Every scientist in the lab examined the potion samples to find out what was wrong. Twilight, now in her lab attire observed every single one of them to see if they had found anything wrong with them. It wasn't until the one of the head senior scientists, Dr. Aluminium approached her.
"Princess Twilight, I believe I've found something quite interesting."
The sentence alone was music to Twilight's ears. She quickly followed him to his little lab station. He motioned for her to take a look inside his microscope. She lifted her glasses and positioned her eye close to the lens.
"And... what am I looking at exactly?"
"Look closely," he said.
She did what he told her to do. She zoomed in once and was able to see something really small floating around. When she zoomed in even more, she could see it bright as day. Small blue microbial objects were floating around her view of focus. After weeks of studying after a personal experience, she knew exactly what those were.
•••
"Poison joke," Dr. Right Aid informed Celestia. She could not believe what she had just heard.
"What do you mean poison joke?" she asked.
"The tests all came back positive. She has a lot of it in her system."
"I-I don’t understand. How did she come in contact with this dangerous plant if they grow exclusively in the Everfree?"
"I'm not sure, but the evidence is there, though I did find something else in her system, and it seemed that she had something magical in it, like a potion of some sort? I wasn't sure. The test could not make out what it was."
Celestia puzzled and puzzled about how Luna got poison joke and why she had a potion like substance in her system. Then it hit her. She rose from the cushion she sat on and thanked the doctor before leaving his office.
•••
"What is poison joke doing in the potion? The formula did not call for poison joke in the potion! How could this have happened?!" Twilight scolded the scientist.
"I don't know how it got there, but it's there."
"Well I'm going to get to the bottom of this. And when I found out who's wise idea it was to add poison joke, they won't see the end of the world of hurt I am going to rain down on them!" Twilight said with immense amounts of anger as she stormed out of the lab.
Once again, she slipped into a hazmat suit and entered the contaminated lab. It annoyed her that the clean up team had not decontaminated it yet, but was also relived so that she could find out what went wrong.
When she approached the area where the previous potion was, she rummaged through the shelf above it.
"Now where is it?" Twilight asked herself as she searched through all the vials, beakers, and test tubes until she found the one she wanted. A test tube with a pretty blue liquid in it labeled "Poison Joke Oil".
Twilight examined the tube when she spotted a crack on the bottom with some of the oil dripping from it. She peered over the shelf and saw a trail of oil running along towards the end of the shelf, dripping right above where the potion was.
"Bingo!" she said excitedly as she placed it in a plastic baggy and fled the lab.
•••
Alright, I want to know right now who left this cracked test tube filled with poison joke oil!" Dr. Aluminium scolded at the others.
"What is one of the most important rules of lab safety?"
One pony raised his leg in the back. "Always where goggles?" he asked. This irritated the scientist.
"No. I'm talking about the rule where you must always dispose of broken glassware. Did we all of a sudden forget our lab safety rules?"
The other ponies grimaced as they backed up a little.
"Does any pony even know how this tube got cracked?"
One pony, a research assistant did in fact know how that crack got there as he flashed back several days earlier. He held the test tube in his magic while assisting some pony when suddenly he got distracted and dropped the tube. Fortunately it landed on the table, but it did crack a little.
At that point he panicked and placed it back on the shelf where he got it.
He stood there silent as to not get embarrassingly scolded, or even fired.
"So, nobody knows huh? That's fine then. I could just have all of your degrees confiscated and send you all into unemployment!" Dr. Aluminium threatened. Everyone gasped at the thought of that and began to worry. Twilight couldn't take any more of what was going on and decided to intervene.
"Look, we don't have time to play the guessing game. We need everyone to stay a part in this."
Suddenly Princess Celestia entered the lab. Everyone bowed in her presence.
"Greetings every pony. I would like to speak with Princess Twilight alone for a moment."
Aluminium ordered the others to return to their work while Twilight approached the Princess.
"Is there something wrong Princess?" she asked.
"No. In fact, I may have a bit of information you need to know, and you will never guess what it is."
"Is it poison joke?"
"Indeed. I’m glad you we’re able to find out soon enough. The only problem is that I am still uncertain as to how she got it in the first place."
"I believe I know how she may have gotten it."
"Oh, Then please do tell me."
"In the last lab that we were working in, we had a sample of the oils of the plant. Sadly though, the test tube containing the oil had a crack, causing some of oil to drip out and into the unfinished potion. Hopefully this means that once the instant health potion is finished, it should be able to work. We already have ponies doing just that while others are testing the poison joke with the unfinished product."
"Excellent work. I'm glad you all are getting progress," Celestia complimented.
"Thank you Princess," Twilight replied. " If you don't mind, I really need to go observe this experiment we're conducting in the other room."
"Oh, then would you mind if I joined you to observe?"
"Um... no not at all. It's just that... don't you have any important royal duties to attend to rather than staying here?"
"No. I had to cancel some of them in order to watch and take care of Luna."
"Alright then, follow me," Twilight motioned the sun goddess to follow her to the next room. Upon entering, a third of it was separated by a large glass barrier. Dr. Aluminium was there waiting for them to begin the experiment.
"Thanks for coming. Now let us begin, shall we?" he said. Using his magic, he levitated two beakers. One had the unfinished product. The other had the poison joke oil.
"We are about to recreate the events of the incident from the night before," he said. He raised the beaker with the oil and added several drops of it into the unfinished potion. A few seconds later, it started shaking as the two liquids reacted with each other. A minute later, the shaking beaker shattered, splattering its contents all over the wall. Soon, a cloud of yellow gas started forming in the room.
"As you can see, the oil from the poison joke reacts violently with the unfinished potion forming both a toxic potion and gas I like to call: harming joke. I just came up with it now, actually," Aluminium told them, praising at his creativeness,
"Thank you so much for conducting this experiment for us doctor. Is it ok if you could give the two us some privacy?" Twilight requested. Dr. Aluminium nodded as he bowed and left the room, leaving the princesses alone.
"Now, from what I have gathered so far, I have now formed a hypothesis as to what happened to Princess Luna."
Celestia nodded for her to go on.
"From what we just saw in this experiment, its quite obvious as to what had happened last night. After I left the lab, Princess Luna must have stayed in the lab right when the reaction was taking place. Then when it exploded, it must have contaminated her. However, because she came in contact with the 'harming joke', she didn't have time to sanitize herself as the symptoms of it kicked in and caused her to pass out when she arrived at her bed-chamber!"
Celestia soaked in all of the information being told to her. "Interesting, and what can you make out about the symptoms?" she asked.
"The healing spell is meant to heal, so I guess this harming joke is meant to do the opposite. I'm guessing the poison joke is the one responsible for Luna's mind becoming quite slow, as well as her mane and coat turning yellow. As we know, the symptoms of poison joke are always meant to literally be a joke."
"That would explain her strange hallucinations and feeling as if she were in danger on occasions," the Princess mentioned to her.
"Really? Interesting," Twilight replied fascinated.
"But what about her physical symptoms?"
"Since the potion was meant to heal, it seems that the poison joke altered it which might have caused her physical symptoms such as her dizziness and chest pains,"
"Oh dear. Simply listening to all of this is making my head spin," Celestia said worriedly.
"Yeah, mine too. We should probably leave while I have the clean up crew clean all that up once they're done with the lab," Twilight said as the two left the room and into the lab.
"So how long will it take until this healing potion is ready?" Celestia asked.
"Due to this little incident, this puts us at a setback of a few days," Twilight answered.
"Ok then. I can put with this for a few more days."
"Speaking of which. How is Princess Luna?"
"I sent her off to bed a while ago, and let me tell you something. I feel as though I am taking care of a little filly again," Celestia told her glumly.
"And what is wrong with that?"
"Have you ever tried taking care of a fully grown mare with the mind of a seven year old?"
"No, I can't say I have."
"It's awful, believe me."
"I see. Well we're doing the best we can to finish our work here. I will let you know when it is ready," Twilight informed her.
Celestia nodded before saying goodbye and leaving the lab. Already she could see the light at the end of the tunnel.
•••
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