The morning light coming from the clear skies created a fair bit of glare that reflected off of the freshly fallen snow and into Barrier eyes while various ponies around him swept up the snow.
The charcoal unicorn had decided to go for a nice little stroll that morning before he would have to begin his classes later that afternoon. As he drew close to Einar’s grocery store, he spotted one of his students stepping out with a bag full of things carried in her magical aura.
“Good morning, Punch,” Barrier called out, drawing the mare’s attention and a smile to her face.
“Good morning, Barrier!” Punch said as she rushed up to the unicorn stallion. “How are you doing?”
“Alright, all things considered.” Barrier casually shrugged his shoulders. “How about you?”
“Pretty good. I was just getting some paper towels, window cleaner, and some other stuff. I managed to get a—”
“Barrier! Over here!” A mare’s sudden exclamation made Barrier’s ears stand at attention while startling Punch, nearly making her drop her bag.
Turning his attention to the source of the voice, Barrier saw a very familiar violet mare with a pair of saddlebags approaching him, making a smile grace his features. “Good morning, Twilight. It’s a bit of a surprise to see you here.”
“Well, I was called in to help with an enchantment needed at the hospital. Apparently a bit of a food poisoning incident at an enchanters convention put a bunch of the professional enchanters out of commission, so here I am.” Twilight said before she gave Barrier a quick hug that he just as quickly returned.
“Oh, that’s unfortunate,” Barrier said as Twilight pulled back to face him.
“Well, I was hoping I could talk to you about something anyway,” Twilight said before she turned her attention to Fruity Punch, who oddly seemed rather frightened.
“Hello there.” The violet mare held out her foreleg to the mare that was sweating bullets. “I’m Twilight Sparkle and—”
“STAY THE TARTARUS AWAY FROM ME!” Punch exclaimed as she quickly backed away from Twilight, staring at her as if she were some kind of freakish abomination from her worst nightmares.
“Fruity Punch—” Barrier started.
“You’re that crazy mare that used a doll to brainwash Ponyville!” Punch shrieked as she pointed a trembling foreleg at the violet unicorn. Her sudden exclamations made the eyes of many passing ponies fall on her, with Twilight feeling as if a hundred sets of eyes were staring at her in judgement.
With a panicked scream, Punch turned and ran off, quickly turning a corner and disappearing from sight.
After Punch was out of sight, Barrier looked around the street and saw that while some ponies were nervously eyeing Twilight, others were either deliberately looking away or trying to get away as quickly as they could without drawing attention to themselves.
With a sigh, Barrier walked up to the crestfallen Twilight and slung a foreleg over her shoulder. “I’m sorry about that, Twilight. I didn’t expect Fruity Punch to react to you like that.”
Twilight tiredly sighed from within Barrier’s grasp. “Honestly, I wasn’t expecting the news about my little… breakdown to spread this far, but news travels pretty fast and far these days.” The violet unicorn glumly said as she tilted her head to hide her eyes with her bangs.
“Honestly, that’s the worst reaction I’ve gotten in a long time.” Twilight pulled away from Barrier’s grasp. “Most ponies are willing to let me shop at their stores again and it’s been three months since the library’s last been egged or had a brick tossed through the window.”
“You don’t deserve that sort of treatment, Twilight,” Barrier said, feeling a great deal of anger building up inside him for what had been done to his distant niece.
“Let’s… let’s just try to focus on something else,” Twilight said as she tried to sound a bit more chipper while turning to face Barrier. “Could you take me to Vanhoover General Hospital? This patient really needs some enchantments.”
“Of course.” Barrier moved ahead of the younger unicorn, making sure to keep a concerned eye on her from over his shoulders. “Out of curiosity, would these enchantments happen to be for a mare named Storm Cloud?”
A look of mild surprise appeared on the violet mare’s face. “Oh? You know her?”
“We’re acquainted,” Barrier replied as he turned his attention forward. “She’s part of a squad of privates that were injured in the Crystal Empire. Storm Cloud was recently outfitted with a prosthetic leg and I recall one of the doctors saying how they were planning on getting somepony to put grip and cloud walking spells on it.”
“Ah. I remember… all those injured guards in that basement.” Twilight briefly shuddered at the recollection of the many injured ponies seemingly resigned to meeting the reaper.
“I read the notes on this leg Dr. High Gear made. Hopefully this prototype can help many other ponies that need replacement limbs.”
“Hopefully. So, what was it you said you wanted to talk to me about?” Barrier inquired as he looked back over his shoulder to see Twilight with an uncomfortable look on her face.
“Well, it’s…” Twilight paused as she spotted something in the distance. “Oh, it’s the hospital. Do you think we should save this for after I take care of Storm Cloud?”
“Of course,” Barrier acquiesced, trying to mask his concern and curiosity about what she wanted to talk about. He wasn’t somepony that others readily sought out for a great many reasons.
***
In a matter of minutes, the pair of unicorns made their way to the fifth floor of the hospital. The floor was oddly quiet with only a few odd noises and indecipherable words being spoken in the distance as they made their way towards Storm Cloud’s room.
When they drew closer to the door, one particular voice became clear to the two.
“Audio log for patient Storm Cloud’s status.” Barrier recognized the voice of High Gear as the sounds of hooves and metal clopping against the floor rang out. “Day: Monday, March fourth. The tissue on the patient’s limb has healed up well with no signs of infection detected by either Dr. Rainbow Remedy or Dr. Apple Aday. Patient has been adjusting to the new limb rather well over the last four days.
“The next step: placing enchantments on the artificial limb that will disallow it to pass through clouds unintentionally and to extend the body’s natural magical field to allow her to grip things, much like a normal foreleg. I’m currently waiting for the enchanter to show up.” Barrier and Twilight reached the open doorway just as High Gear was finishing up the sentence she was speaking into her tape recorder. Inside the room alongside her was Dr. Remedy and Storm Cloud, the latter of which was pacing around the room.
“Excuse me,” Twilight spoke up, drawing the three mares’ attention to her. “I’m Twilight Sparkle. I’m here to handle Miss Storm Cloud’s enchantments.”
A light chuckle came from High Gear as she adjusted her glasses. “Speak of Tirek and who should appear?” The amber eyed mare said before she pressed the stop button on the recorder.
“Good morning, Miss Sparkle,” Dr. Remedy went up to Twilight, quickly grabbing and shaking one of her forelegs. “We really appreciate you coming all the way out here on such short notice.”
“Oh, it’s no problem. I already had plans to come here,” Twilight admitted as Remedy released her grip on her. She then turned her attention to the sky blue pegasus mare, her eyes briefly going down to her prosthetic leg. “Nice to meet you, Miss Storm Cloud. How have you been?”
“Other than going a little stir crazy being in here, not too bad. My friends have been bringing me decent food and despite the lack of feeling in this leg, it’s working pretty well. I like it a lot more than just having a stump.” Storm Cloud moved her left foreleg about, her movements were surprisingly fluid to the visiting unicorns. “Still, I wanna get this thing done and get out of here as soon as possible.”
“Right then. Let’s get to it.” Twilight’s horn began to sparkle with magenta light as Storm held the foreleg out towards her. A matching light soon appeared to cover the limb before it slowly crept up Storm Cloud’s body and covered her entirely. The pegasus began to look somewhat nervous as her entire body tingled and glowed. After nearly half a minute, the light faded away.
“Is… is it done?” Storm Cloud asked as she turned her foreleg towards her to look at it.
“It should be if I cast the spells properly,” Twilight replied as she looked the pegasus in the eye. “Try grabbing something with it.”
Briefly looking about the room, Storm Cloud’s eyes quickly fell upon a water pitcher that stood on the small cart. Rushing up to the cart, the pegasus slowly raised her mechanical foreleg up to the pitcher’s side and placed the artificial hoof upon the glass surface.
Cautiously, Storm Cloud raised her leg up, carrying the pitcher along with it.
An excited gasp came from the pegasus as she looked at the pitcher in her grasp. “I’m doing it! I can’t feel it, but I’m really doing it!” She happily exclaimed.
“Excellent. That means your body’s natural magic field has been extended to include your new foreleg.” Twilight smiled as she nodded with closed eyes. “Now all that’s left is to see if the cloud walking enchantment—”
The purple pony was suddenly interrupted by a rapid series of hoofsteps as Storm Cloud charged towards the window. Acting on impulse, Twilight’s horn flared as her magic lifted the window open.
“Thanks, Purple Curple!” Storm Cloud called out as she dived through the window.
“Oh Faust!” Twilight and the others in the room rushed to the window to see what Storm Cloud was doing. Sticking her head outside, she saw that the pitcher in Storm Cloud’s hooves was now empty while a cloud was in front of her.
A cocky smirk could be seen as she tossed the empty pitcher up into the air before giving the cloud a hard punch with her left foreleg.
An explosive boom echoed out as a bolt of lightning flashed and streaked through the air off into the distance.
“Still got it,” Storm Cloud said before the pitcher fell to eye level. She effortlessly caught it then flew back up to the window.
“Great job, Twilight. Now I can feel somewhat like my old self again.” Storm casually flew through the window and shoved the pitcher into High Gear’s forelegs. “Thanks to you too, Docs.”
“You’re welcome,” Gear replied in mild annoyance as she put the pitcher back on the cart. “We’ll still be keeping an eye on you for another two days before we let you go. And even then, we ask you to go easy on the new leg for a week or two.”
“No sweat, Doctor,” Storm Cloud dismissively said before standing up on her hindlegs and stretching out her forelegs and wings. “Well, I’m gonna hit the showers and get back to my reading.”
A few minutes later, the ponies in Storm Cloud’s room had walked out. Barrier stood closer to Twilight as they walked through the hospital’s corridors. “So, what is it you wanted to speak to me about?”
“Well, it’s about—” Twilight was interrupted by a loud grumble coming from her belly, making a hint of scarlet appear on her face. “Um… can we discuss this after lunch?”
***
Barrier and Twilight soon made their way to The Four D’s. Upon entering the restaurant, they saw Fruity Punch standing behind a podium in a waitress uniform consisting of a white button-up shirt, a black pleated skirt and a black bowtie.
Spotting the two unicorns, the pink unicorn nervously swallowed as her violet magic picked up two menus. “W-w-welcome to Delicious Dining Delights & Deli. C-can I serve you today?” Punch was unable to keep her voice from cracking.
“A table for two,” Barrier replied.
“Right.” With a wave or her hoof, Punch led the two over to a table in a back corner of the restaurant. Barrier was rather glad they’d managed to arrive before the lunch rush. There were only a few occupied tables in the section Punch was leading them to. “Can I get you anything to drink?”
“No, thank you.” Barrier turned his attention to Twilight as Punch placed a pair of menus on the table. “Twilight?”
“No thanks.” Twilight’s response made the pink pony nod.
“Right. I’ll give you a bit to pick out your orders while I take care of some of the other tables,” Punch said before quickly moving to another table. Barrier noticed that even when taking an order from another table, she was clearly keeping an eye on Twilight.
“I read a book on Delicious Dining Delights & Deli on the train ride over,” Twilight said as her horn glowed with magenta light. Along with her menu, she lifted up a book that read, ‘A History of Vanhoover Tourist Locations’. “Did you know it was previously owned by another pony that made it an entirely potato themed restaurant?”
“Twilight—”
“The name of the restaurant was called Master Taters, but it sadly went out of business after only three months before the owner, Julian Fries, sold it to Drumstick and Clean Cut.” Barrier could clearly tell from her tone and how she kept rambling that the purple pony was nervous about something.
Seeking to cut to the chase, Barrier firmly planted a hoof on the table. “Twilight. What is it that brought you all the way out here to talk to me?”
The charcoal stallion saw a trickle of sweat rolling down the side of the mare’s face before she took a deep breath and gave a hard sigh.
“Right. I shouldn’t be wasting time.” With a swallow, Twilight’s face shifted to a sterner expression as she looked Barrier in the eye. “Barrier, I’d like you to teach me how to fight.”