Dashie and Flutters get Left 4 Dead

by Erised the ink-moth

Bit of a cliff here before the meat of things

The peeling pink and sky-blue wallpaper lining the room gave them a small amount of comfort as their painkillers slowly wore off and the aches and pains returned. The last hour had been nerve-racking for the survivors, the wounds they’d sustained were a testament to that. It was fortunate there were saferooms, armored boxes built by other survivors to cache weapons and healing items and to hide in while they held out for rescue. But any other survivors that were once here were now long gone; that and the explosion and subsequent collapse outside meant this particular saferoom wouldn't be used anymore.

As its swan song, the saferoom gave the group a chance to relax and recover. They’d bandaged and taped up their wounds like they’d done since meeting in Savanah, and got Nick’s leg into working order, with no small amount of complaining from the former con-man. Unfortunately for Darian, his wounds were much more severe and could only be given remedial treatment. For a second he’d woken up with a start and began hacking up blood, but simply waved off the other’s attempts to help and slouched into a corner where he passed out again.

The light wasn’t that great, considering it was from a stream of Christmas lights hooked up to a car battery, but for the moment they were finally safe, and thanks in no small part to their new pony friends. Rainbow was now awake again, and Ellis helped clean the blood off her feathers before helping her over so she could watch over Fluttershy, who was resting on the remains of a mattress, occasionally taking sips of water to help her regain the blood she’d lost to the Hunters. Ellis flopped down on the floor next to them, and Thomas soon joined in, dragging a still unconscious Darian with him.

“Alright guys, enough layin’ around. Time to get moving.” Nick said as he started handing them their weapons.

“Man, so soon?” Ellis whined as he stretched out on the ground.

“Yeah Nick, what’s the deal? Give us a few more minutes.” Rochelle argued.

“This might be the most relaxing saferoom I’ve ever been in,” Nick admitted “but somehow I doubt that that chopper pilot will care when he’s taking off without us.”

“We can’t leave yet.” Rainbow said stoically “In case you missed it, we just got our flanks chewed up out there! Futtershy is still hurt.”

“Oh Rainbow, I’m fine.” Fluttershy said weakly as she struggled into a sitting position “Really.”

“You’re NOT fine.” Rainbow made her lay down again. Fluttershy flinched as some of her stitches broke and she started to bleed under her bandages. “Oh my gosh! I’m sorry.” Rainbow tried to help.

Nick let out an exasperated sigh and checked his expensive watch; it was a quarter after three, and the sun would be up soon. “Fine, we’ll stay here a little longer, but be ready to move in one hour.” He sat at a desk and tried to assure himself everything would work out. Despite his stubborn attempts to resist how tired he was, he eventually closed his eyes and slowly drifted off to sleep.

---

Nick stirred as the world came back to him, along with the dull pain coursing through his head. At first he just ignored the mumbles in the distance that woke him up, and tried to fall back asleep. But try as he might to shut out the sound, it annoyingly persisted.

“Alright, now y’all just have to point it at the target and pull that there trigger.”

Then there was a spray of gunfire and Nick’s eyes shot open. Clambering to his feet he looked over to see Rainbow Dash lying flat on her back, tightly clutching a machinegun as everyone around her ducked and covered, a snow of plaster falling from the ceiling after the entire magazine of 5.56 was emptied into it.

“Well okay then.” Ellis broke the silence “That was pretty good for yer first try. But next time, remember. Aim forward.”

“G- g- got it.” Rainbow stuttered as she got to her hooves.

“What in the flying hell is going on here?!” Nick yelled from across the room.

“Well, we’re trying to teach these lil’ponies how to shoot.” Coach explained “Kinda hard when they don’t have any fingers.”

“But man when we do, they’re gonna be kickin’ ass with us! Ah tell you, the best way to turn colorful ponies into badasses is to give them guns. That there's just common logic.” Ellis said excitedly as he dreamed of an airforce of pegasi flying overhead and raining bullets on zombies like a bunch of mini gunships that were also alive somehow. “Hey you want to give it a try?”

Fluttershy jumped when she realized he was talking to her.
“NothanksI’drathernotusetheexplodingsticksofdeath!” she screamed before hiding behind her own tail.

“Umm, okay… Suit yourself.” Ellis shrugged.

“Are you guys crazy?” Nick yelled as he got over the shock of the situation “Freaking ponies can’t use guns!”

“Hey!” Rainbow yelled indignantly “I can learn! And besides, that was the first time I tried to fire this thing, I’ve only been practicing for a couple hours now!”

Nick stood completely still. “What?” he said through gritted teeth, before slowly and reluctantly looking at his watch. He felt himself go lightheaded as a wave of panic washed over him. “Five fifty-one! We’ve been in here for two and a half hours! Christ guys, why didn’t you wake me up?”

“Chillax, hot-head. We’ve got until morning to signal that flying thing don’t we?” Rainbow said as she finally managed to get another clip into her rifle.

Nick nearly chipped a tooth as he glared at them all. “It is morning, and we still don’t have anything to signal him with.” Nick limped over to the door to the saferoom and readied his rifle “I hope you guys got nice and rested, ‘cause we’re going out there now, and we’re gonna move fast. I’ll be on point and-

Nick was about to give them their positions when he noticed one of the team was missing. “Where the hell is Darian?”

The others looked around and shrugged in response when they found no sign of the ski-masked sniper.

“For crying out loud, the guy was out with a broken ribcage! How did we lose track of him in this box?” Nick slapped his forehead “If we were all working at a public park where a bunch of weird shit happens all the time, I’d fire every one of you.”

“Don’t worry Mr. Nick,” Thomas piped up “he left me a note, see?”

Everyone gathered around to read. Written on a piece of cardboard with crayon were the words [You guys are taking too long. I’ll find the stupid flares myself. I’ll leave some signs for you to follow if you ever decide to get moving.]

“Shit, gotta hand it to him; that Darian’s a trooper.” Coach said as he finished reading.

“He left this note too.” Thomas pulled out another piece of cardboard that read [I also took your barbecue-flavored chips]

Coach narrowed his eyes. “That son of a bitch.”

---

Making their way into the main part of the tunnel-of-love, the survivors dispatched the few infected aimlessly wandering around, the rest were on the ground with most of their heads missing. Darian had apparently made his way through already.

“Man, for a tunnel of love, this is kind of morbid.” Rochelle said as they passed by a pileup of broken swan-boats intertwined with bloated corpses.

“I’m don’t think I like this place very much.” Fluttershy said as she eyed the dried blood smeared on the walls, shivering to think about the people that got trapped inside the ride.

“Did ah ever tell y’all ‘bout the time mah buddy Keith drowned in the tunnel o’ love.” Ellis began another of his stories “I mean he didn’t die, but he fell in and started chokin’ on the water. You wouldn’t think it’d be possible ‘cause it’s so shallow, but that’s how it gets you man, overconfidence. He was with his girlfriend at the time, and he was screaming for her to save him, but she didn’t wanna get wet, and-

“Mr. Ellis, now’s a bad time for stories.” Thomas told him flatly.

“Okay… but they got married later that day. That was the best wedding on a Ferris-wheel I’ve ever been invited to.”

---

A little ways down the cement river (an over the head reference to the swimming pool called the cement pond from Beverly Hillbillies) the group found their way blocked by a pile of rubble; one that happened to collapse on a giant heart prop, fittingly enough.

“Hey check it out y’all, the air-duct of love.” Ellis pointed the way forward “Something video games have taught me, good stuff always comes in vents.”

“You do know video games are nothin’ like real life, right Ellis?” Coach asked as he and the rest crawled through the dust covered metal shaft “Ellis, you still there boy?”

Ellis was in no mood to answer as he pressed his back flat against the wall, and all seven of them saw why when they got out into the darkened room. Sitting alone in the center of the hard concrete floor was an emaciated woman with bleached hair, loudly sobbing in a chilling wail. When she sensed their presence, she quickly turned her head in their direction, her glowing red eyes cutting through the dark as her long hair fell back over her face.

“W- what is that?” Fluttershy stammered as she and Thomas took turns trying to hide behind each other.

“Shh, that’s a Witch.” Rochelle told her in a loud whisper “Don’t get close, and don’t make her angry. Just sneak past her, and everything will be fine.”

Slowly, and with bated breath, each of them sidled along the wall towards the door on the other side of the room. A light came from underneath it, seemingly marking their safety for them as the Witch continued to sob mere feet in front of them, looking up every few seconds, her razor-sharp talons ready to rend apart anyone foolish enough to disturb her sorrow.

Only an arms-length from the door, and the survivors were holding their breath entirely as Nick reached out to turn the handle. Then there was a clatter of plastic against stone and everyone in the room turned to see Rainbow Dash standing wide-eyed and heart racing as she looked at her fallen AR-15, only a few inches from the Witch’s legs.

The other survivors watched in horror as she began to lean in and pick it up. They made frantic motions for her to stop while silently mouthing “No”, “don’t do it”, and “just leave it”.

For a moment, she was about to heed these warnings, but this was the rifle the Ellis had modified for her; it had a bar for the trigger she could pull with her hooves, and even a loop on the foregrip to slide her other hoof through so she could aim. She had to get it back, without it she couldn’t help them fight.

She took a deep breath, and very slowly stepped down. With an equally slow exhale she took a step forward, the Witch gasping and looking up at her with bright red eyes as Rainbow places her front hoof on her weapon.

The Witch began to growl and Rainbow quickly yanked the weapon away and stood against the wall. The Witch let out a short yelp, and the survivors cringed, expecting the worst. But the worst did not come, and the Witch simply pushed away and curled up into a ball again to the immense relief of the survivors and the two ponies as they made their way out of the room.

“Eep! Umm, help.”

It would seem they were not quite in the clear yet. As they turned around, the saw the Witch had crawled out of the room and latched onto Fluttershy, gently wrapping her arms around her neck and crying into the back of her mane. There were two words collectively spoken by all the survivors at that moment, the only two that came to mind…

“Oh shit.”

Comments

[Erised the ink-moth]

4666446 Oh man, how did I miss that? Thanks man.

[ShadyCanopy]

Shy made a friend! I have a feeling it's noy gonna go well for her.

[Base-Delta-Zero]

..... can we have this witch be one that Flutters can communicate with, and somehow add as another member to this odd group? Pretty please? I personally think it would be adorable to have Fluttershy show the witch that whatever it's sad about isn't true, and the witch somehow starts to return to a human-ish state of mind.... Flutters' little protector - Angel's got some competition now...

[Erised the ink-moth]

4692730 I see you've somehow delved into my mind. But yes, that's kind of where I had this headed.

Also I may or may not have started this fic when the image of Flutters cuddling a Witch popped into my head.

[Full-time_Introvert]

Ah tell you, the best way to turn colorful ponies into badasses is to give them guns. That there's just common logic.” Ellis said excitedly as he dreamed of an airforce of pegasi flying overhead and raining bullets on zombies like a bunch of mini gunships that were also alive somehow.

OH. MY. GOD. YES! pinkie.ponychan.net/chan/files/src/133583976808.jpg BADASS RAINBOW DASH COMIN' THROUGH!

Everyone gathered around to read. Written on a piece of cardboard with crayon were the words [You guys are taking too long. I’ll find the stupid flares myself. I’ll leave some signs for you to follow if you ever decide to get moving.]
“Shit, gotta hand it to him; that Darian’s a trooper.” Coach said as he finished reading.
“He left this note too.” Thomas pulled out another piece of cardboard that read [I also took your barbecue-flavored chips]
Coach narrowed his eyes. “That son of a bitch.”

[Full-time_Introvert]

You do know video games are nothin’ like real life, right Ellis?” Coach asked as he and the rest crawled through the dust covered metal shaft “Ellis, you still there boy?”

i get it...