Equestria Girls: Cataclysm

by Stagehands

Rating: mature
Tags: Crossover, Death, Human, Twilight Sparkle, Main 6, Gore, Dark, Sonata Dusk, Other, Equestria Girls, Cutie Mark Crusaders, Horror, Profanity, Adventure, Violence
Length: 109719

Twilight Sparkle decides to go see how her friends at Canterlot High are doing. She takes one step out of the portal and is hit directly by an ICBM. Things don’t really improve after that.

A simple visit to the human world has Twilight struggling to stay afloat as she's swept up in the aftermath of the cataclysm that occurred while she was away.

The mountains of dead stir and writhe in the city streets, seeking out anyone who's left and anything that can be raised as one of them, human or not. Meanwhile, reality buckles under the forces that have afflicted it, allowing interdimensional aliens and horrors from beyond the veil to turn earth into a hotspot of all things unnatural. What little normalcy may have survived this has been perverted by mutations that have afflicted a large portion of all wildlife, and just to make matters worse, the robots of the late mankind don't seem to be able to tell the living and dead apart, and aren't much interested in learning.

Anything that could have gone wrong has not only gone wrong, but gone spectacularly wrong in ways no one could have foreseen. The whole world's gone stark-raving mad.

For as confusing and unclear as things seem, however, Twilight's objectives have never been clearer: find her friends, protect them at all costs, and make her way back home.

An Equestria Girls/Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead crossover. If you don’t know what that is, it won’t affect your ability to enjoy the story.

Always looking for feedback!

Published 2023-03-08 23:30:01 UTC
Last updated 2023-06-28 06:37:02 UTC

Chapter 1

The Princess of Friendship's hooves clopped quietly in the halls of Canterlot's royal castle, accompanied by the rhythmic sound of her saddle bags' material rubbing as she cantered as quietly as she may. It was early enough that the sun had only just been raised, and while there were no rooms with sleeping occupants down this hall, she nonetheless did her best to keep her brisk pace as inaudible as possible. An old habit, and perhaps a silly one, but one that so far had only served rather than hindered.

A pair of guards stood outside of the royal treasury, already at attention when Twilight arrived. This combined with the door being ajar suggested the room was already occupied, and it didn't take her peeking in to know who it was. "Good morning," Twilight said, chipper despite the hour.

"And a lovely morning to you as well," Celestia replied, with a smile as warm as her tone. "You know that you didn't need to send in a formal request for this, yes? You hardly need my permission to visit your friends."

Twilight smiled sheepishly as she stepped into the room properly. "Yeah, I know...I just wanted to make absolutely sure that it was alright to use the mirror. I still feel weird about helping myself to something like the treasury."

"It's more than alright, Twilight. I appreciate you letting me know in advance, but as I said, you don't need my permission for this. They're your friends, not mine."

Twilight nodded and slipped her saddlebag off for a moment, giving the contents of one pouch a thorough yet speedy inspection, followed by the other.

As she did, Celestia's gaze flicked briefly to either side of her ex-student, and then the door. "Will Spike not be accompanying you?"

Twilight shook her head. "Not this morning. I wanted to, but I felt bad about how late he stayed up last night going over petitions for me. I didn't have it in me to wake him up. I'll bring him in tomorr-"

"This is the correct day," Celestia replied quickly with a raised hoof. Twilight relaxed as quickly as her head had shot up, a fear soothed before it had been expressed. "As of last night, you will have three days before the portal closes."

Twilight heaved a sigh, sagging slightly, before perking back up again. "Okay, good. I'll be back to get Spike after he's had some sleep. It's been a couple of months, and I wouldn't want him to miss out on seeing everyone again, but he needs at least some sleep."

"Will you be staying for the full duration of your window to the human world?"

"Hopefully!" came Twilight's upbeat reply, as she fished out her checklist of things she wanted to do while she was over there. She read out its contents to Princess Celestia, who nodded along as each point of interest was covered, one after the other.

Twilight wasn't sure why she was nervous about this visit. Perhaps it was because she realized that it had been months since she last saw everyone from Canterlot High, and felt on some level that it was a failing to leave her friends cut off from her for so long. Were she paying attention, she might have deduced that this was the most likely motivation for Celestia coming down to see her off personally. Sometimes it was just easier to soothe Twilight not by openly discussing the issue, but by distracting her from it by letting Twilight focus on something she decided was important. That usually meant reading off a list. Most found this tiresome, or annoying, and the lists themselves were seldom necessary.

It never stopped her, though. A list meant a course of action, a course of action meant a strategy, and strategy meant she could adapt to whatever happened. It was security. Silly, perhaps, but to an insecure Twilight, very important, and so Celestia listened to her every word as though each narrated step was a vital part of a process that she had to be there to witness.

"-and if there's time left after that, we can..." Twilight put a hoof to her chin as her gaze found the ceiling, contemplating this eventuality. "...I'm not sure, actually. I'm sure we'll make it interesting, though. Even idle time with them is fun."

"Of that, I have no doubt. Should I expect a letter about how it goes?"

"Of course!"

The readiness and sureness of the answer made Celestia smile a bit wider. "I'll be looking forward to it. Now, are you all packed?"

Twilight checked her bags, again. This was the fourth time, and just like the other three times, nothing had changed. "Yes- I think." Fifth time. Never skip the fifth time. "Yes, I'm ready."

"Did you pack a lunch?"

"That was number seven on the checklist," Twilight chided lightly, despite herself. "We're going to get lunch while we're there, remember?"

"Oh, I do. I'm just making sure that you remembered," came the teasing response, and Celestia chuckled at the ever-so-slightly indignant expression that briefly flashed across Twilight's face (You think she'd forget something on the list?!), which was thoroughly erased by the gentle hug that Celestia pulled her into with one wing. "Have fun, Twilight. Send my regards along to your friends in the human world, and don't miss the portal. Remember: full moon."

"I'll remember." Twilight returned the short but sincere hug farewell, and stepped up to the mirror. She did not stop despite the apparently solid surface quickly approaching, and as her nose reached the glass, she passed straight into it, causing the rest of the surface to ripple like water that had been waded into.

Princess Celestia let loose a soft sigh as she watched Twilight pass from sight. A fleeting memory of a bouncing, bubbly lavender filly on her first day to class played from a fond place in her heart.

A crack of thunder shattered the moment nearly as effectively as it did every window on this level of the castle.

In an instant, the doors to the treasury were gone, ripped from their place by a gout of brilliant heat and light, along with the door frame they were attached to and about six inches of masonry to either side of it. Thick stone burst away and exploded in a suffocating plume of dust that spilled up and down the hallway like a tidal wave, the reverberations able to be felt across the entire castle, and further out onto the streets outside the royal grounds. The earthquake was brief, but the roar continued to echo throughout the castle as it shook on its foundation for nearly half a minute after. Dust rained from every ceiling and every fixture rocked and threatened to fall from their places, if they weren't blown from them entirely. Lines and symbols normally invisible to the naked eye flared and burned brightly as they did their best to hold the castle together, spitting white sparks in places from the strain.

Guards were scrambling well before the rocking stopped, and it wasn't hard to see the damage when they arrived. The walls between the treasury and the one across the hallway had become piles of scorched rubble, and flames danced across every surface, turning the air thick and dark with an ever-thickening curtain of smoke and dust. The blast had blown a thick, deep pit into the solid stone of the treasury floor, the semi-circle nearly filled in again by the ceiling where it had come down, exposing the rooms above with their dividing wall hanging precariously over the gap.

Luna was moments behind the first responders, roused violently from her slumber by the sound of their castle being blown apart. She was in a battle stance, looking to her battered and bleeding sister as she pulled herself from a pile of rubble with near-hysterical concern, but whether it was from the ringing in her ears or the distance of her mind, Celestia could not hear the flurry of words she was certain came from her sister's moving mouth.

All she could think about was the empty, mangled frame of the mirror where it had been embedded into the wall in the back of the treasury, and her precious ex-student that had passed through it only seconds before.

Twilight's plans had fallen through before, many times. They'd fallen through quickly many times, too. However, never before had she ever had them go so spectacularly wrong so incredibly quickly.

The colors she saw weren't ones that Twilight recognized immediately, nor did it dawn on her that she was seeing anything, nor experiencing much at all. Everything was spinning, nothing had a shape. Her thoughts were movement and felt like a fluid, sloshing around as wildly as her perspective did.

Somewhere between an eternity and a few seconds later, when she could dedicate enough brainpower towards an objective, she tried to piece together what had occurred.

She had stepped into the portal, experiencing the vertigo and spin and swirl of grays that she had come to expect, and she had braced appropriately for it. A hoof entered the mirror, and a shoed foot exited it - pony in, human out. She didn't lose her balance, only had to swivel her arms briefly, and she took in a deep breath. She had begun to think something, but the thought never finished.

It took a second. Two, at absolute most. She couldn't have even completely passed through the mirror before...something hit her. Twilight had no idea what. She didn't see it. She hadn't even taken in the sight of Canterlot High in front of her. Her hands never quite arrived where they were intended to at her hips, almost making it there when the sky fell and crushed her flat.

'What happened?'

It was said in her voice, but Twilight didn't...hear it, per se. It was about this time that she cast her focus outwards, rather than inwards, and like a switch had been flipped, the tornado stopped and her surroundings came into focus.

Saying anything surrounded her was a misnomer, however. Nothing really felt like it had any distance from her - nothing was "close," but neither did "far" carry any meaning. Still very disoriented, Twilight could barely comprehend it. There was nothing for her to latch to gain her bearings, and left to nothing but the torrent of her thoughts, Twilight began to panic.

'Where am I? What is this? What happened? Did I break something? This has never happened before, where's the human world? Did I go off course? Was this a mishap? Oh no, did I do this? Did I forget to turn off my enchantments? I don't know what I could have forgotten, I was so careful but I knew I forgot something! It must have been bad, what's going on?! Is this a portal-in-a-portal situation? Have I been expelled out of existence?! Am I lost forever like this?! What’s going on what’s going on wha-'

'No,' came the rational part of Twilight's mind, seizing control of the spiral. 'Think. I am here, I am...somewhere. Here? Don’t know here. Find out what 'here' is.'

Forcing herself down this path of logic, Twilight remembered something like this vague environment she found herself in, back when she had first ascended. When she'd asked Celestia about what they had experienced together that day, it'd been explained to her as a sort of in-between space, situated just behind reality. She compared it to the stage with the curtain still closed, beyond which the rest of the world lie. That place was bright blues and whites, and many colors and orbs swirled about, alongside any images and scenes that were thought up as they were needed, seemingly of their own accord. It was pleasant.

This was not that, and certainly not pleasant. The colors here were dark, muffled, and muted. The navy blue was smeared with grays and blacks, and the backdrop felt turbulent, equal parts churning waves and the storm that stirred them. It felt uneasy.

The similarities were enough that Twilight recognized this behind-place for what it was, but alien enough that it took her some time to do so. No diagrams or symbols assembled themselves to help Twilight understand anything either.

'This is behind the curtain. This world’s must be different. So behind it must be...'

A world came into focus. A blue and green one, round, visible in its entirety despite its vast size. Earth.

'The stage. Right. So...I definitely made it to the human world, but- wait, hold on, what happened when I arrived?'

Nothing manifested from the non-space, but her gaze found something seemingly on its own. A fireball, dispersing. A crater, glowing white hot and billowing a plume of smoke like a monument to destruction.

'I exploded.'

She let that sink in, for a while. She watched the scene, which replayed itself a few times for her, like it knew she was watching. Something dark and cylindrical streaked in from above at alarming speeds, arriving in the instant Twilight took a breath. Fire washed out, a crater expanded. It didn't click, so it played again. And again. And again.

There was nothing in the crater that she recognized. There was no purple of any shade, much less her own. Not a scrap of feather, not a lock of hair, not a strip of her bags or any of the various books or supplies or just-in-case ointments she had brought, like the sunscreen she wanted to try out, or the scarf that Rarity had given her months ago in case the wind was too brisk, or the bandages in case her delicate human fingers got cut, including ones shaped oddly in case it ended up in an place where the joints would bend over and disturb, or the spare brush she got that had never been used for pony manes so that it wouldn't mix anything in with human hair. None of her lists or backup lists.

Gone. All of it was gone. Everything.

Something rose up from deep inside of Twilight. She couldn't name the exact feelings, but among the cocktail of emotion that bubbled from the depths, what stood out was incredulity, and a steadily growing sense of outrage that almost glowed with intensity. As seconds crawled by, it did glow.

She exploded. Seriously? Seriously?

Everything had been fine. Everything was normal. There was no worry in her heart, any anxieties having been gently put to bed by Celestia, who she had just spoken to seconds before. It was just going to be a three-day visit to her human friends at their school. Everything about what she had been lead to believe taught her that it was going to be okay, as it always had and always would.

Then, in an instant, it ended. Everything about her was completely consumed in a ball of flame she had no chance to see coming, and it arrived too quickly to stop. She had no chance.

'Are you BUCKING KIDDING ME?!'

Twilight screamed into the aether behind the world, and she kept screaming - she had no lungs here, so she did not stop. She raged like she had never raged before, her soul and heart roaring a deadly blaze like a heartbroken sun, fury at the injustice sending ripples across this uneasy cosmos as it finally hit her.

She was dead. She died. She watched herself be completely destroyed, down to the last strand of hair on her then-human body. Her conversation with Celestia had been the last one. The time she saw Spike that morning, sleeping in his bed, would be the last time she saw him. The "goodnight" she had given to her friends with a sleepy wave of the hoof was the last they would ever see of her again.

She was nothing now, just a memory in the minds of everypony she had left behind. She would be mourned, and she could never ease the pain of her friends or her family, or tell them what she would have told them, had she only known this moment was coming. She couldn't tell any of them how sorry she was to leave them behind. She couldn't tell them how much she loved them and what they had meant to her. She could never say thank you. She could never say goodbye.

The tears came as readily as the screaming now. Her heart fell to pieces, as did Twilight.

She wasn't ready to die. It came so suddenly, and now she was dead, gone forever. It wasn't fair. It was incredibly, devastatingly, despair-inducingly unfair, and it didn’t matter at all, because she was dead.

And yet...

Twilight grew very, very still; her soul was still ablaze, but the fury and grief had quieted, giving this thought the room to expand upon the point that it had boldly interrupted her for.

She was dead. And yet, she was here. Not Elysium, or its gates, or whatever came as part of due process of the afterlife that awaited every pony. She was here, behind the veil, looking at earth - the world that she was, in some way, still a part of. Not Equus. Not being weighed for the quality of her life, or finding her spot amongst her ancestors where they roamed freely in those rolling hills of radiant winds, and not meeting the other princesses in their ivory palace.

She was here. Observing earth. Questioning her place now, and her own ability to question.

Why?

...

...

'Alicorn.'

She did not have eyes, but Twilight felt them close as though she did. Tension began to untie itself from her as she felt the wings she did not physically have expand out to their full not-length on either not-side of her, and then gently close around herself in soft embrace.

Because she was an alicorn. A princess never dies till her reign is complete, and Twilight's had only just started. She was an inseparable, unbreakable part of the world, and no trauma could rend her from it without meaning. Harmony existed beyond the material, and she was more Harmony than any amount of flesh or feather.

She wasn't dead, not truly. She couldn't be dead. It was, in fact, impossible, because she was right: it wasn't fair. It was injustice. Harmony would not will it so.

This was not the end. It wasn’t her time. Harmony would decide that, not some random fireball.

Twilight's soul grew cool again, as relief washed across every part of her being, replaced steadily by a gray fatigue that filled her. Peace returned to her mind, of a sort, as she hugged herself in silence.

Some amount of time passed. Twilight didn't track it, if it was even possible to. However long it was, the Princess of Friendship's thoughts roused from their statue-like stillness and began to gingerly wander, like fillies that had been asked to sit for too long.

Earth sat before her, in all its...everything. Twilight simply gazed into it, mind still mostly numb, but after some time she realized that she found its presence quietly disconcerting. Why eluded her a little while longer, but eventually she concluded that it was because she didn't understand how to interact with it. Sure, she could see it, and it was definitely there, but that doesn't account for much when you're cut off from it by...what again?

Twilight's focus shifted to this vague sense of separation between herself and where she wanted to be. It was...thick. Like water, but pushing back at her the more she attempted to reach past it. It distorted to repulse her- or was that her distorting against it? She wasn't sure.

She didn't care. She wanted in. She needed in. Why couldn't she-

There. A hole in the barrier, less a gap so much as a weakness. It was thick, and soupy, but when she pushed against it, it gave instead of her. Before Twilight could consider what she was doing, she felt herself pouring through this space, and everything went white.

Twilight didn't have to be able to feel the ache in her body to know she had made a mistake. She did, though, which helped to drive the point home: she'd made a mistake. She'd made several mistakes, in fact.

Reflection is the first step in learning, so while she was on the ground in a heap of suffering, Twilight reflected.

Firstly, she never took stock to see where she intended to emerge. Had she studied her destination in any amount of detail, she would have seen that cliff that it was teetering on the edge of. Said study would have perhaps given her the foresight to angle her entry in such a way that she did not go flying off said cliff, or at the very least, it may have given her the warning needed to throw out her wings when she was able and perhaps stabilize her descent before it became an uncontrolled tumble. She did not do any of these things.

Secondly on her list of tactical errors: she did not consider where she was emerging and compare it to the location of where she had just been, prior to exploding. Had she done that, she may have thought better of this point in particular, and possibly found somewhere more convenient for her purposes. If nothing else, she would have an idea of where she was now, and where she needed to go. However, she did not.

Thirdly, and perhaps most grievously of all, she did not put together a plan ahead of time. Celestia had taught her to always think ahead when she was trying to plan something, and Twilight had not only not thought ahead, she also had not thought presently. She didn't think. She simply did, thus allowing the aforementioned list to be here, and be as long as it was. She knew better than that, but she allowed herself to be thoughtless, and now she got to feel all the wonderful pain that came with rolling down a cliff and sitting in an aching heap.

There was, of course, a plethora of other tactical blunders she had made - not considering how much time had actually passed since her intended arrival, not considering what circumstances might arise as a result of her entering the world in this way that weren't immediately obvious, considerations like a backup plan or contingencies in case any such plans didn't work out, or whether it was even wise to emerge in her emotionally exhausted state - but they could be all generally chalked up under point three.

'Well done, Twilight, a nice and orderly report of all your failings. If only it didn't hurt so much so you could actually learn from it.'

"Ugh..."

One hoof planted firmly against the ground beneath her, and Twilight paused, inspecting this hoof closer.

Humans don't have hooves.

…she could only note this for now. She didn’t have the mental capacity to ponder it further. Too much happening.

Twilight put forth the effort needed to extend this leg to its full length, painstakingly shoving her other legs beneath her in the process. Her back crackled and popped as she straightened it, and when she extended her wings, she nearly fell back to the earth from the jolt of pain that both struck her with.

“Ow.”

Yeah, that about covered it.

After a few long moments of tentatively, warily making sure that everything was as it should be and that nothing seemed broken (something she was only loosely confident on, but didn't pay to dwell over), Twilight took in her surroundings.

It appeared to be morning. The air had a bite to it, and if memory served, it was mid-spring...the month's name eluded her, she chased it a few seconds- May? Early May? That sounded right.

She stood at the base of a long strip of black stone with dotted yellow lines extending all the way along its length, stretching on in either direction for as far as she could see. One direction bent out of sight around the hills she had just fallen down. The other stretched out into some trees, where it also slipped from view.

A road. Going...somewhere. Presumably. Where? She didn't know. This wasn't the city, and she couldn't tell where the city was. 'Point number two...' She shook her head, and considered her next step: clearly, this was nowhere. Nowhere meaningful. She had to relocate. But where?

Flapping her wings once (and immediately regretting it), Twilight cast her gaze to the sky, finding the sun where it was still trailing up from the horizon. From there, her eyes found said horizon. She traced the land where it met the road, and she decided, arbitrarily, that this was where she would go. Even worlds apart, Celestia would still guide her.

And so, limping heavily and still in a daze from her fall, Twilight began to walk.

Chapter 2

“So, Twilight,” Twilight prompted herself. “What’s the plan?”

It would have been nice if she had answered back. In response to the silence, Twilight sighed.

It felt like she’d been walking for hours. The sun was getting fairly close to the center of the sky at this point, so that assessment sounded accurate to her.

The road was pretty long, and seemed to just go on and on. There had not been any forks in the road that she'd discovered yet, so for the most part there was little to think about except her own discomfort. She had plenty to kick herself over for that, but at least a broken bone didn’t seem to be on that list.

As the aches kept her company more intimately the longer she walked, and with little else to do but walk, Twilight’s mind shifted to other things, like the plan she had just prompted herself for. When that failed to present itself immediately, she reviewed what all had happened so far for more insight.

“What a stupid thing to have happen. Stupid way to die.” Twilight punctuated the statement with a swift kick to a rock in her path. It bounced and scattered down the road for several meters before falling still. “I’m glad no one was around to see that. If Spike was-“

If Spike were here, he’d be dead.

The thought struck her suddenly, and she nearly stumbled. Her joints ached in protest, and she hissed quietly as she forced herself to continue, rather than dwell on that thought. “Alright, Twilight, think. What now?”

And think she did. Another flick of her hoof sent the rock she had caught up to skipping further up the road.

“I need to figure out where Canterlot is. That's the biggest priority right now. I don’t know where I am, so if I can figure that out…oh, but how? It’s not like I have a map…”

Twilight gave her wings a tentative flex. The stab she received from the movement made her eyes water, and she very slowly completed the motion, just for the sake of gauging how likely flight was. "Not soon" was the answer, decidedly. Had she been thinking about it at the time, maybe that cliff she’d thrown herself off would have made a good vantage point for identifying her surroundings…

No, you know what would have been a really smart plan? Actually looking around when I could see everything. I had a chance to use that place to the fullest, and not only did I blow it, I don’t know how to go back.

Twilight shook her head - her neck did not agree with that, but she suppressed the wince. "Less kicking self, more planning. Focus." She huffed, and continued on with her thoughts. “I’ll just keep following this road and ask for directions. There’s got to be someone out here, right?”

Even as she said that, though, she realized that in all her time walking, she hadn’t seen a single car drive by. The wooded area that the road cut through had yielded to a massive clearing around her, and not one vehicle had passed her in either direction.

While this was troubling, Twilight didn’t know enough about roads and human cars to be able to judge it as much more than inconvenient. What she did know, though: she had a limited time window here. If she didn’t make it back in three days’ time, the portal would close, and it would be another month before she could pass through it again. While that wasn’t necessarily the end of the world, the other things on top of this made it seem a lot more distressing than it already would be.

What had even happened to the portal? She had blown up, and while she was no expert on her own physiology as an alicorn, completely incinerating her implied a lot of force and a lot of heat. Did the portal survive?

“It must have survived,” Twilight answered her growing worry, failing to squelch it before it could grow further, which it proceeded to do. “It’s a statue and it’s highly magical, and I’m just a pony. It would have had to be a pretty big explosion to blow up a statue.”

It would have had to be a pretty big explosion to incinerate me completely, too...

A swift kick sent the rock she’d been pursuing farther than it ever had, momentarily escaping her sight. “The portal has to be fine. It’s a relic, those don’t just break, and if it did, it could be reformed. Everything that magically potent is fixable.”

Did the school survive, though? Were my friends there when that happened? Did they-

”Stop,” Twilight hissed, stomping her hooves as her steps took on a fervent intensity. She squinted her eyes tightly closed, willing her thoughts to stop tormenting her. They did not stop.

Who would have blown up a statue in front of a school? And why? It was a Saturday, but it was a highschool. That was a known hangout spot of my friends, and other kids hung around it too, even after hours. How many more people than just me had died in that moment? Had they been aiming at the statue in particular? Had it been aimed at the school, and it just coincidentally hit right next to the statue? Was I the target? What if they're dead because of m-

The solid surface that Twilight ran headlong into evoked a loud “OW!” Twilight opened her eyes, rubbed her muzzle, and shot an accusatory glare at whatever she had impacted.

A car had stopped in the road, and she hadn’t noticed it right in front of her. It was orange, and had colors painted on its flanks (Do cars have flanks?) that was vaguely reminiscent of a jungle cat of some variety. It sat directly on top of the line in the center of the road - one of the few things that Twilight knew about driving told her that cars were supposed to stay on either side of that line to avoid collision. That might explain the rest of what she saw.

As Twilight stepped around to the other side of the vehicle, she heard a faint crunching. Looking down and lifting a hoof, she saw glass stuck to the bottom of it. Glancing around, she saw glass and small shards of debris scattered all around where the vehicle sit.

It’s front end was deeply compressed, far more heavily damaged than Twilight has ever seen another car - it looked like it was made of cardboard and someone had squished it a bit too hard against a solid surface, causing it to buckle and fold in on itself. All of the windows and windshield were shattered, likely making up for most of the glass on the road.

Twilight could only stare as she stepped around the wreck, taking in the damage in morbid awe. This car was larger than she remembered…no, she was just looking at it from a lower perspective than she was accustomed to. She glanced back down again, mindful of glass or bits of metal, when her eyes found something and she stopped.

On the pavement just outside the door closest to her were a hoofful of tiny golden cylinders of some kind of metal - brass, maybe? She had no idea what those were.

What really caught her attention was the red fluid on the ground beside them in a puddle, and the shape of a human shoe print in the center of it. It was mostly dried, more a paste than a liquid and more brown than red, but Twilight knew blood when she saw it.

Several seconds passed in silence as Twilight parsed this, concern all but audible on her expression. She cast a glance into the car, and then propped her hooves up against the wrinkled door so that she could rise up and view inside. The places where humans sit were empty. The interior was somehow even more mangled than the exterior of the vehicle, but showed no sign of recent habitation.

Twilight let her hooves fall back to the pavement, ignoring the protest of her joints as she picked up the pace. She eyed her surroundings with newfound urgency as she went.

Finding someone out here was now doubly important. They might be hurt.

An hour passed. Perhaps it was two; it was hard to tell for certain.

This road didn't seem inclined to take Twilight anywhere in a hurry, much to her annoyance. She had been keeping an eye out, but she had seen no further signs of any other humans in the area, wounded or otherwise.

"I suppose that blood was a bit old," Twilight muttered to herself, huffing a bit from the exertion. Her walk resumed at a much more sluggish pace for a while as she tried to regain her stamina, her body vocally reminding her through every stiffening joint in her legs that she was not exactly in the best condition to be doing cross-country.

Not that she'd ever really been in the best condition to be doing cross-country. She's a bookworm-turned-noble. Stamina wasn't exactly her thing.

The road ahead abandoned pretenses of cutting through clearings and decided to cling tightly against the border of trees. To her right was open field, but should Twilight set one hoof off the road to her left, she would be in a ditch, neck-deep in shrubs and tall grasses where they separated mankind's claim from that of nature.

Something else appeared along the road, and this time Twilight was significantly more observant and spotted it in advance. It was another car - a more square one this time, colored a dark blue that reminded her of Luna's mane. A van, I think? Or are those the ones with the open backs? I don't remember.

This time, though, she was not in any danger of running into it unless she somehow stepped off the road and threw herself upon it.

The previous car was in quite bad shape, but this one was an absolute wreck. Some churned up earth leading off the road lead to its current resting spot, and it was not hard to see that the vehicle had rolled before it came to where Twilight found it. Every square inch of the vehicle was crushed, dented, or broken in some way, with the sole exception being the windshield, which appeared to hang on by a thread, more cracks than actual glass. Its paint job was stained black across its front, and the metal appeared to be burnt and smoke-stained in that area, where Twilight assumed something had caught flame at the time of accident.

No one was inside of this one, either, and much to her surprise, she didn't see any blood here, inside or outside. It was a surprise, but a welcome one - anyone in this wreckage would have been killed had they lingered.

"Why is everyone getting into wrecks?" Twilight thought aloud. She peered out into the field, and once again saw no one out there.

The interior of this vehicle, as expected, was in utter shambles, but Twilight inspected it anyway, searching for...she wasn't quite sure. Anything, really. She was sick of harboring endless questions and was desperate for something that might fill in the growing gaps in her knowledge about the situation in this world.

Most of what she found was ruined or destroyed by heat or the trauma of the crash that had left this vehicle in such a state, but one thing caught her eye, beneath one of the seats. She eyed the jagged metal around the wrecked, doorless entrance to the back, and very carefully leaned forward, till she was able to grip the object of her interest enough in her teeth to give it a good yank. The sound of ripping paper made her wince, but there was no way to get it out without causing damage to it, so rip it did.

The remains of a newspaper finally came free after a careful game of tug-of-war with the corpse of this vehicle, and she spun it around in her hooves so that she could see the front of it. The paper was torn up, but skimming over it, Twilight found one entry that was mostly legible.

EDITORIAL: FORGET DRUGS OR MYSTABLE, THESE ARE GAMER RIOTS

...Twilight's expression contorted in a combination of incredulity, skepticism, and profound disappointment at whoever wrote this article. Almost against her better judgement, she kept reading.

It was about what she expected it to be: the writer offered no reservations about their stated opinion on video games, and proceeded to blame recent riots on account of video games being the root cause of all degeneracy and...well, frankly Twilight didn't pay much attention to it, this was utter tripe. Though, that one detail did not escape her notice. It was present in the headline, and though the shock of the rest of it had momentarily blinded her to it, further mention did not slip past her so easily.

Riots?

Twilight furrowed her brow, and tried to think back on her time at Canterlot High. Try as she may, she could not recall any mention of riots, or any sort of public disorder, for that matter. In fact, from what she recalled, everything seemed quite peaceful, and that made a lot of sense, considering how much there seemed to be a 1-to-1 pony-to-human ratio going on. There wasn't any trouble like this back in Equestria, so how could there be something like that here? Perhaps that was more bold of an assumption than she realized at the time...but that didn't make much sense to Twilight. She had seen no indication that it would be anything but what she had come to believe, up until this particular piece of media had challenged her on it.

Twilight tried to salvage any other useful information out of this paper, but sadly, every other bit of text was fragmented, distorted, or otherwise ruined, providing no meaningful insight into anything else that may have been written. The most she gathered was that this paper was published two months ago, in mid-January.

Upon learning that, Twilight's brow furrowed again, and gave the wreckage another glance.

People are blowing up schools, there were riots going on at one point, and there were multiple wreckages on the road, which have been here for two months and never got cleaned up.

This was a lot of weird, scary things starting to pile up. She wasn't a fan of the picture that it was starting to paint. Not a fan at all.

Twilight turned and resumed her walk down the road, feeling increasingly uneasy as time went on. She stopped, however, when she saw a wasp nest.

Twilight never considered herself much of a nature pony, but she also didn't dislike any particular aspect of nature. Wasps, despite the universally poor reception, were actually okay in Twilight's book. She had read about them before, and she found them every bit as fascinating and interesting as she did bees, though they obviously weren't quite as useful for things like food. She didn't want to mess with them, of course, but Twilight thought wasps were fine. They were quite cool, actually.

Had the road gone straight instead of bent, it would have gone straight through the nest. The structure had every indication that it was a wasp hive, right down to its rounded shape and the way that it was stuck between two trees that came together, except that the trees were completely subsumed by the structure, leaving only a few branch tips visible where the paper had been woven around them. The hive was the size of a small cottage, large enough to fit millions of properly-sized wasps in its catacombs and tunnels.

Except these weren't properly-sized wasps, not at all. From where she stood, the wasps buzzing around from that structure numbered only in the half dozen range, more likely inside the structure, but the ones visible to her were roughly the size of a filly - maybe a little less, maybe a little more. Twilight couldn't get a clear sense of scale, and had absolutely no intention of getting one. Their stingers were quite visible as they buzzed around, distending from the tips of their thoraxes like a dagger, and given what she knew of wasp proportions, those things were potentially bigger than her horn.

"What the buck?" Twilight could not stop herself from uttering, as she stared in a mixture of bewilderment, fascination, and horror.

That wasn't normal. Absolutely nowhere had Twilight seen anything like this before. Supersized wasps were something that she expected more to see in Equestria, but only of some kind of magical bend; superwasps that had a proper palace with a queen that wore a crown for her giant wasp head and held open court with her subjects. That sort of thing didn't exist in the human realm, and it made this seem even more alien the longer she looked at it. Those were just wasps, and they were huge. No whimsy, no magical twist, and no precedent.

Wracking her brain, Twilight couldn't think of any insect that got anywhere near that size in this world, never mind wasps. What was this?

As she realized that the size of prey for wasps of that size could easily extend into the vicinity of pony-sized, Twilight took this opportunity to stop inspecting and to immediately vacate the area, following the road the way she had been going.

"What is going on?" Twilight asked herself, as though expecting herself to have any better insight. "Schools getting blown up? Riots? Abandoned wrecks? Giant wasps?"

She turned her head as she moved along, and she saw a house fly the size of a cat sitting atop a small tree that struggled to hold its weight. She didn't stop- if anything she just moved faster, her canter becoming a gallop.

Forget unease, Twilight was scared. She had no idea what was going on anymore, just that she was deathly afraid for her friends, and felt a stronger need than ever before to find them. She had to get to Canterlot.

Finally, Twilight saw something ahead that inspired hope: a simple wooden structure stood in a field, surrounded by a chain-link fence amidst a handful of tinier structures around its base. The main structure was a tower, a series of stairs leading up four flights before ending in a small lookout post at the top, extending well above the tree line and providing ample vision for a wide area around, where rangers could monitor the horizon for signs of forest fires.

Fire lookout tower. With her wings too aching to fly, this was exactly what she needed.

Twilight galloped up to the fence, hooking her horn in the links of the gate's fence to give it a yank, but found it wouldn't budge. Frowning, she stepped up closer, giving the lock a good once-over. A padlock like this wasn't going to come off easily, and definitely not without magic, which she simply did not have here in the human world.

Instead, she stepped back down, took several steps back, and charged at the gate, leaping up into the air and giving her wings a good couple of solid flaps. It hurt, even just to gain a little bit of altitude, but she got enough lift to be able to jump atop the fence, and then more carefully lower herself before dropping on the other side of it. Landing the three or so feet below sent a stab of pain all the way up her legs, and she nearly fell over then and there.

Everything hurt. Everything ached. She could barely keep up this pace, and it was catching up to her quickly, but what choice did she have? She needed this. Her friends needed this.

It was at that point that Twilight realized that there were no less than 4 flights of stairs awaiting her, and she felt a pit of dread drop into her stomach. "This is going to suck a little," she whimpered, and got to work climbing.

Turns out: she was right. Flight of stairs one was alright. Flight of stairs number two, it was starting to get a bit harder. Flight of stairs 3, her knees were really starting to ache, but she pushed on, finally making it up to the final floor of the tower and onto the viewing platform with only a little cramping.

A walkway wrapped all the way around the top of this level, surrounding a room with a door leading in. As Twilight stiffly hobbled over to the windows, she propped herself up fully to be able to see over the wall and peer inside-

She got a brief view of a shaded human face staring straight at her from the other side of the window, eyes as black as pitch. The window shattered, and a figure burst through it.

Twilight did not remember moving, but the next thing she knew she was slamming against the railing a flight of stairs down, which was the sole reason she did not go flying over the edge and plummet 3 stories. Wild eyes shot up the way she came, and she watched the stocky, overweight man pick himself up off the ground and began to stagger down towards her.

Nothing about him was right. His eyes seemed to absorb all light, and his clothes were covered in something like gray grease, to the extent that she could not tell what color their clothes were past the ashen slime that soaked them. The teeth in their snarling mouth were alarmingly visible against the black interior, making the snarl seem like it glowed in the dark. Glass pierced their skin visibly, and blood ran down their arm where they had been sliced open from wrist to elbow by the glass they'd pulled themselves over in the window frame, but they did not seem to care. They looked too angry to care.

"Stay back!" Twilight shrieked, but did not wait to see if they would listen, scrambling back towards the stairs leading down behind her. It was good that she did, because the man charged.

To call either of their movements collected or composed was being generous, but in the case of the figure, it would be an outright lie. Their legs were uncoordinated, and before Twilight's eyes they threw themselves headlong down the stairs, where they tumbled down each step and crashed into the wooden railing that Twilight had been at moments prior.

Twilight was a pony, half this man's size in height and a further third their size in total mass. This man was rather round for a human and was completely incapable of arresting their descent. Where Twilight had been halted, they went straight through the railing like a wrecking ball.

They vanished from sight. There was an incredibly long second of silence, followed by a heavy, wet smack.

Twilight did not look immediately. She clung tightly to the rail where she had backed away from the charge, pupils mere pinpricks, heart hammering in her chest and hyperventilating as she sat there, trying to process what had just happened. When her brain failed to bear this burden, Twilight timidly leaned to one side, poking her lavender head through the rails to peer down, to see if her eyes could do what her brain could not.

The base of the tower was covered in cement, which the heavy man had landed on. A spray of blood was visible where they landed, but they were already on their feet, seemingly unfazed by the three-story drop that had stripped all the skin from their back, which lay where they had landed like the molt of a lizard, except dripping with blood. Despite the visible vertebrae poking through their discolored back muscles, the man had no trouble picking themselves back up and, upon seeing Twilight peering down at them, stood at the closest point that they could directly beneath her and grasped and clawed at the air wildly, like an petulant child that insisted on having something being held from their reach. A petulant child with a grown man's face contorted in nigh-bestial rage, huffing and snarling and spitting black foam all the way down their shirt, try futilely to reach and kill the pony three stories above them.

"What," she whimpered, momentarily choking on a sob. She tried again, though her voice cracked violently as she shrieked, "What are you?!"

The man did not answer in any meaningful way, simply continuing to claw and swipe violently at the air at a far-too-distant target. They seemed completely oblivious to the direct path up that was just a few yards to their left, in the form of the stairway up.

Twilight's teeth ground together as her terror turned to fury, and her horn lit up brilliantly- the shadows beneath the lookout tower were momentarily expunged as a magenta streak blazed through the air, slamming into the figure and blasted their chest open like a flower. There was a splash of blood and viscera, and they fell back hard enough that they did a flip, landing face-first in the grass, where they moved no more.

For a long while after, the world was utterly and completely silent. A pool of red began to grow beneath the figure where they lay, splotches of oily black streaking through the blood as the corpse rapidly emptied itself onto the ground.

Twilight knew what a zombie was. She had not seen one herself personally, but she knew of their existence...though, truly, it was hard to imagine somepony who didn't know of them, at least tangentially. Everyone knew their sunken faces, their hungry blazing eyes, and their insatiable hunger for flesh. While this did not match up with the nigh-skeletal, luminous-eyed figures that Twilight had become versed with back in Equestria, she knew enough about the (presumed) mannerisms of an undead to know one when she saw it.

Twilight released her chokehold on the railing as she picked her increasingly stiff and trembling self up from the ground, practically dragging herself up the stairs. It felt as though there was fire in her joints, and her legs threatened to lock up and cramp completely at any moment, but she grit her teeth and pushed her way back up to the top of the lookout post, peering out across the world as far as she could see. The earth laid itself bare to her, and she witnessed it with a newfound determination that tipped well past the point of desperation.

It had only been a few months since she saw everyone's beaming faces, talked to them, touched them, helped them through their troubles, and left them closer than ever before. When Twilight said goodbye to her human friends to return to Equestria, she had done so with a smile in her heart, knowing that she had sewn the seeds of friendship that had all but taken to the stars on nothing but its own power. Everything was okay. Everyone was happy. All was right.

Now here she comes, just a hoofful of months later, and the first thing that happens is she dies a spectacularly fiery death in the heart of an explosion centered feet away from the entrance to the school that they had all attended. When she recovered only by the grace of Harmony itself, Twilight found nothing but ruin and signs of devastation across the winding roads, whispers of riots and societal upheaval present in the abandoned papers and news clips scattered through the wreckage. Giant insects haunted the wilderness, not at all belonging to the land they claimed, and the only signs of humanity Twilight had been able to find were the dead that walked the earth.

It had only been a few months. In that time, the human world seemed to have gone completely and totally mad.

The only thing that horrified Twilight more than any of those things was that when she gazed out from the top of this fire lookout tower, no matter which way she turned, she saw nothing that resembled anything like a city, least of all one named Canterlot.

The Royal Guard that approached Princess Celestia saluted crisply to her. He received no other response beyond an even turn of the head to view him. While he found the gaze nor aura of the princess at all befitting of the embodiment of the sun, what with all warmth seemingly absent from both, the stallion had more than enough sense than to express such thoughts when the princess was clearly not in a good mood.

"We've just received word from the ministry of the arcane. They're sending several representatives and are already in the process of..." He glanced at the letter in his hoof. "'Allocating any and all resources necessary to fulfill the request of the crowns.' According to them, we'll be having company within the hour, after they've made their preparations."

It was not a request. Princess Celestia nonetheless gave this news a crisp nod, turning her gaze back to the treasury's significantly wider entrance, from which the last of the debris was being cleared out. Much repair work would have to be done to the ancient masonry, but such work was an afterthought compared to the repairs that Celestia had every intention of completing before a single brick was put back into place here, save for what was necessary to make this space safe to work in. "Any updates from medical?"

"Both guards positioned here were declared KIA this afternoon, Your Highness."

Princess Celestia did not physically wince at this. "I trust the news is on the way to their next of kin."

"Already delivered."

Celestia nodded, slowly. The solemnity of movement was the only emotion offered in this conversation. "Have the science teams anything to report?"

The Royal Guard shifted the papers in his hooves, viewing the next one in his collection. "Detailed analysis of the residue from the blast is still underway, but based on what they're saying in the labs, the compounds are nothing we have detailed record of. Definitely effective, though. Eggheads wouldn't have believed it wasn't magic if you hadn't said it was impossible." The paper glowed yellow and levitated from his hooves, and the guard let it go, where it hovered before the inspecting princess. "Preliminary reports give it a superficial resemblance to some of-"

"Who is 'Smithereens?'" interrupted the princess.

"An expert on demolitions, from Appaloosa. His family was the one responsible for the production of the blast charges used to hollow out the tunnels through the Appaloosan mountains during the original construction of the railway so it could reach Hilltop. His special talent is all things explosive, and it shows."

"I don't recall sanctioning their acquisition for this."

"He came to us, Your Highness. Apparently they were visiting Canterlot on business and volunteered his assistance when he heard that the castle had been attacked."

Princess Celestia did not physically smile at this. The paper she'd been inspecting floated its way back to the guard's hooves. "Please forward my personal thanks to Smithereens and ensure that he is thoroughly accommodated during his stay here. Keep me updated on the science team's findings."

"Yes, Your Highness." The guard snapped another salute, and departed.

Princess Celestia's focus shifted forward again to where her eyes had been facing. The frame of the mirror had been extracted from the wall of the treasury and was being attended by no less than a dozen specialists from multiple fields, all of which were singularly intent on mending the horseshoe-shaped purple frame to the relic that had been destroyed. It had only been a day, but already the condition of the ancient frame was nearly pristine. If not for the fervent chatter of the ponies attending it and the occasional flash of magic cast at it, one would think the it completely restored, save for its lack of glass.

Truthfully, Celestia did not need to know the exact details about what made up the blast that had rocked the royal castle, nor the myriad of compounds involved. Celestia likewise didn't need a report that she was likely to receive by nightfall on the nature of the weapon used, nor the fact that it was likely a weapon. She knew what the humans had in their many assorted arsenals, and had known for quite some time. There was no record to reflect this, however, which was what she intended to remedy. Should this information ever need to come to light, she would like the gap between what she ostensibly knew and what she actually knew to hold up to scrutiny, with the added citation of having experts look upon it with their own eyes being enough to dissuade undue questioning, or - Harmony forbid - investigation.

She also didn't need to be told that there was something wrong with the portal, whenever they did bring it back online. Celestia had slipped the material plane to inspect it, and she had not liked the instability she found in what had previously been a laser-tight focal point that the portal had been attuned to. She didn't know what it meant, however, and so she kept this knowledge to herself for now, allowing the experts beneath her to perform their various tasks and come to the conclusions she already knew on their own, so that they could strive for the conclusions she did not know and desperately sought.

Some part of Princess Celestia quietly resented the need to maintain appearances in a time like this. Her precious Twilight Sparkle was in peril in ways she did not fully understand, and she had to go through these practiced motions to make it look like everything was up to par for the judging eyes that would inevitably be cast her way.

She was worried sick for a mare that was like a daughter to her. She had gone to bed the previous night sobbing, her dreams unable to be fully wrung of distress even under the personal attention of an equally concerned Luna, and now she had to waste hours of her life standing here with her business face on, waiting for people to figure out things that she could simply tell them, dodging the ire of the vultures and jackals that stalked her shadow as they fished for signs of conspiracy or inadequacy in her every hooffall.

Celestia didn't care what those ingrates thought of her on a good day, and this was most definitely not one of those days. If they couldn't see how she had before and would gladly again break her back for this kingdom after all the times she'd shown willingness to, then they never would, and she had no interest in putting out effort to package her every intention with a cutesy little bow atop just the right wrapping to match their expectations of what a good ruler should look like. As if they even knew what that looked like.

The Princess of the Sun took a firm hold on the bitterness now that it had been roused from its warren, and then banished it to the vault in the back of her mind, where it would stay until her next moment of weakness. It, like so many other things in this world right now, was unworthy of her attention.

Until Twilight Sparkle was in her embrace where she belonged, safe and loved and home again, nothing else mattered.

Twilight had taken shelter in the living space present at the top of the fire lookout tower. There was little in it - a bed pushed into the corner, a pint-sized dresser, an empty bookshelf save for a single book, a few cupboards and shelves that had served as surface for the late forest ranger to lunge out of the window at her earlier, and a small hooflocker (no…human. Footlocker) at the base of the bed. A stove with a microwave atop it sat squarely in the center of the room, with barely enough room for a grown human to walk around without bumping something. Each wall was covered in windows and allowed full 360 degree view, even from inside. It was a cramped and incredibly utilitarian space that allowed the occupant to do precisely what they needed to do here and nothing else: eat, store their things, dress themselves, monitor the area, and sleep.

Twilight wasn’t sure what the ranger had been doing in here for the duration he’d apparently been trapped in this room before un-trapping himself, but there wasn’t much out of alignment that indicated activity besides a few greasy smears here and there. As far as she could tell, the zombie had just sat there in the middle of the room, doing nothing. Which didn’t sound unlike an undead to do, really.

The room was far too dark to see into; the full moon was doing its best, but it wasn’t its job to light up the room, nor did Twilight expect it to. She put her hooves against the shelf to reach the switch with her horn, and frowned when nothing happened. She tried it a few more times, but the lightbulb overhead failed to do much more than sit there, dark. Twilight cast a glance to the display on the microwave, and likewise found it to be blank and dim.

"Just my luck."

Human technology was incredible - had you told her it was just a unique breed of magic, she would have believed you - but apparently it was not immune to breaking down at the most inconvenient time any more than your average gadget back home.

No matter. Having become aware of what she had done a few hours ago (the grizzly scene of the beam impacting replayed itself, and she found it hard not to wince), Twilight decided to replicate it, on a much smaller scale.

She closed her eyes, and willed her horn to come to life. She felt the familiar pressure building from gathering energy, and she expressed that energy in a small, delicate bead of light resting on the tip of her horn. When she opened her eyes, the room was cast in a bright magenta glow.

Magic works. Magic isn’t supposed to work in the human world. Why?

Twilight was too tired from the incredibly draining day to speculate on it further. Her body begged her for rest, and she couldn’t keep it waiting much longer, but there was one more thing she had to do.

She willed her legs to yield, sitting down on the floor since there was no chair here, and found a piece of paper on the shelf in the corner, which she put a pencil to. There was only one thing in this world that Twilight found more comforting than a checklist, and today of all days, Twilight needed it.

Dear Princess Celestia,

While I realize that this letter has no way of arriving to you in my current circumstances, it’s my hope that I will be able to deliver this message to you in some way as a chronicle of what has transpired here in the human realm.

I don’t know if you saw or not, but I died. An explosion completely obliterated me seconds after I stepped through the portal, and while I was able to emerge again from beyond the veil, but it seems that the form the portal gave me didn’t persist once my body was destroyed, which I guess makes sense. It might make things more complicated going forward. I’m not sure how to interact with humans as a pony, and I don’t know how they’re going to react to me like this. I haven’t found any yet, but hopefully we can work out something despite the oddness of the situation.

Something terrible has happened in this world. Over the course of one day, I have died in an explosion, wandered empty streets strewn with wreckages of human cars, saw news articles talking about riots, identified a hive of supersized wasps that I cannot explain the existence of, and slain an undead version of a human that perished in the ranger tower that I am now residing in. As of the time of writing, I am unable to locate Canterlot, or any major population center at all. I’d hoped night would make it more obvious, but the horizons are dark. I don’t see any settlements out there anywhere, and without a map or directions, I have no idea where Canterlot is.

Magic works here. I don’t know how, but I shot a beam to destroy the undead ranger after it fell off the lookout tower. I can’t explain that, but the room is lit by hornlight as I write this. Magic shouldn’t be possible here, but then again, neither should undead, so it’s clear that magic is functioning here in some capacity, though I don’t understand how. I’ll have to experi

Twilight blinked when she realized she could not see. She glanced up and saw the only source of light to be the full moon glistening from the heavens amidst the stars, shining in from the window beside and above her, which did nothing to illuminate the paper on the floor.

Twilight’s eyes swiveled straight up, towards her horn, where light no longer shone. Her brow furrowed.

A headache was well underway, so rather than question it, Twilight forced the issue, pushing out a second bead of light to take over where the first had failed. As the pencil in her lips found the paper again, Twilight felt about four times heavier than she had when she started this letter.

So many things are going through my mind as I write this, I’m having a hard time stringing my thoughts together. I ache all over and it’s hard to think. I’m tired. So much has happened today, it’s been an awful day. I need to sleep.

I hope my friends are safe. When you get this, hopefully it’s because this is all done and over with and we found a way to take care of everything.

Your little pony,
Twilight Sparkle

The pencil clattered quietly where it bounced on the floor. Twilight willed her legs to serve her one last time, and they screamed noiselessly, but obeyed, pushing her not only off the floor, but also up onto the bed. It squeaked and creaked, and Twilight barely felt the lumps in the mattress through the fatigue that had descended upon her like a curtain. A few moments more was as long as the world of dreams was willing to wait.

Chapter 3

Fluttershy couldn't remember a car ride that had been so quiet, even when she was by herself.

It was an electric SUV they were in, so the motor was almost completely silent, save for a soft hum that the sound of the road easily overpowered, even at the speeds Fluttershy was driving at - she liked to keep below 20 mph just so that she wouldn't have to scramble too much if she needed to turn quickly, preferring to slam the accelerator as needed than pray that her foot was fast enough on the brake pedal. The road was thus fairly quiet, and so was the car. There weren't any radio stations left in the world that offered music, so there was nothing to fill the air there either. Meanwhile, her passengers were not being particularly chatty...

Fluttershy spared a glance from the road to look at Applejack in the passenger seat.

She looked exhausted. She leaned against the door, her temple resting against the glass as she stared ahead at nothing in particular, spacing out or lost in thoughts. Fluttershy hoped the former; there was nothing good in those thoughts right now. Not after Granny Smith.

Fluttershy wanted to say something - anything, really, just to kill this silence - but she had this feeling like now wasn't the time to speak to Applejack. Instead, she glanced up, at the rear view mirror to check on the passenger in the back seat.

"...um, I don't think that's how you're supposed to sit."

Apple Bloom's head turned to look at Fluttershy, her massive bow scrunching up against her cheek as she did. She had shed her seatbelt and was laid out completely horizontal across the backseat, feet up on the door across from her. "This is mah ‘bored as all heck’ posture. Cuz I’m bored."

"What happened to your Gameboy?"

"Battery died." Apple Bloom held up the offending device, which was indeed completely dark, and flicked the "on" switch several times for Fluttershy to see. Indeed, for the briefest of moments the screen would flash to life, and a split second later it would blink out. "That spare was almost totally empty. Didn't even last ten minutes. I couldn't even save!"

"Ahh..." Fluttershy gave a sympathetic smile. "I'm sorry about that. Do we not have any more batteries?"

Apple Bloom shook her head. The game system dropped to the SUV floor with a soft thud, and she crossed her arms over her chest with a ‘harumph.’

Fluttershy thought on this for a moment. "Well...we're gonna be there soon, so why don't you dig around in my bag back there in the trunk? There's a flashlight that still has a pretty good battery in it, I think."

Apple Bloom sat up a bit, eyes wide with anticipation, but hesitated nonetheless. "Are ya sure?"

Fluttershy nodded and smiled warmly. "Like I said, we're almost there. I'm sure someone will have a charger when we get there, so go ahead."

Apple Bloom gave a big beaming grin, then reached up over the back of the seat and leaned forward far enough that her butt was left sticking in the air as she rummaged around the trunk's contents.

Fluttershy giggled at the sight, then lowered her gaze to the road again, satisfied with this outcome. She spared a glance at Applejack, and found her peering into the backseat in amusement. She found Fluttershy's gaze by accident, but held it.

Fluttershy gave a tiny, warm smile. "Hey."

Applejack smiled back, a bit wider. "Hey."

There weren't any words for a few seconds. When their gaze finally broke and they sat back in their seats, it felt as though a spell that had been hanging over the van had been lifted. The air felt breathable again.

Fluttershy pondered for several seconds what to say next. She chewed over a few different phrases, but none of them felt right, or otherwise felt a bit awkward, and she did not want to spoil this nice mood with forced conversation. So instead, she did the first thing that came to her mind.

Applejack felt her head grow a little bit lighter, and she snapped a look over at Fluttershy. "Hey! Whattya think yer doin, hat thief?"

Fluttershy giggled, donning her prize right in front of her victim with an innocent-sounding, "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Uh-huh." Applejack gruffly snatched the hat off Fluttershy's head, whose giggling picked up gleefully. The faux-annoyance didn't even last as long as it took to put her cowboy hat back in its rightful place - darn grin couldn't wait. "Yer gonna have to try a lot harder than that to pull a fast one on me, sugarcube."

"Drat~ Foiled again."

"Dingbat." This evoked another flurry of giggles. "Just don't be pullin' that once we get to the refugee center, y'hear? I don't want no one gettin' no wrong ideas or nothin'."

"Like what?"

"Like that yer a dingbat?" Applejack smirked at the next stream of giggles. "Or that ya got sticky fingers er some such."

"I won't, I promise. I'll behave."

"Good." Applejack leaned back in her seat to address the smallest passenger. "Same goes for you, y'hear, Apple Bloom? When we get there, I don't wanna have no one gettin' no funny ideas about what we're like, so just be good and stick close to me, alright?"

Apple Bloom nodded diligently, all attention on her sister instead of her game. "Is there gonna be a buncha people there?"

"Beats me," Applejack said, sitting back in her seat again. "Considerin' they had that message at the evac shelter, I reckon we ain't gonna be the only ones comin' in, so it might be more packed than a dry well after a mud slide, but heck if I know. Gettin' there don't seem like it'd be too easy on foot, unless they're comin' in real local-like."

"Do ya think everyone without a car got eaten by zombies?" Apple Bloom asked, sounding genuinely concerned.

"We didn't, and we only just got this," Fluttershy pointed out, patting the weathered steering wheel. "I bet plenty of other people made it too, even if they didn't get lucky and find a nice van like this."

"I hope so." She didn't say the words, but both Fluttershy and Applejack plainly heard what she meant.

Applejack chose to address it: "I'm sure there'll be plenty of youngin's yer age there to keep you company, sugarcube."

It wasn't heard, but both other passengers knew it by the shift in atmosphere: she didn't want other kids, she wanted her friends. Neither Fluttershy nor Applejack could do much more than share a concerned, if resigned look.

The ride became very quiet again. Fortunately, it wouldn't last much longer; twenty minutes later, the trees parted and a structure came into view in the middle of the field it sat in.

It looked almost like a school building of some sort from the outside, which was helped by the ring of busses parked all around it. The grounds were expansive, at least an acre of land surrounded by a chain link fence that appeared to be missing or broken in many places. Given the wild and unkempt appearance of the grounds, it appeared to have been sitting there unattended for quite some time, though the brick building itself appeared to be holding up much better to the passage of time.

"Here we are," Applejack announced. "Our home away from home."

Fluttershy smiled reflexively on cue, but made certain not to look at Applejack when she did so, who would be able to tell immediately that it wasn't genuine. She didn't want to spoil her friend's cheer when they were so close to what she'd been saying would be the end of their worries for weeks leading up to this, but Fluttershy also couldn't bring herself to deny the sinking feeling she felt the closer they got.

Applejack got more chatty as she started to prepare their things, but Fluttershy was silent, spending all her energy instead on hoping with everything she had that her gut was wrong this time.

Twilight barely recalled her dream. What little she remembered of it involved descending down a seemingly endless series of stairs into some dark structure, fighting all the while. Skeletal eyes full of darkness loomed in every shadow, but no matter how far she chased the voices of her companions, she could not find them.

She awoke to sunlight stabbing her eyes.

Lifting her neck to peer out the window made her strain and groan, more so as she unraveled her body from the ball she had curled up into in her sleep. The bed wasn’t that bad, but she nonetheless felt like she’d slept on a table. The sun was up just enough to have cleared the horizon.

After gathering her senses enough to remember what had happened the day prior (the fever dream that it was, in hindsight), Twilight slid off of the mattress, picking up the letter she had written the night prior with a flash of her horn and folded it up neatly. She wanted an envelope to go with the letter, and so Twilight took this opportunity to look through what little was in this lookout tower. Sadly, she wouldn't find an envelope.

The small dresser had some changes of human clothes tucked in it, but nothing remotely accommodating for a pony. The hoof(foot?)locker at the foot of the bed had a few odds and ends in it. A hammer was there, amidst a few bits of debris and small spare parts. A mostly empty container with a plus on it that she assumed was a first aid kit contained only a box of what looked like adhesive bandages, each wrapped individually. There was also a screwdriver in here, a pair of scissors, and a vaguely cylindrical device about a foot and a half tall and as wide as Twilight's head that she didn't recognize. None of it interested her.

The cupboards here had all manner of cooking utensils in them - knives, forks, spoons, ladles, various other odds and ends - though it had nothing she could currently use, what with the lack of anything edible here. The stove in the center of the room would not prove useful for the same reason, even if it worked.

Twilight's stomach growled, and she smacked her parched lips. She hadn't eaten or drank anything in twenty four hours, and she should really change that. She pondered this momentarily, though it ended up getting swept up and away as she thought on her plans for the day, and the future in general.

Her primary objective remained the same as yesterday: Canterlot was the focus of everything important to her right now, as it was both where her friends were last seen, and also because it was her only way home. It was day 2 of 3. Her window was small, and closing fast.

The issue, of course, was she still had no way to know where Canterlot was. She also wanted to find other humans, preferably ones that were alive, because they seemed like the best source of information about what the buck had happened to this world while she was away. Sadly, she had no idea where those were either, and so far all she had managed to find was a walking corpse. If they had journals like they did in Equestria, that would make this significantly easie-

Twilight midway through a stretch as an idea came to her. Humans don’t have magic journals, but it seems like all of them have phones.

Twilight nudged the door open and peered down over the railing of the viewing platform, searching the ground below. Her eyes quickly pinned down the spot where the ranger had fallen, a spray of dried blood and shriveled tissue marking the impact zone. A meter or so to the right, the earth had been heavily discolored a dark maroon, and a film of something oily glistened with a rainbow sheen as the morning sun glinted across it.

Far more conspicuous, however, was the lack of a body lying there.

“What?” Twilight cast a bewildered gaze across the rest of the area within the chain link fence, and then eyed the fence itself - it was whole and absent of any breaches, just as she’d left it. She quickly began descending flights of stairs, casting increasingly confused gazes at the area the closer to it she got.

As she made it to the second set of stairs from the ground, her query appeared. A corpulent human male stumbled drunkenly from around the other side of an outhouse, their chest split wide open and caked over with what looked like a thick layer of gray congealed grease, as well as copious amounts of blood. It turned as Twilight came into its view, its bottomless black eyes locking onto her, and it began to hobble in her general direction, looking like a stray breeze could knock it from its feet.

Something a bit stiffer than a breeze struck it. A magenta column of energy entered the already open cavity in its chest, emerging out the back in a shower of pasted innards and black bile. It flew back hard, slamming into the chain link fence behind it, and slid to the ground, where it slumped over and fall still, head lolling to one side. The reverberations from its collision caused the chain link fence to ripple and clamor loudly for another several seconds before it fell still again.

Twilight huffed, kneading one temple with a hoof to nurse the dull headache that now afflicted her. Either she didn’t do enough damage the first time to actually put it down, or these undead get back up after a little while. Either way, Twilight was determined to be a bit more thorough this time.

Four more beams rained down on the body, blasting it repeatedly in its already opened torso. The first struck the center, widening the crater out the back, and the other two split open it’s left side, while the fourth beam blew apart the flap of tissue and bone holding its ribs to the remainder of its abdomen. Its now liberated top half leapt into the air a foot or so, then fell back to the ground, landing face-down on its own lap. For a moment, Twilight was reminded of action figures that had been split apart to mirror scenes in violent movies, except the blood was very real, and there were a lot more chunks of meat and shattered bone.

Twilight suddenly felt a wave of nausea come over her, and her need to approach this scene did not help. Maybe she should have searched the body first before she’d…done that to it.

It’s too late now. Every human has a phone, phones mean I can talk to someone. I have to check.

Twilight swallowed the lump in her throat, and continued to descend the stairs to inspect the corpse she had just mangled.

How it had any blood left after last night was a mystery to Twilight, but a non-negligible amount of it leaked out all over the ground in a growing puddle, soaking its pants and legs where the base of its ribs dumped its contents. She tried not to look too closely at it, staying as far back as she could near the base of the tower as she probed at its soiled pants gingerly from about 4 meters away.

It felt so wrong. Twilight cringed at the feedback of contact through her horn - there was no detailed feeling through it, but the expression on Twilight’s face as she went about her macabre business read like she was sorting through a pile of waste for some keys that an animal had passed.

Princess Celestia would be so disappointed in me.

Some part of her knew that thought wasn’t true, but looting a body felt vile enough to her sensibilities that Twilight lost track of that fact.

There was a wallet in the pockets, as well as a stick of gum that had an unpleasant smell to it - ‘nicotine’ was not a flavor of gum she wanted to try - as well as a small rectangular device with a glass screen.

“Bingo,” Twilight breathed. She tried to forget everything she’d just done to get this device and brought it in close so that she might unlock its secrets, thrusting her full focus into it.

It took some fumbling around for about ten to fifteen minutes, but eventually Twilight figured it out. See, if you pushed this button to light the screen up, and then you swiped the screen this way, a bunch of buttons appeared! One of them had a picture like several bullet points, so she pushed that, because lists are good and useful. She was delighted when several names appeared on screen, along with a series of numbers beside them, and a smaller green one below that said ‘call.’

She was less happy with the message that popped up in response to the push, several seconds later:

No signal, call failed

Twilight scowled at this. She tried another name on the list, directly below the previous.

No signal, call failed

The one after that was next, and then the one after that.

No signal, call failed

She went down all eight names on the contact list, including the nine proceeding contacts that had only numbers associated with them rather than names, and all gave the same response.

No signal, call failed

Twilight flung the phone back at the bisected body where it lay against the fence, which bounced off the upper half's shoulder and clattering to the ground. “Why is everything broken?! Would it kill you to have something that works around here?!”

Technically it was me who killed them.

Twilight found her own joke kind of funny for a moment, until she felt incredibly unwell.

The urge to leave as quickly as possible presented itself, and Twilight indulged it. She flapped her wings as hard as she may despite their rigidity till she cleared the fence and left the lookout tower behind.

Twilight continued to follow the road. Rather than walk, however, she flew. She wasn’t confident in her wings’ ability to not cramp up suddenly, so rather than launch herself hundreds of feet up like she wished she could, she remained relatively close to the ground, only flying above the tree line if she felt it was absolutely necessary.

It proved absolutely necessary a lot sooner than she was expecting.

Twilight’s stomach was rather determined to remind her that she had skipped a step in her morning preparations, though Twilight had not immediately dropped back to the ground. She gently swung from side to side along her path through the air, inspecting the forest, till she found exactly what she was looking for and descended upon it.

A small pond sat in a clearing. Twilight dropped in a practiced descent, placing her hooves down softly against the slightly spongey earth. As she stepped up to the water to drink, she continued to gently flex and un-flex her wings, willing away the soreness that stubbornly clung to the joints.

Equestrian water tastes better, she decided quickly. A single large gulp was forced for the sake of making this as quick as possible, and it rewarded her with feeling as though she had swallowed a rock. Tasted about as good as one, too - she strained, and coughed a few times when it did finally go down, though the ache in her windpipe persisted. A lot better.

The thing that burst from the bushes to descend upon her was anything but stealthy, so Twilight had ample warning to turn her head and see what was coming.

Its body looked like a vase, as tall as she was, cylindrical with no handles. Out the bottom spread out a trio of knobby feet that moved with surprising quickness given their size, and out the top a stemlike narrow neck extended, doubling its height over Twilight. Leaves and branches hung out of the space where it’s neck and body met, and at the end of its neck, a pair of jaws like a vertically-shifted red Venus fly trap hung agape, aiming not at her but straight up towards the sky. It was like someone had cast an animation spell at a huge potted plant, which now charged her.

Twilight was surprised, but not nearly surprised enough to give the thing all the time it needed to cross the clearing. A powerful thrust of her wings launched her into the air, and she was well out of range over it when it got to where she had been.

Twilight hovered in place, staring owlishly at what she saw below her. Two more of its ilk emerged from the underbrush to stand beside its fellow as they all gathered directly beneath her, staring longingly and restlessly up at her. They were all identical, but the heads had slight differences. One head was yellow and ended in a bulb-like pair of lips, while the other was like the first, but seemed to have a flower around its neck that almost made it look like it had a collar.

She tried to find words at this scene, but she had none. Twilight gawked a few moments longer before she broke away, setting herself back on course. From that point on she stayed well above the tree line, knowing that apparently not even the plants were immune to whatever insanity had afflicted this world.

I just don’t understand. How did everything get so topsy-turvy so fast? It’s only been a few months! Is this because magic works here now? Why is that even a thing?

Twilight pondered as she flew. There were no answers, only more questions, and those would only frustrate her further.

A sharp pang from one wing brought her back into focus, and she used this opportunity to bring herself earthwards again, trotting from this point on. Had to preserve her wing strength, especially if she was going to have to make a quick getaway from potted plants or whatever the buck was out in these woods.

She didn’t stop to graze, merely plucking the tips of tall grasses that she could safely reach from the road as she went. It barely satisfied her.

Hours passed like this, stride waxing and waning as the fairly out-of-shape Twilight was reminded periodically of her physical condition by the body that didn’t appreciate all this strain. Nothing else had given her hassle in this time, and as Twilight glanced up to see if she had any morning left or if afternoon had happened, she saw the sign up ahead, where the road forked for the first time since she’d started following it yesterday.

WELCOME TO LONGMEADOW

Twilight huffed and puffed, lips dry and throat burning, but a big smile found its way to her face all the same. She trotted quickly towards this new destination, her discomfort forgotten. A town meant humans.

The first building Twilight saw was a sky blue house, a pair of humans loitering in their yard behind a waist-height white fence. As they turned and shuffled from where they stood, the joy filling Twilight’s chest at the sight of them curdled in a heartbeat as she saw them glowering with omnidirectional fury, faces plastered with permanent snarls that almost shone against the blackness filling their mouths. An equal shade of pitch made up their eyes.

The creatures were not observant, or else they would have noticed the lavender equine about fifty meters up the road. As despair began to descend upon Twilight, she cast her gaze further down the road, deeper into what little of this town she could see.

More figures shuffled about in the open. There were four visible now, but there were surely others closed off in their homes, plus a dog that stood in the center of the road with a vacant stare transfixed on nothingness, its ears twitching sporadically at what little sound the shambling corpses around it made.

The streets were clogged with cars in various states of ruin and wreck, even from what little into town she could see from its outermost point. No less than 3 were fused together violently at an intersection. Every house was dark. The air was eerily still; no birds dared to sing. The winds had forsaken this place, and not so much as a stray leaf drew attention to itself.

Twilight wasn’t a fool. She had seen the writing on the wall well before this moment spelled it out for her, but she was still holding out hope that despite all these weird and scary events going on and all the signs that pointed to contrary, life had found a way to move on. She had hoped that some degree of normalcy had persisted despite everything, and that if she just traveled enough and saw for herself, she would find that things were still as she recognized them. She was holding onto that increasingly slim hope that all she had to do was just make it to the city and find her friends, and they’d all hug and have another adventure together and take care of everything before the portal closed, and that she would have a stressful but fun story to regale Princess Celestia with when she made it back home.

The wet streak that trailed down Twilight’s cheek marked the moment that hope died.

It had all been fine. She left this world a few months ago trusting everything would be fine. Her friends, too, trusted that everything would be fine.

But it wasn’t fine. She walked away, and left everyone in this world to face whatever catastrophe had befallen them all on their own. Nobody helped them. People were dead. This entire town was dead. Many other towns were likely dead, too.

Was she blind, back then? Had she missed something that would have alerted her to some kind of clue, some symptom that would become what she saw now, if left unchecked? Was there a way to have kept these people from ever falling, and for them to still be alive, happy, with their families, sleeping soundly in their homes, looking forward to tomorrow as they went about their days?

Could this all have been prevented? Could she have prevented it?

Is this my fault?

Twilight barely heard the window shattering, but barely still counts. Multiple undead heads likewise swiveled towards the noise, and as they surged towards the one among them who had spotted the lone figure staring in quiet horror at the fate of Longmeadow, so too did they locate Twilight, and more windows shattered. A dozen husks of men and women, plus the remains of their pet, ambled towards her with rage painted permanently on their unfeeling faces.

A second tear spilled from Twilight’s eyes, and then a third. Her teeth ground together as her jaw locked. Some nameless viciousness welled up from somewhere dark and deep inside her, and her legs tensed in anticipation, but not to run. Never to run.

A pressure built up sharply as energy surged into her horn, and as the mob converged on her position, Twilight fired.

Fluttershy’s fingers tapped anxiously on the steering wheel, where they remained at the 9'oclock and 3'oclock positions, gaze fixed on the door to the refugee center. Her eyes flicked to the cracked display on the dashboard for the time, and confirmed that it had indeed been over twenty minutes.

A pink bow appeared in Fluttershy's peripheral vision past the front seat divider. "Is she still not back yet?"

"It shouldn't be too long." Fluttershy tried to not sound as nervous as she was. She failed. "It's probably something silly, like, um..."

"Everybody got eaten by zombies."

"N-no, no. No, I don't think that at all, and that's not silly. It's probably something like...um...they're really busy in there from all the people coming in."

Apple Bloom turned her head and gave her a dirty look. "We've been out here starin' at the door for half an hour, Fluttershy. Ain't nobody else's gone in there."

Fluttershy mouthed an incoherent response, gesticulating helplessly before managing, "I don't know. It has to be something."

Apple Bloom turned her gaze forward with a look in her eye that scared Fluttershy. Before she had to think about stopping the younger girl from doing something reckless, the door to the refugee center opened, and Applejack exited the building.

Just by the look on her face, Fluttershy knew that her hopes hadn't been enough.

Clearing the parking lot, the blonde farmer girl made her way back back to the van, with noticeably less enthusiasm than what she left with. She opened up the passenger door, all but fell into the seat, and closed the door.

Nobody asked the question immediately. Applejack didn't wait for them to. "We can’t stay."

Apple Bloom exploded. "WHAT?!"

Applejack didn't repeat herself, simply staring at the dashboard with a vacant gaze.

"They- those- they can't just-"

"Let," Fluttershy asserted sharply, punctuating with a firm hand to Apple Bloom's shoulder. When this kept the smaller girl’s outburst at bay, she continued very gently, "me talk to them."

Apple Bloom’s face screamed a challenge, but eventually she released her steely grip on the two seats and let herself flop into the backseat. She looked ready to start a fight. Her sister, meanwhile, looked like she was going to cry. Fluttershy wasn't standing for either. She keyed the button to pop the trunk open, and stepped out of the van.

She heard Applejack croak from the front, "Don't bother, Flutters."

Fluttershy retrieved her purse from atop the mound of random assortments that had been stacked haphazardly in the trunk, and closed it with a satisfying clunk. She came around to the passenger side door, and hovered there, looking at Applejack through the window. She didn't know what hurt more to see: the pain in her expression, or how utterly defeated she looked. She'd never wanted to see her like this again.

A pale hand took hold of door handle, then pulled it open. Applejack didn't react at first when Fluttershy put her arms around her, or when soft, if unwashed pink hair pushed up against her cheek and shoulder. After several seconds like that, Applejack let her eyes slip closed.

"I'll only be a few minutes," Fluttershy told her softly, just loud enough for her to hear while they were this close. "Don't let Apple Bloom come in after me, okay?"

Applejack nodded wordlessly.

The embrace persisted for a few long, quiet moments longer before Fluttershy gently pulled away, flashing a small, supportive smile to her friend before she closed the door, and walked towards to the refugee center.

She didn't know what she intended to accomplish here. Maybe she didn't want what few people she had left to fall into despair without a fight of her own. Maybe Fluttershy just couldn't accept what she'd been told until she had experienced it for herself.

Both doors to the refugee center were visibly reinforced in a way that made it look almost like it was designed to be that way from a distance. Up close, though, it was just four boards nailed together over a larger wooden panel that was vaguely aesthetically appealing if you didn't look very hard. The small waist-high fence around its perimeter turned out to be barbed wire, and a pair of metal shutters sat behind each of the six windows that overlooked the path leading up to the main entrance, all currently closed and likely barred from the inside. It looked like a brick school building that Fluttershy had once gone to when she was a child, but up close, it looked more like a low-budget but otherwise rather effective fortress.

The door seemed to be unlocked when Applejack had used it, so she turned the knob, and the door opened easily. Unlike every other building Fluttershy had entered over the past two months, the ceiling lights here worked. There didn't seem to be heat, though, and Fluttershy didn't remove her jacket.

The lobby was about eight meters wide and twice as long in a rough oval, with a set of double doors leading deeper into the center. Six benches were positioned out on either side of the room, three each, the longest ends of the room ending in a window, like the sort you might find at a post office, except this glass was probably reinforced. Four haggard and sickly-looking people sat among the benches, each seated far apart from each other, a few worn blankets scattered around. A man in a dinosaur suit sat in an oversized carboard box beside one of the benches, his mutterings incoherent behind the suit's zipped-up head. Everyone seemed to be doing their best to ignore him.

A man and a woman flanked the door leading further into the center. Each had a handgun in a holster at their hip, one hand resting on it. Fluttershy hesitated when they returned her look, and she was about to approach them when a waving arm from one of the windows caught her gaze. A man with a trench coat and felt plaid hat sat behind a desk on the other side of the glass divider, and Fluttershy approached him as he flashed a customer service-grade smile behind an untrimmed black mustache. She didn't smile back.

"Excuse me," she said softly. "Um, my friend just came in here a few moments ago...she said that you'd refused her entry to the shelter?"

"I did." His voice wasn't harsh, but the firmness in it suggested little room for argument. "And yes, that goes for you too, because we are very over capacity right now. We don't have the room, or the food, to take on anyone else." His voice softened a bit as he continued, "But we're always looking to trade, and I'm the one in charge of supplies. You can call me Gavin, or Smokes, if you like. If you need tools, we're selling, and if you've got food, we're very much buying."

Fluttershy swallowed a little bit - the way his expression shifted back to hard again betrayed how he could tell she wasn't done trying yet. Fluttershy felt the will to fight and argue slipping away rapidly, and by the time she opened her mouth, all that she could manage was a soft, sincere plea. "Please, mister Smokes," she almost whispered. "We have a little girl with us, she's only ten...she lost almost all her family right in front of her. We aren’t from around here, we don’t know where anything is. We don't have anywhere else to go."

"I'm sorry, but no is no." Smokes' voice sounded hard at first, but as he looked at Fluttershy's tired face and saw what he did in those big, sad eyes, something gave, and humanity bled back into his expression and voice. "Look...I am really sorry, and I wish that I could help you. I do. But right now, those of us here can barely help ourselves. We're struggling to make ends meet as-is, and if we go taking on anyone else, people are going to start to starve, and we can't have that. We simply can't take anyone else. We're not equipped to let anyone else in, no matter what they may have gone through or how young or old they are. If it’s a mouth to feed, we can’t have them. I’m sorry.”

Fluttershy's gaze sank silently to the counter. A sense of heaviness slowly started to descend over her, resting across her shoulders like a cloak.

After a few seconds of silence, Smokes continued. "...but we've already got some folk who hang out in this hall here." He gestured to the few who squatted here behind her. "We can't provide for you, but if you need shelter or somewhere to hide your head, it's not exactly a luxury hotel here, but it beats getting rained on outside. If you needed somewhere safe for your girl to stay, we have armed guards who are stationed out here at all hours."

Fluttershy swallowed the lump in her throat, and tried to not be so quiet that she was inaudible when she found her voice: "I'll tell my friend about it. We have to figure out what to do next..."

The man didn't say anything in response. When Fluttershy looked up at him, she could see the remorse in his eyes was genuine. She wasn't the first of such cases he'd likely had to turn away. She probably wouldn't be the last. She felt sad, and hopeless, but she couldn't imagine what it must be like to deliver the same bad news to people even more sad and hopeless than she was. It had to hurt him to tell her all this...

"...maybe there's something else that you could help me with."

"I might. What's up?" Smokes leaned in, listening through the speaking port in the glass between them. His namesake could be faintly smelled on him at this proximity.

"We've been trying to find our friends after the..." Fluttershy hesitated as she tried to find the words she intended, but she saw that she was understood, and moved on. "We were hoping that maybe they managed to get here before us, and that they're in there somewhere with you. Can you help us find them?"

"I can certainly try." Smokes reached out of sight for a moment and pulled out a note pad, which he put a pen to. "Who're you looking for?"

"There's a bunch of them...um...Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Sunset Shimmer..."

Smokes scribbled down each name as Fluttershy listed out everyone they had lost contact with. At some point he paused and examined the list, and Fluttershy realized he was smiling. "Canterlot?"

"Yeah." Fluttershy returned a small, slightly sheepish smile. "Easy to tell?"

"Very," he chuckled. "The pink hair was a clue, too. Curious folk in that city, but it's hard not to admire the way they hold onto their cultural identity. Sorry, go on." He put his pen to the paper, awaiting her to continue. When she had run out of names to offer, he asked, "And what's your name?"

"Um...I'm Fluttershy. My friend that came in here was Applejack, and her little sister is Apple Bloom."

Three more names made it to the list to the side, and Smokes jammed the butt of the pen against the desk to retract the tip. "I don't recognize these names myself, but that doesn't mean they're not here. I'll try to get a show of hands when I get a chance, and point them your way if they answer. Check in regularly is my advice. We get a lot of folk coming and going, with lots of scavengers and hunters making plenty of return trips, plus whoever else shows up out of the blue. Even if we don't have any of these friends of yours here, they might still show up, so don't lose hope."

"Okay." Fluttershy she tried to offer a smile in exchange for the one that was offered to her. She found it easier than before. "And...um, it's okay to still visit, right?"

"Anytime. Just don't cause any trouble and clean up after yourself, and you can come and go as you please. Same goes for any of your friends."

"Okay..." Fluttershy was quiet for a few seconds, visibly considering what to say next before she eventually said it. "Um...I should probably get goi- oh! Um, I almost forgot, um- mister Smokes, do you have a spare charger cord, for um, for in a car?"

"Oh, plenty." The man vanished beneath the counter for a few seconds, and retrieved with a hand filled with a bouquet of various colors of insulated wires, each tipped with a standardized UPS connector. He plucked one out of the bundle, confirmed that it had an end appropriate for the request, and slid it forward beneath the gap in the glass. "Go ahead and just take that one, we don't need a trade for it."

Fluttershy's eyes shot open wide, and she nearly tripped over her own tongue as she stammered, "A-are you sure? I don't want to get you in trouble or anything, I-I can- I have some things, I can exchange for it, it's no trouble..."

Smokes waved the matter off with a smile. "Consider it an apology for having to send you away. Just this once, though..." He leaned in a bit closer and sad in a quieter voice, "And uh, don't tell anyone. I don't need anyone trying to guilt me for freebies." He winked.

A smile warm enough to heat this whole room spread itself across Fluttershy's lips. It was a small gift, but its worth transcended its material value. "Thank you so much, mister Smokes."

Smokes returned a smile of his own, this one much more genuine. "Be safe out there."

As Fluttershy stepped out of the refugee center, her spirits soared higher than they had in months.

She was not much better off than she was before, only a single piece of wire more to her name, and Fluttershy still did not know whether she would ever see any of her friends ever again. She still had no proper home, and the three of them were going to have to provide for themselves for the foreseeable future in a world that was more hostile than it ever had been, and in ways that it never had been. The days ahead were going to be dark indeed, and the darkest may not have even come yet.

But today, it had been revealed that of the blessed few things to survive the cataclysm, kindness was among them, and that alone was enough to give Fluttershy reason to smile.

Chapter 4

Twilight’s previous assessment of Longmeadow being a town was overly generous; barely a hundred people must have lived here at one point. It was perhaps one of the few comforts that the fifty or so mangled bodies provided, out where they lay strewn through streets in the remains of the war zone she’d left behind. There had been survivors.

I hope they made it to safety, Twilight found herself thinking, before she ripped her gaze from the window of the house she had commandeered. There was too much to do to be thinking about that.

The house she had selected was chosen with a few things in mind. Namely, it had a lot of windows aligned to the east and west of the living room and dining room, in addition to a skylight for noontime, providing excellent lighting throughout the day no matter where the sun was, seeing as the interior lighting wouldn’t be helping her. The second was the pond in the now untamed yard, which meant minimal travel distance if Twilight ever wanted to eat or drink. The more time she could spend with her work uninterrupted, the better.

Most of the things in the houses she had found were of no use to her. Tools of various shapes and sizes, assorted clothes that could never suit her anatomy, food of questionable edible states in the long-dark fridges, various odds and ends that she couldn’t recognize…there was not much she could actually salvage from these homes, and the handful of businesses were not much better. Most everything that hadn't been nailed down had been looted already, and a few things that were nailed down looked like someone'd had a swing at fixing that. It took most of an afternoon to loot an entire village of everything that meant anything to Twilight, which was quite disappointing.

Though that wasn’t to say that Twilight hadn’t found anything useful. Far from it.

A small black device sat on the table in front of Twilight, illuminated by a citrine-tinged sun where it filtered in past open curtains. A single antenna stood at attention, and as the dial on its base turned back and forth, the magenta glow moving it fractions of a hair’s width at a time, subtle changes in the audio crackling and popping from its central speaker could be faintly heard.

To her left, a pile of books had been assembled. She’d found a plethora of books that would have excited her at any other, less dire time, but chief among the ones she had found were a pair that had been retrieved from the basement of someone whose special interest seemed to be old arcade machines, which now sat separate from the rest for ease of access. Their titles read, "Electronic Circuit Theory" and "Ham Radio For Enthusiasts." This "radio" was discovered down there as well.

She hadn’t had to read very far into it to identify its potential uses. There were a few tools that Twilight had confidence she could binge-study her way to understanding, experimentation being able to fill in the gaps where the books themselves didn't spell it all out to her (How hard could a soldering iron be, after all?), but there was one issue: she had to actually find others out there broadcasting for her to listen to before any follow-up could even be considered.

Twilight listened for hours with laser-intense focus, checking every possible frequency she could and starting a detailed catalogue of anything that could vaguely resemble voices, or conveyed anything at all that wasn’t random noise.

Almost everything was automated, she'd found. There were several different weather services, which diligently reported the date, weather, and expected forecast for the rest of the week to an audience that had long since stopped listening. A few random frequencies appeared to be broadcasting, but the only way Twilight knew that they even existed was because the static cut out, utter silence filling in where the station sat barren, somehow still powered, wherever they were. A handful had the perpetually looping sound of an emergency broadcast informing her that a biological attack had been carried out, that this was in fact not a test, and to evacuate her presumed home for a pre-designated safe location that it failed to elaborate on.

"Sure, let me get right on that," Twilight had snarked. The message then looped, which she chose to interpret as defiance. She responded in kind by twisting the dial, banishing its message to the static dimension.

Twilight worked at this well into the night, where own own illumination became necessary, only being stopped by the frustrating need to repeatedly re-ignite her horn when it suddenly sputtered out. She let it die a third time, from then on resigning to ignite it only when she found something that she needed to see to write down, seeing as it wouldn't last much longer than that anyway. When she did light her horn again, she felt a stab of pain - she hissed and grabbed her forehead with one hoof, the pen slipping from her lips and clattering to the floor, much to her vexation.

Twilight hadn’t had this much persistent trouble with her magic since she was still trying to master the fundamentals of the field that had since stolen a space on her flank when she was small, along with a place in her heart. Headaches plagued her constantly the more she used her magic, and anything that took more than a moment to see it’s effects completed turned unreliable in any semblance of the long-term. She’d yet to get this simple light spell to last longer than ten minutes, when it was supposed to last hours.

Magic might work in the human world now, but apparently it didn’t work especially well. It thus struck Twilight as strange that she was having so much trouble with her own magic while hordes of undead were able to freely roam the streets for indeterminate periods of time, not to mention whatever else was out there being made odd and uncanny by magic. Every spell, no matter how strong the magic involved, had some element of impermanence about it. Things didn’t just become different; it’s previous state was remembered by the world itself, and all the spell did was temporarily overlay that state by however much or little the spell called for. Even complete and total changes caused by polymorph or transformation spells would be completely undone the moment the effect was no longer being actively maintained, or was somehow disrupted.

In that way, animating an undead was no different from making the air brighter than it actually was; animation was being applied to a corpse via the spell, alongside some level of base intelligence. Yet despite how her light kept cutting out, Twilight hadn’t seen a single inanimate body lying on any of the streets or in any structure in all of Longmeadow indicating where the animation spell had failed and the body had resumed being a body.

Why weren’t the undead randomly snuffing out like her light was? Clearly magic wasn’t reliable, and raising the dead was no simple matter; if anything she'd expect that to fail more or less immediately, given the complexity and how much could break if magic acted poorly. Why did these zombies work so much better than even the most basic of utilities she could conjure up?

It was a puzzle indeed, the sort that Twilight enjoyed digging her teeth into and getting to the bottom of. It was almost painful for her to admit that she simply did not have the time to indulge in such mysteries when there were so much more important things at stake than her sated curiosity.

Twilight roused from her thoughts to see a faint bluish-white glow barely illuminating the radio she continued to fiddle with. She cast her gaze upwards, through the skylight above where she sat. The full moon had patiently been inching its way through the sky until it found the angle that it needed to faithfully keep her company. Twilight smiled a little as she thought of Luna watching over her, though it faded just as quickly. Luna couldn't see her out here.

Day two was coming to a close. Day three wouldn’t be far behind, and with it, her chance to get home before another month had to pass. She was running out of time, and fast.

Twilight expected to be distressed by this, and indeed, it did cause a pang of worry to go through her, but the more she thought about it, the more naively optimistic that prospect seemed. Canterlot wasn’t close enough to even see, and she hadn’t found a single map containing the information that she needed in this whole village. What hope did she have of getting to the portal in the time she had at this point?

Besides, even if she was right on top of the portal, she couldn’t just leave. Not until she found her friends, and made sure - this time, beyond any possibility of doubt - that they would be safe.

A sigh escaped her lips as Twilight came to terms with the fact that she was stuck here, and likely would be for quite some time. All because I was careless...

Twilight didn’t remember falling asleep, but she jerked awake suddenly, nearly falling from her seat. A loud blaring noise was coming from the next room, deafeningly loud in the silence of the early morning, and for a moment Twilight was disoriented and confused when she did not recognize her surroundings. The amnesia passed, and Twilight rubbed her forehead, which bore a particularly sore, flat spot.

Spike had lost a lot of sleep a few nights ago so that she wouldn’t keep doing this - a thought which brought a pang of guilt. Sorry Spike. It’s an emergency. Lives are on the line.

Twilight stiffly abandoned the kitchen chair to silence the morning noisemaker in the next room by ripping out its batteries, then slipped outside to have some breakfast. It wasn’t great eating, grass, but it would keep her alive, and at the moment that’s all she could hope for.

Twilight took only as much time that she needed to stretch and work out the worst of the stiffness before she made her way back inside. It was a beautiful day out, but sadly, sunlight would have to reschedule if it wanted to be enjoyed. Books were being opened, and Twilight Sparkle had just started writing a list.

If this world didn’t know what that meant, in a few hours, it was about to.

GASP- "Rarity, look! Cows!"

...the blade of the shovel in the designer's hands met the earth with a dull chnk, and Rarity pinched the bridge of her nose, heart hammering. Her fury was vast, endless, UNIMAGINABLE, and yet she breathed in slowly, and managed to only slightly murderously mutter, "Yes...cows. Lovely."

Sweetie Belle was pressed up against the fence surrounding this small plot of land, pale green eyes as wide as saucers, blissfully (or pointedly) unaware of how dangerous a game she was playing by startling her sister while she was holding the exact tool needed to hide a body. "Look, there's a bunch of them! They're in their cow house there!"

When Rarity had found her happy place again and booked a space for herself in it, she sucked in a breath, opened her eyes, and dared to follow her younger sibling's finger, where it pointed ahead at one of three structures on this plot. Sure enough, one of them had several large black and white masses inside, though truthfully, Rarity had known they were coming up on a pasture of some kind long before they saw this place off the side of the road. The smell was not flattering, and didn't get any better the closer they got.

"It's not a 'cow house,' Sweetie, it's-"

"What's in there?" The finger moved, and now pointed at the middle structure. "Is that the cow house?"

"Darling, this is a dairy farm. That's probably where they do the milking. Now, would you come-"

"Can I pet the cows?"

"-come over h- NO!" Abject horror overrode everything else Rarity had to say. "They are filthy livestock animals! Can't you smell that?!"

Sweetie Belle's head swiveled toward her sister, blinking once, then squinting at her conspiratorially. "You said this is a dairy farm, so they're milk cows, not livestock."

"Whatever!" Rarity threw up her hands, and then occupied the one not gripping a shovel with the arm of her sibling, whom she began to drag around to the other side of the property towards the entrance through the fence. "We're not rubbing our hands against filthy, disgusting animals that roll around in their own filth all day!"

The outrage in Sweet Belle's voice was nearly as sharp as her voice crack: "Cows are NICE! Be nice to them!"

"They aren't pets, Sweetie Belle! Now stand right there," Rarity planted Sweetie directly in full view of the dairy house, "and keep a lookout. I'm going to see if there's anything good in this place here."

Sweetie whined loudly. "Why can't I go in?"

"Because," Rarity explained, in a way that barely disguised how this was the tenth time she must have explained this exact thing, "if something is in there, I don't want them doing any taste tests on the delicious, tender little girl blundering her way into its arms."

"I won't blunder!" Sweetie snapped, stomping her feet against the pavement. "And I'm not delicious!"

"Well that's a theory we're just going to have to leave untested. Now I mean it, wait right there, I'll only be a minute." Rarity turned and stepped towards the dairy house, pretending she didn't hear Sweetie start to count the seconds as she did.

Insufferable child...

Rarity walked the perimeter of the building, testing every window. None of them gave. She came around and tested the door, and it also was locked. Fortunately, Rarity had ample time to peer into this small structure, and confirmed that there did not seem to be anything inside of it.

Thus, with no other way to enter, Rarity raised her shovel and prepared to do a most unladylike thing, though before she did, she called out: "Breaking!" Then she shattered the window.

Sweetie peeked her head around the edge of the building from where she was placed in front of the property, fingers displaying some number that included a nine. "You didn't knock." All the fingers dropped, and she started counting up again, second by second. "It's rude not to knock."

"Well there's not much point in it," Rarity retorted, stabbing out jagged bits of glass with the shovel's blade. "No one is home, so all I'd really accomplish would be standing there looking silly."

"You always look silly."

Rarity pointedly ignored this comment. After being certain that she wasn't going to slice her bare legs open in the process, she vaulted up through the window and inside the house, glass crunching beneath her shoes as she landed. Out of sight of her sibling, Rarity very briefly glancing at herself in the reflection of what glass remained to ensure that her comment was a farce. Just adjust the springy, coily bangs a tiny bit, back into alignment...perfect. With a happy sigh, she resumed her search. The world ending was absolutely no excuse not to look your best.

The dairy farmer that lived here was of the 'modest' variety, decidedly, and there was little here that interested Rarity as she skimmed it over. It was a tiny house, barely large enough for one, and not particularly well-furnished, nor well-stocked. The most interesting thing Rarity found was a pair of cans of beans in the pint-sized kitchen, as well as a box of toaster pastries that was still sealed. She tucked them all in her bag, sneaking the last one in a space she felt her sister would be least likely to spot if she ever snooped. That would be a nice surprise later...

Rarity gave the rest of the place a terse once-over, but was otherwise content to depart only a minute or two after she had entered. She unlocked the front door, stepped out through it, and closed it behind her. She then proceeded to nearly have a stroke right then and there at what she saw. "SWEETIE BELLE!"

Said girl was in the middle of the field, most definitely not where she had been left, and had her hands outstretched to a cow that had wandered out to investigate the visitor, towering over the small girl and leaning in towards her. Rarity raced over, but could do little more than watch the massive bovine's pink, rounded tongue roll out and lap repeatedly against Sweetie's hands, who shrieked and laughed in delight. "Eeeewwww!"

"SWEETIE BELLE, WHAT ON EARTH DO YOU TH-"

Sweetie whipped around before her elder sister could grab her. She splayed her fingers with malicious intent, causing strands of gooey slime to spread between them like webbing, causing Rarity to rear back like she'd been struck. "One more step and your mascara gets it!"

"I thought I told you to STAY OVER THERE!" Rarity shrieked, but most definitely did not get one step closer.

"I waited one minute, just like you said! Then you said there was nothing there, so I-" A pink tongue interrupted Sweetie Belle as it gently slapped her aside the head, going up the length of her cheek and flipping her pink, now slick hair back, amidst more screaming laughter. "EEEeeewwWWww!"

Rarity looked as though she was going to faint. Sweetie looked like she was having the time of her life. The cow looked pretty confident that Sweetie was delicious.

Rarity had seen a lot of horrific things in this apocalypse, but her sister's literal cowlick had officially topped the list.

Damage control was of the UTMOST importance, so while she was loathe to do anything for her incredibly uncouth and nasty little sister, Rarity had no choice but to unveil the box of strawberry toast-ems as a bribe for her unconditional cooperation. As she was thoroughly toweled down and had her hair done, redone, and triple-redone while she filled her face full of junk food, Sweetie Belle beamed ear to ear like someone who had just won the lottery.

Awful child. Awful child, Rarity thought vehemently, desperately undoing what had been wrought with a comb. Note to self: chain her to a tree next time.

After an incredibly thorough combing, Rarity relented her assault on this crime against hair. "That will have to do..." She put her comb away, and snatched up the half-empty box of toast-ems before Sweetie Belle could feast any further. "Now come on, I've had just about enough of this place. And no more funny business, do you understand me? None! We are leaving."

Sweetie felt like she'd won in just about every way she could have, so she was content to take her sister's hand and be pulled away from the dairy farm, though not before turning and waving goodbye to the cows she had decided she'd befriended. She knew they couldn't wave back, but she decided they did, just in case Rarity ever asked. She didn't ask.

The two continued their trip down the road in relative silence after that. For a while, Rarity kept a firm grasp on Sweetie's hand, but as her fury at the girl ebbed, so too did her grip, and she allowed Sweetie to eventually slip free and skip around the area, so long as she remained close. Sweetie kept vigil as she insisted on always doing, peering out across the field that expanded around them like she was looking for a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. Rarity was just happy to put the stink of manure behind them.

They both saw it at the same time, but Sweetie nonetheless insisted on calling out and reading the sign ahead where it stood beside the road, the outline of a settlement in the distance. "'One and a half miles: Eust... Eu...'" She squinted, waiting for them to step up closer, then arched one eyebrow incredulously. "Eustis?"

Rarity blinked. She pulled out a small local roadmap, unfolding it and snapping it open. A brief little bit of searching...followed by an incredibly confused expression at the name that was indeed spelled right. "That is what they named their town?"

"That's dumb!" Sweetie giggled and laughed, prancing laps around her sister. "That's an old guy's name, not a town name!"

"That...that's what it says," replied a befuddled Rarity. After a few moments of confusion, she huffed, then put the map away where she had unpacked it. "Regardless, I'm not feeling like going through a town right now, especially not one called Eustis of all things. It's probably some backwater place anyway." She tugged her sister by the shoulder, taking her towards the south, where the road branched off and strayed towards the tree line. "Come, let's go this way instead."

Sweetie continued to laugh as she was pulled along, though it suddenly stopped. "Rarity."

Rarity paused and looked, and followed Sweetie's finger. Tucked against some trees, barely visible at first, a small, broken down shack lay crumbling under the weight of time. Out of it, a figure appeared, and as they watched, it moved in a straight line towards the two of them. Its wobbly, unsteady gait betrayed its undead nature.

"Start walking," Rarity said, tone firm but otherwise relaxed. They both began to do this very thing, pace brisk but still sustainable for the one with much shorter legs between them. "They can't keep up if we move like this, so just treat them like an annoying boy: walk away and wait for them to get the hint.”

Silence dominated the air, much more tense than prior. Sweetie kept glancing back, pressing up close to her sibling. Meanwhile Rarity remained quite calm. It was a simple strategy, but it had worked many times before. Turns out, the best way to survive a zombie apocalypse was simply to power walk in the opposite direction until your short-sighted pursuers inevitably lost sight of you.

Unless, of course, it was one of those undead that were faster than their kin, but there weren't many of those compared to your bog-standard shuffler, and what were the odds of this one being one of those?

"Rarity, it’s getting closer."

Fuck.

Rarity flashed a look over her shoulder, and was alarmed to see the undead had gained significant ground on them. Their pace picked up sharply, Sweetie Belle having to break into a light run to keep up, and continual glances over her shoulder at their pursuer lead to the horrific realization that this thing was not only keeping pace, but steadily gaining on them. The cadaver's arms pumped as it unevenly jogged - yes, jogged - after them, and the closer it got, the more its features stood out. It was a woman in life, blonde hair tied back, eyes like pits of coal, teeth almost glowing against her void of a mouth. She was topless, breasts looking almost painted on as they had grown stiff and unresponsive, though they seemed to be about the only part of the corpse that remembered it was supposed to be dead. The shorts looked like the sort that you'd see on someone who went out for a morning jog, like what she was doing right this moment, but with murderous intent.

"Oh of course you're on the zombie track team." Rarity rolled her shoulder and flung her purse aside, turning around to face their pursuer. "Sweetie, stay behind me!"

"NonONo, we have to go!"

"No point, we'll tire and it won't! Stay behind me!"

Another response came, but the zombie runner arrived at its destination first. Just before it did, a shovel cut through the air, finding the side of the runner's head with a satisfying twung. That would have dropped most anyone, were they alive. Sadly, this being was no longer alive.

Rarity was nearly steamrolled in the collision that came immediately after. The zombie grabbed hold her the clothing around her stomach, and as Rarity beat it back with the handle of the shovel, it held on tight, and then twisted the skin beneath. Rarity shrieked as she tore away, breaking the grasp and lashing out with the tool in her hands, catching it a second time aside its head. Its skull was slightly caved in now, its right eye sagging nearly half an inch further into its face than it should have, but it didn't even react to the injury.

It barreled down on her once again while Rarity was recovering from the swing with the bulky tool, jumping slightly as it lashed at her with every limb - its feet had shoes on them, and they both skinned Rarity's leg, accidentally kicking it out from beneath her with the force, and before she knew what was happening, she was down.

Everything was a blur- Rarity was rolling across the ground, heart hammering in her ears so loud she could barely hear Sweetie Belle's screaming. Rarity lashed out wildly at the mostly nude figure as she rolled onto her back- too wildly, she realized, as the weapon missed the undead over her, and kept going, pulling itself out of her hands. The thing dove on top of her, knees first, earning an "OOF" as the breath was forcefully expelled from Rarity's lungs.

Blows rained down, striking her everywhere. A punch got her in the ear, which felt like it had been lit ablaze, and Rarity threw up her arms over her head, which took some blows, but the blazer she wore did little to cushion the force of the strikes. Rarity thrashed and kicked as she tried to get out from beneath the zombie, but it had her pinned down, and she felt one of her arms being wrenched free from where it was covering her. She lashed out violently with that fist, catching it right in the teeth, but it just opened its mouth and-

There was a sickening crack, and the topless zombie's back arched in a U shape. It dropped like a lead weight, directly onto the shovel that had been embedded into the middle of its spine like an axe. Sweetie Belle stumbled away, ducking and shrieking as swiping claws lashed out at her face from the ground. Though it continued to claw wildly and scramble at who was now closer to it by its own perspective, it was unable to do much more than drag itself inch by inch across the pavement, the body's bare stomach and breasts being ripped open by the asphalt below. Its lower body no longer seemed to respond to its desire to kill, and its legs dragged behind it uselessly.

One foot planted itself firmly in the center of the crawling zombie's back- it immediately contorted and lashed out at the source of the contact, but the shovel being ripped from its back caused it to spasm uncontrollably. By the time it recovered, the flat of the shovel came down against its head, hard, splitting the skull like an egg. Red-gray fluid sprayed out from where the zombie's head and blacktop met, causing it to fall suddenly still. The second, third, and fourth subsequent blows each sent out larger and larger sprays of chunky red-gray paste from its rapidly deflating head till it was nearly flat, the strikes hard enough to have bent the curve of the shovel's head the other way.

As quickly as it started, the fight ended.

Brains and blood speckled the end of the shovel that Rarity let slip from her fingers, clattering to the street.

Rarity was shaking from head to toe, both from pain and adrenaline. The right side of her head felt like it was on fire. Something hot rolled down her arm, and she glanced down and saw blood drip onto the street. Her right leg was torn open, and red likewise trickled from the spots where her skin split open, greasy gray ooze smeared around every injury. She had to force herself to breathe, barely able to do so where the wind had been knocked out of her, and her chest ached where her ribs met her abdomen. She felt many smaller aches across her arms and torso, and her side burned where she had crashed to the pavement, skinned slightly beneath her clothes from the rough pavement.

"Sweetie," someone said. It took several seconds for Rarity to recognize her own voice. "Are you okay?"

She looked utterly terrified, and pale as a sheet, but Sweetie nonetheless nodded rapidly.

"G-" Rarity started forward, and nearly collapsed to the ground from the lightning that shot up her wounded leg, nearly crashing down atop the felled zombie. She let herself go down in a controlled descent, shoving herself a good distance from their latest kill. "Bag- my bag."

Sweetie was off like a bullet, and back just as soon. Things were going flying from the bag as it was hastily torn through, seeking any kind of medical supplies. They didn't have much, and as it turned out, they had even less than they thought; Rarity winced as she watched a handful of bandaids spilled out onto the street where she had expected there to be a roll of gauze. She hadn't exactly had an artery ruptured or anything, but even still, this was not going to cut it.

"How dreadfully inconvenient." Rarity tsk'd loftily and pulled a sheet of cloth she had intended to use for clothing repair. Bits were carved free with a quick series of snips from a pair of scissors, one for each place she was bleeding. She tried very hard not to scream when the fabric touched her leg, squeezing the wound in an iron grip in response to the pain that momentarily made her see stars. "Sweehggh-" she wheezed, then cleared her throat and tried again, a bit clearer, much calmer. Sounding like everything was normal. "Sweetie, are you hurt at all?"

Sweetie shook her head as rapidly as last time. Her pupils were pinpricks, and she had a striking resemblance to a hare staring down oncoming traffic as she looked at her bloodied sister.

"Come closer, darling. Let me see."

She obliged, and Rarity put her non-bloody hand to her cheek, trying to repress the way it shook. Gently she ran the hand down to her chin, turning the girl's head from side to side, inspecting it...indeed, flawless. The swipe had missed completely. There was a raw spot on her arm, but that appeared to be where she had landed on the road, scrambling to get away from the zombie, as opposed to anything it did directly.

"You did a good job," Rarity told her, voice measured and even. "I would be a lot worse off if you hadn't helped me, and it was very brave that you did that. I'm proud of you."

A beat.

"And most importantly, you didn't let that fiend mess up your hair again! Getting that gunk they're always coated in from your hair would be an absolute nightmare. Thank goodness it never came to that."

Sweetie swallowed the rock in her throat, and though her voice broke profusely from its quavering, she managed to squeak, "Th- that's what r- eally ma- atters r- ight?"

"Precisely, darling." Rarity pulled her sister over closer and gave her as tight a one-armed hug as she could manage. "Precisely."

The two held each other for several minutes in silence. Rarity continued to apply pressure to her bleeding wounds, but would not sacrifice the hug of her little sister to do so.

It took some time to get all the bleeding to stop. She hadn't lost a ton of blood, but it was more than Rarity had ever been bled for before, unless you counted actual blood donations, which this definitely did not count as. String was retrieved from the pile of loot on the street, which tied the red-dyed bits of cloth in place on her leg. Her arm wasn't that bad, just a lucky lucky scratch amidst all the punching that drew blood. That was fine. Her ear was most definitely split open, and she couldn't really tie that rag in place. She'd have to hold it there.

Rarity cast a wry glare towards the corpse on the street across from her, head looking like it had been run over by a car. I can't believe I got the shit kicked out of me by a woman in booty shorts.

"I s-saw," Sweetie eventually started, "a-a...ahead, there's a building." She pointed, and Rarity had to squint to see what she was talking about. It was white, and barely visible down the road, tucked behind some forest. "Let's g...go, in there."

"So long as it's not occupied, that would be a good idea...I don't much fancy running into more company like this." Rarity began to re-assemble their belongings, tossing it back into her purse. Once everything had been collected again, she made motion to rise. "...darling, could you help me up? This leg isn't the best for this right now."

Sweetie did so, without pause. She pushed up against Rarity’s side every other step to help her hobble along, too, as they made their way over to this building, dragging the bloodied, misshapen shovel behind them to the tune of metal scraping against asphalt.

The building in question was a relatively small one that looked almost like a tiny warehouse, its walls incredibly plain and nondescript. It had double doors at every side of it, each flanked by a pair of windows, which made it look even more cookie-cutter and seemingly as deliberately boring as possible to observers, either due to a complete lack of imagination or as some brilliant plan to make it look as un-appealing to looters as possible. So many windows made it easy to see in the shaded interior lined with simple, impressively uncomfortable-looking benches, and a few cautious laps around the perimeter confirmed that it appeared to be unoccupied. Outside of what appeared to be the front door, and sign was nailed to the wall which read: 'Emergency Shelter 65143'.

Rarity had a feeling that the evacuation shelters would look something like this, but had never actually seen one herself. Even knowing that they were dime-a-dozen, made as cheaply as humanly possible, and were entirely for show, Rarity still managed to be disappointed by how crappy this building was the longer she inspected it. It wasn't on high ground, so it couldn't pass as a flood shelter. The doors were wooden and didn't seal air-tight, the windows were standard windows with no shutters and probably also weren't air-tight, so it was no use in a gas or biological attacks...there were lockers and such in them, half of them were empty, and she didn't spot a single gas mask anywhere she poked her head in, which just reinforced the last point. It didn't even have any internal power source, save for the computer in the back of the room that glowed dimly with a green emergency message plastered on it.

Worst of all, it was ugly. Plain white drywall, really? And black and white tiles in the basement? What was the design supposed to capture, that cubicle feel combined with the authentic 'ran out of funds to floor the kitchen and had to empty the clearance bin' experience? Rarity hoped whoever designed this place was the first to have their brains extracted by the undead, it was absolutely hideous.

Sweetie Belle quickly helped herself to one of the lockers, and retrieved a piece of paper, which she immediately began to read from. "'Welcome to your emergency shelter. We hope your stay will be short and comfortable. Provided are an emergency blanket, high-visibility jacket, gas mask, and food and water for one day.'" There was the sound of a metal hinge squeaking slightly. "...I don't see any food or water. Or a jacket. Or a blanket."

"Or a gas mask," Rarity said disdainfully, as she closed one locker firmly. There were some blankets and jackets scattered around, but not in the evenly distributed way that seemed to be implied.

"I think these guys were lying when they printed this sheet.”

"Always possible, darling," Rarity said, absently, as she continued to limp around, searching for anything that might be potentially useful. The stairs down were proving to be quite an obstacle, but she, gingerly, staggered her way down, gripping the railing like a lifeline.

Sweetie Belle, meanwhile, continued to wrinkle her nose up at this piece of paper, fixating on any little thing she could, rather than the terror she was still feeling the lingering effects of. Her eyes caught the light in the corner, and she shuffled her way up to the computer terminal there, leaning up past the keyboard to view the screen.

GREETINGS, CITIZEN. A BIOLOGICAL ATTACK HAS TAKEN PLACE AND A STATE OF EMERGENCY HAS BEEN DECLARED. EMERGENCY PERSONNEL WILL BE AIDING YOU SHORTLY.

"Rarity, the computer says that emergency personnel will be aiding you shortly!"

Distantly, across the building: "I doubt that very much, darling."

Sweetie put on a scowl, the kind of dirty scowl that she saved for people and computer screens that lied. Sweetie raised one hand up, and slammed it on the keyboard with a declaration of, "You are GUILTY of lies!"

The computer bleeped very loudly, and Sweetie fell backwards onto her butt in surprise. She scrambled away to hide behind a bench in case of an explosion. The computer did not explode, however her sibling called back: "Sweetie, what was that?"

"Nothing! It's fine!" Sweetie hastily ran over to wherever her sister was, eager to draw attention away from the unfamiliar text scrolling across the computer's screen that she absolutely had nothing to do with, nope, not her. "Here, let me help!"

"I'd actually appreciate that very much, darling, thank you..." She was aware her sister was acting incredibly guilty of something, but in this precise moment, Rarity did not much care.

Meanwhile, the computer screen now read something completely different:

Emergency shelter beacon now broadcasting.
Press any key to continue...

An entire afternoon had passed her by, but Twilight was more than happy with the outcome.

A "directional antenna" seemed useful on paper; what better way to point her towards a signal's source than something that audibly increased the signal clarity the closer she pointed it in the right direction? In practice, it wasn't quite so great. As far as Twilight could tell, signals and transmissions like radio waves spread out all over, so yes, theoretically speaking she could get a better reception if she pointed the antenna at the source, but the effect getting up close could be negligible, and that wouldn't be particularly helpful if she couldn't tell immediately where the signal was actually being transmitted from. That, and she didn't have a good idea of what powered this radio, and keeping it on for sustained periods of time sounded like a good way to drain the batteries, which she did not have a large supply of.

So she improvised, using the best tool she had in her entire arsenal: magic.

Obviously, the reliability factor wasn't great; she could barely get a light to stay on for longer than a few minutes. However, quick spells seemed to work just fine, and this is what Twilight exploited.

One of her own feathers had been plucked out (ow), then carefully disassembled, the quill set aside and the delicate fluff of the feather stripped from the rest of the structure in a single, uninterrupted piece. This strip of lavender fluff was then carefully placed against the side of the radio, where it was taped in place. Dividing it in half again to make it an even narrower strip was enough to give it the length needed to wrap one end around the underside of the dial, and the other the base of the second antenna that she had soldered in place, made out of one of the tongs of a fork. It was incredibly fragile, but additional applications of tape seemed to do a good job of holding the parts in place, and the material itself would not get in the way of what she intended to do next.

Ensuring that the radio was currently attuned to one of the frequencies broadcasting weather information, Twilight closed her eyes. She felt a faint pressure build up in her horn, and as she expelled the energy, she opened one eye and watched it visibly illuminate the base of the feather's material, starting at the knob and working its way up. The vein-like designs lit up like circuitry as the magic rippled through them. The pulse continued all the way up to the spoke of silvery metal, and from the very tip came a ripple of pink through the air which spread out about a foot in all directions. One side was substantially more defined than the other, which was nearly completely transparent, compared to the near-opaque opposite end. Before her eyes, a rounded arrow of magenta energy manifested in the air, pointing off somewhere to the north, and then dissipated less than a second later.

Twilight grinned widely, and changed the frequency to an empty broadcast, sending another pulse of magic through the device. Once again, watched the ripple scale the delicate feather material, then up the antenna, and then pulse a magenta arrow in the air above it, this time in a completely different direction.

"Perfect," Twilight breathed, sinking back into the kitchen chair. For the first time in two days straight, she relaxed. That's not to say she sat idle, however.

Twilight liked to be thorough. Some would call this behavior "obsessive," but Twilight preferred "diligent." She began to cycle back through each of the radio stations, the glowing knob tilting a hair's width at a time, as each frequency was once again inspected, just in case she had missed something. She cross-referenced her list, and confirmed so far that everything was where she had last found it. Nothing had gone out in the time since she had listed them out.

There was something new, this time, though. Arching an eyebrow, Twilight turned the dial back the other way, trying to home on in the signal so that it would come in as clear as possible. It wasn't totally clear, but she managed to get it most of the way there, and she could understand what was being transmitted behind the noise easily enough.

"This is aut#mated e#rgency shelter b#con 65#3. Suppl#, am#ities, and shelter a#ocked. This # automated emergency she#r beacon 65143. #plies, amenities, and shelter are s#ked. This is..."

It kept looping like that, and Twilight found her eyes widening.

An emergency shelter. The kind that people would flee to in a crisis.

Why was it transmitting now, as opposed to before? Had something changed?

Twilight's thoughts spun with questions, but her focus shifted to the radio she had strapped bits of her feather to. Her horn hummed slightly, and the feather material gradually lit up, followed by the antenna, and a magenta pulse was emitted in the air. A ripple-like arrow pointed out the front of the house, in a direction that she quickly identified as southeast.

This has to be a sign. Right? Someone trying to call out for help the only way they can? Or did they bring the power on, and it's only just now transmitting, and people will start to show up there?

Twilight gathered up the radio, ripping a curtain down and tossing the device into the bundle she made, alongside a few books and a gallon jug she'd cleaned out and filled with water. She then hurried outside, caused the radio to ping once again, and took to the sky, the setting sun to her back.

It would be dark soon, but Twilight did not care. All she could think about was that emergency beacon coming to life, and the people there who might need her help.

Chapter 5

The sun was setting quickly, Twilight realized. Understandable, given the hour - normally she would have to estimate the time, but that was unnecessary now, courtesy of something she'd discovered back at Longmeadow.

Twilight glanced down at one of her outstretched legs as she flew, around which a small circular device was strapped just above her hoof. The clock had no arms, and was in fact not a clock at all, but nonetheless it somehow knew what the time was, and informed her in text form: 7:38 PM. Judging by where the sun was and the time of year, that sounded spot-on, and she had no reason to doubt its accuracy, given who made it.

Humans are incredible, Twilight couldn't help but think to herself. Not just for the big things they do, but for all these little things as well. I wish I had half as many good ideas as they seem to have about how to improve life in these small ways.

As Twilight admired the little device on her wrist, her gaze caught momentarily on a structure ahead, lined up against a road clogged with car wrecks - a square, two-story building that bore resemblance to a motel of some kind. Dozens of figures shuffled around in the parking lot, and she didn't have to observe them closely to know that they were all dead, waiting for something killable to come into view so they could bolster their teeming ranks.

The sight evoked a pang of remorse from Twilight. She forced herself to look straight ahead, rather than at the building as it passed beneath her. They deserve so much better than this.

Twilight closed her eyes for a moment and felt the pressure in her horn grow, then just as quickly release, after which she set her gaze on the sheet currently slung over her shoulder as a makeshift sling, trailing behind her as she flew. A flash of magenta pulsated out from the bulge in the fabric, and a rounded arrow pointed past her in the direction she was flying. Twilight made a slight adjustment to her heading, but was pleased to know she was still on course.

Her wings had been doing a lot better; turns out a full day of rest was just what they'd needed. They were still a little stiff, but she was pretty confident about maintaining her current altitude, somewhere around 30 meters in the air. She'd been flying for just past an hour, and while fatigue was starting to tickle at the edges of her awareness, she hadn't felt any cramps starting, though it would probably be wise to take a break at some point, lest she tempt fate.

With that thought in mind, Twilight frowned to herself as she considered where was she going to sleep tonight.

With the prospect of finally finding other humans at the forefront of her mind, Twilight doubted she would get very much sleep, which is why she seriously considered the prospect of simply not doing so. As tempting as that was, it was also a bit stupid of her; her wings were better, not perfect, and even if they were at one hundred percent, flying all night was not something she was confident she could do, even under ideal circumstances. Rainbow Dash? Definitely. Her? Not so much.

Not only that, she had absolutely no idea what was out here. She'd seen zombies, giant insects, and weird plant monsters, and who knows what else was out here? She had no idea how magic was able to affect these things in the long term, but there was no denying that there was some stuff that she didn't want to mess with, but a lot of it seemed pretty inclined to mess with her, if she gave it a chance to. Without knowing what exactly was out there and what perils awaited her, the only tactically sound course of action was to play it generally safe so that she wouldn't be caught off guard by something she let herself be vulnerable to. That, and she really didn't want to add a fourth point to her list of tactical blunders she still hadn't forgiven herself for.

So as Twilight flew later and later into the evening, she kept one eye out on the world below her, looking every which way for a suitable shelter for the night. Nothing was perfect, and as she flew farther and farther away from any sort of town or village, the amount of sites that she could lay claim to likewise dropped to essentially zero. It was another hour before Twilight found another building at all, and realizing how little was out here and how quickly night was coming, she decided that this was going to have to work, and she descended.

A pair of log buildings faced one another, perfectly symmetrical, with two tables sitting between them on an area of packed-down dirt. Four cars lay strewn out in random directions on the road beside them, two of which appeared to be physically fused to the extent that it was hard to tell where one car stopped and the other started.

Twilight passed by overhead once, then circled back around as she continued to slow down. There were only 2 hobbling humanoid shapes in the growing gloom, and she fired a beam at each of them. She watched the beams home in on their targets, and was satisfied when both figures vanished behind a pink flash for an instant - a moment later, they were on the ground, several feet back from where they stood previously. A second blast to each would ensure they'd remain where they lay.

Only a meter from the ground now, Twilight began to fall faster than she moved forward, and a sharp thrust of her wings arrested her forward momentum entirely, letting her touch down gently with a clop of her hooves on the dirt. Her face prickled from the constant barrage of evening air rushing past her, and now that she felt heat returning to her face, Twilight realized that a rest sounded pretty good. Fly all night…what was I thinking?

Upon closer inspection, this place turned out to be little more than a roadside stop, with absolutely nothing else here besides a table, and a pair of bathrooms: a stallion's bathroom, and a mare's bathr...no. Man and woman's bathroom. Same difference...

Twilight opened the ma- woman's bathroom with a glow of her horn, and after giving a cautionary sniff and finding it not overly offensive in here, she decided that this would do and closed the door, total darkness descending immediately when she did. It was not going to be comfortable, but it would be secure.

She found herself a little bit at a loss of what exactly to do next. She tried one of the three stalls, but those toilets were not going to work. Instead, she tucked herself into the corner, the sinks between herself and the door, and curled up there. She emptied her makeshift sling and untied the window curtain, folding it up as tall as she could to make the floor where she laid her head as comfortable as possible. It wasn't much of an improvement. Her neck was going to be killing her in the morning, too.

Sighing into the darkness, Twilight closed her eyes, doing her best to not dwell on her restless thoughts as she waited for dreams to find her.

A gentle crackling made space for itself in the air, competing valiantly with the omnipresent droning of crickets in all directions from their kingdom of darkness. A collection of many twigs and branches sat at the heart of the tiny flames, a handful more being tossed in by Sweetie Belle so it would grow.

It felt weird to have a fire out in the open rather than being in a fireplace, or a stove, or even a ring of rocks, but asphalt wasn't exactly known for being flammable, so it was safe. Even still, there was a certain surreality to it that Sweetie was never quite able to fully ignore. Fires didn't work like this, in her world.

Sweetie looked to Rarity where she leaned up against the emergency shelter, bundled up in a metallic silver emergency blanket. She looked sort of like a baked potato wrapped up in tin foil, except the potato was too big and stuck out on one end, and also it had her sister's face. "Hey Rarity?"

One of Rarity's eyelids lifted sluggishly. "Yes?"

"Why did we need a fire?"

Rarity thought on this, for a few seconds. She wiggled in place slightly, shifting beneath the emergency blanket- must have been a shrug. "It felt right, I suppose."

Sweetie's head tilted curiously. "Why?"

"I don't know," Rarity admitted. She paused, and then smiled a little. "I guess all the time we've spent outdoors these last few weeks reminds me a little of those camping trips we went on, a few years back. Do you remember that, darling? You were rather small at the time."

Sweetie scrunched up her face in what she chose to believe was a look of deep pondering and remembrance, green eyes finding the sky for a few seconds, then shook her head.

"Probably for the best...it was a disaster." Despite the words used, there was a fondness in her voice. "It was mom's idea."

"Ah." The context for what 'disaster' meant immediately registered for Sweetie, and she suddenly wasn't so sad about not remembering it.

Silence took over, for a little while, marred only by the song of fire and crickets. Sweetie prodded and poked at the fire with her newly designated poking stick, not accomplishing much more besides spitting tiny showers of sparks, and occupying her attention in favor of sitting idle. Rarity suspected it was mostly for the latter.

After some time passed, Rarity spoke up again. "Have you ever warmed something over a fire before, Sweetie?"

She glanced up at Rarity, then shook her head. She looked back at the flames she'd been continually stirring, which popped at her. She interpreted it as encouragement. "Can I?"

Rarity nodded her head towards where she'd put her purse against the wall beside her. "There's a pair of cans in my bag. Just make sure you open the cans before you start to heat what’s inside them."

"What happens if you don't open them first?"

"They explode."

Sweetie stopped mid-motion and gave her sister a scrutinizing look. When Rarity's expression did not change, she realized that she must be serious. As Sweetie opened the cans of beans with that can opener stashed in the bottom of Rarity's purse, she did so incredibly carefully, like one wrong move could set off a deadly bean blast the likes of which the world had never known.

Once opened, she placed the open cans on the street, and very carefully nudged each of them closer and closer to the fire with her special stick until they were nestled up against the flames themselves.

It would only take a couple of minutes from that point. The labels peeled off and caught ablaze, which Sweetie watched with equal parts fascination and worry, but the contents of the cans were unsullied. A pair of plastic forks were retrieved from one of the shelter’s cabinets that had random assortments of plastic bowls and utensils, and the lackluster dinner was served.

Well...would be served. As Sweetie nudged the cans away from the fire with her trusty fire-poking stick, she frowned, realizing her mistake as she observed the steaming water inside the equally toasty, if not more so, metal containers. "Um, these cans are super hot now."

"I guess neither of us really thought this through," Rarity sighed. She pried herself from her silvery cocoon, shuffling over across the ground as best she could with only one leg able to bend without hurting. "It's fine, just eat out of the can without touching it."

And so they did. It wasn't the best dinner, being just canned green beans, nor the most comfortable, given that it had to be eaten while hunched over in the road, but it was a meal. The contents of the cans were emptied relatively swiftly, and both girls retreated together over to the wall of the evac shelter, huddling beneath their bulky metallic blanket as they watched the flames crackle and spit on the last of the wooden offerings provided to them.

Time became somewhat ethereal under the influence of the fire. Rarity wasn't certain when her arm ended up around Sweetie Belle. Sweetie Belle, likewise, wasn't sure when her head came to rest against Rarity's shoulder. Neither minded the contact; they couldn't exactly feel the fire's warmth at this distance, so they needed to share what they had to stay comfy. It was also just kind of pleasant.

"Hey Rarity?" Sweetie Belle asked, at some point.

Rarity's frost-blue eyes fluttered open, and she offered a sleepy smile. "Yes?"

"Are we ever going to see mom and dad again?"

The smile vanished. Such a question took Rarity aback, and she found herself taking longer than she intended to reply: "I don't know." She didn't like how it felt to say that, and she had to repeat it, as though to make sure that the answer was meant to sound like that. "I don't know."

It was hard to tell what Sweetie's thoughts were on it, as her expression was...distant. Sad, certainly...Rarity didn't much like that either, but as she thought of what to say to make it better, but found no words that might serve this purpose.

One hand came up and gently found the top of Sweetie's head, fingers gently combing their way through the pink and purple locks, establishing a very slow, soft rhythm. She heard a quiet sniffle, and they pressed up together a little bit tighter.

What a terrible time to grow up in. History would remember these years as the darkest that mankind had ever known, but there was an entire generation - what little of it survived, at this point - that would simply remember this as their childhood. It was hard for Rarity to decide whether or not the years of normalcy that Sweetie had known leading up to this were a blessing or a curse.

"Don't cry, Rarity..."

Rarity heard the quiet sniffle again. It took her a moment to realize that it was coming from her, and she was surprised when she wiped her cheek with the back of her hand and it came away damp. "Ah...sorry, I, ah...I don't quite know what came over me."

"It's okay." The squeeze beneath the blanket tightened, for a moment. "I miss them too."

A few more tears spilled at that phrase alone, and Rarity realized that she missed her parents. She missed them dearly.

We're never going to see them again, are we?

The thought disarmed her, and for a couple of minutes, Rarity quietly wept. Sweetie Belle huddled into her side, hugging her tightly as Rarity was undone in a rare moment of vulnerability.

Rarity rarely cried. Not genuinely. It's not that she didn't ever feel real sadness, or frustration, but because she just never seemed to have the time for it. She was always looking after someone else, or taking care of something that warranted her discomfort if it meant getting it done. She was quick to set her own feelings aside for the sake of another. Always so willing to make someone else's life a little bit more worth living, even if that meant paying for it out of pocket, or pushing back her grief for another day...and then another day...and another...

The moment passed, eventually. Rarity wiped her eyes one more time, taking a few steadying breaths. Her makeup was ruined, but that was unavoidable. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry for crying." Sweetie Belle lifted her head to peer up at Rarity, giving a supportive smile through the tiny droplets clinging to her own eyelashes. "I'm a way bigger crybaby than you are, so if you need to apologize for that, I'm in a lot of trouble."

A most unladylike snort escaped Rarity, and she began to quietly laugh. "Oh, I wouldn't call you a crybaby, darling. You're a sensitive, emotional soul, and with emotion comes tears! It's hardly a bad thing to be honest about your feelings."

"I guess so." Sweetie felt like Rarity should take her own advice sometimes, but she didn't know how to articulate that thought, settling instead for wishing it to be so. "I just wish the emotions were nicer. I don't like being sad and scared all the time."

"Me neither, darling," came the soft response. Rarity's gaze found her purse beside her - specifically the road map that was sticking out of it, a fresh new variety of lines and symbols dotted across it with a pen. "But hopefully, from here on, things will get better."

"It'll be nice to see other people again. It's so lonely out here."

Rarity nodded in agreement. "Talk to other people, trade things, share some stories...settle down..."

"Indoor heating..."

"That might be a bit much, but we'll see," Rarity chuckled, casting a gaze to the fire, which was rapidly dying out. "Speaking of heating, I think we should go back inside. It's cold out here."

Sweetie did not stir. Rarity was about to start insisting when she heard the small, squeaky request: "...can you carry me?"

Rarity blinked for a moment, then smiled warmly. "I absolutely would, darling, but my leg."

"...oh yeah..." Sweetie sounded rather embarrassed, though whether it was more from the request or the forgetting about the injury was uncertain. She hid her face in Rarity's shoulder regardless.

Chuckling, Rarity gave Sweetie's hair a gentle patting down, fixing the disturbances from running her fingers through it all this time. "Sorry, I'm afraid you're on your own there. I can hold you once we've settled down, though. Is that a fair compromise?"

"Deal."

What little was out here was packed up, and the dying fire was surrendered to the darkness of the trees around them. The two made it back inside and spent a few minutes erecting a makeshift mattress out of the many jackets and blankets stowed away in the many lockers of the evac shelter.

True to her word, Rarity held Sweetie Belle in her lap and cradled her all night, a secret Sweetie informed her she would keep under penalty of death by bean explosion.

The 'I love you's they shared were not verbal, but that was ok. They didn't have to speak the words to hear them from each other.

It was a very long night for Twilight. She had no idea if she got any sleep, as every minute felt like an hour to her. If she had dreams, they were as miserably monotonous and dull as the rest of her stay in that bathroom.

Twilight blearily emerged to a sunrise, the beauty of which was marred by the fog over her senses and the irritable mood she was in. She sucked down some water from the jug in her possession and all but inhaled several clumps of grass, apparently enough so that she ended up with several roots, and the dirt that came with them. Eugh.

One tongue-scraping and some hasty-but-slightly-less-hasty grazing later, Twilight waited only the few seconds it took to re-tie her sheet containing her books and radio before she returned to the sky. She wasn’t sure if she was going to regret doing this so quickly after she woke up, but activity sounded like a great way to get her blood pumping and…

…oh who was she kidding, she was so incredibly impatient it was driving her insane. She couldn’t stand the thought of waiting a moment longer six restless hours ago, and now that she had any sunlight at all to go by, that was it. With a ping of her magic-jacked radio to guide her on takeoff, Twilight was gone.

For a time, it felt like the world had stood still, stopping as soon as she stepped into that bathroom- it was precisely as light now as when she went in, but now it was running backwards. Except the sun was in front of her now rather than behind, something she quickly grew to rue. As time passed, Twilight increasingly wished for a pair of goggles, specifically ones that were shaded, because she was running essentially blind.

It was an incredibly inconvenient three hour flight. The only thing that kept Twilight in the air after the first 20 minutes of flying directly into the sun was the knowledge that lives could be on the line. Otherwise, she'd be down there somewhere, probably reading as she waited for the sun to be quite literally anywhere else but directly in her corneas.

Not able to see much in front of her for most of the journey southeast, Twilight continually pinged the radio, and found it quite promising that the arrow seemed to be intent on sliding a little to one side more and more. She was initially surprised that it did not point towards the town that expanded out to her left, and instead swiveled further to the right, more or less perfectly down a road heading in the same direction, which was now completely southward.

I guess it makes sense that the evacuation shelter would be outside of any town limits, she reasoned to herself. Then, looking towards where the road banked slightly as though to hide her query from her, she saw it.

It was a square, squat building, walls plain and white. A small antenna sat atop a series of metal boxes she’d seen sticking out of the tops of other buildings like this, which another ping of her magic-jacked radio pointed directly at, indicating the source was in fact before her eyes. A flat blue pane of something glassy sat at a 45 degree, which Twilight did not know anything about and thought little of. The building had 4 entrances, one on each side, all identical: one door, flanked by a window on each side. Each door was closed, and no one was visible from outside, nor did anyone emerge as Twilight circled continually overhead.

This is it. Twilight’s heart pounded in her chest as she lost altitude with every lap she did of the structure’s perimeter. There was a pile of ash in the street, just outside the building, plus what looked like a pair of discarded tin cans.

What do I say? I’m a pony, and humans don’t know anything about ponies! Should I stay hidden and talk from afar? Will they- oh no, what if they think I’m some magical monster like the giant bugs or something? I can’t surprise them, they might get scared and try to run, or think they should protect themselves! Should I have a gift? A speech? Should I- should I just knock?

Twilight realized that she had landed, and was simply staring at the door, unmoving. She shifted her weight back and forth between her legs nervously.

I guess I just knock. Monsters don’t knock at the door and politely ask for entry, right?

…

Unless it’s a vampire.

...

Just knock on the stupid door or you’ll be standing here all day.

Twilight raised a slightly quaking hoof, and lightly knocked it against the wooden door. She cleared her throat, and called out in an uncertain voice: “Hello?”

Several seconds passed by.

Twilight chewed on her lip as she awaited an answer that didn’t seem to be coming. She knocked again, a bit louder, and called out equally louder: “Hello? Is anyone here?”

As before, no response.

Twilight waited another ten seconds. When that arbitrary time period elapsed, Twilight knocked again, though rather than call out immediately, her horn glowed in unison with the doorknob, which turned and gently nudged open the door, through which she poked her head.

The room was dark, save only for what light came in through the door she had just opened. The windows had all their curtains closed, casting the building in thick shadows that made it hard to see across the room. The only source of light here was a dim monitor in the corner, bearing something that Twilight could not see clearly at this distance.

Twilight closed her eyes very briefly, and when she opened them again, the room was aglow and pink-tinted. She could see now the benches in the middle of the room, and the lockers against the far wall, but nothing else. No humans.

“Hello?” Gentle sounds of hooves against wood floor could faintly be heard now, as Twilight creeped inside. “Um- I should warn you that I look a little, uh..." You're a princess. Quit stammering like a schoolfilly! "I'm not what you're used to seeing, I know, but I promise I'm friendly, and I'm here because I want to help. My name is Twilight, and I'm...um...hello? Anyone?"

The top floor seemed completely empty. Twilight found the stairs down, and she followed them to the basement. There were even more rows benches down here, lining every wall that wrapped around the room that ended in a pair of doors, leading to a bathroom on each side. In one corner of the room, a large pile of clothes and blankets was assembled in what Twilight could only guess was an attempt at bedding, given every other surface in this structure seemed remarkably uncomfortable to lay on.

Somebody definitely was here at some point, but they didn't seem to be here now.

Desperation began to rise, and Twilight clopped back upstairs quickly to begin searching again, just in time for darkness to close in unexpectedly. ”Stupid light!” she snarled, leering venomously up at her horn.

It was in that darkness that the bulky computer in the corner once again caught Twilight’s eye, and she homed in on it, choosing to focus on her task than allow her despair and frustration to distract her further. Clearly no one was here, so she should investigate.

The computer on the desk was a bit taller than she was; Twilight had to prop up onto her hind legs, front ones resting against the table the monitor sat atop so that she could view the screen.

>Contact us

REFUGEE CENTER FOUND! IF YOU HAVE ANY FEEDBACK CONCERNING YOUR VISIT PLEASE CONTACT THE DEPARTMENT OF EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT PUBLIC AFFAIRS OFFICE.
THE LOCAL OFFICE CAN BE REACHED BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 9AM AND 4PM AT 555-0164.

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO SPEAK WITH SOMEONE IN PERSON OR WOULD LIKE TO WRITE US A LETTER PLEASE SEND IT TO...

The address that came next meant little to Twilight, but this piece of information itself sent the gears in her head into full swing. Her eyes flicked downwards - she hadn't noticed the piece of paper stuck to the table in the darkness, but she was propped against the desk, and a subtle movement caused it to make a tiny noise, which got her attention. It, too, bore text, written in ink with an especially fancy text that almost seemed equal parts text and picture:

The blankets and jackets are all downstairs, we slept on them. I suggest doing the same, it's actually quite cozy. There's not much water left. Don't even bother with the protein bars unless you're actually starving, they taste like hate mail from death itself, and the prose isn't even that good. Bowls and things are in the cupboard, anything else is in the endmost locker on the right

In case the screen dies or something, the computer says there's a refugee center to the east, and we're going there. Follow the road, it's a few miles' hike

Twilight's face split into a wide grin. There were no humans here, but the trail had been laid out for her to find them. A refugee center, with notice on how to reach them posted here...and surely in other shelters just like this one. That meant there would be a lot of humans coming in from all over.

Good thing I'm so used to reading fancy script from Rarity, or I might not have been able to read this.

Twilight wasted no more time in this building. She galloped out the door and thrust her wings as hard as she may, circling around till she was flying eastwards, hope shining in her heart nearly as bright as the sun where it found a hole in the clouds to show her the way.

Rarity had known that some amount of chasing Sweetie Belle was going to be necessary, considering the rate of whining during this last hour or so, but if there was somewhere that Rarity wanted to follow her less, it was hard to beat a dump. The girl had charged ahead in spite of all protest, now amidst the piles of metal and debris, calling back excitedly about what treasures were beyond Rarity's vision where she hovered at the entrance, and boy was she not in the mood for it.

"Get out where I can see you right now!"

"But there's so much cool stuff over here! Look, I found a-"

"Sweetie, I am not playing," said Rarity as she teetered precariously on losing her cool. "Get over here, now."

The protests stopped, though a disappointed "aww" could be heard. Sweetie came back into view from around the scrap house, dragging something bulky and rectangular along with her. Upon seeing her sibling's expression, she thought better of showing off the old microwave, and slunk back to her side, looking increasingly like a kicked puppy the closer she got. "Sorry."

Rarity huffed, and bent down to inspect Sweetie for any sign of injury; no doubt that any cut here would get horribly infected. "A dump? Seriously? That is where you decided to go investigating?"

"It's not a dump," she protested, though grew meek again at Rarity's scalding look. "It's not, though...it's a scrap yard, that's different. It doesn't stink as bad."

"That doesn't make it any safer!" Confident she wasn't going to die horribly of blood poisoning or some such other terrible thing, Rarity went to try to rise, but upon seeing her sister's expression, she stayed at Sweetie's level. With a slow breath in, she began, calmly, "Please don't look at me like that, Sweetie Belle. I'm not angry, I'm just...you scared me when you did that. Please stick close to me when we're traveling, alright? If you absolutely must investigate something, at least stay with me so that we can see if there's anything dangerous, or let me check for you. Can you imagine if there had been one of those junkyard dogs in here when you ran ahead? Imagine a zombie junkyard dog."

"I'm sorry," Sweetie whimpered. Her eyes were big and glistening with unshed tears.

"It's alright," Rarity said, now much more softly. "You're safe, and that's all I was worried about. I just want to protect you."

Sweetie didn't say anything. Rarity didn't either, simply crouching beside her sister as she got her composure back together. There was a little sniffling, and a few tears, but a few gentle reminders that she wasn't angry and that she forgave her helped push those tears away. She even let her show off the derelict microwave she had found. Rarity didn't find it particularly enjoyable, what with how filthy it was from whatever pile it'd been fished from, but it helped to get Sweetie's mind off the upset, and that's all she cared about.

A few minutes later (and after a much-needed hand-scrubbing with a rag, eugh), Rarity limped her way out of the scrap yard with her sister beside her, stepping around the thin metal barrier erected around it and back onto the road, where their walk could resume. "I still don't quite know what you were thinking."

"I was thinking, 'Ooh, junk!' And then I ran at it because there's cool stuff in scrap yards sometimes. Scootaloo used to find really shiny bits of copper in places like this, and it was really cool! I was hoping I could find something like that."

"There's some novelty in it, I suppose," Rarity relented slightly, "but you can do a lot better than a scrap yard if you wanted to find something shiny and pretty. If you want some high-grade copper or something, we should look for a jewelry store, or a metalworki-"

A shape emerged around the other side of the wall. It felt like time went into slow motion as Rarity saw it.

It was tall, standing nearly two heads above Rarity, colored a faded pink like fresh scar tissue. Even just 15 meters away, it was hard to tell what shape it even was, as it seemed to be teeming with innumerable moving bits on the ends of other moving bits; many tiny limbs extended from an ill-defined torso, each ending in a straight, sharp claw vaguely reminiscent of a pair of scissors. If you squinted, it was humanoid in the loosest of senses, but that was primarily because of its two largest segmented, crustacean-like limbs easily identifiable as arms, each ending in elongated pincers like the claws of a lobster. From its back emerged a pair of wings, filled with holes and wires of flesh and looking altogether useless for purposes of flying. Its head was triangular, made up of innumerable tendrils that made it look almost like a particularly dense forest of sea anemones.

Rarity had been afraid before, but the sensation that coursed through her at the sight of this nameless thing felt like something completely new, something ancient. A dull pain announced itself in the back of Rarity's skull, and a shrill tickle from somewhere in her brain evoked a pulse of primal terror she didn't think she was capable of feeling. Even in this slow-motion state, Rarity felt her heart begin to beat against the inside of her ribs like a carpenter nailing shut the door to her soul.

It moved. Rarity grabbed Sweetie's arm and sprinted.

There were no thoughts, just running, pain in her leg completely forgotten - it barely felt like her own. Time meant nothing, only motion. Rarity flicked a glance over her shoulder, and she found the thing no farther away than previous, scuttling towards them both with an eerie levelness in its movement, like gravity itself came second to whatever otherworldly grace it carried itself with.

It's not of this world, her mind screamed, louder than her own thoughts, overriding them. It didn't belong, and it was wrong, horribly, inconceivably, simply wrong.

The road stretched ahead, bereft of any wrecks for seemingly miles, and the field yawned around them, promising no cover or breaks in line of sight. There wasn't anywhere to run to, and as the fire began to grow in her lungs while the creature fell no further behind, Rarity realized there would be no escape. It'd be a fight.

Rarity released Sweetie's arm, the other hand finding the shovel. "Keep running."

"But-"

"KEEP! RUNNING!"

Rarity twisted around suddenly, heels scraping loudly against the asphalt, and she lunged, swinging the shovel as hard as she could towards what she could only guess was meant to be its head.

It wasn't like the zombies, which would have simply taken the blow. Instead, it threw up one of its larger arms in anticipation of the strike, catching the shovel head with its "forearm" - it was a scrawny limb, no thicker than a human's, but apparently the chitin was tough enough to take the strike directly, the chnk of metal accompanied with by sound of crackling seashells. As part of the same movement, its other larger arm lanced out and latched onto the shovel, where the wood and steel met. Before she could react, the tool was ripped it from her grasp. It took only an instant for its left wing to retract before the bloodstained shovel was thrown backwards behind it - the wing folded back into place once it passed, like a curtain falling on an act that had concluded.

Rarity took a few stumbling steps back. Wood and metal clattered loudly to the asphalt several meters away, on the other side of the thing. It may as well have been miles.

In that moment, Rarity knew that she was going to die.

The creature advanced, nearly levitating towards her atop its many gangly, impossibly composed talons. Rarity found no recourse available, no good options to pursue, and when it launched an armlike claw at her, she could only try to dodge. It grazed her left arm, its massive claw like a dulled razor, but still managing to slice straight through her blazer and into the skin beneath. Another blow came from the opposite arm, and she failed to dodge this one at all, taking a claw to the head- the world turned and twisted, and Rarity saw stars as she tried to turn and flee.

A branding iron jabbed into the middle of her back, and Rarity let out a bloodcurdling shriek like she'd never emitted before. The force of it spun her around partway, and midway through her stumble, a claw fired like a bullet and caught her right in the throat, clamping it firmly shut. It burned terribly where it cut, and she felt blood rolling down her neck to her collarbone, but it was as though she had been set beneath a guillotine that simply wasn't sharp enough to finish the job.

It wasn't going to make this fast, she realized. And it didn't.

Another branding iron embedded itself in Rarity's side where she couldn't see, and she tried to scream, tried so hard to scream past the claw holding her windpipe shut, but nothing escaped her increasingly reddening lips but silent gagging. The sound of scraping and clicking carapace was almost deafening in her left ear as she was pulled in towards it, and she felt the red-hot pain of her legs and side being stabbed and cut by what could have been dozens of tinier, scalpel-sharp claws and graspers. It was like being lowered into a woodchipper made of dozens of starving crustaceans.

Blood-slick, numb fingers tried desperately to gain purchase on the appendage clamped around her throat, slipping and fumbling on the sleek carapace of the claw, instead gripping its wrist as tight as she possibly could, trying to wrench it free, only proceeding to cut open her hands on its jagged carapace. One limb reached around and yanked her one arm out to its full length by the wrist, slicing it open as it did so. Another limb appeared, grasping just above the elbow; as she watched, a third limb came forward and placed itself neatly in the centermost point of her forearm where the others held it out. In an elegantly simple motion, like breaking a dry twig held taut, it pushed in the center. The radius and ulna beneath her skin, in perfect unison, snapped in twain.

Rarity's vision clouded over. Vomit kicked against the vice on her throat, begging for release, and she tried so hard to scream it felt like her windpipe would blow open from the pressure. Her face burned so much that it might begin to boil, her lungs were a roaring inferno, but it didn't stop. Her belly felt like Hell itself had colonized it, and she couldn't tell what was happening, just that it was pure pain. Everything was pain. She hurt more than she'd ever hurt before, indescribably hurting, and there was no way out. None at all. Just more pain.

So this is how it ends, Rarity thought. She felt far away, somehow, and it while it didn't hurt any less, it was harder to keep track of it. I feel like I didn't deserve this...but I guess it is the end of the world, after all. We can't all pass in our sleep, surrounded by friends and family.

As the tunnel before her grew longer and darker, Rarity found it hard to have too many regrets. So much was out of her control, and she understood that, as much as she wished it wasn't. She had done her best with the hand she'd been dealt, and she had given everything to keep close and safe the one thing that she had left in this world, and she'd done that well, all things considered. If there was anything she regretted, it was not being able to see her friends again, or at least give them a proper memorial in a holy place, even if it meant creating one, just for them. If there were any in this world who deserved it, it was them.

She wondered if she'd be mourned, but the thoughts were too distant now, being stretched down the tunnel so far that she could no longer hear them. It didn't matter anyway.

There was that light she'd always heard about. Magenta light shone down on her, and it was beautiful...

Twilight didn't think when she saw what she did. Her forehead burned with the energy that surged to her horn, and it erupted- and then again, and again, and again.

From nearly a hundred meters away and closing rapidly, pink comets rained down from the sky, blowing plumes of dirt up like mortar shells. The thing, whatever it was, appeared smart enough to know to dodge, though to Twilight's horror, it did not release its victim as it did so, continuing to yank them around by the throat as beams blasted the ground around it and made shrapnel out of asphalt. To her relief, none of them struck, but just because it had a hostage didn't make it safe from her wrath.

The Princess of Friendship streaked in like a lavender missile. The space between them was closing in at a breakneck pace, and she wasn't slowing down, headed straight for it. The thing's full focus was on her now, and it was visibly anticipating her trajectory, bracing itself before - as she thought it might - throwing itself out of the way at the last possible second. That was what Twilight was counting on.

On the final approach, Twilight twisted in the air, midway through a corkscrew, and for a fraction of a moment, she was just centimeters from it. Her head was tucked down, as though in anticipation of an impact, but that was not the case - her horn was aimed in the direction it would be in when she passed it, blazing as it held back another energy burst until what she felt to be just...the right...instant.

Twilight was momentarily blinded with her own light. The shockwave of the beam's impact blew her head back hard enough that it nearly threw her into a flip, and she had to lash out her wings wildly to keep her bold trajectory from becoming a bone-shattering collision in the middle of a shallow crater. She barely managed to hold it together, and as she circled back around in a dangerously tight arc, the g-forces slammed her organs against the underside of her ribs, stabbing her guts with dozens of needles.

For just a second or two, Twilight Sparkle got a chance to fully appreciate what she'd wrought.

She'd nearly been touching the thing with her horn when she fired, and it had almost blown the spindly creature in half. Dozens of tiny, wire-thin limbs lay scattered across the ground like pink splinters, and the arm grasping its victim was completely removed, along with the rest of its shoulder and part of its midsection, which hung from it like strands of semi-congealed mucus caked in broken flesh-colored porcelain. Pale green blood was sprayed out across the asphalt, painfully visible in the morning light.

The thing was scrambling to pick itself off the ground as Twilight came in for a second pass, surprisingly animate for the trauma it had just suffered. It was not nearly animate enough to save its life.

Twilight's horn lit up once more. A magical laser lanced forth, too fast to track at this range, and found the creature's upper torso. Its top half vanished in a tiny magical sun, which vanished as quickly as it appeared, parting to allow a plume of shell shards and sickly lime ichor to rain down. The streaks of gore spread up the road it died on in a nearly 10-meter cone when the last of the chunks came to rest.

The instant Twilight registered the kill, she flared her wings and flapped them forward hard - pain lanced up each limb into her spine, making her eyes water, but she did not care. Her hooves hit the ground hard and barely kept her upright before she was galloping as fast as she may to the place where the human had fallen.

But it wasn't just any human. Twilight knew exactly who this was, and she had never been so afraid to recognize someone so close to her.

"RARITY!"

Chapter 7

Rarity was a popular girl in school. She knew her way around the circles of kids with social connections, money, and a desire to burn it all on an impulsive night of spectacle. She'd seen her fair share of parties, and she'd take plenty of the mornings after said parties in favor of what she was currently experiencing.

The word "headache" simply did not lend itself well enough to the sensation Rarity felt, because nothing about the word "ache" did justice to the ice pick that she felt embedded in the underside of her face that pulsated like a second heartbeat. She'd had strep throat before, and the burn in her throat and neck blew it clean out of the water. Just trying to turn her head made Rarity want to scream, which she probably would have, if she could get much more than a hoarse croak to pass through her windpipe. She tried to shift where she lay, and was rewarded with embers in her left flank flaring to life, from her hip all the way up to just beneath her armpit. Eyes turning to her right side, she saw her right arm bandaged up tight in what looked like a sheet or cloth with a stick tied up in it. So far everything else had hurt horribly to move, and she wasn’t about to try her luck there.

For a while, Rarity simply sat there in a dull haze. She was sore, she was dizzy, this room felt ice cold, and her head was killing her. She didn't move, trying to process her surroundings.

This looked like a bedroom, and it was dark. She appeared to be on a bed, and across from her was a large dresser beside a window, which had its curtains closed at the moment, only allowing in a sliver of yellow-tinted light to the floor just beneath the window, which provided barely enough light to make out anything else in this room. A large red carpet sat in the center of the floor, and she could just barely make out a desk against the adjacent wall, though she could not turn her head to see it, so it simply hung there ill-defined in the edge of her peripheral vision.

Something else was here, though. It was very close to her, directly beside her shoulder. It was firm, and the mattress sank a little bit beneath its presence. It was curled up beside her, and while Rarity had a hard time turning her eyes far enough to be able to look at it, it looked a bit gray to her, and judging by its size, it appeared to be a large dog. So friendly to strangers...

Rarity's lips curled in a small smile. Someone must have found her and taken her into their home. That was very kind of them. I'll have to find a way to thank them somehow. Without thinking, Rarity raised her left hand and brought it to rest on the flank of the animal curled up beside her. She felt something very strange when she did, something that did not feel at all like the fur she was expecting. Her fingers moved of their own accord, inquisitively inspecting whatever it was they felt, and she distinctly felt the quills of feathers.

Dogs don't have feathers.

The creature stirred, and Rarity's hand snapped away from it. Its head lift, sluggishly, and as it blearily blinked its large, round eyes, Rarity took one look at the six-inch spiraling horn coming out of its forehead and confirmed that it was absolutely not a dog. It had a mane that rolled down the back of its head like a head of hair, with tall triangular ears that popped up to attention quickly, shortly before its big eyes, now alert, found her. By the mane and the shape of its face, it looked almost like a horse, but a particularly small one. A pony, maybe. A winged unicorn pony.

"Rarity?"

Rarity blinked, very slowly. Yes, she had indeed seen its mouth move at the precise same time as she heard that. Logically speaking, it would be reasonable to conclude that it had, in fact, just spoken to her. Except there was nothing fucking logical about that, because a horse was talking to her, and Rarity could only stare. Oh, also, it knew her name. Casually.

Why can't my life ever be simple?

The creature didn't seem to be aggressive at all, at least. Quite the opposite: it sat up from where it was laying beside her, flapping its wings once - they turned out to be deceptively large wings, giving it a wingspan of about as long as Rarity was tall, despite how compactly they curled up at its sides - and then sat forward, concern apparent in its curiously expressive face. It brought up one hoof towards her and, softly, pressed the side of the limb to her forehead, like one might check for a fever, if one also coincidentally lacked hands.

"You feel really cold," it said, in a feminine voice that sounded tauntingly familiar. It brought the side of its hoof to her arm closest to it, frowned, and its horn flared a bright pink glow. As Rarity watched, a blanket at the foot of the bed took on an identical glow, and it lifted itself up into the air, unfurled itself, and then laid itself neatly across Rarity where she lay. "There you go...I'm sorry, I didn't realize how cold you were. I hope you weren't like that for too long."

Rarity opened her mouth, and a tongue of flame that lashed at her from inside her throat reminded her that it would be best not to speak. She had to fight the impulse to shake her head, instead mouthing, 'Just woke up.'

The creature, whatever she was, seemed to understand this and nodded. "How are you feeling?"

I feel like death, everything is pain, and I'm being interrogated by a winged unicorn. Ugh, what do they call those...I didn't think to study up on mystical creatures before the zombie apocalypse hit, apparently I should have. Trying to express that sounded like far more work than it was worth, and also a bit rude, so instead all Rarity mouthed at her was, 'Pain.'

"I figured as much..." Remorse flashed across the creature's expression, though it was replaced by what Rarity guessed was a thoughtful look. A few seconds passed, and it declared, "I'll be right back," before hopping off the end of the bed and trotting to the door. The knob and its horn flashed pink in unison, and as the door swung itself open for it, the creature left the room down what sounded like a hall, though Rarity could not turn her head to see.

She sounds so familiar, Rarity thought. It might have been easier to figure it out were it not for the pain that felt like her skull was being pried open where it was split down the middle, but alas. I hope my skull isn't actually split open. Whatever that thing did to m-

Flashes of flesh-colored limbs and massive claws hurtling towards her sent ice through Rarity's veins, and her thoughts stopped dead in their tracks. She barely felt how she was trembling.

The unicorn-thing returned moments later (or hours later, for how well Rarity could tell time's passage), a series of glowing bottles and plastic containers held out in front of her, suspended in the air with a field of energy like that of the one wreathing the horn in the center of her forehead. "Okay, so, uh, I found a bunch of these in what I'm guessing was a medical cabinet, maybe you know them a bit better than me. Are any of these human medicines for pain relief?"

Rarity squinted in the dark, but the glow of the bottles illuminated the labels that swiveled at her. It was hard to think, harder still to recognize the exotic-sounding terms that were medicine names, and even harder yet to recognize any of them, but Rarity saw one she did know. She sluggishly lifted her splint-up arm, and one finger pointed at a bottle that said "tramadol."

The creature was delighted by this, and as the rest of the bottles were tucked aside against the wall, the bottle of tramadol popped open, and a few capsules, now also illuminated, extracted themselves from within. The creature glanced at the pills, then Rarity, and glanced back and forth repeatedly, the pleased smile steadily being replaced by a small frown. "Are you able to swallow like this?"

Rarity tried. The look on her face must have spoken volumes of the agony that the effort wrought. She wouldn't be trying again.

"Well...crap." The capsules tossed themselves back into the bottle, which got set aside, and the unicorn-creature emitted a haggard sigh. "Sorry Rarity, I tried. I don't know how to help right now."

A silence fell over the room. Rarity continued to stare at the face of this being, with her strangely human expressions and her infuriatingly familiar voice. It was hard to make out color in the dark, but the eyes that blinked at her curiously seemed to be a shade of blue, or purple. Beautiful eyes.

"Do you...recognize me, Rarity?"

No, she didn't, right up until that moment. Maybe it was the intonation combined with the recognition of those eyes, or the...no, no she remembered now. She had looked into those eyes looking for signs of sincerity, on the day that a certain girl had explained she was actually a pony princess. That was merely a day before they banded together and defeated the demon that Sunset Shimmer had turned into...and as destiny would have it, here she was again, having just rescued her from another monster, months later. You utterly magnificent specimen, Twilight.

Rarity's lips curled of their own accord as she mouthed, 'Twilight Sparkle.'

Twilight flashed a big smile of her own as she nodded. "This is how I normally look, back in Equestria." She looked down at herself, turning her hooves over slightly where they rested against the floor, as one might look at their hands. "Something happened to me when I entered this world, and now I look like an alicorn, instead of a human. I was worried that it would make humans freak out, what with some of the um...other stuff that seems to exist out here now."

Twilight paused for several seconds and seemed to wrestle with something before she took a breath, then asked: "What happened to this world, Rarity?"

What a question.

The events of all that had lead up to this point in Rarity's life slowly returned to her, playing itself out before her eyes, scene by scene.

The news reports. The tension. The changes. They way they pretended everything was normal. The way they forgot they were pretending. The dreamlike sequence. The nightmare. The riots. The violence. The screaming. The gunshots. The lack of screaming. The sirens. The blood. The bodies. The chaos. The running. The driving. More running. The first time she took a life. The dark place she slipped into. The smiling little face that kept her going. The weeks spent making ends meet. The evac shelter. The instructions to a refugee center. The hope. The monster...

Even if she could speak, Rarity wasn't sure what she would say to make her understand. Or what she could say. Maybe it’s just as well that she couldn’t speak.

Whatever it is Twilight saw in Rarity’s expression, it wounded her. Moisture clung to the surface of her eyes, making them glisten. She didn't need to speak them verbally for Rarity to hear the words on her lips. She knew the expression of someone who was not being very generous to themselves, and Twilight did not deserve that. She could not vocalize what she wanted to say, though, so failing that, Rarity did the next best thing she could think of.

Rarity lifted her left arm. It slipped from the blanket that had been put over her, reaching over and patting the space beside her a few times.

It took Twilight a few moments to recognize the invitation for what it was, and a few more to accept. She stepped around the bed, her hooves quietly clopping against the wood when she stepped off the carpet, then hopped up over the end of the mattress. She stepped carefully over to Rarity's side, sinking slowly down and pushing herself up into the space under Rarity's arm, who closed it around her as Twilight's head came to a rest on Rarity's shoulder, tucked up snugly into the crook of her neck; the horn felt a little close for comfort, but considering she couldn't move her head whatsoever, the odds of getting impaled were slim, wherever it was. One of Twilight's front legs (arms?) reached past Rarity's right shoulder, returning the embrace.

Slowly, softly, Rarity's hand ran up and down along Twilight's back and side. The fur was very soft, feeling almost plush, and it felt good to touch it. Twilight's cheek gently nuzzled into her shoulder, and with a flash of the horn, the blanket between them lifted up and re-oriented itself so that Twilight could scoot up more against her, then dropped back down over the two of them. The warmth of the fur of her underbelly where it pressed up against her side cut through the chill that permeated Rarity's body. It felt nice. She felt nice.

There was so much to say. A lot needed to be explained still, too - by both of them, Rarity was sure, and her own share of explaining was going to be...fun. That didn't matter, though. Right now, all Rarity wanted to was cuddle with a friend that she never thought she would see again. Between that and the splitting headache, there would be no thought of much else for a while yet.

Something wet delicately came in contact with Rarity's neck. "I missed you," Twilight murmured.

Rarity would have given a lot to tell her the same.

The moment Princess Celestia found out that the leader of the representatives from the Ministry of Arcane was an artificer, she knew that they had already failed.

There were eight of them in total, each from different specialties, but all with broad skillsets that set them up with a nigh-all-encompassing angle of approach for any number of eventualities, both foreseen and unforeseen. Each pony that made their way into the currently locked down wing of the palace did so with practiced swiftness, and by the time Celestia knew that they had arrived, they were already on-site and doing their work. By the time she made her way from her throne to the treasury to oversee them, they had already finished their diagnostics, performed a few tests, and had given her what would otherwise be an extremely optimistic 24 hour estimate before the ancient relic housing a portal that predated most of Equestria was recalibrated and brought back online. It was 22 hours into that 24 hour estimate, and from what she understood, it would only be minutes longer.

The Ministry of the Arcane was nothing if not industrious. Sadly, they were many things other than that, and the list of adjectives Celestia would draw from was not nearly so flattering. On said list included terms such as "overambitious," "presumptuous," "wheedling," and - though she would never use such a word where there was any chance of it being repeated - "dangerous."

The Ministry and the Crown had always had a complicated relationship, though it was not always as confrontational as ponies today tended to assume it was. There was a time where the Ministry operated very closely with the Crown as a committee of talented ponies whom Celestia had tutored personally, and her opinion of them had understandably been quite high. Following the events of Nightmare Moon, a schism had been created within the existing loyalist party, namely between those who remained faithful to Celestia despite her failings, and those who'd had their confidence shaken after going through a world-threatening crisis that, ultimately, could have been prevented. Disillusionment resulted in a divergence in philosophy, and the Ministry of the Arcane was among those whose ideologies had begun to drift. In their case, they began making compromises in ethics and standards for the sake of more efficiently achieving their goals.

Many budget disputes, verbal spats, and burned bridges later, the Ministry survived, though only by the grace of Princess Celestia who was, ultimately, not in a place to be dismantling such an organization at the time, what with juggling the instability of her realm and her own personal traumas from the loss of her sister. Their spot under her was later replaced by her own personal academy aimed at teaching young unicorns the fundamentals of responsible exploration into magic, though it had never grown to anything vaguely as successful as the Ministry turned out to be.

There had been some High Ministers following their departure from her good graces that Celestia was genuinely fond of, and a few had even seen discreet support from the crown under the table, though the current acting High Minister was not one such pony. If he had been previously, that would currently have been brought into question, as he had apparently seen fit to send the most insufferably smug and condescending representative that he could find and appointed them as head of the restoration project she had "commissioned." Were she a less enlightened ruler, Celestia might have assumed that they had done so purely to spite her. Fortunately, she was enlightened, and she knew that they did this to spite her.

"You're looking rather dour, Your Highness," a navy-blue stallion with a white mane remarked. Between the brown robes, the taunting quality to their smile, and the confidence in their tone that tipped well past the point of conceit, Celestia didn't need to ask to know that this was minister Prim Prosper, project lead. "If I didn't know better, I'd think you weren't aware of the reunion we were about to facilitate here tonight."

Princess Celestia looked at them with eyes only, sacrificing not one inch of her regal posture to address him. "I do not yet see cause for celebration," she informed him levelly, "nor will I, until Twilight Sparkle stands before me. You would be wise to temper your own expectations of success until it has presented itself."

"Ahh, that saddens me to hear...I was warned that your confidence in the Ministry is not what it could be." Prim smiled, not one speck of sincerity present in that smile or between any of his too-shiny teeth. "Not to worry. After tonight, I'm sure that much progress will be made to mend that."

Princess Celestia looked down at the robed minister with a gaze precisely as expressive and warm as the stone beneath their hooves, and with a silence to match.

Prim Prosper didn't seem overly bothered by it as he cheerfully excused himself from the Princess's presence. As he did, he called back, "An offering of the finest champagne has been brought to commemorate the occasion, courtesy of the Ministry. It will be presented as soon as we have this portal back up and running again!"

Princess Celestia did not externally sigh.

The ritual to re-engage the portals was beginning, and Prim Prosper did not waste any further time, nor did his peers, though he did see fit to prepare a small speech for those in attendance, which was almost certainly directed at her. Physically Princess Celestia stood by, looking on imperiously, and almost surely not listening.

The story was very different metaphysically, as Celestia's consciousness drew away from the physical and she slipped into the in-between behind the veil. Blues and whites flooded in from all angles, painting the world with the colors of creation as Celestia stepped away, yet also closer. Her awareness flooded the entire room, flowing into and filling it like water, viewing simultaneously every angle of the room that she never would have been able to see with her worldly eyes. Regardless of where her attention fell, every movement and sound of every pony in her focus was all perceived with utter clarity, and if she felt so inclined, she could have listened to each of the feelings in their hearts, too. Nothing escaped her notice.

Except for Prim Prosper's speech, which she still ignored. That hadn’t changed.

The situation in the place where the portal used to be had not improved since Celestia had looked at it the previous day. The spacial fault had once been a hair-fine split - a surgical incision applied to reality back when the portal to the human realm had first been erected. That previously tiny fissure now caused the whole room and everything in it to ripple and shudder like a mirage from where Celestia observed it. Otherworldly colors occasionally flashed from within the area of the distortion, looking to Celestia like delicate crackles of lightning in a distant storm.

The Princess of the Sun was not alone here. Luna came up "beside her," where she joined her co-monarch in observation. 'I confess that my enthusiasm is regrettably low for this...'

'Worry not, sister,' Celestia replied coolly. 'In that, we are in agreement.'

As they watched, Prim Proper's speech concluded, and on cue, magical designs began to dance and draw themselves across the floors and through the air. The shapes of the magic appeared in the aether as well, like it was being drawn onto a mirror that they gazed through the other side of, identical yet different in ways that scholars of magic such as this could only approximate an understanding of. As she expected, the diagram they were trying to make was out of alignment. Thus it was confirmed: they did not know that the hair-line fracture had become a scar.

Celestia observed herself physically watching on, attentive yet inexpressive. She also saw herself subtly adjust her mane, now that she had a view of how it looked from the back. 'If they continue building that there, it will collapse on itself.'

Luna frowned. She "leaned in closer," though from Celestia's perspective, she remained directly by her side, right where it would be most convenient to speak to her. Strictly speaking, both were correct. 'I have not seen a rift deform like this before, sister. Are you certain that it was wise to allow this to proceed?'

'I didn't have much choice in the matter,’ Celestia said, with a tinge of remorse. ’I needed to keep quiet, allow for plausible deniability about what I knew. At least we can force the Ministry to keep silent about this on the grounds of keeping the public from panicking about Twilight, but I worry that this has already gotten away from us. There will surely be questions about this portal and the world beyond it; all I could do was ensure they lacked sufficient motivation to ask them in open court.’

Luna nodded gravely, but could think of nothing to say on this matter that would make it better. ’Have you ever seen something like this before? This…effect that we’re seeing.’

’A few times. Never to this extent.' Celestia watched as the intricate diagram finally began to fall in on itself, as the casters were all trying to build atop something that was not there. The minister and his wizards continued on, unaware of the issue until it was too late to stop. 'This is what happens when a portal bridging two planes is disrupted and the bond broken with non-magical force. Were magic used, the aether would have folded in on itself and sealed up neatly.'

'And that did not occur here.'

Celestia shook her head. 'Our world and the aether pulled apart for a moment and created a trauma, which is what we see here. We have the humans and their ingenuity to thank for how massive this one is. I can only imagine how big the one on the other side must be...'

The fears returned again. Celestia could not hide them from her sister so well as she could everypony else, but she also didn't feel the need to. For a moment, Celestia let her anxiety be laid bare to the one she trusted deeply enough to see it. The sympathy she felt coming from Luna lifted her spirits a little.

Down on the material level, Prim Prosper looked at the dissolving shards where they had collapsed into a pile out of what should have been a flawless disc in the center of the mirror frame. Though he did not scowl, Celestia could see his frustration building while his peers looked on with confused vexation of their own.

Celestia allowed herself to smirk. 'I guess that champagne will have to wait after all.'

Luna was not at all concerned with the display going on in the treasury, more intent on observing the distortion. The magic failing had caused a faint ripple to dance across the anomaly like disturbances on the surface of a lake, though it did not seem to grow any weaker each time the ripples bounced off the farthest sides. Her discomfort was palpable. 'Will this fix itself, or must we repair it?'

'In time, yes, it will fix itself. We can repair it as well, though I don’t know how.’

’If it’s attention we wish to avoid, perhaps it would be best to let it heal on its own. We can let this all this blow over and keep our hooves clean in the meantime.’

Celestia nodded in agreement. ’We may want to relocate the treasury for the next few decades. It would be better to not have so many magical artifacts in one place that could potentially aggravate...' Celestia's voice trailed off as she watched what was unfolding in that room.

Prim Prosper had been angry, but no longer. Rather than make a scene of this failing, he pulled forth scrolls from his robes, then started to issue out new instructions to his peers, which they took to with practiced motions. New designs were being drawn across the floor and painted in the air, and as the princesses watched, a veritable forest of tiny magical anchor points erected themselves, each linking together with the other as they grew in number. This pattern grew exponentially in comparison to what was being drawn out physically, and the design they formed began to fold inward. The tree of these points became a grid, and then a web, and as they folded in on themselves completely, a cage. The distortion was completely encapsulated. It would seem deliberate if Prim Prosper hadn’t already demonstrated he had no idea what was actually here.

'He is more creative than I thought,' Luna muttered, becoming more impressed and concerned in equal amounts as she watched.

'The ministry was never incapable.' As the cage sealed itself, the distortion reacted with a shudder, causing another wave of lightning-like disturbances to course through it. This energy appeared to get conducted by the lattice of supports and started to bounce around between its innumerable connections, which caused it to draw more energy more quickly. A positive feedback loop had formed, building charge increasingly swiftly. 'If anything, I would say them being good at what they do is precisely the issue.'

'What is going to happen when they...?' Luna didn't finish - she could already tell that Celestia did not know. 'Should we stop them?'

'I think it's too late for that.’ Celestia "rose" from where she "sat," wings flaring as one would prepare for a swift ascent to the sky. ’I’m going back down there. Be ready to run damage control if this gets out of hoof.'

’This is already out of hoof!‘

Celestia dropped from the between-space, letting her senses be limited to what her body had been experiencing up until now.

The treasury was a wind tunnel, and Princess Celestia sat in the middle of it. The place in the portal that should have been glass was a burning red light in the center of a roaring vortex, illuminating the room like someone had opened a furnace in a steel forge. Blue arcs of something superficially resembling lightning danced wildly from the centermost point of the anomaly, and she could barely hear the yelling of the ponies around it over the gale that had manifested, swirling and howling like a hurricane.

All throughout the process, Prim Prosper was grinning. He did not pay heed to the chaos that filled the room, all attention on a purple and green series of numbers and text on a panel of magic he monitored intently beside him, waiting for something very specific. Evidently, he saw what he wanted to see, as he barked in a voice that somehow cut through the maelstrom: "CUT IT NOW!"

There was a sound of something ripping, and the winds in the treasury began to slow, and then fall still entirely. A few stray arcs of pseudo-electricity danced periodically around the portal, but they did not stray any further than its frame, much to the relief of the haggard-looking unicorns surrounding it, who dared to relax. Beyond the crackle and pop of a random blue arc and pitter-patter of the last bits of debris finding its way to the floor, all was silent.

The entire room was illuminated by a baleful cherry glow, which originated from the centermost point of what used to be a mirror. It hurt to look past the glaring white eye that shone there, though vague shapes could be seen rippling beyond the shuddering surface. It was like staring into a blood-red floodlight positioned behind the horseshoe-shaped portal frame, within which hung a film of translucent oil.

Princess Celestia could only stare at this clearly malformed portal that leered back at her, recognizing nothing in the sight from what it was meant to be. "What," she breathed, tone low and dangerous, "did you do?"

"Improvised!" came the too-cheerful response from Prim Prosper, his display blinking out. "Plan A didn't work, so I initiated a contingency. This will take a bit longer than the intended method, as we'll have to do this backwards now, but all we need to do is a little extra calibration, and we're more than equipped for that." He gestured sharply with a hoof, and the attendants around the portal began to draw displays of their own and make minute adjustments to the portal's innards. "It looks like we're a bit off on our initial projections...not to worry though, I'm confident that we'll have this done within the estimate provided. This won’t take but a minute!”

The sources of fury in Princess Celestia were many, and they all vied with one another to be the first in her outburst. The dismay at what had been done to an ancient piece of history, the loathing at how much was being focused on meeting a deadline and how they were willing to defile an artifact for it, the disgust of how this fool had absolutely no idea what he was tapping into and was putting everypony in the room at risk for it, the outrage at how lightly he was taking this with the fate of Twilight Sparkle on the line, Princess and hero of the realm…there were a lot of things to be angry about.

None of them mattered when a shape emerged through the portal and stepped into the room.

It was tall, nearly as tall as Celestia was if she stood up to her fullest, and clad in a pink carapace that gave it a vaguely crustacean appearance. Its two massive claws gave it a hulking stature, when in reality it was quite scrawny, its guts opening up like the world’s most compact Swiss Army knife, filled with dozens of tinier sets of bladed graspers. A pair of wings came into view as it fully stepped out of the portal, filled with holes and consisting mainly of fleshy strands, and its head was like some amalgamation of sea flora and the guts of a fish.

A deafening silence filled the room. Princess’s Celestia’s ears began to ring, and her pupils shrunk to the size of pinheads. She felt its gaze in spite of its lack of eyes, both in the physical and from a level beyond it, and as the horror that its presence imposed upon her sank deep into her mind, so too did an additional layer of fear rise up from within it.

They can’t be here.

“NOPONY CAST ANYTHING!” Prim Prosper’s barked, splitting the silence like a knife- the motions his subordinates were making stopped, though not one of them dared to remain as close to the creature as they were, clear signs of fight-or-flight in their expressions. “Nopony do anything, I’m prepared for this! Stay where you are!”

He sounded so in control, so confident. In the shock and confusion of the moment, even Princess Celestia hesitated, letting him take the lead. It was a mistake, and it felt so right to make it.

Glyphs appeared around Prim Prosper - a pre-installed translation spell flaring to life - as the blue stallion opened his mouth, and a sound that never should have been emitted from any pony spilled from his throat. It was like nails on a chalkboard, but the sound itself was screaming, and the screams were trying to tell you something, some desperate message it had to convey to you no matter what. It sounded like the world was crying, the cries curdling the air like sour milk, informing any who heard of what needed to be done in grizzly detail.

Two of the onlooking ponies fainted on the spot. Celestia’s mind turned inside-out slightly, and the notion of confiscating her own eyes from their sockets sounded disquietingly reasonable. Morally imperative, even.

It took a good while to realize that she was being spoken to, and that Prim Prosper was the one doing it. He smiled at her, like nothing was wrong. “Satisfied, Princess? I’ve just secured a peaceful trade between our two peoples.”

“Trade?” Celestia sounded absentminded, and physically she was. In reality, she was carefully tracking the dozens of guards deployed by Luna descending on this position, and watching every hall like a hawk to ensure that they were empty.

“Of course!” There was that smile again, though the teeth were redder than last time, but equally shiny. Blood dribbled down Prim Prosper's chin from where the tip of his tongue had been bitten off without him realizing. The creature’s claws came softly to Prim Prosper’s back, just behind his neck. His eyes were glazed over, and he didn’t react to it. “It’s customary in their culture to partake in an exchange of knowledge and resources, I am told, to help foster a better understanding of whom they are interacting with, so I’ve agreed to it a token swap of knowledge, just to start things off. Pardon my overstepping here, I realize this is outside my authority, but I figured that a small courtesy now would go a long way towards-“

The motion of the alien was as simple as it was swift: it swept the claw on Prim Prosper's back all the way down its length as the second claw found the center. There was a loud noise of a wet zipper being opened, and Prim Prosper collapsed to the ground in a crumpled heap like a puppet with its strings cut. In the creature’s claws, hovering in their original position, was Prim’s entire spinal column, from which hung hundreds of dangling blood-slick nerve strands like feelers.

The door exploded open, and two dozen Solar and Lunar guards flooded the room. There was very little that the creature could do besides what it did: turn around and sprint for the portal it had just emerged from. A split second after it did, the portal shone with a brilliant golden light, and then abruptly collapsed into nothingness, leaving only an empty horseshoe-shaped purple frame of the mirror behind.

A blue-black torpedo named Princess Luna arced through the air and struck the creature in the back, horn-first. The two cleared the length of the room with incredible speed, the portal frame being cast aside with loud clattering, and both bodies impacted the far wall with a loud crunch.

Luna’s fury was fathomless, for one of her subjects had just been murdered in cold blood. She yanked up her head and tore her horn free, carving a rift a foot deep into the center of the creature’s back with a spray of shattered exoskeleton and lime gore. She brought her head back down as swiftly as she’d raised it, teeth latching onto the right creature’s arm, which still clutched the spine of Prim, and pulled it from its socket like a weed from a garden. The creature threw back an arm to try and strike at its attacker, still face-first to the wall, but its own severed limb crashed into its forearm hard enough to snap it at a 45 degree angle, throwing it back aside. With that same limb, Luna struck the creature’s wounded arm, once, twice, and then thrice, the shattered and pulped limb breaking free from its shoulder after the final blow. Pale green ichor sprayed every which way, splattering her and her target in equal measure.

As she cast the ruined stump in her mouth aside like an expended cudgel, Luna kicked the creature hard in its middle - it crashed to the floor onto its back, skidding several centimeters from the force of the blow. Immediately Luna was atop it, a hoof to what passed for the armless creature’s throat and pressing down hard, a wild and vengeful star blazing in each eye as the essence of night boiled on the tip of her horn.

By this point, what remained of the Ministry’s unicorns had been rushed out of the room, replaced with rows of royal guards that fanned out. They had every inch of the room blocked and covered, denying any potential teleportation or avenue for escape, assuming the creature could possibly escape the Princess of Dreams. Judging by how it writhed and squirmed under her hoof, such an assumption was a bold one.

Princess Celestia made her way over slowly, her tri-colored mane and tail flowing behind her in an unfelt wind. Her gold-clad hooves clicked quietly against the dusted stone floor with measured strides, heedless of the pale green blood she stepped through. The very image of royalty towered over the dismembered alien where it lay pinned, her expression one of steel and a judgement most severe.

“If it is knowledge you seek,” she told it with all the warmth of the depth of space, “then allow me to bestow you with all you and yours will ever need to know about Equus: from this moment on, for every drop of blood spilled, mind bent, or life touched on this world by the Mi-go, a planet of your empire will tumble into its sun, along with every record, sample, and development on it. If you are to ever learn anything, learn that, and learn it well, for there will be no reminders.”

The Mi-go’s head tentacles contorted and writhed with purpose. For a moment it almost seemed it was trying to gesture something, but then it spoke, not in its own voice, but in the perfectly identical, smug voice of Prim Prosper when he had said the very same thing her: ”Satisfied, Princess?”

Princess Celestia did not react to this physically. Her head turned to the guards around her as her sister’s horn went off, followed immediately after by the sound of splashing and pottery shattering. Lime green speckled across her left cheek as everypony watched, and she did not so much as blink. “Lock down the castle. I want a psychic deafening field up as soon as possible. Detain any who display signs of being mentally compromised so that they can be processed and treated. Any entities similar to this one are designated as kill-on-sight.”

”ON ME, MY SENTINELS!” Luna thundered, already halfway out of the room. Despite the short notice, every thestral here was in hot pursuit and right behind her. ”SWEEP THE HALLS! LEAVE NO CORNER OF OUR HOME UNCHECKED!”

There was much for Princess Celestia to think on after this - the Mi-go’s presence and all that entailed, the gross negligence of the Ministry that had cost a pony his life, the state of the portal itself after it had been opened and in fact successfully connected with the human world, the fact that there was no possibility for Twilight Sparkle to return home during this lunar phase - but there was one thought that dominated the others in that moment.

Princess Celestia stopped one Solar Guard as they passed, and issued her command in a deathly firm voice: “Bring me Discord.”

Chapter 8

Dear Princess Celestia,

I found Rarity and her sister Sweetie Belle. Rarity was gravely wounded and was under attack from some kind of monster. Her neck is injured and she can’t speak, and she can barely swallow, but she’s alive, and I think she will recover. She even recognized me! I’m really happy to have found one of my friends, I was beginning to worry I wouldn’t be able to find them. I miss her voice, and I wish she could talk, but I’m sure she does too. Time will take care of that. I’m just happy she’s here.

Right now, I need to focus on getting her to safety. She was on her way to a refugee center when she was attacked, and that’s where she and Sweetie Belle both need to be, now more than ever. While I would prefer to stay here and let her rest for longer than the day we’ve had, we’re only a few miles from the center, and this farm house we’ve taken shelter in doesn’t have much food in it, and I am a little embarrassed to admit it, but despite having been one for several days in the past, I don’t really know what humans eat. It doesn’t seem like they can graze, which would make this food situation much more serious.

I need to figure out where Canterlot is, but ensuring the safety of my friends seems a lot more important and a lot more difficult to ascertain. They could be anywhere at this point if everyone ended up scattered, and after what I was almost too late to save Rarity from, I am scared for them. I’m going to have to really stretch the limits of what I’m capable of to get us all back together again, assuming they’re alive. I desperately hope they’re alive. What I wouldn’t give for some spell books...

The main goal right now is to get Rarity and Sweetie Belle to the refugee center and go from there. I don’t know how to deal with the ‘an alicorn to a bunch of humans’ thing, but with some humans with me, that should be a lot easier now. Maybe someone we recognize will be there. It’s a long shot, but if they could be anywhere, here is as likely a place as anywhere else, right?

I missed the portal deadline for this lunar cycle, but I’m sure you noticed that. There wasn’t much I could have done. Hopefully the next full moon will give better luck, but I have this sinking feeling that it’s going to be a very, very long month.

I hope to have these letters sent to you soon. I’ll keep you up to date as best I can.

Your little pony,
Twilight Sparkle

As Twilight inspected the letter she had just written, her eyes drifted up to the top of the page, finding the pale green eyes staring at her from over the edge of the paper. She stared back, blinking once, then slowly lowered the paper where it hovered in front of her. That was apparently enough to short out the telekinesis, which sputtered out, and Twilight winced as the paper and pen both fluttered and clattered to the floor respectively. “Ow…um, yes, Sweetie Belle?”

Sweetie Belle was laying on her belly to be on Twilight’s level on the floor, chin in her hands, eyes twinkling like they always seemed to when she looked at the alicorn for long. “What’re you doing?”

You’ve been staring at me for how long, and you only just now ask this? “Writing a letter,” Twilight replied, hooves finding the paper and folding it in half a few times. “To someone very important to me back home.”

“Are you married?”

It was fortunate that Twilight wasn’t drinking something at the time, because if she was, she would have spat it all over Sweetie Belle’s face. ”No! No, nonono, no not l- not like that kind of important! Oh my goodness! She’s my-“

“Girlfriend?” The impish grin was unmistakable. At that moment, however, a cushion sailed through the air and smacked Sweetie Belle in the back of the head, which cut off the grin with a squawk. “Hey!” She snapped Rarity a glare where she sat on the bed, whose expression had a reprimand written all over it. “I’m just asking!”

“She’s my tutor,” Twilight finally managed, given a few seconds to salvage her composure. “Or ex-tutor, I guess. I’ve been writing to Princess Celestia ever since I was a filly, and while I can’t send the letters right now, I still want her to know what’s going on as soon as possible.”

Sweetie Belle was mid-windup with the pillow to throw back at her sister when she stopped, and looked back at Twilight blankly. “What’s a filly?”

Twilight gave her an equally blank look for a moment or two. “…uh…a juvenile girl pony. When I was younger, growing up, I was a filly.”

“Oh.” Sweetie just kind of looked at her for a second or two more, then remembered she was holding a pillow, which she then casually tossed up onto Rarity’s legs, rather than complete the retaliatory throw she was about to make. Rarity re-collected the cushion, gripping one corner with her left hand and visibly preparing to chuck it back at her sister if she said something else that warranted it.

Twilight pulled the small bag she had found in the dresser in this room over with her horn glow, slotting the folded letter in her hooves there a moment later, along with what little else she had to her name. Books, some letters to Princess Celestia, and a tool she had cobbled together in a flash of necessity-driven inspiration to accomplish her goals, tossed together in the ill-fitting but only available bag that suited her purposes…a suitable metaphor for her whole life.

“So, girls,” Twilight began, standing as she cleared her throat. The bedroom was well lit with the curtains opened, which made it a lot easier to read the expressions of the two humans looking at her. “Like I just wrote to Princess Celestia, I want to try and get you two to where you were going before I found you. I think it’s important to move you into that refugee center as soon as possible, so I wanted to head out now, rather than stay here much longer.”

Rarity’s expression bore the start of a grimace, but not necessarily disagreement.

Sweetie Belle was a very different story, who frowned openly at this proposition. “Rarity’s hurt.”

“I realize that, and I want her to get some rest,” Twilight explained, “but you’re already most of the way there, aren’t you? And Rarity can still walk.” Twilight looked to Rarity now, uncertainly, but the ‘Yes’ mouthed at her answered the unspoken question of whether she actually could or not. That, or she was agreeing with her. Either way, it was encouragement.

“Well I don’t agree. Rarity’s hurt really bad, and whenever I got hurt, nobody would ever let me get out of bed or do anything, and I was never hurt anywhere near as bad as Rarity is!”

“You also had food and water at the time, I’m guessing,” Twilight pointed out. “You also had more people around, and medicine, and society still functioned. We don’t have any of those things. My biggest worry is that something might actually be wrong, but I don't know enough about humans to be able to tell. I want her to be around more humans that could look for those signs and deal with them before they turn into something a lot worse.”

Sweetie Belle didn’t say anything, but her scowl said plenty.

“I will keep you both safe,” Twilight said gently. “I saved Rarity before, didn’t I? I’ll do it again, too. Right now, keeping her safe means getting you both to more humans, where they can take care of her better and treat her injuries better than I can. After that, she doesn’t have to move an inch until she’s back to one hundred percent health.”

Sweetie’s expression of indignity and injustice slowly faded as Twilight spoke, replaced by the worry that she wore openly now. She mulled over what was said, then looked at Twilight again. Her pale green eyes found Twilight’s wings, where they remained transfixed for some time - the prolonged gaze made Twilight's wing unconsciously unfurl once, then close back up. After several seconds of deliberation and staring, Sweetie finally said, “Okay.”

Twilight tried to hide her confusion at this. She wasn’t entirely sure what about her wings that had given Sweetie such cause for thought, but she let it slide for now - she was just glad the girl wouldn’t fight this. “Are you feeling up to walking right now, Rarity, or do you want to wait?”

Rarity considered this uncertainly. After some deliberation, she began to stir. She sat upright, cringing and wincing as she pulled herself forward, then began the painstaking process of carefully, slowly swiveling sideways where she sat, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed - her expression spelled out every pain she felt, and more than once she jolted from a sudden stab, at one point tipping over and nearly leaning onto her broken arm if not for Sweetie Belle there to keep her upright. The bruising on her neck was particularly visible now, and the thick wire of blood clinging to the line around her neck where the skin had been cut made it look as though her head was completely detached and only balancing on the end of her severed neck; the care she took not to disturb it in any way added to this.

For a moment, Twilight regretted suggesting she be disturbed, but once Rarity was on her feet, she did alright. She was clearly dizzy and had an awful limp, but her younger sibling glued herself to Rarity’s side immediately, serving as a faithful and eager crutch to help her get around.

She would need new clothes, though. That wasn’t up for debate; the bloodstained skirt rolled straight of her hips when she stood up, and much to Rarity’s horror, her top was both sliced wide open on the left and completely ruined with blood, especially in the back, where she’d been laying in a pool of the stuff. Twilight didn’t entirely understand the whole “clothes” thing, but Rarity had felt pretty cold before, and it was a little cool outside for creatures bald as humans. Fortunately there were 4 dressers in this house, each in a different bedroom, and surely something would be good enough. She had two helpers assisting her where her bad arm would get in the way, and telekinesis proved extremely useful to precisely slide fabric where it needed to go so she wouldn’t have to struggle or aggravate her injuries. Not only was it precise, it’d make this go fast.

That was the idea, anyway. Unfortunately, it was Rarity. She saw she had helpers to make this efficient, and thus she insisted on trying on everything that was vaguely presentable from whoever had lived in this farmhouse, examining herself in front of a mirror diligently from every angle to make sure that whatever she wore was up to snuff and matched. She then wanted to do her makeup, and no amount of protest from either Twilight or Sweetie Belle made that stubborn frown or that determined look in her ice-blue eyes budge an inch. She didn’t have to speak for Twilight to be able to hear her deeply offended voice informing her that she was not going anywhere without looking her absolute best, and that was final.

She’d been mauled within an inch of her life by a demon crab in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, and Rarity still refused to set foot where she might possibly be observed without her eye liner perfect and her outfit matching. What’s worse, despite clearly having not had a chance to bathe in weeks, being ghostly pale from all of the blood she’d lost, being a completely different race from Twilight with radically different anatomy, and was actively infuriating Twilight, she still managed to look utterly gorgeous to the alicorn. It was like there was some universal law that said no matter what condition Rarity was in, what world she was from, or how insufferable she was being, she’d look pretty while doing it, and also find some way to look prettier still if if given a chance…which she’d get, because she’d dig in her heels and refuse to cooperate or spare you a moment of peace until you gave it to her.

Twilight could never decide whether she loved Rarity or wanted to strangle her, and today was no different. She was just lucky that the demon crab had beaten her to the punch on the attempt. And, you know, that Twilight loved her. A lot.

Twilight only actively resisted for the first 10 minutes, then surrendered, allowing Rarity to be where she deserved: at the center of attention, doing her best to look fabulous, and stealing the admiration straight from the eyes of the alicorn that thought now more than ever that a complete pain in the ass had never looked so beautiful.

“Applejack, Applejack!”

Applejack’s head jerked up, stirred from her thoughts - Apple Bloom was rushing towards her from up the road, the sight of which immediately caused her to push off of the SUV she’d been leaning again, which was lifted off the ground several inches by a jack beneath the front most end of it. She took a step forward, then realized the younger Apple had a big grin on her face, and the farmer relaxed, heaving out a sigh. There was annoyance, but she tried to set it aside for the sake of whatever she was so excited about.

Apple Bloom arrived, and the first thing she did was thrust something at her sibling. “Look at what I found!”

Applejack half-expected it to be a frog, but no, it was a rock. Immediately upon seeing it, however, she understood what had fascinated Apple Bloom so much about it: it was a pale beige rock about the size of Applejack’s fist, roughly circular with one side which was almost perfectly flat, while the rest of its relatively uneven surface was rounded, almost to the point of seeming polished. On the flat side was a large spiral, almost looking painted on from how perfectly even the line was, until you realized that it was indeed part of the stone.

After a few moments, Applejack let out a, “Huh.” She’d been expecting this to be underwhelming, like many of the other discoveries that Apple Bloom had found and blew entirely out of proportion, but this was not one of those, it seemed. “Well that’s quite somethin’, actually. Where’dja find this at?”

“Off the side of the road back there!” Apple Bloom threw an arm back the way she’d come running, her eyes practically shining with energy. “Ain’t it the coolest?!”

“It is! That’s a pretty good find, sugarcube. How far out was it?”

“It-“ Apple Bloom froze, staring at her sister for a second or so. In that moment of silence, she realized that she’d made a mistake, and her lips closed, then sucked inward, like she had bitten into a lemon. Applejack’s smile suddenly didn't seem so safe. She hadn’t actually said anything incriminating until she basically spelled it out just now, because even Apple Bloom knew better than to openly lie to her sister - yet she had been considering it. And why would she do that? Because she fucked up.

“Now, see,” she said, the smile steadily dissolving into a much more serious expression, “I coulda sworn I told you not to wander off while there was stuff like the living dead prowlin’ around. You remember anything like that? It might just be me, me ‘n my silly memory bein’ silly like that. Whachu know 'bout that, sugarcube? Anything?”

Apple Bloom was as still as a statue. She stared at her sister with big, wide bronze eyes.

Applejack stared back with hard eyes and an equally hard expression. She stood there silently, waiting for the anger to bubble up, or her voice to raise, or the words for a lecture to begin, but the longer she stood there, the more it sputtered in her chest, like an engine that wouldn’t start. After a while Applejack brought a hand up to pinch the bridge of her nose, letting slip a long, quiet breath. “Later,” came the begrudging mutter. Her voice raised a bit to its normal volume as she said, “We’ll talk about this later. Do not wander off again, you understand me?”

Apple Bloom’s nod was small, less proper nodding so much as a vertical vibration of her head.

“Go find Fluttershy.” Applejack nudged her chin in the direction of the refugee center down the ridge, and Apple Bloom took off in that direction like Hell was on her heels. The elder Apple watched her go for a while, then let her head hang, letting slip a second, much more weary sigh. Her eyes caught the pair of brown boots and jeaned legs sticking out from under the car she leaned against, remembering her guest’s presence, and she emitted a haggard, “Kids.”

It was then and only then that the second person here moved. They shifted and shimmied their way across the pavement, and when she had space to, she sat up. She couldn't have been past her mid-twenties, hair short-cut and raven black, a slightly oversized green long sleeve shirt bearing the insignia of Linux alongside all manner of grease stains that had not been there before, though plenty that already were. Jenny Forcette was her name, and she gave a small but sympathetic smile up to Applejack. “Can’t say I envy you.”

“She’s a good girl, she really is.” Applejack offered a hand down to the engineer, who took it and was pulled up to her feet with little effort - woman barely had any meat on her. “But sometimes I wish a few more things would go through that pretty lil’ head a’ hers besides the sound of the ocean.”

Jenny chuckled and gave a helpless shrug, dusting herself with her least dirty hand a moment later. “Guess that’s kids for you.”

“Eeeyup…”

A brief, somewhat awkward silence followed. It lasted until Jenny had completed dusting herself off, then presented Applejack’s smartphone. “Found it, by the way.”

“Aw yeah?” Applejack leaned over to to view the phone.

Jenny swiped the screen again to access the photos she’d just taken of the electric SUV’s underbelly, tapping one and zooming in. “That’s the cable right there, any car or truck battery is going to have one just like that. Pluck that off the alternator if you take something a battery out of something. Then take that part there, and plug it into this part here; you might have to splice some wires to do it. You uninstall the battery itself by unscrewing these here. A wrench will give you an easier time, but the way most of these bolts are designed, a sufficiently broad flathead screwdriver will also do the trick. Depends on the make. I suggest a wrench if you've got one.”

Applejack nodded along, studying the images. “And they ain’t all gonna be that big, right? That thing's a real chonker of a car battery if I ever seen one.”

“It’s because it’s electric, they’re designed to have big storage capacity compared to a vehicle with a combustion engine. An entire standard car battery could probably be shoved back into this area back here, right behind it. See? Bit of a squeeze, but they’re supposed to have compatibility with other makes of battery in mind, so you can use that. If all else fails, you can carve out a couple spots in the back to make room for it, a lot of this is hollow. It’s aluminum, too, so that make it easier, if you get a hacksaw or something. I mean hell, half of this is so thin you could probably just beat on it with a hammer to catch a lip and peel the whole plate back, if it doesn’t just break off.”

Applejack listened on, a small frown beginning on her lips. “Not a very sturdy thing, huh?”

Jenny shook her head. “That’s electric models for you. They’ve got to be light because their engines are so much weaker than combustion engines. I hated working on these things back when I did auto repair, there’s always so much plastic in them. If you hit anything hard enough, I’m pretty sure the whole thing would shatter like glass.”

Applejack crossed her arms, shaking her head with a sigh. “I’m gettin’ real sick of this thing, to be honest with ya.” She reached out with the end of her shoe and shoved the latch locking the jack in place, bringing the whole vehicle back to ground level with a small jolt to its shocks. “It got us out here, but it’s gonna take days for this thing to get us anywhere else. We really ain’t in a place to be sittin’ around waitin’ for those dinky solar panels. Never mind how much rougher it’s gonna be drivin’ now, roads fallin’ apart ‘n monsters beatin’ on the doors…”

“Or you making roadkill out of them.”

Applejack nodded. “Guess electric ain’t really for the apocalypse, huh?”

“It’s great if you don't want to be reliant on fuel all the time. Not so great if you're stuck with something not really designed to be self-sufficient. Could wire a bunch of them together in a big power grid if you had a fleet of them.”

“I barely got th’ patience for this one, don’t need more of ‘em.”

Jenny could only shrug. "Honestly, I'd suggest you go straight for trying to get a new car, rather than trying to daisy chain a bunch of existing car batteries that may or may not actually be charged up. Like, this thing's a working car, sure, but you don't sound at all happy with it."

"Cuz I ain't." Applejack cast a gaze over the ridge down towards the refugee center, and its many vehicles that surrounded it in the parking lot. "Would love one 'a them trucks they got down there."

"The old pickup?"

Applejack nodded. "That'd be handy. Throw a tarp over the back o' that, we'd be sittin' mighty pretty for haulin' stuff. Wouldn't ever have to worry 'bout storage space."

"I doubt that anyone's going to pawn that off to you, though."

"Yeah...'n it's probly better off with the refugee center than me 'n the girls. One of the regular cars in there would be real nice, though. Fill up a tank 'o gas, cruise fer days at a time on that..." Applejack looked at Jenny again. "Ya think they'd be up for a trade like that?"

"Uhh..." Jenny rubbed the back of her neck. "Maybe? I kinda doubt it. They're probably not going to be super thrilled about this SUV for the same reason you aren't. It's flimsy, it's going to be hard to repair because it's aluminum and plastic, and most cars are steel...there's a bunch of RTGs in the center itself, so the solar panels aren't going to be a huge deal for power or anything, and there's batteries galore downstairs."

"It's still a car."

"It is still a car, but it's not a great one. I think you're gonna have to sweeten that pot to get in on any of the vehicles that aren't getting used."

Applejack threw one hand up, letting it slap lightly back down against her other crossed arm with a frustrated huff. "Well, then I'm stuck. I need a better car to get more stuff to trade for, but I can't get better stuff cuz this van's junk and keepin' me from gettin' stuff to trade. Meanwhile I'm sittin' around blastin' stinkin' raccoons 'n squirrels tryin' to get by, and my best friend's over here's dyin' a little inside every time cuz she loves animals more than anythin'. I think I'd rather be puttin' rounds in my own foot at this point."

There was a silence, for a time. "You did say you were a farmer, right?" Jenny began, carefully.

Applejack cast a glance at her now, vexation in her gaze waning somewhat to cautious curiosity. She could just feel Jenny wasn’t necessarily supposed to say what she was considering well before anything was said. "Yeah, my family used to own Sweet Apple Acres. Mostly orchard, but I helped out on the farmland we did have. Had some animals, couple fields. Why?"

"Right. So first off, I don't know if I'm supposed to tell you about this, because you're not like, part of the group-“ Knew it. “-but your little band seems like it's in a tight spot where you're at, and I think this could help you."

Applejack's eyes narrowed a slight, and she turned fully towards Jenny as she listened. “Aight…shoot.”

"So I've been hearing about a plan that some of the others have been throwing around. There's a ranch out there somewhere, I don't know where exactly. Food is a big problem in the refugee center, and obviously they want to take care of that as soon as possible, so there's plans to move in on that old ranch and turn it into like, a farming community to help feed some mouths, because right now all we've got is trade and bartering, and that's not going to last forever. We need actual infrastructure, and people who are involved in farming and setting up one are not the most plentiful anymore. I think that an actual, established career farmer would be incredibly helpful."

"Erm...well, I mean, I dunno about career," Applejack admitted. "I grew up on a farm and I've been doin' farm work for as long as I can remember, but I'm only just outta high school."

Jenny blinked. "...shit, seriously? I never would have guessed you're that young, the way you hold yourself. I thought you were my age."

"Heh." Applejack needlessly adjusted her hat on her head, then re-adjusted it to undo it. "Well...I appreciate that, I guess?"

"My point still stands though. If you promised to pitch in with that ranch project, I think that would be a pretty good pot sweetener to get a vehicle you can actually use to support yourself, if that was something you were willing to do. Your skills and experience would be really valuable there, and I know for sure that people would feel better about a prospective farm with, y'know, an actual farmer on site. It'd make the future seem a little more optimistic, too, and God only knows there's not a lot of optimism floating around the refugee center right now."

Applejack's fingers slowly tapped on her arm, one after the other, as her gaze drifted thoughtfully. That did sound like something that she'd be good for...it was almost best-case scenario. Almost, of course, because it was unlikely that she would be getting support from the refugee group, so it'd likely still be up to herself and Fluttershy to keep their group fed and sheltered, but if she was bumping elbows with the men and women pitching in to make the ranch livable...it was hard to imagine that they'd insist on making her sleep outside, if she helped to put a roof over their heads. Times were hard, but these people weren't heartless, and folk that toiled over a cause like this were gonna end up tight-knit. People that struggle together band together.

After a good long while, Applejack said, "I appreciate you tellin' me 'bout this, Jenny." She looked to Jenny and gave the engineer a warm smile. "That's definitely somethin' to think about, but right now there's other stuff I gotta think about, too. Like repayin' you."

Jenny hesitated for a moment, then rubbed the back of her neck with the cleanest of her two hands. Not that it really mattered, that spot on her neck was slowly becoming the same shade as her hair. “Well, I didn’t really do much. All I did was walk out here, take a look at your SUV, and shine a light around for a little while.”

"An' gave me some much-needed advice. An' clued me in on somethin' to help me support my friend 'n family where I been strugglin'. An' gave me somethin' to work on that I'm actually good at."

“I mean, I don't know if I was even allowed to tell you any of that. Besides, it's not that big of a deal. This is the sort of thing you'd probably hear about anyway, if you stick around long enough."

"Aw c'mon now," Applejack laughed a bit. "You're tryin' to sell all this off as nothin'? I don't buy that one bit, sugarcube. You been real good to me just now, an' that means a lot to me."

Jenny attempted to deflect it again, hands up as though to shove the credit away from her, but she never managed to put up any coherent protest beyond that.

"Tell ya what, why don't ya stop by our camp for dinner tonight? It ain't gonna be the best food ya ever ate, er the biggest meal ya ever had, but it'll be hot 'n fresh, an' it beats the heck outta year-old cans of beets."

Jenny gave a sigh, and her arms flopped back down to her sides in resignation. "I guess I'd be stupid to pass up free food these days." Despite the reluctance in her tone, she was smiling.

So was Applejack, brighter than she had in what felt like a lifetime. This was the most hope she'd had for the future since the world ended, and even while nothing else was known and nothing had been decided, just this once, Applejack dared to tease the thought that maybe things were going to turn out alright after all.

It took about an hour and a half after announcing her intent to leave before Rarity had found something that satisfied her enough to be seen in it. The jeans were a bit tighter than necessary on her legs, but apparently she liked that. Meanwhile, she couldn’t find a shirt to cover her bare torso, so a hoodie had been thrown over it, colored black with a pair of blue triangles on the front. It was oversized, which kind of flew in the face of how much of a scene was made over other clothes that didn’t fit, but Twilight didn’t question it. Rarity was the fashionista here, not her, and while Rarity was only barely satisfied with the look, good enough was, evidently, good enough.

Finally.

Two humans and an alicorn stepped out of the farmhouse they’d entered the day prior, and slowly made their way across the field as the afternoon sun shone down on them where it peaked past scattered clouds. Rarity was unsteady on her feet, but Sweetie Belle was at her side, Twilight on the other. If she ever stumbled (and stumble she did, as clumsy as she was on the uneven earth of the partially plowed corn fields they cut through), Sweetie would leap into motion at around the same time Twilight’s horn would flash and cause Rarity to freeze in mid-movement. Twilight already had a headache going before they even made it back to the road - no doubt because of all the clothes she’d been putting on and taking off Rarity for the best part of…she checked her watch…an hour and a half.

…was it really that long? It didn’t feel like it. Anyway…

Rarity, not being able to speak, obviously did not do so, simply focusing on maintaining a steady gait while occasionally looking around and commentating loftily on her surroundings with expression alone. Twilight, for one, didn’t mind the silence. She was alert and keeping an eye out on their surroundings, mindful and wary of anything that might potentially cut through the trees that now flanked both sides of the road. Occasionally her gaze found Rarity, and the two of them shared brief but pleasant wordless exchanges, typically composed of mutual smiles and occasional gestures at something nearby, which Twilight may or may not vocalize about, typically not. While she definitely would have preferred conversation after spending three stressful, fearful days alone with no one around to confide or converse with, it was a comfortable silence, and she liked it enough to not want to fill it with noise if it wasn’t necessary.

And then there was Sweetie Belle.

“Where do you live?”

Twilight blinked and looked at Sweetie Belle, whose wide pale green eyes were focused on her again. “Uh…”

“Do you live in the clouds?”

“N- no.” Come on, Twilight, don’t make it sound weird, she’s just a filly. Child. Whatever. She doesn’t know anything about ponies, and she’s just curious. “I have some friends that do, but I live in Ponyville.”

Sweetie Belle’s eyes narrowed unexpectedly. It almost seemed to Twilight like she didn’t believe her for a moment. “Is that where all ponies live?”

“Well, some of us do, certainly. The name is pretty on the nose, I know,” Twilight chuckled. “It’s just one town though, ponies live in all kinds of places back in Equestria.”

“Equestria?”

Twilight nodded. “It’s the country where I’m from. Ponyville is actually not that far from the capitol city of Canterlot, which is-“

“Is that in the clouds?” Sweetie cut in.

“Uh…no, it’s on a mountain.”

“Which goes up to the clouds?”

“No.” What’s with the clouds? “There’s Cloudsdale, though. It’s right in the name.”

“That’s in the clouds?”

“It’s made out of clouds, too.”

Sweetie’s big eyes got even bigger. “The whole city?”

“Every single part of it.” Twilight smiled as she began to draw up a mini-seminar all about Cloudsdale, but for a filly. “It’s the biggest population center of pegasi in Equestria, and it’s where all the-“

“How come you’re purple?” Sweetie interrupted again.

Twilight stumbled a bit. “Th- erm, I mean…I’m just- that’s my color.”

“Is everyone purple like you?”

“No, everyone is their own color. They’re all differ-“

“Is anyone rainbow colored?”

“Yes, actually. I have a friend who has a rainbow-colored mane.”

“Does it get all melty when they bathe?”

Twilight furrowed her brow a little. “What?”

“How come you have a tattoo on your butt?”

Rude. “Um, that’s not a tattoo. It’s a cutie mark.”

Sweetie Belle stared blankly, and blinked once.

Right…human. Twilight paused to consider how to describe this to someone with no context of what a cutie mark was, which was in itself a bit alien to her. There was so much to them to be able to explain concisely - or at least, it was for Twilight, who felt at home giving detailed speeches about a subject. “It’s like…it represents me, and what I do. They’re unique to everypony who has one. It’s like-“

“It’s your symbol,” Sweetie interrupted again, helpfully this time.

“Yes- yes, exactly! It’s my special symbol that represents me.”

Sweetie Belle didn’t respond immediately, and when she did, her voice was quieter and sincere. “I really like your symbol.”

Twilight gave the human filly a warm smile. “Thank you. It came to me on one of the most important days of my life, and I wouldn’t be who I am today without it. It means a lot to me.”

Sweetie Belle didn't ask any more questions after that. Twilight slipped into a warm nostalgic haze, too caught up in memories of the past to notice the way Sweetie Belle continued to openly stare at that symbol on her rump. She eventually looked ahead, eyes forward but too lost in thought to watch where she was going.

Meanwhile, Rarity gazed ahead in something of a daze, the slightly wobbly world passing her by as she limped along, leaning against her younger sibling for support. She had been trying to hide it for a while now, but her energy had been expended shortly after they left the house, and Rarity was currently doing all she could just to keep moving and make it to this refugee center. They just had to make it, and everything would be okay. Just a little further.

A silence moved in among the three of them and made itself comfortable.

The road continued on ahead, and the tunnel of woods it went down the center of demonstrated no ill will towards them, nor did it seem to harbor anything that might. The sun left them for the screen of clouds that shifted in front of it, though it stayed long enough to ensure that the distant bend in the road ahead was barely visible. As the right wall of forest thinned and eventually peeled back, it became more clear that the road also went straight, but likewise forked off, splitting just over the edge of a small slope down that snaked its way down a series of shallow cliffs and ridges before going straight into a field, where it ended directly in front of a structure.

The structure was large and colored a dull red, either painted that way or made of brick. It was square and vaguely X-shaped, surrounded on all sides but the front with a parking area that was haphazardly filled with vehicles in various conditions and different sizes, though the largest and most numerous among them were long yellow rectangular vehicles that all present recognized as school busses. A wide area around the lot was dotted with trees and what appeared to be small pools of water, which was itself encapsulated on all sides by a decrepit chain link fence that served only to mark the edges of the plot of land.

The way that it was laid out from this elevated position made it seem as though it was presenting itself to whoever managed to get this far. If that wasn’t indicative of its purpose enough, then there was always the two shapes just barely visible from this distance - humanoid, and walking with a gait that no undead could. The two shaped entered the front of the building and disappeared from sight.

“Is this it?” Twilight asked, feeling her pulse quicken. “Is this the place?”

Rarity had her map out from her own bag, and though she could not speak the words, they were all over her face, which suddenly shone with something that had been lacking before. Energy. Hope.

This was it. It had to be.

“I can’t go with you.”

Two sets of eyes snapped to Twilight immediately. Only one had the voice to express her panic. “What?!”

“I’m not leaving!” Twilight said quickly. “I’d never leave you like this. I’m not going anywhere, it’s just…I don’t know how to explain myself, or like- like, I’m a pony. If humans were just minding their own business and then boom, suddenly pony princess strolls in, somepony is going to freak out, and I don’t want that. There’s been enough scares about zombies and monsters and…whatever is out there. Tension is probably high enough for me to go scaring everyone.”

Rarity was trying to convey something - she waved her arms in a way that indicated ‘no,’ but she was mouthing too quickly for Twilight to follow along.

Twilight raised her own hooves, indicating pause. “Look, I’m going to stick around, but I want this to be as simple for everypony involved as it can be. You guys go ahead and get yourselves settled in there, and then…” She paused uncertainly, trying to think of a next step.

“Do you…” Sweetie Belle looked at her sister’s face, trying to follow along with what was being mouthed. “‘Inter…int-‘ Oh, introduce? Introduce her?”

Rarity smiled and gave a thumbs-up with her hand on her non-splinted arm, waving along for Twilight.

Twilight considered this briefly, then nodded, smiling. “Yeah…yeah, if you two can just tell people I’m here, and um- yeah, that’s perfect. I want to help, but I don’t want to scare anypony.” A beat. “Body. Anybody.” Stupid human phrases…

“Yeah, don’t worry about it at all! We can introduce you to everyone! Cuz you’re not scary at all. You’re pretty and purple! And fuzzy. And really nice!” Sweetie Belle grabbed hold of Rarity and and moved like she wanted to pull her, but instead just kind of raised her arm repeatedly in excitement, not wanting to yank her wounded sibling off her feet. “Rarity, c’mon, let’s go!”

Rarity did not move right away, eyes remaining locked on Twilight. There was a question in them, one dying to be expressed, if only she had the words.

Twilight didn’t know exactly what Rarity wanted to say, so she made a guess. “I’ll be watching. Don’t worry, I’ll find you. I promise.”

It was hard to say whether that was it or not, but it seemed to satisfy enough for a small smile. She opened up one arm invitingly, and Twilight did her best to partake in the hug, though combined with the fact that she only came up to Rarity’s stomach, said stomach had a massive gash in the middle of it, and the side of the arm being used also had injuries beneath the clothes and right under it, it ended up being quite awkward and a bit arm’s length…or, in Twilight’s case, wing’s length. They fumbled with it for a moment, though Rarity was grinning widely about how hard a time they were having. Twilight couldn’t help but giggle as well. Good enough.

Though it pained her a little to remain there at the top of the ridge while the other two followed the road, she knew that this was for the best, and that this would not be the last time she saw either of them. Twilight took a few steps closer to the edge of the cliff and sat on her haunches, overlooking the refugee center and remaining vigilant as her friends made their way to their new home, growing smaller and smaller as they made their way closer and closer.

She didn’t know how long it would take for them to be back. Hopefully not too long, but maybe a little time to herself wouldn’t go amiss. She still had to figure out what she would say to the humans she would inevitably meet who were going to see a pony for the first time. In a way, she was like a representative for all of Equestria, and also all of ponydom, here to forge a relationship with the realms of mankind.

If this were absolutely any other circumstance, even only slightly less dire and desperate, this would an incredibly exciting occasion. As it was, Twilight could only hope that her presence here wouldn’t just make things worse.

The lobby of the refugee center was quiet as ever, save only for the discussion that Applejack was having with the merchant Smokes up at his window. Fluttershy heard only bits and pieces, something about a project and repeated mentions of a car. She could listen in, but she was sure Applejack would let her know the results of it and what it meant when they talked later, if not immediately afterwards. She seemed enthusiastic about it, moreso than Fluttershy had seen her since they finally reached the refugee center. Hopefully it wouldn't end how that enthusiasm did about half an hour later.

Fluttershy let out a small, faint sigh. She sat beside Apple Bloom in one of the corners of the room, who leaned up into her side. It wasn’t quite privacy, but none of the beggars here paid them attention here, and that was close enough. Her hand moved slowly where it rest atop the head of the Apple Bloom tucked beneath her arm, stroking her strawberry-red hair. She never actually explained what was wrong when she'd sought out Fluttershy's company like this. Fluttershy had asked, but she didn't want to talk about it. And that was okay - she told her as much. Just sitting here was okay too. She was always glad for Apple Bloom’s company.

It felt late, and Fluttershy wasn’t sure why. Her mind kept trying to convince her that it had to be getting dark out soon, but when the door opened up and someone stepped in, she saw midday sunlight out there. Strange.

“So um, where do we sign in?” came a young, squeaky voice that cracked midway through.

Fluttershy was spacing out where she cuddled up against the youngest Apple sister. She probably wouldn’t have noticed the newcomers until a little while later, if at all, if Apple Bloom’s head hadn’t kicked as hard as it did against her hand when it shot up. It startled Fluttershy from her daydream. She blinked once and looked at the two figures in the door.

The one that spoke was a young girl, not much older or taller than Apple Bloom, who had an off-white jacket on that had clearly seen better days. She had wide, expressive pale green eyes, and her slightly curly hair was both pink and purple, split down the middle and reminding of certain kids’ yogurts, back when those were a thing that existed. Definitely Canterlotan, just like the other girl with her.

She was helping to hold up an older girl that leaned on her, who appeared to be in pretty rough shape by comparison. Her neck bore horrible bruising all the way around, and there was a splint on her arm made up of a white sheet and a tree branch, and she was very pale-looking. She wore a black hoodie with some blue triangles on it, and for some reason that and the jeans reminded of Rarity. She had long, straight purple hair set in big curls that reminded a lot of Rarity, and a pair of blue eyes the color of the sky that reminded an awful lot of Rarity and was looking at her now in a way that reminded a lot of a very surprised looking Rarity and oh my god.

Fluttershy barely heard herself when she spoke, and for once, it wasn’t because of her volume. “Applejack.”

Applejack paused for a moment from her conversation with Smokes, glancing back at Fluttershy as she leaned on one arm against the counter to the reception window. Her eyes found the same place that Fluttershy’s currently enormous eyes were pointed, and she immediately stood up straight when Rarity met her gaze.

There was a full second of silence.

Sweetie Belle broke it, plus her voice, practically shrieking: “Apple Bloom!”

Apple Bloom was on her feet like a rocket and blasted across the room. She and Sweetie Belle collided in the middle, slamming together with arms knotting themselves around each other as tight as they possibly could. It had been months since either of them had beamed so brightly, and tears glistened in both of their eyes as they laughed.

Applejack and Fluttershy both swiftly made their way across the room, the one and only thing stopping either of them from immediately hugging their friend being the physical condition she was in. Rarity took an uneven step towards the girl closest to her - Applejack in this case, she was already standing when she started coming over - and put her shaking left arm around her shoulder. Applejack, hesitating at first, put her own arms around Rarity in turn, locking her in an embracing yet very physically light hug. Fluttershy was close behind, joining in on the embrace that filled the refugee center’s doorway. There weren’t words, just joyous reunion.

Apple Bloom’s eyes were so full of tears she could barely see straight. “Holy HECK Sweetie Belle, it’s been ages!” She was blubbering as she spoke, and she did not care. She didn’t care who saw her crying. “I thought you was a goner fer sure! I been so scared I was never gonna see you again! Where the heck’ve y’all been?!”

Sweetie Belle grinned so wide it threatened a split her face in half, her own face painted with long wet streaks all the way down to her chin. “We’ve been all over the place! Traveling lots- there’s been zombies, and monsters, and, and, and- OH, Apple Bloom, I gotta show you the other friend we found!”

”More?! There’s more?! Who else ya got with ya?!”

Sweetie Belle nodded, and as she spoke, her tearful eyes practically glowed with how much they glittered and shone: “We met an angel, Apple Bloom. An angel named Twilight Sparkle.”

Chapter 9

Night was coming, but not in a hurry. The sun cast a citrine glow over the landscape as it lackadaisically made its way towards the horizon beneath it.

Shielded from prying eyes by a thin cover of trees, a fire crackled and popped from within a recess in the earth in the middle of a ring of stones in the heart of a small clearing. The flames were small at first, but they steadily grew in size till they lapped eagerly away at the pot currently suspended above them by a thin metal bracket. The water within was not yet ready to boil, though it steamed in anticipation of whatever contents were going to be added to whatever turned out to be tonight's meal. Three pine-green tents stood erect in a semicircle around the fire, generally disregarded by their intended occupants but nonetheless sitting by diligently in case they ever decided to change their mind.

Applejack sat on the long log pulled up to the fire, a firestick in hand and a long fork nearby, along with a small assortment of various bits of vegetable and a pile of meat scraps that did not look at all like enough to feed as many bodies that were gathered here, but it was going to have to do. Fluttershy sat on the ground closest to Applejack, she herself being used as a makeshift bed for Rarity, who had her head in the girl's lap where she laid out straight across the ground in a way that did not risk aggravating any of her wounds. Fluttershy's soft hands were always performing small, gentle motions, usually to brush Rarity's hair or to tuck aside a small strand of it where it had been displaced, each motion carrying a fondness with every touch. Rarity, try as she may, could barely maintain a coherent thought from how exhausted she was from the events of today, and was periodically lapsing in and out of consciousness as those around her spoke. Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom were present, but keeping to themselves, dipping in and out of view of the others as they basked in each other's company and started to make up for lost time while they'd been apart.

Twilight, meanwhile, was pacing back and forth. The fire was between herself and her friends, who could see the consternation plain on the alicorn's face as she thought, and tried to plan. "So there's absolutely no way that you're going to be able to join the refugee center."

Applejack shook her head. "'fraid not, sugarcube. They made it real crystal clear-like that the life raft is fuller than a rain barrel at the bottom of a river in flood season. Most we're gonna get out of 'em is work."

"It's unfortunate," Fluttershy said quietly, "but I can't be mad at them about it." Her gaze came down to Rarity's resting face. "I'm starting to get a little bit worried myself about how we're going to feed everyone we have, so I can understand why they wouldn't want anyone new when they're so many. Times are hard."

"That's puttin' it mildly," Applejack muttered. She extended her poking stick into the flames from where she sat, shoving something unburnt closer to the heart of the blaze. "Ain't never even heard of no pickle like the one we're in."

Twilight's anxious pacing continued. "Okay, alright, so...refugee center is out. This camp is, um..." She lifted her head and paused in her pacing for a moment to give the campsite a once-over, taking in what little there was to see in this clearing. "It's not exactly secure."

"Ain't had no troubles yet, but..." Applejack shrugged. Fluttershy didn't say anything.

"Okay. Right." The pacing resumed. "No secure camp, food is an issue, and we don't have a ton of help. Not great. Very not great."

There was no disagreement to this assessment.

Twilight continued her back and forth path, chewing on the inside of her lip as she mulled their situation over, and tried very hard to think of something that could make this better. Nothing was making itself obvious. "I can fly out to that town nearby and back easily enough, but I don't know what all is there, and a bunch of the food is already rancid at this point from what I've seen of the towns..."

Applejack shook her head. "Much as I appreciate you comin' in and tryin' to help us out just like last time, I really can't ask ya to put yerself in harm's way for us."

Twilight paused in her pacing to cast an assuring smile at Applejack. "Don't worry about me, I can take care of myself out there."

"I'm sure ya can," the farmer continued, "but this ain't like last time, sugarcube. Folk're dyin' left right 'n center out there, an' you're half the size you was when you was last here." She squinted slightly at this. "Come ta think of it, why are you like this now? It's not like I disbelieved you or nothin' when you said you was a pony princess, mind, but uh...you also had hands."

"Yeeeeeah..." Twilight pawed at some dirt beneath her hooves, taking a moment to examine that they were, in fact, hooves. "I don't know what happened, but pretty much as soon as I stepped out of the portal to this world, I got caught in an explosion that-" Killed me instantaneously. "-messed up the magic.”

Applejack’s expression shifted to one of incredulity. “An explosion?”

Twilight nodded. “I wish I could tell you what that was about. It’s made things really complicated for me. I was a bit freaked out that people would think I was really weird and maybe panic a little bit, right up until I found out that there's apparently barely anyone left. Then I got really afraid that people would think I was one of the monsters or something, like one of those giant bugs out there." Twilight paused in her pacing and looked up at this point. "What is with that? I didn't see anything like that when I was last here."

Fluttershy shook her head. "We don't know. They just started appearing like that...and it's not just the bugs, either. While we were on our way to the refugee center, we drove through a marshy area, and we saw a frog that was about four feet tall. It probably could have swallowed Apple Bloom whole."

"Saw a rattler once that coulda done the same to any of us, too, if it set its mind to it. Looked like one of them big jungle snakes. Ain't never seen nothin' like it."

Twilight's brow furrowed, then shook her head as she continued her pacing. "Don't understand it...I don't understand it at all. That shouldn't be possible, even with magic..." She felt the reactions without looking up, and Twilight nodded. "Yes, there is some magic out there. I don't know why, but I've been able to use magic since I arrived. It's how I managed to find Rarity and Sweetie Belle. The magic's not right, though; I've been having nothing but trouble with it since I realized it was there, and while I've been able to defend myself just fine, I can't sustain something as simple as a light for an extended period of time.” The vexation got plainer on her face and in her voice, her turns in her pacing a little sharper as the went back and forth. “I cannot for the life of me understand why there are things like giant frogs and huge wasps and zombies of all things running around. That isn't how magic works, that shouldn't be possible. It's not possible. Those should have been the first effects to fail. There shouldn't even be zombies left by now."

Unsurprisingly, the response was silence. No human in attendance was able to really weigh in on magic, but also could not deny the fact that they'd seen what they had. All of them here had seen it themselves, repeatedly. It couldn't be denied, no matter how it apparently should be.

Apple Bloom announced her presence abruptly, where she and Sweetie were peeking in from around one of the tents. "There's other critters out there too, not just weird animals and them zombies. There's freaky monster things! Way worse than somethin’ under the bed!”

Sweetie Belle nodded fervently, eyes wide. "One of them hurt Rarity. Really bad..."

"I can't explain those either." Twilight's frown deepened as she continued to pace. "I don't know what that thing was. It definitely wasn't from earth. At least, I assume not. You guys don't have big pink crustacean things with wings and weird like...I don't know, tentacle heads or something, right?"

Fluttershy and Applejack both shook their head. Neither of the human fillies contributed further. Children. Whatever.

Twilight's frown reached its nadir as the silence grew, and she gave a small rock a flick with her hoof out of frustration. "Don't know. I don't get it. How did this even start?"

Rarity's hand closed into a fist for a moment. Fluttershy bit her lip, and looked at Applejack, who leaned forward till her elbows rested on her knees, head hanging and heaving a heavy sigh. "You want the whole story, or the sweet 'n simple of it?"

Twilight hesitated in answering that question. From her friends' reaction and tone, to say it felt loaded was an understatement. "Um..."

Applejack raised a hand and shook her head. "Naw...naw, you want the whole thing. An' you deserve the whole thing. Yer even more lost 'n confused than we are, an' that's sayin' somethin'."

There was a silence that followed this, as Applejack visibly built up the...the right words for it? The nerve? The strength? Twilight didn't know for sure. Her rump found the ground, and she patiently looked on, giving her friend all the time she needed.

As this went on, Fluttershy reached over and took the plate off the log, stretching forward strenuously to try and deposit the contents of said plate into the now boiling pot of water without disturbing Rarity on her lap - she blinked when it all glowed pink, then plucked itself from her grasp. The light-wreathed plate tipped over the pot, sending everything on it into the churning water, then floated back to Fluttershy's still outstretched hand. Her eyes found Twilight, whose horn flickered out, and smiled a silent thanks. Twilight smiled back.

Finally, Applejack finished readying herself. She took a breath...paused, glancing to her right at the sound of someone sitting, and found Apple Bloom there, looking at her and scooting up closer to her. One corner of Applejack's mouth curled up for a moment, which her little sister mirrored. Then her gaze found the ground again. Sweetie Belle pattered over to sit next to her friend and also looked on.

"So." Applejack's hands rubbed together, which then reached up and removed the hat from her head to occupy themselves. "Bout...I wanna say like, three months now? Tail end 'a winter, thereabouts...well, no, I guess before that, goin' back better part 'o a year, there's been some real big tensions goin' on out there in the world. Started hearin' bout a whole bunch of like, riots 'n protests 'n what not goin' on all over the place. I never followed along much, never really...I dunno, it felt like it was a world away, I never much cared 'bout the news or none of them things folk always get all up 'n arms about. This was different, though." The hat remained the center of Applejack's focus, and she turned it about idly as she talked. "Everyone was gettin' scared. Talkin' bout this 'n that goin' on, arrests all over, people gettin' into fights fer no reason...started seein' more and more robots 'n other things showin' up, replacin' folks in the work force fer no reason. No reason anyone wanted to talk 'bout, anyway..."

Twilight waited for a momentary lapse in the flow to speak up. "What's a robot?"

Fluttershy answered her. "Um...it's like a little device, that moves around and does things on its own, that um...like, they do tasks. Like um-"

"Like a construct?"

"Um...I guess so...like, um, golems? I guess. But, um, not magic."

Twilight almost wanted to ask more about those things now. How in the world did you get a golem withou- no, no, focus. She forced her gaze to Applejack and said no more, listening intently.

Applejack paused for a little while longer, then carried on. "Things was changin', is the point, in big ways. We was all just kinda...tryin' to do our thing, y'know? Just tryin' to get by, tryin' to not be all nervous. Tryin' to ignore all the commotion, 'n...whatnot." Applejack dusted something off her hat that may or may not have been there. "Had somethin' come up at school one day, right after Hearth's Warmin' break. There was this uh...trio of ladies showed up one day, I 'member Sunset wantin' to show 'em around. We just got done with band practice, 'n there was a big ol' fuss goin' on in the cafeteria." Applejack licked her lips for a moment, and swallowed, looking ahead and seeing the scene play itself out again before her eyes. "Opened the doors 'n saw everyone beatin' the tar outta each other, like they'd lost their minds. People was on the floor, blood all over...three gals just standin' on the tables, singin'. Just...singin' a merry tune, while their classmates were dyin'."

Applejack stopped at this point. Twilight's eyes were wide.

Fluttershy sat forward a little bit, carrying on for Applejack. "We don't remember very much after that. Everything felt weird...like it was only partially happening. It felt sort of like a dream. We both came to somewhere we didn't recognize, and the riots became something else. Hundreds of people were in the streets, tearing apart cars, buildings...each other..." Her eyes found Rarity's, which were open and gazing up at her. It was hard to tell her expression from where Twilight sat. Fluttershy continued to gently brush Rarity's hair with her fingers. "I'll never forget the sounds. It wasn't screaming, or howling, or..." She trailed off.

"We lost Granny Smith." Applejack's fingers pressed firmly against her eyes, conveniently blocking any sign of tears, as well as holding them back. "Lost 'er tryin' to get everyone together, tryin' 'a...just tryin' 'a make sense of anythin'. Got cut real bad. Couldn’t stop the bleedin’, on account ‘a her blood thinners, 'n I couldn't get her to just...couldn't make her sit, she just wouldn't lie down, wouldn't listen. We went straight to the hospital, but one of the crowds found their way in after us." Her voice cracked for a second, and though she tried to repress it, the quality of her tone remained fractured and uneven. "Lost Big Mac tryin' to get to the car. Couldn't even get across the parkin' lot. Just kept drivin'...looked in the rearview mirror, 'n...saw Granny sittin' up again. And..."

Whatever Applejack meant to say next, her throat clamped shut, and she couldn't finish. She didn't have to.

"We hit some things on the way out of the city." Fluttershy's voice was barely audible, yet with only the sound of the fire to compete with, it came in clearly enough. "The car broke down and we had to walk after that. We've been trying to get by ever since."

The silence seemed to stretch on for eternity. Twilight sat there, eyes slowly falling more and more towards the fire, scarcely able to fathom what she was being told. She uttered the only thing she was capable of in that moment: "Why did this happen?"

Fluttershy shook her head, the motion small and barely visible. "We don't know. Everything we found was more of the same until we made it out here, and nobody here seems to know anything either..." Her gaze turned ever so slightly to the direction of the refugee center, then glanced down again at the hand she felt touching her own. Her fingers curled and gently clasped Rarity's, then resumed tending to those curly purple locks with her other hand, just as tenderly as before. Maybe a little more now. "It doesn't really matter why. The world ended. All we can do is try to move on, try to be ok...try to find something that matters..."

Another long silence arrived. Twilight's head shook, slowly, searching for something to say. Anything to say. Her eyes prickled as she sat there, failing to find any kind of response that sounded right. What even was there to say? What could be said, after hearing about all this, how much her friends had suffered and the world had fallen apart? The apocalypse arrived when she had her back turned, and she walked into it blindly long after it had tipped past the point of no return, and now she was as swept up and adrift in it as everyone else.

Applejack took a long, steadying breath. "It's times like these when ya gotta find it in ya to quit lookin' back at what ya had, an' count yer blessings where ya got em." She reach over to her left and put one arm over Apple Bloom's shoulders, who perked up slightly from her sullen haze. The other arm stretched out, that hand finding Fluttershy's shoulder, who let her head fall to one side till her cheek found the back of Applejack's hand. "I got two of em right here. A couple more just showed up for me tonight, outta the blue." Her gaze found Sweetie Belle next to her sister, then Rarity on the ground, and then Twilight, whom she spared the largest of the smile she'd been trying to find up till then. Her eyes were clearly glossy in the light of the fire shining between them. "Yer a sight fer sore eyes more than you know, sugarcube. 'Thank you' don't start to cut it, but 's what I got to give, so I'mma give it: thank you fer comin' out here 'n givin' me somethin' in my life I never thought I'd get back. It means more to me than I can say."

Twilight couldn't stop the smile that found its way to her lips. She stood up from where she sat, coming around from her side of the fire to throw her front legs around Applejack's waist. Those big human arms closed around her in turn, and she pressed her head into Applejack's shoulder, squeezing her as tight as she may. "I'm so sorry I wasn't here sooner."

"Don't wanna hear none 'a that." A hand gently pat Twilight on the back as another rested behind her head, holding her up close against her. "Yer here now, and I'm happy y'are, sugercube. Simple as."

"We're all happy you're here, Twilight." Fluttershy reached from where she sat and rested a hand on Twilight's side. "Thank you."

A smaller shape found Twilight now; human filly arms put themselves around Twilight, unsurely at first, but then pulling herself up tight against the alicorn as Sweetie Belle found her courage in the moment. "Thank you for watching over me and Rarity. Thank you."

Apple Bloom joined in on what was now a group hug, joining in right beside Sweetie Belle. "Thank you fer keepin' my friend safe. I missed 'er so much!"

Not one to be left out, though she had no voice, Rarity still found it in her to reach over and rest a hand against Twilight's shin, announcing her presence through the touch and echoing the sentiment they all shared.

Twilight couldn't keep it together at this point. The moisture spilled out of her eyes down her cheeks in two big streaks, and she let herself come undone as her friends crowded around her, grateful despite everything they had lost. She brought them a silver lining in a dark place, and realizing that filled her aching heart with sunlight.

Maybe she couldn't have prevented this, but she could still touch the lives of everyone around her and leave them better than before. Apocalypse or no, the Princess of Friendship still had a job to do, and doing it had never mattered as much as it did right now.

Night came, as it often did. Then it went.

The sun had risen, but most of the sunlight of the newborn dawn had not yet found its way to the campsite, nor was what made it strong enough to filter in fully through the green fabric of the tent Applejack woke up in. It was not an absolute darkness like it had been the night before, though it was still difficult enough to see that Applejack had to rely on her other senses to tell her surroundings.

The blankets bundled around her were warm...no doubt helped by this warm, cozy mass pressed up close to her. The arm that had fallen away last night found its way back in place, resuming the embrace. All she felt through the contact was bare, warm skin, pressing up softly against her own bare front.

The touch caused a small, gentle stir, and the faintest movement of covers. Applejack felt hair brush against her neck and chin, and a pair of delicate fingertips finding her chin blindly, carefully probing where on her face they landed. Applejack smiled at what she knew was coming next, and as the mass shifted closer, something very soft, almost plush touched her lips, then gently pressed deeper into them. Everything else melted away as Applejack let herself be lost in the contact, and the moment.

Long, tender minutes later, the soft lips pulled away, albeit with the utmost reluctance, and two breaths were taken in unison, audible only in the utter stillness of the tent. The mass pushed up against her, and as it nudged into her further, Applejack muttered, "We should probably get up, sugarcube."

The head shook, and hair tickled her chin and neck from the movement. Fluttershy's voice was very quiet, but in the stillness of the early morning, Applejack heard her clearly: "I don't care."

"These blankets are gonna smell, y'know..."

The pushing continued, and Applejack was rolled onto her back. "I don't care." The mass moved atop her, and hands began to take long, winding paths all across her front and side.

The temptation was strong. It would be easy to just surrender a second time to the softness that returned to her lips...she hated to, but Applejack grasped those wandering hands with her own, stilling them. The kiss ended a few moments after. "We're havin' company this mornin'. They might show up at any time, 'n when they do, we gotta go. We gotta get the others ready."

There weren't words in Fluttershy's voice - just a quiet, pleading whine.

"I know...I know, sugarcube." Applejack released Fluttershy's hands, and though they twitched towards what they desired in the darkness, they did not wander far. It was as relieving as it was disappointing. "We'll make time again, real soon."

"Not soon enough..."

It was hard to argue that point, and Applejack didn't. Why would she? She agreed. It'd been months since they'd had privacy like this, and one night was not enough to make up for it, but if they didn't part now, they might never get up, and they both knew it.

The two begrudgingly pulled apart from their embrace and emerged from their blanket cocoon to dress, though Applejack did so with a bit more haste, more accustomed to waking up at hours such as this. One more kiss was shared, not at all long enough for either girl's tastes, then Applejack stepped out of the tent flap and into the brisk dawn air. It wasn't quite cold enough to see your breath, but it felt close.

Applejack was surprised to see Sweetie Belle awake already, staring patiently into a pile of sticks in the fire pit that did not seem inclined to ignite under its own power. "What're ya doin', sugarcube?"

Sweetie jolted, fumbling and nearly dropping the lighter in her hands, staring at Applejack with an extremely familiar look - the wide-eyed, hand-in-the-cookie-jar one - though it faded quickly, replaced with relief. "I wanted a fire. Heating food over a fire is fun. Also, it’s kind of cold this morning.”

Applejack wasn’t super sure how comfortable she felt about this, nor the lighter she saw in Sweetie’s fingers, but she hadn’t felt anything from the girl to indicate she was being dishonest, or trying to hide something, so she tentatively decided to trust that she knew enough about what she was doing with that thing. Who knows what experienced she’d gained out there? “Y’know we’re gonna be leavin’ pretty soon this mornin,’ right? Fer all we know, there won’t be time to even get a good burn goin'.”

Sweetie frowned, squinting up at Applejack like she was trying to swindle her. “You can’t just eat a cold breakfast where there’s a campfire. We’re in a camp, with tents and everything, so there has to be a campfire. It’s the rules.”

Applejack had learned a lot of things in her life, and one of them was that arguing with the Crusaders about the things they decided was best not attempted unless absolutely necessary. Instead, she stepped up to the fire ring, leaning past the girl and giving the contents of the pit a closer inspection. There were some embers where something had been lit, but there were no flames yet, and no clear sign that there would be any soon, save for a trickle of smoke. "Y'need any help with that?"

"I got it! Rarity and me did this before. Watch!" Sweetie Belle leaned in to demonstrate, sucking in a deep breath and unleashing it forcefully into the smoldering tinder. To her credit, the embers did flare rather brightly, though it also began to belch white smoke from beneath the mass of twigs and leaves. She sucked in another breath to repeat, inhaling most of that smoke in the process, and fell back in a fit of coughing and hacking, crashing to the ground on her butt.

So much for knowin’ what she’s doin.’ Applejack bit back laughter, resisting the urge to swoop in and take over. Instead, she gave the coughing Sweetie Belle a pat on the shoulder. "Maybe uh...maybe a little less forceful, sugarcube. Sustained blowin', not hard blowin'. Don't wanna put out the fire as soon as ya get it to catch."

Sweetie tried to voice her acknowledgement, but when the words didn't work past the coughing, she instead gave a clumsy thumbs up, nodding unevenly.

Cute kid. Further thought on the matter was interrupted by a familiar voice faintly audible from the direction of the road, and Applejack moved on from Sweetie to let her recover and do her thing. Through the thicket she went, and when she emerged, she came upon the SUV where it had been parked. The door to the backseat was open, and Rarity was sitting in the door frame, back turned to the vehicle's interior. The jeans-and-hoodie look was not one Applejack expected Rarity to rock, but even the farmer had to admit that she looked nice…but then again, it was Rarity. She could make rags look opulent, if she was in them.

Twilight was beside her, standing on her hind legs with one hoof against the SUV for balance, squinting very closely at Rarity’s neck. She reached with her other hoof, very gently inspecting the injury there.

“Mornin’, girls,” Applejack announced, eying this scene cautiously. “Everythin’, uh…everythin’ good?”

Twilight did not respond to Applejack, her undivided focus on Rarity’s neck. Rarity meanwhile flashed a slightly haggard smile to Applejack. “Oh, reasonable enough,” she said, in a gravelly voice that was vaguely reminiscent of a chain smoker’s. “I see you’re still a morning person. What’s that like?”

Applejack could not help but stare, eyes wide in surprise. “Holy crap, Rare, yer talkin’ already? I wasn’t expectin’ to be hearin’ from you fer…” She trailed off as her eyes drifted to Rarity’s neck, and she suddenly understood what had transfixed Twilight so.

The last time Applejack saw Rarity, it looked like she had been run over by a cart directly over the neck. There was a full cut all the way along the outside of her neck, and the bruise was extremely dark, purple to the point of looking totally black, making it look like her whole head was about to fall off as her neck rotted away. Currently, however, the bruising was now an unattractive but significantly less disconcerting shade of red-brown, and there were patches in it where it seemed to grow pale and had begun to approach a shade more befitting of Rarity’s skin color, like it was fading out in spots. The cut, once a slice that seemed to have only just barely crusted over with blood all the way along it’s length, was barely visible, even with how much less dark and dense the bruising was - upon closer inspection, the line almost looked like it had scarred over. It wasn’t exactly pristine looking, but considering how awful it looked just a night ago, as well as the fact that she could apparently speak full sentences when she’d just had difficulty doing that in any capacity, compounding with how her head had actually turned a few degrees to look at Applejack with only a slight grimace being broadcasted…

Applejack had once slipped and caught a sharp edge of metal when she tried to steady herself on the farm, cutting her palm all the way open. It was a rather deep cut; she'd required multiple stitches for it. It had taken nearly a month to fully recover from it, and she considered that on the quick side. Meanwhile, Rarity’d had her throat sliced and her neck crushed, and it hadn’t even been two full days yet, but Applejack would go as far as to say she looked well over halfway through the recovery process.

There was a speedy recovery, and then there was cause for alarm. This was firmly in the latter category, as far as Applejack was concerned.

“I just don’t understand,” Twilight said under her breath, shaking her head. “There’s no way this is normal. I understand humans are good at bouncing back from things, but this is…” It was at this point that Twilight finally noticed Applejack was there, looking at her for the first time and giving an uneasy smile. “Hey, uh…so, you guys have been out and about a lot. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about this, would you?”

Applejack shook her head, staring blankly. “Is everythin’ else like that..?

Twilight nodded. “Her side and leg are a lot better, but still hurts to move too much…she can talk, I don’t see any open wound on her neck anywhere…the arm is still broken,” she gestured at the splint on Rarity’s arm with a hoof, “but most other injuries are so…they’re so much more minor now. I would have thought you got your neck hurt several weeks ago, Rarity, but I was there, it was two days ago! How- how? How, though?”

Turning her head stiffly but nonetheless the full amount to look her alicorn friend in the eye, Rarity gave a fatalistic smile and said nothing. Some of the life seemed to bleed out of her in the process. Applejack felt a little heavier as she let her posture slacken, similarly resigning to this development for what it was to them: just one more thing on a long list of things happening to them that they were forced to accept and would likely never understand.

Twilight, on the other hand, did not look nearly as discouraged. If anything, this was another source of inspiration for her. This was just one more thing for her to think about - a mystery to solve, and something to sink her teeth into, if only she had the time and means to do so…

Apple Bloom opening the door and hopping out of the SUV after having completed changing clothes prompted everyone, albeit somewhat awkwardly, to resume their business, which boiled down to the only other major concern that needed to be addressed this morning: breakfast.

There was basically no food left. As a matter of fact, all that was left in the camp had been eaten the previous night in a group that was twice as large as the portions intended as well as a guest that had briefly shared a meal, leaving the only edible things between the six of them to be four Toast Ems in the open box in Rarity’s purse. They had been Sweetie Belle’s, but she was more than happy to share with everyone-

“-on ONE condition!”

Applejack’s brow furrowed, Rarity pursed her lips together into a thin line, Fluttershy patiently looked on, and Twilight dared to ask the question: “And what condition is that?”

“I’m so glad you asked!” Sweetie Belle answered chipperly, as though this were an entirely voluntary inquiry and she was not holding their breakfast under her arm hostage as she stood in front of an open flame. Apple Bloom slid up beside Sweetie, her smile and the twinkle in her bronze eyes screaming ‘partner in crime.’ “I made the fire, so that means that I’m supposed to make sure the food is ready! So before ANYONE can eat, me and my assistant here-“ She gestured at Apple Bloom, “-are going to make sure that all these Toast Ems are nice and toasty and cooked well, so nobody gets sick!”

“Darling, you’ve eaten these uncooked dozens of times,” rasped Rarity. “You don’t have to coo-“

“UT!” Sweetie Belle cut in sharply, stabbing a finger up at her sister. “That was just me! Things are different now. There’s a bunch of us here, and we need to take all necessary precautions! Toast Em food poisoning is no joke!”

Apple Bloom nodded sagely, like this was great wisdom being shared. “All’a y’all are lucky we was here for this, who knows what woulda happened if y'all just bit into these puppies? Coulda been a disaster!” Apple Bloom then raised a stick with a split in the end sort of like a fork, beginning the process of attempting to balance it on the end of it…and when one of the two spokes of wood broke off, she unceremoniously stabbed the toaster pastry straight through the center, which oozed sticky red filling all the way down its length, inching towards her fingers. “Doncha worry though! We got this all under control. Breakfast’ll be ready in a jiffy!”

The three humans and pony not part of this process looked between one another. There were smiles, there were frowns, and there was a pair of blue eyes rolling all the way to the sky, but there were absolutely no attempts to convince the self-appointed meal preppers to not to do this. Rule number one about the Crusaders: trying to push them out of their antics would only lead to additional, even more ridiculous antics. Just let them get it out of their system and pray the mess they made wasn’t too bad.

…that, and everyone had secretly missed these antics. No one had the heart to stop them, even if they wanted to.

Fortunately for everyone involved, the toaster pastries only ended up slightly black on (mostly) the edges, with only one major casualty, and most important of all: no Toast Em food poisoning was contracted.

Half a toaster pastry for everyone made for a swift meal, and it didn’t take long before everyone was gathered around the small fire and chatting as they tried to wake up the rest of the way…except the Apples, of course, who were almost unsettlingly alert for this hour, or at least that’s what Rarity said. Sunlight had begun to creep its way into the clearing here, but it hadn’t arrived enough to beam down on everyone, and thus the flames were huddled around to stave off the chill of this particularly nippy May morning.

Twilight was deep in thought, mulling over the circumstances and condition of Rarity’s injury, attempting to make sense of this…that is, until her ear swiveled towards the road through the trees at the sound of what seemed to her to be that of a car engine, popping and humming.

Twilight wasn't the only one that heard it. “That’s them,” Applejack said, hopping to her feet. She dusted off her hands quickly and straightened her hat, headed for the trees as she called back, “Get yer stuff together, girls! Pack up 'n meet me at the van.”

There was not much to gather up that wasn’t already in the SUV, so for the most part there wasn’t much to do on that front. Twilight, however, began to panic. “Oh no- no no no, wait, I’m not ready, I’m not ready! I still don’t know what to say to humans! What do I- how do I- oh no, oh no-“

“Twi- Twilight. Twilight.” Fluttershy’s voice was quiet at first, but growing steadily louder. Rather than raise her voice more, she marched over to her smaller lavender friend and placed a hand firmly in the center of her back, making Twilight’s fearful pacing jolt to a stop. “Twilight,” she said again, softly now. “Relax. We’re all here for you, remember? We can vouch that you’re not a monster or anything.”

“Oh good heavens, that is in question?” Rarity said in her sandpaper voice, at once sounding offended but also looking amused. “Darling, you saved my life. There is absolutely no way I would do anything but throw in my full support behind you to anyone who wasn’t sure themselves.”

Sweetie Belle nodded fervently in agreement at this. “I saw the whole thing! You’re a good person.”

This was comforting, but did not soothe all of Twilight’s anxieties, evident in how she shifted her weight back and forth between her hooves. “I appreciate that, a lot, and thank you, but I don’t know how much someone who doesn’t already know me is going to take your word for it.”

“Just be calm,” Fluttershy soothed - almost against her better judgement, she ran a hand over the purple shoulder her hand rested against, petting the fur there. Too accustomed to animals, she couldn’t help but pet the distressed creature before her in an attempt to calm her. “We’ll call you over when we’ve explained, okay?”

“I could just hide away,” Twilight eagerly offered, unconsciously leaning into the petting…that did feel kind of good. “It was easy enough for that one girl that came last night, I can just sneak into the back of the SUV while you have them distracted! Then we don’t have to worry!”

Apple Bloom frowned. “Ya speak French now? Who’s this ‘we?’ Yer the one worried ‘bout it, not us.”

“If anything was going to freak anyone out, darling,” Rarity pointed out, “it would be the sudden appearance of the unexplained stowaway that they are going to trip over at some point. Besides, weren’t you the one saying that this would be a great solution to the whole problem? I still stand by that idea.”

Sweetie Belle once again nodded in enthusiastic agreement, smiling widely.

“Just let us handle it,” Fluttershy gently insisted. “Do you trust us?”

Twilight let loose a resigned sigh, head hanging a little. She really couldn’t argue with any of this, much as her nerves urged her to. “I do trust you. A lot.”

Fluttershy gave a smile, crouching down so she could give Twilight a hug. Twilight returned it with her front leg, visibly relaxing a little. It was hard not to; Fluttershy’s arms were like a sedative in the way they drove away tension when they closed around you. “It’ll be okay, I promise.”

“Ab-SUH-lutely!” Apple Bloom declared, hands on her hips and puffing out her chest. “An’ if they try any funny business, we’ll pull their butt off an' then rip ‘em a new one!”

“…um, please don’t pull anyone’s butts off…they need those…”

Meanwhile, Applejack waited beside the gray electric SUV, standing in plain sight as the oncoming vehicle made its way up road and up the ridge towards her. It was an older model - Applejack didn’t know car makes very well, but she recognized the dark red 80's Mustang as the one she had been trying to barter for as part of the work she was about to do, and she couldn’t help but grin.

The car pulled up to about where Applejack waved them down, right behind the SUV, then the engine cut. The driver and back passenger opened their door and stepped out, though the person in the front passenger seat - of whom Applejack could only see the motorcycle helmet on their head - remained in the car. The driver was a woman that appeared to be somewhere near her thirties, skin a gently toasted hue with light brown hair pulled back into a ponytail beneath a weathered red baseball cap. Her colorless gray eyes were counterbalanced by her sheer expressiveness and tendency for motion. The passenger was also a woman, hair red and curly and brown eyes, ears and lips studded with entirely too many bits of metal. The most striking thing about her was definitely her outfit, which was made up of clothes seemingly selected for no other purpose than to be as vibrant as possible - bright yellow emergency jacket, neon green shirt, and a pair of pink tights bright enough that it would have given Pinkie Pie a run for her money on sheer pinkness. Applejack knew immediately that Rarity was going to hate her.

“You must be who we’re picking up,” said the driver, already returning the smile directed her way with a bright one of her own, coming at her hand-first for a shake. “I'm Alessandra, just call me Alex.”

“Howdy, Alex,” Applejack said, clasping the hand sent her way and giving it a good shake - the firmness of it made her grin a bit more. Love someone who gives a good handshake. “Name’s Applejack. I didn’t know we was gettin’ a full escort service.”

Alex flashed a bright grin - for some reason, Applejack got coach vibes off her and her upbeat manner of speaking, maybe because she reminded her of her PE teacher from school. “Something like that! That’s Matilda,” she pointed over at the violently colorful woman who was retrieving a cigarette from her pocket, “and that’s Gabe over there,” she gestured to the motorcycle helmet-wearing person who had yet to so much as look at anyone. “Don’t mind him, he’s the ‘quiet and reliable’ type. How many have you got in your group?”

“Six, countin’ myself. Two of em are kids.”

Alex's eyes lit up with surprise. "Wow, that's a lot more than we were expecting. Big group."

Applejack smiled apologetically. "We had a, uh, bit of a last minute reunion, I guess. Friends of ours showed up the other night, 'n...well, they're like family to me, an' up until a night ago I thought they were all dead. I couldn't just leave em behind for this." Concern momentarily crossed Applelack's expression as she asked, "That's okay, right?"

"Nono, that's fine," Alex put up a hand quickly, waving the fear away. "It doesn't affect us much. In fact I'd say that's a good thing, more hands to pitch in. I assume they're going to pitch in, anyway."

"I don't see why they wouldn't," Applejack replied. "This is the best deal we're ever gonna get fer havin' a proper home at this point, I reckon, so ain't no reason not to pitch in, even if I wasn't gettin' somethin' out of it." A beat. "...uh, speakin' of, uh...Smokes down there," a gesture down at the refugee center, "wasn't super clear on what all the details were of this uh, arrangement of ours, but he said y'all'd hash out the specifics."

"Ssssssoooomething like that..." Alex rubbed her hands together in front of her like she was applying hand sanitizer, rolling back and forth slowly on her heels. "So the way it was laid out to us was essentially this: we're going down to the ranch with this." She patted the Mustang behind her. "It's ours. We're going to use it for project-related things. You guys have your own vehicle, although it sounds like it doesn't work very well?"

"It's...alright, I guess. Just leaves us twiddlin' our thumbs a lot waitin' for it to charge up between drives. That takes a while."

Alex bounced slightly on the balls of her feet, nodding along. "Right. Well...yeah, this is ours, and you guys have yours. If you needed ours for something, like in one of the waits, like you said, we'd work out some deal or another, and the point of it is to keep it as on-task as possible whenever possible. For a little while it's going to be just us, and we're not going to be getting any help until there's space secured for people to stay. Once that's ready and we're getting more hands coming in, the keys are yours, once we can afford to part with them. That's the deal."

Applejack found herself frowning not long after Alex had started explaining - she was getting a feeling, and not one she liked. When all was said, Applejack's arms crossed. "Yeah, see, that seems a lot more specific than the stuff I got fed, back when I actually had time to think about it, an' it don't much sound like how it did then, either. It sounded to me like the car was mine, I just had to go with y'all and agree to do the work. I also don't much like how the terms 'n conditions are only just now showin' up when y'all are parked in front of me and 'bout to go with er without us."

"I- I mean," Alex stammered as she held out her hands helplessly, "I don't know what you got told, this is just what we heard. I didn't even know I was going anywhere until yesterday. I basically got told, 'Congratulations on your new foreman position, here's where the ranch is, get this stuff and meet up with these people on the ridge. They want this car, here's the deal on it.'"

Applejack's frown deepened. "An' I don't suppose y'all are gonna give me a chance to go hash it out with ol' Smokes back at the center?"

Alex writhed on the spot slightly, bouncing on the balls of her feet again. "We're- I mean, I got told to hit the road as soon as possible. I'm not about to leave anyone high and dry out here, by any means, but I don't see what you're going to get out of talking it over with him. It got laid out to me pretty clear: this is the deal, go do it. I imagine you'll get the same thing."

"And why's that?"

Matilda chose this moment to speak up, voice slow with a bit of drawl barely audible at the end. "The thing you gotta understand about Smokes and the center is that they're desperate down there. Whenever they can, they tell, not ask. You're not one of us, so it's not like he can just make you do something, but he can...you know," she wiggled her fingers, "do a little bit of business magic, y'know what I'm saying, honey?"

"He's tryin' 'a make me feel trapped." Applejack's frown was now a scowl. "Make it seem like there's no choice, 'n not gimme a chance to back out of it."

Matilda gave a lazy shrug, attention returning to her cigarette, which she breathed deeply from.

Alex removed her hat to run a hand through her hair, remorse spelled out across her face. "That's just how they do things down there." She leaned in a bit closer, as though someone might overhear what she said next, jaw setting and eyes lighting up with inner heat as she spoke. "But between you and me? I don't like how they do things down there. I just got handed the deed to a place we're about to build from the ground up, and I'm sure they're going to try and strongarm me for everything I'm worth too, but I don't care. I don't think a community should be built off the back of extorting desperate people who've been through Hell and back, and fuck what they're saying, I'm not going to run my place like that. I get times are rough, but that's just not okay."

"Can't say I disagree with ya." Applejack's expression lightened a bit, and she felt her opinion of Alex rising - she could feel that the woman meant all that she was saying. "All I want is to be able to provide for my friends 'n my lil sister. That's all I even wanted the car for, really, just so I could go out 'n get food 'n come back without havin' to wait days on end for this heap." The electric SUV received a light bump with a shoe.

Alex slipped her baseball cap back on. "We'll figure something out. Once we're down at that ranch, we're all gonna be in the same boat, so we'll have to figure out something that works for all of us. I doubt the supplies we have are going to last the whole time we're going to be setting up anyway, so having someone who's willing to do supply runs for the rest of us sounds like a win to me. You do that for us and I'll hook you up with whatever we've got, as long as it gets done."

Applejack nodded along, slowly, then a bit more emphatically as she smiled a bit wider. "I think I can live with that." A rustling in the brush behind her caught Applejack's attention, and as she looked back, she saw some familiar faces emerging from the trees. "Well hey, perfect timin'!" Applejack beamed and turned back towards the group from the refugee center. "Hey y'all, these're my girls here. Right there's Fluttershy, and them two 're Apple Bloom an' Sweetie Belle-"

”Wow those are some Canterlotan names,” Alex chuckled, arms behind her back now as she swayed forward and back on her heels. "Are you all from Canterlot?"

"Most of us, yup! Born 'n raised. And that gal right there, that’s Ra-“

“What on earth are you wearing?”

Applejack’s eyes slowly sank closed. “…rity." Knew it.

Matilda did not respond in a hurry. She turned fully in the direction of Rarity and leaned forward, elbows resting against the trunk of the car she’d ridden in on, tilting her head forward like one would look past a pair of sunglasses as her gaze contemptuously found Rarity’s eyes. One hand came forward and plucked the cigarette from her lips, plumes of white smoke curling around her lips as she snipped back, “Clothes. What’re you wearing?”

Rarity opened her mouth, but Applejack swiftly stepped in front of her before blood started spilling and add an additional color to the already painfully bright woman. ”Anywho yep, this is my unit here, close friends ‘a mine. This here’s my lil sis. Say hi, Apple Bloom.”

Apple Bloom stepped closer to Applejack till she was halfway behind her, expression guarded and eyes cautious. She gave the two onlooking women a terse wave. “Hi.”

Alex gave a friendly wave back, unbothered by the hesitance. She cast a glance throughout the group amidst her constant fidgeting, gray eyes touching briefly on everyone behind Applejack, then looked back to her again. “Looks like you’re missing number six.”

“Ah, yeah.” Applejack shifted in place uncomfortably as she adjusted her hat. “Yeah, her. Uh, see, we didn’t wanna drop this on y’all real sudden-like, so this is uh, fair warnin’ I guess...”

“Uh-huh…?” Alex’s face broadcasted the full degree of her scrutiny and caution as she crossed her arms expectantly.

Applejack hesitated, stammering a bit, but Fluttershy didn’t waste any time cutting right to the chase: “She’s not human.”

Matilda’s expression went from disinterested tolerance to surprise, her red curls bobbing from the way she suddenly stood up a bit straighter. Movement was faintly visible in the old Mustang’s passenger seat as Gabe’s helmeted gaze found somewhere other than straight ahead, revealing that he had indeed been listening and was now paying full attention. Alex's expression mirrored Matilda's for a few seconds, then gradually relaxed. A sympathetic smile found its way to her lips eventually. "Ahh...one of those cases, huh?"

"Uh...yeah, I guess so." Applejack rubbed the back of her neck, surprised by the response. "Almost sounds like you've heard 'bout this kinda thing before."

"Because I have. Back at the center, we've got a couple of cases like that. People don't tend to treat them very nicely. It's weird, sure, but I mean, what're you going to do? These things happen." She put up one hand as though she were taking oath: "No judgement."

Applejack breathed a sigh of relief. Fluttershy smiled widely, looking back the way she'd come and called out: "Twilight, come here. Our friends want to meet you."

Nothing happened at first. After four seconds of silence, there was a quiet crunching, which grew louder as the source of the noise got closer. Some tree branches rustled, and the bush in front of it wiggled slightly before a horned head poked out, followed slowly by the rest of her lavender form as Twilight fully revealed herself, and she gave her best attempt at a friendly smile despite her nervousness. "Um...hello."

The confident, welcoming expression on Alex's face vaporized the moment Twilight appeared, replaced wholly with shock. Matilda was likewise openly staring, blinking owlishly at the creature she saw, then casting a dubious, questioning glance at her cigarette in her hand. The motorcycle helmet of Gabe was turned completely towards Twilight, expression unreadable but fully focused on her and her alone.

Rarity glanced back and forth repeatedly between both parties here, indignation quickly forgotten and replaced with growing worry. "I take it that this isn't quite what you expected, then?" she asked hoarsely.

Alex took several seconds to find her voice. "N- No. No, see, see when I heard you say 'not human,' I thought you meant mutant. I thought this was a mutant we were talking about."

Fluttershy swallowed, almost not brave enough to, but she managed to squeak out: "There are...mutants?"

A long, tense silence followed.

It survived until Sweetie Belle scampered up to Twilight. "I like Twilight!" she declared, puffing up confidently as she leaned up against her furry flank. "She saved my sister's life from a monster attack, and probably mine, too! It's a little weird that she's a pony, sure, but Twilight's super nice and friendly! I think you should trust her."

"She's a friend of ours," Applejack explained, eager to fill the silence with further assurance. Fluttershy didn't speak, but nodded in fervent agreement with Applejack. "An' Sweetie's right. If it wasn't fer her, Rarity might never 'a made it to us."

"I definitely wouldn't have made it," Rarity corrected, and joined her little sister by Twilight's side, carefully crouching beside the alicorn with a hand on her shoulder. Twilight gave an appreciative smile, and Rarity returned it. "This isn't the first time she's helped us, either. As strange as it is, she's beyond trustworthy."

Matilda's head had begun to slowly shake, and after a while, she finally started to chuckle. It was a low chuckle, and she continued to shake her head as she turned around, taking a few steps away from the group. "A horse," she laughed. "It's a f- a talking horse."

"Pony," Twilight corrected, in a voice she wasn't confident that could be heard.

Alex closed her eyes, and she removed her baseball cap, strands of brown hair slipping forward over eyes that could no longer witness their errant placement. Her free hand found its way to the bridge of her nose to pinch it - she sucked in a long, slooooooow breath, and then let it sloooooowly back out again. She mouthed up from one to three, then opened her eyes again - and indeed, the creature was still there, looking at her with a worried expression. "Okay," she said wearily, eyes closing again. "So you have a talking purple unicorn with you."

"Alicorn," Twilight corrected, this time definitely audible.

The woman smiled a forced, joyless smile, airily saying, "Alicorn. Sure. My mistake." She braved another look, and confirmed for a third time that, yep, still there. She shook her head to herself, tossing her baseball cap through the open window onto Gabe's lap, who did not react, or so much as flinch. "I mean...fuck it. Sure. We've got zombies, we've got monsters, we've got...god knows what else...sure. Purple talking alicorns. Why not? Why not have purple talking alicorns? We may as fucking well."

Applejack opened her mouth, then closed it. The words sounded like acceptance, but the voice and tone sounded more like a woman about to have a mental breakdown, and there was definitely a potential issue there, but not one she knew how to address.

"Um," Fluttershy piped quietly, "if it means anything-"

Alex turned to face her, and the pink-haired girl immediately went quiet. "Trust me," she said, smiling the smile of a woman on the edge, "It probably doesn't."

"Oh." Fluttershy shrank back down again. "Um...okay. Sorry..."

It was unclear when exactly, but at some point Apple Bloom had made her way over to Twilight's side along with Rarity and Sweetie, and the longer this went on, the more prominent and protective her stance and expression got. Eventually she snapped, "So can she come er what? I don't wanna go nowhere without Twilight."

Alex opened her mouth several times, like a fish out of water, before she finally shook her head and gave up whatever she was trying to say, if anything. She turned to Applejack, taking a few quick steps up to her before all but thrusting a small device at her - a walkie-talkie. "Just follow us. Don't fall behind." With that, she turned on a heel and marched straight back to the Mustang's driver door, fell into the seat, and gave the door a harder-than-needed slam shut.

Twilight winced at the noise, and heaved out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. Casting a glance over at the woman still chuckling to herself near the edge of the ridge, she muttered, "That could have gone better."

"Could have also gone worse," Rarity hoarsely pointed out. "Much worse."

Fluttershy nodded in agreement. "This was always going to be a shock. Don't worry, Twilight, I'm sure they'll all get used to it once they've had a chance. Just give them time."

This felt to Twilight like it had gone about as poorly as it could have, and while her head did hang, she couldn't keep from smiling. All of this support warmed her where she would otherwise feel quite discouraged. "Thank you, all of you. I really appreciate you standing up for me."

Sweetie and Apple Bloom beamed in response, and both girls sandwiched Twilight in a hug. Rarity leaned into Twilight's flank, and Fluttershy also found room in there to crouch down and give her pony friend a soft squeeze. Twilight's smile only widened, heart swelling all the while.

Applejack grinned warmly at the sight of this. She considered trying to find some space in there to join in on the love as well, but when the engine to the dark red Mustang in front of them suddenly roared to life, she knew that it'd have to wait. "Alright, girls," she said, hooking the clip of the walkie-talkie she'd been given to her belt. "Everyone in the van. Time to saddle up."

Chapter 11

Pain was blue-colored, and it was so bright. It wobbled wildly, and something stretched into view to block it...no, it's gone again, not covering anything. No, it's back, that's a little bette- no it's gone again. Damn it, block the hurt.

Her chest burned so much, centered in the space where lungs would go. Ah, yes: she couldn't breathe.

A sharp gasp split the silence like a hammer.

For a time, all she could do was remain still, breathing as hard and quick as she could to fill her lungs that seemed insatiable, demanding ever more air. The pain revealed itself to be something different: a sky, sitting over her like...well...a sky. That's typically how skies work. Presumably. Was it a sky, though? Where's the thing- thing? What thing? That? The sky? It hurt. Oh it hurt. Confusion wracked her, and she could barely think, barely see, barely feel. Nothing made any sense, the water in her head sloshing wildly in a million directions, and every single direction was just as painful as the last. Everything was pain.

The chest rising and falling did so sporadically now, making way for breathy, gasping sobs. Why was this happening? Make it stop. Make it stop. Make it stop.

Time stopped and started several times. Her perspective jumped and skipped as she lapsed in and out of consciousness, eventually finding herself holding herself up off the ground on her knees, gaze resting on the pair of light blue hands beneath her. The arms connected to them shook like leaves, visibly straining with the simple act of holding her up. Red dotted her right hand, painting the skin sporadically from her knuckles to her wrist. She turned that hand over, barely able to see the details from how much it shook, but she could see straight enough to identify red smears against the blue skin.

The ground was gray, and hard, like stone, level as a surface but feeling rough and coarse against her skin. Her knees were scraped when they dragged across it - she hissed, halting her motions until she could be a little more certain of them. Please no more pain.

Time skipped forward again. A few blinks, and the air cleared of fuzz enough that she could make out a pile of...something. Purples and browns. A short skip forward again, and she was leaning over it on hands and knees, grabbing one piece of the different Somethings and pulling it closer to her with a trembling hand...a shirt. Button-up, with a folded collar. Maroon-colored. A heart of slightly lighter maroon was stitched into the space on the right side of the chest, a blue musical note overtop the heart.

She looked at her arm, gauging where the sleeves would come up to her arm...then followed it down, finding her own torso, and her breasts, and all the rest of her, glistening with a film of cold sweat.

Why am I naked?

Questions made her head spin, and she realized that she was as cold as ice. No more thinking.

The fumbling hands that barely felt like her own made the simple task of opening the shirt significantly more complicated, and she eventually pulled it over herself. Expending the energy to do this sent a wave of dizziness that washed over her like a tide, almost knocked her- nope, scratch that, successfully knocked her to the ground. It took two attempts to rise again, and she numbly grasped for the pile of clothes, unable to think of doing much else. Her fingers touched something hard, and her hand closed around it-

A sensation filled her palm, warm and pleasant, growing warmer as seconds passed. It seeped out into the rest of her hand, gradually at first but growing swifter the farther it spread, crawling steadily up her arm and sprinting to her torso, leaping to every other space that remained till it filled her completely. She sucked in a much deeper, so much deeper breath as the energy suddenly returned to her all at once, fatigue dissolving till she felt as light as a feather. Her hand tightened around this hardness she'd found, but the rest of her relaxed, clarity coming back as the boiling fog that had been draped over her thoughts was lifted. She sank slowly to the ground, basking in this feeling as a soft moan escaped her lips. It did not last much longer than a few more seconds, but the time it lasted for was nothing short of ecstasy.

The cozy warmth did eventually fade, and she sighed longingly at its passing. Pushing herself up was incredible easy this time, and she retrieved her hand to inspect this fantastic, marvelous little thing that had rescued her from her misery. She found it to be a small red gem, perhaps an inch long, connected to a golden fitting at the end of a black strap of leather as a necklace. Suffice to say, that went on her neck. Anything that could make her feel that good that quickly was hers.

She was still naked minus this shirt, so she went ahead and continued what she'd started. It took a little fumbling to figure out exactly how this shirt was supposed to be fastened, but she managed it, tugging the cerulean laces into place, then found the pink skirt that...no, wait, ok. Underwear went on first here, right, though she didn't really know why she knew that. Turquoise undies on, followed by the pink skirt. Easy enough to fasten...this was a second shirt, following the same coloring scheme as everything else, but baggier, with long sleeves and a hood, and no way to undo it to slip it on the same way as the first shirt. Over-the-shoulders it was. Hoodie on...cozy. She liked it.

She reached for the tall pink boots, fingers mere centimeters from the first one before it stopped. She blinked at the footwear, then slowly narrowed her eyes at them. This was a complete outfit of clothes. All of them fit her quite well, like they were made for her. She was laying next to them on the ground before this, completely naked. Did she take them off?

Several seconds were spent like that, hand frozen mid-reach, and her expression slowly fell as she realized she did not know. She didn't remember whether she had taken her clothes off, or if someone had taken them off of her. Furthermore, she did not know how she got here. She didn't even know where here was, and she began to look around in an effort to remedy that.

She was surrounded on all sides by a chain-link fence atop a square of concrete, which was at an elevated position at the top of a hill that gave her a clear view of the area below. A dense suburbia sprawled out in all directions other than behind her, buildings packed together tightly and streets stretching onwards deeper into the labyrinth of stone, metal, and glass. She was sitting at the base of a large metal structure with four legs, each made up of interlocking metal beams that continued their pattern upwards. She craned her neck to follow it, but the structure went on so far overhead that she couldn't see the top. A few concave gray discs with pointy needles sticking out of the center studded what little she could see far above, like strange metal flowers.

She blinked owlishly at this sight, turning her gaze back down again to the buildings down the short path that lead to them, which she recognized not one of. She had absolutely no idea where she was, and no matter how much she thought on this, she had no idea how she got here. This knowledge caused the faint thumping in her chest to grow swifter.

The boots went on, a bit more hastily than the rest of her apparel had. The desire to be out of this fenced-in area was strong, as it had begun to feel more and more like a cage that was getting smaller with every second that passed. In a quick motion, the cerulean girl was on her feet and clearing the short distance to what she recognized as a gate in the fence, and when it did not give immediately at her tugging, she simply grabbed onto the chain link fence itself and scaled it, tossing herself over the edge. With a clap of soles on pavement, she kept moving forward, headed down the hill deeper into this place she did not recognize.

It was not just quiet, but utterly still. Each footfall seemed to resonate down the street for miles, the smallest noises reaching back to the girl's ears in delayed stereo. When the wind blew, it did so silently, like the world was holding its breath, waiting for something that would not come. Every second that passed made the girl's heart rate climb just a little bit more, and as the buildings rose up to surround her on all sides, she had begun to shiver again. It wasn't cold, yet she found herself trembling all the same. There was nothing here, and something about that only stoked her fear further.

"Hello?" she called out. The city answered her in her voice a dozen times, one after the other, each fainter than the last. The sound of the silence that followed made her eyes prickle, and she called out a little more desperately. "Hello?" The response was the same, and she wasn't brave enough to challenge the quiet a third time. Her arms worked their way closer to her body, hands stuffed into her hoodie pockets.

A storefront had a glass display open into the store beyond, and she quickly moved up to it, only to find the interior completely dark, what few shelves she could see barren. She could see her own reflection staring through her in the same way she stared through it, and for a few moments, she looked at herself.

Two fearful yet curious carmine pink eyes met her own in the glass. Her hair was a rich shade of turquoise, dark blue lines streaked neatly and evenly throughout it, and it was tied back into a ponytail with a scrunchy the same shade as the dark blue stripes. Something dark was all over her chin and lips- she licked them unconsciously and regretted it immediately. It felt sticky and tasted of copper. She fervently took a sleeve to fix this, scrubbing at it and transferring most of the stains to her sleeve just below her shoulder, though the taste in her mouth persisted well after that. Okay maybe don't just taste random things on my face right now. At least it’s a pretty face. Would date that, not gonna lie.

Before she could get too distracted with more of her appearance, movement caught her eye. To the left on the glass's surface, she saw someone in gray making their way unevenly towards her, seeming to be a woman. The girl whipped around, the relief so great and genuine that she didn't even think to look at who was approaching her, just happy to not be alone. "Ohmygod yes, hello! Hi, okay, so like this is like really weird and stuff but like can you tell me where w-"

She never saw the fist coming until it was connected to her face with a crack. The world spun as she slammed against the glass behind her, and as she tried to figure out what had just happened, the woman kept coming. The second fist came in unopposed, and there was nowhere else for the girl's head to go except straight through the window behind it, followed soon by the rest of her body with a deafening crash.

Time skipped forward again. Her back burned, but the girl was upright and scrambling deeper into the darkness of the store, boots crunching on glass and heart beating so hard against her chest that it hurt. Empty display racks crashed to the floor in the darkness behind her, and the shelving of this aisle rocked like a human had slammed their full weight into it. She didn't look back, sprinting to the back of the store as fast as her legs could carry her, which - as it turned out - was pretty fast. There was a door barely visible beneath a dim red sign that said "EXIT," and she bolted through it. She rushed through another short corridor and found another door just like the first, throwing her full weight into it as she blew through it. The alarm that sounded was loud enough to make her cry out, hands going to her ears, but still she ran.

She cleared the parking lot, swerving back to the sidewalk to resume her flight away from her attacker, only to see more shapes shambling out of the shadows, drawn by the store's shrill wailing. She skidded to a stop at the sight of them, and in their gazes she saw nothing, nothing but anger and teeth that glowed too white and bottomless pits where eyes should be.

There was no thought, no consideration in how she turned around and sprinted the other way; she simply did. A chain link fence blocked her path, and she vaulted up as high as she could to scale it, leaping over the edge and into the alleyway beyond, landing hard enough that she nearly fell forward and slammed headlong into a brick wall. A shape emerged at one the end of the alley, and she doubled back to go the other way.

The girl couldn't think, couldn't feel, barely conscious, all brainpower dedicated to escape and nothing else. Shapes appeared from all sides of the forest of buildings that she dove deeper into, looking sort of like people but registering only in the most primal and basic of ways as Danger. She ran, and ran, but everywhere she went, more shapes appeared. On both ends of this street, as well as from the alley behind her, dozens of shapes shambled and stumbled forward, closing in with the intent of predators. What little space existed between her and them was closing in on all sides, and fast.

A vehicle sat in the middle of the road, two massive tracks where wheels should be with a big yellow arm on the end of it as thick as a tree trunk, suspended in mid-reach towards nothing. She barely registered it for what it was, seeing it instead as her only means of escaping the walls of bodies about to slam on her like a pair of jaws.

She ducked past claws that swiped and grasped inches from her, jumping up onto the caterpillar tracks. She fumbled and skidded against the smooth chassis while trying to get footing to scale further, which was just long enough for something to grab her from behind. She barely felt the nails raking against her skin as they ripped the boot right off her foot- she screamed blood-curdling shriek, scrambling madly up the cab of the vehicle like a cat up a tree, to get away, just get away, have to get away, away, away, get away-

But there was no 'away' to get up here. She stood balancing out on the farthest point of the arm of this large yellow vehicle, the bulky gray claw before her ending as soon as it started, leading nowhere. Everywhere below her was bodies - reaching, clamoring, greasy bodies, each topped with an empty face aimed straight at her, all twisted in bestial fury, filling the street and crowding directly beneath her. Claws and hands and teeth snapped at the air, desperate for just one more inch, one more centimeter, kicking and beating against each other in a blind and wild gambit to get just a little bit closer to their prey than they were. They made no noise themselves despite their ferocity, and the street was filled only with the cacophony of scraping shoes, slapping hands, and stamping feet.

The girl's breaths were rapid and short, steadily hyperventilating as she looked about with wild eyes, pupils as small as pinheads. No matter which way she looked, it was all the same. She was an island in a sea of monsters below her, shaped only vaguely like the people she had been so eager to find. The entire vehicle below her gently vibrated as the horde mindlessly kicked at the frame of the vehicle as an afterthought, but still loud enough that it drew in even more shapes that trickled in from out of sight, homing in on the horde that centered itself directly beneath their trapped and terrified prey.

"Help," she whimpered, voice crumbling as tears rolled down her face. Her pink eyes shot up and down the road desperately, seeking any shape that wasn't another one of them.

Another vibration rippled through the vehicle's arm, and she wobbled slightly, throwing out her arms to maintain her balance. Her lungs burned and her head felt light, and the world had begun to spin. The fear of falling prompted her to crouch down rather than stand, squeezing her eyes closed as hard as she could.

This can't be happening, right? This isn't real. This cannot be real. I'm b- right, yeah! Yeah I've gotta be just having a weird fever dream, right? Back at that tower thing, I'm still there, I'm on the ground, I'm tripping out, I'm seeing things, this isn't happening, and I'm going to open my eyes after a couple more seconds and it's going to be the spinning sky and concrete and I'm going to be naked but I'll remember why and people will be there and everything will make sense and I'll be okay and I'll forget all about this and never be the wiser and I can just go back to whatever I did before like nothing ever happened. Like nothing ever happened. It'll be like nothing ever happened, it'll be done, I'll open my eyes, and it'll be gone, and done, and like nothing ever happened.

...she didn't want to open her eyes. She could hear them down their, their endless shuffling and scraping and smacking against each other, the clanks of wild stray strikes banging against the chassis of the vehicle she hid atop. She could feel the vibrations in the vehicle under her, feel the cold, dirty steel underneath her one bare foot, feel the burn of her leg where the boot had been ripped from her by sharp, emaciated nails. She squeezed them shut harder, and more tears streaked down her face.

"Hey!"

The girl's eyes opened almost on their own volition. She looked up in the direction of where she'd heard the young voice, gaze finding the closest building to where she was currently stranded and saw someone standing there on the roof.

It was a young girl, head topped in short, scruffy purple hair of a shade not unlike the shirt the cerulean girl wore, skin a light orange shade. Her gray hoodie was weathered and sported many holes, some discolored with patches where they'd been stitched over, others simply holes, and her hands had several bandages wrapped around them in various places. Her pants were green, tied off just below the knees. There was a backpack at her feet, which drew attention to how instead of a shin on her left leg, there was instead a metal rod that extended out from one of the legs of her pants and into her shoe.

"Are you okay?! I can- do you need help?!"

It took several seconds for the cerulean girl to register that she was being spoken to. She blinked slowly, eyes hot and prickling with tears, and she looked down below at at the churning horde of silent snarls and grasping claws that snapped and slashed up at her by the dozen. Her gaze returned to the girl atop the building, separated by no less than four meters of open air. "Yes," she creaked, speaking in half a blubber. "Please help me."

"Alright! Okay, don't worry, I'll...I'll figure something out here." The building girl dropped to her knees, the metallic one clacking lightly against the roof as she did so, inspecting the scene below her with a furrowed brow. As she did this, she called over, "My name's Scootaloo. What's yours?"

It was a simple question, really. Possibly one of the most simple questions that one could ask someone. And yet, when she opened her mouth up, willing this information to pass her lips, there was only silence. Every second of this silence that passed, the distress grew - her head shook, her fists clenched, her jaw worked, yet the answer did not come. It was blank. "I don't know."

Scootaloo's gaze found the girl again, confusion apparent as her brow furrowed. "You don't know?"

"I don't know!" she shrieked, fists slamming against the gray metal whose only crime was saving her life. "I don't know! I don't know what's going on, I don't know where I am, I don't know what this is, I don't know, I DONT KNOW!"

Scootaloo threw her hands up. "Okay, okay, alright, it's not important! It doesn't matter!"

"YES IT DOES! YES IT DOES! WHAT IS GOING ON?!"

"Don't scream! Quit yelling, they're drawn to noise, look!" Scootaloo pointed further up the road, where half a dozen more shapes came scrambling from various dark corners, one simply walking straight through a storefront window like it wasn't there. The crash, in turn, caused even more things to shuffle over, stumbling past the wrecked cars that otherwise blocked that side of the street, falling over them but nonetheless continuously advancing towards their newfound target. "Look, I'm going to try and get you out of there. We can fool them, but I need you to work with me here! So like- just- just try to calm down, okay?"

The cerulean girl's teeth gritted tightly together, and her carmine eyes with filled with a budding fury. Calm down? Calm down? There had been nothing but confusion, and fear, and pain, and terror, and this fucking brat wanted her to calm down? How could she-

"What can I call you instead?"

She wasn't prepared for that question. She looked down at her trembling fists, clenched so tight her knuckles were white, looking across herself for...she didn't know what. Some sort of identifying mark, or something? A name tag? There were neither of those things, nothing that stood out to her.

Scootaloo did not much find the silence helpful. She looked the girl over, fumbling momentarily - her eyes snapped to the girl's hair, and she blurted the first thing that came to her mind. "Blue. How's Blue work? Can I call you Blue?"

"...s...sure. Sure. Whatever." The newly dubbed Blue's hand went to her necklace, gripping the red gem at her neck tightly. It felt reassuring, even though the mind-numbing euphoria didn't come in to take her woes away. She wanted to crawl into a hole and hide. "Call me anything, just please just help me."

"You got it, Blue! Alright." Scootaloo's gaze once again fell to the teeming mob of undead just below Blue where she sat atop the claw of an excavator, parked squarely in the center of the street. The creatures were not trying to climb the vehicle, which would be the most sensible thing to do if they wanted to reach her, instead crowding directly below her, trying to reach something they just could not like a bunch of brain-dead idiots. Because they were a bunch of brain-dead idiots. "Do you have anything on you that would be useful?"

Blue's hand closed tighter around her necklace's gem. She looked down at herself, her free hand un-clenching from its fist, trying to ignore the sting where her nails had dug into her skin as she patted her pockets. She found a small flat rectangle in there, and she pulled it out, examining it as it and the hand that held it gently trembled. This wasn't useful, she didn't think, but similarly, it was all she had on her. Just the clothes on her back, this thing, and her necklace, and most decidedly not a pair of wings. "No."

Scootaloo frowned a little for a moment, but nodded, hand to her chin. Her eyes shifted to the right as she mulled, pondered, thought...then the eyes widened, and her whole expression lit up. "I've got it! Okay, Blue, stay right there! I need a few minutes, but I'll be back with something that will get you out of there for sure!"

Blue's mouth opened, and while there were dozens of things she felt she wanted to say - innumerable conflicting comments, from pleas to snips to jokes to screaming - the only thing that managed to pass through her lips was a feeble, "Okay. Please hurry."

Scootaloo flashed a smile that was so bright, so hopeful. When she got up on mechanical and flesh leg alike and scurried away from the edge of the building and out of sight, it felt as though night had come early.

Seconds passed, and Blue felt the solitude roll in like a tide. The shuffling, scuffling, and slapping sounds below sounded so much louder, somehow, and she dared to peer down. Dozens of sunken, twisted faces stared back at her with a singular, absolute focus, claws and hands in various states of mangled reaching up at her in vain, streams of blackness and frothing grease dripping from their eyes and fizzing out of their mouths. Not one of them had yet to emit a noise of any kind, and they likewise had yet to make any progress on getting up to her, sliding and bumping off one another as their greasy bodies shoved each other around for a prize they could not claim, despite their dedication.

Her heart still hammered, and her lungs still ached, but Blue's gaze found the horde a little bit easier now. The mechanical arm as wide as a tree trunk beneath her vibrated again as something slammed into the main chassis, and she didn't flinch this time. "So do any of you think she'll come back?"

None of the zombies responded to her question, focusing on trying to close this gap between them and kill her through sheer determination alone. Blue found the silence a little bit funny, for some reason, but she could not bring herself to laugh. She smiled an empty, bleak smile to herself as she gazed into the hundreds of eye-shaped windows into the abyss, wondering what bothered her more: the fact that she might die painfully and alone, or that the possibility didn't seem quite so scary anymore.

“Sugarcube, I’m just sayin’, you don’t gotta just fer me. Besides, I made a deal with Alex before, an’ we talked about-“

“Supply runs,” Fluttershy interrupted. “You talked about supply runs, and this isn’t that. I can handle it.”

Applejack opened her mouth to protest, though she held it in as much as she could. She adjusted her hat needlessly atop her head, failing to hold in her signs of discomfort.

Pink hair bobbed to one side slightly as she gave the farmer a curious, quizzical look. “…do you not want my help?”

“No- I-I mean yes, yes I want yer help sugarcube, I’m just-“

The other girl was very close now, a lot closer than she remembered - Applejack’s stammering hitched in her throat. Their faces hovered very close, soft fingers delicately lacing with hers just at the ends. Fluttershy met Applejack’s gaze, and they held it there together, saying what needed to be said without words.

After a few seconds like that, Applejack took a steadying breath, tension long since departed as she let out, “I just feel bad 'bout someone doin' what I could do myself. I wanna support, not...y'know.”

“I know.” Fluttershy leaned forward till their foreheads touched. The contact was savored for a few moments before she pulled away again, smiling supportively. “I also know a break would be good for you.”

“Eh…” Applejack rolled both shoulders in a slow shrug- her arm twitched the rub the back of her neck, only to remember that her hand was occupied. “I dunno, I think I’m doin’ alright. Could use some more sleep, but…”

“I think Apple Bloom would appreciate more time with you.”

A small guilty smile flashed across Applejack’s lips as her head lowered. “Yeah.”

Fluttershy squeezed Applejack’s hands before she released them. “I’ll take care of this. The animals will be okay without me there for a couple hours, and I want Apple Bloom to see her sister more.”

“Promise ya won’t stick yer head nowhere bad?”

“Promise.”

“No risks?”

Fluttershy shook her head. “Just looking. Twilight will be right there beside me if anything happens. We’ll look out for each other.” She glanced towards the driveway, searching briefly for the alicorn, but did not find her. “I trust her completely with that.”

Applejack mulled this over some. Fluttershy had known her long enough to know she had accepted this situation already, but she nonetheless gave her plenty of time to work up to the admission of it, which was the real thing she was working on. She pulled through, like she always did. “Take the revolver, at least.”

“I can do that.” Fluttershy stood by a little more, watching her friend unfasten the leather pouch at her hip and hand it over to Fluttershy, who tried not to show the unease at wielding such a device in her own hands. “But I’m going to need one more thing.”

Applejack’s eyebrow arched. Her head got a bit lighter, and she scowled. “Aw you little punk.”

Fluttershy giggled gleefully, pulling Applejack’s hat onto her head as fast as she could before it was snatched right back again by a swift orange blur. “Darn~”

“I love ya, Flutters, but not that much. Ya either get the gun, er ya get the hat. Gonna have to pick.”

“Ahh, you’ve left me with an impossible choice…”

“Well lemme make it easier for ya, then.” Applejack pointedly put her cowboy hat back on, securing it in place with a huff and a smirk. “Dingbat.”

The pair giggled and laughed quietly together, but eventually separated, murmuring their fond farewells, for now. Applejack turned back to the house, challenging the knowing smile that a loitering Rarity flashed her way, which grew wider at the attention. Meanwhile, Fluttershy made a clumsy attempt to fasten the holster she’d been given to her belt, and when she failed, she shook her head at it and put it atop her purse, carrying it and a few water bottles all together under one arm as she walked over to the red Mustang.

She didn’t make it quite there before one Apple Bloom impacted her from behind, demanding a goodbye hug before she headed off, which Fluttershy graciously provided. A list of demands of careful conduct were presented to her, and Fluttershy nodded right along as she brushed the girl’s strawberry-pink hair, pretending to be unaware of how it was all just an excuse to make the hug last longer. Once Apple Bloom was content she wouldn’t do anything silly out there (read: felt she’d dragged out their time together as long as she could without making it obvious she didn't want her to leave), Fluttershy was then finally allowed to arrive at her destination.

At the sound of the passenger door of the Mustang opening, Twilight finally revealed herself. She stepped out from the other side of the vehicle, smiling brightly. “Hey! Ready to go?”

“I am.” The purse and her rations of water were placed on the tearing leather seat, then the door was shut as she made her way around. She blinked at the purple alicorn as she made her way towards the driver seat. “Were you here the whole time?”

Twilight’s gaze wandered this way and that - anywhere but at the human over her. “Uhh…”

Fluttershy’s lips adopted a small concerned frown. “Do we make you uncomfortable when we, um…”

“Oh- no, nono, it’s not that,” Twilight said quickly. “It’s just, you know, I uh…I’m not suuuuuper privy on how much privacy humans like. I know you guys do things differently from how we do it in Equestria, and I didn’t want to offend, or be…you know…weird about it.”

“Oh, okay.” Fluttershy glanced back at Applejack, who was either giving Rarity a hard time or being given a hard time by Rarity. Whichever way it was going, Rarity seemed to be greatly entertained, much to the farmer’s annoyance. “I don’t know about other people so much, but, um…don’t worry about me and Applejack. You’re a friend, so we don’t mind if you’re…um…if you see, I guess. As long as it’s not like, um…staring, or um…if it gets…um…” Her voice trailed off, twiddling and prodding her fingers together nervously. “You know?”

”Right, right, gotcha. Gotcha.” This topic had begun to quickly grow awkward for Twilight, so she didn’t feel bad about suddenly shifting to the task at hoof. Hand. Buck these terms. “So! How do we do this?”

“Well…um…” Fluttershy pondered this as she opened the driver’s seat and got into it. For as insistent as she was to cover this scouting run, she had not much thought on how to coordinate this with her friend, whose presence was nigh-nonnegotiable. She was by far the most capable one among them, should a threat be encountered, and her magic not only seemed free save for occasional headaches, but vastly more effective than any tools they had at their disposal. “I um…I’m not…super sure…? Um, do you want to fly?”

“Yeah, I can. If you’re going to be driving alongside me, I may as well make use of the car to rest when there’s nothing out there.” She couldn’t hold back her frown. “I still think it’s unnecessary to have you guys go with me out there. I can see farther than you guys can, and I can take care of myself just fine. This feels like a waste of car fuel."

“We know, Twilight, but…accidents can still happen, even to princesses, and you’ve said before that your magic isn’t perfect. It’s for our comfort more than anything. It’s not um…you know, like, we doubt you, or anything, we’re just…scared.”

Twilight sighed - this wasn’t the first time this conversation had been had, but she wasn’t much feeling like arguing about it, especially when it had been put like that. And especially not with Fluttershy. “Alright. If it’ll make you feel better…”

“It does.” Fluttershy smiled brightly. “Thanks Twilight.”

The driver door closed behind Fluttershy, and as the engine roared to life, Twilight drummed her wings against the air, thrusting herself upward. One more wave was given to everyone who'd come to see the two of them off, and as the car backed up and found it’s way back onto the road, Twilight followed it, picking up speed to keep pace as they ventured forth into uncharted territory.

It had been a week since they’d made it to the ranch. In that time, they had boarded up and reinforced all the windows and doors to the farmhouse, thrown together a few ramshackle beds in the barn once intended for two dozen different farm animals, and begun work on foundations for a second building that would eventually become a proper sawmill, though a lot of work needed to be done there. There'd been nonstop toil on this ranch project, and so far they had yet to break any large swath of dirt for the purposes of actual farming, which was what the project was intended for. One person from the refugee center had joined them since they started up, adding an additional set of hands to all the carpentry that needed done, and while there would surely be more eventually, the rate of their coming so far was not promising. Progress had been slow.

Time spent, unfortunately, meant supplies being consumed - supplies that they were not currently producing any amount of. Scavenging remained a crucial need of this budding settlement, and while that was being taken care of for now, there was a secondary objective related to it that had become higher on the list of priorities for the away teams that occasionally departed.

The way it had been explained to Twilight was that there were tons of maps out there in the world, showing just about anywhere that you could imagine there being and having a need to navigate, but only in a form that could be accessed via human electronics, like phones or computers. Those devices tapped into a special network of information databases where all the shared knowledge of modern humanity was pooled, which was called “the Internet.” Twilight had accessed this “Internet” a few times in the past to do research while she was at Canterlot High, and despite only scratching the surface of its depths, she knew it to be a virtually bottomless sea of wisdom, just waiting to be explored. Everyone had been very reliant on it back when times were good. With the collapse of society, the power failed across the country and left this network completely inaccessible to anyone, taking with it - among innumerable other things - most of the maps that people used. As such, no one that survived actually knew where anything was unless they had personally been there in the past, and everyone at the ranch and refugee center had come in from all over looking for safety.

Thus their task now: cartography, of a sort. The only way to know what was out there was to go out and look, and that’s what they did now. To find what they needed out there, the world needed to be rediscovered.

The village of Highsong was known to them, farther to the west. Applejack had made several runs there with Twilight and the others, bringing back much needed food from what remained of the canned and jarred stocks in the homes and businesses there, plus blankets for beds, material for bedding, miscellaneous materials for building that couldn’t just be made directly from a tree, and any other odds and ends that could be salvaged.

The exit for Highsong came, and went. What was known wasn't important now, only what was unknown.

There was a certain romanticized image that came from the idea of intrepid exploration of a familiar world made foreign, but the reality wasn't quite so exciting most of the time. There wasn’t much out there besides large open areas yawning out across the land that the roads lay sprawled across.

Not much that could be seen from the ground, anyway; Twilight’s vantage point worked much better for that, and she vanished up into the sky for a while, returning several minutes later. As she streaked along the road and caught back up with the old red Mustang, she flagged down Fluttershy with a hoof, who let the thunderous Mustang slow down in its endless trek forward. The Princess of Magic opened the rear door with a flash of pink, tucking in her wings and tossing herself forward to plop into the backseat, which closed itself behind her, silencing the roar of the wind.

“There’s a city out that way,” she reported eagerly, pointing with a hoof. “It could be pretty big, I think. I couldn't tell from this distance. Just follow this road for a while and take the road that branches off on the…” Twilight’s voice trailed off as she realized that the car was still slowing down. She glanced at Fluttershy, who was staring out the window, and she leaned forward and followed her gaze. It took a moment to find it, its beige hide nearly invisible in the gold-green sea of wild grasses, but see it she did: a single deer stood out in the open, bearing no antlers on its head. Twilight smiled, opening her mouth-

“It’s dead.”

“What a cute- what?” Twilight snapped a surprised look at Fluttershy, then back at the deer. She could barely make anything out about it at this range, but she could tell for sure that it was very much standing upright.

Fluttershy turned her hollow gaze from the field, foot pressing down on the accelerator to carry them forward. “It’s holding itself wrong, and its legs are bending in directions that should be incredibly painful for it. It's also male, but it has no antlers. It’s dead.”

Ah. Undead. Twilight winced at this. “So even the wildlife..?”

Fluttershy nodded. Her gaze was straight ahead and devoid of any expression.

“I’m sorry, Fluttershy.”

“Why.”

Twilight looked at her, blinking. “Sorry?”

“Why.” The word was stated, not asked. Fluttershy's teal eyes were transfixed on the road ahead and nothing else. It'd be a vacant look if it wasn't so focused. “You know magic, don’t you?” A rhetorical question, and she didn’t wait for an answer. “Why. Why does it affect animals.”

Twilight licked her chapped lips. She cast her gaze over at the deer as the land raced it away from them; how Fluttershy had identified the details she had was lost to the distance that grew evermore between them, but she believed what she'd been told. She'd seen zombified dogs before, so she knew that it would affect animals in some capacity, but she had not stopped to consider that creatures of the wilderness might not be exempt either. She had always associated the zombie outbreak with humans and all things connected to them. It was the only places she'd ever seen them personally, and it was where the undead were most observable. “I don’t know. I haven’t had an opportunity to study it yet."

"It's ours." The steering wheel gently creaked in response to the force the pair of hands gripped it with. "This curse is ours. We did this. Why do the animals have to suffer too?"

Twilight gave Fluttershy and incredulous look. "This wasn't your f-"

"Don't." The tone was sharp, like a knife. Twilight shut up like one had been pointed at her. "You were lucky when you came to us, Twilight. You came into Canterlot, a beautiful city full of beautiful humans in a hideous world. You don't know what my people have done. You don't know what we were doing to this planet and everything on it. You haven't seen the damage we do to one another in the name of stupid, petty, insignificant things. People were talking about how humanity only had maybe a hundred years left on earth because of what reckless industrialization did to the environment, and everyone knew about it. Everyone knew. You think it got us to stop? You think that the threat of environmental collapse, starvation, death, and the flooding of hundreds of cities on earth was enough to get them to stop? You think the terror of nuclear annihilation were enough to get humans to put down their fucking guns and to stop murdering millions at a time? This has to be our fault. We never stop, no matter how badly we should, because that's all humans are good at: raping our world and ruining everything we touch. We can't even die properly without making everything worse for it. How couldn't this have been our fault?"

Silence filled the car interior. Twilight could only stare, daring not to make a sound after this outburst.

The silence lasted for several minutes after this. The muffled noise of the Mustang's grumbling motor dominated uncontested, right up until Fluttershy's eyes sank closed, snuffing out the way they burned like covers sinking over a pair of candles. She was barely audible when she said, "I'm sorry."

There wasn’t a reaction at first. After a few seconds, Twilight leaned forward, putting her hooves on the divider between the front seats and hopping past it, plopping into the empty seat there. She didn’t speak, but was looking at Fluttershy the whole time, surprise lapsing and making way for sympathy. A hoof made its way over to rest on Fluttershy’s shoulder.

Fluttershy breathed slowly. She had to open her eyes, for no other reason than to watch where she was driving. “There’s just…so much to be angry about.”

“It’s okay to be angry,” Twilight said softly.

“Is it?” Fluttershy looked at Twilight, eyes full of ashes where there had once been flame. “Is it okay when everyone around me is falling to pieces and I want to hurt something? That doesn’t feel okay. That doesn’t feel helpful. It especially doesn’t feel kind.”

“Everyone has limits. Sometimes you need to be angry before you can be anything else.” Twilight gave Fluttershy’s shoulder a gentle rub. “I think you should consider taking some time to rest, Fluttershy. I know for sure that you have been working really hard, and I think you could use a little time to yourself.”

“I don’t have time for myself.” Fluttershy’s weary gaze turned back to the road. “Applejack is trying to be the strong one that takes care of us all, but she watched her entire family die, and I know she'll let herself fall apart trying to do everything if I don't step in, because she doesn't have the heart to tell me no. Apple Bloom hasn’t been able to sleep by herself ever since the hospital, and she looks at me like a mother, so I can’t not be there for her. Rarity still screams if you grab or touch her when she's not expecting it, and I know she’s suppressing a lot more than that, and I need to be prepared for that whenever she gets triggered. Sweetie Belle is…”

“Cute.”

Fluttershy’s lips curled upwards. “Yeah.”

Twilight shared the smile, using the silence to find words of her own. “It’s really kind of you to want to be there for everyone, Fluttershy, but if you don’t take care of yourself, you won’t be able to help anyone.”

The smile on Fluttershy’s lips faded. As it did, so too did much of the life in her expression. The bags under her eyes became just a little bit more visible. “I know.”

"You're not alone in this."

Fluttershy's nod was small, barely perceptible. "Sometimes it feels like it. I know it's not true, but..."

"We can't help how we feel sometimes." The hoof on Fluttershy's shoulder moved in slow, rhythmic circles. "I can't imagine what you've all been through. Everything that's going on right now is...so far beyond me. I don't know what it's like."

"That's not a bad thing," came the nigh-inaudible murmur.

"Even still, I want to be here for you, Fluttershy." The girl wasn't looking at her right now, but Twilight still smiled, hoping that it could be felt, or that she might see it when she next looked. "If there's anything I can do to help, just let me know. Whatever you need."

Fluttershy did not answer at first. Twilight wasn’t sure if she was going to respond at all, and she had begun to get comfortable in the quiet for what it was, right up until Fluttershy's eyes turned and found the alicorn: “Can I ask you something?”

"Sure thing." Twilight perked back up from where she had been relaxing, flashing a smile again. "What's up?"

"Am I really your friend?"

It was such a sincere question, and it took Twilight completely off-guard. She blinked, mouth working for a second before she managed the appropriate response. “Of course you are, Fluttershy! You're one of the best friends I've ever had, and I'm really happy to know you.”

"Really?"

Twilight nodded. The smile was becoming a little harder to maintain as she saw Fluttershy's expression, which did not bear any warmth, or much of an expression at all - another one of those uncharacteristic blank looks that Twilight barely recognized as something that could belong on the girl's face. Concern was starting to build. "You absolutely are."

“Why?”

This question was just as baffling as the first, if not more so. “B- why?"

Fluttershy simply looked at her.

"Beca- Fluttershy, what do you mean why? I feel like I don't need to explain that."

“Try.” Fluttershy's tone was not quite clipped, but it was something close to it. "Why are we friends?"

Concern was now firmly implanted in Twilight's thoughts as she tried to figure out what this was about. When she could not fathom what could have provoked this line of questioning, she cautiously went to do as requested. "Because you're a really nice and wonderful person," she explained, carefully, "and because...I guess you feel something sort of like that about me too. We appreciate each other, and we have been through a lot together, and that's helped build a bond between us that I wouldn't trade for anything in the world."

Fluttershy’s gaze was straight ahead again. Looking at her from the side, it almost looked like her teal eyes were painted on, like the eyes of a doll. “You're right that I think that you’re a wonderful person, Twilight. I’m grateful every day that you’re here and that you seem to care as much as you do, but I barely know you.”

Twilight almost didn't register that last part. She blinked once, then twice. Her jaw worked repeatedly to try to form words out of the static coming from the speech center of her brain, but Fluttershy did not wait for her to compile a response.

“Despite that, you seem to know everything about me, and you act like we’ve been friends for years. And I guess that’s true, in a way, at least for you, but not for me." The steering wheel turned some, letting the car swing past a wreckage on the road in front of them, then turned back as it was. "One day you just showed up in the halls of Canterlot High and stood up to Sunset Shimmer for me, I showed you around, we hung out and worked together for two days after that, you saved our school and everyone in it from being used as a slave army, and you disappeared. Four months later, you show back up again, here to pitch in and watch over us.” Her gaze forward softened some, as did her tone. “You saved everyone I know back then, and you saved Rarity’s life, and I know you're willing to save mine if the need ever arose, and I will never not be grateful for those things. You’ve shown us all great kindness, but…if someone asked me who you were, and wanted details, I couldn’t share much more than what I said just now. I just don’t know you that well.”

Silence fell as the conversation lapsed. Twilight’s eyes were huge, hoof frozen where it remained on Fluttershy's shoulder before Fluttershy had rocked her world. Her lips moved, occasionally, and her expression slowly shifted around, trying to keep up with the emotions running wildly through Twilight's spinning thoughts. There was shock, certainly, but there was also a look of betrayal. Alongside it, hurt could be seen. Confusion.

Fluttershy sighed quietly - she had not looked at Twilight yet, but she didn't need to in order to feel the cocktail of feelings spiraling beside her. “I still consider you a friend, Twilight. I’m glad you care. I care about you too, more than I care about most people. But sometimes I wonder if it’s really me that you love, or if it’s the Fluttershy from your world that I’m benefiting from your love for. I…” She mouthed the start of something a few times, searching for how to phrase it. “…I just don’t think that I could live with that. I'm more than willing to love you, and it would make me very happy if you loved me back...but only if that love was meant for me. Me me, not...pony me.”

Twilight’s gaze drifted downwards, the gears in her head barely able to move with the suddenness of this, but turn they did, at least some. This was ridiculous- it was, right? Fluttershy was being ridiculous, of course she was. Sure, there was a Fluttershy back home who didn’t know anything about what was going on out here, but of course she knew Fluttershy! It was Fluttershy! She was one of the most important people in Twilight’s life! Of course she knew a lot about her, of course she felt a lot towards her. She loved her!

“I…” She didn’t finish; she barely even started. The need to say something was strong, though, so strong- she just wanted to deny it. This was absurd. Fluttershy was thinking too much into this, they were friends. Of course they were friends. What else could they be? What else was there to be?

Twilight wasn’t sure what it was that made her look up. Maybe she just needed to look at something, watch the world go by, process something that wasn’t this. Maybe it was some unconscious need to look where Fluttershy was looking, in some abstract way of aligning herself with her more, or share something with her.

In the end, it didn’t really matter: Twilight looked up, and for the first time that she’d ever looked at one of these signs on a human freeway, she saw something she recognized.

Exit Left
Crystal City

Blue’s thoughtful expression lingered for a few moments before it burst immediately to excitement. “Ooh, okay, so you guys are going to nail this one: what is- okay, you ready? Ready? Okay! So- are you sure you’re ready? Let’s see a show of hands of who’s ready!”

Below her, every hand on every zombie was extended outwards, grasping and swiping and occasionally whacking one another when they swung too hard. They were nothing if not enthusiastic.

Blue beamed and clapped her hands together. “Okay, good! So: what happens if you take the number ten, and you split it in half? Show me the results, I know you can do it! Okay: Go!”

The zombies did precisely what they had been doing for the last while, ever since Blue sat up here: tried painfully inefficiently to murder her.

Blue looked about eagerly at her audience below, pointing around occasionally. “Okay you’re close, I see only three fingers on that one hand! Yoooou have only four there, that’s REAL close, nice try!” The next minute or so was spent generally laughing at the several undead who lacked a hand completely, her punch line lost in favor of mocking the monsters who were in the middle of the single worst attempted murder that Blue could remember seeing.

Not that that really meant much, seeing as she couldn't remember anything whatsoever. Still true though.

The laughter lessened, and once it did, it ended pretty much immediately. Blue put her chin in her hands, elbows on her knees as her legs dangled off the edge of the crane arm, and she emitted a bored, exasperated, loud sigh. “Alright, so who all voted that she wasn’t going to come back?”

The same amount of hands remained raised as before. Blue growled to herself as she realized that the joke wasn’t funny this time.

It’s weird how something so scary could end up becoming comical just by sitting around and looking at it for a while. Like, sure, she was still in mortal peril right now, and she could not survive where she was, and she had no means of escape, and that was terrifying, but at some point the fear just kind of…stopped? Or maybe it got so scary that it looped back around and became not scary and just needed time to work it’s way up to the original fear factor. Maybe it was some obscure psychological thing that was completely lost on the cerulean girl, the inner machinations of the mind as alien - or perhaps even more so - than the fiends crowding beneath her, craving for flesh and violence. Maybe the true horror was in the mind, where something as all-consuming as primal fear could be warped and made the stuff of children’s games, numbing the soul to the very thing that would protect it in the moment it was needed the most, and making that fact as trivial as the joke that it had twisted her very survival instincts into.

Or, maybe Blue was just tired, bored, lonely, sad, confused, had run out of ways to manage these things, and just didn’t care anymore.

Blue’s shoulders sagged. A lightlessness that she had been trying to stave off found her again, and once more did she wonder just how painful it would be to let the monsters have her, seeing as they couldn't just get her themselves. There was a lot of them…it couldn’t be that bad, right? They’d probably make it quick. If she jumped just right and landed on her head, she might not feel anything at all. Maybe that was the best she could do, in this situation.

One hand found the red crystal at her neck, clasping it tightly. The other hand left her chin, palm resting on the dirty steel of the crane that had supported her all this time. Something cold rippled through her limbs as she considered how easy it would be to just push-

“Hey Blue, catch!”

Her gaze up was quick, but her mind was significantly slower. By the time she registered the brown mass headed straight for her, she barely had time throw up her arms before she took its (mercifully soft) mass straight to the face. ”AGH!

Scootaloo emitted a loud sputter and began to laugh at this. "Nice!"

Blue gave her a furious glare, though she was quickly distracted by the large brown quilt that she had been thrown. It was large enough that even while halfway rolled up, it still stretched down over her legs and dangled down a foot or so past the edge of her pink boot and her woefully uncovered tootsies, which were revealed as she bundled up the blanket to keep it away from the freaks down belo- oh, hey, her nails were painted pink. She never noticed that before. Cute! ...right, blanket. “Uhh, I don’t really feel sleepy right now, thanks?”

“No no no! This is part of the plan, okay?” She stepped away from the edge and ducked down to do something - the building she was on was taller than the crane arm was currently raised, so Blue could not see anything, though she did hear a single form, metallic tink. “So you can tell the zombies are pretty stupid, right?”

Blue looked down to the dozens of particularly determined undead that had been trying to reach her and had so far overwhelmingly demonstrated a failure to grasp not just her, but also the concept of a Y-axis. “I mean, they’re not so bad. It looks like they’ve all been taught how to shake!”

Scootaloo’s head lifted up at that. She gave Blue a confused look, then looked at all the outstretched hands pointed her way. Blue gave her a big grin, which earned a half-lidded gaze. Blue grinned somehow wider still when Scootaloo rolled her eyes and ducked back down again. “Yeah, well-“ tink, “you won’t teach them much else, because they’re really stupid.” Tink. “Like, super stupid.”

“Sooo what, am I tucking them into bed with this?”

“Nope!” Tink. Scootaloo scooted close enough to the edge that Blue could see her crouched down, but what she was doing still wasn’t clear. “You’re going to tuck yourself into bed!”

Blue blinked. She looked down at the quilt in her hands, then back at Scootaloo, who was now completely at the edge of the building. "What?"

The girl raised something in her hand - a hammer, now that she could see it - and brought it down hard on something that looked like a bundle of white cloth with a final tink. She grasped something just out of reach, and gave it a firm tug, seemingly content with the feeling. "So the plan is: throw that blanket over yourself."

Blue stared. Several seconds passed. No follow-up seemed to be getting handed to her, so she pressed. "...aaaaand..?"

Scootaloo smiled brightly. "That's the plan!"

A slow, slow blink. "That's the plan."

"Yes."

"I sat here waiting for half an hour for you to come back."

"I tried to hurry, but yes."

"And this is the plan."

"Yes."

"Throw a quilt over myself."

"Yes."

"And that'll help me."

"A whole bunch!" Scootaloo reached over beside her and tossed something over the edge of the building - as Blue watched, a bundle of fabric unraveled rapidly as it descended, creating a chain of what looked like lengths of cloth tied together into a massive rope that spiraled all the way down to the ground, where a few more feet of cloth plopped on the sidewalk with a barely audible sound. "Once they've lost sight of you, they'll come after me instead, and I'll lead them away. Then you climb this and you'll be safe!"

There was a large, reputable, pretty competent part of Blue's brain that was having difficulty in believing in such a plan. The very idea that you could just throw a blanket over yourself and immediately be relieved of the attention of a zombie horde was...incredibly stupid. There is absolutely no way that something so mind-numbingly simple that sounded so dumb could possibly work in a life-or-death situation like this, declared that logical part of her brain.

But if it did work, argued another, significantly less sensible section adjacent to it, it would be very funny.

Sadly for that logical part of her brain, the much-less-sensible part was also the part responsible for decision-making.

Blue threw the quilt over herself without a second thought, and the world went dark. She laid back carefully onto the arm of the crane, tucking in her limbs as close to herself as she could so that she wouldn't be seen from below. It was hardly a comfortable spot to lay, but she could confirm that this quilt was very cozy, actually. Ooh, this was nice...

"Hey freakazoids! Look at me! Hey, look!" There was a smacking sound of a hand spanking against fabric. "Got some nice juicy brains for you, right here!"

The shuffling and scuffling beneath Blue was changing, and indeed, much to Blue's awe and incredible amusement, the noises of the horde beneath her were in fact moving away from her, closer towards Scootaloo. A grin spread across her face in the darkness.

"Nah-nah~, you're all braindead and stupid~, can't get meee~ Yeah, you like that?! Over here!" Tap-tap-tap went a pair of shoes on the rooftop, growing more distant, followed by the sounds of footsteps slapping against wood briefly, like a plank. The footsteps grew closer again, but shifted several meters to the left from where they were last. "Hey, paying attention?! Over here, stupid!" Away the footsteps retreated, and the sound of wood being tread atop came again, but farther away. The sounds of the shuffling horde continued to pursue the child, deaf to her mockery but nonetheless utterly fixated on her and her alone.

"No way," Blue couldn't help but mutter to herself. She smiled so widely it was almost painful. "No way."

Scootaloo's taunting continued down the road, and at this point she could barely be understood. Hearing nothing beneath her, Blue dared to whip back the quilt, and much to her absolute delight, there was not a single one of the shapes beneath her. The road was scuffed up and smeared with all manner of grays and blacks and bits of god-knows-what from all their scraping and shoving and struggling against one another, but not a single one of the original group was down there. It was completely clear. Casting a gaze up the road, she saw Scootaloo an entire block away, standing atop some storefront or another, smacking her ass tauntingly down at a horde of zombies too stupid to know just how thoroughly they had been duped.

Right then and there, Blue decided she loved that girl.

Now that it had been revealed that the way was clear, Blue almost casually rolled the quilt over her back up again, tucking it underneath her arm as she carefully stood up. She balanced her way back across the arm of the crane, then lowered onto her rear to slide off the lowest part of the cab, working her way down to the tracks, and then stepping down onto the chilly road. While she was down there, she took a few steps around the vehicle till she found what she was looking for: her boot, where it had been so rudely taken from her. She took a few seconds to step into that, gave the road another quick inspection to make sure nothing was going to try to kick the shit out of her again, then stood and strutted up to the cloth rope that had been presented for her.

A few mental gymnastics were necessary to figure out how to climb this while also bringing this quilt with her (because she was absolutely taking this with her, are you kidding? It's so comfy), which she solved by unraveling the quilt and tying it as tightly as she could around her shoulders like an extremely long cape, then grabbing ahold of this linen lifeline and started to pull herself up it.

It wasn't exactly easy to climb up like this. She had plenty of time to figure it out, though admittedly the growing space between herself and the pavement below did not do much in the way of alleviating pressure about this ordeal. She knew better than to look down, which is a lie, because she looked down, and she did not like it, but if she looked up and pretended that she had not done that thing she just did, there is no way that it could possibly continue to affect her. As it continued to affect her, Blue found her grip a lot more fervent than it already was, and her heart beating just a little bit more harder than it was previously.

Once she made it to the top of the cloth rope, she had another issue. There was a lip of the building where the roof ended, which was pressed up tightly against the building, pulled taut by the weight of the girl climbing it. In order to get up, she would have to reach up over that lip, find purchase, and then pull herself up over the edge, all without losing her grip, falling a story, and smashing her face open on the concrete.

The very idea of releasing this cloth rope sent chills rolling up and down her limbs, and as Blue looked back down to see just how far the ground was, she felt her grip becoming iron-tight. "Oh fuck me," she breathed, suddenly intimately aware of the risks involved with this plan and how this didn't seem like such a great idea. Actually this was a terrible idea and she regretted everything, always, and forever.

The sounds of footsteps slapping against planks some distance to her left was like music to her ears. She kept her eyes glued firmly on the air above her, not daring to look down again at certain death, and kept listening to those steps get closer and closer.

"Help," she squeaked, and then a bit louder called up, "Uhh, help? Uhh..." Oh fuck why did she look down again, god damn it. Oh god, oh fuck.

Scootaloo's head peeked over the edge. She was close enough to reach out and touch. "Are you stuck?"

Blue nodded quickly. Her eyes were carmine dinner plates. "Help."

"O...okay, uhh..." Now it was Scootaloo's turn to look uncertain. She took in the sight for a few seconds, looking between the girl and the edge she had to climb up. "Okay, so...it's easy to grab the edge right here, okay? Just reach up and I'll...I can hang onto you I guess?"

Blue had to work a bit to swallow - even her throat was coiled tight, as though that might help hold on. "I don't want to fall."

The uncertainty on Scootaloo's face vanished in a heartbeat, replaced with a determined set of her jaw and hardening of her eyes. "I won't let you fall." Scootaloo extended both her hands. "Come on, I've got you."

It took several long, painful seconds for Blue to work up the nerve to relinquish her grasp of the sheet rope even just a little bit. One hand loosened, and when she did not immediately plummet to her death, she was encouraged enough to lift her shaking fingers away from the linen and, feebly, grasp upwards. Both of Scootaloo's hands found her arm, grabbing onto her wrist and her forearm both as securely as those small hands could. While it was unlikely a girl her size could hold Blue up if she did actually lose her grip, the security of knowing someone was holding on was enough to embolden Blue, and she extended her arm the rest of the way, searching for the edge just out of her sight. She didn't find it at first, reaching further until she found the edge of the lip, and she grabbed on. Scootaloo remained firmly attached to that arm, and feeling like she could hold on there well enough, she painfully released her other half-cramped hand on the sheet rope, then reached up the same way. She found the lip the second time, and Scootaloo grabbed hold of her hoodie and shoulders. There was nothing left to do from there but to heave.

It took a fair bit of pushing, pulling, shoving, and scrambling, but eventually the top half of Blue made it past the edge of the roof, and once she was there, it only took a little bit more pulling on Scootaloo's part to make the top half the top two-thirds, where gravity took over. At that point she ended up just kind of crashing onto the roof, and Scootaloo - fully throwing her weight into the pull to keep her new friend from falling back again - crashed to the ground with her.

Blue rolled onto her back, staring up at the sky overhead. For a time she just lay there like that, huffing from the exertion, heart hammering in her chest.

Scootaloo leaned over her into her view, looking concerned at first, but when she saw the smile, she smiled right back. "So...hey! Told you it'd work."

Blue's smile took over her face completely on its own. She closed her eyes, thoughts going back to what had just happened, and Blue began to laugh. Her laughter became full-on cackling as she doubled over, and before long there were tears rolling down her face. She was alive, she was safe, she wasn't alone, but there was something even more important than all of those things put together.

That unbelievably stupid-sounding plan had worked. And most crucially of all: it was, in fact, very funny.

Chapter 13

Dizziness.

The world beyond her eyelids felt as though it was swaying heavily from side to side, like she was atop a tall tower made of rubber being buffeted by winds. All things were permeated evenly by an equally thick layer of pain - it felt as though the fabric of the universe itself was aching terribly, and she was in the middle of it. Her thoughts spiraled, and everything was confusion. Nothing made sense. Everything hurt. Everything hurt. Make it stop. Make it stop...

She couldn't tell where her hand was, but she felt something hard in it somewhere, and she squeezed it shut on impulse. Warmth spread throughout her palm the moment she did, the feeling as familiar as it was pleasant. As she lay there, she felt her eyes roll into the back of her head as every inch of her body was purged of this pain, flushed out by a euphoria that swiftly replaced it, sweeping her and her woes away on a tide of liquid sunlight that rolled in under her skin. The moan slipped from her lips involuntarily. Under her breath, she all but purred, "Oh baby."

The feeling did not last more than seven seconds. They felt like minutes in the moment, but after it had passed, it felt like it had only been a few instants. She squeezed the gem at her neck tighter, hopeful to get just a few more moments of pleasure out of it, but it was already gone. She missed it immediately.

Blue opened her eyes.

It was dark, and above her was a ceiling. Something very soft was beneath her, square-shaped and covered in soft fabric - a bed, she recognized. The fabric was off-white, and beneath her head was a pillow. The room was relatively small, only a half-meter longer than the bed itself was, and half as wide, leaving only enough space for a small bedside table and the clock that sat atop it, the display dark and lifeless. It was rather tight for a bedroom, and didn't leave much space for anything else. The walls were barren, which left the space with an odd contrasting feeling of being at once very empty and also claustrophobic. A wooden door was directly across from the foot of the bed.

As she realized that she did not recognize this room, Blue sat up with a start, knocking aside the brown quilt thrown over her, hand still clasped firmly around her necklace. A bead of sweat on her face coalesced and rolled down the side of her cheek and down her neck.

How did I get here?

She thought on that. Nothing came to her, and when it didn't, she thought back to the last thing she remembered, which was...stepping across wooden planks. On the...yes, on the roof. Rooftops. They were going rooftop to rooftop, talking about...something. Nothing in particular. Scootaloo was smiling and seemed in high spirits. She was too. They were going...somewhere. Before that, there was the...yes, she had been rescued with that ridiculous plan, and...she didn't much want to think about before that, that wasn't a good time. Got a nice quilt out of it, though...

Okay. So she was with Scootaloo, and now she was not.

The thoughts stopped there. Blue swung her legs off the bed she found herself on, lashing a hand out to shove the quilt out of her way, and immediately she went for the door, heart pounding a bit harder as she grabbed the doorknob and pulled the door open.

A hallway sat before her, utterly silent and still as a crypt. Four closed doors sat closed, each identical and sitting across from the other in this small space. To the far right was a window, curtains closed. To the left was a staircase leading down, beyond which Blue could not see past the entry to the stairwell. All was dark, yet despite this, she could see everything here, if in grayscale. She thought little of it.

The door directly in front of her was ajar, so that seemed as likely a place as any to investigate first. Conscious of every single little creak and sound she made with any little motion, Blue stepped slowly, carefully forward, one bare foot touching the center of the hallway, the rest of her weight very slowly coming down through it, such that she could take another slow, careful, creeping step up to the door. She remained crouched partially on an impulse she could not name in that moment, gripping the doorframe to secure her position, then leaned in close, peering in through space between the doorframe and door. She held her breath, equally to be utterly silent, and also to keep her view more steady as she peeked.

Beyond the door was a space that looked basically identical to the one she had just emerged from, except for a gray backpack sitting on the edge of the off-white mattress, bulging with many smaller somethings inside of it. There was a lump there underneath the covers, right where a person would lay. The lump was relatively small, and Blue recognized the short purple hair sticking up out of the covers. Leaning a bit to one side, she managed to barely catch sight of Scootaloo's face, obscured from the nose down by covers, but still recognizable.

Relief washed over Blue, and she bit back the urge to heave out a sigh. She deliberated what to do next for a few more long seconds in the darkness, not really certain about anything in this moment, but eventually her desire to not be alone won out. She placed a pale blue hand on the door and, gently, very gently, eased it open, millimeter by millimeter.

Creep...creep...creeping into the room went Blue, as slowly as she could manage without making unneeded sound. She lowered onto her knees when she was less than a step away from the bed, and she crawled forward on hands and knees what little distance remained, head level with her sleeping friend's. Centimeter by centimeter between them shrunk away until she was so close that she could faintly hear the sound of Scootaloo's breathing.

"Scootaloo," she whispered, as softly as she could physically manage.

There was no response. Just more soft breathing.

"Scootaloo. Hey...Scootaloo."

The eyelids twitched a little bit, but still the girl did not stir.

"Scooooootaloo. Scootaloo. Hey. Scootaloo. Scootalooga. Scootalooloo. Hey. Hey. Scootamorph. Scootlesworth. Scootscoot. Scooty MacScootleson. Scootlebread with a warm cup of cider. Scootamania. Scoot-"

"If I say I'm asleep," came the haggard mutter, eyes firmly closed, "will you leave me alone?"

"Uhh...maybe!" Blue's whisper remained low, for no other reason than because that's the volume that she had chosen and hadn't thought to do differently. "But I kinda want your attention and if you said that you've kinda gotta be awa- oh. Hiii~" Blue beamed brightly. "Hi Scootaloo~"

"Hi." The tone was anything but cheerful, and Scootaloo's eyes opened, face twisted in a groggy, half-awake scowl. "Why did you wake me up?"

"Uh..." Blue put a finger to her chin and had to think about that. Why did she wake Scootaloo up? That seemed like something she'd be kinda grouchy about. That wasn't the best plan. Hm...tactical fucky-wucky not improbable at this juncture. "Well...I just, woke up, and-" Right, she remembered now. "Um, how did we get here?"

Scootaloo's bleary, half-lidded gaze remained on Blue for three full seconds. Her eyelids slowly lowered, then heavily rose again. "What?"

"How did we get here?" Blue wasn't smiling anymore, scooting up closer to the bed and to Scootaloo. Her hand went to her neck closed around the red crystal on impulse. "Where is this?"

Scootaloo's mouth opened, then closed. Her arms rose up from beneath the covers so that she could apply her hands to her face, pressing them against her eyes and dragging them down her cheeks. "Are you serious right now?"

"Yes!" Blue was no longer whispering, voice low but otherwise fully animated with the distress she had felt from before. "What's going on?"

"Blue..." The cylinders were barely working in Scootaloo's head, and it showed in the way she sputtered several times before she managed, "What are you t- what?"

"What is going on?!" Blue was getting increasingly worked up at this point, a desperate quality rising up out of her voice. "I'm serious! I don't know how we got here, I don't remember anything, I j- I woke up, I didn't know where I was, I didn't know where you were, I was scared you were gone, I didn't know what to do-"

"Okay," Scootaloo threw up one hand to stop her. "Okay, okay, just...give me a second here, please..."

Blue, obediently, shut up and stayed shut up. She remained crouched at eye-level with Scootaloo, staring all the while as she waited for everything to be made better.

Scootaloo had her hands to her face for several seconds. She sucked in a long breath behind them, then began to stir some, stretching stiffly as she adjusted herself so she could lean up onto one arm, squinting at Blue in the dark. She raised her wrist between them and tapped on the screen a couple of times- the watch on her wrist lit up, casting a tiny glow over them that Blue did not react to, but caused Scootaloo's pupils to shrink ever so slightly and appear as the lavender color that they were instead of a shade of gray to Blue's eyes.

She blinked and kneaded at her eyes for a few more long seconds, then finally said, "Okay...we're in a house I use sometimes for rest when I'm out looting and the way I need to go is too busy. It was a scary day for you, so we settled in early, because scary days suck. Downstairs is blocked off, so we're safe. Okay?"

Blue nodded quickly, unconsciously gripping the sheet of the mattress she was pressed up against. "How long has it been?"

Scootaloo opened her mouth for a moment, then closed it. When she spoke again, some of the thin tolerance in her voice had ebbed, sounding a little more concerned. "What do you remember?"

"Um..." A moment of thinking back. "We were on the rooftops, and going somewhere. It was light out."

"Oh." The frustration saw itself out at this point. "Oh, jeez, uh, alright...uh...yeah, we've been here since, uh...since mid-afternoon yesterday. We were..." Scootaloo closed her eyes, now thinking back herself, using this opportunity to resume kneading her aching eyes. "We talked about a bunch of stuff. You were asking about like...what had happened, where we were, I was...sharing some, uh...some stuff I knew, we talked about the zombies and stuff, I told you some jokes, we had dinner, you liked the canned squash...talked about food..."

The fear seemed like it would go down at this revelation, but no, not at all. Quite the opposite. Blue thought back, and when there continued to be nothing, her anxiety vibrated louder in the back of her skull. "I don't remember any of this."

Scootaloo's hand fell from her face, blowing out a breath past her lips. "A...alright."

"Why don't I remember?" Blue's voice was quiet, and quaked as she spoke. "How did I forget all that?"

"I- I don't know, Blue."

Blue continued to stare at Scootaloo, silently pleading for answers, for clarity, for...anything. But there wasn't much Scootaloo could do besides stare back, concerned and more than a little worried, but helpless.

She forgot. She forgot an entire afternoon's worth of getting to know this girl that had saved her, forgot everything she had apparently learned about...anything, actually. It was all gone. Nothing was registering, nothing that Scootaloo had said even sounded vaguely familiar. It was as though it had never happened, just like everything that came before her waking up the previous day. Gone, just like her own fucking name.

Was this going to keep happening? Would she lose everything like this, her life skipping entire scenes and deleting itself behind her as she played a doomed game of catch-up?

Blue's head swam as she kept trying to remember anything at all, but nothing came, the distress from this urging her to try again, spinning her mind into a deeper and deeper spiral. Her hands pressed hard against the sides of her skull, which succeeded in nothing but making her already chaos-filled head hurt. Her pink eyes prickled, growing hot with the building tears.

She did not notice Scootaloo sitting up, nor her reaching out at her until her smaller arms were upon her and pulling her in closer. Blue blinked into the hug, but swiftly returned it, squeezing the girl as tight as she dared around the waist as the sniffling started, and the tears became too big to stay in place. Cool water streaked down her burning cheeks.

"Can I stay with you?" Blue croaked, throat tight and congested from the crying she could no longer stop. "Let me stay here please? In case I..."

"Y-yeah, yeah." Scootaloo tried to not let her own voice shake as she said this. Her eyes were wide, and sleep was unlikely to return soon with how alert she was feeling, but such concerns were far from her now. "Sure thing, Blue."

Blue tried to say something in response, but the words were lost to both Scootaloo and herself. She wept fearful tears into the dark, all the while Scootaloo could only feebly try to comfort her and not let her own fear show as she realized the position that she was in, and how badly this girl needed somebody to be here - not just in this moment, but in general. She blinked her own tears back a few times, but Blue never noticed.

At least they could be scared and uncertain together.

Twilight was having a hard time deciding how she felt when she got in the car that morning.

On the one hoof, there was the obvious anxiety that came with delving head-first into an unknown place that was, in all likelihood, dangerous. Twilight didn't have much to base that assumption on besides the fact that everywhere on earth seemed particularly dangerous right now, but she had been told that it was likely that there would be some degree of autonomous security around, given that this lab was government property and seemed to be of a classified nature. The only autonomous security devices that Twilight had encountered so far had stopped her friends in their tracks from a significant distance, and while she did not have much of a sense of how dangerous they actually were, what she had been told sounded like such caution was more than warranted. Unfortunately, staying far away from guns and things willing to utilize them did not seem to be an option in an enclosed space of a building, so that was definitely worth being nervous about, she felt.

On the other hoof, the potential good that could come from this endeavor was difficult to understate. The tactical side of Twilight knew better than to get her hopes up before anything else was known, but the significantly more Twilight side of Twilight Sparkle could not not be excited about the possibilities. The word "cure" kept cycling through her mind, as did visions of families and friends being tearfully reunited after months of hardship, trauma, and grieving. How could the Princess of Friendship not find her heart soaring at the very suggestion, the thinnest probability that somehow, someway, all that was wronged could be made right and that love could win the day once again? How couldn't she be excited by the thought of giving her friends their families back and to put the world back together, piece by piece, one lost soul at a time?

On yet another hoof, Twilight could not stop thinking about what Alex had said back at the ranch, when this mission was proposed to her. Alex had gone with some allies to the hospital, the prospect of a cure in mind, and before she was done, she had - for some reason - lost faith in the idea. It was something she didn't think much on at first, but as the many minutes passed with only the sound of the Mustang's grumbling to keep her mind company, Twilight's thoughts kept touching on it. She didn't know Alex super well, but she knew her well enough to hear the passion in her voice when she talked about providing for people and being the support that the center's population needed to make it through the dark days they were in. That good cause was, in her own words, "about as good as it gets." What had changed to make her no longer want to see that cause through? What had gone through her head to make her lose hope like that? Was she too weary? Had the fear really gotten to her? Or had she realized something that Twilight had not? What had Alex seen at that hospital that Twilight hadn't yet? And what if she saw it?

She could have asked, Twilight supposed. She had thought to, at one point. She'd thought the words, but she just...never expressed them. It would have been wise to, as Alex may have very well told her the answer to her question, but...maybe she was too scared of the answer to want to. You can never unlearn something once you've learned it, after all. Whatever the truth was, once she knew it, it would be a part of her forever. And if it was something bad...

"I know that look anywhere."

Twilight blinked out of her thoughts, turning her head to the driver's seat to her left.

Rarity was looking at her, eyelids almost looking like they were made of crystal in the early morning light, eyelashes long and eye-catchingly defined with whatever she had coated them with. Her gaze was neutral, though her lips had a small curl to them that always seemed to be there - something about her face always made Twilight feel like she was so approachable. "That’s the look of someone thinking entirely too much."

"Ah...I guess so." Twilight smiled sheepishly. "Sorry."

"No need to apologize, darling." Rarity's gaze went forward to the road again, lazily steering the noisy vehicle slightly to the right to be out of the way of the wreckage quite far up the road from where they were. "Goodness knows that there's a lot to think about these days...I can't imagine what it must be like for someone who's not even from this world."

"It is a lot," Twilight admitted. "Every time I feel like I'm getting a decent grasp of it, someone hands me whatever a USB drive is or starts talking about encryptions, and then I feel like I'm a filly back in grade school trying to wrap my head around what the heck a quadratic formula is."

The snort escaped Rarity involuntarily, and she did her best to pretend it never happened. "I've already forgotten the quadratic formula. I was never terrible at math, but it feels like a lifetime ago that we were sitting in Ocean Swirl's classroom..."

From memory Twilight easily recited, "X equals negative B plus-or-minus the square root of B squared minus four-A-C, all over two-A, where A-X squared plus B-X plus C equals zero. And A doesn't equal zero, of course. Solve for X." When Twilight turned her head, she smiled at the vacant look that Rarity was giving her. "It's a really hoofy formula. I use it all the time in magic when I'm trying to pin down variables for where a spell calls for a certain design on a surface. It's especially helpful when you're trying to edit a spell diagram that exists already, or when you're trying to work out how another caster got the design that they did because they didn't leave any notes." With just a pinch of bitterness, she added through gritted teeth, "Not that anyone would ever leave poor documentation of their magic when they knew that somepony else would have to use it later..."

"Oh darling, I know the precise pain you're feeling there," Rarity mumbled, shaking her head. "Programming class was an absolute nightmare. The final project was that we had to design our own programs from scratch, but we kept the documentation separate. Then we had to hand it off to some other group, and then work out how they had gotten everything to function. Then we compared documentation and saw how close we got compared to the original." A loathing, tight smile; the hands squeezed on the steering wheel as she pretended that it was someone's neck. "So. Little. Documentation."

Twilight giggled, sitting back more comfortably in her seat. It was always odd how well these things supported pony anatomy, though the vertical position was definitely something best endured in short doses. "It's surprising to me how many parallels like that there are between our worlds. I don't know the first thing about computers, but it sounds a lot like magic in several ways."

Rarity shrugged. "I suppose that there is a certain magic-like quality to the way computers function...enter a completely arbitrary series of characters to this thing that does nothing, and watch it start to do things seemingly out of thin air...peel it back and there's this bizarre language behind it that looks like utter nonsense until you start to understand what you're looking at, and suddenly you can make that strange little program do all sorts of things that wouldn't normally be possible." A beat. "At least I presume that's how it works. I'm not exactly a wizard, as I'm sure you're aware..."

"I mean, yeah, that's more or less it in a nutshell. Obviously there's a lot more to it than that, but yeah!" Twilight chuckled. "I guess that would explain all the trouble I had trying to figure out even the basics of computers. It must have been like what someone would have gone through trying to figure out how magic worked...I definitely felt as lost as my first day at school as I did back at that computer at Canterlot High."

"If those videos were anything to go by, you were...relatively without direction, yes, I feel that's a fair description."

Twilight chuckled, shaking her head. She remembered the embarrassment of when Sunset Shimmer had circulated those clips of her all those months ago, trying to perform research while also fumbling through the basics of how to exist as a human...it felt a lot more distant now, more easy to laugh about. She felt what Rarity had said before, about how it felt like a lifetime ago that it had happened. "It's weird how time gets away from you."

The conversation stalled out suddenly. Twilight internally winced, realizing that she had said something perhaps she shouldn't have. An awkward silence moved in, and the Princess of Friendship tapped her hooves uncomfortably together in her lap, trying to think of what to say next to make it better.

Rarity took care of that for her with a question. "May I ask you something a little personal, darling?"

"Oh, sure, Rarity." Twilight smiled, disguising her relief as friendliness. "What's up?"

Rarity's fingers tapped slowly against the steering wheel, one after the other, chewing on her lip as she deliberated how she wanted to ask this...or if she wanted to ask it at all. Her sky-blue eyes drifted to her right arm, tracing the ring of heavy bruising where she could feel it underneath the sleeve of her dark hoodie, where her arm had once been broken only a little over a week ago. "Do you have a faith?"

Twilight blinked once. Her mind clicked and churned behind her eyes, trying to work this out. "What do you mean?"

"A religion, darling." Rarity fidgeted in her seat, re-adjusting her grip on the steering wheel. "I don't know how these things work in Equestria, so if I'm asking something a little...sensitive..."

"Oh, nono, it's fine, don't worry." Twilight thought on this for a few moments. "Well...that's kind of a weird way of describing it, but I guess you could say that we have religions, yeah. Some ponies are very devoted to certain princesses in particular, but that’s not really uh...you know…” Twilight rolled her hoof. “Normal.”

"Are you..." Once again Rarity bit back what she was going to say, visibly trying to phrase what she meant to ask very carefully. Weirdly carefully, to Twilight. "Do you have something you believe in, yourself?"

Twilight's brow furrowed at the way that question was worded. She considered asking, but Rarity was already acting uncharacteristically skittish about this particular line of conversation, so she didn't want to draw more attention to something she was apparently not completely at ease about asking...though saying that, she wasn't entirely sure how to answer what she had been asked. She believed in a lot of things…

"Like...a belief system," Rarity tried, responding to the confusion on Twilight's face. "Like a creed, or something. A philosophy? I don’t know. Something revolving around a higher power..."

Then it clicked. "Ohhh, you mean like Harmony?"

Rarity was not certain, and her expression said as much.

It made sense to Twilight, though, so she went with that as she perkily explained. "I guess you could call belief in Harmony a religion, yeah! Harmony has always been at the core of Equestrian values. Being one with Harmony is how you lead a fulfilling and happy life, and it's crucial to understand the Elements of Harmony in order to better access the power of love inside us. It’s a fundamental part of the equine experience. There's no greater force than the Harmony you share. That’s what friendship is!" Twilight allowed for a pause, to see what Rarity had to say to that. When she didn't respond immediately, Twilight cocked her head inquisitively, a few stray strands of her mane falling in front of her eyes. "Why do you ask?"

The expression on Rarity's face was a very complicated one. Her eyes searched the dashboard as she wrestled with something she did not speak aloud. She glanced at the road, and when she did, she suddenly stiffened, sitting up straighter in her seat. "What in the world..?"

Twilight looked forward, following Rarity's gaze. As the Mustang slid to a swift halt, the alicorn's surprise mirrored Rarity's.

The road turned ahead, sweeping in a lazy right-angle that went ahead another hundred yards or so, at the end of which sat a large round structure that was partially obscured by an alcove of trees that it sat nestled within. Judging by how long they'd been traveling for and the directions they had received to get out here, that was likely their intended destination. This was good. What was less good were all the shapes strewn out across the road and out in the field between the two girls and the presumed laboratory at the end of this street.

There were dozens of them visible, and likely dozens more that were obscured by the grasses that they scuttled amidst, cloaked by waving tails of verdant greens and golds that waved in the morning sun. One of the shapes was less than five meters away, emerging from a ditch and twitching its wiry antennae at the rumbling vehicle where it sat. It was clearly an ant, but roughly the size of a large dog, though only half as tall as one, its six branch-thick legs keeping it relatively low to the ground. Its carapace was a ruddy brown color with a darker, black-colored bulbous abdomen, though other specimens in the area varied somewhat in shade, a few appearing as a mottled red comparable to dried blood. The one closest to them glistened ever so slightly in the light, either from moisture of whatever plants it crawled out of or a natural gloss, though the latter was unlikely, given the sheer number of needle-like hairs and the rough appearance of the carapace that vaguely resembled that of stone. Two compound eye glinted and shone with a thousand individual planes across their rounded surfaces, each positioned just behind a pair of bulging mandibles that hung ajar like a pair of jagged bolt cutters, and likely just as sharp.

"Oh I despise ants," Rarity groaned. "I despise them when they're normal size! What on earth is this?!"

"Formica truncorum," Twilight murmured, voice practically aglow with the fascination that surfaced through her building smile and widening eyes. She watched the twitching, dramatically oversized worker ant's head turn this way and that, perturbed by the noise of the vehicle as it tried to navigate its way forward while clumsily shifting around, searching for a way past the thing it could feel and hear, but barely see with its low-resolution vision. "Wood ants."

"I don't care what manner of ant they are, they're dreadful creatures!” Rarity hugged herself, a slightly manic look on her face, that familiar quality coming into her voice where she got unreasonably upset about something small. “Crawling all over you, always sneaking in where you least expect them, breaking into your home at the first drop of ice cream or piece of fruit on the floor! Every spring, it's always the same: everything's fine, lulling you into a false sense of security, and then suddenly the teeming masses roll in from every crevice, getting all over my FLOOR and my FEET! EUgughh, just thinking about them is giving me the creepy-crawlies all over!" A shudder violently wracked the girl as she let out a high-pitched noise of revulsion that could be felt as much as heard. "Absolute bane of my existence, no matter the size!"

Twilight was so fixated on the insect as big as her that she barely heard Rarity. In stark contrast to the fashionista, Twilight loved ants - she'd studied them casually before magic stole a place in her heart and the space on her rump, and looking out at the giant ant-covered road ahead brought back fond memories from her foalhood. Many hours had been spent staring into vertical ant colonies as they toiled away within the confines of their farm atop her desk, just watching them move and perform their endless tasks during breaks in reading. She left the hobby of ant farms behind when her studies picked up, but she never stopped thinking ants were amazing creatures. Every layer of what ants were had something that had always intrigued Twilight at every stage of her life, and this was no different.

Some of the glitter in her eyes faded, however, as the reality of the situation managed to pierce through the nostalgia, and the obstacle the dozens or so of giant insects between them and their destination was realized for what it was. "There must be a nest somewhere near here."

"And me without my bug spray..." A suddenly much more composed Rarity huffed, looking out across the road they had yet to traverse with lofty disdain. “That’s what I get for not bringing my full travel assortment with me. Truly dark times indeed, they don’t even make bug spray anymore! No wonder so few survived, with an absence of such essentials.”

"To be fair, I don't think you could have brought enough bug spray to kill even one of these ants."

"I do hate it when you're right..." Rarity held her dismissive gaze over the small army of meandering meter-long insects for a few more seconds before shifting her azure eyes over to Twilight. "I'll happily make an exception this time if you can work out how we're meant to get past these things."

Twilight tapped her hoof thoughtfully against the door handle, gears visibly turning. She glanced at the ant that was still clumsily trying to cross the road and skirt away from them, twitching and angling its head in odd directions as it partially side-stepped away and into the opposite ditch into the grasses beyond. "You could just try driving. That one, at least, didn't seem to like the noise this thing makes." Twilight thumped a hoof lightly against the dashboard as the noisy motor growled and boomed away.

Rarity's brow furrowed slightly. "Darling, the size of these things...aren't you at all concerned that they'll just pick the car up and scurry off with it?"

"Fun fact, actually!" Twilight clapped her hooves together as her expression lit up brightly. "Ants are actually not all that much stronger than any other insect of their size, and the reason for that is physics! Square-cube law: when an object undergoes a proportional increase in size, its new surface area is proportional to the square of the multiplier and its new volume is proportional to the cube of the multiplier." She did not mind the blank look this evoked. "Ants are really strong comparatively because they're so light and math works out well in their favor in that regard. Their muscles aren't actually any more developed or powerful compared to any other creature, and if you bloat them up to silly sizes, their strength actually proportionally decreases! Same thing applies to any creature."

Rarity nodded along, more a show of listening than of comprehension, then cast a glance towards the nearest oversized insect seven or so meters up the road from them, feelers twitching at the sky inquisitively. "...and how confident are we that these creatures feel much like listening to what physics have to say?"

Twilight opened her mouth, then closed it. Violet eyes tracked another ant in particular, the starts of one of her several theories replaying itself in her head. "I don't know what it is that's making these things so large, but I can't think of any way that it's magic. It just...it wouldn't work. Not with how magic is behaving, and not for as long as this has been going on. So...I guess I'd say it's pretty likely they obey conventional physics, probably."

Rarity's eyebrow twitched upward a few millimeters. "You guess it's likely, probably?"

"Sort of, yes! Probably definitely maybe, absolutely." Twilight flashed a silly grin. "Give or take one hundred percent. You know?"

There was a beat where Rarity tried her best to keep an impartial expression, but the smile won, and she allowed herself to chuckle, which devolved into full laughter; Twilight began giggling herself. They laughed together for a short while that felt so much longer in the moment, and when they were done, the tension of the air had a sizable bite taken out of it. "As you say, darling," Rarity pleasantly sighed, pushing the gear shift forward out of park and into drive, allowing the vehicle to start creeping forward. "But if I find one of these things crawling up my leg, I will scream."

"I think you'd be pretty justified in screaming at that point."

Not that Rarity ever needed to be justified to scream about something.

It was a slow crawl up the road. For the most part, the insects seemed content to ignore the car’s presence. A few ants seemed curious at first, but as with the first ant, getting too close to the source of the thrumming and low-pitched booming from the grouchy motor of the vehicle did not seem to register pleasantly in the oversized ants’ senses, and curiosity quickly gave way to avoidance. Rarity always had her foot on the brake pedal, eager to give the ants plenty of space before she would consider resuming their slow yet steady advance, and beyond the occasional inquisitive specimen that made the two of them a bit uncomfortable for a few seconds, there were no incidents to speak of all the way up the drive to the lab.

From afar, the laboratory looked to be little more than a nondescript semicircle of gray, looking a bit like a particularly low-sitting observatory with its telescope tucked in. Up close, however, it was revealed to be no observatory at all, and was indeed just a simple dome of stone, which up close was revealed to be actual stone of some kind rather than the concrete it appeared to be from afar. The entire surface of the structure was slightly glossy, either covered in a finish of some kind or polished to the point of being able to see one’s face in the surface.

It looked more like a monument than a building, though to what was not apparent. There were no signs out front - no arrows, nothing indicating parking, not even a ‘private property’ notice. As far as could be told, this structure had no name. There was very little to see besides the structure itself, which seemed very unremarkable at a glance, and pointedly so after a bit of scrutiny. There was absolutely nothing here that would draw any kind of attention from anyone who looked at this place and did not already know what it was.

It was hard to tell where the front of this building was, so indistinct was any side of it from the other, and without parking space that was even more difficult to make out. The only sign of where a front would be were the two stainless steel doors that suddenly became visible at around the point where the road unceremoniously ended.

"Well, this is..." Rarity hesitated for several seconds, searching for an apt descriptor. "...unorthodox, to be certain. It must be one of those places that emphasizes creative takes on architecture, like those buildings designed to look like they're tied in knots, or something. At least it's not as ridiculous as some of those. You can do a lot worse than the polished marble look."

Twilight leaned forward with her hooves against the door, trying to peer closer, trying to make out any details about this place that she just was not seeing. There were no antennae, none of those flower-shaped dishes, none of those blue panels that liked to point towards the path the sun took in the sky...nothing. The indistinct stone dome remained precisely that, to her eyes. It looked more like a carving than it did a proper building, if not for the doors. "There's something unsettling about it. Do you feel it?"

Rarity nodded silently. An ethereal frown crossed over her lips.

Twilight stared a few seconds longer, eyes momentarily catching on another dog-sized ant that bobbed into view, then immediately shied back when it got too close to the Mustang and its noisy motor. Despite the creatures’ reticence to get anywhere near their vehicle, getting out of the vehicle didn’t seem like the most appealing prospect.

"Move us right up to the door, if you can? I want to look closer at it."

Rarity released her foot from the brake pedal and turned the steering wheel. The car responded in kind, turning off of the road that suddenly stopped in front of it and now rolled forward towards the front of the structure, right up onto the pavement that passed for what little walkway this place had, bringing the door and everything around it much more into focus. Twilight had to turn the other way now because of the way the car was facing, leaning forward past Rarity in order to do so.

Up close, she could see that the steel doors were not perfectly smooth and seemed to have small ridges in them, though she could not tell if they were proper indentations or simply odd patterns from whatever process had extruded or melded the steel together. There was nothing on the door to indicate where one would open it - really, it was less a set of doors so much as a pair of metal wall segments arranged in the likeness of doors. There was something beside the doors themselves, though: a horizontal slit perhaps five centimeters across, currently the only blemish in the perfectly smooth exterior of this building that had been identified so far.

"What's that?"

Rarity squinted a bit, leaning forward slightly. "I would guess a card reader. That seems to be a favorite way into these government-type buildings."

That seemed to be the only way in. Which...yeah, that made sense. Government building, extremely secure, restricted access. They did not have a key for this door, though.

...thinking that, Twilight frowned as she realized something, which she asked aloud: "How are we going to get in there?"

To this, Rarity could only shrug, letting her hands slap gently against her tight jeans where they fell back down. "I’m afraid I took programming classes, not electronics. I wouldn't know where to begin with a card reader."

Twilight's frown deepened. Her horn flashed to life, and the bag in the foot space of the passenger seat flipped itself open, what tools they had at their disposal presenting themselves to her, wreathed in magenta light: screwdrivers, hammers, a jagged-tooth hacksaw, wrenches...things that would ultimately prove unnecessary, given Twilight's capabilities...and this USB drive. Absolutely none of which read as particularly good for this task. A quiet, frustrated growl worked up from Twilight’s throat - the glow stopped suddenly, and the raised objects went clattering quietly to the car floor. "How do we get through metal like that?"

"We would need a blowtorch or some such thing, I believe."

They definitely didn’t pack that. Twilight barely knew what that was, and she was confident they didn’t have it. "Do we even have one of those back at the ranch?"

Rarity shook her head, shrugging once more. "I know I didn't come across one. I don't recall spying one in the tool stash, either, unless miss Alessandra decided to squirrel away all the best tools where we can’t reach them.”

One hoof went to Twilight's temple, beginning to knead in small, slow circles. They had just pulled up to the door, and already they were stuck and scrambling for options. "I'm not confident in my ability to pull this door down. I probably could normally, but with the amount of pain that I've been getting from much smaller things..."

"I'd really rather you not hurt yourself if you're not certain it would work, dear."

"What other choices do we have? There's nothing here. There aren't windows, there aren't access points..."

Rarity turned her hands over helplessly in her lap, pursing her lips together. "I know you say you've been struggling with your magic, but you can use it, yes? Don't you have a...an 'open door' spell, or something? Open se-sa-me?"

Twilight tilted her head quizzically at...whatever that phrase Rarity just uttered was meant to be. It almost sounded like words of power, but...no? No. Disregarded. "Not memorized." Twilight turned her gaze back at the card receiver, flipping through imaginary pages in her mind for any spell she knew off-hoof that might solve this problem. She could name a dozen or more that would make this roadblock trivial, if only she were familiar enough with them. Under her breath she mumbled, "What I wouldn't give for my spell book right now..."

Rarity turned her head, taking note of the many ants in the area. A rough line had been drawn where those curious had inched closer, but were not able to approach further and were left apparently confused on what else to do but stand there staring at their brethren. She looked back at the dashboard, eyes finding the clock, then Twilight again. "Well, you're a smart girl, Twilight. I'm sure that you'll figure something out here...and I'm afraid you'll have to, because I certainly don't know what use I'm going to be in this situation."

Twilight squeezed her eyes closed, sitting back down into her seat as she did her best to work through this puzzle with what she had.

Okay, go down the list here. Telekinesis: unlikely to work, given how things are, would be very painful. Last resort option. Dissolve Material…oh how I wish I had that spell right now, that would be soooo nice, just delete this door. Okay…acid? I doubt I could conjure anything strong enough on the spot here…conjuration…Conjure Door?

…

…there’s no way that works.

…

If it works I’m going to be upset.

Almost against her better judgement, Twilight sat forward again, hooves against the door as she peered at the wall beside the steel doorway. She closed her eyes, mentally tracing out the designs of the relatively simple spell as she knew it, envisioning it appearing on the surface of this wall, and felt pressure build up behind her forehead. She held it for a moment or so longer, then pushed that energy out through her horn in a flash of pink.

Twilight opened her eyes a second later. She saw no door there when she opened her eyes, nor any aftereffects to speak of. Frowning, she tried again, this time keeping her eyes open; pressure built up once again in her forehead, causing her horn to start to glow, and as the energy expelled from her horn in a bright flash, she saw it splash against the wall in the vague shape of an entrance, then fizzle immediately rather than take any kind of detail or become corporeal.

Having just witnessed spells being cast for the first time, Rarity’s reaction was about what one would expect: she was sitting straight up in her seat, hands grasping the steering wheel firmly, gaze sharp with alertness. Her ice-blue eyes scanned the wall she had watched mystic lights and glamor interact with, then over to the alicorn, who was rubbing her head with one hoof. “Darling?”

“I’m fine,” Twilight said quickly. She kneaded at the dull ache a bit longer, muttering, “I knew that wouldn’t work…”

“Don’t push yourself. We have plenty of time, and we’re…” Blue eyes flicked about their surroundings again, noting the positions of the various giant insects meandering about on all sides, and her voice was a little less confident when she continued. “…we seem safe, at least.”

Twilight raised her head again, scrutinizing the door once again as she resumed trying to work out this conundrum. Her eyes narrowed in concentration…then widened as her whole expression lit up. “Idea.”

Her horn flashed pink, and the truck door opened. She hopped out of the vehicle, hooves clopping quietly against the pavement as she called back, “This is steel, right?”

“That would be my guess,” came Rarity’s cautious response. She had the revolver out and in her hands now, significantly more vigilant of their surroundings now that the door was open and one of them was no longer sheltered by the car. “It looks like steel to me.”

Twilight sat in front of both doors so that she could place one hoof on either, closing her eyes. Her horn picked up a magenta glow.

Once upon a time, before Twilight grew up into an insecure adult, she had been an even more insecure little filly, and upon discovering that she had a talent for something, she made it her life’s mission to be as useful and productive as possible in a vain attempt to prove her worth. She picked up one spell in particular that excited her, a relatively simple spell whose usefulness was self-evident: Mend. So excited was she to learn something that could help her family that she immediately jumped on the opportunity to fix her father’s pocket watch when it broke. She didn’t know the first thing about watches, nor what had broken in this one, and so she decided - in her infinite filly wisdom - to repair the copper of the watch itself. Turns out, the watch was made of brass. It didn’t end well for that unfortunate watch, but it taught Twilight something very important about not just magic in general, but also this spell of hers, which she exploited here decades later.

Twilight’s horn discharged a flash of pink, causing a nail of pain to lance through the base of her horn into her skull, but also caused the doors to take on an identical shine. A faint black substance began to emit from the surface of the doors, looking like smoke, or a very fine dust that spilled gently away from the shining doors in small plumes. Before Twilight and Rarity’s eyes, the faint line between the door and the stone around it appeared to grow thicker. Hairline fractures began to spread through the stone around the doorway as the two slabs of metal - steadily purifying iron - remained firmly sealed together, hooked together by a locking mechanism that was proving to be extremely resilient. Far more resilient than the stone.

Chips and fragments of the gray-white rock broke free as the doors continued to slowly lose mass, yet remained secured where they were embedded into the structure that tried desperately to hold on. In the end, stone proved to be simply too brittle to stretch the inch and a half of space that it was being pulled, and in fact failed to stretch at all. Metal groaned, stone crackled, and then finally, with a bone-jarring pop and a spray of rock shards, the entire hydraulic system at the top of the door was ripped free, exposing a long broken tube that the slabs of metal beneath them had ripped away from.

When the black and white dust both cleared, there was nearly enough space at the top of the doors between the frames to stick your hoof through, provided you had one. Fractures and cracks spread nearly a foot from either side of the door frame, but still appeared to hold steady, keeping the slabs of now completely pure (read: “mended”) iron securely in place…or at least, securely enough that it didn’t seem inclined to fall. Yet.

Waving away the last of the coal dust with a wing, Twilight inspected the damage with a grin that grew wider all the while. The doors must have been extremely durable, with the amount of coal that they appeared to have shed - the entire walkway around it was stained a gray-black with a millimeter of coal powder that spread out for two meters, forming tiny piles like jet-black sawdust where it gather. That worked way better than she had hoped, and while the way was not yet completely clear… “Her Rarity? Do we have that tow cable that the van got pulled with to the ranch?”

The question was enough to stir Rarity from her stupor she had fallen into, slightly agape mouth closing as she scrambled out of her seatbelt to search the backseat. It had fallen to the floor at some point, but it was indeed there, and was hastily retrieved.

The pink-wreathed pair of metal hooks floated its way out of the car interior, the orange cord connecting them stretching out a bit to the necessary length. One hook slotted itself into a spot beneath the front bumper of the old Mustang, secured to the frame itself, while the other end hooked into the jagged and exposed spot where the hydraulics of the lab doors had been torn away.

Twilight hopped back into the car and pulled the door shut behind her. Rarity, still wide-eyed from the supernatural display she witnessed seconds ago, had just enough brain power in reserve to take the sound of the door closing as a cue to un-park the idling vehicle and to push a foot down on the accelerator.

The Mustang started to crawl away, causing a few curious massive ants a few meters back to begin clumsily and half-blindly seek distance from the noisy booming engine. The orange cable pulled more and more until it could stretch no further - the Mustang jerked to a halt, and the door was pulled slightly forward, though it held fast. The accelerator was pressed down further and further the more the car failed to retreat, the engine’s grumbling slowly rising in pitch until it became a roar - the door tried valiantly to remain in place, though the damage to the stonework had already been done, and as more force was applied to the faults that had begun to grow and resemble lightning bolts, more and more pieces fell away until at last it could hold no more: the now iron doors, firmly sealed together even now, broke free from the rest of the building and crashed to the ground like a draw bridge. Plumes of black and white were thrown up amidst a shower of debris, throwing up one final obstacle in a desperate and doomed attempt to separate the two girls from their goal.

Twilight beamed brightly, and as she watched the smokescreen spread out, begrudgingly revealing the corridor behind it, she breathed a contented sigh. “Magic and human ingenuity, working hoof in…hand.” She giggled. “Absolutely beautiful. Don’t you think so?”

The fashionista in the driver’s seat absently nodded, the beginnings of a smile working its way across her lips at the sight of what lie before them. Perhaps Sweetie Belle was right after all. Maybe Twilight really is a miracle worker…

Twilight admired the sight for just a bit longer, then looked up to Rarity. There was still a job to do. “Ready?”

Rarity swallowed and nodded, the smile fading from her lips as she braced herself for whatever came next. As the key turned and the Mustang’s engine finally got some rest, there was a faint click of a revolver’s safeties being switched off. “I was born ready, darling.”

Both doors to the car opened, and both human and alicorn ventured forth to begin their descent into the laboratory.

Chapter 14

The lab had proven so far to be a very strange place. The exterior was a peculiar and elaborate facade, though what purpose it was trying to fulfill was debatable. In trying to look unremarkable, that itself was taken to such an extreme that it became remarkable unto itself. It was certainly secure, though: were magic not involved and the facility itself actually staffed with a security team, breaking into this place would be exceptionally difficult. At least the stone exterior provided some measure of defense. It was a strange take, but in some ways it was effective enough to almost seem practical.

The cold, however, was a more dubious quality that was discovered as the two girls made their way down the dark hall that stretched towards the center of the curious surface structure. It wasn’t much at first, but the further from the entrance one got, the more steeply the temperature fell until it seemed that every step further in represented another degree dropped. As they reached the stairs at the end of the pale tiled hall and peered down, every breath was accompanied by a plume of vapor.

Much like the corridor that lead up to it, there were no lights to shine down the stairwell in spite of the fixtures in place along the ceiling, though unlike the previous corridor, light from outside had no chance to reach this point or any beyond it. Rarity retrieved a flashlight from her person to light the passage beyond, revealing a barren stretch of stairs leading at least two stories down before the decline stopped. The beam from the small device was faintly visible as it traveled through the air, illuminating the trace amounts of specks and dust-fine particles of snow that had been stirred up from a combination of the vibrations from the lab breach and the footfalls of the human and alicorn that now peered past them.

The stairs halfway down were dusted with a thin layer of incredibly fine frost, though it got thicker with every step beyond that point, each step becoming increasingly rounded at the edges from a buildup of snow. The stairs near the bottom were barely visible from the accumulation, and just from where the two girls stood, it seemed as though the hall ended before a sheer white wall. Presumably there was a door there - it wouldn’t make much sense for this to be a dead-end corridor - but it was impossible to tell from here just by looking, and this place had so far proven just architecturally quirky enough that it wasn’t a given.

Rarity did not proceed at first, and neither did Twilight, standing at the top of the stairs and seeing what little there was to see in the passage before them. A minute passed in silence, save only for their muted breaths as they looked on, though at what was increasingly in question as time passed.

In that time, Twilight had meant to start ahead a few times. She cast her gaze to the first step down, and though she knew it was as simple a matter as taking a single step forward to start the process, something about visualizing that first step made her chest start to constrict. It took a while for her to realize that she didn’t want to go down there, though she could not put a hoof on why.

As Twilight wrestled with this, Rarity ended up moving first. She took one step down, slow and deliberate, followed by another a second or two later, flashlight and revolver pointed straight ahead. Unwilling to let Rarity venture ahead alone, Twilight took her first step down a moment later, swallowing down the lump in her throat and willing away the desire to turn back around. The steps that followed were a little bit quicker, but only just.

It was quiet. Each pat of shoe leather and click of hoof against stone was uncomfortably loud, and each breath that was taken came out muted, neither girl daring to openly challenge the oppressive silence any more than what was strictly necessary.

When Rarity eventually spoke up, the vapors barely left her lips from how lightly the word was uttered. “Twilight?”

“Yeah?” came the equally soft reply.

“Does your world have a book called ‘The Divine Comedy?’”

Twilight’s gaze shifted to the side, tracing the featureless concrete wall to her left as she considered this. She didn’t respond for several seconds. “Um…no, I don’t think so. Why?”

“No reason,” was the response, quieter still.

It had been a long time since she’d read it - in fact, she didn’t remember she’d read it up until a few moments ago - but the quote that found Rarity repeated itself to her, echoing with every gentle sound of their descent:

’Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.’

It took all the way till the final steps before it became apparent that there actually was a door here, though no part of it was visible. The only indication was the faint wrinkle in the ice that had completely covered this entire portion of wall, nearly an inch thick. It wasn’t quite as imposing as the inch and a half of steel that they had just managed to bypass to get to this point, though the cold was steadily starting to present itself as its own unique obstacle - one Twilight did not have a clever workaround for that she could think of.

Fortunately, she did have one for this door. Perhaps not as clever as the first, but hopefully just as effective. “Stand back, Rarity.”

Rarity did as instructed, stepping back up the stairs several steps. She wasn’t quite sure how far to go, but kept the flashlight focused on the barrier of ice from where she stood.

Twilight lowered her head till her horn pointed at the space where the door should be, breathing out a steady breath alongside a small cloud. She noted the dull pain in her head already, taking stock of her condition while making a few best-guesstimates about what she could pull off as she was. Based on the pain level, it seemed as though she had a bit of wiggle room still...her confidence was not quite what it could be on that front, though. She had cast a few spells several minutes ago, and she did not have much in the way of spells memorized that would be useful to bypass the current obstacle.

Under ideal circumstances, Twilight would melt the ice and then do whatever she needed to from there, but without a spell to do that effectively, she would be left with converting aetheric energy directly into heat, which was not an efficient process and would cause a lot of strain to do for the time it would be needed for. It was a pain in the flank under normal circumstances, nevermind now. If she was going to do that, then she may as well use the brute force method and get it over with as fast as possible.

“…maybe a little more, Rarity.”

Rarity’s brow knitted together in growing concern, though she did retreat a few more steps up the way they’d come.

Energy built up in Twilight’s horn, causing pressure to condense on her forehead around its base, and as her wings splayed in preparation, she discharged it. No sooner did the magenta laser fire, she pulsed out a rapid screen of telekinesis that rushed out after it that rippled and shimmered like a film of soap, not enough to last much more than an instant, but the best she could do as quickly as she needed it to be there.

A tiny magical sun briefly sprang to life half a meter in front of Twilight, and the entire corridor shuddered with the force of it. The ice layer shattered, chunks and pieces of every size erupting out from the impact zone, only to be blown back in the other direction by the stark repulsive force that pushed back on them a fraction of a second later. Twilight threw up her wings in time to protect from the much lighter rain of debris she had bludgeoned the incoming force of, one hoof raised both to shield her head further and also in a reflexive response to the iron spike she felt embedding itself behind her eyes.

The glow of the impact faded after less than half a second, the glassy tinkle and patter of debris coming to a complete stop a second and a half after that. It took several seconds for the white cloud of powdered snow to settle enough to see past it, revealing the hole in the center of the percussively defrosted door large enough to be able to stick her head through. From what space had been created through the ice, there was no visible door mechanism, but given the damage, it was not strictly necessary in order to proceed.

Twilight rubbed her throbbing horn, the worst of the pain already passing, but that wouldn’t last much longer - more pressure was gathering, and she winced at the prickles that came from this alone. Carrying on with her current momentum, Twilight made the call to push ahead rather than heed the already significant pain's warnings.

The hole in the metal adopted an identical glow to the one currently wreathing Twilight’s horn, and then it began to crumple. The uneven, ragged edges of the hole smoothed out slightly as pressure enough to bend the metal acted on it from all sides at once, then with a twitch of Twilight’s horn, all that force swung down. Like an invisible fist had closed, the metal under the breach crumpled, the entire door squawking and groaning as it was twisted in place hard enough to cause the entire thing to deform and bend outwards, plumes of frosty dust spitting off where pieces of concede-hard ice that survived the blast shattered like glass. The hole in the metal grew half a meter taller as a flap of whatever this material was - aluminum, perhaps, from how light it felt - was ripped away with a screech of pained metal.

There was a faint pop that was felt as much as heard, and up and down lost all meaning. Stars filled Twilight’s vision, and as she blinked them away, she found herself significantly closer to the door than she remembered being a second ago, and also sideways.

The rapid sounds of Rarity’s footfalls gaining on her proceeded her arrival a second later. ”Twilight! Twilight- oh dear, oh no-“

“I’m okay,” Twilight managed, and regretted it immediately - her entire her pulsated with pain from the sound of her own voice, as though the volume was cranked so high that it caused the flesh beneath her fur to ripple, and she couldn’t help but whimper in response. Her eyes prickled with tears as an invisible vice squeezed her skull so hard she feared her horn would pop off like a cork from a bottle of shaken champagne.

Twilight had been hungover before, but the worst post-drinking experience she had the misfortune of remembering paled in comparison to this. She could barely hear the choked wail she emitted in response.

Fortunately, it was also comparatively brief. They were extremely long seconds, ones she wasn’t sure she could handle, but long seconds are still only seconds, and from then on, the pain began a slow but steady decline. The unbearable pressure began to relent, slowly releasing Twilight’s temporal lobe from the steely grasp it had it in, ripples of pain rolling through her skull like disturbances on the surface of a lake, the overall amount of pain gradually lowering with each successive wave.

When she could see straight, Twilight noted that she had been pulled away from the door by Rarity, who had done her best to pull the alicorn up a few steps away from the cause of her plight, head resting on her legs as opposed to the cold, icy stairs beneath them. Twilight, in turn, tried her best not to vomit all over her friend’s shoes.

“I think I need a break,” Twilight croaked miserably.

“You think so, hm?” The smile on Rarity’s face was a little forced, and it faded just as quickly for the concern dominating her expression to take back over. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah.” It felt like a lie, but Twilight tried to believe it, attempting to put her hooves beneath her in a way that could theoretically support her weight. Rarity had to help her, though once on her hooves, she was a bit better off. “Way too much magic, way too quickly. I’ll b-“

Were Rarity not bent down and holding on as she was, Twilight likely would have gone down then and there. As it was, she stumbled, and nearly pulled the both of them back down the half dozen steps to the base of the deformed door.

“…I’ll be fine,” she managed, untying her legs and reminding herself of where they were. She felt like a foal figuring out how to walk. “Gimme a…gimme a second.”

Rarity chewed on her lip, but she kept it together, repressing the blooming urge to scoop Twilight up and carry her back to the surface to warmth and light that awaited them outside. She shivered slightly in temperatures appropriate for a freezer, but she remained collected at Twilight’s side, one hand firmly grasping her by the shoulder just in case she lost her balance again. Once Twilight was steady enough, the two of them began the slow, careful trip back up the stairs, so that rest could be had without coming at the expense of anyone's digits.

Neither of them paid much attention to the shapeless black specks that danced in the farthest edges of their vision.

Spring was ending soon. Apple Bloom wasn’t certain what day it was, but she didn’t need to. The signs were everywhere.

The mornings were becoming very early now. Sunrise came every day with enthusiasm that grew as the hour that it arrived at waned. An important benchmark of the year was drawing closer.

The Summer Sun Celebration was how Canterlot welcomed the warmest season of the year, though when and why it started wasn’t especially clear to anyone. Some say it’s to welcome the first day of summer, some say it’s to mark the summer solstice, others say it was for less obvious and self-evident reasons that varied wildly in its depiction; the date of the holiday tended to fluctuate yearly, seemingly to the tune of the quiet debate about what the celebration even meant went in the background.

A lot of Canterlot’s history was a foggy, muddy thing - ironic, considering how starkly the city and the people within it stood out against the nation it resided in. There were whole countries that had a less clear sense of identity than the city of Canterlot did, nevermind the long list of cultural events and traditions that it carried along with it. The rest of America didn’t understand, and in a way neither did the Canterlotans themselves, but that was okay. They did things their way, and they were happy to do it, even if they had to do it alone. To be Canterlotan was to be content with being different and finding their way to the beat of their own drum. To be Canterlotan was to dare to be different, and to rejoice in the simplest thing of all: to be. To live.

Then the world ended. Living got a lot harder. Too hard, for most. Impossible, even.

The heels of Apple Bloom’s weathered, tattered shoes gently bumped against the wood of the ranch’s roof, where they dangled past the edge of the sheet of wood that extended a few centimeters past the edge of the shingles. She sat hunched forward, bronze eyes unfocused and staring distantly off across the horizon that her friends and family had crossed in order to get here, to this little pocket of safety out in the countryside. A whisper in the trees foretold of a coming wind rolling across the land, and as it washed over her seconds later, Apple Bloom let her eyes sink closed, her melancholy momentarily dampened by the feeling of the wind brushing across her hair and flowing through her as she breathed it in.

Perhaps the world had ended, but earth yet lived. As foreign as the familiar had become in these last few months, Apple Bloom still recognized the taste and smell of one of the last winds of spring, come to say its fond farewell and enjoy just a little more time among those who would partake in these moments of warm stillness under a midday sun. So much had changed, but summer was still coming. Time was still passing. Tomorrow was still on its way.

Somehow, despite everything that had happened, it still felt good to partake in these moments. Somehow, someway, through the depression and the fear and the struggle and the uncertainty and the danger, there was still something in being alive left to rejoice in, brought in on the breath of the grasslands and the forests. Their city was dead, along with most everyone who had lived there and most anyone they had ever known, and yet what it meant to be Canterlotan could be felt as clearly as ever. All it took was something as simple as a breeze on a clear sunny day to be reminded of it, and to realize how hard it would be to ever forget.

A faint creak below and behind Apple Bloom announced someone’s intent to join her on the roof. She glanced back, listening to the small sounds of the wooden grips and steps she had nailed in place holding up someone’s weight before she saw the pink and purple hair bob up into view. The hair's owner continually cast a glance down at where her hands and feet were positioned as she ascended the makeshift ladder, keeping a close eye on the things holding her up.

Apple Bloom frowned slightly. Why would she be nervous? It was the same way she installed the ladder to their treehouse back home. Better not be doubting my handiwork... Such thoughts were pushed aside. “Howdy.”

“Hi!” Sweetie flashed a smile, discomfort forgotten as she clamored the rest of the way onto the farmhouse roof. She unsteadily scaled the last of the way up the slope of the roof and quickly pulled herself up onto the wooden platform that had been installed here, marking the foundation of a future lookout post-slash-clubhouse. She crawled forward on her hands and knees the rest of the way over, then plopped down beside her friend, letting her legs hang over the edge in an identical manner as Apple Bloom with a big smile on her face. “I like how the clubhouse is coming along! It looks good so far.”

Apple Bloom couldn’t help but smile, despite the slight tilt of her head she gave Sweetie. “Well…thanks? But it’s just the floor right now. I barely even got started yet.”

“Well I think it looks good!” Sweetie insisted emphatically. “It’s a good floor. I like it.”

Apple Bloom smiled wider. She didn’t know what else to say to that, so she let her head turn forward again, gazing out at the landscape she had been peering past over the last…uh...amount of time. “Uh, y’all got the time?”

“Um…” Sweetie looked at her wrist, at the small diamond-shaped watch there. “Twelve-forty.”

“Damn.” Apple Bloom instinctively glanced about as she heard the cuss leave her lips. A fleck of black in the corner of her eye made her heart skip for a moment, but no, Applejack wasn’t around. Good. “Missed lunch.”

Sweetie shook her head. “Nobody made lunch.”

Apple Bloom’s head snapped back around at that. “Fer real? It’s lunch time!”

Sweetie shrugged helplessly. “I guess they forgot again. I’ve been saving a chocolate bar if you want to share that with me?”

Apple Bloom’s mouth immediately opened to say ‘yes,’ but she clamped her jaw shut before the words could leave her throat and shook her head. “We should save stuff like that for when Scootaloo shows up.”

A complicated expression came over Sweetie’s face. Whatever it was meant to look like came off as a strained grimace.

“She’ll show up,” the younger Apple said firmly, looking away from Sweetie to the landscape ahead of her. “‘Crusaders together, now ‘n forever.’ Don’t much care if it’s a zombie apocalypse er not, she’s a Crusader too. Ain’t never givin’ up on her.”

“I’m not giving up on her!” Sweetie said quickly, voice cracking with her haste. “I’d never! I’m just…”

Apple Bloom didn’t finish for her, just listened.

Sweetie wrestled with the quiet for several seconds, then finally managed, “I’m scared, I guess. I’m scared for her.”

Apple Bloom didn’t say anything to that. Her gaze fell a bit more towards the earth.

“I’m scared for us too.”

Apple Bloom’s gaze fell further, now looking at the ground beneath them between her dangling feet.

“Do you think we’ll ever s-“

“Yes,” Apple Bloom answered quickly, voice hard. She winced at her own tone, then said more softly, “Sorry. Yeah, I think we’ll see ‘er again. Might take a while, but we found each other just fine. Makes sense that it’d be the same fer her.”

“We had our sisters with us,” Sweetie pointed out, nervousness worn a bit more clearly in her voice. “Rarity and me had a hard time sometimes, but we were okay because we were together. You had Applejack and Fluttershy.”

“An’ she’s probly got Rainbow Dash with ‘er. Or her aunts, er somethin’. Even if she’s by herself, I bet ol’ Scootaloo is givin’ them shufflers a good what-for.”

“She is pretty fast on her scooter…”

Apple Bloom nodded. “Real fast. Those shufflers wouldn’t have a chance. Scoots is fine, we just gotta find her ‘s all.”

“That makes sense.” A second or two of pause, followed by a more upbeat-sounding, “Yeah! That makes sense. Scootaloo’s probably fine.”

“Yeah.”

“Probably.”

“Yeah.”

A silence fell over the two of them. Neither knew how to further mask their own anxiety as it spilled into the air, and so they tried their best to pretend it wasn’t there and hope each other forgot about it.

The question from Sweetie was sudden: “Do you want to start crusading again?”

Apple Bloom blinked, then turned her head to look at Sweetie. “Crusadin'?”

“Yeah.” Sweetie fidgeted a little. “It’s been a long time, it feels like? And I want to um…you know, I wanna like…” She gesticulated vaguely with one hand, distracted by something she glanced at briefly - nothing was there, but the exact words she wanted seemed to have disappeared in that time. "Um..."

She didn’t communicate it well, but Apple Bloom understood the gist of it. “Shouldn’t we wait fer Scootaloo?”

Sweetie hesitated. When she did speak, her voice was small: “I don’t know if I can wait.”

“It’s not gonna be the same without Scoots.”

Sweetie nodded sadly. “She'd be mad if she found out we sat around forever waiting for her when we could have been going out there, though. That’s not what she would’ve wanted.”

Apple Bloom did not like how that was phrased. She tried to ignore it, instead thinking about something a little more pragmatic and earthy, as she always preferred: “How’re we supposed to do anything now, though? There’s shufflers and monsters all over the place.”

Sweetie opened her mouth…then closed it, ruminating this point with a troubled look.

Apple Bloom went on, thinking aloud. “I went up the road a couple times before this, an’ even that was enough to get Applejack lookin’ like she wanted to tan my hide. I didn’t even go that far, and that was in a kinda normal spot! I guess.” She tried to sidestep the thought about how her sister had been right back then. Hate it when she’s right. “Nevermind all the nasties we saw drivin’ up here. I preferred the days when I was the one catchin’ frogs, an’ I didn’t need to worry none ‘bout the frogs catchin’ me back. I don’t wanna be lunch. And the shufflers! I dunno how ta fight one 'a them if we do run into em. They're slow and stuff, sure, but...”

Sweetie Belle’s expression grew more troubled as she tried to navigate this problem - the memory of the monster that had nearly taken Rarity from her was still fresh in her mind. Until Twilight came by… Her expression lit up at that. “We could take Twilight! She’s really good at blowing up monsters. And evil robots!”

Apple Bloom considered this. “Y’think she’d go for it?”

“Yeah!” Sweetie beamed confidently, then that confidence folded in on itself as she properly thought about it. “Well…maybe. I don’t really know. She might want us to stay here and be safe.”

“Hate bein’ hid away,” Apple Bloom growled, kicking at the air and letting her foot thump loudly against the house behind her heel. “Hate bein’ treated like I need protecting. I ain’t no baby. We’re the Crusaders, damn it.”

“I don’t know.” Sweetie fidgeted in place, looking down at her fingers and thumbs as she twiddled them about constantly in her lap. “I think I want to be protected some.”

”Some, sure, but I don’t like feelin’ like I’m fragile. I’m an Apple, not some mamby-pamby baby girl who needs adults ta watch over me or I’ll stub my toe.”

“Stubbed toes hurt though,” Sweetie piped, meekly.

Apple Bloom rolled her eyes with a haggard sigh. ”Yeah, but it won’t kill us. I swear the others think we’ll shatter if we get shook too hard. Ya see ‘fragile’ tattooed anywhere on me? Cuz I sure ain’t found it. If I hear ‘stay in the car’ or ‘stay inside’ one more time, I think Imma rip the roof off so the inside an’ the outside ain’t so different no more.”

“Okay, but make sure you leave the roof intact right here?” Sweetie patted the wooden panel they sat on. “I want to have a clubhouse again.”

Once more did Apple Bloom’s bronze eyes roll towards the sky. “If we gotta get another one, we can put it in a tree again. The one out in the middle ‘a th’ field’ll do nice.”

“It’s a really nice climbing tree.”

“It is.” Apple Bloom couldn’t keep from smiling a little. “Can’t wait to show Scoots. It’ll be like old times.”

Sweetie let out a dreamy sigh. “Lounging around in a tree, napping in the branches…”

“You find th’ one with the real nice nook in it? Perfect layin’ spot. Just needs a pillow.”

Sweetie nodded, smiling brightly. “It’ll be kind of tight, fitting all of us there. I think we could only fit two of us at a time, if we huddle up really close.”

“We can take turns.”

“I can’t wait for summer.”

“‘s almost here. Gettin’ real close to perfect tree-nappin’ temperature.”

Sweetie gave a small, wistful sigh, gaze falling to her hands in her lap. “Hurry up, Scootaloo…I miss you.”

Apple Bloom’s smiled waned a bit at that. She was quiet for several seconds before she spoke up: “I think I know exactly where I wanna start crusadin’ again.”

Sweetie looked up from her lap quizzically.

“Twilight and Fluttershy found Crystal City, right?”

Sweetie nodded.

“And Crystal City means we can find Canterlot, right?”

Sweetie nodded again.

“You remember where Scootaloo lived?”

“Of course…” The point being made clicked, and Sweetie cocked her head quizzically. “You want to check?”

Apple Bloom nodded. “They lived kinda out of th’ way of the city, maybe they stuck around? Can’t hurt to look.”

“But how are we going to get out there? We can’t go by ourselves.”

“Twilight’s the princess of friendship, ain’t she? Think she would be up fer bringin’ the best of friends back together?”

Sweetie looked back down at her lap. Her constantly twiddling fingers parted, and she spared a peek down at the small thing between those fingers at the center of all the fidgeting: a small wooden shape no larger than a half-dollar coin, carved in the shape of a six-pointed star and stained an off-magenta color. It had been hard to sneak into the wines without anyone noticing, but it was the closest color that she could find to stain the carved wood just the shade she needed to most closely resemble the mark on their guardian angel’s hindquarters.

A smile worked its way across Sweetie’s lips, and she closed her fingers back around the small token. Confidently, she replied, “Yes.”

Apple Bloom nodded firmly to herself, expression broadcasting finality. “That’s that, then. We’ll ask fer help when she and Rarity get back, and we’ll all go on a crusade together.”

“Crusaders together,” Sweetie recited fondly.

Apple Bloom grinned. “Now ‘n forever.”

...at least, those were the words she intended to have come out of her mouth. She could feel them at the tip of her tongue, hanging there in that instant where they were in the process of being uttered, but it seemed to take an eternity for the sounds to travel from her throat to her lips. The moment felt thick, and soupy.

Apple Bloom blinked. Motion danced in the corner of her eye again, and when she glanced, she saw that Sweetie was not there anymore. Specifically, she was not where she had been previously - she was halted mid-step as she went to traverse down the makeshift ladder nailed into the wall of the ranch house. She intended to be here eventually, sure, but not yet. She hadn't even stood up yet! Apple Bloom looked up to see Sweetie's knees at eye level, then looked further up at her friend standing over her. The two locked eyes for a moment, sharing a pair of confused looks that confirmed it wasn't just her who'd noticed that.

At her current angle looking up, Apple Bloom could not help but see the sky behind her friend, which drew her gaze. A very peculiar formation of clouds had formed, looking almost like a thin, transparent layer of skin stretched out across one particular spot in the sky, slowly expanding. It bulged, like something had slammed against it from behind, and the pattern flushing with reds and the wrong shade of navy blue to belong in a midday sky. The entire landscape for miles flickered like a lightbulb that had begun to fail as the red momentarily overruled the color that daylight was supposed to be, then shifted back.

Apple Bloom and Sweetie shared one more wordless look. As though of one mind, the two of them practically threw themselves down that makeshift ladder, scrambling as fast as they could to get off this roof and find someone - anyone, whether they could help them or not. A roll of thunder covered up the sounds of their retreat, growing less and less distant all the time.

Something was coming.

Chapter 6

This was not how Twilight imagined her reunion with any of her friends to go.

Rarity was not responsive, laying where she fell when her assailant had dropped her. Her wrist was neatly cut open, her elbow joint sliced in an identical manner, both a carefully measured distance from the broken bones. Her belly was sliced clean open down the center, a long incision stretching all the way from the base of her naval to the bottom of her ribs, like someone had tried to give her an extremely aggressive C-section.

Rarity's right side had all but been completely shed of clothing, huge strips of it peeled away like a wrapper stuck on a piece of candy that had been in the sun too long, all stained with red. The skin there bore countless hair-thin incisions that glistened crimson, occasional streaks marring the alien designs that had been stenciled into her flesh. Some of them looked like runes or glyphs in an unknown tongue, while some resembled dotted lines and marks for further incisions, like the sort that would be on a step-by-step instruction rubric on how to dissect a frog in biology class. There were a few random slashes and stabs here and there, from what must have been a struggle, but everything else looked uncomfortably deliberate, if chaotic. It was like an entire team of surgeons had descended on Rarity all at once, not one of them agreeing on what procedure should be done or how to perform it, and not at all interested in anyone who didn't agree with their plan.

A slice lined all around the length of Rarity's neck where she had been grabbed and, consequently, choked out. It was bruising heavily, even this soon after the trauma had occurred, and at the rate it was going, it looked like her entire neck was about to atrophy and fall off. Now that the pressure of the sharp claws provided was absent, her neck poured blood from the artery that had been opened there; her whole front was painted red from the blood that flowed from it, the stream visibly pulsating with every heartbeat.

There was so much blood. So much blood. Twilight had never seen so much blood pooling like it did beneath Rarity. Twilight had never seen so much blood period.

Twilight's breaths were so short and rapid, innumerable in count but it still felt like she could barely get any air. Her chest pounded so hard it almost hurt. Everything was spinning, but there hadn't been time to panic. There wasn't time to think, either. There wasn't time. Bleeding had to stop. Not just some of it, all of it.

Twilight closed her eyes tightly, and her forehead tightened as energy rushed to her horn. She pictured the entire space that Rarity took up- no, not good enough. She opened her eyes, focusing intently on every inch of Rarity where she lay, every place on her body that was there was to perceive. Her horn surged with pressure; as it lit up with pink energy, so did all of the human form of Rarity.

It wasn't just a normal, loose telekinetic grasp, though. The glow's normally rippling, aura-like field was not apparent, looking more like she was emitting pink light than that she was being telekinetically grasped. Every hair on Rarity's body bent down flat, and every wound squeezed as every inch of her skin compressed firmly. The diaphragm was spared, still allowing a rise and fall of the chest to occur, however shallow it was. The amount of blood that leaked from her body surged for the briefest of moments, and then slowed to a trickle, if it didn't stop completely. The more seconds passed, the more the latter became true than the former.

With steel in her voice, Twilight informed her unconscious friend: "I'm not saying goodbye like this, Rarity. I won't."

Twilight had no idea how long it would take till all these wounds sealed up, but it didn't matter. A dull headache was already creeping up on her from the sustained precision that this was taking, and Twilight grit her teeth, determined to weather it. If magic sputtered out, she'd re-grasp everything all over again, and she'd keep doing it however many times she needed to. Tears still stung her eyes as she unconsciously flared her wings to match the furious defiance that filled her, eyes all but glowing with resolve. No cause was more worthy than this right now. She'd stay like this for days if she had to.

Time passed. Twilight's resolve was unshakeable, her focus laser-intense, but that did not mean she was not aware of her surroundings.

She wasn't sure how long it had been there, but she felt the presence nearby, somewhere just out of her sight. It kept slinking forward, inch by inch, and when Twilight spotted the grasses stirring and shifting, she locked her gaze upon it and waited. After a little while longer, it inched forward more, and Twilight saw it...no, not it. She.

She was small for a human, only a little bit taller than Twilight was if she stood at her fullest...a human filly, probably. Twilight didn't recognize her immediately, as dirty as her face was, but she saw the pale green eyes, and the pink and purple hair that split in shade straight down the middle, and the curiously familiar curls. Upon considering who she was standing over, the recognition clicked.

Twilight took a few steadying breaths. She had to concentrate still, and it was taxing to multitask, but she could spare a little attention for this. Softly, she called out: "Sweetie Belle?"

The human girl did not react. Her eyes were enormous, glassy-looking but alert. Her gaze had a superficial resemblance to a small animal about to bolt for cover, but whatever was behind those eyes, fear wasn't it...well. Not entirely it.

Twilight did her best to smile. "I don't know if you know me here. My name is Twilight Sparkle. I visited your world several months ago, back at your sister's high school."

As before, Sweetie Belle did not react, merely stare. Given everything that she must have seen recently, it was hard to blame her.

Twilight couldn't keep her voice entirely steady as she said, "I'm so sorry about all of this." Her eyes grew damp, though she tried blink it away - not here, not now. Not like this. "But I'm going to do everything I can to help your sister. She means the world to me, and I'm not going to let anything bad happen to her ever again."

Her gaze returned to the form of Rarity in front of her, and Twilight adjusted her stance again, head lowered and gaze intense. "I need to focus now, okay? Stay close, and I'll protect you too. Nopony's going to get hurt anymore."

Sweetie Belle continued to stare on in silence. Tentative, tiny steps were taken forward, practically tip-toed, as the girl pulled herself inch by inch up out of the ditch she had appeared from. Reaching the asphalt border, she crouched down onto her knees to sit.

Minutes passed by, and not once did Sweetie Belle's gaze drift far from Twilight Sparkle. Her lavender wings, like those of a bird's, remained stretched outright, tall and powerful, feathers almost glittering in the morning sun. Her mane moved in a breeze that seemed only to exist for it, flowing like water in beautiful shades of purple and stripes of pink. Her horn glowed a bright but soft magenta, the same that Rarity emitted across her whole body, which bled not one drop more from any wound, regardless of its depth. When she looked closely, Sweetie could see her sister was not touching the road beneath her anymore, hovering a centimeter or two above it.

Something Sweetie Belle had never felt before washed over her in the long silence that followed. She could not grasp it or put a name to it. All Sweetie Belle knew is that it was grander than anything she had ever experienced in her short, young life, and she did not want it to stop. The moment stole her away, and Sweetie let herself be lost to it.

For as long as their winged savior stood there, Sweetie Belle would remain in reverent silence, watching with wide, glittering eyes as this lavender being that had descended from the heavens performed her miracle and saved her sister's life.

Applejack liked to consider herself pretty eco-conscious and pro-environmental, but this electric SUV was really starting to piss her off.

Driving it anywhere at all took a not insignificant chunk of the battery, and while maybe that wouldn’t have been as big of a deal back when there were charging stations that could fill it back up from empty to full over the course of a few minutes, all they had was four small solar cells on its roof to do the work, and one of them was broken. It was bad enough that she had been forced to stop Apple Bloom from using the charging cable to recharge her Gameboy, because that was making the charge meter go down faster than the needle was going up.

“Hunk of junk,” the farmer muttered under her breath, giving the trunk a slightly harder slam than was absolutely necessary. It was at that point that Applejack realized how she was being, and she heaved a haggard sigh. “No…no, that ain’t wholly right. I’m sorry.”

Apple Bloom's head peeked around the other side of it a moment later, smirking. “Did you just apologize to a car?”

“I thought I told you not to sneak up on folk,” came the level response. Applejack gave her bulging bag a jostle to put it more firmly on her shoulder, then started walking. “That’s a good way to end up swallowin’ yer teeth, these days.”

“I didn’t sneak up on nobody.” Apple Bloom fell in step behind her sister. “You knew I was there.”

“Then why didn’t I notice ya comin’ up behind me?”

“Cuz you wasn’t payin’ attention! That’s yer fault, not mine.”

Applejack opened her mouth, decided quickly she was tired of this debate, and closed it again, watching the brush in front of her as she marched through it with an expression that clearly broadcasted no strong desire to speak. Whether deliberately or no, Apple Bloom obliged by it.

They’d been refused asylum in the refugee center, but there was nothing stopping the trio from setting up shop a short distance away. The grounds outside of the structure proved incredibly difficult to do much with, what with it turning out to be as marshy as it was, but the ridge that overlooked the refugee center would work fine. There was a flat spot beyond some trees that proved a good spot to pitch a few tents they’d picked up along the way, and had done just that, view from the road obscured by a little bit of tree cover.

Despite the campsite, they usually ended up retreating back to the SUV at night to sleep anyway, because the car seats were significantly more comfortable than the ground. Applejack still found it ironic; you’d think they were a couple of city slickers, diving so quick for the comforts like that, but these days, any comforts were at a premium, and aches and pains were at an all-time high.

Still didn’t keep her from sleeping in the tent on principle sometimes. Just cuz there weren't any cities left to slick didn't mean she couldn't still prove she wasn't one.

Three dark green tents came into view. Fluttershy sat on a small log that had been dragged this way to serve as a bench, and she looked up as the other girls returned, smiling a greeting past a trickle of smoke leaking from the lit fire ring at her feet. A booklet was in her hands, and a tangle of string and threads sat beside her, where she’d been practicing sewing, or knitting. Given the state of it, more practice was needed.

“Aight, Flutters,” Applejack announced. “We gotta talk.”

Fluttershy’s warm smile faded. She noted with concern the way Apple Bloom stayed beside her sister with purpose, then eyed the holster at Applejack’s hip that wasn't there before. “Are we going scavenging?”

“Kinda.” Applejack rested one hand on the handgun at her side - a fair bit more had been traded for this than she cared to discuss, and was glad it hadn’t been questioned yet. “The van ain’t got enough juice in it to get us to Eustis an’ back, but we ain’t got enough food right now to go sittin’ on our laurels.”

The pause was deliberate, in expectation of a question, or input. Neither were provided; Fluttershy just looked at her.

Applejack swallowed, then continued. “We’re goin’ huntin’.”

Again came a pause, and Applejack fully expected…something. She expected protest, certainly, possibly tears, maybe even something explosive. Anything but the nothing she got: just a gaze, bereft of expression.

Once more, Applejack continued, equal parts to say what she had spent the better part of an hour rehearsing, but also to fill up the silence that suddenly seemed very loud to her ears. “I know it ain’t preferable, sugarcube, but it’s necessary. Until summer comes around, foragin’ to fill three bellies just ain’t gonna cut it on its own, and the van don’t got the stayin’ power on the road to keep ferryin’ us back and forth all the time. Maybe we can do somethin’ that works fer everyone later, but we gotta take care of our needs now, and that just leaves huntin’. Ain’t got no choice.”

Fluttershy’s gaze felt so damning to Applejack, even though nothing in the expression read as such. She stared at her a while longer, almost more than Applejack could handle, but then her gaze fell to her lap. Fluttershy’s hands gently lifted the booklet from her thighs, placing it softly on the ground. She then reached, calmly, over to retrieve a handful of sticks and branches, which was then fed into the meager fire that did little more than warm the ankles currently.

Fluttershy’s voice was low in tone and devoid of emotion when she finally spoke up, but she said what she did clearly: “I understand.”

Something about that hurt so much more than the reactions Applejack had been expecting, and she found herself off-balance. Reeling, even. “Are you…uh…”

“Upset?” Fluttershy finished for her, finding her eyes. “Yes. I wish it wasn’t this way, but I know that we don’t have many options, and I know your family doesn’t have the same feelings about meat that I do—“ Applejack started saying something, but Fluttershy pointedly continued talking, giving her no room to cut in, “—and I would never ask someone else to go hungry for the sake of my own comfort. It kills me a little bit to know that living things are going to be harmed so we can get by, but I’ve known this was coming for a while now. It hurts me, and I’m upset, but I’m not going to talk you out of it, Applejack. I understand.”

Applejack’s mouth moved, but the words weren’t coming. Part of her wished - and she had wished it, she realized - that Fluttershy had tried to fight this, so she could…what, exactly? Dig in her heels and feel better about getting to argue about it? Like she should be happy to come to blows with her friend over something? To feel self-righteous?

Applejack swallowed, and she felt the faintest tickle of nausea tease at the back of her throat. “I’m sorry, Flutters.”

Fluttershy shook her head at this, her long pink hair slipping forward and covering her eyes as her head lowered towards the dirt. “You said it yourself,” came the resigned response. “It’s necessary.”

Applejack didn’t want to leave on a note like this, but she couldn’t come up with anything else to say. She put a hand on Apple Bloom’s shoulder, looking down at her and nudging a chin back the way they’d come. “C’mon. Let’s get this over with.”

Apple Bloom frowned a question, but nodded and went along as instructed without saying anything. Applejack sighed preemptively.

The younger Apple waited until they made it back to the road before she turned to her sister and asked the question she’d held in. “What’s she got against eatin’ meat, anyway?”

“She likes animals,” came the flat response. Applejack ignored the girl’s expression and stepped past Apple Bloom to begin walking down the road. When the trees here ended, she broke off from the road entirely and trudged into the open field past the ditch, pulling her sister along as they moved towards a more distant yet slowly approaching tree line.

Apple Bloom did not quit staring at her, however. Not at all. She peered up expectantly the whole way, walking sideways and leaning into her sister's field of view, just so that she couldn't be as easily ignored.

Eventually Applejack rolled her eyes and huffed. "What, ya think I'm pullin' yer leg here? I realize you got some big problems with listenin’ sometimes—“ The annoyed growl went ignored, “—but I figured even you would be able to pick up on how much Fluttershy likes animals.”

“I ain’t a moron!” Apple Bloom snapped, turning to walk straight again. “I know she likes animals, but that’s the thing. I like animals. I reckon most folk like animals, but you don’t see everybody else doin’ that. What’s that about?”

“She really likes animals,” Applejack deadpanned.

Apple Bloom gave her sister another dirty look. Again, Applejack ignored it. “You don’t get it either, do ya?”

“What I don’t get is why it matters,” was Applejack's clipped retort.

“Cuz it’s weird!”

“Is it?

"Yes!"

"And?"

“And- and- th- it’s- it’s weird! It’s weird and I don’t get it! Whattya mean and?!”

Applejack sucked in a long breath, then heaved it loudly back out again past her lips. “Fine. How’s about this, then: say ya had a cat.”

“I had a caOW! Hey!” Apple Bloom shot her sister a foul look, adjusting her oversized bow where the smack aside the head had knocked it askew. She scowled, but fell silent.

“Say ya had a cat, an’ that cat meant the world to you. It was yer best friend growin’ up, and even after it passed an’ you got older, ya got more cats, cuz cats always had a special place in yer heart and you wanted ‘em around you, because that felt right. Ya love cats so much, just seein’ one made ya happier. They’d always been there, and you couldn’t imagine life without ‘em.” Applejack spared her sister a glance. ”Ya with me so far?”

Apple Bloom’s look was one of lingering irritation and scrutiny, but she nodded.

“Now let’s say that you moved somewhere that didn’t think quite as much ‘bout cats as you do," Applejack continued. "In this new country or state or...whatever," she rolled her hand dismissively, "they raise up cats and cut em up an’ eat em, an' folk don't think much of it. Every time you go to the store for anythin', there's always cat meat on display. After you spent yer whole life growin’ up with cats, lovin’ cats, and findin’ all yer fondest memories with cats there somewhere, doncha think you would have a little trouble eatin’ cat meat? If you grew up like that and then look at cat meat, and then ya think about how all kinds o' cats were out there somewhere, gettin’ cut up like it's nothin', that'd bother you, wouldn't it?"

Apple Bloom’s brow was furrowed, inspecting her feet while she listened. It was reluctant, but her resistance to the conclusion eroded away, and after some time she finally admitted, “I guess that would bother me.” A pause. "It'd bother me a lot."

“An’ that’s why Fluttershy don’t eat meat.”

“Cuz she loves animals.”

Applejack nodded. "With all 'er heart." She looked down to her hip, and with a tug she retrieved the handgun that was stored there. It was a revolver - the exact specifications were lost on Applejack in the moment, she heard 40-something, but the rest of it was a bit blurry. It didn’t matter much, she reasoned; the weapon wasn’t her idea of a hunting one either way, but it was loaded, it could fire, and there were two full reloads ready in her pocket from the deal she'd struck. The rest was up to them to make it work.

Meanwhile, the weight of understanding was slow to come, for Apple Bloom, but it came faster the more time passed. As memory of the conversation she’d witnessed with Fluttershy and Applejack replayed itself, the weight came down swiftly, and Apple Bloom found herself growing increasingly distressed now that she knew the context, and just how much this meant to their friend back at the campsite. What's worse, they announced they were going to shoot and eat something Fluttershy loved, and for some reason, Fluttershy did not stop them.

“Applejack,” Apple Bloom piped urgently, looking up at her sister with big, slightly glistening bronze eyes. “I get that we need food an' all, but why're we doin' this? Our friend's gonna get hurt like this, we can't just- we can't! It ain't right!"

Applejack let a breath raise her heavy shoulders, then fall again in a quiet sigh, aging years in the process. She opened up the tiny latch that kept the cylinder of the revolver she held in alignment with the barrel; said cylinder flipped to one side. She gave it a small turn, inspecting the back side of all five bullets in their respective spots, ready to do their grim work with a simple command. “Do you know what we call somethin’ that don’t feel right to do, but not doin’ it would be even worse?”

Apple Bloom shook her head.

“We call it ‘necessary.’” The cylinder was pushed back into place, where it locked with a soft click. "That's what Fluttershy did in lettin' us go. It's what we gotta do now, knowin' what it'll do to 'er. If we don't, we got no food and no way to get it in a hurry. Fluttershy don't want no animals gettin' hurt, and I don't wanna hurt one of the kindest girls I ever met, but we wanna starve even less than that. It's an ugly thing, an' I wish I didn't have to no more than you er Fluttershy do, but it's necessary."

The revolver found its way back to its holster, where it would remain until the need arose. Apple Bloom looked away from her sister, instead finding the ground her feet tread on. Nothing that was said was the comfort or assurance she was hoping for, but she also felt like it wasn’t supposed to be. The weight of understanding grew heavier still.

“Someday, sugarcube, good ‘n bad ‘n right ‘n wrong ain’t gonna mean everything they should, and yer gonna have to make a choice ya wish ya never had to make. It's gonna be hard, and yer gonna hate that you had to do what ya did, and you'll know you'd do it a thousand times more if you had to, because at the end of the day, it was necessary."

Apple Bloom was quiet when she finally found her voice. "I don't think I like doin' what's necessary."

Applejack placed one calloused hand on Apple Bloom's shoulder, and she gave it a firm, yet gentle squeeze. "Nobody does."

Neither girl spoke after that.

The day was only halfway over, and Twilight was tired already. Sadly, she was nowhere near done with it, it felt like.

Twilight’s telekinesis strategy, while effective at staunching so much bleeding immediately, had been anything but consistent. Her magic sputtered out no less than four times before she was confident that it wouldn't resume again if she didn't actively attend Rarity. The biggest offender was definitely the vein of her neck, which on its own would have been more than enough bleeding to kill her, but it was also the last to stop bleeding by a wide margin, which meant that at some point she could just walk up to her and put a hoof to a rag on her throat and staunch it that way, which by that point ended up being effective enough that she could spare her magic.

It was a killer headache she had at that point, but it didn't stop there. There was also not one, but two bones to set, and the sound and feeling of bones clicking and crackling as they were pushed into place was enough to make Twilight's stomach turn. Sweetie Belle even turned out to be a good assistant, demonstrating by retrieving a nice straight stick at her request to serve as the brace for a splint, made out of Twilight’s sheet she'd been using to store her books and radio, and a length of string out of Rarity’s things.

That was unpleasant, but fast. The hardest part came after: getting Rarity to somewhere safe, so that she could recover.

Location mattered here, so while they could technically keep going in the direction that they now knew a refugee center was in, that was still going to take a while, and Twilight still didn't know how she was going to handle this whole 'talk to humans as a pony' thing. She was also tired from all this strenuous concentration, emotionally drained, and kind of just wanted to lay down, and no doubt Rarity would feel much the same, if not worse, whenever she woke up. Shelter now seemed better than shelter later, and having gotten an aerial view coming in, Twilight had seen a farm field out to the north in a massive, currently untamed plot of farmland, and one of those houses would do quite nicely.

Getting her there, however, proved to be the troublesome part.

Rarity, as a human, was a fair bit bigger than Twilight, standing over twice as tall and weighing about twice as much, if not more. Lifting her via telekinesis was trivial, but doing so for long periods of time would mean periodically dropping someone who had a broken arm, had her throat cut, and had multiple injuries that had only just stopped bleeding, which sudden drops to the ground might undo. That left physical carrying, and that wasn't going to be fun.

One of the blankets that the two humans had on them proved helpful, at least. A blanket was placed on the ground, and Rarity atop it, while the blanket itself was tied to Twilight's shoulders and made into a sort of makeshift harness with all the string that they had left, which didn't leave her with as much room as she would have liked; Twilight had to be careful with her steps as she dragged her, as stretching her rear legs out too much would mean potentially kicking her friend in the top of the head. It would have to do, though.

And so Twilight dragged around this one hundred-plus pound human across at least two miles of open field, having already spent the whole morning flying and having just had a strenuous bout of magical application after a high-tension combat encounter.

Sleep will be a little easier tonight, I think, thought a sore Twilight, legs and back aching as a drop of sweat rolled down her face and neck.

Something round and clear suddenly appeared in front of Twilight, who jerked and halted in her march for a moment. She followed the hand that held it, and saw a Sweetie Belle up close, holding this open bottle of water up to her face. She blinked for a moment, and then realized, oh, duh, smiled sheepishly, and then drank, with Sweetie's aid. The girl held it up a bit more than she wanted, though Twilight managed to avoid choking or spitting up any when she did gently put a hoof to the girl's hand and lowered it for her. "Thank you."

Sweetie smiled a little, and quickly put the cap back on the bottle, holding it tight to her chest like a lifeline.

Twilight cast a gaze over the field, one wing raised up over her head to provide some shade from the light. Halfway still...the farmhouse was in plain view, at least. Still taking a while.

"I like your mane."

Twilight turned to look at Sweetie Belle again, blinked once, and stammered clumsily in an effort to respond. It had been the first thing she'd said to her in several hours, and she was not at all prepared for the random compliment. "Oh- uh- thank you."

Sweetie Belle smiled as well, and held up the water bottle to cover her face up as much as she could.

Now that she had a second to catch her breath, Twilight tried to make use of this opportunity to speak in between huffs. "So, uh, how long have you two been traveling together?"

Sweetie didn't seem as inclined to speak up a second time. Much of her expression was blocked by the bottle and now her hands, and as she shifted, Twilight didn't think she'd say anything at all, till she spoke up in a small voice: "Two months...I think."

"That's a long time."

Nod.

"Have you been on hoof th-" Twilight glanced at the ends of the girl's legs. "...um, on foot, this whole time?"

Sweetie stared for a second. Then nodded.

"Ah, okay. Are there others you traveled with?"

Sweetie shook her head.

"So just you two, then?"

Nod.

"I see..." This conversation was extremely one-sided, and Twilight found herself running out of the sorts of simple questions Sweetie could react to like she had been, or without bringing up unpleasant topics. Twilight resigned to a quiet remainder of the rest.

Sweetie Belle surprised Twilight by speaking up on her own again, about a minute later. "I really like your mane."

"Thank you." Twilight smiled again, sensing a pattern here, but not saying it yet, simply returning Sweetie's stare.

...
...
...

"...c...can...um..."

Twilight's wing slowly unfurled, gesturing encouragingly for Sweetie to continue.

"...can I...touch it?"

Twilight's smile widened. There we go. "Sure you can. Just, uh...it's a little bit dirty. I haven't had a bath in three or four days, so..."

If that bothered Sweetie at all, she did not show it. The girl stepped up to Twilight, excitedly for a brief moment before her meekness caught up with her, and she timidly, slowly, very slowly, reached out and touched Twilight's mane. She pat it, a few times, and sank her small fingers into it when Twilight did not protest at all, pale green eyes glinting with wonder.

It was strange to see Sweetie acting like this. Her demeanor was so...different now, so much more skittish and fillylike. Twilight had seen her scared, and she'd seen her excited, and acting shy, but never to this degree together, and never towards her. Then again, they were all ponies back home, and here, Twilight was something truly special. There were no alicorns in the human world, only legends of such creatures, and not particularly accurate ones, either. It was a strange experience to see a radically different side of someone she knew in another world, but Twilight found it endearing. Sweetie was never this adorable with her back home... "Kind of oily, huh?" Twilight said.

Sweetie pulled her hand back from the purple mane at this, examining her hand. She rubbed two fingers together, and found it a little more slick than previous.

"Sweaty too?"

Sweetie giggled. “A little.”

Twilight giggled back. Twilight spared a glance at Rarity, who she wished was awake to see this. The sight of her wounded friend as she lay there in her tattered, bloodstained clothing reminded Twilight of the urgency of this task, and she decided this had been a long enough break. “I’m ready to keep going now. Are you?"

Sweetie nodded, and Twilight picked up the pace again, continuing to drag Rarity along the ground on her blanket sled. Sweetie stayed close, but never too close.

The whole trek was quite a workout, and took an hour to complete. Hauling Rarity the latter half of the way seemed to take exceptionally long, and by the time they arrived at the farmhouse, Twilight's fur was soaked with sweat.

It was a nice house, and the family who used to own it clearly put a lot of effort into its condition, which was pristine even months later, like their spirits watched over it. The white of its walls nearly glowed in the sunlight, and it had a black roof free of any leaves or branches, likely helped by the farm field it sat in near the edge of in a large field. It had two stories, and like every other building Twilight had seen so far, its interior was dark.

Twilight stopped a good ten meters away from the front door, ducking her head and stepping carefully back to free herself from the string that had been digging into her shoulders, careful not to step on Rarity’s hair or clip her head with a hoof. She huffed and puffed, wiping a bead of sweat from her forehead before it could drip into her eye, and gave the place a careful, long looking over from where she and Sweetie stood.

It was quiet, and extremely still. That in and of itself was not necessarily indicative of anything, as any uninhabited house was bound to be both, but Twilight felt uneasy. Something about this place put her on edge, and it took her a little while to figure out why.

The sound of bugs wasn’t nearly as loud here as it was elsewhere. It was present, but more distant, like the air here stifled it. The pristine rooftop was notably bereft of any indication that birds had nested here in all this time it'd been unattended, either. It was like nature itself had marked this place as somewhere to be avoided.

Twilight frowned.

Her gaze left the house and turned to the area immediately around them now, slowly letting her eyes drift across every little feature of the ground, the spaces between the grass tufts, and its position relative to where the house in front of them was. She spent a minute or so doing this, then her gaze found the small human next to her. “I need your help with something.”

Sweetie Belle snapped to attention, eyes wide and alert.

“I’m going to check this place and make sure it’s safe. I need you to stay here and watch over Rarity. If you see anything coming towards you that might be dangerous, anything at all, I need you to scream as loud as you possibly can, and I’ll be here instantly. Can you do that for me?”

Sweetie nodded so rapidly that it was a wonder she didn’t make herself dizzy.

Twilight gave the girl an appreciative smile, then turned back to the house and stepped towards it. "I'll be right back."

The door was locked; Twilight tried the knob from afar, and the magenta glow of the knob only proceeded to make it wiggle back and forth, so Twilight didn’t get any closer, circling towards one of the many windows to have a peek inside. Her forehead felt tight for a moment before a bead of pink shone through the glass, illuminating what appeared to be a kitchen, which sat empty. She squinted and peered further into the house, but couldn’t see much more than some chairs that sat in what looked to be the dining area, two of which were knocked to the floor.

They attack on sight. If something was in the dark, they’d be moving towards me right now.

Just to be certain, Twilight lowered down from where she was propped on her hind legs to trot over to the other side of the house, leaning up and shining her light in the room here. It seemed like a living room, but Twilight didn’t get a look at much more than a long red sofa before her light sparked once and abruptly went dark.

Twilight took a long, slow breath, and released it softly. Internally she screamed only a tiny bit in frustration at her stupid bucking light not bucking working for five minutes. But only a tiny bit.

A second bead of light replaced the first, and after a brief scan of the room and not seeing any movements, Twilight craned her neck to one side till she could see the other side of the front door, which her light was just barely able to shine on from here. She studied it for several seconds, noting the position of the latch flipped the way it was just above the knob. After about ten seconds spent doing that, Twilight dropped her front hooves to the ground again and trotted back to the front door.

As she stepped up the single step to the door, Twilight closed her eyes and visualized the other side of the door as she had observed it, and her horn gently glowed as she saw herself asserting her influence on the place where the latch would be. There was the faint sound of metal tapping from the other side of the door, and then a click. When she tried the knob again, the door opened right up, and Twilight smiled, then stepped slowly inside.

The air inside the house was stale. A faint, barely detectable scent of decay met Twilight's as she took one step inside, and her nostrils flared as she recoiled slightly to an acrid whiff of ammonia. The thinnest bit of dust was visible across the surface of the wooden floor, which stretched out into all three rooms with identical crisscrossing square patterns under a clear laminate.

Some of the dust was disturbed, specifically directly in front of the door, past the mat on the floor. As Twilight went to set another hoof inside, she paused, placing the hoof back down in the door frame as she leaned in to inspect the disturbances - she recoiled again at the stink of ammonia that filled her nose, and she held her breath; this mat was definitely the culprit for that.

It was a little hard to tell under the pink glow, but she could see faint discoloration on the floor. When she turned her light off and allowed the sunlight to reveal the colors better, she saw faint gray spots, like scuff marks. Putting a hoof to one and giving it a small scrape, she identified it as something like oil, or grease. They were mostly just smudges, but in random places Twilight could make out portions of paw marks, roughly the size of what Twilight would associate with a dog of moderate size. Similar markings could be seen all over this area in front of her, where one would walk in to go deeper into the house, as if it had been pacing in anticipation. Curious that it wasn't here, in that case...

The light flashed back on - Twilight winced at the stab of pain it brought, but was too focused to think about it. Tactical mode was on.

Twilight scanned the pink-tinted rooms she could see, ears upright and swiveling very slowly as she listened. She didn’t move a muscle. Nothing showed, and nothing was heard, save for her own muted, repressed breaths she took. There was more beyond what she could see, which extended to about halfway through the living room and just before what she assumed was the end of the kitchen, and then anything past a meter or so beyond the dining table. Past that, to her it was an impenetrable wall of black. Some ponies had a horn glow that lent itself well to seeing details at decent range, but Twilight was not one such pony. In fact, the only shade worse than hers for that was red.

Could go in. Would be exposing myself. There's an upstairs somewhere, I don't see it. Probably should have inspected the rest of the rooms first…doesn’t matter. I know something is here.

She spared a glance at the table, then one of the chairs that had been overturned. Her thoughts went back to those zombies in Longmeadow, and the way their heads snapped around to the sound of a breaking window…

The chair lit up, glowing the pink of Twilight's horn. It raised itself up into the air, going so far up that it nearly touched the ceiling, and the glow suddenly stopped. Gravity kicked in, and the chair fell to the floor with a loud crash.

The result was instantaneous; Twilight heard claws scraping upstairs, and moments later she heard the thudding of something coming fast down stairs she could not see. As her heart kicked into overdrive, she saw the muzzle of a dog come lunging out of the blackness.

Its trajectory came to an abrupt halt as Twilight's horn flashed to life and catch it mid-charge, lifting it gruffly up into the air so its kicking paws could no longer touch the floor, and as it snapped its teeth and thrashed its legs from where it hung helplessly, Twilight gave her would-be assailant a good looking over.

It was a black Labrador in life, and its fur was a little bit unkept, but otherwise looked fine at a glance. Truthfully, were it not for the grease marks on the floor indicating something due to past experiences, Twilight never would have guessed that this was anything but a particularly vicious dog. The only immediate indicators physically were the jet black eyes that did not shine despite the light being cast directly into them, like they were holes with no bottom instead of eyes. Its fangs were eerily visible, the whites of the teeth almost radiant compared to the abyss of its mouth, which was every bit the pit that its eyes were, but under the right circumstances, that could be overlooked as a lighting thing.

The biggest giveaway that something was wrong, and the thing that made Twilight genuinely uncomfortable as she observed it, was the way it moved and acted. It made absolutely no sound - no snarls, no barks, nothing, not a peep, not even with how active it was being. The only noise it made was the continuous and steady clacking and snapping of teeth as it opened and slammed shut its jaw as fast as it was physically able to, biting the air in front of it in a frenzy. Its legs thrashed and kicked against the ground that was not there, the front-most ones occasionally lashing out towards her with malicious intent. Its tail did not wag or move more than was necessary for its attempts at balance in a charge it didn't realize it wasn't making, and its ears were snapped forward and locked solely on the target of its focus instead of being down flat to indicate aggression. Every twitch, thrash, and impulse in this creature was finely tuned, all geared towards one and one thing only: to inflict harm, not as a means to an end, but as an end unto itself.

It looked like an animal, but nothing about it felt like an animal, or even like it was undead. If anything, it felt possessed.

Twilight felt a chill ripple up her spine as she looked this monster in the face. This is not a dog, her brain told her, loudly, and the desire to be rid of it in any way possible was suddenly chief among her many concerns.

Outside. Get it outside. We're about to take shelter in this house.

The idea of walking this Not Dog anywhere caused a tickle of panic to scurry out of Twilight's chest, and as she gazed into its aberrant face with its Wrong mannerisms and imagined a scenario where this Thing That Isn't A Dog somehow got out of her grasp, that panic blossomed like a nest of spiders that had been disturbed, and in an impulsive fit to get this thing away from her, Twilight chose the most direct method available to her to accomplish this.

The window to the farmhouse's kitchen abruptly burst outwards, and out flew a black shape of a dog as it thrashed and flailed wildly midair. As it crashed and bounced off the ground, Twilight galloped the short way to the kitchen counter and leaped up, feeling a sharp surge in her forehead manifest as a bright pink laser that found the tumbling shape right in the middle. When the flash of its impact cleared, said shape was in several more pieces than she last saw it. Limbs scattered every which way, and the now remarkably concave shape of a torso spiraled even further away from the house, leaving a massive splatter of red where it left about half of its mass in the dirt.

A few seconds after she had caught her breath, the room got suddenly darker as the light at the end of Twilight's horn sputtered out. Twilight felt her face getting a bit hotter, not out of fury, but from embarrassment as she realized how she'd composed herself just now. At least half the people who could have witnessed this was an unconscious woman, and the other was a filly.

...child. Not filly. Child. Stupid human terms...

She was reasonably sure that was all that was in here, but Twilight checked anyway, for certainty's sake. The ground floor was clear, and she found no basement. The stairs up lead to the floor with all the bedrooms, of which there were 4: three single bedrooms, and one master bedroom, plus a bathroom right at the top of the stairs. As she suspected, nothing but the dog she'd just disposed of was here.

Trotting back down the stairs to retrieve the others, Twilight peered through the open door and saw Sweetie Belle clasping both of her hands around one of Rarity's, crouching down beside her and seemingly speaking. At the thought of Rarity being awake, Twilight's trot became a gallop.

Twilight came to a skidding stop next to Sweetie Belle, and her heart did a backflip when she saw that the girl's ice-blue eyes were open. "Rarity?! Rarity- hey! Hey, can you hear me?"

"Conscious" was perhaps a strong word to describe Rarity. Her eyes were open, and they did indeed eventually slowly slide over in the direction of Twilight, but they did not come into focus. Her gaze was foggy, and from how unresponsive she appeared to be, it was almost certain she could not understand, or if she could, barely so.

"This is not your day, huh?" Twilight said, smiling widely as she blinked through tears she barely noticed slipping from her eyes. "Don't worry, Rarity, I'm here. I'm sorry I got here so late, but I'm here now. Everything's going to be okay."

There was no outward indication of comprehension. As Twilight and Sweetie both watched, Rarity's eyes slowly rolled back into her head, and her eyelids sank shut.

To Sweetie's panicked expression, Twilight hastily said, "It's fine, she's fine- she's awake, she's just really, really out of it. She needs rest, so let's get her some."

Rarity's body picked up a magenta glow, and she rose up into the air. Twilight had been avoiding handling Rarity like this, but she was determined to make this fast, so as to minimize any risk of dropping her, and her pace into the house showed it. Sweetie Belle was right behind her the whole time, so much so that if Twilight did slow, she would have fallen over the alicorn.

In record time, Rarity was levitated up the stairwell, taken right, and then hovered over the master bed, then slowly, gently, placed upon it. The levitation effect stopped, and Twilight winced and threw a hoof to her forehead on impulse. "Ow..."

"Are you okay?" Sweetie squeaked. Every decibel of her barely audible tone was thick with worry.

"Yes," Twilight's response came quickly. A little too quickly, so she added more slowly, "Yes, I'm okay. Just...hurts to use magic too much. This world's magic is all...strange. It doesn't work very well."

It was not clear if that satisfied or even made sense to Sweetie Belle. Regardless, Sweetie Belle was at her sister's side immediately after, and she bounced up onto the bed to be next to her. A smartphone was out of her pocket, and she shone it on Rarity anxiously to better see her face.

For Twilight, this moment was one of catharsis after many stressed, fear-filled days, including this one, right up until this moment. Rarity was safe and could recover in peace. Twilight no longer was alone, and while that was scary in some ways, it was an immense relief in others.

The events of the day finally caught up to Twilight as she started to relax, and the fatigue nearly laid her flat right there and then. She hopped up onto the bed that the three of them now shared, and Twilight found herself flopped down on the mattress, up against her friend, whom she was determined to give her every thought and attention for as long as she needed it. Whatever Rarity needed, the Princess of Friendship would provide. After everything the girl had been through, it was the least Twilight could do for her.

Twilight's eyes closed at one point, and like a switch flipped, all thought stopped.

Chapter 10

This was not the first early morning on Earth that Twilight Sparkle had spent flying, but it was the first time that she hadn't been alone when she did so.

She flew low, barely a meter above the ground at times, her path keeping either directly above or directly adjacent to the road that her friends drove on below. The dark gray SUV with its curious blue squares on top followed a few meters behind the dark red, significantly more vocal car - she’d never have to worry about losing track of that vehicle, she reckoned, so long as she stayed in the general area, but even then, with as quiet as the world was, you could probably hear that thing for miles. Getting too close to it hurt her ears a little bit.

Twilight considered asking if cars were supposed to make that much noise, but she didn’t feel like yelling over the wind unless she had to. The vehicles weren’t going super fast, but definitely fast enough that the air had plenty to say and didn’t much feel like using its inside voice.

There was seldom much to do on flights like this, and Twilight wondered for the umpteenth time how someone like Rainbow Dash - notorious for not being able to sit still or go for long without stimulation - could handle this sort of thing. Maybe that’s the real reason she ended up devoting so much effort and energy to going as fast as she possibly could: less transit time meant less long periods of downtime with nothing to do or think about but maintaining a heading and failing to plummet out of the sky.

For someone like Twilight, however, these periods of downtime were welcome. With a monotonous task before her that she didn’t have to focus on, she could zone out a little and think in the background.

Chief among the many topics Twilight would like to devote brainpower towards was the most recent topic of fascination she’d witnessed: Rarity’s injuries, and the miraculous healing thereof.

Twilight had read on humans before, and she knew that among other living things in their world, humans were exceptionally hardy. Their endurance was the stuff of legends - she had read the tales about how the earliest humans would hunt by aggressively walking after their prey until they collapsed from exhaustion. Their fortitude could give earth ponies a run for their money, in some ways. The specifics of how far that endurance went was lost on Twilight, however; much as she would have liked to indulge fully in the knowledge of what a human was and everything that went into them, Twilight had spent only 3 days as one, and there had been a bit of a time crunch for her to be researching as much as she would have liked to. Equestria, sadly, did not have much reliable information for her to peruse once she got home, leaving Twilight generally in the dark about such things as what a human could take and how they worked.

That being said, Twilight wasn’t stupid. That injury of Rarity’s was severe; she didn’t need a lot of context to know that much. Similarly, she didn’t need to be able to write a paper on humans to have seen the confusion and fear on Applejack’s face when she saw how much Rarity had recovered in such a short time - hell, she’d seen Rarity’s confusion, even a bit of despair about it. Nothing about this was normal and not even the humans could explain it. It shouldn’t be, and yet it was.

What an incredibly annoying theme, Twilight thought to herself, briefly lapsing from her musing to sway to the right, bringing herself more directly over the road to avoid another oncoming wall of trees. This would make perfect sense if it was magic. It’s about the only thing I can think of that would explain it, but it can’t be magic. At least, I assume as much…I’m guessing Rarity isn’t secretly a life caster. Her aesthetic was always more crystals and gems than healing, and it’s not like sustained effects should be able to hold up in any semblance of long term anyway. But again: zombies! And giant bugs and big plant things. Gosh this is fun, I love not knowing what’s going on with no way to find out! It’s my absolute favorite! Wee!

Twilight needed a lab of some kind; somewhere she could perform tests and make detailed examinations and take notes. Cursory observation was not answering any further questions, just presenting more of them, and if there’s one thing that bugged Twilight, it was an accumulating stack things sitting there, unattended and unresolved, taunting her with their presence. Perpetual speculation was going to drive the Princess of Friendship mad.

Checklist start. 1: Get a lab, or a space of study. 2: …okay this will have to be a separate list, I think. You can’t just have a list inside a list, that’s annoying. Ok, 2: see list of queries. Checklist of queries start. 1: Make sense of the magic thing, and how the zombies can persist despite magic’s apparent unreliable nature…no, scratch that. 1: work out the nature of magic’s apparent unreliability. Wait, should this be numbered? No, okay, just keep those at the top, don’t worry about numbers - this is like science, it’s not going to present itself chronologically. Okay, so: magic’s unreliability, how zombies and everything else can exist in spite of it. Then, this healing thing. Then…hm…

Meanwhile, inside the van, all was silent, save only for the gentle hum of the road and the muffled grumbling of the car five meters ahead of it. From behind the glass of the rear passenger seat, two pale green eyes were as wide as could be, all but shining as they tracked the movement of the purple shape that flew just beside and above the vehicle, precisely close enough that Sweetie could take in all there was to see with relative certainty that she wouldn’t be seen back.

Wind rippled across Twilight’s fur and through her lavender feathers as she cut through the breezes that passed invisibly by, the wind rolling across her swiftly like water. Her mane trailed behind as she flew, and the way it stretched down her back made it align with and seemingly merge with her tail, giving her the appearance of streaking a trail of purple behind her like the tail of a comet made of the last moments of a sunset. As Sweetie watched, the wall of trees to her back parted suddenly - the rays of dawn shone across the alicorn with another flap of her wings, arriving as though on command, and Sweetie could have sworn that they emitted a shimmer of tiny sparkles as the sunlight struck them, like the feathers themselves were studded with stars.

She’s so beautiful.

A single finger stabbed in the middle of her spine like the beak of a bird. Sweetie nearly jolted out of her skin, twisting around and finding not a bird, but the outstretched hand of Apple Bloom seated beside her. The younger Apple’s expression was one of annoyance, but her words carried concern. “You alright there, Sweetie? Ya been sittin’ like that fer ages.”

Sweetie Belle nodded, swallowing her heart where it had leaped out of her chest. Suddenly conscious, she got off her knees to sit in the car seat normally. “Yeah.” Even then her gaze was pulled back out the window again, finding the winged shape out there where she sailed along in graceful flight. “I’ve never had a guardian angel before.”

“Me neither.” Apple Bloom leaned forward to follow her friend’s gaze. Her expression remained as it was, however, not so quick to broadcast the emotions the sight brought, if any. “Hey Rarity,” she called to the front. “What’d ya do to get an angel to follow ya ‘round?”

Hoarse chuckles came from the front passenger seat, punctuated by a rough cough. “Oh, I don’t know about angels, darling. I’ve never been one for prayer…”

Sweetie’s head swiveled around and blinked at the back of her sister’s seat, but it was Apple Bloom that pressed the issue. “Well ya obviously did somethin,’ or she wouldn’t ‘a come down from Heaven and saved y’all.”

“She’s from Equestria,” Fluttershy pointed out from the other side of Apple Bloom.

“And she’s an alicorn,” Rarity added. “Not an angel.”

Sweetie’s eyes narrowed. “She came out of the sky and performed a miracle! I watched the whole thing- you were glowing! You weren’t even touching the ground!”

“That was magic, not a mira…” Rarity stopped as she realized how hollow that argument sounded. “She isn’t an angel, is my point; she’s a pony. They’re not at all the same.”

“That’s a lotta hooey,” Apple Bloom informed her. “She came outta the sky, she blasts demons away, and does healin’ miracles, and she even got them big ol’ wings! That’s the most angel-like thing I ever heard! And yer tryin’ to tell me she ain’t?”

”And!” threw in Sweetie, now letting her outrage be heard, “She’s got a special symbol! It’s right there on her butt, she told me all about it! Like a cross, but it’s hers, so it’s like- it’s sparkles! For Twilight Sparkle!”

Rarity’s patience rapidly thinned. “Sweetie, Apple Bloom, she’s an alicorn. She’s told the three of us all about it, and-“ She coughed a few times. “-and you heard her yourself. She is not an angel!”

“Oh yeah?! Well howdya know alicorns ain’t just unicorn angels, huh?!”

“Yeah, exactly! Ponies can have angels too, right?! It makes perfect sense!”

“It d- no! No it doesn’t! That isn’t how this works!”

Apple Bloom crossed her arms like this case had been closed, declaring: “Angel. Gotta be.”

Sweetie nodded and sat back just like her friend with a triumphant grin. “Yup! Angel. Majority rules!”

Everything about Rarity’s expression read as protest, but turning back to look at the backseat like this was making her neck ache terribly, and her voice was raw from overuse. She braved the pain enough to find Fluttershy in the back, and when all she received for backup was a sympathetic smile, she let loose an offended huff and twisted back around to sit in her seat normally, which itself evoked another harsh cough.

Applejack spared her friend a glance, then looked up into the rear view mirror to find the two girls who were grinning at one another. “As fer what she did,” she said, earning their attention, “the whole lot of us pitched in an’ helped Twilight find ‘er crown when it got stolen. Cuz a princess needs a crown, right?”

The reaction was precisely what Applejack was counting on: “PRINCESS?! She’s an angel princess?!”

“Yer pullin’ our legs!”

“Sure ain’t.” Applejack leaned over to find Fluttershy’s gaze and nodded her chin up at her. “Tell em all ‘bout it. You remember, doncha Flutters?”

“I could never forget!” Fluttershy then began to explain how Twilight was indeed the Princess of Friendship, and went on to regale the two enraptured young girls with the story of how they had helped reclaim the Element of Magic for Equestria, though pointedly leaving out details that might vilify Sunset Shimmer. She still was Fluttershy, after all.

Applejack grinned widely, then glanced back at Rarity - she tried not to flinch at the pair of Arctic knives aimed her way. “Twilight’ll set ‘em straight if she ain’t happy with it. In the meantime, if they wanna believe in angels ‘n miracles, let em.” Her eyes found the road ahead of them, steering wheel turning ever so slightly to keep their path straight. In a lower, quieter voice, she went on, “I know you ain’t much of a believer, Rares, but I know the look ‘a someone who’s seen God in somethin’. I ain’t seen much of ‘im myself these days, but if someone else has, I’m happy for ‘em. Let ‘er have this.”

Rarity opened her mouth, where it hung open for a few moments, then closed again, gaze lowering. Eventually her eyes lifted and found the rear view mirror between them. What little was left of her deliberating if mildly vexed expression melted back and was replaced by something Applejack could not easily recognize. All the while, Sweetie Belle was chattering excitedly away, pale green eyes filled to the brim with starlight and dancing with wonder.

Applejack wanted to continue this topic, but she didn’t know how to in that moment. Instead, she focused on driving.

The chatter of the girls in the backseat became pleasant background noise as she watched the road lay itself out in front of her, their guides never much more than a few meters out. Part of her was amused by the fact that even though they would freely swerve around anything in the way, the divers of both vehicles insisted on keeping in the right lane as they drove. It’s not like there were traffic laws anymore, so there wasn’t anything keeping them from simply going where they pleased, but something about that just didn’t feel right, even with no one around to see it or punish them for it.

Habits really do die hard, huh? Applejack’s eyes glanced at the dashboard, finding the fuel gauge. The needle was getting a bit uncomfortably low for her tastes - already dipping below the 25% point into the red. She was about to reach for her walkie-talkie to see how much longer this would be, but the car ahead of them suddenly jolted closer, brake lights flaring.

Applejack slammed the break pedal. Everyone lurched forward in their seat - they hadn’t been going super fast, not even clearing 20 MPH most of the time, but it was still fast enough that if seatbelts hadn’t been on, someone in the back was going to get tossed into the back of the seat in front of them. All conversation stopped instantly.

Applejack’s hands went two different places: one went straight to the revolver at her hip, and the other grabbed the walkie-talkie she had been reaching for previously, this time finding it. She couldn’t see immediately what was wrong, so she thumbed the transmit button. “What’s goin' on?”

It took two seconds for a reply to come through, and it was Alex’s static-wreathed voice that answered, sounding quite stressed: “The bridge ahead has a roadblock. I see a spotlight.”

Applejack couldn’t contain the ”Fuck” she spat out under her breath. She unlatched and then ripped off her seatbelt.

Rarity was no longer as relaxed in her seat as she was before, but otherwise appeared as calm as could be, pointedly so. Fluttershy had retrieved a fire axe from beneath the seats and had moved it to somewhere easily retrievable, expression blank and eyes alert. Sweetie Belle looked very nervous about the reactions of the others, and Apple Bloom’s eyes were bronze-ringed saucers for no other reason than because Applejack swore. Applejack never swore. That was always bad.

“Girls, stay in the car.” Applejack’s tone bore no room for argument, and she heard none as she opened the van door and stepped out onto the street.

The Mustang about a meter in front of the SUV also had its front doors open. Alex had stepped out of the driver’s seat, hat off monetarily as she ran a hand through her brown hair. Gabe, meanwhile, was out of the car on the other side with the visor of his motorcycle helmet raised, peering through what appeared to be a pair of binoculars held to his face. It was now that Applejack got her first good look at anything else below his neck, though it was all black motorcycle leather with a brown leather jacket thrown over the top, so honestly she hadn’t been missing much. Matilda had not seen fit to remove herself from the car, though it’s impressive that she remained invisible even with metal between them, seeing as she insisted on dressing up like a laser show.

By this time, Twilight'd had enough time to circle back around where the vehicles she accompanied had abruptly stopped. Her wings drummed the air a few times as she lowered down before there was four clops of hooves on pavement. “What’s wrong? Why’d we stop?”

Applejack looked to Alex, who was either quite distracted with the sight of the blockade before them, or had not yet come to terms with the purple pony to be able to answer her questions and retain her sanity at the same time. Applejack had that covered, and pointed ahead for her friend to see for herself.

The road went on about fifty yards from where they currently stood, beyond which the road smoothly buckled and became a raised bridge to continue the path over the river that carved its way through the landscape. Directly at the foot of the bridge, a deliberate blockage had been placed - large beige bags stacked up on top of each other, likely full of sand, formed a two large walls with space down the middle, positioned between which was a tall green pole that ended in a swiveling head that pointed a bright column of focused radiance that turned itself every which way, sweeping its brilliant gaze across the asphalt in orderly, carefully measured lines that slowly inched away from its current position.

In front of each sandbag barricade sat a stout, rounded dome of silvery metal, each about the size and width of a mini fridge, swiveling about on a pivot somewhere at its 'waist' along its bullet-shaped chassis. A long tube extended out of a slot at the top half of each device, roughly at the level where one might put a face, and near the base of this proboscis-like barrel sat a faintly visible glowing red sight that gleamed like a predator’s eye. Said eye of both automata were currently leveled straight at the group outside of their maximum firing range, burning calmly at them with a lethal kind of patience. A length of barbed wire sat out across the street two meters past both of these installments, as though the threat of a swift and brutal gunning down by automated weaponry was not sufficient deterrent to approach.

Twilight certainly didn't like what she saw, grasping that this was not a good thing, but still didn't know what it meant, looking at either human closest to her with a lost and increasingly fretful gaze. "What, what is that? What are those?"

"Turrets," Alex said, proving she could in fact hear the alicorn, though maybe because she was beginning to lose her own cool enough that she felt it didn't matter. "Military fucking turrets, exactly where they need to not be, god damn it!"

"There any way 'round?" Applejack asked, suspecting the answer already.

"I don't know! This could be the only place for miles to cross, and I don't have a f-" Alex reared her foot back like she intended to kick something, then spun around at the last second and began to furiously pace back and forth to vent off steam, mumbling and spouting off colorfully all the while. Gabe, by comparison, had silently put his binoculars down on the top of the car, and had out what appeared to be some kind of road map, likely searching for the aforementioned way around they did not know of.

Twilight continued to look on in confusion, ears back flat against her head. "Applejack, I don't understand."

Applejack took a breath, and heaved it back out in a sigh. "Whacha wanna know, sugarcube?"

Twilight cast her gaze back to the blockade down the road, at the devices laying there. "What are those? Why can't we go near them?"

"They're turrets. Guns, but...uh...robots, like we talked 'bout the other night. Ya remember that?"

Twilight nodded, motions jittery. "Yes, but, what's...what're guns? L-like, I’ve heard of them, but what are they?"

Right...pony. Applejack mulled over what she intended to say for a few seconds. "So a gun...uh...so imagine like, a little, tiny, bitty lil explosive, tiny as you can make 'em, an' it's designed just right so that when it goes off, instead of doin' any kinda damage, a little chunk 'a metal goes flyin' off in a straight line towards somethin' to punch a hole in it. That's what we call a bullet, an' guns are the things that make the lil explodin' bits do their work. They're lightnin' fast, can't even see 'em comin', an' some guns can shoot dozens of 'em a second. Those things," she pointed at the turrets standing sentinel at the blockade, "are military turrets, specially designed to do as much damage as ya possibly can with bullets. They'd probably poke more holes in these cars than a starvin' woodpecker that just found the world's most grub-filled last year's Hearth's Warming tree, and us with 'em."

This was, understandably, not comforting for Twilight. Mankind's ingenuity had a dark side, it seemed, and it was frightening to hear about. "Why would they hurt us?"

"Cuz that's what they was put there to do, I guess," Applejack said, with a shrug. "Don't really know what the military was thinkin', puttin' these things all over, but I guess it was cuz of all the riots and such, 'n the turrets are too stupid to know the riots are done with, cuz ain't no one left to tell 'em. Definitely ain't gonna listen to us, cuz they think we're rioters, 'n they're too dumb to figure it out themselves."

Twilight bit her lip. She cast a glance over at Alex, who by now had stormed over to where Gabe had his map, fervently trying to figure out some kind of path that would get them where they needed to go, but nothing about her demeanor suggested she nor the seemingly mute man were having any luck. She glanced back behind her, at the SUV, filled with her friends; Rarity was still calm-looking in the front seat, though Fluttershy had emerged from the vehicle, looking on helplessly from where she stood beside the now open door she'd emerged from. The window to the rear door had rolled down, and both Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom were crowded tightly together leaning out, trying to peer over and see what was going on. Applejack, meanwhile, had her hands on her hips, and though she did not make a show of it, defeat was written across her weary features at the sight of all this before them. None of them could deal with this. Not on their own.

Something about Twilight shifted. Her gaze returned to the blockade ahead, following the path of the spotlight where is traced vaguely geometric patterns across the asphalt with its shining light, then the turrets, whose steely gaze she returned in kind. "How close can I get to them before they attack?"

This made Applejack look down at Twilight suddenly. "...sugarcube."

"How close," Twilight repeated coolly, "can I get to them before they attack?"

"I don't want you gettin' shot," came the stern response. Applejack's expression and voice were both hard and getting harder all the time. "I ain't havin' you get shot. I ain't losin' no more friends, Twilight, I've lost too many already."

"Which is why it's important that I know exactly how close to those things that I can get." Twilight found Applejack's gaze, staring past that disapproval unflinchingly. "Closer is better for me, but if need be, I can stay where I am. I just don't know how they'll react if I miss."

Applejack visibly wrestled with how to respond to this, torn between wanting to assist her friend and rebuffing her willingness to put herself in harm's way.

She didn't need to decide, though - Fluttershy had come forward and had taken one knee next to Twilight, eying the sight ahead. "Robots aren't smart," she told the alicorn, whose gaze found her now. "If you hurt them, they don't actually care, because they can't feel it. We're out of range, so there shouldn't be anything they can do."

"'Shouldn't be?'" Twilight repeated, cautiously.

Fluttershy nodded. "I've, um...I've never tried to fight turrets before, because they're so dangerous, so I don't know what exactly they'll do, but they can obviously see us...if they were capable of shooting us, I think they would have by now. They're supposed to have soldier support with them to take care of something outside of their range, but..." She trailed off, teal eyes momentarily touching the barely visible shapes of crumpled humanoid forms lying near the base of the turrets, clad in greens and browns of weathered, tattered camo apparel. The story there told itself.

"How tough are they?"

Fluttershy shook her head uncertainly. "They're metal, and armored, but robots have sensitive insides...there isn't much we can do against them with what we have."

"Not with what you have." Twilight adjusted her stance, lowering her head and pointing her horn in the direction of the blockade. She raised her voice as she addressed everyone nearby: "I need everyone to move back. If these start shooting, I don't want anypony getting hit."

"Twilight." Applejack's voice was low with warning.

Twilight shook her head. "You don't need to be afraid for me, Applejack. I can handle this." She gave the farmer a look, the determination melting away enough that she could give her friend a warm smile. "You trust me, right?"

Applejack's jaw clenched and unclenched a few times. She looked angry, but Twilight could tell it wasn't truly anger. The farmer took one step back, then another, slowly at first but with increasing speed. Fluttershy joined her, scurrying back to the van with purpose. "Don't you dare get yerself hurt, Twilight."

Twilight's smile brightened. "I won’t, I promise."

Both girls got back into their vehicle, and the gray SUV began to roll backwards away from the scene. The other human group did not have the same kind of faith in Twilight's words or capabilities, but they did appreciate how minimal safe distance appeared to be retreating away from them, and rather than ask questions or make a scene of it, Alex and her mute companion quickly got back into their own vehicle and followed the example of the latter half of their party, leaving the alicorn with about twelve more meters between herself and her allies to work with.

With everyone safely out of range, Twilight's gaze fell back on the blockade before her, head lowered and horn pointing straight ahead, trying to become as level as possible with the targets that were about to woefully lose this quickdraw match. Twilight did not feel she had anything she could lose here, even in the worst case scenario - in reality, this entire situation was quite simple, and her friends' fear was unfounded. Perhaps this would help them realize that.

Twilight kept her gaze focused intently on her relatively distant targets; pressure surged from her forehead to her horn, which blazed brilliantly for a moment before the energy accumulating there discharged in a magenta column of light.

The first shot did not hit its mark; the sandbag barricade was the first casualty, vanishing momentarily under a flash of pink light before it faded, revealing the shower of sand and the shreds of burlap that rained down around the half-leveled wall. The second shot missed entirely, spiraling off into the distance and into the sky. The third shot hit exactly where Twilight intended; the turret on the left disappeared under a tiny magical sun, reappearing a moment later just in time to be seen sailing through the air in three pieces: the top half with the gun that would swivel, everything below that joint, and the bits of jagged metal still firmly mounted to the brackets embedded into the road via bolts and tiny bits of rebar, which hung halfway out of their places like weeds midway through the process of being uprooted. The fourth beam blew second sandbag barricade in half, knocking over the spotlight that sparked and danced with arcs as its light shattered on the asphalt, and the fifth hit the topmost part of the remaining turret, the glancing hit still more than sufficient to completely behead the offending automaton. Black smoke belched from its exposed innards for several seconds, which continued to smolder and dance with sparks for about half a minute more before what little artificial life it had finally went out.

Twilight huffed a breath, allowing her head to fall and a hoof to find her temple, nursing the headache that had begun there. After a few moments of recovery, she perked back up, smiling brightly and trotting her way to where the vehicles had retreated. She called as loudly as she could to them as she approached, "Okay, it's safe! Way's clear!"

Rarity had a deliberating expression as she mulled over what she had watched, lips pursed for a few seconds before she sat back the rest of the way in her seat. She nodded what little she could comfortably. "Not bad. I'd give her a solid eight and a half, what do you think, darling?"

"Ten," Fluttershy replied, the ear-to-ear smile audible in her voice. "Twilight's amazing."

"TEN!" Sweetie all but shrieked, and was joined quickly after by Apple Bloom. The dam broke, and the two began to laugh and chatter wildly about the incredible thing that they had just witnessed, barely intelligible but just so darn excited that neither of them minded that they could barely make sense out of what the other was saying.

Applejack did not much move from her position in the driver's seat. Try as she may to look impartial, she could not stop the smile that had begun to very slowly spread its way across her lips. Over the sound of screaming excited girls, Applejack faintly heard the radio crackle at her, and she raised it to her ear, the other being plugged with one finger. "Say again?"

There was a long hesitation before the strained, slow voice of Alex met her ear. "Your flying...talking...purple horse...can shoot lasers."

"Sure can." Applejack did not fight the smile anymore, and all things joyful completely seized dominion over the farmer's face. "An’ she's a princess. Neat, huh?"

There was no response on the other end, save for the deafening silence of a woman having a mental breakdown. Just imagining that poor girl's face right now made Applejack laugh, and it would be quite a while before she could bring herself to stop.

Following the bust of the military blockade, the remainder of the drive was uneventful, though that is not say that nothing was out there; far from it. The seemingly empty countryside had quite a bit to see, and those traversing it had little else to do but to look.

The road hugged the river, and it became quite clear to everyone that the normally calm and peaceful waterfront was anything but safe. Enormous insects of every shape and variety could be seen all the way along their length and even across the surface of the water itself; water striders the size of dogs rabidly pursued smaller fish where they dared to swim into the shallow parts of the river, only to flee for their lives in turn as something snapped up from beneath the waves with harpoon-like claw and stingers. Waterfowl seemed inclined to avoid the water's edge, suddenly finding themselves on the wrong end of the food chain, though those able to predate on certain insects were rewarded with a lion's bounty. A foot-long grasshopper was observed being gleefully devoured by an entire murder of crows on the side of the road, and several other scavenger birds could be seen circling overhead, drawn to any signs of skirmish going on.

If the river was a lightly dotted battlefield, then the swamps that the path went past was a war zone. Twilight had heard about some of the rumored giant toads out there, and she saw more than just that out in the marsh that they passed by. A frog the size of a cow launched suddenly through the thicket, violently colliding with and completely swallowing a housefly the size of a cat, along with the entire bush that it sat atop. Mosquitos of alarming size flitted this way and that in a pale mockery of a flock of birds, descending upon anything that moved with proboscises like rapiers, only to be torn asunder and scatter before a meter-long dragonfly that streaked through the air like a missile, hunting down and shredding through anything unfortunate enough to exist in the creature's general vicinity, aggression teetering perilously past the point of berserking. Many trees bore bloodstains and signs of damage on their trunks, and several maimed, disemboweled creatures of various local species - oversized or otherwise - could be seen rotting where it had been left to sink back into the marsh, or left splayed out across the asphalt for the vehicles to have to navigate around.

Fluttershy watched yet another corpse pass by on the road from the backseat, the remains shredded to the extent that its species could not be determined. "It's not right," she muttered lifelessly. She shook her head, watching another scene of violence pass by with an emptiness in her gaze. "It's not right..."

Looks were occasionally exchanged between the remaining residents of the SUV, and everyone's expression bore the same thing: that they wished they knew how to help, but didn't know what they could say to make this any easier for the girl. The only one in a position to do this without words was Apple Bloom, who seemed to realize this, and rather than speak up, she took action.

There was a gentle click of a seatbelt coming undone. The smaller Apple shoved it out of the way, using her newfound ability to move around to scoot over and press up closely into Fluttershy's side, hugging her around the waist. Fluttershy's vacant gaze shifted from the world outside to the young girl, oversized ribbon obscuring most of the top of her head and her expression. Fluttershy's left arm shifted, extending around Apple Bloom's shoulders and holding her gently in place, and she smiled, just a little bit. Rather than look at the awful sighs outside the thin aluminum walls encasing them, Fluttershy's focus instead remained on the little girl that she'd been beside all this time, and who wanted her to be okay. That was a much nicer thing to think about, so she did.

The tension made the drive past the marsh seem significantly longer than it was, but it too was left behind. It was at this point that the SUV ran out of electric charge needed to keep the motor going, and the vehicle rolled gradually to a stop. Fortunately, this was anticipated; the Mustang backed up to the stopped SUV and some time was taken to secure a tow cable in place, all under the watchful eye of Twilight as she circled around overhead, ready to rain pink death upon anything that looked unfriendly and drew too close, though fortunately nothing did. Once this was done, the Mustang carried on, and all Applejack had to do was just keep the steering wheel pointed in the direction that they needed to go.

It was a two hour drive in total, mostly due to the slow speeds maintained during anything that wasn't a long and open stretch of road, and also to ensure that their flying companion could keep pace. It was in the lattermost expanse of field that their destination became visible.

At first, there didn't seem to be much to see except an extremely long barbed wire fence that stretched on seemingly into nowhere, though peering past it, the grasses within the border were much shorter, allowing the grounds to be much more easily observed. A large pond sat across the property in the farthest corner, and the road lead straight to its doorstep, a small one-bedroom house sitting beside a garage with a large unpainted wooden barn sitting behind the barbed wire, along with a tall silo beside a smaller, squatter structure.

A loud GASP made everyone jolt, but Sweetie Belle could not be happier when she cried out: "LOOK, LOOK! Dogs! There's dogs here- AND SHEEP! SHEEP!"

"Holy cannoli, sheep?!" Apple Bloom joined in the excitement - Fluttershy was squished under the two girls who all but slammed against the right-hand door to get a better look, her squeaks of discomfort drowned out by the chatter. "Applejack, lookit! Lookit all them farm critters out there! How'd they get sheep?! I ain't seen no sheep since Sweet Apple Acres!"

"Are there any cows?!"

"Look fer cows! Anyone see any cows?!"

Applejack and Rarity both exchanged a knowing look, smiling at one another and sighing as they buried their annoyance for the sake of their younger siblings' unadulterated glee at the simple sight of a bunch of animals. Sometimes it's the little things that matter the most.

The Mustang pulled up into the driveway, bringing the SUV along with it. It was not quite able to pull the van off the road before it ran out of driveway, though with no one else to traverse these roads, this was a non-consideration. The engine cut out and the rumbling stopped.

Everyone spilled out of their respective vehicle. Alex stepped out of the driver seat of the old brick-red car, adjusting her baseball cap and quickly assumed command. "Alright, let's sweep the place and make sure it's safe. When we're done with that, I want the windows boarded up and the house locked down as much as possible. Matilda, you take stock of the kitchen and whatever else is in there that might be useful once we're done with that. Applejack, you and yours I need for the extra muscle, help Gabe wipe the place clean of whatever freaky crap lives here. Chop chop people, the day is still young and we have a lot to do out here. Let's not waste any time."

Twilight listened as she circled around overhead, pulling out of her leftward curve to push straight ahead towards the house itself. She beat her wings several times to slow down, hooves coming into contact with the farmhouse's shingled roof and finding purchase there. She peered out over the whole of the property that she could see, inspecting all there was to find - there were perhaps half a dozen sheep scattered throughout the field, all generally hugging the left most fence. There were a bunch of dogs scattered about, perhaps a dozen in various color and breed; it was unclear if they lived here previously or were strays that had all cobbled together a pack of their own without the attention of their old masters, or a combination of both. Something large and muscular vaguely resembling a pony stood out in the field, fur and mane both a chocolate brown, currently lounging in the shade of one of three trees that punctuated the otherwise perfectly level grazing field that extended out for an amount of distance that Twilight was not sure how to quantify, just that it was a lot. There was certainly no shortage of space to build in here; you might be able to fit an entire castle in this area, possibly two, and that was just inside the barbed fence, never mind the relatively level land around this property that extended out for miles.

There was, indeed, a lot to do, just like their expedition leader had said, but in more ways than she intended. Twilight still had a list of things that needed her attention. She had found some of her friends, but several others were still unaccounted for - the fates of Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, and Sunset Shimmer were chief among those she was worried about, but the third member of the Cutie Mark Crusaders was also high on the list of people she was afraid for. She had been lucky to find those she had, luckier still to meet up with more. She was going to have to keep a very close eye on the refugee center to see if any of her other friends showed up while she and the friends she had found were away, lest they wander off thinking there was nothing for them there.

There was also the matter of Canterlot. Without knowing where it was, she wasn't going to be able to find that portal, which meant that she wouldn't be able to return home...a consideration that was, admittedly, more distant now than it had been. Things were so much worse in the human world than she ever could have imagined, and with the safety of those she loved not certain, Twilight did not much favor the idea of leaving any time soon. How could she think about that when her friends here were still fighting for the lives and trying to survive?

No, there would be no returning home yet, not soon, but Canterlot was important for more than just the location of the portal. It was also the only place she knew of to look for the friends she could not yet find. She had no other leads besides sitting around and hoping that they showed up at the refugee center, and that was not something the Princess of Friendship found especially attractive. She couldn't sit on her hooves while there were lives on the line...or graves to dig.

Twilight shook her head at that thought. No, don't think like that. They're out there, somewhere. They have to be. I just have to find them.

There were many other considerations on her mind, of course, but as many as they were, they all could wait. Her friends had to get settled in first.

"Hey Twilight, ya mind comin' down fer a bit?! Wouldn't mind having yer flashy magic tricks while we're lookin' for nasties down here!"

Twilight called back, "Coming!" and leapt off the roof, circling around to join Applejack, Fluttershy, and Rarity on the ground, where they were collecting tools and weapons to protect themselves with for their next task.

Until all of her friends were in her embrace, safe and loved in a home that they belonged in and deserved, nothing else mattered.

Chapter 12

Fluttershy’s binoculars lowered from Crystal City in the distance, squinting lightly in the sunlight. Her teal eyes turned to find her alicorn companion where she was busy pacing on the overpass that they both stood on. “I can’t really see into its streets from here, but there’s probably tons of zombies…”

It was not immediately apparent that Twilight heard her, so fervent was her pacing and transfixed her gaze on the pavement as she walked this way and that, threatening to dig a rut in front of their silent 80’s Mustang. “Where is Canterlot relative to Crystal City again? It’s to the south, right?”

Fluttershy nodded. “Far south, on the other end of the county. I’m not sure how far that is exactly…” Fluttershy looked back at the cityscape where it hung suspended above the rows of other raised overpasses in the knots of interconnected roadways ahead of them. “I’ve never been to Crystal City before.”

Twilight’s thoughts were spinning somewhat, and she was doing her best to chase them around and orient them in a somewhat organized matter despite the tizzy she was attempting to think past. This was a sudden development, and one that felt very significant to her, and as such warranted decisiveness and effectiveness. At least, so it felt in the moment. “Okay…so how do we handle this?”

Fluttershy examined the city from afar a few moments longer, then lowered her binoculars back down again to look at her friend. “What do you mean?”

“This is a big deal. Crystal City is huge, and it’s got to be a massive concentration of zombies.” Turn. “I can’t even imagine how many of them there must be in those streets. Thousands.” Turn. “Tens of thousands.”

“Probably hundreds of thousands,” Fluttershy added, tone growing a little quieter. “It’s one of the biggest cities around us. And it’s always been a big tourist destination too, so that probably doesn’t help…”

Twilight nodded, pursing her lips together. The anxiety was all over her face, though not at any one thing in particular. Turn. “I want to go in there.”

“Why?”

Twilight opened her mouth for a moment, then closed it. Her pacing hitched for a second. “I just…I need to look.” The endless stream of quiet clopping resumed. “I need to see.” Turn. “There could be ponies we know down there, and I need to go through and make sure.”

There was a second of hesitation before Fluttershy spoke up, if with great timidity: “…um, I don’t, um…think there’s any, um, ponies, um…down there…”

Twilight’s pacing stopped to give Fluttershy a confused look. A half second later, she rolled her eyes and resumed. “People. Humans. Whatever.” She grumbled under her breath, “Stupid earth phrasing…”

“Um…in all fairness, I really doubt that anyone is still down there, pony or otherwise. The city is the first place we tried to escape, when everything went wrong. It was…um…bad. Really bad. And it’s not like it’s gotten better, with most everyone dead…”

Twilight’s brow furrowed, and she shook her head. It was not something she disagreed with, but… “I need to. I have to see.”

“Why?”

Twilight took a breath, “Cadance. Cadance lives here. I ne-“

”Human Cadance lives here.”

Twilight’s hooves halted with a harder clop, and she pinched her eyes closed. Even before Fluttershy kept talking, their previous conversation came rushing back to her.

But Fluttershy kept talking regardless, unintentionally emphasizing her own point. “I don’t know how all this, um…inter-world stuff works, Twilight, but it obviously isn’t perfectly what you understand it as back home. I only met you because you entered our world. As far as either of us know, whoever this Cadance is to you back in Equestria is nothing like what she is here on earth.” A beat, followed by a less confident, “…um, maybe, that is. I can’t say for sure, but just from what I know…she might know a you, but not this you. Not pony you.”

There wasn’t a response at first. Several seconds passed before Twilight sucked in a long, slow breath through her nose, and she opened her eyes as her hooves slowly picked up their movements again, at a fraction of the pace they were before. “Cadance is the Princess of Love back on Equus. She rules the Crystal Empire, which is…you know,” she waved a hoof in the direction of the city, “Crystal City earth-equivalent, obviously. She’s very close to my family. She foalsat me all the time growing up, and she married my brother two years ago. She’s always been like a big sister to me.” The smile was sneaky, how it crept up on Twilight. “She’s like everyone’s big sister.”

Fluttershy was quiet as she listened. Her gaze touched briefly on Crystal City in the distance, then found Twilight again, voice just above that of a whisper. “…billions were lost, Twilight.”

”You made it,” was the cool reply. “Applejack and Rarity made it. At least two of the Crusaders made it.”

Fluttershy said nothing at that.

For a time, the only sound was the sound of hooffalls. “I have to try. I don’t exp…” The understanding reached her at that moment, and she nearly stumbled in her pacing. It took a second to recover, and when she resumed speaking, her tone was low. “…I don’t expect to find her either, but I have to try. She’s a beautiful person, one of the most beautiful, wonderful people I know of. She’s worth checking for, even if she has never met any version of me in her life, even if it’s pointless. If there’s any chance she can be brought to safety, I need to take it. I need to.”

Fluttershy, again, said nothing.

Twilight took a breath, slowly steeling herself as she cast it back out, posture lifting. “I’ll do it alone if I have to.”

“You won’t have to.” Her gaze remained neutral, but Fluttershy’s voice had a soft warmth to it.

“You don’t need to help if you don’t want to.”

“I do want to. It’s for a friend.” A beat. “…we should probably think about this, though. There’s only two of us here, and I don’t have a lot with me right now.”

“Do you have a weapon?”

Fluttershy lifted her pale yellow shirt a little on her left side, better revealing a brown sheath on her waist, from which the handle of a knife could be seen. “It’s not much. I’m not the best with it…I have the revolver in the car, but there’s only um…ten bullets, I think.”

Twilight nodded, frowning as she thought on this.

“I’m equipped to look around. Not much more than that.” She paused. “I think we should stick to that for now. We can always come back.”

“I can’t wait.”

“You’re going to have to, Twilight, or we’re going to take some risks that aren’t worth taking right now. There’s a little girl back at the ranch that needs me. My friends need me. Besides…” Fluttershy’s tone lowered. “I don’t think I would be able to live with myself if I turned around here and let you go out alone, and you never came back, all because you couldn’t wait just a little more.”

Twilight didn’t say anything, but the fact that her pacing resumed spoke enough of her distress.

“Look at it this way: anyone who’s in that city and has survived has done so for months in the most dangerous place in the world to be right now. If they lasted this long without help, they’ll probably be okay a little while longer. Right?”

“Right,” Twilight breathed, willing herself to believe it. It was a logical conclusion, but it was not a logical part of her brain that was crying out for action. The logical part of her brain wasn’t scared for Cadance and wasn’t thinking about how much she wanted her to be okay and to throw her front legs around her and squeeze and never let go. But this was a situation of tactics, and tactics demand logic and reasoning in order to function. As loud as it was being, and as important as it was to who Twilight Sparkle was, that emotional part of her mind needed to be ignored right now. “Then we do what we came here for: we scout it out.”

“No risks…”

“Nothing dangerous.” Twilight nodded. “Then we go home, and…I guess we take it from there.”

Fluttershy smiled, and for a moment Twilight saw relief in her expression, though only for a moment. “I’m not sure how busy the roads are going to be, but…”

“Busy enough, I’m guessing.” Twilight extended flapped her wings at their full length in anticipation of flight. “Hopefully good enough to drive around. Come on, let’s get down there and take a look.”

Fluttershy nodded, stepping away from the concrete barrier of the overpass to get in the car.

Twilight listened to her wings as they drummed against the air, flapping hard enough to lift her hooves from the pavement. As her forward movement provoked the song of the wind in her ears, she listened to that as well, doing whatever she could to occupy her thoughts and drown out the disturbing image that flashed through her mind: the beautiful pink eyes of one of the most important people in Twilight’s life falling upon her, reflecting back not a friend or an adoptive daughter, but an alien and a stranger.

"Mmmm...sorry, darling~! Go fish."

"OH COME ON!"

Three sets of laughter erupted. Sweetie Belle was not among them. The cards spilling out of her hand likely had something to do with it, as it was getting difficult to physically hold them all with her small hands.

The living room of the farmhouse was dark and lightless under its own power, of which there was none, and it was not helped by the fact that every window in the building was nailed shut and boarded over with multiple two-by-fours that blocked all light. The solution was a bit crude, but effective: the front and the back door both were wide open, allowing the light to flow into the room and illuminate the thrilling game of Go-Fish that the two pairs of sisters were currently engaged in.

The Apples were comfortably snug together on one of the two red couches, Apple Bloom resting up against her big sister in her lap. Rarity and Sweetie Belle sat in the adjacent couch that formed an L-shape with a rounded table between them, where the war of cards was currently being hosted. Rarity had her splint off at this point - the bones had securely set, as far as could be told (everyone was trying to ignore how fast it had been, with moderate success), though it remained heavily bruised and weak, so it remained wrapped in extra padding and was generally unused. It took up residence across her belly where she lounged luxuriously across the couch; Sweetie, meanwhile, bounced back and forth between the floor, standing, and pressed up against Rarity as the game progressed.

"Sugarcube, I think yer supposed to drop yer pairs if ya got 'em," Applejack told her. "Ya gotta have at least one pair in all that."

Sweetie was practically juggling her cards at this point, and several of them spilled all over the floor in front of and onto the table. "Well I can't tell because there's TOO MANY CARDS! AAAGH!"

The game was going well. Not for Sweetie Belle, perhaps, but overall the atmosphere was pleasantly jovial. Apple Bloom was quite at ease; she was more animated when they first started, but as time passed and games racked up, she fell back into a comfortable quiet, sitting up against Applejack, who held onto her with one arm and rested her chin atop her head. She'd dozed off at one point, and Applejack let her nap for the few minutes that she did, coming to in a haze she never totally recovered from, but Applejack was pretty sure she was deeply relaxed rather than sleepy.

Rarity, meanwhile, was insufferably smug, looking past the edge of her two remaining cards at her furious younger sibling with a taunting gaze. As soon as she had picked up on the fact that Sweetie Belle was only targeting her for cards, she had made it her life's mission during this game to make it as agonizingly difficult for Sweetie to figure out what her cards were and continue to play mind games in order to mess her up. She'd been juggling between one and three cards for the last eight turns, and she likely could have won the game several times by now, but she remained in it expressly for the purpose of toying with Sweetie Belle, who was by far the destined loser of this game. Judging by the way she had all but thrown her cards across the room, her checking for pairings did not seem likely, and Rarity was mentally chalking this up as a win, regardless of the outcome of the game itself.

The actual victory was a surprise: Apple Bloom plucked a two out of Applejack's hand, and then tossed down all six of her cards, which revealed themselves to be three pairs that she never put down until now. "I win!"

Applejack, who knew for a fact that she had looked into her hand to pick that card, chose not to say anything, not because she felt her sister had any right to the win, but because she took pity on Sweetie Belle, who seemed intent on digging the hole she'd been allowed to dig deeper and deeper out of pure stubbornness. The girl needed to be rescued from herself, and Applejack was happy to let that happen with the game ending. "Alright, good game, y'all. We want another round, er we feelin' somethin else?"

At that moment, there was a knock against the open back door, and a head of brown hair leaned in the door frame, tied back in a ponytail beneath a baseball cap. Alex found Applejack, asking the question with her words, but with an expression that suggested it wasn’t actually a question: “You have a minute?”

Well, there was worse timing. Applejack gently gave Apple Bloom a nudge, rising up off the couch to stretch her legs that had since begun to fall asleep where she’d been getting sat on; pins and needles rippled across her thighs and down her calves, and she tried not to hobble. “I’ll be back, y’all pick somethin’ good. An’ don’t you girls let Rare draw nothin’ for me while I’m out!”

“Oh darling, I’m hurt~ Wherever is your trust in me?”

“In a locked box under my bed, where I keep all my other bad ideas.” Applejack smirked at the laughter behind her despite herself and limped outside, doing her best to shake off her discomfort as she joined Alex outside.

Alex began walking towards the garage, and Applejack followed. “You guys are having fun, I see.”

“Eh, tryin’.” Applejack’s senses tingled, which she suspected meant that whatever they actually were going to talk about would be withheld until they reached the garage. Made sense, seeing as it was the closest thing that the settlement head had to an office, though it wasn’t the best tone-setter for whatever it is she wanted to talk about. “Flutters pinned me down an' wanted me to spend a lil more time with the girls, so just tryin’ to follow ‘er advice.”

Alex didn’t follow up on the small talk. She lead Applejack to the garage, opening the wooden door and allowing the farmer to step inside. As with the farmhouse, there was no lighting in the fixture that lay embedded in the ceiling, so the door was left open so that the conversation was not held in total darkness. “Alright, we need to talk.”

“So I gathered.” Applejack leaned up against the barren green tractor that sat in the middle of the garage, arms crossed lightly over her chest. “What's up?”

Alex took a few steps over to the wall farthest from the metal shutter doors, coming to a stop there - it was a bit out of the cone of light that the door provided, but it was not so dark to render what was there invisible. “Notice anything here?”

Applejack followed her gaze, squinting in the dark. She hadn’t been in here often enough to recognize what was meant to be there, but she could faintly make out the outline of a coat hook among a few others of its ilk nailed to the wall in that spot. “Nothin’ in particular, but I imagine you’re gonna tell me.”

“Remember that new guy we got yesterday?”

Applejack processed this for a moment. She then noted that the spot Alex was gesturing to was empty, and she frowned. “Sorta. Didn’t see much of ‘im at all, mighta saw ‘im once. Where’s he at?”

“Gone.” Alex now turned to face Applejack, hands on her hips.

Didn’t like that. “Somethin’ get ‘im?”

“Yeah, his nerves. His stuff was gone this morning, I think he slipped off in the night. Probably on his way back to the refugee center, or fucking off into the wilderness, I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.”

Definitely didn’t like that. Applejack didn’t say anything this time.

Alex let the silence hang for a few seconds. One of her hands left her hip to rise to her face, where she kneaded the bridge of her nose between two fingers, head hanging forward. She took in a quiet breath before she began: “You know, I’ve been trying to avoid this topic for the last week, hoping to myself that whatever part of me that needs to break down enough to make it seem normal will do so and I won’t have to actually deal with it, but it just started to affect my job, so…” She tossed her hand up, letting it slap back to her side as she smiled a humorless smile at Applejack. “Now we both get to deal with it together. Isn’t that lovely?”

Applejack didn’t say anything. She met Alex’s gaze with an expressionless stare.

“I think it’s time we address the tiny technicolor horse in the room here.” The faux-cheer bled out rapidly and died, and for the first time in this conversation, Applejack quit getting the tingle that something was being withheld. “What is she?”

“A friend.”

“No, I mean, what is she? What actually is that thing?” There wasn’t any trace of the incredulity or grasping that had been present the last time this topic had been broached; Alex was leaning forward, tone and expression deathly serious and focused. “I may not have worked on a ranch before this, and call me crazy here, but I’m going to hazard a guess and say that whatever the hell they do on farms in Canterlot, the animals you guys have do not typically include purple flying horses that shoot fucking laser beams from their horns like a goddamn unicorn.”

“Alicorn.”

”I don’t give a fuck what it’s called.” Alex took several steps closer to Applejack, jaw set and eyes hard. “This isn’t a game and I don’t have the luxury of playing it, Applejack. Does this face,” she traced a circle around her head, “look like the face of someone who’s playing?”

Applejack looked at that face, but she did not commentate on it. Her expression was not quite grim, but it lacked any semblance of positivity, and her voice matched as she asked, “Whattya want from me?”

“Answers. What is she?”

Applejack let her head hang forward. This time, she did not withhold the sigh. “She’s a princess from another world. Place called Equestria.”

“Horse princess from horse world. Okay, great.” It was difficult to tell if Alex was saying that in incredulous mockery or genuinely doing her best to parse what would otherwise come off as insanity. Perhaps both. “Why is she here? What does she want?”

“She’s here cuz…” Applejack had to consider that for a moment, and she paused. “…way she explained it, she was just checkin’ up on us an’ got pulled into this whole mess like the rest of us, an’ now she’s stuck here.”

“Here, like, on earth?”

Applejack nodded.

“How do you know this thing?”

“First of all, I’d really rather ya not call ‘er a thing, cuz Twilight ain’t no thing.” She looked squarely at Alex as she said this, and when she found no sympathy in her expression, she went on regardless, tone guarded. “She came to us back when we was at school, about four months ago, ish? Somethin’ got stolen from ‘er and we helped her get it back. Cleaned up a mess for us while she was at it.”

“Define ‘mess.’”

There was a brief hesitation. “One of uh…one of the folk from her world came in ahead of her by a couple years an’-“

“So there’s more of them. More alicorns.”

“It wasn’t an alicorn, and sh-“

“What is it, then?”

“Unicorn.”

Alex’s eyes closed for a moment. “So there are alicorns, and also unicorns involved now.”

“Eyup.”

“Great.” There was not a gram of enthusiasm behind that word, but several kilograms of exasperation. Alex’s eyes opened again. “Keep talking. ‘Mess.’ Mess how?”

Applejack hesitated. Alex’s gaze was squarely upon her, and for a few moments the farmer was not sure how to get around this subject, because she had a feeling how this was going to go. “Right,” she started, carefully. “So…this gal, uh, Sunset Shimmer showed up at our school one day, disguised as a human.” Alex blanched, and Applejack waited for the interruption, but it didn’t come, so she went on. “She went back to her world to steal somethin’ from Twilight, and made her way back to start messin’ with us.” Alex continued to stare, and Applejack tried not to fidget. “She uh…she caused a whole lot of problems, but the whole thing was about tryin’ to raise an army an’ invade Equestria with it.”

“She tried to raise an army,” Alex repeated, slowly. “Of us.”

Applejack nodded.

“Using something she stole from Twilight.”

“Her crown. Had some uh, powers and such associated with it, I don’t really know how it all works...”

“And?”

“…an’…uh…we stopped her.”

“How?”

“Went through a whole song an’ dance over it, but we uh…we stole the thing back an’ Twilight left with it.”

“And I don’t suppose she has that thing on her now?”

Applejack shrugged. “You see her wearin’ a crown? I don’t see no pockets it can go in.”

“I’ve seen her wearing bags before.”

Applejack shrugged again. “Feel like we woulda heard or seen somethin’ ‘bout it by now. She cares a lot about us.”

Alex pinched the bridge of her nose, breathing out a very unconvinced, “Sure she does.”

This made Applejack’s frown deepen. “Yes, she does. I realize ya ain’t got much reason to trust ‘er yerself, but I been around Twilight long enough to know she’s an earnest sort, an’ I consider her a close friend ‘a mine, so if ya don’t mind maybe easin’ up a little on the tone with ‘er, I’d be thankful.”

“She’s a fucking alien,” Alex snapped. “She’s a fucking alien who hid among us in a disguise, has powers that could blow any of us away at any time if she felt like it, who has infiltrated our ranks before-“

“It ain’t like that!”

Alex talked over her, “-and you want me to watch my tone? You w- do you realize the position this puts me in right now?! I’ve got people who are coming in, talented people with the skills I desperately need to get this settlement off the ground, who are taking one look at this thing here at this ranch and going, ‘What the fuck?’ And I don’t know! I don’t know what the fuck, Applejack! They’ve got questions, I can’t answer them, and I don’t blame them for not wanting to get involved! I mean fuck, I didn’t want to get involved! I got this close,” she held up her index finger and thumb, spaced barely a sliver apart, “from just turning back around and walking away after she came out of the trees with you, I got this close to going ‘fuck this’ and walking off. The only reason I haven’t is because I have hundreds of people counting on me! Hundreds of scared, hurting people who don’t know what the future holds, and my ability to help them is in jeopardy because of a fucking talking horse!”

Applejack didn't say anything - she wouldn't be heard in this moment anyway.

“I can’t get people to stay! I can’t get people to show up!“ Alex threw an arm at the empty coat rack. “I know exactly why he left, and I don’t blame him at all for not wanting to stick around, he didn’t ask for this shit! He was talking to me about it, and I didn’t know what to tell him, and honest to god, I feel like what I’ve been told is even worse!” Alex’s head swiveled back to Applejack. “What do I tell them, Applejack? What am I supposed to say? What do I like- a-and I’m not like being facetious here, what do I tell them?” Her voice was picking up a frantic quality to it. “What do I- what am I supposed to say? I don’t know what to tell people to make them comfortable with this, do you?”

Applejack swallowed, but didn’t say anything, because she didn’t know either. Her expression said as much.

Alex brought her hands up to head, dragging them down her face. The intensity was gone, replaced by the stress and anxiety of a woman in an unwinnable position. “I came out here to be able to provide for families who’ve lost everything and are going to start dropping like flies come winter. Lives are depending on this, on me getting this shitty little ranch turned into something that can start filling stomachs and providing shelter. I was supposed to get half a dozen people by now, and after taking one look at the thing living here with us, only one of them fucking showed up to work. Then he left in the night anyway because this was too much for him. People are talking about this, Applejack, I know they are, it’s only going to get worse. This will freak people out. This is freaking me out. How am I going to get any help if she’s here, scaring everyone away? What do I tell them to get them to stay?”

A sinking feeling had slowly been making its way over Applejack the longer this conversation went on, and at this point it was becoming oppressive. Breathing was getting difficult. “Whattya want from me?” she asked grimly.

“I want you to give me something.” Alex’s hands fell away to her sides. ”Anything. Just give me anything here…look I- I can see, alright? I’ve got eyes, I know you’re close to this thing, and like I- I don’t get it, and it freaks me out a little bit to think about it too much, but like- like it’s- I don’t think it’s going to hurt me, I guess, I don’t know, but I can tell you’re all close, and I know exactly what you’re going to say if I tried to chase it off, or make it leave, or like…” She fumbled, stumbling over her own words, then brought her hands back to her head again, talking past her hands: “Just please give me something here, anything I can use. I don’t want to kick you guys out, I really really don’t, I don’t want to do that, I hate that’s what I’m left with, but I’m stuck. I’m stuck, and I need help. Give me something, anything. Anything at all.”

Applejack let her head hang. She wasn’t surprised. It would have been nice to say that this was out of the blue, and that it was a complete shock, but it wasn’t. Some part of her had been expecting it - there had been hopes that it would just be accepted, and that the conversation they were having right now wouldn’t happen, that Twilight would work her way into their hearts if she was just given sufficient time, but they were vain hopes at best, denial at worst. It would be nice if she had a defense ready, something airtight and concrete that didn’t boil down to ‘just trust me.’ Or, god forbid, ‘just trust her.’ Applejack trusted Twilight, but she didn’t expect anyone else to, especially as she was, and especially now, after everything that had happened. Truthfully, it was only just now that Applejack was considering for herself exactly how this situation appeared.

What was the difference between Twilight Sparkle or Sunset Shimmer and that monster that had nearly killed Rarity, when you got down to it? Both were inhuman things from beyond the stars, who arrived one day unbidden through portals and rifts into a world that was not their own, pursuing their agendas that endangered the lives of people that Applejack loved. Sure, the bedside manner of ponies was generally more agreeable, but there was a time when that wasn’t wholly true. Sunset Shimmer had once been entirely antagonistic, her intentions selfish and downright malevolent, in spite of her claims of not being a ‘monster.’ So she wouldn’t hurt a dog; but she would enslave a bunch of kids and intend to use them as a thrall army for an assault against a foreign state, because that was just so much better. Hundreds could have died. Maybe more.

Even Twilight hadn’t necessarily done what she did out of the goodness of her heart; that artifact of hers was vital to her world, and getting it back had begun as a pragmatic affair. Who was to say it didn’t remain that way, as nice as she was? Sure, she nearly stranded herself by calling what had turned out to be a bluff by Sunset to smash the portal, but that could have just been her seeing the bluff for what it was. Perhaps it wasn’t selfless at all; maybe she just knew that would work.

Was it really so strange to be viewing the monster that had nearly murdered Rarity and ponies from Equestria in the same light, with this in mind? Applejack trusted Twilight…whether or not she should was another question, one being asked only just now, and with an answer a bit too ambiguous for Applejack’s liking. Which, of course, raised a question of its own: if she didn’t know whether or not Twilight could be considered wholly trustworthy, how could she hope to convince anyone else that she was?

Maybe Alex was right. Maybe Twilight was a problem. And if it came down to it, and Applejack had to choose between one pony and the friends and family she would give anything to-

The knock to the open door caused both women to look with a start. Rarity stood there, knuckle against the door frame, a deep frown on her lips. "Oh, you want something? I'll give you something alright."

Applejack let her head fall once again, breathing a haggard sigh. How the hell did she even hear? "Rare..."

"Don't you Rare me," Rarity huffed, shifting her icy blue gaze to Alex. "And you! Wait for everyone's backs to be turned, then slink off into the shadows to discuss the fate of someone who isn't even in attendance? Hardly ladylike nor sporting of you, miss Alessandra."

She was on the backfoot at first, but Alex's expression quickly hardened. "This isn't exactly a normal circumstance."

"No, it's not." Rarity's hand on the arm not in a sling went to her hip. "But that doesn't change the fact that this is a thinking, feeling person being discussed, one who has been nothing but supportive of all of us this entire time. For something as important as whether or not it's good for her to live here, I find myself wholly disappointed that the first person you decided to pull aside to deal with it was Applejack and not Twilight herself. I don't suppose you intended for dialogue to ever reach her? Or was this going to one of those coveted surprise eviction parties I've heard so much about?"

Alex's expression grew increasingly steely. Her arms crossed over her chest as she turned fully to face Rarity. "And what would you have me do instead, miss Rarity? You want me to just walk up to a creature I don't understand, which I know can kill me immediately if it felt like it, and go, 'You gotta go.' Is that what you want me to do? Put my neck on the chopping block for something allegedly safe when I'm already worried about people's safety?"

When she spoke, Rarity's voice was so chilly enough to freeze helium: "It would certainly be a lot braver than going behind her back and putting a gun to the head of one of the most vulnerable members of our group where you know it'll affect her most." She cocked her head, like a bird contemplating how to best pluck out the eyes of the target of its fascination. "Are you trying to be different, or are you trying to perfect the art of extortion? They'll welcome you back to the center as a saint at this rate."

Alex uncrossed her arms very suddenly. Applejack was on her feet in a heartbeat, immediately interposing herself between the two women with one hand towards each of them. Alex pressed hard into one, and Rarity the opposite in turn. "Alright no more, none of this. We ain't doin' this, we ain't fightin', we ain't gettin' physical, nothin', y'all hear me?"

"She's trying to get rid of Twilight," Rarity seethed, all pretense of civility dropped - she practically had her fangs bared, venom rolling from her voice like coils of steam, all the while Alex cast a bloodthirsty leer back, dangerously silent. "She's trying to hold us hostage and get rid of Twilight because she's scared!"

"I'm scared, Rarity!" Applejack's voice was like a bass drum with the way it boomed in the garage. "I'm scared! She's scared! We're all fuckin' scared! An' right now, what I'm most scared of is you startin' a fight and makin' this a thousand times worse than it needs to be! If you can't cool it, get the hell in the van, an' don't you come out till yer ready to handle this like an adult! We do not need this right now!"

Rarity's face blazed with fury, and Applejack burned right back at her, the air practically rippling with heat as their stares locked together like crossed swords. Unstoppable force met immovable object - two incredibly stubborn, willful women dug in their heels and dared the other to make the first move over a line that neither of them wanted to be the one to cross. They would not start this battle, but they yearned to wage it, and they would both happily finish whatever came about as a result, unwilling to proceed but similarly not willing to be the one to back down in the heat of the moment.

The standoff lasted for nearly a minute. Eventually, though, it was Rarity who gave ground. Her eyes closed, posture shifting such that she was no longer leaning forward, taking a long, slow breath in through her nose, and then releasing it silently. Her back straightened, the muscles in her face relaxed, and she opened her eyes back up - though they remained practically luminous with blue-hot anger, the defiance was missing from them. "Fine," she said, voice level and every word carefully measured. "I am willing to talk about this."

Applejack gave a very terse nod. She turned her head, looking Alex square in her brown eyes. Alex met her gaze unflinchingly, and the two stared one another down for a couple more seconds before Applejack was content. The anger was still just as present in her face too, honed and ready to be brought down like the head of an axe, but not for no good reason. Never for no good reason.

To call the air "calm" would be disingenuous. The atmosphere in this garage was charged enough that it was a wonder there weren't sparks dancing between their eyelashes every time one of the three women blinked, but at least for the moment, there was peace. Peace so thin it was see-through, perhaps, but peace nonetheless.

"Alright," Applejack said smoothly. Her tone was soft, though the iron was faintly audible just beneath the surface. She glanced between both girls one last time, then gradually began to lower her hands holding them apart. When they did not move to immediately flay each other, Applejack dared to relax, and dropped her arms completely. "So let's talk."

The Crystal City of earth was a unique location in the world of humans. Its architecture overwhelmingly favored reds, blues, purples, and oranges, which - when combined with its style that most closely resembled a variety of gothic - made the city almost impossible to misidentify based on appearance alone. Most roads had a dull purple or gray tone to them as opposed to the typical black of standard asphalt with seamless sidewalks looking like it was all strewn out at once, and wherever possible the windows were tall and narrow with a rounded triangular top, like every opening of every structure had at one point been considered as a candidate for stained glass in a cathedral.

Like its neighbor Canterlot, Crystal City had a very distinct sense of cultural identity that was visible on every corner and in every brick it was paved with. Large archways and decorated pillars of carved stone loomed around all roads and paths to the city like arcane gateways. Past this point, the aesthetic of basic, unremarkable interstate infrastructure suddenly shifted to the deliberate layout and bold colors of Crystal City, giving the sense of having passed through some kind of barrier into another world entirely.

Even as it sat lightless and still, it was still a beautiful place. Pillars and earthen temple-like constructions stood tall over the barren streets, surviving their makers with a solemn kind of nobility - monuments to those that came before, telling the tale of the late humanity that gave them form in near-holy silence. Were there enough people left to host such an award, it would likely be in the running for title of the most gorgeous graveyard on earth.

The streets were not exactly crammed full of bodies, but every block across every street in the city had at least a dozen or more humanoid shapes idly shuffling around, awaiting something killable to come into range so they could make it one of them. Every shape and size of human imaginable, every condition that a body could be left in…zombies you wouldn’t know were dead if it wasn’t an apocalypse, zombies that looked like the classic decayed stereotype, zombies with a thin layer of skin sitting atop nothing more than a skeleton, corpulent zombies, muscular zombies that looked like they still did bodywork, zombies without legs, zombies without heads whatsoever (so much for the old ‘go for the head’ trope), zombie dogs, zombie children…all of these and more were visible somewhere down there. There were thousands, easily. More than could be counted. Twilight had never seen so many of them in one place before, and the full breadth of the cataclysm that ravaged this world laid bare was enough to make it hard to breathe.

So many dead. So much loss...

Twilight tried not to let her head spin too much as she circled past another area that looked to her like a neighborhood of some description, though truthfully she had a hard time making out what some of these buildings were. She assumed it was a neighborhood based on what she knew of the architecture of the Crystal Empire back home, but a lot of it did not translate well to the world of humans. Humans had needs that differed from those of ponies, and so their infrastructure differed to match. The Crystal Empire back home didn’t do rain, for example, so slanted roofs were not useful to ponies there except as an aesthetic choice. It was always clear back home; the crystal heart saw to that. Slanted roofs and gutters to prevent the pooling of rain were a staple here, however, as humans lacked magic and, evidently, a crystal heart of their own...or at least, one with magic powers.

There was a certain surreality to flying by and looking down. Everything that made the place recognizable as the humans' Crystal Empire analogue was similarly off in some manner; every reminder of home was a reminder that it was not home. The pattern recognition portion of Twilight’s brain was having quite a trip working all of this out, and it left Twilight with this vague sense of wrongness everywhere she looked. Everything was recognizable, but it was all wrong.

Twilight had been doing a decent job with avoiding it for the most part, but analyzing the layout of Crystal City’s streets and seeing how much it looked familiar yet foreign opened something up in her mind, and she could no longer ignore the homesickness where it gently ached at the lowermost chamber of her heart. She missed seeing things that she didn’t just recognize, but understood. She missed seeing other ponies. She missed Cadance. She missed Celestia. She missed looking out at the world and not wanting to cry at what she saw. She missed home. She missed Spike...

...keep it together, Twilight, she thought to herself, swallowing against her tightening throat. Crystal City means Canterlot is around. Just hold it together for a few more weeks, and everything will work out. Everything will be fine.

Twilight passed Crystal City limits and turned to the south, following the perimeter where human world became Crystal City till the roads leading out became thick and double-wide. Huge mounds of crashed vehicles lay fused together in various states, and beside one pile in particular was a functional-looking 80s Mustang. A girl with pink hair and a pale yellow shirt stood atop the wrecks for extra altitude, binoculars raised to her eyes.

Twilight came in low. Her wings flared back slowly, feathers ramming through the air more where they had previously slipped through it, pulling her momentum back such that she had to start beating her wings to avoid falling to the asphalt. She flapped and reversed her forward motion more and more, then neatly let her hooves reach the pavement with four near-simultaneous clops, giving herself a good shaking off. It wasn’t necessary, but giving all her fur and feathers a good jostling after the constant, rhythmic flow of the wind pushing against it from the same direction for extended periods of time felt satisfying to her. “Anything happen?” she called up, trotting over to the car.

Fluttershy shook her head, dropping her binoculars to jot down something on a piece of paper. “It’s been all quiet.”

Twilight nodded at this. She waited until Fluttershy had made her notes before her horn flashed to life, retrieving both the paper and the pencil utensil that presented themselves to her in a magenta glow. She plucked the pencil out of the air with her mouth and rested it against the hood of the car at Fluttershy’s feet, beginning to contribute her own share of sketching to the steadily growing (very) rough map of Crystal City, based on nothing but observations and guesses about what everything was. Calling it a ‘map’ was a bit on the generous side, borderline self-flatteringly so, but it showed where things were, if only in the loosest sense. If the horseshoe fits…

“Twilight, do you have the time? My watch died.”

Twilight paused her rough sketch, then raised her front leg up, examining the device around her wrist above her hoof. “Shix shirty choo,” she said past the pencil in her teeth. When Twilight finished her sketch and glanced up at Fluttershy, she had taken a seat on the wreckage, slumped forward and rubbing her eyes with the base of her palms. “You alright?”

Fluttershy nodded, though she did not stop rubbing her eyes immediately. “Tired.”

Twilight pursed her lips somewhat, glancing at their ‘map’ and the wobbly, uneven shapes sprawled across it, then looked up at the sun, which had begun to take on a faint but not insignificant citrine hue. It was fairly lower in the sky than when they had started - understandable, considering it had been a few hours since then. She was feeling a faint fatigue as well, but not so much that she wanted to quit. Far from it: Twilight had started something that mattered to her, and she wanted to keep at this for however long it took to get it done, exhaustion be damned. In fact, she wanted to go in, not just sit back and take poor notes. She wanted to inspect the area that she was reasonably certain was the school here, given its proximity to the center of town and the way the schools seemed to equate to castles in whatever weird logic decided these things. She wanted to do this now, and she didn't want to rest until either she had what she wanted or knew it to be impossible.

Twilight reconsidered, however, when she looked back at Fluttershy and realized she could see the dark spots under her eyes from here. She looked at the paper in her hooves, bit the inside of her cheek, then looked back at Fluttershy. “Do you want to call it here?”

Fluttershy blinked slowly, continuing to gaze ahead at the city - her eyelids looked so heavy when she did. “I can last a little longer, I think.”

“You look exhausted.”

Fluttershy’s gaze fell to her lap. She didn’t acknowledge it, but she also didn’t refute it.

Twilight gave her wings several good flap, lifting her up into the air some and atop the center of the wreckage heap that Fluttershy sat at the end of. She then took a few careful steps over, wings outright for balance, then lightly nudged Fluttershy’s cheek with her nose. “Hey…I can tell you’re too tired for this. Let’s head back.”

Fluttershy’s shoulders lifted sluggishly, then dropped all at once as she breathed out a silent sigh through her nose. Her palms found her stinging eyes again, and she mumbled, “I thought I’d last longer…I’m sorry.”

Another nudge with her nose followed, this one more gentle. “We can come back. Don’t worry about it.”

“You’re sure it’s okay..?”

Twilight nodded and smiled. “More than okay. C’mon.”

It took a few seconds for Fluttershy to gather the will to get back on her feet. Twilight kept a hoof out, which Fluttershy held onto for balance as she stepped carefully off the wreckage heap, then made her way back to the brick-red Mustang.

Twilight was, admittedly, a pinch concerned about the bleary look on her friend’s face and the slight unsteadiness in her gait. “Are you good to drive like this?”

“It’ll be fine.” Fluttershy pulled open the driver door and fell into the seat at about the same time that Twilight hopped into the back, then clamored her way to the front passenger seat. “It’s not like there’s much I need to worry about hitting.”

Despite the assurance, Twilight wasn’t super certain of Fluttershy’s coordination in her current state. She remained alert and attentive of the road ahead as they drove, though it turned out that indeed, Fluttershy had it under control…at least, enough so that the occasional wreck did not present a challenge or an issue to navigate. It was a good thing, too, because Twilight found herself struggling to concentrate on anything for long before her violet eyes fell out of focus, staring off into space as the world rushed by through the windshield. Had Fluttershy needed her responsiveness, it’s unlikely she would be able to provide with how distracted she was.

It seemed like a pretty short drive, though it took over an hour and a half to get back to the ranch. By the time the driveway was in sight again, the sun had begun to set, casting the world in an orangish tint and marking the time where shadows began to reach outwards from their positions more boldly as the dominion of daytime crept towards is conclusion.

Applejack, Rarity, and Alex were all there waiting for them. It didn't look like it at first, but as the car pulled into the driveway and the engine cut, the three of them converged together. Applejack stood up off the doorstep, standing like Rarity beside her, while Alex came over from the garage, adjusting her hat like she'd just put it back on, purpose in her stride. Fluttershy didn't seem to notice, or if she did, she didn't seem to care, and no one stopped her - it wasn't exactly hard to see that the girl was completely exhausted.

Twilight, however, hung back. She was a little out of it herself, but not so out of it that she couldn't see something important needing to be shared on the faces of her friends. The fact that they were greeting her immediately out of the car with it was a little concerning to the alicorn, and sufficient to make her more alert. "Is something the matter?"

Applejack glanced at Alex, then Rarity - Twilight's suspicions were confirmed with that. "We uh...we been talkin' 'bout somethin', sugercube. We got a problem, an' I think we could really use yer help with it."

"Absolutely, I'd love to help," Twilight said with zero hesitation. "What's wrong?"

Applejack glanced at Alex. Alex looked at her, but didn't react otherwise. Evidently that was a cue of some kind; Applejack's expression said 'Alright then' before she looked back to Twilight and resumed speaking. "Apparently we been havin' trouble gettin' help comin' from the refugee center."

Twilight frowned at this. That...did add up, yes. Progress seemed to be really stalling out, seeing as there was only one or two of them here with real carpentry experience, and there were an awful lot of empty beds in the barn... "I've noticed that too. Do we know why?"

Applejack opened her mouth...then closed it again, lips pressed together like she had bit into a lemon, and looked at Twilight with a slightly pained expression.

It took Twilight a second or two to understand what was being communicated. Her ears fell a bit. "...ah."

"Yeah..."

Twilight's shoulders sagged as she let loose a sigh, fatigue she had been suppressing catching back up with her. "I was worried about that. I had been hopeful, but..."

"It's hardly your fault, darling," Rarity said, smiling sympathetically. "If people got to know you a bit better, they would see that you're absolutely nothing to be afraid of. In fact, they'd see you for the blessing that you are." Ice-blue eyes darted over to Alex; her voice did not change, but something about her tone was bladed where it wasn't previously. "Sadly, some people aren't yet willing to open themselves up to that possibility."

"Point is," Applejack cut in sharply, "we wanna do somethin' about that. The sooner we can get people ta be a lil' more trustin', the sooner we can get as many hands as we need down here, an' the better off it'll be fer everyone. We had a good talk about it, an' we came up with an idea of how we might pull that off, if you was willin'."

"I'm absolutely willing!" Fatigue swiftly made way for the determination that lifted Twilight's posture and filled those violet eyes. "Tell me what you need."

Rarity and Applejack both turned their head, looking directly at Alex. "Well?" Applejack nudged her chin at Twilight with a smile. "Yer the boss. Lay it on 'er."

Alex did not meet their gaze, nor anyone's for that matter, looking straight ahead at the trees across the road for a second or two. She then swallowed, unfolding her arms in front of her chest and reaching into her jean jacket pocket with deliberate motions. She dug around for something momentarily, then retrieved her hand and held out a black device dangling from the end of a piece of string, roughly as wide as a human thumb nail with a small square peg jutting out of the rounded rectangular main mass. She took a stiff step forward, then another, gradually and slowly approaching Twilight with pronounced deliberateness and care, device held out far from herself.

It was at that point that Twilight realized the context of Rarity's comment, and the week or so of avoidance finally clicked. She had just thought that Alex was really busy and hadn't been wanting to speak to her because she didn't know what to say, but now she realized the nature of the hesitation. It wasn't just people from the refugee center that was afraid of her: Alex was also afraid of her. That meant the others probably were, too...

The sting must have been visible on her face, because Alex stopped approaching, and Twilight chose that moment to flare her horn and retrieve the device being held out. She tried to not notice how the hand recoiled from the magenta glow like it had been scalded, bringing forth the small plastic thing and holding it between her hooves with care, focus pouring into it rather than the ache she was busy burying.

Alex cleared her throat, and to her credit, the discomfort was not audible when she spoke with her business voice. "About a month ago, I was uhh...I took on a job with a team of scavengers I had gotten on good terms with at the request of one of the representatives from what's left of the American military. He said that he was interested in any information on a cure for the zombie situation, and I was more than happy to contribute to that. Good cause, you know? About as good as it gets. Job was pretty simple too, just get a blood sample from a zombie, plug it into a centrifuge in a hospital, and download whatever fancy numbers and words it spat out. Easy, other than the, uh, wall of zombies between us and the hospital, but, y'know, there's ways to deal with that..."

Twilight considered asking what a centrifuge was, but resisted the temptation. Fascination with human inventions could wait. The device in her hooves seemed more relevant. "What's this thing?"

"That's a USB drive. It's uh...it stores data, basically. The information from the blood analysis came back on it. It's...I mean to me it's completely fucking illegible, whole lot of techno-babble and...other weird shit, but part of it also came with a message saying that any samples that showed up like this were to be kept classified and then forwarded to a lab for further analysis."

Twilight nodded along, gazing at the device patiently as she waited. Rarity, however, seemed to realize something, and she looked at Alex with wide eyes. "They knew."

Alex smiled grimly. "The government knew what was going on. Real nice of them to fill us in, huh? Good old US of A."

Rarity's expression remained as it was, even as it drifted forward to stare off into space at this knowledge. Applejack let her head hang, slowly shaking it from side to side. The implications seemed bad, but were otherwise lost on Twilight, who also lacked a first-hoof experience with all of this like they did, and was also not brave enough to ask the questions that were starting to pile up about how much this mattered and why. Some things seemed better left to the imagination.

After some time, Alex pulled her baseball cap off for something to occupy her hands and her need to fidget. "I took the follow-up job to go to the lab it mentioned, since the rep basically hit me with it immediately after she saw it for herself, and like...yeah I intended to go, at first, but I never really got the motivation back to go out there again. We got a real up-close personal look at the zombies at that hospital, and..." She opened her mouth to continue that train of thought, visibly wrestling with something, then decided not to elaborate. "I just didn't...want to know, I guess. I want to believe that there's such a thing as a cure out there, but I was...I guess I was afraid of what I'd see in there, what I'd learn. Not everybody feels like I do, though. I might not be brave enough to do it, but..." She trailed off.

Twilight nodded - slowly, at first, but more surely as she began to clearly understand what was being offered here. It was hard not to see the opportunity this presented, nor was it hard to see how she might be better equipped to do something like this than others would be. No human here had magic, and while it was not as reliable as Twilight had come to grow accustomed to over the years, it had proven demonstrably better than most of the tools that humans had available to them for various purposes. There were a lot of unknowns, and probably a fair few risks, and a few more things that she would have to learn before she could jump right into this, but the possibility of a cure? Even if there wasn't one known, any data that could be retrieved from the heart of that research center could be the difference between living with the way things were and finding a way to reverse what had been done.

This could be the thing that reunited families with loved ones once thought lost forever. This could be the start of fixing what had been wrought on this world. This was huge - too huge to pass up. It was Twilight Sparkle's chance to show humanity that she was a friend, and that she was willing to be there in their hour of need, like she'd wanted to be from the very beginning and had wished for a way to prove. This would be that proof.

…but Cadance was out there, potentially. She could still be alive, and the longer Twilight waited to find her, the lower the odds were of that being true.

What would Cadance want?

The answer was quick to come for Twilight. She knew Cadance better than most anyone, but it wasn't hard to figure out Cadance's priorities even after having been around her for a brief period of time: she wanted the best for everyone. She always had and she always would, no matter how much risk she had to put herself in and no matter what sacrifice on her part was necessary, because she was Love. And love she would, until it killed her or she ran out of love to give, and only one of those things was possible. There was no question: she would want this. She would insist on this, even.

Then and there, the Princess of Friendship made up her mind. She nodded to herself once last time, finality in her expression as looked back up at Alex. "And where do I find this laboratory?"