//------------------------------// // XLII - The Restless Dead // Story: Mortal Coil // by Reeve //------------------------------// I lost all my nerve after that, my sword trembling as I stared in horror at the nearly headless pony slowly marching over to me. My mind screamed at me to run, but I stayed rooted to the spot, too terrified to move or even defend myself. The pony let out another horrendous screech, rearing up slightly to fling itself on my paralysed body, and still I didn’t move to save myself. It was at that moment that Fluttershy swung her mace, striking the pony’s dangling head like a cricket ball. As soon as the metal flanges connected with the skull, it shone bright like the sun, before the head exploded into flames, disintegrating instantly while the now fully headless body crumpled to the floor. We both stood there, our breathing heavy and laboured as we stared in horror at the now lifeless body of the pony. I tried to open my mouth to say something, but no words came out, only a dry croaking noise. Fluttershy seemed to be suffering from the same problem, it turned out she had taken shelter when the pony first attacked, only deciding to step up after I stopped fighting back and she was left with no other choice. We were both snapped out of our thoughts as the front door slammed shut, our heads snapped up in panic, only to see Pinkie Pie pressed up against it, breathing just as heavily as we were with a mad grin plastered over her face. “I… found the towns ponies,” she panted, giving a nervous giggle. “Kind of wish they didn’t find me though.” It was only then she saw the looks on our faces and the body on the ground. “Oh, so you’re up to speed then,” she said in an oddly calm voice despite the situation. Breaking out of my stupor, I hurried to the window facing out into the street. Peeling back the curtain, I felt my heart stop dead in my chest as I saw what was waiting for us outside. The street was packed, there were dozens of ponies there where once there wasn’t a single one, it was as if they had all just climbed out of the ground. What really disturbed me was that they all resembled the pony who had just attacked us, they all had the same dead eyes and stiff movements. What was worse however, was that many of these ponies had a variety of injuries that just added to the gruesome image. Some ponies had strips of flesh peeling off and hanging from their body, exposed muscle and sinew beneath. I saw one pony stumbling about despite one of his legs being violently broke, the shattered bone piercing right out, and yet he went on walking despite the incredible amount of pain it should have been causing him. One mare walked right past the window I was staring out of, giving me a small fright on account of her having only one eye, the empty socket writhing with maggots. All the ponies in the street were horribly mutilated, more than that; it looked like they were rotting. I backed away from the window to look at the other two, but before I could get any words out, our ears flicked towards the front door Pinkie was still putting her weight behind. We could hear the banging of hooves and the scraping noise of them being dragged down the door, mixed with the low groaning noises that seemed to be the only sound the ponies were capable of making. My eyes darted about in a panic, coming to rest on a tall wooden cabinet. Using my magic I managed to shift it awkwardly through the front room and out into the hallway, Pinkie jumping out of the way as I dragged into her place against the door. “That should hold them,” I whispered as we all huddled together in the front room. “We need to get out of here.” “You think?!” Pinkie exclaimed before Fluttershy and I clamped her mouth shut with our hooves. We listened carefully, the groaning outside quickly turned more desperate as the banging on the door increased. “Woops,” Pinkie whispered guiltily. “Sorry, I’ll keep quiet now.” “There might be a back door,” Fluttershy added. We both nodded in response and Pinkie took the lead, creeping through the house into the kitchen where there was indeed a back door that lead out to a cramped backyard. Pinkie walked up the wooden fence that surrounded the tiny yard, and bounced up to look out over into the back street. “There’s a few more,” Pinkie reported. “But we’ll have a much easier time escaping that way than the way we came in.” “Where exactly are we escaping to?” Fluttershy asked in a frightened voice. “Those two agents went off to the church, they could be in trouble.” “We can’t just leave them,” I agreed. “And there might still be survivors somewhere.” “Sometimes…” Pinkie said with a small sigh. “Being the hero sucks.” Pinkie boosted me over the fence first, where I dropped down as quietly as possible, hoping not to draw the attention of the few ponies dotted up and down the street who had yet to take notice of us. Fluttershy flew over next, although she wobbled about dangerously, no doubt terrified. Pinkie then bounced up over the fence herself, getting some decent air time before falling to the ground very slowly and then not making a sound as she touched down. Both Fluttershy and I were too distressed by our current situation to question Pinkie’s odd behaviour, so we didn’t hesitate to follow her down the street in the direction of the church. As we got near to the first pony, we crouched down behind a stack of barrel, Pinkie peeking out over at it. “It hasn’t seen us yet,” she whispered. “If we’re quick and quiet we can take it out without alerting the others.” “It won’t work,” Fluttershy told her. “Rarity tried to kill the one in the house, but it just kept coming.” “Only Fluttershy’s mace can hurt it,” I added. “Alright then,” Pinkie said, reaching out and swiping the mace from Fluttershy’s grip. “How do you turn this thing on?” Pinkie Pie shook the mace in the hopes of getting it to light up. “It won’t work for you,” Fluttershy insisted, cringing as she watched Pinkie’s behaviour. “Only members of the Celestial Sisterhood have received the necessary blessings to use our tools.” “Then it’s going to have to be you Fluttershy,” I informed her as I pulled the mace from Pinkie and floated it back to her. “Me?!” Fluttershy squealed before clamping her mouth shut and glancing about in a panic. “Pinkie Pie and I can distract them,” I continued once we knew we were still safe. “But you have to be the one to deliver the final blow.” Fluttershy nodded, visibly swallowing as she mentally prepared herself. Pinkie and I exchanged a quick word before darting out from behind our cover and quickly closing the distance between us and the pony. It began to turn around at the last second, but its movements were too slow. Pinkie and I slashed at its legs from either side causing it to collapse momentarily, while it was down, we threw our weight down on it so it couldn’t get back up. Fluttershy had watched the whole thing, and when she saw that the hissing pony was restrained, she hurried forward and stood before it. “Should… should I say some final words?” she asked us in an unsure voice. “Please don’t, this thing is quite wriggly,” I grunted under the effort of keeping the pony down. “Oh, okay,” Fluttershy murmured, taking a deep breath before raising her mace. She brought it down, crushing the pony’s skull as its jaw snapped wildly, trying to twist its neck back far enough to reach us. The effect was identical to the one in the house, a flash of bright light and a burning crater left in the side of the pony’s head. Pinkie and I got off, glancing about to make sure our impromptu light show had gone unnoticed before looking back down at the pony. “What do you think it is?” I asked. “Some kind of undead?” “I have never heard of any undead like this before,” Fluttershy whispered in a disbelieving tone. “But your mace hurts it,” I pointed out as we started walking away from the body and continuing towards the church. “Just like the Wight, and you can’t tell me those ponies are still alive.” “It works on undead and monsters,” Pinkie Pie reminded me. “This must be what the stallion had meant, and it also explains why he was so shaken up by what he’d seen.” “It also explains why nopony comes back from Brine,” Fluttershy added with a small gulp as we took shelter once again to avoid a roaming pony. “Well whatever they are,” I began. “We can take them out easy enough if they’re on their own, but we can’t risk going up against groups, not when only one of us has a holy weapon.” My companions nodded and carried on, constantly on the lookout for stray ponies. Brine proved to be much more complicated to navigate when we were constantly switching direction and jumping down side streets to avoid clumps of the walking dead. We occasionally stopped to take out the odd one, but for the most part there were too many nearby that we couldn’t risk attacking one in case we were spotted by the rest. After a while we came to halt, there was nothing to hide behind, but then the only pony in the narrow street was facing the opposite direction. I looked over at Pinkie Pie and she nodded, without hesitating we moved forward like we had done several times already and tackled the pony. This time however, the pony stumbled forward and we went forward with it, ending up standing directly in view of an alleyway. It was the chorus of cries that made us look up to see seven or eight dead ponies clumped together at the bottom of the alleyway, now all making their way towards us. Swearing, we both leapt off the pony we tackled and charged back to where Fluttershy was waiting, she looked confused for a second before the small horde scrambled out of the alleyway into the street, then she just looked horrified. We ran straight for the first door we could see that wasn’t closed, charging in without stopping to see if it was safe. What we got for our recklessness was three ponies gathered in the restaurant, all turning to face us even as our exit was blocked by the incoming ponies that we alerted outside. There was a brief moment of panic as our eyes darted back and forth between the ponies inside the building, and those we could hear in the street, we then looked at one another before giving a quick nod and diving straight to work. I turned and slammed the front doors shut with my magic, using all my might to drag the front counter over to barricade it as the ponies outside began to get close, pre-emptively raising forelegs to bash the doors open. While I focused on that, Pinkie sped up to the nearest pony, whipping out her daggers as she went. She then began stabbing it repeatedly in the chest, even though her attacks were useless against them; they still kept it cushioned away from her. Fluttershy tried to swoop over to aid her, but another pony cut her off and she was forced to fend against it instead. Every blow Fluttershy delivered to its body and flailing forelegs left great shimmering gashes, which caused the creature to shriek in agony before Fluttershy silenced it with a swing to the jaw. While Fluttershy moved on to help with the second, I started trying to block off the windows, there were two of them and they were both large enough that any number of the ponies could climb in it they smashed through, which they were trying their very best to do so. I used my magic to lift two separate tables up and press one against each window. This proved to be more difficult than I imagined, especially once I heard the ponies break through the glass and begin throwing their weight against the table. Since the only thing keeping them pressed up against the windows was my magic, it was taking all my energy just to hold them in place. I glanced back to see that Fluttershy had finished off Pinkie’s target and they had moved on to take out the third. Once I was sure they could manage it, I used my dwindling energy to pull the tables back from the windows, turn them sideways and hurled them out the broken windows into the groups of ponies that had been fighting to get in. Without waiting to see if any of them were struck down or were already clambering in, I turned and rushed towards the kitchen door, the other two following when they took care of the last pony. Once inside, Pinkie dragged one of the chest freezers across the door and we carried on to the back door. Once outside however, we didn’t find ourselves in a low fenced back yard like the last building we had run out the back door of. Instead we found ourselves in a high walled courtyard, the only exit from which was a wooden staircase that led to the upper floor of the neighbouring building. Once we were inside the next building, which turned out to be a house over a shop of some kind, and we were sure that there weren’t any surprises waiting within, we stopped to catch our breath. I could just about hear the ponies tearing through the restaurant, trying to find us; it seemed all the noise we made attracted even more from the nearby buildings to spill out into the street. I walked over to where Fluttershy stood, looking out the back window of the bedroom into what looked like a small park. I saw a murder of crows pecking through some long rotten bits that must have fallen off one of the walking corpses. One of the ponies was slowly stumbling over towards them, slipping slightly on the wet grass. The crows watched him with clear disinterest, continuing to scavenge through the remains for something edible. When the pony got close enough that he threw himself forward to catch one of them, they all simply flew away, leaving the pony to land with a face full of old meat, it might have been funny if it wasn’t so grim. “Why don’t you just fly away?” I asked Fluttershy as I watched the crows land on a nearby roof and look down at the pony. “And leave you two here?!” Fluttershy exclaimed with indignation. “No, we all get out of this town or none of us do! Unless… one of you two has a chance of getting out without me, in which case you should take it, I won’t mind.” “Don’t be silly Fluttershy,” I chastised her. “We wouldn’t dream of leaving you either, right Pinkie Pie?” I looked over only to find the room empty, curious, I walked to the staircase and peered down, making out Pinkie in the gloom of the hallway. She was crouching at the front door, her eyes looking through the letter box at the street outside. “They aren’t clearing away,” Pinkie murmured as I approached her. “Have you considered just… making a run for it?” I asked uncomfortably. “They don’t seem to be too fast, and we need to find those agents. The sooner we do, the sooner we can get out of this place.” “I had actually been considering that,” Pinkie replied, sounding amused. “I just thought you wouldn’t go for it.” “Well if you’d suggested it at the start of all this I probably wouldn’t have,” I admitted. “But it’s getting late and I really think we’re running out of options.” “Well then get Fluttershy down here,” Pinkie instructed. “We might be about to get an opening, or at least, the best one we’re gonna get.” Once we were gathered at the front door, there being no other exit to this house, Pinkie placed her hoof on the handle and started counting down from three. We all braced ourselves so when she said ‘one’ and flung the door open, we charged out one at a time, me taking up the rear. Once we rushed into the street, the ponies that had gathered all looked our way, most likely alerted by the sound of our hooves splashing in the muddy road and puddles. Without wanting to give them a head start, we turned and dashed towards the church, which by now was nothing more than a dark silhouette against the overcast sky that was getting darker with every passing minute. We ran for a good several minutes, no longer caring whether we got spotted or heard. We stuck to the most direct route, only switching when the number of ponies in the street became too large for us to risk running through. Finally we came to the base of the hill where the church squatted upon, but we weren’t the only ones to arrive this far. We skidded to halt when we saw the courtyard at the base of the hill was infested with the dead ponies, but they weren’t interested in us, rather, in the familiar mare who was hammering against the portcullis gate that separated her from the steps leading up the hill to the church. It was the female agent, she was alone and she was screaming and begging for somepony to hear her and let her in, even as the horde swarmed in around her. There was nothing we could have done besides take shelter behind a toppled cart, there were too many of them to fight, and they were already upon her before we could finish assessing the situation. Her strangled screams were cut off fairly quickly, and then soon after the mob dissipated, returning to their passive state of simply stumbling around the courtyard with blank expressions on their gaunt faces. I could see her bloody body lying by the portcullis, she was quite clearly dead, her eyes wide and glassy, her throated ripped out, blood still pouring from the open wound into the wet mud where she lay. I looked around the courtyard at the ponies who ambled about, it didn’t matter where we planned to go next, we would have to get past them. Pinkie and I scanned over them, Fluttershy however refused to look out again, too horrified at what had happened to the agent. As my eyes swept over the ponies, they darted back to one in particular, an earth pony stallion wearing green robes with stone like armour on the outside. I tapped Pinkie’s shoulder and pointed him out to her. “So I guess the Children were here too,” Pinkie said before giggling slightly. “Serves them right.” “I don’t know…” I muttered in a low voice as I watched the corpses walking around. “I don’t think anypony deserves this.” I continued to look until another one of the dead ponies caught my gaze, a stallion who look rather familiar to me, just like the mare… As I realised it was the other agent we had travelled with, my eyes quickly navigated to where the mare’s body had been. It had bothered me when the ponies killed her and then simply walked away. After seeing the display in the park with the crows, I had thought maybe they wanted to eat other living creatures, but then they killed that agent and simply left her there. When I looked to the portcullis and saw that the mare’s body was no longer lying there, I knew they weren’t hunting us to eat us… they wanted us to join their ranks. It was Fluttershy’s scream that snapped me out of my thoughts, both Pinkie and I spun around to see the very mare I was looking for baring down on Fluttershy. The mare threw herself at the pegasus, who hadn’t been able to react fast enough, her mace falling out of her hooves which she threw up to hold the dead agent off of her, even as her jaws snapped repeatedly and her still fresh wound oozed blood over Fluttershy’s clothes. I rushed forward, snatching up Fluttershy’s mace and swinging it into the mare’s head; of course in my grip it did nothing other than throw her back, but that was all I needed it to do. Once Fluttershy was free, I dragged her back through the muck and away from the mare who was already recovering. Once I forced her to her hooves, I thrust the mace back into her grip before shouting for her to follow. Pinkie performed a rather smooth roundhouse kick to the mare, knocking her back a second time and giving Fluttershy enough time to calm down and follow me as I charged through the courtyard to the portcullis. “Fluttershy, fly over and get this thing open!” I ordered her in a voice that was not to be questioned. Still shaken, Fluttershy took to the air and disappeared over the stone wall that separated the village from the church. I turned to join Pinkie Pie who was standing ready to fight off the oncoming wave of corpses that were slowly encroaching upon us. I was more thankful than ever that they were so slow, as one started to get close on the left, I slashed out with my sword to stagger it before throwing an old wagon wheel at it with my magic to push it down. As a pair of ponies neared from the right, Pinkie darted about, blinking in and out of sight as she kicked one into the other then vice versa before fly kicking them both back into the mud where they lay tangled up in each other’s limbs. We did this for a couple minutes until the green robed pony reached us, Pinkie slashed out at him with one of her daggers, but just like I discovered back at Pivot, her blade glanced right off his armour without leaving a scratch. Falling back to her more physical methods, Pinkie punched him in the face, his head snapping back briefly but his body remaining stalwart. As his head fell back, his green hood descended to reveal that his whole face had been torn apart. Both eyes were reduced to mulch, his teeth constantly bared as his lips were ripped clean off, his powerful armour clearly didn’t do much to protect that part of his body it seemed. He launched himself forward, Pinkie tried to dive out of the way but slipped in the mud and ended up on her back as the huge body of the stallion came crashing down on top of her. Pinkie peeked out from behind the forelegs she had thrown up to shield herself, and saw that the stallion’s body armour was glowing with a blue aura. I had managed to grab hold of it at the last second, but I was struggling to keep my hold as the weight off the stallion was far too much for me to handle. I tried to brace myself, but my hooves kept slipping and sliding in the mud just as Pinkie’s had. Finally we heard the sound of clanging metal and saw the portcullis slowly rising up, Pinkie scrabbled away from beneath the stallion and sprinted for the portcullis, dropping and rolling under the small gap. Once she was clear, I finally let go of the stallion before taking off after her, I mimicked her movements, dropping to the ground as I neared the iron gateway and rolled under it, for once really not giving a damn that my mane was covered in mud and my clothes were filthier than they ever had been. Once we were both under safely, the portcullis slammed shut again as Fluttershy released the crack. As I got up and started to brush myself down, an effort in futility, I opened my mouth to ask Fluttershy what had taken so long, but stopped when I saw five ponies lying dead around her and the crank, all with burning holes in their skulls. Looking back I saw the ponies trying to claw at us through the portcullis, but there was no way they were getting through that, for the time being we were safe. “There were more ponies here,” Fluttershy stated in a miserable tone. “There probably weren’t any survivors here to begin with.” Pinkie pulled Fluttershy into a comforting hug… a very wet, very dirty comforting hug. “It would seem not,” I admitted in a tired voice. “But we still need to find another way out, there’s no way we’re getting out that way.” Fluttershy and Pinkie both glanced at the portcullis and the many ponies gathered just beyond it and nodded in agreement. Night was truly starting to set in as we ascended the stone steps, and yet the rain refused to reduce even in the slightest. We had to take it slow going up the stone steps, the last thing any of us needed was to slip and break our neck while falling back to the bottom, to survive hordes of violent undead only to die that way would just be embarrassing. At the top of the stairs, we passed under a tall archway that led us into a small cloister, the doors to the church directly ahead of us. I made a beeline for the doors while the other two looked around to make sure we were really alone outside the church. As I neared the door, I noticed there was an odd stone disc planted in the centre of the double door. It had twelve little indents running around the perimeter of it, nine of which already had small oval shaped gems of deep, blood red implanted in them. There was also a horizontal groove cutting through the middle of the disc, my first instinct was to rotate the disc so the groove was in line with the point where the two doors met in the middle, but the disc refused to budge. “It looks like some kind of puzzle locking mechanism!” Pinkie said, appearing over my shoulder and bouncing with excitement. “We must need to find the three missing gems to turn the disc and open the door.” “First of all, that’s not a puzzle,” I retorted sullenly. “It’s more or a… a fetch quest.” “Well it looks like there are courtyard areas to either side of this cloister,” Pinkie explained, indicating the two exits. “One of them leads to what looks like a mausoleum. I bet if we go exploring, we can find those missing gems and gain access to the church!” “What? No… Just no!” I stated in disbelief that Pinkie was even considering that. “We have just fought our way here through hordes of walking corpses; we are not wasting time to perform some trivial task to open this door. On that note, who actually designed this lock and thought to themselves ‘yup, that won’t ever get tedious. Having to gather twelve gems anytime we want to open the front door won’t ever get boring’? A pony would have to have been completely mad to think this was in any way a good or practical idea.” “But…” Pinkie began, looking like she wanted to cry. “But… exploration! Fun!” “Pinkie Pie, after everything we’ve gone through just to get here,” I said, grinding my teeth slightly. “Fun is not very high on my list of priorities.” “But how will we get in if we don’t find the gems?” Fluttershy asked. “Simple,” I replied nonchalantly. “I’ll break that window with one of my knives, then we climb in.” “Oh…” Fluttershy uttered, looking at the window I was indicating. “Yeah, I suppose that would be much simpler and just as effective.” Pinkie muttered something under her breath, but followed us over to the window without any objections. Once the window was broken, Pinkie boosted me up in first, once I was up over the sill I jumped down, the broken glass crunching beneath my hooves. I collected my knife and sheathed it before clearing the area for Pinkie Pie to land; finally Fluttershy flew her own way in. We were in a small antechamber, a simple stone room with a marble font and box for collecting donations. Pinkie Pie, still a little huffy, went on through the next set of doors that led into the main room of the church, Fluttershy and I followed after shaking the donations box to confirm there was nothing inside. As we entered the man body of the church, my eyes swept over the surprisingly large building. For a very simple town, Brine certainly took a lot of pride in their worship it seemed. I was still looking overhead when I arrived at Pinkie’s side; I looked down at her and saw that she was standing perfectly still, her eyes wider than I’d ever seen them before. For a brief second I wondered if she was still annoyed about how I cheated my way around the door lock, but then I followed her gaze to see what I hadn’t seen before, and my jaw dropped. A single pony was in the church, standing in the very centre of the transept, staring up at the large marble statue of Celestia that overlooked the altar, swaying slightly as he did so. I didn’t know who this pony was, and I doubted Pinkie did either, but it wasn’t the pony himself that drew our attention, it was what he was wearing. He was dressed in long, sweeping black robes, embroidered in intricate curls and waves that appeared golden, but shone with all the colours of the rainbow when the light of the candles around the church reflected off them. “No way…” Pinkie breathed, quietly so as not to let them know we were there. Fluttershy stared at the pony in confusion, of course we had filled her in on who the robed ponies were, but she had never seen the scrap of material, so she probably hadn’t made the connection yet. “Maybe we can capture him,” I whispered to Pinkie Pie. “It would answer a lot of our questions if we could get one of them to talk.” Pinkie nodded, crouching low as she made her way forward. She was absolutely silent, her hooves making zero sound as they touched the stone floor. I simply held back with Flutterhsy and waited, both of us watching with baited breath as Pinkie neared her target, readying ourselves to jump in at a moment’s notice to help. Pinkie froze about a metre behind him, her daggers already drawn, I could see her tensing, preparing to make her move. When she finally acted, she did so in the blink of an eye, sweeping the pony’s legs out from under him before wrapping one foreleg around his neck and bringing the dagger held in the other pointing directly into his line of sight. Then the pony let out a retching screech, his head twisting back, his jaw snapping at Pinkie Pie. Pinkie let him go almost instantly, leaping back and landing graceful between us and the robed pony who began stumbling to his hooves. “Oh for the love of…” Pinkie began, throwing her hooves up in resignation. “He’s already dead!” The robed pony stood up and began making his way down the aisle towards Pinkie Pie, his cold, dead gaze firmly locked on her. “Sorry Pinkie,” I told her, although I too was annoyed. “We might as well just finish him off now.” “Yeah,” Pinkie agreed in a forlorn voice as the pony got near and she plunged her daggers into his eyes. He didn’t stop screeching or trying to move forward, but Pinkie held him in place once she had him skewered. She glanced back over her shoulder and called out to Fluttershy in the most casual way. “Shy, be a dear would you and finish this guy off for me,” she requested. “Pretty please.” Fluttershy nodded and walked up the aisle to where Pinkie stood waiting, the robed pony still locked in position. Fluttershy raised her mace high and nodded to Pinkie who pulled her daggers out and leapt clear of Fluttershy swing, good thing too as she took the head clean of with her shining mace and carried right through to where Pinkie had been standing moments before. I watched the whole thing feeling rather disappointed, but I felt a little cathartic pleasure seeing the head come off and I waited patiently for his body to crumple just like the rest. The body did not collapse, even as the head thumped loudly on the floor, the body remained standing tall. It was as if time had frozen, I frowned at the oddly persistent body while Fluttershy stood to the side of it, her mace still swinging through the empty air, and Pinkie Pie was in the process of standing back up from when she jumped back into a crouching position. That was exactly what I saw before the pony’s neck stump exploded in a shower of blood and bile as something burst out, something long and twisted swiping through the air. Fluttershy was caught right in the body, and the force of the new appendage was enough to launch her into the air and land crashing into the pews. Pinkie took the full force of it to the face, getting her body chucked back down the aisle where she landed at my hooves, her nose streaming with blood. The writhing appendage stopped swinging around and held itself upwards for me to see clearly. It looked like a thick tentacle sprouting from where the pony’s head used to be, although the tentacle greatly resembled a giant centipede with its dark bronze plating and the dozens of twitching spike like legs running up the length of it. The pony’s body began walking forward as if on autopilot, the creature growing out of its neck continuing to swing about in every direction as if it were trying to swat a fly. Once I had gotten over the initial shock of seeing the creature, I leant down, grabbed hold of the dazed Pinkie Pie and dragged her away before the creature got too close. The pony was walking very slowly, its movements were no longer stiff like they were a few minutes ago when it still had a head, now everything was very smooth and deliberate. I stepped in front of Pinkie, gently prodding her with my hind leg in the hopes she would gather her wits and move on her own. The pony was drawing close to me and I didn’t feel particularly confident that I could do any harm to it without Fluttershy’s mace. The tentacle like creature swished forward, I had to lean back slightly to avoid being struck by it, but it seemed to know I was there as it swung right back, the top coming face to face with me. It was featureless at that point, just looking like scrunched up flesh, but then it opened up wide to reveal a gaping maw filled with layers upon layers of shimmering, glistening with saliva, teeth. It was as if the creature was shrieking at me as the pony continued walking closer and it was becoming harder and harder to stay safely away from the repeatedly dilating and constricting throat. As I stared into its giant, ravenous mouth, I was immediately reminded of the monster I saw back in Pivot, it just couldn’t be a coincidence how similar they were. Taking my chances, I slashed my sword upwards, cutting right into the waiting, drooling chasm. As my sword slashed through it, I was showered in a wave jet black blood as the tentacle thing recoiled, giving a high pitched screech as it twisted and writhed far out of my reach. As the pony ceased its relentless march I stared in confusion at it, my weapons had done nothing against the ponies outside, and yet the creature before me definitely sounded like it was in pain. It appeared that we had been wrong in our assumption that the robed pony was just another one of the shambling corpses; the truth was he was something more… but that something was vulnerable to my weapons. Grinning, I pushed my advantage, storming in and swinging my sword back and forth in a flurry of swipes that repeatedly cut the tentacle in various places along the length of its body. What had looked like hardened, shell like plates, turned out only to be tough muscle, and my sword managed to wound it easily. The pony was backing up now, the creatures screams even more frantic and pained. Fluttershy appeared in my peripheral vision, she was limping and looking quite badly banged up, but she held her mace firm as she approached the creature from behind. While the pony was still backing up and the creature spouting out it was still shrieking in agony, Fluttershy brought her mace down on the point where the tentacle connected to the neck of the pony. Her magic still proved to be the most effective weapon as the blinding light burned clean through the tentacle, separating it from the pony’s body, which at long last dropped limply to the ground. The creature itself fell into the aisle where it writhed and flailed, swishing about madly before its movement began to slow. Eventually it stopped moving altogether, and simply lay there curled up, oozing puddles of black blood from its many wounds. Fluttershy limped around it to where I was and Pinkie still sat, now aware enough to clutch her own muzzle to try and stem the blood flow. While Fluttershy busied herself tending to Pinkie Pie, I approached the deceased creature and crouched down to examine it. There wasn’t much for me to see, certainly nothing that I could deduce from looking it over. There was no doubt in my mind that this creature was a monster, and that it was somehow connected to the one I encountered in Pivot, but this one grew out of the body of the robed pony, the same robed ponies that we were trying to investigate, that meant… “I was right,” Pinkie said in a muffled voice. “The monsters… those robed ponies… they’re connected somehow.” “I think you might be right about that,” I agreed as my eyes shifted from the dead monster to the headless body of the robed pony. While I moved onto the pony and began searching his robes, hoping for something in his pockets that might indicate who they were or what they were doing, Fluttershy spoke up from where she was tending to Pinkie. “Do you think those robed ponies had something to do with what happened here?” she asked. “Maybe,” I admitted. “You did say those ponies outside weren’t like any kind of undead you knew of; maybe they were some kind of monster too.” “But none of them grew horrible head insects when we put them down,” Pinkie pointed out. “Which I’m glad about, those things look terrifying.” “Whatever is going on…” I began, giving up on the pony when I found nothing on his person. “And whatever happened here, we can’t stay to find out. We need to get out of here as quickly as possible and get some help; it might take an army to clear this town out.” Once we were all fit to travel, we searched around the church, quickly finding a side door that led to the other side of the hill, and subsequently a way out of the town. The only problem to this escape plan, was that the town graveyard was on this side of the hill, and you can be damn sure it was packed full of the walking dead. “Fluttershy, fly away now,” I ordered. “You can’t run in your condition, and we’re going to have to if we want to get through this.” “But…” Fluttershy began, looking desperately out across the graveyard in the hopes of finding another way. “Don’t you argue now,” Pinkie interrupted, pulling Fluttershy’s head into her chest where she clung to it tightly. “Rarity and I are going to get out of here just fine, and then we’ll all go to Olympus together.” “Well… if you’re sure,” Fluttershy said uncertainly. Pinkie nodded enthusiastically, Fluttershy took a deep breath before flapping her wings hard and taking off. It wasn’t long before she was out of sight what with how dark it was at that point, as soon as she was, Pinkie’s smile vanished. “Yeah, there’s no way we’re both getting out of here safely,” she said in an uncharacteristically morbid tone. “Don’t be like that Pinkie,” I chastised. “You can’t lose hope now.” “I’m not!” she argued, brightening up again. “I said there was no way we were both getting out, but both of us won’t.” “Pinkie...” I said slowly, starting to get very worried where this was going. “What are you talking about?” “It’s simple,” she replied. “I’ll get their attention and get them to chase me; while they are, you can escape safely.” “Pinkie that is insane,” I retorted. “You are not staying behind just so I can escape.” “But I am, I always intended to stay here,” Pinkie explained, at which point I had to shake my head to make sure I heard her correctly. “This is the first time we’ve seen one of those robed ponies since they tried to kill me, and it’s the first monster sighting we’ve been able to confirm, I need to stay here and figure out what happened before they can clean up any evidence like they did in the Tranquil Forest, back when we first met.” “B… but all these ponies!” I stammered, waving my foreleg theatrically over the graveyard. “You could get hurt or… or…” “Rarity, listen to me,” Pinkie cut in, looking me dead serious in the face. “Don’t be offended by this, but you and Fluttershy slow me down.” “Excuse me?!” I demanded, suddenly very offended despite what she said. “Literally!” Pinkie clarified. “I am a fast pony; you’ve seen me in action. I could run circles around these guys all week and they’d never catch a hair on my head, but I slowed myself down rather than leave you girls behind. If you go now, I’ll be able to work at my own pace, and I assure you I will not get hurt.” “I really want to believe that…” I muttered in a dreary voice. “Just believe in me!” Pinkie Pie insisted, grabbing my hooves and clasping them in her own. “Believe that I can keep my word, when I say we’ll see each other again someday.” I hesitated for a long time, letting her words mull over and over in my head before finally I gave a little sigh, followed by a single nod. Pinkie pulled me into on final hug before charging off down the hill, shouting at the top of her lungs. “Alright all you hungry ponies!” she yelled, all the ponies turning slowly to look at her. “I’m right here and I am delicious, trust me, I know. So if you want a piece of me, you gotta come catch me!” Her baiting definitely did the trick, the ponies couldn’t resist the lure of a the brightly dressed pink pony, even if she was mostly obscured by mud, bouncing up and down and shouting at the top of her lungs. Once she had gathered quite a large following, she began to bounce away from where I still stood at the top of the hill, bursting into a loud musical number to keep them interested in her. I couldn’t help but smile despite how worried I was, still, I wasn’t about to let the opening she gave me go to waste. Once both Pinkie and the horde chasing her were out of sight, I began my descent down the side of the hill, making for the iron gate that hung open at the end of the graveyard and the bottom of the hill. At the last few feet I came skidding to a stop, glancing behind me to make sure I hadn’t picked up any stragglers before stepping confidently through the gate… only to have a pony leap at me from the front. I let out a small scream as I sidestepped and allowed it to fall face first into the gate behind me. Now that I was outside the graveyard, I could see that several ponies had drifted outside it and were now stumbling around the farmland outside the town. Still, it was considerably better than the horde that been in the graveyard before Pinkie intervened, so setting my sights dead ahead, I broke into a gallop. The ponies tried to stop me, some tried to follow me, but I was too fast for them now, and while the tall wheat proved slightly obtrusive for charging through, I was considerably less likely to slip. I broke out the opposite end of the wheat field, finding myself back into the grassy hills of the Lesser Pastures. I didn’t slow down as there were a few more ponies this far out, however I probably should have as the change in terrain did not suit the speed I was going at and I very quickly founding myself slipping on the soaked grass. I toppled forward, landing painfully on my face before tumbling over my limbs which ended up hurting quite a lot as well. I tried to move but found my body wouldn’t obey, the shock of the fall and subsequent impact with the ground made it very difficult to elicit a response. I could hear the groans of the ponies behind me, they were getting ever closer with every passing second and still I couldn’t bring myself to move. I wanted to scream and cry all at the same time, to have come so far and done so much just to die because I slipped on wet grass, it was the same fear I had about falling down the church steps, only this one was really happening. I clenched my eyes shut, willing my body to obey me while simultaneously preparing myself for the horrible death that was swiftly approaching. Except that death never did come, no matter how long I lay there, the groans remained as far away as they always sounded. Curious, I twisted my head back, about the only movement I could manage, and saw the three ponies standing there, watching me intently but never taking the necessary couple of steps to reach me. It was as if something was stopping them, like an invisible wall of some kind. It wasn’t until what felt like much later when I finally found the strength to move again that I was able to light up my horn and examine the area around me. What I discovered was a dark line scorched through the grass, into the earth itself. I followed it for a bit and found that it began to curve, I wondered if maybe it surrounded the entire town of Brine and the farmlands around it. Whatever it was, the dead ponies were incapable of crossing it, so when Fluttershy finally found me, she found me sticking my tongue out at the trio of ponies and making some rather immature faces at them to rub my successful get away in their peeling, rotting, deathly visages… I decided to leave out the part about me tripping when I filled her in on what she had missed.