//------------------------------// // Chapter 8: A bad Apple Week // Story: That Time I Became a Friendship Bomb // by Carmine Craft //------------------------------// "...look sugercube, I really don't need no help." Applejack insisted. Ever since she had shown up and dragged away her award at the party she had just seemed, out of it. So naturally I came out here to Sweet Apple Acres to assist her in any way I could. "Please! I really wanna help!" I begged. For the past hour I had been following her around the orchard trying to make myself useful. But AJ wasn't having it. "No means No!" the orange mare said, bucking a tree. "Why not?" I said in a pleading tone, giving her my best attempt at puppy dog eyes. For a moment she faltered, but I wasn't sure if that was because of the exhaustion or if I had succeeded. "I don't need no help Argent!" she said, sterner than before. "C'mon! C'mon, c'mon, c'mon, c'mon, c'mon, c'mon, c- " I pestered her, not taking no for an answer. She cut me off. "Alright already! Go get me some apple juice, that's how you can help!" the country mare shouted. With that I was off like a rocket, back towards Sweet Apple Acres central. AppleJack I watched the filly take off back towards her home. "Now then, back ta buckin," I said walking over to the next tree. As I heard the apples fall into the waiting baskets a voice cut in. "Here you go Applejack!" Argent said, with a bottle of apple juice held in her blueish purple magical grip. "Th-thank ya kindly." I said, taking the drink. "What next?" The filly asked me, all too eager. "Listen Argent, don't you think you've done enough fer today?" I asked her. "Nope!" Argent replied. I sighed. "I've got work to do, can you, maybe go back home?" "But..." she began, but I cut her off. "It would be mighty helpful." I countered. Argent sighed. "... Alright, I guess I'll head back for today." Argent moped her way out of the orchard. I got back to my long day of Apple bucking. I blew out a breath. "Back ta work." Twilight watched Argent leave early next morning. The dull red stripe in the filly's mane and her rear hoof were now bright with color. Twilight had tried to convince Argent to stay home for the day with no luck. Argent I set off the first chance I got to go and help Applejack. Because I really have no reason not to. I thought. I stumbled across a sky blue pegasus with a rainbow mane and tail. She was in the process of constructing some wooden abomination. "Hey Rainbow, whatcha building?" I asked the pegusus. "I'm making an awesome stunt platform!" Rainbow Dash explained over her shoulder. "You wanna help?" "Yes! Very much so! Just tell me what to do!" I cheered. Finally, at least someone here wants my help! Rainbow laughed. "Just pass me things when I ask for them, don't want you getting hurt." Rainbow said. I slumped a little, but I could see why she said that and nodded. "Understood!" I said, with a completely unnecessary salute. I took anything from nails to two by fours in my periwinkle magic and passed them to the stunt mare. After about three hours the platform was complete. Rainbow Dash gave me a hoofbump, only a little awkward on my end, and asked me if I could go find Applejack for her. "Will do, be right back with her!" I promised and made my way back to Sweet Apple Acres. I found the farm mare had dozed off under a tree. "Hey Applejack! Rainbow Dash is looking for you," I said, trying to get her attention. But Applejack continued to snore. "Applejack?" I asked, getting closer."Applejack? Hello? Did you hear me? Applejack? Applejack?" I poked the mare in the barrel. She continued to snore. I huffed. Putting all my focus into the task, my light blue magic managed to knock an apple out of the tree over AJ and drop it on her. Applejack finally woke up. "Huh!? Wha-?" The orange mare blinked unevenly and shook her head. "Hey Applejack, Rainbow Dash said she was looking for you." I told her. "Huh?" She looked up to the sky and her eyes widened. "I'm late!" She took off like a punch drunk bullet, me close on her heels. I watched her run into not one, not two, but four separate trees, at full speed. I tried my absolute best to keep her from acrueing any more head trauma, but it was surprisingly difficult. We eventually reached Rainbow, who was tapping her hooves impatiently. Applejack made apologies and I got a good look at the thing I helped build. A two story platform over a seesaw/low grade catapult. After hearing what Rainbow expected this thing to do Applejack climbed the tower. I had to voice my opinion to Rainbow Dash. "Don't you think we should have put a ladder or maybe stairs in the high dive?" Rainbow looked at me funny. "What do ya mean? It takes like two seconds to get up there." She said dismissively. "For a pegasus." I countered. Applejack made the first of many off target landings. I winced. "Also, wouldn't it have been easier to build an actual catapult for this?" Rainbow Dash held a hoof up to her chin in thought. "Nah." She waved me off. I tried to slow down AJ's next miss, but I don't think I'd did much. "Applejack, what the hay is going on? I mean, I thought I was working with Ponyville's best athlete!" RD complained. "You are. I'm okay. Really. I-I have an idea. Watch this." Applejack put her hooves to the other end of the board and pulled it down to the ground with some strain. Rainbow gave her a deadpan look. "Oh... Maybe not. Okay, one more try. I'm sure to get it this time." Applejack stepped off the platform, letting the other end hit the ground with a thud. A dazed Rainbow Dash tried to get Applejack to wait, but the farm mare was all ready falling, on target this time, onto the other end of her teeter totter, launching the poor mare skyward with no control. "Applejaaaaaack!" Rainbow Dash Doppler-ed. "Yer welcome!" AJ shouted at the rainbow projectile rocketing away from us. She trotted off in the direction of the orchard. I looked between the country mare and the fading contrail. "...I think I'll head back for the day." I glanced skyward every now and then on my way back to the library. Twilight was giving me more magic excersizes the next morning on the balcony. "Feel the air currents. Now once you have a good idea of it, try giving them a little nudge." She instructed. Twilight is a pretty good teacher, I must say. I haven't bitten the bullet and told her I can't read the native language yet. Trying to figure it out was proving less than feasible, given the 36 different characters I had run across so far, and I have no idea if some of those are peculiar pony punctuation or not. I could feel the mild breeze we had today, it was pretty much perfect summer weather, it wasn't even all that hot. I reached out with my magic, trying to adjust one current, just a little. I could hear my horn alight with magic and- A thump sounded from the railing, startling me, setting off what was apparently, a totaly normal magic burst. As I focused on calming down my raging horn while Twilight conversed with our uninvited guest. "Can I help you?" Twilight said, mildly annoyed that our lesson was interupted, a sentiment I shared in, as I blasted the door with uncontrollable magic. "I think somepony else needs your help." A winded Riinbow Dash said. "Applejack?" Twilight asked. "Yep." Rainbow confirmed, putting extra emphasis on the P. She slumped down on the railing and closed her eyes. Twilight went back inside, presumably to go have a talk with the orange earth pony. I had a few things to ask RD though so I stayed behind. "Uhh, how did you not gain control over you flight after being launched? And were you up in the air all night?" "I did get back under control, and yes, in a way." Was her response. "Uhh? Care to explain?" I still dont see how she got that much force out of a see saw. "After getting launched by AJ I landed in a cloud and decided to just take a nap." She provided. I blinked. One, that sounds very lazy. Two, "How?" Rainbow gave me an odd look. "What do you mean 'How?' All pegasi can walk on clouds." "Oh, right." I said. I forgot about that. Rainbow decided to slump back down, either too comfortable, somehow, or to lazy to move. I'm leaning towards the latter. I decided to head back inside and hang out with Spike for a while. Spike and I were in dead lock in a chess match. I was measuring my next move carefully. "Well?" Spike said confidently. "Shush!" I hissed, staring at my remaining pieces. I had managed to remove both his knights, several pawns and a bishop from play. The problem was that he had seen my queen strategy coming and had removed her from play, along with several other pieces. I picked up a pawn in my magic and moved it into a defensive position. Board games make for great magic control exercise. Spike's smug grin grew wider and my own expression fell as he put his claws onto his remaining bishop. "Che-" he started, but a magical pop interrupted him. "Spike! Argent! Need your help! Come on!" Twilight shot off before all three of us were wrapped in the light purple glow of Twilights magic. With a disorientating twist and pop we were somewhere else. I struggled to keep my breakfast down while Spike and Twilight, seemingly unaffected, were trotting off in the direction of a tent that had been set up outside the gingerbread structure, I learned that this place was called Sugercube Corner durning the award ceremony. Dozens of ponies were laying on hospital beds, looking a little green around the gills. One in particular, Pinkie Pie, had actually turned a sickly green. "We came as soon as we heard." Twilight said to nurse Redheart. "Oh thank you, Twilight. We need all the help we can get." The sickly ponies were moaning and groaning for all they were worth. Egh, looks like a bad case of food poisoning. I thought. "Oh no! What happened?" Twilight asked the nurse. Spike was sniffing what I thought was a particularly nasty looking cupcake, it looked like it had been left out for days. "It was a mishap with some of the baked goods." Nurse Redheart explained, but Pinkie spoke up. "No, not baked goods, baked bads!" She moaned. "Applejack." Twilight concluded. Spike walked up to her with a bunch of the nasty cupcakes, taking a huge bite out of one. He offered one to Twilight. "Want one?" A worm wiggled out of the breading. Twilight teleported away, I however didn't have such a luxury. Spike turned to me, still offering the item. After helping all we could, me and Spike headed back to the library. I ended up losing the game of chess, but I was doing much better at old maid, or as they called it here, old mare. I had started with the old maid, but my poker face had translated well to my new body, even if I was straining to hold my cards up in my magic grasp. I had passed it off in the first turn, and Spike's attempts at passing the card back to me were very obvious. I won the first three hands before we decided to change games again. My magic petered out in the middle of a game of Crazy Eights, so I had to switch to using my hooves. Just as I was about to totally win – definitely, no question, he definitely wasn't about to beat me – we heard a loud rumbling and Rainbow Dash shout once more. "STAMPEDE!!" "You can't be serious." I muttered as I left the library, once again a cloud of dust being kicked up by something was approaching town. What came into town was dozens and dozens of bunnies of all colors. I really struggled to keep from saying "awww~!" And I'm not one hundred percent certain I was succesful. It's just so cute! Watching townsponies flee in terror from a giant heard of bunnies, some are even fainting! It's priceless! Fluttershy came into town trying to convince the Lagomorph invaders to leave back to their burrows. Twilight happened upon the scene, three ponies passed out in the street, Fluttershy trying to talk to bunnies, and me, I'm ninety percent sure I was gushing like the girl I now am over the bunnies. Did I mention bunnies? One of the ponies spoke up. "The horror, the horror!" Another one took her turn. "It was awful." She insisted. "A disaster. A horrible, horrible disaster." The third one finished. I broke out into laughter over their reaction to the bunnies while Twilight scanned the town for damages, but all one could see was bunnies had taken up residence in Ponyville. "I don't get it." Twilight said. "Our gardens, destroyed!" One mare, I think her name is Lily, said. "Every last flower, devoured." A red mare bemoaned. "By... by... THEM!" The final of the trio pointed a fearful hoof at the bunnies hopping around town, specifically the one residing on my head. I was beaming. "Oh my. Oh... Please stop, little bunnies. Oh no! Please, let's go home. Oh my goodness." Fluttershy was trying her hardest, and I certainly wasn't helping. "All right. Enough is enough." Twilight 'ported out once more, heading for Sweet Apple Acres if I had to guess. In the mean time, BUNNIES!! I giggled with delight as I played with the adorable fluffy balls of cute. Eventually Fluttershy convinced me to help her get the creatures back to their homes and I was glad to help, after about an hour of rabbit filled fun. Twilight came back and rounded up everyone and took us back to AJ's, apparently the orange apple farmer had finally caved and agreed to let us help. I was set up with three trees to rid of apples. I could only manage a single Apple at a time with magic, and my kicks had no real power behind them. I tried climbing up into the tree and was spades more successful in filling my baskets. It was still one at a time, but it was nowhere near as taxing. I managed to do a total of ten trees before Applejack called. "How about y'all take a little break? I got some fine apple juice waitin' for ya!" I disembarked my current tree and made my way over to the picnic table with everyone else. Applejack sighed . "Girls, I can't thank you enough for this help. I was acting a bit stubborn." "A bit?" Twilight challenged playfully. "Okay. A mite stubborn, and I'm awful sorry. Now, I know the town gave me the Prized Pony award, but the real award is having you five as my friends." AJ was pretty good at being sappy. "Phew! That applebucking sure made me hungry." RD said. Spike reached behind him and pulled a plate out of nowhere. "And I've got the perfect treat." Spike insisted showing off the disgusting half eaten cupcakes from before. "Eww!" Me and Pinkie said in unison. I had narrowly managed to escape sampling the things before. "Spike, I threw those all away. Where'd you get them?" Pinkie asked. Spike was far to nonchalant in his answer. "From the trash!" I punched myself in the mouth accidentally at that. Curse you hooves... I thought as all the other occupants of the table repeated what Pinkie and I had all ready expressed. Everyone left the table and Spike insisted that we try them, we did not.