A white and feverish mess consumed her, she tried to reach out into the sky but no matter how far she reached, how far she flew, she always ended up falling away. What was happening? Was that the sun in the sky? It shined with all the colors of the rainbow and more.
Purple. Orange. Yellow. Pink. White. Blue. Stars in each color swarmed the sky and she—who was she anyways? What was she doing? What was going on here?
Something crawled along now from the edge of the whiteness. Something cold in nature but hot and painful in feeling. A murky green bubbling mass, it came forth to consume the lights and stars. One by one the stars succumbed to the green, things growing dimmer by the second as its onslaught continued. Like ravaging vines growing at the speed of fire it grew outwards trying to grasp and swallow up all. Soon there was no more purple, and all the other colors disappeared as well until only blue remained. The green tried to swallow it up too like all the rest but the blue fought against it, not giving an inch.
How long was it like that? Minutes? Hours? Days? Months? Years?
Time no longer existed in this chaotic light show where she didn’t feel or understand.
The green continued to persist in its goal of devouring all, but for every little wisp of it that attacked the blue, another part was beaten back. But the blue was painfully unable to make any progress either, it was a deadlock.
She wanted to help, she wanted to fight too, but she couldn’t move. She didn’t know how to do anything. Opening her mouth to scream only for nothing to come from it. Was she already consumed? Nothing more than a helpless watcher locked in agony and nothingness? She thought chaos was the word for her situation but things were too stable, too controlled, she was between chaos and harmony.
She kept trying to fly and speak but it was all pointless.
Voices. Words.
While she could do nothing she suddenly felt the sensations coming from others. Voices and sounds she didn’t recognize came from all over. What were they saying? What was going on? The blue light grew brighter and brighter as the voices continued, bright like the sun and more white light shined down with it against the green. The deadlock was broken and the vicious green started to fall away, disintegrating into nothingness.
The other lights and colors came back, joined by the pure white light that colored the entire world. Pain, fuzziness, confusion, green, all these things started to leave her—Rainbow Dash—and a calm serenity settled over the space of her mind.
A smile. She was smiling. On the inside if not the outside. There was no more pain or fear, she wasn’t alone and she remembered.
She remembered… what?
She was… something. Someone. A part of something. There was more, Rainbow Dash was sure of it, but the lights began to fade and Rainbow Dash fell again, her mind falling with her…
“I told you she was waking up,” the voice of a mare said.
“Miraculous. Simply miraculous,” a stallion said.
“This shouldn’t be happening at all, should it?” A different stallion said.
“No—she should be dead. Or at the very least still sick and infected. But as you can see...” the mare said.
“Is it because she’s a pegasus?” The first stallion wondered.
“Who knows?” The mare said. “Without any other pegasi for us to see their reaction to the spores it’s impossible to tell.”
“Could you all...” Rainbow Dash suddenly said, her eyes tightly shut as she shifted about in what felt like a bed to her. “Could you all be quiet for a second? I think I just got thrown into a tornado...” Her eyelids were heavy like metal and she was barely able to open them, the light from above making her wince. Everything was still a blur.
“If you’re awake and cognizant, could you tell us how you feel?” The mare asked, ignoring Rainbow Dash’s plea for the moment.
Rainbow Dash frowned and blinked a few more times, fully opening her eyes to get a look at where she was and who were the ponies talking to her. Three masked, white-coat wearing ponies looking down at her told her pretty much all she needed to know. Another hospital. She shifted about on her bed and sat up a little, feeling a twinge in her right front leg and looking down to see an IV drip connected to a vein, along with another bandage near it.
“Oh great, what happened to me now?” Rainbow Dash asked.
“Well you seem alright at first glance,” the mare doctor said and held up a hoof. “How many hooves am I holding up?”
“One. What are you, a comedian?” Rainbow Dash snorted.
The mare rolled her eyes. “A healthy sense of humor at least.”
“What’s the last thing you remember?” One of the stallions asked her, the first one that had spoken, a fairly older looking one judging by the wrinkles Rainbow Dash could see on his face.
“I...” Rainbow Dash held her head. “I was flying… and then. Green clouds. Yeah… I flew into this green cloud and I started coughing and I couldn’t breathe and then… nothing.”
“So you really did fly right through the epicenter,” the mare said.
“Epi-what?” Rainbow Dash frowned. “And where am I now anyways?”
“You’re in the village of Pinetree Warren,” the second stallion said, he was more around the mare’s age by the look of his eyes.
Rainbow Dash blinked. “Oh. Good. I was looking for this place anyways.”
“You probably found more than what you were looking for though,” the mare said. “Obviously you didn’t know about the plague or you would’ve steered clear of here. Are you from the Weeping Mountain? What’s your name?”
This time Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “Ugh, no, I’m not from the Weeping Mountain. I’m from a country called Equestria that’s way far away from here—and my name’s Rainbow Dash. Don’t wear it out.”
“A pleasure to meet you for real, Rainbow Dash,” the older stallion said. “I am Doctor Swab.” He gestured to the mare. “This is Doctor Anathema, and this-” he gestured to the other stallion. “Is a volunteer helping us by the name of Walnut Grove.”
“Nice to meet… you...” Rainbow Dash trailed off as she finally looked around her bed and noticed what else was around her. Other beds of ponies, but they all looked… wrong. They were covered in green blotches and all of them looked to either be writhing in pain or having trouble breathing. Rainbow Dash remembered some more of what happened to her before she passed out, the same kind of green mold had started to claim her body. Her eyes shot open and she looked down to double check her hooves, then threw the covers off herself to check the rest of her body.
Blue. Just like it should be.
“You don’t have to worry about that. We’ve been keeping an eye on you. Unlike the other ponies here you aren’t infected at all anymore,” Doctor Anathema said.
“Good...” Rainbow Dash sighed in relief and laid her head back.
“You have however been asleep for the past three days.”
Rainbow’s head shot back up and she stared at the doctor. “Seriously?”
Anathema nodded. “Seriously.”
“Your symptoms died down fairly quickly by the time we had you in bed here, but your body still needed rest,” Doctor Swab said. “I apologize that we couldn’t put you anywhere else but we couldn’t take the risk of you potentially infecting others until we were absolutely sure you not only weren’t sick but also weren’t carrying any spores on you. And as long as you don’t have any direct contact there shouldn’t be a danger of you being here with the other patients.”
“Considering she’s already been infected and recovered isn’t she immune anyways?” Walnut Grove asked.
Doctor Swab and Anathema both shared uncertain looks.
“Let’s not jump to conclusions on that,” Doctor Swab said. “We would need to run more tests first.”
That word caught Rainbow Dash’s ears. “More tests?” She raised an eyebrow.
“Forgive us,” Doctor Anathema said, taking over. “But we had to draw some blood and take it back to our lab. Obviously we couldn’t ask for your permission first, but our intentions were only to help you. We needed to know your type among other things in case of a transfusion or any other complications. Aside from that we haven’t down anything untowards to your body. We’re doctors. We would not do something like that without your knowledge and consent… no matter the situation.” A twitch in Doctor Anathema’s voice betrayed some other feelings on the subject.
Rainbow Dash ignored that and shrugged as best she could from where she was. “No big deal. Honestly I’m kind of surprised I haven’t had more crazy tests run on me in my life, what with who my friend is. But uh, anyways, thanks for bringing me here and helping me out. You found me out in the forest or something?”
“A pony from our village called Honey Sight saw you fly into the epicenter of the spore field plaguing our village,” Doctor Anathema said. “We found you and brought you back here, thankfully you seemed to have been able to make it out of the actual field, you were no longer in direct contact with the spores and fungus so it wasn’t too dangerous for us to get you. Although by the time we had started to wheel you back here, you were already healing and fighting off the disease on your own.”
“Guess I’m just awesome like that, but thanks anyways,” Rainbow said.
“It’s not that simple,” Anathema narrowed her eyes, a touch of anger in her voice. “Look around you. All of these ponies here have been infected by the spores, and quite a few before them who… who have already passed away. None of them show any signs of recovery like you. And not one of them was exposed to such a concentrated amount and over so much time as you. So why are you magically okay when all of our medical knowledge has done nothing for these ponies!”
She finished with a yell, startling both herself and the others.
“Doctor...” Walnut Grove said.
Rainbow Dash grimaced slightly as well. “Sorry, but I don’t know why I’m okay and-” she looked around at the sick ponies, the sick foals. “And your villagers aren’t...”
Anathema sighed and turned away. “I’m sorry, I just need a moment.”
“Don’t let her current mood bother you,” Doctor Swab said to Rainbow Dash. “Doctor Anathema was the reason we found and brought you to safety in the first place, and she’s been the most involved with your recovery. It’s just that seeing you become healthy again when all her efforts to help her fellow villagers have failed...”
“I get it,” Rainbow Dash rubbed the back of her head, the motion made slightly awkward by the IV. “Uhhh, can I get this thing taken out of me? I don’t like needles.”
“Well truthfully we do think you’re totally healthy but I’d like to run another checkup on you to be sure. After that I think all that would need to be done is disinfecting you to make sure there are no traces of the spores or fungus on your body. Then you can be out of here,” Doctor Swab said.
“I’m not entirely onboard with that,” Doctor Anathema said, turning back around. “She could potentially be carrying the disease, without some more tests I think it’s grossly negligent to let her go on her way. She could spread the disease to the rest of the village and beyond.”
“But Doctor we can tell just by-” Doctor Swab started.
“I’m not satisfied with that,” Anathema narrowed her eyes.
“Uhh,” Rainbow Dash raised her hoof and the others looked at her. “Look, I don’t like being stuck here but I also don’t want to put any ponies in danger. I couldn’t live with myself if I infected ponies with this stuff. So you guys… you just do what you need to do. Whatever tests you need to run, or whatever samples you need, whatever you need to know about me, let’s do it. Especially if it might help the other sick ponies here.”
Doctor Anathema looked at her appraisingly and after a moment gave her a small nod. “Thank you.”
“But can you at least tell me how this all started in the first place? Where did that plague come from? And why are you all still even here if it’s that dangerous?” Rainbow Dash asked.
“It just showed up one day,” Doctor Anathema snorted and gestured to the north side of the building. “That green haze popped up in the forest, ponies went to investigate, and now we’ve got all this.” She shook her head and looked around at all the beds. “We still aren’t even sure what the epicenter totally looks like because no one can get close enough. At more concentrated levels the spores eat through our suits and rubber gloves and make just about as much short work of our bodies. So whatever’s truly causing this is unknown to us. Perhaps something emerged from underground or some plant mutated, who even knows.”
“Leaving did come up,” Doctor Swab interjected. “But there were a few reasons why we didn’t. For one we didn’t know just how serious and long lasting this plague would be, nor that we would be totally unable to cure it. Two is that this is an old, close-knit, village with a lot of stubborn folk in it who would never leave unless they were forced to. And three is that since we were unable to fully break the enigma of the disease, we couldn’t take the risk of potentially becoming carriers for it and allowing it to travel further. Although after more stringent tests and safety measures we’ve made sure that a lack of visual symptoms is proof enough for not carrying the virus, and it’s next to impossible to spread without direct contact with the spores in the first place, to do that-”
“She gets it, Swab. Look at her, she’s going cross-eyed,” Anathema said.
It was true, he was starting to go a bit textbooky for her tastes. “Sorry.”
“And while we can be 99% sure that you’re not carrying the disease with you, because of your unique case I don’t want to rule it out completely without more tests and observation,” Doctor Anathema said to Rainbow.
“Like I said, that’s cool with me,” Rainbow shrugged.
“Unfortunately it involves needles,” Anathema narrowed her eyes.
Rainbow Dash paled and gulped. “A-Any way around that?”
“No.”
“Before any of those tests though we’d like to know your complete medical history,” Doctor Swab said. “Obviously without your records we’re working blind here, so anything and everything you know would be helpful. Every time you’ve been sick, every disease you’ve had, every broken bone. Everything. The more you can tell us, the easier and faster this will be.”
Doctor Anathema glanced at Walnut Grove. “You can attend to the other patients now, we won’t be needing you while we talk with Rainbow Dash, thank you.”
“Of course, Doctor,” Walnut Grove said. Rainbow Dash couldn’t tell for sure because of the mask but she thought he smiled at her as he left to check up on the other patients.
Anathema took a deep breath and walked up by Rainbow Dash’s pillow. “Now we have a lot to talk about, and—unfortunately—quite a lot of work to do.”
Rainbow Dash groaned and looked up at the ceiling. “Oh goody… so where should I start?”
For the next two days, Rainbow Dash was held up in the auditorium as a series of tests were run on her. More blood tests, analyses of tissue samples and mane hair, her reaction to medicine, and of course the usual routine checkups and physicals done to make sure a pony is fit and healthy. The tests served a dual purpose of making sure Rainbow Dash had completely eradicated the infection and wasn’t a danger for the carrying of spores, and for Anathema and Swab to see if maybe they could discover what it was about her body that allowed it to fight off the disease in the first place. All in all it was a pretty miserable time for Rainbow Dash.
There was how much she hated the needles and other medical tools that Doctor Anathema and Doctor Swab used to get what they needed for their tests.
There was how much she hated being stuck in bed, not able to do anything.
But worst of all, there was how she had to be around all these other ponies the whole time, and how awful she felt for them the more she watched and listened to their torment.
She tried to say hello and strike up conversation a few times but was left with stares at best and total disregard at worst. All there was was pain around her and she could barely stand it. The beds to her left and right were both taken up by mares who were more green than their natural colors, and they stared emptily at the ceiling all day when they weren’t asleep. A stallion behind her moaned and wheezed every hour on the hour as he shifted and turned in his bed. Rainbow Dash wished for earplugs right now. The worst was the dead-eyed filly a few beds away, Rainbow had seen her and tried to get her to open up but it was like she was a ghost.
This whole auditorium felt like a graveyard waiting for the ponies inside it to die. Rainbow couldn’t help but feel guilty for being healthy and somehow overcoming the disease on her own.
It was also kind of cold.
After those two days were done, Anathema and Swab came back. When Rainbow Dash saw them come in through the front door she sat up, and pretty much immediately grimaced. Even through the protective clothing they wore that nearly covered them completely, she could see the dismay and disappointment written on their features. Though what that pertained to could still be up in the air.
“Hello, Rainbow Dash, we’ve finished running every test and diagnostic we need to,” Doctor Swab said to her.
Rainbow Dash’s mouth twisted. “And?”
“You’re fine. Completely and totally fine. There’s no danger of you leaving here and you won’t be spreading the disease to any pony either so long as we decontaminate you once you leave,” he said.
“Oh, well that’s good news,” her eyes drifted over to Anathema. “For me at least...”
Doctor Anathema sighed. “You’ve already got the idea. We didn’t find any reason for why you’re alright, you seem like a totally ordinary pony. There was nothing we learned from you that we can use to help these ponies.”
“Sorry...” Rainbow Dash frowned and looked down at the bed.
“There’s no need for you to be sorry, we’re happy that you’re healthy,” Doctor Swab said.
“So does this mean I can leave this place?” Rainbow Dash said as she looked around the auditorium. “No offense but I kind of want to...”
“Yes, you can, we just need to go through that decontamination.” Doctor Swab nodded.
“And then I suppose we can officially welcome you to Pinetree Warren,” Doctor Anathema drawled, still in a negative mood herself.
“Yeah… well I’ll be happy to see your village and everything,” Rainbow Dash said.
“On that note, I think it’s pertinent to say that you shouldn’t bring up how you were infected by the spores. Most ponies here are very skittish—for good reason—about the plague. As of now only us, our nurses and assistants, and the pony who saw you flying, know about your bout with the disease. And I think we should keep it that way if you don’t want ponies running away in fear from you,” Doctor Swab said.
“We’ll just say you’re from the Weeping Mountain,” Anathema said. “Less questions.”
Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “Yeah but-” She saw the glare in Anathema’s eyes. “Fine… alright.”
She wanted to be able to tell ponies about Equestria and what she was doing, but she figured she didn’t need to put anymore stress on this village and the doctors. It was kind of lame but it wasn’t always the time for awesome stories and making a big scene. She hated to admit that.
“Let’s get that IV disconnected and take you to the decontamination tent,” Doctor Swab said.
“Finally,” Rainbow Dash sighed in relief.
She winced slightly as the IV was taken out—still not good with that kind of thing—and happily stretched both her legs and her wings once she hopped out of bed. Anathema was still somewhat cold but Swab was smiling behind his mask. Rainbow was hoping she could get on the other doctor’s good side, especially since she was apparently only alive thanks to her in the first place. As they led her out of the auditorium, Rainbow Dash took a look back at the other patients. The feeling of guilt flashed through her once more, but she quashed it with the firm belief and promise that she’d do something to help these ponies. It may not have been a typical adventure but it was still all about helping ponies and those in need. Maybe it was fate that brought her here, but Rainbow Dash was sure she had flown to Pinetree Warren for a reason.