Doctor Jekyll and Mister Shyde

Applejack grunted as she bucked another tree, apples raining all around. She wiped her brow before hauling the baskets back to the barn. It was early in the morning, but it was already hot. Applejack knew that that meant she needed to get the apple bucking done as fast as possible before the heat became unbearable.

Applejack was thinking hard about everything that needed to be done today. Her mind was buzzing as she bucked the second tree, but was startled out of her reverie when she noticed that there were no apples dropping. “What in tarnation?” She wondered out loud as she looked up into the tree. There were absolutely no apples in the tree. “Ah could’ve sworn there were apples here yesterday…” She then began to inspect the rest of her orchard, making sure that there were apples. Most of them still contained the juicy red fruit, but there were still a lot that were completely stripped of their apples. There were no strange hoofprints around, nor were there any apple cores. The apples were just gone without a trace.

Applejack growled, suspecting a prank. “Rainbow Dash!” She shouted, getting the Pegasus’ attention. She groaned, jumping off her cloud and glided down. “What is it, Applejack? I was just about to take a nap!” “Yer nap can wait. I wanna know what you did to mah trees!” Applejack was staring bullets at her friend, furious about losing apples. One or two missing were fine, but multiple trees’ worth? She was not having it. Rainbow looked confused. “Your trees? What’s wrong with them?” “Don’t play dumb wit me! Ah’m missin’ countless bushels of apples from mah trees and Ah know that this is another one of yer pranks!"

Applejack was livid. She barely restrained herself from tackling Rainbow and pinning her to the ground. Rainbow flapped over to one of the trees in question to inspect it. She circled it slowly, then leaped inside the leaf cover. She stuck her head out and excitedly looked at Applejack. “Do you know what this means?” Applejack rolled her eyes. “That mah crop is gonna be way lower than what it should be?” Rainbow winced slightly, seeing her friend’s situation “Well, yeah, but you know what else it means? It means we're in an actual mystery!” “Ah thought you were more into Darin’ Do than mystery books. Ain’t that what Rarity’s into?” Applejack asked, realizing that Rainbow honestly didn’t know where her missing fruit was. “Yeah, but I still enjoy real-life mysteries! I can help you solve it. It’ll be awesome!” The cyan Pegasus detangled herself from the tree branches and landed softly on the grass before Applejack. “Where do we start?”

In her cottage, Fluttershy woke up to the pleasant feeling of soft paws in her fur. She blinked a few times and rubbed her eyes. She looked down at Angel Bunny, who had woken her up. “Good morning, Angel.” She yawned sleepily. “I had the strangest dream last night. I dreamt that I was in Sweet Apple Acres and I was taking all the apples that I could find. I don’t remember why, but I thought it was funny.” She yawned again, pushing away the thought of the dream. “Anyway, you’re probably hungry. Let me get you something to eat.”