Trees!

It was a cool summer day in Ponyville -- which meant, as it often did, that Twilight Sparkle was studying inside of Golden Oaks Library, her quill scratching across the parchment as she carefully took notes on the ancient treatise on griffon culture that she was reading. Absorbed in her work, the alicorn dipped her quill into the last ink bottle at her side and withdrew it gently, placing the tip back on the paper to start writing again. It took a moment for her to realize that she was out of ink, after having ‘written’ several sentences on the parchment. Chuckling at her mistake, Twilight turned to Spike, who was curled up reading a (definitely mundane) comic book.

“Spike, could you run and grab some ink for me? I’ve run out.”

The little dragon hopped to his feet, happy to be useful. “No problem, Twilight!” He put the book on his shelf and hurried towards the door, ready to pull it open.

“Twilight! Ah need yer help!”

The door to Golden Oaks Library burst open from the other side and Applejack rushed inside, looking as if she had just seen a ghost. Twilight lifted her head quickly to see what was going on.

“Applejack? What’s wrong?”

“It’s...” Applejack’s voice broke. “It’s the apple trees. They’re... they’re tryin’ to eat each other!”
-----------------------

The mane 6 stood gathered around the center of the library. Twilight stood in front of them, wearing a white labcoat and a pair of goggles.

Twilight’s horn glowed faintly and a screen popped into existence beside her, mapping out a diagram of an apple seed. “So, now that you’re all here, I’d like to explain how magical residue affects inanimate objects like this apple seed.” The seed was wreathed in a magenta glow and grew a bit bigger and darker.

“Unlike most inanimate objects, which shed any magical charges as soon as they are hit, plants -- especially seeds -- tend to retain these charges much more easily and release them after extended periods of time -- or not at all.” The seed shivered and grew into a sprout, and a healthier-looking, brighter seed popped into existence beside it. “Now, you may see that the sprout hit with the magical charge is still exhibiting the effects of the spell -- it’s still darker and bigger than the unaffected sprout. The question is, why did this happen?” The sprouts vanished and Flutterbat appeared, sucking the juices from an apple atop a tree branch. “When Fluttershy was hit with the spell, she siphoned the juice out of several apples -- which are also plants and contain seeds. Typically, after a subject is hit with a spell, they release quite a bit of the energy from that spell from their bodies for a while after the spell is cast. It is completely possible that when Fluttershy came in close proximity of the seeds after being hit with the spell, some of the excess energy drifting off of her was transferred to the seeds of the apple she was eating, along with the effects that the spell caused,” Twilight finished with a nod. The screen vanished and the library grew quiet as the other ponies and Spike thought this over.

“So what are we gonna do about it?” Rainbow Dash interjected. “We’ve gotta stop the trees from eating each other, otherwise there won’t be any cider!”

Applejack gave Dash a deadpan look. “Nevermind the cider; mah farm is in danger! These vampire trees are spreadin’ like wildfire!” Her eyes widened fearfully. “Who knows where it could spread next..”

“Well, then there’s absolutely no time to waste!” Rarity chimed in with a flick of her mane. “We’ve got to do something to stop this dreadful invasion. Twilight, what do you think should be done?”

The alicorn tapped her hoof against her chin thoughtfully. “Well, there are two possibilities that have a chance of succeeding. One option is chopping down all the trees around the cannibalistic trees, since they were probably affected too” -- Applejack gasped and put her hoof to her mouth -- “and clearing out all of the residual magic around the trees and within the soil. The other option is systematically hitting the entire area where the seeds were planted with the antidote spell, which would probably be more effective but would take a really long time to do.”

Rainbow Dash butted in. “Well, I think we should just take out all of ‘em before they can eat more trees!”

“But those trees are innocent!” Applejack argued.

“They could still be dangerous!” Rarity shot back.

“Let’s try talking to them!” Pinkie suggested brightly.

“Well, I think --” Fluttershy began to speak but was abruptly interrupted by the other ponies’ arguing.

“Trees have feelings too!”

“They do not! Especially these ruffians!”

“We have to save ‘em!”

“Apples!”

The clamor in the library rose higher and higher until Fluttershy loudly hissed, “SSSsstop!”. Shocked into a stunned silence, the other ponies quieted down to listen to what she had to say.

“W-well, when I was under the spell, I felt like I could’ve heard an apple fall from a mile away, and I was, um... really really fast. Catching a lot of vampire trees would be really hard, because they’re so fast and have such good hearing -- and, uh, no eyes,” Fluttershy finished shyly, shrinking back to her normal height again.

“Thank you, Fluttershy!” Twilight said. “So, we’ll just have to spray all of the places where the trees have grown. Are you with me?”

“Yeah!” the ponies and Spike shouted, Applejack with considerably less enthusiasm than the others. With that, Twilight trotted to the door -- soon followed by the others.

Rarity was at the end of the line and noticed Applejack hanging back, head drooping. "Applejack, dear, whatever is the matter?"

Applejack avoided her friend's gaze, ears back. "Nothin', it's just... I hate seein' the trees like this, y'know? Feelin' like there's nothin' Ah can do, it's all muddled up with magic and numbers...:

"Oh, Applejack, there's no need to feel that way!" Rarity exclaimed, putting a hoof around her friend's shoulder. "You've done all that you could, and that's all that really matters. Sometimes there are times when you've tried your hardest, but what you're trying to do just isn't in your nature. Say I tried to buck an apple tree. I probably couldn't do it the way you do, could I? You're an earth pony and I'm a unicorn; we both have different strengths and different weaknesses.That's what makes us who we are!"

Applejack lifted her head and nodded, standing up to her full height. "Yeah, I suppose you're right. Let's get going!"

----------------------------

After arriving at Sweet Apple Acres, the ponies and Spike all took large hoses connected to tanks full of the antidote spell that Twilight had cast and began running around the orchard, spraying all the trees as they passed. Within several hours, all of the infected areas had been sprayed; the trees were already looking brighter and healthier than ever before. The setting sun cast a golden glow across the farm as the ponies waved their good-byes, returning home for the night.

-----------------------------

"Let's see here... learning the consequences of your own mistakes, cleaning up after yourselves, teamwork, long-term benefits of plans that don't seem like a good idea in the short-term.... Done!" Spike shut the journal with a satisfying thud and turned to Twilight, who was studying in the center of the library again. "There sure have been a lot of magical disasters going on around here. I wonder what's causing all of this?"

"Hmmm..." Twilight tapped her chin thoughtfully. "I don't know... Well, it's probably nothing to worry about. Goodnight, Spike!"

The candles inside the library were extinguished and all was dark. All but the shadowy figure creeping through Ponyville, yellow eyes flashing brightly in the darkness and vanishing.

~The End~

... or is it?

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TorontoFCBrony

TorontoFCBrony #1 · Dec 30th, 2013 · · ·

May I give you a suggestion? I gave you the thumb up by the way. It's not that bad. The suggestion is that you space your paragraphs more, because as of now it's just a wall of text and easy to lose your spot.

terrycloth

terrycloth #2 · Dec 30th, 2013 · · ·

Heh. I thought 'there sure have been a lot of magical disasters around here' meant that Twilight herself was the cause, until you added the shadowy figure.

D3m0sthenes

D3m0sthenes #3 · Dec 30th, 2013 · 1 · ·

3705199 Thanks for the advice, I'll keep that in mind

Metaright

Metaright #4 · Dec 30th, 2013 · 1 · ·

There are three main criticisms I have with this story.

First, and this is relatively minor, near the beginning you write as if you're making a transcript of an episode:

{MLP theme song plays}
{The scene fades to show the mane 6 standing around the center of the library. Twilight is standing in front of them in a white labcoat and a pair of goggles.}

You never do that again after this, even when you have other scene transitions. Given the length of the story, it's also really unlikely that you could have convincingly made this into a fake episode. That's not in itself a bad thing, given Equestria Daily's word count limit, but combined with the lack of consistency in your transitions, it sort of comes across as an abandoned idea that you forgot to take out.

Second, a lot of the conflict and resolution of the story is rather confusing.

“Well, there are two possibilities that have a chance of succeeding. One option is chopping down all the trees around the cannibalistic trees, since they were probably affected too”

So all of the healthy trees around the cannibal trees were affected? How were they affected if they didn't turn into cannibal trees themselves? And if they were affected too, and Twilight wants to chop them down, why not just chop down the cannibal trees as well? Or, if they can't chop down the cannibal trees because they'd, I don't know, bite them or something, why do the trees around them have to be affected? If Twilight wanted to cut down all of the trees around the cannibals in order to starve the cannibals, that leaves no reason for the other trees to have been affected.

"Catching a lot of vampire trees would be really hard, because they’re so fast and have such good hearing -- and, uh, no eyes,”

So the cannibal trees can move, then? How do they move? Do they have legs? Wings? And how do they have good hearing if they don't have ears? The spell that made them cannibals didn't give them sight, so why did it give them hearing? And besides that, how does Fluttershy know anything about the cannibal trees? As far as your reader is aware, Fluttershy hasn't even seen them yet. How does she know that they can suddenly hear things now?

“So, we’ll just have to spray all of the places where the trees have grown. Are you with me?”

Wait, so they're spraying all the places the trees have grown? So, the trees can't move?

After arriving at Sweet Apple Acres, the ponies and Spike all took large hoses connected to tanks full of the antidote spell that Twilight had cast and began running around the orchard, spraying all the trees as they passed.

Did Twilight make her magic into a spray? She's never possessed the ability to do that before. How does that work? Why doesn't Twilight just cast the spell over a large area? Also, earlier Twilight says that they'll spray everywhere the trees have grown, which I would assume refers to the soil the trees grew on. If this is true, why did they spray the trees? If it's not true, why did Twilight say that?

I understand that the word limit makes it difficult to construct a conflict and resolution, but this story raises more questions than it answers. It could definitely benefit from some clarification and simplification. For example, I don't understand why you established that the trees can move when your explanation of how they sprayed the trees mentions no difficulty in doing so.

Third, and this is also relatively minor, some instances of your word choice are a little confusing. The fact that I've laid them all out below may make it seem like I'm really ripping into this story, but that's not quite true. None of the examples below, nor the combination of them all, present a really major problem. However, that's no reason not to take notice of them.

Twilight lifted her head sharply to see what was going on.

Perhaps this is just me, but the word "sharply" doesn't seem to fit here.

Twilight’s horn glowed faintly and a screen popped into existence beside her, mapping out the diagram of an apple seed.

"Mapping out the diagram of an apple seed"? I would expect you to say "Mapping out a diagram of an apple seed," because no diagram had been established yet.

“So what are we gonna do about it?” Rainbow Dash interjected, bursting into flight.

The word "bursting" implies a very large, quick action, which sounds odd here given that she's currently inside the confines of a building.

Rainbow Dash butted in, again.

She never really butted in a first time, considering that she first spoke after all of the ponies had been silent.

The clamor in the library rose higher and higher until Fluttershy hissed, “SSSsstop!” as loudly as she could.

Using the modifying phrase "as loudly as she could" presents a less concrete image than, say "loudly" by itself.

“Thank you, Fluttershy!” Twilight declared.

"Thank you, Fluttershy" is not a declaration.

After arriving at Sweet Apple Acres, the ponies and Spike all took large hoses connected to tanks full of the antidote spell that Twilight had cast and began running around the orchard, spraying all the trees as they passed.

"After arriving at Sweet Apple Acres" implies that they made no other stops on the way. This begs the question of why the hoses and tanks happened to already be at Sweet Apple Acres in the first place, since you make no mention of the ponies bringing them there.

All but the shadowy figure creeping through Ponyville, yellow eyes flashing brightly in the darkness -- and vanishing once more.

"Vanishing once more" implies that the figure had vanished at least once in the past, which is not something that your story has established.

And that's that.

All of my above comments are not meant to imply that your story is bad. It's well-written and suffers, as far as I can see, from no obvious grammatical errors. The characters all seem spot-on (except for Applejack saying that the trees have feelings, which is believable if not confusing). And the premise, while perhaps not executed perfectly, is unique and interesting. I'll be looking forward to the next stories you make for Equestria Daily's Training Grounds.

D3m0sthenes