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What'll I Tell Them?1,012 words
Confronting Twilight757 words
Research823 words
Hearts and Hooves and Claws and Books735 words
Spike's Mental Breakdown1,012 words
You Hungry?1,359 words
To Clarify182 words
New Plan, Anypony?1,132 words
An Awkward Conversation922 words
Stripes1,003 words
It Begins1,115 words
The Coming Apocalypse1,045 words
Gather the Ranks, We're Going In1,688 words
Frontal Assult2,214 words
Cure2,726 words
Epilogue 152 words

Frontal Assult

Only three. There were only three loose in the town, but they multiplied exponentially, the disease spreading like wildfire through a dry forest.

I only knew this because of the screams of terror and the anguished moans, not because I dared to look out of the window. Pinkie was still trying to comfort me, as I lay in her lap sobbing from sheer terror, and a deep anger at myself.

What was I thinking? There wasn't any good way to end this now, I'd let it get out of control. I mean why did I care about some stupid dragon when he was killing all of my friends and family?

Because I love him, whispered a small part of my brain. And it was true, I just didn't need to be reminded of it right now. Ever since that day he had first come to Ponyville, side by side with a non-social unicorn Twilight, there had been this sort of... stir deep inside me. Right in the middle of my chest, whenever I saw him, it was like getting punched. It took me a long time to realize that this is what love felt like, not a fluttering crush like I had on Blueblood, not an obsession like with Tom, but it hurt. A kind of a good hurt, though.

Every time I saw that little face, smiling up at me in awe, filled with wishes of a love he never thought possible, my heart swelled. That was what the pain was, my heart growing to accept all of the feelings it needed to. It's a shame I couldn't fully recognize the feeling until it was too late...

I was jostled from my reminiscence by a hoof pounding on the front door. I perked up, since it sounded more like a desperate, living pony than it did a hungry, dead pony.

Still smearing tears away from under my eyes, I ran to the door. Pinkie followed behindme, pressing her ear against the door.

"Who is it?" she called through the door.

"Twilight! Let me in, she's gaining!"

Pinkie helped me pull the block out of the way, the she opened the door, practically snapping the unicorn's tail in the door. We caught a glimpse of what was chasing her: a rotting corpse that resembled Ms. Cherilee.

Twilight fell against the back wall, breathing hard. Then she saw me, her eyes instantly narrowing.

"Ah, there she is. The little pony who started this disaster," she grumbled, "You know, all of our friends outside the three of us and Rainbow Dash are dead."

"F-fluttershy and Applejack are..." I stuttered, not even able to finish the thought.

"Yeah, they're dead! But not just dead, they're wandering around killing everypony else! And why? Because you," she tapped me on the nose with her hoof, "decided that the laws of nature are more like guidelines than hard-and-fast rules."

I sniffled, imagining Fluttershy missing a wing, and Applejack missing an eye. I gagged, my last meal threatening to come back up. I was just about to pass out, but Pinkie caught me, shaking me awake.

"I wanted to tell Celestia," Twilight hissed at me, "but you kept precious Spike too close for me to send a bucking letter. So now, unless you've got some kind of trick hidden in the mats of your disgusting mane, we're doomed," she sat down, a silent tear slipping across her cheek.

Pinkie was less subtle about her mourning, she collapsed into a sobbing mess. The only thing that saved me from spiraling into despair was the shock of it all. No wonder there was barely any information on the subject. All the stories were much too tragic. The whole of Ponyville was taken down in less than three days! How long would it take to spread through Canterlot? Equestria? The entire world? A week, maybe?

Twilight was turning toward the kitchen, looking for a place to lie down

"Twilight! What are you doing?" I asked her, as she let her body down on a flour sack, closing her eyes.

"I'm giving up," she told me, "There's nothing we can do. They'll find us eventually."

"There's always hope."

"Yeah, you would think that, wouldn't you?"

I was quiet, the only sound in the room was Pinkie's sobbing.

"Wait..."

Twilight lifted her head, looking at me in vague boredom.

"There's always a way! And do you know where the most hope there is?" I was getting excited.

Twilight sighed, "Where?"

"In places of creativity! Where did I bring Spike back in the first place?"

"Your dress shop?"

"Yes! And look where we are now! Sugarcube Corner! We've got an arsenal in disguise here!" I ran into the kitchen, followed by a sniffling Pinkie Pie and a grumbling Twilight.

I began wildly pulling things off the shelves, tossing away items that couldn't be used. There were several bags of baking soda, seeing as this was a necessary ingredient for most things cooked here, and a glass bottle of vinegar.

"Pinkie? Didn't you tell me once that Mr. and Mrs. Cake have a wine cellar?" I asked the pink whimpering pony.

"W-well, yeah, but they said it was only for special occasions," she muttered.

"Pinkie," I put my hoof on her shoulder, "We're about to be killed by a hoard of the undead, dear. If there was ever an occasion as special as this, we'd have known. Where's the cellar?"

Pinkie walked to the basement door, opening it with a creak. She disappeared into the darkness, returning with three large bottles of wine. She set them on the table gently, as though she was holding a baby.

"Thank you. Twilight, be a dear and dump them out into the sink."

Pinkie seemed dismayed at the image of Twilight pouring the wine down the drain, but she shrugged it off and asked, "What're you going to do?"

"I'm going to create an explosive reaction inside that bottle," I gestured at the bottle on the table, "then point it at the zombie's head and hit it in the face."

"Well, that'll delay three zombies," Twilight said with sarcastic joy.

"You know what, Twilight? Whatever happened to 'I will never abandon my friends,' hm? Or was that just talk? Now that Spike's a threat, you don't have a problem abandoning him, do you?"

Twilight was silent for a moment.

"Well, she's right. We're never going to get by with three shots," Pinkie reminded me.

"I know some other things that could help," Twilight told me, "Orange peels are flammable, as log as they're still a bit wet. Dry one's won't work as well."

Pinkie grabbed a few from the top of a compost bin, "Here!" she yelled, tossing it Twilight.

"There's oil in the skin. If you flex it a bit, it comes to the surface and you can light it."

"What else?" I asked, rummaging through the shelves desperately.

"Uh..." Twilight racked her brain, "Flour! Flour is flammable! You put it in a glass jar, then stick a rag in the top. Light the rag, then toss it like a grenade. The glass shatters, the flour ignites, and you've got a wall of flame."

"Fantastic! Make some of those, Pinkie!" I was about to run to the window to check the ETA for the zombies, but I turned to Twilight, "How exactly do you know all of this?"

"Eleventh grade chemistry. HURRY UP!" She shooed me to the front room, dumping the contents of random glass jars out of an open window.

Out of the front window, I could see a slowly ambling hoard of zombies. They were on their way, but they moved at less than half of a normal walking pace. We had a while to prepare.

"THEY'RE PRETTY FAR DOWN THE STREET!" I called to the other two, galloping back to the kitchen, "We've got, at the most, an hour before they get here. Make as much as you can!"

Suddenly, the room was a flurry of fast-moving hooves and glowing horns. I ran up and down the stairs countless times, fetching bottle after bottle of wine. Twilight and Pinkie were delving int the kitchen cabinets, searching for glass jars.

"Rarity! We're outta flour! Now what?" Pinkie panicked.

"Scrape some shellac off of the floor with a knife! It's just as flammable as flour," Twilight told her.

We were running out of space on the counters, and were moving to the floor for more space. We could now hear the mob just a few houses away: they were moaning, some even whining in agony. Hoofsteps shuffled along the cobblestone road, but none of us dared look outside.

After I had emptied the cellar of wine bottles, pouring their contents down the sink, I moved to the orange peels. I used my magic to flex them, hearing pops and squishes as the cell walls broke, oil dripping from the pores. After I had used up oranges, I moved to other citruses, soon stealing fresh ones from the fridge to peel, putting the whole goopy mess in an enormous pile. Under normal circumstances this would have disgusted me, but right now it was a lot more inviting than the alternative.

Without warning, there was a loud thump at the front door. It was heavy enough to be an entire body throwing itself against the door. The only thing that saved us was the shelf wedged under the handle.

"Ready?" I asked, lifting one of the peels.

"Ready," the other two confirmed in unison, hoisting their own weapons.

We waited silently, hearing the incessant thumps against the door, waiting for the moment when it would splinter.

"Rarity?" Twilight mumbled, addressing me but still keeping her eyes fixed on the door.

"Yes?" I replied, already breathing hard.

She didn't answer me right away, as though she was rethinking it. We heard the door crack, and saw a large fissure run down the center.

"I'm sorry."

The door split, and it was like the world went into slow motion. We screamed in fear and determination, but held our ground, launching flaming items at our enemies. Pinkie tossed wildly, her front leg spinning around like a windmill blade. Twilight, with her superb magic, corked and uncorked bottles faster than I thought was possible, the caps rocketing into the faces of the zombies, and, in a few cases, knocking out eyes or teeth. I held a candle on one side, with my pile of citrus peels sitting on the other. I snatched peels one at a time, lighting them with the candle before tossing them at the faces of the undead. The best part was that, since they were flat, they seemed to always stick to the faces they hit, burning for a generous amount of time before they slid onto the floor.

We saw many ponies we knew and loved, in another life. Here, however, they were only the enemy. I launched an orange peel which stuck to Sweetie Bell's horn, catching her mane on fire and melting part of her face. Pinkie splattered us all with the blood of Roseluck, as well as Matilda and her husband. Twilight sobbed as she hit her fillyhood friend, Lyra, in the eye with a cork, exploding it and showering us with unidentifiable white goo.

We were doing well, for three against the town, but it was short-lived. Twilight ran out of ammo. She turned to grab something, anything to throw, when Thunderlane caught her from behind. She shrieked, trying to escape, but he bit down on her neck. She screamed louder, but the pegasus stallion wasn't done. He took several large chunks from her flesh, tossing them across the room. One hit the back of my neck, dripping down my spine, then running down the back of my leg. I gagged, losing my focus and dropping a lemon peel on the wood floor. It only took a few seconds for it to catch, and it did so with a loud pop.

I leapt backwards, as did Pinkie, and we dashed for the back door. There was a small group of stragglers waiting by the back walk, and they perked up at the sight of fresh meat.

We ran. We ran blindly, galloping for the Everfree forest. At least the Everfree had places to hide. Maybe it was safer there.

Dear Celestia, I've never been so wrong in my life.

Author's Note:

All of the reaction science in this chapter is 100% accurate. Come at me, bro. I did research.

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