Alicorn. Chapter Sixteen. (Patreon)

Chapter Sixteen.

“Scalpel.”“Yes madame.”“Clamp the trapezius muscles here, here and here.”“Yes madame.”Leaning back as bubblegum pink magic set the requested metal implements into place, I allowed my own silver field to slip past, making a few key incisions.“What purpose does this operation serve, Rosette?”The unicorn considered the question with furrowed eyes and pursed lips, glancing between me and the dead earth pony laid out on the slab separating us from each other.“I…”Approximately three days old. Male. Showing clear signs of initial rot and decay, though somewhat salvageable with a regenerative biomantic spell that would have absolutely given the stallion cancer, had he still been alive. A few of Sabot’s guards had dragged the carcass in expecting me to take care of it, while also suggesting that I avoided mentioning its existence to their lord.“Ah…”My current theory was that the trio of mares had gotten into a little fun on the side, and had for whatever reason murdered the specimen now lying before me, though they hadn’t seemed at all inebriated at the time, so I honestly couldn’t say.“Don’t rush out an answer. You are learning. Look closely at the situation, and deduce what I am attempting to do.” I had agreed, of course. It was both none of my business and I was more than happy to keep my silence in exchange for additional materials, something which the knights were rather appreciative of in turn. Such cordial working relationships made for an excellent environment, all things considered, one that rivalled even that of Manehattan.“Yes madame. From what I can tell…you are exposing a significant amount of the back muscles to open air…my first thought is that you want access to the spine for whatever reason, but you’ve made no true effort to extract it, so the muscles themselves must be the goal.”Nodding along with Rosette’s assessment, I gestured toward the splayed open corpse with a tilt of my head, smiling somewhat.“Very good, you’re on the right track.”The mare’s eyes widened somewhat, a level of excitement entering them. Though the young thing had initially been more than a little queasy at the prospect of dismantling a corpse with me, the promise of a few basic biomantic spells had gotten her passed the initial hurdle of apprehension, and after seeing just how clinical the process truly was, she had gotten far more comfortable with handling dead pony meat.It was a testament to her adaptability, and in so much as I truly cared about anybody, her esteem had risen slightly higher than that of the various other dunderheads I had attempted to teach my skills to in times past.“You…are priming them for removal. The muscles, I mean. You’re harvesting them. For the alicorn?”Dipping my head in a nod, I exhaled in satisfaction, eyes closing.“Precisely. Earth pony musculature is significantly denser and more durable than that of a pegasus. By grafting and intertwining these samples to the existing pieces making up the majority of the alicorn’s back, its entire structure will prove significantly more durable.”With a bright flare of my horn, the muscles in question came loose with a sharp but focused rip, hovering away from their previous owner to float towards the limp, floating form of my magnum opus.Rosette was quick to follow along behind me as I made my way towards the experiment, eyes roving over the future alicorn’s frame with a naked curiosity to them.“How soon until she is complete, then? You have reinforced nearly every part of her body, given her two hearts, extended her horn and hooves and mixed the colouring of her coat to make it more uniform…she almost looks like the old pictures of princess Celestia, now.”Humming softly as a storm of surgical tools rose up at my command and began to orbit the dead yet not quite lifeless goddess-to-be, I finally clicked my tongue as I finished the calculations flitting about within my mind.“With this latest addition, and a little more time for the disparate pieces of the subject’s brain to settle…I would wager the activation process will be held back no longer than until perhaps just a little after that fancy Providence dinner your dear mother has invited me to attend.”Rosette blatantly flinched at that, even as I finished sealing the new pieces of my alicorn into place, a wave of biomantic energy fusing the muscles into place before melding them into the greater whole, pale, occasionally mismatched skin soon covering them before fur grew back above it.“Do relax, I still have no intention of becoming your step mother.”“You would certainly be a superior replacement…”“What was that?”“N-Nothing!”My ears quirked upwards at the panicked denial, even as I finished inspecting my creation’s outer shell, so to speak.Gone was the multicoloured monstrosity of the past, now replaced with something that could one day conceivably be called a princess, given the correct amount of makeup. Rosette wasn’t wrong in saying that the pony resembled a younger looking Celestia, considering that particular look was by design. White fur, a long, light pink mane. A few patches of discolouration and lines of visible stitching here and there, where the meat and skin still needed time to meld properly due to resisting the energies of my flesh sculpting, but those would fade with time.The horn was looking significantly better too, even if the top half of it still held a somewhat scaled look thanks to being made up of various smaller fragments. That would hopefully sort itself out as well, though if not, I supposed there was still a certain appeal to it.Giving my magnum opus one last admiring look, I turned back towards the corpse residing on the other end of my lab, locking eyes with Igor’s soulless white pupils.Rosette stiffened beside me as she noted the armoured up flesh horror’s abrupt appearance. While the amalgam was present with us in the lab more often than not, it was generally still enough by my command that it could be mistaken for a statue of some twisted parody of a knight, rather than an actual living thing.Well, for a given definition of living, anyway. More importantly, the monster had moved without my explicit permission. Not something that tended to happen very often, but a trait that had been growing with increasing intensity as of late, enough so that I found myself stepping forward, maintaining eye contact with the abomination as I did so.“Igor, did I give you permission to move?”Its predatory teeth were bared, slight pants causing its frame to move in a mimicry of breathing, and I noted one of its extra arms had interposed itself with the stallion’s barrel, likely seeking to pierce through the flesh and bone in an effort to grab at the prize inside.Regardless of its positioning, my first creation met my question with silence. Not a growl. Not a pitiable whine. Just an endless stare as I continued to get closer, finally settling to a stop just in front of it.Its pupils hadn’t moved, focused as they were on tracking me, and I found myself tilting my head as I inspected the panting beast, noticing the way its eyes had finally begun trailing across my body.Assessing. Analysing. Searching for vulnerabilities.Ah.“...So that’s how it is, then. Finally consumed enough harmonic energy to build up some substitute of a spirit for yourself, hm? Has my precocious little demon at last grown itself a brain-”Igor lunged faster than most ponies could react, and I felt a searing pain as its jaws clamped down around my shoulder hard enough to shatter through bone, let alone skin, muscle and sinew.Rosette screamed, and I paused, turning my head to the side and catching sight of my apparently rebellious creation just as one of its pupils turned to look at me, a mixture of hunger and uncertainty lurking within the white dot at my almost complete lack of a reaction.Pony instincts wanted me to shriek and thrash and try to free myself from the source of hurt and damage, but one did not become a biomancer capable of manipulating foreign flesh without first mastering their own, and so I merely leaned forward, narrowing my eyes and lowering my voice to a soft, but firm whisper.“Igor, you do not bite mummy. In no way are you in a position to truly contest me in battle, and if this attack is over something as foolish as my heart, I will be very disappointed in you.”Confusion and shame warred with killer instinct upon the creature’s stitched together face for a moment, before slowly, hesitantly, it unclamped itself from my gory mess of a shoulder, blood dripping from its fangs, crimson bits of viscera swiftly being licked up by its black snake of a tongue.Regarding the significant amount of missing or compromised mass that had once been a part of my body with a severe frown, I began to weave together the basic formula of a regenerative spell, even as I turned part of my attention back towards the stallion’s corpse.At least I knew what to do with the rest of that meat now, but first things first…Smack.My hoof slammed against Igor’s muzzle hard enough to turn the beast’s entire head to the side, a panicked sound building up in its throat as it scurried back a step or two, even as I raised my voice.“That is for biting me, do not do so again or I will remove your brain and leave you in a jar for a day. Now move closer, I want to see how much of an identity you’ve managed to develop in that overly aggressive head of yours. Rosette! Come here as well, this might prove an interesting side project until someone comes to fetch us for that dinner party your mother is so keen on hosting.”While it was a possibility I had envisioned after my little abomination had first shown its penchant for consuming pony hearts, I had not expected anything to truly come about from the quirk. Perhaps if it had gotten a taste for brains, but hearts?There was some kind of dark magic at work there, one that I hadn’t intentionally put into place. Which was interesting. Harmonic energies coalescing around the conceptual idea of an individual’s heart? Perhaps something to do with souls? Though that would be a little harder to quantify without the use of some exceptionally advanced necromancy spells.Bah, I’d figure it out one way or another. Either Igor would finally be retired and rendered down into spare materials, or it would prove an utterly fascinating distraction while awaiting the awakening of my magnum opus.After all, old pony lore was rather explicit about demons and their love of mortal hearts, and while I wasn’t so hasty as to immediately assume that I had somehow managed to make an artificial neverborn…well, I was already working on making a god of sorts, why couldn’t I pull off a devil in my downtime as well?Ah, such lovely avenues of research to pursue, I only hoped I had enough time to pull forth some proper answers that could sate my curiosity before the Prench elite dragged me off to their silly dinner party.Regardless, dissection time!