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// Hospital Followed by an Argument 
// Story: A Change of Pace 
// by Votederpycausemufins 
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	“Here we are!” Twilight announced as she helped Cicada off the train. “Now Celestia said she’d be in a meeting when we first got here, so we should probably go to the hospital here in Canterlot first.”
“Will I be able to see Luna as well during the meeting, or will she be unavailable?” The changeling queen asked.
“She said that one of the reasons she was holding it off for another meeting was so that Luna could also be present. It will still be the time she would be asleep, but she’ll at least have had some sleep rather than none at all.”
“That’s true.” Cicada replied. “So, where is this hospital anyway?”
“It’s not far from the old library I used to live at. It should only take, at most, twenty minutes to get there.”
“Good! Lead the way!”
“Oooo!” Pinkie exclaimed. “Let’s make it a race! Ready?! Set?! Go!”
Cicada watched as the pink pony zoomed off. She stared in the direction Pinkie had gone in before realizing that the group was going in another direction.
“Wait, does she even know where the hospital is?” Cicada asked.
“I have no clue.” Was all Twilight said.
When they did reach the hospital, they entered to find that Pinkie was already there, along with a basket of freshly baked cookies.
“How did she…?” Cicada started, pointing at the mare and slowly turning her head to look at Twilight.
“I have no idea. Just go with it. Anyway, Celestia helped with setting up an appointment for you here already. We’re looking for a pony by the name of  Healing Touch.”
“Healing Touch?” One doctor asked. “I know him! He told me you would be coming.”
“Hello Cure!” Twilight greeted the Earth pony.”Girls, this is Tentative Cure. He was one of the doctors I usually went to when I was little before he started working here.”
“It’s nice to see you again. who knew that I was helping a future princess when you came for your checkups.”
“Please, Twilight’s fine. I’m still not used to being called a princess by the ponies I already know pretty well.”
“Alright Twilight. Anyway… Healing Touch wanted me to send you to room 27B. Take the stairs down the hall to your right. It will be on the second floor.”
“Thank you!” Cicada smiled at him. “It was nice to meet you.”
“Hope you feel better.” the stallion responded.
The group found the room rather quickly and entered the room to find a unicorn mare.
“Hi.” Twilight started. “Uh, sorry. Did we come to the wrong room?”
The mare faced the group entering the room. “Wha? Oh, not at all. You must be the group Healing Touch said he was meeting with. He had to step out for a second, but I’m helping, so I guess I’ll start checking up on you. Now who’s the patient?”
“Ooo! Ooo! She is!” Pinkie exclaimed, pointing to Cicada.
“Alright! Just hop up on the bed here and I’ll start looking at the damage.”
Cicada followed what the mare said and got on the bed. The doctor grabbed a clipboard that was attached to the door and approached the disguised queen.
“Okay, my name is Life Cross. It says here your name is Cicada, is that right?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Good. So it says that you were hit by a dark magic spell. You don’t know what the spell was, but it gave you a very bad burn-”
“That’s putting it lightly.”
“-and upon arriving in Ponyville, Princess Twilight helped you to the hospital there where your wounds were treated as best as could be. We were contacted by both the doctors in Ponyville and by means of Princess Celestia herself telling of your arrival and that Healing Touch was to be the main doctor for his main focus of healing rare spell injuries.”
“That… sounds about right. I didn’t personally know about the last part though.”
“That’s fine. May I examine the wound please?”
“Uh, yeah I guess.”
Life Cross started to look at the large burn area. She examined the worst parts of it before looking at some of the less damaged areas. As she looked at the outer area of the wound, she started to get a confused look on her face. Just as she took a breath in to speak, a stallion walked in.
“Ah Life Cross! Getting started I see. Sorry for taking so long. How’s our patient so far?”
Life gave a wary smile. “Good to see you too Healing. So far it’s been going well, but I’m having trouble here.”
“What with?” Healing Touch asked.
“The wound is an odd shape. Look here.” Life pointed to an area near the edge of the burn.
“What’s wrong?” Fluttershy asked the doctors.
“Well,” Healing started. “The wound seems to just disappear once it reaches certain points. There’s no gradual damage to normal area, it just ends.”
“Oh, that might be my fault.” Cicada admitted. “There was one thing you didn’t have on your clipboard there that might complicate things a bit.”
“How much is ‘a bit’?” Healing asked.
Cicada sighed before dropping her disguise. Healing’s mouth dropped open while Life Cross jumped back.
“A… a changeling! We’re supposed to help a changeling?!” Life exclaimed. “Do you know how many ponies ended up in here because of them?” She asked Twilight.
“Yes, but…”
“No, I’m not doing this. Those things have caused too much trouble for me. I don’t care how long ago it was, my brother still had nightmares about the things.”
“Life Cross!” Healing Touch said firmly. “I don’t like them anymore than you do, but we have to help her. As doctors, we have to help all patients that come in this hospital, regardless of who or what they are.”
“Can I say something?!” Cicada exclaimed. “I’m still not sure exactly what all happened during the changeling invasion here, and from what I’m hearing from you…” She pointed at Life. “It was worse than what I thought. But I agree with Healing Touch, unless a pony were trying to kill me like Twilight, Empress Twilight I mean,” She quickly corrected herself. “I would still try to help them if they were hurt.”
It didn’t take too long after Cicada’s statement before Twilight and her friends helped to straighten out all the details with the doctors to the point that Life Cross finally agreed to help. She and Healing Touch examined Cicada a bit more before they started to heal the wound. In the end, the two doctors were able to heal most of the wound, but the center was still too damaged for Cicada to cover it up when they were done.
“We did as best as we could in fixing the damage caused by the spell.” Healing started. “Unfortunately I didn’t recognise the spell that cause the damage in the first place. After more research, I might be able to ask you to come back so I can finish because from what I can tell, the damage the spell caused to you isn’t going to fully heal itself for a while.”
“Most of your wound would be bleeding if it weren’t for whatever spell it was being hot enough to cauterize any areas blood would come from.” Life added. “However, while I was working, one area did start to bleed enough that we needed to stitch it up. I don’t want to have to do it again, so don’t do anything that might make it come out.”
“Got it.” Cicada replied. “Thank you for your help.”
The doctors nodded, and the group left the hospital.



“We still have some time before Celestia asked us to come to the castle.” Twilight said to the group. “Anypony want to head somewhere for something to eat?”
“I think that restaurant we went to a little before the wedding was near here.” Pinkie said cheerily.
“Yes that does sound like a fine idea.” Rarity agreed. “I did like the iced tea I was served there.”
“Do you think that’s good?” Fluttershy asked Cicada.
“Yeah, I guess.”
It didn’t take long for them to find the restaurant. For the most part, the group only bought themselves drinks, but Cicada decided to order the ‘Endless Breadsticks’ off the menu. Spike had packed himself a decent sized gem to munch on and didn’t order much. Shortly after everyone got their orders, Twilight decided to make conversation with Cicada.
“So, what do you normally do where you’re from? Besides fighting ponies I mean.”
“For the most part I try to help get changelings out from the cities to our camps so they can get stronger and help. Slowly our numbers are increasing, but it doesn’t help we lose a few changeling as well. Other than that I’m normally helping out with our tactics for anything from small raids to larger battles.”
Twilight’s eyes glittered with excitement. “Really?! Is there anything you can tell me. It would be interesting to hear how you do that.”
“Alright I guess. Normally I start with figuring out which changeling I’ll have for the certain mission. One time, we were having a small raid on a food compact in the second sector. I had two of my more bulky changelings to help move the food as well as two quick changelings to take care of any guards nearby.”
“Why not do it the other way? Seems kind of pointless the way you do it.” Rainbow remarked.
Cicada glared at the pegasus. “Yes, it might seem like that, but we want to obtain as much food as possible. The stronger changelings I can rely on to make it back to our main base themselves with the food while the faster changelings wouldn’t be able to defend themselves at the same time they have to move the food. Instead, they can swiftly move to each guard and take them out so that the resources we need can be taken without any problems.”
The queen started to chew on one of the breadsticks after finishing her basic plan.
“So you’re basically just stealing from these ponies? Not to mention maybe killing them. And all just for some food?”
Cicada’s eye twitched. Once she swallowed her food, the changeling responded to Rainbow’s questions. “First of all, we wouldn’t have to steal any food if Empress Twilight hadn’t taken over Equestria in the first place. Maybe we have to kill a few ponies here and there, but changelings die every day from starvation, even in the third sector which is the main producer of food. We also usually look some healthy soldiers just by trying to get the supplies we need.”
Cicada’s wound suddenly stung. She gripped it as a headache formed. She thought she could hear Twilight saying something, but when she looked, everything was blurry. She could still make out the shapes of Rainbow Dash, as well as Rarity and Applejack who were on either side of the rainbow pegasus, but she could also make out the shapes of other ponies she couldn’t easily recognise.
Cicada felt a hoof touch her. She quickly slapped it away as she stood up. Slowly the pain went away and Cicada could see everything, but she still had a headache. It turned out she had slapped away Fluttershy’s hoof, and with enough force that the mare almost fell over. Rainbow had quickly gone to her friend’s side to catch her.
“Hey! Be careful!” she exclaimed.
“Don’t tell me to be careful! I’ve had enough of you!”
“What do you-?” Twilight started.
Cicada gave an exasperated laugh. “To think I actually thought you were different than where I’m from. But no, you’re still the pegasus I hate the most, so stay away from me.”
Somewhere in the city, a bell started to announce the top of the hour.
“Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a meeting to attend.”
With that, Cicada stormed off towards the castle.
“Spike, do you think you can make sure she gets there safely?” Twilight asked her assistant. “I think she needs to be with somepony she doesn’t have past experience from where she’s from.”
“You got it Twilight!” He exclaimed, giving a short salute before racing off after the changeling.