//------------------------------// // Act 3 chapter 1 // Story: Diamonds are a girl's worst enemy // by Rarity Belle //------------------------------// The glance in the eyes of Twilight had slowly turned itself from friendly and helpful, into something that was perhaps better left unspoken. Not even Rarity managed to noticed the little fact. Her eyes also continuously looked over her crystalline limbs. Out of everything that could have happened during that very storm, it was just the thing like that which would do the trick.         The scene was a bit of an ironic thing though. The thunders outside still rumbled and the rain continued to fall down. Almost as if a mad scientist was looking at the latest creation that had been made by it. That was the very look Twilight had gotten straight into her eyes. She wanted to know how it all worked. How was Rarity able to even manage such a feat of magical powers?         Nopony in the land would have been able to command four extra arms without actual help. While it was true that limbs sometimes were amputated with crystalline ones and thanks to a magical circuit acted just like the real thing. It was a science that really had developed itself in the past decade as the practical uses became more interesting for pretty much everypony.         Yet it was Rarity who had managed to gain entire new limbs. “Simply fascinating,” said Twilight. After that, there was a massive grin that went across her cheeks. The mad look within her eyes then got noticed by the other unicorn as the eyes finally looked deep into one another. “I don’t know what else to say, outside of the fact that I want to study them both deeply and thoroughly.”         Those very words caused a chunk to get stuck in the throat of Rarity. One of her most trusted friends and Ponyville’s greatest mind was really proposing such a horrid thing to her? The ivory mare knew just well enough how some of the experiments of Twilight went and they weren't pleasant to say the least.         A big deal of fear grew within Rarity’s very heart. Which caused the arms to snap their claws before they were punched into the ground. “W-Where was that good for?” questioned Twilight before she blinked. She was removed from her dreams and thoughts. The reality of the situation kicked back in and suddenly she realized that those things meant business, dangerous business.         While the other mare continued to look over the arms with the greatest of interest, Rarity just wanted to get rid of them by any means necessary. “I gave you my word, Twilight, and I broke it. Look where it brought me to. Is there anything you can do, to get rid of these things?” she asked in a saddened tone. One of the arm came back up and slid itself before Rarity’s eyes.         It was perhaps the question on which Twilight had hoped for so long. Finally there was a legitimate manner in which she could be conducting her own experiment on the unicorn. Everything slowly fell right into its place for the mare. There were still bridges to be conquered, but one at a time was doable.         Twilight could be found watching over the rear two arms of the mare. Both of her ears twitched from the question. Her head gently rose itself up along the arm as the mad look in her eyes turned even madder. The grin only became wider as the horn was already slowly charging itself up. “Oh Rarity, I have found perhaps the best of plan just for you. It requires time, yes. But I do dare to say that when brought to sleep, you won’t be noticing that much of it, do you?”         Sudden and ominous thoughts surged through the mind of Rarity when she heard the rather sinister sounding tone of her friend. It was a tone she was everything but used from the other mare and gulped calmly before her body turned itself around. All four of the arms reassumed their more peaceful position as they looked one another deep in the eyes.         Denying the facts was not an option, having them constantly in the crystal dress disguise was something that could be done. Though that solution would only have bought her a bit of time instead of what she really required. Rarity knew that the things went straight in her back and that removing them wouldn't have been that easy as first thought.         Though she wanted to keep living her life in a rather normal manner. She didn't wanted to think about the practical applications of the arms in her field of work. She wanted to remain the true and natural beautiful unicorn that she once was. If it meant she had to suffer, there was only one way she could react to the words. “Do it, Twilight. Do it before these very things become nothing else but my downfall,” was all that she had to say about it.         And to those words could Twilight only smirk even deeper. The horn charged itself up fully. “Oh Rarity, I shall give you the best treatment that there is for them.” Everything did fell nicely together for the other unicorn as she had the anomaly of life right where she wanted to have her.         In a flash of light had it happened. Under the rumbles of the thunder they disappeared from the boutique as a whole. Twilight had teleported herself and Rarity to someplace else where in Ponyville. A place which Rarity would never actually see as she was both subdued and knocked out by a secondary charge from the mulberry mare’s horn. ---                       Hours had already gone by as Twilight released a deep groan of the greatest annoyance. She thought that the job would have gone easy and smooth, but who was she kidding with that? It was a straight up nightmare to get her job done. Twilight took a couple of steps backwards in order to watch over the construction that she had made.         Each of the crystalline arms was suspended right in the air by a levitational field. Rarity herself laid on an operating table with her belly down. The set up was ingenious, that much had to be given to Twilight. Although the successes that she wanted to book didn't really happen to be that. The mare gave a deep shake with her head before the sweat was removed from her forehead. Out of everything she could have discovered already, there was nothing. Almost nothing, actually.         “So what do I know about those things now, hm?” she muttered to herself. The mare walked back up to her subdued friend and looked at the attachment points of each of the arms. The unicorn once again saw how they entered Rarity’s back. It seemed almost as if they always had belonged there for some reason. No blood, no massive scars, no open wounds even.         “Only the highest degrees of temperature are able to be such a thing. Though that means they never cut themselves through the skin, they burned their way through.” It was perhaps the biggest shame that she never had taken the book with her and that decision regretted the mare deeply.         Twilight gently shook her head before she moved her eyes up to one of the arms. She watched how the magical sparks traveled through the very center of the thing. It was how they were powered for sure, it worked just like any other augmented crystalline limb. Yet the fact that these were everything but natural limbs was still baffling her.         Amazement and excitement both rushed through the unicorn. She wanted to figure more out about them. She wanted to know so much more about them and perhaps wouldn't stop before everything was solved. No matter that costs it would carry with it. Everything pays its due to the devil in the end, though sometimes it is taken with interest.