Cold, hard light rains down from the florescent tubes hanging overhead. They bathe the entire laboratory in a bleak glow. They bathe my laboratory in a bleak glow.

I can't help but notice the one flickering light above me as I walk down one of the many rows of giant, water-filled, glass tubes. That will need to be fixed, I think.

In fact, this whole place could probably do with a little TLC. I had spent the better part of a year down here, but I had yet to finish my experiment. I was close, oh so close, but not quite there.

Originally, I had tried to recreate them from scratch; start with a blank slate, as it were. I glance to my right. My failures stare back at me. I shake my head. It was a shame I had wasted so much time on such a futile effort, and only to produce these... abominations.

They often had extra heads, legs, tails, horns, wings, eyes, snouts, even one with an extra brain, but no extra head. That one was rather fascinating. I tried to save it so that I could study the effects of—what presumably would turn into—hyper-intelligence. However, it—unfortunately—perished shortly after birth. It was quite a shame. Such opportunities don't come along all that often.

In any case, they were still excellent learning devices if nothing else. Were it not for them, I doubt I would have come as far as I have. Through them, I discovered that I needed a fully-grown host to start the process. An empty tube and a handful of cells won't do the trick. No to bring them back I needed living subjects.

Though that brought its own challenges to the table. I had to find living subjects first. Ones who were willing to be part of my research. As it turns out, no one was willing to volunteer. So I was forced to resort to rather drastic measures.

I only kidnapped a few at first, just five because I, foolishly, believed that would be all I needed. A month later I was fresh out of test subjects, but filled with more failures. Failures though they were, they did bring me that much closer to finally finishing.

I had successfully managed to replicate their basic features, minus a few minor hiccups such as missing eyes and such, but they still weren't perfect.

For example, I used an earth pony when trying to replicate a pegasus—and that hadn't worked quite as well as I had hoped. Rather than growing wings, like I had hoped, they grew these sickening, fleshy, masses that, if you looked at them right, kind of resembled wings.

Close, but not good enough. Of the five, four survived the first day, and only two the second day. By the end of the week. they had all passed. Regrettable as their deaths were, they were all necessary losses in the pursuit of something greater.

The next batch I brought in fared much better since by that time I, for the most part, knew what I was doing. I matched them up, pegasi to pegasi, unicorn to unicorn, and earth to earth. Finally, after much tweaking and fine-tuning I had managed to bring them back. Still though, my joy was short-lived as the subjects, again, died within the week.

I have to admit, I was angry. Over forty-six weeks of work lost because of their inability to cope. I was furious, but, as I said before, no loss is without a lesson. Through their deaths, I unlocked the secret to keeping them alive.

By the time I had acquired a few more subjects, I had already unfrozen their bodies. The accident had really done a number on them, but I was able to keep them mostly intact. Lifeless though they may be, I was still able to preserve their spirit.

Souls, apparently, were the missing element in my subjects. Well obviously they had their own souls, but they were not the souls I needed, so I had removed them. It's funny that I didn't see it before. It all seems so obvious now.

Now here I stand. My dream of restoring them about to come to fruition. In front of me are five tubes, five ponies, five Elements, five friends.

“Don't worry,” I whisper. “You'll be back soon.”