Ruins

"Ohnoohnoohnoonhoonho OH NO!" Twilight shrieked as she galloped along the ruined streets of Canterlot. Houses were burning. Dead, ravaged bodies of innocents lay scattered about. Canterlot Castle lay partially in ruins. Her wings flared out and tears fell from her eyes as it began to rain. Thunder clashed in the sky and shook the earth with such force support beams of houses fell under its might. Lightning danced and struck a few bodies, setting them ablaze. Everywhere she looked, carnage was all around. Not one thing was left untouched.

One body began shifting and using its forelegs to crawl to the alicorn. It was a mare, and she was ravaged beyond belief.

"Help....her...." Sobbed the mare as she fell limp onto the ground.

"Who..? No! Don't--" Twilight started in pain, looking at the corpse before she heard a piercing shriek that cut her off and forced her to turn her head to the left. That scream was unmistakeable....

The mare galloped into a ruined alleyway and her heart dropped. Lying on the ground writhing in pain was a humanoid and furry form. Fox ears, fox lower body, small black wings--it couldn't have been! She ran over to the form and hoisted her unto her back.

"What are you doing here, Katie?!" Twilight asked, trying not to break down into sobs right then and there.

"It...I f-found....out...." Katie choked before passing out. Her face was red, her eyes were bloodshot, and there were tears, still fresh, on her cheeks. Her wings were broken and a good portion of her lower body was covered in ick.

The mare began flying when she noticed walking pony forms...she stopped and gasped at what she saw.

The stallions, all of whom were walking on their hind legs, belonged to the Royal Guard. Worse still, their erect flesh sticks had all manner of boils, cysts, cuts...you name it, the damn things were deformed. Their eyes were bloodshot as well, and any who had horns and wings had said limbs amputated for reasons unknown. Wasting no time, Twilight teleported into Ponyville...

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"More of them..." Sighed a young woman as she looked out the window towards Royal Guards in the streets that walked on two legs rather than four. She had mahogany hair and green-blue eyes. There were little horns just beginning to poke out the sides of her forehead. A golden cross was sticking out of her back pants pocket, albeit barely. She kept looking outwards towards the locked houses whose windows were boarded up with metal and sighed.

"It's been eight days..." Sighed a young man with murky brown hair as he stood next to the woman and put a hand on her shoulder. "We should do something."

"We can't sit around here!" Shouted a female werewolf with small wings as she stood up.

"I dunno what's happening, but we can't get ourselves into danger!" Shouted another werewolf, who was much bulkier than the first. He crossed his arms and scowled.

The murky-haired man turned away from the window and towards the stairs as he heard shouting. "I'll see what mom wants now." With that, he ran past the werewolves and up the stairs as a woman continued shrieking.

A Changeling buzzed in from the kitchen. She had a pair of minotaur horns on her head. "We need more food."

"We always need more food," Retorted the horned woman.

"I hate this." Sighed the female werewolf as she sat back down.

"Hate what?" Snapped the horned woman as she turned from the window and walked towards the female werewolf.

"That there is no cure....for our pack." Replied the werewolf as she shed some tears. She soon held her hands to her face and sobbed as the horned woman held her close.

"There has to be one!" Bellowed the Changeling in a rather irritated tone of voice as she crossed her forelegs and hovered in an upright position, "We just....haven't found it yet."

The murky-haired man descended down the stairs again, and this time he was carrying a green-haired woman who was much older than he was--a good 40 years at least, but she only looked like she was 20 at best. Her hair hung in indescribable tangles and her bangs were all over the place. Her sickly green, milky eyes seemed to scan the area frantically. Her face was paler than the moon.

"Air...." Rasped the woman in a hoarse voice.

"Fang, get the air tank." Scoffed the horned woman as she escorted the female werewolf off of the couch.

"On it." Fang, the bulky werewolf, nodded and dashed up the stairs and came back with the tank in as little as five seconds.

The milky-eyed woman began coughing a storm. She was gasping in between coughs, and the gasps were nothing more than short-lived, hoarse cries of pain. Fang grabbed a wrench and began turning the top of the tank as the mask was applied to the woman's face.

Two teenagers--a strawberry blond boy and pink-blond girl--flew down the stairs and grasped at the bottom of the horned woman's shoulders. Another green-haired woman, whose hair was meticulously cared for, also descended the stairs and grabbed both teens by their shoulders and tugged them away. She then took her own place next to the mahogany-haired girl.

"Anna, I wish you could convey what had happened, not....cough uncontrollably." Sighed the woman as her hand moved over the coughing woman's forehead.

"S-Sarah..." Anna heaved before resuming her coughing fit.

A young man with brilliant crimson hair jumped the entire staircase and landed next to Sarah. The horned woman nearly fell over in a heart attack.

"L-Lancelot! Quit scaring me!" The horned woman complained.

"I would if your mother didn't send me down here to get you. She wants food and doesn't care what the hell it is. Fuck, she said it could be moldy and she'd still eat it!" Lancelot retorted with a serious glare.

The horned woman sighed and went around the couch before walking into the pristine kitchen. She opened the half-empty fridge and scanned the contents when some eggs caught her eye. She took two of them, closed the door, cracked the eggs open into the pan and began cooking them. It was like this every day since...for the past five years, in fact.

A white unicorn mare with a royal purple mane and sapphire blue eyes trotted into the kitchen. Adorning her flanks were three cyan diamonds.

"Alexis, darling, I know it's affected you so much. Please, let me cook the eggs." Sighed the unicorn mare.

"Mom requested that I do it. Lancelot was the hapless messenger, Rarity. I know that you're the Element of Generosity, and I know you want to help, and I greatly appreciate it. It's just..." Alexis trailed off with another sigh as the now-cooked eggs were put onto pieces of browned toast. "....I don't know how else to explain it, it's..."

Rarity used a levitation spell to put the food on a tray with a glass of orange juice. Alexis took the tray and slowly walked up the stairs, but not before nearly crashing into a worried Sarah in the process.

The door to the bedroom creaked open, and Alexis sighed in some untold relief. Her mother, a woman with fiery ginger hair and blue eyes, sat up against a multitude of pillows as if she were at the hospital. Like Anna, she was 40 years old at least, but looked 20-ish. Her hair also hung in tangles, but it wasn't as bad as Anna's. She beckoned Alexis to come inside using her hand as a weak smile crept its way onto her lips.

"It's good to see you grown up while I am not in those frequent comas..." Sighed the woman as she hugged her child after the tray of food was set on the little side-table next to the bed. "I had to fling a pillow at Lancelot because he couldn't hear me."

"I wonder where Katie went..." Sighed a half-demon man with black hair and a disfigured tail. He was trying to cover himself with a quilt.

"She said she went to Canterlot to see what the hell was going on. The Royal Guard's been acting funny, and Celestia doesn't reply to her letters if she gets them. Strange, isn't it?" Alexis replied as her eyes moved up towards the ceiling.

"Hell's bells..." Snorted the half-demon man as he tossed and turned. "Can't sleep!"

The woman began eating and nodded for Alexis to leave the room. When the horned woman heard Rarity screaming, she suddenly flew down the stairs and nearly fell unto her knees at what she saw at the bottom of the stairs galloping towards her.

"There's no time to explain!" Twilight shrieked as she flew past Alexis, who now noticed a fox-woman on the alicorn's backside.

"Mom?!" Fang cried, his jaw dropping open in shock.

Alexis ran past the couch and then outside like a fucking idiot. In her hand was a staff that had a silver spiral at the top that curled inwards and ended in a demon's triangle. From there, it bent low before becoming where the hands would go. The bottom was mapped out with black fire and three fiery rubies that were close to the border. A crude, feathered wing jutted out the side of the spiral and four large, gold feathers marked with red veins flared out in such a way the edges of those large feathers looked somewhat demonic. Six more feathers, all much smaller and a brilliant crimson, were attached directly to the spiral's side. A small demon wing hung low and opposite of the angel's 'wing,' which was really a scythe. It was black with red membranes. Two spikes that were attached together in an ark hung above the demon wing, and tied to it via a series of strings was a little cross with runic writing.

The Royal Guards took notice of the woman wielding the strange choice of weapon. "Seize her!" Bellowed one stallion whose coat was tarnished silver.

Alexis noticed a deformed flesh stick dangling in the breeze and nearly gagged. She caught herself, though, and put the foot of the staff, which was very big, onto the ground. Both hands were on the border now, and she sighed. The Royal Guards, given the fact they were on their hind legs and heavily injured, were as slow as snails. Some kept falling onto their forelegs because of the varying wounds on their hind legs.

"I bet you're faster than that! I ain't gonna stand here waiting all damn day!" Alexis cried with a face-staff*. The Royal Guard was better than this, so what the fuck was going on here? Forget the injuries, they walked like human beings! She lifted the staff and ran towards the shambling stallions and the next thing they all knew was that there was a vast assortment of deformed limbs which were flying quite literally everywhere as the wicked staff-scythe cut the wind whilst it was swung and spun to and fro. Bodies fell against the ground and soon enough there was an entire mini-mountain of severed limbs and decaying torsos and heads rolling about all over the place.

One Royal Guard stallion, who didn't have any of the injuries his fellow comrades had save for the bloodshot eyes, rushed towards Alexis shouting what she could've sworn was 'For Prince Blueblood,' whoever the fuck that was.

Alexis stood there with a grin as her eyes flashed red for a mere moment while a crimson aura certainly not of pony magic encased the mountain of corpses. Another crimson aura stopped the Royal Guard dead in his tracks as the corpses were repaired as if they were being stitched together.

The dead Royal Guards all had glowing crimson eyes and they surrounded the lone, living stallion.

"I am going to shoot myself later for giving this order, but...." Alexis said to herself before raising her voice to a shout, "COMMENCE WITH THE NECROPHILIAC ORGY! KEEP AT IT UNTIL HE TALKS, BECAUSE I SWEAR I HEARD SOMETHING ABOUT A BLUEBLOOD!!"

"A what?!" Cried the living Guard before screaming as a deformed, cyst-ridden dick was thrust into his plothole. Alexis literally turned a deaf ear and a blind eye to his pleas for mercy--she wanted information, and she wanted it now. She leaned on her staff and yawned. Frankly, she was going to fall asleep had two things not happened: One, a zebra female was being overwhelmed by more living guards as she stood her ground, and two, the stallion said something along the lines of "I'll give you what you want, just let me go!"

Alexis sighed and shouted, "Help that zebra! Keep those goons away from her!" Instantly and without wasting another second, the dead guards abandoned the living one they had just got done raping for the 13th time and brutally massacred the other guards who were trying to break a piece off of the zebra. Said zebra ran to Alexis and stood at her side as the necromancer towered over the guard.

"B-Blueblood....is a u-unicorn p-prince..." The guard heaved, trying to hide his face behind his forelegs.

"What else is there?" Alexis demanded, pointing the bare blade of her scythe at his midsection.

"H-He....has....a...cult..." Replied the guard before death took him away and left his limp body behind.

"Things have taken a strange and most dark turn. I ran out of ingredients to churn. I was in the forest of Everfree seeking what I needed most, but this...plague has taken more than a few hosts." Said the zebra as she eyed the dying Royal Guards get pounded by the mindless zombies.

"No time to explain, Zecora. Get inside, please." Alexis said, motioning with her hand towards the house. Zecora did as told in haste. Alexis turned to the zombies and simply snapped her fingers. At once, the guards that were zombified had turned to naught but ash. She herself then ran inside and closed the door as a sigh of relief escaped her throat.

"What the hell happened outside?!" Fang cried as he shut the window with a blush showing through his black fur.

"A lot." Alexis replied with her eyes twitching.

"Explain!" Bellowed a pegasus mare with orange pelt, magenta mane, and wheel-and-lightning-bolt cutie mark.

"I'd rather not, Scootaloo." Alexis sighed, shaking her head.