Alto's eyes fluttered open. 'I must be having another bad dream.' she thought. 'The other one seemed so real, but after all, dreams are dreams' She wiggled her leg and screamed out before hoof-palming herself. "I should of known, she said in a very weak voice." Aqua looked at her.
"Oh, my dear." she knelt by the leg. "Let's see what I can do.." She placed her hooves on her leg, and closed her eyes. A whoosh of something, morphine maybe, whooshed through the leg. It felt much better.
Alto smiled so wide she could have covered all the zombies away from one's vision. This was hope. She was better. She'd see her friends. She'd survive. "Thank you Aqua." She looked around. This was a strange house, not one that would be in Ponyville. She looked around some more. There was a pony (pony, right? or zebra, not sure) in the corner of the room. "Where are we, Aqua?"
"Zecora's house." she said, pointing to the corpse of the zebra.. "You ready to go? We really have to hurry."
"I think so." She swallowed hard thinking of Zecora being dead. It couldn't be possible, she had so much magic. She tested out her legs, running in place. She made sure her viola was still O.K. in its case. "Alright, but this time I'm not going to lose my focus." Then she remembered not eating, and grabbed and ate whatever what was left of Zecora's food. "So, how long do you think it'll take to get to Canterlot?
"Well, depends on how fast we go. We might be able to make it in a day. Let's head." Aqua started galloping.
The food made her feel a lot better. She was almost passing Aqua she was running so fast.'If only I weren't an Earth Pony..' she thought. Then she shook her head. She couldn't trip again. Later in the day when they were starting to get tired, they spotted Celestia's Castle. They were close! "We're close!" she yelled. She couldn't help but let out a joyful laugh to celebrate their victory. They actually made it this far.
Altonia's joy faded quickly. Then she screamed so loud that any pony could have heard her. The zombponies heard her and turned around. "Oops." was all she could say. Then she remembered, Cloudsdale was right above Canterlot. Heverin had made up a special S.O.S. call when they were little. It was the same with the normal signal, but with screaming. Heverin and Altonia used to be the loudest screamers in all of Equestria, and they probably still were. She stopped, sucked in as much breath as possible. She let out three quick screams, three long screams, and three short screams. She hoped it would work.
Aqua looked at her. "Come on!" the bubble came again and she took Alto into the field outside of Canterlot. "W-what's that?" she asked, pointing to a bunch of tents.
"Survivors." She had known because she had heard Heverin scream back and saw her point towards the tents. "Let me out of the bubble, please." Aqua let her out. She slowly walked over, not caring about the zombies chasing after her. Then she barely saw a glimpse of his bright red coat, but she knew it was him. It was Skullduggery. She ran faster than she ever had before, and before he even caught a glimpse of her, she rammed into him, locking him in the tightest hug she could manage. "I missed you." was all she said as she smiled and tears strolled down her face.
Aqua smiled to herself. She turned and swept away the Zombponies. She turned her head and summoned a stream of water in the air. She started swimming back towards Canterlot to investigate.
Altonia was so happy to be with Skullduggery, she didn't notice Aqua leaving. When she did, she didn't know what Aqua was doing, and she only usually asked her friends what they were doing, not somepony she didn't know that well. But she considered Aqua a friend now, so, "What are you doing, Aqua?" she said still close to Skullduggery to make sure he didn't leave her sight. She felt like she'd die if she lost him again.
Altonia asked Skullduggery if he wanted to go. He nodded and said in is deep voice, "You look tired, why don't you ride on my back?" He was really strong, perhaps as strong as Big Macintosh. "Are you sure?" she asked. He nodded. She hopped on his back and he grunted a bit. He started walking toward Canterlot, taking out any zombie he saw with his magic. Alto enjoyed the rest.
Aqua was found in the square, surrounded by the dead zombies, staring into a small, burnt down building. Rubbing her eyes, she turned to see Skullduggery and Alto riding up. She smiled a shaky smile, and kicked a squirming zombie.
"What were you looking at?" asked Skullduggery. He was always curious, no wonder he ended up being a scientist.
Altonia gasped. She had heard about Aqua's family being perished, but had never really thought about it. "I'm sorry." she said, looked away, and pawed her hoof nervously at the ground.
She shrugged, trembling. "It's ok. I just didn't expect it. Come on, let's head back." She cantered back into Camp with the others. (Go to OOC chat to meet the ponies! It may take a minute. )
They headed back to the camp only to see some other survivors from Ponyville, and Altonia noticed a few Pegasi flying down from Cloudsdale. When they reached camp, the Pegasi were there. They looked like Heverin, Rainbow Dash, 'Which isn't surprising seeing that Rainbow Dash is Heverin's boss,' she thought and a stranger, though he looked familiar. Heverin ran up to Altonia and hugged her while saying repeatedly,"I'm so glad you're O.K., I'm really glad you've survived. I was so worried." Alto noticed that Heverin's body heat was hotter than usual, and asked, "Why are you so warm?" Heverin looked away, pawed at the ground, and said, "I'm so ill that I'm basically on my death bed." She laughed quietly and started coughing out of control. When she finally recovered, she looked at Aqua. "Aren't you that strange pony that makes water shoot out of the ground? I think you're awesome." She smiled slightly, a gesture that meant she wanted to be friends.
