Trixie sucked on a pomegranate mango smoothie in the middle of the mall's food court, as was her Wednesday custom, watching with disdain as a group of high school students passed by laughing amongst themselves about something insipid, Trixie was sure. Even the sweet fruit she was sipping couldn't quell the bitterness she felt towards her fellow students. It's not that they were all annoying individually, it's more that entire subclass of humans known as high school students was—on the whole—entirely insufferable, and it pained Trixie to no end to have to count herself among them. Luckily, however, it was her final year, and soon she'd be free from the wretched idiots that surrounded her.
It was at this point that Trixie noticed people were starting to stare at her. She must've been talking to herself out loud again. Sneering at one of the people who'd dared to look at her--a five year old boy--Trixie stood up and swiped her drink off the table. Tossing it into a nearby trashcan as she walked away, Trixie briefly recalled something the school counselor had once told her.
"You know, Trixie, if you find yourself often talking out loud when no one is listening, that can be a sign of insecurity. Perhaps you should try talking with your friends instead."
Obviously Trixie hadn't taken what she said seriously because she was just a licensed psychiatrist, and who listens to psychiatrists anyway. Although, the thought did remind her that she didn't have any friends, not that that bothered her or anything, as she often told herself. Friends just slowed you down like cumbersome baggage. The only people who had them were fools and horses, and she was certainly not a horse.
Just as she was about to leave the food court, Trixie happened to see a table occupied by people she'd never seen before. One of them, who looked like the leader of the group, mostly by virtue of having the largest hair, sat in the middle, leaning in to whisper to her compatriots. The girl to her right was busy stuffing tacos into her stupid face while the girl on the left merely stared in disgust.
Not being an expert in villainous looks, Trixie couldn't say for sure, but if she were a gambling man, she'd say their hair looked pretty villainous, but that was neither here nor there. She was mainly curious to hear what they were talking about. Inching closer, behind a support pillar, Trixie placed her hands on either side and leaned around, straining her ears to listen. With a tiny bit more of a stretch, she started to hear what the middle one was saying.
"...And once we've got them all under our control, we'll take over the school and use it to harvest enough magic to return to Equestria."
The girl with the ponytail on the right, her mouth full of taco, said, "I'm totally stoked to go back, too. These tacos are pretty great, but for realsies—" her face became serious "—pony souls are waaaaaaaaay tastier."
The pigtailed one on the left shook her head in disgust. "You think everything tastes pretty great, Sonata. You've been saying it nonstop since we got here, even after you ate that puppy, which I still can't believe you did, by the way."
"But it looked so cute!" protested Sonata, making a pouting face. "That's how it works in Equestria. The cuter the pony, the more delicious their souls."
"Yeah, well we're not in Equestria anymore, Dorothy," said pigtails. "You can't just eat every cute thing you see."
Sonata frowned. "Boo, you whore. That's lame."
The girl in the middle rubbed her temple with increasing annoyance. "Would you two just shut up? We're sitting here trying to finalize our plans for total domination and you're talking about eating puppies." She shook her head. "What a cruel twist of fate that I ended up with the two most incompetent fools."
"It wasn't a cruel twist of fate, silly," said Sonata cheerily. "It was our mom, since we're sisters."
"Yes, Adagio, you're not going to blame mom for Sonata and I, are you?" said the pigtailed one.
Adagio turned to the girl on her left. "Aria, when we get back to Equestria, remind me to throw you back through the portal so you stay trapped here for all eternity."
Aria rolled her eyes. "Love you too, sis."
Trixie slunk back behind the pillar. "What a boring conversation," she mumbled under her breath. "I thought they might be talking about something interesting, but instead it's just the usual high school gossip." She sighed. "I should've guessed." Turning to walk away, Trixie took a few steps before she stopped dead in her tracks and whipped back around. "Wait, what?" Hurrying back to her hiding spot, Trixie peered around the pillar.
Adagio and her sisters had already left the table and were walking away when Trixie took a look. She swore under her breath for her bad timing. Sighing, she stuffed her hands in her pockets and headed towards the food court exit. It was probably nothing important anyway.
Doing her best to avoid all the other mall patrons, Trixie shuffled through the crowd towards the row of double doors that marked the exit. It was relatively empty once she’d escaped the throng of mall goers and only a lone boy stood in her way. She tried to go around him, shaking her head in annoyance as he stubbornly refused to move. However, much to her annoyance, he stepped in front of her every time she moved left or right, always with his back to her. After repeating this a few times, Trixie curled her fist into a ball and growled, “Move it, kid. I’m just trying to leave this stupid mall.”
“Bluuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh…” groaned the boy, his shoulders slumping and his head dangling down.
Trixie rolled her eyes. “I don’t speak idiot, idiot. Just—” she grabbed his shoulder and shoved him to the side “—move!”
As the boy spun around from the force of Trixie’s push, his eyes met hers and Trixie stared him down. “Mmmmmmmuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhh,” he moaned, a dead look in his eyes. His mouth hung open slightly and a bit of drool hung off the corner of his lips. His clothes were covered and dirt and made it look like he’d been rolling around in mud for the past week, which might also have explained the smell emanating from him. He smelled like a rotting corpse, not that Trixie would know what that smell would be.
Crossing her arms, Trixie grunted. “Is that all you have to say for yourself?”
“Bleeeeeeergh.”
Trixie shook her head. “Idiots. I’m surrounded by idiots.” Reaching for the door, Trixie attempted to move past the boy when his hand shot out and grabbed her wrist. Her eyes went wide. She stared at him.
“Guuuuuuh,” he moaned. His mouth opened slowly as he lowered his head towards Trixie’s wrist.
Ripping her arm out of his grasp, Trixie slapped the boy across the face. “Don’t touch me! What’s the matter with you?”
A gurgle was his only response.
Trixie shook her head. “Whatever, just don’t touch me again, or next time I won’t be so nice.” Doing her best to ignore his vacant stare, Trixie reached for the door again. This time, however, when his hand reached for Trixie’s, she snapped her arm back, quickly forming her hand into a fist. Cocking her arm, she sucker punched the boy right in the mouth, knocking him to the ground. Wiping her knuckles against her sweater, Trixie looked at the unconscious boy. “I warned you, didn’t I?”
She stepped over his limp body and pushed past the glass doors, setting foot outside. It was a beautifully sunny afternoon, with not a cloud in the sky, or even any annoying birds chirping or anything like that. In fact, the only thing that could possibly ruin this perfectly warm afternoon was a parking lot filled with aimlessly shambling people with the same dead look in their eyes. Unfortunately, that was exactly what Trixie got.
Her shoulders sagging, Trixie groaned. “Finding my car is going to be such a pain.” Fishing her keys out of her pocket, Trixie aimed them at the mass of bodies and hit the alarm button. Somewhere in the back, a car’s horn beeped loudly, causing all the people in the parking lot to turn towards it. “Oh great,” Trixie said, throwing her hands up. “Now they’re going to drool all over it. What is this, an idiot convention?”
With a heavy sigh, Trixie resigned herself to her unfortunate fate and prepared to wade out into the sea of mindless fools. She had only taken her first step off the sidewalk curb when she noticed a young girl running her way. Trixie wasn't sure if the girl was late for something or just stupid, since running through a parking lot was a surefire way to get yourself killed by a car. Very quickly, however, getting hit by a car was becoming the least of the girl's problems as Trixie watched her get grabbed by one of the shambling people.
Trixie reached into her pocket, pulling out her cell phone, ready to call the police. Before she even got a chance to dial the number, she realized it wasn't going to matter much. With a dozen different people grabbing at her, the girl struggled to fight them off, unsuccessfully, and soon one of them had sunk his teeth into her neck, ripping back a chunk of flesh and causing the girl to scream for a brief second before she was silenced by a person pulling her head off.
Trixie slowly slipped her cell phone back into her pocket and turned back to the mall. Something told her that what she saw was a bit out of the ordinary and as such probably required a modicum of caution in dealing with. As she stepped back inside the mall, Trixie noticed that there was a distinctly different atmosphere from when she had left. Before, where there had been laughing and talking amongst friends, there was now screaming and running across blood-soaked floors.
It was at this point Trixie began to suspect that something bad might be happening.
"Oh, right, because I planned this. How incredibly foolish of me to unleash a zombie apocalypse upon the world. Really, what was I thinking?"
Trixie could hear someone on the floor above her shouting. She'd just fought her way through a sea of undead just to make It to this escalator, and she wasn't going to stop now, especially if there was someone else up there who could help her. Her blue hoodie soaked red with blood, Trixie unzipped the jacket and wrapped it around her fist. There was one last zombie in front of her, and she was getting past this old lady if it killed her, which it might.
"I'm not blaming you, Adagio. I'm just saying that if you hadn't screwed up and got us trapped here in the human world, we wouldn't be fighting off zombies in the first place!"
"Adagio?" said Trixie, raising her eyebrow. "Wait, I recognize that name!"
It was the girls from before, but what did she mean about 'human world'? That seemed like a weird thing for a human to say. Obviously this would require further investigation, though Trixie also decided that it'd be best to first deal with the zombie biting her hand. Raising her sweater-covered fist, Trixie dragged the old lady zombie with her until her snarling face was right in front of her. Trixie lifted her foot and kicked the old lady square in the stomach, knocking the zombie over. At this point, Trixie figured her best option was to run away. The zombie reached for her legs as she ran past, but fortunately the current fashion trend was for knee-high boots with thick soles, so she was safe. Trixie made it to the escalator and sprinted up just in time to see the three girls from before beating off a group of male zombies.
“Sonata, watch out!” shouted Aria as she threw a punch at one zombie, hitting it in the cheek. The zombie crumbled to the ground, leaving Sonata standing with a blank expression on her face.
“What?” asked Sonata, looking around.
Aria ground her teeth, shaking her head. “Sonata, we’re in the middle of zombie nightmare. You’re going to have to pay more attention if you don’t want to die.”
Sonata cocked her head to the side. “...What?”
“Behind you, you idiot!” cried Aria, grabbing Sonata and pulling her away just as another zombie made a grab for her arm. Aria grit her teeth, punching the zombie in the stomach before grabbing it by the arm and swinging it towards the balcony where it flipped over the railing and splatted on the ground. “I freaking hate zombies! Argh!” Aria ran her fingers through her hair, pushing her bangs out of her face.
Trixie realized that they hadn’t noticed her yet, but if she were to try and approach them, they’d probably think she was a zombie and beat her to death, so she decided calling out to them first would be a better option. “Hey!” she shouted, waving one hand while cupping the other one over her mouth. “None of you are bit, right?”
Adagio’s hair spun gracefully as she twirled around, a scowl on her face and a bat in her hand. Soon the other two were looking at Trixie as well. “No, we’re fine,” said Adagio. “What about you?” She raised an eyebrow, hefting the bat. “They get you?”
Trixie shook her head. “No, I’m clean.” She glanced down at the bloody sweater covering her fist. “Oh, right, this isn’t my blood. I was just using it to protect myself from being bit.”
Adagio’s eyes narrowed. “Prove that you’re not bit.”
Trixie quickly unwrapped her fist and showed off her clean hand. She twisted it around, showing them all sides and her wrists. “See? I promise I’m okay. I was hoping we could team up together. I know a safe place.”
Aria leaned towards Adagio and whispered something into her ear. Sonata, meanwhile, kicked in the face of a zombie that was trying to stand up behind them. Hesitating a moment, Adagio eventually said, “Where?”
Smiling, Trixie slung her hoodie over her back and started walking towards them. “The roof, but you’ll need me to get up there. I know the keycode.”
“How would you know that?” asked Aria.
Trixie shrugged. “There’s a glass ceiling above the food court. Sometimes I like to go on the roof and make fun of all the idiots who spend their time hanging out in a mall.”
Wiping the zombie blood from her brow, Sonata looked up at Trixie. “Wait, you make fun of people for hanging out at a mall… while at the mall? Isn’t that, like… hypocritical? Don’t you have friends to hang out with?”
Trixie rolled her eyes. “What are you, my therapist?”
Aria laughed. She waved her hand dismissively at Sonata. “Don’t worry about her. She’s an idiot. I totally get you, though. I can’t believe all these idiots spend all their time in this stupid place.”
Trixie grinned. “Right? It’s stupid, isn’t it?”
“Hey! Watch it!” shouted Adagio suddenly as her eyes went wide. Her free hand shot out and grabbed Trixie’s shoulder, throwing her into Aria’s arms. The old lady zombie that Trixie had fled from had managed to make her way up the escalator and was mere inches from Trixie when Adagio had pulled her out of the way. Adagio smirked. “I got this one.”
Putting her front forward in a strong stance, Adagio cocked her arms back, raising the baseball bat above her head like she was lining up for a line drive. Her grip tightened around the bat just as she swung it with all the force she could muster. The bat struck the old lady’s the drooling face with all the force of a truck, smashing her head like a watermelon and sending bits flying across the walkway.
“Haha!” laughed Adagio, holding a hand up to her brow. “Home run!”
“Wow, sis!” cried Sonata, jumping up and down. “That was incredible. That must’ve been your best hit yet!”
Smirking, Adagio wiped the bat off on her sleeve then rested it on her shoulder. “Now then, how do we get to the roof?”
Still a bit in shock, and resting in Aria’s arms, Trixie’s eyes were wide. “Uhh…” her hand slowly moved, then pointed west. “It’s over there, but we’ll have to go through J. C. Penney’s to get there.”
Aria grimaced. “I’m not sure which is worse. Having to go through a J. C. Penney’s, or having to fight off hundreds of zombies with my shoe.”
“J. C. Penney’s,” said Trixie, “definitely J. C. Penney’s. I mean, have you seen their women’s section?” Trixie made a gagging sound. “Just kill me now.”
“You might get your wish if we don’t get moving,” said Adagio. “Come on, let’s get up to the roof. Maybe we can call for a helicopter up there, or something. I don’t know.”
“Yeah, wait,” said Aria, pushing Trixie out of her arms. She frowned. “How is going on the roof supposed to help us? What are we going to do up there?”
Trixie shrugged. “I don’t know. Have you got any better ideas? It’s not like we can just run out the front door and call it a day.”
Sonata rubbed her chin. “Hmm… what if we hide in the food court?”
“How is that going to help?” asked Aria.
“Free food, duh.”
Aria groaned. “Whatever, let’s just go to the roof. I guess there’s not really any better options, and at least we can lock the door behind us, so maybe we don’t die immediately.”
Sonata gasped, covering her mouth with her hand. “Does this mean we’re having a slumber party?” She pumped her fist. “Sweet!”
Raising her eyebrow, Trixie leaned towards Aria. “Hey,” she whispered, “what’s up with her? Is she some kind of idiot, or something?”
“We just kind of ignore her for the most part,” Aria whispered back. “I think our mom dropped her on her head when she was a baby, repeatedly.”
“Well, that would explain it,” said Trixie matter-of-factly.
“Are you idiots done making out?” said Adagio, her hands on her hips. “We’re still surrounded by zombies, remember? Do you want to maybe take this discussion somewhere else?”
Aria quickly pushed Trixie away, her face red. “We weren’t making out!”
Adagio rolled her eyes. “Whatever, I don’t care either way. Let’s just go.” Waving her hand towards the west end of the mall, Adagio added, “We can pick up some stuff on the way. I remember seeing a hardware store down over here.”
Standing close together, the four girls moved as one group, carefully and quietly making their way west through the mall. Fortunately for them, most of the zombies were still milling around on the ground floor, so the second and third floors were relatively safe, for now anyway. The walls were streaked with blood, or maybe it was paint. They’d been remodeling this half of the mall, so it really could’ve gone either way. In any case, Trixie wasn’t too fussed about any of this. As far as she concerned, this was all going rather swimmingly. She’d always said the only way to get of all the idiots was for some sort of apocalyptic event to happen, and here it was. Trixie allowed herself a small smile.
As they slowly made their way through the mall, passing by dozens of boutiques, hat shops, shoe shops, and those weird “As Seen on TV” stores that were inexplicably still in business, they came across a group of three zombies tearing apart a corpse. Trixie grimaced, “I’m going to get blood all over my skirt if we have to pass them.”
“Like it would make it look any worse,” said Aria, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “That is the ugliest effing skirt I have ever seen.”
Trixie crossed her arms, scowling at Aria. “As if you’re one to talk. Where’d you find that rag, in the garbage?” She lifted the hem of Aria’s skirt and then dropped it in disgust. “I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing that hideous thing.”
Aria cocked her head to the side, sneering. “Well then, when the zombies kill you, I’ll make sure to put it on your corpse.”
“Oh yeah? Well, when you die, I’ll make sure dress you up in big shoes and a wig so you’ll at least look like the clown that you are,” said Trixie, sneering back at her.
Sonata groaned. “Oh my god, would you two just kiss already? Sheesh.”
Trixie’s face flushed red, as did Aria’s, and the two turned away from each other faster than seemed humanly possible. Before they could say anything else, however, a soft hissing sound came from beside them. All four girls stopped and looked at each other with raised eyebrows before glancing to their left where they saw another person hiding in the shadows. The shadows being a slightly shady area next to an awning, since they were in a well-lit mall, and it’s not like there were any real shadows. He waved to them.
“Hey, you guys gotta help me out. I need to get out of here, man.”
Between his spiked blue hair, and his faux leather jacket, Trixie knew who the guy was immediately. Her eyes narrowed. She leaned over to Adagio and whispered, “We need to get past those zombies, right? And they only way we can do it now is by fighting them.”
Adagio nodded hesitantly.
“Well, I’ve got a better plan.” Trixie smirked. She whispered something else into Adagio’s ear, and soon the other girl was smirking too. Trixie turned to the guy. “You’re Flash, right? Flash Sentry?”
He slowly got up from where he’d been crouching and walked towards them. “Yeah, brah. I’m Flash. Wait…” he stopped, raising an eyebrow. “Are you from school?”
A sly grin sneaking across Trixie’s face, she said, “I am, in fact. Remember that time you cut in front of me in line at lunch?”
“Uhh…”
“I do.” Trixie reached forward and grabbed Flash by the hem of his stupid plether sleeve, pulling him forward.
“Whoa, hey, what are you doing?” said Flash, his eyes going wide.
“Hey, zombie idiots, over here!” shouted Trixie as she swung Flash with all her might, launching him into the group of zombies and causing him to crash into them. As Flash screamed, the zombies tearing his arms and legs off in an incredibly gruesome, and yet gratifying, display, Trixie wiped her hands off and said, “There we go. Distraction!”
“Should we have tried to bring him with us?” asked Sonata, pointing at Flash’s rapidly disintegrating body. “Y’know, to scapegoat him later?”
Trixie and Aria answered simultaneously, “Nah.” They looked at each other, then laughed.
Adagio rolled her eyes. “Come on, let’s go.”
Stepping over Flash’s flailing body, and the zombies eating him alive, Trixie and her newfound friends sauntered past, heading further west. After a few minutes of walking, they came across the hardware store that Adagio had mentioned, but, as Trixie noted, “It’s locked…”
Adagio frowned. She kicked the metal shutter, rattling it. “They must’ve closed it once they saw the zombies coming. Shoot…”
“Hey, what about that store over there?” said Sonata, pointing to the store adjacent to the one they were standing in front of. “Maybe we can get something from there?”
Trixie, Adagio, and Aria turned to look at the store. All three exchanged glances, then looked at Sonata, their eyebrows raised. “The music store?” said the three of them.
Trixie scoffed. “What are we supposed to do? Sing our way out of this?”
“Ha! Don’t be stupid,” said Aria. She paused. “Okay, well, don’t be more stupid.”
“As much as I hate to agree with these fools,” said Adagio, “they are right. What are we supposed to do with musical instruments?”
Sonata beamed, using her enormous boots to kick in the glass window. She stepped inside and came back out a moment later with a couple of guitars and a microphone. She tossed the guitars to Aria and Trixie, and the microphone to Adagio, keeping the bass for herself. “We’re sirens, right? Soooooooo…” She raised her eyebrow expectantly.
Aria frowned. “So, we are using music?”
Cocking her head to the side, Sonata said, “What? No.” She hefted the bass above her head. “We beat them in the face with them!”
Adagio glanced down at the microphone in her hand, her expression flat. She looked back at Sonata. “Why did you give me a microphone?”
Sonata held her hand up, miming swinging a lasso. “Bolo!”
“Ugh…” Shaking her head, Adagio rubbed her palm against her forehead. “Whatever.” Slipping the microphone into her pocket, Adagio lifted her bat again and said, “I’ll just stick with this, thanks.”
Slinging the guitar over her shoulder, Trixie pointed to the end of the west wing of the mall. “There, down at the end, that’s the J. C. Penney’s. We’re almost there.”
“Well, let’s not stand around here talking about getting there forever,” said Aria, taking a cue from Trixie and strapping her own guitar to her back. She waved for the others to follow her, and then headed off towards the department store.
By the time they reached the entrance of the J. C. Penney’s, it was becoming increasingly clear that they weren’t going to have an easy time just waltzing through to the back where the stairs to the roof were. Shambling about through the lingerie section, and around the perfume counters, were hundreds upon hundreds of zombies. Although it was hard to tell the difference between them and the average J. C. Penney’s shopper, it was made somewhat easier by the fact that most of them were missing limbs and had flesh hanging off them in various places.
Trixie grimaced, glancing over at Aria. “We’ll, we’re going to have to get past them somehow, right? Maybe we can just sneak past if we hide in the clothes racks?”
“I don’t think that’ll work,” said Aria, pointing to the zombies that blundered aimlessly into said clothes racks.
Adagio rubbed her chin. “Hmm, what if we just sprinted through? They don’t seem to be that fast.”
“I guess it’s worth a try,” said Trixie, shrugging.
“Better than nothing,” noted Aria.
“Come get some!” added Sonata, breaking away from the group and charging forward, bass guitar held high.
Adagio threw her hands up. “Or there’s that!”
“Screw it,” said Trixie, shaking her head, “I’ve always wanted to smash some heads anyway.” Letting loose a battle cry that would’ve made Wotan weep, Trixie brandished her guitar like the axe it was and swung the base of it into some unsuspecting zombie’s skull, cracking it in half.
Aria and Adagio quickly joined in, the former using her guitar to sweep out the legs from underneath a handful of zombies in one swing while Adagio’s bat rung with every dull thud against a zombie’s face. Soon the girls were making their way through the perfume department, whacking zombies left and right, carefully protecting each other from being bit by smashing an uncountable number of zombie brains.
“27! 28! 29!” cried Adagio, counting another number every time she swung her bat and knocked off some teenager’s head, or broke off an old man’s arm, leaving a writhing undead mass of a limbs and flesh behind her.
Aria climbed on top of the jewelry counter and swung her guitar in a wide arc, plowing over a mass of zombies and causing them to tumble into yet more zombies. Sonata, meanwhile, used the butt of her bass to knock a zombie backwards and then leapt on to its body, sliding across the pool of blood on the floor like a surfboarder on a sea of blood, which was a lot less disturbing than one would imagine. And finally, Trixie wore a huge grin as she busted open the chest cavities and craniums of all the people she’d ever hated, which, as it turned out, was nearly everyone.
Unbelievably, they’d managed to make their way through the majority of the store and were a mere dozen yards away from the roof access point. It was at this point that they were getting a little cocky. “This is easy,” remarked Trixie, punching one zombie in the face while using her guitar to break the knees of another one. “I could do this all day.”
Her face covered in blood, Aria grinned, “Yeah! This is actually pretty fun.”
“Don’t get too full of yourselves,” said Adagio as she finished dislodging her bat from the mushy skull of a fallen zombie. “We’re not quite there yet.”
Aria waved her hand dismissively. “Oh please, sis. What’s the worst that could—Ah!” Aria screamed as a zombie grabbed her arm, his mouth opening menacingly.
“No!” cried Trixie, spinning around and raising her guitar. “Aria!”
But it was too late for her to do anything. The zombie’s jaws clamped down around Aria’s arm with a sickening crunch. She screamed again, trying to push the zombie off, unsuccessfully. Eventually she was able to get free once Trixie had beat the zombie over the head, but the damage was already done. Aria held her arm in her hand, tears streaming down her face.
Adagio scowled. “Shoot! What were you thinking!? What did I just say?”
“It’s not like I wanted to get bit!” shouted Aria, wiping the tears from her eyes.
Trixie grabbed Aria by the hand, looking her in the eye. “Come on. It won’t do any good standing here arguing. Sonata!” she yelled, looking around for the third sister.
Sonata popped up from behind a clothes rack, a smile on her face. “What’s up?”
“We have to get out of here. The roof is right there,” said Trixie, pointing to the door marked ‘Exit’.
Sonata snapped off a quick and sloppy salute. “No problemo.”
While Sonata rushed off towards the door, whacking zombies as she went, Adagio and Trixie picked up Aria, putting her arms around their shoulders, and rushed her along towards the door. Beating off the few zombies that dared to get close to them, they eventually reached the door, which Sonata had opened already, and piled inside the stairwell.
Adagio handed Aria over to Trixie and turned around to slam the door shut, setting aside her bat and pulling out her microphone to tie the door closed. “There,” she said, picking her bat back up, “that should hold for awhile.”
“What if it doesn’t?” said Sonata.
Adagio threw her hands up. “Well, then it doesn’t! What do you want me to do?”
“Come on, girls,” said Trixie, lifting Aria up. “Let’s just get on the roof and talk up there where we’ll be safe, at least.” Leaning her head down, she whispered to Aria, “Are you okay? Do you feel anything yet?”
She nodded slowly. “Yeah, it feels like my stomach is turning over itself. I can feel myself dying.” Aria grabbed Trixie’s sleeve and pulled her close. “Don’t let me turn into a zombie, Trixie. Kill me if you have to, but don’t let me turn into one of them.”
Adagio rolled her eyes. “Don’t be such a drama queen, Aria. What are you, every character who gets bit in a zombie movie ever? You’re going to be fine, just watch.”
“What happened to her?” asked Sonata, nodding towards her sister.
“She got bit,” said Adagio, matter-of-factly.
“Oh, I see,” said Sonata like it was the most normal thing in the world. “Anyway, what’s the keycode to the roof, Trixie?”
“Oh, right, that…” Trixie laughed, despite herself. “It’s one, one, one, one.”
Sonata whistled. “Ooooh, that’s a good one. I would’ve never thought of that.”
Deciding it would be best to just ignore that comment altogether, Adagio said, “Come on,” and put her arm around Aria, helping Trixie to lift her up. Together, the three of them, and Sonata, climbed the steps until they reached the keypad where Adagio put in the code, muttering, “Unbelievable.”
With a click, the door swung open, revealing a zombie-free roof that somehow looked more like the Elysian Fields than the asphalt surface that it was. They quickly hurried on to the roof, shutting the door behind them, and then made their way to the edge of the building, peering over the edge. From their vantage point, they could see that the majority of the city was on fire now, and the parking lot was filled with zombies and a handful of screaming people trying to run away.
“Well, this sucks,” noted Aria.
Adagio and Trixie nodded in agreement. Sonata, however, said, “It’s not so bad if you think about it. At least when we inevitably have to choose suicide to save ourselves from being eaten by zombies, we can just jump off the roof.” She smiled reassuringly, reassuring exactly no one.
Stepping away from the ledge, Adagio rested her bat against it. She rubbed her chin. “Hmm, maybe there’s some sort of communications array up here that we can tap into and signal for help?”
Trixie laughed. “What do you think this is, NORAD? We’re on a mall roof, idiot. The only thing up here is air conditioning units and… okay, well that’s it, actually.”
“Even still, I’m going to have a look around and see if there’s anything useful up here,” said Adagio. She turned to Sonata who was busy leaning over the ledge, kicking her legs playfully. “Come on, Sonata. You’re coming with me. It’s best to travel in groups in case we run into any zombies.”
Sonata grinned. “Okey dokey, sis. Whatever you say.”
Once the two of them had left, Trixie turned to Aria, cradling her in her arms. “So… how long do you think you have?”
Aria frowned. “What kind of question is that? How am I supposed to know?” She crossed her arms and looked away from Trixie. “If I were guessing, judging by how fast the mall was overrun with zombies, it probably only takes a few minutes, or half an hour at most. So I guess I don’t have long.”
Trixie rubbed the back of her neck. “Um, well, if it makes you feel any better, at least I won’t die.” She gave an awkward smile.
“You are the worst at being comforting,” said Aria, shaking her head. “Well, whatever, it’s not like I needed you to comfort me anyway. If I’m going to die, then I’m going to die. It’s just…” She hesitated, biting her lip.
Trixie felt her heart starting to beat faster. “It’s just?” she repeated.
Aria slowly turned to look at Trixie. “It’s just that… I’ve never even had my first kiss.”
Swallowing the lump in her throat, Trixie brushed a lock of hair behind her ear. “The truth is… neither have I.”
“Maybe we could…”
“Yeah?”
“You know…”
“Yeah?”
Aria’s lips met Trixie’s, and the two embraced each other as their kiss locked them together. For what felt like an eternity, they stayed together, but in reality it was more like half a second, because at that moment Adagio snorted, causing them to stop suddenly and look at her. Covering her mouth, Adagio snorted again.
“Ooh! Ooh! Did they finally kiss?” shouted Sonata as she came running up behind Adagio. Her face, full of excitement, was crestfallen when she saw Trixie and Aria staring dumbfounded at them, blushes on their face. “Ah, darn… I missed it.”
Blushing furiously, Aria covered her face with her hands, muttering, “Oh my god, someone please kill me already.”
As Adagio went to heft her bat, all four of them started to hear a loud buzzing sound overhead. They looked around for the source of the noise, scanning the sky. Trixie’s eyes went wide, her arms falling limp to her side. “No. Freaking. Way.”
Squinting, the four of them stared upwards as a helicopter began to descend towards them from the sky. Aria shook her head. “An actual helicopter. I seriously didn’t see that one coming.”
In silence, they watched the helicopter descend even further, eventually landing on the roof. As the engine was killed, and the rotors began to slow down, a figure emerged from the cockpit, her hair billowing in the still-blowing wind along with her lab coat. Adjusting her glasses, the girl stepped forward.
“Twilight?” said Trixie, cocking her head to the side. “What are you doing here? And in a helicopter, no less.”
Twilight waved her hand. “Oh, that old thing? I built that out of spare parts years ago. Anyway, the more pressing matter is, what are you all doing here?”
Adagio used her bat to point at Twilight. “You know this girl?”
“She used to go to my highschool,” said Trixie, squinting, like she wasn’t sure if it was an illusion or not, “but she hasn’t been around for months.”
Twilight chuckled. “Yes, well, as you can tell, I’ve had other things on my mind than school. See,” she said, stepping closer to them, “it all started when I discovered there was a portal to another world in the statue outside Canterlot High.”
“That must be how we got in,” said Aria under her breath. She looked up at Twilight. “That doesn’t explain the zombies though… unless they came from this other world?”
“What? No, no,” said Twilight, again waving her hand dismissively. “No, that’s a whole ‘nother… crazy, totally unrelated thing. My dog died a few days ago, and I was trying to bring him back. Good news is I managed to do it. Bad news is…” she glanced over the edge of the building. “Well, you can guess the bad news. In any case, since you four are here, I need your help with something very important.”
“Whoa, hang on a second, McGuyver,” said Trixie. She nodded at Aria. “We’ve got someone’s who’s been bit here. Is there any way you can cure her?”
“Well… I suppose that depends on how loose your definition of the word ‘cure’ is,” said Twilight, reaching for something in the front pocket of her lab coat.
Aria stood up, sighing. “It’s not like I’ve got much choice, I suppose.” She kicked at the ground. “I wish we’d never left Equestria. This sucks.”
Twilight’s eyes widened. “Wait, did you say Equestria?”
“Uhh…”
“Oh, this is perfect!” Twilight started to bounce excitedly. “If you’re from a different world, then you can’t turn into a zombie because the zombies are from our world.”
“Is that how it works?” said Sonata, cocking her head to the side.
Twilight nodded quickly. “Oh yeah, no, that’s, like, totally a thing. Anyway, since we got that sorted out, perhaps you girls would like to join me?”
“Join you in what?” said Adagio warily, her hand still resting on her bat.
Grinning, Twilight extracted a bizarre looking fun from her front pocket and held it up. “Curing this plague.”
“I don’t know,” said Trixie hesitantly.
“What, you’ve got something better to do?” said Twilight, raising her eyebrow. “Come on,” she said, waving towards her helicopter. “I’ve got more guns in the chopper.” Hurrying back into the pilot’s seat, Twilight patted the seat beside herself.
Trixie glanced at Adagio, and then Aria. “I mean, it’s not like we’ve got a better plan.”
Adagio shrugged. “Sure, what’s the worst that could happen?”
Slipping her hand into Trixie’s, Aria nodded. “I’m with you too.”
Sonata fistpumped. “Sweet! It’s zombie-killing time!”
As the four girls headed towards her, Twilight grinned. She hovered her hand over the ignition. “Get in, losers—” she flipped on the engine “—we’re going hunting.”
