//------------------------------// // Chapter XXIII- Huh?! // Story: Schoolhouse Shenanigans! // by Dragonborne Fox //------------------------------// "We've been enlisted to help--and I quote from this piece of paper--buck apple trees in order to help the Apple Family make more apple cider for the town. It states the current workers who are not ponies are sick with the flu and there's nobody else to turn to since all other invites were pretty much more or less cursed at or denied in favor of something else." Natz sighed as everyone else--Beholder, minotaur, changeling, gryphon, draconequss, and their offspring included--listened intently. "Pfhah!" Lance declared with a grin, "Pathetically easy!" "For us." Anna scoffed as she crossed her arms, "The kids...ehh, not so much." The Beholder shrugged. He had no clue what bucking trees meant. "What's bucking?" Nick asked. "Where ponies literally kick trees to get apples into baskets. Bucking can also mean a pony kicking another in the face due to a dislike of some kind. In short, it revolves around ponies kicking things." Katie explained, eyes squinted. "With a touch of chaos apple bucking is made stupidly easy," Sighed Discord as he drank chaos-brewed chocolate milk. "Mom!" Alexis cried as she stared out the window, "What's that big clanky thing going down the road?" Natalie groaned and walked up to the window. The thing was red, had clear and gargantuan LED-esque lightbulbs on it, a barrel, an oven-looking thing and was quite literally what was assumed to be a failed Valkyrie prototype on carriage wheels! Piloting the drivers seat were two...identical unicorn stallions? The hay were they doing here...and was that a human with them? A human with a cannon that Natalie could've sworn had the word 'e-Bay' written on it? The thing was moving too quickly to be described properly. The wizard turned her head to the group. "Guys. Farm. Now." Natalie cringed as everyone else nodded and rushed out the door like a stampede. Feet, hooves, tentacles, claws and paws were galloping and carrying their owners right to Sweet Apple Acres with such terrific speed the earth shook as they went. When they got to where the Apple ponies would be serving their cider, their jaws dropped and stayed onto the ground. The unicorn stallions--one with a red mustache and the other without--had red and white striped manes and tails and light tan coats. They both lime-green eyes and one had a slice of apple on his flank and the other the rest of the otherwise-complete apple on his. Standing between them with the infamous e-Bay cannon was none other than Lazarus himself. Behind him was Lancelot the dragoon. Someone had to have cued the sound of a record scratching horrendously, but nobody knew who. "YOU?!" Matt cried in such shock he sounded like a woman. "H-HOW?!" "I am the God of the Freaking Winds with a capital 'F', you pathetic dingbat!" Lazarus shouted accusingly before his gaze went off the swordsman and onto the kitsune. "Isn't she the fox that we've been hitting on in our spare time?" Lancelot asked. Katie responded by flinging a few rotten tomatoes at them. The spray hit the human and God right in their faces. "Yep, it's her." Lancelot commented, eyes visibly squinted behind the dark red obscuring his face. "I'm already married and neither of you nitwits can have me now!" Katie bellowed as she stomped a foot onto the ground. Matt glanced at her. What in Tartarus just happened? He thought. "What in tarnation is going on ou--" Shouted a farm mare's voice before it deadpanned right as Applejack herself appeared next to the party. She shook her head for a few moments before turning to Natalie and asking, "Is that the so-called God of the Winds and his dragoon partner y'all told me about?" Natalie could only nod as her jaw refused to lift itself off the ground. "Well," Shouted the mustachioed stallion, "I've never expected this many guests! Flim, what say you?" "Well," Flim, who was the other pony, replied, "I'd actually have expected Applejack and her family to help her win this cider season. Lazarus here was a good choice to add to our team--but, to be frank," Flim stopped before teleporting right into Matt's face and sticking his muzzle on the swordsman's nose, "I'd never expected his rival to show up!" Matt fell over on his rump. He shot up and stuck his nose in Flim's face, "Let me tell ya! I'd never expected Lazarus and Lancelot to come back fully alive, without injury, and during this situation no less!" Lazarus yawned and so did Lancelot. It was then the dragoon noticed the soldier and ranger. In an instant and quicker than Flim he stood right in front of the husband and wife duo with a suspicious glare focused entirely on Anna for some reason. He grabbed her by the collar of her shirt and yanked her forward in order for the two to lock eyes. His eyes narrowed as he spoke, "There's a reason I hate green-haired people!" "And there's a reason I hate random people looking like they'll kiss my girl!" Lance snarled as he pushed the dragoon away from Anna before dusting her off. Lancelot now focused on the soldier with another glare. "Your WHAT?" "TIME-OUT!" Alexis cried, catching everyone's immediate and undivided attention. "Why are those unicorn stallions here?!" "We're here to make the Sweet Apple Acres into Flim Flam Fields!" Bellowed the mustachioed stallion. "HAH!" Katie snorted, "On what luck? Even with the God of the Winds and his dragoon buddy you're vastly outnumbered! No way in the name of GodCat will you win!" The stallions looked at her and then the rest of the party, and by golly was she right about them being outnumbered. But Lazarus wasn't called the God of the Winds for no flipping reason. And just why was there the God of Chaos and a tentacley...eyeball monster alongside them? Why the misfit gryphon? Why the pink-haired woman? Why the werewolf? Why the minotaur? Why the despicable changeling? What? How? Why?! And then everyone present, Lazarus included, noticed the long line of humans and ponies waiting for cider to be dished out. Both parties then glared at each other as the rest of the Mane Six joined Matt's side. All hissed two words and two words only--"cider contest."