew on, sweat began to bead down from Twilight Sparkle’s face, but they were immediately picked up by a swipe of her wings. She threaded each piece of Fluttershy’s organs back together, taking only the occasional glance as her friend’s face. Ever since she had died, Fluttershy’s eyes had remained closed. Twilight Sparkle couldn’t wait to be able to see Fluttershy’s blue eyes again. After the organs were repaired, she closed the wound using the thinnest thread she could to reduce scarring. Twilight Sparkle had completed the work on Fluttershy and was now prepared to reattach the wings. She levitated the severed wings from the table and placed them into the wing fixation equipment, and then lowered it until it was close enough to connect with Fluttershy’s body. Twilight Sparkle began the work of attaching each artery from Fluttershy’s body to the wings. Twilight spell levitated the book of Bray’s Anatomy to her side so she could see it while she worked as she connected the veins, as well. She scrutinized each page as she determined the appropriate place for the tendons and ligaments. Once they were determined, she aligned the coracoid with Fluttershy’s spine and began attaching ligament and tendon to bone and muscle. Once completed, she performed an experimental flap using her magic as gently as possible. When the results seemed satisfactory, she placed the wings against Fluttershy’s sides. The machine behind Twilight Sparkle beeped. She turned around just in time to see the vat reach nine thousand nine hundred milliliters. She immediately wheeled over a defibrillator and attached it to Fluttershy’s barrel. Twilight Sparkle knew that it wasn’t to try to restart her heartbeat, but it was the only way she could think of to get the blood to flow through the body. Judging by the speed at which she could set the defibrillator, and if she connected an IV to each of her six major arteries, she could cycle the fresh blood in less than an hour. Twilight Sparkle levitated a dropper to the vat and pulled up a single drop. She then made the motions to compare it with the coagulated blood she had retrieved. The match was perfect. Needles levitated through the air and attached themselves into Fluttershy’s arteries. An empty vat was placed next to the full one, and when Twilight Sparkle started the defibrillator, she watched as the tubes began to fill with the coagulated blood. They travelled through the tubes and emptied, drop by drop, into the empty vat. Soon after, the tubes connected to the vat of fresh blood made their way into the IV attached to Fluttershy’s barrel. She continued to watch as each pulse pushed Fluttershy’s barrel down and then retreated. Twilight Sparkle ascended the stairs to the main room of the library; the corners of her lips trembled as a faint smile appeared on her face. She opened the door to wait for the transfusion process to complete and trotted next to the shelf of poetry books. She traced her hoof along the back of each book until she came to the two she wanted: Collection, Vol. 1, by Edger Allegore Poeny, and The Collected Poems of Sylvia Plath-Hooves. She levitated the books across the room and onto a small reading table that was empty, save for a wooden pony head sculpture. Twilight Sparkle heard the binding creak as she opened each book. It’s such a shame that these books don’t get more use, she thought as she flipped through the pages of each one. Twilight Sparkle turned her attention to the small sofa in the corner of the room and closed her eyes as she remembered when she and Fluttershy had started reading them. It was the day after the Cutie Mark Crusaders had learned about Fluttershy's stare. ***** “And then I said, ‘You should be ashamed of yourself. I have a mind to find your mother and tell her what you've been up to, young man. Now you go over there, and turn Elizabeak and my friend Twilight back to normal, and don't ever let me catch you doing this again. Do you understand me?’” “And you say you aren’t brave.” “Oh, no… it was just that I had to. I-I couldn’t just let you stay that way.” “Fluttershy, don’t you see that that is what makes you so brave? You have fears, but you stand up to them, so much more often than the rest of us. Most of us only have one or two fears, and we let them get the better of us more often than not.” “Really? And what fear do you have?” ***** Twilight Sparkle shook her head as she turned back to the two books that were on the table. There were bookmarks in each one at the last poem that they had read together: Twilight's book was opened to Poeny's Sestina Fourteen, and Fluttershy's to Plath-Hooves I Am Vertical. She traced her hooves over Sestina Fourteen. She noted each mark that she had made on the poem as Edger had read it to her; he was the writer, and he was the one who knew every stressed and unstressed syllable, when to pause and when to continue through each line break: Maybe I should simply sit here tonight, listen as the music’s notes float through air, while I wonder where you are until light of morning reaches towards me once more. Even now, I feel beams of Luna’s moon caress my face, softly as could your hoof. Twilight Sparkle scratched her head as the noises downstairs shook her out of her reverie. She turned to the clock on the wall. An hour had already passed. She turned and ran down the stairs to the laboratory to see that the empty vat was halfway filled with old blood and that the once full vat was nearly empty. The machine that counted down the milliliters of blood was dangerously low. Everything must be perfect for this to work, Twilight Sparkle thought, she must be complete. Twilight Sparkle held her breath. The counter should have stopped at twenty-two milliliters, but now it was at the single digits. Twilight Sparkle’s eyes widened as the counter to beep. beep… eight milliliters. beep… seven milliliters. beep… six milliliters. Twilight Sparkle closed her eyes and waited for another beep from the machine, but sighed when no sound came out. She removed each IV from Fluttershy and levitated her into a statant position once more. She levitated the defibrillator back to Fluttershy, but this time, she placed it on her spine near the newly attached wings. If the experiment was successful, Twilight Sparkle thought, everything should be connected properly, and an electrical pulse should give some reaction. She energized the defibrillator and listened as the sound of the electrical impulse moved through Fluttershy’s body. Nothing happened. Twilight Sparkle placed the defibrillator onto Fluttershy’s back and repeated the shock. Still, nothing happened. Twilight Sparkle twisted the dials of the defibrillator to the highest setting and placed them on Fluttershy’s spine once more. The energy from the defibrillator resounded through Fluttershy’s body and Twilight Sparkle had to hold back a laugh as both wings jutted out ever so slightly. As Twilight Sparkle fought to contain her joy, her wings jutted out and she hovered midair for a few moments before she calmed down and fell to the floor again. Twilight Sparkle’s aura enveloped a vial of yellow liquid and a small brush. She uncorked it and placed a small amount on the brush. It’s funny that Fluttershy’s the one who taught me how to preen, Twilight Sparkle thought as she placed her hoof on Fluttershy’s new wing. She had taken out a few more scapulars than she had wanted, but they would grow back once she was alive again. For now, she focused on the upper layer of the median coverts. With each brush she saw that the color change from pink to the familiar yellow. She continued on with the greater and the primary coverts, and finally traced each tertial, secondary, and primary feather with the brush, separated each outer feather so she could cover them one at a time. She went to start on the underside and noticed that most of the feathers underneath were pure white. That’s interesting, Twilight Sparkle thought as she lifted her own wings. Hers were all one color. Oh well, she thought, it is easier to dye. She made the same motions on the underside as she did on the upper side. When she finished, she placed the vial away and stood back to admire her work. “Fluttershy,” Twilight Sparkle said, “I promise I won’t let my fear get the better of me anymore.” Bray’s Anatomy was closed, and the Mageismoiras was set in its place. The pages fluttered as she moved to the section that she needed. A piece of white chalk levitated to the center of the room. She drew a small circle and then made a line, ending it with a flourish. She slashed an ‘X’ through the middle of the first line and then ended each of the four new lines with five more at different angles. Twilight Sparkle took a step back and levitated Fluttershy into the middle of the glyph that she had drawn. She returned to the book and read over the words, translating them from Old Equestrian – The altar and the vessel, once broken now becomes whole. Return the force I seek to me, I implore you.. Twilight Sparkle placed the chalk at the edge of the circle and began to draw a circle clockwise. O vomos kai to skafos Molis spasmena pleon synolo Epistrepsete ti dynami i epidioxei na mou sas ekliparo Twilight Sparkle dropped the chalk as she completed the circle. A bright flash surrounded Fluttershy and Twilight Sparkle shielded her eyes. The light reached the ceiling and the library shook. The shaking lasted only a moment, but once finished, a new sound echoed through the laboratory. The white light crackled and then the sound grew deeper until it resembled the sound of a raging fire. She watched at the white light seemed to entwine upon itself like thread and it wrapped itself around Fluttershy’s body. A moment later, the light vanished, leaving Fluttershy still standing in the center of the circle. Twilight Sparkle hesitated. She didn’t want to move for a moment. Twilight Sparkle took a step forward. Fluttershy took a step forward. Twilight Sparkle gasped. Fluttershy’s mouth opened to mimic her, but no sound came out. Tears formed in Twilight Sparkle’s eyes and she leaped forward to grab onto her friend. “Oh dear Celestia, I did it!” Twilight Sparkle shouted, “Fluttershy. You’re back! Fluttershy, I-” “What is going on down here?” Twilight Sparkle jumped as a candle moved down the stairs, carried by Spike. As he reached the bottom of the stairs, he squinted his eyes to see what was happening. “What’s Fluttershy doing here?” Spike asked, “And what happened to her eyes?” Twilight Sparkle turned around and gasped as Fluttershy slowly backed away with each step Spike took towards her. During her embrace, Fluttershy’s eyelids had opened, but all that Twilight Sparkle could see were two sets of blackness staring back at her.