So for a while now, I've had this one idea for a story featuring Sunset as the protagonist. I don't think I'll make the time to write up the whole thing, so I'll just throw this idea out here for any pony interested.

As we go forward, you'll notice elements of The Walking Dead and Lord of the Rings as well. Just certain characteristics, not crossovers. The title I was thinking could be:
The Plague of the Ram

Exposition:
The story starts off taking place between Equestria Girls and Season 4 (also after 30 moons since the events of EG, and the said class has graduated). Sunset has come back through the portal into Equestria, ready to turn over a new leaf. After some exposition, she is nervous about confronting Celestia and Twilight again, so she decides not to do so. Instead, she manages to find a job teaching magic at a certain academy, and meets, falls in love with and starts a committed relationship with Lightning Dust (who is currently working as a mail mare) .
-As part of the exposition for this, I was thinking it might be smart to have a part about how when they first meet, Sunset isn't all that willing because her mind use to be very closed, but after some coaxing from Lightning, she decides to give it a fling.

The Outbreak Begins
Since the story is being told from Sunset's perspective, we find out about the infection from her perspective. Lightning wakes her up one night in their apartment in Canterlot, and they look outside and see that the city is in chaos. They manage to escape, and rescue a few other survivors on their way out, maybe rescuing a few from the fire. Feel free to use background ponies for this.

From there, for a while, the couple leads the survivors as they wander about the wilderness of Equestria looking for a safe place. This can take as long as it needs.

I wrote this drabble up to discribe this part in brief.

Teaming up with Twilight
Until eventually, they run in to Princess Twilight and her friends, who are also leading a group of survivors to safety. Sunset and Lightning both offer to join up and help out anyway they can. Twilight reveals to them that they have no idea how the infection started, and that both Celestia and Luna have been infected. They're calling the zombies "trotters".

The trotters have also infested Ponyville. Many ponies, including Fluttershy (or any of the other mane six you'd like to kill off), which not only devastated the rest of the six, but also now the Elements of Harmony are rendered powerless. Also, if Fluttershy is the one to die, I'd like Rainbow Dash in particular to be devastated.

Twilight has been leading a party around Equestria to find any survivors they can, and send them off to the Crystal Empire, which has been reported as the last haven that's safe from the Trotters (Although you could also possibly make Cloudsdale a safe haven). And so Cadence and Twilight have both taken Celestia and Luna's places.

The Wonderbolts have also been flying around Equestria, keeping an eye in the sky for such survivors. I'd also like an arc about Spitfire making Dash her lieutenant, especially since so many bolts have been taken by the plague, and the two become friends like in the first 2 seasons. Spitfire's like "we're not at the academy anymore. Drop the 'yes ma'm' crap."

It's also Twilight's mission to visit as many libraries and do other research as she can to try and figure out the source of the outbreak, and then a way to stop it.

Traveling the land, more obstacles
So the party sets off. On their travels, they come across other obstacles besides the infected (it's not just ponies infected, but any wildlife as well).
-One idea I had is that they could face Diamond Dogs, who have switched their attention from jewels to fresh uninfected meat, and so they try to ravenously devour the ponies. Their leader is a Dog named Alpha, who is armed with a magic gauntlet and a chainsaw staff. He's based on Skorge from Gears of War:

-They find Discord eventually, and he helps out as well, at one point, the party can sneak into the Canterlot library, and Discord distracts the Trotters by dancing with them, similar to Cuban Pete from The Mask.
-Flam (mustache), who has lost his brother in the outbreak, has become cold and bitter, and started his own dangerous survival gang, and serves as a major antagonist of the story. He's sort of a cross between The Govenor from Walking Dead and a Unitologist from Dead Space.
-They meet a wheat farmer named Scythe Swinger and his son, Barley, who are surviving on a wheat farm, and stay there for a while at one point, similar to Rick's party staying with Hershel from Walking Dead.
-At one point, Sunset and Twilight could be alone and talk about Celestia and Luna. Sunset could talk about how sorry she is and she's sad that she'll never get to apologize to Celestia for everything. Twilight comforts her by saying that if Celestia could see her now, she'd be proud, and also that Luna would have liked her. Sunset jokingly also talks about how insanely jealous she is of Twi. They acknowledge how smart they both are, and that maybe if they met under different circumstances, they could have been really good friends.
-Eventually, the group finds themselves pursued by a pack of six ram-like figures in dark, shadowy cloaks. They can perform magic and carry swords that can instantly infect you with the trotter's plague after one small cut. They are largely based on the Nazgul from LOTR. They are called either Ram Wraiths, or Rooks (a chess joke Twilight and her friends come up with). And these guys manage to kill Spike (who by the way is a teenage dragon in this story).

In The Crystal Empire
Finally after rescuing plenty of survivors and materials to research, they return to the empire. They stay here where it's safe for a while. And then a few things can happen:
-With all the new ponies moving into the empire for safety, Cadence and Twilight need to expand the range of the Crystal Heart to give their citizens more land. Is leads to an operation where the guards have to move some towers to a fair distance to expand the heart's range. During this operation, the Rooks attack and try to throw them off. There's also a wall that keeps Trotters from getting in, but not the Rooks.
-Sunset and Lightning are wondering if they should take their relationship to the next level. They consider having a child, using a spell to get Lighting pregnant with Sunset's child (not futa though, my preference) but would it really be good in the dangerous world they now live in? Eventually,they decide on it. Way I would have it, they give birth to a colt and name him Morning Star.
-Twilight gets lost in grieving for everything she lost to the plague; her parents, her home, her little brother, her friend Fluttershy, her mentor, and she feels like she failed as a Princess. Cadence is there to comfort her. I imagine a part where the two are alone in Cadence's room, and Twilight just cries into her arms.
-There's some shipping. Twilight starts seeing someone (personally, I can't decide between Flash Sentry or Applejack. One of the two.)
-Maybe Rarity starts seeing Fancy Pants.
-There's lots of mourning too in general.
-I thought maybe you could include a little Dislestia and have Discord mourn for Celestia, at one point revealing that the two were once dating.
-Everyone just tries to make the most of what they have, and live a relatively normal life in the Empire. You can kill off whomever you choose, and use whatever background ponies you like. Of course there's some fun times too.
-They also notice that the moon and sun seem to be raising on their own now, without anyone raising it (in my version, the main villain of the story is doing it).

Possible Cause of the Infection: Grogar

My idea was after researching undead and necromancy and such, the heros finally stumble across Grogar (G1 Villain). He's an old enemy of Celestia and Luna (Pinkie or AJ make a joke how that's a recurring trend amongst a lot of their enemies). In the Ram city of Tambelon in the Macintosh Hills (real place in Equestria), the rams lived in peace. Celestia and Luna were actually friends with the king of Tambelon. But one wizard, Grogar, took an interest in the study of Necromancy, and tried to bring Tambelon to the top by conquering Equestria with an army of the dead (Skeletal ram & pony warriors). Thankfully, Celestia and Luna were able to defeat him, and arranged it so he was imprisoned in Tartarus. Since then, Tambelon has been a peaceful city.

However, there is a cult of Grogar's followers who follow in his practices and magic. The heros decide to go to Tambelon to see if Grogar has returned. Turns out Rarity knows a business ram, so they use an invisibility spell to sneak past the guards to his shop and interrogate him. He explains that Grogar's cult, under the leadership of Bray the donkey, have in fact resurrected Grogar, and so Grogar created the plague that is consuming Equestria. He also transformed a number of military into the Rooks.

Here's another drabble where Sunset and Lightning have dinner with Grogar.

And so the heroes must defeat Grogar. They may have to look for new wielders of the Elements of Harmony, which Twilight reads in that one book how to do. Also, Grogar resurrects Luna and Celestia as his old Skeleton warriors.

I was thinking of having a part where Grogar gets Flam and his forces to invade the Crystal Empire and steal the Crystal Heart, leaving the empire vulnerable to Trotters and Tambelon's forces.

For drama at one point, you can have Lightning die, killed by the Rooks, leaving Sunset all alone. Twilight has to remind her to stay strong and smart so she can live to raise hers and Lightning's child.

It leads up to a massive battle in which Twilight fights Necro-Celestia, Cadence fights Necro-Luna, and Sunset fights Grogar. After the battle, evil is defeated. Before Celestia and Luna must return to the afterlife, Celestia shares goodbyes with Twilight, Cadence, Sunset, and even Discord.

Even so, they soon find out that just because Grogar is dead, the plague is still on, and so they must figure out a cure.

They form an alliance with Griffons, Changelings, possibly even the rams of Tambelon (I was thinking after Grogar, Tambelon would be governed by a council of stewards, one of which is comedically named Stuart) to find a cure. Of course Flam and his gang are still out there...

And that's all I got.

PHEW! Man! That took a long time to write up! What do you think?

Cool.

1747326

On the topic of cloudsdale, there was an idea I had when I was plotting my own Zombie Apocalypse story.

Pegasi don't lose their ability to cloud walk.

As long as their wings are intact enough, they can fly.

Cloudsdale fell early on in the outbreak, because they thought infected pegasi would just fall through when they turned.

Wrong.