The dead move.

by mrlordowaffles

Rating: teen
Tags: Dark, Romance, Comedy, Adventure
Length: 18981

What's it like to be an earth pony during the zombie apocalypse, what do they need to do that others don't?

Swift hooves, above average in many aspects, perhaps the only pony of his kind, though what of his companions and adventures? What struggles will he go through and what decisions will he have to make? Watch his progress be spread out before you, and of course those of his companions as well.

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2014-01-04 04:01:52 UTC

Flesh eaters.

"Fuck fuck fuck!" The light purple mare, a low level employee at the Canterlot times, was now being chased by what she deemed, the flesh eaters. Groups of ponies who seemed to have had lost their minds, they ate meat, any meat...even pony meat.

At first it had started off with hardly noticeable things, slight headaches, coughing now and then, but as it progressed, the cravings began, you would look at animals and get hungry, then in about two days even your friends would look appetizing. Within two weeks things had gotten horribly out of control the few who had been infected with this mystery...disease? Virus? Whatever it was, it had killed the ponies, but then they would get back up, they were not who you knew, now they were just vicious animals wanting to eat. If the bit you, scratched you or got their liquids in an open wound, you were screwed.

This mare knew that for a fact, they had bitten her left back leg about a day and a half now, and now she was racing for the roof top, scribbling notes down with her telekinesis all the while, someone would need to know about what she had seen, the horrors, what these...things were capable of. She reached the rooftop and threw her notepad to another roof with all of her telekinetic might, and jumped.

The infected ponies began to disperse on the rooftop looking for their prey, howling in primal anger that they could not find it.

Swifthooves was running as if his very life depended on it, because he was in one Tartarus of a situation, the general store down the road a ways was having a massive sale on canned peaches, his favorite, and those things would be flying off the shelves. As he entered the store he saw that a lot of ponies that had the same idea as him, get dem peaches. He began a slow trot over to the peaches, a few cans were left, victory, sweet sweet peachy victory.

In the background he heard a radio, it was describing what was going on in Canterlot, some kind of mystery disease had broken out, and now ponies were going all kinds of crazy, he didn't really pay attention though, he grabbed a basket in his mouth and walked over to the peaches, swiping in a few cans into the basket, he left about five on the shelf, no need to be greedy.

Along the way he grabbed a few other foods and ingredients, some flour, some bread, little bit of butter for said bread. He walked up to the counter, this was one of his favorite places to shop, the owner was very nice to pretty much everypony, the only ponies he seemed not to like were the ones that viewed themselves above others, he was a good stallion.

"Good afternoon Swifthooves." Abacus greeted you at the counter. His special talent was being very, very good at math, hence the name he had.

"Afternoon abacus, how are you?" This was typical of the two, they were never exactly friends, but if they saw each other they would wave, maybe have some nice chit-chat

"I am doing pretty well, 14 bits please." Normally the canned peaches would be a bit and a half for a can, but now they were just one, quite the deal.

Handing him the money, he said. "Seeya later Abacus, have a nice day."

The cashier smiled. "I always do Swift."

"Celestia dammit! Where is the royal army!?" General Hardsteel was moving about the strategy room, this epidemic was turning into a disaster, the royal army was nowhere to be seen, how was he supposed to help with no troops to order? About halfway through thinking that he heard loud shouts coming from the end of the hall that the door was connected to. "What in the Tartarus is that?" He grabbed the mace he was known for using in his telekinetic grip and began to move towards the door, opening it he could see mass hysteria, crazed ponies covered in blood had gotten in somehow, a majority of them looked like the royal army.

"General Hardsteel! We need some help here!" Four royal guards were doing there best to hold off a massive wave of zombies, there might have been over a hundred, the only reason they had not yet been completely decimated was because of how thin the hallways were, one more pony would make little difference, but this pony happened to have an ironpony suit. Running back to the strategy room he put it on hastily, a few straps were loose, but it would have to do.

Charging back out he saw that the situation had gotten worse, they were losing ground quite steadily to the zombie horde, running head first horn swinging like mad, he got in the middle of the group of zombies, the iron pony suit doing exactly what it was made for, protecting him from all harm. He quickly dispatched ten of the zombies to have another thirty replace them, even with his suit this might be too much.

The group from before, getting the idea went to the strategy room one at a time to get ironpony suits, seeing that they would be the best possible defense against these things. When all three had essentially become invincible to the zombies, the ran in, just as Hardsteel had, Quickly getting rid of the rest of the remaining moving dead. Hardsteel began to talk, sounding quite exhausted. "What... the Tartarus...are these...things?"

"We have no idea sir."

Swifthooves made his way back to his humble little home, it was closer to the edge of town, he was a bit of a recluse and he knew it, he liked it that way, less ponies means less problems. Entering his household we went straight for his can opener, gotta have dem peaches. He began to eat his peaches, and then went to the living room holding the bowl in his teeth and proceeding to set it down on a nearby table, he flipped on his radio, nothing quite like eating some peaches while getting the news and listening to some music.

What he heard surprised him greatly, screaming, loud soul piercing screaming, he quickly switched to another station. What the fuck was that?! This station was talking about that disease again, the same from the store actually, it had apparently knocked out a large portion of the Canterlot population, and that the dead bodies were...getting back up.

Chaos

"If the dead were getting back up, then they weren't dead right?" Swifthooves was walking around in his small living room, pondering what he just heard and what was still being said.

"We are live at a hospital where we believe the infection first broke out. We can now see what looks to be a doctor coming out to greet us, he sure is moving fast...Oh shit! Someone do something, help!"

After hearing what just happened the signal stopped, he turned off his radio. The screams of the reporter mare still echoing in his head.

"I really need some fresh air." At that thought he went out, on the outskirts of Canterlot it was so peaceful, but in the center of his city people were dying...and then killing other ponies. What kind of disease does that? He had heard of this thing called poison joke, could it have been that, was this all some kind of sick twisted ruse?

Hearing a commotion outside he went to one of his windows. "Oh shit." A group of the infected ponies were outside his house, to be more precise, they were tumbling/shuffling along outside his house.

(From this point on 90% of the story will be first person.)

I walked over to the curtains and closed them, I also turned off all the lights, Hoping to Celestia that the things did not notice. I heard a howling noise outside, buck my life. I calmly went into my attic, might as well remain calm in the face of death right? What happened next surprised me greatly, looking out from my attic window I saw a Pegasus above the horde of zombies, he or she was guiding them away, none of them could get him or her because well, she was doing her Pegasus thing.

I was beyond thankful, but I could not really state it, what with the whole, I could die if I got their attention thing. I noticed that she was a chestnut brown color with a pink and black swirled mane, the amount of work into making it do that must have been excruciating.

If the damned things were already here, then I had to leave. I went back downstairs to go to my bedroom and retrieve my saddle bags, they weren't very big, but they would have to do. Of the few things I grabbed the most important were my stores of water, a few bottles full, cans of peaches, delicious, and my hoof blades, thank Celestia for my martial arts training...from about 8 years ago.

The hoof blades were like bracelets that went around your fore hooves containing small blades that went out about 4 inches and faced directly in front of the pony using them. By lifting up one of your fore-hooves you could bring your hoof down releasing a mechanism the brought the blade to be at the bottom of the aforementioned hoof, that way you could make stabbing and slicing motions.

To say that these were less than bad-ass would be a blatant lie, nay, and unforgivable lie. In my moment of pondering what justices I would deal out if someone did such a horrible act, a loud banging came from my door. "FUCK!" Dammit, why'd you have to go and scream like that, now the thing knows your here.

I walked over to my door, preparing my right hoof blade and rising it to be where I believed the throat of the infected pony might be, opening the door with my left hoof would be hard, and would leave me off balance for a minute, but I could handle it. I opened and moved my hoof forward, and stopped. It was the chestnut brown Pegasus, a mare.

She was standing there in what I believed to be in confusion and a little bit of hysteria. "Uhm, could you move that away from my face, I did kinda save your life probably and stuff, soooo yeah, now would be good." Doing as she asked I ushered he insida

"What's going on out there?" I could not bare to listen to the radio anymore, that's even if any stations were working anymore. The Pegasus mare looked around my living room for about 30 seconds before answering me, it was a little frustrating, I liked answers to be given to me quickly.

"Well, we've got full scale rioting in the center of the city, but that died down right quickly, as in literally died down, everyone died." She used died way to much. "And now those fucked up ponies you saw?" I nodded my head. "Yeah, they're kind of everywhere, I heard from a friend that this is not the only place the disease got to, even the small places like Ponyville are feeling it.

"Wheres Ponyville at?" I had heard of it before, but had absolutely no idea where it was.

"It's a  little southwest of here. Look, if you want to live, then we need to get out of here, I have seen what those...things, can do, it is not safe here." But this was my nice safe little home, then again I was about to leave myself so why am I trying to argue my way out of it with myself? Screw you confusing brain thingy.

"Okay, I guess we can go, how full is your saddlebag?" She stuck out her hoof and shake it kind of like you would with a salt shaker with your mouth, taking it as about half full I lead her to my kitchen, we would probably need more water.

After filling it some stray bottles and squeezing some in her saddlebags I noticed hers were bigger than mine, which in turn probably meant heavier, being the chivalrous pony I am a thought came to me. "Do you want me to carry that saddlebag and you can carry this one, yours looks a bit heavier?"

"Oh, so you think that because you're a stallion you have to help the poor defenseless mare?" She raised an eyebrow at me in a slightly playful gesture, then heaved off her saddlebag with noticeable effort.

"No, I thought that since I am the bigger of the two of us, that I should carry the heavier load." I smiled at her, content with my answer. I put my saddlebag on the ground, the picked hers up and set it on my back starting on the straps on my underbelly to fasten it on.

"Well, isn't that kind of you." We both laughed a little, obviously quite afraid of going back out, but it had to be done. We went to my door. "Are you ready." Her voice was a little weak and quivering a little.

"Nope, lets do this."

Well shit.

I turned to her. "Nope."

She turned to me. "Nope."

I turned to the door."Nope."

She closed the door."Nope."

"So we're in agreement then?" I turned to look at the Pegasus to my right.

"Yep, not dealing with any of that, not today at least."

When we opened the door we had expected things to be about the same in the amount of time we were in my house, approximately 45 minutes. The reality of it however, was that things went to Tartarus a whole lot faster than we had thought would be physically possible.

From what we could see fires had erupted all over the city, a group of the infected was just within our field of vision, we could see an entire building seeming to fall apart in the distance, and on top of it all some more were walking down the street, how was this spreading so quickly?

She closed the door then looked back to me. "So? You got a backdoor?" I turned to look at her with a face that said.""Really, we live in Canter-fucking-lot, of course I have a back door."" I proceeded to face-hoof and walk over to my backdoor.

"Look I know I live a bit far away from ponies, but still that does not mean I am not a civilized one. Speaking of that, why and how did you get to this area, also, how did you know I lived in here?" We had still not exited out the door, we just kind of lingered by it, probably because we were subconsciously scared out of our minds, or maybe it was on the forefront of our minds.Either way, there was no way we were going out, not now at least.

She turned to me, a small sad smile on her lips was beginning to form. "Well, the why is because I was going out on a nice little flight, not being a strong flyer I have to take some walking breaks now and then. The how is even easier to answer." She then flared out her wings while raising an eyebrow at me."

I felt pretty darn stupid now, she had wings, so she definitely had to swim here, only plausible answer. She began to speak again, letting her wings come back to nice little folded up piles of feather on her back. "I didn't actually know you lived here until you started closing your blinds, you're not very good at being subtle are you?"

"So is that why you started flying above that group of the infected ponies, to lead them away? Did they notice?"

She winced a little bit at the memory, it must have been very frightening, to have had your life potentially in danger, even if you could fly it must have been scary. "A few noticed, but my guess is that if one does, then it will start making noise and that will attract the rest of them." She went over to one of my windows and looked out it very carefully. "Well shit." She said it so calmly that I thought that either she was very afraid, or it was not that bad.

"We have to go. Now." Very afraid, got it.

"How bad is it?" I was fast, hence the name, and I could keep a much faster pace for a lot longer than other ponies, but the infected ponies always just kind of walked so in theory we would not have to move to quickly.

"They found another pony, he or she is running very quickly, and they are keeping up." Well that theory can go fuck itself then, I'm a runner, not a scientist I suppose. I now looked out the window, hoping that this pony would be able to outrun the infected ponies.

"Wait, is he or she running...here?" It looked like she nodded, her head was turned away from me.

"I have to go out there, I can fly above that group and distract them, while I do that you bring him or her over here, got it?" I was about the speak against that plan, but what else could we really do? This pony obviously needed some help, we were here, we had to do it...she had to do it. I was doing practically nothing at all, not a good day to be an earth pony it seems.

I lead her to the attic window, it opened and was large enough for a small Pegasus to fly through, luckily she was one. "Okay, any last minute details you would like to go over?" I was worried, gaining one more person over the possible loss of another was a bit scary.

"No, but keep this window open, it will be safer than having to open the door again." She looked to me with a grim yet determined look on her face. "Oh, you should probably board up your windows and door, keep the back door the way it is though, we still have to get out of here sometime."

Right after finishing her sentence she sprang out the window, flared out her wings, and began to fly. It would have been graceful had she not dropped for about three feet first, but she managed to stay aloft all the same. I ran down the stairs to get to one of the ground floor windows. I could see her, she was now nearly on top of the crowd of infected ponies. The what now looked to be unicorn pony, another mare, was afraid out of her wits.

I opened to door and waved to her with my right fore hoof, she did not notice. I got on my hind hooves and motioned to her with both of my fore hooves, easier said than done by far. Now she had finally noticed and began to sprint in my direction. I had to say she certainly could move quickly for a unicorn.

"Get out of my way!" She barreled past me. "Close that door!" I did so, how rude of her. She plopped down on my couch in the living room, she had knocked over my radio, it was now broken on the floor, months of entertainment destroyed just like that, this pony was extremely rude, I mean come on common courtesy much?

"Wa-water please." Her voice was raspy. Then it hit me, she was not rude, or maybe she was, she was just scared...for her life and all. I went to the kitchen and grabbed a cup in my jaws then turned on the tap with my hoof. Nothing came out. I jiggled the knob and turned it more, still nothing. I grabbed one of the bottles of water and brought it to her.

She grabbed it in her telekinesis thingy and drank half of it in about 3 seconds...this was a two liter bottle... I stopped her, I knew from experience that if you drank to much in a state like this, you would be throwing up all over the place. She glared daggers at me, then it looked like she thought for a minute and then frowned a little.

"S-sorry, I was running like that for over an hour, I am not meant for that." By the end of her sentence she was out of breath again.

"Hey, don't talk just rest up some, be sure to drink some more water but not as quickly as before, don't need you puking all over the place. I was worried, did the infected ponies ever feel tired? Could they just keep going as easily as I thought they could?

I never got to know what the name of that Pegasus was, now I might not ever be able to.

It's about time.

"Okay, well my Pegasus acquaintance should be with us in a little while." I really hoped she would be okay, to many ponies were dying already. "In the mean time though would you like to tell me what got you to this point, I mean from what you said earlier, you know about running like that for over an hour, you must have traveled quite the distance."

She took another drink of water from the bottle with her telekinesis, that would be so useful to have. "I worked in a daycare for small colts and fillies, I was the nurse." She was shaking a lot now, if this was going where I thought this was going, I did not want to hear it. "One of those...things, got its way into the daycare."

"I-I understand, please don't say anything more." I do not need this, I did not need to hear this.

"No, no you don't. The infected pony never got past the main room, all of the kids were fine, but one of the other workers was bitten, it's spreading faster. I have always watched viruses and outbreaks, it's a weird hobby but it's also a useful one. It used to take weeks for it take hold and turn them, now it can take just hours."

'

"From what little I know about whatever this is, it takes over the brain or something of a pony and then makes it violent...or maybe just lets them only have the most basic of primal instincts?" She threw her fore hooves in the air. "I don't know, I'm not an expert."

"But you were in the medical field right, sure a daycare nurse is not much..." Before I could finish what I was saying she started speaking, loudly.

"I'll have you know that I am quite proud of where I worked and of how important my job was, without me some of those little ones might have had long lasting, lifetime long, problems!"

"Okay okay, just keep it down, we do not need anymore of those things coming towards us." Loud is bad, therefore do not be loud, easy as pie, right?

Directly after finishing that though, we heard a pretty loud crashing sound coming from my attic, either they could jump, ridiculously high, or the Pegasus was back. "By Celestia if they can jump I am going to flip so much shit." The unicorn looked at me with a look of bewilderment, damn, guess I am really that vulgar.

I went to my stairs, my right hoof blade ready to go in an instant, then a thought stuck me, I knocked on the door. She knocked back. "It's me." I opened the door, and then she hugged me, ooooookay this is happening.

"So, uhm... what happened?" I pushed myself off of her, not comfortable with being touched without knowing about it before it happens. She looked quite afraid. "Please don't say you were bitten by one of them."

A look of horror came onto her face. "No! I mean no, no I wasn't. It's just..I-I saw they are capable of, these things aren't like normal ponies, they don't get tired." I had already gathered that much from the unicorn downstairs, on that note I put a hoof on her shoulder and then motioned to the stairs. "They stopped chasing me eventually, they saw an easier target..." She was now visibly shaking, shaking so hard that I could feel it in my hooves, she was making the ground around her move, how does that even happen? No, now is not the time for this, got to comfort her and crap.

"Come on, lets go down stairs, get some water in you, relax a little and then we have to go." She nodded, shaking less, but still shaking. She began nodding, then started going towards the stairs, then she fell down.

"Oh please tell me you were not lying about not being bitten!" I inspected her body, nothing perverted you sicko. She had no marks, not a thing, what surprised me is that she appeared to be in really good shape, except her wings, from what little I knew, they were really weak.

I picked her up, easier said than done, and walked rather precariously down the stairs, dropping her here could mean some seriously bad news. I made it to the living room and saw the unicorn, she had fallen asleep on the couch, great, now where am I going to put this Pegasus?

"Put me down." She had spoken rather quietly, although slightly angrily. I got down on my I got down on all four knees and then shrugged the right side of my body which effectively had her move slightly to my left. I repeated this two times more and she finally had gotten off of my back, and fairly gently at that too. "Oof." Okay, maybe not that gently, I tried okay?!

"Ya know, I don't think that I have had two mares over wanting to sleep so near to me in a long time." The Pegasus hit me on my left forehoof. "Ow, it was a joke. So whats your name anyway, I really don't like this whole, ""work with me without knowing a thing about me deal."" that we have going on."

"My name is Storm, Rainstorm." Well, that's not ominous as Tartarus. She went back to sleeping...on the floor... I decided to go ahead and pick her back up and go upstairs again, my bedroom was up there, she would need a nice comfy area to sleep at. After the semi-difficult task of getting her up there I decided to go ahead and sleep on the floor in the living room, grabbing a blanket and pillow in my teeth I walked down to see that the unicorn was still asleep. I shut my eyes and began to dream of better times.

What now?

There was a rainbow in the sky, birds were chirping and I was on my way to yet another canned peach sale, then I heard what sounded like banging. "Ugh, go away..." Now then back to that ever oh so awesome dream...wait, banging? "Oh shit!" I rushed to one of my windows that had a crack in-between the boards I and the unicorn had put up a few hours ago, then went  back to sleep after doing so. What I saw scared the Tartarus out of me, the infected ponies knew we were here or something because they were just aimlessly banging against my house, luckily they were not specifically aiming for anywhere that would give more easily, so they probably don't know we are here, but why are they banging against my house then?

"Mughfphu, no more coffee you stupid walrus." What the fuck kind of dream is that, seriously unicorn, what the Tartarus? You know what who cares, I need to wake her up anyway, we have got to get out of here...somehow. I prodded her with my hoof a couple of times, nothing, then I prodded her face. "No walrus, I don't swing that way..." What the flying fuck was that.

She had finally began to stir a bit, I continued to shake her around a little, hoping not to make her freak out. "Urfmph, what do you want?"

"First, we have a problem outside, second, a walrus?" seriously, a fucking walrus, what's up with that? Her face was priceless, it was a mix between anger, shock, revulsion and a little curiosity, mostly anger though.

"What the Tartarus is wrong with you!" She now looked a little a bit bashful. "Uhm-uh what did I say...exactly?" Her cheeks glowed a bright red from the amount she was blushing.

"Well something along the lines of enjoying some coffee with a walrus when I think he or she tried to put a move on you." I wiggled my eyebrows at her and grinned a little. Messing with this unicorn was going to be so much fun. I had decided to go ahead and take a look at her cutie mark, I honestly had no idea why I had not before, it was a syringe that had two bandages covering it in an X formation. "So what's your name, I think that we are probably going to be spending some time together, whether it be by choice or by a mutual need for help."

"My name is Strongheart, you can probably guess what I am best a doing."

"Heart related things, right? Also, why would you work in a nursery and not a hospital?"

"Yeah, heart related things... mostly surgeries and transplants, I worked in a DAYCARE not a nursery, and I worked in the DAYCARE because I liked kids more, they are so much more fun to be around."

"Okay okay, daycare I get it, I am gonna go wake up Storm now, oh yeah the Pegasus' name is Rainstorm." I proceeded to walk towards the stairs when I heard Strongheart gasp. "Did you look out the window?" I did not turn around.

"Yeah, why didn't you tell me as soon as I woke up?"

"I was hoping not to make you freak out, I was going to wait until both of you were up that way I could tell the both of you." It really did seem like a good Idea. But then again having two ponies freak out at the same time would be kind of bad. "Well I am just going to go wake her up now, do try and be quiet." I smiled sarcastically and went up the stairs.

I went to the door and opened it, she was awake and sitting on the bed. "Before you say anything, yes I know there are a lot out there, no, I have no idea how to get out of this situation, no I cannot fly over them to distract them while you two get away, my wings are tired, and no I am not going to freak out." Well with that all covered I decided to go ahead and sit, what else would I do.

"Well shit, I was kinda hoping you could do your whole flying thingamajig." Her face had a look that said ""Thingamajig!? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?!"" I was now worried that she would be angry at me, an angry traveling companion is a bad companion to travel with.

"Well uhm uh, moving on. I think we should wait here for one more day, if more come then we wait until you can hopefully be able to fly again, if they leave then we leave on hoof."

"Okay, that sounds sensible, but what do we do in the meantime?"

I honestly have no Idea. "Lets go down and discuss it with Strongheart, oh yeah that's the unicorns name by the way." She said nothing, but rather decided to go down the stairs, I joined her in doing so. When we reached the bottom we found that Strongheart had began to sleep again, I really hope that this does not happen a lot.

"Okay, well maybe we should just let her sleep, I mean she did probably see some pretty fucked up things out there." Storm was right, she had seen it happen to another pony at least once.

"Yeah, okay, well I have...board games we could play?" She turned to me, her face surprised me immensely, it was pure jovial happiness, maybe suggesting that was a mistake, all I really had was checkers and a game that came from the Griffon lands, you have to throw a ring on to some pegs, it's weird.

'Ooooh what games do you have, do you have checkers?" Well, that worked in my favor quite nicely.

"Yes, yes I do, in fact I am quite glad that you asked, I only really had two."

-Hours of checkers later...and a lot of eye twitching.-

"Enough! No more checkers, I have one other game for the love of Celestia lets play that." I had won a lot more than I had lost, but still, even with that happiness and excitement of winning, things got dull quickly.

"Nah, it's night time, I think I am going to go to be...do you mind if I use the bed again?" Huh, that's the first time any mare has ever asked to be in my bed, haha sex joke, I love my brain. "Hello, you there?" she began to wave a hoof in my face.

"Yeah, yeah sure go ahead, I'll just sleep on the cold, hard, uncomfortable ground..."

"Thanks!" Dammit, she had a grin on that was plastered with sarcasm. My pillow and blanket were still down here so I decided to go ahead and just head to sleep as well, what else would I do?

I guess I have to.

I woke up startled, it was an unusually loud bang from one of the infected ponies that had woken me up. "I was having a nice dream again, why can I never have a nice dream?" I looked out one of the small holes between the boards, it was night time, I proceeded to my kitchen, it was the closest clock to me. "3:49 A.M. that is a totally sensible time to wake up, yeah." I had copious levels of sarcasm flowing with that sentence. Ponies would DIE if they heard the amount of sarcasm in that sentence.

"MOTHERFUCKER!" It was really dark and well...I caught my hoof on something and fell face first...thus my outburst. The banging on my house got significantly louder. "Dammit dammit dammit." I heard groaning now too, great, they vocalize, that's not scary as shit. The banging was getting louder still, now they were putting effort into it, fucking awesome.

"Ugh, what the tartarus is that noise?" Oh great, Strongheart woke up, now she might flip out. She still looked extremely tired, not good, we have to leave today, there is not going to be any more waiting we have to, it is that or die of dehydration, I would at least like to try and live, it seems like the best thing to do.

"Okay, don't freak out, but I may have stubbed my hoof and then fell face first...the infected ponies must have heard...and...uhm..well they are uhm... banging against my house a lot and making noises and stuff." The last bit was just kind of blurted out due to extreme fright and nervousness. I guess the idea of freaky ass ponies outside does that to me.

She looked at me with eyes that bore to my very soul, what she said would never leave my memory; my being as a whole was affected by this stare. "You are a REALLY special kind of dumb-ass aren't you?" Okay, so I may have exaggerated a little bit, just a little.

"Well, I am gonna go tell Storm now, she would probably like to know this too." I proceeded to go up the stairs, hoping not to be called any kind of name again. When I walked in the room she was already up, man this mare is creepy. "Sooo....why are you up?" Why not try and start up some normal conve..... why is a Pegasus ramming against my window?

"I think we need to leave here. The longer we stay the more of these show up, this one is even flying." Storm was kind of scary sometimes, she sounded so distanced right there, sure we were all about to die probably, but may as-well face death screaming and kicking, right? The Pegasus seemed to be making no actual progress though, so that's good.

"Hey, lets go down stairs, I have an idea that could probably get us out of here and on the road." She simply nodded to me, she seemed a bit shocked up, I was too, I had no idea that these things could still fly. Plus I really wanted out of the room, it could still somehow break the glass, I don't know, it is just really unsettling to see blood on your window...again and again and again, it rams into the window, kinda hypnotic, in a really fucked up way.

While we were walking down the stairs I began to think some more on my plan, it was really simple. Walk out there and stab each of the infected in the head, none of the wounds on their bodies seemed to be doing anything, so head shots might work. Easy as pie. They would probably think I am insane, I'm not called Swifthooves for no reason.

The two of them were now sitting on the couch awaiting my plan, Strongheart looked optimistic, Storm looked like someone took a shit on her. "Okay, so I have told both of you that I have a plan, now you are probably going to think I am crazy as Tartarus, but here it is." Pause for dramatic effect. "I am going to walk out there and then stab all of the infected ponies in the head." I threw on a smile.

"You are bat-shit insane." Storm looked at me as though I had just suggested that we all go do that. Heart was just kind of blinking in surprise.

"No no hear me out, I move a lot faster than normal ponies, and have a much faster reaction time than them too, this will be easy as pie, but I will be really tired afterwords soooo we are going to have to rest here for about an hour?"

"I say aga-" I then activated what makes me so damn special. When I had gotten my cutie mark I was out with some friends in a pretty bad part of Canterlot, yes there are bad parts of Canterlot. Well as it would happen some of the local thugs came by, mind you they were not full grown just a few years older than us, but you know how when ponies are in very frightening situations their brain activates a little part of itself that increases how many frames per-second you see? Yeah, mine did about 1000 times better than that. The scientist ponies were baffled by it, I am apparently a descendant of one of the old elements of harmony holders.

I calmly walked to the door...well walking is not technically the correct term I was moving incredibly fast, something about my body responding to my minds increase in speed, weird science-y terms that I have no idea what mean should be put there, but I have some slightly more pressing matters to deal with. Outside were about thirty infected ponies, one-tenth of a millisecond flat. I walked up to one of them and studied it a bit, these things were fuckin ugly, and they smelt horrible too, some seemed a bit...fresher than others. I readied my right hoof-blade and stabbed it in the head, I calmly proceeded to do so to the rest, then I went inside and then upstairs, had a certain Pegasus I had to dispatch. After finishing that one off I decided to have a good read.

*200 pages later.*

"I should probably go back downstairs and deactivate this before my brain melts or something." When I got down there I went back to my position in-front of the two mares only now lying down, I was going to really feel this when I snapped out of it.

"...in, you are bat-shit insane...why did the banging stop? How are you lying down, why are you so sweaty, WHAT THE FLYING FUCK HAPPENED?!"

"I...whoa dude I am ...tired ugh...one second." I reached for a bottle of water with my mouth and bit off the top, screw it I am THIRSTY. "I went out, and I stabbed them all."

"Impossible, no pony can move that fast." This time Strongheart spoke up.

"Go look, they are all dead...er not moving, all from the same thing too."

Storm proceeded to go look out a window, then to the door.

"Ho-wha-bu...huh?" She fell onto her flank, obviously surprised.

"Fastest damn pony the worlds ever seen." I boasted this quite proudly, it is not everyday that I got to use this, tires the ever loving crap out of me though, which does not feel so great. "So, I am gonna nap now, then we move, okay?" Before I could even hear a response, my head hit the ground.

So we are just going to...

(*Pov of Strongheart.*)

"Okay, what was that? He could have not only left us, but also helped a lot of other ponies, why would he wait until now, just now, to do that?" Storm turned to look at me, she then proceeded to shrug. She seems so unaffected by everything, what is this mares problem?

"Perhaps it takes a massive physical toll on him, look at how sweaty he is, not only that but he was breathing very heavily and could hardly speak. He probably waited until now because he wanted to ensure the maximum bang for his bit."

"Yeah...that could be it, but still, what about when I was running from that horde? Also I guess I never really thanked you for distracting the ones chasing me so...uhm thanks." She simply nodded in my direction, it seemed like she was deep in thought. We both turned towards the earthpony on the carpet, he had snored so loudly it could have woken an Ursa major during it's hibernation. "Damn, guess he has got some good lungs or something."

She turned towards me, her face bared an expression that showed mild confusion. "I thought that you were supposed to be a medical pony? How do you know so little about pony anatomy?" You bitch, you cold-hearted bitch, I don't go makin' fun 'bout you not controllin' the weather, why would you 'bout my limited medical knowledge?... Fuckin' bitch.

Regaining my physical composure and making sure that none of what I had just mind-spoke about, I decided to respond. "Well, if you must know." You abominable bitch. "I worked with children, thus the amount of accidents that did happen were limited most usually to scrapes and cuts...except for Dangerdoo, my word that filly hurt herself constantly, and yet she never wanted any treatment, I don't get it." Crap, I started rambling, now she was staring at me with a look of annoyance.

All of a sudden we heard what sounded like a...Ursa major... that was angry... we both turned towards the earth pony, he was wide eyed and awake...so it was not him...crap.

(*Pov of Swifthooves.*)

What was that, why did it sound like it wanted to eat the faces off of everpony ever? "What was that? Wait, I'm dreaming aren't I, you two should start making out." They looked at me with baring expressions of anger and of seriousness, dammit, I'm not dreaming, why can it not be a dream?!

"We are all going to die." Storm is just pure happiness and rainbows. I really needed to have a talk with her, get her to cheer up some. "We really need to get out of here, or we are going to die." Well at least she knows that we need to get moving sometime soon...and that we are probably going to die.

"Do we have everything that is of use to us while we are uhm... hoofing it across the now Luna forsaken lands?" Strongheart looked a little bit afraid and quite insecure. I suppose I am too, I mean, fuck. We are about to go out and attempt to look for someplace new to stay at for a while and live just a little bit longer...Okay so really afraid and very insecure.

"We have anything that could be useful, I assure you we do." I needed to look confident, for those two, that way they would worry less, sure it would suck but someone needs to look tough. They obviously were not willing to be that pony so I would have to be.

"Okay, then I guess we just...go out there..." Strongheart then looked like she swallowed something huge. Storm looked like someone had taken a shit on her...still. Luna looked like a party animal in comparison to this mare, seriously I remember all those stories from when I was just a little itty bitty colt about how Luna was such a hard-ass in comparison to Celestia, and Storm was just so...saddening? That seems like the appropriate word.

I walked over to my door, time to finally leave I suppose.

"LUNA FUCK ME WITH RUNNING WITH A CELESTIALLY DAMNED CACTUS!" To say things were going bad was a massive understatement, as soon as we exited my house it seemed as though everything wanted to kill us, just us, nothing but us. We were the most wanted bits of flesh in existence to these damn things. We had a horde of about 50 running behind us, we had decided to not go into Canterlot, ground zero being the most dangerous place and all, and head straight out towards wherever really, none of us had maps so actually picking a place to go was kind of out of the question. That was mistake number one, a lot of the infected ponies would want to get away from what had hurt them, thus they went out of Canterlot, by the time they had finally gotten out they were full blown infected and had gotten all bite-y and stuff.

"Okay, hear is how it's gonna go!" I yelled out towards the other two, they were significantly slower than me and I was practically jogging to stay at the same speed as them. "I am going to run off the the side and try to distract them, you two keep running and try to find a safe place to be at, okay." The most they could manage were nods, they were already really tired.

Doing as I had said I ran of the the front right side of the mob, I slowed down even more so as to present to them what looked like a weakened meal that would be easier to get than the other two. About two thirds of the mob had noticed it and direct almost all their attention towards me, now to really get the attention of the mob, I reached back into my saddle bag with my mouth while still keeping just barely ahead of the mob of infected ponies...fuck it, these are zombies, why have we been avoiding saying it, we've all seen the movies. I had taken out a knife, I then sprinted ahead of the group of zombies and lifted up my left forehoof. "This is gonna suck." I cut it, not deeply, just enough for me to bleed a little.

The mob of zombies lost their minds. They began to howl and moan with increased frequency...maybe that was a mistake. My running speed was unaffected by the cut, I missed anything that would make me less able to run thankfully. Now I had the full attention of the horde, they had increased their speed by about 50%-ish? Long story short they were moving faster, nothing I couldn't handle. I picked up the pace some and began in the direction of Canterlot, causing the horde to do a 360 to chase after me, may as well try to contain this damn disease? Virus? Maybe it's a freaky fungus? I don't know.

I had been running for at least an hour, these things do not get tired and even I was starting to get a little tired, and I am the best damn runner EVER! No ifs ands or buts! The group had gotten larger behind me, about 200 were following me now...it was disturbing. I decided it was time to turn back, it was a bit past noon now...so hot. I began to sprint, I can sprint for about twenty minutes no problem so I should be able to leave these things in the dust. I had done just so...until I came across a dead end..."Shit."

Okay, maybe they did not see you turn in here? The lead of the mob then reared it's ugly head around the corner. "Why me?" So this is how I die? I massive mob of zombie ponies, I hoped to go out in some kind of mass orgy or something, but dying from saving two others would be okay I guess. Just then The brick wall behind me exploded. "WHAT THE FUCK!" I was sent about 5 meters from the wall, turning around in my dazed state I saw what looked to be ponies in iron armor...from head to tail. Oh, those are iron-pony suits, on unicorns they increase magical power, and on Pegasi the increase wing power, to adjust to the weight of the suit and then some, and on earth ponies they make them at least 3 times stronger. A group of four iron ponies were before me, two were unicorns, one an earth pony and the last a Pegasus.

The only downsides to iron pony suits were that they

(A.) Had to have magically enhanced gems to work.

(B.) Were made for each race, though an earth pony could fit in any of them it would get none of the desired effects unless in an earth pony suit.

(C.) Were bulky and loud.

Aside from those three major things, these suits were the epitome of bad-ass-ness. Oh please sweet Celestia in the sky let them help me and not be a bunch of insane ponies that had broken into a Royal armory during this mass chaos. I then heard a thick and gravelly voice, like he had gravel and stones in a grinder...yeah, that was a STALLION.

"Quickshot! Grab the civilian."

"Yes sir General Hardsteel!" The one named Quickshot ran over to me, helping me onto my hooves, he then ushered me over to their group, he was the Pegasus. They then all walked forward, as if an enormous horde of death defying creatures was not in front of them. What had really surprised me was that all the zombie ponies had all stopped moving around as much after the explosion, got to keep that in mind. Then with a very loud and slightly painful battle cry the one I believe they designated General Hardsteel ran forward, his companions following him...the ran right into the horde...then again why would they have to worry? They were covered entirely with metal, there is no way those things could bite through metal right?

I had to be proven wrong, I just had to be. One of the unicorns had picked up a nearby dumpster with their telekinesis as though it weighed as much as a pillow and began to swat at the zombie ponies, one had gotten behind them though and bit their right back leg...all the way through...as in they now had three legs, I looked at the zombie ponies cutie mark, and saw that it looked like a pair of dentures...fucking hilarious, I was going to be extremely tired, and might even die, but I needed to help. I froze the world again...or about as close to it as you can get.

I walked up to the denture mark zombie, I stabbed it in the head, no more of your insanely strong biting to take out the one hope I have. I then walked towards the head of the iron pony who had their leg bitten off, I took off her helmet, she was a beautiful mare, this really sucks shit, I put it back on her, I would let her team decide what to do with her. I moved towards  the horde, it's funny, whenever I am like this I am so calm, quite happy even, but outside of it I am scared as a little filly. I had dispatched about half of the horde when I began to feel the effect of my special little power wearing off, I needed to get back to where I was before.

I had gotten there just in time to collapse at where I was before, the iron pony team now surprised that half of the horde was gone, not for very long though and they began to kill even more of them. I was seconds away from blacking out, and I saw the head of the iron pony mare turn towards me, connecting the dots that I was tired and they were dead...again? I passed out as soon as I saw one of the few infected that had its legs destroyed moved towards me, I was too tired to care.

ALL THE THINGS DIE!

(*POV of General Hardsteel.*)

Just 150-ish to go and...75-ish? What the Tartarus, oh who the fuck cares, less to kill and that means more time to save more ponies. I began to swing my trusty mace at the heads of these damn things, it seemed the only way to keep them down was by damaging the brain or perhaps they just needed massive trauma to go down? Who cares! This is the most fun I've had in years! I looked behind me, that damn civilian had gone to sleep...or maybe he somehow took out those 75-ish zombies? If so I had better keep an eye on him, someone with that kind of power can be dangerous. I then took out my second mace, Mous and Bertha, the two best maces ever seen! I began to swing both and grabbed a nearby trashcan in my telekinetic grip, must suck to be an earth pony.

I threw the trashcan and it made a very pleasing thump sound on contact with one of the infected bastards head. I took Mous and hit another in the forelegs causing it to buckle down, I quickly finished my work with a swift downward movement of my right fore-hoof. I saw to my left that Quickshot had put away his revolving cross bow and had gotten out his long sword, he was one of the few royal guard that was efficient with every type of weapon, he was just best at long range weapons, might even be the best...would never beat me in a mace fight though.

Snapping out of my distracting thoughts I noticed I had three of the infected on top of me, these suits are so wonderful. I squatted down on all four of my hooves and then sprang back up, I went a solid third of a meter up, they went a bit higher. All three wound up in a pile, it would have been pretty comical had they not been trying to eat me not 5 seconds ago. I brought both maces down on separate heads, then once their heads had suffered sufficient damage, I slammed them together into the remaining ones head. Some gray matter got on one of the lenses of my iron-pony suit. "Ewwwww."

"Oh come on sir, you're honestly telling me some brain goo is what makes you say eww? Not when I am covered in blood and guts?" I looked towards Blood drip...that is just a freaky name, who the fuck names their child Blood drip? As she had previously stated he was covered in blood...and guts...and I think I see a few patches of skin on her...she was enjoying this entirely too much. She was the only earth pony in the group, but damn did she do a good job of killing stuff, she said that she knows how to use most types of weaponry, but due to the fact that these suits cover up our mouths she could not handle any weaponry unless it was made to fit to the hooves of her suit, those types of weapons while effective were usually a bit hard to operate with and could impede movement even more than the suits.

I could practically feel the huge grin she had on her face, she must have had one on her because she was speaking so jovially, I feel like she had been waiting for a day like this. I picked up a nearby dumpster and threw it at the remaining twenty infected or so, squishing roughly half of them, only killing maybe 5, I looked back...our medic, Battlewound...what the fuck is up with these messed up names?!...She had a bite on her...all the way through her leg...and the civilian had a crawling infected coming towards him...and he was sleeping...WHAT THE FUCK IS HE DOING SLEEPING! I walked back towards the crawling infected and slammed my hoof into its head. I then turned back and mustered every bit of magical energy I had. When I had amassed my energy I picked up every nearby piece of non-bio matter and hurled it at the remaining infected, now they got me pissed, they are not supposed to be able to get through this stuff.

Iron pony suits are made of magically hardened iron, it should be impossible for anypony anywhere EVER to be able to bit through these things! With all the infected gone I decided to go ahead and take a quick inventory of how many magic gems I had left, three, nowhere near enough to last long. I walked over to Battlewound and took off her helmet, she was crying.

"General...I-I-I'm gonna d-die, aren't I?"

"I'm so sorry, do...do you want me to...?" She simply nodded, she then closed her eyes let out a long breath and held her head down.

"I'm ready." I took out my guard knife and brought down as hard and quickly as I could, we lost our only medic, an iron pony suit, and a damn good mare. Today was not the day to be an infected. I let out a savage cry of anger and with every bit of magic I had in me I threw an enormous ball of energy at a building, it turned into a miniature sun...well shit...these really do enhance your magic a lot... Turning towards Battlewound I realized something...sure it was a bit morally wrong, but desperate times calls for desperate measures. I began to scavenge her suit for magic gems, our suits would need them.

"Ahem, what the Tartarus are you doing?" That was Quickshot, he would probably object to this, and as far as I know Blood drip had no real moral conscious so I expected nothing from her aside from cold logical thinking.

"He's gathering her magically enhanced gems, we are going to need them, he probably does not like it just as much as you do, but he knows what we have to do to survive."...Was not expecting all of that...mostly just a get the fuck over it you worthless shit-bag comment...surprising me at every turn Blood drip. I turned towards the civilian after gathering her gems and med-kits now then, what to do with him?

The moment everything went to...

(*Pov of Swift hooves.*)

I woke up to being on somepony else's back, not a very comfortable situation at all. "Whhhyyyy do I keep doooing these things!"

"I assume it's either because you're a dumbass, courageous, or a combination of both." Oh...yeah, I was with others now...

"I'm not sure if I should take that as a compliment, or an insult."

"Well I hope you take it as an insult." This was the stallion that had a voice like gravel going down a trash grinder. "You got one of ours killed, she was the only one that had a large amount of medical training. So you either help us out, or we kick your ass and don't help you."

"Sir! That is not how we work." This was the Pegasus, how the Tartarus do they fly if the suit covers their wings? "We are meant to protect the people and do our best to keep the peace, it is not his fault that Battle wound got bitten!"

"I'm sorry, but did you just raise your voice to me?" OH shit, this stallion was scary as FUCK! I could practically feel the anger coming off of him...and he was in the front of the three...why am I still on top of the other two?

"Yes I did."

"Seems like you're forgetting a part of that sentence Sergeant!" Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck, this was not the place to be, not now, something told me that these ponies were fucking dangerous!

just then the other one carrying me began to snicker...slowly turning into full out laughter. The other two joined her, eventually simmering down.

"Oh my gosh, dude, I could feel you squirming on top of my, wow, you really fell for that, ya know if I weren't so good with a bow I think I could have been an actor." That was the Pegasus, right after the other one carrying me began to speak.

"Oh yeah, I bet that would have been tons more fun and would have trained you to survive better in this situation, sure." Well, looks like we have another person like storm here, great. "Although I bet your acting would have gotten so terrible that these things would have thought you were already brain dead!" Okay, so a sense of humor...slightly darker than usual but I'll take it!

"Okay so, could you two let me down?" They looked towards each other...not a good sign, they then sidestepped the Pegasus to his left, the earth pony to her right. "Ooof, you two suck...all of you suck, everything sucks!" They began to snicker again. "Did I mention that you suck?" I began to get up, while doing so they stopped walking to wait for me to get up, time to impress them.

In one fluid motion I rolled forward, somersault style ( Extremely uncomfortable. ), grabbed one of the maces of the one in the lead in my mouth and readied my left hoof blade, I aimed the blade at the other earth pony, and then I began a swing towards the Pegasus but stopped it short of his neck, they had no time to react.

"...well...shit kid, you're better than you look."

"Yeah but not quite good enough or some shit right?" I asked because I was willing to bet money that they had some kind of trick up their sleeve, these were trained guards ponies after all.

"No, not really, in fact we probably would have gotten hurt...not! Dude, look at what we are wearing, our weapons are good, but only his maces" the Pegasus gestured towards the unicorn. " would actually do some damage to the suits."

"...Crap, you're right, but against a non-armored pony I would have kicked so much flank!" While saying this I had relaxed and began to walk next to the earth pony.

Now the earth pony began to speak. " Yeah, but to be fair once again, they would not have our weapons and something tells me that you can't use both of those hoof-blades at once, and what if it gets caught on something inside the body, hmmm, then the other two can come over and bash your brains in."...I don't know how feel about her.

"Okay, well enough fucking around. What's your name?" That was the unicorn, he had turned around to look at me.

"I am Swift hooves." I then posed with my right fore hoof in the air, I hope my mane looks right, it feels like it's flowing in the wind, yeah, yeah it's alright.

While I was so elegantly posed the earth pony came towards the Pegasus and motioned towards her helmet. "Help me get this damn thing off." He used his wings...wings should not be able to bend like that. What I was seeing was that his wings had joints or something in areas that other Pegasi just did not have them. It was like he had six total, three on each wing, the ones at the base of the wings for the heavy flapping, then ones in the middle, and lastly he had some just at the end that allowed him to manipulate things greatly, I guess that's how he uses a bow so well.

"Oh, so I see you noticed my wings?" I nodded my head while picking my jaw up from the ground. " Yeah the call it a birth" he then made what looked to be little quotation marks with his wings. "defect, but really I find it very helpful, it even lets me fold my wings up tighter than most other Pegasi. Pretty darn handy...quit staring."

With the helmet now off of the earth pony she had turned to look at my still posed form, and she began to laugh so loud I thought that the zomponies (deal with it.) in the center of the city would hear her! "Ah, haha, dude dude, oh sweet fucking Luna, dude, that is the worst pose I have ever seen, let alone this is like the worst time to be doing it too." She began to laugh...louder somehow.

"Well then, did you have to be so damn rude about it?"

"YES! That is the best way to do anything!"

"Ugh, well look, I have to go look for some other ponies, I had gotten that horde to follow me so they could get away." All three made a kind of triangle formation, apparently speaking to each other.

"Okay, we have discussed it, and we think that you are going to need help, we're coming with." Okay, this is not necessarily a bad thing.

On the other side.

(*Pov of Rainstorm.*)

"Do you think he will be able to find us?" She really seems not to know just how bad our situation is, if he did not find us we would be fucked, his strength and speed would be extremely helpful to us, not including he had some of our stuff and our only weapons.

"He has to find us. Without him we are screwed." It's true too, we need some kind of heavy weapons person, that was him, we got a medic...a crappy one, that would be her, and we have myself, I provide a means of escape and minor technical knowledge, we need a weapons pony, in fact a team of approximately six would be quite beneficial.

"Ya know, you have got to be just the cheeriest pony I have ever met, without a doubt." Ugh, not this again. "Seriously what's up, why are you so...depressing?"

Fine, she really wants to know, then I'll let her fucking know! "My one special talent, the thing that really defines me, is to make Luna damned rain-fucking-storms, something almost everypony hates, how would you feel if what you did made other ponies upset and occasionally angry?!"

..."Well uhm...I had uh...not thought of it that way, I'm sorry." Dammit, now she's crying...fuck I really am that depressing.

"It's okay, just stop crying...you're being to loud." Says the mare that just yelled, not your best move.

"Alright...how much longer do you think we should wait here?" To be precise here happened to be a cave near the bottom of Canterlot, whatshisname had gone off to save us and we had just continued in a straight path in the hopes that if he got back he would be able to find us much more easily than if we were to have taken a different route, such as a weaving one or one that veered off in another direction.

"Maybe another two days? How much water do we have in the saddlebag?" She walked over towards said saddlebag and rummaged through it for a bit.

"I would say maybe three days worth of water is properly rationed, that is alright split between the two of us of course." I walked up beside her, she was dead wrong, that was at least four days worth of water, even if we took some liberty drinks here or there. I decided not to correct her that way she would be a bit happier and all those pesky tears would dry up already.

"Yeah...looks about right-ish." Why must my voice betray my wish to avoid conflict!

"You don't sound to sure there, do you think we have enough? Oh sweet Celestia I hope we have enough." Wow, I really hope that is better with medical things than I think she is, otherwise she is almost entirely useless. I hope that the stallion is doing okay, last I saw he was headed towards Canterlot again, not a good idea, I wonder why he would head there of all places? Perhaps out of familiarity?

Whatever reason aside, he needs to hurry up and find us, if he does not then it is just going to be she and I...he has to find us. I looked towards... Stronghurt? No no, it was Strongheart, that's it! She was just kind of poking around the ground with her hooves, it looked like she was making a dirt pile, multiple actually.

"What are you doing with all that dirt?" She looked towards me and shrugged, great, now the cave floor is lumpy and has small indents in other areas, sleeping is going to be great. (Lethal amounts of sarcasm detected.)

"Soooo, what do you think of him, the stallion I mean?" Oh fucking Luna I hope this is not going where I think this is going.

"I think he will be a valuable part of this group if he is alive."

"No no, not like that, I mean...do you think he's cute?" No, not this, why why why!

"I would really rather not discuss this, ever."

She began to walk towards me. "I myself am more attracted to mares than stallions." MOTHERFUCKER! FOR THE LOVE OF LUNA DO NOT LET THIS HAPPEN, I WOULD RATHER HAVE MY FRONT LEGS CUT OFF THAN THIS!

"Look uhm...I am strictly attracted to stallions, and yes if you are going to make this awkward for me, then yes, I do find him kind of...cute...but in a he might be the last stallion alive kind of way. I could feel my cheeks getting hot, dammit it, now I am getting all emotional and stuff, this is exactly what I have been trying to avoid.

"Darn, I was really hoping...are you sure?" She inched closer towards me. I started to back off a little.

"Yes I am sure, don't you think you are being just a little, oh I don't know, forward?" Seriously, if this is how you tried to get mares pre...whatever this is.

"Yeah, but I was just thinking, two days in a cave, nothing to do but lounge around...may as well try and have some fun with it right?" SHE KEEPS GETTING CLOSER!

"Look, I am going to be honest here, I kind of feel like you're going to try and rape me somehow, and I have a mean right hook!"

Now she looked a bit sheepish, of sweet Luna in the sky, thank you sooo much! Man I really hope that that stallion gets back, as much as I hate to say it, he was the focal point of the group, somehow I feel he is a lot more important than he seems.

Luna.

(*Pov of Swifthooves.*)

*Approximately 3:00 pm.*

"So, do you ever talk without spewing out jokes and profanities?" Traveling with these three was beginning to become extremely uncomfortable to me, sure I enjoyed a little crude humor...but this was a bit much, their leader, General Hardsteel, I feel like I have heard that name before, talked about using one of the zomponies head as a cup...I don't think he was even joking...but they still laughed.

"Not really, I mean from aside from right now, help me out Blood drip." Well, that name is not scary as shit, seriously how would a conversation before all of this had gone down go with her? ""Oh why hello there, my name is blahblahblah, what's yours?"" Then she would be all like. ""Well, my name is Blood drip you miserable piece of maggot food."" But she would say it with this huge grin...

"Why me Quickshot? Why not the great and shitty General Hardsteel?"

"Atta girl, just what I wanted." Oh, Quickshot, that's a nice name...how does one go about getting these names...seriously how in the hay do you get a name like Blood drip? Or Hardsteel? Maybe I should ask them...but not Blood drip, she scares me.

Just then the General stopped walking and turned around. "Swift hooves!" That's not good.

"GAh, fuck!" I looked behind me, one of the infected had bitten me, dammit dammit dammit! Why, things had finally been going so well, why why why?!

"I am not going to die!"

Reacting a bit rashly, I made it seem like time was slowed for me, ugh I do not want to go into the mechanics of this again. There is no way that I am going to die, I am not going to let it happen...but then again I may have just fucked over all ponies anywhere near me, what if I changed while I was moving so quickly? What if my special ability stayed with me whenever I changed like that one that had a cutie mark that looked like a pair of dentures?

One of my many features of speed was that I did almost everything faster, literally almost everything, the wound on my leg had already healed, though the scar was a very odd purple color. My body fought off infections faster, healed faster, moved faster, even my mind was a tad bit better, what if I somehow survived this? Would I be a cure, or would it just be specifically me? I decided to go for a walk, it would help clear my mind a little, but first. I prepared my left hoof blade and then slammed it into the head of the zompony. "You bastard." That was the first time I had ever talked with what felt like time being slowed down. I hope that it does not effect anypony.

Leaving the group behind I went on what felt like an hour long run, as it would happen I actually found Rainstorm and Strongheart, Storm was talking and it looked like Strongheart was...coming onto her...well, ya don't see that everyday. I began my run back to the military ponies, I don't know if the virus is sped up along with me, but if it is, then either it takes longer than expected, or my advanced infection fighting abilities had killed or stopped the virus...or whatever it is. Fucking weird ass magic making me question my own body!

I found my way to the military ponies, their shocked expressions still present. I focused intently and make things pass at a normal rate for me again.

"Holy shit, Swift are you okay?" Heh, I guess Blood drip isn't that bad after all. "Also, why aren't you bleeding, and how did you kill it so quickly?" And has high ability to spot things, good for you.

"Swift, how are you, are you okay?" Oh that's Quickshot, that's nice, he wants to make sure I am okay.

"Yeah, yeay...never been bettah, hahaha...bettah." Why do I feel so sleepy? Sure whenever I go about making myself speed up that much I get a bit tired but not like this. I lost consciousness to the sight of General Hardsteel drawing out one of his maces.

(*Pov of Blood drip.*)

"Hey, I am as fond of killing things as much as the next pony...actually not, I like it a lot more than pretty much any other pony, but my point is that we should wait, this guy is obviously not normal, he has definitely got something...about him."

Quickshot began to speak. "I am with Blood drip here, he really does seem...different than others, I am willing to bet a lot of bits that he will survive."

Now it was the generals turn to talk. "I get it! I get it! You two want him to live so you think that he can pull through, but the reality of it all is that he is fucked, plain and simple, now then I am willing to compromise a little, I won't bash his head in until he changes, okay?" I nodded my head.

"He deserves better than that, he might have killed as many of those things as us." The general cocked his head to the left, signaling his not understanding. "While we were walking; looking for his friends, we talked a little bit about. As it would turn out, he is a bit more than just swift, he has the ability to move faster than we can perceive, he also happens to have been related to one of the original elements of harmony holders."

"Heh, that is...an impressive little detail there. So what do you propose we do to him that is so much better than me smashing open his skull with Mous here?" He hefted up his favorite mace in his telekinetic grip.

"An arrow to the head, you have the potential of not penetrating the skull and hitting the brain in the first hit, we don't know if a part of them is still in their, or if they can feel pain, my way would be as close to painless as possible."

"Wait wait wait, have either of you actually seen someone turn? Like what are the warning signs, what happens before they turn?" They both looked at each other, shrugged, then looked towards me and shrugged again. "Great, so we have no way of pre-emptively telling if he's going to turn."

(*Dream world.*)

"What in the flying fucking Tartarus is this bullshit!" Before my eyes was Luna, prin-fucking-cess Luna.

"You, like many others have been infected by a magical disease of an un-known origin...though I do have an idea as to where this affliction to pony kind comes from."

"Oookay, but something tells me you don't induce sleep on everypony that has been bitten to come and talk to them in their brain do you?"

"You are correct, yes. You however are going to be fine."

"Well...that's good, but how do you know? And aren't you supposed to be...ya know...not alive?"

"Eh..haha, yeah...about that." Did the princess of the night just get nervous about talking about something to a mere mortal, WHAT BLACK MAGIC FUCKERY IS THIS?!

"My sister and I...well I am located on the moon...with no way back...yet. But once I have gained sufficient magical reserves I will come back!" She said that with a lot of vigor. "Then I will rescue my sister!" That too.

"Wait wait, the most powerful being in all of known existence...no offense, needs rescuing?"

"No offense is taken, she is far more powerful than I, and yes, she is trapped in the suns core, any magic she gathers is used to shield herself from the heat and provide air aswell as watch over Equestria and nudge things where she can, whereas my magic is used to shield myself from the cold and provide air, this is considerably easier than what she is dealing with.

"...How long is it going to be before you can come back?"

"Do you want the truth?" I nodded my head. "By the time I get back, your great grandchildren's grandchildren will have been dead for thousands of years, magic has changed over the years, my sister and I have not, whereas you...normal ponies, no offense, have been able to adapt, especially you earth ponies, many of you have gotten some very...unique traits, like your ability to freeze time."

"No, I can't actually freeze time, you see-"

"No, you can."

"NO, I can'-"

"Yes, you can."

"NO I CAN'T!"

Luna smirked. " I have wanted to do this for a long time. I never get the opportunity to use it anymore." "YES YOU CAN!"

Problems.

(*Pov of Blood drip.*)

"So you are telling us that Princess Luna, the believed to be deceased Princess Luna is alive; on the moon?" That was General Hardsteel, my jaw was to far crushed into the ground to speak. Quickshot was just kind of pacing around, shaking his head muttering about how everything he knows is a lie. My thoughts on the matter seemed to be the only positive ones, which is really quite odd because normally I am the pessimist. Princess Luna, the only one of the two that I worshipped was still alive, this was a dream come true.

Recovering from my suddenly heavy jaw, I decided to speak up about how this was a positive matter. "Hey, this is good news, she can come down here and help out everypony, while smashing skulls of course." I smiled at the thought.

Swifthooves looked towards me, grimacing slightly. "Uhm...not quite actually, she said she would not be able to get here for a long time."

"Okay, so we have to wait a couple of weeks, so what?" We could definitely survive that long.

"She is not going to be able to come back for hundreds of years Drip." My jaw was feeling very heavy again, resisting the urge to let it slam into the ground once again, I looked to him, I could feel a tear coming on in my right eye, hold it back dammit!

"D-don't call m-me drip." Shit, no waterworks, you're going to freak everypony out, no no no no no no.

"...........So that's why you're called Blood drip." Swift hooves was looking at me...not freaked out, then again you were now dealing with a zompony apocalypse, so bloody tears would be a bit less than scary I suppose. But then there was the Generals reaction and Quickshots...Quickshot was on top of the general...quivering, like a little bitch at that, and the general just seemed to not give a fuck, maybe Quick was just sensitive about seeing blood? No, if he was then he would not have joined the royal guard.

"Blood, what the fuck is going on, why are you crying, I have never seen you cry at anything, and you once saw a puppy get run over by a cart." Oh, so it was the actual crying, not the blood...okay then.

(*Pov of Swift hooves.*)

Cool, she cries blood, I mean, yeah it's really quite fucked up, but hey, still cool. I looked over towards Quickshot. "Blood, what the fuck is going on, why are you crying, I have never seen you cry at anything, and you once saw a puppy get run over by a cart." Well, that's a bit morbid, and depressing.

Okay so, now what do you do, sure you know where Rainstorm and Strong heart are at, but those two might not be able to ...handle these three. Oh well, they would have to deal with it. "Okay, so uhm...while I was, shall we say away, I found where my friends are at. I think we should go there and get them to come with us to...wherever we are going."

They all nodded in agreement, storm was rubbing her face in a bush to get rid of her tears, they were now just red splotches all over her face it was kind of...cute? Somehow? Ugh, now is not the time for silly little crushes.

"Which way are we heading?" That was Hard steel, he probably wanted to leave so quickly because of the possibility of something going wrong, things seemed to do that a lot more nowadays. I pointed with one of my hooves into the direction that I had walked earlier, they were just a few kilometers away from here, pretty easy trek... for me.

"How far away?" That was blood drip.

"Just a few kilometers. Not a big deal."

""Just a few kilometers, he says." "Not a big deal, he says." That was the general, he is the worst built for distance travel, what with being a unicorn, sure the suit helped to keep the weight off of him and then a little more extra strength, but it was still a pretty long trek for a unicorn.

"Oh come on general, this is easy, I am barely sweating." That was a blatant lie, Quickshot was making it rain sweat, I don't even know how, he still has his suit on...how is he flying with it on? How is the sweat leaking out? What the literal flying fuck?!

Blood and I looked fine though, she turned to me and had a little grin on her face, I think she wants to talk, she then trotted to my side,

"I didn't get my name from my blood tears ya know." That got me curious, how does one obtain a name like that then?

"Okay? Then how DID you?"

"I lived in Manehattan, as you probably know that is a terrible place to live as a little filly." I did not know, why would she say that it was so bad. "Well, my mom was a tad bit protective, but not in a traditional sense, nope, she trained we to use knives." Oh well...that's a pretty awesome mom. "On one of my many walks, I enjoyed taking walks deal with it." Why does she think I have a problem with it? "I was about to get raped."...Wait wait, WHAT! "Luckily I had a knife with me, and well...blood dripped. You look a bit shocked."

"No no, not at all, well aside from the "I was about to get raped part!""

"Hey keep it down."

"Fine, but still...how you just say it...without a care in the world...it's frightening."

(*Pov of Blood drip.*)

Dammit, I knew he would not like how I told it, oh please do not let this ruin my chances, he seems like the only decent guy I'm gonna find, please just let him forget about it...dammit.

A warm hearted reunion.

(*Pov of Swift hooves.*)

"Not to much further now, another...500 yards maybe?" All of my traveling companions were now sufficiently tired, it was near the end of the day, and I was feeling better than ever. In other words, they all wanted to kill me. Slowly, with there bare hooves.

"I'm...gonna...whoof..gonna kill...you!" That was Quick shot, after his wings got tired he started walking, as it would turn out I was wrong, General hard steel was handling this better than I would have thought, yet Quick shot on the other hand was now probably swimming in any sweat that was not somehow leaking out of his suit, it's ridiculous. I don't even have a clue how it is that he has some of the sweat pouring out of there.

"You'll have to catch me first." I picked up my pace a little. "I am going to go see if they are still there, if they are then I am going to tell them that we have a few additions to the group, kay?" They all nodded, probably to tired to speak, to show off I began to run fairly quickly. Making them angry is so much fun.

After a few minutes of running I reached the cave, how exactly should I announce my presence, a gallant walk in perhaps? Or maybe I should just walk in casually as though it is not big deal that I am still alive? Hmm, or maybe I coul-"Hafdh."

I had been tackled down to the ground...by Rainstorm. "Can't breathe, air important." My back hooves were waving wildly in the air due to my being on my back, it was not a comfortable position.

"Oh-sorry, here let me get off." She rolled off me, she looked a bit sheepish and was blushing as well, must be embarrassed for over-reacting to my coming back. "What happened?!" Ow, damn mare. my ears are sensitive, not cool.

"Well, I led the pack off of you two, then I headed back towards Canterlot." She nodded her head and ahum-ed in response. "By the time I had gotten about 300 meters in I had about 200? Yeah about 200 following me." She now looked a bit awestricken. "I killed about half with my...time slowing, but more importantly I may have..uhm...met some others that came with me...and they seem like pretty great ponies to be traveling with, they are all trained to fight, far better than myself."

"Are you sure that they aren't going to try to do anything bad to us?" She looked a bit worried, really quite understandable really, it is the apocalypse and to be fair, I don't fully trust her either. She seemed nice and all, it's just that I have no real Idea what she is like.

"I am pretty sure that they won't do anything to hurt us, but I must warn you, they are really crude. Like REALLY crude."

She looked at me skeptically. "How bad could they be?" Time to find out I suppose.

"Oh you'll see, I will go get them, be back in a bit." I waved my fore-hoof at her, she ran up and hugged me...not.okay. I shivered a bit, the hug felt nice and all...it's just that I like a little bit of warning before large amounts of bodily contact. Oh great, now she looks sad. I gave her a shaky smile and left, hoping that I could explain to her that I was not a touchy feel-y pony.

Arriving back to the group of oh so noble warriors, NOT. I motioned towards them to follow me, yelling out at the same time. "Hey, lets go, she says it's okay. We need to hurry on back too, looks like it is getting near to night time." They all began to trot towards me, they all looked dead tired, and in need of a serious break. Being me is so awesome. I turned my neck to look at the bite mark, looked entirely healed still, but still an odd discoloration, not as bad as earlier though.

(*During the few minutes that Swift hooves is away from the cave.*)

"Hey, I heard another voice, who was it, are you okay!?" Strong heart came rushing out, she saw that Rainstorm was now sitting her rather nice flank...moving on...looking out towards where the sun was setting, coming this way were four ponies, three of which looked enormously bulky. Not paying attention towards the sides of the cave entrance, she failed to notice the massive surge of infected coming their way, they had few precious seconds.

(*3rd person POV.*)

"Hey...do you see a large...group behind them?"

"We need to pick up the pace. Swift, you're the most likely to be able to get to them, can you do that wicked speed thingy?" General Hard steel suddenly had the strength of ten ponies dashing ahead, he was quickly followed by the other two, Swift hooves began to run, quickly out pacing them all, he would only need a few seconds, but really it would be less than a hundredth of a second. Time...slowed, Princess Luna made things so confusing...whatever I guess time slowed down then.

Making it to the makeshift camp he saw that he had made it just in time, one of the zomponies had its teeth around Strong hearts left hind leg, about to bite down. Swift hooves walked up and stabbed it in the head, another one bites the dust. Making quick work of the others in the group he made time go back to normal. Collapsing with exhaustion he saw Strong heart turn around and gasp. He also saw Quick shot run up to her and check her over for bite marks, Blood drip did the same to Rainstorm.

(*Pov of Swift hooves.*)

"I really need to stop doing that, I don't like feeling tired, like at all." Rainstorm trotted over to him, smiling appreciatively.

"Well, you have saved my life twice now? No, wait three if you count the time you had that group stop following us. So, here is something to show my appreciation." She bent down and gave Swift hooves a peck on the cheek.

...I don't know how to feel about that...on one hand she is really cute...but I can now see Blood drips eye twitching, and it was rather out of the blue, something I most certainly do not enjoy. I am just gonna have to think on it later, now though, I sleep, I sleep until it is absolutely necessary that I eat.

Picking himself up he made his way through the cave entrance, noticing several smile piles of dirt and several shallow holes, what kind of animal makes those marks?

Luna explains.

(*Swift hooves dream world.*)

"I'm sleeping again aren't I?" I turned my head towards Princess Luna, who was not eating what looked to be...sweet delicious canned peaches. She simply nodded and gulped down a bite of the peaches. "You're going to share, right?" The pleading in my eyes would have made begging dogs jealous.

"Nope, these are my peaches." But...why?

"Why! It's my dream!"

She looked towards me with a raised eyebrow. "Precisely, just make some, it's really easy."

I guess that would make sense, having total control over everything in my own head is a pretty logical thing, seeing as how it is all my thoughts and what not. I concentrated as hard as I could and before my very eyes was...an entire swimming pool filled with peaches! I dived in head first, expecting the delicious fruity goodness to envelope me. What I got instead was a face-plant into a really pillow-y mattress.

"B-but p-peaches!"

"Those can wait, we need to talk." Oh, that's not good.

"Are you breaking up with me Princess?" I had a smile on my face and was snickering, she just had a really confused face going on.

"What, we were never a couple!" She now looked at me with a face filled to the brim with seriousness. "Equestria is in peril! Now is not the time for your silly little jokes. You have to find Magi, powerful Magi. Scientists as well, they might be able to at least prevent the spread of this."

"Hold up, you're telling me you don't know of a cure?!"

She gave me a dead-pan expression. "I have not been on THE PLANET for thousands of years, the only reason I have any idea of what is going on at all is because of my sisters constant magic wasting to see what is going on down there!" I had sunken down to the ground from all that berating, it hurt me a little, I was surprised by the lack of a knowledge of a cure was all, she had been around for a while.

"Sorry, it's just...wait how long have you been up here?" Now she looked plain worried, and incredibly sad.

"You have heard stories of my thousand year imprisonment here, yes? I nodded my head. "That is nothing compared to the amount of time I have sent here this time, sister and I have watched pony society change in ways we had never been able to predict, some for the better, some for the worst, and now with how magic has been changed since...the incident, sister and I have been hard pressed to gather as much of the magic that was around during our time."

Incident? "What...incident?"

She had an extremely pained expression on her face, I could practically feel the pain flowing off of her. "We can discuss that at a later time...but now I need you to wake up." She looked me in the eyes with what looked to a majority of sadness, but also a small smirk. Her horn lit up and the next thing I knew...

I woke to find that it was still dark out, due to...complications, I was finding getting up to go see where the moon was at in the sky to be difficult.

What I had woken up to was awesome, no amazing! NO! It was awemazing! But it was also kind of scary...actually quite terrifying. Scarifying? To be simple it was great and terrible. To my left was Storm, resting kinda fitfully, her hooves fidgeting and moving about, she was muttering about something being hers.

Blood drip being on his other side was deeply curled into his side, seeming to be in near complete bliss just being there, he had no clue how to feel about anything.

"Harmpsh, stop moving." That was Blood, she did seem quite comfortable, and it was still dark out...wait, then why would Luna want me awake? I was starting to panic, was there some kind of problem?! Zomponies near the cave maybe! Or...or the old stories could be right, the ones about how Luna and Celestia would prank each other, and of how they eventually got tired of just doing it to each other and they moved on to others. Did she do this? Oh that is just no cool...or maybe it is pretty cool? I mean I do have two rather good looking mares nuzzling right up against me...

I put my head down, now is not the time for those thoughts...plus how awkward would it be if you got...excited...May as well just sleep and see how things go in the morning.

I felt something nuzzling my shoulder and opened my eyes, it was Blood drip, she was shaking a little bit. Of course this had to start now, as soon as winter was coming up...fucking great. I started to get up, not caring that I was moving the two next to me. Getting up while laying on your back is hard, and I had to turn over towards Blood drip to get up...this was not good, it might make her get up.

As carefully as I could muster, I rolled over, effectively mushing our faces together, and with how my luck worked, she woke up because of that. At first it was just a hazy little bit of blinking, then her eyes got impossibly wide...and then she smiled...creepy as fuck.

"Aaah, good morning." She snuggled herself into me more...

"G-g-good ma-morning." This was really awkward for me...I felt Storm nuzzling my back while Blood here was snuggling up to me...and I had never really had this much attention from any mare in all my life, let alone two!

Hunger and thirst.

I bolted up, no longer able to take what was practically torture, two mares...and the only time that I had attracted this much attention of course had to be during the apocalypse. I looked down to see Blood drips sad face and that she was out of her armor, same with Quick shot and Hard steel. Storm was still sound asleep, then I heard my stomach grumble, and as if on cue, everypony else's sounded out, one by one. I had one thought in my head, THE PEACHES!

Everypony looked at each other, each one most likely thinking about where the food was. Rainstorm and Strong heart simply looked to each other and began to blink, as soon as they were done Quick shot ran for the back of the cave, the other two in hot pursuit, meanwhile Blood drip, Steel hooves and myself were all just sitting more or less dumbfounded. What we saw next was a smug looking Quick shot traipsing out of the back of the cave; with the bag of goodies in his mouth.

"I'm gonna be honest here, I don't get why you three ran for it." Blood drip was sitting next to me, obviously about to shed some light on the situation. "We are all going to be sharing what is in there, right?" Her voice carried an undertone of anger and minor amounts of disappointment.

Quick shot simply nodded, then began to rummage around in the bag. He grabbed a can of peaches and threw it towards myself and Blood. Then he looked over to Hard steel and threw him one too. Lastly he looked to the back of the cave, where the two defeated looking mares began to trudge out. He threw yet another one of our precious canned peaches towards them. He then began to speak.

"We have got another three of these cans of peaches, bleuch." I gave him my best evil glare, peaches are made of pure happiness and rainbows and goodness. "So I don't see us lasting long without getting more food and water, and the nearest source would just so happen to be Canterlot, without what we can get from there, we will be unable to get anywhere else and completely fucked over."

Well at least he has got his proprieties set right, but how can he not like to eat peaches!? I decided to chime in on where we might be able to get more food and water. "Some what near my house is a general store, it will have food and water, plus it is relatively close to pretty much any other source of well...anything really."

"Okay, that sounds good, now then you will of course have to go, who else volunteers?" Blood and Storms hooves shot up, surprisingly so did Hard steels. "Okay, I don't think that we need to have that many going, seeing as how two of the volunteers have been trained for combat, they should go." Who the fuck put Quick shot in charge anyway?

Storm now looked a bit downtrodden, then again she pretty much always looked that way. Blood was practically jumping around in joy, it kind of scares me that she is so happy, 'hurray, the most eligible for psychotic killer is jumping around with an enormous smile on her face!'

"So what time should we leave?" I have to have my peaches first or I will KILL SOMEPONY!

"Why not right after breakfast?" That was Hard steel.

"Yeah sure, sounds about right." That was Blood drip, now much calmer than before. Sweet, get to eat my peaches.

After a delicious, and fairly small breakfast.

"Okay, lets hit the road." I was getting impatient, I really wanted to get moving and the other two were slowing me down so much. I get that I do pretty much everything faster, but come on! I looked back to them, Blood and Steel had finally put on their Iron Pony suits and were ready to go.

We waved goodbye to the others, that was of course before I received A tackle/hug from Storm. Recovering from the large amount of kinetic energy slamming into me, I found Blood grinding her teeth at this point. Can't believe I am thinking this, but why can't they be interested in the other two?!

We eventually made our way out of the cave and on the way to Canterlot. We slowly lost sight of the cave, seeing Canterlot growing in the distance with our slow travels. Along the way we talked, mostly random little bits about what we wished things were like. Then when the conversation finally headed towards how we were feeling about all of this.

"I for one don't mind it that much." That was of course Blood, she really seemed to have been effected the least out of all of us, well as far as I could tell of course.

"You're kidding right, this is quite probably the worst thing that has ever happened to pony kind!" General Hard steel was apparently having none of what she was saying.

"Oh come on, it's not like everypony is going to die, we are shining examples of that. Only the strongest, luckiest, and smartest are going to survive, just like Swifty here." She walked over to me and nudged my with the side of her body.

"Nuh uh, you are not dragging me into this!" I did not want any kind of bad feelings from anypony in the group.

"Actually, I am curious as to your stance on this as well, what do you think of all this Swift?" Dammit Steel! Why'd you have to go and say something like that?

"Well...I actually have to agree with Blood... I think it would be good if some of only the strongest and smartest survived, HOWEVER, I also believe it is important not to have to many of each, eventually you will get one that gets way to power hungry."

"See that, good points and shit!" She bumped against me again and smiled broadly. Shit, probably should not have agreed with her, can't take my answer back though...

After about an hour of uncomfortable travels we had finally reached my house, knowing that I would not see it again for a long time, or possibly never again, I walked towards it.

"Oy, what are you doing Swift?"

"This...is my house, I lived here for a long time, I would just like to see it one last time, okay?"

"Oh uh...yeah sure, go right on ahead..."

I walked over to it, and decided not to go in, but rather to just soak in the appearance of the place that was my personal safe haven. I noticed that all the dead bodies were gone from before, where would they go?

"Hey, Swift, we have got to head back if we are going to get back by tomorrow."

"Wait, we aren't getting back to the cave until tomorrow?!" The other three would need food and water...unless we brought none with us...

"They have the food and water, we get to eat when we find food, simple as that." Blood had spoken as though that was no big deal, there is a very real chance that we won't find anything. Or that we would die, or worse, die and come back.

"Before you flip out like a little bitch, yes we will find food, yes we will find water, and yes, we.will.be.going.back." Damn, Steel hooves is a bad-ass. We left my house and ventured forth, seeing as how I was apparently the only one who knew where the store was, I was taking point. We surprisingly saw very few zomponies, most were just shuffling about, though we did see one fall off of a building...and the pony it was chasing. We did not bother to see if they would be okay, either way, they would have died, be it the fall, or the bites.

We were about halfway to the store when the first of many major events happened. We had just passed an alley that had a few zomponies shuffling about, most likely in the search for prey. When for the first time, one seemed to notice us, and then as if a light switch was being turned on, they all did. Hive mind thing-y maybe?

"Get running?" Steel hooves makes the best suggestions.

"Yep." Straight, simple and to the point, just like a murderer.

"Certainly." With class, like a sir!

It's motherfucking ESTRUS SEASON!

We had started running once again, and just like it was before the other two were showing large amounts of tiring out, while I was still more or less in pristine condition if not a little hungry and thirsty. We took a left turn into another alley, then went down that all the way and ended up taking a right turn, several lefts and rights later I found us to be sufficiently lost. "Do either of you happen to know where it is that we are at?"

"No idea, I was really...gimme a minute." Blood then proceeded to rapidly take her helmet off and barf...great, that's an enormous waste of peaches. "Okay, I'm good now, I was hoping that you would know where we are." Shit, I wasn't paying attention entirely, all I know is that we took a shit ton of turns.

"Real sexy by the way, barfing all over the place." Her face got red. Shit, should not have said that, might give her the wrong idea on how I fell about her...how do I feel about her. I mean I barely know her, I've only known her for a few days really, though she does seem to be pretty okay, but then again she is also really...creepy sometimes.

"It was not all over the place! It was just most of the place." It then was decided (Mentally it would seem.) that we were to break into a nearby house, this decision was done by Hardsteel. Who put him in charge? We followed him into the house to see that it was not in very good condition at all.

"What the fuck dude, someone could be living here still and we coul-" He then proceeded to show me the head of a recently bashed in zompony skull. "Never mind." Well, this got really cheery. I walked into the house, it was rather mundane. Simple furniture, a couch and a few hoof chairs. One of those new T.V things was sitting on a nearby table, wonder how they afforded that with all this other crappy looking stuff? What really got to me though were the pictures. Everywhere you looked, pictures of ponies that have families, smiling and looking so happy. I looked down at the recently re-deceased zompony. Luckily I did not recognize it in any of the pictures.

It appeared that Blood was having the same reaction as me, her helmet was still off, in fact I did not see her helmet anywhere. "Hey Blood?" She simply looked at me with eyebrows raised. "Where's your helmet?" One would that a helmet would be pretty important right now so that your face doesn't get eaten off.

"Well, our suits are running out of crystals, you know the magical crystals required for heavy duty enchantments, yeah these need them very badly, mine is just about out so I figured that I may as well save some energy and just get rid of the helmet, with it gone it might last another hour."

"Hold up, you not wearing a helmet is going to make it last that much longer?" She began to chuckle a little bit.

"I probably should have mentioned this before, my suit has about an hour left on it..."  Well that's no good at all, with how heavy those suits are we are going to probably have to dump that.

"SHIT!" Blood and I both turned towards the noise, seemed like the good General was in trouble. We both ran towards the yell and discovered...a completely still set of armor that obviously had somepony in it trying to get out...unsuccessfully.

Blood began to make a sort of noise somewhere between a snort and a chuckle, it was cute...nope nope nope nope nope. None of those thoughts, and for fucks sake, you've barely known this mare for like what. three days? And then I passed out.

(*Swifthooves dream world*)

"That does not mean that you can't think she's cute."

"Luna, quite knocking me ou-"

(*Real world*)

"FUCK!" Both of them turned towards me, apparently while I was very momentarily talking to Luna she had gotten him out of the armor.

"Have a nice nap mare magnet?" I gave Hardsteel my best evil glare...it was equivalent to a bunny's... "When you're done looking like you have to take a shit, lets get moving."

I frowned a bit. Blood proceeded to walk up to me and put a hoof around my shoulders. "I though you were *snarking sound* very menacing." I don't like these ponies anymore, nope, not one bit. Blood then proceeded to peck me on the cheek. Okay so maybe I like them a litt-WHAT! When did that become okay!? No fraternizing with a mare you barely know, get it together! I began to scoot away from Blood, reasons being obvious.

(*POV of Blood Drip.*)

He will be mine! He's the only stallion that is alive that's available. Quickshot is asexual and well...I don't know what the fuck is up with Hardsteel. I felt Swift moving below my leg, I then took it off of him, don't come on too strong now Blood, might make him feel like things are going to fast...are things going to fast? Nah, estrus is just making me...shit, estrus season...

(*POV of Swifthooves.*)

As I was scooting away she removed her hoof from me and got a very worried look on her face, I immediately scooted back next to her, what if I offended her somehow? "Hey, hey it's okay." She then turned to me, the same worried look on her face.

"We have to get back to the cave as quickly as we can, Quickshot is in horrible danger!" Both Hardsteel and I looked towards her with faces of concern.

"How so?" Hardsteel had apparently found a loaf of bread in the kitchen and was promptly eating some while tearing the remainder of it in half and floating it over to the two of us.

"It's estrus season, and Quickshot is a male, with two females, and he is asexual, connect the dots boys!"