Everypony in this town is crazy!
"Hello," said the tall mare. "I'm Fleur de Lis, from the Bureau of Public Safety in Canterlot."
"Pleased to meet you. I'm Nurse Redheart."
They bumped hooves.
"I'll show you to the ambulance bay," Redheart said. "My crew is there."
"Thank you."
Redheart led Fleur through the back corridors of Ponyville Hospital at a double-time trot to a garage on the rear of the building. A heavy pegasus chariot, painted white with red crosses, waited just inside the rolling vertical doors. Its traces were laid carefully on the floor, ready to be fitted to pegasi on an instant's notice. The garage doors were open, letting in bronzed late-afternoon sunlight and gorgeous spring breezes.
PONYVILLE #012 was painted on the ambulance's front in black block letters.
Two burly pegasi, a tall mare and a short stallion, wearing Ponyville Fire Department uniforms, waited in the bay. Their helmets hung from hooks on the wall.
Redheart said, "Crowbar" —the stallion nodded— "and Fire Axe" —the mare nodded— "are this week's day shift on call."
"Fleur de Lis. It's my pleasure." She levitated a clipboard out of her saddlebags, and then a quill and inkwell. "Given your reputation for emergency medical care, especially in light of all Ponyville's… unique problems… I'm sure this yearly inspection will be a formality and I can be on the next train back home to Canterlot. Shall we begin?"
"Where's Miss Raven?" Fire Axe asked nervously. "She's done our inspection the last ten years running."
"She asked me to fill in today," Fleur explained. "She ate some of Luna's cooking."
The three Ponyville ponies glanced at each other. Crowbar cleared his throat. "Did… did Miss Raven say anything else…?"
Fleur walked around the ambulance, making notes on her clipboard. "Excellent, excellent. Clean. No chipped paint. Last year's inspection summary said it was designated 'Ponyville number zero zero nine'?"
"We get a fair amount of attrition," Redheart said.
"Ah, a brand new unit." Fleur nodded and wrote more notes. "What happened to the last units?"
"Number nine," Fire Axe said, "got stepped on by a hydra at the bog."
Fleur raised an eyebrow.
"Fluttershy was able to pull the splinters of number nine from the hydra's paw and we got it bandaged up."
"You… assisted a hydra?" Fleur asked.
"Number ten," Fire Axe continued, "got called out to the cake-eating contest and its bottom ripped out when we tried to lift off."
Fleur scribbled. She then paused, quill poised. "And number eleven?"
Redheart pulled off her nurse's cap and held it to her chest, head bowed. Both fireponies bowed their heads and held their hooves to their hearts for a moment.
"Vaya con Luna," the three mumbled after a moment. Redheart put her cap back on her pink bun.
"Very well," Fleur said, pulling herself up to her full height and looking down at the other three. "Now for the equipment checks."
She boarded the chariot and glanced around. The stretcher was the standard issue, secured to the floor with the proper restraints. Check.
The floor was clean and spotless. Check.
The cabinets and drawers were closed and latched correctly, so that equipment wouldn't go flying about should the chariot hit bad weather or roll over bumpy ground. Check.
Then, Fleur frowned, narrowing her eyes. The labels on the drawers and cabinets were all wrong! She opened the drawer that was supposed to contain scalpels.
"What is this?" she said, levitating up a large pair of pliers. It was labeled Extractor. The plier's jaws were a pincer-type, like could be used for gripping down on nails or staples and prying them out of a board. "This is not standard equipment. This is—is—carpentry?"
"Oh," Redheart said. "We carry that in case Spoiled Rich ever wants the rod removed from her ass."
"Nurse Redheart," Fleur said coldly, "A 'rod up the ass' is a metaphor."
"Not in Ponyville."
Fleur blinked and replaced the pincers in the drawer. She made an X on her clipboard.
The next drawer was labeled Blood Plasma. Check. She opened the drawer.
"No!" Fleur snapped. "No, no, no! This will not do!"
Redheart raised an eyebrow. Fleur levitated up an intravenous bag that was filled with thick, black liquid. "How old is this?"
"Brand new today," Crowbar said. "I restocked it myself."
Fleur's right eyelid twitched. "You put… spoiled blood plasma in your supplies?"
"That's not blood plasma, ma'am," Redheart said, "as the label attests."
Fleur looked at the sticker on the bag: Intravenous-grade chocolate syrup, extra-sweet.
"Chocolate—" Fleur stammered for a moment, then regained her composure enough to say, "if you put this into a pony, you'd be facing a malpractice lawsuit at best, and more likely ponyslaughter charges."
In the drawer was another bag, Intravenous-grade chocolate syrup, semi-sweet.
"No," Redheart said.
Fleur stomped. "Name one pony who needs intravenous chocolate syrup! Name one."
All three said, "Pinkie Pie."
Fleur made another X on her clipboard.
Hanging from hooks on the wall of the chariot were large hedge trimmers. "What possible use could topiary tools be?" Fleur demanded.
"We have a yak in town now," Redheart said. "Yona, teenager from the Friendship School. Every time she has sex, the stallion or colt gets trapped in her wool and we have to cut him free."
"After we got Doctor Whooves loose from her," Fire Axe continued, "he went to the bar and made Berry Punch invent a drink he called the 'Sonic Screwdriver.' After about ten of those, Doc got this thousand-yard stare and muttered, 'She-she-she is bigger on the inside…'"
Fleur shook her head and wrote more angry notes. Below the hedge trimmers was a large crowbar. "Crowbars belong on the fire wagon, not in the ambulance."
"No, we use it," Crowbar said. "Routinely."
The two mares, Redheart and Fire Axe, blushed and tucked their tails.
Fleur, quill poised and vibrating, looked at Redheart.
"So," Redheart said. "You know the Wonderbolts…?"
"Of course." Fleur rolled her eyes. "What's that got to do—"
"One of the Wonderbolts," Redheart continued, "Thunderlane, he lives here in town."
"So?"
"So," Fire Axe concluded, sashaying her butt and tucking her tail even deeper, "the crowbar is because Thunderlane is a… large… individual."
"I inspected their show recently. He's not any larger than the rest of the Wonderbolts."
"He gets stuck at least once a week and we have to perform a separation," Redheart said, her own tail rising as her face became dreamy with wistful memories, her blush darkening. "He's unprecedentedly large… underneath his flight suit."
"Stuck in what?" Fleur demanded. "What sort of separation?"
Crowbar rolled his eyes. Fire Axe and Redheart bumped their cutie marks together and giggled.
Fleur wrote more angry notes and another X symbol.
"Wait a sec," Crowbar said. "Maybe we should introduce Yona to Thunderlane. Save us some call outs?"
He and Fire Axe hoofbumped.
"Can't," Redheart said. "Wonderbolts' contracts don't allow them to do dangerous activities in their personal life, in order to protect the team's investment."
"Dangerous activities?" Fleur asked.
"Wonderbolts," Redheart said, "can't engage in competitive lava surfing, can't engage in amateur lava surfing, can't engage in hydra-tipping, can't engage in sexual intercourse with yaks, and can't ride barrels over waterfalls."
"'Confiscated'?" Fleur snapped, looking at the label on the next drawer. "You keep confiscated items in your ambulance?"
"Don't open that drawer!" Redheart gasped.
"What's in there?"
"Honestly? We don't know, and the princess asked us to keep it here, under lock-and-key and with a twenty-four hour watch, until she figured it out."
Fleur paused before writing the X. If Twilight had specifically requested them to keep it… "Describe it."
"We confiscated it from a traveling magician's caravan," Crowbar said. "She was using it to grill hayburgers, but it killed all the trees, grass, and songbirds in a fifty-yard radius."
Fleur's other eyelid twitched.
"It's a metal sphere about this big," Redheart held her hooves apart, "inside a hole in some metallic-looking bricks. She changed the grilling temperature by using a screwdriver to raise and lower another brick on top of it."
Shaking her head, Fleur left the line on her scroll blank.
In the next cabinet, she found— "Hair dye? Hair dye? That's not a medical emergency."
"It is in this town," Redheart replied. "Because she pays the bills, we carry it in case it's needed by Mayor Mare."
"And what's this?" Fleur said. "An empty glass soda bottle?"
Fire Axe nodded. "Yup. Removed that from a filly's body cavity yesterday. We had to go and fetch her, since with that needing to be removed, she wasn't able to get herself here on her scooter."
"What body cavity?" Fleur snapped.
Redheart blushed. "The body cavity that is covered by patient privacy laws."
Fleur sniffed delicately at the long neck of the bottle. "Oh."
"I think we can throw that in the trash," Fire Axe said, holding out a biohazard bin.
Fleur dropped the bottle into the bin and made another angry X on her scroll.
With a shrug, Redheart said, "The patient's aunts promised to buy her the proper tool for that job."
After opening the drawer labeled Anesthetic, Fleur actually screamed, "This is not proper anesthetic!"
She levitated up three black woolen socks filled with lead shot.
"'Oh'!" Fire Axe said, putting a hoof to her forehead. "'The Horror! The Horror! A bunny stampede'!"
The three Ponyville ponies laughed.
"Seriously," Redheart said between guffaws, "this is the most potent anesthetic we have."
Fleur made another X symbol.
The tallest cabinet on the ambulance was a narrow wardrobe, intended to carry extra sets of protective clothing for the medics. Fleur opened it and started shaking.
It contained no protective clothing. From the hooks inside hung a tiny set of black leather panties, corset, and stockings.
"Why? In the name of Celestia, why?"
"More confiscated items," Redheart said. "That was actually from this morning and we haven't had time to dispose of it yet."
"Why do you have an outfit from a dominatrix midget?"
"We got called to Town Hall this morning," Redheart said. "Turns out it was the monthly chess tournament."
"Also, we don't say 'midget' anymore, they're 'little ponies'," Fire Axe snapped. "And we don't say 'dominatrix' anymore, we say 'confidence-assertive sex worker'."
"Some of my best friends are confidence-assertive sex workers." Fleur's ears went flat. "We're all Celestia's little ponies."
Crowbar looked up at Fleur and whispered, "Well, some are littler than the others…"
"Yeah," Fire Axe conceded, holding a hoof about foal-high off the ground, "but midgets are now little little ponies."
Redheart continued, "Mister Waddle—he's the oldest pony in town—suffered a coronary at his chess board."
"Surely you don't expect me to believe that an elderly stallion was dressed like a midget confidence-assertive sex worker?"
"Nah," Fire Axe said. "He's got his own outfits. After the Temple defrocked him on account of the funeral incident, he kept his vestments." Fire Axe shuddered. “See, last month at the nursing home, bingo night went a bit too hard and—”
"We aren't allowed to talk about that until the police close their investigation," Crowbar reminded her.
"Anyway!" Redheart shook her head, gesturing at the tiny leather outfit. "He had the infarction because his opponent was wearing that."
"His… opponent?"
"Filly at Twilight's school, small and pink, very irritating, has a chess cutie mark," Redheart said. "We confiscated the outfit because she was using it to distract the other players."
Crowbar frowned. "Mark my words: that filly's going to be trouble."
"In the final match," Redheart continued, "she played Braeburn. She resigned on move fifteen and swore vengeance. Her distractions were… ineffective."
Fleur ripped her scroll off the clipboard and crumpled it up. Her aura turned black with anger, the scroll catching on fire and burning to powdery ash. The two fireponies pawed at the ground.
Fleur opened the last cabinet, marked Sterilizing.
"Well, finally! Something that's correct." It was a two-gallon glass carboy of alcohol. She cracked the spigot open just enough to get a drop onto her hoof and sniffed it. "Wait! That is not rubbing alcohol."
Fleur delicately licked the drop. "That's ethanol."
"Vodka, technically," Redheart said, and produced four red plastic party cups, filling them from the spigot. "Given all the crazy we deal with in this town, after any callout, we need to unwind."
Fire Axe, Crowbar, and Redheart each sipped from their cup. Redheart offered the fourth to Fleur.
Fleur looked around the ambulance: at the lead shot-filled socks, at the yak hedge trimmer, at the Thunderlane removal crowbar, at the pint-sized outfit befitting a pocket dominatrix, and at the locked drawer containing the unknown abomination.
Fleur took a large drink and coughed, her eyes clenching and ears trembling. "I'm going to give you all a passing grade. I'm keeping these—" she levitated up the pliers earmarked for Spoiled Rich's rod and put them in her saddlebag "—so that next year, I can shove this inspection up Raven's ass."
Author's Note
Thanks to various people in various Discords for idea bouncing.
