We thought dropping a nuke would solve this crisis. We only hoped that there were some survivors out there, but chances were slim. We hadn’t even thought of telling the ponies on the outside about the strike.

The deaths still played on our conscience. We acted before we thought about the implications of what we were doing. No heroes in this battle.

The deaths were in vain. The nuclear attack had no effect on the infected. If anything, it had just made them stronger.

What had we done?

The answer seems pretty clear. We have done nothing more than slay every living uninfected pony in all of Equestria.

The fallout shelter

The door slid closed as the orange mare and the brown stallion exited the shelter, leaving Mist and Fluttershy sitting alone in the center.

Mist looked at the frightened yellow mare next to him. Fluttershy wasn't looking at him; just examining the stone ground. Mist wanted to know what she was feeling, so that he could help her in some way. He sighed. He hated doing this, but it was his ability after all.

He placed himself in front of Fluttershy and tilted her head up to face his. He stared directly into her eyes, feeling the power build up behind his own. His eyes glowed an electric blue. He focused on the pupils of the pony in front of him.

A torrent of emotions hit him as a wave of images flooded into his head. He quickly cut the connection off, not wanting to wallow in Fluttershy's sadness. He now understood. Now he could help. It was the same doubts; the same fears that he himself also had. The mare in front of was looking at him with wide eyes. He placed himself next to her and wrapped a wing around her comfortingly.

He hadn't lied when he promised to Applejack that he would take care of her. He wasn't joking when he vowed to keep her safe.

Meanwhile, out in the wasteland

Applejack stumbled on the rubble of a destroyed structure. Regaining her footing, she looked around at the town she once knew.

The nuclear bomb had left Ponyville a mere shadow of its previous glamour. Tall, proud buildings that had lasted ever since Ponyville’s inception had been destroyed, the wooden remnants littering the ground. Some, miraculously, were still standing, however they were just shells of their former self. The Everfree Forest was now just a mass of blackened, dead trees. Applejack felt another pang of loss as she remembered about Zecora. The black-grey clouds above her reflected what she felt as she looked sadly upon a decimated town.

After pondering over the remains of Ponyville, Applejack and Mountain Heart headed to what was Sweet Apple Acres and began looking through the remains of the barn, which were burnt but somehow still standing, knowing that there was a risk of the building collapsing, each step had to be taken carefully.

After what seemed like an hour of searching, “ Found something over here, care to verify?” Mountain called out to Applejack, pointing under a bale of hay.

“Is that… a trap door?”

“How much longer do you think they will be out there, Mist?” asked a still somewhat fearful Fluttershy.

“Honestly, I hope they will be back soon, but I don’t know how much longer they will be out there. Only time will tell.” said Mist, getting a bit worried himself but not showing it for fear that it would only cause Fluttershy to worry more.

They sat there in silence. ”What am I going to do with myself if I fail to protect her as I had promised I would? Would my survival be in vain? What purpose would I have if I failed to protect those that I swore to protect?” Mist thought to himself, the weight of each question bearing more emotional pressure on him.

A wave of loss and darkness came crashing into him and he nearly crumbled to the floor, as he tried to wave off the sudden emotion, he went to the darkest corner to think of why these emotions flood him like they do.

Mist started to think about the different kind of creatures that called Equestria their home. Most of the creatures would have perished in the blast. But then a horrible thought came to mind.

Could the changelings have survived the nuclear blast? No, it can’t be possible.
The nuke wiped out everything that wasn’t aware of the nuke being dropped on Equestria.

Theres no way they could have survived it without being warned or already knowing, but how? Who could have warned them? What If the individuals that I warned in Manehattan were changelings? Could that be possible?” Mist thought to himself

Fluttershy looked at Mist, seeing that he was thinking of something that was really weighing down on him. In an attempt to ease the stress, she walked over and placed her own wing around him.

He looked directly at her, then at the ground and let a tear fall. Fluttershy moved to sit in front of him and pulled him closer to allow him to shed his tears into her shoulder, giving him what emotional support she could. She gently rubbed her forehoof through his mane and she wrapped both of her wings around him.

Then the answer Mist was looking for came to him. He began weeping even more as he realized that he failed to warn his friends even though he had thought he’d warned them. The guilt, caused by the realization of his failure to warn his real friends instead of possible changelings, and the loss of his friends and family had sent him over the edge of the cliff of emotion.

“I never knew this was here.” Applejack said surprised. “This is an armory I never knew we had. Was this put here in case of such events as these?”

The weapons under the barn weren’t the best, but they were weapons none the less.

Noticing a duffel bag on the ground “I don’t know. Lets put all of the weapons and ammo in this bag so we can hurry up and get back to the others.” Mountain said with a hint of urgency.

With their knowledge of time being the essence of their chances to survive their current trip into Ponyville, they hurriedly take all of the weapons and ammunition in the room placing the weapons they did not chose to use and loaded themselves down with ammunition for the weapons they did chose to use, both choosing a 12 gauge shotgun.

They hurried up the stairs to the surface through the trap door they found, taking notice that the barn was about to collapse as they heard a weak groan from the structure. They ran outside and just to finish it, Applejack threw a rock at the barn, causing it to collapse.

They were walking back to the shelter when Applejack’s eyes passed over something familiar. She stopped, gazing at the burnt remains of a tree. How was this familiar?, she asked herself. It was quite a large tree, nothing special about it. Applejack examined the tree further and then she realised why this tree was so important.

Twilight…

Mountain looked around and saw Applejack just staring at the tree. He trotted back to her.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“Twilight…” murmured Applejack.

“Who?”

Applejack galloped straight towards the empty space that once was a door. Mountain galloped after her. Entering the ruined house, Applejack started to look around, hoping for a small sign of life. Mountain Heart entered behind her.

“Applejack, what are you doing?” said Mountain, slightly angry.
“Twilight, where are you?” whispered Applejack, more to herself than Mountain.

She galloped up the stairs to Twilight’s bedroom, once again looking around for any sign of the purple unicorn. Her visual search revealed nothing to her, so, carefully, she started to clamber over the rubble. Mountain Heart just watched as Applejack searched desperately for Twilight. Applejack was about to give up, when she tripped over something. Picking herself up, she looked back to see what she had tripped over, expecting to see a book cover or a sticking up piece of building.

She wasn’t expecting the sight her eyes gave her.

“Hey, Fluttershy.” Mist said, still clearly sobbing into Fluttershy’s yellow shoulder.

“Yes, i- is there something you want to talk about?” Fluttershy asked, gently caressing Mist in her caring embrace.

“I- I… Yes, there is.” Mist choked before nearly breaking down again. He took a deep, shuddering breath, but still found himself unable to continue. For a while, he just focused on the softness of the mare who was holding him. He closed his eyes and just listened to the slow breathing of Fluttershy.

There was something about this mare that made Mist feel… different. More alive inside than he had felt in a long time, before all of this shit happened. He buried his face into Fluttershy’s shoulder again, savouring the feel of the individual fibres brushing against his face. His heart finally seemed to start beating again. He moved his head off Fluttershy’s shoulder to stare her in the eyes. His disjointed thoughts finally formed words.

“I was just as timid as you when I was younger. My friends accepted me for who I was, but now that all of this has happened, my friends are… Well, lets just say that I’ll never get to see them again.”

Taking another deep breath, Mist continued.

“It does bother me to know that, but I don’t let it get in the way of survival. in fact I let it fuel my will to survive, not that I don’t miss them, ‘cause I really do.”

Silent tears fell down Fluttershy’s face as she listened to Mist. For nearly five minutes Fluttershy and Mist just sat there with tear filled eyes, not saying anything, not moving from their current position, then after the fifth minute the two slowly leaned in, half closing their eyes before connecting their lips and holding each other in an affectionate and loving embrace keeping the kiss going for a good minute.

After another half a minute passed they broke the kiss and said only three words simultaneously “...I love you.” and with this the two resumed their kiss.

Applejack gasped. She was seeing what she had tripped over clearly, just her mind wasn’t allowing her to accept it.

For she had tripped over a pony’s leg.

Applejack slowly moved over to it. She poked it with her hoof and jumped back. The leg didn’t move, thankfully. She knelt down and brushed away some of the rubble. Slowly, a shape appeared in the wreckage. She moved a little bit more rubble and the shape was thrown into the light. Applejack had uncovered the burnt and crushed remains of a pony. Even in it’s deformed shape, Applejack knew who it was.

“Twilight…” said Applejack, fresh tears pouring down her face. “Twilight, no…”

She pounded her hoof into the ground, causing a small cloud of dust to rise from the earth. She hauled the body of her friend out of the rubble, slinging the lifeless corpse over her shoulder. Mountain looked over at Applejack, with a puzzled expression on his face.

“Who’s that, Applejack?” asked Mountain, pointing at the figure on Applejack’s shoulder.

Applejack didn’t reply immediately. She slowly moved down the stairs, heading towards the door, Mountain following her. She laid Twilight’s corpse on the ground and turned to face Mountain, tears still falling from her face.

“We have to give her a proper burial.” said Applejack.

“Who is she anyway?” asked Mountain, not taking his eyes off the corpse.

“Twilight Sparkle. One of the best magic users in Equestria. And my best friend. I have to bury her.”

“Fine. But let’s do it quick. I have a bad feeling about this. Allow me.”

His horn glowed brightly and the dirt in front of them writhed. The dirt moved and formed a rectangular hole, which Applejack laid her fallen friend into. After a few moments, Applejack motioned to Mountain, and he swept the dirt back into the hole, leaving no trace there had even been a hole dug. Applejack swore that she would come back here one day as they turned and trotted briskly away.

Once outside Ponyville, Applejack pondered over the sight of the destroyed town once more, thinking of what she could be doing if this didn’t have to happen.

“Hey AJ, you coming?” Mountain called to her, breaking her from her trance over the town.

“Oh uh, yeah.” Applejack answered, heading to the shelter down the road where the other two are waiting inside.

Mist was still holding Fluttershy close to him, when all of a sudden they heard hoofsteps outside the shelter.

Fluttershy’s ears were the first to perk, hoping that it was Applejack and Mountain

“Mist, do you hear that?” she asked.

Mist turned to listen more closely. His ears perked when he heard the first door to the shelter open. Mist stood, ready to fight whatever came through.

The locking mechanism on the second door came undone and the door slid open revealing two ponies armed with shotguns, one of them carrying a bag..

“Mist, it’s us. You can calm down now.” Mountain said.

Mist relaxed from his defensive stance and sat down as they dropped the bag in the middle of the room revealing the weapons and ammo within.

Seeing that the weapons were found out there, Mist asked “Did you find any survivors?”

“No, we didn’t. But we did find a body.” replied Mountain, nervously glancing at Applejack as he said this. Should I let her tell them? Or should I?

Applejack moved towards Fluttershy and hugged her tightly.

“I- It was… Twilight, Fluttershy…” said Applejack, nearly overcome by a fresh wave of tears. Fluttershy gave a small gasp of horror and tightened her arms around the orange mare.

Mist knew that the two were taking it harder than he had taken his loss, so, setting his losses aside, he walked over and places his wings over them. After a while, Mountain suggested that they sleep, and slowly they started to get ready for the night. Mist walked over to Mountain and pulled him away from the others.

“How are you taking it?” he asked, looking at the other stallion with concern.

“I- I’m fine.” said Mountain, a little too quickly.

“Come off it.” scoffed Mist. “You’re just as scared as those two over there. So am I.”

Mountain nervously rubbed his hoof across the ground. He wasn’t the one to show emotion. Survival was an emotion to him, with no place for love, hope, fear or happiness. But…

“Yeah… you’re right.” answered Mountain, and he trotted right past Mist without another word.

As the light was turned off, Mountain laid himself down next to Applejack. He slowly closed his eyes, his head still buzzing from the chat with Mist.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the shelter, two figures were silently conversing with each other. After a while, they hugged and gave a final kiss before they lay down together protectively, as sleep washed over them all.

Author's Note

This chapter took us a long time to get done so please take the time to give a review based on everything about this chapter. We don't know how soon we can get the next chapter out with me starting at amazon in two days so please be patient