Appleoosa's Most Wanted
They got Rainbow out of the hospital the next day. She wasn’t quite back to one hundred percent, and the doctor prescribed rest and relaxation. That wasn’t easy to find in Ponyville in the winter. The girls decided that perhaps the desert would be a better climate.
“I hear that Appleoosa was recently reinforced against buffalo attacks,” Applejack said.
“Danger and excitement?” Rainbow asked hopefully.
“No, not for you,” Doctor Stable advised. He gave the rest of them hard looks.
“I suppose we can do that,” Twilight said.
They left the hospital with Rainbow. On the way out, Rarity paused with a gasp. “Dandy Sprite! How did she get here?”
Rarity started to enter the hospital room with 1st Lieutenant Dandy Sprite on the door, but Nurse Redheart pushed her out. “This patient is resting. She is not to be disturbed by order of Princess Luna.”
“What happened?” Rarity asked.
“Multiple dismemberment.”
Rarity went whiter than usual. The rest pulled her away.
“She’s resting, you heard the nurse,” said Applejack as they walked out of the hospital. “We can’t do anything else to help her right now. What we can do is help Rainbow.”
“That’s right, we need to get her out of town until the heat wears off,” said Pinkie.
“I think you’re right,” Twilight agreed. She frowned. “Although, what are we going to do about it? She is kind of responsible for a lot of property damage, both in Cloudsdale and down here where so much snow fell at once.”
“We can annoy her a little,” suggested Pinkie. “She knows she deserves it, and it’ll be fun.”
“I got an idea,” Applejack said. “Appleoosa’s havin’ a rodeo soon. We’ll take her there for the desert climate and she can watch me compete but won’t be allowed to enter the competition herself.”
“Why are we suddenly doing everything you want to do?” Twilight asked. “We went to Babs’ party.”
“You got a better idea?” Applejack challenged.
“Well, no,” Twilight allowed. “We wanted to go to the desert anyway. I was just wondering why you seem to be taking charge all of a sudden.”
“It isn’t because before he left Valiant said I was becoming a better leader,” Applejack quickly pointed out. “I’ve just been exploring myself a little more lately, getting in some good one-liners, and trying to take a more active role. That means I…”
Applejack trailed off as they came within sight of the library. She muttered, “Don’t look, but I think we have company.”
“Don’t look where?” Rarity asked.
“At the tanks. There’s an extra.”
“A seventh tank?” Twilight asked. “Where could it have come from? Whose is it?”
They carefully filed by and into the pub, heading to the back room before Applejack replied. “The snow was all disturbed around it, like it plopped down from the sky. It was painted kind of a dull grey.”
“Valiant’s got to be trolling us,” Rainbow said, speaking for the first time since leaving the hospital.
“I think that’s likely,” Twilight grumbled as everyone took a seat around the table. She frowned. “Who is it for, though? The others were painted pretty distinctively.”
“Let’s just go to Appleoosa and worry about it later,” Applejack said.
Guinness stuck his head into the room. “Anypony for eats?”
“Yeah, we could use some lunch,” said Rainbow. “We’re just about to leave on a trip to Appleoosa. You’re watching Skyla.”
“You just get out of the hospital and that’s the first thing you say to me?” he asked.
Rainbow shrugged. “You asked if I was hungry. And anyway, I’m not so bad off. Dandy Sprite, that guard who was in town the other day, is in the hospital right now.”
“I wonder how she caught a disease like 'multiple dismemberment?'” Pinkie said.
Twilight frowned, but added, “Regardless of how she got several limbs ripped off, I would think we would have heard about an accident like that.”
“Well, there was the blood,” said Guinness.
They all stared at him.
“You know, on the tank?” he said. “It must have happened during the snowstorm. I was in such a hurry to get Rainbow to the hospital that I didn’t think about it when I saw it.”
“Which tank?” Applejack asked urgently.
“The grey one,” Guinness said. “Why, who was driving it?”
All the girls let out a sigh. Twilight said, “None of us. It wasn’t there a while ago.”
“Hmm. Then where did it come from?” Guinness wondered.
“That also sounds like your problem,” said Rainbow. “Girls, let’s get going.”
They grabbed the food to go. Stepping out of the Half Pint, Twilight asked, “How should we get there?”
“Seems like a good opportunity to keep learning about the tanks,” offered Applejack.
“Will we have enough fuel?” Rarity asked.
“Shouldn't be a problem,” said Twilight. “I happen to be the majority stockholder in Valiantco™. That is something decent Valiant left behind.”
“But we can’t eat and drive at the same time,” said Pinkie. “It’s unsafe.”
So they took the train.
Appleoosa was much the same as the newspapers described it: a dusty, rebuilding shantytown. It hadn’t yet recovered from the stomping the buffalo had given it. The rodeo arena might have been the nicest part of town. Everypony seemed to be on edge, and the Sherriff’s eyes constantly scanned every new arrival to town.
Braeburn the cyborg and his marefriend Cherry Jubilee had shown up. Braeburn was not allowed to compete, but he’d known Applejack was entering the rodeo and came to show his support. It was AJ that had first suggested Braeburn get out of town and start a new life elsewhere, also pointing him to Cherry.
The metal that coated a lot of Braeburn’s body had gained a few scratches since Applejack had last seen him, but he seemed to be in good spirits with Cherry by his side. When Applejack commented that Valiant had gone to the moon, that seemed to lift his spirits even more.
“Can we enter the rodeo and get cutie marks?” the CMC begged. Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo had somehow tagged along.
“This place is a cutie mark gold mine!” said Scootaloo.
“If we can get into some of these events, we could all three walk off the train back in Ponyville with brand spankin' new cutie marks!” Apple Bloom added.
“I don't know... all these events look a little, well, dangerous,” said Sweetie Belle.
“Plus, you’d be competin’ against me,” Applejack quickly said.
“I thought you only practiced haybale stacking and roping?” Rainbow said.
“Rainbow, please. You really think I wouldn’t be competitive?” Applejack flexed, showing off her recent protein gains. She also threw a subtle gesture towards the CMC to get her point across.
“Alright, everypony, listen up!” interrupted the Sherriff. “We need a big law enforcement presence at this here rodeo! I want that low-down varmint to know we mean business!”
“A cutie mark-apalooza and a low-down varmint?” gasped Apple Bloom. “This is shapin' up to be the most excitin' rodeo ever!”
“Cutie Mark Crusader low-down varmint catchers!” the fillies cheered.
“Second thought, you can compete in any rodeo event you want,” Applejack said.
Twilight pulled the Sherriff aside and quietly asked, “Who is this varmint you’re talking about?”
“Trouble Shoes,” he replied. “The Equestria rodeo circuit has been plagued by the dirty dealin's of this notorious outlaw.”
“What has he done?” she asked.
“He knocked barrels every which way at the Hoof City rodeo. He sabotaged the steer pen at Pinto Creek rodeo.”
Twilight frowned, remembering something Valiant had once said about steers. Back to the topic at hand, she said, “Could we cancel the rodeo as a matter of public safety?”
“Appleloosa ain't gonna be intimidated!” the Sherriff insisted. “Trouble Shoes has caused enough trouble and his reign of terror ends here, today. Everypony in town is prepared.”
Twilight wasn’t sure she liked the sound of that, but nodded and went back to the girls to find seats for the rodeo.
As it turned out, the town was completely prepared when Trouble Shoes appeared. Midway through the first event, the pile of bales the rodeo ponies were stacking wobbled and came tumbling down.
One of the biggest stallions any of them had ever seen landed in a heap of hay, right out in the middle of the arena. It was all the more comical because of his tiny hat.
“That’s him!” someone shouted.
Everypony in sight pulled out a katana.
“Now this is a cutie mark activity that I can get behind!” Sweetie exclaimed.
They all surrounded Trouble Shoes with sharp pointy blades. He looked around, ears drooping. “Must be my lucky day.”
“Well, that was easy,” muttered Twilight from the stands. “But…well, the obvious question is where did all those swords come from? Did they get them from the Neighponese railway laborers?”
“That's racist,” Pinkie stage-whispered in her ear.
“The crate they were in crashed into the ground a few days ago,” explained the Sherriff. “Looked like it was a lost shipment or something.”
“A lost shipment to where?” Twilight asked.
“Let’s see if I can find it,” he said. He gestured for Twilight to follow. Behind one of the temporary tents, there were a few scraps of wood. Stenciled on one of them was:
Plymouth Valiant
1 Valiant Street
Valiantopolis, Dark Side of The Moon
“Oh dear Celestia,” Twilight muttered.
She hurried back to the rodeo. The crowd was huddled together, talking in hushed whispers.
Twilight found her friends and announced, “We have a problem.”
“No kidding. Who’s going to move a big lug like that?” Rainbow replied.
Seeing Twilight’s confused look, Rarity explained, “As they were trying to take him to jail, Trouble Shoes tripped and landed on a katana. This is after he was caught by clumsily knocking over a pile of haybales. He was so unlucky, perhaps the worst criminal ever.”
“Well, about those katanas…” Twilight said, “they’re Valiant’s, or they were. I don’t know why he ordered a whole crate of them or who he ordered them from, but apparently they ended up here in Appleoosa instead of on the moon.”
“Is he going to be mad?” Fluttershy asked.
“I think that’s a safe bet,” said Rarity. “The question on my mind is why he was ordering them at all. I know he was a good craftspony when he wanted to be. He always liked to do things himself, especially when it came to weaponry.”
“And so many of them,” added Twilight, looking around at all the townsponies still carrying their swords. “Was he preparing for something?”
“What could one pony possibly need so many swords for?” Rainbow laughed for a little while and then stopped. “Oh right, this is Valiant we’re talking about.”
“You can say that again,” Pinkie giggled. She looked around. “That was funny, but not all my friends were here to hear it. Where’s Applejack?”
“Right here,” Applejack called, jogging over. The crowd had begun to disperse and she’d been dodging ponies to get to them.
“Where did you go?” Twilight asked.
“Well, somepony had to get Trouble Shoes’ body out of the street. Nopony but yours truly had a hope of liftin’ a dead weight like that.”
Pun intended or not, that was a fair enough excuse. Applejack had been getting well and truly jacked lately. Twilight thought she saw Rainbow ‘mirin.
It was hard to top the swordplay, and the rest of the rodeo wasn’t much of a show by comparison. Applejack collected her awards and they said goodbye to Braeburn and Cheery.
The CMC complained the whole way home. They’d gotten no chances for cutie marks. Applejack had even deprived them of the opportunity for body disposal.
A successful outing demanded a good get-together to celebrate. They all, minus the fillies, met up at the Half Pint.
Squibles took their orders, although Applejack wasn’t hungry. Twilight shot her a knowing, though somewhat disgusted, look.
Guinness came in with a tray of mugs. “Did you all have a good day?”
“It was great!” exclaimed Pinkie, seizing a pint and downing it.
Guinness started to protest. “Hey, those were for the other tables…” but the rest of the girls had already taken glasses. He shrugged and left the room.
Twilight wasn’t quite sure what she was drinking. It tasted a little like grain with a pleasing fizziness. They all seemed to enjoy it.
Guinness went to get another round of beer. In the moment, he’d forgotten to mention what he’d discovered earlier that day, although the girls hadn’t seemed interested anyway. He’d taken a look at the mysterious grey tank and noticed some strange symbols on it. When he’d come back later, however, it was gone. Also, a strange grey haywagon had appeared in the town square. Guinness wasn’t exactly sure what it all meant, but he had a feeling that something more than met the eye was going on.
By the time Guinness got another round of beer and arrived at the table of the intended recipients, they were a little cross. Fortunately, they were drinking beer so all would be forgiven soon. After dropping off their order, he went back to the bar.
The front door opened and a battered Night Guard wobbled in. Guinness realized it was Rarity’s friend from the other day, the one who’d apparently been run over by a tank.
The batpony’s limbs had been replaced by crude metal prostheses, just barely visible under her hospital gown. A nurse hurried into the pub after her. “Ma’am, you really mustn’t be up and about! You’ve had a serious injury!”
“Okay, okay, just let me grab a sandwich or something before we go back. Hospital food is killing me.” The Guard stumbled over to the bar.
Guinness thought for a moment and then a wide grin appeared on his face as he greeted her.
“Lieutenant Dandy, you got new legs!”
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A three episode/chapter build up, for a single Forest Gump reference.
I have no words.
I spent about ten minutes trying to come up with the words to..to.. express my thoughts to other words, but i just...
Words words words.
I..But....3 chapters? for one reference? Why didn't I see that coming? it should have been obvious looking back now...I don't know how to any more....
Look out, Valiant! Other Hasbro properties are invading! We've already got Transformers, if you don't act now we'll have Pound Puppies and Mr. Potato Head!
I've been wondering, wheres Valiant?
5957689 Well, in an episode or two we'll find out where he's not.
5957718 ok xD
5957689 on the moon!
Boxes of katanas and mysterious tanks falling from the sky?
strange hay carts?
The royal guard getting new legs?
sounds like Valiant's back in action.
(and why isn't there a National Valiant Day yet? Somepony needs to start pestering Celestia about that.)
That was amazing. When Dandy was first introduced, I laughed a little and made 'you got new legs' joke to myself. By the time she'd lost her legs, I'd already forgotten it.
Reading that line nearly killed me I laughed so hard.
10/10, will read again.
Guinness getting punched in the face by a prosthetic (or headbutted) in 3... 2... 1...
quickmeme.com/img/9c/9c728511e662fb18a261eafe18810fb44c74922a2b571540900b33780fb17eb1.jpg
I can't stop laughing!
Poor Troubleshoes. He wasn't such a bad guy.
5981176 HAHAHA NO.
Gee...I wonder whom could have crafted and installed artificial limbs on Dandy?
Gump reference is worth the effort
So, she's.....
Applejacked?
I'm surprised no one else came up with that.
Man did not expect this one
You've been setting up that joke for the last three chapters, haven't you?