Prologue - Phobos
A familiar chime played through the ears of those in the front lobby at Ponyville Hospital. The pony at the front desk looked up, delighted to see who it was walking into the building.
“Redheart! How are you doing, sis?” she asked her co-worker and sibling.
“As good as always, Cross,” the white earth mare responded, trotting into the reception area with her. Red Cross was one of the newer employees at the hospital. A sweet, young, aquamarine pegasus mare with a simple, laid-back lilac mane. She and Redheart had grown up together, and discovered they had the same talent. Ironically, Cross’ cutie mark was that of a heart, while Heart’s was a cross. The two embraced each other as Redheart looked over her notes.
“So, what’s Horse got you up to nowadays?” her sister asked.
“Funny you should ask. I just got finished with it actually,” she chuckled, “He had me go around Ponyville and take a Psychological Evaluation on everyone.”
“What’s the point of that?”
“Well, he decided, since Ponyville is always under a bunch of weird activity, it might be in our interests to have a record on everypony’s viewpoint of the situations that could occur.” Cross rolled her eyes. Heart leaned in and wrapped a hoof around her neck, quietly noting to Cross, “Between you and me, I’m pretty sure he just wanted to know everypony’s fears considering the oddballs we have around here. I mean, look at these questions!”
Cross took hold of the folder and pulled out a report, this one seemingly being that for the owner of ‘Quills & Sofas.’ She scanned the page thoroughly, noting that Heart was right.
“‘If you were to be in a state of complete panic or fear, what do you think would be the cause?’ What, he couldn’t just straight up ask, ‘What are you afraid of?’” Heart giggled, knowing that yes, while Dr. Horse’s methods were quite unorthodox, he did his job well.
“The sad part is that the responses from some of them really make you question the sanity of these ponies.” Cross read on in Mr. Ink Cushion’s report. She stifled a very loud laugh after seeing his answer to one of the questions.
“He is afraid to sit? Half of his special talent is selling couches for Celestia's sake!"
“I know, I know,” Heart rolled her eyes, “Well, anyway, I’d better let you get back to work, and I have to turn these into Dr. Horse.”
“Alright, well, talk to you later then. We still having Daisy stew for dinner tonight?”
“Yes,” Heart nodded, stepping out of the room.
Redheart took five minutes to check up on a patient in her care, a young filly with a heart problem. She’d be undergoing surgery soon, so she made sure that she was comfortable and well prepared. After that she set out to find Horse.
After a moment of aimless wandering, she found him conversing with the office’s new trainee. She trotted up to the two, butting into the conversation. She hadn’t talked to the trainee yet, so she hadn’t known about his thick accent. If she had to guess, she imagined he came from somewhere in Germaneigh.
“...you’re absolutely sure about that?” Horse asked him as she trotted up.
“Vell, not entirely. You see, zhe six hundred miles of desert between Los Pegasus and Appleoosa is a vast land. If I vere correct, zhen underneath zhe topmost layer of sediment is a minefield of an extremely valuable element,” the trainee explained.
“And if we got hold of this element?” Redheart asked innocently. Both stallions jumped, turning to her. Horse’s frown was slight and undone with a simple clearing of his throat. The trainee, having been given quite a scare, shook his head and adjusted his glasses back into place.
The two looked at her and back to each other. Horse shrugged.
The trainee cleared his throat, “Vell, technically speaking, if ve vere to get ahold of zis element, our technological prowess vould increase some zirty fold, possibly more. Our medical and scientific fields vould get a massive budget increase and many zhings vould be able to be cured or solved.” He sighed, “Still, it’s a generous estimate. Zis is over nine zousand cubic kilometers ve are talking about here.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll send a letter out to the Los Pegasus Hospital, and have them round up some workers to get out there and test the waters,” Horse patted his shoulder, “Thanks for sharing your theory with me, Medic. I’ve got business to attend to with Heart here, so you head on back to that filly and finish prep on the surgery.”
“Yes, sir.”
‘Medic’ trotted away, and Horse turned back to Nurse Redheart. He eyed the overstuffed manilla folder in her saddlebag, and put out a hoof. She got it out and handed it to him. The two started trotting towards a records area, using a magical copier on the most important data, and sorting the rest into the various cabinets filled with records of their patients.
Halfway through the task, Horse eyed a document he was holding. He then looked at the next few and had a similar shock pass through his mind.
“Heart, how did you get these files on not only all four of the princesses, but both princes as well?”
“Oh those?” Heart winced, “Well, when I went over to Princess Twilight’s castle, and started asking her the questions, she thought about Celestia, and which in turn, she asked if I wanted to know these questions about the other princesses as well. I decided it would be a good idea, considering how much of an important city is to the Quadarchy at this point. I decided having files of the princesses in the event of an emergency would be helpful, no matter how little.”
“What about Blueblood and Shining Armor?”
“Well, her Dragon...brother? Whatever, he started mumbling about Blueblood, some pretty bad stuff. Twilight overheard him and gave me some info on him as well before giving the little drake a time-out for his language.” she had an apologetic grin on now, “And Twilight in turn, thought about Shining Armor, whom is her brother, and decided to get back at him for some prank he pulled on her. So she gave me every last detail on him that she remembered. That alone is why I was gone for the entire duration of Wednesday last week.”
Horse scanned the Captain of the Guard’s papers. Stifling a chuckle, he read aloud one of the details; “‘Slept in navy blue hoofie-pajamas until he was eleven years old,’ Oh, that’s rich!”
Heart giggled, nodding before adding her two bits, “He also was a complete geek back in High School.”
“Him? Really?” Horse looked at her incredulous look, “He’s so good looking and brave though.”
“Well, your feminism aside, Doctor, you should never judge a book by it’s cover. It’s one of the first thing I learned as a mare.”
Horse blushed and continued copying the papers. The two laughed after a moment, and went back to work.
After a half an hour, Horse stopped Redheart, “You can go home now, Heart. I know Cross’ shift is ending and you’ve been all over town for the past several weeks. I’d give you a vacation, but...well, you are ‘#1 Nurse of the Year’ for a reason.” He gave her a soft smile and she thanked him, walking out to meet her sister.
Horse looked at the manilla folder stuffed full of copies of the info he was hoping for. He looked at one of the papers in his possession and hurried to clock out. He trotted home at a brisk pace and walked into his house, dropping the files on his dining room table. After making a quick sandwich, he went to the end of the hallway and knocked on the door to a bedroom. An orange stallion poked his head out.
“Yeah, Doc?”
“Got those documents you wanted. Money up,” the doctor said to his roommate. The stallion looked at him with a smug grin.
“Yeah, right. Let’s see what you ‘got.’” They walked into the dining room and he picked up some of the papers. He was stunned to see his roommate was telling the truth.
“Wow. You weren’t kidding. You got everypony in Ponyville, except for me of course.”
“Plus, the Princesses and Princes. You can thank Miss Princess of Rambling for those.”
The two looked them over for a moment longer.
“Well, Phobos?”
“These will do fine,” Phobos told Horse, pulling out a large sum of bits, “Now. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll need to be in solitude for a few days, to make sure that I can help these ponies overcome these things.”
“You sure you can do it? Medic was talking about assisting you with some element he found out in the Los Pegasus desert.”
“My special talent is removing ponies of their fears, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but it’s also invoking them.”
“Well, I’m helping this time,” Phobos stuck his tongue out at the brown stallion. He lit up his horn, a yellow-green glow enveloping it and the folder as he trotted to his room. “Bring me a sandwich and glass of water every day at noon. I’ll subconsciously eat and drink as I always do while I’m dealing with my spell.”
Horse sighed. “Alright. Just...don’t hurt yourself this time.”
“I’ll try not to,” Phobos muttered. He closed his door, opening up the folder and looking through the names of the ponies. His eyes flowed over one. He looked at it and smiled.
‘Okay. Twilight Sparkle; a young alicorn mare with a noticeable and terrible case of Atychiphobia. I share that one with you princess.’ He sighed, ‘Let’s hope that it doesn’t overwhelm me while I try to purge it from you.’
Phobos’ horn lit up, and a circle of his aura surrounded him. He closed his eyes in focus and let his imagination and power run free.