Smoker stared in shock at the crater that was in front of him. The two white spheres that crashed had spoken and looked vaguely familiar, like an old memory.
“Hello? Is anyone out there? We’re stuck in this hole,” called out the blue eye’s sphere.
“Space, space, I went to space,” rambled the yellow eyes sphere.
By this time the other eight came to see the strange white spheres that crashed in their presence. Spitter walked over to Smoker and continued to stare at them.
“So, uh, do you know what these might be?” she asked, making sure the two sphere’s couldn’t hear her.
Smoker shook his head, “no, but they do look strangely familiar.”
The park was soon enveloped in an eerie silence for a while as the infected and the AI in the spheres tried to comprehend what was going on. Finally, Screamer decided to end it.
“You know what? This isn’t half as weird as the past few days. If we’re going to see a doc tomorrow, might as well have our last night outside decent before we’re trapped in a room for the rest of our lives,” he said as he walked off to find a decent resting spot.
The Hunter and Boomer also seemed to think that Screamer had the right idea and went off to find somewhere to rest too.
Charger sighed, “Ach, sorry, you know how Jockey is if he doesn’t sleep, jumps at anything that moves. I’d better find him a place to sleep.” She said as she nudged Jockey along with her left wing.
Smoker turned to see Witch resting silently against a tree with Tank not far away. He sighed, ‘maybe it’s best to rest now. We can always get find the pattern tomorrow.’ Smoker decided to look into the crater one last time for the night; the two spheres were still looking around inside of it. Deciding it was time to rest too; Smoker sat down on a bench, shut his eyes and went to sleep.
**************************************************************************
“You sure we should do this?” asked Hunter as he and the other eight ‘infected’ walked down the street to the hospital, “like, I know we have some weird abnormalities but, we can live with them, right?”
Spitter sighed, “Look, Charger promised to check out a hospital today, and you know how she is with keeping her word. Besides, it’s just a little checkup, what’s the worst thing that could happen?”
Screamer rolled his eyes, “getting confined to a room where doctors inject needles into us every hour to figure out what the hell is wrong with us?”
Spitter glared at him and continued walking. Today was much cooler that yesterday, cool enough for the ponies of the town to go outside. This had given them the awkward time of being stared at where ever they went. ‘At least we don’t have to carry the two talkative metal things on our backs,’ thought Spitter.
The two strange sphere’s that crashed last night (the blue one said his name was Wheatley and the yellow one only rambled on about space) continued to ask for assistance throughout the morning. Finally, they decided to carry them out and dump them at the only place they knew here: the home of the purple unicorn they met yesterday.
Spitter turned around to see how Witch was doing with Tank. Witch seemed to have stopped crying and was now moving silently alongside Tank, who seemed uneasy about the idea of leaving Witch alone with a doctor. Finally the nine arrived at the hospital, none of them willing to take the first step inside.
Screamer sighed, “screw it, if I’m going to be confined for the rest of my life might as well as get it over with," he said as he pushed the door open to confront his fate.
The other eight looked at each other, and slowly followed Screamer’s lead. The hospital was spotless in comparison to the last hospital the nine were at. Screamer walked up to the reception area and spoke to the pony there.
“Hello, me and my, uh… friends are here for a checkup,” said Screamer.
The receptionist pony sighed and asked, “Do you have an appointment?”
“No, but half of them may have a fatal illness that needs to be checked immediately.”
The pony looked up to see Screamer, her eyebrow raised at the sight of his dull white straightjacket, and glanced behind him to see Smoker, Hunter and Boomer. Spitter, Tank, Witch, Charger and Jockey meanwhile had decided to take a seat on one of the waiting benches. She immediately took note of the tumors on Smoker and the large, unnatural boils on Boomer.
“I’ll see who’s available,” she said as she turned to go into a back room behind the counter.
About ten minutes later a doctor came to see them. Screamer smiled inwardly at the face of the doctor as the nine followed him down a hall and into a rather large room with x-ray like machines.
“Alright, now, I’m going to admit something,” said the doctor, “I’ve never seen anything like this. Do any of you know what may have caused this?”
Smoker coughed slightly, “yeah, back where we come from there’s a disease called Green flu. The things we have are more… uncommon than the regular ones.”
The doctor nodded, scanning his eyes across all of them, “alright, I guess I’ll start with the ones with the more dangerous side effects of this ‘Green flu’ and work my way down.” He gestured to Smoker, “I guess you’re my first patent.”
Smoker froze, as Spitter had told Twilight yesterday, Smoker had a very strange paranoia problem. It usually came into effect when he was alone without anyone he knows very well in the immediate area.
Spitter noticed this and spoke to the doctor, “sorry but, from where from we usually don’t go off alone, usually in pairs. I guess we still have that instinct with us.”
The doctor nodded, “ah, well, I assure you nothing bad is going to happen, so come along Mr. uh…”
“Smoker.”
“Yes, Mr. Smoker it will be perfectly fine.”
Spitter sighed and shook her head, “I should also have mentioned that he has a paranoia problem. If one of us isn’t with him he might err… attack.”
The doctor looked at Spitter confused, “attack? Attack with what?”
“With this,” growled Smoker as his tongue shot out of his mouth and grabbed a cup on the far side of the room and dragged it over to him. Small cracks were in the plastic cup when he released it onto the floor, to the doctor’s amazement. “And that’s when I’m not provoked.”
The doctor nodded slowly and turned to Spitter again, “I assume you’ll be accompanying him then?”
“Yes.”
The doctor sighed, “Alright, shall we be starting then?”
*************************************************************************
About an hour later all nine of them had been tested and the doctor stood in the door way of the large room with a very confused look on his face.
“If you weren’t standing here in front of me I’d say you all would be dead,” said the doctor, “alright, I’ll say when needs to be said, all of you should have died about two weeks ago from your illness, plain and simple. But, the illness has strange properties in you nine which make it all the more dangerous.”
Boomer (who was given medication to lessen the constant production of bile is his damaged liver,) nodded, “what are these properties exactly?”
“the things in your respective blood streams mutated the virus so it’s not contagious,” the doctor noted that seven of the nine sighed in relief, while Jockey laughed and Witch gazed at the doctor with her large yellow eyes. “But, this is concerning the side effect of that.”
“What is the side effect?” asked Hunter, who according to the doctor was blind and ‘saw’ through a strange form of echolocation.
“The side effect is when under very dangerous or strange circumstanced, like being exposed to a powerful magical discharge of some sort could trigger something called ‘Nightmare’,” said the doctor.
Screamer (whose forelegs were still in a straightjacket because his forelegs were too damaged to be used) raised an eyebrow, “we’ll have nightmares? That’s not so bad.”
The doctor shook his head, “a Nightmare is a type of demonic creature that possesses another. Only one has been recorded in history and nearly caused the end of the world twice. I don’t know much about it but the second time was a few years back. You should talk to the town librarian, Twilight Sparkle, if you want to learn more about it.”
Spitter (who could still launch certain amounts of acidic spit from her mouth) nodded, “alright, I guess we’ll go find this librarian. Thanks again, doc.”
The doctor smiled, “don’t worry about it, it’s not every day I see a case as strange as you nine. But be careful, the way to dispose of a Nightmare is not pleasant. Tread carefully around magic.”
**********************************************************************
Tank followed Witch throughout the busy streets of Ponyville. The others went to go see this Twilight while he followed Witch to make sure she didn’t do anything dangerous. They told him to meet them at the park in about an hour while they located the library. Tank sighed; Witch had a strange habit of wandering off for no apparent reason.
“Where are you going,” rumbled Tank as he spotted a rather large building looking like it was made out of gingerbread.
Witch walked inside the building and decided to sit down in the middle of the room. Tank soon followed her and sniffed the air, “sugar?” he thought aloud.
Many of the ponies looked a Witch oddly, especially a bright pink pony with an equally bright pink mane. After a moment, she literally hopped over to tank and Witch.
“Hello! You’re new here!” she exclaimed loudly.
Witch opened her eyes and gave the pink pony an incredibly angry glare. Tank rushed over to move Witch before she got angry.
“Sorry small pink pony, Witch doesn’t like loud sounds,” said Tank as he got Witch to sit by a nearby table.
The pink pony, seemingly not understanding Tank, followed them. Witch continued to glare at her.
“I’m Pinkie pie,” said the pony in a quieter voice, “I’ve never seen you two here before and I know everyone in Ponyville.”
Tank nodded slowly while keeping an eye on Witch, “hello, I am Tank and she is Witch. Please stay quiet around her, she is dangerous when angry.”
Pinkie pie looked at Tank with a confused look. Tank gestured to Witch who was still glaring at Pinkie pie, abet not as intensely as before. Suddenly, Witch leaned over and got closer to Pinkie pie.
This confused and worried Tank, “Witch, what you are doing?”
“Cotton candy.”
Tank stared at Witch in disbelief, all his time knowing her, she had never spoken once. Pinkie pie also looked confused. By now Witch had decided to bite Pinkie pie’s mane, only to spit it out once she realised it wasn’t cotton candy. Both Tank and Pinkie pie looked at Witch with very confused looks to figure out what just happened.
“You want cotton candy?” asked Tank slowly.
“Cotton candy is good,” replied Witch is a very quiet voice.
Tank turned to Pinkie pie and chuckled, “you got Witch to speak, sorry about the misunderstanding. Witch is… odd.”
Pinkie pie smiled, “well, I’ve never had that happen before but, you’re welcome.” She then bounded off to resume what she was doing before. Tank turned again to Witch, who now seemed to be resting. Tank continued to stare at her and tried to figure out what she meant by cotton candy…