The Equestrian Apocalypse

— Twilight —

The barn stood tall in front of Twilight and her group.

They finally made it.

Twilight gazed at the spectacle. The entrance arch that stood in front of the barn had an improvised fence built into it with barbed wire looping the top. A sizable portion of the white picket fence spanning the front also had this new barbed wire topping. Every other white wooden post along the fence had a makeshift, unpainted wooden log support that leaned at a forty-five-degree angle, attaching at the ground and near the top of the post.

As Twilight approached the arch, she noticed every window in the barn was boarded shut from the outside, even the ones on the second story. The second-story window right above the barricaded front barn door also had what appeared to be a small hole carved out of it. A more noticeable hole like this was seen on the top window of the cupola. Twilight looked back down when the reinforced side door to the barn swung open.

She and the others took caution when it did, until they saw a vibrant Rainbow Dash rush out and turn toward them. Twilight beamed at her sight, accidentally leaning into the barbed wire in front of her and getting scratched.

“RAINBOW DASH!”

The colorful mare galloped toward the gate, wrestling with the makeshift lock until it swung open. She eyed her and Princess Celestia eagerly, but couldn't resist colliding with Twilight in a tight hug. Twilight squeezed tightly back, holding onto her long enough to not see Fluttershy and Applejack galloping up to them. When she opened her eyes, their presence sent a wave of happiness flooding over her. They too joined, combining into a heartfelt group hug. Once they finally broke up, the three of them took a moment to bow to the princesses. Twilight shed a tear as she looked between them all.

“I’m so happy to see you all!” she exclaimed.

“We are too, sugarcube. I’ve been worried sick thinkin’ bout y’all,” AJ replied. Her and Dash both gazed up at Celestia with a hint of curiosity entering their eyes.

"So, you did escape Canterlot?" Dash asked.

The princess slowly nodded, her face not as bright with excitement as them. AJ noticed this, her smile slowly fading as she observed their group. She looked at the princess again, Spike, Derpy, and Ty, even rounding her head to look behind Celestia's tall body. She hesitantly eyed Twilight.

“Where …” she started, “where … is Rarity? I thought she went with you …”

Twilight bit her lips, reminded of her friend’s demise. Rarity’s face flooded her mind, first dead, then live, and she looked away from AJ to prevent crying yet again.

“She ... she died.”

The others' expressions dropped as well.

“What do you mean by that?” Dash asked.

Twilight was struggling to keep the floodgates closed, so Celestia responded for her, “Our trains crashed. I tried to send Twilight another letter to not come to Canterlot, but my draining magic caused it to fall short. It was too late for either of the trains to stop, so they collided with one another. Rarity died saving Twilight’s life.”

The floodgates failed, and Twilight sniffed as tears flooded her face again.

“Oh, sugarcube,” AJ said, wrapping her foreleg around her.

“she saved twilight?” Fluttershy asked, “how?”

Twilight wiped her tears.

“She shoved me out. We were both in the train engine at the time, but I was hanging out of the window to see. So she pushed me out, right before the trains collided.”

“Damn,” Dash replied.

“I’m so sorry, sugarcube. We’re gonna have to make time to mourn. But for now, why don’t we get y’all settled in? I can grab y’all a plate to eat. Y’all look like ya need it.”

“That would be great,” Celestia answered.

Twilight looked back at the barn before meeting eyes with AJ.

“Is Pinkie or Devan here with you?” she stressed.

AJ sighed heavily, glancing back at Dash and Fluttershy. Her reaction caused Twilight’s heart to skip a beat.

“Don't ... don't ... no-” she started, dropping her head and holding it with her front hoof.

“Twilight, relax,” Dash said, “We can tell you inside the barn, okay?"

"O ... okay ..."

AJ led Twilight and her group inside the barn, guiding her to a seat at their dining room table. Spike and Celestia sat by her sides while AJ, Dash, and Flutters sat around it. AJ took a deep breath before starting their story.

"So, sugarcube, besides y'all, we have a few more ponies here. There's of course me, Dash, and Fluttershy, along with the fillies, Carrot Top, Cloudchaser, and Cheerilee."

Twilight listened to the names, pausing for a second after she was done. She remembered coming here the first day of the apocalypse and leaving Carrot Top with Granny Smith, since AJ had rushed off to the school.

"What ... what about Granny Smith?"

AJ quickly averted her eyes and bit her lip. Dash reached over and rubbed her back as she rocked in her chair.

"Oh, AJ ... I'm sorry."

It took a minute for AJ to gain the courage to speak again. Twilight and the others offered her this silence.

"Thank ya, sugarcube. She ... she wasn't cut out for this new world anyway. She's at peace now."

She sniffed, struggling not to get upset. She shot a glance at Dash. "Just tell her the story," she said, dropping her hat over her eyes and continuing to rock herself. Dash patted her back a few times before setting her hooves on the table.

"Listen, Twilight. Fluttershy and I were with Devan. We saw him at the start, but we got detached from each other yesterday. We were taking him to Manehatten when-"

“MANEHATTEN?!” Twilight interrupted.

“Yes! Just wait, Twilight. I can explain.”

Dash went in-depth with her story, starting from the train station. Celestia winced when she found out her train had ripped off part of Cloud’s foreleg. As Dash continued, she explained their day at Canterlot and Devan’s leg getting chopped off. She explained escaping Canterlot, and the other cart derailing off the mountain.

After Dash’s group had crashed, and after conversing with Candy and Spark through the hole in the blocking, they miraculously got their maintenance railway cart to start up again. Despite its front end getting caved in from the collision, the small motor was located underneath the center of the cart, meaning it was not as badly damaged.

Dash, Flutters, and Cloud had made the conscious decision to reverse their way back up to a clear section of track they had passed after Spark’s cart derailed. The section was flat, with a less-than-popular hiking trail crossing it. The three then lifted the heavy cart off of the tracks and rolled it down in an attempt to get back to the train tracks to catch up with Spark and the others. However, they lost control of the cart as it rolled down. The path it followed ended up wrapping around the bottom of the mountain and toward the track to Ponyville.

They had told Spark and Candy that they were headed back to Ponyville anyway, so instead of going through the trouble of trying to push the cart back around the mountain, they pushed it to the closer Ponyville track and made their way back using the rail. It would have taken them too long, and wasted their energy, to round the mountain to catch Spark’s group anyway.

After Dash finished her story, the fillies came rushing down the hallway. Twilight cringed at the sight of Sweetie Belle, already upset at the fact that she had to tell her too. The fillies ran up to her and Celestia and hugged them closely. When Sweetie Belle disconnected, she looked around, as AJ had, for her big sister. When she looked up at Twilight, who could not hide her disappointed expression, her face filled with fear. Before she could console the filly, AJ stepped up and ushered Sweetie Belle aside.

“I got this, sugarcube,” AJ told her.

While AJ led Sweetie to another room of the barn house, Celestia stood up and followed them. The rest of them sat in silence for a moment, trying not to listen to the distant cries down the hall. Dash sighed.

"As AJ mentioned earlier, Cheerilee did make it back. We've got good news, but we've got bad news."

"W- what? You have both?" Twilight asked.

"Yes, Twilight. She found what she was looking for, but she also found Pinkie Pie ..."

Twilight sighed. With all the less than ideal news being spread around, she wasn't keen on receiving any more.

"Is ... is she dead?"

"Depends how you look at it, Twilight. She's in the Everfree Forest right now, as one of ... them."

"Fuck," she cursed, holding her forehead with her hooves.

"Hey, at least she's still breathing, you know? Hopefully she stays in there so she won't get killed by other ponies trying to survive."

"Y ... yeah ... hopefully ..." she replied, "So ... Cheerilee found what she was looking for?"

Dash suddenly smiled. "Oh yeah she did! Lemme grab her!" she exclaimed, standing up and rushing out of the dining room. A spark of anticipation found its way to Twilight’s brain. She looked over at Fluttershy, who returned a similar smile.

A minute later, Dash came back with Cheerilee, who was carrying a saddlebag in her mouth. When she approached the table, she set it down and dug into it, pulling out a hoofful of papers. She eagerly set them down in front of Twilight.

“I found the cure!” she stated, spreading out the papers in a more readable fashion. The familiar magic language caught Twilight’s attention immediately, who turned some of the crooked papers to read it better.

“The book was in Zecora’s hut,” she continued, “I made this hoof-written copy of it. The original book got soaked in one of her brews, so I had to improvise …”

She leaned forward to glance at the papers, hovering her hoof over them as she attempted to find the section she had improvised. After a little bit of searching, Twilight pointed to one of them. “This one?”

Cheerilee double-checked the page before answering, “Yes! Geez, Twilight. Did you read the whole thing already?”

“Not yet. But I can tell, because this section is off. The logic here would not work in a spell.”

“Shoot,” Cheerilee replied, “I was afraid I might be off. I may be a teacher, but I’m not specialized in magic. Kinda hard as an Earth pony … but regardless, do you know what it should be?”

Twilight continued observing the sophisticated, non-simplified spell. She was picking up on it quickly, but she struggled for a moment at the gap of knowledge.

“Do you have an empty sheet of paper and a quill?” she asked Cheerilee.

Without speaking, Cheerilee quickly trotted back and dug through her saddlebag. She pulled out a few blank pieces of paper and set them in front of Twilight. She also set down a quill and uncapped a bottle of ink next to her. With these tools, Twilight awkwardly grabbed the quill in her front hoof, regretting her lack of magic. She dipped it in the ink and attempted sketching her own magic, which she struggled with at first, as she was accustomed to using her magic to write. She scribbled out her first sketch before continuing, writing on the couple of other pages. The others gazed on with interest until a few minutes went by. Twilight reread what she wrote two more times until hitting the table with her hoof excitedly.

“That’s it! I believe this spell should work.”

She and the others celebrated briefly, before excitement throughout the room quickly faded away. Sure, the spell was fixed, but nopony had magic anymore.

Well, damn, she thought.

While it was disheartening that the spell might be useless, she was happy there was one nonetheless. She started thinking about the next plan of attack, which involved figuring out why their magic was being blocked, and if there was a way to bring it back. If she could figure out a way to even temporarily bring her magic back, there was a chance that she could stop this nightmare. She gazed around the spacious barn house, happy that they had finally found a place they could stay while she figured everything out.