Sunny Knight: a Pony's Tale

by TheothersideofSunny968

Nightmare Night

Tonight was going to be a night Sunny never forgot. All the town was decorated with images of Nightmare Moon, bats, spiders, Jack-o-lanterns, spider webs, and all kinds of creepy and spooky decorations. There were booths for games, stands for food and candy, and a stage set right up by town hall for the Nightmare night show and costume contest.

Sunny watched as everypony in town ran around dressed in costumes of every shape, size and color. Some generic like a pirate, a firefighter, or a doctor. Then there were some that were slightly more elaborate. He couldn't help but laugh at the image of little Twilight Sparkles running around. Rarity had offered to take Apple Bloom, Sweetie Bell, and Scootaloo door to door for their candy. She wanted to spend some quality time with her little sister, as well as show off her amazing costume to everypony as they went door to door.

Sunny looked back at Twilight and was amazed at how accurate her costume was to the actual Queen Chrysalis. She was about half the size of the real changeling queen. Which made her and the bite sized King Sombra who stood right next to her quite the pair. Rainbow Dash had shown up a moment ago, nearly giving Sunny a heart attack.

The mare was glowing green with red eyes, it made her look like some sort of pegasus ghost. And apparently he wasn't her first, or only, victim tonight. After helping Pinkie and Twilight set up for the Nightmare Night show, Rainbow apparently went around popping out of nowhere, and scaring the daylights out of ponies. Pinkie would have joined in, but her costume made her... Stand out a bit. And not in a 'scary' sort of way.

"What do you think of my costume, Sunny?" Pinkie asked as she bounced up to him, which he was amazed she could even do that.

She had decided to dress as 'one of her most favoritest things in all of Equestria!' Pinkie was a giant cupcake, complete with pink and white swirled frosting, giant sprinkles, glitter, a bowling ball sized cherry on top, and some how, she was able to replicate that smell of freshly backed cup cakes. He didn't know how she did it, but Sunny was really impressed. "I'll give it to ya, Pinkie. I don't think anypony else could pull it off but you."

"Thanks Sunny!" The pink party planning pony said as she bounced around. Then upon seeing a table of snacks, she zoomed over to it, helping herself to the seemingly endless buffet of sweets.

"Hey, has anypony seen Applejack or Fluttershy?" Sunny asked the group.

"Fluttershy normally spends Nightmare night locked up in her cabin" Rainbow answered, having just scared another unsuspecting victim, sending them running and screaming into the night. "But AJ should be here any-"

"AaaaaRoooooooo!" A loud and ear piercing howl rang throughout the entire town as everypony turned to face a shadow outlined in the moonlight, of a pony with glowing green eyes. Fillies and Colts screamed both in fear and delight as they ran to their parents who began to recognize the howling beast as Applejack.

Applewolf began to slowly step into the decorated town and all its festivities, having almost everypony believing that this was an act, part of her costume for the night. All except for the mare who helped Applejack pick out a meaningful costume and the stallion who knew what happened to the Timberwolves.

"What happened to her?" Twilight muttered to herself.

"Apple.... Applejack" Sunny also whispering under his breath as he stared at Applewolf in horror. "No, that's not possible..."

"Hey Applejack! Great costume! Did you make it? Because I made mine! What do you think?" Pinkie Pie began to greet her friend and possible family member when Applewolf lunged at her. The wolf like pony landed on top of Pinkie's costume and began to claw at and bite down on the fluffy frosting part, tearing into it. To this, Pinky only giggled, thinking that Applewolf meant no harm. "That's not 'real' frosting, silly! Here, have this!"

The pink party pony then held out a Nightmare night cupcake, with orange frosting and chocolate sprinkles, to the ravenous wolf pony. But Applewolf only paused her attack on the costume for a moment to swipe the cupcake out of Pinkie's hoof, with her wood like claw.

"Hey! If you don't want one, just say so!" Pinkie said, outraged that her possible cousin would act that way. Even worse that she would waste a delicious treat.

But Applewolf just growled at the pink mare, casing Pinkie to pop out of her cupcake costume and flash over and hide behind Twilight.

"What's gotten into her?" Rainbow Dash asked, half concerned half annoyed. "It's like she's a wild animal, or something."

"She looks like a Timberwolf" Twilight stated. "But how did this happen?"

Sunny was thinking back to when Twilight used that spell on the vampire fruit bats, the same one he had used on the giant Timberwolf not long ago. He remembered that Twilight reversed the spell and changed Fluttershy back when she began to change into 'Flutterbat'. Whatever happened to Applejack, it must be linked. Sunny didn't think something like this could happen, since he was alone with the Timberwolves when it happened, but what other explanation could there be. With a heavy sigh, Sunny turned to his mentor and friend, knowing what he had to do to set things right.

"Twilight" he began, catching the alicorn princess's attention. "You know that spell you used on Fluttershy when she went all 'Vampire fruit batty'?"

"Yeah... Why?" Twilight turned to him, sounding slightly concerned and confused as to how he knew about that incident.

"No time to explain" Sunny said as e watched Applewolf attack the spider toss game stand, tearing the web to shreds and clawing up the spiders. The town ponies began to look worried as their once well respected apple farmer began her rampage, thinking this might not be an 'act' after all. "I need you to use it on Applejack. Now."

"What did you do?!" Twilight asked, annoyed and angered with the yellow unicorn.

"I used that same spell on the Timberwolves weeks ago. And some how, I think it's effecting Apllejack." Sunny saw that this was no time to beat around the bush, he would deal with the consequences later. Right now he needed to make things right. Not just because if was the right thing to do, but because Applejack was in trouble. 0You can do it, right?"

Thinking about the spell, Twilight recoiled a bit. "I can't. I need something for the wolf's instincts to go back to. When I used it with Fluttershy, the vampire fruit bat instincts quickly returned to the bats still in the orchard, a short distance away. Do you know where the wolves went to?"

Sunny's heart sank. "They fell to pieces after I used the spell.... Isn't there something else we can use?"

"Well...." Twilight pondered the thought a moment as Applewolf made her way to the food stands, choking down on anything and everything, half just making a mess. "If we had something similar to a Timberwolf's body, I believe I could transfer its restless spirit over to it. But we would need-"

"I got something" Sunny interrupted his magical mentor, the. Turning to Rainbow Dash. "Think you can distract her for a few minutes and stop her from hurting anypony?"

"No prob!" The Aerodynamic daredevil said with a salute and like that, shot off towards Applewolf, leaving a glowing green streak behind. Rainbow then began zooming all around, casting a bright and annoying light that caught the attention of the wolf like pony. Applewolf seated at the green glowing pony a few times, but Rainbow Dash was more then a match for her speed, and dodged the wooden claws every time.

Sunny disappeared for a moment, running off to get something as Twilight ducked behind the show stage, ready to cast the spell when Sunny arrived. But before he returned, Applewolf became wise to Rainbow Dash's distracting moves and managed to strike out with a bucking motion at just the right moment to send her flying off, crashing right into the filly's and colt's ball pit.

Applewolf grinned my let out a triumphant howl, causing all the town ponies that were now hiding, to shake and shiver, guessing that this might not be an 'act' and wanting to take precautions. Applewolf then sniffed the air, catching a familiar scent. The wolf pony turned to the pumpkin launch game where a frightened little yellow filly was hiding underneath a catapult. Applewolf grinned, bearing two rows of razor sharp teeth, as she took slow, drawn out steps towards where Apple Bloom was. With every claw made step, Apple Bloom's heart beat seemed to growl louder and louder in her ears. Until the steps finally stopped. But as the little filly gathered the courage to open her eyes, the entire catapult she was hiding under,flung over and a very vicious Applewolf stood looming over her little sister.

"Applejack!" Sunny called out to the wolf pony hybrid as he stood on the town's stage, his mask removed to show Applewolf that it was really him. "It's me you want, not her! Come and get me!"

The image of the yellow unicorn and his stern green eyes filled the wolf spirit inside of Applejack with anger. They were the same eyes he had when they last met! Forgetting all about Apple Bloom, Applewolf began to charge Sunny with full force. Just as she reached the end of the stage and lunged into the air, Spike pulled back the curtain behind Sunny, revealing a charged up Twilight Sparkle, her horn glowing bright purple. As Applewolf realized that it was a trap, Twilight and Sunny put their plan into action.

Twilight shot the spell at Applewolf, who's attention was now fully on her. As the spell soured threw the air, Sunny's horn began to glow with his own green magical aura, bringing up a cloak covered form from underneath the stage, and moving it to stand directly behind the wolf pony. The cloak fell to reveal it to be Sunny's life sized, pony puppet. As the spell made contact with Applewolf, it shot out the green mist that possessed the sweet farm pony, and forced it into the wooden pony body nearest to it.

The wolf like features that applejack had acquired had began to break apart as she began to revert to her normal state. Unconscious, Applejack fell down towards the ground. But before she made contact, Sunny dove and caught her, holding her against his own body as he landed on his back, taking the brunt of the blow. After landing ontop of him, Applejack's eyes began to flicker and open.

"W-what in the hay just happened?" The orange farm pony asked, feeling slightly light headed.

But before anypony could answer her, a loud clicking noise began to fill the air. Everypony, even the ones brave enough to peer out of hiding, looked to the life sized pony puppet. It's eyes were glowing with the same green color that Applewolf's had. The puppet's body twitched and jerked randomly as it began to get used to the body. But slowly as the clicks began to subside, the puppets eyes began to change from bright green to bright red. It looked up, down, left, right, then strait ahead at Sunny. It's expression was unreadable, and it's eyes revealed no emotion either. Instead it clicked three more times before it made a mad dash out of town and to the Everfree forest.

Rainbow Dash had just gotten up and out of the ball pit, rubbing her head as the pony puppet ran past her, causing her to freak out, and dive back into the ball pit, shivering and scared. As everypony began to come out, and Applejack began to regain her composure, she turned to Sunny and asked. "Is somepony gunna fill me in?"

Amazingly the rest of the night went on fairly well. Everypony in town, say for Sunny, Twilight, Applejack and their friends all assumed that the 'Applewolf' was part of the show. They loved the theatrics and great lengths Twilight and her friends went to in order to give them all a good fright. And as Zecora and Rarity took the fillies and colts to leave an offering at the Nightmare Moon statue, Sunny sat down as explained to Apllejack and the rest what happened. After he explained that he used the same spell that was in 'the Elements of Harmony' book on the pages involving the vampire fruit bats, and how he used it when he confronted the Timberwolves, Twilight began to piece everything together.

"Just like when Fluttershy took on the instincts of the vampire fruit bats, Applejack must have done the same with the Timberwolves" the purple alicorn theorized.

"But then why didn't they just infect me?" Sunny asked, unable to make direct eye contact with anypony. "No pony else was around when I cast the spell, I made sure of it."

"I don't know, Timberwolves are still a bit of a mystery. Even Zecora doesn't know where they came from or why they were attacking the orchards" Twilight answered. "But if you don't mind, id like to take a look at that book you got here spell from."

"Of course..."Sunny sighed heavily "everypony.... I'm so sorry. I'm sorry for almost ruining Nightmare Night, for putting you all in harm's way, and most importantly, I'm sorry for hurting you, Applejack..."

"You don't need to worry about me sugar cube" the freckled farm pony began to say, smiling easy at the yellow stallion as he tossed the half mask over him his hooves.

"Applejack, I turned you into a monster because I went off and tried to take matters into my own hooves" Sunny replied, feeling more and more down with every word.

"But ya'll did it ta help th' farm" Applejack tried to comfort him, patting him on the back. "Mistakes happen. And if ya really read that darn book, ya must have found th' parts 'bout all us when we messed up and learned a little something. Like when ah tried to pull in th' whole harvest mah' self? Or the time I refused to come home after not winnin' bi at the Roadieo?"

Sunny looked up at Applejack, still feeling lower then the dirt under his hooves.

"The point isn't what you did, Sunny" Twilight spoke up, causing the yellow stallion's eyes to shift to her. "It's what you learned from it, and how you plan to make it right, if you can. We fall so we can learn to pick ourselves up."

"So what did ya'll learn from this?" Applejack asked as she helped him to sit up.

The yellow unicorn took a deep breath s looked around the table at everypony, from Pinkie to Rainbow Dash, back to Applejack, then to Twilight. "Well.... I guess I learned you should always consult your friends about really big problems you have, rather then try and take all the burden on by yourself... If I had done that, none of this would have happened."

"But it's a lesson well learned" Twilight noted, smiling happily at her friend and pupil.

"Yeah, but now we have that creepy thing running around here!" Rainbow Dash added, eyes darting around from one corner of the town to the other.

"What do you mean, Dashie?" Pinkie asked, wearing her half eaten cupcake costume. "He's right behind you and his name is Gorge!"

Rainbow jumped up, landing on a cloud, cowering behind it as she peeked over it at the ground below, looki around for the life sized wooden puppet. Twilight, Applejack, Pinkie and Sunny all broke out into a fit of laughter at Pinke's well played prank. Sunny couldn't help but feel that it felt so good to laugh. And even better, to laugh with friends as great as the ones he had.