//------------------------------// // An Outsider's Perspective // Story: Applejack Gets Lost // by MagicS //------------------------------// The leader and the other three mercenaries allowed themselves to be tied up and taken into custody. Quartz had taken the bomb back through the tunnel they had used to get to the dam to make sure it was far enough away that it couldn’t harm any ponies. The injured workers were being taken care of in one of the houses while the injured and unconscious mercenaries were stuck in a dining hall for the time being, Pepper had sent somepony running back to the plateau to bring more who could help. Applejack and the others sat outside by the dam, waiting for Quartz to return. Obsidian was fidgeting, restless. Bedrock was staring off into space and Marble was eyeballing Applejack. Finally Marble decided to question Applejack. “How’d you know he was bluffing?” Applejack looked at the dam for a second, the deep water of the lake behind it and the few pouring streams of water coming out down below. “He asked us if we were willing to die for some place that wasn’t even our home. I was wondering if he was. He didn’t come off as the type of fellow who would die for his job. And honestly? I just kind of saw it in his eyes.” “Big risk.” Bedrock muttered. She frowned. “You got something to say?” “Well you didn’t want me to kill but you had no problem putting all of our lives in danger.” “That’s cause killing other ponies is wrong!” “That’s silly, they were our enemies who would've had no problem killing us. There are lots of bad ponies in the world and you need to be prepared to deal with them” He glared down at her. “Bad ponies? Oh I’ve dealt with a lot of those.” Applejack turned her back to him and walked over to the dam, looking down the valley side where the large river once flowed. “And dangerous beasts and monsters that could tear apart the world, I’m not naive about what’s out there. I know there are dangerous things. But those ponies we fought? They weren’t monsters, bad fellows who made a mistake, but not monsters. I would never kill somepony like them. That’s not what a good pony does. I know that sometimes there’s no choice, sometimes you’ll be facing down some evil monster that you can’t stop or reason with.” Applejack turned back, looking him hard In the face. “But that wasn’t the case here.” Bedrock saw she wasn’t going to budge and sighed, shaking his head. “Fine, no more killing.” Obsidian smiled while Marble just shrugged. “The bomb is taken care of.” All of them looked back to the tunnel, Quartz was walking out of it, his face back to his normal expressionless mask. “That’s good. I want to talk with the leader of those ponies now. See if he actually knows anything and who hired him.” Applejack said and began walking to where they were being held. “What did you do with the bomb anyways?” She asked Quartz, looking back over her shoulder. “I disposed of it, it’s not the first time I’ve dealt with a device like that.” He wouldn’t meet her gaze as he talked, obviously it wasn’t something he liked to think about. Fair enough. Applejack thought, they didn’t pry into her life so she might as well give them the same respect. The leader of the mercenaries was tied together with the other three ponies around a large fir tree that grew on the side of the mountain. The slope was easy enough to walk on hoof, it was the start of the pass that the mercenaries had initially used to get to the dam area instead of using the tunnel. He looked at them plainly, didn’t seem to be angry or afraid, he had allowed them to tie him up and didn’t make any threats or curse at them while it happened. “So.” Applejack said first thing as she came up to him, the other mercenary tied directly to his left was the one with the black eye who had been carrying the bomb in the first place. “What’s your names?” The other three let out variations of “Huh?” while the leader just raised an eyebrow. This wasn’t exactly how they expected the interrogation to start. “Um, I’m Tool Box.” The black eyed pony said, causing the leader to groan and roll his eyes. “You’re all so unprofessional. Fine, just tell her everything, who cares? I’m Birdseed.” He said. “I’m Tone Tuner.” The one immediately to Birdseed’s right said. “Peach Cobbler.” The last one and only mare said. Applejack smiled. “Good, I’m Applejack. Now I’d really appreciate if you would answer some other questions I had.” “Oh yes, I’d love to.” Birdseed said sarcastically. “And then we can all be happily thrown in prison. That makes me really want to help you.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “Sorry, you may have gotten the better of us but I wont tell you anything. I take my work seriously.” Not seriously enough to die for it. Applejack knew it was better to not say that to him at this point, instead she just sighed and lifted a hoof in the air. The 4 mercenaries watched her, wondering what she was doing. Staring right into Birdseed’s eyes she calmly and slowly brought her hoof back down. And the instant it hit the dirt a crack shot out towards Birdseed, inches before him the crack spiderwebbed and the ground exploded. Rocks and dirt were shot out into the sky like a landmine had gone off. “I can do that in your body if you want.” She said through calm, almost bored looking eyes. Birdseed’s expression was unchanged, but now a single drop of sweat rolled down his cheek. “I have decided to tell you everything.” Applejack showed a bigger smile while behind her Marble and Obsidian giggled. “Why thank you. Now I only really have one important question, if you answer it we can even ask Pepper to go easy on y'all. Okay?” She waited for Birdseed to nod before continuing. “So. Who hired you?” “I never met them. We just got a letter and a bag of money. The letter explained everything about Mountain Town and what we were supposed to do.” Birdseed answered. “Well who wrote the letter? Did it have a name on it? Sheriff Good Harvest maybe?” Quartz asked him. Birdseed raised an eyebrow at him. “I didn’t know he was a sheriff but yes, that was the name on the letter.” “That tears it then.” Applejack smacked her hooves together. “I was right, he hired these ponies for his plan to take over Mountain Town and get the river back at the same time. We need to get back to Valley Town soon and tell Redwood and the others about all this.” “We should talk to Pepper and the others from the plateau coming too. They need to know the truth of what happened before they get paranoid, and we still need to convince them to get rid of the dam on their own terms.” Obsidian spoke up. “You’re right, let’s get going.” Applejack turned to walk back to the houses, Pepper was at the dam forepony’s house with some others. Stopping for a second she turned back around and looked at Birdseed. “Oh right, I keep my promises. You’re a bad fellow so I’m certainly not letting you get off the hook all the way but I’ll make sure Pepper and the others don’t do anything drastic to ya.” Applejack and the others walked into the house, the living room full of ponies, the head of the dam was an older stallion with a bushy brown beard. He looked like he might’ve been an imposing figure once but the food rationing had clearly led to him shedding a few pounds. Pepper noticed them come in and smiled. She had been shaken by the fighting but was recovering well. Still it seemed like she was tired from having to calm down all the angry dam workers and some of their families that lived with them. “We all know who did this!” One of the workers shouted. “Valley Town finally got sick of us damming the river!” “Yeah! We need to fight back, we should go down there and take their food by force!” Another spoke up. The forepony himself wasn’t saying anything but he did silently nod along. Pepper looked anxious and afraid at what everypony was saying. Applejack bit her lip, things were going to end badly even though the dam wasn’t destroyed if she and her friends didn’t do something. “No! You can’t do that!” She shouted to the assembled ponies. All eyes turned to her. “Uh, what I mean is...” She rubbed the back of her head, grinning sheepishly. “That’s a really bad idea for a couple reasons.” “What are you talking about? Who are you anyways?” The forepony asked her, walking up and sticking his hoof in her face. “This is Applejack.” Pepper came to her defense, and pointed to the disciples. “And this is Quartz, Obsidian, Marble and Bedrock. They came into town just earlier today, they’re the ones who stopped those bad ponies from blowing up our dam.” “Oh? Well thanks I guess.” He replied gruffly, still not exactly looking all that kind to her. “But you’re no citizen of Mountain Town, so I’d appreciate if you butt out of our conversation now. It’s time to get revenge on those who have wronged us, like we should’ve done long ago instead of just setting up this dam. We won’t let Valley Town get away with something like this anymore.” He moved to turn away from her. “No, you need to listen to me!” She grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around. “We were at Valley Town before coming here, things aren’t like you think they are.” The ponies looked around at each other, wondering what she was going on about. “This wasn’t some big attack by Valley Town, it was just one pony.” Applejack tried explaining. “They wanted to make you so angry you’d come attack them because Valley Town built a big fort that has a lot of ponies ready to fight in it, they’ve got weapons and armor and everything and they think you all are going to attack them any day. If you went down there like this they’d be ready for ya and they’d think they were right.” The forepony’s eyes widened. “When did that all happen? Who’s crazy enough to do something like that?” “We heard from the mercenary leader that they were hired by sheriff Good Harvest.” She told him. “I knew Good Harvest.” One of the other dam workers spoke up. “He always didn’t like us even before we dammed the river, and I remember when things started going bad he was always harassing ponies by the rivers edge.” “Yeah, the sheriff started up the fort too. He’s been planning this for a long time.” Applejack looked out at everypony else in the room. “Most ponies in Valley Town don’t mind you at all, we were just there so we know, they’re just going about their daily lives. They don’t hate you or anything.” “But the dam...” The forepony started. “They’re doing fine without it. Believe me.” Applejack went to the back of the room and stood up on a couch so everypony could see and hear her. “They don’t have a surplus of crops that they could have traded with you anymore but they aren’t hurting for food like you, and they all looked a lot happier than the average pony I saw in Mountain Town. This dam, you built it to get back at ponies you thought had wronged you. I understand that. I may not agree with it personally, but yeah I understand where you’re coming from.” “So what? You stopped those other ponies from blowing it up but now you’re saying we should still get rid of it?” The forepony stomped the ground. “That’s right.” Applejack stated simply. “No way! This dam is our pride, it’s our way of saying we wont let those valley ponies push us around!” “And has it made your lives better at all?” The forepony stopped, all the others in the room were struck by silence as well. Some of the workers looked at each other sadly, Pepper gazed at everypony, taking it all in. “To me.” Applejack started in a much gentler tone. “This all looks so foolish. Valley Town was wrong to do what they did but you were wrong to dam up the river. Two wrongs don’t make a right. How much better would things be for you now if you had turned the other cheek and not dammed the river? How much happier would everypony in Mountain Town be if you had just talked things out? I’m not saying you should’ve rolled over and let Big Dad Redwood bully you.” Applejack noticed a few frowns at the mention of that name. “But the way you decided to do things is just wrong, and still keeping it up now when all it’s causing is harm is just dumb!” She scowled at the ponies before her. Most of them looked almost ashamed but she wasn’t finished yet. “If you went down there now though, and offered to take down the dam on your own? Say “Hey, no hard feelings” wouldn’t that be so much better? Wouldn’t that show how much stronger and nicer you are in its own way? And I heard that a long time ago you were once all part of the same group, don’t you want to get along again? You can all be kind and be friends, it’s not so hard.” Applejack looked sadly down at the ponies in the living room. Most refused to meet her gaze, looking away or shutting their eyes. The forepony looked up at her with resignation and sighed. “I guess… I guess going back to being a miner wouldn’t be so bad.” Applejack smiled.