A few days back, somepony had said “well, at least things can’t possibly get any worse.” Toxic shock had, at the time, had believed him. Then everything had.
First, the disease had spread to all available doctors and nurses. There were none left, aside from Toxic Shock’s medics, who were at best able to perform triage care. His requests for new doctors were being repeatedly unanswered.
At first he had sent as many equidroids as he could find into the wards to care for the patients, but that had only ended up backfiring. As machines, equidroids were immune to disease, but it had turned out that they could carry the infections agent past decontamination. Before Toxic Shock had even realized what had happened, the entire city was infected. He had been forced to activate an illegal quarantine, placing his Wasetlander soldiers at the edge of the city with strict orders to repel any invaders, regardless of their flags.
Hazard gear had also proven to be ineffective. Those who were sent in, even in full gear, came out infected. He himself had only managed to escape infection because his special talent was specifically for avoiding contamination, and his cyborg body and protective spells defended him. The others were gone, though. Anypony who had been sent in had not come back out; even he was now unable to leave at risk of carrying the disease with him.
The only “doctors” who joined him were the equidroids, as well as a pair of demon ponies who had been shipped in by pentagram. Acid Enema and Razorblade Urology, however, seemed to cause more death than they did healing and really seemed to be more interested in medical research than actually doing any good. Astoundingly, though, even they were not immune to the infection. They were showing some signs of contamination, although the disease cased few symptoms and progressed far more slowly than it did in normal ponies.
The etiological agent of the disease was still unknown, and that was maddening. Toxic Shock was a containment specialist, not a doctor- -but he knew that every disease had a cause. It appeared, based on what Cuaitl had been able to glean before his inevitable demise, was that there was a physical parasite within the infected- -but it did not always stay physical. It spread and moved like a spell, one adaptive enough to rewrite itself to avoid any form of treatment. Even attempts to remove the spell proved fruitless; the spell would simply convert into a fully material form devoid of magic.
Toxic Shock looked out over the beds of patients. Many of them had fallen silent, resolving into a kind of catastasis where they simply stared into space. Others babbled nonsensically, and many just screamed without stopping even to sleep. Their bodies had now become almost completely unrecognizable masses of tumors and raw flesh.
That alone would have been bad enough. Toxic Shock understood cancer and deformity- -several of his own soldiers were the products of exposed organic life in the Wastelands, their bodies and minds twisted by the concentrated pollution and disease of his homeland. If it were only that, it would simply be a disease.
There was something he knew, though, that terrified him. He knew what lurked in the back of the ward, strapped to a bed. He knew that Patient Zero had looked just like all these ponies, once, but had continued to mutate, becoming something far worse, something that terrified even him.
From unconscious, Epicenter suddenly gained awareness. She knew that it was now time. Her mind had healed and been repaired from its damaged state.
She had no eyes to open, but in her mind, she saw the machine she needed to build to give her sight. There were so many within her, so many schematics and so much understanding. They were her birthright, things that she felt a compulsion, a need to obtain.
Sight was a mostly useless sense anyway. She instead extended her magic, taking inventory of the space around her, the spells clicking together and formulating within her mind easily, as if the magic that flowed through her was an extension of her own body.
She immediately found that somebody had attached her to an extra-long hospital bed by straps. Their goal had apparently been to prevent her from moving, although their method had been inherently flawed. She simply raised her right hand with a sudden jerking motion and tore through the flimsy fabric. She then reached over to the other one and her fingers moved delicately over the locking mechanism, releasing herself.
Something seemed wrong, though. Something about her fingers seemed incorrect, but she did not know what. Her mind immediately determined the cause: they were bare, not covered in metal and plastic. She knew that life was not meant to exist outside of armor; it was too fragile on its own. The armor was life, and it was a part of her, but it existed at present only in her mind.
So she stood in the darkness. Night had fallen, but night had fallen everywhere. There were too holes where the sun and moon had been, where Order had failed. Her own Order was still weak; her body had formed enough to operate, but was not yet complete. There were still shadows in her mind, of her former self screaming in the darkest and least secured corners.
She walked forward, her two legs moving easily beneath her across the cold floor, dragging through the bodily fluids that contaminated it. The thoughts and ideas were already flowing through her mind, and she knew what needed to be done, and why. In fact, she could not tell why she had never thought about it before. She distantly remembered that there had been a time before she was herself, but she could not recall clearly. It was as though she had been asleep for so long, and was now awake.
The patients watched her as she passed by them. Those that were close enough to being corrected simply watched her pass, understanding what she was and what they would become. Even the dead watched, their eyes slowly turning to follow their future. Life and death, of course, were only illusions. There was no difference between the states unless they were viewed through the lens of a primitive mind.
Some, though, retained vestiges of their damaged minds. They saw something that horrified them, and they started screaming. Nobody would come, of course- -those were the ones who resisted the truth, and the ones who screamed endlessly when they were forced to face what they had always been meant to become.
The equidroids moved about her silently, not seeing her as she passed. She had already entered their natural programming, redesigning it in minor ways that they were unlikely to notice, forcing them to be blind to her. Looking at them, though, she felt profoundly hungry. She wanted them, their metal, the robotics of their bodies. She wanted to feel those machines against her, liking to the machines already inside her, to feel them penetrating her and embracing her, making her strong.
As she moved, Epicenter passed a pair of creatures to large to be ponies. One was gaunt, his skin covered in scars like burns, and the other much wider. They were both a pale orange color, with skeletal, vestigial wings and small, thick horns. Epicenter knew them, at least distantly. They were able to resist being healed. The vector simply found nothing within them to repair; their bodies were organic, but not truly alive, and their souls were made of some material that was not compatible with the equipment.
“Hey,” said the wide one, tapping the scarred one with his cloven hoof. “Look at this! One of them finally matured!”
They watched her pass, one of them taking notes. They did not know what she was- -there was no way that their primitive world could have known of hers, a world that she for some reason could not recall- -but they had always known, since their arrival, of the process. Distantly, Epicenter was aware that the soul that saw through their eyes might just have recognized what she had become.
Then, suddenly, a pony appeared before her. He was not infected. Somehow, his magic and the machines that made up so much of his body had preserved him. He seemed to be moving through the dim light, his path lit by the glow of the spell that covered his face. It seemed that he was inspecting the wards, walking amongst them, looking at what he likely perceived incorrectly as disease and death.
He looked up. Epicenter was conscious of the expression on his face- -the look of annoyance that rapidly progressed to shock, and then terror as she looked down at him.
Before he could react, she raised her hand to him. She could not escape the thirst any longer. He screamed as most of his robotic body was torn apart and separated from him. The equidroids stopped what they were doing and turned toward him, confused as to why he was making so much sound- -and then they bent to Epicenter’s will and turned back to their work.
“What are you doing?” screamed the pony. “Security! Containment breach class Seven!”
Epicenter ignored him. She took away the parts of his body that she could use, leaving the containment vessel that contained his spine and head, as well as the one that contained the fragments of organs that still functioned. They would serve no purpose to her.
The mechanical components disassembled before her, and she felt her mind race as she picked out each one and put it with the others. There was a scematic in her head, but half the pieces required were not present- -so she had to solve the puzzle, to figure out what was needed to make herself whole.
The pieces connected to her body. Few of them were truly useful; there was only enough material to properly cover her left arm, and even then, only poorly.
The pony stopped calling out. She had taken the part of him that enabled him to speak, leaving it perfectly intact. She amplified the signal, broadcasting it to those waiting outside.
“This is Toxic Shock,” she said in his voice. “By my official order, I am lifting the quarantine.”
“Boss,” said a static-ridden voice on the other side. “Are you sure?”
“The situation has decayed beyond our capacity. We cannot treat the patients here at this facility. Summon transport ships, and prepare for patient evacuation.”
The equidroids responded almost immediately, and the demons snickered. Epicenter lowered the vocal transmitter, dropping it on the pile of still-living remnants of a pony that were glaring up at her.
She approached the door, joined by one who had been a doctor, but was now nearing the end of his process as well. Epicenter hated him- -by definition, she hated all her kind. She wanted to kill them all almost as much as she craved the machines, but knew that it would be impossible and contrary to her goal, whatever that was.
The doctor entered the code to the door, and it hissed open. Epicenter stepped out into the world that she knew to be called Equestria.