The C̸̞̙̭̽̌̀̈́̽̕̕ȗ̵̧̨̢̻̩̞̘͙̉̋̊͂͘ŕ̷͖̦̍͝s̵̫̪̋̍͂̆̆͆̄é̶̡̧̺͖d̸͎͒̒̿̈̀ Apocalypse

I sat quietly in the train car.

“...to say if we even know that the blood is incompatible…”

I sat quietly, Nurse Snowheart continuing to lecture me about the new bite wound on my right leg. I don’t know what she was even saying at this point, but I figured it was still about the wound. She made a point to emphasize how dangerous it was for Trix and me to leave the wound exposed like we did.

I tried explaining myself at first, but her lecturing eventually overcame any of my attempts, so I just shut my mouth and ‘listened’ while she also worked on disinfecting it. She was doing a pretty good job too, somehow successfully restraining me every time I lashed out from how badly my leg stung from the various liquids she poured all over it.

Meanwhile, I was more intrigued by the darkening sky as Celestia’s sun slowly fell over the horizon. I couldn’t actually see it directly from this side of the mountain, but I could see it lighting up the sweeping, distant forest and grassy plains to the south.

This view was provided by the train slowly rolling backward down the east side of Canterlot Mountain, operated by none other than Dash. She did have Princess Luna assisting her, which was good… I guess. I don’t know. When I asked them about it after our daring escape from Canterlot, they told me to shut up and not question their abilities. So… hopefully we wouldn’t crash and die.

Right after we’d escaped Canterlot, we’d all been assessed by Nurse Snow. While Guard Drift wasn’t in great shape, he was on track to make a recovery now. Trix was also fine, despite being shot. The bullet had gone through her shoulder without hitting any vital components. And my bite wound wasn't terrible, despite how much Snow was lecturing me about it. So, we came out of that pretty well off.

I also thought about what the princesses were planning here in the next few minutes. Seeing as both Trix and I were still drenched in a drying film of other ponies’ blood, they opted to stop the train at the base of the mountain, where the Ponyville River swirled around it. This would allow both of us to take a nice little dip to wash ourselves off, since we didn’t have nearly enough wet wipes to deal with this problem.

“D’mitry,” Snow hissed, grabbing my chin and rotating it away from the window to face her.

“Damn, what?” I scoffed, “What’s up with the lecture, Snow? You sure you ain’t Redheart?”

She rolled her eyes and shook her head. “I’m sure. But what happened warrants a lecture from anypony who understands what could have happened.”

“What could have happened?”

She facehoofed. “If you woulda listened, you would know. Damn child. Anyway, I’m finished wrapping your leg up. It should heal within the next couple of days, but try to avoid overusing it, okay? And stop getting bit!”

“I will, I will. Thanks, Snow.”

She smiled and nodded before leaving the train car. Now, I sat quietly, alone in the tr-

Creak.

Oh for fucks sake. What’s wrong with these damn doors anyway? This is ridiculous. They need to be oiled or something.

Anyway, Twi walked through the train car’s front door just seconds after Snow left. She made her way down the aisle before coming and sitting down next to me.

“Hey D’mitry. You ready for your little nature bath?”

“No. I wanna stew in other ponies’ blood for the night.”

“How delightful,” she mocked, leaning down to observe the bandage Snow wrapped my leg with. She grew pretty interested, closely inspecting the edge and even running her hoof ov-

“OW!”

She flinched back and froze on the bench. “Sheesh, my bad. I was just checking to make sure it’s watertight. Does it really sting that bad?”

“Uhh, yeah!”

“Sorry,” she replied, awkwardly patting my knee a couple of times before continuing. “Don’t worry about the nature bath, though. I’ve got Spike keeping your towels underneath a lantern to keep them warm for you. He’s got them next to your clothes, so hopefully, those will be warm too.”

Thankfully, Celestia had managed to use a small bit of her remaining magic to go back to Earth again and snag some extra clothes. When I first got here, she’d brought plenty, but most all of them were at Sweet Apple Acres now. If I had known all this crap was about to go down… man… I would grabbed everything of mine before leaving AJ on the farm that day. Oh well.

“Okay… is it really gonna be that cold?” I asked, glancing out the window again.

“What do you think?”

…

Awe shit. I realized what she meant. We weren’t far from the base of the mountain now, but we were on the east side, where the mountain inevitably cast its enormous shadow over the river we were planning to dip in. To make matters worse, Celestia’s sun wasn’t far from setting completely. To make matters even worse, it was autumn.

“Damn it,” I muttered.

She patted my shoulder this time before standing up off the seat. “Like I said, your towel and clothes are getting warmed up now. I’ll make sure Spike isn’t fooling around with it. BRB.”

“Thanks, Twi.”

She smiled and left.

Now, I sat quietly, alone in the train car. It only lasted about a minute, though, until we reached the base of the mountain and stopped. Once it did, Twi came back and grabbed me. Not literally, but like, you know what I mean.

She led me through the train car that everypony else was gathered in and making small talk with one another. The two girls and boy sat across from Celestia and Luna, none of their hands tied up anymore. Me, personally, I didn’t trust ‘em yet… but… they did save our asses during our escape. Still, I’d have to keep a keen eye on them.

My keen eye side-eyed Abby as I walked on by. This garnered an ever-increasingly annoyed look from her before she rolled her eyes, wrinkling her nose in disgust as she averted her eyes.

Bitch.

I also side-eyed Jen in the same light. She wasn’t as put off… instead meeting eyes with me and smiling. I didn’t really know what to make of her anymore, so I averted my eyes first.

Bitch?

Lastly, I side-eyed the boy. As for him, he was a damn mystery. He didn’t even meet eyes with me. As opposed to the girls, he’d sat himself kinda sideways on the bench so he could look outside. He seemed focused through his little reflection I could see in the window, but he also looked a bit scared, honestly.

Pussy Bitch.

We’d interrogate them all later. For now, we had other matters to tend to, like getting the fuck away from Canterlot. We also needed to recuperate and get this damn nature bath over with.

Twi led me to the indescribable car, where Spike was waiting with our towels. After some small talk, Twi grabbed my towel, flung it over her back, and eased her way off the tall train car. I followed her and stood by the side of the car while she started walking off. She realized I wasn’t following and stopped to look back at me.

“You comin’?”

“Uh… what about Trix?”

“She’s next. You’re up first.”

“Oh… okay… I thought we were going in together,” I explained, leaving the side of the car to walk with her.

“No, silly. You’re gonna have to get naked. I thought you might wanna avoid showing off your jewels.”

“Ah, right, haha… yeah… silly me.”

If only she knew.

“As for me, I’m just here to hoof you the towel. I’ll turn my back for you.”

“Oh, okay. Thanks?”

“What’s with the skeptical tone?” she inquired, “Do you want me to stare at your jewels?”

“Uh… no?”

“Gay.”

“Bruh.”

She snickered to herself as we continued walking to the edge of the river.

Mannnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

I could feel the damn coldness just standing next to the river, listening to the water flow on by. It looked ominous as fuck, given that the forest around us was quickly growing dark. It was that kinda darkness you experience as a kid when you’ve been out playing and just realized the street lights have been on.

It was so dark that I could barely see the other edge of the damn river. Never mind the water at our feet/hooves… I could barely see through it, either. What I could see was the flow, which was disturbing. The water wasn’t moving fast enough to make a shitton of noise, but it was visibly moving.

This river section looked daunting as well, because there was no slope that you would expect. It was like the edge of a damn pool, meaning I couldn’t just slowly walk myself in.

Mannnnnnnnnnnnnn

“Changed my mind,” I stated, turning around to walk aw-

“No,” Twi replied, grabbing my leg. “It’s just a quick dip, okay? Look, feel this.”

She raised her hoof and grabbed my hand so I could feel the warmth from the towel over her back. The toastiness reinvigorated my confidence, so I turned back around, stepped up to the river edge, sucked in a big gulp of air an-

“D’mitry. Clothes,” she mentioned.

Oh right. Might be a good idea to take those off. Actually… hold on…

“Wait a minute, Twi. Why should I take them off? They’re soaked as well. Can’t I just take a bath and do my laundry at the same time?”

She shook her head. “No, bonehead. The blood has already dried on you. Without some kind of soap mixed in, those clothes aren’t gonna get very clean, regardless of how long you swim around in there. I doubt you’re gonna wanna be in there for very long either.”

“Eh… guess you’re right.”

“I’m always right.”

“Mmkay.”

I flung off my blood-soaked jacket and laid it out on the grass behind me. Next, I took off my less blood-stained shirt. After that, I unbuckled the belt of my bloody pants and slid them down, taking my socks and shoes off when I got down to them. Last came my boxers, which I slid off as well, letting them rest on the grass as I straightened out ag-

…

I turned to see Twi just flat out staring at my naked ass body.

“You damn liar!” I scoffed.

“Sorry, sorry!” she exclaimed, shaking out of her penis-glued daze and turning around.

“Pervert.”

“Oh shut up!”

I snickered before gathering my bloody clothes into a pile, realizing my body itself wasn’t as badly covered in blood. Regardless, I needed this bath more than ever. The blood on me and my clothes was starting to smell metallic.

This probably wasn’t healthy.

Once again, I sucked in a big gulp of air. After my lungs were satisfied, I ran up to the very edge of the river and cannonballed i-

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!

FUCKING SHIT THIS IS FUCKING COLD

Not only was this water fucking freezing, but this river was far deeper than we’d thought it would be. I’d straightened my legs out immediately after cannonballing down a few feet, but I still couldn’t feel the riverbed.

What I could feel was the pressure of the river itself. This damn abyss was moving. This freaked me out, so I frantically kicked my legs until my head popped up above the cold ass water. Once I resurfaced, I realized it wasn’t as bad as it felt completely submerged. My legs managed to keep me in place pretty handily.

Despite this, I gasped for air, my body still trying to adapt to this freezing ass river. These gasps triggered Twi to turn back around. I watched her walk up to the river bank, partly smiling at my misfortunes. She even giggled! Bitch!

“Having fun?” she mocked.

I gasped again before responding, “Fuck you! Don’t make me pull your ass in here with me!”

“I’d advise against that. You’re gonna want your towel here dry,” she replied, giggling as she turned and wiggled her rump to emphasize the towel over her back.

“Ah! Well I’m done! Fuck this shit!”

I started swimming toward the bank until she looked behind her. I raised my hands up on the bank and started pu-

“Hold on,” she said, setting a hoof on my hand to stop me.

“HOLD ON?!”

“Yeah. Trix and Snow are coming. Just sit tight.”

“SIT TIGHT?!”

She looked down at me from the bank before leaning over the water beside me and dipping her free hoof in. After swirling it around for a second, she pulled it back up and wiped it dry on the grass.

“You’re such a baby, D’mitry. It’s not that cold.”

“YOU’VE GOT FURRRRRRR!!!”

She snickered like the little devil she was. “Seriously, just hold on a sec.”

I huffed as she turned back to face Trix and Snow, who came into view shortly after. Trix was leaning on Snow’s side, still covered in dried blood. She took a second to observe me before mouthing ‘I’m sorry’. Meanwhile, you know, I just casually froze to death in this ice bath abyss. I could almost feel my penis shrivel up inside my body.

“Nurse,” Twi called, “I need you guys to wait. He’s not done yet.”

“I know, I know,” Snow replied, before quickly outlining why they were making me suffer. She was afraid of waiting any longer to get Trix in the water, since it seemed to be growing darker by the minute. She was also concerned about the bandage Tri-…

…

What the fuck is pushing against m-

HOLY FUCKING SHIT!

Before I could react, the mystery ‘object’ that had started pushing against me ended up dragging my head underwater. I’d initially thought it was some kinda rogue tree branch out to shove me aside, but after it pulled my ass down, and after I felt the texture of a wet, furry foreleg… I realized what it really was.

I immediately started fighting back. It wasn’t easy, obviously, as I was fully underwater now, no vision at all, rushing water the only sound filling my ears, completely disoriented, with an out-of-nowhere pony body shoving me along with the current. I couldn’t even differentiate between it being a living or zombie pony, but my mind assumed it to be a zombie and got to work flooding my body with adrenaline.

I managed to dislodge the rogue foreleg from my shoulder, but I could still feel the body pushing against my side. I think we were also rolling around, so I had no idea what orientation we were in. I started violently kicking my legs out, my left foot hitting what I assumed to be the zombie pony. I also tucked my arms in front of my chest in a defensive position, hoping the pony’s face wasn’t gonna take a bite out of them.

I felt my left arm brush up against the pony’s body as I kicked the water to sur-

Bonk!

OW!! Fucking shit!

I think I hit my head on the riverbed. This was such a disorienting experience that I had no idea if I was upside down or sideways or what. I started worrying about my exposed jewels, wishing I had gone against Twi’s advice to take off my clothes. Regardless, after my head bounced up from whatever I hit, I lashed around until my feet uncomfortably scraped what felt like the rocky riverbed. Once I kinda figured out my orientation, I kicked myself u-

Bonk!

Ow!!

I felt the stupid body of the pony block my head from continuing upward. I sunk my head down t-

Bonk!

GRRRRRRRR!

The fury foreleg whacked my head in an attempt to swipe me up. I shook this off, attempting to shift my body away from where I felt like the zombie pony was. I’d also attempted opening my eyes, but they were immediately flooded shut with the water of the current, and I wasn’t able to make out anything in the pitch black abyss anyway.

After shifting to a different area, still getting dragged with the current, I kicked my legs again until my head eventually resurfaced.

Ahhhhhhhhhh

I took a big gulp of much-needed air in, but it still took a second to orient myself. By the time I did, I realized how far I’d traveled down the river. Snow’s yellow body was the first thing I could make out, leaning over the side of the river next to Twi. They were both damn near out of shouting range, but I could still vaguely hear them calling as they frantically searched for me.

Speaking of shouting, the river was getting louder. I could hear it in my water-plugged ears. Accompanied by this loudness was the introduction of a much stronger current, causing me to turn aro-

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Splash!

Oh shit! Thisa iguruiggelleaueg;gllgegigiirirlrllrguururuggle

Ahhhhh

IT’S FAST AS Fguguglllguurututgllglrlglrugurg

Ahhhhhh

WHOOOAAAgiigrir=uguguglgllrlglrlgurugurulgllgrlleelfleuele

The current was practically molesting me now. I’d reached a downward, violent section of the river that forcefully pulled my vulnerable, naked body along it. To make matters worse, this was like white-river… uh… water rafting? Fuck I don’t even remember, there’s too much going on.

What I meant was there were rocks in the water now, and I was flying by them. The water took me around, and I struggled to fight against it to maintain some conTROLSKAKWA

OOF

…

…

Fuck, that hurt.

My body slapped up against a pretty large rock in the water, side-on. I felt my collarbone damn near shift out of my body on impact. My right shoulder wasn’t happy about this, and neither was my right hip. They hissed out in pain immediately.

Despite all this… the tall rock did manage to bring me to a stop, saving me from this violent ass, nonconsensual swim. The top half of my body had settled on the slanted rock, my bottom half still underwater. Water splashed against it as it was diverted left and right of me and the rock, but it wasn’t pulling me with it anymore.

I took a second to recuperate, noticing this rock and I were within leaping distance of the river’s edge. Well… I mean, I could leap to the edge. I don’t believe the rock could manage that. The rock could accommodate me in this pursuit, as it was slanted and tall enough to fit my whole body above water.

So, after a few more seconds, I ignored my pain and shifted my naked body fully above it. It took me a second to come to a slight standing position. Once I was in this position, I kicked my feet one last time and jumped to the edge.

While I wasn’t able to plant my feet on the grass properly, I did manage to do that little tuck-and-roll that people do in parkour. I imagine it’d look cooler if I wasn’t butt-ass naked and wet.

I picked myself up to stand on the grass and threw my arms around myself in an attempt to overcome the sudden FREEZING feeling of the cold autumn air meeting my wet skin. I started shivering violently, almost wanting to jump back into the freezing water for comfort.

I started wondering if I would end up freezing to death when I saw two ponies galloping along the side of the river toward me. Twi and Snow. Twi shouted my name before noticing me and rushing up to meet me with Snow by her side.

“D’mitry! Are you okay?!” she shouted.

I noticed she still had the towel over her back.

“Gimme that!” I pleaded with chattering teeth and pointed at it.

She stepped forward, continuously eying my exposed jewels as she shifted her rump in my direction for me to swipe the towel off her. As badly as I wanted to cover up my jewels, I was too damn cold to care, so I instead flung the towel over my freezing upper half.

“What the fuck happened?!” Twi interrogated.

“A damn zombie pony wanted to go for a swim, I guess,” I muttered between shivering teeth.

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah. I felt something pushing up against me before it pulled me underwater with it. Stupid damn river. And quit staring at my dick, Snow.”

“Wh-” Snow started, shaking out of her daze and averting her eyes. “Sorry!”

Twi took over for her and returned to staring at my shrunken-up member instead.

“Twi.”

“Shut up. I’m a princess, I can do what I want.”

“Ain’t there, like, a law against this or something?”

“Yeah. It’s called public indecency. I could take you to jail right now.”

“Bruh.”

“Seriously, though, are you alright? Is… it… alright?”

I took a second to assess my own pain, but I really didn’t feel that bad. My shoulder hurt like a bitch, and my hip was a bit angry with me, but I’d made it out pretty okay, given what coulda happened.

“Yeah, yeah. We’re fine.”

Twi then questioned how ‘fine’ I was, bringing up the fact that my dick was a lot smaller than she remembered. This triggered a conversation between her and Snow, where Snow reminded her how temperature affected it. She was pretty knowledgeable about humans too, given the human anatomy books she and the other nurses had been given by the princesses.

After this waste of time, they both teamed up to do a quick check on me, making sure I hadn’t been bitten. During this inspection, Trix came into view, limping as fast as she could toward us. She looked relieved to see me, but she had that look of jealousy in her eyes when she saw Snow and Twi checking my naked body.

I finally shifted the towel to my lower half, wrapping it around my hips while I fought the cold. After a bit of discussion, we all spent the next few minutes walking back upstream. Twi and I left Snow with Trix by the river edge, where they would wait for us to grab some help for her nature bath.

I’d argued with them on the way back that my little water rapids adventure should have been seen as a bad omen warning us not to repeat it, but they ignored me. Trix still needed to wash off and it was probably a really unlucky occurrence and blah blah blah. Whatever. As much as I wanted to help Trix myself… respectfully… fuck that fucking water. I didn’t even wanna look at it ever again.

Once Twi and I returned to the train, she reached up and grabbed my clothes from Spike in the indescribable car. He started asking questions about what took so long and blah blah blah, but she ended up getting him to shut up. She then turned to me with my clothes in her hoof.

“Do you need help putting these on?” she asked.

“...what?”

“Need me to help you?”

“What, are you my mother? Gimme that!” I replied, swiping my clothes out of her hoof.

“Coulda just said no, bonehead,” she said, eying me teasingly before leaping up onto the indescribable car and going to get the others.

I shook my head and rounded to the other side of the train engine to avoid being seen while I put them on. It felt heavenly throwing on the toasty shirt, sweats, and socks. The warm jacket was the icing on the cake. I damn near bust in my new sweats at how cozy I felt.

Anyway… once the others came back with a clean Trix, we all got back on the train and started heading back to Ponyville. After a quick discussion about what had happened with Celestia and Luna, I decided to go bother Dash in the train engine to prevent falling asleep. Since we weren’t rolling down the side of a steep-ass mountain anymore, Luna had left her alone to control it for now.

I’d entered the engine to start irritating her immediately, but I had to wait for her while she focused on turning the train around at something called a “beaker turnabout”. To put it simply, it was like a Y-shaped section of track, meant for occasions… like this? Here we go with the fucking architects of this world again. Regardless, the point is that the train was facing the right way now as it clicked and clacked down the tracks to Ponyville.

“Sure you know how to drive this thing?” I finally pestered her.

“Didn’t Luna and I tell you to be quiet about that? I know enough. Just let ‘em think I know exactly what I’m doing. I don’t want them to worry,” she replied.

“I’m worried.”

“Oh whatever. You’ll be fine, crybaby.”

I wanted to retaliate, but I was distracted by a bout of wind blowing through the conductor’s window. I tried to refrain from sticking my head out of the window like a dog, but I eventually gave up. I stuck my head out, immediately feeling the blast of cold air blowing against my face. It felt great at this slower speed. Actually…

I pulled my head back inside the cabin. “Why are we going so slow? Can’t we speed up?”

I noticed she was holding a pair of binoculars in her hoof.

“I will in a sec. I saw something way down the tracks though. Just wanna make sure we don’t run into it.”

“What? We’re in a damn train! What’s gonna hurt us?”

“Nothing, but we could hurt it.”

“Bruh, who cares? It’s probably just a deer or something. They’ll move. Lemme see,” I requested, sticking my hand out.

She hoofed me the binoculars, which I used to look through the front window of the train. I had to lean over, seeing as the genius fucking architects of this train decided to put the smoke stack SMACK DAB in front of the fucking viewing window. Ridiculous. Regardless, I could still see when I pushed myself up against the sidewall and open window.

Our surroundings were pretty dark now. Celestia’s sun was almost fully set. But the train’s front lights were REALLY dang bright, allowing me to see far down the track. It took me a few seconds to steady the binoculars on the object up ahead, but once I did…

…

I couldn’t believe my eyes.