Chapter One, Part One: Alone
You jolt awake to find yourself in a cot at Ponyville Hospital, a white gown with blue polka dots covering your dark orange body and an IV in your front right leg that leads to a bag full of some clear liquid. You don't know how you got here, but you know that you need to get out. Swinging your hind legs to the side of the bed, you attempt to stand up before you fall to the ground, your limbs giving way. You grab onto the metal pole to stop yourself from hitting the ground, but your hooves slip and you still fall. Grabbing the button hanging off the side of the bed, you start to click it repeatedly as you call out, "Nurse!" No reply comes, which unnerves you. Why isn't the nurse coming?
Shrugging it off as a busy day, you brush the bit of your brown mane out of your face and manage to crawl over to the cabinet. As you start pulling drawers open, you find a set of tan clothes and a badge that reads, "Lieutenant Python". Python, that was your name. You remember now, a voice calling out your name. It wasn't a very deep voice, but it was deep enough that you could label it as an adult's voice. It keeps yelling, "C'mon, Python, stay with me! Think about Quick Fix! Think about Orange Squeeze! Just stay with me, man!"
The names Quick Fix and Orange Squeeze rang a bell in your mind. It takes you a minute, but you suddenly realize an important thing. You have a wife and colt at home! You needed to get back to them so you could tell them what happened to you! Or, at least, what you remember. Things are still a bit hazy, but you clearly remember a lot of loud bangs and a pain in your right shoulder. You look to said shoulder and slide the hospital gown down to reveal a large bandage with a red stain in the middle of it. Everything suddenly rushes back to you at once...
You were in a shootout with your partner Dragon Breath, one of the only dragons to ever make it on the police force, and an officer simply named Colt. Most of the time, dragons were used for tasks that required fingers in order to do them, such as driving law enforcement officials around the town. You and your partner were sitting behind your police cruiser, you holding your trusty revolver with your magic, and he holding his shotgun custom made for him. Bullets dug into the hood and side of the cruiser as two gryphons were using their own weapons to defend themselves. One of the gryphon's weapons stopped firing after only a few rounds, and he ducked behind the vehicle as he cursed and tried to fix the jam in his firearm. The other gryphon kept on firing until he had fully unloaded his magazine.
As the second assailant ducked behind the protection of their vehicle to reload, Dragon Breath took a chance and popped up from cover. He laid his shotgun on the hood of the car, aimed at the driver's side door of the off-road vehicle, and pulled the trigger. Almost instantly, a shower of deadly pellets was rained upon the driver's side door in a bright flash of sparks. Some of the rounds didn't go through the metal door, but the ones that did tore into the skin and muscle of the gryphon, forcing him to the ground where he would later bleed out. There was a great reason the modified shotgun was called The Dragon's Breath.
Noticing the other gryphon was having trouble getting a jam in his weapon undone, Dragon Breath leaned in to you and whispered, "Hey Python, go in behind from the right side and flank him. Me and the new guy will provide cover fire." You looked at Colt, who nodded and propped himself up on the trunk of the car so as to get the best shot. Your partner counted to three on his fingers before he got back up on the hood of the cruiser. As he got up and readied himself, you dashed out of cover and galloped as fast as you could to the gryphon's vehicle. However, the gryphon had finally undone his jam and put you in his sights with murderous intent.
A loud bang resonated throughout the area. The gryphon fell to his knees and keeled over on the ground, dead. Behind his stood Colt, who had managed to sneak behind him and put a bullet in him. You stepped forwards to congratulate him on a great first shootout, but a dizzying sensation overtook you alongside pain in your right shoulder. Looking down, you saw blood oozing and dribbling out of a bullet wound. Colt's bullet tore clean through the gryphon and embedded itself in you. You couldn't feel it, but you had collapsed onto the ground, where you saw the rookie officer and your partner dashing over to you. Colt was apologizing over and over as Dragon Breath held you in his arms and yelled, "C'mon, Python, stay with me! Think about Quick Fix! Think about Orange Squeeze! Just stay with me, man!"
Now you were sure you had to get out of the hospital and to your family. You took the hospital gown off and neatly put on your police vest and badge. Ponies normally didn't wear clothes, but officers of the law were special cases. They needed to wear the vest not only so they could pin their badge to something, but it also made them stand out more in a crowd. As you polish your badge in the mirror with the hospital gown, you looked down to see a revolver sitting in its holster. Both the holster and the handle of the gun were etched with an identifying picture of your cutie mark, the snake that the Python was named after. You gladly buckle the holster to your hip and walk out of your room to see a surprising sight.
The hall of the hospital was in total disarray. Patient papers and medical equipment were strewn everywhere as if a hurricane flew through the building. Most of the fluorescent lights on the ceiling were either flickering or completely smashed. As you walk down to one end of the hall, you turn right and find a set of double doors with a lock and chain wrapped around the handles. On the doors, somepony spray painted, "DON'T OPEN, DEAD INSIDE". You think to yourself that this could all be an elaborate prank by the hospital for when you recovered, but you doubt it. As if on cue, the doors started to shake violently as growls, snarls, and howls sound from them. Your prank theory starts to make more sense for some reason. The dead can't make noises, you reasoned with yourself. Yet, something in your mind told you that there was still a possibility that those were actually dead ponies. You turn away from the door and started walking away, shakily saying, "Nice try, guys, but I'm not that stupid..."
You suddenly walk into another pair of double doors, these ones having windows on them. You let out a loud groan and automatically bring your left hoof up to your right shoulder. With your other hoof, you try to open the doors and find them to be magnetically locked. Thinking of another way to get it open, you start to bang on one of the doors with the same hoof and yell, "Hello? Can somepony open this for me? Anypony there?" You peek through the windows to see if anypony was in there, but you find a much more gruesome sight.
Sitting against the wall of the well-lit hall was a white mare with a pink mane, Nurse Redheart. A deep red stretch of dried blood was seemingly painted onto the wall behind her, and more blood had pooled out underneath her. Well, at least I know what happened to the nurse, you think to yourself. However, the little quip you made was wiped from your mind as you see another terrifying sight come walking out of one of the hospital rooms. It has the same form and look of a pony, but the flesh is ripped and torn in multiple places ranging from its face to its flank. Blood ran from its mouth down to its neck as it sees Nurse Redheart's lifeless body and bends down to it. You can't see what it's doing, but you hear a lot of squishing. When the creature rises back up, you nearly gag on your own vomit. It had torn at the mare's skin and eaten much of it, leaving blood running down the now revealed muscles and bones. You turn around and limp as fast as you can to the exit, holding your injured shoulder the whole way. When you get outside, you finally empty your stomach onto the ground and find yet another terrible sight.
Tens of hundreds of white, plastic body bags were laid on the ground in rows upon rows of dead ponies. You carefully limp down the stairs, your legs shaking and your shoulder still in pain. When you get to the ground, you look back up at Ponyville Hospital and see a huge hole in the side of the building, the outer edges of it charred to a dark black. To you, it looks like a terrorist planted a bomb in the hospital and set it off. In fact, it could have actually been that, if it weren't for the ripped up pony eating the nurse's flesh you saw earlier. As you limp between the rows of bodies with your stomach churning, you ask aloud to anypony that might hear, "What the hell happened here...?"
After a while, you come to Ponyville's one and only park, the Celestial Memorial Park. By this time, your shoulder has stopped hurting and you can now walk normally. The trees were spaced out just enough so that the long branches provided ample shade with their leaves, yet you still have a great view of everything around you, including the statue of Princess Celestia that is currently standing in front of you. The plaque at the bottom reads, "This statue of Princess Celestia commemorates our thanks for her bringing of the sun each day and the moon each night." You've read that plaque so many times before that you've practically memorized it. However, plaques aren't the important thing right now. For you, the most important thing is finding a way to get to your house quickly. Walking off to one side, you notice a bike wheel as well as part of a red bike frame poking out from behind the statue. Elated, you trot over to the bike, but you freeze in your place when you get there. This day keeps on getting stranger and stranger to you.
Lying next to the bike on the ground is the body of a yellow filly- or rather, half of the body of a yellow filly. The flank and rear legs were missing from the body, which gives you a real scare when the jaw begins to slowly move and the head turns toward you. The half pony in front of you is still alive! You back away slowly as it reaches its short legs in front of itself and starts to crawl towards you. Realizing that you don't have much time, you pick up the bike and pedal as fast as you can towards your neighborhood, leaving the crawling remains of the filly behind.
As you enter your neighborhood, you make a daring move by jumping off of the moving bike. Doing this earns you another blow to your injured shoulder, reigniting the pain that you stopped feeling a while ago. Struggling to get up, you find yourself across the street from your own house, where the front door is wide open. "No..." you whisper to yourself in disbelief as a shiver runs down your spine. Something had happened there, and you had the feeling that it wasn't good. You start to limp over to your house before you feel a sharp blow to the back of your head. THUMP! You hit the pavement hard, but it's nothing compared to what you're feeling in the back of your head. With your sight blurry and quickly fading, you slowly look up to see a young Pegasus colt throw a shovel on the ground and yell out, "I got him, Thunderlane! I got him!" A larger Pegasus walks over and looks directly at you, saying, "Well then, Rumble, why don't you do the honors? You knocked him down, you get to put him down." Put down? You didn't like the sound of that. Shakily, you manage to reach out to the two Pegasi and say, "...Orange..." Then, your hoof drops to the ground as you black out.
The world starts to come back into focus. You're inside now, lying on a bed. Your head is pounding as you start to remember what happened. You were hit on the back of your head by a colt with a shovel. He was about to put you down, as the other pony put it, before you blacked out. Whoever took you in had taken off your vest and holster while you were out, as well as changed your dirty bandage. You try to get out of the bed, but your legs won't budge. Looking around, you find yourself tied up. You're about to call out for help when two ponies enter the room, the two Pegasi from before. The younger one, who was called Rumble by the older, had a black mane that looked like he had put too much gel in it. The colt had no cutie mark, but he was holding a baseball bat in his mouth. The older, who was called Thunderlane by the younger, was black with a mismatched mane that alternated between lighter and darker colors of cyan. His cutie mark was of a storm cloud, and you're thankful that he doesn't have anything in his mouth.
Thunderlane walks over to you and simply asks, "How'd you get your wound?" Realizing that you weren't in a position to fight back, you reply, "Gunshot to the shoulder. Shootout on the highway." The Pegasus nods and asks another question. "Do you have any bites" he says, which confuses you. Bites? Criminals don't normally bite, they shoot. "What do you think?" you snap back in a raspy voice, forgetting the position you were in. Thunderlane quickly gets up in your face and says, "This isn't a game! Do you have any bites?" You shake your head this time, thinking it better to keep your mouth shut. The stallion walks over to the dresser, where you hear a faint FWIP! He turns back around to show you the pocket knife he now holds in his mouth. As he walks over to you, you try your best to make distance between you and him. The ropes hold you back, though, so all you can do is sit there and await your death. When he gets to the bed, you shut your eyes tight and wait for the blade to plunge into you.
Instead, you feel the tension on your front hooves release. You open your eyes to see Thunderlane cutting the ropes that once bound you to the bed. As he cuts the ropes, he pipes up, "Sorry about that shovel to the head, by the way. My son must've thought you were something else." You merely grunt to show your forgiveness. When the Pegasus finishes, you shakily get up and start to thank him before he gets in your face again. "Listen, Lieutenant," he starts, "if you DARE try to bring harm to me or my little brother, I'll cut more than the ropes next time. You understand?" You nod your head before asking, "How come you know what rank I am?" Thunderlane tells his brother to go downstairs for a bit before closing the door and saying, "Your badge. It has your name and rank on it. Now that I know you're a lieutenant, Python, I'd like to make a proposal." You nod your head to show him to continue on.
"Since you're a pony of the law, that means that you have access to the police station at Town Hall. There's gotta be a lot of guns there, and they'd be useful against the Trotters." he says. You cock your head and ask, "Trotters?" Now it's Thunderlane's turn to tilt his head. He gives you a worried expression and says, "You mean you don't know? Where've you been, Python, they're everywhere!" This starts to piss you off, but you keep your cool and say, "Listen, all I know is that I woke up alone in Ponyville Hospital, I saw a pony eat another pony, and that something might've happened to my family. Just please, tell me what the hell's going on!" The Pegasus sighs and says, "That wasn't a pony you saw. It was a Trotter. If you get bit, you die and become one of them. That's why I was asking about your wound, and that's why I want to go get the guns. Maybe, just maybe, I can teach you how to kill them without needing a gun. Sound like a fair trade?"
You like the sound of that. Being able to attack them in close range would be useful if you ever became magically exhausted. However, carrying a few guns around wouldn't hurt either. You also remind yourself that you still need to get back to your house to see if your family is alright or not. You stick out your hoof with a smile and say, "Yeah, it does." Thunderlane takes his hoof and bumps yours, signifying a pact. He then unlocks the door and starts trotting downstairs, saying, "Alright, where to next?"
You have a choice to make. Where do you go first? Do you go to Town Hall to get the guns from the police station, do you take up Thunderlane's offer for training immediately, or do you try to find out what happened to your family?
Chapter One, Part Two: Falling Shells and Screaming Bells
YOUR CHOICE HAS BEEN MADEBy deciding to go for the guns first, Python is more apt to use guns rather than blunt instruments or knives. This means that, in a stealth situation, Python is more likely to reveal their cover by using a gun to kill a Trotter.
You follow Thunderlane downstairs to where the living room is. Two makeshift beds are set up in front of a covered window, which confuses you. They had a perfectly fine bed upstairs, so why sleep down here? You also see that the front door isn't boarded up, but the brothers have a deadbolt on it. Won't help much when tons of those… Trotters, as Thunderlane put it, when tons of those Trotters are slamming on the door. Rumble is sitting in the makeshift bed, reading a comic entitled When Humans Attack! You chuckle at the thought of something as silly as hairless beings that only stand on two legs having the capability of thought. Ponies were the smartest race in Equestria, everypony knew that!
You shake your head, trying to get back to the task on hand. You turn to Thunderlane and say, "We go and get the guns first, then we see what happened to my family. My family might be top priority, but I can't do too much if I'm dead." He nods and says, "Get up, Rumble. We're going to go for a little walk to the police station." The younger Pegasus pops out from under his sheets and runs upstairs, coming back down with his trusty shovel. Thunderlane walks over to the dining room and slides his bat into a special harness that would hold it on his back. He offers you one of the harnesses, but you decline. There were more than enough of them at the station. Finally, after you and the other two gather at the door, Thunderlane undos the deadbolt and slowly creaks the door open. Seeing no Trotters, you walk outside with the brothers, heading off to Town Hall.
When you reach Town Hall, you find it deserted. No ponies were there, living or dead. You were glad for that. Not only did you not feel like having to kill things, even if they're dead, you also didn't want to fight over guns with anypony. You walk inside Town Hall ahead of the others, your trusty Python out by your side in case of any hiding ponies. After you check each and every room thoroughly, you holster your revolver and lead the two Pegasi into gun storage. Taking a ring of keys lying on one of the tables, you unlock the caged room and trot right in. Some of the weapons are missing, but there's more than enough for the three of you.
Rumble immediately reaches for a pistol and shouts, "Oh! Oh! I wanna learn how to shoot!" However, Thunderlane slaps his hoof away from the firearm and says, "Hey! Hold up there, Rumble! I'm going to teach you alright, but I gotta make sure you respect the weapon. These guns aren't the same as the cap guns you used to have, you can't play around with these." You give a chuckle and say, "Your brother's right. Every time you shoot it, you have to mean it." You turn your attention back to what you were doing before: loading guns into a large duffel bag. In it, you've stored three shotguns, a rifle with a powerful scope, and many pistols. You've also packed a lot of bullets for each of the weapons, including your revolver. However, you've still left enough ammunition for Thunderlane and Rumble. Also, along with each weapon, you've stored special harnesses so that you and your family could hold each weapon without needing magic.
Turning to the two brothers, you levitate a pistol with one of the harnesses, the barrel facing the ground. "This," you explain, "is a harness developed by officials in Canterlot to let non-unicorns hold pistols. This also goes for shotguns, mind you. There's two simple steps to firing. First, you need to raise it up at your target." You raise the barrel of the pistol so that it's parallel to the ground, and a faint click is heard. "The pistol or shotgun will only fire when it's elevated like this or higher. Now, the second step is even simpler. Just jerk it back as if it had been fired." You quickly bring the barrel up, a much louder CLICK! making the Pegasi jump. You chuckle, then bring over a rifle that had a different harness attached to it. It had one part going parallel to the gun, placed right where the trigger would be, and a second part a bit further up the frame going perpendicular.
"Now, this one is special," you say, "not to mention that it takes more steps. First, slide your left foreleg in the harness that's farther up the barrel. This will help you steady the rifle. Then, slide your other foreleg in the harness that replaces the trigger. There's a special trigger made just for this that fires the weapon when you jab at it. There IS no safety on this, so BE CAREFUL." The Pegasi nod, still in shock from the first demonstration.
You walk over to another part of the gun storage room and put on a special holster jacket. There's two slots in it, allowing you to hold either two shotguns, two rifles, or one gun and a close range weapon like a bat. Slinging the duffel bag over your shoulder, you turn to the two and say, "Let's find out what happened to my family."
As you trot back to visit your house, you meet a Trotter along the way. It's simply walking around, looking for fresh meat to devour. It hasn't noticed you yet, though, so the three of you hide in the bushes. "Now's the perfect time for a lesson." Thunderlane says. He pulls his metal bat from his holster vest and gives it to you. You grab it with your magic for a bit before levitating it to your mouth and grasping it in your maw. It feels weird at first, but you quickly get used to it. Sneaking out of cover, your gallop as quietly as you can between cars, getting closer to the Trotter each time. Eventually, you manage to get right behind it.
As you sneak up on it, you hear a loud KRAK! Looking down, you see that you stepped on a fallen branch. The Trotter, alerted by the noise, turns around and growls at you, wasting no time in lunging at your throat. You dodge out of the way just before it reaches you and bring the bat down on the creature's neck. A satisfying SNAP! is heard as the Trotter's neck breaks. You bash its head in a few times for good measure, getting very used to the feel of the bat.
When you finish, the other two trot up to you. The older brother looks at the dead Trotter and says, "That was one hell of a job you did there, Python." You feel a bit glad about yourself, but you can't get rid of the guilty feeling inside that you've just killed a pony in cold blood. Even though you just saved your own life, you feel like a murderer.
There you sit, in the living room of your house. Your eyes are wet with tears. After a quick search of your messy and dirty house, you find that your wife and child are missing. Anything could've happened to them, you think. Thunderlane bends down to you and pats you on the back, saying, "Hey, Python, if it means anything… I think they're still alive. The house might've just been burglarized or something after they left." You bring your face up to him, a weak smile on your face. Suddenly, a realization hits you. The pictures on the walls are gone. You quickly get up and trot to the kitchen, throwing open the cupboards. There was still food left in there. Not much, but there's enough for a single pony with a normal sized pair of saddlebags to take home. You move to the fridge and throw its door open as well. Items such as milk, eggs, and bread were still in there.
You return to the living room and open up another cabinet. The shelves are dusted over, but there's a few spots that look like something was recently taken. Closing the cabinet doors, you turn to Thunderlane and say, "You're right, they're still alive, but this house wasn't burglarized. It never was." The Pegasus tilts his head and says, "What do you mean, not burglarized? The house looked like it was stripped bare!" You take Thunderlane's hoof and drag him to the kitchen, where you reopen the cupboards and the fridge. "What kind of burglar in this sort of world doesn't take food? I've seen many a movie in my time, and there's ALWAYS a shortage of food in these situations. Makes sense, right?" Thunderlane nods his head as you pull him back into the living room. "Furthermore," you continue, "what thief takes pictures of somepony else's family? Look around you! All of my family photos are gone!"
Thunderlane opens his mouth so as to respond, but a loud growl outside stops him. You walk up to the front door, where you see another lone Trotter standing outside. Without thinking of the consequences, your start to trot up to it, pulling out your revolver and pointing it at the Trotter's head. Not stopping your gait, you yell, "You're the FUCKIN' reason why my wife and child are missing, you undead son of a bitch!" BANG! BANG! BANG! You fire two rounds into the Trotter's head, causing it to explode all over the car behind it, and one round into its body. The decapitated corpse hits the hood so hard that the alarm is set off, becoming a beacon to all the Trotters in the surrounding area. You quickly holster your weapon and trot back to your house, your heart racing and your adrenaline pumping. However, before you can reach it, Thunderlane swoops by you, holding Rumble in one hoof, and grabs you with his other. When he flies back in his house, he throws you onto the floor and begins to board the front door up.
"The hell were you thinking, firing that thing off!?" Thunderlane shouts. "You've probably attracted all of the Trotters within fifty miles of here!" You sit on the makeshift bed, your head hung low. Your mistake has probably cost you another night or two stuck in the house. The Pegasus walks over to the carpet covered window and looks outside. You walk up to it and look outside as well. You see Trotters roaming the streets, most of them swarming around the honking car. As Rumble walks up to the window under you, a group of Trotters in front of the car disperses. The only one left is a white mare with a wild and out of place mane. Her coat is stained with dirt and the blood of other ponies, and she's missing a lot of flesh on different parts of her body. Hearing a sniffle, you look down to find that Rumble is gone. You look behind you to see that he's got his head buried in a pillow, crying into it.
Thunderlane trots over to his brother and tries to calm him down. As you walk over to them, the Pegaus explains, "That mare… she was my girlfriend… practically a mother to Rumble here. She got bit one day and turned into one of… those monsters. Died right on the bed upstairs. Since then, Rumble couldn't sleep on it. She was really nice and caring… she and Rumble had a lot of fun…" You notice a tear forming in Thunderlane's eye as well.
It all makes sense to you now. That's why they stayed. They lost too much here. You can stay another night, you think to yourself. At least, until the Trotters leave. It's the least you could do. You have your own family to look after, after all. You know how it feels to lose somepony close. Closing the carpets over the windows, you put a few of the lanterns on and hunker down for the night.
The sun's rays hit your face as you wake up. It takes you a few minutes, but you eventually realize that the moans and growls of the Trotters have disappeared, as well as the car alarm. You sit up in the bed to find the boards on the door have been removed, and that the two Pegasi are still sleeping. You get out of the bed to write the two brothers a note, telling them that you've gone off to find your family. On the reverse side, you write the instructions to firing the weapons, hoping that they'd remember them. You dress yourself in your police vest and double holster jacket, pinning your badge on the front. Then, you sling the bag of guns onto your back and trot out the front door, making sure to open and close it quietly.
As you begin to trot away, you get an idea. You turn around and gallop to Town Hall. Thankfully, you don't meet any Trotters on the way. You rush inside to your cubicle within the building. You don't find the keys to your cruiser, but you find something that means a bit more to you: your Ponyville Ranger hat. The police of Ponyville were usually nicknamed "Rangers" by the residents due to their Western styled hats and star shaped badges. You put it on and go into Colt's cubicle to take his keys. Luckily, they were in there, hanging on the hook. You take them off and trot outside to his cruiser. Driving the cruisers was normally assigned to dragons, but that didn't mean you didn't know how to. You slide into the uncomfortable cockpit and start the car up with a satisfying VROOM! Before you leave, though, you remember something else that should be done.
You park the car on the side of the road next to the park and get out. The half Trotter from before has crawled all the way from the monument of Celestia to the sidewalk you now parked at. Trotting over to it, you pull out your Python and aim it at the Trotter's head, cocking the hammer back. It only hisses and reaches out at you. You know you have to kill it, but you can't bring yourself to pull the trigger. As you lower the revolver, you remind yourself that this was once a filly, and it feels like this would be murder. You remember your family, though, and that it was things like this that made you lose them. You're stuck in between a rock in a hard place. You want to kill it because it's the reason why your family is missing, but you also don't want to because it was once like you. You sit on the ground a ways away from the Trotter, thinking through your dilemma.
A choice must be made. Will you either put the Trotter down, or will you let it live?
