The Case of the Kidnapped Princess
“So I'm thinking,” said Big Mac, very deliberately, “if we move the carrots into the east fields...”
My hat chose this moment to vibrate.
“Uh, Big Mac?” I said.
He raised an eyebrow. “Eeyup?”
“I, um, I gotta go, um...”
Big Mac raised his other eyebrow, which told me I wasn't fooling him for an instant. I sighed. Once again, it was clearly better to be honest – following my Element, after all.
“I gotta go talk with Princess Twilight,” I said firmly.
“Right now?” he asked.
“It can't really wait,” I said. “We'll have to sort out the planting schedules when I get back.”
Big Mac stared at me for a long moment. Then he seemed to accept it. “If you gotta go, then you gotta go,” he said.
“I'll be back as soon as I can!” I promised. I galloped away and found a quiet, unobserved spot among the apple orchards. I took off my hat and looked inside, at the two-way scrying mirror Twilight had installed in it.(1)
(1) Along with a few glass vials full of carefully sorted liquids, courtesy of Zecora
Much to my surprise it wasn't Twilight's face that greeted me, but rather Pinkie Pie's. Wearing a top hat, for some inexplicable reason.
“Agent Apple!” she said. “We have a task for you.”
I sighed. “Pinkie, are you messin' with Twi's stuff again?” I asked.
“What?” asked Pinkie. “No! Can't you see I'm wearing the serious hat? I can't mess around while wearing the serious hat! That wouldn't work!”
I snorted. But, for Pinkie Pie, that almost made sense. “So what are you doing, then?” I asked.
“Twilight's been foalnapped!” said Pinkie. “By changelings!”
“...what,” I said, bluntly.
“Twilight's been foalnapped!” repeated Pinkie. “By changelings!”
“Yes, I heard you the first time,” I said. “How did they -”
There was a scrabbling noise and a small purple dragon pulled himself up into view. “They were disguised as Cadance and Shining Armour!” he explained. “They got close enough to get her with some sort of knockout gas, then held a knife to her throat and used her as a hostage to force their way out of the castle!”
I frowned. “Twi's part earth pony now,” I said. “Any knockout gas shouldn't last long...”
“It lasted long enough for them to gum up her horn and wings with that changeling goo stuff,” said Spike. “It's messing with her magic or something. If you can get it off, she'll be able to fight her way out no problem!”
I nodded. “Okay, I got it,” I said. “Any idea where they took Twi?”
“They were heading in the direction of Sweet Apple Acres last we saw them,” said Pinkie. “Probably planning to pass by on their way out of town.”
“On the other claw,” said Spike, “if they see you, they'll kill her!”
“Gotcha,” I said. Indeed, looking up, I could see what looked very much like Princess Mi Amora Cadenza and her husband, Shining Armour, pulling a cart that contained a pony-sized crate along the road. “I'm on the job. They'll never know I was there.”
* * *
It was the work of a few moments to pull the blue potion out of my hat and swallow it. Poison Joke extract – the effects differ from pony to pony, but they are reproducible. For me, it makes me shrink down to the size of a Breezie, hat and all. By the time the changelings got to the end of Sweet Apple Acres, I was sitting pretty on a branch over their heads. Just another apple in a tree, I told myself – the thought brought forth a brief grin.
“...train to Manehatten,” said the one who looked like Shining Armour. “Then we'll be the shipping clerk for a while, and misdeliver the package to Cloudsdale, only when it gets there -”
“You don't have to keep going on about it!” snapped the one that looked like Cadance. “I know very well what the plan is, thank you very much!”
Light as a feather, I dropped down to the cart behind the changelings, and snuck up on the crate. Fairly standard, wooden crate – and, oh horseapples, a perfectly standard lock with a perfectly standard alarm spell that goes off if it's forced. I didn't have to ask where they'd got it from – Filthy Rich sells them by the dozen.
At my size, there was no way I could take on two full-size changelings – I'd still pound them into paste, mind you, but I couldn't stop one of them from doing something permanent to Twilight first. So I had to resort to plan B. The best thing about Filthy's locks is that they only go off if somepony tries to force the lock – so instead, I went to work on the crate itself. One of the planks was a little loose, and after a bit of work with Bucky McGillicuddy and Kicks McGee it was a whole lot looser. I slipped in through the hole, and much to my total lack of surprise, it was darker than an Appaloosan ranch house at midnight in there!
“Twi?” I whispered.
“Mmmmph?” said a voice, quietly, from near me. Good – she was awake.
“I'm as blind as a rattlesnake trapped under a barn in here,” I said quietly. “I've come to help you out, but you're gonna have to guide me. Just keep making quiet noises for a bit, we don't want to alert those two out there just yet.”
“Mmmmm,” said Twilight, quietly. “Mmmmrmm hmmm mmhm.”
“Alright, that's it,” I said. “I've got to your mouth, I'm gonna untie your gag. Now, just stay real quiet, okay?”
Turns out these changelings are no good at knots. It was dead easy pulling that gag off
“Right,” I said. “Now I'm just going to take this piece of cloth and clear that gunk off your horn, so you can show those two why they picked the wrong Princess to kidnap, okay?”
“Perfect,” whispered Twi back. “Thanks, Applejack.”
“Ain't nothing,” I said. “Now, hold still...”
* * *
“You should have seen their faces!” snorted Twilight, over a cup of hot chocolate. “They'd just got to the train station, about to load a crate of 'delicate cargo', when wham, the cargo burst open, and there I am, suddenly free!”
“OOOOoooOOOO,” said Pinkie.
“So what did you do to them?” asked Spike.
Twilight shrugged. “Tied them up and handed them over to the Royal Guard,” she said. “They'll handle it from here. She looked between the three of us and smiled. “And thank you all for the rescue,” she added.
“It's a pleasure, sugarcube,” I said, from the mug I was soaking in – full of Poison Joke cure. “I'm just going to have to resupply on potions from Zecora tomorrow.”