"Zombies!!!"
That word hadn't been heard in Ponyville for a long time. At least, not since Zecora came. Every so often in a conversation she would briefly mention the tribe from which she came. The tribe of zebra nomads that were destroyed by a raid of zombies. If anyone asked further on the subject Zecora would clam up and pretend to be deaf. That was the only word of zombies anyone ever heard in Ponyville.
So it came as no surprise that this mare was believed crazy.
I stood with my love, Twilight Sparkle, and the mayor at stage inside the town hall. We were called for some assembly or another - I believe it was for some type of award ceremony. Like to congratulate us for our latest victory - I don't know. Gathered before us was nearly the entirety of Ponyville. I say nearly because I'm not entirely sure how big Ponyville is anyways.
We were all staring at the mare who'd broken in. She was a pegasus of a minty green coat with a silvery mane. For no decipherable reason, her wings were also colored silver at the outermost feathers. Her terrified metallic eyes darted around the room, looking for somepony to believe her.
And everyone burst out laughing.
"I'm serious! There's one right behind me -" she was cut off. A figure darted inside and lunged at her. She dodged with an excessively high-pitched "yipe!".
This intruder was definitely a zombie. Its eyes were of an empty black. The coat it wore was deathly pale green. Its cutie mark . . . was a subject I'm going to skip over. Its mane - also empty, predatory black - was matted in some psychotic mess. The thing swept its head back and forth across the room, seeing nothing - nothing but easy prey. Three others burst in behind the first. They began to close on the assembly of ponies.
Being the only two Blizzards in the room, Twilight and I leapt to the rescue. We both jumped off the edge of the stage. Two frozen platforms appeared beneath our hooves, and we soared over the crowds' heads. Her horn lit on purple fire, and mine on green plasma. The two sparks flashed into elemental tentacles. They wrapped around each other and launched themselves at the monsters.
And . . . nothing. The beam of combined elemental energy sailed straight through them. The pack of zombies continued their prowl as if nothing had happened.
She and I were equally taken aback. Did magic . . . not work on these guys?
Twilight, for one, was eager to test the theory. The ice vanished from beneath her hooves and she drifted to the floor. She faced one of the zombies. Again her horn glowed a fiery pinkish purple. She jerked her head up and to the side.
Nothing happened.
She used her wings to jump back toward me. We both eyed the pack closely. "Magic won't work. What do we do?" she asked me.
I'll be honest. I rely on my magic to fight rather heavily. At that, I even use magic for just about everything else. I haven't had a whole lot of experience fighting without my horn. But that aside, I was more than just a unicorn horn. When emergency calls for it, I can prove to be a fast thinker.
"Twilight. I need your help shutting these things out of town hall!" I shouted. With this I rushed at one zombie and used a tackle to knock it back. It was taken aback by the move and flew backwards toward the door.
"On it!" She copied my movements and herded the demons backward. With a series of kicks and punches she drove them back one by one. Soon they were clustered tightly at the doorway. She steered extra clear of the beasts' foaming mouths.
We teamed up for the final move of forcing them back outside. I felt something on my hoof as we did so. "Aagh!" I exclaimed, more out of shock than anything else.
And I slammed the door.
The zombies grouped together at the other side. They each piled into each other, pounding on the door. I leaned as hard as I could on it, willing it to stay shut. "Listen up!" I told everyone as I shouldered the door. "Everyone evacuate upstairs. All pegasi here need to fly everyone else to somewhere safe. Am I clear?" The multitude of multicolored ponies nodded and hurried upstairs. Twilight followed them.
Until she realized I wasn't with them.
She turned and ran back to me. I was still back at the door, trying all I could to keep the monsters out. "What's wrong?" she asked me. "It has a lock. Why aren't you coming with us?"
I held up my hoof. Blood was pouring out of twin puncture wounds. The area surrounding it had turned pale green. "Oh boy," I said more to myself than to her. "I'm . . . becoming . . ."
"It doesn't matter. Just come on, we can figure something out."
The metaphorical gears turned as I processed the situation. So I had been bitten by a zombie. In a few moments, I would become one of them - no longer sentient or self-thinking, but a feral creature with one sole purpose: to destroy ponykind. I stole a look at my love. If I was anywhere near her when . . . no. I had to put as much distance between us as possible. My minutes were numbered, but they weren't useless.
In a testament of the situation, the green area of my hoof spread. It made a sickly noise as it spread, and covered my hoof entirely by the time it was complete. I looked from the wound to Twilight and back again. I decided what I needed to do.
"Go. Leave me to die. I can buy you some time."
There was that terrible word. Go. I hadn't said it since our adventure with the Elements of Unity, and I knew it would break her heart. I could see the strangled question behind her sparkling purple eyes: Why? Why does he never stop giving? Sometimes I wondered that too. "But what can you do?" she finally spoke. There was the Twilight I knew - trying to talk me out of my psychotic decision. "Spells won't work on them."
"I know one that will." Four green lights appeared around us. They grew bigger to the size of one's fist. Blue luminescent shells formed around them.
They were energy bombs.
Twilight's eyes darted around at the four objects, then came back to rest on me. It wasn't hard to tell: she was terrified. "I'm scared," was all she had to say. "I'm scared. I don't want to lose you."
My face was blank and calm. I waved my wounded hoof in front of her face. "I'm dying as we speak, Twilight. Nothing will change that." Zombies pounded against the door as I continued. "Let me die fighting. Let me die for the ones I love." I paused as I looked into those adorable eyes. "Let me die for you."
Her eyes began to tear up. I hated causing her this much pain, but this was the way it had to be if she was to live. "I - I can't -"
"Last words?" I asked. I knew it wasn't where she was going at all. I knew this was being forced upon her. But honestly? I didn't care. I wouldn't let anything come to my mare. Not with my last dying breath. "None that haven't been said. None besides this: I love you." I paused again as the magic noise began again. The deathly green had spread itself across my entire arm now. There wasn't much time. "Have you any for me?"
She was silent. Her vibrant eyes looked into mine and slid themselves shut. The only sound in the room was of the zombies pounding outside. She muttered something under her breath. It sounded something like 'please don't hate me'. She leaned forward ever so slightly.
And she kissed me.
I felt my pupils shrink to the size of peas. Of all things she could possibly have said or done, she kissed me. It wasn't that I didn't want her to, but these kind of physical contact things . . . are not my strong suit. I stared uncomfortably at the lips she pressed against mine, then to her closed eyes, then back again. I leaned harder against the door, and she harder against me. The moment seemed to last a lifetime.
Then finally she pulled away. She receded to four hooves and backed away to give me some space.
I blinked, more at a loss for words than I thought. "That . . . was . . ."
Her eyes watered up again. "I'm sorry I was impulsive. It's just . . ." Streams of tears began to fall and her voice cracked. "It's just . . . I'll never see you again . . ."
I smiled a sad smile. I couldn't come to her - I still had a door to barricade - so I simply held my hooves open. She came into them and I gripped her in a sad hug. "You'll see me again. I'm not that easy to get rid of." I whispered the words into her ear as she cried on my shoulder.
That noise came again. We separated and both looked down at my wound. It was getting worse. The green spread again over my body. It had just reached the bottleneck that was my arm and flooded over my chest. In unison we looked up from the wound and into each other's eyes.
"There isn't much time," I said frantically. "You need to go."
Reluctantly, she started to back away. She kept her eyes on me. "If it's what you want," came the strangled reply before she escaped upstairs.
"Hey," I called to stop her.
She paused, barely still in view, and turned to me.
"Until again we meet," I said, trying to smile, "my love."
If she had been crying before, she must be going blind with tears now. She swept away before I could see her weakness. I waited to hear the click of a lock behind her.
And I finally let go. I allowed the pack of zombies to enter.
They exploded into the room. The door flew off of its hinges and into the wall. The four zombies prowled around me, surrounding me from all sides.
I silently marveled at what I had just done. By sacrificing myself to a slow and painful death, I had saved the love of my life, Twilight Sparkle. Now she can fly freely to a new escape, and live another day. I didn't know that I had that courage in me.
I chuckled. It was a thing. A thing called love.
One zombie lunged in attack.
I grabbed its arm and with a swift twist I twisted around to face away from me. Then I kicked it down and with another kick I sent it careening into the wall. The four energy bombs around me grew brighter as the room grew dark. "First come," I growled. "First serve."
That could have gone better.
Twilight must have taken a wrong turn up there, because this wasn't the balcony. From what she could tell, this was actually the attic. Darkness wreathed around her. The only light source up there was the keyhole in the door, with which she could see through to the main room. She had her ear pressed against the door, straining for any sign of her stallion's survival.
Signs of a battle had begun almost immediately. She could hear the sounds of punching, and the growling of frustrated zombies. Every so often there would be the thud! of a body smashing into a wall. From the sounds of it, Blizzard Blast had been holding his ground quite well.
But she had forgotten of the clock that was ticking.
Soon she began to hear strange hissing noises. Whssksst! Whssksst! Whssksst! To her horror she had realized it to be more zombie bites. Shortly after she heard Blizzard Blast letting out a final strangled scream.
She held her breath.
Silence.
There was no sound. Nothing. No zombie growls, no struggling gasps, nothing. Until . . .
She could swear she heard . . .
"Twilight, Twilight, Twiiiiiliiiiight . . ."
The voice rasped with an unnatural slurr to it. She dared to take a peek through the keyhole. She saw . . . a light. A tiny yellow light in a dark hallway. Like a really dark hallway. Pitch black.
Then Twilight realized: that wasn't a light. It was an eye.
"Twiiiiiliiiiiight . . ."
The door exploded. A purple alicorn was sent flying against the wall. She slid to the floor. Having nowhere else to go, she looked up. The being before her was not Blizzard Blast. No longer. He was . . . something else. His skin an unearthly green, his eyes decayed black with crazed yellow centers, his mane a tangled black mess, he took one hoofstep after another toward her. Planks of wood - remnants of the door - littered the floor around the two. Many were on fire, casting a horrific lighting across his figure.
The poor mare couldn't take it anymore. She did the last thing she carried the strength to do - bury her face in her hooves and cry.
She could hear her zombified love lunging at her.
"Twilight, Twilight, TWIIIIILIIIIIIGHT . . ."
"Twilight, Twilight!" I shook the purple form in her bed.
A loyal ball of plasma floated beside me, casting a green light across the scene. Wooden walls surrounded us, each lined with bookshelves. The moon shone silver outside, as it did every night. Before me was a bed. It was of oaken wood, with smooth edges and a modest mattress. In it, buried under covers of blue, Twilight Sparkle tossed and turned like she was in some chaotic roller coaster.
Finally she woke up. Her eyes snapped open at a hundred miles an hour and she shot herself into a sitting position. A pair of terrified eyes darted around at the surroundings of her room. She didn't just gasp, but gulped in air like she had just been holding her breath for the last five minutes. Finally she noticed me and turned her head. "A dream?" she asked, apparently to no one. "It was all a dream?"
A baby dragon to my left shuffled awkwardly towards the stairs. "I'll . . . give you two some privacy."
I turned to face him and smiled pleasantly. "Thank you, Spike." I looked back at Twilight. "Yes. It's all over."
"How did you get here?"
"Spike got me," I answered, concern in my eyes. "He told me you were screaming. You were having a nightmare, and he couldn't wake you up. He brought me to help -"
She leapt out of her bed and hugged me. Again, she cried into my shoulder. "I was scared . . . I'd never see you again . . ."
I laid a hoof on her shoulder and smiled that same sad smile. "Don't worry. I had it too."
Looking out her window, I saw a glint outside. I strained my eyes to see what it was. The figure was vaguely pony-like in shape . . . as it came into focus it looked like . . . Princess Luna.
It was then I understood. She had given that nightmare to us both as a test. She wanted to see how much we truly cared about each other. The Princess of the Night smiled proudly.
My smile brightened as I returned the gesture. I willed my eyes to silently tell her thank you.
It was a thing called love.
A thing called love indeed.