The Tall Tales of Rats
Flash lived in a big house far removed from the squalor of suburbia. If kids had to visit, which they never did if they weren’t cleared by Sunset’s rigorous questioning, they had to drive up through the retail center at Auraria, which was full of high-end outlets and retail brands from Europe, then on up into the wooded hills at the city limits. The houses there had a commanding view of the rest of the city, and Flash could see downtown’s skyline and the hills outside the city just by driving a few hundred yards
He did not mention the house much to anyone, not least because Sunset did not usually allow him to talk at all. He just did not pay the house much attention. It was just a really big house, the kind that rich people lived in. If he was forced to by a mob of angry eighteenth-century revolutionaries out for wealthy blood, Flash might call it a mansion, but that made him feel rich. Flash supposed, compared to most people, that he was well-off, but he did not think of himself as rich.
Rich enough for a car and a guitar and a designer jacket from Italy, sure, but not the kind of rich that made him a fixture on the evening news for every invisible pony he bumped into. Not the kind that ran the world.
Definitely the kind Sunset took advantage of when she went on mall runs, though. Not that he minded. Flash was just happy to help.
“Go away!” he yelled at the pony in his backseat.
“I can’t, Flash!” the pony said, clinging desperately to the passenger-side headrest. “Not until I help you!”
Flash tore down the streets, weaving in and out of traffic. He drove at precisely four miles per hour above the speed limit, just enough to be in a hurry without catching the attention of a bored beat cop. Occasionally, he swerved hard enough to make the pony tumble around on the backseat, hooves flailing and feathers shedding all over the fine black leather. Somehow it made him feel better.
“Whatever you’re offering, I don’t need it!” he barked, screaming up the wide residential streets to his house. He swept into the driveway and leapt out of the car the moment it was parked. The pony poked his head out behind him.
“It’s for the benefit of both of us, dude!”
“Don’t ‘dude’ me!” said Flash, turning and jabbing a finger at the pony. “You are not my dude. You are not my bro. You are not my plus one, my compadre, my ally, or my confidant. And you’re not my friggin’ alter-ego. You are not Flash Sentry!”
“But I am!” the pony whined.
“What’s my favorite color?”
“Lavender.”
“What’s my favorite song?”
“Smells Like Colt Spirit, Neighvana. You sing it in the shower.”
“Favorite food?!”
“A hayburger.”
Flash’s eyes bugged. He felt a massive headache coming on, and pressed his palms into his temples. “What—I don’t even know what that is. You’re just putting horse things into my stuff.”
“More like you’re refusing to put horse stuff in your… things!” the pony said, pointing an accusing hoof at him. “And that’s ‘pony’ to you, bucko! You can’t ignore me forever!”
Flash grinned in what he hope was a threatening manner. It felt like a morbid grimace. “Watch me.”
“Flash, sweetie,” Flash’s mother said from the front door. “Mind moving the car? I will be fretfully late for my appointment at the spa.”
Flash spun on his heels, expanding his grimace to a rictus smile that stretched both sides of his face painfully. He made sure he stood directly in front of the pony, just in case its invisibility chose then to wear off. “Sure thing, mom! I was just on my way back out anyway! Just here to drop some stuff off and then I’m on the road again! Ha ha. Because that’s what I do, with my car. I drive it. Around. Heh. To places.”
His mother blinked once beneath her giant sun hat, her mouth just barely open like a dying fish.
Flash clasped his hands behind his back, rocking on his heels. “That’s what boys do with cars, you know?” he said, chuckling like a robot pretending to not be a robot. The noise trailed into silence.
His mother guffawed abruptly in the way mothers do when they pretend to know what their teenage sons are up to, tossing her head back and roaring with laughter. Her vividly green lipstick contrasted with her alarmingly white teeth, but she wore it because her skin was green too. She got that from her father’s side, so Flash heard.
“Oh, Flash, you boys and your antics! I swear I shall never tire of seeing you and your rip-roaring brothers tearing up the town. Come inside and have some lemonade before you go, darling, it’s so hot today! I don’t know why you insist on wearing that jacket everywhere you go, I swear I’ve seen you sleep in the thing—”
Flash ignored her as politely as he could, brushing past her with a struggling pony under his arm that she did not see or comment on. It felt like carrying a fuzzy duffel bag that could fight back. Wings whapped him in the face like an angry goose and hooves smacked his torso while the pony caterwauled about kidnapping, but he stormed through the kitchen with purpose in his step. If he moved fast enough, he’d make it to his room without any questions, especially if his little brother Pop Fly wasn’t there.
“Why do you look like the world’s angriest football player?” asked Pop Fly from his seat at the kitchen table, half a Pop Tart hanging out of his mouth.
“Huh?” Flash paused mid-step, trying to ignore the pony kicking him in the stomach.
Pop Fly pointed under his arm, and Flash’s heart skipped a beat. “You look like you got an invisible football there.”
“What? No, I… Not now, Pop,” said Flash, storming past him in a cold sweat. He thought better of it, and turned back to the refrigerator. He pulled out a pitcher of lemonade and calmly poured himself a glass, even as the pony squirmed and kicked and flailed. Pop Fly, for his part, worriedly watched his big brother flinch and twitch and grunt at nothing, as the pony’s hooves hit parts of Flash he never wanted hooves anywhere near.
Just concentrate on the lemonade, Flash. Lemonade always calmed the nerves before.
It seemed to calm the pony too, who went rapt with attention when the glass was full. “Oh, flutternutters. I love lemonade. May I have some?”
“No,” said Flash.
“Ooo! Do you have chocolate milk? Ponies love chocolate milk!”
“No.”
“No what?” asked Pop Fly.
Flash chose not to answer, because chugging down an entire glass of lemonade was more important. He slapped the glass down on the counter and ran for the stairs, chased by a reminder from his mother to be careful with the dishes, and a declaration from his little brother that he was the weirdest mayor that Weirdo, Weirdsconsin ever elected.
Flash threw open the door to his closet and dumped the pony inside, right back where he found him that morning.
“Wait, wait! I can compromise!” the pony squealed, waggling his hooves. “We don’t have to both be Flash Sentry. You can call me something else, whatever you want.”
“I’d like to call you a figment of my imagination,” said Flash.
“How about…” The pony spread his hooves slowly, grandly. “... Brad!”
Flash raised an eyebrow. “Brad.”
The pony nodded eagerly, reminding Flash of a little dog. “I saw it on one of your little flat gem frisbee things here in the closet.”
“You touched my DVDs?” asked Flash.
The pony gave Flash one of his patented smiles. “Brad. I like that name! It’s short and simple. Brad. The kind of strong, dramatic name you’d think of when you picture a big tough guy all the fillies like.”
“... Goodbye, Brad.”
Flash shut the closet door and walked away. He made it three steps before his phone rang. It was Sunset. He made sure to get out all of his resigned sighs before answering—he learned the hard way sighing with Sunset on the line put him on the fast lane for a harsh chewing out.
“Babe?” said Flash, in that cheerful, lilting voice that said yes, he was always happy to talk to Sunset, and did not mention at all that now was not a good time since the talking pony made him want to curl up and cry. A good boyfriend did those kinds of things.
“Flash, I need your car for a mall run. I don’t have anything in my closet that’s fit for a class president meeting. Ugh, I can’t believe I bought all those jackets with sequins on them. So last season.”
“The mall!” said Flash, his voice jittery with unabashed terror, which he tried to pass off as giddy joy. “Oh, the mall! That’s great, babe, just super. W-we just went there two days ago, though?”
“Flash,” said Sunset, The Voice creeping into her voice. “If you want to prove you’re going places in life, looking like it is half the battle. The other half is driving your car back to the school to pick me up right now.”
Sunset’s voice was loud enough to make the earpiece vibrate. Flash gulped. “Sure thing, babe.”
------
Flash never questioned why Sunset demanded they meet at the school. He had never been to her house, nor had he met her parents or discovered where her house even was. The only time he saw her was on or around the grounds of Canterlot High, standing alone and defiant in the middle of the concourse. She often stood near the equine statue, leaning on it or staring at it in silent reproach. One time, he spotted her kicking and yelling at it.
There was a lingering sadness to the way she stood in those rare times, when he saw her without her teenage escorts and outside the context of charming the teachers and ordering students around. Sometimes she stood with her arms crossed over her stomach while she glared at the ground, often with her hand on her hip as she stared wistfully at the sky. In the few seconds between spotting her and letting her into the cart, she looked strange. Small and confused. Usually he didn’t dare pry into what she thought.
A few months ago, on a very rainy day when she demanded he take her out to dinner, he dared. “Sunset,” he once worked the courage up to say, “how come I never pick you up at your house?”
Sunset crossed her arms and stared through the windshield, slick with rain. Her hair stuck to her shoulders and she had to be freezing, but she didn’t even shiver.
“Flash,” she said in a quieter voice than he’d ever heard her use. “My home is… troubled. Me and my, uh, parents? We don’t exactly get along. I prefer not to spend much time back home. Any at all, if possible.”
“But you have a house, right?” said Flash. “Somewhere to go? It’s just, it’s pouring today and you were standing out there—”
“I’m fine,” said Sunset. Rainwater dripped from her chin, soaked through her favorite red blouse. “It’s fine. My house isn’t too far from here. Practically walking distance. I don’t want to talk about it.”
And he never did. Flash remembered they had Italian that night, and she had ordered extra carry-out.
Today Sunset sat on the curb, knees curled up to her chest, chin resting on her arms. But when Flash drove up to her, she sprang up like a startled cat.
“Took you long enough,” she snapped as she hopped in the car. “Drive me to the shopping center in South Park. Everyone else is out of what I need.”
That was one of the ritzier places in town, but Flash didn’t mind. Sunset said, and he did. It wasn’t the driving, or the shopping, or the loss of money that he minded. A good boyfriend did those things. It was the waiting once he got there. South Park was a large mall, open until 10 o’clock to squeeze the last bits out of the more urbane shoppers on this end of town, and Flash wasn’t much of a walker. Sunset seemed to be born for walking, for movement in general. She practically jogged wherever she went when she wasn’t at the school, swinging her arms and swaggering her shoulders. She moved at a speed Flash liked to call “always one step faster.” Ahead of him, ahead of any other shoppers, she outstripped them all eventually. Never in step with the crowd or with Flash or anyone else She walked like the rest of them didn’t exist. It made her stand out in a way that both tantalized Flash in the curious, unknowable way teenage boys are tempted by girls, and left him deeply confused.
Inevitably, he fell behind. Most guys in school would kill to have a view of Sunset’s behind, but Flash had long since taken it as time to relax. If he wasn’t in Sunset’s line of sight, she couldn’t make him carry bags, and sometimes she left him in the dust until, an hour or so later, she would reappear to use his credit card.
He tried to keep up today, to show his loyalty to her cause. She didn’t seem to notice, even as he fidgeted under the reproachful gaze of mannequins wrapped in slinky lingerie, and middle-aged clerks who questioned why a teenage boy hovered so close to the skinny jean section. “Sunset,” he said, with his hands in his pockets. “I’ve, um, had a really long day. And I haven’t had dinner. If it’s okay, could I maybe go get something from the food court and I’ll just hang there until--”
“Yeah, yeah,” Sunset muttered, pulling out five spring fashion blouses at once. “Just don’t go too far. I want you to try on some things, too; my boyfriend will not look like a slacker.”
Flash hovered a few moments longer, kicking around a ball of lint. “Maybe Cheesecake Factory,” he muttered.
Sunset answered him by flouncing into the dressing rooms.
Ten minutes later he had a booth all to himself at the Cheesecake Factory attached to the food court, and a heaping slice of cheesecake doused in cherry syrup in front of him. The cheesecake had edges to die for, cut from its parent pie with laser-like precision. The rich caramel glaze on top gleamed like jewels. The warm orange light from candles on the table glimmered off the sugary surface, and Flash licked his lips. Here, now, with this perfect example of confectionery in front of him, he could finally relax. After his insane morning, he felt… peaceful. Pony-free, his butt sinking into a cushion, and his girlfriend satisfied if not happy. This cake was going to be the the capstone on his humble pyramid of mild contentment.
He picked up a fork, giving the cheesecake a toothy, seductive smile. “I am gonna eat you up,” he crooned. “And it’s gonna be the best dang slice of cake I’ll ever eat. This slice of cake will destroy all others for me. I will weep at the memory of it and wish I could come back here and eat you all over again, you sweet little--”
“Excuse me, sir,” a thin, wispy voice broke in. “If you wish to speak to the cake, I shall have a bite of it.”
“Ah! Oh!” said Flash, looking up for the waiter, but there was no one.
“Over here, sir.”
Flash looked down into the shadowy corner of the booth, across the table. A brown rat the size of his hand peeked from behind the saltshaker, beady eyes gleaming greedily. It was the pitious, forlorn greed of one who wanted much and got very, very little; the rat hugged the saltshaker like a warrior clung to his shield as if someone might attack him just for speaking up.
“... What,” said Flash.
“Oh,” sighed the rat, hunching his shoulders and bowing his head. “Forgive me for speaking, sir. I shall wait for the scraps. I just thought, presumptuous as thinking may be for us wretched rats, that a bright young man like yourself with a spark in his eye might have a heart for charity.”
Flash briefly considered how fast his reflexes were. Fast enough to see off a talkative rat by rapping his nose with a fork, surely. He just wanted to eat some cheesecake.
“... What,” said Flash.
The rat’s ears lifted. “Are you surprised, sir? I apologize. You have the look of one who is used to this.”
Flash dropped his fork and sank back into his seat with a weary sigh. Clearly, this problem wasn’t going away as soon as he hoped. “Only since seven thirty this morning.”
The rat tilted his head, lifting one ear and lowering the other.
Flash shrugged, seeing no more point in trying to fight the growing madness taking over his brain. “Oh, you know. I met a talking pony who claimed he was me. I thought locking him in my closet would fix things, but now…” He waved his fork at the rat, who shrank behind the wine menu. “Now I’m talking to a rat who appeared out of nowhere. How did you get here, anyway?”
The rat poked his head out, wearing a sly smile that made his whole face look sharper. “I am a rat, good sir. We pride ourselves on making sure nobody can answer that question. I am honored to be called Scuffles, Scuff to my friends.”
“Scuffles,” said Flash, raising his eyebrow.
“Yes, Scuffles,” said Scuffles, his smile eager and hopeful. “Scuff to my friends!”
“Okay then, Ssssscuff,” hissed Flash, leaning forward and jabbing the fork brutally into the cheesecake. He tore off a huge bite and jammed it into his mouth. It was delicious, and he liked it, and nobody was going to tell him otherwise. The universe could throw a whole rain of talking cats and dogs at him next, but darn it all if he wasn’t going to finish his cheesecake. “Since you can talk, then talk. I have a lot of questions about why today’s been so friggin’ weird.”
A full-body shiver ran down Scuff’s spine, apparently tickled Flash used his nickname. “Oh, I will answer any question you have, sir! Just so long as some of that sweet-smelling cheesecake is part of the conversation?”
“We’ll see,” said Flash, trying to affect the manner of an unscrupulous businessman. “First of all, why’d you speak up to me of all people if you can talk?”
“Oh, sir,” the rat sighed, shaking his head, “I cannot talk to everyone. Owls and cats are off limits, as one may well imagine, and I don’t speak to pigeons simply on principle, as well as most any human, save the ones who have the Sparkle.”
“The Sparkle?” asked Flash with a mouthful of cheesecake. He chewed it slowly, letting it melt in his mouth, and made sure Scuff saw every sticky bite. He watched the rat lick his lips with some satisfaction.
“The Sparkle,” said Scuff. “You have it all over you, like morning dew on the grass. I am surprised you did not notice before. But like dew, it gathers slowly and evaporates if you aren’t careful. Most humans aren’t careful, and why not, they’re big and clumsy enough they can just stumble through life without a care. No consideration for the elegance of a rat, they just step and stomp and squish and poison and eat cheesecake oh please please please can I have some—”
“Whoa!” Flash said, lifting his plate from Scuff’s grabby little claws as he lurched across the table. “I’m not satisfied yet, little guy. What’s the Sparkle and how did I get it?”
“Oh, I am but a humble rat, sir!” squeaked Scuff, going down on one knee and clasping his bitty paws together, straight out of a child’s cartoon. It was disarmingly adorable, like Brad. Flash thought it was strange why didn’t rats do this more often. People would break down and give rats their houses, let alone their food.
“And rats,” continued Scuff, “are not very knowledgeable of the Sparkle. I only know what I’ve seen, and what I’ve seen is that you have it. Perhaps you always had it and did not know it before, which is not unheard of, given most of man enjoys closing their eyes and ears to what they believe is impossible.”
“I’m still not convinced this whole thing isn’t impossible, and I’m just going insane,” said Flash.
“Well,” said Scuff, “nobody’s mind was ever changed on account of evidence. My poor uncle Beans insisted the new house we moved into wasn’t trapped, until he went and got himself killed by one—it was even one of the old fashioned snap traps, the kind a rat is embarrassed to be fooled by—and even then as he lay there with his neck broke he said it must have been his arthritis catching up with him.”
“Oh, how... tragic?”
“Oh yes, quite, sir. Now you said this didn’t happen until this morning when you found a talking pony?”
“Yeah, he showed up in my closet.”
“In your closet?” Scuff tilted his ears again. “Do ponies normally fit into a human closet?”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
“And this pony, what did he look like?”
“He has blue hair, like mine, and his fur and skin was all orange.” Flash shifted uncomfortably. “Like, uh, like mine. The skin, I mean, nobody has orange fur, and I don’t have fur at all.” He glanced away and muttered to nobody in particular, “Though I wouldn’t be surprised if I did by the end of this.”
“That would not be so bad. I like my fur,” said Scuff. “It is like wearing a blanket everywhere you go.”
“Oh,” said Flash, tapping his fork on his chin, “also his eyes were like, stupid big. As big as this plate. Pony eyes definitely aren’t like that. Little guy was all squishy looking, like a cartoon.”
“Well, well,” said Scuff, tugging his whiskers. “I’m sure I never heard of anything like that. Some years ago I heard rumors coming down the drainpipe of someone who had the Sparkle something fierce. They were practically made of the stuff, just exploding with it. They just appeared from nowhere and vanished just as quickly. The strange thing is, nobody just has the Sparkle like that, not even from brushing someone who already has it. But those are old rumors now, and whoever they were never spoke a word to us. Perhaps this pony was them?”
“Yeah, maybe,” said Flash, no longer hungry. He felt his mind creaking and groaning under the weight of revelation, or madness, or maybe both. He stared down at the cheesecake, which by now had lost some of its luster. Next to talking rats and ponies, and something called the Sparkle (really? Did they have to call it that? It felt so demeaning and girlish) ordinary cheesecake just seemed so… ordinary.
“I don’t deserve this,” he muttered. “My life was fine, right? I had everything going for me. I had the grades, and the car, and the girlfriend.”
“Hmmm?” asked Scuff, edging his way towards the cheesecake.
“I mean, is this all a dream? Has this whole day just been a mirage? If it’s really happening, why me? Why you? Why any of this? Is it...” He felt a headache surging up and gripped his temples. “This is making my head hurt.”
“Not near so much as the headache I’ll have after devouring this cheesecake!” said Scuff, triumphantly smearing the cherry syrup all over his face. Flash made no attempt to stop him, instead resting his elbows on the table and staring over the heads of other diners.
“What’s a rat doing in Cheesecake Factory, anyway?” he murmured distractedly. “Don’t you guys usually hide out in abandoned warehouses and trash heaps?”
Scuff licked his paws, already halfway through his meal. “We go where the food is, sir, and wherever there is less danger. Here in the mall, there is very little danger and much food. The people do not bother us, as they are too focused on shopping, and, well… recent events have allowed us to expand our base of operations, so to speak.”
Flash nodded, still considering the existential implications of the madness his life would become if he couldn’t sleep all this off. “Oh, yeah? What kind of events?”
“Well you see, humans don’t do so much to keep us in check as they think. Really it’s the rest of Mother Nature’s cruel web that does us in, what with birds of prey and cats and dogs ruining us just for the fun of it. But lately something else seems to have scared them out of town, or worse. All over the city, rats are whispering: Our time has come! Our enemies have been laid low, and now we can build nests in the very penthouses of Man’s highrises!”
“Sounds, uh, dramatic,” said Flash, who found it hard not to imagine a congregation of harmless but very excited rats squeaking inconsequentially.
Scuff smacked his lips as he chewed through a particularly thick layer of ricotta. “Oh, but it is, sir! I got a glimpse of it myself, whilst I was out and about. Just three days ago I went a-roaming on my usual rounds in the sewer pipes, thinking to myself what a treat the pickings from the new Italian restaurant would be, having a craving for capers as it were, and old Titan—”
“Titan?” asked Flash.
“The cat, sir," said Scuff, cleaning his whiskers. "Thought very highly of himself. Patrolled uptown’s alleys, and fancied himself the king of all things four-legged. Back in the day, he was a true terror, and even stray dogs wouldn’t mess with him. But he seemed very humble when I found him.”
“Pull his whiskers, did you?” said Flash, growing bored.
“No sir, his head. Something pulled his head clean off.”
“... Oh,” said Flash, slightly less bored.
Scuff stopped eating, leaning back and staring into the distance. His eyes went wide and glassy. “Yes, and it was a fresh death, too. Flies had barely begun to congregate and the blood on the walls was still red, his guts all leaking out through the great gaping hole his head left when the beast plucked it off like a ripe cherry—”
“You can skip ahead,” said Flash, feeling the single bite of cheesecake churn in his stomach. "Uh, no pun intended."
“Something had thrown him into the sewer like so much garbage. It hadn’t even eaten old Titan’s head; I saw no signs of a struggle or teeth on the rest of the body. Whatever it was came upon old Titan and killed him for the sake of it, then tossed away the rest without a care. It just grabbed and pulled, sir. Just… grabbed and pulled.”
Flash gulped. The atmosphere in the Cheesecake Factory suddenly seemed subdued and sinister.
“But that’s not all! Other dead things have been found by my brethren. Titan was just the latest in a string of them, all starting, oh, two weeks ago now. The larger animals are all in a tizzy. It started in the suburbs far out near the woods, but the bodies are in a trail leading further into the city. Dozens of them, stray cats and dogs, raccoons, and even a raptor or two. The humans don’t notice.” Scuff grinned as if he shared a private joke. “They look at such things and believe we animals have committed such cruelties upon each other, and that’s that, mystery solved. But a cat will kill for sport, and a dog will kill for rage. These poor creatures… killed for no other reason than they were there, and in the queerest and cruelest ways.”
He leaned closer to Flash, and gestured with a paw for Flash to come closer. Against his better judgment, Flash did, and was forced to peer deep into the eyes of a rat who knew primal fear. It was a strange thing, to see another living being in the throes of ominous, mortal terror, while their face was smeared by cheese and syrup.
“But if you ask me, don’t look at how they were killed. Look at what’s been killed. Dogs, cats, raptors, all things with teeth, all things with a keen nose for hunting and sniffing and searching, and this thing, this Beast? It’s moving with purpose. It’s killing the hunters and the seekers, the strong and the powerful. It’s looking for something, too… and its pride demands it eliminates the competition.”
------
That evening, exhausted by the tall tales of rats and carrying half a mall’s worth of clothes, Flash returned to his room. His father and older brothers ignored him, absorbed in the big game, and Pop Fly was playing video games. Mother was out socializing.
He closed his door behind him and locked it tight, then went to his closet.
The pony sat inside, reading his comic books. Because of course he was still there. Too much to hope that it was all a dream.
“Brad,” said Flash, his voice flat and tired and resigned. “I saw a talking rat today. It told me I have the Sparkle, and that a bunch of animals have been killed by something moving through downtown looking for something.”
Brad blinked his dinner plate-sized eyes. The comic book dropped from his nerveless hooves.
“Oops,” said Brad.
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The sparkle...
All rigth, that was fun, carry on please!
Ps: I think you qualify for a comedy tag, why not include it at this point?
Alright...
Ya got me.
Watching this.
--Spade
7916822
Of course! Thank you for reminding me.
Everyone, you should click that video whenever you start reading a new chapter and pretend a super-dramatic "LAST TIME IN THE LIFE OF FLASH SENTRY" segment plays.
7946274
I tend to only include tags if the story in general is centered around a particular theme. I never considered this story a comedy, in that the whole point of it is wackiness on par with, say, my Button Mash fic, but I see where you're coming from. I may go ahead and add it.
Pony Flash is now 'Brad' I love it.
Also Pop Fly is a cool name for that baseball colt. Home Base makes it sound like he's some kind of school yard pimp. Pop Fly has much more personality to it.
Omg hai Remy. Lol you'd think if a rat is smart enough to talk to a human then a rat should be smart enough to not fall for the obvious cartoon rat trap.
And this just went from a blend of funny and sad to potentially apocalyptic. If I weren't already interested, I certainly would be now. Eagerly looking forward to more.
Ok, I was not expecting the story to take a turn like this, but I'm certainly not complaining that it did. Like Fan up there, I was in this for the sad humor, but shit just got real. I'm looking forward to the rest of this story even more now.
God damn it Brad!
Huh. Not sure what this could be, really. I can't really picture the sirens just casually dismembering animals for kicks, or even really any monster in MLP. Maybe a timberwolf that somehow managed to avoid people?
Depending on how much bloody murder of animals keeps happening, this story may need a dark tag added to it.
I didn't know exactly what to expect going into this story, but I really love the direction you're taking it. I particularly enjoy the balance you're striking with Flash, one that many stories try and fail to achieve. Many times, the main character is either, on one hand, "already mostly heroic and/or awesome" to begin with, with maybe just a few token flaws to have development on, or else on the other hand "kind of unlikable and annoying to begin with" which can be a trudge to read through until they start being more likable.
But I really like how you've balanced Flash's character here. On one hand, he's very much "not a hero yet" with a lot of clear flaws and foibles and he's really kind of a doofus. But at the same time, you've really managed to make him come across as extremely likeable despite that, and I'm really looking forward to watching his character grow as he faces the in-way-over-his-head situation that you've thrown him into.
Sunset is also excellently written. She came across as a little bit more one-note at first, but that only helped to set up the deeper look even better. The scenes with the statue and the rain really got me in the feels. You really capture both how nasty she can be, and also the strong, compelling, touching parts of her character that are in many ways the flip side to that. I'm waiting with baited breath to see what direction you take them both, in this version of what happens to them.
The comedy was great too, and "Brad" was hilarious. I particularly liked how you tied it all together with his reaction to the revelation of the darker aspects right at the end. This is some really high-quality stuff, and I can't wait to read more in how this all turns out! Thanks very much for sharing it with us!
"Oops? What do you mean, oops? And I better get an answer, or we're taking a little trip to the bathroom and we'll see if you're a seapony."
"A seapony? I'm a pegasus. I have wings."
"Yeah, but we're only going to find out for certain if I hold you underwater. Or you talk."
This is a very interesting story so far and I really like the relationship between Flash and Brad. the conversation between Flash and the rat. I can't wait to see the next chapter of this story.
What did you let escape, Brad?
Only two chapters so far, but this has been ... odd.
Also, is there a reason for the Human tag? Equestria Girls humans aren't supposed to get the Human tag.
This seems very eighties in the way it mixes whimsicality with brutality, comedy with tragedy, with a decidedly large dose of unhealthy relationships and unrealistically-deep teenage pocketbooks. Like some sort of young adult urban fantasy novel series, or a lost Roald Dahl story.
It's weird and ponderous and leaves me with all sorts of strange new emotions.
I must like it.
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I was listening to this when reading this chapter. How apropos.
(Brad Sucks - Making Me Nervous)
Great second chapter! Love your descriptions. Love the dichotomy from him seeing cartoon cute and having the sparkle to a description of a gruesome death with plot hook and set up tension.