Epidemic

by UnknownSubject

The Doctor

-Ponyville; Twilight’s Residence-
Twilight shut the book closed. She then slid opened the drawer, and pulled out a quill and a sheet of plain line paper. Without hesitation, she immediately began to write.

[Dear Princess Celestia,
Celius is not gone, it’s still here. We must start working on the cure as soon as possible. The virus mutates very fast, and can become completely immune if we don’t work on the cure now. All I ask is that we get scientists working, before this virus spreads to further areas. Please please PLEASE, get started immediately.
-Twilight Sparkle.]

Twilight rolled up the paper, and took it upstairs quickly. She opened the door, and woke Spike up.

“Spike!” She exclaimed, “We need to get this letter to Celestia, NOW!” Twilight fidgeted as she frantically waved the scroll in front of Spike.

“Why?” Spike asked, apparently not giving much concern as Twilight. Twilight thought to herself. She didn’t want Spike knowing about Celius, his poor young heart couldn’t handle the pressure of knowing that he could possibly die from his condition. She also didn’t want rumor of this virus going out, and knowing Spike, he’d be the first to tell someone. So she thought of an excuse, to keep the news hidden.

“Because, uhh... Because... It is very important!” Twilight exclaimed, still frantically waving the scroll around.

“Oh, alright, fine.” Spike sat up, and grabbed the scroll slowly, and took a deep breath. Twilight anxiously watched for Spike to blow the letter away sending it off to Celestia’s care. However, it didn’t happen. Spike’s violent cough got the better of him, and he dropped the scroll to the ground. Spike picked the scroll off the ground, and took another attempt. The same happened, Spike was simply too sick to send off letters.
“You’re going to *cough* wait until I get better, Twilight. I can’t do it like this.” Twilight anxiously rub the back of her head, biting her lower lip. She didn’t know what to do, this conflict was an entirely new one from what she regularly had to deal with.

She took the the scroll back from Spike, and he went back to sleep. As much as it didn’t look like it, Twilight was terrified. A plague that has risen and been defeated ages ago, was now circling around the small peaceful town of Ponyville. She couldn’t fix it herself, a single pony can’t cure a plague, not without the proper equipment. She couldn’t tell anyone, for she feared that the citizens of Equestria would be thrown into panic, and chaos would emit. In a situation like this, what was Twilight to do?

Twilight returned back downstairs, and thought carefully of her next plan. She could only think of one solution to this. If she would have to cure the virus herself, she couldn’t do it alone. She would have to try and find any other pony willing to help with the cure. Somepony who wouldn’t panic and would take the job seriously. She grabbed her saddlebag, put all her tools (Microscope, blood vial, the book, and a notebook with quill) in said bag, and headed out the door.

The first person Twilight would look for would be Dr. Whooves. His experience in these sort of things would be needed if she wanted to even know more about the virus. She needed to get to the hospital.

-Ponyville; Hospital-
Once she arrived, it took her by surprise, and filled her head with extreme concern to see that the hospital was full. The line to the reception was even forming outside the hospital, and they were all violently coughing ponies. Twilight skipped to the counter, making sure not to make any sort of contact with anypony. She had to see nurse RedHeart.

“Please sir. You need to wait, there are seven ponies ahead of you.” The nurse tried calming the impatient crowd down. “You’ll get your turn.”
Twilight walked up to the nurse, keeping a meter long distance away from everyone. RedHeart spotted her, and looked at her with pleading eyes.

“Oh please tell me you found something!” The nurse desperately asked. Twilight nodded, and the nurse let out a sigh of relief.

“Everypony calm down!” The nurse yelled out to the arguing audience. “Twilight here knows wha-” The nurse was quickly interrupted by Twilight’s hoof being shoved into her mouth. Luckily, none of the ponies in the waiting room heard RedHeart’s announcement over the arguments and impatient bickering.

“Shh!” Twilight leaned in to RedHeart, and retreated her hoof. “We need to keep this virus in a low profile. If anypony catches on about this, Ponyville could go into complete anarchy.” Twilight whispered. RedHeart nodded at Twilight in understanding agreement.

"Is Dr. Whooves in today?" Twilight anxiously asked. RedHeart looked down at a clipboard, and back up at Twilight.

"Down the hall, third door." RedHeart replied with worried eyes.

"Thank you." Twilight ended, and walked past the door into the hallway.

"Why did she get to go first!?"

"Yeah! We were here first!"

---

Twilight passed two doors before reaching the third one. She slowly opened the door, to reveal a brown pony wearing a medical mask. The brown pony was looking at a green pony sitting on a bed.

"Hello?" Twilight asked the pony. The brown pony turned to look at Twilight. The green one coughed.
"Hello, Twilight. What brings you here?" The brown pony says.

"Hello, Dr. Whooves. I'm here because of..." Twilight leaned in, as well as the doctor. "The unidentified virus." She whispered.

"Oh. Good. But first, let me deal with this patient." Dr. Whooves said, and handed over a medical mask to Twilight. "Put this on, you don’t want to catch a cold." Twilight put the mask on a watched.

"So. Lyra, it says here you are constantly coughing and you feel nauseated at times. Correct?" Doctor Whooves asked the patient.
"Yes doctor *cough*," The presumed Lyra answers. Dr. Whooves looks at his clipboard.

"Ok then we'll need to do an analysis on you. You know, physical checkup, urine samples, blood samples, all that regular stuff you do at a normal checkup." Dr. Whooves smiled at the patient. "So let's take a look at you."

Twilight attentively watched as the doctor placed the end of his stethoscope on Lyra's chest. Dr. Whooves listened carefully.

"Her heart rate is normal. Nothing wrong there." Twilight shuffled through her bag, and pulled out her notebook and her quill. She began writing what Dr. Whooves was saying. He then grabs a tongue depressor, and uses it to look into Lyra's mouth.

"Red throat. Obviously from repetitive cough." Dr. Whooves grabbed an ophthalmoscope and looked into Lyra's eyes.

"Hmm... This is new." Dr. Whooves announced. Twilight looked up from her notebook, and looked at the doctor.

"What's the matter?" Twilight asked, once again concerned.

"Her eyes are bright red. Nopony else had this." Dr. Whooves explained, turning the ophthalmoscope off. Twilight pulled out her book, setting her notebook and quill on a nearby table.

Twilight cracked open the book to the 'symptoms' page. As she had assumed, the third symptom was 'Eye Fatigue'. She scanned through to the next symptom. 'Insomnia'. It wasn't lethal or that severe, but it had to be studied further.

"Ok. We are done here Lyra. If you were to please get through to the next room, the nurse will be with you to get your blood sample." Dr. Whooves explained to the patient. Lyra got up and walked out of the room, coughing and rubbing her eyes.

"Now then. Twilight. What do you know about the mystery virus?" Dr. Whooves asked Twilight, keeping a serious tone in his voice. They both take off their medical masks before speaking again.

"I think I may know the origins of the virus." Twilight responded. "It may be a virus named 'Celius'. It might seem like nothing now, but-"

"Celius?" The doctor grew visibly concerned, as if he had just heard terrible news.

"Yes. It was found and supposedly eradicated from ponyville a while back, but I think-"

"Celius must not return Twilight." Dr. Whooves turned to look at Twilight.

"Dr. Whooves?" Twilight said with worried concern. It was obvious that the knowledge the doctor had over Celius was a surprise to her. "You know about Celius?"

"I do. It is my job to know. After all I am a doctor." Dr. Whooves explained.

"Oh... Right. I have this book about it with me." Twilight levitates the from the table, and showed it to Dr. Whooves. "It could give us needed information to stop the virus."

"Not here though." Dr. Whooves said. "I wouldn't want to scare the patients with this. Or the employees."

"I understand, I didn’t want the news to scare ponies either." Twilight returned the book to its original spot in her bag, as well as the notebook and quill. "Where should we study it?"

"At your library. I'll be there when my shift is done." Dr. Whooves said. Twilight nodded and walked out of the room. On her way to the exit, she noticed the red in ponies eyes. They were not too obvious, but they were noticeable.

Twilight walked out of the hospital, and headed home. She avoided everyone who had the slightest signs of Celius.

-Ponyville; Twilight’s Residence-
Once she arrived, she went upstairs to check on Spike. He was laying in his little bed, snoozing soundly.

Twilight walked back downstairs and set her microscope out of her bag, and onto the desk it previously was on. She emptied everything from her bag, and organized them neatly next to each other.

Twilight grabbed the syringe she used for Spikes blood, and sucked up more blood from the vial. She then put a little bit of that blood on the two glass sheets. Then she placed the sheets under the microscope, and looked through.

The cells of the virus were growing for sure. They were now twice the size than when she looked through last time. Twilight wrote her observations in her notebook, and kept watching.

Twilight studied the virus for a couple hours, until she heard a knock. She walked towards the door, and opened it. There stood Dr. Whooves with a serious expression.

"Hello doctor, please come in." Twilight beckons the doctor to come inside, and as soon as he walked in, she closed the door behind him.
"Now then. Let's begin the study shall we?"