Applejack Gets Lost

by MagicS


Violent Creatures

Applejack caught up with Sturdy Wheel as they darted in-between panicking ponies running all over the streets.

Geez, it’s even worse than seeing how the townsponies react when a monster comes into Ponyville.

“Hey! Sturdy Wheel, let me help too! I’ve been in more than my fair share of tussles.” Applejack said as she came up alongside him. “We’re going to the farms right?”

Wheel bit his tongue and kept looking dead ahead. “Truthfully I’d like to refuse, but we really need all the help we can get. Ponies here aren’t fighters and even our guards don’t have any real weapons or way of defending the town. And yeah, we’ve got four bell towers in town, that’s the east one ringing right now. Means the raiders are going after the farms again most likely.”

“It’s okay, I’m used to helping out all over. So who in the hay are these raiders anyways? Where’d they come from?” Applejack almost plowed into a pony pushing a cart of carrots while she was talking but a high jump over that spared them all a bit of trouble.

“Dunno exactly, I know that sometimes they attacked the Twin Towns and maybe even a few places north of there, and they’ve harassed a lot of travelers. But I don’t really know who they are aside from their leader being an earth pony called Sandstone, obviously we don’t talk with them too much. They come here to steal food, or money, or anything really.” Wheel’s face darkened. “Even kidnapped a few ponies before.”

Applejack frowned. Whoever these thugs were she was gonna let them have a piece of her mind, right after she gave em Buckin' MacGillacuddy and Kicks-Magee.

A short run later and they had made it to the edge of town where Applejack saw a multitude of ponies gathered by a large red farmhouse, mostly stallions holding the same kind of shoddy spears the guards from yesterday had.

Looking out she saw the farms she’d been told of, lots of cornstalks on the north-side and the various fruit orchards on the south. In the distance a large picket fence ran the perimeter of the farms, not anything that would stop some raiders. Beyond the fence she could see a large cloud of dust being kicked up to the north.

Getting closer by the second.

Applejack and Sturdy Wheel walked over to the group of ponies. Sturdy Wheel turned to her.

“These are our guards and some other volunteers. Not much but it’s all we’ve got.”

Applejack saw Clod and that other guard from yesterday assembled in the group. As she and Wheel got closer a large white stallion with a close cropped red mane and a plow for a cutie mark came over to them. He had enough muscle on his bones to give Big Mac a running.

“Wheel.” He nodded to him, speaking with a thick drawl. “Spring saw em coming from the tower, what do we do?”

“The guards will spread out along the northern fence. You have the rock piles ready right? We wait for them to hit the ditch and then unload on them. Hopefully they’ll just figure it isn’t worth it any more and head back soon enough.” Wheel directed while the big pony and the other guards listened in. “But we gotta keep some of us by the north side of the town too or they’ll just ignore the farms and go through there. Tomato, I want you to pick a dozen and head to the northern gate, the rest of us will stay here.”

The big pony, Tomato as Applejack now knew him, didn’t waste any time in grabbing some others and running back down another street leading out of the farms. Applejack watched as Wheel had the remaining guards spread out to the picket fence, she went along with him and now saw that a large ditch had been dug about 20 feet in front of the fence and dozens of rocks had been piled up at each post.

“Like I said, not much.” He told her.

“That’s alright, I wouldn’t really feel comfortable with a spear in my hooves anyways.” She looked down the fence line and saw that other guard from yesterday blithely waving back at her as if this was a normal day and a bunch of brigands weren’t barreling down on the town.

“This is Applejack.” Wheel said to the guards, raising his voice to introduce her to the ones further down the fence. “She’s a visitor who just came into town but she wants to help us so let’s work together to drive these raiders back!”

The guards cheered lightly and raised their spears in appreciation.

“Y'all don’t need to worry about me either, I’ve dealt with a lot worse than some jerks like this.” She said, grinning proudly. The guards around her smiled back but she could tell that a good deal of them were still afraid of the coming fight. The dust cloud was nearly here and she could hear a fierce racket start to come from it.

“The raiders ride these pedal-powered wagons and big-wheeled cycles, that’s what’s making all the dust.” Wheel told her. “We have to be careful cause they can maneuver fast, they might see us and try heading to the other side of the farm before we can regroup or go over and try and ride right into the city.”

The dust cloud was almost on them now, she heard a clattering like wagon wheels pounding the ground. A drop of sweat fell from her brow while Wheel gulped nervously.

Suddenly the raiders came into view, their vehicles bouncing over the ground and all of them hooting and hollering at the defenders.

Applejack’s eyes went wide in surprise. Not just from the unusual vehicles but from the sheer variety of creatures that made up this brigade. Diamond Dogs, Griffons, Lizard and Fishfolk, even a few cats like Capper were among them. All that weren’t steering or pedaling were waving swords and clubs, some of the more adventurous ones hanging off the sides of the wagons. A pegasus riding an over-sized and armored cycle was at the front of the ragtag army, pedaling away fast as he reached the ditch. Sturdy Wheel prepared to throw a rock at him but as soon as the pegasus hit the edge of the ditch he flapped his wings frantically to raise him and his vehicle into the sky, jumping over the ditch and heading straight on a collision course for the fence post next to Applejack and Wheel.

“Look out!” Applejack cried as the two guards standing at the post dove out of the way, the huge cycle plowing into it the next second.

The whole portion of the fence was obliterated but the cycle and rider continued to crash and roll across the ground, the pegasus getting knocked out of his vehicle and falling hard into the cornstalks. Applejack was pretty sure he just took himself out of the fight.

What a bunch of nutjobs.

Still there was now a breach in their already useless for defense fence, and the guards and rock pile there were now in disarray while the rest of the raiders had made it to the ditch.

“Attack!” Wheel shouted as he and the other guards began chucking rocks.

Two large Diamond Dogs simply got out from behind one of the wagons and laid down over the ditch, not minding the rocks pelting them. Holding onto the edges with their hands and feet they made a “bridge” and waited for their comrades to drive right over them.

“Are ya serious?” Applejack couldn’t help but say, watching the absurd affair.

But it worked, the dogs somehow held up the weight of the wagons and cycles riding on their backs, when the first group made it over the ditch they began coming for the fence again. Two big cycles to the side of one wagon led the front with more coming to the ditch from behind.

“Fall back to the farmhouse!” Wheel yelled out to the guards. “We’ll just get trampled if we stay!”

“Hold on!” Applejack responded, taking her lasso out from under her hat and spinning it overhead.

Eyeing her target she threw it over to the cycle on the left of the wagon, her aim perfect she pulled the rope taut, lassoing the rider and the handlebars all at once. Yanking hard, Applejack pulled the cycle into the path of the wagon.

The creatures all aboard shouted as the cycle slammed into it, smashing the front wheel it hit and causing it to crash onto the ground, flipping end over end and taking out the other cycle on the side as the Diamond Dogs, Griffon’s and all the others dove out of it to safety. The other wagons and vehicles behind it screeched to a halt so they wouldn’t become part of the wreck too.

“Yee-haw! Now that was some fine lassoing wasn’t it?” Applejack pumped her hooves at the job well done.

The guards and Wheel, momentarily stunned at what happened, snapped back to reality and began pelting the raiders that had ditched the wagon. The griffons just flew off, and the others ran into and past the ditch covering their heads while the other wagons and cycles chose to turn around and leave, not wanting to take the risk and carry on.

Good riddance. She thought and pulled her lasso back from the fallen cycle.

“That’ll teach em for now at least. Normally they wouldn’t give up so easily but you really got em good.” Wheel beamed at her. “So, uh, you keep a lasso under your hat?”

“Where else would I keep it?” Applejack plainly said back to him as if he asked her if she drank water.

“Fair enough.” He just shrugged. “That was great though, I’ll have someone go find that pegasus who went flying into the cornstalks and tie him up. We made a jail about a year ago in case we caught any of these fellows.”

“I wasn’t expecting them to be so wild.” Applejack looked out at the wrecked vehicles. “What a bunch of varmints.”

“Yeah they were being even noisier than normal, you know-”

Wheel didn’t get to finish his sentence as a bell started ringing again in the distance. He and all the other ponies looked around in surprise. Before they could act a pink pegasus mare came flying down to the ground at high speed, landing in front of Wheel and Applejack and breathing heavily like she just pushed herself to exhaustion to get here as fast as possible.

“Spring!” Wheel said to her. “What’s going on? Why’s the west bell ringing?”

The pegasus, Spring, caught her breath for a second before replying. “They were… hiding in the riverbed… Dusty couldn’t see them. Sandstone and the rest are already in the west side of town.”

The guards started panicking and yelling amongst each other. Applejack heard more than one or two say something about family being over there. Wheel’s mouth as well opened in shock before he caught himself. Turning to Applejack and the assembled guards he waved them to all come together and follow him as he ran down the street he and Applejack initially came in on.

“Come on everypony! We’ve gotta move as fast as we can. Don’t panic now, we can still make it!”


Applejack saw smoke rising in the distance. She and the others were almost to the chaos, they had seen enough ponies running away and heard enough screaming to know they were close.

Turning a corner they came upon a group of ponies being corralled by some Lizardfolk. Applejack sprung into action and smashed into the back of the nearest lizard, Wheel coming up behind her to kick him in the head and knock him out. The other lizards gave up on the civilian ponies and turned to fight the newcomers, one of them whistled loudly, surely to alert their comrades that the guards had come.

A melee began as all the guards fell on the Lizardfolk, spears clashing with swords and clubs, Applejack darting in and out of little fights, giving a well placed buck when she could. She saw Wheel pick up the club of the fallen Lizardfolk and charge at the rest while the remaining townsponies all scurried away. Things were going well for the guards who outnumbered their foes by a wide margin but soon enough the raider’s reinforcements came. A group of Diamond Dogs, ponies and griffons entered the fight, Applejack saw a dog pick up one of the guards and throw him over his head where a griffon pounced on him. A strike from a club nailed Applejack in the side but her return buck smashed the offending Diamond Dog into the wall of a street side store, hitting it so hard he was left stuck in it. She saw a griffon trying to fly down on top of Wheel so she jumped up and headbutted him in the stomach causing him to collapse back into the maddened crowd.

A cloud of dust filled the street as the brawl continued, it was hard to tell who was even fighting who at this point but the guards still had the numbers advantage and Applejack had taken down a number of raiders already on her own. She and Wheel found themselves fighting a pair of fat Fishfolk when a booming voice called out across the street.

“You can all stop right there!”

The raiders fighting all stopped, retreating from the messy brawl and heading towards the voice. The guards, Wheel and Applejack formed up and looked towards the source of the voice.

A tan, eyepatch wearing, earth pony with an orange and black striped mane tied back in a ponytail stood in the middle of the street. He sneered at them and spat on the ground.

“Still doing this, Wheel?” He asked, looking like he was having trouble holding in laughter.

“Shut up.” Wheel replied, angrily. Applejack saw an intense look on his face that she hadn’t seen before, she had seen him frustrated but now it was like he was staring down the biggest scum on the planet. It was obvious to her who this pony was. “Why don’t you and your goons just leave us alone?”

“Oh? Why don’t you all just listen to us?” Sandstone grinned widely and started looking around at the buildings surrounding them. Following his eyes Applejack saw that quite a few of them still had ponies hiding in them, watching the whole fight and the confrontation now. “I’ve sent plenty of letters and messages to Sturdy Wheel and his father.” He spoke, addressing all the townsponies around. “Me and my friends just want a nice peaceful place to live. We’ve been roughing it all over and we finally heard about a quiet out of the way place where we could settle down. All we wanted was to live here too.” He finished, grin going even wider. Applejack could see a lot of the civilian ponies and even a few guards muttering to each other.

“Ugh, don’t listen to this guy!” Wheel shouted to everyone. “The first thing they did was attack us and when they realized they couldn’t just push us around he came to my dad and said they’d stop if we gave them the farms and the east side of town! My dad refused and you know how it’s been since, don’t forget all the awful stuff they’ve done.”

“Oh please, we just want a home. You’re only forcing us to do awful stuff, like this.” Sandstone gestured behind him and a Lizardfolk came out from the ranks of his underlings holding a lime-green earth pony mare, scared out of her wits with tears running down her cheeks.

Applejack gritted her teeth and felt her face flush in anger, it took all she had not to just run down there and beat the hay out of all of them.

Sandstone aint paying attention to me though. Applejack noticed as he was keeping his eyes firmly on Sturdy Wheel, a plan brewing in her mind.

“Let her go Sandstone!” Wheel yelled at him, the guards standing behind him with their spears pointed at the raiders.

“Uh, no?” Sandstone mocked him. “What’s going to happen now is that you let us take all we want today, we wont hurt her if you do, then we take her with us and tomorrow we can all sit down for another talk. How about that?”

“My dad’s not gonna let you just do whatever you want with this town, and none of the ponies here will just let you walk all over and terrorize them either.” Wheel replied.

“I think they will after they see what happens to her.” He nodded back at the mare. “And you can’t tell me they’re not all tired from this?”

Wheel growled under his breath and was about to reply when a lasso suddenly shot past his head.

Catching everyone off guard the quick lasso found its way around the lime green mare’s hoof before Applejack pulled it tight and tugged on it hard, the Lizardfolk squawked in surprise at the sudden forceful pull and the lime green mare was dragged right out of his grasp. Applejack pulling her all the way to herself in one quick motion.

“Ya alright, miss?” Applejack said to the crying mare as she held her in her hooves.

Shocked by what just happened she nodded simply at her savior. “Uh… uh-huh...”

Sandstone looked dumbly between the Lizardfolk and Applejack, jaws and eyes open wider than a yawning lion. “Buh... wha… huh?”

Wheel and the guards also just looked flabbergasted. But a smile quickly broke out on Wheel’s face and he turned back to smugly grin at Sandstone.

“You were saying?”

Sandstone’s face was so red he looked like he might explode. “You’ve done it now kid, we’ll be back soon. And you just made the wrong pony your enemy, missy.” He said as he glared at Applejack. But for now it was just hot air as he and the other raiders turned tail and ran off down the street on their way out of town. Sturdy Wheel keeping the guards from chasing so they could tend to things here.

Applejack wasn’t worried and just watched them leave, carefully depositing the shaken mare on the ground. “Think ya got that backwards, pal.” She mumbled to herself.