//------------------------------//
// Chapter 2 
// Story: Crescendo of the Undead (Fan continuation) 
// by Blackdust 
//------------------------------//


The first waves

As Vinyl and Octavia were leaving their shack, training complete, another pony survivor of a different village afflicted by the first wave of the undead ponies was leaving his. His name you ask? Johnathan Blackdust. Illusionist extraordinaire, with bounty hunting on the side. He had come to Ponyville after retiring from the bounty hunting business, but a month exactly after he retired, this happened. "Get on with it!" Did I forget to mention he is aware of the wall? "No, you didn't. Idiot." Bite me. Now stop breaking it or I'll end it here. *grumble grumble* Good character. Now, back to story, he had his favorite halberd and two throwing knives with him. Should he come across any survivors, he planned to give them the knives and keep the halberd if they didn't have any weapons themselves. But he found that hard to believe. Everypony in Ponyville knew of Vinyl and the Doctors past. They always thought it would happen again, so the cautious ones had come to him for training, since he was not quiet about his past. That was all of three ponies.
"Maybe I oughta check up on them first..." Blackdust thought to himself, as he started towards Lyra's and Bon Bon's house. "Hopefully you taught her Bon Bon..."
As he grew closer he could see that their lights were out, meaning one of two things. Dead, or trained. But seeing as how some of the other houses had their lights on, Blackdust knew it was the latter. But he didn't take any chances and drew his halberd. As he poked the door open a knife flew at the entrance.
"Sloppy," he called out from between his halberd.
"Sorry. Just... Jumpy... Lyra hasn't come back, and one of them already came inside,	" came Bon Bon's response.
"Dead. Assume the worst, but hope the best. Can I come in?" He asked poking the door a little farther before noticing a zombie Pinkie Pie walking towards him. "Shit..."
"Quickly. Trixie's on the roof," came Cherilee's voice.
Without further prompting, the zombie Pinkie's head had a giant hole in it. Good aim Trixie. I thought that out of the three of you, you'd be the one to break first in actual fighting... And with that thought, he stepped inside.
And saw a zombie Winona on the floor. What? I hate dogs, and they hate me.
And saw a zombie Cherry Jubilee on the floor. Stepping up, him confirmed the kill by using it's head as a stand for his halberd. And then he checked her over to find the site of infection so that he could  better determine the way that they were infecting the others. His village had been destroyed by various types of infection types. There was the biters, and the sprayers. There was also the ones whose lower jaws split down the middle, and ones that could still remember how to fly and use magic. Luckily, it looked like a regular bite.
"Good. No mutations yet. We have time. But not much. Look," He pointed at the cut in the back of her head that Bon Bon used to end it. The cut was closing up. "We'll need to leave a knife or something in it before we can leave to find patient zero."
Bon Bon had trained in knives, Trixie with the sniper rifle, and Cherilee with the katana. He had trained them to deal with various types. But this type? It was new even to him. Which was bad. Very, very bad.
"I'll leave one of my kitchen knives in her," Bon Bon said, moving to go to her kitchen before being stopped by Blackdust.
"Rule one..."
"Never travel alone," Bon Bon said without missing a beat. "Cherilee?"
"I'll come, you might wanna check up on Trixie. She had a hard time hitting one of the flyers a bit earlier," Cherilee said as she passed Blackdust to follow Bon Bon into the kitchen.
He simply nodded and moved to the stairs leading up before realizing there was blood coming from behind a door. Lyra's door. "Damn..." He ignored it for the moment and continued up the stairs until he reached the small attic that Trixie was using as her base of operations during the chaos. He tapped on the ground three times before moving his head far enough for her to blow it off. He waited until she tapped three times in turn before moving up.
"How goes it?" He asked her.
"The great and powerful Trixie has missed hitting the annoying pegasus that clearly has a bite on her shoulder but still flys," was her response without even looking away from her perch behind the window.
"Rule two..."
"Never assume one is dead without first inspecting the body. But she landed and ran water over the spot and exposed a bite," Trixie said, looking away for a second.
"Well piss. We could've used a scout..." Blackdust said, looking down as he contemplated the possibilities of the pegasus being one of the few that were immune, or at least resistant to the infection. Not very likely. Out of his entire village, only he survived a bite. But he wasn't going to take his chances just because he survived one bite. On the inside of his left flank. Don't ask how he got bit there.
"That's why the great and powerful Trixie has pinned down one pegasus and kept them from being bitten or leaving," Trixie said, nodding Blackdust over to the window just before three taps came from the attic stairs. Blackdust responded first and sent the taps back.
Shortly afterward, Bon Bon came up with his halberd on her back and said solemnly, "It's done. Now let's go before the one in Lyra's room gets out, ok...?"
"She did come back, didn't she?" Blackdust whispered in her ear after trotting over to reclaim his halberd.
"Yes... Yes she did... But she wasn't the same..."

To be continued...

"NOT COOL DUDE!" *SMACK* I'll tell you the same thing I told Roseshield, STOP BREAKING THIS DAMN WALL!