Chapter 1

Location: Camp Pendleton, California

Date: November 8, 2012

I remember when the outbreak first started. I was on leave and was heading towards San Diego for a night out on the town. I had been looking for a place to park for about fifteen minutes when there was a thud and the car shook a little. Immediately, I hit the brakes and opened the car door. I saw a women laying in the middle of the road. Instinctively I ran for her.

"Hey... hey, are you alright." I asked her. She was wearing jeans, a bright pink tank top, and had platinum blond hair. She didn't move and her skin was a deathly pale. As I kneeled next to her, her eyes snapped open and she tried to grab my feet. I jumped back and tried to talk to her. Then I heard a moaning from behind me. Turning around, I saw a large burly man limping over to me. He tried to grab me, but I ducked out the way.

"Fuck this shit." I mumbled to myself as I saw more people running or shambling over towards me. I got back in the car and headed towards the freeway. Almost immediately I was stopped by a roadblock. A cop ran forward and dragged me out of the car.

"Are you infected?!" the cop yelled, as he pressed what I assumed was a pistol against the back of my head.

"Infected? What the hell are you talking about?" I asked, confused.

"Are you infected!?" the cop yelled, louder this time. After a moment something was pressed against my neck. There was a sharp pain and then a beeping noise.

"He's clean." a muffled voice said. The weight of the cop on my back was lifted off and he helped me up. As I looked around I saw a lot of people, mostly cops, but there were a dozen or so Marines in there to, had their weapons trained on me.

"What the hell is going on?" I asked the cop as he led me towards the barricade. Turning towards me, he asked if I had any experience with firearms. I told him that you don't go for twelve years in the Marine Corp without firearms experience. He immediately handed me a pump-action shotgun and several handfuls of shells. I didn't have time to check what kind of shotgun it was because immediately someone yelled, "Here they come!" The guard handed me a gasmask as he put on his own.

"What are these things?!" I yelled over the racket of automatic weapons fire.

"I don't know... but I guess you could call them zombies... for lack of a better term!"

TEN YEARS LATER

I sat in an old C-130, waiting to be dropped into the zombie infested area. My platoon's objective was to parachute into a hot zone, fight our way to a group of survivors, and then fight our way to the evac zone twenty miles away. Piece of cake... or that's what we were told by the officers. They obviously hadn't taken the first rule of any combat scenario, whatever can go wrong, will go wrong.

"Thirty seconds!" the crew chief yelled over the sound of engines. Standing up, I slipped on my gas mask. Walking over towards the rear of the plane, I check to see that all my gear was secured tightly. As all thirty eight of us approached the rear of the cargo plane there was an awful shake and the sound of an explosion.

"We've been hit! Everybody out! GO! GO! GO!" The crew chief yelled. I continued to walk forward, and when it came for me to jump I did without a moment's hesitation. I was falling towards the ground at terminal velocity. Suddenly something smashed into my back and I blacked out.

When I came to, I found myself hanging about five feet above the ground. Looking up, I saw that my parachute had gotten caught in a tree on my way down. Pulling out my knife, I cut myself down. As soon as I hit the ground I tried to raise any of my squad on the radio, but all I got was static in return.

"Fucking Marine Corp piece of crap." I mumbled to myself as I continued to fiddle with it. After another five minutes of fooling around with it, and still getting nothing, I pulled out my map. As soon as I did I cursed myself, because I realized without any points of reference it was useless.

"Okay, Jackson, the survivors were south of your LZ. So head south. Always south." I said to myself as I stood up. Checking to make sure that I had all my weapons, I started to move south. I was carrying a Heckler and Koch Mark 23 Model 0 .45 caliber silenced pistol, a MP-5-SD3, and the Stoner SR-25 sniper rifle. As with the other weapons the sniper was silenced. Holding the MP5 in my gloved hands, I extended the butt and flicked the safety switch to semi-automatic. Before setting off I removed my helmet, pulled on and pulled on my gas mask. I left the helmet off; because it was already hot enough with all this gear on, why make it worse?

I was careful, slow, and I would stop every hundred yards to listen for the zombies. Whether it be the clicking of a Clicker, or the howling rage of a Charger. I had been walking for about two hours and the sun was starting to rise, when I heard the familiar clicking noise. I immediately started to look around. Being the idiot I was, I didn't look where i was walking, and I stepped on a tree branch... a large tree branch. With a screech, it charged me. It was already too close to shoot it, so I smacked it in the head with the butt of the submachine gun, grabbed it by the neck, pushed it into a tree, and in one quick motion, yanked out my pistol and shot it in the head. (MW3 Reference) I was about to walk away when I noticed something disturbing... the clicker wasn't human. It still had the horribly disfigured head, but it had a weird lions tail, fucking wings, claws, legs that you would find on a dog, and feathers. I kept staring at it for about two minutes when I was shaken from my finding by the sound of others making their way to my position. As I made my way south, I got back on the radio.

"This is Gunnery Sergeant John Ryan, USMC, I have come into contact with a single infected. More infected in the area, if anyone can hear me, I am making my way to the town south of my position. Co-ordinate grid is, repeat, Coordinate grid is Zero, Niner, Kilo, over."

As expected, no one responded. I sighed and made my way south. It didn't take long until I made it to the tree line. Before racing out into the field, and the town beyond, I checked to make sure there were no infected nearby. I didn't see anything, but I saw something far worse... a spore cloud. For those that are currently reading my journal and don't know what a spore cloud is, well, it's a cloud of spores that when inhaled, will cause said person to become an infected individual... AKA a zombie.

Instinctively I made sure that my gas mask was secured tightly to my head. Looking left, then right, I sprint to the town beyond. As I approached it, I noticed something didn't feel right. The houses were too short, too colorful, and they weren't made of the same materials that most human structures were. Now thoroughly confused I approached one of the houses. It was shaped, colored, and decorated a lot like the gingerbread houses my grandmother used to make when I was a little kid. As I raised a hand to touch it, I heard someone scream behind me. Turning around, I saw a lavender pony with a purple mane, galloping towards me. It was followed by at least three pony clickers, and about ten common infected ponies. The lavender pony was only about a block away.

"Get down!" I yelled instinctively, and surprisingly, the lavender pony complied. Raising the MP5, I slowly walked towards it, and squeezed off several shots. The first two clickers went down easily, but the other one was wearing some sort of armor or something. It took two shots to take him down. Finally figuring out where the shots were coming from, they charged me instead. Already knowing I couldn't take them all on before they could get to me, I slung the MP5, pulled out my pistol with my right hand, and with my left, pulled out my Lobo. The lobo was the Light Infantry Entrenchment Tool. It was shaped like an old double sided battle axe, but was connected at the top so it could be used as a shovel. I fired off at least five shots at them before they got too close. Holstering the pistol, I started swinging. The only thing that delayed with my killing them, was the fact that they only came to about knee height. As I approached the lavender pony, it was trying to get to its feet.

"Th-thanks." it said in a feminine voice.

"D-D-Did you just..." I stuttered, completely shocked. I had to be going crazy. A talking pony. Then I noticed she also had a horn coming from her forehead. Jesus, today was getting crazier by the second.

"Speak? Yes. What are you by the way?" she asked. I was about to ask another question, when the moaning of more zombies came from behind. Turning around I saw about fifty to seventy zombies rushing us.

"Shit! Let's worry about my mental state latter. Is there a safe zone anywhere nearby?" I asked. When the unicorn didn't reply I slapped her and then asked the question again.

"Y-yes... there is." she said quietly, but continued to stand where she was. I looked back and forth between the approaching zombies and the unicorn. Her horn glowed and then there was a purple flash. A second later I found myself back in the forest, but this time in some sort of camp.

As soon as I felt the ground beneath my feet again, I tore the gas mask off my face and threw up.

"Never... ever... do that again. 'Cause the next time you do... its your ass." I coughed as I stood up completely. As I looked around I saw there were more of the ponies around the camp. They were all different colors. From a yellow one with a pink mane, to the ones in armor that were white with electric blue hair. There were also large tents everywhere. Immediately I saw one extremely large tent with a red cross on the sides and on the flaps in front. What looked like nurse and doctor ponies walked in and out of the tent.

"You've never been exposed to magic, have you?" the purple pony asked.

"Magic? What the hell?" I asked now thoroughly confused. This place was getting more and more confusing by the minute.

"You know what... don't answer that. Now can you please tell me who you are, and where the fuck I am?" I asked as I sat down on the stump of a tree. I was going to take the gear off, but despite sweating up a storm, I didn't know whether this place was secure.

"Well my name is Twilight Sparkle and this is the Everfree forest. Now who... and what are you?" the unicorn asked. I was about to answer her question when I heard the sound of screaming. Turning to the source, I saw four nurse unicorns pushing two stretchers. Standing up I raced over to them. One was a grey stallion that had several bight marks on his hind legs. The other had no apparent external wounds and was a mint green.

"Stop!" I yelled at them. At first they paid me no head and kept going.

"I said... Stop!" I yelled as I forcefully stopped the first stretcher. The nurses stared at me, dumbfounded. i pulled out a small flashlight and shined it in the stallion's eyes.

"Alright, i know you're in a lot of pain right now, but I need you to answer some simple questions for me. Then we can get you medical attention, alright?" I asked the stallion as I pulled out a small metal box from my rucksack. The stallion nodded and winced in pain.

"Were you bitten by any infected ponies?" I asked. He nodded and winced in pain again.

"How long ago?"

"Tw-twelve hours." he gasped. Nodding, I open the case to reveal fifty, ready to go vials. Half of them contained ten CC's of a viscous green liquid that would stop the infection from spreading. Not bothering with any disinfectant, I pull off the protective top of the needle and inert it into his foreleg.

"He's good for the time being. But you need to give him this as soon as possible." I told one of the nurses as I handed her another vial, this one filled with a piss colored liquid. Stepping up to the other one, this one a mare, I started the same procedure. First I shone the flashlight in her eyes, but then I stopped there. The white's of her eyes were turning a bright red and she had a frantic look on her face.

"Ma'am I need to ask you a few questions and then I can let you go. Alright?" I asked her. She gave me a brief nod, and then suddenly convulsed. After a second she stopped convulsing. I had my right hand on my pistol, waiting for a moment. When nothing happened I started my questioning.

"Have you come into contact with any infected?" I asked, she shook her head.

"Have you ran through a hazy fog?" She nodded her head.

"Di-did this fog have a particular smell?"

"It smelled of rotten eggs." she said slowly. I closed my eyes for a moment and looked at the floor. When I looked up, I saw that she was crying silent tears. She knew, she knew what was going to happen, what had to happen. I pulled out the pistol and placed it under her chin.

"I'm sorry." I whispered. She didn't respond, just stared at me. I pulled the trigger. With the soft 'pfft' the nurse standing above her head was spattered with bits of grey matter and blood. Everyone was completely quiet. When I turned around I found out why. Standing not three feet behind me was two tall ponies. The taller of the two was about my height, an unblemished white coat, a long horn, multicolored gravity defying hair, and large wings. The other one was about two thirds her height, had a midnight blue coat, a horn, multicolored gravity defying hair, and had wings also. On both of their heads sat elaborate tiaras.

"Who are thou?" the blue one asked.

"Gunnery Sergeant John Patrick Ryan. Kilo Company. United States Marine Corp." I automatically replied.

"You seem to know what's going on more than any of us." the white one said, glancing at the pony still on the gurney behind me.

"Look ma'am, I don't know where I am, how I got here, or why I'm here. Al I know is that the Marine Corp still owns my soul, there are infected in the area, and my basic mission directives are still active." I told her sternly. She looked at with an intensity that I hadn't felt since boot camp.

"And what are those... directives?" she asked, her gaze never leaving mine.

"To stop the spread of infection..." I started. "By ANY means necessary."