Thief

by conTROLLER234

Chapter 16 Encounter

Thief

Chapter 16

Encounter

“I don’t think you guys get what I’m trying to say here.” I told sternly to the small crowd. “My world is full of bandits walkers that will kill you on sight if they have the chance.”

“So why would it be fair to let you go out there alone?” Dash questioned, getting up in my face. I glared at her, eye level as she hovered in front of my face.

“Because I survived there for more than ten years. I know how to take care of myself, and myself ONLY. If I have more people following me it’ll get us all killed!”

“...He’s right, girls.” The group turned to the purple alicorn princess. “He knows this all better than we do, so when it comes to something as intense as entering another world that we have never been to, it’s best we listen to him.”

I sighed gracefully. “Thank you, someone who understands.”

“..B-But..” I immediately looked down to my left as I recognised the shy, delicate voice that came from the yellow pegasus. “..if you don’t let us come with you, how are we ever going to learn how bad it really is? We can’t adapt to all of this if we’re kept away from it.” She quickly realized how much she had said and ducked her head down. “..b-but, personally, I’d like to stay here..”

“I wasn’t going to let you go anyways, Fluttershy.” Is what I said in my head. Had I said it outloud it probably would’ve started some argument that I wasn’t prepared to fight for.

“Fluttershy does hold a point. If we are expected to be in this.. Apocalypse for a while. It would make sense for us to understand really what the true dangers are.” Rarity chimed in, raising an eyebrow.

I bit my tongue in irritation, closing my eyes for a brief moment. “Sorry, let me rephrase. You guys can do whatever you want. I, RECOMMEND, staying here. If you want to follow, fine. But if you get hurt, it’s not my fault.”

There was a silence after my words, the others darted their eyes to each other, unsure of what to say.

“Sure, we can take care of ourselves.” Dash spoke proudly. “We don’t need to rely on you all the time.”

“..um, I-I think we do-”

“Well, let’s get going! We don’t have a lot of time, we’re wasting daylight.” Dash cut off Fluttershy.

I shrugged. “If you guys want to leave now, then we can. The fewer people we have the better.” I reminded. “You figure out who’s coming, I’ll get everything ready.”

They all nodded and walked off to the barn. Once they all went inside and closed the door, I kicked the truck wheel. Hard. I thought to myself as I halved the medical equipment, and packed the water supply. It seemed that AppleJack’s farm had a water pump, so that was something that we didn’t have to worry about.

I really hope Fluttershy doesn’t end up coming. She’s the last pony I want getting hurt. Though on the other hand, if she comes, then I’ll be able to watch her and makes sure nothing happens. I chuckled and shook my head. This relationship is growing on me..

After I was finished, 5 ponies walked out. Rainbow Dash, (Of course,) Twilight, AppleJack, Lyra Heartstrings, and… Fluttershy. Apparently Rarity was going to sit this one out.

“We’re ready to go.” Twilight spoke, walking and stopping in front of me with the group behind her.

“Me too. Let me just put the rest of these medical supplies in the barn. The rest of you get in the truck.” I picked up the other half of supplies and walked past the group. As they passed me, I heard Dash mumbling to Twilight about how cool the truck was. I rolled my eyes and headed into the barn. It didn’t take me very long, and when I returned to the truck… Oh boy..

“What the hell?” I looked at the five ponies. Dash, Lyra, and Twilight were the only ones actually inside the truck. Dash was pointing out things to Twilight, while she examined in awe and poked around. Lyra explored the backseat, seeming to be stuck between the foot of the back seats and the back rest of the driver seat. AppleJack was standing in the trunk, feeling the tough plastic under her hooves as she lightly hopped on it. Causing the entire truck to rock slightly. Fluttershy wasn’t even in the truck yet, she stood a considerably far distance from it, wincing at every movement the truck made.

“What are you guys doing? You look like a bunch of kids with a new toy, stop screwing around and get in!” I walked over to the truck, and Fluttershy zoomed over behind me and followed close behind me. Nearly hugging my legs as I got to the door. I opened it, and was greeted by a purple tail in my face. I pushed it away, irritated. The owner, Twilight, seemed to be almost completely oblivious of my appearance.

“Hey, purple horse!” I caught her attention, and she turned to me with an unamused glare. I shooed her with my hand, close enough to her face to make her move over. I climbed in, and started up the engine, and everyone in the truck jumped, including Dash. Fluttershy’s eyes grew as wide as dinner plates, and she froze. Tucked into a shaking ball of pink and yellow.

“Fluttershy, come on and get in.” My words did nothing, a waste of effort. She barely moved. I shook my head and climbed out of the truck. I kneeled down and picked her up, earning a surprised squeak from her. I opened one of the two back seat doors and placed her on the seat. She squealed silently as I went to let her go, and she tried to grab my arm before I pulled away. I stared at her for a moment, almost feeling a bit bad that I pulled my arm away. I blinked, and glanced up to catch Rainbow Dash smirking at me, a dopey look on her face as she raised her eyebrows.

I merely stepped away and shut the door, climbing back into the driver seat and closed the door. “This is going to be a long ride.”

- - - - -

Driving in and out of the forest only got easier every time I did it. Soon, I was able to see the old tire tracks from my previous trips, so I wouldn’t get lost as easy. After finding the portal spot, I called to Twilight to catch her attention as we traveled through. Her eyes filled with amazement, and it didn’t drop until we were fully through. The others panicked a bit, other than Dash, obviously.

“Incredible..” Twilight mumbled out-loud to no one in particular. “I can’t believe no pony has discovered this before. I guess it must have appeared recently.”

“I don’t ask questions, as long as it doesn’t close it’s good the way it is.” I spoke lazily, not looking towards her as I kept my eyes on the road. My words seemed to have caught her attention. In my peripheral, I saw her frown slightly and look down.

“I never really considered that. What if the portal closes while we’re gone? How will we get back?”

I shrugged, hesitating for a moment before speaking. “If it opened, it means it can do it again. Just think of it that way.” I shook my head and relaxed, resting my arm on the window sill. “Or, just don’t worry about it at all. That’s how I do it.”

She ‘Hmpf’’d looking through the windshield again. “I guess you’re right.”

We eventually got to the edge of the forest, and we were all met with a bright beam of sunlight. My eyes winced shut for a moment, and I squinted them open. Waiting for them to adjust, I looked in front of me. There was a long, empty highway that went either left or right. I folded my arms atop of the steering wheel and shifted my sight to the two choices. “So, left or right?”

Twilight perked up, assuming I was talking to her. “What do you mean? Don’t you know where we’re going?”

I let out a quick, loud chuckle. “Of course not. I have no idea where we are. If it’s closest to the portal then it’s best we get familiar to the surroundings. So, we have to start somewhere.” I emphasized my point with some hand motions, pointing out the wasteland in front of us. The long highway was the only man-made structure around, aside from some wrecked cars. The rest was all forest and wildlife.

“How are we going to know our way back?” She questioned, concerned.

“I’ll make some pinpoints, leave bread crumbs I guess. I have a decent memory also. We will only go until we find what we need for a while, then head back. And speaking of which…” I opened the driver door and hopped out, walking cautiously over to the forest entrance where we drove out. I found a large, sturdy stick. I stuck one of the ends into the ground, and it stood about 8 feet into the air. I pulled out my hatchet and attempted to hammer it in with the backside of the blade. Though it was troublesome, it was in far enough that it would take a strong breeze or guy to pull it out. It was good enough.

I headed back to the car and hopped inside the vehicle, shutting the door. I immediately opened the glove compartment in front of Twilight, and searched around in it. After an irritated grunt, I closed it and searched the box under the armrest between the seats.

“What are you looking for?” Dash peeked her head between the two seats, interested.

“Pencil and paper. Until we find a proper map we’re going to have to make our own so it’s easier to find our way back. But I can’t find any in here.” I explained, shutting the box after another unsuccessful search.

“Oh, here.” Twilight spoke, her horn suddenly lighting up a bright purple. Not a second later, there was a flash of light, and there was a quill and scroll levitating in her magical grasp. I flinched at the sudden effect, a little scared of her ability. I darted my eyes up at her, and she smiled gracefully. “Will this work?”

I shook my head and closed my eyes, sitting up and turning to the road. “Yeah, sure. You’re drawing though, because I’m driving.”

“Okay, sure.” She complied, sitting up and looking forward, ready to write.

I blew fast air through my nose, as if an inner laugh escaped a little bit. Twilight frowned, glancing at me again. “What?”

This time a full laugh escaped my lips as I opened my mouth to speak. “If you can use that kind of ability through offensive attacks, we’re not going to need guns.” I shifted the truck into gear, and pulled forward, stopping at the highway. “Okay..” I stretched my back, earning a few cracks from my spine. “So, going left is usually right, but sometimes right is the only choice left…” I joked, earning an unentertained groan from Dash.

“Just go left!”

“Yeah yeah, calm down skittles I’m going.” I drove forward, and turned left to take off down the road. I heard Twilight giggle quietly at my act, and I smiled a little bit. I guess I had forgot how good it was to have company. Driving like this, with a positive vibe shining in everyone present, reminded me of when I used to go on road trips with my friends before everything came crashing down.

My smile quickly faded as I remembered them. Some memories came flashing back through my mind as I almost disappeared from the physical world to swim through my thoughts. It made me realize why I had become such a hard-skulled, heartless and mindless person once shit hit the fan. After losing everyone I had loved, I seemed to have no more reason to make friends. I just felt that I would lose them again. To be honest, I don’t really know what even happened to my friends and family. I never made it back to home after what happened on the ship. For all I know, they could be completely fine. Alive, all together, maybe even happy.

But I figured that wasn’t the case, the last thing I wanted was to get my hopes up. It’s been more than 10 years, so I had almost forgotten about them, and they most likely forgot about me. And now that I had these strange figures in this car, it brought those thoughts back. I felt like I had just found an old toy I had as a kid, hidden in the attic for years. It brought multiple feelings to mind. Mostly containing happiness, and sadness. And, almost a bit of lust. What I would have given to go back to the days before this all happened…

“John?”

I blinked. My eyes stung right after, and I had realized that I had zoned out for a while. I turned to Twilight for a second, before looking back to the road ahead. “Yeah, what?”

“Are you okay? You looked like you really zoned out there.”

I sighed, scratching my face. “Yeah, just thinking.”

She raised an eyebrow. “About what?”

I frowned. I always hated it when people tried to pry something out of me, especially when it wasn’t any of their business. “Mind your own business.” I growled.

She flinched, like my words took a jab at her. She turned away. “S-Sorry.. I didn’t mean to intrude.”

“No,” I spoke without thinking. “I’m sorry… I’ve just never been comfortable with people invading my space.”

“I wasn’t trying to invade anything, you just looked like you had something on your mind. Just wanted to make conversation.”

There was a pause, and I seemed to have held my breath until I finally spoke.

“..me,” I started. “Me and my friends; Mark, Jason, and Kyle.. Man, us four would go on road trips any chance we could. Just to get away from all the shit we had gotten into.” I chuckled. “Those three guys were probably the best fuckers I’ve ever met in my entire life. I saw them more than my own family. Hell, they might as well have been my brothers. We did everything together. We never left another behind. If one of them got into shit, we were there just to take it with him so we had something to laugh about later on.”

Twilight smiled, a warm glow emitting from her face. “It sounds like you had a pretty good friendship.”

“Oh, hell yeah.” I shrugged. “But, I haven’t seen them for years. For all I know they could be dead. If they are alive…” I gulped and bit the inside of my cheek. “I try to not think about it.”

“Well, you never know. We could find them!” Dash chimed in. “You’ll have your friends back, and we’ll all have more people in our group!”

I felt I had given enough information, and cleared my throat. “Anyways,” I ignored Dash’s statement. “It’s just that this trip reminded me of them. That’s all.” I glanced down at the radio, and smirked a little. “We always listened to this one radio station. Played the best music, we all liked the same stuff.” I reached down to the little knobs and began twisting, zooming past radio stations to look for the right station. “What was it.. Ninety three point five?”

There was some static between stations until I made it to the station. Immediately music began playing. I had caught it at the beginning of the song, and I smiled brightly. "Well I'll be damned."

The sweet, soothing guitar into was something I could never forget. “This was our most favorite song of all time.”

“What is it?” Twilight questioned. She was probably more intrigued about how the little box was playing music, but she seemed to have realized I was having another memory.

“The song is called Hotel California. The second Mark heard the into he’d be playing the air guitar, and it almost seemed note for note even though there was nothing there. Kyle would be next up with the drums. The two of them would be in perfect sync. We always rode In Jason’s car, and I swear, you couldn’t find a shittier car in the world. The entire car would be rocking back and forth by the time everyone was in on the song. We took the saying: ‘Do it like no one’s watching’ to a whole new level. Me and Jason would be singing together as loud as we could, and by the time the chorus came in, we were all yelling like a bunch of kids high on sugar.”

“You sing?” Dash chuckled, and I laughed harder.

“Oh god no, I couldn’t sing if my life depended on it. We all sounded like a bunch of dying seals.” I shook my head, sighing from my laughter. “The only one that could actually sing was Jason. He was always so modest about it, and we’d just tease the shit of him about it.”

I relaxed from my adrenaline. “Those were the good days… It makes you realize how much of it we took for granted.”

Twilight realized how much he had been opening up to everyone about his life. She tried to not make a big deal of it, but she couldn’t help but smile brightly. “Sounds like fun.”

“Yeah, it was-”

*BANG*

Everyone and I jumped at the sudden loud noise. After the sound, the car quickly started to skid out of control. I tried as hard as I could to hold control of the car, but it was only getting worse. I slammed on the breaks, and the truck skidded sideways for a few moments before stopping. Sparks shooting out from the back right wheel. Once the car stopped, I quickly opened up the door, and pulled out my Beretta. “All of you stay inside the truck, and keep your heads down.”

“W-What’s going on?!” Twilight yelled, panicking.

“Just do it!” I slammed the door behind me. I went to climb into the trunk of the truck for cover, but before I could get in, a voice called out from an unknown source.

“Freeze!!”

I stopped. If only I knew where the person was, I could have done something. The highway was surrounded by tall, yellow grass. Whoever was out there could easily camouflage into it. I did what the voice said.

This is bad…

Comments

[Starlight Nova]

4773755 Does it bother you that the author hasn't responded to your comment?

[Starlight Nova]

Will Twilight and/or Fluttershy be badass in this story?

[conTROLLER234]

7027523 I suppose you'll find out.