//------------------------------// // Operation: Sweet Apple Ambush // Story: A Busman's Holiday // by Parchment_Scroll //------------------------------// A Busman's Holiday Operation: Sweet Apple Ambush In which Deft Hoof is a cloud. Beep beep. Lost Town (Canterlot) Like many other organizations of a more official nature, the Lost Colts have a night shift. Short Shanks, though younger than the two colts who work the streets at night, nevertheless feels responsible for them. He stays up to go over the guard patrols with them, and to wish them good luck and good hunting. All this has been done, but he is still having trouble sleeping: the weight of responsibility is even greater tonight than it has been in the past. He tosses and turns, but it is no use. The small, grey wing of Bright Eyes draped across his back, normally a reassuring presence in the night, feels like it is crushing the air out of his lungs despite its light weight. He can't take it any longer. With subtle grace earned from his short life on the streets of Canterlot, he slips out from beneath her wing, then gently tucks it back against her body. He smiles wistfully at the sleeping filly, wanting nothing more than to curl up at her side again. Even out from under her embrace, however, he can feel the weight on his back. It isn't a physical weight, but it makes his legs tremble as though it were. He can feel the weight of her future -- and not just hers, but that of every Lost Foal sleeping in Lost World tonight, as well as those (despite their being older than him) who have gone out to do the late shift second-story work. I think, he realizes, I understand Deft Hoof now. A bit, at least. He quietly trots over to the nearest gap in the wall, nearly too small for him to squeeze through anymore, and peers out at the streets, his imagination filling in the parts he can't see. I just wish he wasn't out of town, so I could ask him about it. He takes another look out through the crack. Even down the dark alleys leading up to Lost Town, he can see perfectly well, thanks to the brilliant full moon directly overhead. He squeezes through the gap, grunting a little as he realizes it'll only be a matter of time before this particular entrance is barred to him. Staring up at the full moon, he smiles. I suppose there is somepony I can talk to after all, he thinks. As he trots off towards the castle, he doesn't spare a backward glance towards Lost Town: his eyes are on the future. Nevertheless, if he had looked back, and seen the faceted blue eyes reflecting moonlight from the roof of his home, that future might have been brighter than it is shaping up to be at the moment. I was immediately suspicious. A town as small as Ponyville shouldn't have anyone skulking about in the middle of the night -- barring yours truly, of course. At least, not without reason. In any case, it happening on the very night of my arrival stretched credulity. I was sure it had something to do with me, and that didn't bode well. Nopony in Ponyville should know who I am, I thought. It didn't help. Something was going on, and I was going to find out what it was if it killed me. As the would-be-stealthy pony made his or her way -- judging by the silhouette, I would say her, but people have made that mistake about me as well -- along the edges of Sweet Apple Acres, I took mental notes. Whoever it was, they were extremely wary of observers, but not especially good at blending in. They were sneaky, sure, but they were moving around in such a way that if anyone did see them (as I had), there would be no doubt they were trying to be stealthy. Apart from that, it was a Unicorn pony with a pale blue or green coat -- everything takes on a blue tint at night; I'm sure a smart pony like Twilight Sparkle could explain why -- and a similarly-colored tail. Nopony I knew, which only made things-- Wait, I thought. Where did she go? It was a direct insult to my skills as a burglar and government agent, but I had completely lost her as soon as she ducked around the corner of the first building she encountered in town proper. I frowned, leaning casually against the wall of the house -- a nice little one-story, three bedroom number judging from the exterior -- and tapping my hooves impatiently. She couldn't have just vanished into thin air, could she? I mean yes, historically, Winking, the ability to do just that, was a Unicorn spell, but to my knowledge the only modern pony capable of casting that spell was my Princess, who hardly counted as modern. Grimacing, I circled the building once, trying to figure out where my prey had vanished to, when I caught sight of her again. Wait, no, I corrected myself. That's a Pegasus pony. Not the same pony at all! This new would-be sneak was wearing a full-body jumpsuit, the kind you read about in pulp spy novels, and was being especially conspicuously sneaky: trotting around on tippy-hooves and looking over her shoulder every few seconds. Oh, there was no doubt this one was female, either, as she hadn't bothered to tuck in her distinctive rainbow-colored tail. Rainbow Dash, winner of the Best Young Fliers competition and bearer of the Element of Loyalty, was sneaking around Ponyville like, well, a thief in the night. Counting myself, this made at least three ponies sneaking around Ponyville in the dead of night, which stretched credulity to the breaking point. Ponyville, it seemed, suffered a surfeit of suspicious, sneaky sneaks. Giving up on the blue-green unicorn as a lost cause, I decided to see what Ms. Dash was up to. I followed her to a two-story building near Town Square, which was really an embarrassingly easy feat. For a fast flier, she lacked more than a little in the stealth department. The building itself had a very distinctive silhouette to it, and when I got closer, I saw why: It was made up to look like a gingerbread house out of a storybook. As she made her way around to a side entrance, I proceeded around the other side to get a better view. Even a village like Ponyville has its narrow dark alleys, and I had found one. I crept up to the corner -- nonchalant facade forgotten as nopony would buy "yes, I was just out for a midnight stroll down this abandoned dark alley" as an excuse -- and peeked around to where the Element of Loyalty was. She'd made her way up a flight of stairs leading to a second-story apartment atop the building, and rapped out… Oh, for the love of Luna, I thought with a grimace. "Shave and a Mane Cut"? Really? As the door opened a crack, spilling light towards the corner I was peering around, I ducked back. It definitely wouldn't do to be spotted at this point. I glanced up at the building beside me. A single second-story window was lit, casting a golden glow on the walls above me but not quite reaching street level, and I looked around for a way to reach that window. There was a drainpipe on the opposite building that would get me part of the way up, but was too far to be of any good. Except… Just a few feet away from that drainpipe was a handy little cumulus cloud somepony on the weather patrol had tucked away back here, possibly to give them a nice shady spot to nap, possibly to give them a place, conveniently enough, to access the same window I was trying to get to. Either way, my money was on Rainbow Dash being the pony in question. I was beginning to get an idea about just whose second-story apartment it was I was going to be spying on. Oh, and make no mistake, I was going to be spying. Yes, it's an invasion of privacy, and rude as all Tartarus, but quite frankly, privacy and I are only barely on speaking terms to begin with, and it's only rude if you get caught anyway. I shimmied up the drainpipe, positioning myself as close to the cloud as I could manage, then pushed off into a backflip. I would love to tell you all about how I stuck the landing, and crowds of my admirers came out of the woodwork to applaud my feat of agility, but, in fact, I nearly missed, and faceplanted rather badly. Fortunately, clouds are very, very soft for faceplanting onto. Unfortunately, they're pretty easy to get mired in unless you're a pegasus pony with weather manipulation experience. That is, I should say, provided you have a cloud-walking enchantment. Without that, your average earth pony or unicorn pony would simply punch a pony-shaped hole in the cloud and fall to the ground below. Fortunately, a few years back I invested a frankly obscene amount of bits on something that I had only read about previously: A set of cloud-walking horseshoes. Now let me tell you, when I say "an obscene amount of bits", you have to understand what I was paying for. Normally, the cloud-walking charm is temporary. Cloud-walking horseshoes have a permanent enchantment on them. The set I have can be activated or deactivated with a thought, which is another pretty penny. And even without that, they take the applied magics of all three pony races to create: a skilled farrier with a strong Earth Pony connection to the elements of the ground that make up the bulk of the shoes' material, a Pegasus Pony skilled enough in weather manipulation to gather and shape storm clouds to be folded into the metal, and a Unicorn Pony to cast the charm on the shoes while they're still white-hot from the forge. Getting ponies to do that and then conveniently "forget" that they've done so takes quite the substantial investment. But let me tell you ponies, it is worth every bit to open up entire new avenues of travel not normally available to an Earth Pony like myself. Like, for example, the soft, fluffy cloud I was entangled in. No matter, it afforded me a partial view of the room I was trying to get near, and I could bury myself in it to help conceal my presence. In a matter of moments, all that could be seen of me was my tail, which could be mistaken for a wisp of cloud in this low light, and my eyes. I stifled a giggle at the ridiculous image this would have presented in daylight and focused on the conversation taking place in the room opposite me. Just inside the window, I could see the top of an extremely well-groomed purple mane. It was brushed out and styled in a fancy looping style, distinctive as the mare it belonged to, and done in such a way as to bring out every varying shade of purple it was made of. This would have to be the famous fashionista (and bearer of the Element of Generosity) known as Rarity, I determined. I'd seen her around Canterlot a few months previously, hanging around with Fancy Pants and Fleur de Lis and their clique of high society ponies. Lovely, but way out of my league, and definitely too nice a pony to end up on my work rotation, too. (For that matter, Fancy Pants and Fleur de Lis themselves were off the market, too, for similar reasons, although the herd of yes-ponies that follow them everywhere were an easy payday to make up for it.) To her immediate left, an even-more-familiar swoop of pink mane was about the only thing visible of Fluttershy, the bearer of the Element of Kindness. I'd seen her face plastered on advertisements and magazines all over Canterlot. She'd been quite the fashion model for all of, what? a week? And then she had mysteriously vanished from public view. I remember being concerned about her disappearance, and tracking down the photographer who'd discovered her: another off-the-market pony named Photo Finish. Ms. Finish had been deep in her sprinkles, and lamented to anypony and everypony in earshot about how she had found the perfect, most graceful model ever, and how that model, despite having "De Magicks", had chosen a life of obscurity instead. She just didn't understand it. Fluttershy, it turned out, was terribly shy, and being a public figure like that had frankly horrified her. She'd only done it as a favor for her good friend Rarity, and quit as soon as the opportunity presented itself. That was two -- no, I reminded myself, three -- of the six Elements of Harmony represented. All that were left were Pinkie Pie, Twilight Sparkle, and Applejack. If I was right, the apartment was Meanie's, which just left Ms. Sparkle and Applejack unaccounted for. I was certain that Applejack was sound asleep back at Sweet Apple Acres, but Twilight… Ah, there she was, parading back and forth in front of the others like her brother during a morning briefing to his troops. "All right, everypony," she said. "Now that we're all here, it's time to get this meeting underway." Her horn glowing with Unicorn magic, she levitated a stack of papers, tapped them into order, and glanced around the room. "We're all set for tomorrow's operation," she said, "but I just want to go over everything one more time to make sure we're all on the same page." "Of course you do," grumbled a harsh voice -- likely that of Rainbow Dash. "This is important, Rainbow Dash!" Twilight glared at the pony in question and I grinned at the confirmation of her identity. If I'd been right about Rainbow Dash's identity (and let's face it, she's pretty distinctive) chances were I was right about the rest as well. "Code names!" hissed a voice I recognized all too well: Meanie -- Pinkie Pie, bearer of the Element of Laughter -- was sitting off to the side, out of my field of vision. Twilight rolled her eyes. "Fine," she groused. "First, Agent R.D., what is the status of the targets?" "Alpha and Beta are sleeping in their rooms," answered the cyan pegasus. "They're both sound asleep, but they're also early risers, so we should probably speed this up." "It'd go a lot faster without the commentary," muttered Twilight. "Gamma is still downstairs in her rocking chair, but she's asleep too," continued Rainbow Dash, either unaware of or ignoring Twilight's retort. "There's no sign of Iota, though." Twilight snickered. "Not an iota of a sign of Iota?" she asked. The pony I was sure was Rarity spoke up. "Little Iota is staying with my sister and her other little Crusader friend at my parents' house," she said. "She won't interfere." "And Omega is all bundled up in his bed like a little filly," Rainbow Dash finished with a snicker. "Are you sure?" Meanie asked. "Omega is sneaky. Like ultra-super-duper extra sneaky!" She paused, and I got the distinct feeling she was looking around the room suspiciously. "He could even be right outside, listening to us right now and we'd never know it!" she hissed low enough to make me lean forward until my face was poking out of the cloud. Twilight rolled her eyes again, then trotted out of my field of vision to the right. I heard the sound of the door opening again. "Nopony out here," she announced. "What about at the window?" piped up Meanie. Panicking, I ducked back inside the cloud, pushing the hole my face had made closed, and held perfectly still. "Nothing out there but that cloud I was napping on this afternoon," reported Rainbow Dash. "All right," said Twilight Sparkle. "What's the status on our supplies?" "The 'cake' is in the 'oven'," reported Meanie. "And the theater of operations, is it secured?" "Oh, um…" The pink-maned pony I was convinced was Fluttershy said softly. "The rafters are all rigged according to Pinki-- I mean Agent P's diagrams." "The partillery is in position," Meanie reported. "I had to move Target Beta's anvil, but other than that it was easy-peasy!" Rainbow Dash snorted. "Only you, Agent P," she said. I frowned. This was all sounding highly suspect. The bearers of the Elements of Harmony engaged in a clandestine meeting in the middle of the night, talking about ponies as targets, and… if I had heard Meanie correctly, some kind of artillery was involved somehow?! What was going on? What was this "cake" Meanie had referred to? What did it mean when she said it was "in the 'oven'"? I didn't see very many possibilities. Either the bearers of the Elements of Harmony had found out about a dire threat to the kingdom of Equestria which involved ponies so high up they didn't dare tell anypony what they'd discovered, or the bearers themselves had somehow been suborned. I found myself remembering with dawning horror what had happened on Shiny's wedding day -- how changelings, long thought vanished from the world, had invaded Canterlot with the aid of their queen, who had posed successfully as Princess Cadance for almost a week. Whatever was going on, it didn't bode well. I needed to find out who their targets were. I dared to poke my head out of the cloud again, in an effort to get a look at the diagram on the wall behind Twilight Sparkle -- if it was Twilight Sparkle -- but it was fruitless. All I saw was a large rectangle with some X's and O's on it. I grimaced, and "Twilight" spoke up again. "We'd better get moving," she said briskly. "It's nearly dawn, and we have to be in position before the targets wake up. Come on, girls! Operation: Sweet Apple Ambush is underway!" Canterlot Castle Throne Room The Princess of the Night smiles beneficently down at her subject - and newest member of her elite ranks. "So," she says, "this is the concern that brought you into the palace at this late hour? Through, if my guards are to be believed, the hypocausts beneath this very chamber?" "Yes, Your Highness," Short Shanks says, trembling. "Oh, do dispense with the titles, Short Shanks," the Princess says with a smile. "If you'll recall, I encourage informality from the Eyes of the Moon, of which you most certainly are one." Short Shanks nods, smiling hesitantly. "Yes, Ma'am-- I mean, Luna." "That's much better," Princess Luna says. "And I must say I am quite proud of you. If I ever had any doubts about Deft Hoof's selection of you as apprentice, your visit tonight and especially the reason for that visit would have laid those doubts to rest." "Erm," says Short Shanks. "Thank you?" Luna smiles. "No," she says. "Thank you for understanding the responsibility of your post, and for coming to me with those concerns. I want you to know that I am always available to my subjects, and most especially to those in my direct employ." She begins to explain to Short Shanks, in the tone of a mother telling her foal a favorite bedtime story, the origins of the Eyes of the Moon, and the reason for its continuation over the years. He listens, rapt, until his eyes will no longer stay open. When he has fallen asleep, she signals one of her bat-winged Night Guard to carry him to the apartments set aside for the Eyes of the Moon. The next generation of street foals, she decides, will be in good hooves. After waiting for the clandestine meeting of the Element Bearers to break up, I made my way back to Sweet Apple Acres. My mind was in a whirl. How could I tell A.J. that her best friends were conspiring against her in the middle of the night? And Meanie? This really didn't seem like her at all. Granted, it had been years since I'd last seen her, and that when she was a filly, but she had been so full of the joy of bringing happiness to others… I didn't see how i could reconcile that memory of her with what I'd just witnessed. I would have to be subtle, I decided. I could do subtle. Subtle is my middle name! Deft Subtle Hoof, that's… No, that's a terrible name. That's… that's an adult entertainment name, is what that is. In any case, instead of raising what I still hoped would be a false alarm, I decided it was time to dig for more information. I made it back to the farm just in time to pretend to have just woken up for breakfast. "Mornin'," I muttered, trotting into the kitchen with an affected yawn. "What's for breakfast? Wait, don't tell me… apples?" "Har-de-har," grumbled Big Macintosh good-naturedly. "As a matter of fact, we're havin' apple strudel." "Sounds great!" I said. "Need a hoof?" A.J. pushed me towards the table. "Naw," she said. "Twilight Sparkle says yer supposed ta be takin' it easy, and that's what yer gonna do." "Yes, ma'am," I said with a grin. Well, I decided, may as well start investigating. "Hey, you and Meanie are good friends, right?" A.J. returned my grin. "Who, Pinkie Pie? Shoot, Ah reckon she's friends with everypony in Ponyville. She always said so, anyhow." "Well, did she ever act... I dunno, weird?" "Only all the dang time," A.J. said with a laugh. "Why, Ah don't know how many times R.D.'s said it -- that'd be mah friend Rainbow Dash, by the way -- but she always says 'Pinkie Pie, you are so random!'" "Well, okay," I acknowledged the point, "but I mean weird for her." "Well," A.J. said after a moment's thought, "there was this one time she got it in that head o' hers we didn't want ta be her friends no more, but R.D.'d be the pony to ask about that. Why?" I certainly couldn't ask Rainbow Dash, she was in on it! Nevertheless, I couldn't just drop the subject either, or it'd rouse suspicions, and the wrong kind. "Well," I said, "I haven't seen her in so long, and I overheard something in town..." The best part was, it wasn't even a lie. I had overheard something in town last night. A.J. waved a hoof dismissively. "Oh, now don't y'all fret none on what they all say in town. Sure, Pinkie Pie's friends with everypony in town, but you'll never meet a pack o' ponies as prone ta panic as the ponies in Ponyville. Pinkie Pie does not capture ponies and cut 'em up in the basement ta make cupcakes." Just my luck, I was taking a deep draught of apple juice when she said that. I managed to avoid spraying her with the inevitable spit-take, but at the cost of making my breakfast soggy. "She doesn't WHAT?!" "Oh, it was this Nightmare Night prank she 'n' Rainbow pulled a couple years back. Scared the town half ta death an' now ain't nopony'll shut up about it." Well, unless Meanie had somehow turned all of the other element-bearers into cupcake-baking psychopaths -- unlikely, but, I suppose, marginally possible -- something else was going on. "That's... I'll have to ask her about that," I said. "Sounds like a heck of a story." "Ah'm shore it is," A.J. said, turning back to her own breakfast. "Ah only caught bits 'n' pieces of it myself." That tack wasn't getting me anywhere, so I decided to try heading off the operation itself. To do that, I'd have to figure out where on Sweet Apple Acres the ambush was to take place. "Hey, Big Macintosh, did you ever become a farrier like you said you were gonna?" He'd never said a thing about it back at the family reunion, or I'd've remembered. I'd hung on his every word back then, of which there were three: "eeyup," "nope," and "shucks." I'd thought he was the coolest pony ever to trot on four hooves back then (I'd avoided A.J. for fear of cooties until I saw her showing off rope tricks to our other cousins later on), and it was easy enough to play up that hero worship now. In any case, I could only think of one reason for there to be an anvil at an apple orchard like Sweet Apple Acres. I pressed on. "I bet you are," I said. "I bet all the mares come to you to get shod, just so they can say they got nailed by Big Macintosh." "Yer terrible," A.J. said with a laugh and a blush. Big Macintosh just nodded and grinned. "Eeyup," he said. "Ah got a workshop out behind the farmhouse if y'all need re-shoeing." I shook my head. "No thanks," I said. "I'm good." The last thing I needed was for him to get a good look at my horseshoes and start asking questions about them. "But I'd like to get a look at your forge - I never got to see one up close before. Where do you keep it? Not in the barn, I'm sure - it'd be a fire hazard, wouldn't it?" "Nope," drawled the farm pony. "Ah got a workshed back behind the barn. Well, except Ah keep the anvil in the barn 'cause there ain't room for it in the workshed, and Ah don't wanna leave it out in the open on account of rain." He grinned. "The pegasus ponies ain't likely ta leave a hole in the clouds fer mah anvil, so Ah gotta move it inside when Ah ain't usin' it." Bingo! The barn was where the anvil Meanie'd had to move was, so that had to be where the ambush would take place. Time to take this investigation into the field. Frankly, a little intrigue was a welcome taste of home on my enforced vacation. Big Macintosh's anvil, as it happens, was still in the barn. There was no sign of anything even resembling artillery. Nor, in fact, was there a sign that the anvil had been moved. Was I wrong? No, impossible. They'd called the operation "Sweet Apple Ambush" after all. Something fishy was going on and I was dead certain that barn was at the center of it. I just had to keep the focus on "certain" rather than "dead". I made my way up to the rafters to try to find the rigging that Fluttershy claimed to have done, and was coming up empty. Again, the thought occurred: was I wrong? Or had I missed something? Were A.J.'s friends better at hiding things than I was at finding them? As I balanced there, scratching my head with a forehoof, A.J. came in, followed closely by Big Macintosh. "What in tarnation are ya doin' up there, Orange Meringue?" she asked. I tried to come up with an excuse, but drew a blank. "Uh," I said, stalling for time. As I looked down at the two farm ponies, I heard the door on the other end of the barn open behind me. "C'mon, Granny Smith," said a youthful voice behind me. "Sweetie Belle said if'n we don't hurry, we're gonna miss it!" I turned to look. Sure enough, little Apple Bloom was there, alternating between leading and pushing Granny Smith into the barn. I felt the walls closing in around me. I was missing something. Something obvious. If I was right, and I was sure of that, then all five targets of Operation: Sweet Apple Ambush were present and accounted for, at the location the ambush was scheduled to take place. At one end of the barn, Alpha and Beta - Applejack and Big Macintosh. At the other, Gamma and Iota - Granny Smith and Apple Bloom. And in the middle, helpless and panicking, Omega - myself. Whatever was going to happen would be happening right about-- Before I could finish the thought, a noise from the hay loft caught my attention. Had I checked the hay loft? I turned to face it just in time for it to blow up in my face. I admit it: I screamed like a little filly. I mean, it was already a tense situation, and right when it was at its most tense, there was a huge explosion right in front of me. So, yes, I screamed, and fell, and screamed some more. It took almost a second and a half for me to realize I hadn't hit the ground. I opened my eyes and saw two things -- well noticed two things about the many things I saw. First, I realized I was seeing red - everything had taken on a deep red tint. I reached up with a hoof, expecting it to come away bloody, but appeared to be unharmed. I took another look around. The red tint was sparkling and... of course. Unicorn magic. I was being held aloft by unicorn magic, so naturally, everything outside that magic was covered by the telltale aura. Second, in addition to the red glow and the sparkles, I saw that the air was filled with confetti and paper streamers. I continued to look around. There were a few of those large spools you see on farms: the kind that fencing wire or heavy-duty cable comes on. They were covered with tablecloths and plates and glasses, all in a festive style, which hadn't been there before the explosion. I remembered something Meanie had told me back at the Pie family reunion, after telling me how she got her cutie mark: "When I grow up," she'd said, "I'm gonna invent a cannon that shoots parties!" And the previous night, she hadn't said "artillery." She'd said "partillery." Party plus artillery equals partillery. It made perfect sense... in a Meanie sort of way. So the "ambush", it turned out, was a festive one: a surprise party. I'd gotten all worked up over nothing. Maybe I did need a vacation after all. I looked around until I saw Meanie and all her friends coming out from behind some hay bales. Twilight Sparkle's horn was surrounded in the same red glow that surrounded me: she'd saved my life. I grinned sheepishly as she set me on my hooves. "This is the part where we're supposed to jump out and say 'surprise'," she said, "but I think you may have had enough surprises for one--" She stopped, staring at me. Wheels were turning in that bright head of hers. Conclusions were about to be reached. I thought back to the last time I'd seen her, crying her eyes out over the loss -- albeit temporary -- of a beloved doll. Had she gotten a good look at me back then? I had the sinking feeling, supported by the expression of dawning anger in her eyes, that she had. Oh, horseapples, I thought. This is not going to end well.