Hundreds of zombies surrounded the girls. Some of which Pinkie remembered taking out earlier. Sunset set as many of them on fire as she could while everyone else tried to keep them back. The circle continued to get smaller, forcing Pinkie to use smaller and smaller explosions or risk hurting her friends. As the girls were forced back to back, Rarity put up a dome around them, but the zombies continued trying to get to them.
“Now what?”, Pinkie asked.
“I-I don’t know.”, Sunset said with tears starting to roll down her face. She was scared. She was going to die. They were going to die. They trusted her, and she failed them. No, this is not the time to think like that. Let’s see. They couldn’t fly out of there. Less than half of them had wings, and they were too weak to fly anyway. Maybe- “Rarity, you can levitate your crystals, right?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Can you carry us on one?”
“I don’t know, but I guess we have a lower chance of dying that way., so-” Rarity created a crystal under their feet then exploded her shield outwards and shot them into the air. The girls all grabbed hold tight to each other as they really didn’t want to fall off. Once they were a fair bit off the ground, Rarity expanded the platform and created railing.
“Oh, thank Celestia that worked.”, Sunset sighed.
“Now, what do we do? The zombies are now actively hunting us and got a major upgrade.”, Rainbow said.
“Burning them to ash seemed to work.”, Sunset said.
“Sounds like we’re learning pyromancy.”, Fluttershy said.
“Yeah, but where. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think this teeny tiny little hover crystal is the best place to be shooting fireballs.”, Pinkie said.
“I could create a dome out of crystal to protect us while we train.”
“That sounds like a fancy oven to me.”, AJ retorted.
Either because of the mental link or their brains have been horribly mutilated by trauma, all seven girls came to the same realization. “We can cook the zombies.”
“But what about other survivors?”, Fluttershy added.
“I’m starting to have serious doubts that anyone without magic survived.”, RD said.
“Yeah, but what if?”
“Searchin’ for survivors is what got us inta this mess in the first place.”, AJ added.
“I would still like it if we could at least try.”
“It would take me a long time to create a dome big enough to cover the whole city.”, Rarity said.
“See, we have time.”
“Actually, we need to land soon. I’m running low on magic.”
“Okay, set us down in the woods. Once we’re down, use your magic to create a shelter.”, Sunset ordered.
“I barely have enough to get us to the forest. I won’t be able to make a shelter.”
“Just go. I’ll worry about the magic.”, Twilight ordered.
Without time to spare, Rarity sped them towards the woods, and her platform gave out just before they hit the ground. Twilight sprang to her feet first, ran over to Rarity, picked her up, and quickly transmitted what to do to the other girls. The rest of the girls got over to them as quickly as they could and placed their hands on their backs. The magic flowed through them and into Rarity. Rarity’s eyes began to glow, and she had enough energy to erect a dome around them with air holes that were hopefully too small for the vines to get in. All the girls collapsed from exhaustion after that, and Rarity’s armor disappeared.
Sunset and Rarity were the first to wake up. It was night time, and there weren’t any vines or zombies surrounding their crystal tent. Sunset cast the altered dark seeing spell on Rarity. “I gotta go.”, Sunset whispered.
“Me too.”, Rarity also whispered. Rarity created an opening, and they left the tent. Rarity closed the opening once they were out, and the girls went in opposite directions to take care of their business. Once they were done, they returned to the tent but didn’t go back in just yet. They sat underneath one of the trees and looked up into the sky. It was the same sky they could see every night just with more stars. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, you can almost forget what’s going on.”, Sunset said.
“I’m sorry about Flash.”
“It’s okay. I didn’t really love him. I was just using him. - I’m sorry about your family.”
“Can you please not bring them up? I’m trying to not think about them. If I don’t think about it, I can pretend they got out and are safe.”
“I guess morning can wait until we’re safe.”
“Exactly”
The two of them stayed out there in silence until the other girls began waking up. Rarity reopened the tent, Sunset casted the altered dark seeing spell on them all, and each of the girls ran off in different directions to do their own business. As each of the girls came back, the first thing everyone noticed was that all their injuries were healed. Not even scars were left.
“Looks like we all have passive regenerative powers.”, Sunset noited.
“We can do magic sciencey stuff later. I’m really effin’ hungry.”, Pinkie complained.
“Is there a nearby town we can go to?”, Twilight asked.
“Tha next closest human settlement is tha village of Cunnington, in tha mountains, on tha other side of Canterlot.”, AJ explained.
“Oh”
“Let’s hope they went back into their vine alcoves like they used to.”, Fluttershy said.
“Maybe, maybe not. The game has changed. We can’t be sure what to expect.”, Sunset said.
“Whatever, we’re hungry. Let’s just run in, grab some food and water, and run out.”, RD said.
“Looks like we don’t have very many other options unless you know any invisibility spells.”, Sunset said.
“I would’ve figured that was something you knew.”, Twilight said.
“I only know disguise magic. Hm, I could mask our magic and darken our colors, and I don’t they can’t hear very well.”
“That will have to be enough.”
“Alright everyone, gather around.” The girls gathered around Sunset, and Sunset began the spell. To do it on so many people all at once took more time and focus, but soon, everybody’s everything began to turn various shades of dark blue and black. By the time the spell was finished, the only part of them that could easily be seen was their glowing eyes. If a normal person saw them, they would likely crap themselves.
“Okay, let’s go.”, Sunset ordered.
The seven girls quickly made their way down the mountain, and the flighers took flight. They made their way to the closest supermarket. Even with Bargain-mart being turned into Zombie-mart, they still had a few options. The closest supermarket was a Bullseye. On their way there, they saw zombies with weapons standing guard around some of the larger vines like they were protecting the other zombies. The store was just as vine covered as many of the other buildings, but there were no guard zombies. The girls were able to get in without issue and went straight for the food and water. After having their fill, Twilight grabbed a new backpack and baseball bats, the ground forces grabbed extra bags, and everyone began loading up on food, water, medical supplies, warm clothes, and anything else they could fit into their bags. They couldn’t get Twilight new guns or stalk up on bullets because, despite the name, Bullseye doesn’t carry such products.
“This is why I shop at Bargain-mart. Bullseye is just un-American for being a superstore and not carrying guns.”, Pinkie joked.
“Haha!”, Sunset laughed loud enough to be heard throughout the store.
As they were leaving the store, the doors were opened and a zombie with a gun came in. The girls all backed away from it slowly. It seemed to be searching for them but had not narrowed in on them.
“I can create a dome. Sunset, you can roast it.”, Rarity transmitted.
“No! The crown made us telepathically connected. There’s a good chance it’s connected to the rest of the zombies. Just stay away from it.”, Sunset ordered.
The zombie moved closer, and the girls moved away from it in separate directions. The fliers flew on top of the shelving, but the ground forces did not have that luxury. AJ moved into the bread aisle where mold covered just about everything. Rarity backed away into the clothes which she bumped into, making noise. The Zombie walked towards her, but Rarity moved out of the way, and the zombie bumped into the rack. The zombie stopped for a moment before resuming in the opposite direction. Sunset backed into the freezer aisle, the noise giving her a chance to breathe. As Pinkie was backing up, she bumped into an end stand, knocking it over and making a lot of noise in the near dead silent store. The zombie’s head whipped towards her and it began moving towards Pinkie. It hadn’t locked onto her yet, but that could change in an instant. Pinkie closed her eyes and held her breath. Rainbow grabbed a can and threw it. The zombie’s head whipped towards the noise, and it walked away from Pinkie. The girls took this chance to get out of there. As soon as they were outside, they poured as much magic they could into the relevant body parts and hurried back to the woods.
Once they were back at their campsite, Rarity enlarged the tent to make room for their supplies.
“Okay, we’ve got enough food and water for a few days.”, Twilight said.
“And we now know that the zombies have gained the ability to have a few of them out during the night but not all of them. They also don’t seem to have strong night vision, but their hearing is better than I expected.”, Sunset said.
“So, if we can’t attack the zombies, what are we supposed to do, hide?”, RD asked.
“Exactly, but we should still teach you all pyromancy.”, Twilight said.
“Can you handle that? I’m going to do some more intel gathering.”, Sunset said.
“I can, but you shouldn’t go alone.”
“I can move faster on my own, and if I do get into trouble, I’ll teleport out of there.” Without waiting for a second opinion, Sunset packed the bare escentuals and ran back out of the forest.
“Sigh, okay girls, let’s start with the basics.”
Sunset ran until she reached the treeline. Before she left, she checked around for zombies.
Seeing none, Sunset crept out of the trees and along the buildings. Sunset moved silently until she found a plant with a face in it and no guard. Sunset pulled out her knife and was about to cut into the plant, but the moment she touched it, images and sounds flooded into her mind. The plants attacking, screaming, people calling 911, children crying out for their parents, she experienced it all, and she couldn’t stop it. It was horrifying. The plants moved faster than she had ever seen. People witnessing their loved ones being taken. All animals other than humans were killed and eaten by the plants. There was one little girl and her dog trying to scare off the plants.
Slowly, Sunset managed to sift through everything and find where this all started. It was the memory of someone who lived across the street from the school. She saw her demon-self and the statue. The other girls were somewhat visible but were mostly blocked by the statue. The scene played out like Sunset remembered it, including the bright light. The person was also blinded by the light. As soon as the light dissipated, she saw that they were all gone. There was no demon, no rainbow, and no crater. The person ran outside, and shortly after that vines began to shoot up from the ground and went after everybody. She had to jump from memory to memory to find someone who wasn’t swallowed up by the vines. She found no one. The vines took over the city within hours.
Sunset couldn’t find any memories from the zombies, but there was this intelligence. It wasn’t human. “Sunset”, the entity transmitted. It didn’t say that so much as that’s what Sunset’s mind interpreted it as.
“What are you?”
“Sunset”, it called out again.
It was strangely soothing, like everything would be okay if- “No!”, Sunset screamed out. Through much will power, Sunset pulled herself from the mental space and back out to the real world. Sunset scrambled away from the vine, greatly disterbed and angered by what happened. “Pitcher plant”, Sunset growled out. She stuffed her knife back into her bag and ran into the nearest store, which was a small clothing store. Sunset was spotted by one of the guards, and she was alerted to the guard’s presence by an unearthly scream. She grabbed a pair of gloves and slipped into the shelves. She slipped the gloves and pulled out her knife as the zombie entered. This one seemed different from the last one, more intelligent. It seemed to have purpose in its movements and paid more attention to where it was looking.
Sunset waited until the zombie was facing away from her then jumped on it. Sunset jabbed her knife into its skull and used the knife to guide her flames into it, ashing it from the inside out. Sunset melded back into the shadows and waited for more zombies to arrive.
“Do you all know the basic fundamentals of fire?”, Twilight asked. Various yesses came from the other girls. “Great, that makes this easier. Now, pyromancy is that, but magic is used as the fuel and used to create heat. Let’s start out with gathering magic in our hands.” Twilight demonstrated the proper way to gather magic. The other girls followed suit and were able to gather the magic without converting it to their natural affinity. “Very good. Now, vibrate the magic until it ignites.” The girls’ success varied umongest them. Rainbow was the first to produce fire with her flames being very violent, Pinkie and Fluttershy were next with much calmer flames, Rarity had the weakest flame, but AJ wasn’t able to create one at all. “Try again. You’ll get it.”
“Agh, what’s tha ignition point of magic?”, AJ asked, frustrated.
“It’s different for each person.”
“Ah don’t think this is working for me.”
“Okay, we can try figuring out what your natural affinity is.”
“Ya mean like this?” AJ brought her hands together and formed a ball of dirt and roots.
“Yeah, like that. So, you have Earth magic. I think I have a substitute that would be just as useful as fire. Do you know what petrification is?”
“Yeah, it’s when organic matter is replaced by minerals.”
“Glad that dino obsession of yours is finally coming in handy.”, Rainbow snarked.
“You’re one to talk, mis astronaut.”
“I don’t know what either of those things are, but AJ, I can teach you how to petrify zombies.”
Not long after Sunset killed that first zombie, two more guard zombies came in, both wielding shotguns. Sunset pulled out a second knife and repeated the same action as with the first. She then took their guns and any amo they were carrying, which wasn’t a lot. So, even if attacked, only the guards have enough power to retaliate, useful.
Sunset headed towards the exit, but as she peered outside, she found more guards with various weapons including guns. “Ah, farts.” Sunset slammed the door and ran to the other door, but there were zombies there too. “Oh, screw you.” Sunset teleported to the roof and began throwing fireballs at the zombies. However, trying to light something on fire from a distance is far less effective, and now, flaming zombies were using their vines to climb up the building. “Okay, you’re getting smarter. Let’s see how smart you are.” As soon as the first zombie reached the roof, Sunset used the stab and ash trick on it. Sunset used the stab ash trick in combination with burning the vines and shooting them in the head to keep control of the situation, but the non-ashed zombies would just regenerate. Three down, twelve to go.
Sunset stabbed one zombie in the head, but instead of screaming and just trying to claw like all the other unarmed zombies, this one formed a hook with sharp thorn blades with its vines. It tried to swing at Sunset, but she caught it’s arm. “Oh, you’re an interesting one.”, Sunset said as if she just found a new variation of her favorite candy. She began ashing the zombie, but before it could reach its arm, Sunset cut off the hook and kept it on the roof. As she went around ashing zombies, Sunset periodically checked the arm to make sure it stayed just an arm.
Sunset continued to stab and ash zombies until they were down to four. As Sunset was stabbing a zombie, one snuck up behind her and bit her shoulder, ripping through her jacket and into her flesh. She could feel the zombie sucking something from her. Sunset didn’t let it go on long enough to figure it out as she ripped the zombie off her by its neck, set it ablaze, threw it into the other zombies, and bent the fire to engulf the remaining zombies.
Sunset staggered back and collapsed from the adrenaline warring off. She was low on magic and losing a lot of blood. “Sigh, I was hoping I wouldn’t need to do this.” “Hey, I need pick up.”
“What happened?”, Pinkie asked.
“I got bit, and I’m losing blood.”
“Oh no, Sunset’s going to turn into a zombie!”
“Agh, Pinkie, you sound like you’re screaming in my ear. Plus, I don't think that’s how this infection works.”
“I’ll come get you.”, Rainbow said.
“Wow, you picked that up quickly.”, Twilight said. AJ had managed to completely petrify a small tree. “That will definitely kill a zombie.”
AJ looked down at her hand and flexed it. “This is morbid.”, AJ said flatly.
Twilight couldn’t think of a thing to say to that so just patted her shoulder. Twilight walked over to Pinkie, who was sitting on the ground, doing something with her fire. “Pinkie, what are you doing?”
“Trying to turn my fire blue. Blue flames are hotter.”
“O-kay. Hey, Pinkie, can I ask you something?”
“Shoot” Twilight merely responded to Pinkie’s answer with a raised eyebrow which Pinkie picked up on. “That means go ahead.”
“Strange but okay. I’ve noticed that you guys don’t have much of a sympathetic response when dealing with the zombies even though they used to be the same species as you, and I’m kinda worried. Now, I’m asking you because my Pinkie is pretty good with psychology, and I’m hoping you are too.”
“Oh yeah, I get it. Now, I don’t know much about pony psychology, so I don’t know what we’re being compared to, but humans are scarily good at othering other humans. To us, we aren’t fighting humans. So long as we don’t think about the fact they were humans, we can incinerate as many zombies as we need to.”
“So, there’s nothing wrong with us?”
“Wrong, many things; outside of the norm besides the zombies and magic, nope.”
“That doesn’t make me feel better.”
“Haha, yeah, humans are fucked up.”
Twilight and Pinkie’s conversation was ended by the arrival of Rainbow and Sunset. Fluttershy immediately went up to them as they landed, shortly followed by everyone else. Rainbow set herself and Sunset down on the ground as Sunset was loopy from blood loss. Fluttershy started healing Sunset’s wound, but she could do very little about the lack of blood. Sunset kept moving and cuddled up to Rainbow, annoying Fluttershy. “Can someone keep her still?”
“I got it.” Rainbow repositioned herself so that she was hugging Sunset. Sunset nuzzled into Rainbow’s neck contently and settled down long enough for Fluttershy to properly heal her.
“I need water.”, Fluttershy ordered in her gentle tone, but it sounded just as commanding as one of Sunset’s in the situation. AJ ran back to the tent and grabbed several bottles of water. “Rainow, sit her up.” Rainbow did as instructed. Sunset did not appreciate that and made as such clear with displeased moans. Fluttershy took the water from AJ and gently coerced Sunset to drink.
“She’s going to be okay, right?”, Rarity asked.
“She will. She just needs food, water, and sleep.”
“I’ll put her in the tent.” AJ picked Sunset up, brought her into the tent, and took her backpack off. AJ grabbed some blankets, spread them across the ground, and placed Sunset down. Sunset was not happy about being put down and reached out for AJ. “Hey, hey, it’s okay.”, AJ reassured, then covered Sunset in a blanket before leaving the tent. “Who knew Sunset was so attention starved.” Rarity shrugged and closed the opening.
“Sunset” The plant entity was back. It was still strangely soothing, but Sunset wasn’t going to fall for it.
“No, you stay away. I saw what you did. You’re a monster.”
“Sunset”
“N-no, no”
The other girls noticed Sunset’s distress and re-entered the tent. “Fluttershy, what’s wrong with her?”, Rainbow asked. Sunset was shaking and growling.
Fluttershy knelt down and removed Sunset’s jacket to check her injury but found no sign of infection. “I don’t know.” Fluttershy pulled Sunset onto her lap and began stroking her hair. “Sunset, are you okay?”
“No, nn-o, nnn”
“Sunset, what’s wrong? We need to know what’s wrong to help.”
Suddenly, Sunset jumped up and pinned Fluttershy to the ground. Sunset was growling and snarling and did not recognize Fluttershy. The other girls jumped into action and pulled Sunset off Fluttershy. Strangely, despite her violent behavior, Sunset wasn’t actually attacking them but still tried to escape.
“Sunset! Snap out of it!”, AJ commanded, but Sunset didn’t even respond to her name.
Twilight moved in front of the thrashing Sunset and tried to use the telepathic link to communicate with her, but instead of anything coherent, Twilight was subjected to Sunset’s rabid screams and something she couldn’t identify. Sunset created the illusion plume of flame around her, forcing everyone back, and ran out of the tent and deeper into the woods. The remaining girls looked around at each other, unsure if they should go after her.
“We need to go after her!”, RD barked.
“We can’t. Ah don’t like this just as much as you do, but Sunset’s likely infected.”, AJ retorted.
“I would just like to say, I told you so.”, Pinkie said.
“This is no time for ‘I told you so’s, Pinkie. Now, if she was infected, she would have attacked us. She didn’t even use real flames, just illusions meant to scare our monkey brains.”, Rainbow barked.
“Ugh, Twilight, talk some sense inta her, would ya?”, AJ asked, exasperated.
“I think Rainbow’s right.”, Twilight stated bluntly.
Both RD and AJ turned back to Twilight with shocked expressions. “You do?”, both asked.
“Yes, Rainbow’s assessment’s spot on. We don’t know what’s wrong with Sunset, and we need to find out, but whatever’s going on with her, she clearly doesn’t want to hurt us.”
“Perhaps tha reason she ran was so she wouldn’t hurt us when she loses control.”
“Oh please, we’ve all seen enough TV to know that plan never works, well, maybe except Twi.”, RD scoffed.
AJ looked around only to see that nobody was on her side. “Oh fine, but Rarity, can ya somehow spread y’r magic armor to tha rest of us?”
“I can certainly try.”
Sunset couldn’t remember why, but she knew she had to run away but not from what. Her body hurt, but she kept running. Eventually, she collapsed from exhaustion, and her mind began to clear. There was a monster. That monster, she was running from that monster. Sunset rolled onto her back. Her mind was foggy, and she was hungry. She couldn’t remember when she last ate nor where she could get food.
Sunset laid still until a rustling caught her attention. It was an animal of some kind. Sunset pulled out a sharp object she had strapped to her leg and jumped the creature. The creature squealed and squirmed, but Sunset killed it without issue. She tried biting into it, but the fur didn’t taste good. She used the sharp object to clear away the bad tasting fur and get to the food inside.
When Sunset was mostly done with the animal, another noise demanded her attention. Sunset dropped the animal and spun around to face the noise, sharp thing in hand. Those same animals from earlier came through the trees, and Sunset raised her sharp thing to them.
“How Sunset, you’re okay. We’re not going to hurt you.”, Pinkie said.
“Sunset, it’s us. Don’t you remember us?”, Twilight asked. The red blood from the rabbit contrasted sharply with Sunset’s blue coloration, and the way it made her look kinda freaked Twilight out, but she knew she had to be strong.
Fluttershy pulled out a packet of Slimithy’s Jimmies and offered it to Sunset. “I bet you’re hungry. There’s no way a small rabbit like that could fill you up.” Fluttershy approached Sunset carefully and slowly. Fluttershy’s words had a calming effect on Sunset, and she was able to approach.
Sunset snatched the food from Fluttershy and began to run off, but RD was not about to let that happen. “Oh, no you don’t.” Rainbow ran up to Sunset and tackled her to the ground. Sunset struggled against her but some stroking of her hair calmed her down quickly. This allowed Fluttershy to come around and begin to heal Sunset. She placed her hands on Sunset’s head and began the process. Soon, Sunset’s memories came flooding back to her, and everything became clear again.
“Ugh, my head.”
“Are you back with us?”, RD asked.
“Yeah, I am.”, Sunset said. Rainbow got up off of Sunset, and she righted herself as well. “You guys look like the worlds’ strangest chandelier, and I mean so strange that it ain’t even ugly.”
“That’s one way to put it.”, Rarity said out the side of her mouth.
“So, Sunset, what happened?”, Twilight asked.
Fluttershy handed Sunset some fresh food, and Sunset began to eat as she told her story. “There’s some sort of intelligence behind the zombies, and it reached out to me. I went to cut into one of the plants to see how it would react, and the moment I touched it, my mind was flooded with the memories of the final human moments of the zombies, and that’s when the entity first reached out. Spoke isn’t the right word, but I don’t have a better one. The way the entity spoke was soothing, almost hypnotic. I can’t tell you why I reacted the way I did, but I knew I had to get farther away from the city.”
“Should we wait here until you’re recovered?”, Fluttershy asked.
“I think I’ll be okay. Plus, I need to wash up.”
Sunset finished eating, and the girls began walking back to camp and searching for a source of water. Finding water was easy for the girls with their pony ears. They ended up finding a calm stream a few hundred feet away from their campsite. Twilight made note of where the stream was in relation to camp so they could find it again. Sunset kneeled down and began cleaning herself. Her gloves and shirt also had to be cleaned. Sunset was no stranger to cleaning blood out of her clothes, whether it be hers or not, but the lack of soap or any other cleaning products made the task a bit harder.
“Hey, girls.”, Pinkie said. The girls looked up and saw what Pinkie was warning them about. The sun was coming up.
Sunset rang out her shirt, and all the girls beelined back to the tent. “We need to hide the tent.”, Sunset ordered.
As soon as they got back, AJ began to use earth magic to hide the tent underground, Rarity altered the tent so it could be underground safely, and Sunset disguised the parts that remained above ground. By the time they were done the tent looked like a dirty, mossy rock with some stemming plants growing on and around it. Rarity opened the tent, and the girls hopped inside. The tent was mostly the same shape and size, but now it was partially underground, had a crystal floor, and the air holes were now air shafts. There were also now footholds in the subterranean part of the wall to act as a ladder.
The girls curled up the best they could on the hard crystal. They gained protection from the frigid ground but also lost the softness of the dirt. “Next supply raid, let's find matting of some kind.”, Sunset ordered. Feelings of agreement spread across the link. Sunset took this period of calm to examine the mental link. It seemed to be in a state of change. Sunset tried to visualize the spell. It looked like a web or a “it’s all connected” conspiracy board with all the girls having strings connecting them to each other. It felt nice, safe. The strings seemed to be strengthening themselves. Sunset looked for any sign of a central point and found one. She was the central point, and she was subconsciously causing the strings to change. It was then Sunset noticed the entity’s voice, but it was being blocked out. So, that’s what’s going on.
With a final spell to rouse her once the sun went down, Sunset closed her eyes, confident that whatever magic they had would keep that thing out of her head. Unfortunately, their heads were not the only thing they needed to keep the entity out of as zombies began to rise out of their vines and march into the forest.
