Appleloosan

“Wait,so, let me get this straight,” Gem said. “We’re getting someone to smuggle us over the border?”

“Basically, yes!” I nodded.

“Isn’t that, um, illegal?”

“...maybe,” I mumbled.

“Right. Well, what are we waiting for?”

I grinned. “Nothing. Let’s get the tickets and go!”

I jumped up onto all fours and ran toward the airport.

“Wait, I thought we couldn’t-”

“We can still take the plane,” I explained. “We just can’t get into the US. Montreal is in Canada, so we’re good!”

>> FFW >>

“Ugh, this again.”

I sighed. “Calm down. It’s not gonna take that long this time, it’s a really short flight.”

“But all this queueing...”

“Just be happy that I didn’t ask you to fly us there,” I glared at him.

He was immediately quiet.

“Thank you.”

>> FFW >>

“Oh, hey!” The Appleloosan cowpony grinned once he spotted me. “You’re back!”

“Yeah. I’m back.” I smiled weakly, looking over myself. “And I’m human again.”

“Not exactly...”

“Hmm? What do you mean?” I tilted my head to the side. Something yellow flopped in, just at the edge of my vision. I screamed, falling back, flailing around in the direction of the something yellow.

“Woah, calm down! S’just your ear!”

“Just my what?!” I panted.

“It’s your ear. Or, rather, our ear.”

“I... what... how does that make sense?”

“Remember what I told you.” He walked up to my side, putting a hoof on my shoulder. “We’re... well, we’re merging.”

I just sat there. Slowly, I reached up to it. My hand brushed against it. I could feel it.

Deep breaths. Recover.

I exhaled. “We’re both gonna cease to exist, and some other guy is gonna walk away, having butchered our minds into some half me, half you abomination.”

“Now don’t you think like that!” Braeburn frowned. “That’s not what’s gonna happen at all!”

“Oh, really? Then what is gonna happen?”

“We will still exist,” he explained. “Just that we’ll be... well, one single mind.”

“Yes. Because that completely comforts me and isn’t at all terrifying.”

He sighed. “Sorry, I tried to put it as lightly as I could.”

“Well it didn’t work.” I glared at him.

“What’re you glaring at me for?” he asked. “It’s not like I want this either! Stuck merging with some nerd without the faintest clue how to buck a tree or cook an apple pie!”

I didn’t say anything, just looked at him.

“Okay, that was a bit too far,” he admitted.

“Yes. It was.” I looked off to the single tree sitting atop the hill off in the distance. “But one of those, we can fix right now.”

“What?”

“Well, the tree is right there...”

He followed my gaze. “So it is! Whaddya say, shall I train you up some more?”

“Yep, let’s go!”

>> FFW >>

“Well, here we are,” I stepped out of the airport. “Montreal, Canada.”

“Great. Now, you go find whoever is gonna help us.” Gem grinned, stretching his wings. “I’m gonna go fly around for a bit. All that time in a plane and indoors and stuff is really, um, not fun.”

And, with a few flaps of his wings, he took off.

“Well, fine!” I yelled after him. “Guess I’m all alone.”

I looked around, then sighed.

“I am so lost.”

>> FFW >>

“Oh come on.” I sighed. I’d been searching for the good part of an hour and a half, and I still hadn’t found who I was looking for. Who was I even looking for, anyway? We weren’t given a description, or even a place to meet up. Was it all a lie?

I looked around again, thinking that somehow, in the second it’d taken me to sigh and elaborate that thought, the person I was looking for would just appear in front of me in a flash of light. But that’s impossible. Right?

I shook my head and started walking again. I was lost, I’d lost Gem, and I’d lost whoever directed me here in the first place? If this keeps up any longer I think I’ll just walk past the border, consequences be damned...

I continued wandering around, not really paying attention to where I was going, not caring where I ended up. The more I thought about it, the more this seemed like a trick. I mean, posting a comment saying what city to meet up in, giving vague information, not even telling us where in the city to rendezvous...

...yeah, this was a trap. Dammit!

My wandering eventually brought me to a small, dark alleyway. How I’d even got there, I had no idea, but I was there. Could it have been a move by some all-knowing deity to move on the plot of some intricate storyline spanning the world?

Or maybe I just decided not to write about the few hours of aimless wandering and just cut to the cool part. Yeah, that’s probably it.

I scanned around, looking to see where I was and wondering why the hell I’d chosen to come here. It didn’t look like the kind of place that help would reside in. It looked more like somewhere some questionable organization would use as a meeting place.

“Hey! Look what we got here!”

I turned around. Four guys, all wielding knives. Well, shit.

“We got one of those ponies!” One of them laughed. “What you gonna do now, horse?”

“Well, I think I’ll run,” I said, trying to remain as calm as I could. “But I see that that’s impossible, as you gentlemen seem to be blocking the exit.”

“Look, it’s trying to sound smart!” Another insult, another laugh.

“If you could maybe move out of the way, I can just leave, and we can move on, no harm done.” I smiled.

“No harm?” One of them walked towards me, grinning maniacally. “Where’s the fun in that?”

“Well, if you attack me, it gives me a reason to retaliate,” I pointed out, smiling. “And after years of harvesting apples by literally kicking the trees until they fell off, I think I could handle myself in a fight.”

The four guys laughed, all of them coming closer.

“Now, why don’t you keep quiet and relax, make this easy.” The first guy said, putting his knife away and pulling out a length of rope.

I crawled back as far as I could, hitting the wall. Oh, why does every alleyway have some messed up guys trying to kill me?

What do I do, what do I do?

Nothing. That’s the answer. Do nothing.

What?

Just let them hogtie you. You’ll think of something later, right?

Dammit, Braeburn, I’ve used up all my luck! I can’t just think of something later and hope I live long enough to do it!

Wait... don’t you humans have a big weak spot right between your legs?

Well, that would kick off a huge fight. There’s four guys here, and, even though there are two voices in our head, we’re still only one pony. And who knows how much backup these guys have? We don’t stand a chance.

Well, what other options do we have? Let ‘em tie you up? You gonna let them do that?

...no. I’m not.

The man with the rope had started to tie up my forelegs, giving me right about the perfect angle to...

“Ow, shit! The little fuck kicked me!”

I rolled away from him as he reeled in pain. The others all ran towards me, knives bared.

I looked up to the sky, pointing as best I could. “Hey, look over there!” I shouted.

“Hah, it thinks we’ll fall for something like tha-”

He fell to the ground, as something turquoise landed on his back, its hoof connecting with the back of his head multiple times. Someone else pulled Gem off the guy's back, and the last guy went after me. I turned around and lifted my legs up, tensing them and releasing them at just the right time, all before he could react.

Not bad, but next time, build up more energy.

Yes, I would if I had time. But, in case you haven’t noticed-

I kicked someone else away, looking at Gem as he flew around, limbs flailing, attacking two of them at once.

-I’m kind of busy at the moment.

Oh okay, sorry for giving advice.

I defended myself as best I could, while Gem struggled against one of them, who was holding him from behind, his arms around Gem’s chest. The man’s nose was bloody and his face was bruised from Gem’s attack, but he wasn’t giving up. One of the others walked up behind him, wrapping a rope around his legs, hogtying him.

The other two recovered from me kicking them and tied me up as well. I couldn’t do anything about it. We were strong, yes, but it was two against four, and they had weapons. And rope.

Gem was struggling the whole time, trying to remove the ropes and the gag, but I just lay there.

“You two could fetch a pretty price,” one of them grinned, standing over us.

Why aren’t you fighting back? Come on, you can attack them!

No, I can’t. Don’t you see? There’s four of them. They likely have backup, too. And they have knives. Don’t you remember what happened last time?

Braeburn looked at our flank. There was a slight scar there, cutting across the bright red apple that marked it.

...yes. Okay. So, what’s the plan?

There is no plan. We give up. Journey’s end.

But-

No. But nothing. Game over.

Thunk.

A rock flew through the air, hitting the one standing over me.

“What the hell was that?” He whipped around, locking eyes with his assailant.

At the entrance of the alleyway stood a unicorn, a yellow one, to be precise, her teal aura wrapped around a few other rocks which floated around her, a leather jacket on her back and a grin on her face.

“Eh bien... Ce q’est passe ici?”

The four humans were walking towards her. “We got another one?” One of them grinned. “And a unicorn too...”

Another rock flew through the air, narrowly missing the head of the one that talked.

He responded by pulling out a length of rope.

She countered with a magic trick. Specifically, making the rope flail around as if it was alive.

“Shit, what the fuck?!” He dropped the rope on the ground, stamping on it in fear. The rope wrapped around his leg, snaking around and tripping him up.

The unicorn disappeared in a flash, reappearing just next to me, glaring. “You two gonna run? Or do you wanna help me teach these morons a lesson?” She untied Gem’s gag.

“I- What? Of course I’m gonna run!” Gem said as soon as it came off. “We tried fighting, and look what happened!”

She glanced over to the four humans, then turned back to me, untying my gag. “You too?”

“N-no!”

She sighed, then turned back to our attackers.

It happened faster than I could think.

One second they were just standing there, the next, they were all incapacitated, their knives were on the ground, and they were hogtied. One had a bin over his head, yelling, squirming against the rope that held him to the other one, still wrapped in the snake-rope. Another was unconscious, bent over a wheelie bin. The last started running away. He flashed away, disappearing and reappearing next to the unicorn, who shot him point-blank with a magic bolt.

She looked around, then walked away.

I looked at Gem, smiling. “Well, that was nice of her.”

Gem just wriggled around, struggling against his rope. “Hey!” he shouted to the unicorn. “You gonna untie us or what?”

She looked back, rolled her eyes, then walked back to us, unravelling the ropes.

“Thank you.” I smiled

She looked at us suspiciously. “So what brings an Appleloosan and a pony from Scoltland here? Or are you a pair of french humans turned pony?” she asked, turning to untie Gem.

“We were told to come here,” I explained. “I guess it was a trap.”

She rolled her eyes again. “A pretty poor one. I’m surprised you couldn’t take them out on your own...”

Her voice. Her goddess-damned voice. If her voice had a face, I’d punch it.

She turned around, walking away again.

“H-Hey! We tried, okay? They had ropes! And knives! There were four of them!” Gem shouted.

“So, you’re just gonna leave, while insulting us, after having just saved our lives?” I asked. “I’m getting mixed signals here.”

She paused, looking over her shoulder at us. “Well, I have no reason to stay,” she said, nonchalantly. She tied up the stunned human and the one bent over the wheelie bin.

She could help us.

Yes she could.

But she seems too… stuck-up to even think of lifting a hoof to help us.

Exactly. She’s got a kind of... Trixie personality. Let’s use that.

“Well, you’re strong, you’re smart...” I smiled. “We could learn a lot from you.”

She looked over to the guy with the bin over his head, who, sometime in the past minute, had regained consciousness and started screaming. She levitated a rock over and slammed it over his head. The screaming stopped instantly. “While true, I still don’t see why I should stick around you two.”

“Because we’re weak and hopeless, and in an unfamiliar place,” I said. “We, well, need help.”

“Unless you’re too full of yourself to help us,” Gem added. I glared at him.

"What exactly do you need help with?” she asked. “I’m not exactly planning on remaining in this city for long.”

“Well, neither are we!” Gem said.

"We need to get to New York," Brae explains. "And they're not gonna let us through without passports. Unless we're Elements. Which we're not. So, we need someone to take us through. I was hoping you could help with that."

“I'm quite aware of that.” She glanced back at us. “Incompetence on the local government's part or something...” She stopped to think for a moment, then turned around to look at us. “Fine. I was staying at the Delta Hotel last night. There’s a bus station nearby. Meet me there in two hours.” She started walking away again.

I turned to Gem. “That went better than I expected.”

“Do we even know her name?” Gem asked.

“...no, we don’t. Hey!” I shouted at the unicorn. “What’s your name? Just kinda wondering...”

She paused once again, glancing back with a cocky smirk. “Sunset Shimmer. Be there on time. I’m not waiting.” She walked away.

Silence for a while. Gem and I sat there, surrounded by the unconscious forms of the four humans. Eventually, Gem spoke up.

“Okay, so she’s good with magic, got some Trixie-level tricks - and cockiness - and is called ‘Sunset Shimmer’?” He stared at me. “We dealing with some terrible OC here or something?”

I glared back at him, then started walking away, out of the alley. “Two hours… we have two hours to kill. What’re we gonna do?”

Gem shrugged.

I sighed.