Apple Bloom had been lying on her back and staring up for what must have been an hour, absentmindedly counting the bits of spackle on the drab popcorn ceiling in her home. She had all the time in the world; the masked pony hadn’t given a specific time or date, only that they would meet in Broncton once the job was done. It was still early and she was fully content to lay here for as long as Scootaloo wanted to sleep.
Besides. Old habits die hard.
Lying there with only the faint sound of her friend’s breathing listen to reminded her of the good old days when the three of them would have sleepovers in their old clubhouse. Being the farm girl she was always the first one to wake up, and always the one to wait for her friends to finally decide to get up. A few vague but pleasant memories returned to her, and she quietly chuckled under her breath.
“Apple Bloom?”
She flinched and looked to the bed. “Sorry, Scoot. Ah wake you?” she said apologetically.
“No,” said Scootaloo softly, “I’ve been awake for a little while; I didn’t want to wake you.”
Apple Bloom rolled her eyes and couldn’t help but laugh. “Might as well get at ‘er, then.”
Scootaloo nodded and tumbled from the bed, and stretched her wings out with a loud pop of her joints and a satisfied growl to accompany it. Not to be outdone, Apple Bloom sat up on her haunches and loudly cracked the joints in her hooves. She received a raised eyebrow and a smirk from her friend and for the first time got a clear look at Scootaloo’s missing eye. It was actually much smaller than she had imagined; it was merely a small rough scar over an eye that seemed to be locked in a permanent wink. She smiled back and stood up to get dressed and ready her weapon.
Three rounds left on that one.
She unloaded the nearly empty string of bullets and loaded her weapon with a fresh string of ten. It was a drawback that had always bothered her about this otherwise ideal pistol; it reloaded quickly but took string clips. The rounds came welded on a thin strip of metal, meaning the weapon could only be reloaded after emptying it completely. Normally she hated to waste ammunition, it was simply too scarce and hard to get in Equestria, but this was an event she wanted a full weapon for.
You’re gonna eat all ten of these, you masked freak, if you don’t have a very good reason for sending me after my best friend.
Apple Bloom was all set. She holstered her weapon and straightened her hat on her head, and stood at the door waiting for her friend. She quietly stared out the window at the still black sky, until she heard hoof steps on the hardwood floor approach. “Ready to settle scores, Scoot?” she said, trying to sound upbeat.
Scootaloo swallowed loudly. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”
“Don’t be scared. Ain’t nothing going to happen to you while Ah’m here.”
“I’m not scared!” said Scootaloo in a huff.
Apple Bloom chuckled; her friend’s scruffy coat and mane made her look as if she had been eaten alive by a diesel engine, yet she still had the exact same attitude she had as a filly. “Before we go, Sugar,” said Apple Bloom, her merriment vanishing as she spoke, “Ah’m not doubting you or nothing, let me make that clear. But, if there’s something you want to tell me about all of this before we go, well, Ah’d be happy if you’d oblige me.”
Scootaloo’s lone eye widened with shock. “I told you already! I didn’t do anything!”
“And Ah believe you. That’s why we’re doing this, Sugar,” she said with a smile to reassure her friend, “This ain’t revenge or desire to harm, or nothing like that. You didn’t do anything and this pony’s desperate to make your acquaintance for wrong reasons. That’s why we’re setting her straight.”
Scootaloo smiled and nodded gently. She took a couple of steps outside and stared skyward, and Apple Bloom followed closely. “Good job, Moonponies,” said Scootaloo sarcastically. “It’s not a new moon until next week.”
“The heck are you talking about, Scoot?” said Apple Bloom. “What the heck is a ‘new moon’?”
Scootaloo turned quickly with a furrowed brow. “You haven’t been back long, have you?” she said softly. The two started on their way down the street, with Apple Bloom leading the duo and Scootaloo falling just a bit behind her. For a beat Scootaloo stopped talking as she searched for an easy way to explain it. “It was really bad for a couple of weeks after Ponyville was… you know. Real chaos. Ponies panicked, rebelled, fled. There was nopony to do the weather, raise the sun or moon, or anything.”
“Ah remember that,” said Apple Bloom sadly as she cut off her friend long enough to point the way down an alley. “Even where Ah was, it was stuck midday for about two weeks.”
“At first the Queen delegated it to the royal guards, and it was a real mess. Pitch black nights, the moon in broad daylight, weird weather, it was a nightmare. Then this group called Environment Equestria showed up and took the whole thing over. I don’t really know what they did or how they did it, but they fixed everything. They do all the weather and raise the sun and moon.”
Apple Bloom trotted swiftly a few steps ahead and opened the creaky door of the building where she and the masked pony agreed to meet. She drew her weapon and swept from left to right; there was nothing other than a few crates, some old canned goods, and a lone mouse that scurried away from her intrusion. There was no sign of the masked pony.
“So what the heck is a ‘new moon?’” said Apple Bloom in a near whisper. She holstered her weapon and gestured for Scootaloo to follow her inside.
“For whatever reason, they made a few changes,” said Scootaloo as she cautiously looked about the warehouse. “Ms. Daydream came up with a few new lunar phases. One of them, a new moon, is where you can’t see it at all. It’s only supposed to happen once a month, but we had it last week.”
Apple Bloom led both of them to an area surrounded by crates, making a point to position them where they were out of sight of the door. She sat, and gestured to Scootaloo to do the same. “Makes sense to me,” she said with heavy sarcasm. “So this ‘Ms. Daydream’… she’s in charge of this, heh, lunacy?”
Scootaloo rolled her eye at the pun and sat against a crate as well. “Mm-hmm. You’d understand if you ever met her. I did once, on a train to Hollow Shades. She just sat down with me and rambled on about a bunch of random stuff. She’s real nice, but weird. I… I think she’s insane.”
Apple Bloom laughed out loud. “We could’ve used her back home,” she said with a skyward wave of her hoof. “Ah can’t remember the last time Ah saw rain.” She chuckled at her own musings and absentmindedly played with her pistol. She unloaded and cleared it, pressed the trigger with a dull ‘click’, and reloaded once more. As she fidgeted she glanced over at her friend, whose scruffy face cocked to the side with complete confusion written all over it. “Guess Ah owe you the rest of my story from last night, right?” she said with a smile. She drew a heavy breath, wondering where to begin and wishing she had some bourbon or a cigarette to go along with the yarn she was about to spin. “That night, when my brother put me on that ferry and sent me away, he told me to get off at its first stop and wait. There were actually quite a few ponies from town on that boat, but they all stayed on; Ah did as my brother said and got off at its first stop: Port Filbert in Eastern Sonhos Vale. Ah waited, and waited… and waited. For four days Ah waited, until an old zebra named Sol came by and invited me to wait at his farm where Ah’d at least have a roof over my head and something to eat. ‘Course, the wait never ended. Applejack and Big McIntosh… just never came.”
“He adopted you,” said Scootaloo sadly.
“More or less. Ah just kind of became part of the family. Ma and Pa didn’t have any kids of their own and they treated me like Ah was theirs,” said Apple Bloom with a warm smile. “Ah was too young to remember my parents, and they sort of became the mother and father Ah never had. He did his best to bring me up in a very different place than here…”
Many years ago
Sol’s Farm, Eastern Sonhos Vale
“…and this is where the water is filtered to become drinkable,” said Sol. “There are four filters here, but we only need to pass the water through the first two to make it fit to drink.” He leaned in to let Apple Bloom, who was sitting on the old zebra’s shoulders, get a closer look at the machine.
“Wow…” said Apple Bloom as she tried to follow the spider’s web of pipes and machinery that seemed to run in every direction. “But why do we suck it up from underground? Can’t we just use ocean water?”
“Believe it or not, it’s easier and cheaper to tap underground reservoirs,” he said with a chuckle. “Faster, too. This here farm supplies the entire town with water; we’d never make enough with the extra work that goes into desalinating and purifying sea water.”
“But what about the rain? You wouldn’t even have to de-sallynate that.”
“Silly filly,” he laughed, “it doesn’t rain here. Why I believe I saw rain only once, Sugar, and I was younger than you when it happened.”
“Who’s in charge of the weather?” said Apple Bloom. “Why don’t they make it rain?”
Laughter from behind answered her question and she turned to find Peppercorn and Sunflower, the two young zebras that lived at the potato farm down the road, leaning on the fence and giggling at her honest query. “That’ll be the day, huh Mr. Solomon?” said Peppercorn with a chuckle. “Let’s just put someone in charge of the weather and make it rain!”
“How ‘bout the griffon from up the way. The one that doesn’t speak English?” laughed Sunflower.
“Pavel?”
“Yeah! He’s nutty enough to fly up into the clouds and try something like that!”
Sol watched the two siblings continue to giggle, and rolled his weathered eyes with a smirk. “That’s exactly how they do it in Equestria where little Apple Bloom is from, kids. They send pegasi up into the clouds and move them as they see fit.”
“You’re pulling our legs!” said Sunflower.
“Am I, Sugar?” he said with a wink to Apple Bloom.
“Nope!” she said proudly. “When my brother and sister come for me, they’ll tell you all about it!”
The two zebras hopped the fence and walked up to the filter mechanism. Peppercorn looked up into the air with eyes that almost seemed to plead. “Why can’t we do that, Mr. Solomon?”
Sol shook his head and crouched down to let Apple Bloom hop off his back. “No one knows. Somehow the Equestrians got it to work. You know, I was friends with a pegasus from the West, back when our countries could still be amiable with each other, and his father spent his entire life studying it. It simply will not work here; weather is now and always will be the domain of nature outside of Equestria.
“Lucky Equestrians,” said Sunflower spitefully.
“Could be worse, kids,” said Sol with pity in his voice, “I read in the paper that Saddle Arabia’s gotten so bad they’re on the brink of collapse. They’ve even sent delegates to Equestria to plead for aide.” He perked up with a proud smile and patted the filter mechanism. “I’m thankful for this. I’ve seen magic in action, kids, and give me good old machinery and diesel and electricity over magic any day. Treat a machine right, and it will never betray you.”
“Be nice if we could do both,” said Peppercorn.
“Yes, it certainly would,” said Sol as he gave the young zebra a knowing smile, “Like a certain someone who I hear’s been working her earth pony magic over at your folk’s farm?”
“Ah’ve been digging spuds!” chirped Apple Bloom happily.
Sol roared with hearty laughter. “You know something? If I didn’t know better, I’d say there were two siblings guilty of tricking someone into doing their chores for them.”
“Oh, no! No, sir no!” sputtered Sunflower, “She was… uh… she volunteered!”
“Honest, Mr. Solomon. She’s never dug spuds before; she wanted to try and we obliged her!”
As the zebras chatted Apple Bloom busied herself with studying the control mechanism in front of her. It was a near incomprehensible mess of valves, crank handles, and buttons all laid out in a manner that made little sense to her. She finally settled on a small gauge labeled ‘Feed Pump’ that was set to ‘Off’. “Can Ah turn it on?” she said as she pointed at the switch.
Sol scooped her back onto his shoulders. “‘Fraid not, Sugar. But you can fire up the Lobe Pump; we need to fill two tanks by the end of the week. And a couple of the engines need oil and coolant changes, if you’re interested in helping.”
Apple Bloom beamed at the old zebra. “Yeah!” she cheered in her excitement.
“But Mr. Solomon!” said Peppercorn, “Can’t Bloomie come and play with us instead? We want to show her the Spud Catcher! Sunny finally got it working!”
“Is that what you’ve named that monstrosity I heard playing hob with the sound barrier in the wee hours yesterday?”
Peppercorn nodded. “Sunny’s going to put a muffler on it eventually.”
“If Pa’ll ever let me use the welder,” added Sunflower.
“What’ll it be back there, Sugar? Learning to change oil or learning to drive?”
“Can Ah do both?” begged Apple Bloom. “Pleeeeeaaaaase?”
“I think we have time to manage both,” said Solomon with a hoof to his chin as he glanced over at the two young zebras. “Perhaps if you can convince your friends to help us change the oil…”
“I can change oil, Mr. Solomon! Real good!” said Sunflower as the group began to walk away.
Present Day
“The WHAT Catcher?” said Scootaloo.
Apple Bloom grinned. “Picture the noisiest and most stinkiest devil on four wheels. Ah think it was a trailer at one point, but Sunny stuck an old diesel engine from a genny on it. We'd spend hours driving that thing around.” She chuckled warmly and took a moment to fondly reminisce about her foalhood friends. “And Sunny spent hours trying to keep that monster running. Ah never really understood diesel engines myself; Ah could maintain them, but all I really understood was you poured diesel in one side and part of it spun. Machines were Sunny’s bread and butter. Her goal was to make the Spud Catcher fly; she’d have done it too, Ah’m sure, if she could have gotten the parts.”
Scootaloo held her hoof out. “Okay, stop. Now I know you’re fibbing.”
“Ah thought the exact same thing the first time Ah heard about airplanes. Then Pa took me to see one of those things take off. Ah almost fainted.” She laughed when she realized an Equestrian would have no clue what an airplane was, and struggled for a minute to try and think of a way to describe it that Scootaloo could imagine. “They’re like… Think of a big machine with wings and a propeller, kind of shaped like a bird. Ah didn’t believe it until Ah saw it either, but they carried two and flew like you wouldn’t believe.”
Her one-eyed friend sputtered with barely contained excitement and almost fell over. “And you flew in one of these things?!”
Apple Bloom laughed once more and held her pistol skyward. “Sugar, you’d need to stick one of these under my tail and fire to make me go up in one of those things.”
Scootaloo’s eye and mouth opened wide in disbelief as the image settled in her mind, and she started laughing uncontrollably. She lost her balance and tried to hang onto her crate with her wing, but failed and fell to her belly. Apple Bloom lost herself in the moment and the two reunited friends laughed together for what felt like forever. Scootaloo pushed to her hooves and dabbed the tears from her eye with her scarf. “You have no clue…” she said amid giggles, “No clue how much I’ve missed you.” Her laughter slowly faded and her happy expression became dour. “…and how much I’ve missed Sweetie Belle.”
“Yeah…” said Apple Bloom in sad agreement. “Got me thinking. After we’ve taken care of business here—”
“—we look for her!” finished Scootaloo.
“You read my mind, Sugar. Even if she ain’t out there anymore, we’ve got to do something while we get reacquainted with each oth—”
—And a can tumbling off a shelf bounced off the floor, breaking the silence with a terribly loud ‘clunk’. Apple Bloom was on her hooves in an instant, pistol drawn, and fired. Before the can could even land a second time it ruptured into a burst of brown liquid that spattered on the wall behind it. “Rat,” she said angrily, breathing loudly and keeping her weapon aimed as she watched the terrified rodent scamper away. She took a deep breath to calm herself down and slumped to the floor once again. “We’ll whale away about it later, Sugar. Our ‘friend’ will be joining us soon.” She took her hat off and made eye contact with her friend who was leaning back like a cat ready to run. “Now you listen to me, Scoot. When she gets here Ah’m gonna say some things. Don’t you believe a word of it, we clear? Ah wanna make sure there ain’t anyone else out there gunning for you. You’ll know when the time is right, and when it is, the two of us turn on that masked freak and teach her a lesson she’ll take with her all the way to the grave. Until then, you’re my prisoner so act like it, okay?”
Scootaloo shuddered quietly. “We… Are we going to kill her?”
“Depends on how good of a reason she had for putting a hit on you, Scoot.” Apple Bloom pointed her pistol at a crate and let it twitch upward with a puff of air from her lips. “Truth be told, Ah’m furious. Her chances aren’t looking too good.”
With that the room fell into an uncomfortable silence and a tense atmosphere fell over Apple Bloom that she could actually feel. Scootaloo’s lone eye flicked around and avoided contact with hers, and her ears had fallen limp on either side of her brightly colored head. Apple Bloom felt a pinch in her stomach; there was nothing but fear written on Scootaloo’s features and it was of her. She slowly sat down and put her hat on her head to break eye-contact.
Ah’m sorry, Scoot, but you’ll have to deal with it for now. Ain’t no reason in the world good enough to get away with trying to bring harm on one of my friends.
She forced herself not to think about anything else than the masked pony. She had all the time in the world to set things right with her friend. Right now there was a pony out there that had it in for Scootaloo, and she had played a part in it. For her friend’s sake, and for her own, the second that scalawag said everything she had to say, she was getting nine brand new air-holes in that threadbare scrap of fabric she had tied around her head and being left to cook in the sun.
The creaky door to the warehouse began to open slowly. Apple Bloom stood on her hooves and gestured to Scootaloo to keep quiet and seated. With her pistol hanging at her side but ready to jump, she faced the direction where her ‘friend’ would be coming from and tried her best to look calm.
Maybe if your reason’s good enough, Ah’ll be kind enough to toss some dirt on you.