End of Equestria

Chapter Six: New Friends, Old Enemies

The group of ponies walked through the now clear Ponyville, the sun warmly shone down onto the piles of stone and wooden debris while the breeze swept across the town. DayDream looked into an old house and called for the group to come inside. Twilight was instantly hit with a stench that felt like a brick upon entering the home. A stallion was lying on the living room floor, or at least, what was left of him. The chest was opened up and the organs within had decayed to a thick, yellowish-green slush. Silver Skies gagged and threw up a little into the corner of the room, the acidic smell adding to the already unbearable assault on the nostrils. Rarity magically lifted a handkerchief to her snout to act as a mask, this was all too much for her. They all quickly moved from the grisly scene into the kitchen where they found a large amount of useful supplies. As Rarity put some cutlery into a hessian sack, Twilight approached her. “Wow Rarity, I’m surprised at how well you’re taking all this…” she stopped to think for the right word, “..decay”. Rarity tightened the mouth of the sack and placed it onto one of the hooks on her saddle. “Well dear, we’ve all had to make sacrifices in these times, unfortunately for me these recent events force me to give up my cleanliness”. The two had a little bit of a giggle and continued to gather supplies from the house. Twilight even surprised herself at how well she had adjusted to all the gore and death, it sent cold shivers down her spine thinking of what it had been like before the outbreak. At just how different things had become. She shrugged off her depressing train of thought and finished up gathering items before moving out with the others. A small group of ponies in the distance hobbled around without purpose just in front of what had once been Sugar Cube Corner, they didn’t look like they had eaten in a long time and were desperate to feed. “We better find a way around them, I don’t really feel like getting my coat messy” said Rarity to the group. Twilight laughed, remembering how much she had missed Rarity’s little imperfections. Just as they were about to move on, Twilight noticed something, the zombie ponies were quickly moving towards a shape that was blurred from this distance, but Twilight knew exactly what it was. A survivor. “Look! There’s another pony over there! We gotta help whoever it is!” shouted Twilight, everypony ese didn’t hesitate to rush at the zombies. They quickly reached the monsters and lunged at the ponies.

The battle that followed was a messy one, the four survivor ponies were heavily outnumbered, but not outgunned. There were twelve zombie ponies, one of them being a unicorn. The unicorns horn sent spastic streaks of energy from it every second before a huge shock-wave of blue magic was blasted out from the tip. The survivors braced for impact but were protected by a shield that Twilight had erected in front of them, the blue energy merely bounced off of the purple barrier and cut down two infected ponies. Silver Skies took this opportunity and rushed at a pony with his axe raised above his head, it came down with a crack as skull and brain matter blasted out from the pony’s head. Rarity was incredibly skilful with her blades, they were moving so fast that they were just grey and red blurs, within a matter of seconds five zombies lay on the ground before the ninja-like fashionista. DayDream was brutal with his weapon, the three ponies he took down were un-recognisable after he was done with his bludgeon. The final pony was the unicorn, it shot out more random bolts of electricity which scorched the ground and left the scent of ozone in the air. Twilight didn’t want it blasting out another shock-wave and quickly acted. A purple beam of transparent magic engulfed the pony, soon reducing it to nothing more than a pile of bones and ash. Everypony regrouped and caught their breath, it had been quite a fight. Twilight almost had forgotten why they were fighting these ponies and soon reminded the group. “No time to sit around yet, we still need to get to that survivor”, they approached the house and knocked on the door. “Don’t worry, the ponies are gone now, you can come out”, the door opened and a mare covered by a cloak poked  her head out, the then spoke with a very familiar voice. “Oh thank Celestia you were here, I don’t want to think of what those ponies would have done to me if you hadn-“, the pony lifted her head and quickly stopped talking, realising who it was who had saved her. Rarity and Twilight’s jaws dropped and they both yelled at the same time, “Trixie?!”.

Silver Skies and DayDream looked slightly confused at this sudden shock, “you ponies know each other?” asked DayDream, trying to figure out what was going on. “Know each other?” said Twilight, “I saved Ponyville from the Ursa-Minor that she let loose after saying she could ‘vanquish’ one”. Trixie looked back at Twilight with a stare like knives, “me? It was those idiot colts that let loose that great brute! Not me!”. “Well maybe if you hadn’t lied to the whole town they wouldn’t have been foolish enough to tick-off one of the most powerful beasts in Equestria!”, by now Trixie and Twilight were pressing their snouts against one another’s as they snarled verbal abuse at each other. Rarity pushed the two apart and held a for hoof in front of  them so they could not move against each other. “Girls please! If we’re going to survive out here it means that we’ll need to get along and put our experiences with one another behind us!”. Twilight knew this was true and she could see that Trixie knew the same, with a flare of her nostrils Twilight turned her back on Trixie and moved on with DayDream and Silver Skies. She looked back to see that Trixie was standing in the same place. “Well? Are you coming with us or are you just gonna stand there and wait to be eaten?”, Trixie quickly rushed up to join the group and they headed off back to the Boutique. Nopony talked on the way back, but Twilight and Trixie constantly glared at each other as they slowly wandered through the town. After a while the fog began to return and soon Twilight was focusing hard to clear a small portion of the fog with her magic. She wished that one of the members of the group was a pegasus, then they would have no trouble finding their way to the Boutique because they could either get the pegasus to fly up to lead them the way or to clear the fog. Twilight was no pegasus, but her magic could clear a small portion of the fog, alas it was not enough to see even a few metres. This wasn’t a normal amount of fog for even the darkest days in the overrun Ponyville and Twilight noticed this, it was only after she heard Silver Skies panicked yells that she was awoken from her day dream and noticed the Boutique, with it’s windows shattered and doors broken down.