A Surgeon With The Hooves Of Gods

Turns out the meeting wasn’t alone with him like Twilight expected. She learned that day how hard it was to focus when Pinoko was running her mouth. Or to do anything, really. The only reason that Black Jack ever let her come along in the first place was because she wouldn’t stop yelling that she didn’t trust him with another mare. Twilight could tell she had major trust issues or something.

“So...” Twilight began when Pinoko stopped to take a breath. “Why did you need me to take you here?”

Black Jack didn’t look at her. “I heard there was a mosquito swarm in your town, and I wanted to investigate,” he said quite bluntly.

Twilight stopped in her tracks and turned on her hooves to look at him. The Unicorn froze as well, narrowing his eyes at her sudden stop. “What do the mosquitoes have to do with it?” she demanded. “We have an extra day for study and you want to waste it on investigating a bunch of bugs?”

With a sigh, Black Jack shouldered past her and said, “Idiot, I am doing something productive. Do you have any idea on how yellow fever is caught?”

Pinoko picked up her pace to match the doctor’s. “I do, I do!”

“I wasn’t asking you, sweetie.”

“Oh.”

Twilight followed behind them, letting out a heavy breath. “Well, not exactly. I tried to find something about it with the books in the library, but I couldn’t.”

“When a place is populated with mosquitoes, too many to be healthy at all, ponies who are around them the most will catch disease from them, which gives them yellow fever. I’m going to find out if this is the cause of Fluttershy’s fever. And if it is, we’ll have to get rid of them before anypony can go near her house.”

The thought of Fluttershy taking care of what she loves most being the cause of her disease sent shivers down Twilight’s spine. Then she frowned. “How are we supposed to get close to the house without getting sick as well?”

“That’s easy,” Black Jack said, his horn lighting up a light blue. “My magic can deflect diseases, albeit for a short period of time. I can surround ourselves in it until we leave.”

“... Isn’t that cheating?”

Black Jack rolled his eyes. “No, it’s disinfecting. There’s a major difference.”

“Not really...” Twilight said, turning her nose into the air. She was glad he couldn’t see her smug look from behind him, or he would be ticked.

“If you had actually read a book or two on the medical field, you would have seen the disinfectant spell in at least one of them.” His chest seemed to puff out a bit at that statement.

“Hey! I said I couldn’t find one anywhere! It’s not like I stock my library with books about doctors and stuff, not like you.”

“I don’t even have a library.”

“Last time I saw your house, your office was buried beneath your books. If that’s not a library, I don’t know what is.”

“It’s not any different from yours.”

“What?”

“Hey, look! It’sh a pwetty cottage!” The two grown ponies stopped their bickering and looked down at Pinoko, who was pointing a hoof to the distance. It was a cottage, but it looked swarmed with mosquitoes and other dangerous insects. “Ish that where we’re going?”

Twilight turned in the direction of the filly’s hoof. She nodded and said, “That’s Fluttershy’s house!” before trotting ahead of Black Jack toward the cottage. The doctor snorted through his nose, followed with a puff of smoke, then ran after her. Pinoko skipped happily along, not even trying to catch up with either of them.

When she got closer, Twilight could see that the once small group of bugs from just a few weeks ago was now a huge mass that seemed to continuously grow larger. The animals that once roamed free about her yard had ran off to escape the mosquitoes, and the house itself was wrapped in yellow caution tape. All the windows and doors were barred shut with wooden planks. Twilight had never seen it like this before.

But before she could take another step forward, a blue aura enveloped her and drug her back. “What are you-” Twilight exclaimed as she was plopped next to Pinoko. Black Jack had already started to walk towards the house. The princess could see a faint cerulean color illuminate his body and horn. “Aren’t I coming with you?”

“I wanted you to come along so I could find Miss Fluttershy’s house,” he replied over his shoulder. “Not so you could tag along and get yourself sick too. Stay there with Pinoko until you see me leave the house.”

Twilight was fuming. “I thought you said you wanted my help!”

“I lied, sorry.” The doctor ripped through the caution tape and entered the house, trying to avoid the mosquitoes as best as possible.

“Miss Pwincess, you’re wearing holesh into the gwound...” Pinoko lay on the grass, giving Twilight a concerned look. The Alicorn was pacing back and forth across Fluttershy’s yard, and was indeed making deep holes in the ground. Her steps were hard but quick, and the hole she made already went up to her knees.

Twilight turned to look at the young assistant. “Pinoko, how can you not be worried? He’s in there all alone with no reinforcements! He’s been in there so long... what if he’s hurt?”

Pinoko deadpanned. “If he was hurt, he would have told us by now.” Then she bore a jack-o-lantern grin. “I’m shure he’s fine!”

“Well, I’m not.” Twilight looked at the house and frowned. “I’d better go in there and see if he’s okay-”

Suddenly, the doctor burst out of the door and quickly shut it behind him, then let out a long sigh of relief. “How did she let her house get like that?” Black Jack asked quietly, shaking his head.

Twilight released the breath she didn’t realize she was holding and ran over to him. “How did it go? What did you find?”

“Mosquitoes. Lots of them.”

She rolled her eyes. “Duh. I mean, what else? Like, something significant that might help Fluttershy.”

Black Jack reached into the depths of his cloak and pulled out a container. It was a smashed mosquito, almost the size of his eye, with it’s blood and juices spilling out of it. “I killed one of the larger ones and put it in the jar. If I can analyze the juice, there should be an antidote in it that we can use to cure your friend.”

Twilight quickly grabbed the jar from his hoof and held it with her magic, staring at the massive insect in awe. “And you’re sure this can help us...?”

Black Jack nodded. “The antidote for most diseases are found in the source.” He started walking back to the center of Ponyville. Pinoko quickly got up from the grass and began following him, trying to get by his side.

Twilight run up to his other flank. “Hey, maybe I should try being a doctor, it looks like fun.”

The stallion faced her, softly smiling. “Oh, I’d like to see you try.”

“Maybe I could be better than you.” She nudged him playfully.

He pushed her back gently. “Let’s not ask for miracles here, Princess,” he chuckled.