what started as a minor disease that spread quickly turned into a severe problem. Now the dead and even the living have become aggressive cannibalistic nightmares. It's only natural that one would loose hope.
If you’ve ever felt like everything was crumbling around you and that everyone was against you, you wouldn’t have even come close to the feeling that Gear was currently feeling. A sense of deep, dark, inescapable despair filled him to the brim. Depression wasn’t a usual thing for him to feel but he’d lost too much to suppress it at this point. His entire world had come crashing down in the course of just two weeks, as a matter of fact, so had every other pony’s though he doubted there were many left. It was all over. There was no hope at all for any pony anywhere and Gear, who had formerly been optimistic, sat depressed against the dusty wall that had, at one point in time, been full of life and joy. A couple of dusty toys lay on the floor, a crib near by lay empty on its side, the blankets sprawled on the floor in a heap. The light pink wallpaper had begun peeling though it had only been left alone for two weeks. A ceiling fan hung from the ceiling, two wires the only thing holding up three and a half blades and a broken light. Gear had bolted the door shut with planks of wood and nails but it wouldn't hold forever, he’d seen too many broken down doors to believe it would. It wouldn't matter any way; he didn't have any food with him.
He’d started his journey with six others, but they were gone now. Just like every pony he’d ever known, they were gone. He'd abandoned four of them when he was overcome with depression, the other two had simply gone missing one night and no amount of searching could find them. They all knew what had happened, but no pony was willing to voice it. They’d traveled a fair distance, going from Ponyville to Canterlot then Stalliongrad, but it didn't matter. Nothing mattered any more. They had been naive to think that any place were safe. Even though he were immune, there were just too many infected around, no where was safe, nothing was safe. It had struck like lightning; just one infected pony was enough to doom an entire city. It started with just one pony, no pony knew for sure how he’d been infected and any pony who may have known was infected now. It was all just a matter of time before the last few ponies died out and Gear was sure his time was near. He could remember the first day he had known what was going on.
Day 1
Gear sat at the table with a cup of coffee and the day’s newspaper. It was going to be a sunny day today with no clouds in the sky, perfect for going for a walk in the park or something along those lines. That morning had been like every other morning, wake up, get dressed, drink coffee, eat toast, and read the news before opening up shop. Gear was an inventor and mechanic, if you could break it, he could fix it. If you could think of it, he could invent it. He was currently living in ponyville in his wagon and workshop, it was nice here, most of the ponies were nice though he found two or three of them to be unlikable. Not many ponies bought his wares but every now and then somepony would come to browse or have something repaired. It was a simple, quiet life and Gear enjoyed it.
He continued to look through the paper, stopping now and then to read an article about this year’s crop and the differences in prices that would result. On the back page was an article about how a new disease had been discovered and was rapidly spreading through Manehatten. The city was apparently under quarantine and some of the best doctors were working to find a cure. The title of the article read “NEW DISEASE INFECTS 37% OF POPULATION” He read the article carefully.
‘A new disease was discovered today in Manehatten, it has been confirmed that 37% of the total population has been infected. How long it took to infect that much of the population is unknown as the symptoms are very mild. Patients get headaches, muscle aches, increased appetite, and shortness of temper. Doctors are confident that they will have a cure within the month. The virus appears to be water born so the city's water supply has been shut down and bottled water is being distributed. Helix corporation claims to have the situation completely under control, armed guards are ensuring the peace is kept and research continues un-obstructed. The origin of the the virus is unknown as patient zero has not yet been identified. In an interview, Helix corps. CEO stated that determining who patient zero is will take time and that any information would be helpful.’
Gear frowned and folded the paper up before slipping it into a recycling bin he had near the door. He drank the rest of his coffee and opened up shop. He was surprised to find a small line had already formed. “Welcome to Gears and Cogs, is there something you need?” He asked.
A purple unicorn that he vaguely remembered ran the library was first in line. “Yes, do you have any surgical masks?” She asked. “The hospital is running out of them.” Gear frowned at her.
“No, I don’t have surgical masks, but I did build a couple of functional gas masks, those should work better.” He said. He pulled three masks out of a container, one of them had a simple air filter and covered the entire face, the second had a chemical filter that would kill most germs but leave the wearer unharmed, and the last had a long tube going to a fresh oxygen supply tank. “These are all I have at the moment.”
The purple unicorn examined them a moment then took the chemical filter mask; she slapped some bits down on the counter and walked away with it. The second pony in line was Mayor Mare. She simply took the first mask and put some bits on the counter. Gear frowned worriedly. “Is every pony looking for a mask?” He called out. Everypony in line nodded their heads. Gear sighed and pulled over a bin full of raw materials. “If you wait a while, I’ll have enough for everypony.” He said.
It took him the entire day just to make enough masks for half of the original line, to make matters worse, the line had gotten bigger during the day and he was beginning to run out of materials. He set down his tools and turned to the line. “I don’t have enough materials to continue making masks. I’m sorry but you’ll either have to bring me more or go without a mask.” He was beginning to worry about every pony. They were clearly over reacting, they were miles away from Manehatten and from what he'd read, a gasmask wasn't necessary. It was giving him business though so he didn't mind.
Gear had slept uneasily that night; a sense of dread had invaded his dreams turning them into nightmares. He woke earlier than usual and, instead of going through his daily routine, opened shop as soon as he was out of bed. As he expected, a line of ponies with different raw materials were waiting in a line. “Alright… alright, I can do this…” He muttered. He then closed the shop and pulled all of his tools outside. “Please place all raw materials in a neat pile over here. I’ll accept the materials as payment.” He said directing the ponies. He soon had a sizable pile of scrap metal, glass, fabrics, plastic, and rubber.
He began sorting though the piles looking for things he would be able to use without reshaping them too much. When that was done, he began piecing together a mask and, when it was complete; he disassembled it and laid out the pieces. “This will go a lot faster if I can get some help here, I need ponies that can cut relatively straight and sewing would be nice as well.” He said. A couple of ponies stepped forward and he separated them into groups to start on the materials.
The others began talking among themselves. They seemed rather tense and afraid as they discussed current events. Apparently the disease had infected 89% of the population in Manehatten and spread to Fillydelphia while Baltimare was experiencing riots and mass evacuation. If the disease really were spreading that quickly, Gear knew it was just a matter of time before it hit Ponyville. The symptoms may have seemed mild but he didn’t think it would stay at its current hazard level.
That day he and his group of helpers managed to make 37 gasmasks, enough for the everypony with three left over. Gear decided that he’d better wear one as well, just to be safe. He had begun cleaning up when a large number of royal guards flew over head. They all seemed to be heading in the direction of Baltimare. He hoped everything would turn out ok.
That day's paper had more coverage of the disease, 'The virus, now named Jet flu after the pony who discovered it and how fast it spreads, has spread from Manehatten to Fillydelphia. Authorities are quarantining Manehatten and Fillydelphia in hopes of containing the virus. Baltimare, the next closest city to Manehatten, is experiencing mass virus testing along with evacuations, riots broke out today as police began rounding up and quarantining any pony displaying any symptoms of Jet flu, family's are also being put under surveillance and are not allowed to see others. Beaker, the head of testing in Baltimare made a statement today. "We understand that our methods may be violating several civilian rights, but in situations such as this, Helix corp has seen it as a necessary action to contain the virus. We are currently negotiating with the Princesses for the right to take away these rights temporarily. Helix corp hopes that the population will understand that we are only doing this to help them."'
Day 3
Gear awoke at 3 in the morning that day to the sounds of construction. When he exited his wagon to investigate, he found construction workers building a wall around Ponyville. Everypony was wearing either a surgical mask or one of his gasmasks while they built the large wooden wall. It appeared to be about two feet thick with metal poles to stabilize it and it reached about six feet in the air. Mayor Mare was overseeing the operation.
Gear hitched himself to the wagon and pulled it in closer to the city. They would have had him outside the wall if they had continued to build in the direction they were building. As he was re entering his wagon, he noticed the paper pony tossing papers around. “Hey! Give me one of those!” Gear called out. The paper pony tossed him that day’s issue. Coverage of the outbreak covered the entire first three pages. Scientists had found that 11% of Manehatten’s population was immune to the virus. Meanwhile Fillydelphia was now 76% infected and the disease had spread to what little population was left in Baltimare. In other news, the princesses had been evacuated to a very secluded island along with most of the royal guard and Canterlot’s elite.
Apparently the virus started by attaching itself to the nervous system and then, as it multiplied, began affecting the stomach and brain. Several attempts to kill it with different medicines all resulted in the patient dying. It appeared as though if the virus died, the host died as well. The rest of the articles were interviews with doctors and scientists, all of them claimed that the virus was mutating quickly and that was why it was so hard to begin making a cure.
One such interview caught his attention, a pony from Helix Corp named Enigma was the pony being interviewed. He was a security guard working for the company. The article read, "Today we interviewed the only non-researcher employee of Helix Corp who was willing to come forward. Enigma, no last name given, works as a security guard in the facility's infectious disease research wing. He has been given permission from his employers to speak. Enigma stated, 'I am not allowed to give information as to the origin of the virus, however, I can say that we know patient zero is not an employee of Helix Corp. For the past three days I have been organizing employees to be tested and none have come up positive for Jet Flu."
Gear spent the rest of the day helping to harvest the remaining crops and build the wall. The food, it was said, would last them for a month if they rationed it. Several ponies had left for Stalliongrad where boats were being loaded to take ponies to a chain of islands near the island the princesses were on. Gear didn’t leave, believing it would be too chaotic and would inevitably end in the infection of the entire island chain.
Day 4
Gear had been up all night finishing the wall with the others and had been unable to get any sleep. He halfheartedly looked through the day’s newspaper. The entire newspaper was now devoted to virus coverage. All non-immune ponies in Manehatten, Fillydelphia, and Baltimare were now infected and the disease had slowed down. No new cities had been infected that day which was good news.
It had also been found that everypony that was immune had the same blood type, B-. Gear almost laughed in relief, he was B-. Hopefully that meant he’d be immune as well. Another article focused on evacuation efforts in Stalliongrad. "Riots have broken out in the east and south edges of the city as only ponies with blood type B- are allowed to board the rescue ships. So far there have been no injuries on either side but the authorities remain on high alert. The battleships Celestia, Blue Blood, and Cadenza have been ordered to ensure no ships leave that are not authorized to do so in Whinneypeg, Laspegasus, and Stalliongrad. The Blue Blood, however, is apparently not responding to any attempts to contact it. The ship has also not been seen since leaving port yesterday." Gear frowned at the paper and tossed it away. His older brother was a warrant officer on the Cadenza, meaning he'd be far from the danger, out on open water.
Day 5
The virus had stopped infecting new ponies entirely. Apparently, the evacuation of Baltimare and the surrounding cities had stopped the spread. Doctors claim the virus was mutating at half the rate it was before and a new symptom had appeared, excessive drooling. Overall, everything was looking pretty good. That day the newspaper interviewed a pony who wished to remain anonymous. "An anonymous pony stepped forward last night with some shocking news, Jet Flu originated in one of the Helix Corp labs. The pony gave this statement, 'Five days ago, three researchers in the infectious disease research wing went missing along with all of the research, including samples, of Jet Flu. I believe they released the contagion into Manehatten's water supply. Helix Corp has a separate sewage and water system from the rest of the city, which would explain why everypony on the Helix Corp staff is uninfected.' In related news, riots in Manehatten have sprung up overnight, the angry ponies assaulted any pony employed by Helix corp. The mobs also stormed the Helix Corp main building, killing 17 employees and injuring 43 more. Security responded by inflicting nearly 60 deaths and 400 injuries on the protesters, 108 of whom are in critical condition. A second test was run and it has been found that 78% of ponies attacked during the riots are now infected."
A picture showed around 70 corpses covered in white sheets lined up in two rows outside of the Manehatten hospital, police officers, armed with MP5s and gasmasks stood guard. Gear set down the paper sadly and slumped in his chair, things were getting out of hand.
Day 10
Gear awoke that morning and grabbed the paper as he had the past few days, taking it over to a park bench to read. The headline read “DISASTER!!” in huge bold letters. The article spoke of how the disease had not only managed to get to three different cities, but a new symptom had surfaced. Total organ failure. Nearly 89% of the infected population in every city had simply died over night due to heart and brain failure, other pony’s livers had stopped working and everypony was twice as aggressive as before.
Ponies, specifically the immune population, were being attacked on the streets leading to over 300 deaths and hospitalizations. Riots had begun in cities not even close to the initial outbreak and Stalliongrad was ordered to stop evacuating citizens for fear of the virus getting on board a ship. In protest, ponies had sunk one of the boats. Gear was confused as to why they would protest by sinking one of the boats that could be escaped on. It was like burning down a farm because you were starving.
The front page article had a picture of two ponies and hazmat suits carrying a pony covered in a white sheet on a stretcher away. The street was full of litter and broken glass with two corpses lying on the side of the road a ways away. Gear read the article. "89% of the infected population have just died. Unfortunately, so have most of our reporters, informants, and editors. We won't be able to publish any more papers. Good bye, from all of us here in Equestria news daily, good bye and good luck." His mouth nearly fell open in surprise.
He noticed a new line forming at his shop so he quickly ran over to open shop. “Hello, what can I get you?” He asked. Applejack, a pony he’d met while working on the wall, was first in line.
“Ah need somethin’ to defend myself with, you invent things, right? Invent somethin’!” There was a murmur of agreement from the crowd.
Gear shook his head. “Can’t you just use kitchen knives and pitchforks and such? Why do you need me to invent a weapon?” He asked. Applejack slammed a bag full of bits down on the counter and looked at him through her gasmask.
“Ah want a weapon. Somethin’ better than an ol’ pitchfork.” She said. Gear sighed and opened a drawer he had been sure he’d never need to open. Inside were five of his more deadly wares. A shrapnel bomb, a homemade 5.56 caliber handgun that he called The Reaper(massive kickback but equally powerful), and three revolvers. He pulled out one of the revolvers and handed it to Applejack who nodded in approval. He spent the rest of the day making weapons for everypony, which he personally thought was a bad idea, but he couldn't deny them a way to defend themselves. He then made himself a bandoleer and attached the shrapnel bomb and Reaper to it.
Day 11
Gear awoke to the sounds of panic. Ponies were screaming and he could hear several fights taking place. There was a loud crashing noise as somepony smashed the door to his wagon down. The pony charged with the single most terrifying battle cry he had ever heard. Gear was out of the bed in a flash, the Reaper in his hand. He fired a shot that blew a large hole out of the pony's shoulder. The pony staggered backward then resumed its advance. Gear then pulled out a kitchen knife and braced for impact. The pony knocked him backward onto the bed and began trying to bite him.
Gear kicked the pony off and lunged at it with the knife. He stabbed the pony repeatedly in the neck, blood spurting in every direction as the carotid artery and jugular was cut. The pony staggered backward with a pitiful gurgling noise before falling to the floor unmoving. Gear was completely covered in blood, as was the inside of his wagon. He then realized his Reaper only had that one shot and discarded it. Outside was complete chaos, ponies were chasing each other around while two or three buildings were on fire. Here and there a group of ponies were eating what appeared to be another pony. It made Gear sick. He noticed Applejack nearby, struggling with two of the infected she had one of them pinned to the ground with one hoof while holding the other's neck, she was struggling to aim the revolver at its head.
Gear ran over and tackled the one still standing, stabbing it repeatedly in the neck, head, and heart. He looked over at Applejack in time to see her shoot the head infected pony on the ground; blood squirted three feet away, staining the grass crimson. “Thanks fer the rescue! Come on! Ponies are gatherin’ at the hospital!” She had to yell over the noise of panic. Gear nodded and followed her.
The hospital had been barred shut with several ponies guarding the door and looking out fearfully. Applejack banged on the door. “Let us in! We’re not infected!” She yelled at them. They shook their heads fearfully and didn’t open the doors. Gear noticed one of the infected running at the two of them so he rushed out to meet it, flipping the knife around so he was holding it upside-down. At the last moment, he stepped to the side and stabbed it in the shoulder, neck, and head. The infected pony fell forward and flipped over onto its back without a noise.
“We need to get inside now!” He yelled back at Applejack. She nodded and turned back to yell at the ponies again but they were already opening the door. Blood was obscuring Gear’s view in the gasmask so he simply ripped it off and threw it to the side before entering. Once inside, the ponies re-barred the door and continued to watch for others. “We made it… what happened?!” He asked Applejack. She shook her head.
“I don’t know, we should talk to Twi, maybe she’ll know. Assuming she’s here that is…” She responded. Gear nodded and looked around the hospital as they walked. No pony was in sight, but he could hear whispers and some crying coming from some of the rooms. Somepony was rushed by them on a stretcher, it appeared the poor colt had been mauled and he was groaning in pain quite pitifully. The muffled noise of fighting outside didn't make it very far into the hospital.
The two of them walked through the hospital until Twilight suddenly stepped out of a room to the side. “Applejack! Thank Celestia you’re alright! Come on, Fluttershy is here too!” Applejack rushed into the room leaving Gear in the hallway. He entered the room after a moment to find the three of them hugging each other in happiness. They separated after a moment and Twilight looked over at him. “Oh! Gear, hi, I didn’t see you there, I’m glad to see you made it. You’re absolutely covered in blood.” She observed.
Gear nodded and sat down, partially exhausted. “So, any idea how the infected got in?” He asked her. She nodded and frowned.
“The wall wasn’t thick enough; they broke it down last night on the other end of town. As soon as I heard, I decided to run to the hospital thinking it would be the best place to go. It's a good thing I sent Spike to Canterlot last week...” Fluttershy nodded in agreement but stayed quiet and nervous, she appeared to be intentionally avoiding looking at Gear.
“What are your blood types, by the way?” He asked.
“B-” Twilight responded
“B-” Applejack said
“A+” Fluttershy mumbled.
Gear looked at Fluttershy pityingly. Not only was this entire ordeal getting to her, she wasn’t immune and would likely turn if exposed. He took a step away from her. “I should probably get washed off now.” He said. Twilight nodded and pointed at a nearby shower. Gear nodded and walked over to turn it on. There was a sudden loud noise like breaking glass coming from the hallway. “Stay here!” He told the three mares. He abandoned the shower and rushed out into the hallway, infected ponies had smashed through the glass doors and were advancing down the hallway, several ponies armed with knives and weapons he’d sold them were attempting to fight them off. Gear rushed forward to join the defense. His first opponent was a white unicorn with a purple mane, she seemed familiar to him but he didn’t really have time to think about it when she was attempting to rip his face off with her teeth. He stabbed her up through the chin with his knife and finished her off with a downward stab to the top of the head.
He finished off three more in this way before he realized they would be overrun if he didn’t do something quick. He pulled out the shrapnel bomb and pulled out the safety mechanism. “Everypony get back!” He yelled out as he tossed it into the middle of the infected crowd. He ran back a ways and turned to watch. Nothing happened for a moment making him wonder if it wasn’t going to work. Suddenly, a huge explosion ripped through the advancing infected, blowing a fair chunk of them to pieces and causing the ceiling to collapse, blocking the doorway. The few infected who were left were quickly dispatched by the defense. Gear sighed in relief and slipped the knife into his bandolier.
The rest of the day was spent cleaning up the bodies and reinforcing the other two doors with everything they could spare, including some of the corpses. Gear was finally able to take a shower and it felt great.
Day 12
Gear was awoken by Twilight, she and Applejack were the only two in the room. “Wha- oh, uh, what’s up?” He asked tiredly
“We wanted to go out and find Pinkiepie and Rainbowdash. We were hoping you’d come along since Fluttershy can’t.” Twilight said. He sat up straight and rubbed his eyes.
“Sure. I’ll go.” He said. Twilight sighed in relief as he spoke.
“Good, I’ll warp us over to Sugar Cube corner first.” She said. Gear nodded and stood, drawing his knife so he’d be ready for anything. Applejack pulled out her revolver as well. There was a flash of light and they were suddenly in a bakery.
He could hear somepony talking above them, but it was muffled and difficult to hear. It was quiet outside as most of the infected were most likely gathered around the hospital, trying to get in. He motioned for them to follow him up the stairs. As he got closer to the top, he began to be able to understand what whoever was talking was saying.
“Well of course you can have more tea! I made lots so we can all have as much as we want! What’s that? Yes you may Twilight, here’s the cake!” Gear frowned and looked back at Twilight. She seemed worried. He opened a door to reveal a room, covered from top to bottom in blood. In the center was a table with three corpses in chairs and four objects positioned around the table like a morbid party. At the head of the table sat a pink pony with a crazed expression on her face, her hair was completely straight and going straight down, blood was spattered all over her face and body. She was currently chopping up somepony’s leg with a cleaver while staring straight ahead, a tea kettle nearby was filled with blood, as were all the tea cups at the table. Guts were piled in the center in a shape that resembled a cake. Gear almost threw up.
“Oh my Celestia! What the buck!” Applejack yelped in surprise. Twilight turned and vomited on the ground. Pinkie looked over at them.
“You’re just in time! I was serving the cake! Mr and Mrs Cake and Rainbowdash and I have been waiting!” She stood and pushed a sack of flour off of a stool onto the floor and did the same with a pile of rocks. “Sit! SIT! What’s that Rainbowdash? *Gasps* they’re not?!” She turned to them with a look of anger. “You’re not my friends! You’re those things!” She yelled at them. Gear shoved Applejack and Twilight out of the room.
“Go! I’ll take care of this! She’s gone insane.” He said. He shut the door behind him and pulled out his knife.
“What did you do with my friends?!” Pinkie screamed at him as she lunged with the cleaver. Gear lunged with his own knife and caught her between the eyes, her meat cleaver, however, continued forward and sliced a fair sized chunk out of his shoulder. He gasped in pain and stepped back as Pinkie fell to the floor. “What… did you do… to my… friends…” She muttered before laying still. Gear pulled the knife out of her head and shut her eyes. He noticed a fire axe nearby and picked it up, placing attaching it to his bandolier for future use.
Outside he found Twilight in shock and Applejack trying to comfort her with a haunted expression. “We need to go, Twilight, are you well enough to warp us out of here?” He asked. She nodded slowly and in a flash, they were back in the hospital room they had started in.
Gear hadn’t slept at all that night; the three of them were haunted by images of what they had seen yesterday. The blood and gore was etched into his memories like deep scars that would never heal. Everything that was going on was disturbing, yes, but that single event took the cake. (get it? Cake? Like the organ cake in the- alright, I'll shut up)
Twilight muttered something that Gear couldn’t hear so he leaned in closer. “I didn’t catch that, what’s up?” He asked concerned.
“I wish my brother were here. He’d know what to do.” She said. Gear looked over at Applejack questioningly.
“Her brother’s the captain of the royal guard, Ah’m guessing he was evacuated with everypony else in Canterlot.” She told Gear. He nodded and looked at the door as somepony passed by.
“Well, if he’s the captain of the royal guard, he may still be here, coordinating guard movements and such. I saw a platoon of guards fly overhead a couple of days ago so maybe there are still some in Canterlot.” He suggested. Twilight looked up hopefully.
“You think so? Maybe… maybe we should go to the palace. If there is anypony still there, it would probably be safer than here. And if there is somepony there we can send them back to rescue everypony else!” She said excitedly. Gear seriously doubted anypony was still there, but if it got everypony’s mind off of… yesterday, it would be worth it. It was also something to do.
“Alright, let’s do it. We should tell everypony else what we’re doing though, it’ll cause a panic if three ponies just up and disappear!” Applejack responded. Gear nodded in agreement and stood up, wincing in pain when he put too much strain on his shoulder.
The three of them went to the waiting room, where most ponies were being kept because the caved in portion of ceiling was least likely to be broken through. “Attention everypony!” Twilight said. Everypony looked at her expectantly. “We’re heading up to Canterlot to see if anypony there can help us. We’ll send back somepony to retrieve you all when we get there so just hang on a little longer.” She told them all.
Everypony began murmuring amongst themselves in excitement at the prospect of being rescued. A white pony in a nurse’s outfit stepped forward. “Um, I’d like to come with if that’s alright. I want to make sure his shoulder doesn’t get any worse.” She said.
Twilight nodded. “I suppose you can come if you want to. It would be nice having a trained nurse with us. Oh, what’s your blood type?” She asked. Nurse Redheart frowned.
“B-, why?” Twilight nodded in satisfaction.
“Just wondering, come on, I’ll teleport us to the train station.” She said. The four of them huddled together and were gone in a flash. They reappeared on top of the train station roof with an equally blinding flash.
Gear looked around to make sure the infected weren’t around before speaking. “Is there anyway to do that without alerting everything to our presence?” He asked. She rolled her eyes and pointed at the train.
“Alright! Anypony know how to drive that thing?” All three of them looked at Gear.
He looked around at them then sighed. “I don’t know, maybe. I’ll try my best but I’ve only ever driven a wagon.” They used a ladder to get down from the roof and hurried over to the train, noticing two eaten corpses near by. They all got on the first car and shut the door, locking it tightly.
Gear got into the engine room and began flipping and pulling things randomly to see what would happen. Absolutely nothing happened. He sighed in frustration and dropped his head, hitting a small compartment near by. It opened to reveal a train manual. “Ha!” He said with glee and cracked it open.
He read a bit then went through the process to turn it on. First he turned the control key, then the reverser key. He pulled and twisted all kinds of knobs until the train finally started. He pushed the reverser key into the forward 1 position and stumbled a bit as the train lurched forward.
After around half an hour, the four arrived at the Canterlot station. Gear applied the breaks, a little too hard, making the train stop a bit before it was supposed to. But that was alright, not like he was paid to do it correctly, or paid at all for that matter. They stepped off of the train and were met by silence. There was absolutely no noise in the city at all, no sound of hoofs on cobblestone, no bells, no doors opening and closing, nothing.
“The castle is this way.” Twilight said nervously and began leading them through the buildings. On the bright side, there were no infected in sight and Gear hadn’t seen any blood. Abandoned luggage lay on the ground everywhere in piles. Several were open to reveal fancy jewelry, clothing, and cosmetics. Soon they were standing at the front gates.
The gate was chained shut with a padlock and nopony was in sight, Twilight was about to yell something when Nurse Redheart grabbed her mouth. “Don’t do that!” She hissed. “What if there’re infected here!” Twilight nodded her head and she let go. “We need to get the gate open, anypony got an idea?” She asked.
Gear stepped up to the gate and examined the lock. He then took out the fire axe and, before anypony could protest, smashed the lock off. He unwrapped the chain and pushed open the gates, letting the others pass through before he retied the chain behind them. Since they no longer had a padlock, Twilight simply fused the two ends together with magic.
The four of them left the gate and entered the palace hesitantly. There was nothing inside to suggest anypony were there. “Hello?!” Applejack yelled. Her voice echoed through the empty halls. There was no response. “Uh… maybe we should go further in.” She said.
Before anypony could respond, two guards rushed out from around a corner toward them. Twilight sighed in relief and took a step forward to greet them. Gear pulled her back and wielded the fire axe. “Stand back! They’re infected!” He said. He swung his axe with all his might and nearly cleaved the head of the first in half. He abandoned the axe as the second rammed him. Twilight levitated it off of him and threw it into a nearby wall with a sickening crunch. It didn’t get up.
Gear thanked her as he yanked his axe out of the first one’s head. A screeching noise came from the hall on their right causing them to tense. “We need to move, now!” Gear said. The four of them dashed down the entry way, toward the stairs that would lead them to the throne room. A crude barricade had been made by somepony and placed at the first landing. They promptly jumped over it and accidentally landed on two armed guards. Everypony looked at each other in shock before the guards regained composure.
“What are you stupid?! Why would you yell like that! Do you have any idea how many infected are down there?” One of the guards said.
“Sir!” The other one said, pointing down the stairs. Five infected were coming up toward them. The two guards aimed their spears down at them and braced for a fight. Gear joined them, taking a spear off of a nearby suit of armor. Before any of the infected could reach the spears, a huge blue flame enveloped them, incinerating them almost instantaneously. Everypony watched in shock as their charred bones fell into piles on the ground.
“What happened?!” They heard somepony say behind them. They turned to see Shining Armor, his horn still glowing from the magic he had just done. Twilight rushed forward to hug him.
“Big bro!” She squealed happily. Shinning looked at her in surprise.
“Twily! You, you’re alive! I was so worried about you!” He said, embracing her tightly. Gear noticed another infected was making its way up the stairs. He spun around and launched the spear at it. The spear hit its left eye and went through its head until it stopped halfway down the shaft of the spear. It fell backward down the stairs.
“Now’s not the time! We need to get somewhere safer!” Gear said.
“Oh! Right! Follow me, we’ve set up a sort of refugee camp on the top floors of the castle."
“Go on ahead, we’ll make sure nothing follows ya.” The first guard said. Gear nodded.
“I’ll stay with them, get yourselves some rest and I’ll meet up with you later.” He said. Twilight tried to protest but was pulled away by shining armor. The others followed behind him quickly.
“Alright… come get some.” Gear muttered as three more rounded the corner. He wielded his fire axe and waited for them to arrive. “You two ready for this?” He asked.
“Ready or not, here they come.” The first one said.
“FOR CELESTIA!” The other one called out, raising his spear in the air. The three of them jumped the barricade and met the infected head on.
“How many was that? I lost count.” Gear asked when the last infected in sight fell to the floor. He had, at some point, found a Gladius and had been using that along with his fire axe.
“Too many… I stopped caring when they started coming in groups of ten. Too focused on keeping my face attached to my body, you know?” The first guard said. He was dual wielding two very large battle axes and had somehow gotten more armor.
“I’d be surprised if there were any more than this, there are a lot of corpses here.” The second guard said, he was behind the barricade with a bow and arrows. All three of them were covered nearly from head to hoof in blood. Gear felt his shoulder and found his wound had ripped open.
“How did you guys manage to stay hidden with all of them down here?” Gear asked. One of the corpses twitched so he stabbed it.
“Captain Armor lured them to the back then warped up to the second floor. We’ve been as quiet as possible ever since. The name’s Iron Wing, by the way.” The first guard said.
“We have had to kill a couple of stragglers but otherwise they stayed in the back, my name’s Whistling Arrow.” The second guard said. Gear nodded and sat down, completely exhausted.
“Well, Iron and Whistling, I’m Gear Axis. I traveled here with Captain Armor’s sister. Speaking of which, I should probably tell him what happened. You two think you can hold without me?” He asked.
“No problem, just leave it to us!” Iron said as Gear left. He made his way upstairs and was surprised to find ten guards with spears guarding the entrance to the door; they aimed their spears at him.
“Whoa, hey! I’m not infected!” Gear exclaimed. They looked at him skeptically. Before he could say anything else, Nurse Redheart opened the door and rushed over to him with a medical kit.
“You tore your shoulder open! I knew it was a bad idea to let you fight, this is going to scar really badly…” She said as she examined it. She put a hoof on either side of it and pulled in opposite directions. “Look at that! It’s bigger than before!” She exclaimed. Gear shuddered in pain as she examined it, roughly.
“Yeah, yeah, just put a bandage on it please, you’re making it worse!” Shining Armor and Twilight stepped out into the entry way to look at him. “Oh hello, I suppose you’ll want a report or something?” Gear asked.
Shining Armor looked at him with worry. “Uh. Yeah, what happened?” He asked.
Gear yelped in pain as Nurse Redheart jabbed his shoulder with a needle to sew shut the cut. “Nnngh, the three of us, urf, fought off all of, agh, the infected, aaah! Could you maybe do that later?!” He almost yelled at Redheart. She shook her head and jabbed the needle in a tad more forcefully. “Ack! We cleared out the first floor! Probably. OW! Are you done?!” He said.
“Oh it couldn’t have been that bad you big foal, now I just need to put some antiseptic on it.” She pulled out a cotton swab and some orange liquid.
Gear sighed in relief, until she applied the stinging, burning, flesh melting acid she claimed was antiseptic. “OWMYSEETMOTHERBUCKINCELESTIATHATBURNS!” He yelled.
“You were just mauled by the infected, how does this hurt worse?” Redheart demanded. She began wrapping it with a bandage.
“Well for one thing I was running on adrenaline and couldn’t really feel anything, and they weren’t rubbing salt in my wounds!” He exclaimed. Twilight laughed.
“What happened to the big tough pony that helped rescue three helpless mares from Ponyville?” She asked with a smirk.
“Helpless? Pfft, speak for yourself.” Redheart began putting things back in the medical kit as they spoke.
“So what’s been going on while Iron, Whistle, and I were saving your butts?” He asked looking over to Shining Armor.
“Well, Twilight filled me in on what’s happening at Ponyville. I was about to send out a rescue party, in the meantime you should probably get washed off. You look terrible.” He said. Gear nodded and yelped in surprise when Redheart slapped his butt.
“There ya go; you should be fine now if you DON’T RIP IT OPEN AGAIN.” She glared at him intensely then walked back into the throne room.
Gear spent the rest of the day trying to clean off all of the blood without getting his bandages wet. The rescue team left at 12:00 and came back at 1:07 with everypony that had been in the hospital. Everypony looked relieved to be in a safer place. The rescue team had lost three pegasi and two unicorns trying to distract the infected away from the hospital but it was otherwise a success. Gear slept easily for the first time in days.
Day 14
Gear woke up when it was still dark outside, Iron Wing was shaking him. “Hey, wake up, the captain needs to talk to you.” He said. Gear yawned and rubbed his eyes before sitting upright to look around. Everypony was still asleep.
“Alright. I’m coming.” He said as he stood up from his spot on the floor. He groggily followed Iron through the sleeping crowd of ponies toward a set of side doors. Inside was a room with a round table, two large seats at the opposite end of the room were likely reserved for the princesses, but Twilight and Shining Armor were currently seated in them. Applejack and Redheart sat in chairs on either side of them.
“Good morning Gear, did you sleep well?” Shining asked. Gear nodded and sat in one of the chairs.
“Well enough, what did you need to talk to me about?” He asked.
“Twilight and I have been talking and we think it would be best to get everypony off of the main land. There should still be some boats in Stalliongrad that we can escape on. I was going to send a detachment of guards to look, but we need them here.” Gear nodded as he listened to Shining.
“Ok, so why do you need me?” He asked. Shining smiled a bit.
“Well, I was going to ask if you wanted to come along with me, Twilight, Applejack, and Redheart. You seem to have a lot of experience fighting the infected so it would be safer if you came along.” Gear thought for a moment then looked over at Iron.
“I’ll go, but why not take Iron Wing or Whistling Arrow?” Iron stepped forward.
“Actually, sir, I was just about to ask if Whistle and I could come with. We both agreed we want to stick with Gear for a while.” Shining frowned at him and sighed.
“Alright, I’ll let you both come, but don’t tell anypony. I’ve left Polished Scutum in charge while we’re gone. We should leave as soon as possible.” He replied. Everypony agreed and they began preparing for the trip.
They were on the road before the sun had risen very far. “Are there any infected in the city?” Twilight asked as they followed Shining through the streets.
“Yes, but we have a guard post that’s keeping them distracted in the far east district. We shouldn’t see any on our way out of the city. I have no idea what the country side will look like.” He responded. True to his word, they didn’t see anypony, infected or otherwise, the entire time they were in the city. It was eerie without any noise, like a well decorated ghost town.
“The closest and first town we’ll stop in on our way is Seaddle. It’s about a days walk from here so we should make it before nightfall.” Twilight said, examining a map, once they were outside of the walls. The country had farms dotting the landscape, but no pony could see any movement.
“Well then let’s hurry.” Gear suggested.
It took them 10 and a half hours to reach Seaddle with nothing interesting happening. Every building they had passed was empty and, in some cases, burned down. They arrived at seaddle to find a very large smoldering city with few untouched buildings. They spent the night in a half burned down building.
Gear woke suddenly when he heard faint yelling. He looked around in confusion and found Iron and Whistle were missing. Gear was about to go look for them, but he didn’t want to leave the others alone. The next morning the five of them searched the town as much as they dared and left when it was apparent they were gone.
Gear had been getting more and more depressed as they traveled. As they neared Stalliongrad more and more corpses appeared. It started with just one or two on the side of the road, then turned into entire caravans of fleeing citizens. Any houses they passed looked as though they had been looted of everything valuable or useful. The only pony they met on the road was in the early stages of infection, they killed him upon his request.
By the time Stalliongrad was in sight, he’d given up entirely. “This is stupid. We aren’t going to find anything there. All the ships were probably sunk or something. How do we even know the island is infection free? What if we get there with everypony and are suddenly mobbed by thousands of infected? It’s probably safer at the palace!” He said.
Shining glared at him. “The islands are fine. I can feel it. We just need to get a boat, if not here, then one of the other coast cities like Las Pegasus or Whinneypeg.” He said.
“I’m just saying, there’s very little chance of us actually finding anything.” He muttered.
Twilight glared at him. “What do you want to do? Sit in a room overcome with depression while we wait for the infected to eat us? There’s a chance to get off of the main land here, and no matter how small it is, I’m going to take it!” She said.
The others agreed with her, looking at him nervously. Gear sighed and pulled his weapons out, handing them to Twilight. “I’m done. I’m just done. Everypony is dead or going to die and nothing we can do is going to change that. You can continue on without me. I’ll just sit in a room, overcome with depression, until they come and eat me. But before they eat me, I’ll jump out of a window. Sound like a plan?” He asked angrily.
They stared at him in shock. “What? You’re really just going to sit around waiting to die?” Twilight asked in horror.
Gear nodded. “I’ve lost the will to go on. I don’t care anymore, I just don’t care. I hope you succeed, I really do, it’s just that you won’t.” Gear said sadly. Shining took the fire axe and Gladius from him reluctantly.
“Are you sure this is what you want to do?” He asked. Gear nodded and walked over to the nearest building.
“Good luck to you four. I’d say you need it, but no amount of luck is going to help you live.” He said. He opened the door and entered without turning back to look at them.
So there he was. Sitting in an abandoned child’s room, the door boarded shut and waiting for death. He’d chosen a room three stories up so he’d probably have to dive head first out the window to die instantly, but that was fine.
He’d been sitting for a good three hours before he heard the moaning of an infected outside the door. It began banging on the door, trying to get in. “This is it.” He said as he stood. He walked over to the window and stepped up onto the sill, waiting for the infected pony to break down the door.
He looked around a bit for a moment and happened to glance through a window across the ally from him. A Pegasus filly with a light blue mane and a pale blue coat was wrapped up in a blanket on a bed. He felt sad for the corpse, she’d probably been infected and died suddenly, or maybe a looter had broken in and killed her for her stuff. He watched her for a while longer and heard the door splinter behind him. He looked behind him to see the infected pony had punched a hole in the door.
Gear prepared to dive head first out the window and decided to look at the poor filly’s corpse again. To his surprise, she moved. The filly sat up from the bed and looked around the room sleepily. She then looked out the window and saw him about to leap to his death. They stared at each other in shock for a moment before Gear heard the door smash open behind him. He made a split second decision, and jumped as hard as he could toward the other building, he fell short and crashed through the window just below the room the filly had been in.
“I can’t just leave her there…” He said as he recovered from his rough landing. He heard a splat behind him and looked out to see the infected pony had tried to jump after him and fallen very short. It was a twitching heap of bloody bones and flesh on the ground now. Gear tore himself away from the window and grabbed a knife that was sitting out on the kitchen counter in the room he landed in.
He rushed out of the room and up the stairs to the next floor. He could hear the infected close behind him, maybe two flights down in the basement and coming up so he closed the hall door, locked it, and dragged a couple of tables and chairs to block it with. When that was done he went over to the room he thought the filly was in. Gear knocked on the door softly. “Hello?” He called out just as softly.
“Go away!” He heard yelled from the room. Gear frowned worriedly.
“Hey! Don’t worry; I’m not going to hurt you. Are you alright?” He asked. He glanced at the stairwell door nervously as it rattled from an impact.
“I’m fine! Go away! Mom and Dad will be back any time now!” She yelled at him. Gear didn’t believe her.
“I’m going to take care of these bad ponies and then I’m going to come back and talk with you some more, just sit tight, ok?” He said as a hoof burst through the stairwell door.
He didn’t wait for a response before rushing half way down the hall to fight the infected. They smashed through the barricaded door, four in all, and charged while snarling and drooling. Gear stepped to the side and tripped the first one while he jammed the knife into the right eye of the second. He had to kick the third one back before pulling out the knife and jabbing it into the fourth’s heart. He jumped to the side as the first got up and attacked, while the third recovered from being kicked. Gear grabbed hold of the first’s head and ran behind it, twisting as he went to break its neck. The third infected pony charged him again and was met with a knife between the eyes.
Gear pulled out the knife and wiped it off on one of the pony’s shirt. He heard a door open behind him so he turned to see the filly coming out from the room. “Are they gone?” She asked timidly. Gear nodded and sat down. “You look terrible. You could use a bath.” The filly told him.
Gear chuckled in amusement and looked down at the floor. “You don’t look any better.” He said. She sat down a couple of feet away from him. “When did your parents leave?” He asked.
“Two days ago…” The filly responded, a tear in her eye. Gear looked down pityingly.
“I’m sorry. Hey, you’ve been living on your own for two whole days? That’s pretty impressive!” He said. She sniffed and wiped her eyes.
“Yeah, I guess…” She scooted a little closer to him. Gear scooted further way from her, he was covered in infected blood.
“You wouldn’t happen to know your blood type, would you?” He asked. She nodded.
“My parents had me tested when the newspaper said something about blood types. I’m B-” She responded. Gear sighed in relief and scooted back to his original position.
“My name’s Gear Axis. What’s yours?” He asked. She looked up at him.
“Dew Drop.” She replied. Gear smiled at her.
“That’s a very pretty name, what should I call you? Dew, Drop?” He asked.
“My parents always called me Dewy, but only them! Um… you can call me Dew.” She said.
Gear smiled and stuck out his hoof for her to shake. “You can call me Gear, Dew. It’s very nice to meet you.” She shook his hoof and scooted a little closer to him. “Well, I was going to cut my life a bit short, but I can’t very well do that now that you’re here. Do you want to come with me to find a boat? We can sail off of the main land to an island chain where there aren’t any infected.” He said.
She looked up at him hopefully. “Really!? We can?! I want to go!” She said.
Gear nodded and patted her head. “Alright then, let’s go.” He said. She leaped the remaining distance between them and hugged him fiercely while sobbing uncontrollably.
“Thank you! I want to get away from this scary place! Thank you!” She cried into him. He put his arm around her and looked at the door worriedly.
“What happens if there aren't any boats?” He thought.
Gear released Dew Drop after a moment and stood. “We should probably get going before more of the infected come. It’ll be a long walk to the docks and it’ll take time to get around the infected so we need to leave as soon as possible.” He told her. She nodded and followed him down the hallway to the stairwell. It was around mid day by then with the sun blazing over head.
It was quiet outside; there was barely any noise other than the wind whistling through the buildings and the occasional screech of a rat. Gear made his way through the maze of buildings and rubble piles as quietly and quickly as he could. They’d made it less than a block when he noticed a pack of infected trying to break a door down up ahead. He pulled Dew Drop behind a pile of rubble quickly.
“What’s wron-” Gear clapped a hoof over her mouth and made a ‘be quiet’ motion with the other. He peeked over the top of the rubble pile to watch. There were five of them, all crowded around the door of what appeared to be a sporting goods store. A large sheet of fabric that had ‘HELP!’ printed on it hung across the store front. The infected smashed down the door. The one closest to the door had barely smashed down the door when an arrow flew out from inside and hit it cleanly through the head. It stumbled backward as the other four rushed in before falling to the ground lifeless.
“Come on! Quick!” Gear whispered then rushed out from behind cover to pass the store. He glanced inside and saw two of the infected trying to break down a barricade, two more had been shot down. An older pony with a compound bow was attempting to ward them off but he appeared to be out of arrows. Gear stopped and stuffed Dew Drop into a small cave in a pile of rubble. “Stay here, stay quiet.” He said.
He rushed over to the barricade and quickly dispatched the two attackers with his knife, blood splattered all over the walls and ceiling as he cut their major neck arteries. Gear looked around outside a bit to make sure no more of the infected were coming before motioning for Dew Drop to come over. She ran across the street and into the store. “Thank you! I thought I was gonna die!” The pony exclaimed. Gear nodded and stuck out a hoof.
“I’m Gear. It’s nice to meet you. We were on our way to the docks to find a boat; do you know the fastest way?” The pony thought for a while with a worried expression.
“I’m sorry there, lad, but all the ships were sunk by the royal guard. Heck if I know why…” He scratched his head thoughtfully. “I suppose a small one could be repaired though. Plank might be able to help ya there, if he’s still around, he’ll be at the dry dock.”
“Thank you, we’ll go see what we can do. You’re welcome to come with if you’d like.” Gear said. The pony shook his head.
“Can’t, one of em’ bit me badly. I managed to lock him upstairs but I think I might be turnin’. If you could do me a favor before ya head out, I’d appreciate it if ya could kill him. I’d do it myself, but he used to be my son… I just don’t have the heart.” Gear nodded and jumped the barricade.
“I’ll take care of it as painlessly as I can. Do you mind if I take some gear?” He asked.
“Not at all! Take what ya need! It’s the least I can do for helpin’ me live a bit longer. The name's Brick, by the way.” The pony said. Gear nodded and began rummaging through the equipment. There wasn’t much, but he was able to find some leg guards that fit him well enough and some the fit Dew Drop. He found a helmet that didn’t impede his view too badly and took that along with a metal baseball bat and a javelin. He then made his way upstairs; the door was barred shut with chains, wood planks, and metal sheets. He tried the handle and it moved, but he couldn’t pull the door open. He pulled as hard as he could to no effect.
“It’s a push door!” The pony below yelled out. Dew Drop giggled at him as he sheepishly acknowledged the remark. He then pushed hard and the door cracked open. Rather ingeniously, the owner of the store had only reinforced the door and lock so that the door couldn’t be broken down but could be opened. The infected didn’t know how to open doors.
Gear crept inside and looked around, the room was a mess with overturned boxes and junk. He kept the bat in hoof as he made his way inside. The boxes appeared to be full of more sporting gear, perhaps he was using the second floor as a storage shed. He heard movement and swung blindly at it. His swing connected, ironically, with a box full of baseballs, sending them flying across the floor. Another noise behind him made him turn around and swing again. The bat connected with a punching bag barely even leaving a dent.
It was almost like the infected was taunting him. Gear backed away to the door and closed it to prevent it getting downstairs. “Come on… come get some.” He muttered as he looked around. Movement in the corner of his eye made him jump. He looked in the direction it had come from but could only see boxes. More movement made him turn again. Again, there was nothing. “Come out you coward! It’s just you and me!” He called out.
Almost immediately after he closed his mouth, something smashed into his side with a snarl. He struggled to get it off of him, kicking with his legs to try and dislodge it. He finally managed to kick it off into a pile of boxes, but not before it could take a chunk out of his flank. He stood up quickly and ran after it. The infected tried to run and hide in the boxes again. “Oh no you don’t!” He exclaimed as he lunged for it. He grabbed its tail and pulled it back. He then struck it with the baseball bat using all his might. Blood droplets flew from its now imploded head, making a splatter of red drops going to the door and halfway up the wall.
Gear slumped down to catch his breath. “Oh… oh Celestia… that was close.” He looked at the blood spatter. “How, how do you have that much blood in just your head!?” He asked looking at the corpse. A rather large puddle was forming around it as well. Gear stood and walked away from it, opening the door to go downstairs. As soon as he opened it, he heard Dew Drop screaming and the sounds of a struggle. He rushed down to find the old pony trying in vain to fight off a mob of infected. There were at least 17 of them crowded around the door. There was nothing he could do. The old pony was dragged over the barricade, screaming and kicking. Gear grabbed Dew Drop and put her on his back before running up the stairs and locking them in.
“Celestia! Where did they all come from?!” He exclaimed. Dew shook her head while shaking in fear. “Come on, we need to get out of here.” He looked around and found window that lead out behind the building. There was a fire escape and everything. “Hold on tight!” He said as he went over. He opened the window and got onto the fire escape. Below him was a huge mob, they seemed to be surrounding the shop on every side. Gear instead went up to the roof and looked around. There was a building nearby that looked close enough to jump to.
“Wait, are you going to jump?! I can’t fly yet, what if I fall!?” Dew exclaimed in fear. Gear adjusted his bandolier and slipped her under it, tightening it until she was held snuggly against his back. He had to discard the javelin and bat to make room for Dew.
He backed up to the opposite of the edge of the roof for a running start and looked behind him. There were at least a hundred infected breaking into the store. “Remember when I said hold on tight? Well hold on tighter.” He said. He then charged to the edge of the building and jumped with all of his might, ignoring Dew’s protests.
Gear landed on the other roof with a thud, Dew Drop bounced around on his back before regaining a good hold on his bandoleer. Gear continued running forward, attempting to distance himself from the now swarmed building. Behind him several of the infected attempted to jump after him but fell short, landing in the street with a crunch that they heard clearly. "Slow down!" Dew exclaimed in fear. Gear ignored her for the moment and continued galloping toward the next roof. He sprang forward, landing on the opposite roof easily. Unfortunately the buildings surrounding the third were all too tall to jump to. Gear ran forward at full speed anyway. "What are you doing!" Dew yelled in a panic, she began struggling to get loose of the bandoleer. Gear sprang forward toward the next building and, mid flight, grabbed hold of Dew Drop holding her tightly to his chest as he turned to strike a window with his back.
They smashed through the window with little difficulty and rolled across the floor. The sound of shattering glass was just soft enough that few of the infected, making quite a racket, heard them. Gear set Dew Drop on the ground and lay on his back, resting. She punched him softly in anger. "Don't do that!" She exclaimed.
"Sorry." He said simply. He rubbed his forehead and glanced around the room. It appeared to be an office of some kind with papers and computers scattered around, likely from panicking ponies attempting to flee the building. He finally stood from his spot on the ground and looked around more carefully. Several filing cabinets were propped against a door as a crude barricade, the desks appeared to be arranged in a secondary barricade around the door while a nearby door to a stair well was left mostly unblocked. There were three corpses in the room, one in full SWAT uniform, one in a suit covered in dry blood and entrails, the third was recognizable only from the shape of the skeleton as it had been mostly eaten.
A combat knife in the head of the business suit pony implied the SWAT pony had managed to off it before dying of what appeared to be blood loss as a large pool of dried blood surrounded it. "Stay here." He instructed Dew Drop as he cautiously made his way over to the corpses. He nudged the hind leg of the SWAT pony but it stayed motionless. Feeling slightly safer now that he knew nothing was going to jump back to life and try eating him, he yanked the combat knife out of the infected corpse's skull and cleaned it off on a clean portion of its suit. Flipping over the SWAT pony, he found two flash grenades, a key card, and a huge chunk of missing flesh in the throat of the poor SWAT pony that would explain the massive amount of blood.
"Are they dead?" Dew drop asked nervously. Gear nodded and slid the combat knife, grenades, and key card into his bandoleer while discarding his kitchen knife. He looked around the room again before proceeding to the barricaded door. In the hallway, nearly twenty corpses were in sight. All were riddled with bullet holes as were large portions of the walls. On of the corpses twitched indicating the infected pony was still somewhat alive. At least he hoped they had been infected before being mowed down. Shifting his view he saw the corpses of two more SWAT members, one blocking the door of an elevator so that it kept trying to close but opened when it hit the corpse. He could see an MP5 in the elevator behind the corpse.
Gear turned to Dew Drop. "Come on, we need to get into that hallway." He said. He led her to the stair well and began removing the desk and chairs piled up next to it. A groan outside made him stop. He looked out of the window on the door cautiously and saw two infected limping around aimlessly. The door must have muffled their crashing in through the window. He ducked down when one of them looked in his direction. "That's not good..." He muttered. He thought for a moment then noticed the SWAT pony. "Dew Drop, I need you to be very quiet no matter what, ok? Just follow my lead and make as little noise as possible." She nodded and frowned as he dragged the corpse to the other end of the room.
He motioned for her to stand behind him and opened the door to the stairwell. They heard the infected snarl and a moment later they rushed into the room. The corpse was the first thing they saw so they ran over to it, forgetting to look in Gear and Dew's direction. Gear silently led Dew into the stairwell and softly closed the door behind them. "Wow! It worked!" Dew whispered excitedly. A slight echo went up and down the stairwell. Something above them groaned. Gear silenced her and led her over to the other office's door quietly. Gear examined the inside carefully before pushing open the door and entering. Inside, the desks were in neat rows with computers and papers in their correct spots on the tables. The floor was clear of any blood or debris other than a plant that had fallen over.
Gear opened the door to the hallway and drew his combat knife, ready for one of the corpses to attack him. None did. Instead, he made his way over to the elevator and moved the SWAT pony stuck in the doors out of the way. He picked up the MP5 and examined it carefully, taking out the clip he discovered it was empty. He put it in his bandoleer anyway. A quick search of the dead SWAT ponies revealed an M67 fragmentation grenade and large first aid kit with everything still inside. The pony blocking the elevator door groaned and began standing up. Gear tore off its helmet and stabbed it in the head before it got any further.
He noticed the door to the stair well at the end of the hall was open, a trail of blood leading up the stairs. He set Dew Drop on his back and began stepping over the bullet riddled corpses. None of the corpses moved other than an occasional twitch and both made it to the other side without incident. So far, they hadn't had to fight any infected other than the SWAT pony, but that wasn't really a fight.
Gear glanced up the stair well before making his way up quietly. The trail of blood led to the very top floor and up on to the roof where seven ponies in full SWAT armor, armed to the teeth, lay dead in an enormous pool of blood. Corpses of the infected lay in a pile on both sides of the what appeared to be the SWAT team's last stand. Shell casings, blast marks, and bullet holes were everywhere. Three of the infected were rummaging through one of the large piles of corpses, eating anything their mouths touched. Gear hid Dew Drop behind the pile of corpses and went to search the SWAT ponies as quietly as he could. He managed to find a full clip of MP5 ammo before the infected noticed him. He slammed the clip into the gun and sent a hail of bullets into the three advancing ponies. Two fell but the third managed to keep dragging itself forward. Gear dispatched it with a strike from his combat knife. The MP5 clip was now half empty. A quick search of the remaining SWAT members yielded two more clips, two walkie talkies, a breaching charge, and a pair of infrared goggles. He took them all.
Now that Gear had a long range weapon, Gear was less afraid of traveling around in the city. He led Dew Drop down the stairwell and outside. From what he'd seen from on top of the office building, they needed to head East to get to the docks. Sticking to the shadows Gear made his way through the streets. He was beginning to wonder why there was so much rubble in the roads when they came across an abandoned military convoy. It consisted of two APCs, three jeeps, and a tank. Corpses lined the sides of the convoy, both military and infected, there had to be at least two hundred total. Infected roamed around eating the corpses, too many to safely attack even with one of the turrets on a jeep.
Gear led Dew around the massacre, taking a detour through another office building before stopping on the other side of the gates to a military FOB. He quietly locked the gates and looked around. More corpses, but few infected. It worried him that the military had been overrun so quickly, it was as though the outbreak had caught them so completely off guard that they couldn't respond in any kind of organized way. Even the tents looked hastily put up. He also wondered why he wasn't seeing more infected police, SWAT, and military personnel. He guided Dew into the makeshift armory tent to look around. Inside was completely empty save for a few stray bullets that were the wrong caliber for his gun. Both Gear and Dew flinched when they heard a massive explosion in the distance followed by some stray gunfire.
He heard faint talking nearby. A corpse in a military officer uniform nearby was holding a radio, mouth gaping open like he was about to yell orders into it. Gear picked up the radio, closing the officer's mouth as he did so, and flipped up the volume. "Break-break, this is squad 7, we need assistance near the hospital! There's too many of them and our MG position was just over run! Please respond!" Gear hit the switch to respond. "Squad 7, this is a civilian speaking. Your FOB was overrun, I'm sorry but no aid can get to you. Fall back to the docks, we're heading that way. We have guns." He listened to the radio for a response. "Copy that civilian, if you have time, grab the map in the command tent and a list of the other squad's frequencies. Alright! Fall back to the docks! Abandon the hospital!" The last part was muffled slightly.
Gear took Dew to the command tent which he assumed was the largest and entered. Inside was chaos, papers and radios littered the floor and there was even a small fire in the corner. A large map on one of the walls had red lines and marks all over it labeling troop movements and last known positions. Gear grabbed it and stuffed it under his bandoleer. A nearby radio burst to life. "FOB, come in, FOB, this is squad 3, The entire west end of the city is on fire, repeat, the entire west end of the city is ablaze, do you copy?" Gear motioned for Dew to look for the frequency list and picked up the radio. "Squad 3, this is a civilian speaking, the FOB is gone. Squad 7 is heading toward the docks and requires assistance, do you copy?" The radio burst to life again. "We copy, civilian, heading toward docks now. Tell squad 7 air support is on the way." Gear smiled a bit in relief. "Roger, over and out." He then took out the other radio. "Squad 7, come in, this is FOB civilian, do you copy?" There was static for a moment. "We read you, did you find the map and list?" Dew held up a list triumphantly. "Affirmative, we have them both. Squad 3 is flying in to assist you, keep your eyes open." There was a sigh of relief on the other end. "Roger that, the support is welcome."
Gear set down the radio and took the list from Dew. It had frequencies for squads 1 through 19. Squad 1, 9, 10, 11, 13, 17, and 18 were crossed off however. He checked the map and found those particular squads had been sent to various largely populated areas. He assumed they were overrun. A noise outside of the tent caught his attention, pulling him away from the map. He peeked outside and saw the corpses that were lying around standing up. "We have to go, now!" Gear hissed. He grabbed Dew and ran for the back of the tent. Outside was relatively quiet, the infected seemed to gather where there was a lot of noise or corpses so if they stuck to quiet areas, they'd be fine. As they walked, Dew's stomach growled. She laughed nervously. "Sorry, I'm a little hungry..."
Gear's stomach growled then. He smiled slightly. "Alright, let's find some food. It'd be embarrassing if we died of starvation after surviving so many infected." He said with a slight chuckle. He noticed a restaurant nearby and led Dew over to it. It was a fancy restaurant at some point but like most places, it was now abandoned. They made their way to the kitchen where breads, fruits, and vegetables sat out on cutting boards and in fridges. Gear made a crude salad out of the the various ingredients and served them both a bowl full. It didn't taste fancy but it was food. Another explosion, closer this time caused Gear to nearly choke on his food. He listened carefully but no gunfire followed. He turned to Dew. "Are you doing alright?" He asked.
"I'm fine... I wish mommy and daddy were here..." She said sadly. She picked at the salad hesitantly as though she were worried it were poisonous. Gear frowned and rubbed the back of his neck. Dew looked up at him. "I just noticed, your eyes are different colors. They're weird." She said. Gear chuckled.
"Yes, I suppose they are." He said. He had one green eye and one blue eye. He usually wore goggles to hide it, but he had discarded his goggles almost a week ago when they were too bloody to see through. He just hadn't had the time, or thought, to find a new pair. "I suppose we should get going soon." He said. He suddenly became aware of his leg wound. It hadn't been bothering him earlier because of adrenaline so he had forgotten about it. Now that he was just sitting and resting, an intense pain like someone smashing his arm with a sledge hammer started. His eye twitched and he clutched his arm in pain. "C-change of plan, we're going to... to sit here for a while." He said. Dew watched him worriedly for a while then grabbed the radio from him. She switched it to squad 3's frequency and spoke into it.
"Um, excuse me, this is another civilian, Gear, err, the pony you were speaking with earlier, is really hurt and can't walk. Could you send somepony to help us?" She asked. A moment later there was a response. "Copy that, give my your location and how many we're picking up. Over." Gear was focusing too hard on staying conscious to notice Dew on the radio. "Um, we're at a restaurant, It has a big bowl of lettuce on the sign and a bottle of something. There's only two of us." She said. "Read you loud and clear, sending three your way. Tell your companion we've met up with squad 7 and are en route to the docks." Dew thanked them and set down the radio to wait.
The sound of shattering glass pulled Dew Drop's attention away from Gear and the radio. It seemed to come from the front of the restaurant. Gear was still preoccupied with his arm so Dew went to investigate without him. She cautiously opened the door deciding the kitchen and dining area, listening for the moans of the infected. Instead, she saw some pony emptying the register in a bag. He was wearing a military pack, black padded clothing, a black bandana over his mouth, a military ballistic helmet, and a military flak vest. An M4A1 was slung over his shoulder with four magazines hanging off of the flak vest. "Hey! That isn't yours!" Dew Drop said angrily. The pony froze and looked over at her. He relaxed when he saw it was just a little filly.
"Yeah, well, no pony's using it so I'm taking it." He said, slightly muffled by the bandana. Dew Drop scowled at him and walked over. "That's stealing! Put it back right now!" The pony glared at her then grabbed her. "Shut up, would you!? I don't care! You know what, I'm taking you with me. You'll be a good distraction for those freaks." Dew struggled to get loose. "Gear! Help me! He's gonna kill me!" She yelled.
Gear snapped out of his distraction when he heard Dew scream. "Dew Drop!" He yelled. He unslung his MP5 and ran on his hind legs into the dining area. He kicked open the door and looked around frantically. His eyes landed on the bandit, aiming his M4A1 at Dew's head. "Drop her!" Gear yelled. He aimed the MP5 at the pony, holding it in one hoof, his other arm dangling at his side. The bandit glared at him and took a step back. "I don't think so bucker, one wrong move and I'll blow her brains out. Drop the gun and I might let her go." Gear looked at Dew and thought for a bit. "Fine! Fine. I'm putting down the gun. Just don't hurt her." He set the gun on the ground and kicked it away slightly. The bandit took another step back and smiled.
"Good." He aimed the gun at Gear. A shot rang out. Gear flinched and closed his eyes expecting pain. He opened his eyes and examined himself when he didn't feel anything. No bullet holes. He looked up and saw the bandit staring at him with a surprised expression. He dropped the gun and fell forward, a pool of blood forming beneath him. A rather large hole in the back of the ballistic helmet showed where a bullet had smashed a hole in his head. The helmet did next to nothing, the bullet had passed straight through both it and his head along with, if he had checked, two walls and the head of an infected.
He slumped in relief and ran over to Dew. "Are you alright?! I'm so sorry!" He said, looking her over for injuries. She sobbed into his shoulder, hugging him fiercely. Gear hugged her back, relieved she was alright. Hearing hoof steps, Gear looked up to see a second pony walking toward them. She was wearing a welding mask, bush hat, light brown ghillie suit, and a brown military pack. She carried a Barrett M82 in both arms, walking forward gracefully. "He wasn't very nice, now was he? I must thank you, I've been following him for a while and didn't know if I should shoot him or not." Gear watched her suspiciously, holding Dew tightly.
The mare shook her head and began rummaging through the bandit's back pack. "You two can have the gun if you want, I already have my rifle and a G18. Um... I'm going to take these explosives and half of the food and water though. It's a shame I had to ruin the ballistic helmet." She began transferring items from one backpack to the other. When she finished, she looked up at Gear and Dew. "Where are you two heading?"
Gear, still suspicious of her, pulled out the military radio. "I'm gathering the surviving military units at the docks, you're welcome to come with, I'm sure they'd appreciate another gun." She shook her head and slung her rifle over her back. "Thanks, but no. Other ponies are just a liability, the only reason I haven't shot you is because you seem like a good pony. Be careful out there, ya hear? Oh, I might come to the docks later if I feel I'll have a better chance of surviving there, but that's not likely. I guess I'm just the best at fighting alone." She turned and walked out of the building, looking both ways then galloping off to the right. Nearly the moment she disappeared around the corner, three pegasi in full combat gear armed with AR-15s landed outside. Gear quickly grabbed his MP5 from where he had dropped it and the M4A1 from the corpse of the bandit. He put the items on his bandoleer in the military pack and the clips for the bandit's gun as the three soldiers entered the restaurant.
"Are you the two civilians we're picking up? Show us the map." One said. He was light green with a brown patch of hair over his left eye. Gear held up the map and unfolded it along with the radio frequencies. The pegasus clicked on a radio and turned to speak into it. "We found them, bringing them back now." He clicked off the radio and motioned for them to follow. A female picked up Dew Drop and put her on her back while the other two soldiers put Gear in a blanket and carried him that way. The three flew off in the direction of the docks quickly, scanning the streets as they went. Gear watched Dew as she clung for dear life to the back of the female soldier. After a short flight of around fifteen minutes, the three pegasi landed on the roof of a building at the docks. Squad 7 had set up four machine gun nests and a sniper position with some sandbags and wooden boards. Squad 3 was currently setting up a couple of tables and radios along with a large corkboard for the map.
five civilians were taking inventory of food, water, and ammunition nearby while three more pitched some tents. A sizable mob of Infected clawed at the walls around the building they were on, trying to get up. Gear handed the map and list of frequencies to the pony in charge before noticing two of the ponies taking inventory were familiar. Nurse Redheart and one of the guards that had disappeared earlier were counting a couple crates full of food and water. "Redheart! Whistle! You're alright!" They both jumped in surprise at hearing their names. Redheart was the first to respond.
"Oh hey, look who hasn't given up. From the looks of it you've been doing the exact opposite of what I've been telling you to do! Celestia, I can see the bone!" She said while taking off his bandages. "How are you even still conscious!? Or even alive for that matter, you've lost a lot of blood! You'll be lucky if I don't have to amputate! What the Buck is wrong with you!?" She ran back to the table to grab her medical kit. Whistle walked over with a frown. "Nice to see you're ok. It took me and Iron forever to find you ponies again, but we only found nurse red heart. She killed twelve of the infected with a scalpel! I counted! They were lying all around her in a big pool of blood!" He laughed.
"Iron's here? Where did you two go that night?! We looked everywhere!" Gear asked. Whistle smiled and looked over at the ponies pitching tents. "He's right over there. That night I was awake to keep watch and we saw a huge group of infected heading for us. So we went out and lured them off course, saving your lives." He frowned at Redheart. "She won't tell us what happened to the other three. When we ask her she just scowls and looks away." Dew ran over to Gear then and sat next to him. "Whoa! Your shoulder! I can see the bone! What did you do to it?!" She exclaimed. Gear slapped his face and shook it. Nurse Redheart came back and set up the kit then grabbed the second medkit from Gear.
"I've got to sew up the muscles and arteries now instead of just skin. I hope you had a good reason for potentially loosing your arm." She said glaring at him. He looked down at Dew Drop and smiled a little. "Yes, yes I did." She smiled up at him and leaned against his good arm. Nurse Redheart sighed and moved toward his shoulder. "Yes, I suppose you did." She said before jabbing in the needle to begin sewing.
After fifteen minutes of having his arm sewn back on, receiving a blood transfusion, and a stern lecture from Redheart, Gear made his way, carefully, over to the makeshift command center. "Is there anything I can do to help?" He asked the pony who appeared to be in charge. He was a stern looking colt with a large scar running down his nose and, ironically, an FNH SCAR on his back. He was tan in color with green eyes.
"You're the civilian that told us to go here, correct? Thanks, we just about fell apart at the hospital. If you want to help, use the radio to bring in the rest of the squads. A couple are crossed off though, meaning HQ lost contact with them before they were over run, try calling them anyway. If you can, get squad 1 up here. One MG team is good, but two is great." The pony said. Gear nodded and made his way over to the radio. "Also, you're no longer a civilian, you're a private now. Hop to it."
Gear switched the radio frequency to squad 1's. "Break break, this is private Axis with squad 7, come in squad 1." He waited for a response for half a minute then spoke again. "Squad 1, this is squad 7, please respond." He waited and a moment later there was a quiet, whispered response. "Private Axis, this is Staff Seargent Crowbar, what do you want?" Gear nodded in satisfaction. "We're gathering squads at the docks, you need to get over here." A civilian placed a bottle of water next to him and walked away. Gear thanked him and took a sip. "No can do, we're trapped in the east police station, there're too many infected outside and we have civilians here." Gear frowned. "How many of you are there?" He asked, eyeing the eight members of squad 3. "Four civilians, Two officers, me, and specialist Recoil." He said. Gear frowned. "Are you telling me only two of squad 1 are still alive?" He asked. He motioned for the pony in charge to come over and listen.
"That is affirmative, there are only two of us left. We did manage to grab most of the ammunition and two of the saw guns though." The pony in charge seized the radio. "Crowbar, this is Sabre, we have squad 3 here with us, if you need extraction, we can come get you. Are there any Pegasus with you?" "That is affirmative Sabre, one of the officers and a civilian are pegasi, please send squad 3." Sabre tossed the radio back to Gear and went back to bark orders at Squad 3.
Squads 2, 4, 5, and 6 were unresponsive so he moved on to 8. "Break break, this is squad 7, come in squad 8." Almost instantaneously there was a response. "Oh Celestia it's good to hear a voice! We need fire support at the north end of the docks! We're almost out of ammo! Seargent Bayonnet is down and we got separated from half of our squad!" Gear looked north but the docks were long and buildings blocked his view. "We're at the docks as well, fall back south until you see us, we'll clear a path." There was a burst of gunfire over the radio. "Roger that! On our way!" Sabre, who had been listening, dispatched two gunners to clear a path. They opened fire on the the mob of infected below until it was safe enough to get down. Two other gunners provided support, shooting the infected that tried to go after them.
Squad 9 and 10, as it turned out, were transporting squads 20-25 in the convoy Gear and Dew had passed earlier. Contacting squad 10 had yielded the information along with the knowledge that only five of the total 64 soldiers were alive. Squad 11 didn't respond and squad 12 was too busy setting up explosives in the sewers under the east section of the city. They hoped to collapse it in order to stop infected movements. Squads 13, 14, and 15 didn't respond. Squad 16 was at the very south end of the docks, had all of their ponies, and had managed to rescue 47 civilians somehow. Part of squad 7 and the three ponies in squad 8 were dispatched to assist them. Gear radioed squad 17.
A familiar voice came over the radio. "Hello? Who may I ask is speaking?" Gear said nothing in surprise. It was the sniper who had saved Him and Dew at the restaurant. "Hello? Is any pony there? Hellooooo?" Gear shook his head and responded. "How did you get your radio?" There was a pause then the pony spoke. "Is this the pony I saved at the restaurant?" She asked. "That is affirmative, where did you get the radio." He demanded again.
"I found it." She said simply. "Also, I'm heading your direction. There's a huge mob of infected moving toward the city. I figured you ponies would feel safer with me there seeing as I'm the best sniper in Equestria!" Gear shook his head in frustration. "Where did you find the radio?" There was a sigh of exasperation on the other end. "I found it on the corpse of a soldier. There were eight corpses, that's also where I found my gun. I didn't kill any of them if that's what you're worried about. Well, while they were uninfected that is." Gear thanked her and informed Sabre.
"Dead huh? I'm not surprised, they were horrible snipers." He dismissed Gear before he could tell him about the mysterious mare that was on her way there. Squad 18 didn't respond and squad 19 was already on their way. Gear sighed and set the radio down on the table. He hadn't noticed but a large tent had somehow formed around him, the map and list of squads along with several desks and computers were all crammed into the tent making it somewhat cramped. He took another sip of water, attempting to ration it, and carefully made his way outside. The sun was setting now and the west end of the city was indeed on fire. Smoke rose up, blocking the sun almost entirely making it seem darker than it actually was. He could see several squads had arrived and, because of the room issues of the roof they were on, had spread to the roofs of two other buildings. He also saw a sniper nest on a nearby water tower. The roofs and water tower were connected with wooden boards, scraps of metal, and ropes. The materials were likely pilfered from the nearby half sunk ships. He looked around for Dew and saw her getting flight lessons from one of the soldiers. He recognized her as the pegasus that had carried Dew here. He left them alone and instead went to talk to Sabre. "Sir, where should I sleep?" He asked. Sabre gestured to a nearby tent and went back to talking to the other squad leaders. Gear entered the tent and collapsed on the sleeping bag. He fell asleep instantly.
Gear had slept so hard that the occasional burst of gunfire that night failed to even make him twitch. It was a deep dreamless sleep that he desperately needed, he wouldn't be able to continue if he couldn't sleep. The next morning Gear awoke at dawn with the sun barely above the horizon, most of the smoke had cleared over night leaving only a charred spot of ground where the fire had been. Gear stretched as much as he dared, trying not to tear open his wounds that Redheart had so un-carefully closed the former day. He stood, rattling the various objects attached to his bandoleer. The grenades he had found and some ammo clips were still on his bandoleer. His legs were still covered with the sporting pads but he had somehow lost his helmet somewhere. The MP5 was still slung to his side with the M4A1 stored carefully in his backpack. "I should probably drop these off somewhere..." He muttered.
"Yes, you should." Some pony said. He wheeled around to see the sniper was huddled in the corner of his tent with a blanket on. Dew was lying near by with a similar blanket, asleep. Gear almost yelled at her but didn't want to wake up Dew who needed to sleep. "What are you doing in my tent?" He said softly. The sniper shrugged, "They assigned me a tent when I got here, you were hogging all of the sleeping bags so I just set up in the corner." She said back just as softly. Gear wondered why they had paired a random Mare with a random Colt, then wondered if it wasn't random. "Did you ask to sleep in this tent?" He asked accusingly. She laughed softly and shook her head. "I mentioned that I had saved your life and they decided to stick me with you. Come on, let's go outside." She stood up carefully and placed her blanket on Dew carefully. Dew curled up tighter, holding the new blanket protectively.
Gear stepped outside, stepping to the side so the sniper could exit the tent as well. Gear noted that she was still wearing the entire ghille suit, mask included, and her hat. "What's with the Ghille suit? Are you horribly disfigured or something?" He asked only half joking. She chuckled and shrugged. "I have a perfectly logical reason for wearing this ghille suit, just give me a while to think of it. What's your name by the way?" She said.
Gear nodded and extended a hoof. "Gear Axis. Nice to meet you." He said. She nodded. "Just call me Sniper for now." She responded.
"Gear! You're awake!" He heard behind him. Gear turned around to see whistle running toward him. Whistle skidded to a halt next to him and Sniper in excitement. "Staff Sargent Sabre told us you pulled in all of the squads, that's awesome! There's like, fifty soldiers here!" He said excitedly. Gear laughed slightly and shook his head. "It was nothing, the soldiers did much more work than I did." Sniper seemed to notice somepony coming and quickly stepped behind Gear to be less noticable. Before Gear could ask, he heard somepony yelling his name.
"Gear! You're alive!" Twilight and Shining Armor made their way over to him happily. Gear smiled in their direction. "So are you! Where's Applejack?" He asked concerned. Twilight smiled and gestured to a large tent on a different roof. "She's helping to cook food. Come on! Tell us what happened! We thought you were serious about killing yourself!" She said. Sniper looked at him, head tilted as if to say 'You what now!?' Gear laughed nervously and sat down. The others followed suit. Thinking some kind of story was about to be told, three soldiers stood back far enough to look like they weren't paying attention, but could still hear.
"Well, I was going to jump out of a building, but I saw somepony in the next building over. I jumped over as hard as I could but landed in the window below her. Um... then I fought off four or five zombies with a kitchen knife before rescuing her... We made our way through town and stopped at a sporting goods store but it was overrun shortly after our arrival. We left via the roof and broke into an office building at the other end of the block. That's where I found my MP5 and some other things. Let's see... we left and got something to eat at a restaurant where some pony tried to kill us both but Sniper-" Sniper stiffened with pride. Gear looked at her strangely then shook his head. "saved us. Oh! We found an overrun military forward operating base before the restaurant. That's where we came into contact with Squad 7 and 3. We gathered some items then left for the docks. That's pretty much what happened." He said. One of the soldiers cheered in approval then started in surprise before running away, embarrassed.
Dew exited the tent groggily and looked around. Her eyes met Gear and she walked over to him, sitting down next to him. "Mornin..." she mumbled. Gear smiled at her then looked back up at the others. "That's an interesting story, I hope you're not thinking of doing anything like that again!" Twilight scolded. Gear muttered an apology and looked down. Sabre walked by then, catching Gear's attention. "Oh! Sir, where do I drop off extra food and weaponry." He asked. Sabre jumped and look at him. "What? Oh, food in the mess tent, weapons in the armory. Everypony is allowed to have one gun on them along with one melee weapon while on the roofs." He said. He turned and walked away toward the other squad leaders. Gear stood. "It was nice seeing everypony again, I may have work to do so I should drop off my stuff then find somepony." He said. Sniper nudged him and pointed to the sniper nest on the water tower, implying that's where she'd be. Gear wondered why she was acting so strangely but let it go.
Gear left the others, walking slowly so Dew wouldn't have to exert too much energy keeping up with him. He stopped at the armory tent and dropped off everything except for the combat knife and MP5 along with its clips. He remembered the key card and showed it to the pony in charge. "Do you know what this is for? I found it on a SWAT officer's corpse." The pony took it and examined it closely. "Looks like the key to the station's munitions locker. I'll inform Sabre later." He said. Gear nodded and headed for the mess tent next to get breakfast. Dew followed behind him, still half asleep. It was the most relaxed he had been in a long time.
Gear entered the mess tent to see several civilians and soldiers were eating at three long tables that were set up near the left edge of the tent. The right edge was the kitchen and serving area, Applejack appeared to be cooking oatmeal with apples in it while another pony made waffles. Gear lead Dew to the end of the line and picked up a tray for both of them. They were served a strange looking waffle and the oatmeal Applejack was making. The pony serving food was a very stern pony wearing a hairnet and white apron, he carried a metal ladle though he wasn't using it. Gear took the food to the nearest open seat and set it on the table. Dew climbed up onto the bench next to him and looked at the food. "I don't like oatmeal." She said. Gear sighed, slightly amused.
"Just try it, if you don't like it, I'll give you my waffle." He said, eating a spoon full of the oatmeal. It was bland on its own but the apples made it better. Dew cautiously took a bite of oatmeal and chewed thoroughly. She then took another bite and continued to eat. Gear smiled and tried some of the oatmeal on the waffle. The waffle was worse than the oatmeal, probably just flour, water, and a small amount of sugar. It was fine though, he wasn't going to be picky at such a time. Dew finished her oatmeal and began nibbling on the waffle. Nurse Redheart sat down across from them with her own food and looked at Gear's shoulder.
"How's your shoulder doing? Haven't torn it open yet?" She asked. Gear shook his head, finishing off the waffle. "No, not yet. It's fine, it doesn't hurt that much." He replied. Redheart smiled at Dew. "And how are you doing? No cuts, bruises, muscle aches?" She asked.
"No, I'm fine!" Dew said around bites of waffle. Redheart smiled sweetly. "Well it's nice to see you at least know how to keep others out of harms way." She said toward Gear. He scoffed and rolled his eyes before looking in his bowl to see if there was any oatmeal he'd missed. There wasn't. Redheart gave him her waffle. "Here, you need energy to heal up and I'm not that hungry." She said. Gear accepted the waffle and broke it in half, giving half to Dew. She nearly squealed with joy and began eating it.
The two ponies watched Dew eat for a bit before looking back at each other. "Well, just keep your bandages dry and come see me if it starts hurting. I'll be in the medical tent on the roof closest to the water tower." Redheart said. Gear nodded and ate the last of the waffle she'd given him. Just then, they heard a commotion outside. Thankfully it wasn't panic and screaming, but excitement and joy. Everypony in the tent left their seats to see what was going on. Dew followed Gear closely, not wanting to get trampled by the many ponies gathering around the command tent. A pony outside was yelling for everypony to quiet down.
Gear picked up Dew and placed her on his back so she'd get a better view as the pony spoke. "As some of you know, squad 19 brought a long range radio with them. We haven't had any luck finding a signal, but this morning at 07:35 we got a faint signal. It sounded military but was too weak to tell, we will inform you as events-" A pony stepped out of the tent and whispered something to the pony before re-entering the tent. "I have just been told that the radio has reached the battle ship, Cadenza, off the coast of Whinypeg." There was a cheer of excitement from the gathered crowd. A couple bursts of gunfire from the MG nests around the roofs silenced them, reminding them that they were in a dangerous area. The pony waited for every pony to quiet down before continuing.
"They're only three days away right now and on their way. We just need to hold out until then." He said. Every pony murmured in excitement at the thought of being rescued in just three days. Gear smiled up at Dew who was bouncing up and down on his back excitedly. Ponies began to disperse as the pony had nothing left to say. Gear pushed his way through the crowd to get to the command tent, passing Twilight and Whistle on the way without noticing. Gear pushed into the command tent and saw Sabre at the radio with a nervous expression. Every pony around him looked guilty.
"Sir?" Gear asked in confusion. Sabre started in surprise and looked up at him. "Oh, Private Gear. Is something wrong?" Every pony seemed to change from guilty to busy in half a second. "Sir, what's going on. I mean really." He said, cutting off Sabre when he opened his mouth to reply. Sabre frowned. "Everything is as what was stated, Civilian, please move along." He put emphasis on civilian. Gear frowned back at him, stepping back out of the tent. Suspicious of the strange behavior, Gear decided to try to find Plank, the pony the sporting goods store owner had suggested.
He went from pony to pony, asking if they knew Plank, but none did. He went through half of the civilians before getting a tip that Plank was likely to be in his workshop near the north end of the docks, assuming he were still alive. Gear gathered up his friends, Whistle, Iron, Twilight, Applejack, Redheart, Shining Armor, and Trixie, bringing them to a secluded spot on the roof. Dew was still sitting in his back as he had forgotten to let her down. When he sat down, she tumbled off onto the ground. "Ow!" She yelped. Gear turned to look at her.
"Oh! Sorry!" He said. He turned back to the others. "Does any pony else get the feeling that something's not right here?" He asked, looking around. Sniper raised a hoof but still refused to speak. Shining Armor spoke instead. "I do, it only takes one day to get from whinypeg to Stalliongrad by boat. Two days max if the engines are damaged." He said. Twilight sighed in frustration. "Maybe they just need to stop in Las Pegasus to pick up more ponies, come on, why would they lie to us?" She asked. Applejack nodded in agreement.
"Ya'll are just nervous, they'll be here in three days to pick us up and bring us to the islands!" She said. Gear pursed his lips and looked at Applejack. "That's another thing that bothers me. Why not try to contact the islands directly? Shouldn't that have been their first attempt?" Iron scoffed. "They probably did try and just couldn't get a response. The islands are much further away and they said the reception was bad." Whistle looked at him strangely. "They would have told us, wouldn't they?" He asked. Gear shook his head. "I don't know... I have an idea, but I don't want to leave you ponies behind. There may be somepony who can build or repair a boat near the north end of the docks. If we can get him to build us a ship, we can leave for the islands." He said.
Twilight began to get angry. "Iron just said the islands are really far away, what happens if the boat sinks or we run out of food before reaching the islands? We'll all die!" She said. "And what if the boat does get here three days from now and we miss out on an easy trip to safety?" She continued fiercely. Gear sighed. "Well, I just want to have a second way out, I say we go get the boat built and have it ready to leave at a moment's notice. If the boat really does come in three days, we can board it then and leave with every pony else. Sniper told me a huge mob of infected are here as well, if we get overrun before three days we should be able to escape, yes?" He asked. Redheart, who had been fairly quiet during the conversation, spoke up. "I think it's a good idea." She said.
Twilight sighed in defeat. "Fine. But I get to say I told you so when the ship arrives in three days." Applejack and Iron agreed. "I'll come along, Iron wouldn't know his head from his rear without me." He said, putting an arm around Iron affectionately. "Somepony has to keep Twily out of trouble so I'll come too." Shining Armor said. Redheart smiled at Gear. "You'll need somepony to torture your wounds closed if you rip me open again, I'm in." Sniper walked over to and sat down next to Gear, nodding as if to say 'Just try and stop me from coming'. Dew nodded sagely. "Yes, it's a wonderful idea, I'll come too!" Gear smiled at every pony in relief. Even if it was just his nerves, it was nice to know the others had his back.
Ensign Wave had heard everything over the radio on the bridge where he was hiding. The battleship Cadenza was to arrive at Stalliongrad that night to evacuate the military personnel then shell the city. It made him sick. The navy had been ordered to sink boats and keep more boats from going to the islands, not shell a city full of potential survivors. Staff Sargent Sabre had claimed the city was beyond recoverable conditions but Wave knew that was a lie, even if the city was completely overrun with infected, the princesses would want them to search for survivors. Wave took the ship's announcement system and turned it on. "Everypony on board, this is Ensign Wave speaking from the bridge. The Battleship Cadenza has gone rouge and we must try to stop them! All surviving crew members are to report to battle stations immediately and barricade yourselves inside. Terminate all infected you come across with extreme prejudice." He commanded.
The Battleship, named The Celestia as it was the fastest and most powerful ship in the fleet, was currently floating off the shore of Las Pegasus. Unknown to the rest of the crew, a single pony on board was sick. When he turned, he managed to infect nearly half of the crew, they in turn, killed most of the rest. Ensign Wave had barricaded himself in the bridge to avoid the infected on board. Everypony he had been in command of were now infected and trying to claw in through the door. He heard gunfire somewhere on deck and looked out. Two ponies with M14s were firing on three advancing infected. The crack of the rifles could be heard clearly from the bridge. After dispatching the three infected, the two ponies took their positions in an anti-air gun. He flipped on all the radios and pulled out the headphones so he could hear everypony speaking. The radio connecting the bridge to the engine room came on.
"We are in position sir! We have just barely enough ponies here to opperate the engines!" The radio to the front most gun spoke next. "We don't have enough ponies to operate this thing! We've got all three barrels loaded but once we fire, we're out!" He responded quickly. "Turn the gun parallel to the ship on the port side! We'll try to broadside them." The radio for the back gun came on. "Sir, half of us are here, we can reload and fire, but slowly." Wave thanked him and picked up the radio for the mid gun. "Gun 2 what is your status? Gun 2?" There was no response. Everypony who was still alive, 74 in total, were in their positions. 8 were on the anti-air guns, 38 were in the rear gun, and 10 made it to the front gun. 20 more were in the engine room. Wave took the wheel and started the ship forward. The Celestia roared to life and began rushing toward Stalliongrad.
It took fifteen minutes for The Cadenza to come into view. Wave tried to contact it via radio. "Cadenza, this is the Celestia. You're disobeying direct orders, return to your position at Whinypeg or be relieved of duty, violently." He said. The response took a moment. "Celestia, this is the Cadenza, we're here on orders from General Shell. We're to pick up the surviving squads and destroy the city." Wave glared at the ship from his spot. "That is a negative Cadenza, General Shell would not give such an order. Abort mission now!" The Cadenza began turning to starboard to put the Celestia in their sights. Wave turned to starboard as well so the guns facing port could fire. "This is your last warning Cadenza! Abort mission!" He yelled into the radio. The guns on the Cadenza turned to face the Celestia. "That is a negative Celestia, we're carrying out our orders." Wave nabbed the radios to the guns. "FIRE!" He screamed into them just as the guns on the Cadenza opened fire. Nine 2700 pound rounds slammed into the Celestia, blowing up the center gun and part of the conning tower. Wave was thrown backward away from the steering wheel as an explosion overhead destroyed all radar and radio equipment. Six shells, meanwhile, hit the Cadenza, destroying the engine room and severely damaging the front and mid guns. Wave stumbled to up and grabbed the radios. "Gun 1! Evacuate! Help Gun 3! Gun 3! Reload and fire at the bridge!"
The one intact gun on the Cadenza was ready to fire by the time three new shells were put into the gun on the Celestia. It fired, destroying the front gun completely. The other two guns on the Cadenza, meanwhile, were on fire and inoperable at the moment. The Celestia's gun aimed and fired, the shell tore through the air at 2,690 feet per second and hit the bridge of the Cadenza, blowing it to pieces. The entire conning tower collapsed inward, smashing the front two guns. The rear gun on the Cadenza fired for the third time, barely missing the third gun on the Celestia. The Celestia fired another shot, destroying the last gun on the Cadenza. The crippled battleship tilted toward starboard, the entire deck ablaze sending up huge plumes of black smoke.
The Celestia reloaded and took aim one last time, at the direct center of the Cadenza. It fired, sending its three 16 inch 2700 pound rounds smashing through the ship. The center of the ship exploded, sending pieces of metal in every direction. The ship split in half and began to sink slowly. A second, larger explosion nearly incinerated the front end of the ship, the blast was so massive that the shock wave cracked the windows on the bridge of the Celestia. The door to the hallway burst open to reveal 5 infected, they were just the ones in sight. Wave got ready to fight when a huge piece of the Cadenza, the piece with the D painted on it, sheared off half of the tower. It took the infected with it. Wave stood, stunned at how lucky he'd been, the bridge was intact enough that it wasn't collapsing, but was destroyed enough that the infected would be unable to reach him. Of course, now there was no way to steer the ship.
He stood on the edge of the broken tower and looked out at the ship. A fire had started on the front most gun and there was a huge hole where the mid gun had been, but otherwise the ship was still floating. He picked up the comms system and tried it. "Attention crew, there is a fire in the front gun, please put it out." To his relief, ponies began appearing on deck with firefighting equipment. Several ponies stood guard with guns to shoot any infected that found their way up. Luckily, nopony had been killed or injured during the fight on the Celestia, the Cadenza, however, had lost 98% of her crew, the other 2% in a single life raft, floating toward the Celestia. He'd pick them up but keep an eye on them.
Chief Warrant Officer Cog Axis and his 21 pony detachment had just barely been able to get to a lifeboat before the Cadenza sank entirely, he and his crew had been on deck repairing several anti-air guns before the fight had broken out. He ordered every pony to simply take cover until the fight was over but when the ship began to tilt, he deployed a lifeboat and got everypony on it. When the ship exploded, he and his detachment went around picking up survivors, 35 in total, and began paddling over to the Celestia. Most of the ponies he'd picked up were deck crew, five were in the front gun and had managed to climb out through a hole before the explosion. Nine more had been below decks and had somehow managed to swim out before getting trapped.
He had no idea why the Celestia had fired on them and it made him angry, he decided to yell at whoever was in charge until his voice gave out. As the life raft neared the Celestia, four ponies on deck threw ropes to them to grab onto. Cog made sure everypony was off the raft before boarding the ship himself. He hoisted himself up the ladder and looked around once on deck, it was almost completely ruined, the entire front of the ship was either missing deck or was too damaged to walk on safely. He frowned up at the conning tower which was now half of its original size and cleaved in half, a single pony was looking down at the oncoming survivors.
Three ponies were attempting to toss a rope ladder up to him so he could get down, but he was fairly high up. After a couple of tosses, they finally managed to get the ladder up, Ensign Wave made his way down onto the deck to greet the newcomers. Cog walked up to him and glared at him furiously. "What in Celestia's name were you thinking?! You just destroyed an allied ship!" He yelled at him.
Wave frowned. "I didn't have a choice. I warned you three times to abort but you just kept going." He said. Muffled gunfire took their attention away from each other. There were a couple of shouts followed by more gunfire, then two ponies came up from below decks. One was backing up the stairs, firing down with his M14 rifle while the other clutched his side, he'd been bitten.
"What's going on?!" Cog demanded as the injured pony made his way over to Wave. The other ponies had begun to disperse and the pony firing into the stairwell was joined by two others. The pony stopped next to Wave.
"Ensign, sir, the infected broke into the engine room. Everypony's alright but they could really use assistance getting up." He said. He looked at his hoof, seeing a fair amount of blood on it, then went back to clutching his wound.
"There're infected on board?" Cog asked in shock. He looked at the man's wound. "You were bitten! You need to be euthanized before you turn!" He said, beginning to panic slightly.
"No pony's euthanizing any pony. What's your blood type?" He asked the sailor.
"B- sir. I know, I'm immune. Doesn't mean I can't get killed though eh?" He said, looking at his bloodied hoof again.
"You should have told us your ship was full of infected! We could have gotten you on board the Cadenza!" Cog exclaimed. Nothing was making sense to him.
"You don't know why we opened fire? The Cadenza was en-route to destroy a city full of potential survivors against orders. Your captain wouldn't turn back so we stopped him forcefully." Wave said. The pony from the engine room wandered off as the two of them talked. More gunfire made Cog flinch before he could continue.
"I didn't know that. I'm sure if the crew had known, we would have put a stop to it..." He looked back at the area the Cadenza had sunk. Debris floated around in the water, some on fire.
Wave nodded. "I'm sure you would have, however, given the circumstances, there was no other option. Unfortunately we can move, but can't steer so that needs to be fixed before we can get anywhere. Reinforcing the hull under guns 1 and 2 is what we need to focus on right now." He told Cog.
Cog looked at him in confusion. "Ok, but, you don't sound remorseful, do you even regret sinking the Cadenza a little? You killed almost everypony on board!" He said.
Wave sighed and walked to the railing, Cog followed him curiously. "It is unfortunate that I had to kill so many innocent ponies, but in times of emergency sacrifice is expected. The ship, MY ship, is falling apart and needs to be fixed. I can't afford to let anything distract me until the ship is completely out of danger. That includes clearing the entire ship of infected. You can remain angry at me, or you could suck it up and help me salvage the situation. It's your choice." He said. Cog nodded and awaited instructions. Wave was only one rank above him, but he still had to follow the orders of his superiors.
It didn't take very long to free the trapped ponies below deck, by which point Cog and his detachment, along with ten armed guards, had started reinforcing the ship's hull. They welded long strips of metal to the inside and outside of the damaged areas of ship to ensure it wouldn't split any time soon. While they worked on that, Wave and the rest of the crew began clearing the lower decks of infected. First they fought their way to the armory to get supplies, then cleared every room one at a time.
Three hours later, the hull repairs were done and the lower deck was full of more than 2000 corpses. They had almost completely depleted the armory, leaving them with only enough ammunition that everypony would have two clips for their gun. The only problem on the ship now was that it couldn't currently be steered. It would be dark soon.
