A few days later…
“Augh! Mah eyes!” Applejack stood in the bathroom at Canterlot High. Monday had arrived and another new ability seemed to be rearing its ugly head. The blond girl clawed at her face as if she could rip the memory from her mind though sheer force.After a moment she straightened out and took a deep breath.
“It’s alright” She mumbled to herself. “Ah just have to stay away from him fer a while. He doesn’t know. Ugh, but why him of all people?”
Other than that one little... incident the rest of the day was pretty uneventful. Both Big Mac and Applebloom had agreed to keep the weekend's revelations to themselves (of course Macintosh probably would’ve kept quiet regardless). Applejack sat with her friends at lunch as usual but kept silent while the conversation whirled around her.Granny Smith had given her a questioning look as if to ask if she had told the others yet. In response she’d simply looked down and shrugged.
“Are you alright Applejack?” She looked up to see Sunset Shimmer’s concerned face staring back.
“Ah’m fine. I guess. Why do yah ask?”
“Well, the expression on your face for one.” Began Sunset, “Also it’s been almost ten minutes and the apple on your tray is still in one piece.”
Applejack chuckled a bit to herself. But she soon adopted a more serious expression.
“Sunset. If you found out sumthin’ about yerself that yah didn’t know before, would yah tell us?”
“I don’t really know.” her friend replied, brushing a strand of her red and gold hair out of her face. “What kind of thing do you mean?”
“Ah mean... that is...”Applejack struggled to express herself without flat out saying what had happened that weekend. “Sumthin’ that completely changed the way yah thought about yerself.”
“Well... I guess I never really thought about it. But Applejack, if something’s bothering you, you can tell us anything.”
Applejack held up her hand and massaged her temples. Suddenly, her newly sharpened hearing sensed a voice approaching.
“Oh no.” she whispered. “Ah’ve gotta go!”
She stood up to leave but was blocked by a cloud of pink hair.
“What are you talking about Applejack!” Pinky Pie more shouted than asked.
“Pinky Ah really need tah get outta here!” He was getting closer “Please?”
“Awww. What’s wrong?”
“Uh... Look a distraction!”
“WHERE?!” As soon as Pinky’s head was turned Applejack bolted, careful not to use her super speed.
“Uggh. What’s taking her so long?” Rainbow Dash exclaimed, sinking back in her seat at Sugarcube Corner. She and the others were waiting for Applejack to arrive, but she was late.
“I hope nothing bad happened.” Said Fluttershy “Oh dear. What if she got hurt on her way here?”
“Oh don’t worry darling” chimed in Rarity “I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation that doesn’t involve anyone being injured.”
“She seemed kind of worried about something earlier” said Sunset, finishing off the soda in front of her. “I hope everything’s alright”
“Why didn’t you just do your mind-meld mumbo jumbo to figure out what was going on?” asked Rainbow
“Rainbow, I can’t just read people’s minds anytime they don’t feel like talking. How would you feel if I did that to you?”
The spectrum haired teen pondered for a moment.
“Weeeellll, I guess you have a point. But still, what’s taking her so long?”
Twilight, who’d remained silent for this whole exchange, suddenly noticed something out of the corner of her eye. She turned her head just in time to see a car flying toward the window the six girls sat next to.
“Look Out!”
Applejack pulled a red hoodie over her shirt. Luckily she’d thought to throw it in her book bag this morning before she left home. Seriously, it was almost May and yet the temperature had dropped to almost forty in just twenty four hours. The forecast even called for snow later in the week.
“Yah know,” She thought to herself, “yah’d think that with the super strength an the flyin’ an all, Ah wouldn’t get cold so easy.”
She stopped. Flying. She hadn’t tried since she’d discovered she could, and even then it was only about a foot off the ground. Applejack checked her phone. She still had about ten minutes before she needed to meet the others at Sugarcube corner. Pulling her hood tighter over her head, she ducked into an alley.
“Alright, so how do Ah do this?” Applejack held one hand up into the air clench in a fist and closed her eyes, “Up, up, and Away!” she shouted. When her eyes opened she was still firmly planted on the ground. “Ah, told Big Mac that wouldn’t work.
Maybe Ah hafta tah jump first tah get started.”
With this thought in mind, she crouched down with one hand on the asphalt beneath her. She took a deep breath, and leapt.
The air blew past her face and, Applejack looked down to find that roof of the nearest building was nearly thirty feet below her… and rapidly getting nearer.
“Oh No! Nononono!” Applejack shut her eyes again. “STOP!”
No impact. She cracked open her eyelids and peered before her. She’d stopped mere inches from the surface below.
“Alright. Higher.” She thought. As she did so, Applejack felt herself begin to rise. She flailed her arms and legs a bit in an attempt to right herself. Finally, right side up she could see people running back and forth beneath her and it dawned on her.
She could fly. She could fly under her own power. She had floated a bit before, all her friends had, but never for more than a few seconds and definitely not on her own. The excitement built up inside until suddenly she let it all out.
“YEEHAW!!!” Applejack cried out as she took off. Without any particular destination in mind, she soared up into the clouds. She circled above Canterlot City twice before coming to a stop on the roof of a skyscraper. A few pigeons flew past and a thought occurred to her.
“*Heh* Ain’t Rainbow gonna jealous when she finds out about this” Wait a second. “Aw, Shoot!” Her ten minutes early had turned into nearly twenty minutes late. She zoomed off in the direction of the diner.
She began to slow down as she arrived a few minutes later. With any luck, the others would still be here. The blond girl came in for a landing about a block away and narrowly avoided a face-first arrangement with the pavement.
“Ah’ll have tah work on that” She thought as she rounded the corner, just in time to see a car about to nose dive into Sugarcube Corner.
Stormy Skies had not had a good day. He’d gotten stuck in traffic this morning, arrived at work late, his boss yelled at him, and the breakroom was out of coffee.Someone up there clearly had it out for him, and was trying to make him suffer.
His thoughts were a little preoccupied so he wasn’t exactly thinking straight when he rounded the corner. At fifty-two miles an hour. And hit a pot hole.
His vehicle flipped through the air. The building before him loomed in his vision.
And then he stopped.
Stormy looked up. He was definitely still in the air. Just a couple of feet before him was the window of a café of some kind. In the reflection he could see: a girl holding up his car.
Applejack's heart beat faster than a spooked rabbit. She set the car down and its driver crawled out.
“You, You saved my life” he said, eyes wide.
“Shucks. Errr, that is, It was nothing, uh, citizen.” Applejack stumbled trying to hide her accent. She heard voices behind her. Already a dozen or so people were gathered around and, of course, most of them had their phones out. Mentally Applejack was grateful she still had her hood drawn tightly over her face. In all the times she and her friends had used magic their faces had (somehow) never ended up online and she wasn’t about to let it happen now. Even so this was a little close for comfort. She bent her knees and took to the skies once more.
Not long afterwards Twilight, Sunset and the rest received a message from Applejack. She asked them all to meet her at her place. Soon all six arrived at her front door where they were greeted by her grandmother.
“Hi Granny Smith!” exclaimed Pinky Pie. “Is Applejack here?”
“Well, Ah reckon she’s out back with the chickens. Yah want me tah get her?”
“No thanks.” Replied Sunset, “we’ll just go back there.”
The group made their way around to were the poultry was kept only to find their friend was not there.
“Applejack!” Shouted Rainbow Dash. “Where are you?”
“Up here Y’all” replied a voice from above. The girls looked up to see Applejack descending towards them. When she landed there was a moment of silence, followed by a barrage of questions.
“How?!”
“What?!”
“How did you..?!”
“Huh?!”
“What?! What?! What?!”
“Does anyone else want pancakes?”
When everyone had calmed down Applejack relayed the story her grandmother had told, followed by the information from the Kryptonian crystal. When she stopped Sunset just looked confused.
“Applejack, was that what you were talking about earlier?”
“Well, yeah,” Said Applejack with a shrug.
“You know, you didn’t have to be so worried. I mean after all, I’m basically an alien.” Applejack did a double take before it hit her.
“Oh yeah… fergot about that. Wait what did yah think Ah was talkin’ about?”
“Um, it’s not important.”
“But it’s still super awesome!” Rainbow cut in. “Ooh! Do you have any other powers besides flying?”
“Well so far there’s super strength, speed, hearin’” she counted them off on her fingers while just behind Rainbow Twilight was taking furious notes. “and uh, well, X-ray vision.”
“What was that?”
“X-ray vision.”
“Sorry, one more time?”
“X-Ray Vision, Alright?!” Everyone stopped and stared. Fluttershy’s face turned scarlet. Pinkie held a hand to her chin and looked suspicious.
“Wait a second. Is that why you got all freaked out when Microchips came over at lunch?” she inquired. Applejack pulled her hat over her face.
“It was an accident.”
Rainbow Dash looked like she was about to explode laughing. Then she did.
“Oh my god! You totally used X-ray vision on Microchips! Hahahaha!”
Applejack prayed that invisibility was one of her powers.
“Yah know, Ah imagined this going a lot of ways. This was not one a them.”