Author's Notes:

Some ideas written in this chapter, and some later on, I did get from OldManJebidiah's story. Which I still highly suggest reading. My whole thought of this story comes from his, and since it's similar some parts of this story are from ideas that I got

December 5th, 2023, 3:44 pm

Just outside L.A.

Fort Trove, a new military base made in 2016, now crumbling, vegetation growing all over it. Inside however there was much happiness, in the way no one would expect.

My team in the scavengers for New L.A. was sent to see if there was any supplies in Fort Trove left. Little did we know we'd have to call in a whole loading team to haul everything, guns, ammo, food, it was the holy grail of loot, and now a full truck with a small supply trailer hooked behind it, filled to the brim. It was definitely a success.

"Jared! Get over here, were leaving!" John called out to me, making me look away from Fort Trove. Heading over to my squad's car. A small ford f250, which worked good for our four man squad.

Yes my scavenging squad consisted of four people, John, Yuri, Kaylee and me. John was our brute of the group, 6ft4, 230 lbs of bulk. He did the heavy work, but was the most friendly and goofy person you'd ever meet. Yuri is my childhood friend, he was unlucky to have visited the US from Japan when the bombs went off, my family found him and took him in. From then we became best friends in the apocolypse, we were the main shooters of the squad as well, he may not have as good a shot as me, but he can shoot pretty good. Kaylee is the brains of the group, she knows the best routes and strategizes most of our plans, though she sucks at shooting and can't carry a dang small box. It's also good to note almost everyone in New L.A. thinks I have a crush on her, but I don't.

Me? Well like I said i'm the main shooter, I have the best shot in the squad, maybe the team, i'm about 6ft, the second tallest. Though my muscle is lacking, living with a small 4 pack. I have long blonde hair and Ice blue eyes, and i'm pretty sure i'm 18, but I could be 20, I lost track. I'm pretty sure John's 34, Yuri is the same age as me and Kaylee is 19.

"I'll drive, John and Kaylee you sit in the back, Jared you ride shotgun." Yuri calls out, technically Yuri is our squad leader, but we usually act like a group of childhood friends, which is semi true.

"Now your ordering where we sit? Your becoming a real leader!" John said sarcastically, making Kaylee giggle, but me and Yuri roll our eyes.

"Just come on lets go, i'd rather not sit in the open" Yuri finishes the conversation and John complies, sitting in the back with Kaylee. I sit shotgun and we head out.

"Hey Jared, what were you doing standing around earlier anyway? Fell asleep while standing or somethin?" John asks me.

"Just admiring the beauty in the chaos of what was Fort Trove." I state, making John chuckle.

"I wonder what that hellhole looked like before we looted it, maybe looked nice. Bunch of guys dressed in camo walking around."

"What? Remembering when you were young Johnny? In the military or something?" Yuri now says. It wasn't a good joke, but for some reason made Kaylee giggle, I always forget how easy it is to make Kaylee laugh.

"I'm in my thirties! Hopefully, and yes I was in the military. Got wounded and was kicked out" John explains, now making me pipe up.

"So you had military training but can't shoot a goon at point blank? How the mighty have fallen" John sent a glare my way, now making the whole group chuckle, except for John.

"Kids these days..."

===================

December 5th, 2023, 4:15 pm

Canterlot Castle, Celestia's private chambers.

"Sister? Could we speak for a moment?" Princess Luna asks from just behind the door to the room.

"It's ok Luna come in" Princess Celestia calls, the door opens to show Celestia's sister and co ruler. She steps into the room and sits on a small cushion a few feet away from Celestia.

"I'll get right down to business, gaurds have come back from the everfree reporting a disturbance deep within, an odd pulse was reported earlier today, when the Royal Gaurd went inside the everfree to take a look. To they're surprise, they found differences in air pressure, vegetation and the animals." Luna explained, which right away caught Celestia's attention.

"Well, did they go into more detail of these differences?" Celestia asked, Luna picking her words carefully.

"The Royal Gaurd reported....otherwordly animals, they were ugly and seemed to have a small amount of intelligence. They stood on two legs and were completely exposed. When the gaurd noticed these creatures were holding weapons, they fled to report. The vegetation wasn't growing, but was actually dying, and air pressure was lighter, making it difficult to breathe in." Luna finished, now this was alarming to Celestia, if the animals that were reported step out of the everfree, she doesn't know what would happen.

"We should send a troop of gaurds into the everfree immediately, I also wan't Twilight to go under high protection to research anything to be useful. Do you have any ideas sister?" Celestia asks. Luna almost started to reply before Celestia even finished.

"I think I should come with the gaurds, once the situation is explained to them the morale of the troops may drop dramatically. I think if one of us come with it will bring the morale up higher." Celestia didn't like the idea of Luna going with, but with the gaurds and twilight it assured her more that Luna will be safe. They may not be able to age, but they still could die.

"If you insist, you can go, just be careful dear sister."

"I will, and I will have the troop set out at nightfall."

"Nightfall?"

"I can cast a nightvision spell on them all, and nopony can sneak up on me at night. We will know if we are going to be attacked" Luna explains.

"Ok then, hurry, and stay safe Luna..."

=======================

December 5th, 2023, 6:30 pm

New L.A.

"Goons at front of the gate, if the gaurds could so kindly take them out." Yuri says through the radio in his hands, after our long ride we finally made it back to New L.A. One of the many colonies across the US, built in the outskirts of the real Los Angeles. It was big, really big, and one of the few colonies to use the new currency set up. They were just the old nickels, quarters and dimes but they worked. Normal dollars were taken out of the picture for how fragile they were.

From the two towers around the front gate, two shots went off. Taking out the two goons outside the gate.

"Goons" were the term for the mutated humans, ones affected by the atomic bombs, most goons kept an average physical appearance of who they once were, but they're skin turned grey and lifeless, they're minds dwindled to the point that they're intelligence is wacking people with sticks and throwing rocks, but they are deadly. Inside a goon's body is how they can infect other humans, turning them slowly and painfully into goons. So no matter what they were a threat, and were to be avoided, or shot on sight.

"Thank ya" Yuri said through the radio "and don't fall asleep on the job again please" that made some grumbles come back through the radio.

"Can't complain, they should be doing they're job" John now said as the gate opened and we drove our truck full of goods inside, right away we were greeted with the makeshift homes and shops, and the survivors of the apocolypse, cheering us as we drove by. New L.A. is a massive, democratic community, the motto around here "scratch my back, i'll scratch yours" and for John that means "You find supplies for us, we buy you a beer."

We parked the truck into the storage area, where people came up and started unloading the goods. Our team leader, Lucas, was waiting for us.

The scavenging teams worked in odd ways, there were six teams, each consisting of three squads of four. The number one squad's leader also is the team leader, and the other two teams each have a squad leader, where they take orders from the team leader. There were two types of scavenges, Squad and Team scavenges. Squad scavenges are when one squad scavenge an area and come back, like the one we just did. A team scavenge is one to be proven a large amount of loot(or extremely dangerous) where all the squads of a team search an area. To me it was confusing at first but then I started to understand it.

"Welcome back, looks like your scavenge was a success" Lucas asked

"Yep, we got a good amount of weaponry, and some food too." Yuri reports, where then Kaylee steps in.

"We were gonna give up at first because the door was locked, but then I found a hidden backdoor beneath a good amount of vegetation"

"She's right, made my machete have some work to do" John now states. I was the only one to stay silent, I wasn't very social but I do partake in conversations, but I love to just sitback and listen to what other people have to say really.

"Good then. You three can go do what you wish now, Jared though, I have to speak with you" Lucas now perks up, without a word Kaylee, Yuri and John left. All of us learned long ago not to question our commanding officers.

"What is this about?" I ask, Lucas makes a gesture to follow him, which I do. Stepping outside the storage area, and into a small building which was well known to be Lucas' humble abode. It was plain, made out of a old crumbled home, all the holes and windows boarded up, either with metal or wood. The indoors as even more plain, a bed, table, kitchen, bathroom.

"Now, I have a solo scouting mission for you." He replies finally once inside the home, and I finally caught what he was going at.

The other kind of mission for scavengers, solo scouting, it is usually kept secret because it is frowned upon, sending man alone into the wasteland to scout out an area? I can get why it's frowned upon, only scavengers who decide to do solo scouting are give these missions. It is mainly to scout out a small area that the leaders of the colony don't want to get public.

"What's the reason for a solo scout?" I ask, he then shows me a black and white picture he took from one of his shelves.

"Some odd stuff is happening near the crack, things like pulses, oddly dense air.....grass." The last part caught my attention the most.

"Grass? Here? Impossible."

"Well, there were patches found all around it, so we don't cause rumors to float around the colony i'm gonna have you check it out." Lucas explains, now walking towards the door. "You'll be heading out tonight, and you can bring your dragunov"

Right after Lucas escorted me out of his tiny home, I right away headed for the armory, where they held any weapon for a man in the militia or scavengers. The only weapons that were allowed out of the armory are knives, handguns are limited to members of the militia and scavengers, which let my colt revolver set nicely on my hip.

"Eh! If it isn't my favorite scavenger! Well, next to your little Kaylee." Ramirez called to me, he was the gaurd stationed at the door of the armory.

"We all know you are a perv Ramirez, you can stop trying to hide it." I joked, which seemed to work on Ramirez as he gave a heartfelt laugh. "Anyway, I need my Dragunov"

"Yah yah I know you need it, Lucas informed me earlier, and when did I ever hide my love for women? Julia didn't complain last night" He retorted, I chuckled as he gave another laugh. Opening the door for me, and before he closes it behind me. "Like we all know you like Kaylee!"

"In your dreams old man!" I called back, heading inside.

The armory was BIG, filled with different weapons ranging from assault rifles, snipers, submachine guns, shotguns. Another holy grail of weaponry, but I was looking for a certain one.

My Dragunov SVD, each person in either the militia or Scavengers is able to have a personal weapon only they can use, it would have a crude nametag under the weapon to show it's yours. I knew exactly where my gun was, it was a newer model painted pitch black, and the nametag read "Jared, the quiet kid".

Who let Ramirez write the nametags? I thought to myself, every time I saw that nametag it always looked like something Ramirez would write.

Picking up my Dragunov, checking that everything is as it was. Luckily it looks like noone touched it, still the beauty it is. I wen't to the ammunition and picked up six 7.62x54mmR magazines, placing one clip into the Dragunov. I also picked up some .45 colt bullets just in case I have to use my revolver. Stepping back out of the armory, with the usual joke from Ramirez and me retorting. I headed out immediately, the sun was starting to set, I need to hurry.

====================
December 5th, 2023, 8:21 pm

The outskirts of the Everfree Forest

Twilight Sparkle was surprised when Spike flamed out a letter from Princess Luna, telling Twilight to meet her at the Everfree Forest. She also said to pack up her research supplies and some food. Hopefully now that she's here the situation will be explained. It was a cold december night and she didn't want to sit around for too long.

Princess Luna had setup a "debriefing" as she calls it, over a dozen gaurds were sitting in formation, waiting for the situation to be explained to them. As Twilight was waiting for as well.

"I thank all of you for waiting so patiently for answers on this sudden meeting, but we have urgent news that will be dealt with tonight." Luna finally said. Dealt with Tonight? Twilight thought, wondering why it had to be so quickly.

Luna went and explained the situation, the pulses and differences in the everfree. The odd creatures were the most surprising to the troop of gaurds and twilight. Luna then went and placed a night vision spell on the troop, letting them all see clearly as if it was day. After Luna briefly explained Twilight's role in the troop, they headed out into what could be an eventful, and dangerous trip...

It only took about 30 minutes for the pulses to appear, they were faint and a little difficult to see, but the ponies who could see the odd pulses in the air, including Twilight and Luna, saw it an odd yellowish tint, like the color of the pulse was being changed due to it's source.

"Looks like were making progress" Princess Luna noted, she was in her carriage with twilight next to her, two gaurds pulling the carriage.

"Why is it doing that?" Twilight asked. Luna didn't hesitate to answer.

"Neither me or my sister knows why, that is why we are going to the source of the pulses." Twilight nodded once Luna finished her statement. The two of them kept they're silence for another half an hour. Which gave some time for Twilight to observe her surroundings.

The first thing to catch her attention was the ground, as Luna explained, patches of dying grass and plants were spotted about, and it seemed like the pulses made the patches grow, even if it was moving at a glacier pace. The gaurds huddled around the carriage catched her attention next, they looked confused, worried, even frightened, but Twilight didn't blame them, they were about to go into the unknown head on.

It looks like the size of the pulse was small, as it was only those 30 minutes for the pulses to smack into all the ponies' ears, the yellowish pulse fully visible as it wacked them all. Twilight was watching in amazement as the patches became larger and larger, until they covered the whole area. The only thing missing were the supposed "creatures", which made Twilight wonder where these animals are. If she saw the movement just to her left, she would think Speak of the Devil, however, Luna caught the movement.

"Stop!" She commanded, right away all troops, as did the carriage. All the gaurds, including Twilight, were wondering why Luna commanded such an abrupt halt.

"What is it Princess Lu-" Twilight started before being cutoff by Luna.

"The creatures, there here."

All the gaurds automatically went into defensive positions, gaurding the carriage. All in all, there were 6 Earth Ponies, 4 Pegasi and 3 Unicorns surrounding the carriage. Only a few moments after, a loud shriek was heard somewhere in the forest, making some of the gaurds and Twilight flinch.

The shriek sent the monsters rampant, charging the troop. The reports weren't off, the creatures stood on two hooves, if you can call them hooves, making Twilight guess the creatures had a good sense of balance. They had wierd tentacle like hooves and were carrying odd blunt weaponry in them. They ran at the troop bare naked, with no sheathe to hide they're private parts. The faces were the worst, they had beat up and horrendous faces, making them look terrifying.

The first beast to charge seemed to wobble run it's way over to the troop, where a magical blast from one of the unicorns tore it to pieces. Two more came after, one was taken down by another blast and the other was impaled by an earth pony spear gaurd. 3 more came, then 4, then 5 then 3 or 4 more. Wave after wave came at the troop, all taken down with little to none issue. After the fight, about 14 corpses layed around the troop, crimson flooding out. The rest of the creatures, about 4 or 5, fled with severe injuries. The ponies however, no casualties, no injuries, a completely succesfull fight. Except that most of the troop now looked horrified.

"What the buck were those things!?" One gaurd screamed out "They looked like Apes, but grey and disgusting!" A pegasus gaurd called out next. One after another the scared gaurds called out. The morale was dropping rapidly, and Luna knew it, even Twilight looked at the now dead corpses with horror.

"Silence!" Was her next command, the loyalty to they're princess showed when all the gaurds shut they're yaps. Standing straight as they faced they're ruler.

"We do not fully know what these things are, but our goal continues, we shall get to the source of the pulses, once there we will set up a temporary camp. I will send word to Princess Celestia so researchers can come and learn more about these creatures, we will then learn what our next move is." Luna stated, after silent murmers from the troops they all nodded, getting back into formation and starting the march forward.

"I can't believe such horrifying creatures exist in Equestria" Twilight said, wide eyed. She was not expecting to go on an expedition so.....bloody.

"My fears are that they do not originate from Equestria" Luna replied

"Where else would they originate but from the Everfree?"

Luna thought about how to answer that, though no place has seen a creature like that. Sure there are monkeys and apes, but those animals aren't hostile unless you give them a reason to be hostile. "I don't know" she finally said.

================
December 5th, 2023, 9:24 pm

The Crack

It took about an hour of driving for me to get to The Crack. "The Crack" as it is called is really a fracture in the earth caused by one of the many atomic bombs, many fractures are found throughout California, but as far as New L.A. knows, it is the largest fracture in the country. Having a length of about 2 miles of earth and rock jolted apart, making the huge cliffside i'm looking at now. I'm glad I don't have to search the whole length of The Crack, it would take all night.

The pulses were visible even in the night, a bright green glow going beat after beat, almost like a heart. Sadly it also seemed to have attracted a small group of goons around the source of the pulse. I had some work to do tonight.

Even in the night, I had always had a pair of nightvision goggles in the squad truck, which made it helpful to mark each goon's postion. There were 5 in total, about 90 meters away, luckily for they're poor senses the goons haven't noticed me. Using a small rock mound closeby, I went prone and looked down the scope of my Dragunov SVD, I already surveyed the surrounding areas around the crack, so I know there aren't any goons that could hear the gunfire about to come off.

I aimed down my Dragunov's scope, trained my sights on the first goon to be a victim of my devastating weapon today. The sillouhettes of the 4 other goons weren't too far, I would be able to take down at least 3 before the other two can react fully. Now that the goon's head is in the dead center of my scope...

Bang! By the time the first goon fell, my sights were on the next goon.

Bang! Bang! Just as I predicted, I was able to take down three of them before they reacted. The other two goons, thanks to they're stupidity. Right away went for a charge. Aka.

A deathwish...

Bang! Bang! the last bullets went, taking the final goons down. Heading down to where I shot the last goon, it looked like the grey mutated monster still had some life in it. Instead of my dragunov I take out my Colt Revolver. The goon was shot right under the neck, knocked onto the ground. I take my foot and stomp onto the back of the goon, pinning it on the ground. Kneeling down and placing the revolver right on the goon's head.

[Some moderate gore up ahead]

"Sometimes you freaks should just learn to die" Once I pulled the trigger, the goon's brains splattered everywhere, some landing on my clothing. Which I wiped off quickly. My clothes may be in bad shape but they're all i've got, I don't need brain residue on my jacket as well.

I didn't wear much, a leather jacket, a plain black t-shirt, baggy blue jeans and some nike sneakers I found. Nothing special, but I have no other clothing to wear.

A thought came to my head as I was cleaning the brain juices off my jacket. "I've become a post apocolyptic badass haven't I?"

Now that my self praising was over with, I finally actually scout out the source of the pulses.

Lucas was right, there were patches of grass all around, it was amazing. After the nukes dropped green grass hasn't grown, so for about 4 years we have had dead grass, now that it has, does it mean the earth is finally growing back to what it once was? Or is the pulse the reason for this vegetation growing?

I ignored it for now, the goal at hand was to find the source of the pulse, why worry about anything else? So I look back up at the green tinted pulse beating through the air. It was completely visible still, which was nice when trying to find it. The beating green light at closer examination seems to be originating from the Slash, or the deepest part of the crack. I knew my next destination...

30 minutes later...

"Where the heck is it coming from?!" I yelled at the top of my lungs, I could practically feel the pulse bashing against me, but there was no clear place it would be coming from.

I ended up climbing to the highest part of the fracture to look, hopefully not to get shot by bandits while completely in the open. Looking through the whole area for...anything! Except there was nothing but dead(and patches of alive) grass and waste. No sort of machine or anything. I was so engrossed trying to find something that I completely didn't notice that the pulse was wacking hard against my feet. Not enough to hurt but dang it's annoying. Looking down to at my feet, I finally found out that where I wanted to find wasn't something, but somewhere.

As of where I was, I was at the top of the cliffside, for where I need to be, is at the bottom of the cliffside, right below me.

No i'm not a badass, i'm an idiot...

It took me another 10 minutes to get down to the bottom, more time wasted, but that time I guess was worth it. I finally found the source at least...

I was surprised to find a small cave opening on the side of the fractured cliff, the pulse was beating on almost every part of my body now, whatever it was that was doing this, it was in there, but that was just the first thing to catch my eye.

Next was the floor, instead of it being rock on my feet, every inch on the floor was filled with grass. Green, beautiful grass that were like the patches outside. The pathway into the cave was pretty small, in length and width, I had to duck down a little to get inside, but it doesn't help i'm large. So for me to find out the source of the pulse I had to crawl around in the small cave path with green grass everywhere. This just screams unnatural. Except nothing was gonna prepare me for what was at the end of the cave...

My jaw dropped as the small path opened up into a large cavern, the whole floor was filled with green grass and plants, vines were hanging everywhere, there was a friggin oak tree in here!! If the path screamed unnatural, this FLAT OUT showed the world it was unnatural!

Moving vines out of the way, wondering how in the world these plants are still alive without sunlight or water, I go a little further into the cavern. The cavern had more height and width than it did length but I still had to walk a bit to get to the end of this huge underground paradise. When I saw the end of the cavern the pulse was definitely trying to force me back, every step I took was difficult and tiring, but I pushed through to see what the heck is going on.

At the end of the cavern, one small crack was showing in the rock wall, inside the crack it was glowing, and every time it glowed brighter the pulse would go off. Making it extremely difficult to walk, I took one step, then another, then another and another, pushing past the pulse and getting as close as I can get to the crack. Once I got close enough, with me heaving air into my lungs as the pulse kept pushing me. I stretched out one hand toward the glowing crack, trying my best to get close to it. I took one deep breath and pushed past the pulse, my hand connecting with the glowing crack.

I was blinded instantly, feeling my body lunged backwards a few feet. The ringing in my ears was unbearable, I could barely think. All I could do is wait for the blinding light to disperse...

==============

December 5th, 2023, 10:00 pm.

Everfree Forest...

When the troop finally made it to the source of the yellow tinted pulse, they were surprised to find themselves at the bottom of a small cliffside, a glowing crack right in the cliff. The pulses however were starting to affect them now however, every time they tried to get close it would force them back, any who tried to get close had a difficult time and were tired out afterward. Luna finally had enough of it though and was readying a spell to weaken the pulse, or disperse it all together.

Her horn starting to glow, Princess Luna sends a magical bolt of energy right at the crack, not being slowed one bit by the pulse. Once connecting the next pulse disperses, now it was just a glowing crack, nothing else.

"Everypony start setting up camp! I will send word to my sister to bring the researchers from Canterlot" Princess Luna commands, all the gaurds nod and do as commanded, setting up tents and checking the perimeter for any more of those creatures. "Twilight, you can look at the odd crack, just don't touch it, let the researchers get here first to help."

"Yes, your highness" Twilight replies, but when she turns around a frown comes onto her face. Having to wait for the researchers before she can fully learn more about it?! It definitely didn't make her happy, but looking is better than nothing.

"Looking" at the wierd glowy crack thing, Twilight tries to look inside the crack, but the glow emitting from inside was way too bright for her to see. She was so tempted to touch it, she really wanted to touch it. So as her hoof starts to come up to touch it...
Almost the whole encampment was blinded by light, a loud bang could be heard from somewhere around the crack, but instead of just a normal explosion it was distorted, only Luna could catch the sound as all the other gaurds in the troop had they're ears ringing.

When the blinding light faded, all ponies were accounted for, except for Twilight Sparkle...

=============

My eyes finally could see again and the ringing dissapeared, the position I was in on the rock ground gave me a good look of the crack, or what was the crack. Instead of the crack in the wall it was more like a floating vortex in the air, full of many colors from pink to blue to red. It wasn't a crack anymore, it looked more like a portal.

I tried to move my body, but something was forcing me to the ground. The pulse seems to have dissapeared now, there was complete silence, but then I notice the weight on my belly.

Looking down at my own body, what was there was like nothing i've ever seen before. It was purple, bright purple. There seemed to be four legs, without feet. It looked more like a cartoon character than it did anything else. I noticed the face as well, eyes closed, scrunched up. It would be cute if I knew what the heck was on me.

I move my body again, this time more forcefully. Pushing the purple being off of me, letting me stand up. Getting an even better look at the thing, until it's eyes opened and stood up itself, giving off a very feminine groan before getting on all four...hooves? Turning to face me as well. The horse like thing looked at me wide eyed, full of horror. Then it's mouth moved...

"What the hay are you?!"