A plague of madness: part 4
Last chapter: “Yes, it would. I do have a suggestion though, if we can get you, Celestia, close enough to him, you could use your power to wipe the madness from his mind, you would have to be quick though or else the madness COULD take you too.” He explains.
“I don’t know, I’m not very experienced right now. We should all just rest for now and hope we can control the spread for now.” She replies as she makes her bed and the others go and lay on it, “We’ll stay here for the night; I’ll stay up and think of a solution.”
<Two months later>
Everything is back to normal, the ponies that were missing before have returned to the streets of Ponyville and seem to be normal with no problems, only now and then does a pony go missing, only to appear the next day fine and normal. Kieron still resides within his facility never coming out; the only pony that hasn’t returned home is here with him, Trixie. She stays there with him; nopony knows why and never questions it as they can’t go anywhere near it.
Ponyville has been put in full lockdown, as a precaution that the madness is still about in Ponyville. The residents of Ponyville are not allowed to leave or to go anywhere without a check by Celestia herself or by Mathis.
During the calm period Mathis has been working for Celestia to help try to stop the madness, in the process Kieron became very cautious and suspicious of him and so Mathis has moved his core from the mech facility without Kieron knowing to the room where the Elements of Harmony are held, he has also created himself a mechanical humanoid so that he can walk around and help out and so he can scan the minds of any ponies wishing to leave Ponyville.
Ponyville is guarded by many royal guards that cut off any exits from the village, guard mechs patrol the streets and the train station, each train that leaves and enters the village is escorted by a Havoc mech and anypony that now is said to have gone mad and show signs of it are shot on sight.
<Canterlot, Celestia’s room>
Celestia is pacing her room as she waits for Mathis’ arrival about the death count of the ponies that HAVE shown signs of madness, she now and then walks over to the balcony and peers over the edge to look down to the streets below hoping that the madness hasn’t spread to here without her knowing.
A sound comes from her door but it wasn’t a knock, it sounded more like a muffled gunshot. Celestia rushes over to the door and swings them open quickly to see Mathis stood with a royal guard in his grasp and his arm turned into a shotgun, the head of the pony half missing and blood all up the corridor wall and floor.
“MATHIS, what have you done?” she shouts at him wanting answers, “You’ve killed a guard, are you mad?” she asks as he drops the guard and looks over to her with a slightly sinister look. She backs up a little and starts to concentrate her magic on her horn as she readies for a possible fight with him.
He then walks towards her slowly before raising his gun up to aim at her, she then readies herself as she has no doubt he has become corrupted, his gun then folds up around his hand quickly to fold up into a small pod-like holster on the side of his arm, he then puts the hand to his head, “Sorry about that Princess...” he lowers his arm, walks up to her and puts a hand on her shoulder, “You look stressed, you should go lay down.” He adds, Celestia staring at the guards speechless, he looks back to the guard, “He was mad, and to think the madness has got this close to you, let’s hope that is the only one...” he then leads her back into her room before turning to close the doors.
Celestia goes and lays on her bed, Mathis then stands at the side, sits on a chair and watches the doors in case somepony comes through, “He really was mad, the madness has got to Canterlot?” she asks, “How is that possible, we’ve cut off any way of ponies getting to other places without scans for the madness.” She questions more.
Mathis just shakes his head in confusion, “I don’t know just as much as you don’t...” he replies, looking over to her as she lays panting from the previous shock, he reaches over, grabs the covers and puts them over her, “You should stay here and get some rest, I will go and clean up the mess outside...oh, before I forget, now adding that one, the death count is now 31 ponies dead.” He adds before getting up and walking over to the door and leaving the room. Celestia putting a hoof to her face as she can’t believe that so many ponies have died.
<Ponyville>
Twilight is in Treacle’s home with her, she is staying there as Treacle knows that nothing has changed, the ponies may be back and acting normal but she can still feel the madness in Moonshine, ready to attack anypony that isn’t infected.
Twilight wakes up and looks around forgetting that she wasn’t in the library anymore due to the suspicion of the other ponies including Moonshine. She gets out of bed and stretches before making the bed, opens the door to the room and makes her way to the kitchen. She was sleeping in Treacle’s spare bedroom which was downstairs below the bathroom.
She soon arrives to the kitchen where Treacle is cooking breakfast for the both of them, she walks in to be given a warm welcome by Treacle who trots over and gives her a nice hug before rushing back over to the cooker to check the eggs.
As Twilight watches Treacle multitask the cooking she hears a voice from outside, it sounded robotic, she peeks her head round the kitchen door to see two large shadow against the door window, “Don’t worry about it Twilight, the guard mechs from the library have been sent to guard my home since we are both here and not at the library.” She says giggling to herself about what she just said before mumbling to herself about it.
Twilight watches the shadows as a third pony shaped shadow approaches them, she listens carefully as one of the mechs asks the pony, “Halt, state your business here.”
The pony then replies in a very familiar voice, “I just want to see Twilight, she is here right, I was told she was here and not in the library any more, I really hope she is here because then that means that I came here without her really being here and I will have wasted my time coming here to see her when she isn’t even to here for me to speak to.” The mechs look at each other before looking back at the pony; one mech then raises an arm to point at the pony, the mech then scans the pony for any sign of the madness hiding its mind.
The mech steps to the side to allow the pony to come into the house after having no madness inside it. The door swings open and Twilight watches as the pony walks in, “Pinkie?” she asks as Pinkie bounces over to Twilight before giving her a huge hug, “Pinkie, what are you doing here?”
Pinkie stops hugging and sniff as she smells the lovely smell coming from the kitchen before answering, “Here to see you silly. I wanted to come by to see how you were doing.” She replies before heading to the kitchen to see Treacle working away, zooming about without even a sweat.
Twilight then whilst they were busy talking decided to head outside, when she got out one of the mechs told her to head back inside, she refuses and the mech then decides to follow her where ever she goes, the other staying here.
She heads towards Rarity’s to see how she is doing after finally coming back after she was ponyknapped, Twilight doesn’t even think about any of the dangers that could be around, she looks about to see some mechs patrolling the streets and a Havoc mech walking over in the distance next to a train.
She quickly arrives at Rarity’s home, knocks on the door, “Hold on, I’ll be with you in a minute.” A voice from inside calls out as Twilight sighs in relief that she sounds ok. The door unlocks and then swings open as Rarity pops her head round to look round the door at Twilight, “Yes, what do you want, darling?” she asks as if she didn’t know Twilight.
“Rarity, it’s me Twilight. I just wanted to see how you are.” She replies starting to worry about her after hearing her reaction.
“Oh Twilight, come on in dear, I’m just working on something.” She says opening the door further to allow Twilight to enter, she then slams it shut as Twilight gets in stopping the mech from getting in, she then locks the door, “I have you now......You foolish, little pony. You silly, silly pony, you though I wasn’t infected; now you will find out what it is like to have the madness.” Rarity says as she slowly walks towards her. Twilight backs up slowly as she suddenly feels insecure that her friend has turned on her.
Rarity pounces for Twilight causing the two of them to conveniently to land on a sofa; she then begins to rub away as Twilight tries her best to knock her off.
<Canterlot>
Celestia continues to lay in her bed worrying about the plague reaching Canterlot, her bedroom door then suddenly shoots open as Mathis dashes inside, “Celestia, we have a problem. I have just realised something, the premonition that Luna had before SKULL attacked, it is exactly like the visions that the mad ponies are having. It sounds crazy but I believe she has the madness, that’s how that guard was mad. It’s her, she’s spreading the madness in Canterlot.” He explains as ‘Tia jumps out of bed.
“There is one more thing; one of the guard mechs in Ponyville is showing reports of a conversion currently in progress...” he adds, Celestia looking at him as if to say ‘So, we have better problems’, “It’s Twilight Sparkle, she is being molested, one of her friends has turned mad and is currently trying to spread the madness to her.” He explains, Celestia suddenly takes attention as her faithful student is in trouble.
“What, Twilight? That is it; I have had enough of these problems we are getting.” She replies before using her magic to teleport to Ponyville. Once the teleport flash had disappeared Mathis went to leave only for a voice to call from Celestia’s balcony.
“Mathis, you should really help us, there is no way you can stop the madness. You just killed a guards just because he wanted to help the other guard.” He turns to see the figure walk into the room.
“You know I won’t help you or anyone spread this awful plague, I have to stop it or else many more will die, this is a world of peace and harmony, what is happening? Destruction, rape and death, that isn’t peace to me, so I must stop it, I WILL stop it, and you can’t stop me Luna.” He replies as she grins at him with a really creepy smile on her face.
He raises a hand to point at her, the pod on his arm then opens as a submachine gun quickly is created and placed in his hand, he then aims it at her as she opens her wings ready to pounce at him, the pod on his other arm then opens and a laser blade comes out and attaches onto the side of his arm, “Bring it Luna, if you want to fight I will give you a fight, I don’t feel fear, I am a computer, your attempts to scare me are feeble. I don’t want to fight you but if you persist then I have no choice but to fight and hurt you.” He says as he taunts her.
They both circle each other as they ready to fight, “Mathis, you would be a great asset to our team but yet you fight us. We thought you were under Kieron’s control, but yet you have turned on him.” She replies, still circling. Mathis doesn’t reply as he waits for her to make the first move.
She soon does and launches herself at him, whilst in mid-air he raises his arm to ready a swipe with the laser blade only for some armour for fold round her, he then jumps back as she lands right where he was. He studies her, now in full power armour; she stands up and looks at him, “Ha ha, I may be a computer but that looks very sexy, you in full armour. But you are evil and mad and so must be stopped.” He says before she rushes over to him, instantly appearing in front of him, she uses her magic to slam him into the wall behind.
She walks up to him as he is pinned to the wall, her helmet folds back and she licks his face, he stops struggling as he becomes limp as if he had died, a guard mech then suddenly bursts into the room and begins to fire on Luna with machinegun fire as she jumps about to dodge them, Mathis’ body falls to the ground, it then gets back up as he reanimates the body, “You forget Luna, I am a computer, I can leave this body. I also can control that mech. Two on one, let’s see you stop me now.” He says as he gets into stance as if he was enjoying this.
<Mech facility>
Kieron is sat in his chair looking at the big screen which shows everything that Luna can see, “And so the madness takes its toll on the ponies as they can’t trust anypony or anything. Mathis vs. Luna, very interesting, he seems to love it, the destruction rushing through him. As for war, war never changes.