Unexpected Changes

Chapter 5: Doc

“Now…hold on buddy, we’re on your side here!” Sketch said, trying to sound as calming and friendly as possible.

“How do I know you aren’t one of those…things?” The stallion said, a slight Germane accent lacing his voice. He was a grey and rather thin looking Earth Pony; He wore a pair of thin, round glasses that looked a little bit too small for him. The stallion brandished a bloody knife in one hoof and was pointing it defensively at Sketch.

“You don’t. I guess you’ll have to take our word for it. After all we don’t really know each other do we?” He said, making sure to keep an eye on Vinyl; who was slipping in and out of consciousness. Her previous show of magical force had turned out to be extremely taxing, and she had collapsed after blasting a group of changelings with a suped-up version of some pyrotechnics she had used at her shows in the past.

“Ok then…how do I know you aren’t going to try and attack me…?” The stallion re-worded his previous question.

“If I wanted to attack you, I could have just shot you.” Sketch said matter-of-factly, questioning if he would be able to actually do that if needed.

The stallion looked him over, studying him for any sign of lies or malcontent. After a few moments, he lowered the knife and slowly trotted over to them.

“Your friend…the bite wound on her shoulder, I can help with that…” He said, motioning to Vinyl’s neck.

“Awfully convenient…” Sketch replied.

“I’m not lying, dummkopf, I’m a doctor, I can help her, but first we need to move, those things will return, and in greater numbers.”

Sketch wasn’t sure what “Dummkopf” meant, but he was sure it was an insult. “Yeah…” He agreed, deciding not to retaliate. The changelings would return for sure. He thought it was probably safe to assume that the changelings didn’t take kindly to being squashed, and would retaliate; most likely tenfold.

“I have a place we might be able to hide out…follow me…” The stallion motioned for Sketch to follow him. Sketch nodded and helped Vinyl up, draping her front leg over his shoulders so he could carry her easier.

“Come, come! We must hurry!” The stallion insisted.

“I don’t see you helping me carry her!” He hissed, proceeding to stand up fully, helping Vinyl walk.

The stallion said nothing; he simply ignored Sketch and made his way towards a back door.

“Ughhh…” Vinyl groaned, her eyes shut tightly in pain. She tightened her front leg around Sketch’s neck, trying to be the smallest bit helpful in holding herself up.

“Hold on, Vinyl…we’re getting you out of here.” He said, following the stallion out the back door and into an alley; this one was bigger than the last. The alley way was dirty and opened up on one end onto one of the dirt roads that crisscrossed through Ponyville. Sketch wondered just how far he and Vinyl had run when they were trying to escape the changelings. It hadn’t seemed like a very long run, but then again at the time how far they were running wasn’t exactly his primary concern.

“Over here, this way!” The stallion hissed as he trotted the opposite direction of the street, further into the alleyway.

Sketch did his best to keep up with this stallion, suddenly questioning himself as to why he was following somepony he hadn’t ever met before to Celestia knows where, in a back alley.

“So uh…you got a name?” Sketch asked as they traveled.

“Huh? Oh, ja. You can just call me Doc.” He deadpanned.

“Doc?” Sketch asked with a raised eyebrow.

Doc said nothing, and the rest of the journey they were all silent, save the occasional unpleasant moan from Vinyl; who had done nothing but since they met this “Doc” pony.

They traveled for about ten minutes, sticking to the alleys as much as possible. Every so often they would have to press themselves against a wall in order to keep from being seen by a flying group of changelings patrolling the area. The chittering and buzzing being heard loud and clear long before they were seen, making it much easier to hide from them.

As they traveled through the alleys, Sketch started to think back on what had happened earlier, how he had just killed without thought after killing the first one…how easy and effortless it had seemed, he wondered if that was normal.  A part of him was scared at this, how easy it had come to him after killing the one in his home, how it felt perfectly normal, it scared him that he didn’t feel remorse for committing these acts.

Sketch shook his head as Doc’s voice broke into his thoughts; he would have to think about all that later.

“In here, schnell, schnell! Hurry!” He waved a hoof towards a doorway as he pulled said door open, motioning Sketch and his cargo inside.

On the other side of the door was a room made up almost entirely of concrete, what appeared to be large washing machines and dryers lined the walls. In the middle of the room, bins on wheels filled with assortments of bed sheets, linens, and towels, were neatly divided into rows.

“Are we…?”

“In a washroom, ja.” Doc finished. “I was staying in this hotel when all of this happened, I took refuge in here. I can use the bed sheets to wrap up your friends wounds, set her down and lay out some bedding for her, hurry!” Doc ordered.

Sketch; not expecting to be bossed around, stared at Doc for a moment, before setting Vinyl down and racing over to a laundry basket filled with towels; he figured they would make the best bedding. He wondered why Doc had taken refuge down in the laundry room instead of holing up in his hotel room, but decided this was probably a question to be asked later.

While Sketch set up a makeshift bed, Doc had made his way over to a wall and taken a First Aid kit, bringing it over next to where Sketch was and pulling out supplies from the plastic, red, box.

“That will do, now, go get her, lay her down on here, quickly now!”

Sketch nodded and went back over to Vinyl, who had slid down onto her side and was no longer sitting up; a smear of blood being left on the wall where she had slid.

“Hold on Vinyl…” He said worriedly, practically scooping Vinyl up and carrying her over to where Doc was, then proceeding to lay her down on the makeshift bed. Vinyl only groaned in response, her eyes shut tightly.

“She’s losing blood, I need to clean this and bind it…” He said, rifling through the small First Aid kit.

“If you needed to stop the bleeding, why wouldn’t we do that when you first found us?” Sketch hissed, a tad annoyed.

“Because, if I had, we would have been caught and either taken to the hive or killed!” Doc hissed back, glaring at Sketch.

“Right…sorry.”

“Hold her on her side, I need to disinfect this…and when I say hold, I mean hold. Changeling bites are nasty, very nasty, this is going to burn quite a bit…and then I will tend to you.” Doc said solemnly, pulling out some sort of bottle from the box.

Sketch let out an uncertain groan, but did as told. In all honesty he had totally forgotten he had been bitten in the first place, and upon looking at his chest, he found his white fur stained with red streaks of his own blood; green changeling blood splattered on it as well.

Suddenly and without warning, Vinyl let out a cry of anguish. Sketch looked up to see Doc pouring a liquid onto her shoulder, she tried to pull away; most likely not understanding what was happening in her state of semi-consciousness, but Sketch held her firmly, making sure she didn’t move too much.

Then, Vinyl’s screams abruptly faded away and stopped completely, she went limp and moved no more.

“No…no, no, no!” Sketch started to panic, his voice growing hysterical.

“Calm down! She passed out is all; the shock probably was too much for her she’ll be fine! Now hold her up so I can bandage the bite.” Doc said his voice stern and reprimanding.

Sketch said nothing, he simply held Vinyl on her side whilst Doc toiled. He couldn’t help but marvel at the fact he was eating dinner with the pony they were bandaging only last night, and that everything had been perfectly normal in his life not even twenty four hours prior.

A minute or so later, Vinyl was fully bandaged and wore a clean-ish blue linen wrapped around her shoulder and front leg, binding the wound. “That will need stitches…but I do not have the necessary materials to do that, so this will have to do...” Doc said as they laid Vinyl down out of the way, so as she wouldn’t be stepped on or tripped over.

“Right then.” Sketch said flatly, staring blankly at the limp, passed out form of Vinyl Scratch, her body lying atop some assorted towels and linens.

Doc said nothing in response; he merely trotted back over to the small First-Aid kit, pulling out more supplies. “Come here…uh, what was your name?” He inquired.

“Sketch, I’m Sketch…” He replied, his tone still flat.

“Sketch, I used to know a pony named Sketch back in Germaney.” Doc replied as Sketch trotted over.

“Oh? What happened to him?” Sketch forced out the question, suddenly not feeling much like talking as everything that had happened that morning began to sink in…again, once they finally had gotten to a semi-calm place.

“Oh, he went crazy, set a forest on fire and blew up his neighbors’ mailbox.” Doc said, as if it was no big deal.

“Oh…ok” Sketch wasn’t sure how to respond.

“Anyway, quit stalling and get over here, let me look at your wounds.” Doc motioned for Sketch to come over, shaking his hoof vigorously. Sketch reluctantly complied, not really feeling like doing anything but sitting and…not doing anything for a while.

“Let me see here…mien gott, man. Do you even realize you have half of these wounds?” Doc said, surprise lacing his tone as he looked Sketch over.

“I…have one on my shoulder, and my stomach…that’s all.” Sketch raised an eyebrow as Doc walked around him.

“No….you also have a gash across a good deal of your back, you have a gash on your thigh as well, and a burn on your leg…”

“Wait, what?” Sketch tried to stand and look at the alleged wounds, but Doc put his hooves on his shoulders and held him down. “Stay put, so I can work…and try not to be as loud as your friend over there…you’re conscious so you can at least try.”

Sketch let out an exasperated sigh; he didn’t even know how he got those wounds. This entire situation just grew more and more exhausting every second.

“Prepare yourself…” Doc warned, giving Sketch a split-second before he pressed a disinfectant into his back wound. Sketch couldn’t help but let out a small cry of agony before forcing said cry into an angry hiss of displeasure.”

“Don’t be such a baby…skin will grow back.”

Doc turned and opened up one of the empty washers, opening it up and throwing in the linen he used to clean off and Disinfect Sketch’s back. The linen practically screamed. “Clean Me.”

“Later…” Doc said to himself, turning back to Sketch.

“So, Sketch, is it? Do you have any family or…?” Doc asked, trying to make conversation.

The words hit his heart hard, being reminded of his family and what had happened to them, Lyra being taken. Watching, helplessly as Gears was abducted, the changelings breaking into his home, all of it.

“Uh…Y-yeah…but they were taken…by them.”

Doc stopped his work for a moment, and Sketch couldn’t help but feel some sort of sadness emanated from his healer, even though he couldn’t see him.

“I…I am sorry to hear that…” He spoke solemnly, continuing to tend to Sketch. “Prepare yourself again, my friend.” Doc’s voice returned to its normal tone, almost like a switch had been flipped.

This time Sketch had a bit more time to brace himself as Doc applied the disinfectant, instead of yelping as he had previously, he managed to grit his teeth and just wince.

“What uh…what about you, Doc, got any family?” Sketch asked through his pain, trying to convert the pain into; strained, idle conversation.

“Taken…just like yours.” Doc spoke flatly, but there was something about the way he spoke that seemed sad, sadder than one would expect. Of course who was Sketch to judge this stallion on how sad he is about his family being taken?

“A beautiful little filly; Bonnibelle and My wife, Starla…we had come down to Ponyville on vacation, ja? My wife…she had always talked about coming here and seeing the town where “Everything” happened, all the nonsense with Nightmare Moon, Discord, all them…she always wanted to see the town…” Doc seemed to trail off, into nothing but a soft whisper.

Sketch sat for a moment, listening to Doc softly mumble to himself as he tended to Sketch’s thigh burn. He wasn’t sure if he should say anything or just remain silent. After about five seconds Sketch decided to go with the “Say Something” option. As this was making him feel extremely awkward, a stallion gently patting a rag and wrapping linens around his thigh as he mumbled softly and unintelligibly in a Germane accent.

“S-so…uh…Doc….You said that Changeling bites sting quite a bit when you cleaned them…how do you know that?” Sketch said, almost shouting it, hoping to rouse Doc from his trance-like state.

“Hmm? OH, Ja, that. I was one of the doctors hired to come out and tend to some of the injured after the Canterlot Incident. Lots of the doctors from my country were. There were so many wounded and the Canterlot hospitals were overflowing, Germaney was the closest nearby country, so we of course were asked to help. Anyway, there is something in the saliva that reacts with rubbing alcohol and disinfectants; makes it burn like you wouldn’t believe.

“Right...” Sketch deadpanned, staring blankly at the passed-out form of Vinyl lying on the floor.

The next few minutes were taken in silence, Doc did his best to patch Sketch up with what he had there in the laundry room, and Sketch did his best to bear through it. The entire time Sketch’s mind was reeling over what was happening; Doc, Changelings, all of Ponyville, and most of all his family. How could something like this have happened to him? It seemed so farfetched and improbable. He never in his life thought he would actually have to use his gun, he had hoped he wouldn’t at least.

But it had happened, and he had taken his gun and shot multiple living, sentient beings, and felt no remorse about it, no hesitation after he had splattered the brains of that first changeling all over his fridge. After that he had simply…carried out his slaughter like it was nothing, he didn’t even remember how many changelings he had killed he had just…shot at them…without any thought to the fact he would be ending an entire life with one flex of his hoof.

He didn’t like having that power, it scared him.

“You seem…troubled, my friend.” Doc spoke up, returning from a trip into the hotel cafeteria; a load of different packaged snack foods in his hooves.

“Huh?” Sketch looked up, his eyes meeting with Doc’s as the grey stallion dumped the food onto the floor and took a seat on an overturned laundry basket; beginning to rifle through the snack-pile for something he wanted.

“I’m a doctor; I know a troubled expression when I see one.” He stated plainly.

Sketch was silent for a moment, the sound of clear plastic wrappers crinkling the only sound in the room for a few moments.

“I…I don’t know…” He said, not knowing how to convert feelings into words right then.

“My friend, I am not a psychiatrist, you must tell me in words or we can get nowhere, ja?”

“I killed so many changelings without even thinking about it…after the first one I killed…it just…happened…and I don’t know if I should feel bad or…” Sketch trailed off.

Doc paused shifting through the foods for a moment, looking over at Sketch with knowledgeable eyes. It was now Sketch realized this “Doc” was significantly older than he, his face slightly wrinkled and aged, almost worn looking; like a well used pair of shoes. Still shoes, but obvious that they had seen quite a lot in their days.

“We do what we must for our families, simple as that…there is no time to fret over the wellbeing of our enemies when we must focus on our loved ones…focus on keeping them safe, ja?” Doc gave a nod as he finished and returned to searching through the snacks, leaving Sketch with a surprised look on his face, not expecting something sounding quite so thought out and meaningful.

“Uh…thanks…” Was all he managed to say.

Doc waved a hoof dismissively. “Bah, I just spit that stuff out sometimes, some ponies say I’m deep some say I’m crazy, but…” Doc trailed off, chuckling a bit.

Sketch chuckled too, trotting over and grabbing a small bag of cookies from the pile of snacks and returning to his previous seat across from Doc.

“So, what is that one’s story?” Doc motioned to Vinyl; who was still passed out on the floor.

Sketch looked over at Vinyl, giving a light laugh before turning back to Doc. “She uh, is visiting from Canterlot, came here to help my wife with a music deal, help her get her talents out into the world a bit. I’ll tell you though…she’s rather…eccentric.”

Doc gave a light chuckle, opening a small bag of chips. “Well, Eccentric can be good you know, means that she does her own thing and doesn’t let the world get to her.”

“That’s definitely one way of putting it…” Sketch said with a smirk, looking over at Vinyl.

Neither of them said anything for a while, the faint sound of chips and cookies being crunched between teeth being the only thing heard. Eventually Sketch had finished the cookies and tossed the bag on the floor; it floated down almost like a parachute and hit the ground with a barely audible crinkle.

“Doc…I’m going to get my family back…and I don’t know if you’re just going to hide out here and try to ride this out, but I’m not. As soon as Vinyl wakes up and is ready…we’re gone.” Sketch said, his words breaking the silence almost painfully.

Doc stared at Sketch blankly for a moment, before blinking his eyes and responding. “I assumed you would, you don’t seem like the kind of pony to sit and wait…”

“That’s because there’s nothing to wait for…there’s a barrier around the entire town, I don’t think anypony can get in or out, and even if there wasn’t I would still be going after my family…”

“Are you sure they’re-“

“They’re alive.” Sketch insisted, almost growling the words. “I know they are…and I’m going after them…”

Doc sighed and looked down at his bag of chips, his glasses sliding down his nose a bit as he stared into the bag as if it were full of some great wealth of knowledge.

“Do you…have foals?”

“My wife is Pregnant….and they took my little brother too…” Sketch replied solemnly.

Doc muttered something in Germane, seemingly talking to himself for a moment before looking back up at Sketch. “You know, there is a very little chance you’ll get near that hive alive, ja?”

Sketch simply nodded.

Again Doc seemed to stare into space, looking towards Sketch but not quite at him, in that moment something flashed in his eyes, a look of almost…resignation. What exactly he was resigning was to be found out at a later time, as Sketch would eventually learn.

“My friend…I admire your bravery…but-“

“I hope you don’t plan on trying to stop me…” Sketch said with a glare.

“What, nein, nien. Sketch, I would like to help you! Who knows…maybe I can re-unite with my family as well, ja?” There was something off about the way Doc spoke when he mentioned his family, he didn’t sound like he thought he would be successful with finding them.

“Oh…” Sketch hadn’t expected that.

“I must ask though…do you have a plan?” Doc inquired, opening a second bag of chips.

“Actually, yeah, we were planning to head to the Library. I have a friend there named Twilight Sparkle; she’ll probably know what to do with all this.” Sketch replied, catching a bag of chips Doc threw his way.

Doc seemed to perk up at the mention of Twilight. “Oh, I’ve heard of her! My wife talked about her a lot and how she wished to meet her.” Doc leaned back a bit and chuckled. “She used to go on and on about how inspiring she thought Twilight and her friends were, it was quite a sight…”

Not exactly knowing how to respond, he simply continued. “Well…Vinyl and I obviously didn’t make it there, so that’s where we’ll be going.”

“How will this Twilight be able to help us?” Doc asked almost instantly after Sketch had finished talking.

Sketch said nothing. In all honesty he hadn’t ever considered the fact Twilight might not be able to help, he had just assumed she would be able to help and would know what to do, she was Twilight after all, and didn’t she just kind of…solve big problems like this? Wasn’t that kind of her thing?

Such a simple question had rocked the foundation of his hopes for getting to his family, if Twilight didn’t know what to do…what would happen?

“Well, she’s Twilight…I mean…she’s dealt with these things before!” Sketch said, uncertainty lacing his voice.

Doc seemed to think on this for a moment, his eyes deep in thought as he stared off into space. “Hmm.” He shrugged. “Good point I guess.”

“She’ll be able to help, I know she will…” Sketch tried to reassure himself, at the same time wondering why he had automatically assumed Twilight would be able to solve this problem. He wondered if everypony else did that and if it put quite a bit of pressure and stress on the element holder.

“If anything, it’s an objective, ja? Something to get us closer to rescuing your family!” Doc had picked up on Sketch’s reaction to his question and appeared to be attempting to be reassuring.

“True.” He replied with a nod, feeling anything but reassured.

At that moment there was a soft, unpleasant groan. It sounded pained and like the pony it belonged to was less than pleased to be waking up feeling like that. Of course, it was Vinyl.

Sketch and Doc both turned their heads over to where the DJ was, her mane was messy and she was sitting up, but hunched over and had her head in her hooves.

Vinyl sighed and drug her hooves down her face, then brought a hoof back up to rub her forehead, wincing a bit as she did. As she did this she turned and looked over at Sketch and Doc, staring at them before surveying the room with a blank, almost bored look. She stared at them both for a moment before a small smirk came across her face; her gaze directed at Sketch.

“I have to say…I’ve woken up in some weird-ass places…but never a laundry room…” She said, still grinning.

“I wouldn’t doubt it.” Sketch replied with a shrug, smiling a bit himself.

Vinyl simply waved a dismissive hoof at him and turned her gaze to Doc.

“You’re…?”

“Oh, ja, You may call me Doc.” He said with a strong nod.

Vinyl replied with an affirmative hum and rubbed her head again.

“Doc led us here, you passed out and then he brought us here and patched you up.”

As Sketch spoke, Vinyl discovered the bandages on her shoulder, placing a gentle hoof on them before responding. “Right…”

“I could and should have done more to those wounds…but I didn’t have the right tools at hoof, so that will have to do for now. How do you feel?” Doc asked.

She chuckled weakly and rubbed her shoulder. “Terrible…but I could be worse, so thank you.” She tilted her head towards him before slowly standing, wobbling a bit and leaning against one of the washing machines. Sketch hopped up and started to make his way towards her to help, but Vinyl held out a hoof in protest.

“I got it…” She said, even though she looked like she would collapse at any moment.

“You sure you-“

“I’m fine, just…give me a minute, alright? I got it.”

Sketch silently stepped back, giving Vinyl room. She leaned against the washing machine for a moment longer, before pushing off and sluggishly taking a step away from where she had been resting, immediately she tilted to the side and was on her way to hitting the ground; if not for Sketch’s swift action. He zipped over to her side and caught her, letting her lean against him for support.

“Or…maybe I don’t got this...” She said with a weak chuckle. “Thanks.”

Slowly and carefully, Sketch helped Vinyl over to the sort of nest he and Doc had formed; empty food wrappers and laundry baskets marking the territory. He sat Vinyl down on a laundry basket and made sure she was situated before returning to his seat, watching her carefully.

“That magic blast, it drained a good amount of your energy, you used more magic at once than is recommended for any Unicorn of any skill level…you’re lucky you didn’t send yourself into a coma or something, my friend…” Doc spoke up, having been watching everything that just happened in silence.

Vinyl directed her gaze over to him and shrugged. “I’m here now aren’t I?”

“Ja, but barely.” He replied. “Good thing is, you should recover rather quickly, Unicorns are resilient like that.”

Vinyl said nothing in response, occupying herself with a bag of chips she grabbed off the floor.

“So what’s the plan then?” She said after eating a few chips, staring into the bag as she spoke.

For some reason Vinyl’s straightforwardness surprised Sketch. She hadn’t asked what had happened after she passed out; she hadn’t asked about Doc, she hadn’t asked really anything about what had happened. Why exactly this was surprising to him he didn’t quite understand, but he dismissed the thought and replied in turn.

“Twilight’s…we need to get to her place, she’ll probably know more about this than us…hopefully.” He said.

Vinyl turned her gaze from her chips over to Doc. “And you…?”

Doc simply shrugged. “I’ll follow, I guess.”

Vinyl let out a laugh that sounded almost smug. “Better than nothing, I guess.”

A few more seconds of silence passed, and then she tossed the now empty bag of chips to the floor and looking around the room, she looked all around before fixing her gaze on one point of the wall; Sketch followed her gaze and found what she was looking at.

A red box, mounted on the wall. There was a glass window on the front allowing one to see inside.

Slowly, but steadily, Vinyl stood. She was shaky and a bit wobbly at first but quickly appeared to regain her balance, making her way over to the wall in question she had been staring at.

Rather dramatically, Vinyl grabbed what appeared to be a thick belt from one of the laundry baskets, wrapping it around her hoof and punched into the glass, shattering it with a loud “Crash!”

Bits of glass clinked onto the floor as she pulled out her prize, a fire axe, brandishing it with an all-too-happy grin; she turned around and rested it on her shoulder, striking an almost heroic pose.

Standing before them, fire axe in hoof and rested on her shoulder, she flashed her all-too-familiar, cocky smile at the two stallions.

“So what’re we waiting for then?”