Unusable Story Husk

        “Well, Rainbow?”

        “Yes, Applejack?”

        “Why didn’t we see this coming?”

        “I don’t know, Applejack.”

        Rainbow and Applejack stared out onto the road, seeing the marks left by the vehicle before it left. It wasn’t very clear from the distance, but it appeared that the other four ponies were still inside the vehicle, alive at the very least.

        “There’s no way we can outrun that thing in our current condition, so I suppose we’re going to just have to hope and follow along at our own pace," Applejack mentioned.

Rainbow bitterly nodded her head, antsy for a chase or a fight.

"If I wasn't tired, I'd show him a thing or two! And Flim too!" Rainbow yelled out. "It's pretty lucky you brought that bag of food, otherwise we'd be finished!"

Applejack gave a reassuring smile, opening her bag and revealing the stowed object included.

"Wow, you brought the gun? Good thinking! Now that jerk won't be able to use it!"

Applejack didnt seem as happy.

"Well, that's nice an' all, but I'm feeling kind of bad. When I used that 'gun' thingy, I fired it at one of them batponies. It hit his wing, and I'd imagine that'd be mighty painful."

Rainbow winced at 'his wing', bringing her own wings close to her body carefully.

"So I want to help out the batpony, if he's still on the road. It wasn't too long ago," Applejack said.

"Wait a second, what about our friends? Our first goal should be-"

"Hold on, sugarcube. The batponies aren't necessarily tired-"

"We woke them up-"

"Stop interrupting me, Dash!"

"Fine, I wi-"

"Alright, so, they might not be very tired, but if we help one of their own, we might seem friendly. They could give us a ride over on their backs, I'm sure we arent that heavy!" Applejack finished.

Rainbow groaned at more than her three consecutively interrupted sentences.

"It seems a little odd to be asking monsters about this. They weren't friendl-"

"Rainbow, we just didn't give them a chance, that's all. Come on, let's go! Bring the 'shellgun' thingy too!"

Another grunt, and Rainbow wielded the shellgun herself with Applejack by her side.

They didn't have to wait long until the fallen batpony came into view, surrounded by it's fellow batponies. They seemed to take no notice of the ponies, focusing on the center of the circle instead.

It wasn't until Rainbow lowered the gun, banging around the shells inside, that they turned to see them.

"Hrm? AH, BRETHEREN, THE DEMON HAS RETURNED!" a batpony called out.

In an instant, they all fled the scene, cursing the gun in Rainbow's hand as they revealed the fallen batpony's condition.

"Well, that was odd. I guess I didn't make a good impression earlier- wait, that batpony isn't moving! It's the one we shot in the wing earlier- no, wait- it was his chest…" Applejack said solemnly, realizing what she had done.

"Relax, Applejack. It's all in self defense, he would've ripped you to shreds or something if he got to you along with the rest of us. Just look at is as though you saved us!" Rainbow assured Applejack.

"I know… but I still ended somepony's life…"

"What we should be worrying about is how we will get to Flim without transportation. It doesn't look good," Rainbow said, face cast down in failure.

"Well, I suppose it was in self defense for ya'll. I'm just disappointed, because it'll all be for nothing. Flim will have them by now."

As Applejack finished, a roaring sound came onto the scene, bearing colours of yellow, pink, purple and white.

Surely enough, it was the determined faces of Fluttershy, Pinkie, Twilight and Rarity in Flim's vehicle. Coming to a stop next to two bewildered faces, the ponies hopped out to greet them.

"Hey, you two! Why the confused faces?" Twilight questioned.

"Bu… but you… beat him?" Applejack stammered.

"Of course we did, silly! He's in the trunk all tied up! You didn't think he could take on four ponies, did you?" Pinkie joined in.

"I can see why you'd be confused. He had planned on the gun you seem to have brought with you being in the car, allowing him an easy kill. As soon as he left, he reached down to find it, but discovered it was gone. So we simply overcame him- except for Fluttershy, that is- and took control!" Twilight explained. "Stop gawking at us, you two, and get in! We have to deal with Flim!"

Applejack and Rainbow could barely move as they slowly headed to the vehicle, attempting to process what had happened.

"So we made all those plans for noth-"

"Of course they weren't for nothing. We tried to do them, Applejack, and they didn't work," Rainbow interrupted, smirking.

"Alright, Pinkie, step on the- wait, why is that batpony lying there… oh dear, Applejack, did you kill him?" Fluttershy inquired, a little scared.

"I don't want to talk about it. It was to defend everypony."

Showing concern, Fluttershy nodded her head and took a seat in the back.

Pinkie, oblivious to anypony arguing or talking, slammed her hoof down on the pedal. Anypony not ready was flown back into the back seat, bunching up with each other in the process.

Anypony who was talking was silenced by the deafening noise combination of the engine and wind, drowning out any sense of reasoning they might have wanted to give to Pinkie to slow down. The speed itself pressed the ponies' hooves against the seats, preventing any physical interactions, romantic or otherwise.

This was all Pinkie, now.

Rainbow hadn't told Pinkie anything about driving, and the buildup of dents and scratches from the reckless driving showed it. As the vehicle got smaller and smaller from the doors getting slammed against the ground, Ponyville began to become a clear figure.

"Pinkie, slow down! We're almost there!" Twilight attempted to remind Pinkie, forgetting the complete sound vaccuum the vehicle presented.

Pinkie didn't seem to be aware of Ponyville or her excitedness got the best of her as she entered the town, smashing benches and buildings before slamming against a tree, shooting Darius out of the trunk.

"Mmph! MMPH!" Darius called out, mouth completely roped closed.

Flim, standing on his cider machine, watched the scene in awe.

"Ugh! What is going on? What have you done to my car?" Flim said, innocently.

The ponies in the car were too dazed and confused to react for the most part, save Rainbow, who had fled the vehicle after Pinkie began crashing into buildings.

"You know perfectly well what happened. We have the letter you wanted to give to Darius, and we know you killed your brother. Why?"

Flim glanced away briefly, taking care not to seem flustered.

"I would never kill my brother! I've already told you what happened, and I'd rather not discuss it. I think what we need to focus on is your friends' current state and how we'll make it better," Flim replied.

"Stop stalling, tell me the truth!"

Flim glaced behind Rainbow, turning his innocence into a devilish smile spread out on his face.

"Now that Darius is back, I think we can get started!"

Flim gestured behind a puzzled Rainbow, who looked behind herself only to meet the end of a barrel leading up to Darius' bruised face. It was useless to approach him even without the gun, what with the apple cider intake seperating the two, inviting a brutal death to any who enters.

"Good thing your little friend stowed me in the trunk. The bush broke my fall, so I decided to help out my old friend Flim in dispoing of you," Darius said, smirking. "Without your friends being in a proper mental state, it was far too easy to simply reach over and grab the shellgun. Oh, and Flim, I'll get you the money for it after we're finished here."

Rainbow shifted her eyes to Flim, straightening her thoughts to escape the predicament she put herself in.

"Excellent, thank you Darius. Now, it's always good fun to end other ponies' lives, but I feel like explaining a few things to you before dashing you and your friends away," Flim taunted.

"You see, me and my brother weren't too successful in our cider ventured after you all defeated us last year, and money was slim. We had enough money to live decently enough alone, but together, we went hungry often. So why not change the equation from us to alone? I decided to test my latest invention on him, the shellgun, blaming the apple intake in the process."

Grinding her teeth, Rainbow looked at Flim with disgust.

"Oh, I dont care what others think. You can quit that disgusted look. Anyway, I wanted more money than I provided for myself afterwards, so I decided to find a way to come back here and sell. Cider is very popular here, but I needed to dispose the one problem inhibiting me- you annoying ponies. You'd have stopped me from making the money I wanted. So I simply decided to let you borrow my vehicle so I could initiate a plan to get Darius, who was at a station on that road, to end you with the gun I had stashed in the vehicle and return the vehicle, leaving Ponyville all to myself. It was much more convincing when I proposed you'd take a vacation."

"The thing is, none of this would be happening if I hadn't forgotten to give Darius the key to the gun. I'm guessing you got the key from the casing, as I had left it, correct?"

Rainbow nodded bitterly, planting her hooves on the cider machine in preparation for attack.

"It's funny how you think that you can beat me without Darius shooting you first-"

Rainbow lowered her body preparing to pounce, before hearing a loud bang behind her. Soon after, screaming from behind her and cries of pain from Flim became clear.

"What just… wow," Rainbow gasped, looking behind her at the remains of Darius, scattered amongst the teeth of the apple intake. Through the grinding noises of the intake, Rainbow could make out curses coming from behind her.

Flim was clutching his chest, heaving in pain as his blood began to flow out.

"That… that idiot! I didn't mean… argh… shoot the gun! Now that idiot recoiled back and tripped into the apple intake! Guess he… *cough* got what's coming to him…" Flim cursed, falling down on the machine's metal cover.

"Seems like he isn't the only one who got what's coming to him, Flim," Rainbow said, pinning him down to the metal surrounding the cider machine.

"No… I just wanted to make myself happy. Looks like the good guys always win, huh? I never… *cough* considered myself to be a bad guy. Just a guy with a purpose. You don't know what it's like to be poor, you all live so *cough* so nicely in this rotted town."

"Not when people like you are terrorizing us," Rainbow finished, watching Flim take his last breaths.

"This was a really crummy way to die. It's almost… comical. Guess I had a 'flim' chance of winning anyway…" Flim laughed, closing his eyes for the last time.

Before Rainbow could do anything, her friends, still a little dazed, surrounded her, staring at the curious situation. Even though he had attempted to kill them and take everything Applejack worked for, it wasn't the happiest of times for the six friends.

"So he was evil? And this whole thing is done now that Flim is dead?" Twilight asked.

"Yeah, Darius tried to shoot me, but I had ducked, so he ended up in the apple intake and Flim was shot. Hey, I wonder what came out of Darius when he got chopped up…"

Looking over, they could see a cup of red filling up by the unloading station, where a light blue pony picked it up, unable to see the horrifying scene behind the contraption's protruding tubes and whatnot.

"Wow, they went with tomato juice instead of cider? I should go share this with Bon-Bon!" the pony said excitedly.

"Lyra, don't!" the 6 ponies yelled in unision.

Lyra didn't seem to hear them, but instead took a sip as she trotted away into Ponyville, seemingly content with the beverage's taste.

Silence surrounded the six friends, staring in disbelief.

It wasn't for a few minutes that sompony spoke up.

"Well, that's weird! This is all weird! We need a vacation from this weirdness, what do you think, Rainbow?" Pinkie said.

Rainbow looked at the scene they were in and took a glance at the vehicle, putting on a smile the other ponies knew all too well.

"You know what I think we should do, Applejack?" Rainbow inquired.

"Yes, Rainbo-"

"ROAD TRIP!"