A Futile Chase

Everypony has their small pleasures in life. For some, it’s just a thing on the side, but for others it’s a secondary way of life. Some will go to the ends of the earth to protect them… And some will do the same to kill a bad habit.

Bang!

The door flew open like a gunshot in the dark, and out of it raced a figure, masked by the dark, his panicked hoofbeats cracking the glass of deadly night-time silence. Another figure darted out after him, hot on his tail, determined to catch up to his quarry.

“Hey, you! Stop! Thief!” the second figure yelled, his voice filled with the purest anger as his pace quickened yet further. Taking little heed of this warning, the other figure merely sped up, determined to escape from his pursuer, his heart beating like a taiko-drum in his chest, his hooves clacking against the cobblestone roads as if he were galloping on sheet ice.

The first figure turned a corner, hoping against hope to lose the furious stallion intent on his capture. He had worked so hard to obtain the treasure now firmly clenched between his teeth, and he was not about to let all of his efforts go to shit. This had been planned for months. The set-up, the entrance, every single precise movement that had to be made had been calculated and performed to the letter. If only he hadn’t knocked over that Celestia-damned table lamp and damn near woken up everybody in the building, including the one who he was so desperately trying to evade now, he would now be far, far away from here, someplace where he could dispose of this evil, evil object.

“You can’t run forever! I’ll catch you, you bastard!”

The bellowing voice of the pursuer brought the thief back to his senses. He turned a hard left, hoping that his pursuer would not see him do so but alas, the noise of the chase had disturbed the peaceful tranquility of Ponyville’s night - ponies were waking up, throwing open their windows to see just what exactly was going on. The whole town had changed suddenly - from a tranquil calm town in the middle of the night to a buzzing hive of whispers, murmurs and hoofbeats on the dark roads. An open window had illuminated the thief completely, allowing the pursuer a glimse of the thief’s identity… A Pegasus of a medium build, with a dark-green coat, a chestnut-brown mane and a cutie mark depicting a strand of DNA.

The pegasus cursed inwardly as both he and his quarry groud to a halt. For but a moment, it seemed that the silence had returned… But not the calm, tranquil silence of before… A tense, suspenseful silence, as the pursuer recognised the thief’s identity…

“You! I knew it was you, it had to be! You’ve been talking about it for so long, and now you finally act! But you win’t succeed, and you know it!”

The Pegasus’s cover was blown, and if he didn’t do something fast, this was not going to end well. Thinking quickly, and with the newfound agility of a tiger, he turned round, assumed a crouched position and projected his back legs into the other pony’s face, with the force of a battering-ram. Taking advantage of his enemy’s dazed state, he took off again, his situation now all the more desparate.

But in spite of the damage to his face, the pursuer once again resumed the chase, once again in pursuit of the Pegasus, intent on retrieving that which was so important to him.

The pegasus looked back… In a way, the pony now chasing him was right, he couldn’t run forever… and his hooves were beginning to give out. But he still had a distinct advantage over the pony behind him… Lightly jumping into the air, the Pegasus extended his wings, allowing them to fill with air before speeding off faster than most ponies could run. He looked behind him, seeing his protesting follower struggling to catch up, only just hearing his violent retorts…

“This is NOT over, you hear me? This is NOT over!”

The Pegasus sighed. He knew it wasn’t over, especially now that this incident had occurred… But he didn’t quite know that it was going to continue in just a few seconds…

One could almost hear the crunching of bones as the Pegasus, not looking where he was going, collided headlong with an oncoming wall. His wings still kept beating for a few seconds before they stopped, and his body slowly dropped to the ground.

The pain spreading throughout his body, the Pegasus damned his foolish confidence. Had it not been for this stupid object which now lay broken in his mouth, none of this would have happened… His pursuer was catching up to him now, walking slowly towards him… This was defeat…

“Oh, darn, you broke it?”

The pursuer stepped into the light, revealing himself as an Earth pony, about the same height as the Pegasus, but with a beige coat, a slightly burgundy mane and no cutie mark. Obviously, the situation slowing down slightly had offered him the chance to calm down a little.

“Why the f**k did you steal it anyway?”

The Earth pony turned to the unopened bottle of vodka-infused cider hanging out of the Pegasus’s mouth, now trickling onto the street.

For the first time in what seemed like an hour, the Pegasus spoke, letting the broken bottle slip out of his mouth.

“I’d heard rumours about this stuff - I thought you were going a bit too far.”

“Dude, I’m ALWAYS going too far.”

“I should have guessed you’d say something like that…”

And, in the mother of all anticlimaxes, the Pegasus got up and began heading home with the Earth pony, amidst a shower of complaints from the neighboring houses. This evening had been eventful… But the Pegasus had a feeling that this wasn’t over, and that he’d now have to try even more intricate methods to try and get his friend off the booze...