It was a stormy night as always when the Zap Apples are about to grow. The timber wolves´ howling echoed above the farm of the Apple family near the Everfree Forest, but this year was something different. Not that they came around the same time every year, rather that the howling was not returned by an old lady on the farm screaming from her lungs and bashing pans and pots together.
"The Zap...", the old green earthpony coughs with a very weak breath. Her tired orange eyes looked up to her granddaughter´s face which carried a sad expression on it, "...re commin."
"Don´t ya worry, Granny. We´re gonna take care of it. Ya stay here and focus on getting hale and hearty again." The young orange mare swept away the tears in her eyes after she tucked her back in bed. Granny Smith was trembling all over while sweating like crazy. Her second granddaughter, a redhaired yellow filly, was bringing towels and a pot with cold water to ease her pain, but suddenly dropped it. The water splashed all over the floor. "Applebloom! Can´t ya...! I mean can ya be a little more careful with...", Applejack replied to her sister´s clumsiness. She wanted to rein her in, but at that moment a giant crow, that had been sitting unnotice on the windowsill for the whole time, cried out and flew away. Soon after the howling of the timberwolves stopped. The night went calm and quiet.
The next morning Applejack, Applebloom and their big brother, a big red stallion named Big Macintosh were providing baskets for the harvest of the Zap Apples. Waiting for the Everfree Storm to zap the barren zap appletrees to start the magical growth. In five days the rainbow colored apples would be grown and everything remaining on the tree would vanish in thin air. A brown earthpony stallion strutted into the orchard. He wore a tie and had a concerned look on his face, but he smiled at the Apple siblings.
"So I did not mishear things last night and the Zap Apples are coming?" He asked while looking at the barren trees. "I started wondering, because there are still no clouds."
"Howdy, Mister Rich," Applejack answered him, "don´t ya worry Granny is never wrong about this."
Filthy Rich looked around the area: "Speaking of her, where is the old lady?"
"She´s sick", Applebloom spoke out.
"Sick?"
"Don´t ya fret we are still selling ya the first hundred jars of Zap Apple Jam." Applejack replied, but starting to get worried herself. What was taking the clouds so long? As long as she could remember the clouds came in the early morning, but today... it was almost midday. Suddenly the sky darkened and the earthponies lighten up in relief.
Thick stormclouds moved from the Everfree Forest to the location of the Zap Appletrees. The Apple family awaited the lightning that will sprout the leafs. Not the crows that evolve them to the blooms, nor them developing right into grey apples. As the clouds moved away they also transformed into their ripe rainbow colored form. "Ain´t saw that one comming. GRAB the buckets, we got work to do!"
"Eeyup!"
With the sudden work on their hooves the siblings had no time to talk to Filthy Rich any longer. Any minute not focused on harvesting was a loss in the family business. Kick. Collect. Move. Next tree. Kick. Collect. Move. Next tree. Kick. Collect. Move. Next tree. For a change, if anything worked like it used to, the Zap apples would disappear at sunset. Much less time than usual. They had to move faster and harder than ever before just to make the best out of the situation. Applebloom not used to this much hard work felt her muscles burning in pain. Big Mac and Applejack were a little better, but to work so hastily came at a toll for them as well. They missed some kicks, messed up the locations for the baskets and once in a while bucked a regular appletree that was close to the previous Zap Appletree. Heavily panting while they were shaking the last trees before the rest of the apples vanished at sundown.
"By Celestia, that was the strangest Zap Apple season ever!"
"Eeyup."
"Better head back for the barn to get the carts."
"Eeyup."
Applebloom was too tired to walk and her legs felt like pudding. Big Mac put her on his back. Like this the siblings left the orchard back to the barn. The good old building of red painted wood, their beds, everything welcomes them with a warm and cozy charm. Something to drink from the fridge would be nice as well, but did something else await them. A far less pleasant surprise. The door stood wide open, plastered with claw marks. Leaf and branches left a trail up stairs. The Apple siblings stared at the scenery for a brief second before panicky rushing towards their grandmother´s room. "GRANNY!"
Her room was filled with leaf, branches and clawmarks. Luckily no blood, but Granny was gone.
Creatures of wood and magic. Wood, leaf and treesap. Wolves born by the Everfree Forest itself. Granny Smith was wrapped in the blanket. Each end was held up by the wooden fangs of a bigger-than-usual timberwolf. Lifted carefully over and through the Everfree forest. Not a single stick touched the cocoon shaped bundle. The old mare cursed the beasts all the way she got dragged deep into the the woods. As she got finally put down on a soft piece of ground, Granny Smith could finally unravel herself out of the blanket. "Darn tutin, ya vile vermin. Ya better let me..."- She stopped yelling as she recognized the place she was brought in. It was not to difficult, this was the place were the Zap Apples are growing, where she got the first for their own orchard when she was just a little filly. -"No diggity! I know this place..."
"Glad you remember. Tiny apple thief."
They had been to the Everfree forest at least a dozen times before. Also their zebra friend, Zecora, lived in the woods on her own. So the old mares tale of this forest being a deathtrap had worn off on them. But to see the woods grow a shield against trespassers was unnerving. Boughs, branches and vines knitted an almost solid wall, just flexible enough to not break by a sudden impact. Several timberwolves roamed the outskirt between Ponyville and the forest. Seven to be exact, but not the ordinary ones. Instead of being composed of twigs and branches, these timberwolves were made of whole trees and were as huge as a house.
A beam of pink magic struck one of these foul creatures down, but it reassembled right away. Twilight Sparkle, a lavender alicorn and the princess of friendship, touched ground next to Applejack and her siblings.
"This is surely peculiar..." she muttered more to herself, but Applejack felt offended by the lack of frustration Twilight showed, while she felt so useless in this disaster.
"Will ya stop finding it interesting, that Granny got kidnapped by these beasts and DO SOMETHING!"
"Applejack Darling I am sure Twilight did not try to be rude." Rarity tried to calm Applejack down. The earthpony pushed her away ready to unleash her anger upon her friends if they dared to stop her in her path to rescue her grandmother.
The purple dragon was staring at the wolf putting itself together: "But why? Last time we faced such a big one it got defeated by a simple stone!"
Applejack´s ears pinned down to her head as she screamed at the tiny dragon: "THEN THROW A STONE! Who knows what happens to her while ya take yar sweet time talking!"
The old mare stared at her kidnapper as she was dragged to the biggest and oldest of the Zap Appletrees inside the Everfree Forest. As her back touched the black bark of the tree, green vines shot out of the woodworks behind it. They twined around Granny Smith´s forelimbs, curled around her legs and tightly tied her rump all the way down her hindlegs. Vines were creeping up, binding her against the tree. One of the vines tried to entangle itself around her neck.
"No!"
A yellow and a cyan pegasus touched the ground close to the Applefamily. They slowly shook their heads, they had not found an entrance. The tightly knit shield also stretched among the treetops. The pegasi were hurt. Ravens had pecked on them as they were scouring the forest for an opening. Fluttershy had a terrified expression on her face and was shaking to the bones. The birds had screamed at her to leave and told her Granny Smith belongs to Everfree now.
Bic Mac and Applejack kept trying to get close to the barrier but the timberwolves rushed to them when ever they came close to the wall of wood. Twilight tried to fight off one Timberwolf at a time, wishing she just had the power when she fought Tirek, then they might not come back right away. Rarity and Fluttershy did not know what they could do to help besides taking care of Applebloom and her friends, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo, and keep her out of harm´s way. In a moment of brave foolishness filled with all the frustration of her friends Rainbow Dash flew to the sky. A long rainbow trail marked her track as she built up speed for her signature move, the Sonic Rainboom. After flying with incredible speed she shattered the aerial magic on her outstreched hooves releasing a ring shaped, rainbow colored shockwave as her speed drastically increased in the fraction of a second. The reckless pegasus closed her eyes. Awaiting the impact.
Penetrating trough the wooden wall with loud sound of breaking wood, Rainbow Dash hit and bounced off several trees behind it. Inside. Finally.
Unnoticed by Rainbow Dash, but well observed by every pony remaining outside the forest, the wall closed behind her. Regrowing and reassembling unlike the timberwolves, but with the same limegreen aura whenever they put themself together. It had not even taken half a minute to close the gap. Soon they could hear a scream of terror, a shout by the raspy voice of Rainbow Dash as a long vine streched out of the treetops holding her by the hindleg. It flicked like a whip, launching the pegasus out of the woods.
Rainbow Dash was dizzy after having been spun around through the air like that, but she managed the landing. "A.J., the forest is normal inside!" she exclaimed after shaking off the dizziness, ready to launch again she added: "Get ready to jump in when I break through again! We get your Granny out...of..." The ponies stared in utter disbelief. If they had had not horrifying memories about it, they might hade found this sight astonishing, but seeing the whole forest covered in the nightblue flowers broke their spirit. "Poison Joke!" They had experienced the effect of touching this highly potent magical flower themselves. Twilight´s horn had gone all wobbly, Applejack had shrunk to the size of a mouse, Rarity´s coat and mane had grown wild, Fluttershy and Pinkie were cursed on a linguistic base and Rainbow´s wings had become inverted hanging from her belly.
"Uhm, girls..." Fluttershy said with her meek voice into the silienced round: "If the poison joke did all that to us because it wanted a laugh... What do you think it will do to us so the Everfree Forest can keep Granny Smith?"
Applejack gazed at the yellow pegasus. "Say what?"
"Sorry... I should have said it earlier. The birds that attacked us they... wah... wha... what?!"
Alarmed by Fluttershy stammering all of a sudden everypony turned their head to watched where her hoof was pointing. The giant timberwolves had started to eat some of the poision joke covered barrier. Between the chunks of their bodies began the blue flower to grow turning them slowly into nightblue wolves. Regenerating, untouchable, curse infested, house sized wolves.
A glistening flash behind them turned their attention once again. All of a sudden two more ponies had arrived on the scene. The first was Princess Celestia, an alicorn twice the size of a normal pony with a long horn and wings great enough to hide another pony in them. Her all-white body sent a strange warm atmosphere around her. Her mane was constantly moving had all the colors of the northlight. The second pony was a total contrast to her. A small all-pink earthpony with a curly mane. The ponies just gazed at them.
"It is worse than I expected, Pinkie Pie." Celestia said taking the scenery unfolding in front of her into account.
"Princess Celestia? Pinkie, what´s going on?"
"It´s not like I would have been any help here, so I got us the big cannon." Pinkie giggled at Twilight´s frenzied bafflement: "You didn´t even notice I wasn´t there did you?"