//------------------------------//
// Chapter Three: “C2” 
// Story: Retexo 
// by Xz Hacker 
//------------------------------//

Chapter Three: “C2”
Several months later Dr. Patella came back to ask Applejack for another blood sample.
“Ah don't want to get stuck with a needle again. Aden said that it was nothing, and it would be gone by now.”
“I'm aware, I just can't help but shake the feeling he missed something.”
“Isn't he an expert or something?”
“Please Applejack, I'm only curious.”
“Fine, but this is the last time you get any of my blood.”
Dr. Patella withdrew a sizable amount of blood from Applejack, half because she knew that the alicorn was serious about not letting her get more, and half out of spite for making it so difficult to obtain in the first place.
Dr. Patella went to her lab and looked at some of the sample with a magnification device. She quickly saw that it appeared nothing had changed from the last sample. The same amount of C1 still persisted. Worried, she quickly got Twilight and brought her to her lab.
“What do you make of it Twilight?”
Twilight stared for a long time, not needing to see the image for that long, but needing time to process its implications. “Well doctor, I must say this is unnerving, it appears Dr. Aden was mistaken about C1, as it certainly hasn't gone away as he predicted.”
“Yes, and it appears to not even have decreased in its amount, I'm afraid we may need to confront him with this.”
“First we must speak with Celestia.”
“You go handle that with the princess, I'll go talk with Aden, and get his opinion on this development, then I'll meet you at the castle.”
Twilight went immediately to the castle and sought out Celestia. Celestia listened to what Twilight had to say with careful attention and worry. “Oh my, that is troubling, you said that Patella was going to fetch Aden?”
“I believe so, or at least tell him what we have learned, and ask him his opinion.”
Just then Dr. Patella bolted into the room with a panicked look on her face, “princess terrible news, Dr. Aden has disappeared.”
Celestia looked relatively calm, “how long has he been missing?”
“By the sounds of things, everyone agrees he just left several months ago, right after we visited him with the sample.”
Still calm Celestia ventured, “this must be a coincidence, we destroyed the sample he was using, and he can't possibly replicate C1, could he?”
Dr. Patella settled down a bit, “no, it's nearly impossible to replicate a virus by hand, especially without a model to compare it to, replicating it from memory is unthinkable, he would have to have a sample to work with.”
Twilight jumped a little at a though that had just occurred to her, “Patella, what about the sample he actually had on the slide, what happened to that?”
Dr. Patella's eyes got wide, “we left that with him, he threw it in the trash, he must have taken it back out and took it with him.”
Celestia was looking nervous, but made an attempt to restore calm, “now let us not jump to conclusions, there is still all the possibility that this is merely a coincidence, and that C1 is nothing more than a strong cold virus.”
Dr. Patella looked skeptical, “regardless we need his help with this, if hes not up to no good somewhere, we still need to bring him in to take a second look.”
Celestia nodded, “your right, I'll have the guards on lookout for him, and send an investigation team to try and find him. I'm sure he could not have simply disappeared, surely someone knows where he has gone.”
The next day the guards reported that there were no leads as to the current whereabouts of Dr. Aden, nor any clue as to what prompted his leave. It appeared that no one knew when, where to, or why Dr. Aden had left. Celestia was getting nervous. “I want all guards across Equestria on alert, we need to find him.”
Twilight was worried about the princess. “Princess are you OK, I mean this isn't that big of a problem yet, is it?”
Celestia looked dark, “I'm not sure my student, things seem to have gotten out of hand somewhere along the line, and I need to get things straightened out. Somewhere out there is a doctor that may or may not have a chemical that can turn ponies into alicorns.
Twilight knew she was partially to blame for the sample getting left behind and questioned no further.
In the meantime, Dr. Patella was busily working and reading up on viruses, attempting to see if she could possibly understand anything more about C1. After several hours of work, Twilight came to help. They both spent the next several days analyzing data and reading everything they could get there hoofs on related to viruses.
After much work, the two had finally come to a conclusion. They decided that it was time to speak with Celestia about what they had found. Twilight entered Celestia's chamber followed closely by Dr. Patella. Celestia turned her attention away from a letter she was reading to greet them. “Yes Twilight, what is it?”
Twilight got straight to the point, “for the last several days Dr. Patella and I have been studying the C1 compound and reading up on virology, we have come to three distinct conclusions. The first is that C1 is most definitely the cause of Applejack's becoming an alicorn, two, that there is no possible way that Dr. Aden could have mistaken C1 for a cold virus, and three, that C1 will only affect Applejack's physiology due to the unique way it reacts with DNA.”
Celestia thought for a moment, “so if I understand properly, Dr. Aden knew that C1 caused Applejack to become an alicorn, which is why he took a sample and disappeared, but it can't be used to turn anyone but Applejack into an alicorn?”
Dr. Patella stepped forward, “correct, except for one minor potential issue. There is a distinct possibility that Aden is planing to reverse engineer C1, and attempt to make it work on himself, or others.”
Celestia nodded, “that would explain this,” she said as she levitated the letter she had been reading over to Twilight.

Dear Princess Celestia,

I'm sorry to bother you princess, but you ordered us to report any unusual activity. Recently we came across multiple Pegasus, who claimed that a week prior they had been Earth Ponies. Upon interrogation, and further investigation it appeared that all three were telling the truth, and that other than their new wings, they were the exact same as a week prior.

Reporting from Fillydelphia North Post
Captain R.J.T.

Seeing she was done reading Celestia began talking, “go fetch Applejack, you two and her will need to go the Fillydelphia, and investigate these cases.”
“ME,” Dr. Patella asked, not quite yelling, but not quite staying quiet.
Twilight turned to her, “doctor, you know more about ponies becoming alicorns then anyone else at this point. We will need you.”
Dr. Patella didn't look happy, but she nodded regardless.
Twilight and Dr. Patella went and got Applejack and explained what they had found, and what Celestia had shown them in the letter from Fillydelphia. When they were finished explaining, the three of them went straight to the train station. The train took them directly to  Fillydelphia where they went to the nearby royal guard station to speak with the three, now Pegasus Ponies.
They where all in an interrogation room, although none of them looked entirely uneasy. When Applejack, Twilight, and Dr. Patella walked in, one of them did not hesitate to make his feelings known. “Hey,” he yelled, “I don't know who you think you are keeping us here like this, we ain't done nothing wrong.” The ponies wings were open backward, something that tended to happen to Pegasus  when they were angry.
The other two nodded in agreement but didn't speak. Twilight attempted to calm the angry pony down. “I'm sorry for any inconvenience sir, it's just that you're particular situation is of interest to princess Celestia, and we have been sent to investigate what is happening here.”
The angry pony cocked his head slightly, looking first at Twilight, then at Applejack, and finally at Dr. Patella before he spoke again. “You three don't seem like guard, we have already answered a hundred and one questions, what more do you want from us.”
Dr. Patella pulled out three syringes, “actually blood samples, I need to test your blood for C1.”
“C1 whats that,” the male asked as Twilight shot Dr. Patella a look. Twilight shook her head and answered, “I'm sorry that information is protected by royal decree.”
The man grumbled slightly and then held out his leg, “make it quick.” The two females followed his lead and held out their legs as well.
When Dr. Patella withdrew his blood he winced slightly. Applejack noticed and asked “are you OK?”
He smiled and laughed slightly, “can't be as bad as these stupid wings coming in, hurt like you wouldn't believe.” The two females mumbled in agreement. Applejack nodded, “you don't need to tell me, they hurt me somethin fierce too.”
The man once again cocked his head and looked at Applejack curiously, “you mean you had some of whatever this stuff the docs testing for and it gave you wings too? Where you a Unicorn?”
Twilight jumped between them, “I'm sorry that information is...” Twilight was interrupted by Applejack putting her hoof in front of Twilight's mouth. “Now hold on a sec sugar cube, he deserves the truth, I was a normal Earth Pony, then the stuff she's testing for turned me into this. Some fella named Dr. Aden took some of my blood, and we think he is tryin to use it ta turn ponies or himself into alicorns like me.”
“I appreciate the honesty, all right you scratched my back, I'll scratch yours. The guy who gave us this stuff didn't go by Dr. Aden, said he was Dr. Nade.”
Twilight almost laughed, “hes using an anagram, that's a little cliche.”
The man continued, “he told us that he could fix us up with a new drug he was testing, said he could fix my back aches, told those two it would help them with their acne.” The two shy teenagers nodded.
Dr. Patella finished drawing the blood from the last of them and looked up, “got a little more than you bargained for by the sounds of it.”
“Your telling me, these things hurt a lot, took a full week to come in.”
“A week,” Dr. Patella asked curiously, “Twilight, how long after initial healing did it take Applejack to develop first signs of wings?”
Twilight stopped and thought for a moment, “over two weeks for certain, wouldn't you say Applejack.”
“Sounds bout right,” Applejack said, not actually giving it much thought.
Dr. Patella thought deeply for several seconds, “well there is no way to tell what to do without analyzing these blood samples, so I'll head off to the nearby hospital. This city's big enough to have a lab there.”
Twilight nodded, “I'll join you.” They both began walking out when Twilight noticed Applejack wasn't following, “Applejack are you coming?”
Applejack shook her head, “you two go on, I'ma stay here and help these three with their new wings, ah'm the only one who knows what they are going through. It would only be right to help them figure this out.”
Twilight didn't look very happy with the idea, but nodded and said, “alright, we will be back as soon as we are finished at the lab, don't wander off. This will only take a few hours at the most.”
Applejack then spent the next few hours teaching the new Pegasus about how to control their wings, how to fly in general, and even managed to show them a few tips on how to increase speed she picked up from Rainbow Dash before Twilight and Dr. Patella came back.
Twilight looked worried, and as soon as she saw Applejack, began to inform her of why, “Oh this is bad, we looked at those samples and found that Aden has been doing some serious work at unraveling how they work. Other than being Earth Ponies, those three had nearly nothing in common with you. He managed to isolate the part of C1 that gave you wings, an make it affect any Earth Pony.”
Dr. Patella stepped in, “on top of that, this C2 seems to be almost triple the speed of C1.”
Applejack and Twilight stared, Dr. Patella looked at them for a second before realizing why they were staring, “what, it only makes sense to call it C2.”
Twilight sighed, “there isn't anything we can do here. The guards have already looked in all the areas Dr. 'Nade' was reported being in, so for now we will just have to report back to Celestia what we found and wait for the night.”
“We can't go back to Canterlot,” Dr. Patella asked almost whining.
Twilight shook her head, “I'm afraid not,  Fillydelphia is closer to most other major cities, and we know that wherever Dr. Aden went it was from here, so we need to stay here until we can find where to go to next. Celestia has already prepared us a place to stay at a nearby hotel in case we could not find any immediate leads to go on. W'e will stay there until Celestia says otherwise.”
Dr. Patella's head drooped, “fine...”