The Manehattan Project

The Streets of Manehattan, Day One, 2:30pm.

Spitfire swerved the van violently to make a sharp turn down another street, causing the rest of the passengers to be knocked around inside. Rainbow Dash and Fleetfoot tried their best to maintain balance, as they took turns applying pressure to Misty Fly's head wound.

"How much further Soarin?" Spitfire asked. Soarin glanced at the map again before pointing towards a building down the road.

"There it is, on the corner there!" Soarin shouted. Spitfire rapidly approached the building before slamming on the van's brakes and causing Thunderlane to fly face first into the seat in front of him.

"Watch the brakes Spitfire! Misty's gonna bleed even more!" Fleetfoot shouted angrily.

"Shut up and get out! Let's get inside!" Spitfire shouted back as she unbuckled herself.

The others quickly did as she was told, with Fleetfoot and Rainbow Dash carrying Misty, and Thunderlane balancing on Fluttershy for support. The group immediately rushed to the front door, and miraculously, not only was it not barricaded, there were no infected around, and the door wasn't locked. So they all hurriedly rushed inside, and Soarin closed the door behind them.

(ambience )

The police station was eerily silent, and seemingly deserted. The floor was cluttered and dried blood was seen on a few walls.

The group walked into the police station's lobby and over to the front desk, where they all sat down to take a little breather after everything that had happened. Just as Rainbow and Fleetfoot set Misty down, she started to grunt and open her eyes slowly.

"Uh...wha.....a.....wha..." Misty stuttered, barely being able to move. Fleetfoot knelt beside her.

"Misty! Are you okay? Say something." Fleetfoot begged. Misty groaned again.

"Fl...a...Fleet?" Misty managed to mumble out.

"We need to get her something for her head and fast!" Fleetfoot said.

"Alright, Fleetfoot, you stay here with Misty and Thunderlane.." Spitfire began, only to be interrupted by Thunderlane.

"Hey, I'm just fine, I can help." Thunderlane argued, before trying to stand up straight, only to wince at the pain in his ankle.

"Like I said, Fleet, stay here with the injured, and make sure they don't get more hurt." Spitfire said.

"I'll stay here too, I'll help in any way I can." Fluttershy said. Spitfire nodded before turning to Soarin and Rainbow Dash.

"You two, you're gonna help me find some help. Hopefully there's more ponies in here than monsters." Spitfire said. Soarin and Rainbow Dash nodded. Spitfire then looked around the lobby, seeing only 2 ways to go, a door to the left of the entrance marked offices, or a door to the right of the entrance marked cells. Spitfire looked back and forth between the two doors before just choosing the cells one and walking towards it.

"You two, go check the offices!" Spitfire said, waving for Soarin and Dash to go the other way.

"Stay safe you guys." Rainbow said to the four ponies staying behind before following Soarin into the offices.

After the others left, Fleetfoot immediately began to search the lobby frantically. Fluttershy and Thunderlane both were a bit confused.

"Uh, Fleetfoot, what are you doing?" Thunderlane asked.

"I'm looking for something to bandage Misty's head. Why don't you make yourself useful and hold her wound until I find something to bandage it!" Fleetfoot responded with a mixture of anger and desperation in her voice. Fluttershy and Thunderlane then quickly moved closer to Misty and both applied pressure to her slit head.

"This isn't good, she's gonna need stitches." Fluttershy said, getting a good look at Misty's injury.

"I wish I could've killed the bastard who did this." Thunderlane said angrily.

"Don't worry Thunder, Spitfire took care of em." Fleetfoot said as she frantically searched behind the desk. She had searched through almost all of it apart from under the desk. She lowered her head to peek under the desk when she was immediately struck in the face by a hoof. Fleetfoot cried out in pain as she fell backwards after the hit. She looked up to see an infected wearing a police uniform begin to crawl out from under the desk.

"Fleetfoot? What's wrong?" Thunderlane asked after hearing Fleetfoot's grunt. Fleetfoot's only response was a scream as she tried to back away from the infected. She tried to stand up and get away, but her head was still spinning from the first hit. The infected then grabbed her and attempted to bite her arm, but Fleetfoot used all her strength to push the infected away.

"HELP ME!" Fleetfoot screamed as she barley kept the infected from biting her. Thunderlane and Fluttershy exchanged glances. Fluttershy began to shake with fear, and tears formed in her eyes. Thunderlane nodded in an attempt to calm her down and stood up.

"I'm coming Fleet!" Thunderlane said as he limped to the other side of the desk. He saw the infected on top of Fleetfoot and began to look for something to use, luckily a swivel chair was still near the desk. Thunderlane picked up the chair and struck the infected in the side, knocking it of of Fleetfoot. She then crawled away over to the other side of the desk. The infected looked back over at Thunderlane and started to shamble towards him. Thunderlane rose the chair again and this time, slammed it directly on top of the infected's head.

There was a crunch sound and the infected fell over, dead. Thunderlane dropped the chair, panting and and cringing at the pain in his hoof. He then made his way back over to the girls.

"You alright Fleet?" Thunderlane asked. Fleetfoot, who was being comforted by Fluttershy, gave Thunderlane a slight nod. Thunderlane looked over to Misty, who still had no bandage for her wound. He then got an idea to help her. He limped back over to the other side of the desk and examined the corpse of the infected. It had a bite wound in it's leg, but luckily the police shirt they were wearing was clean enough. Thunderlane ripped the shirt off the corpse and went back over to the others and rapped the ripped shirt around Misty Fly's head.

"Nice thinking." Fluttershy complemented. Thunderlane simply nodded before sitting down next to the others and resting his back against the desk.

"Let's hope the others have a better time..."

Rainbow Dash peered around the corner to the next stretch of hallway, seeing only a few windows, but nothing else littering the hallway.

"This way's clear." she whispered to Soarin, who was right behind her. The two then began to move further down the hallway. Eventually, the pair came to a door marked "offices." Rainbow Dash very carefully opened the door and peered inside. The light was still on, and luckily no one was inside either. Rainbow then opened the door all the way and stepped into the room.

The offices was less like the stereotypical offices one sees in movies with cubicles, water coolers, and douchey bosses. This office was very open. It had several desks, all labeled with the names of the officers, and one room in the back reserved for the Police Chief.

"Check the desks, they might have some useful stuff left in them." Soarin suggested. Rainbow nodded and made her way over to one of the desks. She looked at the name label, signifying the owner of that particular desk.

"Swift Justice" Rainbow read aloud. Soarin chuckled slightly. "Heh, perfect name." He said as he rummaged through another desk, finding a few rounds of ammo for his pistol. Rainbow also searched through her desk, finding some pain relief medicine, a few bandages, and some ammo.

"Jackpot." Rainbow said to herself.

"You know something kinda funny?" Soarin asked as he rummaged through another desk.

"What?" Rainbow asked.

"Just a few hours ago, we were training for a show. Just an average Wonderbolt show. We were gonna perform, receive praise from the crowd as usual, and then go to an afterparty to get shifaced. But instead, zombie ponies invade Manehattan, and now we're looting stuff from the police." Soarin explained, slowly loosing himself to chuckles as he did. Rainbow also chuckled with him.

"Yeah, crazy day huh." Rainbow said, a little less enthused. She then turned to face Soarin with a bit of a sad look on her face. "You know, in the back of my mind, I keep praying that this is all just one big prank. A while ago, my friends pulled a similar prank on me in Ponyville, where everypony pretended to be a rainbow mouthed zombie.." Rainbow explained, Soarin chuckled a little.

"...But, it was just to get back at me for being so inconsiderate with my pranks. But this.....after seeing what happened in the gun store and out on the street, I know this is real, but I still pray that at some point, everypony will get up, rub the stuff off their face and scream gotcha!" Rainbow said sadly. Soarin then walked around the desks and over to Rainbow and placed a hoof on her shoulder.

"It'll be okay Rainbow, I have hope that everything will turn out fine in the end, that the royal guard will take care of everything, but until then, we have to be strong, for the team, and for out friends." Soarin said, looking into Rainbow's eyes. Rainbow smiled.

"Thanks Soarin." Rainbow said, wiping a small tear from her eye. Soarin then looked at the things they had found.

"You think we found enough stuff for Misty?" Soarin asked. Rainbow nodded, and the two made their way back to the lobby.

Rainbow and Soarin made their way back to the lobby, where everyone else was waiting for them, including Spitfire, who had a large medical kit with her, and was using the contents to treat Misty.

"I found the medical supplies, did you two find anything else?" Spitfire asked,

"Some ammo, some pain pills, and some clean bandages." Rainbow said as she unloaded her bag.

"Alright, so we've got the stuff for Misty, now what?" Fleetfoor asked. Everyone looked at eachother, exchanging glances none of them knew what to do next, until Spitfire spoke up.

"I have a plan. We stay here, until this thing blows over." Spitfire said very matter-of-factually.

"Here? Until it blows over? How do you know it'll blow over?" Fleetfoot argued.

"I just know, the Equestrian military will sort this out in a week, until then we stay here in the station, we'll fortify it and gather up any supplies we need." Spitfire explained.

"Yeah, but why stay here, why don't we actually get out of the city?" Fleetfoot asked. Spitfire frowned and motioned to Misty and Thunderlane.

"We have wounded, who aren't able to move at this time, so our best course now is to bunker down and wait, understand?" Spitfire asked. Everypony nodded.

"Okay, then it's settled, we stay here in the station." Spitfire said as she continued tending to Misty, cleaning out her wound and redressing it.

Rainbow Dash walked over to Fluttershy and sat next to her. Fluttershy then tapped Rainbow's shoulder.

"Um, are you sure Spitfire's right in staying here? What about our friends?" Fluttershy asked. Rainbow placed a hoof on Fluttershy's shoulder.

"Don't worry, if anypony can make it through a thing like this, it's our friends. They'll be fine, I'm sure of it." Rainbow said reassuringly to Fluttershy. Fluttershy nodded and rested her head on Rainbow's shoulder.

"Does this remind you of the prank?" Fluttershy asked with a little smile. Rainbow groaned.

"Yep, it does."