Family…
After all this time, after all she had been through, Applejack felt like that was what had been keeping her alive and sane through it all. After all, her family was the most important thing to her. Well, other than her friends and the farm, of course. This was what she had known all her life. To imply that she was adopted by the Apples would be preposterous in Applejack’s mind. The idea that she wasn’t a native-born Equestrian was utterly laughable to her. The mere thought that she may have been born on another world had never even crossed her mind.
Nope, she was an Apple through and through.
Just as she was about buck another tree, a cowbell could be heard.
“Applejack, brunch’s ready!” shouted her grandmother, Granny Smith.
Applejack tripped and fell on her face.
“Alright, Granny,” she said, in her distinctive, thick country drawl, “ah’m comin’.”
She ran towards the barn to eat, her stomach growling all the while.
Something was hurtling through the skies over Ponyville at a breakneck pace.
Normally, because of the antics of a certain weather pegasus, this wouldn’t be a surprise to anypony. However, the trail it left behind seemed to be that of atmospheric re-entry, and not a rainbow-colored blur; thus suggesting a meteor. Naturally, this caused a panic.
“Oh, the horror! The HORROR!!” shouted one pink, flower-wearing Earth mare melodramatically, as panicked citizens ran without organized thought through the streets.
Another mare, a grey, wall-eyed pegasus, was being dragged away from a box of blueberry muffins she had dropped.
“But my muffins…” she said dejectedly.
“Just leave them, Derpy,” said a brownish Earth stallion with a Trottish accent and an hourglass cutie mark, as he dragged her by the tail, “you can always buy new ones!”
Nopony seemed to notice in their panic that the object seemed to be heading straight for the school.
“No way, Sweetie Belle,” said Scootaloo sternly as she went across the monkey bars, “Last time we tried to get a cutie mark in necromancy, we accidentally summoned a crazy skeleton in purple robes looking for somepony called He-Mane.”
“Hmm… maybe we should try something a little less dangerous this time,” replied Sweetie Belle.
Scootaloo rolled her eyes in annoyance. “Ya think, genius?!”
“Hey, girls,” asked Apple Bloom curiously, pointing to the sky, “what’s that over there?”
The other two fillies looked where Apple Bloom was pointing, and saw a massive, steel sphere with windows hurtle towards the ground.
“EVERYPONY, TAKE COVER!!” shouted Cheerilee as the strange object landed near the jungle gym, crushing a colt’s JoyBoy Advance in the process.
The sphere opened, and out stepped a strange-looking pony. He was about the size of your typical stallion, except rather well-built, to almost Sylvester Stallione levels. He was an Earth pony, with a khaki coat, a long, spiky black mane and tail, and a second, simian tail wrapped around the waist of his white and brown battle armor. Over his left eye, he wore what looked like half a pair of neon green sunglasses, except it seemed to be attached to half of a pair of white headphones.
So, there’s still life on this planet, he thought, How disappointing…
All the other ponies just stared at him, dumbstruck out of terror.
He pressed a button on his eyepiece, which began to beep like a 20-year-old computer. He examined the crowd of ponies surrounding him.
Hmmm… their power levels are in the low single-digits, he thought, this should be easy…
He grinned violently as he raised his hoof, which was surrounded by what looked like a pink magical aura. At that moment, however, his eyepiece beeped loudly.
What the… a greater power level to the northeast! I’ll take care of these pests later…
He rose up into the sky, as if by magic, and flew off into the distance.
“Anypony know what the hay just happened?” asked Apple Bloom in confusion.
“This power level… it’s remarkably high for this planet,” said the alien to himself. “Over 150. Could it be that I’ve at last found… my sister?!”
He landed near the source of the power reading…
“Alright Rainbow Dash, you did good today. Now it’s time to rest,”
As she sat on a bench in the middle of the street and drank up a bottle of Ponyade, Rainbow Dash was panting and sweating. It had been a long day of flying for her, and she needed time to recover. Even she had her limits, and considering this was the pony who proved the existence of the legendary Sonic Rainboom as a filly, that was saying something.
Just as she was about to put the cap back on the bottle, a loud thumping noise could be heard behind her.
She stood up and looked around to find a muscular stallion in battle armor with a strange eyepiece.
“Hey pal,” she said with a smug, snarky grin, “you just fly in from Trotooine?”
“Joke all you wish,” he replied, “but… wait, you aren’t my sister!!”
“Yeah, what of it?”
“Looks like I’ll have to destroy you!”
Rainbow Dash charged forward, hoof ready to strike the stranger, but he caught it in his hoof before she could damage him, and knocked her flying back into a water fountain with the other hoof.
She groaned, feeling as if she had just been struck by an express train at top speed.
“Y’alright there, sugarcube?” asked a mare’s voice near her.
“A… Applejack… thank Celestia you’re here…”
“Well, ah was just goin’ ta pick up some fertilizer fer the orch-”
BEEP! BEE-BEEP!
The orange pony’s power level is even higher, thought the stranger, over 300. This is her, no mistake.
“So, Kakarotta,” he said with a grin, “we are reunited at last.”
“Uh, no offense, but ah think ya got me confused with somepony else, mister,” replied Applejack in confusion.
“Nonsense,” he replied, “how would your older brother mistake your identity?”
“...”
Applejack’s face couldn’t seem to decide whether to express confusion, horror, shock, or pure rage, so it decided to try all four at once.
“...ah beg yer pardon?”