//------------------------------//
// 89 - Emergency Recall 
// Story: Perchance to Dream 
// by David Silver 
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A faint musical beat made all the ponies present perk their ears. Tod shook his head quickly. "That's my phone. I left it outside."

Starlight sighed as she turned to my unconscious form. "Let's focus on the present. We'll be making a phone call soon, but now is not it. Trixie, time for some precision magic."

"I can do precise." Trixie gave a prim nod as she circled around be to be opposite of Starlight. "Where are we sending her?"

"One step at a time. Let's just get her on the ground just above us, nothing fancy. We can move from there." Starlight reached out and set a hoof just barely on my chest. "We're on the case."

Night crept towards the exit of the cave. "I'll wait above and let you know if everything works right, or not."

Tod was after her quickly. "I'll help," he piped, though how he planned to help, I couldn't say.

Neither Starlight or Trixie stopped him. They faced each other and their horns lit up with magic. That magic wrapped around my unfeeling form in two competing colors that slowly fell into harmony, flowing smoothly around one another instead of butting and wrestling. "Just above, still laying on the ground," instructed Starlight. "Let's make this smooth."

"Trixie was born ready for smooth magic." She wore a cocky smile and sat up as tall as the limited headspace allowed. "She is ready when you are."

"On the count of three..."





"That was quite the tale, darling." Rarity walked beside me. We were both clean, groomed, and thoroughly worked over. "I can't even imagine it. The not knowing part, certainly the worst. I mean, one way or the other, you could do something, but right here, in the center." She tapped a chin as her eyes wandered over the city. "I'm afraid this goes beyond my usual means of coping, so I'll just ask: What is it you'd like to do?"

I felt air escaping my lips in a silent sigh. "Rarity, I appreciate it, I do! That was nice, what we just had, but your company was especially comforting. Thank you, for letting me just be... me, whatever 'me' happens to be, which even I'm not sure of right now. Right now, I'm True Shot." I nodded with building certainty. "Right now. I may not be in the future, or I might just snap out of it right--"

"--Darling..." She pointed down at my hooves with a trembling limb.

I looked down and saw stone running up rapidly along my legs and tensed. "Am I waking up?! Did I finish dying?!" My heart thundered violently in my chest. I was facing possible death and I was freaking out. "What's going on?!" I mean, what was I hoping? Rarity couldn't know, but that didn't stop me from freaking out.

The stone's progress cared little for my worry. The beating of my heart suddenly died in my ears as my chest was cast in stone. "Help me," I got out in a pathetic mewl before I was completely taken.





My form vanished under the combined efforts of Trixie and Starlight. In front of Night and Tod's eager eyes, I appeared. I was not placed gently on the ground as planned. I was an inch above it. Gravity was not to be denied, and soon that inch vanished. My form limply hit the ground, going somewhere between a mile an hour or two. Were I healthy, it would have been reason to go 'Oof' and little more.

Tender systems protested the treatment as loudly as they could. I was dragged free of the pony world. I was awake, if only barely. Everything was dark. I still couldn't open my eyes. I couldn't talk. It was that nightmare all over again. There was a vital difference. I could  hear, and there were things to hear.

I heard two sets of hooves approach. Hooves were good, right? I tried to hold onto that idea. Hooves were good. If there were hooves, I couldn't be in that bad of a place.

"Aw man, Linnie..." Was that Tod? Why did I hear hooves and then Tod?

I felt something furry nudge at one of my arms. I wanted to react. I must have, because I heard a gasp, a female gasp. "She's alive," spoke a new voice. "Thank Celestia. This is more movement than I've--"

I didn't hear the rest of it. As the aches and pains of the small drop began to level out, my mind sank back into the dark depths. My body was not ready to have a mind occupying it just yet, so it tucked me in to rest, and I was gone.

While I might have gone away, my body was still there. Night carefully arranged me into a more comfortable position as Trixie and Starlight emerged from the hole and trotted over to rejoin them. Tod wheeled on them with the biggest, possibly cutest, when I imagine what an angry pouty little stallion-colt would look like, face. "You were supposed to do it gently!"

Starlight strode right past him, towards Night. "How is she?"

Tod only became more angry for being ignored, but faced Trixie instead of Starlight. "What happened?!"

Trixie held up a hoof at him. "We did the best we could. Trixie is certain she did her part perfectly." She flipped her hair. "Regardless, the task is complete. Linda is here. We need only signal for help and see that she is picked up by proper human doctors and we've done what we set out to do."

Night waved at her. "She received a shock from being dropped. Thankfully it was... a relatively minor one, and she's already passed out. I hope it wasn't overly painful for her. I don't have anesthetics on me... How do we get help?"

Starlight turned to where she had left her clothes. "I have that one handled. She plucked out my phone from her pocket and pulled it through the air over to herself. "Ta da! With this, we can call anyone we want and talk to them as if they were standing right next to us. No magic, pfft, humans are crazy."

Tod noticed what Starlight was doing and perked an ear at her. "Do you even know the right number to call?"

"Wouldn't it be in her..." She began scrolling wildly through my contacts. Strangely, I had none called 'Doctor' or 'Hospital' I didn't often need to talk with either such entity. "Huh..."

Tod rolled his eyes. "Good thing you brought me." He marched right up to the floating phone and... "I don't have fingers..." Not that he didn't try to work it with his new hooves, but the touch screen proved quite awkward to work with them. "Alright, fine, just click that." He pointed to the dialer. "Now 9. 1. 1. Then this." He pointed to the green call button. "Let me do the talking."

Starlight did as she was bid, calling emergency services. "I hope you know what you're doing." Still, she had enough trust to go that far, and go quiet.

"911. What is your emergency?" asked a male voice from the phone.

"Hello. I found my aunt and she's unconscious and looking really bad. I'm calling on her phone. Can you please send help?"

"Stay calm, I'll send help right away. Can you tell me where you are?"

Tod listed the beach they had started from. "But we've walked a good way away from that. We're in some trees. I think she needs an ambulance really bad. She's pale. Breathing, had a pulse, but not good, please."

"We'll be there as soon as we can. Please stay on the line until emergency technicians arrive. Is she having any trouble breathing? Is she bleeding?"

Tod looked me over quickly. "We've bandaged up the bleeding, so she isn't anymore, but she was." He looked at the other ponies for help, but they just kinda shrugged. 

Night stepped forward. "Excuse me, I'm a trained nurse."

"That's great," said the operator with obvious relief. "Can you give me a full report on her condition? Is she stable?"

Night began speaking in the language that mostly only other medical professionals know. "She is stable," was the one part that was obvious and important. "She is still in dire condition."

"I'm glad you're there. Kid?"

"My name's Tod."

"Hello, Tod. Your aunt will be just fine. You're in luck, having a nurse on the scene so quickly. ETA is four minutes. Just stay calm, keep her warm and stationary, and we'll get her to a hospital for treatment."

"Thanks..." He backpedaled away from the phone. "We can't say hello to them as a bunch of ponies," he whispered harshly at the others. "I mean, I wouldn't mind showing this off to some people, but random ambulance drivers, nah."

Trixie cancelled her spell with barely a flash. Tod was suddenly a boy, his fur falling out and fingers returning. He was a teen on all fours, rapidly turning red. "Give me a warning!" He scrambled for his clothes and struggled to get them back on as quickly as possible.

"Is everything alright?" asked the operator on the phone.

Trixie, stifling her giggles, nodded at the phone even if it wasn't watching her. "Oh, yes, everything is under control."

Night took the phone from the air, held in her hooves as she circled me and sat down with it. "I'm here and will stay with you until help arrives."

With the phone out of easy listening distance, Trixie and Starlight nodded to one another before they began to work their magic, becoming their more rounded human forms under the glittering blanket of their arcane power. Poor Tod got a fresh round of blushing as he witnesses two naked and attractive females come into being. Then again, maybe poor is the wrong word to use. He was a teenaged male. He might have liked the show, but he had the decency to spin around and face the other way until Starlight put a hand on his shoulder and told him it was alright.

He turned back around, nervously chuckling. "Alright, so... about her?" He hiked a thumb at the earth pony that remained. "She can't just... you know."

Trixie shrugged her shoulders. "Well, since only one of us has the common sense to keep her horn, that falls on Trixie to make happen." She wriggled her fingers. "Behold!"

"Wait!" Starlight's cry went unheard as Trixie worked her magic over Night. Night, not expecting it, gave quite a squeal as her body began moving in ways she had never known before. It was slow and painful as Night struggled against it, bones popping one by one as if they were made of stubborn legos instead of the smooth transitions that had happened when the target knew what was going on and at least tried to relax through it.

Night was, at the end, sprawled across the ground, crying softly. She was also human, but she was far from a happy one.

"What's going on?" asked the operator who likely heard the most terrifying things over the line. "Anyone there?"

"Jesus fucking christ..." Tod moved to snatch the phone off the ground. "Everything's alright, mostly."

"Hello, Tod. Can you put the nurse back on the line? Is she alright?"

Tod glanced at the shivering and disheveled form of Night. "She needs a bit of a break... How can I help?"

Starlight shot her friend a glare before sinking down beside Night. "I'm sorry about that. We need to get you dressed. Humans get very particular about naked humans for whatever reason."

Night pushed up, laying on her side, propped up on an elbow and breathing heavily. "Never... ever do that again..." Her eyes fell towards the arm that was propping her up and she rolled up into a position more similar to a pony on their haunches than a human sitting down. "Oh... You really did it." She lifted a hand and turned it slowly in the air, her fingers curling and uncurling a little spastically. "Unicorns are terrifying at times..."