//------------------------------//
// Chapter 3 
// Story: Bells Bring The End of  War 
// by Lamasioux 
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By Celestia’s wrath, would Bell be mad. His dreamless sleep was just interrupted. 
 
It was the first proper rest he had gotten since everything happened. His otherworldly spider web experience had lingered at the back of his mind while he had been awake, plus the massive pain he had been in while awake as well, but at least somecreature watched over him during that sleep to allow him to rest. Maybe it had been Luna, or maybe he had just been lucky. 
 
Speaking of his headache, it was the first thing he noticed that made him realize he was awake again. The next thing he noticed was his muzzle where it normally was, half his vision blocked by the sheets on the bed and the blaring light on the ceiling above. 
 
The lights didn’t help him, as after slowly opening his one eye that wasn’t pressed into the bed, he would quickly shut it again and tried to push his face into the covers so they wrapped around his face and blocked out the light, but he was only interrupted again when he felt something poke against his side. 
 
He took a deep breath in before relaxing his lungs before wiggling his head a bit to uncover his face from the sheets and lifted his head a bit so he could look around, to try and find whatever it was that was poking him. 
 
The first place Bell looked at had unfortunately been the windows at the end of the room where light still came in, which shortly blinded him from his dilated pupils. It caused him to heavily squint his eyes and quickly look away as his eyes stung a bit from the brightness. 
 
As his eyes slowly dilated again to the darker side of the room, the shape of a pony began to form, until finally, he saw them standing before him on the left side of the bed who then smiled at him, or frowned? Or was their mouth moving in a squiggly shape? He couldn’t tell as everything he saw was just blurry. 
 
When he realized he couldn’t see them properly, he brought up a hoof and rubbed his eyes a bit. 
 
While he rubbed his eyes, he heard his hearing pick up on the words, “-rry for waki– you, but – have lunch prepared now.”  
 
Bell finally put his hoof back down and could finally see properly and noticed the pony before him again. Though the pony had turned away and made their way back to the center of the room where a cart was. 
 
As Bell watched the mare, he realized that it wasn’t as draining to keep himself up as before. The biggest thing that kept trying to force him to lay down was his headache but even that was a bit better. Maybe sitting up helped more than laying down.  
 
The mare finally returned to him after getting a tray from the cart and bringing it to Bell by carrying it in their mouth, and when they got back to him, the mare placed it on the side of his bed and said, “--told to make sure – wake you for lunch especially, they said you haven’t eat– in the day you’ve been here yet so h–ou go.” 
 
Bell could finally see that the pony wasn’t Metal Master or Golden Colt, but a new pony, a mare.They wore a white cap on their head that looked like it wasn’t properly centered, while their body was covered in a white lab coat. At least it looked like a lab coat. He didn’t know the difference between clothing types. 
 
The mare then spoke up and said, “The meal today is apple --am toast and a cucumber sandwich with a cup of black coff–.” 
 
Bell looked down at the tray that held the mentioned meal and looked at it for a moment before looking up at the mare and processed what to say. He noticed that he had been having a somewhat hard time understanding her, so he wasn’t sure if he had missed something. 
 
“Uhmm,” Bell looked around the tray before looking back up at the mare, “What about water?” 
 
The mare held back a small smile before pointing past him with a hoof at the table that was next to him, where his glass of water still remained. It was still just as full as it had been when it was poured. 
 
Bell followed her hoof and then noticed the glass said, “Oh.” before turning to look back at the mare. He dipped his head a bit at the embarrassment of the question now but smiled while he gazed at the tray of food and said, “Thanks.” 
 
The mare nodded their head in reply before turning around to leave. As she left, he noticed that the pony in the bed to his left was also eating. The mare had distracted him from noticing. Before that pony caught his gaze, Bell quickly looked around at the rest of the ponies in the room and saw half of them had their meals, while the other half didn’t. One of the ponies on the other row was still asleep, but their tray of food was placed atop the table that was beside their bed. 
 
Bell then looked to his right and saw that Golden didn’t have a tray of food themselves, but the mare that had given him his food quickly trotted up to her with another tray in their mouth and mouthed it over to Golden, who gladly accepted it. 
 
Bell’s attention was quickly caught off guard though when the pony to his left spoke up and said with a muffled voice, “--eat the food now if I were you. The toast is best while the coffee’s – hot.” 
 
Bell looked at the pony now and looked them over for a second before he turned to look at the tray on his bed and saw that the coffee was indeed steaming from its temperature, but for a moment, he questioned why he would eat the toast with coffee, but before he could go further into that thought, the same pony spoke up, “Everypony h– thinks I’m weird for liking toast and coffee, but you– see.” 
 
Bell couldn’t tell if the headache was messing with his hearing or it was something the pony was doing, so he was about to speak up when he noticed that the papers that Metal Master had given him still lay on his bed. The papers distracted him long enough that his mind surged on the headache and the question he planned to ask was forgotten. 
 
After spending a few seconds of fighting the headache into submission, he heard Golden speak up and say, “You alright there Bell?” 
 
Bell shook the worst of the headache away when he heard Golden speak up and looked over at her and said, “Just fighting a headache for a moment.” He then looked back at the tray of food that was before him. While he considered taking into consideration what he thought the other pony had said, he had picked up one of the pieces of toast with a hoof and naturally went to pick up the papers with his magic to look at them.  
 
He had never been good with using telekinesis magic on multiple objects and always preferred using his magic to hold a book over food, so by the time he would’ve had the papers up to his eye-level, he felt a jolt surge through himself. 
 
Bell shrunk his head into his neck and tilted it sideways while squishing his face in pain. His entire body spasmed from the jolt and it shook the entire bed, along with the tray of food, which resulted in some of the coffee from the cup shaking and spilling out onto the tray. 
 
Bell’s mouth shot open as small gasps of air slowly came out of him before he finally started to breathe shakenly. 
 
He slowly started to recover his head, untilting and unsquishing his face. His headache wasn’t a problem though, it was the feeling of all his magic slowly creeping its way up his spine, through his head and towards his horn where it then slowly dissipated. It felt as if a big blot clot had been pulled from his nose, except it had been his magic through his horn. Nothing happened though. 
 
The initial pain shock still surged through his body and by the time he was able to figure out what had truly happen, Metal Master was right there next to him, standing to the right of him, holding him down again, or up. He was making sure Bell didn’t fall over. Fast at least. Metal had slowly started to lower Bell’s head onto the bed. 
 
Metal was then quickly joined by another pony, a unicorn that Bell hadn’t seen yet and as the new unicorn situated themselves before him, he felt some magic wash over him. He wasn’t sure what it was though. 
 
While the unicorn finished up whatever spell they were using, Metal just looked at Bell with a bored face, while the unicorn looked over Bell with slight concern as they finished their spell. Bell himself saw the two now staring at him with their looks and took a deep breath and smiled at them. 
 
“I did it again, didn't I?” He said as he slowly dug his head into the sheets, trying to hide from their stares when their expressions didn’t change. 
 
One of the ponies answered but Bell couldn’t hear them as whatever they said was all washed out. He didn’t know if whatever they were saying was important, so he just shook his head to the best of his ability and answered, “No.” through the sheets. 
 
After hearing the washed out sounds of voices slowly dry out, he finally heard, “-ikly just shock from the pain.” 
 
“Like I said, I did it again…” Bell whispered. 
 
As Bell spoke, he slowly started to feel his strength come back and he slowly sat up and looked at the two ponies staring at him. 
 
“Listen, Bell,” the unicorn said as they saw Bell come to, he didn’t waste any time to get to the point, “We normally try to give unicorns a chance, since most don’t like this option, but a second time in one day is to many, we can only worry so many times. We need you to get better.” 
 
Bell watched as the unicorn turned away and looked at something that was on the ground and used some magic to levitate up a small device before they turned back to Bell and said, “It’s only for your help while you’re here at the hospital.” 
 
Bell saw as the object was brought over to him and landed beside him on the bed and the unicorn pointed at the object with their hoof, “Do you know what that device is?” It was a ring-like object. 
 
Bell knew what the device was when he first saw it, but tried to deny it for a moment, as he only ever viewed them as things prisoners received, but he could only slowly nod his head in reply while looking down at the device now.  
 
The unicorn saw his look and added, “I just want you to know, it won’t be stuck on you. You can remove it whenever you want, but- And a big but- It’s for your own good, so we do recommend you keep it on. Like I said, we don’t like to use them.” The unicorn then gently poked the device with their hoof so it got closer to Bell, “It’s easy to put on, just slide it down your horn until it feels secure. We let the patients do it- We just think it’s, ehhh, better for you too.” 
 
Bell’s lip quivered a bit, he didn’t seem that interested in the idea but something nudged the back of his head, his headache it seemed like, and it made him almost reach for the object with magic again, but he quickly halted that idea after realizing what kind of a mistake it would bring. Bell looked up at the unicorn and quickly made sure they hadn’t caught onto what he had almost done before looking back at the device and said, “Ok…” 
 
Slowly, Bell reached out to the device with both his hooves and picked the device up. It was a magic suppression ring and it would limit his ability to use magic, entirely. He knew that it couldn’t stop powerful spells, but unicorns that could power through the suppression were too far and few between to be a worry. Bell also hadn’t been that powerful of a unicorn in the first place anyways, not now or ever now though. 
 
He fumbled with the device a little bit with both hooves before he gave the unicorn before him a weak smile before he lifted the ring up and slowly slid it down his horn. It was the first time he felt his horn since everything happened. It hurt slightly when he finally put it on, not from the magic suppression, but just touching the horn. If it hadn’t been for his headache and the recent pain from trying to use magic a moment ago, it seemed like it would’ve hurt even more, but after a moment, he finally pulled the ring tightly down his horn and brought his hooves back down and looked down at them. 
 
It was weird though, he had trouble at first trying to slide it down as he was looking for the end, but it dwelled on Bell that it was gone, at least he thought it was. He couldn’t see his horn. Anymore. 
 
The next pony to speak was Metal, they had removed their hooves off of Bell awhile ago, as he had now turned and trotted past the unicorn saying, “If he’s alright then, I’ll leave him to you now.” 
 
The unicorn gave a single nod and said, “Alright. I’ll be checking on a few others while I’m here as well.” The unicorn then brought their attention back to Bell, who had looked up when the small exchange happened, “Well, besides your magic outbursts, you seem to be doing fine.” The unicorn then smiled and said, “I’m Doctor Pepper Mat. The doctor making sure everypony in this room heals up to the best of their abilities.” 
 
Bell stared at Pepper for a moment while he realized a few things, they could probably answer some of his questions, but a problem came up. He didn’t know what to say to Pepper at the moment. He still felt a bit off from his mistake but he decided to point at the sheets of paper on his bed and said, “What’s wrong with me? I haven’t looked at those yet.” 
 
Doctor Pepper leaned in a bit and looked at the papers that were on the bed, and hmmed to himself before saying, “Ahh- If I remember correctly, your horn was shot off and you were hit with some shrapnel to her back leg which required surgery to remove. I was one of the doctors yesterday to help with that.” 
 
Yesterday? It just dwelled on Bell at that comment that he didn’t actually know how long he had been out so he quickly asked, “Wait- How long- When did I get here?” 
 
“Ahh! Yes.” Pepper said, “Well,” the doctor quickly took the papers into his magic and shuffled through them, quickly skimming what he could, obviously trying to get the answer. He finally pulled the papers down and looked towards the exit of the room and said, “About thirty hours by now I’d say.” Pepper then quickly recognized the papers and put them back on the bed where they had been, “You were quickly driven here by truck with another pony from the hive town you were at, you were unconscious when you arrived, your leg had a quick patch to it to keep bleeding down, and we brought you in to do our stuff, that’s when we did a quick surgery to remove the bit of shrapnel from your leg. The rest of the time was you here in the room resting. I assume the drugs wore off which is why you woke up finally. You were pumped full of them to keep you from waking up for surgery, plus your horn. It’s hard to know how some unicorns react to the pain of losing their horns, even when knocked out.” 
 
Bell just sat there and listened to him. Doctor Pepper had obviously just read the sheets of paper, and they probably had all the answers to the questions he wanted to ask but he wasn’t much for reading in the first place, “So-” He tried to quickly think of the first question to ask, he dwelled on asking about who the other pony was but he decided on asking, “What about earlier then? When I was awake?” 
 
“Earlier? I don’t know, I would say–” Pepper was saying but they were interrupted. 
 
“That was about thirty minutes ago- It was right before Metal went off to make sure lunch was coming.” Golden said from her bed. She quickly pushed her coffee cup up to her lips and took a sip after answering, and once she had her short fill of coffee, she pulled the cup down and smiled at Bell, showing off her coffee-stained lip, which she quickly licked away. 
 
Pepper looked back at Golden and said, “Thank you.” before he turned back to Bell and said, “So thirty minutes ago, as she said.” He then watched Bell for a moment before he looked back towards the clock and added, “So, I know you haven’t been conscious for a while, but I can answer a few more questions before I have to check on some others.” 
 
It took Bell a moment to register what he could ask in the short time he assumed he still had with the doctor and only two important questions came to mind in that moment, “Oh!” he looked a bit frantic as his mind raced between the two on which to ask first. His hoof made the decision and reached down and touched his bed, which also brought his gaze along with it and he asked, “My beds a bit damp- You wouldn’t happen to know why?” 
 
Doctor Pepper looked at the bed and then brought up a hoof and felt part of the sheets and then looked a bit confused for a moment before saying, “It’s probably just from you sweating. Not a problem, though it’s probably not comfortable now that you’re awake.” Pepper dwelled on that thought for a second before saying, “I can ask the ponies that do the laundry if they could change your sheets later today when you all get to go outside for a bit.”  
 
Right when Pepepr finished, Bell took the initiative and asked his next question without hesitation, “And my left ear, it’s all- Wonky? I think? It’s harder to hear stuff from that side.” 
 
The doctor looked up at Bell and curiously watched him before saying, “Well, it’s probably either two things, one, your head’s going to be all ‘wonky’ for a while from losing your horn, or if what the report on the papers say, it’s from the grenade you were near.” He cleared his throat and looked down at the papers again before frowning, “If it’s the latter, then your hearing is– Well, most likely gone in that ear. There’s some creatures who say they get some of it back, but there’s been no research on such topics.” He then gave Bell a half smile and finished his comments off with, “Either way, it’s not something we can help with.” 
 
Bell held his composure for a moment but it slowly broke and he became defeated at the news before simply nodding and whispering, “Oh…” 
 
Pepper pushed his lips together and sighed. He then turned around, picked up his bag that was on the ground with magic and then turned back to Bell and said, “Sorry about the lack of bedside manners, but we see too much to keep up with it. Of everything- So, sorry.” He then turned away and left after realizing Bell wouldn’t be asking anything else, leaving him to his own. 
 
“It’s alright, you still got your right ear, and guess who’s to your right!” Golden blurted out after the doctor had left. 
 
Bell ignored Golden for a moment as he reached up with a hoof and rubbed his left ear, though he didn't know what it would do, the surge of his headache upon touching his head wasn’t what he thought would happen, so he quickly lowered his hoof and waited for the surge to pass before he finally looked at his tray of food and saw that the coffee had spilled a bit from his reaction earlier. 
 
The mess didn’t bother him, it was contained to the tray, but he was hungry so he reached back for the apple jam toast that he had picked up earlier, which had fallen from his hoof, into the small coffee spill and said, “I would like to just eat in quiet Golden.” Bell said. 
 
Golden had been smiling at Bell, but she noticed Bell wasn’t looking anyways so she slowly lost it before replying, “I know, the first meal after waking up is always a weird one, you’ll have more energy afterwards.” After saying that, she didn’t speak up again and left Bell to his thing. 
 
Bell sat for a moment as he held the toast, soaking up the quietness, or what was of it as there were still ponies around the room talking to each other, but at least it wasn’t directed to him, so after waiting a second to long, he finally brought the toast up and took a bite out of it. 
 
The bread melted in his mouth, leaving behind the texture and taste of apple jam, along with a hint of coffee that the bread had soaked up from the spill.