This has been a bad day for me. First I wake up and I can’t do magic, then my friends all come in the middle of the morning and it turns out that they had all been struck by some kind of disease as well and assumed I knew how to fix it. The second I told them that I didn’t, they all started freaking out and made it so hard for me to concentrate on trying to find a cure that it took me twice as long as it should have, even with the help of both Spike and Trixie. Of course, since I couldn’t find one they all started to think it was a curse and I got swept up in it! I even went so far as bursting in on poor Zecora, who was just trying to help us get out of a situation we wouldn’t even be in if we had listened to her advice. If the princess could see me now, she would be so disappointed. Oh well, I should at least ask Zecora how she made the cure. After all, it might come in handy someday. I broke in on the conversation she was having with Rarity, Pinkie, and Fluttershy about her choices in decorations.
“Excuse me Zecora, but how did you make the cure?” I asked. “I couldn’t find a remedy in all of the books I checked, or even any mention of what poison joke was.”
Zecora, still explaining the meanings behind all of her masks to Rarity, moved over to a shelf filled with books and pulled one out. “Here is the book, you see. Sad that you lack it in your library.” She said as she gave me the book. I took a look down at the title.
Supernaturals: Natural remedies and cure-alls that are simply super!
...Of course. I’m starting to understand that concept Card calls irony. “Actually, I do have this book, but I didn't look inside because the title was so... Weird,” I say, trying to fight my blush. “Supernaturals: Natural remedies and cure-alls that are simply super. I...I... I'm so sorry Zecora. I had the answer the whole time, if only I had bothered to look inside.” I thanked Celestia that she wasn’t here to see this.
Zecora gave a chuckle, “Maybe next time you will take a second look, and not judge the cover of the book.”
I told Spike to take Applebloom home and watch the library until I came back. When he left I tried to ask Zecora how to use the cure, but was interrupted by a shriek from Rarity.
“Stop splashing me! What are you doing?!” Rarity cried.
“Testing out the cure,” Trixie replied as she kept on spraying every inch of Rarity with the spray bottle she was levitating.
Whatever Rarity would have said in response to that, I will never know because suddenly her hair and fur started moving. Quickly it began going backwards through it knots, each individual strand getting untangled and straightening itself out until Rarity was left with a completely straight mane and tail, along with a flawlessly groomed coat.
We all stood in shocked silence for a few seconds, broken, naturally, by Pinkie Pie.
“Thaity, hur hall hack wo tormal!” At least that’s what I heard, what she probably said was more along the lines of, “Rarity, you’re all back to normal!”
“Yes darling, I believe it is!” Rarity said. “No more getting caught on every single loose branch in the forest, and I can finally see again!” While Rarity started checking herself all over to make sure it was all gone, and Trixie moved over to start spraying the rest, I noticed Zecora speaking to Card with a confused look on her face.
“How did you make the potion so quickly take away her defects?” She asked, “Usually it requires a long bubble bath to start feeling the effects.”
“Well thats the thing about old remedies, usually there have been improvements made to them over time. I try to be familiar with all the latest versions,” Card responded. “For this specific case I just threw in some of this.” Card reached into his front pocket and pulled out a small bag, half full of some kind of powder. He suddenly turned to face me, saying, “Twinkly it’ll be easier to hear us talking if you’re not standing fifteen feet away.”
Fighting the embarrassment I felt at being caught attempting to eavesdrop, I walked over to where they stood. “Sorry.” I mumbled out. I don’t know why, but Card can make me feel like I was a little filly who got caught stealing from the cookie jar.
“No problem, anyways,” He turned back to face Zecora, “It’s a reaction agent, it speeds up the reaction between the patients skin and the cure, meaning they don’t have to soak in it for hours.”
I was about to ask him what that all meant, but I was interrupted by a sudden shrill scream from outside. Turning around, I saw: a full-sized Applejack, Pinkie with her tongue back in her mouth along with a very strange expression on her face, and a smile on Fluttershy which I assumed meant her voice was back to normal. Before I could even get past the first syllable in “What was that?”, Applejack went racing out the door shouting, “That’s Dashie!”
All of us quickly went galloping out the door after her, Trixie not even having enough time to remove the spell on the spray bottle that made it follow her. Through the forest we ran, following cries for help that kept on getting fainter and fainter, until they stopped altogether.
The sudden quiet made us double our efforts to reach our friend, and finally we came upon Rainbow Dash’s body, prone and bruised.
Standing over it were two manticores, both fairly wounded and both salivating. Quickly Applejack and Rarity ran towards them. Applejack skidded to a stop in front of one, quickly turning and bucking it in the jaw to send it flying back, Rarity knocking her target back as well with a well placed strike from her front hoof to its stomach. The manticores quickly shook the stun off, only to run away when they saw that there were now six mares blocking the path to their would-be prey.
As soon as we were all satisfied that the manticores weren’t coming back, we turned our attention to Rainbow Dash.
“We need to get her to the hospital!” Applejack yelled as she moved to lift Rainbow Dash onto her back.
“No!” Rarity shouted, “It might be too dangerous to move her right now!”
“If we do nothing, she might die!”
“Wait!” I said, getting in between the two as an idea struck me. “Fluttershy, you fix up the animals that come to you, could you examine Rainbow Dash?” I asked the shy Pinkette.
“I... I’ll try.” Fluttershy muttered as she quickly lowered herself to inspect Rainbow Dash’s wounds.
“Well, Fluttershy? How is it?” Applejack asked, her voice loaded with concern and panic.
“I can’t tell, her backwards wings are making it hard to see.” Fluttershy mumbled. Trixie quickly levitated the spray bottle over to Rainbow Dash and quickly applied the cure to her putting her wings rightside up, taking some time afterwards to fix my messed up horn. Fluttershy continued her examination, her face getting visibly more relieved as she moved along Rainbow’s body. “It looks good, none of the bruises are to bad and she has no broken bones.”
At this remark, all of let out a sigh of relief until Fluttershy suddenly stopped cold. Putting her head right next to Rainbow’s back, she inspected two puncture wounds closely, even smelling them. As she was doing this tears started to build up in her eyes.
“What Fluttershy? What is it?” Applejack nervously asked.
“She... she got bit.”
“So? It’s just a little bite right?” Rarity said, trying to be optimistic. “Right?”
“It’s not just the bite, is it?” I asked as I lowered my head.
Fluttershy shook her head, “They got their venom into her. Whenever I see an animal with manticore venom in them... they- they-” Fluttershy finally just broke down crying.
“...How long?” Trixie asked, her eyes locked on the two marks.
“Usually it’s only half an hour,” Fluttershy said in between sobs.
“Isn’t there an antidote?” Applejack asked.
“Ye- Yes. But it’s so expensive that the hospital can’t carry it.” At this last piece of news, everypony started crying, our sobs the only sound in forest until.
“She’s not kidding about the price,” Card said as he strolled out from between the trees. “It costs me like, 4000 bits per dose. Oh yeah, I need that back.” He strolled over to Trixie and bit the spray bottle out of the air, throwing it into his jacket. “Now then, I will leave you mares to your mourning. Good-bye.” He turned to leave, only to stop midway and turn his attention to the sky. He spent several seconds just standing there, until finally he spoke again.
“Well yeah, I could, but it’s so expensive, and I would have to take them home, and you know how annoying that is,” he said to the sky, pausing as though he was waiting for an answer. Apparently he got one, because then he started speaking again.
“Okay, you have a point, but still- Oh don’t you start!” he said as he turned his attention towards the ground. “Well I- True, bu- But if- Even so-” He spoke, switching his attention between the sky and the ground each time he tried to speak, getting a steadily more annoyed look on his face as he did so. “If she- To be fa- Look can I please finish a sentence!” he suddenly yelled, pausing for a moment with his ears cocked. “Thank you. Jeez,” he said with a sigh.
By this point everypony was looking at him, and I was weirded out enough to try talking to him. “Uhh Card? Who are you talking to?” I asked.
“Not you,” he said with a dismissive wave in my general direction. Turning his attention back to the sky, he sighed. “Now then, as I was saying, I could cure her but-”
“What?!” All of us yelled out at once, leading Card to just throw up his hoofs in an ‘I give up!’ pose. Fluttershy stood up from where she was crying and walked towards Card with a expression of pure anger on her face.
“Now listen here!” she yelled as she fixed a glare on him so powerful that it made me flinch, and I was behind her! “How dare you try to walk away from a dying mare you can help! You will take her to your special house, you will give her the cure, and you WILL make her better! Do. You. Un. Der. Stand,” she said as she shoved her face closer and closer to Card’s with every syllable.
While she talked, I heard Rarity whisper, “Wow, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her use such a strong stare before!”
Card’s lips started to quiver, and his eyes started to water. Taking this as a sign of submission, Fluttershy turned around with a satisfied look on her face only to lose it when she heard a sound coming from behind her.
“Pfft~” Card let out, “Ha, ha, ha, hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!” Card started laughing uproariously. Fluttershy tried to fix another glare onto him, but that just made him laugh harder. As Card laughed, Fluttershy got a sad look on her face that just got deeper with every “ha” he let out. When it got to the point that she looked like she was about to start crying, the laughs started to taper off.
“Ha, okay, pick up, ha, Rainy,” he said in between chuckles, “That was worth the 4000 bits.” He started walking off again, only to turn around when he reached the edge of the clearing. “Well, do you want her cured or not? Follow me!” After a brief shared glance between the six of us, Pinkie Pie went after him. Soon Fluttershy and Trixie followed, even Rarity despite her look of apprehension. As Applejack quickly placed Rainbow dash onto her back, we started off walking through the thick of the forest.
As he lead us deeper and deeper into the Everfree, I became aware of a pressure or rather a lack thereof. You see, I had been fairly deep in the Everfree before this and throughout the whole trip there was a sense that on the other side of every tree was something just waiting to jump out, to attack me and my friends, but this time it just wasn’t there. At least, not in full. I still felt like something was around that wanted to jump out at me but it seemed almost... afraid, I guess. I thought that maybe they just remembered us from the last time we were here, but while we were walking I began to concentrate on the feeling, trying to distract myself from the fact that my friend might die at any moment. What I noticed was another strange aura mixing with the first, but this one wasn’t coming from the forest.
It was an aura of protection, of warmth, but not of kindness. It was almost like it was saying, ‘As long as you are in my range I will watch over you, but only because I simply do not care enough to adjust my range to exclude you.” I found this even more unsettling than the aura of constant danger, because at least that one took notice of you as opposed to just making yourself feel worthless.
While I was trying to ignore just how meaningless it made me feel, I was granted a welcome distraction in the form of Rarity speaking up, trying to fill the sorrowful silence with conversation
“Umm, excuse me Card.” Rarity said as she ducked a tree branch, making sure not to get any leaves in her mane, “But where exactly are you taking us?”
“To my house.” He called back.
“Well, if you don’t mind me asking, where is that?”
“Near the center of the forest.”
“Near the center?”
“Well, it’s kinda hard to pin down the exact center when the damn thing keeps m- DAMNIT!” He suddenly stopped and cried out.
“What? What’s wrong?” Applejack asked.
Card just let out a short scream of annoyance, then he kept walking.
Applejack quickly caught up to him and asked if there was something wrong with the cure.
“No, no it’s not that.” Card said as he waved her out of his way, “It’s just that I just realized that the manticores were trying to hunt outside of their territories, which means I have to go talk with them later.” He let out another sigh, bring up one hoof to massage his forehead. “You know, for a vacation I’m really not getting much of a break.” With that non sequitur out of the way, silence fell back over our group as we continued walking, with the next interruption coming a few minutes later when Rarity spoke up again in a whisper.
“Beg pardon darlings, but does this seem familiar to all of you?” She asked.
“Now that yah mention it, yeah,” Applejack responded as she looked around, taking care to not let Rainbow Dash fall off.
“Same here,” I said.
“Me too.” Fluttershy spoke up, opening her mouth for the first time since we got moving.
“We’ve been walking through a forest, the scenery hasn’t changed in fifteen minutes.” Trixie said, “It all feels pretty familiar by now.”
“Maybe,” Rarity admitted. “But I don’t think so. Pinkie, what do you think?” Rarity waited a few seconds but got no response. I looked over at Pinkie Pie and she was walking like she was in a trance, her eyes locked on Card. Applejack nudged Pinkie, snapping her out of... whatever she was doing. When Rarity saw that Pinkie’s attention was on her, she repeated her question.
“Yeah, don’t you remember?” Pinkie Pie asked, but she sounded distracted. “This is the place that used to have all those mean nasty little ghosties.”
As soon as she said that, I started looking around. Upon closer inspection I could see where the trees could look like scary faces and freshly turned ground that looked like it had been ripped out recently, above where the trees roots would be. I picked up my pace, not wanting to go through the experience again. Fortunately, we were soon out of the forest and came upon a very familiar river.
“Oh, this where that nice sea serpent lives,” Rarity said. “I wonder if his mustache came back in nicely.”
“So Card, which way from here?” I asked.
“Straight.” Card responded.
“Wha’?” Applejack asked as she stopped in her tracks. “Yah mean to say Ah need to swim across that river while carrying Rainbow?”
“Nope.” Card walked over to the riverbank but when he reached the edge he jumped straight into the river. At least that’s what I thought was going to happen, but rather than fall into the icy waters he stopped roughly six inches away from the water’s surface. He quickly made a series of jumps from one invisible platform to the next, reaching the other side of the river in a few seconds. “There, now you go.”
“Okey-Dokie!” Pinkie Pie walked up to the river and made the exact same series of jumps as Card, taking only a slightly longer time to reach to other end then he did.
We all stood in stunned shock, unable to believe what we had just seen, until Card spoke again.
“Well? What are you waiting for, come on, jump across.” He said with a faint note of annoyance in his voice.
“Jump acro- On what!” Trixie yelled, giving voice to what I’m sure we were all thinking.
“What do mean?”
“There is nothing there!”
Card got a look of confusion on his face, “What are you- Oh!” Comprehension dawned on his face as he jumped back across. He walked over to where Applejack was standing, his mouth wide open.
“Uhh Card, what are y’all doing?” She asked.
Card just walked around to her side and looked at Rainbow Dash’s wing, suddenly he said, “No, the color’s are too similar.” He shook his head and looked around, his gaze eventually landing on Fluttershy.
As he walked over to her, the shy yellow pegasus started shrinking away from him. She looked like she thought he was going eat her. Well she wasn’t far off, as Card quickly went to her side and started yanking out feathers with his mouth, each tug punctuated by a little squeak from the petrified mare. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven feathers he pulled off, and when he was done he walked back over to the river bank and started jumping again with his mouth now full of yellow. This time he put down a feather on each space he landed on, and moved it over to the center of where he was standing before he jumped to the next place. When he got back to the side of the river where Pinkie was standing, he called out for us to jump across.
We all looked at each other, none of us wanting to be the one to see if this would work or not. Surprisingly, Fluttershy was the one that stepped up, with a determined look on her face. She began hopping across the river to each of her feathers, making little noises each time she landed.
Once she had made it across we all quickly followed, first me, then Trixie, Rarity, and finally Applejack. After we had all made it across, Card started walking again but fortunately we were now in a fairly open area and the aura of fear started to dissipate. We kept walking along until I came across something I hadn’t expected to ever see again, and was in the wrong place regardless.
“What are the old castle ruins doing here?” I asked. I was sure that they weren’t in a large open field the last time I saw them.
“Darling, forget about those old ruins,” Rarity said with a voice coated in want. “Look at that!” I followed where she was pointing her hoof until I saw it. A massive mansion, easily as big and expensive looking as any you would find in Canterlot. The sight floored me, I was in shock until I noticed that Card was opening up the doors. We all quickly rushed inside, straight into a very large room with a few massive chairs and a very long couch. I thought I saw a blue blob, but when I looked again I couldn’t find anything.
“Okay, Jackie put Rainy down here,” Card said with a gesture towards the massive couch. “I’m going to go get what we need to prepare the antidote. Be back soon.” And with a wave he opened a door and disappeared into another room. As soon as he left, we all started talking.
“How did he get this place?” Rarity asked.
“How did we get across the river?” I asked.
“I wonder if he’ll be willing to show us around later?” That was Trixie.
“I hope he’ll be able to fix Rainbow Dash.” Fluttershy spoke in that small voice of hers. The sudden reminder of why we came hit us all hard and left us speechless. As one we all turned to where Rainbow Dash was lying down and saw her drenched in sweat, heard her faint breaths. All the good cheer we felt evaporated, and a suffocating silence fell over us. For endless seconds we stood there, motionless, contemplating what might happen, until a door slammed and Card stepped through carrying a bucket loaded with medical equipment.
At the time a small part of me was very confused as to how he left through a door on the right but came back from the left, but most of me was happy about seeing him return holding a way to save my friend. He quickly shooed us away from our spots in front of Rainbow Dash and got to work with a look of complete focus I had never seen on him before. He quickly took out a marker, marking a spot on her neck with an X. Then he turned and asked Trixie to take one of the syringes he had and to stick it in that spot and draw some of her blood out. I was briefly insulted by the fact that he had asked Trixie and not me, but thinking about it it does make sense. After all, she is his secretary and he’s probably used to having her help with any problematic patients. Anyways, once the syringe was filled he poured it all out into a vial that contained some clear liquid. When all the blood was in the liquid, he took out a small machine and placed the vial into one of the little metal rings on it. He turned the machine on, which made it spin and the vial was flung around in a circle. He sat down and began to watch it go.
After a few moments of nothing happening Applejack spoke up. “Well?” she said.
“Well... What?” Card asked, not taking his eyes off of the spinning machine where the liquid in the vial was starting to turn a very dark pink.
“Shouldn’t ya do something?” Applejack sounded on the verge of hysterics. “Ah mean It’s almost been an hour, Rainbow could die at any moment!”
Card scoffed, “Yeah, if she weighed about 50 pounds and had the metabolism of a rabbit. Manticore venom takes at least three hours to be fatal.”
“What? Isn’t it kinda useless as a weapon then?” Trixie asked.
“If you plan to directly kill, then yes. Manticore venom isn’t meant to be a directly fatal strike, it’s meant to subdue prey with the least amount of damage to the tasty bits as possible.” Card started doing his weird little thing his does to help him remember if he’s forgotten something, where he sort of sweeps his eyes back and forth while smacking one of his front hoofs against the other. He apparently didn’t think of anything as he got up and started walking out the door.
“Now hold up,” Applejack said. “Where in tarnation are ya going?”
Card was unable to answer as he was out of the room by the time she finished talking. With Card out of the picture for a moment, we started talking.
“Do you really think he can do it?” Fluttershy asked, repeating her earlier question in her quiet little mumble, her eyes still locked on Rainbow Dash’s still form.
“He said he could, and ah believe him. He don’ strike me as a liar.” Applejack responded.
“What if he doesn’t think he’s lying?” Rarity said.
“Wha’d ya mean?”
“Well, with all due respect to our host we all saw him arguing with nothing earlier... and he was losing.”
“Maybe he was just thinking out loud, I do the same sometimes,” I said, in defense of my friend.
“Yeah, besides he talks like that all the time,” Trixie added. “He even has names for them.” Trixie was not helping.
“Eve-” Rarity’s response was cut off by Card re-entering the room, this time through the same door he used to leave, eating a green apple.
He took a few steps in the room, before his eyes went wide. With an exclamation of, “Rope!” He quickly turned around and left again, all of us watching him with varying degrees of confusion.
“...Even so,” Rarity said as she snapped herself out of her confusion, “Darling, I saw him declare a vendetta against a picnic table, then set it ablaze with lightning!” Speaking of, I still need to get a new picnic table for Spike. He apparently was planning on using the last one for a private something-or-other with Rarity. Yeah I know it’s rude, but paying attention to Spike every time he talked about Rarity would take up so much of my time, I would have no time to study. Anyways, Spike was so mad about it he tried to tackle Card the next time he came over. It went about as well as you would think it did. Anyways, back to what Rarity was saying.
“Not to mention he chooses to live in one of the most dangerous places in Equestria. Twilight, even you have to admit he’s not normal.”
Rarity’s words left me uneasy. So uneasy in fact, that I wasn’t able to come up with answer to give her. Fortunately I was saved from just standing there like a foal called up to front of the class- Dear Celestia, Card is rubbing off on me! Anyways, Trixie spoke up.
“No, Card isn’t normal. In fact, he’s about as normal as a purple apple at a vegetable market.” He’s rubbing off on Trixie even more. “But even so, you should hope that he knows what he’s doing. Because if he doesn’t, Rainbow Dash dies.”