I groaned as my vision started to clear, my head aching like Applejack had mistaken it for an apple tree. Several times over.

“Gah...my cerebral hemisphere...” I put my hoof to the back of my head, rubbing the sore spot.

“Couldn’t you just say ‘my head’?” somepony vaguely familiar-sounding pointed out.

“Could, but I didn’t.” I finally looked up and saw three ponies staring down at me. “...what happened?”

The pony on the far left, whom I would later remember as being the doctor that brought me to the hospital in the first place, decided to answer. “You attacked Dr. Cut and took the scalpel, and then it started affecting you instead.”

“So we had to knock you out and take it back,” the mare on the right finished. She was a white-coated unicorn with a dark red mane and tail. I didn’t see much else of her. “Why did you grab it when you knew it was dangerous?”

“...because I hoped it wouldn’t affect me?” I grinned sheepishly. None of them were amused. “Alright, alright. I didn’t use my neocortex, okay? I just acted.”

The three of them, for some reason, seemed perplexed. However, the nurse offered a hoof to help me up, and it was then I discovered I had been lying in the middle of a rather messy operating room. I looked around at all the bloodstained instruments and flung vital organs.

“...I didn’t...operate on anypony...did I?” I asked nervously.

Thankfully, they all shook their heads, and I sighed in relief. The third pony, who had yet to speak, stepped forward. “We’ve taken Dr. Cut away to seek help. While he likely won’t get into too much trouble since he was being controlled by the scalpel, he does remember everything that happened, so he’ll probably need therapy of some sort.”

I nodded. “Makes sense...speaking of which, where’s the scalpel?”

They motioned to a lone scalpel sitting on a table behind me. I moved to grab it, then remembered what happened previously and grabbed a cloth instead, using that to pick it up safely for the trip back home.

All in all, the trip took me an hour and a half, most of which I spent unconscious. So when I got back home, the fact that everypony was still where I left them wasn’t surprising.

“Right, so where were we?” I tried to ask, only to remember too late that I had a cloth and scalpel in my mouth, causing my words to come out as “Rut, so whuh wuh weh?”

The four of them waited until I had spat the scalpel onto a table, picked it up with my hoof (still using the cloth to keep it from affecting me), dropped it into my saddlebags, and repeated my question in a more coherent manner.

“Trying to figure out how to help Nimble’s parents,” Risk reminded me. “Where were you, though? And where’d you get that scalpel? Did you rob the hospital?”

I shrugged. “Well, you’re half-right. A doctor at the hospital got hold of an article that screwed with their cerebrum and made them want to perform triple bypass surgery, allotransplantation, heart transplants, and skin grafts. I had to take it away from them, and lo and behold, the article was a scalpel with a number ten blade and a...three long...handle...” I realized they were staring at me with the most bewildered expressions I had ever seen them with. “...did I say something weird?”

“...Arrell, you didn’t say anything that wasn’t weird,” False replied. “At least, nothing that wasn’t weird for you to say.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She sighed. “Never mind. Tell us about that later. We need to help Nimble first.”

“Oh, right. Any of you got any ideas?”

They shook their heads.

“...really? I was gone for over an hour stopping a homicidal doctor and you didn’t think of anything while I was away?”

“You’re the one who usually thinks up the plans,” Asylum pointed out.

“I repeat: I was gone for over an hour stopping a homicidal doctor.”

“Then think of something now that you’re done!” False snapped.

I raised an eyebrow at her. “Whoah, tell your cortisol to calm down.”

“My what?”

“Cortisol. You know, the stress hormone. Unless it’s norepinephrine in this case.”

“...I think you spent too long around doctors,” Risk finally said after a pause.

I shook my head. “Doubt it. I was unconscious from blunt force head trauma for at least two-thirds of the time.”

“...blunt force head trauma...what?”

I facehoofed. “Alright, alright, I’ll give you all the whole story. But then I’m going to bed. I want at least a few hours of sleep before the morning. We can figure Nimble’s problem out then.”

One by one, they reluctantly agreed (aside from Nimble, who seemed more than happy to save his issues for later), and I sat down to explain what happened at the hospital.

“...you know, I still want some answers.”

Styx shrugged. “You’ll get them eventually.”

“How eventually is eventually?” I demanded.

“Eventually is as eventually as eventually is when I decide how eventually eventually is.”

“...touché.” I sighed. “Seriously though, how long? This is eating away at me more than I am to a slice of pizza.”

She sighed as well to echo my own. “...I don’t know when she’ll be ready. I’ll explain everything to you the next time you go to sleep, okay? Might as well at least give you fair warning.”

I blinked. “She? She who? You mean the person-or-pony who’s been talking to me when you weren’t here?”

She nodded. “You’ll understand soon enough.”

I made a girly pouty face. “I want to understand now.”

“Well, you can’t.” She poked me on the nose and I shut my eyes on reflex...

...opening them to find that I was awake.

I checked my watch. Seven in the morning. Asylum was beginning to stir beside me, starting to wake up as well.

I sighed, knowing we had a long day ahead of us.