//------------------------------//
// Looking back on Canterlot 
// Story: Contagion Zone Equestria 
// by Gearaxis 
//------------------------------//


Day 13


Gear hadn’t slept at all that night; the three of them were haunted by images of what they had seen yesterday. The blood and gore was etched into his memories like deep scars that would never heal. Everything that was going on was disturbing, yes, but that single event took the cake. (get it? Cake? Like the organ cake in the- alright, I'll shut up) 

Twilight muttered something that Gear couldn’t hear so he leaned in closer. “I didn’t catch that, what’s up?” He asked concerned. 

“I wish my brother were here. He’d know what to do.” She said. Gear looked over at Applejack questioningly.

“Her brother’s the captain of the royal guard, Ah’m guessing he was evacuated with everypony else in Canterlot.” She told Gear. He nodded and looked at the door as somepony passed by.

“Well, if he’s the captain of the royal guard, he may still be here, coordinating guard movements and such. I saw a platoon of guards fly overhead a couple of days ago so maybe there are still some in Canterlot.” He suggested. Twilight looked up hopefully.

“You think so? Maybe… maybe we should go to the palace. If there is anypony still there, it would probably be safer than here. And if there is somepony there we can send them back to rescue everypony else!” She said excitedly. Gear seriously doubted anypony was still there, but if it got everypony’s mind off of… yesterday, it would be worth it. It was also something to do. 

“Alright, let’s do it. We should tell everypony else what we’re doing though, it’ll cause a panic if three ponies just up and disappear!” Applejack responded. Gear nodded in agreement and stood up, wincing in pain when he put too much strain on his shoulder.

The three of them went to the waiting room, where most ponies were being kept because the caved in portion of ceiling was least likely to be broken through. “Attention everypony!” Twilight said. Everypony looked at her expectantly. “We’re heading up to Canterlot to see if anypony there can help us. We’ll send back somepony to retrieve you all when we get there so just hang on a little longer.” She told them all.

Everypony began murmuring amongst themselves in excitement at the prospect of being rescued. A white pony in a nurse’s outfit stepped forward. “Um, I’d like to come with if that’s alright. I want to make sure his shoulder doesn’t get any worse.” She said.

Twilight nodded. “I suppose you can come if you want to. It would be nice having a trained nurse with us. Oh, what’s your blood type?” She asked. Nurse Redheart frowned.

“B-, why?” Twilight nodded in satisfaction.

“Just wondering, come on, I’ll teleport us to the train station.” She said. The four of them huddled together and were gone in a flash. They reappeared on top of the train station roof with an equally blinding flash.

Gear looked around to make sure the infected weren’t around before speaking. “Is there anyway to do that without alerting everything to our presence?” He asked. She rolled her eyes and pointed at the train.

“Alright! Anypony know how to drive that thing?” All three of them looked at Gear. 

He looked around at them then sighed. “I don’t know, maybe. I’ll try my best but I’ve only ever driven a wagon.” They used a ladder to get down from the roof and hurried over to the train, noticing two eaten corpses near by. They all got on the first car and shut the door, locking it tightly. 

Gear got into the engine room and began flipping and pulling things randomly to see what would happen. Absolutely nothing happened. He sighed in frustration and dropped his head, hitting a small compartment near by. It opened to reveal a train manual. “Ha!” He said with glee and cracked it open. 

He read a bit then went through the process to turn it on. First he turned the control key, then the reverser key. He pulled and twisted all kinds of knobs until the train finally started. He pushed the reverser key into the forward 1 position and stumbled a bit as the train lurched forward. 

After around half an hour, the four arrived at the Canterlot station. Gear applied the breaks, a little too hard, making the train stop a bit before it was supposed to. But that was alright, not like he was paid to do it correctly, or paid at all for that matter. They stepped off of the train and were met by silence. There was absolutely no noise in the city at all, no sound of hoofs on cobblestone, no bells, no doors opening and closing, nothing. 

“The castle is this way.” Twilight said nervously and began leading them through the buildings. On the bright side, there were no infected in sight and Gear hadn’t seen any blood. Abandoned luggage lay on the ground everywhere in piles. Several were open to reveal fancy jewelry, clothing, and cosmetics. Soon they were standing at the front gates. 

The gate was chained shut with a padlock and nopony was in sight, Twilight was about to yell something when Nurse Redheart grabbed her mouth. “Don’t do that!” She hissed. “What if there’re infected here!” Twilight nodded her head and she let go. “We need to get the gate open, anypony got an idea?” She asked.

Gear stepped up to the gate and examined the lock. He then took out the fire axe and, before anypony could protest, smashed the lock off. He unwrapped the chain and pushed open the gates, letting the others pass through before he retied the chain behind them. Since they no longer had a padlock, Twilight simply fused the two ends together with magic.

The four of them left the gate and entered the palace hesitantly. There was nothing inside to suggest anypony were there. “Hello?!” Applejack yelled. Her voice echoed through the empty halls. There was no response. “Uh… maybe we should go further in.” She said.

Before anypony could respond, two guards rushed out from around a corner toward them. Twilight sighed in relief and took a step forward to greet them. Gear pulled her back and wielded the fire axe. “Stand back! They’re infected!” He said. He swung his axe with all his might and nearly cleaved the head of the first in half. He abandoned the axe as the second rammed him. Twilight levitated it off of him and threw it into a nearby wall with a sickening crunch. It didn’t get up. 

Gear thanked her as he yanked his axe out of the first one’s head. A screeching noise came from the hall on their right causing them to tense. “We need to move, now!” Gear said. The four of them dashed down the entry way, toward the stairs that would lead them to the throne room. A crude barricade had been made by somepony and placed at the first landing. They promptly jumped over it and accidentally landed on two armed guards. Everypony looked at each other in shock before the guards regained composure. 

“What are you stupid?! Why would you yell like that! Do you have any idea how many infected are down there?” One of the guards said. 

“Sir!” The other one said, pointing down the stairs. Five infected were coming up toward them. The two guards aimed their spears down at them and braced for a fight. Gear joined them, taking a spear off of a nearby suit of armor. Before any of the infected could reach the spears, a huge blue flame enveloped them, incinerating them almost instantaneously. Everypony watched in shock as their charred bones fell into piles on the ground. 

“What happened?!” They heard somepony say behind them. They turned to see Shining Armor, his horn still glowing from the magic he had just done. Twilight rushed forward to hug him. 

“Big bro!” She squealed happily. Shinning looked at her in surprise.

“Twily! You, you’re alive! I was so worried about you!” He said, embracing her tightly. Gear noticed another infected was making its way up the stairs. He spun around and launched the spear at it. The spear hit its left eye and went through its head until it stopped halfway down the shaft of the spear. It fell backward down the stairs.

“Now’s not the time! We need to get somewhere safer!” Gear said. 

“Oh! Right! Follow me, we’ve set up a sort of refugee camp on the top floors of the castle." 

“Go on ahead, we’ll make sure nothing follows ya.” The first guard said. Gear nodded. 

“I’ll stay with them, get yourselves some rest and I’ll meet up with you later.” He said. Twilight tried to protest but was pulled away by shining armor. The others followed behind him quickly.

“Alright… come get some.” Gear muttered as three more rounded the corner. He wielded his fire axe and waited for them to arrive. “You two ready for this?” He asked.

“Ready or not, here they come.” The first one said.

“FOR CELESTIA!” The other one called out, raising his spear in the air. The three of them jumped the barricade and met the infected head on.