Go Wolfpack!
An exhausted White Lightning flared her wings and landed on the second floor breezeway of her apartment building. She stood for a moment, wings held off her flanks, dripping sweat. North Carolina was way too hot, even in September.
Her wings screamed from the day's exertion, like being a foal back in Flight Camp, and her spine from her wings down to her rump was sore.
"How are you?" said her neighbor, an elderly widow. Mrs. Fenney sat on a folding chair outside her own apartment, enjoying the low evening sun, a book held in her hands.
"Excellent, Mrs. Fenney, excellent! Tired, though. I had a long day."
"Football game?" Mrs. Fenney said.
Lightning rolled her eyes and grinned. "Big game today."
"Get some rest, young lady. You look exhausted."
Lightning pressed her snout against the nose-print reader, unlocking the door, and entered the apartment she shared with her husband. First thing, she put her Pegasus Pizza uniform cap and her lanyard-hung iPhone on a hook by the door, and kicked off her four rubber-soled shoes.
Celestia, she was tired! Honestly, if the job didn't pay so well... regardless, she would quit as soon as her husband graduated with his Master's, and go back to school herself.
"Honey?" Lightning called. "Where're you?"
"Computer room," Sam said. "How was your day?"
She trotted into the computer room. Sam looked up from his laptop and classwork and his jaw dropped. "What happened to you?"
Lightning smiled, and touched her bright-red mane with a forehoof. "What's my usual color scheme? White and baby blue? Who does that remind you of?"
Sam laughed. "Ha! I get it. Can't have University of North Carolina colors the day we're playing them and expect to get tips, right?"
"So the others and I all dyed our manes red and our tails black. Go Wolfpack! I made so much in tips today!"
She hopped up to her rear legs, putting her hooves on her husband's knees, and they shared a quick kiss. He rubbed her left ear with one hand.
"I smell like a minotaur," Lightning said. "Let me wash this silly dye out and get cleaned up, and I'll tell you the story."
After she showered, she went into the living room. Sam sat on the couch and Lightning stretched out, her forequarters across his lap. His hands—wonderful, wonderful hands!—massaged her withers and wings. His fingernails, now well-practiced after half a year of marriage, preened her feathers back into shape.
"Your muscles are super tight," he said. "Tell me about your day?"
White Lightning and nine other pegasi sat in the break room in the back of the University Area branch of Pegasus Pizza. They were all clocked in and getting paid, it was simply a matter of waiting for the day's first—
"Order up!" shouted Mr. Robertson, the franchise owner, as he transferred two pizza boxes, a box of jalapeño poppers, and three two-liter bottles of Mountain Dew to Lightning's saddle bags. "Lightning, phone please."
White Lightning's iPhone hung from a lanyard around her neck. "Hey Siri! Unlock." It checked her face and opened. "Hey, Siri! Pizza Delivery app."
The Pegasus Pizza Delivery Pony app opened, and Mr. Robertson tapped a nine-digit number into her phone, locking in her delivery. "The customer didn't have location services enabled on his phone."
Lightning facehoofed. "Oh no. How am I supposed—?"
"It says, 'Arena East lot, 1500-area, big red pickup truck.' Nice mane and tail, by the way," he said, pointing to the red and black, which along with her white coat, made her the very image of the North Carolina State Wolfpack team colors.
"Sure," Lightning replied. "There won't be more than one big red pickup truck at a football game in North Carolina."
"Do your best," her boss said. "They didn't add a tip in the app, so you'll probably get cash."
"Or I'll get stiffed."
Mr. Robertson fitted the saddlebags over her back and pulled the strap tight. Lightning wrinkled her nose at the stench of charred meat.
They both looked at the countdown timer: seventeen minutes left in the thirty minute guarantee.
"Hmmmm. Okay, off I go."
She trotted out the back door, took a running start, and leapt into the air. Flapping hard, she clawed for altitude. The saddlebags of junk food and soda were heavy, but she could carry them if she didn't mind a little sweat.
TV helicopters and a few light aircraft circled around, watching the traffic and the tailgating parties, so she kept herself below three hundred feet, and to the pegasus-reserved flight corridor above Western Boulevard.
The massive expanse of asphalt and gravel of the football-basketball complex's parking lot unfolded below her. The smell of charcoal, grilling pork, and port-a-potties rose to meet her sensitive nose.
Humans! she thought. They have no idea how bad they smell! At least my Sam doesn't get offended anymore when I tell him he needs to wash...
She looked down and accidentally made eye contact with a human who was using a port-a-potty that had four shower-curtain style sides, but no top.
Yuck!
Just east of the basketball arena and just west of the football stadium was the Arena East parking lot. She swooped and heard a few children yelling "Momma momma pony I wanna ride the pony!"
There–parking row 1500. She fluttered down to the ground and trotted, looking for a big red truck.
Every other vehicle was a big red truck.
North Carolina, she thought, thrashing her tail.
With a forehoof, she lifted up her phone and checked the delivery details.
Nothing. Not the parking spot number, not the license plate. Not even the make of the big red truck. Ford? Toyota? Dodge?
"Hey! Pony!" shouted a gray-bearded man in an NC State ball cap, sitting in a folding chair and poking at some sausages on a small charcoal grill.
"G'morning. My name is White Lightning, though, not 'Pony.'"
"White Lightning? Like the drink?"
"No."
He pushed his sunglasses up his nose. "Sorry. I've just never been up close to a pony before, and hadn't really believed you all could talk. You know how TV is with the special effects."
"Well, I can talk, but not right now. I have a delivery to make. If you'll excuse me...?"
"Wait, can you levitate something, first? Is that real, or is that special effects?"
Lightning pointed at her forehead. "I'm not a unicorn, mate. My twin sister's the unicorn."
"Oh, right. Sorry."
Eleven minutes left! Stupid thirty-minute guarantee. They needed to change the policy so that the guarantee doesn't count if you don't give the delivery pony your GPS coordinates and instead make her hunt for a lone big red truck amongst hundreds of big red trucks.
She trotted up to the first big red pickup truck. "Excuse me?"
A mixed group of humans looked at her. Their conversation died. What smelled to be chicken wings popped and sizzled on the hibachi sitting on the truck's tailgate.
She looked at her phone. "Did you order two pizzas, jalapeño poppers, and three bottles of soda?"
A teenage boy took a few steps forward. "What kind of pizza?"
His mother whacked him on the back of the head. "Jonathan! No, young lady, we didn't order a pizza. ...Can't find your customer?"
"They didn't have GPS enabled. Just said 'big red pickup truck, 1500 area.'"
"Oh, how rude!" The woman said. "Best of luck. Can Jonathan here help you?"
Lightning pondered that. The teenager could check half the trucks while she checked the other half... but no, this was her job, and she would do it. Besides, rent was due soon and she didn't want to split the tip, assuming there was a tip. "No, but thanks. Have fun. Go Wolfpack!"
Three parking spots down were two big red pickup trucks, parked together, a sun awning stretched between them. Nine minutes left. Getting tight!
"Did anyone order two pizz—"
A tall man with dark hair threw a piece of the parking lot gravel at her. Lightning burst into the air, a respectable fifteen-vertical-foot standing jump, and landed on the truck's cab.
"Hey now!" she said. "I'm delivering pizza here!"
"Scat! You! Skedaddle! Taking our jobs and and and who would order food from an animal that uses its mouth instead of hands?"
He picked up a larger rock and cocked his arm back.
A second man, possibly a brother or cousin given the resemblance, grabbed his arm and forced him to release the rock. "That's against the law! It's no different from assaulting a person."
"I am a person," Lightning said, flicking her ears angrily. "I'm just a person with four legs. No pizzas?"
"No pizzas," said the second man. "Sorry, he's had a little too much to drink already this morning."
She tried three more big red trucks. All the humans were polite, but none had ordered pizzas.
Finally, she trotted up to a dilapidated Toyota that was equal parts rust and red. A very old man sat in a folding chair, with several middle-aged adults and a half-dozen children.
"Pizza! Grandpa, the pizza!" shouted a little one, maybe four years old. "Grandpa said he would order pony pizza cause I ain't never seen a pony up close!" She hugged Lightning and nuzzled her mane, and the red dye rubbed onto the little girl's face and blond bangs.
You owe me a tip, old man, Lightning thought. She glanced at her phone: two minutes left!
She reached with her mouth, down to the sheath strapped around her left foreleg, and pulled out a soft-tipped stylus. She tapped on her app. "Misther... Jonhtthon?" she lisped around the stylus.
"Yeah, that's me."
"Two pizzas, poppers, three Mountain Dews?"
"That's it."
She tapped delivered. The timer cut off at one minute, and she nosed the stylus back into its holster. "They're in my bags."
"I was beginning to think you wouldn't be here," said a woman who appeared to be Mr. Johnson's daughter.
"You didn't have location services enabled on your phone," Lightning said, "so I had to check the whole 1500-block of parking spots."
"I told you not to get an iPhone," the daughter said, unzipping the saddlebags and handing pizzas to a teenager. "If it was Android the kids or I could help you."
"Apple phone was what Edward said I needed!" Mr. Johnson protested.
"Who's Edward?" Lightning asked.
"My youngest son," Mr. Johnson replied. "He's in the Navy, off in the Mediterranean, or else he could fix it for me... what did you call it that needs fixed?"
Lightning's ears drooped. "Goodness, I know that feeling."
"What?" said Mr. Johnson.
"Huh?" said his daughter.
"Silver Sable," Lightning said. "My sister, twin sister. She's in the Guard—that's Equestria's army. She's always off on deployment. I miss the daylights out of her. If you unlock your phone, I can fix the location services for you...?"
He looked at his daughter, and she nodded slightly. Mr. Johnson used shaky, elderly fingers to tap his code into the phone, and held it out to Lightning.
She nosed her stylus back out and swiped-and-tapped, setting the Pegasus Pizza app to use the phone's location.
"There," she said, once she had the stylus re-holstered. "Next time you order from us, we'll know exactly where to bring your pizza!"
"Bless you, young lady," Mr. Johnson said. "And I hope your sister comes home safe."
"And your son," Lightning replied.
A granddaughter handed Mr. Johnson a red plastic cup of Mountain Dew. "To absent family."
Lightning Flared her wings and dipped her head. "Hear, hear! Absent family. Have a good day, sir. Go Wolfpack!"
She dipped her knees and prepared to jump into the air, when the daughter held up a hand. "Did he give you a tip?"
"Ummmm....." Lightning said.
The woman shook her head, and tucked a twenty-dollar bill into Lightning's bag. "Go Wolfpack!"
Lightning smiled her whole flight back to the pizza parlor.
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Cute look at Pegasus deliveries
Why the change in author's portrait though?
10056266
I liked the new one better!
Big thanks!
Yo I'd order from them, sounds like a great idea.
My pizza delivery days were before smartphones. The worst deliveries were to Western's campus; as often as not, they'd give you the name of the dorm and no other information.
Never had to deliver to a red pickup, but when I drove wrecker, my dispatcher sent me to a Jeep Cherokee in the mall parking lot, no other info provided.
10056316
Ouch, that's horribly non-specific!
I wonder if Equestrian expats have set up their own version of NotAlwaysRight to swap stories about those silly human customers.
10056344
Wow, that would be a great site-wide collaboration...
Another great story to add to our collective works.
10056316
Ouch! My wife did pizza delivery but if you didn’t give enough info they never even put it in the oven so she lucked out there.
Makes me miss the days when my parents and I would get Faygo and Dino's Pizza back home.*
* - Dino's was a little-known pizzeria in Dearborn, MI. I know they eventually closed, but I don't know when --- it was at some point after I moved out of state.
10056344
I should totally write that...
Pegasus Pizza Delivery stories would be a fun slice of life series.
This qas actually kinda awesome. I expected it to be good already, but this managed to exceed my expectations. Good job SockPuppet.
10056546
Thanks!!!
The only problem is, your pegasus is supporting the wrong team.
I know how to make the delivery instructions worse. "Delivery to NCSU. It's the red brick building."
10056626
LOL.
Yeah, I had the list of background pegasi open in one browser and a list of school colors open in the other to pick the character and rivalry.
Fantastic work!
10056635
Thank you!!!
Oh no, they had to make themselves OCs!
Settings > Privacy > Location Services. Then you just need to switch on the slider and maybe pick out the right app. Honestly, people, look it up.
Ah, White has them covered. Good on her.
Delightful tale of the horrors of retail, and a brilliant, natural way to present a cross-section of humanity's reactions to ponies. An excellent addition to the quasi-contest thing. And for pegasus-delivered pizza, I might just be willing to turn on Location Services myself.
Maybe.
10056654
Big thanks! All appreciated.
Most likely there are some enterprising ponies who make money with that.
Yup, they really should do that.
Guess who is in desperate need of a few Friendship Lessons?
Are ponies okay with random people do something like that?
I heard they like hugging, but to this extend...
Good story!
I enjoyed reading it.
Also, welcome to the Feature Box!
10056679
Thanks!
A creepy old guy hugging a pony might get bucked into next week, but ponies who can't cope with pre-schoolers' hugs shouldn't emigrate to Earth, because it's gonna happen a lot.
it was decided that Pegasi made better delivery ponies instead of unicorns, the lawsuits after having pizzas teleported directly to your face were too much.
10056719
This was quite a different kind of story than what I've seen on here, and I like it. Keep up the good work.
10056767
Big thanks!
10056719
And then there are the stories about that one coworker who, despite clear instructions and numerous attempts to correct them, simply could not close the wind resistant delivery bag correctly, leading to an unending litany of complaints about cold pizzas?
Up next Earth Pony Eatery and Unicorn Cafe
My go-to pizza place in my hometown doesn't do delivery.
There are at least 9 pizza places in my hometown.
Do I sense foul play here? Like that ratio isn't possible so quick.
10056915
80 likes in 8 hours? I did twice that rate with some of my other fics.
Super cute, simple and left me with a warm feeling. I really like your writing style, its to the point and brisk but engaging.
great story ! sorry your a wolf pack fan they have therapy for that
10057048
Glad you liked!
Also the sports teams were chosen based on backgrounders pony color schemes, not any personal preference.
Great use of setting and character! You drop the reader into the situation with little need for setup, and then you just run with a well-realized slice of life story. The regional details and interactions with the tailgaters really ring true. Good job.
Fun fact: I visited the Raleigh area the summer just before I went off to university and stayed with some friends of a friend. They owned a hound dog named Bo who they'd trained to howl when he heard the word "Wolfpack." It was kind of hilarious to say "Bo! Wolfpack! Wolfpack!" and have that dog go "a-woo-woo!" in reply.
10057127
Many thanks! I appreciate the kind words!
Heh, my local pizza is Pegasus Pizza. They don't ever fly my deliveries in, though.
10057159
WhAt ThE wHaT?
Really?
Well, that's hilarious!
10057165
I’m guessing this one:
pegasuspizza.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/pegasus-logo.png
(Which is an awesome logo)
There’s also this place, overseas:
encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT7xz5tx4yR_W5V0ddtmzXTb9-EuBZ-MiTCxv8WhqLRmBXPoPLc&s
There’s a fifty-percent chance that I stop to read these kinds of short stories, and I’m glad I did because I enjoyed this one.
When I first saw the “Pegasus Pizza,” right away I thought of a rival business called “Little Scissors.”
(Because of the Roman-like influences in Pegasus history and present-day architecture, because a pony could have a name like “Scissors”, and said name refers to hair, which “Caesar” might also. And stuff.)
I'm more a fan of Swedish pizza myself.
Somebody notify Peter Englert immediately!
(If you get the reference, you get a free pizza)
Greetings from Charlotte, NC!!
omg a little tweaking and this story would fit right in the five score story line.
this is a grate story.
A pegasus, a delivery job, and pizza: You really can't ask for much more than that.
Great little fic! And it's good to see some ponies in my sister state; send some pony pizza down south!
That was a cool story! I liked the interactions with all the different people she encountered ( seriously, some guy tried to hit her with a rock?! Rude!) I liked the way she defended herself, too. Ponies have feelings, too!
I liked the way you made the military connection with her and the family and also how she went out of her way to help them.
I wish they had a Pegasus Pizza here!
I was wondering how ponies would feel about the meat and I'm glad you mentioned that, as it's a distinct difference between species. I'm sure her husband hears about it often.
Nicely done! I really enjoyed this!
10056685
And humans who aren't willing to give ear scratchies shouldn't emigrate to Equestria, because they're gonna get asked a lot.
This...hits uncomfortably close. I work a blue(ish)-collar job that has canonically been shown ponies working. In-story universe I could very well end up training Best Pone or (one of them) to replace me. Sure it is easy to tut at this particular sports fan's angry, frustrated bigotry, but how would you feel when your livelihood (or even entire industry) is on the chopping block?
Of course it is all academic and a moot point. Ponies or not, I am sure some bright Silicon Valley spod is already working on a robot that will automate it all away in short order...
10057401
Not willing to give ear scratchies?! Aside from medical reasons like allergies and asthma, I am sure those anti-scritchie people (both of them) would be so bitter and shrivelled up inside that they would poison a changeling. They would never make it past Equestrian Border Quarantine.
10057441
Hmm, true.
Maybe another equivalent would be the Lyra clause in the Equestrian immigration form:
10057269
What kind?