Nebula's War

The next morning, the team came to realize the many problems that they had to face, first and foremost being food. Scavenging for hay, oats and the occasional fruit was all well and good for four soldiers, but the addition of six refugees required more stability.

"Why don't we just plant a garden?" Chiarascura suggested. "We've got enough sunlight, and Melody and I can gather some rain clouds for water."

"But we don't have anything to plant." Anamir sighed. "Most of the plants in this forest are poisonous, carnivorous or just really unhealthy! Unless…" She stroked her chin in thought. "Unless we can sneak into Sweet Apple Acres and um, 'borrow' some seeds. The Apples were always the best farmers in Equestria, I'm sure they'd have the supplies we need."

"Good idea." Azure agreed. "But we'll need to be careful, Nebula will definitely have his spies looking for us." He turned to EagleHeart. "Have you found any sort of disguise spells in those books?"

"Funny you should ask…" Trixie replied, and held out a book to him. "Trixie found an entire book dedicated to disguise spells! Most of them are quite advanced, but I found a basic spell that should conceal your appearances well enough."

"Hey, no problem!" said Nox. "We'll go in, get the supplies and get out, simple as that."

"Yeah, but we can't all go at once." Azure added. "It'd be too suspicious, and we'll need a few of us to stay behind to build additional housing." After several minutes of deliberation, Azure, Anamir, Aaron, Chiarascura and Melody stood shoulder to shoulder as EagleHeart passed his horn over each of them. They each felt a slight chill, and looked down to see that their appearances had become extremely plain and unassuming.

"There! Nopony will recognize you now!" EagleHeart said.

"Thanks!" Aaron replied; although his appearance had changed, his voice remained the same.

"Remember, don't speak unless you absolutely have to." Azure explained. "While we go to Sweet Apple Acres, Eclipse, Night Shade, Nox and the others will stay here and build shelters." Azure stepped out of the clearing and into the forest, with his disguised allies walking close behind. When they reached Sweet Apple Acres, Anamir gave a tiny gasp of horror: in the absence of The Apple Family, Sweet Apple Acres had been turned into an industrial facility, with blank-eyed griffons absentmindedly plucking ripe apples from their branches. As they walked closer, Azure was relieved to see that they were not the only ponies present; the griffons picked the apples and ran deliveries, but ponies were in charge of cleaning the apples and baking pies. Anamir nudged Azure and motioned deeper into the facility, where lettuce, carrots and cucumbers were being cleaned.

"Couldn't hurt to get some vegetable seeds, too." She whispered, and Azure nodded in agreement.

"Aaron, Chiarascura, Melody, you get the vegetable seeds. Anamir and I will get the apple seeds." Azure whispered, and the team split up. As they passed tables piled high with fresh fruits and vegetables, Aaron licked his lips; he hadn't eaten since that morning, and it was taking all of his willpower to keep himself from devouring the spread. Chiarascura was also shivering, but for an entirely different reason.

"I'm scared, Melody." She whispered. "What if this doesn't work? What if they recognize us, or send us to jail, or kill us?" Melody didn't look at her, but his gentle smile warmed Chiarascura's heart as nothing else could.

"It'll be okay." He whispered. "We'll just tell them we need some seeds and go back home, simple as that." Melody trotted up to one of the tables and cleared his throat. As the mare looked up, Melody's eyes widened: he knew those wonky yellow eyes anywhere.

"Derpy? Derpy Hooves?" He gasped. "I thought you were a mail mare!" Derpy blinked a few times, and gave a little giggle.

"Oh no, mister, I'm not a mail mare! King Blueblood gave me a job washing veggies, now that the griffons are delivering mail and picking fruit for us."

"… Oh." was all Melody could think to say. "Well, um, do you know where the seeds are kept? King Blueblood is… building a community garden at his castle."

"Seeds? Oh yeah, the seeds!" Derpy giggled. "They're over there!" And she motioned to a large cupboard in the center of the room, which was being guarded by two burly stallions.

"… Thank you." Chiarascura squeaked, and whispered to Melody, "What now? We can't just waltz in there and take the seeds with those guards watching!" Aaron tried to pay attention, but his eyes fell upon the big, juicy apples sitting on a nearby table.

"Wait a minute, I have an idea!" Aaron gasped, and ran from the facility as fast as he could.

"What's he doing?" Chiarascura asked, and got her answer when a terrified pony galloped into the room and screamed,

"Help! Help! There's a bat pony stealing all of the apples from the orchard!"

"Oh, not another one!" Sighed the first guard. "Brawny, you stay here and keep an eye on the seeds, I'll grab the bat pony."

"What? No way, Solar!" Brawny said. "You always leave me to watch the seeds!"

"Well, it's not like I can trust you with intruders. Remember the timber wolf incident?"

"That wasn't my-!"

"Excuse me!" Melody called. "If you need to capture that bat pony, we'll stay here and guard the seeds." The guards looked at Melody, then at each other.

"Yeah okay, that works." Solar said. That was all it took: once Solar and Brawny left the facility, Melody and Chiarascura each filled a small burlap sack with seeds and hid them under their wings. Not long after, Solar and Brawny returned to their posts, looking very disappointed.

"What happened?" Melody asked, silently praying that Aaron hadn’t been injured or captured.

"Ah, the bat pony flew away. Took a dozen apples with him, too." Brawny sighed.

"Well, it wouldn't have happened if you had just stayed here like I told you to." Solar said.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Brawny asked. "I told you, The Timber Wolf Incident wasn't…!" As Solar and Brawny continued their argument, Melody and Chiarascura turned around and returned to the entrance, where they were unnoticed by all but two equally plain ponies.

"We have the seeds." whispered Chiarascura.

"So do we." Anamir replied, holding up a small bag.

"I assume Aaron is the bat pony who stole the apples?" Azure asked, and Melody nodded.

"Well, I hope he can find his way back to the forest, because we're getting out of here while we still can." Azure and the others marched out of Sweet Apple Acres as quickly as possible without raising suspicion, but once they stepped through the gates they ran as fast as they could toward forest. Thankfully, the only pony that paid them any mind was Aaron, who swooped down on them just as they reached the border of The Everfree Forest.

"Oh good, you got the seeds!" He sighed. "I'm sorry for not telling you my plan beforehand."

"No, no, it was a good decision." Anamir insisted. "We were standing right next to a barrel of apple seeds, but we couldn't steal any until you ran outside and attracted the workers' attention."

"She's right, Aaron." Azure agreed. "It was a desperate move, but it ended up saving the mission. We couldn't have done it without you. Now come on, let's get back to camp and see how the others are progressing." Just as before, the trek through the forest was long and difficult, but it was worth it to see what the others had made of the camp. Instead of tents, several large oak trees had been hollowed out and turned into literal tree houses with doors and windows.

"… I don't remember those being there when we left." Anamir said.

"Oh, welcome back!" EagleHeart called. "Did you get the seeds?"

"What? Oh, the seeds, yeah." Azure mumbled as he stared around at the new, improved camp. "But what about this? What did you do to the camp?" EagleHeart frowned slightly.

"Do you not like it?" He asked. "I'm sorry, we tried our best, but we didn't have enough fabric to make tents, so we just hollowed some trees and made tree houses instead. Well, four tree houses and a cave, that is. Eclipse, Night Shade, Nox and Jacob said they didn't feel comfortable in cabins."

"It's incredible!" Aaron gasped. "But how did you do it?"

"Magic, of course!" EagleHeart replied. "Trixie and I used our magic to hollow out the trees and carve out holes for windows and doors." He motioned to the trees, each of which had symbols burned onto the doors. "There's a house for Trixie and me, another for Melody and Chiarascura, a third one for Anamir and Silver and one for you, Azure." Azure stared in amazement at the masterfully carved houses.

"Well, thanks." Azure said, and shook EagleHeart's hoof in gratitude.

"And I brought apples!" Aaron called, and held up a burlap sack that contained twelve ripe, juicy apples. "Everypony gather around, it's dinner time!" It wasn't exactly a feast, but everypony was grateful to have food in their bellies after a long, arduous day.

"Great job today, everypony!" Azure announced once they had finished eating. "Get some rest, and we'll get up early to make some more improvements to the camp." Everypony nodded and returned to their respective dwellings, but before he could retire, Azure noticed that somepony was missing. "Hey, where's that 'silver' kid?"

"He's resting in his cabin." EagleHeart explained. "He hasn't woken up since we were at the castle, though. I hope he's okay."

"I'll go and check on him." Anamir said. Back in the cabin, Silver Lining was waking up and staring blearily around the room.

"H-hey, where am I?" He mumbled. "What's going on?" He reached down and felt the smooth stump of his left hind leg. He looked up as the door opened.

"What? Who's there?" Silver called to the fuzzy white blob.

"It's me, Silver." Anamir said. "I brought you dinner." She held out a big, juicy apple that Azure had sliced into eight pieces. Silver sniffed one of the pieces, and upon deciding that the red and white blob was edible, ate it.

"Thanks." He said, massaging his stump of a leg. "What happened? Last thing I remember was this… horrible pain shooting up my leg, like I was melting away…"

"Nebula hit you with some kind of acid, and Azure cut off your leg to save you."

"Oh, okay." Silver mumbled. "So where are we now?"

"We're in Azure's camp. He needs our help to stop Nebula."

"Hey, no problem, glad to help." Silver yawned. "It's the least I can do for the guy who cut off my leg." And Silver passed out once again.