//------------------------------//
// Chapter 6 
// Story: From Equestria with Love 
// by Juntao112 
//------------------------------//

Sweet Apple Acres was in full bloom that week, and apples were piled high as far as Thunderball could see. A long picnic table had been laid out in front of the barn, and it was covered in a mouthwatering collection of apple–themed dishes. An old mare and a younger stallion were putting the finishing touches on the table when Applejack and the others arrived.

To Thunderball's surprise, Twilight waved at them as if they were good friends. "Granny Smith, Big Mac, it's good to see you!"

Granny Smith curtsied the best she could despite her old age. "It’s an honor, Your Highness."

Big Mac nodded from behind her. "Eeyup."

"Oh, don't you start too," Twilight groaned, shooting at glance at Thunderball. "I've had about enough of that today."

Granny Smith smiled kindly at Twilight. "Oh, I'm sorry dear. It's just an old habit. Come here, why don't y'all have a seat and have yourselves some pie?"

Thunderball took a seat a respectful distance from the princess, which put him next to Big Mac and, unfortunately, Rainbow Dash. He turned to the workhorse next to him and quickly started a conversation to avoid more probing questions about his past.

"So, you work on the farm?" 

Big Mac regarded him lethargically. "Eeyup."

A quick look around for something to talk about revealed nothing but apples as far as the eye could see. "How's the apple business this season? Looks like you've had a good harvest."

"Eeyup,"

Thunderball wondered if the stallion was pulling his leg, or if Big Mac was really that stoic. "Don't talk much, do you?"

"Eenope."

One of the many things Thunderball had learned from the dreadful Canterlot parties he had attended was that if conversation was going to be a dead end, there was always food. At least the apple pie was good. In fact, it tasted better than anything he had eaten in Canterlot. The apples had just the right mixture of sweetness and tartness, and the crust was soft and perfectly flaky.

"I heard that you were in the army."

Thunderball blinked in surprise when he realized that Big Mac had spoken a complete sentence. "I was. Technically, still am. Just permanently temporarily borrowed by intelligence."

"My pa was in the army. 3rd Equestrian Rangers battalion." The wording implied that Big Mac's father was no longer in the army; the tone implied that his father was no longer living. "I thought about joining when I was a colt, but then I had to take care of the farm."

Thunderball remembered how it felt to have his dream of being a Wonderbolt crushed by the rejection letter, though he could not imagine how the death of a father felt. He had always been distant with his parents. "Do you regret it?"

Big Mac swept his gaze over Sweet Apple Acres and gave a cotent sigh. "Eenope."

The strength and honesty in Big Mac’s voice brought an unexpected smile to Thunderball’s lips. "It's good to have someplace where you belong."

"Eeyup." Big Mac reached out for a mug of cider and raised it in a toast. Thunderball followed suit and discovered that it was hard cider. He nearly spat it out for fear of drinking while on duty, but he did not want to seem rude. As he wrestled with indecision, he noticed that Princess Twilight had already downed two mugs herself, and  did not seem like she would be terribly concerned.

Thunderball raised the mug and opened his mouth. One mug could not possibly hurt.

Two hours later...

"...sho everypony hoofed their spearsh to me at the mess hall, and then, the shargeant walks over and asksh me how many spearsh are under my possession. Now, I had an entire platoon'sh worth of spearsh at that point and no idea how many poniesh were in the platoon, but I sure as hell knew the shargeant knew and that made guessing dangerous. Sho I stood straight up, looked him in the eye, and said 'All of them, shargeant!' Next thing I knew everypony was laughing, and even the shargeant was chuckling as he walked pasht me to get his lunch."

Thunderball smiled drunkenly as his audience howled in laughter at the story. He finished off yet another mug of cider and could not remember for the life of him why he had thought drinking was a bad idea. The only problem it had caused so far was filling his bladder. He politely excused himself from the table and made for the outhouse, but was quickly stopped by Applejack.

"Hey Sugarcube, you sure you want to leave now? The baked Alaska's being served, and you best eat it when it's hot."

Thunderball looked intrigued. "What's an Alashka?"

"I think — hic — it's a kind of topping," Twilight slurred with authority. "I would know — hic — because I am a princess."

Applejack scratched her head. "I always thought it was a kind of ice cream."

"Or a zucchini!" Pinkie added. "I always get those two confused."

Thunderball jumped half a hoof in the air and landed hard on the bench as he realized Pinkie had suddenly appeared next to him. "Pinkie! Where'd you come from?"

She ignored the question by shoving a box into his hooves. "It's later! Here're your cupcakes! That'll be four bits, please."

Thunderball was too bewildered to ask how she had known what he wanted and just handed over the money.

"Hope you enjoy them! Bye everypony!" Pinkie left as suddenly as she came; the only evidence that the encounter had actually happened was the box of cupcakes in Thunderball's hooves and his slightly lighter wallet.

Rainbow Dash eyed them and licked her lips. "What're the cupcakes for?"

Thunderball placed a hoof over the box and held them to his chest possessively. "They're an apology to a pony I ran into today. I knocked her over and forgot her name even though we met lasht year at the Gala."

Rainbow waggled her eyebrows suggestively. "Oh! You’re a regular Cassanova, you sly dog. What’s the poor mare’s name?"

Thunderball shook his head. "All I remember is that she's cream colored and has three candiesh for a cutie mark."

Rainbow tapped the bench thoughtfully. "Huh. You know, that sounds like Bon Bon."

"Can you point her out to me shome time?"

Rainbow gave him a coy smile. "Alright, but don't get your hopes up. She's Lyra's marefriend."

Applejack looked puzzled. "Marefriend? You mean, you can do that?"

"Oh yes," Twilight said brightly. "But that won't — hic — be a problem. As a matter of — hic — fact, Thunderball's going on a date with Goldengrape."

The statement made Applejack more confused than before. "Wait, but isn't Goldengrape a stallion? How would they...?"

Thunderball blanched and facehoofed again. "That was a misunderstanding with Rarity."

Twilight giggled as she lifted an empty mug with her telekinesis and tried to drink from it. "Come on, lighten up, It was funny."

"With all due respect—" Thunderball caught himself mid–sentence and quickly gobbled down a mouthful of delicious baked Alaska. When he looked up from his plate, he saw Twilight staring at him the best she could while swaying in her seat.

"What were you — hic — going to say?"

He suddenly found himself sobering remarkably quickly. "Never mind, Your Highness."

"Come on, out with it." Twilight leaned in so close that he could smell the cider on her breath.

"I'd rather not..."

"Saaaaay it." Twilight shot him a look that carried the full weight of her regal stature despite her bleary eyes.

Thunderball sighed and buried his face in his hooved. "With all due respect, Your Highness...get stuffed."

The entire table broke down into a fit of laughter at Thunderball’s act of lèse–majesté. Thunderball stared straight into the Apple family barn and drained another mug full of cider in horror over what he had just said.

Twilight wiped a stream of tears from her eyes. "See? That wasn't so bad, was it?"

Thunderball grumbled something unintelligible.

Twilight picked up another empty mug, and tried to drink from it, this time while it was upside down. "Really, I know — hic — that you've got to be a professional and everything, but you can speak freely around me. It's not like I'm going to — hic — banish you to the moon or anything. We’re all friends here."

Thunderball quietly set his mug down on the table and got up. "I'll try to remember that, Your Highness. May I be excused? I need to use the outhouse."

Twilight waved him on as she fumbled with her upside down mug. "Of course."

Ten minutes passed. Thunderball had not returned from the bathroom, and the cider was running low. Rainbow Dash decided that she would go search of a new barrel of cider. She walked down into the dimly lit Apple house's basement only to see that someone had beaten her to it. Rainbow stared at Thunderball, who had been sitting alone in the dark nursing a mug full of cider. He was sweating as if he had run for miles, and shivering despite the warmth of the cellar. "Thunderball? I thought you went to the outhouse."

"I did." Gone were the slurs that had marred his drunken speech; Thunderball spoke quietly, and with a steady voice. If Rainbow had not seen him drinking earlier, she would have sworn that he was stone–cold sober. "Then I came here. I wanted...a moment of silence. To honor the memories of those who could not be here."

Rainbow slowly backed up the stairs; this was a sensitive situation that she was not equipped to handle. "I'll come back later."

"You can stay." Thunderball cleared a basket off of a barrel next to him. "It's...good to have somepony else here."

The two sat in silence for a moment before Rainbow asked the inevitable question. "Who are you doing this for?"

"Major Goldeneye. Lieutenant Moonraker. Specialist Icebreaker. And...Skyfall. Specialist Skyfall, too."

"Were they your friends?"

"They were my SAS team. Equestria could not have asked for finer soldiers. Ran a dozen reconnaissance and sabotage operations against the changelings in the Badlands with them. Everything was going fine until we tried to infiltrate one of their primary hives..." Thunderball sighed and looked away. "Never mind. Forget about it. It's highly classified, and I doubt you'd be interested."

Rainbow gently placed a hoof on his shoulder. "Look, just because I'm a loud–mouthed idiot doesn't mean I'm an insensitive ass. If you want to talk about it..."

Thunderball stared straight ahead into a dark corner of the cellar.

"The bugs were waiting for us in the main chamber deep underground, like they knew we were coming. There must have been hundreds of them. Goldeneye ordered an immediate withdrawal, but there was nothing that could stop them from overrunning us like a swarm of cockroaches. Then Icebreaker dashed up towards the ceiling into a group of fliers, and before we could do anything that idiot detonated all of his explosives to collapse the chamber."

Thunderball was quaking in anger as he spoke, and his horseshoes ground into the barrel, digging lines in the aging wood.

"We ran as fast as we could as stalactites rained down around us and nearly got to the entrance before they caught up. Goldeneye went down in a flurry of magic bolts, and I would have too if Skyfall hadn't shoved me out of the way and taken them. He collapsed like a sack of bricks, and I had to drag him out. Moonraker was manning a cloud outside, and when he saw that we were being chased, he shot lightning bolts to give us some cover fire. The bugs focused fire on the cloud; I saw his body fall out as the cloud disintegrated from the sheer volume of magic they pumped into it. I had Skyfall over my back and flew as fast as I could; when I looked back I saw that the hive was far in the distance, but Skyfall, he...he was..."

He trailed off and buried his face in his hooves, breathing heavily in a desperate attempt to regain control of his emotions. Rainbow quickly shut the cellar doors and barred them from the inside to prevent anyone from walking in on them.

Thunderball’s next breath stuttered in a shaky rattle. "I...I know you have friends you need to be with...but can you stay? For a moment, at least."

Rainbow put her wing around Thunderball and let him rest his head on her shoulder. "I can't understand what you've gone through — not really — but I can imagine how awful it would be. I'll be here if you need somepony. I promise."

There was silence for several moments before tears rolled down her feathers like raindrops in a thunderstorm.