//------------------------------// // Improper Introductions // Story: Arms & Hooves // by Gberg87 //------------------------------// Since she spotted the raging smoke above Everfree forest, Applejack and Big Macintosh were busy bucking all the trees they can. Applebloom was also with them, helping her siblings transport the apples to storage. They were working tirelessly since dawn and have already bucked all the trees close to the Everfree forest. "Alright Big Mac, few more n' we'll start cutting ... Wait where are the axes at?" Asked Applejack panting. "Uhh, umm. Ah think Ah forgot ‘em AJ." Applejack facehoofed and said: "Well somepony go 'n get ‘em." "Apple Bloom, bring the axes." Ordered Big Mac. "Aww com’on, you had me running around all morning carrying apples ... Ain't that enough? Now I have to go way back to the barn? Big Mac, Ah reckon you know the fire won't ever reach here." The filly stomped the dirt assertively. "Yep, that's true Apple Bloom, but you know how stubborn AJ can be sometimes ... Ah ain't gonna let her do this by herself though, so be a good filly and help her." Big Mac asked again, with a gentler tone. Apple Bloom sighed and ran towards the barn. "Ah ain't stubborn Big Mac. We needed to do this sooner or later; can't have trees close to the Everfree forest." Replied Applejack. Within few minutes the little filly came back with two axes in her mouth. She spat them out and said:"There, can Ah go now?" "Yes, go have fun with your Crusader friends. We'll handle the rest." Said Applejack. "Ah, finally! Thanks sis." Apple Bloom replied with a sudden change of mood. She immediately ran to her clubhouse. Meanwhile Applejack sighed and looked at the task at hand; To isolate the forest from the orchard she had to cut all the trees between them, of course after harvesting their apples. This is going to take serious muscle, and her legs are already aching from the constant bucking. Applejack took a deep breath of determination and said: "Alright Big Mac, let's do it." "Eeyup." They both started chopping. Lyra couldn't believe what she was hearing. "Do you mean humans?" Her pupils dilated. "Yes, those, whatever their name is ... Twilight said there were nine of them ... I am really scared." Comet Tail replied. "Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes YES YES!" Lyra ran skipping to her home. Finally she has proof, and now she can rub it all over Bon Bon's face. "Bon Bon! I knew it, I KNEW IT! I am right and you are wrong, they are finally here!" Lyra took a second look and noticed her friend hiding under the table, she was visibly shaking. "Shhh, don't say a word." She whispered. "It's here." Lyra could hear some noise coming from the kitchen, her face flared with anticipation, "Ohh, this is the best morning ever!" "No don't go there you stupid unicorn, you might get yourself hurt!" The words washed over her, she didn't even slow down. "Lyra stop." "I said Stop!" Bon Bon tried her best to sound loud and quiet at the same time. But Lyra was already in the kitchen, and she saw it, a human... It was tall, coatless and wore fancy red clothes and a casserole on it's head. It had fingers, just like a monkey's, but his looked longer and more flexible, it looked like it was using them to find something. "There's only candy here" The human groaned. "Hello there, Human." Lyra blushed. "My name is Ly-" "LYRAAAAAAAA!" Bon Bon screamed. The unicorn quickly shut the door behind her. "Please ignore her, she is just paranoid." "Ahaahahah. There are unicorns now." He laughed. "Yes, I am a unicorn, my name is Lyra Heartstrings ... Pleasure to meet you." Lyra smiled. "Stop looking at my hat Unicorn! By the way do you have any food around here? I am starving." Lyra completely ignored the impoliteness of the human and the casserole on It’s head, maybe it's a human custom to skip introduction. She replied: "Yes of course. We have rose candy, candy canes, candy bread, some slices of candy rainbow cake and candy ... A lot of candy." "Do you have any bacon?" "I’m sorry I don't know what that means." "Beef?" She answered with the same confused look. "Any kind of Meat??." The human was getting frustrated. "Meat?" Lyra was taken aback "Uh...um s-sorry, we don't eat meat in Equestria." "Vegetarian hippies." He spat "Give me something to eat that isn't candy or I will eat you unicorn!" "Uh... Am so sorry, I can cook something up for you real kick. Just wait." Lyra replied nervously. She was worried more about giving a bad impression than getting eaten by this human. The magnitude of this encounter made her blind to the danger she is in, just as much to the new hole on the kitchen ceiling which soldier originally fell from. Lyra wasn't a great cook, Bon Bon is usually the one who cooks for them both. But she had to try, she knew only one recipe that didn't involve candy; a simple and fast soup her grandmother used to make for her. She gathered the available ingredients and started preparing it as she asked: "So what's your name?" "I am Jane Doe, my comrades call me Soldier." "Soldier?? Are you here to invade us?" "Yes but my hippie comrades don't want to, something about having a peaceful stay ... Now I am stuck in this world with no objective." "Ah that's good to hear." Soldier groaned. "Well if you have no objective, why have you come here?" "To escape from an army of maggot robot replicas of myself and my comrades that run on money." Lyra forced a laugh: "I guess you don't want to tell me... It's fine I won't press you." "Are you calling me A LIAR?" Soldier suddenly raised his voice. "No, n-no, a-absolutely not." The unicorn trembled. "Hah, you ponies are like freshly hatched batch of maggots, easy to scare…” He lowered his voice into a whisper “And extremely delicious.” "That's not funny, and you are lucky, Soldier. If you had this conversation with any other pony, you'd be locked in Canterlot's royal dungeon and getting poked by crazy academy wizards." "Are you threatening me you horned maggot nest?" Soldier raised his voice again. "No, no ... I want to prevent that from happening. I can teach you how to interact with ponies." "Huh teach me... Why the hell are you helping me anyways. I just tried to steal food from your house, last time I tried that the owners called in the troops and i could hear planes passing by and feet landing on the roof, so I quickly hid the fridge then hid inside the fridge and had to listen to human shaped maggots ramble in their nagging brainwashing freedom-hating Nazi language for the next two weeks, until a drunk Russian opened the fridge and stole my ammo." "What?" Lyra got confused. "I said why the hell are you helping me?" "Well, I happen to have an interest in your species, I've spent half of my life searching for any tiny crumb of information about humans. And now to meet one myself, this is a dream come true." Lyra smiled. "Oh really? What do you know?" "Well I know that you have five fingers on each limb, your bottoms are huge compared to other species and males have two tiny udders even though they are male. And I know that you are very intelligent and are capable of huge technological achievements because you can't use magic." She answered with pride. "By the way can I have that casserole back?" "What? This?" Soldier pointed to the casserole on his head. "Yes." "It's a hat not a casserole. How dare you belittle my hat!" "Sorry, but I need it to cook you the meal." "Oh so this is why you've been helping me all this time ... To scam me out of my precious hat. I’ve already seen you eying it the moment we met. You will never have it you sneaky Unimaggot." Soldier defensively grabbed his hat. Lyra was surprised by the logic employed by this being, never in her obsessive thinking did she imagine humans as irrational creatures:"B-but, you asked me to cook, yet you wear the Casserole that I need to cook with. Just give it to me and stop joking around." "I swear to freedom, you will not have this hat not over my maggot infested dead body." "I was so wrong about human intelligence... For Pete's sake that is a casserole. If you keep it you'll have no food." "You went too far Unicorn, I really hope your rainbow two celled brain did not just call me stupid because… YOU ARE THE STUPID ONE FOR HELPING OUT A PREDATOR , YOU WILL NOT HAVE MY HAT AND I DON'T NEED YOUR STUPID UNNURTURING LILYPAD SOUP TO GO WITH YOUR DELICIOUS HORSE MEAT THAT I WAS GOING TO COOK MYSELF OVER STOVE ANYWAYS. AND YOU WILL NOT BE THE FIRST PONY I EAT. NOW DON’T YOU EVER LOOK AT MY HAT AND DON’T YOU EVEN THINK ABOUT LOOKING AT IT.” The sudden outburst of Soldier found Lyra crying and shaking in fear. "W-why? Why are you like this? I-I really expected more of you ... I-I can't do this anymore ... I'll have to drag you to Celestia myself. I am sorry." She tried her best to sound intimidating. Soldier was confused, he didn't expect this reaction, usually when he threatens his teammates they just throw back more empty threats, usually followed by a bottle of scrumpy, or a jar of piss. And when he threatened citizens or the cockroaches that sometimes invade his sleeping box during the night ,they usually run away to the nearest police station .. But he never expected a mixed reaction of tears and confrontation. He could see her horn glow and next thing he knew his hat was covering his face. "Now wait a second I didn't mean t-." He removed the hat only to see a pair of back hooves storming towards him. "AGHHHH." Soldier fell to the ground. Lyra backed away and bashed his head with the casserole using her telekinesis. "Ow.. Ow... Ow .. Please ... stop don't make me ... fight you." "I tried to help you, I tried to be nice." Lyra said between sobs, still attacking. "Please stop ... I never wanted to OW-eat you. I swear." “You only have yourself to blame you ungrateful HUMAGGOT.” The casserole mercilessly hammered Soldier’s head yet it did not render him unconscious, so she hit even harder. “MAKE IT STOOOP.” Lyra gasped: The door to the kitchen suddenly burst open with a telekinetic push. "Lyra stop this, don't hurt him." Twilight Intervened. With her were two humans along with Bon Bon. A masked human quickly made his way towards her, meanwhile Twilight rushed towards Soldier. "Are you alright Mademoiselle? Did he do anything to hurt you?" "He-he was going to cook me alive." Lyra answered, crying. The masked human gave a painfully scolding look to soldier. “It was only words you fragile frenchie.” "Soldier, you incompetent fool. That'z the only one thing I told you not to do and you do it anyways." “Your head is bleeding.” Twilight said as she magically bandaged the wounds. “Tell me what happened.” "I didn't want to eat her, you know us humans don't eat ponies right? She’s trying to steal my hat ... I had to scare her out of it. See; I didn't resist when she attacked me." "Ohh poor thing, I am really sorry for this misunderstanding, I promise I will not allow this to happen again.” "Oh man." Scout chuckled from the background. "Classic soldier." "I told you you shouldn't go there Lyra, you are reckless. He is lucky I brought Twi." "Oh so I am to blame now, his 'hat' is that casserole over there, your casserole Bon Bon. He put it on his head and proclaimed it as his hat! And he was also trying to steal our food." Lyra explained. “I am really hungry I swear.” "What?" Twilight said. "Why would you use a casserole as a hat." Scout leaned and whispered to Twilight: "This is the mentally deranged one Spy talked about." "Ohhhh." She replied. "My dear Lyra, that is just Soldier's way of speaking, I beg of you to find it in your heart to forgive him and to forget all the mean words he said. Please stop crying now." Spy was on his knees, petting Lyra's mane gently and looking gently into her eyes. 'I am not crying because I am scared’ She though. 'But now that you are here, there is no reason for me to cry anymore.' Lyra smiled back at Spy and nodded, the tears had stopped rolling down her cheeks. Spy turned his attention to Soldier and ordered. "Give the casserole back, soldier... Now." "I will never give away my hat." "Stop lying soldier, your hat got blown away by the Tornado and you just stole this poor pony's casserole to replace it." "Dammit! Alright Alright. But you owe me a hat for this." Soldier remorsefully removed his hat and handed it to Lyra. "That can be arranged ... Now apologize!" "You are taking this too far Spy." Said the Soldier. All eyes were locked suddenly locked on him, waiting for those few words, with a grunt he gave up:"Ugh fine... I am sorry Lyra, I never meant to eat you." "I forgive you Soldier. I now understand you might not be the best shining example of your species, and I was wrong to misjudge too." “OH MY GOD, MY KITCHEN, IT’S A MESS. MY ROOF! MY TABLE! MY PLATES!” Bon Bon’s cries cut right through the apologetic air. "Of all times you could have freaked out, why was it this particular touchy moment." Lyra sighed. “Don’t worry ma’am, Soldier will fix it for you some other day.” Scout reassured, suppressing his laugh. “Why you Scou-.” “Won’t you Soldier?” Spy pressed. With a grunt he replied. “Y-yes of course.” "Good, now that that has been settled, let's continue our search." Twilight said. Earlier: "AHHH NO, AM FALLING AHHHHHHHH." Sniper could see a massive orchard approach from below, he twisted his body in the air and deliberately fell on a tree; Something Soldier calls air strafing.He grunted in pain as some of the branches cut through his flesh. Nonetheless he was lucky his bones didn’t turn into powdered gravy and hoped his teammates would be as lucky as he was. Sniper peaked his head to check the perimeter, a hunter must always study his environment before making a move; there were two ponies, a huge red one, and a smaller orange one. 'Bloody hell that’s one big horse. Agh, and it’s heading my way.' He noticed that the ponies were actually chopping trees. 'Crikey!' Sniper hid inside the tree awaiting a chance to get off without being seen, but the two ponies didn’t seem intend to change their course, and soon it was his tree’s turn to fall. A few chops and it was down before he knew it. "AHHHHH." With a thud, Sniper crashed hard on his his head, rendered unconscious. Few minutes later he opened his eyes to see the two ponies inspecting him. "Just look at it Big Mac. It's tall 'n ugly. And look at that big knife. It surely is up to no good." "Eeyup." "W-W- Wha? bloody hell, my head." "Ahh, it's awake." The orange pony fell to a defensive state and raised her axe. Sniper crawled backwards and said in an akward manner, "Hello there mates, quite the sunny morning eh? No need to raise your axe like on such a wicked morning.” "It can talk?" The pony was surprised. "Yes Yes. I am a human, my name is Mr. Mundy, but you can call me Sniper, mate. I mean no harm, please lower your axe." The pony replied by raising her axe even higher, "If you mean no harm, what in tarnation are you doing on mah property carrying that huge bloodied knife." She spoke with a more intimidating tone. "Whoa there shiela, I didn’t mean to trespass. A bloody tornado threw me here, I swear. And the knife is just for self defense.” The orange pony didn’t seem convinced: “A tornado huh? The one thing Ah don’t appreciate more than monkey shaped aliens are monkey shaped alien liars. And from the look on your face, Ah bet you are responsible for that fire too! Big Mac, let's tie it up and show it to Twi. Maybe she knows what it is." “Eeyup.” "I already told you am bloody human. And you are not tying me up. I think we can talk this through." Nothing seemed to work with these creatures, Sniper was crawling backwards very slowly, in order to create an opening. But The Red pony quickly caught on. “Aj!” “You ain’t going nowhere mister." She attempted a quick and light hoof to the face. Sniper quickly dodged but got his nose bashed. “Aww… Now that just bloody does it.” Sniper quickly recovered and though of a more intimidating approach: “Aghh, well I tried to be nice but I only got blood and mud over my nose. Do you even bloody know who you’re dealing with here, sheila? I’ve wrestled CROCODILES twice your size, I’ve slayed bears and bloody jaguars BLIND-FUCKING-FOLDED. I hunted down the most dangerous animals and used their skin and teeth to make BLOODY HATS. And what the bloodyhell are you two even? You’re only a couple of impudent dirty mules who happen to have two extra brain cells that make you talk just like those bloody prancing show ponies out of a little girl’s show. You don’t have bloody shit on me, mate. I am king of fucking Australia. I have conquered fucking NATURE. And now it’s time I conquer YOU." For two seconds, the two ponies stood there dumbfounded. Until the orange one broke the silence “Did you just say the F-word?” she wore a very angry frown, a frown of a bull preparing to charge. “You sir, have a very important, harsh and painful lesson about manners to learn.” "Time to run." Within less than a second Sniper picked up his knife and was already running the other direction. "Get back here you Coward! You have a lot of talk to live up to." The mare yelled. He could hear galloping from behind. "I'll have to deny sheila." Sniper was a bushman, he did conquered nature, bent it to his will, he did kill animals three times his size using only his knife, but that was all thanks to a few dozes of Australium, something he didn't have at the moment. "Get back here at once." "No, go fuck yerself." He turned for a bit and saw the two ponies carrying axes following him 'Bloody hell what am I thinking? I can't outran two horses... Wait, what if I...' "Jarate!" *Splash* Both horses got covered in sticky cold piss. 'This should help to slow em down, ahaha.' "You vermin! How dare ya’!?" The mare yelled from behind. Sniper kept running as fast as he could. Within few minutes he outran his chasers and the trees gave way to a red barn that was connected to a road. He followed the dirt path hoping he would find an exit to this crazy place. He could see a gate with a sign that read 'Sweet Apple Acres'. As he approached the gate he was met with a purple Unicorn and three of his teammates. "Hey look, it's Sniper! He doesn't look very well." Soldier said. Sniper was injured and visibly shaking. "Phew, am I glad to see ya mates. Y-you still have your guns right?" Sniper said, panting. "Only my pistol. But we won't be needing it." Scout replied. "Oh my, what happened? Please relax fellow human friend, I am here to resolve any misunderstan-" "THERE HE IS GET HIM." Applejack yelled galloping alongside her brother. She bit the handle of the axe from her back and readied herself to attack sniper. "Good luck resolving that Sheila. I’m outta here." "Don't worry Sniper, this unicorn lady has it all handled. Just watch." Comforted the French gentleman. Twilight took a deep breath to yell at her best effort "Applejack please stop, there has been a huge misunderstan-" "I DON’T CARE TWI. AH’M GOIN’ TO TEACH THAT THING SOME MANNERS." Applejack yelled as she charged the group, somehow this pony had a skill of yelling galloping and holding objects in her mouth all at the same time. "Just stop now Applejack! Don’t make me force you to." She yelled again. Big Mac was smart enough to stop while his sister got engulfed in a purple bubble of magic. She was hovering above ground unable to advance, but still galloping nonetheless. "Bloody hell." "Whoah. That's awesome." "Calm down Applejack, we can talk this through? Please drop the axe ." "No, he has to pay for what he did." "I can hold you like this all day Applejack, unless you agree to calm down." One more moment of stubbornness and Applejack finally dropped the axe. "Thank you." Twilight said as she let go of her telekinetic grip. "Now can we know what happened exactly?" "All I tried was be polite and introduce myself, but that orange one broke my nose." Complained Sniper. "Calling me a Mule, then telling me to go Buck mah’self, then throwing piss on me and mah brother. How’d you call that polite?" Said Applejack. "I only said that after you broke my nose ye dodgy nag. And I threw piss so you wouldn't chop my head off." "Maybe Ah'd do that if Ah was a barbaric hairless monkey like you. But I'd never cut off any head." She raised her tone. "Stop, both of you. You’re only making it worse! If each of you get to tell their story, we will surely find a common ground." Explained Twilight. "Well then, I agree with miss magical unicorn here.You start, and you better not lie." "How dare you call me a lia-" "Enough, please. Applejack, just tell us what happened." "No, Ah'm going to need answers first. Just what in the hey are these things and why did you bring three more of 'em?" She asked while waving her hoof at Spy, Scout and Soldier. Twilight took a deep breath: “Alright, fair enough … Here goes: …” The early morning work sapped Apple Bloom out of her strength, but the excitement of spending this entire weekend at the Cutie Mark Crusader's club house fueled her to run faster. "Hey Apple Bloom, what took you so long?" Scootaloo asked smiling. "Had to do some chores ‘cause of the fire." She replied. "Oh, okay. Anyways you are not gonna believe this. We found a new pet. It's like a whole new species I've never seen before. And it can make us CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS PET TRAINERS." "Really? Where is it?" Apple Bloom's eyes widened with excitement. "It's inside the clubhouse. Come on let's get in." The two fillies climbed the ladder and entered the tree house. Sweetie Belle was inside singing a soothing song. And In the corner of the room was a big creature. It was curled up and visibly shaking. Its feet, hands and head were black and the rest of it's body was mostly red. It also wore a hat. "Ewww." "There you are Apple Bloom, like our new pet?" Asked Sweetie Belle. "It's ... ugly, where did you even find it?" "Ye it is. But I’ve never seen anything like it, it could be a super rare important creature that escaped from the Canterlot academy’s super secret biomagical development lab." Scootaloo replied with excitement. “Wow, Ah didn’t know Canterlot had a biomagical development lab.” “That’s because you shouldn’t.” Replied Scootaloo with a spooky tone. "I found it inside the clubhouse. Right in the same corner it is in right now." "Ah see..." "It's so scared and cold. We must help it somehow. Singing didn't work, any other ideas?" Sweetie Belle asked. "Hmmm, maybe it's just hungry." Suggested Apple Bloom. "Yeah, let's feed it!" Scootaloo took a bag of oatmeal from the chest nearby and put it on a plate then presented it to the creature... It didn't respond. "Girls, it doesn't have any holes to eat from." Apple Bloom just noticed. “Or any holes for that matter.” "Don’t be ridiculous Apple Bloom. We’ll just have to look for them." Scootaloo replied quickly. “CUTIE MARK CRUSADER ZOOTONOMISTS.” The three fillies yelled as they flipped the giant around and up looking for any sort of hole. The inspection seemed to make the creature even more freaked out. "Hmm, nothing ... Only those tiny holes where it's mouth supposed to be." Sweetie Belle said. "Oh I know, It must be a marine creature ... With a mouth like that I bet it feeds on tiny crumbs in the water. Maybe it’s scared because it's out of the water." "Good point Scootaloo!” The fillies soon found themselves dragging the creature to a nearby pond. Then wrapped one of it’s legs with a rope. “Alright girls, on three we throw it into the pond. If we see bubbles, we pull it back immediately. Okay?” They nodded. “One, two, three!” “Be free friend of nature. Swim in the pond of your ancestors!” Proclaimed Scootaloo as she let go of it. As soon as it touched the water, the creature went full berserk. It screamed and splashed all around as if it was drowning in a pool of acid. “Or not.” “Pull it back, pull it back!” Yelled Sweetie Belle. They made a great effort to pull it back up only to be thanked by more screaming and a goose chase. “Oh no, we upset it so much. It’s running away.” Said Sweetie Belle doing her best to catch on. “Ah think it’s going back to the Clubhouse.” Replied Apple Bloom, also running. Minutes later the three fillies found themselves back to square one; their new pet curled up and shaking in the same corner, and the three of them thinking about a solution. “So, it doesn’t have a mouth, it isn’t a marine creature. At least we know this.” Pointed out the young unicorn. “Then what the heck is it?” Asked Apple Bloom. The last question resonated with Scootaloo, it gave her a moment of revelation. Her eyes widened as she said “I got! It all makes sense now, I know what this thing is.” “Come on, spill it out.” “It hates water, doesn’t eat food and is covered entirely in synthetic stuff. It has soulless eyes like the lenzes of a camera, and tiny dots instead of a mouth and no other facial features. This girls, is surely a robot” The other fillies gasped. “And not just any kind robot girls, this is a robot straight out of Canterlot’s Royal cybermagical research programme.” “That does make sense.” replied Applebloom, mouth wide open. “But how’d ya know about that last part Scootaloo?” “I read about it in a comic book.” “Girls, do you know what this means?” Asked Sweetie Belle. “Absolutely; CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS ROBOT TECHNICIANS.” They all yelled in unison. “So what do we need to do now?” Asked Apple Bloom. “Isn’t it obvious? Robots need power. We have to power it somehow.” Sweetie Belle replied. “Ah‘m sure we have something that might help back in the barn. Ah’ll go check real quick.” " ... The end." explained Sniper. Twilight smiled and said "I don't need to say anything more, you both proved to yourselves that that none of you mean harm to the other. I told you this was a big misunderstanding." "Yeah, ah guess you're right Twi." Spy leaned to Sniper and whispered: "Throwing piss at strangers is only custom to you sniper, not all humans ...You have embarrassed our entire species." Sniper simply replied with a gentle laugh. "The orchard is big, there is a good chance some of them ended up here too. You look for them here and I'll check the rest of the town." Said Twilight. "Alright. Ah need to clean myself first. You humans go in the barn." "Good luck Applejack, I'll bring the others here once i find them." Twilight trotted out of Sweet Apple Acres.