Cloudsdale drifted peacefully under Luna's moon. Luna had outdone herself as usual. Thousands of stars shimmered beautifully under streaks of hazy whiteness Luna had named the Milky-Way. The night was calm and peaceful. No breeze stirred the clouds. Cloudsdale was a beautiful place. Built entirely out of clouds, it was the only city of its kind. graceful spires of soft white puffiness reached for the moon. Skyscrapers decorated the Cloudsdale skyline.
"Spitfire! wait!" A white stallion wearing a Wonderbolt uniform raced after a golden mare with a fiery mane and tail. Spitfire didn't answer. She kept reaching behind herself with her head to try and bite her own wings, a feat that was impossible due to the fact both mare and stallion were flying. Soarin was worried. Spitfire was acting crazy. Ahead, Spitfire succeeded in catching her wing. She jerked her head back with a mouthful of golden feathers. These she spat out.
Soarin was tiring. He'd lost track over how many times they had lapped Cloudsdale, and his problem with numbers wasn't to blame. He was drenched with sweat from the unexpected workout. Already, he had called the other Wonderbolts, but nopony had shown up. Wait, Far ahead, several uniformed figures dove in front of Spitfire. One figure, nearly impossible to see on account of her small black body, opened her large black wings. She was the only one not wearing a uniform. Now Soarin knew why the other Wonderbolts had not shown up right away. They had gone to get Dainty Dish.
Dainty flipped her body around so she was flying backwards. She brought all four legs up and bent them slightly. Spitfire spat out another mouthful of feathers. Dainty matched her speed with that of Spitfire and slowly moved in closer to the Wonderbolt until her hooves were touching Spitfires heaving, sweaty chest and undercarriage. She flared her wings, bringing Spitfire down to the cloud below. Soarin caught up to them as the other Wonderbolts all landed. Dainty was breathing a little hard, her large wings open to cool them off.
"Spitfire, calm down. Tell us what is wrong." Dainty asked.
Spitfire growled, her mouth flecked with bloody foam. Again she reached back and bit her wing. With a hard jerk, the wing tore free of her body in a violent crimson spray of blood that arched up into the night. Spitting out the wing, Spitfire turned and attacked her other wing.
"Spitfire! Somebody quick, call an ambulance! We have to stop her from trying to tear her other wing off!" This came from Iceberg as the pale ice colored stallion tackled Spitfire, bringing the mare to the ground. Spitfire thrashed and bit any anything and anyone that tried to come close. A junior member took off for the nearest phone booth.
"We have to restrain her somehow!" Dainty cried out, "Why is she doing this?"
"I don't know!" Soarin dove out of the way of Spitfires flailing limbs, "She missed practise today too!"
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Rainbow Dash turned on her radio first thing in the morning right before making breakfast for herself and Scootaloo. The little orange filly was staying with Rainbow Dash while she completed flight school because Rainbow Dash's cloud mansion was close to Cloudsdale. Scootaloo walked into the kitchen groggily. She collapsed into a chair with a soft poof.
"Never again." Scootaloo plopped her head on the table, "Am I spending half the night with wing cramps."
"Next time, stop practising when I tell you to." Rainbow Dash chuckled as she rubbed the filly's wings. The once tiny wings had grown large and strong. Already, Dash could feel the still developing muscles under the skin and feathers. She knew Scootaloo's wings would grow even bigger. She hopped Scootaloo's body would grow more too, or they'd have another Dainty Dish on their hooves.
"Breaking News! The wonderbolt Spitfire has died." the radio show Dash was listening to got replaced by a news bulletin, "Reports say Spitfire managed to tear off her wings and jump to her death despite the efforts of Dainty Dish and the other Wonderbolts to stop her. An Necropsy is pending. We'll bring you more as we get it. This has been a report of Komopony News."
"Whoopee! They will hold tryouts and you'll win for sure!" Scootaloo shrank back at Dash's glare, "I mean, boo hoo, Spitfire can't be dead!"
Dash's mind was blank. How? Why? filled her mind. Spitfire loved her wings. Why would she do something like that? The story had to be bogus! That's it, Pinkie Pie must have bribed the news station. It will come back on saying it was a joke, that Spitfire was alive and well. Dash stared at the radio.
'Come on, come on! say its just a cruel joke by Pinkie Pie!' Dash knew she was only trying to fool herself. While Pinkie loved pranks, even she wouldn't go this far, would she? No, Pinkie isn't that cruel. 'I'll perform three sonic rainbooms in a row if you come back and say it is a joke!'
"Dash, why are you threatening the radio with a hammer?" Scootaloo finished her breakfast, "See you later. I've got school."
"All schools are closed as are all shops and businesses in light of this tragedy." the radio news anchor said.
"Yes! a full day of crusading!" Scootaloo thrust a hoof into the air, nearly upsetting her glass of milk.
Dash turned, "It's gotta be a joke! Spitfire can't die! Shes got fans, her team, what if they disband the Wonderbolts? I'll never get to be a Wonderbolt! I'll have to get a job at the Rainbow Factory, which means no more time to fly, my wings will shrivel up from, what was that word Twilight used? disuse, and I'll never fly again!"
"RAINBOW DASH, GET A HOLD OF YOURSELF!" Scootaloo took the hammer Dash was holding, "First, you have a job as the head weather mare of Ponyville, and second, they won't disband the Wonderbolts!" She brought the hammer down on the floor, which made no noise. Scootaloo brought the hammer down this time on her glass which shattered, startling Dash.
"Have fun, scoots. I'm going to go see Twilight." Rainbow Dash took off, returned to clean up the breakfast mess, and left again, only to return again to clean up the broken glass, leaving Scootaloo watching her with a puzzled look on her face. Dash left again.
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"I see." Twilight nodded, listening to the stories the Wonderbolts were telling her of Spitfires last moments, "It sounds like Spitfire might have had Encephalitis, an infection in her brain."
Spike was browsing the bookshelves as Twilight talked. He knew that Twilight would send a request in for samples of Spitfire's brain to confirm her theory. Absentmindedly, he pulled a book from the shelves.
"Strange Medical Mysteries?" Spike opened the book. He found a section describing what Spitfire had done, "Twilight! look at this!"
You have my attention.
Must read.
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I SAY! This fic is certainly horrifying!
TO THE SAFETY COPTER, WE MUST ESCAPE!
SOI SOI SOI SOI SOISOISOISOSIOSISOISOIsoisoisoisoisoisoi....
Thanks! Glad you guys are liking this so far!
Safety Copter? Well, yeah that would keep you safe. Make room for me!
I am intrigued...
Holy shit, this story is going to be crazy. And I'm probably going to like it.
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I will have to read this later...
Looks good so far, can't wait for the rest.
Is this based off that one movie, uh... what'sitsface, yeah that one, where everyone commits suicide because of something in the wind?
well i must say this is quite the riveting tale. maybe a few problems but not alot. Good job.
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The Happening
458706 The Crazies? is that the movie?
Cool, its like that M. Night Shyamalan film, The Happening!
Except it doesn't blow donkey balls!
And the suicides aren't being caused by trees!
I will say that I found Scootaloo's reaction to Spitfire's rather horrific death to be HILARIOUSLY out-of-character.
"What's that Dash? Your hero just gruesomely committed suicide? FUCK YEAH, OPEN WONDERBOLT SLOT!!!"
realy scootaloo that was just awfull"i didnt do anything"
Thanks! Working on Chapter two right now!
Scootaloos reaction does feel out of character. Shock can do that to you. She'll finally realize it is all true. I went through a period similar to this years ago when my grandfather died. At first, I kept expecting the phone to ring and say it was a joke, much like Dash's reaction with the radio. It took a while for it to sink in. Dash is about to have it all sink in, the moment she crashes through the open window of the library, that is.
YES!!! i love prions. prionprionprions... oh did i just let my prion obsessed part of my brain come out? oops. prions are one of the reasons the zombie apocalypse is possible.
Incredibly interesting, my only criticism is that it could be a tad bit longer. I hope you do a good job on portraying the fear and pandemonium that will spread once shit hits the fan.
I always love apocalyptic fic's, amazing concept.
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Possible, but unlikely, Prion zombies would be just as easy to kill as regular humans, the worst/best you could hope for is staggering rage zombies. Personlly I love the authors take on suicide prions, seems more surreal or whatever I'm trying to get across.
494244 why would they stagger? they could sprint. destroy rational thought part of brain, hyper-stimulate hunger part of brain.
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I'd imagine if they have the ability to sprint they'll retain at least some semblance of previous morality, and therefore if they loose that chances are they're brain damaged. or maybe just starved.
But you are right, thinking over there is nothing to say they couldn't sprint, but they'd have to have there anger as well as hunger hyper-stimulated. But then you'd run into a problem, in order for this to happen you'd have to have multiple prions affecting different parts of the brain and different proteins. not only that but the changes would most likely take at least a couple of days/week to begin taking affect as prions take time to infect and outnumber correct proteins.
Another problem is that if you have an incorrect protein that effects the brain in a certain way, is it going to kill the animal, proteins often work together to do a job, and if one is missing it would probably fail. This doesn't make it unlikely just implausible.
However, back to needing multiple prions, no one protein effects that many specific brain functions, if you changed a protien that effected ALL brain function you'd just kill or severely retard/vegtibalize the animal.
My Ideas:
1) Instead, perhaps all the needed prions all congregate in the mouth, the problem with this is what would brain chemicals be doing in the mouth, you don't get neural growth receptors there.
2) Perhaps it's a parasite that secretes large amounts of the prions. It would inhabit the salival gland and secrete prions and chemicals into the blood causing it's host to go insane and become a rage zombie, I'd imagine it would also put out large amounts of eggs/larva into the slaiva, perhaps overstimulating the gland to produce more of it. It'd be a useful survival tactic as it would spread in bites where it would travel the bloodstream until it came across the salival gland and started the process again. This also would not kill the host, nor cause excessive bleeding. The victim could be cured or rendered immune by the removal of the gland.
499185 i'm going to guess that the different parts of your brain have differnt protiens, so the prions could sense that, and thus think "if protein 1, stimulate. if protein 2, KEELL IT WITH FIRE!!!
501142
You have no idea how brain work do you? Of course I'm not implying I'm some kind of neural scientist, I myself have very little idea of how brains work on, only a very basic understanding. No offense but what you said sounded incredibly stupid, do you even know what a prion is? or how it works?
Have you even received high school education to the point where you know that bases make up amino acids which form proteins. A parasite could have in it's genetic coding the ability to produce prions which would target specific brain proteins, there prions would have no use within the create other then to be secreted. The evolutionary driving force behind this theory is this is how the parasite infects new hosts.
sorry.
You guys have the right idea.
A little run down on the brain. It is made up of different parts which each has a specific job. The Hind Brain, also known as the primitive brain is found at the top of the brain stem. Popular theory has this portion being the original brain from the time humans were nothing more then the basic wild animal. Over time, the brain improved. It acts much like a computer. The thalamus handles the sleep/awake cycle. When the thalamus is damaged, you lose the ability to sleep.
This is the case for twenty Itallian families. Around middle age, prions attack the thalamus and they die from lack of sleep. In several dear and elk spieces, they lose the ability to eat and end up starving to death. The prion goes for the Hypothalamus which is responsible for food and water control. It tells the body to stop eating or to eat. In Sheep, there is Scrapie, in which the affected animals develop a severe itch and rub their bodies raw trying to relieve it. the Prion has gone after the central part of the brain that deals with the central nervous system. You may be more familiar with the cow variant, Mad Cow Disease. Mad Cow rose when the beef industry started feeding food to cows that had ground up sheep in it. A sheep with Scrapie got ground up in the food and Mad Cow began. In Humans, the same disease is called CJD, and in rare cases, vCJD. (Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease) this disease has been found in minks, and in cats. (Called TSE in minks, and FSE in cats) Your best defense against it is to cook meat thoroughly. That means no red meat in beef, mutton, and vension. There is also the laughing sickness in a tribe in New Zealand. They laugh to death. In this case, the Prion has gone after the part of the brain that controls emotion.
We'll see variations of the same sickness emerge in the other races.
Minotaurs: Mad Minotaur Disease: MMD
Dragons: Scrapie
Zebra: Wasting sickness
Griffon: Sleeping sickness
Pony: Red-Cross Disease: RCD