The Food Barn

Bright, sunny days were common for the Food Barn. The Pegasi that needed to maintain weather in Ponyville usually used the clouds that came into the vicinity of the restaurant. Whenever it rains though, Fry likes for everyone to wear some clothing underneath the regular green apron that was the restaurant's uniform, so they can stay warm, as the Barn does tend to be as cold as an ice box on rainy days.

Today was one such day. To make it worse though, the slight rain became a howling thunderstorm. Even though the Barn was built to withstand even tough tornadoes, every crick and crack echoed into the empty restaurant, save one pony.

Jax stood by his register with a notebook. He liked to keep a journal to himself, just in case he had amnesia and needed something to help him remember. At least, that's what he told anyone who asked.

To his own reason, he planned on using it as memoirs for an autobiography he was sure he would make when he was older. He counted it as a "rich retirement plan", so he would be content with wealth when he was older.

Unfortunately, there wasn't much in his life that was worth reading about in an autobiography. The only major thing interesting to put down right now was the incident with the exploding water, which he was in the middle of writing about.

He glanced out the window near his register to see the extent of the storm. Everywhere he looked, he saw torrential pouring of rain. He was now just waiting for the inevitable~

Crack!

Ah, there it is! Jax thought to himself, content that he was safe inside from the storm, away from the rain and the lightning that was now starting outside. Jax went back to finish his entry into his journal when something caught his eye. He looked back at the window to see that the glass had cracked into veins, and he could see the veins more clearly with each second.

Suddenly, the veins glowed with an intense light that nearly blinded Jax, it took him a second to register in his brain that lightning had struck the window somehow. He covered his eyes to try and shield them from the light. Then, his ears picked up a sound that sounded like glass shattering.

Oh no.

Jax looked back to see the window had shattered, the glass falling onto the Barn floor near a stall that was still under repair from the water incident. Instantly he could hear the howling winds and the torrential rain hitting the floor of the the Barn.

Acting on instinct, he reached out for something big to cover up the window. His right front hoof hooked onto a wooden panel that was being cut up for the stall. He shoved it up against the window. The panel was too big, but at least it kept the rain from coming into the Barn.

“Help! Everypony, get in here!” Jax shouted, as he pushed for dear life as the rain and the wind pounded harder on the panel. It didn't help that the wet floor below him was starting to make him slip.

“What happened?” Fry rushed out of his office in a panic, at first thinking that Jax had just broken something. But when he saw him with his forehooves up against a wooden panel where a window used to be, and his back legs squirming against a slippery floor, trying to get a steady hoof hold on the ground, Fry galloped to the break room right next to his office and opened the door.

Inside the break room, there was nothing much then 4 bland grey-painted walls and some lockers. The lockers were where the employees would hang their work aprons and store anything else they had that day. Some newspapers were splayed wildly across the floor near the corner of the room. Fry looked up to see some of the Barn’s crew reading the items and scattering the pages whenever they were finished reading an article. He grinded his teeth in frustration.

“Coach! Sparks! Frost! Get off your lazy flanks and help Jax!” Fry yelled. Instantly the three in question stood up and alert, out of the daze of reading the newspapers they had now sprawled across the floor.

“Serridge, clean this mess up!” Fry barked out at the fourth one. The pony in question, a white pegasus with a mint color mane, complained.

“Aw, boss, why me?”

“You were supposed to be around when the incident happened. Consider this your reprimand,” Fry seethed through his teeth, his anger still showing at the fact one of his employees complained.

“If you guys could hurry it up, I would be really happy!” Jax yelled through the door. Fry looked to his right to see the other three still standing near him.

“What are you three doing?! Get moving!” Fry ordered, sending the four ponies to their respective areas. “Serridge, if they ask, I went to find Icarus. I’m going to see if she knows anything about the storm.”

“Sigh. Got it boss,” Serridge replied, bending his neck to pick up all the pages of newspapers scattered. Serridge guaranteed to himself that his neck wasn't going to feel well for the next few hours.

Back at the register, Frost was helping Jax prop up the panel, but her small stature wasn't much help.

“What happened!?” Frost yelled out amidst the howling winds that were echoing in the Barn.

“I don’t know! One minute, I was trying to keep a record on my notebook about the incident with the water, and the next minute the window exploded!” Jax replied.

“That’s not possible though! Glass cannot combust without a cause!” yelled Sparks. Sparks was a unicorn with a lightning bolt for a cutie mark and a brown coat color not unlike that of a charred corpse. His assertion that he used to be of a cream color further proved that suspicion. His mane was blond and spiky, the only remnant of his past coat color. If you would see a picture of him when he was younger, you would say he looked like a living lightning bolt.

“It was struck by lightning then!” yelled a now angry Jax, who was starting to lose his hoof hold against the rain and wind. He swore that with each passing second, the weather grew exponentially worse. Coach, a deep brown earth pony with a short and straight mane, came up to help Jax and Frost by also pushing on the panel. The combined strength of three of them was still not enough to give Jax some reprieve.

“But that’s not possible either! Lightning needs a ground to stabilize its impact! Simple glass raised above the ground shouldn't be hit! If anything, the top of the Barn should have been struck!” Sparks yelled back. Luckily for the Barn, Sparks had installed some safety measures against weather before. It was part of the reason why he was hired, along with some other reasons.

“Sparks, I don’t need an argument, I need~”

All three ponies holding up the panel suddenly toppled over, as a strong gust of wind blasted through the window, breaking the panel into several pieces.

Or so they thought. The rising pegasus in the corner of the room changed their theory though.

“Oh man Puck, come see the looks on their faces!” laughed the pegasus, a scawny looking pony with a sky-blue coat and deep blue mane, with hints of yellow dye in his hair giving off a vibe that screamed “Show off”. A unicorn who was grey-coated with long purple hair that matched his eyes with a ragged cloak peered in through the window to see the four employees utterly confused and terrified, not understanding anything that was going on. Jumping inside, the four saw the unicorn having a saddlebag strapped to his back.

“Oh man, we really got them good this time, didn’t we Anansi?” laughed the unicorn known as Puck.

“What’s going on here!? Icarus said there wasn’t supposed to be any rain today, so Jax, you better explain how~” Fry bursted through the door from the break room to see one of the Food Barn’s most hated customers and another stranger laughing at four of his employees.

“Hey Fry! Long time no see, huh?” laughed Puck.

“Puck,” Fry darkly muttered. This young unicorn loved to cause havoc to the Food Barn. Puck was responsible for putting the exploding water curse on the tapwater. “Puck, I suggest you stop laughing and fix this mess you caused.”

“Or what, Fry? You’ll give me a lecture?” Puck sneered at the manager.

“I will hurt you.”

That quickly silenced both laughing ponies in the room. Jax could now see that it was a cloudy day, but no rain was falling. He suspected that the two ponies that had been laughing had been manipulating the weather against him.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa there, Fry. Let’s not get, uh, hasty there…” Puck started backing up to the corner near the window. Fry glared before he marched up close to Puck, enough to breathe on him. Puck desperately looked to Anansi, and the pegasus did take a few steps before he was pushed back by the glares of the employees, now up and ready to show the two that they weren't happy with what they did to them. He remarked to himself that Frost looked adorable trying to give him the death stare, but didn't dare utter anything to the other three’s more menacing stares.

“Fix this mess, and fix the water, before I break your spine...” Fry darkly uttered to Puck. Puck knew that Fry was a keeper of his word, and never would bluff, so the fact that Fry was now willing to break him in half told Puck how screwed he was here.

“Hey, buddy...c..c...calm down here! I, uh, have this.” Puck meagerly pulled from his saddlebag and showed a small talisman to Fry, who inspected it with only his eyes. “Give this to your unicorn, have him perform, uh, a repair spell on the water and, uh, it should be, heh heh, good to go!”

“And what of the window?” Fry grabbed the talisman and hoofed it over to Sparks.

“Like I said, ahem, a repair spell should do the trick.” Regaining his composure, Puck gave a knowing look to Anansi, before casting a spell of light that temporarily disoriented Fry and the employees. When he stopped spinning, Fry could see that both ponies ran away, a small blood trail on the window sill giving him the implication that the tried to jump through the window.

“Sigh. Those two always have to give me a hard time...” Fry thought to himself as he picked up a broom and started sweeping, as the rest of his employees were still spinning in circles from the spell.