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

“How many was that? I lost count.” Gear asked when the last infected in sight fell to the floor. He had, at some point, found a Gladius and had been using that along with his fire axe.

“Too many… I stopped caring when they started coming in groups of ten. Too focused on keeping my face attached to my body, you know?” The first guard said. He was dual wielding two very large battle axes and had somehow gotten more armor. 

“I’d be surprised if there were any more than this, there are a lot of corpses here.” The second guard said, he was behind the barricade with a bow and arrows. All three of them were covered nearly from head to hoof in blood. Gear felt his shoulder and found his wound had ripped open.

“How did you guys manage to stay hidden with all of them down here?” Gear asked. One of the corpses twitched so he stabbed it.

“Captain Armor lured them to the back then warped up to the second floor. We’ve been as quiet as possible ever since. The name’s Iron Wing, by the way.” The first guard said.

“We have had to kill a couple of stragglers but otherwise they stayed in the back, my name’s Whistling Arrow.” The second guard said. Gear nodded and sat down, completely exhausted.

“Well, Iron and Whistling, I’m Gear Axis. I traveled here with Captain Armor’s sister. Speaking of which, I should probably tell him what happened. You two think you can hold without me?” He asked. 

“No problem, just leave it to us!” Iron said as Gear left. He made his way upstairs and was surprised to find ten guards with spears guarding the entrance to the door; they aimed their spears at him.

“Whoa, hey! I’m not infected!” Gear exclaimed. They looked at him skeptically. Before he could say anything else, Nurse Redheart opened the door and rushed over to him with a medical kit. 

“You tore your shoulder open! I knew it was a bad idea to let you fight, this is going to scar really badly…” She said as she examined it. She put a hoof on either side of it and pulled in opposite directions. “Look at that! It’s bigger than before!” She exclaimed. Gear shuddered in pain as she examined it, roughly. 

“Yeah, yeah, just put a bandage on it please, you’re making it worse!” Shining Armor and Twilight stepped out into the entry way to look at him. “Oh hello, I suppose you’ll want a report or something?” Gear asked.

Shining Armor looked at him with worry. “Uh. Yeah, what happened?” He asked.

Gear yelped in pain as Nurse Redheart jabbed his shoulder with a needle to sew shut the cut. “Nnngh, the three of us, urf, fought off all of, agh, the infected, aaah! Could you maybe do that later?!” He almost yelled at Redheart. She shook her head and jabbed the needle in a tad more forcefully. “Ack! We cleared out the first floor! Probably. OW! Are you done?!” He said. 

“Oh it couldn’t have been that bad you big foal, now I just need to put some antiseptic on it.” She pulled out a cotton swab and some orange liquid. 

Gear sighed in relief, until she applied the stinging, burning, flesh melting acid she claimed was antiseptic. “OWMYSEETMOTHERBUCKINCELESTIATHATBURNS!” He yelled. 

“You were just mauled by the infected, how does this hurt worse?” Redheart demanded. She began wrapping it with a bandage.

“Well for one thing I was running on adrenaline and couldn’t really feel anything, and they weren’t rubbing salt in my wounds!” He exclaimed. Twilight laughed.

“What happened to the big tough pony that helped rescue three helpless mares from Ponyville?” She asked with a smirk.

“Helpless? Pfft, speak for yourself.” Redheart began putting things back in the medical kit as they spoke. 

“So what’s been going on while Iron, Whistle, and I were saving your butts?” He asked looking over to Shining Armor.

“Well, Twilight filled me in on what’s happening at Ponyville. I was about to send out a rescue party, in the meantime you should probably get washed off. You look terrible.” He said. Gear nodded and yelped in surprise when Redheart slapped his butt.

“There ya go; you should be fine now if you DON’T RIP IT OPEN AGAIN.” She glared at him intensely then walked back into the throne room. 

Gear spent the rest of the day trying to clean off all of the blood without getting his bandages wet. The rescue team left at 12:00 and came back at 1:07 with everypony that had been in the hospital. Everypony looked relieved to be in a safer place. The rescue team had lost three pegasi and two unicorns trying to distract the infected away from the hospital but it was otherwise a success. Gear slept easily for the first time in days.


Day 14


Gear woke up when it was still dark outside, Iron Wing was shaking him. “Hey, wake up, the captain needs to talk to you.” He said. Gear yawned and rubbed his eyes before sitting upright to look around. Everypony was still asleep. 

“Alright. I’m coming.” He said as he stood up from his spot on the floor. He groggily followed Iron through the sleeping crowd of ponies toward a set of side doors. Inside was a room with a round table, two large seats at the opposite end of the room were likely reserved for the princesses, but Twilight and Shining Armor were currently seated in them. Applejack and Redheart sat in chairs on either side of them. 

“Good morning Gear, did you sleep well?” Shining asked. Gear nodded and sat in one of the chairs.

“Well enough, what did you need to talk to me about?” He asked. 

“Twilight and I have been talking and we think it would be best to get everypony off of the main land. There should still be some boats in Stalliongrad that we can escape on. I was going to send a detachment of guards to look, but we need them here.” Gear nodded as he listened to Shining.

“Ok, so why do you need me?” He asked. Shining smiled a bit.

“Well, I was going to ask if you wanted to come along with me, Twilight, Applejack, and Redheart. You seem to have a lot of experience fighting the infected so it would be safer if you came along.” Gear thought for a moment then looked over at Iron.

“I’ll go, but why not take Iron Wing or Whistling Arrow?” Iron stepped forward.

“Actually, sir, I was just about to ask if Whistle and I could come with. We both agreed we want to stick with Gear for a while.” Shining frowned at him and sighed.

“Alright, I’ll let you both come, but don’t tell anypony. I’ve left Polished Scutum in charge while we’re gone. We should leave as soon as possible.” He replied. Everypony agreed and they began preparing for the trip. 

They were on the road before the sun had risen very far. “Are there any infected in the city?” Twilight asked as they followed Shining through the streets. 

“Yes, but we have a guard post that’s keeping them distracted in the far east district. We shouldn’t see any on our way out of the city. I have no idea what the country side will look like.” He responded. True to his word, they didn’t see anypony, infected or otherwise, the entire time they were in the city. It was eerie without any noise, like a well decorated ghost town. 

“The closest and first town we’ll stop in on our way is Seaddle. It’s about a days walk from here so we should make it before nightfall.” Twilight said, examining a map, once they were outside of the walls. The country had farms dotting the landscape, but no pony could see any movement. 

“Well then let’s hurry.” Gear suggested. 

It took them 10 and a half hours to reach Seaddle with nothing interesting happening. Every building they had passed was empty and, in some cases, burned down. They arrived at seaddle to find a very large smoldering city with few untouched buildings. They spent the night in a half burned down building.

Gear woke suddenly when he heard faint yelling. He looked around in confusion and found Iron and Whistle were missing. Gear was about to go look for them, but he didn’t want to leave the others alone. The next morning the five of them searched the town as much as they dared and left when it was apparent they were gone.