//------------------------------// // Slow Progress: Part 1 // Story: My Little Pony Heart of Friendship: Tales of a New Beginning // by ShadowDurza //------------------------------// Twilight breathed a breath of fresh air as he exited the doors of her castle. Then smiled as she turned away from the spray of water from above. She looked up and spotted the human Jason Dewey spraying water at her windows from his open palm as he sat on the shoulders of the other human Justin Bluster who in turn was standing on the cloud he conjured using a supportive spell. Jason gave Twilight a worried look. “I’m so sorry Princess! I’ll be happy to take a pay cut for that little bit of negligence!” Justin looked up at his partner. “Hey, I didn’t agree to that!” Twilight rolled her eyes and giggled. “It’s fine! I needed a little bit of a wake-up anyway! You guys have been doing so well as my window-washers that I want you to take lunch at Jim and Jake’s cafe and tell them the bill’s on me!” Justin looked down at Twilight and gave her a big grin. “You are too good to us, Princess! Nobody would have done that for us back in the cavern!” Jason hissed at his partner and made what Twilight recognized as a cut-it-out gesture at him and spoke through his clenched teeth. “Don’t push it!” At that, Twilight made an awkward smile and rolled her eyes once again before proceeding on her way. Down Ponyville’s main street, the humans mingled with the ponies as they all went about their business. Rose sighed as she grabbed a few withered flowers in her jaw, but before she could turn to the rubbish bin, a human Twilight knew as a plant elemental named Henry Evergreen stopped her and waved his hand around the flowers, emitting a green light that revitalized them. Rose gleefully put them back in place, but things got a little awkward when Henry held out an expecting hand. Close to the center of the market, the fire elemental Brianna Ashtoe dazzled a surrounding crowd by juggling double-ended torches and spitting flames from her mouth that took on bizarre and intricate shapes and forms. Right as the crowd started throwing bits and gems at the base of the platform, a squad of fire pegasi gathered a group of clouds above and let loose a downpour, extinguishing the atmosphere. This got a scowl out of Brianna and the now disgruntled crowd started pelting them with miscellaneous junk. Nearby, a new quill stall manned by the feather elemental J.J. Melano was making a killing by conjuring his merchandise out of thin air. However, an angry looking Davenport aggressively approached the stall and started a dispute with J.J. Twilight braced herself to intervene, but before she could, the words ‘supply solution’ and ‘wholesale contract’ were mentioned and soon they were both laughing and shaking hoof in hand. At the sight of all this, Twilight gave a self-satisfied sigh and proceeded on her way. It’s certainly not perfect, and not exactly harmonious through-and-through, but so far all the issues seem to sort themselves out more often than not. Once she got to the produce section of the market, Applejack came cantering up to her with a worried look. Twilight smiled at her. “Good morning, Applejack! Shouldn’t you be hawking at the Apple cart?” Applejack awkwardly looked her in the eye. “Well, ‘bout that, Twi’... We have a bit of a diplomatic-type situation down at the orchards, an’ we all think you may be able to handle it better than we could.” Twilight raised her eyebrow at this. “Why would there be a diplomatic situation at Sweet Apple Acres?” Applejack gulped and looked away in the general direction of the farm. “Well… I suppose the best way to explain would be to show ya.” Twilight nodded and galloped closely following behind Applejack to the outskirts of Ponyville, soon coming upon a tree in the orchards that Big Mac was standing next to, his head bandaged. Applejack cantered right up to him followed by Twilight and sighed. “I take it he’s still up there?” Big Mac nodded and rubbed his head. “Yep.” “And I take it nopony could convince him to leave of his own accord?” Big Mac shook his head, wincing as he looked up into the foliage of the tree. “Nope.” Twilight looked up at the apple-laden tree, confused. “Okay, what are you talking about? Do you have some kind of trespasser? And what does that have to do with this ordinary apple tree?” Applejack sighed. “It’s all very unusual-like. I suppose the best way to explain it is just to show ‘y'all.” Applejack trotted up to the tree, took a deep breath, reared back her hind legs and gave the trunk a hard bucking. Though the tree vibrated roughly, none of the crimson fruit fell. Though Twilight was surprised, she showed much more concern at the fact that Applejack had appeared to brace herself. The reason for this came almost immediately, as Applejack hopped out of the way as what looked like an oversized wooden mallet was sent flying out of the leaves towards the space which her head was previously occupying. Before hitting the ground, the mallet strangely boomeranged back into the foliage whence it came. Twilight’s eyes grew wide as she gazed at the now threatening tree. “What the-?” However, Twilight’s exclamation was interrupted as a human head with shoulder-length unkempt hair erupted from the tree’s greenery with a mildly annoyed expression. “I told you hick ponies that you’d get thunked if you thumped with my tree again!” Twilight, stunned at first, trotted up to the tree and coughed to get the human’s attention. “Pardon me, but what are you doing up there? And why are you lashing out at the Apple family?” The human looked right at Twilight with a curious expression and blinked a couple times. “Hey, you’re the leader of the ponies that got all of us out of the cavern, right? Thanks a lot, uh… Duchess Dusk Shine…? Twilight awkwardly coughed at that. “Actually… It’s Princess Twilight Sparkle…” Then she regained her composure and looked directly at the human. “But you still haven’t answered my question! Who are you, and what are you doing up there?” The human bowed their head for a moment. “Pardon me for not getting down to greet you proper. My name is Sullivan Hardwood, tree elemental. But everyone calls me Ivan. As for why I’m up in this here tree, well… it’s complicated.” Twilight turned her head to the side and raised an eyebrow. “Go on…” Ivan sighed. “Well… back in core metro, I needed to work my rear-end off everyday to get enough money to survive, and by the time I got my accounts settled, I didn’t really have anything for myself in terms of leisure. “In all honesty, when I read about real trees and fruit in the old tales, it made me envious of my ape ancestors who lived their simple lives in the trees eating fruit as it all grew. But now that we’re all up here, we can live as hunter-gatherers as our ancestors did in this land of plenty, and I decided to finally live my dream in this nice, safe apple tree, even reinforcing it and the fruit it grows with my magic.” Twilight started scratching her chin with her hoof. “But there’s plenty of fruit-bearing trees in the Everfree Forest. It wouldn’t be any exaggeration to say that your people took one look at it and decided that it’s where you all wanted to live. Even when I explained about all the dangerous creatures living there to Kris, it seemed to have intensified his interest in it. Either way, Princess Celestia was more than happy to give it to all of you as a homeland of your own.” Ivan suddenly got a faraway look in his eye. “Yeah, even the name: Everfree Forest sounded like something tailor made just for us. And I won’t deny that the fruit, wild vegetables and beasts living there are quite delicious and pretty much inexhaustible. But the thing is, you need to be strong in a fight to get all that for yourself.” Twilight started gesturing with her hoof. “And how is that a problem for you humans?” Ivan rolled his eyes and tilted his head. “Oh, just because being warriors is what we’re known best for, you assume every single one of us is a competent warrior, is that right? Me? I was a laborer my whole life. Sure, like everyone else, I went through basic combat training up until age thirteen, where I chose to learn my craft instead of continuing on to advanced training. “I mean, it’s not like I could learn any actual offensive or defensive spells. I could only ever learn various types of supportive spells to help me at work” He then stuck a flannel-sleeved arm out of the foliage holding his wooden mallet, which proceeded to elongate it’s handle back and forth, rapidly grow and shrink the mallet, and extend while twisting hither and about before snapping back to its proper shape. “The closest I’ve got to any real offensive ability is controlling this thing, but it works for what I need it for, like chasing away trespassers trying to get at my tree!” Applejack got an angry look and shook her hoof at him. “You’re th’ only trespasser here, partner!” At this, Ivan merely stuck his tongue out at her and blew a raspberry. “Squatter’s rights, Apple Lady! Squatter’s rights!” He quickly withdrew his head back into the foliage. Meanwhile, Applejack reared up on her hind legs and kicked at the air, her face scrunched in frustration. “It’s Applejack!” Twilight just sighed and looked down with a sad look. “Looks like my own ignorance burned that bridge. I don’t think he’ll listen to me anymore.” She quickly raised her head and looked at the woods neighboring the farm with a determined look. “I think we’re going to need a bit more help to solve this problem.” *** Applejack warily swung her head around, nervously eyeing the shadows surrounding their path. “You sure you’ve got your directions right, Twilight? I don’t want to stay here any more than I have to.” Twilight lowered the map wrapped in her magic and looked around for more landmarks. “These are the directions Sloop gave us the last time he was in Ponyville. I’d think a map drawn by a compass element would be reliable. Even though it’s weird that humans consider compasses to be elements…” “Halt!” “Identify yourselves!” Twilight and Applejack froze in place at these two inscrutable voices. Applejack regained her composure first. “Um… It’s Applejack and Princess Twilight of the ponies. We’re close allies, right?” A few moments passed, then the voices started breaking out in laughter. Twilight got a confused and somewhat worried expression. “What’s… so funny?” As the laughter went on, the ground in front of them suddenly started spewing out and next to it, the air suddenly started shimmering as if in a heat haze, causing Twilight and Applejack to canter back a bit. Out of the ground popped a human wearing a distinctive metal mask, and the air parted to reveal a human wearing a soup cauldron as if it were some kind of curtain. At this sight, Twilight and Applejack trotted forward, smiling. “Augustus! Gustoff!” The gatekeeper duo grabbed one another’s shoulders and returned the smiles to their quadrupedal friends. Gustoff held out his hand. “We’ve had a lot more time off since we got up here, so we started learning all kinds of things, like how to throw our voices!” Twilight raised an eyebrow at them. “So you’re still working as gatekeepers? Where are your weapons?” At this, Augustus and Gustoff turned to look at one-another, breaking into wry looks. Then, they looked back at the ponies and extended their hands, which emitted flashes of light from their grips. When Twilight and Applejack quit shielding their eyes, they marveled at what they saw. In Augustus’s grip appeared his ax-sword, taking on a dark orange color with a bright red accenting. In Gustoff’s grip appeared his staff, the pole being dark red and the round knob at the front end having become solid black. Applejack gave them a big smile and took off her hat in respect. “Well, I’ll be! You two’ve finally become top-class warriors!” Augustus hoisted his weapon onto his shoulder. “Aye, and we’re not the only ones! Seems that moving back aboveground was the final thing lots of mid-classers needed to break the wall. Like my dad always said: ‘Sometimes the best way to get some new perspective is a change of environment’.” Gustoff scoffed. “You’re dad really used to say that?” Augustus kept his smile, but made an awkward cough. “Well, what he actually said was ‘Don’t bother me while the duels are on! Do your homework somewhere else if you’re just going to get stuck on it!’ But I knew what he meant.” Gustoff just stared at him for a moment, then started laughing. Augustus at first gave his friend an angry look, but started laughing not a moment later. Applejack and Twilight awkwardly looked at each other and tried to follow along. Gustoff wiped a tear from his eye as his laughter quelled. “So anyway, since you’re all the way out here, I assume you ponies want to get to our settlement?” Twilight smiled and nodded. “You assume correctly!” Augustus pointed his thumb down the way. “Well, come on! We’ll keep away any trouble that might come our way!”