Able felt like the whole world had just sneezed in his skull, as he cracked open his eyes he was instantly blinded by the sunlight that was pouring in from the window. He turned his head away from the searing light only for loud crack to echo through the air and leave a dull ringing in his ear. As the ringing persisted however it started to give him one of the most painful migraines he has had in his life.
--
Lyra tapped her hoof impatiently, she really didn't enjoy being hospitals,it wasn't so much that disliked it. She just didn't like seeing ponies not feeling well, or worse yet in pain. She looked around the waiting room, for the most part save for a few doctors and nurses passing by it was just her, Stormy and Harper; who was talking to one the assistants.
"Relax, Lyra." She stopped taping her hoof as Stormy wrapped her foreleg around her shoulders. "Ables, going to be fine. The doctors are running as many tests as they can to find out what happened." She gave her a reassuring smile before looking up to where Harper was chatting.
"Thank you," Harper waved to the assistant as he trotted over to the two of them. He sighed contently as he sat down. "So the first battery of tests are in, and from what they can tell he's as fit as a fiddle." He smiled to the two of them."They still know something is wrong, but they say we could go visit him if we want."
"Really!" Lyra blurted out, failing to hide her excitement at fact that Able was apparently okay. "I mean. What room is he in?" She smiled sheepishly as she felt an embarrassed blush come on.
"He's in room-" Harper was cut of when the door the waiting room burst open and princess Luna backed in from a series of flashes and excited shouting. As she cleared the door she used her magic to quickly close the door, lock it and then lean against it like an angry Ursa major was on the other side.
"We have done all we could to sate the curiosity of those press ponies," She glanced over to one of the nurses who stopped what she was doing when the princess entered. "Excuse us, could we trouble you for a glass of water?"
"Why of course your majesty." She quickly scooted away down on of the nearby hallways.
"Is it, really that bad your majesty?" Stormy asked as she got up from her seat and started trotting towards her.
"Tis nothing like," She paused as the nurse returned with a paper cup filled with water. She took the cup into her magical grasp and took a large gulp. "Thank you, very much." she smiled to the nurse as she shyly went on her way." Like the time we returned to Canterlot with our sister. I'm fairly certain our sister had some of the more bothersome ponies temporally detained."
"Princess," Lyra smiled as she looked over to her. "thanks again for responding to that letter, and helping us out this far."
Luna waved a hoof at her. "Please, no thanks is needed. As my sister once said you are all her little ponies and she would do anything to make sure you all are happy." She slyly to Lyra. "On another note however, you are very welcome."
Luna stood up from the door as a couple minutes had passed and the crowd outside grew quiet. She trotted over to the seating area and picked up one of the magazines that was laying around. She flipped a few pages in and quietly started reading.
"Tell us, have the doctors discovered what ails our new friend?" Luna asked as she looked up to the three of them.
"They haven't found anything yet, and they said we could go visit him if we wanted to..." Harper trailed off again as the look of him remembering something really important came to his mind. "He's in room five nineteen."
Lyra saw Stormy tense up a bit when Harper said the room number. Harper must have noticed to since he started to wrap his foreleg around her and bring her in.
"That is good,then." Luna looked up from her magazine with a hint of confusion. "Why have you not gone to visit him then?"
"We were about to, when um.." Harper stammered Lyra could tell he was more then abit nervous about telling the princess that she held them up.
Lyra took the initiative and sprang to her cousins rescue "We wanted you to know about Able as well."
"Well, tis a good thing that you felt me privy to that information." Luna settled in her seat, before looking to the door. "Tell us twas this the results thou expected?"
Harper bit his lip for a moment. "To be honest no, I thought everypony would gather up all their pitchforks and torches and drive us out of town." He glanced over to the door where the the shadows of all the newsponies shuffling about caught his eye.
"And you Ms. Shock, what do you think about the results of our introduction of Able?" Stormy slowly pushed her way from Harper so she could sit up on her own.
"It...." She looked around to everypony and smiled nervously. "Certainly could have gone better."
"Thou are referring to his sudden collapse in the crowd." Luna said. Stormy simply nodded.
"We didn't something like that was going to happen, heck we don't even know why it happened in the first place." Lyra commented.
"Indeed, we do not know what might have caused this." Luna started to stare off in the general direction of the rest of the hospital. "Indeed, we don't."
Just as Luna finished musing over her own thoughts one of the doors to the intensive care wing flew open, there trotting through the door was possibly the most bitter looking old stallions anypony has ever seen in a white lab-coat and the blue scrubs.
"I got it," He triumphantly said as he approached them. "I figured it out, by Jove I figured it out." He pulled his clipboard from between his wing;on it was a crude sketch of Ables face followed but many hastily written notes. "He's not exactly sick or hurt per se." He flipped the page to reveal his charts. "He seems completely healthy enough, but I noticed something was a bit off." He looked over to the door where a newspony quickly darted away from the window. "Lets continue this somewhere else shall we."
--
Able stared calmly at the half woman half spider thing that was hanging from the ceiling, praying to god that he was hallucinating because she was just staring intently back at him. Able glanced down at his wrists to where these giant snake things were wrapped around them. He looked back to where the spider woman was but she was gone in her place was a swirling swarm of eyeballs all staring back at him.
When he tried to rationalize what was going a dark ooze started to bubble out from his chest whispering something that he couldn't quite understand. He felt his stomach pull a cartwheel, as a wave of nausea hit him once more.
"Oh god," His voice sounding distorted and at an unnaturally high pitch echoed in the room. "I know I don't ask you for much." He paused as he dry heaved. "But please. Help me."
Just as the echo of his own voice died down in his head a blinding white light filled the room. As he tried weakly to look at what was in the light he saw five smudges appear,
--
"Oh my....." Lyra looked to were was laying strapped to the bed. She was no doctor, but even still she could tell that he was hurting and confused. Quickly rushing over to his side she looked at his raw wrists, he had obviously been trying to get out of the restraints for some time.
"Why is strapped to the bed?" Harper looked towards the doctor who was staring coldly at Able.
"He, kept on striking out at the nurses when he came to." He trotted forward, Ables eyes following him as he moved past Lyra. "I didn't want him or anypony to get hurt in all this confusion. It's not every day we have to wrestle and restrain a human you know."
"Commendable doctor, but still in many ways very cruel." Luna trotted to the opposite side of the doctor and Lyra and placed her hoof on Ables chest, causing him to breath faster. "Shhh. Its alright Able tis us, a friend." Her horn lit up as she released the restraint closest to her.
--
Able turned his eyes to the hoof on his chest, as he followed it up he say Luna looking calmly back at him, but opposite of her stood two of the most grotesque amalgamations of something pulled out of his nightmares. He looked back down at his wrist to the snake that was hissing viciously at him as it slithered away to the floor.
"Luna," He felt his throat instantly run dry as he uttered her name. Reaching out to her, he saw her appear again only this time how she appeared in his dream. "Whats happening?" He looked back to the two other creatures. Only to see their nightmarish appearance slowly turn into a bubbling black ooze.
"Be calm Able," He looked back to Luna who was mouthing something to the pair of bubbling slime. "You are in, good hooves." He felt confused when he noticed what Luna was saying and how her mouth was moving didn't match up.
"But, whats going on?" He asked as a warm slick started to cross his cheek. As he put his hand to his face to see what it was, One of the blobs sputtered to him, and started to reach out for him. He tried to flinch away from it but Lunas hoof pushed him back down onto the bed.
"Its alright Able." This time the human form of her stepped behind the blob and placed her hand on it.
Ables eyes widened as he saw the ichor melt away to reveal Lyra, her eyes filled with worry and concern as she slowly pulled her hoof back. Luna placed her hand on the blob sitting next to her, to reveal a light gray pony who had a serious look on his face as he talked to Luna.
"We are going to undo the other restrain Able," This time The actual Luna looked down to him as her horn lit up. "You, may be witness to some things as we sit you up. They are nothing more than hallucinations and they are not real."
He felt the pressure on his other wrist loosen up.
--
Stormy watched as the doctor backed away from the bed.
"Your majesty, I would advise against this course of action. If he is indeed suffering from magical overload, then there is no guarantee that he will not act out against his hallucinations."
Stormy could believe it, when the same doctor who oversaw her treatment for the feather flu was actually afraid what one of his patients might do. She remembered kicking and screaming as he and a team of nurses plucked her feathers out one by one, she couldn't decide what hurt more the painfully throbbing that came in intense waves all over her body or having all her feathers removed. It was no surprise then that she was hanging back just outside the door of Ables room.
"Fear not, good doctor we have this under control." Luna took her hoof off of Ables chest and slowly reached behind the bed for the recline controller.
She held her breath as watched Able slowly and steadily sit up. He looked simply awful, a small trail of dry blood was coming from his nose,that paired with a oily sweaty gloss all over his face, but what really got her were his eyes which seemed to have become a faint pinkish color.
"Able?" She said weakly, causing him to perk up slightly and focus in on her.
"St... Stormy, is that you?" his breathing increased as he tensed up. he weakly reached towards Luna like a baby would trying to get their mother to pick them up.
"Doctor, a bucket if you will." Luna leaned towards him letting his hand rest on the back of her neck.
"No..." He lurched a bit. "I'm okay, really." He looked over to Luna and weakly gave a reassuring smile.
"It's alright Stormy." Harper wrapped his leg over her shoulder and nudged her in. She was so relived that he was next to her right now. She felt better when he was there, almost as if. She caught herself blushing when Lyra looked over to them.
"How are you doing Able?" She looked at his wrist, which had been rubbed raw from the harnesses that he was put in.
"I..." He paused for a moment before Luna rested her hoof on his shoulder. "I have been better." He looked up to the doctor who was standing in the corner furiously looking over his charts. "Hey doc, you mentioned something about magical overload."
"Yes, indeed I did." He looked up to Luna who nodded for him to proceed." Well it would seem that your body has absorbed a massive amount of magical energy, now if you had a way to dispose of this energy like most all of the known magic capable species. This wouldn't be much of an issue, however," He paused as he looked up to all the ponies staring at him. "Since your an exception to being able to use magic, but still able to absorb its energy, it has welled up inside you and is trying to locate a way to manifest itself." He flipped through his charts. "The strange thing other than well being human is the fact that this condition is usually only seen in young unicorns before their first magical episodes."
"So we get him to do some magic and he'll be better right?" Lyra asked.
"No since he cant seem to get rid of it that way," He looked at Able for a moment. "An inhibitor ring might do the trick, then again that wouldn't get rid of all of it."
"So we get him an inhibitor ring, sounds simple." Harper said looking at the doctor who was simply shaking his head.
"The inhibition factor we need, is not exactly on supply here at the hospital. If he were a filly or a colt that would have been the first thing we would've done. We need to get the factor right, now judging from his size and weight we would need something in the 5.7 range, but those are only for-"
"I have one." Lyra raised her hoof up, a massive blush growing on her face.
"Adult entertainment purposes." The doctor trailed off as he looked at Lyra a bit slack jawed.
"What? Me and my marefriend like to experiment from time to time." Lyra said shamelessly. "I'll just umm get it here then." She lit up her horn causing a small tear to open up in front of her, after about a minute of her staring intently into the tear she pulled out a small black box. which she carefully gave to the doctor.
"Yes well..." A slight blush grew on his cheeks as he opened it up to reveal a black metallic ring. "This should do it" He offered it to Able who took it out of the box and inspected it.
"Lyra," He looked over to the mint green mare whose face was one shade away from matching Harpers coat. He cocked his eyebrow to her.
"No, no. We never used it for that." Her ears flicked as she tried to defend herself.
"Right, right, and I can totally shoot lasers out of my eyes." Able smiled as he slipped the ring onto his left ring finger.
"Feel any better?" Both Stormy and Harper asked at the same time, resulting in a awkward silence between the two of them.
"I don't feel any diff-" Able slumped forward, suddenly. Everyone looked at him in surprise save for the princess who simply pushed his head up.
"He shall be better come the morning." She smiled to him. "Come, then let us leave him to sleep."