//------------------------------// // Chapter Three: Research Expedition // Story: Friendship is Giant Robots // by 108Echoes //------------------------------// The past few weeks had been uneventful. Applejack had been running all the group’s missions—Twilight had been busy examining data, and Dash had been recovering from her injuries—but the dreamscape was quiet. Nothing unusual to report, which meant that Applejack could take time to relax. She didn’t. Any free time she had, she spent here. The rest of the farmhouse was crowded with rows of makeshift beds, each bearing a sleeping pony, and shelves of machinery, each bearing an array of blinking lights. This room, though, had only two beds in it. These weren’t like the others, either. Those were flimsy things, built quickly, with neither skill nor care. These were true beds. Two full-size beds in a single room was crowded. Twilight had argued against the extravagance of real beds, the wasted space, and though Applejack had finally acceded to putting them in one room, she stood firm otherwise. Her family would sleep on real beds, not splintery plywood or repurposed hospital stretchers. Applejack would not submit her family to that last little indignity. On their beds, Granny Smith and Big Macintosh slept. They were both smiling in their sleep, as all the Blissed did. The machinery beside them ticked on, heedless of Applejack and Apple Bloom’s presences, and the two sleeping members of the Apple Family were just as impassive. Apple Bloom huddled against her big sister, who put a foreleg around her and held her close. “Applejack,” Apple Bloom said, “please promise you won’t leave.” Applejack looked down at her little sister. “O’ course I won’t,” she said. “I’ll stay with you ‘til you’re ready to go. You’ve still got chores to do, after all.” Apple Bloom shivered slightly against her, and Applejack suppressed a shiver of her own. By rights, the farmhouse should have been warm, filled as it was with sleeping bodies and buzzing machinery, but it still felt chilly. “That wasn’t what I meant,” Apple Bloom said. “I wasn’t talking about you going off to do chores on your own.” Applejack looked away and took a deep breath. “Apple Bloom,” she said, “you know that I can’t—what’s that?” The lights on Big Macintosh and Granny Smith’s monitors, formerly a steady green, were now blinking red. As Applejack watched, the blinking got faster, and the machines themselves began to give off a high-pitched whine. “Apple Bloom, get back to Ponyville,” Applejack ordered. “I need Rarity to anchor for me. Find her, then get to the lockdown shelter. Go!” She didn’t react, so Applejack grabbed her and started pushing her to the door. “Apple Bloom, get movin’!” “Wait a moment, sis,” Apple Bloom said, squirming out of Applejack’s grasp. “I don’t think it’s nightmares.” The whine was easing off. Applejack’s muscles started to relax, just a little. “Then what do you reckon it is, causin’ this racket?” Applejack, Apple Bloom, Rarity, Twilight, and Princess Celestia all crowded around the briefing table in the ANIMa crèche lab, formerly Fluttershy’s cottage. Princess Celestia nodded to Twilight. “My dear student will explain the situation to you,” she said, “and what your mission entails.” Twilight flushed. “Thank you, Princess,” she said. She took a deep breath and began. “Applejack, the sensors around Sweet Apple Acres are picking up some strange readings. They don’t appear to be related to an imminent nightmare attack, but they’re definitely unusual, and we should investigate further. “We’re going to be trying something new. Previously, the ANIMa has not shown any patterns in where it enters the dreamscape. Indeed, it seems that all three pilots perceive the ‘same’ location as having markedly different qualities. Like you, Applejack, you perceived our first battle as taking place in the middle of a field full of dead crops.” Twilight paused. “The dreamscape obviously has some correlation to the physical world,” she added, apparently to herself, “so there’s got to be some objective truth to its particulars. Seems we’re not equipped to understand it, though. Not fully. Not yet.” She shook herself. “But back to the subject at hoof. Previously, we’ve relied on the ANIMa to deliver us to wherever we need to be; this time, we’ll attempt to direct it. The sensor activity seems to be restricted to the immediate vicinity of Sweet Apple Acres, so you’ll be looking for the portion of the dreamscape coterminous with the farm.” “Co-what now?” Applejack asked. “Coterminous. Um, in the same place. Though it might not look the same—in fact, I’d say that’s likely. The underlying geography might be similar, but aside from the false Cloudsdale Rainbow Dash reported, we haven’t seen any buildings in the dreamscape. And since we haven’t detected any nightmare activity recently, it’s unlikely that there’s any construction dream-side.” She trailed off for a moment. “Unless... no, never mind. Just go to Sweet Apple Acres. See if you can find anything unusual. “In addition, Pinkie and I have been working on a new sensor suite, which you’ll help to set up. Our previous sensors have had limited range. This new version makes use of scrap we’ve gathered from defeated nightmares, which we think will let the sensors penetrate deeper into the dreamscape, which should in turn allow us to gather more data with improved accuracy. Pinkie and I have set up four sensors around the perimeter of Sweet Apple Acres, and two more within the farm’s limits. “However, the new sensors aren’t working yet. Pinkie Pie seems confident that we’ve achieved penetration into the dreamscape, and I’ll admit she has a certain knack for constructing Bliss-related devices, but the fact is the sensors aren’t active right now, and we need to find out why.” Twilight took a deep breath. “So, in summary: your mission is to enter the dreamscape, find the part of the dreamscape corresponding to Sweet Apple Acres, and watch for any unusual phenomena. You are also assigned to help dream-side setup of the new sensor suite. We do not expect nightmare attacks during this mission, but in the event of an attack you are authorized to destroy any aggressors.” She turned toward Princess Celestia, a hopeful smile on her face. “Did I miss anything?” The Princess smiled and shook her head. “Not that I can think of, my student. You were quite thorough. I couldn’t have done it better myself.” Applejack opened her eyes and stretched. She was in floating in that same damp void that preceded every mission in the ANIMa. She shuddered. “Ain’t natural, not havin’ anything for a pony to stand on,” she muttered. The void took no notice of her complaints. Why do you fight? Who do you fight for? Who will stand by your side? When you are alone, who will come to your aid? Applejack spoke, her voice strong and clear. “I’m fightin’ for Apple Bloom. She’s family, and I’ll do all I can to protect her. Rarity’s out there anchorin’ for me. We might not get along all the time, but I can’t fault her dedication. She’s always willin’ to help a friend.” She paused for a moment, then chuckled. “Aw, heck, I’ll use Rainbow Dash, too. She’s been fair twitchy, what with havin’ to heal up. I’m sure she’d appreciate bein’ able to help out.” Applejack’s ANIMa started to take shape in the depths of the void: an earth pony sculpted from red-brown steel. Muscular, especially around its legs and haunches, but not lacking in grace. This time, its horseshoes were studded with gleaming spikes, apparently Rainbow Dash’s contribution. Mounted to her ANIMa’s sides were two long, thick metal tubes. Gun barrels. Applejack’s great-grandpappy had owned a gun. Being a settler was hard work, occasionally dangerous, and with the Everfree Forest so close it was safest to be prepared. Since Applejack had been born, the gun had never been fired in earnest, but it stayed above the mantel as a testament to their family’s past. Applejack fought for friendship, and she fought for kinship. Previous testing had proven that the ANIMa couldn’t use any of the Blissed, for whatever reason, but Applejack still had one family member left awake in Ponyville. So she called Apple Bloom to fight with her, as her sister and as a representative of the Apple Family. The guns were her contribution. They weren’t fancy or elegant, but they were reliable and powerful. Louder than a mare could believe, with a recoil like getting bucked in the ribs, and they packed one hell of a punch against the nightmares. The pieces of the ANIMa clamped tight around her, interrupting her reminiscence. As the machine hummed to life, Applejack almost felt as though her friends and family were standing next to her. She felt a familiar warmth growing in her chest. Pride for me and mine, she thought, and hope for the future. “Hey, whatever you are,” Applejack said to the emptiness, “would you mind settin’ me down someplace specific? I’m lookin’ for the part of the dreamscape that’s co-ter-mi... that’s in the same place as Sweet Apple Acres. Would you mind helpin’ out?” There was no response; she hadn’t really expected one. As the void faded away, though, and the ANIMa began to shift from “somewhere in-between” to just “somewhere,” Applejack almost felt as if it had listened. There was a sudden, horrible wrenching that made Applejack’s stomach twist and left her dizzy. Wherever she was, it felt... incomplete. The air around her was filled with a cold gray-blue haze, and nothing else. Whatever help the void offered, it apparently didn’t amount to a complete trip. “Hey, Rarity,” Applejack called, “d’you have any idea where I am?” Rarity’s voice was very faint—not the static that came from a disrupted link, just faint, as though she were speaking from very far away. “I’m having trouble hearing you, darling,” she said. “Is there some sort of complication?” “I asked if the ANIMa could just go ahead and bring me straight to the farm. Only it don’t seem to have, uh, worked.” Rarity was quiet for a while. “I’m not... entirely sure what you mean, Applejack. Does there seem to be any immediate danger? Do you need to eject and try again?” Applejack shook her head. “Let’s not go that far just yet.” She looked around. The uniform field of haze wasn’t giving her any clues. If only she had some way to understand it better... “Rarity, could you put Twilight on—huh.” At Twilight’s name, the haze pulsed with light and Applejack felt a tingle run through her ANIMa. “Actually, Rarity, I think I’ve got an idea.” Applejack turned in place, looking for any landmarks. Nothing, still, so she picked a direction at random and spoke to it. “So, uh, whatever you are, it don’t seem like there’s a whole lot here. So, if you don’t mind, I’d like some extra help. Could you send Twilight here? She’s the one with all the brains, and I could use her advice.” The haze flashed again, the light purple this time, and Applejack’s ANIMa shivered. Another presence joined Rarity, Apple Bloom, and Rainbow Dash in the ANIMa: Twilight Sparkle. Twilight’s presence in the ANIMa faded into being as an array of sensors, feeding Applejack a constant stream of information on her surroundings. There was too much information, too fast and too technical for her to understand most of it, but she could pick up enough through intuition and guesswork to make it useful. With the help of the sensors, Applejack could see—or, rather, she could sense—that the fog wasn’t evenly spread. There were thinner patches and thicker, and the fog twisted into a particularly dense knot right over... ...there. Applejack trotted over to the tangle of fog. It was slightly larger than the ANIMa, perhaps the size of the barn at Sweet Apple Acres. Thick tendrils of fog coiled around some sort of coldly-glowing core, hiding it from sight but not from her new sensors. The sensor readouts were confusing, but they didn’t seem to indicate any danger. Applejack took a deep breath, lowered her head, and charged forward into the breach. With an oddly lighthearted popping sound, Applejack burst forward through the cold glow and into... well. Not a brighter place, or a more welcoming one, but more familiar. She recognized those rolling hills: they matched the hills around her home. The proud apple orchards were gone, though, replaced by stunted weeds and dry, yellowish soil. She was standing in front of where the barn should have been. At her back was another fog bank, this of the same dead yellow as the ground, and its clouds twisted in on themselves in dizzying coils. “Well, Rarity,” she said, “it looks like I’m here.” She glanced back at the billows of fog where the barn and farmhouse should have been. “And I think I figured out what was makin’ the sensors act up.” “Oh, that’s wonderful!” Rarity said. “What about the new sensors—do you see any sign of them?” “Six sensors in all, right? At the corners of the farm, at the farmhouse, and in the fields.” Applejack glanced back at the billowing fog. It was thick, opaque, and somehow ominous. “Uh, I’ll have to go lookin’.” She trotted off toward the northeast corner of the farm, not looking back at the yellow cloud. Applejack approached the far corner of Sweet Apple Acres, and saw what she assumed was the first sensor. It was a silvery metal spike, gleaming wetly, planted firmly in the dusty earth. Whereas the rest of the dreamscape was organic, if dead, this object was undeniably artificial. She reached out toward the object with one hoof. When she touched its smooth, slick surface, she felt a slight tingle run up her foreleg. Inside the ANIMa, her fur stood on end with electric charge as the spike opened, unfolded into a flower of razored spines. Blue-white sparks fluttered along the edges of its petals in an oddly comforting display. Applejack stared at the flower until Rarity’s voice interrupted her reverie. “Applejack, the northeast sensor just activated. What did you do?” Applejack gave her head a quick shake to clear it. “What? I’m, uh, I’m not rightly sure,” she said, rubbing the numbness out of her hoof. “Well, whatever you did, it seems to have worked,” Rarity said. “Well done, Applejack.” “Don’t speak so soon, Rarity. I’ve still got five more.” “Of course. Rarity out.” Applejack looked out, beyond the boundaries of Sweet Apple Acres. As far as she could see, more of the same powdery yellow earth. She shook her head. No use in sightseeing; she had a job to do. Three of the other sensors were set at the northwest, southeast, and southwest corners of Sweet Apple Acres, and activated with the same ease as the first, accompanied by Rarity’s short confirmations after each. Applejack had her misgivings, though. By the time she reached the fifth sensor, the one in the fields, her concerns had grown unignorable. Her right foreleg, the leg she had touched each of the sensors with, was growing increasingly numb, and she had to concentrate to avoid stumbling. And after each activation, she had to fight the urge to stare into the crackling sparks. The way they danced across the sensors’ silver petals reminded her of a forest fire she had seen when she was much younger. Up close, the flames had leapt back and forth, their graceful acrobatics almost tempting enough to keep a foal from running away from the blaze. It was beautiful, but it was a beauty best appreciated from a distance. She used her other foreleg to activate the fifth sensor, struggling to avoid falling forward onto her weakened leg. As the sensor unfolded, Rarity came in again. “That’s the second to last, Applejack. You’re almost done.” “I’m glad of that,” Applejack said. “Though I do wish Twilight’d been able to turn ‘em on without me.” “I’m sure she did her best, and you certainly seem to be doing well enough now, dear.” Applejack shifted her weight. She was almost done, no sense in complaining now. “I suppose.” She started off toward the mass of haze where the farmhouse should have been. “Last sensor, comin’ up.” Applejack stood in front of the tangle of yellow clouds. Somewhere in there was the final sensor, and then she could get out of this barren mockery of her home. She suppressed a shiver. She’d been avoiding that connection, she realized. Sweet Apple Acres was supposed to be a place for the green and the growing. This dry, dead land of yellows and browns was... wrong. It was a place that shouldn’t be, that should never have been. That it was so close— What was Twilight’s word? Co—coterminous, that was it. In the same place. That these dead fields should overlap with her farm, with her home, was just wrong. Applejack shook her head. Just one more cruelty the nightmares had inflicted upon them. She took a deep breath, held it, and walked forward into the fog. With each step, the fog seeped into her ANIMa. It had no particular scent, but it tasted sour, and its dryness stung her eyes. She shut her eyes against the fog and concentrated on the information fed to her by Twilight’s sensors. Applejack stumbled through the fog, blind except for Twilight’s aid. It seemed so much larger inside the cloud than it had looked from the outside... She tripped over a rock, or a root, or something else invisible in the cloud, and her weakened leg collapsed underneath her. Her ANIMa was filling up with yellow haze, and Applejack closed her eyes. Just need to catch my breath, she told herself. I’ll be up in just a moment. Before Twilight Sparkle had come to Ponyville, Applejack had never seen the Princess. Granny Smith had had her stories, and she’d shared them whenever she got the opportunity: the honor and responsibility the Princess had bestowed upon them, detailed descriptions of her royal stature. Heh, how great-grandpappy had gotten to kiss the Princess’s hoof, and how great-granny had yelled at him afterwards. Stories and memories, and they were as much a part of Applejack’s heritage as her name, her home, or the apples proudly emblazoned on her haunch. But Applejack herself had never met the Princess, and had never thought she’d have the opportunity. After activating the Elements of Harmony, though, and freeing Princess Luna from the influence of Nightmare Moon—only for a little while, whispered a voice in her head which she tried to ignore—she had finally gotten to meet the Princess. Princess Celestia had asked to talk with those ponies who had helped redeem her sister—not that it did much good, the niggling voice said. The Princess had been... beyond all of Applejack’s expectations. Graceful, wise, kind. Everything that royalty should be. And the Princess, despite her royal duties, had wanted to talk to a simple country pony. The Princess had asked a few questions, but mostly she’d stayed quiet, letting Applejack explain her life and what had led her to that ruined castle. Applejack had stumbled over her words. She’d tried to remember the etiquette lessons from her youth, but she’d never expected that she would need them on the farm, and so the lessons had been mostly forgotten. But the Princess had not laughed at her and her admittedly uncultured ways. Instead the Princess had smiled and spoken, her voice quiet, but filling the halls like the sunlight through the shattered windows. “Applejack, you need not be so delicate. This should be a time of simple, straightforward joys; I am in no mood for ceremony now. Even if I were—from one of those who has returned my sister to me, I would forgive a thousand indiscretions. And you, Applejack, bear the Element of Honesty. You need not, indeed should not, hide your true self from me.” The thread of memory started to slip away from Applejack, but one line remained. “One of those who has returned my sister to me...” Applejack knew little of royal affairs, but she knew about family. And Princess Celestia, it seemed, was fighting for the same thing. Applejack opened her watering eyes. The fog had pulled back, held at bay by a shimmering golden wall. Applejack looked down at herself. Her ANIMa had another new addition: at the base of her throat was a shining golden sunburst. As she watched, the sunburst flashed again, and the fog retreated further. She took a deep breath, finally clear of the choking haze. There, planted in the ground at her hooves, was the final sensor. This one was tarnished by the acrid fog, more grime and gray than the gleam of silver, but Applejack ignored that. She pressed her right hoof against the spike and waited for its activation. The spike began to unfold—was it just her, or was this one slower than the others had been?—so Applejack took her hoof off of it. Her leg was entirely numb. Applejack watched as the spike completed its unfolding, and sputtering sparks started to run down the edges of its tarnished petals. She blinked the haze out of her eyes. With the final sensor on, it seemed that the smog was starting to clear up. She rubbed a hoof across her face. Yes, the smog was clearing away from where she was, moving away— Applejack looked up. The cloud had drifted away from her, high into the sky, to coil instead into thick yellow-brown twists. As Applejack watched, the coils of fog tangled, separated, reformed, finally settled into a set of three birdlike shapes. Nightmares. “Oh, damn it,” Applejack said. Rarity responded quickly. “Applejack, the final sensor’s on, but I’m picking up nightmares on the console. Are you okay?” Applejack tested her numbed hoof. She couldn’t fight with it, but it would support her weight. Probably. If she were careful. “I’m fine, Rarity. Looks like I’ll just have to clean up before we’re done here.” Together the nightmares let out a long, shrill caw, like dying ravens, and then they dove at her. “Sorry, Rarity, can’t talk right now,” Applejack said. “I got some fightin’ to do.” Rarity started to reply, but the link broke into static and cut her off. Applejack fired a salvo of bullets at the descending nightmares, tearing through their smoky wings, turning their unified dive into an undignified tumble. They righted themselves quickly enough, but Applejack charged into the middle of the group, striking out with her good foreleg. She caught one of the nightmares a solid blow in its chest, and the spikes on her horseshoes shone with a sudden prismatic gleam. The nightmare shrieked and dissolved, wafting away like smoke from a campfire. Applejack planted her front hooves and bucked at the second nightmare. Another solid blow, another flash of rainbow light and it too was gone, but Applejack fell to the ground, her numbed leg collapsing under her. The third nightmare shrieked again and slammed into her, its claws and wings scrabbling at her ANIMa, filling Applejack’s ears with its maddened cries. There was no intelligence there, only rage and hunger. She got to her feet, the creature still beating at her armor. The sun emblem around her neck flashed, and the creature squawked and jerked backwards. With her good leg, Applejack brushed it off and crushed it underhoof. Applejack shook her head, her ears still ringing from the nightmare’s screeching. The static in her link faded. “Well, Applejack,” Rarity said, “is it over? Did you win?” Applejack took a deep breath. The fight had been quick and easy, the nightmares hardly any threat at all. She scuffed her hoof in the parched earth. Her final strike had left cracks in the ground. The earth was dry and dead: nothing would grow here, not while the nightmares were still around. “Yes. I think we’re done here, Rarity,” Applejack said. She closed her eyes, and gave a satisfied sigh as she felt the gentle electric tingle calling her back to wakefulness. As she opened her eyes, Apple Bloom scampered over to help her out of the restraints. “Didja do good, sis?” she shouted. Applejack laughed. “O’ course I did, Apple Bloom.” She pulled on the quick-release, shucked off the bonds, took a step towards her sister— and promptly fell over. Apple Bloom cried out and rushed to her side. Applejack’s right foreleg had collapsed beneath her. She took a closer look: under the fur, her skin was traced with bright red patterns, like flowering vines, which led from the base of her hoof almost to her shoulder. It didn’t hurt. In fact, she couldn’t feel her leg at all. “Don’t worry, Apple Bloom, I’m okay,” she said. “Just... just a lil’ shaky. Help me up, please?” Apple Bloom turned sideways. Applejack leaned on her and very carefully got back up, keeping her weight off the numb leg, then let her little sister lead her back to the cottage. Applejack woke up on a cot in the crèche lab. Her leg was still numb, and smeared with medicinal salve, but she was otherwise fine. Twilight was over by the ANIMa consoles, glaring at the one in front of her. At her side sat Princess Celestia, watching calmly. As Applejack stumbled out of the cot, Twilight looked up and smiled. “Hey, Applejack, you’re awake. Feeling okay?” “I’ve been better,” Applejack said. “But I’ve been worse, too. How ‘bout you? The sensors workin’ okay?” Twilight sighed. “I’m honestly not sure. Here, take a look.” Princess Celestia stood up and moved back against the far wall of the cottage, making a space for her. She stepped in and took a look at the console. A simple square screen, an array of buttons and switches, a row of dials. Twilight had outlined a rectangle on the screen with strips of tape, and several blinking blue dots moved back and forth inside that box. “Don’t look like much, Twi,” Applejack said. “Mind tellin’ me what’s strange here?” Twilight gestured at the screen. “That rectangle represents the boundary of Sweet Apple Acres. The sensors cover more than that, but that’s not important right now.” She pointed a hoof at one of the dots. “Here, that one. Watch!” The dot in question moved toward the line of tape. As soon as it reached the tape, it blinked out. On the other side of the rectangle, a new dot appeared. Applejack raised an eyebrow. “Uh, it just moved across. Why's that strange, Twi?” “Because it doesn’t make any sense!” Twilight shouted. “Those dots are nightmares; more of them turned up a little while after you left the dreamscape.” Applejack tensed a little, but Twilight waved a hoof. “That’s not the weird thing. The alarms haven’t reacted; the nightmares aren’t even acting aggressive right now. What’s weird isn’t the nightmares—it’s how they’re moving.” She rubbed her forehead. “Look. When you were in the dreamscape, you could see beyond your immediate location, right?” Applejack nodded. “But it all looked pretty much the same, if you ask me. Just more empty fields and all.” Twilight shrugged and continued. “Well, the dreamscape’s appearance seems somewhat fixed, but it makes sense that you could see out from the farm. Sweet Apple Acres is, after all, part of the rest of the world. You can enter, you can leave. “Here’s the weird thing: these nightmares aren’t leaving. To all appearances, they can’t leave. They’re just wandering around. Maybe that’s a little weird; I’d expect their motion to be regular, organized, but I don’t pretend to understand their thought processes. That’s not important, anyway. “What’s strange is that the nightmares appear to be physically unable to exit Sweet Apple Acres. When they cross the farm’s boundaries, a little within our sensors’ limits, they blink to the other side. That doesn’t work, not unless they’re moving within a closed space, not unless you map the farm onto a toroid or something. And then how are we still able to get readings, if they’re closed off? And look at this!” Twilight fiddled with the console controls for a moment. “Ah, none of them are moving up or down right now. But if they get too high or too low, they blink over to the other side that way, too. So whatever’s going on, the dreamscape version of the farm’s turned into a closed manifold in four dimensions!” Twilight smacked the console with a hoof, then winced. “Ow. That hurt.” Applejack blinked a few times. “Um. Well. That sounds... serious?” She chuckled nervously. “Look, Twi, I’m not quite sure what you’re sayin’, but don’t you think you’ve been working hard lately? Maybe you should take a break.” “I can’t, not right now! I’ve got to—” Princess Celestia had crept back next to them, and now she brushed a hoof over Twilight’s shoulder. “Twilight Sparkle, perhaps your friend is correct. You have been working most diligently; you should have some time to relax.” “But Princess, I don’t want to disappoint y—” The Princess placed her hoof over Twilight’s mouth. “You could never disappoint me, my student. I’ll watch the consoles for you, for a while.” Twilight lowered her head. “Okay, Princess,” she said. Applejack gave a quick bow. “Then with your permission, Your Majesty, I’ll be takin’ Twilight?” “Yes, Applejack. Fluttershy said that you should be gentle with your leg, but gave no further warnings. I believe that you should be safe as long as you take care.” She paused. “Hmm—while you’re out, would you send Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash to me? They should be feeling better by now... I’ll have Rainbow Dash deal with these nightmares. They may not be aggressive now, but there’s no sense in leaving such enemies so near to us.” Applejack bowed again and left the cottage, Twilight following docilely behind.