Applejack’s strength was failing, even with her Anima Viri equipped, when she managed to smash the end of her hammer into the attacking Trottingham grunt’s skull. The impact was enough to crush it part of the way in, but she had overdone it that time. The pain in her leg became unbearable and her footing gave out beneath her. With a cry she fell onto her back. She seemed to be easy prey for the grunt behind the one she had just struck down, who quickly shoved his dying comrade away. He lunged forward for her, reaching his hand out and seizing her by the shirt. He began to bring her forward…
Unfortunately for him, he had discarded his empty weapon as it had no bayonet and tried to attack her with his bare hands. As a result, as she was seized and yanked toward him, she answered by swiveling her claw hammer around and burying the teeth in his chest right over the heart. Even gritting her teeth and staring him in the face she knew she had hit the mark when she felt warm fluid gushing out onto her hands and arms. The grunt let out a gag and faltered, slumping forward and going back to the ground. She hit first and his bulk landed on top of her, but, in spite of the mortal wound, he wasn’t done. With his last bit of life, he struggled to raise his hand for her neck to finish the job while her weapon was still immobilized in his own chest…
He never got the chance. Three gunshots fired off at such close range that it nearly deafened Applejack. The bullets struck him in the head, blasting what little sense he had able to keep moving, and leaving him stunned long enough to bleed out. He fully collapsed soon after and, fortunately for her, fell to one side and off of her when she did.
Nevertheless, Applejack let out a cry at that point as her arms were wrenched from his falling body pulling itself off of her hammer. That, coupled with the growing trauma from her leg, was too much for her to bear. She couldn’t spring back to her feet, and, through her own agony and pain, she watched as her glow dimmed once again. That had been the third time since she had started fighting that it had happened, and only a mere 10 minutes since she had last been able to put it back on. Somewhere in her tired brain she managed to process this, but at the moment she was too stricken and exhausted to do much more than that.
It wasn’t until she felt someone reach under her armpits and call out to her that she became fully aware again. “Ally-oop!”
With a strong movement Applejack found herself yanked back to her feet. The person who had pulled her up held her, however, knowing full well she couldn’t put her full weight on her bad leg anymore. Even so, it took a moment of dizziness and incoherence for her to manage balance. In that moment, she surveyed the sight before her.
All but one trench was taken, and the remaining one had been breached in multiple places by now. There had been two gun emplacements there when she first got to this point ten minutes ago, but both of them were gone. One had been overrun by the enemy and its crew killed. The other had been blown away by the last bombing run of the airships. Where before there had been a hundred people in that last trench, now there were only three and two of them were trying to yank the bloody body of the third out of there. The others were gutted with fire or totally abandoned, all palisades and barbed wire ripped down and gone.
Weakly, she turned her head and looked around. To either side of her guns and cannons were firing, but less and less of them were sounding like Appleloosan ones, and less tell-tale plumes of fire and smoke were coming from their side. Instead, black smoke from fires and bomb blasts was dotting the area. Cries of pain and misery were echoing from all around, but not many of them were coming from the Trottingham grunts. The sun had just set, but it looked like a late afternoon with all of the fires reflecting off of the clouds of smoke.
Finally, she got enough of her wits to put her leg down. As she stabilized herself, the one behind her let her go. She turned and spotted Pinkie still in her Rogue role smiling back.
“Thanks, Pinkie.”
“No problem!”
Applejack stared on at her a moment. Slowly, her eyes looked past her and behind. A few members of her family and what was left of the group from the Civilian Corps 39th that had accompanied her were there, but they weren’t looking nearly as good as her. Most of them were dirty with mud and gunpowder remains, to say nothing of their share of injuries. They were tired and sagging. Their eyes were half-lidded and worn out from the fighting and death they had all been forced to go through. Even thought they hadn’t lost yet, they already looked more defeated than they had ever appeared to her. Even Big Macintosh looked barely able to keep holding onto his rifle.
Remarkably enough, only Pinkie looked not only totally uninjured but not even tired. It might have concerned her under normal circumstances. As it was, she was more worried about the sad state of her family. Yet looking a bit longer, she soon noticed something was missing.
“Where’s Candy Apples and Apple Brown Betty?”
The group paused. Several of them looked up, becoming slightly more coherent, and started glancing around. Applejack did the same, but didn’t see any sign of them…neither among the living or the dead that had mounded around them during the last assault.
Applejack’s anxiety started to rise and she struggled to start limping around to look for them. However, the others, far more able bodied, fanned out first. And after only less than a minute, one of them, perched on a mound of dirt that had been formed by a bomb blast hours ago, turned to her and shouted. “Over here!”
The farmer spun to the spot, seeing her family member waving toward her. She began to hobble over there as fast as she could and, in spite of her injury (which had only grown worse looking and more debilitating with time), she managed to outstrip several of those around her in getting there first. They passed the mount of dirt and looked into the crater that was left behind.
What she saw made her blood run cold.
Apple Brown Betty looked well enough. At least, as well as any of them. However, Candy Apples’ head was cradled on her lap, and her face was agonized. Looking down just a little, one could see why. Her abdomen was mottled with fresh blood and what looked like at least three gunshot wounds.
For a moment, she couldn’t even move. Her breath and sound caught in her throat as she stared, forgetting about her own pain, the fighting, the battle, and all of the chaos that was all around them.
Apple Brown Betty was still holding her, trying to comfort her it looked like, but unable to do anything else. She was paralyzed just like her. Slowly, she turned her head up toward Applejack. Her face was stricken with panic and fear. She opened and closed her mouth several times, but she couldn’t form any words. Finally, she started making some sounds.
“They…they came over…and…and they were shooting… She was…she was…standing right here when…”
Applejack remained frozen several more moments before she managed to blink and look around. The rest of her family was frozen and staring with the same panicked, terrified looks on their faces. They had seen many people dying on either side of the conflict. Many of them had been people in their own respective units. It wasn’t until now that they had seen one of their own family members fallen. It shattered the illusion that all of them had embraced since they started this, that somehow so long as they all worked together as a family that they’d all be invincible in the face of this war. And now, any guise or semblance they had of being true soldiers was fading. They were just a family of civilians seeing one of their own dying.
Somehow, this forced her to tighten up and push it aside. Swallowing, she made her face firm and shouted loud enough to sound over the gunfire.
“What’re y’all doin’?!”
This caused all of them to look up and back to her, and she forced herself to keep looking bold…keep looking in control.
“Don’t just stand there! We gotta pull her out! And we still got a fight ta’ win too! Come on! Help ‘em out and let’s get movin’ back to the fort!”
There were a few moments of hesitation. However, Big Macintosh understood. He swallowed, took a second or two to compose himself, and then nodded back. “Eeyup.” Without another word, he quickly began to shoulder his rifle, and he started to climb down the hole as best as he could. Soon after, other family members started to comply as well, putting aside their own weapons and climbing in to help him. The others began to snap out of it soon after, and within half a minute everyone was moving again.
Applejack, on her part, wiped her forehead and took several deep breaths. She tried her best to steady herself and the growing queasy, cold feeling in her stomach. She barely even noticed when the others managed to rig up some runners from one of the destroyed cannons as a crude stretcher to put Candy Apples on, but once she was there and got up, she forced herself to nod to them and started to limp back to the fort, leading the way.
Focusing on moving got Applejack to keep her mind off of what had just happened to her relative, but she didn’t see many more encouraging sights as they walked. The sounds of gunfire and bombs exploding were still echoing around them even with the latest assault on that part of the trenches halted. Troops that were tired, dirty, and covered with blood were running to and fro everywhere. More cries still echoed out, but as Applejack led the way she saw that not all of them were coming from the injured or combatants. Several members of the various civilian corps were hunkered down in the remains of barricades or gun emplacements, mumbling incoherently or holding their heads with their eyes wide. Another that was screaming hysterically ran by their own group as they kept pulling back. Every so often an order was yelled and another group of soldiers would run by, but none of them looked as clean or as organized when they started. They were also in much fewer numbers.
When they cleared enough of the smoke to start seeing the fort, Applejack felt her stomach sink a little. It had taken multiple bomb hits and its thick armor only weathered most of them. A large section of the upper floor was caved in while five of the gun emplacements had been blown away. Large armor plating sections were dented or blasted off on other portions, and all around the base of it were a mixture of craters and ash.
Worst of all, there was a sizeable crowd also bearing the wounded surrounding the area already, flooding the dozen or so field medics near the base of the fort and practically trampling them. Some were on real stretchers or makeshift ones. Others were being supported between two of their comrades. But many of them, much to Applejack’s unease on arrival, seemed already beyond help. They had pieces of shrapnel piercing their torsos, or were missing one, two, or even three limbs. One of them seemed to be missing part of her face…
Her unease only grew when she was forced to mingle with these people. There were far too many crowds already there, and although the field medics were pushing them along as fast as they could, they were still forced to stand there being crowded on all sides by the injured. Applejack tried to focus forward, but all she could see was, over the heads of the crowds, one of the medics was trying to help a soldier who had his skull cracked in such a way one of his eyeballs was hanging out of his socket. She tried looking to one side, but that was only another soldier trying to help her comrade cover a wound on her throat from bleeding out or choking. She glanced the other way, but she felt herself only wince and grow sick and cold on seeing two other soldiers trying to shove the entrails of their still-living comrade back inside their body…
“Applejack.”
The voice was quiet but somehow sounded over the crowd. Applejack, however, didn’t respond to it. She was trying to focus on Candy Apples and moving forward.
“Applejack.”
It was a bit closer this time, and this time she looked up.
On the side of the crowd around the medics, a large troop of soldiers was quickly rushing by, obviously in a hurry to get somewhere. Yet standing in front of them was Braeburn.
His hat was gone and he was stained with blood, although it didn’t seem to be his. He had no weapon, and he was staring at her oddly. His eyes were glazed over, like he was in a daze. When she saw him, he began to walk forward.
“Applejack…”
She let out a long groan. “Braeburn, what’re ya’ doin’ here? Stick with the rest of the family!”
“Applejack…” he said again as he stepped closer.
“All those who aren’t tending to any wounded!” a voice shouted from the passing crowd, sounding like the authority and force of an officer. “Move to the north side! The enemy’s pushing in through there now! It needs reinforcements!”
Applejack rolled her eyes and groaned, even as their group advanced closer to the medics. “Ya’ hear that, Braeburn? Get back to the others and get over there! We need everyone who can still fight!”
“Applejack, I…” he began to say as he finally got close enough to reach out to her. “I…I got to…I…”
“Next!”
The woman wheeled around, not realizing that she had been so distracted that they were already up next. One of the field nurses was frantically motioning them. “Come on! We’ve got a lot more wounded to get through!”
The rest of the family began to carry Candy Apples forward. Applejack, meanwhile, wheeled back to Braeburn. “Ya’ hear what I said? Get back to the family! Go on now! We’re busy!”
“Applejack… They’re gone.”
She frowned. “Damnit, you ain’t makin’ sense! Who’s gone? Spit it out!”
“They’re…blown up. It happened in front of me. One of them bombs…”
She paused, starting to look confused. “What?”
“Cousin Half-Baked and cousin Apple Tart.”
She paused again…longer this time. The anger in her face started to fade. “…What about ‘em?”
He stared into her eyes with a hollow look.
“They’re dead.”
Applejack went silent. All color and emotion drained from her expression, and even Candy Apples was momentarily forgotten. The field nurse yelling at her to come forward and the officer shouting orders seemed to have gone mute. She only focused on Braeburn and the look on his face.
“No…no.” Her voice was quieter than it had ever been. “You’re wrong. You must not’ve seen right…”
“They’re dead, coz.”
“No…no, they ain’t. They ain’t. Half-Baked may not have the best head on his shoulders but Tart would always bail him out-”
“Coz…it happened in front of me… Right there… Right…”
“Braeburn,” she spoke up, her voice growing in intensity again, “you’re just shakin’ up, ya’ hear me? You ain’t thinking right. You ain’t-”
“Pieces of ‘em hit me, coz!”
The sudden wild, hysterical, emotion-laced scream not only made Applejack go still but alerted the rest of the Apple family members as well as several people surrounding them. Braeburn, however, was breaking down entirely. His face tightened and tears began to gush out of his eyes. He practically hyperventilated as his quivering, shaking hands lifted up. One of them slowly raised to his shoulder, where a bloodstain had marked his clothes.
“I…I brushed a piece of one of ‘em off…right here! I didn’t even know it was there right away! I didn’t…I didn’t…!”
He could say no more. He cupped his hands to his face and began to wail loudly.
Applejack knew she should have tried to comfort him, but she couldn’t think of that right now. She could only stand there with a hollow look of her own on her face. Her mind raced to yesterday when she had been eating a meal with Half-Baked Apple and Apple Tart. She remembered how well they looked after all the battles they had coming there. And she thought back to before they met Twilight, when the two of them had been working with her to set up camp every night in their caravan. And she remembered before that, when the fact they had managed to hold onto their one plot of land made them all think they were invincible…that they’d always be together so long as they held together as Apples…
She slowly looked over to the others. One of them was Apple Tart’s sister, and on overhearing the news she was on the verge of breaking down. The others didn’t look much better. What had happened to Candy Apples had left them shaken. This broke whatever thoughts they had left that had deluded them into thinking they were somehow immune or at least more protected against the madness of war. That they were any more than the rest of the poor souls caught in this fortress fighting no longer just for their country but for their own lives. That the bullets, bayonets, and bombs had any less care for ending them as it had ended so many already. That their lives would ever go back to normal after this.
The uncaring bombs continued to erupt around them. The unfeeling bullets continued to be fired. The multitudes of screams continued to resound, louder and closer than before. And Applejack could only stand there with her eyes wide-open, seeing things as they were for the first time.
“Applejack?”
It was the voice of Pinkie that alerted her. Not just because she said something, but because it was in a voice she had never heard her use before.
For the first time, it wasn’t the least bit carefree or happy.
Applejack turned and looked at her. She may have not had a scratch on her, but aside from that she was looking as morose as the others. More so, perhaps. Her face was that of a child who had just learned a very cruel reality about life. And it affected her so much that had Applejack more of her own wits she would have sworn that her hair actually somehow became flatter as a result.
She looked at her with large, almost tearful eyes.
“I’m…I’m worried about my family…and I don’t want to be here anymore.”
What Pinkie had said set off a switch in her mind. Her awareness slowly came back. A light returned to her eyes, and after a few moments something became clear to her. When that happened, her face firmed up and her body stopped shaking. Resolve filled her features.
She turned back to the nurse, who was done with the initial assessment and leading the family carrying Candy Apples onward. The other family members still stood there paralyzed, unsure of whether or not to go after her or to stand their ground.
“Big Mac.”
The bigger family member looked up at that, and hearing the force in Applejack’s voice snapped him out of it a little as well. “Ee…eeyup?”
“Get the rest of the kinfolk together.”
Saying that caused several of the others to turn to her. She gestured around.
“All of ya’…lend a hand. Get everyone together and get ready to go with Candy Apples back to town. You get there…you find everyone else and then you get ready to get the hell outta here.”
Several of the family members looked at her in surprise. “Ya’ mean…desert?”
“We enlisted and everythin’, Applejack,” another immediately added. “We can’t just up and walk away now.”
“They shoot folks fer doin’ that!” another put it far more bluntly.
“Way I see it, we get shot pretty soon if we don’t,” she retorted. “We either die on this mound o’ mud or we live to see tomorrow. But either way, we ain’t gettin’ back Sweet Apple Acres stickin’ around here tonight. We got to live to fight another day.”
The family members hesitated, not only from the audacity of Applejack’s suggestion but also from their own natural inclination toward patriotism for their homeland. It didn’t last, however. They had seen enough of reality and the situation as it was to realize the sense in Applejack’s words.
“An’ I only said ‘get ready’. Don’t actually run for it yet. Just make sure you’re all together if worse comes to worse.”
“What about you?”
The farmer paused momentarily. She glanced over to Pinkie, whose expression hadn’t changed much. Now, however, she looked hopefully at her.
She looked back to her relative. “I ain’t leavin’ yet. I still got work to do in Trottingham.”
Now several of the family members really did look shocked.
“That’s crazy!”
“Ya’ can’t do that!”
“What’re ya’ thinkin’?!”
“You outta yer mind?” Apple Brown Betty shouted. “You wanna run toward all the fightin’? That’s suicide!”
“Eeyup!” Big Macintosh immediately added.
Her face only firmed up. “There’s still another family who needs my help! So quit worryin’ ‘bout me and see to our family!” With that, she turned away. “C’mon, Pinkie! We’ve stayed ‘round here long enough!”
Without another word, Applejack turned on her heel and began to run right for the fort. The others hesitated, taken off guard by her last statement, but Pinkie spun around and headed after her. Even when she was more “seriously” running, she continued to seem to almost skip along, but Applejack didn’t worry about that. Heedless of any soldiers who might try to stop her, she went straight for the entrance.
As it turned out, there wasn’t anyone left there to bar her way, and the doors were already open. She immediately showed herself in, but had scarcely taken a few steps inside when she began to cough and covered her mouth. Much of the interior had a smoky haze, and the scent of fire hung heavily on the air. She only got a few more steps before she was forced to move to one side as several soldiers rushed out, carrying comrades who were covered with soot and, in some cases, burns with them. She tried moving on after they passed, but most of the lighting inside the fort was out now, and combined with the smoke that made it almost impossible to see. Nevertheless, as soon as she was sure Pinkie was behind her, she pressed on and, through memory, tried to make her way to the top.
The going didn’t get easier. At one point, she passed one collapsed gun emplacement. Most of the iron and wooden palisades were collapsed, and three soldiers were struggling to drag what was left of a still-alive soldier out from underneath a large portion of it. On the second floor, one of the corridors was gone while a second one was on fire. As they crossed to the stairs, a large portion of the fort gave a loud groan, right before the ceiling and support timbers were rattled by the thunder of one of the remaining cannons. It was clear the place didn’t have long, and that made Applejack rush a bit faster as she realized the third floor might not be standing much longer.
Things got even worse when they finally reached the third floor. More soldiers came rushing by, but these ones weren’t carrying the wounded. Applejack was able to spot that several of them were officers even in the darkness. No sooner had they run by than the sound of more bombs dropping rang out, with explosions severe enough to give the fort another rattling. Hearing that quickly pushed the two of them to run the rest of the way to the room where they had met Burnt Oak.
The door was swung fully open and as soon as the two were close enough they looked inside. A second later, they had to back up again as a minor officer rushed out with arms full of papers. They looked back in, moving in this time while they could, and saw the colonel and two other officers rushing around grabbing maps, charts, and papers and shoving them as fast as they could into a large metal wastebasket. A fire was going in it, but they didn’t seem to mind. Smoke was billowing out, but with the window blasted out in the office it helped with some ventiliation.
Seeing this made Applejack confused. “Colonel Oak?”
The officer looked up at that, clearly incensed but also puzzled to hear the voice. He calmed soon after on spotting her. “Sergeant?”
“What’s goin’ on up here?”
His jaw clenched as his eyes fell. He looked away and grabbed another load of papers to throw on the fire. “Last bombing run hit too close to home. Took out the general with it. Lieutenant general is in command now and he gave the final order.” He threw his own papers in the barrel. The other two officers were about to do more, but he held out a hand to them. “Wait for it to catch a moment. Don’t smother it.” He then began to reach for more. “Higher officers like me already got the command to start clearing out. Any minute now they’re gonna put out the call to everyone else. Hopefully sooner while we still can.”
“What do ya’ mean? What final order?”
He glanced at her a moment, as if wondering how she couldn’t know already. “Guess you haven’t heard from that front. The whole north side is collapsing. Trottingham’s pushing in. This time they ain’t gonna stop until they’ve pinched us off from the city all together. When that happens, there won’t even be an evacuation route. We’re making one final counterattack as we speak. We’re hoping to bluff them long enough.”
“Long enough for what?”
Burnt Oak squared himself with her. “For everyone to get their asses to town and then get out while they can.”
Applejack stood somewhat stunned on hearing that, pausing for a moment. “But…where y’all fallin’ back to? Where we gettin’ together at?”
He let out a weak chuckle. “Getting together? Sgt. Applejack, take a good look outside. In two weeks half the army’s gone under. We’re fightin’ seasoned veterans with better weapons and combat vehicles with draftees who’ve never even seen a machine gun. They all pledged to die for their country and, frankly, that’s mostly what they’ve been doing since then. A third of our rail systems are gutted. Half of the cable lines are cut. We lost most of our artillery and what’s left is scattered in the rest of the country. Anywhere we could have mounted a defense has already been overrun. We don’t even have the infrastructure, let alone the manpower, to retake what we’ve lost of Appleloosa. We held out here out of a mixture of a fool’s hope that another nation would come save us and stubborn pride that we’d never lose Appleloosa to Trottingham or anyone else. If we had any sense, we would have started the evacuation yesterday. We may have had time then to lay some seed for what could have been a counteroffensive one day. Now even if the capitol orders us to retreat we’ll never hear it. So we’re gonna do them the favor.”
Applejack was left staring with her jaw hanging loose. She was only able to stand there and process what she just heard for a few moments as the three continued to burn documents. After only a few more loads, Burnt Oak waved at the officers. “Alright, that’s enough. Anything else they still have maps on isn’t worth stealing. Get yourselves out of here while you can.”
One of the officers needed no encouragement, immediately turning and running for it. The other held a little longer, looking back at the colonel, before finally resigning herself and pushing past Applejack and Pinkie Pie to follow. As for himself, he quickly went to the shelf to get his own sidearm.
As he was strapping it on, Applejack finally spoke. “So that’s it? We’re really just…just givin’ up like that?”
“It ain’t like I care for this any more than you, or anyone else,” he answered as he threaded the buckle. “When I was your age, I might’ve head out there and gone down trying to bring down one of their airships with a pistol. I figured I’d rather go down being a pain in their neck if nothing else. I know better now.”
Finishing tightening his belt, he moved to head out as well, but stopped. He saw Applejack standing there. Her own head was bowed to the ground now. Her eyes were wide open and she stared at a spot on it. The full realization was clearly coming upon her.
He frowned before exhaling. “I’d be lying if I said I knew what was going to come next. I’d be lying if I said I even knew for sure this was the right thing to do. I just know this is all I can do now.”
She kept her head bowed, not answering.
“Applejack.”
The way he said this, far more firmly, was enough to make her look up and meet eyes with him again.
“All that matters right now is we give whoever’s left a fightin’ chance. There may be another day yet, but there ain’t one if we stay here.”
She eventually swallowed and nodded. “I know that. It’s just…it don’t make it any easier.”
“It ain’t supposed to. It’s just supposed to let you know it’s what’s gotta happen.”
It took her a moment, but she nodded back at that.
He weakly smiled. “I really wish I could’ve talked to you more about Bright. Especially when I found out your brother was here too. Maybe we’ll see each other again yet. For right now, get yourself and your family outta here.”
He nearly moved past them. However, this snapped Applejack fully out of it. She stepped in his way and held up a hand.
“Actually…that ain’t why we came up here. We need your help.”
He looked back at her curiously. “My help? For what?”
Applejack took a moment to look behind her back to Pinkie, but she merely looked hopefully back and waited. Taking a deep breath, she turned back to him. “The two of us need to get into Trottingham.”
His look went from curiosity to questioning Applejack’s sanity. “Trottingham? What are you talkin’ about?”
“My friend’s family is holed up in Trottingham. They’re…they’re…” She hesitated a moment before spitting it out. “They’re Gaitians. They’re roundin’ ‘em all up right now and no one knows where. We got to go in and try and bail ‘em out.”
“You out of your mind?” he answered rather bluntly. “You’re gonna try and break through the enemy to go right into their own territory. Even if you make it, how do you plan to get out again? If it was that easy those Gaitians would have gotten themselves out by now.”
“We’ve still gotta try. Pinkie here helped me with my family. Even if she didn’t…I gotta do this. I can’t turn my back on it. If I have to, I’ll do it on foot, but we’re goin’ one way or another.”
Burnt Oak looked back in her eyes for a few moments, but her resolve didn’t waver. On the contrary, it became more focused and determined than it had been when she entered the room.
Realizing that, he finally softened up as well. “Get to the east side of the fort on the first floor, fast as you can. They’re about to cut the warhorses loose. You might still be able to get some. Right now, that’s the only thing that’ll get you east fast.”
“Alright.” A small smile formed on her lips. “Thanks, colonel.”
“Just make sure you get in and back alive, sergeant. Both of you and that family of yours.”
Getting to the stables wasn’t nearly as hard as getting up to the third floor. The word was beginning to spread fast, and everyone who was left in the fortress was going out the same way they were. On reaching the ground level, the two quickly rounded it for the east side, but before they even got there the alarm started to blare with the signal to evacuate. Applejack stiffened on hearing it, knowing they had little time left.
It was only when the doors to the stable were coming into view that she heard Pinkie speak again. “Sorry, Applejack…”
The farmer paused long enough to glance behind her, seeing Pinkie, once again, looking unusually downcast for her normal self. “Sorry? Sorry ‘bout what?”
“I wanted to pray that your family would be safe before the battle started, but I didn’t. I didn’t take any time out to build a shrine or anything. If I had…that wouldn’t have happened.”
Applejack twisted her lips a bit. She paused momentarily, more at the memory than anything else, before turning around and continuing. “Don’t worry none ‘bout that. Ain’t yer fault.”
“But I should have said something. I should have-”
“Nevermind all that hogwa…I mean, nevermind any of that,” she retorted, getting a bit sharper and more impatient-sounding. As a result, she took a moment to calm herself before speaking again. “Like I said, it ain’t yer fault. It’s these damn folks from Trottingham comin’ in and blowin’ stuff up where they ain’t wanted. Get mad at them. I sure am. And at any rate, don’t worry none ‘bout that.”
She glanced back, forcing herself to smile a little.
“We’re gonna get your kin folk and we’re gonna get them two hundred miles away from here. That’s all that matters now, so you just keep thinkin’ ‘bout that, ya’ hear?”
Pinkie finally smiled a little on hearing Applejack’s own encouraging words. “Alright. I will.”
She turned around again, but heard Pinkie “hop” a bit more in her step as she followed behind. In spite of everything that had happened, Applejack smirked more genuinely at that as she rounded the corner and headed into the stables.
The chamber was a long row of simple iron stalls, no doubt meant to accommodate a considerable number of horses at maximum capacity. Hay looked like it had been in short supply, not to mention that the stalls hadn’t been properly cleaned in a few days based on the stink that hit her nostrils. However, the gaslighting was still working and the area was well illuminated. Three soldiers were inside, no doubt some form of cavalry men and women. One of them was leading a trio of horses to one side, likely what they intended to ride out on once they were done. However, the other two were readily stripping down one of the horses. No sooner had they finished with him than they gave him a smack on the rear in the right direction, and with a snort he ran out through the open doors. By now, there were only about a dozen of them left, and the two quickly ran for another one.
As they seized the bridle, Applejack held up a hand. “Hold it right there!”
The two turned to her. Based on their faces, to say nothing of the anxiety and tension on them, it was clear they were still fairly raw recruits who knew mostly tending the horses rather than battlefield experience.
“We need some of them horses! We’re takin’ ‘em out!”
The two paused momentarily as Applejack began to approach. “Take them out? We just got the evacuation order. We’re turning them loose…”
“Nevermind none of that,” she answered as she reached them, immediately pushing in and taking the bridle from their hands, much to their surprise. “This here’s a special last mission. Got it from Colonel Burnt Oak himself. You can go ahead and turn these other ones loose, but after you find one for my comrade right here.”
“You need to find a few more than that.”
Applejack gave a start on hearing the voice from the entrance. Immediately she spun around, and got another surprise.
Eight members of the Apple Family were standing there, including Apple Split and Apple Brown Betty, with none other than Big Macintosh in the lead. However, they stood only a moment for Applejack to spot them. After that, they began to file inside. Without waiting for prompting or for permission from the soldiers, they headed straight for the remaining occupied stalls to pick out horses of their own. All save Big Macintosh, who began to walk inside but kept his eyes on Applejack.
Applejack’s surprise turned to shock, tinted with just a hint of anger. As she glanced about at the family running in, she snapped. “What in tarnation you all think you’re doin’ here? Ain’t you heard the siren? You got to get out with the family!”
“Family’s all taken care of, cousin,” Apple Split answered as he began to open his own stall. “Caramel Apple took charge of the whole lot. They’re getting Candy out of here then they’re gonna get the others and head out.”
“Then why the hell ain’t you headin’ out with ‘em?”
“Can’t head out with ‘em ‘cause we’re headin’ out with you, cousin,” Apple Brown Betty answered as she took the bridle of her own horse. “We talked it over already, and since Big Mac insisted, so did we.”
“Eeyup,” the big man quietly answered.
This prompted Applejack to wheel to him, making her even angrier. “You outta yer apple-pickin’ mind? Don’t you know what we’re up to? Where we’re headed?”
He came to a stop in front of her, but remained standing calm and tall. “Eeyup.”
She advanced, almost getting in his face. “Then you should have the sense to stay outta it! This is somethin’ me an’ Pinkie need to do! And I ain’t draggin’ any more of the family along with me to get anyone else hurt or killed! Now get the rest of the family and get out of here!”
He simply shook his head. “Nope.”
Applejack flushed redder. “You stubborn mule! I said I ain’t gettin’ anyone else in the family killed! Think about granny! How do you think she’s gonna feel if none of us come back? How do you think she’s gonna feel if she loses all of her grandkids without even havin’ a chance to see ‘em ‘fore they left?”
Big Mac looked her straight in the eye.
“And how do ya’ think I’m gonna feel tellin’ her she lost her other granddaughter and I didn’t even try to keep her safe?”
A stillness went through the room as all of the members of the Apple family paused, looking up and over to Big Mac on hearing him speak beyond his normal one-word replies. Applejack’s own anger abated, but not just at him responding to her. After a moment, her own face began to look uneasy before she looked at the floor.
“Applejack,” Big Mac went on, “I ain’t gonna try and talk you outta this even if I don’t want you to go. But after what happened to Apple Bloom, you can’t ask me to stay behind neither. Either it’s too dangerous for you an’ me both to ride outta here and we both head back to granny, or we both go out together. ‘Cause lettin’ you go would be me lettin’ you get killed.”
Applejack stood there silently for several seconds. The rest of the family waited, while the remaining soldiers hesitated; not sure what to do next. Outside the sirens continued to blare. Gunfire started up again, but it was distant for the moment.
Finally she looked back up and frowned again. It was more wistful this time, however. “If I had time to spare, I’d whip every last one of your butts to get y’all to stay put. I ain’t got time for that now, though.”
In spite of her saying this, however, the look in her eyes betrayed her true feelings. Enough to where Big Mac smiled a little in spite of it. And, as a result, she began to smile too. A moment later, she turned and shouted. “So you all better make damn sure you don’t get yourselves shot out there! Ain’t nobody else in this family dyin’ today!”
With that, she turned to her horse. Taking the pommel, she promptly stepped up into a stirrup and pulled herself inside. Once in, she quickly straddled the saddle and took the reins. As for Big Mac, he wasted no more time and quickly went to get his own mount. In moments, all of them were saddling up and leading their horses out. Seeing the change, the soldiers didn’t argue anymore. They quickly went to one of the remaining untaken horses and started to strip her down so they could get out themselves.
It wasn’t long after getting into the saddle herself and leading her horse to the doors of the stable that Applejack looked back to see how the others were doing, and spotted that Pinkie had gotten a horse of her own but was having a bit of trouble getting up and into it. While she was enthusiastic enough about the entire situation, it nevertheless took her three tries to pull herself up onto the horse’s saddle, and then she over pulled and nearly went off the other side. “Whoops!” she shouted, before quickly pulling herself back.
Applejack looked at her uneasily. “Uh, Pinkie? You ever rode a horse?”
“Sure! My granny Pie took me on a pony ride when I was little!”
Applejack’s face made it clear that wasn’t the answer she was looking for, but one of her family members quickly pulled her horse alongside her. “I’ll help her, cousin. I was ‘round these horses the other day. They know how to mind.”
She nodded back. “Thanks, Apple Bumpkin.” She turned to the rest of the room. “Y’all ready? This is gonna be one hell of a bumpy ride!”
The rest of the family quickly pulled their horses out of their stalls and up behind Applejack. The soldiers, loosing the last untaken horse, turned and quickly got onto their own mounts. Another cannon shell went off, this one much closer than before. The enemy was nearly to the fort.
“Alright then! Let’s ride! Yee-ha!”
She gave a kick to the flanks of her own horse, and the steed immediately took off. She urged it on afterward, not stopping until it was at a full running gallop. An instant later, she crossed under the threshold of the stable and was once again out onto the battlefield.
Until she left the stable, she was able to hear a chorus of hoofbeats behind her from the others following her. Once outside, however, it was quickly drowned out by the sounds of war. All of the gunshots, bomb blasts, and cannon fire was still going off, to say nothing of the sirens to evacuate and the periodic shouts from the hurt or injured. She didn’t get very far before she was already running among the broken down trenches and remains of gun batteries and barbed wire. At that point, she no longer had the luxury of checking behind her to make sure her family was following suit. She just had to move on and hope they could keep up with her. With that in mind, she lowered herself on the horse’s back and focused entire on the ride.
The trenches had already been bridged to allow the cavalry the opportunity to ride out if need be. As a result, she was able to cross the first and second without difficulty. By the time she reached the third, however, lights began to along the battlefield. Moments later, she heard whizzing around her from what had to be gunfire. Keeping her head low and hoping the rest of the family could keep up, she turned the horse to the side and rode perpendicular along the ground between trenches for a short while, trying to let her attackers exhaust their shots and pause to reload. As soon as there was a break again, she pitched forward and crossed the third and fourth trenches.
By the time she reached the fifth, the bullets started again. One of them almost made her horse spook, and she quickly turned it to one side and rode along again. This time, the bullets only lessened. They didn’t stop, and another shot nearly hit her even as a moving target. This forced her to turn her mount forward and try to push through as best as she could. The uneven terrain provided for a natural serpentine, giving her some advantages, but she felt herself beginning to tense up more with each bullet she heard whizz by, wondering how many there would be before one got lucky.
She finally reached the sixth and final trench, and by that time the fog of war was starting to roll over the area even after the fighting from earlier had leveled off, while the bullets were becoming too intensive. Not wasting any more time, she made the horse go straight for the crossing point and bolted across. On the other side was the open battlefield, and once she hit the ground she nearly kicked the horse into a gallop…
Her ears were nearly split as an eruption of flame and dirt went off right in front of her. The horse came to a halt and bucked up on two legs, and combined with the shock of the sudden explosion she was forced to hold on tight as she was nearly thrown off. Her eyes widened and she began to gasp. An artillery unit had been posted to nail the first thing that came over that last trench crossing. The only reason she hadn’t been blown up was because it had misfired, being aimed too much to one side. As the horse lowered itself, bits of dirt and debris came raining down on her, and genuine fear sank into her heart. It wasn’t for two seconds that she realized she was gasping. Yet she snapped out of it soon after. Using that tension to drive herself, she got control of her mount again, steered it forward, and then kicked the flanks again to get it back into full gallop.
After that, things became a blur. It was only moments before another artillery shell went off. This one wasn’t as close, fortunately, and it didn’t stop the horse again, but it was still near enough to feel the heat and force. She only made her horse gallop harder, forgetting about anything else except riding as hard and as fast as she could to clear the thinner enemy lines. In spite of the fog, bullets and artillery shells continued to ring out around her. She saw the lights from powder dotting the landscape continuously even as the lights of the fort were left behind. The very ground beneath her shuddered and shook as they continued to fire away. For all of the firing, she only focused on the horizon and blocked out all thoughts of eminent death surrounding her.
She didn’t know how long she rode through that hell. It seemed to get darker as she rode with the closing evening, but she really couldn’t tell through the smoke and haze. She could only hope that the constant artillery fire was missing the rest of the family behind her. Slowly, the sounds of bombs dropping began to grow quieter. The screams from earlier vanished or, rather, were swallowed up by the new sounds of gunpowder igniting. From time to time, in the thick fog, she could see herself riding past enemy artillery emplacements or even entire groups of them lined up, clearing out of the way of her horse’s charge. She didn’t even notice when the artillery shells finally began to thin out, and the shots seemed to be coming from the sides rather than in front of her, and eventually from behind her…
The fog finally began to clear, and there was still enough light from the set sun to see the landscape ahead of her. Only at that point did Applejack realize that the gunfire and artillery shells were still coming, but were now coming from behind. In spite of the fact that they hadn’t fully leveled off yet, hope surged inside her on realizing she made it through Not only that, but as she continued to gallop forward and the fog kept clearing, she began to make out a flat curve in the area ahead—one of the main roads. She headed straight for it, hoping to use the level surface to truly leave the enemy army behind.
At that point, she had enough clarity to think of the family again. She finally risked a look behind her.
It was dark but she saw the outline of riders, silhouetted by dots of light and smoke lining the horizon. They were scattered and fanned out, and she struggled to do a tally of them…
Abruptly, her vision cut off as her eardrums were pounded once again, this time by an artillery shell right behind her. In an instant, her senses were overloaded and the world went to black, and all she could remember was violence and noise.
Somehow, through a series of disconnection, as if she was experiencing it from outside of her body, she became conscious of her body taken off the back of the horse and flung through the air before landing violently against the ground. She went for a tumble like she was a rag doll flung by a child, and kept right on rolling until she landed in a ditch dug alongside the road. From there, she went flat and still for a few moments.
Her senses began to come back to her soon after, and with them came nothing but pain. Her already injured leg now hurt to the point of crippling agony, but the rest of her body felt bruised and beaten as if she had been held down by ten of those goons for an hour. Her brain was throbbing along with her ringing ears from the explosion, and heat from shrapnel burns was radiating around her body from several places. She couldn’t move for the pain and, in all honesty, began to realize she might have been too injured to move even if the pain wasn’t there. Her mind hastily patched together that she had nearly been hit by another artillery shell. This one had blown her off of her horse and flung her into the ditch. That was all she was able to conclude before her thoughts were drowned out by feelings of agony. A moment later, she screamed.
She had to yell out her agony for several seconds before she began to adjust and grew able to think again in spite of fresh pain over her body. Her eyes looked out and she was able to see a horse ride up to her, although it was too dark and she was too dazzled to make out who. The rider practically threw themselves off of the horse’s back to dismount and then began to run over to her. Other horses began to ride up as well, and her vision cleared up enough to see two of them were a pair together, and one had curly hair.
At that point, the first rider reached her. Through her dazzled wits, she made out it was Big Macintosh.
She grit her teeth. She tried to yell at him and tell him to keep going, but after her scream she had no breath left. She couldn’t do much as he began to put his arms around her to pick her up. As he did and she weakly tried to struggle to move herself, more horses arrived and several of the others began to get off as well.
She got enough strength to wave a hand and croak. “Go.. Keep…goin’…”
“Nope!” Big Mac shouted back as he managed to heave her off the ground. It looked as if he planned to carry her the rest of the way himself without going back to his horse. The gunshots continued to go off around them. They began to pick up in intensity too, now that they were in one spot and weren’t moving. One of the horses suddenly let out a panicked whine. Applejack looked up, and saw one of the family members cry out as their horse suddenly collapsed under them. It had clearly just been hit. The other animals began to prance about, eager to flee, and their riders only barely managed to keep them under control. Apple Bumpkin had the worst as she had to control hers and Pinkie’s at the same time.
She nearly yelled at them again to go while they could, but she cut herself off and the others looked up in alarm a moment later. They heard a new sound mixing over the noise of the battle. The sound of a large, loud steam engine…
Applejack forced herself to look up more even as Big Macintosh held her. It was coming from the road, and no sooner had she looked that way than a large, lumbering steam car, making all sorts of loud, groaning, grinding noises and looking battered, beaten, and even blood stained cut around the curve so sharp that the edge of its frame dug a rift into the dirt and gravel. For a moment, the family panicked as it turned so sharply that it nearly flipped itself over on top of them. Somehow it stabilized and leveled itself out, and moments later the brakes gave such a loud whine that it sounded like they were nearly broken off as the vehicle stopped.
It sat there for a second, whistling and screeching from what had to be numerous steam leaks and grinding of gears, but then it gave off another hiss as the side hatch opened up. In the darkness and flashes of gunpowder, Applejack vaguely made out the outline of a dozen people. However, one of them was gleaming with an aura. A person with a long cloak, a wide-brimmed hat, and a wand. She ran out and, at once, Applejack recognized her.
She wasn’t alone.
“Twilight!” Pinkie exclaimed for joy.
Her own expression wasn’t as happy. More like panicked. “Get in! Hurry!”
A few of the family members recognized Twilight from before, but, fortunately, due to being familiar with Applejack and Pinkie’s own transformations, they didn’t hesitate for more than half a second. Big Macintosh took off in a run for the open hatch as Twilight quickly moved out and to the rear. As soon as she was there, she began to chant and draw an elaborate rune. Applejack only saw it for a moment before she was tilted to one side so that her brother could get inside along with her. Behind her, the rest of the family quickly began to dismount and follow suit.
No sooner had Applejack been carried into the confines of the vehicle when she soon found there was more than a dozen inside, and that most of them were standing. She was soon being squished into a crowd of four, and squished even more as Red Delicious and Florina Tart shoved in behind them.
She grit her teeth as her bad leg was jarred. “It’s a mite snug in-”
She was cut off, however, as the engine gave a roar and began to grind again. The whole engine started to lurch forward.
“H-hey wait a minute!” she shouted. “Folks are still comin’ in!”
“This engine’s on it’s last legs!” a voice shouted from the front. “We don’t get it moving soon it’s going to die for the last time and we’ll be stuck here!”
Tensing up, Applejack turned back to the entrance. Two more members of her family managed to rush in and push themselves inside while it was still barely rolling, but soon it increased its speed. As the rest of the people inside struggled to make room, two more family members came up. Another individual came forward and reached out, pulling them in one after another. As they did, Applejack heard the sound of a rune being executed, and suddenly a massive fiery glow lit up the night outside and illuminated everyone. She nearly exclaimed in surprise, knowing that had been Twilight’s doing, but that she had to have generated a massive fire behind them to create that sort of blaze. Nevertheless, it seemed to work. The gunshots halted soon after.
However, the steam engine was picking up speed, and both she, Pinkie Pie, and Apple Split weren’t in yet. And as it continued to accelerate, easily reaching a running gait, Applejack felt herself start to grow nervous. She realized she never counted the horses back there, or saw what became of the family member who fell off their own mount when the horse was shot. That anxiety began to give way to fear…
Before it could get any worse, however, huffing and puffing all the way, barely able to keep up, Apple Split ran up alongside the side of the steam engine. He was sweating, panting, bruised, and looked barely able to keep going, but he also had his hand behind him. As he got nearer, it turned out he had taken Twilight’s hand and was yanking her onward, for she seemed to be doing no better than him in spite of her transformation. The two of them managed to get close enough to grab outstretched hands and get pulled inside. As they were crossing the threshold, she finally caught a glimpse of Pinkie’s bouncy hair as she came half-skipping to the side of the steam engine. Applejack’s hat, which she didn’t even realize she lost, was in one hand. With barely any room left to spare, she hopped inside easily soon after.
The engine roar grew so loud that, with the grinding of the gears and cracks in the boiler, it was impossible to hear anything but the noise around her. Applejack tried to look outside to see what they were doing or what was happening, but soon after the side hatch closed and she and everyone else was plunged into the darkness of the unlit cabin. There she remained as they slowly rolled out into the night.