Twilight woke up in a dark bedroom. For a moment she was looking around, trying to get her bearings, but it was difficult because she was unable to see anything.
Is it night already?
She lit her horn, and she saw that the blinds were closed, so she opened them with a spell. The position of the sun was indicating that it was early afternoon, so she’d been sleeping for about eight hours. She heard her stomach rumbling – since yesterday evening her diet consisted mostly of excessive amounts of coffee and her body threatened to go on strike – so she decided to go downstairs.
"Spike! Are you here?" she called. The dragon emerged from between the shelves, holding a book in his hand.
"Hello, Sleeping Beauty," he laughed, "since you became a consulting detective, you’re quite popular – hour barely passed since you’ve fallen asleep and, like, ten ponies tried to meet you."
"What? You should’ve woken me up!"
"Don’t worry, that wasn’t anything important. First, somepony called Surveillance called and said that if you want to give protection to five ponies at once, you have to conjure few additional guards for him. When I told him that it is scientifically impossible and advised him to use Mirror Pond instead, he…"
"Let me guess," Twilight interrupted him, "He explained to you, sparing no details, where exactly can you stick the Mirror Pond?"
"How do you know? I wanted to tell him that this is not only scientifically, but also geographically impossible, but he hung up."
"Let’s say that I know that guy. What else?"
"Well," Spike scratched his head, "Then Nurse Redheart came here to say that Bon-Bon had woken up."
"And you said that nothing important happened! Is she all right?"
"Nurse Redheart? She seemed ok, I’d say she lost few pounds since I last saw her. Why are you asking?"
Twilight sighed. She noticed that the book he was holding was called “1000 ways to impress a mare”.
I need to warn Rarity.
"No, I meant Bon-Bon!"
"I know, right? Her ribs still need a time to heal, and she’s weakened after a coma, but mentally she’s ok, judging by the fact that in her first words she asked to bring her that insane DJ so she could buck her so hard that they’d find her sunglasses in her cerebellum," Spike explained.
"She actually said “cerebellum”?" Twilight looked interested.
"I don’t think so. But Nurse Redheart noted that she didn’t exactly say “insane”…"
"So, at least, she remembers what happened to her. Somepony else?"
"Hot Pursuit, telling that they brought Lyra to meet Bon-Bon, and that she’s protecting them herself, no matter what Surveillance says. Rainbow Dash was here too, when I told her that you were sleeping she said that you’d find her in the pub. Oh, and then came a pair of Luna’s witnesses, they left us some leaflets, if you’re interested…"
"Rainbow Dash? How’s she?"
"She said she was all right, but something about her seemed off. She used the door instead of crashing into the library,"
"Well, she’s still depressed after the death of those ponies," explained Twilight.
"I don’t get it," said Spike, "Lighting Dust almost killed you, why does she mourn her that much?"
"You know, she was in her team, so Dash felt responsible for her, and…"
"So, it’s a loyalty thing?"
"Exactly. Besides, she probably feels that she caused her death, either by ordering her to fly there, or by not going to help her immediately. What happened in the past doesn’t matter now," Twilight finished her short lecture, and trotted to the kitchen.
"So, anyway, she went to drown her sorrows," Spike summarized. Suddenly a loud “crash!” was heard from the upstairs. Twilight, who was just plundering the fridge, almost choked on a tomato. She swallowed it somehow, and looked up, ready to cope with anything that could emerge from the first floor.
"Seems that Rainbow is much better now!" said Spike.
Indeed she was. At the same moment the blue pegasus fell down from the stairs. She stood on her hooves shakingly, blew her mane out of her eyes and said in a slurred voice:
"Hellptwitherzproblemiffberry…"
"What?" asked Twilight,
"I guess she has a problem with Berry," Spike said, "No money to pay for her cider… or rather ciders."
Suddenly he noticed the shocked expression of the unicorn. Before he could ask her what had happened, she disappeared in a magenta flare.
"And what should I do with you?" he asked Rainbow Dash, who was doing her best to focus her vision on him.
"Dunnomayybeadrink?" was all she managed to say.
"Yeah. And one for me too…"
***
Twilight appeared exactly in front of Sharp Shock, who jumped away from her, hitting one of the tables and almost knocking it over.
"What happened?" she shouted, panicked.
"Don’t worry, we have everything under control," the guard said. "As you know, the barmare here likes to drink like a fish when no one’s looking. Seems that somepony spiked her drink with a poison,"
"Is she alive?"
"Yes, good thing that Hot Pursuit sent me here. I called a doctor immediately, and that crazy pegasus said that she’d fetch you," he pointed at the broken window.
"Indeed, that lad saved her life," said the paramedic, a green stallion with a lighting and a heart for a cutie mark, who was levitating a stretcher with Berry. The barmare was conscious and Twilight came to her to ask her if she had seen the perpetrator.
"Nope, but just today something strange happened," said the purple mare weakly, "You know, they wrote about Cloudy in the paper and his ex-girlfriend appeared here, just few hours ago."
"His ex-girlfriend? Who’s she?"
"I don’t remember her name… but she used to be a psychology student…"
Twilight suddenly cursed under her breath. Her throat became dry when she slowly asked:
"Do you know where she went?"
"No idea…"
A sudden realisation struck Twilight.
"I must go to the hospital!" she exclaimed and teleported herself.
"Hey! You could at least ask me if I need a lift!" Berry shouted.
***
The hospital room was dark and silent, except of quiet snoring of a pony, sleeping on a chair in an awkward position. Bon-Bon looked at her warmly. No one told her exactly what happened when she was in a coma, but from the talks of Lyra and doctors she figured most of it herself. Poor, old Lyra… Bon-Bon noticed that she now uses her hooves rather than the magic. She had asked Dr Stable if it was normal and he told her that it was a result of shock.
"But soon she’ll overcome it, I think. She receives help from the psychologist and her mental state improves," he added.
The psychologist. Bon-Bon hadn’t seen her yet, but she heard a lot about her. She was a forensic psychologist who worked with Twilight Sparkle on her case (Lyra had a hard time explaining to her that Vinyl was actually innocent). She was eager to meet her.
The door opened. Bon-Bon looked at it, only to see a dark silhouette of a pegasus, who approached Lyra, muttering something. Bon-Bon raised her bandaged head a bit.
"Hello there. Are you sleeping? No problem, you don’t need to be awake to comprehend in this stage of therapy… It’ll cure you from everything, forever…"
Bon-Bon was terrified when she saw the glint of light on the blade, raised above her loved one. With a great determination she grabbed the bed’s frame with her front hooves and threw a powerful buck with her hind legs, aiming at the pegasus’ side. Her whole body screamed in pain, she fell on the floor near her bed feeling that her ribs cracked again.
The pegasus hit the wall, recovered quickly, but the noise woke Lyra up. When the attacker raised the hoof with a knife again, she acted merely by instinct: a golden beam of magic hit the pegasus’ right wing, penetrated through it, and struck the wall, leaving a scorched mark and several bloody stains on it. The wounded pony screamed in pain, but still tried to reach Lyra, who ducked in her seat, when another beam, this time magenta-coloured, blinded everypony for a while and hit the attacker’s head, partially burning a mane, and sending the pony flying across the room.
Twilight turned the light on, revealing Bon-Bon lying on the floor and panting heavily and Lyra, who was standing on all four legs, aiming her horn at Krissy, who was reclining against an opposite wall.
"Krissy… That’s… that’s impossible," gasped the green unicorn, and turned to Bon-Bon, who was trying unsuccessfully to get up. They heard the hoofsteps on the corridor and Doctor Stable and Nurse Redheart ran into the room.
"What the hell happened here?"
"Help Bonnie!" Lyra shouted. Twilight trotted to Krissy and examined her wounds. At first she thought that most of the blood staining pegasus’ coat and dripping on the floor comes from the wing wound, but then she noticed something far worse.
A knife handle protruding from pegasus’ chest.
"Doctor! Come here, quick!" Twilight shouted. Krissy half opened her eyes, looked at her chest and whispered something to the unicorn, her breath slow and jerky. She coughed up some blood and rested her head on Twilight’s hooves, staring at her, or rather right through her. Everypony, including Bon-Bon looked at them.
"What did she say?" asked Nurse Redheart, breaking the uncomfortable silence.
Tears were flowing from the unicorn’s eyes, yet her answer was almost wiped out of emotions:
"Feint within a feint within a feint."