Deep in the shadows of Equestrian society lurks a threat, unknown and unseen by even the most attentive of ponies. An organization, using Equestria's own flourishing medical knowledge to bring ponykind to its knees. Though they lurk in the shadows, the time approaches for them to strike...
Doctor Direct Styles has just completed his Residency at Ponyville Medical. An amateur surgeon at best, he quickly becomes Equestria's only hope against a pony-made disease. He will have to rise to the challenge of curing a seemingly unstoppable pathogen, or ponykind will be doomed.
Based on the video game Trauma Center: Second Opinion by Atlus.
No prior knowledge of the game is necessary to read and understand this story.
Author's Note: Pretty much everything I "know" about surgery, I learned from the Trauma Center games. Please excuse any and all inaccuracies, but feel free to leave a comment correcting them. 
Read on,
Legion
Proofread by the Sharp and Illustrious Legofan!
Hmm...
I heard that you'd like some constructive criticism, so I'm here!
So, I hope you don't mind, but I'm going to get started right away.
*Ahem*
Ok. This story, even in its early stages, has a bit of a... rushed feeling, you could say, to it. The storyline is solid (from what little of it we've been given), the characters seem rather well developed, but the flow of it is a bit fast. There are several places in which details could have been used to stretch out the story, and really get the reader to see the world they're reading.
As I was reading this, I had images of the characters in my mind. I could see them speaking, their expressions, and even body language. But they were floating in space. Their surroundings were never given real detail, so the picture in my mind was that of 4 ponies, one being operated upon, and the other 3 floating around an ever-changing room. With some extra details added to the environment, you can really get people interested. The clearer the image in the readers' mind, the better their reaction to the story.
Aside from that, I'd like to point out that I've never played or heard of the game you said this was based on, so I have nothing to compare it to. Just to clear that up.
But, to the actual story itself. You mention "antibiotic gel" (and its rather inconvenient name), and its fantastic capabilities. Well, you said that the lacerations along the chest were shallow. Why stitch them, when, with the foreign objects removed, apply the gel to the wounds? That'd close them up real fast, eh?
Aside from that, there are about 1 grammatical errors throughout the entire story. I applaud you.
In a quick wrap-up (and this does not apply to welcoming spring), I would say that this story has potential, both in terms of new chapters, and potential to be completely immersive, with the addition of a few more descriptive terms.
In my personal opinion, I quite liked it. I'd like to see where it goes.
Anyway, I hope you don't mind my rambling on. Heheh.
-Time Centurion
Looks like a space ran away from between these two sentences, but other than that, everything looks good
.
3648380
Thanks for the read, review, and favorite! You are officially awesome!
Now, then:
First off, knowing that you have no background knowledge of the story and still enjoyed it is extremely helpful. That is usually one of my goals in writing fan fictions: that someone with little to no prior knowledge could still enjoy it.
Heh, I suppose I failed to explain that Antibiotic Gel only works on very small wounds, like the puncture wounds left by the claws and teeth. Now I need to come up with a viable reason , and add it to the story. Thanks for pointing that out, though.
Also thanks for your other suggestion, the one about describing the setting. I'll certainly try to keep that in mind as I continue writing this story.
Write on,
Legion
3648524
Was that there before?
Nice catch.
Write on,
Legion
3648557
Oh, certainly. Thanks for taking the time to read my rambling.
3648561 I don't believe so, but I'm not surprised that errors showed up like that. Going from GDocs to this site has never been a clean process in my experience.
3648717
I checked. It actually was in the Gdoc.
Ah, well. One error in the whole chapter is still an awesome record.
Write on,
Legion
3648748 Not quite as sharp as you claim me to be. Sorry for missing that; I'll try to be more attentive next chapter.
3648929
It's all good. Like I said, that's exactly one error in the whole chapter. Impressive, if I do say so myself.
Write on,
Legion
I'm not really into medical dramas and stuff like that, but I can tell that those who are will like this. Aside from a few spelling errors it was pretty good.
Never played the game, either. Just how accurate is it in and of itself?
3795542
The game in and of itself is obviously not perfectly accurate. However, as I said in the description, it's most of the background I have in medicine. As such, I don't really have much of a way to compare where the game is and isn't accurate.
Spelling errors?
I thought I'd fixed all of those!
Anyway, I'll try to get to your story soon. I have no idea if I'll get the time to read it today, but I'll get to it as soon as I can.
Write on,
Legion
Woo hoo, it's up
!
Looks good
.
Love the Trauma Center series, so I... hope I'll like this.
Personally, if I was writing this, I would have had Direct Styles remain mysteriously Cutie Mark-less until he uses the Healing Touch for the first time, but... like I said, that would've been me.
Hmm... First chapter reminds me more of the Bear attack op. in New Blood than any op. in Under the Knife/Second Opinion.
So far, I do like how you use almost exactly how the game plays, then explain it with magic. Self-tying sutures? Ha!
... Will there be a bomb (or something like that) "operation"...?
3842545
For what it's worth, I hope you like it, too.
To answer your questions/remarks:
Well, I don't want the entire thing to essentially be me writing out the events of Second Opinion with ponies, so I did take a bit of inspiration from New Blood for that first operation.
While Styles does have his Cutie Mark, no one really knows for sure exatly what it means. I'm planning to add a flashback to his Cutie Mark story later, so no spoilers, but all even he knows is what he was doing when he got it, not really what it means...
If you liked the sutures, just wait 'til I explain the lazer...
As for a bomb "operation," I'm still debating that. I'm just not sure how well it'd fit.
Write on,
Legion
Holy buck, how did I not remember to favorite this immediately
?
'Sharp and Illustrious' my a$$.
Keep being awesome,
Lego
You will be missed, Redheart; you will be missed
.
On another note, I caught one small error that we had overlooked before:
Oops
!
3964360
It might be the fact that I just woke up, but I'm not seeing the problem with that. Care to enlighten me?
Write on,
Legion
3964395
Should be debating.
Apologies for not catching that sooner.
3964971
Oh, wow.
How did we miss that?
I'll just go fix that now...
Write on,
Legion
Hmm is it just me or is this chapter the best up to now? roundstable.com/forums/images/smilies/milkshakes.gif
looking forward to the next one.
Could there be some silly Pinkie shenanigans coming up next? I can't wait to find out!
Also, I miss Redheart. I'm probably going to keep saying that until she makes a reappearance, if ever.
Have a good one,
Lego
Hooray! Glad to see the story back alive and lookin' good.
Also, you greatly overstate my contributions...you did all of the work, so you should take the credit.
Keep being awesome,
Lego
5141344
I suppose that, being an editor myself, I simply have an extra appreciation for the work they do and the contribution they make to the story. Besides, you help me more than you realize.
Write on,
Legion
No comments for this chapter yet? Huh. Well then...
First! Let the thumb-downs commence.
Anyway, sorry for not seeing this sooner; I must have overlooked it in my feed or something
. It looks good, though; can't wait for the next one.
Keep being awesome,
Lego
lol of course you had to call it a pentagram instead of a star
5306100
Well, that is the term for what it is. It isn't a filled-out star or an outline, it's just five lines connected in the shape of a star, and I wanted to make sure I got across the proper shape in the description. The fact that it often has magical connotation is just a coincidence, I swear.
Thanks for giving it a read though! Aside from the pentagram thing, what do you think?
Write on,
Legion
I have indeed played the first two games through to completion. It's a great series; I nearly cried at the part where Derek (the character from Trauma Center 1) got to convince that one girl to give life another shot after she tried to OD on perscription-strength antihistamines in a suicide attempt. You seem to be following the original storyline pretty faithfully at least in concept, so I'm really looking forward to how you're going to handle things like magic-related illnesses in pony-verse with this crossover. You're already taking a pretty unexpected twist here with Scootaloo apparently being the one the MC works on as opposed to that girl who had her heart sliced by glass. This one is probably gonna be more along the lines of emergency orthopedic surgery.
And hey, don't sell yourself too short, man. IMO, that fic you keep referencing is still really darn impressive, but you managed to pull things off pretty well here, too. One thing I'm grateful for is that you take the time to establish more background and personality for Direct himself, not to mention deal with the daily goings-on of the hospital; you never got to see much of that in the game(s) aside from a bunch of terms and things that happened offscreen, such as the anesthesiologist setting up before you even begin the operation. It's all these little things that combine to add just the right amount of tension to a scene. Heck, that part about them all giving Nurse Redheart a proper send-off was very welcome, because you got almost nothing except "Yo Derek I'm heading for another hospital kthxbai" in the first game. I shall continue to follow this fic in the interest of seeing how even more of this is gonna unfold.
Yay, it's here!
It's great to see Styles begin getting himself sorted out, especially now that he's needed. Hopefully things only go uphill for him from here.
Scootaloo has perfectly exemplified why I stay away from being outside. It's really dangerous out there. And there's no AC, but that's more of a nitpick.
Anyway, fantastic chapter, and hopefully the next one'll be soon.
-Lego
6000235
I can't even describe how happy you just made me.
I've really enjoyed working on this fic, but getting next to no feedback from anyone but my editor has been really discouraging. For all I knew no one was even reading the updates.
On to actually responding to your comment. I too loved the games - hence why I decided to write a fanfiction about one - but I totally agree that some things just weren't covered as well as they should have been - yet another reason to write. It's fun getting to expand on the game's characters and write them in new situations, and I especially look forward to getting to take a deeper look at Derek and Angie/Direct and Angel's relationship after the upcoming operation.
Some of the crossover elements have been really fun, like explaining parts of the game in a world with magic, for instance. I hope you like what I've done with this world's Delphi; we'll be hearing a thing or two from them pretty soon. You might have noticed, but while I am following the same storyline for the most part, I'm doing my best to add my own little twists
Thanks so much for reading and even more so for commenting. If I could I'd give you a cookie.
Write on,
Legion
6000783
Already underway.
Yes, the outdoors are dangerous. Especially when you don't have a protagonist with a hero complex in the immediate vicinity. Stay indoors. Stay safe. Stay at a comfortable ambient temperature.
I won't say only uphill, mostly because I know I have a tendency to add/change things as I go, but some things will certainly be getting better soon
Write on,
Legion
Great chapter as per usual, even in spite of the disgusting mental images you've forced into my brain. Really, I didn't need to see that. Fingers crossed that Scoots gets away from all this trauma relatively intact, but only time will tell.
Well, I suppose technically you'll be the one to be telling, since, you know, your story and all. You know what I meant!
Keep being awesome,
-Lego
6568336
I like red Jello.
Slight spoilers, but Scoots will be just fine. In fact, maybe even better than fine
Kids are good at bouncing back.
Write on,
Legion
Hey there,
Sorry I'm late on commenting. Just...I've been busy. But yeah, nice chapter, even if you did decide to add Derpy to the list of ponies you've maimed.
Can't wait for the next one!
- Lego
6684038
Better late than never
As I recall you suggested doing operations on background and side characters instead of a constant stream of OCs.
Derpy's blood is on your handsDerpy had to pop up at some point, anyway.Just be glad it was only a few cuts instead of cancer or something.EDIT: I literally just realized Derpy/Ditzy already appeared as a tumor patient in Chapter 5...Write on,
Legion
6684083 Oh yeah...that was my suggestion, wasn't it
. I'll just, uh...
*retreats under rock to hide from the guilt*
6687311
*grabs and pulls back out from behind rock* Oh no, you don't. No disappearing for several months again, you!
Anyway, I certainly don't feel bad. Authors do way worse to Derpy all the time. At least here she turned out fine and was released from the hospital a couple days later. In fact, this is the reason Derpy gets transferred to the Ponyville office. Her superiors figured it would be a lot harder for the poor mare to fall to her death if she spent most of her time in a valley instead of on a mountain.
Write on,
Legion
6687395 Poor Derpy...everyone loves her, but she's also a bit of a punching bag when it comes to fanfics, isn't she. At least her injury here was in the past and she's now in a much less hazardous location! You know, if not for Twilight showing up and all of Equestria's craziness following along.
What's the point of forceps when you have magic?
7011458
I can't belive no one's asked that before now.
To answer your question, while it hasn't yet been brought up in the story, the main reason is the existence of magical parasites and diseases, which would interact in unpredictable and typically negative ways if they came in direct contact with a magical field. After numerous instances of these reactions occuring during what was supposed to be a routine procedure, the Equestrian Medical Board decided to just make the use of sterilized medical implements standard in all operations, regardless of the surgeon's race or abilities.
Hope you enjoyed the story aside from that.
I've got an idea for a way an operation could be complicated. What if the patient turned out to be a disguised changeling?
7012557
It's an interesting possibility to keep in mind. I imagine a disguised Changeling might wind up dropping their disguise once they're sedated, since they're no longer conscious to maintain it. Not sure where that would fit in the story I have planned, but thanks for the idea, and for reading.
Infecting the elements of harmony with GUILT? I need more of this story!
Yo, just now read the latest chapter, but I'm guessing its safe to say this fic is discontinued? Either way, I just wanted to say I enjoyed reading the whole thing.
It was painful to read just how much Direct and Angel started on a bad foot, but as the chapters go on they really started to mesh well together in a natural way.
The plot in the fic was also reeaally intriguing not gonna lie. Maybe I'm only intrigued by it because I never played the game this fic is based on, but still! I just wanted to grab my axe and start chopping when I realized the cultists made Fluttershy go bedridden in such a brutal way. They were trying to kill her. Not ok!
Even though I'm still kinda wishing for more, I still overall enjoyed this fic you've made. If you never pick it up again to write another chapter, then so be it. Thank you for the read!