//------------------------------//
// Outlaw Or Not? 
// Story: The Shy Driver 
// by Wiz Ahmad 
//------------------------------//

Just before noon, Fluttershy reached the city of Las Cruces. With its quiet yet popular white sand beaches, tall mountain range, and semi-desert climate and surroundings, it was one of the most beautiful places she’d ever seen. It looked so good, she decided to write down a journal entry in the notebook she’d brought along, planning to collect them all and ask Justin to mail them to Carter when her journey was over.

After checking her map, Fluttershy soon figured out a quick route to the westbound Interstate Highway 10. Little did she suspect what was awaiting her. 

Stopping by an open desert landscape on the outskirts of the city, Fluttershy made a small fire to reheat her pizza and fries, and finished them up. With a full belly, she threw the packaging and the chocolate wrappers away in a recycling bin, took a brief walk through the desert landscape, observing and enjoying the company of lizards, birds, and even rattlesnakes.

“Goodbye New Mexico,” she whispered to herself, turning onto the highway and heading west towards Arizona. She had only about forty hours to her deadline, and she still had an hour or so to go before she reached the Arizona border.

But that’s where the trouble started. With the sight of the border crossing nowhere appearing on the horizon, loud noises started coming from behind Fluttershy. Glancing in her rearview mirror, she spotted several single headlights and one pair. It was a group of three bikers and a Corvette.

And they sure didn’t look like they were just out to cruise like her. They were after something.

Two of the bikers lined up beside Fluttershy and pulled out guns.

“Pull over!” they demanded. Fluttershy picked up her speed a little and veered over to the side of the road, hit the brakes, flipped her hazards on, and got out. The bikers and the Corvette stopped behind her and took off their helmets.

“I thought that Justin punk was done with me, and that we had an agreement,” one of the bikers, Jesse, said, walking around the Supra and observing it. “He gives me the greater share back, the parts fit together, and the car runs like a dream. Everyone’s happy.”

“I was asked to drive this to his home, what else do you all wanna know?” Fluttershy said, clearly annoyed by their presence.

“Justin paid me for a few parts in this machine over a certain deal that he would pay me a greater amount on a fixed rate. But now he dropped it and broke the deal. He broke up with me, and now I want my fair share.”

“As a matter of fact, Justin is being fair,” Fluttershy snapped. “You’re the one who’s being unfair by demanding more than what you deserve. Each side should get the same amount, so there’s no advantage on either side. Anyways I have nothing to do with it. However, I’ll tell Justin about it, and you and he can battle it out later however you wish.”

“Fine,” Jesse huffed, turning to his fellow bikers. “Let’s go. I’ll see you later. Be ready to have that furry yellow flank of yours handed to you.”

Fluttershy snickered and bit back a giggle. “You’re gonna need more than that crotch missile to deal with Justin.”

“Pffft, I got something for ‘em,” Jesse replied, hopping onto his bike.

Fluttershy leapt back into the Supra and drove away, wondering what on earth a guy like Jesse would want beef with her?

Down the road, Fluttershy relaxed, thinking that she’d eluded them, and that her troubles were finally behind her. But just a few minutes later, the hooligan bikers and the Corvette were back on her tail. It didn’t take long to realize what they wanted to do: race her as a test.

Prepping herself, Fluttershy fiddled with the boost controller and turned the boost up to 30 PSI.

The three bikers lined up beside her, jumping a little for encouragement, while the Corvette brought up the rear.

“Fine. Here we go,” she said, slamming the gas in second gear, launching the Supra forward with incredible power. The bikers gained speed, and for the first time, she witnessed just how powerful they were. Determined not to lose like her friend Rainbow Dash, she brought the revs as close to the redline as she dared and quickly shifted into third gear, trying not to lose control as the Supra’s speedometer jiggled around the 140 km/h mark. As the bikes began to walk away, Fluttershy accelerated once more and just kept going faster, trying to keep her shifts as quick as possible to avoid losing boost.

Soon she finally passed the bikers at 240 km/h, trying not to lose control. Up ahead lay some traffic. But that anger and love in her heart for Justin caused her to whip up an idea to get rid of Jesse and his henchmen. While still travelling mind-blowingly fast, she swerved in front of the bikers and gently tapped the brakes. Jesse and his gang crashed into rear end of the Supra with a series of bangs and hits and crash sounds. With the bikers and their bikes scattered along the rightmost lane, Fluttershy then continued along. But the guy in the Corvette witnessed the incident – and angrily took off after her.

Fluttershy now had to use strategy to lose the Corvette guy. She didn’t want to hurt them, she just wanted them off her tail.

With the traffic spaced apart a little, she squeezed down partially open lanes, swerving and putting down as much power as she could in any stretch of open road. She made a risky move behind a large truck, but the Corvette went too fast while swerving to catch up and clipped the truck’s rear bumper and spun out, hitting the concrete barrier at high speed.

Fluttershy winced as she noticed it in her rearview mirror. But that was his fault of going too fast, not hers. Relieved with her escape, Fluttershy joined the traffic jam that slowly advanced at a crawling space.

Finally, by late afternoon, she reached the Arizona border, where there was a checkpoint, as all border crossings had. Fluttershy watched as people handed stuff to officers to inspect and came out of their cars to have other officers check them all over for any foreign items. They also scoured the cars for any illegal items. Finally it was her turn.

Fluttershy came to a stop, got out of the car, and opened the trunk, hood, and doors. “Hi there. You may search, I haven’t got anything bad in here.”

The officers also filtered through the glovebox and her saddlebag.

“You got any ID?” one of them asked.

Fluttershy gulped. “Um…I do have a card,” she said, pulling out her ID card she had made. I’m not even from Earth to begin with.”

The officer ruffled his beard in doubt.

“And here’s my license,” Fluttershy said, pulling out a smaller card. “It’s a universal license which means I can drive anywhere in any state.”

It took some time, but Fluttershy and the Toyota Supra soon successfully passed through the checkpoint. The Supra’s license and registration papers were thankfully completely legal.

Just a kilometer from the checkpoint in Arizona, Fluttershy put the Supra into third gear and took off down the highway once more, heading northwest for Phoenix as the sun began to set on the second day.

Fluttershy smiled at the feat of her fast driving. In the 35 hours since she left the storage garage, she had covered over 400 miles across New Mexico and nearly half of Arizona.





The sun set as she continued on her way down Interstate Highway 10, whispering a goodnight to Princess Celestia, even though she couldn’t see or hear her. With little or no buildings or large rocks in the way, the sunset was clear, vivid, and strikingly beautiful. Photo Finish would have made a fortune off fashion photos with it as the background.

“All right, Phoenix coming up…soon,” Fluttershy thought, noticing a sign indicating how far away the city was in kilometers.

Bored with doing nothing but driving, Fluttershy started to fiddle with the Supra’s touch screen head unit, trying to figure out what buttons did which. It had a login screen, but the administrative account had no password, so she was able to get in.

The head unit was like Carter’s computer, and could access almost the same things – Internet, video streaming, and even Facebook. Soon she found an icon that said “Maps”. Instantly it showed her a map of where she was and where she was headed.

“Okay, so that gives me my current location and how far away I am from the nearest accommodations. Then the MODE function gives me the map in three different modes…” Next, she discovered the radio function, and soon began to sift through various channels. 

“All the best deals from Phoenix’s best Kia dealership, with 0% down payment…”

Pulling a face, Fluttershy skipped to the next channel, which was about sports, which she wasn’t much of a fan of either. Tapping the frequency buttons on the screen a few more times, she came upon a brief loud news announcement, followed by a chill-style intro. This preceded the soft voice of a young man over a repetitive yet smooth piano roll. The singer continued, singing sadly about how he had helped someone, loved them dearly, and how she had given him faith, then she left and he felt sad and lonely. He asked out where she was now when he needed her the most.

Finding the tone of the song relatively calming, she navigated to the volume controls and turned the level up to around 40. 

I could get used to this type of singing, she thought. Suddenly after repeating the chorus line, the song broke into a crazy bass-banging rhythmic mix of drums, a flute-like sound, and several other musical effects only Vinyl Scratch would know of. Normally Fluttershy would enjoy various types of tunes, but this part of the song was considerably louder, and she hurriedly turned the volume down a little.

As the song progressed, soon retuning to its somber state, Fluttershy soon felt sad again, as the song’s significance was an instant reflection of her heartbreaking experience of leaving the family she had known, trusted, and loved. It wasn’t long, however, before the bass-filled rhythm returned, but Fluttershy actually began to break into it, not even realizing her head and shoulders were bobbing and shaking along to the beat. The song was very concluding and solemn. Several other songs played, but Fluttershy didn’t care for them much. That one song she heard was one she wouldn’t forget so easily.

Just as she approached Phoenix, another song came up that caught her ears, and she turned up the volume. It began with a hard piano note and a hollow voice calling out: ooooh woooooah oooooh woaaaaaah, ooooh woooooah oooooh woaaaaaah. This was followed by a rhythmic drum beat, which preceded some vocals describing how the singer felt bad about his numerous mistakes and how those around him would get angry at his honesty and wouldn’t accept his apologies. 

But it was the song’s chorus that really stood out. Not only was it seriously catchy, but the meaning of the lyrics was something that struck Fluttershy hard in her heart: was it too late to say sorry to the family she had left behind in one doubtful bet to try to return home?
With tears in her eyes and a slight smile, she kept repeating the song’s chorus. Even after the song ended, she still kept singing it to herself solemnly. Was it too late to say sorry to Carter? To Ashley? To Lorraine? And to Jack?

Yet another thought ran through her mind as she entered Phoenix, and that was back to Jesse and his gang. Would they recover and come back for revenge? And would Justin be okay, now with a knife literally coming towards his head? And what about herself? Was she the outlaw, sneaking through the law by attempting to do things that were only meant for humans?