Rampant

Canterlot

Ch. 1: Once Upon A Time

Twilight breathed in a mighty gasp, the shock of her own breath forcing her eyes open at the same time. She couldn’t move. There was no light. It didn’t feel like she could even close her eyes again, nor actually breathe. All she could feel was something cold against her back.

Just as suddenly as she awoke, light poured over her, blinding her, but there was no pain with it. A silhouette leaned over her, its legs moving toward its face, its whole head shaking. Twilight could tell it was yelling something, but all she heard was a shrill ringing deep in her head.

Her senses were recovering quickly. Hooves reached down around her and lifted her up, the light finally reaching over the silhouette rather than around it. It was Pinkie Pie, smiling and yelling, pulling in Twilight’s limp form for a big hug. Even as Pinkie shook her back and forth, not letting go, Twilight could start to hear through the ringing again. The first new sound to reach her, just barely, was sobbing.

And after another squeeze, Pinkie dropped Twilight. She landed with a painful thud over the edge of a huge box, the pressure hitting right in the gut—but there was no pain. Twilight grunted, or tried to, and managed to tilt just her face away from laying smack dab against the side of the box.

She saw Pinkie again, who had rushed to another box—some kind of casket raised on a marble pedestal. Pinkie was shoving its lid off as well, hopping up and down when she looked inside it. She pulled Rainbow Dash out of that one, Rainbow also barely moving. Twilight’s eyes widened even as she remained powerless over the rest of her face, and she felt obliged to panic, but even that was still difficult to feel.

Straining her muscles to obey her, she lifted her hooves to the edge of her own casket and shoved herself out, inch by inch, just far enough for her to realize she still couldn’t move her hind legs. She somersaulted out head first, landing flat on her back again. Still grimacing, braced for the pain that never came, this time Twilight’s gaze was pointed on the outside of her box. Something was written on it. She urged a hoof over her chest and onto the ground, twisting herself around just enough to get to her knees again, and saw the senseless reasoning for her current being. Written on Twilight Sparkle’s tomb was her epitaph:

Twilight Sparkle / Who lived a legend in life and left a legacy in death. / A unicorn pony of renowned caliber in all her communities, / Held more highly esteemed only in our hearts. / She died young, and lived still more than most. / Rest in peace, our loving friend.

Twilight blinked twice after finishing. She stared it much longer than it took for her to read, eyes wider still the longer she looked at it. All that roused her were more sounds reaching her, her senses coming back further. Even as she kept staring, like the words might change if she paid better attention, she picked herself up. Her body moved so slowly it was as if she was thawing.

As she stood up fully, she finally looked around at where she really was, past whatever Pinkie was doing—and recognized it immediately, despite there being little left to recognize. Her memorial, that of hers and her friends, was surrounded by white stone towers in each direction, but past each one of them, smoke. The tips of an inferno were visible in every direction, no matter where she took her gaze. Canterlot was burning.

Twilight turned around as she heard the clearest sound yet. Even beyond the flames, maybe within them, there was screaming. Not a kind Twilight could picture, not a kind she had ever heard. Not the kind that made her scared—but the kind that made her fear.

Pinkie’s voice echoed from behind her, and Twilight turned again as her friend cried, “Zecora, hurry!”

Still agape, Twilight saw someone else in a one of the streets leading out of the park. Looking older than when last she’d seen her, the same lumpy burlap cover shrouding her back, it really was Zecora. She was pacing back and forth and pouring a liquid on the cobblestones, a purple ooze spreading fast from its initial puddle. Though her mouth was filled by the vial of liquid, she waved a frantic hoof at the mares.

“Pinkie Pie?” Rainbow Dash groaned, stumbling to her hooves from beside her own tomb.

“Not yet!” Pinkie said, at the same time pulling Applejack’s leg over her shoulder. “I know you’ve got a million and five things to ask, but not yet! Now get your hinies moving!”

With another tug, Pinkie dragged Applejack out of the last tomb. Twilight looked from them back to Zecora, and took a trembling, difficult step toward the latter. She couldn’t quite think straight yet, even though her feelings had all come back. Someone else was far beyond Zecora, but Twilight couldn’t quite tell—

She shoved back around as Pinkie pressed her head into Twilight’s shoulder, forcibly turning her even while still helping Applejack.

“Wrong way, silly!” Pinkie grunted, letting go as they all faced away from Zecora.

They all went down the opposite passage from that in which Zecora was occupied, and Twilight looked back as they fled. She couldn’t make sense of the scene, but as she looked, she saw something even further out of place. Four unicorns, three of them with a look angrier than Twilight had ever seen. The fourth lay in the middle of the road with half her stomach missing. That one wasn’t moving. The others dipped into it face first, and when they pulled back, the dangling pieces of their meal splattered blood all over them.

Twilight should have been compelled to vomit, but she wasn’t.

One of the unicorns looked up and saw Twilight. Twilight couldn’t pull her gaze away as she kept stumbling along with Pinkie, Applejack’s hoof still propped over Pinkie’s shoulder. The nameless unicorn moved away from her victim. She came closer, the unicorns around her noticing and moving with her. Hoof met cobblestone quicker with each step.

Zecora was still in between the two groups, emptying the remnants of her vial before tossing away the container. A whole section of the path was covered by the liquid now, but the unicorns didn’t pause. Zecora turned and ran to catch up with the others, a limp in her gallop; only Twilight was left to see what happened to their pursuers.

The first of the unicorns ignored the mixture completely, still staring forward, panting from more than her running. Twilight could see her clearly now, despite the distance. The nameless unicorn’s expression wasn’t mindless, but furious. She roared in a way Twilight had never heard, a sound of rage, something not even campfire storytellers could imitate.

The unicorn took a galloping step into the mixture, and her expression dissolved the same way her hoof disappeared. The fury in her face turned into frightened anguish, and her roar shifted into a scream.

The unicorn fell instantly into the ooze, nearly leaping into it, her body unable to keep running. The mixture ate right into her hooves, then her legs, melting both flesh and blood as she landed with a splash and sizzle.

The other unicorns stopped just before reaching the mixture, their attention not so undivided. Their faces, as they watched the death of their compatriot, showed the same anger as before. They looked up from that scene to Twilight again, glaring with the same rage as she had just heard in their cries. The shared gaze broke as Twilight and her friends rounded a corner, and she turned her gaze to Zecora. The zebra panted through gritted teeth and a furrowed brow.

Pinkie, ahead of the pack, had let go of Applejack so she could keep her own pace. As she dashed ahead to inspect their path, she said, “Just keep running! Don’t stop for anypony, no matter who it is!”

Twilight looked back to her and finally said, “Pinkie Pie—what happened here?”

Pinkie didn’t respond. She stopped running as she reached a grate in the road, leaning down and pulling it out of place before waving everyone inside. Applejack entered first, now moving as fast the rest of them. Twilight started to go next, but Rainbow drew her attention upward as she asked, hoof pointed to the sky, “And what happened to them?”

Several pegasi were flying over the towers, just coming into sight from beyond the smoke. Twilight still didn’t cringe, but the one in front looked nearly as bad as the wounded pony she had seen on the street. The red splotches on his wings were not his natural color. One of the ponies chasing him had clutched in her mouth what looked to be a net.

The numbing that had inhibited Twilight had faded almost completely. She saw the pegasi perfectly, saw the same anger on most of their faces as the scene before, and thought the same as before.

Where did all this come from?

“Get in!” Pinkie said, waving her hoof in circles.

Twilight obliged. She climbed down the ladder as quickly as she now could, only torchlight at the bottom when she touched down into the sewer. Rainbow and Pinkie followed, as Zecora went down last. The zebra eyed the upper surroundings carefully, flames starting to encroach, and pulled the grate back.

In the sudden quiet, Twilight spoke up first. “Pinkie Pie, what happened to us? What happened to them?”

Pinkie glanced back at her with a smile. “What do you mean?”

Twilight couldn’t match her friend’s attitude. She put a wet hoof to her own chest, and said, “We’re dead, and they’re dying.”

“Well, duh!” Pinkie said. “You were buried here almost twenty years ago, Twilight. Rainbow Dash and Applejack were killed right after you, and I was nicked just after Rainbow!”

A moment passed. Twilight gasped, “What?”

“I remember,” Rainbow said, splashing a hoof down. “I remember that—we were murdered!”

“I remember, too,” Applejack sputtered, her voice still returning. “They got you first, Twi. The rest of us—rest of us got warned somepony was probably comin’ after the Elements of Harmony.”

Rainbow looked back to Pinkie. “Did the killer ever get caught?”

“The mysterious no-gooder got away with it, and we became one of Equestria’s biggest mysteries ever,” Pinkie said, shaking a forlorn hoof. “Now let’s get moving again!”

“Wait, hold on!” Twilight said. “That’s not even close to enough information! Who would have murdered us? Why aren’t we still dead? Why is Canterlot under attack? What—what happened to everypony up there?”

Zecora was still at the group’s flank. She spoke next, her voice as deep as when she was young, though the tips of her words now raspier. “There is much to explain, Twilight Sparkle, but there is no time to do so now.”

Applejack glanced back and said, “But how are we alive?”

“It is a taboo ritual from my people,” Zecora said. “One I do not take lightly.”

Twilight quickly shook her head. “Necromancy isn’t a taboo ritual, Zecora, it’s evil magic!”

“It is voodoo,” Zecora said, narrowing her gaze. “If you stop using such a tone with me, I will explain more.”

“And if you be more quiet!” Pinkie failed to whisper. “Zecora, which way?”

“The left.”

Through what little light the torches on the wall gave, Pinkie guided the rest of the party down the sewers. Echoes that were not theirs constantly met them in the corridors. Zecora, still keeping position at the rear, explained in a more hushed voice, “After you were laid to rest, a terrible condition infected Equestria, the effects of which you have seen today.”

“Some infection,” Rainbow muttered.

“It is not a real infection. No pony or other creature knows what it is. But nearly two decades ago, ponies in this land started doing things no one has ever seen before. It is difficult to explain in a way that you will accept by word alone, even with sights seen already—but they became violent in a despicable way.”

Twilight matched Zecora’s tone and asked, “What exactly is this infection?”

“Everypony refers to it as bloodlust,” Zecora said. “Over the past eighteen years, it has spread across all Equestria. Nopony has learned what it is, nor where it came from. I have seen with my own eyes the terror on a pony’s face as she is torn apart by former friends. I have seen ponies look on to such attacks with no care to stop them.”

Twilight frowned deeper. “Who has it reached?”

“Everypony,” Zecora said. “Everypony on the ground, in the skies, and in the soil.”

“What, we’re infected, too?” Applejack asked, voice growing sharper. “We ain’t acting like any of those monsters back up there. How could you even figure that?”

Zecora looked back at Twilight, lowering her voice again. “The Twilight I knew decades ago would not watch without recoil as a pony is devoured alive. Nopony seems immune.”

Twilight matched her gaze, but it wasn’t disappointment she saw. Silence fell between them, and Twilight looked away first.

“I think that’s a good catching-up start,” Pinkie Pie said, “but we should be out of here in another minute. We’ve got to stay nice and quiet.”

The loudest scream yet came down the tunnels, one much closer to them than before. All the ponies stopped mid-track and turned back to its source, but they could see nothing. A splash into the sewer water echoed next, but that was followed only by dripping. Everyone stayed still, but the dripping remained static and quiet. Pinkie Pie lifted a single hoof out of the water and ushered the group forward again.

They hurried to what was finally an exit out of the sewers, a large black gate holding sway over it at the end. Pinkie hopped her forehooves onto it and shoved, but the door held firm against her.

She glanced back at the other ponies. “All right, now for a little teamwork. Help me out, girls!”

Rainbow stepped forward to help, but Applejack held out a hoof to stop her. Applejack said, “Hold on. I think we need to know what in the hay it is we’re getting into. How did Canterlot of all places get this way?”

Pinkie looked back to her to reply, a pleading whine in her voice. “Answers, I know! But don’t you think now is a really, super terrible time for them?”

“I’m willing to wait on a lot more questions, Pinkie, but I agree with Applejack right now,” Twilight said.

Pinkie rolled her whole head with her eyes as she groaned. Zecora answered for her, saying, “After the bloodlust took every town and valley, Canterlot was barred to prevent its final spread. It remained sealed without fail for a decade, and we don’t know what went on in this city for that time.”

Twilight frowned. Zecora sighed and hurried her speech. “This is the day its gate failed. A group of unicorns was besieging the gate for this last month, breaking through today. They have a large following of other ponies, among whom Pinkie Pie and I quietly joined some days ago. As Pinkie Pie was buried outside Ponyville, I had little trouble reviving her before this. We have been keeping check on the city’s gate a whole year, waiting for a chance to get inside.”

“And why did you get us back?” Twilight asked. “If we’re already infected, what are we supposed to do?”

Zecora’s voice took a darker tone. “Hope is all we have left with which to fight, Twilight Sparkle. You were murdered right before the bloodlust happened, perhaps not by coincidence. That you may be able to stop it is our greatest hope.”

Another enraged scream shrieked down the tunnels.

“Now we get out of here!” Pinkie said, splashing her hooves in the water as she shoved her whole body against the door.

Twilight’s brow furrowed. “Why aren’t the princesses doing something about all this?”

“They didn’t do anything for ten years, Twilight Sparkle. I do not know why,” Zecora said.

“Now, now, now!” Pinkie pleaded, giving a headbutt to the gate with each word. Applejack lowered her hoof from Rainbow’s path, stepping forward with her.

All three positioned their hooves against it, and on a count of three, slammed it open. Rainbow started to hurry out first, but it was then Pinkie who held a hoof in front of her. The pegasus dug her hooves in as she looked down.

“Holy shit!”

Their tunnel ended at the very base of Canterlot, the exit hanging out over the mountain the city was built on. Twilight and Applejack squeezed next to Rainbow, peering down as their expressions unified.

“How are we supposed to get out this way?” Applejack asked, tapping her head for a moment before glancing upward at her lack of a hat.

Pinkie Pie stepped just behind the three other ponies. She raised her hooves, grabbed hold of their rumps, and said, “Sorry, maybe I should have mentioned this sooner!”

She shoved. Their hooves left solid ground. Twilight screamed louder than any of the ponies they had heard earlier. The others fell beside her, the earth coming closer to them again at an alarming speed.

“Oh, shit! Oh, shit!” Rainbow said, struggling to flap at all. Her wings were still just twitching.

Falling above, Pinkie yelled, “Twilight, this is all you!”

Twilight swallowed hard, failing to let the incidentals stop distracting her. Calm, calm, calm, calm, but holy word that Rainbow said!

She had trained for things like this. She could do this. She needed to stop panicking and focus.

Focus!

Her horn glowed distinctly, one of the brightest times it ever had. Then the whole group glowed.

They were still falling. Twilight increased the glow, clutched her eyes shut, strained her muscles, but their velocity remained.

“Stop making it such a big deal—slow us down already!” Applejack said, flailing beside her.

“You’ve got this!” Rainbow cried. “You’ve got this, come on!”

Twilight opened her eyes again and glared at them. “I do have this, so be quiet for a second!”

Something fell into place within her as her gaze was still turned away from the ground. The glow turned a dimmer purple, and as the flat ground became a visible reality, they slowed at last.

But the ground wasn’t flat. They landed with a thud at each of their rears, tumbling all the way down the hill until they careened into a pile of rocks at the bottom. Twilight was first to reach them, face planting firmly into a huge stone as she came to a halt.

She pushed herself off the rock, improbably larger than every other one in the field beneath Canterlot, and patted her head a couple of times as she realized it still didn’t hurt. She was flattened against the rock again anyway, serving as a cushion as Rainbow tumbled right into her.

Hind hooves hanging over the rest of her body, Rainbow demanded to everyone, “What in the hell is an exit like that doing at the edge of Canterlot?”

The others had crashed against rocks totally covered in moss. As Applejack sorted out how to untangle each leg from the others, she looked over to Rainbow and spat, “Shame on you for cussing!”

“After what we just went through, I think I get a pass on my god-damn language,” Rainbow said, twisting onto her side and clambering back up to her hooves.

Zecora groaned as she followed suit, propping herself up before Pinkie Pie helped her all the way. As she stood, still grimacing as she shifted her weight, Zecora said, “You must forgive my age—but I did all I could to restore your own.”

Most of the ponies took a look at themselves. With just a little discoloration in some of their fur, they looked remarkable for the living dead; not quite the same as their prime, but young again. Rainbow whistled, “Damn. I do still look awesome.”

Twilight stood up last of all, brushing the dust off once more, giving herself only a cursory glance. She looked back to the others and said, “All right, I understand—maybe we just don’t have a lot of answers yet. But while we’ve got a moment, at least tell me what everypony knows about our deaths.”

Applejack frowned as she threw back her hair, though it fell back immediately over her shoulder. She said, “If the killer was never caught, we don’t know anything. Yours was the first murder in Equestria in a long time. Like I said, the Royal Guard found all the rest of us after you were killed and told us somepony might be tryin’ to kill us all. I don’t remember what happened to me, but I guess they were right.”

“One year after Pinkie Pie’s death is when the bloodlust started,” Zecora said. “It is unknown exactly where. It struck multiple villages about the same time, near the center of Equestria.”

“You could say we’re a dead end,” Rainbow chuckled.

Applejack glanced around at everyone else while still patting her hair, ignoring Rainbow. “Then what do we do now?”

Twilight looked to Zecora, who was now leaning on Pinkie, and asked, “What’s the rest of your plan?”

“You are,” Zecora said. “You and your friends are my entire plan, Twilight Sparkle.”

Twilight stood a little straighter even as the weight settled over her. Everyone looked at her now, waiting. Twilight cleared her throat. “Then the next step is getting all our friends back together. Were Fluttershy and Rarity buried somewhere else, or are they still up in more of those tombs?”

“Fluttershy’s still alive, silly!” Pinkie cried. “She’s really old now, though. She’s got wrinkles! She was still living in Ponyville the last time I saw her.”

“Even better!” Twilight said. “And Rarity?”

There was a short silence. Rainbow rubbed her neck and said, “Rarity wasn’t murdered either, but she still bit it before I did. And you know how she was—she, uh, went for getting cremated.”

The confidence Twilight had mustered disappeared again, and another moment of silence followed.

“If we find her ashes,” Zecora spoke up, “I will do what I can. The ritual will be more complicated.”

“We’ll find them,” Twilight said, then turning to Rainbow. “Where were they put up?”

Rainbow shrugged. Twilight sighed, “Then we’ll go to Ponyville first. There’s something else there that we need if we’re going to put an end to all this craziness, since we can’t get back into Canterlot anymore.”

Applejack tilted her head. “And that would be?”

Twilight glanced back at her and grinned again. “Books! My library was the best in all Equestria outside of Canterlot, hooves down. It’s the best lead we’ve got on how the bloodlust started and how we can stop it.”

“Glad that’s still your job,” Rainbow said.

“I suppose that leaves one more question,” Applejack said. As the wind picked up and blew through the grass, twisting around everyone’s manes over their shoulders, Applejack turned back to Zecora. “What happened to all your rhymes?”

Zecora rolled her eyes. “They left.”

Pinkie Pie pumped one hoof high into the air, almost jostling Zecora off of her again. She yelled, “Let the adventure begin!”