GASP

They didn’t listen. They burst out of the fire escape into the wide-open air, and Spitfire wasted no time in picking up Redheart and taking off. Redheart struggled to keep her mask on, protecting herself from the surrounding sickness. As they took to the air, they could see the chaos that was unfolding around the hospital.

There were fires everywhere. Ponies were rioting in the streets. Groups were fighting in front of the hospital, downtown, and especially up on the plateau. The police couldn’t contain them, and at the rate they were going, it was only a matter of time before the entire hospital was destroyed from the inside out. Bodies were laying in the street, injured or dead, they couldn’t tell, but ponies were paying no attention to them, save for a few who were crying over their loved ones. They, too, were soon lost in the chaos, trampled or worse

“Dear Celestia,” said Redheart.

“If she were here, we might be able to control this, but I don’t know if an alicorn would be immune to this. I’m not sure I want to find out. Let’s get you out of he—”

Spitfire was struck by a hoof in the face, and she tumbled down some distance before she caught herself. Redheart shrieked as she clung to the cooler.When they recovered, they looked around for the source of the attack, and only just caught the attacker in time to dodge out of the way. Feathers flew as her wing was hit, but she stayed up. Some pegasus was flying at them.

“What are you doing!” screamed Redheart. “Stop it! You’ll kill us!”

“You’re not going to bring that disease out of there! I saw you coming out of the hospital. You’re sick!” the pegasus mare said.

“I’m not sick!” Redheart yelled, as Spitfire dodged heavily to the side.

“Of course you’d say that. Nopony wants to get sick, but in the interests of protecting Equestria from an outbreak, we can’t let you leave.”

Spitfire looked around, deftly swooping out of the way as the pegasus clumsily tried to hit her. There were pegasi everywhere attacking anypony who tried to fly out of the city. They weren’t kidding when they said they were trying to prevent an outbreak, but the dropping pegasi were falling into the crowd where they disappeared like anypony else. They were consigning them to death, rather than helping.

The mare whistled and several more pegasi turned to look. They saw she was having trouble and flew over, ready to help keep Spitfire down.

“You realize I’m the captain of the Wonderbolts, right?”

“I know. It pains me to do this, ma’am, but in the interests of Equestria, you need to stay down. Wait for help to come.”

“This is help! I have here a nurse who can create a cure!”

She paused in her attacks, but the other pegasi shouted at her when they arrived. “Don’t stop! No exceptions! We need to keep them all contained as much as we can until help arrives!”

“Who did you send for help, huh?” Spitfire yelled.

“Fastest pony I know, Blitzer Bolt.”

“Is he a Wonderbolt?”

“…no, ma’am, he isn’t, but you’re no exception. Please wait until help arrives.”

“Ponies are dying down there!”

“And even more will die if we let this spread. Please just wait.”

Redheart reached up and patted Spitfire’s forehoof. “Take me down, it’s fine.”

“But—!”

“Spitfire please, we’ll think of something. Maybe they’re right and help will come in time.”

Spitfire grumbled but slowly descended. They didn’t attack again, thankfully, but now Redheart and Spitfire were down on the ground, in behind the hospital, waiting.

When they landed, Redheart took the cooler off her back and held it out to Spitfire. “Here. They can’t possibly stop you alone. Carrying me, you’d have to protect me, but if you take this and go, you’ll get somewhere they can look at it.”

“But I’m carrying the disease, it’s not safe!”

“But if you wait here, nothing will be safe. We’ll both die, and no one will have the means to make a cure.”

“What if I die while traveling. We don’t know when it will kill me,” said Spitfire. “I could be carrying it over a forest and drop dead with no warning. Or I’ll get delirious like Soarin and never deliver it. It’s too dangerous to entrust it to me.”

“But we must get it out of the city!”

Spitfire went silent in thought for a moment. She and Redheart both spent some time in silence, thinking.

“If you were to fly low down the way to the road out of town…”

“Then you’d have a hell of a walk.”

“We could just try flying when we got there?”

“It’s a bit of a waste of time, but okay. It’s a start.”

Spitfire picked up Redheart again and they flew low out of the buildings and down the streets. The streets were crowded, but once they got past the hospital, the streets were far less packed. They made their way down the hill into the main part of town, the eyes of the pegasi above stuck on them. They’d almost made it through the buildings there when somepony leaped out of a window and landed on Spitfire!

“You’re a pegasus, carry me out! Forget her! Take me to safety!”

“What the hell, let go a’ me!”

Redheart screamed as Spitfire’s flight dipped and wobbled. It wasn’t as far up as before, but it was still enough to injure here if she fell, not to mention how much damage it could do to the cooler!

“Spitfire, land! Land!” she yelled.

Spitfire obliged, fluttering down to the ground as she fought off the crazy earth pony that had jumped on her. Ponies all around, suffering from different stages of the illness or just trying to escape, spared them only a brief glance before most of them focused back on their own business of fleeing the city or looting nearby buildings.

“No, no, no! Fly back up! Get me out of here!” the earth pony shouted, and she yanked on Spitfire’s ears so hard they started bleeding. Spitfire dropped Redheart on the pavement, then bucked and spun, trying to dislodge the pony attacking her. Redheart stumbled, but righted herself, and looked back at the two fighting.

The earth pony had a hoof around Spitfire’s neck, and Spitfire was slamming her into the wall of a nearby building as she tried to force her to let go. The earth pony had a strong grip, however, and wasn’t willing to release her prize, she kept yelling “Up! Up!” while Spitfire gagged.

“You’re not… sick. Just… run… Doc!” Spitfire choked out.

“Take me away, please!” the earth pony shrieked, then looked at Redheart. “You’re a doctor?” She released Spitfire and ran at Redheart. “Help me, please! I don’t want to die!”

The sparse crowd around the battle all turned and looked at Redheart when they heard that. Murmurs of “Help me!”, “Please, doctor!”, “Save my foal!”, and everything else were whispered and shouted in equal amounts as the crowd turned to Redheart, begging for their lives.

Free from her attacker, Spitfire flew up and over the crowd, homing in on Redheart. She flew down and reached out to grab her, but was struck in the head by a rock.

“She’s trying to steal the doctor for herself! Some elite force!”

“Damn Wonderbolts don’t care about the little guy!”

“Get her!”

Spitfire fought back, wings, hooves, and teeth lashing out as the crowd surrounded her. Redheart cried out in dismay as her friend was beaten, but there were still ponies intent on begging her for help. Their faces pressed toward her, but they weren’t attacking her, yet. She couldn’t tell them the truth, they wouldn’t believe her, and they would turn on her just as quickly as they turned on Spitfire if they knew what her plans were. Instead, she just took one last look at the cloud of yellow that was Spitfire, now tinged by red, then turned and galloped away, vision blurry from tears.

The crowd immediately turned angry. The few she pushed past were too bewildered and confused to attack her immediately, but angry shouting quickly picked up behind her as she bolted downhill.

“She’s not a doctor at all!”

“She’s a shitty one, if she is! She’s leaving us!”

“Don’t let her leave, we need help!”

“Stop her! Stop her!”

Cold fear gripped her as she ran wildly through the streets. There was constant shouting behind her as she ran, and every new street she reached ponies heard the calls and saw her hat, then new ones joined in the chase. She took her hat off and threw it away, hoping that might help, but with a crowd already having seen her for what she was, it was too late. Everywhere she went new ponies heard the calls for her blood, and they joined up, following her.

She didn’t know the city well enough to make a good and easy escape, but she knew how the streets worked. She ran this way and that, up and down hills, trying to lose the crowd. Many of the crowd got lost. Those who weren’t residents of the city got lost or tired from the up and downhill battle, but she didn’t lose all of them. Unfortunately, Redheart herself couldn’t handle so many hills for so long, and before long her legs were weak and tired. She panted, huffing to a stop after one particularly grueling set of stairs, and looked down at the crowd following her.

Some of the ponies had died during the chase. The illness having advanced far too quickly for them. She began to wonder if she might just outlast them all, but that hope was dashed when she saw some of the group following her with their own masks on.

If they were sick, were they trying to get help for loved ones, or were they just out for blood?

One of them threw something at her and she took that as her answer. They were hooligans, just out for blood in the midst of a crisis. She continued running, legs burning.

She squeezed through an alley, having come back up a lot of the hill, and burst out the other side into what was unfortunately the main body of the rioters from the festival.

There was chanting, and marching, and they all seemed to be moving in one direction. They were speaking, and coughing, but it was indecipherable and confused. Unfortunately, the moment they saw Redheart they all turned on her, sniffed the air, and grabbed her. She cried out and screamed, but nopony paid any attention.

The crowd clutched at her, pulling her this way and that, and she fought them tooth and hoof. They pulled at her mask, her cooler, her tail, and her limbs, but there were too many of them, and they were as uncoordinated as could be. Coughing tore them apart, and hooves that seemed about to tug away her last bastion of safety were replaced by new ones that had to start over. She adjusted her mask, yanked the cooler, and crawled overtop them even as they tried to hold on.

But despite her minor successes, she was still coasting along of top of an unruly, unhealthy mob. Half of it seemed to be making its way downhill, and the other half, pushing back, seemed to be trying to work its way up the hill. It was fighting against itself, though not violently, confused, and almost seeming scared, but certainly after her.

Redheart managed to stand up, balancing on the heads and backs of several ponies. She stared around her, looking for the nearest edge of the crowd, but even as she looked, she found the nearest edge far away. She had been pulled toward the center of the mass, where she could see the bloodied and injured bodies of several ponies, trampled underneath the scared hooves of others. She felt a tug on her tail and worked her way away, kicking hooves as she balanced across the undulating crowd. She almost felt like she was making progress when a stray hoof yanked one of hers, and she went down.

“No, help!” she cried. But all that closed over her head as she dropped into the mass of bodies was the phlegm and snot-covered face of a pony; panicked and scared and looking for somepony that could help him feel better somehow.

“Help me!” he pleaded.

He pulled at the cooler she was clutching to her chest, and she yanked back, then kicked. Her hoof struck his face and he recoiled, disappearing into the bodies. A hoof hit her in the back of the head, then the side. She fell down, hugging the cooler to her chest as hooves and bodies pressed and stamped in all at once. She curled up, trying her best to protect her head and the cooler with her legs, but she couldn’t get up. In the middle of the mass, she wasn’t going to be able to recover.

Hooves struck her all over. Sharp, pointed limbs scraped, scratched, and tore at her mane, tail, and back. One of her hooves was at her mask, keeping it firmly against her mouth, and the other was tightly wrapped around the cooler, pulling it in against her body. She needed to protect it, but how was she supposed to save herself and it?

Above the roar of the crowd came another roar. The crowd all stopped moving for a moment, the hooves blessedly still. It allowed Redheart a moment to collect herself and stand up, but then the whole body of the crowd surged in one direction. The roar came again, and the crowd was pushed to the side. Redheart saw a pink light shoving the crowd apart, and the roar came closer. She staggered, and a wheel rolled up in front of her. She looked up to see a white-helmeted figure drawing up in front of her. Magic grabbed her by the back of her neck and dragged her onto the back of the bike, and then the roaring came again. The machine she was on pulled ahead, and the crowd screamed as it crashed over the dead bodies of those beneath them.

“You’re not in a very good spot, girl,” the unicorn mare yelled back.

It took Redheart a minute to understand the statement was directed at her. She adjusted her mask and double-checked she still had her cooler and it was intact, then looked at her rescuer.

It was somepony dressed in a full-body suit, wearing a large helment over her head with her horn sticking out the top. She was riding on a bicycle, but there was a heavily-damaged thing on the back the loud noise (and a lot of smoke) was issuing from.

“I…” Redheart said, which was drowned out in the screaming of the smoking machine. She yelled. “I’m alive! Thank you!”

“Saw them grab you! Had to help!”

The crowd—filled with sick pegasi, trampling earth ponies, and dangerous unicorns—was trying to follow them. Most of the crowd stopped to cough, their lungs unable to keep up with their bodies, and they fell to the stampede. The machine she was on was easily able to outdistance them, and before long, Redheart and her rescuer were well downhill and on their way out of the city. Mercifully, the pegasi above let them go. They probably assumed anypony walking out of town that was sick would die before they could get to another city. She didn’t question it. She was just glad to leave.

She turned back to look at the city above as the hills gave way to flat plains. A sickly cloud rose above the city. The dead bodies issuing forth poisoned air that hung over Goodstone, thick, and visible now that she was out of it. There was no conversation as they traveled. The roar of the engine wouldn’t allow it, but Redheart allowed herself to feel safe. If anypony could stop this illness, it would be her. She just hoped everypony wouldn’t be dead before help could come.

She wrapped her hooves around her unknown rescuer and allowed herself to cry.

The End.