> Don't be the end.
>  by TwiPON3
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> I'm Not Feeling My Hottest
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Luna's bedroom was, at 11:30 at night, what you'd expect. Just without all of the extra comforters on the bed.

Or Luna. Especially on a Friday Night.

But she was there, under several blankets. On her nightstand, apart from her phone, were several bottles of over-the-counter meds.

The lights were off, curtains pulled, she wasn't even snoring. Just laying there asleep, holding a stuffed tarantula she'd had since she was just a little kid.

She had named the thing "Tarantully" and quickly grew attached to it.

Apart from Celestia and most of the time Chrysalis, she thought he was the only one who understood her until recently.

The time on her phone kept marching on until Celestia walked in at 11:36.

"I didn't think I'd be out with Discord that long," she said, rather exhausted.

Celestia making noise as she came in wasn't enough to pull Luna from the æthereal plane.

She just silently slept on, out of one dream and into the next. Some were good and some were bad, but she still lay motionless.

The æther was building a new dream for Luna, a pleasant one from where she carried her stuffed spider to school.

"I'm glad you're here, Tarantully," she said to the thing crawling on her as she found a much younger version of herself loading up DOOM! on her computer. As she walked over, though, she became the younge girl, and the spider that had been crawling on her had became a stuffed tarantula again and fell to the floor.

"Crap," she said, getting the spider then running to her chair.

It was dark out so the "two" of them would have a night to themselves.

"Levels," she said, setting the spider in her lap, "'I'm too young to die'?" she laughed at the ridiculous name, "Really? No," she said, pressing a key on her keyboard a few times, "I want 'Nightmare'."

Though it only felt like minutes, she actually spent the next several hours avoiding and killing demons that would "rip her fraggin' head off", Barons of hell that were "tough as a dump truck and nearly as big", Cacodemons, Cyberdemons, Lost souls, Spectre that would "rip her face off", Spiderdemons, and Zombies and Imps that needed lead shot in their head.

"C'me on," she said to herself in an attempt to kill a spiderdemon, "Just... a few... more... and... got it!" she said, finishing it off, then the game before looking at her clock and finding out she had spent five hours on the game, "Mm."

As she stood up, the spider crawled back to her as the scene fell to the æther's dark midnight again, but this time, it seemed to have a steady beeping sound and may have been pulsing ever-so-slightly brighter.

"You know," she said, putting the spider down on the æther's nonexistant ground, then laying on it herself, "I wonder what's going on out there right now," she said as the spider made its way onto her chest.

The spider, in its own way, shrugged and just laid down as she put her arms behind her head

"Well, that's one way to put it, I suppose."

Meanwhile, Celestia made a pot of coffee so she could see a little bit of TV before she called it a night.

I wonder if Luna's here, Celestia thought as she went to her sister's room, Maybe Chrysalis came and picked her up.

She noticed her sister's nightstand and all of the medicine bottles on it, "This isn't good," she said, walking over and finding Luna covered under several thick blankets, several shades paler than she should be.

"Oh God," she said, calling Nurse Redheart.

"Hey, Tia! What's up?" Redheart yelled from the other end of the line over what sounded like either explosions or gunfire.

"Tell me you're still close. It's Luna."

"Be there" BOOM "in a few minutes!"

Celestia brought the pot of coffee in Luna's bedroom and used it to stay awake until Nurse Redheart showed up.

Hopefully without explosives.

"Please be okay," Celestia muttered to herself almost constantly until pounding on her door jolted her back to reality.

"Celestia, it's me!"

As quickly as she could, Celestia ran to the front door, where she found a messy Redheart, "I came as fast as I could, where's Luna?"

She took Redheart to Luna's room where the nurse examined her.

"Get her to the freaking hospital, now!"

"Help me?" Celestia said, becoming noticibly more cryptic.

"We go in your car. Mine's broken so I came here on my motorcycle."

Lovely.

Redheart ploughed through the refrigerator and freezer, getting things to keep Luna's temperature down as Celestia put Luna in her car and blasted the air conditioner.

"Move over," Redheart said, "I'll drive. It'll be faster."

"Luna needs you," Celestia said, her foot on the break and ready to gun it on the road.

Redheart got in the back with Luna, but Celestia floored the car onto the road before Redheart could close the door all the way. Spoiler: It closed by itself on account of her driving.

"Shit, Celestia!" Redheart said as she adjusted Luna and herself, "Don't kill us!"

"Do you want her to die?" Celestia retorted, cutting several cars off to get onto the main highway.

"Like I said," Redheart placed a bag of ice and poured a bottle of water on Luna, then took a sip of her vodka to keep from being too sober, "Keep us alive."

"Mom drove - GRUNT - the same way!" Celestia fell victim to prime oversteer as she cut off the oncoming lane of traffic to get onto the ramp to the freeway, "Deal - GRUNT - with it!" she cut off a few lanes of traffic then finally found Exit 16C to US-416 North. Now, it was a straightshot to the hospital.

So long as she didn't plough into anyone else on the road, of course.

"I need to know a few things if I'm gonna take her in," Redheart said as the car screeched to a sudden halt.

"I called you right when I found her in bed like that."

"Stay right here," Redheart said, running inside, "I'm going to get a wheelchair for her."
> It Affects Your Family
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Room 527 in the southern-wing was not a pretty sight.

On the bed was a comatose and dangerously hot Luna.

The doctors combated this by turning the thermostat in the room down to 55 degrees, as low as it would go.

There were multiple IVs connected to Luna, who now had a little bit of blood on the corner of her mouth, along with a whole slew of medical devices to monitor her.

The numbers were uncomfortably low.

Celestia was asleep in a chair next to Luna's bed, twitching and cringing near constantly with Redheart offering to be a night aid for Luna and a few other patients.

At around 6:30 the next morning, Celestia woke up to her phone ringing.

"CanterlotCityHigh," she slurred, waking up.

"Principal Celestia?" a familiar voice said before gulping a liquid, "Ow! Hothothothotnot! Do you know where Luna is?"

"Who's -POP- calling?" she said, stretching and popping her back.

"Uh, this is Midnight. You know, from school?"

"No...?" she replied, stumped as the caller drank the rest of the liquid, drawing air in with it.

"Luna's friend, the one that carries Christ-knows-how-much tech around?"

"Oh, sorry! I just had a long night," Celestia looked to her sick younger sister, "She did too, I think."

It wasn't a complete lie, but what happened next with the student/friend was more important than being completely honest.

He'd hopefully forgive her.

"Oh. I'll try again later. Thanks for letting me know!"

"No problem."

No problem, she thought, But it is a problem.

Meanwhile at Midnight and Sunburst's house, Midnight was standing next to the coffee maker, his trademark I Don't Give a Damn coffee mug on the counter when he hung up the phone so he could refill it for something after the tenth time.

She must've had a hell of a Friday night.

"Morning, sleepyhead," a familiar voice said, so he turned around and saw Sunburst's girlfriend, Starlight Glimmer, fresh out of the shower.

"Sunburst!" he said, "We may be brothers, but that won't stop me from murdering her before I've had my coffee!"

Sunburst almost immediately ran into the kitchen to try to stop what would have otherwise ended up in a bloody mess.

"She's staying here for a few weeks while her parents are out of town!

"Just don't piss me before my coffee. And we'll be fine."

"I was gonna make breakfast for us all," she said as Seth quickly gulped down yet another mug of coffee, eyes tearing up a little.

"It's a motherfucking Saturday for Christ's sakes," Midnight replied, yawning, "Can't we just go to the diner or something? I know they're so-damn-chipper in the morning, just like you two halves-or-a-sex-machine."

"Hey!" Sunburst said, "We don't do it that often! Plus, we only have two bedrooms."

"Starlight," Midnight said, "Sleep in my room tonight, I'll sleep on the couch."

Sunburst became extremely uncomfortable at the thought of that. Whether it was the perpetual odor, possibly illegal tech, or the maybe toxic thing on a table next to the door, nobody would ever know. What it was, though was a successful guilt trip.

"Okay, yes, we do like each other more than what I said, but what happens in the bedroom, STAYS in the bedroom. Especially yours, unless it's going to the toxic waste dump."

"I'm good enough to drive," Midnight replied, pushing up the sleeves on his messy jacket and pushing his blue glasses back to his face.

"Are you sure?" Starlight asked as Midnight picked up a set of keys with the letters pc on the keyhead of one of the keys.

"Yeah, I'm-" he looked at the keyhead, "I drive a Yugo, not a People's Car."

"Sure?"

He reached in his pockets and found his keys, "Yes, I'm sure."

They all got their phones and went out to his Yugo, then left.

A few minutes in, he turned onto the freeway.

"Why are you going like this?" Sunburst said.

"It's before seven in the frackin' morning. No-damn-body is on the freeway," he replied as he floored the tiny hatchback to make the posted speed, continuing for several miles before tapering off at Exit 16C to US-416 North, two before the needed 16A to Starswirl Boulevard Northeast.

"That was too soon, Sunburst said."

"I know," he replied, "I just... have a bad feeling, you know?"

"No...?" he said as Midnight, even more frighteningly than usual, drove like a sane person to the hospital parking lot.

"I swear, that's Celestia's car," Midnight noted, parking a few spaces down so the trio could get out.
> It Affects Your Friends
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Is Luna or Celestia Faust here?" Midnight asked the receptionist, slurring his words slightly.

"Who's requesting a visit?"

"Family," he lied.

Well, not completely a lie, seeing as how Luna adopted him to get him away from his parents before Sunburst's family adopted him after an attempt by his mother to sabbatoge both sisters' careers by replacing a cup of soda with drugged alcohol and tried, semi-unsuccessfully, to take him back and get CHS out of the picture entirely.

"Room 527 on South."

Starlight and Sunburst followed Midnight to an elevator linked to the south wing of the hospital.

"Why did you lie to the receptionist?" Starlight said as the elevator closed with them in it.

"Touchy subject," Sunburst warned.

"Sorry."

"I'll spare you the details, but long story short, I would gladly have Mom, my mom, along with my dad, shot and killed. Because of her, I spent six months straight in the hospital. She put livelihoods at stake, my own  motherfucking life at stake, all because they were jackasses. The last time I saw either of them was a month into my hospital visit when Sunburst's mom was doing the legal stuff to make me a part of their family. It suits me better, and Sunburst's mom took my parents to court, took me away from them, and had a restraining order enforced," he explained as the door opened to the fifth floor.

Quickly, they headed to room 527, then Midnight pounded on the door for ten seconds before going in, only to be greeted with a jolted-awake Celestia and still-comatose Luna.

"What are you doing here?"

"I had a bad feeling," Midnight replied, "About Luna."

"Why?"

"I lived with you two for five months, and when I turned onto the freeway, I had this dead-sickening feeling and has she started coughing up blood yet?"

Celestia looked at her sister and indeed saw some blood on her face, quickly panicking.

"I hope she just bit herself," Sunburst said, not knowing until it was too late.

"Sunburst," Midnight said, "We parked next to Celestia," he shoved his carkeys in his face, "Take my People's Car, sorry Yugo, and go get us breakfast. Bring me back tons of caffeine."

Sunburst took this as his cue to leave before he became the victim of a violent crime.

"Starlight, come on with me!" Sunburst said, taking the keys and Starlight out with him, closing the door and running down the hall.

"Did you have to be so harsh?" Celestia asked, checking her sister for the umpteenth time.

"Sorry," he said, making sure she was breathing, "NEC. And I thought I had the PC Jetta for a minute."

"Right..."

He noticed something, so he propped her head up, facing down, and saw a small trickle of blood.

"I hope to Christ she doesn't have the Birus Hilgarria virus."

"What is that?" she said as he collapsed in a chair

"Super rare virus that has a 99% chance of killing whoever contracts it," he replied, reaching over to a sink and washing his hands, "Please let Lu be the 1% with a plasma mutation."

"What... do you mean?" she replied as he shut off the sink.

"Well, if there's a certain blood plasma mutation -yawn-, Jesus, then she'll be immune to it because -yawn-, because it won't be able to -yawn- lock onto the fluid properly, preventing the deadly -yawn- payload because its incompatible, the same way -yawn-, the same way you can't run Windows viruses on Fedora -yawn-," he leaned back, "This is the one and only reason I didn't go back to bed or straight to the restaurant."

Redheart came in a minute later with two cups of coffee.

"Sunburst scrambling for the elevator gave you away," she said, handing him a cup which was emptied in a matter of seconds (surprising the other two in the room), and one to Celestia, who took her time.

"I'm an addict with insomnia and I'm damn-proud of it."

"Do the doctors know what it could be?" Celestia asked.

"They have a whole-"

"Is the Birus Hilgarria virus on the list?"

"I'm sorry?"

Midnight, too tired to bother to explain, pulled his Moto z3 out, opened the Encarta app, went to the page, and gave the phone to Celestia and Redheart, yawning several times in the process, "I'm too tired to explain it, so Encarta will."

Reading the article, the two women became increasingly disturbed, giving him the phone back before they made it halfway through.

They were all thinking the same thing now.

Don't let it be the Birus Hilgarria virus.
> You Hope to God for the Best
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

After Redheart and Celestia let the portion of the Encarta Article set in that they saw, they looked worriedly at each other, then to Luna.

"Can I borrow your phone?" Redheart asked.

"The password is 'Moto Zed 3'," he said, giving her the phone and taking out an Elitebook and booting it up to read more about the virus.

"Thanks," she said, taking the phone as she left and ran to the doctors.

"Doctor Lijechnik," Redheart said, unlocking the phone and loading the article, "On Luna Faust, is it possible that she has the Birus Hilgarria virus?"

He read the article, cringing just like the two previous readers had done, "...Harmony..." was all he said, making it to the end of the article.

Redheart cringed as he gave back the phone.

"So...?"

"Dammit, I'm ordering bloodwork!" he said, running into a room.

That comment only shook her up even more, so she pocketed the phone and hurried back to the room, fidgeting with her hair and clothes as she did in a futile attempt to combat anxiety.

"Celestia, Midnight," she said entering the room and returning the phone, "The doctor is ordering bloodwork for Luna."

"Yeah, there are three states of states of plama in your blood that is relevant here. 99% of combinations that prevent anything from happening, thus the virus hopelessly dying, and the two super rare mutations I dub pos, P, and negit, N. Pos-P being the one we're hoping for that can adapt and combat the virus while negit-N being unable to attack and combat the nucleic acid strand from hell. The P variant being a near-impossibility if it's at the stage I think, but you just found her like that, so we have no way in hell of knowing," he replied, yawning plenty of times during the explanation.

"How..."

"I picked up on it from how worried you were when I showed you the article," he replied as Sunburst called.

"Yeah?"

"We're on our way back."
> It Helps to Talk About It
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Celestia and Midnight had to leave the room so a few doctors could work with Luna, leaving the two with no choice other than to retire to the waiting room for the time.

"When you were ours," Celestia said, shifting in yet another uncomfortable chair, "Luna spent so much time with you. Do you think she could've..."

"No," he replied flatly, leaning his head on her shoulder, "No chance in hell. We always shared stories, so if she would've done that, it would've been before her high school graduation. Da bastuds."

"That's good."

"Plus I've always seen her and this girl we used to pwn having fun all the time. She wasn't faking that, it was genuine," Midnight continued, "What brought that on?"

"When we were younger- wait, has Luna told you her story?"

"The one about being different and having autism?"

"Yeah."

"That's... how she got me to start talking to you and her, then I told her about me, and I never felt like I could open up to you until I got my hands on some of Luna's beer... which was a fun night for us all..."

There were several moments of uncomfortable tension filling the air.

"So... what did you two like to do together?"

"Well, there's the retro game consoles, me bringing her home when she was shit-drunk sometimes, always a fun time, then there was when Sunset would come over and would talk about another world over dinner," Midnight shuddered at the memory of some of those nights spent eating at the same table and sleeping under the same roof as what he considered, after some things he fell victim to, Hell's Daughter, "I was jealous when you two started acting all 'mother-daughter' around each other because Luna and I never had that. We were more like best friends or siblings. If she dies..." Midnight began to lose his composure, "If she dies, you'll be all I have left of her."

Celestia now had tears running down her face as well.

A few minutes later, Sunburst and Starlight came in, bringing Sunset with them.

"Hey guys, we're back with... the..." Sunburst said, seeing Midnight and Celestia crying.

Celestia looked up as Sunburst sat next to Seth.

"Sunset," she said, "We need to talk."

For a few moments, Sunset was taken aback by this until she took a look at the scene around her.





Celestia was cooking dinner for the four of them, Sunset was reading, and Luna and Seth were pwning people on XBOX Live.

"C'me on, Luna! Lefty can't hold it forever, even if I will!"

Several rounds of gunfire went off in the virtual world on their 36-inch screen.

"You fucking degenerates!!!" Luna yelled as her character, then Seth's, was shot and killed, "Dammit!"

"Luna!!" Celestia said, "Get in here, now!!"

When she got up, she saw Midnight looking mischeviously at his laptop.

"Leave the trolling to me while you're gone."

"Record 'em if you can."

"You got it," he said, showing a toothy grin.

A minute later, while Luna was being chewed out, Sunset went into the livingroom.

"Hey," she said, confident that she could pull her plan off.

"Hiya."

"So, what are you doing?"

"Pre-dinner fun."

"Like what?"

"Stay and I'll show you."

Sunset stayed for a few minutes.

"You'll never have a family that gives a fuck about you," Sunset said quietly, making him lock up, "Celestia and Luna are only doing this so your miserable bloodsucking ass won't feel so bad. You have nobody and you are nobody."

Over the course of ten seconds, Midnight went from being content with everything and everyone to near-depressed, just staring into space at the direction of his laptop panel, hands on the couch.

Is she right? Midnight wondered as Luna came in, Sunset putting on her facade again, Am I really just a bloodsucking murderer?

"You two, it's time for- Midnight, are you okay?" Luna said, seeing the scene as Sunset walked into the kitchen.

"You won't leave me, will you?"

"I won't," Luna replied, sitting down next to him, prompting him to look the opposite direction.

"Mm," he replied.

"Hungry?"

"Mm."

"Celestia made hamburgers."

He laid down on the couch, "Go ahead."

"C'me on," she said, helping him up and to the table, "You don't have anything like that to worry about."





"Why?" Celestia asked.

"She didn't know," Midnight said, "She couldn't have known."

"I knew," Sunset said, lowering her head.

"You couldn't-"

"I found out and knew you'd be an easy target."

A few moments of silence surrounded them.

"...Fuck off..."

Sunset and Celestia were taken aback by this.

"Fuck. Off. Dammit," he repeated, standing up.

"Midnight, let's go eat in the cafeteria," Sunburst said, gathering Seth's things and leading him out of the waiting room.

When they finally made it to the cafeteria and sat down to eat, Sunburst could virtually see Midnight killing someone."

"Wh-"

"That hot-headed, alien-horse, bitchy motherfucker better be gone when we go back."

They were on thin ice.

Meanwhile in the waiting room, Celestia kept prodding Sunset for why she did what she did.

"Celestia, I was just a bitch then-"

"Sunset, I don't care. How you found out what happened to him is one thing, but for you to make him feel more miserable about it is another," Celestia interrupted, "And don't give me that about you were terrible then. We know that now."

"What should I do?"

"Probably leave for a bit before he comes back," Starlight said, "You saw how mad he was."