Author's Note

Apologies for the wait. I would've had this done sooner, but a week ago I was away from home visitng my girlfriend and I wanted to proiritize spending time with her.

But alas, here is Chapter V. I apologize if it's a bit rocky, but I feel confident to post it. And I also wanna mention the next chapter will be the last for this story as I want the next story to be my biggest yet so I wanna move my time over to that. I'll make the ending of this story with effort of course.

Anyway, enough ranting. I hope you enjoy, and may the force be with you.

Chapter V: The Cloudsdale Confrontation

"And the surprises just keep coming," Sunset commented, seeing the now corrupted Cocoa step towards them, her saber firmly in her grasp.

"Sunset, take them and go make sure the road leading away is clear of any spike strips. If my hunch is right, then Cocoa was resurrected to come after me specifically, so I need to take care of her now or else we're not going to get out of here. Now go," Ashana ordered.

Sunset didn't speak against her sister as she knew they needed to get back on the road to keep as much distance between them and the growing undead populace as possible.

"You know it's pointless to keep running. She's gonna find you eventually. It's best to just accept your fate and give yourselves up," Cocoa spoke, her tone cold and defiant as she stopped just a few feet from Ashana and crossed her arms underneath her modest bust.

"I should be surprised that Twilight resurrected you to be used against me, but I'm not," Ashana snapped back. "I'm also surprised you just let her take control of your mind. I figured you were stronger than that, but I guess not. I hate to say this because we were friends once… but you've become rather pathetic."

"Spare me the pity, Ashana. No one survives something like this forever. Why keep running?" Cocoa asked.

"Because we're survivors. It's what we do. And if you expect me to just surrender myself and my family, it's not gonna happen," Ashana replied, dropping her arms down to her sides while reaching for her lightsaber.

"So be it," Cocoa coldly stated, igniting her indigo blue blade. "I'll make sure your death is swift."

"No. It's your death that will be swift," Ashana remarked, pulling out her lightsaber and igniting her fiery orange blade.

At once the two women charged at one another, clashing blades. This duel wasn't gonna be like any friendly sparring session Cocoa and Ashana had before, this time it's a matter of who is gonna kill who. Ashana parried Cocoa's vicious strikes with ease, the two moving almost like a blur to anyone that might be watching. The quicker the two women swung at each other, the quicker Ashana was put on the defensive. Twilight's corruption enhanced Cocoa's agility, allowing her to strike against Ashana harder than usual. Ashana, having never been in an actual duel before, was finding it difficult to keep up with the woman's enhanced speed, but she persisted for the sake of her family's survival.

Meanwhile at the end of the parking lot, the other survivors stopped at the entrance to walk onto the road to look for any potential spike strips.

"Ok. Doesn't look like there are any other spike strips," Sunset noted.

"Looks like Ashana's still duking it out with Cocoa," Sunrise pointed out, noticing the orange and blue blades moving at an impressive speed, the sound of their blades clashing able to be heard in the other end of the parking lot.

"Well at least you haven't lost your touch, Ashana, I'll give you that," Cocoa said as they locked blades. "It won't help though. Once you're dead, I'll kill them one by one, and then I'll give Celestia an excruciatingly slow death. Mistress Twilight will no doubt recognize me as her second-in-command for her progressing army."

Those last few words were a mistake as something within Ashana snapped, hearing that her family and girlfriend were openly threatened. Ashana disrupted the blade lock and with her anger rising, she swung at Cocoa more ferociously, putting her opponent on the defensive. With each heavy strike, Ashana's power grew as Cocoa was now backpedaling. Even under Twilight's influence, Cocoa was beginning to show fear for Ashana's newfound strength. For a moment it seemed like Cocoa was beginning to resist Twilight's control over her, but sadly it was only brief as the young woman locked blades with her former friend once more.

"Did wittle Ashana snap?" Cocoa taunted, but this only served to aggravate Sunasha further.

"Maybe when I kill you this time, you'll STAY DEAD," Ashana snapped, breaking off the blade lock by striking Cocoa's blade to the right while stunning her briefly, and seeing the quick window of opportunity, the twi'lek raised her orange blade and brought it down, cutting her former friend in half, vertically. As Cocoa split in half and fell to the ground in two pieces, Ashana deactivated her saber and collapsed to her knees. She had just killed her friend twice in the span of a day, and Ashana was only just getting over the first time. "Hopefully this time that crazy bitch will let you rest in peace."

"Ashana! Let's go!" Sunrise shouted.

Snapping out of her daze, Ashana grabbed her former friend's saber and jumped over to Sunrise and the others. Climbing into the humvee, they closed the doors, buckled in, and Sunset stepped on the gas. As they zoomed away from the weather facility, Ashana drifted into her thoughts. Not only did she just kill Cocoa a second time, she tapped into her anger. Sure it was because her family was threatened, but something about it felt strange for the young twi'lek.

"Ashana, what's wrong?" Celestia asked her beloved.

"I feel.. strange. I just killed Cocoa out of anger. Sure she threatened to kill you girls, but I still killed her out of anger," Ashana replied, feeling ashamed for what she had done.

"Well, we got away alive. That's what's important," Sunrise added. "That wasn't Cocoa anymore, just another of Twilight's new puppets. Hell. I'm still trying to get my head around the fact that I'm human again."

"We're all together again though. And as long as we stay close, those undead fucks don't stand a chance," Sunset said.

Although Ashana hadn't begun to comprehend it, she had just tapped into the Dark Side of the Force.

-------- The next day --------

"Gotcha," Sunrise quipped after blasting a zombie in the head with her 1911.

The survivors' travels have brought them to the town of Griffonia, a city much like what Canterlot, Cityville, and Cloudsdale used to be, full of life and happiness. But now it's reduced to rubble like everything else. As Sunset said, the virus was moving faster than they were, and destruction was ensuing just as quick if not quicker. They were currently skimming through a modest yet also disheveled grocery store in an effort to garner supplies to grow vegetables and other seeds for when they make it to Silver Shoals on the coast.

"What do we have so far?" Luna asked, guarding one end of the aisle where the seeds were, and Ashana, Celestia, and Sunrise guarded the other while Sunset was grabbing seed pouches.

"Tomatoes, carrots, celery, enough to last us awhile," Sunset replied as she continued to grab plant seed pouches. "Not surprised when people began to panic, this was overlooked. In a post-apocalyptic world, growing food is essential."

Fast-paced pattering of footsteps and what sounded like hysterical laughter broke the survivors' focus and caused them to go into high alert.

"We got company, and it sounds like it's moving fast," Sunrise spoke.

And just as Sunset had finished grabbing what she could of seeds, an unidentified creature with glowing purple eyes jumped onto the top of Sunrise from over the top of the shelves, locked its legs around her midsection and wrapped rather large hands around her head and began to ride her like a horse, attempting to lure her away.

"Get this thing off me!" Sunrise shouted as she attempted to resist her attacker to no avail.

Ashana was the first to act as she used the force to pull whatever it was off of Sunrise and violently send it to the ground, stunning it momentarily as Sunrise pointed her pistol towards its ugly face.

"Serves you right," Sunrise stated as she squeezed the trigger, ending the creature's misery. "Besides, I'm not a horse. Well, not anymore anyway."

"Wait. What do you mean "not anymore"?" Celestia inquired, catching onto what Sunrise had just said.

"Not unlike me, Sunrise isn't of Earth," Ashana replied. "She didn't want to tell anyone other than me, but Sunrise's DNA is equine, meaning she's practically a horse in a human body. I didn't initially believe it at first myself, but she comes from a world called Equestria, the same world Twilight had tried to invade back during the Friendship Games. How Sunrise ended up here is the same reason I ended up here: It's uncertain."

"And it's because I'm Equestrian that I believe that I was somehow able to resist Twilight's influence when I turned, though how that's possible I'm not exactly sure. I still don't really know much about Equestria if at all. And as powerful and intellectual as she is even now, Twilight isn't immune to her own ego. And even with an army of undead flesh eaters, she most likely won't ever get to Equestria. Someone power-hungry like her, she'll fall victim to herself," Sunrise continued.

"Well we can think about this later. Let's get whatever else we need and go before more of them show up," Luna said. "Where there's one, there's always more."

"I agree with my sister. Let's gain more ground," Celestia chimed in as the others soon agreed.

The small group of survivors decided to try and search the rest of the store for more canned food and water, not able to find as much as what they found back in Canterlot Supermarket, but they found a few small handfuls of canned food and a twenty-four count pack of water bottles. After collecting their discovery, Sunset led the way back out to the humvee, which by now had gone down to half a tank of gas and they still have a ways to go before they get to Silver Shoals.

As they reached the entrance of the grocery store, Sunset was in the process of walking out first when Ashana heard something and pulled her sister back just in time as something zoomed by them, presumably with the intent to grab Sunset.

"What the-..?" Sunset spoke as Ashana pulled her back.

Looking out, they saw that whatever had attempted to charge at Sunset had stopped a bit further down the store's parking lot, having slammed into a sedan that was burnt to hell. Turning around as it noticed the group of survivors, the creature slammed its abnormally large arm into the ground, let out a yell, and charged again. This time the survivors were prepared for it as Ashana ignited her lightsaber and right as the creature was about to reach them she sliced into it, cutting the creature into two pieces.

"Yet another mutation. This one has a rather large arm," Ashana commented as she examined what was left. "Looks like it jacked off nonstop for days."

"Well thanks, Ashana," Sunset said, thanking her sister.

"Of course. But it's gonna get dark soon. We should find a place to hunker down for the night and then get back on the road in the morning," Ashana continued.

"That's a good plan. There's an abandoned hotel that we passed on our way here," Luna said as they piled back into the humvee.

Tracking back a few blocks, they pulled into the littered parking lot of the Crown Jewel hotel. Careful to avoid any and all damaged vehicles, Sunset stopped the humvee in front of the main doors to the hotel which were somewhat ajar, no doubt from when people were fleeing during the initial start of the apocalypse. In just a week after the initial collapse of society and the zombies rising from the dead, they were now beginning to mutate at an alarming rate. It was bad enough they were already vastly outnumbered, but with these new mutants around, their chances of continued survival were beginning to dwindle more and more.

"Let's get inside and locate a room to settle in for the night. I think after all of that excitement we deserve some rest to keep us focused," Sunset spoke as she turned off the ignition.

Grabbing a few cans of food and a few bottles of water, the survivors piled out of the humvee, closed the doors and made their way into the wrecked hotel, weapons at the ready.

As they crossed the threshold of the hotel, they came to discover that discarded luggage was everywhere. Clothes, shoes, most anything you could think of was scattered about.

"Looks like the rooms start going down the hallway ahead of us," Sunset spoke, pointing forward. "Keep your eyes and ears open. I don't want us to have any more surprises. Eh, who am I kidding. Be ready for anything."

As if right on cue, the faint but audible sound of crying cut through the silent air of the abandoned hotel. Looking around constantly, the survivors moved down the main hallway at a slow pace. Inching down the hallway with their weapons at the ready, Sunset stopped in her tracks and her companions soon did the same.

"What's the ma-..?" Luna asked, but stopped mid sentence when she looked past her lover and saw what caused them to halt. At first glance, it appeared to be a woman in distress, but the glowing purple eyes, blood stained clothes, hair, skin, and long razor-sharp nails said otherwise.

"Oh great," Celestia whispered, so as to not catch the attention of this potential threat.

"Okay. We'll just go in one of the rooms we already passed and-,"Sunrise spoke as she began to back up before she stepped on a stray toy, the squeak causing all of their eyes to go wide in horror as the crying stopped and was replaced with growling as the zombie was slowly getting up from the floor.

"Oh shit," Ashana said as the zombie's growling escalated as its hands started shaking.

Letting out a near deafening scream, the zombie pounced at its new prey only to be cut down by Ashana who had anticipated this, cutting it vertically into two pieces like she had done to a corrupted Cocoa.

"That was a rather ghoulish one. The crying was creepy," Sunset commented.

"Let's call those ones the Cryers," Celestia added as she busted one of the rooms open.

"And the one that jumped on the back of my head is a Humper," Sunrise chimed in.

"I'd laugh at these names, but I suppose it would help us figure out which is which," Luna said.

"That huge one we faced in Canterlot can be called the Big Guy. The one that ensnared Luna is a Tonguer, the one that tried to pounce on Celestia is a Pouncer, and the one that tried to charge at me is a Rammer," Sunset added as they opened their cans and began dining on canned fruit.

"How much longer until we get to Silver Shoals?" Ashana inquired.

"Should only be about two hundred more miles," Luna replied.

"We should leave at first light tomorrow morning if we wanna get settled in by the afternoon," Sunset continued.

"Finally. Just a bit longer, and hopefully we won't have to worry as much about those freaks anymore," Sunrise uttered before scooping another pineapple chunk from her can.

"As much as I'd like that, something's telling me it won't be so simple," Ashana said.

As the group of survivors continued with their meal, they pondered about what they would be doing once they got to Silver Shoals. Less zombies, less people.

Tomorrow is going to be one of the longest days of their lives….