//------------------------------// // Chapter 15 Morning // Story: Thief // by conTROLLER234 //------------------------------// Thief Chapter 15 Morning It felt like it had been weeks since the last time I had any sleep, so I ended up sleeping a bit longer than I should have. A small beam of sunlight was formed from the lush trees that stood tall outside. The light shone on my face, awaking me from my deep slumber. I woke up slowly, and the first thing that I noticed was the sleeping, rainbow pegasus on my lap. She didn’t seem to have a care in the world right now, and to be honest the only safe place around here is in your own mind. I turned my attention out the window to my left. I sighed in relief; it was much easier to see now. I moved up in my seat to get more comfortable, and stretched what I could of my back. I earned a couple satisfying cracks from my spine, and my movements seemed to stir Dash. She grunted a bit and turned over onto her back, jaw relaxed and open, with her tongue hanging free. I sighed and rolled my eyes, and scratched her head, hard enough to wake her up abruptly. She grunted a bit louder and closed her mouth, shutting her eyes tightly and rolling onto her side. “Mph...What time is it..?” She mumbled, her sound muffled in my pant leg. I shoved her lightly, and she fumbled around to keep her balance before she sat up and looked around. “Time for me and you to get moving. If we don’t get you back soon the rest will think you’re dead.” I replied. “Yeah..yeah, you’re right-” Her ears perked up quickly, and she turned to me. “Wait, what do you mean, get me back to the farm, as in only me. You’re not coming back?” I shrugged. “It’s not up to me. I would come back to be honest, but I’m exiled, and I did found my truck,” “No, you have to come back. AppleJack doesn’t know anything, she doesn’t get it. I do. I understand what you do and why you do it now. She’s just in denial, and thinks she’s protecting her friends. We’ve already lost two, and we’ll lose more if you don’t come back with me.” She persuaded, a look of hope for mercy in her eyes. I paused for a moment before sighing heavily again. “Again, like I said, it’s not up to me.” I repeated. After that there was a long silence between the two of us, as we listened to the birds chirping outside. I shook my head and shut my eyes for a second. “Look,” I started, “my plan was to drive back to the farm and drop off these supplies.” I pointed her attention to the large box of medical equipment and 5 bottles of fresh water. “In the meantime while I’m there, you can have a word with AppleJack. If you convince her and everyone else, I’ll stay.” She grew a small smile on her face, filled with hope. “Everypony else wants you back, It’s only AppleJack that needs convincing.” She sat up on my lap and looked through the windshield. “Let’s get going then, I can carry the medical equipment and you carry the water bottles.” “Carry?” I scoffed. “That’s what this thing is going to do.” I reached around her back to the keys, which were already in the ignition. I turned the keys, and the truck growled to life. Dash seemed to panic for a second, the vibrations of the vehicle taking her by surprise. “W-What the?? What’s happening?!” “Calm down, this is called a truck. Obviously you don’t have these around your home. It drives on four wheels, and runs on gasoline. You can get pretty damn far with a full tank and you don’t even break a sweat.” I pulled my hand from the keys and reached for the handle to take it out of parking. Dash looked at the inside of the invention with awe. “That sounds, awesome!” She grinned widely. “Yeah? It also has a cooling system and a radio. But once we go back into your world I doubt we’ll have any signal for radio stations.” “My world? Aren’t we already here?” She looked around the forest, dumbfounded. “There seems to be some kind of portal separating our two worlds. You and I both had to walk through it to get here.” “So, we’re in your world right now?” She spoke quietly. “I would guess so, yes.” She turned to me slowly. “...And, you could’ve just left us. But you didn’t.” I bit the inside of my cheek. I didn’t really have a problem with doing people a few favors or helping them out, but for some reason when it came to them praising me for it or thanking me it took me off edge. “Yeah, I mean, I couldn’t just leave you guys alone in this. We we’re all scared when this first broke out, so was I. I know how you guys must feel right now-” I was cut off when there was a sudden loud bang on the window to our right. Both of our heads darted our eyes to it, when we saw a walker moaning and banging on the window. Dash panicked, and I shook my head. “Anyway, we should get out of this forest. We’re making a lot of noise, and wasting battery.” I shifted the gear into drive, and began to drive forward. At least to what I hoped was forward, I looked for certain pinpoints that I saw when I was walking to find the truck. It made me and Dash both uneasy as we passed through the portal. The front of the car disappearing, starting with the hood, then the windshield, then the rest of the car. I sighed internally when we passed through, and continued on our way. - - - - - Twilight paced back and forth on the dirt path, a loud crunch sounding from the earth under her hooves with each step. It was morning, nearing afternoon, and Dash still wasn’t back yet. She hadn’t given up hope, but the filthy gut feeling from inside her chest grew bigger with each passing hour, thinking that she could be gone. The ponies’ mental conditions were only getting worse with every pony that left, or got killed. It was beginning to grow on her too, but with the princesses gone, AppleJack in bad condition, John exiled, and Dash missing, she was the top in charge at the moment. A voice from a familiar neighbour came from behind her. She turned to the mint-colored unicorn, Lyra Heartstrings as she approached Twilight. She walked up beside her. “We finished the fence. It’s not much, but it should keep those things out for a while.” “Good, it’ll have to do for now.” She exhaled heavily through her nose, and turned back to look at the town, which was far in the distance. “I hope Dash is okay…” “What’s that?” Twilight turned to Lyra, confused. Lyra pointed to the Everfree Forest, drawing Twilight’s attention to it. Sure enough, there seemed to be a strange, large, blue object moving closer and closer to their farm at an alarming rate. The closer it got, the more clear the noise it made was heard. “What is that thing?” Twilight squinted at it. As it got closer, she swore she could see... “Is that, John and Rainbow Dash??” The strange, moving object got to them soon enough, and pulled up in front of the barn. The noise took everyone’s attention on Sweet Apple Acres’ land, and they walked towards it, curiously. The roar that emitted from it suddenly stopped, and what seemed to be a door swung open. “Rainbow Dash!” Everypony cheered with their friend’s arrival. Though the door on the opposite side also opened, and out stepped from behind the object, stood John. He received not much of a warm welcome, except for one certain pony. “John! You came back!” Out from the crowd flew Fluttershy, a relieved and eager look on her face as she lunged herself at John. She clung to his waist, and welcomed him like no one was watching. Though of course, everyone was, especially AppleJack. - - - - - I took a step back to keep my balance from my sudden new counterweight. I held her up, though I tried to make it look as little like I was hugging her as possible. I would have hugged her otherwise, but i had a change of mindset around the others. “I knew you would come back, you said you wouldn’t leave.” She held me tightly, and because she was only holding onto my clothes she slowly began to slide down my torso. But she still held on for dear life. “As much as I don’t want to say this, I’m only here to return and drop off some things. I can’t stay.” My words acted like I had just spoken that I would destroy everything she loved, as she looked up at me with a shaky jaw and mumbled words. She loosened her grip and eventually fell to the ground on her rump, still staring up at me with teary eyes. “...W-Why..?” She whimpered. I didn’t speak, but only looked over at the orange farm pony. Who held her hat in one hoof against her chest as she looked at the ground. She didn’t have to look up at me to know why I paused, because after a few moments she closed her eyes and gave in. “..No, he ain’t leavin’ Fluttershy…” Not that I had my hopes up too high for staying here, but I kind of figured I’d be staying. At least AJ had gotten over her sense of denial and realized what was best for everyone, including herself. She looked up at me, but didn’t make eye contact. “Ah guess ah owe ya an apology of some sort, huh?” I shook my head. “I’d rather we just call it even and we move on. I’m not great with apologies either.” “But,” Now she looked me in the eyes. “you’re not the one sayin’ sorry.” I crossed my arms. “Yes, but I’m not the acceptive type of person. Now do you want to move on from this or do you want this to get awkward?” She seemed to chuckle a bit, and she put her hat back on. “Agreed.” “Good.” I looked down at Fluttershy, who stood up and smiled between the two of us. “Nice to know you two are made up.” “It’s better for us all to be allies if we’re together in this.” I pointed out, and they all nodded in agreement. I sighed and took a look around. “So, you got the fence built. anything else happen while I was gone?” “Well, like you know, Dash ran off looking for you after a, conversation with AppleJack.” Rarity chirped in, causing both Dash and AJ to blush lightly. “Well, if you’re accepting me back, then you know what’s going to follow.” Everypony looked at eachother, confused, and Dash spoke up. “What?” “Orders.” I said flatly. Twilight rolled her eyes. “But first, I have something to say.” They all turned to me, interested. “When I left and found this,” I patted the hood of the truck. “I also discovered something that appeared to be some sort of portal. To my knowledge it separates our two worlds from each other.” “Really?!” Twilight quickly spoke up, then blushed when some ponies looked at her. “Yes, at least that’s what I think. If this is true, this means that I can go back and forth between the two worlds and gather supplies.” “Ahem, ya mean, we can go back and forth.” AJ spoke up, and I couldn’t help but scoff slightly. “I’m sorry, but no. I don’t doubt any of your abilities, but none of you would survive long in my world at all. Some of you can’t even hold a weapon.” “That doesn’t mean we can’t defend ourselves!” Dash grinned, and started punching and kicking the air with her hooves. I cleared my throat through her actions, and turned back to the crowd. “Anyways, the reason this is very good, is that the supplies and equipment from my world is much more powerful and superior to what you have here. For example:” I swiftly pulled out the Beretta from my back pocket and showed it to the ponies. “This is called a firearm, a pistol to be more exact. It fires small lead bullets at extremely high velocity and can kill anyone without armor in under a second.” I earned a few “oooh”’s from the crowd at my presentation. “How does it work??” Twilight eagerly asked, and my grin must have made her a bit uneasy because she took a step back. “Like this.” I switched off the safety and pulled the barrel back until it clicked, then let it slide forward. “I’d cover my ears if you aren’t used to loud sounds.” Thankfully, I saw Fluttershy immediately cover her ears and duck down. I aimed the gun into the air, and… I lowered the gun with a shaky sigh. The ponies slowly uncovered their ears. “Well that wasn’t very loud.” Twilight tilted her head. “I didn’t shoot it, I could’ve attracted every walker in that town over here with one shot. That was a close one…” I unloaded the weapon, put the safety back on, and slid it back into my back pocket. “But besides that, I have some more useful items.” I walked back to the truck and pulled out the crate of water, and the first aid kit. “Well I’ll be, where’d ya’ll find that?” AJ walked up to the medical supplies and began examining it. “It came with the package of the truck. But this won’t last us very long, so that’s why I’m saying I should go back to my world to get some more.” “I’ll come!” Dash spoke up. “I volunteer.” “Dash, you can’t-” I tried. “Me too, ah ain’t lettin’ ya go again.” “I suppose we need all the help we can get, I will too.” Rarity added. I groaned and rubbed my face. “This is gonna be difficult…”