The Monster and the Mother
DAY 1 OF INFECTION: 8% OF EQUESTRIA INFECTED
Celestia
Vast amounts of alicorn magic wreathed Princess Celestia's horn as she finished tugging the sun over the horizon and, with one last nudge, sent it on its path. She extinguished her blazing horn and nodded. She could already feel it; it was going to be a beautiful day. It was a shame Luna wasn't here today, but she had prior engagements. They could meet up at breakfast. Or dinner. The distinction was getting quite blurred with her sister back.
She turned around and left the balcony behind, returning to her private chambers. A flick of her magic straightened her bed, put out the candles, and floated her list of today's events towards her. Breakfast with Luna, a meeting regarding tax revisions with a representative from Hoofington, Noon Court followed by her lunch break, a meeting with Doctor Lymph, another meeting with a representative of the ETRF. Then it was paperwork, followed by dinner, then lowering the sun, and then sleep.
A fairly light day, all things considered. Those were becoming more common; it warmed her heart to see Luna stepping back into her role after so long. She pulled her regalia off her nightstand and floated the pieces on before stepping out of her chambers into the hallway leading to them.
The two Solar Guards that had stood guard to her room wordlessly filed to her sides. She knew better by now than to try to make small talk with her guards; they took their duty very seriously, for which she was grateful, but they could stand to lighten up at times.
As she completed the short trot to her and Luna's private dining room, she sniffed the air. It smelled a bit... off. Likely her imagination. After all, she'd been dreaming of dancing pine trees before she awoke...
She found Luna already at the table, a stack of buttered waffles drizzled with syrup on her plate, happily munching away.
"Greetings, Tia!" she shouted. Celestia idly closed the door behind her with her magic, the guards taking their posts next to the ones already there. "A most glorious morning thou hast brought," she continued as Celestia took her seat next to her. Her plate was already filled with a delectable bouquet, a cup of tea next to what she believed was a cup of coffee, and next to the flowers was a healthy heap of white rice, with peas and even a few kernels of corn.
"Morning, Lulu," she said, levitating her fork and spoon. She dove into her rice, saving the flowers for later. "So sister, how did the night go?"
"Most splendidly, Tia! Doctor Lymph hath told us that he shalt have an analysis of Elizabeth's blood for thee later in the day, and we hath reviewed Prince Blueblood's proposal for tax money redistribution concerning the upcoming Equestrian Games and found it most satisfactory." She paused and smirked. "With a few changes, of course." Luna took another sip from her cup. Was that hot chocolate Celestia smelled from it? She leaned down and sniffed her own cup. No, not coffee. Hot cocoa as well. Wonderful; it was getting rather cold these days with the approach of winter, doubly so since it was still early morning. She took a sip from the cup.
Divine.
The two sisters ate their breakfast/dinner at a leisurely pace, yet Celestia kept her schedule in mind. She relished the tea and the hot chocolate, as well as the vegetables. It was, as was all food prepared by the Royal Chefs, heavenly. As they ate, they spoke about important things. Things critical to ruling the nation.
" - so then he trips with the letters still in his hoof and they go flying everywhere!" Luna said through gasping breaths. "And he just looks up at us, blinks, down at the papers, up at us, blinks again, and says 'Oops'."
Celestia burst into laughter, almost sending tea out her nostrils. Oh, if her subjects could see her now. She slammed her forehooves on the table, gasping for breath as she finally relaxed, eventually wiping a tear from her eye. "Oh dear..."
Truly important things.
All too soon, Celestia finished her food and her beverages. She wiped her muzzle of any remaining pieces of food and yawned. "Well, I suppose I should get going."
"Indeed sister," Luna said. She finished slurping up the last of her waffles and dabbed away the syrup on her mouth. "Would not do to leave the representatives waiting." They both stood from the table and leaned in to nuzzle the other. "Good day to thee, Tia."
"Sleep well, Lulu," she said, pulling away. She lit up her horn and organized the plates and cups. She knew the servants would take them away to be cleaned, but that was no reason for it to be unnecessarily hard. "I wish you pleasant dreams."
"Indeed! Now, thou shalt get going lest thou be la-ate," she said sing-songishly before vanishing with a flash of blue and a crack of air rushing in to fill a void.
Shaking her head with a smile, Celestia strode over to the great double doors that lead from the room and opened them with a push of her hooves. As she did, and her guards took her side, she noticed they weren't as... steady in their hoofsteps. After passing a few servants - 'Good morning, Your Majesty' followed by 'Good morning to you too' - she stopped and turned to them.
"Sirs, you do not appear to be feeling well." She was concerned. Her guards were nothing if not stubborn. If they were ill, it would take a lot to convince them to take leave. Sick guards were no guards at all, to say nothing of their well being.
"It is nothing, Princess," said the one on the left. Who was that? She looked past the enchanted armor... ah, Clear Skies. "We are capable of protecting you."
She stepped forward and laid a fetlock on his forehead. "You're running a fever." She looked at the other one - Blue Skies, brothers - and repeated the process. "You too. What other symptoms do you have?"
"Your Highness, we're perfectly - "
She leveled a joking, half-glare at Clear Skies. "Do I need to make that an order?"
The guard sighed. "My throat is sore, my joints ache, it's cold, and I'm dizzy."
His brother replied, "Same for me," he said with a nod.
She frowned. "Sounds much like the flu. I highly recommend taking sick leave." She held up a hoof as they prepared to protest. "I understand you are worried about my safety, however I in turn worry about yours. We do not need you spreading it to everypony you meet. Sick guards are no guards at all," she said, repeating her thoughts from a moment before.
Blue Skies nodded. "Yes, Princess. We will place our armor at the barracks and retire to our homes."
She smiled. "Good. I will let the Captain know. Please, do take care of yourselves."
The two guards, after some prompting, trotted in front of her and around a corner. When they were gone, Celestia proceeded on her own. She didn't encounter anypony on her way to the meeting room, and so she simply pushed open the door with a flick of magic, walked in, and closed it behind her with a hoof.
This room was a perfect cylinder, patterned with red, gold, silver, and blue swirls. In the middle was a round table, piled high with several stacks of paper. Along the walls hung portraits and paintings from artists long gone, and across from her was another door. Two guards stood by each one, saluting or bowing to her as she entered.
"Please, relax," she said. Rather than look at the gently tick-tocking clock on the wall she briefly connected to the sun's power. It was... about five minutes before the representative had to arrive. She took a across from where he'd likely enter and waited. She flicked her gaze around the guards.
Their eyes were bloodshot, she realized. Not terribly bloodshot, but enough for her to notice. They also shivered ever so slightly in their armor. She frowned visibly. Was it flu season already? She resolved to make sure the Canterlot weather team didn't blow the winds so that germs would be caught by all.
At length, Logic Spending entered the room, ten minutes late. He was a steely gray earth pony with a black mane and tail that were both short, in contrast to his shaggy coat. He was getting on in his years, as she could tell by the streaks of white in his fur. His suit was ruffled, and she could see various pencils stuck inside a pocket.
He shivered and had bloodshot eyes.
"My apologies for being late, Princess Celestia," he said as he took a seat. He was a big pony. Not as big as Applejack's brother, but noticeable in a crowd. "I'm afraid I've not been feeling all that well today."
"Perfectly understandable," she said. Internally she couldn't help but feel the first hints of panic. Was everypony sick today? Whatever it was, could alicorns contract it? She was immune to most forms of disease, but she couldn't help but wonder...
... no, this was just the flu. Perhaps an extremely infectious case, but flu nonetheless.
"Of course." He ruffled through the stack of papers Celestia had arranged and labeled the day before, and pulled out the correct one. "Revenue for Hoofington is currently at 10% excess of what was expected, so I was thinking if we could..."
The meeting went on, Celestia paying as much attention to Logic Spending's ideas as she could. They were sensible ideas. A minor reduction in tax for the citizens that would still yield excess, and the excess would be sent to the Royal Treasury for distribution among the projects she and Luna oversaw. The exact numbers were, of course, what took up the majority of the time.
Every now and then, Logic Spending sniffed, sneezed, or produced a hoofkerchief from his suit and blew into it. It was probably for the best his seat was next to the wastebasket. Celestia asked him on more than one occasion if he was fine, but he insisted he was. Either way, his proposals were sound, and he didn't grovel like many others did, so his mind was still operating at full steam.
As the clock ticked on and Celestia sensed the sun rising closer to its zenith, the meeting drew to an end with the conclusion that it'd be better if they simply reduced the taxes overall for now, let the citizens have more bits in their pockets. "Thank you for your time, Princeh... ehh... achoo!" he said, trailing off by sneezing into his latest hoofkerchief.
"It was no problem, Logic. I hope you feel better soon." She got up from the table and was about to head to hold court when she stopped. "By any chance, when did you start feeling sick?"
"Just this morning, actually. Hit me pretty hard." He tossed the hoofkerchief into the bin.
"I see. And where have you been lately?"
"Just in Canterlot, the Flying Unicorn hotel. May I ask why?"
She waved a hoof. "Just out of curiosity. You are dismissed."
He gave a quick bow, and they parted ways. Celestia trotted at a brisk pace to her throne room, which was empty save for a few ill-looking guards and an ill-looking Sounding Voice.
"Hello, Princess," the mare said as Celestia sat in her throne. "Noon Court is ready to begin whenever you are."
She nodded. She had a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. "Let the Noon Court begin."
The guard next to the doors listened outside for a moment. "Announcing Firm Ground and Tough Luck, concerning a legal clarification."
The doors opened, briefly revealing a line stretching outside that wasn't quite as long as it had been in years past. Two unicorns strode in, and they seemed to be polar opposites of each other. The stallion to Celestia's left had a pristine red coat and ruinous yellow mane, whereas the stallion to her right had a messy butter-yellow coat and flawless red mane. They bowed respectfully to her, and she held in a sigh. When would they finally understand they didn't have to do that?
"Please, rise. Before we begin, please tell me which of you is Firm Ground, and who Tough Luck is?"
The clean-red-coat stallion raised a hoof. "I would be Tough Luck, Your Highness." He gestured to the other. "This is my business partner, Firm Ground." Abruptly, Tough Luck sneezed, barely catching it with the foreleg of his suit. "Apologies, Highness." Oh no, she thought. Him too? "The two of us were wondering if it were legal for us to start up a company that sells insurance to insurance companies, in case they should fail."
"If you have the money to do such things, then there is no reason why it would be illegal." Her voice dropped. "However, keep in mind that should you not be able to do such, it would have... drastic consequences. In addition, insuring companies against failure could have repercussions through the market. It is not illegal per say, but I strongly advise you think it over."
"Thank you, Your Majesty," said Firm Ground. The minor issue settled, they left, and Noon Court progressed.
Celestia's panic slowly began to heighten. In between settling land disputes, approving weather plans that hadn't made it through the regular process, and explaining that this was not, in fact, 5 Whitesaddle Street, she saw that almost everypony was sick. It sorely distressed her. She had several ideas as to what was going on, and she liked none of them.
"... a thousand thanks, Princess Celestia," said the latest petitioner, leaving the city. Celestia blinked. Had Noon Court gone by so fast? Her mind was truly elsewhere. She hoped she hadn't said anything she'd later regret. That has been embarrassing in the past. Approving a parade in honor of lemons that could catch fire, what had she been thinking?
She mentally checked the position of the sun. "Please tell the petitioners outside that Noon Court has ended. If their issue was not addressed, they are welcome to return to tomorrow's Noon Court or to my sister's Midnight Court tonight. I must now take my leave."
Celestia rose from her throne and walked through the halls. After a quick lunch consisting of tomato soup and ample deserts, she found her hooves bringing her to the appropriate door at the appropriate time. The sign warned, 'Caution! Disease causing agents and ponies do NOT mix!'. She cast a quick spell to sterilize herself and stepped in. Doctors rushed about, albeit with more than a little lethargy. Celestia took one step, and the clip of her hoof against the marble floor made them stop and give bows or similar greetings.
She waved her left foreleg. "Please, do not stop on my account. I'm here to see Doctor Lymph. Could anypony direct me to him?"
"Well," somepony to her right said. "I'm not sure about that. After all, Doctor Lymph is crazy!" Celestia turned and smiled, seeing that the neighsayer was the good doctor himself and... and he was sick too. "Please Princess, step into my office," he said, leading her through the crowd of gazing ponies. Celestia looked at little vials out of the corner of her eyes, marked with letters and numbers such as GS17 and GS65.
Doctor Lymph's office was a little cube, and Celestia had to sit lest her horn puncture a hole in the low ceiling. He went behind his desk and pulled several sheets of paper out from a nearby folder. "I trust you figured out why I wanted to have this meeting with you?" he asked.
With a small bit of magic, she closed the door and granted them privacy. "I imagine it is for the two samples of Elizabeth's blood she was generous enough to provide?"
He nodded happily, betraying how terribly under the weather he looked. "Quite right! Has Luna explained to you how her blood works with her virus?"
"It mutates the strain in her flesh rapidly. Most of these variants are harmless, but one put you on a track to cure wing cancer." She smiled. "Excellent work on that, by the way. It does you and your peers credit."
He blushed. "It was nothing, Your Majesty. Once we had the strain it was quite easy to be honest - " She cut him off by raising a forehoof. "Oh, right. As I was saying, we've received interesting things from Elizabeth's new samples. Before, not including her base strain, we had thirty-eight strains of the Greene Virus. Now we have a hundred and thirty. Forty six from the one you took, forty nine from the one your sister took."
"No overlap?"
"None at all, Princess. I stand by what I said to Princess Luna; the viruses Elizabeth is creating could help us cure every ailment in existence! I'll go over Princess Luna's sample first since it's the most recent." His eyes briefly scanned the paper. "Most of Greene's strains are inert, utterly unable of doing anything, however Greene Strain one-hundred and fourteen is what we've taken to calling a Benevolent."
"I'm assuming it has given you a lead on how to cure another disease?"
"Quite right! This actually helped us with the feather flu. If we're right we should be able to cure the feather flu and all its variations, including some of the more... virulent ones." He shivered. "In any case, one of our scientist's foals have already been cured. It shouldn't be long."
"Stupendous development," she said. Though she wondered if the foal in question had agreed, and had known what was to be involved. Results were results, but anypony who told you the process was irrelevant was a foal. "And as to the blood sample I provided?"
Doctor Lymph's happy smile collapsed into a nervous smile. "Princess, remember how we said that sometimes Greene's viruses change from being inert? And that they may possibly become less than benevolent?" Her lips tightened. "Greene Strain seventy-five is a dangerous virus. We're not entirely certain what it... it..." His horn lit up and something white floated across Celestia's vision. "iiiiachoo! Sorry, Your Highness." He drifted the hoofkerchief into a trash can.
"Think nothing of it," she said stiffly.
"As I was saying, we're not entirely certain what seventy five is capable of, however initial magic scans indicate high fevers, lesions, and vomiting." That didn't sound like what was going on. There were fevers, but lesions? Vomiting? None... that she'd seen. She'd keep an eye out. "Luckily, it doesn't seem to have gotten out of the lab, and we've obliterated most samples of it."
"Most?"
"You must understand, it may end up useful for an as-of-yet unknown disease in the future. It'd be a waste to get rid of all of it. Rest assured, it is being kept under strict sanitary conditions, and the virus itself isn't very infectious. Virulent, certainly, but not infectious." Celestia breathed out a sigh of relief. "On a happier note, Greene Strain forty-five is another benevolent." Celestia's eyes widened. "Preliminary trails with medicine taken by adapting some of its mechanisms show great success against walking pneumonia."
"That is very good news, doctor."
"Indeed it is. Princess, with your permission we will, using Greene Strains forty-five and one hundred and fourteen to create cures for feather flu and walking pneumonia."
"Permission... belayed," she said sadly.
The unicorn's eyes widened. "W-What?!" he said loudly. "No disrespect, Princess, but - "
"Allow me to explain," she interjected. "I am well aware of the benefit these developments could bring and I will fully support them, but there are more immediate concerns. I have noticed that everypony I've met today save for my sister is sick with the flu, which I fear is reaching epidemic levels in Canterlot. The flu does not just spring up overnight in such a wide spread manner. You yourself are ill, are you not?"
"We take great precautions to make sure we do not spread any diseases we carry, if we carry them at all," he said flatly.
"I understand, but not everypony does. I fear it's all one illness, and I would like you to carry research into this disease and have a report ready for my sister by tonight."
"Oh," he said, ears flattening. "I understand, Princess Celestia. Berry in the hoof and whatnot."
She nodded gratefully. "Thank you for your understanding, Doctor Lymph. Make no mistake, I fully intend to endorse your projects with these two cures and send packets to our allies once the immediate danger has passed. Do understand however, that I am very worried. I hope you can resolve this issue as soon as possible. It may be a simple flu, it may not. Better to er on the side of caution."
"No no, thank you for your time, Princess. We'll get to work right away."
She smiled. "I know my sister and I can count on you and your colleagues, Doctor. If you'll close your eyes real quick?" He did so, and Celestia lit up her horn, vanishing into a nearby hallway.
"GWAH!" shouted the pony trotting before her. She'd been right on time with her teleport, apparently. "Y-Your Highness, you startled me," the unicorn said.
"I'm sorry, Counted Days, but I'm in need of a quick rescheduling. A matter of potential national importance has arisen."
"Of course," she said with a sniffle - not her too - before reaching into her saddlebags adorned with her cutie mark - a calendar with a few days crossed with red Xes - and pulled out... a calendar with a few days crossed with red Xes, along with many smaller scribbles. A pencil floated out of her black mane to float next to her head. "What do you need to move?"
"My meeting with the Equestrian Thaumatology Research Foundation," she said. "Cancel it or reschedule it, whichever fits."
"S-So quickly, Your Majesty?" she asked, her eyes wide and pencil lowering. "But it's only in a few - "
"Please, Counted," she told her schedule keeper. "This is very important."
The white-coated mare frowned, but a few scribbles later and she was done, floating the items back. "It's been canceled, Princess."
"Excellent. Please go inform the ETRF representative that an urgent matter has come to my attention and that I am unable to come." She turned around to begin her path, but paused and looked back at Counted. "And once that's done go to the Royal Kitchens, get yourself some hot soup, and take the rest of the day off to recover." She paused again. "That's an order."
Hearing a not-as-crisp-as-usual 'Yes Princess' behind her, Princess Celestia soon found a corridor where nopony was watching her. There were distressingly few guards; she feared many were on sick leave today. She needed to get a good assessment of the situation, but in order to do that she couldn't be stopped by citizens every ten hoofsteps asking for her autograph or blessing. Reaching into her magic and calling upon a spell - the same spell her sister used to transform herself every Nightmare Night - she began to shrink. Her wings and horn vanished, though the latter was still capable of magic even concealed. Her aurora-esque mane, blowing in the solar wind, flattened and shortened under gravity after turning a light pink. Cutie marks were almost impossible to alter, however it was trivial to layer an illusion spell on top of it to transform the sun into a sunflower.
There was only one thing left to do, and that was to teleport her regalia to her room. Had anypony walked by, they would've seen an snow-white earth pony with a horn-shaped yellow glow on their forehead teleport four pieces of metal into nowhere.
"Good," she said, before pausing. A moment of magic later, she spoke again. "Good, better," she whispered in a much higher tone of voice. She wove a temporary invisibility cloak around herself and teleported out of the castle, into the streets of Canterlot.
She arrived near a market square. There were few customers, but that was balanced out by the few sellers. She'd teleported to a roof to avoid any displacement complications, and with her invisibility still active it was easy to trot down to street level and reappear in an inconspicuous location. Once settled she took a deep breath through her nostrils.
Celestia frowned. The air smelled... stale. Something was off, and seeing that everypony on the streets was red-eyed and shivering, her suspicious were growing grimmer and grimmer. She checked the sun; she still had some six hours until dinner with Luna. That was plenty of time to get information.
She trotted around the streets of Canterlot, looking for somepony, anypony, who wasn't sick. The fruit vendor, sick. The street performer, sick. The guards at the gate, sick. Everypony getting on the train, sick. The doctor, sick. The musician, sick. Nopony wasn't sick!
What was worse was that, as time passed, they seemed to be getting worse. They shivered more intensely. Ponies rubbed their aching joints more often and the number of tissues in waste-bins climbed at an increasing rate. Drink vendors - also sick - had good business. Celestia was very, very worried. It seemed everypony in the city was sick. She didn't know if those outside Canterlot were also ill, but for the time being she had to get a hold on the situation.
Resuming her natural alicorn stature and teleporting her regalia to her from her chambers, she flew to the house where she could find her latest Captain of the Guard, a worried frown plastered on her muzzle. Something was terribly wrong with her little ponies, and she was going to contain the problem, get to the bottom of it, and fix things.
"Captain Shielded Heart," she said, rapping on the door with a hoof. When it failed to open, she let herself in to find the Captain sprawled out on his living room's sofa, fast asleep with a dribble of drool down his faded pink coat. "Captain Shielded Heart," she repeated firmly. He snorted and fell off his sofa, the off duty soldier sputtering and getting up. Sick.
"Uh, hello... Princess!" He immediately saluted upon seeing her, his red mane and tail both drenched in sweat. "My sincerest apologies - "
"Forgive my intrusion, but there is no time for that, Captain," she said firmly. "There is an epidemic in Canterlot, and everypony I've seen so far is afflicted." She summoned paper, a quill, and an ink well. In the air, she began writing. "Take this decree and guards to enforce it. Until the situation is once again in hoof, I am issuing a quarantine on Canterlot. Nopony leaves this city without express permission from myself or my sister."
His eyes widened, pupils collapsing as his blue irises shrank. "Y-Your Majesty! But what about trade routes, vacationers - "
"Captain, in the past twelve hours everypony in Canterlot has come down with the flu. Everypony. Something is dreadfully wrong, and we can not allow this disease to escape any further than it already has."
"Princess, if I may, it's just the flu."
"The flu is more than just a nasty cold, Shielded Heart," she said coldly. "Even with modern healthcare, ponies die to it. Go." She floated the paper over to him. "I have much to attend to before I lower the sun."
He saluted again. "It will be done, Princess." He lowered his hoof to his mouth to catch a cough.
"Captain," she whispered as she opened the door. "Take care of yourself." And then she was flying through the stale, withered air. She had so much to take care of. It would take time for Shielded Heart to mobilize the afflicted guard, so until then she had to take things into her own hooves...
***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***
Luna
With a final tug, Luna pulled the third quarter moon over the skies. Utter darkness fell upon the world until she, after a moment of gathering her magic, summoned forth the incomprehensibly numerous, immeasurably distant stars. She took a moment to delight in her work, wrinkled her snout at the foul smell of the air, then trotted back inside. Her regalia was already affixed, and she walked with purpose through her starry bedroom, extinguishing the black flame of anticandles with flicks of magic. Princess Luna hummed a gentle tune as she walked towards her and her sister's private dining room. Tonight would be a good night, even though she hadn't yet looked at her schedule for the night.
"Greetings to thee, sister!" she bellowed as she stormed into the chamber. "What hath the Royal Chefs prepared for us tonight?"
Celestia sat stock still with an unreadable expression, not taking her eyes off Luna. On their plates sat multiple slices of buttered toast, perfectly browned. She could see that their cups held naught but water.
"Tia, what is the problem?" she asked gently, dropping her voice.
"Luna," Celestia began slowly and gently. "How are you feeling?"
"Feeling?" she asked, walking around the table and quirking a brow.
"Any dizziness? Nausea? Fever? Chills? Aches?"
Luna laughed, reaching her seat. "Celestia, we art not ill!" She sat down and eyed her breakfast. It was surprisingly plain for something coming out of the Royal Kitchens.
Her sister breathed out a sigh of relief. "Thank heavens. Oh Lulu, you would not believe the day I've had!"
"Chewed out by the ETRF?" she asked with a smirk.
"Canceled the meeting." Celestia bit a piece of one of her toast slices. Luna saw how drooped her eyes were, the way her left ear flopped, and heard her right forehoof tapping the floor. Time for Concerned Little Sister mode.
She scooted closer and wrapped her wing around her sister's shoulder. "Tia, what happened? Thou can - " She paused. "You can talk to me. What happened?"
Celestia sighed. "Everypony in the city is sick. I had to issue a royal decree; Canterlot is under quarantine. The Pathogen and Vaccine Research is looking into the cause; they should have an answer for you right after Midnight Court."
Luna frowned. "Define sick."
"It didn't start out as anything very alarming. My guards had a fever, some chills. I didn't think much of it; I told them to go on sick leave until they were better and that was that. But... everypony in Canterlot's come down with it, and while the sneezing and runny noses were fading by the time you raised the moon..."
"Getting worse?" she asked soothingly. Tia nodded briskly. "What hast thou been doing?"
"I've been relieving the symptoms of anypony I can, ease their suffering. I took part in enforcing the quarantine until the guard - they're sick too, by the way - could get into position. Then I came here, sent the Royal Chefs home to heal, and made us toast."
Luna withdrew her wing to munch on a loaf. "What splendid toast it is." Luna frowned. "What might cause such a thing to transpire in our fair city? Last night everypony was fine."
"That's what I don't get!" Celestia shouted. "Everything was fine! And then the entire city just all at once comes down with a disease I am increasingly certain is not the flu. I'm worried, Lulu. Who or what is doing this? How can we make it stop? How - "
"Shush, Tia!" Luna snapped after swallowing another bite. "Worrying thyself wilt do our little ponies no good. The night is young and the day is over; go and rest, Tia. Should any complications arise, we shalt handle them." She took a sip of water to help wash the toast down.
Celestia nodded, ears down. "You're right, you're right. I shouldn't worry." She smirked. "That's your job now."
Luna raised a hoof to the ceiling in false anger. "Curse thee, Tia! Thou hast outsmarted us!" She lowered her hoof and although Celestia didn't laugh she did smile.
Operation Concerned Little Sister successful!
They ate the rest of their meal in silence, parting with nervous take cares as Celestia went to sleep and Luna went out into her domain. As she trotted out, she summoned her list for today. She frowned. There really wasn't much, which could likely be attributed to the circumstances Celestia had mentioned. No matter. She had the night free until Midnight Court, it was time to dreamwalk.
Princess Luna wandered the halls of the castle in a near daze, only dimly aware that not even her Night Guards waited at their vigils. It distressed her, but not so much that she could not wander the pathways of the dream world, spread out before her like a spider's web with dew glinting on it. A bubble appeared near her, glowing with a gentle yellow light. Luna tapped it with her mind's hoof, and set Celestia's dream towards the most relaxing thing her subconscious could think of. She'd have to be careful not to accidentally view that dream later...
Luna wandered her gaze throughout Equestria's dreams, occasionally stumbling upon a red one that was tumbling out of control, or a blackened nightmare. Each time she gave it the gentlest tap with a dream hoof, and the colors turned clear as the dream turned pleasant. Only once did she have to enter somepony's dream, a dream about the Slendermane character popular among foals. Evidently that poor colt took it as more than fiction.
She noticed something strange, though. There were plenty of dreams but... very few close to her. Within Canterlot there were only three dreams; one of those were her sister's, and the other two were shriveled little droplets, barely coherent dreams that, even as she watched, ended. Luna knew enough about dreams to know that sleep was comprised of alternating cycles of dream and deep sleep, but this was utterly abnormal.
It's the disease, she thought. There are no such things as coincidences. Go into Canterlot and see why nopony can dream.
Princess Luna pulled herself out of the dreamscape and checked the position of the moon. Still two hours until Midnight. Time always flew while dreamwalking.
She found her way to one of the castle's many balconies, carved by expert unicorns during the time of the Unicorn King, then remade when her and her sister took the throne. It was a masterpiece, every bit of metal and each gemstone placed with expert care, and she didn't care for any of it as she took off with a flap of powerful wings and incredible pegasus magic.
Canterlot was unusually lit up for the night. Most ponies would be sound asleep, their houses darkened, with only those who played, partied, and worked under the stars up and about. Now though, the streets of Canterlot were as lit up as the starry skies above, ponies shuffling around.
Luna landed in a street at random, and almost instantly gaped in horror. Ponies shuffled along at a slow gate, some holding their stomachs or leaning against each other. They looked half dead, sweat coating their fur, but the truly horrible part were the small red blotches on the street.
"What doth be happening here?" she asked, just shy of the Royal Canterlot Voice.
The ponies all turned to her, looking substantially more lively in her presence but still terrible. "Can't sleep, Princess."
"Everypony is ill?" she questioned. She looked towards a red splotch uneasily, fearing the worst.
"I've always had insomnia," a mare said.
"My stomach hurts too much," said another.
"My face."
"My horn."
Princess Luna gaped as everypony began telling her what their ailments were in a jumble of words. It was... eerie. And then...
"Everything hurts, I can't sleep, I feel like I'm being watched by somepony and... and..." The brown unicorn was cut off as he let out a hacking cough, and then vomited a small torrent of blood from his mouth, splattering onto the ground.
Luna stepped back, flaring her wings. "WHAT?! Everypony to your homes now! If thou can't sleep then thou can't sleep, but keep thyselves hydrated!"
"Luna, Highness, but what about those buying water? Or going to court?" a mare asked. Her subjects were strangely nonplussed by the sight of such gore.
She gritted her teeth. "Those can be exceptions! Other than those important practices go home, cease spreading thy germs to each other!"
With a small amount of grumbling, everypony on the streets filed towards their homes, or changed direction if their homes were more distant. Luna took back into the air, terribly worried. Tia hadn't mentioned insomnia and vomiting blood as symptoms. Had she not noticed or - more likely but more worrisome - was the disease getting worse?
She winged over several streets and repeated her proclamation to the sick and sometimes-vomiting ponies. Stay at home unless you absolutely have to be outside, and keep hydrated. With Midnight Court a few minutes away, she became suddenly paranoid. She winged over to the castle and landed in the gardens. Luna wasted no time looking at the colorful flowerbeds or the trim hedges, making her way straight to the fear-filled fear-inducing statue hidden in the back.
Discord looked just as he always did, but appearances could be deceiving, especially when it came to the greatest adversary they had ever faced. After sealing him away for the first time, so many years ago, she and her sister had had multiple nightmares where Discord escaped his prison and created a replicate statue to throw them off as he wandered the land unchecked. Granted, a wandering Discord wasn't the only explanation for this; it was too subtle, it just wasn't his style. Luna had other ideas, but dared not give voice to the thoughts.
She extended her magic around the statue, wrapping it in a blue aura...
'Aww, is it visiting hours already, wittle Woona? I'm touched!'
Luna gritted her teeth and ignored him. She had nothing to say to him. Not a thing. She scanned Discord, looking for the bonds.
'Fine fine, be like that. It's not like hours of solitude will drive somepony insane without a person to talk to. How very cruel of you, Woona!'
He was already insane, he deserved it, and his mind certainly did not work like others' did. There! There were the bonds of Harmony. As predicted, since the Elements still had Bearers, they were unbroken. The lines of Loyalty, Laughter, Generosity, Kindness and Honesty were as strong as ever, and the knot of Magic holding them together unfrayed. Discord was going nowhere; even if there were strife around his statue, the bonds would keep it from freeing him.
'Three hundred eighty two thousand three hundred thirty seven bottles of chocolate milk on the wall, three hundred eighty two thousand three hundred thirty seven bottles of milk...'
No, it was not Discord causing this, even though it would've provided an easy solution. She withdrew her magic just as Discord was getting to 'pass it around' and took off, heading to her throne room. She teleported inside with a crack of magic, appearing inside the dark room that her natural night vision easily pierced. There was... nopony there but herself. Understandable, if this plague was as widespread as Celestia claimed but... it was unnerving to see. Just last night the city had been so alive, and well. Now everypony was vomiting blood and stumbling about as if they'd had one too many salt licks.
Her Night Guards were not at the gates; they were sick. Her herald was not here to announce petitioners; she was sick. Luna threw open the gates with her magic. "Let this session of Midnight Court begin! Due to extenuating circumstances, there shalt be no announcing, but we shalt still only take one petition at a time, and in order!" she bellowed to the line of ponies outside. There were not that many, and even as she watched, one of them threw up blood to the side. Her stomach churned.
The first pony, a unicorn mare with a white coat and pale blue mane - stained with blood and sweat - stepped forward. Her steps were unsteady, and as she approached Luna's obsidian throne she began tilting to the side. Luna caught her with her magic. "Please, speak thy petition to us." She'd made an attempt to adjust to the new 'modern' terms of speaking, but a little after Greene's arrival she realized the proper method of speech was better at cowing uppity nobles and tax dodgers. So she stuck with it.
"L-Luna, Your Majesty," she said slowly and almost haltingly. Her voice was ragged and dry.
"Please, hold." Luna conjured a glass of water - there was now one less cloud in the skies - and levitated it to the mare, who eagerly siphoned it dry. "Now speak."
"As I was - " She stopped to clear her throat. "As I was saying, I was hoping you could, if it pleases Your Majesty, make me sleep? I've tried everything I can think of, but I just can't fall asleep and I'm exhausted."
Luna's eyes softened. "Of course we can." She lit up her horn and summoned a cushion from her bedroom, laying the dark blue item off to the side of her throne room. "Simply climb upon it and we shalt send thee to sleep."
She bowed and headed to the cushion, collapsing on it. "Thank you, Princess... ess..." She didn't get to say more as Luna wove a powerful sleeping enchantment on her. It required a surprising amount of power to do, it was like a large portion of the spell's enchantment simply dissipated away.
Midnight Court progressed, and while there were still a few serious requests, many of her little ponies simply asked her to do something, anything, about their illness. She couldn't cure them directly either; even if she knew the disease and how to eliminate it, they would simply be infected again by those near them, and after the spell their immunity would be temporarily weakened. As the night progressed, she soon ended up bringing every last cushion from her private chambers to the throne room and letting the insomniacs slumber upon them. Something was dreadfully, dreadfully wrong, and she could not begrudge them. They needed the pillows much more than she would.
... though it was odd how they were brave enough to even ask such of her. Normally, ponies who asked such from her or her sister feared for their lives after such 'audacity'.
Eventually, Midnight Court came to an end as the last of the petitioners was put to sleep. Luna adjusted their bodies to make sure that while they slept, if they vomited blood they would not suffocate themselves. That done, she morosely rose from her throne and made her a hallway. She had a meeting with Doctor Lymph discussing the research her sister had put them to.
The Pathogen and Vaccine Research wing was dark, cold, and very empty. There were a few doctors, but instead of working with their glass vials they hung blearily over trash cans, occasionally looking over their shoulders for somepony who wasn't there. Luna walked through, her starry mane providing the most light, and received not a second glance. Normally she'd be happy that her little ponies were foregoing the bowing and scraping, but... not like this.
She found Doctor Lymph leaning against a wall, rubbing his forehead just next to his horn, whispering 'ow, ow, ow' over and over.
"Doctor Lymph," she said gently. "Our sister told us thou wouldst have a report for us regarding the situation in Canterlot."
He yawned and pulled himself from the wall. "Yes, we do. Please, follow me Luna." Luna. Not Princess, Excellence, or Your Highness. Just Luna. They entered his office and he collapsed in his seat. Luna watched him worriedly. "Now," he said, levitating a single sheet of paper. "You remember the samples of blood we received from Elizabeth Greene."
Already she did not like the direction of the conversation. That scenario was one of the most upsetting ones she'd envisioned. "We do," she said coldly.
"Well, then you'll remember how the blood strains are a mutation of the virus in her flesh. We've labeled them Greene Strain one to one hundred and thirty. Three of them were useful, one was dangerous, the rest were inert. Greene's original strain is a weak version of the common cold, at least in ponies." He shivered and winced, pressing a hoof to the side of his horn. "Mrr, feel like I'm growing a second head. Anyhow, Luna, this new strain is - " Don't say it, don't say it. We trusted her, we trusted her. " - a mutation of her original virus. We call it Greene Strain Zero. Err, the original one that it. This one is one hundred thirty one."
"What doth it do?" she whispered. She wove a quick pain suppression spell onto the poor doctor. Like her sleeping spells, much of it seemed to... disperse. At any rate, the doctor sighed blissfully.
"Thank you. As for what it does, well." A tear appeared in the corner of his eye. "If it wasn't so dangerous, and if I wasn't suffering from it, I'd call it a piece of art. Most diseases work by slowly eating the flesh of the victim to produce more pathogens. It's never a noticeable effect, and the body regenerates faster than the disease can destroy it, but that is still what they do. But this virus! It... it's beautiful. It doesn't destroy cells."
"Then what?"
"It enters a cell and... changes it. The new cell produces more copies of the virus within seconds and releases them, and then the changes take effect. The new cell replicates, and as the virus does its work it changes tissue, organs, and hypothetically, the entire organism."
"Into what?"
Doctor Lymph nodded sagely. "Indeed. Into what?" His eyes bugged out and he leaned over, vomiting blood into the wastebin. "So sorry, Luna."
"Not thy fault," she said sadly. Elizabeth Greene was doing this. How could Elizabeth do this?
"But this brings me to my next point. The symptoms you and your sister see are just... transitional. The old flesh interacting poorly with the transformed flesh, and this virus is fast so the symptoms escalate rapidly. Fever, aches, chills, a runny nose. The runny nose replaced later on by insomnia, paranoia, and the vomiting of blood. That's why this virus is so marvelous."
"How so?" Was he calling the symptoms marvelous?
"Normally changes on this level would be fatal. The alterations would kill the victim virtually a hundred percent of the time; out of the entirety of Canterlot there would be maybe five survivors." Luna's jaw dropped. "But this strain... it was changed. It was deliberately modified so that it would not kill its victims."
"Nosokinetic, Elizabeth Greene is nosokinetic," she whispered. "She changed it."
"Indeed," Doctor Lymph said. "If she is behind this - and given it's a variant of her strain it'd be hard for her not to be - then she doesn't want anypony to die from this. She wants the change to happen with minimal loss of life."
"Can..." She swallowed the moon-sized lump in her throat. "Can thou cure it?"
He shook his head not-that-sadly. "For one thing, it's very fast acting and impossibly contagious. I suspect the changes are already almost done, and then?" He shrugged. "We'll see then. Maybe we'll be lucky and get super strength like Elizabeth." Luna couldn't help but smile at that. She remembered a conversation with Elizabeth over a month ago. 'Blessing lifts me above Similars. Stronger. Better. Don't weaken over years. Give it to others.'
That explained her motive. Had Elizabeth vomited blood while she was a human, becoming an Evolved? Had she been unable to sleep before not needing to sleep? Would her subjects forget their lives before the virus?
Doctor Lymph went on. "Even if we had time, I don't think this virus can be cured. It's like nothing we've ever seen before, it's simply not natural. Slow it? Retard it? Maybe. But curing it is out of the question."
Luna's ears lowered. "We art sorry to hear that, Doctor Lymph. May we try anyhow?"
He shrugged. "Go for it."
Luna lit up her horn and scanned Doctor Lymph. She didn't know what she was looking for exactly, but after the incident with that madpony two and a half millennia ago she had a rough idea. She saw the disease in Doctor Lymph, a dark red spreading throughout his entire body. She tried to cure it with her magic in a hundred different ways, but nothing provoked any response. She pulled her magic back. "We art sorry, we can not."
"It's not your fault, Luna." He snapped his head to look behind him, then shook his head and looked back to Luna. "Ah, sorry. I think it may be changing my brain at this point; keep feeling like I'm being watched."
"We understand. We must take our leave now." She stood, her horn almost puncturing the low ceiling. "We hath an Evolved to find and bring to justice. Take care of thyself, Lymph Node. And for the love of the stars, keep thyself hydrated."
"I will, Luna," he said as Luna teleported to her room.
She felt sick, and it had nothing to do with the diseased city. Elizabeth Greene was doing this. She'd seen her just two nights ago, and she hadn't hinted anything about spreading this... this plague! Even if it was with good intentions, how could she? Making somepony sick, regardless of the results, was just not something you did! The journey mattered as much as the destination, and currently the journey she'd forced on her little ponies was making them suffer!
Luna laid her upper half on her bed, utterly stripped of all pillows. She'd betrayed them. Princess Luna narrowed her eyes. She could moan about 'how could she do this' after she'd found the Evolved. With her moon slowly approaching the horizon, Princess Luna burst from her balcony and soared above the city of Canterlot.
Everywhere she went, there was the same stomach-churning smell of blood and disease. Everywhere she flew, ponies were sick as the epidemic ravaged their bodies, turning them into something foreign, strange, alien. But while sick ponies were everywhere, and the illness filled the air, the origin was impossible to find. Was Elizabeth hiding, fearing the iron hoof of justice? If so, she couldn't hide forever. She cast her moon's glow upon Canterlot and searched, but Elizabeth was nowhere in the city. She widened her search to the entire night-side of Equus, but still Greene was not touched by moonlight and it exhausted her to search for anypony like that. Elizabeth was somewhere with a roof over her head, then.
Luna went door to door to door, and everypony was eager - perhaps too eager - to let her search and to drop her title. No matter what she did, she simply could not find Elizabeth over the hours of her solo search, and then she'd exhausted everything because it was time to end the night and usher in the day. She so wanted to do more, but if Greene was causing the outbreak there was no containing it, only stopping it at the source. She flew to her balcony and lit her horn.
A bluish, silvery glow wrapped around her horn as her magic reached out across the light years, through her link to the night sky, and subdued the light from the stars. The skies went black, save for the light of the moon. She pulled her magic back and focused it on the gargantuan moon. With a heave of telekinetic force, she wrapped the moon in her aura. However, the moon was so large and so far away it was impossible to notice the azure glow around it as she slipped it beneath the horizon. A moment later her sister's sun broke on the opposite side of the horizon, its golden glow illuminating the sick city.
Worry heavy in her stomach, Luna trotted into the empty castle and searched for her sister. Apparently Celestia had had the same idea, and they met halfway.
"Greetings, Tia," she said without enthusiasm.
"Rough night?" Celestia asked, worry heavy in her voice. Luna checked over her withers; her mane and tail blew slower in the interstellar wind than they usually did.
She looked back at Celestia and sighed heavily. "Thou hast no idea. But first, thee. How was thy slumber?"
"Very restful," she said happily. "I think I can tackle this situation now."
"Splendid. Let us walk to our dinner chambers and we shalt fill thee in on what hast transpired over the night." She frowned deeper. "We art sorry, we had no time to make thee breakfast."
"It's fine, Lulu. It sounds like you had a lot on your plate."
"Indeed." They walked and talked, Luna relaying the progression of the disease's symptoms and her talk with Doctor Lymph about how the virus worked, what it did, and who made it.
"I can't believe she would do something like this," Celestia said with a shake of her head. "Well meaning or not, we have to arrest her." She grimaced. "Elizabeth won't be happy about that. She truly trusts us."
"It matters not what she feels about it!" Luna insisted. "She hath betrayed our trust and broken our laws, which the treatise made sure she would be bound to while in our borders, and brought great suffering to our subjects!" She yawned and rubbed her eyes with a slippered hoof. "We shalt go to sleep, Tia. We hope thee finds Elizabeth and incarcerates her."
"No dinner?" she asked worriedly.
"We art too upset to be hungry. Good day, Celestia." She hesitated, and leaned in to hug her older sister. She returned the embrace for a good half a minute until they broke apart.
"Sleep well, Luna."
They exchanged several more farewells over their withers as they departed. Luna found her way to her bedroom and lit a dozen and a half anticandles, whose black flames immediately started siphoning light. She fell onto her bed, devoid of pillows that other ponies needed so much more than her, and drew the constellation-laden drapes around it. She drew her covers up and fell into a fitful sleep...
... for a few minutes. Then there was an alicorn shaking her frantically.
"Sister! Luna! Lulu, wake up!" Celestia cried, towering over her and shaking her with her forehooves.
"Gwah, blrr, gwar!" she sputtered, pushing the elder alicorn off of her. "What is it, sister?" she demanded hotly, wiping the little sleep she'd gotten out of her eyes.
"Remember how something was terribly wrong with our little ponies?" she asked fearfully. Luna nodded, noting how much Celestia's eyes had shrunken in fear. "Well today, something is terribly terribly wrong with our little ponies! Come!"
"We will, if thou will get off of us!"
"Sorry, Lulu." Celestia got off of her and Luna, grumbling, got out of bed. She reached out with her magic to put on her regalia, but realized she hadn't taken it off. That explained the crick in her neck where her torque went around. "Now come!"
"Coming, coming," she grumbled, following her sister out of her room, through the empty and foul-smelling corridors of the castle, and to the outside. She glanced up, and saw that the sun was barely above the horizon. She hadn't slept long before Celestia woke her up for whatever reason.
They entered Canterlot proper, and Luna tried to imagine what was so wrong. Had the plague entered its next stage of 'transforming' ponies? Had it completed it, and Celestia was now frightened at ponies regenerating and being able to gallop up vertical surfaces?
What she saw on the streets dispelled those notions that Tia was jumping at shadows. It was... horrible.
There were more blood splotches than when she had last seen, but nopony on the streets threw up blood. None of them shivered from chills or winced from aches. She walked next to one and put a fetlock against the mare's forehead; no fever either. All of the symptoms from yesterday were gone.
But a new one had taken its place. Cancer.
Horrific, disfiguring tumors grew along her ponies' bodies. There weren't that many, but enough to horrify her beyond words. On her flank, under his horn, growing over her left eye...
Luna retched, and was thankful she hadn't eaten anything beyond last night's toast. Nopony on the streets paid any attention to their Princesses, content to simply stand there with blank, unfocused eyes. Luna stepped before one and waved her hoof in front of her, trying desperately to ignore the hideous growth under her chin.
"Thy Princess asks thee to speak to us. What hast happened?" No response. "Why... why is everypony like this? Tell us. Please."
"They won't respond, Lulu," Celestia said, stepping next to her. "Something terrible has happened. Whatever Elizabeth's plague does, it seems to have done its purpose."
She growled. "We find her," Luna snarled. "Now."
Without word, Celestia nodded, and both alicorns burst into the air. They scanned Canterlot east to west, but before long Celestia shouted. "I got her! She's under the sun now... near the Beethooven Concert Hall, a bakery!"
They angled towards the building in question, blotting out the deadened crowds beneath them. They found Elizabeth with her back towards them, her legs dangling over a ledge as she sat on the bakery's roof. She kicked her feet against the wall like a foal, looking at the unmoving crowds in the streets below.
They landed behind Greene with heavy thuds, and immediately the Evolved reacted. She got to her feet and looked at them, a wide happy smile on her face. "Luna," she rasped, giddy as a school filly. "Celestia." Was it just Luna, or was there just a little more... force behind her voice's repeats?
"Elizabeth Greene," Celestia said with all the emotion of a boulder. They both strode towards her until they were halfway across the roof. "What have you done?"
"Blessed them, second part of gift," she said, her smile shrinking ever so slightly before Celestia's passive anger and Luna's snarl. "First part blood, second part fixing Canterlot." She tilted her head to the side and her face turned contemplative. "Fix rest of world after after after, soon."
"Fixing?!" Luna shouted incredulously. "You call this fixing them?" she shouted, gesturing to the idle crowds.
"Yes, no more free will, no more choices. Good good good for them," she murmured. "Take care of children..."
"Your children - ?!" they both started, cutting off. Suddenly, it made horrible sense. Elizabeth had talked of her children before, and of Blessing others, but never had they associated the two together. They always thought she'd meant literal children; why wouldn't they? Not fellow infected. Celestia continued. "You've... you've removed their free will?" she whispered in horror.
Elizabeth shrugged. "Yes. Make choices for them, only need to listen to me." She frowned and furrowed her brows. "Why... why are you angry?"
"Because thou hast removed the liberty of our loyal subjects and if what thou art saying is true thou hast enslaved them to thy will! THAT is why we art angry!"
Greene stumbled back towards the edge of the roof under the Royal Canterlot Voice's power. "But... why?" she asked, perplexed. Did she... did she really not understand?
"Elizabeth Greene," Celestia said with a bite of steel in her voice. "You have forcefully infected the citizens of Canterlot with an unknown disease and caused them no undue amount of suffering in the past day. Now you have spat on their right to make decisions from themselves, and you question why we are angry?"
Elizabeth winced, fiddling with her hands. "Transition... admit, painful. Made it less painful when I could, when I could. Make happy now, make happy forever."
Luna's jaw dropped. "Thou... thou manipulates their emotions directly?" She was horrified at that. Cadance admittedly did something similar with her mending-hearts spell, but that was only a nudge in a general direction, not forceful as what Greene described, and it was also temporary and the recipients were perfectly able to ignore its effects if they wanted. "How... how could thee?"
"Same as Applebloom," she whispered. "Why angry? Manipulate their emotions but make them happy. If made them sad..." Greene shuddered. "Understand then, but making my children happy!" She lowered her hands, leaving them by her sides but slightly risen from her hips.
"Let us try and understand, Elizabeth," Princess Luna said, carefully keeping her anger in check. "Thou hast come to Canterlot and infected everypony in the city with a variation of your virus without them knowing. Thou then, over the course of twenty four hours, made them suffer as it changed their bodies. And now, thou hast eliminated their ability to make their own decisions, forcing them to listen to thou and playing with their emotions."
Elizabeth nodded, a hint of fear in her dusty emerald eyes.
"And thou canst understand why we art angry?!" Elizabeth was forced to jump to a nearby building before Princess Luna's voice blew her to street level. "Listen to us and listen to us well, Evolved! For when we say such things they truly mean much!" She stopped her use of the Voice and whispered, but she knew Elizabeth could still hear her plain as day. "Thou art a monster, through and through. We trusted thee..." Luna lit up her horn, ready to blast Greene with the power of the heavens. Elizabeth stepped backwards, flickers of red and white tendrils around her legs.
"Hold, sister," Celestia said, placing a hoof on her horn. The shock prompted Luna to dissipate the magic. "We must arrest Elizabeth and bring her to a trial, not simply vaporize her."
"Thou knows what she hast done! What she intends to do to the entire world! The entire world Tia! We must stop this madness here and now!" she said, locking eyes with her sister.
"I know that, but we are nothing but savages if we simply blast first and ask questions later."
"We hath asked our questions," she said menacingly. "And she hath answered them."
"You know what I mean, Luna." Cue Stubborn Big Sister mode. "We must have a proper legal procedure for all crimes whenever we have the ability."
"Discord, Sombra," she hissed.
"None of those we had the ability. Discord was too powerful to contain for a trial, and Sombra... Sombra..." Celestia trailed off, and Luna knew she'd scored a point. No, neither of them had been so 'due process' inclined back then, had they?
Celestia shook it off. "In either case, we must imprison Elizabeth Greene and then decide her sentence." She lit her horn and Luna followed her example. They both turned to face Greene...
The monster was nowhere to be found.
"Find her!" Luna shouted.
The two sister broke apart and Luna began tearing Canterlot apart to find Elizabeth Greene. She lifted houses, flipped carts. None of the ponies - if they could still be called that - even noticed. She searched everywhere, but she had to admit it. Elizabeth was fast and she was smart. They'd lost her, they'd lost her and that failure ate at Luna. She regrouped with her sister on the balcony where they occasionally moved the heavenly bodies together.
"Where is she?" Luna panted. "Didst thou find her?"
"No, I was hoping you did!" Celesia panted. "We have to stop her. She said... she said she planned to 'fix' the world. She's going to infect everypony unless we stop her!"
"Well what do we do then? In case thou didn't notice, it took her no effort at all to subsume Canterlot within three days!"
"We'll raise public awareness of her efforts but first..." Celestia's eyes widened. "We have to get the Elements. Ponyville's close to Canterlot, she may go there next. We have to evacuate Ponyville."
"Then let us be off, Tia! Time is against us!" Luna took to the air, and Celestia caught up with her soon enough. She took one last look at Canterlot beneath her as they flew. The air was foul with disease, and she and Celestia both cast repeated sterilization spells upon each other until they were certain they weren't carriers of plague.
As she pumped her wings, she saw the ponies below tracking them with their gazes.
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This isn't good.
I take it that Elizibeth will head to Poneyvile next?
I am still waiting for Mercer to be dropped into Equestria, that one part of the one chapter made that clear.
I await updates.
Shit went down.
FINALLY!
3856753
I'm guessing the princesses remember Elizabeth's mention of her 'Strange Child' defeating her and try summoning him in desperation.
I want Greene to just jump from town to town infecting people and not waiting around, so she can get as much infected as possible xD
img.myconfinedspace.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/this-will-end-in-tears-hitchhikers.jpg
3857355 ... the Strange Child is the Supreme Hunter and he is dead.
for some reason i am saddened by all this
3858554
Derp, meant Wayward Child.
The shit has been realized.
At least Blueblood is an ugly mutant now. Also, poor poor Twilights parents and family. They are all just as ugly as Blueblood now.
At the end when you said they saw the ponies below tracking them did you mean infected ponies because if you did that would be soooo scary o_O
Whelp, I have not read the rest but let me give it a shot. World goes to hell, cadence summons ZEUS and PARIAH, they fight/ change greene's mind. All goes well in the end.
Welp, the shitstorm cometh.
Still, can't help but feel bad for Greene, she simply cannot comprehend what she's doing wrong.
Cya
Raziel-chan
So, if one were to assume that Greene stopped aging from...whatever, how old is she?
Because she comes off as really childish, maybe 10 at most, and yet had one biological child.
Was this a wet-dream joke?
7101913 She comes off like that not because she was young when she was infected (not ten at least; she was seventeen) but because of the emotional trauma she's went through. It's the same reason for her broken, blunt speech, even though she knows the language through and through with memory transfer.
That, and being the perfect host queen zombie, other infected make her so delightfully happy happy happy!
3858554 please tell me Mercer show up later
redlight virus, harmless in ponies, apocalyptic in humans, common cold, harmless in humans, apocalyptic in ponies, we got a new bioweapon
7132805
Indeed it was