Hidden in Plain Sight

by ShadowGear

Chapter 5: Sclerite's First Job

Sclerite approached Sweet Apple Acres. He could see a barn, a farmhouse and many apple trees. Applejack bucked one of the trees causing all the apples to fall out and land into buckets.

"Hey Applejack!" Sclerite called out.

Applejack gave one last buck to the tree and turned to Sclerite as the apples fell. "Hey Acid Base! What brings ya to Sweet Apple Acres?"

"I'm here for the job offering you gave me earlier today," he answered.

Applejack smiled, "It's great to have some help. We rarely get other ponies to help out on the farm. Instead we work it by ourselves." She said as she led him to a tree that still had some apples on it. "Ah need you to buck these trees. Place a few buckets underneath a tree. The apples should just fall in. If they don't pick them up and place them in the bucket. Think ya can handle that?"

"Yeah, sounds easy," Sclerite said confidently as he magically lifted a few buckets and placed them under a tree. Once he was ready, he turned around and bucked it as hard as he could. Not a single apple fell. He bucked again yielding the same results. After the fifth attempt he screamed and used his magic to violently shake the tree. "Come on! Fall!" he yelled.

Applejack grabbed his shoulders. "Stop! Don't hurt the tree!" Sclerite stopped shaking the tree and began to calm himself down. Applejack waited for him to finish calming himself down before continuing. "Maybe we should try something else," she suggested.

"I have a new idea." Sclerite said. This time he used his magic to pick the apples off the branches and placed them in the bucket.

"Ah guess that works. Now that you have a bucket just dump it into that container over there. Right now we are getting set up before we make cider," Applejack instructed.

Sclerite brought the buckets into a large container. "What's after that?"

"Nothing just repeat that process until all the containers are full. Anyway I'll be back later to check on your progress." Applejack said as she walked down the road towards Ponyville.

Sclerite saw ten large open barrels. "This was going to be a long day," he thought as he used his magic to pick off apples from five nearby trees at once and dumped them straight into one of the large barrels.

An hour later he was still picking apples off of trees. It had actually went by faster than he thought it would. There was only one tree that still needed to be picked. When he approached it he heard some kind of snoring coming from one of them. He wasn't sure what to do about that. Trees don't usually make noises like that and he couldn't fly up to investigate even if he could risk changing back to his true form. He shrugged and picked the apples anyway. That was when he heard an "Ouch!" A cyan pony's head poked out of the tree. "Hey! What gives?"

"Sorry about that," Sclerite said. "I just needed to take some apples from this tree-"

"So you're stealing apples?"

"What? No! I was just-"

"Hahaha! The look... on your face! I was just joking! I'm Rainbow Dash."

Sclerite took a deep breath. That was very fortunate for him. Even if he was a pony he wouldn't want to get arrested for larceny.

"So what's your name?" she asked.

"I'm Acid Base. Right now I'm helping Applejack on the apple farm. So what were you doing just now?"

"I was busy training to become a Wonderbolt," she answered.

"You sounded like you were sleeping," Sclerite mocked.

"I was napping! There's a difference!"

"Whatever, I would've been disciplined for napping like that," he mumbled to himself.

"What was that?"

"Nothing. I'm almost done with my work. When I'm finished do you need some help with that?" Sclerite asked. This may be his last chance at a get love quick scheme.

"How about we do a hoof race?"

"Sure just give me a sec," he said. Sclerite used his magic to drop the apples in the last container. "Alright, let's go."

"We start at the entrance to Sweet Apple Acres. Then we run around the farm following the dirt path. The first to make it to the edge of the Everfree Forest wins."

"You're on!"

The two contestants approached the starting line. Rainbow Dash prepared a countdown. "3... 2... 1... go!"

Rainbow Dash charged ahead leaving Sclerite in the dust. He was already behind and had some catching up to do. Having to do laps around the Hive many times had prepared him for a race like this, yet he was somehow being beaten by a pony. Sclerite sprinted, trying to keep up. He could see Rainbow Dash slowing down and looking back. It was as if she was deliberately slowing down for him. The contestants stopped at the edge of the Everfree Forest. Sclerite had to catch his breath but Rainbow Dash wasn't even winded.

"Well... that felt great," Sclerite said in between breaths.

"You ever ran a race before?" Rainbow Dash jokingly mocked.

"No... no I haven't," Sclerite answered not really paying attention to what she said. He then sniffed the air. "Hey do you smell something?"

Rainbow Dash also sniffed the air and her expression turned to fear. "Timberwolf!" she yelled and flew off.

Sclerite watched in confusion as she ran away from the forest. "Wait! What's a Timberwolf?" he asked as he heard a roar coming from the forest. He looked for the source of the roar and noticed three wolves made out of wood approaching him. He then saw that Rainbow Dash was already out of hearing distance. It looked as though he would have to take care of these creatures by himself.

One of the Timberwolves pounced at Sclerite who immediately fired a bolt, causing the Timberwolf to explode into pieces. The other two wolves began to spread out and surround him. Sclerite stood in a defensive stance and prepared himself as more Timberwolves began to emerge from the forest. He fired at one of the Timberwolves that flanked him before it could get a chance to do anything else. The other seized the opportunity and pounced at Sclerite, scratching his back and pinning him to the ground. Just before the Timberwolf could bite off his neck and finish the job, it was kicked off of Sclerite by Rainbow Dash. She quickly grabbed and placed Sclerite on her back and flew off as fast as she could.

"By Celestia you're heavy!" she complained.

"Rainbow Dash? You came back! You saved me!" Sclerite said.

"Well that's what friends are for," she responded.

"Uh... friend?" Sclerite mumbled. Had he really made a friend? Was this friendship going to end up like his last one?

"Hey? Are you alright?" she asked.

Sclerite snapped back into reality and realized how tired he was becoming as he slowly slipped into unconsciousness.

"Acid Base! Stay with me! We're going to get you to the hospital, don't worry!" she yelled trying to get him to wake up. She flew in the direction of the Ponyville hospital as quickly as she could.