//------------------------------//
// Curable Answer 
// Story: The Poncho Chronicles II: South Beach 
// by BRyeMC 
//------------------------------//

	Fluffy woke first again this morning. He walked out into the hallway and noticed that the ones who slept through the Clyde altercation was still sleeping and had their doors closed. He wandered over to Patel’s room as it was the only one open. He saw Patel and the other scavengers grouped around a table. 
“Oh hey pal,” waved Wahlburn, “we’re glad you came on by.”
“Really?” asked Fluffy confused. “Why is that?”
“Well,” began Pharlin, “since Clyde stole our stuff, we have to get more supplies. This time though, we are going to head over to my condo a few blocks from here. I have more shit there, and it’s also closer to the arena so we can steal back our original supplies.”
“I’m kinda mad Clyde did that,” said Patel.
“What a dick!” exclaimed Cannon. 
“Indeed.” Wahlburn walked over to Fluffy and put his hoof around his shoulders. “Anyways, we are going to leave around noon. What we want you to do, and I guess Spike, is to make sure no more chaos happens around here.”
“You mean have somebody escape and kidnap somebody else so we are the ones responsible if anything happens to her?”  asked Fluffy.
“Yeah...,” said Wahlburn, “Clyde fucked us over by getting too close to her. Now we have to deal with the other ones if she gets hurt, or dies because of him.”
“I’m hoping that doesn’t happen because I don’t like any of them and don’t want to associate with them anymore,” said Patel.
“Same. The only thing they did that was good was bringing Spike.” Spike’s face lit up at Wahlburn’s comment about him. “Spike, we’re glad you’re a cool fucking dragon.”
“Hell, he’s cool for just being a dragon!” said Cannon. 
“Aw, come on guys,” said Spike tearing up. “You’re making me cry.” The scavengers all stood up and gave him a group hug while Fluffy awkwardly watched from the hallway. After the bro-hug was finished, Fluffy cleared his throat.
“Anyways, I’ll be sure to make nothing loco happens.” 
“Good dude,” said Patel. Fluffy nodded and headed back to his room to catch a few more hours of sleep before inevitable chaos ensues. He looked up at the ceiling a drifted to sleep.

Not even an hour later, Fluffy was awoken by shouting in the hallway. He sighed and quickly went to see what occurred. He saw Twilight on one side of the hallway and Pharlin and the rest of the scavenger team behind him.
“Is that what you were going to do? Leave us again so we all die and you guys can leave this city with no worries?” Twilight was serious and very angry.
“You know I would do that,” said Patel under his breath.
“I told you,” said Pharlin, “everyone here will be thanking me after we return from my condo.”
“Why?” asked Twilight, “we might be dead by then!”
“You’re overreacting. Besides, zombies have yet to attack this place. What makes you so sure they are today?” asked Pharlin.
“I just know,” she said quietly.
“You just...know.” Pharlin and the others turned around to leave. “We’ll return with more supplies and something super awesome that I can’t talk about here.”
Before Twilight could respond, the scavengers fled the hallway and went down the stairs. She gave a furious sigh and went back to her room. 
“Well that was interesting,” said Spike, walking up to Fluffy. “I’ve never seen her that mad before at other ponies.”
Fluffy looked at Spike. “It seems that everyone from Ponyville is either psychotic, super over-dramatic, or both.” 
Spike laughed. “You right.”

When the scavengers made their way to the lobby, they noticed the giant blockade at the main entrance. The hotel staff and Still was all around their makeshift barrier of lobby furniture and crates and boxes from the storage room. 
“What’s going on here?” asked Patel trying to look out the windows.
“Well my friends,” said Still sadly, “it looks like the zombie horde has increased dramasticly. This is our last stand at the hotel. I called the NG and they are currently escorting civilians to the Flamers arena and they will try to help us as soon as possible.”
“Dramasticly? What the hell...,” noted Cannon to Wahlburn. Wahlburn shrugged.
“So you’re saying that this place is surrounded?” asked Patel. He finally was able to look out past the barrier and saw a massive army of zombies, probably around a hundred or so, waiting to get in.
“Yes, I would go back up there and get your friends and hide in a room or something. If you hear a siren go out through the hotel, it means they broke through.” Still left them and ran back to another group of staff members, pointing and yelling at them about something. The scavengers went back to the staircase.
“What are we gonna do now?” asked Cannon, “we can’t leave through the main door now.”
“There has to be a side door or back door or something,” said Wahlburn gazing out towards the lobby.
“You right. There is a back door over here.” Pharlin walked into the storage room that was connected to the stairwell room. “See?” He pointed towards the back of the room and Patel, Cannon, and Wahlburn saw a door outlined by the sun’s light. “We can go out there and run straight to the condo.”
“You think this is even going to work? I mean, we don’t even know if that door is safe to use. There could be hundreds of zombie out back.” Cannon stood there and waited for Pharlin’s respond, knowing he was going to say something to go against his comments.
“Well,” began Pharlin, “I guess we could try this thing I’ve found at a costume shop.” He took off his pack and dug through it, searching for a certain item. After a few seconds, Pharlin took out what appeared to be a mask. He turned around and pulled it over his head. As he turned around the others laughed.
“You found a mask of a zombie that’s part of a kid’s costume and actually think it’s going to make zombies not attack you?” asked Patel laughing. 
“Hey, I saw it on a video game. If it works on there, then it must work in real life.” Patel, Wahlburn, and Cannon kept laughing for another minute. After they stopped, Patel found a flaw in Pharlin’s “Master” plan. 
“Is that the only mask you have?” he asked.
“Yes, why?”
“Then how the hell are we supposed to be safe from them!” shouted Wahlburn.
Pharlin quickly glanced at the ground to think of something. “Ah!” he exclaimed, “we will walk in a group and if zombies get close to us, I’ll go over to them and make them leave. Just have your faces turned away from them. Anyways, we don’t have much time, let’s go.” Pharlin quickly bust through the back door outside. The others quickly followed.
The bright sunshine hit them as they walked into the South Beach air. Pharlin looked around and pointed towards a group of buildings. “The condo is about 5 blocks behind those hotels. You fellas ready?”
“You bet I am,” said Wahlburn, adjusting his pan of a helmet.
“Let’s do this,” said Cannon straightening up.
“For that sweet, sweet, sweet Halo 3,” stated Patel, grinning. 
They hopped over the fence that closed off the hotel’s property and quickly ran down the streets. Last time, the streets were an eerie location, as it was abandoned and quiet. They managed to get to the condo mostly without any distractions, but on the last block there were a group of three zombies chilling around the condo entrance. 
“Alright, I got this, I’m going to walk up to them and distract them. Sneak around and then kill them from behind.” Pharlin looked around to see if there were anymore, but he didn’t see any.
“You’re a crazy motherfucker,” said Cannon quietly to avoid the zombie’s attention, “how the hell did Xarlin become a douche and this guy be a fucking boss.”
“I don’t know,” said Pharlin, “I’m super glad you killed him though.” When everything was golden to the plan, Pharlin slowly walked over to the zombies. The zombies carefully watched him walk up to them, but didn’t turn hostile. Pharlin stopped a few feet in front of them and attempted a growl which was suppose to sound like a zombie, but it was actually the signal for the others to sneak around and execute the targets. The zombies looked at each other then slowly started towards Pharlin. Pharlin backed up a few feet and saw that the other three were directly behind their targets. Pharlin growled again, and the three ran up to the zombies and attacked them from behind, killing them instantly, with a butcher knife, switchblade, and trident. 
“I can’t believe that the mask worked!” said Pharlin happily. 
“What the hell are you talking about. You were about to be killed.” Wahlburn cleaned off his knife with a ripped off piece of cloth. “You’re lucky we were even able to pull that off.”
“Because of the mask,” said Pharlin laughing.
“What? No, it was...fuck it. Never mind.” Wahlburn simply walked away. Pharlin opened up the door to the condo and they all flooded inside. They went up the stairs and after a few floors of climbing, they stopped in front of a door. 
“Alright, this is my room. Take whatever you want, but I want to show you guys something after a few minutes since it’s extremely vital to our well beings.”
“Holy shit,” said Cannon, “it must be super important if he used the term well beings.” Pharlin chuckled and opened the door. The room itself was quite messy, but it was nothing compared to Poncho’s room back home. Pharlin disappeared to the back room of the hallway, while Cannon and Wahlburn rummaged his stuff. Patel sat down on the couch and began to play Halo 3.
“Man, I fucking love this game,” he said as he picked up the controller.
“Come on man, help us get shit. We can play that when we get back home,” said Wahlburn as he half carelessly tossed items into the pack.
“Fine,” said Patel. The three of them soon filled Wahlburn’s pack with an assortment of items that they also took during their time at the Super Store. They all sat there looking over the items. 
“I think we are good to go,” said Cannon. 
“What about Pharlin?” asked Patel, “what is he doing?” As soon as Patel asked that question, Pharlin burst out of the room in the back of the hallway. The three of them jumped at the sound.
“You bastard!” yelled Wahlburn. 
“Guys, I did it,” said Pharlin. His voice was shaky.
“Did what?” asked Patel and Cannon simultaneously. 
“The cure. The FUCKING cure!” Pharlin held up a glass bottle. In it was a weird silverish substance. “This, my friends, is the solution to the zombie outbreak.” The three of them looked at him dumbfounded. Pharlin began to laugh. “I’ve spent countless days, even months, making this, just in case a zombie outbreak would occur. I finally got it.”
“So you are a chemist or something?” asked Patel.
Pharlin sighed and took them to his back room. In it was a hundred of so test beakers, tubes, and other chemist things none of them knew about. Pharlin pointed to the wall and there they saw a certificate. They all gasped at the information.
“You have a PhD in Medical Biochemistry!” yelled Cannon, “How the fuck did you manage that?!” 
“It was a long and arduous journey, but I don’t have time to talk about the past. We need to use this and fast, as the zombies are growing every second and half the city is either dead or in trouble.”
“Do we drink it or-?” asked Cannon.
“No!” yelled Pharlin, “drinking it would be suicide, as one drop can kill a stallion. No, the only horses that can use this in our time of need is the National Guard.” 
“NG? Why them?” 
“Well, this cure is more like a purge. It’s the fuel needed to terminate the danger of zombies. The NG have the,” he paused and waved his hoof around, “magic to utilize this. Look, it’s way too complicated to explain to you normal folks. We need to get to the arena as soon as possible.”
“Well, shit just got crazy,” said Wahlburn, “we leaving now?” 
“The sooner the better.”
“Alrighty then.” They gathered their packs and stocked up for the journey to the arena. Pharlin gently wrapped the glass bottle around with towels from the condo. He placed it in Wahlburn’s pack and surrounded it with soft materials to make sure it didn’t break.
“Why the hell do you have to keep it in a glass bottle?” asked Wahlburn.
“It’s not just an ordinary glass bottle, it’s a magical enchanted glass bottle.” Pharlin zipped up the pack and handed it to Wahlburn to carry.
“Wonderful.” They made their way outside, back to where the three zombies have been killed earlier. The corpses were still laying there from that attack. Pharlin put on his zombie mask as the others began to laugh again. Pharlin ignored and issued the advancement. The streets again were quiet as before. 
About half way to the arena, Pharlin stopped them. “Hey guys, stop for a second.” 
“What is it?” asked Cannon. 
“See that guy up there? He’s part of the NG.” Cannon and the others looked at him more closely. The NG guy was carrying M249 Squad Automatic Weapon. He also was carrying bags with a bandolier holding his ammunition for his weapon. He was wearing a uniform and on it, was the shiny NG badge. 
“What are we going to do?” asked Cannon.
“I’ll talk to him,” Pharlin jumped out and began to walk towards the guy. The other three stayed hidden behind the rubble and watched. The NG guy quickly turned as he saw Pharlin approaching.
“Stay back zombie, I’m warning you!” The guy lifted up his weapon, ready to aim.
“Zombie? Oh, I’m still wearing my mask.” He began to pull it off. Before Pharlin was able to fully remove the mask, the NG soldier began to fire his gun at him. The others watched in horror as Pharlin’s body was quickly torn apart by the hail of bullets. After about thirty rounds have been fired, and another burst to make sure he died, the guy stopped firing. 
“What the fuck man!” yelled Wahlburn jumping over the rubble. “You just killed our friend!” 
“That was a zombie!” replied the soldier.
“Look at his face, it was a fucking mask!” The soldier dropped all of his packs, including his ammo and weapon, and ran away from the scene.
“What a fucktard,” said Wahlburn, “he dropped his gun.”
“You idiot, he just killed someone!” Patel and Cannon rushed over to Pharlin’s dead body. There was no point on trying to see if he was breathing at all. Before they puked at the sight, they quickly turned away. After searching the trooper’s packs, which had nothing of importance, Wahlburn picked up the gun and turned to his friends.
“Well, it looks like it’s our last ride.” They nodded and quickly continued on their quest to the arena to deliver, what hoped to be, the final solution to the zombie question.



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