//------------------------------//
// Chapter Two 
// Story: Apocalypse Chronicles: Equestria 
// by Raven Smite 
//------------------------------//


Silver, Raven, and Curtis turned towards the voice, which was attached to Shadow, who was running towards them.
“What’s up, Bro? Why are you interrupting our spar?” Raven asked.
“While I do enjoy watching the two of you attempt to beat the crap out of each other, right now I believe your skills can be better utilized elsewhere.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, we have a very large Horde heading for the Main Gate right now. The Snipers can’t hold them off, there’s too many.”
Raven and Silver tensed, “But Hordes never come this close to the Gate!” The youngest said, “Why would there be so many?”
“Come see for yourself.” The elder brother replied, “Curtis, you coming?”
“I’ll be along in a minute. I might have something that could be quite helpful in this situation.” The mechanic answered as he started walking off.
The group arrived at the towers near the Wall, although they were actually just some old condo buildings. When they were building the Wall, they didn’t want to position the Snipers on the Wall itself, in the possible event that it should fall. Instead, they had used the abundance of tightly-packed condominiums as a sort of Sniper Towers, which went quite a bit higher than the Wall to provide for a better vantage point for the Snipers. The Wall itself was three layers thick of concrete highway dividers with cement filled in between and old trucks and cars braced sideways against the inside. It stood nearly twenty five feet high and was about ten feet thick. It was a very good wall…
The group of three entered the first condo and headed for the elevator. Two minutes later, the brothers stepped out of the elevator on the seventeenth floor and headed for the stairs to the roof. Raven really had to hand it to Curtis, he was a total genius when it came to building things. He had made some serious modifications to the elevator. He had made the motor stronger and faster. It went three times faster and only stopped at the ground floor and top floor. After the doors closed on the top floor, if the button to the bottom floor wasn’t pressed within five minutes, the line would automatically go slack and the elevator would go into freefall. To keep anything from getting broken, he had the elevator chute widened; put the elevator itself on a rail track to keep it from scraping against the sides; sealed the elevator and the basement doors to be waterproof; put a pyramid point on the bottom of the elevator; and filled the bottom of the chute with water. So, the elevator doors would close and, if no one was inside it, it would drop along the track into the water – with the point on the bottom preventing it from crumpling on impact – and then when someone pressed the button to call it, it would be pulled out of the water to whichever floor it was called to.
The brothers emerged on the roof and Raven approached a man wearing a white shirt and a beret. “Boone; sit-rep.”
The man turned on his heel and gave a sharp salute, which Raven and his brothers returned. “We’ve been keeping track of the Horde since this morning. One of the Spotters noticed it at around 0700. We monitored it until about 1600, when it started moving, fast. After briefly losing it behind a building for about a minute, it reappeared, except now it was chasing someone, several someones, to be precise. We noticed the group of twelve people, two of them carrying another, at the head of the Horde.
“We kept tracking them, giving them some help from the few that got a bit too close after they had come into range. They got surrounded about a block out. What do you want to do?”
“Give me the binoculars.” Raven said, holding out his hand.
Boone handed over the binoculars and Raven directed his gaze to where he pointed. He saw what Boone was talking about.
There, surrounded by what seemed to be an endless sea of zombies, was a small group of people, standing in a circle, holding off the Horde. Raven moved his vision to the center of the circle and saw that one of the survivors seemed to have a broken leg, and was being supported by two others of the group. Doing a quick head count revealed something off, though.
“Boone,” Raven started, “You said twelve. I only count eleven.”
Boone picked up another pair of binoculars and scanned the Horde. He stopped near the front and smirked, then pointed. “There’s your twelfth.” He said.
There, amidst the large crowd of zombies, a single figure was weaving between them. Several of the dead made numerous attempts to grab and bit the person, but they successfully evaded every one of them, swaying in an almost drunken manner all the way. The person eventually broke free of the Horde and rushed towards the Gate, their drunken gait abandoned.
Raven had seen enough, “Shadow, Silver, we need to help them. Boone, can you go get some Tanks and a few Field Medics and tell them they have five minutes to get to the Main Gate; Code Blue 37. Silver, I need you to be on Long Distance Support and keep any dead from getting too close to any of us. Shadow, get your RPK and let’s go!”

***********************

The battle was quick, due to the impeccable teamwork from both sides. Shadow and Raven had mowed down a line in front, with Curtis, who had arrived with a flamethrower and he, along with a team of Scouts and Tanks, had held open the gap to allow the brothers through. Any stragglers were met with a .50 caliber round exploderizing their head, courtesy of Silver and the other Snipers.
Eventually, they reached the group of people, and formed a circle around the tired survivors and started moving back towards the Gate. It was times like these that Raven was most thankful for the training, as nobody was bitten or killed. The group made it safely through the Gate, and they collapsed in exhaustion, with Medics rushing to help the wounded survivor.
Raven stepped back to look over the survivors that they had just saved. The group was of twelve people, with the girl who had broken off earlier rejoining her friends. There were two women, who looked to be sisters, and the leaders of the group, they seemed to be in their late 20’s. One was wearing a white combat uniform, although it was covered in many a blood stain. The other was wearing the same uniform, but in a dark indigo color instead of white. The weapons the carried were unorthodox, to say the least. The women in white seemed to only carry a whip that had a circular blade on the end, while her sister carried a bow and several arrows.
Going from that, the rest of the group was girls around his age, and two guys, one of which who seemed in his mid 20’s, the other looked to be about seventeen. The boy was wearing a light purple shirt and khaki pants, and he had green hair and golden eyes. He carried a bat with several nails driven through the end. He was standing next to a girl with purple hair and a pink streak and wearing a purple blouse. She carried a pistol in a waist holster and an M-16 military assault rifle slung over her shoulder. Following, the other girls after all had a pistol and some form of rifle, mostly M-16’s and Glocks. He turned and saw the Medics carrying the injured girl into the tent, and some strange curiosity in him bid him to follow.
“Shadow, can you give the speech to them? I’m going to go check on their injured friend.”
Shadow peered at his brother, and then nodded. He turned to the group and began explaining the basics of their “community”.
Raven arrived at the Medic Tent to find her asleep on the bed. Whether it was because of the antiseptics or the day’s exhaustion catching up to her, Raven didn’t know. After asking, the doctor informed him that she had a broken leg, but they had set it and casted it so it should heal correctly, given time. Raven sat down in a chair next to the bed and took the time to look at the girl in front of him.
She had long blonde hair, probably went down to her waist, maybe a bit further. Her skin was tanned well, and she was wearing farmer’s work clothes. On the table was a revolver and some reloads that the doctors had taken off of her, and propped up against the wall was a combat shotgun. What really drew Raven’s attention was hanging on one of the bed posts.
“Sweet! A Stetson!” Raven reached for the hat, and was about to pick it up, when he heard the click of a hammer being pulled back, and a voice with a light southern accent spoke up.
“Don’t. Touch. My. Hat.” Raven sat there, frozen with his hands in mid reach.
“That’s a good boy. Now, you just sit back slowly and start by telling me who you are and where I am.” She said.
Raven sat back in the chair and faced the girl once again. Now that she was awake, he could see that her eyes were the color of melted chocolate, and they were glaring angrily at him. Raven sighed and then launched into his speech about the community.
When he finished his explanation, the girl took on a sheepish look and took the gun away from his face. “Sorry,” she said, “I guess I overreacted a bit there.”
Raven just gave her a smile, “So, would you like to change your name?”
She looked thoughtful for a moment, and then said, “Applejack… I’ll change my name to Applejack.”
“Okay,” Raven said, “Mind if I ask why?”
Applejack shrugged, “I worked on an apple orchard growing up, and my old name was Jackie.”
Raven nodded as she sat up on the bed. “Careful as you try to stand up, the doctors were able to cleanly set your leg, but it will still take a while to fully heal. Until then, we have a pair of crutches to help you get around.” He finished, handing her a pair of crutches as she got up from the bed.
“What about the rest of my group?” Applejack questioned.
“They’re outside. Shall we?” he answered with a mocking flourish as he held the tent flap open.
“My, what a gentleman!” she remarked sarcastically.
Outside, they met with the group she had arrived with, and new introductions were made, as the entire group had apparently decided to get new names. After Applejack had introduced herself, the girl with purple hair and the pink streak through it was Twilight Sparkle, then going down the line was the boy with the nailed bat who called himself Spike. A girl in a white dress and perfectly styled purple hair vainly introduced herself as Rarity. A girl with a yellow shirt and pink hair, very quietly named herself as Fluttershy. An athletic one, wearing a light blue track suit and fingerless gloves, elbow guards, and knee guards – all with short spikes on them for close combat – and brilliantly prismatic hair presented herself as Rainbow Dash. Next was a human-shaped figure of solid pink, who claimed to be Pinkie Pie. Another girl of pink – with thankfully more than just pink, though – and a man wearing white and blue, gave the names of Cadence and Shining Armor. The girl that Raven remembered as the one who had been weaving through the Horde earlier said she was called Derpy, and Raven noticed her eyes seemed a bit crossed. The two women who were the leaders of the group said they would like to be called Celestia and Luna.
After introductions were done, Raven sent them with Shadow to the registrations so they would be in the records. Raven looked to the side as his brother stepped up next to him, looking after the newest addition to their community. “I’m not sure how, but I feel like things are going to get very interesting with those twelve around here.”
“Oh?” Raven raised an eyebrow, smirking at his elder brother, “Does my Nii-San have a crush on one of the new arrivals?”
Silver scowled and punched Raven in the arm, “Shut up!”
“Ow! That was mean, Nii-San! Why is everybody hitting me today?” Raven winced, rubbing his arm.
Silver just shrugged, “It’s your own fault, really. You’re just easy to hit and you do have a habit of pissing people off with your words.”
Raven turned to his brother, a dark grin on his face and a violent gleam in his eye. “You know; it occurs to me that we never did get to even start our spar from earlier… Shall we go do that?”
Silver grinned to match his brother and nodded, “Let’s go!”
“Allons-y!” Raven agreed as they once again headed off toward The Pit.

************************

They arrived at The Pit to the sounds of metal clashing against metal and the scent of sweat permeating the air. The sight that greeted them as the sparring area came into view was one that they were quite familiar with by now. Locked in combat were the two people who were responsible for most of the combat training in the community.
On one side, wielding a pair of white Kamas like he was born with the damn things in his hands was a man in all white, including boots and gloves. He had black hair and always wore sunglasses. Barely anything was known about the guy. When he had joined, he didn’t say anything, he simply handed them a slip of paper with a single word written on it: Stig.
Up against the Stig, was a person who had joined the community with him. She stood at a little under six feet in height and had blonde, shoulder-length hair. She had the most fighting experience out of anyone in the entire community, except for maybe Stig. She also always wore something red. Whether it was a shirt, blouse, dress, or jacket, there was always red in her outfit. Her name was Alice, and she was currently in a very extreme battle, both Kukuri knives out, locked against the Stig.
“…”
“Yes, I am trying to win!” Alice shouted.
That was another thing. The Stig, while he rarely actually spoke, was still able to tell people what he wanted conveyed, but Alice was the only one who always understood what he was saying, even when others did not.
“…?”
“Well it’s hard to defeat someone that I’m evenly matched against!”
“…”
“What do you mean, ‘not evenly matched’?!”
Stig proceeded to show what he meant by extending his arms, pushing out of the deadlock and dropping down to one knee, then using the hook-like weapon in his right hand to pull Alice’s feet out from under her.
“Ugh!” The blonde woman exclaimed as the air rushed out of her lungs.
When she had caught her breath, Stig offered her a hand up, which she accepted. She glared at him, “How long have you been holding on to that move?”
“…”
“Bullshit! There is no way you just ‘thought it up on the spot’!”
“…”
“Well I don’t believe you! There is no way that someone could perfectly execute a move they had just thought up five seconds-“
“…”
“Fine, three seconds prior to pulling off said move and coming out of it completely unscathed!”
“…” Stig pointed to the sleeve on his left arm, where there was a large rip in it.
“Okay, so maybe not completely unscathed. Fine, I’ll concede the victory to you. That makes the current score, what, 70 to 72? Damn it, now I have to really catch up.” Alice grumbled.
“Even as it stands, I doubt you could ever hold a total victory over Stig.” Silver decided to make the brothers’ presence known, “You’re the only one out of all of us who can even gain a single victory over him, and not even you can hold that victory for more than one spar.”
“Shut up, you.” She growled, taking a swing at Silver, who ducked, “Hey Raven.”
“Hey Alice. Hey Stig.” Stig just nodded back, “Still as quiet as ever, eh? We just came down here to spar and caught the tail end of yours.”
Alice gave a light laugh, “One of you pissed off the other, didn’t you?”
Raven gave a sheepish grin, “Yeah, originally, Silver pissed me off, but our spar was interrupted.”
“I heard about that,” Alice said with a nod, “There was something about a Horde at the Gate, right?”
“Yes,” Raven confirmed, “But that isn’t the entire part of it. There were survivors in the Horde.”
Stig raised an eyebrow behind his sunglasses. “…?”
“I’d say it was about a 6.3 on the SiB scale.”
“6.3?!” Alice gasped, “And you mean to tell me that there were survivors in that?”
Raven nodded again, “Yep. They were successfully holding them off with two of them carrying an injured third, and one of them was able to navigate her way through the Horde without getting bit, to reach the Gates and ask for help. It was at around that point that we decided to step in and help them out. Actually, that reminds me. Stig, I’d like you to test them, individually and as a team. Cover all the areas of hand-to-hand and offensive weaponry, sans the firearms.”
“…” Stig nodded his confirmation.
“Thanks. Now, if you two would excuse us, we’d like to get started with trying to kill each other.”
“Alright, we’ll leave you two to that.” Alice said as she and Stig left The Pit, “I think I’m going to go meet these new arrivals of ours.”
Raven smirked and opened the gate, gesturing to Silver, “Get in, unless you wish to not get your ass kicked?”
“You wish,” Silver snorted, unsheathing his O-Katana as he walked in, “Shall we begin, my smaller and younger brethren?”
Raven unsheathed his Wakizashis, his face one of mock shock, “Doth thou mock thine own sibling?! Surely thou doth jest?”
Silver scowled, “Shut up. You know I hate that ‘Ye Olde English’ crap. Let’s just fight.” And after a moment’s thought added, “And don’t call me Shirley!”
“Fine,” Raven pouted, “Ruin my fun, will you? Well, I’ll show you!” And once again, he charged.

END OF CHAPTER TWO