Zap-O-Lantern

by Brass Polish

2 The Search Begins

Once Pinkie Pie had collected her welcome wagon, she asked the first pony she came across where the new family had moved to. But Octavia hadn’t heard anything about newcomers to Ponyville. So Pinkie asked Button’s Mom, but she didn’t know anything about it either. Junebug couldn’t answer Pinkie either. Nor could Doctor Whooves or Beignet. Pinkie Pie’s search for answers went on for hours, and the sky clouded over as she went on asking around. The weather team had misread the instructions Rainbow Dash had left behind and now Ponyville was completely overcast.

Eventually, Pinkie Pie’s inquiry led her to Carousel Boutique.

“I’m afraid I haven’t heard anything about it, dear,” said Rarity.

“What is this? Did Rainbow Dash lie to me?” wondered Pinkie Pie.

“I… couldn’t say,” replied Rarity. “Oh, since you’re here, could you do me a little favour?”

Her horn lit up and Applejack’s hat hovered out of the boutique.

“I’m rather busy at the moment. Could you please take this to Applejack at the hospital?” she asked. “I’ve finished restoring it for her.”

“Okey-dokey-lokey.”

Pinkie Pie forgot all about the elusive newcomers to Ponyville as she put Applejack’s hat on and hopped towards the hospital.

Pinkie Pie entered through the front doors and the first thing she saw brought her bad mood storming back

“Hello, Pinkie,” said Nurse Redheart cheerfully.

“…Hi,” Pinkie Pie managed to say.

“Here to visit Applejack and Big McIntosh?” Nurse Redheart asked.

“…Yeah.”

“It’s funny. You’re the third pony with a reddish coat to come and see them today,” she Nurse Redheart.

“Am I?” Pinkie Pie raised an eyebrow. “Who were the other two?”

“I’m sorry, I’m not allowed to divulge visitor information,” replied the nurse.

Pinkie Pie frowned.

Nurse Redheart considered. “Well, one of them is still here, so I suppose there’s no harm in telling you who she is.”

Pinkie Pie perked up. “Really?”

“You’ll probably see her on your way up anyway,” Nurse Redheart shrugged. “It’s Cheerilee. She’s up there visiting Big McIntosh.”

Pinkie Pie smiled.

“Um, listen Pinkie,” Nurse Redheart added, “I’m sorry about all these rules, but this is a hospital. I lot can go wrong if we’re not careful.”

Pinkie Pie had to admit that she had a point, and couldn’t help but offer her hoof to Nurse Redheart.

“I understand,” she said. “No hard feelings.”

Nurse Redheart shook Pinkie’s hoof. “Happy to hear it. Well, you know the way to Applejack and Big Mac’s room. But please keep your visit short. We’ll be giving them all the sting weed we can spare soon.”

“Alrighty-lighty,” Pinkie smiled as she headed upstairs.

Pinkie bounced along the third floor hallway feeling none of the anger from yesterday evening.

“I’m so glad I could straighten things out with Nurse Redheart,” she smiled. “And a few weeks before her birthday, too. I’m gonna throw her such a bash—“

Bash!

The hospital rocked. Broken glass tinkled. Cracks formed in corners. Pinkie stopped moving, frozen in shook mere feet from the door to Applejack and Big McIntosh’s room.

“It won’t be quite as big a bash as that,” she said.

“What was that?!” Nurse Redheart came pelting hysterically into the hallway. “What did you do, Pinkie!”

Pinkie wheeled angrily around. “I didn’t do anything!”

Applejack’s and Big Mac’s door flew open. A very wide-eyed Cheerilee staggered into the hallway.

“Pinkie! Redheart! Something tried to get into Applejack and Big Mac’s room!” she cried. “Something big! It ran into the window and rammed the whole wall!”

Pinkie Pie and Nurse Redheart dashed to the doorway.

“Watch where you step!” Cheerilee warned. “There’s glass and medical stuff all over the floor.”

The window frame had fallen apart. The wall was festooned with cracks and the wallpaper was in shreds. There were shards of glass all over the floor in front of the window. First aid boxes, medicine bottles and a blue cooler were lying everywhere else on the floor. Big McIntosh and Applejack were sitting bolt upright in their beds, Big Mac holding Smarty Pants and Applejack looking completely disoriented. She’d been asleep before the crash and was even more confused than everypony else.

“What was that?!” she cried.

“I- I don’t really know what it was,” Cheerilee stammered. “All Big Mac and I really saw was a huge mouth in the window.”

“Is it gone now?” Pinkie asked.

“Eeeyup,” answered Big Mac.

Pinkie Pie began sweeping the shards of glass with her tail anyway. In mid-sweep, something bit her tail.

“A nab turtle!” Nurse Redheart spluttered.

Cheerilee pointed to the cooler on the floor. “When the building got hit, that cooler fell and that turtle fell out of it. It took one look at the window and lunged towards it. And the huge thing just… backed off.”

Nurse Redheart picked up the cooler. Lots of water had spilled out of it, but there was nothing solid in it.

“As if this attack wasn’t bad enough,” she groaned. “That nab turtle ate the last of our sting weed. I’m sorry, but you two are going to be here even longer. We will move you to another room, though.”

Once Pinkie’s path to the window was clear, she poked her head out. There was nothing abnormal outside, but Bon Bon was standing quite close to the hospital staring in the direction of Sweet Apple Acres with her mouth wide open.

“Hey! Bon Bon!” Pinkie called. “Did you see any huge monsters?!”

Bon Bon gave her head a shake and turned towards Pinkie.

“I don’t really know what I just saw!” she replied. “It was big and round and it moved really fast! I think it went towards Sweet Apple Acres!”

Pinkie Pie wasted no time in climbing out the demolished window, sliding down the down spout and zooming away to the orchard.

It was still cloudy when Pinkie Pie got there, and it was getting dark. She had no time to even begin searching for a huge, round, big mouthed monster because Rainbow Dash flew right up to her as soon as she arrived and began shouting madly at her.

“You left me to applebuck all the golden delicious and red galas by myself! I don’t care if you can only collect one apple at a time! We made a promise to AJ and Big Mac!”

“Well for your information,” Pinkie interrupted, “I just went to see AJ and Big Mac! And their room was attacked!”

“Attacked?”

“By some huge, round thing with a big mouth!”

Rainbow Dash remembered what Granny Smith had told them that morning and gasped.

“The Zap-O-Lantern!” she cried.

“What? Granny Smith told us that was just made up to scare ponies away from zap apple products,” scoffed Pinkie Pie.

At first, Rainbow Dash thought maybe she was being stupid, but then a few thoughts occurred to her.

“Do you remember what the book said?” she asked. “The Zap-O-Lantern wanted to protect all zap apples from being eaten. What if it went after Applejack and Big Mac because they had been the ones harvesting zap apples for the last few years?”

“Why would it go after them?” asked Pinkie Pie. “We’re the ones working the zap apple harvest this year.”

“That could mean it’ll come after us next,” said Rainbow Dash. “It could want everypony involved in the harvest out of the way. We should go make sure Apple Bloom and Granny Smith are OK.”

“I think you’ve been hearing too many ghost stories,” Pinkie Pie shook her head.

“OK, say it isn’t the Zap-O-Lantern,” said Rainbow Dash. “There’s still a big, round, big-mouthed monster on the loose, and we gotta find it and kick its butt.”

“That’s right,” Pinkie agreed.

“I’ll bet ya it is the Zap-O-Lantern, though,” Rainbow Dash smirked. “What do ya say? If I win, you never leave me to do all the work again.”

“OK, fine,” Pinkie Pie nodded. “And if I win, you gotta help me plan Nurse Redheart’s surprise birthday party.”

“What?! I thought you hated Nurse Redheart.”

“Hey, I never said I hated her!” Pinkie insisted. “I just said she rubbed me the wrong way. But everything’s alright between us now.”

Rainbow Dash smiled. “So, have we got a bet?”

Pinkie Pie nodded.

Out of habit, Rainbow Dash spat on her hoof and held it to Pinkie Pie. Pinkie Pie had never made a bet with Rainbow Dash before, but spitting on her hoof was not beneath her. But just as they were about to seal their wager with a spitty hoof-bump, a red mare with blue mane and tail darted between them and scooped up their spit in a jar. They fell backwards and picked themselves up in time to see the red mare run into the zap apple field.

“Hey! Get back here!” Rainbow Dash roared, and took off after her.

Pinkie Pie was about to follow on, but a deep rumbling caught her attention. It was getting darker and darker. She looked up. Clouds from the Everfree Forest were drifting towards the zap apple field. The third stage of the season was underway. Rainbow Dash was catching up to the spit thief, and hadn’t noticed the darkness and Everfree clouds until a crow flew straight into her face. It cawed crossly at her and carried on flying. Rainbow Dash, well off course, found herself surrounded by crows, the majority of which were in the sky flying around an apple-shaped formation. The zap apple trees began to sizzle. In seconds, blue flowers sprouted on the leaves. The crows began to fly away and the Everfree clouds drifted back towards their home.

Pinkie Pie ran up. “Where’d she go?!”

“I lost her!” Rainbow Dash groaned. “You go check on Apple Bloom and Granny Smith while I look for her.”

So Pinkie Pie ran to the barn to check on Granny Smith, who was still hollering at the empty jam jars. Apple Bloom wasn’t there, so Pinkie went to the treehouse next.

“That mare… could she have been the reddish pony Nurse Redheart was talking about?” she pondered as she made her way to the CMC headquarters.

When she arrived and looked inside, Apple Bloom was nowhere to be seen.

Earlier that day, Apple Bloom’s spirits had been lifted for about a minute when Lazybug turned up and told her that he was interested in joining the Cutie Mark Crusaders. He seemed utterly jumpy at the prospect, and Apple Bloom had presented one of Sweetie Belle’s maroon, gold-lined capes for him to examine. At that moment, there was a commotion outside. Apple Bloom heard a mare shouting, but before she could look out of the window to see what was happening, Lazybug had pulled her CMC cape over her head and dragged her out of the treehouse.

“Crosspatch! I got their little sister!” he had called out.

“Great! Let’s get the heck outta here!” Apple Bloom heard the mare shout.

Apple Bloom tried to pull the cape off her head, but Lazybug and Crosspatch kept a firm hold on her as they ran her to someplace. When at last they’d stopped running, Crosspatch removed the cape from Apple Bloom’s face and held her down.

“Where are your brother and sister?!” she hissed. “Why aren’t they here? Why are those two other ponies doing their work?”

Apple Bloom, not knowing who these two ponies were or where they had taken her, panicked and told them that they were in the hospital with lightning burns. Immediately, Crosspatch shoved Apple Bloom against a tree trunk and tied her to it with her CMC cape. Lazybug then shoved an apple into her mouth. At that moment, Apple Bloom realised that they were in the Vampire Fruit Bat Zone because several bats began hovering over her trying to get at the apple in her mouth.

“Go away!” barked Lazybug.

He brandished a water spritzing bottle at the bats and sprayed them. They hissed and backed off.

“Don’t waste that water!” snapped Crosspatch, snatching the bottle away from Lazybug and spraying herself with it. “Stay here and keep those vampire bats away from Apple Bloom. I’m gonna go after Applejack and Big Mac.”

She gave the bottle back to Lazybug, who sprayed himself with it.

“Use this if it helps,” Crosspatch then handed Lazybug a bell clapper and walked away. Apple Bloom knew that it was from the barn’s bell.

For hours since, Lazybug was standing guard at the tree Apple Bloom was tied to, holding the bell clapper up to the vampire fruit bats who were hovering several feet above them. Apple Bloom had tried time and again to squirm free of her cape, but the gold lining was impossible to fight against. She kept her chin up in the hope that a vampire fruit bat would slip past Lazybug and grab the apple in her mouth so she could yell for help. But Lazybug was too quick and drove every single one back with the clapper. Now it was evening and the bats were growing tired of trying. They’d already eaten every other apple in the area, and since Lazybug wasn’t letting his guard down, there seemed to be no point in hanging around here. Apple Bloom groaned and watched Lazybug spray himself with water for what must have been the hundredth time. She couldn’t help but wonder why he was doing this. It wasn’t hot outside. It had been cloudy all afternoon, although now, the Everfree clouds had pushed the Ponyville weather team’s clouds away. The sun was setting by now, and Lazybug was clearly getting tired.

Lazybug yawned. A vampire fruit bat who had lingered dived for the apple in Apple Bloom’s mouth.

“No you don’t!”

Lazybug swung the clapper at the bat. It screeched furiously and flew away.

“Why couldn’t we feed you to it as well?” Lazybug grumbled.

Apple Bloom felt a twinge of panic again. Feed her to what?

“It’d save me the trouble of having to keep these nasty things away from you,” Lazybug carried on grumbling.

Then he flinched and turned to Apple Bloom.

“But don’t go thinking I’m a slacker or anything,” he said, pointed the bell clapper at her. “I don’t live up to my name, you know. I’m only called Lazybug because my sister was still a little foal when our parents told her they were going to name me ‘Ladybug’, and they thought it was cute when she said ‘Lazybug’ instead. So it stuck.”

He turned back towards the few vampire bats who were left in the area.

“Ladybugs are supposed to be good luck,” he went on ranting. “And me and Crosspatch could have done with some good luck. But instead we had to share our land with your grandma. And she managed to find something that would make her family rich, and she decided to spread lies about us.”

Apple Bloom made a grunt of protest from behind the apple gagging her. Lazybug glared at her.

“She has!” he insisted. “We didn’t cause our old pumpkin farm to go downhill. We were just as curious as she was. There were things about zap apples that all three of us didn’t know. Heck, we know something about zap apples that your grandma doesn’t.”

Lazybug, pent up anger in every word he spoke, began telling Apple Bloom how he and his sister came to be here. When Granny Smith had first discovered zap apples in the Everfree Forest and planted a field of zap apple trees right next to their pumpkin farm, their frightened parents gave them a stern warning to stay well away from those trees. They’d hurriedly written a horror story about a giant pony-eating zap apple and ran off to Manehattan to find a publisher. But Crosspatch and Lazybug weren’t scared. Crosspatch showed no fear as, one night, she shooed a bunch of raccoons out of the pumpkin patch right beside the zap apple field (she had a knack for pest control). Lazybug, who had been watching the meteor shower that had happened earlier, asked Crosspatch if she was OK with him taking a zap apple from its branch. She admitted that she was curious about them as well and stood aside so he could walk to the fence, clamber onto their composter and reach up to pick a zap apple.

Neither Crosspatch nor Lazybug realised that the zap apples weren’t ripe at this point. They also didn’t know that they couldn’t be picked when they weren’t ripe. Lazybug couldn’t get the only zap apple he could reach off its branch. Crosspatch came and assisted him. They had a really go at getting the grey apple off of its branch, and managed to break its steam. It had made a sharp crackling sound when it had come off the branch, but it appeared harmless to Crosspatch and Lazybug. They both took a bite out of it, and as it wasn’t ripe, it didn’t taste good. Dissatisfied, Lazybug took the lid off the composter and Crosspatch tossed the grey apple, bite marks on either side of it, into the bin. But Lazybug hadn’t even put the lid back on when a green glowing light shot out of the composter. Then the zap apple rose up and right before their eyes, it swelled to the size of a shed and its bite marks transformed into a huge mouth. Horrified, they turned tail and ran towards their barn. They never even got close. The giant zap apple had caught them and ate them.

After that, Crosspatch and Lazybug seemed to lose their minds. All they could think about was collecting apples. The giant zap apple’s mouth opened. They stepped out and ventured into the Smith family’s orchards gathering apples. They took a basket, dumped all the apples into it, and walked mindlessly back to their pumpkin patch. The giant zap apple was waiting for them with its mouth wide open. Crosspatch could see two raccoons nibbling away at a pumpkin. A voice inside her was screaming at her to chase them away, but all she could seem to do was clamber into the giant apple’s mouth along with Lazybug. The giant mouth closed, and some time later, it opened again to let the two siblings venture out again to collect more apples. This happened night after night for decades. Each time, they would return to the composter, which the giant apple always sat atop every night, with a basket of apples. And over the years, Crosspatch and Lazybug couldn’t help but notice that the giant zap apple was gaining coloured stripes. One year, a red one appeared on the top. Another year, an orange one appeared under the red one. A yellow one followed it, a green one followed that, a blue one came next, and quite recently, a purple one covered the bottom of the giant apple.

Yesterday, things changed quite abruptly. The zap apple opened its mouth, and everything was spinning. Crosspatch and Lazybug tumbled out of its mouth, and instantly, they had their own minds and free will back. They looked back at the giant apple and realised that it was day time and it had swelled to its giant size to defend itself from the sun’s drying rays. Crosspatch and Lazybug ran off immediately, but the giant zap apple sought shade under the apple trees and gave chase. Luckily, the siblings came across the Vampire Fruit Bat Zone, and found that the giant apple couldn’t get too close to there because the vampire fruit bats would suck it dry. It lingered around the area though. The bats, having gained a great deal of respect for Fluttershy and the Apple Family by this point, didn’t leave the zone. Quite soon, Crosspatch and Lazybug felt dehydrated. They needed water. So Crosspatch diverted the giant zap apple’s attention, and Lazybug ran off to find water. He’d discovered Granny Smith’s copy of Equestrian Literature Abridged on one of his trips, and he and his sister were outraged when they found out what had happened since they’d been captured and enslaved by the Zap-O-Lantern.

“So there you are,” sighed Lazybug. “If a zap apple gets picked when it ain’t ripe, its protective magic makes it able to collect fluids to stay alive… if somepony gets spit on it. One thing your grandma has no idea about her precious zap apples.”

He hadn’t let his guard down the entire time he’d been talking about his and his sisters’ misadventure. None of the bats had managed to claim the apple in Apple Bloom’s mouth. Apple Bloom couldn’t help but sympathise with the horrible ordeal Lazybug and Crosspatch had gone through, but she knew that their plan wasn’t the answer. Before she could attempt to mumble her protests to Lazybug, a raspy yell distracted them.

“Lazybug!… Need water…”

Lazybug threw the water bottle in the direction of Crosspatch’s voice. He would not leave his post. A few squirts later, Crosspatch emerged from behind a bush and walked up to Lazybug carrying a jar with two dribbles of spit in it.

“No matter how much I want our plan to work, I am not looking forward to living as a half-equine half-plant mutant after all this is over with,” she griped.

Author's Note:

I find the comic flows better, but I needed to write a narrative version to submit to this site.

Comments

[Shining Dawn]

Pinkie Pie’s search for answers wet on for hours,

Out of habit, Rainbow Dash sat on her hoof and held it to Pinkie Pie.

Is something wrong here?