Don't Worry, It's Just the Apocalypse

With Luna somewhere on the far side of a swirling nothing and Celestia on vacation, the sun remained stuck in its setting place. It griped and complained, illuminating the world in bright yellow, as if it were complaining about being stuck in traffic. Funny thing about that, though, even without the sun setting night still came. It blinked its eyes and complained a lot, but came out regardless. Probably that meant day and night would be sucked into the vortex too.

Having the sun still up during night made the already crazy world that much crazier. A unicorn in coveralls slipped along the edge of the free-for-all dominating the streets, illuminating those streets lamps that remained standing, solemn pillars of order in a temple overrun with chaos.

Chaos that manifested in an earth pony lunging out of an alleyway before our little party. “I am Pope Boniface bon Bonterklausen Bonicaste!” she declared, “And you will kneel before me as my new clergy.”

“Why is everypony acting crazy like this!?” Rarity screamed, throwing herself onto a sofa that she had been thoughtfully levitating behind her.

“The vortex sucked down civilization; all the old bonds and expectations are broken. Now everypony is free to exercise their innermost desires and ambitions.” I said, feeling the urge to be philosophic in the fate of imminent destruction, “Unfortunately, it seems that everypony's innermost desire was to be a psychopathic jerk.”

“It is a sad commentary on our modern society and species as a whole.” Pinkie Pie whispered to no one in particular, though her voice was drowned out by three shrill voices shouting, “YAY! CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS CLIMBING INTO A SACK AND NOT ASKING ANY UNNECESSARY QUESTIONS!”

“You are my new clergy,” the dicolored mane shouted a second time, “KNEEL!” She emphasized her last exclamation by pumping her shotgun. This causes the shell that was already in the chamber to bounce out, unfired and roll away into the gutter.

Facing a gun and the end of the world at the same time, this is the part where your life is supposed to flash before your eyes. Unfortunately, the only friendship I'd ever known was already sucked into the vortex, so the best that my battered mind could come up with was those stupid seminars on accepting your cutie mark.

“There are times when a pony's special talent might not make sense,” the stupid pegasus had said with his forelegs resting before him, “before the second Griffin Wars there was a sudden surge in military and fighting related cutie marks. We were still at peace then, and no pony understood why they Equestria was suddenly inundated with militant ponies, until the griffins launched their surprise attack. They should have obliterated us, but every town was ready. Your cutie mark is a display, not just of yourself, but of the life of our nation. Though you might not believe it, you might not even want to believe it, your destiny will come. When the destiny of the nation calls for your special talent, you will be ready.”

I didn't like where this was going, but there was no one around to ask for alternate directions. I could read Boniface like a book, despite her papal ambitions she was solid middle class, coasters under beer mugs and wouldn't appreciate a face full of mud for the joke it was. Definitely not my target audience, thought the part of my brain that I hate.

But I needed that part of my brain now, and I gave everything I had to it. My prehensile tail ripped the trumpet off my back as my back legs kicked me forward into a somersault, head down, taking aim …

Triumphant moment or not, destiny or not, this is still too embarrassing to describe.

Pope Boniface reeled back, dropping her shotgun and spraying spit. “Oh god, why would you do that? And in my face! Oh, you fucking disgusting, oh god, fucking, what is your problem?” She dropped her weapon to paw at her face and eyes, scraping her hooves across her tongue, leaving her distracted and vulnerable.

I pounced on her, pinning her to the ground and wrapping my medusa tail hairs around her throat. “It's not my problem,” I cracked her skull against the floor, “it's my special talent! My motherfucking destiny, unlike this Pope Boniface crap you're doing. You're acting more like a Borgia anyway.” I rattled her brain around a little more, “Unless you want to see more you'll take your gun and start running that way.”

The new Pope vanished down the street, shooting me dirty glances every few paces.

As we continued down the way, we passed a pony in skin tight leather and another in a flowing cape. “Mare Do Well” and “Batmare” trading blows, biting and smashing against one another over who would stop the city from burning. I was wrong, this wasn't the Everfree Forest. For all its violence, the Everfree still had some semblance of life, of purpose, in its ascending ladders of predator and prey. Here there was no such order, only individual islands of random violence.

This wasn't an urban jungle, it was an urban sewer, and the force of the rain drove all the waste and detritus into the swirling bottom. Maybe this really was inevitable, like the flushing of some obscenely overfilled toilet.

But our little party of four was interrupted at the U-bend; the Canterlot Gardens River, which was once just a petty creek undeserving of the name, has grown to proportions fitting its name since I last crossed it. Filling with blood and water it has overflowed its banks, destroyed the feeble footbridge that spanned over it, and is now rushing madly. Definitely not fordable. Maybe if there were a wagon somewhere around to caulk, but no.

Without pausing, I turned toward a guard tower. A relic of the old world, before the city overflowed its borders in generous peacetime, but now it may be our only hope.

Gin is the only member of our party with sense to question my actions, but I ignore his complaints just like I ignored his objections when I started this idiotic journey yesterday and got Vodka killed and helped drive Canterlot into a panic. Someday, I may learn to listen to his advice and step away from the precipice rather than hurtling headfirst into it. Someday, I might also grow wings and become a pegasus and control the weather and not have to worry about falling to my death.

Eight stories above the ground, I turned to the yellow robot in tow and said, “Fluttershy, I need you to fly us across the water.”

“She'll never make it!” screamed Rarity, recovering from her depression into hysterics, “She gets self-conscious and is a weak flier and we're all going to die and it is all my fault!”

I bet that she can really fly. Her wings looked the same as any other pegasus, and her self-consciousness, like every other part of her personality, had been sucked into the vortex with her face. Fluttershy the pony robot can get us across, and I explained this, “She doesn't have to fly, really, just control our fall. If we catch the winds from the vortex, we should make enough forward progress to cross.”

“Wait,” Gin immediately caught the undercurrents of stupid in my plan, “so you want to use the winds sucking us towards the vortex to avoid getting destroyed by the vortex?”

“Yes. Rarity, I need you to levitate us, as best you can, and Fluttershy will steer, and me and you will provide the ballast to keep us from getting sucked all the way into the vortex and destroyed.”

“That is the stupidest idea I have ever heard, and I was Vodka's brother for his entire life.”

“I can't! I'm useless and we're all going to die.”

I ignored their protests and turned to Fluttershy, “you've got that, right? When I say 'fly,' you'll fly?”

“Yes.”

“You can't be serious!” Gin continued.

“No,” I gave the form, vaudevillian response, “I've never been much for dogs. No one is saying you have to follow us. Controlling three ponies in the air will be easier than controlling four.”

“I …” Gin stuttered a bit, “I haven't got … I'll come. I just want my objection on the record.”

A fresh gust ripped by the tower, pushing up and toward the epicenter of destruction. “Fly!” I screamed, wrapping my forehooves around the yellow pegasus and grasping the trailing unicorn in my prehensile tail. Behind me, Gin Martini grabbed my hooves as we took off. Below the river, a crazed sloshing of bodies and blood and mud and water, tossed about in its banks. Restive and irritable, an infant just now outgrowing its cradle.

For a few moments, it almost seemed like I was going to pull it off. Then the vortex got other ideas. A sudden burst of turbulence dropped us several feet and nearly ripped everypony clear of each other.

“What is happening?”

“I cannot control our descent. We are going to crash,” Fluttershy intoned, her voice dropping our of her throat like stones from a hole in one's saddlebag, “or we'll all be sucked into the vortex.”

“You've got to do it! You CAN do it!” I screamed back, but it was no use encouraging a pony without courage.

“No, I really can't. My wings are being used to optimum efficiency.” We rip-tugged forward, and blurred fore and after-images slipped out around the four of us as we dingle-dangled above roaring liquid death.

There was another surge, and Fluttershy added, “we are going to crash.” Maybe she sounded sad at that moment. Whatever happened, her wings snapped outward like a cheap umbrella, and there was a cracking sound as stone met bone like old lovers, savage and crazed in the frenzy of embrace. So, old lovers who also happened to be bears.

My brain, finally tired of all this crap, dipped out the door and sprinted for the freedom of nothingness.