Applejack looked over her green harvest. The Apple family had always had difficulty making it through the summer. During Winter, they were flush with the proceeds from cider season and their cellars were filled with apples. Come Summer, they always went through a difficult time awaiting the apple harvest. In the past, they had tried summer crops to ease them through the season which demanded the most work and expenditure while providing the least profit.
Well, that would never be a problem again. Thanks to these mysterious herbs which Zecora had given her. Applejack wondered a bit about the way the zebra had laughed, but it was probably related to something strange, mystical and not at all dangerous to her well-being.
Cheerilee lay tangled in Twilight's hooves. As is the wont of pillow talk for conservative leaders, their conversation turned to the decline of youth.
"It all started when they started integrating zebra and pony schools," Twilight opined.
"There are no zebra foals in Ponyville."
"Yes," Twilight paused, struggling her brain through a few hoops, "but there could be. It creates an environment of fear."
"Applebloom doesn't seem too afraid of Zecora."
"Fear for me, I mean, that my filly-"
"You don't have a filly."
"Yes, of course, why would I? She could end up going to the same school as a zebra and get exposed to all sorts of negative cultures. Anarchy, gang lifestyles, homosexuality ..." Twilight waved her hoof in the air, "and if smart ponies, such as myself are afraid to reproduce, how can you expect there to be any smart fillies or colts?"
Cheerilee nodded her head at the sage wisdom. "And drug use is on the rise too. I haven't been able to prove it, but Applebloom may be selling drugs to her fellow students."
"That's ridiculous!"
"I caught Snips and Snails smoking behind the school. They wouldn't tell me who they got it from, but I have my suspicions."
"Have you tried talking to Applejack?"
"I did. I even brought in her sister's report card, almost all C's and D's. You know what she did?" Cheerilee didn't leave enough space for Twilight to know, "she pulled out Applebloom's report cards from last year, which were also all C's and D's. She even had the audacity to point out that Applebloom's math grades had gone up since she'd started keeping a ledger regarding the legitimate sale of small weights of undefined, but certainly non-drug, substances."
Twilight stood for a moment. It was impossible to wrap her mind around. Drug trafficking at the school? But it made sense. Now that she thought of it, Applejack seemed to have taken a special interest in keeping everypony away from the South East Orchard.
"But didn't you explain to her the long term damage that narcotics can do?"
"I did," Cheerilee wailed, "and she said they must already be pretty dumb if I was able to catch them smoking behind the school."
After Cheerilee had left to teach her students, Twilight read through the book Zecora had donated to the library a week before. The zebra had claimed she had no more use for it and was dropping it off for entirely innocent reasons that had nothing at all to do with getting revenge for the numerous times she had been robbed, raped, tortured, detained without a warrant, deported, or otherwise victimized by Twilight and her friends.
Twilight didn't reflect on the oddly specific nature of the statement as she paged through Start Snitching, she was only grateful that this tome appeared to contain exactly the spell she needed. She needed to call upon the most elite anti-drug enforcement agents known: The *static wail gradually increasing in volume* SWAT.
With Spike's assistance, she carved the ancient runes, "Ekoj Asi Enoenoe Nin," into the floor. Her magic went out, sending a call through the time and space. A call that was, after about an hour, answered by six bipedal creatures clad in black armor and bearing strange implements.
Their leader stepped forward, "Good morning, little horse. We are the forces of justice, the," his mouth remained open, and a sound like somepony slipping on a banana peel and tumbling down a flight of stairs was heard, "SWAT. I am Sergeant The Captain," he gestured to the creature beside him who, unlike the others, wore a tall, proud helmet bearing a star-shaped insignia on the front, "this is my second in command, Sergeant Obvious Reference."
"Alright, alright, what's all this then?"
"Detective PTSD."
"I can't take it anymore, man. All this blood on my hands, and why? WHY, MAN, WHY!?" the detective threw his submachine gun, a P90 done in stylish black, to the ground and dived out the window. The other members of the team didn't react.
"Detective Ron Gadrez."
The detective looked down at a piece of paper in his hand and scratched the side of his head, "The warrant says we were supposed to be teleported into a hut on the edge of some sort of Permanently Free Forest."
"And Detectives Those Other Guys."
One of Those Other Guys had darker skin than the others and the other was shorter than the rest and bore a blade across his back. That is all the characterization they received and more than they deserved.
"Oooo … kay?" Twilight responded, looking at the hulking figures. They weren't exactly what she'd had in mind. Still, the spell had promised her the best, so that must be what she was looking at.
"Now, if we're here that means there's a drug and/or gang problem in this town of … where are we?"
"Ponyville," Twilight said, "and, yes. Cheerilee, that's the school teacher, she's told me that there's been marijuana use among her students."
"Drug use among children?" The Captain was a ghast (a horrific, undead creature that has a Challenge Rating of Three) and also aghast (a condition of shock).
Detective Gadrez stepped forward, "you said they're in the bakery?"
"No, the schoolhouse. It's down the road from here, turn left at the signpost."
"Turn right at the signpost…"
"No, left..."
"Keep straight ahead at the sign post-"
"Turn left," this time Twilight indicated the direction with her hoof.
"Go down to the signpost, then turn around and come back to the bookshelf-"
"Here, let me draw you a map."
Two hours later, The Captain turned to his team, "Alright, men, it's time to move out!" He charged the door of the library, giving a it kick with his boot. The wood shuddered, but the opening remained closed.
"It opens-" Twilight started to explain.
The Captain ignored her, lowering his shotgun and blasting the handle off the door. He slammed his boot into the wood again, crunching parts of the frame.
"The door opens-"
"Other Guys!" The Captain shouted, cutting the Unicorn off. The two detectives gripped the edges of a metal column and charged at the door, shattering it. The Captain and Reference followed Those Other Guys, both still rushing forward with the battering ram between them, down the street.
"The door opens inward," Twilight finally managed to finish lamely.
Pinkie Pie bounced down the street, following the twitching of her nose. That was the scent of new ponies! New friends to meet!
Sergeant The Captain turned to the oncoming pink blur. Bulging eyes, twitching nose, rapid erratic movement, kinky hair, definitely a druggie. He shouted a warning to his men as he hurled a flashbang at the oncoming menace.
The team averted their eyes, and when they turned back they saw a slightly singed Pinkie Pie wearing a pair of black sunglasses. She whipped them off and tossed them aside. "HellofriendshowareyoudoingtodaymynameisPinkiePiewouldyouliketo-" was as far as she got in her introduction before her new friends opened fire.
She lay on the ground, her legs ripped from under her and reduced to shattered stumps. Blood pooled around her body, as she coughed, "Wow, that's a..." she vomited up her stomach, the pulped mass of twitching organs lay on the ground, "...I haven't played that game before."
"Hit her again!" screamed The Captain.
Entirely by accident, the fearless crusaders for justice stumbled into the playground of the Ponyville Schoolhouse. They cringed as they passed swingsets and slides, torture devices of some kind, no doubt. That metal could probably get pretty hot during the Summer.
These were some truly vile scum they were going up against, thought The Captain, if only they had ...
"The Captain, I … I couldn't leave," shouted Detective PTSD.
"I knew you'd be back, son."
"Because you believe in me?"
"No, I knew you'd be back because you do this at least once a week."
Due to having had to pacify the entire town before they arrived, the SWAT team found themselves without any flash bangs as they approached the school. It was a terrifying thought, assaulting an entire schoolhouse filled with upwards of 10 children armed with the latest in spitball technology. It would be a harrowing attack, but with Detective PTSD, momentarily, by their side they might just stand a chance of surviving with dignity intact.
They slammed through the door to be greeted by a shocked Cheerilee standing before her class with a ruler in her mouth.
"SHE'S GOT A WEAPON!" screamed Detective PTSD opening fire. The rest of the team soon joined in, pausing only to reload. Ten minutes later, they stood in the midst of their carnage. Intestines hung from the ceiling, fragments of bone were lodged into the walls, and everywhere was dyed a vibrant red. The Captain approached the teacher to see a hole in the center of her head and one in her chest.
"Well, men," said The Captain, "486 shots fired, and two of them hit their target. That's a new record for us!" He unzipped his pants, pulling out his lower truncheon for a quick round of celebratory waxing.
Detective PTSD knelt down, gripping a filly in his arms. He tearfully squeezed her in his arms as if she were a giant tube of tooth paste, causing her intestines to slide out and tangle around his legs.
"She's dead! We killed her and that's why she's dead! I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!" He ran toward the window in the back of the room, pausing momentarily when he realized it was open. He lowered the pane, insured it was secure, then got a running start before smashing himself through the glass.
There was one survivor, as they walked over the bodies' of fillies and colts. Skull contents, stomach contents and vein contents mixed around their blackjack boots. Bones crunched and snapped like twigs. Applebloom lay cowering under her desk.
"All right. All right, all right, all right. My name's Sergeant Obvious Reference, and this is a raid. We have reason to believe that there are certain substances on the premises."
"What sort of substances, officer?" Applebloom responded, hiding her face in her tail.
"Er, certain substances of an illicit nature," Obvious Reference replied as he lifted the filly's school bag.
"Could you be more specific?"
"Certain substances on the premises to be removed for," Reference turned the bag over in his hands, searching for an entrance, "um, clinical tests."
"Have you got anything particular in mind," replied the filly.
"Well," replied Reference as he tore open the bottom of the bag, scattering three schoolbooks, a ledger full of sales information, pencils, paper, and a bag containing slightly more than one kilogram of marijuana into the blood, "What have you got?"
Applebloom didn't reply, and Reference dropped her schoolbag. He pulled a paper bag from his pocket and tossed it into the ruins of Applebloom's saddlebag. "Oh! Oh! Here is a brown paper bag which I have found on the premises! I must confiscate this, ma'am, and take it with me for clinical examination."
"Wait a minute! You just got that out of your pocket!" Applebloom protested, discretely tucking away the felony quantity of Schedule I narcotics she had brought into a school or other government property with intent to distribute.
"What?"
"What's in it, anyway?" Applebloom picked up the bag, "Sandwiches?" She was pretty hungry. However, when she opened the bag, she was disappointed, "No, it's just filled with cocaine."
"Good heavens," said Detective Obvious Reference, "the wife isn't going to be happy when she reaches for her mid-afternoon pick-me-up and only finds peanut butter and jelly."
The Captain had, by this point, finished his celebratory masturbation over the corpse of Cheerilee and interceded in the farce taking place between his second in command and the filly.
"Little girl, we know that you know the location of the marijuana fields, and you're going to lead us to them."
"And what if I don't?"
"We'll kill you and your entire family."
"What if me and my entire family were involved in the production of marijuana?"
"Well, then I suppose we'd kill you and your entire family."
Applebloom considered her options. "Is there anything I can do that won't result in you killing me and my entire family?"
"We are a highly trained, highly motivated force of government do-gooders. There is absolutely nothing you can do that won't result in us killing you and your entire family."
The fearless, straight-edge warriors walked a crooked path, constantly corrected by Applebloom, to Sweet Apple Acres.
Big Macintosh peered from the front window. He'd known this day was coming. The cannon strapped to his back felt cold and heavy between his shoulders.
"Say 'eeyup' to my little friend!" the red-eyed, red stallion bellowed as he erupted from the front door at the approaching police. He jerked the fuse in his mouth and fired a ball at the darker skinned one of the Other Guys. The Guy folded in half around the steel, his ribs shattering and erupting from his sides like shrapnel.
The stallion had a moment to contemplate the disadvantages of having only one bullet before the shorter of the Other Guys leaped forward, kicking Big Macintosh in the nose. Blood spilled from his nostrils as cartilage crunched.
The red stallion spun, bucking both his legs into the shorter Other Guy's midsection. The officer stumbled back, his esophagus erupting out of his mouth as his pants were stained by bowels erupting from his wrecked rectum. Blood also squirted from his eyes, but this was a defense mechanism of his species.
The surviving three SWAT members remembered that they had guns and opened fire, tearing the red stallion to pieces. The right side of his face was shredded by a shotgun blast, splinters of white briefly greeting the light of Celestia's Sun's Ray's Famous Photons before vanishing beneath bloody spray. In the process someone shot Applebloom, probably. Everyone had pretty much forgotten she was there by this point, anyway. So, yeah, she's dead. So tragic.
The Captain embraced the shorter Other Guy, and Reference embraced the darker skinned Other Guy. Gadrez embraced a tree and proceeded to hump it most lawfully and correctly.
While Detective Gadrez ran into the house to murder the elderly Granny Smith in her bed (praise America!), The Captain pursued his junkie senses to the secret marijuana field where Applejack was tending her secret marijuana in secrecy.
The Captain bull-rushed the pony, knocking her to the ground and thrusting a gun in her face, "Where are the drugs?" he screamed.
Applejack looked at the plants just four yards away, "are y'all serious?"
"Three of my men died today!" snarled The Captain.
"Actually, only two of them died. PTSD just ran off again," corrected Reference.
"Thanks for correcting me in front of the suspect, Dave."
"Thanks for using my real name in front of the suspect and ruining my cover, Alan."
"Well, thanks for being an asshole, Social Security No. 869-99-6785."
"Well, thanks-."
"Um," Applejack interrupted, "I'd like to be reunited with my family. So if y'all wouldn't mind killing me first and arguing later?"
The three surviving members of the most elite team ever to suffer two casualties at the hooves of a pony were seated back in the library. Twilight had spent the whole day attempting to pursue their non-Euclidean course, and now she was serving them tea, attempting to calm their violent fever.
"I didn't summon you so you could kill all my friends."
"Then you should have called someone else."
Detectice Ron Gadrez went to use the bathroom, and returned 30 minutes later.
"The Captain, sir, while peeing in her hamper-"
"The bathroom is on the first floor! Why were you in my bedroom?"
"I must have gotten lost, and for good reason to. I found this!" Detective Gadrez held up a small orange bottle.
"Methylphenidate? Meth!?" The Captain leapt to his feet and screamed, panicked that he had been in the presence of such a violent creature. A meth head!
Suddenly it all made sense. The big, bulging eyes, the way that pink one was always bouncing around, the tea! Of course, caffeinated beverages, a personal favorite of meth and Benzedrine abusers. This whole town was a colony of drug users, there was only one way to correct this. Nuke the entire site from orbit. Or, at least, very high altitude.
"Wait! That's just Ritalin. I take it for-"
"No fucking excuses, meth head," The Captain drew his sidearm, a patriotic IMI Desert Eagle, and leveled it at the one-horned menace before him. He couldn't tell what filthy, murderous weapon she might have, an M4, an M60, a Mossberg 500, or even an M1911.
The Captain thumbed his radio, "We have meth heads! I repeat, we have meth heads in Equestria! Request immediate nuclear strike on my location!"
"I'm sorry, sir," replied a voice over the radio, "This is Lt. Hazelbum, did you just report that Equestria has the best beds? Because I've been looking for a place to take the wife on vacation."
"No! Beds merely adequate, but meth prolific in at least one household. Request immediate nuclear strike."
Meanwhile, Detective PTSD had found love. He had run crying from the schoolhouse, to find himself in a cottage at the edge of town.
"Oh, there, there," Fluttershy spoke to the strange creature, "did someone make fun of you?"
"No."
"Did they stare at you?"
"No."
"Did they-"
"I killed an entire schoolhouse full of what I assume you would consider children."
"Oh," replied Fluttershy, "is that all?"
"What do you mean, 'is that all?' I killed children!"
"My ferrets kill baby bunnies all the time. It's just kind of … you know. Cycle of life," the pegasus shrugged.
"So, you're not going to judge me?"
"No," replied Fluttershy, "of course not. You're just a dumb animal, you can't help what you do. Would you like to go frolic through a grassy field?"
"Yes," said the weary detective, "I think I would."
And as they danced through the grass, Detective PTSD reflected on how very much he was in love and how he could see his entire life playing out with this horse.
That was when the air was cut with the humming sound of a B-52 bomber, then the low whistling of a descending bomb, then … nothing. Or, rather, a something so large and hideous that it overwhelmed the senses.
,____,
//'
Twilight and Spike stared from within the bubble of magic. There was nothing left. Not even devastation, just … nothing.
"Spike, take a letter..." Twilight paused. She wasn't sure how long she could keep the radiation at bay with her forcefield, and the energy required to hold off the direct hit left her unable to teleport. She sorted through her thoughts, of the past few days, of her entire life. This would be her final letter, her last testimony to the world. It needed to be concise, and at the same time meaningful. Something to be read and understood for generations.
"Dear Princess Celestia,
Fuck da Police.
Signed, your soon to be ex-student,
Twilight Sparkle."
As soon as the Spike's fire had sent the scroll onto its destination, Twilight collapsed. Her spell vanished, and Spike was left to wonder how well his scales could protect against nuclear radiation.
