“Saddle on up," said Applejack. "It’s gonna be a big one.”
The three Apples plus Twilight sailed across the lake towards the Giant Redstreak tree, which towered over the rest of the canopy like a skyscraper among cottages. Applejack gave the unicorn a friendly nudge.
"Thanks for offerin' to help, Twi," she said.
"Oh, it's no problem. I had the evening off anyway, so I thought I'd do something easy and help out around the farm."
"Easy huh?" said Applejack.
"Yeah, just something to keep things going until my next assignment. I tell you, I could do with unwinding."
Applejack and Big Mac exchanged glances. "You're sure, Twi? Ah wouldn't want you to hurt yourself..."
"Oh, don't worry about it. I've got magic on my side, remember? You don't have to worry about a thing."
They looked up at the tree. "Well... if you're so sure, Twi... well, that's... that's just dandy. An' good timin' too. We got us a bumper crop to harvest, right Big Mac?"
Big Macintosh nodded, putting on his goggles. Behind him, Granny Smith was adjusting the red glasses sitting on her nose. They were both focused on the shadow of the giant tree, and on the slow lapping of the waves against the hull.
“OK," said Applejack, "once we hit the shore, y’all take care of the apples while Ah head for the trunk. We gotta be quick on this one. You just stick with Big Mac and don’t lose your head.”
“Um…” said Twilight, staring up at the top of the trunk. “OK?”
“Y'all ready?”
“Eeyup.” Big Macintosh picked up the saddle and flung it over his back. Granny Smith nodded and copied him, throwing hers over her own back. Twilight wondered why the old mare's bag had a red plus on it.
“Why is Granny Smith coming with us?” whispered Twilight.
“Moral support,” said Applejack. “Oh, and medic.”
“M... Medic?”
“OK. Here it comes.”
“Did you say… medic?”
“Hittin’ the shore, hittin’ the shore! Go, go, go, GO!” The boat bumped against the pebbles and the two Apple siblings leapt out. Twilight yelped and leapt after them, mistimed it so that her back hoof hit the edge of the boat, and fell flat on her face. Granny Smith pulled her up.
“Come on, sport! Get your keister a-movin’. We ain’t waitin’ fer no filly!” Twilight was shaken back to sanity, and whinnied when Granny Smith gave her rump a smack. As she ran forwards, she tried to focus on Applejack’s tail up ahead.
Applejack and Big Macintosh ducked and rolled, slipping under the gap in the barbed wire fencing. The wooden sign entangled between the coils said: “This here's the Danger Zone. Do not pass beyond this here point.”
Twilight barely noticed before she ran headfirst into the wire. Bits of it snapped off and rolled up into a ball around her. She bit her lip to hold back the scream she was bursting to give and kept running.
There was a shriek from above. Applejack and Big Macintosh looked up. Red apples the size of boulders soared down from the sky like a meteor shower. The first ones struck the ground, exploding in a blast of red shattered skin and poisonous yellow juice. Red mist rose up from the cores. Applejack nodded to Big Macintosh, who nodded back and began running in a circle around the trunk. The majority of apples targeted him, smashing the ground in places he was either running from or running to. Somehow, he knew when to make a slight adjustment so that the blasts only just missed him.
Twilight stared at the craters left behind, and began to whimper. She was frozen in place until a particularly loud shriek made her look up, and she saw a ball of fiery red eclipsing the sky. She screamed and leapt aside, jumping back hastily when another blast struck but ten inches ahead of her, blowing the wires off her and scattering the pieces all around.
After that, she simply shut her eyes, screamed, and winged it. Big Macintosh saw her overtake him and put on an extra spurt of speed to catch up.
Some stray blasts nearly took out Applejack as she danced in a zigzag towards a knothole in the trunk. It was large enough to admit one pony, and she dived in without hesitation.
The trunk was hollow. Inside the cylindrical wooden chamber, Applejack glanced around and sighed with relief before getting to work. The flap of her saddle was pulled open. She reached in and clamped the pickaxe handle between her teeth. A quick strike cut through the floor. She pulled back, and wrenched out the bark, creating a hole. Outside, she could still hear the apples blasting away as they rained down. She put the pickaxe back and pulled out what looked like a large muffin. This was placed carefully within the hole. She slammed a hoof on top and twisted. The chocolate chips glowed red like LEDs.
"Pinkie, Ah sure as heck hope that special ingredient of yours works," she muttered.
Twilight was still screaming when Big Macintosh grabbed her mane between his teeth and threw her onto his back, just as a red streak soared down and smashed the ground where she’d been. They looked back at the knothole, from the depths of which Applejack came running.
“OK, all set! Cake Four is all set! Retreat, Ah say! RE-TREAT!”
Big Macintosh turned his gallop into a hasty U-turn and hurried back, Twilight seizing his neck to stop herself losing balance. They galloped through the gap in the fence at the same time, brother and sister winking at each other.
Granny Smith watched with beady eyes from the boat, hoof poised over a caramel shortcake she’d placed delicately on the floor. “Steady, ol’ Smith, steady…”
The ponies ducked behind a boulder.
“NOW!” shouted Applejack. Granny Smith stomped on the shortcake, shattering it, and hid herself in the boat.
Inside the knothole, the red lights glowed brighter. There was a spitting of pink sparkles. Then a small fanfare started up. If the sound of magic charging up could be described, it would be like the sound of a googly stick in slow motion.
Then the cake exploded.
Pink fire belched out of the knothole in a flaming fist. This triggered a chain reaction, blowing tier after tier of wood from holes in the bark. The ponies watched its progress, using the knotholes placed along its height like windows on a tower. The knotholes below blew out pink fireballs and the ones above followed suit until the chain of explosions reached the lowest branches.
Every last giant apple exploded at once. Soon, the tree looked like a mass of flaming pink bubbles on a stick, or a particularly fiery piece of cotton candy. It lit up the forest for miles around. Flames licked the branches.
Behind their boulder, Applejack, Big Macintosh, and Twilight clamped their eyes shut and hunkered down until the blasts died away. The light faded. The world stopped shaking. A normal-sized apple bounced off Twilight's scalp and rolled away. Eventually, they risked a peek.
Applejack looked over the boulder first. Redder, normal-sized apples began to rain down all around them. Then she gave a whoop.
“All right, Twilight!” she shouted, as Big Macintosh peeked over too and admired the raining bounty. “Mission was a suc-CESS! Let’s moooooooove out, Big Mac.”
They both went, leaving Twilight to gibber quietly into the grass.
"Easy, yeah..." she said. "Great way to unwind... aheheheheh..."
"You comin' to help, sugarcube?"
Twilight shook herself down and stepped out, wide-eyed and oblivious to the fact that her mane was frazzled.
