//------------------------------//
// Planning, and Good Health by Murder 
// Story: Split Second 
// by wille179 
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	A pair of saddlebags dropped to the floor with an audible thud, while the door to the apartment slammed shut. “I’m back,” the owner of both the door and the bags announced as she stepped into her home for the first time in four days.
Shining Armor’s head popped out from the door to the living room. “Sparks! How was your trip, little sis?”
“Fantastic. I was right,” she replied cheerfully.
“Sorry, remind me what you were right about?” Shining asked, mildly embarrassed about forgetting.
“Sombra did anchor the Crystal Empire to our world, and I can probably pull it back. If I’m successful, the empire will return as if no time had passed!” Sparkle explained.
Shining ran up hugged her. “That’s great!”
“Hey, hey, don’t celebrate yet. I’ve still got a lot of work to do,” she replied.
Shining Armor released her and took a step backwards. “Well then, don’t let me keep you. Cobalt and Thorn are in your lab already, just F.Y.I.”
“Thanks, Shiny.”
Sparkle trotted off to her apartment’s lab. Opening the door, she saw Thorn relaxing with a comic book and Cobalt poring over a set of books. Around the room, a dozen specters drifted around, each working on a theoretical aspect of the task at hoof. Since each one was a near-perfect copy of her mind and had access to her memories, the ghostly ponies had started crunching numbers and working out the complex formulas that she’d need while she was on the way home.
Without looking up, Thorn waved and said hello.
“Alright, we’ve got our work cut out for us. Cobalt, have you created a materials list yet?” the dark sorceress inquired.
When she’d first set out to the frozen north where the Dread Necroptica indicated that the Empire had been, she’d left Cobalt and the specters instructions on what to research while she was gone. Between Thorn and the specters, Sparkle, Cobalt, and Thorn had started working out a way to summon the empire back. The results were promising.
Cobalt, orange coated today, levitated a long scroll over to her, which she plucked out of the air. “That’s everything,” Cobalt said. “You know, we could cut out about three quarters of this stuff if you cast some of the more complex stuff yourself.”
“I know,” Sparkle said as her eyes scanned the list. “But my summoning is unstable and we’ve got several thousand ponies counting on us to get this right. Plus, I’d rather not be standing at the epicenter when a bucking empire drops out of the sky and on my head.”
“Touché,” Cobalt acknowledged. “Well, that means that we’re going to have to get several rare - and probably pricy - reagents in order to turn a bolder into a self-contained city-summoner.”
“Don’t worry about that. I’ve got contacts that can hook me up with most of these,” Sparkle replied, shaking the list for emphasis.
“Hey, what are we going to call this thing?” Thorn asked. “The Self-Contained City-Summoner is a bit of a mouthful.”
“Hmmm... Yagalone,” Sparkle suggested.
“Yagalone?” Thorn asked, confused.
“Olagay is a unicornian word for annihilation or destruction. Spell it backwards and add the negation suffix, -ne, and you get Yagalone,” Sparkle explained.
“Restoration from annihilation. Fitting,” Cobalt said, to which Thorn agreed.
“Then it’s decided. This is project Yagalone,” Sparkle declared. She then unrolled the list again and more thoroughly looked it over. “Hmm... I think I can have most of these materials within a week. Add another few days to make it and haul it all up north... we’re looking at just under two weeks to restore the empire.”
Both Thorn and Cobalt cringed slightly at the projected time period. Cobalt spoke up first. “Sparks, I’ve got a contract in Manehattan that I’ve got to start on in eight days. This one’s going to require some time to set up, so I’ll probably be gone until just before your brother’s wedding.”
“And the Great Dragon Migration’s starting soon,” Thorn added. “You promised that I could go. The next one won’t be for a couple of decades.”
Sparkle sighed in disappointment. “Alright. Help me with what you can before you leave. Once it’s ready, I should be able to deal with this without you two.”
“Hey, if you’re bringing the empire back, shouldn’t you tell the Princesses? They’d probably want to send up an ambassador for when the empire comes back,” Cobalt suggested. “And a regiment of guards in case things go south.”
“Good idea,” Sparkle admitted. “Now, I know I just got back, but I want to get these ingredients before it gets too dark out.”
Thorn snorted. “Yeah, I’d hate to be the mugger who encounters you in a dark alley way.”





Sparkle was thankful for the moonlight overhead; otherwise, it would have been much too dark out. The hour was late, and with a yawn, she set off back home. Unfortunately, she’d have to make the trek all the way to the cliff tram at the edge of town, and then wait until it made its infrequent run up the steep mountain slope, as teleporting into Upper Canterlot from here tended to be tricky and best done assisted, and the teleportation station had closed for the night.
So, setting off from the back-alley shop, Sparkle trotted home with her haul in her bags. A common sight thanks to the nearby waterfall and cool air of the spring night, mist swirled around her hooves. It made her cold and limited her vision further. What it didn’t limit was her hearing, and though sound echoed and distorted in these narrow passageways, the sound of a semi-distant voice gave her pause.
She listened, though she couldn’t determine what the gravely voice was saying. On guard now, she peaked around the corner and saw a shrouded figure looming over a pony, who, while conscious, looked utterly exhausted, both in body and in soul.
“Come out, pony. I know you’re watching,” the robed figure said. 
Sparkle, knowing that she had been caught, stepped forwards, still fully on guard. Within her body, the specter that she kept on her at all times woke up and readied itself to assist its mistress if a fight broke out. Meanwhile, the specter’s creator took a good look at the shrouded figure’s soul; though she had never seen one in person, she quickly recognized the six-pointed soul as a centaur’s.
What wasn’t normal for a centaur’s soul was the off-color bump on the back, from which a set of thin tendrils protruded. It was clearly something that the centaur hadn’t been born with, and instead had been put there. Sparkle’s eyes darted towards the fallen pony and spotted the noticeable lack of magic around it and a small puncture wound on his soul.
The dots connected in Sparkle’s mind at an amazing speed. This centaur had a soul weapon, and she wanted it badly. In another fraction of a second, she realized exactly how it was supposed to be used, and readied herself.
Her entire thought process, accelerated by the magic she had altered her body with some time ago, took only a split second. It was the same length of time most ponies would take to finish observing the scene, never mind figure out what was going on.
“Who are you?” Sparkle asked. “And what did you do to that pony?” she added, although she already knew the answer.
“It is quite simple, really, I drained him of his magic,” the centaur's quiet but rough voice spoke. “Surely one such as yourself-” here he paused, gesturing to Sparkle and, more specifically, the spines on her back, “-would understand the allure of power. I just took what should have been mine. As for me, I am Lord Tirek.”
“You escaped from Tartarus,” Sparkle observed. “How did you do it?”
“A certain mutt left his post unguarded. It made things significantly easier,” Tirek replied. “But now the question is, who are you? That power I sense coming from your body did not come freely.”
“My name’s Sparkle. I’m a dark enchanter,” she lied.
“Really now?” Tirek replied. “Interesting. Had you been a necromancer, I would have suggested we work together. Alas, you are not. The only thing I want from you... is your magic.”
Tirek’s mouth stretched wide open, and within his skull, his soul weapon fired a tendril at Sparkle’s magic reserves. She, however, was ready for it. When the tendril struck, she clamped down on it as hard as she possibly could while releasing her hold on her own body. Had she not had Thorn, this would have been an insanely dangerous move. As it was, when the tendril retracted in an attempt to yank out her magic, Sparkle exited her body and rode it all the way into Tirek’s body, slamming into his own soul with the effect of a cannon-ball against a thick brick wall.
Even as it surged upwards in height, Tirek’s body slumped, like a puppet with all but one string cut. Blood erupted from his eyes, nose, and ears in a violent gush as his blood pressure spiked. As for Sparkle’s fleshy shell, it stumbled as the Specter found itself suddenly and unexpected in control of its mistress’s soulless body. Sparkle’s body’s eyes went wide, before the specter remembered that it had to keep the heart beating and the lungs breathing. All three bodies in the alley, Sparkle’s, Tirek’s, and Tirek’s victim, all went still - the latter was from confusion.
Inside Tirek, it was an entirely different story. Tirek, despite having a soul weapon, was caught completely off guard and could not fire his weapon at such short range. Sparkle, meanwhile, was fighting unarmed, but was the ambusher and thus fully on the offense. To say that it was a slaughter was an understatement.
Within the span of three breaths, Tirek’s soul had come to resemble a diced vegetable, cut into numerous chunks. Sparkle, the clear victor, seized control of Tirek’s body, if only to keep it from dying as she worked.
Physical sensation returned to her, although it was definitely distorted from what she was used to. The colors were off, the scents in the air were too weak, and her hearing was strangely unable to focus on any one thing. The biggest thing she noticed was that Tirek’s upper body was completely numb, and that Tirek’s arms hung limp.
She turned her attention inwards, to the soul shards that were all that remained of Tirek. Sifting through them, she found the weapon and quickly attached it to her own soul, taking care to sterilize the bond so that nothing like Sparkrovitar ever emerged from it. She shivered uncontrollably as it connected.





Thorn shot out of bed, awoken by the strangest sensation.
“That was weird.”





Then, sifting through what was left of his soul, an idea came to her. The personality was useless, so she swallowed it without fanfare. Then she looked at the memories. There were far too many of them for her to deal with now, so she wrapped them in a magical bubble and “pocketed” the abstract substance within her own magic reserves. Next, she turned her attention to Tirek’s rather impressive magic reserves. There was a little blob of green floating in the sea of orange, what she assumed to be the other pony’s magic. She chucked it out, knowing that it would find its way back to the pony, and then used her newly acquired soul weapon - the magic harpoon, she would later call it - and devoured Tirek’s magic as he attempted to do to her, integrating the power with her own.





“Whoa. The buck is mom doing?” Thorn asked, feeling their reserves skyrocket unexpectedly.





Finally, as the stallion nearby regained his strength and stood up, she turned her attention to the last remaining pieces of the centaur’s soul: the interface. It was these pieces that allowed a soul to mesh with the fleshy brain, sense through the body’s organs, and move the body’s muscles. Every soul had an interface that was custom made for its body type. If a soul had one arm interface, it could control exactly one arm. 
Sparkle’s soul had enough to control all of her body and most of Thorn’s body. She only had one heart interface, so Thorn’s heart had never beat. She only had two wing interfaces - all ponies had enough soul to control two wings and a horn, regardless of tribe - which meant that patches on her back had been numb for years since Thorn had taken that part of her interface. And she didn’t have enough soul interface for both of them to feel everywhere. Until that moment, Sparkle and Thorn had thought that they would have to live with numb areas their whole lives.
And yet, here was Tirek’s interface. Piece by piece, Sparkle attached it to her own soul, relishing as sensation returned to areas of her - Tirek’s - body. Then, lastly, she attached Tirek’s heart interface to her soul and sterilized the bonds.





Thorn was now freaking out. Magic surge, fine. Weird chills, fine. But why the buck was there a drum banging in his head? He stood up and ran into his mom’s room. When he realized that she wasn’t there, he ran to Shining’s room.

All the while, the drum got louder and faster. He didn’t notice that with the sudden influx of oxygen, his necromantically animated limbs were now functioning as a living dragon’s would, giving them far more strength than they previously had.





Sparkle returned her attention to the real world. She noticed that the stallion had up and left. Shrugging, she looked towards her body, which was noticeably smaller. “Hm... Tirek’s body grows when he absorbs magic? I wonder if that’s a function of his body or his soul? I guess I’ll find out when I transfer back.”
Something caught her eye. On her original body, the eyes had returned to pure lavender and her necromancy cutie mark had vanished. She turned Tirek’s head - now her head - and looked at her reflection in a window. The golden irises had turned red, though the sclera were still black. Then, shedding Tirek’s robe, she spotted her skull and starburst cutie mark on the centaur’s flank.
“That’s interesting. I half expected it to not show up.” She shrugged, deciding to perform a more thorough examination of her new body later. “Come along, specter.”
“Hehehe... Yes, Mistress. Or is it Master now?” the specter giggled.
“What are you... oh. OH!” It dawned on her what the specter was referring to. She had jumped into a male body and had attached the male components of Tirek’s interface to her soul, giving her a fully functional set of male organs. She blushed furiously, and, knowing that she was functionally alone, she reached down and manually examined those new parts. “Huh... no wonder stallions like sex so much. That thing is sensitive. Now... how do I turn it off?”





By the time she had gotten back to her home, Sparkle had switched bodies once more, thankful to find that her real body had not grown when her massive reserve of magic had poured into it, and that Tirek’s body had shrunk down to about two thirds of its former height. But, as Sparkle and the meat puppet behind her ascended the stairs, Sparkle found herself in a quandary: keep Tirek’s semi-immortal body as a backup, knowing that it was the face of a Tartarus-level criminal; or hoof it over to her brother, claiming that she had mind controlled him into complying, and gain the prestige of capturing one of the most dangerous villains known to ponykind.
Decisions, decisions.
Eventually, she chose the practical option. Gathering her magic, she cast the reversible version of the curse of forever-sleep on the body, putting it into stasis. Then, with a shove of both hoof and magic, she pushed the hibernating centaur into her stable, if incomplete, personal dimension.
“There we go. One last-resort backup for later.” Sparkle figured that, in time, she could restructure the face and body enough that it wouldn’t be recognizable as Tirek any more.
She tuned into her hallway, then her apartment. As she walked in, Thorn barreled into her. “Mom! Something’s wrong with me! There’s this drum I keep hearing that won’t go away!”
Sparkle blanched, but then swiftly recovered when she realized that he was referring to the heartbeat that he had never heard before. Even when they had fused as Sparkrovitar all those months ago, Sparkle had already been used to her own heart, and thus Thorn wouldn’t have noticed.
“It’s alright. It’s just your heartbeat.”
“My... heartbeat?”
Sparkle smiled reassuringly. “I’ll fill you in tomorrow, but in short, I fixed the flaw in our soul that kept it from working.”
“Huh...” Thorn put a claw on his chest. “You know how ponies say that love comes from the heart, and that they “know in their heart”? Well, I don’t feel any different.”
“Don’t be silly,” Sparkle said. “Emotions come from the interaction of the soul and the limbic system. The heart has nothing to do with it.”
“Oh.” Thorn’s shoulders sagged in disappointment. “Does that mean I’m alive now?”
“No, you're still my cute little lich,” Sparkle replied. “All a working heart is going to do is make you more awesome. Now, it’s past your bedtime, and I don’t need a cranky monster slowing me down tomorrow.”
At the mention of sleep, the drake yawned. “Sure, Mom. I was having a great dream before you woke me.”
“Sorry,” she replied sheepishly. “Was it the one where you were squishing Canterlot, or the one with Rarity?”
“Both! Rarity was a giant dragoness, and we were rampaging together!”
“It sounds wonderful. Let me get ready for bed, and then I’ll come join you. I saw some really fat nobles when I left that we could snack on,” Sparkle replied, knowing that that was one of her son’s favorite dream pastimes.
“Sounds great, mom!”