“Nope, not underneath here either.”
Rainbow Blitz muttered to himself as he checked underneath what seemed to be the millionth apple tree he searched.
“Where could Applejack be?” he thought. “If he’s not here with the trees, where else could he have possibly gone?”
A grown in disgust rang out from his lips as he shot back up, higher into the air to get a better aerial view. His eyes caught an object that he didn’t notice before, which was weird because it stuck out of the only hill like a zit on a teenage girl. It contained a mix of oranges and browns and the colors went together nicely. The brown parts of the building were made to look like sections of barrels. These sections had the occasional hole in them to allow the ponies inside a way to look out and vice-versa. The very top of the building had a random giant carrot balancing almost impossibly.
“Applejack’s house, of course!” Rainbow’s mind exclaimed, “That makes way more sense than being hidden the fields!”
He was about to blast over there when his peripheral vision caught a glace of some…things walking down the same road he was about to go fly over, the one leading up to Applejack’s house. He quickly changed his preplanned route and flew behind the great red barn that the Apples had made. He quietly peered around the edge of the barn to get a better view of these visitors.
One of the visitors was a purple mare that looked to be in a hurry. She kept turning around to encourage the other one, which was a small purple dragon with green bumps on his head. He was carrying a spacious bag of some sorts. This seemed to be very important, due to the reactions the mare gave when the dragon almost let the bag slip through his grasp. Rainbow watched as they hurried past. The mare knocked on the front door to Applejack’s house, and was hurried inside. By whom he did not know because his current position was not close enough.
“That must have been…umm,” Rainbow racked his memory banks to try to remember the name of Dusk Shine’s doppelganger, “Evening Sprinkle? Ah, it doesn’t matter! I probably should find out what they’re doing here. It looks like this rescue mission…has turned into a stealth mission.”
He sneakingly flew over to one the windows on Applejack’s home. As he tried to look inside of it, he saw that there was no way he was going to be able to see into this window. Because all he got instead of a nice picture of a room was the image of himself.
“Sorry handsome,” he told his reflection, “I’m not looking for your good looks right now.”
He flew up a little bit higher and tried his luck with a different window. This time he hit the jackpot. This spot gave him a perfect view of what was going on. What he happened to see in the window was not that he was expecting. If he was expecting to see anyone sprawled out on the guest bed, it would be Applejack. But instead, his eyes gazed upon one injured Bubble Berry. Several of his body parts were wrapped up with some makeshift bandages; however it was clear that the main target of this medicare was his left front leg. He was also completely out, with only the movement of his torso to show that he was alive.
“Bubble!” Rainbow exclaimed, opening the window, “What are you doi…”
Suddenly, Rainbow heard noises coming from right outside the little room that Bubble was currently stationed in. Rainbow quickly ducked his head out of sight, leaving the window wide opened.
“So, how did this end up happening?” A distinctly female voice asked.
“Well, Ah reckon that it all began when this colt came by and asked about a pie,” a thick southern voice replied. “Then we were chased by some random folk who for some reason really wanted the pie. We escaped them, but no without him getting injured.”
Rainbow stuck just the tip of his head over the ledge to get a look inside. The duo that was walking on the path outside had now joined up with an orange mare that wore a stereotypical cowboy hat with a bite taken out of the front. She and the other two mostly had their backs to the window, so Rainbow was certain he could keep a steady view in his secret location and not be caught.
“I do have to say Applejack,” the purple mare told the southern blond, “you did a pretty good job at bandaging him up.”
“Why, that’s mighty fine comin’ from you Twilight,” Applejack responded, “Ah learned how to make some bandages out of cloth just in case anythin’ would happen anyone on the farm.”
Twilight gave a quick nod of understanding before turning to the dragon that was following her.
“Okay Spike,” she laid out her plan to the dragon, “get all the tools laid out. I’m not sure how bad this injury is, so be prepared for anything.”
“Okay!” Spike responded before bringing the bag behind the bed and began to bring out a random assortment of instruments and tools.
“First thing I need to do here is see what I’m dealing with,” Twilight announced out load, really to no one in particular. She stuck her arm out and asked, “Scissors please?”
“On it!” Spike eagerly replied, rushing over and putting the scissors carefully in her outstretched hoof.
“Thank you,” she responded kindly to Spike and began to cut away at the white cloth covering her objective.
It took a few clips, due to the fact that Applejack had tied the cloth very tightly. Twilight then pushed away the remains to see the leg fully exposed. It would take only a blind person to miss the swelling that had started to appear around the middle part of his leg. It also had changed from the fake light blue color to an even darker blue with a hint of grey. After staring at the sight for a little bit, she turned her attention to Applejack.
“Well, I have good news and bad news,” Twilight began. “Good news is that his injury is only a sprain. Bad news is that it is seems to be quite a serious sprain. I should be able to help heal it tremendously with some magic and medicine, but it won’t be perfect.”
She stepped back and her horn began to radiate a purple color.
“What’s his name anyways?” Twilight asked, only paying half attention to what she was saying, “I have not seen him before around town.”
“He told me that his name was Berry Bon,” Applejack replied.
“Really Bubble?” Rainbow Blitz thought, still watching everything go down. “That’s the best you could come up with?”
“You said he was delivering a pie,” Twilight was just trying to make easy small talk and she focused on the patient, “what happened to it?”
“Berry ended up droppin’ it when he went down with his injury,” Applejack explained.
Spike gave a loud disappointed “Awww” that got the mares to laugh. Twilight pulled back her head and relieved her horn of glowing. She had little beads of sweat that now laid on her brow. Spike walked over and carefully tapped them with a towel that had been kept inside the medical bag.
Twilight gave off a quick laugh. “Thank you Spike,” she told her assistant. “Now, would you be so kind as to get the ice pack out of the bag?”
“Right on it!” Spike replied.
He briskly hurried over to the organized rows of medical supplies. He searched around and picked up a light blue sack with a white circular tip on one end. He delicately carried it back over, where Twilight took it from his possession with a nod of gratitude. She placed the ice pack with care over the swollen area. The added coldness to his leg caused Bubble to stir, but not to be wakened.
“That should do it!” Twilight exclaimed happily. “Now all we have to do is to let that sit and watch it do its work.”
Twilight stepped back to admire her work. As she turned to talk to Applejack again, she saw a strange look of curiosity and confusion slowly made its way over her face.
“Umm…Ah ain’t no doctor,” Applejack began to say, “but is the skin supposed to change colors like that?”
“Huh?” Twilight remarked as she slid her head next to Applejack’s to see what she was looking at.
Applejack was indeed right. The area of the skin that had made contact was indeed changing color. It looked neither like the darker blue that it was before, or like the light blue that the rest of his skin color was. No, it started to turn a completely different color no way related to both of them, a bright pink.
“The medical books I have say nothing about this…” Twilight stated with a hint of panic in her voice.
She rushed over to her medical supplies and rabidity levitated a magnifying glass up to her face. She scampered back to Bubble and peered intensely at the bright pink spot on Bubble’s leg.
“What could this be?!” she muttered to herself. “What could this be?! This could be a completely new discovery! I could get my name written down in one of those medical books!”
“Umm, Twilight,” Spike began, “Don’t you think you’re over reac-“
“However,” Twilight continued, completely ignoring her assistant, “We need to first figure out how this happened. Hmm…”
Rainbow Blitz watched the purple mare pace back and forth in front of Bubble. Rainbow put his hooves quietly on the windowsill and quietly leaned forward to try to see what the entire hubbub was about. When Twilight ran over to the medical bag to grab a book, it gave him the perfect view of the pink outbreak on Bubble’s leg.
“Oh wonderful…” Rainbow was starting to join Twilight in her panicking, “the magic has started to disappear, just like it did before with my hair!”
Twilight turned around again and Rainbow quickly ducked his head, but left his hooves in place.
“We need to figure out how this happened,” Twilight repeated to both Applejack and Spike, “Lucky, I have found a checklist in one of my books I brought along to help!”
She turned the piece of paper she was holding to show the others. It contained a bunch of little boxes on the left side of the paper and words following it. Before either of them got to read it, she flipped it back to herself and began to read.
“Number #1: Temperature.”
“It’s a normal sunny day here in Ponyville,” Applejack remarked, “Nothin’ out of the ordinary about that.”
“True,” Twilight replied. “However, let’s close all the doors and windows to see if making the temperature higher changes anything.”
She ran off to the only door in the room and began to close it. Spike and Applejack just looked at each other and shrugged. Spike walked over to the window that Rainbow happened to be stationed at, and slammed it shut.
AHHHHHHHHHH!
Spike paused a moment. He then gave another shrug and walked back to where Applejack and Twilight were standing.
**********************************************************************************
Outside, Rainbow had shoved both front hooves into his armpits and bit down hard on his lip to try to prevent anymore sound from escaping his lips.
“I’m going to get him for that…” he muttered underneath his breath, “even if it’s the last thing I do.”
He glanced down at his hooves to perceive the damage that had been done. Bright red lines had started to form across his orange skin. After muttering a few words that might put some sailors to shame, he peered back into the window. Sadly however, he could not hear anything now.
“Great, now what!” Rainbow angrily thought. “There goes my only way of really figuring out what is happening.”
His position did however allow him to catch one important detail that everyone else inside had seemed to miss. Behind the panicking and ordering Twilight and her annoyed, but still loyal friends, something was happening. One of the eye lids of the sleeping Bubble had very slowly begun to open.
Rainbow started to panic. He waved his arms outside spazily to try to get Bubble’s attention. The one eye that had now completely opened luckily saw Rainbow attempt to get his attention. He started to get up, but Rainbow changed his motions to those of downward motion, trying to get him to stay down. Bubble understood, and immediately lowered himself back into the position he was in before. Rainbow then went ahead and pointed to his eye and then closed it. It took multiple times of him doing this for Bubble’s mind to register what he was supposed to do. When he did however, he ended up closing his eyes in such a way that it looked completely unnatural.
“Oh great...” Rainbow muttered to himself, “I’ve got to get him out of there, and fast, before he does something stupid and gets us all discovered for who we are!”
With no time to lose, Rainbow backed away from the window and dashed off to see if he could get his pal out of this mess, without making it any bigger.
**********************************************************************************
Meanwhile…
Pinkie Pie nonchalantly sipped the cup of punch that she was holding. She stuck it back down on the table that was before her. It was completely covered with other ponies’ assortment of drinks. That was a good thing though, as she knew, because having a party with hardly any guests was no fun.
She paused for a moment to try to listen to the party music that was being played over the sound of all the ponies talking. The song, along with the colorful display of lights that were being shown, set that atmosphere of the party perfectly. That DJ she chose to play was doing a great job, she would have to remember to hire her for her next party.
She swiftly turned and faced forwards, noticing something.
“Hello there!” she exclaimed ecstatically, seemingly speaking to no one. “Sorry for not seeing you there! Isn’t this a great party! It’s for…well you should know that already!”
She gave off a silly little giggle. “I can’t tell you much right now, the author will kill me. He just wanted something to break the action and show that other things are going on right now! Foreshadowing he called it.”
She went and reached down for her cup of punch, but stopped in midair. It seemed like she had forgotten which one was hers. She put on her thinking face and then after a moment of realization, she started to point to each glass, saying a word after each one. After stopping her hoof over one and picking it up, someone called her name.
“Pinkie!” the voice called. “You have more guests!”
“More?” Pinkie’s face it up. “Yippee! Sorry, I have to go. See you again in a later chapter!”
She bounced off as fast as she could; not paying any attention to the cup of punch that she was carrying was now spilling every time she hopped as she made her way through the crowed place.
*********************************************************************************
“Is the most brilliant plan ever ready to go?” Rainbow Blitz asked himself.
He went through the mental checklist one more time, “Amazing and brilliant entrance? Check. Lies about who we are and where we’re from? Check. Epic escape plan? Check. Okay, time for step one of the most brilliant and undercover way of entering a building ever thought of in the history of the world!”
Rainbow went up to the front door and knocked. After about half a minute, the door slowly opened. Standing there on the other side of it was the dragon assistant, Spike. A look of confusion was placed on his face, due to the fact there was a random stranger was there to greet him, who he had never seen before in his life.
“Yes?” he asked.
“Umm,” Rainbow was looking for the right way to word all of this, “I arrived here in this town today…with a friend of mine. Being from a completely different place, so far away that we’ve never ever heard anything about Ponyville until we arrived here today; we got…lost and ended up being separated. I…wanted to know, if by chance, that you’ve met anyone…unusual arrive around here?
Spike thought for a moment, when he heard Twilight say something that Rainbow couldn’t completely hear. He then seemed to have some sort of epiphany.
“Is your friend…a light blue color, have curly yellow hair, and is about…yay tall?” he questioned, having his hand hover above his head, giving a quick hop to show the complete height of the pony in question.
“Exactly!” Rainbow pretended to be excited, which he thought he did a pretty good job at, “Have you seen him? Where is he?”
“Follow me and I’ll show you!” Spike beckoned Rainbow inside and led him into the room that Rainbow was looking into before through the window. As Spike closed the door behind them, Rainbow made a beeline for Bubble. He wanted to make sure that Bubble didn’t “wake up” to greet him and ruin his whole plan. He bent down and whispered the details into his ear.
“Keep pretending to be asleep buddy, I’ll get you out of this mess,” Rainbow explained, “When I call ‘Bubble’ I want you to jump up and get on my back. You got that?”
Bubble gave off a horribly fake snore. Rainbow took that as a “yes”. Rainbow then focused his attention on the others, so he could set up his amazing escape.
“What happened to him?” he asked, although he already knew the answer.
“He ended up arrivin’ over here with a pie,” Applejack explained, “then we were chased by some colts who wanted it for some reason. He ended up fallin’ and hurtin’ himself. Ah helped bring him here.”
“I have been healing his leg,” Twilight jumped into the conversation. She made a hoof gesture at Bubble’s leg.
“However, it started to turn pink. I think it’s some new scientific discovery that will change the world!”
“She’s the only one…” Spike whispered into Rainbow’s ear.
“So, since you’ve healed his leg, can he leave now?” Rainbow questioned.
“NO! Of course he can’t!” Twilight yelled.
“Why?” Rainbow asked dumbly.
“Because, this could be a great event in science history!” she exclaimed excitedly.
“Fine,” Rainbow pretended to be defeated, “but I’ll open the door at the very least. It’s getting a tad warm in here…”
As he began to walk in the direction of the door just a tad bit faster than normal, Applejack stepped in the way of his path.
“Na uh,” she told him, “you’re not goin’ to open it to get some cool air in here. You’re just goin’ run out that door with your pal the first chance you see.”
“No, of course not!” Rainbow used all the skill he had gotten over the years of ditching to try to get him out of this situation, “Why in Equestria would I do that?”
“Well,” Applejack backed off a little bit, surprised by his comments; “you just asked about ten seconds ago if you could leave.”
“But your friend here just told me that I couldn’t leave with him,” Rainbow continued on. “Why would I, a complete stranger, disobey an order that was made by a pony so kind enough to heal a random stranger when he was in a time of need?”
“Ah…” Applejack stammered, not sure what to say to that, “Ah guess that makes sense…”
“Also, one thing I should add,” Rainbow slowly walked around her, keeping eye contact the whole time, “Thank you miss for letting him stay at your place while he is injured. I hope he appreciates that fact as much as I do, and if there is anything I could ever do to pay you back, just let me know.”
“Aww shucks,” redness started to appear in Applejack’s cheeks. “There’s no need for that. Ah...Ah was just doin’ what Ah was told all my life to do if someone evar get injured. Ah was taught that you should-“
She was interrupted by a loud “Bubble!” coming from the other side of her. She whipped her head around to see that indeed Rainbow had been the one to let the word loose and also had achieved his goal of getting the door opened.
Suddenly, the light blue pony that had been “asleep” for this whole time sprang up. His leg was just healed enough for him to take a step on it and dive onto Rainbow’s back. Rainbow collapsed a little, due to the extra weight that had jumped on board. Before anyone could stop him, Rainbow went as fast as he could with the heavy weight now on his back out the door and ran for the front door. Applejack, Spike, and Twilight ran after them, but they were too late. Rainbow had gotten the door open with ease. Before he disappeared, he said one thing to them in celebration of his victory.
“And that’s why I’m not the Element of Honesty!” Rainbow yelled. He turned and flew off not as fast as he would normally, due to not being used to having his normal weight doubled.
Spike busted out laughing at Rainbow’s one liner. Applejack made the move to start running after them, but Twilight stepped in front of her to stop her from going.
“We need to be the bigger ponies here,” Twilight explained, “just because he was mean does not allow us to get revenge on him for it.”
“Fine.” Applejack knew Twilight was right, but she was not happy about it.
“Besides,” Twilight added sadly, “that Berry colt will probably run into something to contaminate his leg, ruining my chance at scientific fame…”
Spike however, had slowly started to stop laughing. He instead was starting to think about something that Rainbow had mentioned before.
“That’s strange…” Spike said.
“What?” Applejack responded in a sour tone. “That he would do ahead and make someone believe him while he is telling nothing but lies?”
“No, not that…” Spike continued to ponder his idea. “He said before that he knew absolutely nothing about Ponyville.”
“Would make sense…” Twilight replied, “I have never seen either of them around here before.”
“Ya,” Spike agreed, “but how in Equestria would he then know about Applejack being the Element of Harmony?”
Twilight was awestricken but what Spike said and just stared at Spike.
“You’re right…” she said after a bit of just staring. “And…of course! That also makes sense now!”
“What makes sense?” Spike asked, completely confused.
“No time to explain,” she dashed back into the bedroom and carefully threw all the medical stuff into the bag and gave it back to Spike.
“Applejack, forget what I said before,” Twilight told her. “We’re going after them.”
A big grin appeared across Applejack’s face. “You don’t have to tell me twice!”
And the three of them were off in pursuit, trying to catch them for the reason of revenge, and whatever reason Twilight had figured out…