Stay Away From Those Low Branches
"So yer sayin' that a little filly wanted you to use that there pogo stick?"
"That's correct."
"And then told you to jump right at this spot here?"
"That's right."
"And with that big brain o'yours, ya didn't think to look up once?"
"No, Applejack. Please get help."
Twilight Sparkle was hanging from a tree by her horn. It was no mystery as to how she had gotten there, but that wasn't of any concern at the moment for anypony other than Twilight Sparkle herself. Or Applejack. All that mattered at that point was getting Twilight down from her position impaled into the tree.
She heaved a sigh. Her mother had always told her to stay away from low-hanging branches and things like that; being a unicorn, she always had to watch out for things that might bump into the most sensitive protrusion on her body. Naturally, she hadn't always remembered to duck, and her horn had taken some hits during its time. It was actually happening more often since she became a princess, given that her horn had grown ever so slightly longer. It wasn't that big of a difference, but it was enough to mess her up every once in a while.
She reached a hoof up to feel around at where her horn was impaled into the branch. Yeah, it's really stuck in there. She nearly pricked her hoof on one of the many splinters that had burst through the wooden surface.
It wasn't long before she heard some voices heading her way. Her ears swiveled on her head and strained to hear who was approaching.
"...an' so... get her..."
"I can totally help, don't worry!"
Oh no. That voice. That loud, boisterous voice. Oh, Applejack, why? It could only belong to one mare...
Rainbow Dash walked into view from behind several of the trees.
"So where is sh—" she broke off as her head turned to see Twilight.
They made eye contact.
"Don't. You. Dare." Twilight seethed.
Dash made a sound, something between a 'snirk' and a 'snort'. But she held it together.
"I swear, if you—"
"Bwahahahaha!" Dash fell over laughing immediately, her legs flailing over her head in mirth.
Twilight, still hanging off the ground, rolled her eyes and crossed her forelegs in annoyance. Given that there wasn't anything she could say to make Rainbow stop laughing at the moment, she chose instead to look at Applejack accusingly.
The mare backed up onto her haunches and waved her forelegs frantically, if not apologetically, as if to say "It's not my fault she's here!"
Twilight wouldn't relent though. She held her look, then kicked her hindlegs twice, gesturing to say "Well do something about this!"
Applejack held up under the force of Twilight's harshest deadpan stare for only a few moments more, then broke eye contact and heaved a heavy breath. She took off her hat and held it to her chest, steeling herself for a moment for what she knew she had to do. Then, without hesitation, she turned herself around and gave the tree Rainbow Dash collapsed under a solid buck.
Then, with perfect, uncanny accuracy, a trio of apples fell and bonked Rainbow on the head in series. "Ow!" she exclaimed, her legs going stiff in the air in pain, then flopping to the side as she got control of herself and rolled back into a standing position.
"Okay—okay let me get this straight. Some little filly wanted Princess Twilight Sparkle to jump on a pogo stick."
Twilight nodded. Well, more like she tried to nod but ended up swinging her body back and forth once.
"And you jumped up, and," she was interrupted by a snort, "you got your horn stuck in a tree!"
"Rainbow Dash," Twilight growled, "if you laugh again, so help me Faust..." She raised a single hoof threateningly.
"Alright, alright egghead, calm down. We'll get you out of here. I'll just fly up here!" She spread her wings, and with a single flap jumped up to the low branch Twilight was stuck on. "And I'll just push down on your horn!"
"Wait, Rainbow, no!" was all Twilight could manage to get out before Rainbow was suddenly fried by a burst of magical lightning.
She fell back down to the ground with a dull thump. Woozily, she sat back up, her hair frizzed out and patches of her fur blackened. "Wh—what just happened?" she asked, confused and dazed.
"I didn't get a chance to explain!" Twilight exclaimed. "With my horn stuck like this, I can't control how my magic comes out! So until we get it out of the tree, it'll act like a lightning rod and conduct magical energy to anypony that comes into contact with it!"
Rainbow Dash stood up and shook herself off, getting rid of the black patches and restoring her mane to its original condition. "Okay, so pushing down is out. Hmm..."
"How 'bout we pull her out from down here?" Applejack suggested, standing next to Rainbow and looking up at the trapped Twilight.
"Great idea! You get the left leg, I'll get the right!" Rainbow shouted, immediately latching onto Twilight's front right leg.
"Wait, girls, I don't think this is a really good idea!" Twilight said quickly, too late to remove Rainbow Dash from her appendage.
"Don't worry, Twi! We'll get you out of there faster than two shakes of a lamb's tail!" Applejack said, mirroring Rainbow's actions on Twilight's other leg.
"Wait, wait, wait, no!"
"Alright AJ! Pull!" They yanked once, hard. "Pull!" They threw their weight to the ground. "PULL!" They pulled as hard as they could and Twilight felt like her body was being stretched like a piece of taffy.
"Stop! Stopstopstopstopstopstop!" Twilight flailed her limbs around, breaking the grip her friends had on her. They fell back to the ground on their haunches, letting out little oof's with their impacts.
"What'cha do that for, Twi?! We almost had you out!" Rainbow said, flying up in her face.
"No, you almost had my legs off of my body!" she snapped back.
"So what do ya suggest we do, Twilight?" Applejack asked, still sitting on the grass.
"Hmm..."
Minutes later, Twilight had directed Dash and Applejack to set up a simple set of pulleys that will, for sure, with 100% certainty, get her horn unstuck from the tree. A rope was tied to the base of her horn, otherwise known as the crown of her head, and then wrapped around a barrel lying on its side beneath her. The rope then led to the waiting hooves of AJ and Dash, who would pull, causing the barrel to rotate and Twilight would easily pop free from the wood.
"Alright girls, are you ready?" Twilight called to her friends, standing a short distance away.
"Ready!" They replied in unison.
"Then pull!" Twilight shouted.
The rope tugged down on Twilight's body, this time much more comfortably, but still with the same result.
"Pull again!" Twilight yelled.
She felt it tug harder around her horn, but still nothing.
"One more time!" she roared.
She heard AJ and Dash grunting with the effort, but it still wasn't enough to get her free. Then, she heard a cracking sound, and the rope around the barrel split! The two ponies pulling on the rope were sent flying back by the sudden lack of resistance. They rolled to a stop crashing into a tree, causing a few apples to fall out and drop onto their unsuspecting heads.
"Hey! What'cha all doin'?" asked a bubbly voice from above Twilight's fallen comrades.
"Hi, Pinkie," Twilight said flatly as she untied the rope from her horn. "As you can very clearly see, I'm stuck." She made a helpless gesture to her horn impaled through the branch.
"Oh! I can help with that!" she exclaimed before bouncing over to the tree.
"Pinkie, with all due respect, it's not as easy as it—oof!" Twilight fell back to the ground, finally unstuck. "Wait... what?" Twilight asked, feeling her unharmed horn with her hooves.
Pinkie jumped down off the branch and landed next to her, giggling.
"How'd you do that, Pinks?" asked Rainbow Dash, flying over to the two.
"Yeah, Dash tried that herself and it didn't work," added a confused Applejack.
"Silly, everypony knows you need to use the right equipment when working with electricity!" she exclaimed before holding up a rubber-gloved hoof.
"Oh. That's actually... I never thought of that. Good job, Pinkie," Twilight said, trying to puzzle out how she didn't think of such a simple solution sooner.
"Buuuut..." she said, leaning in close to Twilight's face. "The real question here is not how, but who!" she said bubbly.
"What?" elegantly asked Applejack.
"Who was that little filly that had Twilight jump on the pogo stick and stick her horn in a tree?" Pinkie elaborated, somehow donning a Sherclop Holmes hat and monocle.
"That's... actually a good question. Who was it, Twilight?" Rainbow Dash asked.
"I don't know, actually. I saw her around here when I was out walking and said hello. She asked me to jump on the pogo stick, then ran away after I got my horn stuck in a tree, screaming something about 'revenge'," she said, miming quotes with her hooves.
"Well, Ah guess we'll never know," Applejack said, dismissing the situation while Twilight's pride was still mostly in tact.
"I'd like to put this all behind me as soon as possible," agreed Twilight.
The four ponies then walked away from the tree, laughing at how silly the situation was; until Twilight threatened to turn them into frogs for a day, that is.
But, as they walked away, the little filly known as Blank Slate walked out from behind a cluster of trees. "Curses," she said, clenching a hoof. "One day, Twilight Sparkle. One day you will suffer humiliation the likes of which I suffered when I was defeated at Canterlot!" A flash of green fire revealed the filly's true identity. "Me, Chrysalis, Supreme Humiliator of Twilight Sparkle!" she shouted to the sky, holding a hoof outstretched dramatically.
And she held that pose, until an apple, as if guided by the unseen hand of nature, fell out of the tree she stood under and bonked her on the head.
