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// The Bus 
// Story: The Poncho Chronicles I: The Beans 
// by BRyeMC 
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	The bus pulled out of the town and everyone got comfortable in their seats. There was some joking going on with Spike and Wahlburn, who were still feeling the effects of the weed they smoked earlier. The mood was chill and everyone else was slowly falling asleep when the bus suddenly jerked and halted at the side of the road.
“Hey, what the fuck?!” yelled Wahlburn.
“Shut up Wahlburn,” replied Jeb, “Do you have to be so damn loud?”
Wahlburn gave Jeb a threatening look and yelled back, “Fuck you, Jeb. You’re beat.” Spike, who found this comical, started laughing along with Wahlburn.
“Haha, yeah, beat!” The two kept laughing for what seemed like a couple minutes.
“Seriously, though,” said Cannon annoyed by the pair’s shenanigans,”what’s going on?” The driver, Quantico, got up from his seat and started to pound on the dashboard. After a minute or two he replied back.
“Bus took a shit, I’m going to step outside and check it out.” He opened the door of the bus and walked outside into the cold air. The rest of the group sat on the bus in silence for another five minutes until a voice finally broke out. 
“Come on,” said Rarity whining, “ I’m tired of this bland and filthy bus. All I want to do is get out of these terrible woods, and go home and take a nice, relaxing bath.” 
Applejack looked at her. “Quit yer whining, Rarity. Just be glad we are safe on this bus and not out there deep in the dark woods without support.” 
Rarity looked at her with cloudy eyes. “But I—” 
“No!” shouted Patel who jumped up and looked at her, “don’t even start bitching. I can’t stand bitches who bitch and complain about every damn pointless thing!” He sat back down, while everyone else on the bus were left shocked. Most of the group simply kept quiet for a moment and then continued talking in their little groups they had made on the bus. Clyde gave Patel a cold glare, who refused to acknowledge his exchange and looked out the window. Clyde then glanced over at Rarity, who was also in deep thought looking out the window, but he noticed that she had tears growing in her eyes. He looked at her for another moment, and then stared at the floor in remaining silent. 

A few minutes passed and the conversations were subdued by a strange growl. “Does anyone want to trade a bit of Wahlburn's weed for a bag of chips?” said Spike with a sigh, “I’ve got the munchies again.” 
Patel’s walkie-talkie began to buzz, but ignored it momentarily to toss Spike a small bag of chips for some weed in return. “Keep quiet, someone is trying to call me.”
He answered the walkie-talkie and rambled on for a minute or so. After hanging up he said, “It’s Poncho, he said he’s back at the town and that he’s just going to walk here to rendezvous with the rest of us.”
“You’d be crazy to walk along this road on a night like this,” Fluttershy spoke up, ”who knows what kind of scary creatures that are out there!” 
Patel cleared the window of fog and looked out of it and agreed. “He insisted though. Anyway, we can’t just go back and pick him up, our bus kinda broke down.”
Twenty minutes passed and everyone was growing extremely tired. The jubilant atmosphere from earlier had died down and now everyone was grumpy. Spike and Wahlburn finally calmed down from before, and Quantico stepped back in the bus.
“Welp, this is going to take a while to fix,” he said scratching his head, “We might be here all night, and maybe we’ll have to get this thing towed somehow. So get comfortable, I’ll be outside if you need me.” The news made everyone groan. 
“Well no point in waiting,” Patel said, “I’ll be sleeping if anyone needs me.” No one heard him as everyone else had already fallen asleep before he spoke.


As soon as Patel drifted to sleep, Poncho stormed onto the bus and woke everyone up accidentally.
“Hey, look, It’s the sketchbag!” laughed Wahlburn, as he pointed to Poncho. Spike laughed with him.
“Dammit, Poncho, I was finally getting some sleep,” growled Cannon, rubbing his eyes. 
“Sorry, I thought I saw something outside in the woods.”
“Like what?” asked Sticky Hooves while Twilight and her friends looked at him with confused faces. Sticky Hooves was more of the quiet type. He kept to himself most of the time, but as soon as he felt comfortable around everyone, he became a little less socially awkward. He was good friends with everyone, but his best friend was the last member of the group, Rivs. Sticky had a light blue coat and a white mane, which resembled the colors of his favorite place in the world, the University of North Marolina. His mark consisted of 2 basketballs side by side, sitting beside the university’s famous Tar Heel.
“You can TALK!?” yelled Pinkie Pie, who then became happy at the thought of him speaking. Before Sticky could answer again to say he wasn’t a mute, Poncho cut back in. 
“I don’t know what it was, but I know it was white. It also moved really fast! Before I could take a second look at it, it disappeared.”  
“We can talk about it later,” said Cannon in an annoyed voice, “just get some sleep.” He then fell on the seat and closed his eyes. In a few minutes, he was out. Everybody else soon followed. Poncho laid down in a seat. He was glad that after his experiences, he could regroup with his friends. It didn’t take long for him to drift into well deserved sleep.


Morning sunshine came through the windows of the bus rather quickly as everyone grumbled out of their sleep. Tyrone was the first one up and walked to the front of the bus. He stretched and stopped and exclaimed, “Aw shit. Ay! Everyone. Where’s Quantico at?”
Most of them didn’t hear him, or were still tired and ignored him. Cannon was the first to reply back, “What are you talking about?”
“Where’s Quantico at?” he looked outside the bus windows with a worried face, “he never came back in here from last night and I don’t see him anywhere outside.” 
Patel woke from his slumber and sat up. “I think you are overreacting." He opened a bag of chips and started to eat some. "Maybe he’s just taking a shit outside?” Tyrone continued not believing him while everyone else started conversations throughout the bus. 
“I’ll go check,” said Cannon as he slowly got out of his seat and walked off of the bus. The morning was sunny, as in a normal day in the middle of August should be. The air, however, was still abnormally chilly. He looked around the bus and trees, but there was no sign of Quantico. He paced around the bus again and saw something he hadn’t seen the first time. What looked like a blood trail was leading towards an abandoned house on the side of the road.
“Well that’s fucking creepy,” said Cannon, as he hurried back onto the bus. When he got back on, he broke up some friendly morning conversations with the news of the blood trail that he found.
“He’s probably just dicking with us,” said Wahlburn, “you know those types of ponies.”
“Or, you know, he’s dead,” added Spike, “that also sounds pretty reasonable around these parts.” Most of them then debated on what might of happened to Quantico. Spike thought he was murdered,  Patel thought he was taking a deuce somewhere in the woods, and Fluttershy thought he was kidnapped by hostile woodland creatures. 
Cannon stood up.”Well someone come with me and check this shit out.”  Nobody volunteered to help so he just called out someone to go with him, “Poncho, come with me.”
“Well...” said Poncho as he drug out the word, as if to stall time. “I’m not sure...I mean, I just got back, so don’t you think I could have a break and chill with my bros?” He then gave a nervous chuckle. 
“You’re kidding,” said Cannon without any emotion or enthusiasm, “don’t be that guy.” All eyes were then on Poncho, making him feel even more awkward than what he was.
“Just go, man,” said finally the last member of Poncho's group, Rivs. Rivs for the longest time was Sticky's arch-nemesis. Years before, Rivs and his Dook friends had upset Sticky's favorite basketball team with a game winning 3-point. This of course had been shot by Rivs himself, but over time they progressed from being simple acquaintances to ultimately becoming best friends through their unfaltering love for basketball. Rivs himself was a unicorn, or maybe a bicorn through a genetic mutation. His horn was split in the womb and he now resembled a devil pony. Unlike most unicorns, he, however, was unable to perform magic. He was a deep royal blue pony with a pure white mane with deep green eyes. His mark resembled a pelican holding a basketball, and on this basketball, there was a bold 3 painted onto it. Again, like Sticky, Twilight and her friends were astonished that he could speak too. 
Finally, Poncho caved in and agreed, “Alright, alright, I’ll go...” With a face full of glee, Cannon walked off the bus, while Poncho slowly trudged behind him. They followed the blood trail down the side of the road. After a few minutes, they were in front of the house. The house was only a rancher, but it was worn down. The paint was nearly off the walls. The shingles were either gone, or partially off. The door, had strange markings on it, and was heavier and thicker than most front doors. 
“If this isn’t the sketchiest thing ever,” said Cannon as his voice trailed off. He looked at Poncho and saw that he was spazzing out. Poncho’s eyes were huge in fear and dread as they touched the handle of the door, “Never mind, you are.” 
Cannon and Poncho knocked on the door to see if anyone might be inside, but there was no answer. Cannon slowly opened the door and stepped inside with Poncho. The inside of the house was in no better condition as the outside. Paint was mostly chipped away by age. Furniture was either absent or ravaged. They proceeded to follow the blood trail and came up on a closed door. The door had markings on it as with its front door companion. 
“Poncho open the door,” demanded Cannon. Poncho listened and opened the door. From what they could see from where they were at, there was a staircase leading down to a dark basement. Cannon flicked on the lights and could make out something at the bottom of the stairs. It was Quantico’s dead body. Cannon and Poncho turned around and booked it out of the house and back to the bus. They informed everyone of what they saw.
“That’s bullshit,” said Patel, in disbelief. 
“No dude, I’m fuckin’ serious. Quantico is dead,” addressed Cannon. 
“A murder! I need to see this,” said Rainbow Dash eagerly. Spike and Wahlburn agreed and wanted to go back to the house. Without any hesitation, Cannon showed them the way back. Dash, Spike, Wahlburn, and Cannon led the group as the others slowly walked behind them. 
When everyone was gathered, they all crept into the house. Twilight was paying no attention to the group as she studied the markings on both doors. Cannon slowly opened the door to the basement, ready to explain what happened earlier,but he froze. Instead of seeing Quantico’s body, another object was in its place. On the floor of where Quantico’s body was, there was a Remmington 870 lying in the same spot. 
Past memories flooded into Poncho’s mind, “Oh shit!” he started to feel dizzy as he remembered where he saw that gun before, “we really need to go!” 
“What, why? I want to see a body,” said Spike, disappointedly. 
“The creepy clerk at the gas station where I called you guys from had that same exact gun!” Poncho started running in small circles nervously. 
“You’re correct, my boy,” said a mysterious voice from the basement. Everyone froze in fear at the sound of the voice. They all looked down the basement stairs. It was dark, save for the illuminated shotgun, but they could see movement in the shadows in the corner of the basement. Before anything else could happen, Poncho slammed the door shut, and ran out of the house, screaming. Everyone else ran back following him. Most of Twilight's friends ran back screaming like Poncho did. They all managed to get back on the bus and stopped to take a breather. 
“What are we supposed to do now!?" asked Poncho gasping for breath.
“We can’t drive the bus out of here, unless Quantico got it fixed before whatever happened to him,” said Patel.
“I’ll check it,” said Cannon getting up. He started to fiddle with the bus controls, but as expected, the bus wouldn’t even start.
“Eventually a car or another bus is going to come down the road,” said Rivs, “we could get them to help us.”  They all agreed. What else could they do at this point? They all sat down in seats and decided to leave it up to fate.