Ch. 28 - Spinning The Wheels
“Are you feeling any better, ma'am?”
Painwheel shook her head. “Nothing has changed. It still hurts.” Her arms were folded resolutely over her chest, protecting her modesty as a team of medical professionals looked her over. She turned away as one took a closer look at her shoulder, staring through magically transparent flesh. She wished Twilight Sparkle had not shared her modification of the see-through flesh spell, or whatever it was called. Her skin crawled, making her feel violated again. This time, though, the medical examinations were done while she was conscious, unlike at Lab Zero.
On the other hand, these doctors purportedly wanted to help. Knowing this comforted Painwheel little.
“Fascinating,” the doctor said, brows furrowed as he watched the play of the internal parasites.
There's nothing fascinating about it, Painwheel thought bitterly. She turned back around to scowl at the doctor. He recoiled in surprise, then smiled sheepishly and coughed.
“No good then,” the anesthesiologist said, shaking her head. Her horn glowed softly, picking up a clip board and striking through an item with a pencil. “This is unfortunate, because that was the strongest painkiller we're allowed to give out for prescription.”
“Morphine, perhaps?” a different examiner suggested, hooves clasped around Painwheel's foot and observing the parasites within it.
“Not sure,” said the anesthesiologist. “Painwheel, are you experiencing any other...”
Painwheel clapped a hand to her stomach. “Ugh...” she moaned, tottering where she sat.
“...symptoms?”
“Feel...nauseous...” Painwheel groaned, supporting herself on the examination table. One of the doctors helpfully levitated a bucket from the corner of the room, which Painwheel accepted. “Hmm...ulp...”
“Additional effect of the infestation?” another doctor questioned, looking up from a thorough examination of the connections between the human's spine and the Buar Drive's cable.
“...ugh...no...never felt this way before...” Painwheel said.
“Side effect of the drugs, I think,” said the anesthesiologist, making additional notes. “Better to lie down for a while.”
As Painwheel complied – readily, as it was a small relief – the assembled examiners shifted positions where they stood to check other areas. A flurry of notes were taken.
One of the doctors leaned over. “Ma'am, if you could...”
“...wha...again?” Painwheel groaned, rubbing her head. “...fine...” She stuck her hand out, then flexed. Pressure built in her arm. She watched – bleary eyed – as the parasite in her arm writhed and contorted. A new sight to accompany an old, familiar pain. She sucked air sharply. Finally, a spike burst through her flesh at her wrist, shooting through nerves and blood vessels, before breaking the skin. She kept it locked to open air for one, two, three seconds. Three agonizing seconds. Then she retracted the spike. As she held her arm out limply, the inner workings of her flesh set to work knitting back together. Veins and arteries sealing, frayed nerves reconnecting. Not a drop of black blood was spilled, and in moments the damage was gone.
Fascinated doctors tore their eyes away from the arm then, scribbling further notes.
The anesthesiologist frowned, both at the heart-breaking display, and at the notes on her board.
“Nausea,” said another doctor, standing beside the anesthesiologist. “Don't remember that side effect for this drug.”
“It's not.” The anesthesiologist looked to the human. No, the patient. Watched the patient writhe and moan, hugging both her upper chest and stomach. “We've had this one around for a hundred years – tried and true medicine – and it's never done that before. Who knows what else it's doing to her?”
“Blood work is in,” a nurse said, popping into the room. She handed it over.
The anesthesiologist accepted the papers with a nod, then looked at them. The numbers were either inconclusive, or very wrong. The seasoned medical professional bit her lip. She looked to the other doctors, who despite their professionalism displayed subtle signs of unease. Some were excited – the old stallions and mares being given a chance to learn something profoundly new for the first time in ages. Others were thoroughly confused, or worried.
They were all out of their depth.
“The infestation is not as bad as you surmised, Princess Sparkle.”
Twilight Sparkle, for a moment, brightened. One look to the assembled doctors, however, set her back down again. “Oh?”
The speaking physician nodded. “In our medical opinion, it's significantly worse.”
“My two bits?” said another doctor, this one apparently a surgeon. “I would not operate. Or at the least, I would never do it myself. My skills are...simply not up to the task.”
“That bad?” Twilight asked, frowning.
“As you found out yourself, the parasitic lifeforms are coiled so heavily around Miss Painwheel's body, that surgery...to be frank, we'd be performing vivisection, not surgery. Digging through every part of the body, because trying to pull them out, given their thorny nature, would be impossible.”
“Pulling it out would likely cause lethal damage on its own,” added another doctor. “And that's assuming it just allowed itself to be pulled on which...well...” She rubbed the back of her head. “Maybe it's just me being paranoid, but I'd expect it to fight the surgeons every step of the way.”
“And that's not including the patient's enhanced rate of regeneration,” noted the first surgeon.
“But isn't that good?” Twilight asked, confused. “Wouldn't she have a higher chance of surviving if she could heal faster?”
“In invasive surgery, no. We'd be fighting to keep her body from closing incisions as we made them. I've seen it in action, it's incredible...and counterproductive. Moreover, we'd be pulling everything apart in any hypothetical procedure, and that would risk not only just killing her outright, but also causing the body to heal...incorrectly. As the surgery was going on.”
Another doctor spoke up, “I examined the spine, where the machine prosthetic was attached. It's truly amazing work; if I didn't see it for myself, I'd say it was an impossible medical addition.” He rubbed his neck. “So you can imagine that removing it would be...”
“Problematic?” Twilight asked.
“Impossible, more likely. One slip, and she's potentially crippled for life. Not sure how the healing factor would apply, but I wouldn't take that chance. Best to just saw the metal bits off outside the body, and leave it at that.”
“So you can't use surgery to remove the parasites,” Twilight said. “Can't you teleport them out her body?”
“Apparational Surgery is in its infancy, Princess,” said the surgeon. “It's a very complicated procedure with a high margin for error...”
“Like teleporting the wrong bit of tissue,” said another doctor, “potentially resulting in immediate death. Even with her healing, it would only take a hunk of heart or major arterial cluster to...well...”
“Moreover, such things have only ever been used on relatively simple targets,” said the first surgeon. “An oblong mass or a piece of shrapnel. These...things are complicated and long. The spell's complexity would increase quadratically, and that's assuming the parasites weren't moving. The only other alternative would be to teleport chunks of parasite at a time...”
“Opening up infections we couldn't possibly foresee from materials inside the parasites,” added the anesthesiologist.
“...and, like my other esteemed colleague stated,” the surgeon said, pointing to the female surgeon, “we don't know how the parasites will react. It would attempt to fight us when we tried...or start lashing out inside the patient, potentially killing her.”
“And most certainly driving the patient crazy, because we'd be doing sans anesthetic.” The anesthesiologist stepped forward, looking through her notes. “Or at least, I'd be hesitant to administer any.”
“What? Why?” Twilight asked, looking at the anesthesiologist. “Pain is her biggest problem, and you're not prescribing anything!?”
“We tried painkillers, Miss Sparkle. We administered the strongest we had short of morphine. They didn't take at all.” The anesthesiologist shook her head sadly. “I had Miss Painwheel's blood analyzed. I can only guess, and we'd need further tests, but that seems to be the source of her advanced healing factor. But what I do know is that she possesses an alarming metabolism for toxins...and medicine, it seems. My theory is that her body burns through the painkillers as a matter of course, either because of an enhanced liver, or as a function of the blood.
“But such things leave byproducts, and I fear what attempting to load her body down with chemicals could do to her. Moreover, I'm reluctant to experiment with any more drugs, for fear her alien biochemistry reacts significantly differently from a pony's. We've had trouble in the past with drugs aimed at earth ponies poisoning pegasi, and that's just between pony races.” She rubbed her temple with a hoof. “I dread to see what morphine – or even stronger drugs – would do to her.”
Twilight rubbed her own head. “Wait, I'm confused,” she said. “How can her healing factor leave the side effects of drugs in place, yet not stop the painkillers from...doing...their job...”
The alicorn princess thought a horrifying possibility: Lab Zero may very well have designed Painwheel's healing factor against efforts to dull her pain. All the better to make her more enraged, and easier to control through mental suggestion. “Oh...”
Twilight Sparkle suddenly felt very ill. “Nevermind, I think I get it. But that means there's no medicine you can give her that won't potentially kill her, or just not work?”
“I wouldn't presume to know without more extensive testing,” the anesthesiologist said, “but I wouldn't feel comfortable attempting it. Even if we found medication that worked, I predict we'd be administering it at such high doses as to be functionally lethal, regardless of species. It's for the same reason I can't recommend inducing a chemical coma. And trying to poison the parasites is right out for similar reasons.
“Which would just leave magical painkillers...”
“Did you attempt it?”
“Yes, but no dice. Pain easing spells are designed with specific species in mind. An anesthetic spell for griffins simply cannot target a pony. Further, most existing models work as a kind of pain countering, which works in amounts rather than for a specific time. We can estimate how long relief would persist, but greater suffering would burn through the spell faster. It's why we tend to prescribe drugs, since they block pain receptors. Chronic pain like this would require strong spells cast frequently. Maybe even constantly.”
“Spells which we don't know, because Painwheel's body is so different,” Twilight said, hanging her head. “How long would it take to develop such a spell?”
“Not in her lifetime,” the anesthesiologist, shaking her head, “whatever that is, though between her condition and the healing factor I cannot guess whether she'll live a shorter or longer life than normal. Regardless, development of the first painkilling magic was slow, and only became really effective as knowledge of biology increased to the point where we could target the nervous system directly. It could take years just to understand human physiology, let alone how the nervous system could be affected by magic. We've yet to solve our own species' physical ills, let alone human ones. Taken further by her own unique case, which alters her body in totally unpredictable ways.”
Twilight stepped over to a window, looking out forlornly. “So there's nothing you can do?”
“...well...” The anesthesiologist rubbed her chin, eyes focused sideways. “There is the Cool Wind procedure...”
“Doubt it'd work,” a doctor piped in.
“Why?” said Twilight, ears perking up. “What's the Cool Wind procedure?”
“It's a type of magical surgery, invented by Doctor Cool Wind,” the anesthesiologist. “It was created as an ultimate, last resort tactic Cool Wind developed for treating burn victims.”
“It's last resort,” said the other doctor – the surgeon, “because it involves a massive spell to sever the pain receptors over the total damaged area. Their burnt flesh rendered completely numb. Permanently.”
“That seems...extreme...” Twilight said.
“But for someone suffering third, fourth, fifth degree burns over the majority of their body?” the anesthesiologist said, “it's virtually the only treatment next to permanent chemical coma.”
“Won't work, though,” the surgeon said. “For one thing, same problem as with painkilling spells; we don't have one for humans. For another, I've seen this mare...”
“Woman,” Twilight corrected.
“...wo-man, then, heal everything, damaged nerves included,” the surgeon continued. “Were it not for the parasites, she'd be in a position most creatures would envy. As it is, her body would probably repair the damage in time, meaning even if we had the spell right now, it'd be a temporary measure at best.”
“So...there's nothing any of you can do for her?” Twilight said, frowning.
The doctors, one by one, shook their heads sadly.
“Oh Celestia,” Twilight said, “what do I tell Painwheel?”
“Nothing. I heard what I needed to.”
Painwheel shambled into the room, a nurse at her side, making equally sure nothing bad happens to the sorry specimen, and that the obtrusive blades didn't knock any medical equipment over.
Huge bags hung under the human's eyes. Those black and red eyes. The ones that carried such sadness.
The anesthesiologist frowned dourly. “I'm so sorry, ma'am. Our skills and expertise aren't up to the task.” She bowed in contrition. “If you wanted, you could try for a second opinion.”
“Thanks but no thanks,” Painwheel said, ambling past with barely a glance to the medical professional. Painwheel locked eyes with Twilight, and jerked her head towards the exit. The motion caused her to hold her head, rubbing it. Parasites? Or headaches as another side effect of the drugs?
Painwheel shrugged it off momentarily, and Twilight Sparkle followed, concerned. As the two saw themselves off, Painwheel finally followed up her statement. “You were all, collectively, our fifth opinion.”
“A little morsal of old root, a half-filled thimble of cold jute...”
Zecora dropped ingredients into a boiling pot, a hoof wrapped around a wooden spoon and stirring the mixture slowly. Taking a rough clay dish in her teeth, she emptied the last ingredient in. “Golden flower from river's edge,” she continued, “and aching pain this brew shall hedge.” She winked to those assembled in her hut, then began muttering incantations in her native tongue.
Apple Bloom studied the zebra for a moment, wondering how much of Zecora's foreign magic was tied to the actual ingredients, and how much was a product of those incantations. Then again, before meeting Zecora, she'd never considered magic as being anything not connected in some way to a pony's body. Unicorns had their horns, of course, and pegasi their wings, as well as their hooves which they used to manipulate the clouds. Not unlike earth ponies, actually, who used their hooves to manipulate plants. The idea of channeling magic through plants of incantations was...alien to Apple Bloom.
Then again, she was a farm pony, so Apple Bloom had known next to nothing about how magic worked. Only that it did, and that even earth ponies used it. At least that was how Twilight explained it.
The filly looked away from the zebra and turned up her head towards Painwheel, who sat beside her on a wooden bench. Being so close to the human was, at first, a disquieting experience. Apple Bloom's first and only major encounter with Painwheel was...traumatic. She shivered, remembering the nights over the last few weeks where she woke up in a cold sweat, from terrible nightmares of a loud buzzsaw and the staring of glowing red eyes.
But when Twilight asked her to take Painwheel to Zecora's hut, Apple Bloom noticed something different about the “monster”. She appeared to the filly as someone tired, and not in the way she had been that day. Perhaps it was being able to see to human's face – to see those eyes – but it made Apple Bloom less afraid.
Plus, Painwheel was the one who saved the Cutie Mark Crusaders from their own folly, so that was worth at least a few points in Apple Bloom's book.
“Don't worry, Painwheel!” Apple Bloom said, donning a cheery smile. “Zecora is the best mixer of potions and whatsits there ever was!”
“You said that already,” Painwheel sighed, rubbing her eye, “as we were coming up here.” She grunted, shaking her head. To the filly, she seemed exhausted and high-strung, but not like last time. For one thing, the human kept still, spoke softly, and wrapped her arms around her, shrinking into herself.
Apple Bloom tilted her head. Why so reserved?
“Too much credit she gives me, too,” Zecora chimed in, “best potion maker was my sweet Babu.”
“Babu?” Apple Bloom asked, cocking an eyebrow.
“My, how you say, dear sweet granny,” Zecora clarified, dropping the stirring stick and picking up a ladle. “Of recipes, she taught me many. Taught me all the things I know...” She looked to either side of her, then leaned in to a whisper, “...including how to hit and throw.” She winked, smiling impishly, miming throwing a hoof-punch.
Apple Bloom laughed. “Sounds like Granny Smith, when she'd teach me how to bake apple pies.” She turned to the human. “Say Painwheel, you ever have some'un to teach you things?”
Painwheel shrunk further inward, looking away. Finally, she said, “My mother.”
“I doubt my skills will measure up, in taste and loving care,” Zecora said, ladling some of the brew into a cup fashioned from a gourd. “But still, drink well from my cup, and see how you will fare.”
Painwheel took the offered vessel in trembling hands. The cup rose to her face, and she sniffed deeply, noting the pungent, earthy aroma. A moment of trepidation. She looked to Apple Bloom nervously.
Apple Bloom smiled wide, bobbing her head expectantly.
Finally, lifting the gourd to the lips, Painwheel sipped and sipped deeply. It tasted...like medicine, really. Except perhaps thicker. Pulpier.
Within minutes, Painwheel was vomiting the concoction out, a rash developing on her skin as it went.
Zecora held the human as she puked, speaking quickly rhymes of apology. Apple Bloom looked on, transfixed and horrified. It would only be later when Twilight would explain to her the non-equine vomit response.
“Hey.”
Turning her head, Painwheel looked at Twilight sidelong. The evening wind whipped a strand of hair that came loose from her bun, so she tucked it behind an ear. “Anything?”
Twilight Sparkle fidgeted in place.
It was all Painwheel needed. She turned away, looking back upon the vast expanse of countryside. The view from Canterlot Castle was astounding. Almost astounding enough to distract from matters of the flesh. “So...nothing...”
“I had the doctors at the First Canterlot Hospital send what they had to Baltimare Medical University,” Twilight said, scratching the back of a foreleg. “Including a sample of your blood. The tests weren't...conclusive.”
“They can't help either.” Painwheel shifted weight from one foot to the other. It was the point where she could almost predict how much the parasites would hurt with a given movement. But there really was no predicting the Gae Bolga. She winced, clasping her eyes shut.
She focused on the sound of wind. The wind, and the hustle and bustle of Canterlot. She opened her eyes, spying the mountains surrounding the more splendid peak upon which the castle was built. Saw how the morning mist still clung to those low mounts. At their feet, rolling hills and scattered clumps of forestry carpeted the land. Over these plains and snaking around or through hills, lines of rail lay like veins of iron, conveying the first trains of the day to and fro. Smoke billowed up in columns, or else in little dotted puff lines.
All that below them. Painwheel leaned forward, studying the enormous drop. The castle itself jutted from the pure stone slope of the mountain, supported by some feat of architecture or magic. From there Painwheel could see everything, from the closet peak to the beginnings of Ponyville, off in the distance. And, if she so chose, she could look more up and see the cumulus constructions of Cloudsdale, forged by cloud masons who knew how long ago.
But, again, Painwheel was more interested in down than up. She stared sadly at the sheer drop, hundreds of meters of distance to the bottom.
It sure is a long way down, Painwheel thought. The parasites buzzed in her head, scraping against her skull. “I didn't get any sleep last night.”
“Then shouldn't you be in bed now?” Twilight asked. “You need your rest.”
“Can't sleep.” Painwheel sniffed the air, taking in what remained of the morning dew. It would grow warmer as Celestia raised that sun higher and the land could absorb more heat. But as it was...it was remarkably pleasant. “...you never gave me an answer.”
“Answer?”
“I asked you to promise to kill me. I'm asking you again.”
“Painwheel no, I can't,” Twilight said, shaking her head. “What you're asking...I can't do that.”
“Are you my friend, Twilight?”
“What?”
Painwheel turned her head back around, glancing sidelong towards the alicorn. “I asked if you my friend.”
“I...y-yes, of course!” Twilight stammered, stepping forward. She took her place right beside Painwheel. “I'm your friend, Painwheel.”
“Then promise.” Painwheel frowned. “Please.”
“Painwheel, you're sounding like you've already given up hope!”
Painwheel didn't answer.
Twilight shook her head violently. “Painwheel, I'm not going to kill you. Nor am I going to let you give up hope. Hope is...hope is...”
“'Hope deferred makes the heart grow sick',” Painwheel said, “'but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.'”*
“...uh...huh?” Twilight cocked an eyebrow, rubbing the back of her head.
“I don't know either,” Painwheel said, scratching her head, wincing as she traced a tiny thorny tendril across her scalp. “My...mother used to say that, but I never learned where she got it.” A bitter wind whipped loose the lock of hair, so she tucked it back again. “Twilight. My heart grows sick. I'm...so tired...” She looked out upon the landscape, hoping in vain it could soothe her. “...tired of waiting...for hope.”
Twilight sighed, looking out on the land herself. It was always so beautiful. “I understand. But I'm not giving up...because I do still have a trump card to play.”
Painwheel looked to Twilight, a curious eyebrow raised. “Hm?”
“Honestly, I wanted to explore all the options before...because what I had in mind...” Twilight tucked her face into her hoof. “...I just didn't want to have to do this if there were another way.”
“What is it?” Painwheel asked, becoming considerably more animated. What was the mare hiding?
“Guess there's nothing for it.” Twilight's head turned to face over her shoulder, eyes not really looking at any particular place.
She spoke it to the open air. “Discord?”
“You rang?”