Time seemed to slow down for Liam as the enraged teen flew at him, magic trailing behind her gloved fist like a rising tide. In that sliver of heightened perception and adrenaline his mind examined the situation as best it could
Okay, hold up just a moment, just hold everything. Let's take stock of this. That's... Applejack. That's... APPLEJACK. About to punch you. Normally you wouldn't need to worry about taking a hit. You've survived worse. However, you're apparently now in the Twilight Zone and this punch has honest-to-god MAGIC behind it judging by the sudden wardrobe addition. So if you add this to today's list of losing most of your family, being forced to flee from your home, and crashing through a jumpgate into an entirely different UNIVERSE then... yeah, I think we're fresh out of diplomatic responses.
Well trained reflexes kicked in and his eyes narrowed in calculation. He stepped back into the wall panel behind him and brought his arms up, one hanging over the other. He waited another heartbeat to be sure of the distance then quickly flexed a number of muscles from his hands to his elbows. A couple feet ahead of him the air distorted twice, once in front of Applejack's chest and the other in front of her thighs. Her punch quickly became a flail as she was sent flying backwards a yard or two then tripped over a heel and fell onto her back with a small gasp. Liam just exhaled sharply as he was momentarily pressed back into the wall. He recovered quickly and stepped forward, checking the rest of the group she'd arrived with as he did so, ready to fend them off as well. It rapidly became apparent that wasn't going to be necessary though. None of them had been as close as Applejack and had felt only a scant part of the field's accelerating influence, but it had been enough to momentarily upset their sense of direction and balance. Now they were all stumbling around dizzily, most grasping at each other or whatever was close at hand to steady them. One recovered more quickly than the rest and pointed a tan colored finger at him.
"Was that magic?!" Sunset shouted accusingly while steadying herself against the nearest wall.
Liam's mind blanked as the words cut through his anger and annoyance. The voice was chillingly close; not a perfect match, but close enough that he momentarily lost the focus he'd used to fend off the enraged teen. The sound was younger and less mellow than the one he'd heard time and time again, but with the same inflections and personality. The feeling of wrongness only intensified as the others rushed over to Applejack.
"AJ! You okay?" the chromatic haired girl asked, the first to regain their balance. Her voice, scratchy and energetic, made his pulse quicken and a chill ran down his back.
"Goddammit, what in tarnation was that? Did he just use magic on me?" Applejack asked angrily, glaring at him in anger though with a touch of shock and surprise as well.
Southern twang? Check. Country-isms? Kinda check? Relaxed and grounded tone? Not check. His sense of reality warped a little bit more in every direction it could find.
"Sure looked that way," Rainbow Dash said as she helped Applejack back up. They scowled at Liam and Will as the Legionnaire quickly walked over to his originator, one hand on his forehead.
"Liam, meet Sunset Shimmer, Twilight Sparkle, Rarity, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, and Applejack. Sooooo... is this going to become a thing now? Because I'd rather not end up like Jax every time we meet each other," he said as he haggardly looked from the Progenitor to the girls and back.
Liam whipped around and stared at Will. "Wait, what happened to Jax?"
Will tossed up his hands. "Pinkie bisected him with some kind of explosive, no idea how. He's fine, but he does need a new body."
"She... what?" stammered Liam, his mouth nearly hanging open. A memory of two blackened eyes staring out of a ruined face rose through the fog pervading his mind like an angry leviathan. It was more than enough to evaporate the confusion in his mind. He slowly turned and locked Pinkie with a deep scowl. The party planner recoiled at the venom behind the glare and gave a small nervous wave. He began to open his mouth, to yell what he didn't know, when Will laid a hand on his shoulder.
"It's okay. He's fine, no damage to the brain case. We didn't lose him too," he said softly. Liam held his gaze out of the corner of his eye for a second or two before looking at Pinkie again. She took a slow step towards the rest of her friends, then another. He saw the fear in her own and he felt his temper burn back down to no more than a low simmering heat.
"Will, I'm not going to have good a good reaction to anything that looks human for awhile. Keep an eye on me and pull me back if I go off the deep end."
That elicited a short chuckle from Will. "Sure thing. First bit of advice? Don't go looking in any mirrors till that passes."
Liam snerked at the jab. "Okay, okay, point taken... smartass. I'll rein in the melodrama. Still, you know what I meant."
Will was about to say something in return when a loud shout drew their attention.
"Hey, the heck are you two talking about? You gonna tell us what that was or are we gonna have to beat it outta you like we did with your friends?"
Liam felt the anger rising again but yanked it back with a long exhalation. It's Rainbow Dash, she's just like that. It's just Dash, so don't take it personally. It's- oh what the hell am I saying???
He laughed out loud at how absurd his "calming" thoughts sounded, drawing confused frowns and a couple glares from the group of teens. He put up a hand and grinned impishly. "Sorry, this is a little outside my normal experiences, that's all. I saw a threat and fell back on some trained reflexes."
"You trained to use magic to throw people around?" asked Twilight.
"Wait, magic? Oh! No, no it's- it's not magic, it's an application of inflationary physics..." replied Liam with less than complete certainty now. A lot of long held views and facts were suddenly coming into considerable question in the face of the seven in front of him. Twilight's eyes shot open followed closely by her pulling out a pad of paper and a pencil and writing in them furiously.
"You expect us ta believe that? Ain't never seen any physics do somethin' like that before," Applejack said testily.
"And I've never seen anyone materialize a glove out of thin air," Liam countered. He hadn't entirely dispelled the memory of her fist flying at his face just yet. They locked glares for a moment until Rainbow Dash pointed at him, drawing his attention away.
"That's a load of bull. Your buddy Will already let slip you knew all about magic! Pinkie called him out and he couldn't deny it!"
"Wait, we don't- Will, what the hell did you say?"
Will made a timeout motion with his hands. "Hold on, I didn't say a thing! Pinkie just asked me a question that caught me off guard!"
"He didn't need to say anything! He panicked when she asked why your metal buddies were familiar with people and can talk like us and know about magic."
Liam blinked a few times then lowered his head and groaned faintly. He needed to end this circus before the last threads of sanity in him snapped. "Geeeeez... okay, we can answer all of those. I mean, seeing me has got to answer a few of those right?" Rainbow nodded slightly but her expression didn't turn any less suspicious or annoyed. "Right, I get it. I'll take us somewhere we can talk-"
"Oh no, I'll go with you're not a brain eating alien - for now - but that doesn't tell us JACK about who you are and what you're here for. Will said we'd get answers by coming to you, so we're not going anywhere else until we get them!" Rainbow Dash yelled as she crossed her arms.
"Like why y'all were plannin' to BLOW UP THE FARM," Applejack said in a low growl.
"We were going to destroy the ship, not your-" Liam stopped and shut his eyes. Stop thinking of them as some sort of larger than life characters. No matter what else they may be, they're teenagers and you remember what that group is like. Fight or flight ratcheted up to eleven with hormones and adrenaline making twelve a very possible option, he thought as memories of unfriendly hallways and past friends flashed across his mind.
He kept his eyes closed then sat down and crossed his legs, eliciting mutters from his audience. He could hear Will following his lead with the faint click of metal on metal not long after. When everything was silent again he opened his eyes. They were all still there; impossibly, undeniably, standing across from him. But he was able to focus further past that now and he sighed a little in satisfaction.
"Okay, let's start over. We'll do the Q&A here." He looked around the assembled group. "Who wants to start?"
The girls all glanced at one another for a bit with low mutters and gestures before a kind of consensus formed as Twilight, Sunset, and Applejack stepped to the front of the group.
Sunset tapped Twilight on the shoulder. Twilight looked down at her notes then back up and started to ask her questions.
"Our farm. WHY?" Applejack demanded before Twilight could get a word in, the terse phrase more condemnation than question. Twilight and Sunset shared a look that Liam caught out of the corner of his eye that left him with a sense that things had just gotten even more tense.
"It wasn't by choice. We were trying to return home when the jumpgate suddenly... I honestly don't know what to call it. Redirected, I guess? What should have dropped us just outside our base ended up opening in the sky of your world. Which, I'll add, we'd all thought was impossible due to the physics involved. It shouldn't have been able to open that close in to a large gravity well or atmosphere and stayed stable long enough for us to transit through."
Applejack watched his face as he talked, her eyes darting one way then another. Sunset did roughly the same while Twilight was being, well, Twilight, and writing furiously in her notebook.
"Well, you managed to get your story straight between the two of you. Now let's hear about y'all blowin' up everythin'," said Applejack with a further narrowing of her eyes.
Liam swallowed as discreetly as he could. Despite his irritation with her bolstering his nerves, interrogation by Applejack was proving to be one of the most unnerving experiences he'd ever had.
"It's standard procedure to prevent our tech falling into the wrong hands. Any ship that crashes or is incapacitated in a foreign territory and can't make the repairs necessary to get moving under its own power is destroyed."
Applejack raised an eyebrow and looked at him for a long moment, her eyes boring into his. "So your gadgets and computers are worth more to ya than mah family's home and our lives? Go to hell. Actually, get yer pile of shit spaceship off our property and far, far away from here and then GO. TO. HELL," she said with finality.
Both Liam and Will recoiled at the rancor behind every word. They glanced at each other then looked at the other two spokespeople for answers and clues. Twilight was gripping her notepad tightly while biting her lower lip, her eyes darting from Applejack to them and back. Sunset was more forthcoming, though not in the way they'd hoped. Instead she simply shook her head softly while looking between them to make sure they'd seen the motion.
Okay, tread lightly. Got it he thought with mounting unease.
"I'm sorry Applejack, but it's a precaution that we've been forced to take based on experience."
Applejack didn't say a thing. She didn't really need to. The twitch of her lip was shouting her feelings on the matter.
"One second, who is 'we' here? All that Will would tell us is he and the others are 'Legionnaires' , whatever that means, and you're called the 'Progenitor'. Again, whatever that means. It just left us more confused than we were before," Sunset said as she leaned back on one foot and crossed her arms in front of her. Liam suddenly remembered a very similar scene where a crimson and gold haired girl asked what a certain lavender skinned science geek was up to.
Oh great, at this rate I really am going to lose it. The universe has cracked, fiction is fact, fact is fiction, and now I'm having trouble telling them apart. To his side Will coughed and raised a hand slightly, pulling him out of his mental grumbling.
"Sorry about that. I was hoping that you all seeing him would help calm things down," he directed at Sunset with a raised eye ridge. Sunset's brow arched up in comprehension.
"Because he's human? That really just adds more questions Will," she noted with a wry smile, the first Liam humor had seen from any of them since Applejack had tried to clock him. He'd take whatever improvements in the mood he could get right now.
"Yeah, didn't quite go as I hoped..." Will trailed off, making a point to not look at Applejack.
Liam waved his hand to get everyone's attention back. "Okay, let's start there. Yes, I'm human. As far as I can tell so are all of you, though no one else I've met has been quite so... chromatic." Key word there being met...
"What do you mean?" asked Pinkie.
"Well, for one thing, where I'm from hair doesn't come in that color...," Liam replied as he pointed at her. He glanced over at Rainbow Dash and added, "... and don't even get me started on that combo."
"Hey, you got a problem with how I look?!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed. She blushed faintly as Will hid a snicker behind his hand.
"Sorry, it's just for us skin comes in various shades of brown to tan to white... though less than that," Will said as he nodded towards Rarity. "Same with hair, though you can also get some blonde and red tones."
"For you?" Dash noted skeptically.
Will rolled his eyes. "Okay, for him and the humans we're used to," he corrected with a nod at Liam.
"Oh my, was that why you seemed so shocked when you saw us? I'd certainly understand if that's the limited palette you're familiar with," said Rarity almost pityingly.
Liam stifled a nervous laugh as he thought of all the ways he could reply to that question and instead settled on the safest one that had the added bonus of being completely honest. "Yeah, that was a big one out of all the thoughts I had when Will brought you here."
"But if you're not familiar with people that look like us... does that mean you come from somewhere else besides Earth?" asked Twilight intently. The other girls also became more focused after that and Liam had to once again stifle his manic amusement at the situation. It didn't last though as his brain revved up to deal with a key bit of information Twilight had given him. Time to probe for more.
"Earth huh? Funnily enough that's the name of our world. Somehow I doubt they're one in the same though, especially since ours doesn't have 'magic'," he said, adding in the finger quotations around the last word.
"You do know you almost got flattened with a magic-ed up punch just a minute ago right? If you hadn't pulled... whatever that was, you'd be doing a lot less talking and a lot more groaning ," Rainbow Dash added before shrugging when Fluttershy gave her a disappointed look. "What? It's true!"
Liam nodded. "Don't worry Fluttershy, I know she didn't mean anything by it and I'm not denying what it looked like either. It's more that magic is the stuff of myth and fiction for us and my first instinct would be to look for a high tech answer. There's a famous saying from an author all of us like: 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic'. I was really hoping that might be the case here," he replied, knowing that was almost certainly not the case. That just brought up the idea of how much he did actually know about the current situation. God, how do I even tell them about the series and the stories and the unintentional intrusion into their lives? Actually, how does that even work?
His train of thought was derailed as Twilight practically bounced into the air. "Do you have any of their works with you? I'd love to look them over as soon as-" she paused as Applejack huffed loudly. "-as you finish telling us who you are. Ahehe..."
"Sure, that won't be a problem. As for who we are, I'll continue with what Will's told you. Will and the others you met are Legionnaires. It's a name we came up with for his... Will, what would you say? Kind? Race? Species? We still haven't hammered that out."
Will rubbed his chin for a moment. "I've always been partial to kind. No extra baggage unless you really want to add it in."
Liam nodded. "Will and his kind then."
"But what are they? I've never seen anything like them and Jax barely cared that he'd been blown in half - sorry," said Twilight as Liam gave her a mild frown. He paused for a moment as he considered his next words.
"They're... me."
"You mind explaining that a little more?" Sunset said after waiting a few seconds, rolling her hand to encourage him on.
Liam bounced his head a little with a grunt and tossed a thumb at Will. "It's complicated. There is no real difference between myself or Will or any of the other Legionnaires. They're copies of my mind in synthetic bodies. Every one of them, all half a million-" A memory of burning wrecks spinning over a lost world flashed across his mind before he he tossed it aside, "-or so, has all my memories, all my dreams and fears, everything that makes me, well, me."
Every one of the girls' jaws dropped open as their eyes switched back and forth from him to Will and back again.
"Half a million? You have HALF A MILLION YOUS? Your birthday parties must be amazing!" exclaimed Pinkie in awe.
"But... HOW?" said Twilight in a near frenzied state now, her pencil almost boring a hole in the paper under it.
Liam rubbed the back of his head and shrugged with an awkward grin. "No clue."
The pencil tip snapped with a small pop as Twilight jerked a little. "...what?" she said at length. "How can you not know? How did you build them then?" Liam leaned back minutely when he noticed her writing hand quivering a little as she spoke.
"Let me rephrase that! I know exactly how they're designed, built, and powered. I have no idea how their minds work other than how to copy them and that they're exact duplicates of mine."
Twilight blinked and looked at Will pleadingly. He shook his head with a faint grin. "Sorry Twilight, no clue here either. We know as much as he does. Literally."
"But-"
"Twilight, do you understand where your own consciousness comes from?" Will asked with a slight lift of an eyeridge.
Twilight blinked then shook her head and sighed. "No, and I get what you're saying. It's just... I was hoping for more when you and the others turned out to be, uh, friendly," she said, her eyes momentarily twitching in Applejack's direction. "You're the first confirmed non-biological life we've seen! The first mechanical lifeforms! It's an incredible and historic moment. You have to tell me all about them later."
Out of the corner of his eye Liam saw Sunset stifle a small cough and he wondered just what she was thinking in that moment. Some sort of creature from her home maybe? He set those questions aside for later though and focused on the disappointed science nerd.
"I'm sorry we don't have more. We're still trying to figure that out after more than seventy years of research. I wouldn't mind telling you more later."
"Seventy years? Ah thought you said they were copies of you? How the heck does that work, huh?" Applejack asked suspiciously. Liam grinned and lifted his hand from his knee and turned it so the girls could see the large watch on the wrist. The circle around the face was made of polished metal with a striking, cross-hatched grain and instead of the usual display of hours and minutes it had a set of three numbers taking up the available space.
Y:99 M:8 D:14
"Not hard when I'll be turning a hundred in a few months."
Silence filled the corridor once more until Rainbow nodded evenly and almost disinterestedly. "Yeah, it all makes perfect sense." She glanced at the others calmly and tossed a thumb at Will and Liam. "They're lying aliens. Can we beat them up now?"
"NO!" both of her targets cried out and facepalmed in unison.
Sunset was forced to hide a laugh at the pair's antics and then once more as Pinkie fell to the floor in a giggling mess, even as her mind reeled at Liam's answer.
"How- how, how can you be a hundred years old? You barely look older than any of us!" she said around giggles as she got her mixed amusement and mild shock under control. For a moment she wondered why it didn't shock her more. Probably because at this point nothing would surprise me about these guys? Well, that and I lived in the same castle as a ageless Alicorn for most of my life.
Liam leaned his head to the side and gave her a pained look. "Really? A teenager? Why don't you twist the knife while you're at it? I know my face looks young but geez..."
Sunset suppressed another laugh and looked him over once more. He was maybe an inch taller than most of them with cream colored skin. His hair was a deep brown, a color that was rare among everyone that she'd met either here or in Equestria. It was short with a slight widows peak that flipped up slightly towards the front. The proportions of his features were a little off as well, his face more angular, his eyes slightly smaller and narrower, and while none of those traits was that strange on its own taken all together it became noticeably odd.
What really stood out though was the color of his eyes. The iris was for the most part a bright electric blue but around the outer edge it deepened to a red tinted lavender or purple. Something about the color nagged at the back of her mind but she forgot about it as Rarity chimed in with her own question.
"Darling, you mean to tell us you're really that old? Is it something from your world then that lets you look like that, maybe something you'd be willing to sell or trade for?"
"Rarity!" Applejack interjected sharply.
"Oh don't be obtuse Applejack, this could be a golden opportunity to enhance my future business! Everyone wants couture that can bring out their inner youth and beauty but just imagine if I could package that with actually letting them keep that inner youth!"
"I've said before ya can have a vain streak a mile wide at times but this is goin' too far. It's just not natural. Even you've gotta see that," replied Applejack sternly. A small cough brought both of their attentions back to their human visitor.
"Rarity, I'm sorry to tell you this but it's not something I can give you. Not because I wouldn't want to, but because in all likelihood can't. I'm the only person on my planet like this. It's not just youth either, it's biological immortality. Do you really want to outlive everyone you've ever known? That you will ever know?"
Rarity's eyes went wide and her lower lip quivered for a moment. "Sweetie... no, no I wouldn't," she said as she shuddered with her eyes squeezed tightly shut. When they opened again they were misty. "Darling, how can you live with that?" she asked in a near whisper.
Liam shrugged. "For me it isn't that bad. I've got half a million companions that are failing to age right along with me. Heck, some of them are even older than me at this point."
"I suppose I should have guessed that Will and the others weren't vulnerable to the ravishes of time. But what about your family? Don't you have parents, or brothers and sisters?"
"I'm an only child and thankfully I haven't lost my parents yet."
"Wait, you just said you were the only one to not age so how are they..." noted Twilight gingerly.
"They're still around thanks to a quirk of those physics I mentioned earlier. I may be nearly a hundred now but to everyone I've known from my planet I was born twenty six years ago."
Pinkie scratched her head and silently counted on her fingers. "Is a space year four Earth years?"
Will chuckled. "No they're the same length, but our years are more elastic than others."
"Will, you really need to work on explaining things. Seriously dude, you completely suck at it," Rainbow said as she gave him a half-lidded stare. Will rolled his eyes and returned her stare in full.
"Explaining things is his job, I'm just here to make sure he doesn't hurt himself or go off the deep end now that the universe we knew has thrown us a curve ball," he said, pointing a finger at Liam as he did.
Liam nodded sagely in turn and said, "Yeah, you could think of Will as my constant sanity check. He's been with me longer than anyone and keeps me on the straight and narrow. But returning to the topic of explanations, instead of trying to say everything from here on out it will really be easier to show you some old videos from many, many years back." He raised an eyebrow added, "Have we earned enough trust now to take you somewhere we can do that?"
Sunset looked around at her friends to see how they felt. She was interested, no question about that, and she didn't feel threatened by the pair like she had when she first encountered each of them, but she wasn't going to go alone and leave any of them behind. None of them seemed openly against the idea, though Applejack still looked sullen and unenthusiastic. Despite that she didn't decline the offer and just sighed with a nod. Rainbow Dash turned a smirk on Liam and said, "Looks like you just barely earned it. So, alien home movie time?"
"Applebloom, when we git home you and Big Mac go grab yer sister and unload the truck. I'll git some ice and cider ready fer when y'all finish. She and her friends should be done with their sciencey-whatever by now."
"Sure Granny, no problem. Just hope Twilight hasn't blown up the farm," Applebloom replied with a snicker.
"Eyup," Big Mac added with a smile.
"Don't you two worry none, Applejack's with 'em and that girl's more skittish about the farm than the both'a ya combined. She wouldn't let'em do anything risky," Granny quipped in return. Big Mac considered her words for a moment then nodded with another "Eyup". Applebloom laughed once and leaned back in her seat.
"She'll be glad ta know she was worryin' over nothing when she stayed behind. We didn't need another set of hands to load up this time 'round," she said even as she shifted a little to relieve a kink in her back. Fertilizer and feed were always heavy but she hadn't struggled with it as much this year. She wasn't going to insist on unloading the stuff as well though, not when Applejack would be close by and could lift the whole stack of sacks and bags out of the bed without any effort. For that matter, she could probably just lift the truck and dump the stuff out of it that way. Big Mac seemed to be thinking along similar lines and gave a long suffering sigh.
"Yep..."
Applebloom watched him grimace slightly out of the corner of her eye and felt her own face twitch to match. Her brother had been as shocked as any of them when Applejack came back from camp and proceeded to lift the truck's tow trailer with one hand. They'd known of course about her and her friends getting "magic" last year when the other Twilight came to CHS but it had just been one of those odd things that didn't really impact their day to day lives apart from Sunset joining her circle of friends. The super strength though was way more visible and real somehow. Big Mac in particular seemed to have taken the change harder than she or Granny had, probably because he'd always been the muscle on the farm and now Applejack had way overshot him there. There wasn't much farm work left that he was the more able hand at except for fixing the equipment and he'd become a lot more protective of that work since Applejack's return.
"Big Mac-"
"What in blazes?" Granny muttered as she leaned forward in the passenger seat of the truck, cutting Applebloom off. She frowned at the interruption and leaned forward as well then inhaled sharply. A faint redish glow illuminated a rising haze of faint grey smoke against the dark night sky over the nearest hill. The last hill between them and their home.
"Big Mac, step on it!" Granny shouted with a grunt as Big Mac beat her to punch, mashing the gas pedal down and forcing the the aged truck to jump forward along the empty country road. Applebloom winced as the old fabric and padding of her seat failed to stop her worn-out back from pressing into the frame painfully. She barely noticed it though as her earlier words came back to haunt her. Calm down Applebloom, they didn't blow up the farm, everyone's fine. Probably the tractor blew another gasket or there's a fire on the other side of the ridge from us, she thought desperately and entirely unconvinced of any of those options.
Applebloom's thoughts were yanked back to the here and now as Big Mac hit the final curve before the turn for their driveway fast enough to throw her against her seatbelt. She had little time to right herself as he hit the breaks and slewed onto the dirt road, ghostly trees whipping by in the truck's headlights before vanishing into the dark again. She didn't feel any concern at the harried drive, Big Mac had driven this road enough that he could probably do it blindfolded, but her worry about Applejack mounted as the low glow and smoke became greater and more pronounced over the tops of the darkened trees.
They crested the last rise and shot out of the forest into the open field next to their house. Applebloom breathed a sigh of relief as everything was how it was supposed to be. No burned out skeleton of their house, no crater in place of their barn, no sign of anything wrong. In front of the barn were Sunset's bike and a number of cars she recognized belonging to her sister's friends. The red glow flickered across their metal forms and Applebloom turned to look for the source when her breath caught in her throat. An entire section of orchard was completely destroyed and in its place sat... something. It was huge, easily dwarfing the surrounded trees, and looked like nothing she'd ever seen before. She couldn't make out any details about it clearly through the dark other than a metallic reflection granted by the small embers of burning wood laying all around it and the smoke rising from a protrusion on the closest side.
"What the devil is that thing?" Granny screeched as Big Mac hit the brakes. The truck rolled to a stop just in front of their house and all three popped open their doors in a rush.
"Applejack! APPLEJACK! Where are ya dang it? Applejack!"
Applebloom paused to take a couple deep breaths than cupped her hands in front of her. "APPLEJACK!"
"Applebloom, they're not here."
She spun around as Big Mac placed a hand on her shoulder.
"B-But where did they go?"
Big Mac grimaced and began looking around again when Granny's voice called out from back by the truck. "I know where yer sister's gone, the dang fool."
Applebloom ran back over and found Granny squinting at the thing in the orchard, one hand supporting her against the truck. "Do you see them Granny?" she asked, squinting into the dark to try to spot them as well.
Granny sighed. "No, I ain't. But take another look at where that thing is."
Applebloom looked at her with a confused frown then stared back into the night. The thing took up most of the picture she could make out but then she noticed a couple familiar land marks. The tool shed out by the edge of the Everfree to the left and the road heading out to it through the center of the orchard which meant it was in-
Applebloom's eyes shot open and a small sob escaped from her. Big Mac caught up and realized what she'd see as well judging by his pained grunt. She felt him place an arm around her and pull her close followed not long after by Granny's weaker but gentler embrace. She began crying in earnest then, her face pressed into Granny Smith's shoulder, soaking her shirt through completely.
Her grandmother placed a hand on her head and brushed her hair back out of her eyes. "We can cry o'er the Fall section later. Right now we need to git over there and find yer sister. Any other part of the farm and she would'a waited to call the cops but that one... there's not a doubt in mah mind she rushed in. Girl's got more stubbornness than brains at times," she huffed then looked up at her brother. "Big Mac, call the police and let'em know what's happened. Then git the shotgun and git back here. Ah'm not waiting for'em to git all the way out here, not when Applejack's in God knows what kinda trouble over there."
Big Mac nodded and pulled away from the pair then jogged off around the truck and towards the house. Soft golden light spilled out into the yard as he opened the front door and dashed inside. Applebloom felt a sudden yearning to run towards the familiar glow and away from the harsh light creeping out of the Fall harvest. The feeling diminished as Granny began rubbing her head.
"Ah know Applebloom. We'll fix it up again eventually. Those trees're strong and the ground's good. It had a lotta care when it was planted and with some more it'll be just like it was," Granny said confidently. Applebloom felt her pain lessen a little but it didn't vanish entirely. She'd lived with Granny her whole life and caught the faint note of worry underlying her words.
Time seemed to stop as the two stood there, holding each other tightly. Applebloom barely realized the minutes passing by until the golden glow of the doorway opening again broke the moment and Big Mac came out carrying the family shotgun. He stopped at the back of the truck and gently lowered it into the bed along with their single box of shells. He stepped back around to their side and Applebloom noticed he looked a lot more nervous now.
"Phone's down. Reckon that thing must'a knocked down the line along the middle road," he said, pointing down at the road between the orchard sections and then to the left out past the shed and the surrounding hills towards town.
Granny clicked her tongue in annoyance and looked back out over her farm. "Well, nothin' we can do 'bout that from here. Either yer sister and her friends called'em on their cell phones and the're not far behind us or they didn't and the only way'o calling them is ta fix the busted line. Either way, we best git goin'."
Applebloom nodded and turned to open the back door of the truck when Granny's hand shot out against it with a loud twang. "Oh no, yer stayin' here Applebloom. Yer brother and I can handle this but we need ya to stay at the farm in case someone comes ta check on things or in case yer sister and her friends come back while we're gone."
"But Granny Ah-"
"No buts other than yours marching back to the house ya hear? Now git movin'. Big Mac, let's git goin'."
Applebloom watched in stunned silence as Granny Smith got in the passenger seat of the truck behind her and made a deliberate show of locking the doors. She gave Applebloom a small shake of her head and nodded back towards the house. Big Mac got in and began turning the engine over. After a few seconds it caught and roared to life, the loud pop of the exhaust piercing the quiet stillness and shocking Applebloom out of her daze. She took a couple steps back, Granny's eyes never leaving hers as she did, then turned and began slowly walking around the front of the truck towards the house, her head hung low. Big Mac put their family ride into reverse and backed into the field next to the barn and began taking off back the way they'd come towards the split to the orchard road.
Applebloom reached the steps just as they crested the hill and disappeared over the other side. She looked back towards the fading light of the truck's highbeams and stifled a sniffle then ran her sleeve over her eyes to wipe away fresh tears. She turned to head up the steps of the porch when a glint caught her eye and made her blink. She looked to her left and shivered again as she saw the dim firelight glinting off of Sunset's motorcycle as it leaned against the front of the barn. Sunset will know what to do right? She or Twilight will know what that thing is...
She was about to head back up the stairs when something else caught her eye: her bike, resting against one of the pillars inside the barn. She stared at it for a few moments then back out towards the thing in the orchard then back to the bike again. She nodded once before breathing in deeply and running to the barn.