1 - This Party of Mine

Chapter 1: This Party of Mine

Though usually the fields above Sweet Apple Acres were quiet and peaceful, roosting birds and and squirrels looked on curiously as one of the planet’s most curious species was pushing along an apple cart. The grunts and groans emanating from Pinkie were decidedly strained. Though her upbringing had been on a rock farm—and baking was in no small way strenuous work—Pinkie was still out of breath as she pushed the cart up the steepening gradient of the hill.

“Pinkie, ya sure this is alright?” Applejack called from the cart. The mare peeked over the cart with a creased frown. “Ah think I can get this done a whole lot faster if yer let me.”

With a visible effort, Pinkie grinned at her friend, though perspiration was rapidly building up.

“Nope, nope, nope!” she replied cheerfully and between grunts. “I promised you I’d show you something fun after you gave me all those apples for that urgent bake order and I mean it!”

Applejack leaned over the cart, her expression torn.

“Hay, Pinkie, you know ya don’t owe me nothin’ fer that,” she replied uneasily. “I’d like to see something fun, but ya could let me help yer with the cart.” Applejack glanced at the heavy wheels turning slowly, past the pink pony down the hill and then back to Pinkie again.

“This cart is mine as well,” she continued. “So Ah appreciate it if it came back in one piece too.”

Pinkie nodded, bracing herself against the back of the cart to take a deep breath.

“Sure thing, Applejack! I just gotta—“ *heave* “—bring this to the top of the hill!”

Applejack looked on for a few moments, then made to get out of the cart. “Ya know, I don’t feel comfortable just resting in the cart while you do all the pushing…”

“NO!” Pinkie yelled, then she clamped a hoof over her muzzle and giggled a tad more nervously than Applejack liked. “I mean, no, you have to stay in the cart. I can’t let you do any work.”

Applejack didn’t look so sure. Her expression twisted, but finally she relented.

“Okay Pinkie—“ *click* “—what’s that sound?”

“Oh horse apples,” Pinkie cursed, and then she gave Applejack an expression that could only be likened to a foal caught with their hoof in the cookie jar. “I uhm, stepped on a mine.”

Applejack couldn’t find the words to reply to that. Her mouth opened then shut with a click. Gingerly, she peered over the edge of the cart to see Pinkie’s right foreleg shaking slightly. Below was a half-exposed metallic object that winked back at the farmer, as if mocking them both in the situation. Mechanically, Applejack jerked her head up to meet Pinkie’s sheepish gaze with her own, hard as anthracite.

“Pinkie, how the hay did a mine get there, and why the hay are we going through a minefield?! Ah didn’t know Ponyville even had a minefield!”

Pinkie gulped audibly and smiled weakly.

“Well you see… they’re party mines.”

“Party mines?”

“Party mines.”

“Pinkie… what the hay are party mines?”

“They’re like a party… in a mine.”

Applejack resisted the urge to whack herself in the head with her hoof.

“And why are there party mines all around us?”

“Because that was part of the surprise, silly! They’re supposed to shoot fireworks and confetti while the cart zooms past them! It’s going to be— erk— was going to fun!” Pinkie kicked her hind legs to spring up, but she realised her error in time and teetered on her forelegs before coming back down. The cart thudded back into Pinkie and Applejack held their breath as Pinkie took the hit and was almost unbalanced again. Breathing a heavy sigh of relief when they didn’t immediately disintegrated into many small pieces of confetti, Applejack blinked at Pinkie.

“Putting that aside,” Applejack gestured the action with her hooves for emphasis. “How are mines part of the surprise?”

In response, Pinkie pulled a scroll from her springy tail in a manoeuvre that defied basic pony anatomy. She tossed the scroll to Applejack who took it cautiously, opening it up to see a surprisingly colourful, but detailed, drawing plan of ‘Applejack’s surprise’. In one of the sections, Pinkie, or a stunning artistic clone, was pushing a poorly drawn stick figure pony in a cart up— hey wait a sec!

“Hey! Who’s this?” Applejack grumbled, pointing a hoof to the stick figure pony.

Pinkie blinked at the stick-pony and cocked her head, then her eyes widened. “Oh! That’s you!”

Applejack glanced at the drawing then narrowed her eyes. “Ah know it’s me, but why am Ah a stick figure and yer all drawn fancy-like?”

Pinkie’s ears flicked as she cocked her head. “Oh, hehe, sorry. I have a plan for every surprise and I make them so anypony can enjoy them. This one was plan # 9920, anypony can be that pony!”

Applejack pressed her lips together, but then dismissed the whole thing with a flick of her tail.

“So, uhh, what now?”

Pinkie glanced at her leg than back to Applejack. She bit her lip. The cart was starting to put pressure on Pinkie as she strained against its weight. Applejack knew that if the situation went on, it would only end badly for the both of them.

“Maybe you should stand on it while I fiddle with it? If we can fix it I can finally give you the surprise at the top of the hill!”

“Wait a moment, Ah thought the mines were the surprise,” Applejack said, clambering out of the cart.

Pinkie shook her head. “There’s a better, non-explosive surprise up on the top of the hill!” she exclaimed, while moving her hoof cautiously sideways. Applejack opened her mouth and then shut it for the second time, shaking her head instead and simply crept up next to her, carefully positioning her hooves next to Pinkie’s. With a concerted movement, Applejack slid left onto the switch as Pinkie departed. They froze, waiting to see if the weight difference would trigger the mine, but sighed in relief when nothing came of it.

“Okay, Ah’m waiting Pinkie…” Applejack growled.

Pinkie’s eyes widened. “Oh yes! Let me just back up a—“ *click*

“—Bit…” Pinkie finished lamely.

Applejack was not impressed.

“Pinkie!” she growled.

“Sorry! I totally forgot about that one!”

“How many of these mine are there, Pinkie?”

“Uhm, I lost count at thirty or so.”

Applejack almost lifted her hoof clear of the mine to smack her face with her hoof, until she realised that doing so would be a bad idea. Instead, she leaned back on the device, pursing her lips.

“What now?” Applejack sighed.

Pinkie drooped as they both leant against the cart, unable to move. Applejack would not have seen flatter ears than if a pony ironed them flat to her head.

––––––

“Ah’m getting kind of hungry…” Applejack mumbled. Her legs were shaking with the strain of holding the cart back and maintaining the stance for so long. They had started in the early rays of dawn and now it was high noon and the weather was less than optimal to say the least.

Pinkie nodded, downcast.

“I don’t think I have enough sugar to make it another few minutes,” she moaned. “I thought a part of my mane was cotton candy, but it sure didn’t taste like it.”

“Ah don’t suppose you have anything in yer mane that could help us now, would you?” Applejack said half-jokingly.

Pinkie blinked as if the thought hadn’t occurred to her.

“No… really?”

Slowly, Pinkie stretched back and stuck her nose in her tail, using her free hooves to sift through the frantic mess. “Hum, actually I think I have…” Pinkie trailed off as she rummaged around. Applejack tried not to think about heavy questions like: ‘How the hay is she doing that?’ or ‘How does it even stay in her tail?’ or more pertinently, ‘What the heck is in that tail?’

The suspense was broken when Pinkie gasped and withdrew a solid, round object that suspiciously resembled a cannonball.

“I have a cannonball!” Pinkie exclaimed freeing the object from the last grasping strands of her tail.

Applejack resisted the urge to facehoof again, you know, because of exploding mines and such.

“Okay Pinkie, what’s the plan?”

Pinkie bit her lip and positioned the cannonball precariously between her hooves without moving her right hind hoof. That one shouldn’t move at all.

“I was thinking that it’d be a good idea to use this as a weight so I could get off this mine!” Pinkie explained and Applejack blinked in surprise.

“That’s a… surprisingly good idea,” she commented and then almost instantly regretted it when Pinkie affected a wounded expression.

“Hey, I may not be the smartest pony around but that doesn’t mean I’m dumb!” she pouted and Applejack quickly nodded emphatically.

“Of course not! Ah didn’t mean to imply…” Applejack grasped at the words but Pinkie shook her head, her customary grin coming back.

“Aww Applejack that’s okay. I hope you forgive me for placing mines all over the place and stepping on them,” she replied.

Applejack eyed the mines and then rolled her eyes.

“Tell you what, Pinkie, if we make it outta here alive, Ah’ll forgive yer for anything.”

Pinkie grinned hopefully.

“Really?”

“Really, really.”

“Okay good, because I might have accidentally planted some party mines near your orchard.”

“You did what?!”

“Oops, I dropped the ball!”

Applejack could only watch in horror as the cannonball thudded to the ground, neatly avoiding Pinkie’s outstretched and grasping hooves. It rolled down, picking up speed sending the sound of clicking and small metal clangs in its wake.

“One of them sounded awfully close,” Pinkie stated.

“If Ah ever get out of this alive I’m going to forgive ya so hard.”

––––––

The resulting explosion treated air like it was made of gelatine, the shockwave rippling out from the device knocking both ponies up off the mine and into the cart. The mines they were standing on blew their fuses only a couple of seconds later, sending the rolling cart flying up the hill. Pinkie whooped and cheered while Applejack gripped her Stetson to her chest. As they crashed into the ground, Applejack found herself sprawled next to a wooden cart lying belatedly on the side, a wheel spinning lazily on its axle as Pinkie rolled and tumbled to a stop next to her.

“That was fu—“

“Don’t even say it!”

“Hehe, sorry.”

Applejack got to her hooves, swinging herself up and angrily marching to her abandoned Stetson sitting on a rock on the far edge of the clearing.

“Applejack?”

“What?”

*Click*

“Ah, that was the surprise.”

Applejack looked down, expecting to see the burnished edges of a mine again. Instead it looked like a black box… with a big red button.

“Pinkie, what’s this?”

“You know how I said there wasn’t an explosive surprise at the top of the hill?”

“Yes?”

“I lied.”

–––––

Twilight regarded the gently smoking pair of ponies as they sat outside of Sugarcube Corner eating pastry and devouring milkshakes as if it were their sole purpose in life. She could see the small sprinkles of confetti and streamers stuck to their coats, but there were also scorch marks and something that smelt suspiciously like nitroglycerine.

Applejack held a hoof out before the alicorn could get a word in edgeways.

“Don’t ask,” she mumbled around the food.

“But—“

“Party mines.”

“I don’t—“

“Just sit down and eat the food with us.”

At the glare, Twilight meekly did as she was told and suppressed the desire to find out what the heck happened to these pair of ponies.

Author's Note:

The moral of the story is not to use explosives in a party. Unless you're an indestructible Earth Pony.

Sorry if this is a bit of a rush job, busy, busy, busy!

Next Chapter: Chimmy Cherries

As always, my meandering readers, thanks for reading!