April 30th, 993 Domina Solaria

There are days when Sunset Shimmer envies the weathermares of Canterlot.

Their job is remarkably easy; for it is a rare day, a rare day indeed, when anything but endlessly clear skies graces the gleaming capital city. With duties so few and far between the good ones - and ones on the cusp of retirement - double as royal guards and patrol not only for stray proto-clouds but for arriving flyers. The others? Their cutie marks tend in a different direction, attracting ponies looking for a cushy life, or perhaps ones whose mark doesn’t pay the bills. Nopony around to thrust extra lessons on them when it ‘appears’ they are not doing their job.

Today is not one of those days.

A heady smirk crosses her muzzle as she stares through a telescope. It’s unnecessary, strictly speaking, for a pony of her talents, but any mistake could be potentially catastrophic when you’re talking these distances. She swiftly locates Ponyville General and the blue earth pony nurse on the hospital roof. She waits, alternating between an impatient tap of her hoof and the occasional check of the sun, until the nurse completes a golden circle. As soon as she steps clear Sunset Shimmer double checks her saddlebags, making sure everything is securely packed away, and then her own circle on one of the many balconies of Canterlot Castle. Pristine, as usual.

There are times when she loathes being Princess Celestia’s student, but the raw power she has learned to exercise and properly control makes all of the… less than pertinent friendship lessons worthwhile. Her horn charges, a cloud of reddish amaranth billowing from the ground in both locations.

With a flash of ephemeral fire she disappears from Canterlot and strides out from the cloud in Ponyville.

The smoke dissipates behind her and leaves an acrid taste in her mouth. A flash from her horn clears her head, and it takes but a moment to reorient herself and locate the nurse. “Everything set up to my specifications?” Sunset Shimmer asks, already starting towards the stairwell.

“Yes,” Nurse Tenderheart returns promptly, trotting forward to open the door.

The walk isn’t far, but even Sunset Shimmer recognizes that teleporting to avoid the stairs while your earth pony compatriot must rush to keep up is bad form. While her long range teleportation is impeccable she has less impetus pushing her to practice the companion version. She will certainly not be taking the stairs back up, however.

They arrive in one of the conference rooms, not the standard diagnostic rooms, and Sunset Shimmer can’t help wonder why. Just a table in the center, a thaumic resonator on top, and a tan doctor in a white lab coat paging through some file or another with an orange unicorn. Still, it makes little difference, and her red aura surrounds her saddlebags and carefully sets them on the table.

Sunset Shimmer eyes Ponyville General’s thaumic resonator with a look of trepidation. It’s an older model, but still serviceable, but there’s a chance something might go wrong. “Just the one?” She glances around the room for anything else, as if she might have missed something, but her search is for naught.

“We supplement with scans from Nurse Purpleheart,” Dr. Sharps says with a nod to the tan unicorn standing next to him. She gives Sunset Shimmer a curt nod, which the amber unicorn fails to return. “And one Miss, well, Missus Rarity.”

“That’s…” Sunset Shimmer huffs; this is not what she specified! "See, that won’t do.” Sunset Shimmer’s irreverent attitude draws a curious twist of the head from the doctor and stifled scowls from the nurses. “The modifications I made to my own machine make it less precise at normal diagnostics.” She pulls out her own thaumic resonator from her saddlebags. It’s the newest model, of course, and she’ll be sure to show it off to the head administrator at Canterlot General Hospital as soon as this test run is complete. “But what it will do is let you differentiate between individual thaums, track them, and see how they flow through the body.”

“And it’s not some sort of filter we can take on and off?” Dr. Sharps asks with a hint of disappointment. His muzzle purses, and he inspects it a little closer.

“Yeah, no. It’s not that easy.” Sunset Shimmer turns to Nurse Purpleheart, though she suspects the answer to her question before it’s even asked. It’s doubtful any unicorn that needs help with scans could reliably do this, and the orange nurse’s purple cross cutie mark suggests it’s not her specialty. “Can you throw a filter on your scanning spell?”

“I’m not an Honesty specialist,” Nurse Purpleheart admits easily. Sunset Shimmer’s insulting attitude leaves her unamused, but she’s too professional to show it. “And I only know the basic scan. So, no.”

“Exactly.” Sunset Shimmer turns to her device, ignoring the frustrated and barely concealed snort.

“Rarity is,” Nurse Purpleheart continues, to Sunset Shimmer’s annoyance. “Her specialty is finding gemstones, but she adapted her scanning spell easily enough.”

“Maybe she can learn it, then,” Sunset Shimmer says through gritted teeth.

“Buuut,” Nurse Purpleheart draws out, “she’s one of the ponies we need scanned, and it might be hard to scan herself.”

“See, that?” Sunset Shimmer says, pointing a hoof at Nurse Purpleheart as if there was any need for emphasis. “Problem.” She smirks to herself as she goes back to her own resonator. “Good thing I’m here.”

“Of course,” Dr. Sharps says placatingly, a glance at his hoof telling the two nurses it’s about time. They both leave the room without a backwards glance. “Anything else we need to know?”

“You had others coming, right?” Sunset Shimmer asks. She’d glance to the sky, but the window in the practically unfurnished room has the shades drawn. Not that she has anything to be late to.

Her question is almost immediately answered as six ponies and one human enter, the choice of room now quite apparent. Nurse Tenderheart leads the three mares and human to the back of the room before she returns to the doctor’s side, an uneasy look back at the human.

The two unicorn stallions are quite a bit more interesting. The first, tan with a whorl across his face that can’t help but draw Sunset Shimmer’s attention, gives her a polite smile. He’s cute, in a bumbling sidekick sort of way, and she covertly scans his potential. It’s not bad, for a Canterlot General doctor, but not the best.

The second - hobbling forward on a custom steel horn-lit double cane with a fervency she reserves for interesting projects like reworking a thaumic resonator - crowds her device like it’s a Hearths Warming gift that he gets to unwrap. He barely fits the part of a doctor, with his shabby overcoat and unrepentant attitude. She scowls at the impropriety.

“Hi,” Sunset Shimmer greets, trying to politely interject herself between her resonator and the stallion liable to destroy it. “That’s my-”

“Can’t talk,” Dr. Horse says brusquely. “New toy.” He continues looking at it from every angle, going so far to rest his body on the double cane so his forelegs are free to grab and poke at it. His dark blue aura surrounds the resonator, but doesn’t move it. His eyes light up in something approximating admiration. “You added a marker component.”

“Oh?” Sunset Shimmer says, a little impressed herself and no longer worried about him breaking it. His aura didn’t look that impressive, but power is only a part of the equation. “Are you an Honesty specialist?”

“I’m a Discerning specialist,” Dr. Horse clarifies with more than a little disdain. In fact, Sunset Shimmer is almost sure he’s laughing at her internally. “I abhor the term ‘Honesty’ specialist because everypony lies.”

“I don’t-” Sunset Shimmer starts.

“Did you build this yourself?” Dr. Horse asks callously, interrupting Sunset Shimmer as he points at her thaumic resonator. He turns his head to better gauge her reaction, and the slight tilt makes it obvious he knows the answer.

“Not from scratch,” Sunset Shimmer concedes. It’s not like anypony could; well, Princess Celestia could, obviously, and maybe Night Light’s filly. She obsessed about silly things like that, but barely paid any attention to the ponies around her. “But-”

Dr. Horse nods, cutting her off. “Did you come up with the modifications yourself?”

“I…” Sunset Shimmer stammers, then grits her teeth. It took a month of work to make these changes! Countless hours and sleepless nights poring over the spellwork to make sure everything fit exactly! “Princess Celestia helped with some of the theoretical portion, but I did all the groundwork and spellwork myself.”

“And yet you were fully willing to pass it on as your own.” Dr. Horse nods as if the matter is settled. “See? Everypony lies.”

“I’m Princess Celestia’s personal student,” Sunset Shimmer cuts back in. “It’s expected that I would collaborate with her on, well, everything!”

“But, do you?” Dr. Horse asks.

The question cuts deep into Sunset Shimmer, leaving her reeling. If she’s being frank about it she doesn’t, but she’s not about to admit to that. But before she can respond the door opens. Nurse Purpleheart wheels in an ultrasound, then takes a spot next to Nurse Tenderheart. It’s obvious the two nurses are curious what the tests will show, even if the most they will contribute is being a fetchfilly.

“Looks like you don’t need me anymore,” Sunset Shimmer says curtly, flipping back her amaranth and gold mane. She impatiently waits, a hoof tapping against the floor, knowing they need her expertise to explain the modifications.

Dr. Horse stares at the resonator for a moment before he raises his hoof to make a little shooing motion.

Sunset Shimmer huffs at his audacity. “Fine,” she mutters to herself. She demands impertinently, “I want that back in one piece,” before her horn flares, teleporting her to the rooftop and then back to Canterlot.

Dr. Horse keeps studying the resonator until a cough from Dr. Whorlson gets him to look up. It takes him a moment to register there are other ponies in the room, and he should be doing... something with them. He asks, more curious than anything, though still patronizing, “What do you want?”

Next Chapter: Ch. 85 - Galesight Estimated time remaining: 4 Hours, 19 Minutes