Chapter One:
Dangerous Encounter (Aka Fateful Meeting)
The massive, articulated bus lumbered down the cracked road, while the single occupant blasted swing music from its modified speakers. The hot sun beating down in the area meant that the windows had to be open, exposing gaps in the vehicles heavy, bolted-on armor. As he was driving down the crumbling, dusty highway, the driver of the long bus saw a flash near an outcropping of rock that was a few klicks down the road. Realizing it could be a potential threat, he unlocked the safeties of the anti-personnel weapons that were installed in the sides of the bus.
Having misjudged the distance, it took the bus about a half hour to reach the rocks by the side of the road, which turned out to be cliffs several stories high. As both the bus and its driver neared a bend in the road, the driver saw a figure standing beside the road and waving its arms in the air. Slowing down cautiously to a stop, the articulated bus came to stop a few meters from the figure, which turned out to be a young woman with blazing red-and-yellow hair. Getting a good look at the bus for the first time made her take a few steps back.
The machine may have originally been a public bus, but it had since been converted into a mobile fortress, with extra metal plates bolted onto the vehicles body, and metal bars and plates welded over the windows. Several tripod-mounted machine guns stood out on the bus's roof, and several tarps, boxes and bags were fastened to the roof and were kept from falling off the sides by way of a low, long, fence-like structure running along the sides of each segment. Large, horizontal tubes hung off the sides of the frame in heavily armored places, while small slots all around the bus had what looked like short gun barrels sticking out of them. The front of the vehicle held a massive v-plow that had metal spikes welded onto the edges, facing outward, and the wheels had large, circular pieces of metal covering them with more metal spikes sticking out all over them. With ropes and strings and chains holding random containers and bits of metal all over the place, and everything painted over in a dull grey color, the bus looked like someone had tried take a machine that was meant for the scrapyard and turn it into one instead.
Sunset took this all in within a few seconds as the bus rolled to a stop and the door nearest the front opened and a tall, thin figure in completely grey attire (which included a long grey overcoat and a large grey hat to top it off) showed itself at the entrance. The stranger wore a gas mask over his face, so she couldn't see its features, but its intention was clear; the figure was holding a large pistol that was not-quite pointed in her direction. Taking a few steps back, her mind started racing, maybe it wasn't such a good idea to try to get a ride to civilization from it. It certainly would be safer to walk, but neither her nor her friends had any water, it was a hot, dry day, they had no idea where they were, and the only shade for kilometers around were the rocky cliffs they had found themselves by.
Weighing her options, she decided to take a tentative step towards the stranger. When nothing happened, she took a few more, until she was only about six feet from him.
"Hi," she started, "I know you seem kind of busy, but I was wondering if you could help me out."
After she got no response from the grey person, she decided it was safe to continue.
"See, me and my friends got lost out here and we don't know how to get home, do you think you could help us?"
At this the figure finally spoke, and the voice was that of a guy's.
"Lost? How? Where on earth did you come from that managed to get all the way to this place by yourself? There's nothing around for miles!"
"Well, actually it's a long story, and you probably wouldn't believe me anyway, but I just want to know where we are and how we can get back home."
"Where you are is in the middle of the Wasteland, about three hundred klicks west of Crevice, and just outside of Dragbast's territory. As for how you get home, I don't know where you live, and I don't wanna know."
The man's answer didn't help Sunset at all, but she was starting to get a suspicious feeling of what had happened.
"I've never heard of either of those places. Do you know where Canterlot City is?"
To this the man just stared at her. Then, after a long pause where it was obvious that Sunset was still waiting for an answer, he said, "No. I don't know where that is, in fact that's a place that I've never heard of. And I know everything around the Wasteland."
"Hey, um, if it's okay with you, do you mind putting the gun away?" Sunset said while giving her friendliest smile.
"If it's all the same to you, I'd rather not until I know who it is that's asking for my help and where they want me to take them. You've already said that you're with friends, but I don't know how many, and I don't see anyone else here besides you. Why should I believe you?"
"Umm, because you're nice and friendly, and they're just on the other side of these rock formations?" Sunset said uncertainly.
"How many of you are there? If there's too many I'm not taking anyone anywhere."
"There's six of my friends, including me that makes seven. Is that too much?"
"I'm afraid so. I don't trust seven people to sit and behave themselves in my bus while I've got my back turned."
At that moment, Sunset started panicking. Who knew when another vehicle would come by? She had been waiting by the road for nearly an hour when the bus drove up.
"Please, we don't know where we are or where we need to go, we need your help. I promise we won't get up to any trouble. You won't even know we're there. We just need to get to a city so we can get oriented and call someone to pick us up. Please?"
Just then, a voice came from behind one of the pillars of rock behind her, and several more teenage girls walked into view. The stranger in the gas mask watched them, unmoving, from his place on the step of the bus. When they saw him and the giant, heavily modified bus, they stopped, just behind the first girl.
"Hey, Sunset, who're to talkin' to? Did you find somethin' about where we are?" Said the blonde girl with the brown Stetson cowboy hat. She had looked slightly puzzled until she noticed the stranger on the bus had a large-bore pistol out, at which point she blanched.
As they all came into sight, the seven of them stood together and looked to each other for answers as to what was going on, until Sunset stepped forward.
"These are my friends. This is all of us. Please, you don't need to have the gun out, none of us have one."
The masked stranger said nothing for a short time, then made a sudden movement. The girls all flinched, afraid he was going to shoot them, but the man just stuck his gun inside his coat.
"Ah, what the hell. I'm probably gonna regret this, but I guess I could give you girls a ride to Crevice. It's a big city with all the amenities anyone could need. I'm sure you can find what you're looking for there. Besides, I'm going there myself right now."
Sunset breathed a sigh of relief.
"Thank you. We really appreciate it. But just so we're clear, you're not going to point anymore guns at us, right?"
"Not unless there's a reason to. Alright everybody, get aboard, we've been waiting here long enough, and there's a few rules we need to go over if you're riding in the bus."
One of the girls pulled Sunset back before she could get more than a few steps, and pulled them all into a huddle.
"Are you crazy?!" Said the girl with pink, fluffy hair. "We can't trust him! He's got a gun and he could have shot us! Plus, just look at that thing. It doesn't look like any bus I've ever seen, and he's definitely not a city bus driver."
"I agree Sunset, we simply can't get driven around in something like that. I mean, just look at it, it's hideous, and dirty too."
Sunset pulled away from the others a bit.
"Girls, listen. We don't know what kind of world we've gotten ourselves into, and by the looks of this guy and his bus, it's a pretty dangerous world. I think we're lucky we didn't get found by someone else. If people in this world pull guns out just when meeting each other, I don't even want to know what happens when they don't like each other."
"In our world, someone like him would get arrested." Said the blonde girl again.
"Yeah, well this isn't our world anymore. I don't think we have a choice but to get to know someone from this world, and as much as I don't trust him, he's the only person around. Remember, we were looking for people for almost two hours and all we found were these rocks."
"You girls coming, or did you change your minds? You seemed pretty desperate to get off this rock and somewhere halfway civilized just a minute ago."
When he said this, Sunset blushed as the blonde girls said, "desperate? Sunset, what does he mean by that?"
"Nothing. I panicked."
Turning back to the man in the gas mask she said, "Yeah, we're coming, wait up!"
The stranger disappeared inside the bus and the group cautiously filed in after him.
A collective gasp could be heard as they beheld the interior of the bus. No longer were there rows and rows of seats next to giant windows. That had all been removed. Instead, on the driver's side of the bus, directly behind the driver's seat, a large table had been bolted to the floor and what looked like a restaurant booth had been set up around it, with high-backed, comfortable couches taking the place of chairs and a large map of an unrecognizable landmass on the wall where a window used to be. On the other side, the entire area was cleared to make a long hallway that ran most of the length of the bus, with closed off sections hiding closets, lockers, bunk beds, and other useful areas. Most interestingly, the interior of the bus had none of the slapped-together, shambled look of the exterior. While the inside was still armored, with plate metal welded and bolted onto nearly every interior surface, and multiple guns mounted on the walls of the vehicle could be pointed outside and fired from the protection of the walls, the inside of the huge vehicle was very clean and neat, with colorful wall paint creating sharp-edged spirals as one looked down the length of the bus.
A girl with rainbow-colored hair was the first to speak.
"Woah! This place looks awesome! Did you do this all yourself?"
The stranger took off his gas mask to show a younger face than the girls had been expecting.
"Yes, I did. It took me a long time to build it up to the magnificence that it is now, but I've been working on it for just over two years, and I add to it whenever I feel the need."
"Hey, why don't we get some introductions started? We might as well tell you a bit about ourselves, and you obviously have a lot about you that we don't know." Sunset said, as the girls all sat down in the booth.
"That sounds fine. My name is Verdak Meranza Grey, but you can just call me Grey." Said the man. He had cold, green eyes, had blond hair, and pale skin. Coupled with his height and thin build, he looked almost more intimidating than when he was wearing his gas mask.
"I'm 19, and I'm a travelling merchant and mercenary for hire, though I usually like being a merchant more."
After a few moments, Sunset realized that he was not going to say any more about himself, so she stood up to indicate that she would introduce herself next.
"My name's Sunset Shimmer, I'm 17, I like hanging out with my friends and playing in our band."
One by one they introduces themselves, though only for Verdak's benefit, as the girls obviously all knew each other.
"Mah name's Applejack. I'm 17, ah play a bass in our band and ah appreciate hard work and friendly competition," said the blond girl with the Stetson hat.
"Well my name's Pinkie Pie!" Shouted the girl with pink fluffy hair. "I looove throwing parties and having fun! Oh and playing the drums! I'm 17 too."
After Pinkie's outburst, there was a brief silence, and a girl with glasses and purple hair tied in a bun stood up.
"Umm, my name's Twilight Sparkle, I'm also 17, I like reading, writing, and learning. I especially like being with my friends and learning about friendship with them."
"Well I guess there's no harm in going next," said the other girl with purple hair, but this time elegantly fashioned into a long swirl that ran down past her shoulders.
"I'm Rarity. I play a keytar, and my passion is making beautiful dresses and outfits for every occasion. Like almost everyone else has said, I'm also 17." With a flourish of her hair, she gracefully sat back down on the cleanest seat available at the makeshift booth. She didn't see Verdak roll his eyes as she finished, but then Applejack pushed the Girl with rainbow hair off the edge of the seat with a small chuckle and said, "Hey, RD, why don't you go next?"
"Humph, you don't have to push me off the chair! Fine I'll go. Hey, my name's Rainbow Dash, and I'm 17. I'm awesome, cool, radical, wicked, and I play the electric guitar in my band-"
"Our band," scowled Applejack, "remember?"
"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Listen Grey, if you think you're hot stuff just because you can make an old rust bucket like this look cool, you ain't seen nothing yet. I'll blow your mind, so don't even think you're better at anything than me. I'm the most daring girl at CHS."
"Geez Rainbow, you don't have to intimidate him, he was kind enough to offer us a ride. Don't make him change his mind," Sunset Shimmer said.
"It's no problem, Sunset Shimmer. In fact it kind of makes me feel a little more at ease. A lot of people try to intimidate others as a defense, especially in the Wastelands, so I'm used to it, and it makes it a little easier to relate." Grey said.
"Anyway, is that everyone? 'Cuz I need to lay down some-"
"Wait! Wait! Flutters didn't get to introduce herself yet!" Yelled Pinkie Pie.
She pulled a girl with super long, light pink hair out from behind Rarity, where she had been hiding.
"Alright, do your thing!" She shouted, and jumped to the side.
"Umm, he… hello… My name… is… flutt-" The girl mumbled.
"What? I'm sorry, what did you say?" Grey asked.
"I said… my name's… fluttersh-" She squeaked.
Sunset Shimmer stepped forward, much to the girl's appreciation.
"Her name's Fluttershy, and well, she's pretty quiet and shy, as you can obviously tell. She's the oldest out of all of us, she just turned 18, and she's in our band too, she plays the tambourine, and she's also really good with animals. Now that's everyone, so we can get going, right?"
"Not just yet," Grey interjected.
"First, I need to explain some rules I have on my bus. If you're going to be here, you all need to follow them. First off, it's called the Fortress Buster, kind of a cheesy name, I know, but I chose it and you can refer to it as such. As for the rules, number one: nobody touches anything unless I give you explicit consent or I specifically tell you to do something which requires touching something in this bus. Number two: Don't lie to me about anything. If something bad happens, especially if someone starts chasing us or shooting at us, let me know. Number three: don't do anything stupid. And this final thing isn't really a rule, but if we don't manage to get to Crevice by tonight, then you'll have to sleep in here. Don't worry, I've got plenty of beds throughout the bus. Most of the time I just use them as storage areas, but we can move a few things and they'll be fine. And don't worry, they have their own little rooms with doors and blinds and everything, so you'll have privacy if you want it, granted it is a little cramped. Other than that, we can get going now. Any questions?"
"Actually, I've got a lot, but they can wait until we're under way." Replied Sunset.
"Alrighty then. I would suggest you all just stay in this area. You guys said you were lost, so if you want, there's a map right here you can use to familiarize yourselves with the area and maybe you'll figure out where you were when you got lost."
With that, Grey walked over to the driver's seat and started up the music again. Hanging his gas mask up on a little hook beside him, he locked the safeties of the Fortress Buster's anti-personnel weapons, and turned on the swing music he had been listening to earlier.
As they got moving, Grey opened the windows he could from where he was, and a gentle breeze began to move through the interior of the vehicle, reminding everyone of how hot it was outside, and how much tension they had just gotten past.