> Eggs and Apples > by Tzee > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Bucking Eggs > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- %i% ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I hate them!" Diamond Tiara screeched. Silver Spoon winced as the high pitched wails of her best friend pierced her ears. A little louder and Diamond Tiara's yelps could maybe shatter a lens on Silver Spoon's glasses. The two mares were seated on the deluxe carpet that lay spread out in the middle of Silver Spoon's room. Diamond Tiara was spending the weekend at Silver Spoon's house while FIlthy Rich was away on business in Manehattan. "Those Cutie Mark Crusaders! Right when we get back at the top of the popularity pyramid at school, they do this huge...activity or...plot or...whatever! Then they knock us down a peg and steal top spot!" Silver Spoon sighed. "I know, right?" she said through gritted teeth, adjusting her glasses. "Which is why we HAVE to get even!" Diamond Tiara declared. Silver Spoon tilted her head. Diamond Tiara sat, thinking, for a couple moments. Then, her eyes widened. An evil grin slowly spread across her face. Without saying a word, the pink filly marched out of her friend's bedroom and down the stairs. Silver Spoon opened her mouth to ask what the plan was, then closed it and merely trotted after her friend. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Four cartons of eggs lay in front of the duo of mares. The two were standing behind an apple tree near the barn at Sweet Apple Acres. The two fillies looked out from behind the stump of the apple tree giving them protection and saw a lit window. Behind it, they could see Apple Bloom climb into bed and shut her eyes. Her older sister, Applejack, walked out the room and the light turned off. Then, another light turned on, and Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon could see Applejack climb into her own bed and turn off the lights. The fillies waited for a solid half hour until they were sure every Apple was asleep. Then, Silver Spoon picked the first carton up in her mouth. The two trotted over in front of the barn. Diamond Tiara took a deep breath. Her and Silver Spoon had already wasted a carton of eggs practicing on apple trees in the orchard, but this was the real deal. Glaring at the wall of the barn and grinning, Diamond Tiara picked and egg up in her mouth and tossed it in the air. She quickly turned around and bucked it to slightly damage it and send it flying. There was a satisfying combination of a crunch and a splat. Diamond Tiara turned around and nodded her head in approval. The yolk of the egg she had just bucked slowly slid down the side of the barn, leaving a slimy trail behind it. It sunk down until it reached the top of Apple Bloom's window. Then, the yolk fell into a flower pot on Diamond Tiara's rivals windowsill, bending the daisy that stood planted inside. Diamond Tiara chuckled. It was Silver Spoon's turn. The grey mare didn't buck it hard enough and it fell on the ground in front of the barn where it cracked, eggshells tangling into the slimy yolk. "Next time," Diamond Tiara told her friend reassuringly. The duo continued to egg the house, occasionally taking cover behind trees in case the sound of eggs hitting the wooden siding awoke any of the Apples. One time, Silver Spoon slammed her hooves into an egg too hard. It exploded all over her pedicured hooves. "Ew," Silver Spoon wailed. Diamond Tiara's face wretched in disgust. A layer of egg white covered her friends back hooves. The yolk had shattered and bits of it were splattered around the grey fillies legs and waist. Eggshells were caught in the white, dripping off in slimy chunks. "Nothing we can do now," Silver Spoon grumbled. Diamond Tiara bucked the next egg with a little too much force. The foal watched in horror as the egg exploded all over Applejack's bedroom window. "What in tarnation..." came Applejack's muffled voice from inside the barn. Diamond Tiara flashed Silver Spoon a look, her eyes screaming one word: RUN!!! The two took off in different directions, darting into the shelter of the orchard. Applejack opened her window and saw the slimy yolks and whites that painted the barn. She shouted in anger, awaking all the other Apples except Granny Smith, who slept like a baby. "The crooks can't be too far away!" Applejack snarled. "Big Mac, you're coming with me. We're going to catch these vandals!" Big MacIntosh nodded and the two ponies dashed outside. Apple Bloom followed her older siblings out and observed the barn. The yellow mare glared. She knew who was responsible. Making sure Big Mac and Applejack were out of sight and couldn't see her, Apple Bloom snuck into the orchard. > Lost and Found > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- %i% -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Diamond Tiara was scared. She had forgotten the size of the Sweet Apple Acres orchard, and was totally. Hopelessly. Lost. She had gone from a sprint to a jog to a sluggish trot. She kept turning corners at random times in random directions, but everywhere all she saw was the dusk-covered branches looming over her, the twigs appearing to be claws unsheathed and ready to rapidly scratch her until she was on her side sobbing in pain. Diamond Tiara's stomach rumbled. She moaned. When she was back at Silver Spoon's she was going to get a mint chocolate-chip ice cream cone. Or anything! She needed food. But wait...she was surrounded by food! Apples were growing everywhere! She wandered around a bit more until she found a looming branch close enough to the ground for her to jump up and grab. Diamond Tiara took a deep breath and dashed towards the branch. The pink filly leaped up and wrapped her tiny hooves around the stick. She pulled it on to the ground as low as it would go, then released. The branch flew up, smacking four apples in the stems and making them tumble onto the ground. Diamond Tiara grinned as three golden delicious and one red delicious apples rolled up to her. She leaned in and took a heaping bite out of the golden delicious when she felt a prick on her head. She looked up and discovered that the apples weren't the only thing she had knocked down. A wasp nest was sitting on the ground near the stump of the tree Diamond Tiara had whacked the apples from. Honey lay out in a puddle and bits of honeycomb were scattered on the ground. The fall had made the wasp nest splatter, and now there was nothing left, except a ton of angry wasps. Diamond Tiara screamed and began to run. She was followed by black and yellow fury, armed with stingers. One wasp caught up to her and dug its stinger into her cutie mark. That made her slow down enough for a couple more to get their stings in. Soon, about 30 wasps were swarming around Diamond Tiara. The filly sobbed as she felt spikes of pain appearing almost everywhere on her body. These spikes of pain were followed by a stinging sore. "Shoo!" came a familiar voice. A pony in a beekeeper suit armed with a broom ran in and started swatting at wasps. A couple wasps fell with wings to bent to fly. Others evaded the swinging broom and tried to sting the mystery mare. Those attempts were pointless though, due to the beekeeper suit. One by one, the wasps flew away. Diamond Tiara sighed in relief when she got stung one last time by an exiting wasp. So this is what a voodoo doll feels like, Diamond Tiara moaned. If she stood still, the burning sting in nearly every part of her body wasn't as bad. But she naturally swayed a bit, her legs weak. Finally she collapsed and screamed in pain as holes where wasp stingers had pierced erupted into pain. Diamond Tiara stood up on wobbly legs and looked at her masked rescuer. The pony took off the beekeeper suit and replaced it with a raspberry red bow, then grinned sheepishly. "Apple Bloom?" Diamond Tiara asked in shock. Apple Bloom nodded. Then, it was sorta spooky to Diamond Tiara how fast AB's face went from sorta shy to dead serious. Apple Bloom's glare actually made DIamond Tiara sweat and kick and the ground nervously. "Why?" that one word that came out of Apple Bloom's mouth made Diamond Tiara's head waver in dizziness. Or maybe it was just the massive amount of wasp stings that dotted her skull. Diamond Tiara was going with B. "I know ya' hate me and mah famly," Apple Bloom continued. "But eggin ar' home? That's a new all tahm low and evil for ya'!" Diamond Tiara hung her head in shame, then snapped back into reality. Apple Bloom wasn't supposed to be doing this to her! She was supposed to be doing this to Apple Bloom! "You know darn well why I did it!" Diamond Tiara snapped. Apple Bloom took a step back and tilted her head in confusion. "You Cutie Mark Crusaders are always stealing the spotlight! It's like you have this personal grudge against me and Silver Spoon! You have no idea what happened two years ago, and I don't want to tell you! I was sick of always being Number Two, right behind you and your lame friends!" Apple Bloom wrinkled her nose in disgust and said through gritted teeth, "Actually, we only do that because we feel like outcasts. Being blank flanks and all. You wudn't kno'. You have yer cutie mark. We trah to get attention lahk that because not having cutie marks is bad enough. Having a bully lahk you to rub it in almost evry day? That's even ha'rder!" Diamond Tiara sighed and hung her head again. "I guess I am a bully. I treat you like crap all the time. I am a bully. You just don't know what i went through, and how good it feels to be popular. Silver Spoon too, I think. I don't know! You wouldn't understand." Diamond Tiara tried to get away quickly. She didn't want to talk to Apple Bloom. Why had she said that? Why had she gone soft? Either way she didn't like it and did not want to do it again. "Wait," Apple BLoom called after her. "We need to talk. Compare misery, y'know? Maybe it'll help us feel better." For a few moments, Diamond Tiara kept walking, trying to ignore her yellow calssmate. But then she stopped, sighed and turned around. "Only because you saved me from the wasps," the pink mare growled. Apple Bloom gave a half grin that lasted about a second, then caught up with Diamond Tiara. And the two began to talk.