Werewolves of Knicknik

by Atuhor Name

CH. 03 Diamond

Diamond

Doctor Horse, as in Healthy Horse, or Healthy as a Horse, slapped down the X-rays in exasperation.

“Well according to this you don’t have any bones or teeth.”

“What?” Came the chorus reply from the couple in the room.

“Neither your bones, nor your teeth show up in this X-ray.”

“But...” Twilight trying to come up with a rebuttal just smiled and made sure to show her teeth.

Naudia peered down at the X-ray and the whole thing was just strange, one could say… alien. There weren’t any bones on the picture, nor even holes where the bones would be, her teeth were just invisible to the X-ray, and it was pretty clear that something was going on inside Twilight but the X-ray showed them only an outline of her head with wispy things underneath.

“I might have an explanation for the teeth at least, Twilight have you ever had a gemstone filling?” Doctor Horse asked.

Twilight shook her head.

“Mind if I check for one?” Twilight shook her head again.

The doctor lit up his horn and suddenly Twilight’s head lit up like Hearthswarning lights. Everypony in the room stared.

“I might have an explanation for this.” Doctor Horse leaned closer to look at the glow, then pulled out a magnifying monocle to get a better look. “And it’s going to sound entirely outlandish and crazy.”

“Are Alicorns made of gemstones?” Naudia asked, unable to follow.

“No, I was Celestia’s doctor for years and I can say definitively that Alicorns aren’t made of gemstones.”

“But it appears to me that you’re made of diamond, some sort of naturally forming diamond fiberglass, since diamond doesn’t show up on X-rays and other gemstones do.”

The doctor shifted the gem detection spell downwards and the situation didn’t change, every part of Twilight’s body lit up the same way.

“What?”

“Okay,” Spike said, moving ahead of the conversation, “if that’s the case how did she get a concussion from running into the wall?”

There was an uncomfortable silence from Twilight and Naudia at this.

“Spike, I probably should have told you this at first, but I thought I was having some kind of mental breakdown.” Naudia tentatively started. “Twilight didn’t run into a wall, she impaled her head on a brass candle-holder.”

“That can’t have happened, she’s right here, and her entire body is made of diamond!” Spike said, “You two were talking about some kind of history mumbo jumbo on the way back.”

“I saw it come out the other side of her head.”

“I had to pull myself off of it and push my head back together.”

“Well then why wasn’t there any… blood, or anything.” Spike said exasperated. “I couldn’t have gotten there more than twenty seconds after you did Naudia.”

“Her head just kind of… sealed back together or something.”

“Can you point me to where?” Doctor Horse asked still wearing the monocle.

Naudia did so and Doctor Horse peered in close looking for any imperfection in the lattice of light glowing from Twilight. After a full minute of this he pulled back, turned off the spell and said:

“I can’t find a single imperfection, this did happen about half an hour ago or so right?”

“Yes.”

“Could Twilight be a Crystal Pony?” Spike asked.

“Having worked on one or two in the past year… no, their gem effect is more magical in nature and isn’t this fine, this diamond fiberglass is extremely high quality, it would take a skilled artisan a year to make a fiberglass this fine even a tiny amount.”

Doctor Horse realized that everypony in the room was looking to him for answers, to which he had none. Acting on autopilot he decided to do something if only to stall for time.

"Have you noticed anything strange about your partner in the last year Naudia? This goes for you too Twilight, but I'm assuming not since you haven't really visited except for that one cold."

"There was that incident with the bathtub."

"I told you, I just dozed off for a couple minutes." Twilight said defensively.

"You were snoring underwater Twilight, that's not normal for ponies, and you were in the bath for almost an hour."

"I'm sorry, what happened again?" Doctor Horse cut in.

"I caught Twilight asleep underwater in the bathtub a month or so back, I have no idea how long she was under there but it had to have been minutes at the least, almost a half an hour on the outside." Naudia paused, "By my estimation you were somewhere between stage 3 and 4 of sleep, just to the point where you were starting to dream."

"How the hay do you know that?" came a chorus from Twilight and the doctor.

"Sirens of the wastes remember? You have to be dreaming so we can make you dream the right things and extract love."

"Okay so what does that tell us?" Spike asked. "Has Twilight turned into a seapony or been replaced by a P-1000?"

Nopony in the room had an answer, so Doctor Horse, more or less on autopilot at this point spoke up.

“Do you mind if I take a blood sample? I don’t know if it’s going to help, but you’re due for one anyways.”

Twilight grimaced as the doctor got a syringe, this wasn’t like in Canterlot where they have a machine that could do things with magic and less blood. She didn’t feel the needle hurt as it went in but she tensed up anyways, keeping her eyes away.

“Well, that’s a new one on me.”

Twilight looked down at the syringe to find it full of a purple material, no blood. As she stared at it the plunger began to push back in seemingly of it’s own accord, Twilight tensed up again and all of the purple gel pulled back into her leg.

“Please tell me you did that doctor.”

“No, and I wouldn’t even if I had a mind to. You don’t want to push air back into the bloodstream, bubbles in your blood can kill you.”

Everypony stared as the needle was pushed out of Twilight’s skin without the doctor’s help and it clattered to the floor. Doctor Horse picked it up, it was clean.

“Twilight, I’m going to ask you a couple questions, did that hurt?”

“No, I could feel it there, but when I tensed up that happened.” Twilight said.

“Would you mind trying to do that again with another doctor in the room so I can make sure that I’m not crazy?”

Twilight grimaced, but agreed.

Ten minutes later the party trick was done again, same results, same clean syringe, same lack of any wound on Twilight. The doctors conferred with one another and decided that now might be a good time to get a skin sample.

There was a little tube, stainless steel that was used to get a “punch biopsy”. The punch went in easily enough until Twilight looked over at it, tensed up and even against the doctor’s magic it slid back out again. Naudia took Twilgiht’s head in her hooves, looked directly into her eyes and said:

“Look at me, relax, it doesn’t hurt,” Naudia said, “I can feel your emotions it doesn’t hurt, and just like the needle it might just heal right back up again, relax.”

This was enough for Twilight to relax long enough to get the sample done. The Doctor Horse put the sample in a plastic container and turned around to put a bandage over the wound to find the wound and any indication on Twilight’s skin that anything had happened missing.

Naudia had been watching though, underneath Twilight’s purple fur was more purple, and it changed colors strangely, she could only watch for a second before the whole wound closed itself.

“Whoa! It’s like you have super regeneration Twilight!” Spike said.

The doctors had other things on their minds though, the sample was moving, sluggishly moving it’s way across the container, towards Twilight. Doctor Horse experimentally tried to close the plastic petri dish on top of the… blob, but it was like closing the lid on top of a pebble, it did not budge.

Naudia feeling dangerous decided to try something a bit crazy, she picked up a pair of scissors from the stainless steel tray.

“Twilight do you mind if I do something a bit crazy?”

Twilight was staring at the petri dish and the blob of her skin reaching out to her, the blob of skin that she could still feel and in some ways control.

“I’m not sure if I can handle more crazy right now.”

“Just trust me, I think I know where this is going.”

Twilight nodded, then fast as lighting Naudia clipped off a lock of Twilight’s hair.

“Dia!!” Twilight Whined, but she didn’t get any farther than that.

Naudia grabbed the lock of hair and smushed it into Twilight's cheek where she felt it give. Everypony in the room watched as the hair slid into Twilight’s face and then in amazement as the lock of hair grew back.

“Well gentlestallions, I can’t think of many real things that do this, but I can think of a lot of unreal things that do this, if we could have that sample back I think we all know who to go talk to about this.” Naudia exuded confidence and a quiet building menace.

----------------

“DISCORD!” Naudia thundered at Fluttershy’s cottage, there were no fires burning in her eyes, just actual fires burning on her person.

There was a quiet “oh dear” from inside the cottage drowned out by something large and heavy falling out of a hammock onto a pile of books. Seconds later the draconequus himself opened the door looking more than a little peeved.

“What?”

“Explain this.” Naudia said.

Naudia snipped off another piece of Twilight’s hair and smushed it into her face like last time, Discord scoffed.

“I can’t explain everything you two lovebirds do, and I haven’t done any pranks today,” Discord said too caught up in his scoff to even look at Twilight re-growing her hair, “Today is my day off.”

“Naudia please don’t do that without asking first.” Twilight admonished.

“But I had to show him-” Naudia was cut off by Discord

“If you two are going to have a lover’s quarrel for... whatever… reason…” Discord was looking closely at Twilight as he spoke. “Excuse me, but didn’t your changeling friend just cut off that lock of hair there?”

Discord seemed to try and look even closer, unsettlingly closer.

“Twilight, have you always been like this?” Discord sounded legitimately puzzled. He poked her horn which wobbled. “This sort of… wobbly?”

“So you’re saying that you didn’t do this then?” Twilight asked.

“Nope.” Discord said back, “And I’m not even sure you completely understand the full extent of what ‘this’ even is.”

“How do we know that you didn’t do this?” Naudia demanded.

“I can show you, but first I do want to mention, if I had turned you into a slime Twilight it would be to watch you wobble around like jelly.”

“And what is the second reason Discord?” Twilight said nonplussed.

Discord rubbed his paws together then threw them out again and something grew up around them resembling apartment buildings in manehatten.

“The second is that I don’t think I could make anything this organized.” Discord said frowning up a the things that loomed like high rise buildings.

Naudia inspected them closely, they were strange, and she thought she recognized them in a way. They had spiderweb-like growths on them that ran from building to building and they looked like they were made of jelly. And it was good she couldn't poke at them because there were a LOT of spiderweb like growths, if she could touch them there wouldn't be anyplace to stand.

“These don’t look like any cells I’ve ever seen,” Twilight said staring around, “It’s weird to have them lined up and built up like this.”

“Where are we, and how did you do that?” Naudia asked.

“We are still exactly where we were, this is just a visualization of Twilight’s cell structure.”

“No, I know what cells look like, these look like plant cells almost, and they don’t have the parts of the cells they should,” Naudia hastily glanced around and realized what was missing, pointing to a cell. “See that one, it’s undergoing mitosis and you can’t see any Chromosomes.”

“I don’t see any mitochondria either.” Twilight chipped in.

“That’s the mystery here,” Discord said. “I don’t like it, I have a hunch about this, but I don’t like where this is going, particularly those strands going around.”

Discord unpinched two fingers at one of the strands and they zoomed in on one of the strands to an incredible degree. Revealing a landscape of hexagons as far as the eye can see.

“Obviously this is more or less a visualization, you couldn’t actually see these because they’re too small.” Discord said.

“Discord, would you mind doing a demonstration like this for Cheerilee’s class?” Twilight said looking up in wonder at the simple molecular structure landscape all about them. “I think it could really help out some of the students.”

“Well there goes Theory #1, this is definitely Twilight.” Discord sagged a bit at that.

“So what’s the point of this, it’s just hexagons.” Naudia said.

“The point is that I’m a master of chaos, but even I couldn’t create lattices and materials that fine.” Discord said pacing back and forth, “While this is clearly the work of a very chaotic figure, I think it was also done by…”

Discord paused for dramatic effect, and to let thunderclouds roll in.

“A Scientist!!” Cue thunderclap.

Naudia deadpanned at Discord as the picture around them zoomed out again to the bundles of cells.

“And?” Naudia groused in a mocking voice, “Are we supposed to go to the ‘scientist store’ and ask for a police lineup of experiments?”

Twilight raised her hoof into the air and spoke with a subject she had quite some authority on, second to none really.

“I keep tabs on most scientific journals, and I have an idea of whats going on behind the scenes from Celestia.” Twilight didn’t look comforted by this. “Nopony, and nobody anywhere else in Equestria would have the tech to do this.”

Twilight turned to discord and pointed to one of the blobs inside the cell.

“Can you give me a closer look at that?”

Discord unpinched again and pulled in on the stringy blob thing, it was huge, dense, and complicated. Layers upon layers of stuff that seemed to always be moving, always working.

“I’ve been watching these cells, they don’t seem to have DNA of any kind, and this blob thing is larger than it should be.” Unconsciously Twilight summoned in a paper and quill to start noting things down. “See! Just as I thought, this is some kind of ultra massive protein.”

Twilight squinted at it, walked around it, and squinted again.

“Current hypothesis is that somehow this one huge protein carries most of the functions of the cell including replacing the DNA. Proteins have certain ways that they fold up and one THIS large could do a lot of things, in fact one this large...”

Twilight tapped her chin as the quill kept scribbling and she began to examine the protein up close. Naudia and Discord leaned in to listen to her mumble, rattling out scientific terms with laser accuracy.

“I think I’m right, and I think I have a pretty good idea of how this cell works. I don't know what that hexagonal stuff is or why it's arranged like that but I can tell you now that it's STRONG. And this.” Twilight tried to poke the protein with her quill which went right through as if it wasn't there, “Was clearly specifically designed and I don’t even want to know how long it took to do it, I cannot even imagine the amount of effort and pony-centuries it took to design just this one protein.”

“So what does this tell us about your situation Twilight?” Naudia asked.

That was where Twilight crumbled.

It was all well and good to examine a new scientific phenomenon, like a blob rats fed food to or some sort of completely unprecedented breakthrough in biology. It was entirely another to realize you weren’t looking outward at something unknown, but inwards at yourself.

Twilight shuddered.

“I… I don’t know.”

“So this is like that point in the comic book where you hide out from the government because of your alien given superpowers!” Spike hitherto just following along spoke up.

That was a new perspective, that was an angle Twilight hadn’t thought about it with before, maybe things could turn out all right.

“I don’t know how that would work, I’m part of the government now.” Twilight said flapping her wings for emphasis. “Thanks for that though Spike, I think I needed that.”

Twilight laughed as a strange thought came over her.

“Judging by today, maybe I could be the one ordering around the people experimenting on me while I’m being experimented on.”

"I don't know how involved in this I want to be," Said Discord, "This is my day off after all, and I don't like this at all. Yes it's a very chaotic thing to do, but it feels so clinical, engineered." Discord flapped a paw about. "I think I shall go back to examining you ponies taste in literature."

----------------

As they came back into the castle they were confronted by a harrowed looking Starlight Glimmer. Even Rarity's best makeup work couldn't completely hide the effect the last year had on her, now that Twilight thought about it the last year hadn't shown up on her at all. She had always chalked that up to being an Alicorn before.

"Twilight I need to talk to you." Starlight Glimmer pleaded.

"All right, I can take the hint, I'll go prepare dinner and you two get up to whatever you're doing."

Naudia walked off and Starlight started almost as a yell before pulling back into herself, lowering her head, and pleading as if she wasn't speaking to an equal.

"You..! You haven't told Naudia yet?! Twilight!"

"I was going to tell her this morning like I promised, but… things happened." Twilight said with only a hint of guilt.

"What could possibly be more important than-" Starlight was cut off by Twilight.

"I got my head impaled on a candle-holder, stuck right out the other side."

Starlight went pale, and she actually began to shake.

"And you used some kind of super reset spell, or Naudia did before anything bad could happen?!"

Twilight explained what happened to the best of her knowledge.

"Well, everything seems to be fine, nothing has gone wrong, yet." Starlight said, but she didn't seem happy about it.

"I think you need a vacation Starlight, you need to get out of the castle and make some friends. All this worrying is bad for you and we haven't made any progress at all as to what is actually happening." Twilight admonished. "What is our #1 theory about all this?"

"That the alternate timelines spell just went wrong somehow."

"Good, and what is the second one?"

"That the alternate Twilight Sparkle's didn't make friends so they couldn't stop one or all of the threats to Equestria."

"Exactly, nothing has happened on that front for a year now, I promise to tell Naudia tonight, if you promise to look after your health and maybe take Rarity up on going to the spa okay?"

"Okay…"

Twilight put a hoof on her shoulder, sympathy in her eyes.

"And I want you think think more of yourself Starlight, you shouldn't keep putting yourself down like this. Go out, make some friends, relax, if you break your back carrying the whole world on your shoulders then it's just going to fall down and shatter anyways."

"I don't know if that's all that comforting Twilight," Starlight said smiling in spite of herself. "But if you don't tell Naudia about this by tonight I'm going to tell her myself with or without your say so."