Chapter 2: "Why am I here?"
I awoke the next morning feeling like total crap; my head was pounding, I was extremely parched, my chest felt like it was on fire, and I felt like I was surviving the aftermath of another one of Soldier’s cooking phases.
Everything from last night felt like a total dream, like it all wasn’t real since the docs mighta’ had me on something at the time. The small talking horses, the unicorns, the bear made outta stars... none of that seemed real or possible. It could’ve been the product of a drugged up sleep for all I know.
Well, I thought it was at first... then a beige colored horse with a horn and dark brown mane walked into the room with a chart floating beside it.
He stared at me silently for a while, shifting uncomfortable as I stared right back at him.
“Uhh... Mister Scout, was it?” he asked, and I gave a small nod. “You seem to have fractured several of your ribs and it appears that you have... the feathers of a dove in your rib cage.” He gave me a blank look. “Is such a thing like that normal for a creature like you?”
“First of all, Doc,” I started, “I’m a human. Hoo-man, get it right, I’m not some sorta’ strange creature ya’ know. And secondly, no, that ain’t normal; lemme break that down for ya: I had a heart transplant quite a while ago, and during that, my friend’s pet bird decided to make a nest in my rib cage.” I tried to sit myself up but it hurt like hell trying to move.
Man, what I wouldn’t give for the Medic to just be here and patch me up...
“You should probably stay in bed for a while...” he trailed off as he looked through his chart, “and I do have to say that’s quite strange. Tell me, where did this friend of yours get their medical license?” He asked. “I must say, I’m quite surprised you’re alive after taking a hit from that Ursa last night.”
I shrugged. “I’ve had worse.”
There was really nothing worse than being beaten to death by a giant pissed off Russian. “And about the Medic, he lost his medical license one day after he lost all the bones of his patients during a surgery. Don’t know how that happened or how he did it, but that’s what he said happened.”
He cleared his throat. “Moving on... you’ll need to stay in bed for at least a week or two before you’ll be given a clean bill of health,” he said, looking a bit disturbed at the idea of how a doctor could even lose the bones of a patient.
“Umm... yeah, no. I’m getting outta here.” I made an attempt to pushing myself out of bed, but I was held back due to some sorta weird glow that suddenly covered me from head to toe. “What the? Hey, lemme go!”
“I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to remain here until you’re fully healed. We can’t let you leave yet.” He flipped through his chart and shared a brief glance between me and it, scribbling something down I couldn’t see.
My stomach then decided that it was high time to remind me of how hungry I was and started gurgling loudly. I really didn’t eat much yesterday, excluding what little I had at lunch, so right now I pretty much felt starved.
"I'll have a nurse get something for you to eat," he said as he left the room.
"Yeah, sure. Whatever I guess..." I slumped back down into my bed and crossed my arms in defeat.
You know... in a way, this hospital kinda reminded me of my brother Mike’s clinic. They were a both a bit identical in construction and they shared the same distinct while-tiled floor, unsurprisingly. Although, I’d probably trust Mike more to patch me up instead of these quacks.
Well, they at least left my stuff here with me, so that was okay I guess. They left my headset and hat sitting on an end table right beside my bed, just within arm’s reach, and right beside that on the floor was my duffel bag.
Clutching my chest, I reached over for my headset and turned the dial on the side of it. "Nothing," I muttered as I held the earpiece next to my ear, "just static..." Fighting through a dull ache in my ribs, I pulled up my bag onto my bed and tugged open the zipper.
...
...
...
"Where the hell's the rest of my stuff!?" The only thing that was left in the bag was my last can of Bonk! They even took my clothes for crying out loud!
"Excuse me," a nurse at the door then knocked, "you have a visitor."
The door opened with a purple horned horse poking its head through the doorway. "Hello?" It greeted before spotting me sitting upright on my bed.
...Huh, it was the same one from last night.
"Oh, you're finally awake. We never had the chance to fully introduce ourselves last night, I'm Twilight Sparkle."
"Twilight?” I snorted a little. “Sounds like a name for a bad book. Mind if I call you Sparks?"
"Well I-"
"Great. Alright Sparks, did anyone go through my bag while I was out?" I asked and showed her the contents, or lack-thereof, inside my bag.
"Oh, I took them to the library,” she said with a smile. “It's not everyday you can get your hooves on such advanced pieces of technology, and as we speak, my assistant is studying them back at the library while I came to see if you were awake. I hope you don't mind."
My right eye twitched.
"Uhh... Scout? Is there a problem?"
"YES!" I screamed. "There is a problem, Smarty-pants! Do you what most of those things do!?" She shook her head violently. "You did tell your assistant not to touch them right..?"
"Uhh..."
BANG!
...And there it was, the familiar sound of a round being fired from my pistol.
“Aw crap...” I quickly ripped out all the medical stuff that was attached to me and darted out of bed. I fought through the pain that came with my sudden movements, that being something I was more than used to now, and proceeded to jump out a nearby window, completely ignoring Sparks’ cries for me to wait.
I still felt like crap from earlier, but it’d be more important to find my guns before someone ended up dying and I’m the one blamed for it.
I started running the moment I hit the dirt, using the momentum from my fall to get me going even faster. I didn't really stop to make a second thought, but I realized that the town I was running into was the same one the bear was terrorizing the night before, minus all the destruction it caused.
Ignoring all the weird looks in the process, I eventually arrived at a giant hollowed out tree-thing. I felt rather worse than I did a couple of minutes ago, but I was at the right place; the gunpowder and smoke was stronger here than anywhere else.
I barged in through the door and almost immediately I was met with a familiar metallic smell.
Blood? Aw come on! Can’t I get a day without something bad going on!?
“I’m so sorry Lyra! I-I... T-Twilight’s here, sh-she’ll know what to do.” A kid-like voice said through another door. A small, purple and green lizard thing then came bursting through said door, running into my leg almost immediately.
The thing slowly looked up at me, looking a bit confused for the moment. Its eyes then narrowed into pinpricks and it started screaming, backing away from me until it bumped into a nearby bookshelf.
Ignoring it, I walked through the door it came bursting through and saw som-no... a lot of blood coming from a mint green horse lying against the floor. I looked back to the lizard who was nervously trying to sneak towards the entrance of the building.
"Get some hot water, something that has alcohol, a first-aid kit, a pair of tweezers, and some gauze!" I yelled at it. "And hurry up!"
The little lizard thing stood to attention and hesitantly turned back to me.
"GO!"
The lizard jumped and quickly nodded its head, running up a set of stairs on the far side of the main room I didn't notice earlier.
I slid on over to the horse’s side and began to access the damage. Now, I wasn’t a vet or anything like that, but I did have a bit of first-aid experience after working part-time at my bro’s clinic a couple of months back. Her wound was several steps out of my league, but if I didn’t get that bullet out soon, she’d likely end up going into shock and dying. And I’m pretty sure none of those doctors back at the hospital knew how to remove a bullet.
“Alright, calm yourself down some. I need you to stay with me while I patch you up,” I said to her as nicely as possible.
Her breathing was nearing the point of becoming rapid and shallow, indicating that she was already falling into shock. “Okay, okay... umm... take some slow, deep breaths, alright?.”
Sheesh, she got really lucky. A little closer to any side and that could'a been fatal.
The lizard thing then returned with all the stuff I needed along with some extras, all of which were set down on the floor beside me. “Okay, good... now, go get an ambulance or something!” I ordered as I started getting to work.
I poured a bit of the alcohol provided onto a strip of cloth and held it close to the wound. “This might sting a bit,” I warned. She winced and reflexively started twisting about on the floor, her breathing increasing in intensity due to the brief spike in pain. “You still with me?”
She nodded in reply, albeit weakly.
I grabbed the tweezers, and carefully, I worked the tool into the wound, digging deep into the wound before I felt, and plucked the bullet out. She didn’t put up much of a fight throughout the procedure, but I noticed that her breathing was steadily declining and she was on the verge of passing out.
“Hey, hey!” I quickly shifted over to her head and gave her a couple of light slaps. “Stay awake!” her eyes fluttered open briefly before they focused on me, “don’t close your eyes for nothing!” I pulled out the gauze and set to bandaging the wound.
I then heard a large commotion coming from the front of the building. Turning to meet it, I saw a bunch of unicorn paramedics start rushing in with a stretcher and everything.
I stepped off to the side and watched as they somehow carried her body onto the stretcher without touching her, relaying a buncha’ orders and what-not with one another. Then, without explaining or asking anything, they left as quickly as they entered.
I was left standing there, realizing now that I was covered in blood around my waist, lower torso, and hands. Sparks then decided to come in and immediately paled at the sight of the blood on both me, and the floor.
“Wh-what happened?” She asked as she tentatively entered the room.
Feeling a sudden anger rising within me, I started storming towards her. “I’ll tell ya’ what happened,” I yelled as she started backing away towards the doorway of the room, “you left a dangerous weapon with some small lizard-thing, and that almost ended up killing somebody!
“Do you have any idea of what you’ve done!?”
My anger quickly faded as, all of a sudden, it was replaced with me feeling extremely lightheaded. I held my hand up against my head as I made small steps to the nearby doorway, with Sparks slowly backing away from my advance. My limbs quickly grew numb as I held myself against the frame and my vision was becoming fuzzy at an alarming rate.
I think I might have blacked out there for a minute, I’m not quite sure... but when I blinked, I realized I was now lying against the floor and was staring up at Sparks’ blurry form. She was saying something to me, that I knew, but despite her being right in front of me, she sounded very distant. I then realized there was a splitting pain coming my heart, as though it was threatening to burst out of my chest.
I passed out... or, at least I think I did, I couldn't quite tell. It was all just blackness for a while.
I then heard voices.
"Get him to the OR!"
"Yes, doctor!"
"We're losing him! Get the blood packets!"
"Clear!"
There was a shock, followed by a slight tingling feeling all over my body. I barely felt any of it actually.
"Clear!"
Another shock.
"Hurry up!"
"Here you go, doctor!"
I felt my mouth being held open and something was now pouring down my throat. I screamed moments later, now feeling an immense energy coursing through my body.
It was a good scream though, like the kind you'd do when you're going down a roller coaster. But man, whatever it was I just drank, it musta' been sorta liquid Ubercharge or something like that. It made me feel good, really good.
My eyes shot open and I found myself back at the hospital, specifically, an operating room. Well... I thought I was in one anyways, if the unicorns dressed as doctors and surgeons were anything to go by.
The one thing I noticed though was that I was glowing a sharp blue and the corners of my vision were surrounded with that very same color. It was exactly as it would be when I'd be Ubered, only the Doc wasn't around healing me with his medigun.
And then it popped. The Uber was done, and I fell back down onto the table feeling completely drained. I think... I think I was going to be okay, but I felt tired, dead tired.
...Yeah, that seemed like an idea... I’ll take a nap for now and worry about that Uber later.
"So doctor, is he going to be alright?"
"Hopefully. We owe him since he saved Lyra's life."
“I’m so sorry Twilight... I-I didn’t know something that would happen,” Spike sulked as he cried into Twilight’s shoulder. “I should’ve known better to try and use those things while you were gone. Now Lyra got hurt badly and it’s all my fault...”
“It’s fine Spike, Lyra’s going to be okay,” Twilight said comfortingly as she patted him on the back. “You didn’t know what would happen when you started looking at them, and neither did I.
“...I suppose I’m the one who should be taking most of the blame here,” she said with a sigh, “I told you to start looking them over while I was at the hospital. Scout even yelled at me and said it was my fault too. Just please don’t beat yourself up over this Spike, it’s not your fault.”
"I'll try not to..." Spike replied quietly amidst his sniffles.
“That’s the spirit,” she smiled softly. “For now, we’re going to have to send a letter to the Princess, she needs to know what happened,” she finished as she let her assistant out of her hug.
Surprising the both of them, Spike then belched a letter from the Princess.
Being a bit confused to the sudden arrival of the letter, Twilight quickly opened it up.
My faithful student, Twilight Sparkle
It has come to our attention that as of last night, Luna and I felt a very powerful magic summon something from another world and bring it into our own. To what this being may be, and the extent of its abilities are unknown; we advise remaining well clear of its presence until we can find a way to send it back to where it came. In the meantime, I want nopony to enter the Everfree Forest until we can find this being and deal with the situation accordingly.
I will be sending your brother along with a detachment of royal guards there for you, your friends, and Ponyville’s protection out of precaution.
-Your loving mentor, Princess Celestia
"Spike, take a letter," Twilight said as she finished skimming the letter. "I think I may have already found what Celestia's looking for."
"Hey, wake up."
"Ma?" I slowly opened my eyes.
"What?"
"Not ma," I grumbled. Instead, I saw a brightly colored winged horse (pegasus I think?) with rainbow hair hovering just above me.
“Hey, I just wanted to see how you’re doing,” it said, looking down at me. “Twilight told me what happened a little while ago at the library, with you saving somepony’s life and collapsing after all of that. That made you quite the talk of the town you know, for well... being an alien and saving somepony’s life,” she said while circling one of her hooves in the air.
“By the way, name’s Rainbow Dash, fastest flier in all of Equestria, and shoe-in for the wonderbolts,” she struck a pose in the air as she finished.
I coughed into my hand to get her attention, unimpressed with her flair. “Alright Dash, first off, I’ll tell you what I told the docs a while ago: I’m a human. Hoo-man, not ‘an alien.’
“Second thing, I have a couple’a questions for ya’. One, how the hell did you manage to get your hair like that, and two, how the hell are you even flying!?” I yelled at that last question. “That’s not supposed to be physically possible!”
“All pegasi can fly, and this is my mane’s natural color,” she said dismissively.
“That still doesn’t explain why you’re flying!”
She rolled her eyes and landed next to my bed. “Hello? I got wings, see?” she said as she flared her wings.
I stopped and took a moment to think this through while I stare at her wings blankly. I knew that there was no way in hell that wings as small as those could keep a horse in the air for long, it was just... it just didn’t make sense!
“So are you just gonna sit there staring at my wings all day, or what?”
I closed my eyes and rubbed my forehead, fighting off the hints of a migraine. I wasn’t cut out for that kinda train of thought, the Hardhat or Doc might find think of a way to rationalize it, but I couldn’t. Thinking too hard about stuff wasn’t the way I did things.
I sighed and opened my eyes. “Name’s Scout, fastest runner Teufort has ever seen, ace dodger, mercenary extraordinaire, and all-around badass,” I said as I pushed myself up out of bed.
"Yeah... are you sure you didn't hit your head or something? 'Cause last night I'm pretty sure you got knocked out by that Ursa Minor."
"Hey don't worry about me, I get hit by angry bears all the time."
I’m no horse expert, but I’m pretty sure that these things were way too small to be regular horses... Ponies maybe?
The door to the room opened and a different doctor walked in with a nurse carrying a tray of food.
“Ah, Scout. You’re awake,” he said in an oddly happy tone. Usually when doctors see me in hospitals they’d say ‘what happened this time?’ and give me a lollipop.
...
...
...
What? You're never too old for free candy.
“Yup, and I’m feeling pretty good, doc,” I said and gave him a thumbs up. He looked a bit confused from the gesture, but I guess since I’m the only one that has thumbs they didn’t know what it meant.
“That’s good, you gave us quite the scare when we gave you that potion; you started glowing a bright blue almost immediately and your eyes turned completely yellow,” he explained with fascination. “Has that ever happened before?” he asked as the nurse set the tray on my lap.
The tray was filled with hay, oats, some corn, a bowl of salad, and... sandwiches made from flowers? Yeeeaah... I’m not even going to try some of these. “Yeah, it’s happened several times before, but only if a friend was constantly healing me,” I replied as I picked up some corn.
"Healing? Like magical healing?"
“Yeah, something like that, but it’s more science than magic.” I took a large bite out of said corn, savoring its fresh taste. Man was it ever good though, heck, it even made most of the hospital food back home seem like crap in comparison.
"I see. What do you feel when you... start glowing?" he asked.
“Aw man, you don’t know what you’re missing. It. Feels. Amazing! Nothing can hurt you! Bullets, rockets, bombs, knives, and anything else, none of that can hurt you; it makes you feel like you can take on the world!”
“It also appears to have healed your injuries as well. We tried using that potion on some of our other patients as well, but it didn’t seem to yield the same results,” he said with a small shake of his head.
“Well, did that other doc tell you about my friend who gave me that heart transplant?”
He raised an eyebrow -- if he even had some -- and looked at me curiously.
“See, a friend of mine swapped out my original heart some time ago with some sorta super heart he pulled out of his fridge,” I said, finishing off the last of my corn.
"Removed you say? Did he have a medical license for such a surgery?"
"Nope. Do I have to tell ya' how he lost his medical license?"
"No, I'm not that curious. Anyway, Ms. Dash, please let the man rest. He had an exciting day."
"Trust me, this isn't an exciting day compared to my day job."
The three ponies left the room, leaving me to my own devices, which were now safely tucked inside my duffel bag next to my bag thankfully, minus several articles of clothing. A few hours later, I started to get bored. I decided that it was time to have a little fun, maybe figure out where the hell am I too.
I jumped out of bed and picked up my stuff, stretching my arms and legs in preparation for another lengthy run. The window was wide open, and the sun was right on the horizon, and I needed to stretch my legs a bit.
I dived out the window with my duffel bag in tow and landed against the soil with a loud whump. I think I’ll go back to see Sparkle-butt, see what she’s up to.
“Heh, Sparkle-butt,” I snorted.
I ran back through the town. Not a lot of those ponies were in the town at this hour so I had a lot of room to run. I made it back to the big tree in a matter of minutes and knocked on the front door. “Hey, Sparks? Ya’ home?” I called out before opening it.
The whole main room was filled with white colored pegasuses (pegasi?). Anyway, all of them were wearing this weird golden armor, and I suddenly found myself with a whole lot of spears pointed at me. “Uhh... hi.”
"Scout?" I heard Sparks behind the wall of guards.
“At ease,” I heard another voice through the crowd. It sounded like one of those voices you’d hear from a boy-band or something like that.
The guards eyed me warily as the order was relayed, but they otherwise broke apart their line and let me pass.
Looks like the whole gang from last night was here as well. Pinks, Dash, Sparks, and the other three I didn’t know the names of, were here too. Though there was another one here as well, a white one that was slightly larger than the rest.
"Hiya Scoutie!" Pinks waved at me.
I half-waved back to her. “Heya Pinks.”
“So this is the creature you were talking about, Twilight?” A tall, white horned pony said.
He was the only other male voice in the room that spoke, and it was the same voice from just under a minute ago. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to hit him because of he sounded, or just make fun of him because of it.
"Yes. Scout this is my brother, Shining Armor," Twilight said. Shining raised his eyebrow.
"The Princess said that this creature could be dangerous, he doesn't look very dangerous," Shining stated.
"Hey, I could kick your ass anytime of the day, tough guy," I said as I dropped my duffel bag to the floor.
"Is that a threat?"
"It's a challenge. C’mon, show me what you’re made of ya’ wuss."
We stared down at each other, neither of us backing down the other. There was gonna be a fight, and I was going to win it.
The day had ended with BLU managing to pull off a close victory against a full RED team, the control points of Well and Granary were theirs for the time being. In the aftermath of the match, they all spent their spare time searching for BLU Scout, especially Pyro and Heavy.
Heavy organized the search, getting ads on this new Television thing and newspapers. Behind the scenes, RED Spy pulled a few favors he had stored and used them to look for the missing boy.
Scout's mom was in a total wreck following his disappearance. She was going back to her old habits of drinking and smoking to try and relieve her stress and drown her sorrows. Her other sons were trying their best to comfort her, but nothing seemed to work.
"This is bad," Heavy said entering the respawn room of Teufort, dropping the bag of flyers on the floor. "Where could tiny baby Scout be?"
Engineer was tinkering with his PDA, inputting a series of commands before sighing heavily. "I can't seem to find him on the GPS," he said, providing his input.
RED Spy uncloaked in front of them with BLU Spy. "Our contact cannot seem to find him as well. Zey will keep looking," RED Spy said.
"Huddah."
"What is it, Pyro?" Heavy said.
"Huddah Huddah Huddah," Pyro said and picked up his/her flamethrower.
"Zat is the most idiotic thing I have ever heard," Medic said, facepalming. "You don't know if he teleported into a wall and ended up suffocating."
"Huddah, mmpth." Pyro pointed back to Engie.
"Well, it's possible, but we can't be sure you'll land in the same place as Scout."
"Huddah?" Pyro said and pointed to the two Spys.
"You psychotic imbecile! We will not use another teleporter!" The two Spies yelled.
"Darlin' the Respawn only works in the battlefield, that means only around Teufort and other places RED and BLU are fighting for.”
"Huddah huddah..." Pyro said sadly and sat back down. "Huddah huddah mmpth?"
"When we fix the teleporter Scout used, it should have a 50/50 chance to make him teleport to the bus stop I set it on." Engie scratched his chin. "...Hopefully," he muttered.
“What about ze other 50%?” Medic questioned.
Engie was silent for a moment. “There’s a chance he’s gonna show up dead or not at all...”
Sniper walked in the room with a scowl on his face. "The Announcer ain't gonna call off the matches."
BLU Soldier and RED Demo came in with a similar scowl on their face. "Redmond and Blutarch ain't going to support this search, lads." Demo said. "The other REDs are already searching, reluctantly. The RED Soldier even agreed to try an' git his wizard friend to help us too."
"As much as it makes my innards twist and turn to work with them, we have to work alongside the REDs if we're to find the Scout," BLU Soldier said with great disdain. "And as soon as we find Scout, I will kill him, rip out his insides, and force feed him his own heart for making me work with these REDs!"
"Aye, I'm sure RED Solly's gonna do the same thing," RED Demo said and took a swig of his bottle.
"Huddah, huddah..."
"Dinnae' worry lad, we'll find 'em."
"Huddah huddah..."