The trotting dead

     It was cool, Twilight could feel the breeze. She had found herself in an open field and dandelions sprouted across it. The peace made silence seem almost more relaxing. A sound more delightful then peace to Twilight was the sound of her friends. She looked up ahead and saw her friends all having a picnic she rushed in to join them. She thought about what they would discuss, what plans they had, and what kind of foods they had brought. She had been so excited to see them. But then the clear sky became cloudy, not a problem Twilight had thought. It was pouring, then lightning. She finally reached the picnic but when she did, she saw all of her friends had turned into walkers. All of them decayed and slouched. Fluttershy crawled, while Rarity staggered, Rainbow and AJ's organs intertwined.

     "No...no! Stay away! Stay away! It's my fault! I'm sorry! It shouldn't have been like this! I..." Just then she turned around to see Pinkie just about to bite into her exposed stomach. Her eyes, not the same as her joyful eyes. Never would be, never once more.

     To Twilight's relief she had finally woken up. She did not dramatically rise up from her sleeping bag, or panted heavily. She was just shaking and sweating. She slowly got up and saw that it was still dark out, but Mini had not been inside the tent. Her sleeping bag was empty. She had wanted desperately to go back to sleep, but was more curious as to where Mini was. She had unzipped the tent door and went outside to find Mini sitting on the log that they had placed so that they could sit on something while around the fire. She was whittling some sticks to turn into arrows as she was humming a tune.

     "Mini," Mini had jumped up and dropped her things when Twilight had called out her name. "What are you doing up? It's the middle of the night." Said Twilight still very influenced by the effects of drowsiness.

     "I...I couldn't go to sleep." Said Mini in return. "What about you? Why aren't you up?" Recoiled Mini.

     "I had a nightmare." Said Twilight. Mini had picked up her things and resumed whittling. Twilight had noticed that Mini was shaking. It was hard to make out only in the moonlight, but she thought she saw Mini having huge bags under her eyes, as if she hadn't slept the night at all. There was a rustle in the bushes. Mini had pulled out her bow and went up to the bush. Only to find that it was some sort of marsupial that Twilight couldn't really identify under the moonlight. Mini was quite jumpy.

     "Aren't you afraid of being out here?" Asked Twilight.

     "Not really, I like to think that the darkness somehow shrouds me in a way. Most ponies are afraid of the dark, but I always thought of it as a helpful tool for hiding from other people." Said Mini.

     "Have you been getting any sleep? Your showing a lot of signs of insomnia." Asked Twilight.

     "I'm fine, I get plenty of sleep." Twilight rolled her eyes.

     "Trust me, I know what it's like to have trouble sleeping, nights of studying keep me up all night. C'mon, come back inside and get some sleep. Your going to need it for tomorrow." Mini looked at Twilight's wounds.

     "It looks like your going to need it more if you want those to heal up." Twilight looked back at her wounds. They have been healing at an exponential rate every night. Strange, she didn't usually heal so quickly. It hadn't mattered to her.

     " Come back to the tent, get some rest, and let's get up in the morning." Mini sighed and did so.

     The day after, they had went and collected the rest of the gear from the cabin. Despite having some close calls, they were fine. Other then the cabin, not a lot of activity had happened. They had decided to hit the road soon perhaps after Twilight's wounds healed. Two days after the cabin, they had decided that it was best to finally travel to see where the road would head. Perhaps it was pony nature to follow a guided pathway, even it didn't really lead anywhere. They had walked through the forest to go to what Mini had said was the way to the road.

     "Is it much further?" Twilight had asked.

     "I'm not entirely sure..." Replied Mini.

     "Are you to say that you don't even know where you're going?" Asked Twilight anxiously.

     "Oh relax, even if we are going the wrong way, the forest will end eventually, and eventually we will get to some kind of road." Mini's answer was not satisfactory. Twilight, really had no choice. She had already agreed to this and there was no going back. She really wanted to stay at the cabin for the rest of her days, but she knew that would get her no where. She had to know how this happened, what was going on, how that lunatic managed to make every ponies magic stop working, why the moon and the sun were rising and setting without the princesses, or if there even alive. But most of all, she had to find her friends. Find her family. What else were they to do anyways?  At least with the road, it would eventually lead them somewhere. At least some sort of progress was happening.

     "Oh crap," muttered Mini.

     Twilight looked up and saw in front of Mini. They were on top of a small cliff at least 6 meters off the ground. The real trouble however were the walkers below. Dozens of them sprawled everywhere.

     "The good news is we are on the right track, the bad news..." It was self explanatory.

     "So are we supposed to get through here?" Asked Twilight. Mini sighed and nodded. But then she had an epiphany.

     "Do we have any dynamite?" Asked Mini.

     "Yah.....why?" Replied Twilight suspiciously.

     "How much would you say a stick of dynamite can kill? Half of them? Maybe even more?" Said Mini joyfully. Again, it creeped Twilight out how Mini was so intrigued by dangerous tools, it just wasn't proper female etiquette. Perhaps she was being sexist but it wasn't the female norm nonetheless. But she then supposed that there is no such thing as 'the norm' now that there is nopony to say what is or isn't proper but Mini and herself as far as Twilight knew were the only ponies to say so.

     "I wouldn't know, it's impossible to determine without knowing the size of the explosion." Mini sneered.

     "Well let's find out shall we..."

     "No. The outcome is unpredictable and there is no telling what would happen." Said Twilight sternly.

     "Your not in charge of me! It's our best bet anyways." Said Mini.

     "We can just go around! Or find another route! This is reckless and pointless!" Said Twilight again.

     "You are not the boss of me!"

     "Well maybe it's about time that I am! I can think more clearly, and is not powered by childish drives!"

     "That doesn't give you the right to treat me like a filly! It was me who kept you alive all this time!"

     "Yah, and it's you who is going to kill us!" There was a long pause. To Twilight's utter disbelief the little filly started to smile. Almost started laughing. There was a long awkward pause.

     "I miss this. I miss this a lot. The bickering, the anger, I miss it a lot. Almost makes me feel normal again." This felt so weird and wrong to Twilight. She had just been pumped up by anger and was just in the heat of an argument only to have it almost immediately turned around. She was now just angry for no logical reason. Her body was cooling down and her emotions were going back to normal. Mini must have been alone for a considerable amount of time if she misses having an argument, misses shouting, missing...normal. It was like Mini had some sort of bipolar episode. It seemed like the happiness of familiarity had overcome her. Mini went and hugged Twilight. Twilight was speechless, she wasn't angry anymore. She didn't know what to do. She eventually just smiled and hugged her back.

     Twilight had wanted to experience what non magic explosives were like. She has had a lot of experience with explosives regarding chemicals and magic but never artificial materials. She had supposed that it would be an educational experience to see what pony made materials in the form of dynamite would look like when used. It was a waste, and a safety hazard, but at this point it didn't even matter anymore. They set it off and threw it in the mass jumble of walkers and watched from a far to see  many were destroyed in the process

     When they checked to there delight only a few remained. Mini had shot them all down and there was a clearing for them to walk through. They walked for almost half a day until they finally reached some kind of highway for automobiles. Twilight had heard that these things had existed, a runway so cars could move smoothly through the terrain for a long distance. These were found only in a few places in equestria, to think that they were this far out.

     "Is this the street?" Asked Twilight. Mini shook her head.

     "This isn't a street Twilight." Said Mini.

     "What do you mean? This was the place you said we were going to." Said Twilight confused.

     "No, I don't think you understand. This isn't a street Twilight, this is a road." Twilight looked at her with judgment thinking as if she had said something pointless.

     "Streets are roads that you see that lead to neighbourhoods. These neighbourhoods in turn contain ponies. Perhaps families. Happy families, joyous families. We don't have that anymore. Streets can also be described as a pathway that leads you to towns, cities, culture. We don't have that here anymore. Its all gone. We now just have roads. Roads that lead nowhere. Roads that would make green days I walk a lonely road song seem like Disneyland. Streets, are no more. It's even going too far to call them roads. There just lines that you follow now." Twilight knew that Mini had always been vague and not exactly thought out descriptions of describing this new world, or perhaps Mini was just really tired and spouting out cheesy lines for the sake of the moment. Regardless, despite Mini's antics, Twilight always understood it in the end.

     For a couple of hours nothing really happened, and nothing was ever going anywhere. Twilight never worried if this road would even lead anywhere or if would go on forever. Right now Twilight didn't really have anything left to go on now. She simply acted because she could. And that it was just some sort if progress.

     The road had lead them to a corner that turned leading north. Twilight had heard some sort of low rumbling sound coming from around the corner.

     "Do you hear that?" Asked Twilight. Mini stopped and straightened her ears.

     "Hear what?" Asked Mini.

     "You know, that..." As they turned the corner, to Twilight's utmost disbelief, a car had sped down the road and smacked right into Mini that was in front of her. She went flying almost a few meters. Twilight immediately rushed over to Mini getting out her backpack. She checked to see if Mini had any fatal injuries. Only a forceful hit to the head.

     "It's only a concussion..." Twilight said to herself in relief. It was funny how in a normal situation a concussion would have ponies crying at how serious a the issue was. It had been to a point now where concussions were a relief. She finally felt the shock of realizing that a car had just hit Mini. Which meant there was other ponies. She threw Mini over her shoulder and slowly got up. She looked over to the dirty blue car. Three colts got out of the car. One pony was orange and had a beard and a red bandanna while smoking a cigarette. Another was grey and had a black leather jacket and black skull earrings. The other one was a similar grey and had a skull t-shirt and a Mohawk. They were all earth ponies and all carried rapid fire weapons. Twilight had noted that there were two more colts inside.

     "Well would yah look it here." Said the orange colt. He walked over jerking as he walked as if he was some sort of pimp. Twilight took a few steps back.

     "Don't be shy my little pony. We ain't gonna hurt you." Said the orange colt again with a wicked smile.

     "Uhh, sir it looks like we have a unicorn here." Said one of the stallions.

      "You would be wrong Mr. Dime, because this here ain't no unicorn," He looked over to the side of Twilight to see the wing that wasn't torn off. "This here is an alicorn. A princess." The group kept walking closer and closer as Twilight kept on walking back farther and farther.

     "An alicorn! Still alive? Why sir that's a rare find you've got there! Wings and a horn! More to add to your collection!" Said the other stallion.

     "Who gave you the right to talk about my collection?"

     The stallion fell silent. "I'm sorry sir I shouldn't have, it's just I thought that..."

     "What? That it would be smart? You think that you can just go around talking about other ponies stuff? I trusted you with that information, and now you just treat it as if it's garbage?"

     "No sir that's  not what I meant at..." The orange stallion took out his machine gun and shot the colt who spoke right in between the eye.

     "What a piece of crap. Better off without him anyways. Nobody talks about my collection. Yah here me?" Said the orange stallion to the other stallion who was alive. The other stallion replied with a vigorous nod.

     "Now for you miss, would you like to come for a joyride? I heard that it's dangerous out here, other ponies could snatch you up and do who knows what." Twilight wasn't scared. She was just tired. She didn't want to deal with them. In truth her goals were unclear, but she knew that one of them was to avoid this situation and protect Mini.

     "I advise that you stay away, we don't want any trouble. Just let us and we will all be fine." Said Twilight.

      "Woah there girl, slow down. Just give me a chance. C'mon, you don't want to be wandering the roads your whole life right? Listen, I'm sorry what we did to your precious little girl, but we'll patch her up. She'll be as good as new." Said the orange stallion.

     "I'd like to decline, thank you very much." Said Twilight. The stallion just laughed.

     "Oh man, you stupid idiot, it's not like you had a choice anyways." At that point Twilight started to run in the other direction.

     "No use running!" Said the stallion. "You can't win! It's either you come along or you come along!" Still Twilight ran. She heard the car starting up and coming up from behind. The car zoomed past Twilight and stopped her. She then proceeded to travel the other way only to find that the stallions had come up from behind. Stallions that were from behind came running up front. Twilight was cornered.

     The stallion proceeded again to laugh.

     "You see stupid alicorn, it's like this. We win, and you lose." Twilight now, was frightened and scared.

     "Grab her boys." The henchmen then grabbed Twilight by the arms making her drop Mini and turn into a bipedal stance. The stallion proceeded to laugh like he had just won a game or something. He brought out his knife and swung around like a toy. He grinned like a boy in a candy shop.

     "I promise you m'am, this is going to be fun." What was he to do? Cut her up just for fun? Possibly rape? She hadn't known. She struggled to get free from the bonds of the men, but could only manage near to nothing. He brought the knife to Twilight's chest.

      "You know what I'll do, I'll slowly go along here, maybe spill some of those juices, or maybe I'll mark my name first and then make three holes along here..." The blade gently went along the fur of Twilight's coat indicating where he would strike and slice. All the while his men were snickering and laughing along with him.

     "Just imagine it, an alicorn! What beauty you shall bestow upon me inside of there I can only wonder..."

      Twilight closed her eyes and prepared for the worst. Suddenly a blast of shots rang through the air like defeaning minuscule missiles striking the stallions down. She could not see the events that unfolded for they were going by too quickly to process. She dropped to the ground now that the stallions did not have a hold of her. She looked to see Mini and grabbed her tightly. The stallion inside the car were still alive and started to get out. But more shots fired and the car gave out an explosion. This made Twilight fly back along with Mini in her arms and made a loud ringing in her ears. She didn't quitr black out, but mostly all she had was a feeling of hope. Someone had saved her, meaning that there was actually sensible ponies. Ponies that would help her. Ponies that would help her make progress towards finding the truth about the walkers. Finally progress.