“Get up, Sunny.”
Sunny rolled over as a hoof prodded him in the side, snuggling further into the pillow. “I’m good.”
Willow prodded him in the side again. “Come on, Sunny. Sandy made breakfast.”
He felt her prod him again, and jumped up in an explosion of limbs and feathers, smacking her hoof away. “Must you insist on touching me?” he growled
She took a step back. “Sorry, Sunny.” She didn’t sound very sorry, only a little bit hurt. “Get up, there’s food.”
With a groan, he rolled out of the bed and dropped to the floor. He had gotten the bed tonight, courtesy of Willow. She had insisted he have a comfortable place to sleep since he had slept on the floor the night before. He had protested, saying it was selfish for a single pony to take a bed with room for two, but she had insisted and Candy had backed her up. He couldn’t complain, but it still would have been humorous to see Willow and Candy sharing a bed—it wouldn’t have been the first time.
It was almost scary how normal it felt leaving the back bedroom to the smell of breakfast in the kitchen. Candy lay back on the couch, still looking half asleep. Cotton lay near the window, one shackle locked to her right hoof, the other locked to the radiator against the wall.
The apartment had a very cozy look to it in the morning. The purple curtains were parted slightly, letting a swathe of yellow sunlight glide across the shag carpet and halfway up the opposite wall.
Sunny had been pleasantly surprised by the couple’s hospitality. The brown stallion—Lufty was his name—had done some magic getting the green mare to accept their presence, but now she seemed perfectly friendly as well, even going to the extent of making breakfast today. Sunny didn’t know if he could be as hospitable as they were being to three escapes hiding from the army, while holding a scientist hostage.
“Breakfast,” the green mare, Sandy, chimed. She gave a friendly nuzzle to Lufty, then levitated six plates from the walk-in kitchen counter. She trotted casually across the room to a small, rectangular table, setting the plates down, two on either side and one at each end. “Come sit,” she said cheerfully.
Yesterday—the first day of their stay—which they had spent lying around an apartment with nothing to do, Sunny had shared a talk with Lufty. The brown stallion had been living with this mare for two and a half years now. In their own eyes, they were married. Not wanting to get tied up in any of the mess that came with marriage, they had both agreed to not go through the rounds. Were anything to ever go astray with them, the separation would be made as painless as possible. Put in that perspective, it seemed like a pretty good idea.
Candy cracked a little grin. “Really, Sandy, you didn’t have to go and cook us breakfast. I mean, we’re already staying in your home. This is almost too much.”
She shrugged. “Nothing to it. I cook for Lufty all the time.” With a flick of her tail, she took a seat. “Well come on. Sit.”
Sunny and Willow crossed the room to the table, taking places on opposite ends from each other.
Candy hopped the couch and trotted up to Cotton. “Hungry?” she asked cheekily.
The pink mare snorted and glared at Candy. “Of course I’m hungry.”
Candy made a pouty face, producing a key from a small satchel hung around her neck. “Stop being so pissy.” She stooped down and unlocked the shackle fastened to the radiator.
Cotton stood up, stretched, then cried out and fell over onto her side.
“Careful,” Willow said from the table. “You got shot clean through the leg. Don’t expect all the muscles to work again just because you drank a potion. Healing takes time.”
Cotton picked herself up again, wincing, favoring her right leg over the bandaged left. “Well I’m sorry if I’m being pissy, but I’m not used to being shot in the leg and taken hostage.”
Sunny sighed as Candy helped Cotton limp over to the table. “I’m really sorry about shooting you. Really, now it just feels like you’re trying to make me feel bad.”
The two mares took a seat beside one another across the table from Sandy and Lufty. “She probably is,” Candy replied with a dirty glance to the pink mare. “After all, it was only her job to screw with ponies’ bodies and minds.”
Cotton glared. “Just because it was my job doesn’t mean I enjoyed it.”
Sandy plastered a big, fake smile on her face and tapped her glass with a spoon, drawing everypony’s attention. “Could we just all get along and have a nice breakfast?”
Sunny looked down to his food, letting the warm-sweet scent reach his nostrils. The food looked rather nice: eggs scrambled and cooked in with tomato and red and green peppers, dashed with salt and pepper. “Smells good,” he commented.
Sandy smiled. “Thank you, now try it.”
A little bit tense, the four of them tucked into their food, muttering compliments as Sandy took them with a little, satisfied smile.
“Good thing Snowglobe’s not here,” Willow said with a little chuckle. “Remember her whole beef with eggs?”
Sunny laughed. “I remember you left her silhouette in the roof.”
They fell into another silence.
“I was just thinking,” Willow said halfway through their meal, “about what we’re going to do. I mean, we can’t stay here.” She looked to Sandy. “No offense.”
The green mare nodded. “None taken.”
Willow continued. “And I can’t figure out which one I prefer more, on the run from the army, or trying not to die back outside the city.”
Sandy interrupted. “Wait, you ponies have been outside the city?”
Sunny nodded. “Yeah.”
“What’s it like out there, like, really like?”
“Terrible,” Willow answered immediately. “Zombies, everywhere. It’s dangerous to be anywhere near a town, and zombies flock to population points...” She paused. “No law. Whichever pony is pointing the gun is the one in charge. You’ve got to watch your back, for zombies, ponies, everything.”
“Food’s scarce,” Sunny added. “If you’ve got a big group, you’re gonna have a lot of trouble keeping anypony fed.”
Sandy blinked. “Wow... really?”
Candy, Sunny, and Willow all voiced their agreement.
She almost looked dumbstruck. “Wow... The REA had said there was an infection, and that ponies outside had gone crazy...”
Sunny couldn’t believe how in-the-dark these ponies were. “They’re not just crazy. They eat each other... The ponies outside are eating each other. Canterlot: it’s gone. I don’t know what other cities have fallen as well.”
Willow’s jaw fell open in the middle of chewing. “Is it you ponies who are so misinformed, or is it everypony?”
Lufty spoke up. “I’m pretty sure it’s everypony, or we would have known about it.”
“Lufty’s a snoop,” Sandy added.
He shot her a quick look. “I knew something wasn’t right. The city’s having food shortages, rolling blackouts. For Celestia’s sake we’ve got a giant wall around the city and things ramming their heads against it on the other side. Ground-to-air weapons are lined up around the city, and almost always firing at something, shooting ponies right out of the sky. We all know something’s up, a lot of us just don’t want to know what; the army doesn’t tell, and nopony asks. The ponies who live here were content with their quiet, boring lives. I think most of them just want that back.”
Willow shook her head slowly. “It will never go back. Equestria will never be the same, not after this...” She stared down at her plate. “After you’ve been out there, watched ponies die, watched ponies eat other ponies... killed ponies; I left fifty to die in a hospital... After something like that, you can never go back. What do you do? What do you do after you kill those things that used to be living, feeling beings? What do you after that? I can’t even look at a pony without sizing them up as something that I would have to kill, like it’s an instinct.”
Candy nodded slowly in agreement. “Ponies just seem a little bit less like ponies and more like objects when you’ve shot enough of them, zombie or not.”
The smile faded off of Sandy’s face to be replaced with a disgusted half-lear. “That’s-that’s terrible.”
Willow went back to her food. “I know it is.”
Lufty had a distant expression on his face, staring slack-jawed at Willow. Willow seemed to notice him and blinked, eyes darting left, then right. “Um... yeah?” she asked slowly.
He closed his jaw. “Is it just me, or are your eyes... glowing?”
Willow blinked a few times. “They probably are.”
“Could I just ask...” He shook his head. “Why!?”
Willow sighed. “It’s a really long and complicated story.”
“She’s a hybrid,” Cotton spoke up.
Sandy squinted. “A what?”
“A hybrid: that’s the only name I could think of. She’s like the reverse of a carrier. Somehow she’s bonded with the virus through a series of illegal antibiotic injections, but doesn’t experience the negative effects on the brain.”
Sandy and Lufty exchanged worried glances.
“And she isn’t contagious in any way,” Cotton added, calming the looks on both ponies’ faces.
“Hybrid.” Willow laughed. “Heh, I like it.” She fanned her hooves out. “Willow, the hybrid.”
“Seriously though,” Sunny intervened. “We have got to think of something to do, whether we find somewhere more effective to hide out or leave the city.”
“And what the hay are we supposed to do with this bit of scum,” Candy added, glancing in Cotton’s direction.
Cotton glared back at Candy. “I did what I had to!”
“You cut a pegasus’ wings off!” she countered. “I don’t care if they told you to test, that’s not testing. What about that buck’s sister!?”
Cotton stammered.
“What about her!?” Candy continued. “You turned her into a zombie, and she ate her own brother!”
The pink mare buried her face in her hooves. “I... We had to—”
“You’re a sick, demented mare, and I wish Sunny hadn’t botched his aim and hit you in the leg instead of the head!”
“Oh my,” Sandy murmured.
“Candy,” Sunny whispered. “Come on, she’s—”
“Scum,” Candy interjected. “Just like the rest of the ponies in charge of this nonsense.”
Cotton lifted her head to look at Candy, eyes puffy and red. “Do you think I’m proud of any of that?” She whimpered, tears running down her face. “Do you think I enjoy testing on ponies, hurting them... killing them? I did it because I had to, because I was told to make results.” She slammed her hooves on the table, baring her teeth at Candy. “Go on, hurt me, beat me until I can’t feel anymore!” She jumped back from the table and shoved Candy with a forehoof. “Do it!”
Sunny stood up, unsure of how to proceed.
Candy Glared at Cotton, her expression unreadable. The pink mare took a swing, and that’s when Candy made her move. She sidestepped Cotton easily and lowered her head, driving it into the pink mare’s snout. Cotton cried out and stumbled backwards, blood trailing from her nose. Candy launched herself forward and drove her hoof into the mare’s cheekbone. Rearing up, she delivered two more strikes to Cotton’s brow. Cotton cried out and charged forward, but Candy jumped and noosed her foreleg around the pink mare’s neck. She spun, and hurled Cotton away. The mare bounced off the floor and smacked against the wall.
Candy stood there, panting, glaring at Cotton as she slowly picked herself up.
Cotton stood after a moment, trembling, eyes darting frantically around to Candy and the four other shocked ponies in the room, blood dripping from a cut on her brow and bloodied nose. Her chest heaved once, twice, then she collapsed to the floor, sobbing into the carpet.
“Moor blood on the carpet,” Sandy said dejectedly.
Candy shrugged her shoulders, working off the rage that ran through her body and letting her muscles relax. “Sorry about the carpet,” she said coldly.
Sunny crept up beside the striped mare. “Candy... look at her. She hates herself.”
“And she should,” Candy spat. “Just look at what she’s done.”
Sunny let out a shaky breath. “It makes us pony to forgive, Candy. Without forgiveness, what are we other than those we’ve come to despise?”
There was a heavy pounding at the door, and every head in the room snapped around to the source. “Open up!” an authoritative voice yelled from the hall.
They all fell dead silent. Ears folded, Lufty trotted up to the door. “Who is it?”
“Army personnel to perform an inspection of the premise. You have five seconds to open the door or it will be opened for you.”
Lufty looked back at the rest of them, panicking. “What do I do?” he whispered.
Sandy looked around frantically. “Get the door,” she whispered back. She ducked low and motioned to the others. “Come on.”
Plodding as silently as possible on the carpet, Sunny followed the green mare to the back guest room, the other three right behind him.
“If you try anything,” Candy hissed in Cotton’s ear, “I will snap your neck.”
Sandy ushered them all into the back room, constantly looking back down the hall. “Find a place to hide,” she said urgently, closing the door on them.
Sunny muttered a curse under his breath, looking around the room. He thought of his battle saddle on the floor of the closet, but immediately discarded that thought.
Candy locked Cotton’s shackle to her own hoof, chaining the two mares together, then pointed underneath the bed. “Let’s go.”
Sunny ran to the closet and pulled the folding shutter doors open while Candy and Cotton struggled to cram underneath the bed; it would have been comical in any other situation. There was nothing in the closet except for his battle saddle and Willow’s bags, and a few blankets on shelf that ran across the top.
“They’ll see us in here,” Willow fretted. She tapped her hoof on the floor for a few seconds. “Got it!” She levitated the battle saddle and her bags threw them against the wall, then took the blankets and tossed them haphazardly over them so as they looked like nothing more than clutter in a closet. She pointed towards the shelf that ran across the top of the closet. “Get up there.”
He moved forward without hesitation, jumping up and hooking his hooves on the shelf, beating his wings to help him pull himself up and swing his hind legs around.
Willow looked up at him, then reared up on her hind legs and stuck out a hoof. “Okay, now help me up.”
Sunny blinked, then looked at the cramped space on the shelf. “Willow...”
“Sunny, now!”
Sunny grasped her hoof and pulled her up onto the shelf, cringing. He felt the familiar shivers and the tingle under his flesh as the mare settled against him. He lay on his belly, hind legs curled below him with his rump braced against the wall and forelegs folded. Willow lay back, her back pressed against his shoulder, mane falling over his coat.
“This is really uncomfortable,” he muttered.
Willow shushed him. “Listen.”
Sunny fell quiet, hearing only his and Willow’s breathing, the micro shivers of his body as he tried to remain perfectly still. Over the sound of silence, he picked up voices in the other room.
“What seems to be the problem?” he heard Sandy ask, an air of tension in her voice.
“We received an anonymous tip that there may be enemies to the REA on the premise,” a mare with a fairly-deep voice replied.
Sandy took a moment before she spoke. “Okay... that’s a bit strange.” Sunny could almost imagine her shrugging. “Well, feel free to look around; it’s just us.”
“Thank you for your cooperation.”
Sunny could only listen as the ponies moved about the house, listen and try not to think about how Willow was practically laying on him. Still, he could feel the minor panic setting in. His breath was beginning to quicken and his muscles were tensing.
“Take it easy, Sunny,” Willow breathed out her lips, most likely sensing his uncomfortability.
There was a creak as the bedroom door opened and a pony began to rummage around the room. Sunny was sure the ponies searching would find the two mares under the bed, and he anxiously awaited the sound of alerted yells or gunshots. It was a moment before the shutter doors on the closet slid open and a blue stallion poked his head in, eyes scanning the space below the two hidden ponies. His eyes drifted to the lump of bags in the corner, but he didn’t examine them closely. His eyes started to travel up, and Sunny tensed.
Clear!” the stallion called, backing out of the closet. Sunny and Willow both let out the breaths they had been holding.
“Clear!” the mare called from another room.
“Clear!” came another stallion’s voice.
“Willow,” Sunny growled quietly. “You have to get off me.”
“I can’t,” she said apologetically. “Just hang in there.”
“Well,” the REA mare said after a minute. “It must have been another hoax. Sorry for the misunder... standing...” She trailed off. “Is that blood?”
“Yes,” Lufty answered immediately. “Our uh, cat got in a fight with another cat outside and it bled on the carpet.”
“Where’s that cat now?” the mare questioned.
“Dead,” Lufty answered. “It died from the wounds.”
“You’re lucky it did,” the sergeant said warningly. “Animals have been outlawed since the food shortages.”
“Sergeant, this blood’s fresh,” the voice of the blue colt said.
There was a moment of silence. “Care to explain,” the mare said dangerously, “why your table is set for six ponies... when there are only two of you?”
Nopony spoke.
“Search again,” the mare called. “Check everywhere!”
Sunny stared curiously at Willow as her horn glowed red. “What are you doing?”
She made a shushing sound and levitated a pistol from her bag, flicking the safety off.
Sunny tensed. “Willow...” The closet doors opened again; the blue colt was back. He looked around the closet again, pulling the blankets away to reveal the battle saddle. His eyes widened a little bit, and he looked up, right into the barrel of Willow’s pistol.
“If you try and call out, I will kill you,” Willow said in a threatening tone Sunny had only heard a few select times—it still gave him the shivers, if pressing up against her hadn’t already been doing that.
The stallion’s eyes stretched wide as he stared into Willow’s glowing ones. Sunny could almost hear him thinking, running through options. He was wearing a battle saddle, but he wasn’t in any position to aim and fire.
“Please, don’t,” Sunny said to the stallion, throwing a glance to Willow. “I don’t care what you think; she’ll kill you.”
His eyes darted left and right, then he opened his mouth to scream.
The pop of the low-caliber pistol alerted everypony in the apartment.
“Shot’s fired!” the sergeant yelled from the living room.
Willow jumped from atop the shelf and thudded to the floor, Sunny right behind her, thankful for the break in contact. In only a few seconds, she had his battle saddle out of the pile and onto his back, yanking the buckle straps tight. She finished with him and slung on her own barding.
The guest bed flew up into the air, toppling upside down as Candy surged upwards. Quickly, she grabbed her stuff, practically dragging Cotton around behind her.
“Detain these two!” the other stallion yelled. There was the sound of a scuffle and the cries of Lufty and Sandy.
“No,” sunny muttered. This was their fault.
“Help me with this!” Candy yelled suddenly. She had braced herself against a standing wardrobe by the door, trying to push it over to block the entryway. Sunny moved up beside her, and together, they shoved the heavy wardrobe off balance. It hit the wall by the door and stuck cockeyed, breaking off the door handle and effectively blocking the entrance.
“Now what?” he panted.
The door shook for a moment as a pony on the other side tried to push through. “Open up!” the mare yelled. “You will be unharmed if you open the door and surrender your weapons!”
“Don’t do it!” Sandy yelled from the living room. “They’ve got a flamethro—”
“Shut her up!” There was a series of heavy blows and Sandy whimpered into silence.
Willow dashed to the window and smashed the glass out with her hoof, cutting her foreleg in the process. She struck the window again and the pane broke out of the frame and fell to the street.
“We can’t just climb down,” Candy protested. “We’re five stories up in the air.”
Willow grunted her approval. She dashed back to the upturned mattress, and wiggling under it carried it on her back to shove it half-through the window frame. “That’s what this is for.”
Cotton balked at Willow. “Are you insane!?”
The whole front wall of the bedroom exploded inward in a shower of plaster dust and five ponies stormed into the room. The leader was a pink mare, a little taller than normal. She was flanked by two ponies sporting assault carbines, and on the outside were two ponies in hotsuits, primed flamethrowers on their backs.
“Bullshit,” Willow muttered. “Flamethrowers... really?” She pulled Cotton over beside her and held her pistol to the frightened mare’s head. “Don’t come any closer!”
The pink mare examined the scene, her eyes observant, dangerous. Her short, yellow mane hung just above her eyes and tickled the back of her neck. “My orders are to bring you three back alive or dead. I really don’t want to have to kill you all, because I like to give ponies a chance, but I won't hesitate if I have to.”
“If you send us back to that place it’ll be as good as killing us!” Willow spat.
The mare shook her head. “That’s not my problem. I have orders—alive or dead, your choice.” The two ponies on either side of her clicked their weapons.
Willow shoved the barrel of the pistol against Cotton’s head, causing her to wince. “I will blast her brains out if you try anything.”
The pink mare actually smiled. “Nice bluff. You’re determined, and you’re smart; I can see it in your eyes. You’re too smart to shoot your own hostage because then you’d be dead, and you have too much of a heart to kill her in cold blood.”
Willow swallowed. “S-say that to him!” She tossed her head towards the stallion in the closet with his brains leaking onto the carpet.
The mare clicked her tongue. “It was him or you—I can understand that. I have no respect for what you have done, but I can see from your standpoint why it was necessary.” She paused. “And I just thought that I would inform you that your hostage is no longer an essential piece to us.”
Cotton paled. “W-w-what?”
The sergeant shrugged. “How long did you think Grayhoove’s lie would go unnoticed. It was only a matter of time before somepony tried to access the datafiles and realized that there was no encryption, not even a password.” She took an intimidating step forward. “You’re expendable.”
“Now!” Willow wrapped a hoof around Sunny’s neck and hurled herself towards the window. Somehow, she managed to get her other hoof around Cotton as well. Gunfire lit up the room as Willow hurled them onto the mattress. Sunny hardly registered what was happening as the white mare braced herself against the floor and shoved them off just as Candy scrambled past after Cotton onto the mattress. The entire room lit up in an explosion of fire as Sunny felt them leave the windowsill. Willow landed on his chest, then he was falling, watching the building shoot up into the air as flame poured from the window they had just left.
His head smacked against the mattress, which suddenly felt incredibly hard, and the steel springs stabbed into his back. His only-just-healed ribs creaked from Willow’s weight atop him and he clenched his teeth.
It took him a moment to realize that they were in the middle of the street. Willow rolled off him and hopped around, cursing as she swished out the fire on her tail.
Sunny rolled off the demolished mattress with a groan. “Sweet Celestia, I can not believe we just did that.”
Candy stood up, dragging Cotton with her. “We just—” A bullet whizzed by and pitted the ground at her hooves. She eeped, and jumped away.
The sergeant stood in the window above, aiming a rifle down at them.
“Run!” Sunny yelled, forcing them forward. Ponies watched and balked as the four of them sprinted down the street. After a few blocks, Sunny led them into an alley between two tall buildings.
“Stop,” Willow panted, lumbering to a halt and falling against a dumpster. “I... I can’t”
Worry clouding his mind, Sunny turned back and approached her. She was worse off than he had thought. Her hind legs were badly burnt; they only looked red now, but Sunny knew that in a few hours the flesh would start to peel like hamburger. She bled heavily from a gash on her rump where a bullet had skimmed her, and a quarter of her tail was burnt off.
Frantically, he reached into her bag and dug for a healing potion. There was a sharp pain in his hoof and he drew it back, blood welling from a cut. “What the...” He reached in again and pulled out a hoof full of broken glass, purple droplets of liquid clinging to the surface. “No...”
“No what?” Willow asked, falling back on her haunches.
Sunny dug frantically through the bag on her back, then let out a sigh of relief. “You only broke one potion.” He passed her one of the bottles containing the purple liquid.
Willow winced as she uncorked the bottle. “You had me worried there.”
“Weren’t they all in the case I gave you?” Candy asked
“They were,” Willow answered. “But I must have left it open after getting that potion for Cotton.”
Sunny watched as she downed the bottle with an expression of relief. “Are you going to be alright?”
Willow nodded. “Yeah, but let’s hope we don’t have to use any more. You had to pay out the flank to get healing potions because they never were very common. The only reason we had them before was because I raided the hospital’s stash, and that was probably fifty-thousand bits worth.” She flopped over on her side. “One does not simply find another healing potion. I have no clue how Candy got ahold of a whole case of them.”
Candy grinned. “Barracks. I made a quick stop before I saved you two.”
Cotten sat perfectly still, staring at her hooves. “They were going to kill me. I didn’t matter at all to them... All of my life working for the army, and they were willing to throw me away, just like that.”
Candy rolled her eyes. “Welcome to the army, sister.”
Sunny listened for hoofsteps at the mouth of the alley, breathing a sigh of relief when they faded away, having safely passed.
“Now what do we do?” Candy huffed. She glared at the pink mare she was shackled to. “Our hostage is useless. The most we could use her for now is a meatshield.”
Cotton scooted away from the mare, trying to put Sunny between them, but the shackles stopped her from doing so. “Don’t let her kill me,” she pleaded, hugging Sunny’s leg.
Sunny shook her off a little more forcibly than he had intended and stepped out of her reach. He glared at Candy. “We will not be killing her,” he growled.
Candy gave the shackle around her hoof a shake. “Any ideas?”
“He raised a brow. “Could we just let her go?”
Candy blinked, then reached back and dug in her saddlebags, producing the key for the shackles.
“What are you doing?” Cotton asked skeptically as Candy undid the shackle around her own hoof.
Candy slammed the key down in front of the pink mare. “Get out of here.”
“J-j-just like that?” Cotton stammered.
Willow propped herself up to look at the slightly-confused mare. “It was nice to be your captor, and part of me still wants to kill you for being my captor.”
Cotton looked around to the three of them with disbelieving eyes. She opened her mouth to speak, but then closed it again. She turned away, looking back at them, then bolted, the shackle still bound to one hoof jangling behind her as she disappeared down the alley.
Willow shrugged and leaned heavily on the dumpster. “Well that worked.” She chuckled. “It was like letting a fish go after you catch it.” Her eyes drifted between Sunny and Candy “Wha... you two have never gone fishing?”
Sunny slumped. “We still have a pretty big problem.”
“I say we get the hay out of this city,” Willow spoke up. “I’d rather brave zombies and hunger than this mess and other ponies like the ones who...” Her pupils dilated, and for a moment she was lost, jaw going slack.
“Yeah, sure,” Candy scoffed, unaware that Willow had stopped listening. “How exactly do you plan on doing that? Let’s just walk up to all the ponies stationed on guard and say, ‘hey, we’re wanted criminals, but if you don’t mind, we’re just going to scale your fifteen foot wall and run into that horde of zombies now’.”
“Way to be an optimist,” Sunny muttered.
“It’s funny, isn’t it,” Willow laughed, seeming to have regained herself. “This is the only place in Equestria, that we know of, that’s zombie free, and all we want to do is get the hay out of it.”
Sunny’s ears perked at a quiet jangling from down the alley, gradually growing louder. “Hey, Willow?”
“Yeah?”
“When you throw a fish back, are they supposed to swim back to you?”
“Help!” Cotton screamed, tearing down the alley at full pelt, eyes wide and panicked.
Willow squinted at the mare, a scowl plastered across her face. “What the hay is her problem?”
“It’s after me!” Cotton squealed, tearing past them and throwing herself in a standing dumpster. She ducked down amongst the garbage and slammed the lid behind her with a hollow ‘bwong’.
Willow pounded on the side of the dumpster. “Who’s after you!?”
Sunny scanned the alley, down the way Cotton had come, flicking off the safeties on both the shotgun and the rifle. It had to be something. He had seen it in Cotton’s eyes. It would take something a bit more traumatic than a hallucination to scare a mare to that degree.
He spotted it, whatever it was. It was about the same size as a pony, but was a rather disgusting thing. It was black, unlike any pony he had ever seen, and its eyes were orb-like and blue. It’s scraggly, gray tail was unkempt, and overall looked pretty sickly. It had fangs, surprisingly, yellowed from rot and stained red with blood.
Sunny would have continued to stare, had thing not been running right at him, hissing and snarling in a very similar way Sunny knew zombies to.
He fired the shotgun and rifle simultaneously. Somehow, he managed to miss the thing, which was scuttling around like a giant mouse. In comparison, it was like trying to stomp on a cockroach before it scuttled away after the lights were flicked on.
Sunny dived aside as the thing lunged at him, missing by a terrifying two inches. It ran headlong into the dumpster Cotton had taken refuge in and crunched in the side, causing the mare inside to eep. In a second, Willow had her automatic levitated before her. She fired just as the thing regained itself and rocketed away, making a fast circle back towards Sunny, her shots only pitting the ground.
This time he wasn’t fast enough. The creature struck Sunny like a bag of cement mix and knocked him up against the wall of a building. He cringed as it lunged for his neck, fangs menacingly sharp.
Willow caught it from behind, freezing the snapping jaws and razor-sharp fangs mere inches from the cowering pegasus’ face. With a grunt and a heave, she hauled the hissing and snarling abomination backwards as it tried and tried for Sunny’s throat, barely even caring that Willow or Candy existed at all.
Sunny couldn’t even blink. It had gone after the first pony it had seen, which happened to be him. It’s orby eyes hadn’t even left him except for when it had hit the dumpster, and even then it had gone right back to him.
“Now, Sunny!” Willow grunted. She spun, releasing the whatever-it-was and hurling it across the alley. There was a meaty whack as it struck the brick side of a building and fell to the ground in momentary daze.
Sunny fired once with the rifle and twice with the shotgun, watching semi-joyously as all three shots tore chunks out of the thing’s black hide. It screeched and flopped to the ground in a twitching mass, bleeding a greenish-blue substance onto the ground from gaping wounds. Its legs flailed violently as it tried to get up. For good measure, Sunny aimed a buckshot round at the angry creature’s head and fired one last time. The cries were cut short and it flopped over like a wet rag, bleeding it’s off-color blood onto the dirty asphalt.
Willow took a deep breath and gave a little chuckle. She trotted briskly over to prod the body, checking to see if it was still alive despite the fact that half of its head was splattered across the wall. “That’s weird,” she mumbled, running her hoof through the goop spreading across the ground.
Candy cringed. “Don’t stick your hoof in it, Willow.”
“It’s hemolymph...” she muttered back, shaking the blood from her hoof. “This is insect blood.”
The candy-colored mare squinted. “So, what? Thing’s an insect?”
“Well it’s certainly not a pony!”
Cotton poked her head out of the dumpster, ears folded, eyes darting around seeking for more danger. “I-it’s a changeling.”
All three of them turned to the pink mare. Candy gave a cocked brow while Willow bobbed her head impatiently, silently willing the mare to continue.
Cotton scrambled out of the dumpster and dropped clumsily to the ground. “Changeling,” she repeated, trotting up to meet them whilst shaking off the last of her fright with a few quick flicks of her ears. “They’re an insect-like species of... something.” She rolled her eyes. “I was never in charge of that department. They posses the ability to take on the desired shape of any other living creature of their size...” A frown crossed her face as she looked at the dead Changeling. “This right here shows that they can be infected.”
Sunny was still having trouble getting back to breathing normally. “Yeah, and this shows that they have a strong case of the munchies and they’re hard to shoot.”
Willow harrumphed. “Which means we’re more likely to die.”
“Maybe it was the only one,” Sunny said hopefully.
Cotton shook her head at him. “Changelings are known to travel in swarms of...” She trailed off, eyes drifting to the upper right, “...of about one to three hundred.”
Willow’s eye twitched and she took up a tense stance. “So... where are the other two hundred and ninety-nine?”
Cotton chewed her lip. “Well, let’s see, um... they like dark spaces, someplace with a ceiling; they make, like, cocoon things, kind of like a butterfly.”
“I thought you were a scientist,” Candy scoffed quietly, just loud of enough for Cotton to hear.
“Scientist,” Cotton spat back, “not an entomologist.”
“Subways!” Willow called suddenly.
Candy frowned. “What about them?”
Cotton paled. “The subways were shut down completely once Baltimare went off the grid—they sucked power like brothel mare’s suck—”
“Are you saying these things are under the city!?” Sunny panicked.
“They very well could be.”
He slumped. “Buck my life.”
Cotton started forward. “We have to tell somepony!”
Candy grabbed her by the mane and yanked her back. “Yeah sure, let’s just walk up to a platoon of guardsponies and tell them that there’s a bunch of deadly changeling zombies hiding in the subway tunnels, they’ll totally believe a bunch of ponies that just broke out of a physical and mental testing facility.” She flicked her tail. “Besides, we don’t even know for sure if that thing came from below the city.”
Sunny dropped to his belly and rubbed his temples with his forehooves. “Well if Cotton’s right, and they do travel in swarms, and if they are under the city... if one got out...”
The pink mare got a distant look about her. “Then so did the others.”
Willow’s jaw trembled slightly. “It might be happening all over again.”
* * *
Moon stared silently out the cab window as the landscape flew by on either side of her. Canterlot was a mere speck in the distance now.
Rain poured in torrents, and the wind howled at them from the side, whipping sheets of water across the glass as the wipers tried hopelessly to skim it away. Although it was morning, the sky was dark-gray, golden sun hidden behind layers of black clouds and filtered even further by the rain, setting the feeling that it was really no more than a half-moon night.
The hum of the engine sent a small vibration through her body, translating through her hooves from the paneled floor. it just wasn’t the same. While the old steamer they had ridden screamed of power, the heavy chug, the pounding of the pistons and the roar as the smoke rocketing from the stack, it’s warmth. This engine showed none of that; it scooted along like a jackrabbit with a steady hum from the gemerator room. The streamlined glass cab felt claustrophobic compared to the open cab of the Big Buck, and the combined breath of the ponies inside the cold cab fogged the insides of the windows.
The engine had been quite an object at first sight. It consisted of two cars, both spanning about forty feet in length. The first car of the engine was the cab unit itself, painted dark-red with a glossy paint and streamlined with a domed roof and hood. A silver stripe ran right down the middle of the engine and painted the steel all around the curved front windows of the cab. The same color of silver ran along the bottom on both sides, just above the wheels.
The car pulled behind the engine had the same color scheme: a line of silver across the roof and a thinner line along the bottom on either side. This car, as told by Snowglobe, served as a second unit and a baggage car. Since they were pulling nothing but the engine’s own weight, the second unit was useless, and had only been left coupled for the sake of extra space.
Apart from the engine actually working, nothing seemed to be going right. After their disconnected cars had drifted to a stop a little short of the railyard, those of them remaining had made the four-hundred yards to the sheds. The first one they visited had been the wrong one. Range, in his injured and half-out-of-it state, had not directed them to the right one. They had found the correct shed on their third try after busting off a lock that could have stalled Celestia herself, but not without loss. By the time they had finally made it to the shed—not exactly a zombie-free trek—and gotten the shed doors open, and after Snowglobe had spent the hour long task of getting the engine running, they had lost seven of their own. Moon guiltily thanked Celestia that the lost ones had not been tied to her in any manner.
‘What kind of a place is this?’ she wondered, ‘where I thank the goddess that the dead weren’t ones I know?’
Their number was now nine, and a foal. It was her, Snowglobe, Brick, Copper, Altic, Yew, Range, Jade, Sage, the pink mare and her foal, and a sky blue stallion named Carter.
A single tear ran down her cheek, sheering off at the bottom of her jaw and falling silently to the floor below. All the Appleoosans, all but three... they were all dead. How had she failed so catastrophically? It would kill her soul to lose anypony else. Now, everypony on board, she knew personally. The only reason she had been able to semi-bear the deaths of the so many others was that she did not know them, apart from faces that she would never see again.
There was Jade, the pegasus whom she had saved. Sage, the mare kind enough to let them into their stronghold, and the one to pass on leadership to Moon. Copper, formal REA turned firestallion by Dusty. Yew, Dusty’s sister. Snowglobe, Brick, the best friends she had ever met...
It was all just too much.
Snowglobe sat at the relatively simple controls, leaned back in the padded seat, head pressed against the left side window, breath fogging the glass. Brick lay just behind her, stripped of all barding and the monstrous weapon, curled up into a big, brown ball. Sage and Jade lay against each other near the back of the cab. Copper sat beside Snowglobe — he was the only one still awake apart from Moon.
The rest were back in the second unit.
Nothing felt right without Dusty. He had left them with only a single relic, which was currently strapped to Snowglobe’s right foreleg. It wasn’t fair, wasn’t right. He couldn’t just be gone, not after all the things they’d been through together. He was practically family, and just like that... he had been snatched away when they were at their weakest. As of now, the only thing Moon could look forward to was finding Sunny and Willow.
More than often in these last few hours, she had found her thoughts wandering to the darker side... What if? When it came to fire the shotgun again, what if she turned it on herself instead? Just like that, it would all be over. No more killing, no more pain, no more anything. Sometimes, it seemed so easy—a selfish, but easy way out of the whole mess. Then it would be their problem, not hers.
But that was no way to go. That wasn’t how she wanted to be remembered — not as the mare who couldn’t hack it and painted the wall with her brains right when everypony needed her most.
She had heard the term, ‘life isn’t fair’ for her entire life really, and up until this point, she had never fully understood it until now... until yesterday. She had used to complain when the store didn’t have the kind of shampoo she liked, or the snack she wanted. Now... she hadn't bathed in what seemed like forever, and she was lucky to eat at all. Now she had no right to complain about anything. It was what it was, and there was nothing she, or anypony, could do about it.
It had been... painful, leaving Canterlot. She had watched, unable to look away, as they cut through the wreckage. What was left over wasnt much. There had been scattered steel for a mile along the straight stretch, but nothing major. She had sobbed as they rounded the casual corner. It was a scene of death. Bodies lay scattered like confetti at the end of an extravagant party, skewering the ground, innards hanging from lights and power poles like streamers... It reminded her of some pony’s idea of a sick toilet paper prank, only it spanned over two blocks. At the very epicenter, had been the Big Buck, or at least what was left. The only thing remaining had been the side of the boiler that had been blasted into the ground and the front set of wheels and pistons about fifty feet away. A wheel there, a piece of a connecting rod there... all destroyed.
“Run,” Snowglobe murmured in her sleep. “We... we have to go.” She exploded out of her seat in a whirlwind of hooves. “What are you doing!?’ she screamed, flopping over to the floor.
Copper moved forward and gave her a shake. “Snowglobe, it was just a dream! Snowglobe!”
The others in the cab stirred, but didn’t wake.
Snowglobe’s eyes cracked open in the gloom and she shakily picked herself up off the floor.
Copper offered her a hoof. “Are you o—”
“Leave me alone,” she snapped, waving him away.
Copper backed away courteously, catching Moon’s eye. “I’m just gonna go,” he murmured, pushing past her and nudging open the door to the gemerator room. A loud hum filled the cab before he shut the door again, casting the cab back to semi-silence.
Moon sat quietly, listening to the pitter patter of rain on the windows and the whish of the hydraulic wipers. Snowglobe hunkered up in the corner, propping her head against the window and pinching her eyes shut. In the gentle blue light of display lighting, Moon spotted the shine on the mare’s cheeks as tears leaked from her eyes. The mare’s chest heaved as she fought back a sob, and she buried her face in the crook of her forehoof.
Moon crept forward. “Snowglobe... are you okay?” She placed a hoof on the gray mare’s withers.
The mare picked her head up and turned herself around to face Moon. She nodded, but her face said no. “What are we gonna do?” she whispered.
Moon sighed. “Baltimare... it’s all we can shoot for.”
“We don’t have any food.”
Moon was silent for a moment. “I know.”
“We left the case... the drug.”
“...I know.”
“All of them...” Her breath heaved. “How long before it’s us? how long before something happens, and... and...” The sobs overtook her, and she crumpled against Moon, sobbing into the blue mare’s neck.
Moon patted Snowglobe on the back as the mare’s hooves wrapped tight around her middle. “I know.” Returning the embrace, Moon nuzzled into the smaller mare’s mane. “The most we can do is what we can... You just have to hang in there.” She drew in the mare’s scent, musty and smelling of coal and gunpowder, but sweet. A thought struck her. “Should somepony be driving the train, or at least watching the tracks?”
Snowglobe drew back, blushing a little around the tears smearing her cheeks. “S-s-sorry. I need to stay in my place.”
Moon stared out the windshield ahead at the at the beam of light from the lamp mounted in the nose of the streamlined engine, the powerful beam lighting the droplets and casting flickering glares across the sheets of water battling with the wipers. “Do you want me to take over? I just have to keep an eye on the tracks, and I can wake you up if there’s anything.”
Snowglobe shook her head, a yawn forming on her face. No, I’m... I’m good.”
Moon deadpanned. “Snow, you haven’t slept since before the griffons—you’re practically dead on your hooves.”
Snowglobe flopped back down in the elevated airseat and shifted her puffy eyes to the controls, their blue glow reflecting in her green eyes. “No really, I’m fine.”
With a little smirk, Moon moved up and wrapped a hoof around the mare’s neck. Snowglobe laxed almost immediately, falling into the embrace and slumping against Moon. “No,” she muttered, eyes fluttering. “...Can’t sleep.”
Moon smiled and ran a hoof through the smaller mare’s purple mane. “Sleep; you deserve it.”
Snowglobe slipped from the seat and trickled to the floor, embracing Moon’s warmth in the chilly cabin. “Maybe just for a bit,” she slurred.
With a motherly smile, Moon wrapped a forehoof over Snowglobe’s back and pulled her in close. In seconds, the mare had dozed off. Moon turned her attention out the window, keeping watch ahead. “We won’t lose anypony else,” she whispered. “I won't let it happen.”
The engine pushed on through the gloom, rain pounding the windows as the wipers tried to battle it away.
* * *
Sunny looked anxiously at Willow as she peered through the binoculars. “What do you see?”
She flicked her tail at him. “Gimme a minute.”
Sunny sighed and looked out over the city. They had made their way to the top of a twenty story building near the southern wall of Baltimare with intents of a good scouting and vantage point.
Cotton had stuck with them, despite Candy’s protests and obvious repulse. Apparently, the changeling spook had really unsettled the pink mare, and she insisted on staying with them due to the fact that they’d dealt with zombies before. Sunny could argue that the REA was much better equipped for battling hordes of zombies than a few used-to-be citizens with guns, but he didn’t see the point. The truth was that Cotton didn’t want to speak the truth: she had lost faith in the army after they had tossed her aside as expendable goods.
Willow also had the theory that Candy was suffering from stockholm syndrome, a case in which the captive becomes attached to their captor—it seemed plausible.
Willow hissed under her breath, glaring through the glasses. “I can’t see any way around them.”
Sunny grabbed them from her field of levitation. “Let me see.”
From their point on this rooftop, they had a good view of the southern wall. The army certainly didn’t have lack of fortification. Ponies in gray uniform trotted busily back and forth across the walkway of the concrete and steel barrier wall. At regular intervals, large, menacing-looking stationary guns were mounted on wheel pivots; he took these to be the anti-air precautions due to the fact that the barrels were turned towards the sky.
The army had been smart. When they had contained Baltimare, they had not tried to enforce the entire city. They had mostly enclosed the downtown district, running their barriers around geographical strong points and encircling some smaller rural areas. The outskirts of the city had been left unprotected, allowing the zombies to claim all not inside the wall.
Candy snatched the binoculars from him. She held them up to her eyes and frowned down at the barrier. After a moment, she cursed and tossed them back to Willow. “It’s just as I thought.”
“Thought?” Willow asked.
“They’ve got everything covered.” She sighed. “Besides, even if we managed to sneak out over the wall, it’s not like we’re just going to trot right through the crowders.”
“Crowders?” Sunny frowned at her.
Candy blinked. “Sorry for the lingo. The zombies that crowd around the wall, somepony on duty started calling them crowders and the name spread through the forces like wildfire; it’s practically written in the lingo book now.”
“Skywagon?” Cotton suggested. “I have some pegasus friends that might—”
“No good,” Candy interrupted sourly. “Skywagons are only permitted to enter the city through a specific port, plus radio confirmation is needed for both entry and exit... We’d never make it past the anti-air.”
Willow growled. “Then how the hay do we get past ‘em?”
Sunny shuffled his hooves nervously, a rather insane idea striking him. “I have an idea...”
All heads turned to him. “Well go on,” Willow insisted.
He hesitated. “Well, we can’t get out by sneaking past, and we can’t get out on a skywagon...” He gave them a nervous grin. “We could always try going under the wall.”
Cotton’s eyes widened in terror, and Candy glared like he had just suggested she marry Cotton.
Willow nodded slowly, caught up in thought. “Possibly.”
Candy rounded on her. “What do you mean possibly?”
“Well—”
“Subways, Willow!” Candy pressed, placing her forehooves on either side of Willow’s body and looking her in the eye. “Dark and—”
Willow bared her teeth and head-butted the mare in the face. Candy reared back from the unexpected impact and fell to her rump, shellshocked.
Sunny panicked, ready to move forward to call Willow off; she had that look about her again. But before he needed to step in, that look died.
Willow stepped back, ears folded in shame. “I-I’m sorry,” she squeaked. “You touched me and I didn’t mean to— I’m sorry, Candy.”
The stunned mare picked herself up, a red mark prominent across her brow and muzzle. “Shit... that hurt.”
“Sorry,” Willow repeated. Her eyes shone with unshed tears. “Candy, I’m sorry, but you can’t touch me like that.”
Candy nodded absently. “Apparently not.”
The sorry look in Willow’s eyes vanished. “It’s not a joke,” she said dangerously, causing Sunny to take an unconscious step away from the pair.
Candy sobered up pretty fast. “Right, sorry.” She staggered a little on her hooves, wincing and rubbing her head. “But really, you’re insane if you suggest we actually take the subways. Remember the changeling?”
The four of them went back to looking over the city. “I really don’t see any other options though,” Candy pouted.
“Can I vote no on the subways?” Cotton chirped timidly.
Candy flicked her ears. “You can leave any time. Nopony’s forcing you to stay with us.”
Willow sighed. “Maybe we could—”
“Drop your weapons and turn towards me!” a mare screamed from behind them.
Willow clenched her teeth and her eyes burned with fire. “You. Have. Got. To. Be. Kidding me!”
“Now!” the pony screamed louder.
Slowly, Sunny turned with the others to face the mare. She was REA, earth pony, her orange coat shining in the sun from below her gray uniform, silver mane held out of her eyes with a tie. She was scared—her body language screamed it. Her legs shook just a little bit, and the barrels of her two carbines tremored slightly.
“Hey now—” Sunny made the mistake of taking a step towards her.
She clamped down on the firing bit and the hair in Sunny’s ears tickled his brain as a bullet whizzed by his head. “Don’t move!” she screeched, voice crackling.
Sunny froze to the spot, afraid to blink. Nothing was more dangerous, or terrifying, than a scared mare with two big guns.
Willow fumed silently as she glared daggers at the orange mare.
The REA pony turned her rifles on Willow with a quick jerk. “Put your weapon on the ground!” She motioned towards the automatic on Willow’s leg.
Resentfully, Willow pulled the weapon from its holster and tossed it on the ground, then looked over at Sunny. “Any plans?”
He frowned. “Plans?”
“Stop talking!” the mare yelled.
Willow ignored her. “Yes,” she said, raising her voice purposefully. “Should would actually lay down our weapons or should we just shoot this snoopy sack in the face!?”
The REA mare eeped and jerked her rifles back to Sunny. “Drop them!”
He glared. “It’s a battle saddle. Please explain how you suggest I drop them.”
Irritation flashed in her eyes, and the rifles drifted back to Willow. “Unbolt the weapons from his saddle and throw them on the ground!”
Willow grumbled something rather profane and magically yanked Sunny’s rifle from its slot on the battle saddle. She threw it to the ground with a sneer towards the REA mare, then did the same with the shotgun.
The mare checked Cotton and Candy, and once concluding that neither had a weapon, stepped back, swapping the glare of her rifles between the four of them. She yanked a standard issue radio from on of her bags and set it on the ground, depressing the talk button with her hoof. “This is Private Shores requesting a retrieval squad to the roof of the Pleasntstay hotel.”
“Forwarding to dispatch,” a squeaky mare answered.
It was a moment before a stallion with a cliche dispatcher’s voice responded. “Acknowledged, Private. Please state your form of emergency.”
Shores never took her eyes off the four of them as she spoke. “You’re not gonna believe this, but I have apprehended and captured the two escaped mental patients from Bottle of Progress, along with the mutiny subject, Private Cane and the awol scientist.”
There was a long moment of silence from the radio. “Private Shores, a team has been dispatched to your location. Keep the subjects in captivity until they arrive.”
Sunny’s blood had begun to boil at the way they had been titled. Mental patients? Awol scientist? Mutiny? There was some pony sitting somewhere behind a desk, thinking up relative words to make them sound bad.
“Shores, eh?” Willow said with the hint of a smile. “Cute name.”
The private glared. “Don’t speak.”
Willow went on like she hadn’t heard. “What’s your first name?”
“None of your business,” Shores snapped back.
Willow made a pouty face. “Come on, I don’t bite... much.”
“No.”
“Come on.”
“No.”
“Please?” Willow grinned.
The private growled and rolled her eyes. “It’s Silver, okay! Silver Shores.”
Willow nodded with interest. “Oh, I see now.” She smirked. “Orange coat and silver mane. Silver Shores, heh.”
Silver groaned. “Yes, now will you please shut up?”
Candy swished her tail for Silver’s attention. “How long do you think it’ll be before they dispose of you?”
Silver’s eyes drifted slowly to the striped-maned mare. “What in Celestia’s name are you talking about?” she asked irritably with a scrunch of her brow.
“I mean, how long do you think it’ll be until they’re going to throw you away like they did me?”
“You killed your squad!” Silver spat disgustedly.
Candy shook her head slowly, sighing. “I did no such thing.” She swallowed a lump in her throat. “I was betrayed when I brought back volunteers to help with a cure—these two.” Her hoof waved towards Sunny and Willow. “Then the army stamped me as a murderer and threw the two ponies I brough to help into that torture house called Bottle of Progress.”
Silver shook her head. “I can see what you’re trying to do. I’m not letting you go.”
“They took me hostage!” Cotton added desperately. “How is that awol?”
“You have no idea what you just got yourself into by making that radio call,” Willow said menacingly.
Sunny chipped in, seeing what the mares were trying to do. “They’ve killed or tried to kill everypony that’s been in contact with us.” This, of course, wasn’t true, but maybe if they just scared this mare enough...
Candy took a step forward and silver trained the rifles on her. “When they come to collect us, they’re going to ask you if we told you anything.”
Silver seemed to be growing rather nervous. “B-but you haven’t.”
Candy smiled sadly. Sunny had to admit, the mare was a good actor. “It doesn’t matter, to them; you’ll be a liability. If you say no, they’ll think we told you, and told you to say no because we said they’d kill you if you said yes, so even if we never told you anything, they’d still kill you because they can no longer trust you.” She shrugged. “So no matter what, you’re dead. Or they’ll take you to Bottle of Progress and liquify your brain, run zombie tests on you.”
SIlver rubbed her forehead in distress. “Told me what?”
Willow put her menacing look on, somehow coaxing a flash of yellow glow from her eyes. “You don’t want to know.”
Cotton smirked when Silver’s eyes widened comically as she balked at Willow. “But since you asked—”
Silver clamped the firing bit and took aim at Cotton. “I’shl shooth g’you!” She released the bit to talk. “I’ll shoot you if you say one more word!”
Sunny had to force himself not to grin. This method seemed to be working. Although none of them had discussed it, they had all seemed to silently agree. He couldn’t help but feel a little bad for SIlver—poor mare, she was terrified.
Silver took a long moment to breathe. “Why should I believe anything you four say? The REA wants you for a reason”
Sunny gave his best impartial look. “But is it worth the risk?”
Silver didn’t have the chance to answer. At that moment, the door to the hotel roof burst open behind them and and six ponies clad in REA barding and gear poured onto the hotel roof.
Sunny hung his head, listening as the hoofsteps of the gear-laden ponies drew nearer. They had been so close.
Silver got a panicky look about her as the six ponies took stance around the four held at gunpoint.
“Great work, Private Shores,” said a familiar pink mare with a yellow mane. “You got ‘em.”
Shores nodded back, smiling a little, her body language stiff.
The mare flicked her tail. “Take them down to the wagon.” She leered at Willow. “Last I saw of you was a burning tail and a crispy rump.”
Willow snapped at the mare, and immediately, every gun turned on her, metallic clicks filling the air. Willow was unphased. “And I suggest you back off before the last anypony sees of you is your tail flying off a twenty story hotel building!”
The sergeant shrugged, grinning out the corner of her mouth. “Not without you.”
Willow spat at the mare's hooves. “You’re lucky I’m not stupid enough to waste my life on yours.”
“Willow, please,” Sunny murmured.
Nopony spoke as the six REA ponies, and Silver Shores, escorted them across the roof and down the first flight of stairs to the top floor, where they then entered an elevator.
Sunny kept a close eye on Willow as they slowly descended, worried she would try something. He held his breath as Willow smirked mischievously. Swift like a cat, she lunged forward and smacked the forward wall with her forehooves, sliding them down the button panel and lighting up every button along the way.
The sergeant kicked her in the stomach and the mischievous mare collapsed to the floor, cackling in between gasps for breath. “So worth it!”
On floor seventeen, the doors slid open with a ding from the bell. An old mare with a walker balked at them from the hallway, eyes drifting from the mare on the floor to the seven ponies pointing guns at her.
The bell dinged again and the doors slid closed. They dropped to level sixteen and the doors opened again, the light in the sixteen button on the control panel blinking out.
“That’s enough,” the sergeant growled, stopping the elevator and leading them into the hall. She found them another elevator and they all loaded in. This time, the sergeant made sure to put Willow on the left side, away from the buttons.
Sunny was finding it rather hard not to snicker as Willow continued to mess with the sergeant, flicking her tail at the mare’s ears or making strange noises. Around floor ten, the sergeant had begun to ignore Willow.
The white mare looked over at Sunny and cracked a wide grin, tossing her muzzle towards the sergeant. Sunny shook his head. “It’s not worth it,” he mouthed.
Willow rolled her eyes, then turned back to the pink and yellow mare. She butted the sergeant in the flank and the mare fell against the elevator railing.
The sergeant growled and glared daggers at Willow. “Have you ever been shot before?” she threatened.
Willow grinned back. “Yes. It kinda feels like getting ploughed for the first time by an overeager stallion; there’s some blood and a lot of pain and it doesn’t hurt so bad if you don’t move too much.”
The sergeant blinked, struck off by Willow’s answer.
Willow took this chance to advance. “I doubt you’ve experienced either, ‘cause the holes you do have must be tighter than a vice with the way you strut around.”
One of the armed guards, a shorter mare, giggled, then hurriedly covered the slip up with a cough.
The sergeant bowed her head the tiniest bit to Willow. “That was clever, and I’m not going to try to stand you up. While I do want to chain you to a wall and beat you ‘till your coat matches your mane, I’m going to let you have that one.”
The bell dinged and the elevator doors slid smoothly open to the lobby. Several ponies had gathered around and were waiting for them at the bottom. It was amazing how fast news spread; one of them must have seen the ponies going up and, and with nothing better to do, gathered some friends and waited patiently at the bottom.
Willow glared and bared her teeth at a punk-looking stallion as they passed, causing him to back into his friend, who shoved him to the ground and snickered. Friends... At least Sunny hoped those ponies weren’t friends.
Two wagons sat waiting on the curb out front. One was a rolling box with bars fitted in the back, and the other was open. Sunny assumed they would be occupying the one with the bars. Of course, he had been right, and the six ponies herded them to the back of the jailer’s wagon.
Sunny looked at the sergeant with as level of a stare as he could as his friends piled into the wagon. “Where're you taking us?”
She shrugged. “I’m not taking you anywhere.” She pointed to two of the guards. “But they’ll be taking you to an REA facility on the other side of the city specially designed to hold enemies of the region.”
Sunny folded his ears. “Right then.” He lifted himself into the back of the steel-shelled wagon next, not intent on being shoved or thrown.
The sergeant turned to Silver, who had been trying to casually drift back into the crowd. “We need a pony for a ride along and I need to get back to command. Can you take this?” She asked it as a question, but it was clear that it was an order.
Silver gulped and nodded. “R-right.” She trotted forward, jaw trembling a little, and climbed up into the back of the wagon with Sunny and the others.
One of the guards slammed the door shut after her, the old steel hinges squeaking in protest, and fitted a key into the embedded lock. He and another stallion then moved around to the front of the wagon, out of sight behind a wooden wall lined with a thin layer of steel, and slipped into the harnesses.
Silver let out a little whimper sitting across from Sunny closest to the back gate as they began to pull away. “No,” she whispered. “no no no no no no! This can’t be happening.” She didn’t even seem to care about watching them, the guns on her back forgotten.
“Hey,” Sunny said quietly, trying to draw her attention. Silver didn’t seem to hear him. “Hey!” he repeated, louder. Nothing. As a last resort, he reached over and tapped her once on the head, quickly withdrawing his hoof.
She looked up at him, eyes glossy. “What?”
“They aren’t going to kill you,” he said.
She blinked a few times. “W-what?”
“They were all lies,” Sunny said reassuringly.
“Yeah,” agreed Willow. “Sorry, but we were trying to scare you into letting us go.”
The fear vanished from Silver’s face to be replaced with embarrassment and anger. “You evil ponies!” She slammed her hooves on the ground. “Why... why are you telling me this?”
Sunny slumped. “Well, seeing as we’re in the back of a jail wagon heading for some high-security confinement camp or something, there’s no real point in ruining your life.”
Silver closed her eyes, shaking her head and taking long, slow breaths. “Did you break out of Bottle of Progress with those kind of tactics?”
“No,” Cotton answered. “The one that looks like a candy cane dressed up as my partner—”
“And lover,” Candy chirped.
“—and snuck them out. Then the orange one shot me in the leg and they took me hostage to escape the building.” Cotton turned her eye to Candy. “He’s the only real friend I had. He lied to the army to save my life back in the lobby... Now that they know... he’s probably dead.” She spoke with a bitterness only achieved by betrayal.
For once, Candy looked at the pink mare with sympathy. “I... I know that must be hard.”
Sunny turned to Willow. “Can’t you like, kick a hole in the wall or bash the door off this thing?”
Willow rolled her eyes. “Well, I could, but there’s no point.” She pointed to the other wagon which was following behind them. “They have guns and a clear sight of us.”
Silver cleared her throat. “I’m still sitting right here you know.”
Willow snorted. “I know that, but you aren’t a threat.”
The REA mare blinked. “Excuse me?”
Willow pointed towards the rifles, which, as Silver was sitting now, were pointed towards the roof. “The way you’re sitting eliminates the quick use of your weapons in the confined space, and in about a second I could be over there and tearing your throat out with my teeth. Trust me, if I had wanted to kill you, you’d be dead by now.”
Silver shivered, eyes drifting to her sidearm. “That’s a lovely thought.”
“Do you still think we’re bad ponies?” Sunny asked suddenly.
The mare shook her head. “I don’t know what to think. I know the one you call Willow has killed ponies before...” She paused. “And from the report we all read on the Bottle of Progress breakout, so did you.”
Willow changed the topic before it could get nasty. “You ever fought zombies?” Sunny thanked her with a look.
“Yes,” she answered, sitting up a little straighter.
Willow shook her head. “Not sat on a wall and had target practice with them. I mean fought, battled them on the streets, ran from them.”
Silver slumped. “No.”
“Well you better learn.” She leaned in a little closer. “There’s changelings under the city.”
Silver deadpanned. “This is another lie.”
“We killed one in an alley,” Cotton answered. “We think it came from the subways, and changelings always travel in swarms.”
Silver shook her head like she didn’t believe a word of what they were saying, then changed topics. “Say,” she said to Cotton, “if they took you as a hostage and shot you in the leg... why are you so... open with them right now?”
Cotton shrugged. “They’re better than the army, that’s for sure.”
The conversation stopped there, and for the next twenty minutes the five of them rode in silence as they were pulled along through the city, civilians staring. It wasn't until they were in the heat of the downtown district that a disturbance began.
It started off simple enough: shouts and echoes reached them from ahead on the street. He could hear gunshots further off, but those were probably the air-to-ground rifles. Pressing his head against the barred window to get a better look ahead of them, Sunny spotted two mares battling in the street. And by battling, he meant battling. They rolled and screeched and pulled at each other’s manes. One definitely was playing the defensive role, doing her best to dodge the attacks of the other.
The stallions pulling their wagon picked up the pace and brisked to the scene. Pulling out of the harnesses, the two stallions proceeded to break up the heated tussle.
Sunny was rather glad they decided to not use the pistols strapped to their legs. Instead, each one took a mare and pulled them apart. Immediately, the mare who had been on defense backed away until she bumped against the side of the prison wagon, shaking her head. “She’s crazy!” she bellowed, mane falling into her face.
Sunny looked to the other mare who was still fighting the official. She yanked and twisted and growled, trying anything to pull free. “Let go of me!” she hissed, hooves scrabbling at the ground. She glared at the mare cowering behind the orange REA member, her bloodshot eyes dilating. “You’re dead!”
Sunny panicked. “Shoot her!” he yelled frantically. “She’s infected! Look at her eyes.”
The two stallions both turned to Sunny, faces reflecting shock. “Hold her tight,” Instructed the orange one. He took a step closer as the green stallion wrapped his hooves tight around the mare’s middle and held her still. “Sweet Celestia!” He reached for his sidearm. “He’s right!”
The mare lunged at him in the green stallion’s grip. “I’ll kill you!”
“Shit she’s strong!” Green cried, trying to hold her. The mare bucked and he lost his grip on her. She slunk away from him like a cat and hurled herself at the mare cowering against the prison wagon.”
Orange fired his pistol, emptying the clip at the mare. Four bullets tore through her opposite side, the rest missed.
The rabid mare staggered, breath gurgling in her throat as her lungs heaved like an angry bull’s.
“It’s true,” Silver whispered, eyes stretched wide. “The infection’s in the city.”
Green drew his own pistol and fired. He had much better aim than his colleague, and the rabid mare dropped like a wet sack.
The victim of the tussle fell against the side of the wagon, sobbing, holding a bite wound on her right hoof. “Please,” she whispered. “I need to get to a hos—” The green stallion took fast aim, and before she even knew what was happening, she was dead, sliding to the ground with a hole in her forehead.
Sunny cringed. He would never get used to that.
Green holstered his pistol, then turned to Orange. “Get on the radio and tell them it’s loose!”
Sunny didn’t like the crowd that was gathering around; they were giving him flashbacks of Desert Sage.
Orange looked to the short-wave radio strapped to his foreleg. “Shoot, it wasn’t even on.” He turned the little dial and it crackled to life. Immediately, a cacophony of voices flooded from the speakers.
“We’re getting our asses kicked down here!” a mare screamed, her voice crackling over the low-quality connection. “We need backup, now!”
“Captain!” a stallion screamed over gunfire. “What in Celestia’s name are these things!?”
Sunny realized that the gunshots he was hearing were not from the anti-air.
Green balked. “Switch to dispatch!”
Orange did so, and immediately the sound of gunfire clicked and clacked from the little speaker, fading in and out with static. Sunny heard it’s echo down the streets from deeper into the city. “Zombies!” a mare cried. “These things appear to be black and agile.” There was an explosion. “Shit! They fly. Cover that doorway!” Heavy panting. “We are pinned down in an apartment by a—”
“Pony down!” a distant voice yelled.
Sunny recognized the voice of the dispatcher. “Be advised we can not send you support at this time. All forces are currently dealing with the current situation.”
“We are going to die!” the mare bellowed.
The radio went silent.
“It’s out,” Cotton squeaked.
An old air-raid siren blared to life far in the distance, it’s wail cutting through the silence.
“Come on!” The green stallion fitted himself back in the harness. “We have to go!”
Sunny looked back for the wagon that had been following them, but it was no longer there. They must have turned off on some other street.
The patter of gunfire sounded again, this time much closer. Sunny’s eyes turned forward as four REA ponies ran into the street from an alley, shooting backwards as they ran. Six changelings came after them, darting around like cockroaches and making near-impossible targets.
The crowd scattered, ponies screaming. Sunny would never understand it. Why did ponies always have to scream in crowds? It just made everything much more confusing and caused useless commotion. But, ponies always did get stupid in numbers. His thoughts were interrupted as the wagon jerked forward and threw him to the floor.
Willow offered a helping hoof, which he ignored. “Any suggestions?” she asked meekly.
Candy fumed in her corner of the wagon as they thundered down the road. “We’re dead. It’s like the initial infection all over again.”
Willow smacked the mare with a hoof. “We are not dead!”
Sunny got back to his hooves, only to crash to the deck again as the two pullers dodged a group of ponies in the road.
“We have to get out of the city,” Willow said matter-of-factly. “Population is the number one worst place to be.”
The wagon wheels thundered as the two stallions pulling hauled them at full speed down the street, panting in effort. Ponies whipped by, running and screaming, some just looking confused.
Sunny lumbered to the front of the wagon and climbed up to look through the narrow bars to the two pullers. “Where're you taking us!?”
“Your destination!” Orange huffed.
“But that’s further into the city!” Silver yelled, panicking, moving up next to Sunny. “If you take us there, we all die!”
“Orders!” he yelled back.
Ahead, a hatch cover in the street exploded upwards, changelings and normal zombies pouring out like water from a geyser.
Green yelled and pulled hard to the right, taking the wagon and the orange pony with him. The front right wheel of the wagon demolished a newspaper stand as they cut close to the inside of a corner. “Screw orders!” he yelled. “I’m not dying for prisoners!”
Ponies dodged aside like self-conscious bowling pins as the jailwagon rocketed by. The horde pursued them at running speed, mowing down ponies in their chase for the wagon. Civilians ran alongside the wagon as they fled the wave of death. Some stayed back, sporting household-found weapons or the occasional pistol; they didn’t last long.
Silver braced herself, aiming her rifles out the back gate of the wagon and firing at any zombie or changeling that was in range with surprising accuracy.
“Go right!” Silver yelled to the stallions. “The street ahead’s a dead end!”
“Are you crazy!” the green stallion yelled. They were coming up on a T junction. The street that continued on ahead looked clear and zombie free. The right branch, however was a mess of fighting. REA and civilians fought up-close and personal with small groups of changelings and normal infected.
“I used to live here! Trust me, if we go straight we’ll be trapped!”
Sunny was tired of feeling helpless. All he could do was sit back in this caged wagon and hope nothing bad happened to them. Right about now, he was really missing his guns.
Trusting Silver, the pullers turned the wagon down the havoc-ridden street. Sunny had to brace himself against the bars as the wagon weaved to and fro between ponies and zombies. It was so surreal. They passed dead bodies, army ponies locked in battle, automatic rifles lit up on their backs. Some were bitten, others were still hanging in. many were on the ground, bleeding out from fatal wounds or in the process of being eaten.
“Shit!” the orange stallion yelled, jerking towards the other in the harness in an attempt to dodge a changeling. The black creature’s attack missed and it fell under the wagon wheels. The whole wagon bucked into the air as the steel-rimmed wheels crushed the fragile-looking zombie.
They were coming up on a four way intersection now, a subway station set diagonally between two streets just off the corner.
“This isn’t happening,” Silver whispered to herself. “This can’t be happening. We were supposed to be safe here. It can’t all go down like this in ten minutes. How’d we miss this coming?”
You saw the way they popped out of the ground,” Willow answered. “Somehow they found their way into the city through the underground.”
The entire wagon shook as a changeling hurled itself against the side. Sunny followed it with his eyes and it skittered over to the roof and dropped down to the back hoofplate, hissing and spitting at them through the bars. Sunny jumped back as it threw one hoof between the bars, swinging at him. The wrought iron steel groaned as the gate bent inwards.
Silver lined the barrel of one of her rifles up with it’s orb-like eye. The bolt worked and the hollow point round ripped out the back of its skull. The ejector spit out the smoking shell and the slide locked open. In slow motion, the changeling fell backwards and tumbled amongst the other bodies on the road.
Willow smirked a little and levitated a clip from the mare’s belt, replacing the old one and loading a new round.
Silver looked back. “What are you—” She looked to her rifle and flushed. “Thanks.”
At the front of the wagon, the orange stallion cried out as a changeling tackled him from the side. He went down in the harness and the wagon rolled over him. It happened so fast that not one of them had time to brace themselves. The harness wrapped in the wagon’s axle and the whole pivot jerked left. Without so much as a second of forewarning, the entire wagon rolled up on the right front wheel in a drunken summersault. The wooden wheel shattered under the pressure and the wagon skidden on one corner for a second before crashing down on its side, grinding across the cobbled street.
When Sunny regained himself, he was lying on his side on top of Cotton. He bled from a small cut on the side of his head, and one of his hooves ached painfully; not to mention he was sure he had re-cracked some of his ribs.
“Son of a...” Willow trailed off, coughing as she picked herself up. In the impact, the back gate had been smashed and the receiving latch had broken. It had fallen open, serving as a sort of ramp up into the totalled wagon.
“Come on!” Sunny yelled, scrambling for the back door. “Let’s get out of here!” Willow followed right behind him, dragging Candy by the scruff. “Hurry up!” Sunny danced on his hooves, tossing constant glances behind them. They had left most of the battle on the street behind, but it was being pushed towards them. The REA ponies had formed a line, and were now making a strategic retreat, covering one another as they fled towards the intersection. He picked out one blue mare in particular. Her single assault rifle clicked on empty and she broke from the line, sprinting towards them.
Silver rolled herself out of the wagon and flopped over on the ground. She had busted her right side rifle in the crash, the barrel smashed and sticking out of the mechanism at the back end.
“Give me your sidearm!” Willow yelled to Silver.
The mare picked herself, looking skeptically at Willow. “But—”
“Now!”
Silver slipped the pistol from its holster and held it out to Willow. “Here.”
Willow took the standard-issue pistol in her field of magic and slipped it into the pocket of her saddlebag.
Cotton was the last to crawl out of the wagon. The bandages on her injured leg were soaked with fresh blood and she was limping badly again.
The fighting group had fallen back to the intersection now, pushed back. “We’re losing our line!” a stallion yelled into the receiver of the radio box fitted on his back. “We are about to lose Holland street. If they push us past the intersection you’re going to have to re-station or they’ll reach you from behind!”
Willow supporting Cotton, they retreated, trying frantically to keep ahead of the line. The ragtag force of armed civilians and REA members fell back to the back of the wagon. “We need backup!” the stallion yelled into the radio. He looked up in time to spot a changeling who had broken their ranks. Ignoring everypony but the stallion with the radio, it took him down.
Sunny shook his head slowly. “We have to help them!” His mind was having trouble coping. So many ponies, dead, dying. Oblivious and worried mares and stallions looked down from windows of buildings high above.
“Teams are standing by to quarantine the compromised section of the city,” the dispatch stallion said from the radio of the dead stallion’s back. “ETA five minutes.”
A mare grabbed the receiver from the stallion’s body. “We can’t hold out that long!” The street behind her lit up with fire as an REA pony scorched the entire street with a flamethrower, lighting zombies up like torches.
She was right. Their numbers were down to nine, six REA members and three civilians, one with a pistol and two with rifles.
Willow seemed to have read his mind. Sporting Silver’s pistol, she ran forward to the wagon and pulled herself atop it. “Come on!” she yelled to the others, wielding the pistol. “Grab a weapon!”
Silver broke loose and ran to the line, falling in between two civilians who shot her grateful looks. The street ahead was a mess. Ponies ran to and fro, some heading for the line held by the REA. Sunny gasped as a mare in the line shot down a mare and a stallion trying to pass by.
Candy saw his look, and answered his unasked question. “Precaution. Once a section is quarantined, nopony leaves.” She tossed him one last look then dashed ahead, fitting the fallen stallion’s radio gear on her back. Sunny was wondering why she was doing this until he saw the rifle mounted to the saddle on the other side. She hadn’t been going for the radio, but the weapon.
“Help me out of this thing!”
Sunny looked around. It was the green stallion, lying half under the body of his dead colleague and tangled in the harness. Sunny looked around for help, but he was the only one left by the wagon, the others had moved up to help. With great repulse, he shoved the orange stallion over. Thinking twice, he unstrapped the dead pony’s holster and tied it to his own leg, checking to make sure the pistol had a full clip.
It took him a moment to help the stallion out of the harness, and by the time he looked up again, things had deteriorated.
Willow stood atop the wagon as the rest of them pooled around her in a semicircle, having been pushed back fully into the intersection.
“I’m out!” yelled a purple mare.
A stallion levitated a rifle clip over to her, never taking his eyes of the street. “Last mag. Make it count!”
Willow fired the pistol like a madmare, swinging this way and that, covering all angles. The slide locked back and she hurled the useless weapon at ping zombie.
“Fall back!” a stallion yelled over the radio on Candy’s back. “Fall back two blocks and reform!”
“No!” the radio commander yelled, raising his voice for the first time. “Our forces are not sufficient to cover that area!”
“Sir!” a mare screamed. “We’ve lost control on Hollock! They’re past! Repeat, they’re pa—” Her frequency cut out.
Silver’s eyes widened. “Hollock!? That’s the next street over!”
Sunny looked right, then left. Sure enough, he could see them, dozens, changelings, infected, pouring from between the buildings. He dashed to the back of the wagon and nearly tripped over a mare bleeding out on the ground. She had an automatic rifle on her back. “I’m sorry,” Sunny whispered, sliding the rifle out of its fitting and, with a little strain, reaching back to fasten it in the right slot of his. He grabbed the only clip remaining on her belt and backed away, her eyes tracked him, chest heaving, but she didn’t speak.
“There’s nothing you can do for her,” Sunny whispered to himself. “She’s too far gone.”
“Sergeant!?” a golden mare in their group yelled.
“Dead!” a stallion beside her yelled, firing the automatic on his back.
“Well then who’s in charge!?”
Nopony answered.
The radio cackled again. “Fletlock is compromised! We’re falling back!”
“Fletlock!?” the green stallion who had been in charge of their escort yelled. “We’re surrounded!”
Sunny felt rather sluggish. The gunfire had gotten to his head. The place was a complete warzone. The air couldn’t sit for less than a second without the boom of a rifle or the snap of a pistol disturbing it. Ponies screamed from deeper into the quarantine zone, some jumping from windows. Infected filled the streets, unsure of which pony to take a bite of first.
They were about ten seconds from being part of that chaos. From all three directions now, they were coming. He remembered something he had picked out earlier. “To the subway!”
As if he were their commander, the twelve or so of them broke their ranks and tore for the steel awning that signified the staircase to the subway entrance. Sunny was inexplicably reminded of pony behavior: in a state of chaos or confusion, whoever yelled the loudest was the one in charge.
The intersection turned into a mosh pit of death and chaos as they crossed to the walk. Sunny was unsure of who he ran with, but he hoped all of his friends were with them.
The light of the sun faded as he thundered down the steps in the lead, coming to a locked gate. He drew the pistol from the holster and held up the lock by the chain. It took three rounds to shatter the lock. He holstered the pistol and yanked the gate open, charging through with the others right behind him.
Willow was the last through. He slammed the gate shut and looked for means of securing it. He had broken the lock. “Willow!” he called, holding the two gates together as shadows started to form on the stairs.
They were ponies, zombies, some infected and halfway through the zombification process, all running for the gates. “Please let me in!” a mare screamed, tossing herself against the chainlink. Sunny had to strain to hold them. “Please!” she screamed from crying eyes, blood running down her cheeks from her tear ducts.
Sunny shook his head. “N-no. You’re infected.”
She screamed in rage and pounded her hooves on the gates as more ponies filled in around her. “I’ll kill you, you bastard!” One zombie tackled her from behind and bit into the back of her neck.
“Willow!” Sunny yelled. “Hurry!” He could feel his grasp on the two gates slipping. The green stallion and Silver came up beside him, helping him hold them off.
Willow returned with a steel bar levitating by her side. Quickly, she fed it through the two gates, then with a grunt and yell of exertion, bent the bar through the little steel squares and wrapped it around itself.
Silver took a step back, eyes wide. “H-how did you do that?”
Willow backed away. “Later.”
It wasn’t until they reached a bend in the tunnel did the yells and screams fade into the distance, and they chanced it to stop. Sunny looked around at all of them in the white glow of an emergency light. Willow, Candy, Silver, Cotton, they were all here. Along with them were seven ponies in uniform and three without.
“...are compromised!” a mare hollered over a staticky radio channel from the box on Candy’s back. “Setting evacuation points and sanctioning parts of the city!” Sunny recognised the mare’s voice: it was the pink sergeant.
“Turn that off,” the green stallion grumbled.
Candy reached back and flipped a switch on the radio, then put on a pair of bulky headphones tied to the device with a wire, only putting them over one ear. “I’ll keep an ear open.”
A golden mare pushed out of the throng of panting ponies, approaching Sunny and Willow. “Who’re you?” Her long, brown mane was muffed and untidy after the whole ordeal and a long cut ran up her cheek.
Cotton and Candy moved up beside Sunny and Willow. “The ponies that just saved your flank,” Candy said warningly. “Who’re you?”
The mare huffed. “Corporal Sunbathe.” Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You’re Private Cane!” she spat. “I should shoot you now!”
Sunny intervened. “It doesn’t matter! None of it matters!” He shoved the corporal away, baring his teeth at her. “Unless we work together, we’re all dead! The subways are how the zombies infiltrated the city, and we just locked ourselves in them!”
Sunbathe swallowed, then turned to the others. “He’s right. We’re on our own down here.”
Candy looked up from the radio. “They’re evacuating the city and retreating to the south wall.”
“Away from us...” Sunbathe slumped for a second then stood up straight. “Ammo check, everypony!”
Sunny checked his pistol. “Nine, and twenty or so for the automatic.”
“Eight,” Candy called out.
None of the numbers struck very high.
“ten.”
“Six.”
“Twelve.”
“Two mags for the automatic,” a gray mare said with minor content.
“Thirteen on the belt.”
A brown mare wearing a silver hotsuit without the helmet flicked off the pilot light on her flamethrower. “Half a tank.”
Sunbathe sighed. “We’ll have to make every shot count... Okay, how many of you have lights?”
Three hooves went into the air.
Willow tapped Sunbathe on the shoulder. “I can see in the dark.”
Sunbathe turned back to Willow with a glare. “How in the name of—” She stopped at the sight of Willow’s eyes, glowing ever slightly in the semi-dark. “What are you?” she whispered.
Willow tossed a sly grin to Cotton. “A hybrid.”
Sunny looked down the dark, tiled hallway that led to the subways. “Well at least we’re out of the fire.”
Willow huffed. “And right into the frying pan.”
He squinted at her. “Isn’t that backwards?”
Willow blushed and gave him a sad grin. “I was hoping things would get better.”