The Doctor is in

“Velvet…Velvet…wake up.” A soft voice sofly called.

“Astral…Is that you?” Velvet mumbled. He opened his eyes not to find his dead brother, but Twilight with a confused face.

“Um…who’s that?” Twilight raised an eyebrow waiting for Velvet to answer. He didn’t respond and sat up in his bed, rubbed his face with his hooves, smoothed his messy hair, and gave Twilight a smile.

“No one dear.” Velvet got up and made his way to the bathroom, followed by Twilight. ”Now why would you wake me up this early?” Velvet asked with some irritation in his voice, noticing the sun that barely rose above the horizon.

“I’m sorry.” Twilight gave a sheepish smile and awkward giggle. “But we got a lot to do today.” She answered with a determined look.

Velvet raised an eyebrow at this and put down his replacement brush back onto the counter.

“Pray tell, what does this day have in store for us?” Velvet asked with mild interest. Just then, the small purple and green drake walked into Velvet's view, in his had a sizable rolled up parchment that Spike could barely hold.

“Well today we are going shopping for my usual supplies, helping rarity get new sewing supplies, weekend chores, etc.” Twilight listed off.

Now Velvet prided himself in being a hard working stallion. He could take on any task that came his way. But between the list and what few things his landlord listed off, this would be his biggest challenge yet. With a sigh, Velvet used his magic to teleport his round glasses, his white dress shirt, and dark red vest onto himself.

“Sounds like a WONDERFUL time darling, but can you do me a favor…” Velvet asked. Twilight gave him a confused look, signaling him to continue. “I need to write to a…friend of mine. Not legion affiliated of course.”

“If that’s it then I’ll allow it. Only if you allow me to read it before you send it out?” Twilight said, flashing him a serious look.

“Of course dear, we are friends after all, friends don’t lie.” Velvet said with a smile. Twilight was happy with this answer as she took the list from a spike in her magic and trotted out of Velvet's room. The small drake gave the necromancer an awkward look as he ran out of the room.

“I swear…” Velvet sighed as he went after the studious mare.

It wasn’t long before the trio made their way through the streets of ponyville. As they went from stand to stand in the marketplace, Velvet was met with mixed reception. Some gave him fearful and even hateful glares at him when they thought he wasn’t looking. One pony even tried to speak their less than filly appropriate thoughts to Velvet but was shut down when their friend dragged them away.

Surprisingly, those incidents were out-shined by the praises of gratitude and thankfulness for defeating a necromancer and helping with the recovery. Some of the stand owners even gave discounts because a relative or loved one was saved because of Velvet. The overwhelming positive feedback overwhelmed Velvet, to the point where he had to sit on a nearby bench to take a break from keeping his kind smile.

“I don't know what will give me first. The intense shopping or these consistent compliments.” Velvet huffed out. Spike patted his back as Twilight gave him a worried look.

“You never got this much attention…have you?” Twilight smiled a bit at Velvet's state, not in a bad way of course, as he looked over at her.

“When you’re a necromancer, any attention you get isn’t goo-” Velvet was interrupted by the sudden appearance of a solar pegasus guard landing in front of them. On his backside was a set of saddlebags but the guard said nothing as he used his wing to dig in the bag. The guard then pulled out a regular letter with the royal seal on it.

“Request from the princess to a Velvet night.” He said, hoofing the letter to spike and flying off.

“That was weird, wonder what it- HEY!” Spike yelped in surprise when the letter was snatched out of his claws by Velvets magic.

“You shouldn’t be snooping in other ponies' mail.” Velvet said with a huff.

He opened the letter in his magic and started to read it. As it went on, his pleasant smile turned into neutral, then into minor shock, and finally a look that made Twilight and spike spines shiver. To any normal pony, it would seem his expression would be one of indifference if it weren't’ for the look of absolute rage in his gaze.

“Um…Velvet dude…are you ok?” Spike warily asked, jumping back when velvet's angered gaze looked at him.

“I must go.” Velvet's voice was one of complete neutrality. Twilight wanted to ask what was wrong , but Velvet's horn shined brightly as he disappeared in a flash of purple light. Once Spike and Twilights eyes stopped blurring, they looked at each other with concerned looks.

Spike noticed the letter Velvet left on the floor and picked it up to read. Once he quickly skimmed through it, one thing caught his eye.
“Um Twilight…do you know who ‘Minty Breeze is?”

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Princess Celestia felt awful for doing this. After the operation in manehattan, several high ranking Necromancers were brought into custody by Rocky road. This should have been great news to the solar diarch, but after hearing what happened with Minty, she couldn’t help but feel bad for the Commander.

Celestia already knew about Rocky and Minty’s brother-like relationship. So she put the heavily injured pegasus into the medical section of the castle so he could recover, he had yet to wake up still.

Ever since, Rocky had been late to work, mostly spending his nights staying by Minty’s bedside. Celestia excused these absences so far, but somepony had to interrogate their prisoners.

Then Celestia had an idea, some of the captured necromancers mentioned a certain Velvet night during battle, according to some reports. They spoke of him as somepony to be feared rather than respected like some boogey mare. If she could get Velvet to visit and question the prisoners, then it would serve as…encouragement…for them to talk.

There was one problem though.

Velvet night didn’t seem like the type to bother himself with this type of ‘activity’. Then another, terrible, thought came to Celestia. The day Velvet was interrogated by Minty breeze, the pegasus gave reports and detail about their conversation as usual.

What struck out as odd to her was how Minty behaved when mentioning certain comments or remarks Velvet made towards him. Minty would act more reserved than usual, and would constantly mumble during these parts. She wasn’t sure, but Celestia had a theory that Velvet took some interest in Minty, so if she mentioned him in the letter she sent to Velvet, he would show up.

Suddenly, there was a flash of purple light and the Stallion of the hour appeared, a disturbing expression on his face. He Immediately faced the solar diarch. It may have been an unusual ,or even cruel, way to convince Velvet this way, but crucial to have him here.

“Take me to the colt of a bitch.” Velvet ‘calmly’ demanded. Instead of greeting, Celestia sighed and stood up to walk out of the throne room followed by Velvet himself.

As they made their way down the marble halls, Celestia decided to inform her guest.

“As stated in the letter, We believe that the pony I’m taking you too was the ringleader of the group Commander Rocky road captured. She spoke of you… saying that you’ll punish them if they didn’t complete their mission.” Celestia said with some curiosity in her voice.

“Was an overseer before you captured me.” Velvet simply replied.

There was an awkward silence between the two as they finally reached the dungeon entrance. Passing through the iron and wooden doors, both went down a couple flights of stone stairs and reached the lowest containment zone. Rounding a few more corners Celestia stopped in front of a heavily armored door and turned to face Velvet.

“In here is the ringleader. I know how you must feel right now, but you must not cause any injury that results in death. Do you understand?” Celestia gave the necromancer a serious look.

Velvet only nodded in agreement. Celestia used her magic to open the door and let Velvet inside, giving him a list of questions before he entered. Once he was in, she teleported to a nearby room that watched over the interrogation room, only being separated by a one sided mirror.

The ring leader in question was a healthy unicorn mare, yellow fur and gray mane, and a cutie mark depicting a wrench lying on a book. Upon seeing the enraged Velvet, her eyes widened and her hooves started to shake.

“M-Mr. Night…w-what are y-y-you doing here? Don’t tell me they got you to!” The mare jumped back when Velvet slammed his front hooves onto the table, denting it a little.

“I suggest you keep your mouth shut.” The mare's mouth did just that. “And no, I didn’t get captured by them…I betrayed you.” Velvet said, putting emphasis on the betrayed part. The mare looked to become more bewildered, then she started to laugh in a joking way.

“I-I didn’t know you were such a jokest-” She was cut off when dark purple magic clamped her mouth closed.

“Didn’t I tell you to sit quietly?” Velvet questioned, anger evident in his tone.

The mare’s shaking was more apparent now as tears started to come out. The dark purple magic dissipated as Velvet stabbed her foreleg with his horn, causing the mare to yelp in pain. For a moment, nothing seemed to happen. Suddenly, the mare started to scream in pain as she clutched the stabbed foreleg close to her.

Celestia was horrified to see, from what she could, that the mare's foreleg was starting to become a sickly green, losing fur, and the skin started to sink in.

“W-WHAT IS THIS?!” The mare screamed in agony.
Celestia charged her horn to teleport in to stop Velvet, but when she did, the spell didn’t work for whatever reason. So instead, she ordered guards to open the door to the interrogation room but they found out it was nearly impossible to open due to the purple hue keeping it locked.

“What your foreleg is going through is called decomposition.” Velvet explained.

“W-what?” The mare asked through her pained grunts.

“I’ll put it in a way your simple mind can understand. My special magical ability, infection, is able to enter a pony’s bloodstream to the point where I can manipulate it. But, if I put just a little more magic into it, I can go further. Your nervous system, brainstem, other organs, bone marrow, etc, and I can do whatever I want to you.” Velvet pointed to the mare's foreleg as he continued.

“What my spell is doing right now, is recreating the process of decomposition by replicating certain enzymes and bacteria found in said process. There are other factors but I don’t want to explain it all.” Velvet rolled his eyes before grabbing the mare rotting arm in his magic and pressing it hard onto the table. “What is going on with your limb, can happen to your entire body. I can also increase or decrease the time it takes for your cells to decompose.” he leaned in closer to the mare, her trying in vain to back away while locked to the chair. “And I can make it as slow as possible so you get to feel every. Single. Cell. die. So you better start talking.” He darkly said.

“OK OK I’LL TALK, JUST MAKE IT STOP PLEASE!” The mare cried out. Velvet hesitated for a moment before his horn flashed and the mare's foreleg was back to normal.

Velvet sat back into an empty metal chair as he started shooting off questions. Most of them were met with ‘I don’t know’ or ‘I can’t say’ and there every little she did answer. From what the mare could answer, she was ordered to set up a ritualistic sacrifice to ‘The great one’, the name made Velvet rolled his at the blandness of it.

All in all, it was a huge waste of time and Velvet was left with nothing but a shitty name and minor details. He opened the door to see Celestia and guards standing on the other side, The solar diarch having a disappointed frown.

“Can I talk with you for a second, Velvet?” Celestia asked. Velvet walked out, but stopped instantly when he heard the mare whisper something to herself.

“Those impure ones deserve to die, I was doing them a favor.” The mare bitterly said under her breath.

Velvet's vision went red as his horn charged up, a powerful blast of energy came out and hit the mare in the face. She fell over with a scream as he pounced on her. Again and again, he smashed his hooves into her face, bones broke, cuts opened, and screams of pain were overshadowed by ones of anger. The mare's face became nothing more than a small pile of brain matter, flesh, and bones, but he didn’t stop there. He kept at it to the point the concrete broke and his own hooves were starting to break.

“Velvet…Velvet”

Tears ran down the side of his face. How DARE she say things like that, how Dare she take away somepony he actually cared about. Even if he didn’t know the stallion well, he was going to change that before SHE showed up!

“Velvet…Velvet!”

Velvet jumped a little in surprise, looking over to see Celestia looking at him with concern. He turned around to see the door to the interrogation room already closed.

“Are you okay?” Celestia softly asked.

“Yeah…” Velvet looked down with an empty look.”...Just fine.” Velvet turned and walked off, only to be stopped by Celestia.

“You need to tell me why you acted that way.” Celestia asked sternly.

“...I was in a bad mood.” Velvet answered with a dry tone without facing Celestia. Then he continued his walk and soon disappeared into the dimly lit hall.

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was pretty unfortunate to find out I wouldn’t be able to fly again. The spear that pierced my wing hitted just in the right spot separating the tendons and nerves. I’m not really bothered though, never used my wings much, at least not to the point I’m not depressed right now.

“Just my luck, huh? Heh, mother always said I was an earth pony at heart.” Minty I joked to myself. I wasn’t the one to get sad often, anything unfortunate that happened to me I just laughed off, too bad this time I couldn’t laugh it off.

The door to my room opened to what I expected to be Rocky road. He’d been coming around all sad and moopy about and no matter how much I try, he won’t cheer up.

To my surprise, it was that necromancer…IT WAS THAT NECROMANCER!!!

My heart started to race from anxiety, face redden from embarrassment, and eyes scanning over his tall and luscious bo-

‘This is not time for that brain!!!’ I internally yelled. During my panic, the necromancer…Velvet…had took the usual spot that Rocky sat, a seat next to my bed, and was looking down at me with a small smile.

“U-u-um h-hi M-Mr. V-Velvet!” I loudly stuttered out. Velvet only giggled, adorably, at my embarrassing star.

“I know…It’s a shame we have to meet like this.” Velvet's voice sounded happy, and even…sad? I stopped my awkward rambling and looked at him with a slightly raised eyebrow.

“Are you ok Mr. Velvet? You seem a little sad.” I asked. It might be weird to say this, but the lowered ears and somber look on his face hurt me on the inside. “I-I’m sorry if I said something wrong!” I frantically said, hooves raised to my side in a defensive manner.

“No…No it’s fine. I’m just-” Velvet put a hoof on Minty’s bedside and looked away. “-Tired.”

In situations like this I would have no trouble. But those types of situations were with foals or fillies, not handsome immortal necromancers. His mannerisms and tone worried me, I can’t help but feel like he’s not tired in an exhausted sense.

“I probably have the right to ask this…but…you can tell me what's wrong.” I offered with a comforting smile. Velvet turned his gaze back over to me, his ears lifting back up.

“For a long time now, I’ve been searching…for a way to get revenge on the ponies who've wronged me. I have been alive for so long and no matter how hard I try, I feel like I take one step forward and 20 steps back.” Velvet's grip on the beds rail got tighter as his eyes watered. “I try so hard to be like my brother…to be positive and see things through to the end…but I’m just so tired.” Velvet looked down as his body started to tremble.

Even if I don’t know this stallion's full story, I can clearly see what's going one. I’ve seen something like this before. Young soldiers who come back from their first battle suffering from the loss of a close friend or ally, blaming themselves for not saving them, that they could have done more.

I gently put a hoof on Velvets in a comforting manner. He looked back up at my sad smiling face with mild shock and tears running down his face.

“I may not understand what you’re feeling, but what I can understand is the feeling of hopelessness. No matter how hard you work, there’s always something to block your way. But, the important thing is to never give up hope even if things seem bad. Because in the end there will be others to pick you up in the end.” I ended my mini speech with a determined smile, which seemed to cheer up Velvet to some degree.

“I’ve made it this far without anypony. Besides, who would help somepony like me?” Velvet's mood seemed to drop again as he whipped tears from his face.

“I could help you.” At this, Velvet's ears perked up as he stared at me with a shocked expression. “At heart I can tell you’re a good stallion.” To my surprise, Velvet started to laugh like he just heard the funniest thing in his life which made me flustered. “W-what's so funny?” I shouted.

“Sorry, heh, you really do sound like my brother. Maybe that's why I like you so much.” Velvet laughed. I blushed slightly at him as I joined in on the laughter.

For the most part we talked about ourselves. I told him stuff about my family that was mostly my mother and sister, my job, hobbies, and just general interest. Velvet told me a bit too. Apparently he isn’t too big on books, mostly the adventure and non-fiction type, says they’re just foal stories meant to entertain fillies for a few hours. I hope he doesn’t say that around my sis, she is a big fan of that daring-doo series.

Velvet yawned into his hoof and blinked the tiredness out of his eyes. I looked over to the wall clock to see it’s just about eight at night, though looking out the window and seeing the moon was a good indicator too.

“It was a pleasure to speak with you Minty.” Velvet smiled as he sat up from the chair. “But I must be going, I’m sure Twilight might be worried about me.” His horn glowed a dark purple as he looked over to me with a flirty look. “I’ll write to sweetie.” Velvet winked and disappeared in a flash of purple, leaving me slightly flustered.

“Umm…you ok?” A familiar voice asked, making me jump in surprise. Looking over, Rocky road was standing in the open doorway to my room with a confused look.

“DID I TELL YOU NOT TO DO THAT!?!”

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Velvet night appeared right in front of the door to the Golden Oaks Library. He used a hoof to fix his mane and get rid of any evidence of his little talk with Minty.

He liked Minty, but he wasn’t ready to get the elements involved in his irrelevant emotion. With a sigh, Velvet wore his usual smile as he opened the door with his magic to see Twilight, Spike, and their friends all sitting with each other, worried looks on all of their faces.

Upon entering, they noticed the towering necromancer and the mood did a 180, with pinkie slamming into him at breakneck speeds almost breaking his neck in a tight hug.

“OH Velvey, I were sooo worried about after what Twilight told us. I mean, she said you got all scary and ran off somewhere to do CELESTIA knows what! And I was like-” Pinkie rambled off as Twilight thankfully yanked her off with her magic as she approached him.

“So like the pink one said, I guess you were worried about me?” Velvet said with a sly smile.

“Yea we were.” Twilight gave Velvet a stern glare. “What was that anyway, I thought something was wrong!” Twilight said with irritation.

“You girls have nothing to worry about. I was just…doing a favor for the princess.” Velvet explained as he walked to and up the stairs, eventually disappearing into his room, leaving the group of mare confused.

Velvet used his magic to take off his clothes and glasses, throwing the clothes onto the ground out and putting his glass on the pile. Right now, he didn’t care about being clean at the moment as he climbed into bed and putting the cover over himself.

For the first time in a while, Velvet fell into a peaceful sleep as his eyes closed, a peaceful smile on his face.