//------------------------------// // The Second Opinion // Story: Disappear // by ShimmeringStallion //------------------------------// The Second Opinion Stepping into the room, Twilight noticed two things. First of all, Derpy seemed to be the only pony on a bed in the room, as if it was her room and hers alone. Secondly, Rainbow Dash was making things complicated for the doctors, shouting at them with unnecessary orders, and providing constant interference. Twilight was thankful that she came here with her friends; she might be in need of their assistance in calming her the rainbow-maned mare down. “Rainbow!” Rainbow Dash stopped shouting at the doctors and rushed over to the doorway, where Twilight and her friends had been standing. “Twilight, they aren’t doing anything to help her! They keep on talking about other things that aren’t related to Der-…” Twilight stopped her friend's ramblings with a raised hoof. “Rainbow, I know you care about Derpy, but don’t you think the doctors would be able to diagnose her, if they didn’t have to deal with you shouting at them?” Rainbow Dash felt hurt by Twilight’s words. They were blunt, but true. “I… I just want her to be okay… That’s not wrong, is it?” Twilight placed her hoof on her friend's shoulder. “No, Rainbow, but the doctors know what they’re doing. They can’t make a proper diagnosis if they can’t even tend to the patient. You know that.” Rainbow started pacing. “But I need to do something. I can’t just sit and do nothing, Twilight!” Twilight remembered the receptionist at the Hospital entrance. “The receptionist we spoke to in the lobby at the entrance said that you had made a promise to help the staff downstairs with a mess that you made. Maybe you should go there and help.” Rainbow stared with a look of concern, straight at Twilight. “But what if Derpy-...” Twilight interrupted her again. “If something happens, one of us will come get you. You have my word, as a friend.” Rainbow had tears in her eyes as she took a second to stare at the pained, unconscious face of her friend that lay on the bed behind her. With a huff, Rainbow Dash ran out of the room and through the halls, to the stairs. Rarity felt the need to speak up. “Twilight, she was just trying to help. You didn’t have to be so dismissive of the poor darling.” Twilight showed a look of concern and regret on her face, as she turned around. “I know that, Rarity, but right now we need to know as much about what happened as we can. And Rainbow Dash isn’t going to make it easy, if she interrupts the doctors as they try to figure things out.” Applejack nodded in agreement. “Give ‘er some time. She’ll come around. If she doesn’t, she’ll be back soon. Then we’ll talk about it with ‘er.” The others agreed, and turned their attention to the doctors. Pinkie Pie sniffed the air, and spoke up. “Does anypony else smell muffins?” Twilight dismissed the comment as unnecessary. “Not right now, Pinkie. We need to talk to the doctors and find out anything about what happened.” Fluttershy still seemed a bit shaken after having talked to the pony in the stairwell, so Rarity took her out to the hall in order to talk with her; the less ponies in the room, the less crowded it would be. Applejack walked up to a doctor that had been a victim of Rainbow Dash’s banter, leaving two other doctors to examine Derpy. “I could tell that my friend was causin’ a ruckus. Sorry ‘bout that. How is she, Doc?” The Doctor seemed grateful, but visibly distraught. “Thanks for the help, but we really don’t seem to be able to provide a diagnosis. We’ve never seen anything like this.” The doctor directed the mares’ attention to the patch on Derpy’s back. “This is all we have to show that she had wings in the past. The bones, the muscles, even the nerve clusters in her body that controlled the wings seem to have just… disappeared.” The doctor turned to the girls. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear she was just a regular Earth pony.” Twilight didn’t like the sound of that. “So you’re saying that her wings are just… gone? H-How is that possible?” The doctor turned his attention to the other two doctors in the room, who shrugged in response to his stare. “We really don’t have an answer right now, I’m sorry… if we had any sort of clue, maybe we could start a proper treatment.” As Rarity walked back into the room with Fluttershy, Twilight tried considering a possible cause. “What about a magic spell? Could that have caused this?” The doctor frowned. “I’m sorry, but it really is far too early to diagnose this. However, we think it was some sort of accident.” Fluttershy spoke up. “O-Oh my… I-It looks really bad. Could she be… contagious?” Fluttershy got behind Rarity, shivering in fear. The doctor raised his hoof and smiled. “Thankfully, we know that the black marks on her back aren’t the result of illness; it was the first thing we checked in case she would need to be submitted into isolation. Rather, it seems more likely that she was burned.” Pinkie Pie spoke up. “Is that what we’ve been smelling since we came in here? Derpy!? There’s something in this room that smells like muffins!” The doctor frowned again, but stared in confusion and looked around upon sniffing the air. “Outside food and drinks are meant to be inspected before being allowed in, and I’m certain it’s not Derpy, but… now that you mention it…” A voice rose up from inside the room. “… It appears that concealment is simply pointless.” From near the window of the room, a pony ‘uncloaked’ from seemingly out of nowhere, drawing the attention of everypony in the room. Once they looked, they were greeted to the manifestation of the very stallion that the mares had encountered before. The doctors moved away from Derpy, but Twilight and the others moved between the visitor and the unconscious, bed-ridden pony. However, the stallion stood firm in his spot. “Stand down, mares. I’m not here to cause trouble for the poor dear.” They didn’t move, but he walked forward anyways, looking at Derpy with gentle eyes. “… I’ve caused enough as it is.” The doctors were about to leave the room, until the stallion stopped them in their tracks. “Do not worry about the patient, dear doctors. I’ll be out in a moment… I just came to see my ‘work’.” Attempting to walk around them, the girls formed a wall out of their bodies, around Derpy’s bed. With the doctors now gone, the stallion stood in front of the doorway. “I presume you have several questions… right, my dear?” Pinkie Pie glared at him and stepped forward. “How’d you know that I was gonna ask you something?” The stallion tipped his hat slightly down, and grinned. “You had that look of impatience, like you had something to get off your fur-laden chest.” The stallion lay down on the cold hospital floor, seemingly relaxed. Pinkie Pie went up to him, and pushed her head right in front of his face, making him feel somewhat uncomfortable. “Why’d you do something bad, then get muffins for Derpy?” Twilight thought the question was meaningless, but Pinkie had a point, though the stallion whimsically stared into her eyes as he responded. “Is it wrong to feel regret when a test goes poorly?” Pinkie glared at the stallion, clearly unable to understand his response. “Tests? What do those have to do with Derpy? She’s not a teacher or anything!” The stallion smiled and waved his hoof dismissively, causing Pinkie to back up in order to give him a bit of space. “I am referring to ‘an attempt at something new’… a ‘trial’, so to speak. She was my first, after all…” Twilight stepped forward, as did the others, except for Fluttershy, who was trying to avoid the stallion’s stare by standing behind Applejack, as the lavender mare questioned the cryptic statement. “Your… first?” The stallion stood up slowly. “Yes, my first of what will be many. I confess that I was unfamiliar with this new power, which resulted in some rather deplorable errors being made on my part. With time, I’ll be able to reduce a lot of things: the time, the pain, and even the effects on the backs of the ponies.” Twilight motioned for the girls to get behind her, as if to defend them from something she was expecting. “… Y-You… you did this, didn’t you? The hat-wearing stallion sighed in dismay. “It’s about time I introduced myself. My name is Vanish." As the stallion spoke, he removed his hat with his hoof, causing the ponies to gasp in shock at what was hidden beneath it; this was no ordinary pony, nor an ordinary unicorn for he had not one, but two horns, both located on his head, one seeming rather misplaced and discolored compared to the other, though it was just to the right of the other horn, not that they could tell with the fedora he had been wearing. He gave a timid smirk as he bowed properly and continued speaking. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance.” From the hall, Rainbow Dash pressed herself against the wall outside the door as she peeked inside, to the image of the back of the dark, dark blue pony that was intimidating her friends inside the room with Derpy. She voiced her thoughts silently as she stared. “So, he’s the one responsible for what happened to Derpy... He's not getting away with this.” She glared at the smoke-colored mane concealing the back of the head of her target as she focused on him, planning to herself in her head. “I’m not letting him leave this hospital until he fixes her.”