//------------------------------//
// #33 - Manes and Brains 
// Story: Techorse Short Stories 
// by Spirals95 
//------------------------------//


Manes and Brains


Techorse Series: #33


By Spirals95






A rumor can easily lead to rather odd decisions, and one particular word of mouth that had spread through Ponyville had definitely caused Rarity to act. She had heard from some of the residents of the small town that there was a large deposit of flawless sapphires in the side of a rock formation inside the Everfree Forest, by a small waterfall located somewhere near the east half of the woods. Rarity had been running low on sapphires recently due to having used most of her supply on an order she had filled for a matching set of dresses needed for a stage production. Upon hearing about the supposed deposit of the required gemstone, she knew she'd have to make a trip out into the forest in order to have a chance at the loot. However, the forest was far too dangerous for an average pony to walk through without coming under attack by some kind of dangerous creature that lurked amongst the bushes and trees of the area. To stay somewhat safe, Rarity recruited Fluttershy's help. If they encountered a beast of some kind, it was very likely that Fluttershy could talk to it and keep it from simply attacking them outright.

The waterfall area was a small, peaceful area, overgrown with wild meadow flowers of various colors. Cool water ran over a small rock structure, allowing for an elevation change in a small brook that flowed away from the area between the dark canopy of the rest of Everfree Forest. The stone cliff face that allowed the twenty foot waterfall to cascade over it indeed had a slight twinkling look to it in the amount of sun that managed to peek through the treetops. Upon closer inspection, Rarity and Fluttershy had indeed discovered a deposit of Sapphires, a blue seam of gemstones, already cut and polished by the natural geology of Equestria. Rarity began to fill a bag she had brought along with the gemstones after chiseling each one out carefully using a pair of metal tools and the aid of her magic.

"Thank you so much Fluttershy for helping me today," she said as she carved out another stone, the gem tumbling into the bag below, "I simply don't think I could have made it out here without being gobbled up by some hideous monster!"

"Oh, it's no problem Rarity," said Fluttershy quietly, "not all the creatures out here are so terrifying though, really."

Overhead, a patch of greenish moss loomed on a wet stone, enjoying the energy radiating off of the bodies of Fluttershy and Rarity. The primitive plant form might have not had any brain cells, but it could detect a resource it needed, and put its plan into action. The root like structures at the base of the moss detached, and a small patch of moss dropped down below into Rarity's mane.

"Oops," said Fluttershy, pointing to the blob of moss, "I think there's some lichen on you."

Rarity immediately dropped her tools in disgust and brushed off a large amount of the plant out of her curly purplish hair, sending most of the moss into the water.

"EWWWWW!" she shouted, "This terrible weed is going to ruin the work I did this morning on my mane!"

"I think you got it all," said Fluttershy, trying to be helpful, "I mean, this is where moss grows, where it's damp. Maybe we should move so we don't disturb it."

"Well, I've managed to collect plenty of sapphires!" declared Rarity, tying her bag to her side, "Would you like a few as a reward? I have plenty of extra ones, darling!"

"Yes please!" answered Fluttershy, "If you really have extras, that is."

The two walked back to Fluttershy's house, where Rarity awarded Fluttershy with her share of the gemstones in a small brown bag as payment for her escort through the forest.

Rarity returned home to the Carousel Boutique soon after to fill her gem vault's compartment for sapphire gems. The large steel safe she kept in the back of her workroom was opened via a combination lock on the side. Normally she used ordinary boxes to keep her gemstones, as they were not incredibly rare in Equestria, however, she had gained a bit of a paranoia about thieves after earlier incidences in town. When she opened the safe, she emptied the contents of her saddlebags into one of the many categorized boxes inside labeled "sapphires". The blue stones tumbled out nosily into the compartments, and filled the bin to the top. One unusually larger stone landed on the top of the pile of gems, and Rarity frowned as she tried to close the safe box door unsuccessfully.

The frustrated Unicorn mare looked around her back workroom. The colorful chamber was littered with empty pony mannequins, bolts of cloth, scraps and drawings from previous dress ideas, and a large mirror to observe dresses being worn. Rarity went back to the task of closing her box, and turned around, giving it a sharp kick with her hind legs. This didn't seem to close the container either, and she groaned.

"Oh, what am I to do now?" she said, "This gemstone is far too large and pretty to waste!"

Sweetie Belle had heard the loud crash and entered the room carefully, "What's wrong, Rarity?"

"I managed to fill my sapphire box to the top, and now I have an extra one," she answered, lifting the large square-cut gem out of the box.

After closing the safe deposit box successfully and sealing the vault, she moved the gemstone over to Sweetie Belle with a spell, hovering the rock in a cloud of faint white energy.

"It'd be a shame to simply throw it away," sighed Rarity, "What should I do?"

Sweetie Belle put a hoof to her mouth and gave it a moment of thought before answering, "Hey I know, you should give it to Spike! He loves eating gemstones."

"Oh, that's a marvelous idea! I'll go over to the library as soon as I can," said Rarity, her eyes bright.





Pinkie Pie stood just outside of Sugarcube Corner, her hooves starting to freeze a bit in the slightly chilly air as the afternoon was drawing to a close. It was the beginning of the autumn season in Ponyville, and the nights had already begun to turn quite cold. The pink mare had bundled up a bit, wearing a blue knitted cap with a yellow puff on the end, and a white scarf tied around her neck. She was trying to earn a little money while attracting business for the Cakes by selling cups of hot chocolate outside of the store. A heated batch of the sweet drink sat on top of a kerosene burner Pinkie had set up to keep the chocolate warm and ready. The smell of the delicious, soothing brew drifted for several feet from the small wooden table the pot was set up on, and dozens of ceramic mugs stacked in a neat pyramid sat next to the pot. A silver nozzle with a black handle sat waiting for someone to order a cup from Pinkie Pie.

"Hot cocoa!" she cheered, jumping up and down on the street, "It's going to be chilly tonight everypony, and I've got mugs for just 1 bit, and it comes with all the pink and white marshmallows you want! I made them myself, they're really yummy!"

Pinkie Pie reached for a quite large brown paper bag next to her small kiosk, and pulled out a large, fluffy pink marshmallow nearly as large as the thickness of her hoof. 

She giggled at the crazy size of the homemade confection and admitted, "Maaaaaybe I should have made them a teensy bit smaller. Oh well!"

She opened her mouth wide and popped the large marshmallow in, filling her jaws with the treat. A few ponies walked up, eager to buy a mug of hot chocolate from the great description Pinkie Pie had given. Pinkie Pie couldn't talk while chewing her giant marshmallow, but managed to serve several mugs of her cocoa to the townsponies. When she finally managed to get the rest of the snack down her gullet, the earth pony wiped her mouth clean with her front leg, and sighed.

"Wowie! I'd better start cutting these up, they don't even fit in the mugs."

Pinkie Pie turned around to go get a knife from the bakery, but as she turned, she noticed Rarity approaching out of the corner of her eye and stopped.

"Oh hey Rarity!" she said, waving her hoof, "Want a mug of hot cocoa?"

Rarity walked up to Pinkie Pie's kiosk and declined the offer, "Oh no thank you, Pinkie Pie, I'm looking for Spike and Twilight Sparkle. They weren't at the library, and I wanted to give Spike an extra sapphire I have."

"Oh, she and Spike are at the garden store!" answered Pinkie, smiling, "I think they're looking for a new windowsill plant."

"Thank you Pinkie! I suppose I'll take a nice mug of your hot cocoa some other time though. I'm in a bit of a hurry." she said.

"Don't worry Rarity, there's plenty for next time!" answered Pinkie Pie.

Rarity left her, and found herself pushing through a small group of ponies trying to get into Sugarcube Corner. Her mane hair managed to brush up against the manes of the others slightly, and tiny bits of moss transferred over from hair to hair.

Mr. Pottenturf was just about to close his garden supply store at the eastern edge of Ponyville for the evening. He had managed to almost completely sell out on bags to collect the leaves that would eventually fall off the trees that were starting to change color. Many of the leaves were removed on purpose by the residents of Equestria to help the trees preserve energy, allowing them to grow stronger during the following spring. Whether they fell off on their own or not, they needed to be bagged and later burned or used for compost.

Twilight Sparkle and Spike had stopped by to purchase a small bag of plant food for the houseplants at the library. Twilight carried the light blue bag, with a small green leaf printed on the front to her side with her magic, trotting along happily on the cobblestone road.

"I can't wait to get back and start working on my plants!" she said, "I still can't believe Shadow Breeze was nice enough to give me a Glacial Lily seed."

Spike, at her side, inquired about the plant, "What's a Glacial Lily?"

"It's a special breed of flower that only blooms when the temperature drops below freezing," Twilight explained, looking back at him, "it only wants certain insects to pollinate it, and only the ones that can tolerate the cold stay out in the air for the blooming. It's a very pretty flower, and if we fertilize the seed now, we might get it to germinate before winter comes!"

"Oh, interesting!" said Spike, pretending to try and be interested further, "We could take a picture of since it only blooms during the winter, I guess.  That way we'll have it to look at during the summer, too."

Twilight smiled, "That's a great idea!"

Rarity had managed to intercept them, just a few moments after the street lights had turned on, the sun had set minutes earlier, and shadows were being cast throughout the town as it grew dark.

"Oh, hello!" she called out, running up to them, "I've been looking for you!"

"Hey Rarity, what's up?" asked Twilight, stopping in her tracks.

"A few things," she answered, "first though, I brought something..."

Rarity unhooked her saddlebag, and removed the large blue sapphire from the pouch. She drifted the gemstone over to Spike, who smiled at the scale of the edible stone.

"This is for you!" cooed Rarity, "I had an extra one after acquiring a large pile with Fluttershy's help! I thought my little Spikey-Wikey might enjoy it!"

The young dragon grabbed the sapphire, and gave Rarity a very appreciative look, "Thank you so much, Rarity! It's beautiful."

"Wow, that's a huge sapphire!" marveled Twilight, "Rarity, that was really nice of you."

"I couldn't simply throw it away," said Rarity, fluffing her mane, "that'd be far too wasteful, and Spike certainly deserves to have a nice gemstone every once in a while."

Spike didn't answer, he was too busy analyzing his treat, scanning it over with his eyes.

"Hey, Rarity, would you like to come over to the library tomorrow morning? Spike and I were going to work a little bit on our houseplants. I was going to make some tea and snacks afterwords."

"Oh that sounds splendid! I'll be there for sure. Thank you for the invitation." answered Rarity, happy for the offer.

After a small pause, she added, "It is getting late though, and I must be heading home for bed. I'm a bit tired after Fluttershy and I went for a hike in Everfree to get the sapphires. Goodnight!"

Rarity turned around a walked away from them to head back to their home. As she walked out of view behind a nearby building, Twilight frowned slightly, knowing how dangerous Everfree forest was. However, seeing as Rarity seemed to be doing well, she chased the thoughts out of her mind and headed for home as well. A glance over at Spike as he held his gemstone tightly against his chest lead to a roll of her eyes.

"Well, he's never going to actually eat that," she thought while rolling her eyes and shaking her head, "It'll sit around forever."





Rarity finished washing her face, she had already bathed earlier after her trip through the forest, and was curling up in her bed. The mare sighed as she drew the red comforter of her bed up to her neck, and wrapped her front hooves around the end. She went to sleep soon after she had snuggled down into the warmth of her queen sized bed, and dreamed peacefully. As the hours of the night went on, though, a certain guest still hanging onto her mane had begun to multiply. The same had gone for the pieces of moss that had detached from her mane and caught a ride on the ponies she had brushed up against on the way to meet Twilight. Soon, patches of the bryophyte had embedded themselves in several residents of Ponyville, and began to send information to them while they slept. The next morning, they would no longer be quite themselves.





A silver-coated earth pony stallion with a blue mane, and his wife, a blue colored one with an orange haircut, sat at their living room table in their home in Ponyville. They were reading the newspaper together for that morning, catching up on the latest events around town before starting their Saturday. A knock came at their door to their humble abode, and the husband dutifully got up to answer the door. He walked over to the entrance to his home, and opened the door to find a brownish unicorn stallion. Something was rather off though about him, as his eyes seemed to lack focus, he was slightly drooling, and a shade of green had slightly devoured the back of his normally darker-brown mane.

"BRAINS!" said the unicorn, lacking a steady tone of voice.

The husband shut the door to his home quickly, and lazily went back to his wife.

"Who was that dear?" she asked, looking up at him.

He sat back down on his couch next to her and answered, "Just some stallion going door-to-door selling brains."

"Oh," she said, going back to her newspaper.

A few seconds later, the information sunk in, and she quickly looked up at him, "Wait, what?"





Outside, Ponyville was in utter chaos as residents were struggling to flee the small number of zombies that had seemingly cropped up overnight. Getting overtaken resulted in also becoming a zombie as well, and the fact that they were demanding brains seemed to key the residents in on the fates of anyone who managed to get caught. Folks were locking themselves inside, climbing trees, flying away, and in general doing anything they could to avoid what used to be their friends.

Twilight Sparkle opened two slightly bloodshot eyes when she heard a loud scream from Spike downstairs. Fearing that something had decided to break in her home at an early hour, she shot out of her bed and dashed downstairs, horn aglow and ready to attack.

"Spike! What's happened?" she demanded, looking around the bottom floor rapidly.

Spike pointed out the window, a mortified look on his face, "Zombies!"

Twilight scoffed, powering down her horn, and rolled her eyes, "Spike, how many times do I have to tell you that there are no such things as zombies? It's probably just some early-morning ponies who really need their morning cup of coffee to get going."

"Then why are they shouting 'brains'?" demanded Spike, continuing to point, "Take a look!"

Twilight shook her head, smiling, and went up to the window to see what her dragon was talking about. Sure enough, a small group of ponies, some she'd recognized from earlier, were slowly moving around towards the healthy residents, and one of them immediately called out for the cerebral organ of choice.
The unicorn pony backed away from the window slowly, and turned to Spike. He could see the fear and anxiety in her eyes about the situation.

"What do we do Twilight?" asked Spike desperately, "What do we do?"

"We need to start looking up things about zombies and see if we can cure them!" said Twilight, running up to the nearest bookshelf on curses and spells, "I'm sure this is some kind of magic! If we could just find a counter spell..."

The red colored door of the library started to get pounded on as the ponies outside banged on the door, trying to break it down. Twilight realized that it probably wouldn't hold for long, and knew that it was more important to avoid having her brains eaten than to stay and try to find a book. She'd need to get to Canterlot library in order to find the counter spell to the zombie curse that must have been cast over Ponyville. Twilight grabbed the one book on curses she knew would be the only volume likely to contain any helpful information, and turned to her assistant.

"Spike, we've got to get to Tech's castle. It's probably going to be safer there!" she said, struggling to avoid panicking, "Hold on!"





Her horn glowed brightly for a moment, and in that instant, she teleported them both away for Techorse's castle. They appeared inside the lobby of the stone fortress with a bright flash, the hallways flushed with bright emergency lighting. The front door bore several heavy steel bars that had descended from the ceiling as well.

"I guess Techorse already knew about the zombies," said Spike, "looks like he closed up shop."

PAL emerged from a door in the hallway and cautiously looked at the two of them.

"Mistress Sparkle, please tell me you're not one of them," he said, clearly upset.

"It's ok PAL, we're not zombies," she answered, walking up to him, "In fact, I think this is all some kind of a curse laid on Ponyville. I brought a book on curses that might hold the answers, it's the only one in the library that might have anything on zombies."

"Let's get you to the laboratory. Master and some of the others are already down there," he said, waving for them to follow.

The laboratory had been set up by Techorse to serve as a small bunker until the dire situation outside was over. All of the production machines had been moved, and the fabrication tables knocked over. Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie were the only others besides Techorse in the room.

"Oh, you're ok Twilight!" gasped Pinkie Pie, running over to her and giving her a very tight hug.

After letting her go, Twilight asked of them, "Where's Rarity, Applejack, and Fluttershy?"

"We couldn't find them!" said Rainbow Dash, frowning, "I flew over all of Ponyville once this whole thing got started, and I couldn't see them. Rarity and Fluttershy that is. Applejack and her family have holed up in their basement."

"They'll be ok, knowing them," figured Twilight.

"Rarity and Fluttershy are still out there?" cried Spike, starting to chew on his nails.

"Don't worry Spike," said Rainbow Dash, smirking, "we'll get them back. Fluttershy's the best hider in Ponyville, and Rarity doesn't have any brains to eat."

"Rainbow Dash!" scolded Techorse and Spike.

"What?" she said, laughing, "I was just kidding."

The friends gathered around a table Techorse set up in the white-washed laboratory room, and Twilight laid her book out on the table, and began to flip through, looking for the curse that was causing the ponies outside to slowly turn into zombies hungry for brains.

"Where is it?" complained Twilight, continuing to leaf through the pages, "There has to be something on zombie ponies in here somewhere!"

"Try the index!" said Pinkie Pie, hopping up and down impatiently, "The index!"

"She's been through the index 3 times already, Pinkie," sighed Techorse, "there's just not anything on zombies in this book."

"Well what are we going to do then?" demanded Rainbow Dash, knocking the book off the table with her wings, "It's not like we can just sit here like a bunch of losers and let our neighbors all get turned into slobbering zombies."

Twilight's mouth hung open slightly at the sight of her book hitting the floor, and she quickly went to retrieve it.

"Maybe I'll have to send for help," offered Spike, holding a hand up, "if we get a letter out to Princess Celestia, I'm sure she knows some kind of a healing spell that can undo this."

"But that's just it." said Twilight, "The zombies have overrun the library. Princess Celestia doesn't always open mail that isn't marked with a seal that identifies the letter as belonging to us. It'd be one big gamble, and if we lose..."

"The zombie ponies will gobble up our brains!" wailed Pinkie Pie, shrieking and diving underneath the rolling table.

"No they won't!" assured Rainbow Dash, Pulling Pinkie Pie by her fluffy tail out from underneath the table with her teeth, "Worst comes to worst we leave Ponyville, go to Canterlot, and get the Princesses to help us."

"But of course, plan A will be to get a letter out now rather than risk the time it will take us to evacuate," said Techorse, "we'll need to figure out a way to get the library."

He turned to a nearby intercom panel on the wall of the lab and pushed a red button with his left hoof, "PAL, we need you here."

"On my way master," came a reply from the square speaker.

"So how do we get there?" asked Pinkie Pie frantically, "We can't just dance right up to the library, can we? Can we?!"

"Well we can't run there, and I can't teleport us either," said Twilight, sighing, "they'll see the flash of light and come get us."

"So we'll have to be reeeeeally sneaky?" asked Pinkie Pie, comically lowering her voice and her head.

"Yes," answered Twilight as PAL lumbered into the room, "all of us will need to sneak around the back alleyways of Ponyville to get to the library. Once we get a seal, we can send a quick emergency letter to Princess Celestia."

"Then let's get moving!" shouted Rainbow Dash, running for the door, "We've got to save Ponyville!"





The others looked at each other and followed her out the door. PAL opened the steel gate and the main entrance to the castle, thankfully, not a single changed pony had been outside, and they were able to enter town undetected. They started near the town stationary store, whose windows had been broken, an obvious sign of the zombie ponies trying to enter.

"Oh no, they must have gotten Thoughtful Note," cried Twilight.

"I don't think it was just him," sighed Rainbow Dash, pointing around with a cyan leg.

Ponyville seemed like a ghost town now. The remaining ponies who did not look pale and have green patches all over their manes sat barricaded in their homes, hoping that rescue would arrive before their former neighbors, friends, maybe eve family broke down their boards and caught them. The stores that were normally open were closed shut, many of them with smashed windows and knocked over displays.

"This... is simply horrible," commented PAL, his orange eyes looking at the scene in despair.

"Glass and homes can be fixed," said Techorse, scanning around, "we need to figure out the safest route to the library without getting caught."

"BRAINS!" groaned a horde that emerged from a nearby grocery store, knocking over several produce stands in the market as they exited loudly.

"EEEEEEK!" screeched Pinkie Pie, jumping several feet in the air before whisking behind PAL in a cartoonish blur of pink.

The ponies, sickly pale with green moss overgrowing their manes, walked at a steady pace towards the group.

Twilight turned to Techorse, and said, "I'm going to put up a barrier so that we can run! It won't last very long, but it seems the pegasus ponies can't fly thanks to that weird green zombie slime spreading on them!"

The unicorn mare turned around to face the zombies, some of them ponies she recognized, such as Berry Punch, and even poor Bon Bon and Lyra. Twilight's horn glowed strongly as she bent her head down and crouched on all fours, before projecting a rounded wall of energy in front of herself. She then turn and ran, the barrier holding back the ponies who scratched at it curiously with their hooves. Twilight took note of the ponies' curious behavior of seeming to enjoy the energy, and galloped away to regroup with her friends.

"Oh man, I'm absolutely terrified of zombies!" cried Spike, riding on PAL's shoulders.

The robot kept up a good pace, although he was having trouble since he was encumbered by both Spike being on his shoulders, and Pinkie Pie being practically attached to his front, scared as could be.

"We're going to get through this!" assured the machine, keeping up with his master and Rainbow Dash, "We're almost to the library."

They reached the tree house, who's door had been bashed down unceremoniously. Twilight caught up with them, and the friends entered the home to get out from underneath the overcast sky, and away from the watchful eyes looking for them.

"All right!" said Twilight, "Let's find a seal and get a letter out to the Princesses, if we hurry we can..."

A hoof emerged from a nearby window, breaking it and causing Twilight and Pinkie Pie to shriek. Rainbow Dash gasped in surprise, and shoved the hoof out the window with a quick mid-air kick. She hoevered above her friends.

"We're under attack again!" she shouted, "Ponyville's just not safe anymore, let's flee for Canterlot, or better yet, Cloudsdale. I might brag about my home town a lot, but if there's one thing I'd pick now to brag about, it'd be that we don't have any zombies trying to eat our brains!"

A fresh horde of the enemies appeared at the doorway, and slowly approached the friends. They huddled up together against a bookcase, hoping to keep them back as best as possible. As the zombies slowly stepped forward, a clearly ill Rarity and Fluttershy emerged form the horde.

"No!" shouted Spike, "Why them?"

The zombie Rarity spoke up to them, seeming to still recognizer her friends, and stopped the other ponies.

"Oh hello darlings! Ever since Fluttershy and I went into Everfree, we've just had the most itching desire to find new brains!"

Zombie Fluttershy added softly, "Um, so... I.. I'd like to come over and take a tiny little taste of your brains. If, you know, that's ok with you."

Twilight realized at this point that she knew absolutely nothing about this "zombie outbreak" Ponyville was going through. Not only did the "zombies" break every conventional rule, but they never seemed to actually eat brains, or anything for that matter. Everypony had an unharmed head, they just looked as if something was causing them to act bizarrely, and seek other ponies out to merely touch. All along she had tried to remain the expert by assuming that the issue was a curse, but given the fact that two of her closest friends were acting quite similar to their regular forms, she now knew that she had no clue as to how to take care of the situation.  However, Twilight also knew that her friends had recently been to Everfree forest from Rarity's words, and that gave her an idea as to who might know the answer to their problem.

"We're not going to write Celestia anymore," whispered Twilight to her friends, "we're going to go to Everfree to see a real expert on this. That's where Rarity and Fluttershy were. I think Zecora might know what's actually causing this outbreak. But I need a sample of Fluttershy's mane!"

Techorse reached out with his robot arm, and grabbed a small bit of the green gunk populating Fluttershy's hair, before retracting it back into his saddle. The light yellow mare snapped at the metal fingers, but thankfully missed.

"NOW RUN!" shrieked Pinkie Pie, dashing out of the back door of the library for Everfree.

Rainbow Dash followed her out the door, leaving Twilight and Techorse, who were pushed twoards the rear exit by PAL's strong mechanical arms as the zombies drew closer.

"I will keep them here," he said, "I'm metal. They won't hurt me."

Spike looked over at a small glass jewelery box he had set up, with a red velvet pillow inside. In it was the large sapphire Rarity had given to him, to be saved for a distant occasion, which might never come. The young dragon looked at his zombified crush, who only gave him a look of barely knowing him as they got within just 6 steps of him.

"I'm staying too."

Twilight tried to disagree, but PAL had already shoved them out the rear exit of the library, and had shut the door. The zombies paused one final time, as they watched Spike climb onto PAL's shoulders.
The zombies pushed forward, demanding to get to the rear exit and chase after the normal ponies.
PAL stepped in front of the exit to the library, and looked up with his mechanical eyes at Spike's natural ones.

The two stared at each other for a split second before smiling, and returning to the horde that was now attacking them. The robot braced against the door, even as the ponies started to kick at his legs in hopes of bringing him down. They desperately wanted to exit through that door.

"I'm sorry," started PAL.

"But we can't let you do that!" finished Spike.





The team of ponies who had managed to barely escape the library fled into the Everfree forest. Although the forest was undoubtedly dangerous, it was certainly more safe than facing the crowd of zombies again. Techorse and Rainbow Dash flew overhead, looking for Zecora's home in the woods, hoping she would be home to help them out in their predicament. Once they spotted the tree home in the middle of the twisted forest, they signaled to Twilight and Pinkie Pie, who followed them on hoof to the house.

The friends banged on the door hard, knowing that eventually Spike and PAL would not be able to hold back the horde for much longer. Zecora opened her door, rather startled that her friends had been knocking so harshly.

"You were upon my door with such a frantic knock, what has you all in such terrible shock?" she asked, looking concerned.

"Zecora, we need your help," said Twilight Sparkle humbly, "Ponyville has been overrun by ponies who are acting like zombies ever since Fluttershy and Rarity went into the Everfree to look for a gemstone deposit."

"They're all trying to eat our brains!" shrieked Pinkie Pie, pushing past Zecora to get into her home.

The zebra ushered them all inside, where she began to search through a small number of books on the creatures of the Everfree. Eventually she came upon an article that she showed to her friends. After moving a few freshly made burn cream potions out of the way on her custom-carved table, she set the book down, and pointed a gold-ringed hoof at the page it was open to.

"The symptoms and disease your friends have caught, caused by dark magic they're not," she explained in her rhyming language, "a harmful plant is causing your loss, a severe infection of pheonix moss."

"Phoenix moss?" asked Rainbow Dash, turning her head back to the ponies gathered at the table. The pegasus was trying to peel Pinkie Pie from the ceiling of the hut, who was clinging on for dear life.

Twilight read the article in the old, worn out book on the variety of moss,

"Phoenix moss is a variety of moss native to the Everfree Forest as well as several more temperate forests around Equestria. It waits on an elevated rock for the natural heat that phoenixes generate from their feathers, and then launches a piece of itself at the source of the heat. Using some kind of chemical information, the moss then causes the phoenix to molt, and the ashes help the moss's spores grow in another location. Sometimes, the moss even uses its influence to get the phoenix to spread the moss to other phoenixes by looking for their particular thought patterns."

"Neat!" said Pinkie Pie, detaching from the ceiling.

Rainbow Dash shouted as her friend landed on top of her, softening her impact but making the pegasus pony rather uncomfortable. 

Pinkie Pie stood up and bounced over to the friends, before opening her mouth and screaming, "Now can you tell us in English what that means?!"

After her ears stopped ringing from Pinkie's terrified screaming, Twilight said to them, "It means that all along, we haven't been dealing with brain-hungry zombies. That green slime we've seen in everypony's manes is a moss that uses some kind of chemical hypnosis to force animals to spread it. Normally it only does this to phoenixes, but it looks like we've found a subspecies that has made the jump to ponies! In fact, I bet the reason they were looking for brains is because they wanted new minds to control, not brains as food."

"So what do we do about it?" asked Techorse, "Unlike the phoenixes, we can't molt in order to remove the moss and satisfy it."

"Somehow we'll have to convince the moss that there's a greater source of heat and energy," said Twilight, thinking hard, "But I can't think of anything that'd qualify."

"Well, we'd better think of something soon," declared Rainbow Dash, on her hind legs as she looked out of one of Zecora's windows, "they've caught up with us!"

The others went to the window and looked out at the horde. Ponies of all kinds, mindless as the moss forced them to seek out the energy they demanded to produce spores. Their manes caked in the simple yet harmful plant, they marched forward towards the tree house.

"Brains!" came a deep, mechanical voice from the horde.

Techorse's mouth fell slightly open in horror as he recognized the voice. His robot stepped out from the middle of the crowd, his orange eyes now glowing green, and a stain of moss on his back. The machine's eyes seemed to lack focus, and he carried a large uprooted traffic sign, a metal pole with a yellow triangular warning symbol at the end. PAL was using it as a club to break down tree stumps and branches, helping the horde move along. On his back, he had tied a metal water pail with a piece of rope, providing a bucket for Spike, who sat in it. Spike held on to the pieces of rope to help PAL steer himself, and the dragon was also caked with moss.

"Oh no... Spike," whispered Twilight, her ears dropping in sadness.

PAL reached behind him, and plucked the young dragon out of his bucket perch, before throwing him overhand at the open window.

"I'm so sorry Spike!" cried Twilight, shutting the window.

Spike impacted sharply on the glass, sticking to the pane. He drew his long, forked tongue over the glass and slid down the window before falling off.

"The moss has gotten quite carried away! Has it not only been one day?" asked Zecora, clearly frightened.

"It has only been one day," said Techorse, his robotic arms emerging from the saddle. 

He pointed to the geographical map showing the distribution of the moss, "Which is why we have to stop the moss here and now. If we don't, it'll escape Ponyville, and all of Equestria will get enslaved by it!"

"But where are we going to find both enough heat, and useable energy to convince the moss to detach?" asked Twilight.

Techorse's robotic arms retracted into his saddle with a mechanical whir, and then he answered, "I'm not sure. Heat is a form of energy, but the moss needs both."

The door on the home suffered a sharp, hard knock as PAL bashed on the door with his sign. Each hard whack threatened to break down the door and allow the zombies in. Spike had returned to his bucket, giggling as the machine smashed at the door.

"Oh no!" groaned Twilight, who started to despair, "We're going to become zombies to that horrible moss if PAL breaks that door down!"

"We were so close," grunted Rainbow Dash, folding her wings in defeat.

"But hey," she said, walking up to Twilight and wrapping a hoof around her neck, "we wouldn't have even made it this far if you hadn't admitted you weren't the expert and gotten Zecora's help."

Rainbow Dash removed her hoof and smiled at Twilight, trying to get her to cheer up, "At least we know it's fixable. Somepony's going to figure out about the heat and energy, and stop this stupid moss, even if we become zombies. Who knows, maybe being a zombie will be pretty neat!"

Pinkie Pie sat in the corner of the tree house, waiting to be taken over, and thought rapidly about dozens of things, some more random than others. Suddenly though, her ears perked up sharply, and a broad, beaming smile came over her face.

"Guys!" she said, gasping, "I think I know what we can do! But we have to get back to Sugarcube Corner."

"What's the idea?" asked Techorse, tilting his head curiously.

The door suddenly broke down, and PAL stood in the doorway, sign in his hand. He seemed to be blocking the entrance of the other zombies, but perhaps he wanted them for himself!

"I'll explain once we get there!" screamed Pinkie Pie, "Twilight!"

"I'm on it, hold on everypony!" shouted Twilight, her horn glowing furiously.

PAL smiled as his friends teleported out in a flash of purple light, leaving the lonely forest hut empty, save for Zecora's tribal decorations.





The four ponies and one startled zebra entered Sugarcube Corner, empty with several tables knocked over. Pinkie Pie ran back into the kitchen, and urged her friends to follow her.

"We're going to make a huuuuuge batch of hot cocoa!" she said, pointing to the refrigerator with her right front hoof, "I need milk!"

"Why are we making hot cocoa?" asked Techorse, opening the refrigerator and removing the gallon of milk with his robotic arms.

"Well, it's both very hot, and it's full of sugary energy!" she answered, getting a box of baking cocoa from the top shelf of a nearby cabinet, "If we make a huge batch of it, maybe the moss will go for the cocoa and fall off the ponies!"

"It's worth a try!" said Rainbow Dash, flying up to a shelf to fetch a bag of sugar.

Zecora went to the object she was most familiar with, a large steel cauldron, and brought it over to the middle of the room.

"This pot will help us cook a lot, and since it's steel, it'll stay quite hot!" she rhymed.

Pinkie Pie gathered the ingredients and began adding them to the pot. She ended up running back the fridge and using up every last of the 12 gallons of milk inside the huge refrigerator, along with several boxes of cocoa and many bags of sugar. The sugary, dark brown mix swirled around in the cauldron, and Pinkie Pie mixed it all up with a huge wooden spoon she'd normally use to stir the batter for a wedding cake. Once the concoction was ready, all of the friends had to gather their strength to move the huge container of heavy liquid outside.

"All right, there's no time to heat it all up the normal way!" said Pinkie Pie, "We gotta do something real crazy! Techie, use your lasers to heat it up."

Techorse grinned as he realized what he was being asked to do, and his laser cannons emerged from his battle saddle. He switched to the solid beam mode on the weapons, and fired the two beams of yellow energy at the cauldron's base. Using a lower power to avoid burning a hole through the cooking pot, he heated the bottom of the cauldron until it glowed bright red. The hot cocoa came to a rolling boil, the bubbling sound mixing with the sound of the laser beams firing. Techorse stopped firing, and the barrels of his weapons smoked gently from the action.

Pinkie Pie then walked up, dragging a large canvas bag in her mouth, and emptied its contents into the hot liquid. Many huge pink marshmallows fell into the hot chocolate, floating gently on the surface, and creating a pink foam across the hot cocoa.

"Wow, those are some huge marshmallows," marveled Rainbow Dash, "I didn't know you could make them that big."

"They're big and pink, like brains!" said Pinkie Pie, giggling, "I'm sure the zombies will be attracted to the cocoa this way, and then that mean old moss will jump right for it!"

"Well, brains are actually gray..." commented Techorse before receiving a hoof over his mouth by Rainbow Dash.

"I'm sure that'll work!" said the cyan pegasus mare, hoping at this point that anything would help to spare them from the moss.

"Now we just have to wait!" said Pinkie Pie, getting behind a bush nearby.





The friends piled into the nearby brushes and waited patiently. Sure enough, PAL managed to lead the horde back over to the cauldron, and the zombies took note of the hot liquid, and the tempting puffy marshmallows that were letting off a sickly sweet aroma. The ponies surrounded the cauldron as the moss influenced them to obtain the heat and sugar energy, and the pot was knocked over, spilling a gigantic mass of hot chocolate in a huge puddle on the streets of Ponyville. The heat of the cocoa reached the simple thermal sensors in the moss, and out of greed for more heat and energy, it detached from its pony hosts and landed in the puddle of coca. Masses of green fell from manes everywhere, and as the moss left their necks and dropped access to their minds, ponies came to from their zombies trance. Many of them quickly understood what had been happening the whole time, and were relieved to be free, where as others were confused, wondering how they had gotten where they were, and why they were standing in hot chocolate!

Fluttershy and Rarity came out of their trances and discovered as they looked around the complete wreck of the town that had been made from the moss's hypnosis.

"Oh... my," whimpered Fluttershy, her ears drooping.

The timid mare and Rarity walked up to their friends, and Rarity asked, "I can't believe what's happened around here, and I'm ashamed to admit that I remember every bit of it. I just could not control myself for some reason!"

Twilight smiled and answered, "It wasn't your fault, Rarity. We'll explain later once we've cleaned up all this hot cocoa."

PAL and Spike looked around and realized that all of the ponies had been cured, so they immediately dropped their act.

"Phew!" said Spike, relaxing as he brushed the moss off of himself, "I thought we'd never have to stop pretending to be zombies."

Twilight Sparkle ran up to her assistant and gave him a huge hug, "Oh, I'm so glad you're ok, Spike! That was a really brave thing of you to do!"

"It's ok Twilight, really. We overheard everything about the moss," he said, hugging her back.
PAL nodded and continued, "Indeed. Seeing as I am a machine and do not have an organic brain to control, the moss did not affect me."

"And I'm cold blooded," said Spike, "I wasn't warm enough to attract the moss since it's cold out today. We needed to pretend to be zombies so that they'd stop attacking us, and PAL threw me at the window because he wanted to try and get me to safety."

"I'm just happy the two of you are ok!" Twilight cheered.

"Hey, when you're done being sappy, we have a lot of hot cocoa to clean up," said Rainbow Dash with a hint of smile, bringing a mop out from a utility shed on the street, "If we hurry, Pinkie Pie says we can all have a fresh mug of hot cocoa! We don't want to miss that!"

The liquid was mopped up along with the moss, which was returned back into the Everfree forest, far closer to the phoenix migration path. With any luck, the plant would not have another chance to infect ponies again. After things had returned to normal and all the broken glass had been replaced, the friends met up at Sugarcube Corner to discuss things over a brand new batch of Pinkie's hot cocoa.

"Well THAT was one interesting day!" she said, smiling, "Everything seems to be ok though, no need to tell the princesses, right?"

"I did let the princesses know about this," admitted Twilight, "Especially because I needed to tell Princess Celestia that I learned that it's all right not to be an expert on something."

Zecora finished draining her mug and placed it back down the table, before giving Twilight an approving, subtle smile.

Pinkie Pie suddenly threw both of her front hooves on the table, getting her friends' attention.

"So, do you think maybe we can let the moss grow back again on Nightmare Night?" she asked, a twinkle in her eyes, "I'd love to see zombies running around for that!"

"PINKIE PIE!" shouted most of her friends.

"What?" she asked, blushing, "It was only an idea!"