Thief

by conTROLLER234

Chapter 21 Tragedy

Thief

Chapter 21

Tragedy

The quiet hum of the truck engine would've seen to have lulled Fluttershy into a deep slumber. Though her body was asleep, the adrenaline from the recent events kept her mind wide awake. She lay across John's lap, cuddled up close to him. She couldn't help but think she could lose him again, so she held him tighter.

John felt her embrace strengthen, and he quickly glanced down at her for a second, before drawing his eyes back to the road. “...Hey, are you okay?”

She turned her eyes up at him without moving her head, and sighed quietly through her nose. “...yes..but, I'm sorry for hitting you, I-I was just angry-”

“Don't be sorry, I'm happy you did it.” He cut her off, calmly continuing his drive. “I deserved it. You did the right thing.”

Fluttershy didn't speak, though her mouth hung open in awe. He continued.

“Although I may have denied it earlier on, you guys are my responsibility. Honestly, now it makes me nauseous from just thinking about abandoning you guys for my own selfish needs.” He smiled down on her. “So, thanks.”

Fluttershy managed a smile back, but it quickly faded as her succumbed to her fatigue. Her eyelids shut, and her breathing slowed. But she still showed signs of consciousness.

There was a long silence, and once John spotted the tree line in the distance, he yawned. “We're almost there.” Right after, he shifted in his seat slightly, then again, and a grunt escaped his lips.

Fluttershy looked up at him, noticing his movements. “Are you okay?”

“Hmm?” He stared at the road, but gave her his attention. “Oh, yeah I'm fine. I just gotta take a piss when I get back.”

“O-Oh.” She giggled, blushing slightly.

Not long after, we made it to the forest, and entered where we usually do. As it neared afternoon, it was much easier it see through the forest. As I drive along the rugged, dirt road, I spotted the spot where the portal should be.

“Alright, we should be back now-”

The second I drove through the portal, I was cut off by the sounds of gunshots and yelling. I nearly screeched to a halt as the sounds caught us off guard. It seemed I hadn't heard the sounds until I passed through the portal.

“What the hell?” I then continued to drive forward, trying to drive as fast as possible. Fluttershy perked up once we entered through into Equestria, and looked around outside.

“W-What’s happening?” She started to panic slightly, and I tried to calm her down. Even though I had a bad feeling.

My gut was right as usual as we exited the forest. In the distance, we saw the farm. Though we couldn't spot the actual barn, as it was completely replaced by engulfing flames that overtook any structures in the area. The giant torch could be seen for miles.

“What the fuck!?” I slammed down on the pedal and the truck zoomed towards the farm.

When we got there, I opened the door and was immediately greeted with intense heat. I didn’t hesitate to quickly exit the truck and pull out my Beretta, slamming the door behind me. I saw Fluttershy about to follow me, and I held out a hand to her. “Stay in here Fluttershy, and don’t come out until I come get you!”

She didn’t disagree, and sat in the car, terrified. I ran over to the group, which seemed to be in a protective circle, packed together as they fought off the horde. I heard the gunshots from Luke and Dylan, and quickly realized why the zombies were here. Whatever, the only focus right now was to protect everyone as best as possible.

“John! You’re here!” I heard Dash call out my name. Her voice was extremely raspy and filled with fatigue. I looked at her, and those traits also applied to her appearance. Her and Twilight must’ve been doing the most to defend other that the two humans. Dash was covered in blood, dirt, and ash. Her coat was matted down, and some of her fur was severely burned. She was panting heavily, hovering in the air as she swooped in on some walkers that got near, kicking them back forcefully with her hind legs. “W-We need your help!”

“I see that!” I turned the safety off on my fire arm, and stood in the group.

“Where have you been?!” Twilight called out, focusing on firing magic pony beam shit at the walkers. They were extremely effective, so it didn’t bother me. Her appearance wasn’t as bad as Dash’s, though some of her mane and tail looked it had been stomped out, like it had caught fire. Smoke and steam was emitting from her horn, probably a result of overusing it.

“That’s not important right now, let’s get rid of these walkers so we can deal with the other damage!” I yelled over the gunfire and loud crackling from the fire, beginning to fire my weapon into the crowd. I wasn’t used to using a firearm, especially against so many walkers in one place, so I definitely needed more target practice.

With everyone targeting the horde, we were taking out a fair amount every second. Though it seemed useless against how many there are. And we only had so much ammunition and energy, before we would become more vulnerable.

“We need to hurry up, we have two injured!” Dash added, and I just barely heard her. “AppleJack was bitten in the leg trying to protect herself, and Rarity…” She paused.

“Just focus on the attack! The sooner we get this done, the sooner we can tend to the wounded!” I replied, trying my best to focus on the walkers. No matter how much we defended, they only seemed to multiply. I wasn’t exactly sure if we would be able to fight them all off.

“Fucking hell!” I quickly glanced over at Dylan, who was fumbling with his Glock. The chamber seemed to be jammed, and he was furiously fumbling to clear it out. “My gun isn’t working!”

His friend, Luke, quickly realized he was responsible for him, and his friends safety. I could see a slight bit of panic on his face, as he was firing as quickly as he could. A long range bolt-action rifle wasn’t the best weapon for close range. He wasn’t the only one that realized we wouldn’t be able to hold out much longer.

I heard Twilight continuously firing spells at the walkers. The sound that emitted when she fired, seemed to start getting weaker and quieter. I heard her coughing, until her firing completely stopped all together.

“I...I, can’t…”

I suddenly felt her fall against my leg, her voice barely above a whisper. She was heaving coughing profusely, with blood dripping from her nose. I didn’t know how long that they were fighting, but with Twilight out of the fight, I knew Dash wasn’t far behind.

“Guys, we have to get everyone into the truck! We can’t win this!” I yelled out to the group. Just as I said that, Dash landed on the ground, barely standing.

“I-I’ll, agree with you…” Dash heaved, coughing and gagging as she spoke. The smoke from the fire was only making everything harder, including harder to see.

“Dylan, Big Mac, help me get the wounded to the truck!” I looked over at Luke, and got his attention. “I’m counting on you to cover us until we get everyone in!” I threw him my pistol.

Her turned barely just in time to catch it, and nodded to me. With Twilight closest to me, I picked her up under my arm. The ones that we capable to move, like the little ones, and even the dog, ran to the truck. I did notice, however, that Dylan ran to the truck without anyone with him. I took my focus off of him, looking for more wounded. Once the most of the group got to the truck, it revealed AppleJack and Rarity.

There were small pools of blood under each of them, as they lay on the ground. Rarity’s pool was much bigger, and once I saw her condition I sighed in my head. AppleJack’s left foreleg was matted down in her own blood, and she held it close to her. Rarity’s, however… I knew already that there was no saving her. She was unconscious, with a enormous bite to her neck, at last a quarter of her neck was completely removed, and I knew there was nothing I could do.

Though as for AppleJack, depending on when she was bit, could still be saved. I was just about to pick her up, when I heard a gunshot by the truck, and a yelp from Big Mac. I turned to the truck, and my jaw hung open. I saw Dylan had pushed away anyone trying to load the truck with the wounded, and had shot Big Mac in the shoulder. Looks like the fucker got his gun working again.

I realized what he was doing, and reached for my gun, though quickly remembered I had given it to Luke. Reaching around my pockets, I pulled out one of my throwing knives and threw one straight for his chest.

He hadn’t seen it coming, though when he opened the truck door the knife just ricochet off the window. After realizing, he leaned over the window and started firing his Glock at me. I ducked, and rolled across the ground, trying my best to dodge the bullets. I continuously continued to roll around and move like a maniac, desperately trying to not get hit. Though when I heard the truck start up, and begin to drive away, I realized he had lost interest.

“J-John, he’s taking the truck! H-He has Fluttershy!” I listened to Dash scream out, and when I got up I was too late, The truck was already pulling away. Had I even tried to run after it, the truck would easily outrun me. In a panic, I ran over to Luke and forcefully pulled his Kar98k out of his grasp. He took a step back, noticing the rage I was in.

I quickly turned back two where the truck was taking off down the road, and looked down the sights. In my anger, and inexperience with firearms, I fired off 3 shots and missed all of them. The truck quickly left our sight, and drove into the forest.

“FUUUUUUCCKKK!!!” I screamed, throwing the rifle to the ground. I felt like I could punch a hole through a tree, my fists tucked in so tightly as if I were prepared to. I heard another walker to my left, sensing a moment to relive my anger.

“John, beside you!-”

I cut Twilight off from her sentence as I took no hesitation in grabbing the walker by the throat, and pushing it to the ground. She gasped, watching the walker try to helplessly claw it’s way out from underneath me as I climbed on top of it. I pounded my fists into its face, blow after blow carrying a rage-filled grunt from my lips. The skull weakened further and further, its efforts to escape getting more and more ineffective. Eventually, and finally, the skull caved in. It gave off a horrifying crunch, the sound of flesh, bone, and brain mushing together in a bloodied mess that covered the grass and all of my upper body. But I didn’t stop there.

Even with the zombie dead, my rage continued on. Though like all good things, it eventually came to an end. When I finished, I remained on top of the walker, staring down at it with a bloodied face. Senses returned to my consciousness, extreme pain in my fists, even with my gloves on. My heavy breathing slowly got lighter, until it returned to a normal state.

Everyone around me was terrified to the point where they had backed away to a safe distance. I assumed that the walker that I had unloaded on was the last of the horde, as there seemed to be no more around us. I finally got up, and turned around, my eyes landing on Luke as I briskly moved towards him and pulled my knife out of it’s sheathe.

“Whoa whoa whoa hang on!” He quickly backed away, but not fast enough before I grabbed onto his shirt and pointed the tip of my knife to his throat. “I-I didn’t know he was going to do that!”

“Where… Where, is he going?” I spoke barely above a whisper, though it was easy to hear with the others so silent.

He looked at me for a second, confused. He then quickly shook his head. “I d-don’t know, he could be going anywhere at this point-”

I let go of him, shoving him back. He stumbled backwards, regaining his balance. I stared over at the ponies, who were trying to look like they were helping the wounded. While some of them were, they were mostly just focused on not making eye contact with me.

Everyone was mostly silent, and the sound of the flames had died down significantly, as the barn had already collapsed into a giant bed of hot coals. Anything in there was unsalvageable.

“John…” I heard Twilight speak, though she didn’t look at me. She stared down at Rarity, concerned. “Rarity is passed out, and AppleJack is in severe pain. Both of their wounds, the area around them are turning purple and green.” She gulped.

“Twilight, I’m just going to be straight with you here.” I spoke, walking over beside her. I kneeled down beside Rarity, and pointed to the wound. “Rarity isn’t going to be able to be saved. A way to save a bitten or scratched wound is through amputation, and if the bite is on her neck that’ll only kill her.”

“...A-Amputation? What’s that?” Dad stuttered, a face of disgust washed over her face as she examined AppleJack’s hoof.

“Though with AppleJack, we may still have time to amputate her hoof. Though because the first-aid kit was inside the barn, we won’t have any alcohol or clean cloth to work with, so we will have to cauterize the wound.” I finished with a sigh, and Twilight covered her mouth. Some of the others were confused, as they may not have known what those words meant.

“What do these words mean!?” Dash panicked. With an irritated grunt I turned to her.

“We’re going to cut off her hoof and burn the wound to seal it.” I summarized. Everyone’s faces nearly turned white, especially AppleJack’s. She didn’t seem to amused.

“...H-Ha, hah-ha…-P-Please tell m-me yer jokin’, right?” She shuddered, her whole body shaking non-stop.

I looked her straight in the eyes, a very serious look across my face. “AppleJack, if we don’t do something right now, we will not be able to save you. You have to trust me on this.” I didn’t blink, and I waited for a reply. She didn’t seem to know what to say, and she bit her tongue.

“...Okay…”

I nodded. “Good answer.” I stood up, and pointed to Dash. “Dash, I want you to go around the barn. If you find anything, and I mean anything useful, bring it back.”

“O-On it!” She flew off, the sudden adrenaline rush seemed to give her the ability to fly again.

“Twilight,” She quickly snapped her head to me. “Find a stick that is submerged in the flames, though make sure there is a handle that I can hold onto. If you can find a metal bar, that would be even better. But work with what you find, we are running out of time!” I directed, and she ran off without a word.

“You two,” I pointed to Lyra and Derpy, and they both turned to me. Ready for a task. I pointed off into the distance a little, to a mobile chopping block made from a tree stump. “Grab that block and bring it over here.” They agreed, and hurried over to it.

“Okay AppleJack,” I picked up a stick that was beside me, about half the thickness of my wrist, and the length of a foot. “Bite down on this as hard as you possibly can when I cut it off. It’ll help you deal with the pain, and it’s possible that you will pass out from the pain. So you only have to deal with it for a small amount of time.”

“I found a flat metal bar!” Twilight called out from the destroyed barn.

“Good, don’t remove it until I have made the cut!” I replied, then I returned my focus to AppleJack. “Are you ready?”

She gulped, then nodded slowly.

“Okay, just close your eyes and it’ll be over soon.” I glanced over at Luke, and spotted a belt wrapped around his waist. “Give me your belt.”

He nodded without hesitation, and fumbled to remove it. One it was off, he tossed it over to me, and continued to hold his pants up.

“Okay…” I whispered to myself, tightly hugging her hoof above the wound with the belt. I tightened it as hard as possible, a painful whine escaping AJ’s mouth. Next, I pulled out my hatchet. It thankfully didn’t have any blood on it, so that wouldn’t be a problem. I marked my spot to where I was going to chop, and prepared to take action. “Get ready to grab that metal pole Twilight!”

AppleBloom and Big Mac walked over to her, trying their best to comfort her. But they knew there really wasn’t much that they could do. All they could do was hold her sister, and hope for the best.

“Okay, here we go… One,” I slowly brought the hatchet up and down on the spot, to make sure I didn’t miss.

“Two…” I let out a shaky exhale, biting the inside of my cheek. I was probably just as nervous as everyone else. I brought the hatchet up one last time, ready to bring it down and hopefully go through the hoof.

“Three!”

- - - - -

The aftermath of the attack was probably worse than the actual ambush. Big Mac had suffered a severe gunshot wound, at least the bullet went all the way through. I had a few scrapes and bruises, and Dylan must’ve hit me once with a bullet. It only grazed my right shoulder, though it was still pretty painful. Rarity had to be put down, and that was definitely not easy for her apparent little sister, Sweetie Belle to take. The amputation and cauterization on AppleJack was successful, though she was still unconscious. Honestly, I was trying my hardest to keep her alive. We couldn’t afford to lose someone as tough as her. Although she had her moments, and I hated her guts when I first arrived. But she is important to the group, and I’m not going to let anyone die if I know I can do something to prevent it.

Fluttershy, though… I couldn’t say much for her. I had no idea of where she was, what her condition was… I tried my hardest to not think of the worst, but I couldn’t stop the thought once is came across my mind. All I could do was hope she was okay, and that Dylan hadn’t done anything to hurt her. He wouldn’t do anything to her, not without a good reason. I knew Fluttershy was fully capable of bashing his head in, though I didn’t know if she was going to do something that drastic. There were so many questions I had, but all I could do was hope she was okay.

As of right now, the barn was obviously not a safe place to stay in. Because most of the walkers that attacked us came from the town, the number of the undead in the town had dropped a fair amount. Making moving through the town, much easier. We were able to scavenge supplies: clean rags, alcohol for wounds, bandages...mostly everything we needed to finish patching up the wounds. We were even able to pick up a crutch for AJ from the hospital when she woke up.

Twilight and Rainbow Dash had definitely bitten off more than they could chew when they were defending. They had multiple internal wounds, Dash sprained her left hind leg, and Twilight even had some internal bleeding. We did what we could to patch up the wounded, and it seemed to be enough to get us moving again. The only mode of transportation that we had was a standard, two-wheeled cart for carrying supplies and such. It was quite heavy duty, and was obviously meant for a big stallion to pull. The only kind of big stallion that we had was big Mac, and in his condition, that wasn’t going to happen. So, we had to improvise.

“Ugh… Shit, this thing is heavy.” I groaned from behind the wagon, pushing the cart up a small hill. Luke and I were at the back of the cart pushing, while Lyra and Derpy were pulling the cart at the front.

“Are ya sure ya don’t want me tuh help?” Big Mac asked kindly, even though he had offered multiple times.

“Yeah, I’m sure. We need you to heal, and working you isn’t going to help.” I replied, my voice strained as I pushed.

Because we had no idea where Dylan had gone, our next best option was to go the Crystal Empire. The Princesses would probably and hopefully would have been able to help us, and it might have been safer there. The train ride by itself was a long trip, so by foot it was going to take a while. We also packed as much food and water as we could for the trip, and that only added more weight. It helped that the three fillies and the dog weren't in the wagon, and instead walked. It helped, but not a lot. It had only been an hour, and I was already fed up with this wagon.

A yawn emitted from the inside of the wagon, and I perked my head up and inside to see who it was. I watched as Twilight slowly moved her legs around, then groaned. Her face exposed pain and nausea, and she opened her eyes but didn’t move her head.

“Morning sunshine.” I mocked, and she barely smiled at it. She looked like she had just woken up with a hangover. Her coat was dirty, hair was frazzled, and each movement she made was followed by a groan of pain.

“..What time is it…?” She whispered, and I barely caught it. I looked up in the sky and estimated a time, judging by the sun.

“Eh, maybe around 1?” I shrugged my shoulders, then focused back on my manual labour.

“S-So, it wouldn’t be morning…” She smirked, her eyes closed. I sighed, which turned into a tired grunt.

“Yeah, guess not.”

“Hey, I think I see the top of the hill!”

I looked up as fast as a nine year old would when he smelt cotton candy when I heard Lyra notify. And sure enough, I saw the top of the hill.

“Oh thank christ.. I don’t think my legs could take much more.” I whined, dropping my head as I pushed the last of the way.

“You can say that again…” Luke spoke beside me, breathing heavily.

“Y’all need more muscle on yer body.” Big Mac joked, grinning as he flexed his hoof.

“Sorry I’m not a horse, and I don’t see you helping.” I poked back, gritting my teeth as I tried to not slow down.

“You won’t let me help.” He raised an eyebrow, and I looked up at him with an eye-roll.

“Touché…” I realized, and sighed in relief when we finally got to the top of the hill. Everyone stopped moving the wagon once we were at a spot where it would not roll back down the hill. It makes me want to cry just thinking about that happening, and having to go get it and push it up the hill again. “Shit, this is gonna take years off my life.”

“Don’t worry, we’re only about three to four days away!” Luke said, collapsing to the ground. “Hip-fucking-hooray…”

I stood up straight and placed two fists together against my back and pushed against my spine, earning several satisfying cracks from the bottom of my spine to the top. “Ooooh, yeah…”

I saw Twilight cringe at the sound, her ears flopping down against her head. “Oh Celestia, I hate that sound…”

“Oh, you mean this sound?” I grinned widely, grabbing my head and twisting it sideways, even more, loud, splintering cracks from my neck. I twisted it the other way, and the same sound emitted.

“Gah! Yes, please stop!” Twilight squirmed on the floor, holding her ears against her head with her hooves.

“Okay, okay calm down.” I cackled.

“So, are we taking a break then? I could really use one.” Luke yawned, running his fingers through his hair.

“Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.” Derpy spoke from the front of the wagon, and I heard her and Lyra unhitch themselves from the harnesses. I grabbed the back of the wagon, and took it off. Revealing the sleeping ponies, I hopped in, making sure I didn’t step on any of them. I first headed over to AppleJack to check on her, and sighed in relief when I saw her condition.

“I’m glad the, ‘operation’ worked out, otherwise it would have been a waste of resources.” I spoke aloud to myself. The area around her hoof, was standard orange color, aside from the blood. There was no infection, telling me that it was in fact successful.

“You sure tried hard to keep her alive John. Good job.” Twilight smiled, struggling to sit up, then leaned her back against one of the sides of the wagon.

“Yeah yeah, I get it. I just think you’ll agree with me when I say that we couldn’t afford to lose anyone else.” I got a closer look at her bandages, seeing dried blood soaked into them. “I should probably replace those.

“Ah’d like tuh thank ya John, fer takin’ care of mah sister like that. Not anypony ah know could do what ya did back there.” Mac thanked, smiling to me.

I shrugged. “I’ve had to do it before. Sadly, I was too late and it wasn’t successful. He turned anyways.”

“Wait, you had to amputate a limb before?” Twilight questioned, curious. “Were you too late?”

“No, the tool I used had walker blood on it. So really it was a waste of time to cut it off. Thankfully my hatchet was clean when I made the cut for AppleJack, so that wasn’t a problem.” I pulled out my hatchet, which I hadn’t gotten around to cleaning since the attack. “So now it just has Apple blood on it.”

I looked up at Mac, and he didn’t seem too amused. I chuckled, getting up and going over to the extra medical supplies that we had packed. “Yeah, okay sorry.”

“Should we wake them up?” Lyra came around to the back of the wagon, resting her head and two front hooves on the open back.

“No, we should let them rest. They’ll probably still be in a lot of pain when they wake up, so it’s better that we let them sleep as long as they can.” I replied, opening up a small plastic box full of different medical supplies. I grabbed the bandages, some pads, a clean cloth, and the bottle of rubbing alcohol. I made my way back over to AJ, sat down across from her, and pulled out my knife.

“What’s that for?” Twilight questioned, watching me work closely. Quite, closely.

I noticed her interest, and lack of care for personal space, and scooted away from her a little bit. “I need to clean my knife in order to cut the bandages off without infecting the wound. It would really be a pain in the ass to get the wound infected now, after all of that work.” I explained, pouring some of the rubbing alcohol onto the rag. I rubbed the blade up and down, and within a matter of seconds, weeks of gore and dirt came off of the knife, and onto the rag. The knife immediately began to shine, revealing the black coating that had slowly started to rub off over the years of usage.

“Wow, I haven’t seen this baby this shiny in a long time. Probably a result of me not being a very sanitary person. Not like anyone cares nowadays.” I shrugged, putting the alcohol and cloth to the side, and began to slowly remove the bandage. After I fully removed it, it exposed the open wound. The cauterization worked better than I expected, as there was no more bleeding whatsoever. The ponies looked away in disgust, shuddering as they turned their attention away.

“Doesn’t that bother you?” Twilight asked, almost in awe of how comfortable I was with it.

I shrugged once again, grabbing a large pad and spread some alcohol around it and pressed it lightly against the wound. I heard and felt AJ squirm slightly, and I hurried to finish up the job. I wrapped the fresh bandage around her hoof, and pinned it together. After satisfied, I looked over at Big Mac.

“Your turn big guy.” I mocked, and just when I was about to get up I heard AJ waking up. We all leaned in to look at her as she woke.

She sniffled, moving her neck around and slowly opened her eyes. Her eyes first met her brothers, then moved over to mine. I didn’t take her long to remember what happened, once she felt excruciating pain from her hoof. She showed it on her face.

“...I-Is it, gone?” She coughed, whispering to me.

“Yeah, and it’s probably best you don’t look at it.” I made sure she kept her eyes on me. “You probably want some pain killers?”

“D-Do we ‘ave any?” Her voice picked up a bit, praying that we had some.

“Yeah, but not a lot. It’ll have to last until we find more or a Willow tree. That is, if you have those around here.” I got up, heading back over to the medical supplies.

“Of course we do, but how can a Willow tree help with pain?” Twilight wondered, utterly confused.

“The inner bark of a Willow tree contains the same chemicals as Aspirin, so it acts as a makeshift pain killer.” I replied, finally locating the bottle of painkillers.

“Really? Wow…” Twilight smiled, holding a hoof to her chin and thinking to herself. “How do you know all of this?”

“It kind of becomes a requirement when you’re surviving alone without a government to make sure you’re in tip-top shape all of the time. So I’ve learned to identify natural remedies in the wild for that purpose. Stocks of medical equipment aren’t going to last forever, so at some point switching over to natural choices is the only option.” I walked back over to AJ with the bottle of painkillers, and a small bottle of water.

“That’s amazing,” Twilight was in awe, soaking up all of the information like a sponge.

“I actually wouldn’t know half the stuff I know about survival if it wasn’t for Mark. Him and I talked about that stuff all the time,” I pulled out some tablets and put them in the palm of my hand, and fed them to AJ without really thinking as I talked to Twilight. AJ didn’t reject them however, and happily took them with her mouth. “So if you are ever going to question me about anything, and expect me to go full detail into it, that’s the topic.” I unscrewed the cap of the bottle, and held it to AJ’s lips.

“Oh, I definitely will.” Twilight squee’d, happy she found something different that she could fully learn about. She learned some information from Zecora, but it wasn’t exactly what I was speaking of.

“Oh, good job. You gave the egghead something else to talk about…”

I recognised the scratchy voice and turned my attention to Dash, who was slowly sitting up and checking out her wings. Twilight immediately frowned at Dash’s comment.

“Hey, it’s actually interesting! It’s important too, this information could save you one day. Especially with this, apocalypse, happening.” Twilight lectured, and Dash had already had enough of it. Dash mimicked Twilight talking with her mouth, rolling her eyes at the same time. I shook my head in annoyance, returning my attention back to AJ. I pulled the bottle away, and noticed that it was completely empty.

“Someone’s thirsty.” I smirked, and AJ smiled back. “I don’t blame you, I think we’re all pretty thirsty. Hopefully we can find a creek nearby.” I took a look around us, watching the sky and looking at the sun, before turning away. “Speaking of which, we might want to continue moving for a couple more hours, then set up camp.”

“I can help pull the cart.” Dash offered, and I scoffed.

“With a sprained leg? I don’t think so. We only have one splint, and if you fuck up your leg further there won’t be much that I can do to help.” I warned her, though it didn’t seem to matter much to her.

“Oh come on, I won’t be stupid. Besides, I can use my wings to help support my weight, and help pull the cart.” She got up, trying to apply pressure on her leg and cringing in pain immediately. “B-Besides, I’ve been lying down too long. You should take a rest John, I’ll swap with you.”

“What about me?” Luke grunted to himself.

“Oh please, like I’d let a girl take a man’s place in manual labour.” I scoffed, and my grin started to fade when I heard everypony but Dash hiss through their teeth.

“Now ya’ve done it.” AJ rolled her eyes, scooting away as Dash glared death at me and moved closer.

“What, you think I'm not capable!?” She growled, trying to stand over me, though as I got up her attempts to be bigger than me failed quite miserably.

“No, actually I think you're capable of a lot. Just not while you’re injured.” I hopped out of the cart. “But if you can walk that would help with the weight.”

“Pegasi don't actually weigh that much,” Twilight pointed out, and noticed that I barely paid attention.

“That's not the point. Anything helps, because this weighs 10 tons.”

Twilight was just about to open her mouth, when she was cut off by me again.

“I know, it doesn't weigh that much.” I rolled my eyes. “Come on Luke, let's get moving.”

With a sigh, Luke climbed out and I closed the back of the wagon. I heard Dash grumble to herself, but didn't pay much attention to it. “How much further until we should probably stop?” I asked anyone, and they all just looked at the sky with a pondering look on their faces.

“Hmm…well, if we need time to set up camp, then probably about three more hours.” She estimated.

“Ugh, fuck…” Luke and I both said in unison.

“My offer is still the same.” Dash smirked, looking down at me, until she hopped out of the cart.

“And so is my answer.” I sighed. “Alright, let's get moving. We want to try to get as far as possible before nightfall.”

Man, I've still gotta take a piss…

Author's Note:

Sorry for the wait you guys. I recently went to Las Vegas for a vacation with my family, and during the plane rides there and back I had time to write. I made the chapter a bit longer as a somewhat make up for my absence. Enjoy!

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[verypeeved]

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