My Little Diseases

Luna stood at the foot of the stairs leading up to Twilight’s castle. As she made her way up the stairs, her shoes clinked softly, her wings spreading open with a soft fluttering sound. Her mane flowed gracefully behind her head as she moved.

Once she reached the top of the stairs, she knocked on the door gently, taking a step back and looking up at the grand crystal castle. This castle served as Twilight’s new home… A reward even, for defeating lord Tirek. And if what the Cutiemark Crusaders said was true, this castle may have become a gigantic house of horrors…

As Lua stared up at the castle’s front side, she heard the door creak open, and she looked back down. Meeting the gaze of Pinkie Pie.

She looked… insane… Her eyes were bloodshot and puffy, her mane that normally hung flat by her face, was beginning to show signs of mess and knots, almost as if it was trying to puff back up, but not succeeding. Her Grey-Pink fur still retained the dull colour it had since Rarity passed. But what made it look more unsettling to Luna, was Pinkie’s gloves. She wore long, black latex leg covers that were covered in what looked like rainbow colours. Almost as if she had just jumped into a large vat of paint. But something about them shook Luna to her core.

“Hello there princess!” Pinkie Pie greeted with a wide smile, giving her a bow. “What brings you here?”

Princess Luna looked down at Pinkie as she bowed, feeling uneasy, like her gut was telling her to leave. As Pinkie stands back up, asking her question of Luna’s presence, she responds in a fairly hesitant tone. Trying her best to find the words that dont make her come across as suspicious.

“I uhm… I came to check on Twilight… I haven't seen her since she was cured of her illness. I wanted to make sure she was doing ok.”
Luna finally explained, giving Pinkie a soft smile, hoping it would convince her, and it did. Pinkie then stepped to the side, inviting Luna inside.

As Luna walked inside, she heard a bit of commotion coming from further inside, and she quickly pinpointed it to the castle’s basement.

Before Pinkie could stop her, Luna opened the door to the basement and descended the steps. Once they got to the bottom, what she saw disgusted her. Scattered paper work and broken equipment, small animal cages with rotting skeletons of rabbits, birds and ferrets, and the stains on the table from multiple experiments. But that wasn't the worst of it.

There was an old, clotted blood stain on the ground, staining the floor between the tables and the basement entrance. Luna’s eyes widened in shock and horror as she went deeper into the basement, seeing the cells at the back, and what was inside, almost made Luna empty her stomach right then and there.

Applejack slowly lifted her head, looking up at the moon princess. Her body was rotting away, many chunks of her legs, flanks and neck were missing, some had clotted blood all over the muscle, some missing chunks were still fresh and bleeding slowly. Her eyes were bloodshot and sunken in, with dark rings around them, making them look deeper than they actually were.
Some of the chunks had gone so deep as to reveal bone, with clotted or dried blood chipping off to reveal the off-white structure of Applejack’s body.

Applejack opened her mouth to speak, but only strained gargles came out, bloody foam spilling out onto the ground below her. She tried to stand, only to cry out in pain as one of her front legs snapped with a loud crack that echoed and lingered in the air, her bones becoming too weak to support her weight from how much her infection had advanced across her body.
Her body collapsed in a bloody heap on the ground, still alive, her breathing raspy, as she tried to refocus her vision on Luna.

Luna looked away, her whole body tensing and cringing at the snapping sound of Applejack’s leg, her eyes shutting tightly as she gritted her teeth, the sound clung to her mind like velcro, her ears folding back as she tried to regain her composure. She shook her head violently, as if trying to manually erase the image from her memory.

And the smell. That is what got to Luna the quickest. The smell of rotting flesh, along with the metallic sting of dried or rotting blood. It all quickly became too much.

She covered her mouth with her hoof in shock, her body convulsing as she gagged at the sight, before needing to turn away, losing the mental battle to not empty the contents of her stomach, her gargled groans swirling in the air as her breakfast became a chunky puddle on the ground between her front hooves.

She let out a sharp gasp as the bile slowly stopped extracting itself from Luna’s body, and she slowly lifted her head, her watery eyes focusing on Pinkie who had followed her into the basement, a worried look in her eye. How was she not reacting to all of this?!
How was Pinkie Pie able to stand in this basement, with the sights, the sounds, the SMELL, and not be disgusted by it all?!

“W-what is going on here?!”
Luna demanded, wiping her mouth with her foreleg as she looked back at the mad scientist in front of her.

Pinkie simply chuckled a bit, walking over to Flim and Flam cage, Luna's eyes locked on the ex party pony as she tapped the bars of the cage, causing the twins to slither forward, groaning softly.

“To keep a very long story short, after Twilight had figured out how to make a vaccination for the Unseen Blight she was infected with. She wanted to try and find a way to make vaccinations for other infections, she started with the common ones, such as the feather flu or chickenpox.” She explained. As she did a visual inspection of Flim And Flam, making sure they hadn't tried to harm themselves in any way since she was last there.

She then continued.
“But once she had figured those out, she began to think of ways more infections could slip through the cracks and make ponies sick. So to combat that, she made her own infections, and infected one of our many friends with them.”
As she says this, she nods her head toward Applejack, the last remaining element of Harmony left. Who let out a soft gargle as she turned away from the 2 of them.

“Then as the virus she made begins to do its job on trying to take out its host, Twilight begins trying to make a cure for the infection before it kills them… She hasn't been very successful so far, but our discoveries have helped us make huge steps forward. We’ve even been awarded the healthiest state in Equestria by Mayor Mare. Though she doesn't know how we got there, let's keep that little secret between you and i. Hehehehe.”

She finished her explanation with a simple chuckle, before looking back at Luna, who looked disgusted… angry… She began to approach Pinkie, who looked up at Luna with a simple smirk, looking almost confident.

Pinkie refused to move, her eyes locked on Luna, until her gaze was broken by a very slight twitch, as Pinkie’s gaze shifted from Luna, to something behind her.
It was only a split second, but that’s all Luna needed.

Before ducking out of the way, rolling to the side as Twilight swung a wooden bat toward where Luna’s head would be. Only for Twilight to miss, and unintentionally strike Pinkie Pie, knocking her to the ground. Pinkie’s body fell limp, still alive, but unconscious.

“PINKIE!” Twilight called out in a panic, keeping the bat tight within her grip as she ran over to inspect Pinkie’s bleeding head.
The grey alicorn slowly turned to Luna, her expression angry, her eyes filling with rage, as her insane, raspy voice began to shout.

“ALL YOU HAD TO DO WAS STAY STILL!”
Twilight shouted. Before her wings expanded, giving one mighty flap as they catapulted Twilight forward, tackling Luna as she tried to get up. The 2 princesses began a physical fight between each other on the ground.

With Twilight throwing punch after punch, biting at Luna’s flesh in an attempt to throw her off and leave Luna exposed.
Luna fought back, throwing kicks and bucks of her own, when Twilight bit, Luna bit harder, drawing blood.

Soon the scuffle came to an end, with Luna on top of Twilight, her front hooves pinning Twilight down by her wings, keeping Twilight on her back. Luna punched Twilight across the face, in an attempt to knock her out.
Twilight took the hit, but did not go down, gave a growl, using her back leg to kick Luna’s chin, causing the moon princess to spit up blood over Twilight’s face, stumbling backward slightly.

Twilight gave a chuckle as she rose to her hooves, looking at Luna as she tried to orientate herself, her vision swimming, her body swaying.
Twilight simply lifted the bat with her magic, her voice muffled by Luna’s ringing ears.

“Night night Luna!”
Were the last words she heard, before the bat made contact with the side of her head, and her body hit the ground.
While Luna is out, Twilight casts a spell on Luna’s horn, causing a ring to develop around her horn that blocks her magic. Twilight then lifts Luna using telekinesis, and wraps a thick leather strap around Luna’s body, holding her wings shut, it was thick enough that it couldn't be broken with hooves alone. And she sealed the buckle with a shield spell, preventing Luna from being able to touch it.

She then floats Luna into one of the empty cells, chaining her back hooves to the back wall, and slamming the door shut, locking it tightly, before tending to Pinkie, cleaning up the blood and patching her up with bandages.
Once Pinkie had been cleaned up and put in her bed, she began writing a scroll, addressed to none other than Princess Celestia…