Apocalypse

"Go, go, go, GO!!!"

Nate hustled Luna and Cadence down the street as Roland sprinted up behind them, the four turning the corner to Hyde Street just as another spark, this one louder, came from the flaming bus they left behind. Forcing the two down, Nate huddled them together, keeping his arms around them as Roland dove past them.

*KRA-BOOOOM*

A torrent of pressure and flames barely licked around the corner as the bus exploded, making the four flinch as Roland covered his head. It wasn't long before the worst of it past, pieces and bits of the bus flying everywhere around Geary Street near the intersection. To say they made it farther than anyone before that thing blew up was an understatement. Polk and Larkin Street were both littered with building rubble and cars piled up on top of one another on both ends of the street. They should have died, or at least, one of them shouldn't have made it, but they did.

Nate looked back towards the corner, seeing the light of the fire still shining brightly, even though the bus was a few street corners away. Standing up, he motioned the Princesses to stay where they were. Taking a few steps to the corner of the building, he peeked around, only to suddenly reel back as half of the bus door went flying past him via another small series of combustions in the bus's engine compartment.

"Goddamn..."

Nate took a step out, heading towards the center of the street where he could easily dodge incoming debris if he needed to. Aiming his shotgun down the road, he saw the bus in shambles, cooking metal and rubber as the zombies inside were scattered all over the place. Pieces of flesh, bone, entrails; they hung everywhere, on every surface, all boiled or cooked black. The young Inventor grimaced at the sight, but kept his nerve as he turned to go back to Roland, Cadence, and Luna.

*SMACK-!!!*

"GAK-!!!"

Nate hadn't taken so much as a step before he was tackled to the side by one of the dead roaming nearby. Hitting the ground with it on top of him, his shotgun slid out of his reach when it fell from his hands, rendering him defenseless with the corpse on top of him. Holding back its head, he used his elbows to block the zombie's swinging arms. His strength evenly matched the undead nightmare, but he wasn't able to pull it off of him.

*click-click-click*

"SHIT!!!"

Nate glanced over at Roland, seeing him trying to frantically unjam his pistol.

"C'mon, C'MON!!! You piece of shit pistol!! Fuck!!!"

Nate turned back to the zombie as it almost got him by the crook of his neck, pushing back with everything he had. With no way to reach his shotgun, he was cornered on the ground, left to only struggle in vain as he would eventually tire. Luckily, though...

*SPLETCH*

That wouldn't come to be. Luna grunted as she jabbed her horn through the back of its skull, tugging the dead body up into range of Cadence's hoof. Bucking off the creature's head, the girls panted as Nate laid there, doing the same as he came but mere millimeters away from certain death.

"Are you OK...?"

He looked up towards the blue Princess, seeing her giving him a hopeful smile. Noticing her hoof, he grasped it, letting her help him up to a sit.

"Yeah... No bites. I'm fine..."

Roland growled as he smacked his pistol up against the wall, popping out the jammed bullet.

"Damn cheap police crap."

He looked over at Nate as the latter leaned over, picking up his shotgun.

"I'm so sorry. I couldn't-"

"It's fine... You couldn't really do much with a jammed pistol anyway. Not without getting too close."

Nate looked over his weapon, humming as he saw some wear on his shotgun as well.

"These guns have been used way too much without being cleaned. No wonder the pistol jammed..."

He looked back towards the bus, then down the other way.

"We need to get moving, and tread much more carefully. We can't afford to run into a horde, and the noise of the explosion's gonna attract a lot of them."

Luna trotted up next to him, looking around at the shops as the Inventor gave her a side eye.

"Where'd you learn to fight, Luna?"

"Huh...?"

"I've read about Princesses and monarchs through history books and, god forbid, fairy tales. Nonfiction and fiction depictions don't really suit you with the assumed role of a leader with a warrior's heart. Who taught you to buck up and kill when you need to?"

Luna gave another small smile, happy to talk about something that didn't involve their current predicament.

"My father. He knew, as a future ruler, I had to be able to make decisions... HARD decisions, for the betterment of my subjects' safety, alongside Tia."

She walked with him as they scavenged the road a bit.

"It was always like that. My father was a giant teddy bear if you knew him past the regal crown. Mother always called him a big, fluffy pushover, but the greatest of leaders have the longest of fuses, and we all know the greatest anger comes from the most pleasant of creatures."

Nate gave her that. He's seen a few happy-go-lucky individuals go completely ballistic when their buttons were pushed one too many times. Still, he gave Luna a short stare for a hard minute, trying to figure her out. He gave up on it when Cadence grabbed his attention.

"These... 'trucks'...?"

Roland shook his head as he came up next to her.

"These are cars. Same purpose with a different application."

Roland poked his head inside the broken window of the driver seat, frowning at the condition of the dash.

"This place looks deserted, and most of these vehicles have been destroyed one way or another. I don't think we can get a car out here."

Nate shook his head.

"I don't think we can get a car, period. We got lucky with that SWAT truck..."

Roland hummed in thought, looking towards the street signs. Pursing his lips, he perked up when a lightbulb went off in his head.

"Wait... Maybe not."

He pointed down Geary.

"There's car rental just down the road. A place called Hertz just up by Mason Street. If there's nobody there, we can probably find the keys to one of their display cars and use it to get to the museum."

Nate shrugged as he slung the shotgun over his shoulder.

"Better plan than none, Roland. Good thinking. We should be able to reach the dealer by nightfall, though, and I'd wager those cars aren't pumped with gas, so we'll need to find one nearby after we get it."

Roland pointed south as the Princesses looked up at them, these places going completely over their heads, as they've never heard of a car, nor a 'Hertz'.

"The closest one between here and the museum is Shell on Folsom."

"Right. We'll need to move quietly, and fast. No stopping for anyone. We get this done, we regroup either here or across the bridge, and we get the hell out of here. Everyone in agreement?"

Nate got a collective nod from both Roland and the Princesses with him. Despite the attentive posture of the rulers, Cadence couldn't help but feel worry for her older Auntie and her sister-in-law. She was sure they were in good hooves. Raymond and William were more than capable of dealing with the undead, but if the weapons jammed like Roland's did, they had the added risk of being completely defenseless and overrun.

Not to mention, there was no safe place in this city. That much couldn't be any more clear to her now than it did this afternoon.

Celestia only knows if both her and Twilight were safe...

{"It's dangerous outside!"}

Raymond growled as he tried to move forward, only to have another car cut him off. Punching the wheel, he looked to his sides to see if there was a way out of this mess.

'So much for turning down Gough... The entire city is stuffed here!'

All around the SWAT truck was row upon row of cars, all jammed on Market Street trying to find their way onto the bridge. Raymond had pulled the short stick and found himself smack-dab in a traffic jam, unable to get out without doing something illegal.

William had gone back with Celestia and Twilight, staying with them after covering the two with blankets to hide them. The blanket was lifted only by Celestia's neck as she kept Twilight close whilst looking about. She could see the upfront panic of the citizens firsthoof.

{"Don't get out of your car under any circumstances!! I repeat--!"}

Celestia noticed that even the authority figures that governed the people in force was afraid. She'd been alive long enough to see and hear the ticks in the expressions of all kinds of creatures, and these humans were a lot like Minotaurs, in a sense.

She turned her head forward as Raymond slid the window to the front open.

"We're not gonna get anywhere like this, guys. By the time we even get to the Museum, the sun would be coming up."

He pointed out the window towards the setting sun, proving his point on how slow they were going. William frowned as he peeked ahead to see how far it was to the bridge.

"I don't see our progress going any faster if we decide to go over the bridge ourselves instead of regrouping at the Museum. Odds are, there's no way around a night in this truck."

Twilight glanced up at Raymond.

"But, we only have three days to get to the mirror. If we get across before Luna and Cadence do, we would have lost the morning light by the time they arrive."

Celestia shook her head.

"No. We wouldn't just lose the morning. We'd lose the day as well. It would be evening before they would get across, I'm sure."

William nodded.

"She's right, Raymond. Given our current situation, regrouping will burn out a huge chunk of time. We need to think about getting these two to the mirror if we can't wait."

Raymond gave him a long, hard look before turning to the Princesses. Both weren't keen on the idea of leaving Luna and Cadence behind, which was understandable.

"Princess Celestia, how long would we have to wait if we failed to get you, Twilight, and the other two to the portal on time?"

"If we were to fail in reaching the portal, we would have to wait, at least, thirty days."

William rose an incredulous eyebrow.

"A whole MONTH? Given how panicked San Francisco is right now, I wouldn't be surprised if a few crazy bastards picked off everything in the stores for their own cultist communities."

Raymond shook his head as he drove forward, not giving room for someone to cut him off again.

"We can't risk it. We need to get to the mirror in the next three days. If we don't, then I can't guarantee the safety of the Ponies anymore. We're barely making it along on luck and bullets, and my gun's wearing out. It's not gonna last much longer if it isn't cleaned, and we don't have any proper gun oil in this damn tru-"

*SLAM*

The truck suddenly leaned to the side as a person ran into it, piled onto it by the undead that were lingering in the area. With a small horde converging through the left side of the street, Raymond ushered everyone to keep quiet amidst the screaming and panicking. He cringed as he watched the boy in front of him get torn apart, his face ripped open three different ways before the top part of his head was snapped backwards.

"Jesus... I hope Nate and Roland are having better luck than we are."

"Hrrr-"

*SMASH*

"NNNGH-!!!"

Nate's elbow went through the glass of the door as he busted open the window of the entrance to the car rental. Grasping the knob inside, he unlocked the door and forced his way in. Cadence followed him inside, the two looking around for anything of use. All around were cars on display, some fit for long distance travel, but some others based primarily on speed with little sturdiness in their design.

"Check the back offices, Cadence. There's got to be keys for these cars around somewhere."

She nodded, leaving Nate up front to look around and scavenging what she could. As the two continued to search the inside of the rental, Roland and Luna were outside, the latter leaning against the doorway they went in while Roland was looking out at a horde a few miles away.

"..."

"Do you truly believe you will die if we leave you behind?"

Roland looked back at Luna, who had acquired a sullen mood ever since that topic was brought up. In fact, she'd always felt that sorrow in her chest. These four creatures unknown to her, who barely even KNEW her, were putting everything on the line to escort her back home. To hear them say that they will fully accept death knowing they got her, her sister, Twilight, and Cadence back into Equestria... It touched Luna's heart, but rubbed her the wrong way. Roland wanted to lift her spirits, to boost morale so she would focus on getting to where they needed to be, but there was no point in lying. Being real and truthful was more important than lying to keep someone's faith.

"To be honest, Princess, I don't even know."

"You don't... know?"

He looked back at the horde.

"When I was up on the hotel's roof with the others, I remember seeing helicopters flying overhead. They were State Defense Force choppers."

"State Defense...? You mean your Royal Guards?"

"In a sense. They're a special outfit from our military that's split between all fifty states of the country. They operate with emergency management and homeland security missions. Most SDFs are organized as army, but air and naval units also exist. But... there lies a problem in itself."

He motioned out towards the city.

"They COULD be setting up evacuation sites to rescue all the non-infected individuals still trapped within the city, but with everything as it is... No."

He lowered his hand, shaking his head as he gazed back at the zombified crowd.

"There's no way they'd come all the way out to San Francisco unless they had a reason to. They're on a mission, most likely to secure any and everything important to government and the survival of the small percent of us that will get out alive. They don't have time to save us."

Roland pointed towards the left of the converging zombies, seeing a small portion of them suddenly have their eyes turn purple, but not glow. This indicated that they spotted someone that wasn't them. Screaming came from inside a store as a woman was pulled out by five of them.

"They're not even doing anything about that..."

Luna put her hoof up to her muzzle as she watched the poor woman get completely mutilated by the undead, her arm torn clean off as her stomach ripped open and her throat bitten out. Roland closed his eyes as the screams were silenced, reopening them with a darker look in his eye.

"No one can be bothered to help us, and eventually, our luck and skill will wear out, and we will eventually die."

"... And if you do not? If you succeed in getting me and my fellow monarchs home, and not perish by the teeth of these beasts...?"

He stepped away from the street corner, going back towards Hertz.

"Then we adapt, and we keep going."

He stopped by her, his eyes locked onto hers as he gave a deadly serious stare.

"That's the situation we're in, Luna. None of us like it, but we have to accept it. The world is experiencing the same thing we are. There might not even BE a safe place, anymore."

"So then... Where will you go after we are gone?"

"..."

He walked inside, leaving Luna to hang on that question. Roland didn't know the answer himself. If any sort of evac or SDF aid was a fluke, they might as well be screwed. Right now wasn't a good time to think about alternatives. They need to find the others and get to where they need to be. That's ALL that matters right now.

"Nate? How're we doing on a car?"

He came around the counter to one of the display cars, Cadence standing on the outside of the passenger side door as Nate was looking at the engine.

"We found the keys to this 2019 Malibu. It's not much, but it's the best we have right now."

"A Malibu? Does it have a good suspension?"

Nate shut the hood, walking around to the driver-side door and opening it up.

"Dunno. Don't care. We got a car, and that's good enough for me."

Nate took a seat inside the car as Cadence sat herself in the passenger seat. Turning the key, the ignition went up after a few seconds, starting the car up and rumbling the engine loudly. Hearing it purr and roar, the four knew the noise would attract zombies quickly.

"Let's go, people! Double time! We got just enough gas to get us to the Shell off Folsom."

Luna and Roland quickly ran through the rental store, the latter helping Luna in before running around and getting into the back seat beside her. Seconds after they did, Nate slammed his foot on the pedal, putting the car into drive and racing towards one of the windows on the main floor. Smashing through it, the group managed to get back onto the street as the horde turned to them, glowing purple eyes staring in their direction. However, the dead didn't come after them. After they were gone, the light in their eyes died away, and they continued roaming on. Nate noticed this, but didn't bother with it. They had a car, and now, they had a new objective.

And he only prayed they didn't die making this detour.