The Equestrian Apocalypse

— Devan —

The creepy Everfree forest loomed above us as we made our way through it. Trixie and I had reached the river split relatively quickly, as she had floated quite a distance downstream. On our journey to the forest, we passed by a bridge that Trixie said led to Dodge City. We both considered the passing idea of crossing it and spending time in the city to figure things out, but we both agreed it was not that great of a plan. While the city could provide temporary protection, located in an inconspicuous location away from big towns, Trixie would not be able to read or learn very much in the pursuit of a cure. We also hoped to find Candy and the others back in Ponyville.

So, we traveled along the narrowing river, catching a glimpse of Rambling Rock Ridge behind a small section of forest. Eventually, we made our way here, into the heart of the Everfree forest. Both Trixie and I were keeping a very strong focus on our direction because neither of us wanted to end up lost in this eerie forest, especially at a time like this.

Despite the clouds from earlier clearing, a sprinkle of rain began again as more clouds returned above us. The Everfree forest provided us a bit of shelter from it, but getting caught in the rain was getting tiresome. After traversing the thick, viny trees and dense shrubbery, we stumbled across one of the main paths through the Everfree forest. It looked similar to the one that led to Zecora’s hut, and Trixie agreed that it was likely the same one. That is when the memory of Pinkie Pie struck me.

“Trix, wait,” I said, stopping on the path.

She stopped as well. “What?”

“We should stop by Zecora’s hut.”

“Why is that? We would be backtracking, you know.”

“I know, but it was here that I got bit. By Pinkie Pie.”

She paused, alarmed by this information.

“You were bit … here?”

I sighed. “Yes.”

She eyed me suspiciously.

“Hold on. You've got some confusing ass stories, Devan. What in Equestria were you two doing in the Everfree forest?”

“She brought me here. That’s when I learned she was bit, and about the apocalypse. She said Zecora might have something, or so she thought. I don’t know, I never got to check. Pinkie turned on the way and when I went myself, Zecora wasn’t home.”

“Crap,” Trixie replied, rubbing her face with her hoof. “Do you know if any more of Twilight's friends got bitten?”

“I … I don’t know. I haven’t even seen Twilight, or Applejack, or Rarity. I was with Dash and Fluttershy, but now we’re separated … again.”

“Yeah ...” she said defeatedly, “a lot of that going around.”

“So can we please check Zecora’s hut? I want to at least see what Pinkie might have been mentioning.”

Trixie took a second to think about my proposal before agreeing to it. With that, we both turned around and headed to Zecora’s hut. I hoped that Zecora would be home now, and I hoped Pinkie was right about her having something to help. Maybe there was even some kind of cure there that Trixie could use to fix the world. It seemed unlikely, but it was worth the detour anyway. In a few short minutes of walking, we reached her hut. I started to worry as there was still no light emitting through the few windows out front.

In spite of this, I knocked on the front door. Trixie and I waited nervously as there was no response. Instead of knocking again, I tried the doorknob and found it was unlocked this time. The door squeaked open to a sight that I was not prepared to see.

Zecora’s motionless body was laid out on the floor beside a tipped-over pot, and she had flies buzzing around her corpse. Her head had what looked like a puncture wound and a small, red puddle of blood on the floor underneath. Her body appeared pale, but it was unclear whether this was from her dying or if she had somehow become a zombie zebra.

Green liquid from the pot was spilled out beside her, occasionally bubbling on the wooden floor. Also on the floor were a few books and broken bottles. A couple messy piles of books were in an empty corner of the room, and overall, the room was a complete mess. There was obviously a struggle here, which, regrettably, resulted in Zecora's death. I stepped back from the door to get a whiff of fresh air after abruptly gagging when my nostrils caught the scent of her lifeless body. I heard Trixie sigh before looking back at me.

“Well?” she asked, “Do you still want to check?”

“I think it would be for the best … but we need to … extract her,” I answered.

“We do.”

In typical Trixie fashion, she hit my nose with a spell when I was not looking. The death smell that I was actively trying to rid of vanished as my nostrils filled with a growing rose scent. When I looked up, her nostrils had a slight blue glow to them, indicating she had used the same spell on herself. She gestured to the door, so I followed her inside to the daunting scene and flung my backpack beside the door.

I carefully avoided stepping into the corrosive-looking green liquid as I stepped in front of Zecora and grabbed her forelegs. Trixie grabbed her hind legs, and, with the help of her magic, we lifted her off the ground and moved her outside of the hut. We laid her body out a few tree-lengths away from her hut and left her corpse to decay in peace, regretting the pitter patter of the rain occasionally hitting it. However, neither of us had a shovel to bury her, and it would probably take too much of our time anyway.

When we reentered the hut, Trixie immediately began using her magic to sort through the book piles. I went to a different part of the hut and examined some of the books sprinkled on the floor. That is when I noticed an opened book with written-on papers scattered across a desk by the wall.

Upon taking a closer look at the papers, I saw what looked like magic writing, along with sketches. I knew it was probably magic language, as Twilight had shown me some in the past. Despite knowing about it, I could not read it, unfortunately. It was a special language not understood by all, and if someone wanted to learn it, they needed to spend a lot of time studying it, like any other language.

The book was opened to a page with similar magic language, and part of it was shriveled up with odd, solid bubbles formed in its burnt brown appearance. I looked back at the spilled pot, noticing similar-looking bubbles popping from time to time. Connecting the dots, I understood that the book had been a victim of the strange stew. This caused me to ponder:

Who picked this book off the floor?

I then carefully picked the book up and flipped it over to see the cover. On it was a smiling, green pony that was dressed up as a zombie. I looked on at the unexpected pony for a second longer before turning back to Trixie, who was still searching through the other scattered books.

“Trixie, look!”

I showed her the book in my hand, which made her drop the books she was looking at and gallop over to me. She snatched the book from me and quickly flipped to the first page. From my view, I noticed English words written on the first page, so I leaned down and read over her shoulder.

If anypony stumbles across this, I tried to finish the bubbled-over part of the spell. Just our luck that one of the most important parts of the spell fell into that stupid bubbling stew, right? Anyway, I tried my best using what I know to finish it using the papers I’ll leave on the table. If they aren’t there, I also squeezed in my sketches on the two blank pages at the end of this book. I am not the most knowledgeable in magic, so it might not be right, but hopefully, it will give whoever finds this the right idea.

I do wonder if any of this really matters, honestly, but maybe unicorn magic will return one day, or maybe there are still unaffected unicorns that have it out there. If you have magic, or know somepony who does, send them this IMMEDIATELY. That should be obvious to you, but I must emphasize how important it is. I hoofwrote a copy of this book that I took with me, so hopefully, I can find a unicorn that has magic if this is never found. Whatever you do, do not lose hope.

- Cheerilee

After I finished reading, a smile lit up my face.

We found it!

I thanked Cheerilee in my head as I struggled not to get too excited. I turned to Trixie and put a hand on her shoulder as she flipped the page.

“This is fantastic!!” I exclaimed.

“Shhhhh,” she hissed, focusing intently on the next page. The following pages had a mix of English and magic language, but I read with her the best I could in case there was useful knowledge for me to gain. She aggressively flipped through the remaining pages, taking note of the papers on the table when we reached the few corroded pages. Around that time, the pages started using mainly magic language with a little English sprinkled in, so I stopped reading.

I instead walked around the hut, trying to make sense of the skirmish that happened. Cheerilee had not mentioned Zecora at all during the note, but she had to have been involved with her, right? As I pondered, observing the rest of the hut, I noticed a flash of pink through the front door we had left open.

No ...

It was Pinkie Pie. Again. It took me a moment to realize with horror that it was her, and she was now trotting toward it. Acting quickly, I rounded the pot and jumped over the spilled liquid in a rush to the door. She was just pony-lengths away when I reached it and slammed it shut. Knowing just how powerful some of these zombie ponies could be, I then turned around and shoved my back against the door so she could not knock it down. I turned to see Trixie staring at me questionably until Pinkie banged on the door behind me.

“Help!! It’s Pinkie!” I yelled.

Trixie set down the book carefully before summoning a spell. I could tell it was powerful, because of how bright her horn became, and the time it took for her to charge it up. After some time, the pot in the middle of the room grew a magic blue field around it. Slowly, Trixie used her magic to lift it up and spilled the rest of its contents on a bare section of the floor. She then started lugging it toward me, and when the pot was within an arm-length from me, I hopped aside to prevent being squished. Finally, she used the few stairs leading up to the door to lay the heavy pot against it. Pinkie’s banging and growling continued, but the pot proved strong enough to barricade the door.

“Good going, Trix," I commented, catching my adrenaline-driven breaths. "... can you use the spell on her?”

“I can try, but let me finish the book. I don’t know if Cheerilee’s logic makes sense just yet.”

Crap.

I sat next to the pot as she finished the book, watching to make sure it would hold. After she was done, I got into position on the other side of it.

“No,” she said, “This spell will take me some time to charge, since it's my first time trying it.”

“Then what do you suggest?”

“The window.”

She pointed to the window above Zecora’s bed, which was an open design with two sticks in a cross-shape in the middle of it. I looked at the window and tried to imagine if the four open corners would be small enough to keep Pinkie from entering. It was a bit too close to tell, but they did appear small enough. After some hesitation, I agreed to help her lure Pinkie over. Jumping on the bed, we both hollered out for Pinkie. It took a minute, but eventually, the banging at the front door ceased.

Trixie and I hopped back off the bed. As we heard Pinkie’s hoofsteps closing in around the side of the hut, Trixie charged her horn. Pinkie’s pale face then appeared through the window, and she took no time in recognizing us. Immediately, she threw her hooves through the gaps in the window in an attempt to reach us. As she struggled to get in, Trixie released the spell.

For a moment, Pinkie’s body flashed blue as Trixie’s blue orb hit her. A blue wave flowed over Pinkie, and I noticed an ominous red glint flash in her pale eyes. It was only a second later that we both realized the spell had not worked. Pinkie continued trying to dig her way inside, her forelegs clawing even harder than before. Distraught from the failure, I looked aside to see Trixie rush back to the desk and frantically flip through the pages again. Then, a loud snapping sound came from the window. I turned back to see the sticks had snapped and fell on the bed underneath, and Pinkie was now wriggling her way through the now-open window.

“TRIX!” I yelled, watching helplessly as Pinkie made her way inside, dropping on the bed. I realized with horror that our only other way out besides the window was the door, which was barricaded now. Knowing this, I sprinted back to my bag and pulled out my baseball bat. Pinkie was gunning for Trixie now, so I rushed in between them and whacked her with the bat.

Shockingly, the powerful blow only caused her to stumble sideways, far from knocking her out as intended. I moved away from Trixie, thankfully gaining Pinkie's attention.

“Try it again!” I yelled. I noticed as I shuffled across the room that Trixie had prepared herself with a knife handle firmly gripped between her teeth. She stared at me doubtfully, but eventually lit up her horn again.

Despite the hut being as small as it was, I was still flabbergasted at how quickly Pinkie was moving. She was damn near galloping now. When she lunged, I juked her to avoid getting bitten again. I then used all the stamina I could to shuffle-step behind her as she turned around for me. Now, she was in-between Trixie and me. My moves worked, as they granted enough time for Trixie to warm up the spell again. She released it, but again it had no effect.

There wasn't much room on either side of me to try and juke Pinkie again, so I raised my bat over my shoulder. There was little time allotted in charging up a swing, so I swung less powerfully than I hoped to. The bat smacked her face again, but barely phased her. As before, she managed to lunge forward. I tried side-stepping out of the way, but she moved too quickly, her jaw catching part of my thigh. Her teeth made contact with my skin, and she bit into me.

Her bite was surprisingly strong, causing me to slip to the ground as I tried to peel away from her. Before long, I was back in the same damn position I was in with her before, laid out on the ground and pushing on her chest and forehead to keep her snapping jaw back. I struggled as she pushed back on me, proving a lot stronger than she once looked. She was a lot stronger than the other ponies I had struggled with, herself included, and a lot faster. I started wondering if Trixie's spell might have had the opposite effect.

Regardless, I hoped Trixie’s third spell attempt would somehow work. But instead of another flash of blue light, I saw part of Trixie’s mane behind Pinkie’s head. Pinkie’s facial expression then suddenly froze. Lit up by Trixie’s magical blue aura, her head was pulled slowly to the ground beside me, revealing Trixie standing behind her with a bloody knife in her mouth.

I looked back and forth between them in shock, watching blood begin to seep from Pinkie’s head.

“TRIXIE! WHAT DID YOU DO?!” I exclaimed.

Trixie’s expression changed from shock to anger as she spat out the knife on the floor beside me.

“WHAT DID I DO?! SHE WAS GOING TO KILL YOU!”

“I HAD HER! You should have tried the spell again!”

“IT WOULDN’T WORK!! DID YOU NOT SEE HER?! I think my spell made her STRONGER! She was going to TEAR you to PIECES!”

I tried to overcome the shock upon realizing what just happened.

“YOU JUST KILLED PINKIE!!”

“I HAD TO, DEVAN!! You can't just keep throwing yourself to the undead!! You may be immune, but you still BLEED! What if she bit your fucking neck?! You think you can just live without a jugular vein?!”

Filled with a new wave of uncontrollable anger mixed with grief, I sat up and shoved Trixie hard. Her hooves slipped as she fell backward, since she was unprepared for it. As she hit the floor, I dug my face into my sweaty palms. When I finally opened them again, I realized I had shoved Trixie close enough to the bubbling liquid for her front hoof to slip in it. She backed away and frantically shook her hoof in an attempt to rid of it. My racing emotions were now overcome with a new smacking sense of guilt.

“Oh my god! Trix! Are you okay?” I exclaimed, sitting up on my knees and scooting over to her.

“You moron,” she whimpered, still shaking her hoof.

“I'm so sorry, Trix. Please let me see,” I said, grabbing her affected hoof before she could retaliate.

She was able to shake most of the liquid off, but her hoof was growing red with irritation. I let it go and ran over to my bag, grabbing water and a washcloth from my bag. After I soaked the cloth, I hurried back and kneeled beside her. She eyed me nervously before allowing me to gently cover her hoof with the cloth.

“I’m sorry, Trix. I didn't mean for that to happen,” I apologized.

She sighed. “I had to kill her, okay? I'm sorry too. I didn't want to, but I didn't want you to die either.”

It was clear our stubborn tendencies were clashing with one another, so to prevent more argument, I kept quiet. I didn't want to admit that I understood her logic.

I tried to avoid Pinkie’s lifeless body next to us as I finished up with her hoof. When I was done, I sat on my knees and set a hand against my head while I processed my grief. Trixie leaned forward and set her hoof on my knee.

“Devan ... your leg ...” she mentioned.

Despite the pain, my adrenaline caused me to forget about it already. "Shit."

"It's okay. Let me help you."

Trying to ignore the pain pulsing through my legs, I stood up and unbuckled my belt. The bite, similar to the one Pinkie made on my arm, was on the side of my thigh this time. I pulled my pants down to my knees, feeling exposed as I sat back down on the floor and twisted slightly to see it. It was bleeding more profusely than the other bites I had gotten, but it didn't appear too deep. Trixie helped me thoroughly clean it and wrapped it up with the gauze in my bag, making sure it was tight. She sat quietly beside it, turning to me when she was done.

"Like I said, Devan, you have to stop getting bitten."

"I wasn't trying to. She came at me too fast."

Trixie glanced over at Pinkie and sighed.

"Yeah, I think that was on me. I tried to workaround Cheerilee's logic, but I think it created an unintended side-effect. I saw how fast she was moving too ..." she said, taking a deep breath and dropping her head defeatedly. "fucking shit."

"Hey ..." I replied, setting a hand on her shoulder. "It's not your fault."

"I know, I know. But I could have sworn my logic would work!" she replied frustratingly.

"It's okay, Trix. You can work out the logic again and we'll just keep trying."

She sighed. "I don't know ..."

"Trixie, I know you can. I don't care if you don't believe in yourself right now. I do. And so should you, ya stubborn bitch."

She looked up, failing to hide a smile.

"Thanks, Devan. I'll keep working at it."

After we were both patched up, she removed the pot from the door before she and I worked together to pull Pinkie out of the hut, just like we had with Zecora. We laid her out next to Zecora, her unmoving face getting gently patted from raindrops in the steady rainfall. I took a moment to grieve. What started out as a moment of intense new hope from finding the spell quickly turned into despair. I thought back to the first day of the apocalypse, remembering our interaction vividly.

Curse this fucking plague.

It was like this wonderful world was stabbing me in the back, over and over again. And it had all started by taking away the best source of happiness Ponyville had. I wished things were different, and that Pinkie had never gotten bitten. I realized I could use her presence now more than ever.

But it was not meant to be. While we could not save Pinkie, I thought back to the book, realizing we could still save others. This only brought me more tears, and I quietly wished for Pinkie to rest in peace now. After some time of mourning, Trixie shook me.

“Come on, Devan. Let's go inside and rest.”

"Now??"

"Yes. We've been through a lot this morning. I know you already rested a bit, but I'm still exhausted. Especially after that damn near death experience. I also spent a lot of time helping Spark fix that damn train this morning. Regardless, let's at least get out of this damn rain for now. I know we just found something great, but we're going to need rest if we're gonna do anything about it."

"Fine," I huffed.

We both made our way back inside, shutting the door behind us this time. Trixie once again used that blow-drying spell on both of us, drying us off from the rain. She was gracious enough to use it on me twice, effectively drying my clothes for the first time in what seemed like forever. If I had to so much as wade in another body of water, I'd probably kill someone. I thanked her, appreciating the new comfortable dryness and warmth my body was eager for.

Inside, I noticed the sticks from the window sitting on Zecora's bed. When I got up on the bed and started trying to set them back in the window for safety, I was knocked aside by that familiar blue flash of Trixie's magic. I then watched as an assortment of glass bits from the smashed bottles around the hut drifted in the air past me. With a blue glow surrounding them, they were carefully arranged in the window like some kind of puzzle. After the last piece was put in its place, and the window was fully covered, the center flashed blue as a shockwave of light appeared and traveled to all sides of the circular window. Once the shockwave reached the edge, the glass sparkled one last time as if to signify its rigidity.

"There," Trixie said behind me.

I took in the unexpected beauty of the window's shattered glass appearance, reminiscent of church windows from Earth, as I rolled to my back to lie down. I was surprised to see Trixie jump over me despite the bed's narrowness. She dug her hooves into the blanket beside me before laying out on her stomach, brushing against my side with her warm coat of fur.

"You could have just said you wanted the bed ..." I said.

"We can both fit. Shut up and rest."

She was right. As much as I squirmed in my sleep, her warm body might keep me still as we napped. I didn't want to admit how comfortable I felt either.

"Alright, just don't kick me off."