Doctor of the Lance

by Silver Page

Chapter 7 – Blood in the Basement / Blut im keller

Chapter 7 – Blood in the Basement / Blut im keller

By the time the train reached Trottingham, the sky was pitch black, and night had fallen on the land completely. It was very late, and Spell Pact trudged home through the dark. Because of the general lack of light pollution, and the fact that the moon shone far brighter here than it did Earth, Spell had little trouble returning to his manor.

Yet as he was walking he felt something stirring the air. It wasn’t the wind, it was still tonight. It seemed to be coming from the area near Milky Ranch, and against his better judgment, Spell Pact decided to investigate.

Near a copse of elm trees that stood near the ranch’s main building, Spell saw something unusual. A Pegasus Mare, wearing stereotypical black and white striped prison clothes. From the looks of things, she was going to attempt a break in.

‘Let it never be said I do not help my allies,’ Spell Pact thought, and he whipped out his Unicorn horn from a hidden pocket. A jet of black mist struck her from behind, and after some slight coughing, she collapsed. With another wave of the morbid wand, she was trussed up in purple chains, and lifted over to him. With great care, he returned to his home to put this new specimen in his lab.

In less than thirty minutes he was done, and the mare was on his surgical table, strapped down but without a black collar around her neck. They were designed to negate the inner magic of any Pony, be they Unicorn with their magic channeling horns, Earth Ponies with their nature and strength attuned powers, or Pegasi with their wind and weather manipulating gifts. Even Griffins were rendered powerless with these collars, though their one downside was cutting off speech.

Still, Johan was nothing if not cautious, and had a collar ready to snap around her neck if she tried anything funny.

A flick of the bone-wand, and the mare woke up.

“Where…where am I?” She slurred.

“I will be asking the questions here,” Johan announced, garbed in his feature obscuring medical garments. Her head twisted to the side to look at him, and she swallowed a lump in her throat at the sight. She soon realized she was naked, however, and she started to squirm.

“What in the name of Tartarus is going on?! Where are my clothes?! Sweet Sun, am I in a sex dungeon?!”

“Shut up.” Pure loathing filled his voice, and Johan stepped forward to glare at the Pegasus. “Your disgusting body does not arouse me, so have no fear on that regard. But know that I am in control, and so you will answer my questions.”

“Who are you, and why were you at the ranch?” He demanded, but her reaction surprised him.

“Damn, is that what this is about? I’m Storm Knife, and I escaped from the Manehatten Correctional Institute during the panic from the Summer Sun Celebration. Should have seen the riot, it was glorious, and a great way to bail.”

Johan stroked his chin through his mask. “I see, so you’re a Prison Bitch.”

Storm Knife’s spluttered reaction was most amusing, but Johan pressed on.

“Why were you at the ranch, then? And what were your crimes?”

“I had to move fast to avoid the fuzz, so I booked it north to the boonies. Honestly, that place was the closest to me, and I was tired from flying for a full day. Was gonna jump the owners and maybe use them as hostages if things got ugly. As for what I was in for, I stabbed a whorse who stole my stallion, and the cheating dick. They lived, but were crippled for life, or some shit. So, you gonna let me go now?” Knife’s voice had a hint of a plea in it, and that brought a chuckle to his lips.

Johan shook his head, and he stepped close to her. With a fluid motion, he snapped the collar around her neck, and her eyes widened in fear.

“Sorry, can’t do that. You see, I needed some new experimental materials, and it is ever so hard to come across good victims no one will miss. But a criminal on the run is the perfect specimen. After all, criminals can disappear and no would ever care.”

Fear was visible in her eyes, and he leaned in close, a cruel smile hidden by the mask.

“I’d try not to struggle; the first few incisions are always the worst.”
(Gore incoming!)

“Subject is Storm Knife, a Pegasus Mare. Age is unknown, but based on physical descriptors, around her late twenties. Today, I will attempt to recreate the effects of what I am calling the “Harmonic Resonance” of the Elements of Harmony, using data gathered from both the data recordings of the Summer Sun Celebration, and the Alicorn Princess Luna.”
With careful, practiced care, Johan raised a shaving razor in his left hand with a pair of modified clippers in the right. He had flipped the table upside, the design of it allowing him complete access to her wings. He went to work plucking her wing feathers with the clippers, and when that was done proceeded to shave the fur from her back. In moments Knife’s back looked like that of a plucked chicken.

Johan ignored a whimper from her, and soon slid a scalpel along the region between shoulder blades and wing bones. He peeled the flesh away, and the small gush of blood that came from the wound was sucked towards a small pair of grooves set into the table. Runes along the inside of the grooves drew the blood in, a series of Vampiric Runes he learned of from the Book of Horns. They deposited them into large plastic pouches. In the event he needed to give the victims a transfusion, he would simply recycle their blood. It made more sense than wasting it, and even if a transfusion was not required, he could use for future experiments.

Next came small needles and wires, all attaching to her wings. Some went below the skin, some directing into the bone, others nestled in the muscle fibers. These were all connected to a series of analysis devices, to record both biological reactions, and more subtle magical ones. Carefully, Johan raised a syringe filled with a strange, rainbow fluid, and injected it into the nerve bundle of her right wing.

“Subject has just been injected with a small dose, 10 CC, of a new substance I have synthesized out of Princess Luna’s blood. Extracting it and making new samples based on the exact Thaumatic principals and composition of the original effects are rather complicated. The artificial harmonic magic, which I am calling ‘Unecht Regenbogen,’ is about 80% identical to the original harmonic magic, and should have very similar results.”

Her body started to twitch, and her right wing began to spasm as the artificial magic flooded her system.

Checking the sensors, Johan was pleased to note that they had some good results already. The harmonic magic amplified the innate magical traits of a Pony, something he’d already seen with Wish Burst, but could now confirm worked with Pegasi as well. Though, where Wish Burst had more activity along her Thaumata gland and brain, Storm Knife’s enhanced activity was in the spinal region and wing muscles. Understandable.

What was odd was that her brain was reprocessing the sensations not as emotions, but as memories. He quickly gabbed a nearby machine and hooked up the new device to some of the nodes in Knife’s brain. The nodes were slender metal rods and they pierced her skull with little resistance, blood blossoming around the insertion points. Johan knew the layout of a Pony’s brain by heart now, and did not have to open up their cranium to get the nodes into their proper spots in the brain. Once it was done, he wiped some of the blood from her scalp while he looked at the device. It was a large mirror made of dragon-fire glass and trailing a number of wires and rune encrusted circuit boxes. As he watched, images appeared on the surface of the mirror. At first they were blurry, but they quickly reshaped themselves into pictures of other Ponies and places.

As he watched, Johan noticed a running theme with these images. They were all memories, seemingly of a better time and a happier moments in her life.

“Subject Storm Knife does experience the sensations of happiness and peace Subject Wish Burst, a Unicorn, had displayed. However, they seem to manifest differently. Either this the fault of the Unecht Regenbogen, or Pegasi experience this differently. She recalls memories in place of actually emotion, using past experiences to build the sensation of happiness. This might tie into one of my earlier theories and findings that Pegasi have more complete passive memorization. Like Pigeons, they have unerring accuracy and can recall places almost without effort, and return to them with but a single image to remind them. Thus, my hypothesis is that the harmonic energies, rather than make new emotions, forces the afflicted to recall a time in her memories when such emotions were prevalent. In this case, it is far more noticeable with Pegasi, due to their unique brains.”

Johan turned away from the mirror and disconnected it from Knife’s grey matter. He then leaned in to check how her wings were reacting. He noted that her Thaumata gland was producing, or trying to, weather magic.

All Pegasi could Cloud-Walk and shape them, and all could force them to produce any kind of weather, but like Unicorns and Earth Ponies, their skills were specialized. Some were better at creating ice rather than rain, and some could shape clouds far better than any other.

In Storm Knife’s case, her magic was geared towards wind, mostly with tornados and storms. He watched, fascinated, as her gland was producing far more mana than necessary for the simplest of weather spells. Pegasi channeled through their wings, and were geared for passive magic, mainly for flying and Cloud-Walking, but could switch to active magic to manipulate the sky.

A glint of metal flashed briefly, and Johan sliced his scalpel through a tendon in her left wing, watching as her appendage tried to flail from the pain. Further, he could see that the left wing’s muscles were straining more to produce the Sky Magic, while the right one, which had been injected with the Unecht Regenbogen, was producing too much and starting to tear apart from the stress.

A quick jab of a needle, and her veins were flooded with a toxin expulsion serum. Anything not part of the body was attacked, if needed dissolved, and expelled, through any opening available. Good for fighting poison, as well as removing all traces of any chemicals of drugs. Not so fun for the person forced to evacuate their insides, however.

Retching sounds filled the air, and a well-placed bucket caught the inevitable release. Johan remained expressionless behind his mask as he stitched up her wings and back, sealing them with a jolt of magic. He then flipped her back right side up when he was certain she was done vomiting, and carefully wiped the remnants from her mouth.
(Gore end)

“We’ve had a lovely day, haven’t we? But dawn is coming soon, and I shall now put you into your new home.” He unbound her body, and her limbs fell limp, the trauma of earlier draining all of her energy and will. He lifted her up, and floated her to the cage room, popping open one of them and letting her in before closing it and locking it up.

Each cell had a plastic frame bed and several sheets, as well as a faucet for water, with a plastic cup near it. Johan wasn’t that much of a monster to deprive them of nourishment. He always fed them at least once a day, and they had all the water they could drink. Plus, if they had been well behaved, or he’d gleaned some new information from their experiments, he might even feel kind enough to give them a book to read or some other prize.

“Sweet dreams,” he chuckled as he dimmed the lights and walked out, locking all the doors behind him.

Comments

[Shpoople96]

I feel so Reich!

[Schroedingers_Katze]

Some minor nitpicking concerning the chapter titles. It should say:

1. "Kind von Mephistopheles"
2. "Die Magick" or "Die Magie" (depends on what word you wanted to use for "magic")
6. "Der Arzt ist anwesend" (sounds a little strange but thats the actual meaning)
7. "Blut im Keller"

Thank you and furthermore good luck with your writing.

[Silver Page]

4362830
thank you, I'll get around to the grammar correction soon

[Silver Page]

4362761
I think your comment is amusing. I did Nazi that coming, but Anne Frankly, you are Reich. Still, I must be Goering, and so I bid thee farewell.

[Shpoople96]

4363355
Farewell, I'll be sitting in mein kampfy chair...