Toby landed from a leap that cleared a considerable distance in a single jump, his ears up to catch any sound of an attack. He looked back to where Angel was coming in fast after her own jump. She touched noses for but a moment, attention on the area around them. "In red."

He nodded at that. "In red." They were both fairly sure they were on the red part of the map. They could see the dead lumbering around, growing in number. Fortunately, they didn't make too much noise in their springs, and hadn't attracted—A small group of four were hurrying towards them with excited noises.

Angel launched first, springing away from the attack. Toby followed her as they bounced away faster than the horde could follow. The bunnies touched noses, looking down at a large building with many windows and doors.

The two of them sprang from one roof to another, looking down at the street below, until they were perched atop a decrepit gas station that had a roof that worked well enough for their need of it. The zombies seemed less drawn to haunt higher up, a fact they were happy to take advantage of. The tall building they had spied loomed before them. It was about five stories tall, practically a tower compared to everything around it.

The bunnies jumped off the rooftop with a single bound, landing atop the tallest building with ease. Toby and Angel adjusted their weapons, then went down to find a way inside. The door was locked, but not very sturdily; At least, compared to the physical might of Toby's tug. It came free in his hands and he threw it aside as if surprised he was holding it. "Answer?" He pointed inside.

"Hope." Angel stepped inside, not bothering to jump in the confined space of that dark hallway. Toby followed after her, both moving quietly and sniffing for anything out of the ordinary.

Angel sniffed at the air and made a face, her eyes flicking to Toby. "Smell wrong." She raised up to look over the dividers of what was once an office area, the cubicles mostly intact. "Nothing moving."

Toby nodded. "I look too." He walked down one aisle and turned to look at a series of doors. "Office?"

Angel shrugged. With a noncommittal noise, she did a long jump to clear the space and land in front of the doors. She pawed at them, testing which of them were locked or not. Deciding without asking, she threw her considerable bulk against the one that was locked, forcing it to burst open for her with the sound of abused metal.

Toby was there just after her. "Quiet." He turned his floppy ears, little motions, trying to hear if anything had been alerted to their presence.

Angel glanced back and nodded her agreement. "Yes." She looked into the office, finding it empty except for a broken window and some papers that were still fluttering about in the wind. "Look?"

"What look for?" Toby brushed alongside her as he slipped into the room and began searching, but unsure what he was looking for. Without a clue, he grabbed any paper that had intelligible writing and stuffing it away for later examination. It wasn't like he could read very well, and certainly not however humans did it.

He was there to look, and he would look. Toby stuffed a few more things into a pack he carried, then looked at Angel for an answer to his question.

Angel shrugged at him, her head turning towards a safe she found in the office. She approached it on quiet paws, save the taps of her considerable claws on the floor. She felt over the safe, finding it to be a solid object, tougher feeling than anything else they'd torn apart so far. She didn't know it, but it was designed to not be physically menaced.

She tried to lift it, making a surprised little sound when she discovered just how heavy it was. She could get it up, but hopping with it felt impractical at best. "What inside?"

Toby chuckled at that. "We look. Later." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small black disk, sticking it onto the side of the safe.

Angel stared at Toby in confusion. "What that?"

"Not know?" Unfortunately for Toby, the safe was not a CD player, and nothing happened. "Thought help?"

"What is it?" Angel stepped closer to sniff it, but couldn't smell anything from it.

"Disc. Help learn magic. Thought help us." Toby looked down at the device, now stuck to the side of a safe they were hardly going to be able to move. "Don't know how." He pulled it free. "Look for more. Take more." He slipped the disc away.

Angel smiled with an idea, refusing to leave the safe. She picked up the unwieldy thing and moved for a window. With a foot, she slid the window open, then put the safe down on the sill of it, teetering dangerously. "Will make noise. Ready?"

Toby nodded quickly. "Ready." He took in a deep breath, his shoulders rolling. He watched intently as Angel dropped it out the window.

There was an almighty crash as the safe shattered on impact with the ground, a sound so loud that Toby and Angel both winced, but it did explode open, spilling its contents far below.

Unfortunately, the shamblers had heard that great bang, and they were coming, from everywhere. The hungry noises of the dead were incoming from all directions. Angel launched through the window, descending towards the ground rapidly.

Toby followed her just after, landing with enough force to dent the ground around him. He snatched a few of the papers, but most of them were blank. "Take. Take." He picked them up anyway.

Angel joined him, grabbing everything that had scattered from the broken safe. With the thunderous sound of undeath storming towards them, there was no time to think about what to grab and what not to. Both of them frantically grabbed for anything that would fit in their hands. "Go!"

They launched up onto the roof of the building. Toby grinned at Angel, and she smiled right back, then they were away again. They bounded from roof to roof as they made for base, staying above where the zombies could catch them. They could see that great sound had mobilized them, all of them. As they passed quietly, they could see the ground had become a literal carpet of moving bodies rushing to see what had made such a frightfully delicious sound.

Angel and Toby touched noses one last time before they continued their rapid retreat back home, away from the horde and the danger. They were fast, faster than any zombie they'd seen, and soon left them behind as they came back to their new friends.

***

Fluttershy released a dog from its kennel, the canine bounding around her with sniffs and licks, eager to be outside of that little cage. She grinned and stroked him gently, hugging him close, but soon let him run free. The other dogs had already been freed, and the last was a gentle mutt who was very happy to be free. "All your friends are healthy and happy." She nodded to the collection of canines that shared the nod back at her.

All their tails wagged, though with different tempos. But it didn't take an expert to know they were happy dogs.

Sally was sitting on the wall, watching Fluttershy work on her animals with the eyes of a hawk. She was smiling, however. "You're really good with them."

Fluttershy looked up at her. "I'm, um, just doing what I can." She offered a hoof for one dog and got half a dozen pushing in to nose at and lick at her.

Sally chuckled softly, shaking her head. "You've got them all happy and healthy. That's not nothing, in my books." She sighed. "Just a matter of what we're going to do with them." She inspected her gun a quiet moment. "We took them in partially out of pity. In a way, we could see ourselves in them, suffering and miserable in this damned hellscape. So, you know, we took them in, even if having pets isn't exactly the best idea for the times."

Fluttershy nodded quickly, looking to one of her canine friends. "What... what is going to happen to them?" The worry made her words weaker.

Sally spread her hands. "I don't know."

Fluttershy spread her wings as if the say something strongly, but they wilted back into place. "Well." She hugged a dog that had come up to her. "They just want to be happy, and make you happy too. They're a part of your family."

Sally chuckled, stepping over and kneeling by Fluttershy's side, petting the dog that the pony was holding. "Yeah. I know." She sighed gently. "But a bunch of happy puppies are the opposite of quiet, and they won't be happy being shut in the kennel space anymore, now that they're all healthy."

Fluttershy looked from one of them to another, eyes wide at the thought. "But I don't know how to keep them quiet. I could ask." She cleared her throat, which got all the dogs looking at her curiously. "The people here want to have you as part of their pack." The dogs barked and wagged joyfully at that news. "But." They quieted. "You need to be quiet. There are dangers that will come if you make noise. Only bark as a last resort." She lowered a hoof. "Quiet, shh."

Most of the dogs nodded obediently.

Fluttershy grinned. "They're pretty smart. They'll help us stay safe." She looked to Sally, then back at the dogs. "You'll be quiet, right?" The dogs nodded again with more conviction. One let out the smallest yip.

Sally chuckled and patted that one on the head. "Well, I guess that's settled."

There was a sudden crash as a door burst open and Toby came tumbling through it, landing flat on his back with an 'oomf'. Angel burse through after him, landing on top of him even as her foot kicked the door shut behind them. The two panted with the effort of their flight.

Fluttershy's jaw dropped and she took off to land beside them, looking over both closely for signs of injury.

Toby grinned, pushing up and lifting Angel off the ground with ease as he got to his feet.

Angel did a little hop back to the ground. "We back." She patted the bags she had. "Have things."

"Good things?" Toby started dropping his bags to the ground. "Hope."

Sally nodded to the two bunnies. "I'll get Victor. You two just take it easy for a bit. I'm glad you made it back safely." She offered them both a wave. "I'll go fetch our captain and bring him in for a briefing." She walked off, leaving them to Fluttershy's care.

Fluttershy inspected the two carefully. "You did very well! Look how many things you brought back, and I don't see a single slash or bite on either of you. Did you just not run into any of them?"

Toby shook his head quickly. "Fought. Not close. Not hurt."

Fluttershy nodded. "That's really good work." She hugged Toby around the middle. "I was really worried."

Angel made a hopping motion with her hand. "We fast. Stay ahead. Stay above. Not fight. Run. Get."

Fluttershy grinned. "Oh, I am so glad you're both safe." Her head raised as a sound caught her ears. "They're coming back, with Victor I think!"

Victor and Luna both eagerly ascended the stairs, following on the footsteps of Sally to reach them, both with determined looks with just enough hope of good news. He arrived first, barely.

"What is all this?" He crouched beside the first bag in the hallway. "Don't get me wrong, welcome back. That you've made it safe is a huge load off my shoulders, but what did you find?" He undid the first and began pulling out papers, many crumpled in a mess. "This, hm, is going to take some time to pick through."

Luna leaned over Victor, looking at the documents one at a time, hoping to catch something that could be useful. "They said they found something." Her horn began glowing with soft light as she lifted up the papers one by one with a little magical grip. "But, yes. It does not appear concern was made for the order of what they brought. Angel, Toby, you both did exceptionally well today. Good job."

Victor chuckled and patted both on the back before walking off. "Yeah. They did good."

Luna watched Victor depart, her head tilting slightly. She looked at Sally. "If you would be so kind, bring the bags to whoever would be best suited for learning from this."

Sally laughed at that. "That would be the man that just left. Let's get it loaded up in his office." She grabbed as many as she could, most not terribly heavy. "This way." She gestured, then started moving.

Luna, however, remained behind. Her eyes turned back to Fluttershy, who was hugging Angel and Toby together. She looked over them quietly. "I do not know if this will get us home faster, but if we can make this world safer, it'll be good for them, and for us."

Fluttershy looked up to Luna and nodded. "I hope so too."

***

Victor sat at his desk with a sigh, pouring through the paperwork that Toby and Angel had brought back. The mess of papers covered his desk in a sea of information, none of it in a very reasonable order to make sense of. He could only assume there were duplicates among the chaos.

It was up to him to sort it, and try to learn something from the result. "You had to go get that doctorate." He chuckled softly to himself as he moved the papers around, slowly putting them in order. "Time to prove it's worth something in a tight situation."

Author's Note

Back home, with hope. Now Victor has to shuffle through the mess and find something, anything, they can work with.

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