Strange Hooves

Today is the day.

After fighting the shadow, Mike had returned to Canterlot to finish the Arch-portal. Surprisingly, the trip went without interruption or attack, which is why Mike's wary mood swelled as the portal neared completion. Today was the day he'd return to what was left of his home-world.

In a quiet, often empty part of the Canterlot gardens, Mike stood next to the completed project. The stone archway stood in a crossroads, which, if only it was a cosmetic feature, would've made a nice feature to the garden. However, this is not the case. The specially carved and placed stone allowed a stable portal to be created inside it's perimeter.

He jumped a few feet when Luna came up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder.

He blinked, then said,

"You should really stop doing that, Princess."

Mike punches Luna lightly in the shoulder as she smiles. Their shenanigans were well-known in the castle, but nothing was done about it. Officially, and most of the time, Luna was the teacher, and Mike, her student. When not in the classroom, however, you would never have seen that. Because Mike and Luna had too much time on their hands, and when they're taking a break from the construction of the arch-portal, they would, to everypony's confusion and annoyance, play tricks on the snobby royals in the castle, or, when they're feeling bold, play pranks on Celestia herself.

The best prank they ever pulled was when they used magic to completely flip the throne room upside down, so when Celestia walked in through the top of the door into the throne room, she fell to the ceiling, confused as to how and why the chandelier was hanging up from the ground. Hiding magic or a good hiding spot was always useful, but sometimes, like this time, The two would become too overcome to keep hiding, and they blinked into existence, laughing so hard their sides hurt and they had to stop to wipe their eyes. Even Celestia couldn't help but laugh, too. She then abruptly stopped laughing and told them to undo this before anyone else came in. Of course, a servant was walking in just then, so he fell onto Celestia.

Another round of laughter later, the magic was undone in a flash of light that reverted everything back to normal. Of course, Mike and Luna were nowhere to be found after the flash, but Celestia had more importaint things to do that day instead of chasing two silly fillies.

Today, the mood was serious, and for good reason.

Mike and Luna looked to the arch, looked at each other, then both nodded. They both applied their magic, and a field of magic was created in the confines of the arch. The colors swirled, but slowly, they stopped their movements, and it seemed to the both of them that this had succeeded. Suddenly a thought came to Mike.

"It seems we've forgotton something."

Luna looks back, confused. Mike says with a nervous look,

"I don't know where to go on earth to start evacuating people."

Luna sighs, and pulls out a map. She hands it to Mike. He sees a map of earth, marked with several X-es. Mike's eyes widen slightly, then he grins sheepishly.

"Yeah, thanks."

He looks on the map for awhile, then decides on a destination.

The Florida keys.

He points to it, and he says to Luna,

"How many survivors have you seen there?"

She looks at it, then says,

"I don't know. I can only see a camp on an island, but there's a fairly large ship wandering aimlessly through the surrounding sea."

A cruise ship, or military?

Mike asks,

"What color is it?"

Luna replies,

"White."

I think Cruise ships are generally white, and military vessels tend to be grey.

Mike nods, and says.

"I'll set off there, then."

Luna smiles, then says,

"You remember how to set destinations with this mid-teleport, right?"

Mike rolls his eyes and remembers his videogame tutorial esque session where Luna made sure he knew how to get to where he wanted to go. He also remembers the recall feature he would use to return any survivors gathered from wherever he would go. He says sarcastically,

"Yes, mom."

Luna rolls her eyes and gestures to the portal, saying,

"Get going, space monkey."

Mike nods and runs at the portal at a full sprint screaming something while disappearing into the portal, the sound cut off as the portal winds down.

Luna shakes her head at Mike's antics, and goes off to report to Celestia that Mike had gone off.

Mike was skydiving over a seemingly endless sea, white and blue, with spots of green surrounded by tan here and there. Mike pointed himself at one of these tan spots. And subsequently forgot to slow down, resulting in a man-sized crater courtesy of Mike. After laughing and getting up, Mike tries to enjoy his peace and quiet by surveying the area, looking for anything that would indicate a human presence, whether it be a tall thin smoke stack rising above an island or a ‘V’ wake left by the cruise ship he’d been told was here.

He was too busy looking around to notice the sea of blue rapidly approaching.

After coming up to surface and making sure he hadn’t lost anything, Mike again looks around for any sign of the shi—

*CLANG*

p.

The steel hull send Mike’s mind ringing, as well as knocking off his hat. He picked it up drunkenly, and set the already wet hat back on his head. He started looking for a something other than smooth hull to climb up. The ship raced past Mike, so he swam faster in an effort to catch up to it before remembering his magic. He face-palmed and flew up to the ship with his flying…jet…hand spell thingy. After landing, he dried himself off with a fire spell. Then he looked around the deck of the ship, thinking that people would still be on it.

He was wrong. Fresh corpses, human and zombie alike, littered the scene, and a new smell decided to introduce itself to Mike at that moment, causing him to almost lose his stomach. Making an effort to not sniff in that putrid stink by blocking his nose with his left hand, Mike drew out his kukri with his right hand, and proceeded to cautiously scour the ship for anyone or anything left.

Supply crates and guns littered the scene, though Mike didn't feel a need to pick one up at the moment, as they were all covered in gore. The ship, originally designed to be a place of relaxation and recreation, had now become a militaristic crime scene of zombies, former military personnel, and civilians. The only sound Mike hears is the creaking of the ship and the wash of the ocean. It seemed deserted. It seemed too late.

“Man, this place is too empty. Even zombies would be welcome.”

A chorus of unholy howling of what sounds like hundreds of zombies, if not thousands, answered Mike.

“Well, screw you too, fate.”

Almost immediately, Mike was assaulted by one of the infected, grabbing his left arm in an attempt to bite it. Mike simply regards the creature with a slash to the neck. The head pops clean off, the rest of the corpse joining the bodies on the floor.

But that was just the first.

Mike sees a new horde incoming, hands and teeth ready to maim, but Mike instead makes an amused expression and summons a force field in front of the zombies, causing them to crash into it, the latecomers crushing the first ones into the wall. Mike then threw the force field forward rapidly, causing zombies to fly off the ship. He laughed openly, pointing at the flying zombies as they crashed into the Atlantic. He was interrupted by a long tongue wrapping itself around his midsection and arms, trying to drag him off. Mike looked to the source, a zombie the news referred to as the "Smoker", but he just calls it "Tounger", because, well, that's basically what it does. Mike uses his magic to rip off the zombie's head, leaving him to uncoil himself before being hounded by other zombies of different shapes and sizes.

"Well, here we go again. Ready to meet sharpie?"

Mike swings his kukri, scoring an instakill as a head flew off the deadhead's shoulders, leaving the rest to fall down. Mike warms up his fireball spells and lightning spells, ready to kill anything and everything that comes at him. And so he does. Tanks, Chargers, nothing could now touch him. Horde after horde came after him with intent to kill, but Mike waves his hand and a fireball or a lightning strike end the collective zombie horde's lives. It becomes a very lopsided battle, with losses on only one side, and the only gains the infected had made was making mike exert himself very slightly. After a wave, Mike observes the carnage and chuckles to himself.

He hears the next wave inbound, and the chuckle becomes a full-blown laugh as he attacks the horde with greater fervor.

...

Several hours later, Mike rests on a chair next to a pool on the cruise ship, bent over with his elbows on his knees, panting at his exertion with the zombies. Then he hears a southern voice say somewhere,

"Hey 'Ro, where'd all the zombies go?"

This story and I aren't quite dead yet.