Chapter 4: Finding Truth
----Crash Site----
I stared at the grave for a moment, watching the wind blow the flag around. I turned to see the three ponies from earlier coming closer, probably to try and console me. I wasn’t having it. My attention immediately turned to the guards. I could see only two guards and they were right behind Twilight. It’s time to make my move.
I drew my handgun and ran as fast as I could in the direction of the helicopter. I could sense the guards gaining on me. As I reached the door to the cockpit I turned and fired three more rounds wildly at the guards. They immediately dropped and took cover. I then flipped the ignition and felt the blades begin to spin. I then turned my attention to the power readout. The read out gave me a resounding 30% power. I pulled up on the throttle and felt the wheels lift off. I turned the helicopter in the direction of the guards and could see the Pegasus trying to take off but failing due to the gale force winds.
As the engines warmed up, I wanted to leave an impression on the group and taped down the button on the loud speaker. I cranked the volume as high as it could go and said
“Not today!”
I then search my vest and found my IPhone and placed it next to the loud speaker and pressed play. The first song was “Highway to Hell” by AC/DC. I then pushed the altitude to as high as it would go and gained around one thousand feet of distance to the ground. I push forward on the joystick and set out in an unknown direction. They were not going to catch me if I have anything to say about it. I reach an airspeed of 200mph and flew away.
I knew they weren’t going to let me go that easily. I turned to see Rainbow Dash flying with all of her strength at me. I then turned tail and bolted. I could see her in the rear view mirror steadily gaining ground on me. Fine if we’re going to play this game, I’m going to play dirty. I redirected my speed from going forward, to instead go straight up. I sealed the cabin door and continued to climb. I reached two thousand feet and the air grew much thinner I held my position and waited. There was no way she could handle this little oxygen and keep chasing me.
I pressed the joystick forward and got a sickly response due to the thin air. I reach about 75mph and the engine was struggling for that. I could see the power gauge steadily dropping on the dashboard. It had reached 10% by this point. I had to put the helicopter down before I ran out of power. I could see a clearing five miles out and figured it would be perfect. I checked my surrounding for any sign of ponies and proceeded to drop altitude.
I was within a few hundred feet of the ground when the song stopped and I cut off the sound system. I touched down and cut off the engine. I then walked into the passenger cabin and searched for the camo netting. The ground was still covered in Ivan’s blood. I walked to the opposite end of the cabin and opened the large storage compartment. There was a service rifle, enough ammo for a small platoon, and the camo netting. I snagged the camo and lifted it onto my shoulder. I slid open the door to find an empty field surrounded with trees about 50ft out in all directions.
I hopped down from the ledge of the passenger cabin to the ground. I took each end of the netting and anchored it down on the front left and right of the helicopter. I then took the netting and tossed it over the helicopter covering the majority of the hull. I walked the rest of the netting to the back end of the helicopter and anchored it down. From a distance, now my helicopter just looked like a hill.
If they were going to catch me, they were going to have to try harder.
----Twilight’s house (third person)----
“Why would he run off like that?!” Dash asked in a frustrated voice
Dash had been walking in circles for hours, mentally beating herself for losing “Ryan”. Twilight had tried to make her stop but as soon as Dash sat down, she got back up and continued.
“How did you even find him?” Twilight asked Dash
“I saw a flash of light and then that black machine fall from the sky. After that, I ran to Vinyl’s house since she was the closest and asked her if she saw it. After telling me no, one of her machines picked up a message from Ryan. Why is this such a big deal?” Dash said trying to piece everything together.
“When I went into his memories, I saw horrible thing the man had done and he was laughing at them.” She said as she shuddered at the memory of Ryan’s face when he was laughing.
“Maybe he’s still hurt about his friend?” Dash asked to no one directly
“Wait, I have an idea. Let’s see if we can barrow Vinyl’s machine to see if he left us a message!” Twilight said with renewed vigor.
Dash and Twilight ran to the door and opened it. They ran as fast as they could to Vinyl’s house on the opposite side of town. After reaching the door to her house, they banged on the door as hard as they could. Vinyl walked up and answered the door, obviously tired.
“*yawn* what do you guys need?” she asked, rubbing her eyes with her hoof.
“We need to see the machine that you heard the man on earlier! Quickly!” Dash said barging into Vinyl’s house.
Dash ran over to the table where they had left the machine and turned it on. For a few moments they received static but surely enough, Ryan’s voice appeared.
“This is Redhawk 1-3. My co-pilot is down and I am on the run from enemy forces. I have never seen anything like them. They don’t seem to be very well equipped and don’t seem to have radar or they would have found me already. On the off chance this is being listen too, I will be at the location where I first crashed two days from now. This is Redhawk, over and out.”
The ponies looked at each other and Twilight said “We need to alert the Princess!”
----Ryan’s camp, location unknown (Ryan’s point of view)----
“…This is Redhawk, over and out.” I said letting go of the radio.
I looked at the camo netting on the helicopter and grabbed my knife from my boot strap. I went to an area with some excess and cut it off. I then tied it to myself, creating a makeshift gillie suit. I slid open the door to the passenger cabin and opened up the storage compartment. I grabbed the rifle, binoculars, and an extra radio.
After grabbing some rations, I took a long look at the stars and noticed that the northern star wasn’t there. That was very odd. I then pulled out my compass and found the direction from which I had flown in from and began to walk.
----Crash site, day one (Ryan’s point of view)----
I walked up the grave that still had the flag waving over it proudly. I check my surrounding and saw that there wasn’t even a guard posted there. This was going to be easier that I first thought. I walked up to the grave and set down the radio. I then retreated to a hill 500ft to the northwest, giving me the advantage of high ground. On the hill was various trees and shrubbery scattered about. The moon hung high overhead and I took a position in a nearby tree.
The position gave me a nice overview of the field where I first crashed and I could see the radio clearly. I grabbed my canteen and took a long drink. I had to rely on my survival training here. I took careful observations of the field looked at my watch. I had twelve hours to kill.
Now we play the waiting game.