Discord Space: Frozen Equestria

Chapters

1. A Mad Mind
2. Dancing with the Necromorphs
3. Ponyville's Last Hope
4. Reunion
5. Delving into History

1. A Mad Mind

It all started thousands of years ago, with a discovery that would change Equestria completely. One that held the promise of infinite power and salvation in a time when ponies were at war. Instead, it brought terror unlike anything they had imagined. It was buried again, with the hopes that it would never resurface. Soon, even time forgot its presence. But that was to change. During a war with the Changelings, it was unearthed again.

An artifact, hidden beneath Canterlot from the earliest of times, rumoured by many to have been created by the chaotic god Discord himself. That artifact, called a Marker, had been discovered alongside a weapon. The weapon had been used shortly after its discovery to terrible effect, ending the lives of hundreds of thousands of Changelings with a single activation. While the weapon brought death, the Marker brought life, in a horrifying, twisted fashion. Dead ponies came back in the form of monsters, a chaotic afterlife known as necromorphs. It began again on Station Luna, where experiments to understand the Marker went terribly wrong.

Princess Twilight Sparkle, in self exile after using the weapon to bring about the Changeling's defeat, built a replica Marker for study. The effects were disastrous. Experimental necromorphs on the Medical Deck broke free, and tore through the station's population with chilling ease. One pony stood up against them, one of the original Elements of Harmony. Applejack. Having moved from apple farming into CEC engineering as a way to save Sweet Apple Acres, she inadvertently found herself fighting the necromorphs, and working for Discord against the corrupted Twilight. In the process however, her mind became tainted with Chaos, eventually driving her to complete madness.

Discord had made the promise of giving her a new life in her mad state, a promise that he betrayed when his plan reached its climax. While the Marker drew necromorphs in to form a much larger, new body for himself, Applejack was to be the gateway for his consciousness to enter the new body. A process that would have killed her. But somehow, deep within the recesses of her mind, she defeated him. His destruction caused the Marker to implode, which in turn led to the entire obliteration of the station, and all of its secrets. Applejack's fate is still unknown.

Now, Equestria is trapped in an infinite twilight. Both sun and moon lie on either side of the horizon, unmoving since the necromorph outbreak spread to the planet itself. The result, a catastrophic shift in the weather, turning the entire continent into a frozen wasteland. With the station destroyed, and the Lunar Colony on total quarantine, there has been no sign of Princess Celestia, or her sister. Hope of their return has faded, to the point that the tiny portions of pony civilization left only survive out of terror. Death has become their worst fear, because they know it will not be permanent.

Ten months after Station Luna disaster.

Blizzards were nothing new, just another hazard on top of necromorphs, Chaotics, and the cold itself. A simple tear in one's RIG could let the freezing atmosphere in, causing the body to suffer frostbite. At that point, they were finished. Pegasi no longer roamed the skies, and unicorns had lost just about all of their power. Magic had been drained away under Equestria's blanket of death. Where it had gone didn't matter that much anymore. They were already beyond the redemption of magic.

The air cleared enough for the occupant of a black and white RIG to see ahead. A layer of light protective material on top of artificial insulation, and again on top of the normal covering. What differed this RIG from others however was the size. Noticeably larger than the typical pony suit, primarily for the reason that the owner was not a pony. Her helmet split down the middle to fold away, a unique feature to accommodate for her mohawk. "A necromorph I do not see, what about you Trixie?"

A bright blue RIG caught up, the eyes glowing in pink. A makeshift tesla cannon was strapped to one hoof. The other had a spear gun. Trixie shivered as the cold air hit her exposed face to answer Zecora. "I swear I saw movement to the left. Look, slashers I can handle okay. But if this is a pack of stalkers, we are totally screwed." She only had the biting wind for a response. Zecora merely closed her helmet up and continued on. The gleaming pillar of silent confidence that everypony had come to admire. That or Trixie's sarcasm had reached a new high.

Neither of them knew what exactly they were looking for anymore. Usually it was supplies, food and energy cells primarily. And on occasion, raw materials and weapon blueprints. None in their camp had the expertise to experiment with the deadly art of weapon crafting. What little survived the failed Convergence on Equestria was vital to their future now. Zecora was one of the lucky ones; her magic wasn't affected by the cold at all. Hers was of a different type, and Trixie couldn't help but feel jealous whenever those powers helped find more salvage.

'It is not a race to collect, if you believe so, might I interject?' That was just about the extent of what she said whenever the matter was brought up. "What are we even doing out here? I swear that one of the other pairs covered this area a few weeks ago." Something very large and loud flew by in the thick of the blizzard fog. "Oh come on, more space junk. Just you wait Zecora; Spitfire's going to ask us to investigate before the necromorphs close in too. Any minute now." Right on cue, her communicator began receiving a signal from their base.

"Trixie, we just tracked a probe that seems to have come from the colony. This isn't the normal space debris, anything inside that should be considered incredibly valuable." Trixie closed it without giving her usual response of sarcastic remarks and begrudging sighs of defeated pride. Probes were a waste of time, the blizzard made anything smaller than a fixed, full size scanner utterly useless. But Spitfire's days as the Wonderbolts Captain, and then as a military general had brought her annoying need for thoroughness into full bloom.

It didn't take long for them to reach it, and in the end, she found herself admitting that probe hunting was rather more interesting than stamping through snow on scavenging trips. The wreckage caused by the probe itself was challenging enough just to observe. It sat precariously on the edge of a cliff, having ruined a factory that left bits of metal sprayed out across the snow. On top of that, several fires surrounded the impact area. The probe itself seemed undamaged, and a lot larger than either of them had first anticipated. Spitfire's speculation that it contained something valuable didn't seem that far-fetched anymore.

"Okay, I'll take a quick look inside; the snow should kill off any space bacteria. Yell if you see any necromorphs." Zecora took up position on a firm rock well away from the cliff. Trixie took every step very carefully. Even with the RIG's insulation, she could feel heat radiating off the probe, melting the snow down to water that in turn froze back into ice. A highly dangerous surface, especially when so close to a long fall. "This thing's hot. It's still glowing red in some parts. I'll have to use stasis to get close enough, be ready in case this goes south."

She resumed the approach once the probe's heat radiation had been slowed drastically. Snow that passed through the stasis field helped cool the surface before it could evaporate the tiny flakes. One of many tricks she had learned from previous junk hunts. Something caught her eye as the surface continued to cool. "Hey Zecora, there's a hoof lock here. The other ones didn't have a way in apart from cutting torches." This probe in particular had been designed to be opened by any pony who came by. On that impulse, she slid her hoof into the lock, turning it open.

"Trixie! Necromorphs are upon us, we cannot fuss! Open the probe now, before we become chow." A large part of the probe hinged outward towards Trixie. Warm air rushed out past her into the cold atmosphere of Equestria. In the moment her visor was blinded by the rush, a hoof grabbed onto her leg. A heavy one at that, one that moved in a distinctly hydraulic fashion.

Zecora landed in the snow beside her in such a manner that suggested she had been physically thrown. Trixie didn't even need to turn her head to guess what had just happened. "We need that teleport Spitfire! And set it for three, we have an unexpected guest!" The large necromorph that had thrown Zecora down was only visible through the thick snow by the array of glowing spots displayed on its limbs. Trixie grabbed hold of the metal hoof reaching from the probe as the beast came right down on top of them. Most of the cliff broke away under the sheer force to crumble down into a river choked with frozen flesh.

Three years after Station Luna disaster, Present Day.

Make us whole... "Subject D, report to the mess hall immediately, Subject D." The loud intercom woke the single occupant of a less-than hygienic cell. White tiled walls, a pale blue tiled floor, and anything-proof glass to keep the occupant in full view of other patients. That was how Applejack saw her home of three months. The ideal place for the vastly male ward to watch a single mare live her life in binding. Two pairs of energy shackles were always around her hooves. They allowed her to walk around, at least until the pegasi attendants opened the door. At that point, they would all pull together to leave her completely helpless. "Repeat, Subject D, report to the mess hall immediately, Subject D."

"Better hurry up D-Bag. They don't feed ya if you don't follow the rules. Always how it worked." Across the hallway, she watched Subject F continue to vomit into the hole that served as a toilet. A unicorn whose horn had been removed at some point. She was one of the really fussy patients; always vomiting up what they force-fed her. "Nice one F-Face. Let's see how easy it is to show everypony the contents of your stomach when you've got a tube down your throat."

Subject F moved away from the toilet at that moment, towards the middle of her cubicle. She was vomiting up yellow liquid this time, instead of the usual grey mess that their food always looked like. Applejack moved towards the glass out of concern. "Hey uh, Effy here doesn't look too good. Don't ya'll think you should check up on her?" There was a highly unusual absence of guards at that moment. Down the hall, she could hear attendants trying to sedate a screaming patient. Too pre-occupied to notice one of the other ponies in the ward vomiting up yellow gunk.

Areas on F's back began to move. Focused around the shoulder blades notably. It was an unmistakeable sign. "Buck... Hey! Let me out! She's turning into a necromorph, you hear me? You gotta let me out before she kills everypony!" On cue, two fleshy blades burst out of F's back as she reared up. Her lower jaw tore away to leave a bloody mess down her white outfit. Applejack continued to beat against the clear wall in desperation. "Let me out! I'm the expert on killing necromorphs; you gotta let me get her before it spreads!"

Two thick blades punched right through F's glass wall. A struggle between cracks forming from the attack and auto-repair began, with the former winning at an alarming rate. One of the attendants entered the hallway, accompanied by guards. They paid no attention to the escaping necromorph, making their way right toward Applejack's cell. "Quiet down now before we sedate you too!" Hardened synthetic glass sprayed across the floor as the necromorph escaped. It only caused Applejack to pound harder in desperation.

The door to her cubicle opened. A signal from one of the guards brought the energy cuffs together to leave her in a heap on the floor. "Can't you see it? She's going to kill everypony!" She heard it enter her own cubicle, the slap of dead, fleshy hooves on a hard floor unmistakable. A needle jabbed into her shoulder while the necromorph moved to stand over her. Make us whole. Her eyes shut quickly, the sedative taking effect with remarkable speed. While the guards lifted her back onto the bed, the attendant made his way over to Subject F's cell.

"I believe this was a success. The stimulus of a screaming patient out of sight seems to have triggered the Chaotic portion of her brain. She claimed to see a necromorph, as we hoped would happen. Shall we proceed with the dissection?" F turned her head towards the attendant from the latest session of vomiting. Her eyes were heavily bloodshot and twitchy, a severe lack of sleep brought on by Marker stimulants had caused far more than restless nights. Though when she spoke, it was not the voice of Fleur de Lis.

"Yes. If she continues to degrade any longer, we will lose the chance to analyse a fully matured case in detail. And try not to kill her before you have extracted the brain. She may be far tougher than Fluttershy ever was, but she is also far more valuable to our research." For a moment, the eyes glimmered in a different shade of purple. The attendant had seen it happen before. It didn't disturb him in the least.

"Very good, I shall establish a video feed when we are ready, Princess." Fleur returned to her usual state once more. A sad, broken unicorn, who played the role of a telepathic relay to one of the most dangerous war criminals in Equestria's history. Applejack's view of her room lacked a key portion of the wall, where a single name had been scrawled. Twilight Sparkle.

Applejack didn't quite realize at first that her eyes were in fact open when she regained consciousness. Her cell had been blacked out, along with the hallway. Light still came from the other cells, though she couldn't see any of the patients through the stinging, watery sensation coating her eyes. The sedatives used there had a common tendency to do that. "She's awake. Hey, Applejack. Try not to blink too much; you'll only aggravate the stinging." A flashlight caused her eyes to water more. It took several impatient seconds following that for her vision to return.

An off-white pegasi with a bright orange mane dressed in snow gear was standing in front of her, having already removed the energy cuffs from her legs. "No time for questions, we need to get you out of here. They're going to cut your head open and take your brain in a few hours if we don't hurry. Now just follow my lead-" A sharp blade burst out from the base of his neck. At the same moment, a glowing tentacle drilled into his forehead and injected the same yellow gunk she had seen Subject F vomiting up in her hallucination. Only now, this was far from any nightmare she had experienced. A blood choked gurgle escaped his shuddering mouth. "Get... outside..."

It happened again in frightening detail. His lower jaw tore away to spray her in blood. Skin peeled off of his face while his eyes exploded. One of the two blades protruding from his back stabbed down beside her into the bed. Applejack had less than seconds to recover from the shock. "Buck this!" Her hind legs threw the necromorph into the other wall to give her enough time to escape the cell. The scene outside was identical to her mad hallucination down the entire hall. Necromorphs were breaking out of the cells in an attempt to reach her. This time, an infector was making rounds of each room.

While it moved to convert one of the guards, she bolted. It was happening all over again. An exact repeat of Station Luna, only this time she had no weapon, and no knowledge of the asylum outside her cell. Another necromorph knocked her over when turning a corner. In the struggle to fight it off, she felt a sharp pain down in her hip. Not even five minutes into her freedom, and already she had been stabbed by a monster. It served to fuel her insanity driven anger. "Taste hoof bitch!" The resulting buck connected with the necromorph's jaw hard. Its head shot up into the ceiling, while the rest of the body flailed around during her escape.

A nearby storage room seemed to be the best place to hide. Necromorphs ran by wildly as she closed the door. She waited several seconds in anticipation one would start stabbing the door open. Minutes passed. Only when the gurgling screams had faded did she finally slide down into a sitting position. "I don't believe this. Just three months, that's all it took for another outbreak to happen." She hadn't even bothered to check who had saved her from becoming tenderized. Not a single care in the world had been given about him.

It had happened impossibly fast. Her flight from the ward had gone by in a total blur; she only recalled decapitating the necromorph with her hoof in detail. And her hip was still bleeding. That she chose to ignore, pain had become a familiar sensation over the past three months. Injections, abuse, and of course interrogations about the Marker. It had all blended together into one long mess of torture and examination. That was her reward for fighting through hundreds of necromorphs, killing Twilight and Discord, and then blowing up the station.

That continued to puzzle her, ever since she had first woken up in the cell. The advanced RIG was explosion proof; she had found that out towards the end of her time on the station. But even it couldn't have protected her from the utter destruction wrought by the Marker's final energy burst.

'Your work is not over. Equestria will suffer greatly in your absence, and you are the only pony who can save it. Sleep for now, I will watch over you.' "Oh yeah, well where the hay are you now Celestia? I bet you don't give a single flying feather about what happens to me. If you did, then I wouldn't be stuck in loonyville with a bunch of angry zombie ponies trying to turn me into mince." It was Nightmare Night's return all over again, Celestia vanishing deliberately to let the little ponies 'fulfil their destiny'. But nopony ever got hurt back then. Life was peaceful.

"Applejack are you there? I lost contact with Fire Streak, what happened?" Applejack looked down at her hoof. A video communicator, covered in blood like the rest of her outfit. The voice sounded a lot like Spitfire, it seemed logical that Fire Streak was one of the Wonderbolts. Of all the times to be rescued by Equestria's prize flying team... How would she explain his demise to the air force general though? "Come on Applejack, the communicator he gave you is tied to your health readout, I know you can hear me. His stopped responding, I need you to fill me in on what happened."

She looked down at the communicator again. "This is Subject A. Fire Streak's dead; an infector got him just after he freed me. There's necromorphs all through the asylum." There were so many questions she wanted to ask, questions that kept her from opening up the video part of the communicator. "How the hay did a necromorph outbreak happen here? I destroyed the Marker on Station Luna four or so months ago, did the other one activate?" Spitfire's voice became faint while she talked with other ponies. At least it wasn't a two-pony rescue mission then.

"Horseapples. Fine, at least you're alive. Try to make his death worthwhile by not getting yourself killed. Oh, and I'm afraid it hasn't been three months. More like-" The transmission died as the whole room shook violently. It lasted mere seconds, most likely an earthquake. In other circumstances, that wouldn't be so bad. But a loss of power throughout the facility while necromorphs were on the loose couldn't possibly end well. Losing contact with the only pony not out to cut her brain out was a serious blow she could do without.

Either way, she needed a map. Preferably one that would lead her to the nearest weapon locker, or at least a surgical bay. All of them had tissue lasers that she could use for severing limbs rather effectively. But that required getting through the necromorphs first, unless they would be too busy tearing into the pegasi running the place. That was a sight she rather liked the idea of, but one she just couldn't enjoy seeing if she wanted to survive. "Come on Applejack, you may be nuts, but that doesn't mean you're no good at dicing dead ponies up."

There was still the problem of getting out of the storage room without being seen. Necromorphs could come out from anywhere without warning, and she couldn't run as fast as she would have liked with the stab to her hip. "Here goes nothin'." The door opened up again to allow the body of an attendant fall in towards her. She quickly shoved to the side and ran back into the bloody hallway. Carnage was fresh as ever, blood still rolled down the walls in beads. This time , the bodies had a chilling tendency to be riddled with lots of holes. A very typical trademark of twitchers.

"Of course it would be twitchers. Don't I deserve a break for being treated poorly all this time?" She rushed across the hallway into a tighter corridor. Down towards the end, she could see what looked very much like a map display. Nothing stirred in the vents above her, and nopony walked the corridors. The facility was probably a lot larger than just an insane asylum and brain removal ward then. A quick glance at the map was all she needed to confirm that. Over ten thousand square metres of rooms and corridors for her to fight through.

Perfect. Now all I need is Discord yelling at me in my head, then I'm all set. That was one thing she didn't miss one bit. Discord really was gone for good, even if his messing around with her brain wasn't. She lifted a bloodstained hoof to the holographic map once she had gathered her bearings again. Weapons lockers would take too long to crack open, even with a makeshift cutter. There was an operating room just a few corridors away however. At a guess, the necromorphs had already passed through it in pursuit of survivors.

"Almost makes you feel sorry for the poor ponies who were in the middle of an operation. They're probably better off dead anyway." That was purely based on Fire Streak's rather second-hand mention of what the pegasi intended to do to her. Cruel and awful operations like brain removal were probably routine. At least the subjects who got turned wouldn't really feel that much anymore. Save for Twilight, necromorphs seemed to lack any real intelligence. "Time to get back into old habits then. I sure hope that they have my RIG somewhere in storage."

The fact that Fire Streak had been wearing snow gear came to mind again. In that case, it seemed likely that the base was fixed somewhere in the Crystal Mountains. For that matter, it would probably be better if she used one of the RIGs on base for her escape. There had been no sign that the advanced RIG had a proper heating system, and it certainly didn't block out the heat very well in her final seconds on Station Luna. But even if she did find a snow RIG, there was no way to work out which direction would take her to the Crystal Empire.

On the way to the operating room, she decided that defending herself had to take priority. Until she could resume contact with Spitfire, it would be best to wait out the attack, and then make her escape while the necromorphs were occupied with assaulting any strong points of the base. Serves 'em right for wanting to crack my head open. I might just have to thank the morphs afterwards for doing the dirty deed.

2. Dancing with the Necromorphs

"Is anypony out there!? Oh Celestia, please help me!" Applejack rushed the corner. An earth pony with his chest open lay stretched out on the table. It looked like they were about to remove one of his lungs that bore several black spots. "Are you a doctor? Why is everypony else gone?" Applejack grabbed a roll of bandages and motioned to his mouth with it. He took a moment to stop crying. With that sorted, she moved around to the control table above. From there it would be a simple matter of getting the computer to enter maintenance mode. Exactly how she had gained stasis during the first hours of Station Luna.

A necromorph ran by the corridor outside. The patient below began to mumble in panic. "Shut up, okay? There's a necromorph outbreak, and if you keep screaming then they'll find us. Understand? I'll get the machine to sow you up, just find a RIG, and get out without being seen." Another necromorph appeared, this one moving slower than the first. It was searching. "Buck. Don't move, and for goodness sake don't cry." Applejack held her breath as the robotic arm began moving towards her, bringing the cutter closer with each moment.

There was no way she could tell if the movement would draw the necromorph in. Her breathing was level; every part of her body was devoted to not gaining its attention. The same couldn't be said for the patient below; across the room, his heart rate monitor was beeping very fast. Nerves got the better of her. Her left hoof started lifting upward, towards the cutter head. By then, the necromorph had walked through the doorway to join them in the room. The heart rate monitor had caught its attention. Her hoof came within centimetres of the cutter. Please go away, please go away.

"I can't take it!" The patient only had a few seconds at most to struggle free of his bindings before the necromorph started tearing off his legs. Applejack yanked the cutter free while his screams and blood sprayed the walls. It was a hard fact that she had learned the last time. Those who kept their head survived. And those who screamed simply didn't. "Help me!" His head hit the glass of the observation room with a rather sick splat. Either there was something inside his guts that the necromorph wanted, or it simply enjoyed slicing up intestines and spraying them around like a colt in the mud.

Four shots left two blades in what remained of her short-lived patient, the necromorph body falling away. "Still just as good. Time to see if it does the same to those guards." The cutter was difficult to sit right on her hoof without a proper strap. It worked at least, in a pinch she could take necromorph heads off. That wouldn't kill them, but for now, she didn't mind the idea of buying herself more time to escape. "Sorry partn'r. You probably would have gotten eaten on the way, or shot down by one of the guards." Her bare hooves shivered when they stepped into pooling blood. "At least I'm not totally gone then."

Her memory of the map wasn't pristine, but it would lead her in the right direction of a way out. The main doors made most sense, as surely they would be the largest, and therefore easiest to get through. Guards would be occupied with rescuing survivors to take much notice. And she did have a particularly lethal weapon at her disposal. The only main problem that she saw would be that other survivors would think the same thing. In particular, survivors who didn't know how to avoid getting necromorphs on their tail.

Without extra plasma, she couldn't do anything for them. And she wasn't exactly in the ideal position to acquire more. No access to storage rooms, and no way of simply making more herself. As if to prove that, she nearly rounded a corner right into the middle of a kill zone. Several guards had set up all manner of surgical tools designed for cutting in a firing range that covered the main hallway. Several varied bits of pony were scattered on the floor in front of them. "I swear I saw something peer around the corner. Just briefly."

That caused her to freeze. A grenade thrown in her direction would force her to kick it away, exposing her presence. "There! I saw it again!" She hadn't moved that time. If it wasn't me they saw... Her eyes slid to the right. This necromorph was unlike anything she had seen before. Notably a former Crystal pony, a hard shell of crystals had grown out of the head. The rest of the body looked rather thin in comparison, balanced against the extra weight on the head. Well, I never expected to see a new type of necromorph here. This should be interesting.

Cutting blades and lasers went wild when the necromorph charged right at the barricade. Applejack was intimidated enough by the loud wail it made in the process. "The bullets are bouncing off! Aagh!" A charger then, one variation in particular that she was very glad to have avoided on Station Luna. The Crystal ponies had declined participating in the project, how fortunate for her that had turned out. It would probably take a large calibre bullet to punch through the thick shell they grew when mutating. Such a weapon she couldn't have acquired.

It was several minutes before the final blare of a dead health readout faded away. A few of the guards hadn't been fatally wounded, bleeding to death instead. Applejack wasn't sorry about that. Several of them took it upon themselves to beat her during the first month. It was a horrible, yet deserved revenge that she didn't have to deliver herself. "Alright, down the hall is the suit room, right?" Pegasi layouts hadn't been her strong point at the academy. They certainly had a unique way of placing the facilities.

Somewhere ahead, she heard the screech of a lurker. "Buck, was it one of the patients? I wouldn't put it past this lot." Yet another cold reminder of just how lucky she had been to avoid assault of that nature. The screeches soon faded away, she could move on again. Down the hall was her destination, a door aptly named 'RIG Storage'. A firm buck broke the surprisingly weak lock. They probably hadn't counted on patients getting that far out of their cells. "I told them that they were slack with how they run this place. But does anypony listen to the one with an accent?"

An audio log lay on a table near the door. The room itself was rather spacious; three suit kiosks lined the left and right walls. In between, a menu for customising the RIG's sat idle. Nowhere near as cool as the liquid formation chamber for her advanced suit, but it would do alright. "Okay then, guess I have a few moments to get picky about colours and such." She paused to look at the audio log again. Usually she ignored such things, but it had caught her eye for a reason. On closer inspection, it turned out to be about her after all. 'Subject A: Designation, Marker Imbued. Experiment 6D'.

A female's voice did the reading out. "Report on Subject A, Experiment 6D. Our previous attempts to remove the subject from the advanced RIG have been unsuccessful. Conventional cutting methods that will not harm the subject have proven to be inferior to the repair function of the suit. After concluding that it would simply not be possible to remove the RIG from its body under those circumstances, we applied an electrical pulse to disable the power supply. Following that, it was a simple matter of cutting the material away. However, given the fact that such a RIG is useless to anypony but the one it was formed to, we have followed procedure and destroyed it. End report."

"Oh for crying out loud. Of course, if you can't use it, just burn the stinker. That logic always works out just great. Damn pegasi." She made her way over to the nearest kiosk. Gender was automatically determined, how that happened she really didn't want to think about. Eventually, she settled on a dark green base, with blue highlights for a nice blend. The visor colour she chose to keep as cyan. It felt more comfortable that way. "Alright, time to get probed by a weird machine that'll stick a snow suit all over me." Most importantly, the outer surface would be strong metal. She cared little for the canvas or plastic options.

This method of building RIGs was a new experience. The stores on Station Luna were admittedly cramped; these on the other hand required a pony to stretch their limbs out. Worse, she was plunged into darkness for a few moments when the doors closed, only to be blinded by intense light. Her straitjacket disintegrated, replaced by a proper RIG. "I'm surprised I didn't trip any alarms doing that. Then again, can't hurt to get a move on." She did the routine test, flexing her legs and moving her head. It felt very warm, without becoming uncomfortable. And more importantly, she liked the way the helmet closed up.

"This is how you rodeo in the snow." A locator and map were the key features to come with her RIG. Kinesis and stasis modules required a security code to unlock access to, those she could scavenge later. For now, she had her shoulder-mounted cutter back. "Spitfire, I don't know if you can hear me, but I'm heading out now. I got my hooves on a snow survival suit; I'll do my best to head for the Crystal Empire. See you whenever, I guess." There was a lot of static feeding back to her. A few words did make it through, though just barely comprehensible.

"-don't... Crystal Empire- ...overrun. Not... -north..." Buck. That was her idea for reaching safety out the window. Now she would have to rely on more of the Wonderbolts finding her alone. Which of course implied fending off necromorphs and guards while she waited. A blade tore through the wooden door, followed by a rapid assault that practically turned it into a pile of chips.

A twitcher, and she didn't have any way to use stasis on it. "I bucking told them that this is why we don't use wooden doors anymore!" Her cutter aimed right at where she guessed the twitcher blades would come through next. What remained of the door was weak enough to simply burst through. "Come on Pinkie Pie. Do momma proud, and hold still for a moment." As expected, a twitcher with a face full of splinters crashed through into the RIG room. Its left blade went flying off from two direct hits. In the stumble forward, Applejack rolled away to take out the other blade. The twitcher simply slumped to the ground with a gurgle. "You lot never were that tough anyway."

The new RIG turned out to be surprisingly light, yet it still had enough weight that she felt confident it would protect against attacks. She stepped through the hole left by the twitcher into the open corridor. Some of the file rooms and offices lay between her and the main door on the fastest route. The perfect chance to get a look at some of the other experiments performed on her, and hopefully work out why there was still a Marker signal on Equestria. That or inadvertently stumble on things she didn't want to see. The sort of things that had to be going on in a facility with completely vulnerable patients.

Every door in that part of the facility was wooden. For that matter, everything about it had a pre-war feel about it. Over thirty years ago now, and it didn't look older than a few years at most. "Well, it's not like anypony has really aged since Twilight became a princess. Maybe that affected anything built in that time too." It was a phenomenon that she had read about in the year following the war, mostly to keep her mind occupied. Ponies usually lived to about two hundred years old, until after the Elements of Harmony had been fully powered. Since then, anypony who entered adulthood simply stopped.

A pack of slashers entered the hallway while she fiddled with the lock. They didn't take much notice of her, even when she pushed it open and slipped inside. Much to her horror, both of her suspicions about what lay on each desk turned out to be true. Plenty of audio and text logs about experiments on many of the patients, most of a downright disgusting nature. Oddly enough, not a single one related to her in any way. As she progressed past each desk, taking each log as she went, it seemed more and more like her records had simply been hidden.

"-Subject R died shortly after. Evidence of the matter has been submitted to the appropriate authority for disciplinary measures. End log." Applejack had reached the end of the room at that moment. The body of a head researcher lay slumped against some cabinets. She could tell enough by the markings under his name that he oversaw a lot of the experiments. A single bullet round had gone through his chin into the head presumably. Almost appropriate, given just how many atrocities had gone on under his watch.

"In here! We need to destroy the records before she gets them!" More guards. She shoved the body aside to find one of the drawers unlocked. Subject A. Access Restricted. A firm tug yanked it open against the sticky coating of melting dead flesh. Inside, a single large device rested, one that immediately began downloading to her RIG. Great, so I'm gonna have to carry it around until it's done downloading. It slipped nicely into the main pocket on her chest, below the diagnostic screen of her suit. Moving it didn't seem to interrupt the download at least.

"There she is! Open fire!" A whole squad of guards were after her, ignorant to the pack of slashers that seemed ready to begin pulverizing them. Applejack barely managed to get out of the bullet haze that would soon become a bloodbath. Sorry fellas, I've got places to be, and necromorphs to kill. Enjoy the- A Crystal charger smashed into the wall right in front of her. The door out was effectively blocked off. Are you bucking kidding me? Actually, that's an idea. She swiftly turned around and kicked the necromorph right at the neck. Her hoof smashed through the glass-like flesh to leave a spray of glittering blood all over the door she intended to exit. An effective weak spot that could only be reached from the side.

From the door, it was a clear shot to the open world. Behind, the guards were having their own encounter with the slashers. "Have fun girls!" Lurker barbs flew by. An acid ball hit the wall above. Everypony was swarming towards the main doors, just like she was. "You can do this Applejack. Just a hard sprint, then you're out in the snow." The infamous garble of a twitcher came up behind her. How appropriate that just about every necromorph she had encountered before was there to watch her escape.

"Yeehaw!" Light that obscured her vision poured in through the open doors. The complex had been very dark with only emergency lights. Now, she galloped with every ounce of strength she had in her body. Blades punched into the floor behind each hoof beat. Barbs had difficulty catching up to her, despite their great speed. Even the twitchers weren't able to get close with their habit of dodging all the time. I'm out, I'm free! Her hooves touched metal outside the doors. At that point, she jumped.

There was one thing that she hadn't bothered to consider throughout the whole ordeal. The fact that every guard and scientist in the complex was a pegasi. Her hooves didn't meet ground, only air. It was not an earthquake that knocked out the power throughout the facility, more likely a hard gust of wind that broke the cloud's anchor cable. A floating facility, and she definitely wasn't near any big mountains. All of that passed through her mind while she fell through the whipping blizzard. How ironic that after such a dramatic exit, she would end up as a splatter on the snow. Nopony could survive such a fall.

3. Ponyville's Last Hope

How long had she been lying in the snow before regaining consciousness? Water coated her eyes as they flickered open. The helmet was trying to compensate for her impaired vision without much success. That, or there was quite literally nothing to see at all, apart from the stark white of course. Several different warnings were flashing away at the corners of her display. The fall had damaged the heat regulation unit. Next to the warning, a metre marked how long it predicted she had before her flesh would start to suffer damage from the formation of ice crystals.

"Shit. How the buck did I survive a fall that nopony is supposed to survive?" I guess the same applies to surviving a whole space station blowing up. Surviving, and not feeling sore all over quickly became two very different things. "Feels like I got hit by a shuttle, twice." None of her limbs had been dislocated at the very least. By instinct, she looked upward with the half-expectation of seeing necromorphs fall out of the sky around her. No such event came to pass, a welcome sign.

It did however open her eyes to the full scope of her surroundings. Or more precisely, the sheer lack of being able to see anything. There was snow on the ground, and whirling around in the air around and above her. That was the extent of how she could describe it to herself. Grey, barren, and certainly not how she remembered Equestria. Even the Frozen North didn't get this bad in the worst winter, Cadance had always made sure of that. There was no logical explanation to why she could barely see beyond two metres in front of her.

Radio static made itself heard over the howling blizzard. Applejack switched the communication straight to her helmet to avoid having to hold her hoof up all the time. "Oh Applejack, we thought we lost you there. I'm closing in on your position now, there should be a fire north-north east of your position. Stay there until I arrive, it should keep you warm enough until your RIG repairs itself." It was a great comfort to know that Spitfire hadn't wasted time in trying to find her. A good amount of ponies who wouldn't have exercised such diligence came to mind.

"Fine by me. I suppose that the explanations should wait until you get here then, AJ out." The electronic compass took several seconds to get a proper reading. Either it had been severely desensitized, or the blizzard was so turbulent that it was throwing off all her readings. "Alright then, I guess a map isn't going to do me much good. Neither is the locator." To be sure, she checked it anywhere. Nothing to lock onto, as expected. She had a general direction at least. And how hard could it really be to miss an entire fire in the middle of a blizzard?

Her temperature readout marked in at fifteen minutes. After that, she'd start to lose skin. Not immediately of course, but without any somatic gel to repair the damage available, she'd be open to infection. Necromorphic infection at that. It could be far worse after all. There had been no sign of necromorphs chasing after her; presumably, they roamed the old towns. Station Luna had been very tight and close quarters. She didn't know if she preferred that or not.

The fire came into sight with only a few minutes left on her timer. It wasn't anywhere near as scary as running out of air, yet it terrified her all the same. A horrific, quick death as opposed to a slow and decaying one. "Why am I thinking about all the different ways I can die in a necromorph infested snowstorm?" A mess of scrap metal and fuel tanks made up the bonfire. Probably part of a crashed ship that had self-regenerating fuel. The safeties would have been destroyed in the crash then, essentially creating a very long lasting fire. It certainly lasted long enough for Spitfire to use it as a key point in directions.

While her skin warmed up again to a comfortable level, she waited. The lack of anything solid that didn't burn heat right through her RIG made it hard to get comfortable. Snow was hardly an ideal resting surface. "Come on Spitfire. I'm not as patient as I used to be, not much to be done about that." Had there been an energy bar lying around at least, she wouldn't be so quick to complain. Food was time and time again one of the best ways to relieve stress. Sludge pumped with nutritional supplements and other drugs was hardly food.

At last, the silhouette of an approaching pony broke through the blizzard. Bright orange poured from the helmet. A wing of fire glowed on the flank of her RIG. Applejack got to her hooves at long last to meet Spitfire properly. What lay beneath the helmet made her take a step back. A lot of her skin was heavily scarred, mostly around the left half. Her eye remained half closed as a result. "Yeah, I know I don't look so good. Took a fuel blast to the face about two years ago. By the way, it's been three since you blew up Station Luna."

That was hardly the sort of news Applejack expected to hear at all, let alone as a passing note. Three years, not four months as she guessed. Had she really been unconscious that whole time? Keeping a pony in stasis for long periods of time still required administering all the basic necessities. And she had felt hungry after almost a full day without food on the station. The thought of how much artificial, tasteless slop had been pumped into her was sickening enough.

"Trixie, I found her, and she doesn't look up to a long walk. Teleport us when possible." Spitfire returned her attention to Applejack while closing her helmet up. "By the way, this is Appleloosa. Braeburn and his group went south to escape the cold a few months ago, haven't heard from him since." Applejack whirled her head around, only encouraging the sick feeling in her stomach. All that time, she had assumed she was somewhere in the North. But Appleloosa? That was a real stretch on her suspension of disbelief.

She was about to protest when a bright purple light encompassed them both. The freezing cold winds of Appleloosa gave way to the interior of a concrete bunker. In each of the four corners, a tall metal pillar stood. All four arced towards the centre where a glowing purple sphere remained suspended above the platform she was standing on. Energy conduits ran through the floor in all directions, glowing brightly with energy.

"Welcome to Equestria's first step towards combining magic and technology." Applejack would have moved to rub her eyes clean had her helmet not gotten in the way. It folded back down just to be sure she was seeing the pony approaching clearly. Trixie. "The machine taps into the dwindling pool of magic, and allows us to teleport ponies here from all across the continent. All of the energy expended returns to the pool, but I don't think I need to get into the details right now. Welcome to Ponyville's last hope for survival."

Applejack stepped onto the solid floor. She didn't trust the large machine that apparently teleported ponies in an instant one bit. Everything about it, especially the colour reminded her too much of a pony she wanted to forget ever existed. Spitfire wasn't bothered at all, and the same applied to Trixie. "What the hay is going on? Since when has Ponyville had an underground bunker? For that matter, why is there a big teleporter twice the size of my barn doing down here?"

Neither pony spoke immediately. Trixie lowered her head in a slow nod; then moved closer. "I know you must be very confused. Trust me when I say that you need to take things slowly. You're still suffering from a dementia brought on by the Marker, and it's going to take time to supress. For now, just follow me and become familiar with the place." Applejack still had her doubts about the unicorn, but chose to follow her when she moved on out of good will. They were open about her apparent insanity, and yet didn't have a problem with her walking around freely. That sort of trust she could appreciate.

"We have thirty six survivors in total that live here. They're of all races too; Halria is one of the few griffons we've seen in fact." The hallway was set in a cold, gunmetal grey. To the left, another corridor for quarters ran far. On the right, storage rooms, an armoury, and other such rooms stood open. In front of them, a larger hall was divided down the middle. A basic mess hall took up one side; the other was purposed as a presentation space. It was certainly an impressive achievement under the circumstances, even if their choice of paint colour wasn't that appealing.

A few of the figures at some of the tables immediately caught her attention. One wore a fiery red mane that ran down overtop a navy blue snow RIG. The other's mane was a translucent green, flowing over a jet-black nano-fibre suit The third figure at the table wasn't a pony at all in fact, fitted out in a war-torn black and red military RIG. Plasma Blast, Cope Shade... "Spike? Is that really you?" He didn't look too much older, at least age wise. The expression on his face however looked very deep, a constant stare of seriousness and silence. After how badly the dragons had lost during the final weeks of the war, she didn't blame him.

All of the negative memories that had started to return washed away when she found herself in the tight embrace of a unicorn and changeling she knew well. "Don't scare us like that again Applejack." Plasma's voice sounded sweet as ever. Youthful optimism was the perfect phrase to describe her. Even when necromorphs had her pinned down, she never gave into despair. Applejack had seen that for herself, a sight she wouldn't ever forget.

As for Shade, the mood was no less joyful to her surprise. The stern changeling with keen senses and a sharp tongue hadn't shown a great deal of positive emotion until now. This too was a sight that became clear in Applejack's mind. The two ponies to escape Station Luna after hours of hiding from the necromorphs. Now very much alive and well. "It is good to see you again my friend. After watching your final transmission, I began to feel that I had made a poor trade. I don't think anything could convince me now that your life was worth ending Twilight Sparkle's."

What she said caused the third one to approach a moment of pain. Through the hard-worn scales, Applejack could still see the baby dragon who admired the unicorn of Golden Oaks Library without fail. "We never got the chance to talk before you left for the new posting. And I really am sorry about that. Mind stopping by my room once you're done here? There's things on the surface you need to see, but I'd prefer to talk in private first." A simple nod was all he needed before departing for another part of the base. Shade had stepped back to adopt her normal stance.

"I was going to introduce you to some of the other survivors; I believe you already know Zecora. But I think Spike deserves time with you first. He has worked incredibly hard to keep the ponies here safe." To hear that come from a changeling was rather daunting. "Plasma and I have a scavenging mission coming up, so we will see you in a few hours at least." The thin plated helmet folded back up over her face. This time when she walked away, Applejack noticed a slight limp in her right hind leg. Plasma was quick to speak.

"A lot of things happened while you were gone. Please, try not to overreact to some of the things you're going to see." She too departed in the direction of a surface access lift. How many things changed? Did Cope get hitched with somepony; has Zecora become a necromorph expert? The questions following that seemed pointless. Trivial matters to hide herself from the fact that she wasn't going to like what had happened. There had been no sign of Applebloom, Big Mac, or Granny Smith in the bunker.

Other ponies who she didn't recognize had begun to notice her presence. It was probably a bit harder to work out who she was when not wearing her hat. For once, she would have felt more comfortable with Spitfire and Trixie there to explain why everypony had taken to watching her. A creeping feeling in her mind was that they expected her to go Chaotic at any moment. Why not Applejack? You're a ticking time bomb, Trixie said as much just before. You need treatment before you explode. How long until they lock you up in a cell before you hurt others?

Pain shot through her head. Nothing more than an echo of Discord's voice, exactly the sort of thing that would be caused by her dementia. "I'm okay everypony. Just another survivor of the necromorphs, nothing special. I'll be on my way now." Her head remained steady while she returned down the hallway to begin searching for Spike's room. Thirty-seven survivors now, including one griffon, and an insane pony. And one dragon too, who could have changed altogether in the ten years since they last spoke. She only remembered seven of those.

His room was located towards the back of the corridor. The door hung idly open, though no light escaped the room. "I don't like the looks of that, not one bit." And yet she still stepped up to the doorway. Now that her eyes had time to adjust to the darker room, she could see him lying back on a thin bed. Still in the full RIG too. "Spike, I'm here. Just promise me that when I close the door, I'm going to walk out of it again when you're done talking." It was a hard promise to ask, especially from him. But she didn't trust closed rooms while she was alone with one other.

Spike got up to turn the lights on. He looked very tall, and strong. The result of years of training with the dragons, all for nothing in the end. "I don't know how you're going to take what the others have asked me to tell you. But I can promise that I wouldn't do anything to hurt you. You've been through enough already." The door closed, this time it was not a feeling of panic or discomfort that overcame Applejack. If anything, it was guilt. The entire room was devoid of anything that could have been considered a personal possession. Essentially the opposite of a dragon's raw personality, minimalism. A bed, chair and side table, nothing more.

He took the chair, motioning for her to sit on the bed. Up close, it was easier to see the variety of scars that had been inflicted over the years. One of the more recent, she immediately recognized as a slasher wound. Metal groaned when she sat down. "Sorry, guess my weight hasn't improved much over three years of sludge." Spike didn't make any response. Not even a flicker of laughter in his eyes. Applejack felt her own brief flicker of a smile fade away too.

"I suppose we should get the worst news out of the way. You didn't kill Twilight on Station Luna. That was Cadance, dressed up to look like her." Cold rushed through Applejack's body, clutching her heart until it slowed to a very long beat. Spike brought up a video before she even had a chance to say something. The scene was very familiar, Twilight's long office.

"Bring me Cadance; I have a special task for her." The long needle jabbed into her elbow. Twilight didn't even wince. Tiny pains like that stopped bothering her a long time ago. It was one of her many concoctions, a serum that would disguise her body from the necromorphs long enough to make final preparations. On the other side of the table, another needle waited. That one had a very different effect.

At the other end of the hallway, two guards shoved a pink pony forward. Blood dripping from fresh wounds almost made her look like a form of twisted candy. Another kick forced her down to her knees. "Twilight, why are you doing this? If it's because of Shining-" More blood came from the mouth as a result of taking a rifle stock to the cheek. Twilight began to make her way over at that moment. The needle full of green-yellow liquid hovered to her left. A plasma pistol detached from a strap on her hoof.

"I am doing this, to ensure that Equestria has a future. Discord has completely overrun Applejack's mind, she will not stop until she is convinced I am dead. So, I intend to satisfy that wish." The barrel of the pistol plunged firmly into Cadance's left eye. Twilight angled it in such a way that the following shot would miss her brain. "Unfortunately, I haven't come across a way to clone myself. Please try to hold still." Cadance collapsed to the floor in agony while her eye socket started to smoulder. A flash of purple light transformed her bedraggled hair into a perfect duplicate of Twilight's mane style. The accompanying bandana flashed on soon after.

The needle moved down towards her at that moment. "Of course, Applejack will be able to tell the difference between pink and purple skin. I could always change the colour of your coat too, but I wouldn't get to see the result of my crowning achievement. Cadance screamed again immediately after the needle plunged in. Around the insertion, her skin bubbled, flaked, and then finally fell away in bits. As the acid injection spread across her whole body, Twilight moved her into the large chair at the end of the room. An acid-burned body stared back at her. The switch was complete.

"Well done. Now, let's vacate the area before she comes back to the land of the living." Twilight and her two guards departed the room, headed right for the docking bay where a shuttle waited.

Applejack's head hit the concrete wall again. "Shit Spike!" In the months spent at the asylum, she had taken confidence in knowing that Twilight Sparkle had paid for her war crimes. That had turned out to be a lie as well. A brilliantly well played one at that, such deviousness she had never expected from Twilight. But it was hardly something to admire. Finally, she ceased her attempts to cause more brain damage on top of the dementia. "Do the others know? But of course, why hide something like that? And this isn't even all of the news."

A paw rested on her shoulder. "Believe me, we were all worried about how Cope would react when we first found the video. But she was more concerned about whether you had survived too or not. Don't let Twilight become the focus of your life." Applejack turned to look at Spike again. Ten years, despite the hardened exterior, he had the right idea when it mattered. "We can discuss the past later. It's about time you see Sweet Apple Acres, and the rest of Ponyville for that matter. Just be warned, it is not pretty at all. And we may end up fighting necromorphs if there's a pack in town."

Just briefly, Applejack let herself lean against Spike. Standing upright to pound her head against the wall made it a bit easier. She hadn't ever expected to see Sweet Apple Acres again. Towards the end, the decision had always been blowing up the station, or ending up in an insane asylum. By some unforseen power of Celestia, she had managed to do both. "Okay. Just, give me a minute." Spike moved away to let her resume standing on all four hooves. The minute passed, her breathing became regular again. Her heart remained cold as the ice.

4. Reunion

A trapdoor covered in a thin layer of compressed snow lifted away from the stage of Ponyville Town Hall. Two figures emerged from that hole. One whose face shone in a bright cyan and walked on all fours. The other, a face of red who walked on two legs. This was the typical routine that the town hall saw a few times a week. Two beings would leave for several hours, and then return down the hole. Sometimes they would leave, not return with that method, and eventually leave again as if they had used another way in.

“This won’t take long, and you’re not out in the windy plains. It’ll hold.” Applejack still fussed over the counter on her RIG. An hour and a half inside the shelter of a ruined town hall. The entire floor was covered in hoof-deep snow at the very least. Several different shaped holes pitted the roof; most of those had formed from decay. Some had definitely come from weapons fire. She didn’t know if the lack of blood was a good sign or not. Either they had managed to avoid fighting the necromorphs, or they never got the chance to put a fight up. It was chilling in all the wrong ways.

Spike as usual was unfazed. There was no way of telling if it was the training or the war that did that to him. And Applejack didn’t have a reason to question him about it, not yet at least. “I know that Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash moved to the Lunar Colony while I was at the CEC Academy. And Pinkie Pie moved shortly before I took the job on Station Luna. But what about you and Rarity?” Not even mentioning her name caused a turn of his head. It certainly brought back bad memories to Applejack now that Spike was around again. Things hadn’t been very good between them when she left.

The scene outside was rather akin to what she expected a snowy apocalyptic Ponyville to look like. Debris littered the stretches of snow, right up to the waste choked rivers. A few of the houses beyond had been completely levelled into black logs sticking out of the white. The majority had simply fallen into total disrepair. Collapsed roofs and broken windows were the norm. As they crossed a crumbling bridge, she could now see blood was far more common on the houses than in town hall. The number of body parts began to rise as well.

Sweet Apple Acres was a complete mess. That much she could work out just from glimpsing the closest orchard as they approached. Ponies desperate for food had ravaged every single tree that would have died in the snow anyway. It didn’t make her feel that much better. “At least they went to some good use in the end.” Broken wood jutted out from the white blanket in what almost looked like a haphazard palisade. “Ironic, isn’t it? I joined the CEC to keep my home going. Instead, I ended up going insane, and now look at it.” She was three years too late to save it.

Her barn had weathered the snow a bit better than most of Ponyville at least. All of the windows were broken, but the roof held out. At that moment, she realized exactly what was waiting for her in there. “Spike.... They didn’t turn or lose their limbs, did they? I’d rather not see if that’s the case. They deserved a peaceful ending; you know that as well as I do.” The red glow turned in her direction this time. All that followed was a slow nod, before he continued towards the open barn doors.

The straw lining had rotted away a long time ago, replaced by muddy snow. No carcasses jumped up at her while she took her time in looking around. In her mind, it had only been eight months since she last saw the barn in its full glory. Bright red, filled with life and activity. Now it had been worn down to a dank husk of a building. Her eyes then settled on the door into her home. The moment of truth. Stopping short of opening it, she folded her helmet away. Spike did the same while resting a paw on her shoulder.

“When the outbreak began, we tried to fight. But we were quickly losing; over half of Ponyville was dead in the first month. The bunker could only support a hundred beings at most, so they did a lottery. Applebloom didn’t win.” Applejack’s hoof touched the door in front of her. It wasn’t hard to guess what happened next. That had been their way, all together or not at all. “I managed to get a small amount of the same serum Twilight used to hide herself from the necromorphs, and gave it to them. After everypony else I knew had left, they were the only family I could go to.”

He opened the door for her. It was very dark with all the windows blocked up, but she could see enough to find her way to the lounge room. There, snow had broken through one of the obstructions to conceal partially what lay in the corner. Three frozen bodies of different sizes. All huddled together in one last embrace. Applejack couldn’t speak. The crunch of snow when she dropped down to her knees in front of them said enough. Spike waited in the doorway as a sign of respect, watching her carefully.

“I couldn’t be here for them. What kind of Apple am I? The sort who doesn’t know when her own family gathers together for their last breath?” She couldn’t cry. The result of another injection from the asylum that would take days to wear off. It made her feel that much worse inside. Not showing her full emotions over the sight was just a good a betrayal as any. “I’m real sorry y’all, I really am.” Beneath the icy covering on Applebloom, she noticed a patch of blood covering her cutie mark.

She scraped away the top layer of snow. It wasn’t from a wound on her flank. What the hay? Another layer of snow lifted off to expose Applebloom’s cold flesh. The blood looked very fresh. Did a necromorph drool all over her? She wiped it away with her hoof, accidentally smearing it all over her hoof. Applebloom’s cutie mark stared back at her. A necromorph head. The vacant eyes, missing lower jaw, exactly like the others she had been fighting just hours ago.

“Oh no. No, how could her talent be fighting necromorphs? Spike?” A paw grabbed her shoulder firmly. She turned to look up at him. Where Spike’s head used to be, the same necromorph glared back at her. The two trademark blades punched out from his RIG to hover threateningly over her face. “Spike!” Snow flew as she shuffled into the corner, huddling beside the frozen corpses of her family. At least she had the small comfort of dying with her family, even if it was three years after them. Her eyes closed as the blades prepared to stab through her head.

“Snap out of it Applejack!” Orange flashed in her vision. The necromorph head and blades vanished, as did Applebloom’s cutie mark. “It was just a hallucination; we should have waited for Zecora to treat the dementia before coming here.” Applejack was hesitant to stand up again. The trembling from what happened made it difficult to get her balance on the uneven snow. Spike grabbed her hoof at last to pull her free. This time she remained close to him until the trembling ceased. “You’ll be back to normal soon enough. Just try to keep your head until then.”

Spike’s communicator activated at that moment to Plasma’s voice. “Spike, we just spotted a pack of feeders headed right in your direction. You need to get out of there right now.” He only hesitated to give Applejack time to recover. Between the delusions and seeing her family dead... “Applejack, you need to get up. You can grieve later, if you don’t leave now you may never get the chance.” She closed her helmet and got back up on her hooves.

“Sorry, I'm okay now. Don’t wait up for me you hear?” Spike nodded once before moving out. Applejack followed after shaking herself out of the chilly mood. Her counter had lost ten minutes from pressing into the frozen bodies. In her preoccupation with the cold, she ran into Spike at the barn doors. He was gazing through the brewing blizzard intently. “Don’t tell me, I'm going to get a look at what these ‘feeders’ are.” A paw motioned for silence while he got down into a crouch walk. Great, I never was the sort who was good at staying still or being quiet.

Groaning began to reach her ears over the wind. The sort of groaning that ponies wouldn’t make unless in extreme pain. She didn't even notice Spike had moved down to a snowdrift until he tagged her locator. “Hurry up and get down here. You need to see this.” Applejack kept low to the ground. The snow had one main advantage in that she could slide down the hill towards him rather easily. I am so glad I went with the metal plating instead of canvas.

She came to a stop next to Spike. Being that close to him had the advantage of keeping her a bit warmer on that side. And in their position, the constant wind and snow was partially blocked by what little remained of the trees. From further up the road, the source of the groans started to appear. At least a dozen. All practically thin to the bone. Leathery, rotted skin stretched out over their whole figure. A large gaping hole made up the mouth. She had a very clear and horrifying image of why they were called ‘feeders’.

“That’s what happened to the ponies north of here. Either they died of starvation, or they started eating the necromorphs.” The thought was chilling enough to Applejack. Ponies didn’t eat meat, at least not normally. “One of the survivors gave us a pretty good description of how it progressed. They started reacting badly to light, constantly looking for anything to eat. When they came after her, she escaped here. Now we avoid them whenever possible, because there’s a lot more waiting nearby.” He picked up a piece of wood and hurled it clear across the road.

Each of the feeders immediately turned their heads towards where it had landed. Haphazard limbs and wide mouths creaked as most moved to investigate the disturbance. “That’s just not right. And I’ve seen a pregnant necromorph tear herself open y’know.” One of them looked right at the snowdrift where they were hiding. Applejack closed her mouth tightly. Go away; please just go away. It began to approach in a hunched crawl, making clicking sounds as some sort of echolocation. Of course, the moment you start telling them to go away...

Spike reached for another object to throw. They were blind like most other necromorphs, except they seemed to have brilliant hearing. Just pulling another piece of wood free from the snow caused it to stop and make a whooping noise. That caused other feeders to begin making their way over. Come on Spike, we’re about to get eaten by necromorphs. I’d rather not become liquid flesh to be formed into Celestia knows what. He hurled the second piece of wood without making a sound. That one landed in the opposite direction of Ponyville.

A series of whoops passed between the feeders while they moved away in search of the sound. “Now.” Spike was on his feet and bolting for Ponyville before Applejack could turn her head. I guess I’ve had practise at running for my life. The feeders had already turned when she leapt over the drift and galloped away. There was a good distance between her and the tall, dark red figure ahead. And hopefully a far larger distance between her and the chasing necromorphs.

One of them leapt onto her back. Weakened from the cold, Applejack stumbled into the snow. “Buck! These things can jump!” Hooves clutched at her helmet in an attempt to rip it off. She fought back with a swift buck that sent it flying back. In the moments it took to turn around and shoot, the whole pack had caught up. And more were pouring in from the road. The dozen swiftly became four dozen at least. “This is not what I expected when you said more would come!” Her cutter ran hot as the first few heads popped; limbs were too thin to get a good shot at.

“Do not fear Applejack, these necromorphs are not ready for my attack.” Zecora materialized to one side of the pack with a long pole in her hooves. Each end glowed as it came into contact with a feeder head. The result was a rather satisfying splatter of frosted pony brains. I knew you had some fancy zebra magic hidden away there Zecora. Forty feeders didn’t seem that bad anymore. Spike returned with his rifle at that moment, by then they were down to thirty. Zecora’s battle pole was very effective in fighting them. “Be gone you nasty beasts! This is not the place for your feasts!”

The next shot from her cutter didn’t come. Of course, she had forgotten to get plasma clips before heading out. This time Spike wasn’t hesitant to pull her up. “Zecora can take them; you’re freezing to death out here! Come on!” Applejack took another look at the steady rate of carnage. He was certainly right about that. “She’ll get out okay, just move Applejack.” There wasn’t much else she could do but run after that. The cold made it harder to gallop. Somehow, she found the strength to push on back into the safety of Ponyville.

Hours passed before Zecora finally returned to the base. In her attempt to lead the feeder pack away from the base, her helmet had been damaged severely from several powerful bites. Applejack hadn’t left the warmth of Spike’s bed in that time. Her RIG lay in a heap in one corner. While it did make her feel warmer once she was inside the air-conditioned base, it made sleeping painfully difficult. Visits from Trixie were her only method of keeping up with what was going on.

This time it was the owner of the room who entered. A steaming mug sat in his paw as he moved to her side. “Zecora says this’ll help you sleep. She’s already got the first treatment ready for tomorrow. And Plasma’s working on a replacement heat regulator for your RIG.” The blanket shuffled as Applejack moved to sit up. “You handled yourself very well back there. I’m glad to see that you haven’t lost that kick.” She nudged Spike in a teasing way.

The smell coming from the mug was the usual mix of strange herbs and flowers. At least Zecora had a sense of sticking to traditional ways in common with Applejack. “Well, here goes.” She took the mug in both hooves and began drinking it down. Most of the flavours she didn’t recognize at all. A few like rose and lemon helped to make the whole experience a little easier on her stomach. Spike didn’t even flinch when she set it firmly down on the side table. “Wow, I’ll say that sure was some intense brew. Did she say how long it would take for me to drop over?”

Somepony knocked at the door. Spike touched her shoulder briefly while he got up. The drowsiness began almost immediately after. Despite that, Applejack kept her eyes open to watch the door. Trixie’s knock was different, and everybody else in the base knew that she wasn’t feeling well enough for thirty visitors to come by. “Is this a bad time?” Her ears perked at the voice outside. It didn’t sound quite right, high-pitched and slightly grated. Artificial. But who would have a synthesised voice?

Spike looked back at her briefly. She nodded slowly. Zecora’s sleeping brew was starting to take hold, but her curiosity was now focused on the stranger. “Just a few minutes, she isn’t far from falling asleep. And she’s still a bit rattled from before.” He stood back and turned the lights onto a dim level to spare her eyes. The door moved open to reveal the pony standing there. Applejack’s breath caught deep in her throat. Synthetic legs, most of the artificial skin had stopped growing back over the hooves. What skin did remain was a bright pink.

‘I had to work in a weapons factory, exposed to radiation and stasis on a daily basis. By the time I got out, over half of my body had to be replaced with artificial parts, just to stay alive.’ “Discord wasn’t lying...” As impossible as the thought was, Applejack simply couldn’t deny who was standing there, right in front of her.

Pinkie Pie.

5. Delving into History

The memory of being killed by the first twitcher flashed into her mind. She had mistaken the incredibly fast necromorph for Pinkie at a distance. As a result, it had stabbed her entire body to pieces in less than a second. That was where she met Discord for the first time, the point where her insanity began. She had been given a second chance in exchange for helping him. Even now, she couldn't decide if that was the best decision overall. But it was definitely the real Pinkie Pie there in front of her. Not even drowsiness could prevent her from being sure of that.

There was no sudden rush for hugs however. Pinkie was practically a cyborg now, an ironically scary one at that. And it wasn't just the slowly overcoming sleepiness that prevented Applejack from getting up either. "Hey Pinkie, didn't expect to see you here." It was pretty obvious that both of them were thinking the same thing. Their last meeting had been brief, and for the most part silent. It was rather likely that this time would be the same. Questions didn't seem that important anymore. Pinkie Pie was alive, and there. And she didn't even really care about that.

"I know you're not going to ask, so I'll just speak. Whatever Discord told you is probably true. He got into all of our minds, Twilight's too. She just knew how to fight him off better, than others." Applejack bit down on her lip. It was hard to tell if Pinkie was speaking in conviction or defence of Twilight's more recent actions. "She had nothing to do with the weapons factory that cost me my body. In fact, she got me the replacement parts. But when she left for Station Luna, I could tell that something had changed. I don't think it was Discord's messing around either."

A long-winded yawn came from the bed. It wasn't the sort of story that Applejack wanted to sit there and listen to while she dropped into sleep. "Just get to the point Pinkie. I don't really hate Twilight, that was mostly Discord's claw in my head making me do stuff. But she did try to kill me by turning Cadance into a regenerator. And I bet she was behind that asylum I woke up in." Her hoof began pushing on the skin covering her knee. Sleep wasn't far away, and that bit about her recent history could only stave it off for so long.

Pinkie blinked when she looked at the ground. The iris movement in her right eye was distinctly mechanical. "A bit over two years ago, I escaped the colony in a probe. One day, Twilight said she had to put ponies out of their misery. Rainbow Dash was the first." That caused her to bite her lip in regret. "I just got out of there before she got to me too." She lowered her head again and turned to leave. "You needed to know the whole story. Twilight's probably more far-gone than you ever have been. We're all going to burn for the things we've done, so why not show a bit of forgiveness?"

She was on her way back down the hall after that. Spike had remained silent as usual for the brief duration of their conversation. When glancing back at the bed, he noticed that Applejack had fallen asleep. "What's there to forgive? I've got one thing left in my life, and the only think keeping her barely sane is the need to kill everything." The light in the room faded away when he closed the door again. A dull flash of red came from his RIG as it unlocked. Just about every pony on the base assumed that he slept in it. But that was when he was alone.

That following day had been very busy in comparison to months spent alone in a cell. For starters, breakfast had been postponed until she had received the first injection on her course that would hopefully supress the Marker influence on her brain. Plasma had also seized that chance to make much needed modifications to her RIG at the same time. Now she found herself uncomfortably laid back in a chair, Zecora filling a needle with chemicals she couldn't even name, while the other fiddled a stasis module onto the ankle of her RIG.

"Any idea how long this is gonna take?" The needle jabbed into her shoulder at that moment. Considering she had been stabbed by necromorphs, it shouldn't have hurt that much at all. And yet it still felt like a hot red spear had just been plunged into her leg. "Geez Zecora, does it really have to feel like I'm being skewered for a vegetable kebab?" That didn't make sense, but she chose not to delve into it further. The description of how the feeders came to be still gave her chills. Her joke just wasn't appropriate under the circumstances.

Blue light began to glow from the RIG. At least she now had a stasis module to use again. "Okay, that seems to be holding. I'll have the kinesis module fitted on by the time you're done with that." Applejack pondered how wise it would be to grab the RIG, put Zecora in stasis, and run for it. "Don't worry AJ; we're all here for you. And besides, the original Marker was left in the caves beneath Canterlot. It won't take much suppressant to block out its already weak signal." That was really reassuring for her to hear. She winced as the needle was pulled back out painfully slowly.

"This should dispel the nightmare, but always be sure to take care." As if to make it worse, Zecora placed an injector on Applejack's hoof. Less painful than a needle, but still unpleasant. She held it up to her eyes. The green-yellow fluid inside swished easily. I really don't know about this. An injection that hides you from the necromorphs, sure. But one that stops a telepathic hunk of Chaotic rock from gettin' inside your brain? She swallowed nervously as Zecora spoke again. "Take it once a day, between lunch and dinner without delay. That will last you a week, when you need more, feel free to speak."

She shoved it into a compartment behind the stasis module on her RIG. "Yeah, sure. When is the needleless injection projected to enter the prototype stage? I'll be the first volunteer." Plasma shrugged in the middle of adjusting the angle of the kinesis module. "Fine, I'll ask Trixie then." It was more sarcasm than short temper that made her exit from the practise room so dramatic. Rarity would have been proud, before she turned into a greedy hog of course.

A few ponies passed her when she entered the main hall. Earlier in the day, Spitfire had gone over the situation with her. Since there was no solar-lunar cycle, they operated solely on shifts. This was one of the busier hours of the cycle. If fifteen ponies talking about work while eating could even be considered, 'busy'. Spitfire waved her over from one side of the room. Another tray of food was set opposite her. Yet another chilling reminder of Station Luna, Plasma had made a similar gesture on the first day. Back when there was three hundred ponies in my area alone, not thirty.

Most ponies she declined talking with out of insecurity. Spitfire on the other hand had lost one of her team in helping her escape, and made the long walk to Appleloosa to pick her up. "Don't worry; this isn't anything vital or dangerous." It took a few moments for Applejack to get comfortable. The heat regulation of the base was designed with everypony's RIG in mind. Hers was still being upgraded of course. "I noticed that you've been unsettled, ever since Pinkie Pie came to visit. And I realized that you still don't know half of what happened. So, today I'm taking time off to catch you up. At your own pace too."

Applejack shuffled again. Once again, the questions burning in her mind began to rush for her tongue. "What happened three years ago?" In retrospect, that was the key question. Three years since the Markers on Equestria and Station Luna came to life, turning the dead into necromorphs. Her family had met their end during the first few months after the event, and over sixty ponies from the base had been lost following that. "Right before I, died in the explosion, Celestia came to me. She said that Equestria would suffer without me around, and that's happened. But I don't know the whole story. I'm willing to sit here as long as I need to, even if it's just dumping a pile of text logs in front of me and saying 'Read'."

That wasn't quite what the pegasus had in mind, but it certainly caught her attention. "I see. To be honest, I was expecting that you were just going to ask about certain ponies." She detached a memory chip from her RIG. "That'll get you started. Trixie keeps the full set available ever since she stepped up as our head tech expert. There's some details left out, you'll have to ask the ponies in question. Just use your judgement in those cases, I mean it." She returned to eating her meal to give Applejack time to begin.

She turned the chip in her hooves, a dark blue that glowed where it plugged into the RIG. Spitfire had kept it with her for a good reason. "Thanks. I think it's about time I get my suit back; the cold is getting to be a pain in the patootie." The lack of appetite made it easy to leave the tray of food where it was. It was still there when she returned in her RIG. Spitfire wasn't. Despite the fact that it was now cold, she began eating while the first recording played.

"Personal Log, Lieutenant General Spitfire. It's been three hours since communication from Station Luna ceased..."

The office was empty, save for the single occupant of the chair. That was normal; they weren't recruiting new pegasi into the Wonderbolts after all. Ever since it had become a military division as well as a performance league, eagerness to join had dropped considerably. Spitfire had her back hooves up on her desk while dictating to her recorder. "Princess Celestia has ordered all military divisions to be on alert. I can tell that a lot of the newbies are... pretty scared. I don't blame them. It's been years since we last saw combat, and yet everypony can feel the tension."

A set of photos adorned the walls, all of Wonderbolt captains. Those on the far left were in monochrome. On the far right, a holographic screen displayed the latest, Rainbow Dash. "We don't believe it's a changeling terrorist attack, but we don't know what else it could be." The Pegasus flag hung proudly from a rail fixed to the back of the door. "Three hours, and already I'm feeling the stress starting to tax my nerves. It's always worse when you don't know what to expect. End log." The microphone rolled onto the desk beside her bare hooves.

Outside the window, she could hear a very faint horn. One of the sky barges was probably straying too close to the academy again. "Geez, don't they ever learn to compensate for wind?" She moved to get up when something pounded at her door. "Hey, you can just knock alright?" The building shook slightly which caused one of her ornaments to fall over. She righted it on her way to answer the increasingly violent banging. "This isn't the emergency room either! Some ponies, I'll never understand why they think they need to break the door in."

She pulled the door open to a horrifically disfigured pegasus. A pair of gruesome blades attached to fleshy growths from the shoulders loomed near her face threateningly. Most of the skin had fallen away to leave the bloody, torn muscle layer exposed. "Colt of a-" All of her strength went into pushing the door closed. Whatever it was outside pushed back with just as much force. Bone blades began to punch through the wood in an attempt to stab her brutally. "Hey Soarin'! I've got... something here that's trying to stab my door to bits!"

The stabbing ceased briefly. For a moment, Spitfire relaxed. In that moment, the door caved in from a fierce charge. She narrowly avoided being skewered by the two blades pointed out from the mutant pony. "Of course, an expert on flying gets trapped in a small room with a crazy flesh face." She made a break for her desk while the intruder smashed its way through. Splinters stuck out from the flesh in all directions. By then, she had fumbled through the drawer for her issue handgun. "Last chance to apologize for trashing my door, sucker!"

A spray of bullets came from the doorway. Several of them tore right through the pony's skull to leave blood splatters and gore on her chair. All that achieved was a momentary distraction. The blades continued to stab towards Spitfire while she grabbed her weapon. What little remained of the skull after the attack dangled from the stringy, shredded neck. "This is going to be a real headache for the insurance." One of the limbs plunged right through her drawer, just barely missing a stab to her hoof. She crawled under the desk to roll out of the line of fire.

Another series of shots took off one of the malformed limbs. The former pony soon slumped into a bloody mess in Spitfire's chair. "Sorry Captain, we spotted her coming in from Cloudsdale. Didn't have a chance to hurt anypony, just bee-lined right for your office." Soarin' pulled her back up to her hooves. "I've opened up the armoury. Should we make a pass on Cloudsdale and Canterlot?" Spitfire took a few moments to consider his proposal. That was the established routine in the event that something really bad happened. There was a good chance that the attack had a lot to do with the loss of communication with Station Luna.

"-at which point, I sent Fire Streak and his team to Cloudsdale. Fleetfoot and Misty Wind were assigned to patrol Canterlot. In anticipation that the necromorph that attacked us wasn't alone, I sought out the being most likely to know about the mutation. End log." It had been a few hours since Applejack first sat down to Spitfire's reports on what happened. They were extensive and detailed, yet not boring in the least. Hardly the sort of material that made a good book however.

By that time, she had moved back to her shared quarters. Listening to how well Spitfire handled her first encounter with a necromorph made her feel a bit embarrassed about her own experience. That had ended with crawling away out of fear, and struggling to keep her eyes open when shooting blades off. She glanced at the door when Spike entered. She couldn't imagine herself looking very good while slumped in the chair and deprived of sleep. "Sorry, Spitfire really knows how to keep your attention when she talks."

Spike was silent as ever, no comment came while she readjusted her posture. "Look, Spike. I get the feeling that when Spitfire said there were certain ponies I needed to be tactful with, you were one of them." She pulled the memory chip from her RIG and set it on the table. "Spitfire came to Ponyville because she knew that somepony here had knowledge about the necromorphs. And I doubt that was Zecora." For once, there was a brief flicker in his eyes. The telling flinch that she was looking for. He knew something about the necromorphs. "We may not get another chance to talk like this. What did you find out that made you go from a happy, lively dragon, to a cold, hard exterior soldier?"