>Your name is Anon, and you’re pretty sure you fucked up
>You have a decent amount of medical experience and you tried to inform their medical majors that their myriad manaigre of medieval medicine meant mortality
>Marvelous
>Moreover, you might have missed mentioning a minute, miniscule detail: bacteria and thus, infections.
>And now everypony in the nurses ward has a painful and oozing infection and you possibly just ended the career of the captain of the wonderbolts
>At least you think that’s what Rainbow is yelling at you about, you’re a touch too focused on how to fix this
>Well that and your nervous cough is starting, acid reflux and all that
>You stand suddenly, silencing the hysterical blue pony with a raised hand
>Logic needs to prevail, not emotions
First, we need to try and clean the wounds...alcohol. Pure alcohol. It’s going to hurt but get to it.
>You really hope that helps.
>The instant the ponies look at each other you know there’s a problem
>”Pure alcohol? Do you have to ferment something for extended periods to make it pure?”
Rubbing alcohol! Isopropyl alcohol, pure ethanol, SOMETHING.
>God damnit, what the hell DO they have?
>Oh yeah, leeches, knives, and buckets
>Improvise. Something, anything.
Just...get the strongest alcoholic drink you can find and use it to clean everyone’s wounds. And WASH your hands beforehand so we don’t make it worse
>That should work, right? They never taught you how to perform triage with absolutely no supplies. Or technology. If you ever get back to Earth you should make a class about it in case this happens to anyone else.
>Or you could’ve probably learned basics in boy scouts
>”A-anon I don’t want to question you but..” Twilight hesitates, “It just seems that everything you’ve taught us so far has only ended in extended periods of pain...and it seems like everyone has gotten worse, not better.”
It was a small miscalculation, it’s fine.
>Probably
I just...we need to get some antibiotics.
>You run through the basics of anything you know about antibiotics
>Penicillin, Zithromax, Ciprofloxacin, Cefdinir, all of them would be great. Well, any of them would be great.
>But you don’t have a lab, a real pharmacy, or anything, and you don’t know shit about how to make them
>But...wait, penicillin, doesn’t that come from mold? Like bread mold or fruit mold?
>You never really cared much about it, all you had to know is that you were allergic to it and you had to tell every fucking doctor
>An unfamiliar sniffle preceded a voice that wavered on a breakdown, ”J-just hang in there Spitfire, w-we’ll get you up and flying again in no time.” A nervous laugh, “N-no time at all. Then you can show me how to really fly in rough weather”
>You had never seen Rainbow Dash this open before. She was hanging over the other pony, this Spitfire, trembling so much that it made the bed shake.
I’ll be back.
> Three heads swivel and six large eyes, expressions of confusion, curiosity and anger drilling into you
>”I thought you were going to FIX this?!”
>”Y-You're not leaving me with all of these patients, are you?”
>”Anon, please tell me you have a plan.”
I’m going to go find something. Something to help treat these infections. I need you three to trust me for a minute and do what I asked. Please.
>The light is oppressive when you open the door, as if telling you that you were the one that needed to fix everything
I’ll hurry, I promise.
>You start running.
>Ponyville starts to disappear behind you, your destination: Sweet Apple Acres
>It’s the biggest long shot of your life
>Well, second biggest
>You really hope penicillin comes from fruit mold and not just bread mold
>And you hope the Apple family has some moldy apples
>And you hope they haven’t already been incinerated or some shit
>That’s a lot of hoping, a hell of a long shot. But what else can you really do? You don’t want these ponies’ deaths on your hands

>”Has anyone else been noticing that Anon is acting a bit...strange?” Twilight questions as she re-reads over the notes she’s been taking. “Nothing he’s said has lined up with anything we know.”
>Rainbow Dash glanced back and forth between the notes and Spitfire, though it was obvious which of the two she was focusing on
>”Yes but maybe where he came from just knows a bit more than us?” Nurse Redheart offered “He seemed pretty confident.”
>”HA yeah right! They don’t even know how to control the weather!”
>”Well, you both may have a point, but have either of you ever thought of the possibility that our two worlds are just simply...different?” She pans her view across the beds, “Maybe different laws apply between our worlds and all we’ve been doing is harming everyone”
>Redheart looked nervously around the room, everyone DID seem to be in agony, but was that really too much different than normal? “Well, maybe I should just get the alcohol...just in case.”
>Twilight stops for a moment, deep in thought, before nodding, “I agree, we can’t discount his ideas just yet.”
>Rainbow Dash brings her attention back to the conversation, facing the yellow pony everytime she made a sound. “You’re gonna stay here, right Twilight? I’m gonna go follow Anon, see what he’s up to.”
>”Good idea, go ahead and see if he needs help!” She steps toward Spitfire, “I’ll watch over her, I promise.” She gives a soft smile.
>Rainbow Dash zooms out the door in an instant, “Yeah right, see what the heck he’s up to is more like it.”

>”Ah mean, I reckon we do have some, already out in the pile. But ah don’t quite understand what you need em fer.”
Well old apples have a chance of having mold on them, right? And the mold has a chance of being penicillin, a mold that makes an antibi-
>What the fuck are you doing, Applejack doesn’t need an explanation.
Look, I need them to save someponies lives, the sooner the better.
>”O-Oh, ahlright.” Applejack leads you at a brisk pace out of her house, heading to a secluded part of the orchid.
>Past the orchid.
>Your mind races as you walk. It’s been what, four, five days since possible infection? Amputation is required in like, a couple weeks, dependent on the individual. Currently possible: abscesses, nothing too horrible.
>’Unless sepsis sets in’ your subconscious reminds you.
>Fucking hell.
>If sepsis occurs in any of them, then that pony is essentially boned.
>In the bad way.
>An all too familiar smell invades your nostrils. Your stomach acid churns and pops, threatening to spill out.
>”Whewwww-ee. You sure you can get wha’cha need from HERE?”
>You had apparently arrived at the refuse pile, stacked far and wide with...fucking everything. >Well, mostly food waste, it seemed.
Yeah, I can work with this. If you know where your most recent dump of apples is…
>Why was this smell so familiar?
>”Uh, no problem. Right over here…”
Thanks.
>It smelled like the infection.
>You knee beside the hill of saddened apples, most of them an off-color brown or red with a black gash in them.
>You flip through the fetid fruit, growing more and more concerned.
>Most were decaying. None had mold.
>”Oh, Ah’m uh, the smell’s gettin ta me Anon, Ah’ll be out here.”
>You don’t even respond, flinging apples left and right.
>Mold.
>You narrow your eyes at the fungi. Penicillin, you’re pretty sure, wasn’t black.
>You raise the fruit to your nostrils and take a long whiff
>...and immediately gag.
>Stupid, stupid, stupid.
>You don’t know what it fucking smells like, hell you barely know what the compounded drug TASTES like since you were allergic to it.
>You sigh, tossing the apple aside. You seem to have found the molding section of the apples, but you have no way to distinguish between them.
>What a hopeless cause, you took the long shot, well the only shot you had, and fucking missed. You can’t just feed random mold to ponies.

>’But you were allergic to it.’

>You cautiously reach a finger out, swiping it against some furry white mold.
>Mucous membranes can tell quickest.
>Fuck tentatively licking your finger. This is fucking retarded science.
>And you don’t mess with retarded science.
>You suck on your finger, rubbing the delicate creases of your gums

>Burning and swelling

>Its fucking penicillin.


>”Psst. Applejack. Hey Applejack!”
>Her head raises and cranes toward the sound, spying Rainbow Dash hiding just outside of Anon’s eyesight.
>She puts a hoof to her lips.
>”Oh, Ah’m uh, the smell’s gettin ta me Anon, Ah’ll be out here.”
>Applejack hurries over to the blue pony.
>”What in tarnation are you doin over here? You with Anon? Ah would’ve thought you would’ve beaten him here.”
>”Thats because I’m undercover, duh!” She glares at the earth-pony, “And of course I would’ve beaten him here! Don’t even joke like that!”
>”So what’s all this about here?”
>”That’s what I was going to ask you.” Rainbow Dash peers around the other pony, trying to get a good look at what Anon was doing kneeling on the ground.
>”As far as Ah know, he’s lookin fer moldy apples or something.” Applejack gives a shrug, “Ah don’t really know why though. Somethin about saving ponies lives with em. I figured he was jokin.”
>Rainbow Dash’s eyes widen just as Anon sniffs a black apple. “Oh Celestia, there’s no way he’s really thinking of old, moldy apples as medicine!”
>”W-What?”
>He was… he was eating the mold.
>”I-I think something’s wrong with Anon, something’s wrong with his head!”
>And was he dabbing some in his eye???
>”Twilight needs to know about this pronto.” Rainbow Dash puts her hooves on Applejack’s shoulders, “Look, you can’t tell him I’m here, or even pretend like anything is wrong. Just be cool. Be cool.”
>And with a loud crack and a boom, she was off.

>You’re so damn happy your eyes were tearing up.
>Well that and the allergies. After the first few tests you mouth was already burning and itching some much you couldn’t tell a difference.
>So the eyes were the next targets.
>It was dumb, hasty, and probably could’ve been executed better, but it was the best you had at the current time.
>And now you had an armful of penicillin-infected apples.
Applejack! I found it! I can’t believe it, but I did!
>Through swollen eyes you’re pretty sure she was waving back at you.
>And there was even a rainbow. It was like a ribbon on the perfect present.

>Thank god something finally went right.