“What in tarnation is wrong with you Apple Bloom?” Applejack asked appalled. “Yer yellin loud enough to wake the dead.”
“Bu- but I… you… what?” Apple Bloom asked in confusion, as Applejack lowered her hooves.
“I was just gonna hand you this here poster, and show you who Big Mac caught snooping around that tree outside your window.” Applejack explains, as she moves aside to reveal her brother, Big Mac holding two very familiar ponies off the ground by the scruff of their necks.
“Let us down. I DEMAND that you let us down. Do you have any idea who I am?” The smaller of the two squawks in outrage.
To answer your questions, eenope, eenope, and eenope, in that order.” Big Mac says giving the two a shake for good measure.
“What’s goin on over here. I heard Apple Bloom screaming, and who the heck are these two ponies?” Granny wheezes, as she and Zecora gallop up to the porch. “Actually, just gimmie a minute on all that.” She pants holding up a hoof. “I’m getting to old to be galloping across the fields at night.”
Apple Bloom trots closer. The light of the torches that everypony is carrying makes it easy to identify the two ponies in question.
“Scutter Bruin, and Caring Egositic?” What in Equestria are you to doing here?” Apple Bloom asks in shock.
“I don’t have to tell YOU anything,” Caring says sticking her muzzle in the air. That is, until Mac gives her another good shake. “O-on the other hoof, I suppose it doesn’t matter now. I came here for my revenge, Apple Bloom!”
“Revenge? On me?” Apple Bloom asks uncertainly.
“Oh for Celestia’s sake! Of course on you.” Caring explodes. “My one chance to talk to Mustang Beiber, and you ruined it! Thanks to you he hates me, and I can never see him again. Thanks to you he left me crying on the floor of my FORMER store, while he went off on a date with YOU!” She yelled shrilly. “He was… the only pony I ever loved.” She said, a single tear falling from the corner of her eye.
“So… so you came out here to the farm, to do what exactly?” Apple Bloom asks, trying to sort it all out.
“I snuck out here every night since then to scare the life out of you.” Caring says without a hint of remorse. “Imagine my surprise the night I first got here to run into Mustang’s manager. Apparently he was here to do the same thing.”
“Scutter? You? But why?” Apple Bloom says, turning toward the pony in question.
“Well it was just a harmless prank,” he begins. “I’ve had some fake posters made for quite some time, and I figured that I was due SOME compensation considering you cost me a month’s worth of homemade molasses cookies.”
“Cookies? You terrified my sister through all these nights just for some lousy cookies!” Applejack says, becoming red with rage.
“NOT lousy cookies. These were made by Mustang’s mom. They are literally, beyond a doubt, the best molasses cookies in Equestria.”
“Forget about the cookies!” Granny yells, causing everypony to jump. “You mean ta tell me it was YOU TWO, that’s been scaring Apple Bloom all this time?”
“Well… yes.” Scutter admits. “I gave Caring the posters to switch out for the one Apple Bloom had hanging in her room. We made the scritching noises with a dead tree branch, and I did the voices. Pretty good if I say so myself.” He adds, before Mac thumps him hard onto the floor of the porch.
“Ain’t funny!” He says before cuffing the back of Scutter’s head with a hoof.
“What he said!” Applejack agrees. “I can’t believe you two did all this just to scare my sister. And all because of a dumb ole lunch and some dumb old cookies.”
“Not. Dumb. Cookies.” Scutter insists.
Applejack trots over and favors him with her most angry glare. “There ain’t no cookies ever been made that justify you two digging up my mom’s grave!” Applejack practically yells in his face.
“GRAVE?” Scutter, Caring, and Apple Bloom all yell in unison.
“Ya’ll two dug up my mom’s grave?” Apple Bloom says in horror. “How COULD you?!?”
“What! NO! No, we never did any such thing!” Caring says in shock.
“What she said!” Scutter quickly agrees. “Sure we scared the kid a little, but I would NEVER desecrate somepony’s grave! I’m a prankster, not a ghoul!” He affirms.
“Yeah right, like I’m gonna believe the likes of either of you at this point, “Applejack says, getting her stubborn up.
Unnoticed by the others Granny and Zecora were having a whispered conversation.
“Do you think it was just a prank? Do we really have these two to thank?” Zecora asks quietly.
“It had to have been them. They done fessed up ta everything else.” Granny whispers back. “We just jumped to conclusions is all.”
“I dearly want to believe that’s true, so tell me, what next should we do?” Zecora inquires.
“Well, I reckon we just tell ‘em it was a false alarm. Now that we caught these two, everything should go back to normal by tomorrow. I gotta admit, for a little bit there, I was mighty worr-” Granny’s whispering is cut off as a rumbling cuts through the otherwise still night.
Everypony falls silent. Then the rumbling sound occurs once more, closer this time.
“Everypony heard that… right?” Apple Bloom says, breaking the silence.
Before any pony can respond, the rumbling comes once more. This time the very house vibrates with the sound as the ground before them heaves and buckles. The ponies can only watch in horror, as the path leading up to the house is split from below. Large pieces of crumbling ground are heaved upwards to fall away from an ever growing mound in the center of the path.
As the rumbling stops, and the earth stops falling, all can see a sickly green light emitting from the center of the mound. Then, a figure begins to pull itself out of the dirt.
It is a figure out of nightmares. It has the shape of an earth pony, a mare judging by the mane and tail. But these judgments are made difficult by the fact that the entire body of the gristly apparition before them is made up of twisting and writhing roots. Roots shot through with the same sickly green glow that is emanating from the hole that the creature emerged from. The pony creature pulls itself free from the last clinging bits of debris, and shakes it’s root filled mane, dislodging all manner of worms and maggots as it does so.
“If you two want to fess up to this, I’d be really happy to hear it.” Applejack says, taking a step back her eyes as wide as saucers.
“N-nope. Not me.” Scutter says, shaking on the floor of the porch.
“N-no way.” Caring agrees, her face going paler than usual.
“I was afraid you’d say that.” Applejack says, taking yet another step backwards.
“Everypony into the house!” Granny yells, running for all she was worth.
They all quickly entered the house after which Applejack bolted the door. Almost as one they all quickly moved to the adjacent window and looked out. The root creature had remained where it had originally appeared from.
The ponies all gazed at it with revulsion, as the roots continued to constantly twist about themselves as if they were a squirming mass of snakes or worms.
“What in Celestia’s name is that thing?”Scutter asked, all the while not taking his eyes off of it for an instant.
“It’s some kind of shapeshifting critter from the Everfree,” Applejack supplied. “Zecora has brought something with her to help us to defeat it, right Zecora?”
All heads turn to face the zebra striped mare, waiting expectantly for a response.
“O-of course I have,” Zecora stammers, “now listen here, and shortly all will be made clear.”
A gasp from Apple Bloom interrupts her however, and she turns her gaze back to the window. The pony shaped mass of roots has begun to move, and move quickly, directly toward the house.
“Everypony turn and flee!” Zecora yells eyes wide, “Before she breaks into- IIIEEEE!” she screams, as tendrils shoot through the window, shattering the glass, and lifting her into the air.
“We gotta save her!” Apple Bloom yells, as Zecora is swung around by the ever tightening tendril.
Frantically Zecora points toward her discarded bag. Apple Bloom quickly opens the top flap to reveal several mason jars filled with a blue liquid. Apple Bloom looks back to Zecora for confirmation. The mare can only nod in return as the thick roots begin to strangle her, even as they continue to flail around.
Apple Bloom rares back her hoof, and throws the jar as hard as she can toward the base of the sickly green roots. But almost as if they sensed her intentions, the roots quickly brought the gasping form of Zecora up as a shield. The jar struck her squarely in the chest, and exploded into fragments dousing both her, and the roots entangling her, in blue liquid. This had an immediate effect, causing the roots to wither and withdraw, dumping Zecora unceremoniously on the floor.
The effect on the roots however went practically unnoticed due to the effect the potion had upon Zecora. For in a matter of moments, she was once more transformed into Clivia. Things happened quickly after that.
“Aunt Clivia?!?” Big Mac asked in disbelief.
“Aunt Clivia?!?” Applejack echoed in shock.
“Clivia?” Apple Bloom asked in confusion.
“Ponyfeathers!” Both Granny and Clivia said in unison.
But it was Caring, of all ponies, that summed it up the best when she asked, “just what the heck is going on here?!?”
“FINE!” Granny yells in exasperation. “I’ll tell you! But first I want this window boarded up, and all the other doors securely locked. Shutters as well. I don’t know if that thing will be back anytime soon or not, but I don’t mean to take any chances!”
“All right,” Applejack says, “but as soon as we’re done, I want to hear the truth… ALL of it.”
“Eeyup,” Big Mac says, as he begins to look for a hammer.
Meanwhile Apple Bloom has turned to face Clivia, staring up are her with wide eyes.
“What is it,” Clivia finally asks her, the stare of the young mare making her uncomfortable.
In a hesitant, yet hopeful voice, Apple Bloom asks her, “Are you… are you my Aunt?”
“I-” Clivia began, before the floor beneath them suddenly buckled and shifted, throwing everypony off their hooves.
Tendrils exploded through the floorboards, ripping open a gaping maw, which began to emit a sickly green glow. Before any pony could react, a twisted glowing mass pulls itself up from the hole, it’s eyes fixated on Apple Bloom.
“Don’t worry baby,” the horrid form spoke, in a voice of cracking limbs, “momma’s home!”