As the sun began to drift lower in the sky, Apple Bloom's youth triumphed over the experience of Zecora and Twilight, and the yellow earth filly outraced her pursuers to the Everfree Forest by a wide margin. Having no other ideas as to how to conduct her search for Greased Lightning, she quickly traced the path to Zecora's hut deep within the forest, then began searching the woods around the hut in earnest, looking for a sign of the fallen pegasus's whereabouts.
"All right, Apple Bloom," she said to herself, "here's the plan: We're going to find Greased Lightinin,' and finally figure out what happened after he disappeared. If he's alive, I've got a bunch of questions for him: What happened between him and Turbo Jet? How did he recover from losing his special talent? And why the hay does he live way out here in the Everfree Forest?"
And if he's dead? A voice inside the young filly's head asked. What do you do if he couldn't survive being a pseudo-blank-flank?
Apple Bloom choked up a little at the idea. "I'll tell him to rest in peace," she decided, "and then look for a cliff to jump off of."
As lost in thought as she was, Apple Bloom soon lost herself amidst the brush and brambles of the forest as well. Eventually, though, she came to her senses after passing the same patch of poison joke flowers for the third time. "Oh, horseshoes," she cursed. "How do I get back to Zecora's place from here?"
The hoot of a nearby owl alerted Apple Bloom to another concerning fact: The sun had almost dipped below the mountains on the horizon, and her light was fading fast. The young pony knew that getting caught in these woods after dark was generally a bad thing, but reminded herself to stay calm; after all, she had been exploring the depths of the forest long enough to know which direction was out. "Let's see," she calculated. "I want to go north to get out of here, so if the sun sets in the west, and it's on my left right now... I just need to go straight ahead!" She quickly charted a course homeward, pleased with her orienteering.
About twenty-five steps into her return trip, however, Apple Bloom emerged from a line of bushes only to find her path blocked by an enormous chasm, which measured a good twenty-five feet wide and at least fifty feet from top to bottom. The thought of further delay made Apple Bloom a little nervous, but she took a deep breath and tried to steady her nerves. "I'm okay," she reasoned. "This is just a minor setback, and if I'm already on the wrong side of this thing, there's got to be a way around it, and I just need to follow this ridge until I find it."
Picking a direction, Apple Bloom took a few confident steps forward before a loud cracking sound beneath her signaled that she had not chosen wisely. The ground underneath her hooves suddenly gave way, sending the pony on an unexpected trip down the side of the chasm. "Oof! Ow! Ah!" Apple Bloom squealed, as she bounced and barrel-rolled her way down the rocks.
The trip ended with an abrupt landing, leaving Apple Bloom sprawled out at the bottom of the chasm. "Uhhh..." she moaned, picking her head up and shaking the stars out of her eyes. Despite the tumble, all of her limbs still seemed to be in working order, and she managed to lift herself back onto her hooves without any trouble. "Well, this is just peachy!" she grumbled, her frustration trumping her nerves as she looked back up at the ledge. "How am I supposed to get home now?"
Examining the rocky cliff she had just fallen down, Apple Bloom decided that climbing back up the rocks would be tough, but not impossible, and since she didn't have any better ideas at the moment, she decided to test whatever luck she had left. The first few leaps were easy enough, and she soon found herself a good ten feet above the ground. "You can do this, AB," she encouraged herself. "Just put one hoof in front of the other, and—"
A long, loud howl from above stopped the young filly in her tracks. She had heard the howl many times before, at the start of every zap-apple harvest, and while it had always made her smile in the past, it was the last thing she wanted to hear right now. Apple Bloom gulped and slowly looked up towards the top of the ridge, finding a large, wolf-like creature made entirely of twigs and branches looking back at her. The creature stared deep into Apple Bloom's soul with its green, glowing eyes, then unleashed another howl that drew two more wooden wolves to its side.
"TIMBERWOLVES!" Apple Bloom screamed. She turned to run away, but instead stepped off the edge of the rock she had been standing on, and fell to the ground with a splat. The sound of the wolves' wooden claws scratching against the ledge as they arrived for dinner, however, inspired Apple Bloom to bounce back to her hooves in a hurry, and she started sprinting down the chasm corridor as fast as her little legs could carry her.
While Apple Bloom was surprisingly athletic for a filly her age, she was still no match for a pack of full-grown timberwolves, whose number soon swelled to eight as more wolves joined in the hunt. "Oh... Oh no!" Apple Bloom wailed, as the wolves closed in. "Help! Applejack! Zecora! Twilight! Sweetie Belle! Scootaloo! Somepony! Anypony!"
Fortunately for Apple Bloom, a funny thing happened on the way to the afterlife: Just before the timberwolves caught her, the pack abruptly pulled up and gave up the chase, settling for shooting a few threatening growls at Apple Bloom as she made her getaway. While their behavior confused the young earth pony, she decided it wasn't worth stopping and asking about, and just kept on running.
After another thousand feet of sprinting, Apple Bloom suddenly tripped on something lying across the canyon, and faceplanted into the dirt. "Ow..." she moaned, picking herself up off the ground and looking back to see exactly what she had tripped on. Although her light was fading fast, she could still make out a long, green vine that stretched across the entire width of the chasm, with a few small leaves and flowers branching off of it.
Apple Bloom was suddenly filled with curiosity, and she walked over and examined one of the flowers intently. "Are these... Pumpkin plants?" she wondered. Looking around, she discovered that she was actually surrounded by pumpkin plants, and while most of them had not borne any fruit, she spotted a few small pumpkins scattered around the makeshift garden.
As interesting as the scene was, Apple Bloom couldn't help but ask the obvious question: Who would put a pumpkin patch at the bottom of a chasm in the middle of the Everfree Forest? She knew that Zecora maintained a few gardens, but couldn't imagine that the zebra would maintain a plot this big in such a remote location. If not Zecora, though, who?
Fascinated by the mystery, Apple Bloom continued her trek through the pumpkin patch, marveling at the scale of the operation. Rounding a bend in the canyon, Apple Bloom suddenly found herself staring at the biggest pumpkin she had ever seen. From its stem to its base, the filly estimated the pumpkin stood about fifteen feet high, and was even wider than it was tall. "Wow..." Apple Bloom whispered in awe. "I've seen parade floats that weren't this big... Is this thing even real?"
As she approached the large gourd for a closer look, one of Apple Bloom's hooves unexpectedly sunk a few inches into the dirt as she stepped. "Huh?" Apple Bloom lifted her hoof and looked back at what she had stepped on, but it was too late: Without warning, four metal disks surrounding the young filly shot up from the ground, bringing a large net—and by extension, Apple Bloom—up with them.
"Whoa!" Apple Bloom squealed as the net swept her off her hooves and left her hanging in the air. She looked up at the metal disks, which had come together around a larger disk mounted on a pole that stood about eight feet high off the ground. "How the hay does that work, exactly?" she wondered aloud.
A few tugs on the net revealed that the disks were stuck firmly in place, and attacking the net itself gained her nothing but a few rope burns and a nylon aftertaste in her mouth. "Now what?" she grumbled. "I'm a sittin' duck in this here net, just waitin' for somethin' to come and eat me!" She looked up at the full moon that glowed in the sky, and thanked her lucky stars that the timberwolves had turned back when they did. Of course, given all the scary things that went bump in the forest, she wasn't sure how much time their actions had actually bought her.
A threatening growl signaled to Apple Bloom that the question of time was irrelevant, because it had just run out. Righting herself inside the net, Apple Bloom's eyes tripled in size at the sight of the eight timberwolves standing not twenty feet from her position, all staring her down and licking their lips in unison. Unlike before, however, the wolves did not charge forward, but instead approached the filly cautiously, looking around as if they expected to be ambushed at any moment.
"G... Go away! Shoo! Bad dogs!" Apple Bloom shouted, waving her hooves at the wolves in a last-ditch attempt to scare them away. "You... Y'all don't want to eat me! I... I don't have any nutritional value at all! I'm the pony equivalent of junk food! Plus, you'll make my granny very sad, and my brother, and sister—I mean, have you even met my sister? She's the toughest, orneriest pony in Equestria! She'll hunt y'all down and turn you into kindlin'!"
Apple Bloom's threats were lost on the timberwolves, and they maintained their wary advance. Out of options, time, and bravery, Apple Bloom whispered a short prayer to the royal pony sisters, and unleashed the most blood-curdling scream she could muster. "AAAAAIIIIEEEE!!!!"
"Aha!" Suddenly, a large, pony-like figure wearing some sort of robe sprang out from the shadows, causing the timberwolves to flinch and step back. "I've caught you red-pawed this time!" the figure shouted in a loud, menacing voice, as he glared at the timberwolves. "If I've told you once, I've told you a hundred times, if I ever caught you anywhere near my pumpkins again, I'd grind you all into sawdust! But no, you just couldn't stay away, could you?" The figure pointed a hoof in Apple Bloom's direction, but didn't bother to actually look at what was in the net, instead assuming it was another wolf. "Well, it's curtains for your little friend here," he declared, "and the rest of you will get the same treatment unless you hit the road!"
"Curtains?!" Apple Bloom wailed. "Wait, mister, I can explain!"
The lead timberwolf also growled his displeasure to the mysterious pony, as he and his pack were torn between a tasty filly dinner and keeping their wooden bodies intact.
The shadowy pony scowled at the wolves' inaction. "Get off my lawn, you mangy mutts!" He screamed.
Knowing full well that the large pony meant business, the wolves decided to live to fight another day, and quickly turned tail and headed in the opposite direction.
The mysterious pony shook his head as the timberwolves disappeared from sight. "Those wolves haven't bothered me in months," he said to himself. "Maybe they haven't been getting enough fiber in their diet. I know that would make me awfully desperate." He shrugged, decided the issue wasn't worth thinking about, and turned to deal with the "timberwolf" he had trapped. "Now then, what do we do with—" He stopped short, finally realizing that he had caught a young, frightened filly instead of a big, ugly timberwolf. "Wait... Who are you?"
"Stay away!" Apple Bloom pleaded, raising her hooves to assume a defensive stance. "I... I know kung fu!"
The mysterious pony rolled his eyes. "Relax, kid," he said. "I'm not gonna hurt you. I thought you were with the you-know-whats." He gestured in the direction in which the timberwolves had run. "I guess this explains what they were doing here. Now, for my next question: What are you doing here?"
Apple Bloom crossed her front hooves and gave the stranger as defiant a look as she could muster. "My sister told me never to talk to strangers," she declared.
The mysterious pony sighed. "Fair enough, I guess. Anyway, I suppose I should get you out of that net..." The larger pony walked over to the pole that held up the net and tapped a mechanical contraption near the pole's middle, causing the top of the pole to tip until it formed a right angle with its base. This action, of course, had the side effect of dumping Apple Bloom unceremoniously onto the ground.
As the small filly sprang back to her hooves and dusted herself off, she noticed that the strange pony was now illuminated by the full moon, giving Apple Bloom a clear picture of her rescuer. His body was mostly covered by the long, black cloak he wore, but from his face, Apple Bloom could see that his coat was dark blue, only a shade lighter than that of Princess Luna, and that he had a full head of long, dark brown hair (albeit in such an unkempt manner that it would have made Rarity queasy). While his cloak covered up whatever wings he may or may not have, his non-existent unicorn horn signaled to the filly that she was either dealing with a pegasus or an earth pony. Apple Bloom's mind immediately flashed back to the pegasus featured on the card Shining Armor had sent the Crusaders. Could this be the stallion she had been searching for? There was only one way to know for sure.
"Uh... Mister?" Apple Bloom addressed the blue pony, "I do have one question for you..."
The blue pony smirked. "So much for that no-talking policy of yours, eh?" He looked around the area for a second, as if looking for other ponies nearby. "Lucky for you," he concluded, "I happen to be free at this particular moment, so... Fire away."
"Well, you see," Apple Bloom explained, as the larger pony began resetting his trap, "I'm kind of... Looking for somepony out here."
"Oh! You mean the zebra?" The blue pony looked up and pointed off into the distance. "She's a few gallops up the road, as the pegasus flies. Heck, you probably went right past her place on the way here."
"Oh no, I know where Zecora lives," Apple Bloom clarified. "I'm looking for a pegasus named... Greased Lightnin'."
The name caused the blue pony's ears to perk up. "Greased Lightning?" he repeated. "What in the world are you looking for him for?"
Apple Bloom's face lit up. "You know him?" She rushed over to the blue pony's side, nearly springing his trap again in the process. "He's supposed to be out here somewhere too! Do you know where he is?"
A pained expression crossed the blue pony's face. "Well... Yes and no," he admitted.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Apple Bloom demanded. "Do you or don't you know where he is?"
The blue pony finished resetting his trap, and turned to leave. "Come with me, kid," he said, motioning for Apple Bloom to follow. "I'll show you where he is."
Apple Bloom began to follow the mysterious pony through his expansive garden, a little unsure about what to make of her new acquaintance. For somepony who was reportedly bringing her to Greased Lightning, he certainly looked an awful lot like Greased Lightning. Then again, would a meathead like Greased Lightning have the brains to put together an elaborate trap to guard his giant pumpkins, or even know how to grow pumpkins that big in the first place? She needed answers, and at the moment, there was only one pony around to get them from.
Apple Bloom ran up alongside her cloaked guide. "So, Mister," she began, "should I keep calling you 'Mister,' or do you have a real name I can use?"
"My... Name?" The question caught the blue pony a little off guard. "It's, uh... Pumpkin... Pumpkin Pie. Because, well, that's what I do around here. I, uh... Grow pumpkins."
"That's an good name," Apple Bloom offered. "Are you related to Pinkie Pie?"
"Um... No, I, uh... I don't think so," Pumpkin Pie admitted.
"Well, I'm Apple Bloom!" Apple Bloom declared proudly. "Chief execution officer of Sweet Apple Acres, ace reporter for the Foal Free Press, and founding member of the Cutie Mark Crusaders!"
"I think you mean 'chief executive officer,'" Pumpkin corrected the filly, "and... Wait, you're with the press?" The blue pony looked back at Apple Bloom curiously, wondering if he had misjudged her age. "You mean, you write for some sort of... School paper, right?"
"What's wrong with that?" Apple Bloom asked. "We still cover all of Ponyville!"
"Well, I, uh... Never mind," Pumpkin said.
"That why I'm out here!" Apple Bloom elaborated. "We were gonna write a story about Lightnin' for the 30th anniversary of the Cloudsdale Derby, and wanted to see if we could find out where he went!"
"Well, look no farther," Pumpkin Pie proclaimed, stopping and pointing at a large shadow in the distance. "That'll tell you everything you need to know."
"What is that?" Apple Bloom wondered, walking over to the base of what appeared to be a large stone standing upright in the middle of the chasm. This rock was unlike the brittle brown rocks that made up the walls of the canyon. Instead, the stone was as dark-colored as the night sky itself, and had a smooth, polished texture. "What kind of rock is this?" Apple Bloom inquired.
"It's not just a rock, I'm afraid," Pumpkin revealed. "It's a tombstone."
"A tombstone? But who would put a stone way out—" The revelation the other pony had eluded to struck Apple Bloom like a freight train. "You mean... This is for..."
"Uh-huh." Pumpkin Pie nodded as he spoke. "It's probably too dark to read, but that's Greased Lightning's final resting place."
Apple Bloom looked up at the cold stone before her. "So that's it," she said, as a wave of sadness washed over here. "He's gone. He... He couldn't live without his special talent, so... He didn't."
"Nope. I, uh... I guess not," Pumpkin said with a shrug. "Anyhow, it's getting late, and it's too dangerous to try and get all the way back to town. My place isn't really equipped for visitors, but I'd be happy to take you back up to the zebra's house for the night."
"Don't bother," Apple Bloom said with a sigh. "Thank you for all your help, but... I can find my own way out." Turning away as her eyes began to water, Apple Bloom began trudging back in the direction of the giant pumpkin, her head hung low.
"W-W-Wait a minute, kid!" Pumpkin Pie sputtered, quickly running over and cutting Apple Bloom off. "You can't just wander around this forest alone!" he insisted. "Those timberwolves will eat you alive!"
"So what?" Apple Bloom snapped, pushing past the blue pony. "That's kind of the point."
"That's kind of the—" Pumpkin repeated, a bit stunned, as Apple Bloom's intentions struck him like a freight train. "Now... Now hold on just a pumpkin-picking minute here!" he ordered, stepping up again to block Apple Bloom's path. "Look," he said to the filly, "I'm not going to claim I know anything about how happy your home life is, or how many bullies are picking on you at school, or what you do with your Compadres gang—"
"Crusaders," Apple Bloom interrupted.
"Whatever," Pumpkin continued. "The point is, you can't just go off the deep end and throw your life away over something as... As trivial as this! I mean, who cares if you don't get a quote from this Lightning dope, and your article has a sad ending? It happens! I'm sure you can put together a great article without it. Heck, journalism probably isn't even your special talent anyway!" He regretted his last sentence as soon as he said it, realizing how disheartening it would sound to any markless pony, let alone the oldest blank flank he had ever seen. "Look, kid, I'm sorry—"
"No!" Apple Bloom interrupted. "You're right! Journalism isn't my special talent! And neither is apple selling, juggling, hang gliding, kite flying, cupcake baking, creature catching, ziplining, bowling, potion making, skydiving, or even arguing!" The weight of Apple Bloom's depression finally became too much to bear, and she collapsed onto the ground. "I might as well face it," she sobbed. "I'm never gonna find my special talent, because I don't have one! I'm gonna spend the rest of my life wearing long dresses, hiding from Diamond Tiara, and getting fired from every job in Ponyville!"
"Calm down, would you?" Pumpkin Pie insisted. "You're not going to be a blank flank forever, trust me!"
"You don't understand!" Apple Bloom screamed back. "Do you have any idea how long I've been looking for my special talent? Do you have any idea how much it hurts to have ponies laugh at you, or whisper behind your back, because you're either too useless to have a talent or too dumb to figure out what it is?" Apple Bloom peeled herself off of the ground and gave Pumpkin Pie as angry a look as she could muster. "Do you know what it's like to hang out with your best friends and know that one day, they're going to decide you're a lost cause, and leave you all alone?"
"As a matter of fact, missy—" Pumpkin Pie snapped, before realizing what he was about to say and biting his tongue at the last second. "No, I guess I don't," he admitted with a sigh. "But that's still no reason to give up on life!"
"Why not?" Apple Bloom demanded, thrusting a hoof in the direction of Greased Lightning's headstone. "That's what he did."
Pumpkin Pie turned and looked over at the stone, whose polished surface seemed to glow in the moonlight. He stood silently staring at the stone for a few seconds, unsure of what to say next. "He... He did, didn't he?" he finally agreed.
"That's right!" Apple Bloom said. "Lightnin' didn't just have a special talent, he had a special special talent—he was supposed to be one of the fastest ponies ever! Plus, he had money, fame, adoring fans, no bedtime... He had everythin' you could ever want!" She wiped her eyes and started walking back down the chasm, away from Pumpkin Pie. "If this is what happens to a pony without a special talent, even one who had all that," she concluded, "then I might as well find those timberwolves and get this over with."
"Wait, kid, you've got it all wrong!" Pumpkin Pie shouted. He took a few steps towards Apple Bloom with the intent of cutting her off, but in his haste, he forgot to watch where he was stepping, and ended up getting caught in one of his own net traps. "Oh, for the love of Celestia!" he cursed, frantically struggling to free himself before Apple Bloom got away. "Wait! Stop!" Pumpkin Pie pleaded.
Apple Bloom neither waited nor stopped, of course, and quickly disappeared into the darkness before she broke down completely.
"Oh no!" Pumpkin Pie moaned, as he continued to struggle with his net. "What am I gonna do now?"
In response, a voice deep inside Pumpkin's head began to speak: There's but one way to stop this youth. You must tell her the honest truth.
"I... I can't!" Pumpkin Pie loudly objected, despite the fact that Zecora was nowhere to be found. "We've been through this all before, I can't go back there anymore!" Pumpkin slammed his hooves on his head in frustration. "Now I'm even starting to sound like you!" he bemoaned. "The bottom line is that Greased Lightning is gone! Period! End of story!"
So you would let a pony die, the voice continued, to save your precious alibi?
"No! I mean... Look, I can't do it!" Pumpkin insisted. "If that kid finds out the truth, and puts it in print... It'll be deja vu all over again! The cracks, the snickers, the raspberries, the pitiful stares..." The blue stallion teared up as he recalled the painful memories. "The Lightning name is mud in Equestria," he announced, "and I can't face that. Not then, and not now."
Perhaps that's true, the voice declared ominously, but heed my rhyme: Young Apple Bloom is short on time. Save her life, or save your pride—this is what you must decide.
Pumpkin continued wrestling with the net, cursing his fate all the while. He thought he had prepared for this moment: The clothing, the garden, the tombstone... He had even rehearsed his story a few times to get the details straight! He was sure he had buried the truth under so many layers of indirection, nopony—not racing historians, not random trespassers, not even nosy reporters—would ever find it. Running into a depressed filly with no will to live, however, was another story altogether, and if the truth would save her...
Pumpkin Pie swallowed hard, and decided he had to intervene, regardless of what the consequences would be. "Kid, come back!" he shouted into the darkness. "You got me, all right? I'll talk! Greased Lightning isn't dead! He's still alive, and I know where he is! Just please, for Celestia's sake, turn around!"
The words echoed through the forest for a moment, but they were met with only silence. A bolt of fear shot through Pumpkin as he imagined a pack of timberwolves descending upon Apple Bloom, and he quickly shifted to Plan B. He placed his front hooves through the holes in the net, and with an adrenaline-fueled pull, he ripped the net off of the metal disks that held its edges, and fell hard to the ground. He quickly rolled over, intending to rise up and chase after Apple Bloom, but instead discovered that the young filly had not only come back, but was standing over him with an unhappy look on her face.
"He's alive, huh?" Apple Bloom said, giving Pumpkin the evil eye. "So you were lyin' to me, and all that goin' on about him bein' dead was just a bunch of malarkey!"
Pumpkin Pie breathed a sigh of relief. "Yes, I lied," he admitted. "I know, I'm a bad pony, I should be ashamed of myself..."
"So how do I know you're not lyin' now?" Apple Bloom demanded. "How do I really know you know where Greased Lightnin' is?"
Pumpkin took a deep breath, and spotted a patch of unfiltered moonlight nearby. "Because I can prove it to you," he declared. Stepping into the faint light, the blue pony reached back with his head, grabbed his cloak with his teeth, and pulled it off.
Apple Bloom gasped at the sight of the pony that appeared from underneath the cloak. The first thing she noticed was the blue pony's cutie mark: Instead of the garden-related emblem she expected to see, the pony sported a simple, yellow-colored lightning bolt on his flank, similar in shape to Rainbow Dash's mark. The second thing she noticed, however, was the pony's wings, or in this case, the pony's wing. Resting on the right side of the pony's body, the wing was ragged and unpruned, but at least it was present and identifiable. The pony's left side, in contrast, sported nothing more than a grotesque-looking scar that spanned the length of the pony's back. "You... Are you..." Apple Bloom stammered.
The blue pony nodded. "These days, I'm just Pumpkin Pie, amateur gardener," he explained, as a few tears appeared in his eyes, "but once upon a time... I was Greased Lightning, the fastest pony in the sky."