Misplacement

Chapter 2: Questions without answers

Beep, beep, beep, beep goes the alarm letting those who hear it know it’s time for the day to begin and that they need to wake up for it. In the living room rainbow dash stirs under her blanket trying her best to ignore the alarm as well as her hangover from her night of cut loose carelessness.

Applejack comes yawning from down the hall into the living room and turns into the kitchen.

“uhh, sugar cube?” she asks as she stops in the kitchen doorway “are ya’ gettin’ up.”

Rainbow rolls over on her side, facing the couch trying to ignore her friend. Applejack walks over to her giving her a light shake making rainbow slap her arm away with a low moan of protest.

“Stop it, I’ve got jackhammer going full power in my brain. Just let me suffer in my sleep.”

Applejack lead back over her and thumped her on the head “wake up, you’re not spending all day passed out.”

With a loud groan Rainbow sits up as the blanket falls revealing her to be in nothing except her underwear. She looks down for a second then over to her friend, she looks up at her stand by the couch in a tee shirt and underwear looking down at her in return.

Rainbow looks down sheepishly a moment knowing what applejack wants “Than-thank you for taking care of my drunken ass last night.”

“It was nothing.” applejack said waving a hand “ ‘sides I wasn’t about to just let you take care yourself with how useless ya’ were.”

Applejack walked back toward the kitchen as rainbow sat up and turned around on the couch.

“Hey, where are my clothes?” she asked having little recognition of last night.

“Still in the dryer!” applejack called from the kitchen.

Rainbow wipes her hands down her face trying to ignore the jackhammer like hangover with no success; applejack comes back to the living room holding a bottle of water and a small pill. Rainbow tosses the medication in her mouth and downs the bottle water in its entirety. Leaning her head back she closes her eyes as a loud banging start up. She slides back down on the couch letting out a pained whimper much to applejacks annoyance.

“Oh stop it, that’s just the door.” She says once again walking to the kitchen “it’s open!” she yells to the door and receiving another groan from her friend on the couch as she sat back up.

The door opens as an onyx skinned person with grey hair stepped into the room.

“Hey A.J. how’s your morning?” night shade asked with a yawn as he plopped down on the couch.

“Hey.” Rainbow greets without looking over more concerned with her headache.

“Hey.” The grey haired friend parrots back. “How’s the hangover.”

“Don’t remember enough to know if it was worth It.” she answers

He chuckles for a moment reaching for the remote “do you at least remember puking all over fluttershys car and yourself?”

Rainbows head shot up, quickly returning to her hands “I did what? Aww! I can’t believe I did that.”

Applejack walks by grabbing the remote and sitting down in the chair next to the couch. Night Shade and Rainbow Dash watch as she flips through the channels stopping on the news momentarily. On the screen a woman with hazel skin wearing a bright blue work suite was reporting on a vehicle crash.

“Anyway at around 5 a.m. this morning police received a call about a truck that had crashed into a nearby tree after it had veered off the road and down the hill.” The reporter told as the camara pan down to a large 4x4 truck.

Rainbow squinted and looked at the time in the corner of the screen “OH CRAP! I’m gonna be late.” She scrambles to the hall for her clothes

Applejack gave a puzzled look “you said you don’t work today.”

“Yea, well I’m supposed to help out at dirt track for tomorrow’s event. Also, I planned on doing some practice run with a few of the bikes were using tomorrow.” said as she comes speed walking out of the hallway buttoning her pants.

“Do ya’ at least want take a shower first?” Applejack asked.

Rainbow finishes putting on her shirt and gives herself a quick sniff shrugging it off as she makes for the door.

“Hey, Night Shade you think you can drive me to my place so I can get my stuff?”

Without a word he gets up with a gesture to say let’s go. The two make their exit as applejack watches from her chair, she sighs with a touch of relief to finally be alone. She slumps down in her chair.

Applejack relaxed long enough for her to actually start feeling relief from her hangover, when she gets an alert on her computer. She pulls it closer, bringing up the screen she answers the call alert. A webcam pops up with apple bloom on the other end. She smiles waving as applejack waves back.

“Hey there apple bloom. How’s college going.” Applejack greeted with a cheer.

“Hey sis, it’s going just fine.” She answers. She leans in her ear a moment “is that the news I hear?”

“Yea.” Applejack replied uncaringly.

Apple blooms face went soft with a sad expression “It’s a shame about that sandwich guy huh?”

Applejack perked up “what? What are you talking about?”

Apple bloom typed away at her keyboard, a few seconds later a link popped up on applejacks computer. Intrigue took over as she opened the link to an article about the I-612 crash; next to the lines of words was a picture of a dark yellow skinned man with thick, long, curly brown hair. The name under the picture read C. Sandwich. The victim was pronounced dead at 8:06a.m. She read. She continued to scan the article while trading light conversation with her sister.

As the Apple sisters caught up with each other Rarity was making her way to the super-mart where Sunset worked. She walks in grabbing a shopping basket, draping it over her arm she walked toward the 5th aisle looking for some of her favorite fast lunch item. She reached the section where she would find her usually placed mini meal bars was now occupied by the worst thing in existence, barbeque biscuit mix. Rarity began to have an internal fit over the insult that was barbeque biscuits being in this spot, she found it even more appalling when she saw that the mini meal bar price sticker was still in place.

As Rarity calmed down a creaking sound came from around the corner, she looks up to see Sunset pushing a cart loaded with crates ready to be put on the shelf.

Rarity clears her throat gaining sunsets attention “umm, sunset darling, it seems someone has put the wrong thing on the shelf here.”

Sunset walks over and checks the tag, finding rarity to be correct in her accusation. She returns to the crates pulling the top two from the third row off and setting them in the floor

“Sunset to customer service, Sunset.” The intercom rang out

Sunset sighed walking toward the front of the store with a tires slug across the aisle. Rarity watched for a moment as she disappeared around the corner before sliding over to the crates, she scans them real quick fining the meal bars in the crate sunset was about to put on the shelf and quickly peaks to her sides. She hastily grabs six or seven boxes and puts them into the basket before walking to the checkout. As she walked by the canned goods she couldn’t help noticing one specific can was facing the wrong way, her eye for detail was a gift, but came with a small O.C.D problem. She knew that it was an employee’s job to handle these things, but couldn’t overlook it. She gently places her thumb and index finger on the can spinning it until the label faced outward, with that taken care of she rounded the corner and proceeded to check-out.

When she came to her turn in check-out she watched as the cashier slid the boxes into the bagging area sunset scoped them up bagging them quickly.

“Your total is $15.54 ma’am.” The cashier remarked

Rarity paid the man as Sunset readied her bag; rarity puts her change away in her purse and walked with sunset out the door.

As they walked she struck up conversation “how are you holding up darling? Did it take long to clean up after party last night? Oh, I certainly hope not”

“Tired as always. Cleaning up was a rather quick and easy task given how pinkie cleans. If I can get one day off from both my jobs all’s I’m doing is sleeping.” She pauses a moment “Hey, I heard about fluttershys car.”

Rarity interrupts “actually, if I may? Did fluttershy by any chance talk to you this morning?”

“No.” sunset said plainly

Rarity opens passenger door of her car taking the bag “she was supposed to come by today, but she never showed up.” She said as sunset placed the bag in the passenger seat “she won’t even answer her phone.”

“Is she busy? Or maybe she’s out with her boyfriend?” sunset suggested

Rarity sneered “I really don’t know, this isn’t like her to just not at least call to let you know she isn’t coming. And don’t get me started on that ‘boyfriend’ of hers, something is seriously off about him.”

Sunset looks back at the store “sorry rarity, I got get back.” She says walking back to the store

As rarity drives off from the super mart not able to shake a sneaking suspicion.

Two days later

Applejack is back to lounging in her home half asleep when she gets a call on her phone. She answers to the voice of an all to chipper

pinkie who asks if she’d enjoyed the party the other day.

“Yea, it was fun. Thanks for hosting another great get together.” She answered.

As the call went on the two laughed and joked at the other night, one specifically about a certain rainbow haired friend. The laughter went from over abundant to scares in a few minutes.

“Well pinkie I’ll tell-” she’s abruptly cut off by a knock at the door “one second!” she yells to the door as she walks to the bedroom “huh, aw no pinkie, it ain’t nothin’ just someone a knocking on the door” she scans the room a moment before opening closet and pulling a pair of pants off the shelf. “Huh, oh, I don’t know who’s at the door. I’m trying to put on some pants before I open the door” she said hopping around trying to put on the pant-leg while holding the phone between her ear and shoulder.

The knocking at the door began again and continued as Applejack walked down the hall. As she grew closer she got more and more annoyed at the on and off knocking. Who could possibly be so impatient that they couldn’t hold on two simple minutes? Applejack opened the door to an older man with pale gray skin wearing a fedora and trench coat, under the coat was a pressed dress shirt and a ‘crazy’ tie.

“Huh, Yes, can I help ya’?” she asked suspiciously. The man pulls out a small metal police badge “pinkie, I’m gonna haf’ to call you back.”

“Hello, I’m detective cord, discord.” He replies putting away the badge and pulling out a flip open note pad “is this the residence of” he glances at the note pad “Appeljack?”

“Yea” she replied

“Are you applejack, and if not is she in at the moment.” He asked writing in the note pad

“I’m she.” She answered

“I’m here investigating the accident that occurred Thursday night on I-612.”

“What’s that got to do with me?”

“Do you mind if we discuss this inside?” he asked polite as he could

Applejack waved for him to come in and shut the door behind him. He looked each way a moment before finding himself a seat on the couch, Applejack sat in her chair hunched over as discord pulled a photo out of his coat pocket handing it to her.

“It’s a shame what happened to that cheese sandwich guy.” She commented as she took the picture.

Discord points to the photo “Do you believe you could identify the vehicle in this photo?”

Applejacks hand shoots over her mouth as she sees an all too familiar 99’impala “Tha-that’s fluttershys car.”

“I’m sorry about that,” he stated as he took back the photograph.

“What happened? Is she alright? Or is she-” she went quiet at the very thought of her friend being dead.

Discord ran his hand through his thick black hair “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this ma’am, she’s currently missing.” He looked as Applejack went from tan orange to whiter than rarity “when we arrived at the scene of Mr. Sandwich’s accident we found paint and scratches from another vehicle on the front near the headlights. We believe his vehicle struck or was struck by the one in the photo”

As he explained Applejack couldn’t think of anything that made this all make sense.

“Now Applejack, I’m going to ask you a few questions and I’d like for you answer them as honestly as you could please.” He asked with a minor serious tone.

“why do ya’ say that? Do ya’ think I’m gonna lie or something?”

“No” he replied with a look of caution “how do you know the missing person?”

“She’s one of my best friends since about 7th grade.” Applejack replied

“Given the information, we believe the crash took place at 12’0 clock a.m. or around that time so we need to know what happened around

late Wednesday night.” Discord asked

“Well at about 7:30 p.m. fluttershy and I were at a party being hosted by our friend pinkie pie.”

“Was anyone else there?” he went on

“Uh, yea, there was Rarity, Sunset Shimmer, Rainbow Dash, and Night Shade.”

He writes down the names of each person as she’d list them off “Do you know where I can find these friends of yours?”

“Well Night Shade is up two floors in room c-6, Rarity lives in the housing above her boutique in town, pinkie and Rainbow live in nearby

neighborhood and sunset lived the auburn community.”

“You mean the housing project.” Discord interjected

“Yes.” She answered.

“Where were you after the party?”

“Night Shade, Rainbow Dash, and I came home, well rainbow stayed the night as she was too tired to go home and I was tired to drive.” She answered

“Was there drinking at this party?” discord asked expectantly

Applejack rubbed her head “Yea, fluttershy didn’t have more than a drink.”

After a few more questions discord walked out the door as he thanked Applejack for her time while reassuring her that they would find her friend. Applejack shut the door and immediately ran for the phone dialing fluttershy’s number, no answer; she calls again, no answer. Her heart sank as she started to do something that she’d been denying for the past couple of hours, believing fluttershy was really missing and for two days, nobody did anything about it.

Sunset sat in the living room of her rented house as a call came in on her headset.

“Hello, vidmark customer service how may I help you……No sir we don’t carry that” she exclaimed “…Well let me see, the latest models are the pro sigma 3000 and the geers v.5…No sir, the geers v.3 was discontinued last year…No, the dosen’t send replacement parts, however if you would like to trade in your v.3 for a v.5 it goes toward a discount…Well the v.5 has some standard updates, new features, and includes a month free subscription to SHOW ‘on the go’.”

She listened as the customer and another person chatted a bit before coming to an agreement on the new device.

“Thank you sir and have a wonderful afternoon.” She hangs up the call looking at the clock. Her phone ring and she snitches it up answering it as she pulled off the head set “hello” she answered tired and yawning into the phone “wait, slow down. Can you repeat that Applejack, I didn’t quite hear you.” She listen as applejack sputtered in coherent sentences and heavy breaths “whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on a second, fluttershy is missing? ……okay, okay. Look take a deep breath and start from the beginning.”