Rainbow Dash Around the World

by MagicS

Solution

“Alright, now that we know the truth about this plague, how do we cure it?” Doctor Anathema asked the assorted ponies inside Ardent Elm’s home.

Rainbow Dash, Doctor Swab, and Heartwrench were there alongside the homeowner. All of them gathered at Ardent Elm’s kitchen table while the wizard had an assortment of magical books and potion ingredients gathered around.

“Ahem,” Ardent Elm coughed. “The very first thing that I need to do is analyze Rainbow Dash’s magic. When I can replicate her magical signature as part of a potion or spell it should give us what we need to cure the magical part of these infections.”

Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow at him. “Analyze my magic? I don’t have any magic.”

The wizard shook his head. “Every pony, pegasus, unicorn, and earth pony, has a unique magical signature. It’s part of why every Cutie Mark is different. I will use the special harmonic magic you possess, and then I believe we can mix what I come up with with the doctor’s medicine to create a true cure for the plague.” Ardent Elm took a deep breath and sighed. “There’s a problem with that though; time and ingredients.”

“Same here,” Doctor Swab said. “In truth we’re running low on medicine… we were going to be out completely soon enough.”

“I as well only have the magical power and ingredients here in the village to make a few doses. Not enough to cure everyone,” Ardent Elm said.

Anathema raised a hoof. “Look, let’s deal with that somehow when the time comes. For the moment we don’t know if this will actually work at all. We’ll need to test it on one of the patients.”

“I can work with Rainbow Dash then and make a single initial batch. Once I’m done we can see if it works,” Ardent Elm said.

Anathema nodded. “Agreed. Rainbow Dash? Any questions or concerns?”

“I mean I’ve already kind of let myself be a guinea pig for a while here haven’t I?” Rainbow shrugged. “Let’s just do this and cure some ponies.”

“Well said,” Anathema smiled.

“I’ll go back to our office then and see what I can do about the medicine,” Doctor Swab said. He then looked to Nurse Heartwrench. “You can head back to the auditorium, help out Doctor Anathema and the others with anything they need.”

“Of course, Doctor,” Heartwrench nodded.

“I don’t think there will be much for us to do today with the patients,” Anathema said. “And I already have one in mind for using the first cure we have on. Let’s just go and make sure everyone is as comfortable as possible and things haven’t gotten worse again.”

“See you later,” Rainbow Dash said to the other three as they got up from the table and went off to do their own business.

“Next time we see each other it will hopefully mean the two of you have a cure for us,” Anathema smiled at Rainbow and Ardent Elm.

“I promise we’ll be successful,” Ardent Elm said.

“Yeah,” Rainbow Dash grinned.

Anathema waved goodbye to the two of them and left Ardent Elm’s home with the others, closing the door as they went and just leaving Rainbow Dash with the old wizard. Rainbow Dash turned to look at him with a raised eyebrow. “So how is this going to work then?”

Ardent Elm chuckled and closed some of the books in front of him. “Just sit still for a moment...”

“Can do!” Rainbow saluted and sat back in her chair while Ardent Elm’s horn lit up in its yellow aura again. There wasn’t a beam or anything that came out, but shortly afterwards a yellow aura appeared around Rainbow Dash’s body as well. It tickled slightly and some of her hair started to stand on end but otherwise she couldn’t really feel anything. She had to sit still like that for almost five minutes though as Ardent Elm silently worked his magic. It seemed to be causing him a bit of strain too, he had begun to sweat and he was panting fairly hard. It could’ve been the spell being intense to perform or his age taking a toll on his stamina.

In the middle of the spell, he pulled up an ornate glass bottle and put it on the table between himself and Rainbow Dash.

Ardent Elm’s horn, and the aura around Rainbow Dash, both glowed brighter and soon a matching light appeared inside the bottle as well. The aura around Rainbow Dash then detached from her and shrunk down, diving like a stream of water into the bottle and filling it up. It sparkled for a bit before the magic seemed to settle down and turn into a milky white liquid.

Ardent Elm let out a deep breath and the light from his horn faded. “There.”

“That’s it? That’s the magical cure?” Rainbow Dash tilted her head.

“The base of it. I need to put more spells and ingredients into it before it’s finished,” Ardent Elm said.

“How long is that going to take?” Rainbow asked.

“Not very long,” Ardent Elm shook his head. “Once I’m done you can take it with you to the auditorium. I think Anathema will want it as quickly as possible.”

“Yeah I think you’re right about that,” Rainbow said as she got out of her chair and started pacing around the kitchen. She needed to stretch, and she was anxious as well. Anxious but still happy and excited. This was all really working now, they had some answers, they had a cure, things were really turning out good for them now.

A nagging reminder at the back of her mind temporarily soured her mood though. It was something she had been refusing to think about ever since the revelation.

How did this magical chaos plague start?

Who started it?

It’s not the kind of thing that could just occur on its own. Someone had to use chaos magic in the first place, either accidentally or on purpose. The only creature she knew of who could use chaos magic was Discord but he would never do something like this. And she was on the other side of the world right now, maybe there were other creatures who could use it?

Rainbow Dash shook her head and banished the thoughts from her mind for the moment. It didn’t have anything to do with what was going on in Pinetree Warren right now and it certainly wasn’t the result of any of the villagers’ actions. Anathema and everyone else didn’t need more stress piled on them. She couldn’t even think of a reason for why someone would create this plague anyways.

She paced and paced some more while Ardent Elm finished up his work. It was better to stay positive since now they could at least end the dumb thing. Rainbow Dash’s own infectious positivity had done a lot of good for Anathema, she could tell, and she wanted to keep it that way. Ardent Elm meanwhile had been working with the bottle of milky liquid and was close to being done. The liquid inside the glass bottle seemed to shimmer different colors depending on how you looked at it. He lifted it up in his yellow magic and gave it an approving nod.

“It’s done, thanks to your magic we have a cure,” he said.

“Awesome,” Rainbow said and took the bottle from him. “I’m going to take this to the auditorium right away.”

“Alright, you won’t need the whole bottle to cure your first patient either. A third of it should be enough,” he told her.

“Even better,” Rainbow nodded and grinned. She flapped her wings and started hovering in his kitchen. “I’ll come back when we need to make more or if there’s anything else going on. See ya!”

Before he could even respond she zipped right out of his home, front door opening and closing in a flash.

Ardent Elm sighed as he looked at the door. “Even better? It still means only three at a time can be cured, and a new batch can only be made...” he shook his head. “This plague isn’t beaten just yet.”

---

Rainbow Dash entered the freezing auditorium with the bottle of magical liquid in her hooves and saw that Swab was already back as well. “Yo!” She said and flew over to the group. Anathema, Heartwrench, Blue Rose, Swab, and Walnut Grove were all standing around one bed in particular. Rainbow Dash immediately recognized the young filly lying in it when she got there.

“Is that the magical potion?” Doctor Anathema asked her as Rainbow Dash came to a stop by Turnip’s bed.

“Yep,” Rainbow nodded and looked down at the filly. “She’s the one we’re making sure it works on?”

“I couldn’t think of a better patient to choose,” Anathema said.

Turnip’s eyes were open but if she was even aware of the other ponies here she didn’t show. Ever since the sudden advancement of the disease, no one had been up for talking and most seemed practically comatose the same way Turnip was now. Green covered almost her entire body and only the faintest of breaths came in and out of her lungs.

“Yeah… I think I agree with you on that,” Rainbow Dash said.

“Did Ardent Elm give you any special instructions as to how this cure works?” Doctor Swab asked her.

“Not really instructions or anything, you just drink it, but he said only a third of this bottle is needed to cure a pony. I guess if we have Turnip drink it and take your medicine at the same time she’ll finally be back to normal,” Rainbow Dash said.

“That’s the hope,” Anathema said and then leaned down close to Turnip. “Turnip? If you can hear me right now, we’re going to be giving you some new medicine. Just relax, it’ll be fine and you should be feeling much better soon. Can you move right now? Do you think you can drink anything?”

The small filly didn’t move, she only slowly blinked.

“I think we’re going to have to help her drink it,” Doctor Swab said.

Anathema nodded. “Yes, we’ll have to keep her head tilted and hold her mouth open.”

They did their best to get the filly ready, being gentle with her as they moved her body into a sitting position on her bed, propped up by a pillow. The whole time she just stared ahead and Rainbow Dash watched. She set the bottle down and Doctor Swab got out a cup that he first put the strengthened medicine in before he carefully took the bottle of magical potion.

“Here goes...” he said and uncorked the lid.

A stream of shimmering white liquid poured into the cup where it fluctuated with every color of the rainbow. Doctor Swab carefully poured enough into the cup so only a third remained in the bottle.

“Did Ardent Elm say how it was going to taste?” Anathema asked Rainbow Dash.

“Nope,” Rainbow Dash shook her head. “What’s magic supposed to taste like?”

“I suppose Turnip will be able to tell us in a moment...”

Heartwrench’s gloved hooves opened up Turnip’s mouth and held her like that while Doctor Swab brought the full cup over and prepared to pour it down her throat.

“She may gag out of reflex, be careful when pouring,” Anathema told him.

“I’m aware,” he looked at Heartwrench. “Hold her as still as possible.”

“Yes, Doctor,” the nurse said and made sure she was holding the filly steady.

Doctor Swab took a deep breath and tilted the cup just slightly above Turnip’s open mouth. The liquid poured from it and into the filly’s mouth, steady, just a few drops at a time. She didn’t show any reaction at first so Swab poured more in. Once she had swallowed half the cup, Rainbow and the others could see her eyes begin to twitch and her body quiver. Her jaw wanted to reflexively close but Heartwrench kept it open. Coughing and sputtering sounds came up from Turnip’s throat but she hadn’t thrown up or spit up any of the brew yet. After Swab finished pouring it all in, Heartwrench closed Turnip’s mouth shut to force her to swallow it all. The filly writhed around a bit but eventually she had to just drink it all, gulping it down and lying back against her pillow.

Now everyone waited.

Turnip turned about and shifted in her bed, her hooves pawing at the sheets and her jaw clenching up. She shivered and started to groan before her body straightened up. All of the other ponies watched on as the green covering her body started to dissolve and fade away. It happened slowly at first, the green just barely flaking away, before soon it acted like it did with Rainbow Dash and it all started to completely wash away. The green covering her was reduced to tiny blotches and then to nothing as the filly’s body finally returned to normal.

She was shivering and her eyes flickered around for a while after it was over, Anathema and Swab waiting for her to recover enough to speak. Her breathing soon calmed down and Turnip sat up to look at the doctors and other ponies around her bed.

“Turnip? Do you feel better?” Anathema asked.

“...cold. It’s cold in here,” the filly said.

A smile lit up Anathema’s face under the mask she was wearing. “I’m going to see that as an improvement.”

---

“Unfortunately we’re just nowhere near out of the woods yet,” Anathema said to Rainbow Dash and Doctor Swab in one of the tents outside the auditorium. Heartwrench and Blue Rose were helping to treat and decontaminate Turnip so she could finally be released as healthy. Meanwhile there was still a lot to discuss when it came to the plague and cure.

She held the bottle of magic in her hooves. “This can cure two more ponies out of the dozens of sick patients we have. I have to assume there’s a limit to Ardent Elm’s magic and other means or he would have made more. Adding to that, we’re almost totally out of our normal medicine and supplies.”

“Yes, and we have no way of getting more in an easy or timely manner,” Doctor Swab said. “A trade caravan coming through could have helped us but...”

“We put up all those warning signs on the roads coming to Pinetree Warren,” Anathema sighed.

Doctor Swab nodded. “Correct. Now the best we could do is travel to… Wildflower Grove or Summerlight maybe and see if they have what we need. But going there and back would take a few days.” He glanced at Rainbow Dash. “Even if it was Rainbow Dash flying there it would take a full day and she might not be able to carry back all we need.”

“So we’re kind of in trouble?” Rainbow Dash rubbed the back of her neck.

“Potentially,” Anathema said. “We’re looking at who even knows how long before we’re actually able to cure everyone. Months?”

“It’s not just that either. Curing everyone of their infection now is only one step, it doesn’t protect them from becoming infected again, as Rainbow Dash has shown,” Doctor Swab said. “As long as those spores exist—Pinetree Warren will always be in danger. That green death out in the forest isn’t just going away.”

“It’s worse than just that...” Anathema coldly said.

Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow at her. “What do you mean?”

“You remember the night when everyone suddenly got sicker? When they all would’ve died if it wasn’t for your quick thinking?”

“Yeah,” Rainbow nodded.

“That happened right as the whole plague space grew bigger. I didn’t think much about it because it didn’t make any medical sense, but knowing this plague is magical it makes me think that every infected pony is connected to whatever the plague originates from. As it got stronger or grew bigger, the infections got worse. And if that happens one more time, everyone in that auditorium is going to die. In short… I think we might have been looking at this backwards. Instead of curing the individual ponies, we should’ve been looking for a way to annihilate the entire plague and forest of spores,” Anathema said.

“Even if that isn’t the case, Pinetree Warren would soon need to be abandoned if it kept growing bigger anyways,” Doctor Swab added.

“So then… what? What do we do?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“I think we have an answer,” Anathema said as she looked at the bottle. “If we can bring this magical potion to the origin point… I think if you poured it onto the thing creating the spores it would be killed. Like a pesticide or defoliator.”

“You want to use it for that?” Doctor Swab frowned. “That’s a precious cure and we don’t even-”

“We don’t have the time or resources to just sit around and slowly cure each patient one by one!” Anathema shouted. “At worst we lose a day or two by using the potion for this, at best we cure everyone and solve the whole problem at once. Got a better idea?”

Doctor Swab bit his lip and lowered his head. “No… No I don’t.”

Anathema took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. But after so long, after so many failures and so much suffering, it’s finally in sight. We’ll finally be able to save Pinetree Warren.”

“Um, I just have one question?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“Yes?” Anathema tilted her head to her.

“Sorry to burst the bubble but… how is anyone supposed to pour that where the spores are coming from? They eat right through protective clothing at higher concentrations, they cause immense pain and paralysis, deeper in the forest towards the center they’d probably melt a pony in seconds,” Rainbow Dash frowned. “Even me who can recover from them in a day would still have died from them if I didn’t get away. I wouldn’t be able to survive going in there and pouring this potion, so how are we going to do it?”

Doctor Swab rubbed his chin in thought, but Anathema just looked right back at her.

“It’s okay. I already thought about that.”

Rainbow Dash felt a worrisome pit form itself in her stomach. “And?”

“I’m going to do it.”

Comments

[StarzGecko]

Wish we got the next chapter today. I want to see the finally battle against the spores

[THERDSTORYWHISPERER]

Great chapters!

Are we going to find out who created the plague, if not Harlequin Grey?

[redmar]

Do they even know where the origin point exactly is? They certainly don't know what is creating the spores and they need to figure out if the current amount is enough to get rid of it.

[TheCommunistDog]

In today’s chapter: The cure works! But they can’t create much of it.”.... And Anathema is going to try and kill the main part it

[RoboRed]

Considering how the story so far hasn't been 100% success, sunshine, and rainbows, my expectations for how Anathema's fate goes aren't that great...