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Past pursuits the present at high speeds through the curves of time
It was a nice Saturday morning at Sweet Apple Acres, and Applejack thought it was the perfect time to fix up the old barn.
"Mornin', Applebloom! Rise and shine!" Applejacks voice could be heard from the doorstep to Appleblooms bedroom.
"Urgh! It's too early!" Applebloom grunted with her face buried in her pillow.
"No time ta waste. We gotta fix up the old barn today. Get outta bed and get sumtin' ta eat." Applejack said with a stern voice.
" 'Sides, maybe you will find some interesting old things on the floor while sweeping. Ya'll could get a Cutiemark for finding ancient stuff." Applejack said.
Hearing the magic word, Applebloom directly got out of bed and ran to the kitchen as fast as her little hooves could do.
When she got in the kitchen, Big mac and Granny Smith already started on a pie (well, Granny was SLEEPING in her chair, instead of eating).
"Mornin'." Big Macintosh said.
"Mornin', Big Mac!" the little yellow filly greeted her brother.
"Yer in a hurry." Mac commented while his youngest sister got a piece of apple pie. "This excited ta help fixin' up tha barn?"
"Now, why would you want ta have a barn on that exact spoooooooo..." Granny Smith said in her sleep, before snoring again.
"Ahm gonna get mah Cutiemark today!" Applebloom said with a smile on her muzzle.
"In what? Cleanin' up?" Mac said laughing at his little sister.
"Nope, findin' old stuff! And the old barn is a great spot." Applejack cut in while walking off the stairs.
"Ah, archeology." Big Mac said while chewing on a piece of his pie.
"Say what now?" Applebloom and her big sister said simultaniously.
"Just a fancy word ah picked up from them smart unicorns while in Canterlot, a few years back."
The two sisters started eating their pieces of apple pie, and soon they were ready to fix up the barn.
Big Mac was pulling a cart filled with tools, paint, nails and planks to replace the old, rotten walls. Applebloom was walking around with a broom like a small dog walking with a way too large stick. And Applejack had her saddlebags filled with paintbrushes and buckets of red paint.
When they reached the old barn, it looked like it could collapse with the smallest nudge: almost all of the paint had chipped off; the roof was filled with so much holes, it was almost non-existant and the walls looked like they had not been repaired since it was build 84 years ago.
"Well, we better get started." Applejack said looking at the doors, wich were filled with termite holes from the plague of 956.
"Eeeeeyup." Big Mac agreed.
Applebloom was already inside, sweeping the floor. She was a little bit too enthousastic and started digging through the old planks with the broom.
Her two elder siblings were repairing holes in the walls and roof, stabilized the wooden skelleton and re-painting the outside.
When Applejack came inside to have a look at her little sisters work, she could only find a deep hole in the middle of the barn. The orange mare decided to have a look inside the deep crater in the floor, only to find Applebloom gently brushing something deep down.
"Applejack! Look what ah found!" the little filly yelled up.
"What did ya find?" Applejack was smiling at her little sister.
"Some kind of metal plate, and its painted!"
"Ah didn't expect to be actually sumtin' down there. Ah think Twilight would want to take a look at it." Applejack said to the yellow filly.
"But first, we need ta get you out fer dinner."
After pulling Applebloom out with a rope, Granny already made dinner and sat at the kitchen table.
"Granny! Ya'll wouldn't believe what ah found under the old barn!" Applebloom ran into the kitchen.
"What did ya find?" the old mare asked.
"Ah found a large piece of painted metal."
"Metal, underneath the barn?" Granny Smith asked with wide eyes.
"Yeah! waaaaay down. Like, twenty hooves!" the little filly answered while strarting to eat.
"Twenty hooves down? Oh, mah goodness!" Granny was shocked with the news. "Thah Princess needs ta know this! This must be why that barn had to be made on that spot."
Applejack and Big Mac got inside too and heard their grandmothers reaction.
"After dinner ah'll contact Twilight, she is the princess's personal student after all." Applejack said.
"That won't be nescesarry." the shape of princess Celestia could be seen just outside the door to the new barn. "When I heard of your discovery, I left the castle as fast as I could. May I see it?"
"Follow me, yer highness." Applejack said after bowing her head to the alicorn.
When they got to the hole in the centre of the fixed-up barn, Celestia didn't waste time and pulled the large orange piece of metal out of the ground. This action caused the inside of the barn to be covered in dirt and sand.
"What is that thang?" Applejack said in bewilderment.
"This, my little pony, is part of a long lost culture and part of your family's past."
If you, the reader, are familiar to The Dukes of Hazzard, you already know what this is.
Celestia put the wreck down on the ground and opened the trunk of the car, reveiling bottles filled with a water-like substance.
"Applejack, would you kindly open one of these bottles?" the sun goddess asked.
Applejack complied by getting one out of the car and opening it.
"I know about your hard cider, now, meet the roots of that cider: uncle Jesse's moonshine." Celestia took a sip of the alcoholic beverage. "Phew, this stuff is still *hic* good after more than five *hic* billion years. Thanks for the tip, grandmother! *hic*"
After that, Celestia fell on the ground, unconcious.
History lessons and fixing up the General
"OH MY GOSH! What happened to the princess?!?!" Twilight Sparkle stood wide eyed, at the unconcious goddess. Luna had just raised the moon that day and Applejack decided it was a good idea to bring the princess her favorite student to the barn.
"She just took a sip o' this, said someting about thankin' her grandmother and passed out on tha floor." Applejack explained while pointing a hoof at the bottle of moonshine.
"What is it? Poison?!" Twilight examined the bottle.
"The princess called it: 'Uncle Jesse's moonshine'. Whatever that means. There's more of it in there."
"How much more?" the unicorn asked her friend.
" 'Bout twenty or so bottles." Applejack recalled.
"And it came out of that hole?" Twilight asked again.
Applejack just nodded.
"This stuff is ancient, looking at the depth of the hole. Even more so than Equestrian history itself." Twilight concluded. "Mind if I took a bottle with me to, you know, examine it?"
"Go ahead, we definately won't miss it." The earth pony said. "But, what are we gunna do 'bout the princess? She could be in lives danger, for all we know."
"We wil take our sister back with us." Luna said from the door of the barn. "But let us clarify the situation first."
"What is it with royalty just appearing out of nowhere?" Applejack said annoyed.
Twilight gave the applefarmer a glare, but then said "Please, princess Luna, tell us what is happening."
To wich Luna responded:
"These bottles are filled with a beverage made with almost eighty percent alchohol and were illegal at the time it was made, making the day not able to see it. Only in the night, this 'Moonshine' was delivered."
"How come I have never read about this age?" the lavender unicorn asked.
"That is because, this is made before ponies even existed in the way one knows." The princess of the night explained. "This is made in the days off the human reign over this entire planet. This is made by a human named Jesse Duke. And this piece of metal was owned by his relatives: Bo Duke and Luke Duke. These humans were tasked with delivering moonshine thoughout the land of Hazzard County."
"Ah find it hard ta believe somthing could still be drunk after such a long time." Applejack said, waving her hoof at the wreck.
"That is because of the high percentage alchohol in the drink, Applejack." twilight said matter-of-factly.
"Then again, how could such a thing move without somethin' ta pull it?"
"We have yet to discover that." Luna said. "But the vehicle is way to old to examine its true purpose."
"Lets just have a look at the thing and maybe we can find something." Twilight was already trotting over to the orange piece of scrap.
"Look, by clearing some dirt, I have found some lettering." the unicorn said, dusting off the panel above the fixed door.
"Can you read it?" The dark blue alicorn asked.
Twilight just shook her head.
"A good thing We can." Luna said while observing the letters.
" 'General Lee'. That's what it says."
"Ah guess that's the name of the thang." Luna and Twilight just looked at Applejack. "What? It's not like ya'll never gave a name to your favorite posession?"
Twilight and Luna just walked around the wreck, looking for clues for how it may work.
"Hey, I found a switch!" Twilight suddenly yelled.
"Flip it, so we can see what is does." Applejack said.
The lavender unicorn pulled the switch, so the hood popped up, reveiling the Generals Hemi engine, well, what was not eaten away by rust, anyway.
"Maybe this was what is supposed to make it move?" Twilight observed. "But it looks incomplete."
"Time must have taken its toll on the machine." Luna concluded. "But, perhaps an aging spell should do the trick?"
"It should work, if it was alive." Twilight said.
"Dear Twilight Sparkle, you have yet to learn the advanced version of the spell. A spell We know." Luna said, while preparing to fire it at the Charger.
When Luna fired it at the car, a low rumbling came from the engine, followed by the generals well known horn , scaring the three ponies and 'jump starting' Celestia.
"I didn't touch the cake, mother!" Celestia yelled.
"But you did touch the moonshine!" Luna glared daggers at her older sister. "Do you mind telling us: why?"
Celestia gained a guilty look on her face.
"I guess I have to tell you." she said. "Grandmother was obsessed with the legend of the General Lee, she told Luna and I stories about the human made machine. I became, just like her, obsessed with it. After a bit more than a thousand years of research, i found five possible locations for the wreck of this vehicle."
"Five barns of Sweet Apple Acres." Applejack suddenly realized.
"Yes. I swore i would find it. And when I did, I would take a sip of the moonshine it was carrying. In my opinion, the greatest invention of human kind, especially after tasting it." the sun goddess licked her lips and took another bottle from the trunk.
"This is for when we get home." She told her younger sister.
"After it knocked you out, you take more?" Twilight questioned her mentors decision.
Celestia just smiled and just took the entire crate of eighty percent alcohol.
"If you were a princess, you would understand, my dear student."
Right after saying this, Celestia spread her wings, motioned Luna to do the same, said goodbye and took of with one crate of moonshine, while Luna took the other.
The morning after the princesses took the moonshine, the Apple family was having breakfast.
"Lemme get this straight: tha thing ah found was really an ancient cart, build by our ancestors?" Applebloom asked while eating her cereal.
"Eeyup. And the princess fixed it up, so when we finish breakfast, ahm gonna get Twilight to help us get the General ta move." Applejack said.
"So that's why Pa had ta build the barn on that exact spot." Granny Smith concluded.
"So, why don't we take a look at the thang?" Big Mac asked his sister. While saying that, he looked alot like the cereal-guy.
"All in good time. When Twilight is here, ya'll may see it." the orange mare put on her hat and left the farmhouse.
Just when she reached the border of the property she could hear the horn of the General, making Applebloom and Big Mac look outside of the window.
Applejack ran back to the barn at full speed.
'Nopony may see it 'fore we know how it works!'
When she got at the entrance, the headlights were on and the engine was rumbling. It also almost looked like someting was sitting inside.
The shadow of the thing inside the car exited through the windows, and walked on two legs to the cowpony.
"Take good care of her... and she will take good care of you." the shadow said. It was clearly male.
"Who or what are you?" Applejack said trembling on her hooves.
"I am the ghost of Bo Duke." tthe shadow said.
"This reminds me of the time we tricked Rosco into believing we drowned by painting the General all glowy-like. 'Xept, this time, we really are ghosts!"
Another shadow climbed out of the other side of the Charger. This one was holding some keys.
"These are the keys to a whole lot of fun, so take good care of them!" The second ghost said stern.
"C'mon, Luke. We have ta go. Uncle Jesse is wait'n for us in heaven." Bo said.
And with those final words, the Dukes of Hazzard left the living... forever.
The car didn't make any sound, the lights were out and the keys were rested on Applejacks stetson.
Everything was silent.
Applejack realised that she was late and decided to run to the library.
Once she got there, Twilight was waiting with her saddlebags filled to the edge with scrolls.
"Mornin', Twilight." Applejack greeted the librarian.
"Good morning, Applejack. Are you ready to find out how the 'General lee' works?" Twilight purnounced the name of the car with a mocking tone.
"Don't say it like that, you'll make them angry!" Applejack whispered at the lavender unicorn.
"Make who angry?"
"Bo and Luke! They visited me just this morning, Told me about taking good care of the General. And thrust me, ah don't believe in ghosts, but they definately were." Applejack said while nervously looking around.
"Are you serious?" Twilight asked.
"Ahm the Element of Honesty, waddaya think!?"
"Good point. Now, lets go. I can't wait to find out what humans could do with a simple chariot design." Twilight started walking to the barn, followed closeby by Applejack.
When the got close to the entrance of Sweet Apple Acres, Applejack decided she had to bring Applebloom, Big Mac and Granny with her, while Twilight walked directly to the barn where the car was.
After some examining of the tires, the Apple family walked in. Applebloom directly ran to the car when she saw it, while the others just watched.
"What does this do, ohh and this, and this?" Applebloom pointed at several parts.
"We have still to find that out." Twilight said to the little fillie.
"Maybe this will work?" Applejack got out the keys "Ah saw the ghosts climbing out of the sides."
The orange mare climbed into the car in a very clumsy way, hitting her head and flank several times.
When she finally got in the drivers seat, she stuck the keys in the contact and turned them.
The engine made some sound, but didn't rumble the way it did before.
Applejack looked down in defeat, then she spotted three pedals underneath the wheel infront of her.
'Eenie, meenie, minie, mo...'
She pushed down the pedal on the far left, turned the key and the General coughed to life.
"YEEEEEH HAAAAW!" Applejack couldn't help but to let out a victory yell.
The rest of the Apple family didn't know what was happening. A large orange 'thing' was making a low rumbling noise, as if it were an angry dog, and Applejack sat inside of it with a big smile.
"Now to make it move." Applejack said, looking around for some kind of button to make the car roll.
"Maybe this will help you." Twilight levitated a scroll with a drawing of some kind of mechanism.
"What is it?" the mare behind the wheel asked.
"I took the liberty to levitate the machine, so i could discover more about its inner-workings. What I saw was a metal tube, that was connected to some gears, wich should fit into another gear connected to the engine." Twilight explained.
Applejack took a look at the drawing, then around the interior of the car, then the drawing again and then a stick between the front seats.
"Lemme try sumthin'..."
Applejack placed her front hoof on the stick, while holding the left pedal down. She moved the stick to the left and front.
The car moved slowly forward.
"It rolls!" Granny Smith moved behind Big mac, who in turn, was pretty scared himself. Applebloom could just stare at the orange beast.
'Now let's see what the right panel does.' Applejack thought.
She pushed the pedal down, the engine roared and the car moved at a considerably faster pace. This almost caused the car to drive through the newly renovated wall, if Applejack didn't instinctively move the steering wheel, and drove through the exit of the barn and into the orchard.
Applejack was scared to death, moving faster than anypony could run. it certanly did not help that she was moving to a large pond with a ramp.
The General moved faster and faster as Applejack kept the gas floored. Almost at the ramp, the frightnened orange mare pushed her front hooves on the middle of the wheel, causing the horn to sound as the car jumped over the pond, into another barn.
Applejack finally found the courage to try the middle pedal, making the car stop in the middle of the barn she landed.
She turned the keys to the other side, and the engine stopped making any noise.
Flower from the other side
The morning after the test drive, Big Mac pulled the car back to the barn it came from. When he came to the entrance, he saw a mare inside, not just a mare, the prettiest mare he had seen in his whole life.
Her wavy mane and tail were dark brown and her coat was a hot pink color. Her eyes were brown and she had the proportions of a model, if not for her slightly muscular build.
It seemed she was looking for something.
"Uhm... Howdy!" Big Mac said from the entrance, the General still connected to his yoke.
The mare took notice of the large stallion in the front of the barn.
"Hi there." she said. When she noticed the ropes around Mac's yoke, she got curious.
"What are ya'll lookin' for?" Mac asked.
"I'm lookin' for a car my cousins left." she answered. "And by lookin' at the hole, someone found her. Tell me, what are ya pullin'?"
"That be none of your business. 'Sides, Ah don't even know you. Name's Macintosh Apple, but friends an' family call me Big Mac."
"I'm Daisy." the mare said. "And now ya'll are gonna show me what yer pullin'." She walked over to Big Mac.
"Enope!" the stallion tried to block her sight, but he was already too late.
When Daisy saw the car Mac was pulling, she couldn't believe her eyes.
The entire car looked just like it had driven through the gravel roads of Hazzard for the first time.
"Ah would have thought she would be worse for wear after all this time."
She grabbed the door handle on the drivers side and pulled it.
"Still don't open, eh?" Daisy asked the car right before she climbed behind the steering wheel.
"Hey, what do ya'll think yer doin'?" Big mac shouted at Daisy.
"Ahm gonna drive the General home." the engine started to rumble.
"Eeeenope!" Mac got to the side of the car and pulled Daisy out. "This is Apple family property. If ya knew that, ya'll wouldn't try to even steal this. An' don't even pretend it is yours, cuz' mah lil' sister dug it up from the ground."
"Mac, what is goin' on 'round there?" Applejack shouted from the farmhouse.
"This mare tried ta steal the General!" Mac shouted back.
"Lemme jus' get over there!" Applejack galloped to her big brother, only to find he was holding a pretty mare pinned on the ground.
"Who the hay are you?" Applejack asked Daisy.
"I am Daisy Duke and I am keepin' you outta trouble!" Daisy struggled to get free, but it didn't matter, Mac was just too strong and heavy.
"Did you say 'Duke'?" Applejack suddenly realized something.
"Yeah."
"Mac, let her go. This is no way to treat your ancestors." the orange mare commanded her brother.
"Sorry 'bout mah brother, he's a bit on the rough side, but is also really nice once you get ta know him." Applejack helped Daisy back up.
"No problem, really, Ah would be angry too if someone tried ta steal the General Lee." Daisy brushed the dirt off her coat. "But how did ya know Ah was your ancestor?"
"Princess Luna told me about the Duke family and them being related to the Apples." Applejack explained.
" 'Sides, yer cousins Bo n' Luke stopped by ta give me these." Applejack got the keys out of the car.
"Well, Ahm awfully sorry, but I have to get the car to Heaven, gotta deliver the moonshine."
"The moonshine could form a problem." Applejack said. "The princesses took all of it back to Canterlot."
"So you are telling me that you actually are one of Applejack's ancestors?" Twilight put a hoof under her chin.
"Yes, that's exactly what Ahm tellin' ya'll." the hot pink mare replied.
It has been a few hours after Daisy was first spotted by Mac. At this moment in the story, Applejack and daisy were at the library in ponyville, talking to Twilight about The General, wich was parked in front of the tree house.
"So this means that you have been reincarnated, wich is a theory that is still not proven to be possible." the unicorn lifted her eye brow at Daisy, who in turn, leaned a bit backwards.
"Look, Twilight. I have been sent here to retrieve the moonshine and the car. Just give these things to me, and Ah'll be gone before you even remember me."
"I am very sorry, but the princesses have claimed all of the moonshine." Twilight then said.
"An' the General is stayin' with me." Applejack slammed her hoof on the floor. This action caused Daisy and Twilight to look a bit questionned at her.
"Ah don't know why, but Ah feel a special connection with it, as if it is a part o' me." the orange mare explained.
"Ya'll are startin' to sound like Bo. He loved that car." Daisy concluded. "I can even remember the time he actually wanted ta make love to it." This caused the other two mares to look at Daisy in disgust.
"Of course he didn't actually do it, but that was only because Luke caught 'im." the pink mare said in her cousin's offence.
"Let's change the subject of this conversation." Daisy concluded. "If the General is gonna stay here, yer gonna need fuel to power the HEMI under the hood. Without gas, it's useless."
"Gas? As in... errr... you know, farts?" Twilight asked.
"No, Twilight, no farts are involved. Ahm talkin' about gassoline, the standard fuel for most combustion engines, back in the day." she explained.
"What is gassoline, exactly? I have read alot of books, but none of them have mentioned gassoline." Twilight said.
"You don't know what gassoline is? Than we are about to have a problem." Daisy thought for a moment. "Maybe we could change the engine to run on another kind o' fuel?"
"Maybe, but what would be a good substitute? I have never seen an engine so small, yet so powerfull." Twilight concluded.
"Well, sientists back in the day were tryin' water, but the engine would use so much of it, the fuel tank must be bigger than the entire car to even make it back to the farm." Daisy concluded.
"Maybe we could use apple cider?" Twilight proposed.
"Knowing it will be based on Uncle Jesse's Moonshine, it will most definately burn a hole in the fuel tank 'fore it even gets the chance to use it. Trust me, we tried." The three mares were at a dead end.
But then Applejack noticed something.
"Twilight, what is inside those bottles?" Applejack asked, pointing with her hoof at the lavender bottles on a shelf.
"That is liquid magic." Twilight explained "It makes cleaning up alot easier around here. I also use it for fuelling my..."
The lavender unicorn suddenly realized something.
"If liquid magic can be used to fuel my heater, it could possibly be used to fuel the General!" Twilight squee'd a little bit.
Suddenly, Twilight got some blueprints from under her desk. "I have made a technical drawing of the inner workings of the car. If we could make an engine similar to the 'HEMI' Daisy described, we wouldn't have to blow up the General if anything goes awry."
Twilight studied her drawings a little bit. "The only problem is: where could we build it without drawing too much attention?"
"Maybe we could build it in the barn we found the General Lee?" Applejack suggested. "We can miss one barn this season."
"Now that that is settled, we should be building the engine to not waste time." Daisy concluded "It is almost nighttime."
"How can it be almost nighttime, when the clock still says it's 3 pm?" Twilight asked.
"Uuuuhm, girls? Look outside." Applejack pointed at the window.
When all three mares looked outside, they noticed that the sun was rising and the moon was a little bit bigger and visible.
"What is going on?" Twilight asked nopony in particular. Right after she said that, a big explosion could be seen from Canterlot Castle.
"Ouch!" Twilight put her hooves against the temples of her head. "Big magic surge... major headache!"
