//------------------------------// // -88- // Story: Coarse Diamonds // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// “If Applejack wants to help then she can come along, but the rest of you will have to stay here.” Rarity saw that the other apples had something to say to that. “We can’t take all of you on. We could, but we can’t carry the supplies necessary to keep all of you happy for very long. I also believe Big Mac is needed here to watch the farm.” “I can’t have Coloratura or Sugar coming with us either, I don’t want to put our loved ones in danger.” After tilting her Stetson away from her eyes, Applejack slapped a hoof on the table. “It’s best if you all stay here. If we aren’t successful, then I want to get out of here after a week. Do you understand what I am asking of you here Big Mac?” “Yup, but I don’t like it.” The big muscular brother sighed; Big Mac didn’t want Applejack to run away again like when she was a filly. Only this time she wasn’t running away from them, she was running into danger. “I’ll watch out for them.” “Go on and get along now Applejack, I’ll still be around when you get back.” Granny just stared flatly at the look Applejack was giving her. “What? I’m not so old that I’ll just keel over the second you run off in some crazy contraption to save the farm!” “Well if we’re saying our goodbyes…” Usually Coloratura wouldn’t be so meek, but Applejack just had that effect on her. She shyly moved over to the mare and didn’t go for the cheek this time; she went for the mouth and threw her tongue in for good measure. Pulling back from the rather surprised Applejack who had been expecting another kiss on the cheek, Color only had one last thing to say. “Please come back safely.” “I’ll be alright, I’m taking Old Faithful with me! Big Mac will just have to use Big Betsy.” Patting her hoof grip material rifle before slinging it across her back, Applejack was mostly ready to leave. She was already wearing her cold weather clothes; said clothes were a bit tight and didn’t fit too well. She only had to turn around to have a parka thrust into her face by Rarity. “I will not have us doing this with ill fitting clothing; now put that on so we can get underway.” Turning to the old matriarch Rarity bowed to her as a show of respect. “It’s been nice meeting you and we thank you for the lunch, but we have to go if we’re going to deal with this in a timely manner.” “I understand, you young ones are a tough bunch. Except for the sweet dove, she’s a nice one and the grumpy buzzard could learn a few lessons from her.” Granny turned to Greta with a smile and then she turned to Gilda who just glared at her, she gave off a chuckle. “Aren’t you an easy one to rile up? All of you better take care of my granddaughter and make sure she stays out of trouble!” Applejack got in her final goodbyes and she hugged her little sister before setting off towards the Centaur-pede with the group that came from the east. She had to stop to tell a barking collie to watch the family while she was gone, the dog's name was Winona and she whined quite a bit before finally listening to Applejack about staying behind to watch the family. “Was it hard to leave your little sister behind when you started your travels?” Being on a spaceship for prolonged periods of time wasn’t good for a filly without something proactive to do or so Applejack had heard and Rarity didn’t have Sweetie Belle on her ship. “First you have to know that I love my little sister, but my parents aren’t too great when it comes to taking care of her and she started seeing me as her mother given how often they foisted the responsibility off on me.” That brought back memories of simpler times on Desserzon in the Verpo System, before she got her own business started and ran into a multitude of situations that didn’t involve the fashion forward lifestyle she had been dreaming of. “All of that wasn’t exactly a good experience for me, but I know how to take care of a foal at least and it taught me to multitask back when I still worked as a waitress. I think I’ll miss the days when I had Sweetie all to myself, I’d like to think that I’m a good big sister given how well she turned out… just don’t let her cook anything.” “If it’s anything like the maple syrup incident Apple Bloom caused, then our little sisters share a common problem.” Stopping to look up at the machine she was going to be riding in, Applejack got a good close look at it. It was big like a house and it had a few dents and small bite marks in it from when it was attacked.  She was thankful the thing still looked rather sturdy or else she’d be having second thoughts about joining Rarity and her friends in this adventure. “Ember, are you okay darling?” Rarity stopped and turned to look at the dragon that was making a slow pace for the vehicle. “Yeah, my leg is getting better. It’ll take more than being swallowed alive by a giant robot shark to put me off my game.” It wasn’t her leg that bothered her, it was that she let her shirt and pants get as badly damaged as she had. She was one of the youngest and toughest bounty hunters to exist; the physical injury was bound to be short lived and she’d be ready by the time she was needed again. What had actually hurt was the damaged clothing and the loss of her pride. “It’s not like this is the strangest thing I’ve ever dealt with.” “What is the strangest thing you’ve ever dealt with?” Applejack had never really met or talked to a dragon, she had heard they were fearsome creatures; this one came off as friendly and well balanced member of society. It was hard for her to believe that Ember was a tough as her own nails bounty hunter. “I’d have to say it was the Kanga Incident… Kanga is another bounty hunter, a macropussian to be specific, and we were after the same target when we met.” There was a look of fondness on Ember’s face as she reminisced on that particular fight. “It was kind of surprising that I met someone as nice and friendly as I could be.” “A bounty hunter that’s as friendly as you are?” Well color Rarity surprised as they walked up the ramp into the Centaur-pede. “Now don’t get me wrong Kanga is a kind and friendly individual, if you could look past her ability to coldly murder everyone in a room without thinking twice about it. She also carries her child around with her while she’s at work; she told me she had a bad experience with people trying to kidnap her little Marley to try and force her to work for free.” Yeah Ember wasn’t exactly making a good case for Kanga here and what she said next made it slightly worse, but at least she knew Kanga was a good mother. “Anyone who has tried that is no longer alive, always including the one that orders the kidnapping and anyone that was remotely related to the guy that gave the order if they are found to be of illicit dealings. So long as you don’t threaten her child, Kanga will at least make sure you don’t suffer if you’re on her bounty list.” “I take it back; no bounty hunter is as friendly as you are Ember.” Rarity didn’t know if that was supposed to be a compliment or not. “Look it’s thanks to the incident I had with her that I can say she’s a good person… at heart.” There was a bit of a pause before Ember said ‘at heart’, as she remembered several other things about the alien kangaroo. She shook her head and sat down to get some more rest. “I’d trust her to run an orphanage at least.” “Well that’s at least some conviction about… what would you really call her?” Greta rubbed at her beak and thought on it. “Friend doesn’t exactly sound right and I don’t have any context about her to make a judgment call.” “I don’t know if we can be called friends really, maybe acquaintances like I was with Rarity. We run into each other every once in a blue moon.” Ember watched as the ramp closed and she felt the entire vehicle shift into a standing position, Gilda was already getting them ready to move out. “To make a long story short I and Kanga had an understanding going between us by the end of our first meeting. We don’t cross paths often enough to work up a rapport.  It’s really hard to define everything that happened because I was fighting with my back to a wall wherever I could find one that was still standing.” “Can you give us a brief rundown of it? This sounds like a long story.” Saffron was still wearing her Mare-Do-Well outfit for Applejack’s benefit, so that the farmer never knows what she really looked like.  “I don’t know, can you really make sense of a giant elephant shaped monster that spits out tentacle hippos as a means of offense that they themselves spawn fire breathing birds when they are destroyed?” It wasn’t the weirdest thing Ember’s ever seen, just one of the most problematic. “Needless to say the birds were more dangerous to Kanga; the elephant monster had a limit to how quickly it could spawn the smaller monsters. We eventually got back the guy we were after for that, but it wasn’t easy and that was just the tip of the iceberg as to what happened.” “Whoa there, sounds like you’ve been around the block more than once there Ember.” Applejack wasn’t as well traveled, but the story sounded far out. Now if only Ember wasn’t telling the truth that things like that actually existed. “That’s the cliff notes of the beginning of our merry chase to capture a geneticist; it just got three times worse from there.” Ember didn’t want to tell anyone that they had to bring him in alive either. “At least I’m good at cleaning up biological grey goo situations, but do they always have to be so disgusting?” “What’s a grey goo situation?” Applejack had obviously never heard the stories. “Pray you never see one, you most certainly won’t want to sleep if you hear news about one being present.” Rarity on the other hoof did know what a grey goo situation entailed; she had been in the middle of one at Antilur Station and had successfully snuffed it out. “It’s a situation where there’s an outbreak of some kind that unless it is stopped quickly, it will consume the area it’s affecting. Like an entire space station or a whole planet. Said situation could even wipe out multiple systems if whatever it is that is called a ‘grey goo situation’ is allowed to spread.” Like that flesh sculpting brain monster back at the space station that had Ember’s scales crawling with disgust. “Usually it’s a good reason to destroy an entire space station or quarantine and then subsequently glass a planet, maybe blow up the planet just to be sure. Don’t worry, this situation looks nothing like one of the various grey goo scenarios that could pop up.” “What else are we supposed to talk about then, Rover likes to listen and learn from conversations.” They were underway and until they had something to shoot at or anything important to take care of, Rover would be absolutely bored to tears. “I am agreeing that the grey sludge is very scary sounding.” It was all up to Gilda and Greta to get them to the location where the storms purportedly started from now, if they needed to fight then Rover would be ready for it at least. Nothing killed a Diamond Dog faster than boredom, because when a Diamond Dog got bored they got inventive in keeping themselves entertained and they did some really dumb, highly dangerous, things in the name of entertainment. At least Rover had long since learned the most entertaining thing was hearing stories about how other people lived. “Yeah, a change of topic would be mighty welcome.” Applejack tried not to imagine any kind of apple jam slowly consuming the planet and suffocating all life out of existence. “What about where you got your chapeau from?” The farmer gave Rarity a questioning look. “I’m talking about your hat dear; you’ve hardly taken it off since we’ve met.” “I may have a lot of hats like it, but my pa owned this particular one before he gave it to my ma. It’s special; they were the perfect pair of ponies that were very much in love with each other.” There was a somber tone entering Applejack’s voice as she spoke. “They kind of passed on too soon after Apple Bloom was born, had they continued living I’m sure my ma and pa would have given me at least two more brothers or sisters. They loved one another to the point that I doubt even death could have parted them… kind of makes sense that they’d go together. Apple Bloom was too young to remember her, but ma sure was a pretty mare and dad was a big guy like my brother.” “Oh… I’m sorry I asked, it must be a difficult topic to talk about. So how do you know Countess Coloratura?” One of the oddest nobles Rarity has ever heard of, aside from herself that is. Color seemed quite friendly and very familiar with Applejack. “Oh you want to know about Rara? She’s been my friend when we were really young and going to camp together… after my parents… yeah you can’t really avoid that topic. Not when it comes to how I know Color.” Applejack paused for a minute and Greta pulled her into a quick hug. Upon her release Applejack continued. “She brought some light back into my life and she was always musically gifted. You know, this all really leads into my story of how I got my cutie mark.” “Well go on then, it’ll be a while and we’ll have to stop if we end up getting hit with a blizzard. So we got plenty of time to explore the mare that is Applejack Apple.” Rarity wanted to know and she could share her own story, she wasn’t sure if Saffron could since she had to keep up appearances as The Mysterious Mare-Do-Well. Saffron was quite mysterious alright; Rarity didn’t know anyone else that could eat through a mask without getting it absolutely filthy. “To start things off me and Coloratura first met when we were camping together. It wasn’t long after I lost my parents and I was terribly depressed… it was also before I had my cutie mark.” While Applejack was talking she watched as the others began unfolding a table and she took a seat when they offered her a chair. “She was a city mare and I was a country mare, it got me interested in going to see what the city life was like. I was still very much depressed, but at least I had a friend. I eventually tried my hoof at city living, but all that hustle and bustle wasn’t doing it for me. My depression wasn’t getting any better without Color or any of my real family around to pick me up. I didn’t get better until I saw the most miraculous thing ever; it even led to me coming back to my family.” “What was it?” Greta looked up from her data pad and directing Gilda from the lower torso. “It was a massive circular rainbow expanding across the sky, it had to be seen for miles. They said it was a phenomenon that erupted from right out of Cloudsdale.”  Applejack remembered that moment, family was always important and she was an apple. When she got her home her cutie mark erupted onto her flank as she found herself. “Coming back home to my family got me my cutie mark and I quite rightly found myself knowing exactly where I belong.” “Oh that, that was just Rainbow Dash. She performed a Sonic Rainboom that day.” Gilda sounded less than impressed. “A sonic boom, mixed with sweat and particulate matter from a mare with all colors of the rainbow going at mach speed. That she can even reach mach speed was what really impressed me.” “You know how to take the joy out of a conversation Gilda, but then I guess you were there to actually witness it given you were in an exchange program at the time.” Greta had heard that some Pegasus Ponies were assholes to Gilda back then, which makes her wonder why Gilda had a penchant for Pegasus Ponies. “Yeah some of the ponies back then might have been complete dicks, but Rainbow was one of the best flyers I’ve ever met. She was a really good lay too; it’s nice to know she’s living the dream as a Wonder Bolt fighter pilot in the slow lane.” Gilda sounded rather fond of old times from her position of piloting the Centaur-pede. “It’s why I’m a mechanical engineer; she wouldn’t shut up about all those awesome fighters the Wonder Bolts get to fly. I figured, why just fly fighters when you can build them to be exactly what you want. Screw all that mass produced crap the Pony military uses when it comes to their fighters. Sure it’s good enough for what it does in the right hooves, but I believe I can do so much better than that. Ponies aren’t exactly bad at space exploration or utilizing big ships, but they’re not great at things as small as fighters or scouts.” “Says the griffon that completely destroyed the outer shell of a Javelin on her first flight with it, we still have the pilots seat sitting in our hangar enshrined to Gilda’s first foray into actual space combat.” Greta still had nightmares about Gilda’s piloting skills. Gilda was good at piloting things, but her landings could use some work. The example would be the upside down EGGS unit they left behind in the hangar on the Shining Jewel before they made the drop to Applin Five. “So I have some problems with landing vehicles meant to fly, at least I can pilot ground vehicles perfectly well.” Gilda knew Greta had nothing to say to that. “You’d think something more complicated like a six legged walker with two arms would be more of a problem to maneuver, but no, this is rather simple to drive.” “You actually call this contraption simple?! I can hardly wrap my head around the idea of how it was built!” Applejack would forever be a farmer and would like the simpler things in life; she had a story to continue. “To continue where I left off, I had gotten my cutie mark after discovering who I was as a Pony upon returning home to my family and farm. The next time I went camping was where I helped Coloratura get her cutie mark, by helping her with her music. Since then we’ve had something of a strong bond… I never thought Coloratura liked me nearly that much and its news to me.” “She seemed kind of obvious with it, I mean I’m the gayest griffon you could ever meet and I make it quite obvious as to whose bed I’d crawl into any day.” All Greta did was point upwards and Applejack nodded, it was fairly obvious to the farmer, Granny, Big Mac and even Apple Bloom from the moment when Greta first opened her happy beak. “Pecks on the cheeks are friendly, but that kiss, now that was something else entirely and worth coming back alive to for seconds!” Her face as red as an apple, Applejack shoved her hat down to cover her warmed cheeks. “I guess Coloratura did come to visit me personally. I really can’t see her wanting to settle down on a farm just for me, she has her career as a fancy pop star and still has so many places to go and see. I’m just a regular apple farmer, as regular as any other Apple before me. Except for my distant cousin Northern Spy, he’s always been a bit secretive about what he does.” “She didn’t give you tongue just for the sake of it you know, if you see her again you need to take up the reins and kiss her back with just as much force.” It upset Greta to hear that Applejack was trying to avoid the responsibilities of being a close mare friend to a lovely pony like Coloratura. “Maybe put a bridle on her for some fun like Gilda does when she’s entertaining a Pegasus Pony.” “Greta, while I can understand that you spy on me and take notes, can you please keep the more personal stuff that I do to yourself?” Dryly commented Gilda who was still listening in on their conversation; it kind of reminded her of how nosy Kitten usually was back up in orbit. “You’re currently not winning any brownie points with me here.” “So are you and her… special to each other?” Applejack didn’t know how to ask about Greta’s relationship when it came to Gilda. “I wish, Gilda hardly gives me the time of day in that department, we’re good partners at what we do though. We can sleep right next to each other, but we’ve never exactly gone beyond cuddling. That’s mostly my fault as I have a tendency to snuggle things in my sleep.” Greta noticed Mare-Do-Well looking away from her in a shy manner and she didn’t comment on the awkwardness of waking up with Saffron in her arms. Gilda was the best thing Greta could have ever cuddled with, but Coco was nice to cuddle as well and she couldn’t say anything bad about Saffron because of her exquisite natural looks. “I can honestly say that Gilda will always be my main squeeze even if she never fully returns my affection whatsoever.”  “Since conversation is slowing down, Rover thinks that we can start playing cards now.” Rover was already shuffling a deck, ready and waiting to play a few rounds. He was always first deal because he claimed ownership of the deck. “Now cards are something I can actually get into, it’ll get my mind off all this impending danger hanging over our heads at least.” Applejack tapped the table twice. “Deal me in Rover; we’re starting off with a few rounds of poker!”  “I can’t help but think that saying that makes you a huge stereotype Applejack.” It had to be said and Saffron couldn’t see it any other way. “You know, that farmers or country folk gather together to gamble and they do it among themselves often enough that it can be considering a national sport for them.” “Not all farmers or country folk play cards, why I know… funny I don’t know any of my kin that doesn’t know how to play cards.” Rubbing at her forehead in consternation, Applejack just proved Mare-Do-Wells point just by speaking up as she had. “Shucks it’s not like it’s a bad thing, I’m not about to bet real money. If anything, the card games at family reunions are all about bragging rights.” - It was a few hours later and a blizzard struck when they were closing in on the eye of the blizzards; the Centaur-pede settled into the snow and Mare-Do-Well was the one making dinner. Applejack had been entirely curious as to why the costumed crime fighter would be the one cooking, but she hadn’t complained when she tasted the food. It wasn’t apples, but it was clearly delicious and apparently the vigilante knew what she was doing around the kitchen. What kind of cutie mark would a vigilante hero have anyway? “You know, how can I be sure she’s even the real Mare-Do-Well?” It kind of bothered Applejack that Mare-Do-Well was hiding her real identity. It was like lying to the world about what you really looked like. “I mean this is a lot of trouble to go to convince me that the pony behind the mask is an identity worth hiding.” “That pony, right there the one I’m pointing at right now, has saved me from being raped by crashing through a window into an art exhibit and fought off my assailant, I’d say Mare-Do-Well is a true hero and she hasn’t done anything wrong.” Tapping a delicately manicured hoof to her chin, Rarity considered her words. “Well anything wrong that I know of anyway.” “Breaking and entering, interrogating known criminals with some mild violent methods, taking the law into my own hooves, sneaking into crime scenes and beating up entire crime families almost entirely by myself… I can live with the minor infractions that I do as long as I do not pass a certain line.” Mare-Do-Well sat a bowl of stew before Rover and he dove in face first slurping it up. It was kind of adorable to watch, as much as it was messy. Notably Rarity shifted away from him both mortified and horrified at his poor table manners. “Doing all that stuff together saved a hundred and forty seven lives in one week. Ponies die every single day; I just try to lighten the numbers so good people can continue on living long fulfilling lives. Saving an entire planet? I would have come down here alone even if Rarity and Ember didn’t want to lend their assistance.” “Okay, I can believe that. How did you become Mare-Do-Well anyway?” Applejack hoped that she could talk about that much at least. “It’s been a part of my family line starting a long time ago; I’m the newest Mauve Mare-auder only with a slightly different mantle. Thanks to a certain bug queen the Mauve Mare-auder was already taken and seen at the same time as I was when I started taking action in Canterlot, but at least the family legacy is being kept alive.” It had Saffron wondering why Chrysalis bothered to keep it alive when it wasn’t her family and the Changeling Queen had no obvious reason to do so. She would have to ask Chrysalis later and hope that the weirdest member of Rarity’s crew didn’t dodge the question. “I’m trying to proudly uphold my lineage, one that hides in the shadows and is apparently highly exaggerated in comic books.” “Well you’re certainly quite the character and you know how to cook too!” At least Applejack’s last few meals wouldn’t be so terrible if this was how Sugar’s cousin ate all the time. - Somewhere out in the snow there was the noise of something shifting. There was a small bulge in the snow and after a clearly audible pop, a pink ball of fur erupted from the snow and looked around curiously. It blew a raspberry and chose a direction to start walking in. The blizzard wasn’t affecting it at all as it wandered forward until the blizzard just stopped and it looked at the sky to see swirling clouds. It sat down to stare at the swirling masses of grey for about three hours, before it looked down to see some kind of large steel structure. The structure in question had a lot of crossing beams and was standing tall above the snow, with a red blinking light at the top of it. It was an antenna tower, not that the observer knew that. Moving closer this particularly curious and familiar Puffle sniffed at one of the four metal bases and blew a raspberry at it, as if she expected the giant four legged thing to respond to the intrusion into its personal space. The Puffle stood entirely still for thirty minutes, then it finally blinked and smiled. This Puffle then proceeded to do what any Puffle would do when making a new friend, it was the dumbest thing it could possibly do really. She licked the metal and her tongue immediately got stuck to it. Maybe her new friend was a little too friendly, since it wouldn’t let go her of her tongue which was getting a bit cold. She put her lips up to the structure trying to keep her tongue warm and now those were stuck too, she didn’t exactly like her friend like that and they seemed quite insistent about starting a relationship. She decided that her new friend was really sticky and clingy, but she really liked her friend anyway.