Applejack paced inside the crusaders' clubhouse. The old tree and walls soothed her itching blood. She was tired from staying up for the Summer Sun Celebration, but the spell drove her to need to be in the little building. Looking around, she admired the work that Applebloom and her friends had put into the place. It looked far better that it ever had when she had called it home base; when they'd called it home base.
Walking over to the wall, Applejack scanned the boards for the secret spot. She tapped a few of the timbers, trying to remember which one was the trick board.
The knothole, she remembered that. Two up, one over.
Pressing the board, she gave it a twist as it sank behind the others. Sticking her foreleg into the hole, she tried to not think of the spiders that had probably filled the space over the last ten years. She smiled when her hoof clacked against glass. Grabbing the bottle, she pulled it out. The thick amber liquid still sparkled inside the dirty bottle.
Sweet Apple Acres applejack. This had been made by her father. Ten years ago today, she had tasted her first swig of alcohol. Ten years ago today, she had put her blood on a spell to drink it again today.
Sitting the dusty bottle on the table, she looked at the over sized tag hanging from it. “We will meet again, some sunny day” could still be read under the three streaks of dried blood, and the illegible markings of the spell they had signed that day. She could probably get Twilight to void the thing before the others were forced to show up.
Reaching back into the hole, Applejack pulled three glasses out and unwrapped them from their protective cloth. With the bottle in the center of the table, and glasses evenly spaced around the edge, Applejack waited for the other hazards to show up.
It didn’t take long. The noon sun had just crested when hooves thudded onto the ramp.
“Geez, somepony really fixed this place up,” the pegasus said to nopony in particular.
“My little sister.” Applejack answered.
Spitfire walked into the clubhouse, scanning the walls, before her eyes settled on the bottle. “Guess that spell actually worked.”
“Yep.”
Spitfire sat down across from Applejack. Picking up the glass, she looked it over in silence, before setting it back down. “I’m sorry.”
“Ya really hurt him Spitz.”
Spitfire sighed. “I know. How is Braeburn?”
“He moved out to Appleloosa. Visited him last year. Still his same old self.”
“For what it’s worth, as annoying as he could be, no stallion has ever treated me better. But still, it would have never worked. We just belonged to different places in the world.”
Applejack fumbled with her own glass. “Still, you could have tried.”
“Not could have; should have. But that’s the past. How have you been? Can’t say I was surprised you pretended not to know me last time we met, but it still kinda hurt.”
Looking at her own hooves, Applejack shook her head. “Last time we spoke, I said some things. I didn’t know if you could forgive me.”
“Tribalist, bigot.” Spitfire quoted.
Applejack winced at the words. “I’m sorry.”
“Hello!?” a new voice called from outside. “Anypony here?”
Spitfire turned, and hung her head out the window. “In here Lyra.”
Applejack smiled at the sound of Lyra walking up the plank. She could always tell when it was Lyra, something about her gait was just a little different.
“I can’t believe that spell actually worked!” Lyra said as soon as she walked into the room.
“Yea, it worked,” Spitfire said stretching her leg. “Felt like I’ve been covered in ants since yesterday.”
Applejack nodded as she pulled the cap off the bottle. “Same here. This morning I couldn’t stop thinking about this old treehouse. By lunch I was halfway out here, and didn’t even remember leaving the house.” Pouring a few shots worth of liquor into Spitfire’s glass, she sat the bottle back down on the table.
“So you two are talking again?” Lyra asked. Taking her seat, she took the bottle in her magic, and poured Applejack’s drink.
“Not much choice, thanks to you.” Spitfire took the bottle from Lyra as she offered it to her. “But yea, we said our sorries,” she said, pouring Lyra her fair share of the applejack. “How’s Bon Bon?”
“She’s well. We’re talking about having a foal.”
“Adopting, or stud?” Applejack asked.
“Stud. We’re both healthy. The waiting list to adopt is two years.” Lyra swirled her liquor, watching the ripples dance around the glass. “I flaked on you guys pretty hard back then, didn’t I?”
“Yea,” the other two mares said in unison.
“Sorry.”
Applejack shrugged. Picking up her glass, she brought it close enough to her nose to smell. “You found your special somepony. Not everypony gets that, can’t blame you for moving on with your life.”
“Still, I wish I’d stayed closer with you two.”
Spitfire snickered. “What, and get caught up in our drama? Be glad you missed that,” she said, taking up her glass, and holding it out to her friends. “To the ten year reunion of the Ponyville Hazards. Now doing weekly shows as work-a-day mares.”
“Cheers,” Applejack and Lyra responded, clinking glasses with Spitfire.
“This tastes better than I remember,” Lyra said sitting her glass back down. She’d taken a pretty good sip, but she couldn’t tell the glass had gotten any emptier.
“Well, it has aged for ten years,” Spitfire said, taking a second sip of hers before putting it down.
“Funny,” Applejack mused. “I aged ten years too, but got more bitter.”
“Ha!” the other two cackled.
Lyra picked up her glass for a second sip. “At least Spitz didn’t choke on hers this time.”
“I was not prepared for earthpony liquor,” Spitfire said shaking her head.
Applejack laughed. “We got pretty silly that night, didn’t we,” she said before taking another nip of her drink.
“Do you remember,” Spitfire waved her hoof, trying to pull the memory back together, she nursed her drink again. “You two were trying to figure out if you could jump a wagon over town hall.”
Lyra grinned. Nodding, she tapped the table with her hoof. “We would have done it too. I still say my math was right on that.”
Taking another sip, Applejack laughed. “I don’t trust your math when you’re sober. But I know how to jump a wagon, and you're right, we could have done it.”
Spitfire took a sip before laughing. “We’d have taken the roof out, and I’d have been catching both of you. But still, would have been fun to try.”
“No no no,” Lyra chanted, waving her glass around. “We would have cleared the flag pole by at least a meter.”
“Yea,” Applejack agreed, setting her glass down. “I was just worried about making sure we landed in the river.”
“Pfft,” Spitfire waved a hoof, dismissing Applejack’s concern. “At that speed and altitude, I could have made that wagon land anywhere.” Pausing, she took another drink. “That is if you could have gotten it up that high.”
Leaning forward, Applejack traced an imaginary image onto the table. “If we used the south bridge to put the ramp on, and started uphill from the library; there’s no way we couldn’t make it.”
“She’s right,” Lyra said looking around the room. Spotting an old notebook and pen laying in the corner, she wrapped them in her magic, and floated them over to the table.
The three crusaders stood at the bottom of the ramp to their clubhouse. They didn’t know if they were supposed to laugh, or be worried about the boisterous voices of three adults arguing about how best to jump town hall in a wagon.
Steeling herself, Applebloom took the first step up the ramp. Inside, she had to laugh at the sight of three grown mares gathered around the little table. It was small to her, the three adults dwarfed it.
Her sister looked up and gave her a broad smile. “Applebloom, you girls come here, and tell us what you think,” she said waving them in.
Applebloom looked back at her friends, and shrugged. Stepping inside, she noted the half bottle of applejack and almost empty glasses on the table. They were all, what Granny would call, lit but not drunk.
Each of the girls took a seat between the adults, Scootaloo pausing for a moment when she recognized Spitfire. Swallowing her urge to squeal, she forced herself to calmly sit next to the wonderbolt. Looking at the notebook, Scootaloo studied it with her friends. Pointing to the map they’d drawn, she placed a hoof on the path they showed the wagon taking. “There’s a cobblestone crosswalk there. It’ll break your wheels if you hit it too fast.”
Sweetie Belle taped the map with her hoof. “Start here. The hill isn’t as steep, but the road is straighter.”
“Yea,” Applebloom agreed. “Plus, you’ll miss that tree on the north side of town hall.”
Scootaloo giggled. “We might have to try this. Too bad you guys are too old to do this now.”
Mr. Cake stood motionless as Pinkie tremored and twitched uncontrollably. “Doozy?” he asked once she had stopped.
“Yea... Doozy. There’s a band getting back together.”
Confused by the answer, but not surprised, Mr. Cake walked out into the lobby to look out the window. Outside, Applejack, Spitfire, and Lyra were pushing an old cart up the hill.
“Oh, no!”
“What is it, Mr. Cake?” Pinkie asked, trotting up to him.
“The hazards are back.” Sticking his head out the door, he looked for any other signs of danger. Unfortunately, the crusaders looked to be building a ramp on top of the bridge at the bottom of the hill. “This is bad. Get the foals into the basement.”
“Who are the hazards?”
Locking the door, Mr. Cake turned to face Pinkie. “When I was your age, we didn’t have the Cutie Mark Crusaders. We had, the three hazards of Ponyville. They were worse.”
Sitting on the other bridge, the crusaders had an unobstructed view of town hall and the ramp. They could see the wagon’s dust trail before the wagon itself. Scootaloo's jaw dropped when it finally came into sight. At the back of the cart, Spitfire was propelling the heavy wagon faster than she had ever gotten her scooter to go. In the front, Applejack steered the thing with brute strength alone, and in the middle Lyra kept the thing from flying apart with her magic.
Hitting the bottom of the hill, they raced across the flat spot towards their ramp. Applebloom held her breath as the wagon’s weight and speed assaulted the ramp she’d built.
It was when everything went quiet that Applejack considered that this might not be the best idea. No longer rattling down the road, they were flying towards the town hall and the sensation of weightlessness was starting to sink in. It was also then that she realized that she had left the bottle of applejack and the unfinished glasses in the clubhouse. She decided to just pretend like she had forgotten about them altogether.
At least she was right, they were going to make it. Lyra’s magic enveloped her, reminding her of the plan. She had to get off the driver's bench, and into the safety of the wagon's bed.
Looking down, Spitfire smiled at the flagpole passing under her. A confused yelp from a cloud jerked her attention to her left. She waved at the groggy Rainbow Dash that she had apparently just woken up, then turned her attention to landing the wagon.
“You two okay?” she asked her friends as she took a position closer the the center of the wagon. They both gave her toothy grins for an answer.
Eyeing the deep spot in the river, Spitfire began guiding it to safety. This was no pegasus carriage that would take advantage of pegasus magic. It was lifeless wood that would fall at the mercy of wind and gravity.
Wagon bits littered the river bank when Scootaloo came to a stop. Looking around, she searched for any sign of movement.
“Where are they?” Sweetie Belle asked.
Applebloom pointed the a surge of water in the center of the river. “There!”
Three heads shot up from the deep water. The mares gasped for breath, before falling into hysterical laughter. It was a contagious sort of laughter the girls couldn’t help but be infected with. Charging into the water they met their older counterparts halfway, treading water around them as they made their way to shore.
It wasn’t until their hooves touched ground again that they noticed a new presence.
“What dark god in Tartarus have I angered, to have the hazards and the crusaders decide to lob a wagon at town hall?” Mayor Mare said. She was not amused.
Applebloom fished another chunk of wagon out of the river, and hoofed it over to Spitfire. Her ears were still ringing from the chewing out Mayor Mare had given them. Though, she’d taken a bit of pride in standing beside her sister while they were both getting yelled at. The hazards and the crusaders all lined up before the mayor had been quite the sight. Featherweight had gotten a picture, she was going to ask for a copy tomorrow.
“I’m going to take this pile, and march it to the dump,” Spitfire said hefting the trash onto her back. She tried very hard to ignore the bruise running down half her body.
“Okay, Lyra should be back soon. I’ll run a pile out, and let her collect wood for a bit,” Applebloom said, completely ignoring Spitfire’s hiss of pain when the wood on her back shifted. She still wasn't sure how her sister had managed to get a black eye, but at least she hadn't busted her lip like Lyra.
It was going to take them till late in the evening to haul the ramp to the dump, and clean the river around town hall. Since apparently they didn’t know how to safely use a wagon, all six of them were banned from using one for a month. What could have been one or two hauls with a cart, would now be several dozen long walks.
Looking over to the bridge, she had to laugh. Watching her sister and Scootaloo dismantle the ramp was a sight. They almost had it down though, and Sweetie Belle had already made two trips to the dump.
Wading into the water, Applebloom wrapped her hooves around a broken wheel, and flung it to the shore. Looking up, she spotted Lyra trotting around the corner.
“You ready to swap?” Lyra asked.
“Yea,” Applebloom said, wading up onto the road. “Hey Lyra, I was wondering. The mayor said this was the second dumbest thing you three have ever done.”
Lyra cackled. The grin on her face was a little scary actually. A little fresh blood from her scabbed lip adding to the effect. “I’m going to make Applejack tell you that story,” she said, stepping down the banks, and lighting her horn.
Applebloom shrugged. She’d corner Applejack about it later. Balancing some debris on her back, she headed towards the dump. It was going to be a long evening.
