Vinyl Scratch Tries Her Hoof at Dentistry
It was a quiet afternoon in Ponyville.
The afternoon sun was making its way down the sky. The birds were singing above the trees and butterflies fluttered in the gardens below. Ponies milled around in town, going to or from market, laughing and talking. At the end of a little lane at the edge of town was a small building with large picture windows. It was painted official hospital-white and it had a brass plate in the shape of a tooth hanging over the door, marking it as the Ponyville dentist's office.
Octavia rested in one of the front rooms. She had been given a lavender bib to catch any potential splashes and Octavia made sure it hung neatly around her neck, even on both sides.
She lay back in the reclining dental chair and waited for the doctor, enjoying the quiet, listening to the faint piano of Adapple's "Goodbye" on the overhead speakers.
Behind Octavia the door opened and then closed. The sound of unicorn magic filled the room and Octavia heard the noise of papers being flipped on a clipboard. Octavia sat up to greet whomever had entered but a hoof pushed her back into the chair with a thump.
A mare's voice with a heavy Germane accent came from behind her, muffled as if through a surgical mask. “Good morning to you, Ms-”
“Good afternoon.”
“Ja, and a good afternoon to you, as vell!” The sound of more papers being shuffled. “So. Ms. Puhyhlarmoonykay-”
“Philharmonica.”
“Yes, Ms. Philharmonica. Mein name is Herr Doktor Zweibrücker von Hurtzenhauer, ze finest practitioner of ze dental arts in all Ekvestria! But you may call me Dr. Hurtz.”
Octavia raised an eyebrow.
“Ja, I see you're in today for an extraction-”
“A cleaning.”
“Ja, a cleaning vhich vill of course be 'on ze house' after your extraction.”
“There's to be no extraction.”
“Yes, ja, of course, of course.” More papers shuffled. “Let's see here, you're scheduled for zer upper M1, M2, M3, M4, ze C1 through ze C9, as well as the middle-J and K and Q and T, and the- ah vell, let's just round up and yank 'em all!”
Octavia rose up on an elbow. “Now wait just a moment!”
A hoof pushed Octavia back in place with a thump. “Now now, Ms. Puhyhlarmoonykay, stay calm or ze gas won't take effect!”
“Gas? What g-” A mask clamped down around Octavia's mouth and a blast of cold froze her nose.
“Breathe deeply now or the next part vill hurt quite a lot!”
Octavia pushed the mask away. “Cough cough... I was- cough cough- my cleaning...!”
“Ja, ve get to your cleaning right after ze extraction... zhough I don't know vhy you'll vant your teeth cleaned after they're just floating in a jar.”
Octavia's eyes bugged out. “You're mad!”
“I zink you're ze one getting upset, miz.” A small mirror on the end of a metal stick floated up and jabbed Octavia in the cheek. “Can you feel this? If the gas worked, there should be no zensation.”
“Ow! Yes, I feel it!”
“Are you sure?” The mirror jabbed into her cheek several more times.
“Yes! Quite! I don't think the gas had an effect at all!”
The mare behind Octavia clicked her tongue. “I'm sure it's only slightly delayed. Ve won't start pulling teeth for, oh, another a minute from now-”
“What!”
“-and I'll need to get the rest of my ekvipment.” The mare turned and shouted at the door. “NURSE! Get me... zer blood hose!”
“Zer blood hose?!”
The mare behind Octavia leaned down conspiratorially. “Ja, zer blood hose! It's the technical term for zer little sucking-tube thing vhich ve hook in your mouth to siphon out all ze blood from your gushing gums. It helps if I can see vhat I'm doing and I'm not just dipping mein tools blindly into a pool of red constantly slopping over onto your chin.”
Octavia felt light-headed.
The figure learned closer. “Blood. All over. Chin, running onto your chest. From your mouth out onto the floor.”
Octavia groaned. “I feel sick.”
“Ah! Zhat must be ze gas finally kicking in! Do you feel this?” She jabbed Octavia with the mirror several more times.
“Ow, ow! Yes, yes! This is all a terrible mistake!”
“I'd say! Your insurance was rejected so all of this is coming out-of-pocket!”
“Oh no!”
“Oh yes!“
The figure behind Octavia nodded enthusiastically and Octavia caught sight of a fringe of blue. She shifted in the chair and finally got a good look at the mare behind her. Big purple glasses stuck out over a white surgical mask.
“V-vinyl? VINYL?! What are you doing here?”
“Erm, whoo iz zees Whynull Schrach of whom you speak? My name is Herr Dokor Zweibrücker von Hurtzen-”
“That is a terrible accent!”
“Ey, don't mock my culture, Octy!”
“You're not even Germane and- argh, darnit, Vinyl! You're a DJ, not a dentist!”
“Nice, Octy!”
Octavia opened her mouth to reply but the door burst open and the Ponyville dentist, Colgate, jumped in.
“Celery sticks, Vinyl!” cursed Colgate. She glared over her own mask. “I told you to wait in the waiting room! Don't scare my clients!”
Vinyl shrugged at her. “Aw, I was just having fun. Did you bring zer blood h-”
Colgate stepped past Vinyl and gently pushed Octavia back in the chair. Colgate sat down on a dentist's stool and pushed a hoofpedal and Octavia's chair reclined flat. Colgate patted Octavia's shoulder in a professional manner.
“Don't worry, zer- I mean the blood hose hasn't been a standard in dentistry for years now.”
“Th-that's good?”
“Nowadays we use a laser to atomize the blood right as it flows from the artery.”
Octavia's eyes widened.
Colgate turned and spoke over her shoulder behind Octavia. “Is that laser ready?”
Vinyl's voice replied. “Yeah. The knob here is kind of stuck halfway to 'wide angle' but I think it's good.”
Octavia tried to sit up but Colgate pushed her back with a thump. “Did you give her the gas?”
Vinyl held up an aerosol can and gave it a pssst pssst. “Technically compressed air is a gas! I was counting on the placebo effect kicking in.”
Colgate nodded wisely. “Old dentist's trick. Eh, but it won't work now that she knows. We'll have to actually put her out. Pass me that big mallet, OK?"
“I have this bottle of whiskey.”
“Good, I can use that.” Colgate grabbed it and took a few healthy swallows then passed it back to Vinyl. “Thanks. Now where's the mallet?”
Octavia struggled out of the chair to her hooves, knocking over a cart of dental supplies. She pressed herself against the far wall, bib hanging askew. Vinyl and Colgate peered at her over their masks, a whole constellation of shining steel dental tools floating around their heads in their unicorn magic.
“You're both loony!”
Vinyl and Colgate looked at each other. “I think she thinks we're crazy. What do you think?”
“I think that's crazy.”
“I mean, would a crazy pony do... this?” Colgate threw back her head and roared in maniacal laughter. “MUA-HAH-HAH-HAH!"
Vinyl threw back her own head and laughed. “NYEAH-HAH-HAH-HAH!”
Octavia's eyes wildly searched the room for an escape. The side door was blocked so she lifted the dentist's stool and threw it at the picture window. The window exploded in a cloud of shimmering glass and Octavia leapt through, landed outside, and galloped away at full speed.
Colgate ran to the window. “You actually do need a cleaning! Have you been flooooossing?”
But Octavia was gone.
Vinyl joined Colgate at the window. “She has. She's totally uptight about it.”
“Is she gentle, though?”
“Oh yeah,” murmured Vinyl.
“Gently flossing.”
“Yeah, that, too.”
Colgate turned to Vinyl. She peered at Vinyl and raised a brow. “How about you? I think you need a radical extraction, too!”
Vinyl pulled off her mask and tapped a hoof to her chin. “Can you replace my teeth with tiny speakers so whenever I open my mouth to talk they play my theme song?”
“I... actually yes, I could do that!”
“Awesome! Recreational dentistry!” Vinyl hopped onto the chair. “Ready, doc!”
Colgate looked around the room. “Where's that mallet...? And that 'doctor' thing is something of a myth. They don't give out PhDs at the community college I went to.”
“Wait, what?” Vinyl tried to sit up but Colgate pushed her back with a thump.
Colgate lifted a bottle and took a pull before offering to to Vinyl. “Whiskey?”
“Don't mind if I do.” Vinyl took the bottle and drank. Then she choked and spewed it all over the room. “Ack, where's the apple juice I brought!?”
Colgate unsteadily rocked back and forth on her hooves. “Back in med school they always said 'don't drink and pull.' ...Well, you know, so I've been told.”
Vinyl turned her head and screamed, “HELP!”
A tiny drill floated over Vinyl's head and clicked on with a high-pitched wheeeeee!
“So you said you wanted little speakers that played Top 40 Country-Western on a loop?”
Vinyl's pale coat turned even whiter. “You monster!”
“It's not monstrous if you're doing it... for science!”
“You realize that if you go through with this we're going to be chasing each other on dog sleds across the Arctic in about six months, right?”
Colgate crooned, “oooh, mah pick-up truck she won't start, mah ol' hound dog she won't hunt, and al' that beer I cain't stop drinkin'- 'cause Ah'm thinkin' ah yoooouuu! Now open wide and say 'ahh'!”
“Ahhhharrghhh!”
“Cease, false dentist!” Octavia appeared at the broken picture window, flanked by two Royal Guards. Octavia's lavender bib was still hanging crookedly as she thrust a hoof out at Colgate. “You're under arrest for imponyating a dentist and practicing dentistry without a degree! How do you plead?”
The two Royal Guards glanced at her. “Uh, miss, usually we do that part...”
Colgate dropped her tools and backed away from Vinyl, raising her hooves. “Alright, you got me. How do I plead? I plead... SMOKEBOMB!” She threw her hoof down at the floor in front of her.
Octavia and the two Royal Guards flinched back. But nothing happened.
Vinyl half-sat in the chair. “Did you... just throw your hoof down at the ground and scream 'smokebomb' without actually having or throwing one?”
Colgate's eyes shifted back and forth. “No...?”
Vinyl raised an eyebrow.
Colgate sighed. “Yes.”
Vinyl pounded the arm of the chair. “That's hilarious!”
Octavia growled. “This is getting stupid! Guards, seize her!” She pointed her hoof at Colgate.
The two Royal Guards glanced at each other.
Colgate quickly raised a hoof. “Wait! Before you, guards, seize me, I have one thing to say! And that thing is what in the world can that be?!” Colgate pointed in the direction behind the guards.
“What? Where?!” Vinyl and both of the two guards turned to look at where Colgate was pointing.
Octavia, unamused, kept looking directly at Colgate, watching as she turned and fled out the side door.
Vinyl and the guards kept staring behind them, trying to figure out what Colgate had been pointing at. Octavia groaned, hopped through the broken picture window, and took off after the false dentist.
“Huh.” Vinyl and the two guards looked at each other and collectively shrugged. Then the first guard glanced at where Colgate had been and did a double-take. He elbowed the guard next to him.
The second guard slapped a hoof to his forehead. “Aww, not again!”
Vinyl half-raised a comforting hoof. “Don't worry about it, dudes. She got me, too!”
They sighed. “Welp, I guess we we go after her!” “Yeah.” The two guards hopped through the broken window and went out through the side door.
Vinyl, left alone, looked around the ruined dentist's office.
She got off the chair and poked around in the debris. She pulled out another surgical mask and put it on. She sat back and crossed her hooves, nodding to herself. “Ja! I ahm zer Herr Doktor Zweibrücker von Hurtzenhauer, ze finest practitioner of zer dental arts in all of Ekvestria!”
“Oh, thank goodness that you're here, Doctor!”
Vinyl turned to see the local mailpony stick her head in through the broken window. She had a cute lavender unicorn filly perched on her back who was holding a hoof to her jaw in pain.
“My little muffin here has a little toothache from a little too many muffins. Would you mind taking a little look at her?” The mailpony's golden eyes rolled in two different directions, taking in the view of the ruined office in half the time of a usual pony. “It doesn't look like you're seeing any patients right now. Doing a little remodeling, too?”
“Uhhh...”
The mailpony hopped through the window and plopped her filly down in the chair. “It won't take more than a little of your time.”
Visions of years in Equestrian penal colonies for dental imponyation danced in Vinyl's head. “S-sure, I can take a look. I mean, uh, ja I can take zer look.”
The filly opened her mouth just as Princess Twilight's pet dragon appeared at the window, holding a detached fang in his claws. Pinkie Pie, the party pony who ate nothing but sugar all day, was right behind him.
Vinyl sighed. This was going to be a long afternoon.
Author's Note
A/N
