The Echo Creek Medical Center was a new hospital that had just been built in the last few years. It wasn't the largest hospital in California, that would be the one in Guadalupe Hidalgo. It also never saw many film or movie stars since the Holliwood area was covered by the Lon Chaney Memorial Hospital.
The hospital did have one thing that made it stand out- the emergency medical services were well known to be one of the better ones in California.
Though having a screaming girl riding a unicorn throw a patient in your face did do wonders for prompt and good service. Though it wasn't Star's fault for screaming like a maniac, it just so happened that teleportation wasn't a very common thing in Mewni. So she handled the laws of magic being broken rather well.
Skidding across the floor, the two magical princesses and Marco ran into the help desk with a thud.
"May I help you?"
Twilight thought of how to phrase the whole mess that she inadvertently caused. And Celestia had taught her that diplomacy did also involve making your side look a little better than reality in certain cases. Princesses were not infallible and Celestia had tried to explain why she needed to always hand off the responsibility of saving the day to Twilight. That was a fun conversation that Twilight had after she beat Tirek.
Quickly responding with the best thing in a bad situation she finally spoke. "Yes, sorry for just dropping in here unexpectedly but we had a really bad accident and we need to have some sort of doctor look at my friend here."
Twilight waited for a reaction to the fact that she could talk. She filed away that there seemed to be unicorns in this dimension but they were very rare and not well known in this part of the world since Marco had been surprised at the fact that she could talk.
The receptionist looked down at Twilight, shrugged at the sight of a talking purple horse and talked over the speakerphone, "Doctor Pangloss, we seem to have an emergency."
The speakerphone chirped and replied in a slightly excited tone, "I'll be right down. I was just showing my daughter the morgue for a fun learning experience. Give me, I dunno, a minute or two."
Twilight stared at the nearby clock and began to count the seconds that she believed that this Earth had in a minute- she didn't think that the timing was that off since she had glanced at a few human science books while she was living in the Canterlot High library. And she just hoped that Marco would be okay since human science seemed to be in some regards more advanced in healing if you tok away the advantage that ponies had with unicorn magic.
Star was just trying to keep as calm as possible. She had pulled out Marco's cellphone, which Marco had needed to explain that it wasn't a magic wand and was more like the magic mirror that she had in her room, and looked through the speed dial contacts. Star was at least glad to see that Marco was prepared for anything since she couldn't completely remember the house phone number off the top of her head right now.
She counted the phone call's connecting rings as a way to keep a little more calm. After the fourth one, a Spanish accented voice picked up the phone.
"Marco?"
Star wasn't going to like this phone call since anything that went wrong was probably going to get the attention of her mother, the Queen of Mewni. She quickly waved over to Twilight and tried to use the magical power of charades to say that she was going to be busy for a few minutes. Twilight glanced over and saw Star do what Fluttershy would term 'a mating dance' and only after Star pointed at the phone did she realize what was going on.
Twilight nodded and waited for this Doctor Pangloss to appear. After what felt like an eternity as Twilight tried to look anywhere but the problem that she caused, she heard two sets of footsteps approach from the hallway. Twilight glanced over at Star who was stuck between telling Marco's parents what happened and being surprised at who she saw emerge from the double doors.
A middle aged woman with purple highlights in her black hair waved and smiled at the shocked faces. Her scrubs were not the normal color of blue that Star had seen in every random tv show with doctors, but they were a shade of purple that seemed tinged with some red. And she was covered in tattoos that where partially hidden by her clothing.
And then Star noticed one of her classmates in a nurse uniform.
"Janna? What are you doing here?"
It had been thirty or so minutes since Marco was taken into surgery for getting a stab wound that was accidental. And the medical center was mostly okay with leaving it there because trying to say that a unicorn stabbed a teenager and trying to get that approved by medical insurance would be rather difficult. And Star had finished her phone call with Marco's parents. After a tearful explanation of what happened and getting Twilight on the phone, they seemed to have calmed down and not threatened to call Mewni and talk to Star's parents. For the time being of course.
And well, at least Marco seemed to be okay.
So three girls were sitting in the waiting room- one was a pony, the other two were not.
"So Janna. . .hello." Twilight felt really awkward about meeting one of Star's classmates in a situation like this.
Janna for her part, was not wearing her typical green slacker hat, jacket, and yellow skirt combo but it was a strangely fitting stereotypical white nurse outfit. Janna was actively confused as to how she could explain the outfit.
"Hey, Star. Hey, random purple horse. I can totally explain why I'm like this."
Star was mostly silent since she was still worried that Marco's parents would tell what happened tonight. She didn't want to go to St. Olga's and be a reformed princess. That was where princess individuality went to die and burn away in a sparkling rainbow of doom. She had to get her mind off her parents. Quietly, she spoke up.
"Don't worry about it. You look pretty good that way too. But can we just swap stories or something. I'm kind of too drained to be anything more than worried for Marco." Star fidgeted around in her chair and then slumped over. She didn't know what to do and with all the training that she had to be a good Princess, she was conflicted. On one hand, she knew her parents loved her, but her mother was so harsh and quick with punishments that she didn't know how she felt anymore when she was alone with her thoughts about her family and if she was living up to the expectations.
Janna and Twilight quickly shared a worried look. Janna knew how Star usually was at school- confident, happy, and overall a nice person without many issues fitting in her own way. But this version of Star worried her. Like any girl, Janna had seen the cartoon versions of Princesses on the screen with a happy ending and happily ever after but maybe she was a bit wrong about Star. Maybe there was something more there than just joy and happiness.
"Uh sure. We can do that. Do you want to go first, Twilight?"
Twilight shook her head no. She kind of wanted to know why Janna was here in the first place.
"Well okay then. l guess we can start as to why I am dressed like this. . .-
"Mom. Why do I have to be dressed up like a nurse if it's bring your daughter to work day?" Janna was laying on her bed and she could hear her mother folding the laundry. Her mom always listened to some singer songwriter music when she was doing that. Janna, on the other hand, listened to death metal when she had to do anything. She just liked the loud music. It helped her find her happy place.
"Well I thought it would look really cute and since you do want to follow in my footsteps I just thought that on site supervision would be best. And why not make you look good while you're there. Plus I get to show you off for fun." Janna just thought her mom could be a dork as she outright giggled at the thought of parading her around and probably posting tons of pictures onto Spacebook.
There were so many awkward photos on her mom's profile. For being a tattooed mom that her friends loved because of the idea that she had a super cool mom that let her do what she pretty much wanted. . .she was still a completely awkward mess.
Thank goodness she hadn't found a boyfriend yet. That would be a fun dinner as her mom grilled her boyfriend about things. Personal not polite in conversation around a dinner table type things.
But her mom did do the birds and the bees talk with her friends present once. And it was terrible. Too much information and altogether one of the more strange happenings that her mom did. But Janna was used to the strange adorkable happenings of her mom for the most part. She was a surgeon and from what she could gather on the nights that her mom came home really late- it wasn't the happiest of jobs since she had to make sure that the patients were okay first.
And some days were so bad that she had to make her mom want to get out of bed by cheering her up.
Today was one of the better days for sure. So maybe her mom was a dork. At least she could use the pictures as a good memory. And since she was planning on going off to college in a few years, there wasn't going to be as much daughter bonding times as before.
"Fine. I'll do it. But can you at least not touch my hair? I like it right now- and maybe can we check out the morgue? That's always a fun place to be."
Twilight just stared at Janna.
"What? The morgue is a fantastic place and being around all the dead bodies makes it seem like a murder mystery. And just in case zombies come attack us in the foreseeable future, I want to be prepared for the zombie uprising." The girl just smiled and thought of the fantastic zombie movies that she had seen when she was a little girl. While most girls had been trying to become a princess, she had wanted to become a monster hunter. Then you knew how to get yourself out of a kidnapping attempt by bloodthirsty, evil monsters without needing a prince to save you. It was kind of empowering.
Twilight waved a hoof and laughed. "Sorry, sorry. I just wasn't expecting that kind of a happy ending in your story."
Star chuckled a little bit at Twilight's outburst. Star didn't think that Janna had a relationship with her parents since she never saw her outside of school. Maybe it wasn't going to be so bad anymore, it just was so difficult trying to fit into a new school and dealing with expectations that your parents gave you. Maybe she wasn't so different after all.
Twilight smiled at Star's laughter. Though she wondered how exactly Star was hiding so much insecurities since she had mainly seen the Mewnian mostly be worried sick about what amounted to an accident. She'd have to file that away for later since she remembered that even Pinkie Pie held issues with depression and worrying mental health even if she was the Element of Laughter. Maybe being a princess here was different than what Princess Celestia had led her to believe- and even Celestia could be a problematic teacher with her expectations.
Twilight shuddered to herself when she remembered the Smarty Pants Incident.
"Yep. That's my family. We're pretty much there for each other but hey we can totally get on each other's nerves." Janna sat back comfortably in her chair."
"Well I guess that means I'm up for the next turn in this round of stories then. . . and this is the story of how I cast a love spell to cause a friendship issue."
"Clock is ticking."
Twilight needed to find a friendship issue or else she'd be sent to Magical Kindergarten. Celestia expected her to be the best unicorn she could be; she was Celestia's student and so she was held to a higher standard. She glanced outside and saw that time was running out. Quickly rummaging through her chest of things, she pulled out her favorite fillyhood doll- Smarty Pants.
"It's okay Twilight, see? If you can't find a friendship problem. . .you can make one!"
"Now Twilight, I do believe that I must have really touched a nerve if you have gone this far off the deep end and are actively trying to create chaos."
"Who said that?" Twilight looked around the room and glanced over to her full length mirror where a draconequus sat comfortably in a hammock while drinking liquid gold.
"Now you do realize that this is just a memory, dear Twilight. But since Star needs a good friendship lesson your mind has given your nice little conscience a voice to say the great moral lesson. It just so happens that your voice chose little old me for this task- though I can't imagine why. Sure I can see Fluttershy having a Discord on her shoulder but not you Twilight. You are the Princess of Friendship. Though it might mean that you think that my magic helped cause that whole Smarty Pants debacle?"
"No. I was just going to get back to the story that I wanted Star to learn."
Discord cordially laughed as he stirred Twilight a sparkling apple juice. Extending his lion paw, he slid the drink over to her. She hadn't noticed but this mental image of Discord seemed to have all the powers the original did.
"No, Twilight, I don't. I'm sorry but you can be rather convoluted in your denial sometimes. And yes I heard your thoughts. We are in your head. Maybe a change of scenery helps. Think of a moment. Any moment really. It could be at any time, any where, any when or how. I'll make it real. If you want to change the actors in the scene- change them. I'll still be able to get it right. I'm you Twilight. Not the nice part of you that everyone sees, no. I'm the part that's growing weaker with every day."
Twilight raised an eyebrow at this. Discord, even a mental one had considerable power so him saying that he was growing weaker confused her because she had some experience with dreams but a mental image of a reformed enemy in her own head- especially when she wasn't awake? That was new territory.
"Good. I got your attention it seems. Well no, I am not the Great and Terrible Discord that Celestia had turned to stone so long ago and your Fluttershy finally, for the most part, reformed. I mean that Discord is the Spirit of Chaos and Disharmony. No, I'm all your self-doubt, your loathing, your fears, your bad memories. I'm you. I'm the part Celestia made by accident."
"I-" Twilight didn't know what to say about this.
"Don't worry. We can always talk later, you and I, just think about it. And in three. . .two. . .one. You should be just about done with your story. And don't worry. I added some embellishments for the last few years as well. Because Twilight, your life is not just a weekly event of evil and then you get a nice moral out of it. No, my Purple Smart, its life. Life choices have a, let's continue to use my favorite pony's cutie mark for this example- a Butterfly Effect if you will. And your new friend Star has some issues that have been rippling out. She needs help because I foresee that sometime in the future, with the trajectory of bad feelings that her mother helped instill in her. . .she needs a friend besides Marco."
"But why are you helping me if you are the things in my head?"
Discord lounged upon a psychiatrist's chair. his arms crossed, and predatorily grinned at Twilight. "Because Twilight- I know that you enjoy fixing a friendship problem and well lookie right there. There's a friendship problem. That's it really, though I do enjoy a good show every once in a while. See you later and say hi to Star for me. I rather like the girl."
"Wai-
Twilight blinked as her eyes adjusted to the florescent bulbs. She couldn't remember what she had said, but both Star and Janna were hugging her. She thought that she could feel wetness on the edges of her eyes and there were two wet splotches on her coat where the girls had put their heads as they hugged the shorter alicorn.
"Twilight, that's so sad."
"What?" Twilight didn't know who that was at first but she guessed it was Janna since it sounded a bit lower in pitch than Star's more hyperactive pixie like self.
"I mean with the whole Princess of Frindship thing and still feeling like you screwed up multiple times."
Ugh, she was going to have to talk to her Conscience of Discord soon. She just hoped that it wasn't as bad as she feared since it had been rather teasing in his word choices. This was going to be a pain- note to self. . .do not bring up the Mare Do Well Mess because that was a terrible attempt by her friends and her to 'teach' Rainbow a lesson.
Yeah that was a bad moment. But maybe just maybe everything here would turn out okay.
Discord breathed a sigh of relief. These mares were going to be the death of him one day. He didn't like doing the whole ruse of being a Jiminy Cricket type figure but being the literal Spirit of Chaos and Disharmony gave him privileges like free cable and general wifi. Oh and being one of the only things in Equestria that knew of alternate realities. Came with the mindbreaking perks of the job.
He was really only keeping tabs on each of the girls because of two ponies. Fluttershy, because she was his first friend and the multiverse could be rather harsh on the yellow pegasus and Celestia since he owed her from the last time she let him out of the stone statue.
"The work of a draconequus is never done. Isn't that right Senior Huevos?"
The living sock puppet could only wonder why a sepentlike plushie was talking to him. It shrugged and went on its sock puppet ways.
"Whatever. This is not what I expected when Celestia called in the favor. Turn the moon to cheese one day and everypony loses their minds-"