It's a Beautiful Day at Sweet Apple Acres and None of You Were Invited

Applejack wasn’t one to visit the Ponyville Reservoir on a voluntary basis. It may have been close to her farm, but it was municipal property, and when the dam needed inspection or repair, civil engineers got called on a lot more than apple farmers.

But civil engineers had no chance against this particular problem. Nor, of course, would an apple farmer; but for those who knew Applejack, the idea of her shirking a problem that could directly affect Ponyville—not to mention her farm—was farfetched, no matter how large it was.

But the problem was with more than just its size—it was with its teeth, or maybe its eyes. They were all big and all tall and all way, way out of place. The creature had laid its barn-sized head over the dam like it was a throw pillow—its top row of chompers sitting over its chin like a mustache made of ivory. Its wet, bulbous eyes had skinny rectangular pupils with rounded corners—pointed outwards in either direction, and not pointed at what was in front of it—a sharp drop down the dam wall to the river, where Sweet Apple Acres, and then Ponyville, were sitting unaware.

While unaware to the creature, there was a metal hatch installed next to it just wide enough to fit a pony. It led to the interior fire escape—routinely left unlocked for safety reasons. And at the top of that fire escape, pressing her forehead against the top rung of a forty-foot ladder, was the apple farmer, whose muscles screamed so loud she almost wanted to cover her ears.

The caged lightbulb below her buzzed incessantly.

"Ah'm goin', Ah'm goin'... Hold yer... stinkin'..."

Applejack opened the whining hatch just a crack, and a pool of murky water spilled inside, coating the walls—and her—from top to bottom.

"Ah, fer cryin'—!" she protested. She spat out the few drops that had gotten in her mouth once the water stopped pouring in.

Through the crack in the hatch she peered at the mass of slimy, scaly flesh outside. She noted its bluish-greenish colour, and then closed the hatch again.

"There's a sea monster... on the dam," she reported. She repeated it twice in a lower tone, but before she got to the third time, she made a little gasp. She smiled to herself and said, "Fluttershy'll know what to do."

She descended four rungs down the ladder, and then jabbed it with a hoof.

"That's right... Fluttershy... Element a' Kindness. Same Fluttershy who was... called away by the danged Cutie Map this mornin'."

She winced as she climbed back up to the hatch, but then her gasp and her smile returned. "But Twilight oughta have a book on these things or sumthin'!"

She quickly re-descended the four rungs and slammed her forehead against the rusted steel again. The lightbulb blinked in an out twice, and she smashed it with her back hoof.

"Stupid uppity Cutie Map," she whispered to the dark.

The hatch sprang open, and Applejack climbed out with a wobble and a groan. The sea monster's filthy aura hit her nose like a wave of factory sludge, and she slammed the steel lid back shut with a buck between her coughs and sputters.

She sat on the wheel of the hatch, trying her best to not pass out from exertion. The wet air flowing over the dam sliced through her fur, and she shivered. The final few rays of dirty, orange light had long since disappeared, and the twilight was the only thing to keep her warm—something at which it didn't excel.

She tipped her hat down and took a deep breath—finding that the smell of the farm had seeped in through the leather and stuck around for the journey up the dam. "Alright," she said, and she steadied herself back to standing. "Alright, alright, alright."

She turned to the creature. It stayed still.

"Listen up, you," she started. "No... wait... Dubya-Dubya-Eff-Ess-Dee."

Applejack took off her hat and laid it across her chest. She stared up at the slimy half-globe that was the sea monster's right eye and cleared her throat. "S'cuse me! Mister Sea Monster, uh... sir...? Sir?!"

Neither the eye, nor the creature itself moved. In truth, it would have taken a lot of force to do it. Applejack paid a worried glance to the concrete beneath her hooves. No cracks yet. Not on the outside, in any case.

"Mah name's Applejack and... Ah live, well... at that farm... down there." She pointed at her apple trees downstream from the river—ignoring the trapped deer a half-mile or so away, staring up at her with perfect, expressionless aim. "Okay, so, uh... I was just wonderin'... why you were here...?"

Not a sound or movement came from the stranded beast. That was, if it even was stranded and not simply tanning itself at a rather poor time of day to go tanning.

Applejack suppressed her twitching upper lip. "Now... I'm not one to shame anypony, but... yer a mite heavy, y'see. Not exactly what this here dam was designed for, I reckon, heh." She tapped the concrete to further her argument. It didn't get her very far. "Look, pal... if this thing breaks—and it's happened b'fore! Both mah farm and that nice little town down there are gonna be in for a mighty wet surprise."

There was no response. Applejack put her hat back on and ground her teeth.

"So... ya can't be here, alright?! Yer... Look, ya see that—? Ah mean, yer not lookin', but... that town just down the way there... Ah don't think the folks'at live there'd appreciate you bathin’ in their drinkin' water. I mean... if that’s what... yer doin'?"

Still nothing. Not even a blink. Or a moldy breath, for that matter.

"Oh... crud," Applejack worried. She trotted to the lake, where the beast's lower half was submerged, descending diagonally through the greenish-blue haze. There were no hints as to how far down it went. The lake was stagnant, save for a few raindrops, and a small, whirling current just outside the twelve giant slits in the monster's side—opening and closing in order like a wave.

Applejack whirled back around. "So yer just ignorin' me then, is that it?!"

A ball of hot gas bubbled from inside the beast's lower half and up to its throat. The ivory moustache moved out and a cloud of stink from a foreign sea dumped into the air.

Applejack gagged and stuffed her hat over her nose, but the fertilizer was trounced. "Now, that is just IT!" she shouted through a plugged nose. She threw her hat to the side and cracked the bones in her neck. "HARD WAY IT IS!"

The apple farmer charged towards the sea monster's head, twisted around and bucked it so hard she half-expected apples to fall from it. But instead of the rigid return of tree bark, her hooves only met spongy, slimy flesh, which immediately sucked her in.

"G-u-uh!" she shuddered, balancing on her forelegs. "That's disgustin'!"

Struggling and squirming, she pushed herself out of the trap and slid face-first through a thick, murky puddle. She sputtered and clambered back to her hooves. She wiped away the residue from her mouth and flicked her soaking mane over her head. She made for a second charge—this time head-first.

"Git… OFF!"

She pounded, she pried, and she pushed. She punched, she pulled, and she pressed. Up and left. Up and right. Away. Towards. Down, down, and down. A surge of blood went to her head, and she saw red.

“WHAT IS IT—?!” she screamed as her punches went limp. "WHAT IS IT WITH WILD ANIMALS THIS WEEK?!"

She crumbled down to her knees, but kept softly pounding.

"FIRST the skunk sprays Big Mac with somethin' so awful we had to quarantine 'im! Then the Timberwolves bite a dang hole—!" She paused when the last word came out in a whimper. "A hole in my dang coop! Frightenin' all my chickens away! Those glorified kindlin' piles don't never stray outside the Everfree Forest!"

The whimpers didn't stop. She sniffed and looked over the concrete wall to the deer standing in the same spot in her apple farm.

"And then that bone-headed thing gets itself and its stupid antlers stuck in mah fence, and it's all just..."

The deer's head tilted. Like it heard.

Applejack scrambled back to standing. "And now YOU! What GIVES?!"

She thrust her front hooves into the beast's skin, and got stuck in again.

"Why can’t y’just… leave us alone?! We ain’t got no problem with wild animals, but sweet Celestia y'all are thick sometimes!"

A river of hot lava rumbled in Applejack's chest. She shut her eyes, waited for it to rise, and she erupted.

"JUST 'CAUSE Y'ALL ARE FREE THAT DON'T MEAN Y'CAN DO WHATEVER Y'WANT!"

"Applejack?"

The farmer threw opened her eyes, and found them bleary. Through her blurred-up vision, she saw flashes of orange and yellow in the skin that held onto her hooves. For a moment, she wondered if she really had spat lava at it.

But she saw the colours flicker, as well as a patch that looked like her shadow. She whipped her neck around and squinted to see a purple-and-pink smudge, a yellow-and-pink smudge, and the blaring light of what might have been a lantern.

"...Are you... okay?" the yellow smudge continued.

Applejack blinked. "Twilight? ...Fluttershy? Is that you? Or... am Ah dreamin'...?"

"We got back a couple hours ago," the purple smudge said. "We heard Granny Smith was sick, so we brought them some medicine, but... more on that later. What's... going on here?"

The stranded apple farmer rubbed her eyes into her shoulder, and the smudges resolved into her friends. They had two wings and one eyebrow raised each. Twilight held the lantern in her magic. Fluttershy held a white, rolled-up paper bag in her foreleg.

"What's goin' on?" Applejack spat back. "Ah'll tell you what's goin'... on!" she said, yanking her forehooves clear of the fleshy snare. "This here oversized varmint is ruinin' everythin'!"

Fluttershy turned her head. "But.. it's just a leviathan."

"It's just—?!" Applejack squeaked. "What did you just say?"

"What exactly is it ruining?" Twilight asked.

Applejack blew her mane out of her eyes—or she at least tried. It was rather stuck there. "Y'all must be tired from yer trip!" She reared up and slammed her sticky hooves into the concrete. "This whole thing's gonna crumble if'n it stays here! I've been tryna get it to move but he's just ignorin' me! Won't so much as blink!"

Fluttershy bit her lip and looked away from her enraged friend. "Um... it's a fish," she pointed out.

"It's a—... So what if it's a fish?!"

The pegasus flinched. "Um... fish... don't have eyelids."

The words hit Applejack like a punch to the gut. She wheezed like it, too. "You don't mean..."

Fluttershy nodded, and managed to meet her friend's bloodshot eyes for one half-second. "He's, um... asleep."

Applejack craned her head up to the towering ton of fish. Its eye didn't move at all. "Well—... That don't matter! The dam—!"

"The dam's been reinforced several times over ever since it broke four years ago," Twilight explained.

"It broke?" Fluttershy repeated, re-positioning the medicine bag. "I don't remember that."

Twilight smirked. "I was there when it happened. During the whole Mare-Do-Well incident, remember? I patched it up myself right after it ruptured."

Fluttershy giggled. "Oh, yeah... we should do that again sometime. That was so much fun."

"The good ol' days," Twilight agreed. "Do you think we can convince Rainbow Dash to be full of herself again?"

"Oh, that shouldn't be too hard..."

"STOP IT, BOTH A'YA!"

Fluttershy shrieked and dropped the medicine bag into the sludge.

Applejack raised her hooves in apology. "Just... What about the water?" she seethed. "Have you seen the gunk Ah'm covered in? Nopony's gonna wanna drink that."

"We get our water from wells," Twilight replied. "Three of them, actually. The dam is more for energy generation."

Applejack guffawed. "Alright, well, this fella can't be good for the hydro-electricks, right?"

"It's not running right now. We usually only need it in the summer and winters." Twilight trotted over to the edge of the reservoir and hovered the lantern over the water. "In fact, even if it was running, it would probably be fine... The intake isn't cov—er..." She stopped talking when she noticed her distressed friend crumbling to her seat and rubbing her eyes with the one clean space on her knee.

"This ain't happenin'... Ah'm not hearin' this..."

"Oh!" Fluttershy gasped. Twilight and Applejack looked at her expectantly and forlornly, respectively. "There is a problem," she announced. She skipped forward and took flight towards the leviathan, hovering in front of its eye and waving her hooves.

Applejack stood up. "There, see? Ah told ya—"

"His eyes will dry out," Fluttershy noted.

"His... His what now?"

Twilight failed to suppress a chuckle.

"Wakey, wakey..." Fluttershy cooed.

The leviathan's eyeball quivered. The monster groaned and swished its pupil forward and backward, and then locked it right onto its tiny, yellow alarm-pony. A mighty purr vibrated through the concrete.

"You need to get back in the water, mister," Fluttershy advised. "Or those big eyes of yours will be sore for weeks. You wouldn't want to have trouble seeing, now would you?"

The leviathan rumbled again. With a tremendous moan, it leveraged itself up with its jaw and slid inch-by-inch back into the water. From beneath its ivory moustache, the corner of its mouth raised high up its face.

Twilight cantered over to her crumpled-up friend and placed a hoof on her shoulder. "That better?"

Applejack stared at the mass of clear slime the fish had left on the side of the dam. She watched as a V-shaped current with a few long spikes sticking out glided down the lake towards the inlet. She sniffed. "A little."

"That's good. Don't worry; I doubt he'll be coming back. He's come really far from home. It's weird he was even here."

Fluttershy landed once she was finished waving goodbye. "It's very weird. The nearest leviathan migration river is miles from here. I'm surprised it got so lost."

"Can we stop talkin' 'bout the leviathan?" Applejack pleaded. She held her shoulders close and shivered against the icy drizzle.

"Sure," Twilight said. "Say, where's your hat?"

"Ah tossed it... somewhere, I dunno."

Twilight raised the lantern and Fluttershy looked around. "There it is," the latter said, and she flew over the slime towards it.

Applejack didn't watch her go. "How was the, uh... Where'd you two go again?"

"Smokey Mountains," Twilight said.

"Didja... solve your friendship problem?"

"We sure did! Fluttershy was the real hero. Turned out a couple of farms were damaging the environment. Didn't even realize they were doing it."

Applejack raised her head just in time to see Fluttershy waltz back into the lantern's light—a stetson with a small amount of leviathan slime stuck to its brim tucked under her shoulder.

"Hey, Applejack," she said, giving the hat a sniff. "Is... that a new fragrance? It's seems... strong for you."

Applejack stammered.

"Is that where that's coming from?" Twilight asked. "I couldn't tell... the moisture in the air is making everything smell strong."

Applejack rocketed to her hooves. She snatched the hat, shoved it into her nose and inhaled deeply. The smell of orange, peach, and persimmon, perhaps, flew through her nostrils, her lungs, and a little bit of it even found its way to her brain.

"Ah need yer help. Both of ya."

Twilight and Fluttershy looked at each other. "Sure," the former replied. "What's up?"

"Fluttershy, Ah need you to clear these clouds."

"Um... okay, I can do that."

The pegasus kicked off and took to the air.

"Twilight?"

The alicorn princess puffed out her chest and flared her horn. "What do you need?"

Applejack thrust her hat into Twilight's chest. "Wash this, please."

"Ooooo...kay! I can... manage that. You sure there's nothing else I—?"

"Soap n' water!" Applejack commanded, running over to the steep side of the dam. She peered over the apple trees, fallen dark under thick rain clouds. She squinted, and she saw what she feared: A few faint green lights appeared in the apple trees, and moved through the farm with unpredictable precision.

"Celestia, gimme strength."