The Fast, Dangerous and the Furious

Chapter Two: Abandoned

Thunder rumbled above us while we continued to trudge aimlessly down the road. It felt like days since we had left, and that was the best part. In all honesty we had walked for just a couple of hours, but with each step away from those walls our mood became increasingly and infinitely better. You know, aside from the depressing sight of no other ponies being around for miles we’re doing just fine.

Every so often I took a glance up at the clouds feeling a raindrop or two hit my muzzle. Silver Shoe occasionally started firing her gun at random plants, she even tried doing trick shots to keep the game interesting. That was until she realized we had no idea where to get more ammo from. Thankfully she still had a full box of ammo in her saddle bags. She let out a quick sigh and looked at me. “You think Oak Tree’s going to be alright?” No clue, but if I had to guess, so long as the cops don’t check behind the bookshelf then he’ll be fine.

“He can be pretty spry when he needs to be.” I rubbed my eyes yawning.

"Spry," Silver Shoe snorted. "He’s only spry when he’s fighting over a bag of chips. With himself.” Or trying to get back on his couch.

I started laughing. The sad part in all of this was that she was actually right. Silver Shoe galloped forward and jumped over a fence. “Hey, let’s check this out!” I l looked at a hill with dried up grass covering it. At the top of it was a two story house that looked like a small breeze would send it toppling down. It made a slight shift as a small gust of wind went by. I hesitated a little but jumped over the fence anyway.

The closer we got to the house I could see it was in more of a shamble than I had first thought. Windows were dusted over to the point they had a brownish tint that actually looked like they were made that way, along with more than their fair share of cracks spider webbing in every direction. The wood along the balcony had rotted away, but was still somehow intact to the rest of the house. I set one hoof on the front step and the entire thing creaked. “Why are we going in here again?” My eyes scanned the home one more time before trotting up to the front door.

Silver Shoe walked up after me setting her hoof on the rotted railing. It snapped off. Her horn lit up and kept her from falling down. “Feisty son of bitch ain’t she.” She set her hooves down and her horn stopped glowing. I moved over to one of the windows trying to wipe away some of the dust. It was tinted brown! Bull shit. Dust can’t do that! Can it? “I just want to check and see if there’s a map inside. I don’t want to hear you complain when we get lost.” I rolled my eyes.

One time. I complain one time and never hear the end of it.

Wouldn’t need to complain if your sense of direction didn’t get us lost half the time we went somewhere.

“I know that look. Stop thinking that.” I stopped and looked at her. I hate when she does that. Silver Shoe nonchalantly knocked on the door and it fell to the ground kicking up clouds of dust with it. We both started coughing while I waved my hoof around trying to send the dust cloud away.

The dust began clearing and we were greeted to the sight of books, desks, boxes, couches and beds all thrown around. From the looks of it any one of them would turn to dust the minute we touched them. The walls had faded from a brown color to a charcoal black. Silver Shoe turned her flashlight on shining it around. “Come on. Let’s have a look around.” She looked back at the door and chuckled. Feisty little bitch is good description for this place.

I started looking around the kitchen, mostly for essentials like ammo and water, but nothing of the sort. Wait.

I pulled open a cabinet and found a box of pistol ammo. Opened it, but nothing. My ears drooped down. That about sums up my luck since we left. My chest puffed up and I let out a low sigh. Sometimes scavenging just felt like a big hassle. I pulled open another drew to find several bullets. And sometimes it gives me exactly what I need!

My horn lit up, levitating the bullets up. They were rifle bullets. And sometimes it just gets on my damn nerves! AGH!

“Hey, a rifle!” Silver Shoe called out from the other room. I groaned floating the bullets over to her. I’ll find something, I always do. Not bad finding the rifle though, I’m sure it’ll come in use at some point or another.

I pulled open all the drawers and managed to find enough bullets to refill my ammo clip at least once. Not the best find, but not the worst either. Once I was done I trotted back out and could hear Silver Shoe humming while she was flank deep inside of a box. Her tail swished back and forth like a dog looking for something buried in the backyard. Everything inside started rustling around with clinking sounds. I started opening boxes and started to notice something. These walls were burned, not rotting. I mean, it was rotting, but most of the black marks around the room were scorch marks. “We should really get out of here as soon as we can. I’d hate to meet the pony that treats this place like a fire pit.” All Silver Shoe gave me was a hoof wave from inside her box. I went back to scavenging. Book. Burned. Spell book. Burned. Half eaten jewel. No thanks. Nothing.

I looked at the wall behind the box and almost lost my last meal. Blood was staining the wall. Yikes. This place is starting to give me the creeps. Freaking Silver Shoe over there just looking in the box like there’s not a care in the world. How the hell does she do that anyway? The box tipped over sending her rolling out.

The next place I searched in was the den. Nothing really stood out. The bed was covered in dried mud, a fold out table laid collapsed on the ground near some clothes that smelled so bad my face felt like it was going to melt off. “So what was your sister like?” I called out to Silver Shoe while I looked under the bed. OH SHIT!

A rat ran out from underneath, fleeing straight to a hole in the wall. My chest puffed in and out while I slowly moved my hoof away from my heart. “She’s the coolest person I know and one of the, if not the, fastest flier that ever came out of our District.” Hmm. That’s pretty impressive. Wait. Fast flier. That means she was probably into gliders!

I started looking around the room again. Nothing under the bed, sadly. “What type of glider did she use? What was her best time? Was she good at sharp turns? Can’t tell you how many fliers suck at that.” My question was shrugged off with a simple hum as if she didn’t know. Odds are she probably didn’t remember.

“Oh cool,” her voice was muffled.

I trotted back out into the living room and saw another overturned box with some papers spilling out of it. Silver Shoe? I heard a cough. Still didn’t see any pony around. I looked in the kitchen. No pony there. I looked up at the second story and didn’t see her near the railing. The problem was that I could hear her clearing her throat.

Sliver Shoe’s head appeared in midair! “Check this out, it’s an invisibility spell that came with a cloak to cast the spell on!” Her head moved around in circles while I took a look at the diagram on the papers. Looks like this spell can only be used on small objects like blankets. Hmm. I have no use for that spell. “How do I look?” I looked back up at Silver Shoe.

“Transparent.”

Silver Shoe’s magic wrapped around what I assumed was the cloth making it visible again. The cloth was a very beautiful shade of dark blue with stars printed on it that glistened every time some light was shown on it. “Finders keepers.” I rolled my eyes at her. She gets a rifle and a cloak. Now see that’s a good find! I’ll just stick with my bullets. Before I knew it Silver Shoe was galloping up the stairs going on to explore the other rooms. Doors opened and closed above me. I looked around once more spying a door she had missed. My horn lit up doing it's best to push the door open. It stopped quarter swing.

I walked over to it focusing my magic a bit more. Wouldn’t budge at all. With a great deal of effort I managed to painfully wedge my head far enough in to see nothing but total darkness. I mean the tunnels were dark, but this was pitch black with only the light from my horn lighting it up a little. A dresser was wedged between the door and wall. Not sure how it got there, but I can guess that it’s not going to be there for long. Blue magic from my horn wrapped around the dresser, ripping it away. The thing tilted to the left and crashed down on the bed forcing it to collapse. Dust rose up making me cough. I pushed the door open letting myself in.

I shined my flashlight around and found photos of a family. A stallion, mare, and two foals with an extra splash of dried blood on the frame. I tossed it on top of the dresser. A lantern lay on the ground next to one of the broken dresser legs. I set it down on top of a small table turning the small switch. It lit up!

The flame went from a small spark to a decent roaring flame that lit up most of the room. My shadow danced around while the flame flickered about. The wall in front of me had photos of several dozen mares and stallions all with different colored string going from one group to another. A tack was stuck to one of the strings with a title for the wall, 'The Cure.' Cure? Cure for what? My inability to come up with a decent one liner for this? Nah. I’m not that lucky. “Ignore it Runner, just a bunch of crazy pony stuff.” I kept repeating that to myself until it sunk in.

I flipped through a stack of papers see nothing but science mumbo jumbo. Couldn’t really make any sense of it, but from what I could tell the pony trying to find this so called cure didn’t give up. That earns a little respect. “What's this?” I bent down and picked up a smiling clown mask, it’s right eye hole was scraped apart although I’m not sure why. Turning it over, I found burn marks around the edges. “Celestia, help the poor ponies that were in this place.” I levitated the mask up to my face before taking a look at a mirror attached to the door. Yikes. It was as if I was staring at a twisted mentally unstable pony that was probably the reason all of this stuff was in here. Clown scientist. That’s a new one. I threw the mask down and left the room, letting the door shut behind me. Why is it so quiet in here? Might as well go look for Silver Shoe. I walked up the stairs listening to them creak with each step.

Once I found Silver Shoe I began to slow my pace. She was peeking into a room but not moving. I slowed to a light trot and put my hoof on her shoulder. “Hey, you alright?” Silver Shoe was practically holding her breath. She moved away from the room and leaned against a table to keep her balance. I looked inside the … whoa.

I shut the door and blinked. My eyes looked down at the rotting floor.

I … I can’t even begin to describe the slaughter fest in that room. Blood was … everywhere. Bodies. Just … their spines were used as ... I need to leave this place. We need to leave this place.

I got close to Silver Shoe and looked at her. She was shaken up. It was like she was finally figuring out that everything outside the walls wasn’t going to be sunshine and rainbows. Which I had only seen a few times since the weather was almost always cloudy. “Runner, can we please go?” I nodded. I slowly exhaled and started trotting down the steps. I spared that door one more glance.

I shuddered.

“You’ve never told me how you got interested in flying gliders.” I stopped at the bottom step and looked at Silver Shoe while she followed me. I hadn’t told her that story? It wasn’t really a story, but if it would take her mind off of this then I’d tell her.

“Well there’s not much to it. My father and his best friend were always racing around the District. Eventually I started helping him out and there you have it. Glider enthusiast for life.” Silver Shoe chuckled giving me a light nudge. We left the house and sealed the door back with our magic. It wouldn’t stand up to another pony knocking on it, but it would hold against some decent gust of winds. Don’t ask me how. Magic is magic.

Once we reached the road I took the bandage off my leg from the night before. I set my leg down, feeling no pain; we started moving again. Silver Shoe kept taking glances at my formerly injured leg. “So what happened back at your place?” I had been thinking about that for a while. Only good answer that came to mind was some pony overheard us and spilled the beans. Either that or the Chief had just figured out it was us. Or better yet my mother threw me under the glider, but she wouldn't do that. It didn’t really matter which it was though since I couldn’t go back in without being noticed.

My mind tossed around those scenarios until they all reached the point where the Chief was waiting for both of us in my attic. I guess all roads lead to that moment. Something tells me that he was trying to catch both me and Silver Shoe, but lucky for us we weren’t together. “The Chief showed up and had the Intel from our last job. He put two and two together. I won’t be going back their anytime soon, he saw my face.” The sound of rustling stopped us in our tracks. The tall grass next to the road moved around until a mare fell against the concrete, blood spilling from all over.

We ran over to her just in time to see the life in her eyes slowly pull away. She opened her mouth and just lay there. Silver Shoe kept calling out to her saying “Miss” or “Hey, come on you’re going to be all right.” I kept my eyes on the tall grass breaking apart while a wagon moved towards us. The driver wasn’t visible, but I got the sense this wasn’t a friendly pony. I bit down on Silver Shoe’s pink mane tearing her off the road. She yelled at me in resistance until I finally threw us behind a large overturned tree and put my hoof over her mouth.

“Keep quiet and stay down,” I growled. Silver Shoe vanished under her cloak. I lay against the ground and got a good look at the wagon pulling up. It was one of those old styled ice cream wagons ponies used to swarm after. And it had … blood staining the side with the words 'The Cure' painted on the side of it. The blood stains are getting a little overrated. So whoever this is believes in 'The Cure,' bull shit.

“Sour Tooth, is it her … I mean, boss!”

A gunman climbed on top of the wagon and started look around while a mean and rough looking stallion stepped out from the back. He was wearing a clown mask, body armor with pistol holsters strapped to both sides with a spare on his back for a shotgun and his mane was, LITTERALLY ON FIRE! His mask gave the nearly mutilated mare the creepiest smile I had ever seen. I could feel the nightmares clawing at the back of my skull. It burned. I swallowed and felt my chest ready to explode. My heart wanted to bust out of my rib cage and just run. Hop on a boat and go to the dragon lands on the other side of the world. I tried to look at Silver Shoe, but she was still hiding under her spell.

The stallion called Sour Tooth walked over to the mare and pushed her lifeless body around with his boot. He looked in our direction … my direction. He just stared. His hooves moved in our direction. Rain began to pour and thunder rolled. Sour Tooth faced his gunman. “No, just more trash on the side of the road.” His horn lit up, at least I think it did, the fire made it almost impossible to tell if he was using a spell or not. He climbed back into his wagon and it moved back into the tall grass eventually leaving us behind.

Silver Shoe became visible again. There wasn't any time to stop her before she ran to the mare. I followed. We stared at the mare for what felt like ages, just letting the rain pour down on us. I could finally feel it. That fine line between District life and Equestria had become clear to both of us. We didn’t know this place aside from the books we had read. If this is what we are expecting to run into on a regular basis then we better get used to it.

*** ***

Graffiti. Graffiti everywhere!

We walked into a rundown town with graffiti decorating almost every visible wall, most of which wasn’t even good. The picture that seemed to be plastered around the most was a red hooded grim reaper with tusks. The rain had lightened up and lightning seemed to be nonexistent, which didn’t bother me one bit. Silver Shoe sat down on a bench in front of what used to be an old fountain, half of it was crumbled around here, there, and throughout most of the other side of town. “Did you ever find your map?” I trotted away from one of the dozens of stores and saw Silver Shoe getting up. She shook her head.

“I’m going to have a look around,” she said pushing open a door to a fashion store. She mumbled to herself, “If I were a map where would I be?” Something on the ground made her stop in her tracks. She picked up a flyer and read it a few times. I walked over to her and looked down at it. It had dozens of blinding colors with rides and games for ponies of all ages.

Pinkie Pie’s Party Time Fun Land!

Home of the Pinkie Party Ride!

Located: Just outside of Lake Water.

Silver Shoe crumpled it up, tossing it in a trashcan. She tapped her hoof and looked at me with a smile. “I want to go visit that carnival.” That’s something she’s wanted to do ever since she found my book on things ponies used to do before the Districts were built. There also used to be a lot of fairs. Silver Shoe trotted off to one of the stores, but I could tell she wasn’t going to let this carnival thing go.

I started looking around. My eyes were constantly alert for signs of other ponies. The empty feeling in the town, aside from there being one other pony in the town, was driving me crazy. So far we had seen four other ponies. One dead, one clown, one wagon driver and a gunman. Nothing else. My attention was drawn to a sign hanging above a broken door.

Enriched Comics: Trade in Your Old Comics for In-Store Credit.

“That sounds interesting.” I walked inside.

Most of the place was trashed, but most of the comics looked intact. My horn lit up and I levitated a few of them over along with one actual book. Grand Theft Glider, The Walking Undead, Iron Stallion, The Incredible Flutterhulk by Spike the Dragon, Daring Do and the Griffons Goblet, and Swordmares issue one. I have to admit that mare on the Daring Do book was actually kind of hot, in a normal way. What the hell is wrong with the mares in Swordmares? They’re all hot, but dear Celestia at some point you want them to look normal. Not nearly disfigured with excessive flank bearing armor. And if I feel that strongly about it then I should probably give it a read. Nothing like reading a comic that makes you ask why the author even made it in the first place.

I looked back at Grand Theft Glider and noticed it was issue one of ninety one. Screw that. I couldn’t collect that many comics. Wait. I looked back at Swordmares. “Issue one of forty five.” Sold. I wonder if there are any more of these.

I pushed a few comic racks back up and spun them around. Nothing really interesting stood out to me. I mean other than the same issues I had already found. Nope. Seen it. Seen it. Looks like crap. “Runner, let’s get moving!” I looked out the window and saw Silver Shoe staring at something on the window. I put my issue of Swordmares away and galloped out of the store. Silver Shoe pointed at the grim reaper artwork covering a lot of the buildings around us. “I wonder why this is spray painted all over town.”

CRACK!

The window exploded in front of us!

I jumped back and looked around for the pony shooting at us. Silver Shoe dove away from the wall and stared back at the shattered window. Another loud crack went off. “AGH!” Warm blood ran down my ear. I pressed my hoof against it and galloped into the fashion store with Silver Shoe. Another window exploded behind us while we found a place to hide. Silver Shoe dove behind an overturned desk while I took shelter inside of a closet. My eyes frantically looked around the room until I found … medical kit!

CRACK!

“Yeah, hide in that store, see if that helps!”

I ripped the kit from the wall looking through it with my free hoof. A rag and some wrapping tape. That’s all, but it’ll do. I wrapped the rag around my ear and covered it with tape. “That should hold for now.” I tried to poke my head out the door until part of the wood exploded near me. I stumbled back inside, falling over a mop bucket. Silver Shoe tried to look over the desk, but nonstop shots kept her pinned down. I took a glance around the open door and couldn’t see much except for part of the buildings across the street. Bastard has the high ground on us.

My horn lit up. I focused my magic around a few objects at once, something I was used to only doing with Silver Shoe. With a deep breath I slowly lifted the manikins. I managed to move them a couple of hoof steps before I had to set them down. One of the manikin heads exploded into bits and pieces. I took in another deep breath focusing my magic on the manikins. Whoever was shooting at us obviously couldn’t tell a real pony from a fake one. The rest of the manikins went down. Whoever it was, wasn’t alone.

I started looking around and found a window right above where the medical kit had been. Silver Shoe groaned and crawled over to the back door. My horn lit up and I tossed the mop bucket out.

It was shot right out of the air.

“Come out come out wherever ya’ll are. Come on, where ya hiding?”

I scrambled up to the window shoving it open. Silver Shoe grabbed my hoof and pulled me outside. “Damn sniper. We need to go anywhere, but here.” The buildings next to us made it impossible to see where the sniper was. Normally I would try to sneak around and get whoever it was from behind, but since we’re in a town that’s not so abandoned anymore we can’t take that risk.

“You okay,” I started breathing hard looking around for any pony trying to follow us on hoof.

No pony yet. That was a good sign. Silver Shoe looked herself over. “Just a few grazes. Let’s try and get out of town before trigger happy over there figures out we aren’t hiding anymore.” Couldn’t agree more. We started galloping down the alley. The gunfire in the store had ceased. Silver Shoe dove behind a trashcan while three ponies all armed with guns galloped around the corner. She pulled out her rifle and sunk a shot right into one of their flanks. One of them tackled me against the wall, I bucked him off. The stallion pulled out his pistol and tried to shoot Silver Shoe in the back. My horn lit up.

WHACK!

I brought a trash can down on top of him, hard. He hit the ground and I pulled out my pistol. The other thug was keeping well hidden behind another trash bin. Silver Shoe shot it several times until the pony retreated back for more cover. I unloaded my clip at him, but missed every shot. Voices started shouting from inside the fashion store. We need an out. Where …

WHACK!

I leaned against the wall and looked behind me just in time to see a pony holding a trash can in his levitation field. Darkness followed.