The Equestrian Apocalypse

— Twilight —

Celestia’s sun beamed above her. The rows of apple trees offered little shade from the high sun, but the cooling autumn weather made it unnecessary. Regardless, their presence offered a sort of comfort from the nightmare that was happening. Twilight was happy they had made it here, as the lonesome farm granted a new sense of safety for her and everypony else. Still, she felt anxious.

She looked back at Applejack and Rainbow Dash, both of them similarly taking a break from apple harvesting. She set her saddle buckets down to join them. Dash, leaning against their tree, nodded as she scoffed into her apple. AJ, also with a mouth full of apple, grabbed one from a bucket by the tree and tossed it to her. She happily accepted.

“You okay, sugarcube? You still look stressed.”

Twilight swallowed what she chewed.

“I … I am. I don’t know, I’m just worried.”

“Makes sense. I don’t blame you, but I wish I could make ya feel more at ease.”

Rainbow Dash finished her apple, tossing the core aside.

“Come on, Twilight. Look around. We’re at Sweet Apple Acres. This is the best place we could be right now. There’s plenty of food, we’re away from others, and we’ve even got fences! Both you and I know how to take on groups of them, and with the barn, there’s no way we can’t fend for ourselves. This is a damn safe haven!”

Twilight hesitantly half-smiled, partially relieved by her words. AJ wasn’t as convinced.

“Dash, I know this place seems like a fortress, but I reckon we aren’t there yet. Without … without …” AJ stuttered, looking off into the distance briefly. “Without Big Mac, I haven’t been able to fortify damn near as much as I done wanted to. Carrot and the fillies have helped me a lot in takin’ care of the fences, but I … I gotta be honest, I’m a bit nervous myself.”

AJ had her reasons to be skeptical. Earlier this morning, she had mentioned in as much detail as she was comfortable to give how Granny had perished, from Carrot’s perspective. Despite both of them shutting the door and staying inside, a few stray zombie stallions had wandered onto the farm. The stallions were sniffing around the carrot fields when poor Granny mistook the convincing ponies for live ones and went out on the porch. By the time she realized they weren’t, she was unable to get back inside fast enough. She had almost closed the door when they powered through it and tore into her.

AJ had grown uncomfortable telling the story, so that’s where she ended off. They learned more later, through Carrot, that she had killed Granny herself after barely managing to take out both of the undead stallions. The two stallions had ripped into Granny, and she was in so much pain that she begged Carrot to end it. AJ and the fillies arrived at the gruesome scene not long after.

She also experienced some close calls the past couple days. Just yesterday, when Carrot and her were working on the back of the barn, a small group of zombie ponies snuck up on them. The group had broken through the front fence, despite the barbed wire, and created a hole in it. The surprise mob nearly took out Carrot and her, and she was pretty shaken from it.

Dash frowned disapprovingly at AJ’s pessimistic take.

“Oh come on, AJ! Have some faith. You’ve done an awesome job so far! Give yourself some credit.”

Dash stepped beside AJ and patted her back, causing her to smile faintly.

“I … guess you may be right. Thank ya, sugarcube.”

“And think about it!” Dash continued, “There’s how many of us now? If a group as large as the train station mobs we’ve seen come rolling through, heck, we each get one a pop! Easy!”

Twilight pondered the thought. They did have the safety of the barn, as well as safety in numbers. It’s not that she hadn’t thought about this. Given all the events that had happened to her group the past few days, she was just uncertain when it came to their safety. Nonetheless, she smiled at Dash’s hopefulness.

“Yes, we do have safety in numbers, which is nice,” she said, her smile fading. “... but we need to think about how to handle future mobs like that. We can’t just keep slaughtering the rest of Ponyville. I know it's come to those means, especially since yesterday, but we have a cure now. We gotta try our best to spare these ponies, so that we can save them later.”

Dash rose a hoof to her chin, gazing up at the apple trees as she thought about what she said.

“We could start wrangling them up, maybe putting them somewhere? We've got Derpy to help us in the air, too,” she suggested, glancing at AJ.

They did have Derpy as well. Obviously, once they were settled in Devan's house last night, Twilight had given Derpy no time to herself. She immediately set her aside and started the "interrogation". Derpy mentioned how she thought she retained her flight, and by Twilight's standards, she was inclined to believe her.

Apparently, a few days before this apocalypse began, Derpy worked with a mysterious package at the post office. The box had been transported from Manehatten to Ponyville, intended for a local researcher. It had gotten mangled up during its travels, so it wasn't in the best shape. While curious, Derpy wasn't one to commit federal crimes — from her words at least — so she handled the box like any other. However, she noticed a bent-up corner of the box was dripping with some strange blue liquid. When she raised it above her head to see better, the bottom fell out, spilling the mysterious liquid all over her. Her body felt strange sensations from the liquid, and her wings buzzed weirdly for the next couple of minutes.

Nothing else out of the ordinary had happened to Derpy Hooves, so Twilight concluded that this liquid must have somehow made her immune to losing the ability to fly. It made sense, as the liquid originated from "The Little Labs Science Institute". Upon learning this, she bombarded the pegasus with questions about what she did with the box, what she did with the liquid, if there were any more liquids set aside at the post office, if they got any more packages from the institute, where it was meant to go, where it actually went, what part of town it got sent to, and more.

Unfortunately, Derpy didn't have much to go off of. She had taken care of the mishap, repackaging any unspilled liquid with a notice letter to both the institute and intended research pony. She could not recall where the package was sent, as she was not the one who delivered it. The address had stuck in her head for ... maybe a few minutes? Derpy had handled so much mail since the sickness started spreading that it was hard for her to remember any kind of address. With this, Twilight made a mental note to visit the post office in the coming days, once they were more settled in. She was happy they had Derpy's flight ability nonetheless.

AJ took a second to think as well. “We could … but it depends on how fast they come at us. We got some rope in the barn, but probably only enough for a hoofful of ‘em. If a mob comes, we’d be better off haulin’ them away or somethin’. We could make some more makeshift rope outta our haybales over time too.”

They both looked to Twilight, waiting to hear her thoughts. She hadn’t thought much about non-lethal measures the past day, given how fiercely they were attacked. However, with a group their size, she could see potential in ‘capturing’ stray zombie ponies that wandered onto the farm. Given enough time, this would also help the situation of Ponyville. Eventually, they would have enough ponies locked up to justify moving freely throughout town. The only question was: where? Where would they store them?

“Shoot,” AJ commented.

Twilight looked back up at her, following her eyes to a pink pony with a bushy mane in the distance, walking past a row of apple trees. Her heart paused for a moment, wondering if Pinkie had finally made it out of the Everfree. When she squinted her eyes from the bright afternoon sun, she noticed a green mane instead of Pinkie's pink one. Letting out a sigh of relief, she observed the mare’s clumsy, limpish walk. While she had not noticed them, she was still headed toward the barn.

Dash sighed. “Well, shit, do we start our new non-lethal strat now?”

Twilight glanced at AJ, who nodded back. It would have to be them for now, as they had sent Derpy patrolling the other side of the farm, keeping an eye on the nearby Everfree Forest.

“Can y’all distract them while I go grab some rope?” AJ asked.

“On it!” Dash answered.

Twilight followed Dash through a few rows of apple trees, plotting a path behind the zombie mare. As they got closer, she grew familiar with the mare’s green mane. When they crossed the second row, the mare picked up on them and turned to face them.

It was Daisy.

As Daisy broke out into that familiar trot, Twilight sighed to herself. She pushed back memories of the castle so she could stay on task.

Since it was just Daisy, both she and Dash easily rounded her, leading her away from the barn. They then looped around and started to circle the poor mare. After a minute of circling, AJ came galloping down the row of trees with a rope wrapped around her waist. Before she got too close, she took the rope and tied one end of it to an apple tree. She had already tied a noose onto it, so with the other end firmly tied to the tree, she picked up the middle section with her hoof. She used it to whip the noose around her head like a normal lasso.

“Bring her closer!!” she called to them.

Both Dash and Twilight veered the mare toward AJ. When they passed by her, AJ tossed the other end, which landed square over her neck. AJ followed them past the tree. Right after crossing the next, they saw the noose tighten around Daisy’s neck, bringing her to a quick halt.

They all stopped, watching the mare struggle with her new collar. For a moment, they all shared smiles, until they saw Daisy drop to her knees.

Shit!

Twilight hesitantly followed AJ as they crept forward to the mare, who had her mouth open as if she was choking. She had stopped groaning entirely, and her pale face was starting to blush. Despite this, the mare started clawing the air between them, her glazed-over eyes peering into her. This was something they hadn’t experienced yet. Staring straight into the face of danger, not needing to think quickly about swinging a weapon.

She gazed back into Daisy’s eyes, searching for the pony she once knew. But she wasn’t there. The rabid pony could not communicate, especially with a noose around her neck, and it seemed the only thing she wanted was to take her too.

She and AJ stood within a pony length from the mare, not willing to risk getting any closer. They helplessly watched her choke until she slowly stopped moving. Her glazed eyes shut, and after a few seconds, AJ closed in on her.

“AJ!”

AJ set her hooves on Daisy, untightening the noose. The mare did not move.

“It’s alright, sugarcube. I’m just gonna tie her up better,” she replied, “Can you two help me?”

Twilight exchanged a nervous glance with Dash before helping AJ move the mare against the tree. It was uncertain how long they had left until she woke back up, so all they could do was tie her to it for now. AJ made sure the triple-wrapped lasso around Daisy’s waist and the tree was tight enough before backing away. The three of them looked on at the mare, whose head hung over her chest.

As they waited to see if she would come back, Twilight felt a wave of emotion flow over her. Still peering at the mare, a few tears found their way down her cheeks. The others didn’t notice until she unintentionally sniffed.

“Awe, sugarcube,” AJ said, wrapping her foreleg around the back of her neck. “It’s okay.”

“Yeah, Twilight,” Dash joined, moving to her other side. “This is a win for us. Once she wakes up, you can observe her until your brain goes numb. Wait … uh … maybe don’t observe her that long …”

The three of them laughed.

“I guess you’re right. Hopefully I can find out more about them.”

Twilight sighed, hoping she could. There was no telling what she would find out, or if she would even find anything. She quietly hoped that she would, so they could prevent anypony else from dying.