A Derpy Apocalypse: Perseverence

Screams. No — worse. This pony, this...thing...it's screeching, and shouting. It sounds like it just watched all of Hell before it's eyes.

Haven't we all.

I run up to the door it was in after Twilight and a few Super-SWATs, and I see what it is — horrendous. This pony, this thing, this...Hell-spawn...It's grotesque beyond anything I've seen. You see a zombies face falling off and their brain matter oozing away from an eye socket and you get used to it because, well, they don't feel the pain. They're dead, they don't feel anything. All they know is how to let out a groan because their nerves told them to. But this is different. This pony is alive, this pony is thriving, functioning...and it's screaming, and rotting, and thinking, and knowing. It's like the middle stage of zed and pony, but held prisoner in the repeating loop of a rotting body.

It's face. Oh Celestia, it's face is worse than anything I've seen. The skin is thick and leathery, burnt brown and yellow. There's no fur left on it, the whole body is covered in scratches and scrapes and soars. Its right eye is dry and scaly; its left eye is scratched and bleeding. The voice...ugh I can barely put it into words. It's scratchy, wheezy, but strong. It sounds like it's torn its voice box in two, but still talking — screaming. The hair is frail, thin, and grey. I can see some pieces of the skin now, it's...ugh the bones are showing, there's little pieces of flesh and muscle hanging out, but just a big soggy tear in the skin thats dry on the surface. How does this thing stay alive? How is it walking?

Two Super-SWATs try to hold it down, but no it...

Shit, it's tearing them apart. Now they're all screaming, but it's so distinguishable. The dual cries of terror, and the single shriek of hatred. Despite being restrained, despite being a flimsy corpse, despite the titanium armor on the Super-SWATs, that thing grabs them, and tears them to pieces with ease. Their flesh barely has time to stretch out, their nerves to signal pain, as their limbs are relentlessly pulled from their place and thrown across the already blood-stained room. The soldiers are crying out — sounds of pain that I myself do not recognize. I look at Twilight. She's not even reacting. If anything, I think I see a slight smirk. What the Hell is wrong with her.

"Notify the H.P.U.'s," she states bluntly. "he's a bit stronger than before."

A bit?? One of the ponies there nods quickly running off. After a few minutes of watching that thing scream and cry and shout, I hear loud stomps from down the hall. Two massive, three metre tall stallions appear around the corner. I'm just now realizing how tall this building is, and why. These guys are taller than me on my hind legs. Three metres max, a solid black armor casing with cybernetically enhanced hydraulics to keep them moving with ease. For the most part, minus the color and size, they look the exact same as a general Super-SWAT soldier. But the guns on them, the guns are huge. .50 cals on each side mounted onto the armor with two chains of bullets ejecting from a single pack of ammo, and a huge variety of different interchangeable explosives and EMP's on the sides. It looks like martial law on a suit design.

They stop in the hallway and look at me. They get into a stance focusing on me...oh shit...

They think I'm the threat. One nearly opens fire before Twilight runs in front ordering them to stop. They stood up, emotionless and solid creatures in a silence and reverence I could almost hear over the screaming going on just beside me. Twi explains the situation. They don't move. Not a nanoangstrom. They just say one thing.

"Affirmitive."

It sends chills down my spine. That wasn't a robot voice, but it sure as Hell wasn't a pony one. That sound, metallic, organic, deep pitched and slow, but all the same terrifying and stern. It emphasized its power in just one word. One word. How much of this world have I missed?

The two things walk up to me.

"Request repositioning. Primary task blocked. Please reposition," they say to me, simultaneously. Without speaking, I step out of the way. "Your assistance is appreciated," they say again, turning to the door. For robotic alterations of absolute death, they're pretty mannerly. Without warning, they bust down the door. The screaming becomes louder, louder than anything. I forgot about the door being there, and it sounded like normal volume but this...I don't even know.

The things walk in, one grabs the subject immediately with a fluid movement and haste unlike anything that could be in such a heavy looking suit. The other one takes the subject, pinning him to the ground. Finally, the first, as the subject is thrashing about, stomps on the subjects face multiple times until there is nothing left but a bloody pulp.

So much for mannerly. They step away, walking out and marching off.  The technicians quickly chain the subject to the bed and wrap him around in tight constraints. What? Why? I look at Twilight, she's grinning, she knows what I'm about to ask.

"Just wait for it," she says. Suddenly, the thing begins to thrash about again, but this time stops and relaxes. What. The. Hell. I look back at Twilight. "I'm sure you need a place to stay, let me lead you to a quartering area," she says.

I guess my prison just turned into my room service, then.

Changes in atmosphere are so sudden. One minute, I'm in a laboratory. Then Hell. Now it's a lovely and cozy room. The realization is much more stunning because it takes a while to process. Somehow, the architects were able to blend the rooms and portions in such a fascinating way. It's like being stuck in a gaze for a minute, then realizing everything is different. Despite being imprisoned, shocked, traumatized (again), and almost killed, I think I'm starting to like it here. My only hope is that, well, these are the good guys and not the bad guys.

It seems to be a small shot. This is what the bad guys usually do. They cover up their mistakes, act nice, try to make you feel comfortable, then they stab you in the back with a kitchen knife because they didn't have the decency to get a real knife. I just want to think that the Princess of Friendship of all ponies, was able to bypass all of the Hell happening around here, and actually be generous.

We've been eating for the past few minutes. Nice, quality food. Good stuff. It's like one of those, 'You bite the food, and the food bites back' scenario. Oh wait, this is... This is meat! Had I known meat was this good I would have eaten it a long time ago, a long, long time ago, in fact.

"What is this?" I ask. Twilight looks up. She's properly eating her meal with a fork and a knife, I think is what they're called.

"Hamburger. A human relic, modified for your comfortable consumption." she replied. I'm getting a better look at her hands now. They're so weird. How does she get used to them? It's like a normal foreleg until it gets to the base, then it's like a plate of skin and connected bone with five protruding three-joint cylindrical structures — fingers. The design is so specific, it's almost scary. A hoof is just covered in a random assortment of two-centimetre fur, but a hand is so complex.  The overall anatomy of the Homo-sapien body is just so strange. Twilight continues eating, as do I.

Her face looks the same, too. That's the weirdest. It's an alicorn's head, wings, tail, and horn, but everything else is human. I don't like anything about it.

"So, Twilight," I say, fixing to ask her a few things. She looks up attentively, while still eating her food and regularly using a napkin. It seems easier for her than it does me, given I have a snout and hooves to eat with. Nevertheless, I continue speaking. "Do you mind enlightening me on a few things?"

"Depends," she said, putting her head back down to continue eating, "just ask and we'll see."

"Alright," I said. I thought for a second, 'What should I ask first?' Here, "Tell me, why exactly was I in amber?" Twilight continued eating, not looking up.

"Well," she said, swallowing, "TwiCore Laboratories, that's where you are now, developed a certain viral mutation that was going to be used to reanimate the dead -- enemies and friendlies alike -- to fight for us without sentient mind. Since they could be used until they were worn out, we thought it'd be infallible. However, and I must take responsibility for not considering such an absurd possibility, it turned rogue. The virus was out of our laboratories and before we knew it, half the world is covered in Fleshwalkers."

"Fleshwalkers?" I ask.

"Yes," she replies, pausing her meal to better explain the situation, "they're basically the ones you'd see roaming the street, walkers that seek flesh. Now, we had you in the laboratory because you survived so long and so efficiently through everything that happened that, well, we needed you for many reasons. Especially if you were reanimated --"

"Oh Hell no," I said, glaring at her. She put her hands up as if surrendering.

"Hey, hey," she said calmly, "I wasn't finished. I then remembered how wrong it went last time, so I decided to find a way to remodify it that, rather than keeping you dead forever, would keep you alive forever. I've had many friends and many emotions, but I've watched them all die and fade away. It's the curse of the immortals. It's been over five hundred years, Derpy, you think I'd keep the last remaining pony of my time dead forever?" It gave me a bit to think about.

"Of course," I replied. "and what about that one psycho one that killed those two Super-SWAT's?"

"Super-SWAT's?" she chuckled, "those are TwiCore SWAT teams, actually, but I like the name, maybe I'll use it. Anyway, that was an experimental Skinwalker. They exhibit an excessive strength beyond measure, and unlike what that one did to TC-SWAT 215 and 352, it skins it's victims alive and consumes them like that. We're still trying to figure out why they're habits are the way they are. Personally it's become a fascination."

"Okay, last question." I said. She continued eating.

"Yes?" she said, taking another bite.

"How much have you been through in five hundred years to make you so insensitive and emotionless?" I ask. She stops. "It's not derogatory, it's just --"

"No, I know what you mean." she said. She looked up at me, with a look of the utmost sorrow and compassion, yet filled with hatred and anger. "Fluttershy was the two-hundred and fifty second death of the apocalypse. Applejack the three-hundred and twentieth. Pinkie Pie, four twenty-seventh. Rarity, four sixty-sixth. Rainbow Dash, nine eighty-nine. When Rainbow was gone, I practically died myself. All of my friends were gone. Spike was killed in a laboratory accident far back, and that took me long enough to get over before all of this."

After that, all was silent. Just a clanking from a fork and particular food items slopping around in a plate.

This was going to be a long night.