The Equestrian Apocalypse

— Trixie —

“Are you sure about this?” Trixie asked her.

Vinyl looked up from her contraption. “Hell yeah. It should help us enough.”

Trixie watched as she put the last piece of duct tape over the device. She had helped her rip off the hospital room’s intercom, and watched as she tore it apart, rewiring some kind of speaker ball. She looked at it curiously, unable to think of any spells in her mind that would make this thing work. Vinyl picked up the finished ball.

“You ready for this?”

“As ready as I can be …” she replied.

The groan from behind the hospital room’s door continued as they approached it. Trixie got into position beside the door while Vinyl readied herself in front. In the half-hour they had been stuck in the room, they had made an elaborate plan from the fire escape plan that was posted by the door to escape the growing mob of zombie ponies in the hospital. Vinyl lit up her horn. It glowed dimly as she prepared a shove spell to knock the pony outside back. Trixie looked back at her horn suspiciously.

“You good?”

“Yes,” Vinyl replied impatiently, “Go.”

Trixie opened the door fast and moved back. Vinyl released the spell. An oddly miniscule white orb flew from her to the doorway. The pony was barely pushed back before quickly resuming chase. Vinyl anxiously charged the spell again, but it had an even weaker effect. She jumped up on the hospital bed behind her and fell back as the pony advanced. Trixie lit up her horn and charged a similar pull spell. She released it, yanking the pony back and dropping her to the floor before she could start climbing over the bed for Vinyl. As she stood back up, Trixie shot her with a more energy-intensive freeze spell that froze her in place temporarily. She then used her magic to shut the door again.

“Vinyl!” Trixie huffed, “What was that?!”

Vinyl stood up on the other side of the bed with her glasses ajar and a worried expression on her face. She fixed her glasses before responding, “I … my … my magic …”

Trixie eyed her questionably. “Your horn was pretty dim.”

Vinyl lit up her horn again. It had an even dimmer glow to it this time.

“What about now?”

“Even dimmer …”

“It doesn’t feel right … I remember the spells, but it doesn’t feel right.”

“What does it feel like?”

“It feels like there’s this weird pressure holding its energy back.”

“That is really damn weird.”

Trixie lit up her horn, but she felt normal.

“Yours looks normal …” Vinyl mentioned.

Vinyl rounded the corner of the bed and readied another shove spell. Annoyed, she released it on Trixie. The weakened spell hit her, but the force was not enough to push her at all. Trixie felt as if the wind was blowing against her. She returned the same shove spell. This one sent Vinyl flying backward to the ground.

“Hey! I get it! Damn!” Vinyl said.

“Sorry, sorry …” Trixie replied, trotting forwards and helping her back up.

Vinyl thought for a second. “I wonder if it's the illness.”

“Might be.”

She looked at Trixie worryingly. “You might not have much longer with it.”

“Well,” Trixie sighed, “I will use it until it's done. Let’s hurry up then.”

Vinyl went to grab the speaker ball. “Fuck …”

“What?” Trixie asked.

“Do you know the spells I was going to use on this?”

“Spell … s?”

“Yes, I had a combination of two spells to make it work.”

“I can’t even think of one for that thing.”

“Shit.”

Vinyl ran to the window and looked outside. During the half an hour they had been trapped in here, the outside noise of the city had grown steadily quieter as the apocalyptic scenario showed its ugliness. To her surprise, she saw a pegasus stallion on the street below galloping away from two zombie mares. She watched, confused, as she knew he had plenty of room to take off.

“How’s it look out there?” Trixie asked her.

“Uh, not great ... but not terrible. Doesn't look like a raging apocalypse out there.”

“Well, in that case, we need to leave now. Otherwise, we might get trapped in here for longer than we can survive.”

“But without the discocom, we - I mean you - might not have enough magic energy to get us through.”

As badly as Trixie wanted to ask about the name, she replied, “Hey- I know of a wind tunnel spell I can use if things get too rough, okay? I know how to cast it to be pretty energy efficient.”

“Quick charge?” Vinyl asked.

'Quick charge' was unicorn speak for any spell a unicorn could charge in two seconds or less.

“Mmm …” Trixie replied questionably, “I mean, no, but it doesn’t take that long…”

“How long?”

“Four to five seconds.”

Vinyl winced lightly, envisioning whether or not that amount of time would be enough to get them out of a bad situation if they got into one. “I guess that’s okay … so, you ready?”

“Ready as I can be …”

Trixie opened the door and inspected the hallway. Toward the opposite end of where they had come from, a zombie mare was scratching on another hospital door under the glow of an emergency light. They both exchanged glances before galloping down the hall to help. Trixie warmed up her ice-trapping spell and hit the pony with it when they got close. She felt her magic energy draining, as she was releasing too many spells all at once.

“How long?” Vinyl asked her.

“90 seconds.”

“Damn, sister."

Novice unicorns could make freezing-type spells like the one she used last for only about ten to fifteen seconds. It took skill to learn even one minute of a movement-freezing spell like this. Trixie’s studying and practice was paying off already. They both pushed the frozen mare aside and tried to open the door to no avail. Vinyl knocked on the door.

“Hey, is anybody in there?”

Trixie glanced down both directions of the hallway to make sure it was still clear. She heard a bit of rustling until the door opened, revealing a blue-coat stallion pegasus with cyan and white streaked hair running down to his shoulders. He caught sight of the frozen zombie next to them and sighed with relief.

“Thank you,” he said.

“Dude,” Vinyl said, “You can open the windows here.”

“Oh no, really? DURRR.”

Vinyl smacked him. “Smart ass. Why didn’t you?”

“I am having trouble getting it open,” he replied.

As they spoke, Trixie noticed a glimmer down the hallway. She could vaguely make out the silhouette of a pony in the distance. She tuned her ears toward it, hearing a faint moan as it started coming down the hallway. She nervously shook Vinyl's shoulder and pushed her inside the room before carefully shutting the door.

"What? Another one?" Vinyl asked.

"Yes."

The stallion huffed, clearly agitated. He turned back to look at the window.

“We can help you get it open,” Vinyl offered, exchanging an understanding glance with Trixie.

“Are you sure?" he replied, "I can help you two get out of here.”

“No, the hospital is full of ‘em ..." she replied. Just then, they heard the pony Trixie saw trot up to the door. They kept very quiet as an odd silence filled the air outside it. Then, after a few seconds, the pony groaned and started banging on the door. Trixie sighed.

"See? This is the way out for us now,” Vinyl said, “DURRR.”

He stood there thinking about it for a minute. “I mean …”

“Come on, we don’t-” Vinyl started, until Trixie put up her hoof for her to stop.

“Are there any more zombie ponies out there?” she asked.

“I only saw two,” he answered, “chasing a pegasus …”

“What?”

“I saw him too,” Vinyl added.

“Why … why didn’t he fly off?” she asked.

The stallion shrugged. It was unusual for sure, but they didn't have much time to think about it. She followed the two of them as they trotted up to the window. She then used a basic spell to unhinge the stubborn window and opened it up. The crisp, autumn air entered the stuffy room through a satisfying breeze. The stallion’s wings opened up slightly as he took a deep breath of fresh air.

“Love it,” he commented.

“Okay,” Trixie said, “The plan is for you to go first. My friend here will follow you. I’ll help you lift her down using my magic, then I’ll come down last.”

“Alright. But then what?”

“My friend here, Vinyl, knows of a safe way to the train station using alleyways and smaller streets. It isn’t far from here,” she explained.

“Are the trains even working?” he asked.

“We don’t know. But it is our best bet right now. If they aren’t, we will continue to the edge of the city until we are free,” Trixie answered.

“Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

“That can’t be-” he started.

Trixie eyed him angrily, glowing her horn a menacing shade of blue.

“Alright, alright … geez,” he replied.

He jumped up and poked his head out of the window. Below it was a small hedgerow lining the walls and one of the small streets running behind the hospital. They were still clear of any ponies. Spreading out his wings briefly, he jumped out of the window and flapped them down. Trixie and Vinyl watched on as he did not flap them back up. The pegasus fell like a brick down the one-story drop and smacked the concrete street right beyond the hedgerow. They heard him cry out in pain below as they both stuck their heads out of the window to see. Despite being just the second story, there was still a decent sized drop. It was likely that he was screaming out because of a broken bone.

“Hey!” Vinyl shouted down at him, “Shut the fuck up!”

He refused to listen, whether intentionally or not. They watched soon after as a zombie stallion made his entrance down the street, trotting toward the noise.

“We gotta help him!” Vinyl insisted.

“I know, I will. We gotta find a way to get down to him though.”

She looked down at the hedgerow. While it could cushion their fall a little bit, the branches hiding inside would probably hurt. She started to summon a cloud spell that would cushion their fall just enough if timed right. It was a tricky spell to get right, but she figured it was worth the risk. However, the spell was interrupted when the glass from one of the windows below broke. Right below them, a zombie mare crawled her way out through the first-story window and started crawling over the hedgerow toward the stallion.

She started another freeze spell while she watched another zombie mare follow behind the first one. For the split-second of time allowed, she thought of the possibility that she could shoot a double-freeze spell to stop them both in time. It was too close to tell in this timeframe, so she shot the single spell at the first one and hoped the frozen one might get in the way of the following mare. Unfortunately, the other zombie crawled right beside her and fell off the hedgerow. She was almost done warming up another freeze spell when the pony got ahold of the pegasus and sunk her teeth in his hoof.

He yelled out, squirming in an attempt to free himself from the mare. Trixie shot the pony with the freeze spell, but it was ultimately too late. She was quickly running out of energy with these spells, and she could not continuously blast this zombie to keep her frozen. Amidst writhing around in pain, the pegasus looked up at them with fear in his eyes. He gestured with his front hoof for them to go. More zombie ponies were on their way when they saw another enter the street.

“Come on,” she said, pulling on Vinyl, “We gotta go.”

Vinyl beat on the window sill angrily. She stood at it for a few seconds before backing up and looking back at her.

"We’ll go for the fire escape plan again,” Trixie said, “he … will probably draw them away from it …”