With the sugar-sweet idea of revenge fresh in my brain, I made my way to Sweet Apple Acres. People may or may not question my sanity at this point; Applejack is a pony, but dang does the chick have some fight in her.
Now, I knew that this decision I was making could only end badly, but God dang it did I want to get this mare back for my two concussions. Yeah, that whole tree thing mixed with the getting hit by her hoof probably lowered my IQ by a two digit number, maybe that was why I wasn't second guessing myself, but I digress.
I stopped momentarily at the entrance to their orchard to look up at the sign.
'Sweet Apple Acres'
'Y'all come back now, ya hear?'
I'd be lying if I said that vandalism didn't cross my mind at the time, but I didn't want to be too much of a jerk. I only had qualms with two members of the apple family, and frankly one creeps me out to the point of revenge not being viable option for getting him back.
I've found that every one of these ponies has a weird kink for random crap; Flutters for example is a bit of a xenophile. Now, I'm sure that I could add more to her list, like when she wished to carry miniscule mini-me in... Intimate pony places, leading me to believe she has a microphilia thing going on as well, but for the sake of not verbally embarrassing the 'poor' pegasus I won't continue.
But I could. Just for the record.
Anyways, back on track.
I didn't want the red stallion to take my vandalism as a symbolistic delivering of flowers, you can never be too safe around these ponies after all.
I cleared my head of the vandalism idea, brought my gaze back to the path in front of me and began to strut my way into the apple farm. Soon, off in the horizon in the acreage I saw an orange speck standing with its head lowered next to an apple tree. As I began to get closer, I saw that it was bucking the tree behind it with one hind leg half-heartedly, not an apple falling out of place.
Somehow, even as I got closer, my exaggerated walking sequence hadn't caught the pony’s attention yet. I leaned against a tree about ten feet away from her and cleared my throat.
"*Ahem*"
She didn't even flinch.
"*AHEM!*"
Still not even a second glance given in my direction.
"*AHHEEEAAAPPLEJACKEMMM*"
She froze at this. Slowly bringing her head up to look at the source of the dying-parakeet-esque noise. She looked confusedly at me for a moment, with bags under her lifeless eyes. It wasn’t long before her pupils shrunk to pinpricks.
She came to life and backed quickly up against the tree, leaning her back up against it as she fell on her flank attempting to scoot away.
"Y-you stay away from me!"
She said.
To say that I was confused at the time would be an understatement.
"And why in the world would you want me to do that?"
"Your demon marefriend that's why!"
She practically spat at me.
'Marefriend? I don’t have a marefriend, what is she- Oh... Dang Fluttershy, what did you do to her?'
I was a little disappointed by this apparent fear, I was hoping to have some retaliation at least, revenge isn't any fun otherwise.
Attempting to elicit a reaction, I pulled an apple off the tree I was leaning on and took a bite out of it. She didn't even bat an eyelash. I chewed the bit of apple and swallowed before responding.
"For the record, I don’t have a girlfriend, nevertheless a marefriend, but I think I know what you’re getting at. So you're afraid of little Flutters, the kindest pony in Ponyville?"
"Afraid? Afraid!?!" She smiled and let out a hysterical laugh. "I don't know what, but that mare ain't a pony, she's somethin' else entirely."
'Dang it Flutters! Let me have some fun too!'
"So... You don't mind if I do this?" I took another apple off the tree and stuffed it into my pocket, it was a tight fit to say the least.
"Anything. Anything that'll get you off my farm and away from me!"
I scowled at her.
"Now you're just no fun."
I dropped the apple I was eating and kicked it off into the forest of trees. Still not getting even a slight reaction from her.
Rolling my eyes, I walked away from the frightened mare, a plan slowly formulating in my head.
She let out a sigh of relief, eliciting a devious smile from me as I, unbeknownst to her, turned off the path and into the orchard.
Applejack shot her legs out at another apple tree, a resounding thump signalling a firm impact. She turned her head, but to her unsurprised dismay, not an apple was out of place.
Her mind was occupied. Actually, occupied is the wrong word. Her mind was filled with terror, the image of two-
'Cyan pools of pure malice, not one bit of the friend I know and love within them.'
She shook her head to clear the thought away, it wasn't Fluttershy’s fault for lashing out at her.
Her heart could only blame herself for the poor decision of attacking the helpless human, but her mind foolishly blamed a different source of Fluttershy’s righteous anger; Stan.
Anger consumed her being, but she knew that any attempt at attacking or lashing out at the human would only cause troubles on her end. Though that's not to say that the mare hadn't considered it, only if it meant bringing Stan down with her.
She was brought out of her thoughts by a sudden rustling of leaves somewhere nearby. Not catching where the source of the noise came from, she looked about cautiously.
There was nothing but trees within sight, not a single bit of movement met her eyes. She glared suspiciously out at the farm around her before slowly bringing her gaze back to the tree. She let out a sigh and rested her head against the trunk, her hat adding some much needed padding.
“Ah just need to apologize...Yeah, I’ll go to Fluttershy and apologize to her.”
A smile came onto the pony’s features as she pulled her head away from the tree, when suddenly the rustling of leaves came back, this time she could clearly hear it above her. She brought her gaze up to the branches of the apple tree.
“Don’t forget about me.”
A familiar voice said, before something large dropped out of the branches falling straight towards her.
I dropped onto the surprised pony, sending her legs splayed outwards as I lay victoriously on top of her.
“How do you like them apples?”
‘WAY too cheesy.’
I brought my face down to the struggling, yet immobile pony underneath me. Her green eyes were filled with rage.
“Stan you no good varmint! Get off o’ me!”
“No can do sweetheart, you have something that I want.”
I briefly thought of the irony in this situation; me, a human, on top of a sentient equine similarly to how the non-sentient variety were ridden back home. Mentally shrugging, I reached a hand out and grabbed the angry pony’s hat.
She must’ve known what I was doing, because her squirming under me suddenly became out of control.
“STAN! YOU PUT MY HAT BACK ON THIS INSTANT!”
I winced at her sudden increase in volume.
“Come now, do we really need to resort to yelling? You could always ask nicely you know.”
She huffed under me.
“There’s no way and no how I’m going to ask you nicely. Now let me go and give me back my hat, or I swear to Celestia that I’ll buck your apples so hard that your foals will feel it!"
‘Ouch, that was needlessly descriptive.’
“Now that wasn’t very nice at all.” I placed the hat on my head. “I gotta say that I’ve grown quite fond of this ‘western charm’ thing you got going on. I think I’ll take the hat with me.”
Pulling a thick bit of string from my pocket that I had taken from the barn, I reached back and grabbed Applejack’s tail, bringing it up to her mane.
"STAN WHAT ARE YOU-" She suddenly froze as I grabbed her tail. "let that go."
She said dangerously quiet.
"Sorry AJ, I'm kinda busy right now, could you repeat that?"
Funnily enough, that actually wasn't a lie; I was quite preoccupied with using the string to tie her tail to her-
"Let. That. GO!"
"Alright alright."
Letting go, I admired my handiwork and tensed my body, preparing to get the hell out of there.
'5, 4, 3, 2, 1-'
"ZERO!"
I hopped off of Applejack and shot like a rocket down the path leading out of the acreage and into Ponyville.
"SORRY APPLEJACK, I GOTTA RUN!"
I yelled, looking back at the pony comically chasing her tail to attempt to untie the knot. Upon hearing my words, she looked in my direction with a fire in her eyes.
"STAN! AHM' GONNA KILL YA!"
Forgetting her tail entirely, she took off after me at lightning speed.
I brought my gaze back to the road in front of me.
'Let the games begin.'
I'll be honest here, although it may be a cruel thing to do, I'm always one to look for and exploit one's weakness. Thinking/knowing that Applejack had a terrible nights sleep from the bags under her eyes, I figured a chase wouldn't be a bad idea. I had the advantage after all.
I can safely assume that you know what I'm getting at: I was horribly horribly wrong.
Like a cowboy hat wearing dog with its tail between its legs, I raced out of the orchard, my pursuer not ten feet behind me.
"STAN! THERE'S NO USE IN RUNNING! AHM' GONNA CATCH YA!"
Applejack yelled while tearing after me.
"Well I'm doing it anyway!"
I yelled back as I reached the edge of the farm.
Big Macintosh was near the property line of Sweet Apple Acres carrying a bushel of apples back to the barn when the object of his dreams ran by the path in front of him.
Luckily, he had just enough time to drop the bushel and hide behind a nearby tree, albeit peeking his not-so-discreet red and orange head out to watch the creature go by.
He let out a sigh at his shyness and walked out from behind the tree only to see his sister streaking by, running after the human.
Oh you think that by me saying 'streaking by' I meant that she going fast? Well, even in a land in which nudity is an accepted practice, there are... Ways to showcase oneself for the masses. Believe it or not, a pony's lifted tail is actually a rather popular form of 'streaking'. Unfortunately for the red stallion, his vantage point didn't exactly cover anything up.
Big Mac was given a rather detailed look at a not-so-orange part of Applejack as she passed by him. He didn't blush as much as he did turn green.
"STAN! THERE'S NO USE IN RUNNING!"
Applejack yelled as the distance between her and Big Mac increased.
Stan responded, but at that point, they were too far gone for the stallion to hear anything.
The color on Big Mac's face shifted from green with disgust to green with envy at his sister's pursuit. Clearly she wanted the man for herself and had the assertive means to succeed in her quest.
'Ah need to step up mah game... Eeyup.'
Big Mac brought his eyes away from the chase, picked the bushel back up and shifted his gaze onto the path in front of him. He slowly began lumbering his way to the barn to drop off his load of apples.
‘Dang it! Dang it! Dang it! Dang it!’
Applejack was, unsurprisingly, making up some ground in catching me. We were far out of Sweet Apple Acres, pretty well on our way into Ponyville proper; now that is where the real fun would begin.
I’ve been trapped in Equestria for what, nineteen days now? Whatever it is, it’s been a god-awful long time; I mean only got pants yesterday, that means I went nearly three weeks with nearly nothing but a towel around my waist.
I’m getting off topic here; anyways, I’ve been here a while.
A man without television for a ‘while’ will get bored. A bored man sharing a house with a pegasus who spends every waking moment fawning over him will visit other places. A bored man attempting to avoid said pegasus will go to the library and read a book. A bored cynical jerk like myself will read a book named ‘Ponies Gone Wild’. A smart bored cynical jerk like myself will store information from said book for future purposes in embarrassing other ponies.
Rewind to my previous ‘Eureka!’ moment at Sweet Apple Acres and recall what I did to the poor mare prior to making my escape. See what I’m getting at here?
Turns out ponies can actually streak, though it works a little differently than just being nude, they’re always that way after all. Streaking involves lifting one’s tail and exposing their...Goods, so to speak.
I hope that you’re seeing my plan come together: I’ve pretty much tricked Applejack into streaking through Ponyville.
I find this to be fair revenge for two concussions; given they were healed near instantaneously with Fluttershy’s abnormal knowledge of fixing ‘boo-boos’.
"Stan! Come back here ya varmint!"
In all too short of a time, we finally found ourselves sprinting through the Ponyville marketplace; the perfect place to garner a crowd.
"*Gasp* Applejack? Why are you-"
A tan mare with a rose mane said.
"Sweetheart! Close your eyes!"
Off to the side, a yellow mare with an orange mane placed her hoof over a similarly colored foal.
"Oh! Ohhhhh..."
That rather creepy one came from a purple mare with a sky blue mane-do.
'The hell is wrong with that chick?'
Anyways, we sprinted our way through the market, soon coming across Twilight's tree.
Spike had just finished cleaning up a rather large mess of books from one of Twilight's infamous all-night study sessions.
While the unicorn was upstairs sleeping soundly on her bed, she had left a note instructing him to pick up some paper and quills.
To the regular passerby, it would seem to that they weren't running low. In fact, most would think that their current supply held an abundance of supplies, perhaps even a years worth.
These ponies, however, hadn't met Twilight Sparkle.
Spike, having just finished cleanup, walked towards the front door and opened it up, the intent of purchasing supplies for his surrogate sister fresh in his mind.
This thought was quickly dashed away as something else dashed by.
This 'Something else' was blue and tan, quickly followed by something orange, blonde and... Another color the dragon was unfamiliar to seeing on his applebucking friend.
Spike's eyes opened wide as he stood there frozen in the doorway, ever so slowly closing the door as a new idea entered his head.
'Maaaybe I'll just re-shelve the books today...'
"Well this just freaking sucks."
I had managed to expand the gap between me and Applejack significantly.
I had also managed to steer myself into the dead-end of an alleyway.
There was the sound of galloping echoing behind me, but it soon stopped in favor of the sound of something skidding to a halt.
"Well well well Stanny Boy, what do we have here?"
I turned around to see the mare slowly walking towards me with a smile on her face.
"Well I have a hat and you have a bit of string so..."
'A smartass to the very end.'
She snarled at my words and flung her neck to the side, grabbing the string in her mouth and pulling it off her mane and tail. She spat it out on the ground.
I backed up against the wall.
"Aren't you worried about what Fluttershy will do to you?"
She didn't even flinch or slow down.
"It ain't gonna be half of what I'm going to do to you."
She was a foot in front of me now, staring me down.
'Pain in three, two, one-'
*THWACK*
Two minutes later, an angry mare emerged from the alleyway placing a flattened hat on her now ruffled mane. She looked back and forth discreetly before trying to sneak her way out of town.
Four minutes after the mare left, a man stumbled his way out of the alleyway with a silly smile on his face accompanying a black eye and chipped front tooth.
"Tho' worth it."
He whistled out before falling to the ground.