Radioactive

Oh my Celestia… My head… What the buck happened? GAH! I can’t move… too much pain… Two ponies…are dragging me… I’m leaving a trail…of green liquid? It seems neon. That’s not good. No. Vision going dark…

My head again… Celestia it hurts so much. I…I hear faint voices….

“How’s he coming through?”

“His vitals are showing activity. He’s still alive.”

What are they saying? It’s too quiet. Where the hay am I? Bright lights… a bit too bright. My body aches so much. Not as bad though… I…I can move my arm. That’s good. The ponies… they sound clearer.

“He’s showing movement! That’s a good sign! That is definitely a good sign!”

The room I’m in… I see a red cross above a steal door. The medical bays. These ponies must be doctors. There’s a tray with surgical tools next to the surgical table I’m on. My vision is getting clearer. A pony is looming over me with a scalpel.

“Ok, good. We may not need to do any more surgery.” The pony places the scalpel on the tray. “Celestia, we thought you had died from the explosion.” Explosion? The event! “Are you okay?” I look down to my midsection to see a bunch of stitches.

“What the buck happened back there?” I see the doctor starting to smile.

“Good. You can talk. We’re quite surprised you survived that. Quick. What’s your name?”

“Luke Warme.”

"Oh thank Celestia you're okay. After the explosion, you were just... lifeless. We couldn't get any pulse rate from you and assumed the worst."

"Well, I'm not dead. We can celebrate later."

"Or not at all. You see, something happened. The blast opened up a wall exposing the morgue and some of the chemicals in the room got on the bodies."

"So?"

"So, the chemicals brought the dead back to life again." ...

"We are safe here because we blocked them off, but we don't know how much longer until..."

"So we're standing here talking in the middle of a zompony apocalypse?! Celestia damn it! How many survivors are there?!"

"Umm...we are the only ones in this sector, Luke."

"ARE YOU BUCKING KIDDING ME?! Where the hell are these zomponies?! Do we at least have any firepower?!"

"Uhh...we don't have any weapons and as for the zomponies..." Every ponies attention turns to the heavy steal doors as we hear some loud banging and groaning. Not to mention blood curdling screaming. I glare at the doctor.

"Just give me one Celestia damn minute." I jump off the table and head over to a work bench where there are some metal scraps, wires, and some plasma along with a plasma regeneration module. "Perfect." I start using some of the tools laid out on the workbench and start wielding and wiring. Soon enough, I create a classic plasma cutter. "Right, now blockade the door, but leave a small opening so I can shoot them." Some of the doctors get to work right away when the one dumbass of a pony walks up to me. "Can't you tell I'm busy planning our survival?"

"Luke, calm down."

"How can I? We have death knocking on our door and I have to find a way to at least delay them before they freaking kill us all!"

"But sir..."

"No buts! Just stay out of my way right now."

"You have magic."

"You kid me."

"No. the chemicals you were lying in when passed out mutated you. We scanned you and found magic sources forming in your hooves."

"Preposterous! That is impossible."

"What color is your mane?"

"Yellow."

"Look again." The doctor pulls up a mirror. I snatch it away and look at myself to find myself shocked. How the buck do I have green, sort of transparent, glowing mane?!

"Now look at your tail and cutie mark." I angle the mirror so I can notice a bio-hazard symbol on my freaking ass. not to mention the tail has the same exact properties as my mane!

"You have got to be kidding me." We both turn our heads to the steal doors as we hear the sound of metal bending.

"Back away! Don't let them touch you!" The dumbass doctor orders.

"Why not?"

"If they do, you'll turn into one of them." Shit.

"Back off now!" The doctors flee from the door as I aim the plasma cutter at the small hole formed by the grotesque faces of the zomponies. I fire one shot, relieved that it works, decapitating one of them, leaving it to drop lifeless. I keep firing, but it's not enough the hold them all back. "Get to a safer area! I'll hold them off!" The Doctors gallop farther into the medical bay as I keep firing at the zomponies. Damn it, how are there so many of them?! They eventually break through the barrier and start flooding the room. I guess it's time to test out my magic. "COME AT ME YOU SONS OF SEA PONIES!"

I stand on my hind hooves, tossing the plasma cutter, lodging it in a zompony's eye, killing it. I point a hoof towards the medical table and concentrate my thoughts into my hoof, causing a yellow orange aura to surround my hoof and the table. I swipe my hoof towards a group of zomponies coming at me, causing the table to fly in their direction, crushing them against the wall. "Hell yeah!" I swipe my hoof in the other direction crushing a couple more. I use my other hoof and point it towards the tray, levitating the sharp tools in front of me before outstretching the hoof in front of me, launching them at some zomponies, getting them in their foreheads. "This is bucking awesome!"

I use my hooves to activate a computer that has a CD in it to make it start spinning the CD. In the meantime, I use my magic powers to break a gas pipe and a few wires to cause sparks which ignite the gas, starting to burn some zomponies. After that, the computer had enough rotation that it got too much causing the disk to fly out of the PC and cut off a few zompony heads. I'm running out of ideas, but luckily, the zomponies are starting to decrease in number. My hopes die down as soon as I see the next zompony enter. A huge, Celestia damn brute that looks strong enough to lift a bus.

"Holy shit." The zompony lets out a bloodcurdling roar and starts charging at me. Reacting fast, I point my hooves to the ceiling and thrust them downwards, causing the ceiling to crash down, almost killing the tank of a zompony. It lands on the ground right in front of me, trapped underneath the thick rubble. "Suck it, bitch!" Getting too cocky, the thing frees a hoof and grabs me by the hind leg I'm standing on. "Shit!" I use my free hind hoof to kick the thing in the face, causing it to recoil and let me go. Thinking I'm already screwed, I take the risk and land on its back to grab its head and start pulling hard. it starts screaming as I start ripping its head off. Soon, the head detaches from the body spraying blood everywhere. "I had a good life." Thinking I'm about to turn into a zompony, I take my plasma cutter and point it to my head.

"Wait!"

I turn my head to a doctor with wide eyes standing in front of the door they fled through.

"Make it quick. I don't want to be one of them."

"That's just it! The effects are immediate. That thing touched you and you didn't get infected. Luke, you're immune!" I give a sigh of relief as I drop the plasma cutter.

"Oh thank Celestia."

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"So, what you're telling me is that because I've already been irradiated, I can't get infected because they all share a similar form of the radiation or at least some parts of it?"

"That's exactly what I'm telling you."

"Then how come I don't spread it?"

"Because your form of the radiation is different. You're not a zompony, so you can't infect any pony."

"Alright, one more question. How come I don't give off radiation?"

"Because the radiation frequency emitting from you is too weak to have any effect on us or any other pony for that matter, assuming there are other survivors."

"I see." This is all just so much to take in. Who else survived anyways? Hopefully... "Have you ever contacted Cherry?" The Doctor sighs. Not a good sign.

"Unfortunately, no. We have no idea whether she was infected or not." Bucking shit! If she got infected, I don't know if I would want to continue on! I take a deep breath.

"We can only hope. Something she seemed to be able to do so easily. Celestia damn it." I face the wall and start shedding tears at the possibilities. Then I feel a hoof on my shoulder.

"Come on, Luke. You'll be fine. That old radio over there is still operational. We're trying to get a distress signal or someth..." We all look at the radio as it starts beeping. "A transmission! Play it!" A doctor by the radio pushes a button. the sound of a pony I don't know is coming from the other end. This is a big facility after all. I probably don't know three fourths of the ponies who worked here.

"Is any pony there? Can you hear me? Pick up, Luna damn it!" I head over and pick up the microphone.

"Who is this?"

"Oh thank Luna! Another survivor!"

"Survivors, actually. I'm here with three doctors. What's your status and where are you?"

"We're holding up pretty well. Where we are, all the doors are heavily fortified and we were fortunate enough to get trapped in the armory."

"Armory? Since when did we have an armory?"

"Since a few months ago. Some pony was mumbling about something one time. He seemed afraid. Brought the matter to the construction workers and somehow convinced them to build the armory. Hopefully that pony didn't get infected. We could use some answers."

"Strange. Anyways, where is this armory? I can come and help out."

"Are you bucking out of your mind?! You'll get infected with the massive number of zomponies out there!"

"You have no idea."

"Whatever. My coordinates are, making the center of the facility the start, X: 23, Y:14 on level 3." I look at a map on the wall of the facility to find his location to be disheartened at where he is.

"Damn. that's two levels up on the other side of the facility!"

"Damn. we're in a tight spot."

"No shit." I pause to think for a moment. "How much ammunition do you have?"

"Well, my brother who has skill in engineering was able to hook up a few plasma regeneration modules to some assault rifles and changed the ammunition to plasma, so we should be good if they ever break in."

"Good. Just be careful with the tanks."

"What?!"

"It's what I'm going to call the big ones with massive strength. Those things seem brutal."

"Well, it's been a good life."

"It's easy to kill them if you make a plasma cutter and aim for the neck."

"Oh. Okay then. I feel less screwed now. Thanks."

"Don't worry. You two are going to survive. I will eventually get to you and when I do, you're going to have better chances of survival."

"I hope so. If you say that so confidently, then I might as well believe you."

"How is your food supply?"

"I might have to make my way to the level 3 cafeteria soon. Otherwise, we wont last long."

"Alright. Be careful. if the zomponies aren't too active in your area, you could possibly sneak by them. Are your weapons silenced?"

"Would be a good idea, wouldn't it?"

"Definitely. One last question before I go. Have you heard of a mare Cherry Madison?"

"Ahh! You're her boyfriend?"

"Yes. She means the world to me and I don't know if I could live without her."

"Hmm. I know how you feel. Unfortunately, I don't know anything, but I will try to contact you as soon as I hear about her."

"Good. I hope she's alright..."

"Well, thanks for replying. at least there's some hope of survival if we die."

"Don't worry. You won't."

"Heh. That's funny. It seems almost impossible. We'd need a miracle."

"Well guess what. That miracle just happened." Before the pony could question further, I hang up. "Right, so how are we doing with supplies?" I turn to a doctor who speaks up after finishing a quick scan of the room.

"We seem to be good. There's a fridge right there filled with some lunch no pony ate yet along with a microwave in case there are some TV dinners. Right now, we're in the employee lounge, so you could expect that. Anyways, we salvaged some medical supplies in case any pony gets hurt while you were talking. If we get bored, not a problem. Apparently, some pony tried to smuggle in a video game console and brought some games. Ironically, a few are games based off of zompony apocalypses." I start laughing.

"Wow. That's funny. How much food is in the fridge?"

"Let's see..." The doctor opens the fridge to check their supply.

"We have enough to survive for a few days. We need more soon."

"No problem. The cafeteria on this floor isn't too far. I'll head out as soon as we're done here."

"Other than that, we have some functional plumbing in the bathroom so we can go to the sink for some water. we tested it already and it's not contaminated."

"Good. we should be set for a long time."

"One last thing you should know about your mutations." I thought that was the last of it. What else is there? "You're going to explode someday." WHAT?!

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Damnit, why is he telling me this now?! Are all of these bucking doctors complete dumbasses?!

"Stop pacing back and forth and calm down." I start lashing out.

"WHY THE BUCK SHOULDN'T I WORRY?! I'm a ticking time bomb! Why the hell would you stay in the same room as me, Celestia damn it?! Are you all so bucking retarded that you all want to just crawl in a hole and die, or in this case, get blown up by me?!"

"Relax! That's not going to happen in a long time."

"Explain this to me because I have no bucking clue what you're talking about."

"Well, we were scanning you while you were fighting off the horde of zomponies earlier and we noticed that you're power was building up ever so slowly. We thought on this for a bit and realized that when that power gets too much, it will be enough to make your system blow. But, this is happening so slowly that you probably have about a year to live."

"Well, that's sort of relieving. But, if I die, what will happen to you and the other survivors? You wouldn't be able to hold off all the zomponies forever."

"True. We would eventually die and get infected. We have to stop this as soon as possible."

"And how the buck are we going to do that?"

"We'll figure it out eventually. For now, just get some rest before going out. You've been through a lot."

"Okay. Keep that radio on and try to pick up any more distress calls. Send out a few calls too."

"Okay." I walk over to the couch and lay down letting my dreams take over. Unfortunately, it's just a terrifying vision.

Zomponies swarming rooms, ponies screaming, the sound of gunfire, everything terrible that could happen in the apocalypse just flashes before me. Even my beautiful Cherry with a look of defeat and tears. Then I wake up with a horrified gasp.

"Are you okay?" One of the worried doctor comes over to check my temperature when I swat the thermometer away.

"I'm not sick. I just had a bad dream." The doctor nods in acknowledgement.

"We picked up a small transmission on the radio, but it's not any pony. It seems like some sort of fixed loop of sound." I get up and head over to the radio to listen. All I hear is static and tiny whispers of what sounds like a chant. I can pick out a few words. "Death, Destruction, Suffering" Three words.

"Have you located the transmission?"

"Yes. It's coming from the refinery."

"I'll check it out. I need to get some food anyways and the refinery is between us and the cafeteria anyways."

"Alright then. Good luck, Luke." With that, I grab my plasma cutter and exit the room about to experience the hell I'm getting myself into.