It was all a haze. A blur of colors streaked past Ritz's vision. Suddenly frightened, the colt had yelped out a surprise, causing him to step back and unfortunately trip over himself landing squarely on his back.

"Watch where you're goin' with this thing, Scoots, you almost killed somepony!" he heard.

"Ah, he woulda been fine. Nothing more than a bruise would have happened if I did hit him," he heard another voice say.

"Scootaloo!"

"Ritz!" he finally heard a familiar voice. Focusing his eyes, he saw his father standing over him with a worried expression.

"Ritz! Are you okay?!" his father asked. Ritz nodded and stood up, shaking his head to get rid of the last few stars in his vision.

"Did you hurt anything? Head, neck, your back? Did you accidentally bite your tongue? Did a tooth fall out? HAVE YOUR EARS BEEN RUPTURED?!" Quills screamed at Ritz. His father kept shaking his head, checking for any injuries. Ritz shoved himself away with an audible breath, looking at Quills disdainfully.

"Er, sorry for that. I guess it was just a fall..." Ritz raised an eyebrow at Quills "What? I'm your father. I've got to needlessly check for any injury my son has, even if you just bang your hoof on a table.

Ritz was not amused.

"Excuse me, sir. I just want to, uh, apologize... because I felt really bad for almost, er, 'killing' your son with a HARMLESS SCOOTER." A small orange filly with short but wild violet hair walked up to Quills, yelling the last bit back at two other fillies down the road, one that was white as a marshmallow with a fuchsia mane, the other with a cream coat and a short red mane, with small saddle bags on her flanks.

"Oh, nothing to be ashamed about, my dear, at least to me. It's my son who you should apologize to," Quills replied. The orange filly walked behind the stallion up to to Ritz.

"Hey there. Sorry for running you over like that. I guess I wasn't really paying attention," the filly apologized. Ritz responded by brushing his hoof down through his hair while smiling.

"What's wrong, something wrong with your voice? Gasp, I must've scared your voice out of you!" the filly exasperated. Her eyes grew with worry, and she quickly turned around. "Girls, help! The kid lost his voice!"

Quickly, the two other fillies dashed down to where Ritz was, the cream coated one taking out some rope to lasso his legs, pinning him down. Ritz was frantic, with his eyes open in fear and confusion as he looked towards his father.

"Mister, can we take him to see if we can help your son? We've been trying to get our doctor cutie marks but my sister won't let us near any 'doctoring' tools," the cream coated filly asked. Quills was at first surprised at how quickly the filly managed to tie his poor son, but soon he smiled in a way that Ritz knew he was going to be betrayed by his father. Again.

"Sure, we were just coming back to our house after a young mare had given us a tour of Ponyville. I'm sure he wouldn't mind making some new friends." At this, Ritz gave Quills the stink eye, making eye contact with him. With a "Cutie Mark Crusader doctors!" hurrah by the the trio of fillies, they dragged off their prized colt, all while Ritz never broke eye contact with Quills until they were out of sight, reminding him that he'll never forgive his father for this. Quills laughed it off.

"Well, at least now he's in the company of some peers. Hopefully that will get him to be more sociable when school comes." He trotted down the path, giving small greetings to neighbors and passer-bys. After a few minutes he reached his house, and entered. Inside, he saw some boxes and some bags lying around.

"Ah, the movers must have come by today to drop off the rest of our belongings," he remarked to himself as he inspected the contents inside some of the boxes for any damage. Seeing none, he quickly got to work removing everything from the boxes and neatly ordering them on where they would go.

"Ritz, could you pass me that tape cutter? This box is propped up like a shelf with the flaps out on the side so I'll need you to hold the flaps while I cut them open," Quills asked.

No response.

"Ritz, are you there?" Quills looked out from the box to see that his son wasn't there. At that point, he remembered that he had left his son to the mercy of those three fillies from before.

"No matter, I can do it myself," Quills reassured himself. Grabbing the tape-cutter, he proceeded to cut away the tape, before the cutter jammed somewhere near the top. Trying to bring it down, the cutter sliced through the tape like butter, catching Quills off-guard and letting the content of the box fall down on top of him. It swarmed him like an avalanche, and he poked his head out of what seemed to be a pile of books, his glasses nearly fallen off of him.

"Huh, I guess that's what that lady back in Manhattan called 'Karma'..."

"Alright, first things first. Let's assess the patient!" The trio of fillies had pulled Ritz into a rather nice treehouse, according to him. He would have liked to look around and admire it, if he wasn't tied up and left by his father to suffer what these fillies would do to him.

"The patient has lost his voice in a preventable accident involving reckless driving of a scooter," the white filly reported.

"Hey, I said I was sorry!" the orange filly retorted.

"...do we have any way we can test the patient to see how he has lost his voice?" the cream coated filly asked.

"I say let's open his mouth to check his tongue!" Wielding a sizable pair of tongs taken from the saddlebags, the orange coated filly marched up to Ritz and opened his muzzle, using the tongs to grab his tongue and pulled it out as much as she could. Ritz hissed in pain. He wanted to scream, but as he couldn't he settled on making his father scream later.

"Nope, his tongue's fine. What else can we try?" The filly let go of the tongs, leaving Ritz to reel back his tongue. He made an effort to snap his jaw at the filly to scare her away. "Watch it, he's fiesty!"

"We could try to check his throat or stomach, see if there's anything wrong with his diaphragm."

"Dia-what?"

"Check his stomach to see if anything is blocking him from speaking!" the white filly exasperated.

"Oh, so you mean make him throw up? This should do it!" A sudden pain brought Ritz to full alert, as he suffered a punch to his lower chest.

"You punch like a girl, Scootaloo," the cream coated filly remarked.

"That's because I am one, Apple Bloom," the orange coated filly named Scootaloo retorted.

"Well, you still punch like one. Instead, you need to learn how to kick like one!" Leaning forward on her forelegs, the cream coated filly named Apple Bloom let loose with her back legs, sending Ritz through the air before landing squarely on the opposite wall.

This was too much, he thought. Being in a world of pain meant equal pain must be retaliated on his father, but first he needed a way to get away from the fillies.

"Girls? What in tarnation are you doing up there? I could hear that kick from back at the farm, Apple Bloom, you better have not tried to buck one of your friends!" Salvation came to Ritz in a form of an adult voice. Now he just needed that adult on his side. Calling up his hidden power, he let loose a secret weapon of children everywhere.

"Apple Bloom, what are you-" looking at the opposite wall from where the trio of fillies were standing, a blonde-hair, orange coated mare peeked out from the entrance to the treehouse to see a tied-up colt quietly sobbing, a small hoofprint on his chest giving the reason why.

"Apple Bloom! What the heck has gotten into you! Why are beating up young colts!?" The blond-haired mare ran to the young colt, untieing him. Ritz clung onto her foreleg, trying to sob even more to clinch the victory.

"Sorry, sis. We were just trying to help him," Apple Bloom replied.

"In what twisted world does kicking a colt help anypony?!" the mare retorted. She started to stroke Ritz's mane, trying to calm him down. He smirked in his mind, knowing he had the mare hook, line, and sinker, as his father would say.

"We had an accident with Scootaloo's scooter, and now he doesn't say anything! We thought he lost his voice somehow!" Apple Bloom said.

"Well did it ever occur to you are that maybe he just doesn't like talking?" the mare asked.

"Uh...no....we just wanted to try and see if we could get our doctor cutie marks..."

The mare sighed before letting go of Ritz to turn to the three fillies. "How many times to I have to give this speech to you girls. You will get your cutie marks in time, you just have to-"

"Uh, dude, you okay?" Scootaloo remarked. The four turned to see Ritz holding his chest in pain. Red flags in the mare's mind flared as she rushed to the colt's aid, brushing away his foreleg holding his chest. A couple prods with her hoof and she sighed in relief.

"Don't worry, nothing is really broken, at least not enough," the mare replied. Ritz raised an eyebrow at her. "I'll put it to ya this way: if Apple Bloom was a year older, you would probably have your sternum broken in two."

Ritz blinked at her, before he winced at another prod. The mare looked to see a major bruise forming where Apple Bloom had kicked him.

"Oof. I'm going to have to get this cleaned up. Come with me, it'll be quick. Granny's made some supper too, if you want to join. And you three!" the mare turned around to the three young fillies. "Come with us. You can have supper too if you want, but don't expect to be unpunished for this!" Helping the colt up, the five went out the exit and climbed down from the tree house.

Ritz had often thought about farm life. Living in a cramped city such as Manehatten definitely made you cherish the country life. It's part of the reason why he chose to go to Ponyville, so he and his father could enjoy more in their lives instead of the tight apartment with weird neighbors and bad schools and...

"Hellooo. Equestria to colt? Are you there?" Scootaloo's voice brought Ritz back from his city life memories. Focusing his eyes, he found himself at a big table loaded with food. The three fillies sat next to him on the table, while on the opposite side sat an aging green mare with a hair bun, a big red stallion with a long blonde mane, and the mare from before, back at the treehouse.

Ritz salivated at the abundance of food. Everywhere on the table were apple fritters, apple pies, apple everything. Another inspection of the room and Ritz realized everything with this family was about apples.

"Sorry for the big feast, little feller. This is the day we celebrate the time when I had to drive away the biggest and meanest flock o' fruit bats you'd had ever seen!" the old green mare said, flailing her forelegs in the air. Ritz couldn't help but smile. "So what were you four doing at that tree house? I hope you weren't doing what I think you were doing with these fine girls..."

Both the young mare and the stallion coughed loudly. "Uh, granny? Let's not have to talk about that to the kids yet, ya hear? Besides, I caught Apple Bloom giving a swift buck to the colt's chest. It's a nasty bruise you're going to have for a few days though, kid," the mare said. Ritz winced and looked at his chest, seeing a general blue spot around the upper area. "I'd suggest to try and walk easy for those few days. I think the best example would be to stay away from these three, huh?" the mare laughed.

"I told you, Applejack, we were only trying to help!" Apple Bloom said.

"Help with what, Bloom?" the mare Applejack called Granny asked.

"Help with his voice problem or whatever. I think he's just one of those silent types," Applejack responded. Ritz sunk a little into his seat.

"Ain't nothing to be afraid, colt. We're all family here. What's your name, by the way?" Granny asked. Ritz sighed before crossing his hoof over his throat, a sign that he used whenever he needed to tell ponies he couldn't speak.

"What's wrong, griffin got your tongue?" Scootaloo asked. Ritz gave her a deadpan expression before crossing his throat again.

"I knew it, there was something wrong with his throat! Scootaloo, are sure you checked his tongue right?" Apple Bloom asked.

"Yeah, but I can check it again if you want," Scootaloo replied. At this, Ritz's eyes shot open, and he stumbled away from the fillies before they could do anything more to him. With a scared look he crossed his throat again, hoping to get the message across before anything else happens to him.

"I think he's trying to tell us he can't speak, like he's a mute or something," the red stallion said. Elated, Ritz ran to the stallion, hugging his neck and nodding to everyone, before running back to his seat.

"Er, what's a mute?" Scootaloo asked. Ritz repeatedly slammed his head on the table.

The door opened, and Ritz stepped inside to a myriad of boxes and a couch he recognized from the apartment. He looked at some of the boxes to see more familiar items from the apartment, and guessed the movers had come in before.

He walked a bit wobbly, as a full stomach and a bruise could allow him to walk. He learned much about the Apple family back at supper. Apparently they were the most important farmers in the region, supplying most of Ponyville's food. Their main specialty was apples, which explained the apple food and items in the room.

He also learned about Apple Bloom's group of friends. They called themselves the Cutie Mark Crusaders. It consisted of Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and the white filly whose name was Sweetie Belle. They were, as Scootaloo said, "on a quest to find their cutie marks". They said that he could join the group too, even though he had his cutie mark already. With a piece of paper and a quill, Ritz told them his name and where he came from, explaining that he and his father were new to Ponyville, as they've just moved in. A mare had given them a tour of the village though, and they know relatively where to go for what they need. Saying goodbye, the mare named Applejack said that he was always welcome to the farm, and would love to welcome Quills too at the party. He wondered what she meant by party when he arrived at the house.

"Ritz? Was that you who closed the door?" Ritz heard his father's voice. He followed it to a door that was propped open with a book. He went inside to see a humorous sight.

Shelves of books were lined across all the walls, and in the middle lied his father in a tangle of packaging tape, his glasses fallen off to the side.

"Thank goodness you're here Ritz. I got in a bit of a tangle trying to unwrap the boxes. Of course I'd find a way to get myself tangled in packaging tape of all things, huh?" Quills laughed. "At least I was able to finish up your room on the opposite hallway." Ritz looked around the room to see various tape peeling off the walls, which would effectively keep Quills in place for only a few more hours.

To Quills's horror, Ritz smiled. He smiled in such a way that Quills knew he was going to be betrayed by his son. Again.

"Ritmo Porâ, don't you dare walk out that door. Ritz?! RIIIIITZ!"

Author's Note

Sorry for the late update, wasn't exactly able to get back on the internet when I typed it up.

Self-edited, so if you see any mistakes in spelling or grammar that I missed, please tell me.