Twisted Minds

by Sillyponyme

Long Road

Twilight and Azaliah moved on through the first tunnel next to the hole they had fallen into. They had put on headlights in order to see in the dark. Azaliah had also given Twilight a suit to keep her from taking too much damage, or in other words, keep from dying instantly. It was a quiet walk through but Twilight mumbled to herself in her head. She wanted more then anything to end this now just so that she could go home and get away from this girl. That was the other thing, how old was she that she could be in control of the military. What the hey, she couldn’t resist, she had to ask. “How old are you anyway?”

“Things were going so well when you weren’t talking but if you must know, I’m sixteen.” Azaliah peeked over the edge of a cliff and looked up and down as she tried to figure some way to get further down. Why not, the marker was her target and so why not go for it.

“How are you in charge of the military, you’re a freaking teenager?” Twilight was stumped, it made no sense.

Azaliah groaned and turned to look at Twilight with an irritated stare. “Look, I’m in charge because I know how to deal with these things. It was my father job first but he died when I was twelve, so I took his place early, so screw off.”

That explained why she was so hard hearted, to lose her father must have been devastating. “I’m sorry about your father.” Twilight tried but it didn’t help.

“Would you shut up already, your going to drive me nuts? I swear; I’m ready to kill you just to keep you quiet.” Azaliah looked down the hole and found a small ledge about fifty feet down they could make it to. After the nuke went off, everything down there was a lot less organized then it had been previous. She waved Twilight over and had her look down at the ledge. “Can you make it?” Azaliah asked turning her head to Twilight just to see her hop over the edge down to the small ledge. Azaliah followed her down irritably. Like Twilight, she slowed her descent as much as possible before she freefell about ten feet away from the ledge. “What is wrong with you?”

“You wanted to know if I could make it, so I jumped down. I don’t know about you but I want to get out of this and away from you ASAP.” Twilight glared.

“Well at least we can agree on something.” Azaliah looked around and found another tunnel when snarls and other noises were heard all around. “Keep your eyes open.”

“Yeah I know, keep your eyes open and gun ready.” Twilight mocked and received an irritated growl from Azaliah. She charged up her gun and got ready to fire at the first thing that moved including her so called partner but that was really just her dislike talking. She wouldn’t really shoot Azaliah but she wanted to. Broken vents covered the area; it wouldn’t be hard for something to sneak up on them.

The two slowly made their way down the tunnel. Rock crumbled behind them, the two turned around at the noise. This went on for about ten minutes. Their hearts began to race being able to only see a small area in front of them.

“How much longer do we have to go?” Twilight asked as a bright light shone from below. They covered their eyes as best they could. Once the light died down something hit Twilight in the back and made her fall over. She fell to her knees in pain, the charge she had held on the gun released as she fell and hit the wall. Her breathing became difficult. “What hit me?” Azaliah quickly took it out.

“That was a Spitter; it sure did a number on you.” Azaliah took a look at Twilights rig and saw her health near red. “You are pathetic aren’t you? I may as well be doing this by myself.” She grabbed Twilights arm and began to help her up. “Keep up or I’ll leave you in the dust and don’t waste shots.”

“I…hate you.” Twilight stepped forward weakly and charged up her gun again. Right behind Azaliah was something small and black crawling down the wall. She had no idea if her aim would be any good. The small creature jumped into the air toward Azaliah. Twilight pushed her out of the way and released the shot from her gun. The shot hit the small creature and sent the dead body flying through the air.

Azaliah’s eyes widened at seeing this. “How did you do that?”

“I’ve had plenty of practice with aiming at tiny targets with my magic. I guess this wasn’t much different.” Twilight was finally able to stand and walk.

Azaliah was to say shocked by what she had just seen. Shots like that were near impossible for even her great, great grandfather especially with an accurate weapon. “I’ll give you this, you’re an awesome shot. Maybe you’re not so worthless after all. Still, I would have thought that the weight of the gun would have affected you.”

“Let’s keep moving.” Twilight was sure she just got a lucky shot but wasn’t about to tell Azaliah that. She pushed past her partner but was held back and given a blue vial. “What’s this?”

“It will heal you up; consider this a thank you for taking out the lurker.” Azaliah moved past Twilight.

Twilight drank the vial and quickly began to feel better. She caught up with her partner and readied her gun. The path made a spiral ramp all the way to the bottom; they were three hundred feet up from the bottom now. Three small butterflies flew past Twilights face. She quickly, for some reason grabbed onto them and then everything around her changed. She heard her name called out but it quickly faded.

“Twilight, you idiot.” Azaliah said as necromorphs came out from everywhere. “You had better hurry up in there.” She shot a Slasher with stasis and began firing off shots.

Twilight found herself in front of the school statue but everything was red. Rock spires came from the ground and Fluttershy in pony form appeared at least three hundred feet away from her. The ground around her began to crumble making a floating platform. Fluttershy twitched madly as she walked toward Twilight. “Fluttershy, what’s going on, where are we?”

“Oh Twilight, let me in will you, I need you to help me, set me free.” Fluttershy then disappeared and Slashers appeared from everywhere. Twilight charged up her gun and fired at the closest one. A small gun landed next to her and what else could she do but pick it up. She aimed at the closest necromorph with her newly acquired gun and fired. It hit its mark and set the thing on fire. A few more shots to its stomach killed it.

Twilight then remembered what Azaliah had said about the limbs. She took aim and shot off two limbs, one shot each and killed it. “Much more effective.” After killing another five necros, black vines or maybe they were veins seemed to run from her. She couldn’t tell what they were but she found herself back on the path. Dead bodies lay all around her and Azaliah was sitting on the ground to her left. “What happened?”

Azaliah stood up ticked off. “You happened you idiot, thanks to you, I had to fight off a horde of Necromorphs all by myself and protect you. I don’t even know why I bothered to do so. I only have so much health and thanks to you I’ve had to use two of my five. I told you to keep your mind in check but you just don’t care do you?” Azaliah turned away and continued down the path.

Twilight still wasn’t sure what had happened. She looked down and found the gun in her hand. As they continued down the path, they came to blockade of rock. “What now?”

“Unlike you I come prepared for these types of things, now stand back.” Twilight backed up as Azaliah put down some dynamite and backed up herself. “This isn’t what it was for but all well.” She lit the wick and in a matter of seconds, the blockade blew. Unfortunately it attracted some unwanted attention. “Crap.”

“Really, you didn’t see this coming, and you call me an idiot.” Twilight rolled her eyes.

“Shut up and run.” The two ran down the path shooting all the necromorphs in the way to give them time to run past. It was already hard enough to see, staying to fight wouldn’t help them any. They had been running for about three minutes before they reached a door that lead into an overlook. The door was broken as was the glass. Dead corpses lay scattered along ground. “Help me with the furniture.” Twilight ran over and helped move what was left of the furniture and stacked it against the door. “This should help for a bit at least.”

A lurker crawled in through the window. Twilight shot the lurker as it got ready to attack, after all, shooting a none moving target was easy. The two held up for about ten minutes before the horde stopped, both women almost out of ammo and injured; both near red in health. “What now smart one?”

“Shut up.” Azaliah growled and used up two more health vials leaving only one left. “You’re such a hindrance you know that. I would still have two packs left had it not been for you.”

“Yeah and guess what, we wouldn’t have been in this at all had you not failed to keep who ever did this under control.” Azaliah attacked Twilight and the two punched and kicked each other for bit until both were bloody and tired.

“Let’s move.” Twilight continued on with her partner ignoring their tiredness and soon arrived at the bottom where the marker stood tall. “I can’t believe that my nuke didn’t destroy this thing.”

“You…what was that?” Twilight heard her name being called from a distance. “I think I hear Fluttershy.”

“You didn’t hear anyone; keep your mind in check. You can’t assume anything is real especially if it doesn’t seem right.” Azaliah turned to Twilight and slapped her. “Focus!”

“Yeah, focus, I know.” Twilight then heard her name again and coming out from behind the marker was pony Fluttershy. “I knew I heard you.”

“Come Twilight, I need you.” Twilight backed up and noticed a smile on Azaliah’s face. “Twilight, come home, I need you, your friends need you.” Human Rainbow Dash and the others came from behind the marker. “Help us Twilight, we need you.”

Twilight looked on and shook her head. “Get out of my head, leave me alone.”

“Twilight!” Sunset Shimmer yelled coming down the path. “Let us in, we need you.”
Twilight turned around to come face to face with Sunset Shimmer. “We need you.” She then jumped on Twilight and invaded her mind.