Opening the door, two fillies and a dragon entered the office. The bell attached to the door jiggled as they passed through the door frame. One of the ponies, a pegasus filly with an orange coat and a purple mane, trotted up to the counter. She waited as the receptionist was typing away. The filly was starting to get impatient, partly since the receptionist had yet even acknowledged her, but also since her mouth was extremely sore.
Finally, to the thankfulness of the orange pony, the reception welcomed her, "Hello, how are you doing today?"
"Fine...." the young pony mumbled, her hoof raised up to one of her cheeks, rubbing it in hopes to sooth the pain, "I, uh, have an appointment. I'm here for a check up."
"Okay then, what's your name?" the receptionist ask as she started to type away again.
"Scootaloo....I think it's for one o'clock," she explained.
The receptionist pointed at the computer monitor as she looked for the pony's name, "Let's see here...ah, here we are! Scootaloo for one o'clock! You're checked in. Why don't you have a seat, dear? The doctor will see you shortly."
With a sigh, Scootaloo did as she was instructed. Trotting into the rest of the waiting room, she found where her friends have seated themselves. Taking the free seat next to the earth pony, Scootaloo sat down. She was still rubbing the cheek of her mouth with a hoof.
"Ya'll checked in?" the yellow filly asked.
"Yeah, all checked in and stuff. Guh....I always hate the smell of this place," Scootaloo commented.
"It's not that bad," she replied.
"Says you. Besides, Applebloom, you and Spike didn't have to come with me," Scootaloo stated.
"We're here for moral support!" Spike popped his head out from behind the yellow pony, revealing that he was seated on the other side of Applebloom.
"Yeah! We can't letta jus' go to the dentist all on yer own!" the earth pony smiled.
Scootaloo wasn't in much of a smiling mood, however. In fact, it seemed she had a permanent scowl on her face. "It's just a dumb check up...."
"But it's always good ta visit the dentist regularly!" Applebloom spoke. "Granny Smith always makes me go at least three times a year ta make sure ah have healthy teeth!" the filly smiled, showing her perfect teeth.
Rolling her eyes, the pegasus continued to murmur, "Well, I don't like doctors or all of there....tools...." Scootaloo visibly shivered at the last word she spoke.
"They're jus' doin' all of that ta help ya be healthy an' all," Applebloom explained.
Spike chimed in, "She's right. Doctors are there to keep us from getting sick and stuff."
"Doesn't mean I have to like them," Scootaloo retorted.
"You should be happy you're seeing a dentist. Twilight keeps taking me to the vet," the dragon said. He noticed that Scootaloo and Applebloom were staring at him in both disbelief and concern that Twilight would do that to Spike. "What?" he continued, "she says it has something to do with my teeth being about to cut through pony flesh."
After an awkward silence, Scootaloo started to speak again, "Yeah....well, while I somewhat appreciate you both being here for 'moral support' as you call it," the pegasus used air quotes, "I still kinda need to mentally prepare for this."
With that, Scootaloo slouched in her seat and looked around the waiting room, getting her first real look of her surroundings. Looking around the walls, she saw a number of posters. The subject of these posters ranged from cartoon teeth, saying how cool it is for young fillies and colts to brush and floss their teeth, to pictures of dentists in their white coats posing and advertising something or another. They quickly lost Scootaloo's interest as she turned her attention to the other ponies that were in the waiting room. She saw a mother with a couple of small ponies, who obviously did not want to be there. One of them was playing with one of the random toys that were scattered around the small room while the other one was begging her mother to leave. Scootaloo envied that filly, being able to beg to go home, but she didn't have luxury. As the child's pleading ceased, Scootaloo's ear twitched as she heard the music being softly played by the speakers above the room. Scootaloo recognized the song easily, as it was "Get Your Pony On" by Sapphire Shores, but she was in no mood to sing. Not with her sore teeth.
A nurse, or somepony like that, came out and called a name. Scootaloo didn't pay attention to the name since it wasn't hers. The mother stood up and took her two children to the nurse and they disappeared to another part of the office. This only added to Scootaloo's annoyance, that she had to wait even more for her appointment. She could think of a million different things she would rather be doing.
Adjusting herself on her chair, Scootaloo looked around the room again. She saw the other ponies that were seated in the waiting room. An older stallion, reading a newspaper intently, some teenaged mare anxiously waiting for her name to be called, and a stallion that seemed way too calm and relaxed for Scootaloo's liking. While browsing the room, the orange filly noticed a pile of magazines on the end tables. She noticed that both Applebloom and Spike had each grabbed one and seemed to be interested in the periodical. Applebloom was reading The National Equestrian which had Fancy Pants on the cover. Spike seemed to have his nose buried in The Canterlot Reporter. Those types of magazines never interested Scootaloo, and she wasn't going to get started now. Slouching back in her chair, she stared up at the ceiling, praying that her misery would end.
"Scootaloo?" a voice called out. Looking to the source, it was a nurse calling her name.
"Yeah?" Scootaloo hopped down from her seat
"Right this way, please," the nurse instructed as she started trot away.
"Good luck, Scootaloo!" Spike called out to his friend. Applebloom did the same before the pegasus was out of the room.
Following behind the nurse, Scootaloo was getting tense. While she wanted the pain to be over with and done, she did not want to deal with what she will soon have to experience. As they trotted down the hallway, Scootaloo saw through one of the open doors a view of a dentist working with a patient, one of the small ponies that she saw in the waiting room. She could hear the protest and screaming from the young pony, but it fell on deaf ears. Scootaloo quietly gave her sympathy to the youngster.
Finally reaching a room, the nurse opened the door and directed the orange pony to the chair, "Please have a seat, the doctor will be in momentarily."
"Kay...." Scootaloo spoke with a depressed sigh as she sat on the chair positioned in the center of the room. There was no turning back now.
Left in the room alone, the pony observed her surroundings in detail. Only one way in and out, the door which had just shut behind her. No window to let in Celestia's sunlight. In fact, the lighting of the room seemed extremely artificial. She looked at the instruments and tools that surrounded the dental chair. To the left there was a swivel chair intended for the doctor. To the right, a tray with some sort of arm attached to the chair, it seemed to be where the poking and prodding tools that Scootaloo feared so much would be placed. Above her, there was something she knew all too well, the blinding light that would be used on her, as if she was in some interrogation room. Looking to the wall, Scootaloo saw some parchment in frames signifying that the doctor had gone to school, was educated in the field of dentistry, and knew what he was doing. The orange filly doubted all of that and believed that she was just another victim of the doctor's insidious plan to torture all of Ponyville.
The door opened and in walked in the doctor. He was a dark blue unicorn with a scruffy black mane and tail. His black frame glasses helped him read over the clipboard that was being levitated with his magic. The white lab coat he had on added to his distingusted appearance, but Scootaloo wasn't going to be fooled by it, she knew the kind of monster he really was. He closed the door behind him and sat down on the swivel chair.
"Hello, Scootaloo!" he happily greeted the little pegasus, "How are we doing today?"
"Well, well, well, if it isn't Dr. Polish Shine. I see they haven't ripped up your dental license. What's it made out of, titanium?" Scootaloo crossed her front hooves and glared at him.
The unicorn lightly chuckled, "Still afraid of the dentist, I see."
Scootaloo's eyes became shifty as her voice became nervous, "What? Afraid? No! Whose afraid, Not me, I'm not afraid. Your mom's afraid."
Flipping through the papers, Polish Shine couldn't help but smile at the filly's response, "Well, actually yes, she is afraid of the dentist, but she's not the one here for an appointment; that would be you, Scootaloo."
"How about we don't do this, huh?"
"Beg pardon?" the doctor placed the clipboard on the counter against the far wall before rolling over to the dental chair in his swivel chair.
"How about I just sit in this chair for the allotted time, you can go read one of those horrible magazine that you have scattered throughout that smelly waiting room and you still get paid and the feeling that you did your job? I'm happy, you're happy, bing bang boom," Scootaloo explained.
"Sorry, it doesn't work like that Scootaloo. You're here for your check up and I plan to make sure you have a healthy set of teeth," Polish Shine stated as he used his magic to ready the bib to go around the pony's neck.
Letting out a disgusted noise, Scootaloo lifted her head up so the bib could go around her neck, "Fine, whatever. In that case, you're in and out within two minutes or I start biting down, hard. No loitering in there, and if even touch my gums with one of those metal things, I will slug you right in your gut, got it?"
"I know the routine, Scootaloo. I don't think it has changed since last time, am I right?" not waiting for a response, Polish Shine used his magic to move the attached tray closer to him. He then turned on the overhead light. The brightness caused Scootaloo to squint at the brightness and remember all of her past visits to the dentist office, or as she would refer to it, the madhouse.
Fixing the mask around his muzzle, the doctor spoke again, "Alright, Scootaloo, I need you to open your mouth."
Scootaloo shook her head.
"Please, Scootaloo? We have a deal, right? I go in to check your teeth quickly and we are done."
The filly still refused.
"If you don't open you mouth," Polish Shine stated, "we can't get started. I can wait."
"Oh, I can wait just as long, until one of us dies! And you got a good head-start on me when it comes to that, you tooth pulling fiend!" Scootaloo retorted back at a loud volume.
Using this as his opportunity, the doctor stuck in two of his dental instruments into Scootaloo's mouth. Using his magic to use the mouth mirrors, he took a look at the small pegasus's teeth. While he knew Scootaloo wasn't happy with him, Polish Shine still got under way with the examining.
"See? It isn't so bad," the unicorn spoke.
"Yuu aonsta...." Scootaloo tried to speak, but could only make strange and alien sounds that sounded nothing like a language anypony would communicate in. Her eyes, on the other hoof, easily reflected her anger of the sudden attack against her.
Switching one of the mouth mirrors for a dental explorer, the dentist started to scrape against Scootaloo's teeth. The filly could feel every movement that the instrument made in her mouth, and it drove her insane. Her eyes were wide open, staring up at the powerful light. The spike of the instrument scratched against the teeth, as if it was made solely to cause pain to everypony it came in contact with.
"Okay, now time for a rinse," Polish Shine said, as he lifted the mouth mirror and dental explorer out of Scootaloo's mouth and put in the water squirter in. He turned it on and water started to fill her mouth, just another form of torture to the orange pony. "Don't swallow that water, use the spit sink next to you," the doctor pointed out to the left of Scootaloo to the sink next to the tray arm.
Thankfully, Scootaloo spat into the sink, riding her mouth of the foul tasting water. If she had her way, she would have spat the water right in Polish Shine's face. With her mouth free from anything, Scootaloo shouted, "What kind of sick twisted prison are you running here?"
"This is a dental office," the dentist pointed out.
"It's the same thing! You're a madpony, a madpony I'm telling ya!" the pegasus shouted.
Polish Shine didn't seem to be flattered by Scootaloo's ranting. Instead, he moved the tray away from it's position over the filly, turned off the overhead light, and stood up. "I'll be back in a shortly, Scootaloo. I won't be gone for but a moment," he stated as he headed toward the door.
"Take your time, doc. In fact, go ahead and just leave altogether! I'm good with that!" Scootaloo spoke quickly before the door closed behind the doctor.
Left alone in the small, prison cell-like room, Scootaloo began to assess her surroundings more. There was a counter and cupboards with a sink attached to it. The pony could only assume that behind the plywood doors of those cupboards held more insidious devices that could only serve the purpose of torturing ponies everywhere. Does this stallion not have decency for fellow ponykind? Before Scootaloo could dwell on that thought anymore, she sat back in the chair correctly and stared up at the ceiling.
"Ugh....so bored...." the pegasus filly mumbled as she raised a hoof up. With it, she pointed at the ceiling tiles and started to count them aloud. "One, two, three, four, five...." her voice was lazy and apathetic as she drug out each number. This when on for about a minute until she reached the final tile in the corner, totaling thirty-one tiles excluding the light figures and the air ducts.
"Bored....so bored...." she echoed her previous statement, wishing for something to happen. To her surprise, her wish was fulfilled as door opened again with Polish Shine returning with an assistant with a peach colored coat.
"Hello," the assistant asked, her long strawberry-blonde mane seeming to flow on Scootaloo as she stood next to the chair, "how are you feeling, Scootaloo?"
With a grim stare, Scootaloo replied back, "I feel violated."
Giving a nervous chuckle, the assistant looked toward Polish Shine, who had taken his seat. "Well, anyway, we have good news and bad news. The good news is....well, actually there is no good news. The bad news is that you have a couple of cavities and we should take care of them now," she tried her best to have her voice be one of comfort.
Scootaloo didn't take it well, "You wanna do what to me? I won't let you, I'll never let you!"
Polish Shine spoke calmly, "Now Scootaloo, we will make this as painless as possible, okay? We plan to put you under with some anesthesia so we can fill in those cavities while you're numb. Does that sound okay with you?"
She still objected, "You'll numb me up so you can do more were stuff to me without me fighting back? Is that your plan? You weirdos! I won't let you do that to me!" Scootaloo raised her voice, "I won't let y- OWW!" A sudden jolt of pain shot through Scootaloo, originating from her mouth. She quickly raised her hooves up to her mouth in a futile attempt to rub the pain away.
"Will you let us help you now?" the assistant asked.
Scootaloo was hesitant to agree, "What are you going to do to me?" her words were that of a scared filly.
Reaching to the tray that was attached to the chair the pegasus filly was seated in, Polish raised up a syringe with liquid. "First we use this syringe to numb you and then we quickly work away on your cavities. You'll be numb for a while, but you'll be awake during the time and done much more quickly."
"No!" the orange filly objected, "No needles!"
"But dear, if we don't use an anesthetic, you'll be able to feel all of the pain of us trying to fill those cavities in," the unicorn assistant stated.
"No needles!" Scootaloo echoed. Her face seemed pained just at the idea of it.
"Well, how about you sleep through it?" Polish Shine suggested.
"Sleep? As in you work on it while I sleep?" the filly's eyes seemed hopeful.
Polish Shine nodded, "The principle is the same. We put you to sleep so you won't feel any pain as we work on fixing your cavities. How does that sound?"
While the idea seemed better in her opinion, Scootaloo was still on the defensive, "You just want to put me to sleep so you can torture me, don't you? Don't you?" As she raised her voice again, the pain returned to her teeth. She shivered in pain and agreed, "Okay, do it. Just make the pain stop!"
A relieved expression washed over both the medical ponies as the filly finally gave in. "Okay, Scootaloo, all you have to do is breath into this mask," the unicorn levitated a gas mask towards the orange filly, "The gas will relax you're body and will help put you at ease. Then we can get started, okay?"
The mask was placed over Scootaloo's muzzle. "This mask smells weird....like burnt sugar and....fros...." The gas had a quick affect on the pony, causing her to drift off in mid-sentence. Finally, the doctors were able to begin fixing the cavities.
About an hour later, the orange pony woke up in the dental chair. The first thing that came into her line of sight was the overhanging light, not shining down on thankfully for her eyes. As she tried to sit up, she felt a numbing sensation in her mouth. Raising her hoof up to touch her cheek, she felt the numbing sensation even more so. She continued to poke at it with her hoof until she heard a voice.
"You might not want to touch that for a while," the voice instructed, "the feeling will go away in about an hour or two."
Turning her head to the source, Scootaloo saw it was Polish Shine with a satisfied look on his face.
He continued, "All of your cavities were filled without a single problem, Scootaloo. My only suggestions are that you keep brushing your teeth regularly and that you try to avoid eating anything too difficult to chew for the rest of the day."
Staring with an annoyed expression, Scootaloo replied, "Thanks, doc...." She started to lift herself out of her chair and move towards the door. Her balance, however, was off due to her still being affected by the anesthesia. Using the wall for support, she continued towards the door.
As he watched her leave to the door, Polish Shine spoke again, "I do mean it when I say keep brushing, it almost looked like you had gum disease when I was filling in those cavities!"
Scootaloo ignored him as she slowly made her way down the long hallway she had recently trotted to start this ordeal. It even seemed more of a prison now to the orange pony, but this time, she was trotting past all the other rooms to her freedom, just at the other end of the hall.
After what seemed like an eternity of trotting to the pegasus, she reached the waiting room. Spike and Applebloom were still seated in the room, talking to each other. They noticed the orange pony in the doorway and rushed over to her side.
"Scooatloo! How was it? Are you okay?" Spike asked.
"Did they have ta do somethin'? Ya'll were in there fer quite some time," Applebloom added.
"My face is numb...." was the only thing Scootaloo stated, her tone and expression was sour.
"You can't feel anything?" the earth pony asked, tilting her head.
Scootaloo shook her head.
Spike raised his claw and poked Scootaloo's cheek, "Can you feel this?"
"Stop it," was all she said before she trotted over to the receptionist desk.
The pony behind the counter seemed to be taking her time in noticing that Scootaloo was waiting. Finally, she acknowledged the pegasus filly, "Why hello there! Everything go fine back there, Scootaloo?"
"No, it didn't. I hate everything right now," she answered with a dead serious face.
The receptionist didn't seem to pay attention to the reply. Instead, she raised up a basket, "That's good to hear. Would you like to pick a toy for being such a trooper?"
Looking in the basket, Scootaloo could tell that all of the toys were more or less cheap plastic toys they got from any thrift store. However, she didn't refuse taking one. She quickly took the small Wonderbolt Spitfire figurine that looked like it had seen better days.
"Now, it says here that you should make an appointment for two weeks," the receptionist stated as she took the basket back.
"What, why?" the orange pony asked.
"There seems to be an issue with your molars, and it looks like Dr. Polish Shine would like to take a look to make sure they don't become impacted."
With a sigh, she agreed, "Fine, whatever, two weeks from today. Can I go now?"
"Of course! Thank you for visiting Ponyville Dentistry!" the receptionist happily chimed as Scootaloo and her friends left the building.
Finally outside, Scootaloo mumbled under her breath, barely audible to Applebloom and Spike.
"Hey, Scootaloo, can I see that Spitfire toy?" Spike asked, interrupting the pony's hushed swearing.
Without a verbal acknowledgment, Scootaloo threw the toy to Spike, who started to play with it as they walked. He pretended that Spitfire was flying a through the sky, making sound effects as he went on.
"So, ya feelin' better, Scootaloo?" Applebloom asked with a bright smile.
With a grim scowl on her face, Scootaloo replied loudly, "That place is a madhouse! A madhouse, I'm tell ya! They like to torture ponies in there for fun! It has to be violating so many laws of the Geneighva Convention!"
Applebloom laughed, "Scootaloo, it's just the dentist!"
"Is there a differene, Applebloom, is there?"
END