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Prologue281 words
Nine New Faces2,732 words
Hospitalisation and Cotton Candy2,010 words
Library Events2,096 words
Attempted Exenteration2,298 words
Surprise!2,735 words
READ ME60 words
Day's End2,517 words
Dawn of a New Day part 12,638 words
Dawn of a New Day part 23,307 words
Dawn of a New Day part 32,519 words
notice28 words
Sad Little Witch3,032 words
Loud Angry Witch5,064 words
Sightless and Regret2,758 words
Silent Smoker3,052 words
Rabies2,578 words
Infection3,042 words

Rabies

“Gotta keep moving.”

The rain lightly fell on the burning city. A lone man ran amongst the chaos, desperately trying to escape.

“Can’t let them catch me.”

The man swerved around a corner and continued to run. Suddenly, he slipped on the pavement and landed on the ground. Franticly, the man pushed himself off the ground and ran faster than before.

“I don’t want to die!”

The man crashed backwards and fell again. He looked up and saw death itself.

A tall creature with a cloud of smoke obscuring its face looked down upon the man. By the looks of it, the creature’s entire left side was covered in tumors. Two, sickly yellow eyes stared down at the man. He shivered. The creature made a hacking sound, like an incredibly harsh cough which made his blood run cold.

“Oh god, help me.”

The creature then lashed out with a long, dark red tentacle that erupted out of its mouth and wrapped itself around the man’s throat and lifted him off of the ground. The man struggled against the tentacle before realising that it was the monster’s tongue.

“Ghlk!”

The man struggled in vain as the edges of his vision started to go dark. After one last attempt of freedom, a loud crack echoed down the alleyway. The creature had snapped the man’s neck.

The smoky creature coughed again, some blood splattering on the body. Eyeing it, the creature then started flailing the body around and bashing it against the ground and walls of close by buildings to soften it.

The creature stopped when a low growl was heard beside it. The smoky monster spun around and faced a small, crouched figure with a dark blue hood covering its eyes and baring its sharp teeth.

The two stared at each other briefly, before the smoky being slammed the body into the ground a final time and started to walk away with the body in tow.

The hooded creature made a whining sound, which made the smoky creature make a complex sound of wheezes and coughs in response. After a moment, the hooded creature began to follow the smoky one in hopes of a meal.

*************************************************************************************

Smoker glared at the eight infected standing before him. He had not risked his life, multiple times he might add, during those three weeks of being infected just for them to simply forget it ever happen in some pansy pony wonderland. To the average person watching this, it would look like the eight infected were simply returning the glare. But, if they knew more about the infected, all but one was cringing slightly under Smoker’s glare. Only Screamer remained defiant against it.

“Three weeks. We spent three goddamn weeks in pure hell and the very second we end up in what appears to be a paradise, everything we learned goes down the drain,” said Smoker. He shook his head, “Ever pause to think that nothing is perfect? Despite how grand it may seem?”

None of the infected dared to make a sound, usually the effect if Smoker ever got like this. To say the least, he was angry. Spitter kept her eyes on Smoker, hoping to try and find out why he was acting like this all of a sudden.

“Lay off them, Smoky,” said Screamer, “You’re just mad that you got your ass saved by ponies.”

Smoker turned towards Screamer and faced him. Despite the large height difference, Screamer remained unfazed.

“What?”

Screamer grinned darkly, “Ever stop to think on how, exactly, you got out of the hive place?”

Smoker’s silence told Screamer that, yes, he had thought about it.

“When I was running my ass off with Hunter it tow,” Screamer saw Hunter’s left ear twitch slightly in the corner of his right eye, “I saw those five ponies from earlier trying to find us, for whatever reason. I decided to be an idiot and put Hunter somewhere safe and decided to follow them.
“Right when they saw you getting your ass handed to you by Witch, the purple one, Twilight I think, popped out of nowhere and the other five did this… thing and boom, giant rainbow came from who the hell knows where and nailed Witch.
“Once all the smoke and shit cleared, they found you guys all bloody and rushed all of you to the hospital.”

Smoker narrowed his eyes, Screamer did the same. A few moments of tense silence passed before,

“Bullshit.”

Screamer raised one of his eyebrows at Smoker and then started to laugh. His laughter slowly started to get more and more disturbing the louder to became. He finally stopped just as it passed Jockey’s level of crazed laughter.

“You don’t believe me? Well, why don’t you march over to them and find out?” said Screamer.

Smoker spat on the floor, “Maybe I will.”

Screamer grinned as Smoker shoved him out of the way and walked out of the room. Eyeing each other, the other seven infected warily followed Smoker, leaving Screamer alone in the room.

He coughed dryly, “Sometimes you just gotta listen to the lunatic, Smoky.”

*************************************************************************************

Smoker’s yellow eyes burned viciously as he walked towards the library. The seven other infected closely followed behind him, not trusting him to control himself if he went into a rage. Spitter ran up ahead to try and talk some sense into him.

“Why can’t you just believe Screamer for once?” she asked.

Smoker’s good eye, the right one, turned and glared at Spitter, “Because he’s a liar. How can six inexperienced ponies take down Witch with a rainbow?”

For that, Spitter had no words. He did have a point though, seeing Witch’s unstoppable rage ended by a simple rainbow was pretty hard to grasp. Still, they must have done something that prevented them from dying.

“They must have done something to stop her,” said Spitter.

Smoker coughed, “Witch must have burnt out by then and they just cleaned up afterwards.”

Charger sighed behind them, “Why don’t you just ask Witch what happened?”

Smoker kept his gaze forward, “I don’t think she was thinking straight at the time.”

Charger rolled her eyes and Hunter made an odd sound that he sometimes made when he was nervous. Witch glanced at him fearfully, which he detected with his echolocation and grinned weakly. The both of them knew that Witch had full control of her actions, but she was too blinded by rage to care what she did and who she hurt.

The closer they got to the library, the more Spitter noticed that something was wrong with Smoker. His limp was back, the one which caused his entire left side to be slightly more raised than the right. Another thing Spitter noticed was that Smoker didn’t have his tell-tale cloud of grey smoke around his head. That could either be a good thing, if he is allowing himself to open up more, or, the reason that was more plausible to Spitter; he is silently storing his rage and will evidently explode on someone.

When they arrived at the library, (Hunter internally noted that they seemed to wind up here a lot) Smoker knocked (he actually kicked it, as he was taller than the doorway itself) on the door and waited. A moment later, Spike, who Boomer and Smoker had met a few days ago, opened the door.

“Hello…” said spike as his voice trailed off as he saw the glare Smoker was giving him.

“Hi,” Smoker said gruffly, “Is Twilight there? I need to ask her a question involving the incident earlier in the week.”

Spike stared at Smoker. Although the two had met before, Spike never realised the gigantic height difference between the two or the tumors that covered the left side of Smoker’s head and foreleg. He also noticed eight others nearby, one of which he noticed as Boomer.

“Uh… yeah, lemme go get her,” stammered Spike as he closed the door and bolted up the stairs to get Twilight.

When he arrived at t top of the stairs, he knocked uh the door to her room, where she was currently studying something that escaped Spike.

“Hey, Twilight? Smoker’s at the door and he wants to ask you something,” said Spike through the door, “He says it’s something about an ‘incident’ earlier in the week.”

While Spike was telling her this, Twilight was reaching strange and exotic creatures ranging from myth to ancient history. Her reason: when she had used the immobilisation spell on Witch earlier in the week, Spitter had claimed that the creature that emerged from the light was Witch without a moment of hesitation. Now, if she had taken a moment to try and figure out what Witch had turned into it wouldn’t have bothered Twilight as much. Another thing about the creature Witch was transformed into was when she had finally found a way to stop her (one of the reasons the panicked and fled shortly after the accidental transformation) she saw that when she and her friends managed to use the Elements of Harmony in a hastily made up plan, the resulting explosion of light had caused an effect much similar to Princess Luna’s restoration from Nightmare Moon, but reversed. Instead of all of the hate that was radiated off Witch being taken away and destroyed, Witch seemed to reabsorb it back into her.

This had caused Twilight hours of confusion. Why hadn’t it been destroyed? Were the Elements of Harmony not the correct way to help Witch go back to normal? If so, did that mean she could turn into the winged biped at any given moment? Twilight shook her head, ‘I’m sure Witch if fine. But still… maybe that’s why Smoker is here to ask a question?’

Sighing to herself, Twilight exited her room and descended down the stairs to the door where Smoker waited. When she opened the door, she had not expected the glare Smoker was giving her. Twilight beamed at him, not just because the height difference (she had already known that) but it was how deformed he looked on his left side. She wondered why she hadn’t noticed it before.

“Um… hi? You wanted to ask me a question, Smoker?” she said.

“Yes, I do have a question for you,” he wheezed, “It involved what happened to Witch.”

Twilight blinked, “Alright,” she said slowly, “And that would be..?”

Smoker narrowed his eyes, “How did you stop her?”

“My friends and I used the Elements of Harmony to get Witch back to normal.”

Smoker’s face went blank. That was not the answer he was expecting. During his silence, a noticeable snicker was heard behind Smoker. Twilight turned her head to look past Smoker and noticed that the other eight infected were around him. The snickering was heard again, coming from Spitter, of all ponies.

“Elements of Harmony,” she said, still snickering, “That’s all I can take, someone please throw in the towel, I give up!”

Twilight frowned, confused at why Spitter was laughing, “What’s so funny?”

Spitter walked up beside Smoker, “The Elements of Harmony? Seriously? I mean,” she started laughing again, “Honestly, how can something called that be taken seriously?”

Twilight heard Tank talking from somewhere behind Smoker, “I find it difficult to believe that Witch was stopped by something so… unthreatening.”

Witch sighed, “Yeah well… not my proudest moment,” she said, half joking.

Twilight’s frown deepened, “My friends and I have used the Elements of Harmony to save Equestria numerous times, I don’t know how that’s so funny.”

Smoker, who had finished processing that information, spoke up, “Well, we aren’t exactly Equestria, are we?”

“We used them to save Equestria from Nightmare Moon and Discord, both of which would have ended life as we know it!” said Twilight, astonished at the lack of respect the infected were giving the legendary relics.

Smoker chuckled (it was more of a harsh wheezing sound but the meaning was the same, “Well wouldn’t that have been useful when the infection broke out, huh?”

Twilight’s faced went from frowning, to having a confused look, “Infection? What infection?”

Boomer tapped Smoker’s right shoulder, “Ah, are you sure you should be telling her about the Flu?”

Smoker sighed, “I’ve already mentioned it, might as well tell her. Besides, didn’t you promise the rainbow one you’d tell the story about Tank’s rampage in Riverside?”

Boomer paused to remember, then sighed, “Yes, I believe I did.”

Twilight became more and more confused by the minute. As far as she knew (which was pretty damn far) there was no place in Equestria known as ‘Riverside’ and surly she would have known if a large infection or flu broke out somewhere.

“I’m sorry, but I have no idea what any of you are talking about,” said Twilight.

Smoker blinked, as if he had forgotten that she was standing right there, then spoke, “Do you know what a zombie it?”

Twilight nodded her head cautiously, “Yes, I know what a zombie is.”

“Well, where we come from there is an infection, known as Green Flu. One of the main symptoms of this ‘Flu’ is that everyone infected with it turns into a zombie,” said Smoker.

Twilight’s expression went flat, “An influenza that turns ponies into zombies.”

Smoker nodded, “Well, now that I think about it, it was more like Rabies if anything.”

Twilight shuddered. Around two years ago, roughly the time Twilight first arrived in Ponyville, Fluttershy had told her about a racoon that was acting really aggressive and strange. A few days later the racoon had attacked another one of the animals Fluttershy was taking care of. No less than three hours later, the local veterinarian was there and informed her that both the racoon and the beaver had contracted rabies and had to be put down for the safety of herself and the other animals. Fluttershy was devastated to say the least both before and after the deed was done by the vet. Just thinking of ponies getting the disease made her shiver.

“So… a bunch of ponies got rabies? That’s horrible,” Twilight said.

Smoker shook his head, “No, they would have all been dead by the time it really set it. The entire east coast was infected besides small groups of survivors.”

Twilight’s confusing tripled, “If all the ponies would have been dead, then how can you be still alive?”

Smoker grinned darkly, a truly horrific sight, “Who said we were ponies to begin with?”

Twilight’s pupils shrunk. Dozens of possibilities of what they could be rushed through her head in the fraction of three and a half milliseconds. Before finally settling on, “Are you… aliens?”

Twilight heard Jockey completely lose it and Charger growling at him as Smoker chuckled again, “Aliens, never thought I would be called that. No, at one point the nine of us were Humans living in the United States of America before the infection set in.”

Twilight nodded, she would panic about learning the origins of the nine extra-terrestrials later, there was one last thing on her mind. “So, this infection, you must have a difficult time surviving with those zombies attacking you, right?”

Smoker coughed, “Who said we were the survivors?”

Author's Note:

well, a bit shorter that the last few but, what can you do?

i hardl think i need to say this but, comments if had any

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