An Inner Desire

Four Days later, in the Clinic.

Francis had reached the balance : he wasn't anymore attacked by that pesky stalkers, and his experiment on Scootaloo polished his reputation among the community : he was considered now a “Crazy Doc”, not a full-made psycho.

The situation seemed going forever, and Francis though that, after all, living in the dream wasn't bad,  so he didn't looked anymore for a solution for getting off, but soon the situation was going to change : meanwhile he was playing around with a pen, the emergency bell rang : Francis  dashed to the door, and saw who rang the bell : a light blue mare with a conical mane who was carrying a very little baby : the aforementioned baby was crying desperately, and his lip was badly bleeding.

In Francis's mind, the memoir of him suffering the same pain as the patient passed in his mind : him, as 1-year old, trying to follow his mother, only to fall, and lost awareness, and waking up in the Operation room, and seeing the ( at the time) scary faces of the surgeons, and losing again consciousness.

The Mind Stalkers screamed “YES ! The Cycle is going to start !”

“What cycle ?”

“You will eradicate that disturbing memoir and me... only by doing a similar thing to him !”

“But he will have my same mind problems !”

“In fact, I will only move from your mind to his”

“Monster ! You have no idea about how much hate you, and, honestly, thinking about the result of my action by your command makes me sick”

“It's bound to happen... you can't escape the Fate, as him cannot flee from the knife”

“Because I didn't tried to break the chains... you will see, freak, and trust in me, it's going to suck for you”

“Keep talking, weakling, you won't go anywhere”

That said, the Mind Stalkers vanished.

Francis returned to the situation, and asked :

“Alright, madam, what happened ?”

The mare talked with a trembling voice :

“My son fall on a iron spike... and the spike cut his lip. I tried to get off the spike from his lip, but it seems that worsened the whole thing...”

“Alright... give me some time, I need to take some equipment...”, then Francis ran in the Nurse Redheart's part, and looked for the compassionate mare: he looked in the waiting room; in the true clinic and so on, and finally found her in the underground part of the building.

“Nurse, do we have some strong psychopharmas for me ?”

“Yes... but are you sure the they are needed ? The after-effect is quite grave...”

“I don't care about the effect of running off ! Not only it's an emergency, but my split personality is determined to take over... and the normal psychos surely won't help !”

The white mare hissed of annoy and said :

“Alright, alright, what happened Francis ?”

“The situation is this: a mare has arrived, carrying her son, who is bleeding badly by a lip. The situation is the same that caused to me to get the split personality in the first place, and my mind stalkers, after offering me the freedom in exchange of the sanity of the foal, they decided that will have his blood, no matter what”

Nurse Redhearth lowered her eyes, went in a door labeled “Experiments” and took off a big red-glowing canister.

“This is the X-5HHJK molecule AKA “Bloodstopper” : this molecule stops all the emotive functions for the brain, causing to act like an alexanderpath”

Francis took the canister and spayed some of the molecule in his mouth carelessly, and said :

“Sorry, that was needed, now I must run !” and ran away.

When Francis arrived in the waiting room of the operation room, what he saw  was... weird : the baby wasn't crying anymore, and was playing with is his wound, causing more blood spilling, ignoring the mother that was trying to stop him from playing with the wound.

Francis thought to a hallucination, then remembered that maybe the  adrenaline was already pumped in, so was likely that the patient didn't felt anymore the pain...

Francis swiftly ran on the foal, took him, hooked up to the ECG ( now without a cry of fear by the little one)  and prepared himself to sew up the wound.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=5BRCI-Oqjak]

But, when Francis was going to place the first point of suture, the Mind Stalkers appeared, and their voice was very loud and powerful, they said :

“HERE THE FOAL DESTINED TO START A CYCLE OF PAIN, SOMETHING THAT WILL BE LOOKED UP BY NUMBERLESS PSYCHIATRIST AND NEVER UNDERSTAND, SOMETHING OF GREAT AND POWERFUL !”

The logical part :

“Freaks ! You are coming at the bad time : I'm ready to fight you face to face, and show to the world that I'm not a psycho, but only a man with a troubled past !”

“IT'S NOT TRUE ! YOU ARE ONLY A PITIFUL MEMOIR OF WHEN YOU WERE A STUPID KID THAT BELIVED TO THE FAIRIES ! A VOID SHEEL TO FULL WITH THE GLORIOUS BLOOD !”

“YOU are the empty shell, and you are the shell of a senseless hatred ! You are only a miserable pile of fanatical shit ! A bunch of bad spirits seeking young blood only for call in more ! But I have the weapons now : the emotions where my biggest problem in pest battles, but now I have a new ally : Bloodstopper, and soon I will operate without any emotion, only moved by the proportionality and the sense of duty !”

The ECG beeping was growing stronger and stronger, fastening the Francis's heart.

“Fool ! Your hubris will soon kill an innocent life ! He can keep living, if you decide to obey to me ! Choose : death or scarred life ?”

“Keep talking, so Bloodstopper will trash you”, and so it was : a otherworldly voice said :

“Bloodstopper stops weak emotions ! Bloodstopper kills mean  shadows !” and the Stalkers screamed of pain.

When Francis finally exited form the mental argument and took a look to the situation, he saw that all was on the edge : the blood was everywhere, the ECG beeped very fast and the baby was, naturally, crying.

Francis, now moved by Bloodstopper, started to sew slowly the lips, calming down the foal, who ignored the pain in his lips for watched the needle going in his flesh : when Francis finished, the foal clapped his hooves... and took with the magic the needle

“Don't !” said Francis to the foal: he tried to retake the needle, but the unicorn  reacted with an outburst that made Francis fall: nothing happened to Francis, but surely the foals wasn't going to do something safe with the needle... Francis got up, and saw  what was going on : the foal had placed the needle in the stomach, and he was, predictably, crying : in a normal situation, Francis was going to get off the needle and petting the foal, but because Bloodstopper caused the total annihilation of every emotion for twenty minutes, he simply got off the needle and took the baby in his arms, and when he reached the door, the foal launched the needle in the Francis's shoulder : the needle didn't damaged anything of important, but the pain was enough to make him drop the patient : the foal fall, and Francis could not do anything but watch him fall, only for then see if he was okay.

When the foal reached the ground, Francis went down to the floor, and tried to check if he was okay.. only to see that the effect of Bloodstopper ran out and see a blinding light,  hearing a voice saying :

“Congratulations, Francis, you have defeated your worst enemy.

What you saw wasn't a dream : it was another dimension altogether: I launched you in this dimension with a logic different from ours for see how you were going to react, and you amazed me : not only you stood sane when it was needed, you were a karmic regulator for that town, and, judging by what your patients say, you aren't scary in your methods , at difference from how you are considered on Earth.

But everything has a price : that foal died soon after your disappearing, but that didn't tarnished your reputation : they instead thought that the foal was too pure for that sinful life.”

Francis then woke up in his bed, with the clock saying “6 a.m.” : he got up, and saw something of strange on his night table...

“This is our gratitude” : a little album with the photos of the fillies and the foals encountered in his trip in that land.

Francis smiled, dressed up, and chose to keep that photos in his office, remembering the time when he was a legend among the underage ills and wounded.

At the Ponyville Cemetery

Youtube Video

The day was bright in terms of light, jarring with the events of the last few days in the Cakes family : Pound Cake died falling from the arms of Francis Da Prato, the only available surgeon that day : Nurse Redheart saw him disappearing while carrying the foal, but no one believed in her, and the majority thought that was an accident happened in the operation room, something along the lines “the surgeon tripped while carrying the foal, and the weight of the surgeon suffocated the foal”.

For the first time in years, Pinkie Pie was “sad” for the loss, but, considering her nature, it was likely that a sober funerary banquet was planned that day, and on the Pinkie's face there was still a weak smile.

Ms. Cakes was desperately crying, and Mr. Cakes was absent because he wanted to “explain” to Pumpkin Cake what happened to he brother, even if it was likely that Pumpkin cake wasn't going to understand the whole situation.

Pinkie Pie placed on of her hoof on the Ms. Cakes, and the pink pony said :

“He is gone... but this is the desire of the Fate... and nothing would reverse that... and the Fate was cruel enough to take him in his Life Spring... but at least it left him enough time to show to the world his personality : his joy de vivrue, his...”

“Enough, Pinkie... it was my fault for not begin enough careful... not enough protective...” when this words were said, a letter  flew in front of Ms. Cake : the letter had the CMC symbol on it, and on it it was wrote :

“For Ms. Cake”

Ms. Cake opened it, and read what was written in it :

“This is my last message, before I will left this place.

I, Francis Da Prato, killed accidentally killed Pound Cake after getting too much psychopharmas.

I'm certain that you are now crying on his tomb, sowing your grief for his death and thinking about the Fate that gives and take off things. The truth ? His death wasn't wanted by the Fate : I severed the chains of Fate, and stopped an endless cycle of blood and pain.

The explanation is simple, lady : my madness saw that the Pound's situation was eerily familiar to the one experienced by me when I had his age; and the split personality wanted his blood for creating a cycle who saw him cutting open other foals once adult, causing more disturbs in the foals and so on... that was wanted by the Fate, because my split personality has a link with the future.

But I didn't gave up, and decided to risk : I took a powerful medicine, and operated in safety.

But when he launched at me a needle, I lost the control of my arms, and dropped him : I was going to save him, but something sucked me off from here, and carried me back home.

I apologize for my act, but I hope that you understand that he didn' died for nothing.

Your Mad Medic.

Francis Da Prato”

Ms. Cake watched the letter, and her heart laughed : the death of his son wasn't totally a waste, a unuseful death, but a noble death for a cause.