Epidemic 2

-Canterlot; Laboratory-

The blood pours from a single pony. Oh, it’s been too long since the doctor has done something like this. It felt good to him. Seeing that much blood pour puts a smile on his face. The experimentation was almost over. So far, only two liters of blood managed to pour out. Soon, everypony will know how much blood can one survive without, but nopony will ever have to find out how this experiment was conducted.

Or else they’d be apart of the next experiment.

“Dr. Labor”

For now, he knows that they faint at the loss of 1.5 liters, but their heart rate continues.

“Dr. Labor”

At two liters, their heart rate starts to speed up in order to keep up.

“Dr. Labor!”

Just a few more minutes, and-

“DR. LABOR!”

Labor Kittel jolts awake from the nap he wasn’t supposed to be having. “Huh!? Vhat? Vhat happened!?”

The guard clears his throat before responding. “Princess Celestia demands to see you at once.”

Dr. Labor proceeds to stretch, and rub his eyes. “Now? But I’m in zhe middle of somezhing very important.” Labor continues his pesticide research. “I have to see how zhis affects zhe plant.”

“Drop it. Celestia needs to see you.” The guard demands. “Royal orders.”

“Yeah yeah.” Labor waves the guard away, and yawns. “You go and tell her zhat I’m busy, ozhervise, you can be promoted to messenger colt and deliver vhatever she vants to tell me.”

“But she wants to see you personally.”

“Did she say zhat?”

“Well… Not exactly, but I told you that-”

“And I told you zhat I’m busy.” Labor looks the guard straight in the eyes. “Now eizher you go and do vhat I politely asked you do to, or so help me I’ll drill your eyes out and feed zhem to your family.”

The guard gulps, as he knows that when Labor gets angry, he tends to be a little violent. He also knows the history Labor has in the castle.

Labor used to be one of the most trusted and smartest scientist out there. While his intellect stayed with him, his trust faded. After rumor of Labor’s diabolical experiments with live ponies started to spread, ponies steered clear from him. It didn’t help when the rumors became fact, after a mutilated pony corpse was found stuffed into the closet of Labor’s Laboratory.

His license became suspended and he was to undergo rehabilitation in prison. Soon after, he became a scientist again, under oath that he would never harm ponies again. When Celius struck, he was visited by an old friend. Dr. Whooves, who brought along a purple unicorn by the name of ‘Twilight Sparkle.’ Together with Twilight, they managed to stop Celius, and restore the pony race. He hasn’t heard from her since.

Too bad. Out of all the ponies he liked to see the fear come out of, she was his favorite.

-Ponyville; Library-

Twilight reads the book on the worm she had discovered, flipping the pages to try and find the cure section in order to start on it immediately.

“Oh, please tell me you know where it is?” A very anxious Rarity impatiently says.

Twilight shakes her head, having already given the book her complete and undivided focus. The look of worry on her face is too much to handle. One would become nervous just looking at her.

Alas, all Twilight finds are the pages she had already read; the symptoms section, the transmission section, the image section, the resistance section, ect ect. It wasn’t after skimming the book for the seventh time that she noticed the harsh reality.

Vramix had no cure. Whatever they are facing here, they’ll have to find the cure for it without help.

This sudden epiphany causes Twilight to freeze and the flipping to stop. For an entire minute, all that you can hear was the ticking of a clock.

“Wh- What’s wrong, dear?” Rarity leans in to try and see if Twilight isn’t having a nervous breakdown. For a moment, Twilight moves her lips to try and say something, but nothing emerges. Until finally, Twilight let’s reality sink back in.

“Rarity.” Twilight finally spouts out. Seemingly calm and collective, she adds, “Can I go talk to you in the kitchen privately?”

“Uh… Why o-of course.” Rarity then proceeds to follow Twilight to the kitchen, leaving the living room they were just in complete silence, accompanied only by the sound of a ticking clock.

Both Spike and Sweetie Belle look at each other, and shrug it off. They don’t know much of what’s going on. Sweetie starts blinking, and Rarity has a fit over. This is probably just another case of too much sisterly love. Maybe there was a lot of dust in the air today. Maybe something got in her eye when they were having their tea party. Maybe today was just too bright.

Whatever the case, Sweetie Belle is sure there is nothing to worry so much about.

-Canterlot; Throne Room-

“I told you to bring me the doctor.” Celestia scolds the guard just entering the room, and informing her that the doctor would not show.

“I sincerely apologize your majesty, but he refused to come. Even if it was direct orders from you yourself, he still refused to move.” The guard appears terrified, and quite frankly, with a look on Celestia’s face, anypony would be frightened.

Celestia arises from her seat, “I’ll get him.” Then she moves towards the laboratory, determined to fetch the doctor herself.

Where to begin with Celestia?

Celestia was there both times Celius arose. The first was nearly 1000 years ago, a couple years before the banishment of Luna. At that time, when Celius struck there was no cure, and because of this setback, a blooming city was lost. The city of SunnDale. It was a city high up in the clouds, and it was thriving with life. That is of course, until the black cough struck. SunnDale was completely demolished, loads of houses destroyed from pure anarchy. Dead pegasi rained down from the heavens, and the last bit of sanity completely lost, as more ponies torched the city that was once peaceful.

The cure was found before Celius could do any more damage. Although there was quite a lot of death and destruction, SunnDale was rebuilt, polished, and renamed ‘CloudsDale.’

When Celius struck the second time five years ago, it was not so bad. They had the cure at hoof, and had their best scientist work on the cure. Celestia did go into a bit of panic, and was not sure whether or not they would find it on time. Luckiliy, the odds were in their favor, and they vanquished Celius once and for all.

But they are not dealing with Celius anymore.

Celestia finally reaches the main laboratory and helps herself in to find to find the doctor she looked for sleeping on the job yet again. Celestia nudges the doctor.

“Dr. Kittel, wake up.” Celestia says softly. Labor merely shrugs.

“Doctor. Please wake up” Celestia says with another nudge.

“Leave. Me. Alone.” Labor responds with the voice of evil.

“Doctor, I need to speak with you urgently.” Celestia says calming yet again.

“Can it vait?” Labor finally gets up and yawns. “I have plants to look at, and do zhe uhm… studying.”

Celestia leans in to the doctor, “It’s about a disease.”

Labor sits up and stretches, then looks at Celestia.

“I’m afraid we’ve encountered another unidentified disease.” Celestia says, “Twilight has informed me earlier today.”

Labor looks at Celestia with a glimmer of suspicion. “Are you telling me, zhat ve are on zhe verge of anozher outbreak?”

“Not quite. I don’t know for sure if this new disease is dangerous, or even severe. For all we know, it could be completely harmless.” Celestia explains. “We just need you to look into it.”

“Vill I be vorking vith Twilight again?” Labor asks. Celestia nods to confirm.

“Okay. Vhen do ve start vorking here?” Labor asks.

“Oh, not here.” Celestia mentions. Labor looks at her confused.

“As I’ve mentioned, we don’t know if this is really something bad. We don’t want to stir panic, and bringing in patients from Ponyville will seem suspicious.”

“You’re not saying vhat I zhink you’re saying, are you?”

“I’m sending you to Ponyville, to study the disease there.”

“Oh scheisse.”

-Huge Earthquake in Manehatten-

Cure Progress: 0%

Spotted

Infected: 97

Dead: 277