Pure Rage

Twilight Sparkle had awoken before sunlight. She had new, interesting assignments to do, now that she was a princess.

She was scheduled to head far north, to serve in a research expedition in the ice caps as head scientist, and ambassador to the locals, if necessary. Even though Celestia had postponed the event from issues she was getting with some unknown events taking place near the border, she still awoke early, just in case.

She was actually kind of happy that she was able to stay home for so long, expecting to be thrown into one job after another. She went downstairs to fix herself some breakfast.

As she was preparing, Spike walked into the kitchen, rubbing his eyes.

"Here Twilight, this is for you. Woke me up just now... I'm going back to sleep". Spike handed Twilight a letter, and went back upstairs.

Twilight opened the letter, expected it to be a call to the expedition she had been waiting for, only it wasn't. She started reading it.

Dear Princess Twilight Sparkle,

News pertaining to the northern border has gotten to us in a rather strange form. We have to inform you that the expedition is no longer up for debate. It has been cancelled entirely. The border will be completely shut down, and nothing will be allowed to cross it on either side. We have recovered a train from the Griffon Kingdom, and will be inspecting it shortly. We have reason to believe that something bad has happened, because from the outside, the train looks to be in bad shape, and we can't tell what's on board. We have to cancel the trip for you, and our archeologists' safety.

Sincerely,

Princess Celestia

Twilight was glad to see she wouldn't need to go to Canterlot any time soon. She was a little worried about what may be happening up there, but didn't really bother with it. At least she would be able to stay with her friends. Considering the sun hadn't come up yet, she decided she would go to observe the starry night sky, so she wouldn't be bored.

Captain Shining Armor was leading the search mission of the train that had arrived earlier in the morning. He and his guard unit were in a full set of their finest armors, with their lances ready to be deployed.

"Alright, get into position!" Shining armor ordered his troops. He knew common protocol, and knew this could be a huge threat. Unicorn guards stood at a distance from the cart, ready to fire range spells if any kind of hostile creature emerged. The Earth pony guards were at the ready, in case something needed to get hit hard. The pegasi were waiting in the air, to either drop down, or deliver quick word to the princesses.

The unicorns used their magic to open the doors from a distance, and then they waited. After waiting for a few minutes, nothing happened.

"Okay, search the train". Ponies from each group split into different carts. What they found was disturbing to them. Dead bodies of passengers. They were skeletal, and old, obviously having been there for a long time. After conducting full searches of each car, each team went to the captain to report what they found.

"Okay, you, get to the princesses as fast as possible, and tell them of our discoveries." Shining Armor commanded one of the pegasi flyers. He nodded, and flew off.

"Hey, captain! We have ponies! It's the missing scout unit, or what's left of them." One of the troops called. Lots of guards rushed towards the cart, but only a few went in, Shining included. In the train were a few bodies. One of them looked broken, one of them was almost completely red... and the last was breathing.

"He's alive."

"Get him to the hospital wing of the guard barracks, and make it fast! We need to find out what happened to these guys." Shining called for a pegasus to tell the princesses they were needed urgently, and he complied. Shining Armor didn't have to wait long, as the princesses both arrived quickly.

"What have you discovered?" Celestia asked.

"We have found... lots of bodies. We don't know what their cause of death was. We've also found some ponies on board, that missing scout unit. Only one of them were alive, but was in a coma, or something."

"Well, we'll figure it out soon."

Shining, Celestia, and Luna had all gathered in a secured medical operation room to watch behind a glass window, in the observation area. A few doctors in a room on the left of them were examining the body of one of the more preserved griffons, and some doctors in the one to the right were trying to revive the pony, who was in a coma. They waited patiently for any information that could come up. They didn't have to wait long.

"I've found something very interesting." The lead doctor in the left room stated. "We have determined that this griffon's cause of death was... starvation. Something else we found was that there are virus cells in... what's left of the blood. It's an unrecorded pathogen, so we don't know much else. Not many are still living, but they are there."

Celestia was intrigued. "Isolate that sample, and see what it does. We need to know if the virus is deadly, and if it can spread to ponies."

The doctors took a sample of the virus, and brought it to the labs, also being careful not to make direct contact with it, or the body, as they brought the body to a remains disposal. The Doctors in the right were starting to make some progress too.

"Princess, we have discovered something! The cause of this pony's coma is exhaustion, and lack of oxygen to sustain what he was pushing his body to do. He also lost a lot of blood. He's starting to breathe a bit quicker though. He also has an unrecognized pathogen, possibly the same disease." The pony on the operating table suddenly started to breathe at an above normal speed. His eyes opened, revealing deep reddish eyes, but his irises were normal colored, yet had blood vessels easily visible through them. He surprised the doctors when he got up, and slipped down onto the floor, seeming dizzy. He got up quickly, and was standing as if nothing had happened.

"Are you okay?" One of the doctors asked.

He spun his head around towards the source of the sound. Shining got a bad feeling, and got into a defensive stance. In the room, the patient started to pop joints, and stretch his limbs. His nose started to bleed. The pony then leaped over the table to the doctors, the doctors having little time to react, were taken by surprise.

"Detain him!" The head doctor yelled as the others rushed to pin the pony onto the table. They tried to tie restraints, but his limbs were too unpredictable to get a hold on. One of the doctors was kicked in the face, and quickly backed up, holding a hoof to her nose. The infected scout grabbed one of the doctor's arms in it's mouth, not letting go.

"Get out of there!" Celestia yelled, worried that the doctor's lives were in danger. "Luna, I want you to start getting citizens away from this building. Shining, get your guard to form a perimeter around this place. That pony... he isn't normal. It could be... that disease."

Soon enough, there were two infected, and the doctors fled to the door. They tried to close it, but the two infected seemed to be stronger than all of them. They were fighting over the door.

The doctors in the operating room were kicking at their attackers by the door, trying to stop him from getting out. The infected ponies didn't give up, and managed to grab one of the doctor's hooves in his mouth, dragging him back into the operating room. He started screaming. One of the others tried grabbing his hoof, but his grip quickly slipped, and the doctor was dragged inside. The other doctors slammed the door shut and locked it, quickly fleeing the building. Celestia was evacuating the other doctors from the the room across, and turned her attention to the infected ponies. One was struggling to get to the doctor, for the doctor was pushing up against it with all he had, holding back the punches and kicks of the infected, keeping it facing the wall. He started getting weaker, and his grip loosened. The infected used this to gain leverage, and coughed up blood onto the doctor's face. The infected then stopped bothering with the doctor.

Celestia was trying to figure out a way to get the doctor out of the room, but decided not to, as he started having spasms, and his appearance quickly changed to something similar of the other pony. She decided to leave quickly, for she had a country to protect from this huge threat.

The guards outside were waiting silently, ready for the infected to exit. Soon, the doors opened, as Celestia emerged. Every single guard sighed in relief then.

"Don't let your guard down, it's not over." Celestia warned the guards, and she quickly flew to her castle. The guards returned their attention to the doors. They waited for a few minutes. The door was suddenly pushed open hard, as a pony emerged. It was the scout they found on the train. Shining Armor saw the way he looked, and wasn't going to take a single chance.

"Blast it!" As those two words were shouted, magic beams shot from the wall of guards, hitting the infected pony in every open area. It fell on its front knees, and over on the ground, dead. The door opened again, revealing a doctor. He was bloodied as the pony they just killed. He was followed by another... and another, and another. There were merely 10 of them.

"Take them all out!" Some of the guards didn't want to fire. They saw what they were doing as slaughtering innocents. They had a quick change of mind as all the doctors charged at them, with guttural yells and screaming.  Some of them took hits well. Others took hits in the legs and fell down, slowed to a crawl. A few hit dead center in the head, killing them instantly, but all it took was that one infected. He reached one of the guards in the line, and tackled him, sinking his teeth into the guard's arm. More guards rushed to his aid, attempting to pry it off.

They weren't paying attention to one of the other infected that had well working front legs. It drug itself towards the crowd, and bit the hoof of one of the guards. The guard was startled, and lucky that it only bit the armor boot. He jumped backwards before stabbing the infected in it's back, in an area where the heart was suppose to be. The infected soon stopped breathing, and died.

He returned his attention back to the guards in the mess of other guards, hoping he could help. Through the mass of guards, he noticed that the one that they had tried to pry off the other guard had its attention focused on another. The guard who was originally in the mess was spitting blood on anything that got close to it. Soon, there were more infected than there had been originally from the hospital.

"Disperse! Disperse! Fall back to the city! We can't let this get to the public area!" All the guards started running in the same direction, trying to prevent it from spreading, or to spread it further. Pegasi guard units swooped down, launching spears into anything they thought was hostile. This gave the other guards time to turn around, and fight.

They started to fire lethal magic spells into the mob of infected, but the infected were running extremely fast. They caught up quickly, and now the guards were in their original situation. Shining Armor knew he had to get back to the Princess. He turned to his second in command.

"Listen! I need you to take the battalion and follow the original plan! Be smart, and stay strong!" Shining quickly ran off to the castle.

"Keep your distance! Close your mouth, and squint if you have too!" The guard who had been appointed to command began to think of ideas that could counteract the strategy of the infected.

One guard found himself on his back, with an infected guard over him. He closed any opening he had, and tried to buck and kick the infected off of him. The infected realized what the guard was doing, and arched his elbow. He slammed his hoof into the guard's face. The guard's helmet took most of the force, but it was dented. The infected repeated this, over and over, until the helmet became deformed, and the guard was bleeding. The infected then vomited into the open wound, even if it was a small cut. The guard on the ground started foaming from the mouth, and then started coughing blood shortly after. He stood up, and ran after his prey.

The citizens in the north east wing of Canterlot could hear screams, and loud bangs. It made them walk a bit faster, as Luna was guiding them away from the area. They had heard that the entire area was under a threat, and wondered if they were under attack. Soon, out into the area came a few guards. They were unicorns, shooting magic bolts at an unseen enemy. A few other guards came running out, and started going towards the crowd. The gasps and talk could be heard, as some ponies stopped to stare. Others quickened their pace, and began going further down the road, away from the commotion.

"Get a move on! Get out of here, now! We've lost control!"

The citizens became frightened, and wondered what the guards had lost control of. They returned their gazes to the unicorn guards. Out from the direction they were shooting came a guard. He was bloody, and looked injured, as his helmet fell off at his speed. He leaped and tackled one of the unicorn guards, trampling his face until he stopped moving. The other unicorn guard turned to try and kill it, but just as he charged his beam, was tackled from behind as the shot flew into the sky. The infected on him bit into the guard's neck, ripping the skin off of it, leaving him to drown in his own blood.

People in the crowd became extremely frightened, and rapidly began to panic, and started stampeding through the streets, away from the infected. Pegasi took off into the skies, trying to escape the carnage below. The infected guards ponies started hot on their tails.

Luna had realized she lost control. The surviving pegasi guards had reported to her.

"Princess, the situation is out of control. They're headed to the city center. "

"We need to think of something to do, to get our ponies to safety." Luna thought on a plan, and figured it may work. It would require precise timing, but it was the only option, other than isolating the entire city, leaving all within the city to die.

"Okay, listen closely. I need a few of you to get the common guard patrols, and order them to assemble on the outer wall, above the moat. The rest of you need to guide ponies to the exit of the city. Close the bridge when you feel it is necessary."

"Yes, princess!" The guards quickly flew off to do what they were instructed. Luna flew to the top of the castle. She needed to talk with her sister about what they were going to do.

Luna flew into the sky, seeing just what was going on. She saw pegasi guards flying here and there, a mob flowing through the streets, leaving bodies in their wake, and the unsuspecting ponies, doing their average business. She could only hope they would save enough lives.

Celestia was preparing documents, orders, and issuing supplies and such to protect the other settlements of Equestria, in case the disease were to spread further. Canterlot was compromised, but that was because they hadn't been prepared in any way. Soon, some scientist had approached the princess with news on the disease.

"Princess, we've discovered some intere-" Celestia had interrupted them.

"All I want to know is how it can be stopped."  Her voice was stern, and urgent. The scientist were a bit shocked, but understood why.

"We have no idea where to begin on fighting the effects. It doesn't work. Antivirals slow it down, but it fights them off. The virus itself seems to completely ignore the immune system. Even if a pony were to take antivirals, or other medicines, they would be in immense pain from the virus attempting to take over. They wouldn't be able to take the medicine for that long."

Celestia spoke again. "How does it spread?"

"It spreads through body fluid. Spit, blood.... all of it. If it gets ingested or comes into contact with any sort of opening, then it's already too late. The host is completely overtaken in a matter of seconds."

Celestia knew what she wanted to know. She issued guards that were heading out of the city to other settlements highly protective mask. She issued them light padded armor, to stop bites, and a light silk mesh around it, to block liquids. The bio-hazard teams she sent out were carrying face mask, and goggles to hand out to the citizens.

Luna informed Celestia of what she assigned the guards. "Sister, I have told the guards plans that may help evacuate and save many ponies. They are out to guide the fleeing to the city gates, and guard units are waiting, to help filter out infected."

"I hope that works." Celestia spoke solemnly, grabbing a scroll and quill. She wrote a letter to the new princess, and decided it was high time to raise the sun, as the darkness wouldn't really help the situation. She wouldn't be putting it down, for a while either. Not until this event blows over, for the same reason.

Twilight was looking through her telescope, at an odd, moving formation she had seen in the night sky. It was interesting to her, and she was writing about it. She looked back into her telescope, only to see a bright flash through it.

"What in the..." Twilight almost jumped back. She lowered the power of the telescope to the level of high powered binoculars. The flashes were coming from Canterlot.

'What's going on over there?' She thought to herself.

She could see Lights randomly flying off into the sky, and pegasi flying in multiple directions. The lights became very obvious as magic bolts, and something was clearly going haywire in the city. Twilight became concerned about what may be happening. The sun began to rise in the distance, and this calmed her a bit. She walked back inside, deciding that a letter to the princess asking what was happening would be a good idea. Just as she grabbed a paper, though, Spike ran up to her.

"Where were you? I got this letter, and it's really important!"

"What's it about?" Twilight asked, wondering if it was related to Canterlot.

"I don't really know, all I read were the big letters 'URGENTLY IMPORTANT' " On the top.

Twilight sighed. She skimmed through the letter, which she noticed looked like it was written without concern for neatness. The part that interested her most, though, was something about a new contagious virus. The scientist have dubbed it 'The Rage virus', until a real name can be chosen. They've already attempted to find a cure. Something else she read was that Ponyville will have teams of special guards arrive, her brother included, and a team of biohazard specialist. Ponyville may also be converted to a refugee sanctuary, and she is in charge of it. It also said to 'Stay with her friends, and work together. Be safe, and don't lose hope.'

This was Extremely worrying to Twilight. She thought about herself. She knew she always took up leadership roles when she and her friends were together, even before she was an alicorn. She hadn't really ruled anything before, and was now being put up to govern a rather large town. This virus was more concerning to her, however. She had read what the symptoms were, and became scared. She had no clue what she would do if the residents in Ponyville contracted it.

She tried to think of how she would start. Waiting around wouldn't solve any problems. She decided she would go to town hall, and talk to the mayor about gathering the residents of town in the town square to discuss what would be the best course of action until the guard arrived. This was going to be a rough time ahead.