As the sun rose and peaked in through her window blinds, Applejack sat up in her bed, and looked to her side. She knew that at this hour, her boyfriend, Astral Shadow, was most likely taking care of the animals. One of their horses was sick, and he was the farm’s resident vet. Even though he wasn’t a professional vet, he was good with animals, and with some help from Fluttershy, he knew how to identify certain health problems in livestock.
As she sat up in her bed, she dreaded the school day that was to come. She’d been raped by a bull, and then castrated said bull in revenge. She considered calling in sick, but she knew avoiding her problems wouldn’t do anything to help.
She got out of her bed and got dressed, tying her hair with her ribbons and putting on her hat. She walked to the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror. She felt like crying again, but put on a strong face and said “Ah’ll be fine. Ah’m strong. Ah can do this.” before walking downstairs to meet her family.
Apple Bloom twiddled her thumbs as her sister came downstairs and asked, “Big sis… are ya really going to school after… ya know…”
Granny Smith tapped her younger granddaughter on the head with a bit of firmness, “Yer sister knows that running from yer problems don’t solve nothin’. She ain’t got nothin’ to be ashamed of. That damned bull is to blame, not her.”
Big Mac nodded, “Eyup.”
Applejack smiled lightly from her family’s support and said, “Thanks lil’ sis, but Ah’ll be just fine. ‘Sides, if anyone tries to bully me, Ah’ve got a loving boyfriend and great friends who’ll stand by me.”
As Astral walked in through the front door, he was washing his hands off with an old rag, “Well, Silver’s doing better. She should be fine after a few days’ rest.” As he saw his girlfriend out of bed, he smiled lightly at her, “You ok babe? Nobody would blame you if you wanted to call in sick at school.”
Applejack shook her head and told him, “Ah’m fine sugarcube. Ah may have a bit of trouble at school, but Ah’ve got you and the girls to help me through it.”
Astral smiled and kissed his girlfriend, “Wouldn’t have it any other way hun.”
As Applejack got her school supplies packed up, Astral was getting his motorcycle helmet. He wasn’t a student like Applejack, he graduated a year early, and he was saving up for college, so he worked at the local animal shelter. Fluttershy was a regular volunteer at the shelter, so she would let him know if anything happened at school.
As her boyfriend got on his motorcycle and her grandmother and little sister got in the truck, she yelled to them, “Granny, go on without me! Ah’m gonna ride t’ school with Astral!”
All three of them were shocked that Applejack was willing to ride on Astral’s motorcycle. She wasn’t exactly a huge fan of her boyfriend’s bike, she preferred real horses to steel horses. But they nodded, letting Applejack get on the back of Astral’s bike.
“You sure about this babe? The last time I took you to school, you yelled at me for taking the scenic route.”
Applejack kissed her boyfriend’s cheek, or rather the cheek of his helmet and told him, “Don’t worry ‘bout it, just don’t take the scenic route.”
Astral chuckled, “Got it, we’ll take the fast route. You better hold on tight though.” before revving up his bike’s engine and kicking up some dust as they drove off onto the dirt road towards the main road.
The ride was mostly silent, and as they pulled up to the school, Astral took off his helmet and asked, “Last chance babe, say the word and I can take you back home.”
Applejack rolled her eyes, “Ya know me well enough to know Ah ain’t running away. Apples stand strong.”
“And that’s why I love you. I’ll see you after I get off work.” before kissing his girlfriend goodbye, putting his helmet back on, and driving off.
Applejack took a deep breath and walked towards the front door, ignoring the laughter that she heard as she walked by her fellow students.
When she got to her locker, her friends were waiting for her, with Pinkie standing directly in front of her locker, as if she was trying to hide something.
Applejack raised an eyebrow, asking her friends, “Alright, what’s up? You guys don’t stand at my locker like this.”
Fluttershy nervously rubbed her arm and said, “W-Well.. We got here early, and…”
Rainbow Dash’s eye was twitching, “Oh, I can’t take this! Some asshole spray painted your locker!”
Rarity sighed with her hand on her forehead, “Yes, and we were trying to get it cleaned off before you arrived. How did you get here so early? That truck of your grandmother’s isn’t exactly known for its speed, it broke down almost a week ago.”
Applejack told them, “Astral dropped me off with his bike, we took the fast route.” When Rarity said they were trying to wash off the paint, she looked at Pinkie and said, “Pinkie, just let me see it. Ah’m not going to run away from my problems. That’s not how Ah do things.”
Pinkie gulped and nervously scooted to the side, revealing the paint on her friend’s locker that said ‘COW’ in red paint. It was obvious that the bullies that called themselves the Diamond Dog Dudes were the ones who did it, since they were dumb enough to tag it DDD at the bottom.
Meanwhile as Astral Shadow pulled into the animal shelter’s parking lot, he checked his phone, which had been vibrating like a massage chair the whole ride from school. He took a look at his texts and saw that Fluttershy had messaged him, telling him about the graffiti on his girlfriend’s locker.
He growled, and clenched a fist. Before he met Applejack and turned his life around to impress her, he was friends with the DDD, so he texted Fluttershy back, “I’ll talk to those idiots during my break.” before putting his phone away and heading into the shelter.
Back at the school, people laughed at the graffiti on Applejack’s locker, only to fall silent when they heard a high pitched whistle and looked to the end of the hallway to see Vice Principal Luna walking down the hallway and say, “You should all be ashamed of yourselves. Canterlot High School is a place to learn the values of friendship. It should go without saying that this is no place for bullying of any kind! Each and every one of you will be serving detention for the rest of the week!”
Applejack looked up, she was doing her best to ignore the laughter, and when Vice Principal Luna scorned them for their laughter, she smiled lightly, at least her teachers were compassionate and understanding. She looked to Luna and mouthed the words, “Thank you” without actually saying anything
Luna smiled back at her student, mouthing back, “You’re welcome.” before looking around and saying out loud, “Now, are you all going to get to class, or do you want an extra two days of detention for tardiness?”
The students scrambled to get their stuff out of their lockers and make a beeline to their first period class. Principal Celestia was intimidating enough, but her sister Luna was known to be even more intimidating. But like her sister, she was very caring towards her students.
As the school day went on, Applejack proved that even after what happened at the rodeo, she was strong enough to move past it and keep going through her day.
Astral had just gotten off for his lunch break, so he took out his phone and texted a number he hadn’t texted in almost three years. His text said, “Meet me back by the old spot. I got some booze for my old boys.”
Back when Astral hung out with the Diamond Dog Dudes, he would steal beer from his father and was often drinking it with them at the dumpster behind the school. Of course, he didn’t do that anymore, he went straight and cut off all ties with them when he met Applejack. After he sent Rover the text, he rode his bike to the school.
As lunch hour was coming around, Rover looked at his phone and said to his pals Fido and Spot, “Dudes! It’s from Astral! He’s got some booze! He wants to meet at the old spot. Guess he finally got tired of that hick girlfriend of his!”
Fido smiled and hooted, “Whoo! Come on, let’s go!”
The three bullies went out to meet their estranged friend out by their old hangout spot. When they arrived, they saw Astral sipping what they thought was a can of beer, but in reality was just a can of Coke.
As he saw the three of them come out of the back door and to the dumpster, he crushed the empty can in his hand and said, “Good to see you guys again.”
Spot chuckled, “Yeah man, good to see ya. It ain’t the same without you.”
Astral showed no real signs of joy as his former friends were happy to see him again. He asked them, “So, you heard about the rodeo?”
Fido laughed, “Yeah, it was hilarious to see that cow get plowed!”
Astral took a deep breath and said, “That’s the real reason I’m here.”
As Rover went to grab what he thought was a beer, he looked up to Astral and said, “Huh?”
Before they could question him, Astral punched Fido in the face, breaking his nose and chipping a tooth. “You guys remember the name you gave me back in the day? Wrath. You didn’t give me that name for nothing.” before cracking his knuckles and looking over to Rover and Spot, “You’ve got a five second head start.” Before taking a step towards them, “One.”
As he took another step towards them, Rover and Spot backed away, Spot trying to explain, “C-C’mon man! It was just a joke! We didn’t mean- oh crap, run!” before taking off, trying to head back through the back door, forgetting it could only be opened from the inside.
As Rover ran after Spot, he too forgot the back door only opens from the inside, “Shit, shit, shit, shit!” before the two also took blows from Astral, and while he only punched each of them once, they still were in pain.
Astral told them, “Word of advice, don’t piss off the guy who got called Wrath, old friends or not, you go after my girl, I’m kicking your ass.” before walking back to his bike and heading to actually get something to eat before his lunch break was over.
As the janitor was taking out the trash, he saw the three injured students laying on the ground and called the nurse, getting them to her office. As the nurse treated their wounds, she asked the bullies, “Picking fights in the back? Didn’t you learn from that one year you three spent in juvenile detention that there are people who can easily knock you down with no effort?”
The boys grumbled lightly, and when Vice Principal Luna walked in, she asked, “I shouldn’t be surprised it was you three I was called down to talk to. You already got held back once when you went to juvie. Do we need to go over this again?”
Fido shook his head, “N-No Ms. Luna, won’t happen again.”
Luna raised an eyebrow as she asked, “Well, do you mind telling me who did this? You all have a single wound, yet it doesn’t look like you were able to wound your assailant. Knowing the three of you, you would normally gang up on a would be fighter.”
Rover looked away growling, “Not a chance. We ain’t no canaries.”
Spot nodded, holding the ice pack to his black eye, “Yeah, I ain’t talking. We got beat bad enough, I ain’t looking to make it worse.”
Luna sighed, shaking her head with her fingers on the bridge of her nose, “Very well, if you won’t tell me, there’s nothing I can do. You’re still serving detention for three days. You’ve been warned about drinking beer on school property. In addition to the two weeks you’ll be serving for spray painting another student’s locker.”
The three students looked down and said, “Yes Ms. Luna.”
As the school day came to an end, Astral showed up in front of the school to meet up with Applejack. He gave one last glare to the three bullies as they were serving detention by picking up litter in the parking lot.
As Applejack walked up to Astral on his bike, she got on and said, “So how was work?”
As Astral started driving, he told her, “Normal day, nothing special, you?”
“About as well as I expected, those stupid Diamond Dog Dudes spray painted my locker, but someone knocked ‘em down good. Wish Ah could say thanks to whoever it was.”
Astral knew that he’d probably get hit by his girlfriend if he told her he was the one who beat them up, so he just said, “I think he’d know you’re grateful.” before driving down towards the old dirt road to Sweet Apple Acres.