Episode 3.6: First Stop
Hear me. Alex jerked in her sleep, her legs twitching violently beneath her. Not far away, Stride pulled away a little, muttering something under her breath. Robert was asleep at the other end of the room, far too self-conscious to join the three females. That was just fine with her—she would be happier once they had real bedrooms anyway.
Nancy woke almost the instant she got up, watching her. Alex made her way out, and she followed. At least she didn't make any noise. Once they had gotten far enough (there was no door to shut), Alex turned to meet the filly's eyes. "You should go back to bed."
In answer, the filly wrapped one of her forelegs around one of Alex's, clinging to her. "Alright, alright! Just let go." The filly relaxed, watching her closely. "I don't really know what I'm looking for. I might just be losing sleep for no reason. But if you want to come..."
She did, apparently. Alex set off down the stairs, fully alert now. The filly followed closely at her side, obviously struggling with the dark. She bumped into a wall more than once, and eventually Alex stopped. It was nearly pitch black inside, except where there were windows close, so it wasn't as though she couldn't see how the pony might struggle.
"Here, climb up on my back. I'm a horse, might as well carry someone. That's what horses are for, right?"
Nancy looked skeptical, but climbed up quick enough. I wonder what it would take to help her talk more. It was a little harder to move with the weight of another pony on her back, but Nancy was a pegasus and that helped.
The streets weren't empty at night. True, she didn't see any ponies at first, but there were plenty of other animal signs visible to her. She smelled a mountain lion, though thankfully she didn't meet it. She did see raccoons, foxes, even a skunk, but none bothered her and she didn't bother them. It was meeting another pony she was most afraid of, since bringing Nancy along would limit her ability to fight. I'm better with my hooves than I was when I crossed the country with Ezri. The wolves wouldn't be able to bite me this time.
She wandered next to an overgrown woodland, one distinguishable from the nearby streets only because it lacked the large piles of rubble or any standing structures. Surrounded by the trees, it was easy to forget she was really in the ruins of New York City.
Something was calling her. It was intensely familiar, though beyond that it was hard to place anything at all. It had to be supernatural, though she felt nothing beyond a distant longing for places she couldn't see. Where are you taking me?
No voice answered. Still, she seemed to know where to go. Alex passed a little lean-to built of scraps, with a garden of herbs outside. There might have been a pony inside, but she didn't want to bother them. It wouldn't have been terribly considerate to pester a pony in the middle of the night. Even if they had been friendly, the scare would probably change their mind.
Alex kept wandering, turning away from what she thought was Central Park to one of the streets that had turned into a river. It was a fairly leisurely flow, but even during the day the water had little bits of ice floating in it. She would have to cross. "Watch your legs, Nancy. Water's cold."
She sped up into a canter, traveling in leaping hops to the other side. Even so her legs were totally soaked, and her passenger got plenty splashed too. The filly started to shiver on her back, shaking herself off a little.
"Sorry. We'll have to build a bridge one of these days."
No day soon, though. They would have to build a city first.
At least neither of them were encumbered by clothes, so they would dry out quick enough. I'm going to wish for a jacket when winter comes, though.
Whatever she was feeling, it seemed to be getting stronger. Alex crossed a few deserted streets, towards what she was rapidly learning was the least decayed side of the city. Where one in three structures seemed to have survived on the end near the gate, with most of those nowhere near safe enough to actually enter, the side closer to the ocean seemed paradoxically more intact. Few structures had crumbled to rubble here, and more of them looked like they might be safe enough to enter. Might even find some salvage.
Her thoughts were interrupted by something far less subtle than whatever had led her out here. No tug, more a wrenching, as intense as sudden nausea but without the unpleasant side-effects. At once she had her direction, and knew it was perilously close.
The earth shook with the force of a nearby explosion, scattering animals and birds and shattering a nearby window. Alex turned in time to see a gigantic bus, barreling down the street at her and Nancy from the left.
Alex blurred through the air, scattering dust and leaves as she jerked out of the way, entirely on reflex. She skidded to a halt on her hooves, wings splayed to catch her and eat momentum. "Eeeek!" She dug deep gashes into the ground with her hooves. She squealed, but managed to stop before she hit anything.
"Sorry about that!" She helped the filly off her shoulders, though her eyes were wide with shock. "Maybe you should walk on your own for awhile." She turned back towards the place they had been walking. "I wasn't imaging that, was I?"
Nancy only shrugged, though she followed as Alex made her way back.
She didn't have long to search. There was indeed a bus waiting there, along with a pair of tracks leading to where it had come to a stop. I'll have to complement the driver—managed to bring it to a stop instead of running off the road or into a river.
The bus was one of the nicer ones, with blacked-out windows and a sleek silver body. The sort with its own bathroom Alex never could've afforded to ride, in the unimaginably ancient time before the Event. "Skyline Marquee Retiree"
"Alright, Nancy. Looks like we have company." The strange feeling was gone completely now, nothing was tugging her into the night anymore. Did I sense the bus coming? Being able to sense refugees before they arrived would be a useful skill. Unless something else was calling me.
She hurried over to where the bus was parked right in front of a stand of small trees. It was a small miracle it hadn't appeared driving straight into any of the larger ones that had started growing on the former streets. Even more impressive that the driver had retained control long enough to come to a stop.
By the time she was getting close, a pony half-walked, half-rolled out of the doors, still wearing a pair of ill-fitting pants and a blue jacket. The clothes did little more than encumber him, and indeed he fell flat on his back before groaning and rolling over. "Hoi!" he shouted, quite loudly. "Is anyone out here?"
"Yeah." Alex stopped maybe ten feet away, Nancy just beside her. The engine was still running, and the lights were still on. The bus's brake lights were practically blinding. She could just make out shapes moving around inside, and panicked voices. She couldn't get a clear look with the tint in the way, though. "Two people. Welcome back to the world of the living."
The pony righted himself eventually, though he tried to stand on his hind legs first. He ended up falling flat, though his body knew how to catch him. He looked in Alex's direction with difficulty. "Where are you? I can only see an animal!"
"You don't need to yell," Alex answered, walking a few steps closer to him. "I'm right here. Name's Alex."
"Y-you're... a... a talking horse," the pony stammered. "A weird... green... winged..."
"I think it might be some kind of demon, Stanley." Another voice, from the stairs leading into the bus. Another pony trapped in clothes, though this one was stuck inside a dress of baby blue cut with such little attention to fashion that Alex got a good idea of the age of the pony wearing it. It was her only hint, since otherwise the mare was just another adult pony. "Don't listen to it!"
"I'm not a demon," Alex sighed, crossing the last few steps until she was right beside the stallion, and very near the door. A panic of activity continued inside, shouts and voices and struggling ponies. "I'm a bat pony. I'm just the nocturnal version of a pegasus, like my... sister, Nancy." She gestured at the filly, then advanced on the stairs.
"Look, I know exactly what you're thinking. You're confused—you don't know where you are, or how you got here. You don't know what happened to your bodies. You've all changed in ways you don't even understand." She was only inches away from Stanley, now. "I do. Let me talk to everyone. As a matter of fact... we should probably get onto your bus right now. This city isn't safe... and you just made a hell of a lot of noise."
Stanley looked past her, as though searching the night for something. "Alright, horse. But only because keeping the guests safe is so important... and there's nobody else around." He gestured up into the bus. "Come on, then."
They hurried inside, with Nancy bringing up the rear. Alex waited patiently as the ponies climbed ahead of her, painfully slow. No natural predators would dare get close to something so loud and bright, except maybe a wolf pack. But in spring, they probably had plenty of easier food.
Ponies, on the other hand... a few more bloodthirsty than Robert would be all it would take to destroy these ponies.
"There," Stanley said from the driver's seat. It was comically oversized for him, but he somehow manipulated the controls, shutting the bus door. "Locked. Want the intercom?"
"Yeah."
Stanley tried and failed to pull the intercom from the console. All he could do was lean forward, pressing one hoof to the controls and talking right into it. "Attention passengers!" Most of the seats were full, perhaps fifty ponies in all. An even mix of mares and stallions, covering all the pony races and one griffon at a quick glance.
To Alex's astonishment (and Nancy's relief) the sounds of confusion and argument and conversation died. Ponies of all stripes turned universally toward the front of the bus. "If we could all remain calm, there's someone here to help." He gestured at Alex. "This is..."
Alex took the microphone on its flexible cord, snatching it out from under him. She had hundreds of years to practice her hoof skills, after all. "Someone who's here to help."
"Who are you?" someone shouted from the back of the bus, she couldn't see who. "Where'd you come from?"
"My name is Alex Haggard," she began, rising briefly up onto her hind-legs so that everyone would be able to see her. "I saw your bus arrive. This area is extremely dangerous, so I hurried over to help as quickly as I could. Speaking of which..." She turned, glancing back at Stanley. She took her hoof off the button as she spoke. "Kill the engine, and the lights. You need to save fuel."
"I got a full tank. Just filled up a few minutes ago for the morning's tour."
"You have the last full tank you'll ever have," Alex insisted. "Just switch it off. You'll understand why when I'm done explaining, but that will be a ton of fuel just burned away idling."
He groaned, but cut the engine off. The lights got dimmer, the exterior lights vanished completely, and the speaker in her hoof abruptly stopped working. She let it fall.
Somepony else called from the bus, "Why aren't you wearing clothes?"
"That's... probably not the most important question, right now." Alex's voice carried easily, echoing through the bus. "There's more you need to learn. I'd ask that while I'm explaining, everyone who can should watch a window. If you see motion outside, any motion, even an animal, you let me know. I must know about any incoming danger to protect you from it."
That shut them up, and she heard the sound of shifting bodies as ponies reoriented, near the many windows. Nancy even listened, turning around so she could look back down towards the doorway.
Alex realized abruptly she hadn't told any of what she was about to say to the filly. She had just been taking care of her, making sure she was okay, but the filly hadn't asked about what was going on. Hadn't asked about much of anything.
"You better have a good explanation for this," said a unicorn stallion from the front row. "This is a bus of American citizens you've kidnapped, mutilated..." General consensus bubbled out from around him, and angry ponies all nodded.
"I haven't done anything." Alex advanced on him, narrowing her eyes. "I was as much a victim as you were, sir. I've just been around longer, so I've learned what happened."
He laughed. "I doubt it. Your voice... I've got great-granddaughters older than you."
It was all she could do not to laugh right back. She didn't, though. He couldn't possibly know she was immortal. "I'm sure you do, sir. I'm sure many of you on this bus could teach me about all sorts of things. But none of you know what you are, you don't know how you got here, or why. You have strange new bodies you can barely control, and you know nothing about them."
She cleared her throat. "For instance, all of you feel stronger now. You feel more awake, you feel more capable. Your minds are sharper, your memories are clearer. A million little problems just went away." Of course, Alex could only guess about what that might feel like. She had never experienced old age herself.
"Your new bodies have a lifespan about three times what your old ones did. They also age more gracefully than humans do, so tend to remain functional until the very last legs of life. In pony terms, even if one of you were a hundred... you're not even middle aged anymore. Congratulations."
Alex told them everything. It took a long time, well over an hour. Nancy fell asleep at her hooves as she spoke, eventually relaxing. This was quite the change, considering she hadn't ever relaxed around Robert. Maybe these ponies were just easier to trust.
More than once the ponies interrupted, calling for evidence or further explanation. She gave several demonstrations—scrawling spells with paper they had or instructing an earth pony among them to snap a (now useless) walking stick with minimal effort. The longer she spoke, the more somber her audience became.
They weren't attacked, though more than a few animals did pass their parked vehicle in the dark. Eventually the sun began to rise, lighting up the world around the bus.
"So what do we do?" Someone eventually asked.
"I'm going to find my family," another pony responded, to a quiet chorus of agreement from several ponies nearby.
Alex cleared her throat, and rose up on her hind legs again. "I wouldn't blame anyone who wants to do that, but please don't go right away. You can all barely walk—none of you know how to use your powers. This world is extremely hostile. Please don't wander off now."
The first speaker, a pale unicorn stallion, bristled at her words. "What, you want us to just give up? Abandon our families?"
"Hell no!" She didn't give him a chance to move the crowd further towards madness. "It's already been hundreds of years. If your loved ones are going to be there for you to find, a few weeks to learn how to be a pony will not make a difference. I suggest you all stay here—let me teach you.
"Once you know your magic and you have your hooves under you, then you can choose to search for your loved ones. It won't do them any good to have you starve to death in some wilderness without ever finding them." Of course, she would have to tell these people just how hopeless that search would be, see if she could discourage it completely. Just not right away. She had earned herself a little credibility with her demonstrations, but she very well might lose it if she pushed too hard.
"We should vote," someone else said. "You have somewhere for us to go in this city, Alex? You have a town in here?"
She shook her head. "I was just banished here myself. But... I've been here a few days. I know the city. I know a few places we could set up that would be easy to defend. Other than that, I can only offer my experience."
"If my daughter listened to my experience, she wouldn't have sent me off on this damn bus," someone muttered.
"We know, Gene," the unicorn grunted. "Let's focus on the subject at hand. I agree, we should vote. The vampire should wait outside."
Stanley nodded in agreement. He looked every bit as disturbed by the truth as any of the other passengers. Not that it was easy to tell him apart from any of them. No doubt he had been one of the youngest humans on this bus. Now that they were all ponies, a few decades no longer made a difference. He pushed a lever, and the door opened with a hiss. "You can wait outside while—"
A knife shot through the opening, over Nancy's resting form and into his neck. Stanley dropped, twitching and spluttering, and several ponies charged the stairs. Sturdy-looking earth ponies, covered in scars and lean, just like Robert.
They hit Stanley so hard the knife flew out of his neck, so hard he and the chair broke through the metal sidewall, shattering glass and tumbling down into the dark.
Alex shoved with her hind-legs, shoving Nancy several rows back along the carpet. The tumble would hurt—but it would also put her well into the crowd. She retreated herself, spreading her wings a little and clogging the aisle as several more ponies climbed into the bus. Six in all, all stallions, though there were a few pegasi and one unicorn as well.
It was the unicorn who spoke, over the shouts and the screams and the panic in the back of the bus. "You'll all shut the fuck up!" They did.
"Welcome to New York," he said, even as one of his ponies took the key from the ignition and started fiddling with the dash. One of the earth ponies made their way slowly down the aisle, advancing on Alex. She held still, two rows back, protecting Nancy.
"Here's what happens. You strip down whatever you're wearing. You leave everything on this bus. I let you out one at a time. Stallions get lost, mares stay." He leered down at Alex, meeting her eyes where she stood in the front row. "Any shit from any of you, and you get what the driver got. Got it?"
"What should we do?" She heard the voice, from just a row back, and didn't even have to look back to see the pony was watching her.
She didn't have her gun harness. She didn't have her powered armor, or her earth-pony strength. She didn't even have competent allies—though there were so many of them.
All of the ponies by the door had weapons of their own—the earth pony in front of her had a knife wrapped around one of his forelegs, so that the tip scraped against the ground. Stupid. Limping around like that, dulling the metal.
It didn't matter. There were twenty-five earth ponies in this bus. Incompetent, ignorant, but numerous. Fear alone controlled them now—fear and the terrible barbarism just demonstrated in front of them.
Alex felt it. She was at the very front, the first these barbarians would claim as their spoils. Noble Calling hadn't been lying about what to expect in the city.
There were dozens of terrified eyes on her. In that moment, she felt their futures focusing on her. If she submitted, it would break their will. If she fought...
"How about you all turn and walk away, and we don't tear you to pieces for what you did to our driver," she called, her voice clear enough to echo through the bus. "There's fifty of us. Six of you. I don't like your odds."
"Wrong answer." Something flashed in the air towards her—another knife, covered in rust and corrosion, pushed by a brief glow of magic. Alex was ready for it, and for a second she blurred in the air, slamming one hoof sideways against where it had been, stopping it against the side of the seat.
The unicorn's smugness turned to annoyance as he looked down at her from the back. "Rip the bitch's wings off," he said, waving a hoof dismissively.
The earth ponies charged. Time slowed around her, expressions of fury frozen in mid-charge as they bore down on her. An empty seat beside her was suddenly filled, a towering spearman with bronze skin looking between her and the charging ponies.
"You have a penchant for helpless odds."
Alex took the knife in both hooves, her motions coming painfully slowly in her perceived time. Compared to the charging ponies, though, she was practically a blur. This was the speed of air, a gift she had rarely touched. It was so thoughtful of these murderers to leave the door open and let the wind inside.
Helpless if these six caught me alone on open ground. In here, less so. She couldn't talk, there was no time for that. But she could think. The earth ponies lose their resilience when they leave the ground too far behind. They're eight feet above it now—standing on a plastic floor. Whatever residual they brought with them has worn off already. Those pegasi are both flightless, and their leader can barely use enough magic to throw. He's trying to rip the knife out of my hooves, and he's not strong enough. Besides, so long as I kill at least one of them, the others will help. Unless I'm crushed, these ponies will be trampled.
"You misunderstood me," the spearman said, with a hearty laugh. "When I said the odds were helpless, I did not mean for you."
Guide my hooves, she pleaded. I haven't fought in many years.
"I will help you throw straight and draw heartblood with every stroke."
She was already doing just that, shoving both hooves into the thrust as she took the first stallion right in the eye. She braced against the knife for only a moment, letting the weight of the charge carry it backward into the stallion's brain.
She rolled out of the way, spreading her wings and letting the force of the impact fling her into the air above the seats. She couldn't fly, couldn't even glide really, but that didn't matter. Her balance was perfect, and she landed on the railing, even as the second earth pony tumbled into a heap with the new corpse. "Use the emergency exits!" she shouted back into the bus. "Come at them from both sides!"
A piece of luggage came flying at her, but Alex dodged easily, landing with a skid in the space beside the stairs, only a few feet from the attacking unicorn. He murdered Stanley without even asking for surrender. How many others has he killed?
The tight quarters kept the earth ponies from getting to her, since their own companions were in the way. Still, the unicorn and one of the pegasi could both get at her. The pegasus lunged, knife in his mouth, and he scored a deep gash in one of Alex's forelegs as she dodged a shard of glass that came hurtling at her from behind the unicorn.
She grunted, rolling sideways and letting the knife cut, even as she brought her other leg into the same sort of devastating kick she had used on the griffon at the bloodgate. The unicorn's kneecap proved even less resilient, and he went down with a scream of agony, thumping to the floor.
A brawl had erupted in the back of the bus, and the press of ponies seemed to be surging toward her. Their attackers no longer stood a chance.
The pegasus seemed to know that, because he lunged again, this time trying to get past Alex instead of land any blows on her.
Alex let him finish the slash at open air, then slammed his head sideways into the dashboard with a careful thrust and followed up with a solid kick between his back-legs. The pegasus went down, even as magic flashed again from beside her.
Metal strained, and shattered glass scattered from around them, though nothing went flying towards Alex this time. The unicorn screamed in pain and frustration, trying to struggle back onto his three good legs.
"Hard with broken bones, isn't it?" Alex snapped out with another kick, aimed similarly to the first. The unicorn rolled, taking the force with his shoulder instead. Instead of snapping, he went flying back against the instruments, banging his head against the body of the bus.
He struggled to right himself, but she didn't give him the chance, catching him with both hooves against his shoulders. She slammed his head into the metal wall, horn-first, shoving with all her strength.
The horn might meet the skull, but enough sudden trauma could separate it, shoving the whole mass backward into the brain. It took her three tries before his body stopped twitching, and he dropped limply at her hooves.
The battle was over. Alex stumbled from the bus, hurrying to Stanley's fallen form. She checked, just to make sure the knife in his neck had killed him. It had.
She made it back in time to see the pale unicorn who had suggested leaving to find their families shoving the last of the corpses from the bus. He now looked bruised and a little bloody, just like she did.
"You look bad," he said, looking her over.
"It's not serious." She glanced down once at the wound on her right foreleg. "A few stitches and I'll be fine. Too shallow for the artery."
He got out of the way as someone shoved the limp pegasus she had subdued onto the ground beside the corpses. One of his wings now looked bent the wrong way, but he was still breathing. He appeared to be the only one of their attackers who had survived.
"Not that. I met someone who could fight like you, once. Back in Vietnam... he always had that same expression in his eyes when he was done. Haunted."
She dropped onto her haunches, shivering all over. Killing these criminals hadn't been as easy as the griffon. He had been literally sacrificing people alive with all the callous calculation of a butcher.
These criminals—they had been ordinary people once. Maybe if she had met them sooner, on their own, she could have turned their path another way as she had turned Robert's.
"Don't take this as bragging, Mr..."
"Tom." He sat down beside her, though he mostly seemed to be watching the area around them. He had lost his pants somewhere, though he still had an overlarge jacket and a unit cap. "Just Tom."
"I've fought monsters like them before. I know what they would've done to us. To me." She lowered her voice, barely above a whisper. "I see in their eyes the people they used to be. They're monsters now, but they hardly had the opportunity to be anything else. This place made them this way." She gestured out at the ruins.
Several other ponies made their way out, checking on Stanley or spreading out to watch the nearby bus. Several looked injured, though none badly.
"No." Tom's voice was firm, unapologetic, and he advanced on her, gray eyes intense. "Everyone has a choice. No one forced them to murder Stanley. No one forced them to try and take half of us for..." he trailed off briefly. "They made their choice, and got the just reward. You wouldn't have hurt them if they had left us in peace."
"Yeah." Alex rose to her hooves again, taking one last look at the corpses. "Still want to have your vote? Those might not be the only ponies coming for us."
"We'll still have it," Tom said, rising too. "We won't let evil take away what makes us good. But if it means anything to you, I think my vote has changed. It might change even more if you can drive this bus."
"I know how we can." Alex headed back towards the steps. Nancy met her there, wrapping her in a tight, tearstained hug. She even made a few relieved squeaking sounds.
Alex didn't rush the hug, holding her until she relaxed. "Shh, it's okay... I told you I'd protect you." She hurried the pony back up the steps, trying to block off her line-of-sight to the corpses. "I meant it. It doesn't matter how powerful the bad guys look, got it? We can be stronger than they are. Faster than they are. Smarter."
"Someone bring Stanley's body," Tom called from behind her. "We should bury him when we get wherever we're going."
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I wonder how human they were. Could Alex have pulled that Archive magic and told them their life story? Did she lose some of her strength by killing them?
Or were they just monsters similar to Charybdis' abominations?
Well, at least it wasn't a plane. If it had been there would have been no way she could have helped them. All things considered though I am having a hard time telling if that bus group had awesome luck or terrible luck. Awesome for appearing in a place where Alex could readily help them or terrible for showing up in possibly one of the most dangerous places for them.
Pretty mysterious being guided right to the new arrivals. Dues ex New York?
7715761
They were normal human-turned-ponies, then they began murdering people. They were as human as the rest of the humans around.
7715834 Were or are?
Does the wanton murder of people make someone less human? It's less a question for the story and more a philosophical question.
7715766
Maybe the A.R.R.R. Squad is still kicking in Australia?
7715838 Makes them more human, and less ponies. For Ponies want to group, form herds, and not be violent. It's only human turned ponies that are much more violent and tend to do lots of harm and looting. And those corrupted by the demon guy we all totally forgot about.
So these guys were acting more like Humans, than Ponies they were turned into, which I think was his point.
7715965
The behavior of the "raiders" a few chapters ago rather contradicts that viewpoint.
7715955
If I recall right wasn't that story set 3000 years after the event? That is at least 1500 years in the future from this point. Speaking of this story, I still need to read that latest chapter. Thanks.
These people certainly have a cellphone with them. Maybe Alex can contact Athena with it?
7716035
Ummm... Maybe? All the old satellites would have moved from their orbits and would have likely either left orbit or all fallen to earth by now. It's possible Arthena would have had one built though.
I want to know what happened to Jackie and Ezri. But they never show up. THERE'S SO MANY QUESTIONS! AND YOU KEEP INTRODUCING MORE!
Please, your omnipotence, have mercy!
That was honestly a great introduction of the bus- I could easily picture it as a cinematic jump scare.
And the community continues to grow!
7716028
Truthfully, it isn't really clear what "being human" is supposed to be exactly within this fic. By and large, it's the ponies--ponies who were born ponies--who've constructed the civilizations that are currently active on Earth, even if Alex might find them distasteful, and it's largely the humans-turned-ponies who are acting like animals, at least here and now.
Looks like good old archive hasn't lost her touch! Who/what was that spirit thing that talked to her onthe bus?
7716105
Ah, but mystery is what creates interest, is it not?
7716571 I know, I love the story, and the universe. But I'm also impatient, and curious.
Alex gets all the stallions. I hope there's a Tom or Robert X Alex ship in the future :3
So... is Tom's jacket, particularly the patch, an easter egg?
For the few short lines he got after being introduced, I already think Tom is pretty awesome.
Alex's fight with super-speed was pretty neat too. It's interesting the way she's picking up the ways of fighting with each individual type of magic. Going to be interesting to see what she can do when she can use all of them at once...
7716734
The short chapters don't help there, unfortunately. They do let me update through my insane schedule this semester, but they mean story progress is only a fraction of what I'd want for everypony.
7717446
Hah, it shouldn't surprise me that you're the one to recognize that patch. >.>
7718119 You still haven't answered XD Is he just a fan?
Sad that the driver's life expectancy tripled one minute, and the next he was dead.
This is what you get for doubting the one person who actually knows WTF is going on.
Really good chapter, though this got real dark real quick. Geeze. I hope there's something a little lighter soon.
Ooh, nice patch. Glad I'm not the only one who noticed .
I don't comment nearly half as much as I ought to but wanted to say I love the imagery of the bus suddenly appearing and the gritty but very realistic (for a world of ponies) dark turns are what keep me comming back to this series.
It may be quite late in the verse but I've toyed with the idea of something set in my home city. Got lots of focus on America which is cool but I always wonder how other places have fared.
Appearing in a long abandoned metro network (London tube) would be either terrifying or a death sentence.
7718119
7717446
Hang on a tick… is that a Stargate Command patch?
7715761
Probably as human/pony as anyone else on the bus. They chose to be the way they are though even if the root of it was how things were post-Event. I think she could have but it seems to depend on how much they wanted to be say nice, pleasant ponies to begin with and if they couldn't be convinced quickly they would have posed a serious danger to her and the others. Imagine someone who's a bit of a narcissist and kind of an asshole without a law and societies to constrain them.... People are pretty awful and prone to acting only on our thoughts and feelings.