Peter ran through the rooftops in his bloodied, though slightly tattered, hero costume. The prototype machine's weight rested snuggly on his back with the help of his synthetic webbings, their freshness an indication of how recently the zombified hero had used them.
Peter vaulted over a ventilation pipe and into the open air, shooting off another web into a nearby building and swinging away. It was nighttime, and the moon hung high, but that didn’t stop the horde from giving chase to him.
“You can’t get away, Peter!” Iron Man shouted, zooming around the building’s corner. The moonlight touched his bloodied armour, bits of guts still hung from his mask. “Drop that prototype now!”
Peter flipped back, throwing a web blast at Iron Man and sticking him to the nearby building. “Not now, Stark!” He retorts, flipping away to the next building.
But his movement was thwarted by Giant-Man blocking the entire street. His feet crushed the empty cars below him as he repositioned himself in front of the wall-crawler. His mouth dripped with fresh blood that wasn’t his, as his exposed skull showcased his decaying brain. “Drop the weapon, Spider-Man. And we’ll forget all this even happened.”
The zombie spider shot a web line over to a building next to Giant-Man that had less than appropriate support left in the pillars and forced a firm tug. In the next instance, the building crumbled atop the towering undead, burying him in rubble.
“You killed Luke!” Peter yelled, zipping across the pile of bricks and concrete where Giant-Man was buried. “can’t you see the kind of murderers we’ve become!?”
Quicksilver ran through the rooftops in a blur of blue and white, keeping up with Peter and eventually leaping off one of its edges. Catching him off guard and pulling him down to the streets.
“Don’t play innocent now!” Quicksilver snarled, his arms wrapped around Peter from the waist as he gripped tightly. “You’re the one who told us you relished devouring your aunt and soon-to-be wife!”
“That’s why I said we.” Peter spat, grabbing Quicksilver by the head and spraying webbing all over him. “I loathe myself for liking it. That’s why I’m doing this!”
Peter reached his other hand to Quicksilver’s head and pulled the webbing attached to his head elsewhere. Flicking it onto the closest building and attaching it. The webbing went taut, jerking the speedster’s head off his shoulders and decapitating him in one fell swoop.
Tearing the body of Quicksilver off himself, Peter caught himself with another webbing right before the crash, pulling himself airborne and swinging to a nearby rooftop where Daredevil and Moon Knight were there to greet him.
“Just give up, Spider-Man,” Daredevil spoke, brandishing his Billy Clubs.
“You’re outnumbered.” Moon Knight finished.
“You know I can’t do that, Matt,” Peter said, guarding the prototype close to him and watching the two very closely.
Daredevil shot his club at Peter, but right as it was about to make contact with him, three vertical slashes sliced the weapon into bits. Turning to the source of the attack, a man dressed in the infamous blood-stained yellow and blue X-men uniform, his black mask covering most of his face, but his adamantium claws protruding from his fists were unmistakable.
“Go,” Wolverine huffed, his other set of claws shooting out his fist with a “snikt.”. “I’ll deal with ‘em.”
Peter nodded, turning to leap away from the building. Moon Knight tried to give chase, but Wolverine quickly intercepted him with a swipe of his claws. “Gotta get through me first, bub.”
“Shut the hell up, you annoying angry badger.” Moon Knight scolded.
Back with Peter, he hopped off a light post and slid into the alleyways, crawling alongside it and trying to blend in with the shadows. Crawling past several windows and apartments, a sudden flying metallic disc forced him to leap off and onto a fire escape near him. Looking up, Captain America stood on the roof's edge, his shield already returning to him as Hawkeye and Black Widow took his side.
“I will need you to hand over the device, Spider-Man.” The captain commanded, “Or I’m going to take it by force.”
Peter slowly raised his hands as a sign of surrender, signalling Steve, Hawkeye, and Black Widow to leap down and meet face-to-face. Similar to Peter, Steve’s lips were ripped off, revealing a set of bloodied teeth under his cowl. The web-slinger turned around, arms still in the air. While Hawkeye had a chunk of his cheek ripped out of him, and Black Widow’s neck was missing her jugular.
The Captain cautiously approached, reaching for the weapon strapped to his back. The moment Peter felt the weight shift, he turned his wrist around and sprayed webbing into his eyes.
“Argh-!” The Captain yelled, trying to rip the webbing off his face.
Peter flipped out and onto Hawkeye, sitting on his shoulders and ripping Hawkeye’s head off his body. “Sorry.” He apologises, hopping off the immobilised marksman and dodging a punch from Black Widow.
He proceeds to dodge another left hook before grabbing her fist and severing the limb with a quick downward chop of the hand. Carrying the same momentum from the hand that just severed her limb, Peter brought it up to her face and backfisted her square in the face. The force sent her careening into the dark alleyway and came crashing into a ventilation pipe, the impact deforming her back before causing her to plummet into the darkness below.
Spinning back, Peter threw a straight kick into Cap and sent him back as well. Catching his shield for himself before leaping off and swinging away. Landing on another building, Peter ran for the door to the apartment buildings, but a shout coming from above forced his attention upward.
“He’s over here!” Angel shouted, bellowing to the others and revealing Peter’s location. “He’s on top of ack-!” Was all he could say before Captain’s shield flew straight through him, cleaving the undead mutant in half and causing him to fall into the city streets.
Peter barged through the door, jumped down the flights of stairs to a random floor and barrelled through the corridor. Choosing to stop in front of a random door, Peter kicked it open, ran in, slammed it behind him, and hid. He took the prototype into his hands and pressed his back against the door, sliding to the floor.
He hugged the prototype device close to his still heart and cold body, the only hope he had left in this world. He peered out the window; superheroes were flying left and right, trying to find him. His time was running out.
Getting up, he walked over to the living room of the apartment. To Peter’s surprise, this particular place looked… untouched. Clean, even. Like the undead force hadn’t flipped this place inside out… yet.
Is there a survivor here? Was the first question Peter asked himself. If there was one, he needed to leave as soon as possible. He can’t risk getting devoured anymore, thanks to him. Walking over to one of the two rooms in the corridor, he opened it, and there was no one. Just a neatly placed bed with a desk, a closet, and a chest by his bedside.
He made his way over to the desk, reaching out to the framed picture and picking it up. There was a picture of a man in a green mask with a black question mark imprinted on the front of the mask itself. He donned a standard tuxedo and a large top hat, with a magic wand in hand, leaning over to two older figures. A lady with grey hair and wrinkles that the older gentlemen on his other side shared both smiled at the camera.
They look like his parents… wait… Peter recognises him. He’s the famous magician Peter was supposed to bring MJ to watch several weeks prior to the viral outbreak after scoring some free tickets to his show after he saved him from a robbery. But right as the show was around the corner…
“He vanished…” Peter mumbled out, placing the photo frame back onto the desk.
Peter took one final glance at the room once more, admiring its décor. That’s when he saw it: the photo frame on the table was… vibrating. In the next moment, the entire apartment shook and rumbled as the ceiling was torn off the walls. Giant-Man stood in the streets, holding onto the upper section of the building. All around in the air, heroes in the hundreds had surrounded him, their decaying eyes trailing Peter’s every movement.
“Nowhere to run now, Spider-Man.” Giant-Man proclaimed,
As much as he’d hate to admit, he was right. This was it for him. Peter could, at best, maybe take on six at once, but a hundred or more trying to take him down, and all at once? Yeah, the wall was practically against his back at this point. But that doesn't mean he won’t try.
Peter crouched down, getting as low to the ground as possible in a battle-ready stance.
“You still wanna go?” Iron Man laughed, “Even with the odds stacked against you?”
“When was the odds not stacked against me?” Peter rebutted,
“Eh, point taken.” Iron Man shrugged before yelling out to the rest. “Get him!”
The undead horde charged at Peter, arms stretched out to ready to tear into him. Right as they closed in, a portal tore open beneath the undead wall-crawler. The light bounced off his chest and sucked him into the vortex, saving him from a fate that wasn’t his own.
“Don’t let him get away!” Captain America ordered, throwing his shield at Peter, only for the portal to close behind him and for the giant metal disc to lodge itself into the floor of the room as only a sizzle remained as evidence that he was even there in the first place.
“Ahh!!” Peter tumbled through the portal in a whirlwind of confusion and mixed vertigo, freefalling through the crimson sky as the winds whipped through his suit. He clung tightly to the device, scanning his environment for anything to latch onto. Luckily for him, a couple of houses came into view below. Webbing the device to his back once more, Peter spread his arms and legs wide and steered himself into the houses. Trying his best to get as much drag as possible to slow his descent.
Right as he neared the buildings, he dove for the alleyway and released a largely weaved net of webs in between the houses and dropped right into it. The web stretched and caved downward before the elastic properties of the net pulled Peter back into its former position.
“Woah-!” Peter gasped, looking at the sky. He did it. He stuck the landing. But the bigger question now was… “Where am I?”
He got up into a low crouch, looking around at the houses erected all around him. Some were untouched, others were burnt and charred, while others looked to be broken into or ransacked for items. Carts were tipped over, and inedible goods were left to rot across the dirt and bloodied ground while billows of smoke rose in between various houses in the distance.
“I need to find a way to contact Logan.” Peter thought, leaping onto the neighbouring roof. “If he’s still alive.”
Looking around at the distances between each house and taking into consideration the height of them, Peter didn’t have to swing from building to building like back in New York. He could leap from one to another, which was precisely what he was going to do. Anything to save what little web fluids he has left.
He leapt from one roof to another, trying his best to gather as much information as he could from what was available to him. But with what he could collect so far, the town was deserted. What’s more weird was the amount of severed equine limbs lying about in what looked to be a bloody massacre. And yet, no stables in sight. Some of them were oozing some sort of black liquid from their wounds, something Peter has to take a closer look at the next time he gets the chance.
Peter hopped onto another rooftop, brooding over the village square with a crouch. “There really is no one,” he thought, glancing around again. That’s when he heard it, a high-pitched vocal scream that sounded human. “People!?”
Peter instantly flips his head to the source of the noise, wasting no time in gunning for the direction in which the noise came from. In one mighty leap, he crossed a street and several houses as he ran on the roofs. Manoeuvring with as much grace as his undead body could give him. Dragging his heels to a stop, he searched a bit for the noise before it came again. This time, it was louder and in the alleyway between the buildings.
Peter hopped onto the building’s walls and crawled down, and what he saw puzzled him. It was a filly dressed in tactical gear that seemed slightly too big for her body. She had a light grey coat that contrasted against the dark gear she strapped around her legs and chest. She also had a light rose and greyish mulberry-coloured mane as well as a horn sticking out of her forehead.
She was stuck between two hordes of the infected, their mouths drooling in a mixture of saliva and congested blood. One of them, their skin hanging loosely from their face and exposing their facial bones, lunged at the filly, earning another scream from her.
Time to act.
Diving down into the alleyway, Peter landed on the undead with both his feet piercing into its skull. Instantly pulverising their brains and rendering them out of the action.
The filly watched on, mesmerised by Peter’s less-than-appealing introduction. “A-Ano-?”
Peter snatched the filly in his arm, pulling her close to his body. “Sorry,” Peter spoke out, leaping away in a single jump and landing on the rooftops. He begin to run with the filly still stuck close to him, searching for anywhere safe that they could take shelter for and letting the horde die down a bit.
After traversing through several blocks down the street, Peter sat on a rooftop and placed the filly down next to him. He pulled his knees closer to his chest, doing his best not to startle her. “Sorry for pulling you up so abruptly like that; with all those infected, I heard you screaming several houses from where you were.” Peter turns to face the filly, glad that he had changed his torn-up mask for a well-sewned one. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine,” The filly said, “Thank you, Mr…?”
“Peter is fine.” Peter waved off,
“I’m grateful you came to rescue me, Peter!” The filly thanked, “You’re a real hero! I’m Sweetie Belle!”
“That’s a lovely name,” Peter replied,
“Thank you! But I think I should head back now. I think my sister will get worried.”
“Let me escort you back.” Peter got up from his rooftop seat, extending a hand to the Sweetie. “I’ll make sure none of those monsters get to you.”
Sweetie extended a hoof but hesitated for a moment. She furrowed her brows and slightly squinted her eyes before grabbing Peter’s hand. “That’d be fantastic!”
Peter held Sweetie close to his back as she rested snuggly between him and the prototype device. He leaped through the trees of Sweet Apple Acres, cutting a straight path back to the family barn.
“It’s along this path, right?” Peter asked, jumping off a branch and landing on another. Shaking a few leaves off the tree with the sudden shift in weight.
“Yup, just cut through there, and we’ll be at the barn!” Sweetie replied, leaning and pointing a hoof forward. “I’ve never ridden this fast past apple trees before! You’re strong and fast, Peter!”
Peter let out a chuckle, “Well, I wouldn’t have been able to show off if you weren’t in danger… Hey, why were you alone in such a dangerous place, anyway?”
“I-I…” Sweetie stutters, turning away from Peter. “My friend’s ill, and I want to get the medicine to help her get better.”
“Ill?” Peter questions, “You don’t mean…”
“She has a bad fever for close to a week now. But there isn’t anypony left to scavenge the hospitals for medical supplies. So I went behind my sister’s back and did it.”
“I know I sound like a rambling adult here, but I hope you know how terrible of a plan this all sounds.” Peter points out.
“Yeah…” Sweetie sighs in defeat, looking at the crimson sky. “You’re not the first to shut my idea down.”
“I mean… look what happened back there if I hadn’t come in to save you!” Peter gestured with a thumb backwards. “And I won’t be the last once I bring you back to your family.”
Clearing the trees and into open track and grass, Peter jumped over a couple of fences and barbed wires and landed on the dirt trek leading to the barn. The zombie humanoid brought Sweetie from her piggyback ride and gently plops her onto the dirt road.
“And I was beginning to enjoy it too…” Sweetie mumbles, kicking the ground.
“Alright,” Peter nudges her, “Go on.”
Sweetie turns to Peter, brows creasing in confusion. “You’re not coming?”
Peter tilts his head. “Why would I be?”
“Well, it’s been long since we had a human friend around again.”
“What do you-“
“Sweetie Belle!" An urgent voice shouted from the barn, the intensity in their tone frightening. "Get back!”
In the next second, a flash of purple light erupted from between Peter and Sweetie Belle, the force great enough to send the web-slinger hurling back and crashing through several fences.
“Urgh-!” Peter groaned internally, “Stupid Spider Sense not working!”
Flipping himself vertically, he nailed his fingers into the ground, using a hand to slow his momentum to a crawl by ripping out the earth and dirt before coming to a complete stop. Getting up and dusting himself off, Peter looked over to his mysterious assailant. A purple unicorn mare with a dark blue mane and a pink and violet streak. Interesting.
“He’s a friend, Twilight!” Sweetie begged.
Twilight didn’t respond to the filly’s concerns. Rather, her horn flared with an even brighter light. Yeah, this is bad. Peter has seen enough of Doctor Strange doing all his voodoo stuff to know this is only bad news.
“What’s going on here!?” Another more southern voice joins the fray.
“Oh no,” Peter mumbled, turning to the voice.
A pony mare with an orange coat and golden mane stood firm, her cowboy hat fluttering slightly in the night’s wind. She donned the same black tactical outfit Sweetie Belle was wearing. Except with more fixtures to her hooves. Were those brass-plated hoof plates?
“We can talk this out!” He suggested, throwing his arms up in surrender. “I mean no harm!”
Applejack scrunched her nose and squinted her eyes. “Hey Twilight! Doesn’t that fella look awfully similar to him?”
Twilight squints her eyes as well. “You got a point, but he passed long ago. That couldn’t be him, another one of his species, perhaps?”
“Could be.” Applejack smashed her hooves together, generating sparks between the metal. “Or another infected mimicking a dear friend of ours…” Several ponies came out of the barn, brandishing knives, pitchforks, and torches, among all things. Peter widens his stance, steadying himself for yet another battle of the day.
“He saved me!” Sweetie yelled, causing everyone to stop in their tracks. “If he weren’t there when he found me, the infected would’ve eaten me alive!”
Applejack turns to Twilight after hearing this, and she glances back at the farmer, then at Sweetie Belle, whose eyes seem resolute. Twilight turns back to AJ, to which she simply responds. “She ain’t lying…”
At this, the ponies that just came out with their weapons drawn retracted them, eyes still lingering on the costumed undead. Twilight bit her lip, glancing down at Sweetie. “Are you certain he saved you?”
“Without a doubt.”
Twilight sighed, gesturing with a jerk of her head to Applejack. AJ nodded, walking over to Peter from the side. Her metal hooves crunched softly against the ground, moonlight gleaming off the polished steel. She really takes care of them.
“Head on in.” Applejack stated, “But try any funny business and see what happens.”
Peter, arms still raised in the air, spread his fingers wider. Almost saying, “I’m not hiding anything.” As he follows the earth pony into the reinforced barn. A new life awaiting him on the other side.
Author's Note
I liked Marvel Zombies a lot. Also, thank you for reading! 
