"So...why are you guys pony catchers AND part of this coalition?”
Alec, Robbie, and a third member led me down a few hallways once we left the “interrogation” room.
“Technically, we’re not pony catchers,” said Alec, “To make a long story short, we acquired a wardrobe of uniforms, equipment, and the blueprints to their vans. We don’t have funding, but we DO have friends in high places. As for blending in with actual pony catchers, it isn’t that hard. As long as your uniform and vehicle meet code they don’t really check.”
It sounded like they knew how to do their job. But what is their goal?
“And how is all of this going to free the ponies? You can’t just catch them all and cram them in this place.” Again, Alec answered: “For a while, we were stumped as to how to liberate them, but then we started thinking bigger. It’s just a hunch, but it is widely believed that the Elements of Harmony will be able to set things straight. If we can gather the Mane 6 and the Elements together, then maybe everything will be as it should be. That’s how it's worked in the past at least.”
This mission sounded easy and hard at the same time; everyone knew where at least a few of the Mane 6 were, but I had no idea how they planned on getting the Elements. They were locked away in Equestria somewhere. I never really cared enough to pay attention to anything specific, but I knew getting to Equestria wasn't a walk in the park. There was one more thing I had to know. “Who are you guys afraid of? Why all the secrecy?”
Robbie glared back at me and snapped. “Why are you so nosey? Maybe we don’t want people to know things. We shouldn’t have told you our plan in the first place," he looked at Alec with irritation, "And we’re sure as hell not gonna tell you who to spill our plans to.
Alec looked back to me. “It’s probably for the best”
After a couple more turns, we reached a locker room. We walked up to a line where they were dispensing pony catcher uniforms, equipment, and locks. Alec walked by me with his supplies and said, “Change and put your things in any of the lockers.”
I did as instructed. The jumpsuit was loose and gave me plenty of room to move. I was equipped with a wire leash, a miniature cattle prod, some darts, a dart pistol, a black velvet sack, and some zip-ties.
As I strapped all of these tools to my suit, Robbie stormed to me, looking as angry as ever, shoved his face right in front of mine, and spoke through gritted teeth in a quiet, but assertive tone, "You are not to use any of these things on a single thing. Don't touch them; don't even take them off of where they are right now. You're still our prisoner as far as I'm concerned, and that makes you my bitch. Do I make myself clear?"
I nodded quickly, and he walked away.
If he wants to be a pimp, then he's well on his way to getting a gold tooth.
Robbie's breath was horrendous, and I tried to keep away from him merely for that reason from there on out. After everyone was fully equipped, we headed out of the locker room, down another corridor, to a set of double doors, which led to a small parking lot of pony catcher vans. On the outside, they looked like your average, modern, white van with the letters EAP (Equine Acquisition Patrol) and a silhouette of an Equestrian pony in black on the side, but the insides were anything but average. On the walls toward the front were two seats with dual-shouldered seat belts, and beside one was a swiveling arm which held a laptop and a pair of headphones with a microphone. Up front was the driver’s seat and an advanced GPS that could locate every operational van within a twenty mile radius.
Along the driver-side wall was six hooks to hang up the wire leashes, and above those were compartments for fire extinguishers and additional equipment such as EMP grenades and water hoses. Those must be for subduing groups of unicorns. On the other wall was a set of three cages, and on the floor were hidden, collapsible cages in case of additional captures.
I climbed in, placed my leash on the rack, and took my seat as assigned by Robbie, who then sat across from me. Then what I thought was going to be a long and smelly ride filled abusive remarks and dirty looks took a turn. Fluttershy jumped in, looked at me with the biggest smile I’d ever seen, and ran up to me. She looked like she was about to hug me when she suddenly stopped and said, “I’m…very happy to see you Mr. Cornell.”
She looked away, returning to the same demeanor she had before all of these events.
“I’m…happy to see you too Fluttershy.”
I wanted to hug her, but she seemed to shy for that right now, so I went to pet her, but she’s more than a pet, and I didn’t know whether she might react negatively to it or not.
So, I extended my hand slowly and awkwardly. She looked at me, then at my hand, blushed with a small smile, and placed her hoof in my palm. From the corner of my eye, I saw Robbie roll his eyes as he pulled the laptop in front of him. He looked at the screen and put on the headphones as Alec got in the driver’s seat. “They’re all a ways away from the address location.” said Robbie to Alec, who replied, “So I should just look for a big group of blips?”
Alec flicked the GPS screen with his thumb and index finger and pressed on what I can assume was his target location. He started up the van as the doors shut and I spoke up, “Wait, she’s coming with us?”
Alec looked back at me, then smiled at the pony, and said, “She refused to be separated from you, and we figure she could be useful on this mission. Plus, it’s sort of a treat for being such a good pony for us while we took that chip out.”
I looked down at Fluttershy quickly, then back at Alec. “Chip? What chip?”
Alec responded, “Ya know those chips owners put into their dogs? We don’t want anyone catching our scent. We’re having it sent back to your original address.”
“Come in Winona One, this is Winona Seven,” broadcasted Robbie over the microphone, “We are inbound to your position with care package Kilo to assist with the acquisition of package Hotel. ETA is approximately fifteen mikes. Over.”
Robbie watched the screen as the return broadcast filled his ears. Then, he turned to Alec and uncovered an ear. “She’s not making it easy on them. We better hurry.”
Alec called back, “I can’t go any faster without drawing attention.”
What was all that? I looked at Fluttershy and said, “You know what any of that meant?”
She looked back up at me with her large, blue eyes and shrugged. I called over to Alec, “Hey, Alec, what’s Kilo and Hotel?”
Slightly curtly, Alec replied, “Kilo means kindness and Hotel means honesty.”
I didn’t feel welcomed enough to bother with what those meant, but I read Fluttersy’s excited face. In her excitement, she asked, “We’re going to see Applejack?!”
Alec looked at Fluttershy from the rear view mirror and said with a smile, “Yes, my little pony. We’re going to see Applejack.”
Fifteen minutes passed and the van stopped. Robbie and I unstrapped and went to the back door. Fluttershy was about to come with us, but Robbie turned around and said it wasn’t safe for her to come out yet.
“But…I don’t want to be left here all alone.”
Her eyes glistened as she looked up at us. Once more, her extraordinary powers of adorableness got the better of a brony. Robbie led her to the laptop and pulled up a camera view from outside the van. “You can see us from here. To turn the camera, just push these buttons, and press this to zoom in. I’m sorry Fluttershy, but we need to bring Mr. Cornell with us. We’ll get you out there as soon as we can.”
She gave a soft word of acknowledgement and Robbie and I exited the van. Before we could get around the van to the others, however, Robbie pinned me with his oral odor and instructed me on some protocol. “Now listen, just play it cool and look like you belong here. Don’t pretend to be too happy to see a farm full of ponies.”
“A farm,” I interjected, “Why would Vincent need a farm?”
“When oil took a nosedive, Vincent had to turn to alternative fuel, which he never really sought out, and converting produce into fuel seemed cheapest to him. Now, we’re going to say a joke that won’t make any sense to anyone who isn’t in the coalition. Just laugh like the rest of us so we can weed out the actual catchers. Understood?”
I nodded and we walked to the others. I was mildly impressed. Robbie’s tone didn’t have the bully-like feeling like it usually had when he spoke to me. I guess he’s done messing around. The earth was soft and worn as we walked to the front of an apple orchard. There was a group of guys in uniform like us all huddled and squirming together just behind a couple rows of trees, which all had hoof marks imprinted into the bark. As we got closer, we could see a somewhat small orange creature struggling beneath the group. Robbie patted one on the back and said, “Did you guys hear about that cereal killer on the loose?”
The pony catcher responded, “Why are you talking about a serial killer right now? Why don’t you help us or something?”
An anonymous person spoke up from the group, “You mean the crazy one? I heard he was bananas!”
An uproar of laughter erupted from the group. I joined in with the best façade I could muster. The real pony catcher stood up at this, looked at the group queerly, and simply stated, “Freaks.” and walked away.
After the pony catcher was a good distance away, the group fell to a serious silence. Robbie called out, “Who didn’t get that joke?”
The only response was the orange creature wiggling on the ground. “Ah sure didn’t understand it. What kinda sick monsters are you? Laughin’ bout a mass murderer. Ah knew humans were liars, but I didn’t think y’all were this sick in the head!”
I looked into the middle of the group and saw an orange coated pony with a blonde mane and white freckles struggling on her back with a wire leash around her neck while the others tried to wrangle up her hooves. The guy holding the leash around her neck said, “Please Miss Applejack, we don’t mean you any harm,” he slowly removed the leash from her head, “We’re trying to help you. Honest to Celestia!”
The pony named Applejack stopped squirming and said, “Honest to Celestia huh?”
She rolled over and stood up on all fours. “Funny thing about honesty,” she threw her hind legs upwards at her liberator’s face, whom fell backwards and grabbed hold of his left cheek, “y’all don’t have any!”
The pony made a leap over the heads of the uniformed men and tried to run, but one grabbed hold of her tail and another jumped on top, and another, and another. Others grabbed her hooves, two each, and remarkably, she still stood. She couldn’t move, but she could still stand. Robbie walked in front of her and kneeled down to bring his face level with hers. “Element of Honesty, please believe us. We are trying to save you and all of pony-kind by sending you all back home, to Equestria.”
Applejack grunted and responded, “No! Y’all ain’t gonna get my goat again! Y’know what your kind did? You killed my family!” The group was deathly silent. “When we first came here, everything was great. We were treated like equals. No, we were treated like royalty, celebrities, ponies that everyone wanted to see. But something always felt wrong in this world. Time took its course, and soon our time in the spotlight was over. They started offerin’ jobs…and like fools we took ‘em. They said that the trees here were the same as in Equestria. They said that they’d pay us what we were due…they said…they said Big Mac would be alright.”
Applejack started to shake and sniffle, trying desperately to hold back tears. She didn’t want to show us weakness. “They never lightened his load…and they just threw him in the ground and put two wooden planks over him!”
She finally collapsed with a shudder and sobbed openly. Then, she raised her head once more and continued, “And I ain’t about to let that go unforgiven.”
Applejack threw her head back and struck one of the guys on her back on the forehead. I looked over at the first member to feel her wrath. He was still on the ground and had a deep red hue to his face surrounding a hoof shaped mark. I got down on all fours next to the sad pony and spoke, “Please trust us. Our plan is true. Hold on! We’ve got Fluttershy with us!”
I scrambled to my feet and ran to the van. I think Robbie tried to stop me, but was too slow. I cracked open the back door slightly and poked my head in. “Hey, Fluttershy, come here.”
She quickly scampered over to me and excitedly greeted me, “Oh good! You’re back! Are you coming back in?”
“No, I’m taking you to see Applejack. But you’ve gotta stay low and close to me.”
I pulled my head back out and took a quick look around. Once I was sure the coast was clear, I opened the door a little more and she jumped out. I took small strides so I could hide her from at least one side as we made our way back to the group, which was still partially burying Applejack. The captive pony called out, “Fluttershy! Get away from these brutes!”
She struggled more and nearly succeeded in shaking the bodies off of her, but Fluttershy cantered over to her and tried to talk her down, “I’m fine Applejack. These humans have been good to me.”
“Impossible. Humans are evil monsters!”
“Not all humans. This one saved my life.”
Fluttershy pointed up to me, and I felt a bit of pride well up inside. She returned to her friend, “Please Applejack, come with us. We’re going to find our other friends, and then we’re all going home.”
There was a moment of silence, then Applejack finally submitted, “Alright Fluttershy, I’ll come with yYYYYAAAAAOOOOOWWW! What the hay do ya think you’re doin’?”
Applejack tried to kick at someone on her left. It was Alec, who just pulled out a syringe from the pony’s flank. I was shocked at this odd behavior and said, “Dude! What the hell? We just got her trust!”
“I need to get the chip out of her,” he replied, “and I had to numb the spot it’s at.”
Applejack looked thoroughly annoyed. “What chip? What’s goin’ on?”
Alec answered, “The bad people put a chip in you so they can know where you are at all times. They don’t want us taking you. I know this might not seem favorable, but think of it as a sign of good trust.”
“It’s okay Applejack. I had one in me too.” Fluttershy reassured her.
After the mess was over with, Alec directed the rest of the group to fan out and recover some more ponies to keep off any suspicion. Next, he told me to loosely put a leash on Applejack, who needed to be reassured by Fluttershy, who was also leashed by Robbie. The five of us went back to the van and drove away as casually as possible. Applejack elected to sit in the furthest corner away from us. “I still don’t like any of this. And I don’t trust anyone who puts a leash on me.”
Robbie, eager to please, said, “Don’t worry Applejack. I don’t like him either.”
She squinted her eyes at the man and said, “Kissing my flank is only gonna make it easier for me to buck you right in the jaw. Your move partner. I’d suggest that move be with a toothbrush”
Robbie swallowed and looked away sheepishly. Fluttershy sat down next to her friend and started sharing her stories from when they got separated from each other. Apparently, she was a birthday gift for Vincent’s daughter, Annabelle, and lived in the lap of luxury, but then Vincent started getting creepy and made his advances, which made Fluttershy constantly paranoid. Finally, he did it, and continued doing it for a week before she finally got the courage to run away.
Then she shared the story of how she and I met on that rainy night and made our great escape from the authorities. I could feel a lump in my throat growing as she spoke, and I could almost see the hardness melt from Applejack’s face. The orange pony looked at me with awe, and finally showed some calmness with a smile. I think she had finally learned to trust us then.