Zap-O-Lantern

by Brass Polish

1 The Hospital

“The strangest fruit known to ponykind is the zap apple. Not because of its multihued skin, but for its king. Yes. The zap apples have a king called the Zap-O-Lantern. It acts as a guardian for its smaller fellows, which is why no zap apple has ever been eaten. If anypony ever eats a ripe zap apple, the zap-o-lantern will hunt them down and eat them!”

Apple Bloom ran from the room in fright.

“Didn’t I tell you it was just a horror story made up by local pumpkin farmers who were scared of anything that came outta the Everfree Forest?!” Granny Smith called after her.

Big McIntosh shook his head. “Nnnnope.”

Granny Smith faltered. At that moment, she heard the timber wolves howling for the second time that night and decided to go back out with her pots and pans.

The next morning, Applejack and Big Mac were in the zap apple fields setting up baskets next to the naked dark-purple trees. Applejack’s path took her along a wooden fence that separated the zap apple field from the jersey mac trees. An old composter sat at the end of a fence.

“Huh. How long has that been there?” Applejack asked to no one in particular.

The lid popped off the composter. Pinkie Pie’s head emerged.

“Long enough to smell worse than a timber wolf’s breath.”

“Oh. Howdy Pinkie,” said Applejack as Pinkie climbed out of the composter.

“And speaking of timber wolves, I heard Granny Smith banging on pots last night,” Pinkie Pie was dancing on the spot. “Is it zap apple season again?”

“Sure is,” smiled Applejack.

“Super!” exclaimed Pinkie Pie. “So, is there anything I, as your fourth cousin twice removed by a fifth cousin, can do to help out?”

Applejack sniffed. “I guess you could get rid of that old composter.”

“Okey-dokey-lokey.”

Pinkie Pie found the composter much heavier than it looked.

“We could swap if ya like,” Applejack offered. “These baskets ain’t too heavy.”

“They’re not? The look heavy,” said Pinkie.

“Hm. I guess some things are heavier or lighter than they look,” Applejack shrugged.

Pinkie Pie spotted Rainbow Dash up in the sky moving some clouds around. An idea for a prank occurred. She told Applejack that she could handle the heavy composter and began carrying it out of the zap apple field.

She finally made it out of Sweet Apple Acres. She rested for a moment under the shade of some apple trees, and then she ran to some bushes and dumped all the smelly contents out of sight. She then put the lid back on and called up to the sky.

“Rainbow Dash!”

High above, Rainbow had just finished shunting her clouds around. When she heard Pinkie Pie called her, she scanned the ground and dived down to the orchard entrance as soon as she located her.

“You called?”

“I’m helping Applejack with some chores,” Pinkie said. “Could you help me carry this heavy composter please.”

“Sure thing,” replied Rainbow, touching down and grabbing one of the composter’s handles. “Where’s it going?”

“Uh, I’ll lead the way once we lift it up,” Pinkie was trying not to laugh as she grabbed the other handle.

“OK. Ready? 1, 2, 3!”

Pinkie let go and Rainbow Dash rocketed into the air carrying the feather-light composter with her.

Rainbow Dash, who was thoroughly surprised and disoriented, couldn’t stop shooting upwards until she hit a cloud. This wasn’t one of the clouds she’d been moving around earlier, though. It was black as coal dust. Rainbow dropped the composter and looked frantically around. More dark clouds were advancing on her.

“Oh, no! The Everfree Forest’s invading again!” she cried.

Without thinking, she began attacking the dark clouds. Pinkie Pie watched from below. The clouds began to rumble. A lightning bolt shot out of one of them. It missed Rainbow Dash and hit the composter before it hit the ground. It landed feet from Pinkie as a black and charred mess.

“You’re not pushing me around, pal!” Rainbow Dash snapped at the cloud before pummelling it.

Pinkie Pie tried to call to Rainbow Dash and tell her that those clouds weren’t actually invading, but the battered clouds started firing lightning around and two bolts nearly hit her. Rainbow Dash dodged every attempt by the defensive clouds to zap her.

“You’re not… welcome… in Ponyville!” she grunted as she continued to hit the clouds and avoid being hit by lightning.

Despite her best efforts, the Everfree clouds were forcing her backwards, and they were now hovering slowly but surely towards the zap apple field.

Applejack and Big McIntosh had finished placing a bucket under each of the zap apple trees. There was nothing left to do at this stage but wait for the Everfree clouds to arrive and sprout the leaves.

“What in Tarnation?!” Applejack cried when she saw the clouds approaching.

Rainbow Dash was still trying to fight the dark, growling clouds away. Lightning was still being fired in all directions, but Rainbow was too quick for it.

“Rainbow, get away from those clouds!” Applejack shouted. “We need them to sprout the zap apple leaves!”

Rainbow Dash looked down. “Oh, is it…?”

As soon as she lost her concentration, three bolts of lightning hit Rainbow Dash as once. Luckily, she had a soft landing in a bush. But even though the Everfree clouds were no longer obstructed, they wouldn’t stop shooting lightning all around the field. Not only did the trees get hit, but so did some of the buckets, and Applejack and Big McIntosh. Once all of the zap apple trees had leaves on their branches, the dark clouds reversed back to the Everfree Forest silently and without firing anymore lightning. Pinkie Pie, who had managed to avoid being stricken, sprinted to the zap apple field to find Rainbow Dash, Applejack and Big Mac covered in lightning burns.

“Are you OK?!” she exclaimed.

“Nnnnope,” Big Mac groaned.

This wasn’t the first time Rainbow Dash had been injured by lightning, and being a pegasus, she recovered from it quite quickly after the Ponyville Hospital staff administered some sting weed. Once she was allowed to leave, she went to visit Applejack and Big McIntosh, who had been lucky enough to be given the same room. Apple Bloom, Granny Smith and Pinkie Pie were there, and they roused Applejack and Big Mac from their naps as Rainbow entered the room.

“I’m really sorry I tried to chase off those Everfree clouds,” Rainbow Dash said. “I didn’t know it was zap apple season. I never heard any timber wolves and banging pots last night.”

“It’s not all your fault, Dashie,” Pinkie Pie said with a frown. “I’m the one who made you all confused with that silly prank.”

“Don’t neither of ya worry about it,” Applejack said kindly. “We forgive ya.”

“Eeeyup,” Big Mac nodded.

Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash smiled.

There was a knock on the door and Nurse Redheart entered the room. Pinkie Pie’s happiness faded. She might know everypony in town and she might claim that everypony is her friend, but Nurse Redheart was not in her good books. She never quite got over the way Nurse Redheart treated her when the Cake Twins were born. Even when she’d complied with her order to be quiet and she sang a Happy Birthday song to Pound and Pumpkin as silently as she could, Redheart had still kicked her out of the room. She’d felt affronted ever since and couldn’t help but die a little inside whenever she encountered the nurse.

“How long before my brother and sister are better, Nurse?” asked Apple Bloom.

“I’m afraid it’ll take a lot longer to heal those two,” said Nurse Redheart. “Nab turtles got into our underwater sting weed garden, and our supply is very low. Sting weed grows pretty quickly, but the turtles eat it just as quickly.”

“So ya don’t know how long they’ll have to be here?” Granny Smith asked.

“No, we don’t,” Nurse Redheart shook her head.

You never have anything good to say, do you? thought Pinkie bitterly.

“Well who in the hey is gonna work the zap apple harvest?” groaned Applejack. “Granny and Apple Bloom won’t be able to handle it by themselves.”

Big McIntosh grinned and looked at Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie.

Rainbow Dash pondered. “Well, why not?”

Pinkie Pie managed to stop brooding over the way she was treated on the Cake Twins’ 0th birthday and decided that she could take over the apple farm’s chores as well.

“Don’t worry about it, guys,” Rainbow said to Applejack and Big Mac. “We’ll keep the orchard warm for ya.”

“Just tell us everything you know, Granny Smith,” said Pinkie Pie.

“Well, OK, but it might take a while,” replied Granny Smith. “I’ve been around for many moons now.”

“I meant tell us everything you know about zap apples,” Pinkie Pie hissed.

“Oh, of course,” Granny Smith rolled her eyes.

Before long, Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie were seeing to Sweet Apple Acres’ fields while Granny Smith and Apple Bloom were collecting everything they needed to make zap apple jam. In the mackintosh orchard Rainbow Dash’s applebucking was in no way hindered by the injuries the sting weed had left behind. Pinkie Pie on the other hand soon remembered that she wasn’t much good at collecting fruit from trees. Her baskets only seemed to take in one apple per kick of the tree. Rainbow Dash couldn’t help but comment.

“How come you’re so bad at this, Pinks? You are an earth pony.”

This, on top of having to be in the same room as Nurse Redheart earlier, was too much for Pinkie Pie.

“Oh, you think you can talk down to me just because you’re stronger than me and you’re immune to lightning and--?!”

“Whoa, whoa, Pinkie, chill out!” cried Rainbow. “I wasn’t trying to be mean or anything.”

Pinkie gave her head a shake. “I’m just in a bad mood.”

“Frustrated?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“Well, yeah, but also because… I just don’t like Nurse Redheart,” Pinkie admitted.

She told Rainbow about how she felt when the nurse had ejected her from the crib room despite the fact that she had complied with her wishes and talked quietly to the newborn twins.

“Well, just because she has to be the bearer of bad news sometimes,” said Rainbow Dash, “doesn’t mean she’s a downer.”

“You mean like just because I’m an earth pony, it doesn’t mean I’m good at applebucking?” asked Pinkie Pie, raising an eyebrow.

Rainbow Dash sighed. “Alright, I get it. Not all earth ponies are good at farming.”

They nodded at each other and got back to work. But Pinkie couldn’t help but moan when Rainbow’s next kick overloaded her bucket with bright red apples.

“OK, now you’re just showing off,” she griped.

“I am not!” protested Rainbow Dash. “You know what? I’m gonna go buck those trees over there. You’re getting me all crabby now.”

“Oh, sure. I, Pinkie Pie, the smilingest pony in Ponyville, is making you crabby,” grumbled Pinkie.

Rainbow Dash was still faring better than Pinkie Pie as far as output, but her kicks were stripping some bark from the trees.

“Hey, Rainbow Dash!” Apple Bloom came bouncing into the field. “Me and Granny are done singin’ to the water, and we’ve got everything we need for the jam.”

“What are ya telling me for?” grumbled Rainbow Dash. “I’m not involved in any of that jam stuff. I’m gonna be doing the actual harvesting.”

Apple Bloom was taken aback. “I was just lettin’ ya know. And I thought maybe I could help you and Pinkie Pie out if you like.”

“Well I’m doing fine, but Pinkie needs all the help she can get,” Rainbow said smugly.

“What are you so cocky for?” demanded Apple Bloom.

“I’m not cocky. I’m just saying that I’ve got this applebucking thing down.”

“You’re talkin’ like you’ve been doin’ it all your life,” Apple Bloom said crossly. “You’re not like my big brother and sister, you know.”

Rainbow Dash scowled. “Well neither are you.”

Apple Bloom was outraged.

“I am so like them!” she insisted “I’ve bucked my share of apples.”

“Oh, yeah? Scootaloo told me that when she, you and Sweetie Belle tried to harvest last year’s zap apples… early, I might add… you all ended up in a mud puddle.”

Apple Bloom red a bit red. “Well, I’ve learned plenty about applebucking since then.”

“In that case,” said Rainbow Dash, “why don’t you take what you’ve learned and go bother- or, help Pinkie Pie?”

She didn’t even bother to wait for Apple Bloom to answer. She went back to her applebucking while Apple Bloom trotted moodily towards the other side of the field.

By this point, Pinkie Pie was utterly frustrated. It seemed no matter how hard she kicked, only one apple would fall out at a time. She decided to take a run at it, and she hit the tree trunk with such force, it wobbled violently. It didn’t release any apples until it swung back in Pinkie’s direction, and unluckily, they hit Apple Bloom in the face.

“Ow! Watch what you’re doing, Pinkie!” she barked.

“Sorry,” replied Pinkie.

Apple Bloom didn’t seem to hear. “Rainbow Dash was right. You really do need help.”

“I don’t need help. I am the help,” Pinkie Pie retorted. “I’m the whole reason the zap apple harvest is even gonna happen.”

“No way. You ain’t the only one,” Apple Bloom tilted her head in Rainbow Dash’s direction. “She’s here too.”

“So what? Her mane and tail my look like a zap apple, but that doesn’t make her the best pony for the job,” said Pinkie Pie.

“Then who is the best pony for the job?” asked Apple Bloom. “You?”

Pinkie Pie looked back at her basket. Only six apples were sitting in it.

“Well, no,” she admitted.

“Then quit being braggier than Diamond Tiara,” Apple Bloom insisted.

“Oh you’re just saying that because her dad’s making all the money from your family’s zap apples,” Pinkie Pie said snidely.

“I am not!” snapped Apple Bloom. “I’m outta here. You can try to figure out how to be a half-decent apple bucker on your own.”

Pinkie Pie watched Apple Bloom stomp back towards the barn.

“Where did she get that terrible attitude from?” she wondered as she gathered up the apples that had flown off the tree.

She found a bruised apple and flung it into a tree in a fit of frustration.

None of the three grouchy ponies’ moods improved the following morning. Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash had arranged to meet Granny Smith and Apple Bloom for breakfast. Apple Bloom hadn’t even made it to the kitchen when she heard Granny Smith shouting at the glass jars they were going to use for the zap apple jam.

“On the command “Now”, I want whoever’s responsible for half our water going missing last night to take one pace forward!”

“Wouldja keep it down, Granny?” moaned Apple Bloom. “You don’t have to yell at the jars.”

Granny Smith watched Apple Bloom stagger into the room. “Eyes right troops! Second in command is on parade!”

“Where are we supposed to have breakfast?” inquired Apple Bloom. “Those jars are taking up the whole table.”

“Don’t ya fret, young’un,” smiled Granny Smith. “I’ll dismiss them when Pinkie and Rainbow get here.”

When Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash arrived and uttered some half-hearted helloes, Apple Bloom seemed to lose her appetite.

“If anyone actually needs me,” she said as she walked out of the house, “I’ll be in the treehouse.”

Granny Smith, Rainbow and Pinkie watched Apple Bloom through an open window as she walked towards the CMC headquarters uttering angry words that they couldn’t hear. She never even looked back to reconsider not joining them for breakfast.

“My, oh my. Sounds like that little filly ain’t getting enough sleep,” Granny Smith sighed.

Rainbow Dash was tempted to say that it was because of Pinkie, but somehow, she thought she’d end up regretting it.

“I guess Big Mac was right,” Granny Smith went on. “She was too young to hear the story of the Zap-O-Lantern.”

“The Zap-O-Lantern?” Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash both asked.

Granny Smith showed them a page from a book called “Equestrian Literature Abridged”.

“It was a story made up by the only other ponies who lived on this land when my family first came here,” she told them. “They were pumpkin farmers and they were scared of anything that came out of the Everfree Forest.”

“I can’t say I blame them,” said Rainbow Dash, remembering those dark clouds.

“They tried to discourage ponies from trying our zap apple products by writing this here story about a monster zap apple and goin’ to Manehattan to get it published,” continued Granny Smith. “But by the time their story got out, ponies were hooked on my zap apple jam. And they left their dilly-dallying foals to watch over the farm, but they let it go down the tubes.”

She allowed herself a chuckle.

“They had to leave and we got a bit of their property. Their old pumpkin farm is where our jersey mac trees are now.”

Pinkie Pie heaved a heavy sigh. “I’m amazed how happy you are that your zap apple jam cost a family their home.”

“Now see here, missy!” Granny Smith protested. “It ain’t my fault they had to sell their farm. It's just like I said. Those foals of theirs couldn’t handle the responsibility. Not even their daughter, and she was Applejack’s age at the time.”

Pinkie Pie decided to skip breakfast as well. “I’ll just snack on some apples while I work.”

“Oh, for guacamole’s sake! What’s the matter with everypony?” Granny Smith spluttered. She turned to her jam jars. “If any of you are making everyone lose their appetites, you better cut it out or you’ll all be on a charge!”

Later that morning, Pinkie Pie was carrying on from where she left off in the mackintosh field, Apple Bloom was fuming in her treehouse, and Rainbow Dash was applebucking in the golden delicious field next to the Vampire Fruit Bat Zone.

“Did Pinkie Pie tick Apple Bloom off, or was that me?” Rainbow Dash was pondering the cause of all their terrible moods while her baskets took on dozens of apples with every kick. “Well, I did, it was Pinkie’s fault. That little crosspatch.”

“Huh?!” came an unfamiliar voice.

Rainbow Dash jumped and looked towards the Vampire Fruit Bat Zone. There was an alarmed looking orange colt with black hair staring at her from behind the fence.

“Who are you?!” demanded Rainbow Dash.

The colt swallowed hard and said “I’m Lazybug. I, uh, just moved to Ponyville with my big sister. I heard you say “Crosspatch”. That’s my sister’s name.”

“Oh. Well, I’m Rainbow Dash. Welcome to Ponyville, kid,” Rainbow Dash smiled warmly. “Um, I think you might have taken a wrong turn. That’s vampire fruit bat territory. You better get outta there. They can be nasty.”

Lazybug looked uncomfortable as he began to walk away from the fence.

“Hey, you don’t have a cutie mark,” Rainbow Dash pointed to Lazybug’s flank. “Were you looking for the leader of the Cutie Mark Crusaders? She’s in the treehouse that way.”

Rainbow Dash pointed Lazybug in the right direction.

“Oh. OK!” Lazybug’s face brightened. “Thanks, Rainbow Dash.”

And he ran off towards the treehouse as fast as his little legs would carry him.

“That oughtta lift Apple Bloom outta the dumps,” smiled Rainbow Dash. “And hey, a new family in Ponyville should make Pinkie Pie happy.”

Pinkie Pie appeared so suddenly, she might as well have used a teleportation spell.

“A new family’s come to Ponyville?!” she cried. “I gotta grab my welcome wagon!”

She zoomed away towards the town.

“Hey, you can’t leave me to do all the work on my own!” bellowed Rainbow Dash.

Author's Note:

I basically wanted to write a story about my three favourite characters, and I reached the conclusion that the thing they had in common was zap apples.

Comments

[Shining Dawn]

I like this. First comment.