I emerged into the stairwell and craned my head to look up and down. It was pretty quiet, and dark. I pulled out my flashlight and got to going down. "So what's your name?"

The mare soldier with me shook his head. "It seems to be a common habit to pick new names when you're a pony." He fluttered his wings lightly as he followed after me. "Up Stream."

What a funny name, or so I thought to myself. "Nice to meet you, Up. I'm--"

"Miss Pie, we all know." He smiled. "You're famous."

I turned around the next landing and hopped up onto the rail, sliding right down to the next with a soft 'whee!' along the way.

Up walked down instead, wings fluttering again. "Please, Miss Pie, we should try to be as quiet as possible, who knows--" As he passed in front of a door, it swung open violently, knocking him against the guard rail leading into the big hole of the stairwell.

"I heard voices! All I see is a horse." A rifle poked through the door, aimed at Up with deadly intent.

"Wait!" I cried out, thrusting out a hoof. "We're good guys!"

The light attached to the rifle turned towards me as the man looked to me. From the reflecting light, I could see he wasn't all human, but still mostly human. Maybe he was still changing? He had a pony snout and his nails were thick and black. "Miss Pie?"

Up laughed a little from where he had been sent sprawling. "Yes, that's Miss Pie. Can I stand without being shot?"

"Who are you talking to?" asked another voice from behind. A second soldier peeked out, that one with the full face and head of a pony, but otherwise human.

I held up my hooves, in case they got worried easily. "It's alright, guys, we're just trying to get to the leader with some big huge news!"

"What kind of news?" asked the first one, his words getting stuck in his alien mouth a moment.

That was cue enough for Up to stand, both rifles not aimed at him. "We think we may have a way to stop ponies from being infectious. Testing required."

"Holy shit," remarked the second soldier. "Are you kidding with us?" He suddenly fell, slamming into the ground and sliding backwards with a scream of surprise.

The first guard turned and began firing wildly into the hallway behind them. "Get going!"

Up spread her wings and advanced. "I'm not leaving anyone else behind."

"Ditto!" I cried and we charged in together. We could see the soldier being hauled along by a band of flesh that was reeling him in like a fish. He had managed to get around and was firing kind of wildly in the direction of his snare, but he was still being reeled in. "We're here, calm down!"

We rushed past him and I did what any right-minded pony would do with their friend entangled by a creepy vine-like thing. I bit it. Problem, it was someone's tongue, not a vine, so yuck! My mouth was full of blood all of a sudden, but it let go of him and reeled back into the dark lickety split, pun intended.

The rescued soldier scrambled to his feet. "Thank you, both of you. This whole thing's out of control!"

Up lashed out a wing, striking another seeking pseudopod. Was it the same tongue, or another? I couldn't tell. "We should go, come on!"

All three of us booked it out of the hallway, meeting up with the other soldier and getting into the stairwell before slamming the door shut behind us, keeping out icky tongues for the moment. The first soldier grabbed the second by the shoulders. "I'm glad you're alright."

He rolled his eyes. "I almost wasn't. What were you shooting at, besides me? We have to keep our heads."

"You don't even have your head anymore."

"Ha ha." He looked back at us. "Alright, where are we going? If you got a cure, we got to get this going. I don't want to be a horse."

Up looked guilty suddenly. "I... even if it works, we're already fucked. This is for everyone else, to stop the disease from spreading." He pointed at himself quickly. "Still, look at me! Being a horse doesn't mean you have to give up who you are, or become a monster."

The door we were beside thumped loudly. "Uh, guys, maybe we should get going." I hiked my hoof downstairs. "Before mister licky decides to join the party."

The two new soldiers nodded. "Right. Let's be men about this." The other moved ahead, and we quickly resumed our trek.

The second soldier didn't look as confident at the first. "Look, isn't there someway to not become a horse?"

"That's pony," corrected Up. "And no, there isn't any way that we've found yet. We have to work with what we have." He spread his wings. "I didn't want to be some she-thing with wings, but here I am. We can focus on what we can do, or cry about it." He turned to the door to the basement. "I wasn't raised to cry."

We tried the door, but it was barred up tight despite our shoves, so I tried something crazy, and gave a little light-hearted rapping on the door.

"Who is it?" asked a voice from the other side, muffled and female sounding.

"It's Miss Pie, here with great news!"

"The horses are gone? Wait, Miss Pie?"

Sheesh, maybe I really was famous! "Yepperoni. Can you let us in?"

"But you're a horse! Stay away, please."

One of the soldiers banged on the door. "Let us in already. We're not here to cause trouble. This is important!"

"Who is that?"

"Oh, he's one of the soldiers I have with me." I smiled at the door, not like she could see me.

"Are they clean?" asked a new voice, more male sounding.

I sniffed at them and turned up my nose. "Well they've been running around a lot."

We heard a sudden flurry of hoofsteps coming from above with a howl more befitting a timberwolf than a pony. The two soldiers with guns had them raised and pointed to the next flight. The ponies that came into view could hardly be called ponies. Their legs and bodies were covered in a carapace, like a changeling. Their mouths were huge and terrible jaws, teeth drooling with fresh saliva as large tongues wagged around in front of them. Behind them, their armored tails wagged. They had no noses, or eyes, but they knew where we were and were ready to pounce.

Little fun fact, guns are loud. Guns in small places? Even louder! I was suddenly deafened as the two soldiers started shooting at our new guests. Worst part? They didn't care. The shots that were on target careened right off their thick hides and they seemed almost amused in some dark way. They didn't pounce, they just calmly walked down the stairs towards us, a soft almost cooing growl coming from both of them.

Up threw himself at them, kicking one across the snout and thudded into their solid bodies. They snapped him right out of the air and tossed him violently to the ground.

Alright, it was up to me! Pinkie would solve this problem! I dug out a small red squeaky ball and began to wave it left and right. "Who wants to play? Who's a good boy?" Were they boys or girls? I really didn't know, but they were looking at me. "Fetch!" I tossed it as hard as I could, bouncing it up the stairs off the walls.

One of them suddenly burst after it, score one for Pinkie! The other, on the other hoof, came for me instead and shoved me against a wall, but it wasn't biting me in half or anything terrible, just pinning me. Its tongues reached up and went right for my mane and it began pulling out all my stuff! "Hey, that's mine! Bad dog, bad!"

The first soldier suddenly brought down his gun like a club, thumping the thickly-armored pony. It didn't seem to hurt him much, but he stopped picking through all my stuff and snarled at the soldier instead.

"Uh, good dog? Go to your friend..."

His attempts to calm it didn't work as well and the beast jumped on him, sinking terrible teeth into his arm and wrenching it around, savaging him. Just then, the other dog came back, rubber ball in his mouth. I didn't want this to become two angry dogs and rushed for him. "Good dog! You're a good dog, let me have that..." He didn't want to give it up, but wrestling with him for the ball was a lot less scary and dangerous than actually being torn apart by one of them, so I kept right on playing with him, which at least kept him happy and distracted.

I heard a short burst of gunfire and me and the creature-pony looked to see the second soldier had shoved his gun into the mouth of the attacking dog. It's attack had stopped, slumped over the badly mauled soldier. The creature in front of me began to growl softly and I grabbed it by the neck. "No! Be a good dog! Please, be good..." It was tense as a wire, but started to calm down as I pet it and spoke calmly to it. Fluttershy would have been so proud of me! I eventually got it to lay down, and I kept petting it, ignoring the sounds of the others helping the injured soldier.

For better or worse, we'd made it to the basement, but all the fighting made the people inside run away, and it was still barred. How were we going to get to the leader and tell him the big news?

Author's Notes:

Last time! What danger will they face?
1: Rowdy ponies too rambunctious to gather the first time through. 1 vote
2: Desperate soldiers 7.03 votes
3: Oh look, they're retaking the building! 2.33 votes
4: People in various states of infection in desperate need of help. 5.64 votes
5: It's a nice leisurely walk! 1 vote

Soldiers and civilians, yay! Let's get this party started. A very strong turnout for votes this time with 17 votes.

Well, that was a mixed bag. Gained 2 allies, Up got hurt, but not badly, and one of the new ones near got his arm torn off and is a bloody mess. They also... gained a dog(?) pony.
How will they reach their goal?
1: The elevators are still openings, even if the cars aren't running!
2: Maybe we should just wait on this one. The cure will still be there.
3: Two injuries? Are you mad? Get them back to base and treatment before considering anything else.
4: Maybe we should take matters into our own hooves and clear this building of threats.
5: Leaving is still an option. Maybe?