I groaned and rubbed my head. This did not bode well. I sat up and jumped a bit as the train moved along the tracks. Where was I? Maybe this was the same reality? My vision brightened up and I saw Rig leaning over me.

"What do you want?" I groaned.

"Nothing. Just sending you to sleep for a long while," Rig said cryptically before bopping me on the skull. My vision immediately darkened and I fell unconscious. Well, it was definitely the same reality that I knew.

SOMETIME LATER

When I woke, I found myself in the desert somewhere. The desert! Now, usually, the sun would bleach my bones but thanks to my robe ... that wasn't an issue. Looking around the dry, arid landscape, I pulled my hood up and headed in a random direction. After some time walking and overall humming to myself, I soon found a tree line bordering the desert. By this point, my robe was full of sand and trailing behind me, my sockets felt gritty and my joints actually creaked whenever I moved. I believe it was high time for a bleach bath. As soon as I entered the tree line, a hulking figure moved past my vision and continued further inwards. My interest piqued, I silently moved after it.

From the back, it looked extremely hairy and for lack of a better term, ape-like. It had a lumbering walk and didn't seem to notice me, which was good. I haven't really done much monster catching since becoming this world’s Death full time but … this particular cryptic looked to be Bigfoot. From the back. I didn't know how long I was following him but the sun gradually went lower and the shadows grew longer. He eventually walked into a cave. I decided to settle down and wait for the creature to come back out but I couldn't really do that.

Why? A scroll appeared in front of me out of some blue flames. Tilting my head at it, I slowly picked the scroll up from the moss-covered forest floor and unfurled it. It looked to be an extremely long list of pony names. I read the names over and was slightly confused and concerned by all of these ponies dying at the exact same time. I abandoned my vigil and flew to the town at the top of the gigantic list. Trottingham.

Trottingham was a quaint little town on the way from Ponyville, heading over towards Canterlot. Emphasis on was. It was near the base of the mountain and only held about nine hundred ponies. The list Hades gave me? All nine hundred ponies are on there.

I floated down above the town and saw sickly green trails running through every pathway and dirt road, some of it even oozing out of houses. If I had a tongue, I’d poke it out in disgust. There were heatwaves visibly rising off the ground when I soared closer and I was so glad I had no skin at that moment. I feel like it would have melted off otherwise. When I finally landed, my feet squelched inside the ooze, causing me to make a disgusted sound. It didn’t look pretty, and I so didn’t want to smell it. The ooze had practically soaked into the ground, making it sticky, wet, and a bit muddy too. How long ago was this?

I slowly walked down the street, looking at the empty buildings and something nagged at me. Where were the ponies? If this town had nine hundred ponies, which by my last count did, where are the bodies? Don’t tell me it was the ooze! I shivered and decided to look inside a few buildings. They were all the same. Derelict. Run down. Some even had mushrooms the size of my head growing out of the walls!

There were no bodies anywhere to be found after a lengthy search and by this point, the sun had begun to dip over the horizon. I had scoured the entire town to find nothing. For the umpteenth time that day, I asked myself where the bodies were. If there were no bodies, then I couldn’t collect any souls. Even if I’m on vacation, I still had a job to do. I guess I just needed to get away from the Underworld for a bit. Who am I to complain anyway? I love my job!

“Death,” a familiar voice coughed from behind me. I turned and saw the rusty Earth pony with his steel grey mane from before. Rig.

“I still have questions, but the most prominent one is: what happened here?” I asked him with a bit of anger floating in my voice. “Nine hundred ponies can’t just up and disappear!”

“I will tell you, bu-” I interrupted him by placing the hooked metal of my scythe at his neck.

“No, tell me now. No buts,” I told him evenly. It’s a wonder I haven’t slipped and fallen over yet.

“Fine,” Rig growled. He ducked under the blade and walked around me. I noticed his hooves created miniature craters wherever he stepped. Was this new, or did I just not notice it before? Filing it away for later, I watched him walk before sitting in a dry spot. “That did this,” he pointed and I followed his hoof to where a snow white man was running towards us.

“That’s not the angry Santa from before,” I muttered under my breath.

“That … War is not Santa!” Rig protested and I managed to make my eye sockets widen. War? Did he really just call the giant that knocked me into a tree, War? This pony has to be joking. “That white specimen is Pestilence.”

“Pes … Pestilence,” I deadpanned and floated out of the way when a white Pegasus of all ponies laughed as they slid down the ooze. “What the Tartarus is a Horseman of the Apocalypse doing here!?”

“You tell me,” Rig shrugged and we both watched the pony fly up cheerfully, the ooze simply falling off of her (going by the sound of the laughter).

“How can I?” I questioned him. “I don’t even know what’s happening!”

“Gotta go,” Rig said quickly and ran into an alley. I went to follow only to be barrelled into by a huffing white snow monster. I heard a few dozen sickening cracks when I slammed into the house behind me and winced when the wall simply fell over with me on top of it. Must have been waiting with mould.

“What the Tartarus, Rig!?” I shouted to the heavens. I laid there, unmoving, and unwilling, to reform my body at this time. Pestilence clouded my vision and I saw pus filled boils in multiple locations on his face alone. My gaze rolled down until he disappeared beneath my chin and all along his upper torso, there were infections oozing black stuff and multiple lacerations simply filled with maggots and infectious larvae. His hair … there was none. If this is indeed Pestilence, which all the evidence points to, then it’s probably some form of leukemia that did that.

“Rig can’t save you, Rig can’t save you~,” the Pegasus sung. I turned my head a fraction to the left and saw a cream white Pegasus with no cutie mark (must be a new trend), and bouncy, curly, toxic green hair. The same went for her tail and it continuously dripped off of her before reforming only for the process to repeat.

“Disease, can it,” Pestilence grunted, looking towards his … carer, I guess, with a scowl.

“Okay,” Disease grinned before miming a zipper over her muzzle. What is up with these two?

“Pestilence, let me up,” I told him when I realised he had a hand on my rib cage. I tried to shift but my grip didn’t manage to wrap around the entirety of his wrist. It didn’t seem he was budging. “You know, for a guy named Pestilence, I thought you would be more scrawny and sickly.”

“You thought wrong,” Pestilence had a low voice and finally let go after an agonising few moments. I slowly rose when he didn’t do anything stood up to be next to him. It turned out he was only half a head taller than me.

“What happened to the town?” I asked him.

“I did,” Pestilence answered simply and began lumbering off.

“Why?” I followed after. I wasn’t leaving until I got some answers.

“There were changelings here and I decided to just be rid of the entire town,” Pestilence answered before vanishing when Disease brushed a wing against his shoulder. Um, what? What? Care to repeat? What the heck are changelings!? I needed answers so knowing that nothing could be done, I flew out of Trottingham. When I got to a high enough altitude, I looked between Ponyville and Canterlot. Twilight, or Celestia? Bookworm first in case she knows anything, then the Princess. With a nod to myself, I quickly glided in that direction.

When the sun just finished setting and night quickly set in, I made it to the town. Ignoring the tired ponies walking about, I headed straight for the tree, library, thing. On the way, I was stopped by the sight of Twilight. She had dragon scales instead of fur, a more wispy purple mane and tail, golden sclera and when the fading light hit her, the scales shimmered lavender. I even heard some buzzing from her direction but not being able to see anything, ignored it for the moment.

“Twilight?” I asked hesitantly when I moved closer. Twilight turned her head to look at me and I nearly froze at seeing her eyes were more draconian than pony. Her new wings being membranous added to that. Hell, the fact she had wings at all stopped me in my tracks!

“You want something, Death?” Twilight asked, sounding slightly bitter towards me. I took a step back at the harshness of her tone. I knew I was away, and I understood that not giving her a direct answer while just leaving didn't amount to anything, but just how long was I knocked out for?

“What happened to you?” I asked, going for the direct approach instead of beating around the bush.

“My mother happened, that’s what,” Twilight replied and actually stomped into her library. I went to follow but groaned in slight pain when my skull began rattling from side to side. I held my hands on either side of my head to stop it, and I heard my boss speak.

“Grim Reaper, you are needed in Tartarus. Your vacation has to be cut short,” Hades’ deep voice boomed within my mind and I was kind of surprised no other ponies heard him. I knew he didn’t like to be kept waiting so I twirled on the spot and vanished into the shadows on a one way trip to Greek hell.

Author's Notes:

While this was originally a crossover with Delta Guardian, I decided to get rid of it because that story is no longer being worked on (having been replaced by it's reboot), and I thought I'd add some more story to Grim Tides. I haven't updated in quite some time so here's something for you all.