Princess Luna gracefully soared over the ruins of Stalliongrad, scanning to see if she could find anymore undead. Sure enough, there was another small horde stumbling through the streets. She sighed as she fired a blast of magic at her cursed subjects, frying their brains. She remembered how Cadence had broken down in the throne room a few days ago, absolutely horrified by what she had to do to innocent ponies. Luna was different, more mature. She knew that these were not her ponies anymore, only empty husks. Still, not even the cold comfort that she was was freeing them from this torture kept her from nearly crying. She had failed her duty as a ruler to keep her people safe.
Down below, just outside of the city gates, Twilight and Nikolai popped in through teleportation. It was now midday, the sun shining brightly in the sky. Unfortunately for the duo, all that simply meant was that they would be able to see every single sickening details in broad daylight. It was Twilight's first time at the city since the incident, and she gasped at the awful sight in front of her. The fires had extinguished, but several large buildings that Nikolai had remembered seeing were now reduced to piles of rubble. He frowned, now realizing that the chances of Polonsky being alive were slim. The gates themselves were gone, and now the entrance was little more than a glorified hole in the wall.
"Wow," Twilight could barely form the word. "I. . . I've never seen anything quite like this."
Nikolai aimed forward with his M16, scanning for any possible zombie activity. "It's a shame, no?"
"That's a pretty big understatement," Twilight replied.
When Nikolai was satisfied that there were no nearby threats, he lowered his rifle. "All clear. Stay close to me, princess."
"I'm surprised that you're taking this so seriously, Nikolai."
Nikolai gave a cynical smirk. "What? You thought Nikolai was all fun and games? No, Nikolai was a soldier once. Maybe I still am."
They walked through the gateway and found themselves on the uneven cobblestone roadways that networked the city. Nikolai appeared to be looking for something. "Weren't we supposed to meet another princess here?"
"Princess Luna? Yeah, she must be in the sky.
The drunk Russian nodded as he picked up the torso of a dead pony, studying it closely, running his finger around the wounds. "It's no good," he groaned, carelessly tossing the corpse away. "No clues in the body."
Twilight ducked as the corpse flew over her head. "What exactly are we looking for?"
"Element 115," Nikolai explained. "According to Dr. Richtofen, it's what reanimated the dead. Just let me know if you find any strange rocks, I've been around enough to know what they look like."
"Strange rocks?" Twilight questioned. "That's rather vague, don't you think?"
"Element 115 is strange," Nikolai shrugged. "It's the closest thing my world has to magic."
"And let me guess, Dr. Richtofen taught you this?" Twilight deduced.
Nikolai did not respond for a moment. "I know, he's unreliable, but he's possibly the last surviving scientist who worked with Group 935. He's likely the only one in either of our worlds to know 115's capabilities. I have to take his word, because it's all we got. What 115 could not explain was how Polonsky, Reznov, and Dimitri got here?"
"You're human friends?" Guessed Twilight.
"Da, and do you know what's interesting?"
"What?"
"They came from different points in time. Reznov and Dimitri, both Russians like me, came from April 30th, the day the Reichstag was stormed. Polonsky, however, was different. He was American, and he came from a month later. All three arrived at exactly the same time, so this raises some questions that dumb drunks like me can't really answer. They all claimed to have died in battle, yet they ended up here. Maybe Samantha was messing w-"
"Hold on," Twilight interrupted. "There's a lot I don't understand. Who is this Samantha?"
"Oh, of course. I haven't told you, silly me. Samantha is the problem."
"The problem?"
"Yep. As in, she controls the zombies, kinda like a demon. You know what a demon is, right?"
Twilight nodded. "Go on."
Nikolai scratched his head, thinking. "Well, my memory is a little fuzzy over what exactly happened, but I do know that she has been trying to kill us ever since we left for Shi no Numa. She wants us dead. I don't know why, I've never done anything to her. She controls the zombies."
"It must be her," Twilight accused. "She's evil. She caused this."
"Ehh, maybe she did, maybe she didn't. But there's just one thing that doesn't add up."
"What's not adding up?" Twilight questioned, her tone rising slightly. "You have a demon trying to kill your group for no reason. Now you've arrived here, and she's sent her disease after you. She's targeted Equest-"
Nikolai put one hand over Twilight's mouth to silence her and used the other to wave at Princess Luna in the sky. The alicorn descended slowly, her face grim and worn.
Nikolai turned to Twilight, removing his hand. "The zombies are acting on their own free will. Samantha plays by rules, almost like it's a game to her. They would come in waves at fixed speeds, growing unusually stronger every wave. These were not restricted by waves, they were fast, unpredictable, and weak. That's chaos, and it may be how your strange mutant dragon-thing friend acts, but Samantha prefers order."
Luna had been quiet all this time, and when Nikolai finished, she spoke up. "The good news is that they can't fly. The few pegasi living in the city can't use their wings. There's not much else to report, though."
Nikolai turned to Luna and nodded. "Hello. . . Luna, is it? I hate that we have to meet in such desperate times. I suppose you haven't run into any other humans, have you?"
Luna shook her head. "No, I'm afraid that you two are the first two living creatures that I've seen all day."
Nikolai's frown increased, and he instantly bowed his head. He did not speak for several seconds, seeming to give a moment of silence to his fallen friends. "Damn," he finally uttered. "I hope they at least went down fighting."
"Nikolai, don't say that," Twilight said, her tone a comforting one. "If they're anything like you, they're probably holding out in some building, bucking zombie flank."
Nikolai shook his head, his face contorting into controlled anger. "Nikolai doubts it. The zombies are few and far between, no? Why wouldn't they try to escape when the hordes are thin?"
Twilight pondered this for a second. "Well, they're in a whole new world now. It's not exactly far-fetched to say that maybe they're paranoid. This wasn't exactly the best way to introduce them to ponykind."
Nikolai thought that was a decent counterargument and nodded ahead. "No harm in looking, I suppose."
They entered a fortified house through the rooftop (with Luna allowing Nikolai to ride her up.) As they searched each room, Nikolai made sure that he was always in front, since he was armed and experience. The good news was that there were no undead in the house. The bad news? There was nothing of any value either; no evidence, no survivors, not even any supplies. When this house failed, they searched the next one over, then the next, and then the one after that. Unfortunately, each house yielded the same result.
The entire afternoon was spent searching the residential areas of town, as it was agreeable that houses would be small and easy to hold out in. It was at sunset that Nikolai threw in the towel. "Damn it," he muttered, sitting on the floor of yet another empty house. "No bodies, no evidence, nothing."
Luna gently patted Nikolai on the shoulder. "We still have much more to cover. We'll find something."
Twilight looked out the window at the setting sun, already about to disappear behind the walls. "Say, Luna, shouldn't you be getting back home?"
Luna shook her head. "Tia didn't tell you that she was covering for me? I knew this was going to be an all-day affair."
Nikolai forced himself to stand back up. "I could really go for a drink right now."
"When can you not?" Twilight quipped, casting a spell that produced three small glowing orbs of light. Each light hovered over one of them, meant to track each one individually and provide light. It was a simple, useful spell, slightly more complicated than illuminating a horn. "Now, let's solve this mystery."
It just so happened that the next building over was a small apartment complex on the edge of the residential quarter. Its walls were scorched by fire, but they remained standing, which was more than could be said for many other buildings. Nikolai reached for the door handle, only to draw back when the door fell over on its own.
"Well, that's one way to get in," he muttered, stepping through the doorway. The inside of the building was in far worse shape than the outside. Windows were shattered, walls were smeared with blood, and the floor was littered with the corpses of undead ponies, their bodies filled with both bullets and burns in the flesh.
Nikolai's heartbeat increased rapidly when he noticed that the blood was fresh. Reznov and Polonsky were alive, at least they were not too long ago.
"Oh my sister!" Luna managed to gasp out between retches. "This is awful!"
Indeed, the smell was staggering to the ponies, who were never used to it. Nikolai, however, had been around death long enough to become adjusted to the scent of rotting flesh. "What? It's nothing."
Twilight took one whiff and lost her lunch all over Nikolai's shoes. The Russian, still dressed in Rarity's outfit, jumped back a little.
"Careful," he began. "I don't want to make Rarity cry. . . Again."
Twilight wiped her mouth and shook her head. "Sorry," she gagged, almost vomiting a second time. "This scent is. . . Words are not enough to describe it."
"Let's search around," Luna changed the subject, but still covered her snout. "I want to get out of here as soon as possible."
Twilight nodded, breathing through her mouth now. "Luna, you take the ground floor. Nikolai, you'll get the second. I'll take the third. Deal?"
Everyone nodded. Twilight and Nikolai went up the stairs, still followed by two glowing orbs of light, until they were out of Luna's sight.
"Be careful," Nikolai warned as they ascended. "You may have to kill."
"I'm aware of that," Twilight assured, ever so slightly uneasy. "But I don't want to think about it."
. . .
Nikolai had barely begun to explore the second room down the hall when he heard a loud scream from above, causing him to jump and drop his gun. It took him a split-second to register that Twilight is in trouble, and once he picked his M16 back up he zoomed out of the room, down the hall, and up the flight of stairs. He hoped that he would make it before it was too late.
"Help!" Came Twilight's voice again, hoarse and deafening, even from where Nikolai was. It didn't take him any time to find the door and kick it down. He was greeted to the sight of a zombified Polonsky holding onto Twilight's tail, the only thing keeping him from eating her alive was a bookcase that had collapsed onto his body. Instead of outright shooting his undead friend, Nikolai grabbed onto Twilight's body and tugged as hard as he could, eventually winning the battle. Twilight and Polonsky's arm came flying off of his body, and they flew across the room until they smashed against a wall.
Twilight's breathing was heavy and uneven, and her eyes were wide open. Nikolai let her go and have her a second to catch her breath. The arm was still attached to her tail, but Twilight didn't notice. She was still in shock.
"What the buck is that!?" Twilight finally exclaimed, pointing a hoof at the hungry Polonsky, who growled in response. As far as they were now, he still reached out to them in a futile attempt to catch them.
"It's Polonsky," Nikolai responded. "He's. . . He's one of them, now."
Twilight was shocked. "Polonsky? Oh, Celestia, he's a monster."
Nikolai stepped forward to observe him more closely. "Poor guy," he muttered. Polonsky, no, this husk that was once Polonsky, snapped at him like an angry dog, his glowing yellow eyes void of any rational thought. His legs were mere bloody stumps, torn off when he was presumably eaten alive. His ray gun sat nearby, out of ammo. Various zompony corpses lied on the floor, but no living ones were found. This had been Polonsky's last stand. It had been bloody, it had ended poorly, but he had gone down fighting. To Nikolai, that was good enough.
Taking his rifle, he put a three-round burst in Polonsky's forehead. He instantly stopped growling, and his head rolled back, the yellow eyes slowly losing their color and turning into a peaceful white.
Nikolai bent down, and, as a final gesture, closed Polonsky's eyelids.
"Your misery is over, comrade. I hope your soul finds peace."
It was at about that time that Luna finally arrived. "Are you-" huff "alright, Twilight?" She asked as she gasped for breath.
Twilight inspected herself and was relieved to see no signs of injury. "He didn't get me. Nikolai stopped him."
"Polonsky is dead," Nikolai remarked soberly. "We can scratch him off the list. If he's dead, I'd say Reznov is, too."
As if on cue to defy Nikolai, a burst of gunfire sounded in the distance, and all three sets of eyes widened.
"Oh, shit," Nikolai stood back up. "Looks like I'm wrong."
. . .
They tracked the sound of the gunfire to a small alley between two stores. It just so happened that they arrived just in time to see Reznov, standing on a balcony, mow down another horde, apparently one that Luna missed, and he damn near came close to shooting them, too, until he realized that Nikolai was with them.
"Reznov!?" Nikolai called out, stepping closer. "You're alive?"
"Of course," Reznov smirked. "You cannot simply kill an iron wolf."
It turns out that things went rather well for Reznov: He had apparently been back to the box again, as he now held an MG42 in his arms. Not only that, but he had managed to form a strong-looking barricade behind him, made of various junk he had found. Of course, what really caught Nikolai's eye were the bottles of vodka and piles of food nearby, many unopened.
"So, you decided to come back for me?" Reznov questioned.
"Yeah. I can see that you've taken care of yourself."
"It was touch and go at first, but I managed to get by. Who are those ponies with you?"
"Two princesses," Nikolai gestured to Twilight and Luna. "We've been exploring the area to see if we can find any evidence of what just happened."
Reznov grew grim, and did not immediately respond. "I think I might have found the answer," he finally said as he began to strip the barricade. "Give me a few minutes and I'll come down."
As the iron wolf disappeared into the building, Twilight turned to Nikolai. "Let's hope the evidence he found was sufficient."
Nikolai leaned up against the wall. "If he's found something, that's a start. I can probably make a connection. I just hope he remembered the vodka."
Luna rolled her eyes. "Don't get too drunk yet, Nikolai, we need you sober long enough to connect the dots."
Nikolai sighed. "I need to get drunk soon, or else the shaking will start," he then noticed Luna's wings and smiled deviously. "Say, you can fly. Why don't you go get the vodka up there?"
Luna groaned and flew upwards, picked up the vodka, and flew it back down to Nikolai. He was just about to take a swig when Luna took it away from him.
"Hey!" Nikolai interjected. "What gives!?"
"You won't get any until you examine the evidence."
Nikolai frowned. "And I thought you were best princess. No matter."
They waited in silence for what seemed like hours before Reznov emerged from behind a wall, his MG42 slung on his back. "Sorry about the wait, I ran into a little trouble."
Twilight cocked her head. "We didn't hear any gunshots."
Reznov pulled out his machete, revealing that it was stained in fresh blood. "He almost got me, but I took his head off, fair trade if you ask me."
He stuffed his machete away and reached his hand out to Twilight. "A pleasure to meet you, princess. My name is Viktor Reznov."
"Uh, Twilight Sparkle," she replied, awkwardly bonking his hand with her hoof. "The other pony is Princess Luna, she kinda controls the nights here."
Luna and Reznov exchanged similar awkward fist-to-hoof contact before Reznov turned back to his fellow Russian. "Now, about that evidence," he nodded as he dug into his pocket and pulled out a sack and handed it to Nikolai. "Take a look for yourself."
Nikolai opened up the sack and gasped at what he saw: meteorite fragments containing pure 115, more than enough to reanimate a corpse.
The drunk glanced back up at Reznov. "Where did you find this?"
"A funeral home, apparently a pony found it first and happened to take it with him there. Did you see the note?"
"Note?" Questioned Nikolai as he reached back into the sack. He felt a slip of paper enter his hands and pulled it out. The note was scribbled in neat, flamboyant, precise handwriting, an exact match of Edward Richtofen's.
Dear Nikolai,
If you found this sack of 115, it means that our experiment worked, and we are now in your world. You see, I used my genius to determine that you had entered another universe, and decided that it must have had to do with element 115. I believed that overloading the teleporter would bring us to you, and I was proven right! I have worked really hard to bring you back home, the others have up on you, but I didn't. We need you, Nikolai, and only I recognize it. We will find you soon, friend.
Sincerely,
Edward Richtofen.
Nikolai tossed the note away and frowned. "Edward Richtofen is behind this. He tried to overload a teleporter and send my comrades here. He says they don't care about me anymore."
"Richtofen?" Twilight asked herself. "I should have known that he'd caused this disaster. Don't listen to him, Nikolai, he's just trying to brainwash you."
But Nikolai wasn't exactly convinced, as the German had always reacted favorably to Nikolai in the past, while Takeo hated him and Dempsey ignored him. For all Nikolai knew, Richtofen was telling him the cold hard truth, and it crushed him on the inside.
But things got better when Luna levitated a bottle to Nikolai, and he quickly forgot his current troubles.
Twilight pondered what this news meant. "So Richtofen caused this by accident? I don't get it, there's got to be more to the story."
"Well, the note did say that they were likely in the world now," Luna nodded. "But then why haven't we found them?" She turned to Reznov. "What do you think about this, Viktor?"
Reznov was off in his own thoughts, a worried expression on his face. He barely heard Luna. "Hmm? I'm still wondering what I'm doing talking to magical unicorns after killing countless of their kind. No hard feelings, though."
"You defended yourself, there's no shame in that."
"I'd personally rather be spending my time eradicating the last remaining fascist rats, but I'm sure my comrades will finish where we left off. I guess I'll just follow Nikolai for now."
"Reznov," Nikolai began, now his usual goofy self. "This world is crazy. One minute you think that you're trapped in a world of girly friendship, the next, vines kidnap your monarchs and conquer your village. Nikolai couldn't believe it."
Reznov followed Nikolai's example and took his own bottle. "Sounds exciting," he chuckled. "Where's Polonsky, by the way?"
"We found him," Twilight remarked, shuddering as she thought about what happened.
Reznov caught the meaning. "Oh. Did you at least put him down?"
"Yeah," She frowned. "I feel sorry for him. According to Nikolai, he was a hero."
Reznov felt the remorse hit his gut, but it wasn't quite as bad as when Chernov burned to death on the steps of the Reichstag. "He was. At least he's not suffering anymore."
"True, I guess. It doesn't exactly cushion the blow, though."
"Well," Reznov began, but couldn't think of what exactly to say. "Damn it."
The four began to walk down the street, with Luna levitating Richtofen's note, reading it quietly to herself. The meteorites would be enough evidence to sort things out, but Luna was preoccupied with worry. What if this happened again? What could she and her sister do to prevent another city from collapsing? There was no solution strong enough to reassure her.
They got about halfway down the city's main road before Reznov inexplicably collapsed, his forehead sweaty and his breathing heavy.
"Reznov!?" Twilight gasped.
"I-I'm alright," the iron wolf tried to stand back up, but he couldn't muster the strength. "I'm just tired."
Nikolai bent down and grew grim again. "Oh shit, he's got bite symptoms."
"No, no, I'm not infected," Reznov assured. "I'm just sick."
But Nikolai was already rolling up Reznov's sleeves, revealing that he was missing a small chunk of flesh from his arm. It was still bleeding, the only thing hiding it was the fact that Reznov was dressed in layers and had adjusted his uniform to hide the hole it had left.
Twilight held Reznov's head in her hooves. "That 'little trouble' bit you! Why didn't you tell us!?"
Reznov did not respond, but his breathing grew more uneven.
"It only takes a few minutes," Nikolai remembered. "He's dying right in front of us."
"I'm not dying," Reznov assured. "I can't die, I'm the iron wolf!"
"Zombies can bite through iron," Nikolai remarked angrily. "Damn it, Reznov! Why were you careless! We were almost out!"
"It ambushed me! I had no time to react."
Nikolai grabbed Reznov's machete and put it up to his neck. Reznov struggled with all his might, but he was too weak to push it away.
"No, don't do it, Nikolai!" Reznov screamed, tears forming in his eyes. "I'm not going to turn."
"It's better this way," Nikolai assured, drawing back with the machete.
Reznov gave one last defiant glare. "Fuck y-"
Nikolai was silent as he stood over the corpse, his new suit covered in Reznov's blood. For what seemed like hours, he just stared at Reznov's decapitated body, wishing that things had been different. He did not cry, as Nikolai was not that close to Reznov, but he did have the decency to cover the body with Reznov's overcoat.
"You killed him," Twilight was at a loss for words. "You didn't even hesistate."
"Twilight," Luna reasoned. "Nikolai did the right thing."
"I know, but. . . He just did it so fast."
Nikolai rose, still drunk, but not at all happy. "We got what we came here for, now let's go home."
"But-"
"Let's. Go. Home."
Twilight wanted to protest, she really did, but she saw the hurt in Nikolai's eyes and felt too much sympathy to argue. She closed her eyes, emptied her mind of what she just saw, and casted her teleportation spell.