End of Equestria

Chapter Five: Survivors

The small group of survivors were furiously banging on the front door of the boutique which had been heavily reinforced with wood and metal. The hoard was closing in and the boutique seemed to be the only sturdy building in the area. “Rarity! Rarity please help!” yelled Twilight, the zombies were close now and she knew that they couldn’t fend off all of them. Suddenly, a strange stallion swung open the doors and motioned the group inside. “Quick! get in! before they get any closer!”, Twilight didn’t need time to consider this due to the fact that the hoard was but metres away. The stallion slammed the doors shut with a thud that was followed by the thumping sound of hooves being smashed against wood. Now that they were safe, Twilight took time to survey this stallion, he had a light-blue coat with a navy blue mane, his cutie mark seemed to be of some sort of plant in a flower-pot. “Thank Celestia that you found us, we were beginning to think we were the only survivors!”, Twilight cocked an eyebrow, “you mean you’re not the only one?”. The stallion gave a small smile and walked further into the boutique, shortly followed by the others. “No, of course not! There are lots of us here!”, Spike ran up to the stallion with a eager expression, “is Rarity here? Oh please oh please say yes!”, Spike almost looked a bit worried. The stallion chuckled and gave Spike a reassuring look, “don’t worry, miss Rarity is here”. Spike gave a sigh of relief and slowed his pace, they soon all came into the main room of the boutique, which was filled with junk of all sorts, it was like somepony with a hoarding problem had moved into the boutique. “Wow, Rarity has really let this place go” joked Twilight as she cluttered her way through the mess. “We don’t come downstairs, we all fortified upstairs and filled downstairs with all the junk, it really helps in case of a attack because the infected have a hard time getting through all the mess”. Twilight thought over this and wondered why she didn’t think of doing that with the library. Beyond all the junk there was the door that led to the stairs. The stallion opened it up and proceeded up the stairs, then, up at the top of the stairs, was a figure that was unmistakeably the owner of the boutique, Rarity. “Well, its been a while” said Rarity, bearing a warm smile, Twilight returned the smile and spoke in a soft voice. “I guess it has”, the two stood in silence before Rarity broke it with a giggle. Twilight ran towards Rarity laughing and the two hugged while smiling uncontrollably. “I thought I’d never see you again!” said Twilight, on the brink of tears of happiness. “Oh, I knew I would see you again!”, the two hugged for a while longer before Twilight broke the embrace. Twilight then noticed six large scars on her face, three were just above her snout and the other three were over her left eye. Rarity noticed that Twilight was staring at the scars and blushed a little, “oh, heh, that, Opal got a bite from one of those nasty ponies out there, it didn’t end well”. “Oh Rarity I’m so sorry! What happened to Opal?”, rarity looked down at her hooves and back up to Twilight. “Oh… oh, I’m.. I’m sorry”, rarity gave a sad smile “don’t worry, she went quickly, but not before giving me these scars”. Spike looked at the wounds and spoke up, “I don’t think they look that bad, they actually look kinda cool!”, Rarity smiled at Spike, “oh Spike! Stop it!”. Everypony had a bit of a laugh before Twilight brought up a more serious topic, “so, what happens now?”, Rarity smirked, “now? How about I introduce you to the others?”.

There were more survivors in the boutique than Twilight expected, all together there were eleven ponies in the boutique. There was Rarity, Sweetie Belle, Silver Skies, Bon Bon, Gem Stone and Blue Leaf, the stallion who had opened the door for Twilight and the rest. There were five other ponies but they were gathering supplies out in Ponyville. The ponies that were holding out in the shop all had very different backgrounds, Silver Skies was a royal guard before the outbreak, Blue Leaf was a botanist, Bon Bon owned a candy store and Gem Stone was a professional at finding rare gems. Twilight liked how ponies that were so different worked together so well in order to survive, it showed how tenacious the pony race was. At the moment, Gem Stone was on look-out duty, Silver Skies was putting some extra barricades on the downstairs windows, Bon Bon was cooking and Blue Leaf was tending to the plants growing on the roof. Rarity finished putting Sweetie Belle and AppleBloom to bed and approached Twilight, “Twilight, you know quite a bit about pony anatomy, right?”. Twilight was caught off-guard by this question, Rarity faint at the sight of dirt let alone blood, “of course Rarity, why?”, “why don’t I show you?”. Twilight agreed and followed Rarity to a door that led into the basement, before they went down, Rarity put on a apron and surgical mask and handed the same attire to Twilight, the only difference to the two’s clothing was that Rarity’s attire was customised to her fashion requirements. Twilight put on the equipment and followed Rarity into the basement. Twilight was surprised and shocked by what she saw down there, the basement was painted white and bright lights lined the ceiling. Chrome machines hummed while tubes and pipes pumped fluids throughout the room. Silver tables not unlike the ones you would find in a morgue or a autopsy room filled the basement, each table was occupied by a zombie pony. Most were dead but some were still living and strapped to the table by metal cuffs, they were cut open, blood pouring into small pans and organs lying on trays. Twilight simply stood in one place with her jaw wide open, “it is quite a sight, isn’t it?” asked Rarity as she started to sort some assorted knifes into neat, organised lines. “Wha-, what is all this?” asked Twilight who was in awe from the stench of bleach and the sight of raw, open bodies. “this, is where I’ve been doing my work on these ponies for the past year or so, I’ve been researching them to try and understand some aspect of these ‘zombies’”. “Rarity, I never knew you had the knowledge to pull off something like this! Its incredible!”, “umm, that’s the thing, I don’t have the knowledge to do this, I’ve only been able to discover some of the characteristics that the virus takes away when it infects a pony, I would try and do further research on the whole dead and alive thing but all that blood, eagh!”. Twilight carefully looked over the dissected bodies of the ponies, Rarity’s talent of cutting cloth and felt seemed to work the same in this situation. “You see Twilight, that’s one of the reasons I was so excited to see you here, I’m now wondering if you would like help me with my work”. Twilight’s face lit up like she was a filly on Hearth’s Warming Eve morning, except instead of presents there were half-rotted zombie ponies ready for dissecting. “I would love to Rarity”.

For the first time in as long as Twilight could remember the fog was starting to clear. It gave a good look out at Ponyville from the roof of the boutique, a few ponies shuffled around the remains of what were once houses while a chilly wind blew through the town. Twilight took a few more moments to enjoy the beauty of the sun rising above the light mist and shining rays of light through the clouds before taking a sip of her tea. The small wisps of steam that rose from the tea blew off carelessly into the wind and were carried off into the heart of Ponyville. Twilight took another sip of her tea and tightened the pink and lavender striped scarf around her neck and walked back into the boutique, gently closing the glass door behind her. Bon Bon was inside reading a book to AppleBloom and Sweetie Belle as she drank from a large mug, it seemed that everypony was enjoying the tea that Rarity made from the tea leafs that Blue leaf grew on the roof of the boutique. Twilight trotted down the steps and bid good morning to Big Macintosh and Silver Skies who had just woken up and were preparing some breakfast. Twilight felt at home here, it had been only a week since Twilight and her group had taken refuge here and they had already considered this place as their new home. The numbers of zombie ponies seemed to be dwindling. Less and less hordes had been seen passing by the safe house and Twilight suspected that they were moving out from Ponyville to other towns where they may be able to find more food. “Good morning Twilight, did you sleep well?” asked Rarity from her work room, she was sewing together some felts to make a saddlebag for Big Mac and mending some scarfs, it was the only thing she did these days. “Yes, I did, I was just up on the balcony enjoying the view, did you know the mist is thinning?”. Rarity looked up from her work with a look of disbelief on her face, “really? That’s wonderful! Do you think now would be a good time to go out and find some food?”. Twilight nodded, they were running out of food and she didn’t want to risk loosing this opportunity, the fog could return any day now. “Well then” said Rarity, “I’ll round up a party to go on a search, would you be a dear and gather some things we might need?”. Twilight agreed and went downstairs to gather some supplies. She wouldn’t need anything to defend herself but she couldn’t say the same about the other ponies. She picked up a wood-cutting axe for Silver Skies, two large blades for Rarity, and a large piece of wood with a metal studded ball on the end for DayDream, one of the ponies who had been on a scavenging trip when Twilight had first arrived. The other four ponies were RoseLuck, Vinyl Scratch, Goldheart and a pony named Filthy Rich who unfortunately didn’t make it back to the boutique. After Twilight had gathered the weapons, she gave them to each pony who was accompanying her and Rarity and the search. They then headed out into Ponyville.