Once A Shadow - From the other side

When I got word from Soarin that Shadow needed my help, I was thinking something small scale like lending a hand. Instead, I find him nearly dead, lying in a hospital bed. "Ho-ly-shit, what the fuck happened to you?"

Soarin walked up to me and said "He was attacked."

"Attacked? That's putting it mildy, it looks like he was fucking mauled, and then some!"

Spitfire interrupted. "Look, we brought you here to help him. You have the most medical experience out of all of us, and the hospital's surgeon checked out fifteen minutes ago."

"How convenient." I muttered "Look, I know I have the most medical experience out of us, but even so I've never done this sort of thing before. What if I kill him? Rainbow would never forgive me, and god knows what his dad will do to me! Are you sure there's no other way?"

"Yes, I'm sure. But look at it this way, you've been training in medicine right? Well it just so happens that we have an opening for team medic, and if you pull this off...Well, I'm sure you can figure out the rest."

Shit, is she serious? If I pull this off, I'll become the team medic. And I don't bout you, but that sounds a hell of a lot better than handyman. After a minute to think, I made my descision. "I'll do it. Now get me a set of operating tools, a vital sign monitor, an oxygen supply and an operating room ready. NOW MOVE IT, MOVE IT, MOVE IT!" Damn, it feels good being in charge, though I probably shouldn't get used to it. The operation was long and delicate. Ruptured organs, internal bleeding, and an open wound the size of a large knife! It took me hours to stitch up all the damage done, but I did it. I even stitched a smiley face on him somewhere, but I'm not saying where ;)

Rainbow Dash poked her head through the door. "How's Shadow doing? Is he gonna be okay?"

"He'll be fine" I said cleaning my hooves. "I've just finished so you can tell someone to take him to a room, although he'll be unconscious for a while. About a week or so. Nothing to worry about though, I'm guessing he'll be be wanting to leave as soon as he wakes up."

She giggled. "Okay, thank you. Take care."

Some time later.

_I opened my eyes to a very bright room.

"He's waking up! Get the doctor!" somepony yelled.

"Ugghhh, I swear to God if I died again." I groaned as I rose

"You didn't die asshole, but you came pretty close to it." Barry said

"Please tell me Rainbow is okay."

"She's fine. She just went to go get something to drink right now. She'll be back in a bit."

"Does anypony know what happened?"

"Rainbow said you were attacked in an alley. You told her to run away, and she went to go find help." Barry started to say.

"The first ponies I ran into were three of the Wonderbolts. I told them what happened, then they took off in your direction. When I finally caught up, there was some weird goo on the ground, and you were on Soarin's back and unconscious." Rainbow finished as she trotted in.

"Okay, and where are they now?"

"After they brought you here, they said they had to go check on something, and flew away."

"Well well Mr. Shadow, you're pretty lucky it seems." An earth pony with a white lab coat said as he trotted in.

"I just got stabbed and I'm lucky?"

"No, you're lucky because you should be dead. When you arrived here, you had several lacerations over your body, a punctured lung, and if that wasn't enough, you had lost blood far passed the point any normal pony would have bled out at."

"You forgot the part where I made a perfect recovery, and can leave anytime I want."

He rolled his eyes. "Do you have any idea how long you were out?"

"I'm guessing a few hours?"

"You were out for seven days Mr. Shadow."

I sat back. "Well damn, I was only off by a little."

"He almost dies and he's sitting here cracking some damn jokes." Barry said.

"I joked about it last time, why wouldn't I do it again?" I said with a smile.

"By the way, can I leave now?" I asked.

"Even if I said no, you would probably leave anyways, from what your friends tell me." The doctor said

"And they're right." I said with a grin

He sighed. "Just try not to lose almost all of your blood again."

"Why make a promise when I'm not sure I can keep it?" I said as I rose out of bed._ -Chapter 12-

Well, nothing's changed with him, that's good. As I started to walk away, Barry came after me. "Hey, I think I've seen you before. Hornet, Right?"

I turned around. "Yeah, that's me."

"So, how did you die? I got murdered in a dark alley, ha." he joked.

"I died near Nellis AFB in Nevada. I was shot down during a training exercise. And before you ask, no, I wasn't shot by anyone I knew. They came out of nowhere, shot down some of my friends, and then they got me. But I'd rather not talk too much about it."

"I understand. It isn't easy. I won't press any further." And just as he finished that sentence, Shadow shot out of the doorway and down the hall. "What the, was that Shadow?"

"Should we go after him?" I asked.

"No, there's no way I'd be able to catch him, and besides, what would we when we catch up to him?"

"Good point."

So, what do you wanna do? I was thinking we head down to the local pub and talk about each other. I've always wanted to know what it's like to be a pilot."

"Alright, let's go. I'll pay, since I'm assuming you don't have a well enough paying job for the amount of whiskey I can drink." I joked.