Left 4 Ponies: Get to Sweet Apple Acres!

by Silver Arctic Wolf

2: Tree of Harmony Cliff

Once they’d rescued Pinkie and Rainbow Dash, Twilight gave them a stern talking to. “We need to stick together! Seriously, do not leave the group for any reason! Otherwise, we’ll get picked off!”

Rainbow Dash crossed her hooves and pulled her lip back in a snarl. Muttering, she said, “Dunno why you’re scolding me too. Pinkie’s the one who ran off on her own.”

Looking deflated, Pinkie gave a nervous chuckle. “Heh heh… You know, this kind of reminds me of this other time me, when me and my sister Maud accidentally knocked over Holder’s Boulder, and-”

“Pinkie, can this wait?” Twilight asked as she finished bandaging up Pinkie’s front leg.

Pinkie frowned. “Alright…”

“Hey, can I get some bandages too?” Rainbow Dash said, brandishing a bruised leg.

Twilight reached into her med kit, but her hoof came out empty. She blushed and gave an apologetic grin. “Whoops… Looks like that was the last of our medical supplies…”

Rainbow Dash scowled. “You have got to be kidding me!”

“Let’s just get movin’, y’all.”

Twilight blasted away some zombies with her horn, and illuminated the way through the woods with a spell. As they hurried along, Twilight got a bad feeling. It was unusually quiet, and there was an ominous air all around.

“Popping sugar pills!” Pinkie cried out. With a big grimace and shaky hands, she swallowed a handful of pills filled with sugar.

“Hun, why did you feel the need to announce that?” Applejack asked.

“Because all these zombies are making me super nervous, so I just gotta take something, and I wanted to let you all know!”

“No kiddin’…”

Rainbow Dash scowled. “Darn it, Pinkie! We need you less hyper, not more! Just remember to stick to the group this time, alright?”

“Sure thing! I’m not going anywhere while this super scary music is playing!”

Twilight did a double take. “What music, Pinkie? I don’t hear any-”

Before Twilight could finish, loud sobbing filled their ears.

“Who’s that? Is it another survivor?” Twilight asked.

“Mighty creepy, if ya ask me…” Applejack said.

“Y-You scared or something?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“Course not! Are you, Dash?”

“No way!”

“Well, I’m scared!” Pinkie, teeth chattering, hid at the end of their line, behind Rainbow Dash .

“Don’t be scared, Pinkie.” Twilight said. “Laugh at the ghoulies, remember?”

“Psh-sha! I know that, silly!” Pinkie cheered up a moment and waved her hoof dismissively. “I’m just getting into the role!” So saying, she went back to chewing on her hooves with her chattering teeth.

“Ugh, what?” Twilight looked confused a moment, until another round of sobbing brought her back to the present. “Come on, girls,” Twilight said. “If somepony’s in trouble, we have to help them out.”

Following the sound of the crying and lighting the way with her horn, Twilight led the charge forward, with the other three reluctantly following. The path took them in the direction of the Tree of Harmony.

“Uhhwwwahhaaa-haaaa…”

The source of the sobbing was close. Up ahead, they saw a dark form. Some ambient light from Twilight’s horn showed a gray pegasus with a yellow mane, sobbing over a box of empty muffins.

“Is that… Derpy?” Applejack asked.

“You mean Ditzy Doo ,” Twilight said.

“Gesundheit.”

Twilight gave Applejack an annoyed frown, but she quickly returned her attention to the pegasus when she reacted to the light shining on her. Derpy put a hoof over her head and emitted some growls and groans.

“Hold on, something ain’t right here, Twilight! I think she’s infected!” Applejack hissed. “Put your light out!”

“Right!” With a frightened mien, Twilight hurriedly dispelled the illumination spell and plunged the forest back into darkness. Derpy calmed down a little and went back to staring at her empty muffin box. “Whew!” Twilight wiped the sweat from her brow.

“What’s going on?” Rainbow Dash asked as she arrived on the spot.

Applejack raised her hoof to bar Rainbow Dash from getting any closer. “Now, everypony stay quiet, and just back away-”

“Heeeeey!” Pinkie screamed as she hopped into the clearing. “Did you find whoever was crying yet?! Because I’ve got just the thing to turn their frown upside down! Some confetti from my party cannon!”

“Pinkie, no!”

“No need to cry, we’re here to help you!” Pinkie yelled. Having retrieved a cannon seemingly out of thin air, Pinkie rolled it over towards Derpy and shot off a blast of confetti.

Derpy let out a high pitch shriek at the night sky that curdled everypony’s blood, then she lunged straight for Pinkie Pie, who was too startled to run. Applejack, Twilight, and Rainbow Dash jumped Derpy and pinned her to the ground, but it was too late: with one swing of her hoof, she sent Pinkie flying over a cliff, right into the canyon that led to the Tree of Harmony.

“Pinkie, no!” Tears streamed down Twilight’s eyes as she rushed toward the cliff to see if Pinkie was alright. Even with her illumination spell, it was too deep and too dark to see to the bottom. But she knew it was a long drop. She would have headed down straight away to look for Pinkie, but at that moment, Berry Punch showed up and puked up candy all over Rainbow Dash, which caused a swarm of zombified forest creatures to attack her. Fighting them off was a tough battle, and Rainbow Dash came out much worse for wear.

“Land’s sake…” Applejack wiped the sweat from her brow. She draped one of Rainbow Dash’s hooves over her shoulder and helped the injured pegasus to walk. “Twi, I don’t suppose you found Pinkie when you ran off earlier?”

Twilight shook her head. “I didn’t. She fell over the cliff, Applejack and I don’t even know if she’s alright. We have to get down there as soon as-”

“I need some help here! Heeeeeelp!” In the dark, the three ponies heard a cry for help.

“Was that… a survivor?”

“Well, we’ve got to help her, right?” said Rainbow Dash.

Applejack gave Rainbow Dash an exasperated look. “Yeah, brave talk, comin’ from you when you can barely stand. But I suppose you’re right.”

Overcome with worry, Twilight creased her brow. “But what about Pinkie?”

“We don’t know where she is, but that voice sounded close. We’ll look for Pinkie afterwards. That’s a promise, so don’t you fret, Sugar Cube.”

“Mmh…” Twilight cast a nervous look towards the cliff. “Alright, let’s hurry.”

They followed the cries for help to a rundown wooden shed that had been built in the forest. Somepony inside was stomping her hooves on the door and crying out for help. When Twilight opened the door, she was shocked to see inside-

“Pinkie!? Wha-? Huh? But you…? How in Equestria did you get in there?!”

“Huh…” Pinkie glanced around at the shed as though seeing it for the first time. “You know, I don’t really know. Last thing I remember is falling off that cliff... Oh, by the way, while I was down there I picked up the last of the herbs Zecora needed!” With a huge grin, Pinkie showed Twilight a basket filled to the brim with herbs.

“That’s amazing, Pinkie! And I’m so glad you’re alright!” Twilight gave Pinkie a long hug, then she took the basket and stowed the herbs in her saddlebag.

“Good to have ya back, Pinkie.”

“Yeah, totally! Even if you being here doesn’t make any sense!”

Applejack took off her hat and cried a little (on the inside), and even Rainbow Dash was overcome with emotion. “You guys, I’m fine!” With a warm smile on her lips, Pinkie gave them both a hug.

“Hey, look!” Twilight cried out. “There’s a med kit in this weird shed! Let me just patch you up, Pinkie!” She snatched a med kit off the wall and started wrapping bandages around Pinkie’s head. Pinkie was starting to look a lot like a mummy.

“A-hem.” Rainbow Dash donned a look of extreme annoyance.

“Oh, heh heh…” Blushing again, Twilight scratched her head and didn’t meet Rainbow Dash’s furious gaze. “Sorry! Rainbow Dash first.”

Once they’d recuperated a bit and regrouped, they headed back out into the woods, heading on the path that would get them the heck out of there, and hoping all the while they wouldn’t run into any more trouble.

“I just don’t understand what could have caused this plague… Did any of you notice anything unusual in Ponyville? Was something brought in recently?”

“Not that I can think of,” Applejack answered.

Pinkie rubbed her hoof under her chin as she thought. “Golly, I don’t know… We did get a new shipment of sugar at Sugar Cube Corner, but that couldn’t have anything to do with this, right?”

Twilight gave an exasperated sigh. “Yes, Pinkie, illnesses are often foodborne.”

“Yeah, but Twilight, I’ve been eating tons of the stuff all week, and I’m fine! And we only started using it in our baked goods yesterday!”

“She’s got a point, Twilight. If this was started by that sugar, then Pinkie would have been patient number zero,” Rainbow Dash said.

Applejack chuckled, but Twilight was not amused. “We need to take this infection seriously! We’ve been fine so far, but we can’t afford to get sick too! That means, we can’t eliminate any possibilities!” As she spoke, she took a medical face mask from the new med kit and put it over her snout. “And another thing, why are these sick ponies out here in the Everfree Forest? It’s a long way from Ponyville. All I can think of is something must have drawn them here.”

“Gee, I sure hope it wasn’t all this candy I brought!” Pinkie stuffed a handful of candy in her mouth, wrapper and all. She carried an even larger pile on her left foreleg.

Alarmed, Twilight cried out, “Pinkie, get rid of that!” and then swiped away all the candy, scattering it amongst the trees. Almost immediately, zombie ponies rushed out of the woods to devour the treats.

“So that really was the reason!” Twilight exclaimed as she and her friends fled from the candy-eating carnage. “And that also explains why they attacked Rainbow Dash when that zombie vomited all that candy on her!”

“Can we please not talk about that?” Rainbow Dash asked. A shiver went down her spine just from thinking about it.

Twilight continued: “And maybe that means that shipment of sugar really is what made everypony sick!”

“That’s plum crazy, Twi. If that were the case, then why are we all alright?” Applejack asked.

Twilight thought a while, but couldn’t come up with anything. “I don’t know… It must be infectious, because it spread to the forest creatures. But Rainbow Dash and Pinkie both got bitten, and they haven’t displayed any symptoms yet. And even though it seems probable that the sugar is what caused that, Pinkie’s alright after eating it...”

“Well, no time for worrying about that, Twi. Look! We’re almost out of the forest!”

“Oh, thank goodness!” Twilight breathed a sigh of relief.