//------------------------------// // I Just Want to Help // Story: The Other Button // by One of the Crowd //------------------------------// Chapter 30: I Just Want to Help ***Insight 8:55 am*** "Thank you for the muffins ms. Hooves," I said as I took a bite out of one of the muffins Ditzy had kindly brought with her. "It's no problem doctor. You did help my little muffin after all," She replied while petting Dinky's head. Dinky was happily licking on a lollipop that I had given her at the end of our session. Normally I don't give candy to my patients, but Dinky is a special case. When she first came to me three years ago she was for lack of a better term, broken. "She's a nice filly. I'm glad that she's happy to be with you," I still remember Ditzy adopting Dinky. They were both so happy that their smiles would carry over from each of our sessions. That was why I became a psychologist; so I could help ponies. "Me too. Would you like for me to bring some more muffins during our next visit?" "You don't have to ms. Hooves." I held my head high before leaning it down a bit, "I prefer banana nut." Ditzty winked at me before tapping her daughter's shoulder to get her attention. "It's time to go Dinky. Say goodbye," "Bye Insight!" Dinky said enthusiastically after popping the lollipop out of her mouth. She looked at the treat in her magic before she suddenly asked me something. "Can I get an extra lollipop?" "I can't give you too many. You'll get cavities," Kids. They never learn how bad a cavity can be until they've had one. "It's not for me though! I'm giving it to Chance," This caused me to stop for a minute. I knew Dinky was in the same town as Chance, but I never thought that they might of been friends. Oh this could be extremely bad. Still, I couldn't just leave the situation as it is so I gave her one extra lollipop before asking, "Are you a friend of Chance's?" Her cheeks went a little red when I asked that. That's cute, I believe she might have a little crush on him. "Y-yes. He's really nice," She was stuttering too. In all honesty this could be good for both of them, but first Chance needs to give up his delusions for it to work. If he doesn't then he might just make things worse for Dinky. He was actually scheduled to be coming in any minute so I humbly apologized to Ditzy and Dinky before shooing them out. I walked over to my desk, and filed Dinky's case back into it's proper spot before pulling out Chance's file. I truly feel bad for him with all that's happened to him since Jungle Vine destroyed him. What mare plays with a child's mind as if it were a toy? Did she not realize what she was doing? The more she pushed the more of his memories faded until there was nothing left to save. When he first came to me I had hoped to recover some fragment of Chance, but there was nothing left. The only thing that he could remember was his name or at least part of it. This is really why I want to go ahead with the mind wipe; nopony should have to live their only memories being horrible. Ever since we were able to get a hold of him he wasn't ever truly able to interact with many ponies. Especially unicorns at first which would cause him to go into blind panic when they'd use their magic. This was a perplexing issue because there was no ready means to handle such a fear with unicorns being so wide spread in Equestria. That's when ms. Jubilee came along. She took him in and that's when he started improving tremendously. The success was short lived however because of the incident involving one of the farm hands. He just wanted to help and nearly killed the poor stallion. After that he started to regress a little bit and more incidents began to happened. If it wasn't for Arrow's involvement I would say Chance would be unreachable. "Hey, you in here Doc?" Chance called from the doorway. ***Chance 9:05 am*** "It's good to see you Chance, but you're a little late," Insight said while looking over toward me. I was currently enjoying a sucker Dinky had given me on her way out of here. I talked with her a little bit, but I didn't ask why she was here. I suppose I could of asked her, but that wouldn't be polite. "Sorry, Insight. I saw Dinky and decided to talk to her a little bit," I said after popping the sucker out of my mouth. Damn thing was almost impossible to get in there too! I know it's one of those suckers you have to lick for awhile, but it's candy so I don't give a fuck! "Are you friends with her?" He asked with a weird look on his face. "Yeah...She's one of my friends," "That's good to hear. So I've heard that you've been getting in to some more trouble lately?" I knew he was going to ask this, but I still didn't have a way of answering it without looking very bad. "Ummm...yeah, I've kind of been in a bit of trouble again. What thing that I did do you want to talk about?" I knew he couldn't possibly know about the forest yesterday so I didn't know exactly what he was talking about. I've still been in trouble throughout town after I got out of the hospital and Arrow was still in it. "I've heard that you wore a cloak and hid your head while chasing ponies around town. Why were you purposely scaring ponies?" He asked. I remember that prank and it was amazing! "That was Scootaloo's idea. We decided to go pranking around town so we decided to end the day with a bang, and boom the headless horse in real life." "Scootaloo is another friend of yours?" "Yeah! You can't beat her ideas. I've seriously haven't had that much fun in forever!" Insight's face changed a little bit more at that. He was actually grinning a little bit at me. "That's good to hear, Chance. I'm glad you're finally making friends your own age," "They haven't given me a reason to hate them so why wouldn't I be friends with them?" I asked. I mean I don't typically befriend the colts and fillies that I meet, but they're always assholes in some way. Especially Cold. "No reason. I would like to ask you something else. How has you're foster family been?" It's going to be weird answering this question since normally I don't have anything good to say. The only good report before today was when ms. Jubilee watched over me, and that was because she didn't act like I was crazy. "How can I put this? Loving and Button are two of the nicest ponies I've ever met," He smiled at me as I said that. I understood Insight cared enough about me to worry about this, but that wasn't his only reasoning. He doesn't have direct power to do anything if he detects signs of trauma, but Arrow has a lot more legal authority over me than my foster parents. This is because I have to be with the family for a full year before I'm relinquished to them completely. "What about Open or Gibson?" My face dropped to a frown at the thought of those two. Gibson I could look past because he's in his teenager 'fuck everything' faze. Besides I was starting to go into that faze when I was dragged here by that mare. "Gibson can be nice when he wants to," I was openly avoiding answering the part about Open because I didn't want to leave them yet. If he hears about how much of a jackass Open is then he might tell Arrow and I'll be taken away again. "What about mr. Seas?" "Who?" For the love of god I hope he gets the hint that I don't want to talk about him. "You're deliberately avoiding the question. Has he threatened you, Chance? If he has then I'll call Arrow and-" "DON'T CALL ARROW! I mean don't call Arrow. Open hasn't threatened me I just don't get a good feeling around him." SHIT SHIT SHIT! I really have to real this back before he does call Arrow. He slowly walked over toward me with a small frown. "What do you mean?" Insight asked while looking into my eyes. "Something about him just feels...off. Like he's trying to pretend he's something he's not," I do my best to avoid him at all costs, but I always hear him coming into the house at one in the morning. He's got to be doing something shady because I know he works during the day. "Alright, May I ask you a question Chance?" "Actually, Can I ask you a hypothetical question?" I think that we're far enough into the visit for me to safely ask this so I hope he'll listen. Who knows, he might even believe me. "Go ahead," "Let's say Hypothetically I actually don't remember who I was"- I looked at Insight who had an eyebrow raised -"Let's also say that I was a pony for my entire life, and just don't remember. How exactly would I go about becoming normal again?" Insight's expression was unreadable at this point as he thought for a moment. He smiled at me before speaking, "Well 'Hypothetically' you'd have to slowly reintegrate into society. Once that is done you can either try to remember who you were or start a new life." "Thanks Doc. It looks like our session is almost over though," I said while pointing to the clock that read 9:50. He looked up at it before he jumped up and ran toward the door. I guess he had somewhere to be? ***Celestia 9:35 am*** "Luna...just...move!" I said while pushing my sister toward her therapist's office. "I don't need a therapist!" She shouted back toward me. I'm happy that she's home, but I forgot how stubborn she could be about her health. 'We're alicorns' is not a reason for us to neglect our bodies or our minds. "We have to make sure you're mind is healing!" "My mind is perfectly fine!" She said as she moved away and started running back towards the castle. Before she could get very far I was able to catch her in my magic and levitated her beside me while we walked toward Insight's office. Insight is a therapist that does particularly well when it comes to extreme cases of mental trauma. He is one of the only Unicorns I'm willing to let learn that mind wipe spell because he understands when it's necessary. Normally, I wouldn't condone such a use of magic, but he only uses it on foals while they can still adapt to life. If it wasn't a complete mind wipe I'd say that it would be able to help my sister forget that she was even on the moon to begin with. "Your highness," Arrow said when I walked up to Insight's office. What was he doing here? "Hello Arrow. What are you doing here?" "I'm here for Chance's appointment. He's actually getting better!" He said excitedly. I admit that I might not have treated my last meeting with Chance as it should have been handled, but I couldn't just let him off the hook. I mean I was told there was a dragon who foalnapped Chance and had murdered several ponies already. Why does information always get so muddled on the way up? "That's good to hear Arrow. I was just-" "Haha! I have broken free!" Luna cried as she started running away from us. I sighed before nodding toward Arrow. "I apologize, but as you can see; I have a family problem to deal with." Why Can't Luna just see a therapist like normal ponies? ***Insight 10:00 am*** Where are the princesses? They're normally here at exactly ten O'clock. Oh my, did I miss the deadline and they walked away? That can't possibly be good for princess Luna's health especially considering how close we are to a breakthrough. I was pacing in the reception office while I waited for them to arrive. I was certain that they would be here by now, but instead they're nowhere to be found. "*wheeze*My apologies *wheeze* Mr. Insight," A very sweaty and tired Celestia as she came in. Luna was wrapped up in a fishing net for some reason, and attempting to gnaw through the net. "It's not a problem, princess. Would you like that report you asked for?" The report I was referring to was Chance's latest visit. She asked for it to ensure that he is getting better mentally. "If you would kindly," She said as we started to make our way back into my office. This was when I remembered that I never ended my and Chance's session. As I opened up the door he was standing by my desk with a slightly shocked expression on his face. I was about to ask why when, "HAHA! No net can hold me!" Why do I get the eccentric patients? ***Chance 9:55 Am*** I was still relaxing in that therapy chair Insight had left me in before bolting out of here. He could of at least said goodbye before ditching out on me like that! I looked around the rather ordinary office of Insight. The only interesting things were on Insight's desk. He had some weird clock thing, and one of those old timey scales. I got off the chair and made my way over to his desk so I could mess with said scale because why not? When I reached the desk however something caught my eye. There was a piece of paper in the center of the desk. When I looked at it I immediately recognized it as one of Insight's patient files. The only reason I knew what those looked like was because he showed me mine at one point. By that I mean I looked at mine while his back was turned. I knew I shouldn't read this because it is illegal, but then again it's probably mine. I began reading what was on the paper, Patient has a noticeable increase in happiness with her new foster mother. Nope, that is definitely not mine. I shouldn't read this, and just let Insight know he left it out whenever it is that he returns. Then again, I already broke the law so reading a little more couldn't hurt. Damn you curiosity! Memory wipe seems to have had no negative side effects on her other than a minor headache that is easily treated. I'm glad that she chose to go through with the memory wipe, but I'm certain no filly wants to remember what she had to. I've only had a few patients from Detrot, but she witnessed her entire family being killed in that train wreck. Ditzy is a good mother for her, and I'm glad she came by when she did. Wait, Isn't Ditzy Dinky's mom? Ditzy decided that since she would think she was her blood mother that she would give her a new name. I believe it was Dinky. Dinky went through with a mind wipe? She doesn't seem like...I mean...What? At this moment was when Insight walked back into the room with a large white alicorn right behind him.