//------------------------------//
// the mall 
// Story: My little Left 4 Dead: friendship is infectionous 
// by messi 
//------------------------------//

The warm morning rays shone down on the group. Since Applejack used to waking up early for farm work, she was the first one up. Her back ached from lying on hard concrete. She got up and stretched her back. She yawned and walked over to the edge and peered over. She observed the beautiful scene of rotting corpses, overturned cars and zombies. She went into deep thought. She didn't realize she had been staring for almost an hour. 
She heard a voice come from behind her. "Hey, looks like I'm not the last one up like usual." She looked behind her; it was that "mysterious" male Pegasus again. 	
"You remind me of rainbow over there" AJ said with a smirk to him.
"Don't know if that was an insult or not" he said raising an eyebrow. He walked over and looked over with AJ. "Beautiful, isn't it?" it looks just like manehattan- minus the zombies."
"Not sure if beautiful is the right word." AJ said chuckling. She looked over at him; he had an U.E. uniform on. Must have been a rebel. She thought to herself. He was covered in blood, scratches and bruises. "Oh yeah- I never got your name" AJ said.
"Full name is solar Stryker, but you can call me Stryker for short." He responded.
"Pretty cool name you got there." AJ said back to him.
"Thanks, he replied, yours is applejack?"
"Eeeyup." She said back.
Shortly thereafter they heard a rustling behind them. They looked back to see twilight walking over to them. "What are you two doing?" she asked them.
"Just waiting for everybody to wake up." AJ responded they heard more movement from behind them. The group looked back, all of a sudden a pinkie flew in the air, doing multiple back flips, having a spas attack, and breaking the fourth wall before landing and walking over. "Hey guys wutch ya doin?" she asked.
"What the- hold on, wait, how the hell?" Stryker asked amazed at the pink pony.
"It's just pinkie being pinkie." Twilight said. "You will get used to it." With that the group talked for hours about things, how they missed the old life, what they did and so on.
Finally Stryker got fed up. "Hold on imp gonna wake that rainbow colored one up." He walked over to the sleeping rainbow, pulled out his pistol, and shot it near her ear.
She bolted in the air at the speed of light screaming her head off before realizing what happened. By then everybody had burst out laughing. "You were screaming like a little filly!" Applejack said, trying to breathe from laughing too much.
"Alright guy's funs over we need to get moving." Stryker said, still partly laughing. 
The group took down the empty streets of canterlot. With almost complete silence in a tactical formation. Twilight was the first to speak up. "Hey we should try the mall! There could still be supplies there!"
There was a murmur of agreement before rainbow spoke up "Alright then, let's go to this mall!" "Twilight lead the way!" they took off down the road and alleyways before reaching a gigantic building.
"Well shit, the doors chained up!" A frustrated yell came from Stryker.
"Don't worry guys, a confident Pegasus voice spoke up, I got dis" dash backed up and hovered in the air. The she flew forward and absolutely destroyed the window.	
"Nice fuckin job there dash" Stryker said half awe inspired.
The group walked into the vacant mall. Lots of body's were lying on the ground. The white and blue tiles were now a sickening blood red. 
"This smells worse than that green shit Twilight rubbed on me..." Rainbow said disgusted.
"Guys, Stryker alerted the group, Shit ton of zombie up ahead!" they turned toward his direction. A horde of about forty- to fifty zombies lie ahead. 
"Should we kill em?" AJ asked.
"Get in some of the kiosk." Stryker replied back. He looked at pinkie and noticed she was unarmed. "Hey pinkie, she turned toward him, take this."
He slid his extra pistol at pinkie. "Thanks Strykey! You really are a great friend!"
"Umm Strykey, he said with slight irritation, you know what never mind." Everyone got in their own kiosk. Stryker raised his gun and shot the first zombie he saw. The group did the same, unleashing hell on the still dumbfounded zombie horde. Brains and body parts flew through the air sending gallons of blood shooting into the air. By the time the horde noticed where it was coming from they were almost all dead. The few remaining ones charged at the kiosk. 
One ran up to Stryker, he aimed his smg at it and pulled the trigger, but it was nothing but a click. The zombie tackled him against the wall attempting to bite him. All of a sudden its head was turned into a gooey mush and fell over. He looked out to see AJ with smoke coming out of her revolver.
"Thanks AJ." He said to her.
"No problem Stryker." She responded. "Shall we keep going?"
"Yea lets go guys c'mon!" rainbow yelled to the others. They ran to the nearest pair of escalators and ran up it, nearly tripping on bodies on the way up. They found some broken down doors leading to some hallways.
"Hey guys check the rooms, there might be supplies in them!" twilight said to them. And that what they each did. But to little luck, most rooms contained the same things, storage, electronics and more corpses.
They heard rainbows voice calling to them. "Hey guys, come in here!" "I hit the jackpot!" they all ran in. inside the room was a sight for sore eyes, four med kits, pain pills, a large pile of ammo and a grinning dash in the corner.
Stryker took all of the smg bullets and left the rest for the others. Pinkie took all of the pain pills and refused to give them out. 
"Hey each of us needs a me-" "Shit there's only four!" said a disappointed dash.
"I still have one, responded twilight, you guys can take them." The other four put them on their backs. They walked out of the door in a style that begged for slow motion and awesome music playing during it. Only to find out they were in a candy store.
"Well that kind of ruins it..." said a disappointed dash again. 
"Sweet we got some food over here!" said an excited Stryker. Which turned out to be candy, a shit ton of candy. He grabbed a chocolate bar off the shelf and ate it.
"Well whose gonna carry it?" asked twilight.
"Oh I don't know, dash said sarcastically, maybe the guy with the duffle bag!" she pointed at Stryker, who was shoving handfuls of skittles in his mouth. "Hey, Stryker, can I see your bag for a sec?" He took it off and kicked it at dash. "Thanks man!" they stuffed his backpack full of candy.
"Alright guys let's get going!" twilight called out to the group.
"Yea let's do this!" dash said stuffing a Reese's peanut butter cup in her mouth." "What's our plan Stryker?" she asked the stallion covered in chocolate.
"Well let's see here those doors are made of iron and welded shut, so I don't think anybody's going to open it for us." "So we will have to shut off the alarm three floors up."
"Well that's fantastic, now isn't it?" said dash. "Well we can't stay here all day, let's get a move on!" she shouted to the group. "Stryker, shoot the windows."
"Got it." He said back to her. He aimed his smg at the windows and fired. They window broke and they all filed out. The screech of the alarms pierced the air. The zombies immediately barreled through doorways and shops for the survivors.
"SOMEBODY GET THE DAMN ALARM" AJ yelled to the group.
"IM ON IT!" Dash yelled back at her. She flew into the air and went searching for the door. She stopped in the air and looked around.
That gave dash's "Surprise" enough time to find her. This "Surprise" has green smoke, a horrible cough, lung cancer and an incredibly long tongue hanging out of its mouth. The "surprise" known as the smoker sent it tongue out. 
It wrapped around her body and trapped her wings. Her katana fell down into the horde, she fell and the tongue went around her neck and stopped violently. She couldn't breathe. Her vision becomes blurred and she screamed for help.
The group of four violently fought against the horde. There was abrupt stop for them to catch their breath. Only to be interrupted by pinkie yelling "EVERYBODY, DASHY NEEDS OUR HELP" the group looked up only to see dash being hanged by what appeared to be a tongue.
"SHIT COME ON EVERYONE, RUN!!!" Stryker yelled at the group. They managed to get up the stairs and onto a bridge before two hordes closed in on them. "TWILIGHT LAUNCH THIS AT THE ZOMBIE, Stryker picked up a katana and slid it to twilight, WELL COVER YOU!!" 
Twilight picked up the katana and aimed it at the zombie, she had one chance to hit this thing, and she focused all her magic at this zombie. She launched at the smoker, it was whirling like a helicopter blade. Dash was about to close her eyes before she heard a sickening puncture and blood splatter before she started falling. And she hit the ground hard.
They all ran toward rainbow. Stryker gave them each command. "PINKIE AND AJ, YOU GO TURN OF THE ALARM, ME AND TWILIGHT ARE STAYING BACK." That being said the orange and pink earth ponies raced into the control room.
"UMM WHERE IS THE DAMN AL-"
"HERE IT IS!" AJ almost said before being cut off by pinkie. Pinkie pulled the lever shutting off the alarm. They raced back outside to see that Stryker and twilight had finished of the horde and were crowding around dash.
Dash groaned indicating she was alive. "Twilight put some bandages around her wing, I think it's broken. By the time pinkie and AJ reached them dash was already bandaged up. 
"You okay rainbow dash?" applejack nervously asked Dash.
"Do I look that bad?" she asked back.
"Well uhhh, think you can walk?" AJ asked
"I'll try." She said back. She stood up and walked down the bridge, she was limping but that was better than anybody expected.
"Well we should get moving." Stryker tried to push them along. They went back to the control room. "Sweet!" More ammo!" he said excitedly. They restocked their ammo and walked down the stairs.
It was relatively clear except for the occasional zombie. Who were killed immediately? They finally made their way into the safe room and shut the giant iron door. Twilight tended to rainbows injuries. Stryker pulled out a sleeping bag, unfolded it and climbed into it. 
They stared at him half angrily. "What, I'm tired."
AJ was the first to say it, "we have to sleep on the floor and you get your sleeping bag?"
"Well I have an extra pillow and blanket in here." He pulled his duffle bag over.
"Well who gets it?" pinkie asked him.
"Look at you bastards, he laughed lightly, we have a pony with broken bones and you want to fight for a pillow and blanket." He took them out and slid them over to dash. "She's getting them tonight.
He finally laid his head down in peace, AJ leaned against the wall, pinkie sprawled out on the table, twilight lay in the corner, and rainbow got the luxury of a blanket and pillow. They drifted off to sleep, barely surviving their second day...