Chapter four
It was soon morning as the sun started to rise from the mountains, the cool morning air crisped threw the breeze.
The ponies sleep was slowly being disturbed by the sound of hooves rustling in the tents.
"GIRLS!" Rarity shouted in a furious voice, waking everypony up even faster than they were.
Everypony came rushing out of their tents with worried looks on their faces, the only pony who didn't come galloping out was Applejack, but Rarity did wake her with her screech.
"Rarity what's wrong- AHHH!" Twilight asked switching the emotions in her voice very quickly from worried to shocked.
"What the hay happened out here?!" Rainbow Dash said in a confused tone, looking at the wall of camping supplies around the camp.
Applebloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle stood side by side with each other blushing heavily.
"Wha- what, what did you do!" Rarity shouted grinding her teeth together. She turned to look at the three fillies, this obviously had them written all over it.
"Heh heh, Cutie Mark Crusader fort defenders...." Scootaloo mumbled putting her ears down preparing for impact.
Rarity started to twitch still grinding her teeth together passing back and forth making all sorts of weird noises. She was about to unleash her wrath on the three fillies for what they had done to her suitcase when Fluttershy stepped in.
"Rarity, it's my fault." She muttered in a quiet voice
"What how in the wide wide world of Equestria is this your fault?" Rarity said in a completely calm and relaxed voice.
Sweetie Belle leaned next to Applebloom and Scootaloo's ear and whispered. "Mood swings much." The three just sat there and tried holding in their giggles as to not bring attention to themselves.
"It's just I should have stopped them, I mean they did help a lot doing this but we could have found another way." Fluttershy explained looking at the ground in shame.
"How could they have possibly helped by doing this?!" Twilight exclaimed with one eye cocked up and her hoof pointing at the pile of supplies and suitcases surrounding the campsite.
"The Creature," Applebloom started.
"It returned," Sweetie added.
"And we were just," Scootaloo also added.
"Protecting Applejack!" The three finished together.
"Wait, wait, hold on a second, what creature and why would you three need to protect Applejack? She can defend herself." Rainbow Dash asked with a confused.
"Twilight, didn't you tell them? Fluttershy asked.
Twilight started to blush as everypony just sat there staring at her.
"Didn't tell us what?" Rainbow Dash exclaimed in a suspicious voice, flying in the air pushing up against Twilights face with her own.
"Well you see I didn't want you to worry about her last night so I, well, left that part out." Twilight started to explain with a nervous chuckle
"Wait so what happened to Applejack?" Pinkie Pie asked sounded nervous for her friend.
"Well she-" Twilight started to speak being cut off by a voice from the tent.
"Can you ponies talk any louder?" Asked Applejack as her head poked out of the tent door. The three mares unaware of what happened Applejack jolted to her right away. "Applejack!" the three shouted at once.
Applejacks eyes grew wide as her friends drew closer, the first one to get to her was Pinkie Pie who just jumped on her.
"Ow!" AJ shouted making Pinkie get off her.
AJ rolled over to stop lying on her leg and that's when her friends saw it, the wound wrapped up with a bandage all that could be heard at first were gasps.
"AJ what happened!" Rainbow shouted flailing her hoof's in the air still flapping her wings.
"It's a long story." Applejack said in a shaken voice.
Applejack started to explain how she fought and wolf and saving her sister and her friends, and how Twilight and Fluttershy came to her aid when she needed it.
Applejack decided to change the subject and asked what happened to them last night.
Applebloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle started to chuckle and looked at Twilight. And with that being asked they explained their story to Applejack, and she got quite a few laughs out of it too.
"Rainbow? If you guys were right next to the campsite how did you not see it when you flew up in the sky?" Applejack asked
Rainbows face turned very red and she started to explain what had happened. "I, uh, got in a fight.... with a bird."
She muttered giving herself a facehoof. The eight ponies just sat there staring at her with wide eyes when finally a pony spoke up.
"A bird, Rainbow Dash?" Rarity asked.
"Yes a bird.." she answered.
After a few minutes of sharing their stories they started to clean up the campsite except Applejack who was resting her leg and Fluttershy who was there aiding her.
An hour had past of cleaning and the campsite looked just like it did when they had arrived. Applejack had felt bad for not helping, she hated not being able to do much so she tried to stand up and do something even if it was just as little as combing a mane. She tried to stand up resulting in an attack by a worried Fluttershy.
"Oh! Applejack, maybe you shouldn't do that." Fluttershy said trying to get her friend to sit back down to no avail. Shockingly though her leg felt better, it still hurt, but she could still stand with relative ease. She quickly explained it to Fluttershy.
"Well, let me remove the bandage and look at it." She said before quickly getting to work. When the bandage was removed she gave a light gasp.
Applejack's leg had healed unusually quick, while the wound was easily visible it was nowhere near as bad as the night before. Taking advantage of Fluttershy's shock Applejack started walking towards Twilight with a limp, just to see if she could help with anything. Fluttershy recovered from her shock and chased her down trying to have her but Applejack was as stubborn as a mule.
"Hey Twi, anythin' I can help ya' with?" the wounded mare asked.
"Applejack, you should be resting." Twillight said giving her friend a glare.
"I know, I know but it just don't feel right seeing y'all do the hard work." Applejack said looking at the ground with her ears low.
"Applejack you will have plenty of time to help when we get back to Ponyville. But for now you're not in the conditions to head back."
Applejack nodded and started to head back to her tent.
"App-le-jack..." Fluttershy said trying to get the words out of her heavy breathing. "You need, to rest." she added collapsing on the ground.
"Yer right Fluttershy.." Applejack replied and continued to the her tent.
After a few minutes Twilight decided if they can't bring AJ to the doctors they would bring the doctors to her, so Rainbow Dash flew to Ponyville as fast as she could to get news to the doctors.
After a few hours of waiting and doing absolutely nothing Rainbow had returned, saying the doctors would be there in a few days.
"UGH! You mean I gotta sit her doing nothing' fer a few days!" Applejack said in an annoyed voice followed by the sound of a puppy whining.
"Uh, Applejack, are you whining?" Pinkie asked raising one hoof.
"Dang cowgirl you need to stop spending time with Winnona so much." Rainbow added.
"Heh heh maybe yer right." Applejack replied with a blush.
The sun started to set as the air got cooler, but now they had plenty of firewood to last them a long while. Applebloom, Scootaloo , and Sweetie Belle didn't seem nervous about the sun going down but the other six were very cautious looking around for anything that could attack.
"Why aren't these three nervous!" Rainbow said pointing at the three young fillies. "Well at least I'm not nervous but still." She added.
"Because the creature isn't coming back here for a long, long time." Sweetie Belle said with a big smile on her face.
"Duh, why do you think we built that giant fort?" Scootaloo added.
"What did a funny looking fort thingy have to do with keeping a creature away?" Pinkie Pie asked..
"We fought it off with sticks!" Applebloom answered.
"And stones." Scootaloo added.
"Ha I knew you three were brave fearless fighters! Just like me." Rainbow Dash said giving each Cruasder a rough pat on the head messing up their manes.
The sun was ducking behind the horizon and the moon was rising. Fluttershy moved Applejack back into the tent just in case the creature did come back. Soon the sun set and night fell upon Equestria. The five mares and three fillies were just sitting around the fire, Rainbow bragging how she would smash the teeth right out of the creature if it came back, and Rarity was talking about a new fashion line.
Applejack was just lying in her tent doing nothing which was boring for a hard worker such as herself. When all of the sudden a gust a wind just came from nowhere blowing the fire out and taking the rain cover of the tent off.
The moon was shining in the tent on Applejack. She started to feel a tingle in her skin and it felt like her teeth were growing out she looked at her leg as the hair started turning gray and growing out longer. "What in tarnation is going on!" she yelled nervously. Nopony could hear her over the sound of friends talking about the fire and Rarity complaining about how chilly it was.
With a mighty howl a creature tore open the tent and ran pass the ponies.
"The creature!" Rainbow shouted flying towards it but lost sight of it as it ran into the forest.
The creature had left them in a hurry, Twilight went to check on Applejack since it was her tent that got torn open. Pinkie Pie leaned over Twilight and shouted. "Applejack is missing!" Everypony gasped. Rainbow had just returned to see her friends with fear on their face and the tent torn apart. "What happened to AJ!" She asked rushing towards the tent looking side to side of her.
"The creature must have taken her!" Rarity suggested "Where is it Rainbow Dash, where is that monster?
"It ran into the forest before I could catch it..." She replied with complete shame on her face. "If I knew it had AJ I wouldn't have let it leave my sight!.
They relit the fire and sat there coming up with a plan. They couldn't just face the creature hoof to claw, Rainbow Dash had to disagree but she got out voted. After an hour and a half of plaining they had a way to catch the creature but first they had to create the crazy contraption to do so.