Dark Monarch's Rising

We needed a place to stay so we decided to go into the castle. We propped the doors back up with furniture around the lobby. We then continued to walk inside. It was not a happy place anymore. All of its color seemed to fade away as the floor cracked as we walked. We made it to the door of Celestia's room. I opened the door and heard a crash.

“What was that?” Ask Dr. Whooves.

“A trap.” I said. A bottle was hung on a string on the door so when opened it would break. “Not exactly a trap. It’s more like a warning.” I decided to keep going into the room. I saw the bed, nothing looked better than it at the moment. I laid down on the bed. Dr. Whooves was looking about the room in the drawers and dressers.

“Why are you going through their stuff?” I asked.

“Well, the world has gone to hell already. So why not take useful things here and there.” He said as he looked through a drawer.

“Put you hooves up!” Said a bright gray unicorn stallion with white and gold hair as he walked out of the closet. He had a gun.

A gun!?

One of the most unseen things in Equestria.

“Now!” He said as he pulled the hammer back. We both quickly lifted our front hooves to the air.

“What are you two doing here?! Especially an Alicorn!” he said as he studied me. “Wait… Monarch?”

“Uhh yeah?” I questioned.

“Yo…your dead!” He said as he pointed the gun at me.

“Woah! Hold up!” I said. “I can explain as long as you can tell me what the fuck happened here!”

“Fine.” He said as he lowered the gun. “Come on out!” A filly then walked out of the closet. She was very light blue with a gold mane. She was a Pegasus. Very young… I was amazed to see she was still alive in this wasteland.

“Now… what happened here do you say? Heh… long story. Long time ago you, Monarch, decided to call the Royal Guard on some suspicious Saddle Arabian ponies. They were then captured and held in cells. The Saddle Arabians then wanted them to be released immediately, but we couldn’t let them go that easy. We decided to hold them longer for interrogation purposes. They all said nothing so one day one of the guard members decided to use force to get one to speak. Big mistake. This outraged the Saddle Arabians, and we all know that they are one of the leaders in atomic and nuclear weapons.” Said the gray unicorn.

“But how did they get the technology for that?” asked Dr. Whooves.

“They bought it from secret organizations that called themselves the Scorpions. Every time they bought it. They shipped it right to them. They then got the blue prints for all of these weapons of mass destruction. Did they know how it worked? Yes, did they know what I did? No… They ended up bombing Ponyville once. That bomb destroyed small homes and businesses. The royal guard then was notified but they were no match. Saddle Arabian pegasi by the hundreds flew the bombs over to Ponyville and started to blow us to bits. The only safe place was near this castle. Celestia and Luna combined their magic to create a force field to help make it so the shock waves nor bombs could get to us... but after so many years… Luna died leaving Celestia alone to protect her people. She died just about a week later. Many ponies went to the Crystal Kingdom such as princess Twilight. Them two were there to protect the kingdom. Are they still there? No one knows, but their force field still stands but for another reason.”

“What would that reason be?” I asked.

“The bombs caused a fungus to rapidly mutate. This fungus before mutation took dead insects and brought them to life to bring them to another place only to use its basic functions. Eat and sleep, but now the dead ponies that got this fungus are now 'Zombies' almost.”

“Wait so they are alive again?”

“No, the fungus takes over the body and uses it to transport itself.”

“How do you get infected?”

“Spores that you breathe in can cause the fungus to grow in your insides. But being bit by an infected… also will do it too.” He said as he looked at the filly. She began to rub her back were a bite mark was.

“She's infected!” Yelled Dr. Whooves.

“Now calm down. She's been like that for two years now.”

“So… she's immune?”

“I'm hoping she is immune, cause then we could possibly find a cure for this.”

“Well Its my turn to explain. I am Monarch and He is Dr. Whooves.”

“He's not the Dr. Whooves I remember.”

“Your right” Said Dr. Whooves. “I'm Dr. Whooves the Third. I'm here cause of this guy.” He said as he looked at me.

“Hey man don’t put this on me even though it is my fault.” I said. “Well anyways… We are here because we went back in time to save somepony from dying. It ended up causing this though.”

“So you are from the future?”

“Yes, yes we are.” I said looking back at the filly to see its bite mark.

“Well, I guess I can believe that.”

“He has my parts!” Yelled Dr. Whooves.

“Woah dude watch how you word some things.” I said trying to make a joke.

“No! The parts to my time machine!” He said as he pointed to the closet. There they were. The control unit, the fusion generator, and the main processor unit from the computer. He went to get them back but was stopped.

“One more step and I'll blow your brains out.” Said the unicorn pointing the gun at him.

“You don’t need those! We do!”

“Heh, you two are gonna have to earn them back.”

“What are you talking about?!’’

“I'm talking I need to do work that required stallions like us to complete. Do you see anyone of my squad here?!”

“Squad?...”

“Yes squad. I'm part of P.O.N.Y.”

“And that is?”

“Ponies Of Nuclear Years.”

“Sounds kind of fake to me.”

“Well think all you want. Its been here forever to fight against the Scorpions.”

“Doctor…just do what the stallion says.” I said.

“The is bullshit…” mumbled Dr. Whooves.

“Now tomorrow, we will go to town to acquire a carriage. Then after that you will earn one of your parts back. Okay?”

“Fine with me.” I said.

“Fuck that!” Said Dr. Whooves. “ I'm not gonna…” I put my hoof over his mouth.

“Just shut up and fucking do it if you ever wanna get home.”

“Now get some rest you two.” He said as he put out the candles.

The next day.

We awoke to the unicorn shouting “Get up ladies! Rise and Shine! We got work to do!” We both got up to see him and the filly with all kinds of weapons spread out on the floor.

“Take what you need and lets go.” He said as he filled his saddle bag with shotgun shells.

“Your trusting us with these?”

“Yeah. You point the gun at me I'll break your precious time machine parts.”

“Sounds fair to me.” I said looking at all the guns. I never really shot a gun before, but The cross bow I have. I picked up the cross bow looking through its mounted scope. I liked it, but I need to get a gun. I picked up a 6-gun. I thought hey can be that hard to work right? Dr. Whooves chose his guns also. He chose more of a sub machine gun class.

“What about her?” I asked as I pointed at the filly.

“Lily is fine as long as we protect her. Got it?”

“Got it.” We then walked to the castle entrance and moved the furniture away.

“So I never got your names.” I said trying to start conversation.

“Overwhelming Light, and this is Lily” I kept thinking if she was his daughter or just somepony he decided to save.

“So where did you get all these guns?” asked Dr. Whooves.

“Well when the world goes to shit, people will do anything for safety. Me, I went and bought out a small gun salesman in Ponyville.” After moving all the furniture we pushed the door open that wasn’t broken. We looked outside. There was barely any light at all.

“Where's the sun? Its early shouldn’t it be rising?” I asked because I remember it being this dark last night.

“Well, after the Princesses died there is no control over the sun and moon. It kind of randomly does its own thing.” replied Overwhelming Light.

We kept going to Ponyville. When we got closer we saw the destruction that the Saddle Arabians caused. Buildings just seems like cardboard forts and any form of life was taken away.

“In here.” Light pointed to a carriage shop. We went in to see a strange fungus covering the interior.

“Shit! Put these on!” Said Overwhelming light as he gave us all gas masks. “Don’t breath in the spores from the fungus. It will cause you to turn into one of them freaks.”

I heard somepony or something moving in the upstairs room. I then heard the sound of hoof steps coming down stairs. There was one of them. Rotting flesh with hollow black eyes covered in the fungus. The body was nothing but a puppet without a master.

“Stay quiet. It can't find us if it can't hear us.” Said Overwhelming Light as he crept to the back door of the shop. I followed and made it to the door along with Lily. I waved Dr. Whooves over. He was scared out of his mind. He was shaky and stumbled across the floor tripping and breaking one of the glass jars. The infected then turned and let out a blood curdling yell. Its mouth now opening in four different parts and having rows of teeth like a shark.

“Run!” Yelled overwhelming light as he shot the infected pony as the rest of us ran outside.

“What the fuck was that?!” Asked Dr. Whooves.

“That there is what I call a screamer. Its one of the most rare of the infected. Sorry it had to be the first one you saw.” He said shining his gun with a rag. “Now lets find us a carriage.”

We went over to the nearest one seeing if it was completely built.

“Lets take this one.” I said playing with the harness.

“That’s not the carriage you want after you see this one.” Overwhelming Light said as he walked over to a large white cover. He pulled the cover off to unveil a motorized carriage with a mounted machine gun of it.

“Holy fucking hell!” I said walking to it.

“This here is my creation. It was here to be fixed but since the outbreak of the fungus I haven’t been able to get it.”

“Pretty impressive but what does it run on?” Asked Dr. Whooves.

“Well there is two solar panels to charge the battery. But guess what, no sun. The engine is out of a machine from the mill. This here is the steering wheel. Self explanatory, and this… this is the biggest baddest gun you will ever see left.” He said holding the machine gun.

“So I'm guessing this is made to be a war vehicle.” I said.

“War against those fucking freaks yeah.” He said as he shot one bullet off into the air. “Get on. You Monarch, you gun. Doctor, you and Lily will also gun but from your seats. Me, I'm driving this bitch!” He said turning a key and igniting the engine to hear a roar of pure power. He revved the engine as we got in. Once we sat down he said this before hitting the throttle making us do a wheelie. “Get in! Hold on! And shut up!” we flew out of the back lot of the carriage shop heading towards the paths in Ponyville filled with the infected.

“Shoot em up Monarch!” He yelled. I pulled the trigger and the gun fired automatically. I aimed at each individual infected mowing them down.

“Good shootin’!” He said looking back with a smile. I guess I learned how to use a gun real quick there.

We went to the castle after the path was cleared.

“Where are we going now?” I asked.

“First we are going to get our guns and belongins' from the castle then its off the saddle Arabia!”

“Why there?!”

“There's secret underground bunkers from the war there. It has food and water and even more guns!”