//------------------------------//
// The Demise 
// Story: Gray's Gone 
// by ArmOfSorrow 
//------------------------------//

“Why do you believe the plague is coming from the mine?” Luna asked, staring at me suspiciously. “Did you have anything to do with it? Have you been here longer than you say?”
“No ma’am, but in my world, the media uses this kind of… “setting” so often that it’s almost instantly recognizable. At least, it should have been.” I sat down on a loose stone, thinking about what I should say. “Princess, I think that it may be useful if you took me to the ruins where this began. Maybe I can help?”
Luna stared off into the distance as she considered my words. “You… make a good point. However, given your current state of criminality, it would be best to ‘lay low’, so to speak. We will spend the night here, in the old castle, and then make our way to Ponyville to collect any necessary supplies that you may need. I would assume that your weapons are a must?”
“Of course. I’d rather not leave them in the forest where any pony could grab them, or an animal could pee on them and ruin the ammunition, or… well yea, you get my drift.”
Luna grimaced distastefully and turned to walk toward the castle. Following her, I took a closer look at the ruins that I was going to sleep in. 
All the stone was grey, and most of the castle looked ready to collapse. It expanded for quite a way back into the forest behind it, making it seem much smaller than it really was. The gates were already open, for some reason, and there were signs of relatively recent movement, recent meaning about a year. This was only really noticeable because instead of the complete slate of dust and rubble, there were specific, small areas where the dust mismatched the rest, and a couple of sooty blast marks on the walls that hadn’t completely faded away.
“It has been quite a while since I’ve had time to roam these halls. Over a millennia, I believe. It is saddening to see my old home reduced to this.” Luna spoke slowly, taking in the thrones we passed by, the excruciatingly old paintings, pillars, and rotted tapestries. “Come, I believe I know of a specific room that you would find most enjoyable to spend the night in.”
As we walked, we passed several markings in the walls, scratches and chisel marks that looked like English, yet still not understandable. Coming to a stop outside of a large steel door, I thought for a moment that Princess Luna had led me to a prisoner’s cell. However, when she opened it, I couldn’t help a huge grin spread across my face.
It was the barracks armory, complete with rusty swords and axes, rotted bows and arrows, and even a small forge tucked into a recess in the wall. 
Princess Luna cast a quick spell, and the forge burst to life, immediately spreading warmth and light all throughout the room. Behind me, I heard one of the guards sigh in content, and heard shuffling as the guards all simultaneously adjusted their armor.
“There are no beds left, so we will have to do with the stone floor, but I will make sure that the temperature is still to our liking. Tomorrow morning, we will awake before dawn and travel back to Ponyville to collect your weapons and armor.”
“What about Rainbow Da- the Elements of Harmony?” I asked, blushing from my mistake. “Don’t they need to know what’s going on?”
Luna sat down on her haunches and thought about my question. “No… I believe that it’s a better idea to keep them ‘in the dark’, as they say. We do not know yet where their alliances lay, and I suspect that Tia may have ordered them to subdue you. Even if they are still on our side, the less ponies that know of our visit will mean a lower chance of being detected. Once we have your weapons, we will rendezvous back here and begin our trek into the Crystal Mountains.”
“I guess I understand what you mean… Why can’t we just fly though? The guards can’t possibly be that much of a nuisance. If it’s as far away as it sounds, it would be much faster to take the risk.”
“You forget which land we are in, Corporal. All ponies are loyal to Celestia before me, although we are equal in rank. While I could easily pass through on my own or with my guards, you could not, so we cannot take the chance of somepony noticing my royal ‘entourage’ flying through during the day.”
“Uh, alright. I guess I’ll just… listen to some music.” I mumbled, walking over to the corner closest to the forge. Fishing for my MP3 player, I leaned my head against the wall and skipped through my music, idly listening for a song that I felt like singing along to. 
After a few minutes, Luna spoke up. “Gray, what is that device that you’re holding? You mentioned music, but I hear nothing of the sort. Is it a magical device?”
Chuckling, I showed her the MP3 player. It was a small, black, cheap thing that ran off of triple A batteries, but held more than four gigs of music. “It’s an MP3 player. It’s a portable recording of all the music I enjoy, and runs off of electricity. When I put these small disks in my ears, the sound travels through the cord and plays through tiny speakers in the disks, allowing me to hear the music.”
Luna looked amazed for a split second, before regaining her composure and asking “May we see it? We are very curious of the cultural music of your people.”
“Certainly. I have several kinds of music from my world, if you want to choose a type. Lets see… I have… classical, fast paced, slow paced, uh…. War music? Brutality type music, I guess, uh… that’s about it, actually.”
“War music? Brutality type music? Why are they called that?”
“Well they’re not, they’re actually kind of called Metal, Death Metal, Black Metal, et-cetera, but I wasn’t sure you’d get the names.”
“We see… Well, I’d like to hear what passes for ‘war music’ then, if you’d please.” Luna gave me a pleasant smile and levitated the ear buds into her ears, earning a laugh from me at how funny a pony looked with earbuds.
“Lets… play… Oooh Slipknot. Alright, Princess, this may be a bit loud and revolting to your tastes.” I eagerly pressed play and watched for a change in the Princess’ stoic expression. Since the buds didn’t sit too well in her ears, I could clearly hear where the song was and just how loud it was playing.
Your impossible ego
Fuck, is like a
Megalomaniacal tab
On my tongue,
You fuckin' touch me
I will rip you apart,
I'll reach in, and take
A bite out of that shit
You call a heart!
Surprisingly, Luna didn’t jump out of her skin completely at that point, she actually smiled and said “It has an interesting tune, and its lyrical choices are certainly befitting of a war song.”
‘Woah.’ I thought. ‘Luna has the potential to be a metalhead, I’m impressed.’
“Could you please show me another style of music? Human music is very intriguing.” Luna said, even as she was noticeably bobbing her head in tune to another violent Slipknot verse.
“Sure thing, your highness. This genre is called…” And so we went, me showing Luna different kinds of human music until nearly midnight, when we both promptly fell asleep without even putting the music away.
**
It was dawn the next morning, a rainy day with overcast skies and chilly winds. Lune, me, and two guards were trudging through the forest towards Ponyville, all of us mumbling and grumbling about the rain. After a good hour and a half of walking, Luna stopped me and said “Halt, Mason. From here, you must go alone to collect your supplies. I will disguise my guards and I and go into town for supplies. Meet back here in one hour, your encampment is…that way.”
“Aye ma’am,” I said, and quietly walked away. Fortunately, we were in a different part of the forest, and the trees had changed. Instead of tall pines and creepy looking willows, there were now oak trees and small bushes, giving me a harder time being quiet but simultaneously making me harder to see in my camouflage. I walked, and walked, and walked, for nearly twenty minutes, when I came upon familiar woods. Here was the stream where I bathed and washed my clothes, and just to the North was my campsite. And a great deal of rustling.
Crouching down low, I began to sneak towards my campsite, staying behind bushes and some of the thicker tree trunks. There, standing in my campsite, were three guardsponies, wearing dented and tarnished golden armor. Just as the others, their coats were disheveled and matted, with similar dark spots of rot all along their bodies. These ponies weren’t as bad as the one from last night, but still bad enough to warrant a small gag. Their smell was just… awful. Some fucked up mixture of shit, sweat, and rot.
They were going through my stuff, had managed to unload my two rifles, and had my ka-bar stuck into a tree. As I watched, they removed all of my spare magazines and layed them on the floor, piling my thermal blanket, extra clothes, and lucky kukri on top. My kukri…
Before I could decide what to do, my boot slipped on a small patch of mud and skid across several loose rocks, alerting the guards to my general area.
Instead of snapping into combat mode, like any sensible soldier/guard would, these simply looked into my direction, and moaned, beginning to shuffle in my direction. One got in the way of another, and he snapped, taking a large chunk of flesh out of another’s hindquarters. The offender didn’t even notice, instead simply growling and locking eyes with me. Shit, I must’ve stuck my head out.
“Fuck!” I muttered, and dove toward my kukri. Grabbing and unsheathing it, I turned to the three guardsponies and said “Look guys, I’m just here for my stuff. I’m really not in the mood for killing anybody today, so could we just ignore this little incident?”
Of course not, they all simultaneously charged at me. It was immediately clear that these ponies were either nutso or had orders to kill, because they went for anything that looked vital to them. One reached for my throat, another for my guts, and the last tried to bite my thigh. Reacting as fast as I could, I spun and slit the throat of one, and immediately plunged my blade into another’s side, underneath his armor. 
The third one nearly got me. He was a unicorn, and tried to run me through instead of using magic. Before he stuck his horn into my guts, I kicked up with my knee and heard his teeth clack together, then grabbed his horn and twisted him onto the ground, where I promptly punched him until he was out cold. I think.
Walking to my pack, I bent over to begin repacking my belongings when I heard the characteristic click of a sidearm being cocked. Spinning around, I saw Matt standing before me, holding his sidearm loosely by his side.
“Matt, what the hell are you doing here? How did you get away from Celestia?”
“Centuries past and still the same. War’s in our blood, I guess some things never change, huh?”
“What are you talking about?” I said, stepping closer to my friend and looking at Matt’s twitching hand. His shooting hand.
“Mommy said if I kill you, she’ll send any other humans that come back home. If I don’t, then every single one dies. I think you’re a pretty decent trade-off.” As he spoke, he leveled his gun at me, taking aim at my heart.
“Who the fuck is mommy? What are you talking abou- Agh. Fuck, man...” I shut up, noticing that Matt’s veins running along his hands were pitch black, spider-webbing across his flesh like the Spiderman symbiote. His eyes were bloodshot, and his normally green irises were now a solid yellow-orange.
He coughed, throwing up a clouded gray substance all over his shirtfront, but didn’t even seem to notice.
“How the hell did this happen? What did Celestia do to you, man?” 
“Mommy… she didn’t do… anything. She showed me that humans are scum. After your dead, I can finally eat, and then she’ll kill me like the rest of us.”
“What?” I managed to say, just before Matt pulled the trigger. Instead of hitting my chest, where I thought he would fire, he shot down at my calf, sending the bullet straight through the muscle and forcing me to collapse.
“Gyah! FUCK!” I screamed, clasping my hands over the hole on either side of my leg.
Matt dropped his pistol and began to walk over to me. He was walking really jerky, like it took effort to move his body. ‘Big surprise. He’s infected like the rest of them. He’s probably got rot all over him. Aw, fuck man..’
Matt bared his teeth and dove onto me, driving his nails into the flesh on my neck and drawing blood. He lowered his mouth down to my cheek and tried to bite me, but I jerked my head just out of the way. 
‘Is this seriously fucking happening?!’ I thought, trying to free my hands where Matt had sat on them.
I didn’t have a second chance to get free. Matt grasped my head, holding it still, and lowered his mouth to my jugular.
Four inches.
Three inches.
Two inches.
Just an inch.
There was a spray of blood and gore, and I threw my head backward in a feeble attempt to get away, but for some reason my head hit the ground like Matt wasn’t holding it. And I could breathe. He didn’t bite me.
Matt was still on top of me though, but he wasn’t moving. Drawing my head up to get a closer look, I noticed that aside from the infection, Matt and I weren’t matching soldiers anymore. I still had my entire body, while he only had half a head. Just before he killed me, something blew out the right half of his head, moving his body back and leaving him sitting up on top of me, with the remaining half of his skull hanging down and jeering at me. His one remaining eye was still focused on my throat.