“And I feel fine!”

Twilight Sparkle rolled her eyes at the tail end of Pinkie’s rambling. For one reason or another, she had accompanied the unicorn to a remote part of the Everfree Forest, where she was supposed to meet Zecora to help her with transporting a fairly large batch of Poison Joke to her home. Twilight saw the chance to test out a new mass-teleportation spell, and jumped at it.

“Ah, Twilight my good friend, I’m glad you could attend.” The zebra was waiting for the pair near a large patch of the potent flower, various tools on her back for the purpose of extracting the plant.

“No problem, Zecora,” Twilight responded. “But you won’t need those tools, because I have a new spell I want to try out that could make this much easier for all of us.”

“Are you sure the spell would work, Twilight? For I fear that using magic on the Joke would not be too bright.”

“Oh, don’t be afraid, Zecora!” Pinkie said. “Twilight’s the best at magic! Like this one time, when she beat this mean performer who kicked her out of Ponyville, so-”

“Pinkie,” the unicorn in question interrupted, “Zecora was there, you know.”

“Oh, right! Sorry!” The pink pony giggled at her mistake.

“Anyway, I’m going to need total concentration for this.” Twilight’s horn began to light up as she focused on the spell at hand. The same glow began surrounding the blue flowers, the brightness gradually growing in intensity. Zecora and Pinkie both shielded their eyes as Twilight nearly finished her spell-

“Twilight!”

With a gasp, the unicorn lost all her concentration, and the Poison Joke disappeared in a flash of purple. However, after looking through a pair of binoculars, Zecora saw that they weren’t at the hut. Angrily, Twilight turned to the one who broke her focus. “What!?”

“Well, Twilight,” Rainbow Dash said sheepishly, “it’s just that you got a letter from the princess, and you said you’d be out here-”

She couldn’t even finish as Twilight’s magic ripped the aforementioned letter from her hooves. She unrolled it and began reading, her eyes gradually widening.

“The Summer Sun Festival! I completely forgot it was only in a few days! Sorry Zecora, but I really need to get back to Ponyville to beginpreperationskaythanksBYE!” Twilight ran off back to Ponyville, her botched spell mostly forgotten. Yet, a single question rooted itself in the back of her head:

Where did that Poison Joke end up?

March 13, 2014

This is a blog created by me, Dr. Klaive, in the effort to better inform the public of recent scientific discoveries through today’s media. I’m not sure if this blog will get many views, but it’s worth a try.

March 21

Well, isn’t this exciting! Not one week after we start the blog, we’ve already found a new specimen of flower deep in the Amazon jungle. Normally, this wouldn’t be a case of much fan-fare, but when asked about it, the natives stated that they had no idea what it was, and some of them had been living there all their lives. Samples will arrive to our labs tomorrow, and we can further study this new specimen, and I’ll keep you informed throughout.

March 23

After running extensive tests all throughout yesterday (with proper protection, in case the plant is toxic), we have come to a few startling conclusions about this new plant, which we have dubbed “shroom-plant”, much to my chagrin, due to one of the qualities we observed: While the specimen had qualities similar to most flowering plants, it also had many fungal qualities, including producing spores, which brings me to the second discovery: We discovered that the spores are non-toxic, after an accident with one of the scientist’s masks. While they are not toxic, the spores still produce a distinct odor, and it’s too soon to tell if there are any other effects that the spores have. Last of all, the shroom-plant seems to defy classification when viewed on a microscopic level; we may have an entirely new breed of plant here.

March 30

We had a small accident today with the shroom-plant. One of the scientists, Dr. Andrew Woods, had a damaged hazmat suit, causing him to come into direct contact with the plant. He developed a rash around the afflicted area, although it seems no worse than a rash from Poison Ivy. Despite this, using the same treatments proved to be fruitless. For now, it seems that the plant is harmful, but no more than most plant-life in the U.S.

April 9

You’ve probably heard about the release of those plant samples, now called “blue petal flowers” (a name I find highly uncreative), to the general public as a therapeutic aid. To be honest, this was not a decision we made, and those responsible have been dealt with. Despite this, we are not recalling the product, as there have no reports of rashes like the one Dr. Woods obtained. Speaking of Woods, his rash has not gone down, and he seems to be feeling rather ill. We do not know if this is related to the rash, but we have him under close watch, just in case.

April 23

It turns out that the products actually did cause rashes. We now know this because of repeated lawsuits against our labs, despite the fact that we never synthesized the plant for use ourselves. Regardless, we spent the last week neck-deep in paperwork, which left us little time for study of the specimen. Thankfully, we’ve discovered that, apart from the odor, the spores have no effect on the human body, which is a plus. If one of you reading this developed a rash from using the product, I’m sorry, but don’t think it’s our fault. We just discovered the damn thing.

April 29

Dr. Andrew Woods died today, from an unknown pathogen. When news of his death got out, it caused a small panic, as I’m sure you saw. But we still haven’t discovered the exact cause of death, although I’m starting to fear that the plant may have something to do with this.

April 30

I’m not sure what happened. I’m not sure how it happened. But Dr. Woods “came back”, for lack of a better phrase. He got the attention of the night guard. As seen on the security cameras, Woods left his gurney, seeming more... animalistic. The night guard found him wandering the halls. Woods was unresponsive to the guard’s talking to him. And then... My hands are shaking as I type this... And then Woods attacked him, taking a chunk out of his arm with his teeth. Woods was only stopped when a door was forcibly closed on his head, crushing it. The guard had lost large amounts of blood, but was otherwise fine. He’s taking sick leave for a few days, however, to recover. Whatever’s happening, it scares me. I had dealt with many deadly plants and animals before, but this... this truly scares me.

May 24

It happened. All the people who used that therapeutic product died, then came back, much like Dr. Woods did. The nation is in a panic. Me and the other scientists have locked ourselves in the lab. Our only way of communicating is my laptop. I don’t want to say it, but I think we inadvertently caused the apocalypse. Funny, we did more damage than those who worked on the atom bomb, and all we did was find a plant. If you are reading this... Good luck. The “zombies” (how I hate that term) are beating on the doors to the labs. Wish us luck as well.

June 1

Everyone’s dead. I’m hiding in a bathroom, trying to type as quietly as possible. It’s only a matter of time before they find me. What wrath of God have we wrought?

They’re coming. I must prepare. You must prepare. Nothing will be the same again.

Nothing. No matter what, don’t die. Kill as many of the sons of bitches as you can. It’s too late for me. Hell, it may be too late for everyone.

I’m stalling. That’s what I’m doing right now. Trying to delay the inevitable. One of them bit me. I’m feeling a bit funny. I think I’ll lie down now. Next Chapter: Highway to Hell Estimated time remaining: 22 Minutes