//------------------------------//
// 43 - Coming Together 
// Story: The Apple Falls Far from the Tree 
// by David Silver 
//------------------------------//

Willow stood up, nodding at little Blue. "This has been... educational, but we really should get to the children. They must be worried about us by now."

Blue looked concerned. "I didn't know there were kids waiting. Good luck then, and I hope you allow the magic of friendship into your heart." She flashed a bright smile and trotted off, leaving Willow and Applejack alone.

Willow glanced aside at Applejack. "They have a religion about friendship?"

"Ayup." Applejack nodded lightly. "Apparently she's also big into magic, oh and reading too. Reminds me a bit of mah friend."

Willow shook her head. "Well, alright. If nothing else it shows you pony folk are serious about it."

Applejack smiled lightly. "We are. Nothing like being a good neighbor to make things go smoother, ah reckon. Not ta say there ain't a few bad apples, cause there always will be, but ah'd trust the average pony ta be civil at least. Let's get to the Drowsy Mare. Ah want ta be sure the girls're fine."

They departed as one, weaving their way through the streets of Viljatown.





Sonata wiped her face on a provided cloth, returning to her cleaner self. "Well, if they don't show up, you can, like, totally sleep here. We can have a sleepover!" She grinned happily, her dreams of revenge instantly replaced with much more benign shenanigans.

Sweetie tilted her head along with the others. Sonata was a little confusing to them, but with a shared glance, they decided she was also fairly harmless. She raised a hoof. "Sure thing, Miss..."

"Sonata's fine, but if you have to, Sonata Dusk. Sorry about the whole, you know, making you wait thing. No hard feelings?" She smiled at the children warmly.

Lex's reaction could not have been more opposite. Finishing the oats he'd been eating, he turned for the door. "I'll be in my room. Alert me when the adults arrive." He didn't wait for a response before exiting, apparently done with them.

Sonata frowned at Lex's sudden departure. "Don't be a sourpuss. Besides, you don't want Applejack to hear you were rude to her kids, right?"

Apple Bloom raised a hoof. "Ah'm the only blood relation, and we're sisters."

"Same difference." Sonata grabbed up a little fried oat cluster and crunched on it.

Now it was Lex's turn to frown as he glanced back at her. Why was she pushing him to stay? There was nothing else for him to do here, and he already felt uncomfortable enough as it was. He had enough trouble talking to adults; children were even harder to understand.

"I don't care what that mare thinks of me. Besides, if I'm really such a 'sourpuss' then wouldn't it be better if I left?"

Sonata rolled her eyes. "Like, oh my god. You're being a sourpuss by refusing to sit down and just, you know, talk? You're not doing anything that important right now." She looked back at the kids and focused on Sunflower with a smile. "Got a new girlfriend?"

Sunflower lit up instantly. "Uh!"

Sweetie tilted her head. "New?"

Still standing in the doorway, Lex gritted his teeth, but swallowed his indignant response. Slowly, he turned around and re-entered the room, sitting down near Sonata and facing the children. Giving his companion a sour look, he tried to make sense of the situation she had baited him into joining, watching the others converse.

Sonata leaned over into Lex warmly, giving silent thanks to his capitulation.

Sunflower shook his head quickly. "I, uh... kinda... liked Sonata before, but we weren't together."

Sonata stood up for him. "It's true, you two look much cuter together."

Sweetie blushed and smiled, accepting the praise as offered.

Scootaloo pointed at Lex. "Why's your horn all weird?"

Apple Bloom tilted her head, now looking at the red thing and its grey base. "Were ya born like that?"

He didn't reply for a moment, silently luxuriating in the feeling of Sonata pressing against him, before turning his attention back to their question. Seeing no harm in it, he answered. "No, I wasn't. This isn't my original horn. It's a graft, a replacement."

Scootaloo grinned. "Cool! Does it, uh, give you super powers?"

Apple Bloom nudged Scootaloo. "That's stupid. Maybe he got his original hurt and this is a replacement."

"You're both correct," interjected Lex. "My original horn was irreparably damaged, or so I thought at the time, and so I replaced it with this one, gaining the dark magic of its previous owner."

Sweetie perked an ear curiously, but it was Sunflower that spoke up, "Dark magic?"

Scootaloo brightened. "Oh! It's like from the comic books. You're a dark tortured soul seeking justice through powers he never asked for!"

Apple Bloom blinked softly, looking between Scootaloo and Lex. "Is that it?"

"What? No! I mean..." caught off-guard by the uncanny description of himself, Lex struggled to find a way to refute the childrens' simplistic summary of him. "...I have other powers that I worked very hard to attain," he finished lamely, ears folding back.

Scootaloo and Apple Bloom united in excitement. Bloom grinned hugely. "Ah never met a real life superhero before! What can ya do?"

Scootaloo pointed at Lex. "I bet you have a ton of super villain nemesises... nemesi? Bad ponies that try to foil you!"

Sweetie Belle seemed more reserved. "Are you really a superhero?"

Lex gave Sonata a long-suffering look, as if silently asking if this was the conversation that she thought it was so important that he stay and have, before turning his attention back to Sweetie Belle. "I'm not a superhero." He put a hoof to his head, rubbing it for a moment as though he couldn't believe what he'd just said. "I'm just a pony, trying to do the best that he can to help Equestria and its ponies."

Looking at Apple Bloom and Scootaloo, he continued. "I have command of several different forms of magic, but those are less notable than the ideas I have. Unfortunately, those ideas have been branded treasonous by Celestia and Luna, and so I've been left with no choice but to take up forelegs against them. They are my nemeses."

Scootaloo snorted. "No superhero says they're a superhero. It's part of what makes them a superhero."

Apple Bloom tilted her head. "Celestia and Luna are nice ponies. Why would you want to have them for nemeses?"

Sweetie pointed at herself. "Luna helped me when I was about to hurt my big sister. I'm glad she talked some sense into me."

Sonata looked a little lost, but stayed where she was as silent support for Lex. She returned his look, gently urging him with a rub to bear with it.

"I don't doubt that they are nice ponies, nor that they perform important functions, and I certainly don't want them as my enemies. I spoke to Celestia at length trying to avoid that very thing." He paused as he noticed how they were listening raptly. Maybe this wasn't a complete waste of time after all. Maybe he could teach these foals something.

"I believe that government should actively help its ponies, that a ruler should implement policies that work proactively to make life better for them, rather than just sit back and not do anything unless there's a crisis. Like..." he paused, trying to think of an example, when an idea came to him. "Twilight told me that your sister is a farmer, right?" he asked, pointing at Apple Bloom.

Apple Bloom nodded her head. "Sure as rain. She's tha best apple farmer there ever was!"

Sunflower leaned in to whisper to Sweetie Belle, "I never understood this stuff." A position that Sweetie Belle seemed to sympathize with.





Applejack and Willow arrived at the Drowsy Mare, to find Drowsy collapsed over the counter, though she awoke upon the door opening. "Welcome... oh." She smiled lightly. "I thought you might arrive. Have your travels been well?"

"Just peachy," replied Applejack as she stepped into the inn. "What room're the girls in? Did ya get them some food? Uh, sorry ta be pushy, just worried about them is all. No offense or nuthin'."

Drowsy gave a sedate nod. "There is nothing to be sorry for. What will this conversation mean in the end? Your kin is that way." She pointed down the hall. "Second on the left. Knock first, lest you offend someone more easily bothered than I." Advice given, she rest her head on the soft cushion, and surrendered to the little death of slumber.

Willow nodded to Applejack as they shared a glance and moved purposefully to reunite with their family.





Lex glanced at the two, flicking an ear in irritation, but let the comment go, looking back at Apple Bloom. "One of the core ideas I have is that the government should collect a little bit of money from everypony - a little more from the rich and a little less from the poor - and then use that money to provide help where it's needed."

Trying to decide which details to gloss over and which to expound upon, he continued. "For example, working a farm typically doesn't pay very much. That means that if something happens, like an infestation or a disease that hurts apple trees, or..." inspiration struck then, "or if you and your sister aren't there to work the farm, then you won't make enough money, and you'll lose your farm. Worse, think of all the ponies that rely on your apples for food, or who take them and sell them in other cities. They'd suffer too."

Pausing to let that thought sink in, he picked up again. "What I would do, if I ran Equestria, is use that money I collected from everypony and pay your family a small amount each month, in what's called an 'agriculture subsidy,' just to keep growing your apples. That way, you wouldn't go broke if there was an emergency, and everypony else wouldn't lose your apples."

Clopping a hoof on the ground for emphasis, he wrapped up. "Because I have these ideas, these visions of how much better Equestria could be, I believe that I can do a better job running it than Celestia and Luna, and I told them such. But they seem to think that such ideas, and simply having this horn, make me a tyrant. So you see, there's little choice left but to take over by force if I want to help Equestria," he concluded, "including your farm."

Apple Bloom looked appalled. "We're gonna lose the farm?!"

Sweetie Belle quickly shook her head. "My sister and the rest of the girls would never let that happen."

Scootaloo hastily agreed. "The ponies of Ponyville wouldn't ever let the Apple family lose the farm."

Sweetie tapped a chin. "Didn't they that one time?"

"Ixnay on the, uh, lim fay rother bays." Scootaloo grinned as she poorly passed her code. 

Apple Bloom was not soothed. She hopped up to her hooves and gave her own stomp. "Ah don't want granny and mah brother thrown out on tha street!"

"Neither do I," added Lex, kneeling down so that he was at eye-level with Apple Bloom, "and while I doubt that your family's friends and relatives would stand by and do nothing if something were to happen, how long could they keep providing support without compensation? Could they work your farm as well as your sister? Could they do it for a week? A month? Could they help buy an acre of new trees if there was an apple tree disease?"

He shook his head. "Celestia and Luna would sit back and let things like this happen, not interfering unless it was some sort of disaster that threatened all of Equestria. I, on the other hoof, would spend every day working to stop problems like that before they happen. That's why I need to be the one to run things. I don't want to hurt anypony, including the princesses, but I need to take over, for everypony's sake."

Apple Bloom frowned with thought, tapping her chin. "But if ya were all the way up in Canterlot, how'd ya hear about mah farm's problems before we got kicked out?"

The door swung open just then, revealing Applejack and Willow. Applejack started warmly. "We're he--" She cut off as she spotted Lex and frowned a little. "Ah... trust everypony's alright?"

Apple Bloom smiled brightly. "Hey Sis!" She pointed at Lex. "He was just tellin' us how he'd save tha farm."

Scootaloo nodded her head. "And he's totally a superhero, even if he says he isn't."

Standing, Lex turned to regard the pair. "It's good that you're here," his voice was neutral, which was warm for him. "We have much to discuss."