Winter Wrap Up has finally arrived, and with Twilight being the newcomer to Ponyville, she is eager to help out without resorting to her magic. Using a unicorn’s magic was how the ponies in Canterlot normally changed over the seasons. Twilight didn’t ask the obvious question about why they couldn’t use magic even though unicorns inhabited Ponyville. She figured it was just how the early Earth pony settlers wrapped up winter way back in the day. Spike was of no help because of his nagging of Twilight to use her magic, or wanting to spend the rest of the day, sleeping. It was one of those times where she wished he would have just stayed home. Instead, he wanted to accompany her in case they ran into Rarity so he could fantasize about her some more or whatever he did when he was around her. He was starting to get a little obsessed with that mare.
Twilight knows Winter Wrap Up in Ponyville will not be easy and that has already been proven several times when she has tried to help out Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy. Each time ended in some kind of disaster with the exception of when she tried to offer her help to Rainbow Dash; Twilight couldn’t physically do what the other pegasi were doing because she didn’t have wings. In retrospect, it was kind of stupid to try to offer help to Rainbow Dash because she would have no doubt had some flying task that needed doing. AppleJack was the last pony in Twilight’s list of close friends and she was determined to help in some way. She figured AppleJack would most likely have a farm related task for her to do, which wouldn’t be too difficult intelligence wise, only physically demanding.
Over at Sweet Apple Acres, Twilight was on her last chance to prove her worth to Winter Wrap Up. She wanted to try her hoof at one of the pony-powered dozers. It seemed simple enough; using her leg power, she pushed the snow out of the way with the giant shovel on the front, couldn’t be easier.
Once situated in the dozer, Twilight pushed with all the strength she could muster. The dozer, however, didn’t move. It just sat there, mocking her. Flustered, Twilight tried again, pushing her legs even harder, and again the dozer didn’t move. She cast a worried look over at AppleJack and Spike who were silently watching the unicorn struggle to operate the machine. AppleJack shook her head; Twilight didn’t possess the strength of an Earth pony, nor was she that muscular. There was no way she could push the dozer, no matter how hard she tried.
“Sorry sugarcube, you’re just not strong enough,” AppleJack finally said. Honesty was her strong point.
Twilight hung her head in disappointment; this was her last chance to help out with wrapping up winter here in Ponyville. Now, she failed; it wasn’t really the best first impression she could make on the Ponyville residents. Twilight shook those negative thoughts out of her head. She wasn’t giving up that easily, nor was she going to resort to her magic. Spike could glare at her all he wanted, she wasn’t giving in to peer pressure. Being as smart as she was, she racked her brain for alternative solution, one that didn’t require magic but allowed her to easily move this snow out of the way. Then, an idea hit her; there was a construction equipment rental place just outside of Ponyville. It would only take a moment to get there using a teleportation spell.
“I’ll be right back,” Twilight spoke. In a flash of light, she teleported away leaving AppleJack and Spike to ponder what she was up to.
Twilight appeared at a rather large fenced in area with bulldozers, front-end loaders and everything in between all lined up along the perimeter fence. A small, lone building sat in the middle with a brown Earth pony stallion standing outside, smoking a cigarette. Snow covered every square inch of the property with the exception of the machinery; the snow clearing team clearly hadn’t gotten to this area of Ponyville yet. Twilight approached the stallion with her usual friendly expression on her face.
“Hello, I would like to rent one of your fine bulldozers,” she said in her usual friendly tone.
“Which one you want?” he asked, dashing out his cigarette. His demeanor was short and to the point. He didn’t like making a lot of small talk.
Twilight examined her options; she had plenty of dozers to choose from. They all ranged from different sizes, features, and intended uses. She weighed the pros and cons of each one, mentally making a list of what exactly she needed in a dozer. She only had one shot at this and wanted to be absolutely sure she picked the right one.
After a few minutes of intense self-deliberation, “I’ll take the D10,” she pointed a hoof at a big yellow monstrosity. It was a sizeable dozer with all the features she was looking for, plus it had an enclosed cockpit so she could stay warm while she was driving it.
“That one is fifteen hundred bits for the security deposit and the first day, then its five hundred for each additional day,” he stated.
She wasn’t going to haggle him on the price because she didn’t have the time, plus she had plenty of money. Being Celestia’s prized pupil had its perks, and one of those included a nice monthly allowance. Although, she had to do a couple of favors for Celestia in return, including a few things that she wasn’t proud of.
“Sounds good, I’ll just need it for today” she said.
“And you’ll need to sign this,” he said after procuring a several page agreement form.
She took the form with her magic and began reading. He didn’t really expect her to read it since most ponies just signed it and went on with their lives. Twilight wanted to be thorough and wanted to know what she was getting into. It mostly stemmed from her love of books and wanting to read everything that she could to extract every possible amount of information out of it.
“Are you sure you know how to drive one of these?” he asked the obvious question. He rarely ever had gotten a mare as a customer, especially a unicorn mare. Unicorns tended to be prim and proper, always relying on their magic and rarely ever getting their hooves dirty.
“Yeah, I’ve read the manual about twenty times,” she answered without looking up from the form. “I know what I’m doing.” True, she did read the operation manual to this particular model on one day she was bored and little curious.
The stallion didn’t respond; she sounded confident in her abilities and he wasn’t going to convince her otherwise. Not after that sexual harassment lawsuit he got several months back when he made some rather sexist remarks to the wrong mare.
Once she finished reading through the document, she signed her name at the bottom. Using her magic, she conjured up a sack of bits containing precisely the amount for the rental. After a quick check of the document and the amount of money, he offered her the keys to her new vehicle. She grabbed the keys and climbed on to the driver’s seat of the dozer.
“Do you need…” he started as her horn lit up and magical energy surrounded both her and the dozer. In a flash, her and the dozer were gone, teleported away, leaving the stallion once again standing there by himself.
“Damn unicorns,” he mumbled, lighting up another cigarette and waiting for another potential customer, if there was even going to be another one today. He didn’t get much business around Winter Wrap Up for some reason.
Back at Sweet Apple Acres, Twilight re-appeared with her newly acquired machine. AppleJack was surprised that Twilight chose to go this route. She almost said something, but held her tongue; she wanted to see if Twilight could actually drive this thing. A part of her was thinking Twilight had no idea what she was doing and was just going to make a fool of herself. Spike was nowhere to be found, not much to Twilight’s surprise; he was probably hiding out in the barn, catching another one of his morning naps.
Twilight quickly ran through the pre-start checklist, making sure the dozer was in good working order before starting it up. Satisfied with the checklist, she turned over the ignition key. The engine roared to life with a sound that rivaled a dragon’s roar. Moving the controls slowly at first, Twilight got a feel of the power of the machine and what it was capable of. She treated this like she treated anything else she was doing for the first time, taking a slow and steady approach before going at it full tilt. Once she got a feel for the controls, she started clearing the snow that was in her path. The dozer’s massive shovel and beefy engine made short work of the snow and ice, and even outperformed the pony-powered dozers. Why more ponies didn’t use these was beyond her.
AppleJack was even more surprised at Twilight. She underestimated Twilight’s abilities and resourcefulness. Twilight couldn’t help but cast a proud gaze over in AppleJack’s direction.
As Twilight passed by AppleJack, she opened the door to the cockpit. “Hey, I’m not using magic,” Twilight shouted over the engine noise.
AppleJack furrowed her brow. “Well, yeah, technically you’re right,” she said after a long pause. Technically it wasn’t magic, but she still saw it as kind of cheating.
Twilight continued on with her task at hoof. There was something about driving that heavy machine that unlocked some kind of primitive satisfaction inside her. She dared to say, she actually enjoyed this. Maybe she should do this more often. In record time the Sweet Apple Acres’ fields were all clear, the fastest it’s ever been cleared during Winter Wrap Up.
Twilight parked her vehicle to let the plowing team go to work on the fields. She hopped off to go talk to AppleJack, who seemed to be a bit green with envy.
“I have to admit, Twilight, that was pretty clever of you,” AppleJack said. She couldn’t really be mad at Twilight for this. Everyone had to play his or her part in wrapping up winter.
“I know,” Twilight said with only a hint of smugness.
“I think we might actually be on time this year.” The two continued on with the next task at hoof here at Sweet Apple Acres, only stopping to check the progress of the other teams. There was a minor breakdown in communication, which was quickly resolved by Twilight’s superior organizing skills.
The hours of the day drug on and the ponies continued with wrapping up winter. Twilight used her dozer to help out with anything that could have benefitted from it. The fields were plowed, seeds were planted and watered, the hibernating critters were awoken, and the grey clouds were cleared to make way for the brilliant sunshine to warm the ground and melt all the ice. Winter Wrap Up was completed early this year, a first for Ponyville in many years. Twilight was glad to have helped out; it provided invaluable experience for her life that lay ahead of her.
The following morning, after a restful sleep, Twilight had one last thing to do before starting her day. Luckily for her, she teleported the dozer over to Golden Oaks Library so she wouldn’t have to go all the way back to Sweet Apple Acres to fetch it. That teleportation spell came in handy more times than she cared to admit.
After giving it the once over to make sure she returned it in the same condition she received it in, she teleported both herself and the machine back to the rental place.
The same stallion from yesterday was standing in the same spot, smoking a cigarette. It didn’t seem like he moved at all since yesterday. Which wasn’t surprising, he probably didn’t have anything better to do.
She tossed the keys over to him. “By the way, I think it needs an oil change.”
He caught the keys with one hoof. “Sure, I’ll get right on that,” he simply replied.
Now that her business was concluded here, Twilight teleported back to the library to get ready for whatever adventure lay ahead of her.
Author's Note
My first attempt at a random fanfic.
I had the idea for this fanfic for a while, and I decided to roll with it now because of a random fanfic contest that was being held by a group that I am part of.
