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// But I'm Not a Pony! 
// Story: A Heroes Always Welcome 
// by discord7 
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	I kept seeing those ponies, images of their wacky adventures. The doctors words echoed in my head about that brony thing. It kept going around until I heard someone calling someone.
"Mr. Apple?" it sounded like a mans voice, "Mr. Apple?" it repeated. I slowly opened my eyes. My vision was so blurry. I saw my doctor in front of me, why the hell was he calling me Mr. Apple.
"Mr. Apple are you ok, can you hear me?" he asked.
I nodded my head, it hurt, I put my hand up to it but stopped when I noticed it wasn't a hand. I looked at it, what the... I had a hoof? But I'm not a pony, it must be a dream, or some kind of side effect from the drugs.
I looked at the doctor he had a horse face, after my vision cleared I noticed he too was a pony. This was some wicked bad morphine.
"Ah, your with us now." he said, "listen, Mr. Apple-"
"Why do you keep calling me that!" I protested, interupting him, "My name is James, James Johnson."
"Well your file says your name is Buck Apple, are you sure your just not experiencing any head trauma?" He said putting his hoof to my forehead to feel my tempurature. I smacked his hand away, I threw the sheets off and jumped down. I was surprised when my feet didn't stop me. I hit the floor, hard.
The doctor reached down and picked me back up.
"I was trying to tell you," he said, "The injuries you sustained from the war were too extensive, we uh..." he paused, "We had to amputate."
I looked down at the bandadged nubs at the base of the bed. I couldn't belive it, my legs... they were... I couldn't even bear to think about it. I looked away.
The doctor put a hoof on my shoulder, "It will be tough to adjust," he said, "but you'll make it through these times." he said, "with rehabilitation we can get you through this. Eventually we may even be able to build you prostetics." he assured me. But it wasn't enough to bring my legs back.
I bit my lip, I was on the verge of tears, even if this was some sort of cruel dream it hurt all the same. But I thought if there was one source of solice and world had ny injuries copied into it then my wife was here too.
"Where is she?" I asked bitterly.
"Who now?" the doctor asked.
"My wife," I asked, "where is she?" I repeated.
"Well..." he began, I shot my attention to him now, "She uh..."
"Tell me what happened." I demanded.
He sighed, "From what I heard she died bringing you to the paramedic."
The words hit me hard, it brought on a flashback.

I remembered the mortar, when it hit it blew me into a pit. Shards of metal and dirt were logded in me from the knee down. The rook was on the com trying to signal backup, my wife snatched it from him and gave the coordinates. I was dazed the entire time, fading in and out of reality. My ears rang from the explosion, I heard the return fire, the grunts from Tank throwing grenades. I heard choppers coming in from the south, I saw two giving return fire. One of them a medic chopper came down several yards away. Tank and my wife lifted me up and began carrying me. We were almost there. I was hoisted onto the chopper, Caroline came in next to me and knelt down she took off her helment. I smiled up at her, her face was dirty as all hell. But she still looked as beautiful as the day I met her, twenty years ago. That's when it happened, as soon as the chopper began to take off the enemied began to fire at the open hatch.
One bullet went straight into Caroline's head and she fell twenty feet to the ground. I feinted, and couldn't remember anything. So while she was dead in reality, I was watching a kids tv show and dreaming about being a friggen pony.

I was later released from the hospitol and given a special wheelchair and a taxi home. It drove up to the ranch, it looked just like the real ranch I'd become accustomed to seeing, except one, I wasn't in my Ford Super Duty, and two, Caroline wasn't at my side. I looked to my right and at the wheel chair. I wondered if when I got out of this crazy dream, would things be the same? Would I have to live with the constant reminder that it was my fault that my loving wife was now dead.
I looked up at the sign as the driver helped me into the wheelchair. "Sweet Apple Acres"
Sweet Apple Acres? My ranch was Johnson's Acres. I was going to call to the cabbie but one he had already gone, and two I heard a familiar voice calling me.
"DADDY!" the little country accent came running to me her red hair and pink bow was the only thing I saw. I embraced my daughter, if there was one thing I loved more than anything was to see my family smile.
"What happened to you?" she asked, I looked down to see a little foal looking up at me with big honey colored eyes. I realized she was from that show, Applebloom was her name. What the hell was going on. I was supposed to be her father? I tried to form my explanation to her while trying to make sense of myown confusion. I guess it made sense that I could be there father, after all none of the episodes I watched had the Apple families mother and father in it.
"I uh, got a little boo boo." I told her that's what I would have told my daughter back at home.
"So what?" she looked at me curiously, "Are they gunna grow back or sumthin'" I couldn't help but laugh at that, it was adorable to hear her have the same response as my daughter was, almost as if she was.
It was almost enough to make me forget about the loss of my limbs.
"No sweetheart, they won't grow back." I told her.
She looked disheartened, "Then how are you gunna help us applebuckin' this year?" she asked.
Applebuckin'? Oh ya, I forgot in the show they called it applebuckingwhen it was time for harvesting. I decided that I would play along with this silly world as long as I was here. Then after I came back to my own world I would deal with what came with it. After all this was just a dream... right?
"I... uh? I...." I stuttered trying to come up with a solution to explain this to her.
"Don't worry AB, he'll just help out with sortin' with granny, after all he was gettin' to old for it anyways." I looked up to see Applejack. She winked at me, looks like my family was based with the Apples in this world. It was kind of ironic acctually, the fact that I saw my little girls in these two. The only thing that was missing was my son, who I assumed was Big Macintosh.
I saw him slowly walking towards us, he looked at me with a scowl.
"What's the matter big guy." I asked him. He gave a quick look at my wheel chair.
I remembered my son was the same way, he didn't talk much either.
"Where's the rest of ya?" he said.
"Well technically I did come back in one peice." I told him, assuming that I had made the same promise here as I did in the real world.
He scolwed turned and walked away.
"Don't worry dad, he'll get over it, so where's mom, they gunna send her up in a different taxi?" Applejack asked.
I looked down, I really didn't want to break their hearts, even if this was a figment of my imagination.
"What?" AJ asked looking at my head go down with shame.
"She uh... she didn't make it back." I told her.
I heard Applebloom choke up with tears suddenly.
I looked up and saw that Applejack too had tears in her eyes.
"What?" she said, "mama's dead?" she asked.
I couldn't bear to see her sad face, it reminded me too much of my little ones. How they would react if they heard that kind of news.