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No Pain No Gain
I laid still on the bed; not by my own choice, while I listened to the faint sounds that surrounded me in the room. The light that filled the room looked to be morning light so that meant I must of been out all night. I scanned over my body. I could kind of move my neck, but that was about it I couldn't feel my arms or legs. That was a bit worrisome so I struggled to lift my head up and look to see if I was missing anything. Well that was one bit of good news, according to the shapes I could see under the sheets I still had all my limbs. I sighed as I put my head back down onto the pillow.
As my head hit the pillow the bed made a little creak. Within a second Twilight had dashed into the room.
“You're finally awake!” Twilight exuberantly commented. I thought to myself, finally? How long was I out anyway. I attempted to voice my question but no words came out of my mouth.
“Oh sorry I’ll take off that anesthetic spell now so you can talk” Twilight apologized. Her horn began to glow and and immediately after a pink glow peeled off my body like a blanket. Within a moment I could feel my body again and with that came some slightly unpleasant burning and aching; whether it was from injuries or from being still too long I wasn't sure. I sat up and cleared my throat so I could speak.
“How long have I been out and, what happened exactly?”
“Well according to Pinkie who's been telling me everyday, the portal exploded and threw you and her across the room into a wall as well as lighting everything on fire.” Twilight answered passing a look to Pinkie who had come to stand beside her.
“You passed out soon after leaving the “shed”, Pinkie ran to get me to help carry you to safety as soon as she could, you had quite a plethora of injuries” As she was about to mentioned injuries I could see Pinkie cringe.
“You had two compound fractures in each of your legs, your left arm was severely dislocated, the elbow of that arm was severely hyperextended, you had three broken ribs, first and second degree burns on your torso, about twenty different lacerations all over your body and a concussion” Twilight concluded reading the clipboard that sat on the table beside the bed. I stared mouth agape at what Twilight with no words to comment.
After a brief pause for me to try to take in what I had just heard I wondered how Pinkie fared since as she was in almost the same area.
“How did Pinkie fare?”
“Pinkie only had a few minor bruises and a little bit of singed hair. The mysterious force field protected her from the brunt of it.” Pinkie nodded in agreement. I sighed in relief that she was alright as well as thankful for the mysterious force field.
“Oh I almost forgot, you've been unconscious for three days.” Twilight added.
“three days...” I repeated to myself. It was a lot to take in. My way home was destroyed my body was in ruins and I’ve been out of it for three days. I guess it could have been a lot worse though.
“So I guess you've been taking care of me all this time?” I questioned Twilight more as a small talk than for information because who else would have helped or been able to help a human.
“well yes. but it wasn't all me I got some help from a few friends. Your anatomy is quite different from equine so I couldn't simply use healing spells or take you to the hospital I had to find another way. Conveniently we have somewhat of an expert on humans in Ponyville and she was very eager to help at the agreement that you’d meet with her when you’re better. I was also able to borrow some healing and aesthetic spell tomes from nurse redheart and with a little tweaking to account for your different anatomy they were able to work great.” Twilight concluded her briefing and gave me a moment to digest the information.
“Thank you very much for the care I really don’t know how I can repay you, but what is my condition now?” I asked while looking around at my body. I didn’t feel too bad apart from a little achy the burning had subsided.
“well actually you’re almost one hundred percent recovered now.” Twilight answered with a smile.
“what? with all the injuries, I’m recovered in three days?” I questioned in bewilderment.
“yup, everything worked out without complication.” Twilight read the astonishment in my expression. “Don’t people recover at this rate in your world?”.
I chuckled a bit “well no, not even close, even with the medical care we have we have to mostly wait for the body to heal on its own and assist in the basic ways of stopping blood loss, infection and pain.” I cracked a little smirk. “Magic really does have some amazing uses, I’m sure glad I was here when I got this injury”. I pulled back the covers and sat on the edge of the bed. Upon revealing my legs I noticed that the pants that I wore were not my jeans. A moment after I realized I was not wearing my shirt ether. I cocked an eyebrow and looked up at Twilight.
“where are my clothes”
oOo
A little over a three hours had past between breakfast and Twilight’s physical. Fifty push ups, around one hundred and fifty of various crunches, an abundance of running and a plethora of magical scans and I was deemed “one hundred percent”. It wasn’t a problem for me to do any of the exercises, after all it was my daily routine back in my world to do more than this plus my lighter body in this world made it all the easier. Pinkie had headed out after Twilight told her that a Glad-you’re-better party wouldn’t be the best idea especially since we don’t want most ponies to even know I was here to reduce panic. Though she did make sure to drop off some cupcakes for us. I’m not one for pastry but they were incredible.
During the days I was out Rarity had copied the design of my clothes that were partially destroyed in the explosion and made me new ones. The pants were black and made of a slightly lighter and more flexible denim material while the shirt was a white muscle shirt made out of what I assume was cotton. I personally preferred the new clothes. I never really did like my cheap little black nylon like muscle shirt anyway but the fact that it was Rarity-made gave the clothes a little extra sentimental value.
Twilight had teleported us prior to beginning to a large grass filled field so we would not be disturbed by wandering ponies. Teleporting kind of felt like if you were to move somewhere so fast that your insides never got a chance to catch up. I stumbled a bit at first but was able to get my stomach to settle and my head to stop spinning after a few moments.
“Okay one last test” Twilight spoke with that type of leader like ambition I’d heard her use before. One thing was different however, she had an devious little smirk on her face. I turned to Twilight and cocked an eyebrow in question of what was to come.
“Well, I’ve done some work studying your blood and anatomy and found something quite extraordinary” she paused for effect. “You have cells in your blood that almost completely match the cells only found in unicorns.”
“Which means what exactly?” I asked the plotting little unicorn.
“It means that You are the one who made the blue forcefield that protected you and Pinkie” Twilight smirked and looked away from me and into the sky in thought.
“cool” I commented. What else can you really say to that.
“And now we are going to get you to make another one” Twilight spoke as she began to turn to face me again.
“How are we going to...” I was cut off by noticing Twilight’s horn begin to shimmer and her eyes start to glow. She wouldn’t.
A fraction of a second later a blast of Pink energy flew by my head and smashed into a tree at the edge of the field. Had I not dodged to the side I would have been hit directly in the head by the laser.
“are you trying to kill me?” I asked with a hint of sarcastic annoyance.
She simply responded “nope” while at the same time charging her horn up again for what I’d learned would be another shot. I turned my torso sideways and avoided this laser aimed for my chest. There was no paused in between as immediately another laser shot towards me. I dropped my body into a lunged position and dashed to avoid the coming barrage. Running made me a harder target but I still had to jump and duck at times to avoid the projectiles. I couldn’t hear the blasts crash against the trees behind me at the edge of the field, which would probably be due to the distance. I had no idea how long she could keep this up or why she was doing it all I had time to think about was how to dodge the blasts. Just when I thought I’d found a rhythm to her shots a root caught my foot. I toppled over onto one knee and was directly in the path of four of the shimmering magical projectiles. I put up my hands in instinct to defend my self. What a strange turn of events that would lead to my death I thought in the moment. Suddenly my hands began to glow a blue hue and a field of energy released and hardened into a bubble like shield in front of me. The projectiles crashed into it and vanished into the air like their lights had been extinguished. Soon after the projectiles were stopped the shield faded and my hands stopped their glow.
“There we go, I knew you could do it” Twilight smiled at me as if she had not even been there when she was trying to kill me.
“Okay what the fuck was that about” I retorted with my past annoyance starting to burn with embers of anger. I may be a calm person but I’m not overly fond of attempts to kill me.
“fuck? I’m not sure what that means but I was just getting you to use the shield again” Twilight innocently responded. Had she not been so darn cute I may have been able to stay mad but my anger quickly fizzled out.
“by trying to kill me?” I questioned with a sarcastically raised eyebrow.
“no, I told you before I wasn’t trying to kill you. These are just light beams, completely harmless, look” Twilight sponded firing a smaller blast at my chest. The beam hit and faded without me even feeling it, similar to a laser pointer. I felt a little stupid in assuming the unicorn in a kingdom built around kindness that had nursed me back to health would try to kill me.
“Sorry about that, I overreacted I should have known you meant no harm” I apologised.
“Oh not at all I meant for you to respond that way. Lyra told me that humans had a lot of warfare in their history so a natural response to being shot at would be to protect themselves or dodge. You actually dodged really well by the way” Twilight complemented. I didn’t know whether to be a little ticked that she manipulated me, happy about a compliment or impressed that she could understand and use my cultural past on me with so little time to know about it. Wait a sec Lyra? She was the expert on humans that Twilight talked about. I can’t believe that my worlds fandom was actually right. I opened my mouth a few times while I thought almost making a comment but then closing it revoking any sound in my loss for words.
“Well played Twilight, well played” I chuckled back to her. Twilight smiled at that. She wasn’t called the smartest unicorn without reason. I wonderd if she summoned the root I tripped on too.
“So what happens now?” I asked Twilight as she walked up next to me.
“Well tomorrow we are going to teach you some magic, but right now” Twilight yawned.
“We should call it a night”. I looked into the sky that was now darkening. I really didn’t think we’d been out this long. Twilight looked up as her horn began to glow. Based on her movements and the current time I suspected she was casting the teleportation spell. I braced myself and the pink energy enveloped us both. Within an instant we were back in the library. I staggered a bit on the landing and my head spun. It was going to take a little bit before I got used to teleporting.
“I’ve had Spike replace the medical bedding for some more regular ones so you should be more comfortable” Twilight mentioned as we walked up the steps to her own room.
“See you tomorrow” Twilight called softly in a yawn before she was out of my site.
As I walked into the now rather familiar guest quarters I thought for a moment. In my time here I hadn’t actually seen Spike at all. “I mean I’ve been here other late at night, early morning or unconscious so that would make sense but.” I mumbled to myself as I got into the bed.
“Could Twilight be intentionally keeping him from me? to protect him from me or to stop him from being jealous”. “No that wouldn’t make much sense she had no control over when I showed up or when I left to go to the portal” I thought as I put my head on the pillow. “well I guess she kind of had control over the latter but I’m being ridiculous about that, what would even be the point”. My eyes were shut and my mind began to drift to sleep.