//------------------------------// // Chapter 5, Road Trip // Story: The Chronicles of Summer Rain, Vol. 7 -- monsters in the Grass // by shysage //------------------------------// I got in the driver's seat and made sure everything was adjusted; mirrors and seat mainly. It would be a long trip... Equestria Girls Fluttershy was right. My Twin (Equestria pony Shysage) was a perfect gentleman, and asked Pinkie Pie where she wanted to sit before they both got into the car. "I'll keep the 'scope' thing company" Pinkie said with a laugh, and she opened the door and climbed into the back seat. My Twin sat in the front on the passenger side. He is from Equestria, and obviously didn't drive. Still, he must have spent some time in Equestria Girls Summer's Mustang, because driving on the Freeway didn't freak him out. Well, my driving didn't, anyway. We were on the Freeway soon, heading East. My Twin and Equestria Girls Pinkie Pie, on a road trip in this big, dark Blue car. But I didn't think it wouldn't be a very fun trip... I could only hope (and ask true friend) that Equestria Girls Summer was ok. My Mare had actually woke up from her drugged sleep maybe minutes before they would have killed her. THAT was just scary... And they shot at her as she ran, too. After about ten minutes of driving in silence, I said to Pinkie Pie "I apologize Pinkie, but us two Shysages probably won't talk much..." Pinkie just laughed, pulled out her phone and some small earphones, and said "There's always MP3, I'll be fine." "Well, it will be six hours or so..." I replied. "Shysage, I'm here to help my friend. We will make it work." Pinkie said quietly. "Six hours..." I thought to myself... For a while, my thoughts just wandered. This was sort of like Summer's 'mental inventory', but I basically was just thinking random stuff through. What else was I supposed to do... It was hard not to be angry at these 'monsters' though. Totally trashing a life, just so they could make a buck on the Internet with nasty pictures... And fully intent on killing their victim when they were done... That was just terrible... I'm sure these two monsters had probably made a lot of money from... I had to stop here. At least she made it out alive. This probably wasn't always the case. I was pretty sure there was more going on though. These 'monsters' didn't seem to have any problems finding buyers. It was really hard for me to not get angry at that, too. One of the reasons I had adopted Equestria as my 'new' home, was that 'femaleness' seemed to still be highly valued there. Here in the Equestria Girls world, which was my home world, it seemed to me that the 'eclipse of femaleness' was proceding quickly. Well, it seemed to me that, when I left anyway, the Equestria Girls world, well the culture here, wanted to boil a woman's worth down to how well it contributed towards maybe ten minutes of pleasure. Granted, men are especially sensitive to sights and visuals, and advertisers have been mercilessly using that for decades to sell products here. But it just looked to me that everything that could be construed as 'media' was increasingly, predominantly male centered, or male focused, anyway... Movies, 'Prime Time' TV, and just about everything else, seemed so carefully crafted to appeal primarily to a male audience. I seriously doubted that there were 'female' monsters out there, stealing men to take pictures, to sell on the internet to other women, and then thoughtlessly killing the men when they were done. And it thoroughly disgusted me that this culture was increasingly turning a blind eye to the growing sea of rape victims. Even my Mare had noted that. I don't know... On the one hand, the entire 'woman's liberation' movement had so completely missed the point. The result of that movement was just women that acted like men, trying to be more 'male'. This just underscored the deeper problem. On the other hand, I also realize that one of the main responses to the 'eclipse of femaleness' here, was wives increasingly becoming 'despots' in the home. Before marriage, the woman would do anything for her man. After marriage, the man had better do whatever his woman told him. This just seemed all too common... But this still resulted in women acting more "male". Hmm... What is needed, I think, is a renewed appreciation of true femaleness. And maybe more is needed; maybe true femaleness needed to be better protected. At any rate, I really felt that media here was reinforcing such a male-centered world-view... But I just sighed again at this point... Star Dusk's life had shown me that Equestria may be heading down this same road, hopefully, a lot slower though. But I suspected that the main problem for Star Dusk was that Canterlot seemed to breed egotistical stallions. Proximity to power just seemed to have that effect. And this just contributed to the maelstrom Star Dusk faced... Of course, none of Equestria's amazing Princesses were corrupted by their power by any means. But the ponies around them... I really wanted to hope that the stallions in Canterlot were NOT representative of the rest of Equestria. But I really had no way of knowing. I just had to admit this to myself though. Whether Equestria or the Equestria Girls world, true 'femaleness' had to be the most crucial 'natural resource' know to civilization. And trampling this did not seem to bode well. I knew us 'males' were shooting ourselves in the foot, or worse... I sighed again... Most men would probably fight me on this... "Wow, would I get nasty-grams from the 'thought police' for even thinking this stuff..." This went through my head, but I caught myself before I said it out loud. Still, this was ironic. History contained numerous examples of cultures and nations that had given up 'thinking' for the sake of 'feeling', along with the anger and rage that often 'tagged along'... These cultures didn't end well, and we would ignore that to our own peril. And I hoped I was wrong about all of this. As a student of history though, some parallels were hard to ignore. I deliberately parked my thoughts here for a few minutes. Bah, what do I know... I could be totally wrong... I'm just a Canterlot Recorder... Trying to face bullies who speak by shouting in anger, or pulling the trigger... Still, I could only hope our search for Equestria Girls Summer had a happy ending... ... It was clear to me that I needed to find something else to think about. It didn't take long. My amazing Mare... Dying of cancer, emotionally shattered, and pillaged of all useful resources, I fell through a wall in front of the High School. I had gone for a brief walk from my 'cubical', probably looking for someplace to cry... I found... Equestria... And a chance to start so completely over, that this still amazes me... Well, Summer is amazing too, and I somehow found her there. And I honestly think that Summer would be just as amazing, even if she wasn't the Phantom Alicorn, or the Shila, or if she didn't spend two years helping raise two Princesses. Whatever else she was or would become, she was a true friend. Summer realized the foundational importance of simply putting others first, and integrating that into her entire life. Well, her Twin, Equestria Girls Summer had made the same committment. Their stories are both amazing. I can't be back home in Equestria, soon enough... And I really did miss my Mare... Still, this exact same seed, true friendship, is clearly flourishing in Princess Twilight and all her girls; such amazing friends. The Equestria Girls world NEEDED this too... This 'true friendship'... But that all makes this senseless kidnapping so... ...wrong... Neither Summer has a hurtful bone in their body, then this... Why in the world... The bright Orange 'Low Fuel' light on the dash pulled me from my thoughts, and I began looking for a gas station. Fortunately there was an exit coming up, and I was soon filling the tank again. Wow gas costs a lot... After paying, then parking my car, I asked Pinkie if she needed to use the restroom. She did, so I asked my Twin to accompany her, and wait outside the door nearby. I guessed we were probably about an hour away. I asked my Twin to stay with the car and Pinkie while I used the restroom next. When I returned, it was his turn. While my Twin was in the restroom, I pulled a dusty pair of binoculars out of the trunk of my car, and tried to clean them up. I gave them to Pinkie, since her eyesight was probably better than mine. I mentioned that we needed to find a place far enough away to avoid them seeing us, but close enough that we could look the house over fairly well, and decide what to do. But after I did this, I just laughed to myself. I doubted she would even need them. Once back in the car, I asked Pinkie to let me know when we were maybe 20 minutes away, so I could turn the 'scope' on. I was hoping that Equestria Girls Summer's 'signature' was close enough to my Summer's, that my 'scope' would pick Equestria Girls Summer up. I knew this was a long shot. Besides, Pinkie Pie and her 'Pinkie Sense' had any form of electronics trumped, as far as I was concerned. We have Pinkie, and that was enough. We were soon back on the Freeway. Most of the next hour, I tried to think through how we were going to pull this rescue off. According to my Mare, one of the two guys was sort of a 'hot-head', and he was the one with the gun last time, and he did the yelling after she ran away. We would wait until dark before doing anything, and that would not be long after we got close, and this was good. There were two of us, and this was probably good, too. Still, it wasn't often possible to argue with a gun... And we absolutely did NOT want them to have a chance to hurt Equestria Girls Summer... And I was hoping, at least, that she was still alive... So much of this was just up in the air. We would have to play this all by ear. And 'a lot' would have to go right... I asked true friend for help again. I had few other options, anyway. Pinkie alerted me to the '20 minutes out', and I walked her through turning the 'scope' on. It was picking up nothing... I asked her to direct us to a good spot to check the house out, if she could. We were really completely at the mercy of 'Pinkie Sense' to find these guys, and I knew this. I also knew that this amazing lady was up to this task. Pinkie told me when to get off, then carefully directed from there. It was like she had GPS in her brain. Well, she did. Over the freeway, right turn, down a long road that curved to the left, left turn four miles later. Pinkie had me kill the lights, and a mile later we eased to the side of the road near a small, lone farm house off in the distance. It really was out in the middle of nowhere. It would also be dark in maybe fifteen minutes. Well, one way or another, it would be over soon. "Pinkie, if things go badly, get out of here please" I said quietly. Pinkie smiled, then said back quietly "It won't, Shysage." I hoped she was right. Then I realized she was seldom, if ever, wrong.