//------------------------------// // Subject 231: Doctor's Orders // Story: Interviews With Equestrians // by Jmaster49 //------------------------------// “Son, are you serious?” Redheart asked me once more, “Are you absolutely sure that’s who it is?” I nodded ever so slightly. “Yeah...I’m positive. Screwy’s been resurrected as a demonic entity against her will. We need to put an end to her.” “What I’m concerned about is the fact that she somehow ended up in Tartarus to begin with,” the doctor mare replied with a shudder. “Yeech...I can’t imagine what she must have done to end up there. But…” she bit her lip, and turned her head away for a second. To be honest, I couldn’t blame her for the hesitation. Screwy was one of her patients after all. Demon or no, it was--well--I could see it for myself. The way her hooves wobbled, her tail flicked, and how her eyes darted from side to side as if the answer to the problem would appear to her from the ground somewhere. This completely betrayed Red’s sense of calm, collected professionalism when in the office and ER. I had never seen her nervous before...ever. The corrupted Screwy took a step closer to us, to which Redheart responded with a step backwards. “No...I failed her. This is my fault,” the white mare swore to herself as she backed away with her tail between her legs, “If only I had taken better care of her, then none of this would have happened.” There was no time for this. We needed to accept our fears in order to overcome them. “Ma’am, with all due respect--we have to be strong. No amount of tears will rewind the past.” My words didn’t land. At least not right away. Screwy must have figured out that she had sway over the doctor, and continued to trot in a slow, threatening gait right past me and towards her instead. Her eyes throbbed with a sense of regret, as if she wanted to be put down... “But I...if I’ve failed someone like this, then what good am I?” Redheart mumbled as she stepped further and further back. “Do I really deserve this title if somepony I tried to save landed in the worst plane of existence. This has never happened before. How would you feel, Pale?” Touche. Touche indeed. So much so, that I could actually empathize with her there. The justice system wasn’t perfect. As a result, there were many, many individuals who were either convicted wrongly or too harshly for what they had committed. So I knew exactly how she felt. But I didn’t act. At least, not yet. I stood by because I wanted Redheart to comprehend the weight of what she had that came after her. “I’ve been there. Trust me. But you can’t let it overtake you. You have to accept that this world is cruel and unfair. But we do our best to press forward anyway. Don’t fall into that trap. You’re a professional!” The resurrected Screwy never ceased her approach on Redheart. I could see the twitch of pain on the doctor’s visage. She could not lift a hoof against a patient no matter who they were. “I…” Or so I thought. ZOOM! In a flash, Screwy moved fast enough to leave a trail of reddish gray behind her and struck Redheart before either of us could react. “AGH!” ZIP! BAM! POW! Again, and again. Blow after blow, Redheart stumbled with bruises that started to appear on her face from the severity of the attacks. But she didn’t do a single thing to retaliate! I had to snap her out of it somehow I...no. This was something she needed to do for herself. As much as I wanted to get involved, I knew deep down that conflicts such as these could only be permanently solved by the ones who ran away from them. “Grrr…” I grit my teeth and waited in silence. Screwy was about to charge and attack Redheart for a sixth time, until… SMACK! “...!” she stood on her hind legs--firmly planted into the ground, and had a hoof raised to grab ahold of Screwy’s, which stopped the demonic mare in her tracks. Both mares struggled against each other with their limbs in a tight deadlock. “...Hggh...I...I can feel her pain,” the doctor strained to spit out, “She--she doesn’t wanna live anymore. All she feels is pain and has the voice of Grogar telling her what to do. It...this is sickening…” I saw a tear fall from her face and hit the ground beneath her. “So...as a medical professional--no, as a fellow pony--I’m going to grant her the release she wants…” The struggle between the two was palpable. I watched Redheart struggle against the force that Screwy applied to her hoof. As a fellow earth pony, I knew the doctor of a mare was durable enough to carry out what she needed to do. That is...until I heard the sound of the bones in her leg slowly break. “GAH! Huff...ow...she’s gotten strong…” I took a step forward. “Ma’am?!” With her free hoof, she waved at me to order me to stay back. “...I-I got th-this, kid,” she sputtered with an increased amount of strain compared to before, “This is m-my patient. I need to give her a p-proper sendoff...RRGH!” The blood vessels on her head started to become visible--threatening to pop from the amount of strength she had to apply just to keep up. Screwy didn’t waver at all. She was nothing more than a mindless husk that had to follow the will of the being that brought her back. And yet, to Redheart, this was a living being that she had failed. A patient that she hesitated to fight back against, but ultimately had no choice to. Enemy or not, Grogar was intelligent. This was not going to be an easy battle the rest of the way. At last, after so much back-and-forth, Redheart mustered up the power to end it. “YAAA!” With a visceral scream, Redheart pulled out a syringe with a needle so thick that it could be classified as a dagger. She reeled back, and stabbed it right into the neck of the corrupted mare just in time before her entire shoulder was dislocated. “Urgh…” She backed away… The syringe was filled with some sort of blue liquid that slowly made its way into Screwy’s body. Bit by bit, her body started to shut down in various places until her eyes were no longer visible. With a thud, she hit the ground like a ragdoll. I took a moment to see if I could feel anything, and… “...her aura is gone. She’s passed.” Redheart was already hard at work making a splint for her left hoof. She pulled on the bandage wrap with her teeth until she heard her bones crack back into place. “SHIT! Dammit...that was unexpected. Ptoo...” She spat it out, and turned to look at me, “You okay, kid?” “...Yeah but what about you?” I pointed to her limb. “Don’t worry about me,” she commanded, “I’ve got a lot of things to deal with here. You and your wife need to go check around the rest of the town. I’ll be fine here. My friends will be here soon to help me out the rest of the way. We're all in this together, you hear?” With that in mind, I couldn’t refuse her orders. “Yes ma’am,” I replied, and went back to the front of the hospital. That’s where Cheerilee had already stacked up a dozen demon corpses in a pile. She was fairly bruised, but not even close to being tired. “Hmph...thought they’d be harder. Guess the elite ones come later,” she mumbled with a flick of her tail to get rid of the sweat on her body. Yup. She was perfect.