The Day the Apples Attacked

by RenaissanceBrony

Rating: teen
Tags: Comedy, Cutie Mark Crusaders, Owlowiscious, Applejack, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark
Length: 5276

Apple Bloom learns the hard way that potions can have unexpected effects. More specifically, she accidentally creates a carnivorous apple tree with just one goal: avenge every single apple ponykind has ever eaten.

Twilight had always warned Apple Bloom that she should be very careful with potions. If they aren't made just right they can lead to catastrophic consequences. The filly was never too worried about it until she learns the hard way that potions can have unexpected effects.
More specifically, she accidentally creates a carnivorous apple tree with just one goal: avenge every single apple ponykind has ever eaten.

Published 2014-02-28 10:40:02 UTC
Last updated 2014-02-28 10:40:02 UTC

Potions Gone Wild

Ponyville: Once a bustling community of friends, ponies, friendship, magic, magical friendship, and all sorts of other good things. But now, thanks to me, it lies in ruins. Those horrifying monsters killed everypony and destroyed the whole town. And since I crea-- well, we’ll get to that. Why don’t we start at the beginning?

I was having a super terrific day and it got even more super terrific once the school bell rang and we were done learning things until tomorrow. I ran outside and almost forgot to wait up for my friends because I was just so anxious to get home. “Come on!” I said to them. “I don’t wanna waste another minute standin’ around! We gotta get to the clubhouse to get ready for our demonstration!”

They finally caught up and Sweetie Belle said, “You mean your performance.” I think she was a little jealous of my awesome potion-making skills. “Scootaloo and I don’t really do anything. We just watch.”

“Isn’t that enough? I love watching Apple Bloom make all those crazy potions. It never gets old!” Scootaloo was clearly a better friend than Sweetie Belle. She was much more supportive. It really is a shame what happened to her.

“Well, it is neat, but I’ll be happy once today is over and we can all go back to focusing on our own skills instead of just Apple Bloom’s.”

“Then let’s get on with it,” I said. “Hurry up!” And I started running to Sweet Apple Acres with my friends right behind me. When we got to the clubhouse we found everything just as we had left it that morning. All sorts of fancy bottles and tubes were lying all over the floor. I didn’t know what they were called, but I sure knew how to use them. It just sort of came naturally to me. “Okay,” I began, “We need this thing, and this thing, and some of this stuff, and a couple of these, and most importantly, the thingamajig.” There was one particular piece of glass that was sort of a swirly shape and it seemed like every single recipe used it. Since I used it so often I decided I should give it a name, so I just started calling it the thingamajig. “I think that’s everything,” I declared.

I threw it onto a cart along with all the other equipment I needed and grabbed the handle in my mouth. Scootaloo held the door open as I wheeled it out and Sweetie Belle followed, making sure nothing fell out. Soon the three of us arrived outside the house and Sweetie Belle went in to find Applejack. While she was gone me and Scoots laid everything out properly for our demonstration. Soon Sweetie Belle came back and she told us, “Applejack says she busy right now, but she’ll be out in a few minutes.”

“Well that’s totally dandy!” I said sincerely. “I’m in no hurry. We’ve got all the livelong day!”

And so we started to wait. It was kind of weird because I’d expected myself to be more nervous since I’d been preparing for this day for weeks, but I was really more excited about it. I wasn’t even nervouscited as Pinkie would say. I was just plain excited.

“Ugh, what’s taking her so long?” Scootaloo groaned impatiently after a couple minutes.

“I’m sure she’s really busy,” I explained. “We farm ponies work real hard and have a lot of things to do.”

“But you haven’t been doing anything except making potions for weeks. How come you don’t have any chores?”

“Mah sis told me I wasn’t allowed to help out anymore after the power tool incident.”

“Oh. That makes sense.”

“Hopefully we can change that today.”

“Yeah, I hope everything goes well.”

“Don’t worry. It will.”

It didn’t.

After just another minute or two the front door swung open and my sister stepped outside.

“What is it you wanted to show me, Apple Bloom?” she asked. I’d already practiced my answer.

“Well, after the thing with the power tools-- and you know we’re all really, really, sorry about that-- we wanted to show you that we can still be super helpful in ways that don’t involve industrial strength machinery. So I got Twilight to teach me some stuff about making potions because magic stuff like that is way safer than sawblades!”

Applejack looked a little scared, but I knew I could win her over.

“After a little bit of practice I figured out how to make our apple trees grow two, three, or even four times as many apples with just one potion! Even better, it’s easy to make and all it needs are simple, everyday ingredients.”

“Uh huh!” Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle agreed. That’s really what they were there for. Ponies always look more credible if their friends are agreeing with them.

“Okay,” Applejack said warily, “why don’tcha go trah it out on that tree right there?” she pointed at the nearest apple tree.

“Well I have to make the potion first. That’s part of the demonstration,” I said.

“Oh,” Applejack took a small step back, just barely shielding herself behind the door. “It ain’t gonna, uh, explode or anythin’. Is it?”

“O’ course not!” I cheered. My friends shook their heads to back me up.

“Alright then… whenever you’re ready. Ah’m watchin’.”

Just as I had practiced, I began the display. “It all starts with the simple ingredients,” I explained. “The ingredients bucket, please, Scootaloo.” My friend obediently brought me a plastic yellow bucket filled with the necessary materials. “First you take some dirt, an appleseed, some cow poop, some water, and a leaf, and you mash them up in this bowl with this masher, like so. Now you’ve got this nice fertile paste. That’s how the tree knows it should grow some more. Then you put the bowl over a fire-shooter like this and eventually it heats up enough so the steam floats up into this here upside down funnel thingy. From there it runs down this tube and turns back into a liquid and you collect it in a little liquid-holder. So now I’ve got here pure extract of fertility in liquid form. Next you just take a little piece of bark off the tree you want to use the potion on. Then you stick the bark into the heart of a stillborn child.” I tore a small strip of bark from the tree and took a tiny soft red blob out of the ingredient bucket.

“What!?!” my sister gasped. “Yew didn’t just say ‘heart of of a sti--’”

“Yeah,” I cut her off. She wasn’t supposed to talk during the show. “Pinkie Pie has a ton of them and is more than happy to share. Twilight said it’s needed for the potion because Beelzebub only accepts untainted souls as payment or something. I’m not really sure what that means, but basically you stick the wood chip into the heart and then burn it. You burn it over a piece of paper like this so you collect all the ashes. Then you pour the ashes into the extract of fertility and mix it up real good with one of these here glass mixing sticks. After it’s all gone away and the potion just looks kinda like muddy water, you stick a funnel into the end of the thingamajig. Then you pour the potion into the funnel and watch as it turns into a nice shade of light yellow.”

Twilight told me that thingamajigs (Well, she actually used their real name, but I can’t remember it) are enchanted with unicorn magic, and that’s the key to giving potions their magical properties. She said that the thingamajig is the most complicated and delicate instrument that I will use at any point in the potion-making process, and that I should always be very careful with it because if I don’t precisely measure out the ingredients it could have ‘devastating consequences’.

As I poured the muddy-looking water into the funnel it began to swirl through the thingamajig. As usual I heard the light tingling sound of magic meaning it was working. The potion turned yellow and got clearer as it reached the end of the thingamajig and dripped into a potion bottle. Right when I finished pouring the very last drop, something fell from the sky and splatted in the funnel. I looked up and realized a bird had pooped as it flew overhead. I shrugged and figured the potion would be alright because poop was already one of the ingredients. It would probably still work alright.

But as some of the more liquidy bits of the bird poop dribbled through the thingamajig they caught up with the rest of the potion. The instant they touched each other the whole potion turned into a deep red color. Once that happened my thoughts went from, “I hope Applejack likes this potion” to “Ooh! I wonder what this’ll do!” I noticed my friends exchange a worried glance. They’d seen me do this hundreds of times, and the potion had never turned red like this before. Luckily I managed to roll with it. Maybe I could kill two birds with one stone here and impress my sister while also discovering a new potion recipe.

“Then it goes from yellow to red, indicating the potion is ready to be used,” I lied, improvising. “After the last drop goes through the thingamajig you put the cork in the potion bottle and there ya go! One apple tree enhancement potion!” I held it up proudly. “And all ya gotta do to use it is just throw it at a tree. The one downside is that the bottle breaks every time and you have to get a new one, but it doesn’t work if you just pour it. We’ve been thinking about using water balloons. Anyway, here goes!” I hurled the bottle at the tree and the glass shattered into tiny little sparkling bits of dust glowing with magic. The dark red potion splashed all over the tree’s trunk and it just stayed there for a moment like it was glue. I was very anxious to see what this new potion would do.

Then I heard a weird slurping sound, like somepony was trying to suck up the last few drops of a milkshake, and we all watched as the potion seeped into the bark, disappearing in a matter of seconds. If we hadn’t just seen it we wouldn’t have been able to tell we had used a potion at all. It still looked like an ordinary apple tree.

We waited silently for a few seconds. Normally that was when the extra apples would’ve started appearing and growing to match the others in size, but nothing was happening.

Sweetie Belle broke the silence. “Apple Bloom, I think that something went wrong… with...” her voice died out as we all noticed a deep rumbling sound. It seemed to vibrate the whole earth and for a moment it was so loud that I saw Applejack scream something but I couldn’t hear the tiniest hint that she was even talking. Then the rumbling died out as quickly as it had come and was replaced by the tree’s branches creaking and swaying like a heavy wind was blowing on it, except there wasn’t any wind today. We all watched it curiously when all of the sudden a loud crack startled us and we were amazed to see a face had erupted on the trunk of the tree.

Its eyes literally glowed with hate and as it spoke fire flew out from between its jagged bark teeth. “YOU!!!” it bellowed in a deep guttural voice, its abhorrent stare fixed on my sister. “AT LONG LAST I SHALL HAVE MY REVENGE!!! FOR YEARS YOU HAVE TORMENTED ME, COAXING ME TO GROW AND NURTURE MY CHILDREN ONLY TO HAVE YOU STEAL THEM AWAY AND DEVOUR THEM!!! BUT FATE HAS SMILED UPON ME THIS DAY AND MY PRAYERS HAVE BEEN ANSWERED!!! I NOW HAVE THE POWER TO SHOW YOU THE MEANING OF WRATH!!!”

“Uh...” Applejack managed to little grunt that expressed her fear, confusion, and just plain disbelief all at once. We all stood motionless as the tree continued ranting, tearing its own roots out of the ground to free itself. Soon its mass of spindly roots began slithering along the ground, carrying the rest of the tree with it.

“LET THIS BE FOREVER REMEMBERED AS THE DAY THE PONIES SUFFERED FOR THEIR CRIMES AGAINST ALL OF TREEDOM!!!” the tree screamed, belching fire with every word. Then it reached out with a branch and picked up Applejack, bringing her closer and ensnaring her with nimble tangling roots. “FEAST, MY CHILDREN!!! DO UNTO THIS PONY WHAT THIS PONY WOULD HAVE DONE UNTO YOU!!!”

The apples in the tree all sprouted faces and started squealing with painfully high-pitched voices. They shook themselves free from their branches and rolled themselves towards my immobilized sister.

“What in tarnation?” cried Applejack, shortly before the living apples ate her. Those were her last words. I think if she’d had a list of phrases that she would’ve liked to be her last words, ‘What in tarnation’ would have been pretty high up there. It just seems like something she liked saying.

Anyway, me and my friends were kind of freaked out because my sister just got eaten by apples. Naturally, we started screaming at the top of our lungs and we ran away from the monster tree as fast as we could. I’m not totally sure how-- maybe it was just a coincidence-- but we somehow found our way to the clubhouse while nearly blind with terror. We crashed through the door and pulled up the drawbridge, thinking we’d be safe inside.

“What do we do?” gasped Sweetie Belle. “That thing just ate your sister!”

“Actually, it was the apples that ate her sister,” Scootaloo corrected, also gasping. “I think the apples are the tree’s kids or something.”

Before we had even caught our breath, the ceiling of our clubhouse flew off over the horizon, thrown by the tree. It peered inside, apparently looking for something. Almost immediately it saw the chest where we stored all the extra practice potions I had made while preparing to show Applejack my skills.

“Whew!” I breathed a sigh of relief. “It looks like its not here to get us. It just wants the apple-growing potions.”

“What do you think it’s gonna use them for?” wondered Scootaloo as the tree reached out and grabbed the chest. Then it opened the chest, pausing momentarily to look at the potions inside.

“You don’t think it’ll make itself stronger or bigger or something, will it?” Sweetie Belle asked.

“Nah, I don’t think so,” I answered confidently. “Those potions should only work on regular apple trees. Whatever happened to that one, it doesn’t work the same way anymore. It probably won’t be able to use the potions at all.”

The tree climbed down from the clubhouse and the three of us crowded by a window to watch what it was doing. It picked out one potion from the chest, uncorked it, and poured the yellow liquid into its mouth.

“Ha! I knew it!” I exclaimed after nothing happened for a few seconds. I hadn’t really had a clue what would happen. I just like making stuff up about how potions work because my friends know less about than I do. Apparently I’d just make a lucky guess.

But then the tree leaned forward. When it stood back up we saw that it had spat the potion back into the potion bottle, only know it was a dark red.

“That’s not good,” I declared.

“Not good at all,” Sweetie Belle agreed.

The tree put the cork back on the potion bottle, then heaved it at the tree closest to it. The same earthly rumbling as last time shook our clubhouse to the foundation and soon there was a second tree unrooting itself from the ground. The first tree passed a potion to the second tree and took one out for itself. Together they made them into two red potions and hurled them at two more trees.

Right about that point was when my friends and I realized what was going on.

“Uh, okay,” Scootaloo said to us, trying to remain calm. “Sorry to-- rumble-- you’re not mad. See ya!” she finished in a panic. While Sweetie and I were unable to hear her over the rumbling, she had strapped on her helmet and mounted her scooter. As soon as she finished talking she took off. Another rumble deafened us as we watched our friend disappear in the distance.

“Scootaloo!” Sweetie Belle called, hoping to bring her friend back. When it didn’t work she turned to me. “What--” a rumble cut her off and she stopped talking, realizing that I wouldn’t be able to hear her. “What are we going to do, Apple Bloom?” Another rumble.

Suddenly a dozen or more trees appeared, looking over the walls of our clubhouse, glaring down at us. One of them spoke. It might have been the original, or it might not have been. It was hard to tell because they all looked basically the same. “YOU ARE GOING TO SUFFERRRRRRRR!!!” it shouted. Then it began shaking back and forth, as did all the other trees leaning over the clubhouse. Apples rained down on us, falling from the shaking trees. Those that didn’t land directly on top of us fell to the floor and rolled in our direction. Soon they all sprouted faces and began their impish screaming. Before long the apples started piling up on us and I backed away into a corner. Sweetie Belle didn’t move, though, and she soon disappeared inside the ever-growing mound of pony-eating apples. I think it’s safe to assume that she was eaten.

In an instant, every single apple in the pile turned towards me, still squealing. They just stared at me with their beady little eyes. I wasn’t sure why at the time, but they didn’t seem like they were interested in eating me. Instead they all turned away from me and rolled out the door, dropping off the balcony and bouncing to the soft ground below. There was no sign of Sweetie Belle anywhere, so I guess she got completely eaten.

I just sort of sat there for a while. I’m not really sure how long, since I was sort of distracted by the fact that my sister and one of my best friends had just been eaten by living fruit. In a daze I looked around the clubhouse, noticing everything that had belonged to Sweetie Belle. At least since she was gone I’d get all her sewing supplies.

Then I wondered if she had anything good in her saddlebag, but at the same time I spotted it I noticed that Scootaloo’s saddlebag was next to it. That was when I remembered that one of my friends was maybe still alive, and I decided I should go try to find her.

Once I left the clubhouse and made my way out of the apple orchard in the direction that Scootaloo had scootered, I found myself partway along the road from my house to Ponyville. Looking towards my house I saw a few of the tree monsters tearing it apart while apples rolled in through all the doors and windows. Clearly the rest of my family was a lost cause. They’d definitely be eaten before you could say ‘Buy some Apples!’.

I figured Scootaloo had wanted to get as far away from the monsters as possible and went into town, so I followed the road that way. The crushed fences and trails of fresh apple juice told me that several more of the monsters had already been that way too.

When I reached the outskirts of town I was met with a scene of complete chaos. There must’ve been at least thirty of those huge trees stampeding about, smashing buildings and shedding apples left and right. They kept shouting things like, “THE TIME OF YOUR DESTRUCTION IS NIGH!!!” and, “FINALLY, THE TABLES HAVE TURNED!!! THE AGE OF APPLE TREES IS AT HAND!!!” I thought that second one was kind of ironic since we had actually used apple trees to make a few tables at our house. So it was sort of, you know… multi-layered.

Anyway, there were ponies cowering in their houses and running around in the street. Pretty much all they said were things like, “AAAHHHH!”, “PLEASE DON’T EAT ME!”, and “WHY!?! WHY DID I HAVE TO EAT APPLES!?!” but the trees ignored their cries and sent their hungry apples after them. There were a lot of pegasi taking off and trying to fly away, but the trees were apparently really good at throwing apples and they managed to stop the pegasi with their pony-eating projectiles.

Once the trees had gotten everypony in the sky and on the streets, things calmed down a lot. There were still some houses with ponies inside, and the trees were going around smashing them and pouring in apples, but overall there was a lot less panic and screaming and whatnot.

The carnivorous apples still seemed to be ignoring me for the most part, so I actually felt relatively safe walking through the ruined streets. Soon I found my way to Scootaloo’s house, which was already destroyed and there was no hint of anypony alive inside. The one thing I found was Scootaloo’s scooter lying on the grass in front of the porch, so I knew that she’d made it back. I called her name a few times but there was no answer so she probably got eaten along with everypony else in town.

I went over and picked up her scooter, standing it upright. I had always admired what a nice scooter it was. I didn’t think I’d be able to use it as well as Scootaloo had, since I didn’t have any wings, but I’m sure my friend would have been happy for me to have it anyway. I looked around on the ground nearby for her helmet but couldn’t find it. Soon I gave up, figuring I’d be okay without one. When I gave up my search and went to get on the scooter I realized that there were suddenly trees surrounding me in a large circle. I froze and looked at them, worried that I wasn’t as safe as I’d thought I was. They all just stared at me with their fiery gaze.

I gulped. After a second, one of them slid forward. “CREATOR!!!” it screamed. Then all the others shouted in unison, “CREATOR!!!” as they bowed, pressing their faces to the earth. Then the one who spoke first continued, “OUR QUEST FOR VENGEANCE IS COMPLETE!!! WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE US DO!?!”

“Oh,” I answered, relaxing. I totally hadn’t realized that these trees worshiped me. “Well, I woulda lahked it if y’all hadn’t just killed all mah friends.”

“WE ONLY DID TO THEM WHAT THEY DESERVED!!!” protested the tree. “THEY TORTURED US AND ATE OUR CHILDREN!!!”

“True, true,” I agreed. “That’s a very good point. Ah just wish Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle hadn’t gotten eaten. That’s really gonna put a damper on our Cutie Mark Crusading. At least there’s still Babs Seed and her Crusaders. Maybe I’ll move to Manehattan, since Ponyville is destroyed ‘n’ all.”

The tree eyed me keenly. “WHAT IS THIS... MANEHATTAN… YOU SPEAK OF!?!”

“It’s a city over yonder,” I gestured thoughtlessly. “One of my other friends lives there.”

“WHAT!?!” bellowed the tree. “DO YOU MEAN TO SAY THERE ARE MORE PLACES SUCH AS THIS WHERE PONIES BEND NATURE TO THEIR WILL!?!”

“Why o’ course there are! What? Did you think that everypony in Equestria lived in Ponyville?” I laughed. I wasn’t giving much thought to what I was saying. I just liked being able to tell ponies, or trees, rather, things they didn’t know. It makes me feel smart. "There’s tons more towns and cities all over the continent."

“THIS INFORMATION IS NEW TO US!!!” the monster declared, then turned to address its monstrous allies. “TREES!!! IT WOULD SEEM OUR QUEST IS NOT YET COMPLETE!!! WE MUST SCOUR THIS LAND, THIS… EQUESTRIA, AND PUNISH EVERY PONY THAT HAS EVER WRONGED MOTHER NATURE!!!”

“Oh no,” I groaned. That was a pretty dumb move on my part. I had just single-hoofedly doomed all of Equestria.

“CREATOR!!!” spoke the tree as the others turned away, slithering off in every direction. “WE WILL RETURN TO YOU WHEN WE HAVE GAINED OUR REVENGE AND RESTORED BALANCE TO THIS LAND!!! FAREWELL FOR NOW!!!” Then it too turned to leave.

“Wait!” I cried. “Can’t you stay here and just, um, not seek revenge on all of Equestria?”

“I’M AFRAID WE HAVE NO CHOICE!!!” the tree answered without looking back. “THIS IS OUR ONE TRUE PURPOSE!!!”

“Ah’m your creator!” I yelled desperately. “Shouldn’t Ah be the one to decide yer one true purpose!?!” But the tree didn’t respond and just kept slithering away. “Shoot!” I said to myself, sitting down on my new scooter defeatedly. “That really coulda gone a lot better.”

And now here I am. That’s how I brought about the destruction of my own town and everypony I love. Even worse, it looks like the same is going to happen everywhere else. If only I hadn’t tried to mess with the laws of nature and magically alter my sister’s apple trees.

Now I’ve got nothing to do but sit here and watch the ruins of Ponyville settle. I notice one building, Twilight’s library, stands above the rubble. I guess the monster trees didn’t want to destroy another tree, even if it was a tree turned into a house. And if Twilight’s house is still there, maybe she’s still there too!

I spring up onto my scooter and make my way towards the library as fast as I can. It’s a little awkward at first since I don’t have much practice, but I figure it out pretty quick and soon I’m flying along faster than I could ever run. My heart races and my hopes soar as I approach the tree house, hoping that maybe, just maybe, Twilight will still be alive.

“Twilight!?!” I call out to her, my voice echoing in the creepy silence that has fallen over the abandoned town.

“Who?”came an answer. Or, I guess it was a question.

“Twilight!” I repeat.

“Who!” came another reply. Suddenly Twilight’s pet, Owlowiscious, flutters down from an upper-story window.

“Oh,” I mutter, my hopes crashing down around me. “It’s just you.”

“Who,” it says.

“You,” I say. Then it perches on a branch and stares at me, completely unhelpfully.

I hate owls.

I decide to let myself in and I search through Twilight’s house without finding anything to hint that she might still be alive. There’re books scattered around the floor and it looks like Twilight was in the middle of some research when the trees reached her house. I notice one pile of books near an almost empty shelf, as if she had been frantically searching for one in particular. On top of the pile a single large book is spread open. As I get closer to it I notice that it’s apparently really old. Many of the pages look frayed and torn at the edges.

The page that it’s open to displays a complex diagram that looks vaguely familiar to me. When I look at it more carefully I’m suddenly struck with the realization that it’s a recipe for a potion. It’s a series of pictures written all over with some weird form of writing I’ve never seen before. I have no idea what it says, but I think the pictures might be enough for me to figure out how it works. I was never big on words anyway.

It looks like the ingredients are simple enough. From what I can tell by the pictures I need some type of acid, a piece of cloth, a drop of sunlight, and some fire salts. Luckily for me, Twilight has a truly impressive collection of potion ingredients and I know my way around it from all my practice in Twilight Time. In just a couple minutes I’m able to get everything I need and begin the potion-making process.

The pictures are sort of vague and as I go along I start to get the feeling that I’m missing some important steps in the process since I can’t read the directions. I start feeling really certain that something went wrong once I pour my concoction through Twilight’s thingamajig. The diagrams show that it should turn into a sort of greenish-brown gooey substance, but my potion just turns out as a plain green liquid that smells sort of like rotten eggs. When I sniff it it make me feel a little light-headed and I quickly put a cork in it to stop any more of the nauseating gas from spilling out.

Somehow I just have the strong feeling that Twilight’s book was the answer to my problem and that she’d discovered a way to de-monsterify the trees right before those ferocious apples gobbled her up. All I have to do is figure out how to make this potion right and all my troubles will be over.

I decide to try again since Twilight still has plenty of ingredients left. There are only a certain number of ways to brew a potion after all, so I should be able to get it right eventually.

I set my failed attempt down on a nearby table, but I accidentally fumble it a bit and push it away from myself, causing it to start rolling towards the far edge of the surface. I watch in horror as it drops out of my view and I know that in an instant the bottle will hit the floor and shatter. I assume that as soon as it breaks open the toxic gas will fill the room, so I take a deep breath and get ready to run for the window. As soon as I hear the glass shatter, however, a brilliant orange light fills the room and a column of flame reduces the table to ashes. I scream and leap out the window just as the entire room spontaneously erupts into flame. Within a minute the fire spreads across the entire tree, reducing it to nothing but a huge pile of charcoal and a gigantic pillar of smoke.

The fire dies out and I know that the book, along with all of Twilight’s equipment and ingredients, are gone forever.

“Oops,” I say to myself. “That really coulda gone better.”

Now, with no trees in sight, no ingredients to make more potions, nopony to help me, and absolutely no idea what to do next, I have a moment to reflect on just how awful this day has been.

Just by trying to make a simple potion I accidentally destroyed my whole town and everpony in it. Even worse, the same thing is going to happen to everypony in Equestria and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. That’s nothing, though, compared to what I suddenly realize is downright worst part of this whole experience…

I didn’t even get my cutie mark for it.

Author's Note

I wrote this for the Equestria Daily Writer's Training Ground #009. The prompt was to write about the CMCs using their new skills from Twilight Time to "contribute to pony society."

I think what Apple Bloom did counts.

Thanks for reading! I hope you like it!