... lets try this again shall we? (edited) ((the reason for all the dislikes is because the first verson sucked. it's better now.))
The four survivors, Coach, Ellis, Rochelle and Nick, were going to retrive some fuel for their friend, Virgil's boat to take them to the city of New Orleans. Unfortunetly, the 'Infected' have other plans. After a large hurricane, the four survivors end up in a bright and cheerful place that seems like they have no zombies... right?
Four lone people were standing on the rooftop of a local diner in the town of Ducatel, Mississippi. They had fought their way through the states of Georgia and Louisiana, U.S.A. fighting off people infected with the mysterious disease only known as ‘green flu’. The youngest one, Ellis, called out to his fellow three companions, Coach, Rochelle, and Nick.
“Are y’all ready? I’m turning on the sign to call Virgil!” he called out as he turned on the sign. A collective shriek of infected ran out through the overrun town. The survivors faced all sides of the roof as the horde of infected came by the hundreds.
“Here they come!” shouted Ellis as the first few infected climbed the building.
Rain pounded down on the survivors heads. Fighting the infected on the local Burger tank diner rooftop in the middle of a hurricane waiting for Virgil to pick them up in his boat was not what they would call ‘fun’.
“Hyeeh, hyeeh, hyeeh…” cackled a Jockey; a small ‘special’ infected that enjoyed leaping onto people and steering them into a random direction. Ellis turned around to bash an infected’s head off with a bat and coming face to face the deformed head rider.
“Jockey!” he yelled to warn the others of its presence. It cackled again and jumped at his head.
“AHH! IS THIS THING HUMPIN ME?!” he yelled over the wind of the hurricane.
“Jockey on Ellis!” yelled Coach, a former high school coach in Georgia who always had food on his mind, as he revved up his chainsaw and brought it down on the insane infected person. It screeched loudly as it fell limply off Ellis and lay still on the bloody rooftop.
“Thanks Coach,” said Ellis as he turned to see some more infected. He heard he wheezing of a Smoker, an incredibly tall infected that uses its long tongue to strangle the survivors, just seconds before it attacked Rochelle, a former news reported from Cleveland Ohio who was reporting the early stages of the infection in Savannah, Georgia when she met the others. Ellis grabbed his auto shotgun and fired it right between the Smoker’s eyes. It exploded into a cloud of smoke.
“Thanks, Ellis,” she said right before she started to resume shooting at the horde of infected. This was it. If they could just hold out a little longer, Virgil would pick them up and they would finally get to New Orleans. Ellis took a brief pause to absorb what was going on around him, Coach was mowing the infected down by the dozen, Rochelle had just shot a gas can which started to cause a fire to keep the infected at a distance and Nick, a con man who drifted into Savannah at the wrong place and time who was willing to do almost anything to keep is precious suit safe, was complaining that his suit would be ruined by all the rain and zombie guts.
In other words the situation was average. Or… as average as a zombie apocalypse could get. Ellis quickly turned his head to see if Virgil had arrived. And sure enough, their rescuer had seen the sign and was calling for them to hurry up.
“Hurry y’all, Virgil’s here!” yelled Ellis over the wind.
The survivors then started to run to the boat. Unfortunately, a Jockey, Smoker, Hunter (an average sized infected that could jump over twenty feet into the air to catch and disembowel its prey), a Spitter (an infected woman who could spit a specialised ‘goo’ that burns when touched), a Boomer (a large, fat infected that could throw up a special kind of bile that attracted infected), a Charger (an infected male with an oversized right arm it used for crushing the survivors), and a Tank (a huge infected that was almost entirely muscle and not much else), along with a horde of infected stood in-between them and the boat. The survivors poured out their ammunition into the diseased flesh of the infected. Lightning flashed, illuminating the gigantic body of the Tank. It roared as it grabbed a chunk of the rooftop and hurled it at the survivors.
“SHOOT THE TANK!” yelled Nick as lightning continued to flash. It clicked empty as he tossed it aside and continued to run with the others.
Then everything started to move in slow motion. The seven ‘special infected’ all started to attack them near the end of the roof of the Burger Tank when the Tank threw a large chunk of concrete. It hit the sign and pointed it diagonally away from the building making it a large lightning rod. Then a bolt of lightning hit the sign and electrocuted the contents of the roof: rain water, Boomer bile, Spitter goo, gasoline, blood and the diesel the survivors were carrying to fuel Virgil’s boat causing a chain reaction and made the roof combust into flame and explode in a large black mushroom cloud. Virgil stared at the explosion in horror. Nothing could have survived that. Not even the indestructible four survivors. Virgil sat back in his seat and made a long, heavy sigh before moving off shore to wait ‘till morning to see what’s left…
Nick coughed and sat up from the ground. He took a look at his ruined suit from all the blood and diesel. “Aw, shit!” he muttered as picked himself up and looked for his gun. Then he stopped, vaguely remembered it running out of ammo. Cursing himself, he tried to get the other’s to wake up.
“Hey Ellis, I think I see Keith,” said Nick to a sleeping Ellis. He bolted upright, hoping to see his old friend with a thousand tales from before the infection hit.
“Huh?! Where?!” Ellis as Nick said started to laugh at him.
“Oops, false alarm. It was just a tree.”
Ellis glared at him. “That’s wasn’t funny Nick.”
“Yeah, yeah,” said Nick as he woke up Rochelle. She groaned slightly as she woke up.
“What happened? All I remember is the Tank throwing something at the sign,” she said as she stood up. She looked over her shoulder to see her axe still strapped to her back. She looked at Ellis and Nick. “Where’s Coach?”
“I don’t know,” said Ellis.
“He’s probably back at the Burger tank getting a cheeseburger,” replied Nick sarcastically.
“Boy, you’d want a cheeseburger too if you didn’t care ‘bout that damn suit so much,” said Coach as he walked up to his fellow three survivors. “Now, why don’t we head back to the dinner to tell Virgil that we’re alright?”
Twilight was panicking. Yesterday, there was a large storm that the pegasi couldn’t control. It was hurricane force winds and thank Celestia that nopony was hurt. But that wasn’t the reason Twilight was panicking, no, it was because the Princesses are coming to Ponyville n three days and they have no time to prepare and fix up the town. Spike had told her that the princesses would probably reschedule their visit after the town was fixed up.
“But Spike, who knows how long that will take!” said Twilight urgently.
“So? It’s better that letting the ponies who’s houses were damaged stay out in the cold while everypony else it preparing for the visit,” said Spike as he was putting books on one of the shelves.
Twilight sighed, “I hope the princesses will understand.”
“Man, that hurricane hit this place hard,” said Coach as he and the other survivors walked through the town they thought was Ducatel. The moon had risen in the sky.
“Don’t you think the houses are a bit… small?” asked Nick as he passed by a house.
“Maybe they have really short people here?” suggested Ellis, “kinda like the town my buddy Keith found while looking for a place to stay after he got kicked out of the cemetery he was staying in-“
“Ellis, not now,” replied Rochelle as she walked past a street sign, “Apple Street? I don’t remember seeing that on the way here. Are you sure were still in Ducatel, Coach?”
Coach glanced at her, “I don’t know. But we need to find a safe house before the infected beat our unarmed asses.”
“Don’t worry Coach, I got a guitar, Rochelle has an axe, Nick has a frying pan and you have your chainsaw. I think we can kill some of the sons a bitches,” said Ellis.
The group continued to pass through the deserted town until Coach found a bakery.
“Everyone, look what I found!” said Coach upon finding the building, “man, it looks like they got all kinds of food in there…” he said as he looked at cakes and other baked goods inside.
“Yeah Coach, maybe they got that cheeseburger you always wanted,” said Nick.
“Boy, if I find a cheeseburger I’m going to be a one man cheeseburger APOCOLYPSE,” said Coach as he broke the glass with the side of his chainsaw on one of the windows. The loud alarm sounded as lights and windows started to open all across the street.
“Here they come!” said Ellis as he readied his guitar weapon. To his and the other survivors surprise, no infected came out of the windows or doors. In fact, nothing appeared on the street while the survivors scrambled into the building and barricaded themselves inside. When they finally finished blocking the door and windows, Ellis felt something wrap itself around his chest. Suddenly, he was being dragged off by said thing.
“SMOKER’S GOT ME!” he yelled just before Rochelle brought down her axe on the Smoker’s tongue, slicing it in half. She bent down and picked up the severed piece of the tongue and held it up. The attacker made a gasping sound and bolted away. The survivors barely noticed as Ellis got himself off the floor. Rochelle looked at the tongue in interest as she realised what it was.
“Wait a second,” she said, “this is a rope.”
“What? Well who in the right mind would try to strangle me with a rope?” said Ellis, “like seriously, don’t they know that we have a hard enough time with the Smokers doing that?”
Suddenly, a loud voice called out from the other room.
“now, ah don’t know what a ‘Smoker’ is but let me tell you this,” the voice said, it sounded like a girl, “nopony breaks into mah friend Pinkie pie’s house and gets away with it.”
“Who said that?!” Asked Nick as he picked up his frying pan from the floor.
“Ah did,” said the voice as it flickered on the lights to reveal an orange pony with a nice hat. The survivors stared at the pony that was glaring at them.
“Oh mah gawd, a talking HERSEE!” shouted Ellis as he ran up to the pony.
“What the heck are yah doing?” said the pony as it backed away from Ellis, who promptly slipped on some icing and fell face first onto the floor.
“First zombies and now talking horses, what kind of flu is this?” said Rochelle as she lowered her axe. Coach walked up beside her.
“Girl, we’ve seen all kinds of crazy shit but this?” said Coach as Nick walked up to the small horse and asked it a question.
“What the hell are you supposed to be?” asked Nick curiously.
“Ah should be asking you the same question,” growled the pony.
Ellis’s head hurt. He opened his eyes and groaned. He saw that some thin rays of sunlight were poking through the holes in the barricade. He’d had the strangest dream. Picking himself off the diner floor, he looked around himself to see the boarded up windows and some pots and pans on the floor. He also saw Nick, Rochelle and Coach standing around something when he alerted them that he was awake.
“Hey yall, I’ve had the weirdest dream. Like, weirder than the zombie’s weird,” said Ellis, “it had these little houses and talkin’ horses.”
“uh Ellis,” said Nick, “that ‘dream’ you had. It might be more real than you think.”
Ellis blinked, “what?”
“take a look at this,” said Coach as he picked up whatever he, Nick and Rochelle were standing around to reveal what it was: a small orange pony knocked out cold.
“hey, that looks like that talkin’ horse that was in mah dream,” said Ellis.
“uh Ellis, said Rochelle, “hate to break this to you but, that wasn’t a dream.”
“what are you talking about? Taking horses ain’t real,” said Ellis as he walked over to Coach, “hey Coach, where did you find this thing?”
Coach looked at him, “that was no dream y’all had. This horse can talk,” he said, gently putting it on a table. Ellis poked the pony’s forehead with the top of his guitar. It stirred slightly.
“well, if it can talk, why isn’t it now?” he asked.
“this thing attacked you after we barricaded ourselves in here,” said Nick, “then you slipped on the floor and it attacked us with its rope. Coach here then hit its head with the frying pan and now were here.”
Ellis glanced at Coach, “you knocked out a talking horse with a frying pan?”
“What would you have done if a crazy talking horse thing started kicking your shins? Pet it?” asked Coach sarcastically. The two continued to argue on what who would have done with it. Rochelle sighed and spoke up.
“Ok, that aside, what are we going to do with this thing?” interrupted Rochelle. Ellis and Coach turned to her.
“Put it outside?” suggested Ellis.
Nick laughed, “Put it outside? We could get rich off of this thing.”
“Hate to tell you Nick but, who’ll pay to see this if the zombies are still out there?” replied Rochelle.
The pony on the table opened her slightly as the survivors continued to argue about what to do with it. To her surprise, she was still in Sugarcube corner. She jumped off the table and confronted the four invaders.
“Who are you and why did you break in?” she asked. The four survivors turned around to see pony.
“Oh mah god it does talk!” said Ellis excitedly.
“Well yeah ah can talk!” she said surprised, “Why wouldn’t I be able to?”
“Because you’re a horse?” said Ellis.
“Ah ain’t a horse I’m a pony,” she replied annoyed.
“Great, first zombies and now talking ponies,” said Nick, “what next, dragons?”
“Mah friend Spike’s a dragon,” she replied.
“Of course he is,” muttered Nick.
“So, who are you and why’d you break into Sugarcube corner?” asked the pony.
“Uh, in case you haven’t noticed miss, there are zombies out there,” replied Coach, “Were sorry about the windows.”
The pony laughed, “How dumb do you think ah am? Zombies? Those are only make believe!”
“They actually have some sort of disease,” said Rochelle, “they just act like zombies.”
The pony stared at them, “so what you are telling me is that there is a zombie apocalypse that happened overnight?” asked the pony.
“Actually, it’s been three weeks since the infection started,” said Ellis.
The pony stared at the four mysterious beings in her presence. She sighed and said, “Y’all ain’t from here, are you?”
“That depends, we still in Ducatel?” asked Coach.
“What’s ‘Ducatel’? Yer in Equestria,” said the pony.
“Where is Equestria? I don’t remember learning about that country in school,” said Ellis.
The talking pony sighed, “Where is this ‘Ducatel’ place? There should be a map here somewhere,” said the Pony, “hey Pinkie pie, do y’all have a map!” she called out.
“Are the monsters still down there Applejack?” a voice called, presumably Pinkie pie.
“Nah, they seem ok. There just lost,” said Applejack. A small pink pony’s head poked out from behind the counter.
“Really? That big one hit you with a frying pan,” she said. Coach rubbed the back of his head and looked away.
“Sorry ‘bout that, reflex,” he said, “so, do y’all have a map?”
The pink pony shook her head, “I don’t, but Twilight might,” she said.
“What’s with your names? Pinkie pie? Applejack? Twilight? What kind of names are those?” asked Nick.
Applejack glared at him, “what? If you think our names are funny, what are yers?”
“My friends call me Coach. I guess y’all can do the same. This is Rochelle, Ellis and Nick,” said Coach.
“Well, nice to meet you Coach, ahm Applejack and this here is Pinkie pie,” said Applejack.
“Pleasure to meet y’all,” said Ellis.
“Yeah, well, now that we have the introductions in order, how about seeing that map now? We’re kind of in a hurry,” said Nick. Applejack glared at him.
“Sure, follow me. You coming along Pinkie pie?” asked Applejack.
“Nope, sorry, have to clean up this mess!” she said as the survivors started to pick up their weapons. Applejack looked at Coach’s chainsaw.
“Hey Mr., what’s that?” she asked.
“This?” asked Coach as he held up his chainsaw, “this here is a chainsaw. Cut an infected clean in half.”
“What’s an infected?” she asked.
“Some mean son of a bitch that is hell bent on killing anything not infected,” replied Ellis, “used to be people like us.”
Applejack backed away, “wait, you mean y’all were KILLING people?” she asked horrified.
Rochelle walked up slowly to Applejack, “don’t worry. There aren’t any infected in here. You have no reason to worry.”
Applejack nodded slowly, “yeah, like I said, I haven’t heard of anything ‘infected’ here.”
Nick made an impatient sigh, “hey, now that we have that cleared up, how about taking us to this ‘Twilight’ person?”
Applejack glared at Nick, “sir, ah don’t like your attitude.”
Coach chuckled, “that makes two of us.”
A pair of sickly yellow eyes watched from a rooftop. It was watching the four survivors talking with the orange pony. It coughed; this infection caused it great pain in its lungs. It turned its head to see its partner, a Hunter. It growled at the sight of the survivors. Although they are all deformed, the infected still retain some forms of intelligence. The Smoker had made a plan and the Hunter was phase one of the plan to kill the survivors. The ponies however, were a different thing all together. Maybe food sources after the survivors are dead. The survivors and the pony unblocked the door and stepped outside. Then, the Hunter got into position to pounce one of the survivors.
The yellow pinprick of eyes narrowed at the sight of its prey in the early morning light: the youngest of the five leaving the building. It barred its teeth and crouched low to the top of the roof. It waited until its target was in full sight and pounced at him. It made a shrieking sound it an attempt to disorient its pack members.
“What the?!” said Ellis as the Hunter landed on top of him. His eyes bulged as he realised what it was, “HOLY SHIT! HUNTER!” he cried out to the surprise of the other four as the Hunter started to tear away at his chest. Nick reacted first and bashed the hunter with his frying pan as Coach revved up his chainsaw. The Hunter, following the plan, quickly fled the area by jumping away on rooftops as the survivors tried to figure out what happened. Nick helped Ellis to his feet.
“What the hell?! You said there weren’t any infected here!” Ellis said angrily at Applejack as he held his bleeding stomach. Applejack stared at him in surprise.
“W- What was that?” she asked, shaken by the sudden attack.
“That was a Hunter,” said Rochelle. She turned to Ellis and tossed him a bottle of pills, “here, take these.”
“Thanks,” said Ellis as he downed the bottle of pills. He shook himself slightly and said, “Much, much better now.” He turned again angrily to Applejack, “just what kind of infected are you? We’ve seen some crazy shit out there but we’ve never seen anything like you.”
Applejack backed away at the four angry strangers, they clearly thought Applejack had something to do with the sudden attack. “Ah swear; ah ain’t one of those infected and ah’ve never seen anything like that before.”
Nick rolled his eyes, “sure, and we’ve never seen trees before. Just what exactly are you planning next? A Tank?”
Applejack tilted her head, confused, “ah Tank? You mean like Rainbow dash’s tortoise?”
“A Tank is one big mean son of a bitch that can send you flying through the air with a single punch,” said Ellis, looking around for more infected. He failed to notice a small shadow descending on his head. A pair of magenta eyes glowed with determination as it crashed into Ellis’s head and tried to pull him away from the others.
“JOCKEY!” he yelled as he tried to pull the attacker off his head. Nick brought up the frying pan again and to try and swing it at the attacker.
“NO! STOP!” cried out Applejack, “Rainbow, get out of the way!”
Rainbow dash just barley jumped off Ellis’s head in time as Nick swung the frying pan full force and hit Ellis’s head. He stood there dazed for a moment and fell to the ground, unconscious. Coach checked Ellis to make sure he was alright and glared angrily at Applejack.
“Not an infected? Girl, you just led us into a Hunter and a Jockey ambush!” said Coach angrily as he brought up his chainsaw. Applejack backed away into a wall and Rainbow dash flew up into Coach’s face.
“HEY! You stay away from her!” she yelled. Coach blinked.
“What the hell? Flying Jockeys?!” he said as Rainbow dash kicked his face. “Aw DAMN IT! It’s on now you rainbow jockey bitch!” he said angrily as he started to try and hit the flying Rainbow dash who was repeatedly hitting his head. Rochelle yelled at him.
“STOP IT, NOW!”
He and Rainbow dash stared at her in surprise. Rainbow dash then quickly kicked Coach’s chainsaw out of his hands. Coach glared angrily at the Pegasus. Rochelle continued to speak.
“Coach, that isn’t a Jockey. It looks like her,” she said gesturing to Applejack, who was shaking slightly against the wall of the building. Rochelle walked up to her and knelt down. “Don’t worry; I know this is just a misunderstanding. They won’t hurt you,” she got back up and walked over to where Rainbow dash was hovering, “now, who the hell do you think you are for jumping Ellis?!”
The blue pony stared at Rochelle, “uh, Rainbow dash and I’m saving Applejack from four monsters?”
Rochelle narrowed her eyes, “and why, of the entire stupid thing you could have done, why did you jump him like a Jockey?”
“Jockey?” she asked, what’s that?”
“Oh great, more useless explaining,” muttered Nick.
“A Jockey is a thing that jumps on the back of someone’s head an rides them around,” answered Rochelle, “Ellis hates Jockey. The infected are the monsters. Not us.”
“So… you say you’re not monsters,” asked Rainbow dash, “then why’d you try to attack Applejack?”
“Like I said, it’s a misunderstanding. We’ve been surviving a zombie apocalypse for a week now and were lost,” said Rochelle, “there are very few people we can trust.”
“Ugh… what happened?” the five turned their heads to see Ellis clutching his head where Nick hit him with the frying pan. “Where’s the Jockey?” he asked.
“At apparently wasn’t a Jockey. It’s now a flying pony,” replied Nick, deadpan.
“What? First they can talk now they can fly? Where the hell are we?” he asked, confused.
“Were in Ponyville, duh,” said Rainbow dash. The four sniggered slightly.
“Ponyville? What did a seven year old name this place?” asked Nick.
Coach was chuckling, “I gotta agree with Nick, what kind of person names their town ‘Ponyville’?”
After the four got over the name of the town, the set of on their original purpose: to get a map from Twilight. They ventured through the town, getting strange looks from the citizens of the town. Ellis asked Applejack why they were staring at them.
“Probably because nopony’s ever seen anything like y’all around here,” she replied. As they continued to travel through the awakening town, Ellis occasionally heard the wheezing of a Smoker. He slowed down to walk with the other survivors, “hey, keep your eyes open. I think I hear a Smoker.” They nodded. Finally, they arrived at Twilights house. The four stared at it.
“Now, I’ve heard of a tree house but this is ridiculous,” said Coach, “how the hell is that tree still alive?”
“Dude, it must be some sort of magic,” said Ellis, “ah mean, look at some of this stuff. Flying ponies, dragons all that mythological shit. All they need are goddamn unicorns and there set!”
“’Goddamn’ unicorns?” said a voice from behind the tree door, “why do they’ need unicorns exactly,” the source of the voice opened the door behind a pile of floating books. The survivors stared at it.
“Is that what I think it is?” Nick asked Applejack. She nodded.
“I’m sorry but what do you want?” she put the books on the ground and turned to the four, “sorry but I-“she stopped in mid-sentence. She stared at the survivors. And they stared back.
“Uh… hi, name’s Ellis; these are my friends, Coach, Nick and Rochelle. We’re wondering if you have a map. Were kinda lost,” said Ellis. The pony continued to stare at them. “Uh, you ok?”
“Applejack, Rainbow dash, get inside my house. NOW!” she said as the two ponies went into the tree. Ellis could hear voices inside.
“What in Celestia’s name are those things?!”
“Ah don’t know. They broke into Sugarcube corner last night when ah was helpin her make some pies. Then these four showed up and barricaded the doors and windows,” said Applejack, “Ah tried to get one with ah rope but they cut it in half and called me something called a Smoker. Then ah woke up to them arguing. After they explained their situation, we left to go find you,” She finished. Rainbow dash snorted.
“Yeah, you forgot the part when they tried to kill us.”
Twilight’s eyes bulged, "WHAT?! They tried to kill you and you still stayed with them?!” Applejack put her hoof on Twilight’s shoulder as she started to panic; “there are four killers outside my house!”
“Now hold on sugar cube, it was a misunderstanding. They come from a place with some sort of infection that’s turning things like them into zombies,” said Applejack. Twilight laughed at her.
“Zombies? They told you they came from a place with zombies? How dumb to they think we are?” she laughed.
Applejack looked sternly at Twilight. “They ain’t lying. Ah saw one with mah own eyes. They called it a Hunter of something.”
Twilight glanced at her, “really? A zombie just happened to walk up right after they told you about them?”
“More like it jumped on him,” said Rainbow dash, “I was flying around when I saw this thing jump from a roof and land on one on them. It started to claw away at his chest until the taller one with the brown mane hit it with a frying pan.”
“A frying pan?” said Twilight, “they killed a zombie with a frying pan?”
“Nope, it ran away, coward,” said Applejack.
“and then they tried to kill Applejack,” said Rainbow dash, “I, being awesome, jumped on the one who was just attacker’s head and tried to steer him away from Applejack. They sort of got mad.”
“More like downright flipped out,” muttered Applejack.
“Yeah. And after the darker one with the black mane got mad at the other three, we led them here,” finished Rainbow dash. “Hey Applejack, why they want to come here anyways?”
“’cause we're looking for a map,” said Ellis as he opened Twilight’s door but didn’t go inside. “We must have gotten lost in a hurricane and somehow ended up here.”
Twilight’s ears perked up upon hearing the word ‘hurricane’. “Excuse me uh…”
“Ellis. My name is Ellis.”
“Ellis, did you say you got lost in a hurricane?” she asked.
“Yep, we were fighting off some zombies waiting for Virgil to pick up in his boat. We were out getting diesel to fuel it,” said Ellis. Twilight stared at him, Coach Rochelle and Nick.
“You say there are zombies where you come from?” she asked, “where exactly DO you come from?” she said as he levitated a map from one of here atlas’s. The survivors looked at it.
“Is this a joke? This isn’t the right map. We’re from the United states,” said Nick.
The Smoker’s tongue shot out at an unsuspecting chicken. It screeched at the sudden attack as the tongue slowly strangled it to death. The Smoker then proceeded to pound the dead chicken into a tree until it was just a fleshy mass of flesh and feathers. It then started to eat what was once a chicken. Blood splattered all over the Smoker’s diseased flesh and sun burnt skin. It turned to see the Charger pound a fully grown bear into a tree, snapping both the tree and the bear’s spine, in half. After it pounded it into the ground enough times, the Charger then orced the flesh into its deformed mouth. The Smoker wheezed.
Once the Charger had finished eating, phase two of the plan would begin.
A peculiar shrieking sound escaped the bloody jaws of the Spitter. She, like the Smoker, preferred a more… indirect way of dealing with the survivors. A small stream of her deadly ‘Spitter goo’ dripped from her burned mouth. She, like her fellow infected, was searching for food in this strange world. She heard some rustling from the leaves. It stood more upright with its unnaturally long neck sticking forward and it emitted another shriek. Any form of intelligent prey would know instantly that this… thing was unnatural. But, despite its inner protest, the being that was the source of the rustling poked its head out of the bush it was hiding in and made a small ‘eep’. The Spitter blinked. The Smoker and Hunter weren’t lying; there really were flying ponies here. It slowly walked up to the surprise Spitter.
“Oh, um, sorry to bother you but, are you hurt?” it asked in a quiet voice.
The Spitter hunched over more and some of its deadly goo slowly poured out of its mouth. Again, most creatures would have run as fast as they could upon seeing the obvious threat display. Unfortunately, for her, Fluttershy was not one who has never seen a strange (and dangerous) exotic creature. The Spitter really could care less about the pony. In fact, it could potentially lead it to more food. But, Smoker had said to keep their presence secret from everyone but the survivors. The Spitter growled again at the timid yellow pony. She backed away slightly, noticing now that the goo was burning the grass beneath it. As the pony turned around to flee, the Spitter spat its specialised goo at the pony. It continued to run, but not before it got a face full of the goo. All the Spitter had to do was waiting until the goo took effect. After some short seconds, an ear splitting scream cried out throughout the forest… **************************************************** About 2 miles away, the Smoker heard the scream and started to head towards it. The only possible explanation for the screaming is that one of his infected comrades must have encountered a pony despite his orders. The Smoker started to mentally tick off what one it could be, it couldn’t be the Charger, he was currently eating that bear. It couldn’t be the Jockey; he would have heard him by now. The Hunter, maybe, but he was injured. The Boomer? That fat ass couldn’t catch anything that could move. That leaves the Tank and the Spitter. If it was the Tank, there wouldn’t have been any screaming. Only the sound of roaring and bones breaking. So, the Smoker decided that it was the Spitter. After some uninterrupted traveling, the Smoker quickly hid behind some trees and saw the scene that was unfolding.
“Fluttershy, are you alright? We heard you from the library!” said a purple pony. The yellow one, Fluttershy was covering her face with her forelegs.
“Please… help… it burns really bad…” she whimpered.
The young survivor slowly walked up to her, “can we see it?” he asked, “Nick has a first aid kit, and it will help until we get you to a hospital.” He glanced over to the purple pony, “y’all have hospitals right?” he asked. The purple pony nodded.
“N-No. It hurts too much…” Fluttershy said quietly, sniffing. A flying blue pony hovered next to her.
“Don’t worry, it’s going to be ok,” she said.
The survivor in the white suit walked closer and sniffed the air, “hey Ellis, do you smell that?” he asked.
The young survivor sniffed the air as well, “yeah, it smells like… Spitter goo?”
“Spitter goo?” asked the purple pony, “what’s a Spitter and what is the goo?”
“A Spitter is a long neck bitch that spits her burning goo at us,” said the fat survivor.
“Let me guess, it’s a zombie?” asked the purple one again.
“Damn right it’s a zombie, those bitches spit far,” replied the fat survivor. The Smoker backed away from the group and traveled around them to search for the Spitter. To the Smokers surprise, the Spitter was also watching the survivors. The smoker communicated with it.
“Survivors… spit… tongue… kill,” said the Smoker in the form of coughs and wheezing breaths.
The Spitter replied with a series of low key shrieks and neck positions. Their plan, the Smoker will ensnare one of the survivors with its tongue and the Spitter will spit the spot where the survivor is trapped. Sure, it wasn’t the best plan they could have come up with but it was more of a decoy. On his way here, the Smoker came across the Tank. It was surrounded with flesh disfigured corpses of what were once animals. All they needed was a loud enough sound and the Tank will come running. Like the sound of panicking survivors. The Smoker climbed behind two large rocks and got into position. The Spitter was behind a tree. She overheard the group trying to help the injured pony.
“Ok… let doctor Nick fix you up,” said Nick as he knelt down and gently moved Fluttershy’s forelegs to see the damage done to her face. “Holy SHIT! What the hell happened to you?!” he said as he saw her face, almost all the fur had come off and there were third degree burns covering where there wasn’t fur. She looked at Nick with pained eyes. Fluttershy spoke quietly.
“Is it bad?”
Nick nodded, “what exactly where you doing before this happened?” he said as he put some burn medicine on her.
“There was this animal… it looked sort of like you but with a really big neck and some green saliva dripping out of its mouth,” she said, wincing.
“Sounds like you had a meeting with a Spitter,” said Nick as he started wrapping some bandages around where he put the burn medicine, “why the hell did you not run? That thing could have killed you.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know what it was,” she said quietly as nick finished putting on the bandages. He stood up.
“Yeah, well, be more careful next time. That was our last health kit,” he replied walking away. “Now, can we go out of the damn forest? I keep thinking that those mud men are out here.”
“Mud men?” asked Applejack.
“You know mud people or… pones in your case,” replied Rochelle, “Nick and Ellis hated them. Now come on, let’s get her to the hospital.”
Now! The Smoker fired its tongue at Rochelle; ensnaring her while the Spitter burst from its hiding spit and spat the ground beneath her.
“What the..! Help me!” She shouted as she realised what was happening. The Spitter started to claw at Rochelle as the others ran to her aid.
“We got a Spitter!” said Nick as he pulled out his frying pan.
“I got it,” said Ellis as he swung his guitar at the Spitter’s head. Coach was starting to cut through the tongue with his chainsaw.
“ERRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIKKK!” the Spitter shrieked in pain as its entire skull was crushed by the weapon. The remaining ‘goo’ leaked from its broken body. Fluttershy covered her un-bandaged eye as a slow stream of blood poured out of the Spitter’s mouth and mixed in with the small puddle of goo.
“Thanks Coach,” said Rochelle weakly as Coach helped her to her feet.
“No problem Ro,” he replied, sheathing his chainsaw. He walked over to the Spitter. “Now what the hell was this thing doing here?”
The survivors and ponies stared at the mangled body of the Spitter. Out of the corner of his eye, Ellis saw the Smoker flee into the forest.
“Hey y’all, that Smokers still out there,” he said, keeping his voice low, “I’ll stay back and see if it comes back. Y'all watch out for anymore infected. Now, go bring her to the hospital.”
They nodded and took the injured Fluttershy down the path nearby and made their way back to the town. Ellis slowly started to make his way back to town. He heard something and stopped. It sounded like a Witches crying.
‘no, that’s impossible, there wasn’t a Witch during the hurricane, they were all back at the sugar mill,” he told himself, ‘I just hope nothing else came here with us.’
“Hyeeh, hyeeh, hyeeh…” a loud laughing sound echoed throughout the trees.
“Aw shit!” he said as he ran after the others. If there ever were a worse time to see a Jockey (besides all the time) it’s when you’re alone in a forest…
Ellis ran. He could hear the infernal head humper’s demented laughter all around him. ‘Why did I volunteer to stay behind?’ he asked himself. ‘WHY?!’ as he ran, he noticed that the sun was about half way in the sky. ‘Must be around midday; hope that the other ponies don’t mind our short stay. We got a schedule to keep.’ Ellis suddenly stopped. He listened for the laughter of the Jockey. To his surprise, it stopped. He looked around him for signs of it but found none. Shrugging, he continued to run down the path the others took. Unfortunately, he failed to notice a pair of angry, yellow eyes emerging from behind some nearby trees. The owner of said eyes growled angrily as it followed its target.
“Ok, where is the damn hospital?” asked Nick as he shielded his eyes from the sun. He, Rochelle and Coach had talked the back alleyways to avoid attention. Unfortunately, Twilight forgot to tell them where the hospital was.
“It can’t be far,” said Rochelle. She heard a cough from ahead. “Careful, I think I hear Smoker.”
As they prepared to fight the Smoker, the turned a corner and discovered it was just a pony who was coughing. The three quickly and quietly passed another corner before speaking again.
“Ok, gotta stop jumping when we here every last noise,” said Coach, “We don’t need any unwanted attention.”
“Yeah? Well, we still got that Hunter out there and who knows what else,” said Nick, “for all we know these ponies are infected and there sending in a Tank.” Rochelle glared at him.
“Do you honestly think that these little ponies are going to send in a Tank? Seriously Nick, just look at them!”
“I have been al morning; I also had to patch one up,” grumbled Nick, “wasting our last medical kit.”
Coach sighed, “you did a good thing Nick, the yellow one probably would have died.”
Nick made a shout laugh, “Yeah, she would have been the first pony infected to be put down.”
Rochelle and Coach glared at him. “What? I was kidding. Jeez.” After two close encounters with the townsponies, the three survivors finally made it to the Ponyville hospital.
“Now remember people, these here ponies have never seen the likes of us,” said Coach, “Let’s give them a reason not to be scared.”
“Like what? Walk into a hospital with a chainsaw, fire axe and a bloody frying pan?” asked Nick, “nope, I don’t think they’ll think twice about that.”
The three ducked down and opened the hospital doors. They had to duck down slightly when they entered. Various pairs of suspicious eyes glared at them.
“Any minute now a Tank is going to come charging in and kill us all,” muttered Nick.
“Just relax, I’ll handle this,” said Rochelle quietly so only Nick and Coach could hear her. She walked up to the mare at the hospital counter who was filing in some paper work. “Err, hello, were here to visit someone.”
The mare looked up and gave the three survivors an annoyed glare. “And who are you supposed to be?”
“I’m Coach. This here is Nick and Rochelle. We’re here to visit a little yellow pony. She was attacked earlier by a Spitter,” said Coach.
“You need to be more specific,” replied the annoyed mare.
“We didn’t catch her name but she was yellow, pink mane and had wings,” said Nick, “sound familiar?”
The mare paused. Then replied, “Ground floor, room thirteen,” she replied before resuming her paper work.
“Thanks,” said Rochelle as they started to walk down the clean hallways. They stopped at room thirteen.
“Are you sure we should even be here?” asked Nick, “I mean, we met them just hours ago and all of a sudden we’ve visiting the sick and injured? What are we, miracle workers?”
Coach glared at the former con man. “She was attacked by a Spitter. From the sounds of it, they had no idea what it was. It’s best to warn them about the infected before anyone else gets hurt.”
Nick rolled his eyes as he opened the small door. He and the other two ducked under the door frame and entered the room. Twilight, Applejack, that rainbow one, Fluttershy and two others were inside.
“Uh… is this a bad time?” asked Rochelle, “we could leave…”
Twilight shook her head, “no, we were just talking about that thing that attacked Fluttershy. What did you call it again?”
“That was a Spitter. One of the special zombies from back home,” said Coach, “it spits this burning goo shit at people to try and kill them.”
The ponies stared at the survivors.
“Kill them?” asked the white pony.
“Yep, probably would have killed your friend too if she didn’t scream so loud. We could hear her from the library,” said Nick.
Fluttershy attempted to say something but it was muffled by the bandages, which were covering more than half her face. The white one spoke up.
“From what I have heard, you hunt zombies?” she asked.
“We don’t hunt them. They hunt us. And we fight back and look at us now, were the four riders of the goddamn apocalypse!” said Nick.
“Four?” asked white pony, “but there are only three of you…”
“Ellis is on his way,” said Rochelle, “he offered to stay behind to watch out for any more infected.”
The Pink one walked up to the survivors. “So… you’re new here?” she asked.
“Uh, I guess?” replied Nick, backing away from the pink one’s grin.
“Ooh, maybe I should throw a ‘welcome to Ponyville’ party!” she said excitedly.
Coach chuckled, “listen miss, uh…”
“Oops! My name is Pinkie pie.”
“Miss Pinkie pie, we’re not going to stay for long. We gotta go back home and get to New Orleans,” said Coach.
“New Orleans? Is that a town?” asked Twilight, “if so, what happened to the first Orleans?”
“New Orleans is the last safe city in the U.S.A. and we’re headed there. As for the first Orleans… it was named after a city in the country of France,” said Coach. Twilight nodded.
“Um, hello I’m Rarity and just wondering, what is that?” she asked pointing to Coach’s chainsaw.
“This,” he said taking it out of its sheath on his back, “is a chainsaw. I use it to cut down them zombies by the dozens. It gets pretty messy after a while though.”
Rarity nodded then paused after realising what the ‘mess’ could be composed of. She backed away slightly, keeping her eyes on the weapon. Twilight noticed the awkward silence between the ponies and the survivors and spoke up.
“So uh, what was this ‘U.S.A.’ like?” she asked.
“It was ok, until the zombies,” replied Rochelle. She paused, “hey, do you hear something?”
The room fell silent as they faintly heard something.
Ellis ran for his life. The pills he took earlier had worn off and he was starting to feel the effects of the Hunter attack. Also, to make things worse, he was the target of the Charger. He tried to run, but only managed to achieve a fast limp. He could see the outskirts of the town and tried to move faster. Unfortunately, the Charger was gaining fast. One good punch and he’d be down. Ellis knew this and so did the Charger. Panicking, he called out.
“HELP ME!”
As he raced into the town with the Charger in close pursuit, many of the ponies turned their heads to see a strange figure being chased by a larger figure with one huge arm. Ellis bolted towards the hospital, which was almost in sight. The Charger decided that now was the best time to strike and did what he did best: charge and pound the survivors into the ground. It made its strange roar and charged at Ellis. It gripped him in its arm and crashed into the hospital. The charger brought up Ellis with its arm and slammed him into the ground.
“IT’S POUNDING ME INTO SHIT!”
This however, did not go unnoticed as the other survivors and ponies bolted out of Fluttershy’s room to help Ellis. When they arrived, the ponies gasped at the sight of the deformed monster attacking Ellis, who himself was hanging limply off the charger’s arm as it bashed him into the ground. Rochelle swung her axe at the skull of the charger but it refused to realise its prey. Coach revved up his chainsaw once more and brought it down on the spine of the monstrous infected. It made an inhuman screech (even for an infected) as it crashed into the ground, dead. The survivors quickly ran over to Ellis, who had stopped breathing. Coach quickly grabbed the defibrillator off of Ellis and proceeded to try and jolt him awake.
“Come on buddy, you ain’t going to die on us now!” he muttered as he tried again. Finally, after four unsuccessful tries, Ellis’s eyes opened as he cried out from the shock, only to fall unconscious moments later. The room was silent besides the heavy breathing from the just revived Ellis. Finally Coach spoke.
“You thought that was bad? Imagine dealing with this shit for a week!”
Ellis’s eyes cracked open. He blinked multiple times and rubbed them with his hands to clear them from the grime. His entire body ached. He vaguely remembered running from a Witch. After that it was blank. Sitting up, he noticed that he was in a hospital. Getting up, he opened the blinds to see that the moon was out. He turned around to see his guitar lying on a nearby table. All the blood and other zombie bits had been cleaned off of it.
“Well ain’t that considerate,” he muttered quietly as he went over to it and strapped it to his back. He opened the door to his left and started to walk down a darkened hallway. He heard the sounds of people sleeping. Not wanting to wake them, he moved silently across the hospital despite the feeling that his fellow survivors might be nearby. He walked down the hallway and came across the entrance doors. Something seamed off about them, like they were too small. Walking closer to get a better look, a wave of memories flooded back to him, the hurricane, the Spitter attack and the mad rush to the hospital. He sighed, ‘why can’t we get a break?’ he opened the Ponyville hospital doors and started to walk down the dimly lit street.
A loud wail echoed throughout the forest. The Smoker felt a feeling of dread upon hearing the wail. The wail was caused by the Witch. The Smoker didn’t know the Witch was here yesterday but that ear piercing wail gave her away. She was the only infected that the survivors truly feared. Sure, the Tank freaked them out but it wasn’t the sheer terror of the Crying girl. The thing the Smoker found the most upsetting was not that she was the most deformed; in fact, she was the least deformed out of the group.
It was that she scared him too.
The only things to have the courage or the stupidity to approach the Witch are the giant Tank or the insane Jockey. How they manage not to piss her off the Smoker may never know. But he knows one thing: if the Witch decides to help his plan, then the survivors will have no chance of doing what they do best. The Smoker of course, will not be the one to ask the Witch. It will be the Tank. Mostly because he’s ninety nine percent rage and the remaining one percent is trying to keep the Witch safe, for whatever reason. The Hunter thinks that in their life before the infection the Tank had a thing for the Witch.
And then the infection hit.
The Witch tolerates the Tank because he usually keeps quiet when she’s wandering around. The Jockey… usually manages to shut up when the Tank is nearby, which is fairly common. Case in point, the Smoker will send the Tank to try and retrieve the Witch…
The Smoker then started to prepare for what will be the final confrontation with the survivors.
Ellis awoke with his arms and legs tied around a tree. “What the hell?” he muttered. He too tired to completely understand the situation. He heard voices coming from behind the tree. “Uh, hi, do you mind helping me? I’m kinda stuck.” He heard whispers from behind him, “uh, hello? Is anyone there?” there was more whispering until…
“We captured one of the monsters!”
Ellis sighed,” monster? Are y’all sure you got the right guy? I mean, yeah I’m new here but that there monster was killed yesterday so-“ one of the voices cut him off.
“Hey Scootaloo, is the monster supposed to talk?”
Another voice spoke, presumably Scootaloo, answered her accomplice. “Don’t be silly, monsters don’t talk!”
Ellis sighed again, “Exactly, now, can y’all let me go?”
The voices stopped as they came around to face the captured survivor.
“Hello,” said Ellis, “uh, do y’all mind letting me go? It’s kinda getting uncomfortable…”
The three ponies (Ellis assumed they were younger that the others he saw) beamed at their captive.
“So uh… can y’all let me go now?”
The yellow one reacted first, “uh, no?”
Ellis gave them an annoyed glare, “look, I know me and mah teammates aren’t from here but why are y’all going tying me up? Why not Nick?”
They continued to stare at Ellis, unsure what to do about their annoyed captive. Finally, Ellis gave up trying to reason with them and started to call out for his fellow survivors.
Coach walked down the street. Dozens of ponies looked at him with fear and suspicion. It didn’t help that he had blood stained clothes and a mysterious weapon strapped to his back. Yesterday after the Charger attack Twilight had sent a letter to Princess Celestia, whoever the hell she was, and received a letter earlier this morning stating that she and the survivors go to see her. The problem was,
They couldn’t find Ellis.
The doctor ponies who were watching over him last night after his brush with death said he must have left late that night. Coach also warned the doctors to keep a close eye on Fluttershy. He told them that there was a chance that she might have come in contact with the infection. Fortunately, so far they hadn’t noticed any change in her blood stream or appearance. He, Rochelle and Nick also gave another warning, this time to anyone present after the Charger attack. It was to listen for anything unusual, like loud coughing, growling, insane laughter and various other sounds the infected make. Coach chuckled softly, remembering the look of astonishment on the ponies faces after he revived Ellis. The best one was from Twilight:
“But… THAT’S NOT POSSIBLE!” she cried out defiantly.
Coach laughed, “Girl, we’ve been living through hell for the past week. You saw the Charger and Spitter with your own eyes. Don’t saw what is and what isn’t possible. We’ve been doing the impossible. Have you ever fought a huge ass zombie that’s all muscle and lived? Have you had to start a rock concert to call a helicopter while fighting hordes of those bastards? If you have, then you’ve done the impossible. We’re from another goddamn dimension and look at us? Were goddamn here! Don’t go questioning what goes on. you might just wind up hurting more than us.”
The entire hospital was speechless after that, even Nick and Rochelle. Coach continued to smile when he heard Rochelle calling to him.
“HEY, COACH!”
Coach turned around to face her. He asked if she had found Ellis yet. She shook her head.
“No not yet,” she replied, “but he wouldn’t have gone far right?”
Coach nodded, “although there don’t seem to be any infected native to here, he still knows about the Hunter and Smoker. He is probably hanging around somewhere and we’re just missing him.”
Rochelle nodded and then stopped. She faintly heard something in the distance.
“Coach? Rochelle? Nick? Anyone? I need some help!”
She turned back to Coach, who nodded.
“Sounds like Ellis. Better go see him. Twilight seemed to be stressed about us meeting the Celestia person.”
She nodded, “she did sound like royalty…”
“But she ain’t the queen. I wonder why she didn’t send a letter to their king. Seems to me like he’d be the one who’s in charge,” replied Coach as they wandered over to where they heard Ellis’s shouts. After a short walk, they found their missing companion tied to a tree with three small ponies surrounding him.
“Hey,” said Ellis, clearly annoyed at the three young ponies that looked up at Coach and Rochelle. “Can y’all untie me? I’ve been here for hours! And these three ain’t any help.”
The three small ponies started to back away at the arrival of Coach and Rochelle. Coach glared at them.
“Do y’all know who this is?” he asked in a serious tone. The three fillies shook their heads. “This is Ellis. He should be in the hospital.” Coach shot an annoyed glare at Ellis who grinned weakly, “do you know why he was in the hospital.” Again, they shook their heads. “To put it short, the person tied to that tree died.”
The orange one looked at coach with a confused look, “he died? He doesn’t look very dead to me.”
“That’s because I brought him back. He died holding of a Charger,” said Coach. This time, the yellow one spoke up.
“What’s a Charger?” she asked.
“A zombie with one big ass arm, it slammed Ellis into the hospital floor,” said Coach, “the reason he got caught is he sacrificed himself to let me, Rochelle, Nick and four others get out of the forest.”
“What were you doing in the forest?” asked the orange pony.
“We were saving someone from a Spitter. I think her name was ‘Fluttershy’,” replied Coach, the three fillies gasped. Rochelle quietly asked Coach what he was doing.
“telling them why they shouldn’t have left Ellis tied up,” he replied, then resuming telling the three fillies the story of yesterday, “we heard her screaming from Twilight’s house, then we hurried off to see her lying on the ground about to be killed by a Spitter. We fought and killed the spitting bitch and Ellis here said he would stay behind to cover us. We made it to the town ok but shortly after we got to the hospital, we found Ellis getting the shit beaten out of him by a Charger.”
All they eyes present were on Coach, even Ellis was slightly impressed on how Coach was bending the truth on what actually happened: he ran, yelling and screaming to the town only to get beaten into shit and wasting their only defibrillator. He liked Coach’s version better though. He listened to the rest and after a pause the three fillies apologised greatly only to cause Ellis to chuckle.
“It was an honest mistake,” said Ellis, “and besides, Coach may have exaggerated the story a little.”
“No he didn’t. What you did was very brave Ellis,” said Rochelle, “who knows what would have happened if you didn’t hold off the Charger. Fluttershy might have died.”
Ellis sighed, “Yeah I guess, at least it wasn’t a Jockey that got me. Now that would have been humiliating.”
The three survivors laughed and the three fillies looked confused.
“What’s a Jockey?” asked the white one.
“Pray you never know,” said Ellis darkly, remembering his many run-ins with the insane infected.
After another apology from the fillies, Ellis, Rochelle and Coach left to find Nick, who was having some problems of his own…
A low growl echoed faintly through the darkened streets of Canterlot. The Hunter was assigned to patrol the city after his ambush. The Smoker had overheard some speak of the survivors traveling to this town in the near future. He also stated that Spitter was dead, killed by the young survivor. Smoker also stated that he had an ambush planned for the young one that involved the Charger. The Hunter was still waiting to hear if he was successful. It leaped off the ground and landed on a rooftop with a quiet thud. His initial inspection of the city was going well. There was nothing blocking his path or trying to kill him. After about ten minutes, he arrived at what he assumed was a castle, something he remembered knowing about before he was infected. He got into a more upright position and walked silently into the nearby garden. The infection had caused his flesh to swell around his wrists and ankles, causing him pain whenever he moved them too much. Being aware of that, he mostly used swinging motions with his arms after digging his claws onto his prey to disembowel them, which was also accompanied by a bite to their throat to try and cut off their air supply. The Hunter passed by some statues until he passed by a strange one in particular.
It was upright, unlike most of the other inhabitants of this strange place, but made from multiple different components. It had wings, both differently shaped along with its hands and feet, which were also different from the other and a head resembling the horse things, except it had two different horns. The Hunter briefly thought about what would an infected with pieces from all of the ‘special’ ones would look like. Shaking its hooded head, the Hunter resumed patrolling the garden until finding something of interest: a large glass window. It had six of those weird horse things surrounding the creature that resembled the statue from earlier. After deciding it wasn’t important, the Hunter resumed patrolling the city. The mission it was given was fear. He was supposed to make sure the inhabitants of the town don’t leave their houses at night. The infected predator noticed a lone pony walking down an empty street. The Hunter leaped onto a rooftop and started to stalk the pony. Its hunting methods did not go unnoticed however.
Deep down every creature, intelligent or not, knows when something is hunting them. That is one of the reasons the survivors have kept alive: teamwork and the feeling that something is following them. The pony started to walk faster; not wanting to look like a fool if anyone was watching and slowed down at the end of the street. The Hunter made a low growl, causing the pony to quickly look around. If it could, the Hunter would have smiled. The one place she didn’t look was the rooftops. The Hunter crouched down and leaped at its prey. The shrill screams of the pony being devoured and the Hunter’s shrieks echoed throughout the city. By the time anyone had gotten there to help, all there was to be seen was the gruesome, bloody carcass of pony and a small trail of blood that seemed to vanish into thin air…
Nick was in a very bad spot. Sure, if the others were here he would feel more confident and if they had firearms, even better but no. all he had was a frying pan. A goddamn frying pan. How the hell was he supposed to get around a wandering Witch and a Tank with a frying pan? The Witch started to make shrieking sounds that were louder than the Tank’s growling and started to uncurled it’s deadly feature: two pairs of twelve inch claws. The claws had enough strength in them to incapacitate and or kill with one swing. And the Tank was strong enough to flip an entire car and pull cement blocks out of literally anything. And all Nick had was a frying pan covered with dried infected blood and an adrenaline shot.
'Wait, do I still have a shot?’ thought Nick, thinking fast he quickly checked his belt to see if the shot was still there. And sure enough, it was. Nick quickly injected the shot into his arm just as the Witch shrieked a final time and started to attack. Nick ran for his life. Having a Witch chasing after you was one thing. Having a Witch and a Tank was another. The Tank roared and swung its mighty arm, narrowly missing Nick. He ran until he hit the center of Ponyville. He’d been running from the outskirts of the forest looking for Ellis and he made it here. Panting, he put his hands to his knees and started to laugh. Some of the ponies looked at Nick but resumed what they were doing.
A meeting was held yesterday after the incident with Ellis and the Charger. The survivors present introduced themselves and said they would be staying for a short time. They told them of the possibility of the other infected being here along with the already known Hunter and Smoker. They mentioned the infection briefly, causing a mild panic thinking that they could turn into the monsters. A doctor that was treating Fluttershy spoke up and said that there was absolutely no way that they could get the infection without someone genetically modifying it. He also mentioned that to do that they needed a live specimen with the virus to contain it.
After that the mayor stated that the survivors shouldn’t be bothered when the possibility of one of the infected being in the area. When some asked why, Twilight levitated the deceased body of the Charger. There were collective gasps from many of the ponies present. The Charger had half of its face torn off by Rochelle’s axe and a long slit going down its back from Coach’s chainsaw. There were no more questions about the danger of the infected. instead; Coach told them about what to do if one is nearby: barricade your home. Avoid all contact with the infected individual. Wait for a survivor to dispatch it before leaving your home. The Rochelle and Nick chuckled at that, remembering the conversation Coach and Ellis had when they were on their way to the evacuation center in Savannah, Georgia and were getting supplies at Whitakers gun shop. Nick looked behind himself; he couldn’t see the Tank or the Witch anywhere. Feeling the effects of the shot wearing off, he set out to find his fellow survivors to see if they had found Ellis. He walked around the town, occasional looking around for an infected, before he ran into Twilight.
“Hello Nick,” she said.
“Hi, did you find Ellis yet?” he asked.
She smiled, “oh, Coach and Rochelle found him not long ago, their looking for you now.”
Nick nodded, “where are they? There’s something important that they should know about.”
“What is it?” asked Twilight.
Nick sighed and looked behind himself, “I don’t think they followed me here.”
“What? What’s following you?”
Nick looked at her, “it’s nothing we can’t handle.”
Twilight looked at Nick, annoyed, “what is it?”
Nick sighed, “Look, if I tell you, you’ll panic. And that’s the last thing we need right now.”
Twilight blinked in surprise, “did you find an infected?”
“Two, I found two infected. Probably the last two infected we need right now.”
Twilight nodded, “how dangerous are they?”
Nick paused. Then answered, “The safest thing you could possibly do in evacuate the city. Immediately.”
She blinked, and then nodded, “what do they look like?”
“One of them is a walking pile of muscle, and the other is crying.”
Twilight looked at him, confused, “Why is it crying?” she asked.
“We don’t know. But whatever you do, do not go near it,” said Nick seriously, “I’ve seen what is can do. You’ll be dead before you even figure out what happened. What’s the nearest city?”
“Hmm, Canterlot is the closest city near here. About four hours away by hoof,” she replied.
“Call a town meeting. We have to get out of here as soon as possible,” said Nick urgently, “we can’t kill them with what we have now.”
“Why not? You killed that charger and the Spitter with what you have now,” said Twilight.
Nick stared at her, “Chargers and Spitters are just deformed infected. A Witch or a Tank is infected that do not want to get near to.” He unsheathed his frying pan, “this won’t do shit against a Tank. The only one who might be able to hit it is Coach. And I don’t think he wants to fight a tank without a gun.”
Twilight nodded and ran off with Nick close behind, “you go tell everyone that you have to evacuate. I’ll go find Coach, Rochelle and Ellis.”
“Ok,” said Twilight as she ran to the mayor’s office. Nick spotted his fellow survivors casually walking down a street. Nick ran up to them.
“We have to get out of here. Now,” he said.
“Why? There’s nothing going on. I don’t see any infected,” replied Ellis.
“They’re not here yet. But there coming,” said Nick as he glanced behind himself again.
“What did you see?” asked Coach.
“A Witch and a Tank, I barely got out of there alive,” said Nick, “I told Twilight to tell everyone to evacuate.”
“Alright, I know we can’t kill them with what we have now,” said Coach, “but maybe they have better weapons at this Canterlot place.”
Rochelle nodded, “Twilight said something about us needing to the princess. I think she said she lives in Canterlot.”
Ellis chuckled, “well, then were not really evacuating huh? We’re just going to the princess.”
The other survivors nodded and headed to the center of the town. Sure enough, a meeting telling about the immediate evacuation was being held. Twilight was standing on the podium with her friends close by. The survivors stood at the back of the crowd and listened to the evacuation notice.
“… I was told that the incoming infected were extremely dangerous and should be avoided on sight,” said Twilight as she noticed the survivors standing at the back of the crowd. The told them to describe the infected in particular. Coach spoke,
“From what Nick said, the two infected that are out there are a Witch and a Tank.”
One pony asked what a Tank was. “A Tank is one big zombie that can send y’all flying just by swinging his arm at you. Do not let it get that close; it’ll still hit you while you’re trying to get up.”
“And the Witch?” asked another.
“A Witch,” said Ellis, “a witch is probably the most dangerous infected out there. It can kill you just by slashing its claws at you once.”
There were murmurs throughout the crowd, most of which were wondering why the survivors went on their way to get rid of the infected. When somepony finally called out to ask the question, the survivors responded sadly.
“We can’t kill them with what we have now. If you had firearms then sure, but from we know, y’all haven’t got any,” replied Ellis. There were shouts of protest, saying that the survivors are no help at all. They started coming up with wild ideas stating that the survivors themselves were infected and were just lying so they could get them in their sleep. The arguing went on until the ground started to shake. It was followed by a loud roaring sound accompanied by a huge slab of rock crashing into the podium, narrowly missing Twilight and her friends. They stared at the survivors, all of which took out their weapons. Ellis grabbed the bottle that was hanging from his waist and lit the cloth that was sticking out from the top. He also shouted out one word that described what was attacking the perfectly.
It was difficult to believe. And yet, it was right in front of him. The Tank was demolishing the entire town as it went up in flames. Ellis urged on the ponies at the back of the evacuation group before running back to where the fight was being held. Coach was trying to get close to the Tank and try to get it with his chainsaw. Unfortunately, the tank noticed him and sent him flying. He crashed into the ground not far away.
“Damn it,” he muttered before getting back up.
They all could tell it was a losing fight. Ellis had thrown his Molotov in an attempt to hold it back while the ponies escaped. So far there were no reports of casualties. He hoped it would stay that way. Nick warned them again about the Witch and after a brief argument, Twilight agreed to lead the evacuation of the city with her friends. The Tank roared again as it knocked down another building. The situation was dire, Ellis knew the only way to get out of here was to run or die trying. He ran over to Nick, who was struggling to get off the ground.
“Come on, you can do this,” he said, pulling his friend up.
“We can’t kill it,” he panted, looking at Rochelle who was trying to implant her axe into the Tank’s arm. It roared and flung her into a street corner.
“Shit that hurt!” she yelled as she got off the ground. She looked at Ellis and Nick to see them trying to tell her to run. She yelled at them over the chaos. “Have you lost your mind?!”
“Does it matter?!” yelled Nick over the roaring of the Tank. “We can’t kill it now!”
Rochelle looked into the blazing ruins of Ponyville. The Tank was chasing Coach, who was going to be cornered by the infected as he backed up against a wall. She ran up to them just as the Tank was about to plaster Coach all over the wall and imbedded her axe into the spine of the Tank. It roared and turned to Rochelle, who was fleeing from the monstrous infected. Ellis and Nick ran over to Coach and told him their plan.
“You know what, I ain’t arguing with that!” he said before grabbing a rock and hurling it at the Tank. It struck the infected’s back. The Tank slowly turned its small head and gave the three survivors a look of rage as it thundered towards them again. Rochelle quickly ran up to the back of the Tank and pulled her axe out of its body before grabbing her own Molotov and threw it against its skull. The monster roared at the sudden burning pain, giving the survivors the chance to flee…
Twilight turned her head to look at the place they were running from. Ponyville burned in the late night sky. The plan was to leave as soon as the survivors said to. Unfortunately, what would have been a rather short trip instead took much longer with the problem of having to bring the entire population of Ponyville on hoof. She sighed as Spike walked up beside her.
“So… was that a zombie?” he asked. Twilight nodded gloomily, she was told in was impossible to kill the Tank with what the survivors currently have. The best thing they could do is distract it and flee to Canterlot for a better chance of survival.
“All we can do now is get away from it as they try to hold it off,” she told him. Spike nodded and also paused to look back at the burning town. Ponies’ entire lives were destroyed by the Tank. And nopony could do anything to fully stop it.
The flames were diming as the townsponies resumed their journey to Canterlot. Sometime later, Fluttershy walked up to Twilight. Her face still had some of the bandages from the Spitter attack. The doctor treating her mentioned that the acid that was sprayed on her face was some sort of stomach bile and that it would heal quite quickly despite the odd burning quality it had. Still, she still had a bandage covering her left eye and lower part of her mouth.
“Um, Twilight, if you don’t mind me asking, do you know what happened to them?” she asked her quietly. Twilight looked at her friend.
“You saw what was attacking us. They must call it a Tank for a reason. Hopefully they managed to get rid of it. If not…” her voice trailed off at the thought of what would happen. An eight foot tall monster that nopony knows anything about that can endure almost anything. She shuddered at what would happen if it managed to reach Canterlot. Shoving the thought out of her mind, she focused on the task at hand. “We have to get to Canterlot as soon as possible. Who knows what else could be out here,” said Twilight. As if taunting here, a loud cough could be heard echoing in the moonlight. Rainbow dash flew over to her.
“I don’t get what’s the deal with that thing back there,” she said, “I bet I could have gotten rid of it in ten seconds flat.”
That caused Twilight to chuckle slightly, “you try telling them that next you see them.”
“If we see them again,” said Applejack, who was walking close by, “so far nopony’s been reported missing.” She too gazed at the ruins of her town. She sighed, “ah just can’t believe that something like that their Tank exists.”
Rainbow dash nodded, “yeah, why’d they name a zombie after my pet tortious?”
“I think they call it that due to the fact that they claim it’s near impossible to get rid of,” said Twilight as the evacuation group started to move again. “When we get to Canterlot we’ll warn the princess of that monster and get rid of it once and for all.”
Her friends nodded before returning to the small groups they were watching over so nopony gets separated. Hours passed and there was no sign of the survivors. Many of the ponies assumed they were killed by the monstrous Tank. They would have a memorial in Canterlot when the Tank was defeated. Finally, Twilight started to see the outlines of the capital city. She urged the ponies on that they were almost there.
The Smoker’s diseased eye’s looked at the destroyed town in rage. The Tank was supposed to kill the survivors. They had even blocked themselves in with their fire. But somehow, some stupid horse had made an escape tunnel right beside their bakery. It led them into the great field that went to the city the Hunter was in. the Smoker, although he doubted it would happen, had prepared for this possibly occurring and sent the Jockey and Boomer to assist the Hunter in striking fear in the city. The Smoker’s newly re grown tongue moved with the wind slightly. He staggered towards the Tank, who was burnt, injured and enraged. Just by looking at it, the Smoke knew that if the Tank did nothing else in its life, it was going to kill every last pony and survivor that has escaped its wrath.
The Witch however, did not particularly care about the fate of the survivors or ponies, as long as they left her alone. The Smoker had managed to convince her that a more preferable place to roam was the nearby city. The same city that most of the other infected were located in. the Smoker made a series of sharp wheezing sounds that only another infected could recognise as laughter. The Smoker was done toying with the survivors, forcing them to stay pent up in one place until they deemed it safe. No, this time the Smoker will launch a true assault on the survivors. He may not have a horde at his command, but he had the most dangerous allies in the existence on this strange, colourful world.
And the survivors… they will die, and then there will be a feast that all of Equestria will remember for all time.
“Hey y’all, I think they went this way!” shouted Ellis as the survivors looked for a way to the city. Ellis had finally stumbled across the path they were taking, due to it being covered with fresh hoof prints.
“Nice job, Ellis,” said Nick as he followed the path with the others not far behind, “maybe when we get to this city they can finally send us out of here.”
“We’ve only been here for three days Nick,” said Rochelle, “if you wanted to leave sooner, then why didn’t you just ask?”
Nick raised his eyebrow at her, “you think we could have just walked up to one and said ‘hello, I’m lost and I’m wondering if you can send me back to my zombie infested world’.”
Rochelle sighed, “Right, and who in the right mind would actually go and ask that?”
“I would have,” said Ellis as he looked around for Coach, who was keeping an eye out for any infected. “Hey Coach, see anything?”
“If there is anything out there, they sure are hiding well,” said Coach as he caught up with the other survivors, “now; Twilight said the city is roughly four hours away on foot. Now, with the large group they had to bring I think they should still be on their way there. If we’re lucky we might just be able to catch up with them.”
The other survivors nodded, they had a better chance of getting to the city if they met up with the evacuation group. The survivors continued to walk throughout the night, unable to catch up with the survivors until early the next day. The four tired survivors slowly made their way through the evacuation group. There were many looks of surprise that the survivors made it out of the burning hell of what was there town alive and even managed to catch up with them despite their six hour head start. When they finally got to the front, Twilight beamed at them. Although they weren’t in the best shape when they first got here, they were covered with ash and scorch marks on their clothing. Finally Twilight asked the question that almost all the ponies were thinking the whole trip.
“Did you… kill it?” she asked. They paused. After a short silence, Ellis responded.
“No. that thing is still out there. We only managed to hold it off.”
There was an awkward silence as Ellis’s response stunned many of the ponies present.
“Hah, I bet I could have killed it in ten seconds flat,” said a voice that rang through the air. Ellis turned to see Rainbow dash trying to pull off a war face in an attempt to let her go and fight the Tank. To her surprise, all of the survivors started to laugh.
“You think, a little pony like you, can kill a Tank all by yourself?!” said Coach through his laughter, “We fought it for six hours in a burning city and we barley even left a scratch on the thing. And you think you can kill it in ten seconds?! Are you out of your goddamn mind?!”
Rainbow dash had a look of rage as the survivors laughed at her impossible statement. She knew she could do it. All she needed was a chance to.
I’ll prove I can beat the Tank! You just watch!” she said as she flew off in search for the beast. Coach shook his head as she left. He turned to Twilight.
“That rainbow friend of yours is crazy. She’ll be lucky if she can last three seconds before being splatted all over the ground,” said Coach.
Twilight sighed, “She can be a little… impulsive but if she’s in danger she should back off.”
“I hope so, even though she’s nuts, I don’t want to see any of you end up as Tank food.”
Twilight looked at Coach oddly, he and his fellow survivors had only been here for a short time and here his is, stating that he doesn’t want to see anypony killed. ‘Maybe it’s because everyone from where he’s from died. Maybe he doesn’t want to see any more bloodshed,’ she thought, ‘anyways, were almost at Canterlot. The princess will no doubt be able be able to handle the Tank.
Small drops of misty rain slowly started to fall on the houses of Canterlot. Many eyes that just opened for the day looked outside to see a large crowd of ponies from the town of Ponyville. Along with them were four larger, slender beings that somehow managed to stand on two legs. Each and some strange tool strapped to their back. Some of the ponies panicked, thinking it was some sort of attack party. Others just watched confused as the four taller seamed to jump every time somepony laughed or coughed. The large group walked through the city before the four tall ones and five ponies left the group and started to walk to the castle. Some thought this may have something to do with the large series of attacks that happened yesterday. Two days ago, a mare’s body was found with most of her entrails ripped out and a small trail of blood that seemed to disappear for the authorities’ trouble. Yesterday, the beast was spotted along with a bloated thing and one that was much smaller than the other two. Ponies, be the ones who fled Ponyville or just awoke in Canterlot, both felt some sort of tension in the air. Many wondered what sort of monsters attacked them, the ponies who evacuated have only heard of two, one of them dead, the other very much alive. There was a large increase of the guards in the city after the second attack yesterday.
The ponies were preparing themselves for whatever the monsters were going to throw at them. Be it a muscle bound monster or a nimble predator. But, there was one monster that all those who see it will underestimate. Those who don’t might just live, and those who underestimate the power of the Witch will meet a gruesome bloody end.
Ellis was strumming some of the strings on his blood stained and slightly burned guitar. It had taken hours to get to Canterlot and he did not want this trip to be for nothing. After he, Nick, Coach and Rochelle met up with the ponies, they would hear the occasional laugh from a Jockey of a loud cough echoing from far away by the Smoker. He and the others hadn’t slept at all yesterday and they were beginning to feel the effects of all the running and fighting. So now here he was. Ellis the mechanic and zombie fighter, going to meet some sort of royalty. He smiled at the thought of being a hero not only back home, but here too. And all he had to show for it was a beat up guitar and a weeks’ worth of injuries from the infected.
It truly was exactly as Ellis imagined surviving a zombie apocalypse would be like. You know, minus the ponies.
“Are we there yet? We’ve kinda been walking for hours,” complained Nick as he, the other survivors and ponies walked through the capital city in the mist.
“We’re almost there,” replied Twilight as she quickened her pace. Applejack walked up to pace with her and asked her if she thinks Rainbow dash was ok.
“I’m sure she’s fine Applejack. She wouldn’t put herself in that kind of danger on her own right?”
“Ah guess so…” she said before they passed through the entrance gates to the castle. Suddenly, a large swarm of guards surrounded the survivors much to their annoyance.
“Uh, you mind getting out of the way?” asked Nick sarcastically, “were kinda in a hurry.”
The guards, being guards, acted like they didn’t hear him, refused to move away from the survivors. Twilight told them that they were with her and her friends. After some negotiation, the guards agreed to let the survivors go if they have four guards going along too. The four guards remained stoic as they went into the throne room. Inside was Princess Celestia talking with the guard general about the series of mysterious attacks yesterday.
“… and that why we need the extra guards, we don’t know what that thing is or how dangerous it is,” said a turquoise stallion to a larger white… flying unicorn?
“I see… oh, hello Twilight,” she said, noticing Twilight, four of her friends and the survivors enter the room with the guards.
“Princess Celestia, I have urgent news,” said Twilight. The princess smiled at her.
“So important that you had to tell me yourself?” she asked, “couldn’t you have given me a letter?”
“You see, there was an attack on Ponyville yesterday,” said Twilight. The princess and the general stared at her.
“An attack? Did you happen to see what it was?” asked the general, “we’ve been having some attacks of our own and we don’t know what’s causing them.”
Twilight frowned, “no, I didn’t see it up close.”
The general frowned. Then he noticed the survivors. “And who are you supposed to be?”
Coach stared at the turquoise stallion. Then, “we’re the ones who saw the Tank.”
“Saw it?” asked Nick, “it beat the shit out of us and blew up the entire goddamn town!”
Princess Celestia held up her hoof to silence them. “I’m sorry but, what exactly is this Tank you speak of?”
“Your majesty, a Tank is one big hell of a zombie from where we’re from,” answered Ellis.
Princess Celestia blinked in surprise, “a zombie you say… and where exactly are you from?”
“We’re not from around here. Hell, I doubt we’re in the same dimension with all these talking ponies and shit,” said Ellis, “we’re from the U.S.A. on the planet Earth. We arrived here during a hurricane while fighting the zombies.”
“I see…” said Celestia. The general stared at the survivors in rage.
“So, you freaks are telling me that some zombie is attacking Canterlot?! I’ve heard many, many different stories in my time but none as ridiculous as that! Do you think I’m a fool?!”
“Calm down General Halberd. I’m sure don’t think you’re a fool,” said the princess, “now, you four claim to have fought zombies?” she put some emphasis on the word zombie.
Coach nodded, “yes ma’am. We’ve fought hundreds of these zombies. The only reason we didn’t kill the Tank is because we weren’t properly equipped.”
“Oh, and what exactly do you need to get rid of this ‘Tank’ as you call it?” she asked.
“We need guns,” said Nick. The princess looked at him, mildly confused. Nick sighed, annoyed, “guns, firearms, metal things that shoot smaller metal things to kill stuff.” Again, the princess looked confused. “Great, they don’t have anything useful against the Tank. Well, it was nice knowing you all.”
Rochelle glared at Nick. Then turned to Celestia, “look, we can kill the Tank, but it will be difficult. Do you have anyone that knows anything about killing things about four times their size?”
The princess thought about that for a moment, then nodded.
“Yes, I do know a pony who is quite the expert on explosives. He may be the ideal choice to defeat this Tank.”
Rochelle smiled, “good, now, does anyone have a plan?”
The room was silent. Finally, Pinkie pie thought of something. “How about trying to make it go to a loud noise?” she suggested. Ellis smiled.
“You know, that might work. Usually, it’s just the regular zombies that follow the noise, but if it’s loud enough, it might just attract the Tank.”
“Good, now that we have a plan,” said Celestia, “we should get started on preparing for the Tank. What does it look like exactly?” she asked.
“Don’t worry;” said Ellis, “y’all hear it before you see it.”
The survivors and ponies glanced at each other and started to prepare the trap for the Tank. Unfortunately, a certain infected had a plan as well…
The Smoker had finally brought the remaining infected to a meeting point. The Jockey, Hunter, Tank, Witch, Boomer and himself were all standing on the outskirts of the city.
A plan was being made.
The plan was the Boomer would attract attention while the others snuck in. then the Witch would show up in an attempt to trick the ponies thinking that she were another survivor. After that, the Smoker, Jockey and Hunter would dispose of the ponies most threatening while the Tank launched a surprise attack on the survivors during the chaos. They also had an added bonus:
An incredibly stupid blue mare tried to fight the Tank, which caused it to injure itself on a tree. She quickly bolted to the city with a trail of blood for the Tank to follow. The Smoker assumed she was just entering the city now. He’s seen the blue mare before. She was there during the late Spitter’s attack. He’d noticed an air of confidence and swagger about the mare. And over all, she was cocky, thus making her an easy target. But, he had let her live for one reason, and one reason only.
The mare reminded the Smoker of him before the infection: bold, not that bright but constantly trying to stand out in a crowd. And that she led the Tank to the city, that was an even better reason to let her live.
The Smoker staggered over to the hyperactive Jockey. The damn thing could barely keep itself still as the Smoker told it to stick to the rooftops of the city and report back later. The Jockey laughed hysterically and jumped onto a tree and eventually bounded into the city. The Witch wailed loudly, as per usual, as the Smoker told it to take a casual stroll in the city. With some encouragement from the Tank, the witch slowly walked off, still wailing, to the city. The Hunter left to resume his mission of striking fear into the city. The boomer waddled off to start the distraction. Finally, the Tank was told to stay nearby until he heard the Witch’s enraged screech. As for the Smoker, he will stay to the rooftops and prey on any unlucky enough to get caught by his incredibly long tongue.
Rainbow dash flew through the air much slower than she wanted to. Her brief encounter with the Tank had left her with an unsightly cut on her back left leg. But that wasn’t her main problem right now.
It was that she had failed.
‘Everypony will laugh at me,’ she thought, ‘they’ll call me 'Rainbow dash the one who couldn’t leave a dent on the Tank'. Of course I couldn’t hurt it. I mean, look at the size of it! Nopony could hurt it let alone kill it.’ Feeling sorry for herself, Rainbow dash decided to go to the city and wait it out. Nothing could be worse for her now. She failed and all she had to cope with it was a cut and broken leg for her trouble.
If only she knew she was a vital part of the survivors plan…
Most things are easier said than done. The plan Pinkie pie came up with is among them. Unfortunately, it was difficult to find something that could make a loud noise to attract the Tank. But, sometimes what you’re looking for may present it before your very eyes. The rain was steady pouring on Nick and Applejack as they were working on the preparations for the plan. The Princess was out telling all the ponies in the city to stay inside their houses until the threat was eliminated.
“Really? That’s what we’re going to use?” asked Nick as he set up some cords, “you can’t be serious.”
Applejack sighed as she set up a stand, “Well, it’s the only thing we have that can do it. We might as well try.”
“Yeah, well I don’t really want my eardrums blasted off today,” replied Nick, “seriously, not even when we were surrounded by the zombies would we think of doing this. What the hell is your pink friend on?”
Applejack glanced at Nick, “she may be a bit… odd but I’m sure she knows what she’s doing.”
“Yeah, she’s going to get us killed,” muttered Nick, “rigging half the city with amplifiers and then strapping a pipe bomb to the microphone, yeah, there is no way that could back fire horribly.”
“This is genius,” said Ellis as he set up another amplifier. Twilight, Rarity, Coach and Pinkie pie were also setting up the amplifiers.
“But, what will you do when that… Tank as you call it attacks us?” asked Rarity.
“Simple,” said Coach as he set up his third amplifier, “we set off the explosives and boom. There goes the Tank.”
“Yes but, what if it doesn’t work?” she asked again.
“then we beat the shit out of what’s left of it,” replied Coach, “besides, I’m sure it will work.”
“Hmm…”
“Don’t worry, there can’t be that much more in the Tank,” said Ellis, “we set it on fire, and usually they go down way faster when their of fire.”
“They?” asked Twilight, “what do you mean them?”
“Tanks. What, did y’all think this was the only Tank we’ve ever seen? Nah, back home there are tons of these things,” replied Ellis.
“So your telling me that where you’re from there are hundreds of Tanks?” asked Twilight sceptically.
Ellis shrugged, “probably, we’ve only seen about thirteen. Not counting this one.”
“Well, if you’ve gotten rid of thirteen, this one will be a piece of cake, right?” asked Pinkie pie.
“I sure hope so,” said Coach, “now, stop talking about food. It’s making me hungry.”
After about an hour of setting up, the two survivors and four ponies left to report on their status. Meanwhile, Rochelle and Fluttershy are on the lookout for Rainbow dash, who still hadn’t returned.
“Are you sure she’s alright?” asked Rochelle.
“Oh yes, um, I’m sure she’s fine,” said Fluttershy.
“Yeah, but the Tank is one big ass zombie.”
“She’s the fastest Pegasus in Equestria,” said Fluttershy, “she can out run the Tank monster.”
“If you say so,” said Rochelle. In her and the others experience with the infected, they know how fast a Tank can be if it chases someone. It’s a good thing Rainbow dash can fly. After about an hour of searching, they found the cyan Pegasus hiding in an alley way, apparently upset that she couldn’t even slow the Tank down. Fluttershy slowly, err, fluttered up to the shivering Pegasus. She noticed a cut on her left foreleg.
“What’s wrong?” she asked quietly. Rainbow dash looked up at her friend. Rochelle, noticing that this would probably be best if left private, left the alley way and waited nearby.
“I couldn’t stop it,” she whispered.
“Well, if it makes you feel any better, they didn’t manage to slow it down much ether,” said Fluttershy.
“They still did more than I did.”
Fluttershy looked Rainbow dash in the eye. “Well, that’s because they’ve seen that monster before and they know how to stop it. I don’t think you had even seen it up close when it attacked us, did you?”
Rainbow dash sighed, “No, no I didn’t.”
“Exactly. You had no idea what that thing was, so, it’s not your fault that you couldn’t slow it down.”
“Yeah, I guess,” said Rainbow dash quietly as she got her self to her hooves. As soon as she did, her leg left foreleg gave way and she crumpled back to the ground. “Ah! I think I broke something…”
“Oh no,” said Fluttershy, concerned, “Do you know what broke?”
Rainbow dash looked at Fluttershy. “I think my leg…”
Fluttershy looked at Rainbow dash’s injured leg. Then she asked, “Can you still fly? I think you need a doctor…”
Rainbow dash then attempted to try to fly off the ground. To hers and Fluttershy’s dismay, she couldn’t manage to get herself off the ground. Rochelle, who assumed their conversation was finished, walked back down the alley way to see what was going on. She saw Rainbow dash trying to get on her broken let in vain.
“Something wrong?” she asked.
“My leg…” said Rainbow dash. Rochelle walked up to her and knelt down to get a closer look at it.
“Hmm… I think it’s broken,” she said as she got up, “here, I’ll carry you until you’re at a hospital.”
“Ok…” said Rainbow dash as Rochelle picked her up and started to search for another hospital.
About an hour after they got to the hospital and got Rainbow dash’s leg in a cast, the ponies and survivors all met back at the castle as planned. The rain was now pouring in a similar fashion to the storm in Ducatel. There was a stand with a microphone and an unlit pipe bomb with the explosives disarmed attached to it. Ellis walked up to it.
“Y’all ready?” he asked. They all nodded and Rainbow dash took flight to prepare a sonic rainboom to give off light to attract the Tank along with the beeping of the bomb. The explosives expert Celestia mentioned was casually sitting on the ground drinking some sort of alcohol and had an eye patch for reasons he wouldn’t explain.
“Aye, I’m all set,” he said, putting down his half empty bottle, “just tell me when and I’ll send that Tank o yers back to the fiery pits it came from.”
A brilliant flash of rainbow coloured light exploded above the survivors as Rainbow dash pulled off her sonic rainboom. Ellis activated the pipe bomb while the other survivors stared at the explosion of light.
“Huh, that’s not something you see every day,” said Nick, “now, can we go back inside? My suit was already waterlogged. I don’t need it to be again.” The group then went inside to wait for the Tank as the pipe bomb’s beeping echoed throughout the city. After about ten minutes the ponies started to think the plan was a failure.
“Just wait,” said Coach, “that big mutha can’t be too far off.”
Meanwhile, just above all their heads on the celling, a pair of yellow pinpricks stared curiously at its prey down below. If its situation was not so critically important that it couldn’t be spotted, it might have thought about letting some drool fall onto the ground below to confuse and frighten the prey. Its hood hung loosely off its head as it peered through the large stained glass window. It was the same window it had seen a few days prior, the one with the strange statue on it. It shivered, the Hunter never did like the rain, even though he was currently inside, he will have to leave if the plan was to work properly. Suddenly, the castle started to shake slowly and a low growl was heard through the Hunter’s enhanced hearing.
Twilight blinked in confusion. She had a feeling of dread in the room but didn’t know why. There was literally nothing in here besides her, her friends, the survivors and the explosives expert. It seemed to fit the description that she read about when an animal is being hunted their body has some sort of built in warning signal. The problem was what exactly was in the room other than what she could see? Nothing on the ground, nothing outside and there was anything on the walls. What else was in the room with them? Suddenly, she had the urge to look at the celling. She tilted her head back and gasped at what she saw. It was two yellow pinpricks of eyes staring right back at her. A row of sharpened teeth smiled savagely as the beast noticed it was seen. Not wanting to panic, she slowly faced the others.
“Uh, there’s something on the celling,” she said, her voice eerily calm, “and I think you should see it.”
“What is it?” asked Nick sarcastically, “a bat?”
Twilight shook her head, “worse.”
“Well, what is it?” asked Ellis annoyed as he looked at the celling to see for himself. What he was not what he was expecting to see, a Hunter flying towards him. “HOLY SHIT!” he cried out as the Hunter started to tear at Ellis chest. Thinking fast, Pinkie pie managed to shove it off before it could do much damage. The Hunter growled at her and pounced. Pinkie pie screamed louder than the pipe bomb’s beeping as the Hunter started to tear at her. Applejack reacted by kicking the infected’s head clean off. It soared through the air leaving a mangled trail of blood. The room was silent as Celestia entered and saw the torn off head of the Hunter. She turned and was Applejack getting Pinkie pie to her hooves as her friends tried to check if she was badly injured.
“What happened?” she asked.
Nick turned to her, “oh, just a coincidental Hunter attack. Seriously, at least the other times they were outside. Now you’re sending the infected at us inside? Just what exactly are you?”
Celestia stared at the former con man, “I don’t quite understand what you are saying.”
Nick gave an irritated sigh, “first a hunter attacks us as soon as we leave the bakery. Next, a Spitter and a Smoker show up. And after that you send out a Charger, which killed Ellis. Then I find a Tank AND a Witch. What exactly do you not understand? Sure, I admit you had me going for a while when the Spitter attacked your yellow friend,” he said. Fluttershy backed away slightly, “but come on! We have a trap for a Tank and a Hunter is already inside waiting for us? How long were you expecting us to fall for this shit?!”
“Nick…” growled Coach.
“But, now I’ve figured it all out. We are still in Ducatel and you’re just some crazy new infected that’s messing with us!” said Nick. Ellis briefly noticed a black aura or something flicker around him as he was saying this. Something was wrong here. He saw something also black shining outside the window.
It was a weird looking statue, even weirder with dark cracks pulsating off it. He leaned over to Twilight.
“Uh, what’s up with the statue?” asked Ellis. She turned to see it and visibly paled.
“Oh no,” she whispered.
“That’s bad I take it?” he asked.
“It’s Discord,” she whispered as the entire castle shook.
The loud throaty roar of the Tank was heard along with the sound of stone being torn from the ground. There was a deafening crash as the Tank threw the cracked statue through the window, creating more cracks in it. The monstrous infected climbed through the destroyed window and flung Nick, who was closest, across the room.
“Shit,” he muttered as he tried to get the world to stop spinning. When it stopped, he saw complete and utter chaos.
Somehow the pipe bomb had attracted not only the Tank, but a Boomer, Jockey, Smoker and a Witch too. Grabbing his frying pan, Nick ran into the midst of the fight, muttering something about how these ponies are going to get him killed.
The room was a warzone. Under normal circumstances, the five infected would be dead by now.
But these aren’t normal circumstances.
The loud spwang of Nick’s frying pan making contact with an infected vibrated across the room along with the various other sounds, such as Ellis’s guitar cracking the spine of the Jockey while it attacked Coach or the disgusting sound of the Boomer barfing all over everything that in an attempt to hit someone. And, of course, the yelling as the Tank ripped chunks of concrete from who knows where and threw them across the room. All of this was surprisingly amusing to Discord, whose damaged stone body slowly cracked open to reveal the spirit of chaos. Well, it was amusing until the Tank got a lucky shot with the concrete and it clipped his left arm. Discord moved his left arm to check what happened. To his fascination and surprise, his arm hurt. This confused him greatly, ‘how can I be injured? All my previous injured healed themselves instantly.’ This caused Discord, in an attempt to get out of the way of the crossfire, to edge away to a far wall where he watched the grand confrontation between the survivors, ponies and the infected.
“Oh shit!” yelled Nick as he narrowly dodged the enraged Witch’s claws. The infected screamed at him again as he fled. Ellis ran in-between Nick and the Witch and swung his blood stained guitar right into the Witch’s face. It screamed again as it changed targets.
“Help!” cried out Ellis as the Witch shoved him to the ground and started to tear away at his chest with its claws.
“Hold on!” shouted Rochelle as she shoved Pinkie pie, who was still hurting from the Hunter attack, out of the way of incoming Boomer puke, which landed on her instead. “Shit!” she yelled as the puke obscured her already limited vision.
She stumbled around until she ran into the leader of the assault, the Smoker. It wheezed angrily at her as she shoved it away. With the barf finally out of her eyes, she had just enough time to see the Smoker’s long tongue wrap around her waist and drag her away.
“Hold on Ro!” yelled Coach as he swung the dazed body of the Jockey away and ran towards the tongue.
The situation was turning in favor of the infected as all attempts with magic against the Tank proved futile. In fact, Discord noticed that magic seemed to not only do nothing against the Tank, but none of the other infected ether. ‘How strange,’ he thought as he tried to inflate the Jockey into a balloon. To his astonishment, his magic didn’t work ether. ‘Well hello, what’s this?’ he tried everything against the infected to only have it do nothing. By the time he was finished trying, he noticed that he had been spotted not only by Celestia, but by the Smoker (who Rochelle had narrowly escaped with the aid of Coach) as well. He tried to hide behind a supporting pillar when a long coil of slimy flesh wrapped around his chest.
“Gah!” he shouted as started to be dragged across the room to the Smoker, who he could swear was smiling evilly at him.
Just as the Smoker finished reeling in his confused prey, Rochelle flung her axe across the room, in an attempt to hit the Tank, but missed and cut the Smoker’s tongue just as it had Discord within arm’s length. The spirit of chaos clawed away at the tongue only to come face to face with the Boomer.
“Oh, and what are you supposed to do?” he asked sarcastically, “roll on me?”
The Boomer, as if he caught on to Discord’s sarcasm, threw up on him and started to slap him with its stubby hands.
While this was going on, The Smoker made an angry sound and kicked away the axe and fled from sight. She turned to see Ellis trying to shove the Witch away in vain as it tore away at him. “Nick!” she shouted, “Help Ellis!”
“Uh, kinda busy right now!” he shouted back as he avoided another chunk of concrete thrown by the Tank. Rarity, Twilight and Celestia had tried to stop the infected but soon learned, like with Discord, their magi had no effect on the freaks. Instead, they tried to stop as many chunks of concrete as they could while Nick beat it with his frying pan while Applejack tried to kick its legs.
“HEEELLLP!” yelled Ellis his vision started to fade. ‘No, no, no!’ he thought desperately, ‘I can’t die now!’ suddenly, just as his vision was going completely black, he heard shouting and screaming along with a menacing crack followed by something falling on him. He held on to consciousness for a bit longer and looked for the dead Witch that should be lying on the ground. To his surprise, there were no traces of the witch besides his crippling chest wounds. As he tried to make sense of what happened, he heard Rainbow dash shouting at him to get up.
“Come on! My leg is broken and I’m still faster than you! Get up!” she shouted at him as he rolled over, making her hover in the air, and slowly got to his feet.
“Thanks,” Ellis said weakly as he grabbed his guitar off the floor and used it as a crutch. He turned to see Nick, Applejack and the Tank fighting across the room and started to limp towards them to help. He squinted to get a better look at them as he continued walking. “Ugh, I’m hurt so bad I can’t even see right,” he muttered.
Discord wasn’t fairing any better. His hand to hand combat was rust after using magic for nearly all his life. And being encased in stone for centuries didn’t help the problem ether. Although, he had managed to drive the Boomer off by the time he got his vision back. He spun around to come face to face with a terrified Fluttershy.
“Eep!” she squeaked, unprepared to see Discord again.
Discord, despite the situation, chuckled, “ah, my weak and helpless little Fluttershy, please be a dear and move out of the way?”
Afraid of the spirit of chaos, she bolted and Discord started to search for the Smoker, annoyed at how the creature had humiliated him with just its tongue. Discord spun around upon hearing the loud cough of the Smoker, who was facing Discord with its tongue regrown.
“Well, well, well,” said Discord, “what do we have here?” he walked over to the Smoker. Of course, he could have flown or even teleported to the infected but, he wanted to make this battle dramatic. And so, he walked.
“Ahhhhhow!” coughed the Smoker. Discord raised his eyebrow.
“Oh my, is the smoke sack in pain?” he asked with sarcastic worry, “well we’ll just have to do something about that won’t we?” he said as he charged at the Smoker. Discord was mildly impressed with the Smoker’s height, equally rivaling his own, as the two traded blows. Discord could claw away at the Smoker but the infected had more experience with melee combat. They were, more or less, equal in the fight.
As the fight of the two giants waged on, Rainbow dash was aiding in the Tank fight, zooming up to it and hitting it on her was back. The beast bellowed in rage at the pain that this ragtag group was causing it. It swung its arm out and grabbed the speeding Rainbow dash in its giant fist.
Rainbow dash made a strange chocking sound as the Tank gripped her in his fist. After bellowing one more, he threw Rainbow dash at Pinkie pie, which was sheltering near Twilight, Rarity and Celestia. All three of whom were still trying to prevent the Tank from throwing concrete chunks. Rainbow dash skidded to a halt just inches from Pinkie pie.
“You’ll pay for that…” she muttered as she got back to her hooves and took off again to get revenge on the Tank. Unfortunately, she failed to notice the Jockey who was laughing manically at the fight. Lightning flashed outside the hole the Tank made as the Jockey leaped from its perch and landed on the cyan Pegasus.
“What the?!” she yelled as the Jockey began to steer her into the angry Boomer.
“Blureg,” it gurgled as it threw up its stomach fluids on the Pegasus.
“Ahh! What is this stuff?” she yelled as the Jockey continued to make her fly all across the room. She eventually crashed onto the soaked floor as the rain poured in through the broken window. “Uuhh,” she muttered as she saw the Jockey run off to attack someone else.
She’d felt bad before, but never this bad. She had the strangest feeling that made her want to sleep. ‘Sleep,’ she thought, ‘I could go far a nap about now…’
Just as she was about to give in to the sleep, she felt a sharp jab to her stomach. She looked up and saw a figure in front of her. It looked slightly like the survivors, but looked older and had a pale blue hue. In its hands he had a strange grey object. Rainbow dash stared weakly at the being.
“Get up,” it commanded.
“But I’m tired,” she muttered weakly.
“I’m too old for this horseshit,” it muttered, “look, if you don’t haul ass right now you’re going to end up like me.”
“And what’s your problem?” she asked, starting to fall asleep again.
“I’m dead.”
Rainbow dash stared at the figure and got a good look at it. It was wearing a faded green jacket and grey pants. In his hands was that grey thing. It had a beard and a green hat with a small sun-like halo above his head.
“Now, I don’t want to see your sorry ass all over the floor,” it said, “now, haul ass before that Tank tears you friends to shreds.”
“Who are you?” she asked.
The figure stared at her, “the name’s Bill.”
Rainbow dash slowly got to her hooves, cringing when she accidently put weight on her broken one, as she got up to face the Tank once more. She turned to Bill to thank him but to her surprise, all evidence of Bill being there were gone except for a single shot on the floor. She stared at it. On the label in bold letters it said ‘adrenaline shot.’
“Adrenaline shot?” she wondered aloud. She knew what adrenaline was and it was unopened, there for unused. ‘Why not?’ She thought as she used her mouth and wings to pull off the cap off and injected it into her right foreleg. A surge of energy spread through Rainbow dash’s body as the effects of the adrenaline surged through her blood stream. She bolted off to the Tank and repeatedly kicked its small head.
Lightning flashed through the room as the tables of the fight were turning in favor of the survivors and ponies. The Smoker had fled from his fight with Discord in an attempt to ensnare a survivor. Coach had given Ellis his spare pain pills and they were helping Nick, Rainbow dash and Applejack with the Tank while Twilight, Rarity and the princess were starting to fling the chunks of concrete back at the Tank. Rochelle had located her axe and just recently buried it into the spike of the Jockey, killing it instantly. Pinkie pie was being aided by Fluttershy to the far end of the room to avoid conflict.
Soon the Tank was completely surrounded. Roars, metal clanging, chainsaw coming contact with flesh and various other sounds had filled the room. The water caused by the rain was starting to pool around the Tank and the survivors. Suddenly, lightning flashed just outside that gave Ellis an idea.
“Hey, what if we get a lightning bolt to hit the water like it did last time?” he shouted over the sounds.
“Yeah and how did that end last time?” asked Nick as he dodged the first of the Tank.
Ellis spin around and slammed his guitar into the Tank’s back, it roared and Ellis jumped out of the way. “True, true, we ended in another dimension but hey, who’s to say it won’t send us back?”
“As dumb as it sounds, Ellis’s plan is just as good as any other we’ve had,” yelled Coach as he brought the chainsaw down on the Tank again, “rrng! Nerng!” he grunted as the Tank blood started to splash all over him and onto anyone near. The Tank flung his arm and flung Coach away. “Shit!”
Meanwhile, while Fluttershy was helping Pinkie pie with her Hunter wounds, the Boomer somehow snuck up behind them and gave out a large belch, covering them in puke.
“Ahh!” Pinkie pie screamed as some of the bile leaked onto her wounds, causing intense stinging.
Fluttershy also yelled but it was muffled by some bandages that were still on her face by the Spitter attack. The two unintentionally ran in the midst of the chaos just as Discord found the Smoker again.
“Oh what’s this?” he asked the Smoker, his voice with hints of amusement and sarcasm, as it turned to the embodiment of chaos, “did you honestly think you could flee from me?”
The Smoker made a loud rasping sound as it fired its tongue at Discord. Discord however, was prepared for this and used his right claw to cut it in half. The Smoker was slightly taken aback at this as Discord came closer.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, levitating himself off the flooded floor, “tongue tied?”
The Smoker, doing the oldest and noblest of Smoker/Spitter traditions, fled to the Tank in hopes of cover. There the four survivors were fighting the Tank along with six ponies while Celestia was still blocking the concrete chunks from a distance to keep an eye on Discord, who had somehow avoided most attention. The water on the floor had a mix of blood, mud, gas from the chainsaw, blood from nearly everyone and, of course, Boomer bile. The Tank roared again, this time pulling a pipe that ran under the floor, and lifted it over its head and blocking the broken window. The sky had grown immensely darker as he glanced outside. Another bolt of lightning cracked through the sky and hit the nearest metal object: the pipe the Tank was holding. The lightning surged through the pipe and the Tank, which electrocuted the various liquids and solids in the water.
Ten of which were the survivors and the six ponies.
The Tank roared in immense pain along with everything else in it. A loud explosion echoed through the room that signaled the Boomer’s death. The water flashed with the raw electricity in it and covered the room in a bright light. When it cleared, the Tank had disappeared. Celestia and Discord watched the events from the safety of being in flight. But, along with the absence of the Tank, they noticed something else too. The four survivors were missing.
Along with Twilight, Rarity, Pinkie pie, Fluttershy, Rainbow dash and Applejack.
A quiet wail from the Witch in the distance echoed throughout the room…
The loud whirring of a helicopter filled the air. Coach rose to his feet and observed his surroundings.
“Aw shit!” he exclaimed when he realised where he was. He checked you see if he still had is chainsaw, which, to his dismay, was gone. Coach began to swear loud enough to wake Ellis, Rochelle and Nick.
“Hey! It worked!” exclaimed Ellis.
“It worked too well,” said Coach, “we’re back at the goddamn hotel!”
“So wait, we’re back at the hotel, without our weapons, and now we have to get to Ducatel AGAIN?!” asked Nick. Coach nodded, “DAMN YOU JIMMY GIBBS JUNIOR!” Nick shouted, “why couldn’t you get us past the cars?!”
“Hey calm down,” said Rochelle, “we’ve made it there once; we can probably do it again.”
“She’s right,” said Coach, “we didn’t make it that far on dumb luck. We’re a team and nothing, Tank nor flood, will stop us from getting to New Orleans this time.”
The other three survivors nodded and turned away from the fence atop the Vannah hotel rooftop, which was the survivor’s location. To their astonishment, they seemed to have found something that wasn’t with them on the first trip.
“Ugh, where are we?” asked a dazed Twilight. The survivors stared at her and the other five ponies that unintentionally accompanied the survivor’s trip home.
“Tell me I’m not seeing this,” said Nick.
“Seeing what?” asked Ellis, “you mean the ponies? Yeah, I see them too.”
The survivors stared dumbfounded at the ponies that were, at the moment, oblivious to their location. Another thing they noticed was that all their previous injured from the infected just days prior were gone.
“Uh, where are we?” asked Twilight again as the realisation slowly started to dawn on her.
“Savannah, Georgia,” said Coach.
Rainbow dash blinked, “wait isn’t that the place where…”
“Yep,” said Nick, “welcome to hell.”
An uneasy silence passed through the rooftop before Ellis made a suggestion.
“Maybe y’all could come with us ‘till we get back to Ducatel?”
Nick pulled him aside, “are you crazy? They couldn’t last five minutes here.”
“Well, they did ok with the Tank,” he replied in a harsh whisper.
Nick sighed, “If they come with us, you owe me.”
“Fine, fine.”
The two turned back to the ponies, who have appeared to have made their decision.
“I guess we could go with you,” said Twilight, “how hard can it be? You four did it and seam ok.”
“Define ok,” muttered Nick under his breath.
Coach sighed, “Ok, if y’all are going to come with us, you gotta remember some things.”
“What things exactly?” asked Rarity.
“Well, first is try not to shoot one another,” replied Coach as he walked over to a table by the doorway to the stairs. On it there were some pistols, crowbars and fire axes. The ponies looked at the weapons curiously.
“What are those?” asked Pinkie pie as the pointed to the pistols.
“Those are pistols,” said Ellis as he grabbed two, “y’all kill the zombies with them.”
“Kill?” asked Fluttershy quietly.
The ponies were uncomfortable with the idea of killing anything, but eventually they all grabbed something off the table to defend themselves with. Twilight and Rarity used their magic to operate the pistols, each of them held two. Rainbow dash, Pinkie pie and Applejack held a fire axes and a crowbar in their mouths respectively. Rochelle had pointed out some spare holsters under the table and they each strapped one or two onto their legs to hold the weapons when not in use. And finally, Fluttershy tried to use pistols with her hooves.
“Uh, how exactly are you going to fire that thing?” asked Rochelle. To her surprise, Fluttershy somehow managed to fire the pistols only using her wings.
“How the hell did you do that?” asked Ellis who was clearly confused, “are your wings like hands or something?”
Fluttershy mumbled something but Ellis didn’t hear what, shrugging; he grabbed a first aid kit and an axe. He grinned at having a weapon that easily spelt doom on the zombies. After the other three survivors were set up too, they and the ponies walked down the stairs until they came across a door. Beside the door there was a sign that said ‘floor 7’. Coach chose this time to inform the ponies of the second thing they should remember.
“Alright, now that y’all have your weapons, you’re going to have to use them. Also, don’t get separated, Smokers, Chargers, Jockeys and Hunters are behind this door. Y’all are going to need someone else to get them off. Any questions?”
The ponies were silent and Coach opened the door. Behind the door there were infected, they looked much like the survivors. They had no deformities like the Chargers arm or the Smokers tongue, the only real difference was that they were a pale grey colour and were covered in blood. One of them turned to them as they stepped out of the door frame and ran up to them shrieking angrily. Ellis ran up the infected to intercept it and swung his axe, the infected’s head went flying across the hallway. The ponies were speechless as the other survivors followed Ellis down the hallway. After a second, they too followed them.
Rainbow dash swung her axe at an infected, causing a large gash to applier on its chest. Her face and chest area were covered in blood. Applejack and Pinkie pie were in similar situations, although they usually had their eyes shut when they were killing the infected. Rainbow dash chuckled slightly as the shoved and infected out a nearby window.
“How can y’all be laughing?” asked Applejack as she cut an infected’s legs off with her own fire axe, “were killing all these sick people.”
“Well, it’s not like they will get any better,” Rainbow dash replied as the sliced another infected’s head off, “Ellis said there isn’t a cure. And they won’t get any better.”
“Well, we’re still killing these people,” said Applejack a she sliced an infected’s chest open, revealing its intestines. She recoiled as it flailed around spilling it’s entrails along the floor before falling over.
“This is just sick,” she muttered to herself, “but ah don’t want to die.”
Twilight and Rarity were fairing slightly better in terms of disposing of the infected, they had the advantage of range.
“So you have no idea what started the infection?” Twilight asked Rochelle as she shot down an infected.
“Some people think it might have spread through livestock,” she said as she found a Magnum pistol and some pain pills in a side room, “found some pills!” she shouted to the others as she grabbed the Magnum.
“Ugh, is there a… cleaner way of disposing of the zombies as you call them?” asked Rarity as she shot down an infected that was running down the hall.
“This is as clean as you’ll be for a while,” replied Coach as he whacked another infected with a baseball bat.
With a sigh, Rarity and the others eventually came across another stairway. As they stepped down, she noticed a large amount of smoke in the air.
“Um, is something burning?” she asked Ellis.
“Yeah, the building’s on fire, we better hurry,” he replied before he ran through the door way that led to the sixth floor.
Again the group of ten fought through the floor of zombies until Fluttershy came across a jar of some sort.
“Um, there’s a jar with some weird green stuff,” she said, just loud enough to be heard, “um, do I take it or…”
“That’s a bile jar,” said Ellis as he checked the area, some sleeping bags were on the floor and an elevator just right to him, “y’all throw them at the zombies. Really helpful when you’re fighting a Tank.”
Fluttershy grabbed the jar of bile and put it in her holster. She and the others then entered the elevator and began their decent down. Slowly, smoke began to pour into the elevator room. Suddenly, the elevator made a loud groaning sound and stopped abruptly.
“Alright, there should be some guns just out this door,” said Coach, “grab them and watch out for the fire.” Coach then manually opened the elevator doors which made a loud cracking sound that accompanied by a collective shriek from the nearby zombies. The rushed out the doors and each grabbed a nearby sub machine gun that was lying on the ground floor of the hotel.
“Here they come!” shouted Ellis as he opened fire on the zombies. Some of them accidently ran into the flames and ran around flailing their arms.
Fluttershy recoiled slightly as an unlucky zombie ran head first into a fire to only get mowed down by Rainbow dash, who had figured how to fire the gun. The muffled gunshots shot through the room. Just a short distance away, Ellis found a room with a steel gun cabinet full of some chrome shotguns in it. Applejack, Pinkie pie and Twilight grabbed one along with Nick and Coach. Again, to Ellis’s astonishment, they were able to fire the guns.
“You know, I’m not going to ask how you know how to use these,” he muttered to himself as he avoided a wall of flames into what looked like a kitchen.
The table going through the center was almost completely engulfed in flames except two parts where they could safely jump onto and over. Applejack fired her shotgun and cringed as the infected’s head exploded, leaving bits of an orangey pink goop and skull fragments.
Fluttershy was cowering behind Rainbow dash as she gunned down infected by the dozen. When they left the door on the other side of the room, they had passed the wall of flames and had a clear route to the entrance of the hotel, which was the location of the safe house.
“Safe house ahead!” yelled Coach as they ran into the reception area of the hotel. Although there was not fire, the room still had smog from it. They cut down the remaining infected and made it into the safe room in one piece.
When Ellis closed the door, he turned to see the five of the six ponies shivering at the encounter. Only Rainbow dash seemed remotely calm, but looked slightly shaken from it. Each of them were covered with blood and various other bits from the zombies. Ellis couldn’t help but feel slightly sorry for them. It wasn’t their fault they were dragged here with him and the other survivors. Sighing, Ellis decided to speak to them.
Ellis grabbed some spare ammo from the ammo pile on the table beside the safe room door. He tossed the four spare health packs to Twilight, Applejack, Fluttershy and Rarity. Although they ponies were incredibly unwilling to go back outside, they were terrified to be left behind. Coach opened the door and the group of ten walked into the parking lot of the Vannah hotel. Twilight looked at some CEDA trailers curiously.
“What are these?” she asked as she walked up to one.
“CEDA trailers,” replied Coach, “they were supposed to warn people about the infection. As you can tell, they failed.”
“Oh,” she said before feeling the ground started to shake, “earthquake!” she yelled.
“Worse,” said Nick, “TANK!” he yelled as the giant infected flipped over a car and reviled itself at the other end of the small parking lot by some tents.
Nick and the other survivors opened fire on the Tank. It roared in anger as it barrelled towards them and was narrowly avoided by Ellis, who swung his axe at the infected. The Tank roared again as it flung Ellis into a CEDA trailer.
“Aww!” he yelled as he got back to his feet and resumed firing at the Tank. By this time, the ponies had recovered from the sudden appearance of the Tank and started shooting it too.
Although it took a decidedly shot time to kill a Tank with a group of four, it took even less time with a group of ten. Ellis walked over to the corpse of the Tank and pulled his fire axe out of its back. The group then left the parking lot and shot down a couple of infected until they made it into a side building. Rochelle opened the door to see what was inside.
“Adrenaline shot here,” she said as she walked past it. Rainbow dash walked over to it and grabbed it.
“So uh, where’s the next safe house?” she asked, eager to get off the street.
“It’s in the mall on the other side of town,” replied Rochelle, “on the way there we can stop at Whitakers gun shop.”
“Gun shop?”
“Yeah, they have all kinds of guns in there,” replied Ellis as he walked down the stairwell and opened the door at the bottom of it and entered the streets again. He paused when he heard a growling sound. “Careful, Hunter,” he said in a low tone to avoid being heard by it.
He walked through an underpass and saw came across some beat up cars and a small patch of grass with another street on the other side. The Hunter watched Ellis from atop a cargo container that led to the next street. It shrieked at him as he began to climb the small ladder.
“Get it off me!” he yelled as the Hunter started to tear away at him. Applejack aimed her chrome shotgun and fired at the head of the Hunter, killing it instantly.
“Thank you,” said Ellis as he got off the ground and walked over to the container. He grabbed the handles of the ladder and climbed up them. A small bit of dirt was kicked into the air as he jumped off the container and landed on the other side of the street. He waited for the others to catch up before moving on.
Crack went Rainbow dash’s shotgun as the entire top part of an infected’s torso exploded. Some of the blood splashed onto Rainbow dash when she fired.
“Eww…” she muttered, wiping the blood off her face, “why do these infected have to be so… bloody?” she asked as she saw Fluttershy flee from an infected that was chasing her. Rainbow dash grabbed the axe that was strapped to her back and swung it at the infected’s head, causing it to soar through the air with a trail of blood.
“I guess it’s because we’re big,” replied Ellis as he gunned down a Boomer in the distance, causing bits of it to fly everywhere. He ran to the other side of the street and entered another side room with the others close behind.
Inside there were some pistols lying on the ground and Ellis decided to abandon his axe in favor of the firearms. After going up another flight of stairs, they exited on a small overpass. Ellis went to the end of in and jumped onto a steel container and then jumping onto the ground. A loud cough echoed throughout the nearly empty street. Rochelle pulled out her Magnum pistol and looked around for the source of the cough, which would likely be a Smoker.
Pinkie pie quickly followed Ellis and ran slightly ahead.
“Ahhhhhow!” wheezed a Smoker as its rope like tongue shot through the air and wrapped itself around Pinkie pie.
“Huh?” she asked aloud before being dragged away. “HELP!” she yelled as the Smoker finished reeling her in and stated to attack her.
All the surrounding infected, eager to help a Smoker kill its prey, started to attack the pink mare as Ellis ran towards it firing his silenced machine gun.
“Hold on!” said Ellis as he pulled out his dual pistols and started firing at the infected before shoving the Smoker off of Pinkie pie, who fell to the ground incapacitated.
Another desperate wheeze escaped the Smoker as it exploded into a cloud of smoke, killed by Ellis, who ran back over to her to help her up.
“Come on, y’all can’t lie here all day, we got a mall to get to,” said Ellis as he helped Pinkie pie to her hooves.
Pinkie pie however, saw a strange blue figure looking exactly like the one Rainbow dash saw when the Jockey incapacitated her. The figure appeared to be nodding, seemingly approving at how Ellis was helping her. The figure then pointed to another side room up some stairs and then pointed at the grey object he held in his hands. Then, just as she was standing steady again, the figure vanished.
“Who was that?” she asked Ellis, who was healing her with his first aid kit. By this time the others had caught up to them.
“Who was who?” he asked confused, “did y’all see someone?”
Pinkie pie nodded, “yes, he was all bluey and had a funny grey thing in his hands like your gun thingy,” by this time Ellis had finished patching her up with his first aid kit, “thanks!” she said happily.
Rainbow dash stopped dead in her tracks. ‘Is she talking about Bill?’ she thought, ‘nah,’ she shook her head, ‘why would Bill be here? He said he was dead.’
The group entered yet another side room, walked over another over pass, before finally arriving at Whitaker’s gun store. Twilight shot down an infected as it attacked the doors of the shop. When they all got inside, the ponies stared at the vast array of firearms.
“Wow…” exclaimed Rainbow dash as she looked over the mass weaponry. She poked around with some of the guns before finding the perfect one for her: an assault rifle. She chose it not only because it shot bullets faster than her old gun, but because it looked a lot like the one Bill was holding when his ghost helped her.
The others also chose guns that slightly reflected their performances of fighting the infected. Applejack took an auto shotgun, Pinkie pie took the AK-47 assault rifle, Twilight a hunting rifle and a Magnum that was behind the glass counter, Rarity took a combat rifle with dual pistols and finally Fluttershy, to everyone’s surprise, took a sniper rifle. After the other survivors got weapons of their own as well, they went over to some crates and found a box full of laser sights.
“What are these supposed to do?” asked Rainbow dash.
“Help y’all aim better,” replied Coach as he attached one to his automatic shotgun, “now hurry up, we got a mall to get to.”
As the others attached laser sights to their own guns, Coach walked up to the back door of the shop and pressed the button on the speaker next to the wall to contact Whitaker.
“Hello there. I’ve barricaded myself on the roof top with ample provisions. But in my haste, I forgot cola. So here’s my proposition, if you go get me some cola from yonder food store, I’ll let you keep the guns you stole from me free of charge and clear the path to the mall for yah,” said the voice from the other end of the speaker, presumably Whitaker.
“Uh… ok?” replied Twilight as the locked door opened as they left to get the cola.
“Procure my colas and my help is guaranteed, ma’am,” said Whitaker, “consider the guns a generous donation to the cause.”
As the survivors and the ponies walked down to the store, they heard Whitaker mutter something that sounded like, “this lack of cola must be screwing with my sight, first I’m seeing zombies now I’m seeing gun slinging ponies!”
Nick walked up to the convenience store called ‘save 4 less’. “Ready?” he asked as he prepared to open the doors. After he got a yes from everyone (except Fluttershy, who squeaked ‘no’ in an afraid voice) Nick opened the doors to the store and ran to the back to get the cola. A collective shriek of the infected rang out as the loud store alarm was set off.
As Nick ran back through with the cola in his hands, the infected started to jump over a nearby hedge and started attacking them. Over the gunshots and the shrieking infected, Applejack could faintly hear Whitaker say “sacrifice your selves if you have to. The cola is that important!”
“Sacrifice yer self if you want the cola this bad,” muttered Applejack. She aimed her shotgun and shot the heads off three infected that were gaining on Nick. More blood and zombie bits rained on her for her effort much to her displeasure.
Fluttershy and Twilight meanwhile were back near the gun store taking advantage of their rifles long range. Well, at least Twilight was. When she noticed Fluttershy hadn’t taken a single shot she asked what was wrong.
“I… I can’t! I can’t kill any living creature!” she whimpered.
Twilight sighed, “Fluttershy, we need your help with this. Ellis said that they were going to help us get home. All we need to do his help them get to the mall and then we’ll be back home in no time! But for now we need your help. And that means you’re going to have to shoot them!”
Fluttershy nodded reluctantly. The peered through the scope on her rifle and looked for the red dot of her laser scope. She then reluctantly aimed it at a Hunter, who was about to pounce Rarity, who herself was occupied with helping up Applejack as she was being overwhelmed by the infected.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered as she fired the gun. A loud crack emanated from it as the bullet whizzed through the air and slammed into the Hunters skull, killing it and protecting Rarity. A surprised shriek from the Hunter alerted Rarity as it slumped over. She and Applejack looked at Fluttershy on the upper area and waved at her, signaling their thanks.
Twilight turned to the Pegasus and smiled, “you did it! If you hadn’t of shot the Hunter, Rarity might have been seriously hurt!”
“Yeah…” whispered Fluttershy, who looked like she was about to throw up. Just then, Nick came running by with the cola in hand with Pinkie pie bouncing behind him to keep the infected from blocking him.
“Put the cola in the slot!” said Whitaker as Nick opened the door slot and dumped the cola inside Whitaker’s rooftop bunker. “Now, go screw yourselves. I ain’t helping.”
“What!?” yelled Rainbow dash as she shoved an infected away and opened fire on it. “Why you-!”
An amused chuckled came from the speaker, “I just wanted to see the look on your faces. Here you go,” he said just before a huge explosion shook the entire area as the tanker blocking the path to the mall exploded. “God watch over you,” he said before the speaker clicked off.
“Oh shit I think that was diet,” muttered Rochelle as they all regrouped, “hey thanks mister!” she shouted.
The ten walked past the destroyed tanker and saw some abandoned CEDA tents. Fluttershy, still unwilling to kill anything, hid behind Rochelle as they ran to the mall entrance.
“Um, this doesn’t really look like an evacuation center…” said Rainbow dash as she went into the safe room at the entrance.
“That’s because it isn’t,” said Coach as he closed the safe room door, “CEDA’s abandoned it. we’re going to have to get outta here ourselves.”
“And how do you suppose we’re going to do that?” asked Rarity.
Coach chuckled, “three words: Jimmy Gibbs Junior.”
As far as safe houses go, they usually aren’t very big with only four people in them.
If they, however, have four people and six ponies in them, the word cramped fits the situation perfectly. The mall safe room was really a narrow strip of an entrance way, about ten meters wide and five across. Nick had finished reloading his combat rifle and Magnum. He glanced over to Rarity, who also was carrying a combat rifle. Slightly intrigued by her weapon choice, Nick asked her why she chose it.
“Why I chose this… gun?” she repeated, “well… the pattern matches one of my hats back home.”
Nick raised an eyebrow at this statement, but sighed and walked over to the exit door. On the other side there were a few scattered infected along with a shutdown escalator, which led to the next floor. Ellis walked up to Nick and looked out the bared window.
“Hey Nick, even think we’d be back here again?” he asked.
“Nope,” he replied as he lifted the safety bar and opened the door. He walked slowly around the small blockades and waited at an un-functioning elevator. He lifted his combat rifle and shot the head off an infected waiting at the top of the escalator.
Gunshots echoed throughout the abandoned mall, making the six ponies feel even more alone in this giant building.
“So uh, where is this Jimmy Gibbs Junior?” asked Applejack as she and the others waked up the escalator to the first floor.
“Jimmy Gibbs Junior is down in the atrium,” said Ellis as he pulled out his dual pistols and shot down two infected, “it’s not far, and we just have to get to the other side of the mall.”
“Seems simple,” said Twilight.
Ellis led the others through the store they were in, called Kappel’s. Bullets whizzed in the air of the nearly silent mall until a faint crying echoed throughout the abandoned evacuation point.
“Is somepony… crying?” asked Fluttershy, coming out from behind Rochelle and looking for the source of the crying. She saw that not far away there was a girl with her hands on her head and crying loudly. Fluttershy went to go get a better look when Nick stopped her.
“Quiet, I hear a Witch,” he muttered.
“Witch?” asked Applejack, “is that bad?”
“yes, now stay away from it,” Nick said as he moved as far away from the Witch as possible while still heading to the broken security door, which had a large gap that they could walk through.
Ellis and Rochelle soon followed him through the security door and Twilight, Applejack, Rainbow dash and Rarity soon followed.
Fluttershy and Pinkie pie however, decided to try and talk with the Witch. She looked normal enough, right? Coach was just about to go through when he heard a deafening screech.
“What the?!” he yelled as he turned around to see the Witch chasing Pinkie pie while Fluttershy was hiding behind a glass counter. He ran after Pinkie pie and fired ten complete rounds of his auto shot gun at the enraged Witch.
The Witch stumbled slightly and collapsed onto the cold tile floor. Pinkie pie stopped dead in her tracks and was hyperventilating. Coach walked over to her and sighed.
“I guess it’s a bit late to tell y’all but, never piss off a Witch.”
Twilight assumed they were close to the center of the mall called ‘the atrium’. They had gone up and down multiple escalators until they found a pushed in door that they could walk over. Pinkie pie had mostly recovered her experience with the Witch but jumped behind something whenever she thought she saw one, which was very often.
“Wow Pinkie pie,” said Rainbow dash as Rochelle opened a door and found extra ammo, “you’re hiding more than Fluttershy.”
Pinkie pie peered into the room Rochelle had opened, satisfied that there was nothing in there, she slowly walked in and reloaded. Rochelle could tell that the experience had shaken Pinkie pie along with Fluttershy. All they wanted was to help the poor crying girl, all alone in the mall. And what did they get for trying to help? A very angry infected with twelve inch claws, hell bent on killing the one who disturbed her.
The group of ten walked down the white hall, occasionally opening doors in search of supplies, until they found a stairwell.
“Christ I forgot about this,” muttered Ellis.
“What’s wrong?” asked Twilight.
“You’ll see in a minute, stay close.”
At the end of the hall way there were two sets of double doors. After opening the first set, the second set was a few feet behind with a warning that said,
Alarm will sound if doors are opened.
“Is that bad?” asked Rarity.
Ellis nodded, “if we get separated yes.” He turned to Fluttershy, “now, when these doors open, I need you to throw your bile jar as far as you possibly can.”
“Why?” she asked, slightly afraid of what awaits on the other side of the doors.
“When the doors open there’ll be an alarm. Now, these zombies hate loud noise so we’ll attract all the ones on the area,” Ellis turned to face the doors in preparation to open them, “We have to shut off the alarm on the third floor to get them to stop. What I need you to do is to throw the bile jar to give us some time to get to the alarm while the zombies are occupied with the bile.”
Fluttershy nodded and Ellis told the others what was going to happen. After everyone was ready, Ellis pushed open the doors and a loud alarm went screeching throughout the mall.
“Don’t get separated!” yelled Coach as the blasted the heads off some of the infected. They ran a few feet until they arrived at a large open area with two escalators leading up.
“Now! Throw it now!” yelled Ellis as he shoved away an infected and gunned it down with his dual pistols.
Fluttershy quickly grabbed the jar, nearly dropping in on the ground, and threw it with all her might into the horde of infected. The infected swarmed the area covered with bile, giving the ten a clear shot to get to the alarm switch. They all ran (or in Rainbow dash’s case flew) up the escalator and gunned down any infected that came in their path, Rainbow dash, seeing at how she would be faster at getting to that alarm, decided to go on ahead and left the others to hold off the zombies while she was turning off the loud siren.
“What the hell is she doing?” yelled Nick as he shoved a Spitter down to the floor below. For a brief instant Fluttershy looked down on the broken body of the Spitter and shuttered at the memory of her getting attacked by one.
“How many of these things are there?” asked Applejack as she tore the legs off of some infected with her fire axe.
“They ain’t ever going to stop until we turn off that alarm!” said Ellis as he raised the scope on his sniper rifle and fired. The bullet tore through dozens of infected before crashing into a wall.
Rainbow dash was gliding past the hordes of infected as she saw the alarm shut off in another room across a gap. She flew as fast as she could towards it. While she was doing so, she heard a strange cry from an infected. Suddenly, something huge crashed into her and carried her off to the far wall away from the alarm. The thing that grabbed her lifted its arm and pounded Rainbow dash into the floor. Getting a quick look at its face, she noticed that is was the thing that killed Ellis at the hospital. ‘What was it called?’ she thought franticly, ‘was it charger?’ The infected, whatever it was, it let out another unearthly screech and slammed her back into the floor.
“Help!” she yelled as the Charger lifted her up again and pounded her with even more force than before. Rainbow dash coughed up a bit of blood when the Charger prepared to resume its work. “Help!” she sputtered weakly, some blood dripping out of her mouth and onto the pool of blood forming on the floor.
Rainbow dash could faintly hear yelling and a sudden silence. Everything was a spinning and she sub-consciously noticed she had fallen to the floor. It took her a moment to notice that the alarm was shut off. She blinked and tried to look around herself. All the zombies that were there previously had been killed and Fluttershy was yelling at her. The only thing she could hear was her own steady heartbeat, which was slowly losing its pace.
‘Wait, why is Fluttershy is yelling at me?’
And then all the sound came flooding into her ears.
“Get up! Please Rainbow dash, get up!” Fluttershy was shouting at her.
Rainbow dash weakly tried to roll over. A sharp pain surged throughout her body upon the movement.
“Oww…” she muttered under her breath. She coughed up some more blood and collapsed weakly to the floor. The sounds were fading again.
The others came running just as Rainbow dash was losing consciousness. A cold feeling entered her body and a shining light was in the distance. It only took her a brief moment to realise,
‘I’m dying…’ The words echoed throughout her mind. The blackness around her eyes was slowly taking over her vision as the dark shadow of death descended upon her. She tried to keep her eyes open just a bit longer to see her friends one last time. She saw them, all crying or in a state of shock while Ellis, Nick Coach and Rochelle were standing nearby with ether their heads down or using their guns as crutches. The cold feeling got stronger and her eyes began to close.
“Don’t fall asleep yet, you still got work to do,” said an unseen voice, “how many times do I have to save your sorry ass before you learn to do it yourself?”
Rainbow dash instantly recognised the voice speaking to her, ‘Bill?’
“That’s right, now brace yourself, this is going to hurt like hell, but at least you’ll live.”
‘What are you going to-?’
An incredibly painful blast of electricity shot through Rainbow dash’s entire body and jolted her failing organs back into work. She screamed at the intense pain, along with the surprise of the sudden rush of sound in her ears. She coughed up some more blood and opened her eyes a bit wider.
“Stop coughing, or else I’ll have done that for nothing,” said the voice of Bill as Rainbow dash became aware of all her friends trying to speak with her. “Now, I don’t trust you on your own anymore. Congratulations kid, you’re now haunted.” The ghost of Bill faded and the sounds returned fully.
“Rainbow dash, wake up!” yelled one of them, she couldn’t see who. Rainbow dash coughed again, this time there was no blood, and answered.
“I’m up, I’m up. What do you want?”
She was immediately tackled my all her friends in a hug that put all other hugs in history to shame. The four survivors were smiling. Well, most of them were as Ellis was currently missing. Rochelle walked over to them and asked Rainbow dash how she felt.
“I’ve been a lot better,” Rainbow dash weakly.
Rochelle smiled, “well, at least you’re not dead. Ellis is going to find a backpack to carry you. I don’t think you can walk in your current condition.”
When Ellis returned with the backpack, they managed to place Rainbow dash inside it and continued to travel through the security room and into another hallway with a set of stairs at the end. They descended down the stairs into a room under renovation.
“Almost there,” said Coach as they passed into another open area with some CEDA tents set up, “the safe house is just up that escalator.”
Rainbow dash looked around the open area. There were few infected, most of which were killed immediately, as Ellis carried her in the backpack to the safe room. After everyone was inside, they resupplied. Rainbow dash could still see the silent ghost of Bill, who was standing idly in the safe room, occasionally glancing at one of the survivors. Ellis was rambling on about some guy named Jimmy Gibbs junior. When Ellis finished rambling, they left the room, walked down a long hallway and entered the atrium.
There was a boarded up walk way leading to an elevator. When they were all inside of it, Ellis pushed the button and they descended down. Coach decided that this was the best time to tell the ponies the plan.
“Alright, see that car down there? We gotta collect the gas cans that are lying around all over the room. When we do, we’re going drive out here,” he said, “but remember, stay close to each other. I don’t think Ellis can fit anymore of y’all in there.”
The ponies nodded, (except rainbow dash, who grinned weakly,) and the elevator doors opened.
“Haul ass and get gas!” shouted Coach as he grabbed a gas can that was lying just outside the door and ran to the blue car behind the elevator. He ran to the car’s gas tank and poured the gas into it. “Come on, just twelve more to go!”
Ellis and Rainbow dash ran to the far end of the atrium and grabbed the two cans. Ellis ran with one in his arms while the other was beside Rainbow dash, who was wielding his dual pistols for cover.
The atrium was over flowing with the infected. Fluttershy and Rochelle were on the third floor tossing gas cans down while Twilight and Rarity were grabbing them mid-air and passing them to Coach, Ellis and Rainbow dash.
Nick, Pinkie pie and Applejack were collecting the cans on the third floor and also providing cover for Coach, Rainbow dash and Ellis.
Twilight heard the loud gurgling of a Boomer just before an unpleasant barfing sound and becoming covered in Boomer puke.
“Ergh, what is this?!” she said her vision was obscured and the infected began to swarm her and Rarity.
Rarity, upon being covered in Boomer bile, began shrieking as loud as her voice would make it and began to shoot wildly, accidently hitting the Boomer and covering herself in more bile.
All the infected in the room began to swarm the two ponies while Rochelle and Fluttershy bolted across a walkway and ran down the staircase to Twilight and Rarity’s aid.
More bullets flew through the air as Ellis poured in the last gas can. The lour rumble of the car’s engine rang throughout the atrium, alerting the others that it was gassed up and ready to go. One infected in particular noticed this and stumbled over to the car.
Ellis blasted the head off an infected before seeing an infected with a white racing outfit and motor oil covering its hands.
“Nooooooooo!” Ellis yelled at facing the infected Jimmy Gibbs junior.
“What? What is it?” asked Rainbow dash franticly as Ellis began to back away from the car.
“Someone else has to shoot him!” said Ellis.
As everyone (besides Ellis) ran to the car, Nick saw the infected Jimmy Gibbs junior and split his head open with a crowbar.
“Come on!” he yelled as Ellis ran towards the car.
Ellis tossed the backpack with Rainbow dash inside and ran to the driver’s seat. Coach took a quick glance back from the passenger’s seat to make sure everyone was inside.
“Everyone’s in, now move!” said Coach as Ellis slammed on the gas pedal and the car drove through the entrance doors.
“Woo!” yelled Ellis as they ran over dozens of zombies on the road. He glanced back at the ponies, “hey, nice going. Our next stop is: Rayford Georgia.”
“What? I thought we’re going to Ducatel to send us back to Equestria,” said Twilight.
Coach chuckled, “you thought we only had to go through a mall? Nah, we got a whole road trip ahead of us before we get back to Ducatel. In fact, I suggest y’all rest up. Rayford is just a few hours away and we’ve got a deadline.”
Twilight looked over to see how her friends were doing. To her surprise, Rainbow dash, Pinkie pie and Fluttershy were all sleeping in the cramped car. Feeling tired herself, Twilight closed her eyes and hoped for better things to come
The blue stock car eased to a stop in the late night rain and four people quietly exited the car and carefully shifted the six sleeping inside for safety. After they gently closed the doors, they hollered to some people on a large bridge just ahead of them.
“Hey! Down here!” shouted Ellis.
A lone figure walked across the metal walkway of the Rayford Bridge and leaned on the railing. The figure was wearing a red jacket and jeans.
“Uh, hello there, what do you want?” asked the girl standing at the railing.
“Hi! I’m Ellis this here is Nick, Coach and Rochelle. We were wondering if y’all could lower the bridge?” asked Ellis.
“Well… no,” she answered.
“Oh, do we, uh… have to know some sort of password or something?” asked Ellis again.
The girl shook her head, “uh, no… Generator is out of gas. If you can get to the other side and fill it up, we can cover you. Best I can offer.” She paused, “I’m Zoey by the way.”
Ellis stood by the car, muttering something under his breath.
Rochelle glanced at him, “Ellis, are you going to answer her?”
“She is so beautiful… she is so beautiful,” said Ellis quietly.
“He’s got it!” called Rochelle.
Inside the car, Rainbow dash shifted slightly and fell out of the backpack and onto Applejack, who scrambled out of the car like it was on fire.
“What the heck?!” she panted as Rainbow dash grunted and tried to get out of the car as well. She tried to stand inside of it but failed to do so.
“Ugh, how long do I have to stay in that?” she grumbled as she managed to climb back into the back pack. During this, she managed to wake the other four ponies, who also exited the car.
Zoey stared at the five ponies standing beside the car. She rubbed her eyes and blinked to make sure she wasn’t seeing things. She then turned around and shouted, “Hey Francis, get over here!”
There was a brief silence and then they heard a response, presumably from Francis, “what do you want?” he said gruffly.
“You’re going to want to see this.”
“Can’t you get Louis to do it?” asked Francis.
Zoey sighed, “If you remember, Louis can’t walk right now.”
“So? He got to the gun ok.”
Zoey rolled her eyes, “Francis, get your sorry ass over here.”
There was another pause before a tall, gruff man with tattoos all over his arms and a vest walked across the bridge to see what Zoey wanted.
“I’m here, now, what did you want me to-,” he stopped as soon as he saw the five ponies standing beside the car. He leaned over to Zoey, “uh, are they..?”
“Yep.”
Francis’s expression darkened slightly, “I hate ponies,” he muttered.
Ellis looked at the two confused, it seemed like they had seen the ponies before. “Do you uh, know each other?”
“In a way,” muttered Francis, “stupid ponies, needing the generator to get home.”
Twilight blinked and looked up at Francis and Zoey, “generator? A generator can get us home?”
Francis scowled, “damn it, it is one of them. And here I thought you just dyed them.”
Coach shook his head, “no, these ones can talk. We got one more injured in the car.”
“Um, excuse me Mr.…” started Twilight.
“Name’s Francis. I’m a cop,” said Francis.
“…yeah, so you said a generator can get us back home?” asked Twilight.
“What about it?” said Francis.
“Do you know how to get it to send us back home?”
Francis shook his head, “no. Bill might have known, but, he’s a bit… dead right now.”
Twilights face fell, “oh.”
Zoey sighed impatiently, “Well, if you want to get your car to the other side of the bridge, I suggest you get going.”
Coach nodded, “yeah, alright, gear up people, we gotta get to the other side and refuel the generator.”
The ponies nodded and took their weapons. Unfortunately, their previous ones had been dropped when rushing into the car back in the atrium. All they had were some pistols, Magnums, a fire axe and a golf club that was lying nearby. Ellis pulled the backpack with Rainbow dash inside out of the car.
“How are yah feeling?” he asked.
“Better that I was at the mall,” replied Rainbow dash as she grabbed a Magnum. Ellis crouched down and grabbed the golf club. Unbeknownst to him, she looked around for bill. To her dismay, her haunter was currently missing.
“I’m taking a driver,” he said as he swung it a few times. He grabbed the backpack with Rainbow dash in it and adjusted the straps to it. Despite her small size, Ellis found Rainbow dash rather heavy in the backpack. ‘Probably because I’m not used to having an incapacitated flying pony on my back,’ though Ellis.
The group walked down the street and over a hedge into a small park. Ellis heard the cackling of a Jockey.
“Aw shit,” he muttered, “hey Rainbows, watch out for the Jockey.”
Rainbow dash nodded as Ellis walked up some small stairs and walked across a narrow street and into a building. The others soon followed and Ellis found a pile of Pump shotguns and silenced sub machineguns.
“I’ll take this shotgun,” said Ellis as he grabbed one and passed Rainbow dash a machine gun. He opened the door to the hallway and opened the door at the end.
Fluttershy followed them and walked up the stairs. In a room to her right, there was a large gun behind a filing cabinet. Looking at it curiously, she attempted to hold it. To her slight dismay, the large machine gun was too heavy for her to pick up, let alone run with.
Rochelle walked into the room and noticed this, “damn, that’s a big gun.”
Fluttershy continued to struggle until Rochelle suggested that she support it on her back. Rochelle lifted the gun and strapped it to her back so her wings could fire the trigger and also allow her to use her pistols.
Coach walked into the left room down the hall with Twilight and Pinkie pie accompanying him. A low growl was heard from the far end of the room that leaded into the streets. Their view of the infected was obscured by the tables of the small diner.
“Hunter,” muttered Coach to the two ponies, who each readied their shotgun and silenced machinegun respectively.
Another growling sound was heard besides the Hunters, a deeper more menacing growl. Pinkie pie looked around the room for what could make the sound. A loud shriek signified the attack had started.The Hunter leaped over a table counter and landed on Coach, Twilight quickly started shooting it with her shotgun while Pinkie pie held off an incoming infected. By the time Twilight had killed the Hunter, the group of ten was in the small diner, now recognised as a small winery. They walked through the empty door frame and back into the rainy streets of Rayford. A loud roar followed by the sound of metal scraping across cement filled the air as a Tank threw a car at them, incapacitating Rochelle, Nick, Applejack, Twilight and Ellis, who had managed to pull off the backpack just before the car hit them.
“Damn it!” said Coach as the Tank bounded closer, “shoot it!”
Rarity, Pinkie pie and Rainbow dash were emptying their gun into the Tank while Fluttershy hid behind a nearby table. She heard the shouts for help just as she looked to see the Tank send Rarity flying into a van wedged between two buildings.
A sudden rage filled Fluttershy as the Tank advanced on her other friends. She quickly managed to fit her wings around the trigger of the M60 she had on her back and shouted at the Tank.
“HEY!”
The Tank turned its small head at the small yellow offender. Its gaze involuntarily moved onto its eyes. As soon as it did so, the Tank felt like white hot knives had been rammed into its eyes and desperately tried to cover them. But it was too late.
Fluttershy had opened fire on the giant infected; the bullets of the M60 tore away large chunks of flesh, covering Fluttershy in its blood as she angrily advanced on the Tank.
“You.”
The Tank tried to pull up a chunk of concrete, a bullet slammed into its hand, making it roar in pain.
“Do not.”
The Tank tried to punch Fluttershy, only for her to easily jump out of the way, sending bullets into its left side.
“Hurt.”
The Tank desperately tried to flee by trying to climb a nearby cobblestone wall.
“My.”
The Tank let out another roar as it lost grip on the stone and crashed back down to the street.
“Friends!” said Fluttershy as the last bullet of the gun slammed into the Tanks head, shattering it completely.
After standing at the mutilated corpse of the Tank for a good ten seconds to let out her excess rage, Fluttershy ran back to help up Twilight and Rochelle while Rarity and Pinkie pie helped Ellis, Coach and Applejack. After they all got back up, they had a quick breather to heal and set back to walking.
Nobody saw exactly what how Fluttershy managed to kill the Tank, only Rainbow dash saw the destroyed body of it as they walked down the street, up a ramp, and into some apartments.
Inside Rainbow dash blasted a hole into a female infected as Nick found some rifles and shotguns. Rainbow dash decided to take a Combat shot gun instead of an assault rifle just to see how it worked.
They walked up some stairs and exited into a park. Twilight’s ears perked up as she heard wedding music.
“Aw shit,” muttered Ellis, “I hated having to do this once.” He said as they walked right into the wedding. There was a gazebo, where the Witch was, some amplifiers, tents and a radio along with white chairs and zombies in tuxedos or dresses.
Pinkie pie’s eyes widened as she stared at the bride, now a Witch. “No, no, no, no,” she muttered as she backed away from it, terrified.
Ellis sighed and looked over his shoulder to Rainbow dash.
“Ok, I’m going to shoot the Witch. It’ll need you to get it while I run. Shout if it gets too close and I’ll hold it off.”
“Alright,” she said as she readied her shotgun.
Ellis walked over to the radio and pushed the button, changing the song and alerting the Witch, who stared at Ellis like he was the one who ruined her wedding. With a screech of rage, the Witch bolted after him as Ellis ran and Rainbow dash shot it.
“Run faster!” She shouted in his ear just as her Final bullet tore off its leg. The Witch stumbled for a moment before collapsing to the ground, dead.
The music however, was still blaring in the amplifiers and it attracted all the infected wedding guests. The cracks of bones exploding and guns firing echoed throughout the park as the ten ran through the gazebo, past the tents, onto the street, and finally into the safe house. Coach slammed the door behind him.
“You made me proud out there people!”
Rainbow dash and the others smiled weakly as they stocked up on supplies. Rainbow dash however, thought of two things:
Where Bill was and what did Fluttershy do to the Tank?
“Why exactly did we have to kill the bride?” asked Twilight in a shaky voice, “I know it was an infected but, it was her wedding.”
Nick sighed, “Look, I know you’ve told us about the last wedding you were at but come on, she would have killed one of us if we didn’t kill it.”
“Still…”
“Still what? It was infected; we killed it, end of story. Now let’s get going, the faster we get through the sewer the better,” said Nick.
Rarity bolted upright when Nick mentioned sewer. “Excuse me, did you say sewer?”
Nick nodded, “yep, and trust me, it’s just as fun as it sounds.”
Rarity shivered at the thought of having to walk through sewer waste, and from things with a highly infectious disease at that. But, if it meant that she would get home in the end, she decided that she would have to brave the sewer like the rest of them.
Coach lifted the metal bar keeping the infected out of the room and opened the door. About ten infected were in the alleyway and were cut down quickly. They advanced up some stairs and entered a large street with a pool hall at the end.
The shots of the guns were muffled by the rain, which was pounding heavily on the backs and shoulders of the ten. Ellis tore open an infected with his newly acquired crowbar. A trail of intestines rolled out of the infected as it ran around screaming before collapsing.
The constant fighting was already beginning to affect the ponies. Just yesterday, they had recoiled at the very thought of doing this.
And now Fluttershy, the meek and quiet animal caretaker who wouldn’t hurt a fly, single hoofedly slaughtered a Tank with an M60.
Though it had changed them mentally, they still had many of their old selves in them. Such as Fluttershy still being incredibly reluctant to shoot an infected, despite what she is willing to do against a Tank. Rarity of course, had been covered with blood, puke and various other bits from the infected but still found time to get it all out of her coat and mane after they made it to a safe house.
Rochelle shoved an infected into a blocked off alley way and crushed it’s skull with a Cricket bat. The ten ran down the street to get inside the pool hall before the rain really started to come down. They climbed up a metal green bench and through a window to the pool hall. Ellis grabbed a combat rifle off one of the pool tables along with some incendiary ammo.
“What’s that?” asked Rainbow dash as Ellis set down the box of ammo.
“Fire bullets, they help a lot,” said Ellis as he loaded his rifle and passed some rounds to Rainbow dash, who loaded them in her shot gun.
Pinkie pie grabbed one of the shotguns on the table and walked over to the juke box.
“Ooh,” she said as she pushed the button on the front of the music machine.
A piano sound emitted from is as the song ‘Still Alive’ started to play.
The ten rested for a moment until a collective shriek echoed throughout the pool hall.
“Uh oh,” muttered Applejack as she held her automatic shotgun steady at the window.
Nick looked out another window to the right and noticed that the construction site beside them was relatively empty, “this way, come on!” he said as he jumped out the window and onto a large pipe.
The others soon followed as Nick jumped off the pipe and onto the muddy ground. He ran up the small slope and looked through a fence.
A large black tour bus with the Midnight Riders logo sped past the other side of the fence as Nick stopped for a moment to wait for the others to catch up.
Just then a rather large horde of infected poured out of the pool hall and the ten bolted into a nearby club. Coach quickly looked back to see if the infected were far away enough for them to escape. Unfortunately the infected were too close to properly escape so Coach quickly grabbed a nearby Molotov and threw it into the horde.
Applejack quickly glanced back to see the burning forms of the infected caught in the fire and Coach running to catch up. One infected’s eyes were lit ablaze by the fire bomb causing Applejack to look away in disgust and horror. ‘sweet Celestia, what are we doing to these people?’ she thought to herself as she and the others ran up two sets of stairs and ended up in a mid-sized room with a plank leading to a partially destroyed brick building.
“Bad time for a Smoker to show up, huh?” asked Ellis as he carefully walked across the plank.
Rainbow dash shuddered in the backpack, “don’t even say that. I don’t want to break something else.”
“That and you’d be dead,” muttered Nick just loud enough so only Rainbow dash could hear him.
“Shut up,” she growled as Ellis ran across the room in the brick building towards a large green bin on the floor.
“I didn’t say anything,” said Ellis, confused.
“Nick,” Rainbow dash sighed.
“hey, he’s not so bad once you get used to him, said Ellis as he opened the bin, which was filled to the brim with pain pills. “Pills here!” he called out to the others on the plank.
An infected man slowly turned to look up some stairs as Twilight fired a bullet from her assault rifle, causing its head to explode into a fine red mist.
“Eww…”
“Don’t worry,” said Rochelle as she swung her axe at another infected, leaving a large gash in its stomach, “you’ll get used to it.”
Twilight sighed, “I don’t think I ever want to get used to this.”
Rochelle nodded, “yeah, sorry about dragging you guys with us. We really had no idea you were in the pool of water when the lightning bolt hit us.”
Twilight gave her a weak smile as they left the building and started to run over to another night club that the sign: visit underground Rayford in the ‘under the river tour. Admission inside’. The ten ran through the partially closed security door and into the main part of the club, which had a couple dozen infected. Ellis spotted the entrance to the tour and started to head in that general direction with Rainbow dash.
“Let’s go under the river!” he said cheerfully as he went down the stairs and into the musty reception area.
Past the reception area was a wide, dug out hallway supported by a wooden walkway and supports.
“This is under the river?” muttered Applejack.
“You have to pay an extra five bucks before they start construction,” replied Nick as he shot down some infected with his magnum.
“That’s a scam if I’ve ever seen one.”
Nick laughed a bit, “Well played Rayford, well played.”
The ten rounded a corner and went down into another room of the tour.
“I guess this shit’s old huh? I mean I don’t know but,” said Ellis as he continued to walk on the walkway.
“People really had to pay for this…” started Rainbow dash.
“Shit?”
“Yeah, like, what’s the deal with this?”
Ellis shrugged, “I guess it’s hard to keep construction going during a zombie apocalypse.”
Rainbow dash laughed a bit as they entered yet another room. This time however, it had a door in front of a downwards leading staircase. Nick groaned upon sighting it.
“Do we really have to go through this again?”
“We do if you really want to get back to the car,” said Coach as he started to walk down the metal stairs.
“What’d down there? Asked Rarity.
“Frankly, you guys would be better off knowing what exactly you were going through down there,” said Rochelle, “just make sure you keep your head as far away from the water as possible.”
The ten descended down the small stair case until they saw Ellis and Rainbow dash had stopped in front of a large hole, which leaded into a pile of dead bodies.
“Cannonball!” shouted Ellis as he jumped onto the bodies.
The others soon followed and Rarity just figured out why they were told to keep their heads out of the water.
“Is this sewage?!” Rarity asked in horror.
“Yep,” said Nick.
Rarity and the other four ponies yelled loudly as they all ran as fast as they could through the sewer to the ladder on the far side of the rom while Nick, Ellis, Coach, Rochelle and Rainbow dash laughed loudly.
“You should have seen the look on you face!” laughed Rainbow dash, who was safely out of the sewage and still in the backpack on Ellis’s back.
“Man, I should have brought a camera!” said Ellis, who was also laughing as he climbed up the red ladder and into one of the tunnels leading to the other room.
The five sewage covered ponies glared at the survivors and Rainbow dash as they laughed at them and stopped at a small alarmed door beside a pile of ammo.
“Better get ready, the alarm is going to sound,” said Ellis as everyone reloaded and resupplied their ammo. Once they were all finished, Ellis pressed the button beside the door and a loud alarmed followed by a collective shriek from all the infected in the sewer rang out around them.
“Ellis, what did you just do?!” asked Rainbow dash as Ellis jumped back into the sewer water and started to run to the other side of the large room.
Hundreds of infected sloshed through the water as the came charging at the ten. The darkened room was soon illuminated and filled with the sounds of gunshots. Rochelle soon made her way to another ladder and helped Pinkie pie up it.
“Push the button when you get to the door!” said Rochelle as she helped the other ponies up the ladder.
“Ok!” Pinkie pie said as she ran over to the door and pushed the button. She quickly looked back to see some infected starting to climb up onto the railing and shot them off with her AK-47. She turned again to see Rochelle herself climb up the ladder and headed to the end of the railing, shooting every infected she could see.
“Back in the water,” called out Ellis as he opened fire and jumped into the water and ran into the large tunnel at the end of the room.
More bullets flashed and infected fell as the ten ran through the tunnel until they could see a light at the end of it. Ellis ran towards it faster and found a platform with a ladder and another set of vertical stairs. He gunned down an incoming Jockey and saw the safe room door.
“A safe room!” he called out, “and it’s dry!”
The other eight quickly scrambled after him and slammed the safe room door shut.
Ellis started to laugh, “I can hardly believe we made that!”
The group of four survivors and six ponies were taking a brief break in the safe room right by the bridge they were supposed to lower. They stocked up on ammo and first aid kits while Ellis started to tell a story about his friend, Keith.
“I ever tell you the time me and Keith went to Hollywood? It was the most awesomest place in the world. We saw..."
Nick cut him off, "Ellis, if you don't shut up, I am going to find this Keith, zombie or not, and wring his neck."
“Well too bad for you, Nick. He was one of the first to get on the whirlybirds,” replied Ellis as he tossed Pinkie pie his spare bottle of pills.
“Thanks!”
“Don’t mention it.”
Rainbow dash sighed in the backpack Ellis was carrying, although she was thankful that she didn’t have to go through she sewer water, she had been in here since around yesterday afternoon and desperately wanted to stretch her wings.
“How are you holding up, Dash?” asked Ellis in response to hearing her sigh.
“I want to get out of this stupid backpack,” she muttered.
Ellis chuckled, “don’t worry; I’m sure you’ll be outta there in no time.”
Coach and Rochelle were telling Twilight and Fluttershy what the plan was while Rarity was trying desperately trying to get the sewer water out of her mane and coat.
“Ugh, how can you can you stand this?!” Rarity asked as she tried to pull out who knows what out of her mane and coat, which had taken a dirty brownish white colour.
“You think you got it bad? This suit is worth three thousand dollars!” retorted Nick.
“Not anymore it doesn’t,” muttered Applejack.
The safe room was silent for a moment before Ellis decided they had rested enough and decided to get a move on.
“Come on, I miss my car!” he said as he open the safe house door and ran into the rain.
The other eight soon followed as they climbed a couple of stairs until they found Ellis talking to Zoey, Francis and Louis, who had a damaged leg.
“Hey, you made it!” exclaimed Louis, “so, where you heading?”
Ellis shrugged, “well, we’re going to New Orleans but we’re dropping these six,” he gestured to Twilight, Fluttershy, Rarity, Applejack, Pinkie pie and Rainbow dash, “off at Ducatel.”
Louis raised an eyebrow, “they’re from Equestria, right?”
Ellis narrowed his eyes, “how did y’all know that?”
Zoey cut them off, “gentlemen, we have a bridge to lower.”
The ten walked over to the steel elevator left of the raised bridge Zoey, Louis and Francis were standing on. Once everyone was inside, Coach pushed the button and the elevator began its decent.
“Now remember, get the cans and stay close to each other. Got it?”
They nodded in agreement just as the elevator doors opened, causing a rather loud dinging sound.
The ten then spit into five groups of two to gather the gas cans faster. The groups were Ellis and Rainbow dash, Fluttershy and Rochelle, Nick and Rarity, Coach and Applejack, and Twilight and Pinkie pie.
Ellis ran towards the bar that was just beside the bridge and north of the dull orange generator they had to refuel. He ran over and grabbed the orangey yellow gas can that was located behind the counter and ran back to the generator.
As Ellis poured the gas into the generator, Rainbow dash turned to her left and saw a vaguely familiar something lying in front of a gigantic green electrical generator.
“Hey, Ellis,” said Rainbow dash, “what’s that?”
A loud ding reverberated throughout the area, signifying that the generator had been filled with some gas, and causing all the infected in the area to slowly make their way towards it.
“What’s what?”
“That thing in front of the generator, it looks familiar,” said Rainbow dash.
“Huh, well, might as well go have a look see, I think a can is nearby anyways,” said Ellis as he walked over to the giant generator.
When they got there (it was about ten meters from the orange generator they were refueling) Rainbow dash beamed at when she saw was and who was standing beside it.
Bill was standing by what Rainbow dash now saw was a dead body, Bill’s own corpse to be exact. Rainbow dash stared at the ghostly figure that was standing beside his body and shrugged.
“Well kid, here’s where I’ve been for that past few hours, lamenting at my own dead body,” said Bill’s ghost as he lit his ghostly cigarette.
Rainbow dash continued to stare at Bill and his body until something dawned upon her:
She had first met Bill she was at Canterlot castle when a Jockey had incapacitated her with an injured leg. The second time was about a day ago in the mall when she was nearly killed by a Charger. Both times her legs were injured. ‘Well,’ she thought, ‘this time I’m not going down because of some stupid zombie.’
Rainbow dash turned to Ellis, “Ellis, let me out of the bag.”
“What? But, what about your injuries?”
Rainbow dash stared at him, “let me out of this bag.”
Ellis sighed, “Alright, just, don’t hurt yourself. I don’t think it’s very sanitary to have you bleeding all over this bag again, especially with all that sewer shit all over you.”
Ellis but the grey backpack on the floor nearby the big generator as Rainbow dash crawled out of it. When she got her entire body out of it, she grabbed her combat shotgun in her hooves and started to hover in the air with her wings. Ellis smiled and started to head over to where the gas can was.
“Oh yeah, that feels way better,” she said as she soared through the air briefly before Ellis told her to hurry up. She took a quick glance at Bill, who had started to walk towards the bar where Zoey and Francis were shooting any infected that got too close to the generator.
“Where are you going?” she asked Bill.
“I’m going to say good bye to the people I gave my life for,” he replied as he picked up his dark green war beret. Bill looked at his old hat and sighed before tossing it up at Rainbow dash, “keep it, hell knows I don’t need it.”
Rainbow dash looked at the Vietnam War beret for a moment and turned back to where Bill’s ghost was. To her surprise, he was gone. “Thanks, Bill,” she muttered under her breath before flying away to catch up with Ellis.
A flash of lightning illuminated the generator and six shadows vaugly resembling equines were burnt into the brick floor... ***********************************************************************
A loud crack signaled doom for the infected caught in the way of Applejack’s automatic shotgun firing.
Coach had retrieved a gas can from a store up the street and was running back down to refuel the generator. They needed a total of thirteen gas cans to refuel it. So far they had two, judging from the ding they had heard earlier.
The rain had died down a little since earlier, but was still pounding on Applejack and Coach’s head.
“So you say you’ve done this before?” asked Applejack as they ran back up the street to collet another gas can.
“Yeah, except the first time we had no idea what we were doing, now that we know, it’s a hell of a lot easier,” replied Coach as he grabbed the second gas can from in the abandoned store.
Applejack felt kinda bad for making coach collect the cans without her helping. Coach had re assured her that as long as she kept the infected away from him, she was helping.
Another crack echoed down the street as the brains of an infected exploded into the night sky. That was her seventeenth headshot tonight. ‘Why am I keeping track of that?’ she worriedly thought to herself, ‘back home I would never hurt something that’s sick, let along keeping track of how many heads I cause to explode.’
“Come on, come on,” muttered Coach as the third ding echoed throughout the docks.
All of a sudden, the groans and shrieks of the infected fell silent.
Applejack looked around, confused at what was going on. “What’s going on? We couldn’t have gotten all of them, right?”
Coach shook his head and grabbed some bullets from the ammo pile beside the generator. Just by looking at him, Applejack could tell something was going to happen, something bad.
Then, Ellis’s voice was carried throughout the street that confirmed Applejack’s fears.
“TAAAAAAAAAANK!”
Ellis tore down the street as fast as his legs could carry him. To Applejack and Coach’s surprise, Rainbow dash was flying right next to him. Ellis skidded to a halt when he arrived at the generator with another gas can as Rainbow dash crashed into Applejack.
“What the?! Rainbow! Get off me!” Applejack muttered as Rainbow dash got off her friend and took flight again.
Rainbow dash turned to the spot where she and Ellis had come from just as the Tank smashed through the large building where she and Ellis had exited from left of the bridge. Ellis, Rainbow dash, Coach and Applejack opened fire on the Tank as Zoey shouted at them to lead it back to the bridge where Louis had a mounted machine gun.
The four lured the gigantic infected to the bridge just as Twilight and Pinkie pie appeared beside the generator in an explosion of purple light.
“What the fu-!” yelled Coach as the Tank roared in pain from the onslaught of bullets.
Twilight jumped in surprise when she was the Tank and reloaded her hunting rifle and peered into the scope before firing seven direct shots to the Tank’s head. While Pinkie pie started to spray bullets everywhere from her AK-47.
Finally, with a mighty roar the Tank fell to the ground, killed by the efforts of the nine.
Coach turned to Twilight and Pinkie pie, who both had a gas can of their own, Pinkie pie’s strapped on her back and Twilight’s floating in the air with a purple glow.
“How did y’all appear in that explosion of light?” asked Coach as Twilight filled the generator.
“Oh, I just used a simple teleportation spell to get here faster with Pinkie pie,” replied Twilight as the generator dinged again.
“Teleportation huh? Well, maybe y’all can teleport yourselves to Ducatel to save us the trouble of getting you there?”
Twilight shook her head, “it’s really risky to teleport to somewhere without knowing what it looks like. And with the infected attacking us, I don’t think it’s a really good idea.”
Coach chuckled, “yeah, I guess it isn’t. Now, back to getting the cans,” he said as he walked down the street beside the bar to collect some more gas.
“Is it really that risky, Twilight?” asked Applejack.
Twilight nodded, “yes it is.”
Applejack sighed, “Well, I guess we really do have to travel this U.S.A fighting zombies huh?”
Twilight nodded and the generator dinged again as Pinkie pie filled the generator herself. “Alright, eight more cans and the generator is full! Come on, Pinkie.”
“Okie dokie,” she said happily as she bounded off after Twilight into the rain.
Applejack sighed and decided to go in the direction Coach went in. she ran down the street, gunning down some infected as the sixth ding reverberated throughout the port.
“Ugh, well, at least this rain is getting some of the sewage out of my coat,” grumbled Rarity as she and Nick walked through Rayford port on their way back from collecting gas cans.
“Well lucky you, this rain doesn’t get this sewage shit off my suit,” replied Nick as he shoved an infected down to the ground and resumed walking quickly.
The two continued to travel in silence until they ran into Rochelle and Fluttershy, who each had a can of their own.
“Hey, Nick was that suit of yours always brown?” asked Rochelle, chuckling.
“Shut up,” muttered Nick, “it’s bad enough I have here complaining.”
Rochelle laughed again, “I guess it’s a taste of your own medicine.”
Nick rolled his eyes and continued to the generator. Rarity, meanwhile had decided to speak with Fluttershy before having to refuel the generator herself.
A cough echoed around Nick just as he turned a corner and saw the generator. “Careful, I hear a Smoker,” he told Rarity, who he noticed wasn’t beside him anymore. “Shit.”
Nick suddenly dropped his gas can to the ground and slowly continued to walk down the seemingly empty street, watching out for the Smoker.
“AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOWWWW!”
There! The Smoker revealed itself on top of one of the walkways right next to the generator and just out of reach of Zoey and Francis’s aim. Nick open fire on the Smoker just as he felt the long tongue wrap around his chest.
“NO!” he shouted as he started to get dragged away towards the Smoker and started to get strangled to death.
“Hello? Um, Nick? Where are you?” called out Fluttershy quietly.
She had been the first to notice that Nick had gone ahead and left Rarity with them. She had also noticed a loud ‘NO!’ in the wind that made her fear for him.
“Come on, he has to be around here somewhere,” said Rochelle as they turned a corner, “wow!” she yelped as she tripped over a bright yellow gas can lying in the top of the street. ‘This can’t be good,’ she thought to herself as she, Rarity and Fluttershy walked down the street.
“Help me!” shouted a voice from down the street.
Rochelle Ran over to see Nick desperately struggling against a Smoker’s tongue as it strangled him from the walkway. Rochelle opened fire on the Smoker just as Nick felt like he had been shoved to the ground.
A second later the Smoker exploded into a cloud of smoke and Nick fell to the ground, incapacitated. By this time Rarity and Fluttershy had caught up with Rochelle just in time to see her helping Nick off the ground.
“Thanks,” he said as he got to his feet. He looked past Rochelle and glared at Rarity, “what the hell?! Where were you?! I nearly died!”
Rarity blinked and looked slightly stunned as Nick glared at her. When she finally managed to get a hold of her voice she told him that she was extremely sorry about leaving him alone.
Nick gave her a harsh laugh, “yeah? Well sorry wouldn’t have cut it if I had died.” He put extra emphasis on the word ‘died’ as he limped past her and Fluttershy to get his gas can.
The four arrived back at the generator just as Ellis, Rainbow dash, Coach, Applejack, Twilight and Pinkie pie arrived there as well. The ten put the final gas cans into the generator and the loud sound of metal scraping on metal filled that air.
Fluttershy looked over at Nick, who was leaning on the generator and clutching his chest where the Smoker’s tongue had been roped around him.
“You’re hurt,” she told him as she walked over to him.
“I’ll be fine,” he said, coughing a little.
Fluttershy shook her head, “no you’re not. Stand still, I know what I’m doing,” told him as she used her health kit on him.
When she was finished, Nick smiled at her, “thanks, Flutters.”
Suddenly, the ground started to shake and twin roars, each coming from either side of the port, echoed throughout the area.
“Oh SHIT!” said Ellis as two Tanks ran into the generator area.
The thirteen opened fire on the two Tanks and Rainbow dash swore she saw Bill’s ghost shooting at one of them as well from atop the walk way on the bar where Zoey and Francis were.
The Tank that came from the left fell first after receiving multiple bullets form Zoey, Francis and Louis. The second Tank fell just seconds after the first with the combined fire power from all thirteen of them.
“That, was for Bill!” shouted Louis from his spot near the bridge.
A loud crashing sound came from behind them when the bridge lowered, making the path back to the car clear.
“Everyone back to the car!” shouted Coach as hordes of infected came rushing at them from up the street.
The ten ran around the fence guarding the generator and towards the car. Rainbow dash quickly turned around and raining to the large generator room where Bill's body was.
“What are you doing!?” Rochelle shouted at her.
“Getting the backpack!” Rainbow dash shouted in return as she grabbed it and flew towards the car, catching up with Rochelle and the others in seconds.
“Get to your car!” shouted Louis over the machine gun fire.
The horde of infected at arrived at the bar and were getting mowed down just as Coach and Applejack arrived at the car.
“Don’t worry baby I’m coming!” shouted Ellis, presumably at the Jimmy Gibbs junior.
When all ten of them scrambled into the car, Ellis floored the gas pedal and they went speeding off down the street and headed west towards Griffin Country, Georgia…
The night was full of mysteries and horrors. A lone figure stumbled across a road, just a few feet away from a massive grid lock that went on for miles. He turned slightly to his left as he saw a speeding blue blur slam into him.
The blue car swerved wildly until it screeched to a halt, causing the infected to fly off the windshield and land broken and lifeless on the ground ahead. The doors of the famous Jimmy Gibbs Junior stock car opened and ten figures got out.
“Sorry, sorry,” yawned Ellis as he walked to the back of the car and opened the trunk.
“Next time, remember to tell me when it’s my turn to drive,” replied Coach as he and Ellis pulled out five chrome shotguns, five silenced sub machine guns and ten health kits. Ellis reached into the trunk of the car again, this time pulling out the battered backpack he used to carry Rainbow dash in and wore it on his back. The other nine stared at him while he was doing this.
“What?” asked Ellis as he noticed the looks.
“Uh, Ellis, I can get around on my own just fine now,” said Rainbow dash.
“Well, better safe than sorry I guess,” he said as he closed the trunk of the car. He paused again and yawned, “Sorry for blanking out back there. I guess I shouldn’t have been driving that long, huh?”
“Well I thought that was fun!” said Pinkie pie as she grabbed health kit and a shotgun.
“Yeah, that zombie went flying!” exclaimed Rainbow dash as she grabbed a gun and health kit of her own.
Ellis had been driving the car ever since they escaped the mall back in Savannah and never got a chance to sleep. In total, he’s been awake over forty eight hours. Ellis squinted as he grabbed a sub machine gun and a health kit from the back of the car.
After everyone grabbed a weapon and a health kit, they began their walk down the car filled highway.
“What’s that on the sign?” asked Twilight as a large billboard came into view.
Coach smiled, “That’s Whispering Oaks, shit, I wasn’t expecting to be back here so soon.”
“I take it you’ve been here before?”
“Yeah, I used to go to this place when I was a kid!” exclaimed Coach, smiling as he remembered his time when he was younger.
“Great, another chance where we can die there as adults,” said Nick as he jumped onto a car and spotted a couple of infected.
The night highway was soon filled with the sounds of gunfire and the occasional stray bullet missing its target. Fluttershy noticed that Ellis couldn’t seem to hit whatever he was shooting and asked him if he was alright.
“I’m ok,” he said, yawning, “I’m just a bit tired is all.”
“Hey, Ellis,” said Pinkie pie, “what’s Whispering Oaks?”
Ellis tried to smile but instead yawned again, “Whispering Oaks? Well shit, only the best amusement park I’ve ever been to. Oh man, you’re going to love the Screaming Oak!”
Fluttershy eep’d, “there’s a screaming tree!?”
Ellis let out a tired laugh, “nah, it’s a wicked fast rollercoaster, this one time me and my buddy Keith snuck some paint ball guns on the rollercoaster and-.”
“Ellis,” said Rochelle, “I know you’re tired but try to focus on shooting the zombies, alright?”
“Okay.”
The walk down the highway of abandoned cars went with little incident, minus the fact that Ellis couldn’t manage to hit anything. The traveled down an off ramp and restocked their weapons at an ammo dump beside a sand colored hummer.
“I still don’t know why we had to ditch our weapons from Rayford,” grumbled Rainbow dash.
“Well they’d have been pretty useless now, if you remember, they either all ran out of ammo or jammed,” said Nick as he spotted a Spitter.
The infected women bolted across the highway and ran into the nearby Whispering Oaks motel parking lot. Nick gestured to the others to follow him. They walked cautiously through an underpass and got a full view of the motel. As far as motels go, this one wasn’t too bad. Well, besides the smell of burnt flesh and the zombies. The ten spit off into smaller groups of four and six and looked for supplies, mainly food and water, which they had been lacking since their hasty escape from the mall.
Applejack searched the main reception area with Pinkie pie, Ellis and Rainbow dash. A low growling emitted from behind a door that lead back outside.
“Careful, Hunter,” Ellis yawned as he struggled to keep his eyes open.
Rainbow dash shifted the dark green war beret she wore on her head. Apparently the ghost of the body (who was named Bill) had given her the hat in a metaphorical ‘passing the torch’ sort of way. Well, according to Rainbow dash it was that she had proved she could go a day without getting maimed by the infected.
By this time the growls of the Hunter had gotten louder and the door behind the counter started to get dents form the Hunter’s attempt to break it. A half second later, the door smashed to pieces and the Hunter leapt from the door frame and onto Applejack.
“Get it off me!” she screamed as the Hunter started to tear away at her chest.
Pinkie pie shoved the Hunter off Applejack and started to shoot its hooded head with her shotgun. The Hunter swiped one of its claws at her in an attempt to defend itself. The claw scraped Pinkie pie’s leg as a bullet collided with the Hunter’s head, causing blood to splatter across the floor.
“Ahh,” said Pinkie pie as she moved her leg to see if the Hunter damaged anything major.
“Are you alright?” asked Rainbow dash, dropping to the ground to inspect the wound also.
“I think so,” she said as Ellis passed her a cloth he found on the counter. She looked at it oddly, “what do I do with this cloth?”
“Hold it down on the spot where you got hurt. It’ll stop the bleeding,” said Ellis as he noticed a bright red crowbar lying on the counter. He grabbed it and smiled before hearing something approaching. He flicked the flashlight on his sub machine gun off in hopes to surprise whatever was approaching.
“Hey, guys? You in here?”
Ellis flicked the flashlight back on and smiled, it was Coach and presumably with the others.
“Yeah, we’re in here. Pinkie and AJ got hit by a Hunter but there fine, right?” said Ellis. They both nodded as he opened the door and met with Coach. As with him, their respective searches for supplies were failures.
“Did y’all find anything?” asked Coach.
“Besides Ellis finding a crowbar, nothing,” replied Rainbow dash, who was trying to find a way to fly fast without losing her hat.
With that said the ten went over to a stair on the side of the motel and walked up it to get to the second floor. Not far ahead the walkway had been torn off, by the infected or deliberately no one was sure. Instead of trying to jump across, they climbed through a window leading into a room and passed through a torn out wall and back out onto the other side of the path.
After passing down yet another stairwell, they walked behind the motel and found themselves facing a rather steep ditch. Across from said ditch was Whispering Oaks itself.
“This is gonna be fun,” said Ellis as he started to slide down the hill.
The other seven soon followed (Rainbow dash and Fluttershy flew down) and started to pick off some of the stay infected that had wandered down here. Then, the entire ditch suddenly went quiet besides a deep growling sound that came from behind some bushes. Coach reloaded his shotgun and told the others to do the same.
“Why? I still have enough ammo to pick off a few more,” Rainbow dash said cockily.
“Do you have enough for a Tank?” asked Coach as he slowly started to walk towards the growling.
Realising what Coach was meant; Rainbow dash reloaded and aimed her gun at the direction Coach was walking towards. When Coach was about three feet away the bush exploded and the Tank swung its giant arms in an attempt to hit Coach.
Ellis, who had apparently had fallen asleep for a moment was awakened by the roars and shouted, “TAAAAAAANK!”
The Tank once again swung its large arm, this time hitting Ellis and sent him flying into the small stream running down the center of the ravine.
As Ellis got himself out of the water, he briefly saw Fluttershy fly close to the Tank’s head and fire all eight rounds of her shot gun at it before hastily retreating.
Ellis held down the trigger on his own gun and bullets went flying everywhere. The Tank roared a final time and collapsed to the ground. He then looked to the other side of the ravine and saw a path up. The ten (minus Rainbow dash and Fluttershy) began their trek back up the side of the ravine and towards Whispering Oaks. A maniacal laughter drifted down from the top of the hill causing Ellis to stop in his tracks.
“what’s wrong?” asked Pinkie pie.
“Jockey,” Ellis muttered under his breath as he reloaded and waited for his arch nemesis to appear.
During their time fighting through the country, they had found a surprising lack of Jockeys, much to Ellis’s relief. But, now that he had found one, it usually meant that twenty others were farther ahead.
“is that bad?” asked Pinkie pie, despite already guessing the answer.
“head humping little bastards,” Ellis said again as he started moving again. He then turned to Pinkie, “hey, when y’all see it, shoot it fast.”
As if it heard him, the Jockey burst from atop the hill and ran towards Ellis, dodging bullets from everyone else. Ellis saw this and narrowed his eyes and pulled out his crowbar. The Jockey then leaped at Ellis in an attempt to pull him back down the hill while clawing at his face. Instead, Ellis swung his crowbar with enough force to tear a Witch’s arm clean off at its face. Needless to say, the Jockey screeched in pain as half its disfigured face was brutally torn off its face. The body landed on the ground and rolled down the hill and into the stream.
“got it,” said Ellis as he got back to walking.
Pinkie pie stared at him; usually Ellis was laughing or at least smiling as he journeyed with them. instead, his face was tired and grim.
“are you alright?” Pinkie pie asked him as they got up the hill.
Ellis smiled for the first time of the night, “yeah, we’re here.”
The six ponies stared at the looming structured within the amusement park known as Whispering Oaks. They could faintly hear a squeaking sound along with the grunts and moans of the infected.
“hey! Get your asses in here!” shouted Coach from the safe house at the ticket booth just beyond a parked car.
“sorry!” Twilight shouted at him as she and the other five ponies ran or flew towards the safe house.
When they got inside, Coach shut the door and turned to Ellis, who had fallen asleep while leaning on a wall.
