Doctor Whooves Adventures

by IHasApple

The Missing Cutie Marks: Chapter 5

“Wow, Twilight. Ponies with missing cutie marks? A drug that steals magic? Parasprites in a box? And I thought my stories were pretty nutty!” Pinkie Pie giggled.

“As nutty as it may sound, it’s true! I need that drug…” Twilight retorted.

“Well, no use crying over spilled milk… or spilled pills!” Pinkie smiled, trying to lighten to mood.

Twilight looked at her with a look of disbelief and anger, “Pinkie, do you even understand how serious this is? Ponies everywhere are going to be sick. They may even die! I’ve got no way to analyze the drug that could cause all of it! I am of no help to anypony!”

As Twilight went on she closed in on the frightened Pinkie Pie, getting very close, “Maybe I could have helped them. Maybe there was something in the pills that trigger something in the ponies! Maybe I could have discovered it and created an antidote using a combination of magic spells and science, but we’ll never know now!” Twilight was right in Pinkie’s face now.

Pinkie folded her ears back. “Gee, Twilight. I’m really sorry, really.” she pleaded. Pinkie didn’t like it when her friends were mad at her.

Twilight backed away and looked at the ground. She sighed, “It’s… It’s okay….” she calmed herself down. Twilight didn’t like to yell at her friends.

The two had walked together down the streets of Ponyville ever since Pinkie accidentally broke Twilight’s pills. The pills were a certain drug that Twilight thought was causing a plague of missing cutie marks and illnesses in ponies. Twilight bought them to try and make an antidote, but Pinkie had accidentally caused her to break them. Thought Twilight had been initially, frustrated, saddened and angry at Pinkie Pie, she had time to cool off with the story of her adventure of the past few days. By the time she had finished, Twilight felt better and had more or less forgiven her friend.

A little bit ago, the mares had passed by Sugarcube Corner, the local bakery and sweets shop. Twilight had been so wrapped in retelling her story again that he neglected to notice her friend’s protest to stop and eat. Pinkie Pie was hungry, but didn’t want to just ditch her friend. As quickly and stealthily as she could, Pinkie zipped into the shop, consumed half a dozen muffins, four cupcakes, downed it all with a gallon of milk, and zoomed back out before Twilight had even finished her next sentence. When Pinkie wanted to eat, she damned well ate.

They were now just standing a few blocks away from the treehouse library. Twilight had accepted that she could not buy the pills, so she decided to go back home and devise another plan to save Ponyville. At this point, it seemed that it would be impossible to do anything before all of Ponyville was ill and lacking cutie marks. Perhaps if she knew where that strange doctor had gone, she could have asked him for advice. As crazy and annoying as he as, he seemed to know what he was doing…

“I just don’t know what to do…” Twilight sighed, hanging her head down.

Pinkie furrowed her brow in sadness. She wanted to help her friend, really she did. While she didn’t like her friends to be mad, she liked it even less when they were sad. Her mission was to spread smiles and happiness, not frowns and sadness. This was her fault. She made Twilight drop those essential pills, and it was her responsibility to fix this!

“Well, we could… try asking for free samples?” Pinkie Pie gave her an awkwardly adorable smile.

“Pinkie, pharmacies don’t give free samples. Grocery stores do.” Twilight said with an air of annoyance.

Pinkie giggled. “Oh yeah. Oopsies, silly me! I always get those two mixed up. Speaking of which…”

Despite devouring an entire party’s worth of baking, Pinkie was still hungry, and decided that some free cheese samples would suffice right about now. Pinkie Pie tensed her legs and got down in a position to get ready to run. She sprang forward with a burst of speed to run to the market and ‘sample’ some cheese. Twilight saw this and stopped her short with her magic. A purple aura appeared around Pinkie’s tail and prevented her from running off and leaving Twilight alone. With a sharp tug, Pinkie fell to the ground flat on her belly. She winced in pain, but was not seriously injured. She looked back to Twilight.

“Pinkie, you can eat later. Right now we need a plan to get some of that ‘Salvation’.” said Twilight.

Pinkie closed her eyes and rubbed her temples to indicate the process of deep thought. She rattled off her brain for a moment. In that split second spark of brain wave, Pinkie randomly picked an option from her constantly nonsensical head.

“Uhh… What about stealing some?”

Twilight thought it over for a second. From the short time she was in the room, it seemed to her as though the pharmacy was heavily reinforced. Bars on the windows and a thick metal door prevented any forced entry. The lock on the door seemed easily picked, but there must have been security. Besides, they probably locked the pills themselves away deep in the building. No, it would be too tough.

“No, Pinkie. I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Twilight said, releasing Pinkie from her magical grasp.

Pinkie Pie stood up and dusted herself off. “Oh yeah… I guess stealing is wrong, right?”

Twilight’s face made a strange look, somewhat of a cross between confusion and realization. “Yeahh…. Wrong…” Twilight shifted her eyes from side to side as she figured out where the conversation was going. Her mouth scrunched up for a second.

Pinkie ignored Twilight’s funny antics and began to think again. She thought very hard and deep. She thought about creating some new pills themselves, eating cupcakes, asking for a loan, snacking on brownies, getting odd jobs to raise funds and munching on biscuits. None of these ideas Twilight found to be good enough, especially the ones about food.

After a quick session of brainstorming, Twilight was prepared to give up. Neither she nor Pinkie could come up with any sure fire and useful idea to get money, get the pills, or save Ponyville. It has been said that your greatest idea comes only after you have exhausted every other idea you have. Never until this point in her life had been true for Twilight. She had always been able to devise quick plans of action that would always work. Until now. Now, it seemed that every idea she could think of was hindered by some other factor or variable. Nothing was going right; it was as though something in her had changed…

Just when Twilight had given up all hope on ever saving Ponyville, inspiration struck. She knew what they could do. A sudden burst of relief and hope washed over her. The realization that the answer was staring them right in the face the whole time dawned on Twilight. She smiled at the irony of it all. She began to laugh at how blind she was to it.

“Of course! It’s so obvious!” she announced her brilliant idea.

Pinkie smiled, “Really? You know what we can do?”

“Think about it: lots of ponies are going to be a risk of missing cutie marks, right?”

Pinkie Pie nodded, following along so far…

“Therefore, many ponies have bought the drug; therefore lots of ponies already have the drug! We just need to ask somepony else who has the drug and borrow it from them!” she finished with a big smile.

…and Pinkie lost track of her.

“um… okay?” Pinkie said, giving an awkward smile.

Twilight saw Pinkie obviously didn’t get it, but continued on, “It’s easy! We’ll just go to somepony’s door, explain the situation, and they’ll be happy to give us some!”

The two ponies ran off in the direction of the nearest home to ask for some drugs. What could go wrong?

…

“Get off my property before I call the police!”

The door slammed into Twilight’s poor nose before she even had time to protest. Spirits dampened, both she and Pinkie walked away from the house. So far, nopony was willing to give up their medicine for a good cause.
Maybe it was their approach. Maybe it was the unfamiliarity of the people they talked to. Maybe it was the fact Pinkie demanded drugs before everypony got hurt real bad. Whatever the reason, ponies just didn’t seem eager to give some random ponies drugs in the morning. How odd.

Twilight sat down in defeat. “Nopony is willing to give us any…” She folded her ears back. “Maybe it is all hopeless…”

Pinkie sat down as well and made her normally smiling face turn into a serious one. Well, as serious a face as Pinkie could make, which was not very serious at all, but more serious than her usual face of joy and extreme glee. “Hmm.” She thought for a few moments. If nopony in town was going to give them any Salvation… what about ponies not in town?

“Wait…”

“What?” said Twilight.

“Wait a second, Twilight… we do know someone who would be willing to give us some!”

Twilight’s eyes widened with realization. They did know somepony who would be more than willing to give them the medicine. The best part was, even if she didn’t know what was going on, she would happily give it to them anyways! Twilight began to laugh. It was so freakin’ obvious. Why hadn’t she thought of it?!

Twilight scooped Pinkie up in a joyful hug. “Oh my gosh! Pinkie Pie, you’re a genius!”

The pink pony smiled widely. “Aren’t I always?”

…

Spike kicked up his feet on Twilight’s favourite work desk as he sat in Twilight’s favourite chair. The chair squeaked as he leaned back and sighed.

The Ponyville library had been rather quiet that day. Now, libraries are usually supposed to be quiet, but today had been exceptionally quiet. The kind of quiet one could only find in a library where nothing was going on. It was a Saturday; Spike liked Saturdays. Nothing really happened on Saturdays. It was a good time to kick back and relax, which is exactly what he did.

The library was closed that day, so nopony was expected to come in. Not that many ponies bothered to come into the library anyways. Most visitors were Twilight’s friends or other ponies she was trying to help by finding a book on some random subject like ghosts or bananas. No, today was Spike’s day off and he had decided to do nothing all day. So far, it had been a success.

Some time ago, Twilight had woken up Spike and told him to watch Rainbow Dash to make sure nothing happened while she was out. Spike obeyed and after watching the sleeping pegasus do nothing but sleep for about seven second, he diligently went to do something else. First, he thought he might clean up a bit, but then he realized he did that yesterday and nothing had gotten dirty yet today. Next he thought about doodling on the sleeping Rainbow’s face with a magic marker. Revenge for some pranks, perhaps? Then he thought about all the results that could arise from such an act; most of them ending with him in a body cast or grave. Lastly, he contemplated reading some nice educational books about useful things in life like romance and stock marketing and sophistication so that one day he may become successful and life a long happy life. After a great deal of laughing, Spike decided to kick back on Twilight’s extremely comfy chair and do nothing.

So there he was, doing absolutely nothing. Yup, just kickin’ it back and doing… nothing. Totally and utterly nothing…

Nothing, nothing, nothing… Nothin’… at… all…

“I’M SO BORED!”

Spike slumped back into his seat and sighed. Time passed. A lot of time. Well, His eyes began to glaze over in boredom. His jaw hung slack, tongue out hanging a bit. It looked like he had been beaten and left comatose. He began to drool on himself as he fell asleep...

‘DING-DONG!’

“?”

Spike was revived from his coma by a ringing bell in the distance. To be more accurate, it was a door bell. He turned his head around to the stairs. Somepony was at the door? Rushing down the steps to the main floor, he wondered who it could be. This was supposed to be his day off, ie, nopony to bother him! Despite having to run up and down the same flight stairs many times in one day on a regular basis, in the midst of his so called ‘deep thinking’, Spike’s feet misplaced where they should have been and missed the step. Long story short, he tripped.

“Waaaaaahhhhh!”

In a spectacular display of flailing limbs and a very girly scream, Spike tumbled down the stairs like clothes in a clothes dryer. Well he would have, had it been invented at the time anyway… He hit each step with a thump and a bump as he fell, each one causing him to become increasingly sore. He hit the bottom of the stairs with a loud thud, yet he kept on rolling.
The front door burst open. The pony on the other side of the door ran in frantically. “Twilight!?” He worried that another monster of some sort had managed its way into her home and he would have to save her again.

Spike slid into home when he hit his head on the wall next to front door. “Ow…” he mumbled.

The earth pony ran over to Spike. He was ready to take on whatever horrid creature or alien had made the poor mistake of getting involved with him. This strange little dragon didn’t see likely to hurt anybody, as dangerous as dragons were. Be that as it may, he didn’t drop his guard towards this dragon.

Spike lay on his back for a moment longer, the world spinning around him. He had been hit on his head before, but this time it actually hurt pretty badly. He could have sworn he saw flying pegasi around his dizzy head, just like a cartoon. Spike was so out of it; he didn’t even notice the mystery pony had already walked in and asked him something. What did he say? Something about trouble?

“Can you hear me? I said, what’s the trouble!?” the pony repeated as Spike reoriented himself.

“Trouble?” Spike said, getting to his feet. He shook his head. “Oof… The only trouble is my achin’ head!” Spike rubbed his forehead in pain. He was going to be very sore tomorrow.

“So there’s nothing wrong?” asked the strange brown maned pony. Spike simply replied with a ‘nope’ that would make Big Mac proud.

The male pony was now confused. As well and dandy everything being fine was, he liked it better when there was trouble. One thing still didn’t make sense though. He furrowed his brow. “Oh. I could have sworn I heard a mare’s scream. I thought Twilight was in danger…” he said honestly. “You never know what could be happening…”

Spike’s cheeks turned red in frustration and embarrassment. That ‘girly scream’ was him. He didn’t need this guff. He had enough trouble with ponies not taking him seriously for his height, now his voice, too? He didn’t need his voice in the fight against him trying to woo Rarity. Was his voice really that high pitched?

“Uh… No. Twilight’s not here.” He said in a rather harsher tone than he really meant. He dusted himself off.

“Oh. I was hoping to speak with her about… pressing matters.” He looked at the room behind Spike. The place did seem empty. Maybe he could be trusted. Then again, maybe he did do something to Twilight. One could never be too cautious. He decided to play along and see how much he could find out about this dragon. If he really was bad, then maybe this day wouldn’t be a complete bore. Looking down at Spike, the stallion asked, “Um, when did you say she would be back?”

“I didn’t. She said something like… uh…” he trailed off into silence. He actually had absolutely no idea when she would be back. He was still half asleep when she told him to watch the place and missed half of the conversation. She could be gone for hours. “Um… half an hour?” he lied a random lie.

The other pony raised his brows in indifference. “Oh. I see.” He looked down at the little purple dragon, then back up to the room around them. Seemed quaint enough. He then flashed a toothy grin, “Well then, I’m sure she wouldn’t mind if I waited here until then.” And with that, he let himself into the place without waiting for a reply.

As much as Spike wanted to object, he found himself saying nothing. He had every right to deny entrance to his stallion. One, he was a complete stranger, and two, he didn’t even help Spike after he hit his head. That scumbag. He should have told that guy to hit the curb… And yet, Spike secretly wanted him to come in. He was bored. Perhaps having someone to talk to, even for a while, would be nice change of pace. Besides, he could always kick him out later.

“Wait, I don’t even know your name.” Spike realized. “I’m Spike.” he introduced himself, holding out a hand.

The tan earth pony put his hoof in his hand and shook it. “The Doctor.”

…

Twilight tapped her hoof impatiently while she waited for Fluttershy to open her door. Both she and Pinkie ran as fast as they could when they realized Fluttershy was the one who brought up ‘Salvation’ in the first place, and was obviously the one to obtain some from. They ran into a few snags along the way, most of them being Pinkie Pie stopping for a snack. Or two. Or three...

The shy pegasus lived quite a ways out of town, so they rushed to get there. Twilight tried to help by teleporting them a good distance closer, but it still took a while. After only two teleports, Twilight already began to feel light headed, and just settled on running the rest of the way. Pinkie had decidedly bounced beside her as she ran, keeping pace with the increasingly exhausted Twilight. She kept up the whole way; the happy pink pony didn’t even seem to break a sweat as she bounced merrily to Fluttershy’s cabin. Twilight shook it out of her mind as one of those ‘Pinkie Pie things’.

Finally, the door swung open. Twilight took a moment to drink in what she was looking at. In front of her, Fluttershy stood with her wings wide open to either side. On each wing, dozens of cute little colourful birds perched. When Twilight looked closer she saw that all of the birds were eating tiny seeds and grains that coated Fluttershy’s wings and back.

“Oh. Hello Twilight. Good day, Pinkie Pie.”

“Hi.” said Pinkie.

Twilight stood in silence.

Uncharacteristically, Fluttershy was the first to break the silence. “Is there something I can do for you? I’m a little busy at the moment. As you can see, I’m feeding my birds.”

Fluttershy motioned towards the birds she was feeding on her back and wings. She enjoyed the feel of having dozens of tiny little beaks poking her gently. Fluttershy’s connection with her animal friends helped in that the birds never pecked too hard or caused discomfort. For Fluttershy, it was like a little acupuncture therapy while she fed them. It was a kind of ‘thank you’ for her taking care of them.

Twilight stopped looking at the marvelous display of a yellow pegasus and colourful birds and snapped back to reality. She quickly reminded herself of the reason they were there. “Yes. Fluttershy, can you get us some Salvation, please?” Twilight politely asked the timid pegasus.

Fluttershy folded her ears. She looked down in a worried manner. “Salvation? Oh… well… um. I’m not so sure about that. I’m not very a religious pony.…”

Twilight cocked her head to one side. What on earth was Fluttershy talking about? What the hay did potentially lethal drugs have to do with being religious? She would have expected this kind of nonsense from Pinkie Pie, sure... but Fluttershy?

Fluttershy shifted awkwardly from one side hooves to the others. She thought for a moment, and then looked back up. She looked as though she had an idea.

“But I’m pretty sure that nice old Mr. Waddle is a priest. He lives close to the town hall. I do believe he may be able to help you achieve salvation.” She smiled as she spoke. She closed her eyes and tilted her head, thinking she had helped out another friend. What a good friend she was.

Twilight looked at Fluttershy with disbelief and confusion. It took a moment, but then it hit her. Her eye twitched. Finally understanding the miscommunication that had taken place, Twilight facehoofed. She really didn’t have time for this; lives were at stake! She sighed audibly.

“No no no! Fluttershy, I don’t mean that kind of ‘Salvation’!” she said frustratingly.

Fluttershy opened her eyes. “Y-you don’t?” What had she done wrong now?

Twilight shook her head. Today had been pretty frustrating. Yet as much as she would like to vent her frustration out right here and now, she had to be careful around someone as ‘fragile’ as Fluttershy. She saw that Shy was already a bit worried now, so she better play it calm. She chose her words carefully.

Just then, Fluttershy caught on. “Oh? Oh! You mean ‘Salvation’, that nasty drug that made Rainbow Dash sick?” Her face scrunched up, signifying her disgust for the horrible drug.

Twilight smiled. “Yes, that one! I need to look at it and forgot to ask for some before you left this morning. Do you still have it?” she said joyfully. Maybe there was still time to get a sample back to her lab and figure this stuff out. Unfortunately, things were not going to be that easy.

Fluttershy looked saddened again. “I’m sorry, Twilight. You said the medicine was dangerous, so as soon as I got home, I got rid of all the Salvation I had. It’s all gone, now. Sorry.”

Twilight stopped smiling. “I see…” This day just seemed to be getting better and better.

“I’m sorry, Twilight…” Fluttershy timidly backed away into her home. She felt bad for not being able to help. Just then, she remembered something that might be able to help them.

“But I think I know who does have some. Rarity told me the other day that she generously gave Applejack the last of her medicine because she had a headache. I believe she mentioned it being ‘Salvation’. So, I would try either Rarity or Applejack.” Fluttershy said. On any other occasion would be willing to help them search, but she was just too busy with her animals. The least she could do was provide information.

Twilight’s eyes widened. She blinked. “Oh. Okay, we’ll try them then. Thanks Fluttershy.” Turning around, both she and Pinkie left Fluttershy to tend to her animals.

Twilight already knew the effects the drug had on ponies, and it was very possible that Applejack and Rarity had been affected, as well. Rainbow Dash and Bon-Bon were bad enough. She didn’t need more friends down and sick with missing cutie marks. Together, she and Pinkie quickly decided to head for Sweet Apple Acres, as it was closer than running back into town. Be that as it may, there was no time to lose, so the two ponies sped off as fast as they could.

Twilight sighed. More running.

Comments

[CaptainAwesome]

FINALLY! IT'S HERE!

[Xenotype]

"Twilight sighed. More running."

Get used to it Twilight, you've become involved with the Doctor, if you think this amount of running is bad then wait till it has really hit the fan.
This is nothing compared to the running the Doctor goes through on an almost daily basis.

[dracoantares]

I'm lovin it

[bronybrofist]

429954
lolololol

[Princess Twilicorndog]

429954
At least Twilight will stay healthy!