End of Equestria

Chapter Four: the Road to Ponyville

Twilight and Mac were carefully slipping through the shadows in the apple orchard. Spike and AppleBloom were next to Granny Smith who was having some trouble keeping her cool in this situation. “What was that? Did ya hear that?”, Twilight rolled her eyes, Granny Smith may be old but this level of paranoia was ridicules. Big Mac insisted that everyone find something to use as a weapon before they left the farm, Granny Smith had a large kitchen knife in a saddle bag and AppleBloom had the top of a barrel to use as a shield. She wanted to use a knife but Mac didn’t like the idea of her using a weapon. Spike had the piñata bat he found in Pinkie’s room and Big Mac was wearing iron horseshoes that were studded on the underside. Twilight thought it would be a better idea to go through the orchard under the cover of night to avoid detection, Mac didn’t like this because he knew a hoard was nearing in on the farm but knew they would be killed going through the orchard in the day. While the dark provided good cover from zombies, mixed with the fog it was a challenge to navigate through the trees. “Wait, everypony hold up”, Big Mac raised a hoof to indicate everyone to stop. “I saw somethin move, over there”. He pointed to a apple tree that had fallen over a long time ago. Twilight moved closer to the tree and peeked behind it, she was met with the stench of rot and the sight of a rotting foal. She held back the vomit and motioned everypony to move around the tree, she didn’t need AppleBloom seeing this. The group walked for another hour before stopping at the end of the orchard, there was a old road that lead to Ponyville but it was blocked by three infected ponies. “AppleBloom, take Granny Smith over there, and don’t look until I say you can”, “but Mac I wanna-“ “no buts, you don’t need ta be seein this”. Mac and Twilight moved up to the ponies, these ponies weren’t like the others, they were fast. One of the ponies galloped up to Mac but was met with his two back hooves. The metal horseshoes hit the snout of the pony, separating its lower jaw. The jaw flew back while the metal studs cracked the skull of the pony which sent bone fragments and the ponies frontal lobe flying. The pony hit the dirt with a sickening thud followed with the gurgling sound of blood seeping out of the ponies head. The second pony was hit with one of Twilight’s bolts before it could reach Twilight. The pure energy blew straight through the pony’s lower half, the pony tried to crawl towards Twilight but was first crushed by Big Mac’s hooves. The third pony was hit in the eye by Spike’s bat, blood gushed from the socket as the pony lurched at Spike, its maw snapping wildly. Spike withdrew the nail and landed it again in the forehead of the pony, with a loud crunch the face of the pony caved in and gore spilled out onto the dirt road. With the last pony down the band re-grouped and cleaned the blood from themselves and snacked on some sandwiches. Twilight was still grieving over the loss of AppleJack and this gory encounter wasn’t helping, “are you ok Twilight?” asked Spike who was obviously concerned about Twilight. “I’m fine don’t worry, its just a bit hard seeing ponies and my friends this way”, Twilight dismissed the topic and gathered everypony up for a quick plan. “Ok everypony, at the moment we’re just outside of the farm and about a hours walk from Ponyville, we needed the dark to get through the orchard but we wont make it through the meadows in the night”. “Twilights right, if were going ta make it to Ponyville we’re either gonna have ta wait until sunrise of find another route”. The group discussed this for a while before deciding to find a place to sleep for the night. “There’s a house on the top of a hill near here, I think it belonged to CarrotTop”. Big Mac suddenly remembered CarrotTop’s house, his sister used to go there to have lunch with CarrotTop on some days. “Ah been there before, its pretty isolated an easily defendable”. The group agreed on sleeping at CarrotTop’s place and walked up the hill to the house. Other than the large carrot on the roof being gone the house was in a perfect condition. Big Mac opened the door and checked the inside for any ponies, the place was empty and everypony settled down as Twilight and Mac kept watch. “Hey Mac? You remember that hoard you talked about, you know? The one that was coming through the South Field?”, “eeyup”. Mac turned to Twilight and noticed that she looked unsettled. “What about that?”, “well, I think they might be a bit closer than we first anticipated”.

Twilight had Spike riding on her back as they along with the Apple Family galloped through the meadows. “That was too close Twilight, what were you thinking stopping in a house so near the orchard?”, Twilight kept on kicking herself for not thinking this one through. Not only did she put herself at risk but also all of her friends. “Quick, we can go through the woods to lose em”, Mac pointed out the dense trees that bordered the meadows and leaded the group towards them. Twilight headed into the forest followed by Granny Smith and AppleBloom, Big Mac was on the flank of the group to watch out for any un-welcomed guests. Everypony quickly grouped in a small clearing, the moonlight gave the area eerie glow that made Twilight uncomfortable. Mac perked up his ears, as if he had just heard something, “quick! Everypony form a circle round AppleBloom and Granny!” shouted Mac, Spike and Twilight moved into a defensive position. The first pony came towards Spike, who quickly swung the bat, hitting the pony in the shoulder. The blew was so hard that the leg was dislocated and fell limp, useless to the infected pony, Spike took this opportunity and belched a blast of magic fire that melted through the pony like a hot knife through butter. The only thing left was a charred corpse. Twilight was faced by two fast ponies, one managed to knock her to the ground while the other was decapitated by a beam of pure energy. Before one of the ponies could maul the dazed Twilight it was suddenly head-butted by Mac, he turned around just in time to cave in the skull of a pony with his back hooves. The other pony who was hit by the full force of Mac’s forehead fell to the ground and was gored by Spike’s nail. Five more ponies came towards the group but were quickly taken care of by Twilight’s magic, purple and black flames erupted from the tip of Twilight’s horn and disintegrated the five zombies. Mac and Spike took out another three but missed a fourth one. The pony ran towards AppleBloom who screamed in fright, the pony knocked her to the ground but couldn’t get a bite on her because of the barrel-top. Granny Smith came up behind the pony and with one great thrust of the knife drove it straight through the head and out the face of the zombie pony. It fell to the ground with a thud and created a pool of blood in the grass. “Come on! We gotta get goin!” Mac picked up AbbleBloom onto his back and grabbed hold of Granny Smith, Spike hopped on Twilight and they sped off in to the forest. It wasn’t long before they came out the other side of the forest and could see the shadowy outline of the ruin that was Ponyville, Twilight was a quarter of the way across the field when she looked back and saw a hoard of around thirty ponies galloping out of the trees. Everypony ran with all their might towards the town, a small group of zombies ran towards them from Ponyville but were cut-down by a volley of golden lightning, Twilight leaped over the smouldering bodies of the ponies and towards the bridge that lead into Ponyville. Once everypony was over the bridge Twilight incinerated it with a brilliant display of orange and white liquid plasma-energy. Some of the zombies attempted to jump the bridge but ended up being carried away by the strong current of the river or were melted by the plasma. Twilight and the group ran deeper into Ponyville, it was time to find the others.

Everypony was walking through the foggy ruins of Ponyville, it almost seemed deserted, not a single infected pony had been seen since the bridge which wasn’t normal. Twilight knew that Ponyville was crawling with infected but she couldn’t see or hear a single one. “Where are all them evil ponies?”, Twilight thought it was cute that AppleBloom referred to the infected as ‘evil ponies’, it was nice to see that there was still some innocence in this world. “I dunno AppleBloom, just keep ya eyes peeled, ya hear?”, “yes Mac”. Twilight could see that AppleBloom was very tired, they didn’t get much sleep back at CarrotTop’s house due to the ‘disturbance’, but Twilight knew that they couldn’t stop to rest now, somewhere in Ponyville their friends were still alive. “wait, what was that?”, Spike looked around a bit, “it was like a swishing noise, but it came from.. the sky”. Twilight’s eyes widened at that, “everpony get inside!”. Suddenly a pegasus pony swooped down from the fog and onto Big Mac, its rotted face just inches from his. Spike hit the pony with the bat and Mac smashed its head in with his hooves, AppleBloom and Granny ran into an abandoned cottage but their path was cut off by another pegasus. Twilight launched a bolt at the pony but it was too quick, it flew up and onto Twilight, it bit down on her horn, trying to eat the flesh of the lavender pony. Twilight let out a sonic-boom of sorts from the tip of her horn, this blew the face off of the pony and splattered Twilight with bone and muscle. She immediately regrated using the sonic-boom, remembering the noise it makes. “Everypony! Follow me!”, Twilight started galloping towards the centre of Ponyville and was followed by the group and about twelve infected. Twilight soon found herself at the library, she kicked down the door and motioned everypony inside, when they were all in Twilight used her magic to repair the door and apply some extra barricades. It was only a matter of time before the hoard started smashing their hooves against that barricades and began getting in. Twilight managed to take out a few of them with magical-flames while Mac used his hooves to throw furniture at the zombies. Suddenly, the front door smashed open, Twilight wished it was some random pony but no, it was Pinkie. She looked horrible, her rips and organs were exposed and most of her coat was gone. She had the look of anger on her face and blood dripped from her maw, leaving a sticky pool of red in the doorway. “Oh, Pinkie..”, this time, Twilight couldn’t hold back the tears, “I’m so sorry..”. Twilights horn glowed a brilliant purple and a shadowy wave of blue and purple flowed and wrapped around Pinkie. Twilight knew this wouldn’t be pretty but it would cause Pinkie no pain, the wave shun brighter and brighter and soon was just pure light. Pinkie ran towards Twilight but couldn’t get to her in time, Pinkie was held in place just in front of Twilight, her jaw snapping, trying desperately to bite Twilight. The light was blinding now and white cracks showed on Pinkies body, Twilight looked up to Pinkie, her eyes full of tears, “I’m sorry”. A white flash blew from the waves which then disappeared from Pinkie, leaving flames on the floorboards of the library, Twilight turned and kicked Pinkie, knocking her to the ground and slightly dazing her. Twilight ran towards the back door and kicked it open, everypony followed her into the foggy cold of Ponyville. AppleBloom ran upside Twilight, “what was all that? What wer ya doin?”, twilight spoke but did not turn to AppleBloom. “I couldn’t do it, I could’ve but I just couldn’t kill her”, tears were now flowing freely down her cheeks as she looked back at the now burning library. Big Mac suddenly noticed something, “look! The boutique!”. Twilight looked towards Carrousel Boutique, it was heavily boarded and defended by wood and scrap metal, but there was something else. The lights were on, and smoke was rising from the chimney.