It Starts in Charlotte

by Cloud Quake

Chapter Four

I guessed that it was about three in the afternoon when Tom and I reached the off ramp to the area where I lived, we were both pretty worn out from walking, or would it be trotting now?, all the way from uptown so the sight was a relief.

"Dude, thank God we're almost there, I'm beat." Tom said with a hint of exhaustion in his voice

"Yea, walking on these new legs does take a bit of a toll."

"I'm sure we're both a tad hungry as well, are there any decent restaurants around here?"

"I know of a fancy place a few blocks from here, but the place is expensive as fuck and you'd have to make a reservation." I told him jokingly.

He grinned and hit me over the shoulder with a hoof. "You know what I mean, someplace to scrounge at, see what all's been left behind."

Just then Tom spotted those golden arches in the sky, I saw him looking at them with intent and new instantly what he would propose.

"Dude, trust me, you do NOT want to go there, the food is absolute shit."

I tried to talk him out of it but he was insistent on going, I don't have much of a choice but to follow him.

After only a few moments of walking that horrid fast food "establishment" had come into view a saw something that gave me an idea. Not far off from the restaurant there was an abandoned car with its driver side door open and the engine running, with a few quick calculations I determined that it should be able to hit the place without any rubble getting in the way. I looked around for something to hold the gas pedal down with; it only took a quick scan of the area to spot a medium sized rock off to the side of the road. I trotted over to it and picked it up with surprising ease, it shouldn't have come with too much of a shock though considering how the phone thing went earlier. Once I had arrived back at the car I placed the rock carefully on the gas pedal and the car roared forward, picking up speed rather quickly. Tom, who had been staring at me from afar, quickly noticed where the vehicle was headed and dived for cover behind another abandoned car.

The explosion that resulted from the speeding car crashing into a propane tank outside the restaurant was rather brilliant, I think I was enjoying the destruction of one of my most hated places on earth a bit too much though as I had a maniacal grin spread across my face.

"Why the fuck did you do that!?" Exclaimed Tom as he peeked up from behind the car he had used for a shield.

"I told you that the place was a terrible restaurant." I relied with a chuckle.

"You could have told me you were an arsonist back when we met, I probably wouldn't have minded to much." We both laughed at that a bit

"I'm not normally, but now that the consequences for doing shit like that have been eliminated, I might just take it up as a hobby for my free time." Both of continued to laugh as the McDonalds burned in the background.

Now that the bit of personal business had been attended to, it was time to get down to business, finding my neighbor who could hopefully provide a bit more info on why we had all inexplicably turned into small colorful horses.

"So what's this chicks name anyways? I don't think you ever mentioned it to me." Tom brought up the question as we were approaching the entrance to the apartment complex I called home.

"She told me at one point a while back, but we never really used each other's names in conversations, we just kind of knew each other, I think it was Alice though."

As we climbed a flight of stairs to get to her floor the lights cut off, sending the corridor into complete darkness.

"Well fuck, how are we supposed to get up there now?" Tom groaned.

"Just give your eyes a minute, they'll adjust to the lighting eventually."

"Yea, yea, yea, but on another note, how do you even know she's home? For all we know she could be long gone."

"Knowing her, she's here."

Suddenly the lights came back on, though they were flickering quite frequently.

"How did those even come back on?" Questioned Tom.

"Probably just the backup generators kicking in, although I didn't know they even had any in the first place."

After another minute or two we arrived in front on apartment 3D, I reached a hoof out to knock but before it made contact with the wooden surface the door swung open to reveal a lime green unicorn mare with a light pink mane.

"Hi! What brings you two stallions here?" She exclaimed.

"Hey it's me, from apartment 3C." I replied.

"Oh, hey Clayton! Who's your friend?" She was keeping a very cheerful tone, and upon closer examination she had a light purple, translucent, glow around her horn.

"This is Tom McCourt, we grouped up after all this went down earlier, but what's up with that glow on your horn, I've seen a fair few unicorns but you're the only one I've seen with that glow."

"Silly! Didn't you know unicorns can use magic? I'm surprised your friend here hasn't tried anything with his horn yet!" She said as she tapped Tom's horn with a hoof.

"Also, what's up with the change in attitude? No offense but it's kind of creeping me out."

"That's just it; I have no idea why my attitude changed! When this thing that changed us all hit I've just been in a better mood!" I gave her a bit of an odd look at this but pushed past it.

At this point Tom finally spoke up. "So how exactly are you making your horn glow like that, and what's it doing?"

"Well, basically I think of something a want to do, and then it kind of happens! I know it sounds silly when I say it but that's really the only explanation I have for it. Right now I'm using it to keep this part of the holding powered, but I can also use it for basic levitation! Come on inside and I can show you a few things."

Alice used her magic to open the door wider as Tom and I entered her apartment, she motioned for us to sit as she trotted off into the kitchen only to return moments later with three cups of steaming coffee in her magical grip that she then set down on a nearby table.

"So I don't believe you two answered my question earlier, what brings you two here?" Asked Alice.

"Well besides the fact that I live next door my new friend Tom and I are trying to get to the bottom of this whole pony thing, I thought you might know something since you spend most of your time on that conspiracy forum." I replied.

"Unfortunately I only know as much as you two do, the internet signal and my magic don't seem to work well together, possibly the only downside to this. And even then I doubt many people would think to update their Facebook status about what just happened."

"Well, that's an instant dead end." I said somewhat sadly.

"We'll find a lead eventually." Tom cut in.

"True, but where do we even go from here?"

"Well I was going to try and make my way back towards Boston, between here and there is D.C., maybe there are some answers there."

"Dude, D.C. is a six hour drive from here; it would take days to walk there!"

"Do you have any better ideas?"

Alice, who had been sitting quietly listening, finally chimed up again. "It's a pretty good idea in my opinion, you two should go for it!"

"Alright, fine, Tom and I will go to D.C. and see if we can find anything there."

Tom seemed to brighten up a bit at this. "Great! We can leave tomorrow; I'm tired and still hungry since you decided to blow up that McDonalds down the street."

This induced a confused look from Alice, but I managed to brush it off. "Alright, let's head across the hall to my place, we can discuss this further there."

Tom and I thanked Alice for the coffee that we hadn't touched and started to head for the door, we we're almost out when Alice left me with a parting message.

"Clayton, don't forget that you're a pegasus, learn to use those wings!"

I hadn't played much attention to my wings by this point; I stretched them both out a bit as Alice's magic closed the door behind us.

Author's Note:

The next chapter may take another two weeks to get out, I'm going to be taking a small break from this to write up a Hearts and Hooves day chapter to my old story "One Winter Night" and a totally new idea for a one-shot I can't seem to get out of my head.

Comments

[Humanist]

Arson, destruction of property and possibly murder/manslaughter (if anyone was still inside or nearby enough to get hit by debris). And why? Because a petty dislike of the place.

Yeah, hopefully once law and order returns this guy gets arrested and thrown in prison. What a psychopath.

[Cloud Quake]

2097576
Just wait! In the next chapter he blows up an orphanage because, well, why wouldn't you blow up an orphanage?

[BackgroundNoise]

2097576
*shrugs* I'd have done the same thing if it'd been a Starbucks, and honestly would YOU go/stay in a McDonalds after everything that had happened?

[Humanist]

2114066
No, but I wouldn't destroy someone else's property simply because a franchise and/or specific location annoyed me. Someone owned that building, and probably paid a lot of money for it and now it is all gone. People had jobs in that building, and now they will have no place to work. Customers regularly ate at that place, and many of them probably actually enjoyed the place and its food. All of that is now gone, and why? Because some asshole destroyed it on the basis of his petty dislike of the place and didn't even think of the consequences to his actions.
Also, there is the whole possible murder/manslaughter thing. There were likely people in there WHEN everything happened, and there was no guarantee that they had all left by the time he destroyed it (they may have remained in there out of fear and confusion, others might have taken shelter in there, some people eating or working there might have passed out and so remained in there, and so on).

If it was only the threat of punishment (which is currently absent due to all the chaos) was the only thing preventing the guy from destroying an entire building and anything or anyone that might be inside... that is the very definition of a psychopath. The guy should be institutionalized, and hopefully he will be once the dust settles (or at least arrested).

[Cloud Quake]

2114206
With my supreme power over the story I decree that no one was inside the building. Argument settled.
As for the destruction of property, the world has gone pony, it's probably not going back. I suppose sentimental value is a factor but would anyone really have sentimental value for a McDonald's?

[Humanist]

2114321
The people who ate their, worked their, owned the place, etc. very well could have sentimental value for it. And besides, much more than mere sentimental value was destroyed: there is still the massive property damage. That wasn't just "a McDonalds", someone owned it. That is a significant loss of investment.
How would you feel if some random asshole, realizing the police are too busy to catch him, decided to blow up your home or your car? Say he didn't like the color or style of it or some other petty reason... would that be just as acceptable and "amusing"?

The argument that "it is just a McDonalds" is remarkably childish and somewhat alarming. Yes, I understand that McDonalds is the butt of a lot of jokes but that hardly justifies your character's actions.

He is no better than the rioters and looters that plague major cities after major disasters, indiscriminately destroying other peoples' property for their own sick amusement. Scratch that: he IS one of those people.

[Cloud Quake]

2114494
I'm just going to be done with this argument. The event wasn't supposed to be a main part of the plot line, just something to add at least a hint of comedic element because as you said McDonald's is the butt of several jokes. I think you took this more seriously than it was meant to be taken but oh well, not much I can do about it. Have a nice day (or night, depending on your time zone).

[Humanist]

2114700
I apologize for focusing so much on this, but it is something that really stood out to me.
I understood the intent, it is just that... Well, it is something that is supposed to be comedic but really, really isn't given the context of the story. If this was in a pure comedy fic, sure, fantastic. But as something meant to add a bit of levity to a horrible situation, it... kind of doesn't, once you actually think about what he is doing. It is jarring and somewhat disturbing, particularly BECAUSE it is meant to be seen as humorous.

I am aware that I took this more seriously than I was meant to, but:
1. Taking things more seriously than they are supposed to be is kind of what I do.
2. As I said before, knowing that it wasn't supposed to be taken seriously kind of makes it worse.

[Cloud Quake]

2114798
Yeah, I suppose you're right about it being disturbing to a degree to some people, but what fun is there in not being disturbing?
Jokes aside I'll probably edit this chapter a bit in the future so that the scene has a bit more context to it to show that my main character isn't a total psychopath.

[Humanist]

2114868
Thanks. I know it might seem silly, but the little things matter (at least to me, and probably others as well).

Also, I really appreciate it that you are taking my criticism seriously, regardless of what you ultimately decide to do with it. You understood that I was trying to be helpful, that criticism is to be used to find out how to improve one's writing and isn't simply intended to be a personal attack on you and your writing.
You aren't the first person who has responded to my criticism in such a way recently so I don't know why that surprises me, but it does. I think it is because I some of the responses I have gotten in the past have been... quite different. It has made me a bit nervous every time I seriously criticize something in a story I am reading, so it is always a relief when it all turns out like this.
So... thanks. Thanks for listening. It means a lot to me.

[Cloud Quake]

2114952
It's no problem at all mate. I try to take everyone's ideas and suggestions into account when it comes to comments.

[ultrasolarflare]

this is good so far