We Are Equestria

"They took her husband to the local clinic for treatment for his wounds, and they took the changeling's body away." Clementine said, moving a hoof along with the directions she was giving.

Multiple papers were spread across the table. Scrawl was switching his focus from the talking patient and the reports on the table quickly absorbing all the information he could.

Horilious the changeling looked at his cup of tea in front of him, sipping quietly in his small hut outside the graveyard.

"Hello?" Horilious leapt in surprise, casting his disguise and opening the door.

6-foot opened the door and nervously chuckled at the town guards with a large casket. "Well hellooooo, fine gentle-stallions. what needs doing for you fine bucks today?

"Are any of the open plots of land outside available for a quick burial?" one of the guards asked.

"Quick?" 6-foot leveled his lamp at the casket the two had with them.

"Nothing to get to concerned about sir, just something that needs to be buried." the guard deflected.

"Some mare's pet, I presume?" the old stallion's curiosity was piqued. He chuckled, noticing the guards were becoming more and more uneasy.

"Can we just bury this thing?" the second guard pleaded.

"Mine shall be the only shovel that toils through the graveyard earth, and that shovel won't move until morning." The old  unicorn stood stubborn in his doorway.

"Fine," the guards plopped the casket next to the gate to the graveyard. "You do it in the morning, just don't open it!" The guards commanded. The guards tried to hide the haste in their leaving, but were very unsuccessful.

"Don't open it, eh?" 6-foot huffed as he moved to the side of the box. He gave it a nice smack with the flat side of his shovel. The box didn't budge, chipping the blade of the gardening tool.

"Nightmarish strength," Horilious thought to himself. "Gold perhaps?"

"You ain't the only one with a strong will, box," 6-foot said, tapping the box with the sharp edge of his shovel. He gripped the farthest down handle on the box, and dragged it inside.

He cleared room of his front table, wiping papers and old plates to the side. He heaved the container onto the table and pried at the nails holding the planks firmly together. The thing was heavy, maybe filled to the brim with bullion.

"Money may not buy love, but it sure makes this changeling feel better." The nails came out, one by one, with each bringing another rush of gilded ecstasy.

The last nail slid loose, and Horilious dropped his disguise and pried the top open with the shovel. A burst of spores shot out and covered the shovel and his face. He screeched, and at manic speed, levitated the casket filled with fungal spores and decomposing changeling outside. He followed and dumped the whole thing into a stallion hole outside.

Horilious didn't return to his hut. He ran away from the Everfree forest, into town. He couldn't stay; he had no time to lose.

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"Thanks for coming so soon Chime, I think it'd be best for the kids to get away from our house after what happened." Victory confessed. She pushed a loose bang back behind her ear to rejoin her mane, which was a disheveled mess.

"No problem Victory. It's been to long since you and your foals have been to Canterlot. It'll all turn out." Chime reassured her.

"Just my kids. I'm staying here with Redwood in the hospital until he gets better."

"Oh alright—"

Victory lunged and held her sister close. "Please Chime, take good care of them."

"I will! You're talking like you don't trust me to watch kids."

"I'm sorry. It's just been a long night."

"I alright, to have a changeling just barge into your house like that, its unheard of. Well, bring up Redwood after he gets better and you can come up to Canterlot to get away for a while."

"I'll definitely think about it."

Victory turned to her two colts, "Now your dad will be better in a day or two. You go with Auntie Wind Chime and stay in Canterlot until we come and get you. Tribute, keep a good eye on Patches for me will you?"

Tribute saluted, "Will do mom,"

Victory gathered her foals in a big hug, and after a while, relinquished them to their aunt. Her smallest waved as Victory watched her sister leave. She sat there for a while staring at the door, wondering how long Redwood would really be in the hospital.

"Missus Victory Bell?" a voice broke her form her stupor.

Victory shook off her fixation on the door and nodded at the nurse.

"Are you sure that your husband has no allergies to any of the medications we talked about?" The nurse's eyes were locked on her, making her somewhat uncomfortable.

"Yes, why would I lie about that?"

"What about anti-fungal treatments?" the nurse pushed.

"No, why?"

"There was some sort of fungal growth in one of the wounds the changeling inflicted, and we just wanted to take every precaution before he undergoes treatment."

"Fungus?"

"Yes, it seems to be the same species of fungi—"

"Nurse Burdock!" Another pony in hospital garb ran up.

"Yes?"

"That fungus! It's spreading up his leg!"

"What!" Liberty and Burdock exclaimed in unison.

Burdock moved into action immediately. "Get him to a quarantine unit now, get as many nurses as you need and move." Burdock magically depressed the button on his radio, "Listen up! We need Anti-fungal prepped at the quarantine units now!"

"What!" Liberty repeated through shock.

"Ma'am, I suggest you follow me." Burdock commanded over his shoulder.

Victory's mind was racing, the world around her slowing. The nurse was moving faster than she could urge herself to. All of a sudden, her eyes cleared and she felt adrenaline surge through her veins.

She blew past Nurse Burdock, bolting down hallways and reading her way to the emergency wing of the hospital. Her thought she heard the nurse calling after her, but she didn't care. Redwood was in deep trouble, and she wasn't there for him.

"Redwood! Redwood!" She screamed, calling for any sign of him she could get. A pained scream answered from one of the nearby hallways.

"Redwood! I'm coming!" She called back.

Victory read the sign leading to where she heard the scream, Quarantine room A, and galloped toward her husband. A hospital guard burst out a room in front of her, magic flowing to his horn. Victory charged, he was separating her form her family, she had no choice. She screamed at the top of her lungs, hoping to scare the orderly into backing down.

The guard didn't. The eldritch magic flew forth making stunning contact. The spell sending electric pulses through his target, who was quickly incapacitated.

Everything went numb. Victory watched as she tumbled to the floor horn over hooves, and slid to a halt in the middle of the hallway. She struggled as best she could against the spell, but it was no use.

Hooves running along tile caught her ear as she sat, laid out on the hospital floor.

"Merciful Royals," A voice she recognized as Nurse Burdock huffed, "What spell?"

"Anesthetic and Silence, Nurse Burdock. I'm afraid I might have over done it, sir."

"I am a fool," Burdock swore to himself. "Saying things like that in front of an ailing stallion's wife. Move her to the room next door until the spell wares off."

The orderly picked her up, and trafficked her to the adjacent room. The room began to spin when he placed her on the bed, and swirled to black as he shut the door behind him.

____   ____   ____

"What's the situation?" Nurse Burdock asked the head quarantine nurse.

"Well, take a look..." The Nurse pointed at the male stallion surrounded by doctors through the separator glass. "This fungi we can't Identify has been growing out of his fore-leg at an alarming rate for the past couple hours. His complexion under his coat is getting pale, and most of the anti-fungal treatments we've used have done nothing."

"What are you doing right now?" He questioned again.

"Honestly, nothing. The doctors we do have in there have zero idea what to do." The quarantine nurse muttered.

"How much anesthetic did you use?"

"Wha-We gave him the standard dose for an earth stallion his size. Why?!" The nurse stammered

"I just saw him move..."

As he spoke the stallion began to shift slowly, to the great disturbance of the doctors in with him. Nurse Burdock depressed the talk button on his radio.

"Strap the patient down, and hit him with the knock-out spell again."

The orderlies in the room moved quickly, but to their surprise, the stallion was incredibly hard to get a handle on. The stallion bucked and kicked from his back at the orderlies at his hind-legs with incredible force, flailing with his fore-legs at the orderlies out of reach of his mouth, he bit and chewed on the orderly securing his head. A nurse applied the spell again and the doctors went back to work.

Burdock indicated the bitten orderly, "Clean that out well, got me?"

The quarantine nurse nodded as she looked on at the ordeal before her. Nurse Burdock left the observation room, and continued his rounds in the hospital.

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