Bathed in moonlight and looking just as surprised to see Quick and Flash as they were to see her was none other than Applejack. A more observant pony would have taken note of her disheveled mane and sleep-reddened eyes and taken her for a common farmer who had simply been woken by an awful ruckus going on outside in the dead of night but to Quick, who had spent the past twenty-four hours being hunted down, the sight of his target was as deadly as an encounter as he could imagine.
“Yeah, ah'm Applejack, and this here's Sweet Apple Acres, our farm. Just what in tarnation are y'all doin' out here this late at night? Are y'all out to steal our apples?”
Applejack appeared to be getting more and more irate every second and the dumbfounded reporters weren't doing much to offset her anger. Finally Quick spoke up.
“Well, err, we could ask you the same thing.” He was obviously at a loss for what to say.
“Quick, this is her farm, we're the ones who aren't supposed to be here.” Flash then turned to Applejack and, carefully picking every word to avoid any further conflict. “I'm sorry for the disturbance ma'am but we have no idea how we got here. We were exploring those tunnels back there and found ourselves locked in. When we got out we found ourselves-” he paused again, noting how absurd it would sound “inside your shed.”
Applejack eyed both of them, not sure of how to respond.
“What tunnels? We ain't got no tunnels in that shed, ah'm certain of it.”
Quick finally found his nerves again and spoke up.
“Of course there are tunnels in your shed! How else would you sneak across Ponyville at night and how else would you have known how to cut us off before we got out safely!”
Again Applejack was short for words and began to open her mouth to reply when Quick cut her off, gaining speed and confidence.
“And naturally you'd want to stop us before we could gather enough evidence to bring you and your gang to justice for the crimes you've committed against pony-kind. You didn't think you could get away with having killed so many apple merchants, burning down those factories and farms and committing massive insurance fraud by killing your own parents?”
This was clearly the wrong choice of words, leaving Applejack staring back wordlessly with tears welling up in her eyes.
“Uh, Quick, I don't think we can accuse her of anything right now.” Flash interjected meekly.
“Of course we can, who else could possibly be behind this? Certainly not Bic Mac, or Applebloom, and Granny Smith is far too old to run this whole setup.”
At this last comment, Applejack snapped.
“How dare you come buckin' your way onto mah farm, accuse me of these awful things and insult mah family. If it weren't for the insurance money we would'a lost the farm to folks tryin' to buy up the land when the deed was lost in the fire. Now git off Sweet Apple Acres before ah have to call for the police!”
Applejack was livid and it was obvious that there was not going to be an easy way out of this conflict. Flash was already trying to restrain Quick, and keeping Applejack and him apart wasn't going to be any easier. At that point, it seemed the situation was only going to escalate further, but to everponies' surprise, a fourth voice joined in all the shouting.
“Now that's enough outta you three, what is going on here?!”
The new voice was that of a Ponyville PD officer, garbed in the typical blue overcoat and hat adorned with gold regalia.
“This stallion over here told me there was a bit of a conflict going on in here and I was about to call him crazy until I found you three screaming at each other over something.”
Behind the officer stood a rather shamefaced Big Mac, who refused to do any more than stare at the space on the ground between his two forehooves.
“It's a good thing y'all showed up when you did. Officer, please remove these two from Apple Acres immediately.” Applejack eyed the police officer for a moment. “Big Mac, did you call this here police officer?”
Big Mac responded only by pawing at the ground and avoiding his sister's gaze.
“Alright officer, get these two outta mah sight, ah think ah've had enough for one night.”
Applejack promptly spun around and trotted off back into the darkness with Big Mac following shortly after.
“Ok you two troublemakers, we're going to take a trip down to the station.”
The officer produced a pair of metal hoof-cuffs from one of his jacket pockets and promptly restrained both Quick and Flash. The cuffs chained their forehooves close enough to prevent any bucking or galloping, but left just enough room for an awkward trot. With a nod of his head, the officer led the pair off into the distance across the fields.