> The Harbingers of the Apocalypse (In Preambulis De Apocalipsi)
>  by Matthebrony
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> Principio Finis
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Our story starts on a warm summer day in Equestria, the flowers were in full bloom, the reds, yellows and blues of all the blossoms shone brightly in the brilliant sunlit day. The field glowed in the warm light, every now and then, somepony would wander onto the grass, playing or chatting, but they would pass by, they never lingered. Why they never stayed depended on the pony you asked, some just said there was something wrong about the place, that the serene scene didn’t quite sit right and looked like it was trying to blanket something darker. Other, more educated ponies, would probably tell you it was because the field sat on the gates to hell.

If one were to measure the exact latitude and longitude of the three-mile grassland, they would tell you that right in the center of the field there was an enormous boulder. Now if it were any other field, that pony would simply tell you it was a natural rock, but in this area, here were no rocks or trees all three miles across. The boulder was only a boulder, nothing more, but it served a purpose. It was a marking stone, five thousand miles under the ground, through all the dirt, rocks and fossils sat a large metal room. Perched on a suspended platform in the room was an enormous, three-headed dog. The name of this dog was Cerberus, and he was currently snoring and drooling with great, shuddering breaths. Underneath the sleeping behemoth’s platform was something far greater, underneath the platform was a great, massive swirling purple and black supernova of a portal. That portal lead to Tartarus, the prison of demons and monsters.

Tartarus had seven levels, these were all based on the severity of the sins and dangers the monsters inflicted or would have inflicted on Equestria. Tartarus had no guards, save for Cerberus, any regular pony caught in the pits would be tortured to insanity from the otherworldly howls and jitters the broken beings emitted there. Every thousand years, Princess Celestia visited the pits herself, the Princess is not a fragile pony, but she refuses to retail the horrors she has seen in the pit. Because the last five millennia were spent putting defensive charms and traps on the pits, and because the loyal guard-dog stays at his post (most of the time)  no one has ever escaped. Therefore, no accounts of Tartarus have ever been recorded, nopony ever complains about this, they remain blissfully unaware of the horrors beneath, and five-thousand feet up continue to play on the boulder or maybe canter or chat in the fields. Unaware that, if you’re powerful enough, and use a thousand-year old carnation of the modern-day teleportation spell on top of the rock, you can go to the platform, where the guardian sleeps at that instant. Unaware that if even one of the horrors below were to escape, it could launch Equestria into the apocalypse.

In the seventh pit, on the forty-second branch off, there stood four giant, metal gates all locked with the best enchantments magically possible. The aforementioned apocalypse almost happened several thousand times, with the princesses always capturing the culprit and throwing them into the ever-growing prison. However, four creatures working in tandem brought Equestria so close to it’s dying day that they were named with a fitting moniker. And above the four gates stood in giant letters the title of the four demons.

The Harbingers of the Apocalypse

Marked above each of the gates stood a symbol embroidering the cell of each Harbinger. A scythe, a biohazard symbol, a bloody sword and a gnawed bone were adorned on stone plaques before each entrance. Inside each gate lay four angels, all slumped against their cell wall, strength used up centuries ago. They were all enduring pain beyond imagination, of their own torture and design. Since they made the ponies live through such torture, they were forced to endure their own pains for all eternity. 

One felt a burning, gnawing huger at all times, their body crippling in on it’s own weakness, chiseled to the bone, all their tissue decaying from years of famine. One felt an oozing illness inside at all times, even now, in their slumped state, a drop of bile fell and sizzled on the floor, corroding the ever-growing hole even more. A disgusting, rotting creature, barely able to think from the clotting pestilence. One was always screaming, even now, as it’s screams faded from it’s throat, it still screamed internally. Invisible fire burned away it’s brain and insides, imaginary needles and knives forever adorning it’s bleeding soul, like open wounds of war.  One felt nothing, everything it could have been was gone now, robbed of soul and body, never to feel anything again, only a sentient pile of bones, forever clinging to life even as the incarnation of death.

In Canterlot, well away from all the chaos of the dungeon, a library visited and revered by many stood. The Canterlot Library, renowned for it’s records, spells and scrolls. There was one wing of the elaborate library that was as mysterious as it was powerful, a wing named after the brilliant unicorn prophet Starswirl the Bearded. This wing dealt with time scrolls and prophecies, combining both, there was an hourglass in the center of the wing that had trickled slowly for one hundred-thousand years. The old rumor was that the hourglass counted down to the end of days. The rumor was put down as nonsense and the hourglass forgotten by even Celestia herself. It was on this very moment that the last grain of sand slipped out of the top half and fell to the bottom.
The second this happened, five-thousand miles underground, across a dimensional rift, in the prison of monsters and demons, even deeper, in the seventh pit of Tartarus, four pairs of eyes opened.
> Quatuor Equites (Part One)
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Famine paused the moment his eyes opened, he sat there staring at the floor, still wearing the insane ear-to-ear grin that he was when he fell asleep. The first thing he noticed was pain, but that was nothing new. He had felt pain for a hundred-thousand years, he could deal with a few more minutes as long as he was awake. His head unconsciously lolled to the side, making several dozen crackling noises as the bones and ligaments reminded themselves they weren’t part of a corpse, not yet. He was a tan creature in any form, with dry, cracking skin. Living up to his title, he was so thin that you could see his ribs outlined perfectly through his chest and almost make out his organ systems jumbled up right underneath. Right now in his angelic form, his body fit that same description perfectly, with large, leathery wings and the tip of a long bone peaking through the end of the appendage. Famine had no eyes, only a spell cast upon him allowed him to still see through the dead sockets. One odd trait that lingered about him was that he was always wearing an unsettling cheshire grin. Not from joy, feeling your stomach acid slowly burn and dissolve the lining of your body was a none too pleasant experience. No, he smiled because the utter malnourishment pulled his skin so tightly across the bone, his skull’s ghoulish stature shone through his face. But this time the grin widened, and now, it was out of happiness.

Pestilence awoke with no start, he didn’t even open his eyes again, feeling no need to. He licked his lips, they were constantly dry from his sickly state. He felt a need to know where he was and begrudgingly decided to take a look around, a sticky sliding sound emanated from the glazed film of mucous over his eyeballs as his eyelids dragged across them. He took it slowly, turning only his eyes, making no effort to close the mouth that had hung open in pained sleep for thousands of years. Trying to awaken slowly, however, failed when a spasm rocked his body and he coughed violently, spraying a cloud of noxious gas from inside his intoxicated lungs. He exhaled slowly, watching the dark green smoke seep out from his putrid mouth. The horseman of plague was a deep green color, his wings had holes in several areas and were constantly covered in a sticky film. He had taken several forms previously, but they all wound up ill and disgusting all the same. Pestilence normally had a small swarm of flies and maggots crawling up and around him, trying to eat him alive as they gnawed at the dead-looking flesh. His head and body were splattered with great boils and warts, some the size of grapefruits, oozing pus and blood. Sometimes, the sickly, weakened flesh tore and stripped off, leaving the soft, vulnerably layer underneath to get infected or chewed on. Pestilence made a decision and effort to stand, his legs shook from the unfamiliar movement. After one step, he spasmed again and retched violently on the floor, bringing about the unsightly green puddle of plague and illness that always seemed to follow him around.

War woke with a jolt, snapping his body out of it’s none-too-fitful state. He stretched with a little effort, not used to movement of any kind. His limbs and mind sang and screamed with the same burning pain, but he tried to ignore it. He remembered his wings and tested them, stiff, sore, painful, same as ever. The curse put on him by the Princess apparently re-created stab wounds and sensations very well, it shouldn’t be too much of a problem for him to sustain real injuries on the battlefield. War felt a viscous fluid building up in his throat, he coughed, and blood splattered the wall of his cell, smattering the stone. He had forgotten about that, a trickle of blood ran down his face and he made no attempt to wipe it up. His body, ravaged by imaginary pain, always tried to repair nonexistent wounds. He constantly coughed blood from overflow in his system, his veins pulsed and clotted often, his gums had stretched over his teeth, giving him red, fleshy bulges lining his mouth instead. War was a deep red color, with a strong and muscular figure from his constant training and combat. Despite his strong stature, he always seemed crippled from his constant “injuries”. Although fit, his body was still ravaged from very real war wounds from the brothers’s past attempt at Equestrian takeover. His wings were leathered like the first two brothers’s, but they glowed a fiery red like the rest of him and were covered in scars, burns and tattered holes from his many years of combat and violence. War violently fell to his knees and growled in hurt, one of the cutting sensations had just occurred, he hated those. The one time War never felt his pain was acting out his namesake. On the field, he could count on those pains to feed his rage, giving him an advantage over all others. Thinking of battle re-ignited the insatiable bloodlust that came with him, thinking of bloody, gored bodies lying on war-torn streets. He snapped himself out of his reverie and decided to make sure everything inside him was functioning properly, lungs, arms, wings again...War tensed up as his body was suddenly wracked with an imaginary burn. As his skin seared with the invisible injury, War found out his vocal chords worked just fine as he screamed in agony and rage.

Death awoke silently, his consciousness torn into fragments between all the bones that lay scattered across the cell as they always had been when he slept. After a few moments of spiritual recovery, Death cast a familiar spell, the skull glowed faintly and, slowly and smoothly, the bones one by one floated toward the ceiling, making a midair macabre collage of remains. They gently started connecting to the matches they fit with, clicking as they bonded and sealed with magical links. The legs soon formed, the dorsal vertebrae snapped together in midair and the ribs slid and fit in between the crags in the spinal column. The wings connected, the long, whiplike bones drifted into each other and brought themselves to the sockets on his back. Teeth positioned themselves in and clicked into the lower jaw, which wandered upwards and fit into the holsters of the upper skull. The head then connected and fused with the neck-bone below it. Death stood still in the cell, feeling no motivation to do anything, it came with the package of his curse. During his long stay, he had no company except himself, no one to talk to at all. Instead of pain, hunger or illness, Death simply felt nothing, no warmth, no cold, only a dark, unfeeling consciousness. Death often faked emotion but inside felt, well...dead, an empty apathy. The only thing he could actually care about was making sure others understood his emptiness, after all, it was only natural to die, and who should he be to argue with nature. At this point, he just barely cared enough to put himself back together. He always thought he was gifted with the worst of their curses, but could feel no self pity or annoyance when the others disagreed, you needed emotions for that.
> Quatuor Equites (Part Two)
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The four angels walked out of their cells at nearly the same time. In intrigue and bemusement, they looked around at their environment. Being trapped in a cell of the same complexion as the world around them doesn’t give an area too much ingenuity, so they hardly dwelled on the depressing hell before them and instead focused on each other.

“Did you sleep well my brothers?” Death asked, the others considered this as they turned and stared back at the enormous hallway that stood before them.

“Well enough, all things considered.” Responded War after a few minutes of silence. They all just stood and watched until Pestilence turned to Death.

“We still need to escape,” He wheezed, “There exists to this day the guard on the portal, ever vigilant.” Famine smiled and decided to take his turn to talk.

“Good, we can get a stretch after a hundred millennia of slumber.” The harbingers of the apocalypse spread their wings wide, enjoying the sensation of extension after so many years of motionless slumber. They all soared into the dark sky, War spun around and skimmed the wall, making sure his flying was as deadly precise as always. Death flew monotonously in a perfectly straight line. He only had the ability to fly from a spell cast on his wing-bones, they now trapped air just like regular wings did. Pestilence, who was always feeling a bit weak, kept wobbling and shuddering as he jerked his way across the air. Energetic Famine took off, only behind War, now enjoying the sensation of the wind whipping across his face as he barreled ahead. They soon reached the chasm, an enormous hole going straight up to the portal on the ceiling, as soon as War breached the tunnel entrance he banked upward and took off, flapping his wings and spinning upwards towards freedom. Famine, Death and Pestilence followed soon after, each at their own pace. War slowed down as he noticed the dark shadow of the portal on the ceiling, the other angels saw and slowed also, synchronizing so all of them floated at the exact same level. They all nodded when they were ready and flew up the shaft until they made contact with the great, swirling, purple-and-black portal.

After a few seconds of the world spinning and the draining feeling that came with inter-dimensional travel, the four brothers sped out of the other side, into the underground chamber. They all flew to four different sides of the large metal platform in the center and stared at the guardian of the portal. The mighty Cerberus was a great, jet-black, mastiff-like dog that stood about thirty feet tall. It had a large spiked collar adorning each of it’s necks. The guardian sported three heads, which were now swiveling angrily around, snapping in the direction of the angels and growling in anger at being awoken from it’s nap. Each head lined with a row of enormous, razor-sharp teeth that no pony would dare go near. The odd thing about a guardian so vicious was that it rarely played the part, since no one had ever escaped Tartarus, it did very little fighting and very much sleeping, eating, and generally being quite bored. So when four attackers came out of the dungeon in the middle of it’s sleep, Cerberus was quite surprised.

As if by invisible signal, Famine suddenly dove towards the Cerberus, using magic to elongate it’s fingers and sharpen the tips into claws. He struck it’s side, raking his claws across it’s skin and cackling wickedly as a shower of blood rained off the dog. The blood that came into contact with Famine was instantly vaporized without any being absorbed by the thirsted, sandpapery skin. All three heads turned and glared at Famine, growling in the back of their throats and leaving a chorus of threatening echoes bouncing off the walls. 

With the distraction set, War flew upwards then dove in, aiming for the right head. As he fell, he retracted his wings and continued in a free-fall. As his speed increased and he was almost to the head, he raised his hand up and willed a weapon to him. In a flash of red magic, a long, jagged red sword appeared in his hand, the blade was outlined in a dark ebony color, reflecting the light in the room off the perfectly polished blade. Moments before impact with the dog, War brought the sword down between the eye sockets and used his momentum to draw the sword back and rip it out, flinging himself onto the head. He ran over to the neck and embedded his sword from the tip to the hilt into the flesh. The creature roared and howled in pain as War jumped, still holding onto the embedded sword, and unfurled his wings. He dashed around the head, dragging the sword along until he reached his starting point and roughly ripped the sword out, neatly decapitating the head. As the heavy chunk of flesh fell to the ground with a sloppy, wet crash, the other heads howled to the sky in pain.

On this cue, Pestilence zipped in, his mouth full of corrosive vomit. He magically formed the blob until it was compressed into a perfect sphere of liquid and belched it out as hard as he possibly could. The spherical concoction of chemicals was unstable and exploded with the slightest contact. The bile flew through the air and soared into it’s intended target, the open mouth of the left Cerberus head. As soon as the huge mouth closed around the bile, the corrosion kicked in and melted through it’s tongue, sizzling across a few levels of flesh before the ball violently detonated. The head blew apart in every direction, spraying the entire room with acid, blood and chunks of flesh dyed green from the poison in the bile.

The last head stood it’s ground, scowling, growling and snapping at the horsemen while keeping it’s guard up. Death then leapt forward, raising his arms and making a bright white beam of magic appear in his hands. The light formed and solidified into a long, pitch black scythe. the only breaks in color were smooth, ornate carvings on the blade and shaft, which were white. He landed and dove the tip deeply into the head’s skull until it sank in to the end of the blade. The dog struggled, but Death held on tightly, then violently yanked the scythe in a semicircle, enjoying the loud crack that the dog’s neck breaking made. Once he reached the halfway mark, he dove down and tore the scythe with him, making the loosened head rip straight out of it’s socket. The cavity spewed and spread blood across the entire chamber, painting the walls crimson. Even after the loss of it’s heads, the body refused to give. The now-headless guardian staggered around and attempted to bark, but only succeeded in making gurgles and spurting out more blood. 

Famine then took point, aiming for the center neck, he launched himself forward and dove down the throat, folding his wings slightly to allow entrance to the pipe. He took the canal straight down into the Cerberus’s insides, preparing to cause maximum havoc on the guardian’s organs. He used his claws to rip across the stomach, spilling acid out and onto other organs, he charged and battered skin and bones. He broke off a rib and stabbed a lung, then turned and jammed the jagged bone into the dog’s liver. Outside, the creature lurched around half-consciously, vibrating and shuddering violently. Sometimes, skin stretched out where Famine was attacking or the snap of bones could be heard. Suddenly the Cerberus twitched and froze, only seconds later, Famine charged and burst out of the stomach, trailing blood, gore, organ bits and intestines all over the floor of the platform. The Cerberus’s body was propelled backwards and collapsed on the floor with an earth-shaking crash, lying in a sea of it’s own gore and blood.
> Primum Gressus
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All four harbingers glided over to the platform, they landed softly and silently stared at their handiwork. They were all were covered in blood and gore, save Famine, whose curse prevented him from getting soiled from the attack. After a few moments of silence, they all walked to the center and closed their eyes, pushing into the magical seal embedded in the platform below them. In their minds, it was a large, rotary lock, that spun this way and that as they prodded it to try to find the right combination. They scanned the seal and noticed the spell that had to be used.

“Ah! A more recent incarnation of the teleportation spell.” Said Famine, withdrawing his magical search and looking around at his brothers.

“Recent to us, but it must be ancient for this age.” Said War, withdrawing his spell also.

“It must be a precaution, so the only one that can crack it will be Celestia.” Pestilence felt Death’s presence still there as he magically backed out of the seal. “Do you think you can solve it Death?” He asked, Death smiled, his sockets tightening slightly.

“Of course I can, just give me a moment...” He felt around for a while and found the core of the seal, prodding it and applying a few spells to weaken it. “All right, prepare yourselves, this is going to be quite a trip...” He mentally unlatched the seal and cast the spell.

The angels felt reality temporarily melt around them, swirling and spinning through time and space. The process took so much longer then even a complex, long-distance teleportation spell that they started to worry it wasn’t going to work. After a few seconds of pregnant silence, they all found themselves on a large, flat-topped boulder on the surface. Stunned by the sudden brightness of the sun they had missed for so long, they flinched. They all stepped off the boulder and onto the clear, clean grass, not rushing to open their eyes as they felt the wind on their faces. 

Famine was grinning so widely he thought his face would split, he had forgotten the subtle joys he could still cherish, even though he could never again touch water, he could still feel the golden, warm liquid sun pouring on his face.

Pestilence actually smiled, a funny, content grin, his rotten visage wasn’t pleasant, but it was easy to look past it when he grinned. He curled his toes on the rough ground and smooth grass, enjoying the feeling of the loose soil shifting around his feet.

War felt calm, the gentle, warm breeze that blew through the field calmed him more then anything else ever had. His angry, pained grimace was replace by a reflective, neutral mask. The pain had left, it no longer existed for just a moment, War reveled in this and took a deep breath in and held it, enjoying the swirling fresh air bouncing through his lungs. Peace was not an emotion he experienced often, but now he could think of no better term.

Death felt the same emptiness, without touch, smell or color, he couldn’t enjoy any of the freedoms the others could, but he remembered them. He stared out on the vast expanse around him, he forgot how much it felt like the surface felt like it went on forever. He recognized everything, it came back to him and even though this was no different to him from the hell below, it was still changed in an inexplicable way.

This went on until all the brothers felt they could stay this way forever, they opened their eyes and stared at the rolling green hills. They all looked down at their feet to see the familiar ground...and the spell broke.

Pestilence’s ground was covered in sickness, the grass looked unwell and was a wrong shads of green. Large, fat maggots swarmed around, slowly lurched over his feet and started ascending his leg. Swarms of flies now buzzed around his head, clotting out the other sounds. He trembled in annoyance as he remembered his disgusting disease he could only spread.

Famine’s patch of ground was brown, he had rendered the soil completely infertile, the plants all seemed to starve in fast motion, they turned light brown and curled up. The insects around him grew thinner and thinner and eventually crumpled up. Famine stared around and remembered the gnawing hunger that could only grow.

War’s presence charred and burned the dirt, the plants all caught ember and shriveled, burning down to nothing. War felt the pain coming back, he had a rising sensation in his throat and coughed, sending out a large splatter of blood that tainted the ground around him. He reminded himself he was a warrior, and warriors didn’t sit and stare at the sun all day. He remembered the growing rage in him that could only continue to burn

Death saw himself mirrored in the earth, the ground turned rotting and black, the grass turned a similar shade and withered, everything completely dead, just as was planned for him. Death knew the hollow emptiness well, and when it returned he sobered and stared down at his own little patch of sorrow and lifelessness. A butterfly fluttered along the path, Death reached out and touched it, willing a familiar spell down the length of his bony arm. As soon as he made contact with the butterfly, the life drained out of it, it’s flutters slowed and it collapsed to the ground, dead. And Death was reminded of his emptiness that he could only continue to feel forever.

The four horsemen stared around at each other, solemnly reminded that they only had themselves and each other, and that was all they would ever have.

“Where to now?” Asked Pestilence, the others pondered this for a moment.

“All of Equestria lies out before us,” said Death, “do we need to wonder? Let us act!” His rousing false enthusiasm shook the others out of their stupor, they all turned to each other and said their goodbyes.
And with that, the harbingers of the apocalypse spread their wings and flew off to perform their sole purpose, to bring chaos eternal to Equestria.
> Pestilentia (Part 1)
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“Wowie-zowie! I’ve always wanted to go to Manehattan! I love big cities, with the lights and the buildings and the stores and the food and all the ponies everywhere! It’ll be great!” Pinkie Pie was hopping across the deck of the EQD Lusitania, occasionally sticking out her hoof impulsively to run it across the bars of the catwalk. Accompanied by none other then Fluttershy, who was plodding after her very hesitantly. The yellow pony was currently hiding behind her curtain of hair, none too happy that Pinkie decided to insist on her coming to one of the only points on the ship she would be perfectly aware of how high up they were.

The two friends had wanted to join Rainbow Dash as she went out to fly along the airship. The option to do so was open to most pegasi, and they almost always accepted. Being in the air but unable to fly was restricting for them, and Rainbow Dash got very bored very quickly. They were going to the observation deck to watch all the pegasi fly free, but Fluttershy’s fear of heights was quickly catching up to her. She had been very hesitant to even get on the airship, and since they had borded she had become more and more cloistered. Pinkie Pie, on the other hand, was happily jumping across the catwalk, completely oblivious to the hight. Her ulterior motive to this trip was to try to get Fluttershy's vertigo from getting the best of her. Based on her prior experience with some of the pony's many many phobias, she guessed she might have to be a bit forceful, but it would pay off.

They couldn’t actually go on the top of the airship, only pegasi were allowed outside, but the haze of being so high still made Fluttershy queazy. Pinkie Pie had reached the door to the observation deck and pulled it open, whizzing inside. It was several seconds before she noticed her companion was missing, Fluttershy was still making stuttering, tiny steps across the catwalk. Pinkie Pie bounced over to her position, where Fluttershy had her wing gripped tightly to the handrail even though there was nowhere to fall. Pinkie Pie was next to her and turned in the direction of the door, mocking Fluttershy’s tiny steps with equally tiny hops.

“Silly filly!” Pinkie exclaimed, addressing the shaking Fluttershy, “You’re going at a turtle’s pace, or maybe a snail, what’s slower, a turtle or a snail? I’m not sure, maybe we should race them once we get home, then we can see which one’s faster!” As Pinkie Pie continued her monologue, she absent-mindedly increased the speed of her hopping and was again several dozen feet ahead of Fluttershy. She sped back and decisively planted her hooves against Fluttershy’s flank, pushing firmly and making her slide across the catwalk.

“Pinkie, um, I-I don’ t really want to see outside...” Fluttershy weakly protested as Pinkie slid her over her to the observation deck. Pinkie Pie stopped pushing and straightened up.

“What!? Why not?” She asked over-dramatically, acting as if the nervous pony had just suggested they sink the ship.

“Because, well, it’s just that...um...we’re really high.” Fluttershy squeaked, Pinkie Pie stared, dumbstruck for a moment, then laughed.

“Of course we’re high, Shy! We’re on a balloon! Balloons float!” She then resumed shoving the hesitant pegasus, ignoring any further protests she squeaked.
-----
“Look, we’re so high up! It’s like you can see the whole world from up here!” The filly lifted her arms to the scene in front of her to exaggerate her point. 

It was true, the observation deck hovered just below the cloud level, the planes and mountains stretched on for what seemed like forever. The larger towns were perfectly visible, sometimes they could even make out the distant shapes of pegasi drifting just high enough. What remained constant were the pegasi that zipped across the window every now and then, with coats of all different colors and at different speeds. Pinkie followed them for as long as she could, sometimes trotting all the way to the corner of the giant window to follow their trail. Pinkie Pie finally noticed Fluttershy wasn’t with her and turned around, trying to find her somewhere. The room was glowing orange from the afternoon sun, several sofas and other comfy-looking chairs were scattered around the floor. Pinkie scanned the room and finally noticed the shy yellow pegasus trying to creep her way out of the door.

“Hey Fluttershy, where are ya going?” Fluttershy jumped and spun around, coming face-to-face with her enthusiastic captor.

“Oh, nowhere.” Fluttershy murmured, bowing her head in defeat, Pinkie grabbed her hoof and dragged her over to the window, planting her directly behind the glass and taking a seat beside her. Fluttershy’s eyes grew in fear as she looked down, seeing the ground so far below them.

“Um, Pinkie Pie...I don’t like this.” Fluttershy whispered, backing away from the evidence that she was so far off the safety of the ground.

“Don’t...be...such...a...‘fraidy-cat Shy! It’s so pretty, look!” Pinkie Pie grunted as she pushed her hesitant victim towards the window once more and attempted to pry Fluttershy’s hooves away from her eyes. She put up a good fight, but the assertive party pony was stronger and managed to wrench her arms away. The pegasus closed her eyes, but eventually felt compelled to open them, after a few minutes of terrifying vertigo, she started to appreciate it. She couldn’t remember ever having seen Equestria from this high before. Pinkie Pie was already pointing things out and chattering away, her face pressed against the window, fogging it up with her breath. After a few minutes of non-stop talking, the pink earth pony finally closed her mouth for a few seconds and drew a smile in the fog on the glass, giggling at her little friend. She then looked up and noticed-

“Hey! There’s Rainbow Dash!” It was indeed, the blue pegasus flew right in front of the observation deck and then hovered right in front of it, waving to the deck’s occupants. Fluttershy wiggled her hoof a bit in the pegasus’s direction, while Pinkie was waving so hard it seemed her hoof was on fire. The blue mare then pointed up and then simulated opening a hatch and jumping into it, Pinkie Pie seemed to understand and nodded vigorously. Rainbow Dash nodded, looking satisfied, and preformed quick loop in the air. After a few more spins, she flew up and over the deck.

“What was she saying?” Fluttershy asked, turning to the empty space where Pinkie was just sitting, she turned and noticed the earth pony near the door.

“Who? Dashie? She said she was coming inside, I’m going to meet her there. Do you wanna come?” She asked, gesturing to the ceiling, Fluttershy was relieved to be presented with an option instead of being forced down any more hallways.

“No thanks Pinkie, I’m going to head over to the library to see if Twilight needs any help.” The pegasus responded, trotting towards the door and across the hallway after they said their goodbyes.

Pinkie Pie wandered down the hallway, humming to herself. She thought of Fluttershy and how she could help her get over her countless fears, dragons, heights, even other ponies. Pinkie couldn’t fathom why she was so timid, after all, the party pony was the boldest individual of Ponyville, she knew everyone. Bonbon, Lyra, Berry Punch, Big Mac, Colgate, Sweetie Belle...

Pinkie lost her train of thought momentarily when she tried to remember where she was. She heard a loud thunking and a hum that shook the ground, she must be near the engine room. Pinkie decided to take a detour, she had never met engineers before, but she bet they were super nice! She thought about meeting new ponies and cheered up even more, regaining her bounce as she continued down the hallway. The open catwalk ended and went instead to a dark hallway, the lights were poorly treated and flickered or went out entirely. Pinkie’s bounce slowed and then finally stopped, the noises had grown louder, but she had still seen no one at all. The next hallway she turned down looked weird, there was a long, green smear across the wall that trailed to a door. Curiosity got the best of Pinkie and she trotted over to the door, as she walked, she looked at the funny stuff. It was several different shades of green, all clustered together, it wasn’t liquid though. It looked like the stuff she sometimes saw on trees or cupcakes that she left out too long, she would have to remember to ask Twilight about it later. 

She was at the door now, Pinkie hesitated before nudging the door open slightly, the noise had reached a climax and ow the thunking and groaning of the engines was all she could hear. She peeked inside and saw the back of a large round engine with the panel flicked open. Huddled over the panel was not a pony, as she had expected, but something else entirely. It was standing on only two legs instead of four and used it’s front legs to touch the panel. It was dark green and had no mane of any kind, it from the back, it had a black strap across it’s head and seemed to be wearing some kind of mask.

"Hey! Who are you? I've never met you before..." The creature jumped, obviously thinking it was alone, and automatically froze over the panel. Pinkie, thinking he must be shy, walked up to the creature and stuck out a hoof in greeting.

"Hi, I'm Pinkie Pie, what's your name?" The creature straightened up, seemed to brace itself for a moment, then turned around abruptly. Pinkie Pie was shocked and automatically drew back, the creature's face was completely black, with twin shiny ports that only reflected the world outside. Even more terrifying was the short, tubelike trunk that hung off the creature's face. She wanted to gasp, but managed to hold it in for the sake of meeting somepony new. Her fear left quickly enough though, now replaced with intrigue, she wondered what this new creature was and what it was doing here.

"Woah! What's up with your face?" She asked, the creature finally responded to one of her questions, though not verbally. It instead lifted it's hands slowly to it's "face" and pushed up the gas mask onto it's forehead. Pinke Pie looked significantly cheered by the fact it was just a mask after all. When the mask came up, however, the Ponyvile socialite looked less cheery.

"Are you okay? You look kinda sick..." The creature was a sickly green color, it's face was covered in a thin coat of bile and other indistinguishable kinds of slime, it's eyes appeared closed, but Pinkie saw a sliver of white peeking out from the rotten eyelids. Several pustules were scattered across the face, shining in the light and slick with pus.  When it heard the pink pony's statement, the creature's face broke into a ghastly grin showing black, corroded teeth, worn down from bile and vomit. The creature then took a deep breath in, pausing every now and then to cough or sputter. Pinkie Pie stared at it, wondering what it could possibly be doing, she flipped through several options in her brain and finally concluded it wanted to have a breath holding contest. The party pony was never one to turn down a challenge, she too breathed in and puffed her cheeks out, looking very sure of herself. Her assumption proved wrong when the creature, instead of holding it's breath, puffed it all back out. Instead of an invisible blast of carbon dioxide, a huge green cloud of smog seeped up from the putrid throat. The cloud covered Pinkie Pie, she let all the air she was holding out as she coughed from the smoke she felt herself get much weaker, her knees buckled and she leaned over to try to keep standing. She looked up at the thing above her, it was about her hight, but it suddenly seemed so much bigger. The creature, still grinning, placed a hand on her forehead and pushed her out of her kneeling position, forcing her to instead lie on the floor. The creature walked up to her form on the ground and pushed it's mask back into place, the eye-ports shining from glare of the lights on the ceiling.

"Remember the name Pestilence Ms.Pie, for this is the day that marks the beginning of the end of Equestria." It pulled out a small black rod with an even smaller red button on the end. It reached back and took a small chip from the control panel on the engine, inserting it into the gizmo. It then turned back and stepped over the crippled pony, walking over to the door and pushing it open. Pinkie Pie's vision started clotting up, the lights seemed brighter as her eyes started to close by themselves, her last sight being Pestilence walking down the corridor and leaving her behind.
-----
Twilight Sparkle was sitting in the library of the Lusitania, a huge, circular room with a large window at one end. Sitting on the edge of the window was a large brass telescope that would be useful for studying stars and planets at night. It was at this telescope that Twilight sat at now, since afternoon had faded into darkness, she now tried to count how many constellations she could name. She peered into the telescope and then withdrew her gaze to mark the position of the constellation Achernar on her star chart. She had just finished writing the name when the door to the library flew open and Spike ran in, looking very distressed.

“Twilight...it’s Pinkie Pie...she...she...” He was doubled over and breathing heavily, Twilight quickly trotted over to him and picked him up magically.

“What Spike? What is it?” Twilight asked, after a few seconds of catching his wind, Spike answered.

“I’m not sure! She was out cold and all green, she might be sick.” Twilight Sparkle dropped Spike and jogged to the door, flinging it open with her magic. She ran down the hallway, trying to remember where the doctor's office was, she walked across catwalks and decks, trying to avoid all the company she could, but still bumping into some passengers. She finally saw a sign with an arrow pointing to the back of the ship and a small red cross. She ran to where the arrow was pointing and found the door to the room, flinging it open. She saw some of her friends already there, standing over a bed that was covered by a blue curtain. She trotted over, panting from her cross-deck run, and looked over at the bed. Pinkie was lying on the bed, fast asleep and looking worse for wear. She was a sickly shade of green, her fur was matted down and she seemed like she was in pain, her mouth curled into what she would have called a "stomachache face" and her eyes being weighed down by heavy bags.

"What happened!?" Twilight asked in alarm, she had never seen the overenthusiastic pony look so weak.

"I'm sorry Twilight," Rarity apologized, "We sent Spike over to the library to get you but that was at the other end of the ship. In fact, we're still waiting for Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy to get here."

Applejack stepped forward. "We already asked the nurse about her, but all she told us was-"

"We have no idea." Said a voice behind her, Twilight was a bit startled, she turned to see a mare trotting up to where they stood.

"What do you mean you have no idea?" Twilight asked, she never normally questioned the competence of professionals but she could make an exception when one of her friends's safety was in the question.

"All right, do you want the short version or the long version?" The mare asked, pulling out a clipboard and a pair of reading glasses.

"Long version please."

"Okay, we found her in the Lusitania's engine room, she was completely conked out, we found green stuff on the walls and the engine's control panel. There was no one else there, the engine crew was on break at the time We thought it was the engine's fumes but we ruled that out."

"Why?" Twilight asked, the nurse lowered her clipboard and gave Twilight a patronizing look.

"Have you seen her? She's bucking green!" Twilight frowned at the nurse's language and looked back at her friends for support. Applejack and Rarity seemed fixated on Pinkie though, so Twilight decided to handle it herself.

"Well why is she green?" Twilight asked, the nurse looked extremely annoyed as she tucked her clipboard away.

"Again, I stress the fact that I don't know. I normally put band-aids on foals that cut themselves or mend broken bones, I don't know jack about diseases." Twilight looked very downtrodden by this news, making the nurse soften up a bit. "Listen, you can give it a rest, there are lots of excellent doctors in Manehattan and I'm sure your friend will be just fine." Just as she finished speaking, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy ran in the door and ran over to the bed in the corner.

"Hey! We came as fast as we could! Is she all right?" The rainbow-maned pegasus joined the cluster standing around Pinkie's bed and stared down at her friend's sleeping form.

"Oh no!" Fluttershy cried, fawning over the unconscious form. Twilight turned to her, she guessed the animal expert probably knew her sicknesses better then the nurse did and hurried over to her.

"What? Did you find something?" She asked, they all crowded closer to hear the answer.

"Yes, look there!" The yellow pegasus pointed to the patient's forehead where an imprint sat, it was hard to make out, but the imprint was a much darker green then the rest of her face. It was a certain shape, but the form was smudged by a thick liquid that oozed across the imprint. Twilight Sparkle magically grabbed a wet rag from a sink nearby and wiped at the substance, transferring the slime to the rag in the process. Pinkie's forehead gradually became clear, the mark still a darker green, but no longer covered. It was a circle in the middle with five sticks branching outward, Twilight wondered if it was a mark left over from a spell. As she leaned in to get a closer look, an muffled blast came from somewhere else and the entire ship shook suddenly.
-----
"What the hay was that?" Applejack asked, the others looked around the ward in a worrying manner. Another explosion rocked the ship, making it tilt to the left and tipping everyone in the room against the wall. The bed slammed agains the wall and Pinkie woke up abruptly, looking around in fear.

"What!? What's going on!?" She yelled to no one in particular, the PA system came on and a voice was heard all throughout the ship.

"Everyone please return to your rooms calmly and strap into the emergency restraint seat provided, there will be attendants at all doors to provide assistance to whoever needs it, thank you." The tone of the speaker was monotonous and official, the nurse tended to the distraught pony in the bed as the others watched worriedly.

"Don't worry," the nurse said, without turning, "I'll strap her down and take good care of her, all of you get to your rooms now!" The five others turned and ran over to their proper rooms, Twilight's being in the same direction as Fluttershy's, they ran together. They made it to the Lusitania's dining hub when ship was struck with another blast. The shaking caused the windows to blast open and shower the floor with glass, chairs and lighter objects flew around and struck panicked passengers as attendants tried to help them. As they reached the next hallway, Twilight and Fluttershy split off i separate directions. Twilight got to her room and hurried over to the far end, where the restraint seats sat. She thought about something she was missing, but decided impulse was probably better at this point and ran over to her seat. Just as she was about to buckle herself in, she looked over and finally wondered why she had two seats. She felt her blood run cold as she remembered, Spike was still in the Library. 

She jumped up from her seat and ran over to the door, trying not to panic as she imagined all the awful scenarios possible. The intercom came on again, the previously metronome tone now sounding much more panicked.

"All passengers get to your restraint seats NOW. Repeat, all passengers-" The intercom fizzed out as a much larger explosion wracked the ship, making it shudder and vibrate even more violently. Now almost every object that wasn't bolted to the floor was flying around, smashing when it hit walls...or ponies. The floor was covered in small puddles of blood, screams and shouts echoed all over the room. Twilight tried her hared to ignore it, she closed her eyes totry to block it all out, but almost fell when she tripped over a body on the ground. She reached out with her magic and found the library door, flinging it open. The first thing she noticed was the wind, her rational thought noticed wind on an airship was probably not safe. She ran around the room, trying to shake her mane away from her vision and ignore the loud whistling in her ear. Loose pages and thinner books were flying around, bookcases had released their contents, which now slammed into walls. The telescope had shattered, bits of twisted brass and lens were among the smaller objects flying around the room. Twilight searched frantically until she found a small, purple form lying on the ground, she ran over to it and saw the spines and scales that marked her assistant.

"Spike!" She called out, trying her best to approach him, he was lying in a small field of broken glass from the window, small pools of blood surrounded his small form, which only made the worried unicorn more anxious to get to him. Twilight cast a life-sensing spell and found that he was only unconscious, though he was injured. She breathed a sigh of relief and picked him up magically, being careful not to let him hit anything else. The blood was from several shards of glass that had become embedded across his skin. He had very tough scales, so they couldn't be hurting him, but at the speed they were traveling he must have sustained a few wounds. Twilight reasoned he couldn't be too hurt, he had probably been knocked out by a flying book and fallen onto the glass. She must have found him soon afterwards, since the wind was caused by the room depressurizing. She turned and was about to run out when some part of the ship exploded so intensely she was blown off her feet.

The ship now tilted completely to the left, making her slide across the floor until she hit the left-side wall, smacking her head against a bookcase. She was completely dazed, her vision blurred up and she fought to stay awake as she grabbed Spike. The ship was almost tilted completely to the side, causing the bookcases on the opposite wall to come crashing to the floor and slide towards them. Twilight tried to stand up and move away, but the tilt of the ship made her question whether to stand on the floor or the wall. She managed an awkward combination of both, propping herself between a bookcase and it's stand while trying to balance Spike on her back. 

The tall shelf slammed against her end of the room, knocking most of the books off some of the opposite cases. Twilight looked ahead and noticed a closed window in front of her, she knew she had to get across it, but doubted it would hold her weight. The ship then tilted even more, the floor now almost completely switching places with the rows of bookcases, letting Twilight walk on the wall. The remaining bookcases slammed against the wall, some splintering and breaking, others just tearing apart completely. One shelf hit the window in front of her, shattering it and leaving an almost-empty pane in it's place. Twilight galloped forward and jumped over the hole, feeling a blast of cold air as she traveled over it. As soon as she reached the other side, she kept her momentum up, almost to the...wall? The tilt of the ship had put the door neer the center of the wall she faced, one of the doors had been shaken off and the other, the one closer to her, had been blown open. Twilight awkwardly stood up on her hind legs and grappled to reach the door, she fumbled for a fer moments until she finally managed to find a groove to hold onto. She hoisted herself up and onto the door, pulling Spike up magically. She lay down on the door, completely spent, the world was spinning around her.

Which it actually was, the captain had managed to somehow straighten the ship a bit more, making Twilight slide down and onto the floor, still leaning against the open door. She was breathing heavily from the exhilaration, but noticed another noise, the door she was leaning on was staring to break. It wan't too far to fall, but if the ship rocked again she didn't want to be in the same room as all those heavy things. The student tried to stand up, but realized her mistake too late, the door snapped off it's hinge and fell against the bookcases on the wall. Twilight jumped before it hit, grabbing onto the doorframe and holding on to Spike's tail. The ship rightened itself even more, almost back to normal, letting Twilight actually walk now. She stood up and threw the injured dragon onto her back once more, starting back to her room and out of the library. Running across the dining hub again, she a few bodies, either unconscious or dead stacked on top of a huge pile of tables, chairs, and an assortment of other things on the left side of the room.

She hurried across, now in the hallway to her room, Twilight noticed most of the doors had been blown off and there were many scared-looking ponies sitting inside the rooms. She sprinted the last few paces to her room and flung the door open, not even taking note that it was still there. Twilight grabbed Spike and put him in his restraining chair, strapping him in and lowering the restraint onto his shoulders. She did the same to herself and slammed the door telekinetically, finally allowing herself to relax. Looking around the room, she noticed everything, like all the other rooms, was stacked against the left wall, the restraint chairs were bolted onto the wall, so they didn't follow the tilt. She finally noticed her injuries much more acutely, she too had several glass shard stuck in her fur and she was bruised and battered from the books and bookshelves that had fallen on her. The ship suddenly started shaking slightly, she thought it was another explosion, but she didn't hear a blast. The vibrating went on for quite awhile until it intensified greatly, throwing both the student and her seat-mate forward, the strap and restraint dug into her, burning from the friction. One part of the strap pushed against a glass shard in her chest, embedding it even further. She heard the rattling and the shaking and suddenly realized they were landing. Continuing to vibrate for a while, the ship then tilted dangerously and a grinding, shrieking noise echoed across the ship, after a few minutes of hearing nothing but noise and alost having their teeth shaken out, the passengers of the Lusitania became very quiet. The silence was broken only when the intercom clicked on and a mare's voice came over the loudspeaker.

"Fillies and gentlecolts, we've successfully crash-landed in Manehattan. Attendants will be dispatched soon to tend to the injured and help you all out of your seats and off the plane." The voice cut out and hesitated slightly before continuing, "We hope you had a nice flight!" 
> Pestilentia (Part 2, Chapter 1)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

As soon as the emergency team arrived on the scene, all the living crew members and passengers were ushered outside and checked off the attendance and passenger rosters. Somepony had rigged the ship to explode, planting bombs on all five engines. One bomb, the central engine's target, had malfunctioned and refused to go off, saving the lives of almost everyone on board.

It was almost unheard of, acts of terrorism were never to occur in Equestria of all places. All the citizens on the flight wondered, “who had done it?”. The bombs were tied to a remote detonator. Explosive spells existed but were extremely illegal, and machinery of that caliber were used to demolish buildings. There were no means to acquire such explosives in any city. 

Inside the infirmary, the nurse was sitting in her restraint chair. She looked around at her three patients, they had been restrained beforehand and looked fine, but she didn't want to take any second chances. Abandoning her seat, the nurse walked over to the heart monitor of the pink filly that had been brought in earlier. It was still beeping away steadily, but she looked worse. As she stepped closer to her patient, the medic swore she heard a faint pounding coming from outside. She shook her head, thinking it was just another passenger and approached the pony, shaking her awake gently.

Pinkie Pie's eyes flitted open. First, she tried to get her bearings, looking around her ward. After spending a bit of time taking in the hospital, she locked eyes with the pony attending to her.

"Hey there nursie-lady!" Pinkie exclaimed, her voice still croaked slightly from her sleep. She reached for her restraints and pawed at them, wriggling and trying her best to sit up. The mare cocked an eyebrow, the patient was bouncy for her current state.
"You should calm down ma'am, you seem to be suffering from a severe case of influenza, overexcitement might cause you to-" She was cut short by the pink pony snapping her hoof to her mouth very suddenly and then retching all over the floor. "-vomit." The mare finished, sighing and walking over to the counter in the center of the room to get a rag. 

She rinsed the rag then walked back over to Pinkie Pie, trying her best to cool the pony down. Her temperature had probably gone up since the excitement, it was above-average before and she had dealt with a few fevers in previous accounts. She grabbed a thermometer from the floor and dusted it off slightly, she was about to stick it in Pinkie's mouth when she was interrupted by a louder, continuous banging coming from the hall. She put the thermometer down on a table near her patient and walked over to the door.

"Hey lady, I thought you didn't know anything about sick people-" The sick pony stopped to cough before continuing, "How do you know about my influ-whata?" The nurse frowned as she looked down both sides of the corridor; there was no one in the hall after all. She turned back to the bed and picked up the thermometer, trotting over to a sink and turning on the water.

"The symptoms of influenza are common knowledge; I said I don't know what you have, which I still don't." She scrubbed the thermometer and shook it off, walking back to Pinkie's bed.

"Hey, but you told Twilight-" Pinkie's sentence was cut off as her caretaker shoved the thermometer in her mouth.

"What I told your friends wasn't a lie, the purple one looked smart. I figured I shouldn't tell her about things she could guess, like the fact that you were throwing up." As soon as she finished speaking, the banging from outside resumed, even louder and more frequently. "All right, I give up, what the hell is that banging?" She walked over to the source of the noise, but when she reached the center of the room a muffled explosion rang out and the door flew straight off its hinges.

The metal door hit the opposite wall and sank to the floor, it was coated in a slick green substance that sizzled and ate away at the coating. Both nurse and patient turned to the now-empty doorway to see a bipedal figure stroll through slowly. As soon as Pestilence stepped in, he saw the pink mare on the bed and winked. Pinkie Pie felt herself slowly drench in a cold sweat, her mouth weakened and the thermometer slipped out. She swallowed nervously before jumping slightly when the nurse yelled; she had forgotten she was there.

"What the buck are you and what the buck are you doing in my infirmary?" The nurse seemed more angry then scared, she was practically fuming. Pestilence gave her an unimpressed once over, then flicked his wrist lazily towards a large compound of equipment bolted to the right-hand side of the room. A large oxygen tank tore itself off the wall and flew over to the unsuspecting mare, smashing into her from behind and proceeding to crush her into the wall. Pinkie blanched as she saw a pool of blood spread out from underneath the equipment before looking back at Pestilence, absolutely terrified. He calmly turned back to Pinkie and smiled, walking towards the bed and stepping over the growing bloodstain on the ground. The filly cringed and folded herself up, now shaking in the bed out of sheer terror.

Pestilence sat down gently on her bed and leered down at the occupant. It was just a thin smile, but it was laced with malice and ill intention.

"So, how is our little patient doing today?" He asked facetiously, Pinkie didn't respond, still curled up as tightly as she could compact herself.

"I'm very sorry you had to see that... completely unnecessary, of course, but she was getting on my nerves a bit." He frowned and reached towards the party pony's face. She immediately shied away and he withdrew his hand reflexively, but after a moment pushed onward and brushed a lock of hair out of her face.

"There's no need to be scared Pinkie, do you mind if I call you Pinkie?" She hesitantly shook her head and he continued, "I won't hurt you, I don't need to." Pinkie Pie wondered what he meant and tried to get her voice to work, her dry throat and trembling made it hard.

"Why-why would you do that?" She asked, her voice rasped slightly and Pestilence's brow furrowed in concern.

"You sound thirsty; let me get you some water." He walked over to the cooler at the other end of the room, it was built into the wall so it didn't break from all the shaking. He grabbed a cup and started feeding water into it while humming something that sounded suspiciously like Foal Sinatra.

"I used to be a doctor you know," He said over his shoulder, Pinkie jumped again at the sound of his voice, she was busy trying to figure out what tune he was humming.

"Well, not a medical doctor, more of a scientist really," He pulled back the cup and walked over to the bed while reminiscing, "Celly was very interested in the subject of how things work, we would always do plenty of research together." He passed the cup to Pinkie Pie, who almost dropped it when her hooves slipped against the green substance smeared across the cup.

"Twilight likes science a whole lot too..." She hesitantly tried to make conversation with Pestilence; she thought to herself, he was being sort of nice after all. Pestilence beamed at her when she spoke, then countered with a question.

"Ah, Twilight, who would she be?"

"A friend," Pinkie said, she felt a bit better after drinking some water and her voice was much clearer. "You said "Celly", is that short for Celestia?"

"Why, yes, yes it is, my brothers and I knew the princess very well. Of course we had some slight arguments later on, I wanted to try some new experiments and she said they were...unethical." He casually waved his hands as he spoke, but Pinkie caught the momentary fear and indecision in his eyes.

"Well, I don't mean to be rude, but I have some plague and pandemonium to wreak here in Manehattan." He turned as he said this and gave a slight smile and nod to Pinkie, and with that, stood up. However, he stopped very suddenly when he took a step and directed his gaze towards the ground. After some looking around on the floor, he leaned over and picked up a tool.

"I believe this will do." He muttered to himself. Upon closer inspection, Pinkie Pie saw that it was a scalpel. He brought it up above his head then swung it down. About midway, the scalpel grew, the blade became much wider and sharper and the hilt turned fatter and more solid. He then brought it up and inspected it, letting Pinkie see it clearly.

It looked like an altered kitchen knife; it had a well-polished handle that was naturally solid black. The wood broadened into a full curved blade with a neat, sharp tip. The entire thing was coated in what looked like an unlimited sheen of poison, making it shimmer light green and slowly drip liquid onto the floor whenever it moved. The dark color on the hilt extended out onto a thick coat of paint on the blade, the art ending in slow, neat curls and curves that were contrasted by a deep, venomous green.

He threw the knife over his shoulder, magically making the blade point straight down at Pinkie Pie and letting it fall. She gasped and covered her eyes, resigned to the realization there was nothing she could do. Her eyes cracked open a few seconds later to notice that she was completely intact. The knife was hovering about an inch above her stomach in midair. Pestilence gave her another hearty wink then stood up, he closed his fingers along the hilt of the blade then ran them all the way up, gathering a fair amount of poison on the way. As soon as it been more or less cleaned, the coat came back, just as potent as before.

The knife twirled in midair and the angel made his way to the door. Just as the pink filly was about to let out the breath she had unconsciously been holding, someone coughed at the other side of the room.

The knife stopped mid-spin. Pestilence froze. Pinkie grew worried again, she had almost forgotten about the other patrons. Oh, no please...just leave them alone.  she bit her lip in anxiety and heard whoever it was coughed again. Pestilence didn't move a muscle, but the knife spun and honed in on the direction the noise came from. She saw a stallion tiredly raise his head over the half-toppled curtain and unbuckle his chest restraints. He sat up fully and rubbed his head with a hoof.

"Oh, Celestia my head...what's going-" His statement was interrupted as the knife flew straight towards him, he saw it coming at the last second and dropped into the bed, the knife piercing the headboard only centimeters above his muzzle. A few drops of poison fell from the blade and landed on the colt's nose, making hissing noises as they dissolved against his skin. He bit back a yell, but let a frightened whimper escape as Pestilence walked over to him and grasped the knife.

He sat there, just staring at the stallion and holding the handle until he yanked the blade out with a small tug. He let the blade go and it hovered exactly where he had released it until, ever so slowly, it started tilting down towards the victim. The patient started pleading quietly and trying to release the restraints around his legs. Pestilence let a grin tug at the sides of his mouth as he continued leisurely revolving the weapon. Pinkie Pie let out a small whimper of tension and fear and the horseman looked towards her.

"Oh, I'm so sorry Pinkie...you shouldn’t see this." He flicked his wrist in her direction and the curtain immediately flew around her bed. She could still see the shadows of the victim and angel however, and she noticed the knife was almost completely vertical now.

"Patient prepped..." Pestilence said to himself, she could hear the smile in his voice, and it sickened her. The stallion called out to anyone for help, his voice growing louder and louder as the knife turned more and more. And then, suddenly, the knife stopped moving, now pointing directly down.

"Making primary incision..." Pinkie saw the knife fly down and heard a piercing scream as a few tiny red flecks dotted the curtain in front of her. The patient let loose with fresh screams when the outline of the handle dragged down his form. The pink filly couldn't stand anymore and turned around, burying her face in the bed and squeezing the pillow over her head to drown out the cries as her eyes filled with tears.
-----
The other five elements on the opposite side of the wreckage were busy bartering with one of the emergency personnel, Pinkie Pie hadn't come out yet and they were getting increasingly worried.

"I'm sorry girls, but I can't let you in quite yet. We'll go get your friend if you give us a room number." There were a few nods across the group and Twilight gave the number of the ward Pinkie was in. After the pony had written it down, a commotion broke out on the other side of the airship, there were several voices speaking at once and many of the staff and passengers had gone to see what was wrong.

"What? What's going on?" Rainbow Dash asked to no one in particular, one of the passing colts stopped and pointed in the direction all the noise was coming from.

"Someone found a couple bodies on the other side of the airship." He said, sounding anxious to get on his way.

"What's the problem then?" Rainbow Dash asked, frowning slightly.

"The bodies were members of the emergency crew." He replied, continuing to trot to his destination. Rainbow Dash wasted no time in spreading her wings and flying over the airship's husk with a few other pegasi. The other four followed suit with the crew member they were taking to earlier shadowing them closely. They arrived at the small crowd now gathered around an unseeable something. When their crew member managed to break up the group, she walked over to the center of the congregation and looked down.

"Get the chief." She said to a pegasus wearing the emergency team uniform, he nodded and ran off. Her face was stern and set, all the ponies in the crowd knew what the insinuation was. If a crew member was dead, then the crash couldn't have killed them, meaning something, or somepony else had.

Twilight , who was one of the first to come to this realization, turned to try to get the attention of her entourage.

“Girls...” She said, trying to rally their attention without drawing too many eyes or ears. Apparently to no avail; the chatter continued, without any realization that Twilight had spoken. "Girls!" She called over to them, with a note of desperation apparent in her voice. The four mares perked their ears up and turned to their distraught friend.

“Yes, darling?” Rarity asked quizzically, mimicking Twilight's undertone.

“Something really bad is happening, I can’t exactly say what, but I don't think we can’t rely on the emergency crew to find Pinkie in time.” The group exchanged worried looks, each attempting to think of some way to get their bubbly friend back.

"What do we do then? We can't just leave her in there!" Applejack whispered, furrowing her eyebrows is concern.

"Of course not. I don't like saying this, but we might have to sneak in."

"Can we really do that? Just walk into an emergency area?" Fluttershy asked.

"We can if we're doing it for Pinkie!” Rainbow Dash quietly announced, trying to rouse some enthusiasm out of the group, ”Something weird is going on and it's up to us to get her out of there, we're not abandoning her, even if it means breaking a few rules."  With newfound determination, the others nodded their heads and started towards the airship.

As soon as the pony that had been was standing in front of the entrance was preoccupied attending somepony else’s wounds, the group of mares silently trotted through the wrecked, crooked doorway one at at time. The inside of the ship’s husk was dark and almost silent. Since the interior investigation hadn’t started yet, the only sounds that roused in the foggy darkness were distant metallic impacts that echoed through the halls.

As they walked along the halls, the yawning passages before them were almost pitch black, only several lights and generators survived the crash, and sparking light-bulbs were still trailing along the doorways and corridors. The five continued in relative silence, too absorbed in the silence and eeriness of their surroundings to speak to one another. Lagging in the back was Fluttershy, who was looking a bit under the weather, considering the pony’s past experiences with these sorts of environments though, it came as no surprise to the rest of them.

The relative silence was suddenly shattered by a swear, making the rest of the group jump, Applejack was wincing slightly and holding her hoof up, which was colored slightly red.
“What? What’s wrong?” Rainbow Dash asked, backtracking to hover over her friend’s injury.
“Nothin’, I just stepped on some glass.” The orange pony replied, yanking the shard out with her teeth and spitting it out before taking another careful step forward.

The ground was covered with scattered bits and shards of glass, what with all the windows and lights, combined with all the shaking the ship had done, the floor needed to be searched extra carefully with every step they took.

Fluttershy trotted up to Twilight, who was taking point and cleared her throat very quietly to get her attention.

“What’s the matter Fluttershy?” She asked, taking notice almost immediately.

“Umm, nothing, it’s just, who do you think did all this?”

“I don’t know, but what I do know is that they hurt Pinkie, when I find out who’s responsible for all this...” Twilight left her statement open-ended as she walked to the end of the cafeteria. Fluttershy, instead of looking comforted, shifted guiltily in place before hovering over to her companion, who was trying to pry the door open.

“Nnng, this isn’t working, Fluttershy, could you come over here and lend a hoof?” With their combined efforts, the door slid open, pushing aside the blockade of furniture that surrounded it and making a body that was resting on the pile of furnishings slide over the door and fall on the floor in front of them.

“EEP!” Fluttershy exclaimed, jumping a few feet back from the body and tripping over a bunched up piece of carpet.

“Don’t worry Fluttershy, you’re fine...” Twilight trotted over to reassure the crying pegasus, who was trying to shield her eyes from the body.

“I am but...he isn’t.” She stated morosely. Twilight wrapped her arms around the pony’s neck and squeezed.

“Hey, calm down all right? We’re going to rescue Pinkie Pie, right? Everything’s going to be a-okay.”

“Promise?” Fluttershy asked, sniffling a few times before looking up at Twilight.

“Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.” Twilight responded with a comforting grin. Apparently, the memetic phrase used by their friend cheered Fluttershy up because the next thing Twilight knew, her friend had returned the embrace with almost enough gusto to knock her over. After a few moments they managed to move on, though Fluttershy still whimpered when they had to step over the colt’s body.

The six continued through the wreckage until they came to the ward's approximate location. The hallway looked about the same as the rest of the Lucitania did now, flickering and shattered lights, jagged, broken metal walls and beams, doors hanging off their hinges, most either bent or completely blown in. Just as they were starting down the hall though, Rarity noticed something on the wall, a deep green smear the trailed all the way to their destination, the doorway to the clinic was empty, letting the room’s light filter through freely. Twilight remembered the nurse's quick recap of Pinkie's illness green stuff on the walls she had recounted, whatever had happened to Pinkie, it had come back.

Abandoning all pretense of stealth, Rainbow Dash charged for the doorway and flew right through, making their target occupant jump, scream, and throw her blanket over her head for good measure. As soon as she came to her senses, the monochromatic pegasus sped over to Pinkie and nearly slammed into her, apologizing and stroking her mane to calm her down. The moment was only slightly ruined when Pinkie Pie vomited on her friend's mane, who then expressed her displeasure, making a scene of it and trying to illicit a giggle from her sickly counterpart. When she didn't so much as chuckle and still hid under the blanket, it was officially confirmed that hell had broken loose. Pinkie Pie wasn't laughing.

Disturbed by this, Rainbow flew out and alerted the others as to what happened. When they walked in, many embraces and sighs of relief were exchanged, with a rather deflated pink mare still looking terrified, but much more at ease than before now that her friends were here. The only one who wasn't in on the group hug was Rainbow Dash, who was currently trying to wash Pinkie puke out of her mane.

"All right girls, don't crowd her, we don't want her throwing up again."
Twilight said, now extremely worried about their hospitalized element's state. "Pinkie, what's wrong? What did you see? Why are you so pale? Do you have any medecine? Where is it?" Not knowing the first thing about medicine, she bombarded the mare with questions either focused on her welfare or the situation at hand. Each question was punctuated by a frantic attempt to answer it herself, either by erratically opening cabinets in search of the nonexistent medicine or by squishing Pinkie's cheeks together in hope that some color would somehow force itself back into her pale face.

"Where...where is the nurse?" The exhausted unicorn finally breathed out, Pinkie cast a sad and disgusted look at the oversized oxygen tank that lay about twenty feet away, and the puddle of blood that had formed underneath it. "What Pinkie? Where is-...oh." The other five each understood at their own pace, with a similar look of realization and dismay etched on their features every time they looked at the body.

"Pinkie, darling, why aren’t you speaking?" Rarity asked the mare, walking over next to her and fixing her with a hurt look.

"She's probably in shock, I don't want to sound like a hypocrite, but we should probably save the questions until later." Twilight said, looking over at her nightstand for something useful.

"Hey, maybe she's just thirsty!" Applejack said, reaching for a cup of water sitting on the shelf. Pinkie immediately slammed her hoof down on the orange pony's and fixed her with a fearful expression. "Err, okay, no water."

"Maybe she's trying to tell us something?" Rainbow Dash suggested, Pinkie thought for a moment then nodded slowly.

"All right Pinkie, what do you want to say?" Asked Fluttershy, who was perched at the foot of her bed.

"Let's just hope she's not in the mood for charades..." Murmured Rarity, remembering the disastrous last game where Pinkie had misconstrued the rules and, instead of a word or phrase, tried to mime a battle with forty cyber-ninjas while wielding a sword made of ice. It had ended disastrously, with many things broken by the heroine, who was very engaged in her part and decided that the furniture and decor in their playing area was not to remain neutral in the conflict.

"Bad luck Rare, ah'd say Pinkie's always in the mood for charades." Applejack said as they waited for a response from the ill mare. To their surprise though, instead of signing something obscure and likely mundane, she just sat there and cocked an eyebrow, her ears twitching every now and then.

"What's wrong Pinkie? Do you hear something?" As soon as Fluttershy finished her question, a cough came from the right side of the room. As soon as her suspicions were confirmed, Pinkie Pie decided that this was obviously the time for panic and buried her everything as deep as she possibly could in the bed, surrounding herself with blankets and stuffing the pillow over her head.

"Should we go check it out?" Rainbow Dash asked the pile of blankets. Making it shake it's pillow back and forth very quickly. After a few seconds of silent debate between themselves, Rarity nodded, stepped to the right tentatively. As the silence continued, she took another step, but just as her hoof hit the floor, the coughing came back, this time being much more lengthy. After a few seconds of the noise, Pinkie Pie sat up and looked around, the blanket still draped over her head. The two miniature tents on her head, her ears turned in the direction of the noise, a moment later, the coughing stopped and she pulled the blanket off her head.

"What is it Pinkie? Is it safe?" This elicited a nod from the pink pony and had them all release a sigh of relief. Applejack opted to investigate this time and cautiously trotted towards the drawn curtain at the other side of the room. She pulled it back and revealed a magenta-colored mare, who was massaging her head with a hoof and wearing a pained expression. When she heard the curtain drawn back, she looked over and saw six ponies staring at her.

"Uuuh, hi," She said, staring at them in bewilderment, "do any of you have water? There's a bunch of dust in the air for some reason." To emphasize her point, she let out a small cough and looked around the room. "Daaaamn, what happened here?"

"Somethin's tellin' me that you're a little late to the party sugarcube." Said the hat-clad orange pony standing at her bed.

"What makes you say-...what is THAT? It smells like something died in here!" Their new occupant covered her snout with a hoof and looked around the room.

"I don't mean any disrespect towards him, but I think it's because something did." Twilight said, poking her head out of the curtain at the left side of the room. All the non-bedridden ponies walked over and looked behind the curtain.

"Hey! Wait, what's back there? Someone help get these...” she paused to struggle with them, gave up and became frustrated, “bucking straps off me!" The newest addition to their number in the room was currently writhing around and trying to reach the straps that were binding her legs. When the other four looked around the corner, their eyes grew out of shock and they all backed away, most of them hitting the blood-stained wall. "Come ON! What is it?"

"I'll go help her." Rarity said, edging away from the gore-soaked curtain and over to the bed.

"Thanks, sorry about all the complaining, I just hate being left out of the loop." She gestured to the two buckles that had trapped her thighs and back hooves to the bed. "Would you mind?" Rarity walked over and pressed the release strap, which seemed to be broken. "Yeah, tried that already, apparently I accidentally activated that locking thingamajig and now I'm pinned here."

"All right, hmm, this is difficult." The purple-maned mare was trying to pry out the restraint with her hooves, to very little avail.

"Yeah, these things can be tough, try using your mouth...now just ease it in, then jerk it out! Okay, uhh, try tugging near the crotch area."

"With my MOUTH?!"

"Okay, maybe not."

"What are you two DOING back there?!" Came Twilight's voice from around the corner.

"NOTHING!" Rarity called, going about four different shades of red.

"Okay, uhh, I was wrong, the hooves were working. They seem to be loosening."

"Oh. Good. In the meantime... oh, that just won’t do... darling, why don't you tell me your name?" Rarity said as she fought against the straps.

"Guinevere Arils at your service!" She flung a hoof to her forehead and shook Rarity's with the other. Once the straps were undone, she beamed at the fashionista and flung herself out of the bed. "Thanks! That sure was tiring, have you ever gotten strapped to a bed against your will?" Rarity gave her an uncomfortable look and Arils thought about what she just said. "Y'know what, don't answer that." The white-coated pony nodded slowly, with a quizzical look on her face, and accompanied her to the other side of the room.

"How did you get out of the upper buckles?" Rarity wondered out loud.

"Whoever invented these things has no bondage experience whatsoever, I've gotten out of much tighter fixes then this!" Rarity paused for a moment, considering the implications, but shook her head to try to clear out those thoughts. "When I went down to do my legs just now, I hit the lock by accident and thats when it got stubborn."

"That's a rather odd name, where does it come from?"

"My family trade, Arils are those funny little red things you find in pomegranates, I found the business boing so I quit. Did I mention I worked for a short stint as a magician?"

"You didn't, is that where you got the experience with the buckles?"

"Nope! That was from my short stint as a call-mare. I learned a BUNCH of useful things from that job. Mares and stallions can get kinda rough with the ropes, it's fun, but when you've gotta go you've gotta go know what I mean?"

"Oh...and what are you doing now?" Rarity asked, almost dreading the answer.

"Stock market." Arils said over her shoulder.
-----
"Now, if you look here, no, not there...there! See? It's inflated, it was injected with something." Twilight said, pointing at various places on the unseen bed.

"All right, now what was it? What was back-oh." The look of excitement was very promptly wiped off of Arils's face as she saw what lay behind the curtain. It was a stallion, or at least it used to be, now it was a mangled husk, with several of his organs glowing a fluorescent green. A liquid of similar shade was pouring out of his eyes and dripping off the bed, puddling on the floor.

"I have absolutely no idea what happened, but it wasn't before the crash. I haven’t the slightest what that liquid is and the nurse had said Pinkie's condition was the most serious thing on the ship." The purple unicorn started to walk away, "We should let the professionals take care of that, in the meantime, let's get Pinkie out of here."

"Hey, Twilight," Rainbow Dash flew up next to her and landed, "Have you noticed something weird about the color scheme around here?" She asked, gesturing back to the body.

"I did, green seems to be a recurring theme." She cast a worried glance at Pinkie and thought about all the evidence presented so far. "I'm sure Pinkie will be able to tell us something once she's in the mood." After some thought, she turned to her rainbow-maned friend. "I almost forgot, could you go outside and tell the emergency crew that there are people aboard and that someone's been killed?"

"Someone's dead?" A yellow stallion walked in, followed closely by the emergency crew member they had met earlier, who threw them a slightly irked look, which faded in intensity when she saw Pinkie's condition. The stallion that had entered was wearing a reflective vest like the other ponies, but instead of silver tape, he had gold. His cutie mark matched the vest he wore perfectly and he exuded a sense of calm and control. His voice was deep and gruff, but somewhat comforting. "I would expect that, seeing as it's an airship crash."

"Hi there! Ah'm assumin' yer the chief of the emergency crew?"  Applejack held out a hoof, which was shaken by the chief with an amused look on his face.

"So I am, and I'd assume that I would be the last person you ponies want to see considering you're currently trespassing in a restricted area." He cast a displeased look over the group before returning to his previous demeanor. "But desperate times call for desperate measures don't they? Now then, what seems to be the problem?"

"Our friend Pinkie Pie was in the clinic when the ship crashed, but the nurse never escorted her out. We were going to wait for your crew to extract her, but when them crew members out there, well, y’know...we decided-"

"-to come into a dangerous, unsecured area that is exactly where the killer might have gone instead of letting the professionals handle it? Sounds like me when I was younger." He grunted, then took a moment to look around the room.

"Wait, killer?" Fluttershy asked, sounding very unsure.

"Did you see those ponies out there ma'am?! They didn’t croak of old age that's for sure!" He sounded incredulous that they didn't know what was going on, but all they did was exchange confused glances.

"But...Equestria hasn't seen a major crime like that for centuries!" Twilight said, looking just as surprised as the rest of them.

"I'm aware, yes, but unless one of them tripped onto a knife and somehow poisoned himself and the other exploded into corrosive biological toxins then we're going to assume they were killed." He smiled at his joke then looked downtrodden, "Ah, I shouldn't joke about them, they were great ponies, it's just easy to treat this kinda stuff so casually when you spend so much time around it y'know?"

"I understand sir, but in that case I think we may have another victim and maybe even an eyewitness." At the mention of this, the chief perked up significantly.

"Perfect! Oh, before I forget, whoever was in the clinic, register your reason for coming with my assistant here."He gestured to the pony they had met earlier, who pulled out horn-rimmed glasses and put them on, then magically pulling a clipboard out of a pocket in her vest.

"Name please." She said, trotting up to the deep red unicorn.

"Guinevere Arils." She answered, holding out a hoof. The crew member looked at the name and shook it absentmindedly.

"I think I saw one of your magic shows once." She said eyeing the mare in front of her.

"Well, as you might have seen, it's more illusion than magic, I'm not too good at conventional powers so I stuck more with card tricks than the standard unicorn stuff." She sat back and leaned against something as she talked. The emergency crew member's eyes flicked to the floor then back to the idly chatting pony.

"What ARE you leaning against?" She asked, still looking down.

"Wha-? An oxygen tank, why do you ask?" Arils said, reading the label on the side of the giant cylinder.

"Your oxygen tank is bleeding. Profusely." The crew member responded, frowning and walking over to the tank. Arils looked down and saw that there was indeed a thin coat of blood on her hooves now.

"Holy-Chief get over here." The leader of emergency ream, who was about to look behind the curtain, turned and headed over to the oxygen tank which was now surrounded by a magical glow as it was moving.

"No, wait!" Fluttershy flew over and put her hoof on the crew member's shoulder, trying to stop her from shifting the tank.

"Why? Who's under there?" The chief asked casting furtive glances at the oxygen tank.

"A sack of bones and the puddle that used to be a nurse." The entire room turned their attention to the new voice, which belonged to a bedridden pink mare. Pinkie Pie's hair was flatter, it's curly, gravity-defying stature started to fade, making it sag and deflate. Her expression was a mixture of anger and sadness that reflected her sour mood.

"Pinkie! What happened?" Twilight asked her, referring to both her hair and the event.

"Uh-oh." Whispered Rainbow Dash, eyeing Pinkie apprehensively. "Someone cheer her up, quick!" Pinkie heard though and glared in her direction.

"What was that? You don't want silly, naive Pinkie Pie to get all sad because then she won't disclose the all-important secret of what happened here?" She paused to cough, doubling over from her shuddering and waving off Applejack when she stepped forward to help. Once she straightened up, she reached over to the last few buckled restraining her back hooves and undid them one by one. 

"As you can see, I'm dying. *click* I've been through an airship crash strapped to this Celestia-forsaken hospital bed. *click* I've watched or heard two ponies get murdered in cold blood within the span of one hour. *click* And I've had a nice, friendly conversation with the bucking monster that did it." At this point, she stood up shakily, barely standing on her hooves. Still glaring at all of them vehemently, her mane now completely flat and straight, she made her way over to the blue pegasus that had addressed her and spoke in an icy voice. "I think I have quite a few reasons to be a bit upset."
-----
Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie sat in an uncomfortable silence for a few tense seconds. None of them broke the silence however, that was taken care of by Fluttershy. The yellow mare started sobbing uncontrollably and flew over to Pinkie, who had a half-second to throw on a stunned expression before she was tackled off her feet.

“I’m SORRY!” She shouted right into Pinkie’s face. “If I had come with you I could have helped…it’s my fault you’re sick.” Pinkie Pie sat, stunned for only a moment before Rainbow Dash came up.

“No it’s not. If I hadn’t asked Pinkie to meet me on the roof she wouldn’t have run into…whatever it is she ran into. I should be sorry.” Pinkie’s hair gradually started curling up, not like last time, when it sprung up immediately, the sad expression still stayed on her face. But a new determination started to break through.

“Stop apologizing! C’mon guys, it’s no one’s fault. I don’t need you to worry on my part.” She said with what may have been Equestria's most subtle of smiles.

“But we do worry, sweetie!” Rarity said, walking over and throwing a hoof around Pinkie. “Why, if the ship hadn’t crashed last night, we would have stayed with you all the  way until morning, right Applejack?”

“Darn tootin’, we do care about you sugarcube, we’ll stay with ya until you get better!” Applejack joined the hug and Pinkie’s hair grew a few more curls.

“Pinkie, I’ll do everything I can to find out what happened and to make sure you feel better!” Twilight threw in, also wrapping her arms around the greenish-pink pony. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy stayed where they were, but Pinkie Pie, whose hair was now back to its normal state of being, waved them over.

“Come on you guys! Don’t leave me hanging!” She grinned warmly at them, but all they did was grumble something a bit forlorn. Pinkie simply held up a hoof and gave a comical disapproving look. “Sush Dashie, you too Fluttershy. I was being a silly-head before, thinking my friends didn’t care about me.” With slightly lopsided grins, they wandered over and wrapped their arms around Pinkie too. “I love you guys, and I know you care about me too.” With her natural mood-lightning effect, Pinkie Pie got everyone in the room smiling. Especially Arils, even though that was less involved with Pinkie’s speech and had more to do with the grey emergency team member’s hindquarters, which she was currently eyeing surreptitiously.

“I love a happy ending.” The dark pink unicorn said, suddenly coughing lightly. “Does anyone have anything to drink?”

“I saw some water back there.” Said another crew member, Arils thanked him and grabbed the cup, taking a deep drink before feeling something trickling down her hoof.

“Eww, what is this stuff?” She asked, trying to scrape some green fluid off of her now filthy hooves and unceremoniously throwing the cup into the trash.

“Chief, maybe one of them could join up?” Suggested the assistant, the stallion grinned and nodded, then spoke up.

“Hey, if you want to chip in for your friend, you could always volunteer for the emergency crew.” The Chief chimed in from the sidelines. “We just called for a medical carriage, but we still need to sort out everything here, anyone want to lend a helping hoof?” They all looked at each other, trying to decide who would offer the most help. “Is anyone good with tools?” Another clueless exchange was traded throughout the group.

“We could always use someone for the forensic investigation team. Anypony pass high-school biology?” Asked his assistant, this time, another glance was passed around, but instead of simply trading looks, all eyes were locked on Twilight.

“I guess I’m pretty good at that sort of stuff,” Twilight admitted, “But I don’t really want to leave Pinkie…”

“Don’t worry sugarcube, we’ll keep her safe.” Said Applejack, nodding at her reassuringly.

“Yeah, if anyone can find out who did this to Pinkie it’s you!” Rainbow Dash added.

“All right,” Twilight said, walking over to the crew members in the center of the room. “Who am I working with?”

“Me,” Said the unicorn, stepping forward. “Lisa Antonia Noire, or Detective Noire when I'm on duty. I’m the head of the investigation team.” She extended a hoof, which Twilight shook, then proceeded to walk her over to the far end of the room. “Once the ambulance comes, we’ll get you suited up. How’s your deductive reasoning doing today?”

Twilight grinned and gave Noire a sidelong look. “All I need now is a detective’s cap and a pipe." she said with a small giggle.
> Pestilentia (Part 2, Chapter 2)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

When her other four friends had gone to their hotel room and Pinkie Pie had been carted away to the hospital with Arils, Twilight Sparkle snapped on a pair of gloves, donned some protective goggles and got to work with the rest of the investigation team. She thought the best place to start would be here in the clinic, all the victims had to have some worthwhile evidence as to what had happened.

As she looked around, she noticed the grey unicorn they had met previously inspecting the oxygen tank and taking notes. Twilight made her way over and peered over her shoulder at her notes. Most of it was nonsense to her; as much as she studied, these acronyms and shortened terms made little to no sense whatsoever. Just as the pencil was about to start a new line it paused and the mare turned.

"Can I help you?" She asked politely, moving her clipboard to the side.

"Sorry, no, just reading your notes." Twilight said, trying not to seem nosey.

"I haven't got much," Noire responded, looking back up at the container. "I can't even ID if the killer is a pony or something else entirely." That much Twilight had figured out, Pinkie Pie had only said "monster" and that term could apply to a variety of species.

"Wait, how do you know it's a killer? The oxygen tank could have just come loose in the crash." The crew member looked up from her clipboard and smiled at the pony next to her.

"Twilight, you're a clever pony," The purple pony grinned sheepishly at this compliment, but the smile faded as soon as she continued, "But you wouldn't make a very good detective. You're basing that statement on what the murderer wants you to see. Heavy equipment, crash, dead pony, case closed. The truth is that you almost never find any solid evidence in a case, you need to use logic and prior knowledge to get through. Take for example, this oxygen tank. The reason it's so big is because of the altitude. If something goes wrong, depressurization could be fatal, so they have something like this in case of that situation." She tapped the canister with a hoof to demonstrate her point. "Now, imagine a while ago, when airships weren't as safe. This would be a big problem, it would be exactly like what you thought had happened. Big, heavy equipment, crash, dead pony. So they developed this." She tapped the chunk of wall that was attached to the end of the tank, connecting the canister to the rubble was a concrete cuff. "A reinforced seal that would keep this thing secure even if the ship flew through a storm.

"Now this ship, being more modern, hasn't seen a crash in a while, so they dropped some of their safety procedures, which explains the fatality rate on this ship being so high. There was one place they didn't want to loosen up on, the medical bay. A sick pony has more trouble running away from a giant oxygen tank then a healthy one. So they kept the seal, meaning that this couldn't have happened during the crash. The dampening effect that the seal has on impact would make the pull from this giant container nothing more than a bit of a tug. The walls are also very sturdy, we've seen almost no damage to them on the rest of the ship. It makes no sense that the trend would break here, with this bit of wall being the only thing that succumbs, all this other equipment didn’t budge because of the same safety precautions." She stopped speaking, thought about what she just said, when started writing down something or other on her clipboard.

"But...wouldn't the tank explode on impact?" Twilight asked, looking over the cylinder. The crew member stifled a laugh and then shook her head, grinning.

"Sorry, but no, that only happens in shoddy action movies, it's actually pretty damn hard to make a pressurized oxygen canister explode. You need to apply huge pressure to just the right places and apply enough to basically crush it." Feeling a bit put down, Twilight nodded and looked around pensively.

"Actually, now that you mention it, there's a ton of evidence to support your theory." She walked over to the bed where Pinkie had been. "Pinkie Pie knew both of the victims had died, which meant she was awake, she knew about the crash, but wasn't awake during it, in fact, she was strapped down...as was Arils. With all the ponies tied down, the whole crash would  have taken place with the nurse in her restraint chair!" Twilight hopped over to the two chairs in the room, one had straps unbuckled recently and tossed aside instead of retracted, like the other's unused straps were. 

"But something still doesn't make sense." She walked back over to where the canister was, trying to think of what it was, the crew member following her and scribbling madly on her clipboard. The body had been removed, but there was still plenty of blood, and of course the indentation in the wall..."That's it! The dent! If it had fallen off, it couldn't have made a dent in the wall, we've already established how solid they were. But that makes no sense because if somepony just tore it off..." She trailed off, trying to make sense of it. It was then that something started nagging at the back of her skull. "Hey, what's stronger, the seal or the wall?" The grey mare behind her looked up when she was addressed.

"What? Oh, the cuff, definitely, after all, it has to keep the two together."

"Okay, now, if you wanted to get this tank from point A to point B, and if you didn't know any better, what would you try to pull?" The unicorn paused and put the pen to her chin in thought.

"If I didn't know about it, I'd pull the cylinder itself." She said.

"Great! You said all stress applied to the tank was transferred the cuff, which then dampened it and transferred it to the wall. That does explain why the wall is torn, but it doesn't explain the impact." Twilight stopped speaking and frowned in thought, "Well, it does. But it doesn't make sense." The silver-vested pony tilted her head to look at the frustrated pony from behind her glasses.

"Try voicing it, if I sift through things out loud, it always helps me solve problems." She said, Twilight considered it for a moment, then nodded.

"All right; so right now, we know one thing about the killer, he must have been really strong. He managed to transfer enough strength through the cylinder, through the dampening cuff and still have enough to rip a hole in the wall."

"Problem is, the cylinder has been dusted for hoofprints and there are none." The crew member chimed in.

"That makes a bit of sense, some creatures don't have hooves. Now, they could have thrown the cylinder at the nurse, but then it wouldn't have dented the wall like that, the only way they could have caused an impact like that is to have straight-up charged her and smashed it into the wall." She stopped and considered the evidence. "Now, the wall is perfectly adjacent to the impact spot and there was a lot of force required to both rip out the tank and smash it into the opposite wall. What if the force is the same?" She said, suddenly grinning.

"You mean the momentum from ripping the cylinder out caused that hole?" The grey unicorn asked. "That makes sense, but consider what you said, the cylinder would lose the momentum as it traveled through the air on it's own accord, it might still make an impact, but not one this big. Plus, remember what you said, if the assailant physically grabbed the canister, they would transfer the momentum to themselves the moment they tore it out of the wall." There was that sensation again, the feeling she was missing something.

"Wait, say that again."

"If they grabbed or threw the canister, they'd lose the momentum." There it was, something clicked, it all made sense. Oh Celestia, Twilight loved that moment when it all connected.

"So, what you're saying is that they would need to maintain constant force throughout the entire route from that end of the room to the other?" Twilight asked, already beaming.

"Yeah, but there's no way to-" Twilight's horn lit up and grabbed the pen the crew member was holding in her aura, the grey glow reflexively tightened its grip, but the purple one won out and the utensil went flying across the room, hitting the wall with a smack. The mare's face cycled through emotions, first she looked a bit angry, then confused, then pensive, then her whole face lit up. "Nooooo, really? So now we know what they are! Hey Gare, check the crew roster for any and all unicorns that have alibis matching the attacks." Just as she said this, the nagging idea came up again. "Thanks so much Twi! This explains the crash too, somepony with magic like that can-is something wrong?" There it was. Now it made sense, or rather it didn't.

"Call the search off, it won't make any sense." She looked downtrodden now. "Nopony except maybe the Princesses have enough prowess to cast destructive spells, not to mention they were all lost years ago. Plus, even I couldn't pull that canister out of the wall, and I'm pretty sure no unicorn on the airship can either." Just then, a brown pegasus holding a packet of papers walked up.

"Hey, the only unicorn on the ship that was in medical bay at the time of the crash was...'Guinevere Arils'." Twilight was shocked at this news, giving a sidelong look to the mare next to her who wore a similarly surprised expression. "Hey, what are you guys checking out anyways?"

"Ugh, who blew up the engines and killed all these people. It had to have been a unicorn, only they can cast direct destructive magic!" She rubbed her head with a grey hoof as the pegasus gave her a friendly smile.

"Don't be ridiculous, there wasn't any destructive magic involved with the ship crash! We found a burnt-out explosive device on each one of the engines." He looked very pleased with himself but the other crew member just gave a frustrated sigh.

"Dammit Gerry! Well, at least we know they can use magic." She turned to Twilight, who looked just as confused as she felt. "All right, we'll still need to check Ms. Arils out, give her an alibi, we'll do that later of course, she's not a very prime suspect and this place needs way more investigation." She then nodded and gave the purple mare a satisfied smile. "You did well, I have to admit, I didn't think you had it in you. Go see the chief over there, I think he could use someone like you."
She jabbed a hoof in the direction of the other cadaver, where the burly earth pony known as "Chief" was heatedly arguing with another pony. Twilight nodded, and was about to head in that direction when she stopped.

"Hey, I’ll see you later?" She asked the grey pony, who turned and grinned.

“Of course, I’m your boss aren’t I?”  She gave a final wave before she turned back to Garry.

As Twilight walked over to the other bed, she heard the last bits of the argument.
"I'm telling you, the doc is coming! It's not all that easy to get somepony like that on short notice, good thing we're in Manehattan, anywhere else and it'd take even longer than this." He stopped talking when he saw Twilight walking up. "Hey there Ms. Sparkle! What did you come here for?"

"Hey, Chief! I just came to see if there was anything I could do to lend a hand over here." The Chief cast an angry look at the pony next to him who seemed unimpressed.

"This stiff won't let me get close to the body as long as our forensic scientist isn't here. I told him she's coming but he still won't let me through." After throwing another dirty look at the pony in question, he turned back to Twilight. "If you want to help, go check things out with the engine crew."

"All right, thanks!" She waved to him and started away, but as soon as she set foot outside the room, she got that twinge of annoyance again, the one telling her she had forgotten something. Going against her better instincts, she ignored it started towards the engine room.
-----
"Twilight!? Heyyyy, what’s up?" Yelled a yellow pegasus mare with a turquoise mane. She wore the standard silver vest of the emergency crew and was currently waving at Twilight Sparkle with much vigor.

"Raindrops? What are you doing here?" Twilight walked up and shared a quick hug with her fellow Ponyville resident.

"Helping out, Derpy went over to Fillydelphia for the summer and suggested I come here." Twilight knew about the tighter-then-steel bond between the resident mailmare of Ponyville and the weather pony.

"Why didn't you go with her?" She asked.

"I don't like Fillydelphia for a hive of reasons. Besides, I thought she should invite Carrot Top, who was more than happy to go." She shrugged then flew over to the engine. "Those two haven't spent too much time together since Derpy moved out, so it was a win-win."

"So why are you on the emergency crew?" Twilight asked, jabbing a hoof at the reflective vest she wore.

"I heard about the crash and decided to help out, I have some background work as a mechanic so I decided to check out the engines, and since no one else really wanted to help with that, they just gave me these digs instead of yours."

"I'm guessing gloves, goggles and booties don't help much with engineering huh?"

"Yeah, not so much. Anyways, what are you doing on the flank end of this pile of junk?" Raindrops asked, flying up and sitting on one of the engines.

"I'm with the biological team, we recently found out the suspect has magic. Then, subsequently found out he didn't use that magic to sink the ship." Raindrops nodded, flying over to a corner and coming back with a thick black chunk of something.

"This is the detonated bomb from engine two, this sad little shell is all that's left. Not that we can compare it with another defunct one since is the only one we recovered, all the others flew out of the airship once the engine blew out." She tossed the dead payload to Twilight who magically grabbed it and brought it closer.

"You said this is the only non-functioning one you found, does that mean you found a working one?" She asked, not expecting a positive answer.

"Yup! Let me go get it!" Raindrops flew off, leaving Twilight with a charred casting in her hooves. She looked from the chunk of rubble to the engine in front of her. When the pegasus returned, she was juggling a large black box, tossing it from hoof to hoof. When it went too far on one toss, the box fell and she fruitlessly tried to grasp it as it tumbled through the air.

"Catch it!" Twilight yelled, panicking and diving for the bomb as it descended and falling only a few feet short, she could only watch as it tumbled to the ground and-

-hit it with a slight thunk. "Chill out, this thing is probably more likely to hurt you with the panic attack that you just had then with an explosion." Twilight straightened up trying to look dignified and levitated the bomb over to her for closer inspection. There was no timer, only a few red buttons, a blank screen and a mess of wire on the side.

"So it's a plastic explosive?" She observed, flipping it over and looking at the bottom.

"Yup! A good old completely-almost-harmless-unless-it's-armed-and-if-it-is-then-oh-buck-we're-screwed plastic explosive!"

"This is the one that didn't go off then?" Twilight asked, passing it back to Raindrops, who resumed juggling it as she leaned back in mid air.

"So it is, I'd say you all owe your lives to this little box right here." The cerulean-maned pegasus said, giving the bomb a flip on the next haphazard toss.

"Can you show me the engine that didn't blow off?" The purple mare requested, assuming there would be something helpful at an area where the trend was broken, Raindrops saluted and flew out of the room.

"Hey, Raindrops, I have a funny question." Twilight said, catching up to the enthusiastic pony.

"Hopefully I'll have an equally funny answer." She landed next to the unicorn and faced her, indicating her attention was captured.

"Have you seen anything green at any of the engines? There's a pretty obvious trail of green appearing wherever the culprit goes. Raindrops thought for a moment, then a hopeful look came across her face, that look was smothered quickly and replaced with one of disappointment.

"Well, we did, the one good bomb was completely covered in green, little dots or smudges of it, i'd guess all the other bombs were too, but the stuff got burned up in the explosion."

"Why didn't the good bomb have anything on it then?" There was that look, a bit embarrassed, a bit annoyed.

"Well...we put it aside for evidence, but some pony named Gerry washed it all off, saying he was 'just trying to help'. Reminded me of Derpy way back when, she could manage to destroy everything she touched and still remain adorable." Raindrops rolled her eyes, but stopped mid-roll, then focused the blue orbs on Twilight.

"Woah! How could I forget! I wanted someone from the forensics team down here! I did find something else." She flew ahead, turning down a side hall, which by the plaque that read "Engine #2" was where they were headed anyways. Twilight galloped around the corner and found Raindrops frantically pointing at a long jade smear that ran across about half the hallway.

"Wow! Thanks Raindrops, let me just check this out." Twilight pulled out a magnifying glass out and adjusted it until she could see a much larger version of the substance on the wall, which turned out to be-"Germs. This is 100% bacteria. That's disgusting." She lowered the magnifying glass and reached out to touch it, then thought about her observation and pulled her hoof back.

"What? What kind of bacteria?" The yellow mare, suddenly wide-eyed asked, holding her left hoof as far from her mouth as possible.

"Nothing awful, just a huge cocktail of about a million different kinds, you won't die, but you'll probably get pretty sick from touching it..." This isn't what affected Pinkie Pie, I should look somewhere else. Twilight thought to herself, trying to tear herself away, but having a feeling she had forgotten just what. "Tree stuff." She said out loud.

"...okay, tree stuff."

"No, Pinkie Pie told me about this substance before, she said it looked like 'tree stuff' which I now know meant lichens, a fungus composite that grows on trees, they're mostly comprised of bacteria, and it does look like the stuff here, but this substance is old. I'm going to need a fresher sample then this."

"Oh...ooohhh. You meant ANY green stuff?" Raindrops asked, looking a bit disgusted.

"Yeah, any and all. Why?" Twilight looked over her shoulder and found the pegasus giving her a weird look.

"So you mean even the vomit?" When the unicorn just continued staring, Raindrops explained. "We found the stuff everywhere, big green stains on the walls and floor, grossest thing I've ever seen, the bugs go freakin' nuts for it, flies and maggots and stuff absolutely love it, so we just unanimously decided to forget it ever existed."

"Can you take me to one of the puddles?" This request was met with a strange look and a nod of compliance. After a bit of walking, they found a large green stain on the floor, mostly dried up and gone. "This is no good, I'm going to need one of the more recent ones for a real investigation."

"Urgh," Raindrops groaned as they trotted away, "This is why I signed up for mechanical work, no one asks to look at this stuff at the engine room, engines don't throw up." As they had reached a corridor that was apparently familiar to the yellow pony, she pointed around the corner and flew up, her wings twittering nervously.

"Aren't you coming?" Twilight asked.

"Uuuh, no, if this trip has been an indication of anything, it's that I'm squeamish." The unicorn shrugged and rounded the corner, looking at the puddle at the end of the hallway. The area had about six huge flies buzzing around it. Fat black specimens, they buzzed everywhere, though they were mostly centered on the pile of muck. Also wallowing in the filth were a pair of plump, thick maggots.

The puddle was something else, the corrosion on the floor was astounding, it had melted a sizable puddle in the floor and was still sizzling. Twilight took out her magnifying glass and peered through it, what she saw almost made her gasp. A bacteria completely absent from the smear on the wall was definitely present in this recent sample.

She rummaged through the pocket of the coat she was wearing until she pulled out a syringe, once she had extracted a sample, the walkie-talkie at her side started growling something incomprehensible. She stored the sample and pulled out the radio.

"Hey Sparkle, the Doc just got here, you wanna haul flank and watch her work her magic?" She pulled the radio out of her pocket and brought it to her mouth.

"Okay Chief, I'll be right over." Her attention was a bit taken by the fatter of the two maggots, which had a frowny face drawn on it in black marker and was currently inching it's way towards her hoof. She frowned down at it and shoved it to the side as she spoke into the receiver. "Over and out."

She placed the radio back into it's pouch and walked out from behind the corner. She saw Raindrops trying to stay away from a large fly that was patrolling the corridor and continually straying around her head. "Uuugh, Ihatebugs, Ihatebugs, Ihatebugs, I HATE BUGS!" She yelled as she, yet again, ducked to avoid her insectile dive-bomber. Just as it came in for another pass, a purple glow surrounded it and tugged it away.

"I should head back to the clinic, thanks a lot for your help Raindrops." Twilight said, shoving the fly back around the corner.

"No problem Twi, I hope you enjoy Manehattan!" She said, turning and flying back down the corridor.
-----
Twilight Sparkle was just outside the medical bay when she discovered what was bothering her. The stain outside the bay was just like the one before, but instead of a blue-green, it was a solid, if a bit faded, emerald. She stopped, pulled out her lens, and looked closer. Unlike the previous stain, she found the enzyme that the vomit contained, but it was subdued, looking less healthy. She took it in as a sample and turned to walk into the clinic.

Doctor Oxyde was a funny sort of mare. Sometimes literally, considering she claims to have worked as a clown for several years. She also enjoyed discussing her work as a pediatrician, which was equally interesting considering her height. Dr. Nitrous Oxyde was slightly bigger than Sweetie Belle, with her maturity level rivaling the filly's also. Unlike Ponyville's favorite resident crusaders though, she had her cutie mark; a laughing green canister of gas spraying a small pink cloud out of it’s funnel. The pink-haired mare was looking at the cadaver and poking at it in various places that looked quite random with a huge grin on her face.

"How long has she been doing this?" Twilight asked, walking up next to the Chief.

"About twenty minutes, she hasn't said or done anything." He stopped and put a hoof to his chin, "Scratch that, she's asked for, like, ten lollipops."

"Aaaand done!" She said, her voice matched her appearance, cutesy and kid-sounding. "Welp, I sure feel sorry for this guy. He wasn't dead when he was cut open, no anesthetic, but probably a pain-dampening spell or two to keep him from dying too early!" She sounded thrilled by this news, delivering it with an enthusiastic grin. "Of course he did die after a while, but only when the guy was good and ready, he was alive for about an hour after this happened." She gestured to the large slash across the stallion's belly.

"As for the injections, he targeted organs that were responsible for combatting illnesses and basically anything that attacks disease. As for the stuff pouring out of the eyes, I'm guessing our suspect just got bored and wanted to see if he could get the green stuff to leak out of his eyes." 

As soon as she had finished, a crew member entered the small room and handed her a dozen lollipops, she beamed at him and sat back down unwrapping one and sticking it into her mouth. She leaned back on her stool looking quite pleased, taking in the sweet, sticky flavour. "The stuff he was injected with was a cocktail of a heaping plotload of antibiotics, like some guy wanted to cure-" She was cut off as she opened her eyes and noticed Twilight raising her hoof. "Yup! Purple mare in the back-left next to Chief."

"Perhaps it was this they were trying to cure?" Twilight reached into her coat and pulled out a syringe containing the enzyme she found in the vomit. She handed it to the beige mare, who beamed up at her as she took it. She then reached into her coat and pulled out a small circular device that looked like a pocket-watch. The doctor inserted the needle into a small hole on the left. The machine buzzed and displayed something nopony else could see.

"Mmm-hmm?" She pulled the lollipop out of her mouth and rubbed her chin, smearing sugary saliva from the sweet all over her it as she displayed a puzzled expression. "Mmm-hmm!" She lifted the lollipop again and smiled at the device. "Welp! I've got some good news and I've got some bad news. The good news is that I've determined that this chemical will kill you! That wasn't a joke by the way." She plopped the lollipop back into her mouth and sucked it a couple times. "The bad news, however, is that I haven't the foggiest smidgen of an idea what this stuff is. It kinda looks like a combination of every single disease mixed in with something I've never even seen before!" Twilight raised her hoof again and had the lollipop jabbed in her direction.

"What do you mean? Is it a new type of disease?" She asked, pulling out the second syringe and handing it to the doctor, who scrutinized it for a moment then turned back to Twilight.

"Well. Maybe. This is...something else." The goofy smile was wiped from her face as she drew out the circular device again and inserted the syringe. "That's interesting, this sample is almost semisolid, it's dried and flaked, causing the unknown element to die out. It thrives and multiplies in liquid form, but can't function once it's dried out. All that remains now is the rest of this stuff, which won't do much of anything." After a moment of coherent speech, her volume lowered to the point of obsessive muttering. After a few moments of near-silence, Twilight spoke up again.

"Excuse me, what did you mean by the compound doing nothing?" Dr. Oxyde looked up and put the device back on the table.

"Exactly what it sounds like, that lethal-sounding combination of illnesses won't do much of anything, there are only little traces of each illness and they would have to already exist in an organism to flourish. The only deadly thing in this sample are the unknown bacterium cells that were present in the other sample you handed me." Once she stated this, her demeanor shifted back to the bubbly child that was present before.

"I've decided to help with this case, this thing is really bothering me and I want to figure out what it is." She hopped off the stool and started towards the door skipping out of the room happily, lollipop in mouth. "Oh, and by the way, don't touch anything green unless I've checked it first."

"Wow, she's something...how old is she?" Twilight asked the Chief, who was approaching the body and looking it over.

"She says she's twenty-five, but she got in the way of a haywire spell when she was little and it stopped the maturing process."

"That would explain the sweet-tooth and behavior."

"Yeah...I don't buy it, I think she's just some genius eight-year old filly that somehow conned her way into that position." He ran his hoof across the wall until it came to a deep, green gash on the bed-rest.

"I'll fill you in on the murder weapon later." He said, "The doc told us more about it before you came in."

"I forgot about that, that information would be really helpful in the process of finding out who did it." He looked over at her, nodded once then turned to walk out of the room.

"Let's head outside, we got a couple of crew members on the case already, they may be complete idiots, but they get the job done." He gave a quick pause then grinned. "Unless the Doc is already outside, in which case she'll want to give a presentation." 
The pair walked outside into the stale, smoky air and saw that the Chief was right, the two bodies were already on tables and Dr. Oxyde was examining them. This time though, instead of the cool, controlled demeanor they saw inside, she was frowning, muttering to herself and banging her head against the table.

"Is that normal?" Twilight asked, a bit concerned, eliciting a chuckle from the yellow stallion beside her.

"Sort of, it's characteristic of her to throw tantrums when she's confused, but then again, she's very rarely confused." As they walked over, Raindrops, Detective Noire and several other crew members were already in a small crowd surrounding her. Every time the filly started to look relieved, she then thought for a moment, growled, hit her head on the table a few times and inserted another lollipop into her mouth. The current number being seven.

"Colgate would HATE her." Raindrops whispered to Twilight who giggled, remembering the long-lasting feud between Pinkie Pie and Ponyville's dentist that would doubtlessly extend to the mare in front of her.

"All right, now, what is the current murder weapon?" Dr. Oxyde asked, sitting up and running a hoof through her mane.

"This scalpel we found on the ground, it was the only item missing from the clinic's inventory and-" The pegasus that had spoken up had to fly a few inches lower to avoid a lollipop that was just flung at him.

"Wrong!" Said the Doctor, looking even more frustrated then before. "Yes there were traces of the blood of both knife-killed victims on the scalpel, but this gentlecolt right here died from poisoning, poison that we found on the stab mark in the clinic, poison that we found in the body of the stallion in the clinic, poison that was NOT on the scalpel, poison the does not exist apparently." She groaned again and massaged her temples with her hooves.

"Excuse me ma'am, I've studied poisons before, maybe I can help." Twilight walked to the front of the crowd and smiled at Nitrous Oxyde, who immediately perked up.

"Initiative! I love that! Let me just show you this..." She pulled out the circular device and showed it to Twilight who was confused at the chemical makeup.

"But that's...that poison was banned, and every sample was destroyed over-"

"Four thousand years ago. I'm aware." She placed the device on the table and spun it around. "All the slash marks on the walls, and stabbing marks on the victims were much deeper than this scalpel could ever go, plus we found no hoofprints on the knife itself, normally I'd attribute it to gloves but-"

"Err, excuse me, we've determined that the subject has magic, maybe that would explain the lack of hoofprints." Noire walked over to where they stood and handed her clipboard to Dr. Oxyde, who looked at it from her position on the table and perked up her ears, still looking downtrodden.

"No. That's impossible." She grabbed the clipboard and rifled through it, her eyes growing wider with each page.

"Why would you say that?" Twilight asked curiously.

"Because," Said a stallion in the back, "He's a pegasus, look at these!" He produced a few green feathers and held them out. Noir and Twilight looked stunned, but the tiny pony behind them was bouncing with excitement.

"Do you know what this means!?" She jumped up and stood on her stool. "Some kind of green alicorn is coming to fight Celestia and Luna and try to take over Equestria!" Despite the allusions to a horrible battle, she looked absolutely elated. She continued bouncing and talking about prophecies and explosions until she grew tired and flopped back onto her seat panting heavily.

The crowd greeted this event with complete silence until someone in the back chimed in. "We are so bucked." This was greeted with a few bursts of laughter. But mostly mutterings among the crowd.  After a few seconds of nervous twittering, a piercing whistle broke out over the crowd and the Chief stood up.

"Doctor Oxyde's overactive imagination aside-”, “Hey! I resent that.”, “we need to figure out who actually did this." The statement was met with nods from the crowd and a few committing shouts. "Ms. Sparkle, Detective Noire, and Dr. Oxyde are going to head over to Manehattan hospital to interview the one witness and suspect we currently have." He nodded at them and turned back to the crowd. "Everyone else, this case is solvable, and I guarantee, won't end with Equestria's destruction. Now, everyone get back to work."
> Pestilentia (Part 2, Chapter 3)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"So I said sure, and I spent the rest of the night getting heroically sloshed. It was the most fun I'd had in, like, years!"

"Doc, please be quiet." Dr. Oxyde had been venting her many, many stories on their ride so far and seemed to have an endless supply in store for the rest of the trip.

"Fine, but I'm telling you, the end to that story is NOT G-rated." Thinking she had obviously piqued their interest, she sat back and took a sip of the soda she was in possession of. She cocked an eyebrow suggestively at Noire, who returned the expression with much less enthusiasm. This continued for a while until Noire finally caved.

"Ugh, all RIGHT. What happened?" Oxyde beckoned her over, when Noire leaned over fractionally, she repeated the motion until her muzzle was right next to the detective's ear.

"I. Kissed. A. MARE!" Noire drew her head back, trying to keep a neutral expression, one look over at Twilight, who was already shaking with suppressed giggles and they both burst out laughing. "What? Stop laughing!" The doctor sat back in her chair and crossed her forelegs, obviously angry that they hadn't been appalled by the pure raunchiness of her ending.

"Wow, you really are an eight-year old aren't you?" Asked Twilight, giving her a very obviously patronizing look.

"What!? NO! YOU'RE an eight-year-old." She jabbed a hoof at the purple mare, who just started laughing even more. She looked over at Noire, who was doubled over, then at her drink, which she grabbed and took a hasty swig of. "Mares." She muttered under her breath as she cast a dirty look out the window.

Once they had arrived at the hospital, they payed for the carriage that had taken them, thanked the cart-pullers and walked into the building. The three walked up to the receptionist's desk and asked to see Arils.

"Hmm, let's see...ah-ha! Guinevere Arils, second floor, third room." Noire thanked the pony and walked upstairs. Once they had reached the second floor, and found the correct room, they pulled the door open to reveal the maroon pony lying down on the floor. She was lost in a gossip magazine and singing something to herself. Twilight cleared her throat and saw Arils's ears perk up, she tilted her head backwards until she could see the, to her, upside-down trio  and grinned.

"Hey there! I know your name, uuh wait, don't tell me..." She ground a hoof against her head as she tossed the magazine aside.

"Twilight Sparkle." Said the student as she helped Arils to her feet.

"Damn! I was gonna get that!" She turned to Noir and gave her a charming grin, "And I don't remember yours...care to share?"

"Detective Noire." Said the grey pony, throwing Arils an annoyed frown.

"Hey, a detective, huh? Let me tell you, I wouldn't mind if you inspected my-...who's the kid?" She stopped her teasing once she noticed Doctor Oxyde, who immediately glared at her.

"I'm not a kid." Arils laughed and ruffled the doctor's mane with a hoof when she said this, much to the annoyance of the undersized pony.

"Sure y'aren't, and I'm Princess Celestia, pleased to meet you!" She threw out a mocking hoof, which was promptly rejected by the indignant filly.

"I'm not! I'll have you know that I have a PhD."

"Oh really, what's your title then? Doctor Pipsqueak?"

"Actually, Doctor Nitrous Oxyde, at your service." She then pulled out the small gadget she carried around and looked at it, Twilight peered over her shoulder and saw that it actually was a pocketwatch when it wasn't being used to decode enzymes. "When you're finished making fun of me Ms. Arils, I'd like to ask you a few questions."

"Actually Doc, can I handle the questions? It is sort of my job after all." the filly huffed in disappointment and nodded at Noir, who stepped forward.

"All right, now, could you tell me where you were when the the ship’s engines blew out?" She asked Arils, who rolled her eyes and flopped onto the bed.

"Easy-peasy, I was out cold in the clinic." Noire wrote something on her clipboard and then looked up again.

"Why were you unconscious?" At this question, Arils, who was making her hooves circle each other out of boredom froze suddenly.

"Ohohoo no, that's the reason I'm stuck in here! They won't let me leave until I tell them what happened." She stood up and faced the group in front of her with certainty and stubbornness.

"Well why not?" Asked Noire.

"Auuggh... It- it’s not one of my proudest of moments..." Muttered Arils as she paced around the room in circles.

"Look, just tell us okay? I don't care how embarrassing it is, tell us, and we'll get clearance to let you leave." Arils seemed torn now, just as she looked like she was about to talk, she once again noticed Dr. Oxyde.

“Uhh, there are foals present." She said, giving a lopsided look at the small pony, who just glowered back silently.

"Ugh, she's a legal adult." Noire said, "Well, maybe...unless she's lying."

"Nuh-uh. I have a 'you must be this tall to listen to a story of what Arils does in the bedroom rule'." As she said this, Noire rolled her eyes.

"Oh man, it's one of THESE stories." The detective said, sighing, flopping down on her hindquarters and rubbing her temples. "Look, just get ON with it!"

"Err, okay. So, I was fooling around with my ‘very special somepony’ right?" She looked over at Dr. Oxyde, who showed no reaction whatsoever. "And y'know how unicorn horns are sensitive? Well with enough stimulation we kinda release a bunch of magical energy." Her audience was waiting with baited breath for her to finish. "And uuuh, to tease, he kinda blocked off my horn to see what would happen."

"And what happened?" Noire asked, knowing the answer but asking anyways.

"Explosions happened, then the headache of the bucking century followed suit."

"Like, engine-breaking explosions?" Twilight asked, getting stares from the other two unicorns in the room and a chuckle from the grey one.

"No. It's not so much an explosion as it is a firecracker pop." Said Noire, taking out her clipboard again and scribbling something down on it.

"How would you know that?" Twilight asked, Noire didn't look up from her clipboard, but went very red and started writing much faster.

"Any comments on the story baby-doll?" Arils asked Dr. Oxyde, who was scrutinizing her in a confused fashion.

"The buck kinda games were you two playing?" She asked, the befuddled expression not leaving. Arils took a moment to think about what she just said, but when the meaning hit her, her eyes widened in disbelief.

"Sweet Celestia she has no clue, that’s just adorable!" She chuckled as she reached out with the intention to squish the filly’s cheeks together. Her hooves were immediately slapped down by the young mare she had reached for. "Look, Doctor Shortstop! When a stallion and a mare love each other veery much-" Noire took this moment to shove Arils out of the way.

"Cut that out, she's not stupid, just naive, when it comes with the territory." She glanced at Nitrous, who was still looking just as clueless as before. "They were having sex."

"Oh. Oooooooohhhh... Ew." She threw a disgusted glance at Arils, who was now sprawled out on the ground.

"Wha-what? Come on! I thought you didn't even know what it was!"

"Of course I do, it's just gross." Said the doctor, walking over to Noire, she grabbed the unicorn's clipboard out of the air and pulled off the top sheet; Arils's release form. "Come on, let's get this sicko out of here." She mumbled from around the sheet of paper in her mouth.

"That's just mean. See ya later Twilight! Bye gumshoe!" They closed the door to her room and sighed in relief. After a few moments of respite from all the odd things happening that day, Dr. Oxyde came back.

"They think I'm a toddler, can one of you guys help a filly out?" She asked, Twilight and Noire exchanged another look and nodded solemnly. This was going to be one hell of a day.
-----
The trio of mares were trotting down the hallway of the hospital, the miniature doctor took point. "All right fillies, we've got four bodies, two killed with sharp objects and two others completely torn apart...and we don't even know if this is a homicide case yet." She said, sticking a chalky white candy cigarette in her mouth.

"Doc, I think we can probably assume-"

"Shut up Noire," Said Nitrous, taking a bit off the tube of candy in her mouth. "We've got no clues about the perp, we don't even have a sus 'cause the sec with a mo's got a perf al." 

"What are you even-?"

"Shut up Noire!" Insisted the foal, taking another, aggresive bite of the confectionary.

"All right, so what do you think we know about the case so far?" The detective asked sarcastically.

"The perp...is probably in Equestria!" The doctor said triumphantly, "Case closed, let's go get drunk off those margarita thingys, I heard they taste like candy!" She ran for the door of the hospital, but was stopped by one of Noire's rear legs, allowing her only to flail around uselessly instead of running away.

"Not so fast doc, we still have a witness to question. Hell, for all we know she probably has more evidence than we do." The doctor stopped flailing and instead flopped loosely over the hoof restraining her.

"Fi-ine." She sighed, lagging behind them and looking crestfallen. Twilight laughed at her antics, then took a good look at the sulking position she had, it reminded her of...

"Spike!" She shouted, making Noire jump. "Sorry. I forgot about him, there's someone we should visit first."

"Spike?" Noire asked, "Your coltfriend has a funny name." Twilight laughed and shook her head.

"No, nothing like that, in fact, Spike isn't even really a colt. He's my assistant," She gave a half second pause, then as an afterthought added, "And a dragon." After she said this, the grey unicorn's eyes widened

"A DRAGON? ON the airship? Twilight, you know as well as I do that it would pose a huge-" She was cut off as Doctor Oxyde ran in front of them and planted herself in front of Twilight.

"A DRAGON!? OH CELESTA, WE HAVE TO MEET HIM PLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASE!!" She hopped backwards, in a fashion very reminiscent of Pinkie Pie, the begging added to the effect. The fact remained, however, that she was shouting and bouncing in a hospital. They got shushes and disapproving scowls thrown their way as the short mare continued bouncing.

"Calm down Doctor, and don't worry Noire, he's only a baby dragon. He got a bit cut up in the library so we brought him here once we crashed." She put a restraining hoof on the pink-haired pony, who was bouncing frantically up and down. "Why are you so interested in dragons?"

"There's such little data on them, if I were to dissect one, I would be rich AND famous!" After stating her motives, the short pony gave a slightly evil grin and accidentally bumped into a medical staff member while rubbing her hooves together.

"You really have misplaced priorities for an eight-year-old." Said Noire, casting a disapproving look at the Doctor, who was too busy fantasizing about power and money to even notice. "Besides, I don't know how miss Sparkle here would appreciate you slicing and dicing up her baby dragon."

"Sorry, Spike's mine," She said grinning, before turning to the detective. "I'm sure Spike had nothing to do with the crash, he was in the library since I went to check on Pinkie Pie."

"All right, but we still have to interview him, he might have seen something we don't know about." The others nodded in agreement as they continued across the hall.

“Oh yeah, do you have my notes on...?” Noire trailed off as Dr. Oxyde started bumping into walls and crashing into ponies and carts as they wheeled along. "Hey Doc, you hangin' in there?" She asked the stumbling filly, who focused a glazed stare at Noire then shook her head to wake herself up.

"M'allright, I just need a bit of a boost." She turned to the right, coming muzzle to glass with a vending machine. She stepped back and rubbed her nose for a few seconds before taking out a few bits and inserting them into the machine. After a bit of grinding, two packets of Skittles fell out of the slot at the bottom. She grabbed them and sat down on a bench next to the machines. “Sweet... two for one, I love it when that happens.”

"That's odd, a second ago she was just fine." Twilight remarked, walking over to the lethargic filly, who was beginning to look dour. "When was the last time you slept?"

"Three days ago." Replied the doctor, tearing open a packet and emptying it in her mouth, wincing slightly at the sudden flavor.

"Three days? Even I need my rest." Said Twilight, looking concerned for the previously-energetic pony.

"It's nothing new." Replied Noire, who had gotten a bag of chips. "She has a very demanding job; one of the only ways she functions is by inhaling heroic amounts of sugar and caffeine."

"All right, look after her would you? I'm going to go check on Spike." Twilight walked into the room and saw Spike almost immediately; the young dragon was too busy tentatively poking at the hospital food to even notice she had come in the room. She called his name and he looked up, a smile coming across his scaly features.

“Twilight! You would not believe the kind of stuff these guys put me through, I mean really, how hard is it to spare a half-pound of diamond?” He rolled his eyes, obviously indignant that precious metals were of such short supply in the middle of a city.

“Hi Spike, how are you feeling?” She walked over to the bed and sat down next to it, looking worried.

“I’m fine, just a few cuts, but nothing serious. What happened anyways? All they’ll tell me is that the airship crashed.”

“You don’t remember anything?” Twilight asked in surprise.

“Not much, I remember a really loud noise, the window shattering, then a huge book flew out of one of the shelves and hit me on the head. I mean it was really big, like if one of your books was caught in a tornado.” He grinned at her, but stopped when he saw Twilight’s expression. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

“Oh Spike, I’m so sorry I didn’t come to check on you earlier! I was trying to find out who crashed the airship and I completely forgot about you!” Spike paused for a moment, then laughed.

“Hey, it’s nice that you’re worried, but you need to calm down. Sure, technically I’m a baby dragon, but that’s by dragon standards, from a pony’s perspective I’m almost as old as you. Besides, finding out who sunk the ship is way more important than checking on me.” 

He reached forward and ruffled Twilight’s mane, making her forlorn expression disappear. “You know I can take care of myself, it’ll take more than a bit of glass to put ‘ol Spike down!” He sat up straight and tried to thrust his chest out, but only succeeded in bumping the tray a little and almost knocking over his water. Twilight laughed at his antics and walked over to the door.

“All right, I have a couple of people I want you to meet.” She opened the door and subsequently had a door nearly fly into her. A pink-maned blur raced past the doorway into the room, followed calmly by Noire. Dr. Oxyde jogged up to Spike and immediately started asking him about his anatomy. Some questions a bit more personal than Spike was comfortable with, and some that he couldn’t even decipher through the haze of vocabulary terms he didn’t know.

“Perhaps we should introduce ourselves before we start the interrogation.” A grey glow surrounded the short mare and dragged her out of the way, replacing her with the detective, who took out her clipboard. “Lisa Antonia Noire, detective.”

“Wow, like a real detective? That’s awesome! I’ve read a bunch of mystery books since Twilight always seems to have them in such huge supply.” Noire looked slightly flattered, but quickly had the spotlight stolen by Doctor Oxyde, who propped her front hooves up on the bed to get Spike’s attention.

“Hiya! I’m Doctor Nitrous Oxyde, forensic investigation.” Spike gave her a flat stare until he finally caved and asked the question ponies usually asked after meeting Dr. Oxyde.

“Who’s the filly?” A little put off, Dr. Oxyde narrowed her eyes at him as Noire and Twilight stifled their laughter.

“I’m twenty-five, I have a PhD, you’d think that going to medical school would earn you some respect.” She said, leaning on the bed in annoyance.

“Uuh, sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you.” Spike said, looking genuinely guilty at having misjudged her. The doctor took this in stride, immediately perking up and swiping away Noire’s clipboard while she wasn’t looking. “Hey!” Noire protested, but to no avail.

“Apology accepted! Now, about your reproductive system…” Twilight blushed furiously and cleared her throat loudly enough to get the doctor’s attention.

“Let’s move on to the interrogation all right?” She telekinetically took the clipboard from Oxyde and handed it back to the now slightly flustered detective.

“Right…well. Uuh, when was the last time you saw your friend, the sick one?” Spike took a moment to respond.

“Pinkie? Err…it was kinda late last night. Around ten.”

“Why did you leave so soon after seeing her?” Noire asked through her haze of note-taking.

“I went to get Twilight, the others asked me to.”

“Twilight? Come to think of it, we never did hear your alibi.” She turned to the purple mare with a raised eyebrow and poised pen. While the others were talking, Spike took the opportunity to look over at Dr. Oxyde, who had been searching her pockets for the last few seconds. Just as he was about to ask what she was looking for, the filly pulled out a hoof-full of gummy bears and stuffed them into her mouth.

“Hey, I-uh, I’m actually sorry for thinking you were a kid.” He said, looking down rather than meeting the pony’s eyes. “People think that I’m a kid all the time too, which I guess I am. I just feel a lot older than most ponies make me out to be y’know? I can take care of myself every now and then.” Oxyde bobbed her head up and down in agreement, making her stuffed cheeks wiggle ridiculously.

“Ish fish bish misht bish!” She said through the candy. When she only got an odd look from Spike in response, she swallowed the sweets and cleared her throat. “I said don’t worry about it. Sure it’s a bit irritating at times, but I don’t mind all that much. What happened to me is part of my life, I dealt with it and moved on.” She paused, and then wiggled an eyebrow at Spike mysteriously. “Or I’m a perfect genius child, and the best liar in Equestria.” They continued staring at each other for a moment before bursting out in laughter. “Now, let’s see how your flammable gas substance outtake sac is functioning.”

“My what?”

“Please set something on fire.” She asked, putting on her best puppy eyes.

“Uhhh, I’m not sure I should-“ Spike was saved by Twilight and Noire, who came back from their discussion not a moment too soon.

“All right, we’ve cleared Twilight, so what path did you take to head to the library?” Spike threw a sidelong look at the doctor, who was still grinning as if committed to making him set a hospital on fire. He picked up a glass of orange juice from the tray and took a sip. This was going to be one of those days.

“I’m not sure, I got really lost, which was why I was so out of breath when I got to the library. I might have gone past the cafeteria, the hub, the engines…”

“Wait, the engines? Those are on the other side of the ship!”

“Well, I was REALLY lost. It took me half an hour to get to the library.”

“All right, the engines are where it all happened; did you go into any of the rooms?” Noire asked, still writing on her clipboard.

“No.”

“Well…did you see anything suspicious?” Spike raised a claw to his chin in thought as he absent-mindedly stirred the orange juice with the other.

“I have no idea, I just had to get to Twilight, Pinkie Pie looked awful and I didn’t have the time to stop.” He took his claw out from the drink and drew a smiley face on the napkin. The way a perfect orange dot formed wherever he touched the paper made a thought lodge in Twilight’s head.

“Hold on, Spike, draw on the napkin like that again.” Twilight said, beckoning to Noire with her hoof.

“Um, okay.” He dipped his claw in the drink again and drew a stick pony.

“No…what were you drawing before?” Twilight asked, there was a difference between the drawings, and the first one had captured her attention.

“Oh, you mean the face?” He drew a slanted line pointing downwards for a sad mouth, followed by two forlorn-looking dots for the eyes.

“That’s it, make more of the spots.” The purple unicorn requested, stating intently at the drawing. Spike complied, after a moment of only using one claw; he dipped all of his fingers in the juice and started to tap each one of them in sequence.

“What kind of bomb was set off again?” Twilight asked, not removing her gaze from the napkin.

“Oh, plastic explosive, the culprit set a countdown on each one of them.” Noire said, consulting her notes. “We have a picture if you want.”

“No thanks,” Twilight said, not looking back. “What is it, what’s bothering me so much?” She asked out loud.

“Intuition is a detective’s best friend.” Noire said, sidling up next to her temporary assistant. “Don’t focus on one answer, if you do, you’ll lose sight of something else.” Spike, who had gotten bored, was trying to ignite the napkin with his breath, much to the pleasure of Doctor Oxyde, who was giggling madly and egging him on.

“There’s just something about the pattern of the spots on the napkin that-“ Twilight’s thoughts were interrupted by a bright flare that had just burst next to her. Spike, still not being completely in control of his flames, had overestimated the necessary force it took to set a napkin on fire. There was now a giant burn mark on his blanket and most of the tray had been burned to cinders. One spot on the platform was perfectly clear, Spike’s fireproof hand had blocked the flames, and a neat stencil of it was now imprinted on the wood.

“Oops.” Spike said sheepishly, trying not to notice Dr. Oxyde’s overzealous promotion of his pyrotechnics. “That was awesome! Do it again! Pleeeeease!” The doctor begged. Rather than reprimanding him, Twilight was studying the mark his hand had made on the tray.

“Noire, could you hand me all the photos we’ve taken on the case?” The grey mare pulled a stack of small photographs out from her folder and levitated them to Twilight, who began to flip through them haphazardly, letting a few hit the floor in her frantic searching. 

After a number of photos, she found the one she was looking for, the picture Noire had snapped of Pinkie before they wheeled her away. Right on her forehead, there was a small circle with five sticks poking out of it. When they looked down at the handprint on the table, they saw an almost perfect likeness between them.

“I’ll be damned.” Noire whispered, trying not to alert the others to what they were seeing. “Do you really think that he-?”

“No, he wouldn’t have had the time. Plus, look, his hand doesn’t match the one in the photo.” She squinted at the shape on the photograph; the tips of the print were rounded instead of sharper, like Spike’s were.

“Well, he could have been wearing gloves.” Noire responded, sounding a bit uncertain about herself.

“Not likely, you can see the lines at the center and on the fingers, a glove would impede a full print, Spike’s claws aren’t this long. Plus the amount of fluid here couldn’t have been from a glove.” Noire took a moment to consider her evidence, but finally nodded in agreement. Just then, Doctor Oxyde came up and handed a photograph to Twilight.

“Hey, check this one out,” On the picture was the one undetonated bomb before it had been cleaned. On the keypad were small dots of green corresponding to the exact calculated space between the detonations. Each one had gone off every four minutes; there was a dot on the four, a much darker dot on the zero suggested they were pressed repeatedly, and one more on the button to begin the sequence. At the top-right corner of the picture, a maggot was slithering onto the screen and tilting its head up to the camera. Unlike the previous one Twilight had seen, this one had a capital X for its eyes with a capital D underneath, giving it the appearance of taunting whoever was taking the picture.

“This is it! Thanks Doctor, you’re amazing!” She said, beaming at the filly as she handed the picture to Noire.

“I know right!? That maggot is so cute!” She said, sitting down and looking very proud of herself. Noire rolled her eyes as she inspected the photograph.

“Well, that clinches it; the culprit had appendages like Spike’s.” She tucked the picture back into her folder. “I’m guessing Raindrops told you about the pattern on the bomb and you made the connection with the keypad.”

“Raindrops is here?” Spike asked, looking at Twilight curiously.

“Uh-huh, she’s in charge of the engineering team.” The doctor said, sitting at the edge of Spike’s’ bed.

“I’d never seen the photograph before, but look at the difference between the marks Spike’s claws make and the spots on the keypad.” Twilight pointed to a less-cremated piece of napkin with a small orange dot on it.

“Well, I checked the roster, and there are no other dragons that I know of.  In fact, I don’t think a dragon older than Spike has ever been on an airship.” Twilight shook her head.

“I know, but other than that have no idea what it could be.”

“Well, I think we know it doesn’t have claws, since Spike’s fingers sharpen, the tips would be much smaller than they are in the picture.” Noire took the photo out again and pointed at the markings to prove her point. “Do you know any monsters that have feathers, magic, non-clawed hands, extreme contagion, and the ability to put together a plan and operate a bomb?”

“Well, I know of a few with some of those traits, but if you combine even two of the things you just said, you get some ancient, evil things. The most dangerous creatures in recorded history only have one or two of the abilities listed here.” Twilight said, frowning in thought and worry. “All I can say is that I really, really hope we’re not up against something that awful.” The room fell into a tense, pensive silence before Spike spoke up.

“I think Lyra finally got those “hands” or whatever, and decided to blow up an airship.” He and Twilight started laughing, getting strange looks from the doctor and Noire. The purple unicorn waved them off with a hoof.

“Forget it, just someone we know.” Twilight said, “Well, I guess we’d better go see Pinkie, if she can tell us what it is then we’ll be saved a LOT of work.” She gave Spike a quick hug, then walked out of the room with Noir, who shook the dragon’s hand and followed suit.

“Let’s hang out sometime, kay?” Said Dr. Oxyde, perky as always. She gave her new friend a one-armed hug and skipped out of the room. “I like him.” She said to the others.

“I’m glad you approve.” Said Twilight sarcastically, smiling anyways.

“This has been eye-opening,” Noire said, frowning at the floor in thought. “But we’re even further than before, is there any chance you could list some of the creatures you were thinking of before?” She asked Twilight, who seemed hesitant.

“It’s not likely that it’s any of them, almost all of them are locked up in Tartarus and even then, the chance that it is one of them is pretty slim.” The detective nodded a bit solemnly and the continued in silence for a while.

“Hey, cheer up; let’s go check on your bud! I’m sure she can tell us whodunit!” Said Dr. Oxyde, who was still skipping happily along the hall.

“Oh Celestia, I just realized.” Twilight said grimly, slapping a hoof to her face.

“What? What is it?” Noire asked urgently, Dr. Oxyde turned around, skipping backwards with a surprising amount of success.

“I’m going to introduce Dr. Oxyde to Pinkie Pie.” The doctor chose that moment to trip over her own hooves and flip around backwards a few times before finally coming to a dead stop upside-down against a wall. She stared up lopsidedly at them for little before flipping back over and standing up.

“I meant to do that.” She said dismissively before dusting herself off and walking away haughtily.
-----
Pinkie’s ward was similar to Spike’s in the sense that there were a lot of other ponies there; there were scarcely any noises at all. They found her almost immediately; she was only a few beds to the left of the entrance they took. They got all the greetings out of the way and had idly chatted for a bit before Noire pulled Twilight to the side.

“I thought you said she was always bouncing all over the place, she doesn’t look remotely happy.” She said, furrowing her brow in concern, Twilight shook her head.

“She’s sick Noire, that’s reason enough not to be happy, but she does seem even worse than last time she took ill.”

“What happened last time?”

“She ate a gross muffin and got food poisoning.” Twilight said, shrugging, “She wasn’t like this though, I’ve rarely seen Pinkie keep a normal conversation clean of non-sequiturs for more than thirty seconds.” They turned around to see Doctor Oxyde telling her a joke about an operation she participated in.

“And when the patient woke up, his skeleton was missing, and the doctor was never heard from again!” Pinkie smiled weakly, but Oxyde giggled so hard, she almost fell over. Once she got control of herself, she pulled out her stopwatch and took the intravenous needle out of Pinkie’s front leg. “I’ll need this.”

“Ow,” Pinkie said, rubbing her foreleg with a hoof, “What for?”

“I don’t mean to undermine the work of the good ponies here, but they don’t know jack about pretty much everything that has to do with medicine.” She plugged the needle into the device and reversed the flow, pouring a small amount of Pinkie’s blood into the device. “Hey Noire, you can question her while this thing processes.” The grey unicorn walked over and pulled out her clipboard.

“All right, do you remember anything that happened before you blacked out?” She asked, pulling a pen out of her saddlebag.

“Sure, I remember everything.” Pinkie responded.

“Oh. Okay. I don’t suppose you could describe the culprit?” She asked, looking hopeful.

“Actually-“ Pinkie started, before being cut off by Noire.

“I thought not, oh well, it’s always worth a try.”

“I can do more than that, I can tell you who it is.” The detective looked absolutely baffled by this, but recovered and let the pen hover over the paper. “His name is Pestilence, or at least, I think it’s a him.” She said, scratching her hair with a hoof.

“Its name was Pestilence?” Twilight asked, “That’s…fitting.”

“Yup, he’s not a pony, I’m not actually sure what he is, but when I first saw him, he was wearing a mask.”

“Could you describe him and the mask?” Noire asked, still writing what Pinkie said.

“Sure, the mask had two big porthole things in the middle; those would probably be the goggles on it, there were two holes, one on the bottom, and one a bit to the right of it. They were covered with these grids at the end.” She was making shapes in the air, but Noire’s notes illustrated it better than Pinkie’s invisible shapes could.

“What about under the mask?” The detective asked.

“Well, he’s green.”

“Huh, go figure.” Twilight said. “Continue.”

“He walks on two legs and uses his front legs to pick up stuff, like Spike does-”

“Wait, does he have wings or magic?” Pinkie put a hoof to her chin in thought before responding.

“Yes magic, no wings.”

“But-the stuff we found on the feather matched every other substance in the airship that was green.” Noire commented, frowning as she wrote.

“I didn’t see any wings, I suppose he had to get onto the airship somehow, but I assumed he teleported or just snuck on.”

Twilight shook her head. “It’s almost impossible to teleport onto a fast-moving object at that altitude.” Noire nodded at Pinkie, signaling her to keep talking.

“All right, with his mask off he looks…sick.”

“Like you look right now?” Twilight asked.

“No, much, much worse then I look. He has all these boils and rotten teeth and creepy blisters and he drools and drips that green stuff all the time.”

“Hey Twilight…” Noire gestured at Pinkie’s forehead, where a faint green mark was outlined against her the rest of her fur. It was still covered in a film of green liquid, even hours after the original infliction.

“All right, so everywhere he touches, the green stuff appears. But why are there long trails of it on the wall?” Twilight wondered aloud.

“Maybe he does it for fun.” Pinkie suggested, “I like running my hoof across walls sometimes when I walk, what if he does too?”

“Well, it’s a theory.” Twilight said hesitantly, not wanting to agree, but secretly thinking it sounded ridiculous.

“What kind of weapon was he using?” Noire asked.

“A knife…sort of.”

“Sort of?”

“He picked up one of those tiny knives that you find in hospitals-“ Noire nodded in confirmation.

“A scalpel was missing from the hospital inventory.”

“Then he turned it into a different knife.” Noire, who was about to continue writing, paused.

“He did what now?” She asked, looking up from her clipboard.

“He kind of swung it around and it got bigger, after that it looked like pretty normal kitchen knife. It was painted all black and dark green, and it was covered with a different sort of green stuff.”

“Was it the same liquid that was identified in the hallway?”

“No, this was much brighter, and…drippier.”

Doctor Oxyde handed her stopwatch to Noire, who flipped it open and then presented it to the pink pony. “Did it look like this?” Pinkie, who obviously saw something familiar on the screen, nodded. “Well, that clinches it.” She sighed and handed the device back to Oxyde.

“The knife was always covered in that, it dripped constantly, but evaporated as soon as it hit the floor.”

“That makes sense, the toxin needs to be kept at regulation conditions at all times, the knife must have been extremely well-preserved.” Twilight chimed in.

“How was he able to hold the knife though?” Noire wondered aloud.

“I’m not sure, but he only held it for a little while. Most of the time it just floated next to him.” Pinkie responded.

“Maybe he can only hold it for a little while, small amounts of the chemical probably wouldn’t hold up against a strong immunity.”

“Hey Twilight, do you think you could I.D. why the scalpel turned into a different knife entirely?” Noire asked, reviewing her notes before continuing to write fervently.

“My top theory is pretty out there, but then again, what isn’t in this case?” She sighed then continued speaking. “If a unicorn or other magical creature manages to form a bond with a certain item, they can cast a summoning spell to bring it to them. It’s intermediate magic, but summoning spells are finicky; some unicorns can’t cast them at all.” She paused for a moment to collect her thoughts, then continued. “One alternative to this is the artifact conversion spell, it’s much more advanced than summoning magic, but very possible if you need that alternative.

“The spell creates a perfect imprint of the item in your magic, once you find an object with similar properties; you can convert that item into your artifact. Artifacts can be conserved forever; any spells placed on the item at the time of imprinting are copied onto each instance of the object from then on, unless the imprint is updated.” Once she had finished speaking, the others let the information sink in silently before Noire spoke up.

“That explains pretty much everything that happened with the weapon. But why is it so unlikely?”

“It’s not an easy spell by any means; you need to have an extremely powerful connection with the object. I probably wouldn’t be able to cast it, and if I could, no object is important enough for me to imprint.” 

“I could think of a few objects I know…intimately enough to imprint,” Noire said, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively before slapping  a hoof over her mouth and widening her eyes in surprise. “Oh Celestia, I’m turning into Arils.”

“Hey, you’re a detective right?” Pinkie asked Noire, who had to stop shuddering uncomfortably before nodding. “Shouldn’t you be drawing that guy I described like all the movie detectives do?”

“That’s a great idea Pinkie.” Twilight said, smiling at her friend before turning to Noire expectantly.

“Well…uh, okay.” The grey unicorn let her pen hover over the paper hesitantly for a few moments before finally asking for another description of the suspect. Once Pinkie had finished speaking, Noire was making some final details on the paper. She finally lifted her pen and cast a downtrodden expression at the drawing.

“Let’s see it.” Twilight said, much to the detective’s chagrin. She lifted up the paper to show a long stick with two smaller sticks at the bottom, and two near the top. At the top of the stick was a circle that contained a heavily frowning angry face.

“Why does he have sharp teeth?”

“What’s that triangle floating in the air next to him?”

“Why do you suck at drawing?” Everyone turned their heads to see Oxyde, who had remained silent for most of the questioning, had just spoken up. “Noire’s always been a pretty crappy artist, I mean, I draw like an eight year foal, and I’m still better than her!” Noire glared intensely at the filly for a moment before bowing her head sadly. Which made Oxyde hesitantly amble over to make her feel better. “It’s not a bad thing, you’re much better than me at plenty of other stuff.”

“Yeah! Everyone has their special talents, Twilight’s one of the most powerfullest-est unicorns in Equestria, but she can’t dance to save her-“ Pinkie was interrupted by Twilight shoving the bed slightly and throwing an embarrassed look her way. Noire laughed and, seeming significantly cheered up, crumpled up the drawing and threw it in the trash can. 

A few minutes later, a nurse walked in and announced that Pinkie had more visitors. When she agreed to see them, four other mares trotted around the corner anxiously. Fluttershy and Rarity immediately started fussing over Pinkie, while the other two were content with asking how she was without smothering her. After all the questions were answered, the four friends got around to noticing Oxyde and Noire. Once introductions were made, they asked for an explanation of the situation.

“Well, here’s what we have so far, we’ve identified the suspect as being bipedal, he has hands and spreads a specific substance wherever he touches. Our leading theory on his weapon is an artifact imprinting spell, the weapon being constantly covered in an identified, but unavailable substance. We have no ID on the species of the suspect as of right now.”

“Do you have a picture to show us?” Rarity asked, cocking an eyebrow, “Maybe if someone drew the creature we could -”

“No.” Said three of the room’s patrons at once, all casting furtive glances at the piece of crumpled artwork inside the trash can.

“Anyways,” Noire said, flipping up the top page of the report and continuing. “Suspect confirmed to have magic, wings unconfirmed, but still very likely.”

“Both magic and wings?” Rainbow Dash asked incredulously.

“I know, it poses a problem and makes identification even more difficult, but we’re trying.” The detective flipped her clipboard closed and turned to Oxyde. “Anything you want to add, doc?” The doctor had a peculiar expression on her face, she was frowning at her stopwatch and looked almost concerned. Noire had to repeat her name before she finally looked up.

“What? Me? Nothing.” She stood up and replaced the device at her side. “We should leave Noire. Twilight, meet us at this address later. Miss Pie, thank you for your time.” Still not smiling, Doctor Oxyde prepared to walk out of the room.

“Wait, what reading did you get on the chemical?” Noire asked the doctor, who had a break in expression for only a moment before setting her face once again.

“Nothing, this stupid thing couldn’t read it.” She cast a disappointed expression at the stopwatch resting against her flank before once again gesturing towards the door.

“Fine, see you later Twi.” Noire nodded to the group and walked out tentatively after the undersized doctor.

“What was that about?” Applejack asked, looking at the door the pair just exited out of.

“Those two are always kind of odd; I’ll see what was bothering the doctor later tonight.” Twilight said dismissively. They spent the next few hours laughing and joking, Pinkie only smiling weakly every time a joke or good story was told. The replacement for her overzealous laugher was confusing the others, which only added to the concern they felt when she looked a bit worse by the hour.

“And THAT is the best story of all time.” Said Rainbow Dash, trying to speak over the uproarious laughter in the room.

“Ah still think the ‘Lemon Mishap’ was better.” Applejack said, wiping a tear away from her eye and trying to stifle any other chuckles. “What about you Twi?”

“Give me a second to think of a good one.” Twilight said, putting a hoof to her chin. As she did, she didn’t notice the large beige form that was slowly creeping into her vision or the disturbed stares she was getting from the others. The thing that grasped her attention was when the giant beige blob turned around and stared at her with two small beady eyes and a forlorn, curved mouth. Twilight jumped up and screamed, making the giant, fat maggot on her head flop around as it clung on stubbornly. “Gedditoff, gedditoff, gedditoff, gedditoff!” She shouted, hopping around the room ineffectually as the parasite continued looking genuinely unhappy at being flailed around.

“Be careful!” Fluttershy said, flying over and grabbing it off her head. “You don’t want to hurt him…” She examined the grub before facing it and straight-up asking how it was feeling. The maggot responded by gurgling and drooling a little bit, which was apparently an acceptable answer, as Fluttershy set it down. Twilight touched her head with a hoof, feeling the sticky film the grub left behind and wincing in disgust.

“Eww…” She said, looking up as she noticed everyone was laughing at her, including Pinkie. Rainbow Dash was laughing so hard she actually fell out of the air, sliding for a bit before coming to a stop at Twilight’s hooves. One of which promptly spread some of the substance from the maggot onto her head.

“Gross…maggot juice.” The pegasus said, grabbing a towel from Pinkie’s bedside and wiping her face clean.

“Excuse me girls,” A doctor said, walking in and smiling at them. “Miss Pie needs her bed rest.” They agreed and said good-bye to Pinkie, thanking the doctor for letting them visit her.

“Oh! Doctor, there’s a huge grub on the floor right…” Twilight looked at the maggot’s previous position, which was now just a mucous stain with a trail leading under the bed. “There…” She sighed and turned around. “All right, let’s go...and check your manes for any passengers.” Twilight added; making Rarity whimper slightly as she eyed her immaculate hairstyle.

“I’ll take care of your friend, she’ll be better in no time!” He put a hoof on Pinkie’s forehead right on the five-fingered mark. An audible squelching sound emitted on contact and he withdrew his hoof, looking at it carefully. “Probably shouldn’t have done that.”
> Pestilentia (Part 2, Chapter 4)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The mares headed out, still chatting, until they got to their hotel rooms, which were already set up with their things. Save for Twilight’s, which remained unpacked due to of her involvement in the investigation, and Pinkie’s, due to her illness. Twilight took a quick shower, which was punctuated by repeated attempts to keep herself awake, it had been a very long day, and she realized that she had spent the entire night looking at constellations and the entire day looking for clues. All she did was groan when she saw the notice that had been left on her counter by her friends to remind her of her meeting with the detective and overzealous doctor. One taxi carriage and short walk later, Twilight found herself at a tavern.

“Really?” She asked rhetorically as she eyed the name doubtfully “The Tipsy Filly”. She walked in and scanned the room for any sign of the ponies she was meeting with. She finally saw them at the bar, immediately wondering why she hadn’t seen them before, as Dr. Oxyde’s drink was glowing so brightly that Twilight was pretty sure it was radioactive. They waved her over and she took a seat beside them, seeing that Noire only had a small glass of amber liquid, a strange contrast to the fluorescent pink of Oxyde’s. “I didn’t know you meant literally getting drunk.” Twilight said as she approached the two. Noire smiled as she approached, but Oxyde still sat with her hoof to her forehead.

“I’m pretty sure the doc means everything she says, especially when it comes to alcohol.” Noire jovially slapped the doctor on the back, which just elicited a grunt and making her move slightly to the side. “She in one of her moods, it’s about her little watch. She’s never run into something it couldn’t read before.”

“That’s what she’s upset about? I’m sure we’ll figure it out.” She said to the beige pony, who just continued to slouch unhappily. “Look, once Pinkie gets better we’ll see what we can do about the strain, for now let’s just celebrate our new lead!”

“She’s not going to get better.” Came a muffled voice, Oxyde had put her face on the table and spoke from there. Twilight gave her a curious look; this was different from her sugar-fueled tantrums or her regular cheery demeanor.

“What are you talking about doctor?” Twilight poked at the pink mane as she waved down the bartender.

“Nothing.” She straightened up and took another sip of her drink, making Twilight wince.

“By the way, what IS that?” The bartender brought over Twilight’s drink, a simple glass of hard cider.

“That, my junior detective, is an Atomic Bubblegum Cocktail.” Noire patted the glowing glass container before continuing. “It’s been the stuff of nightmares and no one ever stomachs it except her. I tried a glass of it once and spent the next day lying sick in bed, vomiting pink liquid sugar and bubblegum.” Twilight looked down at it dubiously before grinning mischievously.

“I’d try it.” She said. Noire narrowed her eyes at the purple unicorn half-jokingly.

“I once poured this stuff on quartz. It took thirty seconds to turn into rock candy.”

“I don’t think that’s possible.” She said, pulling the container over hesitantly. Doctor Oxyde perked up slightly at the prospect of someone potentially dying at her hand. She simply looked on as Twilight levitated the drink towards herself and eyed it dubiously.

“Seriously, my cousin put a pet hamster into a vat of it. When the doctors got all the crystallized sugar and gum out of it, the thing still hiccuped bubbles for a week.” Noire’s efforts to stop the unicorn went unnoticed, she only swirled it around for a moment before tipping her head back and pouring a small amount of the slightly thick liquid in her mouth. Oxyde grinned, Noire covered her eyes. The first thing Twilight became aware of was the tear-inducing, throat-clotting, thought-blocking sweetness. After that, the viscosity caught up with her and she realized that she could actually chew it; a very small amount of gum was mixed into the formula, which gave it an eerie liquid-solid sort of texture. She felt the alcohol mixed in burn her mouth and throat slightly, but couldn’t draw her attention away from the sickening sensation of the drink being way too sweet.

“That is seriously disgusting, how do you actually drink that?” She asked Oxyde, pushing the drink back to her.

“I don’t, not normally. I only have these on special occasions, as long as it has sugar and maybe alcohol, I’m happy.”

“Don’t worry Twilight, you probably won’t die. You only had a sip of it.” Noire confirmed, taking another drink.

“That stuff is…ridiculous. I’m not even sure if Pinkie Pie could stomach it.” She put a hoof to her chin, then rolled her eyes. “Scratch that, I’m pretty sure she’d love it.” At the mention of Pinkie, Dr. Oxyde shifted guiltily in her chair and fell silent once more.

“Come on doc, your silly little stopwatch couldn’t read a chemical, big deal.” Noire said dismissively. Doctor Oxyde frowned and sighed.

“It didn’t read wrong, if this thing can detect a ten-thousand year old poison then it can decode a little virus.” She pulled out the device and looked at it as she spoke.

“But you said it couldn’t-“

“I know what I said; it wasn’t the place or time.” The doctor pulled over her drink and dipped the bottom of the device into it. “See? My watch is always right.” She handed it over to Twilight, who read the results aloud.

“Search indication results, compound composed of twenty-five percentile levels of both alcohol and bubblegum, sugar level is…one-hundred fifty percent? Doctor, I think your machine is faulty.”

“No. It’s right.” She took it back and placed it on the table, spinning it around while propping her head up on one hoof. “I said earlier that it could read a simple virus, well this isn’t a simple virus, it’s a very complex virus. That’s probably what took the machine so long. The transfusion mixture of the subject’s blood and the viral strain was a bit confusing, but it managed to separate the data into two categories. The virus was interesting, its composition looks a lot like cellular structure, to the point where it might even be a specific organism bonded to the virus but…that’s all inference of course.” 

Dr. Oxyde looked like she was about to go on an hour-long rant, but paused and hesitated before plowing on. “I didn’t think it would be worthwhile to check the blood sample. After all, once the separation was complete there shouldn’t be anything too interesting in the separate batches but I decided to check anyways.” She looked at the pocketwatch sitting on the counter and sighed once. “The hemoglobin was pretty conclusive, but there was one thing I noticed during my check, her leukocytes were pretty much completely depleted. Her immune system is almost nonexistent right now. I took a closer look at the red blood cells and saw the decreased activity, the low diffusion rate, the low nutrient level and well…” She flipped open the watch and pushed it over to Twilight. “All signs indicate that Pinkie Pie is dying.”
-----
Twilight stared from the results, to the doctor, then back again. After a long moment, she simply smiled and shook her head.

“That’s just not possible; she looked fine when we went in.” She bartered, sliding the watch back to Oxyde.

“The agent is by no means dramatic; it’s very quiet, and very calm. While we were in there, she only looked tired sure, but I’m afraid that that’s all we’ll see.” She replaced the device and turned back to her drink.

“You watch is malfunctioning then, I don’t think…it doesn’t make sense.” Twilight was only half trying to pay attention to the doctor’s claims; the other half of her mind was devoted to not analyzing the evidence in front of her, denial was much easier than any other alternative.

“Don’t be a child,” Oxyde responded chidingly, not noticing the irony in her statement. “I know it’s not easy, but you have to accept it. You don’t get anything out of denying it.” Twilight stared at the counter, swabbing her hoof across a stain absent-mindedly.

“I don’t want to talk about this.” Twilight Sparkle wasn’t normally quick to cut someone off, the images and emotions were just too much to handle, she felt a lump forming in her throat. To acknowledge the ideas would be to admit there was some truth to them.

“Twilight, you should be at the hospital, I’m not sure how much time-“

“Quiet doctor. Your watch is wrong, Pinkie needs rest, and I don’t want to disturb her.” Twilight’s voice was firm, but still kind, as if insisting that what she was saying was nonsense. It was a tone she used oftentimes with Spike when he was being uncooperative.

“No one wants to die alone!” The doctor insisted, tightening her jaw, but refusing to make eye contact with Twilight. “I don’t need you to listen to me, I don’t need you to know I’m right, I definitely don’t want to be right, but…just keep an ear out. For me, all right?” When Twilight only responded with silence, Oxyde turned to Noire.

“Calm down, both of you, we should enjoy ourselves, this case is almost solved,” She put a hoof on each of their shoulders and pulled them closer. “We can worry about tomorrow when tomorrow comes, that’s why alcohol exists!” She waved over the bartender and ordered a refill for both herself and Twilight’s drinks.

“I guess you’re right Noire.” Oxyde said, grinning at Twilight lopsidedly. “Let’s put this behind us for now, agreed?”

“Agreed!” Twilight responded, grabbing her drink from the counter and taking a sip, sweeping all worries about Pinkie from her mind.

“All right, should we do a bit of review?” Noire asked, pulling out her clipboard. The doctor, as if just noticing it, gave the detective a curious look.

“Hey, where’s your notepad?” An annoyed look came across Noire’s face as she eyed the clipboard with contempt.

“It got temporarily confiscated, my partner drew clop in it…again.”

“Notepad? I’m guessing the one on your cutie mark?” Twilight gestured to Noire’s flank, on which sat a small, vertical, spiral-back, black-covered notebook, which Noire looked back and smiled at.

“Yep! Got it when I was a kid, used it to solve my first case and every case since!” The detective responded proudly before turning her attention to Doctor Oxyde, who was staring interestedly at a wall, lost in thought. “What’s up kid?”

“Is this the same partner as before?”

“Yup, still stuck with Ellie.” She responded, rolling her eyes at the unknown antics of her companion

“I like her, she’s funny.” Oxyde said, taking the swivel straw she had brought to the bar out of her drink and licking some of the pink, sticky fluid off. “And she gives me candy.”

“That’s because she doesn’t believe you’re not my daughter…or y’know, not a child.” Noire said skeptically.

“Regardless, there are perks to this whole being a kid thing; the candy is only one of them.” She replaced the straw in the glowing drink and took a long sip.

“Maybe one of those perks is flirting with a baby dragon.” Noire mumbled in an undertone next to Oxyde’s ear. The filly immediately choked; gooey pink fluid spraying out of her nose, as her mouth as still wrapped around the straw. She withdrew her head and coughed as Noire giggled. Once she had recovered, she glared at the detective.

“Shut up! Stop laughing!” This only made her laugh harder, much to the doctor’s annoyance.

“What’s going on?” Twilight asked, she hadn’t heard Noire’s stealthy remark, and was confused as to why Oxyde had sprayed her glowing drink all over the opposite wall, which the bartender was now mopping up.

“Nothing, I’m just teasing the good doctor about her little crush, isn’t that right Oxyde?” She leaned in and cocked an eyebrow at the short mare, who immediately glowed red and turned away, humiliated.

“Crush? On who?” Twilight asked before taking another sip of her cider.
“Bartend! Another drink!” Oxyde shouted before Noire could answer.

“What do you want?” The pony tending to the clientele asked.

“If this thing reads one hundred and fifty percent alcohol, you’re doing it right.” She responded, flashing her watch at him. She then turned to the grey unicorn next to her. “Hey Noire, heard you were looking for a roommate.” A dubious glance was cast back at the filly.

“That’s right, you interested?”

“Not in the slightest, it would impede me to have someone living in a room adjacent to mine. I haven’t found a way to muffle the screams yet.” She said, smirking at the concerned expression on Twilight’s face. Just then, the stallion tending to the bar came back with a drink, which he slid to the doctor.

“This is called ‘The Hammer’.” He said as she picked it up. “I’d recommend you find someone to take you home before you drink that.” She picked up the small shot glass containing a dark brown fluid and raised it in the air.

“I hereby leave all my earthly possessions to Noire. I just want you to know that I’ll haunt all of you once I’m gone.”

“What’s with the speech?” Twilight whispered to an amused-looking Noire.

“She’s had this drink before, she does it every time.”

“-and I leave full control of Mann and Sons Munition Concern to Barnabus Hale. Cheers!” She threw her head back and drank the entire glass, then fell forward onto the counter, fast asleep. Twilight looked worried, but Noire simply cast a bored look in her direction and took another sip of her drink.

“Are you sure she should be drinking?” The bartender asked, ruffling his feathers in concern that he was giving drinks to a minor all night.

“You must be new.” Was all Noir responded with before turning to her lilac companion. “I think the doc’s got it for your little buddy in the hospital.”

“What? Spike? Really?”

“I think so, I’ve never seen her blush before, but then again I don’t tease her all that often.” She looked over at the smaller pony’s sleeping form.

“Wow, I don’t really know what to say.” She put a hoof to her chin in thought then started wondering aloud. “Oxyde’s about twenty-five, Spike is...I don’t know how old in pony years, then there’s the difference in species…it’s pretty weird.”

“No it’s not…you think?”

“A little.”

“Nah, it’s cute.” Noire finished her drink and stood up. “At least, I think it is, anyways, I’d better take her home, it’s been a long day and she’s already bestowed everything she owns on me if she dies.”

“I’d better head back, too; my friends are probably all sleeping. It’s been a long time since I’ve been to a bar, we don’t have very many in Ponyville.”  Noire propped Oxyde on her back, the pony’s tiny figure draped over her shoulders. 

“Wow, she’s pretty heavy. All that candy probably isn’t doing her weight any favors.” The detective groaned. They walked outside the bar into the cold Manehattan night air; Twilight hailed a carriage for her friends and the two unicorns faced each other one last time before they parted ways. “I’ll try to keep you updated on the case all right? I hope you and your friends enjoy the city, it’s awesome here.”

“Hrblstufr.” Oxyde gurgled unintelligibly from Noire’s back.

“Good-bye doctor.” Twilight said, smiling at the semi-unconscious pony.

“Seyalatr…” She trailed off, her half-formed good-bye cut off by snoring.

“Bye Twilight.” Noire nodded at the unicorn, then stepped into the carriage, stating their destination to the ponies pulling it. As the taxi disappeared in the night, Twilight got an untouchable sadness in her heart, she felt like, for a moment, the goodbye felt permanent. She shook her head to clear her thoughts, and started on the trip back to her hotel.
-----
Twilight Sparkle woke up to the sound of knocking; hardly a welcome noise while it was still dark which, she observed it was. She sat up, bleary-eyed, mane a wreck, and trotted over to the room’s entrance. A glow surrounded the handle and twisted it, pulling the door open, revealing a frantic Rarity.

“Twilight, I just got a letter…its Pinkie Pie.”

“What? What’s wrong? “She asked, shaking herself awake.

“I’m not sure, they didn’t say. It sounded urgent though.” A stab of panic ran through Twilight as she remembered the doctor’s warning.

“Get ready, we need to get to the hospital.”

--Three hours earlier--

Moonlight filtered through the large windows as Pestilence walked into the emergency ward, his soft footsteps pattering on the linoleum floors. He hummed softly to himself, the tune bouncing eerily around the room and falling upon the deaf ears of all the sleeping patients lined up along the corridor. He scanned the beds casually, looking for a specific patient. The darkness was only disturbed by a single dim glow shining from behind a curtain. A single doctor was leaning over a desk, busying himself with a few patient filing reports. The quill scribbled across the parchment, the eerie tune that was echoing around the room had dissipated. The first hint the doctor received that indicated he wasn’t alone in the hall was when a sticky, slick hand reached out and cupped around his mouth, effectively silencing his muffled shout of surprise. A simple incapacitation charm later, Pestilence straightened up and glanced over at the contents of the desk.

“This could be useful.” He mumbled to himself as he picked up a list of the patients and scanned it, flipping a page whenever he needed to. “P…p, p, p…ah, Pinkie Pie.” He tossed the clipboard over his shoulder and gave a mumbled thanks, to the pony lying unconscious on the floor, whose muzzle was now stained green from the angel’s grip. Just as Pestilence turned to continue, he did a double-take back towards the desk, spotting a letter opener lying near the head of the wood surface. He grinned and scooped it up, giving it an experimental flip before catching the head of a wider, thicker blade on the tip of his finger, the new knife coated in a thin, glimmering sheen of poison. The back-and-green weapon floated off of his finger and hovered next to him silently; weaving and bobbing alongside it’s wielder with every step he took. As he followed the clipboard’s projected path, he subconsciously reached out and ran his hand along the wall as he walked, spreading a thick trail of sickness across the clean white surface.

After a bit more walking, he finally reached her bed. She was asleep, like every other resident of the hospital was after midnight. A smile creased across Pestilence’s features as he walked slowly over to the side of the bed and sat down. He looked down at the sleeping pony and felt the smile slip from his face. She didn’t really deserve this. When he had first met her, did she cower away like everypony else that laid their eyes on him? No, she had greeted him, extended a hoof in welcome, and how had he repaid her? Guilt was weighing heavily in his gut, and he could do nothing but sit there and absentmindedly twirl his knife in the air, watching the light reflect off the blade in different ways as he spun it.

After a small internal conflict of interests, purpose finally won out. The knife, which was floating several inches below the ceiling, had the magical grip around it relinquished, and dropped swiftly down, the handle landing perfectly in the angel’s outstretched palm.

“How is our little patient doing tonight?” Pestilence asked, his rhetorical question coming out as barely a whisper as he sat, still staring at the opposite wall, lost in thought. His thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a purring gurgle and a wet sliding sensation on his arm. He looked down in bewilderment to see the sad-faced maggot nudging him.

“Ramona? What are you doing here?” He picked up the grub and started petting it, listening to it’s happy gurgles and staring at Pinkie’s sleeping form. Before long, the maggot slithered out of his hands and snaked over to a trash bin, perching on it’s edge and turning around to fix it’s unhappy gaze on Pestilence, who leaned over and swiped a crumpled up ball of paper.

“Huh, it seems I have a fan.” He said spreading out the sheet and looking it over. “I’m assuming the triangle in the air is Contagion, and that strapping gentleman with the sharp teeth must be me.” He gave Pinkie a doubtful look. “Did you draw this? I didn’t know they let foals into the emergency ward.” He glanced back at the picture, focusing on the overall implied monstrosity of his crudely drawn image before placing it on her bed stand.

He then leaned back once more and stared fixedly at the opposite wall, his mind on the mare lying next to him. 

“It shouldn’t be long now.” He turned and looked back at her, how she still looked very much the same, if a pit peaked, still sleeping as peacefully as she always had.

“You don’t deserve this. No one does.” He stared at the knife in his hand, listening to the steady dripping and sizzling of the poison sliding off the blade. “Well…maybe I do.” It was then that Pestilence thought back on all of his mistakes, on all of the cruelties he had spent so long trying to forget.

"You know, you remind me a whole a lot of someone from a long time ago...a little mare I knew way back when." Pestilence said to the sleeping pony. She didn't stir or show any sign of consciousness so he continued. "Sweetest little thing ever, she was about sixteen. I don’t think I’ve ever met a brighter pony. She absolutely loved chemistry and insisted on becoming my assistant of sorts; of course I was never a very skilled chemist so as you can guess she helped immensely." He looked upwards fondly, leaning against the bedpost as his smile came back.

“I still remember her panicking every time a subject or patient would go critical. I would joke about how she should trust me a bit more, and they always came through in the end. All of the more…graphic operations she had to sit out on though. She taught me everything I know about the chemical sciences. Sure I blew up a bit of the castle on several occasions but that was mostly on purpose, so it worked out.” His face then took on a shadowed look as the memories came flooding back.

"But then she left, it’s all my fault really, it is. I was trying out a prototype strain on an…unwilling participant. I told her not to come in but she did anyways, it’s never nice to walk in one someone while they’re elbows deep in the bowels of a random citizen. Naturally I had never told her about how I did that sort of thing." He paused for a moment, considering whether to continue, he started to clear his throat and plowed forward.

"I still remember the look on her face, she asked what I was doing, she sounded so scared. Sure there was some slight gore in the operations we had together, but to her it looked like I was butchering a citizen. I suppose I was doing exactly that in a manner of speaking. I told her to leave, I told her it wasn't important...things might have worked out if the patient hadn't gone into shock. It was violent, and it must have been traumatizing for her, in the end I had to kill him. Lethal injection, completely painless, but she still knew what I did." He plowed on, feeling more confident about disclosing his past to this unconscious listener.

"She ran out, convinced I was a monster, I keep trying to tell myself that she didn't understand; but if I hadn't done that experiment in the first place she might have stayed with me." His voice wavered in cracked for a moment and he feigned a cough. "I still remembered her in that damned pit, while I was asleep for all those long years, she haunted my dreams, constantly. I suppose she's gone now, but I never got the chance to make it up to her…" As he trailed off, his face hardened, and a mask of darkness overcame it as he looked down at his knife, which tilted up towards him, as if staring right back.

“Right now, however, the only thing that matters is living up to my name and title.” An evil grin came across his features and, without a twitch of his hand, several machines around the emergency ward began to disassemble and fly some components over to him. Vials of chemicals were emptied and summoned to the arsonist. An empty IV next to Pinkie’s bed plugged itself in and snaked its needled tube over to his arm, channeling a fair amount of dark emerald blood into the bag, which unscrewed itself and flew over to join the rest of the parts in the center of the room. “Pestilence, plague-bringer and first horseman of the apocalypse.” He announced as the parts flew together to form a small square device that attached itself to the wall. Ramona sat and watched the whole process gurgling and squealing before slithering down from her perch and climbing up and latching onto the shoulder of her owner.

“Manehattan’s day has come. And, if I’m not mistaken, yours will too.” He clicked a small button that had been installed on the device and it started churning and clicking softly.

Grinning at a job well done, Pestilence turned to leave, but was halted by one more unfinished act. He walked back over to Pinkie’s bed, knelt down right next to Pinkie's ear and whispered two words, "I'm sorry." With that, he stood up and walked out the door and into the streets of Manehattan.
> Pestilentia (Part 3)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight Sparkle and her four other friends trotted towards the hospital’s exterior, while experiencing, unanimously, a feeling that something was wrong. The hospital’s façade was splattered with a green liquid that slowly spread and seeped into cracks on the side of the building or pooling on the ground. Several gurneys sat outside of the building, emerald-stained white sheets covering the figures lying on the carts.

“What happened?” Asked Fluttershy, finally voicing the question that had been weaving through their minds all day.

“I’m not sure what happened, but I can guess who’s responsible.” Twilight said, stepping forward and reaching out to push the door open before jolting back, started. A viscous green ooze was steadily dripping off the handle. “Oookay ..we might want to find another way to get in…” Just as they were about to look for another entrance, a nurse donning a medical coat and a surgical mask came up and pulled the door open with her gloved hooves.

“I don’t know what you’re here for, but you might want to clear out, this facility is about to go under lockdown.” The friends stared at each other in surprise before Rarity stepped forward.

“A friend of ours is in there…is there any chance you could let us in?” She pulled out the letter and presented it to the masked pony, who gave it a once-over before looking back up to them, her expression unreadable.

“The doctor that sent that to you is dead as of this morning; he came in contact with an infected patient and caught the same thing that’s been floating around since this morning.” A grim look was passed between the companions; they’d witnessed Pinkie’s doctor touching the mark on her forehead.

“Either way, is there any way at all we can visit our friend?” Twilight asked, folding up the letter with her magic and passing it to Rarity.

“What ward is she in?”

“Emergency ward, she wasn’t looking too good last time we saw her and-“ The nurse shook her head and fixed them with a stony look.

“The emergency ward was ground zero. A biological explosive was set off there last night, by morning, every patient was vomiting and coughing, some of the doctors that couldn’t clear out fast enough got infected too.”

“Look, we need to see her, is there any way at all we can get in there?” Twilight asked, struggling to maintain her calm demeanour.

A low voice from aside responded, “Yes, go through a level four decontamination and get into a full biohazard getup.” A pony wearing a black suit with a tinted window briskly trotted over and stood next to the nurse. The suit had the letters ECDC embroidered on the breast in large, blocky white letters.

“The ECDC handle their job very seriously, they’re not about to let a group of fillies risk all of Equestria for a moment with their friend.” Having said their two cents worth, the stallion turned and walked back into the building with the nurse, who threw them an apologetic look over her shoulder before the doors swung shut.
-----

“What’s up with that guy?” Asked Rainbow Dash as the disappointed and concerned friends trotted over to a bench outside the hospital and sat down.

“The Equestrian Center for Disease Control.” Twilight responded staring down at the ground in discomfort.

“Well, ah say we go in anyways! We snuck inta the airship; we should have no problem gettin’ past them too.” Applejack suggested intently watching a few more CDC personnel fly, drag or levitate a couple rows of yellow tape around the building.

“That’s the last thing we want to do. That pony in front was right; we can’t risk an outbreak of this magnitude. It could be catastrophic!” Twilight stole a glance over to the covered bodies on the carts, she noticed Fluttershy was also nervously staring at the morbid scene. 

“And either way, we shouldn’t be running around trying to get sick, even if this doesn’t spread naturally, we’ve still got-“ She was interrupted by a nudging sensation on her front-left hoof and glanced down to see yet another maggot poking her repeatedly. After a few more nudges, once it realized it had been noticed, it stopped and stared up at her. This one had a smiling glare on it; two dots, a frown, and a large open D for the grinning mouth.

“Oh my, those... things certainly seem to like you.” Rarity said as she recoiled from the grub.

“I can’t imagine why.” Twilight sincerely responded, continuing to stare at the maggot, which had now honed in on Rainbow Dash and was watching her as she flew around. It’s little head bobbing back in forth with her flight path.

“I think they’re sort of cute.” Fluttershy announced, scooping it up. “What’s your name little guy?” The maggot simply continued to mock her with its drawn-on face. After a few moments of the stalemate, it started to crawl up the yellow pegasus’s arm, inching along until it squirmed onto her back.

“I swear Fluttershy, if you drop it on me…” Rarity announced, as she was right in the splash zone underneath her friend. The maggot constantly dripped a clear, oozing substance, which Rarity was trying very hard to avoid as the creature trucked across the flying pony’s back.

“I’m not sure why he’s not speaking to me; normally I can get any creature to open up…” The maggot had crawled into her hair and was moving around in circles, pushing strands around and getting its sticky fluid all over her head.

“I think it’s one of his pets.” Twilight suggested, watching the grub writhe and squirm around on her friend’s mane.

“What makes ya say that?” Applejack asked.

“Well, first off his name is Pestilence; secondly, I’ve only seen them wherever he’s been. Where have you ever seen maggots with faces drawn on them?”

“Hey, speaking of which, what happened with your friends last night?” Rainbow Dash asked, hovering over Twilight.

“Oh, not much, we just went over the case.” Twilight ran over a few thoughts in her head before settling on what to say. “I’d like to check on Spike sometime today, he’s probably fine since he wasn’t in the emergency room, but he’ll be in the same building as Pinkie.”

“I guess it’s decided then. We’ll head over to the new hospital as soon as we’re allowed to.” They all nodded in agreement and made plans to meet up at the new address in an hour. 

Fluttershy scooped up the maggot and announced that she was taking him to a vet, much to the chagrin of the others; medical licenses probably didn’t extend to giant grubs. Rarity, Rainbow Dash and Applejack were all going to lunch, but Twilight decided to head back to her hotel room to do what she did best: research.
-----

Once she got back to her room, Twilight Sparkle took out a directory and a map of the town; she looked along the listings until she found what she was looking for, a library. She checked the map for the avenues that went with the listing, then threw on an empty saddlebag and trotted out the door.

Twilight wanted to spend her time thinking as she walked over to the library, but Manehattan seemed to demand all her attention, the large glowing billboards and constantly roving crowds drowning out any of her thoughts before they could even start to form. The city was nowhere near as elegant or refined as Canterlot, but it held its own magic in sheer bustling energy.

There were a more than a few disturbances on her way to the library, however. Her train of thought had been interrupted by the coughing that erupted every now and then a good many times, and more than a few mentions of the word “green” along with some synonyms of the word “sick”. At one point, one of the video billboards filled with static which was quickly replaced by a grotesque black mask that Twilight only caught a glimpse of before seeing the screen fade into static once more.

She quickened her pace slightly, whatever illness Pinkie had, it was spreading quickly. Twilight finally reached the library as she sped down to a calm walk. Immediately after entering she recognized the familiar calming sensation of the nearly-silent and familiar atmosphere of the building.

Feeling the soft carpet on her hooves, the unicorn trotted over to the wood aisles brimming with books. Twilight ambled down a few aisles before stopping at the classification section; after a bit of browsing, she scooped up a copy of Magical Mongrels and Monsters of Equestria along with Residents of Tartarus: Ancient Evils Locked Away. She’d always regarded the second book dubiously. Since no records of the prison had been recorded previously, she’d always suspected this book of speculation and maybe a little falsehood. Which were fine for a fiction book, but absolutely unacceptable for research. The first title had caught her eye due to its alliteration; the young student had always had a soft spot for the little rhymes.

Twilight left the aisle and walked over to a small grouping of chairs in the middle of the library, the first book was barely helpful at all. It listed some very standard-issue threats, hydras, harpies, wyverns, nothing too exotic. Before opening the second book, Twilight walked over to the history aisle and looked for anything that might help.  

Suddenly a restricted section in the back of the library caught her eye, apparently some of the most famous and ominous books of the Canterlot archives had been shipped over for renovations. The locked-off section was probably Twilight’s best bet, but she didn’t like the idea of some of those books. Celestia never let her even look at some of them for her own safety. This used to irk Twilight, what with her fanatic devotion to reading, but when she found a history book on forbidden spellcasting, she found out why some things were better left unread.

Ever since she had read that book, the Canterlot archives were treated by her as a time bomb. She had even taken extra precautions to sneak into the Starswirl the Bearded wing, which she was perfectly allowed to go in, to retrieve a time scroll. Those spells were only to be used by experienced, advanced unicorns due to the potentially universe-shattering consequences that could stem from them. But she had been surprised to find out that both the princess and the guards trusted her enough to use them responsibly, even after the incident of her almost knocking over the central hourglass of the wing in her foalhood.

After quite a bit of hesitation, Twilight walked over to the central desk and showed the librarian her student’s pass. The pony, assuming that Celestia’s student AND an element of harmony could probably handle the books, gladly opened the gate. The bookshelf from the archives sat at the far end, illuminated by a single, dim spotlight. The rows of books that were originally in the restricted section flanked the small shelf at the end, all cloaked by the shadows in the room. Twilight swallowed nervously and walked across the pitch black hallway, feeling a sense of foreboding as she approached the one illuminated spot in the section…

“You know, we have lights.” Said her escort, dully flicking on a switch in the corner and bathing the hallway in brightness. Twilight threw a sheepish look behind her shoulder at the librarian before continuing on her way.

“Alright…I need something to help me with this…hmm, diseases, sickness, Pestilence, green…” She scanned the titles before finding a manila envelope in the corner. She figured it would help her a bit more than anything else and grabbed it in her mouth. Once she had reached a table, Twilight spilled the contents onto it and flipped through the different sheets carefully.

“Ooookay…Document SCP-173, an entire page filled with binary, List of Rare Equestrian Cookie Recipes- heh, maybe when Pinkie recovers...” She continued to leaf through the useless papers until she came across a sheet with four seals adorning the top. Grey and faded, she could only just make out the biohazard symbol, the bone, the sword and the scythe. She looked over the page, which seemed like it had just fluttered through Tartarus; scorch marks, water damage, faded text and old age all adorned the sheet in many areas. She read what she could, straightening out the page and leaning forward to get a better look.

“The four ho----pocalypse, Pe-lence, Fa----,---- --- -----, are --------- se-- -y --cord’s r--” The very few letters she could make out were no help whatsoever, so she consulted the bottom of the page.
“Excerpt from ‘R----tio-s:A--ra de Ap--alipsi’”

After a bit more searching, Twilight finally pulled out one single tome with the same markings that adorned the page, albeit quite a bit more ornate. At the bottom, one more seal stood out in the center. It was shaded over by age, yet the rest of the book was eerily well-preserved. She settled the book on the table and matched up the title of the book to the fragmented recommendation on the sheet.

“Revelations: Aurora de Apocalipsi” The unicorn then turned her attention to the front cover, which she tried to lift, to little avail. After a few more attempts, she called over the librarian, who tried to assist, but also failed. One short scanning spell later, it was revealed that the book had a lock; the librarian expressed empathy and disappointment, but reasoned that it was probably for the best, as the book might contain something dangerous.

Twilight wanted to agree, but found it hard considering everything that was happening outside. The other book on Tartarus classification was full of speculation and incomplete information, of course, any reliable book written on the prison would be sitting in the archives of Canterlot, not in some library sitting in the middle of Manehattan. Twilight thanked the librarian once more and exited the building, heading for the new hospital that was currently housing Pinkie and Spike.
-----

Green. That was the best word to describe her surroundings. Honestly, she had nothing against the color, but after this, she’d probably have a hard time looking at anything even remotely vegetal for a while. Soon enough, the others started to flow into the hospital room in bursts. Everything had gone well for them (Although, as Twilight pointed out, it’s a little hard to mess up eating lunch). Fluttershy mentioned the maggot she had found had been checked out of the vet’s office by its owner, whose face was covered by a mask. He addressed the maggot by the name of “Fitzgerald” and had it gladly handed back to him, as the grub was scaring and slobbering on all the other pets.

The new ward wasn’t as large as the other one, but that might’ve been due to the influx of patients, several beds had just been placed around the waiting room, and every now and then a pile of medical equipment would just be lying there with a patient in a bed taking its place.
Twilight walked in to see a welcome sight; the doctor was patting Pinkie’s shoulder with a comforting smile on his face as she weakly attempted to grin back. As soon as he noticed them come in, he said something in a soft voice to Pinkie and started towards them.

“Hello Dr...?” Twilight trailed off, but the medic waved her greeting off.

“Not right now, come with me outside for a moment, I need to speak to you.” He led them out of the room and into the hall, his smile disappearing as he addressed them. “I’m very sorry to be delivering this message…unfortunately I’ve been doing it quite a lot today.” He gave a heavy sigh before straightening up and locking eyes with them. 

“Your friend is dying, we did everything we could, but you came just in time. We called your hotel rooms but there was no response.” A stunned, depressed silence was exchanged throughout the group before Applejack recovered first and stepped forward.
.
“How much time does she have?” The stenson-clad pony asked, the doctor simply shook his head.

“I don’t think you understand. She doesn’t have any time left at all. You’re lucky you’re able to see her at all…” He trailed off when he saw the looks on their faces and bowed his head. “I’m sorry.” He then pushed the door to the ward open and stepped in, followed by six distraught mares.

“Hey guys!” Pinkie croaked, sitting up before coughing once and lying back. “What’s up with the sad faces, you know that Pinkie Pie only gets better with smiles!” Another grim look was exchanged before Twilight Sparkle put on a painfully fake grin and stepped forward. The others managed to squeak out grins too, but Pinkie’s eyes just narrowed.

“What’s wrong? What did the doctor say?” She asked, scrutinizing all of them.
“Oh, nothing sweetie…” Rarity lied before quickly averting her eyes, playing with her mane.

“I’m dying aren’t I?” Pinkie let out a long sigh and closed for a moment before letting out a small grin. “I know. No need to hide it from me! Besides, you guys were always terrible liars.”

“I-I’m so-o sorry!” Fluttershy said, tears filling her eyes as she drooped in mid-air above the sick pony.

Pinkie silently outstretched her arms with a weak smile, affection from her friends never seemed to fail in making the pony smile. She grabbed all of her friends, holding them in a tight embrace. 

“I don’t mind, really, it’s been a great time.” She looked around and let out another sigh, this one smaller. “I mean sure, I sort of wished that Inkie and Blinkie were here…or my parents…but this is nice too.” By now, silent tears were flowing around several members of the group, some of the more stoic ones attempting to stay straight-faced. A silence set in until a dry-throated Rainbow Dash spoke up.

“Hey Pinks, remember that time we replaced Twilight’s ink with the disappearing stuff?” The pink pony giggled softly and nodded.

“I do. She wrote like, five essays before she even noticed. She thought she was going crazy.”

“Or, what about that time when we tried to make cupcakes together.” Applejack chimed in.

“We almost made the entire town sick, that didn’t go very well.”

“What about the dress you wanted to wear to the Gala? You insisted that I buy an entire bag of candy to put on it.”

“In hindsight, an edible dress sounds like the best idea ever. Try it sometime.”

“Umm, remember the dragon’s cave? When you dressed up in flippers and snorkels to try to make him laugh?”

“I always will...”

Twilight was wordless. her mind flooded with memories of her friend, the time that she had to choose the real Pinkie Pie from the fakes. The time that they broke into the Canterlot archives after she asked the pony for help. When she tried to disprove the Pinkie sense’s existence and ended up being almost killed and subsequently saved by it. Then she remembered; the first pony she met when she came into Ponyville was Pinkie. Sure, no words were exchanged between them, but all the same, that meant so much to her. And seeing that same pony here, lying in bed, surrounded by her friends in her final moments…

“We won’t forget you, ever.” Twilight said, squeezing her friend tighter.

“Oh yeah, guys?” The all nodded to indicate they were listening. “Pestilence has been through a lot, and I know you need to stop him, but…just for me, don’t hate him for what he did.” They all seemed confused by her words, but then she said something else. “He knew Celestia, they used to be friends.” A stony silence passed between the six as they processed this new information. That meant that Celestia had a hoof in all this somehow…

“Guys?” Pinkie asked; they all nodded again, indicating their attention. “Can I have a last laugh? Just for old time’s sake?” The mood level somehow dropped even lower with that last request. But to their surprise, Fluttershy cleared her throat.

“Why did the pony visit the doctor?” Pinkie Pie’s eyes had closed, and she looked fainter than before.

“Why?”

“Because-because she was a little horse.” Fluttershy finished, barely speaking through the coat of tears in her eyes. After a short pause as she processed it, Pinkie started to burst into laughter, which diminished into weak coughs before fading back into a joyful giggle.

“I’ve never heard…that one before.” The others all drearily laughed at the irony as her form seemed to deflate slightly, a small smile sitting on her muzzle.

Twilight moved forward and struggled to say the words that seemed appropriate, but she just couldn’t find them. Instead all she managed to utter through tears was a simple, “Goodbye Pinkie...”
-----

A bright flash appeared behind the five friends after a few seconds of silence. The voice of Princess Celestia came soon afterwards.

“I came as soon as Spike sent me the letter.” The small dragon peeked sheepishly out from behind her legs. “Is she alright? What’s happening?”

“You’re too late.” Twilight said, closing her eyes and stepping away from the bed that held their friend. Celestia bowed her head and spoke up softly.

“May I offer my condolences?” Twilight stopped without turning.
“I don’t care about your condolences princess, Pinkie’s gone.” The other four walked over to her and accompanied her over to the door. Fluttershy turned around and faced the sullen princess.

“I’m sorry your majesty, Twilight’s upset, we all are.”

“Of course I’m upset! It’s because of that THING that Pinkie’s gone! And you had something to do with it…” Twilight spun around and stalked over to the Celestia angrily.

“What are you talking about Twilight? I thought Pinkie Pie was ill?”

“She was, but only because that monster touched her.”

“What monster?” The princess asked concernedly.

“I don’t know…he called himself ‘Pestilence’.” Celestia simply frowned in thought as she reflected on the name. Suddenly, her face took on a very worried look and her eyes darkened.

“Pestilence? They’ve returned?” She walked over to Twilight, who was still glaring at her, and put a motherly hoof on her shoulder. “You must believe me; I am no longer involved in Pestilence’s affairs.”

“But you used to be, right?” Celestia gave a downcast look to the ground.

“Yes.” The others either gasped or nodded sadly, but Twilight remained unchanged to the news. “I think it’s time you learned all about a dark time in Equestria’s past, a time that we tried to erase from history lest it repeat itself again. Come with me, I need to show you something.”

“How do we know you’re not working with Pestilence?” Twilight asked, eying the princess wearily.

“Just come along, I’ll explain a little as we ride.” They left the hospital and the princess summoned a carriage. “The Aquafence hotel please.” She said to the driver, who seemed to be positively flustered at the concept of bringing Princess Celestia anywhere. Celestia turned to the others, who continued to stare at her. Her magic encased the glass slide and pulled it shut before she looked back at the girls.

“Pestilence and his brothers are one of Equestria’s best kept secrets. As you well know, there are stained glass windows for almost every event in Equestrian history on those windows...this includes the darker parts of history as well, such as Discord’s rule. There are several closed off wings behind the castle containing more windows, one of which I’m about to take you to now.

“However, this still needs to remain secret for the time being, and as such, we need an efficient way of getting into the wing. That’s when the Transcendence spell comes in. This spell-”

“-lets you leave your conscious mind and wander the world in the secrecy of your dream or a shared one. You had me study these sort of spells while ago.”

“Correct Twilight, leave the spellcasting up to me, all you’re required to do is listen in and follow instructions.” Once they were in the hotel, the princess brought them up to a large, comfortable-looking room and instructed them all to get comfortable.

Celestia nodded to each of the girls as they lay down on the floor of the hotel. Normally this spell required an average amount of comfort, letting the ponies drift into a deep sleep much more easily, but as six beds were not readily available to them they had to make due. 

Twilight still cast slightly disgruntled, unsure looks in her direction, as did the rest of her friends when they thought the sun goddess wasn't looking. Celestia knew how hard it was to lose somepony and didn't blame them, though she did feel more than a hint of sadness from this absence of faith.

As soon as everypony was settled in, Celestia prepared the spell, first she cast the long-term sleeping spell on herself and her company. After that came the hard part, casting the Transcendence spell while she was completely asleep. She had done it a few times before, but it never seemed to get easier. As it's nearly impossible to cast a complex, focused spell of your choice in your sub-conscious, she found a much more creative method to go about it. 

She channeled magic through her horn, trying to stay on task as she drifted off was difficult, but not impossible. She concentrated her magic and finally released a ball of energy into the air. She took one last look at it before she started to feel sleep creep up on her, along with the others, with one final look at the orb. The sphere of light hovered there sturdily, letting out a very faint magical pulse every now and then, unseen by the comfortably sleeping occupants of the room.
-----

Princess Celestia of Equestria was having a tea party inside her own head. Perhaps there had been a trigger that caused this sort of dream, but she wasn't having too much trouble resisting the urge to dwell on the situation. This was likely due to the amazingly engaging conversation she was having with a stuffed rabbit.

"Alright, how about you? Do you have any stories to tell?" Celestia asked, she had just finished telling a tale involving an underwater camera, a spoon and several beluga whales, the tale had been rewarded with rapturous laughter on her stuffed companion's part. Curiously, all the other stuffed companions of the table didn't even acknowledge their existence, but Celestia paid it no mind. As he struggled to stifle his chuckling, the rabbit shook his head.

"I'm afraid not Celestia, I don't have many stories to tell. Do spells count? There is a fantastic one I happen to know." He paused to take a sip of tea before continuing, having perfectly captured the alicorn's attention. "It's a handy sort of thing, I don't use it often, of course my brother is much better with it-"

"You have a brother?" Celestia asked, incredulous that he hadn't been mentioned previously.

"Er, yes, his name is..." He rifled through several fake names in his head before finding it too difficult and simply waving her off. "Never mind that now." The rabbit said, shifting uncomfortably in his seat for a moment; he had never really been good at lying. "Anyways, this spell allows me to hop along in other people's dreams, quite literally considering my Lapine genus." Celestia had a brief giggle at that, "So I can use it, at the same time since it's a dream I can easily take any form I want and have a nice friendly conversation with anyone I want, isn't that fantastic?"

"That is quite nice. My student, Twilight Sparkle, is very good at magic." Celestia said, sipping her tea in turn.

"Is that so? She’d probably like this spell. Interesting thing is, I can even manipulate what happens along with the dreamer, they don't realize it. Of course, self-awareness isn't exactly the strongest in one's dreams. And even if they do become aware that there's a spoilsport in their imagination, lucidity is no danger. The worst they can do is kill you, and even that just boots you straight out of their head." Celestia stared at the table pensively, the rabbit, thinking he had said too much, abruptly decided to slightly change the subject.

"Speaking of dreaming spells, I heard you can cast a certain one that makes ponies aware that they're dreaming." Celestia nodded, putting down her cup.

"The would be correct, it takes the form of an energy orb the floats in midair, every now and then it monitors heart rate and mental activity to see if the pony's dreaming, if he or she is in a deep enough sleep, it sends out a magical pulse, not enough to wake them up, but enough to make them know they're dreaming." The princess paused and looked ahead at her guest before leaning against her chair in tedium.

"I don’t want to talk about magic anymore, it's boring..." She complained, the rabbit trying very hard not to laugh at the elegant princess whining that she was bored.

"Well then, tell me more about your student, Twilight Sparkle." He said offhandedly, letting go of his teacup and spinning in the air with all of it's contents intact. Princess Celestia paused to gather her thoughts and looked down at her tea.

"Would you like some cake?" The rabbit asked, when she looked up, she noticed that there was indeed a cake, she could have sworn that there was none a second ago, but she must have not noticed it because she was busy speaking to her stuffed animal accomplice.

"Naturally!" The princess responded happily. Her companion picked up a knife from his table setting and scooted the cake closer to cut it. Celestia stared at the knife, it had an ebony handle and a similarly black colored blade, the darker coloring faded into silver with curling wisps around the tip. "That's a nice knife." She commented politely, the rabbit beamed in her direction as he cut the cake.

"Thank you, I did the design myself, it was quite difficult to paint." He took a slice of cake and put it on a plate, levitating it to the princess's side of the table. "You were telling me about your student?" He said, not bothering the other stuffed animals, instead wanting to keep the conversation on track.

"Yes," Celestia said, magically picking up the fork and starting to eat the cake, "Twilight is a wonderful student, she's magically talented and gifted at all forms of education. She can be more than a bit antisocial though, if she didn't have Spike around to push her out of the house, I'd wager she'd stay in there all day."

"That's an awful shame. She seems like a very nice pony." The Rabbit stated, Princess Celestia nodded vigorously through a mouthful of cake.

"She really is! I love speaking to her!" She remarked. "She's almost more talented than me when it comes to magic. Well, that figures, it is her element!"

As soon as the words left her mouth, the Rabbit froze and looked at her quizzically. "You mean you don't wield the elements anymore?"

"Nope, nope, nope! Ever since Lulu left and came back it's been six other ponies." She shook her head to punctuate each nope, the sugar in the cake wasn't doing any good for her listening skills.

"That's...convenient." The Rabbit said, fading into silence for a moment and considering the implications to the sound of very happy dessert-eating from the opposite of the table.

"Speaking of which, has she used the elements recently?" He asked, poking the cake with a fork in distaste. After a few moments of dissecting the cake with his utensil, he noticed Celestia had not answered and looked up. She had been fixedly trying her hardest to eat her cake as quickly as equinely possible and was now turning her full effort trying to feed a slice to the crocodile, mashing the slice against his muzzle, getting cake all over it. Her more sentient table-mate sighed and leaned on his fist, unceremoniously shoving the pile of frosting and mangled cake away. "I never thought I'd be comparing the princess of the sun to an uncooperative six-year old." He said to no one in particular.

By this point, Celestia had apparently figured out that force-feeding cake to a stuffed animal was more than a little fruitless and instead levitated the cake over to her position. When she tried to bring over the exotic blade however, her magic refused to catch and she resorted to pouting and staring at the Rabbit until he conjured another knife and passed it over to her.

"I'm starting to miss the pink one...at least she listened." He said, burying his face in his hands frustratedly.

"Who, Pinkie Pie? I know her! She's one of my student's friends!" Celestia yelled across the table. The Rabbit's ear twitched and he froze, face still plastered to his palms, before very slowly looking up at the princess, who seemed very proud of herself for having remembered who the mare in question was.

"What element is she?" Asked the Rabbit, trying to seem indifferent. The princess was focused on serving cake to the rest of the attendants of the party. Which included a widely-grinning tan crocodile, now smothered in cake, an angry-looking red bear covered in stitches and leaking stuffing. A black raven with thick threading arranged in an X pattern for each of it's eyes, and a dove wearing a blindfold and bearing a trio of stitches on it's chest.

"Who, Pinkie Pie? Laughter." Celestia responded, not even noticing a smile spreading across the rabbit's felt face. Unseen by the pondering Rabbit, a fork on the crow's table-setting was covered in a black aura, then levitated and brought some cake to the bird's beak, which opened and consumed it. Celestia watched this and squealed with delight, clapping her hooves together in amusement and completely tuning out her green companion.

"That means with her gone, I've officially put Equestria's most powerful weapon out of commission..." He said, growing happier by the second and not even paying attention to the most powerful alicorn in Equestria, who was currently trying her best to feed cake to a dove with a fork. A large concentration of magic from somewhere completely nonexistent took the Rabbit by surprise and forced him to tear his attention away from his thoughts and over to the unseen force. He found it and stood up, clearing his throat and making Celestia turn her head.

"I'm sorry Celestia, but I really do have to leave, places to go, people to infect." He pulled a pocket-watch from nowhere and looked at it. "Above all that, I seem to be late for a certain oh-so very important date!" He sighed dramatically and spun his hand, making the watch vanish. "Never a day of rest in the life of a celebrity."

He turned and started to walk away before he abruptly stopped and turned to the disappointed alicorn behind him. "By the way, I had fun, if you ever want to do something like this again, don't hesitate to ask." A large blue wave materialized in the sky behind the Rabbit and made it's way across the landscape at an alarming rate. Just as she was about to warn him about it, the wave stuck him, immediately blowing him back into his chair and settling him back into lifelessness. Disturbed by this, she could only sit and watch as the barrier washed over the rest of the table...
-----

Celestia was very quickly snapped back to reality and reminded of the absurdity her surroundings when the pulse hit. As she looked around, she noticed she was having a rather subdued tea party with several stuffed animals. 

The play things had undoubtedly seen better days, a couple having both eyes missing and a few of the others with stuffing pouring out of holes and a ragtag of stitches. She blinked and looked around in embarrassment, wondering what any of her subjects would think if they knew their ruler dreamt of tea parties with rather rugged dolls. They were all completely inanimate, although she could swear that one green rabbit winked heartily at her then fell back into inaction. Now, more than slightly unsettled, she concentrated on casting the Transcendence spell.

Once she released the buildup, she drew in the five other subconscious minds in the room then let the spell envelope herself, feeling a vacuuming sensation as she was dragged into a controlled area of the dreamscape. 

The first acute sensation was the headache, partly from spell exertion, and partly because being dragged around in a dream befuddles the brain and makes it panic more than a bit. She finally opened her eyes and saw five other ponies looking exactly like she felt, rubbing their heads or horns and looking around confusedly.

It was certainly one of the stranger things Twilight Sparkle had experienced, she materialized about three feet away from...well herself. Another Twilight Sparkle was gently and happily snoozing next to her, as she looked around the room she saw five other figures, her friends and the princess, all similarly asleep. After a bit of not-so clever deduction, she noticed they were still in the same room they fell asleep in, albeit with much more fog, there was a thick haze of it just about everywhere. Her logic was still a bit fuzzy, as was her perception on everything around her, and the arguing didn't help either.

"Aww cabbage-patch ponies, ah was havin' a good dream too."

"About what? Apples?"

"For your information yes."

"You've really got to get a wider mindset, AJ."

Her thoughts shattered by Rainbow Dash and Applejack's squabbling, she tried to focus on the dull throbbing that continued somewhere from behind her horn.

"I'd like to ask all of you to please leave your bodies alone, if you touch them you run the risk of waking yourselves up, and that would pose a problem as we have quite a bit of ground to cover." Princess Celestia said to the others, making a bashful Rarity withdraw her hoof, as it was hovering a few inches away from her unconscious form.

"If you don't mind my asking, where are we going?" Twilight Sparkle asked, not bothering with too many formalities, as she was still more than a little peeved at the princess.

"Canterlot, we have something to see there." Came her answer, just as Twilight opened her mouth to answer, a white flash illuminated her vision and she heard a loud crack. When the student’s vision cleared, the white-wash room was replaced with the ornate decoration of Canterlot Castle. She noticed the fog was still there, and the normally occupied halls were completely empty. Twilight's headache was fading, and she associated the acrid smell and cracking noise as teleportation. Putting two and two together, she then deduced she must have been wrong, not a very common occurrence by her standards.

"Princess, did you bring us here? B-but that's way too far to teleport, even with an advanced spell!" She asked aloud, recovering first, with the rest of her friends still in a bit of a daze from their situation. The purple unicorn looked beside her and noticed the princess's absence but after a bit more investigation, saw the alicorn walking ahead into the mist.

"Try to keep up everypony, this spell is a bit of a chore and can be easily disturbed." Twilight picked up her pace until she was right beside her mentor and restated her concern. "I did use a very advanced long-range teleportation spell, but subconscious minds are much easier to transport and manipulate magically, which is also the reason hypnotic suggestion is done while the subject is asleep." 

She then smiled at her student and looked down kindly, "But I'm sure you already knew that." Twilight looked away, trying to ignore the flattery. As they reached the end of the hall, another figure became apparent in the fog, Twilight faltered and gasped, as did the rest of their entourage, but the princess only marched on.

"That'll be Alexander, he should really stop sleeping while on duty." A note of amusement was apparent in her voice as she walked over to the unicorn, who was, quite literally, asleep standing. He was leaning heavily against his spear, eyes closed and looking completely dead to the world.

"What? Other sleeping ponies are here too?" Rainbow Dash asked, hovering near the comatose guard.

"Well, a bit, look very closely." Celestia said, stopping near her employee to let the others take their time. When they looked more closely, they did indeed notice something. When they entered the Transcendence realm, their current forms and their physical bodies were completely separate. This guard, however, had a slight holographic shimmer to the edge of his body, unlike theirs.

"That's interesting... I'm assuming everypony that falls asleep has a form present here too?" Rarity suggested quizzically, circling the sleeping pony inquisitively.

"Yes, but unless someone is actually using the realm it makes no difference whatsoever."

"Hey Pinkie! Let's wake ‘em up!" Dash said, giggling and hovering over the sentry and leering down at him. "Pinki-" She was about to call for her friend again when she noticed everyone was staring at her, looking like they were teetering on the edge of reminding her something. 

Once she remembered of the empty space in their group, her enthusiasm completely disappeared. Her flight pattern faltered, wings going slightly flaccid as she dropped down a few feet from her previous target who remained blissfully unaware of the disturbance.

The group continued along the tunnel, further into the castle than any of them had gone (save Twilight) before coming to a dead stop on front of a solid wall. The princess lowered her head and placed her horn into a sheath on the wall, which glowed for a second before vanishing, the wall along with it. Instead of the elegant furnishings of Canterlot Castle, there was a tunnel made of earth and rock, craggy walls surrounded them with no noticeable decoration or sign that it had been opened for a very long time.

“Where are we?” Twilight asked, taking a step into the tunnel, the click of her hoof on stone echoed through the tunnel and dust rained down from the ceiling, she instinctively recoiled. “Are you sure it’s safe?”

“Perfectly. At least I’d hope so, this tunnel is hundreds of thousands of years old. It was an extra historical wing for the castle. We placed a great number of stained glass windows in these tunnels, all of them dictating Equestria’s rich history, but we had to close it down...” Celestia walked further into the tunnels, the other five following her. 

“Currently, we are deep within the mountain, we thought that that would be the best place to conceal the tunnel until it was ready to be opened to the public, but we had a change of plans and now the tunnel sits, collecting dust.”

“And spiders...” Rainbow Dash noticed, poking a sleeping arachnid on the tunnel wall.

“It’s always amazing to see the things nature adapts to.” Celestia said, smiling gently and scanning the cavern interestedly. “If you sink a ship it becomes a coral reef, if you close down a tunnel...”

“It becomes a hive full a’ critters, yeah.” Applejack finished, speeding up to avoid a bat dozing off on the ceiling. The princess stopped walking suddenly, lit up her horn and cast a spell somewhere unseen. A bright light abruptly erupted next to them, illuminating a sheet of spiders. The spiders jumped slightly before vanishing into a small puff of smoke. Fluttershy rushed forward and gasped lightly before Celestia spoke softly.

“These creatures simply awoke in the real world, nothing is wrong.” As Fluttershy started to relax she spotted a horrendous stain glass image and gasped from the minor the shock. Leering at them from the left  was a headless figure sitting in a chariot being pulled along by a pony. 

The pony itself was black, with milky white eyes while it’s rider was a pasty pale color. although it was wearing a thick black cloak, they could tell it’s color by the head it was carrying beneath it’s arm. The mouth was pulled back in a ghoulish grin that stretched from one end to the other, the eyes were magically enchanted, so that they darted around constantly, even locking onto some of it’s viewers. The chariot was made of macabre accessories, with spokes made of thigh bones and two skulls with candles on them lighting the way. In his other hand, the creature clutched a whip made of spinal vertebrae with sharpened edges.

“This is the Dullahan, a magical creature we had in out employment for quite a while. He acted as a messenger between cities and was very loyal. One of the quirks of Dullahan however, is their unwillingness to be seen. They’ll often intimidate the viewer-” Another window slowly illuminated, showing the body holding out it’s head, which was vomiting blood onto a pony. “-and might even go so far as to maim them.” Another window lit up, the Dullahan’s spinal-whip dragging across a pony’s eyes, a trail of blood following it. 

“Eventually we had to arrest him for his crimes, but he resisted violently...” The next image showed the head floating into the air, spewing blood, while the body swung around the spinal whip, it’s pony reared up. The Dullahan was surrounded by royal guards, who were looking as stoic as ever. “We finally used the creature’s weakness, gold, to subdue him long enough to bring him to Tartarus, the pony from his chariot escaped, but not before we beheaded it, giving way to the legend of-”

“The headless horse!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed, looking mortified that she had told a true story about a runaway monster to the fillies. Celestia nodded and turned away, the next window blacked out.

“We never finished exhibit, we were going to show the creature’s cell in Tartarus, but...” She continued along the trail without answering, leaving them all wondering what happened down in the prisons that would shake even Celestia herself.

“Here we are...” The princess said, lowering her head and illuminating a mural ahead of them
An image flickered to life, this time interrupting a few bats, who awoke and fluttered off of the barrier a short way before vanishing. The picture shown was an odd one to be sure—bipedal creatures not unlike pestilence were separated into four panes on the image. One pale figure kneeling in a graveyard, one darker-skinned creature in a dead wheat field, the third in a hospital and the final one in a flaming battlefield.
“These are the four horsemen of the apocalypse, one you’ve already met, Pestilence.” She tilted her head towards the fair-skinned one in the hospital. “They were projections, personifications of the suffering that Discord caused all the ponies of Equestria before we took rule. I’m not sure what has become of the other three, but once we’ve managed to re-contain Pestilence I will make certain that they are still detained.”

“What happened to Pestilence to make him all deformed and sick? He looks fine in this picture.” Twilight noted, squinting at the window.

“All in due time, my faithful student.” The second mural lit up, showing a portrait of all four horsemen in the throne room, speaking to Princess Luna. “I was asleep at the time of their arrival, since they came by night. Even though Luna was younger, they were brought to her.” Princess Luna seemed distraught and confused, two of the figures in front of her wore neutral expressions while the other two were laughing and looking irritated in turn. “There was a little bit of conflict, but in the end we solved the important issues.”

The next mural showed the four of them engaging in different activities, Pestilence was examining a brain in a jar, one of the others was wearing a chef’s hat and a happy smile, another was saluting to a line of royal guards, and the final one was reading a spellbook, his extended finger glowing. “They all settled in nicely, we decided to try to get them to earn their cutie marks, as they didn’t appear to have any, but their skills became clear rather quickly. Pestilence had a wonderful talent in biology and medicine, and his brothers had their own specialties…there was a problem though.”

The next picture held nothing good; the darker skinned one was grinning, his mouth and fingers covered in blood. Pestilence was wielding a gore-soaked scalpel and forceps with a glowing syringe clenched in his teeth and a sadistic expression plastered on his face. The third had a sword in his hands, fire floating above his other outstretched palm and a dark scowl on his face, and the final one was standing in the middle of a circle of skeletons and undead ponies.

“It didn’t take long for their powers to corrupt them; we thought that we would be able to control their inherent talent for destruction that they inherited from Discord, but we were wrong…after a while they became too hard to control and ended up only harming themselves.” The next picture showed them terrorizing cities and towns, Pestilence throwing canisters of liquid, his knife following closely. The others swinging a scythe with a legion of the undead, a sword with a trail of smoke and fire behind them or claws with a dried up and dead world to control. “They turned against Equestria and ravaged towns, there were many deaths…”

“How did you finally stop them?” Fluttershy asked, hovering further back from the pictures.

“Follow me, the rest of the windows are ahead.” She walked forward, the tunnel suddenly ending in a large room, half of it was made of the same rock and dirt as the cave before them, but the rest was made of dark grey steel, with a catwalk high above and a large chandelier hanging from the ceiling.

“The pictures are on the side of the chandelier, give the magic a moment to do it’s work… it has been too long since anyone has visited his area of the castle.” Celestia turned around to face the group in front of her. “Do you have any questions?”

“Yes actually.” Rarity stepped forward. “Who were the other three horsemen, and what exactly did they do?”

“Also, why didn’t you just use the elements of harmony against them?” Rainbow Dash piped in.

“Famine,” Came a voice from somewhere above them, echoing throughout the chamber. “War, and Death. I should think it was obvious what they did…” A small metallic clanging followed the phrase, the catwalk above them was suddenly intruded as Pestilence stepped into the dim light that stretched across the room.
---

“Princess Celestia…it’s been a while, a few thousand years if my memory serves me correctly.” His smile turned into a bitter grimace. “And, if I am indeed remembering correctly, our farewell was not pleasant.”

“I did what I had to do Pestilence, nothing more…” The princess returned his glare as they shared a hateful silence for the next few seconds.

“Oh well, I’m willing to let bygones be bygones, you?” The section of the catwalk he was standing in detached and flew down towards them, hovering right in front of the princess. He extended a slick, sticky green hand forward, Celestia reached her hoof for it before taking a beat to think and withdrawing it, remembering the angel’s contagion. Pestilence threw his head back and chuckled, coughing in between fits of laughter. 

“Almost got you there didn’t I?” The catwalk hovered slightly upwards, Pestilence peering over the edge at the crowd below. “Aaah, and here we have the elements, or at least what’s left of them; all of Pinkie Pie’s dear friends. Let’s see here, honesty, loyalty-no wait, kindness, magic for Twilight Sparkle, and-uhh, whatever the others are.” The walkway floated upward back to its proper position. “

So…you’ve rallied the troops, it’s probably for the better. Telling them all the wonderful story of all the good times we had, like how you cut me open, and cursed me, and threw me into a pit…”

“I needed to stop you, it was the best solution we had...you forced our hoof when you assaulted Canterlot.”

“Interesting philosophy princess, for someone who promotes friendship and fair treatment, mutilation and near murder has little effect on you.”
“Don’t be a fool, you know just as well as I do that you were guilty of the slaughter and destruction of hundreds of citizens.” Celestia said in undertone, staring lividly at the angel.

“Princess Celestia…the very symbol of purity and goodness, a veritable goddess among the people, locking up and torturing everyone you deem a criminal, you can’t even protect Equestria’s fair citizens…you’re a failure of a ruler.” He said with an evil grin.

Celestia gritted her teeth and screwed her eyes shut. When she opened them, they shone white, glowing for only a moment before fading back into their regular forms.

“Aww, and here I thought I could get you mad...oh well, I suppose I’m not as good as Famine when it comes to breaking ponies.” He took a beat to think, “Although I suppose the less like Famine you are, the better person you turn out to be.”

“I’m not going to respond to your petty taunts Pestilence. You’ve become a psychopath; a hollow shell of the pony you once were.” The princess stood her ground, glaring up at him.

“Oh, but I’m not a pony, am I?” Pestilence’s expression grew maliceful. “Just a reflection of the evils once inflicted upon Equestria. And you knew it well, so did everyone else. We could never be accepted as citizens of Canterlot because we were never eligible. You stowed us away in the castle, you hated us for the things we did, no one in that damned city ever gave me a second thought.” The malice turned to anger as he leaned over the railing, his face only about a foot from Celestia’s.

“That’s not true...she liked you.” The princess answered. The angel’s expression immediately shifted to one of intense emotional confusion, a storm cloud of feeling playing across his face. “She listened to you, when she wasn’t busy learning from you. You two would talk the day away, careless and happy. She gave you the kindest friendship she had to offer, and how did you repay her?”

“How dare you bring her into this petty feud, she has nothing to do with this.” Pestilence muttered darkly, his catwalk had now reached the top of the chandelier and re-attached itself to the rest of the platform. “Besides, what regrets do I have? I heard you telling everypony here about us, the well-kept secret of ancient history. Well guess what princess, we’re not old news anymore, I’ve heard history repeats itself...I’m sure that’ll be true for our case now, won’t it? Picture this, tomorrow’s headline: “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse”, just like they used to call us after that little coup War pulled.”

“That’s quite enough Pestilence, leave the dreamscape, I only hope you’ll surrender quietly and peacefully.” Celestia said, her horn glowing brightly.

“I liked it better when you were acting like a five-year old...” The angel chuckled, leaning against the banister, ”Not a chance I’m turning myself in, not after what you did to me... why would I anyways? With laughter out of the equation, the elements of harmony are null. You five are useless without your little toys aren’t you? I’m free to take over Equestria, and this time, my rule WON’T end.” Pestilence jumped down from the catwalk, two large, green, feathery wings extending and slowing him down, letting him land softly on the steel floor. The five mares gasped; that explained how he got on the airship.

The angel hummed to himself softly as he landed before starting to sing. 
“‘Bye, bye miss Equestrian pie’...quite a relevant song considering your recent loss is it not?” He glanced over, seeing the horrified and angry expressions directed at him. “Oops, too soon?”

“That’s it...you’re gonna pay for what you did to Pinkie!” Rainbow Dash shouted, going with her ever-consistent plan of charging at the nearest threat. With a flick of Pestilence’s wrist, she pulled a dead stop, her momentum slamming into her as he brought her closer.

“Ah, let’s see... considering how brash you are, I’d guess you’re the ex-element of loyalty. And your name is?”

“My name’s not important, no matter what it is, I’m still gonna kick your flank!” She tugged at the magical barrier, struggling to get free.

“I see...well with that sort of attitude, I don’t see you getting too far in my favor.” He flung his hand over his shoulder casually, tossing Rainbow Dash backward, stumbling her for only a moment before she recovered and flew forward, grazing Pestilence and knocking him off of his balance. “Damn fool!” He shouted, propping himself up on one elbow, “I’m only trying to talk! Besides, trying to kill me in here won’t do you much good.”

“Calm down Rainbow Dash, let’s hear what Pestilence has to say.” Twilight said, nodding at her friend.

“I’m done with talking. After what he did to Pinkie!? No way.” The blue pegasus drew back, ready to charge her adversary once more.

“I agree!” Came a soft voice, Fluttershy flew up next to the other mare and glared at the angel. “We need to stop him...we can’t just speak to him this time, we need to settle Pinkie’s debt.” Rarity and Applejack stepped forward too, and Twilight finally frowned and nodded, crouching down and preparing herself.

“Very well, if it’s a fight you want,” Pestilence cracked his knuckles and extended his wings once more. “Then I’ll be happy to oblige.”

“Girls...calm down, we’re still under the effects of the Transcendence spell, you can’t hurt him.” Celestia called out, standing her ground.

Twilight was torn, seeing Celestia look over firmly but calmly, then seeing the pain her friends were going through from the loss of their bubbly companion. “Princess, I’ve listened to you for a long time, but I can’t let you defend this monster.” Twilight’s horn glowed, “Stay out of this Celestia, now it’s personal.”

“Twilight please...Pestilence has something planned, it’s never that simple!” Celestia shouted, but her student only ignored her. The angel laughed and grinned widely.

“That’s it Twilight Sparkle, why listen to Tia? Where has that ever gotten you? Don’t you want to avenge Pinkie Pie? Or shall her death be in vain?” The taunting finally got to Twilight, who cast a bolt of magic at Pestilence. He deflected it easily against his palm, opening him up to an attack by Rainbow Dash on the side, knocking him off his feet.

“Take that, featherhead!” Rainbow Dash came around for another pass as Pestilence pulled himself up slowly, groaning, only to receive a hoof in the face from Applejack, throwing him backwards. 

Rarity grabbed him in midair and held him still, her horn glowing and summoning a dozen sharp crystal shards, which flew into Pestilence, embedding themselves into his gut. He groaned in pain as green blood poured from the wounds. Earning Rarity a surprised look from the other ponies.

“A little trick from our visit to the crystal empire darlings, I thought it would be useful.” she said, quite proud of herself. Twilight then summoned several purple, holographic spikes, which also embedded themselves into Pestilence, neatly impaling him and forcing him to let out a roar of pain. Celestia flinched in fear of what her student and her friends were doing.

“Please Twilight, you must calm down!” She shouted, her horn grabbing Twilight and pulling her away just as Fluttershy tackled Pestilence to the ground, planting a hoof on his shoulder and pinning him down.

“You monster!” The pegasus shouted, tensing up nervously in her unwillingness to hurt the angel, who gave her sour, bored grin.

“I think that’s quite enough.” Pestilence said, reaching up and placing his hands around Fluttershy’s neck, the others turned away as an audible crack was heard. When they turned back, the pony was gone and the horseman was wiping the blood off of his person, his wounds closing rapidly.

“That was fun! I had the feeling that my stage combat was a little rusty, but I think my reactions were spot-on, don’t you?” The others all stood there, shocked, except for Celestia, who simply looked deflated. “Ahh, stunned by my performance naturally!” A blue blur suddenly shot of nowhere and slammed into Pestilence once more, blowing him back as a magical glow surrounded him and his face met Rarity’s hoof.

“How DARE you do that to poor, poor Fluttershy!” She yelled, slamming the angel against the rock wall.

“You and the rainbow one are both reeeeally starting to grate on my nerves...” Pestilence raised his hand and sent a blast of magic out, blowing Rarity backwards into the soil. “I find it adorable that you’re all trying so hard, really I do, but I need to find something more worthy of my time, like...oh?” He looked over at the large steel door resting at the far side of the room. “That seems interesting enough.” Celestia froze up, her facade breaking for a moment.

“Pestilence, stop.” She commanded, the angel turned around and sneered at the princess.

“Or what? You’ll lecture me to death?” He placed his hand against the door, a green glow surrounding the fingers as he closed his eyes. Suddenly, he was being lifted off of his feet and tugged backwards on the ground. Finding himself looking up at the goddess of the sun, her eyes glowing brightly.

“DON’T FORGET WHO YOU’RE TALKING TO.” Celestia said, her voice magnified and echoing across the chamber, it was the first time the other five had heard her break out the royal Canterlot dialect. “WE ARE THE PRINCESS OF THE SUN, ARE YOU VERY SURE YOU’D LIKE TO TEST US!?” Pestilence faltered, cowering slightly and shuddering before he managed to compose himself, grinning up at the princess.

“Celly...you haven’t changed a bit...all bark and no bite, though I’ll admit, that’s one hell of a bark.” The angel lifted his hand and sent a pulse of magic straight up, a normal pony would have been blasted off of their feet, but the princess stood her ground, a magical aura rooting her to the floor.

“Huh. Well. I suppose you do learn some things in over a thousand years...” Pestilence said, looking baffled that his spell had failed. Celestia, glaring down at him, whisked him out from underneath her and brought him to eye level, a rotten-toothed nervous smile reflecting her frown.

“I’m not here to question your skill, leave this place and come quietly, this is your last chance.” She said, the golden aura gripping the horseman even tighter.

“I don’t think you quite understand your position here.” Pestilence said, his nervousness slowly fading into suave confidence. “I’ll have Equestra in the palm of my hand. Illness and rot everywhere, just like it was always meant to be...”

“And how do you think you can defeat me!? The elements may be gone, but I still stand in your way!” Celestia said, the hateful look refusing to leave her face.

“A princess isn’t much without a kingdom, a kingdom that I’ll take only days to tear out of your grasp...and besides, you’re forgetting that I’m more skilled than you, I’m stronger than you...” Pestilence shot open his mouth, a ball of explosive liquid chemicals flying out toward Celestia’s face, detonating when it hit its mark. 

The princess vanished in a green plume of smoke just like Fluttershy, sending the angel plummeting to the ground. He stood up and brushed himself off, grinning widely at the spot where Celestia stood.

“And I’m smarter than you.” The four ponies remaining in the chamber stood shocked until Pestilence finally looked over at them. 

“Quite a spectacle wasn’t it? Wonderful acting on my part...I do love the theater, I used to go all the time with Famine; his appreciation for the arts was one of the only things we agreed on in between all the bickering..” The stunned looks continued until Pestilence held up his hand in mock humility. “No, no, hold your applause, the show isn’t over just yet.”

“Girls, get ready!” Twilight lowered herself down, horn at the ready as the other three did the same, all primed to fight. Pestilence sighed and frowned at them, tisking as he shook his head slowly.

“You can’t be serious...it’s over! Wake up my little ponies, the world is mine! If Celestia can’t stand in my way, then what makes you think you can?”

“We may not have the elements, but you sure as buck aren’t invincible!” Twilight’s and Rarity’s horns glowed, Rainbow Dash’s wings stretched out and Applejack crouched menacingly, all of them glowering at the angel.

“Fine. Do your worst, but this time, I’ll put a little heart into it...” Pestilence cracked his knuckles and neck before shaking his hands out.

Applejack charged forward, lower legs extended towards Pestilence’s face before an emerald green glow surrounded them, slamming her against the ground before flinging her towards the wall. “I have a certain affinity for telekinesis, you know, levitation and the like-” Applejack vanished with a loud crack as soon as she hit the wall, prompting Rarity to dash forward. 

“-I remember that bet we made with Death back in the day.” Pestilence raised his hand, a large, sharp bar from the scaffolding detached itself and flew down, the sharpened edge piercing through Rarity mid-sprint. She too vanished with the sickening sound of metal tearing through flesh.

“He lost and promised to teach all of us any single magical skill we requested.” Rainbow Dash flew up and over the scaffolding, barely dodging a green explosion that tore apart a section of the metal. As Pestilence was wiping his mouth off, eyes following the rainbow blur, a bolt of energy hit him from behind, knocking him over.

“I chose levitation, since I was best at it. Magic never was a strong suit of mine...” Pestilence gave a deep exhale as he shakily stood up, lobbing another ball of explosive vomit at Twilight, who ran straight towards it before teleporting, reappearing behind him. Pestilence looked around for a moment before he locked eye with her, seeing her spin around, rear legs pulled back.

“Why you clever-” The pair of hooves slammed into the angel, sending him sprawling backwards as Rainbow Dash swooped down, scooping him up and pinning him against the wall high off of the ground.

“What now you feathering murderer?” The pegasus asked, hooves still planted firmly against him. The horseman groaned and locked a disgusted look on the pony holding him.

“Now, I drag you to the ground and pull off each and every one of your blood-feathers veeery slowly before gutting you and dissecting your pretty little-” He was cut off by a blue hoof to the mouth as Rainbow Dash kicked off of him, letting him fall to the floor below.

“That’s enough out of-” Two large green wings shot out of the angel’s back and let him pull up, skimming the ground as he looped around the catwalk brought himself up to Rainbow Dash’s height. “Oh...forgot about that.”

“Oopsie...” Pestilence cooed before grabbing the tip of her tail as she tried to speed away and telekinetically dragging her over, wrapping an arm around her neck. 

Twilight turned away as another crack echoed through the room. When she turned back, only Pestilence was still floating above the catwalk, leering down at her.

“So, I suppose it comes down to this.” Pestilence said, still giving her his jaded grin. Twilight, without responding, raised her horn, which glowed a deep purple before the unicorn vanished into thin air. 

The green figure simply glanced around at the darkened rock and steel of the room as he hovered high above it, the smile never leaving his face. “To be perfectly honest, I’m enjoying myself…like an architect with building blocks placed in front of him, or the doctor mending a simple broken leg-“ He spun around and wrapped a hand around Twilight’s throat as soon as she reappeared. “Sometimes one needs a bit of child’s play.” The world around both figures faded into brightness as both the unicorn and the horseman disappeared together.
-----

A slow beeping echoed across the room as Twilight’s eyes opened, the light above her was immediate and blinding . She became slowly aware of an odd, empty feeling around her midsection, a sort of discomfort that she couldn’t quite put her hoof on. She tried to remember what happened before she woke up… there was...

Her thoughts were interrupted as a large black mask suddenly blocked out the light above her. Two shiny portholes stared down at her as a dark trunk trailed at the height of her vision. “Aaah…so my patient is awake…” The voice echoed slightly, seeming to change tones as it reverberated through her head. The soft hissing of oxygen and a slight murmuring from somewhere she couldn’t see were also grating on her ears. 

“I wanted to speak to you more, but I needed to keep you away from Celestia’s prying hooves.” A single sad-faced maggot crawled onto Twilight’s hoof, slowly squirming into the light and looking up at her dolefully. Besides the bright light shining above her, the room was empty. There was a bit of tile on the ground, but the moment the light ended and the darkness began, she could see nothing.

“W-where am I? What’s going on?” Twilight breathed out, feeling cold and scared.

“You’re in my world, little patient…my tiny world of rot and disgust.” He held his hand out for the maggot, which climbed up it into his palm and curled up. “Isn’t it quality work? I can’t even escape in my dreams…” The angel whispered sadly. He looked down at the tiny grub, cuddling his fingers and purring before his expression twisted into one of disgust and he closed his hand, smashing it against the table as slime poured out from between his fingers.

Twilight looked at the masked figure, then downwards at herself. The nagging sensation that had been bothering her so much became very clear as what she saw shocked her beyond belief. She would have thrown up, but a tube lodged in her throat prevented her from accomplishing that. The purple mare’s belly was cut wide open, her organs fully exposed, some 
missing and some mutilated, inflated and grotesque.

“I keep wishing that a good memory will find its way here…maybe she would come, maybe Celly would come operate with me.” He raised a syringe and slid out the plunger, picking up a bottle and reading the label as he nonchalantly wiped slime off of his hand on Twilight’s coat. 

“Do you have a color preference?” He asked, pulling open a container and pulling out two vials, one green, one purple. When Twilight failed to answer, Pestilence shrugged and poured a small amount of purple liquid into the chamber.

“Either way, this is very serious business indeed.” He stuck the plunger back in and slid his hand into the opening in the pony lying on the operating table. Twilight started whimpering fearfully, trying to lean up and see what he was doing, but Pestilence shushed her and placed a hand on her shoulder, forcing her back down onto the table.

“Don’t worry. I’m a doctor.” She could hear the grin in his voice as he placed a reassuring hand on her hoof and pushed down on the plunger. Twilight felt a cold, thick liquid filling up her lungs, the odd, sloshing sensation and interruption of breathing making her panic. She coughed and a few drops flew out of her mouth, smattering her muzzle. Pestilence wiped them off before pulling the empty syringe out and sitting on a chair next to her.

“Twilight Sparkle…element of magic, student of Celestia…you’re going to do great things someday.” He sighed and placed the needle back onto a small tray. “I’d ask you to consider helping us, but you’re far too loyal to Celly to even consider doing that. Not to mention the whole fiasco with your friend.

“For that matter, I don’t know why you’re still loyal to Celestia, she’s failed you both as a mentor and as a ruler. She’s done everypony you know more harm than good, she’ll let this city fall, and when Equestria follows she’ll be powerless. But when that fateful day comes, do you know what her one regret will be?

“She’ll be standing in the ashes of the world she once ruled, and instead of wishing she’d saved it all, or in place of any thought of reconstruction, she’ll stand alone and lonely, wishing that she had only spent more time with the one pony that was ever really her friend and student...” He stopped moving for a moment and simply stared out into the darkness. “I can guarantee that.”

“That makes you so sure she’ll fail us?” Twilight asked still maintaining an adamant view even as she considered the idea that there might have been a shred of truth of Pestilence’s statement.

“Oh, but my dear, dear Twilight. She already has!” Pestilence then went back to moving equipment around, singing “You Make me Feel so Young” under his breath.

“What do you want me for? Why am I here?” Twilight asked, trying to prevent herself from coughing again. Pestilence sighed and looked down at her.

“Leave Manehattan Twilight...take your friends with you. I’m giving you all one chance.” He snapped on a pair of gloves, making the pony lying on the surgical table wonder if he was elbow-deep in her organs bare-handed while she was knocked out. 

“I don’t want to have to kill you or your friends, but if you stay...” He lifted his hand and the knife flipped up from the table, the eye-like swirl of black at the end of the blade focusing on Twilight.

“We both know I can’t do that.” Twilight said, sounding more confident than she felt. She didn’t know where she was, she obviously should be dead, considering she was currently staring at her intestines; but if she were in a dream-state that would mean she had woken up…

Pestilence sighed once more, leaning against the operation table. “Very well, the choice is yours to make for yourself; though I must I’m not sure if the ‘all-powerful magic of friendship’ will last very long under the pressure of illness and death.”

“What makes you think you can infect everypony in the city?” Twilight shouted over, Pestilence stood up and walked over.

“There sure are a lot of ponies here aren’t there? Cities are havens for plagues. Ponies travel and bring viruses with them, they’ll infect friends or maybe family. It happens all the time, but mostly with something akin to a flu or the common cold. Something like this on the other hoof...here’s a little piece of trivia. The one thing most viruses need to spread efficiently?” He grinned back at her. “A little bit of time.

“Within a week, I can estimate that everyone in this city will be sick or dead, and believe me when I say this Twilight…” He leaned in close to her, his breath heavy on the unicorn’s face. “Today I’ll take Manehattan. Tomorrow, Equestria follows.” He then went back to his work, silently tooling around the mare’s body as she too sat silently.

“Are we in your head?” Twilight asked, a line of purple liquid oozing out of the corner of her mouth, Pestilence nodded, not looking up from his work. “But...I’m dead right now, shouldn’t I be awake?” The angel looked up at her with an expression of mock surprise, picking a pair of dissection scissors up from the table with deliberate slowness.

“Dead? My dear Twilight...” She watched his surprise turn to malice as he lowered the scissors into her cavity. “I wouldn’t let my little patient die on me.” thoughts raced through Twilight’s head as his hand stopped. Pestilence reached over and adjusted a dial and suddenly those thoughts weren't important anymore, it was as if they were problems that she could deal with later.

“By the way Twilight Sparkle, you really should follow Celestia’s advice and get out more...” The purple pony heard and felt a snip, but it sounded far away and unimportant. “Get out. breathe some fresh air.” Her vision started blurring up, Pestilence only a green silhouette above her. “But be careful not to breathe too much.” His voice echoed in her head as she saw the green head give her a wide grin. “We wouldn’t want you to catch something.”
----

Twilight Sparkle opened her eyes, awakening with a jolt. The room was in a frenzy, her friends were scrambling all over the place, speaking to each other and peering out of the window. Celestia was conspicuously absent from the room, only her four friends remaining.

“What’s going on!?” Twilight called over the din,  the room immediately fell silent as Fluttershy went over and quickly hugged the purple mare.

“Oh, thank goodness you’re all right!” She said, pulling away from Twilight. “You wouldn’t wake up and we were all so worried! Well, between that and what’s happening outside...” The other three trotted over and expressed their relief too, but the purple pony had eyes for something else.

“Outside? What’s happening outside?” Twilight asked, giving them a surprised look that contrasted their own grim expressions. The unicorn then trotted over to the wall and pulled the curtains aside magically.

The sky above was a dull gray, a canvas of oppressive clouds covering it. the city below wasn’t in better states. The streets were practically empty, green, viscous stains visible on almost every surface. Carriages were sitting, completely abandoned or tipped over and thin plumes of smoke rose up from different parts in the city. Twilight closed her eyes, listening to the noise of the ambulance and firetruck sirens before stepping back from the windows, Pestilence’s messages all making sense.

“He tricked us, all that in the castle was just a game to keep us from stopping this...where’s the princess?” She asked her friends calmly and evenly without turning around.

“She went away to speak to Spike.” Rarity said, eyeing Twilight worriedly.

“Ah’d recon it’s important enough considerin’ what’s goin’ on outside.”Applejack added, giving the lilac mare a look that mirrored Rarity’s.

“I’ll be right back girls, stay here and stay safe. I’ll alert the ECDC to get us some biohazard equipment.” Twilight said, turning tail and trotting out of the room.

“Twilight, why were you asleep for so long?” Fluttershy asked as Twilight passed her by.

“I was being warned...” She answered, stepping off into the wards further back. Once she found the hall containing strip of beds that she knew Spike was in, Twilight bursted in without hesitation.

She spotted the princess almost immediately. Celestia was hovering over Spike, speaking to him in quiet tones as the unicorn stepped closer.

“I’m only saying it’s a possibility. I can’t allow-” Twilight’s hooves made a hard tap on the tiles and the princess turned around to face her.

“Oh, Twilight, I’m so glad you’re awake.” She said, smiling and walking over to her student. Twilight simply frowned up at her.

“I saw what’s going on outside.” Twilight responded in a dark, calm tone. Celestia bowed her head, not saying anything. Normally Twilight would have apologized sincerely and asked how they could help, but with the elements gone, and the princess powerless to stand up to Pestilence things had changed.

“Please Twilight, I didn’t know what he was doing! if I had I could have prevented-”

“But you didn’t, did you? Pestilence’s distraction worked, the city is slowly tearing itself to shreds. And now, what are you going to do?” Celestia bit her lip slightly, which would have made Twilight laugh at the fact that the princess looked like she was nervous at being scolded by the unicorn if their situation had any laughter left to give. “You heard me, Manehattan is turning to ashes, ponies are dying out there, your kingdom is in danger, and you’re sitting here. Doing absolutely nothing.

“Princess, I’ll ask you once more. what. are. you. going. to. do?” Twilight was practically shouting as she stepped closer, glaring at her mentor.

“Twilight, don’t concern yourself with this, these are political matters.” Celestia said, dignifying herself and turning away. “As you know, I’ve called the Equestrian Center for Disease Control, they’ll be putting the city under lockdown until-”

“WHAT!? That’s the worst possible thing you could be doing! They can’t keep in Pestilence, and you’ll be trapping any healthy ponies inside to get sick and die, or even worse, get hunted down by that...thing!” Celestia turned, irritation visible on her face.

“There are riots all across the city, everypony’s afraid the world is going to end. The Canterlot officials are all pressuring me to take action and Pestilence is still at large. I’ve arranged special exits for you all to get out of the city. You have no part in telling me what to do, my student.”

“I’m not leaving the city! I can’t let you trap innocent ponies here.” Twilight said, standing tall as both mares glared at each other.

“And you think you have the jurisdiction to make that decision?”

“Sometimes I wonder if I should...” Twilight said through gritted teeth.

“Don’t be foolish Twilight Sparkle, you can’t stay here. If you and you friends don’t get ill, Pestilence will kill you all. I’ve seen what he’s capable of, what they’re all capable of.” The stalemate continued, with only icy looks being traded before Twilight lowered her gaze, frowning at the floor.

“Pestilence was right. You can’t rule Equestria, can you?” She looked back up at her teacher, defiance shining in her eyes. “You run away with your favorites, leaving everyone else to rot and die! you’re weak, selfish-” Twilight was interrupted as a golden glow surrounded her and tossed her across the room, past the rows of empty beds and into a pile of equipment with a loud crash. When Celesta spoke, the room shook with her voice, which was magically magnified to several times it’s normal volume.

“HOW DARE YOU SPEAK TO US WITH SUCH INSOLENCE!” The princess’s eyes were glowing brightly and the force constantly blowing her mane intensified, making it flutter behind her wildly in a rainbow of colors. She stared down at Twilight’s form, unable to think straight through the explosion of stress and anger coursing through her. Suddenly, Spike came running across the room, his face filled with tears and threw himself at the alicorn, grabbing onto her leg.

“Princess please! Calm down, stop fighting!” He said through sobs. Twilight shakily stood up from the pile of equipment she was thrown into, a trickle of blood running down her coat. Immediately Celestia’s eyes regained focus and took on a horrified look.

“Twilight- I-I didn’t mean to...” The princess stuttered as the unicorn fixed a pained frown on her.

“-and corrupt.” She turned and started limping slightly as she walked across the room, passing right by Celestia without even looking at her. “Get Spike out of the city.”

“Twilight...” Spike said, looking after the purple mare while she walked towards the exit.

“Good-bye Spike. You be good, all right?” She said over her shoulder as she reached the door. Before she had time to leave though, she felt a pair of small claws wrap around her hind leg and looked back to see the baby dragon looking longingly up at her, fresh tears forming in his eyes.

A purple glow surrounded Spike and lifted him up, brushing away his tears as Twilight drew him close and planted a quick kiss on his forehead. “Let me stay here, with you guys! I can take care of myself...” He said, hugging her neck tightly.

“You know I can’t do that, but just remember that I’ll always have a place for my little assistant.” The purple pony said, smiling down at him as she levitated the dragon once more, giving him a final kiss before placing him on Celestia’s back and walking out of the ward.

As soon as she closed the door behind her, Twilight felt the dam break. Tears started streaming freely down her face and her breath shuddered as she walked down the empty halls of the hospital. When she knew she was getting close to the room her friends were in, she tried composing herself, wiping away her tears and breathing deeply. As the level-headed leader, she had an obligation to stay strong, for Pinkie, and for all of them.

She reached forward and pushed on the door, noticing a fifth azure pony standing alongside her friends and speaking to them happily.

“Trixie!?” Twilight said, staring at the magician as she turned around. Trixie’s face surreptitiously cycled through a few emotions before settling on a happy smile.

“Hello Twilight Sparkle! The great and-- I mean, I’m very glad to see you again!”
-----

Princess Celestia sat in her chariot as it flew over Manehattan, smoke and dreariness still floating out of the city. The small dragon next to her watched it too, and the princess knew what he was thinking, right now, a group of ponies braver and kinder than the both of them were getting ready to do what Celestia herself couldn’t.

The princess knew that if the other horsemen had escaped, she would be a high priority target. And if something happened to her, she had to apologize...she had to repent for her actions, or at the very least, try to.

“Spike?” The purple dragon lifted his head from the side of the chariot to look over at her. “Please take a letter.”