Twenty Eight Neighs Later. (Graphic Fanfic Watch yourselves. In the vein of cupcakes.)

Written by Tekkie


http://www.fimfiction.net/index.php?view=category&user=13714


First chapter is posted here. The rest, is at the link above. Big thanks to Tekkie for letting me cater to all the sick, sick, bronies.




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// Story: 28 Neighs Later
// Chapter: My name?
// Author: Tekkie
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Please note: This fan fiction does not follow the same lore as “28 Days /weeks later” the name was simply the most fitting thing I could think of. I also apologise for the length of it.
The smoke rose from the large, fiery mess of what was once ponyville, I watched as rage engulfed my body, my legs trembling, struggling to support my own weight. Twilight sparkle placed a hoof on my side, I shrugged her off, she had never known me personally what right was it of hers to touch me? I looked over my shoulder towards “big” Macintosh; he was a well built pony, carrying a saddle armed with two shotguns, I was impressed needless to say when I first saw him put it on I thought he was going to break his back. Twilight joined the rest of her friends in the mine – yeah that’s right we’re living in a mine – you’re probably wondering what caused this event right? I thought so; two days ago my team and I were deployed to ponyville to prevent a certain event from happening. Unfortunately while we were away somepony attacked canterlot the aftermath of it was something we all passed off as impossible: zombie ponies, Princess Luna and Celestia both helped evacuate the people of canterlot to Cloudsdale, luckily zombie ponies – even zombified pegisi – cannot reach Cloudsdale, the team and I decided to take it upon ourselves to protect and evacuate any of the remaining ponies in Ponyville, to our surprise we found a small group of survivors, we all knew one which was Twilight, Celestia’s “number one Student” neither of us saw any combat potential in her unless she knew a spell that could crush a pony skull. You’re probably sick of hearing me refer to the team as, well, just that “the team” let’s start off with the rookie: Mudclap he specialises in setting up places of preparation, he made the mine we are currently living in, well, habitable. Next up is Sharp Mark, he’s large and he knows how to map out a plan, so we gave him a name that didn’t require allot of brain power to make.
The final member of the team is me – my name isn’t important nor is my rank or positioning, but my squad mates call me Long Shot mainly because my saddle of choice is and always shall be, a rifle, preferably scoped. We all have our obvious differences physically – our cutie marks – are all different, Mudclap’s is a wired fence, Mark’s is a map and feather it’s probably a quill and mine is a rifle saddle. Mudclap is the shortest of the team, while Sharp Mark was obviously the tallest. I stand with a long, shaggy mane, I never took care of it and never saw the point in it to be honest, nobody knew me apart from my squad mates and nobody cared about me until recently. Now, where was I? Oh yes, Twilight went back into the mine to check up on her friends, they were all worried about a yellow pegisi, by Celestia’s beard if they hadn’t asked me to go and look for her she would be shambling amongst the masses of dead ponies.

I pulled on the string attached to my rifle quickly as a loud chic noise erupted from the contraption, it slowly reloaded as I tilted my head to the side to look down the scope, hold my breath and steady my hooves then fire, just how it always went. Macintosh and Mudclap circled the make-shift walls, popping off any zomponies that came too close to the perimeter, I wasn’t willing to take any chances and neither were they. Every time a gun went off you could hear the faint whimper of the pegisi who is apparently called “Fluttershy” emit from inside the mine, I don’t understand why she and the rainbow one don’t just head to Cloudsdale like all the other pegisi have done. Looking around I noticed there was a larger amount of zed’s than what we normally have to kill off, whether the sounds of our guns going off were what was attracting them, or if it was when we had the rainbow pegisi scout out the area that was attracting them I don’t know. Mark says we should only have her scout once every two days I on the other hoof want to find other survivors ASAP. Looking over my shoulder to Big Macintosh and Mudclap I couldn’t help but feel like something was wrong, very wrong. After our daily patrols we headed inside at sunset, lighting a small torch above the entrance to the mine before Big Macintosh pulled the large boulder in front of the entrance to hide the brighter lights inside the mine, unlike the others I found the mine’s confined space and small caverns that we all used as sleeping quarters to be unusually comforting, that night I lay down at the bottom of the mine, next to an underwater stream watching the reflection of the water against the rocks, I never slept, not since I was a recruit – which some time ago – but enough of that and back to current events: I watched the reflection against the top of the mine, something about the textures mixing with the reflection helped me feel at home , there was a slight cough that caused me to quickly jump up and pull my saddle’s reloading mechanism, only to put it back down again at the sight of Twilight
“S-sorry did I disturb you?” she stammered, I simply replied with a grunt, Twilight sighed quietly and put on a smile “I’d like to thank you for finding our friend Fluttershy and, well, putting up with her.. Shyness” she said, I didn’t want to talk to this filly, I didn’t even want to be here. I looked her in the eyes as I dropped the saddle onto the floor “Look, I didn’t save her because she’s your friend, I saved her because she’s another survivor and my mission is to evac all survivors, pony or otherwise.” I snapped at her, I knew it was wrong of me to snap at her like that but I didn’t care, I never have. Twilight stepped back a little bit, whether it was just to give me a feel of dominance or she was genuinely stepping down I couldn’t tell but either way I was wrong – she looked up at me and smiled lightly, I didn’t understand at all, I had just put her in a smaller position of place within the conversation and she was just smiling? I hated that; she stood there smiling as if everything was alright in the world and could she not see the anarchy outside the perimeter? I coughed into my hoof and waited for her to respond, which she did.
“Look, mister..?”
“Long shot”
“Mister longsho-”
“Only my squad mates call me that, you can call me sir”
“Okay, sir I think you need to try and understand just what Fluttershy means to me and my friends, you stopped her from becoming one of them ponie-“
“Them thing’s aren’t ponies, they’re long from ponies, I’ve seen the dark side of ponykind and I know for a fact, that despite all I have seen, this is by far the worst.”
“well, sir, I can’t say I can relate entirely to the horrible things you have seen, but please try to understand that what’s going on isn’t your fault” Twilight said. I froze at the sentence and lowered my head, I was angry, enraged, when did I ever say this was my fault? I turned around and picked up my saddle, jumping over the gap between us I started heading up to the entrance of the mine and slowly opened it – just enough to let me out – I slid a silencer on my rifle and lay down, getting into the usual position as I started picking off any straggling zomponies nearby. The next day came quickly, I looked over at the entrance as Big Macintosh forced the boulder aside, carrying the heavy weaponised saddle on his back, accompanied with Sharp Mark and Mudclap, I watched them start the daily patrol only to be confronted by Twilight Sparkle again.