The richest pony in the world cowered under her own desk and fought back the sobs of fear. It was a big desk, so she had plenty of room. Her evening phone calls lay unanswered on the floor where she’d dropped the receiver.
She wished and hoped and silently begged that the market analyst’s voice would shut up.
Someone else shuffled around the office. Moaning slightly.
If her years in the Rich mansion had taught her anything, it was that servants were there to deal with the difficult stuff. She had no servants.
If her years in business school had taught her anything, it was that a stern eye and an unbreakable force of personality would see her through the toughest times. Here, they’d get her killed.
If her years turning Barnyard Bargains – a shabby little store with more history than ambition – into a global chain had taught her anything, it was that the world would fall over itself to give her anything she wanted. She was completely sealed in.
The emergency shutters had snapped over the windows. The only light – her capsized desk lamp – fell across the awards and trophy displays on the walls, casting fuzzy shadows of a shambling thing moving through the harsh contrast.
No one knew she was here. No one was coming to save her. No one would even realize she was gone until well after the fact.
CEO Diamond Tiara – top of the Equestrian 500, interspecies success story, owner of a hundred bought-out brands – bit her hoof to stifle the screams. She’d known something had gone wrong with the security when the shutters slammed out the dying sunset light, but she’d merely pushed a button, left an internal recorded message for the guards, and then got on with the paperwork. She hadn’t realized how bad it was until her assistant walked in and she’d looked up to demand what Twist thought she was –
The thing that had been her assistant finally shuffled round the desk. All it had to do was lean down now and reach right into the crevice.
Diamond Tiara stared in red-eyed horror.
The thing leaned down like a blood moon. The blank white eyes, the lifeless gape, the meaningless moan…
“Please!” Diamond Tiara began to scrape as far away from the thing as possible, but all it had to do was ease a grasping leg towards her –
Whereupon, the door burst open.
Someone grunted with prodigious effort, as though throwing around earth pony strength.
A mass of glass, mahogany, and golden trophies slammed into the thing and sent it sprawling. Diamond Tiara shut her eyes, then gasped as hooves gripped her and lifted her out.
“Don’t-hurt-me-don’t-hurt-me-don’t-hurt-me!”
“It’s me, ya numbskull!”
Her ear twitched at the accent. “Apple Bloom!?”
“Go on, git!”
Thrown unceremoniously ahead, Diamond Tiara’s panic took over and propelled her into a gallop. She barely noticed the door smashed clean off its frame, though part of her recoiled in shocked outrage. The platinum-foiled hinges alone had cost a fortune!
She bolted two yards down the corridor before Apple Bloom grabbed her by the tail and yanked her back. “This way, for Pete’s sake!”
“Why not this –?”
A groan up ahead answered her question.
“Come on! The others are waitin’!”
Unable to think, unable to resist, Diamond Tiara allowed herself to be led by a farmer she could outbid at auction a billion times over.
Ponyville – the new Ponyville – prepared for bed.
The old town still had cottages made of things scraped out of a barn and mud field, shaped by skilled artisans and builders into picturesque timber shelters. Postcard-worthy, even. More modern buildings – the bowling alley, the crystal castle, the communications spire of Diamond Tiara’s early technological campaigns – stuck out like tiaras in dirt jars. The town had welcomed them all the same.
Then Diamond Tiara had found her will.
Manehattan Business Academy was used to ponies with niche ideas, sensible heads for numbers, and a quiet sense of community and tradition. That was because most of its attendees had already been rich, well-connected, and basically born in the right cities to know not to rock the gravy boat – if not actually mix metaphors.
Whereas Diamond Tiara had been the heiress of a department store from a town the mapmakers occasionally forgot about, even with national heroes residing there (because only one of them had been a businesspony, and she’d had the sense to specialize). Merely getting in had required forcing herself through qualification schools bigger and tougher than the old Ponyville Schoolhouse, which was basically a room with a bell on it.
“Rich in name, poor in sense.” “The Hicksville Hustler.” “Cider the Road.” “Go back to Phonyville, loser.” She’d heard them all in the business school corridors. Sometimes even in class.
Instead of buckling, she’d bucked back.
Passed her exams with flying colours, most of them red with rage.
Gone back to “Hicksville”, i.e. Ponyville.
Made jaws drop.
Who laughed now at the new and improved urbanized offshoot of Ponyville, a town she’d expanded upon solely to make way for her vision? Who laughed now, with Barnyard Bargains becoming a household name overnight? Who laughed now, with the magicking from nowhere of the Equestrian Dream Shopping Mall? Who laughed now, faced with the adjoining tallest building in the world – the Tiara Tower?
Who laughed now she’d conquered the world!?
Tonight, the rest of Ponyville quietly ignored it. Shutters shut, stalls were packed away, bedtime stories were read, and married lives enjoyed an evening to themselves. None of them worried about the strange and crazy things that “See-oh” Diamond Tiara cooked up.
If the mall and the tower were in lockdown, well, they’d seen the building try strange lights and magical defence tests before. No one was all that surprised, though some shook their heads. Postcards of Ponyville, and guided tours that eroded the grassy streets to dirt… They’d been her ideas. For Ponyville. She just didn’t get it.
A few families worried about their missing relatives, but overtime was a common thing now. The first worriers would go and complain in a few hours.
Besides, if anything bad happened…
Princess Twilight watched over the town. True, she’d never stopped Diamond Tiara’s strange crusade, but neither had she let her get away with her stranger ideas. All would be well that ended well.
The Equestrian Dream Shopping Mall darkened in the dusk. Tiara Tower was consumed by shadow.
Slowly, subtly, and secretly, the apocalypse set seed…
Apple Bloom caught up with Diamond Tiara and – teeth first – grabbed her tail to slow her down.
“AARGH! Apple Bloom! Let go of my –!”
A moan. Further down the corridor. A shadow loomed round the corner.
Without ceremony, Apple Bloom threw her into a side office, leaped through, grabbed and gagged Diamond Tiara before she could scream, and – standing them both upright – slammed her own back against the wall. Ear cocked.
Diamond Tiara stopped struggling when the moan drew closer.
Under the door, a dark patch shuffled by. Apple Bloom held her breath. Her grip was too tight; she could feel Diamond Tiara’s ribs shaking.
The dark patch moved on. The moaning died away.
In the dim red glow of the emergency lights, they both looked out over desks, laptops, and swivel chairs arranged in cubicles on either side like a horse stable. Even the carpet was patterned to look like hay-strewn velvet.
Then Diamond Tiara threw her off with an offended grunt. “Next time, tell me before you do that!”
“You’re welcome,” muttered Apple Bloom.
“What in heaven’s name is going on!?”
“Ah was hopin’ you could tell me.”
She could see Diamond Tiara’s lips morph around the accusing question. After all, normally Apple Bloom wouldn’t be here. She preferred to meet Diamond Tiara on literal home territory.
The distant moans through the air ducts cut the question short.
Anger switched to panic. Apple Bloom had seen it enough times in town. Mothers with difficult births, or ponies needing first aid before the ambulance cart came for them, or families coping with a loss.
Besides, Diamond Tiara reeked of fear.
“What did I do to deserve this!?” she whined in horror. “Why those things, why now, why meeee!? I didn’t want this!”
“Tone it down a bit!” hissed Apple Bloom. “You want us to get caught?”
Hysterics crept up on Diamond Tiara. “This was supposed to be a normal! Day! A nice cup of coffee, a day doing reports, a, a – Coffee! I need coffee!”
“Diamond Tiara…”
“A white mocha and pumpkin spice Cloppuccino with chocolate chip cookie crumbs, triple chocolate – No, an ice cream! Millionaire Black Diamond Tiara with crystallized pineapple and six drizzles of syrup – Cane Style, Sacchra Bleu, Fizzy Lifting –”
“Diamond Tiara!”
“I need something! I can’t deal without something! Tell me you brought something! Maybe there’s a staff kitchen nearby! Staff eat ice cream and coffee, right!?”
“Diamond Tiara, put a goshdarn sock in it!”
It took all of Apple Bloom’s self-control not to smack the girl silly. But she was good at self-control. The Apple family learned it sooner or later; losing your temper with an apple tree or a pig was a waste of good feeling.
More gently, she said, “Food and drink ain’t gonna save ya this time. Now, those things are crawlin’ all over the place. We need to get you outta here like yesterd– Where are you goin’!?”
She hurried after Diamond Tiara, who’d wandered through the door at the end into what turned out to be a sizeable kitchen. Apple Bloom cannoned into the back of her.
There was a large pony lying on the kitchen floor.
Both of them stared down at it.
The red emergency lights left a fire lurking in the cupboards, on the faucets of the sink, across the gleam of the fridge. Waiting to pounce.
Apple Bloom’s famous memory for names struck gold. Truffle Shuffle. Big stallion. Read a lot. Had been very fond of Cheerilee when he was a kid. Nicknamed the “Teacher’s Pet”. She’d gone with Granny Smith once to help his wife with a difficult childbirth; the Apples had been deeply rooted in the community for generations.
Less expected were the sequins and platform shoes.
Backup dancer?
She hesitated.
“He’s…” whispered Diamond Tiara, “…bleeding.”
Now Apple Bloom’s practised eye took in the cut across his cheek and the bruises on his legs – where the sequined bodysuit had torn. Looked like a struggle.
“I’ll get help!”
The stupidity of this caught Apple Bloom before she caught Diamond Tiara’s sleeve. “The heck?”
“He needs medical attention! I know where the first aid –”
“Are you plum loco!?”
Diamond Tiara irritably brushed her off and threw open a cupboard in the corner. A second later, she was back with the kit tucked under her armpit.
Apple Bloom blocked her way. “He’s a zombie!”
“They’re not zombies! Let me through! This is standard policy in life-threatening –”
“Well, what are they, then?”
“What?”
“What are they if they ain’t zombies?”
Diamond Tiara chewed her lip, thinking. “They’re… ill?”
Apple Bloom did not dignify that statement. “Look, put the kit back till Ah give the all-clear, got it? Ah’ve seen more than you just gettin’ here.”
“Ex-cuse me! This is my employee, in my building, and you should be doing what I say –”
A second later, Apple Bloom followed her horrified gaze.
Truffle had opened his eyes. They were pure white.
For a ground-bound pony, he moved like a snake. She barely had time to tackle Diamond Tiara through the door and back into the office when the door rebounded off his hooves. Both mares sprawled on the carpet as the crawling thing slowly eased itself onto all fours, its movements stiff and jerky, its mouth drooling, its body radiating a chill that sliced across the room and made the nerves in Apple Bloom’s skin crackle with ice…
Diamond Tiara whimpered.
The ice melted. With heat came strength.
Apple Bloom seized her and threw her into a gallop first, then hurried after her as the spent Truffle shuffled in their wake.
They burst into the corridor, breathing heavily. Diamond Tiara was just straight-up panicking. Apple Bloom was fighting to master her own.
A random zombie spotted them. Smart suit ruffled. It let out a slightly more interested moan.
Nudging her current ward, Apple Bloom shouted, “This way!”
“No, that way!” Diamond Tiara pointed down the next bend along. “Security booth! Remove the lockdown! Phones!”
Snap decision.
Apple Bloom let her lead the way, but as soon as they heard more moans, she drew level. “Don’t turn a corner too fast, and don’t let them touch you,” she said. “Ah’ve seen it. Curse. One touch and it’s all over.”
“Thought they… had to bite you… to spread it?”
“Don’t. Touch. Nothin’.”
Both of them burst through another stable-like office, and this one suddenly bloomed with cubicle-bound zombies. Rows and rows of rising white eyes. Moans like mockeries of office chatter. Hunched backs turning for flailing limbs.
At one heart-stopping moment, Diamond Tiara halted in front of the door opposite.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOIN’!?”
“Security card.” Diamond Tiara held up the card hanging from the lanyard around her neck.
A beep. A red light turned green next to the door. Diamond Tiara shoved her way in, followed by Apple Bloom slamming the door behind them.
“We clear!?” Apple Bloom shouted as the thuds started.
To her relief, the room was empty. Screens lit it up with unnatural blankness. All of them showed…
Apple Bloom was a grown mare now, but the sight of all those bodies in all those rooms on all those monitors dropped her back to a smaller, weaker fillyhood. Of course, Tiara Tower employed dozens if not hundreds of folks from all over, but for a moment, an entire army swarmed the cameras and could have pushed right through to the security booth itself.
Don’t lose your head, she told herself firmly. Don’t. Lose. Your. Head.
The years came back in time to see Diamond Tiara flick the phone over with her nose and tap buttons with her hooftips.
“Hello!? Hello!?” Diamond Tiara shouted into the receiver. “Emergency Dispatch E6-sub-15-Code-Rainbow-Cookie! Princess-class alert! Send a message to Twilight immediately to – Hello!? CAN ANYONE HEAR ME!?”
“What is it?” Apple Bloom hurried to join her, or possibly to stop her from fainting. The look on her face…
“The line’s dead! I don’t get it! I used the phone just fine in my office!”
The thuds of the door became more urgent.
“I don’t understand what’s going on!” shrieked Diamond Tiara, panicking again. “It’s like someone’s cut it! And where’s the security team!? Why isn’t anything working the way it’s supposed to work!?”
To Apple Bloom’s surprise, Diamond Tiara froze in shock, then dived for the drawers and first open-and-shut them in order, then threw them out and riffled through the scant papers. At the door, something clicked; the lock bending out of shape?
“What in tarnation are you –?”
“Where is it!? WHERE IS IT!?” Diamond Tiara kicked the last filing cabinet over; there was terror in her tantrum. “It’s supposed to be HERE! I filed it MYSELF! Someone’s TAKEN IT! It’s the only! Possible! EXPLANATION! AAAAAAARRRGGGHH!”
The panic crept through Apple Bloom; she pushed back, hard. “Pull yourself together, for Pete’s sake! We got a situation here!”
The nervous wreck that was Diamond Tiara flung herself at Apple Bloom. “What are we going to DO!?”
“Forget the call. Let’s just focus on gettin’ outta here.”
“HOW!? WE’RE LOCKED IN!”
Apple Bloom remembered her sister’s lessons. And Big Mac’s patience. And Granny Smith. Stubborn Apple pride: that would see her through.
She pointed. “The air ducts. Reckon we could get through ’em?”
The cover gave no trouble to a mare who could buck almost as well as Applejack now. Apple Bloom crawled first. It wasn’t as cramped as she’d feared.
In they went.
By contrast, Diamond Tiara complained behind her. “It’s too tight. It’s too – ugh! – too dusty. I can’t breathe.”
“It’s gonna be OK. Take easy breaths.” Apple Bloom used her special “talking-to-spooked-ponies” voice – another Applejack trick. “See? Just tell me where to go and we’ll get you there. Can you do that?”
“Uh… yeah, left… uh…”
“Know the way?”
“Of course! The vents double as emergency exits. My own idea.” A hint of smugness there. Well, it was better than panicking.
“That why it’s so freakishly big?” asked Apple Bloom, keeping her talking.
“In hindsight… they could’ve been… bigger…”
“Easy breaths. Bet we’re high up. Bet they can’t reach us in here.” Though she could hear their moans in the various rooms they passed and catch glimpses of white eyes through the grates.
“They can follow.”
“Not fast enough.” She hated turning the corners; the jagged edges bit into her flanks. “We’re gonna b–”
Something rammed the side of their vent. Buckled it. Another rammed the other side, leaving a massive dent.
“WHAT-WAS-THAT-WHAT-WAS-THAT-WHAT-WAS-THAT!?”
“Shush!” Apple Bloom caught a glimpse of wings through a nearby grate.
Pegasus employees. Crud…
“They can’t reach us!” she shouted back, hoping this was true. “Move your caboose!”
The ramming pegasi followed them along the chute until the two of them passed into another room, only for more bangs to herald new pegasi picking up where they’d left off. The smooth panels of the chute became buckled mini-mountain ranges. Diamond Tiara yelped as a bang gouged into her side.
A junction: coming up. “Left or right?” shouted Apple Bloom.
“Uh, um… Left!”
Apple Bloom turned and nearly headbutted the zombie waiting for her. Drool and teeth greeted her.
“Whoa!”
“Right! Right!”
Diamond Tiara screamed as the crawling zombie lunged for her tail. She tried to gallop-crawl, flopping in her haste. Other branches off the main chute echoed with moans that were definitely not coming from outside the vents. Metallic vibrations went up Apple Bloom’s elbows.
Up ahead, past the branches, the chute ended with a fan. It was spinning. Like a blender.
“Shoot!” Apple Bloom hesitated.
“No, keep going! That’s the room we want!”
Trusting despite herself, Apple Bloom hurried on till she was yards from the blades. Even from here, her hair and bow wafted. No way she could move past it –
Then the chute lurched.
“The heck!?” she cried.
“We’re too heavy! The supports!”
Apple Bloom’s quick thinking only needed a glance up.
She punched it.
The support holding up the vent snapped. As did the chute. The fan vanished upwards and metal split as Apple Bloom’s farm-trained limbs deliberately tore it, then she rolled out and hit a desk. Diamond Tiara rolled into her.
Dizziness bolted. Apple Bloom was on her hooves at once. Another security booth? Only this one had static on all monitors and one laptop on the desk. The ventilation fan spun on unconcernedly overhead. Half the chute lay like a toy tunnel on the floor. The other half sagged down like a fun water slide. And the moaning sounded much too loud.
Quickly, she dived onto the end of the sagging chute, crumpling it. She pounded down hard, making sure nothing bigger than a hoof could squeeze through. One did.
She backed off sharpish and bolted for the door, threw it open, forgot it was locked electronically, heard the ping of metal behind her as said lock flew off, and came face to face with a dozen surprised zombies.
“SHOOT!” She slammed it shut and rushed for one of the desks, rammed it against the door as a barricade, and held firm whilst the unsecured exit pushed inward, inch by inch. Hooves reached through the gap, stretching for her. If she touched even one…
Looked up. “What in the heck are you doin’!?”
“Turning the fan off! Let me log in!” Diamond Tiara rapid-fire tapped at the laptop, the four-button pad rattling.
“The heck!?” Apple Bloom dug all hooves into the floor.
“It’s electronic! I can bypass security! Just… ugh, what’s the password!?”
Diamond Tiara typed over and over. The stars crossed the password entry field… then reset with a red X beeping at her.
“HURRY UP!”
“I’M TRYING TO REMEMBER MY PASSWORD! DON’T RUSH ME!”
Apple Bloom tried to feel sympathetic. It was harder than pushing against the increasingly loud moans and a desk barely wide enough to keep her out of touching range.
“Got it!” Diamond Tiara’s elation turned to outrage. “Load! Load already! WHY DOES IT HAVE TO TAKE SO LONG TO LOAD!? Ah, there we are.”
The buckled chute began to widen its rips. If the zombies behind it kept piling up…
“Turning off the fan,” Diamond Tiara murmured to herself.
“Doin’ great. If you could do it a bit faster…?”
“Where is it!? WHERE IS IT!?”
Roaring with rage, Apple Bloom backed off briefly and then rammed into the desk, crumpling it. Several zombies were knocked over by the transferred momentum, back into the corridor outside. In the brief respite, she grabbed the fallen half of the chute that was not filled with zombies, kicked the desk aside, and wedged the chute against the slamming door and a section of ceiling until the groaning metal stuck fast.
Then she rounded on the other half of the chute and rammed the desk into it, plugging it against the oozing hooves of the zombies.
“ARE YOU DONE YET!?”
“I-CAN’T-FIND-THE-APPLICATION!” Tears fled down Diamond Tiara’s cheeks. She was hyperventilating.
“For cryin’ ou–” Apple Bloom swallowed her words.
Idea.
A moment later, the laptop flew through the air and crashed into the fan, exploding in a shower of circuitry and scrap that collapsed out of the wall, allowing a big square hole for their escape.
“You threw my –!”
Diamond Tiara didn’t finish that sentence because Apple Bloom threw her next, then wrenched the half of the chute free from the door and ceiling – the zombies promptly burst in – slammed it down as a ramp, galloped up it as it sagged under her weight, then rodeo-leapt off the collapsing thing and caught the edge of the hole. She pulled herself through just as the first zombie’s teeth snapped at her tail.
Both mares clambered through the next chute.
Freedom beckoned.
The employees of Tiara Tower shambled down corridors, blundered through doorways, reacted to screams that were soon silenced. They paid little attention to each other, bumping and jostling their way around.
A few managed to stumble across their own breakrooms. There, they stood still and seemed stumped. Two stood next to the water cooler. One stood at the sink. Several stood in front of sofas as though about to sit down.
It was as if the things remembered what the rooms were for.
Many uneventful minutes passed.
This air vent bulged slightly.
Then Diamond Tiara said, “I need to step outside.”
“You OK?” Apple Bloom’s voice echoed.
“I’m OK. I’m OK! I’ve just got a busy lifestyle, and my office is ruined, and my tower is overrun with z– And I have no idea if I’ll be alive in twenty-four hours, but sure! I’m abso-positivi-lootly A… O… K! Do you mind!?”
“Er… sure?”
The grate burst open. Diamond Tiara flopped out, grunted when she hit the floor, stood up, prepared to scream the trauma out of herself, and saw white eyes.
“GYAAAAH!”
Snips stopped shining the flashlight under his own chin and switched it off. “Oh, sorry. Uh, Boss.”
“Snips!? Snails!?”
The other mall cop saluted. “We were trying a new trick we thought up!”
“What!?”
Overhead, Apple Bloom cried, “Geronimo!” and dropped down much more gracefully.
“You’re alive!?” cried Diamond Tiara, not keeping up.
Snips and Snails looked at each other.
“We’re gonna say yes?” tried Snails.
“Oho, you’ll like this, Boss!” Snips chuckled. “See, we figured we could slip past the zombies by pretending we were zombies too.”
Apple Bloom straightened up, dusting herself off. “You guys can’t be serious.”
“No, look! See, when Snails shines the light under his face – like so –”
Diamond Tiara recoiled, grimacing.
“– his eyes shine white, just like one of them.”
“Now all we need is to shuffle around moaning,” continued Snails happily, “and radiating an undeathly chill wherever we go, and we’re makers.”
“Made,” corrected Snips. “We’re made.”
“Made of what?”
“Snails?” said Diamond Tiara, her eyes shut.
“Yeah?”
“Lower the flashlight.”
“Oh, sorry.” The button clicked.
Once she felt safe enough to see, Diamond Tiara pushed past them, grumbling.
Yet another office. Tiara Tower was full of them, doing all the mind-bending bean-counting that she only found out about in one slick summary a day. Thankfully, this space seemed free of zombies. Although not unoccupied.
Apart from Snips and Snails – who she’d hired more out of bored pity than any professional enthusiasm, as they were prone to being Snips and Snails on duty – there were three others in the bureaucratic space, two of whom went straight for her – she flinched –
“Apple Bloom!”
They whooshed right past her. Surprised and a little disappointed, Diamond Tiara spun round to see them both floor Apple Bloom in a tight hug.
“You’re OK!” cried Sweetie Belle, crying her eyes out.
“Not that we were worried,” added Scootaloo, “but good job.”
“We were so scared!”
“I had to comfort Sweetie Belle, like, ten times while you were gone.”
“Nuh uh, if anything I had to comfort you, like, five times. Six if you count the hiccups.”
“That’s nonsense!”
At which point, Diamond Tiara turned away before she started grinding her teeth. She had bigger things to worry about.
Lastly, Mayor Silver Spoon hurried over but didn’t jump into the hug Diamond Tiara had half-expected, half-hoped for. Her usually tight ponytail was unravelling, and she had a chipped lens on her glasses, but otherwise no harm done.
“I wasn’t sure if I’d see you again,” squealed Silver Spoon. “The spread happened so fast! I didn’t know if you’d escaped. Bump, thump, sugar… lump…”
Diamond Tiara backed off slightly. “I’m fine,” she said stiffly. “I’m not a child anymore, Silver Spoon.”
“Of course not! What do you need? A business plan? A candlelit bath – I know lavender’s your favorite. How about a new cart when this is all over? We could get a DaCorsa.”
“Silver Spoon! We’ve got a crisis on our hooves!” Diamond Tiara chafed at the infantilism of it all. “Another Celestona will do fine.”
“Great! I’ll get right on it!”
Diamond Tiara marvelled at the confidence of a political associate who’d apparently forgotten the phone network was down. Then again, gifts among friends had always worked when the crisis was far, far away. And mostly Silver Spoon’s. Running a town as adventure-prone and Twilight-centric as Ponyville was not for the faint-hearted.
Diamond Tiara could feel the mocking stares of the others.
“Is she serious?” asked Scootaloo.
“Yeah,” agreed Sweetie Belle. “Celestonas are so out of fashion right now. What? Well, they are.”
Snips saluted boldly. “Boss, you can’t solve a zombie apocalypse with fast carts!”
“Apoca-what, now?” asked Apple Bloom, sitting on a desk off to the side.
Nearby, Snails experimented with Horse Code against the whiteboard, flicking the light on and off. “Yeah, unless you could run ’em over or something.”
At this, Snips hummed thoughtfully. “Nah, you’d never get it round the corners. Listen, ladies: it’s pretty obvious Snails and I are the only zombie experts here.”
“We read comics,” explained Snails.
“The best comics,” corrected Snips, scowling. “We’re comic experts.”
Scootaloo whispered something like, “You got that right,” which made Sweetie Belle and Silver Spoon giggle into their hooves.
Regardless, Snips swelled with self-importance. “And as comic experts, we say that you need a foolproof, failsafe, and surefire way of dealing with those zombies.”
“Removing the brain,” explained Snails, “or destroying the head.”
“And then setting them all on fire,” added Snips.
“And a waxing.”
“Vaccine.” Snips coughed at him.
“Yeah, that. Vaccining ’em good.”
Sweetie Belle raised her hoof.
“Yes?” said Snips dully.
“OK,” she sighed. “How do you propose we do all that? We don’t have any weapons or matches, and anyway wouldn’t we have to get close enough to touch them, or set the whole building on fire by mistake?”
Diamond Tiara cried out, “No one is setting fire to anything in my building!”
Snails shrugged. “Then how about we wait in here till they run out of steam?”
“Can they run out?” asked Scootaloo.
“I’m game. I can wait, like, forever.”
“Everything’s gotta stop sometime,” said Snips knowledgeably.
“Yeah, right,” spat Diamond Tiara.
They stared at her.
Furiously, she cried, “We’re not going to wait here all night! What if those things find us? How safe is this room? You can barricade the doors and plug up the hole in the vent, but sooner or later they’ll break through. And then we’re completely trapped inside!”
“Ah agree,” piped up Apple Bloom. The other two Cutie Mark Crusaders glanced at her in surprise. “Means we gotta skedaddle.”
Snips and Snails shuffled uncomfortably. They didn’t enjoy contradicting their superiors, which in theory included everyone, but specifically not superiors who could cut their pay.
“Aha!” boomed Snips. “And how do we know they won’t escape too?”
Snails nodded. “And the whole building’s in lockdown.”
“We didn’t trigger it,” added Snips, just in case.
“Ahem,” coughed Silver Spoon. “You’re forgetting Princess Twilight Sparkle. She can solve this whole thing. All we have to do is explain everything.”
Wretchedly, Diamond Tiara corrected her. “We can’t. Communications are down.”
“Down?”
“They went down not too long ago. We’ve got no way of contacting anyone outside. Anyway, I don’t think anyone would care if Tiara Tower went dead overnight. They’d probably just think I’d messed something up.”
“But that’s ridiculous!”
Small though it was, Scootaloo’s “Is it?” slid through Diamond Tiara’s pride like a hot needle. Ponyville had traded plenty of jokes at her tower’s experimental expense.
“Anyway,” sniffed Silver Spoon, adjusting her glasses, “so there’s no rescue, no communications, and no chance of staying here.”
A thought struck Diamond Tiara. “What about the saferoom?”
Sadly, Snails shook his head. “It’s an un-saferoom now.”
“What happened?”
“We were fine till the one zombie sneaked in.”
“You let it in, you moron!” chided Snips.
“I couldn’t see it! There was a crowd! You don’t lock crowds of ponies out! That’s who the saferoom’s meant to be safe for! I didn’t know!”
Apple Bloom piped up again, “Princess Twilight can cure it.”
The other Cutie Mark Crusaders murmured fresh agreement, Sweetie Belle demurely. “Yeah! If anypony can help those zombified ponies, it’s the princess. Meanwhile, I could help lift the main entrance and exit barriers with my magic.”
“You can’t,” said Diamond Tiara fiercely, bristling at this lack of respect for her defences. “Those aren’t ordinary barriers.”
The room sank into mutinous silence. Outside, the faintest of shuffling noises reminded them that they weren’t alone.
“I had them specially commissioned from Saddle Arabia. They’re made of a cursed metal alloy, part-nihilium. Negates magic.”
“Meaning…?” pressed Scootaloo.
“Meaning no magic is getting through there!”
“What exactly did you need that for?”
“Anti-magic defense, of course!” Privately, Diamond Tiara added, Because I make a lot of enemies. Because I’m a technology leader. Because the first time I built a mall, some enchanted beast from the Everfree Forest tore it down and no one lifted a hoof to help! Because I’m the one in control here, not you!
She needed to hit something. She wanted to step outside the room and scream, unwise as that was. She barely held herself back because somewhere along the route to her mouth, the heat would warp the words she wanted into complete spluttering gibberish.
The others seemed unimpressed by her attention to plan-thwarting detail. Silver Spoon looked lost. Scootaloo glared at the shutters that should have overlooked Ponyville’s familiar rooftops.
Except…
Apple Bloom patted Diamond Tiara on the shoulder. “Got a minute?”
Bewildered, Diamond Tiara followed her to a corner while the other five ponies started bickering amongst themselves. Despite her power and riches and a lifetime of ordering others about, Diamond Tiara hung her head, feeling as though she were back at school again and wondering what she’d done wrong.
Apple Bloom’s face, though, was gentle around the eyes. When she spoke, it was confidential.
“You holdin’ up OK?”
Diamond Tiara swelled with injured pride. Apple Bloom noticed, and the gentleness hardened.
“Ah gotta ask! See, the gals and Ah… Well, you’d been gone a long time. We’re used to adventurin’ and stuff by now. Silver Spoon and the boys have seen their fair share too in Ponyville. You, though? Don’t take it personal, but you keep away from dangerous stuff like this.”
“You’ve clearly never been in a board meeting.”
“Ah’m serious.”
“Look, if you’ve just come to gloat about how they’d sooner listen to you first, then save the pity party for –”
“Ah ain’t sayin’ that. All Ah’m sayin’ is this: it’s just us now. They need somepony to look up to. It can be you. But you gotta keep your stuff together. You gotta trust ’em. You can’t keep pullin’ ’em down all the time. You wanna get ’em on your side.”
“Yeah, right. And why would they do that? None of them trust me, not even your friends. They think I’m a joke!”
“Ah trust you,” said Apple Bloom simply.
It was a while before she realized she’d have to pick up the conversation again, so she added, “Got a plan?”
Eventually, Diamond Tiara found her tongue. “Me!? You’re the one they’d trust over me!”
“Ah don’t know a thing about this place. Anyway, a simple farmer savin’ the day in Tiara Tower? Nah, who’d buy it? But the CEO Diamond Tiara would be a different story.”
This time, Diamond Tiara chewed her lip.
Imagine it’s happening a long way off. She couldn’t cope so close to reality, so close to Apple Bloom’s unmoveable confidence.
Apple Bloom patted her on the shoulder. “You gotta keep it together. Lead, don’t bleed. That’s all Ah ask. And then this is all over. Can you do that?”
Zombies snuffled outside the nearby door. Diamond Tiara gulped. Sometimes, a situation was so dark and grim that even a black rod looked bright and cheerful. After all, what could be worse than…?
She forced herself not to think it. No. Diamond Tiara was a survivor. She wasn’t a quitter. Grab them by the profits. And other business mantras.
“OK,” she said. Not with high confidence, but it was better than nothing.
To the rest of the group – who died down at the sight of Apple Bloom behind her – she announced, “Here’s the plan…”
Phase One: Shopping Spree.
If Tiara Tower was the queen’s throne, then the Equestrian Dream Shopping Mall was the queendom itself.
Where Tiara Tower had been cramped offices glowing red with the official emergency, the mall remained a blaze of PR-friendly colours fit for Hearth’s Warming. Vast caverns of riches warmed the visitors, a hundred stores soundlessly shouted greetings in a thousand products, storeys and stalls and escalators and elevators waited upon honoured guests like top quality servants. Tiara Tower itself opened onto an indoor plaza with fountains and statues of the six Elements of Harmony, in a rare case where Diamond Tiara had persuaded Twilight to raise the locals’ spirits (and interest in the mall).
Infested with zombies.
Most wore staff suits. One wore a giant banana promotional costume.
Even from the cramped air vent, it was a sight to take the breath away, either through awe or out of terror that the nearby zombies might hear.
Crouching next to a ground-level grate, Diamond Tiara worried over the plan in her mind, terrified of errors.
First, she’d said, we need to lure the zombies away from our objective. Snips, Snails: as the, uh, experts, you’re officially in charge there.
Impressively, they hadn’t argued or resisted. If anything, they’d leaped at the chance. Then again, maybe they were just too dumb to be scared.
She watched the opposite grate avidly. The team had split up – reluctantly, in Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo’s case, as the plan meant they weren’t with Apple Bloom – and three grates waited for their cue.
A zombie passed way too close to the vent, eclipsing the mall. Diamond Tiara drew back at once, stifling a gasp. The light returned through the slits.
“I-I can’t do this,” she hissed to Apple Bloom. “Er, I’m sick.”
She faked a cough.
Apple Bloom’s eyebrow faked surprise.
On the other hoof, Silver Spoon cooed over her at once, possibly with fake cheer. “Poor Di! She ought to stay here till we’ve done the job. It’s only fair.”
Cursing Silver Spoon’s bad acting or bad good acting, Diamond Tiara switched tracks. “Do you remember the plan? I suddenly don’t remember the plan! Oh, the pain of a stress-induced anaemia.”
“Amnesia,” hissed Silver Spoon.
“You see? It’s spreading!”
Apple Bloom shushed them as a moan sounded too close. They waited, hunkered down, for a few seconds.
“Stick to the plan,” she ordered the other two. “We’re countin’ on you, ‘Di’.”
“Yeah, you’re a hero!” cooed Silver Spoon.
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far…” Diamond Tiara waited to see if they would.
“Naw, me neither,” muttered Apple Bloom. She rounded on them. “Job first, pers’nal issues later.”
Diamond Tiara suddenly wondered how Apple Bloom had ended up in the tower to begin with. Not that it hadn’t bothered her since the start, but it had ranked about one-gazillionth on her priorities list at the time.
“Personal?” she repeated.
Apple Bloom’s voice might have been matter-of-fact, or it might have been scathing. “Just pretend for now you’re doin’ a bit o’ community work for the good of ponydom, or somethin’.”
“Um…”
“Keep it together.”
“Hey!” snapped Silver Spoon. “You don’t get to boss her around!”
“Yeah, lay off.” Diamond Tiara knew she was going to regret that later. She regretted it now. Compound interest was working by the second.
Silver Spoon nodded eagerly. “That’s right. Di is very sensitive. She once told me about her mom and dad –”
“And you can lay off too, Your Mayorness!”
The hurt and shock in Silver Spoon’s face wasn’t worth it. Diamond Tiara wished she could start this whole thing all over again, preferably from birth onwards. She’d do things differently, especially her childhood.
How did Apple Bloom manage it? If she looked any cooler, she’d outfreeze the zombies’ own undeathly chill. Whereas Diamond Tiara felt like a melting pot explosion in extreme slow motion.
Opposite, hooves finally waved behind the grate. Apple Bloom waved back.
“That’s the signal,” she whispered.
They waited.
“Did they forget?” Silver Spoon sniffed.
They waited.
“For cryin’ out –” began Apple Bloom.
The grate opposite burst open.
Snips and Snails had been hired as mall cops, not as actors. Their shamble was a shambles. Their moans would elicit groans. Their blank faces kept twitching and glancing about as though waiting for a critic to throw tomatoes at them. The flashlights in their hooves were completely wasted and kept wavering on and off their chins.
Snails had even forgotten his lines. “Ooga booga.”
“No, it’s more like ‘oooooo’,” corrected Snips in an undertone. “How are you gonna sell it if you can’t do it right?”
Around them and above them, the zombies paused. They seemed confused. Definitely sensing something in the two clowns’ direction, but not sure if it was what they were after. Maybe this silly plan might work after all…
Then the nearest zombie lunged forward with shocking speed. Snips leaped onto Snail’s neck and held on tight like the world’s fattest good luck charm.
“I don’t think they’re buying it!” wailed Snails.
As one, the zombies lurched their way. Screaming, the two broke out into a gallop. Well, at first it was screaming, then –
“Yoohoo! Come get it while it’s hot!”
“Eat my dust, dusty!”
The horde were nearly all out of sight, save a couple of stragglers. They followed the two mall cops round the corner. Now was the time.
“Who knew?” Apple Bloom nudged Diamond Tiara. “Ready?”
Silver Spoon scolded her, “She’ll do it when she’s –”
“Ready.” Diamond Tiara felt sick to her stomach.
“Kay… GO!”
Apple Bloom burst out first, followed by Diamond Tiara once Silver Spoon gave her an encouraging headbutt to the flank. After the dark chute, the mall lights blinded her briefly and she had to squint and speed.
Another grate burst open further along: Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle had broken cover to run alongside them. Up to the T-junction, then they’d split…
A long, low moan.
Not all the zombies had been fooled.
A horde turned the left corner, shuffling towards them. Unicorns. Zombie unicorns who’d rediscovered their own magic, though inexpertly. Some floated upside-down. Some dribbled useless liquid magic from their horns. Six had mastered theirs, however: within five feet of their bodies, the tiled floor tore itself up, the air shimmered with eddies, and those nearest the wall gouged huge chunks out of the brickwork without breaking a sweat, like compressed hurricanes.
The survivors started backing off.
“Don’t let them get too close!” shrieked Sweetie Belle. “One spell and you’re doomed!”
“Thanks, Captain Genius,” scoffed Silver Spoon.
“Heads up!” Scootaloo dived on top of both mares as a zombie pegasus swooped down. Unlike the shambling, ground-bound types, they kept their agility. The flock swung round to divebomb them again.
Diamond Tiara realized she was gripping Apple Bloom’s leg. Pure leaping instinct.
Not that Apple Bloom was needed: in a flash, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle were on their hooves.
Scootaloo struck first. Seizing a display of mirrored sunglasses outside an optician’s, she – first, plucked a pair for herself, then – hurled the thing like a javelin. It knocked an incoming pegazombie out of the sky and into the unicorns, bowling them into a fruit stall.
Meanwhile, as the other pegazombies closed in, Sweetie Belle sucked in a breath – the others clamped hooves to ears – and let out a high note worthy of a banshee. Glass shattered. Walls cracked. Some zombie teeth fell out. And the entire flock crashed to the ground, stunned like birds at a window.
Still more came, clambering over the bodies of their fellows or rising up in fresh flocks. War-crying, Scootaloo rushed forward to meet them, wielding a Diamond Tiara Grand Re-opening stand like a club.
Sweetie Belle glanced back. “We’ve got this. Stick to the plan, right?”
“But they’re blockin’ your –” began Apple Bloom.
“We’ve got this! GO!”
As Apple Bloom, Silver Spoon, and then Diamond Tiara – once the other two went back to yank her along – hurried on, they heard Sweetie Belle’s distant banshee scream again.
“It’s no good!” wailed Diamond Tiara. “The zombies just keep coming!”
“Get in!” Apple Bloom rushed towards a particular shop, smashed through the glass, and urged them inside.
Diamond Tiara toppled into Silver Spoon. “You could’ve used the door!”
“Check the place!” shouted Apple Bloom as a fresh horde sprouted like rotten fungi from the nearby shops. Her hoof hovered over a large button to the side.
“They won’t give up! Do you get me!? You can’t kill them, you can’t stop them, you can’t slow them down, you can’t –”
“Clear!” shrieked Silver Spoon, faster on the uptake than “Di”.
Only then did Apple Bloom hit the button.
The shop’s security shutters whirred, caught briefly on the way down, and then slammed shut on the frontmost zombie that was halfway through the glass.
Silver Spoon nodded and hurried off to get weapons.
Reluctantly, Diamond Tiara looked around.
Clementine’s “The Spoils of Sport” is the best store, she’d said. We’ve got access to hockey sticks, tennis rackets, crossbows, sports bags, and protective gear. Excellent for armor.
“Terrible for armor,” she murmured.
“Gimme somethin’ to swing!”
“Huh?” Diamond Tiara looked down.
The frontmost zombie was on the wrong side of the shutters. Apple Bloom had to skip out of range as the stomach-crawler made good on its position. And that made Diamond Tiara realize… the displays made it hard to see below waist level…
Across the store, Silver Spoon gave an ear-splitting scream.
Diamond Tiara saw her topple out of sight.
“Silver Spoon!”
“Right now would be nice!” Apple Bloom was cornered as the zombie stomach-crawled faster and faster, mastering its locomotion every second.
Half-heartedly, Diamond Tiara plucked a bargain baseball bat from the wall and glanced back and forth. She couldn’t hear Silver Spoon anymore. Apple Bloom was stuck between two towering steel shelves full of sports bags.
It had always been Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon. Partners in crime. The best of the best. Scratching each other’s backs through business and politics. Money flowed between them like cold hard love. Taxes, political sponsorship committees, planning permission, references: they’d faced them all.
“DIAMOND TIARA!” Apple Bloom made as if to kick the zombie, then realized what she was doing and attempted to clamber up the smooth side of one shelf.
If she could just break down and cry… If only she’d been made of weaker stuff… If only she could escape…
Diamond Tiara gaped, about to drop the bat.
Then her jaw tightened.
After the zombie reached up towards Apple Bloom’s dangling tail, it suddenly slumped. A baseball bat to the head will do that.
“Come on!” shrieked Diamond Tiara.
Apple Bloom crouched against the wall and kicked off. She somersaulted clean over the recovering zombie’s body. A knockout for a normal pony had merely dazed it.
She landed on top of Diamond Tiara, rolled off, scooped up a tennis racket in passing, and landed on all fours, crouched and ready.
Diamond Tiara took longer to get up. An Apple Bloom to the stomach will do that too.
“Ow,” she moaned, clutching herself.
“Your serve!”
Puzzled and still winded, Diamond Tiara followed her gaze.
Having lost her glasses, moaning, white-eyed… Silver Spoon stepped out from among the racks of displays. So did a third zombie.
White eyes watched the two survivors impassively.
Shambling, the thing that had been Silver Spoon zigzagged towards Apple Bloom, who was careful to sidestep away from Diamond Tiara. The zombie still on the floor began a laborious U-turn. And the zombie that had ambushed Silver Spoon –
Diamond Tiara forced herself not to think the thought.
– made a beeline for her next.
As it stepped into the blazing light near the entrance, she caught sight of his staff waistcoat, his nametag which she didn’t recognize, and his face. Which she did.
He didn’t work for her.
Now that she thought about it, it wasn’t surprising to see him here. He must have had the same idea in mind before he’d turned.
“St’y bagg!” she shouted around the baseball bat in her mouth.
She swung it with a satisfying swooshing sound. Satisfying for her: he wasn’t bothered a bit.
In fact, when she hit him, the bat smashed in half and jarred the rest of itself out of her stinging mouth.
“Stupid!” She spat out splinters. “Cheap! Merchandise!”
He and the stomach-crawling zombie closed in upon Diamond Tiara.
She zipped round them both and into the fathomless, impenetrable maze of sport shirts, designer jackets, diving suits, and the kind of knitted jumper that only a golfer or a concussed Hearth’s Warming aunt would wear. There had to be something else, something sturdier…
Crossbows! Bows and arrows for lazy ponies! Custom-made for those who liked shooting galleries with their chums, or shooting at chums in their galleries!
She snatched one up, clipped it onto her sleeve, did an unnecessary roll that confused her briefly, and then put the trigger ball in her mouth – ready and hooked up to the crossbow itself – aimed at the lurching head she knew too well, and squeezed.
Nothing happened.
Of course, stores weren’t dumb enough to mount loaded bows on public display.
Cursing, she tossed it at the zombie instead. It missed completely.
“No, no, no, no, no, no, noooooo…” she whined.
Turning, she caught sight of the high shelves. She’d lost sight of Apple Bloom, but a glance past the ladder-like display of footballs, buckballs, signed baseballs (mass-produced, of course), basketballs, and things with spikes she hadn’t asked about – There!
Heading right for them! Silver Spoon as a zombie put on a terrifying burst of speed as she lunged for Apple Bloom’s tail. One hair would be all it took.
Diamond Tiara took a breath and leapt. Occasionally slipping, she hauled herself upwards, shelf by shelf.
She glanced down. The recognizable zombie who didn’t work for her had reached the foot of the shelves already. From here, she could see down his shirt.
Papers!
The security booth. The filing cabinets. The space where they should’ve been. The missing papers. It was so obvious!
“Corporate spy,” she growled.
She’d made enemies. Zipporwhill Zindustries, for one. If the idiot had known what he’d stolen…
That. Does it.
Diamond Tiara climbed fast to the top of the shelf. It was a heavy, sturdy shelf: stainless steel. It’d do more damage than a baseball bat, for sure. But first things first.
She seized one of the inexplicably spiky balls and threw it down. Even she couldn’t miss at that range.
The spy – who’d started to climb after her – landed hard on the other zombie, enough to dislodge the papers poking out and send them sliding across the floor. Good timing.
“Apple Bloom!” Waving her over, Diamond Tiara then prepared herself.
Seconds later, the two zombies on the ground had gotten to their hooves when a creaking made them look up. A baseball bounced off the spy’s head, then the other zombie’s head, and then rolled across the ground.
A short, sharp shower of balls.
Then gravity won.
Right after Apple Bloom rushed past – Silver Spoon stumbling for one final lunge – the entire shelf and its assorted balls crashed heavily on top of all three zombies, smothering them utterly. Diamond Tiara leaped off, scooping up the papers en route. She tucked them away under her lapels.
Safe. Good.
By the time the zombies extricated themselves, the store was empty of victims and the door to the backroom had locked itself with an electronic ping.
Phase Two: Warehouse Roughhouse.
There are two layers of protection around the mall and tower, she’d said. We need to weaken the first one, then worry about the second. The first one depends on the power supply, so that’s where we need to strike.
Every shop has a warehouse behind it for the deliveries. The storage spaces interconnect, but only a couple have power generators onsite. Those are our targets.
So easy. So naïve.
Ignoring the dull pounding of the store’s backdoor – and the choking knowledge that one of those thuds was Silver Spoon’s – Diamond Tiara felt the heroism wear off.
She’d put on a pretty mask for the Equestrian Dream Shopping Mall. This was the face behind it.
Concrete. Harsh metal. Mini-towers of shelving. Warehouses always looked to her like prisons for merchandise that had lived bad lives.
Apple Bloom had gone on ahead to scout the territory. Diamond Tiara no longer cared.
Oh, she wanted to cry. She wanted to beat her hooves like fists and heave great heaving sobs and throw a wet, sticky tantrum like a spoiled brat. A younger her might have done it, if she hadn’t looked around for somepony to sue instead.
Nothing but crocodile tears. Silver Spoon should have been a lifelong friend. In reality, they’d been… essentially what you got when you filtered out the nice kids and the humble kids and the noble kids and the kids who at least didn’t go around causing trouble. So they’d stuck together mostly because teasing everyone else had been more fun than teasing each other and ending up alone.
Perhaps Silver Spoon had seen it differently. Perhaps she’d cared. Perhaps she’d just seen “Di” as a ticket to fame and fortune.
But Diamond Tiara didn’t cry now. Because she could “cope”.
Mindlessly, she started fishing around the nearest boxes.
“Good news,” announced Apple Bloom, staggering up the aisle. “Ah found the generator, and the crowbar on the crate, and the jack. Now we jus’ wait for Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle and Snips and Snails, and we’ll be right as… rain?”
She’d turned the corner.
Several boxes – cardboard, wooden, all pouring polystyrene snow onto the hard floor – had been tipped over and ransacked. One of them had been converted into a table. Random doodads and gadgets lay strewn across it. Three chairs – a deckchair, an inflatable chair, and an ornate iron-wrought garden chair – had been placed around it.
Diamond Tiara sat in one of them. The other two seated a pair of denuded pony dummies.
When Diamond Tiara giggled, it did not sound like she’d slept for twenty-eight days. Weeks, even.
“Welcome, Apple Bloom!” she squealed, unnaturally gracious; it made Apple Bloom’s coat shiver. “You’re always welcome at the Rich family table!”
Apple Bloom looked left. The one dummy had a coat-hanger for a collar. She looked right. The other had a feather boa. For a hat.
“Don’t mind them! They’re just dead on their feet!” Another sleepless giggle threatened to collapse.
Dumping her finds to one side, Apple Bloom approached like a bomb disposal expert approaching an unexploded thermonuclear warhead. “Uh…”
“They were just talking about you! Weren’t you, Daddy!?” Diamond Tiara made the coat-hanger dummy nod. “Aw huh. We wuz jus’ sayin’ them Apples are right pillars o’ the c’mmunidy. Pillars! Ahahahahaaaaaa! Not us Riches! Everyone knows us, but everyone loves you! Have some candy!”
She held up a Twilight Sparkle action figure with glow-in-the-dark wings, and then pressed a button on her saddle. It said: “Hey, I did not agree to this recording sess–!”
Apple Bloom sidled round to her as if hoping to lasso a wary bull. “Ah think you’ve had too much ‘candy’.”
“Well, Mom says –” The boa dummy got puppeteered this time. “‘Daarrrrrrrrrrling! The only thing better than being a Rich is being Richer. Perhaps we relyyyyyyyyyyyy too much on those common Apples! Arrrrrfter allllllll, loooooook at them! Galloping around playing sick nurse to lazy street folk is no way to behaaaaaaave!’”
If it wasn’t for the mounting terror, Apple Bloom would have been amazed at Diamond Tiara’s voice acting skills. “Er…”
“Look at me! I did all this! Me! For you! And you! And you! And especially you!” Suddenly, Diamond Tiara slammed the table and rose on her deckchair. “I didn’t need your help, Mom, and I didn’t want your help, Dad! Not to go back and run some stupid little store in the middle of nowhere. No. I put Ponyville on the map where Twilight and her friends couldn’t. I’m the great one here! You’re just jealous because I did all this, just because I’m not some bigshot hero at the end of the world!”
It was when Diamond Tiara picked up a pair of novelty star-shaped sunglasses and made it say, “Bump, thump, sugar lump, rump!” that Apple Bloom decided to intervene. Softly, she guided Diamond Tiara’s hoof back down to the table.
To her shock, she got a shoulderful of Diamond Tiara squeezing her tight.
“See!?” shrieked Diamond Tiara right in her ear. “Apple Bloom and her friends get me! They were nobodies too! Can you imagine being a somebody who gets treated like a nobody!?”
Apple Bloom tried to disentangle herself without sparking any sudden movements. “Diamond Tiara…”
“Don’t talk to me like that! I like being busy all the time. It’s satisfying. Give me something to do, anything. Go on. I’ll prove it.”
Finally, Apple Bloom broke free, accidentally knocking over the coat-hanger dummy. “’Tain’t nothin’ to do now but wait.”
“No!” Diamond Tiara fell out of her chair and grabbed the edge of the crate in time to stare, horror-struck. “There has to be something! I-I’ve changed. I can prove it!”
“And Ah believe ya. But right now, we’re just waitin’.” Thinking fast, Apple Bloom threw in some encouragement. “It’s part of your plan, remember? Your great plan.”
In a flash-fit of rage, Diamond Tiara swept everything off the “table” with a clatter. “That’s not good enough!”
Apple Bloom watched cautiously whilst Diamond Tiara removed her own tiara and apparently inspected the gemstone on the top. She held it so tightly that her hooves went white.
“You don’t know what it’s like,” she hissed. “No one believes in me. They’re all FAKERS!”
“Ah ain’t fakin’,” said Apple Bloom.
“It’s all FAKE! I’M FAKE!”
“Ah trust you, Diamond Tiara.”
“No, you don’t!”
“Ah trusted you this far, ain’t Ah?”
Reverently, lovingly, Diamond Tiara replaced the tiara onto her scalp. If she’d come to her senses, she wasn’t happy about it.
“Only because I won,” she spat. Her jaw muscles tightened.
“Then how’s this for a Pinkie Promise: if ever you lose, Ah’ll still be there? And Ah’m sure the gals would say the same thing. Ah always wanted to be your friend ever since kindergarten. It just… took a long time to get here.”
“Because of me.” Diamond Tiara shook some sanity back into herself, but barely. “Sometimes, I think I was better off when I was a bully. At least then I knew I couldn’t change!”
“It’s good you changed. For you too.”
“But… But I could change back!”
“Come on.” Finally having enough, Apple Bloom took her by the hoof and led her away from Crazy Corner. “Ah think Ah hear the others comin’. We’ll meet ’em halfway.”
In fact, she’d heard no such thing, but anything was better than leaving Diamond Tiara to her own devices. Also, the businesspony had a point: better to do something than nothing.
The towers of meaningless merchandise echoed with unsold promises.
“Just get a grip,” Apple Bloom whispered to herself. “Hold on for a li’l bit longer…”
Scootaloo bucked the generator again as Apple Bloom arrived, dragging Diamond Tiara behind her. It sizzled and leaked what looked like sparkly sand.
“Powdered alicornium gemstone,” explained Scootaloo, splattered in oil. “More high-tech than the first generator. That one was using oil. Can you believe it?”
“Let me guess,” sighed Sweetie Belle, unimpressed. “This was the other reason Diamond Tiara hired you?”
“Well, yeah.” Scootaloo swung the wrench in her hooves, smashing another chunk of metal out. “That and helping your dance – Whoa, what’s up with her?”
“Nothin’.” Whispering, Apple Bloom added, “It’s Silver Spoon.”
It took them a moment to realize.
Sweetie Belle’s hooves flew to her gasp. Scootaloo at least tried to look sympathetic, which was hard through the layer of grime.
“We haven’t seen Snips or Snails yet either,” she admitted. “They should have been here by now.”
“You don’t think…?” Sweetie Belle pressed a hoof to her own heart.
Apple Bloom put on a braver smile than she felt like giving. “Don’t worry. It’s like we said. Twilight can help make all this better. Ah just wish Ah knew how it started.”
“Sabotage?” asked Scootaloo.
“Could be. Diamond Tiara did make enemies.”
“She was good at that.”
“Don’t,” scolded Apple Bloom, giving the dejected Diamond Tiara a nervous glance.
Shrugging apologetically, Scootaloo whacked the generator again. “Anyway, I think that’s done it. The first generator’s totalled. This one’s just lost capacity. I’d guess one hour before all the fuel leaks out. That gives us time. We use the lights to get into position before the first barrier becomes moveable. Then we’re alone in the dark.”
“Oh, don’t!” Sweetie Belle chewed one of her own curls. “I don’t want to think about it!”
“Then don’t,” suggested Apple Bloom. “You raided the jeweller’s?”
“Yeah! Here. I managed to grab six alicornium amulets, one for each of you. I won’t need one.” Sweetie Belle grinned a Rarity grin. “I make my own style.”
Her slight warbling note of a singing voice generated a small bubble around herself, which sparkled and flickered and finally went out. Her grin widened.
“Music and magic,” she explained smugly. “Take one amulet – NOT THAT ONE!”
Apple Bloom’s hoof withdrew. “What? Why?”
“That one’s green. It’d totally clash with your complexion. Take the red one.”
Chuckling, Scootaloo scooped one up before she got any fashionable advice. “Chill, Sweetie Belle. I’m sure the zombies won’t mind a little tackiness.”
“It’s the principle of the thing.”
Scootaloo swung the wrench for emphasis. “So when do we go smash some heads together?”
“Not until Snips and –” began Sweetie Belle.
Grimly, Apple Bloom cut across her. “Sorry, Ah don’t think we can wait. Less than an hour, right? Scootaloo?”
“But that’s cruel!” wailed Sweetie Belle.
Apple Bloom cringed. “Ah know it ain’t nice, but it’s practical. Just trust me on this one, please? And remember: Twilight can help fix all this. Hold onto that, OK?”
“It’s just so cruel.”
“Maybe they’ll meet us up ahead?” Hoping to forestall any more despair, Apple Bloom hefted the crowbar and jack on her back. “And Diamond Tiara’s got her lanyard and security card, so that’s everything.”
Scootaloo frowned. “What do we need the card for?”
“She said the first obstacle’s not like the second. Besides, Ah trust her judgement on this one.”
“You sure?” Once Apple Bloom’s expression made her wish she hadn’t asked, Scootaloo switched instead to: “OK! OK! Let’s go crusade some fools.”
“Right.” Apple Bloom strode over to Diamond Tiara comfortably; the two weights on her back grew less unwieldy the longer her strength could adapt to them. “Got your amulet. Ready to go?”
Diamond Tiara gave a meaningless grunt. She slumped against the generator and didn’t move.
“Come on,” whispered Apple Bloom kindly. “We’ll get out first and worry about our issues later, OK?”
Moodily, Diamond Tiara threw herself to her hooves. “Fine.”
“That’s the spirit! Kinda.”
The warehouses were largely abandoned. Possibly most of the staff had been out in the open, preparing for home, when the plague had struck.
They opened out onto more than just stores, however. The Equestrian Dream Shopping Mall prided itself on the Eateries of a Hundred Empires. Griffonstone bakeries, Crystal Empire facet-food, Las Pegasus gutbusters, Dragon Lord delicatessens, Qilinland cuisine, Tianma takeaway, bars for boatloads of bottom-dwelling beverages, even Sea Serpent-style sushi: Diamond Tiara had wanted everyday folk to believe they could eat like royalty.
Conquering the centre of the complex, a concert arena held court. Posters boasting “The Harmonious Hymns of Sweetie Belle the Soothing Siren! Grand Re-opening Act!” hung like tapestries or were displayed like paintings in a gallery. Some wag had spray-painted “rehearsin till shes cursin!!!” over one of them: Sweetie Belle was a known perfectionist. Scootaloo was a known suspect.
It seemed eerily empty.
The four of them crept among the tables and chairs, having slipped in through the greasy backdoor of Tucky McGillycuddy. Nothing stirred.
“I don’t get it,” whispered Scootaloo from the lead. “Where is everyone?”
“Don’t complain,” whined Sweetie Belle. “You’ll jinx it.”
“She’s got a point.” Apple Bloom frowned. “We couldn’t have distracted all of ’em earlier. You’d expect one or two at least. What do you think, Di?”
Diamond Tiara was in a world of her own. Whatever her body was doing, her brain wanted nothing to do with it.
Gloomily, Apple Bloom slunk on in silence. She hated not being able to help.
They made it halfway across the eatery and near the central arena. Still nothing.
“You’d think there’d be an ambush.”
“Scootaloo, quit it!”
“What? No one can hear us.”
They approached the Diamond Dog Do-It-Yourself Dig-In. The space opened out onto another statue-and-fountain plaza, this time with the main entrance and exit barriers dead ahead and a couple of shop entrances either side. A route to their right would’ve led them further into the multistorey mall. Even then, there were no zombies to be seen.
Scootaloo froze suddenly. Her tiny wings buzzed: useless for flying, but still capable of fine pegasus sensing. Something had tripped her guard.
“What is it?” Apple Bloom hissed. Sweetie Belle almost squealed with shock.
They met Scootaloo’s eye. The way the pupils shrank to pinpricks.
Something reflected in those eyes. Something…
Slowly, inevitably, horribly, the three of them turned their heads up to the high ceiling.
Rafters. Spotlights for the stage. Crevices size enough for a pony.
And a hundred waiting pegazombies.
At once, Apple Bloom pressed the amulet around her neck. As the first divebombers ricocheted off her magical shield, she cringed as Sweetie Belle shrieked fit to scratch bone. Bursts of expanding sound bubbles scattered the next wave, but at that moment the eateries suddenly exploded with zombies rising or crawling out of patient ambush.
“Impossible!” shouted Scootaloo, using her shield to bash into the arriving horde.
“SCOOTALOO!”
The cry came a second too late.
Scootaloo could handle the normal earth ponies, but slipping in amongst them was a lone unicorn. Unlike the others, it had a well-lit horn. Five feet around it, the air trembled and the floor tore itself up.
It passed right through the alicornium shield. Its leg reached out.
Sweetie Belle’s sonic blast sent it flying. She hurried over to check on Scootaloo, tears in her eyes.
Touched the pegasus’ shoulder.
Stopped.
Moving.
“NOOOOOO!”
Apple Bloom rushed over.
Five seconds later, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle rounded on her. Their eyes were pure white.
Still, the onslaught came. Still, the other zombies crowded around Apple Bloom until it became impossible to see through the shield-pressed tangle of legs, eyes, teeth… Yet Apple Bloom never stopped looking away from the faces of her friends till they were completely swallowed up.
And a thousand days of stress caught up with her.
Apple Bloom buckled, down on her hooves. The day she’d sat and listened to Granny Smith’s lectures on how to chew the food for the elderly. The day she’d followed Big Mac around and noted how to use a hammer on a gazebo without destroying it. The day she’d finally been allowed to compete in rodeo alongside Applejack. The day she’d mastered the commands for Winona and the sheepdog trials.
The day Scootaloo had joined her at the school to teach the kids about cutie marks. The day Sweetie Belle had saved her on her first midwifing attempt with a soothing song for the mother. The day all three of them had agreed to go their separate ways, to travel the Didgeridoo outback or promote charities at concerts… or stay in Ponyville and look after yet another generation…
Apple Bloom reached for her amulet, not sure if she needed something to grip or if she needed to turn it off, to go where they should’ve gone. Together.
She took a shuddering breath, her first in years.
And jolted as Diamond Tiara’s hoof grabbed her own and led her away, pushing out of the horde, running across an empty space, leading her to a place where she could snap and break down into nothing that resembled life anymore.
Grown-up Apple Bloom died. Child Apple Bloom fell out of a life no longer meant for her.
A fake life.
They both had just enough survival sense to rush in and slam the shutter behind them, and only then could they fall apart enough for Apple Bloom to turn and kick something, screaming.
“RRRRRRRWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!”
The plastic Town Hall climbing frame fell over.
Slowly, through a mess of mane, Apple Bloom took in the Ponyville-for-Tots Play Zone.
Even through the crop failure of her mind right now, she recognized the business sense. Sometimes, families wanted to leave their young ones somewhere safe, and Diamond Tiara had provided: a Ponyville backdrop; a mini ball pit with the balls shaped like apples; little play swings and slides done up to mimic landmarks like Carousel Boutique, Sugarcube Corner, and the old Golden Oak Library (incongruously placed next to a Friendship Castle spiral slide, as they’d never overlapped in history). The floor turned out to be a soft, grassy-looking carpet, almost mossy. Attention to detail. Just plain sad.
Suck the economic life out of Ponyville, turn it into a tourist’s play area, and then pay tribute to it with paint and plastic. Yeah. That was the Diamond Tiara way, all right.
Diamond Tiara herself sat down heavily on one of the grown-up benches to the side, her head in her hooves. Her eyes were in shock. The rest of her slumped in defeat. Even her usually flawless Amore suit had tears and creases all over it.
From the shutters, the banging continued. It became a slow, steady rhythm and Apple Bloom soon forgot about it.
“This can’t be happenin’!” she whined, actually whined: she hadn’t had a good whine in years. “The gals can’t be gone! They’re never gone! No matter where we are! That’s what we promised!”
The racking sob choked the life out of her. She almost collapsed.
Shock found new soils of despair.
“Those things ambushed us! Ah thought they were mindless slaves, and they ambushed us! What the – But – HOW!?”
If Diamond Tiara had spoken, Apple Bloom wasn’t listening. Scootaloo was supposed to show her this new machine she’d built called a “motorbike” and needed a good name for it. Sweetie Belle was supposed to start signups for the Ponyville General Hospital Hearth’s Warming wassailing. And Apple Bloom… she hadn’t thought of anything worth telling, there was just chores and duties and daily routines…
It dawned on her Diamond Tiara had spoken.
“What did you just say?” Apple Bloom looked up sharply.
Not staring at anything but the undemanding patch of green in front of her, Diamond Tiara mumbled tonelessly, “I was expecting something like this.”
“What!? How!? You knew my friends were gonna –!?”
Diamond Tiara shrugged. “Twist’s project always led to the same result. The unicorn test subjects took a while to adjust, but they regained their intelligence eventually.”
Apple Bloom sighted along her own muzzle at the bowed head with its stupid tiara that was saying…
She was right in front of Diamond Tiara and forcing her to look up, hoof rough on her chin. “What project? You knew something like this was gonna happen!?”
To the low backdrop of hooves hammering on the shutters, Apple Bloom’s keen eye spotted the papers poking out of the lapel. The ones the spy had stolen.
She snatched them up with her teeth. Diamond Tiara didn’t seem to notice. The businesspony seemed beyond terror now. When she spoke, her voice was trapped in a monotonous pit.
“That corporate spy must have thought he’d just discovered another trade secret. He didn’t know what he’d taken.”
Apple Bloom riffled through page after page in her shaking hooves. She’d hung around with Twilight enough to recognize blueprints for a new type of spell.
Or a curse.
“Productivity was too low,” Diamond Tiara droned on. “I kept losing my best tricks to rival companies. Everypony knew I was the innovator. So I needed an edge. A workforce that couldn’t complain, that wouldn’t stop, that wouldn’t get distracted, that would keep going until their jobs were done, that would never stab me in the back.”
Apple Bloom dropped the papers as though they were diseased. “This… is a zombification spell…”
“It wasn’t meant to be. We kept having problems with test subjects. I paid Mayor Silver Spoon to cover up the first few incidents. I put Twist in charge. She could come up with a way to outwit the curse’s flaws. She was my best assistant. It was never meant to be permanent, or contagious. I don’t even know why they became aggressive.” She gave a dead chuckle. “Maybe deep down they resented –”
Apple Bloom grabbed her and pinned her against a wall, slamming her against a painting of a traditional Ponyville cottage. Diamond Tiara had treated her like garbage since day one. Years of suppressed emotion, of shielding goodwill, of endless patience and hope – broke.
“You KILLED my FRIENDS!” she screeched. “SCOOTALOO! SWEETIE BELLE! EVERYPONY!”
A gasp from Diamond Tiara as the hold tightened.
“You really are the worst pony Ah ever met! Ah gave you so, so… SO many chances! It killed me every time you spat on ’em, but Ah kept givin’ ’em. Scootaloo did. Sweetie Belle did. We trusted you! We thought you’d changed at last! And you knew the truth about this curse the whole TIME!? AND KEPT IT FROM ME!?”
A tiny choking sound.
“Give me one good reason why Ah shouldn’t wring your lyin’ neck right now.”
The dead words struggled out of Diamond Tiara’s lungs. “Go ahead.”
And the grip weakened. Apple Bloom had caught up with herself. The hole in her heart where her friends should’ve been screamed at her that it would be the honourable thing, that they’d have one less problem to worry about, but even right here and even right now when every instinct lusted for blood, she couldn’t do it. Killing Diamond Tiara was all she craved, and it was impossible while still being Apple Bloom.
She threw herself away in disgust, kicking the papers on her way past, and then sat on an undersized swing and held herself together, hooves on her temples as Granny Smith had taught her.
Not helping was the eventual sound of Diamond Tiara scraping up the papers again.
Then the unexpected sound of rustling cloth.
Apple Bloom recoiled slightly as Diamond Tiara placed herself down on the swing next to her. It was only the surfeit of pink that made her look up properly.
Diamond Tiara had taken off her suit.
She still had the tiara in her hooves, toying with it, perhaps wondering whether or not to throw it. Without her suit and accessories, though, she was just another haggard-looking mare.
The papers tucked under her armpit did not help.
“If you think you’re leavin’ here with that – ” began Apple Bloom.
“One of them’s the cure.”
Apple Bloom gave a lurch on the swing and had to steady herself. “What?”
“We came up with a cure for every version of the spell. Basic precaution. Hard to do right. If you can get it to Princess Twilight, I’m sure she’ll know what to do.”
No reply: Apple Bloom was too busy dreading the idea that Princess Twilight wouldn’t. Some of the curse details had included complicated diagrams. Even a powerful alicorn could be matched – or even outmatched – by a team of skilled unicorns if they knew what they were doing. And Diamond Tiara employed the best – Moondancer, for example, and she’d given Twilight a run for her money back at Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns.
How could somepony – even somepony like Diamond Tiara – look at such things and see an opportunity?
The banging on the shutters continued unabated.
“Maybe they’re seeking revenge.” Diamond Tiara wiped her face, though Apple Bloom couldn’t see any tears. “Maybe the spell drove them mad.”
“Hey, at least they can’t stab you in the back no more, huh?” spat Apple Bloom.
“What are you going to do?”
“That should’ve been ‘What are you and the Crusaders gonna do?’ Shouldn’t it!?”
It was then that Apple Bloom noticed the cuts along Diamond Tiara’s legs. Faint, but there. Perhaps the journey through the vents had banged her up more than expected.
The cut legs curled up tighter. “This exit’s a no-go anyway. The backway leads through the adjoining Barnyard Bargains store.”
“Still thinkin’ of your old folks, huh? They must be so proud of you.”
Diamond Tiara continued hopelessly. “You should go through the warehouses and try the exit on the other side. So long as you don’t run into any unicorn zombies, you should be able to follow the plan and escape.”
Then she removed the lanyard and security card from around her neck and held it out.
It took a while for Apple Bloom to realize what she meant. “But you’re comin’ too?”
Diamond Tiara shrugged.
“What, you wanna wait here and take the coward’s way out?”
She’d meant it as a cruel joke. It didn’t land as one.
Apple Bloom stood up. “You’re not serious!”
“I’m done pretending.”
“No!”
“There was only one future meant for me, and my mom called it.”
“No! You don’t get to pull that on me!”
“Which would you prefer? The bully who fails, or the bigger bully who fails harder? I know what you and Ponyville think of me and everything I do. Everything I try to do fails.”
Fury rising, Apple Bloom was face-to-face with her, almost swinging her back with the momentum whiplash. “You. Are comin’. With me.”
A catch in Diamond Tiara’s throat shook her droning tone. “Even Daddy didn’t like the stuff I built in Ponyville. He tried to hide it from me, but I could tell. My tower, my mall, my empire: everything was always too big and pushy for Ponyville. For him. He loved Ponyville more than he loved me. Ironic, isn’t it?”
Apple Bloom turned away in disgust. Whatever reality haunted Diamond Tiara like a vengeful ghost, it wasn’t this one.
“And then there’s you.”
“This ain’t the time,” growled Apple Bloom, hating her own hatred.
Whatever mindless speech Diamond Tiara had been working towards, it suddenly deflated. A squeak of the swing, and she’d stood up. Apple Bloom pretended not to hear the snuffling.
Instead, she went back and scooped up the equipment they’d dropped near the shutter. Wretched zombies kept banging on it. A wonder the horde hadn’t broken in yet.
Do the job you gotta do. That was Applejack’s advice.
She recognized Diamond Tiara was in no fit state to care for herself.
That meant only one thing.
Apple Bloom slipped the lanyard and the alicornium amulet back over the mare’s neck, then pushed her – roughly, but not too roughly – and got her shuffling forward.
“We’re both leavin’,” she declared coldly. “You ain’t hidin’ in here. You can come out into the sun and face the music.”
Phase Three: Do the Heavy Lifting.
Suspiciously, the second warehouse journey proved too easy. Hardly any zombies around, and none of them in the way. Apple Bloom wondered how long the generator would last. Lights out would be fatal if it happened too early. They needed to time it right.
The hour must be almost up by now.
They emerged into a vinyl records shop. Apple Bloom’s instinctive love for Coloratura’s whole shelf – some featuring Sweetie Belle – had to be kicked aside.
Diamond Tiara shuffled along. It was maddening. Apple Bloom had to keep giving her pushes to get her moving faster. The mare was like a zombie already.
She also noticed the spluttering of sparks on the alicornium amulets. Did these things have a shelf life?
Both the crowbar and the jack weighed heavily on her back.
Finally, they found themselves in front of another barrier. The main exit out. The weakest points in the building’s defences. And completely deserted.
No.
This was too easy.
“They get smarter the longer they’re in zombie shape, huh?” she muttered, unloading the crowbar and whacking it beneath the main barrier. One heave would do it –
That was when the lights went out.
Pitch darkness.
Except for the faint glow of the alicornium gemstones. Except for the red security light over the barrier.
Except for hundreds of white, glowing eyes.
Something knocked Apple Bloom over. Some of the eyes – pegazombies – had divebombed her, and while they couldn’t break the alicornium shields, they could knock the jack and crowbar just outside their range.
Both Diamond Tiara and Apple Bloom backed into the barrier. The huge, heavy, suddenly immoveable barrier. The last defence protecting the outside world from the zombie apocalypse.
The red security light died. Time. On the original plan.
Emerging at the edge of the alicornium glow, five pairs of eyes stepped forward. One pair belonged to Twist.
The other four were unicorn zombies. Snips and Snails on one side. A stranger on the other. And…
Apple Bloom’s knees sagged.
Twist’s face wasn’t impassive like the other zombies. Some of her inner self must have come back. She twisted her features into a monstrous glower, a mass of vicious curls and bared teeth. All pointing at Diamond Tiara.
She nodded, once.
The unicorns stepped forward. Around them, weaker around Snips and Snails, stronger around…
…Sweetie Belle…
…the floor tore itself up. The air shimmered. The wailing screech of charging magic made the horns burn bright like fireworks.
Apple Bloom’s mouth opened and shut. She couldn’t think of anything to do. The moment those unicorns crossed the alicornium barrier, it’d all be over.
She heard a scraping noise. Metal groaning. She turned in surprise.
Diamond Tiara was trying to lift the barrier.
She couldn’t even begin to gain purchase on the corrugated metal, never mind have a snowball’s chance in Tartarus of summoning the strength needed to lift it. But she pawed and clawed at it as though she had the faintest hope left in the hairline crack between it and the floor.
Apple Bloom glanced at the approaching zombies, then rushed towards the barrier and tried to punch her hooves through it. The thick metal rippled and clanged, but no give. If she could get under it somehow… the floor was too smooth… but she’d learned a trick once from Big Mac…
Frantically, she dug into the tiles as though heaving dirt out of the way. In seconds, there was a heap of shattered flooring next to her and enough room to stick a hoof through. Now she could get a grip on the barrier and heave…
…and it turned out to be like lifting a mountain. Apple Bloom’s cheeks nearly popped. Her eyes bulged. Her neck felt like a steel bar about to snap. Sheer strain, and the barrier only inched up in protest.
Three thoughts struck her.
The first was that the zombies were taking their sweet time.
The second was that she couldn’t hear Diamond Tiara’s efforts next to her anymore.
The third was that the papers and the lanyard with the security card had landed right next to her own hoof.
Apple Bloom spun round, slamming the barrier down, and what she saw made her nearly swallow her heart. Diamond Tiara strode willingly towards the zombies, all of whom were closing ranks around her. The four unicorns were feet away –
Apple Bloom could make her escape.
Perhaps that was the plan.
She hesitated.
It made sense. It was practical. It was a noble act. It was astonishingly brave. It was better than flailing about waiting to get torn to shreds. It was 100% the right option.
And she couldn’t take it.
So Apple Bloom cursed, let go, had to knock zombies out of the way with her alicornium shield – heart stopping as it fizzed and blinked in and out of existence – grabbed Diamond Tiara by the tail – in her jaws – yanked her away from Sweetie Belle’s magical range, rushed back as the pegazombies banged against the top of the shield – shorted it – slammed into the barrier, cried out, let Diamond Tiara’s tail go, scooped up dirt with one hoof, tossed it into the faces of a divebombing squad, heaved until purple dots appeared in her eyes, raised the barrier barely enough to reach waist level, and realized she was screwed.
She couldn’t bend.
She couldn’t raise it much higher.
And she couldn’t break through in time.
She was barely inching any higher when the floor-tearing vanguard of the first unicorns came within a yard of her. Another yard left. Without a doubt, she knew this stupidity was the last thing she’d ever –
Yelped in surprise.
Fell onto her stomach as something grabbed her tail and dragged her away.
Under the barrier.
Twist’s first and last screech of rage was cut off as the barrier slammed back down. All white eyes and darkness vanished.
And then there were two.
The nihilium alloy barrier behind them. That had required the heavy lifting of an earth pony, and even then, only an expert in the literal field.
The alicornium alloy barrier ahead of them. A two-part security system. This one wouldn’t be moved by earth pony hooves. Diamond Tiara’s team of unicorn technicians had been among the best.
For one thing, it was pure pink light. Nothing physical to latch onto.
For another, it filled the space with a warm, loving glow that was probing them for the one thing they needed.
Diamond Tiara held the lanyard in her hooves, along with her papers. The tiara had gotten lost in the scuffle.
The second barrier – the magical pink barrier – wasn’t opening.
That was the beauty and the curse of it. The lanyard had to be held by a pony – one trusted by the company CEO, i.e. her – and it would only open the barrier according to the bearer’s own free will. Coercion, manipulation, mind control: none of those corrupting, detectable spells would pass muster. It was the most advanced security system on the planet, and she’d made it.
Still, the barrier wasn’t opening.
Diamond Tiara slumped against the first one. It was too thick for even the bangs of the zombies to get through. The unicorn spells would be useless too.
The deadness inside lifted. After Silver Spoon, she’d let the dead shock become a shield. Now it exposed the festering wounds and the endless bleeding, and she gagged on her own overflow of pain and shook with the sobs.
Why was she still alive!?
Apple Bloom stood up next to her. Instinct buckled: Diamond Tiara clung on, no longer caring if she could be clutching a zombie or not. The agony chased her around her own head and kicked her heart into the gutter and shouted so many cruel names at her – echoing in a hundred familiar voices – that anything would be better.
“Come on,” said Apple Bloom. Coldly.
Diamond Tiara’s sobs were not refined, or dignified, or even remotely nice. She tasted sick in her mouth at one point and hastily broke off to swallow it back down. It burned her throat like acid.
“The last barrier’s s’posed to be openin’. What’s goin’ on?”
Slamming her head back into the first barrier, Diamond Tiara slumped back down. For now, she was quite content here, in this pretty pink prison.
Then she made up her mind. She took off the lanyard and offered it again.
“You wanna escape, be my guest,” she burbled.
Apple Bloom eyed it warily. “Will that work? Ah ain’t an employee.”
“I want you to escape. That’s good enough.”
“Never would be neither.” A grunt as Apple Bloom sat down. “Ah wouldn’t even be here in the first place if Ah hadn’t come up to complain.”
A fraction of business slipped a note in Diamond Tiara’s memory. “It’s about the ‘Cider the Road’ shop, isn’t it? I didn’t ask your family permission first. I just…”
As soon as the petty talk stopped, though, the silence tried to kill her again.
“Sometimes, I think I did it just to make you complain,” she admitted damply.
“Say again?”
Diamond Tiara dumped the papers between them, then leaned back and sighed. “The only time I ever felt like me was when I was making your life miserable. And your friends’. When that stopped…”
The force of her own words staggered her. Was she doomed to be a bully, no matter what?
“I’m sorry,” she choked. “I’m sorry I can’t be sorry enough. You were right. I’m the worst pony of all time. I deserved to –”
“The worst pony of all time wouldn’t have done what you just did.”
Diamond Tiara refused to get her hopes up. Apple Bloom was trying and failing to be nasty right back. That was how it went. The farmgirl was too good to be nasty, despite Diamond Tiara’s best efforts. Another failure in a long life of failures.
The tears ambushed her again; she covered them for Apple Bloom’s sake. “I don’t know what to do. I always knew what to do when you were around.”
They waited for the tide of tears to fade away. She stared at the shameful cuts on her own legs, not seeing them properly.
She decided.
She stood up, shakily and with a false start that threw her against the ground.
“We’ll get out. Give the papers to Twilight. Let her sort it out.”
“And tell her everythin’?”
Diamond Tiara wept.
More gently than the CEO felt she deserved, Apple Bloom murmured, “We can’t give up yet, Di.”
“I wish you would,” spat Diamond Tiara.
“Ah made a promise, didn’t Ah? Scootaloo… Scootaloo would say fight on, and Sweetie Belle would do everythin’ to make you feel good about yourself. Here or not, Ah trust ’em. Who do you trust?”
“I trust that I’m finished. After this. There’s nothing for me either way.”
Stubbornly, shakily, Apple Bloom groaned her way to her own four hooves. “There’s me.”
Diamond Tiara kicked at the first barrier behind her. “There’s always you.”
“Could do worse, right?” Apple Bloom wasn’t smiling, but there was a curve in her cheeks that could be a smile with the right tug. “Who else would point out when you’re bein’ a spoiled brat?”
“You just love to rub in how much better you are, don’t you?”
“Ya think so? Ah wish we could start over, back in kindergarten. Think of the garbage we could’ve avoided. Not a day goes by when Ah don’t think Ah could’ve done more for you. Like… if Ah’d known what your home was like, Ah could have invited you to mine? Sleepovers, like?”
“Well… if the cure works…”
“It will.”
“If this won’t get any worse…”
“It won’t.”
“What makes you the expert?”
Diamond Tiara picked up the lanyard and threw it over her own neck. Then she stretched it and threw it over Apple Bloom’s neck too, just in case the spell didn’t work. So she told herself. Then she picked up the redemption papers.
Before them, the pink barrier began to clank and rise out of view.
“Does the offer still stand?” Diamond Tiara breathed in, and deeply. “Please?”
Apple Bloom breathed out. “Whatever happens next. Ah promise.”
Blinded but determined, they both stepped out into the rising light of the sun.