Apocalypse Quest to Equestria Ch4

>They checked their gear, finished their breakfast of Doritos and cola, far less than the calories they needed, but it would have to do.
>They emptied their packs again, trying to travel as light as possible so they can bring back as many supplies as they could.
>The first thing on the list was laptops, a whole lot of them. It wasn’t the actual laptops they needed, rather the components.
>The shut-ins may be incompetent at surviving, but they could at least get the portal running again when given what they needed.
>Not like Anon or Daniel knew how the thing worked, once again, their trust and camaraderie was built entirely off of circumstance.
>The clattering noise went off, Anon had since learned that the ‘alarm’ that Daniel tripped was a wire with a series of tin cans, crude but effective.
>He could hear the duo on guard again. For being so skinny they could really yell, Anon guessed that’s why they were put on watch.
>”GET ON THE GROUND!”
>Daniel looked up, sighed, and gumbled out;
>”Guess we should check it out, huh bro?”
>Anon was about to respond when a new voice called out.
>”NO, YOU GET ON THE GROUND!”
>With that nugget of information both Daniel and Anon grabbed their weapons and sprinted down the hall and up the stairs.

>They came out into the hall and quickly took positions on either side of the front doors, the same two from the other day were on guard.
>However the guy with the cheap katana upgraded to the .380, a quick look over confirmed it.
>There were two diesel trucks, Anon recognized then as 70s era Scottsdales, those were the only type of vehicals seen anymore.
>After all diesel doesn’t go stagnant like gasoline does, however judging by the smell they weren’t running on diesel.
>There was a man and a woman standing on the first truck, rifles out; the driver has a .357 pointed out the side at the two shut-ins.
>The second truck however carried a couple of families, crowded around shotguns and pistols, scared and unsure about what was going to happen.
>Anon ducked behind the door frame, and called out while Daniel ran up the stairs for a better firing angle, if things turned south they would be ready.
“Everyone just calm down! Let’s not be hasty about his!”
>There was a rustle as a couple of barrels pointed at Anon’s position.
“Just put down your guns, they aren’t bandits! What kind of bandits keep children with them?!”
>The female shut in with the mosin shouted back.
>”What if it’s a trick?”
>Anon smacked his head against the wall behind him in agitation, he was never in the mood for a gunfight.
>His hands were actually trembling slightly.

“Use your head, what kind of bandit takes all their supplies on a raid?”
>A couple more seconds of silence.
>”If I die I’m going to be super fucking angry.”
>With that there was a metallic clatter as the shut-ins put down their weapons.
>”Alright, you there, the talking one, show yourself!”
>Anon complied, slowly shuffling out into the light, his rifle pointed at the floor with his right hand his left on held out in front of him in a disarming gesture.
“Let’s not be too hasty now”
>Dear lord was his rifle hand shaking now, the dust cover even rattled against its spring.
>He wasn’t the only one however, the guy with the .357 didn’t look to sure either.
>Slowly everyone started lowering their weapons, Anon felt a wave of relief wash over him, like a glass of cool water after walking though Death Valley.
>There was a quick spike in tension when the shut-ins picked up their weapons, but it passed quickly no one wanting to go back to earlier.
“So I guess you’re here for the portal?”
>Anon said this as he gestured to the sun bleached, dust covered plushy hanging from the mirror.
>The man standing on the bed of the truck holding a Kalashnikov slowly nodded his head.
“These two here should lead you to Helen, we have quite the rocky road before that things working again.”
>”It’s not working?”
“Not yet, but it will soon, and everything –“
>”is going to be aces.”

>The new group settled in quite nicely, not that Daniel or Anon knew about it as they were still going floor by floor through the UCLA campus dorms.
>It was the same shit every single floor, set up tripwire in stairwell, go through every single room, drawer by drawer, shelf by shelf, and inch by fucking inch.
>After the first floor they had already netted several laptops and about twenty pounds of other useful supplies.
>As they progressed up the floors the humid LA heat became unbearable, Anon already noticed himself messing up small things.
>Like forgetting to check the ceiling panels. Lots of useful things up there.
>Once they finished the first building they took a quick break in the dorms communal bathroom, Daniel lifted up the cistern lid on one of the toilets.
>Daniel pulled out a little filtered water pump, the same one used at the river, and set to work as Anon started lining up the other water bottles they found.
>Suddenly Daniel spoke up, his voice thin and a little dry from the onerous heat.
>”B-bro, do you think that we’re running away or something?”
>Anon simply sat in the doorway keeping an eye down the hall, the LA heat causing all his clothes and gear to stick to him.
“Elaborate, please.”
>”I mean, like, these ferals right? Were they just running away from their lives, like, did they just give it all up? I mean what makes a person to do that shit man?”
>Anon looked over a wry smile on his lips and eyes.
“What compels someone to fuck horses?”
>Daniel let out a dry chuckle as he switched the bottles and kept going on the filter pump.
>”Bro, that question was hella serious.”

>Anon let out a combination of a sight and a groan, he had given this question some thought.
“Yes, we are. Really we are exactly the same as they were. I mean, look at us, I’m sure if we walked for even a week we would find another small settlement willing to take us in.”
>Daniel’s effort faltered for a moment, he stopped, put down the pump and directed his attention at Anon.
>”Not really filling me with optimism man.”
>Anon sighed again before ripping out a piece of the linoleum floor that had been weakened, without any real thought he tossed it out and down the hall.
“It’s not supposed to, hell; even before all this shit it was still just another venue of escapism. As I said earlier, were just like those ferals, except that their method was much more physical. Still, something to work towards.”
>”Something to live for?”
“No, more like something to strive for.”
>Daniel went back to the pump seeing that the conversation was over, Anon barely heard him mutter.
>”Same thing.”
>The last two floors went just as quietly and as smoothly as the others, but a sort of thick atmosphere hung about them.
>Anon knew that Daniel was going to bring up his question again, he wasn’t looking forward to it.

>The sun started to set; Daniel and Anon gathered up the days salvage and quietly made their way back to the physics department.
>They took turns covering each other and ducking from cover to cover, it was almost night, and getting caught out after dark was a bad idea.
>They made it back as the last rays were going out, the people on guard changed, some of the caravaners from earlier.
>They were waved in without hesitation.
>Once the laptops were dropped off Helen introduced the two groups. I was incredible how good she was at this.
>With that the two friends slowly performed their nightly rituals before turning in to sleep.

>Anon slowly unfurled himself from the wet asphalt, he didn’t know how long he had been there.
>He took a quick look around, the National Guard blockade was absolutely destroyed.
>A couple bodies, human and feral, remained stuck in the razor wire. Otherwise there were drag marks showing where the others had been taken.
>He slowly stood up, his mind slowly beginning to come back, without thinking he adjust the straps on his pack, mostly to make sure it was still there.
>Anon took a small step forward, just to bring some feeling back, but his foot caught on a foreign object.
>He stumbled a bit and looked down to see what it was.

>A small backpack, maybe for a child or jogger, but that wasn’t what stopped him.
>It was the small glint of bright colors; he reached down, and put his hand through the torn opening.
>When he brought it back the sight of two crossed eyes greeted him, it was a small keychain, obviously custom made.
>The paint was a little worn from use, but the previous owner obviously loved it very much, enough to put in some effort to repair the grey paint, and coil of bubbles on the mares flank.
>The off center eyes brought a brief smile to Anon, he didn’t know what changed in him, but something did.
>As he searched through the remains of the blockade a slow thought kept looping itself through his head.
>He had to find them, he simply had to, if only to tell them how much better they made his life.
>How, even if he couldn’t participate, it was enough for him to sit back and know that they were happy, or at least content.
>He remembered seeing something about a new portal in the news a day or so before the power went out.
>There was something to strive for.

>This time Anon woke up before Daniel, he considered a prank, but decided against it.
>He looked over at the hall, they didn’t have a door, just a little section of cloth separating them from the hall.
>Beyond the cloth he could hear some of the Caravaners changing their watch, tired shuffling headed back in to sleep through the day.
>Anon slung his rifle, holstered his sidearm (Daniel had since informed him it was a sig), he looked at his web belt, and decided to leave it.
>He left down the hall, stopped by the newly established mess hall, it was really just a storage closet the caravaners had emptied out and set up a propane stove.
>It felt good to finally have some warm food, even if Anon couldn’t identify what he was eating, but he had since learned to stop tasting and stop question his food.
>He slowly meandered his way down to large room where the portal was being assembled; Helen was there, working diligently, as ever.
>Anon slowly picked his way through the computer parts, all the laptops they had brought had been broken apart and were now spread out over tarps.
>Even the screens were being saved.
>Helen spotted Anon coming through the dense array of parts and waved him over.
>He had to wonder how blind she would actually be without those glasses. She began to speak as he got closer.
>”He-hey thanks for getting these laptops and all, I thought about asking for full-sized towers, but I didn’t know if you could carry that much, are you guys feeling ready for another trip out, I mean, the caravaners can scav for food and stuff while you guys get the necessary parts, right?”
>Anon had to stop for a second to digest all this new barrage of information.
“Yes… You alright?”

>”Me? Oh yeah, I’m fine, just been up all night with a couple others breaking all this stuff down so we could see if we had enough parts. I sent a couple of people to the roof top to clean the panels so power shouldn’t be a problem but we might not have enough batteries to store up the power, you see this portal doesn’t require a whole lot to keep it open, but tearing a new rift takes a whole lot of power. So we need batteries to overcome the initial power, kinda like a chemical reaction.”
“Ok… So what do we need?”
>”Well, we just really need time, car batteries, copper piping, some wire, and a part known as JA-253 that was being co-developed at USC. The part needs to come first as it is one of the key components of this whole assembly, and it also needs to be file fitted into place around  section 53-F and 53-A, also here take this, one for Danny boy as well, some of the caravaners children made them.”
>She almost punched Anon while attempting to hand him a couple of lanyards.
>”I-I need to go lie down now… or is it lay down… Either way, the part should be somewhere in the physics lab.”
>Helen stumbled off into the metal array, presumably towards a bed.
>Anon promptly turned around, and began tying the lanyard to his .45 and the other end he affixed with a carabineer to his belt.
>Daniel was awake now, eating his warm mush of the unknown, looking like death himself.
>Anon tossed the lanyard to Daniel, he failed to comprehend the moving object; it bounced off his face and fell on the bed.
>”Not… not now bro.”
“I presume you slept poorly”
>That was the end of the conversation as Daniel refused to respond. Once he finished his mush and got dressed and kitted they moved back up the stairs.
>They left out the door, only to be stopped by the caravaners on watch.
>”Hey buddy! Where you headed off to?”
>Daniel was still waking up, so Anon took it upon himself to respond.

“USC, need to go pick up something called…”
>He looked down on the note he had written for himself.
“JA-253”
>”Huh, no clue what that is but we got a couple guys going out for a supply run with the trucks.”
>Anon nodded a thanks and gave Daniel a pat on the shoulder to bring him back to the real world.
>The trucks were being stored between the library wings, there really wasn’t many other places to conspicuously keep vehicles.
>Daniel woke up a little more on the short walk over.
>Which was good, Anon didn’t want to have to drag him across the USC campus.
>The caravaners weren’t ready to leave yet, they were still working on the days fuel.
>One of the caravaners traded Anon and Daniel a couple of cigarettes for a pack of gum, Daniels little treat for the day.
>Anon sat down on the yellowed grass and enjoyed his cigarette while the caravaners worked on making their black diesel for the day.
>Without any real thought or effort he reached into his pocket and pullet out the little keychain, he held up with one hand.
>Was her name Derpy or Ditzy?
>Not like it really mattered, he could ask her when they got there.
>Huh, what would be the first thing he would do? Go to Sugarcube Corner? The library, if it’s there? Carousel Boutique?
>Huh, he never considered it really. Once again, not that it mattered… yet.
>There was the staccato chugging as the diesel engine started up, all parties present stood up and hopped into the bed of the truck.
>Anon took a last drag of his cigarette, he could taste the filter, climbed up into the bed.
>He looked down at the keychain, soon he would know her name, soon.

>The truck only took them halfway there, which was fine, the truck attracted a whole lot of unessiary attention.
>Anon could see the faces of ferals peeing out of the storm drains and alleyways to investigate the noise.
>They even attracted a couple bandit snipers, they couldn’t manage more than a few pot shots, and none of them remotely close.
>The truck slowed down, they vaulted over the side, and without a word or farewell the truck took off again.
>Anon and Daniel sprinted down the street and around the corner, looking to put distance between them and the source of noise.
>They rounded the corner and ducked into cover behind some cement outcroppings.
>They waited, nothing.
>They waited some more, still nothing.
>Finally Daniel stuck his VZ’s barrel out and then a hand, finally his head.
>No shots, no ferals, they were in the clear.
>With that they began their trek to USC. They reached visual distance of the USC campus maybe a couple of hours before sundown.
>It was mutually agreed upon to spend the night in one of the buildings nearby and get a fresh start the next day.
>Anon shot out the lock to a small convinence store, and stood watch outside while Daniel cleared the shop.
>With that they snagged a few forgotten trinkets and a half used pack of Marlboro mediums.
>They entered the store room, pushed a storage rack in front of the door, and sat down to have a few cigarettes in lieu of dinner.

>Another night, another memory.
>Anon had been walking for days, or weeks, he no longer knew.
>He only had an expired tourist map and the sunrise to guide him.
>He had long ago stopped thinking, just put one foot in front of the other these he would at some point reach LA.
>The roads were too dangerous, roving gangs, ex-military, and just jumpy hungry people.
>At least he had a purpose, many people were simply cast about and scattered.
>The only thing more dangerous than an armed man, who hasn’t eaten in weeks, is an armed man who hasn’t eaten in a couple weeks without a purpose.
>Anon always assumed that come this kind of scenario new settlements would be made around farming, he was wrong.
>With a good majority of the US crops being terminator seeds there was simply nothing left to grow.
>So there he was, just putting one foot in front of the other, no other option, just keep moving.
>A sudden boom of a shotgun caused him to instinctively crouch down, he didn’t even go for his rifle, he just covered his head.
>Another couple small pops of a handgun, followed by a short chatter of an automatic.
>Then relative silence, there were still the groans of the dying and a couple cries.
>Anon finally gathered his wits, picked up his rifle, and slowly crawled his way to see what was happening.
>In a small ravine with a creek he could see it.
>There were two dead, one male one female. One was face down in the creek quite obviously dead, a large exit wound from a shotgun slug right where the heart should be.
>His revolver discarded in moss by his hand.
>The other one, was holding onto a small caliber target rifle, she was curled up around herself.
>Anon couldn’t see it, but he knew the wounds were there. That was one thing that he learned since the blockade incident.
>People are hard to kill, but easy to remove from a fight. People don’t have elaborate death scenes.
>They usually just crumple up, go quiet, and slowly fade away over the course of a few hours.

>A couple more figures came up the creek, shabbily dressed and obviously emaciated.
>Their weapons seemed vastly oversized for their stick like frames; one of them takes the rifle away from the wounded woman.
>The woman seems not to notice, too caught up in her own little world, or simply too low on blood to notice.
>The other man walks up to a small cave in the ravine side. He calls out into the cave.
>There’s the pop of another handgun. It’s a miss, it causes the man to jump, but he simply raises his weapon and pelts the cave with buckshot.
>The shells were obviously homemade, sparks with great clouds of black powder smoke belching fourth.
>With that he proceeds into the cave emerging a couple moments later with a still warm teenaged girl.
>She’s tossed with the still dying body of her presumed mother; the man goes back into the cave.
>Anon raised his rifle, he had a good position, he had full view of the two assailants, and he had the element of surprise.
>The man came back out with a small child, maybe six or seven years old, and a bag of half rotted wild game.
>Anon pressed the rifle against his shoulder flicked the safety off and hesitated.
>The men began to gather up the weapons and search the bodies.
>Anons rifle began to shake. He closed his eyes and willed himself to save the child from this scum.
>With his eyes still closed he tried pulling the trigger, he could feel the trigger pushing back on his finger, he knew the rifle only had about a six pound trigger.
>But it was eight pounds he would never be able to move.
>By the time he opened his eyes he men had left, taking the child and the teenager with them.
>He simply slumped back against the log he had been hiding behind, and stared up at the sky.
>He wasn’t crying, he was simply existing, no sadness, no emotion, just hollow life.
>Slowly his thoughts came back. Manifesting themselves into a single word.
>Coward.

>Anon awoke early in the morning, as did Daniel. There was a small noise outside the door.
>Wordlessly Anon drew his .45 and silently flicked the safety off. Daniel picked up his vz, and stood up.
>Using only hand motions they communicated enough to go and check out the noise.
>Daniel slowly lifted the storage rack off the door, he gently set it down as Anon opened the door.
>He lifted it off the hinges to reduce noise, he kept his sig trained on the opening the whole time.
>Before him was a woman in a green tank top checking behind the counter for any supplies, Anon raised his weapon and walked on the balls of his feet towards her.
>He got right behind her before she even notice.
>She glanced back and her eyes went wide, she slowly raised her hands in-front of her to denote he non aggressive stance.
>Anon reached into her back waistband and pulled out a glock of sorts, putting in his belt.
>He had no intent to kill her, but he defiantly wasn’t taking the chance.
>”DROP IT!”
>Anon froze in place, Daniel however swung around.
>A new person, a man holding a police sub machinegun.
>Daniel stood there with his VZ trained on the new figure.
>There was a commotion as the noise of several new pairs of shoes could be heard.
>They came around the corner joining the submachine gun wielding man.

>Slowly Anon and Daniel put down their weapons and put their hands behind their heads, no way could they deal with that many people.
>A couple of them approached and fully disarmed them. One of them noticed Daniels pendants
>”What the hell?... Looks like we got ourselves a fucking faggot here!”
>Fuck.
>”You know what we do with shits like you who caused all of this?”
>Daniel tried his best to remain stony faced.
>A rifle but came whirling around connecting with his neck, Daniel fell to the floor having trouble breathing.
>Then the burlap sacks came out, then the zipties.
>They were prodded along at bayonet point for hours until finally they were led up a flight of stairs and forced to kneel down.