//------------------------------//
// Applebuck Season 
// Story: My Little Pony: Sora's Misadventures in Equestria 
// by Codex92 
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	If there was a worse time for Sora to be fighting the Heartless today, it had to be one where he ended up accidentally getting someone injured. Thankfully, not by creatures of darkness, but by an unfortunate circumstance. Out in the middle of the fields, he was busy fighting the most annoying of magic casting Heartless, along with a couple Large Bodies. Each of the small mage-like Heartless had their own element, and they always kept their distance from the Keyblade wielder: Red Nocturnes shoot out Fire, Blue Raphsodies unleash Blizzard shots, Yellow Operas constantly rain Thunder, and Green Requiems that regenerate its allies health with Cure. And with the Large Bodies as their meat shields, it was annoying to get by them, even if he could fly.

He had just manage to get rid of the annoying green mages, always healing the other Heartless' injuries after he was close to killing any of the others. While dealing with the other mages, one of the Large Bodies slid into him hard, causing the teen to slam into an empty cart, sending it rolling down the hill. Shaking off the hit, he was prepared for the next slide, using his Keyblade to spin the fat Heartless in place, rapidly striking it while in its daze. Sora then smacked it hard into the cluster of mages, getting them all crushed by the Large Body. Using his magic to deal with the remaining Heartless, with no more to ambush him, the teen dismissed his Keyblade, breathing a sigh of relief.

"Well, Ponyville's safe once again. At least this time, no one got hurt or was in peril!" Sora winced as he heard a crash down the hill, looking down to see the cart he was slammed into smash to pieces. Underneath the debris, he gasped as he saw Big Macintosh lying unconscious, struck by the moving cart. He quickly flew down and pulled the stallion out of the shattered wood, thankful to see he wasn't that badly injured. "I had to open my big mouth."





"Big Mac, I am sooooo sorry," Sora apologized as he, Big Macintosh, and Applejack slowly walked through the orchard. The red earth pony stallion's leg was in a cast, which thankfully was the only injury he took with that cart. Unfortunately, even though he could use Cure magic to heal any injuries, Big Mac didn't want any magical help, preferring to heal the old fashioned way. "Are you sure you don't want me to fix that up for you? It'll only take a second."

"Nope," the stallion said.

"It was an accident, Sora." Even though the Apple family had assured the pegasus several times that it wasn't his fault, he couldn't let it go. Eventually, the trio looked out at the vast apple orchard, the hundreds of acres of trees filled with ripe, juicy fruits of the family's hard work. Today, as the Apple siblings told their helper, was applebucking season, all the apple trees having apples perfect for the picking, being one of their biggest harvest seasons in the year. "We sure do got a lot of work cut out for us."

"I have no idea how you guys can manage to take care of thousands of apple trees with just yourselves," Sora commented. "This looks like a lot even for me to handle on my own."

"Are ya kiddin'? Have ya seen how much ya'll did for us on your first day?" Applejack questioned, both her and her older brother still surprised by his impressive feats. "Ya'll have more strength than any normal earth pony, Sora."

"Maybe, but I'm not exactly a god. I do have my limits, even if I don't show it most of the time." Looking back out at the insane amount of trees just from where they stood on the hill, Sora had no clue how they were going to do this. "Maybe we should get some of the others to help us. Twilight can easily use magic to pick off the apples and give you a good harvest."

Big Macintosh winced, slowly backing away from Applejack as the mare slowly turned her head to look at Sora. "...Are ya sayin' Ah can't do this on mah own?"

"Well, not in one day, but-" The mare pressed her snout against his, leering at him.

"Ya'll sayin' Ah can't do this!?" Applejack questioned, unable to give Sora a chance to answer as she found it as a challenge. "Well, Ah'll show ya and your crazy strength that Ah can do this! Just watch me! Ah'll buck all these trees before the end of the harvest! All by mahself, too! So take the whole week off, Sora, 'cause I can do this better than ya'll!"

Applejack ran down the path and began to take that challenge, leaving Sora and Big Macintosh to watch her up on the hill. Sora turned to look at the stallion, who only shook his head at his little sister's stubbornness.

"...I take it we aren't going to help her until she finally realizes she can't bite than she can chew, huh?" Sora asked.

"Eyup," Big Mac said.

"...Well, what my boss says, I gotta do." Before Sora headed off somewhere to take his vacation days, he looked back at Big Macintosh, summoning his Keyblade. "Are you really sure you don't want me to just cast Cure on you?" The red stallion said nothing and began limping back to the farmhouse, his answer obviously a no. "Guess not..."





Sora sighed in boredom, hanging upside down off the branch of a tree in Ponyville. For his first day on his week-long vacation from working on the farm, it was only a few minutes before he was already too bored to find something to do. Ponies passed by him, not questioning why he was just hanging around, though he had to hide in the branches every so often when he saw any of the mares that had chased him for the Gala tickets the other day. He did not want to get mobbed again, or hit on by ponies. It was bad enough for him to not say his true feelings to Kairi, it was worse when girls from a different world, and a different species, chased after him, whether they were honest about what they think of him or not.

Another boring minute passed, but something finally interesting happened as the ground began to quake. "STAMPEDE!" he heard Rainbow shout from above as everyone in town began to panic and flee into their homes.

Flipping off his branch, Sora quickly ran up to the edge of town to help stop whatever was causing the stampede. He didn't have to do much as he saw a large herd of cows approaching, and Applejack and her dog Winona lead the stampede away from the town. The teen found it odd that she was taking a break from apple bucking to help the town from getting trampled, but at least she was quite dependable, even with her heard work. It also looked like the cows were sentient just like the ponies, seeing the leader of the herd talking to the farm pony.

By the next day, the whole town set up a celebration to commemorate Applejack's bravery for saving Ponyville. Outside town hall, after completely decorated to honor the mare's heroic efforts, everyone waited patiently for the event to start. Twilight stepped up to the podium, a deck of cue cards in her aura as she neatly stacked them together. Sora had to roll his eyes at the unicorn's need for preparation over something this small.

"Welcome, all of Ponyville!" she announced as the crowd quieted down. "Today, we are here to honor a pony we can rely on to help in any matter, big or small...Well, except Sora..." She quietly said that last line, averting her gaze from the stallion standing on the stage with the rest of their friends, though Applejack wasn't here yet. She cleared her throat and suppressed her blush, going over her cue cards. "Anyway, she's a pony who-"

Rainbow Dash suddenly shoved Twilight aside, nearly tossing her cards everywhere. "Did you all see Applejack take care of that stampede!? How awesome was that!? But, during this week, AJ's gonna help me out with a sick trick I got planned, and it's gonna be so awesome!"

While the pegasus mare squished her cheeks at the end of her last line, gushing at how "awesome" her trick was going to be, Sora dragged Rainbow away from the podium for Twilight to finish giving her speech. The unicorn got back in place as she tried to remember where she left off.

"Yes. Thank you, Rainbow Dash. And, furthermore-" Interrupted yet again, this time from Pinkie Pie as she somehow popped up from behind the podium.

"This week, I get to run Sugarcube Corner for the first time in ever!" Pinkie exclaimed, oblivious to Twilight glaring daggers at the back of her poofy hair.

"And how is that even remotely related to Applejack?" Sora asked.

"Oh. Right. She's gonna help me bake some yummy treats, and we're going to be giving out free samples to everypony in Ponyville!" The crowd cheered, unable to wait for that day to happen.

"Great," Twilight mumbled as the pink pony bounced away. "Now, is there anypony else who has something to say before I get interrupted again?" As soon as she asked, Fluttershy stepped forward.

"Well, umm, Applejack's going to help me this week, counting all of the new baby bunnies that were born this season," the timid pegasus said. "Her herding skills will be very helpful, since they can be a little skittish."

"Ok. Perfect," Twilight said, slowly getting annoyed. "Does anypony else have anything they want to say?" She waited patiently for any other interruptions, seeing no one step forward. "Good. Now, as I was saying..." Soon, the mayor stepped forward, Twilight grunting in frustration as she gave up, tossing her cards. "FORGET IT! I don't know why I bothered wasting my time making this speech!"

Twilight stormed away from the podium as Mayor Mare took her place, sitting next to Sora and pouted. "Next time, short and sweet. Not long and complicated."

"Now, it is with great pleasure to award the Pony of Ponyville Award to our dependable and reliable friend; Applejack!" While the mayor introduced the farm pony, pointing out the gold trophy to the crowd, but Applejack was nowhere to be seen.

"...And she still isn't here yet," Sora said. He soon heard someone out in the crowd, making their way forward. He saw the familiar stetson worn by Applejack as she excused herself while moving through the crowd of ponies. "There she is, finally."

"Sorry Ah'm late, everypony," Applejack said tiredly, yawning every few seconds as she climbed up on the stage. "Thank ya'll for the...award thingie..." As she approached the trophy, she was fixated on her reflection. Sora could see bags under her eyes, the mare not having gotten any sleep at all last night. She began laughing, swaying back in forth as she kept looking at her reflection. "Boy, Ah sure do look funny."

She soon began making noises like a siren would, Pinkie joining her at random and mimicking her dazed actions. While everyone just stared at the tired farm pony, Sora began to worry. She actually worked all day and night yesterday, none of the family having seen her come in at all. Applejack tiredly thanked everyone for her trophy and hauled it back home, irritating everyone's ears with the sound of metal skidding across the ground.

With the award ceremony a failure, Sora headed into the orchard to find Applejack. He found her bucking some trees, though she ended passing out, standing on her hooves. Hovering down to the exhausted mare, he shook her awake, snapping her out of her sleep.

"Applejack, what are you doing?" he asked. "You look like you didn't get any sleep last night. Were you really out here all day?"

"Of course Ah was!" Applejack said. "Ah said Ah was gonna do this on mah own, and Ah'm gonna do it!"

She tried to buck the nearby tree, but she was a few feet away from it, hitting nothing but air as she fell on her stomach. "Yeah. You're too tired to even pay attention to where you're kicking. Look, just head back to the house and take a nap. I'll take care of some trees for you."

"Oh no ya don't!" Applejack shouted. "Ya'll is on paid leave, so ya can't help me!"

"...Since when were you paying me money?" Sora asked. "I'm willingly working on your farm for food and a roof over my head...I'm not complaining about the lack of pay since I earn my own Munny, but since they aren't acceptable in this world...I should ask Celestia if I can exchange Munny for bits."

"Well, go on and do that and leave me to mah work." Applejack continued working, spilling apples from the buckets with an unfocused kick or flopping over when she thinks she's behind a tree.

Sora groaned, shaking his head. As much as he wanted to help, Applejack was just too stubborn to accept help and believes she can do this on her own. She's worse than Rainbow Dash when she tried to accuse him of being evil, but at least he isn't getting attacked by the farm pony.





The next day, Applejack was still working, and she still didn't get any sleep. It was driving the teen nuts, being unable to help when she clearly needs it, and over a stressful harvest season. While still stuck on his vacation days for the week, he just wandered around Ponyville, no Heartless showing up and no letters from Celestia. He was still a little miffed out how cruel her prank was when giving Twilight only two tickets to the Gala, but if this was supposed to teach her a lesson on friendship, she could have given her something else that no one else would go crazy over.

While minding his own business, he thought he heard someone screaming somewhere in Ponyville. He looked to where the sound came from, but found nothing, or saw any threats. His equine ears perked up when he heard the screaming again, and was getting closer and closer. The moment he looked up, he was too late to react in time as he was body slammed hard by Rainbow Dash, almost creating a crater from the impact. The both of them groaned, Sora in more agony than the cyan mare as he was used as a cushion for her crash landing.

"Rainbow...You really need to quit bumping into me like this," the teen weakly said, feeling his spine probably snapped out of place.

"Sorry," she apologized, slowly rolling off of him. "My trick was botched the moment I took off." As Sora got back up, he cracked his spine back into place, going to be feeling a painful bruise later. "Applejack kept messing it up."

"Just what were you doing that made you drop like a two ton weight?" Sora asked, using his magic to heal any pain the both of them were given.

"Well, I made this catapult, where I stand on one end and Applejack jumps off and lands on the other end," Rainbow explained. "With the quick lift off, I would be able to pull off this one trick I want to show to the Wonderbolts. But she kept missing and fell on the ground! Then, she thought just pushing it down as a joke would help, and when she let go, I fell down, unprepared for the takeoff. She finally lands on it, and I was flung up into the air, losing all control...And I think you know what happened next."

"...Right. Applejack. I'm gonna talk to her...I hope." Sora flew off, wincing a little as he began to feel that bruise showing up, far too strong for his own magic to heal, he arrived at the orchard. He found Applejack, still working, smacking herself hard in the head by accident with a low hanging branch. While knocked for a loop, made worse with her insomnia, Sora landed in front of her. "Applejack, we need to talk."

"Ya want to go for a walk!?" Applejack shouted, unable to hear Sora properly with the ringing in her ears. "Go on ahead! Just don't buck any trees!"

"No, Applejack! I said we need to talk!" he exclaimed.

"Of course chickens go 'bawk'! That's how they talk!" Applejack continued trying to work, only to make her trip in her delirious state.

Sora picked the farm mare up and pressed her against the nearby tree before she could hurt herself any further. "I need to speak to you! Read! My! Lips!"

"Kiss you!? Sora, Ah like ya as a friend, but there's no way Ah wanna be in a relationship with ya'll!" Sora facehooved.

"Oh for the love of Kingdom Hearts," he muttered. "You flung Rainbow Dash off a catapult and made her land on me! Hard!"

"...Ah don't need to hear any of that! What ya do with Rainbow Dash should stay private!" Sora gave up, letting Applejack go as she kept interpreting what he said into something else every time he spoke. "Now, if ya'll will excuse me, Ah gotta go meet Pinkie Pie!"

She slammed her head into the same branch before heading into town, dropping some apples she was carrying in one of the buckets she lifted on her back. "This week can't get any worse, can it?"





"...I should really keep my mouth shut and stop tempting fate." Sora stood next to Twilight and Spike as they were called over to the hospital, where an epidemic broke out this morning. Every pony inside was gravely ill, their faces green and vomiting, all of them having some kind of stomach virus. "What the heck happened!?"

"There was a little mishap that lead back to yesterday," the nurse said, a white earth pony mare with pink hair, her cutie mark a big plus sign used to show a building is a hospital. "It turns out that the baked goods given out at Sugarcube Corner as free samples were the problem."

"No. Not baked goods." Pinkie was in one of the beds, another of the unfortunate patients that ate whatever she and Applejack made. "They were...baked bads!"

Her cheeks bulged out as she bent over and threw up in a bucket. "Pinkie, you were baking with Applejack! How could you two mess up a recipe and get almost everypony in town sick!?"

"...I-I don't know...I told Applejack what we needed...She got them, but I don't know what happened." Pinkie collapsed on the bed, rubbing her aching tummy.

Sora found one of the "baked bads" they made, which was a really disgusting looking brown muffin. He took off a chunk of the pastry, finding an earthworm wriggling around inside of it.

"Eww!" Twilight exclaimed. "What kind of pastry requires live worms!?"

"Or more like mistaking words and thinking they're saying something completely different." Sora dropped the muffin, which Spike picked up and examined the odd pastry. "We need to find Applejack. Now."

As Sora flew on ahead to find the insomniac mare, Twilight running on the ground after him, the teen caught sight of something out in the distance, a cloud of dust heading for the town near where Fluttershy's cottage was. Sensing it was another stampede, from either another herd of cattle or some other spooked out creatures, he flew down near the entrance to town with his Keyblade at the ready. Where he expected to see a bigger group of creatures, he instead saw a large group of baby bunnies, scattering away from him and toward the gardens around the ponies' homes, munching on the defenseless flowers and vegetables.

"Oh no! Oh dear!" Fluttershy came flying by, trying to round up all the rabbits to no avail. At least none of them were like Angel, otherwise that would be a dangerous scenario. "Come here, little bunny friends! Oh no no no! Don't eat those! They aren't yours!"

"Fluttershy, what happened?" Sora asked, Twilight catching up to him, confused at seeing all the bunnies hopping around.

"Applejack came over to help me round up the bunnies, but she ended up scaring them," the yellow pegasus explained. "She even brought Winona, which was a bad idea and made them more afraid."

"...Ok. That's it! I'm putting my foot down!" Sora said as he stomped a front hoof to the ground. Leaving Twilight and Fluttershy to deal with rounding up the terrified bunnies, Sora flew over Sweet Apple Acres to find Applejack. He found her kicking the last few apples out of a tree, having cleared out a majority of the trees in the past few days. Landing in front of her, he decided enough was enough and was going to help Applejack, even if she keeps saying no. "Alright, Applejack. This has been getting out of hand!

"First, you shot Rainbow Dash into the air and made her crash onto me, injuring the both of us. Then, you made muffins that got many ponies sick, including Pinkie Pie, who clearly saw you put the ingredients in and didn't even stop you, for some reason. And now you scared a bunch of new bunnies with your herding skills, bringing your dog with you to scare them even more, and are now on a rampage in Ponyville eating everyone's gardens until not a shred of green remains in the soil! You're losing your mind from lack of sleep, and need help!" Unfortunately, his words fell on deaf ears as Applejack kicked the tree, dropping the last of the apples into the buckets on her sides.

"Hah! Ah did it!" she said, feeling proud of herself. "Ah harvested every apple tree of every apple, without any help! Ah did it all by mahself! How do ya like them apples!?"

Sora looked out at the orchard, still seeing several hundred more trees with apples still on their branches. Applejack wasn't even close to done, having probably harvested not even half of the acres of land they had. He hated to prove her wrong, but she had to realize she was out of it and delusional from lack of sleep and rest. The teen grabbed the mare's cheeks, turning her head to the rest of the orchard.

"How do you like THEM apples?" he said, Applejack's pupils shrinking to pinpricks at the trees still bearing fruit. She stammered and mumbled, panicked, then groaned as she passed out from her exhaustion. Luckily, Sora caught the buckets she was carrying before the apples spilled over, placing them down near the empty tree and waited for the farm mare to wake up. It was only a few minutes, but it was enough to finally give her some sense of thought, the stallion looking down at her. "Yo, AJ. You alright?"

"...No...Ah really can't do it on mah own." Applejack rubbed her tired eyes, succumbing to her exhaustion. "Ah need help."

"And I can find us some help." Sora helped lift Applejack up and carried her on his back, carrying her down to the farmhouse. "You need to take a vacation day, boss. I've got way too much time off and need to come back, otherwise I'll get fired."

"Heh...Can't fire a friend who's always helpful," Applejack mumbled before passing out again.





By the next day, Sora got the others to help Applejack harvest all the apples for applebucking season, and it went by a lot quicker than Applejack's method of challenging herself to do it all on her own. After he put the tired mare in bed, he got another few acres cleared out, only taking breaks when he actually needed them instead of exerting himself until his body begged him to stop. With him and Rainbow flying around the trees, bucking or shaking the apples off the branches, or Twilight using her magic to levitate several acres of apples into the buckets nearby, the others carted the hundreds of buckets of apples back to the barn.

With all the trees finally harvested, everyone headed back to the farmhouse, where Applejack had bottles of freshly squeezed apple juice for them, fully rested after sleeping through the rest of yesterday. "Thanks for the help, everypony. And Sora, ya'll were right."

"Well, you learned your lesson, with some minor casualties to some ponies unfortunate stomachs." Sora gulped down his juice, downing the entire bottle in a few swigs. "Don't be afraid to ask for any help. Even if it might not be dangerous."

"Ah'll keep that in mind," Applejack said.

"Hey, guys! You want lunch!?" Spike asked, carrying an armful of those disgusting muffins Applejack made in her tired, delirious state.

"Spike, I threw those away!" Pinkie said, clinging onto Sora as she hid from the "baked bads" "Where did you get those!?"

"From the trash." The mares were all grossed out, even Sora, as they watched the baby dragon bite down on one of them, unaffected by the horrible concoction of a muffin. "It's really good! Maybe you might like them, Sora."

"Worms are not in my diet! As much as I am a guy, and like to get down and dirty, eating something like THAT is not on my list of things as a male to enjoy!" Spike shrugged and continued eating his "snacks", the ponies all walking away from the baby dragon. "I'm not going to eat anything that looks like a muffin for weeks after seeing what those muffins did."