Upon that day...

by TLSpark

Chapter 5

Applejack came back moments later with a red apple, which she was holding in her mouth by the stem. She walked over to the still bleeding creature and placed the fruit that she was named after on the ground a few inches away from his left side, the side that didn't have a towel that was now soaked through with blood. One Shot smiled as she went back over to the lantern and shook some of the bugs inside it awake again. As she sat down in her usual spot across from One Shot, she saw in the renewed light that he hadn't touched the apple yet.

"Well? Aren't you going to eat it?" She asked him.

"I'm...thinking..." He replied.

"About what?"

"I'm trying to remember when the last time I actually saw a whole apple before..." He smiled at her reaction and slowly picked up the apple in his left hand. At first, he seemed to struggle with the effort, but he managed to lift the red fruit to his mouth. A loud and audible crunch was heard as he took a rather large bite out of it. For a while, he didn't do anything but let the juice run down his mouth as he enjoyed the ripe taste of the apple. A slow munching was soon heard throughout the building. Applejack watched in silence, waiting for him to finish. When he finally swallowed his first bite, he glanced over at the waiting pony. He mumbled something to her, but she didn't catch it.

"What did you say?" She asked him. He lifted his right arm and beckoned her over. Applejack nodded and went over to him, but she couldn't help but look at his wound once more as she did so. The towel had been bathed in his blood for quite some time now, and the bandages keeping it in place were also stained red. At that moment, they were a little loose and seemed to be sagging. The towel and the bandages should have been replaced ages ago, but she didn't know how to do that without opening up the wound even more than it already was. One Shot saw her sit on his left, away from the gash, but she was still staring at it. He tried to speak again, but ended up mumbling again. The pony looked into his face again, a questioning look on her own. One Shot cleared his throat and tried once more.

"Thank you..."

"For what? I didn't-" Applejack started to say, but One Shot cut across her.

"By all means," he said, "I should be dead by now, but I'm not. Even with all of your help, a simple bandage like this," He gestured to the bloodied towel and the loose and dirty bindings, "Couldn't have kept me alive all this time. No...I think it was something else that has kept me from leaving this world...I think... it was you,"

"Me?" Applejack asked with her usual shocked look.

"You..." Continued One Shot. He stared at the apple that he still clutched in his hand, and smiled, "You have shown me who I really am. I'm not just some soldier who has lost a dear friend. I am a soldier who has lost his purpose..." He finally dropped the arm that was holding the apple onto the ground with a loud thump that seemed to resonate through the air. "Thank you Applejack for helping me realize that my dear friend didn't die because of me. She died protecting the ones she held most dear to her heart. I know this now. I know that that is the honest truth..."

"The...honest...truth..." Whispered Applejack.

"Yes..." One Shot mumbled. He was barely moving by now. His chest rose every now and then while his eyes stared off into the distance. Applejack didn't know what to say to him, so she just sat at his side until he spoke again, "I just wish..." He murmured, "That I could speak to Reddy..." He closed his eyes then and nearly stopped breathing altogether. Applejack saw this and got scared.

"No..." She said, "Don't you dare close your eyes!" One Shot opened one eye and looked over at the panic stricken pony, "Stay awake, you hear?" She grabbed the bucket to throw some of the water into his face, only to discover that it was nearly empty, "I'll be right back. I-I need to refill the bucket!" She gripped the bucket's handle and started to run towards the door. In her haste to get there, she accidentally knocked over the lantern, freeing the bugs from within. She silently cursed herself for doing that, but she continued on. At the door, she dropped the bucket and looked back at the creature. Even without the lantern, the light from the moon still showed her that he hadn't moved. "Stay awake!" She yelled before she ran off with the bucket clamped in her teeth.

One Shot ignored her though. It would be dumb to delay the inevitable any longer. In fact, he had started to remove the bindings on his body the moment the pony left. He grunted with pain when the towel fell off, releasing the steady flow of blood once more. One Shot lay down his arms and closed his eyes.

Just in time to hear the sound of fire once more.

***

"Ishts oh keh! Aum bauk" Applejack yelled around the bucket's handle moments later. She had run straight to the water spigot by the house and had filled the metal container with more water. A low rumbling noise had come by, but she ignored it and continued to fill the bucket. As an afterthought, she ran inside the house and grabbed a third towel before running back out to get the bucket. Now, the orange pony was standing just inside the barn house door, waiting a moment for her eyes to readjust to the darkness within. Before they had properly readjusted though, she bolted straight inside, sloshing water all over her front. She set down the bucket next to the now lightless lantern and said, "I got more water. Just stay still and..."

He was gone.

"What...?" Asked Applejack. She came closer to the wall, just to make sure she was seeing things ok, but it was true, for the spot he occupied not long ago was now bare, "How...where did he...?" Applejack couldn't understand what had happened. After a while, she decided to investigate the area, which she did, but all she found in the end was a few pieces of glass and the crusty red towel and bandages laying in a pool of dried blood right where the creature had been moments ago. There weren't any tracks, aside from her own, that led outside, no trail of blood leading to a convenient haystack that he might have hidden in, and there wasn't a single trace of his strange smell in the air. He was simply...

Gone.

Applejack stared at the blood on the wrappings, the only trace that he had ever been there. She sighed and went over to the hay pile and sat down in its soft-

"OW! What the-" A sharp pain had stabbed her in the flank when she sat down. Applejack rounded on the hay pile and rummaged around in it to find the object that she had sat on. Moments later she found it. "Now let's find out what the hay I sat on..." She nearly slapped herself from the unintentional pun and proceeded to pull out- "A necklace?"

Resting in the center of her hoof right then was a necklace that had a single gem on it. Applejack raised it up into the moon light to see that the gem was green and was shaped like a heart.

"Well I'll be...this is the necklace that One Shot was looking for," Applejack looked back at the various objects around the barn. There was two buckets full of water, one of which had its contents stained red with blood. There were also two towels, also stained with blood, a pile of dirty bandages, and a lantern with no light in it. Applejack set down the necklace and just stared at her surroundings, thinking of the various things the stranger had said.

"Ringer..."

"You have green eyes,"

"One Shot...It's my name."

She got up and wandered around the barn, not really knowing what she was doing.

"It can kill another...living being..."

"You almost look exactly like her"

"All my life,"

"Because it is war,"

His words began to echo around her head. They repeated everything he said, everything he did, everything he pointed out. The words began to make her nervous.

"She died..."

"...where are the medics?"

"Don't lie to me"

Applejack collapsed in the middle of the barn. The guilt of not being able to help more, of not knowing where he went, became too much for her. Tears began to run down her face again.

"I'm...not sure actually"

"The necklace..."

"Apples?"

The tears were flowing now. Not only could she not help her parents, she couldn't save a complete stranger. He probably ran off, not wanting to give me any more grief on how I failed...

"Are you ok?"

"You can't keep doing that you know," "Lying to yourself like that..."

"Why didn't you go with them?"

Applejack couldn't take it anymore. She started to yell, wanted to scream, but the words kept on rolling across her though, relentless in their haste to remind her of how she failed...

"...they're just apples..."

"You really believe that?"

"Honesty is a rare trait you know..."

And there it was. That word he used to describe what she said...no… to describe who she is...

"Thank you..."

"I should be dead by now, but I'm not...I think... it was you,"

"You have shown me who I really am... I know that that is the honest truth..."

"The honest truth..." Applejack whispered to herself. She was laying in the middle of the barn, her face stained with tears and her throat sore from yelling. The words had stopped coming long ago, but they were still echoing around the barn. Slowly, she got up from the ground and went back over to the necklace. It was still in the same place that she had left it. Picking it up, she examined its simplicity.

It was a simple emerald in the shape of a heart that was hanging on a gold chain. Nothing about it seemed unique. There wasn't an insignia or an initial on it, and she was pretty sure it wasn't enchanted. Applejack sighed and took off her stetson. She placed the chained gem inside it and replaced the hat onto her head. After this was done, she set to work in cleaning up the barn. It wasn't all that hard really. She just had to slosh the clean water all over the barn's floor to clear away the blood. The hard part was cleaning the towels and the buckets. After dumping the red water a safe distance away from the farm, she took it and the towels back to the house to clean. It was a little over an hour before dawn when she finally finished.

Winona had gone to bed long ago when she realized her master was safe. Applejack replaced the buckets and the towels, stuffed the old bandages deep inside the trash can, and finally headed off to bed. She knew she would have to get up in a few hours, but she needed some sleep after all. When Applejack got to her room, she took off her stetson and pulled out the necklace. Not knowing what to do with it, she set it on her bedside table and got in her bed. Just before she drifted off to sleep, she remembered to set her alarm clock for seven-thirty. After doing this, Applejack snuggled into her bed covers and closed her eyes.

"You have shown me who I really am... I know that that is the honest truth..."

"Honesty..." Applejack mumbled, "Has a nice ring to it..." She glanced at the necklace and smiled, "Thanks One Shot. You showed me who I am too. I'm a member of the Apple clan. I have helped raise this farm since I was small. My dad did the same when he was small too. He went on to meet my mom, who found her love in farming like him. They raised this farm together, and they raised me and my siblings. We are the heart and blood of this farm. And that is the honest truth." Applejack, content in what she said, closed her eyes and finally fell asleep for the first time that night.

---

Where...where am I?"

I opened my eyes to find that I was inside a dark room. I tried to activate my suit's light feature, but then I remembered that the battery, as well as the back-up, had both died while I was with that pony...wait. Where did the pony go?

I examined the area around me. Soon, my eyes adjusted to the darkness enough for me to see that I was in a featureless room with a collapsed wall just across from where I was laying. There was no sign of the wooden building, and the metallic and smoke ridden air was once again collecting in my lungs. I tried to look around some more, but I was too weak from the blood loss. I knew I should be dead. I knew I would be eventually, but something kept me alive.

Was it all just a dream? Did I really go to that strange building? Was that pony...was Applejack...real? I tried to tell myself that no, it wasn't, but I somehow knew, in my dying heart, that it was. I had smelled the clean air, felt the agonizing pain of my fresh wound, even the water I had splashed on my face had felt real. And the apple...It tasted so...sweet...

I tried to remember the taste of that apple, the freshness of it, the reality of it. It even felt real in the palm of my...hang on...

There was something in my left hand, something...round. It...it can't be... I thought, but it was. When I glanced down at my hand, I saw it. The apple. It was still there in my hand. Why it was there, or even how it was even possible, I will never know. I just knew, deep in my heart, my slowly dying heart, that she had been real.

I tried to lift the apple, if only to taste it one last time, but I was just too weak to move. My time was up. And I started to laugh.

It was a slow, deep and throaty laugh, but I was laughing anyway. The fact that I, One Shot, the best sharpshooter of the blue army, would now die here, alone, just made me laugh while I still could. The irony of it all came crashing into me like an artillery shell. I stopped when my lungs began to hurt, and I stared at the apple. In the little light that I had in the room, I could just make out the red skin of the fruit. Red. like my draining blood and the name of my best friend...

Reddy. He's alive. And he's just outside. This realization practically knocked me to the ground. A plan began to form in my head. Granted, it was stupidly simple and might not even work, but it was all I had. I needed to try. There was just one problem at the moment. Both the batteries in my suit were dead. At least, I thought they were.

Knowing I couldn't move an inch, I tried to use the one thing I knew would allow me to make sure the battery was alive. I wet my lips and spoke.

"Voice control activate," I croaked. Nothing happened. I tried again, but the suit remained silent. Great, I thought, there goes that ide-

"Voice control acknowledged,"

The sudden voice startled me, but I was soon grinning like an idiot. Now to start part two of my plan...

"Activate message system..."