Half a Block of Manehattan was on Fire

by ROBCakeran53

First published

Autumn Blaze and Fern Flare visit a city for the first time. Goes as well as you'd expect.

After having visited a Equestrian small town for the first time, Autumn decides it's about time to visit a city, taking along Fern Flare.

It ends with half a block of Manehattan on fire.

Teen/Sex rating is simply for mentions of sex, nothing explicit happens... promise.

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Originally written for the Quills and Sofa's channel, PANIC! Number 74. Prompt was Failed Heist, with 35 minutes to write, 10 minutes to edit/cry, and 110 minimum word count on 2/10/2021. I don't remember if it placed or not, but I'll update this if it did. It probably didn't though.

Thanks to (probably) Decaf, Aurora Dawn, and Scoping Landscape for reading/editing/whatever they did I don't honestly remember anymore.

Cover art is a show edit by ah96. Just... pretend Fern and Autumn's expressions are reversed, and it makes more sense.

Title Pending

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Half a block of Manehattan was on fire.

“Okay, so like, get this AJ. Can I call you AJ? I feel like we’re friends, and like, totally cool with one another, but also not totally buddy buddy yet for pet names? I mean, you did save my entire village from a future of despair and solitude, mixed in with a quiet sound of everypony’s souls dying. Does that make sense? Anyway, AJ… wait you didn’t tell me- ah who cares, it’s probably fine.”

There was a distant explosion. Applejack looked at the excited, yet shackled, kirin with the heaviest of skepticism she could muster under her stetson.

“So myself and Fern Flare, were visiting a city for the first time. You know, how we came and visited Ponyville a while back for your Iron Hoof competition? So yeah, we saw a small rural town, but not a city yet. So after we saved up enough bits, melted them down with our never ending rage, and melted them mixed with wood to double our profits-”

One of the police ponies dropped his coffee.

“-we then set sail for Manehattan! Well, not really set sail, more so rode the train. You know, that creepy old stallion that lives there in that small outhouse. At least it looks and smells like an outhouse. I’m sure you remember him?”

Applejack didn’t flinch.

“Yeah, of course you do. You and Fluttershe were-”

“Shy!” Princess Twilight Sparkle shouted out from down the way.

“Right! Your friend Fluttersheshy were there, and I’m sure you remember him. Nice guy, if only he wasn’t all covered in boils and warts and junk. Ew, only attractive for witches and warlocks maybe, but not us kirin. Oh no, we need young, virtile stallions to foalnap and refresh our gene pool.”

One of Applejack’s eyebrows shot up. The police mare beside her was still taking notes.

Anyway, so we get off the train slash boat slash not really a boat slash why do I keep saying slash out loud like it means anything? Ooooh, is this what being annoying is like?”

“Yes!” Rainbow Dash shouted.

“Oh wow, that’s so cool! I’ve always wanted to be annoying!”

“You’re doing a good job then!” Rainbow added.

“Awesome!”

“Autumn!” Applejack finally voiced, fighting back the urge to chew on her hat. “I. Need. You. To tell me. What happened… here. At the Manehattan Bank of Equestria.”

“Oh, right, sorry, sorry! I got distracted, you know how easy that is, being around so many new sights and things and sounds and- Oh! So. Much. Talking! Ponies, gryphons, all manner of things talking and singing and yelling at me to shut up. It was great!”

This time, Applejack did bite her hat. As well as the police mare beside her. She bit her own hat, of course.

“So yeah, after we had doubled our money using our pent up anger and sexual frustrations, we wanted to see more of Equestria. Maneattan! Train, chugga chugga chugga chugga choo choo! What an amazing thing trains are. So, we planned to stay for a few days here. We got a room at a fancy hotel because we weren’t allowed to sleep in the cardboard boxes like we’d been promised.

“However, after the first day and night, we were almost out of money! I mean, we have no clue how money works, we used twigs and leafs for Rain’s sake. So we figured, with what few bits we’d have left, we should go and make more!”

“Make… more?” the police mare asked, to which Applejack reached a hoof over her mouth to hush her.

“Yeah! I mean, if we could double our own few bits, then surely we could make more. So we started searching the city for natural gold deposits.”

“Oh no,” Twilight said.

“Oh crap,” Rainbow Dash said.

“Oh Celestia’s left teat,” the police mare said.

Applejack simply face hoofed.

“So wandering around, we found this impressive brick building, all covered in gold statues of money, of creatures, and any other thing they could think of.”

“So you blazed it.”

“Well, we tried, but Fern wasn’t really in the mood, so to speak.”

Everponly looked to the second kirin, shackled and standing next to a equally downcast earth pony stallion. Fern’s ears were down, shoulders sagged, however done up in all kinds of makeup.”

Autumn sighed. “Yeah, we tried, but every stallion that seemed interested wanted to take her back to their place, but we needed them to take her there. Right now. Strange how ponies have changed from when we were first foalnapping them.”

One of the random officers added another check mark to her notebook.

“But! After a while we finally found a candidate, and enter, stage left, Unlucky!”

The scrawny stallion sighed.

“Yeah, as you’d guess, he’s unlucky,” Autumn continued.

“Figured as much,” Applejack mumbled.

“But! It was just enough, with a little bit of friction and action, and bam! Fire! So now that Fern was ablaze, and by extension of watching something even the Animal Planet channel (whatever that was) would find risque, myself, then we got to melting all the gold!”

“But it weren’t natural,” Applejack sighed.

“Yeah… who knew they could make wood look like gold?”

“Trust me, if they can make wood look like chocolate, most of us mares wouldn't still be single,” Rainbow chimed in.

Everypony stared at the pegasus.

“What? Don’t hate me because I’m right.”

“No, no, I getcha, just I’m ashamed,” Applejack admitted.

“What’s chocolate?” Autumn asked.

“Nothing!” Both Rainbow and Applejack shouted.

“Alright, coolio, secrets, I get it. Wink. Oh, shoot, it doesn’t work if I say wink as I wink does it?”

Applejack just sighed as a response.

“So yeah, after the melting of gold went ablaze… heh, get it? Ablaze? Like-”

“They get it Autumn!” shouted Fern.

“Yeesh, testy much,” Autumn looked to the police mare, “make sure to room them two together. Her and Unlucky Quartz seemed hit it off preeeeety well.”

Only disgusted sounds came from the other kirin.

“So, after that failed, then what?” asked Applejack.

“Oh, that was about it. Who knew a combination of an overly horny kirin mare and an equally unsatisfied one could melt brick. So before too long, the place was totally on fire. Not even our cool blue fire anymore, just, the boring, regular fire.”

Applejack and the Police mare looked over, watching as an orphanage finally succumbed to the flames and collapsed.

“Right. Boring,” the police mare said, writing a note.

“So yeah, that’s it. Our bank robbery went up in flames.”

Applejack violently shook her head. “Wait, hang on a second. Bank robbery!? You said ya’ll were just trying to melt the fake gold!”

“Well yeah, but it’s a bank, so we planned to use it along with the other gold to make double the gold! We even tried to tell the bank’s manager as we pulled them out of the flames, but they only seemed to care about the crying foal in their forelegs. I mean, yeesh, like a foal needs any help.

“We cast our young into the wild, and they must learn to fend for themselves. Oddly enough, not many return, if at all.”

At this point the police mare was pouring her flask of whiskey into her coffee cup, in lue of already spilling the coffee and just saying buck it.

“So there you have it. That’s what happened. Now, can we have these things off?”

“What? No, of course you can’t!” the police mare shouted.

Applejack gulped. “Uh, ma’am? You might not wanna-”

“I have so many testimonies from you and your friend to lock the two of you up for so long, you’d never see Celestia’s sun even if she stepped down and the purple dork became our ruler!”

“Hey!” Twilight shouted, holding several orphan foals in her grasp.

“So like Hay you’re being unshackled, or released, or anything remotely related to freedom!”

Suddenly Autumn’s eye twitched.

To which the mare suddenly burst into flames, and after several seconds the cast iron shackles simply melted away, down a storm sewer, where several minutes from now the sewer gas would ignite and take out another block.

“Man, this place is boring. Come on, Fern, lets go home. You can bring your sad boy toy along too, I guess. Any stud is better than no stud, or whatever.”

Fern Flare then burst into flame, and once free dragged a still shackled and whimpering Unlucky Quartz off to… somewhere.

The police mare continued to stare on in confusion, while Applejack helped close her jaw.

The farm mare cleared her throat. “Yeah, after a while, you just accept it and move on. Kinda like losing your parents, only less personally traumatizing and more economically stressed.”