Paralyzed
“Are you sure this is safe?” asked Twilight Sparkle, glancing across the cornfield towards two sets of tin cans on fence posts, which were peppered with bullet holes.
“Sure thing, Twilight! I’ve been shootin’ guns since ah was a filly!” said Applejack, smiling as she pointed towards the gun rack on the back of her pickup truck. You know, the pickup truck that Hasbro sells but is never actually seen in the show.
“They didn’t even have guns when you were a filly,” said Twilight Sparkle, rolling her eyes. “Let alone pickup trucks.”
“Amazin’ how much technology has progressed ever since you came to Ponyville, huh?” asked Applejack.
Twilight smiled with nostalgia. “Yes, I remember writing with quills on parchment by candlelight and having Spike breathe fire to send them. Nowadays, I just shoot Celestia an email.”
“And nowadays, you’re gonna shoot this gun at this can over there!” said Applejack, hoofing the rifle to Twilight Sparkle barrel towards the sky with the safety on, like a responsible gun owner.
Twilight fired the gun at the tin can and missed. Instead, she somehow hit the back of the pickup truck, which ricocheted off of the metal fender and right through the top of Applejack’s hat, narrowly missing her brain.
Applejack chuckled. “You gotta look down the ironsights, sugarcube.”
Applejack, patience like a saint’s, spent the next few hours showing Twilight how to shoot a gun. After training for a few hours and not hitting any of the cans, Twilight lost patience and just cast a spell that would let her always hit the target no matter how badly she aimed. Now she was a better shot than Applejack, who had been shooting every day for years.
However, there was a minor accident. On her way home, Twilight tripped over a fallen tree branch and ended up in the hospital.
“I’m afraid that I have some bad news, Princess Sparkle,” said the caramel-coated unicorn doctor.
He levitated some X-rays in front of Twilight Sparkle. “It appears that you have fractured your spinal column just below the neck. I am sorry to say this, Miss Sparkle, but you will never walk, fly, or use your hooves again.”
Twilight’s mouth gaped open in shock.
“Is there anything that you can do to help me? Is there a procedure? A magic spell?” asked Twilight.
The doctor shook his head. “We’ve been doing research on how to help quadra- and paraplegics for years, but, unfortunately, haven’t come up with anything. Of course, if there are any promising developments, you’ll be the first to know.”
Twilight grinned. “I’ll bet that I can find some sort of spell.”
The doctor said, “There aren’t any. I can assure you.”
Twilight rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right. I’m better at Rarity’s gem finding spell than Rarity is. I can teleport faster than Rainbow Dash can fly. I can tame an ursa minor just as well as Fluttershy can. My princess coronation party, which I planned myself, was bigger and better-attended than any party that Pinkie Pie has ever thrown. I can harvest apples with my magic quicker than Applejack can buck them, and I can shoot a rifle more accurately than she can, too. So, I’ll bet that I’m better at medicinal magic than you are, Doctor.”
Her horn lit up and she disappeared from the hospital bed, off to find a cure for her affliction.
“Wait, you forgot to pay!” the doctor called out, but it was too late.
Twilight Sparkle sat in the library. Magic books floated in front of Twilight as she scanned them with her eyes, looking for any sort of spell that she could cast to enable her to use her hooves again.
“No, that one’s useless,” she said, casting it aside with her magic.
“Oh, hey, Twilight,” said Spike, walking over with a feather duster. “I was wondering when you’d get back from shooting with Applejack. I was starting to get worried.”
“Oh, no, I was injured,” said Twilight, turning her head towards Spike.
Spike’s eyes widened. “Injured? What happened? Are you okay?”
“I’m a quadraplegic,” said Twilight Sparkle, shaking her head.
Spike blinked. “But, you look the same as you normally do!”
“Oh, I guess the doctor didn’t have time to put that pad thingy around my neck,” said Twilight Sparkle. “I kind of left before he could. But I’m here looking for a magic spell so that I can fix my spinal column and get back to normal.”
Spike chuckled. “Well, it looks like you already are. But call me if you need anything. I’ll just be cleaning up all the debris and wreckage from Tirek.”
Gosh, Tirek destroying Twilight's Library. That was, like, the 9/11 of My Little Pony.
Twilight glanced up at the sky, and at the charred remains of the top floor of the library. Hopefully there weren’t any books up there that would have helped her.
After another hour of searching, Twilight Sparkle’s stomach started to rumble. Wait, can that happen if you’re paralyzed? Oh well, let’s just say that she was hungry.
“Spike! Could you get me some lunch?” she called out.
“Uh, I’m a bit busy trying to get this branch out of here! Just let me move it really quick and I’ll be down in a minute!”
Twilight sighed. How inconsiderate of him! Didn’t he know that she was totally paralyzed from the neck down? Instead he was screwing around with branches or whatever.
Another minute passed and Twilight’s dragon servant didn’t arrive.
“If you want something done right…” she groaned. Her horn lit up, and she disappeared with a flash of light, and reappeared in the kitchen, still sitting on the floor.
“Let’s see if Spike remembered to go grocery shopping,” she said. She opened the cabinets with her magic, and craned her neck up as she tried to see if she could see inside. But it was too high.
“Drat,” said Twilight. But then, a lightbulb appeared above her head as she got an idea.
Twilight’s horn lit up as she levitated herself up to eye level with the pantry. A lot of the food had burned when Tirek attacked the library. There was half a loaf of bread left, and a jar of peanut butter.
“Ah, looks like we have peanut butter and bread. But do we have jelly?” said Twilight.
She glanced in the fridge, and found what she was looking for. Strawberry: her favorite. She pulled them out with her magic and made herself a slightly charred sandwich, then she ate it.
“That hits the spot,” she said. She teleported back into the library and started to read again.
After a few hours of reading, she found that there weren’t any spells to restore a spinal column. Apparently, along with making food appear out of thin air and finding the last digit of pi, healing a spinal column was one of the few things that magic couldn’t do.
“I guess that I’ll have to improvise,” said Twilight. She recalled a spell that she had secretly used when she was helping Applejack on the farm during Winter Wrap-Up.
“The come-to-life spell!” she proclaimed. Her horn lit up as she cast it on her own body. At first, it caused her legs to move out of control, and she crashed into a bookshelf, snapping her neck. Good thing she was already paralyzed, so she didn’t feel a thing.
But after a few more iterations, she finally got it right, and was moving around the library. It was a bit magically taxing, even for Twilight, so she turned off the spell and went to bed. She coughed at her ashy and partially burned covers.
Later that evening, it started to rain. Twilight tried brushing the water off of herself with her hoof, but remembered that she was paralyzed. So, instead, she just cast a force field over herself.
The next morning, there was a knock at the door. Twilight’s head sat up from her blackened, charred bed.
“Coming!” she called out. Her horn lit up and she reappeared in front of the door, still sitting. She opened it with her magic, and her friends walked in the room.
“Howdy, Twi,” said Applejack, a sullen look on her face as she removed her hat.
“My goodness, Twilight. I heard about what happened, and I hope that you’re alright,” said Rarity.
“I baked you a get well soon cake!” said Pinkie, foisting a cake unto Twilight.
Twilight raised her eyebrows. “Wait, what are you guys talking about?”
“You’re paralyzed!” Fluttershy exclaimed, throwing her hooves in the air.
“Oh,” said Twilight. “Well, to be honest, I hadn’t really noticed.”