//------------------------------// // Helpful Pony // Story: Applejack Gets Lost // by MagicS //------------------------------// The guards were all now assembled in the large atrium of town hall. Applejack saw Clod, Tomato, and could happily name Soda now, Spring was missing so she figured she must’ve been one of the guards on watch. All in all there was only about 50 of them. Outside the sun hung high in the sky, its sweltering heat covering the town. Wheel stood before them all with Applejack and Hard Head at his side. Taking a moment to survey the towns fighting force before speaking. “Alright. I know a lot of us are worried about what might come next. So am I. But like Applejack said sometimes you’re in a situation where you’ve just got to fight. None of us are real soldiers or anything but you all became guards because you wanted to protect this town from Sandstone. So that’s what we’re going to do, right?” The guards all stomped their hooves in unison, showing their support. “Thank you. Sandstone seemed angrier than usual after what happened yesterday, I don’t think he likes getting shown up like that, he might really try something big next time cause he’s probably just as tired of the way things are going as we all are. We need to be as ready as possible for the next attack.” Wheel stopped momentarily to let this all sink in, taking the time to look at how the guards were processing it. Finally his eyes landed on Tomato. “Tomato, I want you to get everyone into groups and spread them on the outskirts of town. We don’t want a repeat of yesterday with them coming up from somewhere the watchers couldn’t see from the bell towers. And for now everyone needs to consider themselves on perpetual duty until Sandstone is dealt with. Sorry if you have other obligations.” Tomato and the others nodded their heads, accepting his orders. “Good, I’m also going to go around and ask for any volunteers. It’s unlikely we’ll get any more than usual, in fact we’ll probably get less after yesterday, but we need all the help we can get. That’s all I have to say, Sandstone said they’d be back soon and I believe him, let’s get to work. Dismissed!” Wheel stamped his hoof once and went back to talk to Hard Head while Tomato began organizing the guards. Having not much to do Applejack kind of just stood off to the side. Until four of the guards tomato had been directing came up to her. “Um, miss Applejack?” The lead guard asked, a dark yellow earth pony with an unkempt brown mane and one of the ones who had been with the elderly stallion as they almost accosted Sturdy Wheel just earlier. In fact as she looked over the group she noticed they were all guards that had not exactly been happy at that meeting. “What can I do you for?” She responded, eyebrow raised but still polite. She knew there was no sense in being angry at these fellows. “Well, I wanted to apologize on behalf of us all, and thank you for getting us back to our senses. We know good and well that we can’t just roll over for Sandstone but we let our fear get the better of us.” He wrung his hooves together nervously. “So I just wanted to say that we’ve got your back out there.” Applejack smiled brightly at him. “Well shucks, thank you. And you really didn’t need to apologize, I know how it is. What’s all your names then? I’d like to get to know you better before things get all crazy around here.” The lead guard smiled happily to her. “Oh, I’m Cornstalk.” “I’m Weathermane.” The only pegasus in the group, a lithe stallion with a sky blue coat and white mane introduced himself to her. “Keg.” A burly earth pony stallion with big buck teeth supplied. He had a yellowish-brown coat and a black mane that looked like he combed it with a lawnmower. “Evergreen.” The final one told her, a lanky stallion with a sickly green colored coat and a deeper green mane that hung straight over his right eye. “Pleasure to meet you all.” Applejack said warmly, and meant it. “Well, t-that’s about all we wanted to say.” Cornstalk nervously got out, blushing a fair bit to Applejack’s confusion. “Hope everything goes well, thanks for helping us, and our town.” He waved goodbye and turned to leave with the other three, Applejack saw them grinning and giggling at him for some reason. Nice fellows but a bit strange. Later that evening the patrols had all been sent out, Luna’s moon was in the sky and Wheel was taking no risks, the raiders hadn’t attacked at night before but he figured Sandstone might try something special after what happened yesterday. Applejack was still in town hall holding down the fort until needed. Wheel had ran around town looking for anypony that would help out the guards and was now relaxing in his chair. Fruit Basket lay sprawled out asleep on the floor, reminding Applejack of Winona after a run more than anything. Hard Head was pacing around and grumbling about not enough ponies willing to help out. Despite the situation Applejack couldn’t help but smile at the scene, family working together, family that cared about each other and their town. Something reminding her of home was a pretty nice feeling to have when you were so far away from it. It was then that Applejack realized that when everything was back to normal she’d really love to come back here and see her new friends again. Only next time she’d bring a cart full of apples with her. “Maybe I should’ve tried sleeping some.” Wheel suddenly spoke up. “If they do attack in the night I’m gonna be exhausted.” “Too late now.” Hard Head replied, stopping his pacing to talk to his son. “Drink coffee, stay awake.” He pointed down the hallway to the sitting room. Wheel just sighed and did as his father directed. Fruit Basket sneezed in her sleep and turned over, legs kicking at air like she was running in a dream, the silliness of it all making Applejack shake her head. Hard Head came up to Applejack. “You very good pony. Town owe you.” Applejack was surprised at his words and she quickly waved her hooves in front of her. “No, no way, if anything I owe you all for helping me out when I was lost. Not everywhere would just let me in and give me a nice place to rest and eat for no charge.” Hard Head just kept the same frown that she figured must’ve been carved onto his farce. “Visitor already pay that back and more. Already done more good for us! Hospitality normal! Fighting violent creatures not normal!” Applejack really didn’t want anypony to feel indebted to her, it was more than good enough if she could just help some ponies out. “Find suitable thank you for you after Sandstone gone.” Hard Head told her and then waddled into his office, slamming the door loudly and startling Fruit Basket awake. The quiet, skittish, pony jumped up and looked around in surprise before her eyes settled on Applejack. Smile forming under her thick make-up and with a vacant stare she gave a polite wave that Applejack returned with an uneasy grin and small wave of her own. Strange fellows all around. A few minutes later Wheel walked back into the lobby, holding a cup of coffee. “If you want any I left the kettle on.” He said to his sister and Applejack. Fruit Basket quickly trotted out of the room but Applejack just shook her head. “None for me. I’m already more wound up than a ball of rattlesnakes. Night’s still young, anything could still happen.” She said as she went into the hallway to look out one of the windows. The town was dark but still lit up well enough by the stars and moon and some lanterns that ponies put up at some of the street corners. Looking to her left she could see the east bell tower, the farms not too far beyond it. To her right she saw a group of kids running around in the street playing some game, their parents probably had no idea. She knew the theater and school were down that way too from what Wheel told her. Ahead of her was the road that would lead straight back to the center of town, funny that despite getting good directions on things from the ponies here she’d still spent almost all her time in town hall or fighting. If things weren’t so hectic she would’ve liked to take a nice walk through town. Maybe actually visit the theater too and see what they were doing. BOOOONG!! Applejack’s eyes opened wide and she heard a crash as behind her Sturdy Wheel dropped his coffee mug on the floor. BOOOONG!! The loud bell rang out again and the two ponies turned to look at each other, Applejack’s eyes narrowed in resolve. “It’s the northern bell tower.” Wheel said, face turning to steel determination. “Let’s go.” The two ponies raced to the northern edge of town, thanks to it already being night out this time most every other pony was already in their home. Applejack could see they were getting closer to the towns limits as they started to pass some abandoned and boarded up buildings. The one thing she was thankful for as she ran down the street with Wheel was that it was a lot cooler under Luna’s moon than Celestia’s Sun. Up ahead she saw a large crowd gathered, definitely the guards, Clod, Tomato, Cornstalk and the others were there. Even Spring this time. “Looks like about half the guards and volunteers I scrounged up are here already. Everypony else must still be coming from farther in town.” Wheel said to her. He and Applejack made it to the meeting place. It looked like there used to be something like an actual gatehouse and the start of a stone wall at the north side of town but it was either never completed or had fallen into disrepair. There was no gate at all and the wall fell apart only about 50 feet out in both directions from the building. The street leading into town from the gatehouse widened into a large circular intersection that multiple smaller streets branched off from. The guards had all been gathering there. Upon seeing Wheel and Applejack arrive Spring stepped forward to fill them in. “Heya boss, Thunderbolt saw them coming so we came here. He went to grab Dusty and Cool Wind too.” “Is it okay that everypony’s gathering here? What if they’re making another distraction or doing some kind of surprise attack?” Applejack asked Spring and Wheel. “Oh you don’t have to worry about that.” Tomato said as he walked up to them. Taking his big hoof he pointed past the guards and out the gatehouse, Applejack and Sturdy Wheel following his gesture. She could see the torches they carried. Dots of fire in the darkness spread out in the desert outside of town, slowly approaching closer. With their light and the light of the moon, Applejack could see there were a lot more than just those who attacked the farm or went inside the town yesterday. She heard Wheel gulp and glanced to her side, seeing the uncertain grimace on his face and the sweat on his brow. “I guess they’re done playing around.” He said. “They don’t care how bad things might get now.” “Thunderbolt could see from the torches and size of their shadow that they were bringing everyone right here, that’s why he went to grab the others on watch.” Spring explained. “You can see they’ve got all their wagons too.” “We can’t really garrison the old gatehouse or anything, they can just go around and torch other buildings or even the farms.” Tomato said. “We have to be able to meet em and stay mobile or they’ll just run ramshackle over the whole town.” “I’m a lot more of a doer than a thinker myself.” Applejack chimed in. “But I don’t know if we can just charge em straightforward like that.” Wheel brought his hoof to his chin, trying to think. “I still don’t think Sandstone actually wants to torch the whole town and certainly not the farms, not unless things go really bad for them, he’s probably gonna come around yelling demands or something and try to scare us. He also probably thinks he has a bigger numbers advantage than he does. Or that the town’s a lot angrier at me and my dad. I think he might try to just walk in here, we can have the volunteers I rounded up hide in the abandoned buildings on the street so he thinks the normal guards are the only ones here. When he tries to negotiate with us we can just refuse until he blows his stack and attacks, then we can collapse on them from all sides. If we can surround Sandstone and keep him from escaping we can finally put an end to this, some of them might try torching the buildings here but so what? Nearly this whole area is abandoned. They might have a numbers advantage but we have the element of surprise and we can take out their leader right at the start if we play it right.” Wheel perked his head up, looking at Applejack and his two guards with a confident smirk. “Sound good?” “Heh, for a second there I thought I might have had to give you another pep talk. But you got it together just fine.” Applejack said as she playfully cuffed him on the shoulder. Just then three pegasi landed by them. Applejack also looked down the various streets to see a few more stragglers making it. Most every guard was probably there by now. “Got everypony coming here.” A silver stallion with a swept back electric blue mane announced to Wheel and the others. When he noticed Applejack was there he nodded to her. “Hi, I’m Thunderbolt. You must be Applejack? Pleasure to meet you.” "Pleasure’s all mine.” Applejack said and nodded to the other two pegasi. One a deep violet stallion with a black mane and the other a rust colored stallion with his copper mane done in a mohawk. Wheel didn’t wait for any new conversations to start up as he pushed Spring towards the new arrivals. “Catch them up on what we’re doing. Tomato, I want you to get all the regular guards together in the back half of the circle. I’m going to tell the volunteers what we’re doing and have them hide, I’ll come up with a signal or code word for when it’s time for them to come out and attack.” Tomato nodded and hurried off to organize the guards. Wheel then turned to Applejack. “And when everyone’s in place I want you front and center with me. We’ll deal with Sandstone.” The raiders marched into town unhurried. Ponies, Lizardfolk, Diamond Dogs, Cats, Griffons, they all came like a mob. Some carrying torches, others clubs and swords. They crowded through the gatehouse or climbed over its walls, some of the creatures on the outside of the group simply walked around it all together. They seemed unafraid, thinking that they were just finally dealing with a bunch of annoying ponies that couldn’t even put up a real fight. They were happy that they would get the chance to pay them back for the humiliation yesterday and all the previous times they were driven off. It was no more fooling around, no taking things easy because Sandstone didn’t want the trouble of a full-blown battle or risk destroying what they wanted in the first place. They wouldn’t run off just because some rocks were thrown at them this time. They wouldn’t run off because it was “A hassle”. This was it. And as they looked at each other and towards their enemies, they were confident. Sandstone led them, behind him was a large wagon being pedaled by a pair of Fishfolk. Now he wore a brown, high-collared jacket with a knife strapped to it. Sauntering towards his enemies with a mocking smirk, looking from side to side at the assembled guards as if saying “This is all you’ve got?”. At last he stopped in front of Applejack and Wheel, holding up a hoof to get his raiders to stop. He looks slimier and more full of himself than Flim and Flam pulling a scam. “Well, glad you’ve decided to make this all simple for me Sturdy Wheel. I was worried that you were gonna make some traps or have all your little guard ponies attack us in town. But when you saw how serious we were I guess that knocked some sense into you.” He said, letting out a small chuckle after. “Now I was fully prepared to use these torches to burn down whatever I had to, but I really would rather not. What’s the point of that? And what a shame it would be if those farms ended up burning. Nobody wants that, least of all me, you know how I love a good strawberry.” He looked past Wheel and Applejack at the assembled guards. “I know you can’t be thinking of seriously fighting me with that. Here to step aside all at once? Want us to see that you’re serious about not resisting us? That’s good. We’ll just go right on in and set up in your farms. Oh, that is after we throw your father in that jail he had built for me. Any objections, Wheel?” Wheel’s eyes narrowed, he was about to respond, about to tell Sandstone that they weren’t going to surrender and he’d have to fight them if he wanted this town. But Sandstone stomped his hoof on the ground, interrupting Wheel before he could start talking, eyes narrowed in anger as he looked at Applejack. “However! That aint all. This little missy thought it was a good idea to humiliate me yesterday. I don’t like that. I don’t know who you are but nobody does that to me. So Wheel, it aint just your town or father that I want.” He reached up and pulled his knife from his jacket. “You and your guards are gonna step back and me and this gal are gonna throw down.” “What?” Wheel replied, shocked. “No way, I-” He was cut off as Applejack reached her leg out in front of his body, stopping him and walking forward herself to Sandstone. “It’s alright.” She said, not even turning to look back at Wheel. “I’ll handle this.” Sandstone smirked at her. “Well, well, look who’s got some guts. Hey Wheel-” Sandstone said, looking past Applejack at him. “I promise that I won’t hurt anyone else besides her.” Applejack just looked him dead on, face blank and stony. “You know if it wasn’t for you things probably wouldn’t have changed so much. But I got so riled up yesterday that I just had to do something big, got so sick of the little stuff.” He said, pointing his knife at her. “In a way I guess I should thank you, if you hadn’t been there we’d still be stuck in our old routine. So thank you.” He turned his flank to her to show off his cutie mark. “You see my mark? It’s a wooden pony, I got it in carving. Always something I’ve been good at. That’s why I carry this knife, it’s something I’m good with.” He grinned at her. “Carving wood sure is different from knife fighting but I’ve done enough of each to be able to deal with some hat wearing, slack-jawed, glassy eyed pony like you.” Applejack was unimpressed. Turning her own flank to him she pointed at her cutie mark. “Yeah? Well you see my mark? Three apples, it means how my home and place is back on my family apple farm. I’m a farmer and, uh, that’s it.” She finished, mocking his attempts at intimidation. Sandstone wasn’t angry though, just a little confused, he tilted his head at Applejack. “What are apples?” Applejack snorted and her face scrunched up, hooves kicking at the ground in frustration. “Oh, I am just done with this. Are you gonna fight me now already?” “Heh, alright.” Sandstone’s face went back into its mean sneer. “Oh, and after I’m all done here? You said your family had a farm, I’ll find that and burn it down.” She didn’t explode in anger or rush at him or anything like that. Her eyes just became cold and hard as she narrowed them at him. “No you wont.” He grinned, and lunged at her, knife outstretched in his hoof aiming right for her chest. Applejack ducked, pivoted, and bucked him hard in the chest. Sandstone was sent flying backwards, he hit the wagon behind him so hard it was smashed to pieces, the Fishfolk thrown out of it as Sandstone and the wreckage kept tumbling backwards taking out a few more raiders in the process before finally coming to a stop. Sandstone lay on the ground, chest rising weakly but otherwise unmoving, completely knocked unconscious. The guards, other raiders, and Wheel all stared with mouths agape. Finally, Wheel’s mind came back to him. “Huh. Or I guess that can just happen.” Raising his hoof in the air he quickly threw it back down. “Attack!” The guards immediately charged forward to assault the raiders while at the same time all the volunteers hiding in the abandoned houses came rushing out. Surprise attacked on three sides and with their leader out of commission the raiders only put up a poor effort. Afraid of what Applejack just did, and seeing the obliterated wagon, many just threw down their weapons and tried running off. A few of the more courageous ones stood their ground to fight the guards but they were quickly outnumbered. Applejack saw a few raiders with torches preparing to fling them into the buildings so she jumped in front of them. Fixing them with a hard stare she spoke calmly. “You can put out those torches or, if you want, you can get more of what he got.” She pointed at the crumpled body of Sandstone. The torches were put out. Most of the raiders in the back half of the group had run off or taken off on their cycles and wagons. The rest were surrendering or being beat up and tied up. Applejack saw Tomato wrapping a thick chain around Sandstone’s unconscious body. Wheel walked up beside her as she was finishing hogtying a particularly stubborn griffon. “Well, I don’t think they’re gonna cause any more problems for us. That all went better than expected.” “Hehe, sorry, I feel like I kind of stole your thunder a bit.” Applejack said, grinning embarrassedly at him. “I really, truly do not mind.” He replied with a big smile. Giving her a light tap on the shoulder. Applejack suddenly felt herself grabbed from behind and lifted up, finding herself on top of Tomato’s shoulders. “Three cheers for Applejack!” He called out to the crowd. The guards all joined in, Clod, Soda, Cornstalk and all the rest. Pumping their hooves with victorious smiles on their faces. “Hip hip, hooray! Hip hip, hooray! Hip hip hooray!” “Aw shucks...” All she could do was blush in embarrassment.