Being of Two Minds

by cosmofur

Treatment Plan

The long flying convoy of Pegasi pulled carts, flew in circles around the airspace of Canterlot’s UEP Hospital, while the Princesses and a number of messenger scouts briefed the hospital staff on security measures. The delay was infuriating to the medics waiting to treat their patients but considering the circumstances, the Princesses didn’t want the ‘survivors’ left unguarded, even for a moment. After a time, they got the word to start unloading.

Princesses Celestia and Twilight stood in the main emergency room for the Hospital and supervised as the staff cleared a number of adjacent rooms of civilian pony patents. The incoming ‘survivors’ were being placed three at a time into ER bays, where trained pony doctors took over from the guard medics.

For each ‘survivor’ there were two guards, making the ER much more crowded that the doctors cared for, but no one wanted to complain to the princesses, so the grumbling was keep to a low whisper. Meanwhile test results started come in and the survivors medical conditions started to become clearer.

As was already suspected, the wounds were mostly superficial, not deep and none of the ponies were in critical condition. Though a number of the captured guards had been beaten badly when they were initial captured, these earlier wounds were now a couple days old and showed signs of having been treated. The most worrying issue was their apparent drugged state, all the survivors were very sleepy and could only be coaxed into giving one word answers to even the simplest questions. Toxicology reports were coming back negative, and Unicorn mages were still trying to identify the spells used.

Twilight was going over the latests test results with the mages, when Celestia noticed an elderly Unicorn mage coming in from the street. He was floating a heavy briefcase in his magic and did not seem part of the normal medical staff, but insisted that he see the Princess Celestia. Two guards blocked his path keeping him from approaching the princess.

At first Celestia was going to let the newcomer wait, with everything going on she wasn’t interested in any typical bureaucrat nonsense, but then she spotted the elderly unicorns cutie mark, a stopwatch on a chain, and recognized him.

“Doctor Somnolence! I’m so glad you got my message.” She told him before he could introduce himself. She then motioned for the guards blocking his passage to let the elderly unicorn through.

Doctor Somnolence was a black and white pinto unicorn pony with the sharply contrasting colors making inkblot like splotches over his coat, he quickly stepped quickly up to the Princess and bowed politely, but only held the bow for a second, inpatient to talk to Celestia.

“Princess, I got your message and gathered my reports.” He told her.

As he started to open his briefcase, Twilight wondered over having spotted the elderly Unicorn from across the room. “Princess Celestia, what’s going on?” She asked.

Celestia answered twilight even as she started floating papers from the doctors magic grip to read them. “This is Doctor Somnolence, one of the top researchers in mind affecting spells. It’s his special talent and I have asked him to go over the medical reports from the last time we had Cult victims to deprogram. With advances in magic and medicine I’m hoping he’ll have suggestions on improving the therapy.”

Doctor Somnolence nodded to the younger princess, “I do indeed have suggestions on improving the procedure. I know you have very busy Princesses but perhaps we can find a quiet spot where I can explain my theories? I have diagrams I’d like to show you.”

“Diagrams!” Twilight's eyes practically lit up.

“Yes, both flowcharts and checklists” The Doctor agreed, not realizing the trouble he was getting into.

“Checklists!” Twilight nearly shouted, her cheeks flush. Had the elderly doctor proposed marriage to the young Alicorn at that moment, she probably would have said yes.

With a slight smile at her former students excitement Celestia said, “Twilight, I noticed an empty consultation room behind the nurses desk, perhaps you and Doctor Somnolence can discuss his findings and report back to me a summary. Meanwhile I will continue to supervise here.”

Twilight practically pushed the doctor into the small room, leaving hoof skid marks on the hospital tile floor.

Twilight moved at speed that could only be called Pinkie Pie fourth wall breaking. In moments she had set the doctor in front of a convenient whiteboard, pulled a podium from a storage closet. Slapped a pointer into his hoof and then turned an examination room bed and chair into an impromptu student desk, complete with apple for the teacher.

Twilight sat there in smiling anticipation with a stack of blank note cards and three number 2 quills.

---

Meanwhile Princess Celestia was continuing to supervise the doctors and medics treating the survivors, when one of the nurses approached her.

The nurse, a dead ringer for Redheart of Ponyville, except her cutie mark lacked the little hearts and her mane was more orange than pink was named TouchNgo was too much in a hurry to give Celestia a full bow, but bobbed her head and said, “Princess, we’re running out of room. Do we really need two guards for every patient? The doctor’s can hardly turn around.”
Celestia gave the nurse an understanding smile. “I’m sorry my little pony, but security is important. Once the Hospital administrators can start assigning rooms to the victims we can start moving them out of here.”

The nurse looked confused, “None of the ponies I’ve seen are that seriously injured, and according to the latests mage report, the spell that was on them was a common sedation charm, used mostly as a local anesthetic. If it wasn’t for your guards, I don’t see any reason to keep them in the hospital.”

Celesta frowned at the nurse who backed away shakened by the Alicorns expression.

Celestia thought to herself ‘No one reported to me that they identified the spell yet, was the nurse mistaken, or are the mages waiting for Twilight to return?’

---

Twilight was not available to Celestia at the moment, she was still in the impromptu classroom and waiting for Doctor Somnolence to start his presentation.

In that small room, the elderly unicorn blinked several times seemingly dazed at the sudden change in scene then wisely, he shrugged his shoulders and started to lecture.

“I was asked by the Princess..” Somnolence paused to look at Twilight, “I mean Princess Celestia, to find out why so many of the previous cult victims would rather die than allow themselves to be deprogrammed. You are of course familiar with the high mortality rate of the old deprogramming procedure?”

Twilight nodded to the Somnolence, her smile now faded to a serious frown.

He continued, “Especially odd when one considers that normal brain washing magics can not override such a basic instinct as self preservation. So I did a detailed study of the Stirrup Formation of directed morphic dilation traces recorded at the time, and I believe I found the flaw in their methods.

Twilight continued to furiously write notes as Somnolence pulled up a graph showing magic fields around a hoof drawn picture of a pony tied to a hospital bed.

“The approved method doctors used one hundred years ago, was to put the victim in a strong antimorphic field to inhibit the brainwashing magic from reinforcing itself, and then while they were vulnerable, expose the victim to physical evidence and witnesses of the Cult’s evil acts. This proved effective for a handful of the victims, but a sizeable number of the victims grew so depressed that they would refuse food and water. Sadly many of the victims who died this way, had in truth been freed from the effects of the Cults mind control early in the process, but just could no longer live with themselves.”

“Was it due to guilt of the crimes they committed when under the Cult’s control?” Twilight asked.

Somnolence answered, “That may have played a partial role, but the core problem was tied to how the antimorphic field affected the Cult’s spells. The Cult’s spell deeply integrated itself into the parts of the ponies brains that processed both pleasure and pain. The victims whole sense of self worth, both in terms of their sexual body image and their deep ties to other ponies are all subverted to be stimulated when they agree with the Cults commands and philosophies. The Cult’s spells did more than that though, if and when the victims tried to fight the Cults instructions, they felt great phantom emotional pain. When they put the ponies in the antimorphic field, it didn’t just stop the spell from reinforcing itself, it stopped the ponies ability to feel, pain, pleasure, in truth, any strong feelings at all.”

Twilight took a moment to take this idea in, “So the victims would stop eating because they no longer felt hungry?”

“Or pain, or even the fear of death. They lost all attachments to themselves and other ponies and drifted off to death, uncaring.”

“What about the ones who survived?” Twilight asked.

Somnolence flipped through his papers and showed Twilight a number of graphs, “Most of them had family or friends nearby, and in one case made an unlikely connection with a nurse, who stood with them and gave them hope. But that wasn’t a perfect solution, several of the ponies who died also had family at their bedside. It was very hit or miss.”

Twilight sketched a copy of the graphs as she asked, “Do you think we’ll be able to find family or friends for the current victims? The entire town of Coltsdale was taken, for most of them, any family that may still be alive will also be in the Cult now. I don’t think that will help us.”

The Doctor nodded in agreement, “There is no doubt that friendship is the key, though that we need to make the treatment less oppressive and depressing for the victims. The old technique worked, barely, but it emphasized guilt too much, made the victims hate themselves and didn’t let them feel any positive emotions.”

---

Outside in the ER, Celestia had gone over to the Mages group and demanded why an ER nurse had learned more about the spell than she had been informed.

The head of the mages, a silver coated and aging mare Unicorn from Celestia’s own school answered for the others. “Princess, the Nurse did not know the whole story and we’re still trying to figure out the details of the spells.”

“You mean there is more to his spell than an sedation spell?” Celestia asked.

The female mage, who name was Liquid Scrolls which also described her cutie mark, looked worried, “The sedation spell was the most active thing we could detect. But there are traces of some deeper magic, and some other effects none of us have seen before. I was hoping Princess Twilight might be have time to go over our tests, before we bothered you.”

Celestia sighed, Twilight had been HER student, anything Twilight might have spotted, Celestia herself could certainly also spot. Celestia responded, perhaps a bit more testily than she would normally allow herself, “Please show me your tests and I’ll endeavor to try to fill in for Princess Twilight, hopefully my poor skills as her TEACHER will prove adequate.”

Liquid Scrolls shuddered at the sarcasm from Princess Celestia and with only the slightest hesitation the, mage floated over some papers and graphs.

Celestia quickly spotted the patterns in the graphs that were the signs the sedation spell. It was the most recently cast spell on the prisoners and masked most other spells, still a sharp eye could spot secondary patterns.

Celestia paged back and forth between two sets of the graphs, one was from guards, the other from one of the unidentified civilians. As she expected all of the civilians showed a pattern she had seen several times before, the spell the Cult used to brainwash their members.

“No real surprise there.” She said out loud. “The Cult tried to sneak through a few of their brainwashed members. Seems foolish on their part, perhaps they thought the sedation spell would fool us?”

Celestia then looked briefly at the more detailed graphs for her guards. There was a clear difference between her former student and herself when faced with the unknown, Twilight would get obsessive about any variation of the expected, and would have probably spent hours plotting and replotting the small variations in the magic signature that was visible in the charts. Celestia on the the other hoof, felt that there was very few things new under her Sun. She saw the odd readings, but also noticed they reflected very low magic energy, mostly the result of mechanical differences in the brains of the guards. Well they had been beaten up a bit, probably sign of mild concussions. ‘A day or two bed rest and they will be fine. ‘ she thought to herself.

Outloud she said to Liquid Scrolls, “The secondary patterns are all low energy and tiny mechanical events. We know that the guards were all captured and beaten, most likely the cultists applied some minor healing magic to hide their crime, before trying this clumsy attempt at subterfuge. I believe we need to concentrate our efforts on the so called ‘civilians’”

She rolled up the charts and told Liquid Scrolls, “Have your mages counterspell the sedation spells. Twilight is working on a procedure for the Cult members, but the guards will just need some bed rest to recover.”

Liquid Scrolls noded and turned away to tell her staff the Princesses diagnoses.

Princess Celestia returned to her position in the center of the ER but things had gotten worse in her brief absence. The backup due to overcrowding was getting out of hoof. A number of screaming fights had already broken out between nurses and doctors and the awaiting guards. Celestia herself had to intervene in several cases. She realized something would have to be done before any ponies got hurt.

She called over the senior guards present, who happen to be Spring Kicker and Solid Star.

Both guards genuflected in well practiced bows to Celesta and awaited her orders. “Your Highness.”

“Spring Kicker, Sold Star.” Celestia acknowledged the two guards by name, long ago having learned the importance of recognizing by sight the majority of the palace staff. “I believe in the interests of Harmony we must make some more room here, and I see no reason to treat your fellow guards with the same scrutiny we must give the more likely cult members. So please gather your fellow guards from the ill-fated expedition and escort them back to the barracks. They should be fit for duty again in a couple of days.“

The two guards gave their Princess a salute and turned to carry out her order, when Spring Kicker paused in mid step and turned to ask Celestia. “Princess, what of the civilian Red Wood? Should I tell him to return to his shop?”

Celestia nodded her agreement, “Please inform him that I will want him to report to me tomorrow morning to discuss what happened, but he’ll probably sleep better in his own bed tonight. But just to make sure he’s ok, after the guards are settled, please escort him home and guard his house tonight.”

Celestia paused to think for a moment, “Also before you go, please stop find Princess Twilight, and tell her I need to discuss this with her. She’s probably the best informed on Red Woods case.”

Spring Kicker saluted and said, “Of course Princess.”

---

Back in the small classroom, Twilight and the Doctor were going over charts describing how the Cults spells affected different parts of Ponies brains.

“But if the anti magic field ends up blocking all emotions then how can we keep the deadly depression from setting in?” Twilight asked.

“By not keeping them in the full strength field all the time, they will need to get them out of the hospital, be with other ponies, live and do positive things to balance the negative effects they will experience in treatment. That I think was the major mistake the previous generation of doctors made. They literally tied the victims to beds and made them suffer depressing levels of self loathing all the time, with no breaks other than sleep.”

Twilight gave the unicorn a hard stare, “Doctor, you realize that the Cult members are directly or indirectly responsible for the deaths of over one hundred ponies. Maybe many more. Once they are free of the mind control, I wouldn’t hold the crimes against them, but until they are free, they are very dangerous ponies. We can’t just let them loose in Canterlot.”

Doctor Somnolence quick shook his head, “No no no! I’m not saying let them go free, they will need treatment, but just not twenty four hours a day. Therapy sessions should last about two to four hours a day of intense treatment, but then they should be taken some place safe where they can be with other ponies and away from the anti magic field so they can still feel, relearn how to associate good feeling with things outside the Cult. “

Twilight noded, “The castle dungeons should be far enough away then. We’ll have guards take them to the Hospital each day for treatment and..”

“Not dungeons! That would be just as bad. While it will weaken, the Cult’s spell will try to reasset itself every time they stop treatment, they need positive experiences to counter it and someplace dark and depressing will just send them spiraling into depression. We would be lucky if any survive two weeks.”

“So what do you suggest?” Twilight asked skeptically.

“Something more like foster families, obviously they will need to be guarded and warded so they can’t escape or cause harm, but they need to go out and see other ponies, see the light, have good experiences to counter the deep depression the treatment will naturally cause them. “

“You’re talking about possible murderers being housed with the public, before they are fully cured? The risk and danger would be too great.” Twilight shook her head, she didn’t like that idea.

“I know, but we have to show the victims that there is a path forward, and they will be forgiven of crimes committed while under the Cults spells. And it can’t be just words, it has to be something that will be understood at an emotional level, since that were the deadly depressing will originate.”

Before Twilight could respond, there was a knock on the door and Spring Kicker spoke through the closed door. “Princess Twilight, please excuse the interuption, but Princess Celestia wished you to know she wants to speak with you.”

Twilight looked back and forth between the door and the papers. After a moment of internal struggle she told Doctor Somnolence, “I’m sorry, but we have to stop here, I need to see what Princess Celestia wishes.” She used her magic to put the small office back to it’s original purpose.

As Twilight left the small room, Doctor Somnolence looked down at his checklist to make sure they had covered all the important points he wanted to make. There was only one small foot note left he had planned on mentioning, not all the Cultists that had started the procedure a century ago, had been cured or died. One had instead escaped. There was a small chance the current version of the Cult may have some knowledge of the treatment that had been used, but Doctor Somnolence didn’t see how the Cult could use that information. So he shrugged his shoulders and checked that item off his list while packing up his reports.

---

About two hours later Spring Kicker and Solid Star led the rescued guards back to the day guard barracks. All the guards had assigned beds for their use in the castle’s guard house, though quite a few guards maintained apartments or even lived with family. Considering the circumstances, Spring Kicker and Solid Star had not intention of letting the rescued guards off the palace campus.

The barracks were at the base of one of the shorter towers, just off an unassuming and unmarked pathway. The base comforts were hidden behind the tower,a mess hall, training ground, and a old but functional gym. They didn’t have a full sized parade ground, but parts of the royal garden served that function for formal events. There was also a two dorms. It had long been the guards policy to not segregate by gender, but there were tribal differences that needed to be accounted for. One dorn was on the ground floor for unicorns and earth ponies, and a smaller one set high in the tower for pegasus so they could more easily fly in and out.

While none of the rescued guards had said much since leaving the hospital, they all seemed happy enough to return to their base until walking under the tower, where the pegasus dorm door stood open above their path. A few of the guards stumbled and gave the open doorway to the flying ponies dorm some angry glares.

“What are you looking at?” Solid Star asked one of the glaring guards.

Several of the glaring guards looked at Solid Star as if they were surprised at his question. None of the guards answered for a long moment. Solid Star gave them his best imitation of a drill sergeant stare before picking one of the guards out. He picked A blue mained, spotted brown coated earth pony mare guard named Crimson Peytral that Solid had known her for while. Plus he picked her because, while she was not an officer she was a natural leader of the rank and file guard ponies.

“Paytral! What’s so fascinating about the Pegasus quarters?”, Solid asked.

“I..I that is, uh.” Paytral paused to think fast. “We lost so many of our,” She paused again seeming to have trouble keeping her face from wincing, “... our friends. It’s just hard not to see them up there.”

Solid Star opened his eyes wide. In the excitement of the last few hours, he hadn’t allowed himself the time to think about their dead comrades. The realization that he and the others had lost so many friends and fellow guards in such a horrible way was like a physical blow to him. What struck him even harder was the guards who had suffered far more than Spring Kicker and himself were the first to think of their fallen comrades.

Controlling his voice to keep it from cracking, Solid Star said. “Right! When you all are strong enough, we’ll all head to the Rose and Crown tavern and give them a proper send off. But for now you mutts have been given orders by the Princess herself, bed rest until you're ready for duty.”

Solid and Spring let the guards stumble into the dorm ahead of them. It was a bit surprising to Spring that they were as tired as they seemed to be, the sedation spell had been removed and the doctor said the stimulation spell they had replaced it with was the equivalent to about a half dozen cups of coffee. The guards should have bouncing off the walls. Still with everything that had happened, he wasn’t going to judge them.

The two uninjured unicorns stood by the dorm room doors, just to make sure the injured guards had no last minute issues. Once all of them were in their bunks, Solid turned and walked out the door and Spring was about to follow, when Crimson Peytral called out to him to stay.

“Spring?” She asked, “Can you come over here?” She had taken off her hospital cloak and was laying on her back, on top her bunk blankets.

Spring shrugged and trotted over. “Sure what is it Crimson?” he asked.

Crimson Paytral spoke in a soft whisper, making Spring come closer, indeed very close, nearly nose to nose. “I want to send my parents a message, tell them I’m alright.” she spoke these words in husky voice and locked her half lidded eyes with Spring Kicker.

“Of course!” Spring asked, finding her bedroom eyes both attractive and a bit confusing. “What do you want me to tell them.”

“I want you to give them this kiss for me.” she said this in a too soft whispery voice, before pulling Spring down into a deep kiss.

Spring Kicker was surprised by the kiss, but let it happen. He and Crimson had never been close, certainly never kissed before and as Crimson’s tongue found its way into Spring’s mouth, there was very little chance Spring could mistake this kiss for one meant to be from a daughter to a parent.

He smiled as they kissed, ‘this is nice’ he thought, but too soon he had to come up for air.

Blinking and more than a little stunned, “You really want me to give them that kiss!” he stammered, trying to make it a cool joke but it came out more like a squeak.

Crimson laughed easily, while licking her lips of the remaining saliva. “Don’t be silly, just tell them I love them and I'm all right? You can do that right?”

“It be my pleasure.” Spring smiled back.

“Well if you do me this favor, I have a very special reward planned for you.” Crimson licked her lips again, and holding Spring’s hoof, ran her muzzle against it. Directing Springs attention to the rest of her body.

Crimson was laying uncovered above her blankets, and was naked as most ponies were most of the time, but there were certain unspoken etiquette how a pony should hold themselves. Tails normally would act as a first line of defence but she was letting hers drape down off the bed, it was providing no cover at all. A mare laying on her back wasn’t automaticly provocative though, all she had to do was keep her rear legs curled together, but Crimson was not being modest to even the slightest degree. She had one leg bent and the other stretched, not just accidently exposed, she was fully on display.

“You know Spring” Crimson purred, “you don’t have to wait for your reward. I could give it to you now.” She gave him a toothy hungry smile.

Spring Kicker, almost said “yes’ without thinking about it, but then he glanced up and spotted the other guards, all laying in their own bunks, several just as exposed as Crimson, and all trying to pretend to not notice what was going on between Spring and Crimson, and all of them failing in that pretense.

“Here? Now?! No, it's not right.” Spring started to protest weekly.

“Don’t worry” Crimson breathed, “It will be fun.” She brought her muzzle close again ready for another kiss. Her tongue just peeking out slightly.

Spring found himself swimming in her half lidded eyes. He leaned forward, already starting to open his mouth to accept her kiss.

When suddenly a harsh voice yelled out, “What are you doing in there Spring Kicker!”

It was Solid Star, he was at the door trying to peer through the darkened dorm. “Remember we got to go back and get Red Wood, that Princess wasn’t us to keep guard at his shop tonight, so hurry up!”

Spring Kicker sprung up like a, well, a spring, he nearly galloped to the entrance hoping desperately that Solid Star hadn’t seen what he had been about to do with Crimson. His cheeks were a flaming red, when he whispered over his shoulder towards Crimson, “I’ll be back tomorrow.”

She smiled at him, and kept that smile up, until the two stallions had left the barracks.

“Nearly had him!” She swore.

There was general chuckling around the dorm, “We’ll get him later.”

A few of the ponies jumped off their bunks and started gathering supplies from their footlockers.

Crimson turned to the eldest of the unicorn guards, “Were you able to keep them hidden, invisible?”

“Yes! I got them!” The unicorn’s horn glowed and a paper bag floated into view from behind him. Holding it open he pulled out a clear capsule filled with a few drops of silver liquid. “There are hundreds of the Stone Heart Blessings in here. Enough for all the guards!”

Crimson started giving orders, “Move a pile of blankets and pillows to the dorms showers, we need to make it as soundproof as possible. Also it furthest from the door, we want to control the number of ponies who go back there while we are educating the new recruits.”

The cult guards got to work.

Crimson supervised the group, periodically giving her fellow guards encouragement as they transformed the dorm into a trap with words, kisses and more than a few appreciative gropes.

Soon they were ready, a couple of the stronger stallions on either side of the door to prevent escapes, and a handful of the more gymnastic ones in the showers, already oiled up and primed. and a smaller groups sitting in a circle where the light was best to put on a distracting show.

Then the first hoof falls of the day shift palace guards could be heard walking up the path. All the guards were familiar with their fellows habits knowing that they would drift in slowly at first, a few at a time, looking forward to a nights rest.

Crimson smiled, “They weren’t going to get a lot of rest tonight, but everypony is going to have so much fun!” She laughed, while waiting in the dark.

Comments

[Shpoople96]

Noice. The Doctor is really changing the game.