The camp was quieter now, it had been three days since Spike and the others left in search for supplies, and the longer they were gone, the more Twilight worried about them, thinking of what they were doing right now, and how long it could take for them to return.
She stared out into the landscape from the lookout tower, hoping to see something, any living figures to appear, just in the chance it could be her friends returning from their adventure, but in the small chance she did see something, getting her hopes up, it always turned out to be a small cluster of walkers making their way through, never her friends, and never her brother.
It was curious though, in the last couple of days the amount of walkers passing through were increasing, before Spike left, he did lookout duty countless times and never saw anything, not a creature for weeks at a time, but now, Twilight was noticing a change.
They now had to deal with four or five walkers approaching the perimeter a day now, all coming from the town, for reasons that Twilight couldn’t explain, and the numbers were getting higher.
Something was happening in town, and Spike was in the middle of it.
“Figured you’d be up here again.” a familiar voice called to her from behind.
“Applejack, if you came up here again to ask me to come down then you’re going to get the same answer.” Twilight said, a tired tone in her voice. “Since Spike left, someone has to do his lookout duty until he comes back.”
“Okay, firstly,” Applejack argued, grabbing a chair next to her. “Spike did more than just lookout duty. You’re only up here because you’re waiting to see something. That, an, this was his usual hangout, his stuff is here.”
Twilight didn’t respond, only clutching the blanket Spike used when some days up here were too cold, due to the winter winds, which became more rapid as the days went on, as the storm came closer.
“Look, sugarcube.” Applejack put her hoof on Twilight’s shoulder. “Ah’m worried about them too, you aren’t forgetting my brother’s out there too you know…”
Twilight didn’t think of that, it didn’t really occur to her that her and Applejack were practically in the same boat. All this time she thought she would be the one who would truly be losing something if things went wrong.
“... but staying up here all day isn’t healthy. You’ll freeze to death up here.” a shiver went down her spine as she was reminded of it. “They’ll come back someday, Ah just know it, and when they do, they won’t be going anywhere for a long time, seeing at how this weather is getting…”
They both looked up into the sky, and saw the dark clouds growing bigger every day, making the temperature fall with it. Autumn was finishing at a fast pace, and it looked like this Winter was going to be a fierce one, a problem that Twilight wasn’t looking forward to be dealing with.
Twilight thought about what she said, and soon the last few days were becoming clearer to her now, of what she acting like since Spike left. She had been ignoring her duties as leader, losing more sleep than ever, and it didn’t even occur to her that her other friends were going through something too.
Twilight felt ashamed of how she had let this happen, and looked at Applejack with apologetic eyes. “Applejack… I’m so sorry. I didn’t know I was getting this out of hand. It’s just, Spike being gone for so long is making me worried, and with the increase in walkers appearing it keeps bringing me the recurring fear that… that…”
Applejack could tell she needed one right now, and pulled her into a hug. “That what, sugarcube?”
“That… something bad is happening in town right now.”
Twilight felt Applejack’s grip get firmer at that last remark. She was expecting a lecture into stop worrying of what could go wrong, but what surprised her is what Applejack said next. “Ah know. Ah’m getting these bad feelings too, and it’s hard to ignore them sometimes, especially when it’s your family at risk.”
Twilight somehow felt slightly more at ease when Applejack said those words, like she didn’t feel like she was being paranoid about worrying about what was out there, and that Applejack was having the same thoughts. It made her feel like less of an outsider when looking at these problems.
Applejack continued. “But one thing I gotta remember when I think these thoughts, is that it must not make me weaker. The strong ones are the ones that live through this, they survive, and by worrying too much, it makes you vulnerable, not thinking straight, and that’s what gets you killed out there. Ah can’t let this get to me now, not after everything we’ve done, and Ah’m sure as shootin’ not gonna leave Applebloom behind cause of me breaking down now.”
Twilight understood what Applejack was meaning, but the next words Applejack said really put the message through.
“Spike would want you to be strong. So it would be easier for him to protect you.”
She looked into her eyes and realized she was right; Spike would come back someday, and to make sure she would actually be there to open the gate and welcome him back, she would have to be strong for him, to stop worrying all the time so she could have a genuine chance of making it out there, if or when this place wouldn’t be suitable anymore, a day that she hoped would never come.
“Thanks AJ,” she finally said, ending the hug. “I needed to hear that.”
Applejack gave a small smile, which Twilight returned. “Does that mean you’re gonna come down from here?”
“I guess.”
A sigh of relief left Applejack at that moment. “Thank Celestia, I didn’t know how long I was gonna last up here in this cold. I was ready to just leave you here.”
The cold air of the lookout tower became very real to Twilight at that moment, and the first thing she wanted to do now was to get to the nearest campfire as soon as she could before her blood would finally give in and freeze already. “I don’t know how Spike does this every day, amazingly knowing that he actually volunteers to do this.”
“Part of me thinks he only does it because it gives him time to think up here.”
While she climbed down the ladder, it did become apparent to her that although Spike did a lot of work in camp, namely building or repairing, or starting campfires, a valuable asset when having a dragon as part of the group, but when it came down to it, Spike always had time at some part of the day for lookout, no matter how small the time was.
I wonder what he thinks about when he’s up there so much, she thought, placing her hooves on the cold ground of the camp, and making her way a campfire, the warmth feeling incredible once she felt it against her skin.
“So Applejack finally convinced you to take a break,” a voice called to her, when looking she saw it was Scootaloo joining her and Applejack by the fire, sitting on a nearby log.
“Hey Scootaloo.” she greeted warmly, wondering how she was handling the current circumstances. “How are you?”
Scootaloo’s face went slightly less happy at that last question. “To tell you the truth Twilight, I’ve been better. I just spent the last half an hour trying to get Applebloom to eat something.”
Twilight frowned. Applebloom was taking Big Mac’s departure hard, maybe even harder than her thinking about Spike, now that she was really putting it into thought. Ever since she lost Granny Smith when this all started, she hadn’t been the same as who she once was, before they appeared.
When the world changed, the survivors had to change with it in order to cope, and as the days and weeks went on while living in camp, Twilight began to notice the change in ponies eyes, as well as her own. That meaning, the walkers seemed less scarier than when first seen, ponies became more accustomed and less afraid of what the next day brung, not entirely of course, but much more than when it began.
Ponies’ had to become adapted to survive, meaning learning how to defend themselves, techniques in basic survival and generally, being less afraid of the prospect of death in front of you.
It was a long process, and Twilight figured you needed first hand experience of this world, seeing the harsh truth of the outside so you could somehow get used to it, as well as a little bit of luck in order to change fully, while doing so trying to remain intact something of who you once were, it was all a method of balance.
Change too little, and you won’t survive out there. Change too much, and you become a shell of who you once were, with nothing true to keep fighting for, that was how Bandits were born.
As much as it pained Twilight to think about it, Applebloom never had that luck. She never truly developed as time went on, she still looked as terrified as when this all started, and never had any attempt of changing that, for her own sake, only thing coming to mind as a significant change at the beginning was her being able to get out of bed in the morning after the first week.
Twilight just hoped that she could do something to help her, to teach her how to survive in case something went wrong, otherwise she wouldn’t make it, that was a certainty, but she dared not bringing up that issue with Applejack, she couldn’t deal with an argument right now.
Although, part of Twilight thought that she already knew, and she was terrified of what could happen if something ever did go wrong.
She did have to hold on to hope though, that Applebloom had the potential to change for her survival, and that it just took time, longer than the others for it to take full effect, and so she could become less afraid of what the world was anymore. Like she said, if she could get of bed in the morning when not being able to before, then who knows where that could bring her in the future.
It made Twilight sad that with Mac leaving, it probably took a major hit in that area, damages that could take forever to fully repair. She hoped that when Mac returned safely through those gates, it could help her learn that surviving was possible out there, and those teachings could go on from there, so things could go to smooth sailing from then on, she hoped.
“How is she?” she asked Scootaloo. “Any improvement?”
She sighed. “Not much. When I actually can get her to talk, it’s all about organising a group to go out and get Mac back. She won’t listen to anything else.”
Twilight could tell she heard a sigh of disappointment from Applejack, followed by her saying, “Ah’ll try and talk to her again. There has to be somethin’ we could do to tell her the group is okay out there, maybe then she’ll be okay….”
Even Applejack sounded unsure when saying those words, as even herself couldn’t think of anything to mind that could get Applebloom out of her state of shock.
She tried reassuring her. “I think things will be better when the group comes back, when she can see Mac again. That could maybe help her, at least, help her enough to start eating again, then, it could go on from there…”
Applejack thought this through, and considered it could be possible, she had to think that way, it was her only hope. “It is a long winter, meaning more time to train her before we have to go back outside.”
She had a point. The winter meant the group were being forced into some very limited tasks for a proportional amount of time, but it also meant more time to better themselves before they had an actual opportunity to go out and start looking for food again, and Twilight had to ensure that included Applebloom as well.
At least with that plan there was hope, and it was better than doing nothing.
Applejack then left the group by the campfire, possibly making another attempt in calming Applebloom down, leaving Twilight and Scootaloo alone to think.
“Do you think what’s out there is a real problem to us?” Scootaloo suddenly asked, as if she was holding it in for quite some time now, leaving Twilight surprised at the sudden outburst.
“What do you mean? The walkers?”
“No, I already know about the walkers…” she replied, then facing Twilight with a concerned face. “I’m talking about those guys Pip’s group were talking about, the ones who took down most of them.”
Twilight wasn’t really thinking about them that much, when she considered all the things that could wrong for Spike’s group, she mainly thought of walker hordes or just basic Bandits, not this so-called group calling themselves the Hunters, she just thought of them as regular bandits, at least, that’s what she was telling herself.
“I… just figured these guys would be just, well enemies, but I haven’t really thought of them as a serious threat to us. For all we know, they don’t know we exist. Why do you ask?”
“It’s just, the other day, I was talking to Pip in the medical bay.” she admitted, eyes staring into the campfire. “I asked him how bad it was. He told me… these guys aren’t like regular bandits, that they are far more dangerous than any other of those scavengers out there.”
“What do you mean?” Twilight asked, her attention now completely captured.
“I don’t know, he was pretty vague about it, but I could tell he was scared even though he wasn’t showing it. All I know is, these guys were scary, and it would be very dangerous if we ever ran into them.”
Twilight thought for a moment, fully grasping on what Scootaloo was saying. She did already think these ponies may have been dangerous seeing as they could take down a whole supply group apart from four, maybe even thinking they were slightly more advanced than the average group of bandits, the ones who live in small numbers due to killing anyone who looks at them funny, but it seemed as if these Hunters were different than that, like they had order among murderers, allowing bigger numbers than other groups to arrive, and therefore making them extremely unsafe, and to Twilight’s fear, unpredictable.
It was puzzling though, bandits didn’t just decide to stop killing other ponies and work with them, they usually weren’t group friendly, and that was putting it lightly. Most bandit groups limited themselves to five or six creatures at best, anymore and there would be too many ponies to work with, to share with, to trust; sooner or later, somepony would die because of it. But happened to change that? Something, or somepony, had to have something to do with this, like a leader...Twilight thought.
Twilight got up from the campfire, not answering Scootaloo’s question. “Maybe I should go and talk to Pip myself…” she announced, expecting to be leaving alone, only for Scootaloo to follow closely behind, not letting the subject flow by so lightly.
“So you do think these Hunter guys could be a problem for us.” Scootaloo asked eagerly.
“I don’t know yet,” said Twilight. “Maybe I’m overreacting, maybe I’m thinking of the worst possible scenario like always, but that’s why I’m going to Pip, it’s like, knowing your enemy, right?”
“Then I’m coming too,” Scootaloo declared, her mind made up. “I want to know just as much as you do, like what Sweetie’s getting herself into out there.”
Twilight opened her mouth to argue, but then considered it pointless, she was as stubborn as Rainbow, and to be fair, if she was also worried for her friends, then who was she to turn her away?
The pair entered through the medical bay doors, or formally the Apple family’s kitchen, and saw Pip still lying in his bed, along his fellow comrades who were asleep, maybe not as torn up as when they first arrived, but not entirely either. Pip’s front hoof was injured, leaving him bed-ridden for the last couple of days, and although it would heal eventually, it still wasn’t a pretty sight.
Twilight approached him, Scootaloo in tow. “Pip, I’m here to ask you a few questions about what you saw back in town.”
Pip gave a sigh, and looked at Twilight with his tired, with one blackened, eyes. “Didn’t you already give me an interrogation after we first got here?”
“I asked you a few questions about what happened to you, only after we helped you. I wouldn’t call that an interrogation.” she replied. “But that’s not the point. I want to know about the ponies who attacked your group, the Hunters.”
Pip suddenly didn’t look as tough at the mention of their name, almost shrinking under the covers, not that he would confess of course. “You don’t want to know about those guys, I already told that to Scootaloo when she bothered me yesterday.”
Scootaloo was about to get up at Pip for that comment, only for Twilight to raise a hoof, gesturing her to sit back down. “I know you told her that. But I do want to know about the Hunters, I want to know if we are in danger, and if we can have a chance against them.”
Twilight’s words were blunter and more direct than Scootaloos, and possibly that would help in getting the information out, Twilight hoped.
After a few seconds of Pip trying to calculate a counter-argument to get her to leave, he finally gave up. “Fine. I’ll tell you what happened, but it isn’t pretty.” He let out an annoyed sigh and prepared to tell his story, before finally adding, “And by the way, in this world, we are ALWAYS in danger, don’t forget that.”
“Noted.” Twilight calmly replied, eager to hear the truth. “Okay, now, what did these ponies look like? Did they have any distinguishable features to recognise them?”
“Not much. But one thing I learned from them is that the members of this group, when we saw them, each have some kind of black fabric on each of their person, like some sort of uniform. Some of them wore it on their hoofs, some on their heads as bandanas, just as long as they had it on them. I don’t know why.”
“That’s weird.” Scootaloo commented. “Why would Bandits care about fashion sense?”
“Because it tells ponies who they are...” Twilight thought out loud. “Think about it, these Hunters are wearing these black rags, as like some sort of calling card, so other ponies know they are Hunters, so they should be feared. These ponies are trying to spread fear to survive.”
“That’s… clever.” Scootaloo admitted, amazed. “Too clever for a bandit to figure out, how would they know how to do that?”
“I don’t know, but if they are doing this, then it means they are trying to make a name for themselves out there. These ponies are more complex than I thought, what exactly happened when you were ambushed?”
“Shit hit the fan is what happened.” he replied with a grunt, remembering that gruesome day. “We had supplies, things seemed to be running smoothly, only a few walkers in our way before we were deciding to head back. Then, out of nowhere, a bolt of magic sniped my friend right there while I was talking to him, and then things really picked up…”
He paused, almost having tears in his eyes, before wiping them off quickly with no comment on the matter, and continued.
“After that, a whole bunch of them just appeared from nowhere, before we could even react we were being picked off like animals before we could even reach for our weapons. Bolts of magic and arrows flew everywhere, I can still hear them scream in pain… and that was when the walkers appeared, from the sounds, making things so much worse, like an extra weapon in their arsenal to take us down.”
Twilight made a worried facial expression at Scootaloo, thinking that these ponies were truly as bad as she thought they were, perhaps even worse based on what she was hearing.
“But, wouldn’t walkers appearing from the sounds be bad for the Hunters too?” questioned Scootaloo.
“They did in some way, but for reasons I can’t explain, they were more focused on us than the Hunters, like they were camouflaged somehow… It all happened so fast I can’t really know the full details, all I know is these guys… they were animals. They shot at us and killed so many ponies from our group, with no remorse, no regret, even with smiles on their faces with every swing of their knifes… we were lucky to get away, even with these wounds…”
Twilight and Scootaloo had nothing to say from what they just heard, what could they have said? These ponies not only have no problem taking down innocent ponies for their supplies, but also have somehow found out a way to use walkers as weapons against them? It was horrifying, and bringing so much fear that these ponies could be a real problem if they ever found out about this camp, that it rendered her speechless, leaving the room in silence.
That was, until a terrified voice called out from behind them.
“THE HUNTERS ARE GONNA KILL MAC! WE HAVE TO GO GET HIM!”
The pair turned and saw Applebloom at the doorway, her hooves trembling and tears in her eyes. It was unclear how long she was standing there with both of them unknowing, but it seemed long enough for her to be feeling this way.
“Applebloom, please calm down… it’s going to be okay…” Scootaloo said, walking up to her friend in an attempt to calm her down, with no success. The pony just kept whimpering, perhaps not even hearing Scootaloo.
“Mac’s out there… where those Hunters are… we have to go out there and bring him back!” she cried hysterically, not thinking of the absurdity of that plan. Twilight tried to aid Scootaloo, walking up to her, only for her back away in response.
“Stay away! You let him go out there! You didn’t even stop him!” she screamed at her angrily, before resuming her crying.
“What is going on here?” another voice called out, revealing it to be Applejack. “Applebloom there you are, I’ve been looking all over for you.”
“Applejack… Mac’s in danger, we have to get a group to bring him back! If we don’t he’ll die like Granny Smith!”
“Applebloom, slow down. What are you talking about?”
“Applebloom heard Pip talking about the Hunters.” Scootaloo answered, still attempting to get through to her. “Applebloom, listen. Mac and the others will be okay out there, you just have to trust us…”
“MAC WON’T COME BACK IF THE HUNTERS KILL HIM!!” she screamed in retaliation, not listening at anything else.
Applejack went up to her and tried pulling her into a hug. “Applebloom, please… calm down... I need you to be strong for both of us. Mac will come back, but we can’t just leave the camp behind with too little ponies defending it, Mac wouldn’t have a home to come back to if we did that…”
Applebloom had none of that, she refused to listen to any reason, on how going out there would be a suicide mission, with a very slim chance of actually finding them in the huge dangerous town they had ventured in. “You don’t care about him! You don’t care if he lives or dies!”
She stormed off, leaving Applejack just standing there, her jaw dropping, with the faint look of tears running down her face, at the knowledge of how badly Applebloom was feeling about all this. She didn’t usually act like this, even with all this starting, but when Mac left, it must have been too much stress to deal with and finally pushed her over the edge. She just prayed she could help her.
Twilight put her hoof on Applejack’s shoulder with a concerned face, after witnessing her outburst. “Applejack, are you okay?”
Applejack didn’t answer at first, but then responded. “She’s… just too stressed out. Let her sleep it off.”
Twilight understood of what stress could do to a pony, she had experienced it enough in her lifetime. Acting so scared and paranoid that it doesn’t allow you to see any kind of reason, or seeing the ponies who are only trying to help, only being concerned with one subject and no other. It was no use trying to go after Applebloom, if anything, it might have made it worse. The only thing they could do right now was to let her go to bed, and try to talk to her in the morning.
She then decided that she too was tired, and it had grown dark outside without her noticing, being consumed with the idea of the Hunters that it made her forget how much time had past.
“Okay, I think I’ll go to bed too, and we’ll try and talk to Applebloom tomorrow.” she said, leaving Applejack and Scootaloo there, all while thinking of anything she could possibly say to her that could even have a chance in her seeing reason.
She made her way to her own sleeping mat and within seconds, her eyes became heavy and she drifted to sleep, just wanting to end this stressful day and just make it to the next one.
It was early when she was jolted awake.
“Twilight! Wake up, we have a problem!”
It took her a few seconds to register what was going on, for her mind to come back to her and her eyes become focused again, but when she did she saw it was Scootaloo, shaking her awake with panic in her eyes.
“Scootaloo, what is it? What’s wrong?” she quickly asked, it had to be bad, Scootaloo looked terrified right now.
“Look… look outside Twilight..” she stammered in response, turning her head to the lookout tower. “I heard noises, and went upstairs to investigate and… we have a serious problem.”
Twilight didn’t know what she was talking about, what problem did they have? What did she see? Whatever it was she had to see, how bad this so called problem was, and what she could do to solve it.
However, any thoughts of the matter went silent as she registered her surroundings, how everypony in the area was acting… they looked as terrified as Scootaloo, the ones who were awake looked they were in shock, and others were piling more and more barricades against the perimeter, as if to keep them in… or something else out…
It was then when she too heard the sounds, the unmistakable sounds, coming from the outside.
She turned to Scootaloo with a shock of realization in her eyes and prayed she that it had to be wrong. “How many?” she questioned.
“Too many.” she replied. “I don’t think they know we’re in here yet.”
She quickly jumped out of her bed mat, and ran without hesitation to the ladder of the tower, she had to see what they were dealing with, how bad of a situation they were truly in right now.
She peered out into the distance and let out a terrified gasp. Walkers. An entire horde were around the borders of their camp, too many of them to count, the moans of an army just surrounded them. They must had moved in their pack while we slept she thought in panic, wondering what to do.
Scootaloo was right though, they couldn’t see them just yet, as long as they stayed quiet, but the whole situation was too scary right now, if they drawed too much attention to themselves, then the camps walls and fences wouldn’t be enough to defend against this number of walkers, it would be minutes before they could overcome the barriers and attack, leaving no where to run, to escape. They couldn’t try and take them out, they didn’t have the firepower, or the numbers, the only option they had right now was to stay quiet and wait for them to pass through.
They had to be trapped for the time being. And it was chilling.
“Twilight!” a voice called to her from behind, turning to see it was Applejack, tears pouring down her face, hyperventilating, and looking like she could barely stand.
“I know, Applejack. I’m scared too…” she said, trying to put on a strong face at the apparent situation, and clearly failing, she felt like she was going to be sick at the sight of all these walking corpses, decomposed and blood-thirsty.
“No...no.. it’s worse… you don’t understand…” she whimpered out, putting Twilight into confusion. If THIS wasn’t the problem, what could possibly be worse?
“Applejack, what is it? What’s wrong?” she asked, concerned and already terrified, still thinking of what was happening right now.
“It’s Applebloom… she must had went before they appeared…” she let out, about to cry.
“What? What happened?” her eyes widening.
“I can’t find her… she’s gone…”