Dear Cousin Applejack,
Things ain’t looking too good here in Appaloosa right now. Some weird shadow creatures snuck into town just today and raided our food storage. They took some crates of food and a lot of seeds.
But that’s not even the worst part, Cousin. They even stole four fully-grown apple trees! When we tried to stop them, they beat the stuffing out of everypony in town and flew away, heading west.
If you can, please get us some help. Those things might come back, and we can’t handle them.
Your cousin,
Braeburn
Braeburn looked over his letter before giving it to the town mailmare and hoofing her some bits for the trouble of making a delivery when it was already past five in the evening.
They needed help. If those things showed up again, Appaloosa would be defenseless on its own.
Braeburn sighed and sat down on the ground. All he could do was hope for the best. That’s all any of them could do.
When Carson stepped outside the palace, he found more than just the four scavengers there. The entire family had shown up, so he was going to be addressing more people than he had intended to.
His wife walked up to him in her signature white and gray cloak and stood to his right, and his newly adopted daughter, Emily stood to his left. With them by his side, he felt more confident, and began by addressing the crowd, using the power he’d copied from Sonic Boom, even though it would only remained copied for a few more hours. They’d need to get microphones and speakers soon.
“Our children,” he began, toning the power down to not generate shockwaves. Immune or not, his children still didn’t need to have that much force put into a speech. “These four brave youths have returned with a means for us to begin producing our own food once more.” He gestured to indicate the four members of the scavenging group standing before him, provoking applause from the crowd. “You four have performed a great service for us all. You have our thanks. I’d reward you if I could, but all I have to offer right now is words. You are heroes to our family, and shining examples to the youth of our society. Your names will be recorded and never forgotten. For you have saved us all.”
The four young neo humans smiled and bowed to the Prime Family before taking their leave to walk through the cheering masses and away from the palace.
Sighing, Carson didn’t wait for his children to disperse. Instead, he turned around and walked back into the palace to do some thinking.
To ensure his own privacy, he didn’t use his bedroom, for Alissa shared it with him. Instead, he entered his new private study and pulled an old, weathered book from a pocket inside his cloak. The cover read: “JOURNAL” in large blocky letters.
Opening the old book, Carson went over the story of his thirty-seven years of life.
As soon as he started Kindergarten at the age of five, everyone picked on Carson Stewart and his stupid-looking ears. Carson endured the bullying for years, finding strength in the one classmate who didn’t treat him like a freak: Alissa Fletcher. The girl stood up for him, and she quickly became his guiding light and beacon of hope.
One day in fourth grade, Carson was being bullied again, and like an angel, Alissa came to his rescue.
“Who cares if his ears are different?” she snapped at the three thugs, who backed off because of the “boys can’t hit girls” rule. “He’s just another person, like you and me! He—”
She was cut off by a slap to the face by one of the mean girls of the class.
“Still sticking up for the freak. Huh, Alissa?” the girl shook her head. “You need to be taken down a few pegs! All the way to the bottom! The freak doesn’t deserve friends! He should just jump in a pit and die!”
Alissa tried to get up, but the new bully kicked her, causing her to roll helplessly on the blacktop.
Carson felt something welling up inside him as his guardian angel was getting beaten. It wasn’t rage. It was more like, a need to protect her.
“Get away from her!” he screamed at the girl bully. He stood up, hands glowing white. “Stop hurting her, or I’ll… I’ll make you sorry!”
“Boys can’t hit girls, remember?” the horrible excuse for a girl sneered, not even noticing the glowing hands. But the boy bullies did. Their eyes widened in fright and they exchanged nervous glances before running away.
“I don’t have to hit you to help her!” Carson screamed, raising both his hands, somehow knowing exactly what to do. Balls of light the size of golfballs started firing from his hands, pelting the girl until she ran away crying.
“Alissa, are you okay?” Carson asked after he ran to his protector’s side.
“What you just did, that’s not normal,” Alissa breathed.
Carson’s eyes welled up with tears. Now even Alissa thought he was a freak! He’d lost his only friend!
“Say it,” Carson sobbed. “You think I’m a freak, too.”
“No!” Alissa gasped, slapping him in the face. “You’re not a freak, Carson. You’re special. Unique. If they keep teasing you after that, that’ll only mean they’re jealous.”
Carson dried his tears and sniffled. “Thanks, Alissa. I’ll try to not do that again.”
Carson shut his journal and stuffed it back into his hidden pocket before getting up and leaving his study. It was starting to get dark, and he needed to check on the new farms before readying his people to fight again.
It took about an hour by foot, but Carson enjoyed the cool evening air, so he felt no need to fly. After that hour, he found a group of his children hard at work exercising atomic manipulation on one of the newly-planted trees.
“What are you doing?” Carson asked, getting the group’s attention.
“Oh, hello, Esteemed Patriarch!” a man with a straw hat, glasses and overalls greeted. “We’re working on altering the chemical makeup of this tree and the seeds in its apples so that the tree will produce apples very rapidly, and so the seeds will mature into trees rapidly, as well. Of course, those trees will have the same rapid apple production as this tree. We’re almost done, actually! We may see a few apples before the sun finishes setting.”
Carson watched in amazement as the tree suddenly started growing flowers all over the place in seconds. Next, the workers extracted some pollen from the flowers and distributed it among the flowers on the tree. After about a minute, the flowers turned into small apples, which quickly grew to full ripeness in a matter of about two minutes.
“If they mature that quickly, how long will they stay ripe on the tree?” Carson asked.
“About two hours,” the man replied. “We’ll get to harvesting them now, and though tomorrow morning may come with very sparse breakfasts for everyone, we’ll be sure to have enough apples by lunchtime to feed everyone! Not to mention that some of the other farms are temporarily being used to artificially manufacture food. I feel sorry for those guys. Turning dirt into meat, dairy, grains, etc. over and over again is a lot more taxing than altering one tree. They’ll probably need to recharge at a graveyard soon. If we can find one.”
“Well, make sure everyone gets a good night’s sleep tonight,” Carson urged. “We’re going to begin our campaign for world domination soon, and we’ll need everyone to prepare and stock up.”
“Understood,” the farmer said with a bow. “I’ll get the word out. Hopefully this world doesn’t have some ace up their sleeve like the UN did.”
Carson shivered at the thought before bidding the farmers a good night and leaving to inspect the other farms.
Many miles away, dinner at the Apple family's house was disturbed by a frantic banging on the front door.
“Ah’ll get it,” Applejack said as she got up.
As she trotted to the door, she grew increasingly irritated by the sound of hooves pummeling the door. by the time she’d reached the door, she flung it open and shouted, “whaddaya want? We're havin’ dinner, here!”
“Um, urgent letter for Miss Applejack?” the blue pegasus from out of town answered weakly. “A Mr. Braeburn told me to get it to you tonight. Sorry for the interruption!”
The exhausted mare took back to the air and flew into the night, leaving behind the aforementioned letter.
Sighing, Applejack closed the door and opened the letter, which she read on the way back to the table. But before anypony could ask her about the letter, she gasped, “shoot! Appaloosa’s in trouble!” and bolted for the door, flung it open, and made a mad dash for Twilight’s library.
At the library, Princess Twilight Sparkle was busy with sorting books when somepony started banging on the door. The pony was immediately identified when Applejack’s voice shouted, “Twi! Open up! We got trouble!”
Twilight calmly answered the door to find a frantic Applejack panting for breath.
“Twi, Ah just got this letter,” the farmpony said as she showed the letter to Twilight. “Braeburn says somethin’ attacked Appaloosa, and if it attacks ag’in, they’ll get clobbered! Please, Twi. We gotta get the gang together, inform Princess Celestia, an’ help Appaloosa!”
It’s getting late, you know,” Twilight told Applejack as she let her inside and closed the door. “I can send a letter to Celestia, but I don’t think we’ll be able to help until tomorrow. After you calm your nerves, please go home and get a good night’s sleep. Okay, Applejack?”
Applejack nodded, and Twilight smiled before calling for her Number One Assistant. “Spike? I need to send a letter to Celestia!”
“Coming!” the young dragon called from upstairs. “I’ll be right there!”
Running as fast as he could, Spike quickly arrived with a quill and parchment. “Okay, what should I write?”
Twilight cleared her throat before reciting the letter she’d come up with:
“Dear Princess Celestia,
I’ve just received word from Applejack that Appaloosa has been attacked by unknown creatures that were capable of uprooting apple trees and flying away with them. These creatures overpowered the entire population of Appaloosa and fled west, into the wastelands. Please send instructions on what we should do, as well as send aid to the citizens of Appaloosa,
Your faithful student and fellow Princess,
Princess Twilight Sparkle.”
“Did you get all that?” Twilight asked.
“Yep!” Spike replied before burning the scroll, which turned into smoke that flew in the direction of Canterlot.
“Okay, now I just need to wait for instructions—” Twilight began before a flash of green fire announced the arrival of a letter from the Princess. “Wow that was fast,” Twilight mused as Spike handed over the scroll. Twilight broke the seal on it and began to read:
“Dear Princess Twilight Sparkle,
Thank you for informing me of this situation. I will be needing you and your friends to participate in what I’m about to do, so please make sure that all of you get a good night’s sleep, for we’ll be going to Appaloosa in the morning. Please have everypony assemble at the library by nine AM. We will teleport directly to Appaloosa while a division of the Royal Guard marches there. If these creatures are as dangerous as you say, we’ll need to outthink them and capture at least one to study them so we can learn how to fight them.
Your loving mentor and fellow Princess,
Princess Celestia”
Twilight looked up from the letter and exchanged glances with Applejack. This sounded bigger than either of them had expected.
After saying goodbye to Twilight, Applejack left to tell the rest of their friends about Celestia’s orders. Twilight herself sat down in a chair to think about the Princess’ answer in detail. It seemed Celestia knew more than she was letting on.
Needless to say, Twilight didn’t get nearly as much sleep as she would need for a “good night’s sleep”.