Gregory saw the purple glow of an orb floating in a nearby room. Curiosity overwhelmed him and soon he made his way towards it. His hear-rate was still up a bit after his last encounter with that monstrosity. It could be heard, cackling and creating a static like sound almost like it was trying to patch a communication line through. He went to go investigate the matter more thoroughly. When his frame stepped into the dark and damp room, he watched as the orb sat in the center and illuminated an image within it's glowing core. An odd creature was coming in rather fuzzily. Her voice cutting in and out constantly.

"H---- He---- --llo?" a purple filly said as her connection became stable. The face of a filly became clear. Her mane was Sapphire blue with rose and violet streaks in it. It was Twilight Sparkle sending a transmission across dimensions.

"Hello? Can anyone hear me?" Twilight Sparkle called out to the room once more.

"Huh? You can speak?" Gregory replied, flabbergasted at the idea of a pony like being, able to speak and understand English.

"Well, of course I can speak! How else would I be able to send you this message?" she replied. "But that is not the most important matter at hand right now."

"I guess you could say that... Wait a second, Does that mean you know about the troubles the world is facing right now?" he asked.

"You mean your world, I am from another dimension, and yes I am completely aware of the situation. Its also affecting other dimensions, including my own." She replied to Gregory.

He took a moment to realize the weight of the situation and what it could mean for the universe.

"The universe has been under attack by these things called shukakusha, I'm afraid the creatures have befallen 90% of other dimmensions and worlds as well." She said grimly. "You could consider it a plague of the sorts."

The man was a little shocked that not only were there more than one dimensions in the universe but that also his world wasn't the sole affected world either.

"I made this transmission in the hopes to find assistance from individuals willing to go on a special mission to stop the source of this horrid contamination." Twilight asked with much pleading in her words.

"How would someone like me be able to help vanquish a plague of such magnitude? I don't even know how to cross dimensions let alone stop this thing even if I could." He replied. "And what about a source? Where exactly is it?"

"I know how I can get you across dimensions, I have constructed some devices for that. Also, I am afraid I know all too well where the source is... considering... our dimension is the dimension the mastermind behind it all came from..." she said. "If only we knew sooner..." she said under her breath, her ears going down along with a frown forming on her face.

"What?! Your dimension is where the mastermind came from? So this is all your world's fault then?" He was outraged.

"We didn't know she was going to end up like this! No one was aware until it was too late and she was already long gone!" Twilight defended her realm. "What matters now is that we stop her before the universe is destroyed! We can work out details later."

"You got a point, Arguing won't stop those things from gutting me." Gregory calmed down after taking a deep breath and then began to focus on a plan of action. "What do you need me to do?"

"Thanks.... Your world has a large amount of the resource called Gold does it not?" She asked.

"Well yeah it does, but why?" he replied. "Wait you don't want me to pay you gold for information do ya?"

"No no no, I have a device that uses gold as an energy source." She stated. "I need you to collect 4 medium sized cups of gold in anyway possible and contact me when you have completed the task. The orb we are communicating on is like what you in your world refer to as a 'Cellphone', so when you are finished just throw the orb on the ground and wait for it to pickup."

"Gold? What for?" Gregory pondered.

"Well, to locate the mastermind of course." Twilight responded. I have a ritual that can find her, but it requires gold, something Equestria is not known to have a lot of."

"That makes sense, yeah I can do that for you, but only to stop this mastermind." he said to her, but then something struck him as odd. Gregory didn't even know the filly's name. "Wait, we haven't even introduced ourselves and our conversation is near over!"

"Oh my gosh, how silly of me! My name is Twilight Sparkle!" She said a bit flustered that she had forgotten her etiquette.

"You can call me Gregory." He responded.

"Great, Gregory! Well, that is all I have for now, I will be in touch if anything comes up. I have to go now!" and with that the filly disconnected the communication line.

Gregory took a moment to absorb the conversation in and the mission that he was tasked with. He knew that the city had gold in it, Whether or not he could traverse to such places securely was his biggest fear. After watching the orb stop glowing and fall to the ground, he picked it up and walked out of the room. Looking down the right path way, he saw that further along the tunnel there was a ladder that led to a man-hole lid. He walked over to it and climbed up the ladder. Eventually he managed to push at the lid and move it to the side as he crawled out of the sewer. It opened up into an alleyway. There was blood everywhere and towards the front of him was a fence with a car crashed through a fence and in the corner of a building. The car's motor was on fire and blood was smeared all over one of the doors. It was dark outside and in the distance he could hear the shuffling of undead corpses lingering around. To his left was the rest of the dark alleyway and behind him was a cluster of barrels and boxes. He knew he had to go to the left but something stopped him from even continuing further. It was the sound of a growl and quick footsteps from farther down. Gregory quickly hid himself behind the crates and barrels. A shukakusha had appeared in the open space that he was just in moments ago, and looked like he was scouting out the area. The harvesters weren't the brightest creatures though, so it did not think to look behind the boxes, and it then jumped on top of the car. It's frame disappeared out of the alleyway and into the streets to seek out more prey just then. Gregory was free to go down that alleyway. He walked a bit before running into a door. It was unlocked and he proceeded to enter.

"I better find a place to hole up in and possibly a map of this damned city" He said to himself quietly.

Upon entering the home, there was already a light on but it was merely a candle. The room he was in was small and had an entrance to another small room that looked to be the kitchen. There was also a stairway that led to the second floor but it was pitch black so he didn't want to go up there quite yet. He also noticed that the rooms had no windows on the first floor, that was a relief to him. He turned around and made sure to lock the door just in case. It was then that he started to scour the place for any kinds of maps, or documents that would help him find what he needed to complete his mission. On a table he found exactly what he needed. A map of the city, a Magnum with rounds to go with it, and a supply of beef jerky to last a good week or so. He then took a nearby lit candle and went upstairs. When he got up to the second floor there was a hallway that lead down and had three rooms. One was a bathroom and the other two were a study room and a bedroom. On the side of the hall closest to the stairway was a window. It was boarded up poorly and the panes were knocked out of the window frame. Scattered glass shards were all over the floor, to which Gregory stepped around carefully.

He walked towards the back and then entered into the study room. As soon as he entered the room he closed the door behind him. The moment that door closed, he heard the boards from the hallway being assaulted by something. Suddenly a being of some sort made a thud sound when it landed on to the floor from the window. He wasn't alone anymore and he took the chance to blow out his candle and push a chair silently against the door. What he gathered from this encounter was that the shukakusha were scavengers and scourers. Lurking in every corner of a place scouring for food and other resources. It was a frightening concept to think about. The idea of being prey was a nightmare of a reality. The shukakusha as he assumed it was, had made it's way down the hall and was right near the door to the study room. It's breathing was heavy and it made faint howls while it lurked around. It went into the bedroom, and it could be heard tearing up the bed in there and then it suddenly crashed through one of the windows and jumped to another building. He then removed the chair from being lodged near the door and slowly opened it up. There was nothing of interest in the study room so he decided to venture into the bedroom the creature had just finished ravaging.

"I hope I can find some kind of provisions inside of the bedroom." he said as he saw the carnage of the bed.

He opened a cabinet and sure enough there were more rounds for the magnum inside of it. Aside from ammunition he also found a little box with an ID badge on it. Inside the box was a key labeled "455". Gregory knew this number for it was the same number on the city police department building. He took the ID just in case he would need it again in the future. Taking a peek out the window the creature had plummeted down from, he saw many creatures lurking around on the streets.

"It's too dangerous to roam the streets, I'd better just lay low in buildings and cross through alleyways." He said this to himself, calculating all of his possible routes.

He went back down stairs and out the door and proceeded to go deeper down the alleyway. This section of the small pathway led to a fenced dead end. But there was a door to the right of the fence of which he opened and went inside of. Upon entering the room, there was the cadaver of someone who committed suicide, but his guts were still ripped open and strewn all over the floor, settling in a pool of blood. Strange to actually see a corpse that was not transformed, but he thought nothing of it. He cautiously stepped over the dead man and carefully checked each and every window the hall had as he passed them by. His destination being the other door on the other end of the hall. As soon as he reached the end of said hallway, he heard groans come from the man he had passed by seconds ago. A horrid metamorphosis began and quickly his body lost color and turned brown and quite dead looking. This was followed by groggy movements as he began to regain consciousness. This wasn't a good type of consciousness either, it seemed the disease took a little while longer to infect this one. Nevertheless, it was now preparing to pounce at Gregory.

"Oh no you don't!" He quickly responded as he opened the door and closed it behind himself upon entering.

His frame swiftly pushed a nearby small desk against the door and then he ran further away from the horrid thing. It's claws sinking easily into the embodiment of wood that was a door. After having ran through the rest of that floor he was now outside of the building. To his right he could make out a Y like intersection directly in front of him. He knew from here that the police station was down the right road of the intersection and further down the street past 6 stoplights. Any other day he would have just ran there, But he couldn't now. The road was completely blocked off by an accident of multiple vehicles. A big semi-truck followed by many smaller trucks and cars seemed to have met an untimely demise at this intersection once the chaos had began to ensue. His only logical path choice was across the street into another alley that lead directly towards the direction of the police station.

Hesitantly looking both ways he darted across the pavement of the road and into the darkness of the back-roads. He was surprised that he didn't catch the attention of any shukakusha, but that surprise soon turned into fear as he realized if they weren't here then they had to be nearby the destination he sought out. He clambered through the fences in the alleyway which had doors attached to all of them. The padlocks to these doors had all been shattered and lay in shambles among the ground. When he heard the ruffling of something in the distance, he stopped dead in his tracks. His heart was racing at even higher rates as he tuned his head in the direction of the sound. A few seconds later and his ears once again caught wind of another sound. This time it was following the first one and it was that of a cat growling and hissing. He let an anxiety filled sigh escape his lungs as he continued forwards once more.

"If I was any older I'd have died of a heart attack by now." He tried to chuckle to himself to lighten the situation up.

He steadily walked towards the end of the alleyway, his gaze fixated on everything in front of him. From time to time, he would glance over his shoulders to see if anything was coming from behind. Something about what was ahead of him made him very uneasy though. His heart once again pounding as if it wanted to burst from his chest. The inside of his head was filled with the sounds of his heart-beats making him cringe even more in anxiety. To his right he could see a small little bug zapper that illuminated a small portion of the alley. To his left he saw a fence that was surrounding a basketball court. A few trashcans lay beside the fence and only the side against the fence could be seen in the light. The rest of the court was pitch black and nearly impossible to see. He barely could see anything around the corner of the building yet, as he was still moving with almost a pace matching that of a snail. Something then began to shuffle in the court. He didn't know what it was and couldn't see it either. A sort of silence then fell over the entire area for a few seconds...

*BANG* The trash can fell over and out jumped a shukakusha right to the side of Gregory, he panicked and unleashed 3 of his magnum rounds into the creatures chest. It took the hits and backed up a bit, clearly a bit dazed by his actions. Gregory wasted no time and quickly darted down the rest of the alleyway. The thing then regained it's composure and began to chase him once more. His eyes spotted the flickering lights of the police station nearby. Sharply, he ran to the left and turned on to the street that lay at the end of the alley. Dodging cars and debris that were on the road he ran with everything he had. Despite that, the thing was right behind him, almost gaining on him. It's growls had become even louder, it was infuriated. In it's rage, unbenonced to it's tiny brain, the shukakusha was also attracting the attention of the small groups of other shukakushas in the surrounding area's vicinity. Gregory panicked even more as this registered into his brain for moment.

He was breathing harder than he had ever breathed before, his legs running faster than he could imagine, all because his body was fueled by adrenaline and fear. When he neared the stairs to the police station, he clambered up to one of the doors. He wiggled the handle but it was locked! About 6 shukakusha were approaching the sidewalk to the stairs rapidly, right as he began to fumble about for the key in his pocket. Unfortunately, he dropped the key on the ground and let out a "Shit!". Quickly he picked the key up again and rammed it into the key lock. Upon twisting it he opened the door fast, and slipped into the building. The door was closed behind him instantly and after doing so he locked it up. His body was still pumped up and he ran into a nearby room, suffering from a minor panic attack. Thrashing into a table and some chairs, he finally collapsed by a wall and curled up. Slowly he began to relax.

"I thought... I was a goner... for sure..." He thought to himself.

After having calmed down he began to look around at the room he was now in. It was a small office for cops who sat around and did paper work and other office related ordeals. Most of the computers and papers on the desks along with chairs were scattered on to the floor, broken and destroyed. He did notice that one computer was still on and working, though there was still signs of damage because of the crack in the screen. On that monitor was detailed blue prints of a company that Gregory knew. He had a friend that worked for the company but then vanished after having been hired for only a month. Investigations yielded no results as to the whereabouts of his friend, just that the company said he vanished from work one day. The monitor read "Foundation 177 - Laboratory Sector 3A level B12." He then looked at the tower and saw a flash drive. Upon further inspection of the computer and the tower, he deduced that the data currently displayed was from the USB device. He thought it was very important so he took out the data device and stored it in his pocket. Suddenly he heard the clicking of a gun barrel, and the metal of that barrel being pressed into his head.

"Put your hands up and slowly back away from the computer Sir" An unknown male said to Gregory. "Turn around very slowly."

Gregory did as the man said and turned around facing this new person. It was a deputy of the police department. His hair was blonde, he had a bushy handle-bar mustache and there were small droplets of blood stains on his uniform. From the look in his eyes he was in no mood for games.

"You tell me y'er business here right now, and it better be damn good, or else I'll throw you back out there son." The deputy stated sternly to him.

Gregory felt relief and that sense of authorial fear all at the same time. He knew he had to give him a good answer, or else this would be the end of him.