Two men were climbing up a tall ladder inside a dusty, old elevator shaft. Dust fell into Foster's lens, obstructing his view for a few moments. He stopped so he could wipe away the dirt. Alberts seemed slightly shocked at why they had stopped.

Alberts stuck his head out, "Is there a problem, brother?"

Foster finished wiping away the dirt, as he began to speak. "No, it's nothing."

"Oh, okay, brother." They continued climbing. Then, completely out of nowhere, Alberts started chuckling slightly.

"What are you laughing about?" Foster said to the priest under him.

"Oh, nothing, brother. I'm just remembering a funny joke I heard long ago."

"Care to tell me the joke?" The shaft was silent for a few moments.

"...No, I'd rather not. I'm not very charismatic, you see. I would most likely end up ruining it for the both of us." Foster knew that was utter bull crap. As a matter of fact, Alberts was the one that managed to get that band of bandits to join the camp, all using his 'sweet words'. They continued to climb further. Foster cleared his throat.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Alberts's eye cocked.

"Talk about what, brother?" He was nervous of Foster's next few choices of words.

"You know exactly what I’m talking about." Foster kept climbing but Alberts stopped. Foster didn't hear Alberts moving so he stopped as well. "Alberts, are you fine?" There was no answer. "Alberts!"

"I'm fine, brother." There was a sense of defeat hidden amongst Alberts’s sigh that Foster could barely notice.

"Do you want to talk about it... at all?" There was another silence, but both men kept climbing, soon afterwards he started laughing again. This time slightly more forced than usual.

After a while of climbing they finally came to, about, the ground floor. Foster was glad to finally be able to stop for a moment's rest.

"Alright, Reverend. We're here: ground floor." There was an odd silence. "Rev?" Still nothing. Foster looked back down the ladder, Alberts was gone! "Oh shit." His heart picked up after looking down at large space in between him and the bottom of the shaft. He quickly averted his eyes. "It's alright, Foster. It's just some heights. It's not like you'll lose your grip, and fall... fall to your painful, agonizing death... falling, falling. Oh bugger this!" He climbed up the ladder and quickly hoisted himself onto the stained carpet floor of the lobby.

After lying on the ground for a few moments, he realized what he was sitting in and jumped to his feet. He took one final glance down the shaft and still saw no sign of the holy man. He took the time to check his ammo. He only had one magazine left on him, and he wasn't even sure if it was full. "We really gotta get back to the camp." He said to no one in particular.

He then heard a sound of bare feet; he flashed the light on the 9mm at the direction of the sound, but was only met with a dead end. He put his weapon back in its holster. Then he thought for a moment.

"Wait, bare feet?" He quickly turned back to the source of the sound and attempted to pull his weapon out. Unfortunately, the Stalker had gotten a grip on Foster and quickly brought him down to the ground, near the elevator shaft's opening. The two beings began to wrestle. Foster took the Stalker by its wrists and held it above him as he prayed for Alberts to find and help him.

The two beings stood at a stalemate for a while before another Stalker stumbled across the two.

"Oh God! Why like this!" He said as he looked to the second Stalker, running down the hall at them. In one final attempt, Foster let go of the first Stalker and swung at it with his entire arm. It managed to score a decent scratch on Foster's arm, but for the most part, Foster was still in fighting condition.

Just as he pushed the nearly completely limp Stalker off his body, he felt a hand grabbing hold of the neck of his shirt and jacket. His eyes nearly popped out of his head as he realized what was going to happen. The hand dragged Foster back into the elevator shaft as he attempted to break free.

Foster screamed at the top of his lungs as he felt his body falling through the air. He closed his eyes and he continued to scream, though less now as he begun to accept his fate.

After a few moments he had opened his eyes again. He looked to the walls; they were not moving, which could only mean one thing. He looked to his back and saw a large wire attached to his pants, which in turn was attached to the wall of the shaft.

He hung there in awe as he looked down at the seemingly bottomless shaft. From above, he heard a few short screams and then saw the bodies of two bloody Stalkers fall from above him. By now he was having the closest thing to a heart attack as he could without completely kicking the bucket.

After a few more moments, he heard a clicking sound and slowly began to rise towards the opening on the ground floor. As he was hoisted up to the carpet a second time, he began to hug the ground as if it were his mother. He looked up from his embrace to see a priest with a sadistic grin on his face.

"Uh... this was all you right." Alberts nodded with his evil grin still on his face. "This was payback for before, right?" The priest nodded again. Foster slowly came back to his feet. "Well, I don't really care where you were. Though it's not like you would tell me, would you?" Alberts still had that grin on his face; with it he nodded 'no'. "Whatever. Let's just get back to camp, okay? He can sort everything out when we get there."

The two started for the door of the building. In the distance, they could hear a howl. Alberts spoke up.

"Get ready, brother." The holy man pulled out his fire axe and put his sadistic grin one more time. Foster couldn't help but get a fit of shakes after looking at the man. He pulled the chamber of his weapon back as he readied for the horde.

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

The streets of London are quiet. They've accepted the environment as it is, allowing for greener beings to replace their once lively, bipedal inhabitants. On the very verge of the town the plant life had already begun retaking the city. Though, nearer to the center, London still blazed with pockets of fires and death as it did on the very first days of the Outbreak, though somewhat more tame after two years of this. A shot could be heard through the still air every now and then. It didn't represent an act of retaliation though, it was simply another survivor, ending its life before the hordes of clones inevitably broke their barricades and begun feasting on their flesh.

One could guess that the amount of suicides may have rivaled the actual amount of kills by the specimens. Though, this was expected of the Patriarch, the creatures only had one true job: to cause fear of the highest degree to his enemies. And they did such with insurmountable statistics to prove otherwise.

In between the retaking of the city by plant life and fire, a lone man races through a street congested with vehicles. This particular man greatly stood out from the colors of fauna. He wore a bright red shirt and grey slacks, rolled up to about his ankles. Upon his face was a large cross, painted in red to symbolize his still lingering patriotism for 'jolly ol' England'.

Not ten steps behind this man is a group of small, black Crawlers consisting of at least fifteen of the angry, bug-like demons scuttling after the man. His chest began to throb with a pain never felt before to him. In clutching his chest, he managed to cause himself to stumble to the ground.

As he began to meet the ground he forced his back to the concrete and ripped the two 9mm pistols from their holsters under his armpits. Without even aiming he began emptying his magazines onto the little creatures.

One by one they fell as each bullet landed itself in a vital spot upon the creatures. This was not a feat of accuracy, though. These hits were all pure luck, as though some all-powerful being was making sure this man could live long enough to fulfill his destiny.

The chambers of his pistols had clicked just as the third to last Crawler had fallen, though two more remained. He threw one of his weapons at the first Crawler to buy himself some time. After the gun made contact he flipped over to his stomach and began reclaiming his stance.

Just as he was to his knees, one of the Crawlers had landed upon his back and took a decent bite into his shoulder. He didn't bother to scream, he just grabbed the being by the sides of its head and judo-threw it to the ground. Once it hit the sidewalk he grabbed it again, this time lining up its head with the curb.

He reared his foot upwards and brought it down upon the Crawler's skull, causing its head to crack open like a watermelon hitting the ground. The man couldn't hear much, but he knew that if he could he would've heard that satisfying crunch.

After reminiscing in the view of the creature's lifeless body, the man reared his head to see where the other Crawler went.

All he was met with was the view of the dying streets of London, along with the scent of fresh death in the air.

He pressed the side of his other 9mm pistol and loaded another clip into the weapon. Suddenly his radio crackled on with a deafening static.

"Chopper! Chopper Harris! Are you there! You better be there you son o~~~! HELLO! Anybody!" Chopper grabbed his radio from his pocket, before speaking he spit out some blood.

"Yeah, this is Chopper. Whaddya need?"

"~~~~Foster! I'm here with the Rev, we need some back-up NOW! We're fuckin' surro~~~~"

"Where are ya'?"

"We're by the Lab." Chopper made a motion of anger.

"Are you kiddin' me!? You know damn well nobody can get by there! You're on your fackin' own, Shakespeare."

Chopper heard gunshots in the background, a single 9mm.

"God DAM~~~~ow's not the time to play by the fuckin' RULES! All I need you to do is run by the place a few times! That's it! No contact! You'd be safe as shit! COME ON!" He thought for a few moments, he didn't want to have Foster's death on his mind as well.

"Alright! Alright! I'm on my way. Stay alive!"

"No need to fuckin' rem-" Chopper clicked his radio off and began a sprint towards the Horzine BioLab. Even though very few people had even gone close to the Laboratory since the Outbreak, Chopper knew this entire city by heart and was confident he'd have no trouble finding his fellow survivors near the building.

He turned down an alley that he suspected was a short-cut to the Lab. Everything seemed fairly clear until a large, green-tinted being stepped into Chopper's way. This being was morbidly obese and every few second belched as though it had just downed a soda not seconds earlier, thus earning it its name: Bloat. But in reality the being seemed to be a walking factory for extremely caustic chemicals which it would spew out every now and then, even if no targets were in range.

These beings were so weighed down and bloated that their movement was slowed to a shuffle, but made up for their slow speed with their almost always fatal spew attack, and it's astonishing ability to take so much damage that it seemed to be unkillable. These beings were built to demolish any enemies found in tight, hard to evade corridors, which was just the situation Chopper was in now.

Chopper knew he didn't have time to turn around, and he had no such weaponry that could put this being down quickly so he decided to do something he knew would kill him. He made sure that his pistol was loaded as he backed up for a few extra steps to gain more speed. He took off at the creature as it began it’s spew attack on Chopper.

Chopper jumped up and landed his right foot on the Bloat's chest and grabbed the back of its head with his left hand. Before the creature could spew its chemicals, Chopper jammed his weapon in its mouth and began pulling the trigger. After six shots the gun jammed due to the chemicals deforming the barrel. The Bloat began falling backwards as Chopper kicked himself off the creature.

The Bloat fell to the ground with a twitch as Chopper looked over to see a green chemical spouting from its mangled head, what Chopper believed to be it’s blood. He looked down at his hand; it seemed as though a bullet had gone through its head and grazed Chopper's fingers. Funny, he didn't feel it at all.

He leaned against a wall as he reclaimed his breath. As his heart rate slowed he heard the sound of a 9mm going off, he knew it was Foster’s. He cracked his neck and knuckles as he retook his running stance. This was going to be one long night.

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

Lewis was alone in this hallway. Though, the only other people, or ponies, that he could've expected were guards. He didn't appreciate that very much. He felt almost constricted with all this security. He understood the need for such in a castle, but he still couldn't help but be nervous from the looks the guards gave him. He did, after all, almost kill one of their own not a day ago.

Though the ponies had plenty of scrolls and such for Lewis to read, he felt restless. As though he needed to do something, anything really. He was so used to always being on guard that any sign of peace could be considered a ruse. Though Skully was more than happy to give up his weapons to the guards, Lewis still had his combat knife hidden away in his boot. He had no idea what to expect.

There was one thing that Lewis could lose his thoughts to, the stained-glass windows. He had no idea why, but looking at what stories they held was something that Lewis could find comfort in. He liked how he could interpret the stories anyway he wanted, so long as they could stay within the boundaries of what was shown. He learned more by looking at these pieces of colored glass than he could ever remember in a classroom. He appreciated the art, and he was beginning to appreciate ponies.

But something ate away at him. The thought of them here. No, no. He swiped away any ideas. They would be long gone before he arrived. That's how it was going to go. He knew it. As he was trying to convince himself that everything was going fine a guard approached him from behind.

"Uh... Sir. You're needed at the council room." Lewis gave the guard a seemingly blank look, but behind his mask an ever-so small frown had managed to creep upon his face.

"Okay. Thanks for the info." Lewis slowly turned his head back towards the panes of glass. The guard spoke again. "It's urgent."

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

Chopper saw the Horzine logo through the smoke rising above a ruined building. Not a minute ago, he heard an explosion. He clicked his radio back on to see if the writer was still alive.

"Shakespeare. Shakespeare! You there!?" He paused for a few moments, staring at his radio. He hoped that they didn't die, not on his watch. He didn't need another batch of deaths on his already heavy mind. He couldn't let them down too. Suddenly he heard an ever so welcoming crack of static.

"Yeah, *cough*cough* we're here."

"Where the hell are ya?"

Foster groaned over the radio. "We're under a damn building. Alberts tossed a 'nade too damn short. Just... look for the only toppled buildin', alright?"

"Yeah, I see ya. I'll be right over."

"Oh, take your fuckin' time. I'll make sure to put the tea on." Chopper clicked off his radio again and jogged over to the collapsed building. A heavy cloud of dust was still lingering through the air. He saw the silhouette of the writer; he walked over to meet him.

Just as he helped lift a piece of rock off the man, the figure jumped atop Chopper.

"Hey! What the fu-" his eyes widen to the sight. A Gorefast had him pinned to the ground.

It lifted it’s blade above it’s head, bringing it down upon Chopper. He instinctively jerked his body to the left, only managing to have the Gorefast's blade graze his back. The red being lifted its blade back again, this time stabbing it at Chopper. The Gorefast dug it's blade just along his ribs.

The as the blade dug itself about 2 inches into the side of Chopper he kicked it backwards, causing it to stumbled back into the rubble. He jumped upwards and locked his sights on the Gorefast. It struggled to get back up, but it was still making progress. Chopper regretted giving up his weapon to the Bloat. He readied his fists.

The Gorefast had finally gotten back to his feet just as Chopper pulled his hand back for a strike. As he continued to look at the Gorefast he felt a sting in his arm. He quickly looked back to see that second Crawler. The sly bastard.

The creature had jumped at Chopper, and by the time he had turned to see his attacker the Crawler had begun to drag the man back down to the ground. Chopper frantically punched the Crawler as he looked back to the Gorefast, who was now charging Chopper again.

Chopper didn't know what to do, so in haste he quickly ripped off his shoe and threw it at the being. It missed completely, but the noise caused another humanoid being, shrouded by the shadows of a nearby building, ready to approach Chopper. It lifted its hand up and shot at the Gorefast. The Gorefast's head burst into a cloud of red mist as it fell to its knees, and then to the ground.

Now free of fear of an attack from the Gorefast, Chopper put all his attention into beating the small, black being. He grabbed it by the tiny tentacles protruding from its head and threw it in front of the other figure. It lined up another shot and put the Crawler out of its assumed misery.

"Foster?" Chopper asked the figure, but with no answer. It merely turned around and left Chopper to himself. "Hey Foster! Wait up, man!"

Chopper ran through the rubble of the near-completely collapsed building. He turned the corner to see Foster, helping Alberts from the ash and rubble.

"There you are." Chopper said.

"Yes, here we are. And there you are." Alberts had gotten to his feet by now.

"So a single bomb did this much damage?"

"Custom-made for these type of situations, my brother." Alberts said with a slight chuckle in his words. He dusted himself off as Foster cleared his throat.

"Well, let's hurry up. We gotta git back to the camp to stock up."

"For what?" Chopper was particularly curious on what they were doing. Foster never 'stocked-up' unless it was something really big.

"If you didn't hear, we found something in the lab. And we need BIG guns to get back to it."

"Hold up, hold up!" He couldn't believe his ears. "You just marched right into the lab, lost four of our best men, barely made it out alive yourselves, and now you wanna go back IN!? Can't you at least take a breather?"

"Sorry, chap. But we've been takin' a breather for the last two years. I'm caught up in the momentum and I ain't stoppin' for another 'breather' any time soon." Chopper took in his words for a few moments.

"Well, alright then." The two other men stared at him. "Well, come on! We wouldn't want to be takin' any 'breathers' now would we?" Foster nodded and Chopper took off towards the general direction of the camp, Alberts followed instantly. But Foster sighed deeply first before taking to a sprint.

Just as he took off after the two, he heard something in the rubble behind him. He took a quick glance backwards to see a shadowy figure, saluting him before walking behind a stack of rocks. He wanted to go back and investigate, but looked ahead to see that he had lagged far behind the other two. He picked up his pace and almost completely forgot about the character, though the eeriness of its mysterious ways subtly, but surely, ate away at the back of his mind. He had started thinking whether or not he believed in ghosts.

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

A caramel colored stallion was taking a daily stroll through town. This particular stallion was some-what smaller when compared to other, but made up for the fact by being able to think faster on his feet than most, something he jokingly titled 'instinct'. His mane and tail were both a light brown, and his cutie mark was three blue horseshoes. He usually went for a walk to clear his mind, though nothing particular was going through his head at the moment. He just had the compulsive urge to go for a walk.

He was at the outskirts of Ponyville when he heard an odd noise behind him. His head shot back to see what made the sound, but there was nothing. He continued his walk.

He came across the town's librarian, Twilight Sparkle. She was a purple-coated mare. Average-sized as well, something Caramel didn't mind. He always hated those toothpick-like ponies, they creeped him out a little. Twilight's mane and tail were a dark purple with a pink stripe going down the center of both. Both sets of hair were kept in a semi-straight flow, with a small, yet distinctive curve along the entire length of both.

Caramel's path seemed to cross Twilight's as they both would've collided, had they not stopped.

"Hi." Twilight said in a joyous manner.

"Oh, uh... hi, Twilight." He grinned sheepishly. "Hey, weren't you going to that special party up in Canterlot?"

"No, actually. Though I would've loved to go, I have a lot of work I need to do. Also, that party was more for rich, important, ponies. You know, the stuck-up kind." They both chuckled at her joke. "Well, I've got to get going; I'll see you around Caramel. Oh, and by the way, that's a nice necklace. You should show that to Rarity some time, she'd love to see that design."

Caramel's head cocked as he tried to decipher what she had said. Necklace? I'm not wearing a necklace. He looked down at his chest to view a large, purple ball upon it. He screamed and jumped at the same time when he saw it. He began to furiously swat at it with his foreleg.

Unfortunately, his swatting only seemed to make it grow bigger. He tried to pull it off to no avail. Eventually the ball seemed to explode around Caramel, engulphing his body and his screams as it quickly shrank into nothing.

A strange feeling erupted over Caramel's entire body. Everything seemed to stop, though, not in a sense that all his muscles had stopped, more than he was constricted, like he was frozen in a block of ice. He struggled to break free, but nothing happened, he didn't move or breath or anything. He accepted the situation and finally stopped.

Then something happened. The purple went away; he could finally feel his muscles release from whatever prison they were in. He seemed to be falling when he was released and met the hard, concrete floor face first with a large bang. He rubbed his face with his hoof as he attempted to recollect what had happened.

There was a twisting feeling in his stomach that made his vomit a bit of his lunch from earlier. After he was finished he gazed around at his surroundings, the very scene screamed danger. His heart rate picked up, as he looked for an exit, somewhere to get out in the open. But all he was met with was darkness. Then he heard the scuttle of feet and the snapping of hungry jaws closing in. He didn't want to see what was making that noise. He turned and sprinted away.

He ran down a hallway that was completely black, the only thing that Caramel was sure about was that the sounds were getting quieter. He was finally reassuring himself that he could rest. He laid his back against what he thought was a wall. It was hard and had many protruding spikes coming out of it.

He turned around to see what he was leaning against. A dimly lit, yellow light flickered on. It quickly rose as its hue slowly turned to red. He heard something take a deep breath and let out a roar that could cause a weaker stallion to faint by that sound alone.

Caramel fell to his back, his eyes were wide open, but the only thing he could see was that red light closing in on him. He turned to his back and sprinted towards the sound of the scuttling beings that were approaching him earlier; they would definitely be more faceable than this being.

He returned to the large, dark room. He could see faint figures moving about the area. He looked back to see the red beast following closely behind. He ran towards a room with a closed door. He attempted to work out its odd handle as the creature slowly approached him from behind.

He banged on the door with all his strength before turning back to the monsters. He was completely surrounded. He put his hooves above his face as a few tears escaped his eyes. He leaned his back against the door as he accepted his fate and gave up. He said good bye to the world as he thought of home.

Suddenly the door gave way from behind him. He fell to his back as his hooves attempted to catch his fall. The last thing he saw before he was knocked out was a large beast in a dirty, dark green suit standing above him, and the end of some sort of stick getting rammed into his face. And his day was going so well...