Code 5: Maximum Has Fallen

Chapter 1: How We Got Here

The guard climbed stairs that went around the inside of the guard tower in a square shape. It was twelve o’ clock and time for the midday watch. He was a unicorn stallion, so he was one of the guards that helped keep the force-field that surrounded the city of Canterlot up and active. He made it to the top of the tower, letting the other guard know that their watch was over. Once the other pony was gone, the stallion hooked up his sniper rifle to the mount on the railing of the tower. Then he conjured up the spell in his horn and shot a red ray of magic at the force-field, refueling the magical protection.

“That ought ‘a do it,” he said in satisfaction.

A couple hours later, the sky started becoming darker until it was completely covered in dark storm clouds. After a couple minutes it then began to rain and lighting lighted the sky and thunder vibrated the tower. The stallion looked up at the force-field. Its bright red glow could easily be seen through all the darkness. The guard then squinted at something peculiar. He saw a ripple pass through the magical wall. He then looked to the source of the ripple. It was coming from the front gates. The stallion looked through the scope of the high powered rifle to see a couple zombie ponies bumping their heads against the force-field, trying to get in.

“Yeah right,” the pony chuckled. Zombies could be just so stupid. Suddenly a black light flashed across the force-field, causing the guard to stumble back in surprise.

“What in the world?” He looked back at the undead ponies. There was no way. Another black flash blinded the stallion. He looked back down at the zombies to see black rays of magic being shot out of the horns of the zombies that were unicorns. Suddenly, a third black flash occurred and when the stallion recovered from the flash, the force-field was gone. The zombies poured into Canterlot. A zombie came onto the guard tower from above, its ragged wings spread. The guard lunged for the sniper rifle, but the undead pegasus lunged for him first. It took him to the ground and began tearing him apart, his screams soon resounding into silence.

*************

“Get FCD out of here!” Applejack commanded towards the five young ponies trying to keep the door to the squad room closed.

“They’re chasing us!” Buckshot screamed as he looked outside the window of the train engine.

**************

“Weapons free!” yelled Lockheed to the FCD agents in the train cars. “Defend the train!” A few of the fillies and colts climbed the ladders to the fifty-caliber M2’s mounted on the roofs of the train cars while others slid open the windows and positioned the numerous Gatling guns. The tan pegasus ran back towards the engine as full-automatic gunfire began sounding. He came into the engine to see Buckshot dealing with the trains machinery and Sweetie Belle feeding magic fuel into the furnace.

“We need to go faster,” Lockheed said to the blue pegasus.

“I’m trying,” replied Buckshot, slamming the throttle lever more forward. “The gears don’t go up until the train reaches a certain speed for the power to be necessary.” He pushed the lever a portion of the way forward again. “If we have another unicorn up here, we may be able to speed up a little.

“Can’t, everypony is manning the defense weapons,” replied Lockheed. Suddenly a zombie pegasus burst through the right window of the train engine, tackling Buckshot. Sweetie Belle gave it a barrel full of her trench gun, blowing half its middle off. The navy-colored pegasus got up.

“Oh Luna, this is just gross.” Some of the undead pegasus had blown up on him, covering his uniform and face with blood. He pushed the motionless corpse back out the window of the engine. He felt very sick inside and felt the need to throw up. Unfortunately, he couldn’t. Thanks a lot physiology.

“I think you should burn that uniform,” said Lockheed. It wasn’t as much of the possibility of infection as it was the fact that it smelled unbearably bad.

“It’s NWU. It’s fire-retardant,” said Buckshot dismally. He turned around and slammed the throttle lever forward again. This time however, instead of the lever locking in place like it should, a metallic crack sounded inside the metal covering, and the lever went all the way forward. The train began speeding up very quickly, and the machinery began making steaming noises that they shouldn’t be making.

“Uh oh,” said Buckshot, backing away from the furnace. Sweetie Belle stopped feeding magic into the engine.

“The train can’t handle the amount of power of that gear yet,” the white unicorn said nervously. “It’s gonna blow.” The three galloped out of the engine and into the train cars where the machine guns were still going full-blast.

“Abandon the train!” yelled Lockheed, “Abandon the train!” Too late; the engine exploded, separating the train cars and sending them off the tracks, scattering metal and glass.

**************

A light yellow red manned filly know as Applebloom groaned as she opened her eyes, she was on the ground, having been thrown from the train car she was in. She got up and spit some dirt out. She looked around see the forest around her burning, along with the frames of some of the train cars.

“Applebloom! Are you okay?” a familiar voice asked. An orange filly with a purple mane burst through the smoke and up to the earth pony.

“Ah’m fine,” she replied to Scootaloo. She looked around again to see ragged figures combing around the wreckage, searching for live bodies.

“But maybe not for long,” she said, pointing towards the numerous zombies.

“What do we do?” asked Scootaloo, eyeing the undead ponies nervously.

“Uh….Ah uh…..” She looked back towards the burning remnants of the train. There was nothing they could really do about the train. She sighed, “We’re gonna have to run.” The two began making their way away from the wreckage and the zombies, occasionally looking back to make sure none were following them.

“But what about everypony else?” Scootaloo asked.

“Try not to think about it,” Applebloom replied.

1 Year Later

ZPTF Log: It has been exactly one year since codename: Maximum, was infiltrated and rendered nonfunctional. The undead ponies who have almost taken over the country of Equestria have evolved, allowing undead pegasi to have use of their wings to fly and unicorns the ability to use deadly magic. And with the main base of ZPTF destroyed, the nationwide agency can no longer function properly. The Zombie Pony Task Force is dead.

“Why do we keep coming back here?” Scootaloo asked, “We’ve already checked through here about a million times.” The pegasus filly was walking along behind Applebloom, taking a look at the only too familiar businesses and houses; which never seemed very familiar to her anymore being that they were all partially destroyed.

“Ya’ never know, there may be something that we missed,” the yellow farm filly replied, taking in the sight of the buildings as well. That was only a very small part of why they kept coming here. The real reason the young earth pony continued to go on supply searches in Ponyville was because it was a town she had always known and loved so well, except for Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon of course, but she would admit that she missed those jerks as well.

“Hold on, wait a moment,” said Scootaloo, the purple manned filly stopping abruptly.

“What is it?” Applebloom asked, curious about Scootaloo’s sudden look of intense concentration.

“I hear something,” she said, “Like some kind of humming sound.” Applebloom listened as well, but she couldn’t hear anything.

“It’s probably nothin’,” the red manned filly said. “Ah think yer’ ears may be ringin’ again.” Ever since……well, the incident with the train, the natural ringing that would happen to anypony in the ears occasionally when silence lasted too long, was an occurrence that happened to them more often. Scootaloo knocked her hoof against her head a few times, and not hearing the humming sound, was satisfied.

“I guess you were right,” she said, and continued walking down the main street of Ponyville alongside Applebloom. They passed by many buildings, looking for one that looked like it might have a good find. As they walked past the front door of one of the buildings, they stopped and walked backwards until they were looking at the door again. This building, unlike the others, actually had a new door on it. It wasn’t in good condition, but it looked fairly strong and had a shiny padlock on it.

“Like Ah said, we could’ve missed something,” said Applebloom, looking the door and the lock up and down.

“I don’t think we missed this,” said Scootaloo. She backed up until she was looking up at the faded red sign of the business. Painted in black lettering, it had once red Fireworks Factory.

“Yeah, this is Firefly’s place,” said Scootaloo. She remembered the stallion fondly. He had the same color scheme as Applebloom, bright yellow with a red mane and eyes. His cutie mark being a red-rocket firework with a lit fuse. He was a very kind stallion and a lover of pranks as well. Scootaloo was brought out of her thoughts to the sound of shattering glass. Applebloom had just thrown a rock through one of the front windows of the business.

“Come on,” she said, climbing in through the window, “Let’s check it out.” The pegasus climbed in after her, being careful of the glass shards still in the sill. She dropped down to the floor and switched on her flashlight.

“Hmm, place doesn’t look any different than it did before,” she said.

“Yeah, but Ah don’t think ya’ could do this,” said Applebloom said, flipping a light switch. The lights of the store came on, showing the faded red paint of the store’s inside. The shelves on the walls were empty, as usual, but the two fillies could remember when they had been lined with all kinds of fireworks.

“Well, there’s nothing out here so, let’s check in the back,” said Scootaloo. The two fillies walked around the counter and through the doorway into the back room. As they walked in, to their left was the door to where Firefly had kept his fireworks and next to that was the stairway that led up to his room. The room they were in was the living room. A fireplace was on the wall opposite them and to the left of it was an entryway that led out the back of the building. The shelves where the stallion had kept his notebooks of inventions, usually firework related, was gone, leaving just the wall.

“One last place,” said Applebloom, heading up the stairwell to the bedroom, Scootaloo following close behind. When they came up into the area, however, it wasn’t what they expected. Portable metal shelves were placed along the walls of the room, except covering the windows, and they were lined with tools and some technology equipment. But one thing that really caught the fillies’ eyes was what was on the shelf on the opposite wall. Taking up the first and second shelf were two mechanically powered Gatling guns, a weapon that by now was only too familiar to each of the fillies.

“Oh my Celestia, this place is loaded,” said Scootaloo, “Let’s take everything we can carry.” The pegasus began walking towards the six barreled weapons but was held back by Applebloom.

“Hold it right there, hotshot. We’ve been in here less than a month ago, and it seems a bit suspicious that it’s suddenly packed with,” she looked at all the stuff that lined the shelves, “Military-like equipment.”

“Well then, maybe there’s more survivors and they might be willing to team up,” the purple manned pony offered.

“Yeah, cause it always makes a good first impression when ya’ break their window and are about to steal their supplies,” a voice suddenly said behind them. The two were about to turn around when the voice continued.

“Drop your weapons, put your hoofs up, and if you move, you die.” For even more convincing, the two heard the metallic sound of a pistol slide. The fillies did as they were told.

“Now turn around slowly and show your faces,” the voice commanded. Applebloom and Scootaloo once again followed orders and turned around, to see the silver furred filly also known as Silver Spoon.

“You two? Nevermind, Lockheed, their friendly,” she called down the stairs. She stowed the M1911 she had been pointed back on her belt as the colt came into view. He was pegasus with a tan body, his mane being jungle green and black, his eyes being the same shade of green. His cutie mark was a gold compass rose with extended wings. He was also wearing his Equestria Air Guard uniform.

“Oh wow, I thought we might find you two at some point, but not trying to steal Buckshot’s equipment,” he said, smiling as he looked at the two.

“Me neither,” Silver Spoon agreed. There was something different about how she said it, the filly hadn’t said it with a snotty tone to it, more like just general conversation.

“Well, I take it you’re coming back with us,” said Lockheed, starting back down the stairs. “Follow us.”

“So what happened, where is everypony?” Applebloom asked.

“Well, the main base was destroyed, but you already know that. After the train crashed, we all just sort of ran. Ran until the zombies weren’t chasing us anymore,” explained Silver Spoon, “About a day later, some of us met up in different groups and now we’re sort of scattered about the grid.” The four were walking down a road of Ponyville, Lockheed pushing a cart with all of the equipment from the building on it. The town was now layered in thick fog.

“Most ponies just went back to their hometowns because they know the land there, unless their hometowns are like this,” said Lockheed, gesturing around to Ponyville, “So most cities have been rebuilt as bases.”

“So where are we going?” asked Scootaloo, “And what’s with all the stuff?”

“Just look up ahead,” replied Lockheed, pointing a hoof. Scootaloo and Applebloom squinted through the fog. Through the thick whiteness, they could see a large grey shape in the distance. As they came closer, they could more clearly see the object. It was a helicopter. It was very large and was a light grey. It had a single, seven bladed rotor and the back of the aircraft was open, the ramp in the down position on the ground. By name, it was a CH-53E Super Stallion, one of the heaviest and strongest helicopters used by the military. As the four ponies came up the helicopter, they seemed to have left the fog behind and the sky was clear and the sun shining.

“Hey Bucky, we got your stuff, and some company!” Lockheed called into the chopper. The navy colored colt walked out to the back of the aircraft to the four, followed by Sweetie Belle. Right when the white unicorn saw her friends, she squealed with joy and ran to hug them, tackling the two in the process.

“Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh!!!!” she yelled, “I thought I lost you guys!”

“Long time, no see,” Buckshot said calmly, a kind smile on his face. “Welcome aboard my Super Stallion.” He made his way back into the chopper, followed by the other five ponies. Lockheed strapped the cart down and made his way to the passenger seats. Applebloom and Scootaloo made their way through tools and plugs strewn across the floor.

“Sorry about the mess, I’m in the middle of modifying this thing,” Buckshot apologized, sitting down in the left pilot’s seat. Sweetie Belle sat down in the right one. They put their headsets on and Buckshot flipped a switch in front of him, causing the rear ramp to close.

“Everyone ready?” he asked. The five ponies nodded from their seats.

“Okay then.” He reached up and flipped two switches, and the three high powered engines started running and the rotors began turning until the blades were a blur.

“Here we go,” said Buckshot. He pulled on the joystick and brought the helicopter off the ground a little. He then pushed it forward, causing the chopper to lean forward at a high angle, which in turn caused it to gain to a high amount of speed before he pulled back on the joystick and pushed it to the right, allowing the large aircraft to angle to the right and gain altitude.

“Where are we going?” asked Scootaloo, turning to Lockheed who sat next to her.

“We’re heading east back to Mareland, that’s where the fort is,” he replied, “It’s going to be a long ride, so be comfortable.”