Mort was rushed to the hospital by Dark and Alex, his injuries were bad enough that Alex had to carry him halfway through the town. The hospital already had a few ponies inside for minor injuries and concussions, but almost everyone was frozen in fear as they saw the two friends bring in a bloody and injured Mort.

"Our friend has lost a lot of blood! We need help now!" Both Dark and Alex shouted to get the staff out of their daze.

The nearby doctors and nurses finally snapped out of their stupor and pulled the gray earth pony onto a mobile bed and rushed him away for treatment.

"What happened to him?" Asked a doctor.

"He was attacked by parasprites." Dark said hastily.

"Oh my…"

"Please just make sure he's gonna be ok." Alejandro said sadly.

The doctor nodded and rushed to catch up with the other medical personnel, leaving Alex and Dark in the middle of the hospital entrance. After a moment of worry Dark motioned for the two to sit down in the waiting room, and Alex agreed.

Even after ten minutes passed, the two males were extremely on edge, it felt like at any moment the two would hear that something terrible had happened to their friend. The silence between the two didn't help ease the stress and tension, so instead Alejandro decided to speak.

"Today was the worst day of our time here… a good chunk of everyone here is now homeless, we lost our house, and now our friend could be-" Alex gritted his teeth before he finished the last word.

Dark could only place a hoof on Alex's shoulder as he nodded his head.

"I'm sorry I got us into this mess…" Alejandro said shakily.

"I don't think this was your fault, someone did something to those parasprites, I've never seen them go into a feeding frenzy like that in the show, and I don't know why there were some stray parasprites specifically waiting for us at our house…" Dark said seriously.

"I-I… yeah, I guess you're right, that was really weird." Alex said hesitantly.

"Speaking of weird… What happened during that fight?" Dark started to whisper to Alex

"Could you remind me? I was kinda in a daze at the time, I can't remember everything that happened." Alex murmured back to Dark.

"You freaked out and started to bray, and then purple magic seemed to surge out of you."

"Magic? Surging out of me? That doesn't sound right…"

"Hm… Perhaps what Adiutor said before was more accurate than we originally thought."

"What do you mean?"

"Aduitor said your ability was closer to battery, and it seems it's a battery for when you lash out. Has that ever happened before?"

"No, that's the first time I ever blanked out like that. I panicked when I saw how badly Mort was hurt and then my head got fuzzy from there."

"Hm… I have an hypothesis, but I'm not sure how plausible it is…"

"What is it?"

"Perhaps the reason you're smelling these odd things is because your body is able to sense magic. The smells might tell you what kind of magic it is."

"Hm, that makes sense actually. If I effectively 'consume' magic then I should be able to 'smell' what I'm going to 'eat'."

The two grew quiet as Alex finished his thoughts. A few tense minutes passed as they watched the medical staff do their job and looked at the injured ponies. A few of them had broken bones or small cuts from being inside the buildings when they collapsed.

"What are we supposed to do now?" Alex asked Dark, breaking the silence.

"I don't know…"

The two friends could only sit and wait to hear news of their injured friend. Hours had passed, it had already been dark when they made it to the hospital and it wasn't until dawn when they finally heard from the doctor. When the unicorn made their way up to them they felt like their entire bodies ached and they were only running on adrenaline.

"Your friend was suffering from Hypovolemia from the large number of lacerations on his body. Presumably from the parasprites. He was one of the most serious cases during this disaster, this was the first time where we had to perform a blood transfusion, but despite the grim situation the prognosis is positive! Your friend will be fine, but he'll need to stay in the hospital for a while in order to heal his injuries." The doctor said with tired eyes.

The two let out a long held sigh of relief.

"Can we see him?" Alex asked cautiously.

"He is currently unconscious, so I would recommend letting him rest."

"We understand." Dark responded.

After the two received the news that their friend was stable, they finally allowed themselves to relax and head to the shelter area they set up near the town hall.

Tents were set up earlier that day in a fashion that circled the town hall. There were hastily created polls that held lanterns to light up the area for those who still had business to attend to during the night. The two friends made their way through the shelter camp, and what they saw surprised them. They saw there were a considerable amount of injured ponies sleeping in the tents being treated by what looked like their family. It didn't even look like they were treated by a doctor or were given proper medical wrappings.

"What the hell is going on?" Alex whispered to Dark.

"I'm not sure, it looks like they're using clothes as slings and wrappings…" Dark commented.

"You don't think… Now that I think about it, that hospital was pretty empty…"

"Are you suggesting… they can't afford it?"

Alex slowly walked to one of the tents and spoke to the family of the injured pony.

"Excuse me, I'm sorry to bother you but… I have a question." The donkey said humbly.

"...Y-yes?" An earth pony that seemed to be the injured pony's significant other.

"I'm sorry to ask this but...Why haven't you taken him to the hospital? They don't have many patients… is it… is it for another reason?"

The pony looked down on her unconscious lover, before sighing.

"The parasprites ate everything, absolutely everything… including our life savings… we only have so much money… I just thought… I just…" The mare began to cry as she choked on her voice.

"Hey, hey it's ok… I'm sorry I brought it up. I'm sorry I bothered you, I wish you two a good night."

The pony simply nodded as she wiped away tears.

Alejandro made his way back to Dark before informing him of his findings.

"Their entire life savings? Oof, that must hit hard…" Dark solemnly responded.

"In hindsight, that makes too much sense… not only are they homeless, but a good chunk are probably bitless…"

"Wait Alex… please tell me we are just homeless and not… you know…"

"You underestimate my planning skills Dark, the earnings we don't use for food and basic living costs, I keep in a secret location."

"So you're saying we have a savings account stashed somewhere?"

"Yes." Alex answered with a straight face.

With no other questions on their tired minds, the duo found an empty tent and collapsed without a second thought.

The two woke up around noon, and quickly got to their feet and into action. Alex B-lined it to the mayor's office, and found that Mayor Mare had fallen asleep on her desk going through documents.

Alex gently shook her to wake her up, the older mare jolted awake.

"Ah! Ah! Al-Alex? Is that you?" The mayor said as she looked around the room.

"Hello Mayor, I assume you haven't gotten any sleep have you?" Alejandro said sadly.

"No, no I haven't. I've never been in a situation like this and I've been trying my best…"

"You should get some sleep, I can help take over the effort for a while. At least until you feel well enough to continue."

"Thank you Alejandro, sometimes I'm not sure what I would do without you."

Alex paused at that. "N-no don't worry about it, it's a big incident and a lot of responsibility. I just hope I can help with that."

"Well, thank you for that. I wish you luck while I go… take a long nap."

The mare dragged herself out of her chair and walked outside the building. Almost immediately after the mayor left, Dark walked in to join Alex.

"So… what's the plan?" Dark asked as moved closer to the desk in the center of the room.

"Dark… have I told you how weird the form of government is in MLP?" Alex asked his friend as he sat down at the desk and looked through the papers.

"No, I don't believe you have."

"Normally, there are three common forms of local government structure with 'mayors' and in each of those forms there's a counsel that is voted in to make decisions on passing laws and setting budgets… but in this town the mayor is in charge of almost everything. But despite that, Mayor Mare hasn't passed a new law or ordinance in years. It's mostly just budget and holiday organizations."

"What's your point?"

"What I'm saying is, as a deputy mayor and with the mayor unable to act as mayor in a state of emergency… I have a lot of power right now…"

"With great power comes great responsibility. You're not going to do something crazy right?"

"No! But… I have a way to resolve these issues but I don't want to act in sole authority… I can guess why this was ok in this universe, but it's dangerous in the wrong hands… Dark, I'm going to need your help."

"Ok, what do you need?"

Alejandro gathered paperwork and binders before walking toward the door.

"I need you to help me set up the town hall for a speech… and we are going to need a lot of paper, quills, and ink."

"What are you planning?"

"I need to tell the ponies in the town my plan and ask them if they are willing to allow my ideas. I'm not a tyrant, you know I don't like doing things without asking others, and with this power I need to be told it's ok for me to do this. I wasn't voted in by them, so it's only right that I ask them now."

"So you're going to tell them your plans and ask for signatures?"

"I also have to tell them that to do this, I need to cancel a lot of holidays and celebrations to get the money for this."

"You are going to get a lot of opposition on that, how'd you come to this solution?"

"You're right a lot of people won't be keen on having their favorite holiday cancelled, but Dark, we have spent a month here and you know my thoughts on politics. I have looked it over and over again on how I would suggest something like this to the mayor. Now instead of doing it at a gradual pace, we might have set it up in a few days. I have been planning and theorycrafting how I would do this, and based on the budget, this is the only way we'll be able to fund it."

"Guess I shouldn't be surprised, well then let's get to it then."

The two friends gathered what they needed, and made their way to the center of town. Alex was able to find some help from ponies who set up a basic stage and a wooden stand.

The group of ponies started to gather around the stage, the crowd was a mixture of the ponies that were in the camp and some were of the few ponies whose homes were still intact. There were murmurings and whispers of what could be happening. Alejandro was still hidden behind the curtains of the stage, trying to steady his nerves.

"You doing ok Alex?" Dark asked the donkey.

"Yeah, I'm just… nervous. I never really did a public speech. It's funny I've taken public speaking, I was a part of a band, and even choir but considering this speech holds a lot of weight. I even think I'm sweating dude." Alex replied in a shaky tone of voice.

"Just give it your best shot, at least you would have tried."

"Yeah. Yeah you're right. Well, wish me luck." Alex said as he finally made his way to the podium with his speech in his mouth.

As the jack walked out of the curtains the crowd started to give hushed whispers, some asking who that was and others surprised to see a donkey in Ponyville. Alex gently placed his written speech onto the podium for him to better read it. The jack cleared his throat and stared at the crowd. He saw the couple from last night in the sea of ponies looking at him with saddened eyes, along with many of the other homeless ponies with uncharacteristically unhappy expressions.

"Mare and gentlecolts, my name is Alejandro. I am the assistant mayor of Ponyville, the mayor is currently unable to continue her duties during this time. In her absence I am acting mayor for the time being. I understand that yesterday's events have left many ponies in a very difficult time. Many of your homes were destroyed and many still have lost your financial stability. This also leads to the difficulty of everypony affected to lack the funds to get medical treatment. I am not simply here to point out these obvious hardships, but I come to all of you with a possible solution. But due to the fact I was not elected by you as mayor, I require a democratic vote of everypony here to give a nay or yay on this possible solution." Alex spoke in a relatively calm voice, but the underlying feeling of nervousness was still barely audible during the speech.

Voices once again erupt into murmurs over this news, some asking if it was really possible to solve this problem and what the solution could be.

"My solution to this problem is to build public housing for those who lost their homes to use, and additionally, I want to establish a healthcare plan that allows those hurt to receive treatment without worrying about paying the bill with bits they may or may not have. This will be funded by the bits gained from the taxes already collected in the past. However, in order to insure we are able to have the money to do so. I stand before you to ask you one question. Would the ponies here agree for the local government to not organize, plan, or hold local holiday and town events this year. National holidays such as Nightmare Night will still be held, but events such as parades and Ponyville-exclusive holidays will not be celebrated. The revenue for those events will instead be used for the construction and creation of these solutions. My generous assistants will be passing out papers on which you can write down your answers and place them in the boxes laid out around the stage. Are there any questions?" Alex continued.

A few hooves shot up, to which Alex randomly pointed out an unicorn mare in the crowd.

"If we vote to not have events this year, are we sure we can all get the help we need?" The mare said in a worried tone.

"I can be almost certain that we would have the funds to pull off the public housing and jump start the medical program." Alex responded with.

The jack pointed at an earth stallion for the next question.

"How long would it take to make the housing?" The male asked.

"We can start the construction as early as today, but the construction can last from a week to longer depending on the ma-horsepower we have."

"What about medical care?" Another pony asked.

"We can do that within the week, there will be a public announcement when that will be in place."

With that answer there were debates in the crowd with no other hooves being raised. Alex simply gave a nod to the ponies to pass out the papers.

"Try to get your votes in as soon as possible. I'll return after the voting has concluded." With that Alejandro returned to off the stage and to Dark, who was waiting from him backstage.

"Oh man, I felt like I was tripping over myself that entire speech." Alex said nervously.

"You were a little stiff, but you did decent. It's tough enough to convince them not to constantly spend money like they usually do so don't feel too bad." Dark responded.

The two stayed backstage of the voting area for all the votes to come in. After some time and with some help to tally the votes, the two looked down at the results of the final count.

Looking up from the paper, Dark spoke the results aloud "Damn this is too cliche to be real… looks like it passed with a 51 percent approval."

Alex looked down at it, and gave the paper a double take. "No shot… I mean, I guess I should be happy but… that's really cutting it down to the wire."

Dark slumped backwards in relief "Sometimes I hate how much this place reflects the show, but at least we have enough to get this going."

"Yeah… well, I have a result to announce and… a whole lot of paperwork and financial keeping for the next few weeks at least…" Alex sighed as he tried to pump himself up to get back on stage.