Joke of the Deadby The card holder
Chapters
Prologue: The End of the World as We Know It
“And I feel fine!”
Twilight Sparkle rolled her eyes at the tail end of Pinkie’s rambling. For one reason or another, she had accompanied the unicorn to a remote part of the Everfree Forest, where she was supposed to meet Zecora to help her with transporting a fairly large batch of Poison Joke to her home. Twilight saw the chance to test out a new mass-teleportation spell, and jumped at it.
“Ah, Twilight my good friend, I’m glad you could attend.” The zebra was waiting for the pair near a large patch of the potent flower, various tools on her back for the purpose of extracting the plant.
“No problem, Zecora,” Twilight responded. “But you won’t need those tools, because I have a new spell I want to try out that could make this much easier for all of us.”
“Are you sure the spell would work, Twilight? For I fear that using magic on the Joke would not be too bright.”
“Oh, don’t be afraid, Zecora!” Pinkie said. “Twilight’s the best at magic! Like this one time, when she beat this mean performer who kicked her out of Ponyville, so-”
“Pinkie,” the unicorn in question interrupted, “Zecora was there, you know.”
“Oh, right! Sorry!” The pink pony giggled at her mistake.
“Anyway, I’m going to need total concentration for this.” Twilight’s horn began to light up as she focused on the spell at hand. The same glow began surrounding the blue flowers, the brightness gradually growing in intensity. Zecora and Pinkie both shielded their eyes as Twilight nearly finished her spell-
“Twilight!”
With a gasp, the unicorn lost all her concentration, and the Poison Joke disappeared in a flash of purple. However, after looking through a pair of binoculars, Zecora saw that they weren’t at the hut. Angrily, Twilight turned to the one who broke her focus. “What!?”
“Well, Twilight,” Rainbow Dash said sheepishly, “it’s just that you got a letter from the princess, and you said you’d be out here-”
She couldn’t even finish as Twilight’s magic ripped the aforementioned letter from her hooves. She unrolled it and began reading, her eyes gradually widening.
“The Summer Sun Festival! I completely forgot it was only in a few days! Sorry Zecora, but I really need to get back to Ponyville to beginpreperationskaythanksBYE!” Twilight ran off back to Ponyville, her botched spell mostly forgotten. Yet, a single question rooted itself in the back of her head:
Where did that Poison Joke end up?
March 13, 2014
This is a blog created by me, Dr. Klaive, in the effort to better inform the public of recent scientific discoveries through today’s media. I’m not sure if this blog will get many views, but it’s worth a try.
March 21
Well, isn’t this exciting! Not one week after we start the blog, we’ve already found a new specimen of flower deep in the Amazon jungle. Normally, this wouldn’t be a case of much fan-fare, but when asked about it, the natives stated that they had no idea what it was, and some of them had been living there all their lives. Samples will arrive to our labs tomorrow, and we can further study this new specimen, and I’ll keep you informed throughout.
March 23
After running extensive tests all throughout yesterday (with proper protection, in case the plant is toxic), we have come to a few startling conclusions about this new plant, which we have dubbed “shroom-plant”, much to my chagrin, due to one of the qualities we observed: While the specimen had qualities similar to most flowering plants, it also had many fungal qualities, including producing spores, which brings me to the second discovery: We discovered that the spores are non-toxic, after an accident with one of the scientist’s masks. While they are not toxic, the spores still produce a distinct odor, and it’s too soon to tell if there are any other effects that the spores have. Last of all, the shroom-plant seems to defy classification when viewed on a microscopic level; we may have an entirely new breed of plant here.
March 30
We had a small accident today with the shroom-plant. One of the scientists, Dr. Andrew Woods, had a damaged hazmat suit, causing him to come into direct contact with the plant. He developed a rash around the afflicted area, although it seems no worse than a rash from Poison Ivy. Despite this, using the same treatments proved to be fruitless. For now, it seems that the plant is harmful, but no more than most plant-life in the U.S.
April 9
You’ve probably heard about the release of those plant samples, now called “blue petal flowers” (a name I find highly uncreative), to the general public as a therapeutic aid. To be honest, this was not a decision we made, and those responsible have been dealt with. Despite this, we are not recalling the product, as there have no reports of rashes like the one Dr. Woods obtained. Speaking of Woods, his rash has not gone down, and he seems to be feeling rather ill. We do not know if this is related to the rash, but we have him under close watch, just in case.
April 23
It turns out that the products actually did cause rashes. We now know this because of repeated lawsuits against our labs, despite the fact that we never synthesized the plant for use ourselves. Regardless, we spent the last week neck-deep in paperwork, which left us little time for study of the specimen. Thankfully, we’ve discovered that, apart from the odor, the spores have no effect on the human body, which is a plus. If one of you reading this developed a rash from using the product, I’m sorry, but don’t think it’s our fault. We just discovered the damn thing.
April 29
Dr. Andrew Woods died today, from an unknown pathogen. When news of his death got out, it caused a small panic, as I’m sure you saw. But we still haven’t discovered the exact cause of death, although I’m starting to fear that the plant may have something to do with this.
April 30
I’m not sure what happened. I’m not sure how it happened. But Dr. Woods “came back”, for lack of a better phrase. He got the attention of the night guard. As seen on the security cameras, Woods left his gurney, seeming more... animalistic. The night guard found him wandering the halls. Woods was unresponsive to the guard’s talking to him. And then... My hands are shaking as I type this... And then Woods attacked him, taking a chunk out of his arm with his teeth. Woods was only stopped when a door was forcibly closed on his head, crushing it. The guard had lost large amounts of blood, but was otherwise fine. He’s taking sick leave for a few days, however, to recover. Whatever’s happening, it scares me. I had dealt with many deadly plants and animals before, but this... this truly scares me.
May 24
It happened. All the people who used that therapeutic product died, then came back, much like Dr. Woods did. The nation is in a panic. Me and the other scientists have locked ourselves in the lab. Our only way of communicating is my laptop. I don’t want to say it, but I think we inadvertently caused the apocalypse. Funny, we did more damage than those who worked on the atom bomb, and all we did was find a plant. If you are reading this... Good luck. The “zombies” (how I hate that term) are beating on the doors to the labs. Wish us luck as well.
June 1
Everyone’s dead. I’m hiding in a bathroom, trying to type as quietly as possible. It’s only a matter of time before they find me. What wrath of God have we wrought?
They’re coming. I must prepare. You must prepare. Nothing will be the same again.
Nothing. No matter what, don’t die. Kill as many of the sons of bitches as you can. It’s too late for me. Hell, it may be too late for everyone.
I’m stalling. That’s what I’m doing right now. Trying to delay the inevitable. One of them bit me. I’m feeling a bit funny. I think I’ll lie down now.
Highway to Hell
"You're listening to ZMB radio, the apocalypse's finest source of musical entertainment! I'm Virgil, the host you all know and love. Oh hey, we have a caller. You're on now, caller."
"Yeah, hello?! Where are you?! I need to get somewhere safe... my family turned not too long ago. I can't bring myself to kill them."
"Now that's no way to survive! Those ain't your family anymore. You gotta kill them, before they kill you."
"But, my family... I can't do it."
"Do you have a gun? Or some kind of sharp object?"
"W-Well, yes, but-"
"Then I don't see the problem! Also, you should probably get off the phone now. You probably got company."
"What do you me- Ah! What the fuck?! How did you find me?! Oh god! Get away from me you-"
"Heh, every time. Now, it's a beautiful August day here in Nevada, so if you're in the area, give me a call at 1-800-ZMB-RDIO. We got a new caller on the line; say hello."
"Virgil, my man! How are you?"
"Is that my favorite zombie slayer I hear?"
"Yep, the one and only Hank with a tank!"
"You still driving that beast?"
"Yep. In fact, if I floor it, I should be in Vegas in about six minutes."
"Funny, I'm in Vegas right now! I've locked myself in one of the high-rises, but I'll be lookin' for ya down there. How many you got today, Hank?"
"So far, I got around... thirty, I think? I lost count. So could you put on a good song for me to rack up the kills to?"
"I got just the thing for you. Have fun."
"Will do, Virgil."
"Man, that Hank's been my favorite caller the past week. To anyone else listening in, remember: Just 'cause it's the end of the world, don't mean you can't have some fun. This is ZMB radio, providing the soundtrack to the apocalypse."
As I closed my cell phone, a song came on the radio. That Virgil really knows his music, because this was the perfect song for the moment. Just as the song really kicked up, I gunned my car's engine.
Funny, I'm sure you legally can't call this a "car" anymore: The front bumper has been replaced with a makeshift battering ram, there's steel plating over most of the windows, and the majority of the passenger seats had been taken out to make room for more important things, like gas, ammo, and guns. A partially finished degree in engineering helped me with all those modifications.
Oh, sorry, you're probably wondering who I am, or what's happening, aren't you? The name's Hank Henderson, and I'm the last living man on Earth.
Okay, that was a lie. I just got off the phone with someone else, for crying out loud. No, I'm not the last of my kind, but I am one of the best at what I do. And what I do is kill zombies.
Well, to be fair, this beauty of a vehicle earns about half of the kills, as that zombie just learned. Oh, man, his head went flying!
Anyway, as for what's happening, hell if I know. One day, I was working on getting my master's degree in engineering. The next, the dead are walking, and everyone's either panicking or dying. I found out early on that I was good at killing them, and here I am now, driving on a highway entering Las Vegas, Nevada. Sure, I could tell you how my family was, or how my friends coped to the end of the world (Spoiler: they died), but I feel none of you care about that. Instead, you probably want to hear about that zombie that managed to latch itself onto my side window. Unfortunately for him, I always kept a special revolver within arms reach for just these occasions, which led to him being splattered on the pavement at over a hundred miles an hour.
Oh, and it deserves mentioning that, in this case, "special" is shorthand for "modified to fire shotgun shells".
What? It works. Don't judge me. I didn't just learn how to modify cars, after all.
Speaking of cars, there were quite a lot blocking off the entrance to the city. Naturally, I only sped up as the song reached its ending.
If nothing else, I was going to make one hell of an entrance.
"Are you sure this is a good idea, Twilight?"
"Of course, Spike! I've been wondering where that batch of Poison Joke went for months, and if I don't see where it ended up now, I'll never get over it."
"But do you really have to teleport yourself to it? I mean, there's all kinds of things that could go wrong-"
"-and I thought of almost all of them, Spike. Trust me, I know what I'm doing."
"Alright, fine, but can I go with you? I want to see where you zapped those plants."
"Well, that would take more effort, but I'm sure I can handle it. I'm sure that where we're going is not that different from Equestria, anyway. What's the worst that could happen?"
Twilight lit up her horn, and both her and her assistant vanished in a flash of light.
Sin City
I know I said I wanted to make an entrance, but "plowing through some cars only to fall about ten feet from a missing piece of road onto the cluttered street before slamming sideways into a parked limo in front of some random casino" is a bit much even for my standards. Still, the car was still in one piece, and so was I, so I figured that it was time to get started. After grabbing a shotgun from the back, I opened the door to see a sizable amount of zombies heading towards me. Taking the initiative, I fired a few shells at them before heading into the building I expertly parked outside of.
Hey, I may be "batshit insane", as one guy told me shortly before he was mauled by about five of those undead freaks, but I'm not stupid. At least this way, I could funnel them all in one direction, and make it easier to paint the walls red.
This being a casino, there were plenty of slot machines and even a few buffets, although they were all empty of money and food. Damn looters. Even though I would've done the exact same thing. Still, I'm the one in the right here. Why?
Because I have a shotgun, and I'm still alive.
After locking all the doors but one in what looked like some kind of combination strip club and poker lounge, I went ahead and got ready for the train of zombies I had built up.
Oh, and it deserves mentioning that what was left of a military outpost or something was here. And by "what was left", I mean "a god damn machine gun with enough ammo to kill all of Vegas". Yeah, I probably should've mentioned that first.
Still, that's in the past. I live in the present, and that means tending to the undead hordes with my newly acquired toy.
And there they are. It's showtime.
Once the purple flashing that was Twilight's teleport faded away, her and Spike found themselves in a rather small, grimy, dark room. Twilight lit up her horn in order to create a light source, and the two of them started looking around.
"...I don't see any Poison Joke in here, Twilight. Are you sure you went to the right place?"
"Positive. I went to roughly the same place that I sent the Joke, so they should be around here somewhere..."
As they kept searching by the light of her horn, Spike soon found something worthwhile. "Hey, Twilight, look at this!"
The unicorn looked over at her assistant, who was pointing at a switch that was out of his reach. She used her magic to pull it, getting a large amount of sparks flying once it was pulled, causing both of them to jump backwards. Almost immediately, lights started coming on, and Twilight stopped her illumination.
On a panel near the switch that was pulled, several screens started coming on. A few showed empty hallways, while most of them contained images of several bipedal creatures stumbling about, heading in the same direction. This confused both Twilight and Spike, until they got to one of the last screens. It displayed another of the bipedal creatures standing on some sort of stage as the others seemed to be trying to reach it for some reason. They couldn't tell what that reason was, as the one on stage kept pointing a device of some kind at the others, causing them to either fall down in a puddle of blood or to have their limbs and flesh ripped off in a spray of red.
Naturally, both Twilight and Spike were horrified at this sight, though they still didn't know any of the context behind it.
"Uh, I think we should... go now, Twilight."
"Sorry, Spike, but I can't just teleport us back to Ponyville right now, those spells take quite a bit out of me. We'll just have to wait for a bit..."
Now, I don't know about you, but when I'm in the middle of a murdering death orgy of flying limbs and pints of blood, all of the lights in the building coming on at once seems rather strange to me. Yes, it means I can see things better, but it also means that someone else is in the building, and has turned on the power. Either that, or a zombie fell on top of the switch or something.
With this in mind, I decided to head off into the rest of the building to investigate the sudden appearance of light. Also, that machine gun ran out of bullets, so there was that.
Sadly, I had to leave the aforementioned weapon behind, as it was too heavy to comfortably run with, but at least it had served its purpose of murdering everything in a two mile radius. Sure, there were still zombies coming in, but they were tripping over the bodies of their brethren, which gave me plenty of time to go to the basement and find the door that a map on the wall said was where all the circuit breakers and stuff were. Naturally, the door was both locked and too reenforced to knock down easily. So I did the only thing that made sense to me.
I started knocking on it with the butt of my shotgun, repeatedly.
What? You try being polite when Mr. Zombie and his entire ancestry is trying to eat your face off at every turn.
Speaking of which, a few of them had shambled up to me by this point, only for me to use the contents of their heads to give the hallway a new paint job. Thankfully, the flood had slowed to a trickle, giving me ample time to reload my guns between zombies. Meanwhile, I kept knocking on the door.
"Hey, whoever's in there, would you kindly open the god damn door?"
Amidst the noise of me shooting and pumping my shotgun towards groaning undead, I heard what sounded like some chick and a little kid talking behind the door, although they were too quiet to make anything specific out. Eventually, the zombies stopped showing up, and I took the moment of rest to continue knocking on the door.
"Any time now, I already killed everything that isn't me!"
There was silence on the other end, before the voice of the girl answered with, "Killed what? What are those things?"
Now, I like to think that I'm good at thinking on my feet, both in combat and in conversation. However, when someone asks just what it was that was happening, it makes me nearly speechless. "Oh, you know, just those zombies that have been around for about, what? Three months now? Give or take?" My voice was dripping with sarcasm, but the girl didn't seem to catch it.
"What?! Three months?! Just where the hay are we?"
I was about to comment on the censored curse, but since I also heard what sounded like a little kid in there, I figured it was somewhat valid. "Look, we could play twenty questions here, or you could unlock the door and let me in, and we can have all sorts of fun explaining things that should be common knowledge to people who aren't dead."
There was more silence on the other side, followed by the door unlocking, or at least what I imagine that would sound like. 'Bout damn time. I opened the door while looking behind me, making sure nothing was sneaking up on me; I've seen those movies, I know how things go. "Well, now that I'm here, I can-"
Of course, I've never seen a movie where, after talking someone into opening a locked door, a purple unicorn and some big lizard were waiting on the other side. I just stood there for a bit before the unicorn opened her mouth and talked (That's right, talked). "Um, are you okay?"
Now, the end of the world is one thing. Zombies? Perfectly fine. But talking unicorns accompanied by giant lizards is where I draw the line of all sense. That doesn't mean I can't question it, though.
"Alright, I bite: What the flying fuck?"
Bloody Arrival
Neither Twilight nor Spike had any idea what to say. This creature had killed many of his own kind (zombies, if he was to be believed) and was now asking them what was going on. Holding that device of his over his shoulder, he stood there and waited while the unicorn tried to think clearly and answer him.
"W- Well... I-"
"Come on, out with it, we don't have all day," he cut her off impatiently.
"Well, um, we're from..." Twilight trailed off as she saw one of those 'zombies' stumble behind the creature. Just as it was within range to grab him, though, he took out a small device from a holster, and without even looking away from her, shot the zombie in the face, causing it to fall down behind him with a thud.
"Well, keep going. You're from...?" The thing wasn't even phased by the intrusion, while Twilight's ears were still ringing from the noise the smaller device made. Spike, meanwhile, had fainted, which would deal a blow against his masculinity when he woke up.
"We- We're from... Equestria."
For a few seconds, neither of them said anything. Then, something that Twilight never could have predicted happened.
He started laughing.
"Haha... Equestria! That's rich, because you're a horse, and..." He dissolved into another laughing fit. Twilight was both slightly worried and offended.
"Hey! Equestria's a good country!"
"I never said it wasn't, just... Heh..." Taking a deep breath, he composed himself. "Alright, now, being serious again: What are you doing in this hellhole?"
"Well, I wanted to see if I could find where I accidentally teleported some Poison Joke, and-" Suddenly, something came to her. "Say, where exactly are we, anyway?"
"Well, tiny horse who may or may not be a hallucination of my addled brain," he said, "you are in-" He raised his arms with a flourish. "-beeeautiful Las Vegas, Nevada, home of countless casinos, strip clubs, and other such things."
Twilight had never heard of any Las Vegas, or Nevada. The closest she could think of was Las Pegasus, so the only thing that made sense was...
"...I'm in another dimension..." she said out loud, lost in thought.
"Sure. Dimensional shenanigans. Why not. I mean, zombies, parallel universes- What's next, dragons and time travel?"
"Well, there are dragons in Equestria," Twilight said, missing the sarcasm in the creature's ranting, "and I used a time travel spell, once..."
"Well, that's fucking dandy." Shaking his head, he looked back at Twilight. "Well, since you seem to be visiting here for a bit, allow me to introduce myself. I'm Hank Henderson, zombie killer extraordinaire, and one of the last..." He did some quick counting with his fingers, thinking to himself. "...twenty-eight or so percent of what's left of the human race."
The number shocked Twilight. "Only twenty-eight percent left?! What happened?"
Before Hank could answer, numerous moans could be heard from outside the door, up and down the hall. In lieu of his former answer, he simply pointed outside and said, "That." Moving quickly, he shuts the door and re-locks it, before turning back to the unicorn.
"What could've caused such a thing?!" she asked.
"Some kind of new product or something, supposed to relieve stress." He laughed. "Well, I guess it worked; nothing relieves stress like blowing a zombie's head off." Almost on cue, there was banging on the door. "Speak of the devil."
Twilight started cowering away from the door, magically dragging the still-unconscious Spike with her. Hank, meanwhile, pulled out his weapon and pumped it, getting ready for the incoming attack.
As the banging increased in volume, Twilight's stress also increased. It got to the point where, just as the zombies were starting to claw through, she found herself casting the teleport spell again, to go home.
The added light didn't go unnoticed by the human, who turned to see Twilight lighting up her horn for something. "What the-"
In a flash of purple light, the three of them disappeared just as the zombies broke down the door. Having no live flesh to prey on, they simply stood around, moaning.
Now, look, you probably think I'm crazy, for accepting the existence of a unicorn and stuff so quickly, but look at it from my perspective: It's the zombie apocalypse, the same thing that endless games and movies had been about. Really, nothing would surprise you nearly as much.
Besides, even if I was crazy, might as well go with it. Whatever world my mind conjures up would probably be a hell of a lot better than the real thing.
Although, when I looked back to see that unicorn lighting her horn up for some reason, and then blinked, only to find that, instead of being in a power room to a casino in Vegas, I was in some kind of library, that kind of convinced me that this was not, in fact, imaginary.
Either that, or I'm a very lucid psychopath.
Regardless, it was shocking, to say the least. Which is part of the reason I dropped my trusty shotgun, which then proceeded to fire from the impact.
About half of the buckshot hit the walls, but the rest managed to hit something they shouldn't.
Namely, my leg.
"GAH FUCKFUCKFUUUUUCK!"
What? You ever been shot in the leg by a shotgun? It hurts like a needle. Used by an amateur doctor. That was on fire. And laced with salt. Five times at once.
The point was, it fucking hurt.
My screaming in pain got the attention of the unicorn, who turned to see me on the ground, rocking back and forth. Upon closer inspection, she probably saw that my leg was about halfway fileted. At least, that's the most likely reason she loudly gasped before saying "Hold on!" and grabbing me with what I can only describe as magic. Probably not too far off from the truth, but I digress.
Anyway, she half carried, half dragged me out the door and into a street. There were other tiny horses around, some with horns, some without, and some with wings. I think they were shouting things out of confusion, but it's hard to remember exactly, considering the amount of my blood that was dripping onto the street, and the buckshot that was still digging into my flesh. Of course, the fact that I apparently was screaming various obscenities the whole time probably didn't help matters. I'm not sure what exactly happened after that, because I'm sure I passed out from shock, blood loss, or anything else once the hospital was in view.
Well, isn't this just a wonderful day.
"Good evening, everyone! This is Virgil, of ZMB Radio, giving you the update on tonight's events. For those of you who were listening earlier today, you probably heard that my buddy 'Hank with the tank' was gonna be here in Vegas. Well, heh, he sure as hell was. He had one impressive entrance, and then he ran into a casino. Now, he ran in earlier this afternoon, but I haven't seen him come out yet, and his tank is still parked out front. The power also seems to be on over there, too, so maybe he decided to settle down and enjoy all that Vegas has to offer. Anyway, this is ZMB Radio, wishing you good night, and good luck."
Monitor Blips and Guilt Trips
*blip*
Wait, am I unconscious?
*blip*
I am, aren’t I? Wait, was I out of it this whole time? Did the zombies never happen, and I was in a coma or something? Because that would suuuck. I’m pretty sure it’d be a bit late for me to adjust back to normal life at this point. I’d go only like a day before getting arrested for illegal possession of firearms and such.
*blip*
Oh, wait, I remember now. Tiny horses. Magic, or some shit. Me getting shot in the leg because it turns out that shotgun can be a piece of crap sometimes.
This better not become my average Tuesday.
*blip*
Okay, seriously, that noise is getting on my nerves now. The first thing I'm gonna do when I get up is find that heart monitor and either turn it off or simply smash it.
But first, I have to wake up.
*blip*
So, my left leg was the one that was hit, so it should still be rather sore, assuming those horses knew how to remove bullets from a person's flesh. Of course, given that they have magic, that's rather likely.
Oh god, they didn't turn me into a horse, so they could better operate on me, did they? They better not have.
*blip*
Alright, I'm starting to get some feeling back. I can confirm that I still have my fingers, so there's that. My leg is no longer in a lot of pain, which is also a plus.
*blip*
Opening my eyes, I see that I am, as I thought, in a hospital. The beeping was a heart monitor, but it also had another line under the heartbeat one, that was flat-lining. Considering that the machine wasn't beeping up a storm, I guess it isn't that important. By now, I could pick myself off of the bed I was on, to better look around the room. There were bandages around my leg, a few errant spots of blood the only signs of the buckshot that entered my leg.
Speaking of buckshot, the offending pellets were laying in a tray next to the bed, coated in dry blood. And while my leg was no longer inflamed with nerve-racking pain, it still ached to move it. It was easy to push past, though, and I got into a sitting position. It was about this time that I also noticed that, despite being the hospital, I was still fully clothed, save for my pants leg, which was torn off either by the shotgun or the horses so they could operate. Convenient.
Getting up, I forgot about the heart monitor, and once the sensor thingy fell off my chest, it started blaring that cliche long tone heard in all kinds of medical dramas. Almost immediately, a pair of horses outfitted in nurse outfits stormed in, one of which was holding a syringe full of something in its mouth. Upon seeing me not dying silently, but sitting up, both of their jaws dropped, the syringe dropping to the ground. We all sat there, staring at each other, the only sound being the still-blaring monitor, until I made the first move and pressed the off button on said monitor. That seemed to spur the horses out of their silence.
"What are you doing up?" the white one asked.
"Oh, you know, just wanted to stretch my legs. How long was I out?"
"Uh..." The other one began stammering, obviously the less-in-charge one of the two. "Twilight brought you in yesterday..."
"I was out for a day? Huh, didn't think a shotgun shell to the leg would put me out for that long. Anyway, where is that 'Twilight'? I need to have a few words with her."
The white one answered this time. "She lives in the library. Why-"
"Which one's the library?"
"...the tree building near the center of town. But you still haven't told me-"
"Alrighty then, see ya later." Making sure my holster and revolver were still on me, I strode out the door, limping slightly. The ponies were seemingly frozen in place with shock, because they didn't do anything to stop me. Luckily, I had a room pretty close to the front door, so I didn't need to stumble around the halls looking for an exit.
Walking into the noontime sun, I quickly saw the tree with windows on it and started walking towards it. Ponies reacted to the bipedal limping creature with bandages on his legs about as well as you'd expect. That is, they stopped whatever they were doing and looked at me curiously. Still, not my problem.
Limping up to the door to what was apparently the library, I knocked. After a moment, the door was answered by that same purple unicorn who got me into this mess. Upon seeing me standing there, her face grew an expression of shock.
"Twilight, is it? We need to talk."
Without even waiting for an answer, I walked in. My shotgun was placed on a table inside, surrounded by various papers and tools; perhaps she was about to inspect it? No matter. I picked it up, pumping it once to eject the shell that put me out of commission for a day. Slinging it over my back, I turned back to the still-gawking Twilight.
"Okay, first thing's first: This is that 'Equestria' you mentioned?"
Silently, she nodded her head.
"Well, that's all I had for questions. Your turn."
She shook her head in disbelief. "Wait, that's it? You were pulled from your home by something that you had apparently never seen before, and you don't even have any other questions?"
"Nooope."
"...well then. I guess I could start somewhere simple..." She started thinking to herself, while I began loading and unloading my revolver to pass the time.
"So... could you tell me... the basic history of your world?"
"I could, but I'm sure you're a bit more interested in how exactly that whole zombie business got started."
"I... Well.......Yes."
"Well, I already told you all I could." One, two, three, four, five- that's three seconds I got my reload time down to. Nice. "There was this new product made from some kind of flower some scientists found, and next thing you know, zombies."
"Wait... flower? What kind of flower?"
"Oh, I-unno. I think it was blue, or something?"
When Twilight didn't answer, I looked up to see her looking through some books. I also saw a few in a trash bin that had holes in them, probably thanks to my shotgun acting up. Soon, she came back levitating a book in front of me, opening it to a page containing a picture of a strange blue flower.
"Was it this flower?"
I remembered seeing a flower like that on the internet attached to a report on that relaxation thing. So there was no doubt as to what this was. "Oh yeah, that's it. That caused the zombies."
All at once, Twilight's face dropped like a rock. She seemed to be in disbelief combined with guilt. "I... Then those Poison Joke I teleported..."
"Oh, you did that? You caused the dead to rise and the death of countless millions?"
At my words, her face went pale. "I... I did that...?"
"Yep. Way to go."
"I... I killed... all those..."
"Uh-huh. You're a regular horse of the apocalypse." I chuckled at my own joke while Twilight continued to have a crisis.
"But... I didn't mean..."
"Doubt you did. Still, you did it."
Her eyes were tearing up now. As much as I couldn't care less who caused the end of my world, I still couldn't stand to see a woman cry, even if they were a unicorn. "Oh, don't cry. It's not like you meant to do it."
"N- No, I guess not..." She sniffed. I think I suddenly have diabetes. "But... aren't you mad?"
"Not really. Truth be told, the end of the world was the best thing that has ever happened to me. And look at it this way; even if this hadn't happened, humanity probably would've found some other way to die out, be it by something from space or ourselves."
"I- If you say so..."
"Well, with that out of the way, what now?"
After thinking to herself for a bit, Twilight seemed to get an idea. "Oh, I know! You could write a letter to the princess!"
"...and why would I do that?"
"Because you're a creature from a different dimension! Surely that would be worthy of writing the princess."
"Oh, fine." I holstered my revolver and cracked my knuckles. "Where do I start?"
"I'll get Spike and a parchment and a quill!"
After meeting 'Spike' for the second time (who was also a baby dragon, I was told), Twilight had brought me a piece of paper and a quill. Yeah, they had fairly modern medical equipment, yet no pens. Freaking parallel universes.
About thirty minutes later, I had a finished letter rolled up into a scroll and gave it to Spike, who breathed fire on it and sent it to the Princess, according to Twilight. Whatever, I don't even give a damn anymore.
"Say, Hank, what did you write?"
"Oh, stuff. Though truth be told, I kinda got bored partway through."
"Well that's ni- Wait, what?! What do you mean, 'got bored'?!"
Meanwhile, in Canterlot, Celestia was enjoying a moment of relaxation. It was interrupted, however, by a letter from her student appearing before her. Curious, she began reading, noticing quickly that this wasn't Twilight's writing.
Dear Princess Celestia,
Hello there. I'm a human who Twilight "accidentally" brought back with her from one of her apparently many magic experiments or something. I am told that I need to write a letter to you, so here this is. Also, my name is Hank. That probably deserves mentioning. Anyway, I'm also told that I need to tell you about what I've gone through. Basically, my world was ending, and I was riding the wave that was the apocalypse. Specifically, the zombie apocalypse. Before you get all worried though, no, I'm not mad at your student for causing it. If anything, I'm kind of glad. After all, before I ran into her, I was driving down a highway in my own car running over zombies and picking up whatever guns I found. But then I got in one little fight, and my mom got scared, and said "You're moving with your auntie and uncle in Bel-Air." I whistled for a cab and when it came near, The license plate said "fresh" and it had dice in the mirror. If anything I can say this cab was rare, and I thought 'Nah, forget it' "Yo home, to Bel-Air!"
I pulled up to a house about 7 or 8 and I yelled to the cabbie "Yo holmes, smell ya later!" I looked at my kingdom, I was finally there, to sit on my throne as the prince of Bel-Air.
-Hank