Ch8: Twist and Shout
(WARNING! This chapter contains several instances of foul language. Read at your own discretion.)
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Twister.
Tornado.
Cyclone.
Whirlwind.
The goddamned middle finger of mother nature.
A great big “Screw you” from God himself to all the grubby, insignificant specks of transient dust we like to call ‘humans.’
And it was right there in the middle of the road.
When people think of ‘Tornado Alley,’ they tend to think of Kansas, Oklahoma, or parts of northern Texas; even Indiana or Missouri. What people often forget to realize is that Illinois is a part of the great plains and, as a result, part of tornado alley as well. We don’t get nearly as many twisters as the aforementioned places, but in the Chicagoland area we average at least one major tornado warning a year. More often than not, the ‘cyclonic action’ doesn’t even touch down and just sticks around in the sky. Sometimes, though...
For several seconds, all I could do was stand there as the worst, most fearful moments of my childhood came rushing back to me. Nights spent shivering under the covers as a thunderstorm raged outside. Those spare few times when my family actually ushered us down to the family room to keep us safe. All of it came back to me as my childhood terrors were made manifest about a thousand yards in front of me.
“We need to get out of the road!” Rarity shouted, snapping me back to reality. I had been standing there for at least ten seconds, just staring at the terrifying whirlwind and letting it come closer. Rarity grabbed my arm and slapped me, bringing me back to my senses. “William!” she yelled in my ear, trying to be heard over the tempest. “We need to go now!”
I nodded dumbly, trying to clear my thoughts despite the imminent death barreling towards us. Thinking on my feet, I rushed over to Elvira and unlocked the doors. “Get in!” I shouted. Rarity wasted no time in dashing around the car and leaping into the passenger side.
“Where are we going?” she screamed as she slammed the door behind her.
“Anywhere that isn’t here!”
Now, there are a lot of things one is supposed to remember when encountering a tornado or other inclement weather. For example, one of the things they teach you in school is that, if you are out in a storm, the best thing to do is to find shelter. If there is no shelter around, then the next best thing to do is to find the lowest ground possible, like a ditch or a storm drain, and put your hands over your head and pray to whatever god you worship that you don’t end up feeding maggots. They also tend to tell you that the worst place you can be is in a car.
These are the things they tell you for when a tornado may or may not be somewhere nearby, or has a chance of forming. They, of course, don’t tell you what to do when a tornado is actually in sight and bearing down right upon you.
Why? Well, because the chances of such a thing happening are supposed to be infinitesimal. And presumably, if you’re in a ditch and a tornado forms “somewhere nearby,” you’ll better protect yourself from flying debris than you would in a car.
All the math and statistics in the world, however, doesn’t stop it from happening every now and then. And those guys that neglect to tell you what to do in such a scenario can officially go screw themselves, because trying to hide in a ditch doesn’t work so hot when there’s a gigantic doom cloud practically on top of you.
Let me tell you what you do in such a situation. You get yourself the hell out of the way as fast as you possibly can.
And unless you’re the goddamn Flash, you’re faster in a car than on foot.
Jamming the key in the ignition, I gave a good twist and Elvira roared to life, thankfully not deciding to pull a Hollywood on us. I shifted her into gear and hit the accelerator as hard as I could. With a squeal of the tires, the chase was on.
I looked in the rearview mirror. The tornado seemed to loom still in the reflection. The sight of it, and the knowledge of what it meant, made me want to throw up in terror. When a twister seems to stand still, it means they’re either moving directly away, or coming right at you. Given that the sound of a freight train bearing down upon us wasn’t going away at all, it was obviously the latter. Trees sped by as I attempted to navigate down the forested road, caught on a straightaway directly in the path of the cyclone.
I pushed the accelerator harder. The engine roared in protest. Trees sped by in a blur and the tornado only grew closer.
“Go faster!” Rarity shouted. “You said this thing can go a hundred and twenty!”
My eyes scanned the road for a turnoff. I was already going eighty and I’d have to slam on the break to even attempt a turn. “Shut up!” I screamed at her, gritting my teeth. “If I go too fast I could hit a tree and we’d be dead!”
Rarity knelt in the seat, her knuckles white as she gripped the seat and peered out the rear window. “Well do something!” she cried. “It’s gaining!”
“I know!” I growled.
The forest was a blur as I slammed down on the accelerator. The wind howled outside the car and our traction started to slip in the wind. I blinked tears out of my eyes and desperately looked for somewhere to turn when it suddenly sprang up out of nowhere. A great tree limb lay in the middle of the road. “Hang on!” I shouted, speeding up.
Rarity screamed as I drove right for the limb. Like sledgehammer through concrete, Elvira busted right through the thankfully dead and brittle branch. Wood exploded and splintered around us. The windshield cracked when a big piece slammed against it, but thankfully it didn’t break. Elvira’s front end had been scratched and dented a little, and bits of wood might have been caught in the grill, but the headlights still worked and the tires felt intact. Rarity hid her face behind her hands as I pushed Elvira even harder.
And then I saw it. A curve in the road coming up. A yellow street sign with a triangular arrow meant a sharp turn was coming. I slammed on the break. The tires screamed in pain. Rarity screamed in fear. I just screamed as I wrung the steering wheel to the left as hard as I could. Elvira fishtailed for a second before I righted her and took off down the winding forest road.
I couldn’t build up any decent speed. Rarity had been reduced to sobbing in her seat, her head under her hands in the brace position. I tried to build up some momentum, but the straightaway had ended and I was forced to move slower to keep from colliding with a tree or boulder.
The wind hadn’t let up. We were out of the tornado’s direct path, but it was still right behind us and debris was soaring all around. Sticks, dust, and dirt splattered Elvira and made horrible banging noises against her chassis. I turned off down another road in an attempt to get away, punching the gas as the forest broke into another straightaway and out into flat farmland.
Elvira burst out of the forest like an alien out of a chest, leaves and pebbles exploding out in her wake like the ribs of the proverbial space marine. The twister was only a few hundred feet away, off to our four-o-clock. Now that we were finally out in the open I could safely put on some speed again. I stamped on the gas. The car howled. The speedometer read ninety and it was rising. I thanked my lucky stars that nobody else seemed to be stupid enough to be on the road in weather like this.
I had never pushed Elvira this hard before. I hoped she could take it. The windows rattled as our speed rose. The tornado roared just behind and to the right of us, looking like it was going to change course and start coming after us again.
A hundred and ten miles per hour. I blinked tears of terror away as I peered through the cracked windshield. Dust was clouding up the road, making it hard to see. But I knew where we were. If I could just turn left at the next intersection I’d be able to make it to the freeway. That assumed, of course, that I could slow down and see the intersection in time.
I held fast, trying to keep Elvira moving. The rattling windows grew louder and the car started to shudder. The banging on the chassis was loud and frightful. Rarity sobbed in the passenger seat. Everything around me was noise.
And then...
I didn’t hear the impact as much as I felt it; in more ways than one, no less. The car jostled and I felt the wind and dust fly in. The back right window had been shattered, sending safety glass all over the interior of the car, one or two stray shards scratching at my cheek and neck. The flying pebble that caused the window to break lodged itself in my arm.
I twisted and bellowed in agony, the shock of the impact causing me to slam into the steering wheel, making Elvira give out a loud honk in protest. My collision made the car swerve by accident and fly into the oncoming lane. Rarity shrieked, though she remained safe thanks to her braced position. Gritting and baring it, I righted the car and kept on course. Too late though, did I notice that my mistake had caused us to miss the intersection I’d been aiming for.
All we could do now was run. My arm bled, soaking my shirt crimson. I did everything I could not to let it distract me. We had to outrun it, if at all possible. Elvira was rattling in protest, her window broken, dust pouring in, and the road ahead bare of anything but farmland. I grit my teeth and pressed the accelerator down into the floor. I wasn’t going to let this thing get Rarity. I wasn’t going to let it get me.
We stayed the course. Dust stung my face and eyes. Wind chapped my skin. Blood ran down my arm. Rarity’s fair skin was red, chapped by the flying earth and wind. The roar of the storm was deafening through the broken window.
And then the car lurched.
BANG!
I felt Elvira skew. Our right side suddenly dropped out from under us as our front-right tire shredded and flew off into the oncoming storm. The car spun to the right and went into a spinout, flying across the oncoming lane, through a wire fence, and into a the field of corn across the road. Rarity shrieked in terror. I screamed in both terror and pain. The tornado roared in triumph.
CRUNCH!
The cornstalks cushioned our impact with the field, ending with the two of us staring out into the road we’d just been on, our rear end stuck in the six-foot grass stalks. The tornado was tearing up the cornfield across the street, coming right for us. It carried plants and stones and wooden planks with it, ready to smash us into oblivion. I grabbed Rarity’s hand in my own and held it tightly, ignoring the pain that shot through my right arm. Rarity whimpered, leaning over and clutching me closely. We both clutched our eyes shut.
The twister bore down on us. The noise was too loud to even hope to describe. The funnel of wind and dust was almost on top of us. Noise. Like being caught under an airplane in the middle of takeoff. Like sitting under a waterfall. Like having a train barrel straight towards you. My ears rang in anguish.
And then... nothing.
I opened one eye. The twister was above us. It had lifted off the ground.
Wincing, I untangled myself from Rarity and hesitantly opened the car door, clutching my arm. Dust still flew and clouded my vision as I stepped into the road and looked past the car.
The tornado had lifted off the ground several stories into the air, no longer touching down. The funnel cloud dashed off into the sky like an out of control helicopter, and then finally dissipated about a hundred yards off into the distance.
Unable to breathe for a minute, I collapsed to my knees, still clutching my arm. My pulse pounded so loud I could hear it in my still-ringing ears. When I finally started breathing again, I gulped down air in heavy choking gasps. I trembled in the road, adrenaline flying through me.
And then I laughed.
It started as a chuckle. Then it worked its way up to a giggle. Then a chortle. Until I finally was out and out belly laughing, tears streaming down my face in relief as I fell down in the middle of the road. I shivered and trembled with laughter and cold, my clothes soaked with sweat, rain, blood, tears and even more as I laughed. I suddenly doubled over, still laughing, and puked out my entire stomach contents on the side of the road. Then just I got up and laughed some more.
“I did it!” I started shouting between laughter. “I fucking did it!” I cried, abruptly standing up and pointing at where the tornado had dissipated. “Ram it, Mother Nature! I beat you!” I howled with laughter, pacing in circles in the road. I grabbed a loose stone off of the asphalt and threw it into the cornfield beyond the car. “Take that and shove it up your fat, windy behind you whore! I beat you!” I screeched, howling with laughter the whole time. I picked up more rocks and hurled them at the poor corn, the adrenaline helping me ignore the throbbing pain coming from my right arm. “You thought you could take me down! You terrified me my whole goddamn life! But I beat you!” I pointed at the clouds. “Tell Father Time that I totally just ravaged his wife, and she loved every minute of it! Because I. Fucking. WON!”
I continued howling with laughter, tears of relief, joy, and pants-wetting terror still flowing down my face as I leaned against Elvira’s somewhat-battered hood. Slowly, my laughter started to die down as the adrenaline started to leave my system, and I clutched my right arm tighter in pain.
And then my mind cleared. It wasn’t a gradual thing. It was like my whole brain had decided to hit refresh. And in the clarity, I remembered I had a passenger.
“Rarity!” I shouted, yanking the door open and looking into the cab of the car. Rarity was curled up in a fetal position on the passenger side of the car, tears streaming down her face. She was trembling like a kicked puppy and her perfect face was marred by worry lines. Her eyes and nose dripped, her skin was caked in dirt and dust, and her purple hair was in complete disarray. The seat was wet with what I did not assume to be water. She looked at me with big bloodshot eyes.
“Jesus, Rarity...” I said softly, climbing into the car and wrapping my arms around her. “I’m so, so sorry...”
Rarity broke down into sobs again.
“I don’t want to be here anymore.”
This chapter was... difficult. I’ve come to learn that I’m very inexperienced at writing action scenes of any form. I’m much more comfortable writing dialogue and exposition. Still, even if I feel the result is more than a little bit shaky and a touch unsatisfying that it was good for me to stretch my writing muscles.
It was also difficult for me to come up with a title for this chapter. I struggled between the one I gave it and a song called “The Twist” by classic artist Chubby Checker... which you can listen to below.
Chubby Checker - "The Twist"
Both “The Twist” and The Beatles’ “Twist and Shout” properly conveyed the joke in the title, and I love both of them. Twist and Shout eventually won out in the end, though.
We also had to deliberate on whether to keep the swearing and name calling in. That sort of thing is SUPPOSED to be left out of PonyFall stories, see. But I was mulling over that part and I tried to ask myself how Will (who is, essentially, me) would convey what is best described as losing himself in “giddy, triumphant relief.” As I got into the character and the writing, I could only see it coming out with a little bit of swearing and trash talking.
It was originally a lot worse though. The Slorg helped me tone it down a bit. What we’ve got is still rather monocle-popping, but hopefully not as aneurysm inducing as it was originally.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the chapter and if that last bit offended you any, I apologize (though I will take the time to tell you that you WERE warned). The next chapter should hopefully be fully written by tomorrow, barring any problems, and should be posted within the next few days. See you then!
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I FUCKING LOVED EVERY PART OF THIS
Edit: I got a thumb up...
dam Rarity needs major help to get over what just happen. The chapter was decent you could use some practice to make the action scenes better but i'm not that great at writing action scenes either so who am I to judge but other than good job i cant wait to see how Rarity will handle this situation.
Wow... what an unexpected "turn" of events. :P
Good job writing this, and keep up the good work!
When I saw this book...
i894.photobucket.com/albums/ac145/BekahR/GIFs%20and%20Macros/SpockSurprised.gif
I didn't expect it to be so good.
That. Was. Awesome.
You broke Rarity.
Hmm, we really do like to mess up Rarity and Sweetie, don't we?
What a twist!
Ahem. Sorry about that. It's just not often one has a good reason to use the Twist emote...
Anyways, now the parents will have to come back early due to an injured kid and neighborhood being destroyed. Thus royally screwing him with an awkward situation in explaining a complete stranger and why she can't go to a hospital or her own home if she's not really hurt (I guess you could use the excuse that her home got destroyed/her family all died and he saved her or something, but that will only work so long), on top of her just getting thoroughly shell shocked. Not to mention that he just swore like a sailor in front of her which she'd find discomforting, uncouth, and unworthy of her time in the best of situations, far less this.
Overall rating:
out of 
.
I want to see the original aneurism inducing version of you taunting mother nature
I'd probably do the same thing if I just outran a tornado. Of course, now there's going to be a horribly awkward scene as they wait for the tow truck. Poor Rarity...
When I was learning about Mother Nature's countless ways of saying "Fuck you," I was more fascinated than afraid. Not because I was aware of the odds, mind you. It just never occurred to me that I might encounter something like that. It was all very abstract, and thus cool.
"...damn. That was cool."
HOLY COW. That. Was. Awesome!
That whole time I was certain it was Discord, somehow still in control of his powers, and that the twister would follow them wherever they went until they could not avoid it anymore. Then, it would suddenly stop and Discord would pop out laughing and then... I don't know what! I mean really... how likely is it that a twister would form randomly in front of someone, especially someone who was transporting somebody from a different universe (Rarity). It's infinitesimally small - it must be Discord! Well, I guess not and that they were just extremely unlucky, but whatever. It made it all that more exciting.
Also, you made me look up what to do in case of a twister bearing down on you, so thanks for that. Always good to be prepared!
“Tell Father Time that I totally just ravaged his wife, and she loved every minute of it! Because I. Fucking. WON!”
Best goddamn quote I've heard in a long time.
Woh there was a lot of Twisting and shouting in this chapter, the British Invasion would be proud
One of the most glorious victory monologues of all time. That bit of dialouge, preceded by the simile of car = alien and forest = chest, made this chapter a winner.
It's not tha Rarity doesn't want this world to exist anymore; it's just that she doesn't want to be on it anymore.
2879270
No, shit just happens. Though in Ponyfall, a lot of this shit just happens to happen to them, whether it's a tornado touching down in Chicago, Rainbow Dash witnessing a murder/robbery, or Doug getting thrown out by his wife.
The funny thing is (and by funny, I mean something that I refuse to get over) that even though these are self-inserts taking place on Earth during clearly defined time frames, I suspect that a tornado never actually touched down in the Chicagoland area mid-late April of last year IRL. Perhaps I should also be skeptical that a murder/robbery took place so close to Cody's home in the very early hours of April 14, 2012 IRL.
Oh well, drama.
I see no problem with the language, because if I was stuck in something like this every other word that came out of my mouth would be vulgar.
poor Elvira... She sacrificed herself for a great cause and will be missed.
I should probably also mention that I feel sorry for Rarity and the main character in this so it doesn't look like I care more about the car than humanized Rarity and the main character.
RIP Elvira
gone but not forgotten.
She lived a rich life as a car and protected her charge with her life till the very end. We will all miss you sweet Elvira.
Oh god yes... ALIENS REFERENCES ALIENS REFERENCE HAHAAAHAAHAAHAAA!!!
*cough* ahem... Now that that is out of the way, that was fucking epic! 
Cool chapter.
I would have an idea about the whole swearing and how you could avoid it completely.
You could start your sentences normally like: "Tell Father Time that I totally just... and mother nature is just a... Woooohoooooo!!! I did it! I outran this... storm!" I wheezed as I threw rocks at the innocent field behind Elvira.
So. At the actual swearing parts you would fight for air. A bit like talking gibberish.
Dragon
Oh... that was caaahlose, I was scared too!
Being part of the Great Plains does not make a state part of Tornado Alley. In fact, the term Tornado Alley is probably more for helping tornado chasers than alerting civilians. It is the area of the United States where you are most likely to see an F3+ tornado during a well-chosen short (week or so) period, and is a combination of number of tornadoes, a short tornado season, and excellent visibility; this is why it includes Oklahoma, Nebraska, Kansas and northern Texas. These states also hold the records for most F4 and F5 tornadoes (EF4 and EF5 too). Also, it is the largest area of more than five annual tornado sightings per 10k sq. miles. There is a smaller cluster covering most of Illinois and Indiana, but this is separated from the main group by Missouri and eastern Iowa.
Since "Tornado Alley" is a media term, and not one from the American Meteorological Society, it makes sense that the largest area of high sightings is what is considered Tornado Alley.
If the highest number of deaths to tornadoes is what you want to know, you would actually be looking at the area around western Tennessee.
If you want the part of the US with a high number of tornado touchdowns, that's most of the area east of the Rockies and west of the Appalachians (there are a small, but notable, number of tornadoes on the east coast, so some of the spread does leak around the bottom of the Appalachian Mountains). In fact, the state with the highest amount of touchdowns is Florida, though most of those are F0 or F1 storm farts the rest of the US laughs at.