Friendly Fire

by Starscribe

Chapter 11

Danielle found the appointed place for her first lesson without Harley's help, or the company of her friends. Eric's first day would bring his test, and no classes at all until after that. She had already seen Jacob's magic, and there was nothing of strength in it. So she found herself wandering the grounds alone, searching for some large gathering of fellow humans set up (for some reason) somewhere in Unity's orchards.

Despite the great height at which Unity had been built, so high in fact that she had yet to see below the clouds, all kinds of plants grew without difficulty. Danni hadn't set foot in a farm in her life, yet even she knew the climate an orange tree needed wasn't the same one an apple thrived in. Yet as she wandered through the orchard, she found only strong, healthy-looking trees.

Danielle stopped for the fourth time to inspect her schedule. Her whole day was blocked off for "Training with Earth Pony Instructor," but it only said "Orchard" under location. She had seen Jacob's schedule, and it might've looked like any college student’s were it not for the names of the classes.

That's probably for the best. If my parents heard I was a dropout again they'd probably have aneurysms. At least she wouldn't be coming back from Unity with crippling student debt.

The further she wandered, the louder the sound she could suddenly hear. Something thumped loudly, followed by the sound of plants rustling. The sound repeated, sometimes joined with grunts and groans of effort. Had she been anywhere else in the school, she would have ignored them. Seeing as she was supposed to be in class, she followed them. Maybe they've got those metal things football players slam into over and over.

They didn't. Instead, she found something so predictable she almost couldn't believe it. A girl a little younger than her, with boots and a comical cowboy hat and everything, was harvesting fruit. She was harvesting fruit by kicking tree trunks. Several wicker baskets lay behind her, some empty and some full.

Even if she had never seen those awful movies about human ponies, she would have recognized Applejack. "Lemons?" she asked, approaching slowly enough that the girl could see her coming. If this was Applejack, she wasn't shy. She grunted, bracing her back against the ground as she kicked.

The baskets gathered around her filled with fruit, in defiance to anything Danni had ever known about harvesting, or plants, or even gravity. Almost none of them spilled.

"Well, yeah." The girl rose, brushing the dirt off her back and replacing her hat. "I reckon' it's still hot enough for lemonade. Plus we gotta start thinkin' about makin' preserves if we want lemon anything fer winter."

"And you're..." It was almost beyond belief. She hadn't met Twilight in the woods, or spent an hour alone with the pilot. "Applejack?"

"The one and only." She spit into her hand, wiped away some of the dirt, then stuck it out to shake. "Okay, that may not be completely true. I reckon you ponies like dressin' up like us and pretendin'."

"I know what you mean." She took the offered hand, though she felt a little uncomfortable doing it. "Danielle Hicks, but everyone just calls me Danni."

"Oh." She blushed, looking sheepish. "It's not class time already, is it?" She glanced once though the trees, searching for the sun. She found it, then her frown deepened. "Shucks, I'm real sorry. I get a little lost when I'm workin', you know how it is."

"I..." She didn't. "If you're the teacher, maybe you can help me find the classroom."

Applejack nodded. "I sure can." She bent down, scooping up several of the full baskets. Hundreds of pounds of fruit, yet she didn't so much as strain. "Grab the rest ah those baskets and follow me."

She did. Danielle found what she had already known, that her strength was practically inexhaustible. So she followed Applejack through the orchard, carrying twice her own weight in fruit.

"So Danni, what did they tell ya about what you'd be doin'?"

"That ponies put together classes for humans on how magic works. We take a few months to learn the basics, then—"

"Well, lemme stop ya right there." She didn't stop walking. Danni was grateful for that; she was fairly sure she would fall over as soon as she stopped moving. She felt incredibly unbalanced, and that one sidelong movement might dump hundreds of pounds of lemons all over the place. "Maybe bein' cooped up in some classroom helps unicorns learn their thing. But fer what you've gotta learn, it'd be a darn waste. Yer class is right now, with me. After today, I reckon you ought to be ready to be learning by doin'. That's what sets us earth ponies apart from... well, unicorns anyway. Book learnin' don't make me no better in a fight, and it won't make you no better neither."

Her eyebrows went up, though she knew Applejack wouldn't be able to see her face through all the baskets of fruit. "You're the earth pony. Humans learn from classrooms all the time."

"Yeah?" Applejack sounded doubtful. "You tellin' me you'd rather be cooped up in those walls studyin'?"

"No."

She didn't see Applejack dump the fruit so much as hear it, and a few seconds further she made out the outline of shortish wagons with metal mesh on the sides, gradually filling with lemons. She spilled her own inside, and despite her fears most of them made it. She smiled in spite of herself, tossing the empty baskets into Applejack's pile.

"That's what I thought." They were at the edge of the orchard. Just past them was an athletic stadium, albeit one with only three rows of bleachers and only on the other side. It was mostly training equipment, and a few hundred people in similar tank tops and shorts going through their exercises.

Wherever they went, Applejack drew polite greetings, but then people got out of their way. It seemed she got preferential selection of the equipment. Yet the area they seemed to be walking towards looked poorly suited for any exercise Danielle knew about. "All the facts you need about... about having earth magic, I can teach you in an afternoon. After that, it's just about practicing what I taught ya'. Most of it's about knowin' yerself, yer body, and nature. There ain't no substitute for real experience."

Applejack led her to the training area: a raised platform about fifty feet long. It looked like the working of an insane architect, as numerous different substances had been set into the dirt, each about five feet wide. In a rack were several different wooden sticks wrapped in padding. Applejack took one, but gestured to the first part of the platform when Danielle tried to take one. "No, yer' place is there. Stand on the grass. And take yer' shoes off."

She did. Applejack tossed the stick high into the air, catching it again. A little crowd started to gather, training interrupted so they could mutter and point at her. Danni did not like what that implied for her next few minutes. She tossed her shoes aside, then stepped up, feeling awkward to have so many eyes on her. "What's this about?"

Applejack approached the edge of the platform. "You wouldn't be ready fer my class if you hadn't shown some power yet. Those baskets were proof." She swung as hard as she could, aiming straight at Danielle's knee.

She whimpered and retreated a little, but she was much too slow. Applejack's swing connected, in a way she knew should've broken bones. There was a harsh crack, and a brief sting, and splinters flew around her, the inch-thick stick broken where it had struck. "W-what happened?" She stared down, bewildered.

"This is the lesson ya' came for, ain't it?" She gestured to the next patch of ground, apparently ordinary sidewalk cement, picking up another stick from a nearby bucket. Instead of hitting her, she tossed it to Danielle. "Break it."

She did, snapping near two-inches of hardwood with little effort. "I already knew I could do that."

"I bet." Applejack walked a few more feet down, forcing her to follow along the upper platform. Some kind of tile. "So did ya notice yer strength comes and goes? How, sometimes you can run a marathon, and other times you ain't no stronger 'an anypony else?"

She nodded. "I thought I was imagining it at first. The times when I felt strong, I mean. The weak times make sense... I'm one of the shortest people I know, and I've never visited a gym I wasn’t trying to take for team Mystic. Have you ever smelled those places?"

"Yeah." Applejack gestured around them. "When I was just a filly, Granny told me her most important story. See, when all the animals and types'a ponies were made, each one got somethin'. There's lotsa borin' stuff in the middle about unicorns getting wisdom and pegasus ponies getting the wind and all that, but when it was all done it was just us earth ponies left, and all the gifts were gone. But the first earth pony... nobody knows her name anymore, on account of it bein' so long ago... when she was goin' home to her farm, afraid of what might happen to her living in a world with so many powerful neighbors, the ground heard her. She'd taken such good care of the earth on her farm, you see. She'd cared for all the flowers, and made sure all the animals were fed, and never cut down more 'an her fair share of trees for fields. So Earth was plumb grateful, and mighty worried about what might happen if she lost her best friend. That's when she gave us our gift: nothin' flashy, nothin' to write about in no books, just a promise."

Applejack swung hard, this time at Danielle's head. Again wood splintered, without anything besides a little sting. "A promise that she would take care of us. That we'd always have her blessing so long as we kept her close."

Danielle had read a story similar, though it'd been about something Greek. Hercules had been in it... why couldn't she remember? "So earth ponies... and I guess humans like you... get power from the ground. You've got a little pond a little further down, you're going to have me stand in it and then knock me around and show me it hurts, right?"

Applejack nodded. The stick was a lot smaller this time, more of a twig just long enough to reach up onto the platform. "I still gotta' do it. This kinda magic isn't about knowing, it's about feeling. Knowing yer' limits, mostly. Other ponies can be mighty fragile if ya aren't careful. And worse, you are too."

Danielle made her way into the cool water, and wasn't surprised when the stick smacked her. She winced, and found her arm went red almost the instant she'd been hit. Exactly what she would've expected before all the magic started. "So being wet..."

"Not just wet." Applejack got a little closer, so she didn't have to call so loudly. Conversation around them was getting louder. "Up in the air, or on somethin' weird."

She gestured at the next few platforms: a wooden floor, then carpet, then thick steel like deck plating. At least that platform was the last.

"Almost everythin' we build with comes from the earth at some stage, so you might think anythin' would be okay fer keepin' in touch." Standing on wood or carpet still hurt, though not nearly as much as the water had. The metal, though... that was worse than the water. Applejack didn't hit very hard, yet still the stick she had chosen stung fiercely. Maybe even more than she was used to.

"Why?"

"Nopony knows for sure. Best I reckon it has somethin' to do with metal being made from Earth's bones. All those vehicles you ponies make to go fast... cars and planes and whatnot... they're mighty dangerous to folks like us. When yer' inside, yer as fragile as anypony else."

She took one last stick, and shoved this time. Danielle fell, tumbling painfully off the platform. Yet she didn't scratch herself, and rolled to a stop at the bottom only dirty and annoyed. Mostly at all the laughter.

Applejack helped her up. "That's... basically it. Fer the rest of yer time, you'll be doin' all sorts a things with the others. Can't know yer limits until ya push em."

She looked around, at the assembled crowd. Most of them looked like her—ordinary, maybe even scrawny. A few had strange hair or eyes, like the ponies did. Equestrians in for practice too, no doubt. There weren't any other obvious tells. "If I have questions... am I allowed to ask you?"

"Sure!" She laughed. "If ya don't mind me tellin' you to figure it yerself, sometimes. That's how we do most things, round here."

Thinking about the prospect actually made Danielle a little more excited.

Author's Note:

Fair warning: The fimfiction google docs importer appears to be tripping balls at the present time, so I expect some of my tags may have been lost. If it looks like a character's thought just floated its way into the narration in this chapter, that's probably why.

Comments

[Noble Cause]

Regarding the tags, I only saw one or two spots where the italics got ditched. Nothing *major*, and certainly fixable. Also, I liked this chapter. Short and sweet, but a nice little explanation.

[ookacha]

Nothing happened for me. But I'm on an iPod, so it probably changes the text by default. But idk.

[Yami Vizzini]

Man Applejack is awesome.

I wanted to say it was a pleasant surprise to realize we were getting more POVs, and then I remembered that already started. Still, should be interesting.

[Forderz]

at some point protagonists are going to be in a bunker, all will be lost, then a wall will be breached, earth will pour in, and Danielle will go ham.

[KyleeTheShinyStealer]

I'm one of the shortest people I know, and I've never visited a gym I wasn’t trying to take for team Mystic.

HAHA, BITCHES! WE GOT HER ON OUR SIDE!

[Revan]

Very nice. I wonder what's happened to Pinkie Pie?

[Therizzen]

Makes sense. You go Danni.

[Sky Breeze]

That's probably for the best. If my parents heard I was a dropout again they'd probably have aneurysms. At least she wouldn't be coming back from Unity with crippling student debt.

Shouldn't there be italics or something so that it'll look like this instead?

That's probably for the best. If my parents heard I was a dropout again they'd probably have aneurysms. At least she wouldn't be coming back from Unity with crippling student debt.

It looks and feels weird without italics

[RowanSkie]

She nodded. "I thought I was imagining it at first. The times when I felt strong, I mean. The weak times make sense... I'm one of the shortest people I know, and I've never visited a gym I wasn’t trying to take for team Mystic. Have you ever smelled those places?"

Unsubtle Pokèmon fan here...

[CitrusWishes]

That's probably for the best. If my parents heard I was a dropout again they'd probably have aneurysms. At least she wouldn't be coming back from Unity with crippling student debt.

I found it.