Dead and alive, what's the difference if you're a zombie?
Life can be cruel. These nine have been through hell. Their bodies deformed and broken, the only thing that kept them going was this: survival. But, is there light at the bottom of the pit they've fallen into? Or is it a whole new meaning of torture?
A light gust of snow danced around the lone figure with their head bowed at the solitary grave in a quiet field. So much had happened that had led up to this point, most of which the figure wished they could simply forget. But, as the age old saying goes, live and let live. Sadly, those words meant nothing to the sole figure.
The wind picked up and the peculiar smell of acidic chemicals was lightly smelt in the air. The figure turned to their left and saw that a unicorn was standing beside them, her head also bowed.
The two remained in silence for a while, before the first figure spoke.
“What brings you here?”
The unicorn looked up at him, then sighed softly, “Can’t sleep.”
The other figure nodded, “I thought you would have come here to pay respects.”
The unicorn shrugged, “Who’s to say I’m not?”
More silence followed, with the occasional sound of branches swaying softly in the wind. The figure turned to the unicorn again, despite not being able to see her. His eyes had been removed long ago.
“When do you think he’ll be back?” asked the sightless pony.
The unicorn continued to stare at the grave, then at the sightless pony.
“Why knows? He has a lot on his mind. He may be back tomorrow, he may never come back. We just have to wait and see.”
The sightless pony nodded, turned back to the grave, and let out an eerie howl of sadness and eternal respect for the missing and the dead.
For anything else who might have understood it, it was a howl of the past and bettertimes.
The sun was mercilessly beating down on an empty field. The grass was dried out and burnt with the smell of dead trees in the air. A tall, unidentified figure walked onto the field with eight others following not far behind. From a distance they looked like every day ponies you’d see in a town or city. Only until you got close enough to actually make out the faces of these ponies would you be able to see what made them different.
A cloud of perpetual smoke surrounded the tall one at the head of the group. A muffled cough escaped his mouth as he glanced back to the ones following him. The closest one to him had a navy blue coat with a black mane that covered his eyes. He looked in the direction of the tall smoking figure and gave him a feral grin and bounded towards him. The tall figure growled something at the navy coated stallion and he backed off.
The tall figure sighed, walking through the heat was uncomfortable, especially with a cloud of smoke that was endlessly being emitted from the horn atop his head. To make matters worse, his coat was a dark grey, trapping the heat in it. The tall figure’s tongue hung loosely from his mouth much similar to a dog when trying to cool off. The figure turned again when he felt the ground shaking underneath him. The tall stallion sighed, a muscular, pony with a dulled out pink coat and a shaved off mane with a large scar on the right side of his chest walked up to him.
“Are you sure you know where we are going?” he asked.
The tall, smoky pony sighed, “Yes I now where we’re going. Just keep walking and we’ll come across it eventually.”
The muscular stallion sighed, “I know but, she is losing it back there.”
The streets of Ponyville were empty. The intense heat that had enveloped the town was near unbearable. Although it was not uncommon for it to be hot this time of the year, today was the hottest it’s been on record. It was so hot that a small amount of steam rose from the paved areas of the town.
Some legends say that if the days are much warmer or colder than usual it’s an omen of things to come, good or bad. Today, of course, was warmer than usual, warm enough to not leave one’s house in fear of dehydrating out on the street. Many of the town’s ponies just assume that because it’s warmer than usual, the next season for growing food will be better than normal.
Twilight sparkle gazed out of the window of the library uneasily, usually around this time of year the young colts and fillies were playing around outside, but today they were hiding away in their houses in an attempt to keep the heat out. The only one who wasn’t bothered by the intense heat was Spike, who had a natural resistance to heat and was currently away for the week. Twilight sighed just as nine figures walked into the center of the town. Twilight stared at them curiously; they looked like no other ponies she’d ever seen.
An incredibly muscular pink stallion was standing close by a thin white Pegasus mare that appeared to be crying softly. Close to them was a small electric blue colt laughing like he had just seen the funniest thing in the world while a large olive green Pegasus mare with an oversized right foreleg glared at him. Standing just a few feet away from those two were a yellow green unicorn, a navy blue pony and a fat, mahogany stallion. Finally, at the head of the group there was a tan Pegasus a tall unicorn with a smoke cloud around his head. They appeared to be arguing.
“Where is it?” asked the tan Pegasus in a white straight jacket around his forelegs, causing him to float off the ground with his wings. His voice was hyper and frantic.
The tall charcoal grey unicorn with a cloud of smoke around its head replied, “I don’t know, must have taken a wrong turn back there…”
The tan Pegasus flew right into the smoky unicorn’s face, “look here Smoky, you said that it was here! Not some pathetic small town! Where is the spot?!”
The smoky unicorn stood up straight, looming over the Pegasus, “I told you I don’t know. Now shut up before you piss of Witch.”
Twilight could tell just by the way the tan Pegasus backed off that he was scared of whoever Witch was. Another unicorn, the one with the bright yellow green coat and a brown mane walked up to the charcoal grey one.
“Don’t worry Smoker, the one Hunter and I spoke to said it was somewhere around here,” said the green unicorn.
Smoker sighed; obviously he didn’t want to stay here longer than he had to. Suddenly, he turned his head directly at Twilight, seemingly staring straight at her. His eyes narrowed menacingly as Twilight quickly turned away from the window, pretending that she hadn’t heard anything.
Down on the street, Smoker spoke to the navy blue pony in his group, who nodded eagerly as it agreed to its task.
“Now remember Hunter, don’t hurt it. We just want to know why they were watching us,” muttered Smoker to Hunter.
Hunter grinned and bounded off to the house where Smoker saw someone looking at them. The yellow green unicorn called after him but her calls were ignored. When he arrived at the door, he seemingly stared at it for a few seconds, screeched loudly, and then he leaped onto a nearby tree and crashed through a window into the house. Twilight yelped in surprise and flew down the stairs as Hunter paused for a moment to shake off some of the glass that landed on his coat. He then cautiously crept down the stairs after her.
“Who are you?!” Twilight demanded as Hunter froze half way down the stairs.
“Me? I’m Hunter,” said the stallion almost cheerfully.
“Why did you break into my house?” asked Twilight, her horn glowing.
Hunter however, seemed unfazed at the obvious threat replied like it was an average conversation you say on the street, “Smoker wants to know why you were watching us.” He then turned his attention to a fly that was buzzing around him.
“I wasn’t-.”
Hunter turned away from the fly and cut her off, “look, cut the crap. Smoker saw you and frankly, you’re lucky he didn’t think of you as much of a threat. We wouldn’t want Charger or Tank involved now would we?”
“Who are they?” asked Twilight as she backed away to the door.
“Tank and Charger? Well, I would tell you but, you’re going to meet them in a second. Hopefully under better conditions,” said Hunter as he slowly started to go down the stairs, being careful where he was going.
Twilight found this peculiar; a moment ago this ‘Hunter’ pony had broken into her house by crashing through her second story window. Now he was afraid of stairs? For the briefest moment the black mane that covered his eyes shifted to reveal two bloody carved out eye sockets. Twilight recoiled away from the sight before she could get a better look. Twilight bolted out of her house just as Hunter got down the stairs.
The heat hit her like a punch to the face. Immediately she began to sweat and gave a quick glance back to see Hunter running through her house towards her. Twilight quickly slammed the door just as Hunter began to run through the door way. A sickening crunch was heard as Hunter’s face smashed into it. Twilight spun around to get away and turned to be face to face with the thin white Pegasus.
“Gah!” yelped Twilight.
The other seven noticed the absence of the Pegasus and the smoky unicorn’s eyes visibly widened when he saw Twilight and the Pegasus, who started to growl at Twilight.
“Don’t move,” called out the smoky unicorn.
Twilight looked at him confused, “why not?” the white Pegasus was now growling louder, almost to the point of shrieking.
“Don’t move, don’t speak and whatever you do, don’t touch her,” said the grey unicorn as he motioned to the large muscular stallion that was standing near the Pegasus earlier. The pink stallion slowly walked up to the Pegasus and started to speak with her.
“Witch, would you move out of way of purple spy? Smoker would like to speak with her not maimed,” said the large pony. The white Pegasus stopped growling and slowly turned to him, then back at Twilight.
“Please?” asked Twilight quietly.
Blinking, Witch slowly made her way to the large stallion and sat down beside him. By this time Hunter had managed to open the door and growled at Twilight.
“You’re lucky I’m not supposed to hurt you,” he growled angrily.
Twilight turned to him, “well you broke into my house!”
“How else was I supposed to get it?”
Twilight glared at Hunter, “well, you could knock and ask nicely instead of jumping though my window.”
“Well I-.” Smoker cut him off, “look, I’m sorry if Hunter did something he’s going to regret later,” Smoker shot an angry look at Hunter, “but I seemed to have noticed that you were spying on us through your window.”
The yellow green unicorn spat out a small bit of bright green fluid and angrily walked up to Smoker, “is that what this is about? Someone happens to look out a window when we’re speaking and you have to sic Hunter on them? Just because you have paranoia problem doesn’t mean the rest of us do,” the unicorn turned to Twilight, “sorry about him, he’s just a bit grumpy because of this heat wave. I’m Spitter; these are Hunter, Jockey, Charger, Tank, Screamer, Witch, Boomer and Smoker,” Spitter motioned to the navy stallion that attacked her, the small electric blue colt, the olive green Pegasus, the muscular pink stallion, the tan Pegasus with a straight jacket, the thin white Pegasus, the fat mahogany pony and the tall smoky unicorn. “ “We’ve been looking for a specific pattern that will help us find… something and we spoke to someone that said it was in this area,” said Spitter, “have you seen anything like that recently?”
Twilight looked at the nine ponies standing in front of her. All of them seemed to have a serious medical condition or abnormality. Like Smoker had large tumors all down his left side along with his unnaturally long tongue and Charger’s oversized right arm. Even Tank had a large circular shaped wound on the right side of his chest.
“Um, are you feeling alright? Some of those things on you guys look kinda painful,” said Twilight, “maybe you should check at a hospital before you go looking for the thing you’re looking for.”
Charger shook her head, “nah, going to a hospital would just make things worse. Our… aw hell I’m just going to call them what they are deformities haven’t bothered us in the three weeks we’ve had them.”
Twilight’s eyes bulged, “you’ve had them for three weeks without going to a doctor?!”
Charger and Twilight continued to talk about the situation of finding a doctor while the other eight newcomers spoke amongst themselves.
“It’s kinda hard to get a doc when four maniacs are shooting everything in sight,” muttered Screamer.
“Quiet, if things go as planned we’ll be outta here within the day,” replied Boomer in the same harsh whisper.
“Back to what? Running for our lives while everything we cared about is destroyed? I don’t care if you eight go back, but the way I see it my life will be better here.”
“We don’t belong here,” replied Boomer, “you’ve seen them in other towns, even in this pony world we're freaks. At least on earth we’ll be at home.”
“If you haven’t noticed, we have no home to go back to,” said Screamer as he walked off.
************************************************************************************ The moon has risen, signaling the end of the hellish heat and the start of a cool night. Ponyville was silent except for the public park, which held a group of nine deformed ponies looking for a mysterious pattern to return home… “Alright, Charger agreed with Twilight that we’ll go see a doctor tomorrow. Now, I’m certain that we’ll find the teleportation pattern somewhere around here within the night,” said Smoker to his fellow companions, “if all goes well, we’ll be home before you know it.” Smoker was answered with silence, he sighed. “Yes I know that it’s better here but, we don’t know anything about how this place works. At least on earth we knew what to do.”
Tank spoke up, “I think that living in this, bright happy place would be best for Witch. If we do find the spot, at least let Witch choose to stay or not.”
Smoker looked at Witch, who returned the look with her bright yellow eyes. Smoker looked at the others, each of them seemed reluctant, Screamer the most.
“Look, we can’t stay here. What if we spread it like back home?”
That statement made the other eight freezes on the spot. Even Jockey stopped his constant crazed laughter. Back on earth they were all infected with a highly dangerous disease called ‘Green flu’. They all had been heavily deformed by it, more so than the average person. It had changed them into monsters. Boomer was the first to speak.
“Are you sure that they can even become infected by it? Three days we’ve been here and now sound of anything out of the ordinary here.”
Smoker nodded, “true, but how long the first infection take back home?”
The others thought about this. It was Spitter who gave the answer, “if I remember correctly, about two days. If it’s our third going into fourth, I think we’re in the clear.”
The other infected beside her nodded, if they were indeed spreading it, they would have noticed something.
“Alright, so maybe we aren’t spreading the flu, but that still doesn’t mean that we should stay here.”
“Why not,” asked Screamer, “have you seen what home looks like lately? It’s a death trap. I don’t give a damn about what you say, unless this place turns out to be worse than there, I’m staying.”
The others nodded, much to Smoker’s annoyance. ‘That screaming bastard is going to regret his decision. I can feel it.’ “So, does anyone want to go home but me?”
An awkward silence enveloped the deserted park. Slowly, Hunter raised his hoof, “I guess I’ll go. Sure, here’s alright but, it’s not home.”
Smoker smiled in the moonlight, he could always count on Hunter to agree with him. But, his slight relief that he wasn’t the only one going back was short lived as a loud scream came from the sky. All nine of the ponies ducked for cover as the object fell from the sky above them.
“CATCH ME! CATCH ME! CATCH ME!”
A loud boom echoed through the town as large chunks of debris exploded out of the ground, making a rather large crater. The sound caused Witch to start freaking out. Tank rushed over to her to stop her from doing something dangerous. The nine stared at the crater until Spitter decided to break the silence.
“What the hell was that?”
“I don’t know, maybe a meteor?” suggested Boomer.
Suddenly, a robotic voice emitted from the crater, “are we still is space?”
Another robotic voice sighed, “Nope, we’re out of space now, mate.”
Smoker, who was closest, peered into the hole. To his surprise, inside were two heavily damaged spherical objects with a blue and yellow eye respectively.
Smoker stared in shock at the crater that was in front of him. The two white spheres that crashed had spoken and looked vaguely familiar, like an old memory.
“Hello? Is anyone out there? We’re stuck in this hole,” called out the blue eye’s sphere.
“Space, space, I went to space,” rambled the yellow eyes sphere.
By this time the other eight came to see the strange white spheres that crashed in their presence. Spitter walked over to Smoker and continued to stare at them.
“So, uh, do you know what these might be?” she asked, making sure the two sphere’s couldn’t hear her.
Smoker shook his head, “no, but they do look strangely familiar.”
The park was soon enveloped in an eerie silence for a while as the infected and the AI in the spheres tried to comprehend what was going on. Finally, Screamer decided to end it.
“You know what? This isn’t half as weird as the past few days. If we’re going to see a doc tomorrow, might as well have our last night outside decent before we’re trapped in a room for the rest of our lives,” he said as he walked off to find a decent resting spot.
The Hunter and Boomer also seemed to think that Screamer had the right idea and went off to find somewhere to rest too.
Charger sighed, “Ach, sorry, you know how Jockey is if he doesn’t sleep, jumps at anything that moves. I’d better find him a place to sleep.” She said as she nudged Jockey along with her left wing.
Smoker turned to see Witch resting silently against a tree with Tank not far away. He sighed, ‘maybe it’s best to rest now. We can always get find the pattern tomorrow.’ Smoker decided to look into the crater one last time for the night; the two spheres were still looking around inside of it. Deciding it was time to rest too; Smoker sat down on a bench, shut his eyes and went to sleep.
“You sure we should do this?” asked Hunter as he and the other eight ‘infected’ walked down the street to the hospital, “like, I know we have some weird abnormalities but, we can live with them, right?”
Spitter sighed, “Look, Charger promised to check out a hospital today, and you know how she is with keeping her word. Besides, it’s just a little checkup, what’s the worst thing that could happen?”
Screamer rolled his eyes, “getting confined to a room where doctors inject needles into us every hour to figure out what the hell is wrong with us?”
Spitter glared at him and continued walking. Today was much cooler that yesterday, cool enough for the ponies of the town to go outside. This had given them the awkward time of being stared at where ever they went. ‘At least we don’t have to carry the two talkative metal things on our backs,’ thought Spitter.
The two strange sphere’s that crashed last night (the blue one said his name was Wheatley and the yellow one only rambled on about space) continued to ask for assistance throughout the morning. Finally, they decided to carry them out and dump them at the only place they knew here: the home of the purple unicorn they met yesterday.
Spitter turned around to see how Witch was doing with Tank. Witch seemed to have stopped crying and was now moving silently alongside Tank, who seemed uneasy about the idea of leaving Witch alone with a doctor. Finally the nine arrived at the hospital, none of them willing to take the first step inside.
Screamer sighed, “screw it, if I’m going to be confined for the rest of my life might as well as get it over with," he said as he pushed the door open to confront his fate.
The other eight looked at each other, and slowly followed Screamer’s lead. The hospital was spotless in comparison to the last hospital the nine were at. Screamer walked up to the reception area and spoke to the pony there.
“Hello, me and my, uh… friends are here for a checkup,” said Screamer.
The receptionist pony sighed and asked, “Do you have an appointment?”
“No, but half of them may have a fatal illness that needs to be checked immediately.”
The pony looked up to see Screamer, her eyebrow raised at the sight of his dull white straightjacket, and glanced behind him to see Smoker, Hunter and Boomer. Spitter, Tank, Witch, Charger and Jockey meanwhile had decided to take a seat on one of the waiting benches. She immediately took note of the tumors on Smoker and the large, unnatural boils on Boomer.
“I’ll see who’s available,” she said as she turned to go into a back room behind the counter.
About ten minutes later a doctor came to see them. Screamer smiled inwardly at the face of the doctor as the nine followed him down a hall and into a rather large room with x-ray like machines.
“Alright, now, I’m going to admit something,” said the doctor, “I’ve never seen anything like this. Do any of you know what may have caused this?”
Smoker coughed slightly, “yeah, back where we come from there’s a disease called Green flu. The things we have are more… uncommon than the regular ones.”
The doctor nodded, scanning his eyes across all of them, “alright, I guess I’ll start with the ones with the more dangerous side effects of this ‘Green flu’ and work my way down.” He gestured to Smoker, “I guess you’re my first patent.”
Smoker froze, as Spitter had told Twilight yesterday, Smoker had a very strange paranoia problem. It usually came into effect when he was alone without anyone he knows very well in the immediate area. Spitter noticed this and spoke to the doctor, “sorry but, from where from we usually don’t go off alone, usually in pairs. I guess we still have that instinct with us.”
The doctor nodded, “ah, well, I assure you nothing bad is going to happen, so come along Mr. uh…”
“Smoker.”
“Yes, Mr. Smoker it will be perfectly fine.”
Spitter sighed and shook her head, “I should also have mentioned that he has a paranoia problem. If one of us isn’t with him he might err… attack.”
The doctor looked at Spitter confused, “attack? Attack with what?”
“With this,” growled Smoker as his tongue shot out of his mouth and grabbed a cup on the far side of the room and dragged it over to him. Small cracks were in the plastic cup when he released it onto the floor, to the doctor’s amazement. “And that’s when I’m not provoked.”
The doctor nodded slowly and turned to Spitter again, “I assume you’ll be accompanying him then?”
“Yes.”
The doctor sighed, “Alright, shall we be starting then?”
About an hour later all nine of them had been tested and the doctor stood in the door way of the large room with a very confused look on his face.
“If you weren’t standing here in front of me I’d say you all would be dead,” said the doctor, “alright, I’ll say when needs to be said, all of you should have died about two weeks ago from your illness, plain and simple. But, the illness has strange properties in you nine which make it all the more dangerous.”
Boomer (who was given medication to lessen the constant production of bile is his damaged liver,) nodded, “what are these properties exactly?”
“the things in your respective blood streams mutated the virus so it’s not contagious,” the doctor noted that seven of the nine sighed in relief, while Jockey laughed and Witch gazed at the doctor with her large yellow eyes. “But, this is concerning the side effect of that.”
“What is the side effect?” asked Hunter, who according to the doctor was blind and ‘saw’ through a strange form of echolocation.
“The side effect is when under very dangerous or strange circumstanced, like being exposed to a powerful magical discharge of some sort could trigger something called ‘Nightmare’,” said the doctor.
Screamer (whose forelegs were still in a straightjacket because his forelegs were too damaged to be used) raised an eyebrow, “we’ll have nightmares? That’s not so bad.”
The doctor shook his head, “a Nightmare is a type of demonic creature that possesses another. Only one has been recorded in history and nearly caused the end of the world twice. I don’t know much about it but the second time was a few years back. You should talk to the town librarian, Twilight Sparkle, if you want to learn more about it.”
Spitter (who could still launch certain amounts of acidic spit from her mouth) nodded, “alright, I guess we’ll go find this librarian. Thanks again, doc.”
The doctor smiled, “don’t worry about it, it’s not every day I see a case as strange as you nine. But be careful, the way to dispose of a Nightmare is not pleasant. Tread carefully around magic.”
Tank followed Witch throughout the busy streets of Ponyville. The others went to go see this Twilight while he followed Witch to make sure she didn’t do anything dangerous. They told him to meet them at the park in about an hour while they located the library. Tank sighed; Witch had a strange habit of wandering off for no apparent reason.
“Where are you going,” rumbled Tank as he spotted a rather large building looking like it was made out of gingerbread.
Witch walked inside the building and decided to sit down in the middle of the room. Tank soon followed her and sniffed the air, “sugar?” he thought aloud.
Many of the ponies looked a Witch oddly, especially a bright pink pony with an equally bright pink mane. After a moment, she literally hopped over to tank and Witch.
“Hello! You’re new here!” she exclaimed loudly.
Witch opened her eyes and gave the pink pony an incredibly angry glare. Tank rushed over to move Witch before she got angry.
“Sorry small pink pony, Witch doesn’t like loud sounds,” said Tank as he got Witch to sit by a nearby table.
The pink pony, seemingly not understanding Tank, followed them. Witch continued to glare at her.
“I’m Pinkie pie,” said the pony in a quieter voice, “I’ve never seen you two here before and I know everyone in Ponyville.”
Tank nodded slowly while keeping an eye on Witch, “hello, I am Tank and she is Witch. Please stay quiet around her, she is dangerous when angry.”
Pinkie pie looked at Tank with a confused look. Tank gestured to Witch who was still glaring at Pinkie pie, abet not as intensely as before. Suddenly, Witch leaned over and got closer to Pinkie pie.
This confused and worried Tank, “Witch, what you are doing?”
“Cotton candy.”
Tank stared at Witch in disbelief, all his time knowing her, she had never spoken once. Pinkie pie also looked confused. By now Witch had decided to bite Pinkie pie’s mane, only to spit it out once she realised it wasn’t cotton candy. Both Tank and Pinkie pie looked at Witch with very confused looks to figure out what just happened.
“You want cotton candy?” asked Tank slowly.
“Cotton candy is good,” replied Witch is a very quiet voice.
Tank turned to Pinkie pie and chuckled, “you got Witch to speak, sorry about the misunderstanding. Witch is… odd.”
Pinkie pie smiled, “well, I’ve never had that happen before but, you’re welcome.” She then bounded off to resume what she was doing before. Tank turned again to Witch, who now seemed to be resting. Tank continued to stare at her and tried to figure out what she meant by cotton candy…
The mid afternoon sun gently shone down on the streets of Ponyville. It was a typical Tuesday for most. For others however, little did they know that today would be far more eventful than they had hoped.
Jockey looked feverishly at everything around him. It wasn’t everyday he learnt that he wasn’t going to die. Usually death surrounded him like the bullets on a regular infected person back home in the lower U.S. yes, today was different. He went to a doctor about an hour ago. He cackled upon learning that he could still jump as high as he could to effectively leap onto an unsuspecting target and drag them wherever he wanted.
Unfortunately, Charger had wings, which were used to effectively catch him whenever he tried to ‘ride’ someone or, somepony in this case. Another thing that was learned was that both he and Witch could indeed speak. Tank, Boomer and Screamer were being tested themselves didn’t know this but, Jockey figured that Tank would learn soon enough.
Finally, they arrived at the home of the librarian. It looked oddly familiar to Jockey for some reason…
“The irony of this situation is stunning,” muttered Screamer as he looked at the building, “hey, Hunter, thing you can jump through another window and open the door?”
Hunter turned to him, if he could, he would be glaring at him. Instead, he slightly moved the bandage the doctor gave him over his eyes to prevent anything harmful from getting inside the empty sockets.
Screamer recoiled instantly as he looked into the bloody carved out holes that used to house Hunter’s eyes. Hunter growled at him, not only to be intimidating, but to also let the sound reverberate around to check his surroundings. Echolocation, the doctor said it was. “There are worse things under wraps than my eyes, Screamer.”
Screamer glared at him again, during his time at the hospital, the doctor had noticed something under Screamer’s straightjacket. Disregarding Screamer’s original purpose for it (as one of the early ones to contact the Green flu, he was given it to prevent harm to himself and others due to the effect it has on the mental state) and unlatched all of the buckles and opened some of the locks.
What the jacket was hiding Screamer swore he would never mention again.
His forelegs were brutally cut open, enough so that you could easily see where the bone was and partially rotted muscle tissue. Of course, the doctor found this concerning and tried to clean out the rotted flesh. The doctor also noticed Screamer’s extreme disgust in open wounds, possibly a trait he may have had before becoming infected.
That was when the doctor asked where exactly Screamer and the others came from.
Screamer reluctantly told him of the previous three weeks and his location of origin, which was Riverside, Pennsylvania. He also briefly mentioned the four crazed gunmen shooting everything that wasn’t them. Screamer explained that over the weeks the mutations grew worse, such as Jockey, Spitter and Charger were relatively new mutations and Boomer, Tank and Smoker’s conditions became more deadly.
After telling the doctor, Screamer threatened him with various methods of things he could do if anyone found out he told him. The doctor merely chuckled, “I didn’t plan on telling anyone. Who’d believe me? No, there will be a time where you’ll probably have to confess this yourself. Who am I to do it for you? Now, I believe you’re done and… Charger I believe is next.” Screamer continued to stare and remember the time at the doctor’s off blankly until Smoker poked him with his abnormally long foreleg.
“Hey Screamer, you still in there?” asked Smoker.
Screamer blinked, “what?”
“I’m going to knock on the door. Be ready.”
Screamer looked at Smoker oddly, “ready for what?”
Smoker grinned, “Her panicking.”
Smoker sighed and knocked on the door. After a moment a response came from inside.
“One minute!”
Screamer sighed irritably, “I don’t have time for this.”
Just then, the purple unicorn that the seven had met yesterday opened the library door.
“Sorry, I just had to finish up cleaning up something…” she stared at the seven ponies standing outside, the one that she was most focused on was Hunter, who had his head turned facing down the street. She quickly turned around and shut the door before any of them had a chance to react.
Smoker sighed and knocked on the door again.
“Go away!”
Screamer rolled his eyes and hovered over to Smoker, “look, this is how a professional handles this.” He flew to the door and knocked on it himself, “hello, sorry about yesterday with Smoker and Hunter. I promise that they won’t do anything stupid this time.”
There was no response from inside. Screamer sighed, “Look, we’re here for a book. Think you can help us find it?”
Again, there was no response; Charger decided that it was a lost cause until they were on better terms with the librarian. Smoker tried to argue with her but was cut off.
“How would you feel if someone broke into your house and threatened you with violence just because you happened to look out of your window at the wrong time?”
Smoker sighed, “I’d probably choke them to death.”
“Exactly, now, we need to take care in this situation,” explained Charger, “I’ll knock this time; make sure she doesn’t see you or Hunter.”
Smoker nodded; yesterday she had really only gotten glimpses of everyone except Hunter, Charger and himself. He assumed she was panicking when she encountered Witch but decided that wasn’t important right now.
Charger told all of them besides Spitter and Boomer to head to the park and wait for Tank and Witch while Spitter, Boomer and herself tried to obtain the information the doctor told them they should learn.
“I am confused, little pink pony,” said Tank, “why are you preparing party for me and Witch? We must be heading to the park to wait for Smoker and others.”
Pinkie pie beamed at him, “oh! You have more friends with you?!” she asked excitedly.
“Friends might be pushing it but yes,” muttered Tank.
Witch watched the two speak as she tried to figure out how to properly eat the cotton candy she was given by Pinkie pie. Sure, she was annoyingly loud but, she seemed to quiet down after Tank told her too.
She liked Tank; he made sure that everything was quiet when she got the migraines. Tank also made sure that nothing disturbed her when the world became bright and confusing. ‘Bright and confusing,’ thought Witch as she took another bite of the cotton candy, back in Fairfield, Pennsylvania, where Tank, Boomer and herself were from everything was loud bright and confusing.
Now, the regular infected people usually didn’t mind the light, unless it was shone right at them. It was usually the sounds of alarms or explosions that set them off. For Witch however, it was bright lights and anything too close. That also included loud sounds.
“We’re almost there!” exclaimed Pinkie pie as they approached a peculiarly familiar building.
“Purple spy’s home is library?” muttered Tank to himself.
The Pinkie pie hopped to the library door and knocked on it. “Hello? Twilight? There are two really neat ponies I want you to meet!”
There was a pause before a strangely mechanical voice was heard from the other side of the door. “Hey, Twilight! You have visitors!”
Tank frowned at the voice, it sounded like the white sphere that crashed last night. Then he remembered that Smoker and Hunter mentioned dumping it at the purple spy’s house, which was the library. Tank sighed; everything seemed to lead back to this library.
There was another pause and Tank swore he heard Spitter’s voice as Twilight opened the door.
“Sorry Pinkie I a bit busy right…” her sentence stopped when she saw the gigantic form of Tank.
“Hello, little purple spy. You are librarian, yes?” rumbled Tank.
Twilight’s astonished gaze fell to Pinkie pie, who was smiling and finally Witch, who had cotton candy all around her face with an odd expression. Shaking her head, Twilight spoke.
“Pinkie pie,” she said slowly.
“Yes?”
“Who are they?”
“Oh, the big guy is Tank and the Pegasus is Witch,” said Pinkie pie cheerfully.
Witch glanced over to Twilight and mumbled something that sounded like “hello.”
Twilight looked back at Tank, who seemed to be amused at what Witch said. He then turned to twilight. “Hello, Twilight,” Tank seemed to have some difficulty pronouncing her name and continued, “Sorry for the misunderstanding. Life has been… hard for us in the past,” rumbled Tank. He then smiled, “but, Witch likes it here. So that is good.”
Twilight nodded slowly, Tank was huge, abet not as tall as Smoker, he easily was the one the attention mostly fell on when he was nearby.
Suddenly, a strange chirping came from inside the library followed by Spitter rushing out side as fast as he elongated legs would carry her. She then proceeded to spit out a rather large amount of fizzling green goop from her mouth and onto the ground where is fizzled for a good five seconds before seeping into the dirt. She grinned weakly as she wiped the remains of it from her mouth with her left foreleg.
“Sorry,” she said weakly to Twilight she then turned to Tank, “hey, Tank, how are you doing?”
Tank looked at Spitter oddly, then shrugged, “I am doing fine, who you really should be asking is Witch.”
Spitter glanced at Witch, the doc had told her that her and Jockey could speak. Now it was time for her to test that statement. “Hey Witch, what’s that on your face?” asked Spitter as she noticed the cotton candy.
Witch stretched out her wings, which were white with streaks of red going down the feathers on the tip, and yawned, “Its cotton candy,” she said in a quiet but harsh voice.
Spitter smiled; even though her voice was harsh sounding (probably the result of crying nonstop for the better part of three weeks) Witch had indeed proven herself she was capable of speaking, which meant Jockey could also. “Nice to hear you speak, Witch.”
Witch nodded and went back to staring off into space. Spitter turned and was met by a bright pink pony’s unnaturally large smile.
“Hello I’m Pinkie pie, what’s your name?” asked the pony fast and hyper voice.
“Uh, Spitter?”
“Nice to meet you Spitter, are you one of Tank and Witch’s friends?” asked the hyper pony.
“You could say that,” muttered Spitter.
Then another two ponies, Boomer and Charger, exited Twilight’s library in search for Spitter, who ran outside because the substance they called ‘Spitter Goo’ had started to leak out of her mouth, which meant either spit it out, or let it burn its way out. They too were surprised to see Tank and Witch outside.
“Tank, Witch? What are you two doing here?” asked Charger.
“Little pink pony brought us,” replied Tank.
Pinkie pies smile even grew even bigger than it was a before when she saw Boomer and Charger. She excitedly told then who she was and asked for their names. Twilight would have normally smiled at Pinkie pie’s usual energetic attitude at meeting new ponies if something wasn’t telling her that these five ponies were hiding something. Something that was very important.
Hunter was crouching low to the ground, about to pounce his unsuspecting prey. His low growls reverberated off some nearby rocks. His target looked around fearfully as its flock of ducks quacked at the sound.
He vaguely remembered what Screamer had told him before he ran off.
“Hunter, whatever you do, do not kill, harm or otherwise injure anything,” said Screamer.
Hunter nodded and ran off, which led him to his current position. Smoker was in charge of watching Jockey. By watching he meant hanging Jockey off a tree with his tongue while he took a nap on the grass.
By this time his scared prey had frozen where she (Hunter assumed it was a she because of the way it sounded) stood. Hunter crouched even lower to the ground and prepared to pounce. About half a second later, he let out an unearthly screech and leaped from his hiding spot at his prey.
Hunter flew through the air, in an attempt to pounce his target. The target in question screamed at the sight of the small predator leaping at her with a feral grin. The scream was so loud that Smoker, who was some distance away, heard it and instantly knew who the source was: Hunter.
Smoker uncoiled his tongue, which was handing from a tree to keep Jockey from attacking anyone and narrowed his eyes to try to find Hunter.
Although the infection damaged many parts of his body, it also enhanced other things. Like Hunter’s smell and hearing were much more advanced than other peoples or, ponies in this case. For Smoker it was eye sight, giving him binocular vision whenever his eyes narrowed.
There, at the far side of the park near some rocks Hunter was still leaping in mid-air at a yellow Pegasus. Smoker launched his fifty foot tongue out of his mouth and hoped it could stop Hunter before he did anything he would regret.
Just as the tips of Hunter’s forelegs made contact with the Pegasus he felt something rubbery wrap itself around his chest. Suddenly, he was pulled away from the Pegasus at a rather fast speed. Hunter tried to free himself from the coil but Smoker just reeled him in faster. By the time Hunter had managed to cut the tongue, he was standing face to face with Smoker.
“What?” Hunter asked with bits of anger in his voice.
Smoker stared at him; about an hour ago he was almost carefree, now he looked just like he did when they were on earth, sick and totally insane. Smoker also noticed that his bandages seemed to have some sort of yellow looking spark where his pupils would have been located if he still had eyes. Another thing Smoker noticed about Hunter was how agitated he was, like suddenly the four maniacs would come from nowhere and kill them all. Testing this, Smoker asked him where he was.
“Newburg city, Pennsylvania,” responded Hunter immediately.
Smoker stared at him, “Hunter, what were you attacking?”
“Ducks and a maniac,” replied Hunter as he slowly began to back away to attempt another attack.
Not far away, Screamer was lying against a branch of a tree when he heard Jockey’s maniacal laughter. Cracking an eye open, Screamer looked around for Jockey while thinking up a way to ultimately blame whatever happens on Smoker.
Screamer spotted Jockey’s electric blue body hopping around a small pond. Groaning to himself, Screamer jumped off his tree, landing on the ground with an audible thud, and began to hover over to Jockey.
“What are you doing?” Screamer sighed.
Jockey cackled and hopped onto a mid-sized rock in the pond and continued to cackle.
‘Of course he just cackled,’ Screamer mentally sighed to himself. ‘Why would Jockey be able to talk he if he couldn’t back in the city?’
Meanwhile, Smoker’s tongue had regrown (the doc said that something to do with the rapidly forming cancerous cells and a strange type of fungi had mixed together on his intestines and somehow forced them out through his mouth. His real tongue I still there, just under a quarter mile of bundled up intestines and fungi) and he lashed it out at Hunter again just as the yellow Pegasus had come out of hiding inside a bush.
The Pegasus yelped again, abet much quieter than before, and Smoker tried to tell her to get out of the way.
“Eet oot of ee wa!” shouted Smoker, who’s tongue was being clawed at by Hunter.
“Let go of me!” yelled Hunter, who looked like a cornered animal rather than the navy blue earth pony he was an hour ago. Hunter let out a painfully loud screech that was heard throughout the entire park.
Screamer, who had heard the cry and searched for what caused it, after a moment checked to see what Jockey was looking at. To his surprise, across the pond was Hunter desperately trying to get away from Smoker’s tongue. Mentally face palming himself for not looking there in the first place; Screamer casually hovered over to the two.
“Smoker, what are you doing?” sighed Screamer as he hovered in place beside Smoker.
“Hunnr as gon appst! Get Ank!”
Screamer stared at Smoker, “what?”
“Let me go!” yelled Hunter again, now trying to gnaw his way through Smoker’s tongue, “they’re going to kill us if we don’t kill them first!”
“Get Ank! Now!” Smoker yelled through his tongue.
“You mean Tank, right?” asked Screamer. Smoker nodded and tried to reel Hunter in.
“O, NOW!”
“You need to learn to enunciate,” said Screamer as he hovered upwards into the sky.
When he was high enough to see the entire park, Screamer deeply inhaled and let out a terrifyingly loud shriek that could be heard across the entire town.
Tank was standing silently beside Witch in the library while Boomer, Charger, Spitter and Twilight were talking about the demons known as ‘Nightmares’. Twilight also mentioned the two white spheres’ they encountered last night and how they apparently were orbiting the moon before falling into the atmosphere. The blue eyed one was called Wheatley and the other was nicknamed Space, due it’s obsession with space. Still, all the talking was boring Tank to death. All he really wanted to do right now was go outside, maybe get something to eat and then get some sleep, which he and the other infected were seriously lacking.
Tank was resting his eyes when Witch poked his arm. Eye’s still closed, asked Witch why she poked him.
As soon as he asked, a terrifying screech blasted through the library, cracking windows in multiple spots and making Tank snap his eyes open while everypony else ether dropped to the floor and covered their ears or tensed up instantly.
“That’s why,” Witch mumbled.
“What was that?!” asked Twilight.
“That sounded like Screamer,” muttered Boomer as he got back to his hooves.
“Screamer, the guy in the straightjacket?” asked Twilight.
“That’s him,” replied Spitter, “look, sorry but we have to go. Whenever Screamer does that he usually has a good reason.”
By this time, Tank and Witch were already exiting the library and was walking towards the park. The thing about Screamer was that his screams have eight different frequencies that Tank and the other seven infected can understand. Usually when one frequency is right after another it means that Screamer needs help with the second frequency. This one was specifically for Tank meaning that Hunter was in some form of trouble and they needed his help.
Another screech boomed throughout the town that brought Tank to a full out run. Witch, who usually was faster than Tank when it came to running, was alongside him and occasionally shrieking at ponies to get out of the way.
When the two arrived at the park about forty seconds after they left, they saw Smoker trying to reel Hunter, who had apparently gone feral, from attacking anything he could get his sharpened hooves on. Tank and Witch slowed down as they got closer to the struggle.
“Aout ime uo got ear!” said Smoker through his tongue.
“What is wrong?” asked Tank, giving Hunter a strange look.
Screamer hovered over with Jockey on his back and began to explain what was going on.
“alright, so here I am, minding my own business when all of a sudden I heard Jockey’s cackling. So, like the responsible person I am, I went to go check up on him when I see Smoker and Hunter in a strange tug of war like fight.”
“Is beaus Hunnr wen appst!” came Smoker’s reply, “Ank, old im own ile ee ind omening to estain im.”
Tank nodded. Although Smoker was nearly unintelligible, hanging around him for three weeks one learns to understand what he’s saying through the massive tongue. Tank held down his right foreleg on Hunter’s chest, making it impossible for him to move, while Smoker spoke to Screamer about what they’ll use to restrain Hunter.
“No,” said Screamer, “no, no, no!”
“And explain why not?” asked Smoker.
Screamer glared at him, “because even I don’t really know what’s under it.”
“Seriously? How bad can they possibly be?”
The two stared at each other for a moment before Screamer sighed, “alright, but you’re responsible for explaining why I took it off.”
Jockey hopped off Screamer’s back and went over to Tank and Witch as Smoker watched Screamer land on the ground and used his mouth and wings to open all the latches and buckles on his straightjacket. After a moment, Screamer spat the last latch out of his mouth and slowly tried to take his forelegs out of the jacket.
“holy shit…” muttered Smoker as Screamer’s torn up forelegs emerged from the straightjacket.
There were at least seven holes between each foreleg and multiple large gashes where bone could be seen. Screamer shuddered as he continued to look at his maimed limbs. Giving Smoker a look, he picked up the straightjacket in his mouth and tossed it to him.
“You owe me a new one.”
“Can’t you just use it when we get Hunter properly tied down?”
Screamer laughed sarcastically, “I don’t know where Hunter’s been. He could have rolled in god knows what when you weren’t looking.”
Smoker rolled his eyes and turned back to Tank and Hunter with the straightjacket in his mouth. “Alright, Tank,” he said as he tossed Tank the straightjacket, “here comes the tricky part.”
************************************************************************** Charger couldn’t believe her eyes. She, Boomer and Spitter stared at the strange sight when they stopped just outside Sugarcube corner and saw Smoker dragging Hunter in Screamer’s straightjacket across the ground with a bunch of leaves gagging him and Tank, Witch, Jockey and Screamer not far behind.
“What the…”
Screamer glanced over and spotted them. He grinned slightly as he flew over to them.
“Not something you see every day, huh?”
“What the hell happened?” Boomer asked.
Screamer sighed, “Ask Smoker. I’ve already explained it to Tank.”
Spitter stared at Screamer’s forelegs just as Twilight caught up with them.
“What was that about?” she asked, panting slightly.
Screamer sighed, “Ask Smoker, it’s his turn.”
Twilight stared at Screamer, or more specifically, his gored forelegs. She opened her mouth to comment on it but Screamer cut her off.
“Before you say anything, just remember that I can make your eardrums burst without a second thought and I do not feel like talking about them.”
Twilight nodded slowly and tore her eyes away from Screamer’s forelegs as he hovered back over to Smoker. Charger, Boomer and Spitter exchanged glances and followed him.
“Where are you going?” asked Twilight as she tried to catch up with them.
“Back to the doctor I assume,” replied Boomer.
Twilight nodded as she saw a bluish rainbow coloured blur streak across the sky and was headed straight for Tank. Her blood froze when she realised who the blur was and what she was going to do. Just as the blur was heading towards Tank, Smoker glanced upwards and released Hunter from his grip and fired his long tongue into the sky to try and catch the blur.
“Aguah!” yelled Smoker as the blur tore his tongue in half.
By this time the other infected had noticed the blur. Charger leapt into the air and aimed herself directly in the blurs line of flight. With a disturbingly similar cry to the one she used on Earth, Charger bolted forwards with her oversized right foreleg facing outwards and intercepted the blur.
The two crashed into the ground and Charger grabbed the blur, which was just a blue Pegasus with a rainbow mane, and slammed her into the ground. It wasn’t enough to actually hurt her, but it was just enough to knock the wind out of her.
“Speak,” growled Charger.
“Air…” the Pegasus gasped, “I need air!”
Still keeping her grip tight enough so she couldn’t escape, Charger loosened her grip just enough so the Pegasus could breath.
“There, now, why were you attacking us?” asked Charger sternly.
“You were foalnapping that pony in the straightjacket,” said the Pegasus, still trying to regain her breath.
“That ‘pony’ needs a doc to look at him. Apparently he went nuts when someone was supposed to be watching him,” said Charger as she glared at Smoker.
“Let go of her!” yelled Twilight.
“You know her?” asked Charger, turning back to the Pegasus.
“Yes, she’s one of my friends!” said Twilight.
Charger stared at the Pegasus and back to twilight. Sighing heavily, Charger let the Pegasus out of her grip and spoke to her one last time.
“You’re lucky I trust your friends’ judgement. If I hadn’t, lest just say you wouldn’t be moving for a while.”
Nodding, the Pegasus picked herself off the ground as Charger walked back over to Hunter and grabbed him in her foreleg.
“Hunter, you better have one hell of an explanation after all this,” muttered Charger as she continued to walk to the hospital with the seven other infected not far behind.
Rainbow dash stared at the nine infected walking towards the hospital. Screamer hovered over to Jockey and grabbed him in his gored forelegs and dropped him on Smoker, who proceeded to start yelling at Screamer with Boomer and Spitter chuckling from ahead. Witch had moved at a ridiculously fast rate and now was sleeping on Tank’s back. Tank glared at her briefly before continuing on. From what she saw, they were crazy.
The steady clock on the wall of the large waiting area was the sole thing from keeping eight ponies from going completely insane. All eight pairs of eyes were staring intently at it while they waited for the ninth member of their group to leave the hospital room.
Tick tock.
The deep breathing of a rather large stallion with a faded pair of dark blue pants was keeping a small white Pegasus with red tipped wings from panicking on his back.
Tick tock.
The cloud of smoke that was constantly being omitted from a tall charcoal grey stallion with equally grey jeans caused the stallion to cough slightly as he waited.
Tick tock.
The chirps of a yellow green mare and the frantic look in her eyes made a fat mahogany stallion sigh and nod. The mare quickly bolted out of the room and into the washroom with a trail of burning stomach acid trailing out of her mouth.
Tick tock.
The low cackling of an electric blue colt made the watchful eyes of an olive green mare with an oversized right foreleg fall upon the colt, making him stop cackling for a moment.
Tick… tock… tick…
The quiet flapping of wings from a tan Pegasus with a white towel crudely wrapped around his forelegs like a straightjacket thumped in the ears of the charcoal grey stallion like a steady drum beat.
Tick, tick…
The seven present pairs of eyes beamed at the clock. It froze at exactly five thirty p.m.
There was a brief period of utter silence in the room as the yellow green mare re-entered the room. She looked around and asked,
“Why is it so quiet in here?”
As if a switch was thrown, Smoker slammed his head into the wall, Screamer landed on the ground with an audible thud and stood there, Witch began crying and Tank started to wander slowly, Jockey started cackling loudly causing Charger to mutter something under her breath and Boomer sighed heavily and started to lean against the wall.
“The clock broke,” Boomer sighed, “The one thing keeping us from going crazy broke.”
“Ah,” said Spitter as she wandered over to Smoker, whose head was still against the wall, “How are you doing?”
Smoker grunted slightly, “I’ve been worse.”
Spitter nodded, “Yeah, we’ve been through a lot of shit, haven’t we?”
“Damn right we have,” muttered Screamer as he stretched himself like cat on the floor, the towel restricting his forelegs falling, “Remember the time when Witch went missing for an hour?”
Smoker smiled slightly at the memory.
It was about two and a half weeks after the infection broke out and about a week after they all met each other. They were slowly making their way across the country side and avoiding six immune people with guns. They stopped to rest for a while in a large forest not too far from where the six immune people were. Naturally, both sides were cautious of each other.
About an hour after the six left and the sun was up in the early morning sky, Witch had literally vanished from thin air. Tank was franticly searching around (if you could call shifting multiple bushes and muttering death threats at the six immune people frantic) when Hunter picked up her tell-tale smell of dried blood and the peculiar smell of dried tears.
The eight searched for her for most of the day until Spitter had found her sitting in a kitchen with a large bag of opened sugar torn to shreds on the floor and Witch sitting in the middle of the room. Hunter was the one to notice a small trail of blood leading into a cupboard a few feet away. Inside of it were the brutally massacred remains of the six survivors they were avoiding the day before.
As Smoker finished remembering the event, the door to the room Hunter was in opened. All eight pairs of eye darted over to see the doctor from that morning and Hunter, who seemed to be wobbling slightly as he and the doctor walked over to Smoker and Spitter.
“Well, I got him to calm down,” said the doctor, grinning weakly, “Unfortunately, I noticed something when I was looking over the records I made today that might explain why Hunter here lost it.”
Smoker stared down at him, narrowing his eyes slightly, “And that would be?”
“Due to the strange properties your sickness, you may completely forget where you are and act on instinct of the virus. To put it simply, Hunter thought he was back from where ever you nine came from.”
Smoker nodded slowly as he noticed Spitter tense slightly beside him, “Is there a way to prevent or at least know when it will happen?”
The doctor shrugged, “I’m not sure about that. Was Hunter acting differently earlier?”
“He was a bit jumpy, even for him, yesterday,” muttered Smoker.
The doctor smiled, “Then that’s probably it. You will probably be startled easier when the effect kicks in.”
Smoker nodded again and saw Hunter fall to the floor face first. Spitter, who also saw, stared at the doctor in surprise. The doctor chuckled slightly.
“Oh, don’t worry about that. I gave him a slight sedative to calm him down. He should be fine in the morning.”
Hunter lifted his head off the floor and gave a lopsided grin. “What are you talkin about,” he slurred, “I feel fine.”
Spitter watched Hunter shakily get to his hooves and try to steady himself on a nearby wall, only to miss and fall again.
“How much of that stuff did you give him?” asked Spitter.
The doctor shrugged, “Enough to knock out an adult tiger.”
Spitter stared at the doctor, who reassuringly told her that Hunter could totally handle the tranquilizer and not to worry.
Witch, who had lost interest in the conversation, was now poking Tank’s back with her wing tips. Tank turned his head to face her.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Is there anything sweet?” she rasped quietly.
Tank shook his head, “Not here. The sugar is at the big sugar building across little pony town.”
Witch sighed slightly, “Can we go there?” she asked quietly.
Tank smiled slightly as he watched Smoker wrap up the conversation with the doctor and Hunter shakily walk over to them. Screamer hovered over to Hunter and smacked his hoof across the back of his head.
“Hunter, what the hell was that?” Screamer growled.
Hunter lazily raised his head to Screamer and gave him a toothy grin. It was then Screamer realised that nearly all of Hunter’s teeth were unnaturally sharpened and rotted to the core. Deciding it was best to ask someone else later, Screamer grabbed his white towel from the floor and wrapped it around his forelegs like a straightjacket and resumed hovering.
Tank sighed and announced that he was taking Witch to obtain some food at the bakery from earlier. At the mention of food, Screamer flew over to him alarmingly fast and stared him straight in the face.
“You know where we can get food?”
Tank nodded, “Yes, Witch and I were there earlier when Witch tried to eat little pink pony.”
Screamer smiled, “If there’s food I don’t care who ate who as long as it’s edible, I’m going with you guys.”
Nine figures made their way across the eerily deserted town. Smoker’s eyes flicked around for any signs of life in vain. It was like the entire town had simply gotten up and moved away. He was not the only one to compare the deserted town to the infected cities that each of the nine originated from on Earth. Smoker heard the sound of groaning and quickly spun around only to face Hunter, who had an expression that implied that he was unwell on his face.
“Ugh,” he groaned slightly.
“You alright there, Hunter?” asked Smoker.
Hunter shakily took another few steps before collapsing to the ground, still groaning.
“Hunter, what’s wrong?” Smoker asked sternly with a hint of concern in his voice.
By this time the others noticed and Smoker gestured to them that he could handle this and told them that they’ll catch up soon. Shrugging, Tank resumed leading the other seven infected to the bakery. Smoker kneeled down to be face to face with Hunter, who appeared to have some fever like symptoms.
“Hunter, what’s wrong?” Smoker asked again, his tone like the one a father would give to a child.
“It hurts,” said Hunter as he tried to stand again only to collapse once more.
“What hurts?”
“Everything hurts.”
Smoker nodded, “Are you hungry?”
Hunter faced him, if he had eyes he would have been giving him an odd stare, “Yes I’m hungry.”
“Well,” said Smoker, rising to his full height of seven feet, “Then you’d better get up and hurry.”
Hunter sighed and slowly began to get up. He started to lose balance again but was supported by Smoker’s left foreleg.
“If you’re going to collapse again, tell me,” said Smoker as he slowly began to walk in the direction the others went in with Hunter leaning against his leg for support.
“My head feels like crap,” Hunter muttered.
Smoker chuckled softly, “Don’t worry. Eventually all of us will be in the same position as you.”
Hunter nodded slowly and continued his slow walk. After a few moments he turned to Smoker.
“Hey, Smoker, what exactly happened earlier? Everything after leaving the doctor’s office is blurry.”
Hunter nodded again as the two walked through the abandoned streets of Ponyville with the glow of the sunsets on their backs and the shine of the moon ahead, illuminating the path where the others awaited them.
“Alright, a tree is one thing but this?!” said Screamer as he stared at Sugarcube corner in disbelief, “Who in the right mind would come up with this?! Hell, even I would never think of this back home.”
The seven stood idly around the entrance to the building, none of them wanting to take the first step inside. One of the reasons were that this building, unlike all the other one’s they passed, had it ‘open’ sign still up.
Spitter sighed again as her stomach grumbled. The last time she had food was two days ago when she was scouting around some towns with Hunter trying to figure out where exactly they were. From what she gathered, this was Ponyville and to the hills was the country capital, Canterlot. Spitter sighed, ‘why is everything a stupid pony pun here?’ she thought to herself as she saw Smoker and Hunter slowly make their way towards them.
Hunter had a tired look on his face as he used Smoker for support. When the two finally caught up with them and Smoker raised an eyebrow.
“Going inside anytime soon?” he asked.
Spitter shrugged, “Nobody is willing to take the first step inside.”
Smoker rolled his eyes and walked up to the door muttering, “And I thought I was paranoid.”
He pushed the door open and walked into the darkened bakery. Glancing at each other, the other seven followed Smoker inside the building and the door closed with a click.
“Hey, Hunter, see anything?” asked Screamer as he squinted in the darkness.
“We’re not alone in here,” Hunter said quietly.
There was a huge explosion of light in the room, blinding the infected that was quickly followed by a loud “Surprise!” yelled out by everyone in the room that had been hiding in the darkness. Pinkie pie bounced over to the nine infected as they tried to get their bearings.
What happened next was not expected by anyone.
All of the infected’s most basic instincts took action causing a most likely traumatic experience to most present.
Spitter’s pupils were reduced pinpricks and as large amount of burning stomach acid forced itself up her elongated throat, causing her to spit it across the room where it exploded into a puddle of the stuff.
Smoker launched out his tongue in an attempt to grab something as Hunter tried to pounce only to fall onto Smoker, causing him to stagger and make him miss his target, who was on top of a table trying to get out of Spitter’s acidic goo.
Tank roared that caused everything in the room to panic as he tried to pull a chunk of the floor out of the ground.
Witch let out a bloodcurdling scream and leapt off of Tank and ran at blinding speeds to the first thing she saw, which was Pinkie pie.
Boomer groaned slightly but the medication the doctor gave him prevented him from producing bile in his liver.
Charger let out a yell and charged into the crowd; luckily she missed hitting anyone and collided with the wall.
Jockey cackled and leapt off somewhere, presumably to ‘ride’ them in a humiliating fashion.
Screamer blinked and shook his head during the pandemonium from the safety of the air. After he got his bearings back he took a deep breath and let out what was possibly the loudest shriek possible by a living creature.
Everything that was glass in the room exploded violently as all the ponies, including the eight infected on the ground, fell to the floor trying to cover their ears from the harsh sound that was getting higher in pitch. After Screamer decided that they had enough, he stopped and dropped to the floor, panting.
“What the hell,” he rasped; his voice was heard throughout the room, “was that?”
Screamer looked through the heavily damaged building that once was Sugarcube corner and found the other infected in the crowd of panicked ponies.
“Guys, get the fuck over here.”
Slowly the eight infected, each looking ashamed in their own way, came over to Screamer.
“Guys, I know it was everything we hate, it was loud and bright but come on,” Screamer said, looking at all of them, “We’ve gone to hell and back, surviving everything the world threw at us. But here you are, panicking about ponies. Not a group of crazed maniacs with guns.”
Witch blinked a few times before sniffing slightly. Tank moved slightly and looked down at her, muttering something softly.
Screamer got back into the air and looked at the crowd of ponies behind the infected, too shocked to flee.
“And what did you think that would accomplish?” asked Screamer in an accusing tone, “Abandoning the town and scaring the living shit out of us when all we wanted was something to eat.” Screamer shook his head, “I have one question, just one, whose idea was this?”
There was a silence in the room before one voice responded.
“It was my idea.”
Smoker turned to see Pinkie pie, who was looking guiltily at the floor. Screamer hovered over to her and sighed.
“Why did you do it?” asked Screamer.
“Well, I whenever somepony new comes to town I throw them a huge party to celebrate,” Pinkie pie said sadly.
Screamer nodded, “Look, we appreciate the gesture but,” Screamer turned to the eight other infected, “We’ve had a rough few weeks and they caused us to react badly when startled like that.”
Hunter groaned slightly as he leaned on Smoker to keep balance. Smoker looked at him concernedly and Witch was crying softly with Tank trying to comfort her.
Pinkie pie looked at them with concern, all of them had large scars or deformities on their bodies that made her shudder slightly. But the main thing she noticed was how tired they all looked, like they haven’t gotten a proper rest in months.
“Sorry,” she said quietly.
“Don’t worry too much about it,” said Screamer, hovering over to the door, “You don’t have to babysit these idiots.”
With that, Screamer opened the door and left with the other eight infected saying apologies of their own and following him. The last one was Witch, who sniffled slightly as she left.
Pinkie pie sat down in the damaged bakery and thought about the nine infected.
What happened to them? What made the not like bright things and loud sounds? And most importantly
A cool breeze caused the small form of Witch to shiver slightly. She had stopped crying from the disastrous attempt at a surprise welcome party that startled everyone besides Screamer, who refused to speak with any of them.
They had gone back to the park, specifically the area where they had spent the last night. Smoker, however, was keen on finding Hunter a proper place to rest because he was feeling unwell after the initial effects of the tranquilizers wore off and caught a fever for his trouble. Now everyone else currently hiding in trees, under benches or just lying in plain sight trying to fall asleep and put the day behind them. Still, Hunter’s condition was on everyone’s mind. They had never been sick with anything else than the Green Flu for the past few weeks.
Usually Witch wasn’t concerned about the health of others beside Tank, mostly because she had the incredibly painful migraines whenever someone else was feeling unwell. Witch shivered again. Not because of the cold, but because of the memory of how unbearably painful the migraines were in the past. They had caused her to claw at her skin and at anything else that was close by. She sniffed again at the memory of when she lashed out a Tank. She tore off a large part of his skin on his chest, leaving the circular shaped scar that was currently devoid of fur. That was seven days ago, back when she was still a human.
‘No,’ Witch thought, ‘I was not a human. I was a monster like everyone else.’
The sound of a twig being stepped on close by snapped Witch out of her memories and made her start to look around. She saw that Spitter was on her hooves, illuminated by the glowing stomach acid that dripped from her mouth and sizzled softly onto the dirt. Spitter noticed Witch’s movement and slowly walked over to her.
“Something’s out there,” Spitter muttered, “Might be a good idea to wake Tank up.”
Witch nodded and quietly walked over to the giant form of Tank, sleeping deeply under a tree. Witch poked him with her right wing tips.
“Tank,” she rasped quietly, still poking him, “Wake up.”
Tank stirred slightly before opening his dull yellow eyes, “What,” he asked flatly.
“Spitter hears something, something that might be bad.”
Tank shifted his gigantic right foreleg and slowly began to get up. When he was standing upright, he towered everyone except Smoker at six and a half feet tall. His eyes looked around lazily, looking for whatever he was supposed to be looking for.
Then, Tank heard the sound of a twig snapping not far away. Sighing quietly, Tank slowly moved over to the tree Hunter was resting in and spoke to him.
“Hunter, what is approaching?” asked Tank in the quietest voice possible but still loud enough so Hunter could hear him.
Hunter groaned and turned his unseeing gaze directed at Tank, “The Librarian, The Planner and four others who I can’t identify,” said Hunter as he shifted back to the resting position he was in before, “Now go away. My head is killing me.”
Tank frowned, ‘What do they want?’ he thought. Shrugging, he walked away from the tree and over to Witch and Spitter, who had gathered everyone but Hunter and Screamer. It took a trained eye to spot them, due to how they had managed to camouflage themselves in such short notice. Even Boomer, who was larger than anypony else any of them had seen so far was almost completely invisible to anyone who wasn’t specifically looking for him.
Anyone who could see Smoker saw him visibly relax as Tank calmly walked towards them without a hint of worry on his face.
“Did you find out what it is?” asked Smoker from his hiding stop atop a tree.
Tank nodded, “Hunter says it is just the Librarian, the little pink pony and four others, nothing to be scared about.”
Smoker nodded and jumped off of the tree. A clearly audible thud was heard when he hit the ground. One by one, the other hiding infected emerged from their hiding places. Smoker’s ear twitched as the find sound of whispering was carried on the wind. He could recognise the librarian, but the other five voices that accompanied it were unknown to Smoker. Deciding it was better to make sure they knew he knew that they were there, Smoker called out into the darkened park.
“Hello?” Smoker’s voice carried out like a gunshot in the otherwise silent park.
The whispers he heard earlier ceased instantly and Smoker sighed in annoyance. ‘If they did not want us to notice them, then why’d they follow is in the first place?’ Smoker thought to himself. He called out again.
“We know you’re out there. Show yourselves and save us the trouble of catching you.”
There was more silence until there was some rustling of leaves and harsh whispering and finally the pink pony who claimed to have organized the disastrous party emerged from the bushes.
Witch blinked and stared at the pink pony. Slowly, to the surprise of everyone except Tank, Witch walked towards the pink pony, Pinkie pie, if Tank remembered correctly, and sat down in front of her.
“Hi,” Witch rasped quietly.
Pinkie pie grinned “Hi, Witch!”
Smoker turned to Tank, who shrugged, “We met little pink pony before going to find Spitter, Charger and Boomer at library.”
There was more rustling in the bushes and five more ponies emerged from them, Twilight Sparkle, the yellow Pegasus that Hunter attacked, two others, a orange one and a white one that none of them had seen before and the Pegasus with the rainbow mane.
Charger glared at the light blue Pegasus, who in return, glared at Charger.
“Hello,” Charger said with a noticeable dark tone.
The rainbow Pegasus rolled her eyes, “Hi,” she said flatly.
There was an awkward silence for a moment before the light blue Pegasus spoke again.
“Name’s Rainbow dash, fastest flier in Equestria,” said the Pegasus.
“Charger. My name speaks for itself,” said Charger.
Smoker coughed from the cloud of smoke around his head and spoke, “Smoker,” he said through his coughs.
“Are you alright?” asked the yellow Pegasus.
“I’m fine,” said Smoker as his coughs got more violent.
The six ponies looked at Smoker worriedly as the seven infected waited for the coughing fit to pass. After about a minute of Smoker coughing, he took a deep breath and sighed, stopping his coughs. He sighed and sat down against the tree a closed his eyes.
There was another silence before Spitter spoke up.
“So, uh, I’m Spitter,” she said, “I’ve met some of you before so, hello again.”
“Hello, I’m Applejack and I’m wondering, what’s with the glowing green goop trailing outta your mouth?” asked the orange pony.
Spitter sighed nervously, “Its, uh, stomach acid or fire spit, whichever you prefer to call it.”
Applejack nodded, her eyes focused on the small trail of sizzling goo that was burning the grass it landed on.
The sounds of pained groans drifted in the wind which caused Smoker to jump upright and start looking around. The six ponies were naturally surprised by Smoker’s sudden movement.
“What’s wrong?” asked Twilight.
“It’s Hunter,” replied Smoker as he walked over to a seemingly empty tree, “He’s sick.”
There was another groan from the tree before Smoker launched out his tongue and it wrapped around something on a tree branch. The tongue immediately started to retract into Smoker’s mouth as the unconscious form of Hunter came into view. Hunter was slowly taken from the tree and landed lightly on Smoker’s back.
“This,” grunted Smoker, “Is Hunter.”
Although this was her third time seeing Hunter, it was the first where Twilight got a good look at him. His coat was a navy blue but it was flattened in eight places, two on each leg along with various places where it looked like he tried to tear some of his fur off. Another thing was his right ear, which had a rather large chunk torn out of it. Hunter’s mouth was opened slightly which gave Twilight a chance to look at his unnaturally sharp teeth.
“Um, what’s wrong with his teeth?” asked the yellow pony.
Smoker froze. Telling them that his teeth were meant to disembowel things would certainly ruin their chance of finding a way back. Trying to find an excuse, Smoker spoke very slowly, “The reason his teeth are like that it…” his mind blanked and he turned to the other infected for help.
“Hunter’s teeth are sharpened because he spent a few months in the wild and had to defend himself. I assure you that he didn’t change his diet though,” said Boomer calmly, “Also, my name is Boomer.”
“Why was he out in the wild?” asked Rainbow dash.
Boomer shrugged, “He was studying wolves,” he said, mentally praying that they had wolves here.
That seemed to get them to stop asking about his teeth and the rest of the ponies introduced and infected themselves. They all seemed quite disturbed about Jockey, Pinkie pie seemed extra disturbed with his demented grin as Jockey started to cackle louder when he realised that he was the focus of attention for the moment. Needless to say, Charger walked closer to him and made sure he didn’t do something that required her to chase after him. Rarity seemed concerned about the odd smell in the area before realising it was coming from the infected. She overheard Charger speaking with Jockey.
“Easy, Jockey,” she muttered.
“Hyeeh, hyeeh, hyeeh,” cackled Jockey.
After that the park was quiet except for the occasional pained groan from Hunter, who was still sleeping on Smoker’s back. Suddenly, a quiet raspy voice was carried on the wind.
“Guys? Where’d you go?”
Smoker sighed and called back, “We’re over here, Screamer.”
There was some rustling, then a loud thud accompanied by a quiet, “I’m ok.” Then, finally, Screamer walked towards them, his makeshift straightjacket nowhere to be seen. When he spotted the six ponies he sighed.
“What do you want?” he rasped quietly, “if you’re here to give the shit don’t bother. They won’t care.”
The six ponies barely heard him; instead their focus was on Screamer’s brutally deformed forelegs. Screamer noticed this and his expression turned hostile.
“What? Never seen bone before?” Screamer asked, “Imagine having to live with these.”
“Doesn’t that hurt?” asked Rainbow dash.
Screamer spat on the ground, a small bit of blood mixed into it, “Don’t ask questions about my arms and I won’t ask questions about your choice in hair colour.”
Rainbow dash angrily flew up to Screamer, who in response silently stared at her and held his ground.
“Are you saying something’s funny with my mane?” Rainbow dash said threateningly.
Screamer grinned darkly, his rotted teeth making Rainbow dash recoil slightly, “If you want to know, Rainbows are usually associated with-.”
Spitter cut him off with a slap to the back of his head. Screamer glared angrily at her and backed down, grumbling about something incomprehensible.
“Sorry about him,” Spitter told Rainbow dash, “He’s not in the best mood at the moment.”
“You wouldn’t be either if everyone kept on asking stupid questions about your arms,” muttered Screamer as he began to hover nearby Tank.
There was yet another pause before Witch yawned and decided to fall asleep right beside Pinkie pie where she had been sitting for the past few moments. Tank stretched his back slightly and walked over to her and sat down, also yawning.
“So, uh, where are you sleeping?” asked Twilight as Screamer hovered off to find another tree to sleep in and Smoker propped himself up against the tree Hunter was sleeping in and returned Hunter to his branch.
Spitter shrugged, “probably under a bench somewhere. I can’t climb trees very well.”
Twilight blinked, “you mean you have nowhere to go?”
“Nope, for the past three weeks we’ve traveled place to place trying to find some peace,” said Spitter.
Twilight looked around at the infected; Witch had curled into a little white ball on the grass with Tank watching from under a tree close by. The other infected were invisible and the only reason she know they where there were the tell-tale sounds they were making, like Smoker’s loud cough, Hunter’s pained groans, the (rather disgusting) sounds of Boomer’s bloated stomach, and Jockey’s laughter, which had died down to faint giggles.
All six ponies present felt slightly sorry about the infected lack of a place to stay, especially about Hunter, the one who most likely needed a place to stay the most out of all of them. Twilight decided to speak up about it.
“Well, I have room at my house if you guys want to stay there before you get a place of your own.”
The sounds stopped and Smoker emerged out of seemingly nowhere and walked up beside Spitter.
“We appreciate the offer but, you wouldn’t want all of us there,” said Smoker.
Twilight shook her head, “it’s not a problem, I have lots of spare room in my basement.”
Pinkie pie spoke up, “Ooh, there’s lots of room in Sugarcube corner, I’m sure the Cake’s won’t mind some of you staying there.”
“There is some room in the barn where one of y’all could stay,” said Applejack.
“I do have a spare room in the boutique,” mentioned Rarity.
“Um, I have some spare rooms in my home right now,” Fluttershy said quietly.
Rainbow dash sighed, “I guess I can spare a room in any of you guy’s need it, but in the sky though.”
Spitter smiled, “If you’re really ok with letting us stay at your homes then we’ll gladly stay if it’s not too much trouble.”
The ponies reassured her and Smoker that it was no trouble at all and they went and gathered the other seven sleeping infected. When they were all gathered again, they (reluctantly) split up, Hunter going with Fluttershy, Tank going with Applejack, Smoker and Boomer going with Twilight, Spitter and Screamer going with Pinkie pie, Charger and Jockey going with Rarity and Witch going with Rainbow dash.
Each of them were uneasy about splitting off into this many groups, especially Witch, who usually was alongside Tank, even with the horrible migraines she endured. But, with reassurance from each other, they all left to their respective temporary homes. Never the less, every one of the infected were worried about Hunter, with his illness, and Witch, with her hatred of loud sounds and unpredictability.
It was time to start fresh. And all thoughts of returning home were absent from the minds of everyone.
Rain pounded down onto the deserted streets of a mid-sized city. Five figures walked down the street firing their guns or tearing off limbs of the infected with their machetes, katana or baseball bats. They frequently communicated with each other about what types of infected they saw or heard or what weapons or health items they discovered. They all shared a short laugh when a pouncing infected got its head burst open mid jump and soared past its intended target. Then, all of a sudden, the groans of the infected ceased and a single, terrifying sound echoed up the street.
A saddening, pained wail echoed down the raining street that caused the five figure’s expressions to turn dead serious. One of them took out their fancy shotgun weapon and crept down the street to find the one that cried.
He motioned to his fellow four companions that he could do this and went into the building that led to the safe location. There was a moment of silence and the sound of a gun being fired. The four relaxed for a moment, thinking that their friend had succeeded in killing the crying infected and continued to where their friend was undoubted waiting.
By the time they got to the door way into the building their friend went into, they found a horrifying sight.
A female infected with twelve inch long claws was brutally tearing into their friend; his throat had been torn open thus making him incapable of screaming even if he had lived long enough to try. The four turned their weapons onto the infected in rage of their friend’s demise as the infected turned to them and shrieked.
The female charged towards them, her claws outstretched and swung them at the four. Its attack was quick and merciless. Before they even had the chance to fire a single shot two of them were clutching their intestines in their hands, one of them was torn in half and the last one was running for his life as the enraged infected chased after him. Just as he felt the infected’s claws rake across his back, ripping his spine out in the process, he let out a single, terrified scream…
Witch shrieked as she fell onto the floor as she awoke from her dream. It took her a moment for her to catch her breath. When she was breathing properly, she gazed curiously at the structure she was in.
The main thing Witch noticed was how unnaturally soft the floor was, like a cloud. She blinked curiously and sniffed it. It smelt like fresh rain and ozone. Wondering where the other infected were, she called out to them and waited for a response.
After a moment of waiting Witch frowned, usually Tank would have returned the call by now. He never was too far away from her. Witch sat down on the cloud like floor and wondered where Tank and the other infected were.
Suddenly a strange whirring sound filled the room Witch was in causing her ears to twitch in annoyance. As the sound got louder, a tortoise flew into the room with a strange rotor on its back. Witch stared curiously at the flying reptile until heard someone calling from down a hallway.
“Tank! You know you’re not supposed to go in there!”
Witch blinked, “Tank?” she rasped.
Suddenly a Pegasus flew into the room; surprising Witch and making her yelp in surprise and jump into the air. The Pegasus also jumped at Witch’s unexpected reaction. The two stared at each other for a moment before Witch spoke. The first thing Witch noticed about the Pegasus was its rainbow coloured mane.
“Rainbow?” she rasped quietly.
Rainbow dash smiled, “Yep, your buddies mentioned that you may take a moment to remember where you are.”
Witch blinked and tried to recall the events that happened last night.
“You’re not serious,” said Rainbow dash looking at Witch in disbelief, “How do you not know how to fly?!”
Witch shrugged and yawned again.
Rainbow dash groaned and sighed, “alright, so… you’re going to have to learn this fast because I’m not staying out here all night. Ok, first rule of flying, keep a steady pace.”
Rainbow dash demonstrated by hovering in the air much like Screamer did. Witch spread out her wings, which was when Rainbow dash noticed that the end feathers were longer that they normally were on most pegasi. That and they seemed much more ‘finger like’ than normal too. Witch took a deep breath and started flapping her wings. Almost instantly she rose from the ground and started to hover.
Rainbow dash smiled, “Hey, for somepony who says that this is their first time flying, you’re not too bad.”
Witch shrugged and continued to hover.
“Alright, second thing is flying itself. It’s easy, just keep flapping your wings and go in the direction you want to,” said Rainbow dash as she demonstrated flying around some of the scattered trees in the now abandoned park.
Witch nodded and started to fly. She mostly soared through the air at first, occasionally gaining height from thermals, until properly maintaining pace without help from anything when Rainbow dash declared her ready to fly and get to her house, which was where she’d be staying until her and the other infected had a proper place to live.
Witch had the ghost of a light smile on her face when she remembered last night and her first time flying.
Rainbow dash grinned when she figured that Witch had remembered heading out of the room, she asked her if she was hungry. Nodding franticly, Witch soon followed after the light blue Pegasus.
“Um, excuse me, Hunter? I have breakfast in the kitchen if you’re hungry,” the quiet voice said. It sounded kind and not too far away.
Hunter groaned slightly at the voice, not an annoyed groan, just a tired one. He lifted his head slightly and faced his unseeing bandaged eye sockets towards the voice’s direction.
“Ugh,” he groaned slightly, still recovering from the effects of the virus kicking in yesterday and the large amounts of tranquilizers given to him roughly twenty hours ago.
“Where?” Hunter croaked.
“Oh, um last night you and your friends were going to go to sleep in the park and my friends volunteered to let you stay in our homes for a while until you got your own home,” the voice said quietly.
“Who are you?” Hunter rasped quietly.
“I’m, um, Fluttershy. You were really sick yesterday and your friends said that you might not remember all of it.”
Hunter nodded, he vaguely recalled speaking with Smoker yesterday about most of the day being wiped from his memory for some reason Smoker wouldn’t explain. Sighing to himself, he got out of the (what he assumed was a) bed he was in and tried to take in all of what was around him.
The first thing Hunter noticed was the smell. The smell of what Hunter assumed was Fluttershy’s house smelt like the forest Hunter was in with Smoker before they met the others. It also smelt of various animals, including rabbits, birds and some other small mammals that’s name escaped Hunter. The other thing Hunter noticed was the sounds of the house; there was chirping, squeaking and the sound of a rabbit thumping its foot on the floor along with the light patter of rain coming from outside.
Groaning to himself again, Hunter slowly walked across the floor, trying not to hit anything. Fluttershy looked at him oddly.
“Um, are you alright?” she asked.
Hunter shrugged, “If you call being blind alright then yeah.”
Fluttershy stared at Hunter, yesterday she hadn’t known that he was blind and somehow he managed to follow her to her cottage without much assistance. Hunter seemed to notice Fluttershy staring at him and sighed.
“I’m fine. It hurt a lot more when I took them out than they do not,” said Hunter.
Fluttershy gasped quietly, “You took your eyes out?! Why would you do that?”
Hunter shrugged, “There was nothing else I could do. I wasn’t in the right state of mind and whenever I opened my eyes there was pain. So, in my warped mind state, I tore them out. Unfortunately I was not prepared for the pain that taking them out would cause.”
Fluttershy stared at Hunter in horror. Right in front of here was a possibly mentally insane pony who admitted to have torn out his own eyes, possibly with his own bare hooves. Needless to say, Fluttershy was terrified.
Hunter, through three weeks of studying smell and sound in the more or less wild, had almost instantly noticed Fluttershy’s sudden terror from the way her breathing was paced and the odd smell of fear.
Hunter growled slightly, scaring Fluttershy unintentionally and getting a mental picture of the room and spoke quietly, “Hey, I can tell you’re scared, hell, I probably would be too if I saw myself in a mirror but don’t worry. I’m alright now and I just want to find out where my friends are, alright?”
Fluttershy blinked at Hunter, earlier she assumed that he was roughly sixteen or seventeen (human years) old. But the tone of his voice made him sound much older and much more tired than somepony should be at his assumed age. She was still terrified of him, no doubt about that, but she could tell that Hunter wasn’t trying to scare her. He just wanted to find his friends, simple as that.
“Ok, I guess I can take you to your friends,” said Fluttershy, slightly calmer now.
Hunter shook his head, his black mane that covered his eyes shifting slightly, revealing the dull white bandage around his empty eye sockets, “That’s alright, I can find the on my own.”
“But, you’re blind,” said Fluttershy.
Hunter grinned, revealing his sharpened and rotted teeth, “To deal with my loss of sight, I learned echolocation. I can get around no problem.”
Fluttershy nodded, it was common knowledge that bats, which couldn’t see well, had echolocation. So it was plausible that a pony with no sight could learn how to use it too.
“Alright, but their staying at my friend’s houses and I’m not sure if you know where they are. I guess I’ll take you to them,” said Fluttershy.
“That would be appreciated miss…”
“Oh, um, my name is Fluttershy.”
Hunter smiled, thankfully not revealing his teeth this time, “Lead the way, Fluttershy.”
Charger calmly stared at Jockey as he hopped around the room he and Charger were temporally staying in. His short bursts of maniacal laughter were often cut off by mischievous giggles. At first it annoyed the hell out of her, but eventually she managed to deal with Jockey’s seemingly crazed laughter. Charger frowned, most had instantly assumed that Jockey was mentally unsound, but the other infected knew that Charger thought otherwise.
“He’s hiding something under that laugh,” Charger often told the other infected.
At first they just assumed that she was being protective of Jockey, as he was the youngest of the group besides Hunter. But then, one day when he ran off to intercept some non-infected that were getting dangerously close to the little clearing that was marked at theirs, (through a series of smoke clouds, markings on buildings and bile) Jockey had left to go disturb them. Naturally, Charger followed him.
It was a bad day for Witch so Tank had stayed behind to comfort her, as she tended to do rash things during her migraines, and Hunter and Spitter had decided that they had nothing better to do and followed Charger. They silently walked (or in Hunter’s case, leaped from place to place) through the city and followed the crazed laughed that eventual would lead them to Jockey.
By the time they had gotten close enough, there was a frantic yell from one of the non-infected and Charger, Hunter and Spitter saw him and Jockey falling down to the ground, with Jockey still latched on his head. Although she was freaking out on the inside, Charger just stared as the youngest of the group fell to his death.
There was a sickening crunch as the body of the non-infected landed on the ground. Charger and Spitter stared in disbelief as Hunter sniffed around for signs of life. Suddenly, Hunter’s head perked up and he bounded towards dead body. Charger and Spitter followed him after a moment and couldn’t believe their eyes when they caught up to Hunter.
There Jockey was, laughing triumphantly on top of the dead body, occasionally swiping down with one of his bloody claws to tear away some clothing and eat some of the corpse.
Charger shuddered, when they were still hiding in the eastern American cities, they all had been at least partially insane. When they first arrived in Equestria (which Screamer had first and continues to call ‘Pony land’) one of the first things they had noticed (besides becoming ponies, a traumatizing experience in itself at first) was that they could think clearly. It took them two days to walk or fly properly and it took another day for Hunter and Spitter to scavenge food from a city.
“Hyeeh, hyeeh, hyeeh.”
Jockey’s crazed laughter snapped Charger from her thoughts as she heard someone walking up the stairs that led into the guest room that they were in.
There was a knock on the door, Charger called out that it was opened and Rarity walked in. Charger noticed her eyes bulge slightly as she stared at Charger. Blinking in confusion, she turned slightly and noticed that there was a rather large leaf that was lying on the floor.
“Ah, shit,” Charger muttered to herself. The leaf had previously covered up a rather nasty injury that another infected had given her in a fight for territory.
Usually there was about one infected with the Charger strain every few ‘sectors’. Shortly before meeting up with Smoker and the others, Charger fought with other infected with the charger strain. It was mostly to keep their strength up but was also for hunting grounds. Most chargers were furiously territorial, with her being one of the few exceptions. During the fight Charger had most of her lower left face torn off, living mostly bone. She had left it like that until they landed in Equestria, when she found a decent sized leaf to cover it up and disguise it so it wouldn’t attract attention.
Shaking her head and re attaching the leaf again, Charger smile weakly at Rarity.
“Don’t worry, it doesn’t hurt or anything,” Charger said reassuringly.
“H-How did that happen?” Rarity asked, half in curiosity and half in horror of seeing the lower half of Charger’s skull.
Charger shrugged, “We went through some crazy shit. That’s minor compared to some of Tank’s injuries.”
Rarity nodded slowly, “Well I say Charger, you should have checked if the leaf was still there when you got up.
Charger froze, as did Rarity. ‘She didn’t move her mouth,’ Charger thought, clearly disturbed.
Jockey giggled slightly before it becoming an all-out maniacal laughter.
“Did that come from you?!” Charger asked, surprised.
“Yes, it did,” said Jockey, perfectly mimicking Smoker.
Charger and Rarity beamed at the electric blue colt.
“Did you know he could do that?” asked Rarity.
Charger shook her head, “The Doc mentioned that he could talk, but I don’t think he knew the little bastard was a mimic.”
Jockey cackled again, “Today is a good day,” he said in the voice of what sounded like a soldier.
Heavy breathing was heard from outside of the barn of Sweet Apple acres. Most would thing that the breathing belonged to nothing smaller than a mid-sized dragon. Fortunately, they would be incorrect. The being that was owner of the breathing, however, could most likely hold his own against a dragon if the fight was primarily on land. The deep rumbles belonged to a gigantic pony known simply as ‘Tank’.
It had been a long time since Tank had slept that deeply and for that long. Usually he was interrupted by Witch or Smoker saying that it was time to move on. It was interesting really, Smoker being able to tell a muscular being such as Tank what to do. After all, Tank could easily snap Smoker in half without any trouble if he wanted. Despite both knowing full well what Tank was capable of, Tank allowed Smoker to tell him to get moving.
Tank had known Smoker for only three weeks, but for him and the other infected if felt like an entire lifetime of pain and suffering. Every breath they took there was pain. Every time they moved there was pain. Every time they did anything there was pain. Yet, despite all of the suffering, those three weeks weren’t all bad.
About five days Smoker and Hunter had wandered across himself, Witch and Boomer, there was a rather large group of non-infected people. They rampaged down the streets of the small town they were temporally camped in. One of them had foolishly tried to attack Witch, causing Tank to try and defend her from harm, whatever the cost to himself it may be.
The battle was long and bloody, finally, it was just Tank and the leader of her group. The two stared at each other, the non-infected gripping her katana tightly as Tank’s hellishly black eyes bore into her very soul. The woman yelled and struck Tank multiple times with the sharp Japanese sword. Tank tried to hit the woman with one of his gigantic fists but she was too fast. Just as the red haze of death began to fill Tank’s vision, there was a loud cough and the sounds of someone being strangled.
Tank fell unconscious after that and awoke some hours later, with Witch, Boomer and Hunter crowded around him. Smoker was nowhere to be seen, but the odd cough could be heard every so often. Tank knew Smoker was the one who saved him, for whatever reason he had. Thinking back on it now, Tank never truly realised how thankful he was for Smoker showing up at that exact moment.
A loud thump, then the sound of gears turning snapped Tank out of his thoughts as he rose silently from his resting place under a pile of hay. The light pattering of rain on the roof of the barn caused Tank to sigh slightly, bad things happened to him in the rain. Why should today be an exception?
Tank walked over to the barn doors and opened them as quietly as he could and stepped out into the rain. He heard something sloshing around in the mud and growled out of instinct. Faint whispers surrounded him as he slowly moved away from the barn and towards the path that led back into town.
“Now!”
The high pitch voice caused Tank’s ears to flatten slightly as a large beam of wood came swinging out of nowhere and impaled him in the chest.
Tank’s eyes widened in surprise and noticed three young ponies hiding amongst the tree tops. Sighing to himself, Tank slowly removed the beam out of his chest and threw it onto the ground. Where a large amount of blood should have been pouring out, only a dark red patch of fur was on his chest where he was injured.
Tank chuckled slightly, “Little ponies, if you wanted to see what I could endure, you should have told Witch that I was made of cotton candy.”
The three ponies’ faces were pale as they realised that Tank was, in fact, a pony and not some monster like they had first assumed. Tank recognised one of them to be Applejack’s little sister, Applebloom If he recalled correctly, who he had briefly met last night. They kept on trying to say they were sorry, but couldn’t manage to create proper sentences.
Tank smiled slightly, “Don’t worry, Tank is fine. No need to worry.”
One of the three young ponies, Applejack’s little sister, looked up at Tank, “But, we could have seriously hurt you.”
Tank chuckled again, “A puny wooden beam is nothing compared to a propane tank exploding beside you.”
The three ponies gave Tank a confused look.
“What’s a Pro Pain tank?” asked the little orange one.
Tank shrugged, “Little metal container that explodes. I have had first hand,” Tank frowned, “err, hoof experiencing it.”
The three nodded as Tank began to walk way again. Applebloom called out for him to stop. Sighing, Tank turned around and faced them again.
“What is it?”
“Well, Mr. Tank, we were wondering what your cutie mark was. We are trying to find our own and we’ve been trying everything.”
Tank stared at them for a solid minute before saying, “What is this ‘cutie mark’ you speak of?”
The three young ponies stared at him in utter disbelief. Tank returned the stare for a moment before resuming down the path. After a moment of walking, a something crossed his mind.
A thin cloud of smoke was being emitted lazily out of Smoker’s dark grey horn as he awoke in a darkened room. Groaning to himself, he looked around for Boomer, who should be nearby.
“Boomer, you in here?”
There was no response. Instead, Smoker heard someone speaking above him. Wandering around blindly, Smoker eventually came across a small set of stairs and walked up them. Grumbling to himself, Smoker ascended up the stairs and saw Boomer casually sitting on a chair drinking some coffee. He glanced over to Smoker.
“Hello,” Boomer said as he continued drinking the coffee.
“Hi,” Smoker said gruffly as he held back some light coughs in his throat.
The light patter of rain had become a full on downpour, making looking out a window near useless. Still, Smoker looked out of the window, and to his surprise, he saw the tell-tale glow of Spitter goo illuminating the owner of the glowing acid running across the street.
There was a loud banging on the door. Boomer raised his eyebrow and Smoker shrugged. Twilight’s voice echoed down the stairs that led to the upper floor.
“Hey Boomer, could you get that? I’m a little busy with something up here.”
Boomer sighed and walked over to the door. He opened it and stared at Spitter and saw her panting heavy and trying to saw something, but couldn’t manage to say it.
“Boomer, Smoker, Screamer *pant* gone crazy *pant* drawing again *pant* need you to see it,” Spitter panted.
Smoker glanced at boomer, who nodded. Usually Smoker could care less about what Screamer did, except when he was drawing.
In the past, when they first saw Screamer start drawing something with the blood of a corpse, they dismissed it as something unimportant. It was only until Boomer saw the completed piece of art when they realised what it meant.
The drawing depicted all nine of the infected, each a little distorted but they just assumed that’s how Screamer saw them. Under the nine infected were eight figures, they seemed to be non-infected. They seemed to be un-killable, as a horde of infected was being slaughtered around them. Beside that there was a strange swirling pattern, and beside the swirling pattern there were horses.
It wasn’t until they saw eight, now seven, non-infected with their own eyes when they realised that Screamer may have been predicting something in that crazed mind of his. And when they saw the swirling pattern in the ruins of New Orleans six days ago, needless to say they were wary as hell.
Unfortunately, a bomb exploding knocked them all into the portal, and very well may have saved their lives. That portal led them here. And Screamer predicted it somehow. Whatever he was drawing now may also be a prediction of the near future.
So Smoker and Boomer left with Spitter to find Screamer, and darted through the heavy rain.
“Wasn’t there a heat wave two days ago?” grumbled Smoker.
“Twilight says that the pegasi move the clouds and control the weather,” said Boomer as he took another one of his bile preventing pills.
The three continued through the rain until they arrived at Sugarcube corner, where all of the windows had been boarded up due to them all shattering last night. Spitter opened the door and walked inside with Smoker and Boomer not far behind.
Spitter spotted Pinkie pie looking at the door that led to the room Screamer was in curiously. She turned around and greeted them.
“Hi Spitter, Boomer and Smoker!”
“Hey, how’s Screamer doing?” asked Spitter.
Pinkie pie frowned slightly, “Well, he stopped laughing if that helps.
Spitter nodded, “That means he’s getting better. Thanks, Pinkie.”
“Heahehyehae,” Screamer cackled from inside of the room he was in.
Smoker could faintly hear the sound of a marker cap being closed with a snap and slowly walked towards the door.
There was a thump as Screamer apparently rammed himself at the door as Smoker approached it. Spitter turned to Pinkie pie, who looked slightly worried.
“It’s fine, Screamer won’t hurt you. The worst thing he’ll do is be loud.”
Pinkie pie nodded and saw Smoker walk into Screamer’s temporary confinement.
There was a long pause, occasionally interrupted by some coughs and strange raspy sounds made my Smoker and Screamer respectively before Smoker called the all to see what Screamer had drawn.
The four entered the room to find that every inch of it was covered in drawings. They noticed Screamer hovering in the center of the room, his eyes entirely black except for a small yellow dot in the center of each eye.
Smoker stared at where the drawings seemed to start: depicting all of the infected as non-infected humans.
“Sweet Jesus,” breathed Spitter.
Pinkie pie stared at a drawing that seemed to depict her and her friends, with a menacing circle of darkness surrounding them. In nine different places around the circle there was a figure representing each of the individual infected.
“My god,” said Boomer, getting everyone’s attention besides Screamer, “It’s telling a story.”
Smoker looked at Boomer then back at the drawings. “How can you tell?”
“There,” he pointed at the highest picture, the one representing him and the others as humans, “That’s the start of it. Follow it clockwise until you get to here,” he pointed at what looked like fire falling from the sky and fourteen unidentifiable figures surrounding a fifteenth figure, which was lying down in what seemed to be a pool of blood.
“Running will get you nowhere, but staying will not help your cause,” Screamer rambled.
The three infected dismissed it as just another one of Screamer’s ramblings but Pinkie pie turned and faced the hovering infected.
“What do you mean by that?” she asked curiously.
“Pain is in the form of the sixed limbed biped,” said Screamer ominously, “Listen to the Blue Eyed Moron.”
Pinkie pie frowned, she had blue eyes and some ponies didn’t think she was very smart.
“Everything is what it seems to be, except when it isn’t.”
Pinkie pie looked at Screamer one last time before turning away and looking at the pictures again. It wasn’t every day when somepony managed to confuse her this much.
Hunter jumped joyfully around in the rain. Although rain messed up his echolocation slightly, he still liked jumping around in puddles.
“What are you doing, Hunter?” asked someone from up ahead.
Hunter shrieked in the rain, startling Fluttershy who was following him, and got a mental picture of Charger standing ahead with Jockey and Rarity by her.
“Looking for you guys,” said Hunter as he skidded to a halt. He sniffed the air and turned with his head towards the sky. Hunter took a deep breath and shrieked as loud as he could into the sky, yet again, startling Fluttershy.
Fluttershy and Rarity noticed Hunter’s ears swivelling around on his head, apparently trying to hear something.
Another screech, noticeably higher in pitch and coming from the sky caused Hunter to grin. He screeched again in response.
After a moment Witch flew into view and landed lightly on the muddy ground as Rainbow dash skidded to a halt when she landed, stopping just inches before Fluttershy.
Witch blinked and walked over to Hunter, who was sniffing the air.
“Where’s Tank?” Witch asked quietly, the rasp in her voice from yesterday fading.
Hunter sniffed the air again, “He’s in town somewhere, but for some reason I can also smell blood in his direction.”
Witch frowned; Tank wouldn’t normally kill something for no reason, especially now that he, like Spitter, Jockey, Boomer and Screamer, was herbivorous. Hunter, Smoker, Charger and herself were omnivorous, for whatever reason.
Suddenly Witch got another, more plausible idea, “Is he hurt?”
Hunter shrugged, “I’m not sure, if he is though, what could anything really do to him? He’s a walking brick wall.”
Witch nodded slightly. Hunter had a point; Tank has survived nearly everything that could be thrown at him on Earth. What could hurt him here?
A loud roar echoed through the rain. Witch’s ears twitched slightly as she tried to find the direction where the roar came from.
The Jockey and Charger noticed that Hunter and Witch had begun to move east and followed not far behind. Rarity, Fluttershy and Rainbow dash, however, was confused at why the infected suddenly began to move east.
“I’m sorry but, why are you all going that way?” Rarity asked.
“’Cause Tank’s that way,” said Jockey, imitating Applejack.
Witch blinked and saw Jockey giggling to himself at her confusion and Hunter sighing, he’s going to have a field day with Jockey once he remembers that Hunter relies on sound and smell to get around. Fluttershy and Rainbow dash looked around for their friend until Rarity explained to them that Jockey could mimic anyone perfectly.
A few minutes past until they saw the gigantic figure of Tank standing motionless under a tree with his head down. The three ponies found it odd that somepony that huge could be entirely motionless like that. As they got closer they noticed a large red spot on Tank’s fur around where his stomach was.
Witch ran over to Tank and stared at him. Tank, having known Witch longer that he other infected (besides Boomer) shrugged.
“Tiny baby ponies mistook Tank for something he wasn’t,” he said as he moved from under the tree, “One of them looked like you,” he said, gesturing to Rarity.
Rarity’s pupils shrunk, “Sweetie bell did that!?”
Tank shrugged, “Don’t worry; I have little blood in system anyway. The worst they could have done is fracture a secondary rib. Nothing bad.”
Rainbow dash frowned, “What do you mean by ‘little blood in system’?”
Tank shrugged again, “Boomer would be able to explain it better.”
There was a small flicker of lightning and the roll of thunder in the distance, both of which caused Hunter to jump nearly a foot in the air and bolt up the tree Tank was in. very quietly, Hunter could hear something not unlike Jockey’s laugh in the distance. Very slowly, the laugh became louder until it became fully audible.
“Heahehyehae.”
Everyone froze. It sounded eerily like Jockey’s laugh, except a little more maniacal, if that was possible. There was a silence when the laugh stopped, somehow made even worse for the infected because Jockey’s laugh stopped too.
“Screamer?” said Jockey, in an unrecognisable younger voice, presumably his own.
The laugh was heard again and Jockey’s eyes widened as he ran off towards it. The infected, knowing what Jockey could do if unsupervised, ran off after him with the three ponies trailing behind them.
“Holy shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit!” Screamer muttered as he lightly put his head against the wall.
After about an entire half hour of staring at Screamer’s crazed drawings, Smoker had finished it and come to the realisation of what would ultimately be the fate of one of them. The last picture, probably the most important according to Boomer, depicted someone dying.
Although they couldn’t tell who it was, it was relatively easy to guess that it was one of the infected or some of the six ponies they met yesterday. How could he tell? Multiple of the drawings had figures with distinct features that the six ponies had. For instance, one of them had a hat; another one’s mane was curly.
The only one that he couldn’t figure out who it was the one with a horn and wings at the same time. He hadn’t met anyone with both, though according to Boomer, who had spoken with Twilight before he had gotten up this morning, claimed that the four princesses had both horns and wings. She had mentioned three but was interrupted by her dragon assistant, Spike, before saying who the fourth one was.
Boomer also said that the princesses were effectively immortal, with all the side effects of that along with it. Still, Smoker found it odd how Twilight’s assistant showed up at that exact time. Smoker paused and shook his head, ‘It’s just my paranoia thinking. Why would they not want to reveal the name of the fourth princess? It was just an inconvenient coincidence.’
Spitter walked up to Smoker and saw down beside of him.
“So, that was something, huh?” she asked.
“By something you mean a batshit crazy lunatic predicting one of our deaths with a no failure history, right?”
Spitter sighed, “Yeah, I do.”
Smoker moved his head way from the wall and looked at Spitter, “The main problem with this is I don’t know who it is who’s going to die.”
“Wouldn’t that make it worse?” asked Spitter.
Smoker shrugged, “At least if it was one of us we could try to make their last few weeks’ worth it. Without knowing, why bother do anything at all?”
Spitter looked at Smoker, then at the floor, “Because we’re a family. A crazy, sick and probably better off left alone family,” she said quietly.
Smoker stared at her for a moment, and then turned his head towards Boomer writing notes on a table. Pinkie pie had left, she didn’t explain why but Smoker and Boomer could tell that the pictures had disturbed her most, especially the crossed out one where she seemed to be wielding a knife of some sort and attacking Rainbow dash. She started to hyperventilate at that until Boomer tried to calm her down by saying that if it’s crossed out, it’s not going to happen. Never the less, she was much quieter after that and Smoker swore that her mane literally deflated and her coat colour became darker.
Flash of lightning streaked across the sky followed by a roll of thunder. Whatever was in store for him and the other infected, it wasn’t going to be pretty. And the worst part about it besides someone dying was that they had somehow managed to drag six innocent ponies into this.
Smoker held down another cough and sighed, bad things always happened to them in the rain.
A bright flash of purple light shot out of the upper floor of the Ponyville library. A slight electronic hum filled the air afterwards along with the sound of celebrating from an Aperture Science artificial intelligence personality core known as ‘Wheatley’. The celebrating AI core spun around in the air due to the levitation spell that was performed on him so he could move around with ease.
“Thanks, Twilight!” he said as he floated around in the air, “This is way better than the management rail.”
Twilight smiled, although she had only known Wheatley for two days, she could tell that he wasn’t going to be a problem, despite occasionally doing something stupid, he usually meant well. She had already sent a letter to Princess Celestia about him and the other ‘personality core’ that seemed to have an unhealthy obsession with space, although according to Wheatley it’s nowhere near as bad as it was before they crashed landed.
Ponies that felt the shockwave that Wheatley and the Space core made come from the park. But the thing that was bugging her was how exactly did Wheatley and the Space core end up on her doorstep?
Frowning, she watched Wheatley floated around the room, trying to properly control it and was occasionally bumping into things. Sighing, Twilight turned her gaze out the window and looked into the raging downpour of rain.
Tank’s hoofprints were now small pools of water as him, Fluttershy, Rarity, Rainbow dash, Witch, Jockey and Charger followed Hunter, who was tracking Jockey, who had run off to find Screamer.
Moving in the rain was uncomfortable with fur, even though he looked more like he did on Earth, despite his equine face and the hooves. Tank sighed, he could barely see the vague outline of Hunter’s crouched body running through the streets due to the rain. Suddenly, Hunter stopped and turned towards them.
Hunter’s ears flattened against his head as he growled at the building he was sitting in front of. There was nothing wrong with the building itself, but what was inside the building was what made Hunter stop. Just being this close he could literally feel the tension waves coming off of it. When everyone caught up, Charger asked him what made him stop.
“Something is very wrong in there,” Hunter said, not moving.
Fluttershy, who was soaked to the bone due to the rain, walked slowly towards one of the windows and peered inside.
Inside she saw Jockey sitting uncharacteristically still, Smoker standing against a far wall with his head on said wall with Spitter sitting beside him and Boomer sitting at a table looking over some papers.
“Um, it doesn’t look very wrong to me,” Fluttershy said quietly.
For most that would have been a slight strain to hear, but for Hunter it was clear as day, “Nothing is wrong with the building itself, but what’s happened in there. I don’t like it.”
Rarity sneezed and walked over to the door, “I don’t care what’s happened in there, at least it’s dry,” she said as she walked into Sugarcube corner.
“I gotta agree with Rarity on this, come on Fluttershy,” said Rainbow dash as she went inside with Fluttershy not far behind.
A third flicker of lightning cracked across the sky, startling Witch slightly. Tank shook his head, “Sorry Hunter, although you have bad feeling about this place, it is dry.”
And with that, Tank, Witch and Charger walked inside with the building leaving Hunter in the rain. Scowling, Hunter followed.
Smoker opened his eyes and turned towards the door as he heard ponies enter the quiet bakery. He saw the rest of the absent infected enter along with Rarity, Fluttershy and Rainbow dash. Smoker sighed slightly and sat down beside Spitter, who seemed to have fallen asleep.
Smoker noticed Hunter’s wary movements and sighed again, despite being blind, Hunter could somehow manage to notice things better than all of them, due to his other senses being amped up. He watched as Hunter slowly walked over to him and sat down and scratched at his cut ear with his hind leg.
The silence was undisturbed, besides the occasional sound of Boomer writing down notes. Finally, it was Rainbow dash that broke the silence.
“Why is it so quiet in here? Did somepony die or something?”
“You could say that,” muttered Spitter as she slowly opened her eyes and got up to her hooves.
Boomer, Smoker and Spitter looked around at everyone, before eventually Boomer spoke for the first time in an hour.
“I believe it would be wise for everyone to see it. That includes you’re two missing friends. They have a right to know what is behind that door,” said Boomer as he gestured to the now silent room Screamer was in.
“Why?” asked Rainbow dash.
“It’s… pretty heavy,” sighed Spitter, “Boomer’s right. Someone should go get Applejack and Twilight.”
“What about Pinkie pie?” asked Rarity.
Boomer sighed, “Honestly I don’t think she’s in any condition to see what’s in there again,” he turned to Rainbow dash, “I told this to Pinkie pie, whatever is crossed out is not true. Do not get any crazy ideas, alright?”
Rainbow dash nodded, slightly confused at Boomer’s statement. She overheard Smoker speaking with Hunter.
“Alright, so remember, knock this time. Don’t go bashing through her window,” Smoker told Hunter.
Hunter sighed, “Yeah, yeah, got it.” with that, Hunter bolted out of the quiet bakery and back into the rain.
“Where’s he going?” asked Rainbow dash.
“He’s going to get Applejack and Twilight,” said Spitter, “We figured he’d be the fastest.”
Rainbow dash stared at her in disbelief, “Uh, hello? I’m Rainbow dash, the fastest flier in Equestria. I’m way faster than Hunter.”
Boomer raised an eyebrow and looked up from his notes, “You haven’t seen Hunter in action. He’s the fastest out of all of us. Well, besides Witch, that is.”
It was Rainbow dash’s turn to raise an eyebrow, “Witch? Seriously? She doesn’t seem so fast to me.”
Boomer chuckled, “That’s because she’s not after you.”
“What do you mean by that?”
Boomer’s expression became stern, “Ever heard of the phrase, like a bat out of hell? Well, imagine the fires of hell personified with a rage that cannot be satisfied unless she, or whoever was stupid enough to piss her off, is dead.”
Rainbow dash looked back at Witch, who was resting beside Tank, who nodded in agreement with Boomer, “Do you know why I am always by Witch?” he asked.
Rainbow dash shook her head, even though she guessed that he was protecting her.
“I am close to Witch not only to protect her, but to protect everyone else from her as well. Even I’m afraid of Witch when she’s angry.”
As if on cue, Witch mumbled something in her sleep and started to growl softly. It didn’t sound very threating, but it did sound hollow and eerie. The more Rainbow dash looked at Witch’s red wing tips, the more they looked like blood stained claws. Witch made an odd crying sound in her sleep, making Rainbow dash shudder as Tank started muttering something, which seemed to calm Witch down.
More lightning cut through the sky accompanied by the roar of thunder.
There was a loud thump at Twilight’s door as she walked down to answer it with Wheatley hovering not far behind. When she opened it, she saw Hunter clutching his head in his forehooves and groaning in pain.
“Ugh.”
“Are you alright?” Twilight asked.
Hunter sniffed the air slightly, “Yeah, stupid thunder, anyway, we need you and Applejack at the bakery place. Smoker says it’s important. Everyone else is there too.”
Twilight looked at him oddly, “Why, exactly?”
Hunter shrugged, “I’m not too sure, but he, Spitter, Boomer and Pinkie pie seem to know though.”
Twilight sighed, she could easily just not follow Hunter but an odd sense of curiosity got the better of her, sighing, she agreed to go with Hunter. Wheatley, who was watching from inside the library, asked if he could go long too.
Hunter gave the impression of looking at him; he sniffed the air growled slightly to get a mental image of him. To his surprise, he got floating metal sphere. Shrugging, Hunter bounded off back into the rain with Twilight and Wheatley following close behind.
Applejack grunted as she kicked another damp apple tree. Apple bucking was always much more difficult to do in the rain because of all the mud. As the tree’s worth of apples fell into the placed basket, she noticed something that sounded like a pony and wolf oddly crossed together. She stopped briefly before some tree branches rustled slightly behind her.
Applejack turned to face the tree before hearing a few twigs snap and Hunter fall into the mud, causing her to jump slightly. After noticing who it was, Applejack walked up to Hunter, annoyed.
“Just what the hay do you think you’re doing?”
Hunter groaned, “Trying to find you.”
Applejack frowned, “why are y’all trying to find me?”
There was more rustling as Twilight emerged from nearby with Wheatley hovering towards Hunter.
“Apparently Smoker wants us all to see something in Sugarcube corner. Hunter says that everypony else is there too.”
Applejack nodded, keeping her gaze on Wheatley, “I just have one more question, what the heck is that?” she asked gesturing to Wheatley.
“Oh, that’s Wheatley. He has an, err, interesting story about how he got here. He’s also partially responsible for that shockwave a few days ago,” explained Twilight.
Applejack nodded, seemingly satisfied with the answer, “Alright. I guess I’ll go with y’all to see whatever it is we’re supposed to be seeing.”
Hunter growled again, and leapt off towards a path that led back to Ponyville with Wheatley hovering beside him and Twilight and Applejack running after them to get out of the rain.
The sound of a door opening made Boomer look up from some of the notes he was looking at to see Hunter with Twilight, Applejack and the white sphere from yesterday. Boomer raised an eyebrow and collected the papers on the table and put them into a neat stack. Wheatley briefly glanced at them before Boomer began speeking.
“So, I guess everyone is here. Now, the reason I asked all of you to come here is because there is something important behind that door,” he gestured to the silent door that Screamer was behind, “Well, just to warn you all, you may see some disturbing things behind that door, most of which is true or soon will be.”
“What do you mean, ‘most of which is true or soon will be’?” asked Twilight.
Smoker coughed, “Screamer sometimes draws on walls as his way of predicting something. In our time of knowing him he hasn’t been wrong once.”
“So… a prophecy or something?” asked Rainbow dash.
Boomer nodded, “Yes, it is prophecy like, but not exact. There are some errors, which have been crossed off. I believe there was a rather, disturbing, event that has thankfully been crossed off. I believe it involved you and Miss Pie.”
There was a pause, then Hunter sighed impatiently, “I ran through rain, lightning and thunder, which you know hurts me like hell, to get everyone here. Now, can we see what Screamer drew?”
Boomer nodded, “Yes, I believe we’ve kept you in the dark about this long enough. Don’t worry about Screamer, he should be fine soon.”
Twilight looked to Boomer oddly, “What happened to him?”
“I believe he has contacted the same illness that Hunter had yesterday, but far less threatening. The worst he could do is scream until his voice gives out, which doesn’t take very long,” said Boomer.
Nodding, Boomer walked to the room Screamer was in and opened the door until everyone was inside. The then shut the door behind him with a quiet click.
“It starts on the far wall, with the nine bipeds. Continue clockwise until you get to here,” he pointed at the final picture depicting the currently unknown dead pony.
The fourteen began to look at the drawings and slowly become more and more disturbed at the story they had to tell.
For the second time that day, the main lobby of Sugarcube corner was dead silent. The wind howled outside and the rain continued to pound down upon the town. Some of them, like Fluttershy and Applejack, were stunned by what supposedly will happen. Others like Rainbow dash and Charger simply refused to believe some of the events, despite Charger knowing that they will inevitably happen. Others like Wheatley (who Twilight had introduced inside the room when Rainbow dash finally asked what he was) couldn’t properly comprehend what the pictures meant and was being silent because he assumed it was polite to be at this moment.
The picture that Tank found the most disturbing was one that was a near identical picture of Witch when she was on Earth, but with wings and crying blood. Another disturbing picture for Rainbow dash was the crossed out one that had scared Pinkie pie. And finally, Twilight found the picture of the currently unnamed Alicorn that seemed to be attacking a tall, slender looking bipedal creature.
Lightning cracked outside causing Hunter to whimper slightly as he prepared himself for the painfully loud crash of thunder.
Overall the mood of the building was depressing, as Smoker had returned to his previous spot with his head against the wall and Spitter beside him. It was unspoken, but assumed that they would all seem to have to stay the night as the storm was picking up even more and was merciless. Finally, Wheatley broke the silence.
“So, uh, I guess that was shocking or something like that?”
“That was beyond creepy,” muttered Rainbow dash. She paused for a moment, “Uh, does anypony know where Pinkie pie is? I kinda need to talk with her.”
“I think I saw her go upstairs a few hours ago. Haven’t seen her come back down,” said Smoker.
Rainbow dash nodded and bolted up the stairs. They all watched her go and lapsed into relative silence, even though Spitter was quietly speaking with Smoker and Boomer talking with Twilight about Screamer’s no failure rate.
Throughout all of this, not a single giggle was heard from Jockey. Charger assumed it was because he was worried about Screamer, for whatever reason that was. ‘Well, Smoker did say that they found them around the same area, maybe they knew each other before the infection?’ Charger thought.
Whatever the reason was, it was throwing Charger off even more that the peculiar drawings by Screamer. She watched briefly as Wheatley slowly hovered around, introducing himself better to everyone before closing her eyes and slowly falling into a troubled sleep.
A pair tired eyes opened slowly in the darkened room. The eye squinted in the darkness, trying to locate everyone in the room.
A small puddle of acidic spit was on the floor around the sleeping owner of said spit and a dark grey unicorn stallion with a slight crack in the lower part of his horn. Normally this would make it useless, but the owner of the eyes knew that the unicorn was not crippled there; the constant cloud that followed him while awake proved that. The owner of the spit, a unicorn mare, seemed to be mumbling something in her sleep and shifted slightly.
Not too far from them there was a gigantic dull pink stallion with a white Pegasus mare close to his forelegs. The mare started to cry softly which caused the stallion to move his arms closer to the mare in a tired attempt to get her to stop crying. After a moment the crying became sniffles and eventually silence again.
Sleeping on a table was a young dark blue stallion with a bandage around his eyes that should be replaced. The stallion continued to sleep softly without any interruptions.
A young electric blue colt giggled slightly in his sleep, causing the olive green Pegasus mare with a gigantic right foreleg and a critically deformed left foreleg to mutter something in her sleep to get the colt to be quiet.
A fat mahogany unicorn was sleeping with his head on one of the tables with papers scattered around him.
Finally, scattered around the room there were six ponies, two unicorns, pegasi and earth ponies sleeping more or less soundly. One of them, the purple one, had a dull white metal sphere with the words ‘WHEATLEY’ nearby with its single, metal eye closed, presumably to conserve power instead of sleeping.
Screamer smiled as he quietly unlocked the door and entered the room. His head was pounding intensely but he ignored the pain. From what he understands, he was going through what Hunter had yesterday: a mild fever, a hard hitting headache and overall tiredness. It wasn’t anything Screamer was unfamiliar with, but still an annoyance nonetheless. He sighed, after an entire day of maniacal drawing and speaking, Screamer was finally back to normal.
Well, as normal as a human forcibly transformed into a pony with gored forelegs and a highly dangerous (but thankfully not contagious) disease that expanded his lungs to make him scream as loud an earthly possible.
Still, Screamer sighed, he himself had read over his work and frankly, it scared him.
It scared him a lot.
Although he couldn’t stand his fellow infected, Screamer found it hard to imagine living without them (Smoker being the only exception).
Mumbling to himself, Screamer walked over to a booth and closed his eyes, trying to leave the day and the pain behind him.
********************************************************************************* Screamer slowly drifted into the waking world to the sounds of crying. Grunting quietly, he opened one of his eyes and heard some harsh whispers.
“…Stay back. Tank has this under control.”
“Why is she crying?”
“She has another migraine, it’ll pass eventually. Now, give her some space, this could get ugly.”
Screamer groaned quietly, his head hurt like hell and he could barely move. Still, he managed to get himself into an upright position and waited for the world to stop spinning. He could vaguely hear a door closing amidst the other noises in the room. Like the crying, for example.
“Wuzgoinon?” he slurred.
Spitter walked over to Screamer and sighed, “Witch is having another migraine and by how disoriented you seem to be, you might be having one too.”
Screamer squinted at Spitter, as she only seemed to be a yellowish green blur to him. Screamer sighed again as he saw a charcoal grey blur, presumably Smoker, walking towards him.
“So, you got out of the room, huh?”
Screamer tried to chuckle, but instead wheezed slightly, “Door wasn’t locked. Could have gotten out whenever.” His voice was raspy; much like Witch’s when she first started speaking.
Unknown to Screamer, Smoker glared at Hunter, who was still sleeping on the table, for not locking the door. His blindness wasn’t an excuse, if he can navigate by himself through a thunderstorm, then he can lock a damn door.
Smoker sighed, “How are you doing?”
Screamer snorted, “Why’d you care?”
“I don’t. I just want to know if you can move. You know the rule,” said Smoker.
Screamer rolled his eyes, “Yeah, yeah, who falls behind is left behind, geez.”
The two stared at each other briefly, before Smoker walked over to the table Hunter was on and shoved him off.
“Get up.”
Hunter groaned painfully as he got to his hooves, “What the hell?” he asked tiredly.
“Do you want to deal with Witch?” asked Smoker.
That sentence alone snapped Hunter awake, “I’m up, I’m up.”
“Good, today I’m going to try to find a way back,” said Smoker.
Hunter yawned and scratched behind his left ear, “Why do you want to leave? This is the most peace we’ve gotten in, well, forever.”
“This ‘peace’ isn’t going to last forever. Screamer proved it yesterday.”
Hunter shrugged, “Screamer’s predictions could be months from now. He’s never given us an exact time.”
“Exactly, it could start today for all we know,” Smoker stopped and turned to Boomer, “Hey Boomer, what was the first drawing after the portal?”
“Ah, that. I believe it involves something with Witch,” said Boomer, looking through his notes again.
Tank growled from across the room, “Whatever it is, I will handle it.”
Boomer shrugged, “Whatever you say, big guy.”
Hunter noticed for the first time that some voices were absent from the room, “Hey, are we missing anyone?”
Spitter walked over to him, “Yeah, Charger and Jockey went with Twilight and them for some apparent reason. I think they took that Wheatley thing with them.”
Hunter nodded, and turned his head to Witch. Slowly, he walked over to her and Tank.
“How is she doing? Better than last time? Or worse?”
Tank sighed, “Worse, it is day time, she will start moving around soon. I think it would be wise to give a warning.”
Hunter nodded, although it was more difficult to anger Witch when she was moving with her migraine, which arguably made her more dangerous because she didn’t need to get up. That and she possessed wings now.
“Well, I hope she’s doing better later,” said Hunter.
Tank nodded, “As do I, Hunter. How others will react to Witch’s violent nature, it worries me what they will try to do.”
“They don’t seem so bad,” said Hunter.
Tank shook his head, “No, they stared. They had the all too familiar look of fear in their eyes when we first arrived. These ponies have no idea what we could do, and that scares them.”
Hunter sighed, “Well, I guess we’ll have to convince them what we’re not dangerous.”
Tank chuckled softly, “No Hunter, you are wrong. We are killers, cannibals and infected. Dangerous is the literal meaning of us.”
If Jockey had bothered to mention this, he expected to be asked, ‘what’s wrong, Jockey?’
And he’d reply, ‘Well, for starters my oldest friend in memory just had a relapse in mental health, I’m sick with a bio-hazardous disease and I’m soaking wet.’
Another bucket of soapy warm water fell on top of Jockey, making his slight frown deepen. Of course, his damaged facial muscles made frowning difficult, but the ponyfication lessened some of the effects of the virus and even partially healed them. Still, Jockey did find some disadvantages with being a pony.
One was Charger having wings. Sometimes he just wanted to jump at someone, ever had that feeling? Well, he had it nearly all the time.
Jockey made an unhappy cackling sound to express his displeasure with Charger and Rainbow dash, who were dumping the water on him to ‘clean him’ and Twilight was holding him in place with her magic. She had just told Wheatley to check with Tank on how Witch was doing.
A literal puddle of grime and dirt surrounded Jockey as he was bombarded with water.
“Geez, when was the last time he had a bath?” asked Rainbow dash.
Charger shrugged, “The last time any of us had a bath.”
“When was that?”
“About three weeks ago. For why dirtier than you’d expect, we kinda spent most of the time hanging around back alleys and forests.”
Rainbow dash’s jaw dropped and Charger chuckled slightly. The two were less harsh to each other since the disturbing viewing of Screamer’s prophecy. The main thing that led to each other being less harsh was Charger quietly apologizing to her and everypony else for seemingly dragging them into what might possibly be a living hell. Another thing was comforting her slightly when the realisation of one of the crossed out pictured meant. Although it involved two different people, it was disturbingly similar to when Jockey nearly killed Screamer when he mistook him for a non-infected and tried to drag him into a very angry Witch.
Charger shook her head, ‘It’s not going to happen. None of them are going to die,’ Charger thought.
‘But one of us are,’ said the darker, infected part of her mind.
Charger frowned, ever since arrival, her and the other infected had noticed that they were no longer primarily driven by primal instincts made by the infection. For the first time in what felt like a life time, they could truly think for themselves. It was… interesting for the first couple of hours but they all eventually adjusted.
She looked down at Jockey, who she and Rainbow dash were still dumping water on, and watched him sigh in defeat. After about four more buckets, Jockey had officially been declared ‘more or less clean’.
Rainbow dash tried to clean him off with some sort of tornado like thing, only for Jockey to end up looking like a gigantic blue puff ball.
Charger and Twilight held back snickers while Rainbow dash was laughing uproariously. Jockey, however, gave Charger a pleading look.
Charger recognised that look and flat out told him, “No.”
Jockey responded in a number of short cackles and the occasional hoof gesture. Charger had recognised it and responded with a damaged attempt at English, as it was near incomprehensible and threatening Jockey with her gigantic right foreleg.
Twilight and Rainbow dash looked at the two infected, who seemed to be arguing. Jockey cackled another time which made Charger respond with an eerily hollow yell that seemed to frighten Jockey, as he stopped responding after that. The two infected stared at each other for a moment before Jockey sighed in defeat.
“What was that all about?” asked Rainbow dash.
Charger sighed, “Let’s just say Jockey isn’t too happy about being a puff ball. Also, I suggest you keep your ears open for a few days.”
“Why?”
“You don’t want to know,” replied Charger.
Rainbow dash looked at Charger and then at Jockey before a strange electrical sound filled the air. The two turned to see Twilight taking with Wheatley, who had a frantic tone in his voice.
“They said that now she’s wandering around the streets,” said Wheatley, “honestly, how hard is it to control someone with a migraine anyway?”
Charger immediately assumed they were talking about Witch, and spoke up, “Have you ever seen Witch with a migraine? It’s not too fun.”
Wheatley rolled his eye, somehow, “Why can’t you just lock her in a room until she feels better?”
Charger gave him a sarcastic laugh, “That is one of the most moronic idea’s I’ve ever heard for dealing with Witch.”
Wheatley’s eye narrowed, “I am not a moron.”
Charger rolled her eyes and turned to Jockey, “Come on, Jockey, we better see how they’re handling Witch.”
Jockey cackled again and bounded off after Charger. Twilight turned to Rainbow dash, “Do you think we should go and see if they need help too?”
Rainbow dash shrugged, “I guess so. If Witch is really as fast as they say she is then they probably need somepony like me to catch her.”
The loud, pained cries from Witch echoed throughout Ponyville the closer Twilight, Rainbow dash and Wheatley got closer to where she and the other infected were. Amidst the crying Smoker could be heard yelling at someone.
“Do you want her to kill someone right now?”
Another voice yelled at him in response, “I’ll remember this when you finally loose it, Smokey.”
There was an annoyed sigh as Twilight, Rainbow dash and Wheatley turned a corner to see Smoker and Screamer arguing while Tank, Spitter and Charger were trying to keep ponies away from Witch, who was hovering slowly with her forelegs around her head in pain. Hunter was shaking his head when he noticed them.
“Uh, hi,” he said to Twilight, “So, uh, she started wandering.”
Twilight glanced at Witch, then back at Hunter, “I can see that.”
Hunter shrugged, “Well, I cant. Now, Smoker needs someone who can try to persuade Witch into wandering on the ground where Tank can keep a closer eye on her. Know anyone who might be able to do that?”
Twilight frowned slightly, the best choice would probably be Fluttershy, but she was busy taking care of her animals across town. Then there was that other option, but Twilight didn’t think now would be the best time to use it. So that left Rainbow dash to be the one to get Witch out of the skies. Twilight sighed; this was ether going to end well, or very badly.
“Hey Rainbow dash,” said Twilight.
“Yeah?” said Rainbow dash as she was heeding Charger’s advice about Jockey.
“Think you can convince Witch to walk? Everyone thinks that she probably would be safer on the ground.”
Rainbow dash nodded, “Alright, I guess I can try,” she said as she flew over to Witch.
Hunter called after her, “Whatever you do, do NOT touch her.”
As Rainbow dash flew over to Witch, she heard a faint cackling coming from somewhere around her. She looked around briefly before dismissing it. That’s when Jockey leaped from his hiding place.
Rainbow dash felt Jockey land on her back and began trying to drag her towards Witch at an alarming speed while obscuring her vision. Rainbow dash yelled at him to get off her in vain.
“Get off, get off, get off!”
Charger heard this from the ground and looked around for Jockey, when she fainted to find him; she looked up and saw him and Rainbow dash getting dangerously close to Witch. Charger’s pupils shrunk as she literally jump a foot in the air and flew as fast as she could to try to get them away from Witch, who had a look of pure anger on her face.
“JOCKEY!” yelled Charger as she suddenly flew at a surprisingly fast speed, “GET OFF HER!”
For the first time he could remember, Jockey actually looked frightened, the rage of Charger was nearly rivaled by Witch’s at times. The main thing Charger had than made is not as bad was self-control. Jockey then leaped off Rainbow dash, which caused her to stumble forwards…
…And crash right into a very angry Witch. Witch screamed painfully loud as Rainbow dash got hold of her bearings, only to see Witch flying incredibly fast towards her. Rainbow dash would never forget the way Witch’s eyes literally glowed red as she dived towards the ground with Witch in close pursuit.
Tank yelled at Rainbow dash, “Direct Witch to me. I can stop her.”
Witch screamed again as she picked up speed and Rainbow dash turned downwards towards Tank.
Twilight stared at Witch’s rage before muttering, “I don’t think he can stop her.”
Hunter shook his head, “No, Tank can defiantly stop Witch.”
Wheatley (somehow) nodded in agreement, “I have to agree with you there, mate. I don’t think anything could get past him.”
Twilight still looked at Rainbow dash worriedly as Witch had almost caught up to her. Twilight also looked at Tank, who was waiting for Rainbow dash to pass him so he could grab Witch and allow Rainbow dash to get away. Witch screamed a final time as she actually caught up to Rainbow dash. Panicking for her friend, Twilight tried to use her magic to immobilise Witch. Smoker looked at Twilight as her horn glowed purple.
“What are you doing?!” asked Smoker.
“I can’t let Witch hurt Rainbow dash,” said Twilight as she prepared to fire a spell at Witch to stop her.
“But Tank can stop her, their literally meters away,” said Wheatley.
“I don’t think they can make it!” said Twilight.
“Yes they can! Just look their almost-.”
Wheatley was cut off as Twilight shot a beam of purple magic at Witch and enveloped her in a large, purple sphere. Spitter stared at her.
“What did you do to her?!”
Twilight sighed, “I used an immobilisation spell on her. She’ll be fine once it wears off.”
Just as she said that, the purple sphere that surrounded Witch faded leaving behind something utterly terrifying.
A white bipedal creature about five and a half feet tall stood on the ground. On each hand it had five finger like claws at least twelve inches long. It also had some shredded clothing on it, which may have been torn by the creature itself. Then there were the wings, which gave it a slightly angelic look. And finally, there were the eyes. It’s glowing red eyes that made everyone who saw then shiver.
“What the hell is that?!” asked Wheatley.
“That,” said Spitter, “That is Witch.”
Just as Spitter said that, the creature that was now Witch screamed as loud as she possibly could and charged towards the one who made her look like this.
She was literally seeing red. Her rage burned inside of he like the fires of hell, just waiting to be unleashed. Her eyes were locked on its target, a small purple horse like thing.
“You did this to me.”
Her claws curled slightly, then outstretched to their full twelve inches. Her breathing was heavy, as one’s would be if they were put under a painful transformation from a Pegasus to a winged humanoid. Her teeth were bared, which caused her purple target to cringe slightly at the rotted and sharpened teeth.
With one final hate filled glare, Witch screamed and charged at Twilight in fury, causing her to panic and teleport away. Now, Witch usually only went after one target, so long as she could catch it. If she couldn’t get to said target, Witch did the one thing every other infected (besides Tank) did. She ran away, shoving everything aside and went towards the forest on the outskirts of town.
Tank’s jaw hung open. He stared at where Witch had gone for a few moments before he finally spoke.
“Where is she?”
The other seven infected looked at Tank worriedly, this was the first time since he got his new jaw (the old one was crushed) where he was speaking clearly. Another thing they noticed was that it was flat and monotone. Absolutely no emotion was showing on the giant infected’s face.
“Uh, I think Witch ran towards that forest,” said Screamer as he flew over to Tank and began hovering beside him.
“I know where Witch went,” Tank snapped. “I want to know where she went.”
“Uh, Tank?” said Hunter, “If it’s not Witch, who is the ‘she’ you’re talking about?”
Tank turned to Hunter, “Hunter, who is missing besides Witch?”
Hunter sniffed the air and let out a high pitch shrieking sound. He then turned to Tank, “Of us? No one is missing besides Witch.”
Tank shook his head, a completely useless gesture to use on Hunter, “No, which one of them are missing?”
“Them?” asked Hunter. He thought about who ‘them’ might be before he realised he was talking about Rainbow dash and the other ponies they met a few days ago. “Oh, them? Well, none of them were hear but Rainbow dash and Twili-. Oh.” Hunter sighed, “Don’t hurt her too bad, alright?”
“Hurt who?” asked Rainbow dash, now recovered from when Witch was chasing her.
Hunter sighed, “If you want to know anything about Tank, it’s that do not, under any circumstances, do anything to Witch. At all. If you do, like Twilight, do anything, there is a good chance Tank will rip you limb from limb. And that’s if he’s in a good mood.”
Rainbow dash stared at Hunter, then at Tank, “If you thing if you can hurt Twilight, then you’re going to have to go through me.”
Tank raised his eyebrow at Rainbow dash and laughed, “Little rainbow pony, if you think you can fight me, then I will personally show you why my name is Tank.”
The two glared at each other, Rainbow dash’s magenta eyes bore into Tank’s yellow eyes and vice versa. They stared at each other before Smoker decided that was enough and separated them. Tank argued that Rainbow dash had challenged him in a fight, and must be settled by the traditional means.
“Tank,” said Smoker, “You know as well as I do that it won’t be a fight. It will be you slaughtering her. End of story.”
Rainbow dash spoke up in protest, “Hey, I can take him on!”
Smoker chuckled, “You’re joking, right?” he stared at Rainbow dash for moment and started to laugh when he saw she was serious, “If you knew even a quarter of what I’ve seen Tank do, you’d have nightmares for the rest of your life.”
Rainbow dash rolled her eyes, “Phhf, yeah right.”
Smoker raised an eyebrow, “Really? Well, since you don’t believe me, I guess we have to ask another witness. Hey, Boomer, remember that time back in Riverside?”
Boomer shrugged, “Yeah, what about it?”
“What exactly did Tank do there?”
Boomer sighed, “Smoker, we don’t have time for this.”
“Hey, Rainbow here thinks she can fight Tank. If I’m doing anything, I’m saving her life by asking you.”
Rainbow dash glared at Smoker, who looked at Boomer for an answer.
He sighed again, “What about Witch?”
Smoker shrugged, “Witch will be fine. When hasn’t she been?”
Tank growled at Smoker, who ignored at as Boomer sighed a third time in defeat.
“Fine. I’ll tell the damn story,” he looked around at the other infected and Wheatley, “Gather those other ponies, I’m only telling this once.” Boomer paused, “After we get Witch.”
Smoker rolled his eyes as Boomer watched the other infected and Wheatley leave to gather Fluttershy, Rarity, Applejack, Pinkie pie and possibly Twilight, he sighed.
“As if today wasn’t dark enough, now I have to tell them of a one man slaughter.”
Some sounds are truly disgusting to hear. One of these sounds could be heard through the forest as Witch tore a manticore in half with her claws. The beast’s eyes rolled back into its skull as she tore away a chunk of flesh from its chest and began eating it.
After she had eaten, her wings snapped out and Witch began to take flight. It was… odd for her to fly in this humanoid body and not in her previous Pegasus one. Still, she was much more mobile on two feet than on four hooves.
Her head was still pounding from this morning and Witch held back a pained cry as the wind whipped against her face. She scouted the forest in search for a cave or alcove to hide in until her migraine faded. Finally, she discovered a decent sized cave made from what looked like a gigantic, abandoned bee hive.
She flew towards an opening in the hive and dropped inside of it. The interior of the hive was littered with bits of what looked like the shed skin of a snake, but entirely black. Witch called out into the abandoned hive, making sure she was alone, and then Witch sat down where she was standing and closed her eyes, waiting for the pain in her head to pass, oblivious to the pair of ice blue eyes staring at her.
Hunter stood at the edge of the Everfree forest with a look of confusion on his face. The five ponies that were helping him and the other seven infected were frozen at the edge of the forest, unwilling or incredibly reluctant to go into the forest. The eight infected however, didn’t share their concern for the forest. They had told them the apparent unnatural nature of the forest, which included clouds moving by themselves, animals able to live on their own and so on.
“It’s just like back home,” Boomer muttered to himself, “Except with mythical monsters and Witch with wings.”
“So… you’re not going to help us find a mentally unstable psychopath that is fully capable to tear you in half?” Smoker asked the ponies.
The five ponies shared uneasy looks, with Fluttershy being downright terrified and Rainbow dash showing the least concern.
“I guess that’s a no then,” said Smoker. He turned to the other infected, “You guys remember the camouflage tactic we picked up in that swamp?”
The infected nodded, around the final days of being on earth they camped in a swamp. Spitter had been one of the people who lived in the swamp village before becoming infected, so naturally she was better at staying hidden than the rest of the infected.
“Alright,” said Smoker, “Hunter, can you pick up her scent?”
Hunter nodded and was still for a moment, occasionally moving his ears and sniffing the air, “…Got it, she’s northeast of here.”
Without another word, the infected walked into the forest with Hunter at the lead as the five ponies watched them seemingly vanish into thin air. The ponies waited until they couldn’t hear the snapping of twigs or the occasional chirps from Spitter before speaking.
“Did they just walk into the Everfree forest without knowing anything about it?” asked Rainbow dash.
“Yep,” replied Applejack.
There was another pause, then a distant roar in the distance and what sounded like the cracking of bones. All five ponies shuddered at the sound, they all knew that the roar belonged to Tank, it was the same sound he made at the disastrous party two days ago.
“So… are we just going to wait here until they get back?” asked Pinkie pie.
“I’m sure they can handle themselves,” said Rarity, “After all, they seemed to have an idea what they were up against.”
There was another roar, then a loud shriek and finally a near deafening scream. The five ponies glanced at each other, it sounded like the infected were in trouble, or at least needed help of some sort. Reluctantly, the five ponies journeyed into the forest in the direction the infected went.
************************************************************************************* The crushed remains of a manticore and bits of what appeared to be wooden wolves lay strewn about around a small area in between trees. Slowly, Smoker picked himself off the ground and stared at the carnage around him.
“Jesus, Screamer,” muttered Smoker, “Is that your solution to everything?”
Screamer gave Smoker a hateful glare and continued hovering. Smoker saw the other infected slowly get up off the ground, except for Hunter. Hunter was flat on the ground, hooves covering his ears and Smoker could swear that there were tears stained on the dulled out bandage across his eye sockets. Slowly, Smoker walked over to him.
“Hey Hunter,” asked Smoker, “You going to be alright?”
Smoker didn’t get a response from Hunter, only a very pained whimper. Smoker sighed angrily and turned to Screamer.
“Great job, you broke him.”
Screamer rolled his eyes, “Well, next time he should cover his ears faster. It’s not my fault he didn’t see me about to yell.”
“He’s blind you idiot,” Smoker snapped.
Screamer shrugged, “If he’s blind, why do you let him tag along with us? He’s only slowing us down and all he’s good for is tracking stuff. If it were me, I’d have left him where I found him.”
Smoker’s eye twitched slightly as he snapped. In one swift motion, Smoker launched out his tongue at Screamer’s neck and pulled him towards the ground where he landed with a thud. Before Screamer could realise what just happened, Smoker slammed his right forehoof into his chest, knocking the wind out of him and pinning him to the ground.
“Listen to me you crazy armless lunatic,” Smoker growled, “If you ever insult the kid like that again, I will kill you. Got it?”
Screamer gulped, he’d heard from Boomer that a little while before they found himself and Jockey, Hunter was nearly killed by some non-infected. Smoker, being the one who seemed to actually give a damn about Hunter, lost it and slaughtered all of them with his tongue and his own bare hands. To make a long story short, as Boomer explained, hurting Hunter was like if you hurt Witch. Either one you will get the unrestrained rage of an infected upon you and there is not a force on the planet that can stop them.
Screamer stared fire at Smoker, which met his icy glare. The two glared at each other for a moment before Smoker kicked Screamer in the gut and walked back to Hunter. Smoker then managed to move Hunter onto his back with his tongue.
There was tension in the air for a moment before Smoker walked off in the direction they were headed earlier. The infected stared at him for a moment before Spitter spoke.
“Damn, Screamer, I’ve never seen him that pissed off.”
Screamer rolled his eyes, “Yeah, yeah.”
Spitter shook her head, “No I mean I’ve never seen him that pissed off. You’d better watch what you say around him for a while.”
Screamer grunted as her and the other infected started to follow Smoker. After a few moments, Screamer hesitantly followed them.
Hunter awoke with a dull ringing sound in his ears. He lifted his head slightly and tried to take in his surroundings. After a moment Hunter frowned, he couldn’t ‘see’ anything with his echolocation. He tried sniffing the air, maybe one of the infected was close by.
The main thing Hunter could smell was smoke, which made him relax somewhat. That meant Smoker was nearby; he just had to figure out where.
“Smoker?” Hunter called out.
There was silence besides the ringing, which made Hunter start to worry. He called out again, this time to the other infected. The response was the same: nothing. Hunter sighed, and then he suddenly jerked downwards and fell.
Hunter landed on the ground with a thud, which caused him to shriek on instance to try and gather his surroundings. Unfortunately, that was useless in his deafened state. Hunter crouched to the ground; hopefully trying to scare whatever knocked him off of… whatever it was he was on before e fell. Suddenly, he felt what seemed to be a long rope of damp rubber wrap around his chest and pulled him into the air. Hunter tried to struggle against it but suddenly was relieved from its grip and landed on something with a thud.
Hunter sniffed the air again, and got a nose full of smoke for his effort. Then he got the feeling of motion, whatever he was on top of was moving under him. Hunter frowned for a moment before the realisation hit him.
“I’m on Smoker’s back, aren’t I?” he called out.
He was answered with a more peaceful silence, this time without the ringing. Then he smelt a strange chemical that burned his nose slightly.
“Spitter?” Hunter called out again, “Is that you?”
Again, more silence. Hunter sighed, “If it is you, I can’t hear anything. I’m just going to assume that everyone else is somewhere close by.”
With that in mind, Hunter sighed again and began to wait until his hearing returned.
Tank’s yellow eyes were focused in front of him. More specifically, on the trail of blood that littered the ground. The drops of blood most likely belonged to the torn up corpse of what was a manticore, according to Boomer.
They had been traveling through the forest for a few hours now, much slower than anticipated since Hunter’s hopefully temporary deafness. Still, it wasn’t exactly hard to track Witch. Just follow the cries and blood.
Tank sighed, most of the rage he felt earlier when Witch ran off was all but gone. He and the other infected knew that his rage was what fueled him to do what he does. In fact, if he didn’t have the rage he possesses, he and the other infected could have died multiple times in the past. His rage gave him strength. And ever since he and the other infected were struck by the life changing bomb, that rage had been slowly dissipating. More and more Tank felt more forgiving and his strength leaving him. The first thing that came into his mind when he realised this was that he was slowly dying. If that was the case, then he would be the one lying in the pool of blood in the pictures.
But, if that was the case, then it wouldn’t happen for a while. A saddened cry echoed throughout the forest that snapped Tank back to the task at hand and he suddenly turned to face the direction where it came from.
There, in the near distance there was a gigantic light beige structure made from what looked like sticks, mud and a faded green substance. ‘That’s where Witch must be,’ Tank thought to himself as he started to walk towards it. The other infected noticed Tank’s change in direction and followed.
The eight walked through the maze of plant life and demolished everything that stood in their way. Finally, they arrived at the large beige structure. They stared at it in awe at the sheer size of the hive like structure. Screamer let out an impressed whistle.
“So, anyone got an idea on how to get in?”
Tank turned to him and grinned. Then, he raised his massive right forehoof and slammed it into the wall, causing a loud crunching sound as small cracks were formed in the place where Tank struck. Getting the message, Charger and Spitter began punching or spitting at the wall with Tank. The other infected watched them, unable to provide significant help in any way, until the structure groaned slightly and part of the wall caved open. A loud wail echoed throughout the newly created hole in the wall that proved that Witch was inside.
“Come, we are close now,” said Tank, “I can feel it.”
Hole suddenly split into four different pathways, each going in a different direction. Smoker decided it would be best if they split off into smaller groups of two to cover ground faster. Unfortunately, because of Hunter’s currently incapacitated state, Tank had gone through his tunnel alone and Spitter went with Smoker.
Spitter looked at the walls of the strange hallway in awe. From the looks of it, some sort of insect pony race had lived here many years ago, judging from multiple hieroglyphs on the wall.
“This is amazing,” Spitter said under her breath.
Smoker nodded, “Just when we thought we had figured out Ponyland, a species of bee people come in.”
Hunter shifted on Smoker’s back. He raised his head for a moment to smell his surroundings. He picked up the scent of decayed bodies and some strange smells unfamiliar to him.
“What died?”
Spitter laughed slightly, “An entire race of bee people.”
Hunter scratched his ear, “Sorry, repeat that?”
Smoker chuckled slightly, “I think he’s starting to hear again.”
“What about beer?”
Spitter sighed, “Well, at least he’s not deaf.”
Nodding in agreement, Smoker continued to walk down the darkened hallway deeper into the abandoned hive with Spitter walking beside him and Hunter grumbling in confusion on his back.
Screamer’s voice echoed down the hallway to Boomer’s mild annoyance.
“Anyone still alive in here?”
Boomer sighed, “Screamer, this structure must have been abandoned years ago. The only things in here are us and possibly Witch.”
Screamer rolled his eyes, “Define ‘alive’.”
Boomer sighed again, “You know as well as I do that we aren’t like the Commons anymore. Heck, we were never like them in the first place. We always were stronger, smarter and had a basic train of thought.”
“Yeah, we also were mutated freaks, cannibals and now liars,” said Screamer.
“You know why we have to lie,” replied Boomer, “The town seems to panic easily, remember what happened when we had to drag Hunter to the doctor? The town nearly went into a panic and we got attacked by that rainbow mare.”
“You mean the Rainbow Pride Pegasus?”
Boomer slapped Screamer across the back of his head with a frown on his face. Screamer glared at Boomer for a moment before he continued, “As I was saying, the town is easily excitable and the residents seem to be rash at times. Imagine if word got out that nine zombies with a bio-hazardous disease were living there?”
“Bad stuff,” grumbled Screamer. As much as he hated to admit it, even with the combined strength of all nine of them, they had no chance of taking down an entire town with no help from Commons.”
After that comment the two continued walking in silence. Very faintly in the distance, they heard the telltale cry of Witch and slowly started to move faster. The little adventure was slowly coming to a close and all Screamer wanted to do is get something to eat and sleep for a week.
“Hyeeh, hyeeh, hyeeh,” cackled Jockey as he and Charger made their way through the hive hallways searching for Witch. Not too long ago they heard what sounded like her crying.
“Shush,” muttered Charger, “Witch is around here somewhere and I need you to be quiet so I can hear her.”
“’s not my fault,” muttered Jockey in Hunter’s voice, “I don’t control my laughter.”
Charger sighed, “I know you can’t, but can you please try to keep it to a minimum? This is probably the most serious thing we’ve done since we got here.”
“I thought stealing from that street market four days ago was the most important thing we’ve done here,” replied Jockey, still with Hunter’s voice.
“That was a matter of getting food. This is a matter of making sure Witch is safe,” said Charger.
“Yeah, Tank would flip is anything happened to his girlfriend,” muttered Jockey in Smoker’s raspy voice.
Charger glared at Jockey as he gave her his signature ‘Jockey grin’ and the two continued to walk down the hallway. Both could now defiantly hear Witch crying now.
“We’re getting close to her,” said Charger.
Jockey nodded and said nothing. Despite being youngest of the nine, he was arguably one of the most mature. Those three weeks had been pure hell for the infected, even more so with Jockey and Hunter, as they were they youngest with Jockey around fifteen and Hunter around eighteen.
The infected didn’t particularly care about their age, hell; they couldn’t even remember what their birthdays were. The infection deteriorated their minds for three weeks straight and their memory before that was shaky at best. None of them could remember their original names, but instead adopted the names the non-infected had given them.
Jockey sighed, what he would give to remember before he was the cackling maniac he was now. Of course, being in the state he was in now did have its advantages. For instance, he could jump the highest out of any of the infected (flying doesn’t count) and his senses were much sharper that pre-infection, abet not as powerful as Hunter’s near telepathic knowledge of who and what is around him at nearly all times.
Jockey’s train of thought was broken as an angry shriek boomed down the hallway from ahead. It didn’t take a genius like Boomer to know that it belonged to Witch. He and Charger bolted off towards it in hope of trying to prevent Witch from hurting herself or others that may be with her.
Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie pie, Fluttershy and Rainbow dash stared in amazement at the structure they were staring at. They had followed the pathway of destruction and debris (along with the odd body) that the infected had made that led them to the giant hive structure. They were all standing in front of a gigantic hole in the wall with huge dent and scorch marks around it.
“You think they’re in there?” asked Rainbow dash.
A faint shriek blew through the huge opening in the structure, indicating that something was indeed inside.
“I believe that is a yes,” said Rarity.
The ponies stared nervously into the gaping hole in front of them, none of them wanting to take the first step inside. After a moment, a deep roar was heard from inside, indicating that Tank might be fighting something.
“…I’m going to help them.”
Everypony stared at Fluttershy like she was insane. She returned the look and said, “I think they’re in trouble and could use all the help they can get.”
With that, Fluttershy walked inside of the hive, disappearing into the darkness.
“I’m going too,” exclaimed Pinkie pie as she hopped inside, “Hey Fluttershy, wait up!”
Applejack and Rarity soon followed and left Rainbow dash standing at the hole to the hive. She sighed, “Why do I have a bad feeling about this?” and with that, Rainbow dash ran into the hive in hopes of catching up with her friends.
It wasn’t hard to tell that Tank was fighting a losing battle. Tried as he might, he couldn’t avoid the blindingly fast slashes that Witch was giving him. Tank had found Witch alone in a large circular chamber at the end of the hallway with three other openings nearby, presumably connecting with the other hallways that the other infected went through.
Tank grunted in a rare moment of pain as Witch slashed at the large scar on the right side of his chest. Tank retaliated and counterattacked with a punch, which hit Witch dead on. Most would be amazed that Tank did that to Witch, considering how much he cared for her wellbeing, but as he and the other infected knew, Witch was just as durable as Tank.
They were literally total opposites, Tank being large and muscular, Witch being small and thin. Tank usually had his emotions in check while Witch could easily become an emotional wreck at any given moment. And ever since becoming ponies, Tank was an herbivore and Witch was a carnivore.
Yet, despite all the differences, they did have some things in common. Being able to fly into an uncontrollable rage was one of them. Witch slashed Tank’s left forearm, causing it to leave five long red gashes on his arm. Amazingly, blood did not pool out of his arm, instead, it became a dark red as what little blood remained in Tank’s body desperately tried to stay inside.
Tank threw another punch at Witch as Smoker, Spitter and an incapacitated Hunter arrived in the room to see Tank fighting his fellow infected. Spitter and Smoker both saw the familiar madness in Witch’s eyes as she clawed at Tank.
“It’s just like back home,” whispered Spitter.
Smoker nodded, “Yeah, but one is a mutant horse and the other has wings.”
Witch screamed at Tank as she swung at him a final time, this time in his lower chest, and gave him a gash that would make most creatures’ intestines fall onto the floor. Instead, what seemed to be a second rib cage protected Tank’s intestines from ending up on the floor saved him as he fell to the ground, defeated.
Spitter and Smoker’s eyes shrunk as Witch turned to them and stared at them in hatred.
“Oh shit!” muttered Smoker as he used his tongue to move Hunter across the room in hopes of keeping him away from Witch.
“What do we do?” asked Spitter, eyes locked on Witch.
“We stall her and try to tire her out so when they get here she’ll be easier to take down,” said Smoker, straitening himself out and releasing large cloud of smoke from the tip of his horn, which he was unconsciously making glow a smoky grey.
“Well,” said Spitter, her throat bulging slightly as she began to prepare her acidic spit, “It’s been nice knowing you.”
Smoker chuckled, despite the situation, “What do you think the odds are that we’re going to get out of here alive?”
“Hundred to one.”
“Sounds about right,” said Smoker as Witch screamed and charged.
Charger and Jockey ran into the room as the same time as Boomer and Screamer. Already they could see Spitter lying unconscious on the floor and Smoker trying to get Witch away from her. Already knowing what the situation called for, Charger and Jockey leapt into the fight and began helping Smoker.
Boomer and Screamer, instead of fight Witch, tried to wake up Spitter and Tank. They both noticed Hunter on the other end of the room, his fur bristling, he smelt the fight.
“Come on, wake up,” said Screamer franticly as he tried to shake Spitter awake in vain. She was covered in bruises and seemed to have a broken leg.
Boomer ran over to Tank and tried to do the same, Witch however, noticed him and back handed him into the wall. He looked up for a moment before his head slumped down. Screamer saw this and flew as fast as he could towards Hunter.
Smoker, Charger and Jockey were fighting Witch with all their might, but, before they realised, Jockey was down and Smoker was narrowly avoiding Witch’s claws on three legs. She screamed again as Charger dived towards Smoker and got out of her path.
“We can’t keep this up for much long,” panted Charger.
“Just a little longer,” grunted Smoker, firing out his tongue again towards Witch’s neck, only for it to get cut in half, “If we can get her down we can fix her.”
Witch screamed and ran again, but his time Charger noticed that she was moving slower than before, she quickly turned to Smoker. “Smoker! I think she is tire-!”
Charger tried to form words, but all that came out was a dry cough and a little bit of blood. She looked to her chest and saw a huge claw slash mark on her chest, quickly turning red and a little bit of blood oozing out.
“Ghlk,” was the only sound she could make before she too fell to the ground.
Smoker franticly looked around for someone to help him. To his dismay, he noticed Hunter and Screamer missing, the only two that were mostly uninjured.
“Oh, God help me,” he whispered just as Witch slashed at him again, which managed to make him fly into the wall.
He crashed into the wall which made a sickening crack. With the last bit of strength he had, Smoker raised his head only to see a large blurry mess in front of him. From what he saw, a purple blotch appeared out of nowhere with other coloured blotches and started to do something to the big white and red line in front of him.
Smoker saw a huge rainbow seemingly shine of a hole in the roof and hit the line before everything faded to black.
The heavy snores from the patient kept the nurse from panicking too much. Nearly three days ago he and several other patients were brought in by six mares and what appeared to be a Pegasus in a makeshift straightjacket. According to the straightjacketed Pegasus, some sort off clawed creature had attacked them while searching for a friend.
There were very few details after that except that one of the younger patients brought in was suffering from hearing loss. That pony in particular was also blind, but the Pegasus claimed that he already knew that a while ago.
Said blind pony hadn’t left the hospital in the four days his friends had been there. The pony called himself Hunter and mentioned that he probably had another name, but can’t remember it. Hunter seemed to spend most of his time waiting outside the room which had patient 141009 or, as Hunter insisted on calling him, Smoker.
141009 was in critical condition for the first two days in the hospital with internal bleeding, minor concussion, multiple broken bones and what appears to be a thick black coating inside of his lungs. But, despite the certainty that he would die within the day, Smoker barley held on and shows signs of waking up soon. The doctors found that amazing in itself. Hunter said that he’s never seen Smoker down for long.
Another remarkable recovery was made by patient 151009, or ‘Spitter’. Around the end of the first day of hospitalisation, Spitter had woken up in the middle of the night and looked around groggily before throwing up a bright, acidic substance before promptly losing consciousness again. A similar event happened the second day, except Spitter spoke weakly before falling back asleep. On the third day she had a brief conversation with Hunter, assuring him that everything will be alright before resting again.
Still, Hunter was worried. Not about Spitter and the other hospitalised infected, no, he knew that they’d be alright soon. The thing he worried about was Witch. Ever since she had turned back into a Pegasus, through some sort of Rainbow Wave of Doom, she hadn’t been able to stop shaking. Hunter sighed, only he and Screamer had gotten out of the bee cave without many injuries. Tank was the one with the most injuries, hell; he was still being diagnosed with things right now.
Hunter shook his head, if anyone was going to have survived Witch attacking, it would be Tank. With that thought in mind, Hunter walked over to Spitter’s room to see if she was awake again. When he walked down the hall, he stopped at room 195 and opened the door.
“Hello?”
“’s me,” said Hunter, “You’re awake again.”
“I’ve noticed,” grumbled Spitter. She sighed, “Any word about the others?”
Hunter shook his head, “Nothing is different from yesterday, although Screamer is doing odd jobs for whatever reason.”
“Maybe he’s trying to get money for us?” suggested Spitter.
Hunter shrugged, “Maybe, but I doubt it. If you recall, he’s not particularly happy with us most of the time.”
“Then why doesn’t he leave?”
This made Hunter stop briefly. Yes, Screamer had openly stated that he disliked all of them from time to time, more so with Smoker than anyone else, but Hunter never considered Screamer actually leaving them. Hunter looked back at Spitter, whose eyelids were drooping. Without another word, Hunter left Spitter’s room to let her rest.
Hunter sighed and began to wander the hospital halls, wondering what the future may bring. After a few moments wandering, Hunter accidently bumped into someone.
“Sorry,” Hunter told whoever he bumped into. Suddenly, he stopped and sniffed the air. “Witch? Is that you?”
A quiet whimper came from the pony. ‘Definitely Witch’, Hunter thought.
“What are you doing here?” Hunter asked, “Aren’t you supposed to be staying with Fluttershy?”
Ever since Witch had been back to normal, she’s been an emotional wreak, even more so than normal. During the entire four days she’s been back Hunter had never seen her not shivering. Hunter had been told yesterday, when his hearing fully came back, by Screamer that Witch needed someone to keep an eye on her until Tank got better.
“I want to see Tank,” Witch said quietly.
Hunter shook his head, “He’s still in critical condition. No one is allowed to see him besides the doctors.”
Witch sniffed slightly. Hunter sighed; he didn’t need eyes to tell Witch was crying.
“I’m sorry,” Witch said quietly. “I’m so, so sorry.”
“Witch, it’s not your fault…” Hunter began.
“Yes it is!” yelled Witch angrily, making Hunter jump, “It’s entirely my fault! If I just stopped for a minute none of this would have happened!”
Hunter backed away slightly; all the noise Witch was making allowed him to see the entire hallway with surprising detail through his echolocation. But, he had to calm Witch down.
“Witch, you didn’t know what you were doing, it could have happened to any one of us,” said Hunter.
Hunter could literally feel the conflicting emotions that radiated off of Witch; there was anger, sorrow, worry and most of all: guilt.
“I hurt everyone,” Witch spat bitterly, “Tank and Smoker nearly died because of me. And you have the nerve to say I didn’t know what I was doing?!”
Hunter tried to say something, but his mouth couldn’t form words. ‘She KNEW what she was doing?!’ he thought franticly, ‘She had total control of her actions?!’
Witch sighed angrily, “Go ahead, and say it.”
“Say what?” asked Hunter, not too sure what Witch meant.
“Tell me that you all don’t give a shit about me and to get the hell out of here,” Witch spat out, “After all, who wants a pack murder?”
If Hunter had eyes, he would be staring at Witch in disbelief, “Pack murder? Witch, what are you talking about? You didn’t kill anyone!”
Witch laughed sarcastically, making Hunter’s flesh crawl under his fur, “You call nearly killing Tank, Charger and Smoker not pack killing? If Twilight hadn’t shown up they all would be dead and it would just have been you and Screamer.”
“What do you mean?” Hunter asked slowly.
“When they tried to calm me down, I managed to damage the vitals in everyone except you and Screamer. He managed to get away from me moments before Twilight arrived, leaving Smoker alone. If he hadn’t have escaped with you and Twilight never showed up, I’d be the only one left.”
Hunter was again at a loss for words. It was common knowledge that Screamer mostly only looked out for himself, only staying with the group for protection in numbers. For him to actually risk his life to save Hunter, that was unbelievable. But, it was something Hunter was slowly starting to believe. He knew someone dragged him out of the room, but the dust had clogged up Hunter’s nose so he never found out whom.
“Screamer… saved me?” asked Hunter, half to himself, half to no one, “Why would he do that?”
Witch shrugged, “He might be a complete coward, but he’s a loyal coward. If he has to run, he’ll risk his life to save whoever he can before running away.”
Hunter blinked, despite his lack of eyes and faced towards the ground. He could still hear Witch breathing in front of him, but didn’t acknowledge it until he scratched at the skin under the bandage around his eyes. He turned his head up to Witch.
“I’m taking you back to Fluttershy’s house.”
Witch raised an eyebrow, “Why would you do that? You haven’t left since you got here.”
“Yeah, well, I’m assuming you didn’t tell anyone you were coming here?” asked Hunter.
Witch shrunk back a bit, “No…”
“Exactly, she’s probably worried about you,” said Hunter, “And… I need some fresh air. I’m starting to get sick of the anesthetic smell.”
The cool evening air caused Hunter to shiver slightly as he and Witch left the hospital. They continued to travel westward when the moon had fully risen into the sky, covering everything in its silvery white glow. The two had traveled in silence, both almost completely lost in thought but paying just enough attention to know where they were headed.
Witch looked up at the moon and a feeling of nostalgia came over her as she remembered the last time she saw the moon like this.
“It’s pretty,” said Witch quietly, all the anger in her voice gone from earlier.
Hunter nodded, “I bet it is.”
Witch turned to Hunter while still moving forwards, “What’s it like, not being able to see?”
Hunter shrugged, “Well… it’s a little awkward at first, and then you start to notice all of the sounds and smells around you. Although at times I do regret clawing my eyes out, I still would have if I had another chance.”
Witch looked at him, although she hadn’t known him as long as Smoker, Tank, Boomer and she were among the first few people Hunter trusted post-infection. And if she remembered correctly, Hunter was much more naïve three weeks ago. But, here he is, a little more than three weeks later, seemingly without regrets about what they did.
As they neared Fluttershy’s cottage, Witch and Hunter could hear a wolf howling in the distance. Hunter, who indeed had spent a brief time in a wolf pack before, howled back. There was a brief pause before a chorus of howls responded to Hunter, who grinned slightly.
“What did you say?” asked Witch.
“Oh, nothing really. Just told them that death flies with white wings,” said Hunter, still grinning.
Witch glared at him and flicked the back of his head with one of her wings. Hunter flinched in surprise, not expecting it to hurt that much.
“Damn it, Witch. Careful with those things,” Hunter muttered.
Witch rolled her eyes and continued walking. A cool wind began to pick up the closer they got to Fluttershy’s home. When they finally arrived there, they found the building completely upside-down and rotating slowly in the air with various other objects floating nearby.
Hunter’s jaw hung open and Witch stared at it in disbelief. It took each of the about five minutes to say something.
“Am I… hearing this right, or is the house defying the laws of physics?” said Hunter.
“I’m seeing it the same as you and I’m not sure if this is really happening,” said Witch.
The two continued to stare at the building for another four minutes until Hunter managed to say something again.
“Should we wait until tomorrow to say if you’re alright?” suggested Hunter.
Witch shrugged, “Doesn’t matter to me, although her home is probably nicer than those crappy hospital chairs you’ve been sleeping on.”
Hunter chuckled slightly, “You know, I think I liked you better when you were quiet.”
Witch raised an eyebrow and said nothing as she flew up to Fluttershy’s door, which was about four feet off the ground. She turned back at Hunter, who was franticly shaking his head, and knocked on the door.
He sounds of multiple things crashing, and the strange sound of things fixing themselves came out of the cottage as it slowly descended back to the ground. After it landed, there was a sound not unlike Wheatley’s telekinetic hovering and the door opened.
Witch’s eyes widened as she saw the giant figure that opened the door. Just looking at him Witch could tell that he had about a foot on Smoker. It also had multiple bits of other animals all around its body, such as the arms of a lion and eagle, legs similar to a bull or something like it and an oddly green scaled leg. Its head was what wired Witch out the most. It was a goat-like head with two completely different antlers, one deer like and the other was light blue and was like a deformed unicorn horn.
Witch stared in stunned silence at the creature, who was grinning at the confusion.
“Why, what do we have here?” said the creature.
Witch tried to form words, but couldn’t find an appropriate thing to saw in this situation. She was still staring when Hunter walked up to her. He too was facing it in disbelief, but managed to say something.
“You’re tall.”
Witch mentally face palmed, ‘Of course he’d say something like that…’ she thought, annoyed.
“Why, yes, I am indeed rather tall,” said the creature, “Now then, what brings you two here at this time of night?”
“We could be asking you the same question,” said Witch.
The being chuckled, it was a rather disturbing sound, not on Jockey’s level but still slightly unsettling. “I’m visiting a dear friend of mine.”
Witch nodded slowly, “I’m assuming Fluttershy is there?”
The being nodded, “Yes, she is.” He turned his entire head inside while leaving the rest of his body facing Witch, “Fluttershy, you have company!”
“Who is it?” called Fluttershy from inside.
“It’s,” the creature paused, “I don’t believe we’ve introduced each other, have we?”
Hunter shook his head, his mane shifting and allowing the creature to see the bandage covering his eyes.
“Well, I’m Discord, personification of chaos and currently on vacation,” as he said that, a pair of sunglasses appeared on his face and a suitcase in his lion paw.
Witch nodded slowly, “I’m Witch. He’s Hunter.”
Hunter nodded, “Hello.”
“Ah, alright,” Discord again turned his head inside, “It’s Witch and Hunter, you know them?”
“Witch?! Oh, thank goodness you’re alright!” said Fluttershy as she walked towards them and stood slightly behind Discord, “Oh, hello, Hunter. Are your friends doing any better?”
Hunter sighed, “Tank’s still in critical, Smoker got out of critical yesterday, Spitter seems to be doing fine, Jockey seems to be alright, although he hasn’t been talking, Charger is still out and Boomer’s a bit dazed but otherwise alright.”
“Oh, well, I hope they’re doing better than earlier,” said Fluttershy.
Hunter nodded, “Yeah, it’s not often I see Tank so beat up.”
Hunter noticed Witch whimper slightly beside him, all of her previous attitude gone and replaced with her quieter one. Hunter sighed and spoke to her quietly.
“It’s alright; I’m sure none of them hold a grudge on you. They’ll be awake soon and everything will be ok.”
Discord spoke up, “I believe to be missing something, what happened exactly?”
Witch turned away, not wanting to talk about it and Hunter grinned sheepishly.
“I, uh, was temporarily deaf for most of it but, what I gathered was Witch kinda lost it briefly.”
Discord raised an eyebrow. And by raised, it literally was an inch off his face, “She put six of your pals in the hospital?”
Hunter shrugged, “She’s more dangerous than Tank, and he’s a seven foot wall of death.”
“Huh, well, always beware the small ones, then,” said Discord. He then glanced at Hunter, able to see his bandage, “Did she blind you, too?”
Hunter shook his head, “Oh, no. I clawed them out weeks ago.”
No less than a second after Hunter uttered that Witch shoved her hoof into his mouth and leaned close to him.
“Uh, Hunter, what did Smoker say about not telling them anything?!” she whispered harshly.
“Oops,” he said, his voice muffled through her hoof.
Discord raised an eyebrow again and Fluttershy gasped slightly, although she had suspected it a few days ago when he first mentioned his eye removal.
“And you did that because?” asked Discord, hoping Hunter would answer.
Witch sighed, ‘No point in not letting him talk if they already know,’ she thought as Hunter spat her hoof out of his mouth.
Hunter scratched his cut ear with his hind leg, much like a cat and spoke, “Well, let’s just say I wasn’t in the proper in state.”
“What caused that?” asked Fluttershy.
Hunter shrugged, “A bio-hazardous disease that transformed me from an everyday person to a heartless predator with unnaturally sharp claws and teeth.”
Fluttershy and Discord beamed at Hunter, with looks of horror and mild amusement from Fluttershy and Discord respectively. Beside him, Witch groaned slightly.
For the first time Spitter could remember, she felt scared.
It wasn’t the feeling that something might be there, totally unsure of what lies within the darkness, after all, that was her for a time. No, the fear she felt was what could have happened, but thankfully didn’t. Ever since she woke up that first night in the hospital, desperately trying to rid herself of the acidic fluids building up in her stomach, the brutal realisation of the prior events hit her.
She had nearly lost everything she cared about. All of them, the infected, the weeks they’ve spent together foraged a bond like no other, each of them willing to sacrifice themselves to keep even one safe from the jaws of death. It wasn’t until she heard about what happened to the others when she grew eerily silent, only speaking to another infected if necessary. So far that had only been the occasional visit from Hunter, and a brief conversation with Screamer.
Spitter shuddered, those two would have been the only ones left if those ponies hadn’t decided to follow them into the forest. And even then, there was always a chance that the crazed Witch didn’t want any loose ends and slaughtered them at a later time. A sad sigh escaped her when she reminded herself that they already had lost someone in their pack of nine.
A not long before the bomb exploded, sending them to Equestria, Hunter had found another infected with the ‘Hunter’ mutation. But, what Hunter noticed first was that the infected was a she, making her a Huntress. Hunter had managed to convince the Huntress to follow him so he could ask Smoker if she could join their group. Smoker had eyed Hunter, then the Huntress for a moment before reluctantly agreeing. Usually Smoker thought more about things like this, but an entire army of non-infected was attacking them along with a small group of four heading to the Great Bridge in the Distance. Explosions were tearing the streets of New Orleans apart as the group of infected struggled to find shelter.
That’s when the bomb hit them. A bright flash of white energy tore the building apart and knocked all of them unconscious. When they awoke, they first noticed that they all were ponies, a greatly disturbing concept itself. But, moments after, Hunter noticed that Huntress was missing. He made sounds from shrieks to howls to try and find her, but all efforts were in vain as Huntress never responded. Hunter knew the rules if a fellow infected goes missing: he who falls behind, is left behind.
Hunter was quiet for a few days, only really starting to talk again when they first arrived in Ponyville during that heat wave.
Spitter frowned, on Earth, usually a heat wave lasted at least a week or two. This one lasted a total of one and a half days. And, if it was still the same month as Spitter remembered, it was late October, far too late in the year for a heat wave of that degree.
Spitter spent a few more moments thinking about the journey to this spot, before a nurse opened the door.
“Ms. Spitter, he’s awake.”
Spitter blinked, ‘Whatever was on his mind, it must have been important enough to wake him up,’ she thought.
“Did he say anything?” asked Spitter.
The nurse shook her head, “No, the doctor thinks that the hit to the head he got was worse than he thought. That coupled with the fracture in his horn may have giving him…” the nurse’s voice trailed off.
“Given him what?” asked Spitter.
The nurse sighed, “Your friend, Smoker, might have brain damage of some sort.”
Spitter stared at the nurse, then at the wall at the other side of the room. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
A pair of dull yellow eyes stared blankly at a wall across from their owner, who was entirely motionless except for his breathing and the odd cough. A creaking sound alerted him of the door to the far right was opening, but he wouldn’t be bothered to look and see who it was.
Spitter stared at Smoker lying on the bed, his eyes glazed over and motionless. There were multiple bandages across his chest and a cast around two of his legs. Another major thing Spitter noticed was that the constant cloud of smoke that surrounded Smoker’s head was gone, giving her a clear view of what Smoker’s face actually looked like. His face, like the rest of him, was charcoal grey with what may or may not be blood splattered across his muzzle, making him look like Hunter after catching a rabbit. The other thing about his face was his eyes. Not the vibrant yellow like Witch’s and Jockey’s, or the metallic yellow like her own, Charger’s and Tank’s. It wasn’t even like the muddy yellow of Boomer’s and Screamer’s. It was a dying yellow, the kind you see on burnt grass in the middle of the summer with no water. His breathing was ragged, like he had run a marathon. Spitter had also noticed that his tongue, (or she should say tongues, as she now noticed that six, shorter tongues hug lifelessly out of the tumors that covered the left side of his head and the upper back of his neck) was much longer than usual, most likely from Smoker not snapping it off as he usually does every day.
“What the hell did she do to you?” whispered Spitter quietly.
This got a reaction out of Smoker, as his eyes turned towards her. Their eyes met for a moment, Spitter’s fearful and Smoker’s emotionless, before Smoker turned them back to the wall.
Spitter sighed; it was obvious that she wasn’t going to get a response out of him right now. Still, even though he wasn’t talking now, she could tell that Smoker would speak again if prompted to.
“I’m going to come back when I get the others,” Spitter finally said, “And you’d better be ready to talk when I do.”
Spitter turned and left the room, failing to notice that Smoker’s gaze was on her again. When the door clicked shut, Smoker made the loudest sound since he’d woken up.
He sighed softly. He had gotten them into this mess; he’d been the one that said to run into the building where the bomb was dropped. Smoker glanced up at the roof, managing to see the very tip of his horn in his vision. It was… odd not having the smoke around his head. It felt far too alien to him to be breathing clearly. He liked the smoke that hid his face and any facial expressions that might bite him in the ass later. Smoker sighed again as he closed his eyes and drifted away into his thoughts.
“Where to begin, oh, where do I begin?” Hunter thought aloud. Gathered around him were Fluttershy, Discord and Witch. Hunter stared into the cold fire that Discord made to add to the story telling atmosphere, it popped and crackled in the night sky.
“Just tell them what happened Smoker found you in that back alley,” sighed Witch.
“But what about before I got in the alleyway?” said Hunter.
“You became infected in that alleyway. Smoker found you literally three minutes after you turned,” said Witch, “I bet you don’t even remember why you were there in the first place.”
“Well…” Hunter began. He tried his hardest to remember, but, as with the other infected, everything pre-infection was blurry and fragmented.
Hunter sighed, “Boomer always was better at story telling than I was.”
Witch glared at him, “What, so you’re not going to tell them?” when she saw Hunter shake his head she sighed, and turned to Fluttershy and Discord, “I guess if you want to know about our past, Boomer would be the best place to start.”
As Hunter debated on waking up Boomer at this hour, a wolf howled at the moon. Out of reflex and instinct, Hunter also made an odd howling sound, abet in a slightly higher pitch than the wolf. Fluttershy looked at Hunter curiously when he stopped responding to the wolf.
Hunter, being able to notice when someone was looking at him, turned to Fluttershy.
“What?”
Fluttershy eep’d slightly and hid behind her mane. Shrugging, Hunter yawned, giving Fluttershy and Discord full view of his pointed teeth. Suddenly, Hunter froze completely and moved his ear very slightly towards the west.
“Any of you hear that?” he asked in a low voice.
Discord said nothing, Fluttershy shook her head and Witch didn’t seem fazed at all.
Then, very faintly an odd chirping could be heard echoing around them. This made Witch cry out and Hunter shriek. The chirping changed pitch slightly and Hunter howled again. The chirping continued to get louder when a strong chemical smell suddenly filled the air.
Hunter sneezed, “Spitter, mind if you don’t spit around me? Sensitive nose and stuff.”
There was another chirp, which meant sorry in the infected’s language as Spitter walked into view, her fur glowing a faint yellow green from the acidic spit stored inside of her.
“Hello, Hunter, Witch and Fluttershy,” said Spitter. Then she turned to Discord, looking at Spitter oddly.
Spitter shrugged it off as nothing. After all, why wouldn’t someone stare at you if you’re entire lower jaw and the upper part of your elongated neck was bloody and devoid of skin. She turned to Hunter and Witch.
“Smoker’s up. I think it would be best if we all were there,” said Spitter.
Witch took a slight step back and mumbled something under her breath as Hunter turned towards Fluttershy and Discord.
“Sorry, guys. I guess the story will have to wait.”
Spitter raised an eyebrow and looked at Witch, who shrugged. After that Spitter turned and left, Witch was not far behind and Hunter pouncing into the darkness. Discord looked at Fluttershy, who couldn’t really explain the odd behavior of the infected and offered him a glass of tea.
It was finally daybreak when Spitter finally found Screamer. She would have been finished earlier if he hadn’t decided to fall asleep on top of a cloud and made Witch go looking for him. When they all returned to the hospital, all four of them were hungry, tired and annoyed with each other.
Screamer grumbled to himself in the early morning light, “Couldn’t have waited until later to wake me up, it’s not like I was sleeping or anything important.”
Witch had been silent around Spitter and Screamer, most likely worried what fate would bring her for attacking them and walked silently a few feet behind them.
They walked (or, in Screamer’s case hovered) to the hospital and entered. After checking in with the receptionist, they made their way down the halls until they came across the area where Smoker, Charger, Jockey, Boomer and Tank were in. The closest door on the left was Boomer’s.
Hunter slowly opened the door and growled slightly so he could ‘see’ if Boomer was awake. Unsurprisingly, Boomer was indeed awake and smiled slightly at seeing Hunter.
“Hunter, good to see you,” said Boomer. He yawned, “Hearing’s back to normal I assume?”
Hunter nodded, “Yeah, it just fully got better yesterday.”
Boomer smiled, “Good to hear. Now,” Boomer’s voice went quieter, “Off to see Smoker I assume?”
“Yep, Spitter thinks that seeing all of us would get him to say something,” said Hunter.
Boomer chuckled, “Honestly, I’m surprised he didn’t say anything to Spitter. You know how he’s less harsh when she’s around.”
“Yeah, well, I’m sure everyone knows that the two of them like each other, but neither of them will admit it,” said Hunter.
“With good reason,” Boomer said, “It’s best if none of us get too attached to one another. Any one of us could drop dead in a heartbeat. I think the only reason Smoker lets it slide with Tank and Witch is because Witch isn’t emotionally sound.”
“Yeah, I was talking with her last night, she was all over the place,” agreed Hunter.
Boomer chuckled again, “You can detect emotions if I’m not correct?”
Hunter shrugged, “Sometimes, it’s easiest with Witch and non-infected.”
Boomer nodded, “Indeed, now,” he moved himself out of the hospital bed he was sitting on, “Let’s go see out tall friend, shall we?”
Meanwhile, Spitter, Witch and Screamer were out visiting Charger, Tank and Jockey respectively while Hunter was getting Boomer. Spitter cautiously opened the door to Charger’s room and relaxed a little when she saw Charger smiling.
“Spitter,” Charger said, still grinning, “I knew you wouldn’t be out for long.”
Spitter smiled in return, “I’m surprised that I woke up before you.”
Charger shook her head, “Nah, She wasn’t focused on you. She had her attention on Smoker, Jockey and Me.” she paused, “How are those two anyway?”
Spitter sighed, “Well, Screamer’s out getting Jockey and I’m here to gather everyone to see Smoker. He apparently isn’t talking.”
Charger nodded solemnly, “Yeah, I was quiet for a while too when I noticed all this,” she gestured to herself.
Charger had a five long gash marks across her chest where Witch dealt her defeating blow and multiple, smaller cuts around her enlarged right foreleg. The right side of her jaw was no longer visible, most likely patched up by the doctors as with the multiple bandages that had surrounded Spitter’s mouth and neck (which were quickly burned away from her acid).
Charger sighed, “Well, no point keeping them waiting any further.” She said as she got out of the hospital bed and stretched her wings, “I’ve been meaning to give Witch a piece of my mind.”
Spitter walked up to her menacingly, “Look, I know she hurt us all really bad, but she had little to no control of herself. I’ve seen her already, she’s terrified of facing Tank and according to Hunter she nearly broke down again yesterday just thinking about it.”
Charger stared at Spitter, and then nodded, “Yeah, I know. It’s just,” Charger stopped to find the right words, “Dealing with it all. You know everything these past few days have brought us. It’s peaceful here. No one is trying to kill us. But, then there’s Witch. Her migraines make her unpredictable. We need something to keep her calm when that happens. Wandering around or sitting somewhere just isn’t working.”
Spitter nodded, “I’m sure we’ll figure out something.”
Tank stared at Witch, who in turn stared right back at him. The two stared at each other for a moment before Witch stared to speak.
“I’m… sorry,” she said quietly.
Tank chuckled, an odd sound coming from the giant, “You are forgiven Witch. You are forgiven.”
Tank was already standing when Witch entered, giving her full view of the multiple cuts and bruises she inflicted on him. Surprisingly, about eighty present of them were either scarred over or healed completely. The only really visible scar was the slash mark over his pre-existing wound on the left side of his chest.
The two looked at each other again, before they left the hospital room. The two infected never were ones for talking much.
Screamer’s expression changed from annoyed to honestly concerned when he entered Jockey’s room. The first thing that told him something was wrong was the utter absence of notice. Usually, where ever Jockey was there either should be a crazed laughter or the occasional cackle. Here there was dead silence.
“Uh, Jockey,” said Screamer when he saw he little infected shivering on the hospital bed, “You feeling alright?”
Screamer then heard something Jockey was muttering, “Their coming to take me away, ha, ha. Their coming to take me away, ho, ho, he, he, ha, ha…”
Screamer froze, somewhere, in the damaged part of his mind that held onto the memories of pre-infection, remembered what to do if Jockey ever started talking like this. Faster than he could think, Screamer quickly unbuckled the straps on his (newly bought) straightjacket and shoved Jockey into it. Jokey, however, wasn’t feeling up to co-operating and shrieked and struggled against Screamer.
“I’m sorry buddy, but it’s for your own good,” he said as he finished putting on the final strap.
Screamer then looked at his own handiwork and smiled. It took skill to remove a straightjacket by yourself with nothing but you’re mouth and weeks of lack of food. Screamer then hovered over to Jockey and grabbed him in his forelegs and left the room, occasionally muttering something to Jockey in hopes of calming him down.
It was about ten minutes after Hunter, Screamer, Spitter and Witch had arrived at the hospital and already all eight of the infected were standing at the door to Smoker’s room. Slowly, Spitter opened the door and the other seven (in Jockey’s case, forcibly brought) walked into Smoker’s room.
Spitter felt like she should have been surprised, but somehow she wasn’t when she saw that Smoker was standing in the middle of the room with his eyes on them.
That was when Spitter noticed how tired he looked compared to the other seven infected. Sure, they had all spent days with no sleep in the past, but by now all of them had started to recover. Smoker, however, showed no signs of recovering.
Smoker’s eyes stared at all of the infected, as if he was silently judging them. After he was finished, Smoker started to laugh. It was eerie to say the least with none of his coughing mixed into it.
“Look at yourselves,” said Smoker, who had stopped laughing, “It’s been barley a week and already all of you have lost you’re edge.” He frowned, “I am disappointed in all of you.”
The rain lightly fell on the burning city. A lone man ran amongst the chaos, desperately trying to escape.
“Can’t let them catch me.”
The man swerved around a corner and continued to run. Suddenly, he slipped on the pavement and landed on the ground. Franticly, the man pushed himself off the ground and ran faster than before.
“I don’t want to die!”
The man crashed backwards and fell again. He looked up and saw death itself.
A tall creature with a cloud of smoke obscuring its face looked down upon the man. By the looks of it, the creature’s entire left side was covered in tumors. Two, sickly yellow eyes stared down at the man. He shivered. The creature made a hacking sound, like an incredibly harsh cough which made his blood run cold.
“Oh god, help me.”
The creature then lashed out with a long, dark red tentacle that erupted out of its mouth and wrapped itself around the man’s throat and lifted him off of the ground. The man struggled against the tentacle before realising that it was the monster’s tongue.
“Ghlk!”
The man struggled in vain as the edges of his vision started to go dark. After one last attempt of freedom, a loud crack echoed down the alleyway. The creature had snapped the man’s neck.
The smoky creature coughed again, some blood splattering on the body. Eyeing it, the creature then started flailing the body around and bashing it against the ground and walls of close by buildings to soften it.
The creature stopped when a low growl was heard beside it. The smoky monster spun around and faced a small, crouched figure with a dark blue hood covering its eyes and baring its sharp teeth.
The two stared at each other briefly, before the smoky being slammed the body into the ground a final time and started to walk away with the body in tow.
The hooded creature made a whining sound, which made the smoky creature make a complex sound of wheezes and coughs in response. After a moment, the hooded creature began to follow the smoky one in hopes of a meal.
Smoker glared at the eight infected standing before him. He had not risked his life, multiple times he might add, during those three weeks of being infected just for them to simply forget it ever happen in some pansy pony wonderland. To the average person watching this, it would look like the eight infected were simply returning the glare. But, if they knew more about the infected, all but one was cringing slightly under Smoker’s glare. Only Screamer remained defiant against it.
“Three weeks. We spent three goddamn weeks in pure hell and the very second we end up in what appears to be a paradise, everything we learned goes down the drain,” said Smoker. He shook his head, “Ever pause to think that nothing is perfect? Despite how grand it may seem?”
None of the infected dared to make a sound, usually the effect if Smoker ever got like this. To say the least, he was angry. Spitter kept her eyes on Smoker, hoping to try and find out why he was acting like this all of a sudden.
“Lay off them, Smoky,” said Screamer, “You’re just mad that you got your ass saved by ponies.”
Smoker turned towards Screamer and faced him. Despite the large height difference, Screamer remained unfazed.
“What?”
Screamer grinned darkly, “Ever stop to think on how, exactly, you got out of the hive place?”
Smoker’s silence told Screamer that, yes, he had thought about it.
“When I was running my ass off with Hunter it tow,” Screamer saw Hunter’s left ear twitch slightly in the corner of his right eye, “I saw those five ponies from earlier trying to find us, for whatever reason. I decided to be an idiot and put Hunter somewhere safe and decided to follow them. “Right when they saw you getting your ass handed to you by Witch, the purple one, Twilight I think, popped out of nowhere and the other five did this… thing and boom, giant rainbow came from who the hell knows where and nailed Witch. “Once all the smoke and shit cleared, they found you guys all bloody and rushed all of you to the hospital.”
Smoker narrowed his eyes, Screamer did the same. A few moments of tense silence passed before,
“Bullshit.”
Screamer raised one of his eyebrows at Smoker and then started to laugh. His laughter slowly started to get more and more disturbing the louder to became. He finally stopped just as it passed Jockey’s level of crazed laughter.
“You don’t believe me? Well, why don’t you march over to them and find out?” said Screamer.
Smoker spat on the floor, “Maybe I will.”
Screamer grinned as Smoker shoved him out of the way and walked out of the room. Eyeing each other, the other seven infected warily followed Smoker, leaving Screamer alone in the room.
He coughed dryly, “Sometimes you just gotta listen to the lunatic, Smoky.”
Smoker’s yellow eyes burned viciously as he walked towards the library. The seven other infected closely followed behind him, not trusting him to control himself if he went into a rage. Spitter ran up ahead to try and talk some sense into him.
“Why can’t you just believe Screamer for once?” she asked.
Smoker’s good eye, the right one, turned and glared at Spitter, “Because he’s a liar. How can six inexperienced ponies take down Witch with a rainbow?”
For that, Spitter had no words. He did have a point though, seeing Witch’s unstoppable rage ended by a simple rainbow was pretty hard to grasp. Still, they must have done something that prevented them from dying.
“They must have done something to stop her,” said Spitter.
Smoker coughed, “Witch must have burnt out by then and they just cleaned up afterwards.”
Charger sighed behind them, “Why don’t you just ask Witch what happened?”
Smoker kept his gaze forward, “I don’t think she was thinking straight at the time.”
Charger rolled her eyes and Hunter made an odd sound that he sometimes made when he was nervous. Witch glanced at him fearfully, which he detected with his echolocation and grinned weakly. The both of them knew that Witch had full control of her actions, but she was too blinded by rage to care what she did and who she hurt.
The closer they got to the library, the more Spitter noticed that something was wrong with Smoker. His limp was back, the one which caused his entire left side to be slightly more raised than the right. Another thing Spitter noticed was that Smoker didn’t have his tell-tale cloud of grey smoke around his head. That could either be a good thing, if he is allowing himself to open up more, or, the reason that was more plausible to Spitter; he is silently storing his rage and will evidently explode on someone.
When they arrived at the library, (Hunter internally noted that they seemed to wind up here a lot) Smoker knocked (he actually kicked it, as he was taller than the doorway itself) on the door and waited. A moment later, Spike, who Boomer and Smoker had met a few days ago, opened the door.
“Hello…” said spike as his voice trailed off as he saw the glare Smoker was giving him.
“Hi,” Smoker said gruffly, “Is Twilight there? I need to ask her a question involving the incident earlier in the week.”
Spike stared at Smoker. Although the two had met before, Spike never realised the gigantic height difference between the two or the tumors that covered the left side of Smoker’s head and foreleg. He also noticed eight others nearby, one of which he noticed as Boomer.
“Uh… yeah, lemme go get her,” stammered Spike as he closed the door and bolted up the stairs to get Twilight.
When he arrived at t top of the stairs, he knocked uh the door to her room, where she was currently studying something that escaped Spike.
“Hey, Twilight? Smoker’s at the door and he wants to ask you something,” said Spike through the door, “He says it’s something about an ‘incident’ earlier in the week.”
While Spike was telling her this, Twilight was reaching strange and exotic creatures ranging from myth to ancient history. Her reason: when she had used the immobilisation spell on Witch earlier in the week, Spitter had claimed that the creature that emerged from the light was Witch without a moment of hesitation. Now, if she had taken a moment to try and figure out what Witch had turned into it wouldn’t have bothered Twilight as much. Another thing about the creature Witch was transformed into was when she had finally found a way to stop her (one of the reasons the panicked and fled shortly after the accidental transformation) she saw that when she and her friends managed to use the Elements of Harmony in a hastily made up plan, the resulting explosion of light had caused an effect much similar to Princess Luna’s restoration from Nightmare Moon, but reversed. Instead of all of the hate that was radiated off Witch being taken away and destroyed, Witch seemed to reabsorb it back into her.
This had caused Twilight hours of confusion. Why hadn’t it been destroyed? Were the Elements of Harmony not the correct way to help Witch go back to normal? If so, did that mean she could turn into the winged biped at any given moment? Twilight shook her head, ‘I’m sure Witch if fine. But still… maybe that’s why Smoker is here to ask a question?’
Sighing to herself, Twilight exited her room and descended down the stairs to the door where Smoker waited. When she opened the door, she had not expected the glare Smoker was giving her. Twilight beamed at him, not just because the height difference (she had already known that) but it was how deformed he looked on his left side. She wondered why she hadn’t noticed it before.
“Um… hi? You wanted to ask me a question, Smoker?” she said.
“Yes, I do have a question for you,” he wheezed, “It involved what happened to Witch.”
Twilight blinked, “Alright,” she said slowly, “And that would be..?”
Smoker narrowed his eyes, “How did you stop her?”
“My friends and I used the Elements of Harmony to get Witch back to normal.”
Smoker’s face went blank. That was not the answer he was expecting. During his silence, a noticeable snicker was heard behind Smoker. Twilight turned her head to look past Smoker and noticed that the other eight infected were around him. The snickering was heard again, coming from Spitter, of all ponies.
“Elements of Harmony,” she said, still snickering, “That’s all I can take, someone please throw in the towel, I give up!”
Twilight frowned, confused at why Spitter was laughing, “What’s so funny?”
Spitter walked up beside Smoker, “The Elements of Harmony? Seriously? I mean,” she started laughing again, “Honestly, how can something called that be taken seriously?”
Twilight heard Tank talking from somewhere behind Smoker, “I find it difficult to believe that Witch was stopped by something so… unthreatening.”
Witch sighed, “Yeah well… not my proudest moment,” she said, half joking.
Twilight’s frown deepened, “My friends and I have used the Elements of Harmony to save Equestria numerous times, I don’t know how that’s so funny.”
Smoker, who had finished processing that information, spoke up, “Well, we aren’t exactly Equestria, are we?”
“We used them to save Equestria from Nightmare Moon and Discord, both of which would have ended life as we know it!” said Twilight, astonished at the lack of respect the infected were giving the legendary relics.
Smoker chuckled (it was more of a harsh wheezing sound but the meaning was the same, “Well wouldn’t that have been useful when the infection broke out, huh?”
Twilight’s faced went from frowning, to having a confused look, “Infection? What infection?”
Boomer tapped Smoker’s right shoulder, “Ah, are you sure you should be telling her about the Flu?”
Smoker sighed, “I’ve already mentioned it, might as well tell her. Besides, didn’t you promise the rainbow one you’d tell the story about Tank’s rampage in Riverside?”
Boomer paused to remember, then sighed, “Yes, I believe I did.”
Twilight became more and more confused by the minute. As far as she knew (which was pretty damn far) there was no place in Equestria known as ‘Riverside’ and surly she would have known if a large infection or flu broke out somewhere.
“I’m sorry, but I have no idea what any of you are talking about,” said Twilight.
Smoker blinked, as if he had forgotten that she was standing right there, then spoke, “Do you know what a zombie it?”
Twilight nodded her head cautiously, “Yes, I know what a zombie is.”
“Well, where we come from there is an infection, known as Green Flu. One of the main symptoms of this ‘Flu’ is that everyone infected with it turns into a zombie,” said Smoker.
Twilight’s expression went flat, “An influenza that turns ponies into zombies.”
Smoker nodded, “Well, now that I think about it, it was more like Rabies if anything.”
Twilight shuddered. Around two years ago, roughly the time Twilight first arrived in Ponyville, Fluttershy had told her about a racoon that was acting really aggressive and strange. A few days later the racoon had attacked another one of the animals Fluttershy was taking care of. No less than three hours later, the local veterinarian was there and informed her that both the racoon and the beaver had contracted rabies and had to be put down for the safety of herself and the other animals. Fluttershy was devastated to say the least both before and after the deed was done by the vet. Just thinking of ponies getting the disease made her shiver.
“So… a bunch of ponies got rabies? That’s horrible,” Twilight said.
Smoker shook his head, “No, they would have all been dead by the time it really set it. The entire east coast was infected besides small groups of survivors.”
Twilight’s confusing tripled, “If all the ponies would have been dead, then how can you be still alive?”
Smoker grinned darkly, a truly horrific sight, “Who said we were ponies to begin with?”
Twilight’s pupils shrunk. Dozens of possibilities of what they could be rushed through her head in the fraction of three and a half milliseconds. Before finally settling on, “Are you… aliens?”
Twilight heard Jockey completely lose it and Charger growling at him as Smoker chuckled again, “Aliens, never thought I would be called that. No, at one point the nine of us were Humans living in the United States of America before the infection set in.”
Twilight nodded, she would panic about learning the origins of the nine extra-terrestrials later, there was one last thing on her mind. “So, this infection, you must have a difficult time surviving with those zombies attacking you, right?”
"If your spirit suffers too much, you will soon start to hallucinate and in the end you will be destroyed. And more worrying yet is that you will not even be conscious of that fact." – Ib
Twilight was frozen on the spot; the implications of what Smoker had just said sinking in.
‘There are nine extra-terrestrial zombies standing in front of me,’ thought Twilight, oddly calm.
Meanwhile Hunter, who couldn’t pass up an opportunity like this and rolled his head back, opened his mouth and made a moaning sound,
“Brrrrraaaaaaaaaaaiiiinnnnnnnsssss.”
Twilight screamed in terror and bolted back inside her house and slammed the door. A few seconds later the infected heard the sounds of the door and windows being boarded up. Hunter started rolling on the ground with Jockey accompanying him. Screamer snickered at the scene while the other six infected glared at them.
Screamer was quick to defend them, “Come on, she was asking for it.”
Boomer glared at him, “You do realise that he just made the already fragile situation worse, right?”
Screamer shrugged, “Well… it can’t be any worse that the swamps, right?”
At the mention of the swamp, Spitter stiffened slightly, closed her eyes and began muttering under her breath. Smoker’s glare intensified at Screamer, the swamps were a touchy subject with Spitter. She did not want to be reminded about it.
Screamer noticed Spitter’s sudden change in behavior and wisely decided that he had said enough and went silent.
Tank rolled his eyes at the situation. So what if they were technically still infected? It’s not like they could still spread it, right? He thought about it for a moment, before concluding that, no, they would have seen he signs by now. Hell, the last time the first signs of the common infected (average everyday zombies) was as early as five minutes of even being in the same room as one of the infected.
“…What does that have to do with anything, Smoky?” asked Screamer, clearly annoyed, “I thought that you’d given up on that by now.”
Smoker glared at Screamer, “We don’t belong here. We’re already pushing out luck hoping that we’re not contagious anymore as it is. We need to find a method to return to Earth as quickly as we can.”
Screamer scoffed at him, “If I remember correctly, which I do, you have some debts to pay to some of the locals.”
Smoker raised an eyebrow at him, “Really?” he asked, deadpan.
Screamer grinned, “Oh? You’ve already forgotten damaging that bakery? What about the medical bills from oh, I don’t know, this morning?” noticing the frown Smoker was giving him Screamer gave a short laugh, “What? Did you think they were free? Honestly, why do you think I’m been working my ass of for the past few days? Passing the time?”
Smoker spat on the ground and Screamer noticed that the edges of the sclera on his eyes were turning black, but didn’t recognise it as very important.
Screamer turned back towards the library. Normally he wouldn’t care if people viewed him as some sort of monster, that happened all the time, but for some strange reason, it bothered him here. He sighed,
“For reasons I cannot explain, we have to convince Twilight that we’re not monsters,” Screamer said to the other infected. He paused, “Well, mostly.”
The other infected gave him varying types of looks, from a raised eyebrow to a stare of unnecessary hatred. Amusingly, (for Screamer) Spitter had her eyebrow raised and Smoker was giving a look that should have incinerated him on the spot. And, of course, the two were standing right beside each other.
Boomer nodded in agreement, “I think Screamer’s got the right idea, we need to clear our names from unnecessary titles.”
Jockey cackled and Hunter gave the impression of blinking under the bandage around his eyes.
“I have no idea how exactly you’re going to do it but, I’ll help in whatever way I can, Screech,” said Charger.
Witch mumbled something and Tank rolled his head. They too were in agreement. That only left Smoker and Spitter undecided.
“If we ever want to live here at all, I think we need our names cleared, right, Smoker?” said Spitter.
Smoker was silent, but ever so slightly shaking with some newly found rage. His eyes were completely black except for the yellow pinpricks of his pupils in the very middle of each eye.
“Do you think this is smart?” asked Smoker, his voice deadly quiet.
The infected went silent. As Smoker had said those words, it seemed that the very air itself had lost the mid-autumn warmth and was instead replaced with the bitter chill of winter. All of the infected (except Hunter) instantly took notice in the deranged look in Smoker’s eyes.
“Smoker..?” said Spitter cautiously, “Are you feeling alright?”
Smoker hacked violently, “You’re asking me if I’m alright? You’re the ones that are deranged!”
Looks of confusion passed on the infected’s faces. Something was very wrong with Smoker.
“I’m fine. Completely normal. It’s all of you that are acting different!”
“Smoker…” growled Charger. She did not like where this seemed to be heading.
“Shut up!” Smoker suddenly snapped, “I am fine! You… all of you need to listen to me!”
Screamer laughed sarcastically, “Oh, don’t worry Smoky, you’re our main focus of attention.”
The next thing Screamer knew was that he was crumpled on the ground, every part of him hurting. It had taken a moment to realise that Smoker had slammed him into the ground. Screamer saw the dark red form of Smoker’s tongue slowly reeling back into his mouth.
“I said shut up!” Smoker hissed at Screamer, his voice dripping with (metaphorical and partially literal) venom.
Charger quickly ran in between Smoker and Screamer, trying to prevent the former from hurting the latter any further.
“Smoker, calm down. Why are you doing this?” she asked sternly.
“Why am I doing this?” asked Smoker, be started to cough violently, “Why are all of you defending him? Isn’t it obvious?”
“Isn’t what obvious?” asked Tank, preparing to rain hell on Smoker if he attacked Witch.
“Screamer! He’s a traitor! He sold us out to the non-infected and is leading us all into a trap!” exclaimed Smoker.
A pained laugh was heard behind Charger.
“Go home, Smoker. You’re nuts,” said Screamer, the pain evident in his voice.
“Shut up you insane lunatic!” Smoker hissed.
Charger, Spitter and Tank tried to calm Smoker down while Boomer and Hunter tried to get Screamer away from Smoker’s wrath. Only Jockey and Witch remained on the sidelines, both unsure if they should try and contribute in the situation.
Suddenly, Hunter got an idea, “Boomer, I think I know what’s wrong with Smoker!”
“Let’s hear it. you’ve known him the longest, if anyone would know what’s making him act like this, I’d be you,” said Boomer as he tried to move Screamer’s crumpled body.
“Remember the day we first went to the doctors? The one where I was acting all weird?” asked Hunter.
Boomer nodded, “Yes, I do. Didn’t the doctor say afterwards that eventually we’d all have symptoms like yours…” he smiled, “You know what, Hunter? I think you’ve got it! After we get Screamer out of here, we need to go ask him what he did to sedate you and use it in Smoker.”
Hunter nodded as the two continued to drag Screamer away. After they were at a safe distance from Smoker, Boomer asked if Screamer was fit to walk.
“Yeah, I think so,” muttered Screamer as he shakily got to his hooves. He grinned weakly before collapsing again. He sighed, “Guess not.”
Boomer sighed, “We need to help Smoker, but we can’t do that with you just lying in the street. We need to get you someplace safe and not potentially in the line of fire, so to speak.”
Screamer muttered something incomprehensible.
“What was that?” asked Boomer.
“I said take me to that candy shop. I’ve been paying back the owners for a little while now, they’ll know who I am,” said Screamer.
Boomer glanced at Hunter, who scratched his left ear with his left hind leg. Sighing, Boomer went with Screamer’s idea and he and Hunter dropped him of around Sugarcube Corner.
“Remember, don’t tell anyone about our, ah,” Boomer nervously looked around, deciding that no one would hear him he continued, “Infection problem. We already have one freaking out and we really don’t need any more.”
Screamer waved his right hoof at him, “Yeah, yeah. I got it. Not go, Smoky’s probably still a little antsy.”
Boomers nodded, “Alright, take care, Screamer. You sure you can get there yourself?”
Screamer nodded as he managed to get upright. “I’ll be fine. Now, get outta here.”
Boomer smiled, “Alright. See you when we get the situation under control.”
With those parting words, Boomer and Hunter rushed to the hospital. About half way there, Boomer began to lose pace with Hunter. Hunter noticed this and slowed down.
“Boomer, are you alright?” asked Hunter.
Boomer stopped, panting, “I’m fine, just a bit tired. Go on ahead, I’ll catch up.”
Hunter nodded and bounded away to the hospital again, hoping that he could get a hold of some sedatives to calm down Smoker.
“I cannot believe that just happened,” Tank grumbled as he glared at the quickly fading cloud of smoke that marked where Smoker was once standing.
“What I want to know is where the hell he learned that,” said Spitter, “Seriously, teleporting by trying to fake his death. I want to know how to do that.”
Charger sighed, “Whatever happened, we need to find him as soon as possible. He’s already dangerous enough when he’s sane. This is just making it even worse.”
“Where could he have gone?” asked Spitter.
Charger shrugged, “Hell if I know. Hunter seems to know Smoker better that all of us. When he gets back with Boomer, let him lead us to Smoker.”
Witch frowned and sighed. She could just tell that this would end anything but well. She had a feeling in her gut. She glanced at Jockey who was in the odd position of half standing and half sitting, like usual. ‘Probably his arms that are making him look like that,’ Witch thought to herself.
Jockey always did look odd. What with his enlarged upper back and spine sticking out of his back. Witch smiled despite the situation when Charger jokingly mentioned that he looked like a monkey. She also mentioned that Tank used to resemble and ape, as he couldn’t properly support himself on his legs he had to resort to a type of knuckle walk that apes used to walk around.
Witch sighed. The probably would be the last memory where nothing bad was happening for a while. She continued to think about the good moments of the past until her thoughts were interrupted by Boomer, who was panting heavily.
“Good, you’re still here,” Boomer panted. He looked around, “Where’s Smoker?”
Spitter spat out some goo out of her mouth, it sizzled quietly on the ground, “Your guess is as good as mine. He just vanished in a cloud of smoke, like a stereotypical ninja.”
Boomer nodded and sighed, “Hunter’s on his way to a doctor’s to try and find something to calm Smoker down. He seems to know what’s troubling him.”
The other infected nodded, bur remained silent. Instead, they went off to try and track down Smoker. They left knowing full well that Hunter would be able to find them. After all, that’s what hunters are good at.
The city burned violently around Smoker. His yellow eyes burned as he stalked his prey as silently as he could through the chaos. There were other infected around him, most of them fleeing after an unseen prey. But, that did not interest Smoker in the slightest. No, all he wanted was his prey. And there it was, within catching distance. Already Smoker loosened his jaw and his tongue started to snake its way out of his throat and hang limply out of his mouth. His eyes narrowed as he targeted in on his prey. Slowly, Smoker crouched slightly, preparing to strike.
The attack was silent, or, it should have been if Hunter hadn’t decided to intercept his tongue and tear it in half.
Smoker hissed and glared at Hunter as he saw his prey flee in terror and eventually out of sight. Angrily, Smoker walked up to Hunter and glared at him.
“You made my prey get away,” he growled.
Hunter shook his head, “That’s not your prey. Smoker, you’re not hunting anything anymore. You’re in Ponyville and you’re sick.”
Smoker made an odd wheezing sound, “Of course I’m sick you idiot! You’re sick, Spitter’s sick, we’re all sick! And what? Ponyville? What the hell kind of a name is that?!”
Hunter sighed, “Smoker, you’re not on Earth anymore. You’re in Equestria and now you’re sick. Here, I’m trying to help you.”
Hunter pulled out a small capsule of tranquilizer pills and offered it to Smoker, who it as on unlit Molotov cocktail. Smoker stared at in in disbelief before slowly removing it from Hunter’s grasp. His eyes flickered from Hunter to the incendiary weapon, then back to Hunter. Suddenly, Smoker made a hacking sound mixed with a hiss and threw the bottle of gasoline at a nearby tree.
“I was wrong,” Smoker muttered, his eyes slowly filling up with rage.
“Wrong about what?” asked Hunter. Although Hunter couldn’t see his eyes, just by the tone of Smoker’s voice and the literal rage burring off Smoker made Hunter uneasy.
“Screamer isn’t the traitor,” muttered Smoker, “It’s you.”
If his eyes could widen in fear, Hunter’s would have as he felt a long, slimy, rubbery thing wrap around his chest and slam him into a tree multiple times. Slowly, Hunter’s mind began to slow down and his sight through echolocation began to weaken. The last thing Hunter ‘saw’ before losing consciousness was the foreboding shadow of Smoker descend upon him.
It wasn’t uncommon for the six infected to smell Smoker before they saw him. As they finally managed to track Smoker down, they made the assumption that Hunter was already with him. As they finally rounded a corner they found Smoker… kicking a badly beaten Hunter with his hooves.
“Even after all I’ve done for you; you have the nerve to betray me like this!” Smoker shouted at Hunter, who, from the lack of responding, Spitter assumed was unconscious.
Spitter quickly ran up to Smoker and tried to get him away from Hunter.
“Smoker, what are you doing?!” she yelled at him.
Smoker glared at her, “He sold us out to the non-infected!”
Spitter stared at him in disbelief, “What the hell are you talking about!?”
Smoker backed away from her and pointed to a broken capsule of what looked like tranquilizer pills that was leaking its contents on the ground.
“He sold us out to the non-infected and tried to kill me with that!”
Spitter looked at the broken capsule, than back at Smoker, “He tried to kill you with a bottle of pills?”
It was Smoker’s turn to stare at Spitter in disbelief, “Pills!? No! He tried to kill me with a fire bottle!”
Spitter slowly shook her head, “No… those are pills.”
Smoker frowned, and then he looked up with a fearful and angry look in his eyes as he slowly started to back away. “I get it now… it’s not just Hunter who sold me out… it was all of you!” Smoker shouted to Spitter and the other infected. “You cowards sold me out so you could live. Well, jokes on you! Their liars and murders!”
Charger stepped up to stand by Spitter. Whatever Smoker was going to do, nobody was going to get hurt unless Charger let them.
“Smoker, calm down,” she said sternly.
“Calm down? Calm down?! Why should I calm down?! You all betrayed me and left me for dead! Well…” Smoker’s voice trailed off as his regular cloud of black smoke began to form around his head, “You’ll die before I’ll let you catch me.”
“Tank…” muttered Witch, not liking where this seemed to be headed.
“Got it,” Tank muttered as he prepared himself to make a run at Smoker.
Smoker grinned again and began to laugh a psychotic, deranged laugh. It was so deranged; Witch seemed to notice that even Jockey, who had remained eerily silent, had shivered slightly. Tank took the laugh as the signal to charge and ran at Smoker as fast as he could go.
There was a wheeze, then a large burst of black smoke that enveloped the small area the infected were in as Smoker disappeared.
“Ah shit, not again,” muttered Charger.
“Where do you think he could have gone this time,” asked Spitter, slowly walking to Hunter.
Boomer had beaten her to Hunter. He looked over him, and then turned to Spitter. “We can worry about that later. Hunter needs a doctor. Now.”
Spitter nodded as she turned around and saw that the smoke was clearing. She slowly started to notice six, unidentifiable shapes in the fading smoke. She squinted to try and get a better look when the smoke finally cleared. When it did, she saw that it was Twilight and her friends, standing in half circle like formation around the infected. Each of them had golden necklaces with a symbol in the center of it around their necks but Twilight, who had a crown like thing. None of them looked amused.
Charger, who was checking Jockey, turned to talk to Spitter again when she noticed them.
