Don't Worry, It's Just the Apocalypse

As the vortex's influence rose into the sky, it began pulling clouds from across Equestria. Thunderheads destined for Manehattan, the artistically arranged smog clouds that the citizens of Las Pegasus seemed to enjoy so much, a rainstorm from Ponyville, all were hauled together into one ominous mass. Like tourists, the clouds had come from hundreds of miles away, and also like tourists had no idea what to do when they got to Canterlot.

Taking a cue from the unrest below, the clouds began to collide. Jostle strikes created lightning, smaller clouds were ground underfoot into a fine mist that became a torrential downpour. Rain and hooves pounded the ground, turning it to mud. At least, I hope it is just water. I made the conscious decision to quit looking down after something I stepped on screamed.

The setting sun was warped by the rain, turning everything a bright yellow at odds with the hour. No pony seems to know where they should be headed, and so they head nowhere. Scattered groups have pulled themselves off the road, ducking for shelter from the rain and trampling crowds. Those who haven't made it out of the river are pushed by it, and I caught a glimpse of Vodka being shoved into the cavernous mouth of the Canterlot Observatory.

There was nothing I could do for him, there was nothing I should do for him. He was just a stranger who, for some reason, I seemed to have known all my life. Just keep moving forward, don't look around. Or at least, that's what I'd have liked to do. Instead, I had to keep my eyes to the edges, looking for a yellow pegasus staring at a wall.

I finally caught sight of Fluttershy, the only calm face in the crowd. She moved slightly to avoid being struck by passing ponies, but otherwise didn't react to the chaos around her. She looked almost serene, sitting in the shadows of the Canterlot Observatory, our lady of temporary refuge.

I was just trying to figure out how I'd push against the crowd to make it toward her when I heard a scream from above, and Vodka's very healthy and normal, for an Earth pony, fear of flying was ripped through the air. Flailing crazily, it disappeared from sight.

A moment later, laughter as Vodka plunged from the top of the observatory. He completed two and a half somersaults before hitting the ground. The impact stopped his flesh, but his skeleton pressed forward, eagerly seeking a single point parallel to the road. Impatient and pushy, his bones crammed organs and blood aside to squish-splosh out, coating several ponies in gore.

All his red secrets burst-scattered out, eager to reveal themselves, “This is the real Vodka Martini!” they laugh-spattered across the ground. So pleased to, at last, be free of their form that they jumped and hugged the ponies gathered beneath the tower.

And this is just the cue the crowd was looking for. Someone screamed, several ponies, now covered in blood, bolted in direct opposition to the current. The quiet trampling phase of the mass panic was over, and civilization, not having paid any attention to Vodka his entire life, slipped in his bloody remains. There was a sickening rip, one that I felt in my teeth, and a woosh that whipped from and through the crowd. Just like that, the foundations of civilization were swept away, like a fog vanishing in the wind, revealing the ugly decayed mass it had hidden.

The ponies, civilization abruptly ripped out of them, began colliding against one another. Like the clouds above them, they started firing lighting bolts, desperate to clear a space from the strangers around them. A mad rush as they hurtled themselves against, over and through one another to get to their homes and businesses and secure their valuables. Then, good Samaritans that they were, they rushed to their homes of their neighbors to secure more valuables. Fortunately, I never really considered myself part of civilization before this, so the change meant nothing to me.

The vortex, having already mastered the creation of weather, has decided that it will recreate the whole of Everfree forest here.

A unicorn stallion in front of me created a forcefield in the shape of a V and plowed through the crowd with it. The path he left, strewn with blood and mangled body parts, allowed me to reach Fluttershy, where she was still sitting. The sole island of calm, and the gore spattered on her fur only added to her appearance of serenity.

I grabbed her hooves and screamed in her ear, because this is how you “get someone motivated,” “Pinkie Pie has a plan! You have to come with me, but first we need Rarity. Have you seen her?”

She didn't get motivated, but she did respond, “I saw her run screaming up the street. She looked in distress, but I didn't ...” her voice just trailed off. Fortunately, she tottered after me when I told her to stand, which was an improvement over catatonia, so I couldn't complain. Actually, that was a lie, I could complain, and I wished I wasn't the only pony worried about the apocalypse.

For the second time that day, I was grabbed from behind. I turn to see Gin Martini's hollow eyes, “My brother … my brother … did you just see? My brother … he hated heights … it was very healthy, for an Earth pony … but he …”

“I don't have time to … I have to go.” I muttered and started back into the street.

“Wait! No! Wait. He … I can't … I'll come.” He followed in tow beside the pegasus robot.

True enough, we heard Rarity before we saw her. A keening wail, “I failed them all! The princess! Canterlot! I can't live in this world anymore!” The voice was emerging from the local Quills and Sofas, and we found her within, throwing herself from one sofa to the next. She paused on each one for a moment of elegant flailing or a small faint.

Fluttershy, realizing that we'd reached our destination, found a wall to stare at. Occasionally, her shoulders and wings twitched in a casual shrug in reaction to Gin's continued rambling.

“This is the end!” Rarity screeches, “Everyone is going to die, and it will all have been my fault! This whole apocalypse-” she paused to blast an uncomfortable sofa to pieces and hurl the flaming wreckage at a group of looters trying to enter through the front window. Fortunately, there weren't many looters here, most of them heading to the more practical Canned Goods and Shotguns down the street.

“No,” I took advantage of the break in her monologue, “this isn't your fault; we've all been screwed since the beginning. Since we were born, really. This thing, whatever it is, is bigger than any one pony, it must have been under the surface for a long time.”

She turned, noticing me for the first time, then switched from self-loathing to panic, “WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE! IT'S GAME OVER, MAN, GAME OVER!” before throwing herself on a fresh sofa.

“No, Pinkie has a plan.”

This phrase did nothing to calm her down, “We're really all going to die!”

“Pinkie knew how to deal with the parasprites when we were all panicking.” Fluttershy is still staring at the wall, and I would have assumed that someone else was speaking if there were anyone else in the building.

But there was no reasoning with the unicorn, and I was just starting to look for something I could brain her with, while wondering if I had any real chance of taking on a unicorn by myself, when Gin shouldered me aside. He moved directly in front of the panicking face, then in a sudden motion that had restored reason to drunks countless times at his father's bar, he spun around and smashed two hooves into Rarity's face.

“You are coming with us,” he smacked a hoof over her mouth before she could start speaking again, “even if you are a useless, terrible nothing of a pony. Now quit fucking screaming.”

This does nothing to calm her down, but the assault and verbal abuse shifted her to quiet sobbing, and when Gin barked at her to follow she did so with her head down. It took a little prompting to get Fluttershy back into motion, as she continued her shift through the pony-robot-rock spectrum, but soon the four of us were back outside. My brother's friend who hates me, a pony with no emotions, and a pony with no emotional control. And me, but I didn't count myself. What could go wrong? Well, what else was left?