Morbus ignis.
It was a nice cool, crisp morning with the wind gently stirring the tops of the trees as the sun began to break over the horizon when Scootaloo left the house, her mother had been sleeping in and her father, the police chief, was working the graveyard shift and wouldn’t due back home until about the time school started.
“I’m going, mom!” she yelled as she left the house, not really listening to the groaning moan that came in reply — she would later come to regret this, but such is life.
Trotting along Ponyville’s roads toward her destination, Scootaloo saw that the streets were a less crowded than usual, she shrugged it off as it being up and about earlier than was normal for her.
She and the other Crusaders had a project due for school, compilation of hiking journals over the past two weeks, and they were going to meet up at the schoolyard a little early to finish it up before class.
There was only one stop before school: the Carousel Boutique, where Sweetie Belle was living with her sister while their parents were away. The reason for the slight detour was obvious if you’d ever seen Sweetie Belle in the morning… she often needed a little extra motivation to get up, and Scootaloo didn’t trust her to remember that she had to be at school early.
When she arrived she pounded on the door, hoping that Rarity had gotten her up already… but then, Rarity also was a heavy sleeper. After a few moments of silence, Scootaloo tried knocking again but nothing happened. The third time she knocked there was the sound of some movement inside and a painful sob.
“Go away… I’m closed today.” Rarity’s voice came back, obviously strained with pain.
“Um, Rarity… it’s Scootaloo,” she called back through the door, “I’m here for Sweetie Belle.”
There was that painful sob again, followed by Rarity’s voice, “I’m sorry dear, we’re both quite ill today…”
Scootaloo stepped back in surprise, how would their project do with only Apple Bloom and herself? Taking a calming breath, she went over the list of what they had to finish before turning in their compiled trail-journal… it should be doable with just the two of them, she thought as she sighed in relief, though it probably would be cutting it close time-wise.
If she galloped to the school she might have a few minutes to get everything set-up before Apple Bloom arrived… yeah, that sounded like a good idea.
* * *
Celestia woke to her morning ritual of preparing to raise the sun, and a few minutes later she stepped out onto the balcony — only to be greeted by the moon still hanging in the sky. It looked like Luna had been slacking, and she made a mental note to talk to her sister as she lowered the forgotten orb herself, taking a breath and then braking the dawn and starting a new day for Equestria.
Having started the day, she had a few minutes before breakfast, enough time to search for her truant sister… who happened to be in her room, the first place Celestia looked.
When she opened the door she was greeted by the sight of the younger alicorn sprawled in bed fidgeting spasmodically every few moments. She looked awful, covered in sweat and raggedly breathing, as her mane and tail draped across the bed like dead snakes.
“Luna… are you alright?” Celestia asked, concerned over the disturbing sight.
Luna made a moue as she opened her eyes, revealing bloodshot cyan eyes that locked with Celestia’s own for an instant before they shut again as a wave of pain racked her body.
Even as the spasms rolled over her little sister’s body, Celestia saw it enveloped in red and black flames.
“Luna!” Celestia screamed, watching the flames devour her sister, “No! LUNA! NO!”
* * *
Scootaloo quickly found herself in the schoolyard and pulled the journals out of her saddlebags to get to work on compiling all their notes and adding a summary, the summary itself being graded for spelling, grammar, and construction just like a book report would.
Scootaloo wrote several sentences and then hesitated a moment wondering about other words for ‘plan’ and turned to ask Sweetie Belle — who wasn’t there. She sighed and continued on; it was probably for the best, as then they’d likely get in an argument about how to spell ‘machination’ or some other ridiculous word for “plan” that Sweetie Belle would have suggested.
A gust of wind blew a few the pages of the notebook closed, over the one that Scootaloo was working on and brought what could have been the smell of smoke off in the distance. Scootaloo didn’t care about that too much, if it she had indeed smelled something, it was too far away to be of any real concern…
* * *
The smell of smoke greeted Big Macintosh as he opened the door, stinging his nose and making his eyes water. ‘Great, burned breakfast.’ he thought, as the noxious fumes billowed out of the open doorway.
Looking in the kitchen he was surprised to find there was nopony there and the smoke was not coming from the kitchen, but further on in the house… he stood stunned for a half-moment before a cough and moan came from Applejack’s room and he leapt forward to check on his sisters.
The smoke got thicker as he made his way down the hallway to his sisters’s rooms and, when he heard a cough from Applejack’s room, didn’t hesitate in bursting through her door and scooping the mare from her bed before jumping through the window.
Applejack lay on the ground, collapsed in a drained heap of flaccid flesh, groaning, coughing, and for a few moments Big Macintosh thought that the coughing was growing weaker before she sank into rhythmic breathing.
Big Macintosh grunted once before running back into the burning house; Apple Bloom and Granny Smith were still inside!
* * *
Ahuizotl howled in pain as he clutched his prize to himself, grasping the ovoid Mystic Sphere to his stomach with the hand terminating his tail as well as the two at the end of his arms — his very organs were afire, a wellspring of eternal agony which, in his last lucid moment, he ascribed to the wretched curse that the ancient civilization had placed to protect its treasure — just as his body burst into red and black flames imparting tremendous heat into the sphere before it rolled away from the pile of ash that had once been Ahuizotl.
As the elliptic-sphere rolled down the steps of the ancient temple it wobbled from side to side, as if filled with a life of its own, as if it truly minded the abrupt jarring each step made but was powerless to stop its downward decent. Eventually though, it ran out of steps and rolled down a small hill and into small pothole in a tangled and overgrown path.
Hours later the silence was broken by a voice, “Trixie does not like being lost.” it said, before a bush rustled and revealed a mare wearing a tattered cape that had once been liberally covered in stars and moons, but now seemed only to serve the purpose of attracting limbs and debris from the forest.
True to its new purpose of hindering progress, the cape caught on another branch of the bush as Trixie turned away and tried to proceed along the path, but it released with a suddenness that caused Trixie to stumble, a rear hoof connecting with the Mystic Sphere that had been lost.
“What… is it?” Trixie asked aloud as she bent over to examine it, seeing the soot-covered ovoid, which shuddered as she looked at it, finally cracking open to reveal a ridiculously large-headed baby dragon that blinked its maize-golden eyes at her before unfurling its small red and black wings.
“A… a dragon? The Great and Powerful Trixie is quite confused.” Trixie said, stepping away from the small creature, who seemed to be regarding her with a special and slightly unnerving intensity.
“Why are you even here?” Trixie asked the small figure, shaking her head back and forth. Who knew where dragons nested? It wasn’t like she’d covered that in Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, for the two semesters she’d been able to attend.
There was a moment where the dragon and mare solemnly regarded each other before the dragon broke it by lunging forward and wrapping arms, legs, and tail around her forehoof and let out an almost chirping sound.
“Why are you latching on to the Great and Powerful Trixie!?” Trixie screamed as she reared back and bicycled the air with her forehooves, trying to shake the little creature off.
* * *
Twilight didn’t feel well, it was horrible: her limbs felt weak, like they were covered in stone; her viscera felt like they were being incinerated, even as her skin felt like it would freeze; her eyes felt like they were being scraped away by eyelids that had suddenly become sand; and her breath felt like fire in her nostrils.
She tried to call out for Spike, but the young dragon seemed to be in the same condition — Twilight was vaguely aware that she should be worried, but the waves of pain were unrelenting and kept her from all but the most basic of thoughts… most of all she just wanted it all to stop.
She looked back at the basket that Spike slept in and saw him jerk as if startled before he burst into red and black flame — Twilight’s observation turned to horror as the blaze consumed the basket, turning into the more mundane and familiar yellow and orange lounges as it found new fuel to consume besides her former Number One Assistant.
* * *
Cheerilee was surprised to find Scootaloo sitting alone outside the schoolhouse before she’d arrived. If anything she would have thought that her two friends, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle, would have been with her.
It was obvious to the teacher that the orange pegasus was trying to cram in as much as she could into the notebook before she had to turn it in — they’d obviously not listened when she’d reminded the class not to leave compiling their group notebook until the last moment — Cheerilee smiled at the remembering how she’d put off a lot of homework when she was small, too. Who would have guessed that one day she’d be doing an entire class’s worth of homework?
“Hey there Scootaloo!” Cheerilee said, as she pulled the keys to the schoolroom from her saddlebags, she couldn’t help but smile and ask: “Why are you here so early?”
Scootaloo jumped at the unexpected address, having been absorbed in trying to finish their summary. — “H-hi, Miss Cheerilee! Um, I, uh… was working on our project.”
“What about Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle? I thought you three were working on this together.” Cheerilee said, prompting the young filly to answer.
“Sweetie Belle’s sick today…” Scootaloo said as the wind shifted to bring the clear smell of smoke to their noses, “and I don’t know where Apple Bloom is, she should have been here already.”
When Cheerilee smelled the smoke she began looking around for the source, feeling a sense of dread as she spotted several flickers of light in the residential section of Ponyville. The realization of that there was a conflagration that could destroy Ponyville was underscored with the ringing of the bells on the fire-trucks as the ponies from the fire-station leapt into action — Cheerilee felt a wave of dread as she considered that it might already be too late.