Ch6: Calling All Girls
I put away the groceries as I explained the plan to Rarity. Basically, my logic was that all of the ponies were relatively close to each other when they were engulfed by the pink wave of magic. So, logically, when they came through to our universe, they would probably still be in the same area. As a result, most of her friends were probably in my neighborhood. If not, then they were probably out in the woods somewhere.
The plan was simple. We would spend the day knocking on doors and trying to see if anybody had noticed any strange women nearby. Inefficient, you could say, but there was very little else that I figured I could do. It probably would only take a few hours to finish and it wasn’t even two yet. My neighborhood was rather small, so I figured we would be done relatively quickly.
After we were done asking around the neighborhood, I’d check in at the local mental hospital. There was only one in the area, and it was about fifteen minutes away if traffic was good. We’d go in, ask somebody if there had been any new additions lately and if any of them were young women with candy colored hair. Rarity balked at the idea of her friends being locked up in the crazy hut, but I reminded her that her story was incredibly far-fetched. She eventually agreed that it wouldn’t hurt to check, and I continued on explaining my plan.
The next thing we would do is check the hospitals. By that time, visiting hours would probably be over, but it couldn’t hurt to ask if there had been any new Jane Does recently that had technicolored hair. Even if we couldn’t see anybody then surely we could at least ask after them and come back tomorrow.
I hoped that a lead would turn up in one of these places, but if all else failed, then we would check the woods that I found Rarity in. The woods weren’t very big, only covering a space of about ten square miles, but it was still plenty enough to get lost in. Hopefully I would find them before that point, but if all else failed then it wouldn’t hurt to check.
I didn’t bother to tell Rarity about the possibility that they weren’t even in the area. I didn’t want to crush her like that. Not after everything she’d just seen less than five minutes ago.
The plan set, I retreated upstairs to grab some proper clothes for the outing. I dressed up in a flannel shirt with my Superman shirt underneath. I put on some khaki cargo pants and loaded up the pockets with my Swiss Army knife, a flashlight, a map of the surrounding area I grabbed from my father’s side table, and a compass in case we got lost.
I may not have enjoyed my experience with the Boy Scouts, but a few things stuck with me. The motto, “be prepared,” was one of them.
I hoped that I wouldn’t need any of the stuff I packed. Hopefully, I would find the other ponies in a neighbor’s house or one of the hospitals. Admittedly, I didn’t know how I would get the ponies out of the funny farm or the hospitals should I come across them there, but at least I would know they were safe.
But I wanted to have everything I needed on me in case I did have to go into the woods with Rarity to find the other members of the mane six and the princesses. After all, if they were out in the woods, they’d surely have been out there for almost a full day now. They’d be tired, hungry, thirsty, and probably suffering from exposure.
I didn’t want to be the guy who let Twilight Sparkle die because he didn’t have a knife on him to cut away the brambles or anything like that.
I grabbed Rarity some appropriate clothes from Dani. Another flannel shirt and Babydoll tee, though I suspected that they’d be a bit too small for her, given how Rarity had several inches on her, as well as a pair of jeans from my mother’s closet and her brand new hiking boots that she fortunately forgot to take with her to the outer banks. I figured my mother would be closer to Rarity’s size, though it still might be a bit snug.
I took the clothes down to Rarity. Her nose and forehead scrunched up a little when she looked at them as she chewed on a carrot from the fridge. “I do hope those aren’t for me,” She said with a hint of disdain. “I would never wear something so... so...”
“Country?” I finished. “Do you talk about Applejack that way?”
“Well,” Rarity began, “Let’s just say that Applejack could stand to dress up a little better herself. I wouldn’t have a thing on her if she would just take better care of her looks.”
“Perhaps,” I said, “But Applejack dresses the part for her job, right?” I asked. “She’s working the fields all day, not sewing dresses or dealing with nobility.”
Rarity nodded. “I suppose so. Still, it wouldn’t hurt for her to dress up on occasion. I maintain that she would bring in twice the business she does on market days if she’d just make herself a little more presentable.” Rarity sighed. “I do hope she and the others are unharmed...” she mumbled.
I smiled, trying to calm her down. “Well, that’s what we’re going to check. And that’s why you should wear clothes like these.” I said. “You wouldn’t want to be traipsing around the forest in a dress or anything, right? It’d get all ripped and dirty and caught on the branches.”
Rarity sighed, grabbing another handful from a bag of something and shoving it in her mouth. “Fine. Where is your lavatory then?” I pointed down the hall.
“First door on your left.” I said. She thanked me and then headed down the hall. “Need any help? I know you’re still kind of unsteady with your new arms and legs.”
“Thank you, but I think I can manage,” She replied. “Besides, I rather wouldn’t appreciate a member of the opposite sex around when I’m changing. Especially not after what I just saw.”
Ah. Right.
“Well, if you do need any help, just holler.” I said.
“A lady does not ‘holler.’” Rarity said, winking, then she disappeared into the bathroom to change.
I smirked. ‘My sister is wrong,’ I thought. ‘There’s no way that wasn’t Rarity going into the bathroom just now.’
Rarity came out of the bathroom a few minutes later, looking just as great as she ever did. Damn, she really could pull off any look she wanted, couldn’t she? I cleared my throat to get her attention and she shuddered. “I really do wish that you didn’t need to see me in such ghastly attire.”
“It’s not so bad.” I said. “I’m wearing just about the same thing”
She got a teasing look on her face. “I know.”
Drat. Walked right into that one.
* * *
Elvira drove up and down the streets of my little subdivision. I can’t help but assume that I probably looked somewhat suspicious in my car, driving around the neighborhood and knocking on pretty much every single door. If I weren’t well known in my neighborhood from having lived there all my life since I was four, someone from the neighborhood watch might have called the police on me.
I started out next door. The Blustermans and my family used to be on pretty good terms, their now-adult daughter even babysitting for me and my sister a couple times when we were both still in the single digits. Lately though, my father and the man of their house had recently started some sort of blood feud. My father took a lot of pride in the trees and flowers of our yard. Meanwhile, Mr. Blusterman took a lot of pride in his lawn. He mowed it almost every damn day. One day, Mr. Blusterman decided that one of the branches of one of our trees was getting in the way of his mowing, so he went ahead and ‘pruned it for us.’
That was all it took.
No, really. That’s all it took for my father and Mr. Blusterman to get into a feud that has since lasted over five years. Then, my mother got into the feud too after the Blustermans got a new dog who habitually came over into our yard to relieve himself and she kept getting dog doo on her shoes when she went out to feed the birds.
I personally held no ire for the Blustermans, but since I was a member of the Parish family, they really didn’t seem to hold me in high esteem anymore.
Which is why I wasn’t surprised at all when the first words out of his mouth when Mr. Blusterman answered the door were, “What the hell do you want?”
I sighed, “Afternoon, Mr. Blusterman. I was wondering if you could give me a hand with something.”
Blusterman crossed his arms and sneered at me. “Depends.” He said simply.
“I’m looking for this young woman’s friends.” I said, motioning to Rarity, who waved at him gently. “They’re all young women, most of them in their early twenties? Six out of seven of them have candy colored hair like she does, the other one is just blonde?”
Mr. Blusterman growled at me. “Haven’t seen anyone like that, though I can damn well tell you that if I had, they wouldn’t be anywhere near here. I expect you to hang out with punk sluts like that, but we’re good people in this house. Moral people. Goodbye, Mr. Parish.” He half-shouted, slamming the door in my face.
I rolled my eyes. “Have a nice day, Mr. Blusterman,” I said, strolling back down his sidewalk.
About halfway back to my car, Rarity grabbed my arm. “I thought you said that people wouldn’t think I was some sort of mare of ill repute?!”
I sighed. “Trust me, Rarity, that’s just Mr. Blusterman.” I waved a hand back at his house. “He’s just a jackass that hates any and all things my family does. These past few years he’s gotten crazier and crazier too...”
Rarity followed me into the car and got into the side seat. “You’re absolutely positive?”
I smiled at her. “Trust me.”
* * *
As I said, most of the rest of the people in my neighborhood were perfectly respectful, and even sympathetic towards Rarity when we mentioned her missing friends. Almost none of them were as openly hostile as Mr. Blusterman. One nice old lady even invited us inside for cookies, but we declined. We were burning daylight, after all.
The whole time though, the big thing that Rarity noticed was my car. I can’t deny that I was rather proud of that, to be honest. Elvira is one of my most prized possessions, after all.
“This contraption is amazing!” Rarity chirped as we drove around the neighborhood. “It’s like a covered chariot or a carriage, but it moves on its own!”
“Yep. It’s called a car. Or an automobile, if you prefer. I call her Elvira.”
“Her?” Rarity asked. “It isn’t alive, is it?”
I shook my head. “Nah, I just refer to it like that. Sorta like how sailors refer to a ship as ‘she’ you know?”
Rarity nodded. “Ah, yes,” she said. “I once sailed on an airship and most of the sailors referred to the vessel as ‘she’ as well.” She looked at me. “How does it work?”
I shrugged. “Well, I don’t understand all of the technical aspects, but from what I know, it uses gasoline, which is a very high accelerant, as a fuel source to create a spark that provides energy. That energy makes it go.”
“Incredible.” Rarity said. “We have nothing even close to this in Equestria. I mean, we have trains and airships, of course, but nothing this small or personal that’s also completely automated.”
I smirked. “Well, from what I’ve seen, Equestria is about a hundred years or so behind in terms of technology than Earth is. The only place you seem to be on par with us is medical technology, and that doesn’t surprise me since your culture is so focused on friendship and taking care of each other.”
“Indeed...” said Rarity, who was currently looking out the window, mystified at the passing trees. “So how fast can she go?”
“Well, this is a Crown Victoria, so it’s basically a police car. It can go up to 120 miles an hour.”
Rarity gasped. “A hundred and twenty miles per hour?! That’s unbelievable!” she cried. “Not even trains can move that quickly!”
I grinned, pumping the accelerator a couple times. “I can show you if you like?” I gave her my best trollface as she looked at me with growing terror.
“No! No no no. There’s no need for that. I assure you I believe you.” She said hastily.
I laughed. “I’m just kidding, Rarity. I wouldn’t go that fast in a residential area, or anywhere for that matter. I’d get arrested before you could say ‘yikes.’”
Rarity shifted uncomfortably. “Why would you ever even need to go that fast in the first place, though?”
“Well, as I said, this is the kind of car that the police use. So if they ever need to chase down a really fast criminal or get to the scene of an ongoing crime, then they need to move as quickly as possible.” I patted the dashboard. “As a result this is also one of the safest cars on the market. It’s about as close to being armored as you can get with a regular car, since cops need protection when dealing with dangerous criminals. Trust me, you’re perfectly safe in here. I once got in an accident with a semi-truck in another car like this. Hit me right in the drivers’ side door. The car was completely wrecked beyond repair, but I got out without a scratch.”
“Semi-Truck?” Rarity asked.
“I’ll point one out if we see one,” I said.
Rarity nodded as we continued our trek around the neighborhood.
* * *
Eventually, we managed to run out of houses to drop by and bother, and both Rarity and I were dismayed to find that, of all 124 of the houses we managed to visit, none of them knew anything about any strange girls with candy colored hair. The weather had started to reflect our worsening mood, as clouds had started to move in over the once sunny day.
Our next stop was the Fairview mental hospital. It was only about a fifteen minute drive from our house so we managed to make it there at about 4:45. Fifteen minutes before the end of visiting hours.
I advised Rarity to stay in the car. I figured that it probably wouldn’t be good if she let anything slip about being from another world if she was around a bunch of men in white coats. They’d probably think I was checking somebody in instead of trying to get somebody out.
Rarity agreed with my assessment, though she still acted a little sore at the idea that her friends might be locked up for being crazy. Though, to be fair, she said that she wouldn’t be surprised if one day Pinkie Pie found herself locked up. Nevertheless, she agreed to stay in the car and wait for me.
I casually walked into the main building and stepped up to the counter. I rang the bell to get somebody’s attention and a young woman in a white dress wearing glasses stepped out. She looked very unthreatening, her hair set back in a ponytail and her body small and petite. “Welcome to Fairview, how can I help you today?”
“Hi there,” I began. “I was wondering if you had anybody, uh, check in in the past day or so?”
The woman nodded. “We’ve had about seven, actually. A lot for one day if you think about it.”
My heart suddenly surged with hope. “This might sound very specific, but can you tell me if any of them were young women with colored hair? They might have been making claims that they were actually aliens of some kind?”
The woman arched an eyebrow and shook her head. “No nothing like that sir. Sorry.”
I sighed. “Well, thanks anyway.”
“Sir,” she said, stopping me. “Are you telling me that you know some people like that?”
I turned around to face her. “Well, yes, actually. A group of seven young women. They’re completely harmless, but somehow they’ve all convinced themselves that they are aliens from some sort of alternate dimension. They even dye their hair to look more like their supposed natural colors.” I said, coming up with what I hoped would be a believable lie on the spot. “To tell you the truth, from what I understand their delusions are based on some sort of children’s cartoon.”
The woman tapped her chin. “It’s really not common that even two people will share such a consistent delusion like that,” she said. “Did they break out of some other hospital?”
I shook my head. “No, some friends and I have been taking care of them. Aside from thinking they belong in some other world or something, they’re generally competent and none of them are violent. They’re basically just incredibly enthusiastic otherkin, you know? This is the first time any of them has ever gotten away from us.”
The woman drummed her fingers on the desk. “I see. Well, then, how about this; you leave your phone number with us and we’ll get back to you if we get any future patients like that. Does that sound okay to you?”
I nodded. “That’d be fine.” I said. I left her with my cell phone number and went back out to my car.
“Any luck?” Rarity asked me.
I shook my head. “No. They haven’t had any new patients that match the descriptions of your friends.”
Rarity sighed. “Then we’re off to the hospitals next?”
I nodded.
The drive to the hospitals was a bit longer. Both involved going on the freeways, which gave Rarity quite a thrill as she got to see the scenery zip by at sixty miles an hour. It was also her first glimpse at any sort of human culture beyond my house and the few houses in my neighborhood. She marveled at the stores and restaurants that we passed, often asking questions about the sorts of places that we were passing.
Eventually we made it to Belnor hospital. I deigned to bring Rarity in this time, just in case they required somebody to be “family.” I could probably spin a tale about how the rest of the mane six were her sisters or something. Sadly, the receptionist at Belnor gave a similar response to the woman at Fairview. When she asked if we thought somebody was hurt, we simply said that we hadn’t seen them in a while and we were starting to get worried.
Our last stop was Ivansborough hospital, which was a little bit further away than the rest and by this time, the drive had gotten a lot less pleasant. The clouds had opened up and a light rain had started to fall from the sky, forcing me to turn off cruise control and turn the wipers on. I growled as I attempted to maneuver the wet streets, nearly skidding in some of the more dangerous turns. Illinois freeways are really dangerous when wet.
Finally, though, we made it to Ivansborough and managed to talk to the receptionist. She was a middle-aged Hispanic woman in her late forties to early fifties, and she didn’t look happy to be there at all. I rang the bell to get her attention from the supermarket tabloid magazine she was reading and she looked up, scowling at me.
“Excuse me,” I started, “I’m looking for this young woman’s sisters. They were supposed to come home last night and they never did and we’re starting to get worried.”
“Uh-huh.” The woman said motioning for us to go on.
“They’d be young women in their late teens to early twenties,” I said. “They’d have dyed hair. Very vibrant colors.”
“What color hair?” the woman asked.
I blinked. I hadn’t been expecting that question. A little bit of hope surged through me. “Um, two of them would have bright pink hair, one would have purple hair with a pink stripe, one would have hair dyed like a rainbow, and the other would be straight blonde.” I said.
The woman raised an eyebrow. “Uh-huh. And let me guess... their names wouldn’t happen to be Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, and Applejack, would they?”
Rarity and I both gasped. Suddenly we had immense grins and our hearts were racing faster than we could imagine. “Yes! That’s it, have you seen them?!”
The woman suddenly stood up, banging her hands on the desk and glaring at me dead in the eye, “Of course I’ve seen them! On the TV! My daughter watches that show every Saturday when I’m trying to sleep in!” She picked up a phone. “I’d heard that that damn cartoon had gotten some kind of crazy male following but I never thought that you jackasses would go so far as to come into a hospital of all places to try and play pranks. Get out now, or I’ll call security.”
Our hopes suddenly completely shattered, Rarity and I exited the hospital and got back into the car, driving back toward home.
“That... That horrible, uncouth little troll!” Rarity shouted. “I can’t believe that she would call security on us for something like that!”
I sighed. “I can. Let’s face it, it still sounds pretty damn far-fetched.”
Rarity looked at me, sighing herself. “So what now?”
“Well, none of the other plans worked out so...”
* * *
It was about six when we reached the woods near my house. The spot where I found Rarity lying in the road.
It was thundering.
Lightning arced across the sky, followed by crashing rolls of thunder as Rarity and I stepped out of the car, the both of us holding umbrellas that I kept in the back seat. I looked up at the sky and grimaced. “I dunno, Rarity. A forest is just about the worst place you can be in a thunderstorm. If lightning were to strike one of the trees we could be dealing with falling limbs or something.”
Rarity slammed the door and strode over to me. “As true as that may be, dear Will, if my friends are indeed in these woods, then this storm will only make their exposure all the worse. We must go in there and make sure they’re not still out in the open.”
I sighed. She was absolutely right, of course. If the rest of the ponies were still in the forest then spending too long exposed in the rain would leave them critically ill at best. I was starting to become less and less convinced that they were in the area, though. If they were so close to Rarity when she was teleported here, then one of my neighbors should have spotted at least one of them. Seven other panicking ponies running around, you’d think somebody would notice and call the cops to take them to a mental hospital. Perhaps I should have checked the local police stations as well. My only problem there was that I didn’t want Rarity to become involved in police business. They’d probably ask her for some sort of ID or something and if they thought she was suspicious they might decide to lock her up or something, and I didn’t want that. Heck, not only that, but they’d probably think that, since I was associated with her, I was suspicious as well.
Or maybe I just don’t trust policemen. Can you really blame me? Every single day you hear more and more about police brutality and corrupt cops and the like. I know they’re supposed to serve and protect, but at the end of the day, I think I’m just about as nervous around cops as I am around criminals. Just knowing that I’m standing near a person that could kill me with a twitch of his finger or ruin my whole life with a pair of handcuffs and a mugshot if he so chooses is enough to make me twitchy.
I dunno. Say I’m demonizing the good guys if you like, but if I’m going to be honest, I’d rather just not deal with policemen if I don’t have to.
And so here we were: Standing in the pouring April rain, looking for a bunch of not-so-fictional characters from one of my favorite cartoons in the middle of the woods.
“Alright then, we need to try and be as quick as we can!” I shouted over the thunder to Rarity. “If they’re really out here, then we need to find them fast before they get hypothermia or something. Do you have the blankets?” I asked her. Rarity held up a bundle of blankets I had in the back seat and tucked them under one arm. “Alright then, let’s move!” I said, clicking on my flashlight and heading into the woods.
The woods were dark and cold under the overcast sky. The canopy was so thick that not all that much water actually made it down to hit us, but the air was cool and damp nevertheless. Actually, it was a good thing that the water really didn’t come to meet the ground all that much, as it gave me the opportunity to look for footprints in the earth.
Admittedly, I’m no expert on tracking. I don’t know the woods inside out. I can’t ‘speak to the forest’ or track like some sort of crazy character who ‘lives for the thrill of the hunt’ or anything like that. That said, I did know a few of the signs from my time in the scouts. Footprints, broken branches, traces of blood, hair, or scat. Those were the sorts of things to look for.
“Can’t we just go to your weather team and ask them to stop the storm?” Rarity asked. “We can tell them that some people might be lost in the woods. I’m sure they’ll understand.”
I shook my head. “Earth doesn’t work like that, Rarity,” I said. “We don’t have weather teams. We have no control over the weather at all. Basically, the whole world works kinda like the Everfree Forest.”
Rarity gaped at me. “Then lurking in this wood may be...”
I put my hand on her shoulder. “No. No monsters or hydras or timber wolves or anything like that. Those don’t exist here. What I’m saying is that the animals all fend for themselves and the weather works on its own.”
She cocked an eyebrow at me. “But then however do you get your crops to come in?” she asked.
I shrugged. “It’s largely left up to chance, really. You either get a good harvest or a bad one. We have irrigation, of course, and we have numerous ways of getting things like ground water to come to the surface and stuff like that, but we have no control over the sky,” I said. A crack of thunder rolled out to punctuate my statement.
Rarity shivered, a newfound nervousness running through her body. “Well then let’s find them soon,” she said. “I don’t want any of my friends outside anywhere that might be even remotely close to the Everfree...”
We searched for well over an hour in the dark, damp wood, calling out their names the whole time. And together we found exactly jack-all. We must have covered a good three or four miles in the wood and we found exactly nothing. No hair, no footprints, no blood... a few broken branches, but most of them were pretty close to the ground and probably made by an animal. And there was plenty of scat, but none of it was human.
Maybe it’s just because I was a crap scout back in the day or because I just didn’t have any real experience in tracking or anything, but I was starting to doubt that the ponies were here. We were getting further and further away from where I found Rarity. If the ponies were anywhere near her position, there should have been some trace of them by now. Even if they headed deeper into the forest, there should have been a few traces of hair or something somewhere closer to the road.
Rarity was shivering. Even through the flannel shirt, I could see the cold was getting to her. I sighed and took the blanket from her. “What are you doing?” she asked me, as I draped it over her shoulders.
“They aren’t here.” I said. “We’ve been wandering around for an hour and there’s been no sign of them. There should have been something closer to the road, but we haven’t even found a trace of them.”
The young woman hugged her arms to her sides. “...You’re sure?”
I nodded. “I’m sure.”
Rarity looked down at her feet, tears starting to drop from her eyes. I walked over to her and hugged her close.
“Hey, listen. I’m sure they’re alright. If they’re not here then they probably ended up somewhere else in the world. Maybe going across dimensions scatters you to the winds or something,” I suggested.
Rarity looked up at me. “You really think that?” she asked, tears running down her face.
I smiled at her. “You remember that one episode... er... that one time that the Cutie Mark Crusaders asked all of you about how you got your cutie marks?” Rarity nodded. “Well, there’s your answer. Twilight figured out that the six of you all have special connections with each other, right?” Rarity nodded again, starting to smile a little.
“That’s right.” Rarity said. “All of us agreed that it was the sappiest letter she ever wrote to the princess. And that’s coming from me.” She chuckled. “Even so, if her studies into friendship and how it connects to magic hold any water at all... and they do... then she’s probably right.”
“Well there you go,” I said, smiling. If you’re so connected to your friends then there’s no way that they won’t find you eventually, right? You have that special connection, right here.” I said, tapping my heart.
This was by far the most mushy-gushy, sentimental thing I have ever said to anyone in my life, but goddamn if this woman needed to hear it right now.
“You’re the Elements of Harmony, after all,” I said. “You guys practically define friendship. That means something more.” I hugged her a little closer. “I’ll bet that even if they got sent to completely different realities when that magic wave hit them, they’ll be coming through some portal sometime soon to get you.”
She hugged me tight around the waist. “Thank you, Will. You really know what to say.”
I smirked. “I’m an author. I have to know that sort of thing,” I said, letting her go. She sniffled a little, and tears were still running from her eyes, but she wore a smile now, and that was about the best I could ask for, given the situation. I motioned back the way we came. “Now come on, let’s get back to Elvira. We’ll go back to the house and make some hot cocoa or something.”
Rarity nodded and followed me back to the car. The storm was starting to let up around us. I had given the girl a glimmer of hope.
...
...
We were about two thirds of the way back to the car when I suddenly realized something was wrong.
The storm had completely let up. There was no sound of rain or thunder or anything like that, save for the occasional roll very far away.
In fact, there was no real sound at all, save for the crunch of our feet on the forest floor.
“Will?” Rarity asked. “Is something the matter?”
“...It’s the wildlife.” I said.
“The wildlife?” Rarity asked, spinning around in place. “Are you sure? I don’t hear anything.”
“Exactly.” I said. “No birds, no bugs, no squirrels or raccoons. Nothing,” I said, shaken up. “And that’s what bothers me.”
I sniffed at the air. For a forest that had just had a fresh rainstorm it smelled remarkably stale. There was no breeze at all and the utter stillness of the twilight hour did nothing but unnerve me.
“Let’s get back to the car,” I said, shaken. “It’s way too quiet out here.”
We started back on the path to the car when I heard it.
Most people know of this sound as something from a video game. Most people associate this sound with the hit horror series, “Silent Hill.” It’s right up there with radio static for inspiring terror in gamers.
But for me, having grown up in the great plains of the United States of America, this sound meant something completely different for me. Something far more terrifying and deadly than any evil nurse or zombified dog or big muscley man with a triangular bucket on his head.
It was an air raid siren.
“Oh no...” I muttered, grabbing Rarity’s hand and holding it as I dashed back towards the road. “No no no no no no no no no...” I repeated, my heart pounding in my chest so hard I thought it might escape, my breath erratic and gasping.
“Will? Will! What is going on?! What’s that noise?!” Rarity cried, suddenly fearful, though not as fearful as I.
“We need to get back to the car!” I shouted at her. “We need to get back to the car right now!”
At some point in my adrenaline fueled haze, I literally grabbed Rarity and picked her up in my arms. She was still somewhat unsteady when running and she wasn’t moving fast enough for me. I don’t think I’d ever run a mile that fast in my life as that day in the forest, and it’s a damn good thing that I did. Because when we broke the treeline we were greeted not with a sunset as we should have been given the hour, but a sky of dull and sickly green.
And then we heard the noise.
It was a deep, cacophonous rumbling noise. It sounded like a demonic freight train, or perhaps a waterfall heard from far away. And it was coming closer.
Rarity pointed down the road. “Will...” she started. “Is that what I think it is?”
I turned to look, and it was all I could to stop myself from dropping to my knees and wetting myself. Ahead of us was a colossal force of nature. A combination of wind, dust, and debris only formed when the conditions are absolutely right and mother nature is feeling particularly mean spirited. A childhood fear of mine that I had almost managed to conquer, but now that I stared at it directly in front of me, all I could do was tremble.
It was a twister.
Bleh. I'm not particularly satisfied with this chapter, or the title I chose to go with. Don't get me wrong, I love Queen, and the title fits the chapter, but the song itself is meh at best. Not a particular fan of that one...
As for the chapter itself... it's rushed, choppy, Rarity is barely in character, there's a ton of 'asides' that break up the flow and make it feel both simultaneously dragging and yet like it moves to fast. The actual point of the chapter, which is looking for the other girls, is sorta drowned out under the conversation with the neighbor and Rarity's discovery of cars.
On the other hand, I was told that it was ready to be posted, so... here it is I guess. I'm not entirely satisfied, but I hope you guys like it.
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Twister, eh? Wonder how they'll get out of that one.
Well, looks like I won't be going to bed right now after all...
Well that escalated quickly . . .
Trust me, the reason for chapters is usually in the little things, and not the big things. Heck, read The Mute Octave sometime, and you'll see what I mean.
In the time between reading chapter five and going to the home page, this has updated. WAT.
You're too hard on yourself. I loved this chapter. Rarity was great! She was her usual self: scoffing at clothing she didn't choose herself, abhorred by others' rudeness, jokingly carefree when she wished, and more important than anything else, determined as all hell to find her friends.
I thought it was great. Now time to freak out and DRIVE, DRIVE, DRIVE!!
Oh crap... hopefully it's a low class (is that how you rank them?) twister
To be honest, I kind of feel that way too.
Like, I don't know the context or how based on real life these characters are, but both your next door neighbor and the mean nurse felt way too... I don't know, hostile? Like, the nurse knew the answer way too easily or something, and your neighbor, seeming like an okay guy despite your families' spat, probably wouldn't just call someone he has never met a slut to her face. Some of the conversations felt a bit out of place or forced, like the one about weather and mythological beings in the woods. That just seems like something that should've been gone over rather immediately, or at least a concern she would have raised before venturing into the deep dark woods unknown woods during a thunderstorm. And, as you said, there were a lot of asides and overpowering side points that distracted from the main point of the outing.
I'm sorry, I almost never do this and always hate it when I do because not only do I feel like I'm being too harsh, but I have no works of my own to stand for my ethos.
So, something positive.
It wasn't too bad. Rarity did stay in character IMHO, with plenty of fashion concerns and complaints about civility, as well as saying "buck it" to those when her friends' safety is on the line.
A tornado. That was unexpected. I'm interested to see where this will go from here. Potential for some real damage -if not injury, prompting your parents to return home early and thus possibly discovering Rarity. Sounds ominous.
Or you could just, gee I don't know, leave her in the car again maybe? At least in Virginia, it's not quite illegal to sit in a car with purple hair.
That's just because you live in Illinois.
Now, I'm off! Goodnight everybody!
2564856
Those are some really good points. To be fair, Mr. Blusterman is, in fact, based on my family's next door neighbor, who is really quite hostile to me and my family. And strangely enough it is for the exact reason I described. He trimmed my father's tree, and things spiraled out of control. Whether he would call a girl I had with me a slut or not, I don't really know. He's hostile enough to my whole family I wouldn't put it past him to call any female associated with me a slut, but yeah, perhaps it is an exaggeration.
As for the nurse... I dunno. I'm not sure how somebody who's been working all day at a job they obviously don't like (I tried to give that sense) would take being "pranked on" like that.
I'll admit to the woods not necessarily being the best place to bring up the monsters and weather, but to be fair, there was no reason for that conversation to come up at any earlier point that I can see...
And yet, I still do agree. It felt disjointed and choppy to me too. I just couldn't manage to make it any better, despite my attempts to do so
Oh god twisters. I've only seen them from a distance and it looked pretty terrifying.
I NEED NEXT CHAPTER.
Quick! We need Bill Paxton!
Welp... Elvira, I hope you're up for a sprint!
Fujita Scale wise, if it's howling that loud and you were within a mile..It's going to be a house buster. Easily 2-3 on the scale.
2565009 Again, I always feel bad for criticizing a story that I normally like... I did still enjoy it, just some of the points were distracting to me is all.
I see your point about not really having a good spot to mention elsewhere the monsters and such, but it just seems like something that would've been a good thing to discuss beforehand. Maybe Rarity could have commented on the ominous looking weather in the car on the way to the woods, which might work for that.
And then as she saw the woods for the first time, say something to the extent of "Are you sure it's safe, should we bring some sort of defense... Etc, etc, monsters, etc." to bring up the monsters. I guess that'd be a little conflicting with her personality, because she'd go in anyway for her friends, but still.
Okay, I promise to stop being so cruel to your story now. Keep up the overall good work!
Um...there's no way a stock Crown Vic can go 180. You said yourself that it's a big, heavy car. Let's use a Corvette for comparison. It has 400 horsepower and can supposedly go 190. It's a lot more streamlined than your cop car. There has never been a Crown Victoria made with more than 251 horsepower. The same engine block in a Mercury Marauder still made only 300. On top of that, aerodynamics would kill you - literally. There's a reason sports cars are low to the ground and have spoilers and stuff. At high speed, the wind wants to lift the car off the road.
</rant>
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say that Elvira is heavily modified.
LOL at not trusting Illinois cops.
2565949
Story Time!
When I wrote this chapter, I had recently gotten into a car accident. This was, like... the day that I first wrote it. The IRL Elvira was in the body shop.
My intention when I planned this chapter was to look at the speedometer in my own car and just transcribe the actual number in the car, but I couldn't do that since my car was not available and I was dealing with a crap rental car. So I sat down to write the chapter because I felt writing would relax me after a long day of police officers, angry motorists, insurance agent calls, dealing with the body shop and rental place, and so on. But when I got to the part with how fast Elvira could go, in my brain-addled, car-fatigued state, for the life of me I couldn't remember how fast she could go.
I ended up just transcribing the first number that came to mind. I think I got it from a racing move... That should have tipped me off...
Anyway, after a couple weeks in the shop, I ended up (finally) getting Elvira back, and even though I thought that I had edited this chapter compulsively (despite me still being somewhat disappointed with it), the one thing I kept forgetting to do was get the actual number from Elvira. It kept slipping my mind and eventually, I was told I could go ahead and post it anyway, the mistake having fallen through the cracks.
...I just checked. The number in the car goes up to 120 with some extra space. Elvira can probably go 140 if I push her really really hard.
Thanks for catching that. It's been bugging me, but I had completely forgotten about it. I've edited it now.
2566009 Actually, you could be right, if it's 120Mph then you could get away with saying 140Kph. Just saying is all.
2564697
Maybe the tornado will suck them up and take them back to Equestria. Or, you know, at least Oz and then they could get some help from Glinda.
Dayum...
Ohhhh snap, friggen twisters up in here! Also, pretty funny that you were the only other one to consider the local mental hospital. When I was writing for PF, I thought that was a logical first conclusion
Hmm, I wonder. Was there actually a twister around your area around that time last year?
2566993
I'm all for it! We aren't allowed to ship ourselves with ponies in PF, but I'm all for shipping myself with Mila Kunis! :D
Also, anyone who hasn't seen "Oz the Great and Powerful" really ought to.
2569536
As did I. I'm sorta making it a 'thing' where I do what is basically the most logical thing to do, i.e. ignoring FiMFiction chatrooms, scouring the nearby area, looking up news sites instead of pony ones, etc, and they all turn out to be wrong at every single turn.
2569680
Not that I'm aware of, no.
2569748 Well that does get in the way of setting this story during April of last year, doesn't it? Oh well, you could probably handwave those sort of facts for the sake of the story because... magic? Because Ponyfall!
2569767
Well, it's entirely possible there was one, I just don't know about it if there was. Every Spring we go through a severe thunderstorm season from April through May and sometimes into June, and it's during that time that we tend to have Twisters.
seriously? All these comments and not ONE about the Siren? If I was there i!'d probably drip dead from fear
2565009
That just seems kinda... dumb, not to insult your RL neighbor Mr. Blusterman is inspired from. Even if it kinda is... 
I mean, unless the tree branch is VERY low to the ground, which I somehow doubt it was and since I don't know what kinda tree it was or how tall it was, I have to assume it wasn't and he was being idiotic.
Well, this was an interesting little chapter... though can I myself ask, how the HELL does a tree branch get in the way of mowing a lawn?
Anyway, I dunno, maybe it was a LITTLE fast-paced, but it seemed fine to me even though I wasn't sure if Discord would be making an appearance with as random as things stopping the way they did with the storm in the woods (I wasn't even aware that's where Will/you discovered Rarity, as I haven't read the opening chapters for a while since I discovered this 'new' version of the Rarity story of Ponyfall since the old one quit). As I didn't get what the thing about an air siren meant and why he suddenly ran for it at first (never really had a twister here, and don't know the signs exactly). And I figured the checking at the second hospital wouldn't be what it seemed, but damn, that was kind of a cruel joke for the woman to play even if it seemed like he was putting her on, while trying to remain Incognito, so he could gather information.
Have to admire Will's dedication, since they seemed to search for hours on end without really getting anything, unless it was implied, unlike in TheSlorg's PonyFall story when it mentions them eating sometimes.
Well, I look forward to seeing another chapter eventually and seeing how this gets caught up eventually with the rest that're farther along in the story. And seeing what happens with the twister, for them and the neighborhood probably. 
2570058
Depends on where you live. If I hear an air raid siren I get more excited than scared, because it means I have the chance to see some awesome severe weather... Of course it might also mean i'm just crazy
But, considering he was a mile deep in the woods and heard the siren, yeah I'd start to get worried as well
I thought the chapter was quite good. You managed to capture the essence of two characters in very small windows, cover a lot of activity, and end on a superb cliffhanger. If Rarity seems barely in character, it's because she barely had anything to do. Your self-insert was taking charge because he was the one who knew how to drive and where to go. She was just along for the ride.
In short, I liked this more than you did. I look forward to more.
Holy hell, if there was a twister coming at me, i'd get in the car and drive the hell away as far and as fast as I could!
I remember those sirens all the time when I lived in Wisconsin, shoo, only had twisters a few times.
data.whicdn.com/images/37673016/keep-calm-and-fuck-that-shit-26_large.png
Bye bye, Elvira.
I know all too well how scary those things are, even when you've only seen them from miles away.
I live in the south-west Cincinnati area, so I can't say I know too much about twisters. On the other hand, crazy weather is no stranger around here. Wonder how they'll make it out of this one...
You, sir, have me on the edge of my seat. Good job!
2749581
Thanks for all the nice comments.
Been having a tough time recently and it's nice to see that people still like what I put out. It's a little light in a dark day.
Anyway, to respond to your last comment, this is true. I considered going into it in the chapter but all the extra inner monologue started to bog the chapter down, but my character, believing in the multiverse theory (as I do), believes that all possibilities exist. The thing is, he's savvy enough to know that telling her that she's the town bicycle in another universe is the wrong thing to say at this fragile point in time. He's just being compassionate at the moment.
It might be because I've played every Silent Hill, but that Siren freaks me out every time I hear it, and I live in'Tornado Valley.'
Hmm. I'd say I'm a little more trusting, but I admit I've occasionally been a little self-conscious around law enforcement.
When I clicked the Like button I got a text box saying "Stop right there, criminal scum; incorrect rating code" or something.
This might be a stupid question, but what gives?
It's a twister, Auntie Em!
... "Lieber gott im himmel steh uns bei" (dear god in heaven help us)
"ES IST EIN WIRBELSTURM!!! (IT'S A TORNADO!!)