The hospital was full of ponies and a few humans, and each and every one needed something, obviously. From the blocked entrances to the filled hallways, one could wonder what the seven-story tall building could have that made it so special. However, amidst the bickering and talking, a human on a rolling hospital bed had several apparel on him with several doctors trying to stabilize his condition as they rolled towards the emergency room.. He was shot in several dangerous places, and he was bleeding both red and purple.
"Celestiadamnit! Stabilize him! He won't have long."
"I've been applying pressure and extracting the bullets, doc! No need to get all pissy."
"Shut up and pass me a blood packet."
"Here."
"What is he bleeding? It looks like blood and...some weird purple thing. Do all humans have this?" a dimwitted nurse asked as she followed the bed.
"No, you half-beaten mule." Gill forced himself to say through the air-mask.
"It's the pony potion." Heart said with a very worried look on her face.
The entire crew stopped in their tracks, endangering Gill for a few seconds, but got back to theirselves and continued to ER.
"B-but...that's not-"
"I know. We've been over it a few times already."
"Wow. We need to analyze him to see how he isn't affected by the potion."
"We already found somepony who could help."
Gill exhaled a bit of air as he mocked the word the purple unicorn used.
"You're dying and still find the energy to mock me."
Gill shrugged weakly in response.
"So, miss...?"
"Heart Drop."
"Yes. Well. What is the name of this fellow? Perhaps he could enlighten us on the situation." The doctor said.
He wore a green coat as well as strange glasses that hid his eyes. He was a pale orange, but had a hot pink mane and tail that seemed light and frothy.
"His name is Chocolate Dip. He lives at the cherry boulevard in house two thirty-five."
Gill looked up, weakly, in surprise.
"Yes. I have a great memory." the mare flaunted her own ego.
"Then we'll call him. As for you, you'll have to stay in the waiting room. Perhaps this 'Chocolate Dip' will manage to bring light to this mystery of resistance."
It had been several hours that Gill was in the emergency room. Even though she just met him, and he provided with some...special events to participate in, Heart couldn't help but feel pity for a man long past his own time. The room she was in was very large, housing, easily, two hundred ponies, if not for all the equipment and chairs everywhere. It was a nasty looking vanilla colored room, but it got the job done. As Heart continued to think to herself, allowing her tail to sway gently back and forth, a brown pony with a dark brown mane and tail had just entered. Even his eyes were brown, although a more "bronze" color by comparison. He looked around nervously, then continued to one of the receptionists. Heart overheard him asking where a certain Gill Tammerheight was, so she bounced up and initiated communication protocols:
"Excuse me, sir, but are you Chocolate Dip?"
"Yes. I am." he said as he turned around. "Why? Who might you be?"
"Heart Drop. Your friend is in the emergency room."
"What?!" he started to show symptoms of chronic depression.
"About that. He is no longer in ER. He was recently moved to room fifty-three. It's near the ER. Just ask the doctors."
"Oh. Okay. Thank you." His heartbeat obviously went down by the looks of it.
"I'll get you to the ER, where Gill is."
"Alright. Let's go."
Along the way, a few questions wracked Chocolate's thoughts, so he had to lay them to rest.
"So...how do you know Gill?"
"Let's just say that he dragged me into a situation that I don't like."
"Yeah. He doesn't really think things through."
"So I noticed."
"And what about his prescence here. When did he wake up and what happened to him?"
"He told me that he woke up, two or three days ago. I dunno. As for why he is in the emergency hospital room, he got shot by the PER."
"What? They didn't use the potion this time?"
"Uhhh...I'll let you see for yourself." Heart got the shifty-eye syndrome.
"Oh...then I'll have to comfort him in his new form?"
"About that...ah! Excuse me doctor."
"MMyyeeesssss?"
"Woah. Creepy. Where is room fifty-three?"
"Down the haaaaaallllll to the riiiiiiight."
"O...kaaaay. Thank you."
"Any tiiiiiiime."
Shaking their heads, the duo of ponies did as told, avoiding the few humans and ponies attached to the medical staffs used to keep the bags full of water and other medical necessities upright. There it was, finally. A white door with a black thirty-five etched on it. They slowly opened it, only to see that Gill was irritated by the doctors trying to figure out what was wrong with his blood. The room wasn't much. A bed. Two windows on the right, and a bathroom near the entrance. One of the two doctors noticed the ponies entering and immediately ran towards them. She had a type of blue afro, despite being jungle green.
"Excuse me, but unless you're Chocolate Dip, you cannot enter."
"Then I can pass. MOVE ASIDE!"
The mare immediately jumped away at the yell of the earth pony. Gill smiled.
"I know that voice. It's loud-mouth smithy!"
"Don't call me that."
"SMITHY!" Gill insisted as he stood upright with a huge smile, only to look emotionless after seeing how small his friend got. "Oh. So, chocolate chip cookie, how have you been? You look old."
"It's Chocolate Dip, and of course I look old! I'm fifty! But look what happened to you, and what's with your blood. What is that purple stuff. It looks vaguely familiar."
"It should." the afro doctor replied. "That is ponyfication potion."
Chocolate just stared at the blood that was a mixture of red and purple.
"What?"
"You heard me."
"So you called me here to run ome tests on him?"
"Yes."
"Then I need several samples of his blood, and a laboratory to work at. My syringue cutie-mark isn't just for show."
The doctors showed him the way to the lab while the nurses tended to Gill. Once again, a long period of waiting had occured. It was pretty much night now, letting the stars twinkle in sparkle in all their beauty and glory...which certainly meant that most were dead for several years now. Not so stunning now, are they? Chocolate Dip came back inside Gill's room, where he had fallen asleep with Heart on his stomach. They were both snoring...loudly.
"Wake up." the earth pony said as he slammed his documents on the nearby small table, scaring the two awake.
Gill just stared at Heart in an irritated manner.
"Why are you lying down on my stomach?"
"..."
"Besides your sleeping shares, get what I discovered, Gill."
"Time travel?"
"Even if, you'd still have to deal with what we dealt with while you were asleep. No. It's about your immunity."
"What about it?"
"It seems that the products that we used to freeze your body, and keep your cells from degenerating, slowly seeped into said cells and, somehow, 'froze' them as well. We had never expected an error to occur, so we couldn't have dealt with that."
"You mean, I'm like Captain America."
"You and your comics. Shouldn't you be 'Captain England'?"
"That sounds more logical. So I won't age?"
"Not externally, but you will still age and die eventually."
"Cool. Eternal youth!"
"Not cool. Even if you're face doesn't change, you'll still get the symptoms of an old man."
"Oh." Gill dropped his arms from their heighten perch.
"Yeah. However, there is something else. Even if your cells froze, you sould still be affected by the potion. I mean, after all, it's magical, so it should have unfrozen your cells and morphed both your appearance and dna."
"What are you saying?"
"I left the lab ten years before I learned of the attack on there, and I knew that our friends were going to use the AI to watch over you. I wonder if it didn't use alternative methods of conservation, such as molecular restructuring, or nerve route coverings."
"How would covering the nerves help me?"
"I'm just spewing out nonsense here."
"Ah."
"So you're suggesting that you should both go back to the facility?"
"Yes."
"But...Gill. Didn't you flee because the PER were there?"
"Ya. I know the way, but my truck is all destroyed, and it would take days to walk there."
"Hmph."Chocolate smugly lift his nose.
"What?"
"While I was still human, I learned from my mother about engineering work. Yes. My mother. My father was the nerd, and my mother was the brute. I think I'll be able to help you with fixing your truck, if it isn't too banged up. We'll have to deal with you waiting here for the time being. The doctors need to check that everything else is in order, then you can leave."
"Ugh. Fine."
The three finished up their little meeting by speaking of more personal things until the doctor came in to take the two guests away. Gill sighed to himself and went back to thinking about how he would live in this world.
In a gravelly roadway in the clouded and humid countryside, layed the corpses of brutally beaten PER members. Another thump upon Gaia's skin indicated tht another had perished. This one had its horn broken off and shoved somewhere else in the head.
The last pony remaining was being held aloft by a single arm of Snowman. This black and red pony was bruised up horribly, and his wings were all mangled and shattered. As he gasped and panted for air, the soul-destroying eyes of the big boss stared at him.
"So, why did you shoot at all those humans in the street?"
"T-to purify the Earth."
"Wrong answer!" the pony was punched in the face with a rather sized stone. "What else do you have planned?"
"That is our business...not...not yours."
"Tasers."
"W-wait!"
The two other humans were already letting the cow-prods crackle like thunder as the eyes of the beaten pony just stared at said objects.
"We...we were..."
"Tell me, and you won't die slowly and painfully anymore."
"Okay. There's a hospital in the city, Seltzer's Peak. We we're going to find all the human patients and inject them with the potion, right into the medical packets."
Snowman dropped the beatn pony on the ground, who wailed in pain. Quickly and quietly, the humans turned around and walked away. Watching these fearsome beings, the stallion dragged himself away from them using his only non-broken leg. As the humans walked down the steep, gravely path sided by dead trees, Snowman stopped suddenly.
"Ah. Hold on." he said as he took out his gun and loaded it with a pull-back.
A loud bang echoed through the death-ridden air, and the stallion was dead. A shot to the head despite the distance.
"I said that he wouldn't die slowly and painfully. I keep my promises."
"That's harsh, boss. So, do we go to the hospital?"
"What choice do we have? Hurry up."