"And that's when I blacked out. Then I woke up in the hospital. That's all I remember." I finish explaining to the officer sitting across from me.
I somehow found myself in an interrogation room today, a square and steel room where a single steel table sits in the middle of it. A single lamp sits on the steel table, and an officer sits on the opposite side of it.
The brown earth pony with the police cap on his head finishes jotting down my testimony in his notepad, "So let me get this straight, and stop me if I make a mistake. Your friends were staying over, and then you thought somepony was staring into your window from outside. And to clarify, your friends' names are Pip, Silver, Featherweight, and… Shizuka?"
I nod, and he continues, "The pony disappeared, and you fell asleep. After waking up the next morning, you received a strange knock on the door. You went to check it, and saw a… White unicorn with a black mane in the snow outside. Afterwards, you went outside to take a look. Then the white unicorn began to fire off a revolver wildly. Your friend, Pip, begins to yell from your house's second floor window?"
"Yes. And then he threw jar at us." I explain.
The officer glances up at me from his notepad, "The jar hit you, yes? It knocked you out, and then you woke up in a hospital."
"Yes, and I don't remember anything past that."
The officer pulls out another notepad, "Well, according to your friend's testimony, the unicorn had escaped and another pegasus named 'Alexander' had given chase after the unicorn."
"That's uh… My uncle."
The officer glances up at me with a doubting face, "Really now? I'll be sure to bring that up--"
"F-Foster! Foster uncle, he's my foster uncle." I stutter, attempting to cover up my white lie.
The officer scribbles down some more notes while chewing the gum at the back of his mouth. He places his pen between his ear and the side of his head, and then pushes the lamp button to turn of its life.
"That's all for now kid. Here's the precinct's information. Call it immediately if you experience anything strange again." He says, as he tears a piece of paper from his notepad and hands it to me.
I take it, and then stuff the crumpled note into my jacket pocket.
Walking through the automatic doors out of the police precinct, I shield my eyes from the bright sun shining down on me.
"Spring's coming. That means…"
Before I could finish my thought, I loud and familiar voice cries out from a distance.
"Apollo! Hey Apollo!"
My eyes adjust to the bright outside light, and I see two blurry grey figures in front of me.
"Hello? Earth to Apollo. That jar didn't hit you that hard did it?"
Finally the two figures come into focus; Silver Spoon stands smiling in front of me, while Shika stares at the ground and kicks the dust with her hooves.
"Oh hey. Something wrong Shika?" I ask.
"Oh she's just still shaken up by her interview. She said something about not feeling comfortable around ponies she doesn't know. She could barely answer any of the questions, so they had to call me in to help." Silver says, while stroking Shika's mane playfully.
"I-I'm sorry for the hassle…" Shika whimpers.
Silver Spoon smiles cheerfully, "Nah don't worry about it! It was more efficient anyways, since we both got interviewed and saved time."
"A-Alright…" Shika forces a slight smile.
Silver turns to me and then asks, "Hey were are Pip and Featherweight?"
"I think they're still in their interviews. Pip told me not to wait up. Featherweight said that we should meet at Sugar Cube Corner if we didn't have anything else to do today."
"Well the Student Council has to prepare and plan for the Hearts and Hooves dance later tomorrow. So I'm free pretty all day today." Silver explains.
"I assume Diamond Tiara will be doing the least amount of work." I scoff.
Silver chuckles, "I assume so. Well then, shall we get going then?"
We nod, and then set course for Sugar Cube Corner. I take a step forward, and then a sharp pain suddenly shoots through my left hind leg.
I shout in pain, and then drop to the floor, clutching the pained leg.
"Apollo? What's wrong?!" Silver rushes to my side.
Gritting my teeth, I reply, "I don't know. There's just suddenly a pain in my leg. It stings like hell too…"
"Sh-Should we get an ambulance?" Shika asks, with a hint of distraught in her voice.
"I think it's just cramp or something… No need to worry Shika--"
"You don't usually describe cramps as a 'sharp pain' Apollo." Silver says angrily.
I force an awkward smile, and then chuckle, "A-Alright… We'll go to the hospital before we head to Sugar Cube Corner, that way we can kill time until Pip and Featherweight are done with their interviews."
The grey-maned filly nods and stands up proudly, "I'm glad I could convince you."
She helps me to my three good hooves, and we hobble off to the hospital. The sun shines brightly on the snow-littered cobblestone roads of Ponyville. The small clumps of freshly shovelled snow begin to melt away underneath the rays of the sun.
"The melting snow is the harbinger of a better spring…" Shika mutters to herself.
I raise my eyebrow and turn to her, still limping, "What was that? Something wrong?"
She jumps, startled, "U-Uh, it's nothing! Sorry, just being weird…"
I shrug, and then continue on with the fillies forward. But somehow, I feel like something is amiss. Just who was that unicorn we saw that night?
Chapter 1: Out of Body Experience
After hobbling into the ivory white hospital, I sit down while Silver Spoon trots over to one of the nurses.
"Does it hurt a lot?" Shizuka asks, as we both sit down in the waiting room chairs.
I clench bite my teeth, as the stinging feeling in my leg bites me while I sit down, "Yeah.. But I'm sure it's nothing serious. Probably just a sprain."
"That's good." She replies.
Silver spoon returns, and then hands me a clipboard with a complicated form on it.
"Fill this out. Then hand it back to the nurse, and she'll take you to a room."
I nod, and then fill out the information on the piece of paper with the pen attached to the side of the clipboard. Biting my lip in pain, I pull myself out of the chair, and trot over to the information desk. I slide the form towards the mare at the desk, and she reads it carefully. After she removes the form from the clipboard and places it in a bin labelled "In", she hands me a slip of paper with the number twenty seven on it and points down the hallway to my right. I nod, and then proceed down the hall.
After a walking down the mildly busy hospital hall for a few seconds, I finally come to a room with the number twenty seven imprinted on the iron plate on the door. I open the door, and see all sorts of medical equipment around the room, as well as a single examination bed. I walk in, and jump up to sit on the examination bed, and patiently wait for the doctor to arrive.
I'd gotten checkups at this clinic multiple times before, when I first arrived in Ponyville. Alexander wanted to make sure that I didn't transfer anything from my world into this one. Did I mention that I'm from another dimension, or something like that, entirely?
The door opens and interrupts my thoughts, a mare in a doctor's coat trots in. The unicorn is white, has a grey mane, and is wearing a pair of red glasses on the end of her nose. I recognize her immediately, Doctor Tinderweight; Featherweight's distant cousin.
In a tired yet attractive voice, she tosses the form I filled out earlier onto her desk, "Back again I see. Alright, what is it this time?"
"Nice to see you too. And I'm sure it's nothing, but my classmates insisted that I have my leg checked out." I explain, while extending the leg that felt like it was injured.
Tinderweight leans in close, to the point where her face is inches away from my face, "Not that I mind this. But what are you doing?" I ask, trying to avoid breathing heavily on her.
"As flirtatious as always. But I've noticed something just below your eye.. It looks like a cut or a scar of some sort."
A scar? I don't remember cutting my face recently, how odd.
"Hm.." She leans back from my face, "Alright then. Let's take a look at your leg."
I had known this very lazy doctor from the checkups I mentioned earlier. Naturally, she knows about my circumstances, what with me being from another world and all.
"Where is the pain? Can you describe it? Pulsating?" She asks, sounding bored, almost as if she had done this a hundred times before.
"I guess it's sort of stinging whenever I put pressure on it. And it's coming from the back of my leg."
Tinderweight bends down to see under my extended leg, and then raises her eyebrow, "Did you recently get stitches from somepony besides me?"
I reply, sounding just as confused as she does, "No.. Why?"
"Because there's a poor excuse for a stitch-job down here. It's almost like someone or something straight up cut you up, and then sewed you right up again."
"Wh-What?! Are you sure it's not just a scar or something?" I ask, concerned.
Tinder answers by shaking her head, "No way. Something definitely happened-- What the..."
"What? What is it?!" I ask, changing my tone from concerned to slightly scared.
She backs away carefully, and turns to a locked drawer labelled, "Syringes".
"H-Hey! What are you looking in there for?!" I ask, with more concern in my voice.
She unlocks the drawers, and examines each category of syringe holders, "I saw something in your leg. It's definitely a foreign object. Don't worry, it'll only hurt a bit."
"A f-f-foreign object? H-How the--"
"We need to get it out as soon as possible, it could be something harmful."
"What could happen--"
Before I can finish my sentence, I feel a slight prick in my leg. I look down slowly, and realize that the Mad Doctor had already pricked my leg with one of the needles.
"See? You barely felt a thing. Think of it as.. An emergency medical intervention." I hear her laugh maniacally, as my hearing begins to get muffled by the ringing in my ears.
My vision begins to fade as well, as my eyes slowly close against their will. Eventually, I find my self being moved by Tinderweight, onto my stomach, stretched out across the examination bed.
"You.. Little..." I lose unconsciousness before I can finish my sentence.
I wake up to the sight of a ceiling fan spinning above me. I then remember where I was, on the examination bed of a mad scientist.
I sit up, rubbing the grogginess out of my eyes, "Hey.. Tinder!? Where are you..."
From behind a hospital curtain, a voice begins speaking, "Right here kid. You put up with it pretty well. I pulled out the object, and I also re-stitched your leg, with proper sutures."
"I really wish you wouldn't do stuff like that without asking me first." I groan, as I rub my injured leg.
The doctor chuckles, "It's strange, you're taking this all very calmly. Normally patients who undergo one of my surprise surgeries will.. I don't know, freak out a little bit more?"
"I suppose I'm just used to it by now. I guess.. I have a lot more faith in you because of your 'gift'."
The doctor walks past the curtain wiping something in the air with her horn's magic. The object seems to be dripping with a red liquid, most likely blood, creating an almost gag-like feeling in my throat. I look away, as I do not particularly enjoy the sight, smell, or sound of blood dripping.
"Urgh.. What is that thing?" I ask, covering my mouth and nose with my hoof.
The doctor replies, "The foreign object inside your leg. And you're very lucky I've got my gift; if you had gone to any other doctor it would have taken at least an entire half hour to set up an ultrasound, and probably another hour for the surgery. Also it would hurt a whole lot more if it wasn't me. Notice that you're in no pain at all?"
That's right, Doctor Tinderweight is the most talented doctor in all of Equestria. For some unknown reason, she chooses to remain in Ponyville, although I have a feeling it's connected to Alexander. There's also something else that's unique about Doctor Tinderweight: Her power.
"Explain to me again how it works, it's still all too complicated for me." I ask, as I massage my leg.
I almost catch a glimpse of the object she was holding, but she throws her cleaning cloth over it and places it on the desk.
She then begins to talk on and on about her talent and the history of her gift, while still trying to scrub the object clean of the blood, "As you know, ponies all over Equestria had been reported to have 'abnormal' behaviours during what we called the 'Age of Erratics', it was around the period of time when Lord Tirek was on a rampage in Equestria. Some speculate that it was Princess Twilight's magical abnormalities caused their offspring to have strange magical powers, even if neither parent has unicorn blood in them. Earth Ponies and Pegasi developed the ability to cast random spells, some even stronger than Unicorn magic. Unicorns began to develop magical-like abilities, without the assistance of their horns. As you know, Unicorn Horns are the only mediums in which magic can be cast. And I relate to that case the most, since my gift comes from my me, and not just my horn. I call it Radiogram, and it lets me see through solid matter that wouldn't otherwise be see-through. I don't need to cast a spell from my horn, I control it with my body."
After the extremely long explanation, she finally finishes cleaning the foreign object, and hands it to me on a cloth covered in dry blood. The object is a small, thin, metal rectangular container.
"How the hell did this get inside me!?" I ask, confused and aggravated.
The doctor begins to wash her hooves in the nearby sink, "It's not completely unfathomable, I've seen it before, albeit on very rare cases. Sometimes punks or delinquent unicorns who learn some illegal teleportation magic think they can use said magic to play some pranks and teleport objects into other ponies. If you've paid attention in school, you'd know already that basic teleportation magic cannot interfere with space that is already taken up by matter, so teleporting this box inside you would be impossible for low-level unicorns."
"But how come I never noticed? Is it that concealed of a spell?"
Tinderweight dries her hooves on a towel before replying, "That's the thing. You would have noticed it either way. Whether somepony cut open your leg, jammed this in your leg, and then sutured you up again, or if somepony used illegal magic to teleport this into your leg, you would have felt some sort of pain at the very least."
She trots over to my bedside, "The answer might be inside." She says, as she takes the box from my hooves, "Sadly, it seems to be locked with a tiny numbered code, as you can see from these number wheels here." She points to the three adjustable number wheels on the side of the box.
"Can't we just smash it open?" I ask, looking for an easy way to get on with it.
She shakes her head, "Sadly no. This metal only broke most of my tools, and I'd rather not waste any more materials on this piece of junk."
I let out a sigh, but she taps me on the head with the box, "Don't worry though. My old lady's a locksmith, believe or not, I'll give it to her and see if she can unlock it for you."
"Thanks.. Well, I guess I should get going, if there's nothing else you need."
"You should be good to go. Just don't put too much pressure on the leg. Also, I told your friends to go on ahead to Sugar Cube Corner. If I heard correctly, my dimwit of a cousin should be finishing his interrogation up at the precinct. You could catch up to him if you leave now."
I nod, and then hop off the examination bed. I begin to trot out the door, and I hear Tinderweight talking behind me, "You know what? This isn't the weirdest checkup you've had." She chuckles.
"It's certainly the most intriguing." I reply, as I head out of the clinic, and make my way to Sugar Cube Corner.
