//------------------------------// // If Only He Could Respawn // Story: The Fire of a Spartan // by FIREDRA6ON //------------------------------// "How is she nurse?" a familiar voice said. "She's fine for now, her heart rate is starting to return to normal." "What is wrong with her?" "There are multiple conditions," the rustling of paper could be heard, "both of her wings are broken. Her right wing has severe burns on the tip and some feathers. Most of the feathers on the right are damaged or missing. The left wing is missing a few feathers but nothing too major there. Her right forearm is broken and there are many cracks in the bones. She has three broken ribs and multiple cracked ones. She has other minor cuts, scrapes and bruises. She also had major blood loss mostly caused by a large cut along her left hoof, a long cut under her left eye, and large cuts and bruises at the base of her wings." The sound of soft wood hitting a marble table echoed in my ear. "Your friend is very lucky the Princess was able to help her in time, she had reached Class 3 Hemorrhage. We've stopped all the cuts from bleeding, but until we determine her blood type, we can't help her there, although we should know what it is within a few hours. Also, she is going to need to drink lots of fluids when she wakes up." "When will she wake up?" "The anesthesia we gave her won't wear off for a few more hours, but depending on her metabolism of drugs, it could wear off sooner than that." The voices faded leaving silence in my head. As the voices disappeared, something else arrived in its place. Something much darker and much quieter. In the dark I could see the figure of a dark blue pegacorn, or unisus, whatever they're called. It's face is blurry but seemed familiar. The pegacorn starts walking toward me. As it nears, it's face begins to clear up, and now I can see that it's... the blue princess from earlier? "Why hello, so sorry for intruding on your dream." she raises a hoof to her chest, "I am Princess Luna, ruler of the night." She smiles at me, waiting for a response. "I have a question for you, how did you get inside my dream? Isn't the huma- I mean, pony mind an individual's privacy? Plus entering someone's mind isn't an easy thing to do, an old ally of mine had tried once before with no such luck." "Being the ruler of the night, I am also the watcher of dreams, I can enter the dream of anypony I wish. Although I mainly only enter nightmares to aid the dreamer overcome their fears. Now, follow me, because I can see you have an issue, one you've told no one before." I'm not quite sure if this is the real princess, or if she is even actually saying the truth, but I follow her none the less. As we walk through the darkness on an invisible floor, I notice that off in the distance, there appears to be a white screen of sorts. Once we get close enough, I can see that the white screen is actually a movie screen. I stop and stare at the screen for a moment before looking back at Luna. She laughs lightly at my confused look. "With the movie screen before you, I will show you your deepest fears that you try to hide. Please, sit down, this will take a while before it's over." The princess wasn't kidding, since I don't have an obvious and simple fear like Arachnophobia, the movie goes on for roughly what would be an hour in real life. In a short summary of the film's contents, my deepest darkest fears are related to human, or rather, pony emotions and my other self. While my emotions were restrained years ago after the incident, the things I remember my other self saying and doing spark into my head from time to time, despite the fact that I had my amnesia after it happened. Even though they are restricted within my mind, my emotions are still there, and they could flare up in certain conditions. And I fear that they will take control of me, which can only lead to Him. "Do you see now what you have been hiding from yourself, and from others? The other you, the darker more chaotic you may be there, but trying to bottle your emotions up and avoid confliction will only harm you later on. You must learn to control yourself and not be in constant fear of the other you. When the time comes, you must be able to help yourself. Do you see this now?" I turn my head away from the princess, "You can't keep hiding forever Dragon, because if you do, you will end up hurting those around you." Before things progressed, the dream world began to fizzle and swirl. I regained conscience in the real world. I slowly open my eyes to see a puffy pink haired mare happily stare back at me. She notices my awakening and opens her mouth. "Twilight! Twilight! She's waking up! Your friend that I didn't know until today when she asked me if I know you, is awake! Twilight! Twilight!" she hops out of view as the voice from earlier shushes her. I sit up with my back laying on a fluffy pillow. I look around the room I am in. A few of the ponies I had meet over the past few days are within the room. In the corner is Rainbow Dash who is sitting on the floor. Pinkie Pie is being scolded by a white pony with pink hair, a red cross cutie mark, and a head band with her cutie mark on it. Fluttershy sits nervously in one of the chairs to my right. Seated next to her is Rarity. She has a simple but elegant smile seemingly waiting for me. The grey coated mare, I believe her name to be Derpy, who had crashed into me, sits with Nova Rain, the filly which I met on the same day. In the chairs to my left, Twilight sits patiently with two objects in the chair next to her. I quickly examine myself to find that I can't move my right forearm, my left has a slightly red bandage, I am wearing a hospital gown, and I have a nasal cannula allowing more oxygen into my system. Twilight sits up and walks over to my bed. The two objects floating next to her. "Hello Dragon! How are you feeling?" I rub my right foreleg with my left, feeling the presence of a cast. "I could be better," I reply. Twilight levitates the two objects onto the bed into my view. I look at the objects. One of them is a vial filled near to the brim with a pink liquid. The other is a book. "What's the bottle for?" I ask. "This is for you! It's to turn you back to a stallion! Or at least that's what it should do." "Why is it pink?" "It ended up like that when I mixed in the Reversal Rose. I could add food coloring if you want." "Nah, it's fine," I wrap my left hoof around the potion, "now, uh, this is safe, right?" I stare through the glass at the pink fluid inside. "Well I only had one day to work on it, so it might be." "It might be?" "I didn't have anything to go off of! I've never run into a problem such as this before!" Still holding onto the bottle, I continue staring into it until a white hoof quickly wraps around the top and pulls it from my grasp. I look up to see the nurse from before that scolded Pinkie Pie. "I will hold onto this potion until after you heal. We don't know what it will do to you in your crippled state." She speaks gently but firmly clarifying her point. She turns and places the vial on the side table next to the bed. She looks back at me. "Now Miss Cloud, we can't find your medical records for Ponyville. Do you know where you have your records at? Maybe in your house?" I have medical records, for my HUMAN form. If I give her my records, she'll notice that I'm not a pony or that I'm even the same gender. I need to come up with something fast. It would probably be cliché if I said that it flew out a window. Just as a bead of sweat starts to drip down my temple, Twilight speaks up for me, "Nurse, my friend here is new to Ponyville and her medical records were destroyed by my carelessness when I was practicing a spell before I could get them to you. I will take full blame." The nurse glares at Twilight for a moment, "alright Miss Sparkle, since you are the apprentice of the Princess, I will let it slide. I hope that your studies go well and that you don't destroy anything else. We now need to create a new medical record for Miss Cloud." She turns back to me, "Miss Cloud, I will come later today to ask you a few questions and when you are well enough, I will do some test. Now remember that you need to drink lots of fluids if you want to get better and try to move as little as possible, Your ribs are quite damaged." she turns around and walks to the door. "Oh, and Miss Sparkle, visiting hours end soon, so you and the others will need to leave in about half an hour." "Ok, thank you," the nurse leaves the room. I continue staring at the door for a few moments. "So dear," I shift my head to the right toward Rarity, "how did you get injured this badly? It hasn't even been a day since the first time we met!" I rub the back of my head before opening my mouth, "Well you see, that's quite a long story, let's just say I met up with someone I didn't really want to see and things didn't end well." Twilight's really the only one who has any clue as to what has happened, but she doesn't know all of it. "Dragon, what happened after I left? I've never seen somepony with this many injuries before!" Twilight got up in my face, obviously concerned about my well being. I push her back a bit with my left hoof. "To quickly sum it up, I ran into someone I apparently know but don't remember, he decided to call himself Frost for right now, and then I met that brash light blue pony, uh, Trixie I think." Twilight interrupts, "Trixie? So that's why she's in Ponyville, but why would she side with your enemies?" "Well she told me it was because they could help her get revenge on you, Twilight. She seemed to be really angry at you because you apparently showed her up last year." "I wasn't trying to show her up, I was protecting Ponyville from an Ursa Minor that Snips and Snails led here." "An Ursa Minor? Isn't that a constellation? How would that cause problems for Ponyville?" "Well I don't know how it is where you're from, but an Ursa Minor is a physical bear that is a clear blue, it's quite large and there are stars dotted all over its body." "So it's a giant see through bear... well okay then." I respond. "Precisely," Twilight replies, "now Dragon, do you think you can handle being in the hospital for a few days? It seems that it'll be a while before they'll let you leave, you took quite a beating." "I think I'll be fine, but Frost and Eric are still out there, plotting something." "Don't worry, I'm sure we can help you if they come for you." Twilight says, partially reassuring. "Alright girls, we should give Dragon some time to rest, I'll visit you again later Dragon." Everyone in the room wave and say their goodbyes before exiting the room, Rarity is the last to leave. "Try not to stress yourself too much darling," she says before leaving through the doorway. I lie back on the pillow of the hospital bed. I won't be able to do much of anything, but what if Eric or one of Frost's army go after Twilight or her friends? I wouldn't be there to help them. And if they decided to come after me, I'm in such a vulnerable state that they could easily finish me off or kidnap me again. Before I could really get into my thoughts, I heard a knocking at the door. I sit up and see the last person-er-pony I'd want to see. Standing at the doorway was Eric dressed up in a doctor outfit. "The Doctor is in," He says, an obvious smirk on his face. "Eric? What the hell are you here for?" I attempt to get up to confront him. "Now now Dragon, you shouldn't move too much, you don't want to hurt yourself more than you already have." He walks up next to the bed, I glare at him as I try to not lunge at him and damage myself further. "Why are you here?" I say through gritted teeth. "Well Miss Cloud, oh do you mind if I call you that?" he chuckles lightly, "I am here to tell you how well things are going for us now that our biggest threat will be resting broken in a hospital. Also because I wanted to see my favorite person or should I say pony and see you in such a weak state. Doesn't it feel so weird being so defenseless?" He grins as he mocks my damaged pony form. He isn't wrong, this is the first time in many years that I've been as defenseless as I am now. "We always have such fun conversations, don't we Dragon? Well it's time for me to go and you know, makes plans with Frost. As a friend, I recommend getting plenty of sleep, but as your enemy, it doesn't matter if you do because you can't stop us either way." He laughs at his own joke as he walks over to the door. "Oh, and Dragon, say hi to your purple friend for me she seemed like such a nice girl." he adds before walking out and closing the door behind him.