Twilight looked at her friend. Twilight was too young to be his mother, so she saw him more as a little brother of some kind ever since she was hatched. "It's gonna be okay, Spike, Twily's gonna see what's wrong..." Twilight said as Spike lay down on the table in her lab, fidgeting with his new, still-developing wings as she scanned him with her horn. Of all the people that had to go through this, why did it have to be Spike? What she saw, had indeed confirmed her fears. "Spike, I've found out that whatever happened caused your body to *gulp* accept animal matter..."
Spike's eyes widened at this. Suddenly, Pinkie came in and looked at him. "So that's the one who was screaming. I'm not too surprised since you are on a table while Twilight was scanning you. There was no pain in any of the other dragons within the campus grounds, though." Pinkie concluded. Twilight looked at Spike.
"Wait, Pinkie! From what I have heard from you, Spike was the only one affected! I can fix this! Spike said I did not know it was coming and I couldn't stop it from starting, but maybe I can reverse the damage done to him before it affects anyone else!" Twilight said as she grinned. "Come on, Spike. We got testing to do..." she said as she grabbed Spike and got him off the table quietly, the small dragon merely stretching his limbs as he got off the table.
Before he left, he went to Pinkie Pie to whisper something to her. "Between you and me, I have a strong feeling that she is not gonna succeed with whatever she is planning." he told her before being dragged off. "Make sure this doesn't get to anyone in the campus!" Spike was keeping his claws anchored to the crystal walls. "Tell them to keep on teaching, and whatever you do, do not let them outside for a good amount of time until we can figure things out..." he concluded before being finally dragged out of the room. "I believe in you, Pinkie!" Spike said before he disappeared from Pinkie's view as he concluded his speech, leaving the pink mare in the room alone. She tilted her head and shrugged as she walked out of the castle and towards the direction of the School of Friendship, sighing as she went to tend to the students.
"Spike's right. Everybody needs to be cheered up." Pinkie said. "And yes, I admit it, even I need someone to turn my frowny face upside-down sometimes." she said to a nonexistent audience as she hopped around to check for any changes in the students. "Hmm, I wonder what's happening with the kudzu in Manehattan…" Pinkie thought out loud.
She may be at Ponyville, but Pinkie Pie is right, and so was Celestia's letter. The city of Manehattan was normally a pretty clean place, but a new plant has recently been popping up: kudzu. In the United States, kudzu in an invasive species, and is it now one in Equestria as well. The morphological differences are small and few in between, and the American kudzu is derived from four other species. Kudzu has been known to compete with the native flora for light, and acts to block their access to this vital resource by growing over them and shading them with its leaves. Without proper adaptions, the native plants would die in the process. Introduced to America in 1876 to stop erosion, this vine has become an invasive species that would disturb the ecosystems in America, and now, it is doing the same to many different parts of Equis, and since the world of Equis runs manually, there isn't a real 'ecosystem', leaving niches that did not exists yet and were even despised by the animals right for the taking for the species of Earth. You see, this little sucker reproduces via runners that attach to a surface, and it grows very fast. There were few native trees around Manehattan planted around to decorate the streets, but the tall buildings provided the kudzu with enough surface to provide it with even more light. The citizens of the city were in a bit of a panick-attack. In one of the buildings, a mare woke up and opened the blinds, only to see vines on the other side of the window, blocking her view.
Her reaction? "Meh, back to bed..." the pegasus said to herself, thinking it was another crazy dream, but outside of the buildings, ponies were in a panic. Pegasi tried to clean it out, but there was another pest lingering about, and this one wasn't a plant. No, it was an animal that was stopping them. A giant hawk the size of a filly soared above the skies of a land filled with new and unfamiliar prey. Of course, this wasn't his familiar territory, but the new prey around was ripe for the killing and dived straight at the unsuspecting pegasus, but he wasn't the only pest. The pegasus saw the bird of prey coming and punched it in the beak.
"That was the fourth one now!" a light blue pegasus mare with a blond mane said as she saw it plummet down. "I cannot believe these things would eat their fellow birds." she ranted, holding back the urge to throw up. As for the hawk, it soon regained momentum and took flight once again before slamming into a bloody pulp on the ground. It was the same drill every time, and the hawk quickly flew away. Remember that it wasn't the only pest. A group of small, dragon/bat-like pterosaurs came in, the males having bright colors. These were Dimorphodon, and the pegasus immediately hated them more than the hawks because they travel in packs. "Ugh, you again!" she said, recognizing the creatures from before as the ones who ambushed her partner, and now he's in the hospital.
Kudzu wasn't the only plant around. Several different species of bamboo littered the streets, and cleaning ponies came in with axes to cut down the meanace. They were better than the kudzu, as they didn't soil the buildings, but the fact that some of them popped up in the streets was annoying. The moss was also a bit out of place, but it didn't have any negative effects on the buildings, although it would stain them in time. In some of the parks, Haungshan pines appeared. They didn't do much to disturb the tranquility. In fact, some of the ponies even liked them. In the branches of a new oak tree planted in the park, a grey squirrel runs from a walking pony and climbs up the tree, ready get some acorns to store for the winter. In one the Haungshan trees, several bird, namely cardinals, robins, and sparrows perched, however, there was something else lurking in the shadows, ready to interrupt the peace.
Everyone heard a loud roar as a giant cat with light brown fur and a stubby tail pounced in and showed its saber-like teeth for the world to see. That was Smilodon: the saber-toothed tiger. It was a predator in the Last Ice Age before dying off by a combination of a warming climate and humans overhunting it. For over ten thousand years it lay dead, and it now is having a comeback in Equis. "Everypony run!" one of the ponies said as the large cat chased them out of the park.
Meanwhile, on a train, a certain white unicorn with a dark purple mane was riding on a train to Manehattan. "In all terms of honesty, I don't get why they're in such a panic..." Rarity said as she looked at the magazine depicting cute colts on it as she sipped a cup of coffee from the dining car. She was on a business trip, and another pony had substituted as the teacher for generosity while she was gone to check Carousel Boutique's Manehattan Division. Just then, the train stopped.
"Alright, welcome to Manehattan, everypony. I hope nothing out of the ordinary will dull your day." the voice of the conductor said, electing a groan from the white unicorn.
"Ugh, this again. There is no soil for these strange plants to grow here. Granted there might've been an incident involving an animal eating somepony, but in all honesty, I highly doubt it would be that bad..." Rarity said as she exited the train and went through the train station, but gasped in shock at what she saw. Kudzu, a plant nonexistent in Equis, littered the surfaces of some of the tall skyscrapers that made the city. Bamboo that wasn't there before had shot up in some of the sidewalks and streets. She saw a group of ponies cutting them down and putting them in a cart. And when Rarity looked down at her hooves, she jumped backwards and reeled in disgust and the sight of moss. She looked back to see that the train was gone. "Oh my word, what has happened here!" Rarity said before she saw ponies running away.
And no, she wasn't the thing they were scared of. She looked to see the same Smilodon that had been spotted at the park a few minutes ago. It looked at her with hunger in its eyes and pounced. Rarity sighed and charged her horn, engulfing the big cat in a blue aura as he vanished. She just cast a simple teleportation spell on the cat, how else was she able to move her fainting couch from place to place? She just sighed and walked to the nearby office so she can look at the new outfits.
The Smilodon was teleported a few feet into the sky. It looked down to see water, and cats hated water.
But it wasn't that which did it.
It looked down to see a set of jaws as it fell. The Smilodon's life ended at the hands of a giant shark, blood flying everywhere as the Megalodon sank back into the ocean floor, ready to search for yet another meal.