Chapter 1
It was a pretty normal day. It was a warm summer Saturday, and I thought it could not be any more beautiful outside. The birds happily chirped while little colts and fillies played so carefree. The citizens of Ponyville all happily pranced through town, enjoying the breeze and the sun. I remember those days like it was yesterday, the sky so blue and clouds so puffy, that I swear I could have eaten them like cotton candy. Pinkie Pie hopped around like usual, saying hello to any living thing that passed by, drinking a large cup of lemon lime soda. She sloshed the drink around, so you could hear the large ice cubes hit the side of the cup. She sang her smile song as she began to play with some of the younger foals. Rainbow Dash sat in a cloud like usual reading a Daring Do book, wearing her big shades and occasionally bumping the cloud, drizzling rain on the foals to cool them down when they got too hot, and then Pinkie would beg Rainbow Dash to “Make her wet too”. Rainbow always started laughing at that, and Pinkie couldn’t figure out why. Eventually, Rainbow stopped and gave a hard kick to the cloud, causing a massive amount of water fall on Pinkie.
“OOOOH! I’m GONNA GET YOU FOR THAT DASHIE!” She screamed, as she began running up an invisible staircase (don’t ask. It’s Pinkie Pie) toward Rainbow, Who bolted after seeing that.
Fluttershy sat on a large red checkered cloth with a picnic basket in front of her. Angel bunny rummaged through, while nibbling a carrot and throwing food that he doesn’t like over his shoulder, hitting Opalescence who did not appreciate it. My sister, Rarity, giggled as she sat down next to Fluttershy, levitating a plate of daffodil sandwiches onto the cloth. They happily gossiped away as they munched down on their food.
Princess Twilight was doing some wing exercises, so she could take a nature flight with Fluttershy later that evening. Not to my surprise, she was also reading a stack of books about aerodynamics and wind patterns when she needed a break from the hard work. Applejack fanned herself with her worn old hat at her apple stand, occasionally getting up and buying a smoothie from next door and guzzling it down in two gulps. It usually followed with a long drowned out “aaaaaaaaah that hits the spot”
Lyra and Bonbon both trot merrily to Sugarcube corner, waving to Pinkie as they go. I saw Derpy with that one pony, who calls himself “the Doctor” enter a big blue box and then, it suddenly vanished without a trace. Meanwhile, In the courtyard, Mrs. Cake played with her foals outside, while Mr. Cake worked inside, and they would switch off every ten to fifteen minutes, to spend an equal amount of time outside, and with their children without losing any sales.
I couldn’t think of a prettier day that summer if I tried.
The crusaders and I were messing around, trying to earn our cutie marks in landscaping, but the only thing we got was dirty. It wasn’t our talent, but it was pretty fun to make the school garden look nice. To be completely honest, we didn’t do a bad job. Cherilee even let us keep the design that way. I was helping Scootaloo with moving bricks from the storage closet in the room to the garden, while Applebloom tilled the soil in a small square area to plant some flowers. Applebloom had the dirty work, but she was used to it on the farm, so she didn’t care.
“Ughh, these bricks are so heavy!” complained Scootaloo and she threw down a couple bricks she had balanced on her back and her wings. She breathed heavily before sighing and walking back to the room to get some more.
“Sweetie Belle, how many more bricks do I need to move?” she asked, clearly trying to convince me to give in to her idea of a break.
I sighed. “How about this, we can finish moving the rest of the bricks and THEN we can take a break? I looked at Scootaloo as she pondered for a moment. She looked to the sky and then the ground, and then back to me.
“I guess that’d be okay…. I guess,” And with that, she headed back to the storage closet to get more “spawns of Tartarus” as she called them.
I thought that the day couldn’t get any better. Well…. I was right. We had just finished moving the rest of the bricks and we decided to take a well deserved break. Scootaloo was almost out cold. She lay on her back, belly exposed, with her hooves behind her head. Applebloom sat next to Scootaloo, but on her belly instead. Her bow was soaked in sweat, so she took it off to wring it. I lay on my side, and laid my head on my foreleg staring at the clouds. I felt bored, so I started humming my favorite lullaby that Rarity sings me before I go to bed. Before any of us realized, we were fast asleep. I had a dream of white, but it felt good nonetheless. We finally got a rest after a long hard day’s work.
As I slept, my dream of white suddenly exploded into a large green field. I looked around, but saw nothing but tall green grass, an absolutely beautiful landscape. It seemed to be morning because the sun was low and the birds seemed to be waking up. By what Ms. Cherilee taught us, the Princesses move the Sun west to east, so I must be facing east. When I faced east in Ponyville, you saw the Everfree forest. Here, all I see are plain grassy fields. I turned a quick 180 degrees to see the looming forest behind me. “Hmmm, so I’m on the other side of the forest?” As I realized that, I heard a faint movement sound somewhere near me. I turned to the general direction of the sound, and saw a Beautiful blue Earth pony mare.
“Hi,” I greeted. No response. She kept walking towards me, like she didn’t know I was standing there. As she got closer, I cowered down and covered my head with my hooves.
“Please… leave me alone!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. As the mare approached, I now saw her clearly. Her cutie mark was a bag of money and a lantern. She wore a torn up slightly and dirty vest and on the side was ….. A KNIFE! I screamed again.
“PLEASE DON’T HURT ME!” Yet again, the mare failed to notice me and kept walking. She then broke out in a nasty cough and fell in front of me, unconscious. She didn’t stay down for very long either. She was down for maybe 30 seconds before she jumped up again and coughed violently. This time, she held a hoof to her mouth and cough blood onto herself.
“Oh no,” she said before wiping her blood onto her vest, leaving a large brownish stain.
“It’s getting worse. First the headaches, and the boils, now coughing blood?” I need to get to Ponyville as soon as possible to find the cure.” And with that, she continued her trek past me and into the Everfree. I sat in horror as the stranger headed towards my home town. She then turned to me and said my name.
“Sweetie Belle, Sweeeetie Beelllle!” she chanted. Her voice suddenly became very loud and scary.
“SWEETIE BELLE!” she screamed as she started running towards me. She pulled her knife from her sheath as she got closer.
“AAAAAAAAHHHHHH!” I shrieked as I began running in the opposite direction.
“SWEETIE BELLE! WAKE UP!” My eyes shot open. The light threw me off for a second as my vision balanced. I was no longer in the green field with the mysterious blue mare. Instead, Applebloom stood over me with a very concerned look on her face and near her, stood Scootaloo was fanning her off with giant leaves.
“Sweetie Belle, ya okay?” Applebloom asked, putting a hoof on my shoulder. Before I answered her, I realize that the entire town seemed to be surrounding us.
“Applebloom,” I whispered. “Why is everypony watching me?” She only answered with an uneasy look. Then, Scootaloo also came up to me and asked me the same thing Applebloom did couple seconds ago.
”Hey Sweetie Belle, are you feeling alright? You sorta freaked out and caught the attention of the entire town with your freak show”
With that, Applebloom punched Scootaloo on the shoulder and pushed her away. “Scootaloo, go get Sweetie Belle a cup of water,” Scootaloo tried to open her mouth to argue, but Applebloom did the “Do it NOW” face, and Scootaloo backed off and started mumbling something about sass under her breath as she went to go find a drink. I heard mumbling through the crowd as I heard a familiar voice moving closer to the front.
“Out of the way, Coming through!” The figure broke through the front of the crowd and move to me.
“RARITY!” I screamed, as I jumped off my back and into an embrace with my sister. A concerned Twilight and Fluttershy followed.
“Oh Sweetie Belle, what happened darling?” Rarity asked as she squeezed me tighter and tighter. It felt like my eyeballs were gonna pop out of my skull if she kept squeezing.
“Rarity STOP!” I commanded, pushing her away with one hoof and trying to keep my balance with the other. “It was just a bad dream! Really! Why is everypony watching me?” Rarity blinked and then answered with
“Sweetie, you were screaming at the top of your lungs. Are you okay? You can tell me, I’m your big sister remember?” Behind us, Scootaloo came walking back with a big familiar looking cup. She gave it to me and I guzzled it down in one gulp.
“HEY! THAT’S MINE!”
I ignored Pinkie Pie as I finished the drink. Funny, I feel even thirstier than before. “I need more,” I rasped. Scootaloo nodded her head and ran off to get another drink. Rarity let go of me and motioned Twilight to come over.
“Are you okay?” Fluttershy asked with a sad look on her face.
“Yes Sweetie Belle, are you feeling alright?” Rarity asked again.
“Yeah, I just feel a bit thirsty.” Twilight now stood next to me and leaned down next to my ear.
“Sweetie Belle, what happened? Did something or somepony hurt you?” I began to feel really uncomfortable now. I began to get a sharp pain in my head. Twilight kept asking me questions, but I couldn’t hear them too well. The pain was too strong. I lost it and screamed.
“NO TWILIGHT, JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!” Fluttershy squeaked and hid behind Twilight and her hair. I began to panic and hyperventilate. I attempted to run, but Twilight caught me in her magical grasp.
“Sweetie Belle, what has gotten into you!?” Scootaloo returned with another larger cup of water, and I drank it own in a couple gulps.
The rest of the elements shooed away the large crowd (didn’t really work) and came to check on me to see if I was alright. I had begun to cry now, and I curled up in a ball.
“I’m going to take her to the library, girls. Rarity, you can come along, but the rest of you go back to what you were doing.”
“NO!” They both screamed in unison. “We won’t leave Sweetie Belle.” Applebloom said with an extremely stern look on her face
“Yeah, no matter what you say or do, we will always stick together.” Scootaloo added. At that, I used all of my remaining energy to show a smile to them. They acknowledge and smiled back.
Applejack stepped forward and took off her hat.
“Applebloom, no, If Sweetie Belle is sick, ah can’t risk you getting sick too.” She reached forward to pull Applebloom away from me, but to everypony’s surprise, Applebloom slapped her hoof away.
“Applebloom, Ah’m surprised at you!” Applejack said trying to understand what just happened.
“No Applejack ah’m staying with Sweetie Belle. Ah don’t care if you ground me for life, ah will NOT abandon my friend!”
Everypony gasped loudly. Applebloom has never spoken to her older sister this way before.
“Applebloom,” Applejack snarled.
“Save it. I’m staying and that’s final.” Applebloom turned her back to Applejack and said “If you can’t understand mah friendship, then maybe you don’t deserve to be an Element of Harmony.” Applejack tried to open her mouth to say something, but nothing came. She put on her hat and turned around and began walking away.
The entire town watched with awe as Applejack turned and said “Maybe you don’t deserve an older sister anymore.”
Applejack walked away, hat lowered over her eyes. Not another word spoken from her.
“Sheesh” Rainbow Dash said, breaking the silence. She landed next to Applebloom, who was now crying softly in realization that her sister had disowned her. “Hey kid, it’s alright” she pulled in Applebloom for a short and awkward hug. “Hey, if it makes you feel any better, I would have said the same thing in your position. You did nothing wrong. Your sister on the other hoof was being a pain in the flank.” Applebloom looked up at Rainbow Dash while wiping her eyes.
“Ya really think so Rainbow Dash? She asked.
“Yeah, and I think I need to have a long talk with the Element of Honesty. Go to your friend, kid.” She said nudging Applebloom forward “Oh and always remember this. No matter what happens, you NEVER EVER leave your friends hanging.” Applebloom looked at her with a look of thanks and ran back to me, while Rainbow Dash took off into the direction of Sweet Apple Acres.
Fluttershy came to me and look at me very closely.
“Hi Sweetie Belle,” she said with her soft voice. “Can you tell me where it hurts?” I motioned to my head and my legs. “Oh poor baby,” she cooed as she picked me up ever so delicately. She kissed my horn and hugged me tight.
“Fluttershy, can you give me Sweetie belle, so I can see what’s wrong?” Twilight asked. She nodded and handed me over to Twilight, who held me as gently as possible in her magical grasp.
Twilight turned to everypony who was watching and she became angry very quickly.
“What do you think you’re all doing? Go on, nothing to see here.” Everypony started leaving one by one and eventually, only Twilight, me and the crusaders, Fluttershy, Rarity and Pinkie Pie remained.
“I suggest the rest of you go home now. Applebloom I know you have had a falling out with your sister, but you should really go home.” She motioned for Rarity to follow her as she walked towards the library with me.
Applebloom and Scootaloo jumped in front of Twilight. “No, she’s our friend and ah think that Scootaloo and ah have a right to go with you,” Applebloom states, followed by Scootaloo,
“Yeah, the Cutie Mark Crusaders will never leave another crusader behind.”
Twilight tries to navigate around the three fillies, but gives up “Fine, but you girls have to stay away from her for now. We don’t want you getting sick or anything. Come on Rarity, let’s go.”She motions to Rarity, and she follows Twilight and the crusaders to the Library.
We entered the library and Twilight took me upstairs and lowered me down carefully on her bed. I was still curled up in a ball, clutching my tail and shutting my eyes so tight, it felt like they would rip open. My headache raged and I groaned constantly. I could hear Twilight telling Spike to get a book about sicknesses, and Rarity going to the kitchen to make me some hot chocolate. Scootaloo was sitting on the floor whispering to Applebloom quiet enough so I couldn’t hear. They got up and came to me.
“Hey Sweetie belle, ah have to go now. I promised Granny Smith that ah would help her make zap apple jam. I promise ah’ll bring you some. I hope you feel better soon,” Applebloom said as she hugged me and walked out the door.
“Yeah, I have to go too,” Scootaloo deadpanned. “Rainbow Dash is supposed to train me today,” She gave me a short hug and then headed out the door. “I’m gonna fly today, just for you, Sweetie Belle.” As they left, I felt alone. The headaches dimmed down a bit, and I was able to walk again.
Twilight walked in now, levitating four fairly large books towards me. She puts them down next to the bed and pulls out a thermometer out of a first aid bag on her shelf. “Sweetie Belle, open your mouth. I need to check your temperature.” She levitated a book over the bed and then put the thermometer under my tongue. A minute later, she pulled it out of my mouth and read it and instantly dropped everything.
“Oh my CELESTIA,” she gasped.
I weakly reached over to the thermometer which read 107 degrees Fahrenheit. A full 8 degrees higher than it should be. Twilight was ripping through her books to find the symptoms. “Headaches…. No. Extremely high temperature….. No.” Twilight read through all of the books as thoroughly as possible, but she found nothing. Twilight ran to Spike and whispered something in his ear. He nodded and ran to some other part of the library.
Twilight came back to me and said,
“Hey Sweetie Belle, everything’s going to be alright. I Pinkie promise.” She did the trademark motion and as she was going to say something else, I felt like something was scratching at my throat. I decided to cough and relieve myself, but this time, it was different. When I covered my mouth and coughed, I felt something sticky on my hoof.
“AAAAAAAAHHHHHH” A screech echoed throughout the tree follow by a shattering sound, and I recognized it. It was Rarity. She had probably walked in without anypony else noticing her.
Twilight instantly dropped the books she was reading cover to cover to make sure she didn’t miss any pages.
“What happened?!” she asked Rarity. Rarity squeaked and pointed to me. Twilight turned her head and gasped once again. I looked down myself, and I was completely horrified. I tried to scream, but it hurt to make any noise. My mouth was covered in blood as well as my hooves. At this moment, Spike walked in with the largest book I had ever seen and dropped it on the ground before Twilight.
“Hey Sweetie Belle,” Spike said as he looked up to me and he covered his mouth with his claws and ran out the door making gagging noises.
Twilight opened the book, which was labeled ‘Ancient Diseases’. She read and read and closed the book. She looked at Rarity and then to me and said,
“Sweetie Belle, Rarity, I don’t know what to tell you. I read all the books I have about sickness and disease, which is A LOT compared to other city’s libraries. By what we know about disease in Equestria, this one doesn’t exist. Or actually, what I should say is, haven’t been discovered yet.” She tried to give us the most sympathetic look as possible.
Twilight went to her first aid bag and pulled out a syringe. “I need to analyze your blood to see if there is any severe abnormalities.”
She came to me and Rarity held my bloody hoof in hers. “Sweetie Belle, I need you to squeeze my hoof as hard as you can. This won’t hurt at all.”
I did as she said and squeezed. I also shut my left eye and saw Rarity motion her head to me. I felt a slight pinch in my side, so I squeaked and squeezed tighter. “It’s done Sweetie Belle,”
Twilight said as she put a bandage on my side. The syringe hung in mid air and then floated to a microscope on Twilight’s desk. She dropped a couple drops and a small glass square and covered it with another glass square. She put it under the microscope and watched it for about ten minutes as Rarity cleaned the blood off of me with a warm, wet rag. She kept saying things to comfort me, like “It's okay Sweetie. Rarity’s got you.” Or “Big sister will clean you up nice and good and then I’ll take you home and make you pancakes or anything you want.”
I looked at Rarity and I managed to choke out “I love y-“ I was cut off with a cough and then I said it again. “Rarity, I love you.” She began to hug me and cry, soaking my mane in tears.
After about thirty minutes of crying and studying, Twilight was completely dumbfounded. “Sweetie Belle seems to have partial immunity to this disease. I injected a rat a while ago with Sweetie Belle’s blood sample, and the poor guy went insane and clawed his own heart out.”
Rarity sniffled and wiped her eyes with a tissue. “So does that mean she won’t die?” she asked, looking a bit more hopeful.
Twilight gritted her teeth and answered with “Umm, I’m not sure I can guarantee that Rarity, but the chances of living are about forty percent higher than a normal pony. Twilight opened her eyes in realization. “Sweetie Belle,” She turned to me quickly. “What was your dream about earlier today?”
I tried to remember and then I told as them as much as I could remember from my dream. Rarity had fainted onto the bed and even Twilight had a look of complete panic.
“SPIIIIIKE GET OVER HERE NOW!” she screamed and ran around the room, looking for some paper. Spike walked in looking queasy and asked “What is it?” “Spike, take a letter.” He obliged and took the paper from Twilight that she had just found and began writing with a quill that lay on the floor near him.
“Dear Princess Celestia,
I have discovered a new and potentially, dangerous disease. It was first discovered when a little twelve year old filly named Sweetie Belle collapsed in the middle of town. I took her into my home and analyzed her for any abnormalities in blood, or immunity. She seems to be partially immune to said disease. I injected a rat with her blood and the rat killed itself, most likely to put itself out of its misery. When I mixed different samples of other pony’s blood together with Sweetie Belle’s blood, it ate through the other blood like a strong acid in a plastic cup.
So far the visible symptoms are
1. Boils on your body
2. Raging headaches
3. Pain in intestinal area
4. Coughing Blood
Sweetie Belle has seemed to recover fairly quickly because of her immunity, but it has not left her body. She had a dream about a mysterious blue mare traveling through the Everfree forest to get to Ponyville. By her description, the mare had the same disease, but it seemed much more prominent in the dream.
I will now conduct a mandatory blood check for all o the residents of Ponyville to check for the disease. I will send you the results, once I have all of the data
Your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle”
As Spike finished writing, he held it in one claw and blew hard on it, and it vanished in green smoke.
Twilight moved to Rarity, and asked,
“Rarity, can I speak with you in private?” She silently nodded and went out the door. I’ve come to be very good at eavesdropping over the years, with the girls, so I could easily hear them.
“Rarity, I’m sorry to tell you this, but even though Sweetie Belle may have a partial immunity to this disease, she can’t go forever with it. If we don’t find a cure quickly, I’m afraid that Sweetie Belle won’t live past 16.” I heard Rarity gasp and start crying softly. Then I heard “Ssssshhhh. She might hear us.” The crying stopped. “Look Rarity, I can make a partial cure that will last for maybe a year, but I can only make one.” There was a silence.
“Do it.”