A Derpy Apocalypse

Back downstairs, Gunny and Big Macintosh were listening for things on the radio, and mostly all it was were repetitive warnings and instructions telling everypony not to come in contact with infected individuals and wait in a safe-house until further instructions and blah blah blah, but of course nopony gave a crap about the whole 'instruction list,' all they wanted was a way out and a way to end the apocalypse. Big Mac and Gunny were just a bit annoyed with the delay of useful messages, but again the whole thing just started the night before, so there wasn't really much to look for and the only reason they had a place to stay was because Gunny knew the place very well.

As for Ditsy, she was looking around the area after she planted the W.I. (Waypoint Indicator from now on).  She noticed that there were more zeds than usual, and more hordes.  She spotted some binoculars on the ground and climbed down to pick them up. After the retrieval, she looked over to the town square, or circle given the shape it actually was.  She saw a strange looking zed that was facing against about ten more. All of the ten were aligned in a straight position, like an army of some sort, and the one 'commanding' them, was a unicorn.  Derpy observed the motions of all of the zeds, and concluded that what ever virus had taken over the bodies was not a normal virus.  She assumed that it knew what it was doing, and was doing more than just inserting it's own deoxyribonucleic acid into the organisms, it was controlling them and taking advantage of their abilities.  It seemed the infected unicorns, the ones with horns that had not rotted away, possessed an ability to create a sort of 'hive-mind,' controlling a group of zeds and putting them together in some order.  The thought of this was a bit frightening, so she hurried back inside to meet with the others.

So far with Gunny and Mac, nothing had happened.  Just repetition of the 'U.I.G.' or, Useless Instruction Guide, as they called it.  They decided they would turn the radio on automatic for more important updates.  Gunny heard Derpy trotting downstairs, and quickly ran to open the door. As he opened it Derpy came in panting as if she had just ran down a huge flight of stairs....which she just did...

"Are you okay?" Gunny asked, putting his hoof on her shoulder.

"Yeah...yeah...I'm...I'm okay." Derpy said, panting heavily between each word.

"What happened?" Gunny asked again, fixing removing his hoof from Ditsy's shoulder. Derpy kept him from proceeding in the action and answered his question.

"There's something up...with this virus...it know's what it's doing...there's---" Derpy said, before being interrupted by Big Mac.

"Slow down kid, catch your breath!" He said.  He waited a moment for Ditsy to stop breathing so heavily.  "Now, what's with the virus being different?"

"Well," Derpy started. "I haven't got much to base a hypothesis on, but I have observations that I would assume are close.  The virus seems to know what to do with pony powers; if it's an earth pony with muscles strong enough to survive the virus it becomes what is known as a Tank, or a Pouncer.  If it's a pegasis, it will be able to fly if the wings are not corroded.

"But worst of all, if it is a unicorn, and the horn is still there...it possesses the ability to form an army, and it won't be disorganized, the virus knows how to use the magic, basic infected unicorns can create a mind-carrier over about ten zeds. But if it infected an alicorn such as Princess Twilight...who knows how big of a hive-mind it could create." Big Macintosh and Gunny pondered this for a second.

"So what you're saying is..." Gunny responded. "They are like aliens, with the hive-mind and all?"

"Yes, but more like the virus is, I think it's a living virus." Derpy answered.

"That's not possible!" Big Mac argued. "I may not know much science, but I do know that viruses are non-living organisms!"

"Non-living organisms? Doesn't that kinda cancel itself out?" Derpy asked.

"Well, you know what I meant." Big Mac replied.

"I do, and you know that the only place something like that could happen..." Derpy said.

"The Everfree Forest..." Gunny said.

"Right," Derpy continued. "We need to drag one of the zeds in here, and if we can get a unicorn off guard, we can probably use the magic in it's horn to our advantage."

"How are we going to do that, and the other thing?" Big Mac asked.

"Your strong enough, you can hold the zed, after I cut off the bottom jaw, and you won't get bit!" Derpy said with a smile.  "And if we find a unicorn we can grind the horn and separate the magic essence from it.  We can use water, magic won't be dissolved, but it's much less dense than water, and the bits and pieces of the unicorn horn."

"Alright, let's get this over with..." Gunny said with a huff.

~~~

As they walked out of the door there was one zed standing by, and fortunately, he was facing the same direction they were.  Derpy took out her machete and hit the zed with the handle, barely breaking skin on it's forehead but leaving big evidence of a large impact, and then she swung the machete at it's mouth and almost got the jaw off. However...the machete got stuck in the bone, so Ditsy pulled back on the machete harder and harder.  She heard skin tearing and bone cracking, but she didn't have time to notice when the jaw was going to disconnect, therefore launching her back a couple of feet from the zombie. The zed ran at her but noticed it couldn't eat her without it's bottom jaw, it stared Ditsy in the eye.  Derpy noticed who it was and a tear ran down her eye.  The other two didn't noticed as they shot it's arm and leg joints and tied it up to pull it back in the safehouse.  Derpy buried her face into her bloody hooves.  Only Gunny noticed her weeping.

"Derpy...what's wrong?" He asked. She slowly looked up at him.

"That was Dinky..."