//------------------------------//
// Prologue: The beginning of the end 
// Story: My Little Stand:Abridged and Ponified Version 
// by Mobius of the Moon 
//------------------------------//

	One day in Ponyville, Lyra was enjoying relaxing on a park bench when she saw a speck stumbling along the road. Sitting up, she saw a stallion with a dark brown mane and scraggly stubble collapse. Running up to the injured pony, she asked, "Excuse me, what's wrong?"
The stallion looked at her, coughed wetly, and stood shakily, ignoring her.
Lyra stood, confused, and then turned back to him. "Um... excuse me?"
The stallion looked at her, and then a panic entered his eyes. Rushing up to her, he started to scream at her, "My-my wife, Lily! And baby LaPon! Where are they?" He began looking around frantically and calling out those two names.
Lyra just stood frozen, dumbstruck. What was the stallion talking about? "Um, sir, what's your name?"
He looked back to her for a moment and shouted, "George!" He turned back around and stumbling along towards the center of town. Lyra caught a few mutters, "Disease... lab... got to... get away..."
At this, Lyra turned and charged away, looking for a way to contact the Princess.
#$#$#$#$#$#$
A few hours later, the Royal Guards stood on the outskirts of Ponyville, joined by Princess Celestia. Twilight was there also, flipping through a book about diseases with her magic. The purple unicorn mare was muttering to herself, lost in thought about whatever the stallion could have had. George had been put in quarantine, but he had already been in contact with most of the ponies in Ponyville, who would come in contact with countless other ponies.
The Guard Captain, a young stallion named Braun, was questioning Lyra about the actions of our poor George, "What exactly did he do?"
"Well..." Lyra began, "first he just ignored me, then began shouting something about a wife and child. Then I heard him say something about a lab, disease, and escaping. Then he wandered away." She wrung her front hooves, "Do... do you think that maybe they're...?" she didn't have to finish.They all knew she meant "dead." Twilight even looked up from her book to gaze in shock at the mare.
The Captain  looked gravely at the fields around Ponyville, Every possibility is in reason here, ma'am." He turned to the Princess, who nodded at him. He turned to his troops and shouted, "Alright, I want a full search of these fields for a mare and her filly. Search in teams of two, and report back when  you've found them."
The thirty guards with them nodded, "Yes, sir!" They all flew out to search the pair of ponies.
The Captain turned to Celestia, "Do you think...?" Celestia nodded gravely, and the Captain gulped. Twilight, ever observant, noticed this but decided that now was not the time to ask. She returned to her reading, unaware that she would find no disease like George's in it.
#$#$#$#$#$#$
Phil and his friend Swift, two Guards, flew low over the field in search of the mare and filly. They had been searching for about an hour.
Phil decided to make small talk, "So.. what do you think happened with that George guy?"
Swift shrugged, "I don't know. What I do know is that he was in the Guard for my first two years and then was called off to someplace. That was five years ago."
Phil shuddered, "I wonder where he was taken."
Swift harrumphed and said again, "I don't know, but wherever he was something bad must have happened."
They flew in silence for about five minutes. Then Phil noticed a flash of red and a little black against the green of the field. "Hey, what's that?"
Swift looked to where he was pointing, "Maybe it's the two we're looking for. Let's go down." He coasted to the ground and trotted up to  the bundles, only to rear back in surprise and disgust.
"What, Swift?" Phil asked. Then He reached the bodies, "HOLY BUCK, WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM!" He screamed.
The mare and filly were in horrible shape. Their faces were a deep purple and bloated, while their eyes bulged almost all out of their sockets. Their mouths were gaping, as if trying to be breath, but their throats were coated and filled with mucus. The look in their eyes wasn't even one of horror, just tired and desperate. The mare had her fore hooves wrapped around the filly as if it would keep the child alive. Obviously that hadn't happened.
Swift was backing up slowly, "I-I think we've found what we're looking for.  Let's g-go." He sped off.
Phil took one last look at the sorry pair, then turned around too. "I'm with you on that." He followed, and not even halfway before they returned to the Captain, Phil was feeling a tickle in his throat.
#$#$#$#$#$
The Captain nodded when he heard the news, "I see." He turned to the Princess again, worry now fully in his eyes. The Princess too looked anxious, and turned to the two Guards.
"Good work." She said, "Return to Canterlot, and see a doctor immediately. Don't mention this to anyone." Both did, now fearing that they would meet the same fate as George's wife and child. 
They met five other ponies on their way back, who in turn met at least five more themselves. Thus the pyramid of infection was truly being set in motion.
#$#$#$#$#$#$
Back at the Castle, Princess Celestia confided with her Captains and doctors, "We already know three are infected and have died." George had died in quarantine. "Who knows how many they met on their journey to Ponyville."
One of the older Captains spoke up, "It spreads too quickly to be stopped. It attacks quickly and efficiently, and kills within days. What else do we need to know? Just quarantine the town and be done with it."
One of the doctors spoke up, "Actually, I have some worse news." they all looked nervously at him. His voice shook as he spoke, "The last report from the labs was when  the disease got out of control. They had researched it enough to get this much." A deep but weak voice came from a communicator he was holding:
"Disease marked 848-AB is conclusively a deadly disease that kills within days and spreads to almost no end. No cure has been discovered, and probably never will be. This message is probably the last, and it needs to be known. Should this disease escape, it will kill 99.4% of world population within a month. I repeat, 99.4% population will die within a month. Images are being sent also, to show the extremity of thi-" the message cut off with a thump. A slide show began to play and parts of the facility showed up. There was the cafeteria. Ponies in white coats  were slumped over on tables, in bowls of their own food, collapsed on the ground, and even balanced against walls. All had the looks of the George's family. Then it flashed to a workout room. Ponies were slumped next to benches, treadmills, Some had dumbbells collapsed on their chests.
Everyone turned away when it flashed to the labs where the disease was being researched. A few ran from the room and one threw up right then and there. Being the most exposed to it, the scientists had gotten the worst effects. It seemed that their whole bodies were bloated to the point of explosions, and that's just what happened. Some were bloody messes with guts bits of their bodies all mangled and torn and spread everywhere.
Celestia turned away from the sight and the message shut down. Slowly the others returned and began talking all at once and Celestia shouted for silence. "I see your reasoning for quarantining the town, Thrush." the old Captain grunted. "But there is a problem." All stared at her in tense silence. "How many ponies have left Ponyville since we left?"
The others gasped at this, and Braun spoke up. "Don't forget those who brought the bodies back. If the disease spreads as easily as it's let on to..." he trailed off and let the others piece the rest together.
They all looked in horror at each other, and all at once came to a realization. This was the beginning of the end.