Epidemic

Twilight nervously closed the book. She opened the drawer, and pulled out a quill and a sheet of paper. Without thinking, she immediately began to write.

_

Dear Princess Celestia,

The plague Celius is back. We must start working on the cure as soon as possible. The disease mutates fast, and can become unstoppable if we don’t do anything about it. All I ask is that we get our scientist working, before the virus spreads. Please please PLEASE, get started immediately.

Twilight Sparkle.

_

Twilight rolled up the paper, and ran upstairs. She opened the door, and woke Spike up.

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

“Why?” Spike curiously asked. Twilight quickly thought of an excuse, as to not scare Spike.

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

“Ok fine.” Spike weakly grabbed the scroll, and took a deep breath. Twilight anxiously waited for Spike to blow the letter away, but it didn’t happen. Instead, Spike violently coughed.

“You’re going to *cough* wait until I get better. I can’t do it like this.” Twilight fidgeted in nervousness, and headed back down stairs without saying a word.

Twilight walked in circles, and thought of a new plan. Click! She would try to find any other pony willing to help find the cure. She grabbed her saddlebag, put all her tools (Microscope, blood vial, the book, and a notebook with quill) in her saddle bag, and head out the door.

The first person Twilight would look for would be Dr. Whooves. His intelligence in these kinds of things would be needed of she wanted to stop the virus. She headed to the hospital.

Once she arrived, she went wide-eyed to see that the hospital was full. The line was even getting outside the hospital, and they were all violently coughing ponies. Twilight skipped to the counter, to see nurse RedHeart.

“Please sir. You need to wait, there are 7 ponies ahead of you.” The nurse tried calming the crowd down. “You’ll get your turn.”

Twilight walks up to the nurse, keeping a five foot 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 is suddenly interrupted by Twilight’s hoof being shoved into her mouth. Luckily, none of the ponies in the waiting room heard RedHeart’s announcement.

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

"Is Dr. Whooves here?" Twilight impatiently 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. "You might want this." Twilight put the mask on a watched.

"So, uhm. 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 lifts one eyebrow.

"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 faced 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 too bad, 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 there medical masks before speaking again.

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

"Celius?" The doctor went eyed upon hearing the name.

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

"Celius must not return Twilight." Dr. Whooves turned to look at Twilight. His face obviously struck with excessive fear.

"Dr. Whooves?" Twilight worryingly asked. "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."

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

"Fair enough." 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 if Celius. 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 she closes the door behind him.

"Now then. Let's begin the study shall we?"