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Prologue: Don't (Make A) Deal With The Literal Devil
Art by EnvironmentalText850 (Despite being black and white the story itself is in color)
A yellow earth pony with a red mane and large red bow on the top of her head climbed a ladder and picked the last apple off a tree, dropping it into a basket below then climbing down.
"How is it coming along sis?"
"Hey Apple Bloom check this out!" Once Apple Bloom's sister, a orange earth pony with a blond mane and cowpony hat as her head accessory dropped an apple into her respective basket, she suddenly jumped from her ladder and kicked the tree with her hooves knocking the remaining apples down and onto the ground. As for the sister she landed on her back with no real pain heard or seen.
"That was cool but a bit unnecessary AJ." Apple Bloom admits which gets her a annoyed look from the latter pony named AJ. "What you said it yourself honesty is the best policy."
"But-you know just forget it." AJ said admitting defeat not able to counter something she said herself "Well we picked all the apples in the orchard, what now Applejack? Should we take a break?"
"I still got lots of energy left but there's nothing else to do."
"Same...think you can teach me that...Apple bucking trick?"
"Apple bucking? that's a horse thing but it has a nice ring to it." Applejack picked up one of the basket of apples, climbed up to the tree and started carefully placing them back on the tree
Apple Bloom landed a buck on the final tree sending the apples to the ground "Welp we've picked all the apples in the orchard...again but with apple bucking."
"I still have lots of energy left to spare Sugarcube." Applejack told Apple Bloom, daily work on the apple family farm had become such a common and everyday thing for these 2 Apple sisters that to them it's the equivalent of reading a story book.
"I'll go see if the newspaper has arrived." Apple Bloom made her way to the front of the barn where she found a pile of Everyday Equestria, the national newspaper, the pony with the flower namesake picked up the paper and brought it inside the barnhouse.
"Alright let's see what the headline today is." Applejack grabs the paper from her sister and looks down at the front page "Applelossanian outlaw robs vacuum store? Why would they choose a vacuum store over a bank. We also gotta remember to visit our cousin Braeburn one day."
Apple Bloom flips to the next page "I'll read the next story sis, giant insect attack at Ponyville border Captain of Royal Guard suspects smuggling operation. How does a vacuum store robbery beat a monster attack?"
Applejack flips the page again "Next story! Carnival owners fails to get customers with a new roller coaster that somehow doesn't make them go bankrupt. You know what I think I know exactly who's into these kinds of news stories." The cowpony walks over to an elderly green earth pony currently sleeping in a rocking chair which creaks quite loudly.
"Hey Granny Smith thou-" Somehow Applejack's whisper registered to the sister's granny as a yell as she suddenly woke up
"You'll never get my soul! Oh it's just you two...oh thanks for getting me the Everyday Equestria love these stories. Make sure to check up on your brother he can't be doing all the work himself." Ever since their mom and dad Pear Butter and Bright Mac passed while transporting apples not long after the sisters were born Granny Smith had been their caretaker and parental figure. Although she might be useless physically resulting in not a lot of contribution to the family business, a bit kooky and crazy at times she truly did love her granddaughters and would often give them wise advice.
The Apple Sisters make their way back to the orchard and found their brother a large red stallion working on a tractor engine "Still working on the tractor eh Big Mac?"
"Eeyup"
"Need any help big brother?" Apple Bloom offered
"Nope"
"You sure?" AJ added
"Yes i'm sure of it." Big Mac breaking his pony of few words nature is what the other 2 apples took as a sign that he's serious.
"Here's something we can do, see who can drink the most ciders. Hey Apple Bloom last one to pass out wins." Both earth ponies only manage to gulp down one cup of cider when their vision becomes blurry and seem to get a blue and red layer over the original similar to those old 3D glasses. Although their vision eventually cleared up and the filters disappeared both earth ponies passed out
***
"Well since that clearly didn't work let's try something more tame like kick the can." Apple Bloom empathizes her point by kicking an empty can of chicken soup into a trash can. Applejack follows this up by kicking a can of beans into a bigger piles of bigger cans which gives her an idea. She grabs all the cans, stacks them into a 5 at the bottom to 1 at the top tower and runs through it sending all the thrown cans clanging to the floor.
"What you think of th-AHHH!" The source of the cowpony's sudden yell turns out to be a large rat that either had somehow managed to fit inside one of the cans or the ruckus had somehow awoken it from the trash pile the first one being more likely to the sister and speak of the devil Applejack grabbed her sisters hand and they dashed back to the orchard.
"Okay think we got away" Applejack said panting a bit to feel something heavy on her head, confused she removes her hat only to find 2 large rats somehow in her mane. Apple Bloom screams, grabs a shovel and goes to smack the vermin but in classic cartoon slapstick the rat scrams resulting in the slightly younger sister to hit the older one. Applejack's about to scold her sister only to find another identical rat which she tries to hit with a rake only to get the same result. The Apple Sisters go back and forth with hitting each other on the noggin until Apple Bloom passes out which causes AJ to hit herself in the face knocking herself out.
The 2 rats then come out from behind the 2 knocked out Apple ponies and cuddle against each other.
***
"Maybe there's some hidden apples we forgot about."
The slightly younger sibling climbs the ladder and pokes her head into the leaves only to unintentionally disturb a bunch of bats which wake up and are immediately attracted to her apple accessories empathized by hissing. She falls off the ladder and knocks down a beehive which smashes open once it makes contact with the ground.
"I'm not a real apple!" Blossom uselessly but knowingly tried to reason with the colony as she was running away from the colony. Back to the beehive which just broke open the bees started attacking the slightly older sibling "Don't look like a threat! Don't look like a threat! Don't look like a threat!" she mumbled standing still hoping the bees wouldn't sting her, but as soon as one of them crawled on her arm she freaked out and started running
After a bit of running away from their respective chasers the apple farmers crash into each other as a result the animals briefly started attacking each other, the bats ended up getting the upper hand as the swarm of bees retreated into the orchard.
"There you all are!" Applejack and Bloom, who were rubbing the back of heads turn them to find the source of the sudden call being a butter yellow pegasus with a pink mane. The bats eyes suddenly turn from blood red to blue as they all fly over to the pony and land on her like a bunch of birds, a few even cuddling against her face.
"Thank you for finding them."
"You're welcome I guess." Apple Bloom said as the peagsus walked off she then noticed that her sister's hat had landed on her head and in place of the sister's hat was her unraveled bow ribbon. They exchanged head accessories and then spotted a mole take an apple from a basket.
"MOLE!" Apple Bloom announces
"Oh no please don't tell me it on my face?"
"No an orchard one!"
The critter quickly retreats into a hole which Applejack reaches into, only to retract it when she feels the mole bite and then scratch her hand, luckily the marks weren't deep enough to draw any blood. Apple Bloom pulls out a mallet and waits patiently but when the mole comes up it spits a lump of dirt into Blossom's face causing her to fall back and get one side of the mallet to land on her face making her see stars,
Applejack decides to stupidly stick her whole head into the hole but rather than finding the apple stealing mole she instead nabs the attention of a bunch of earthworms which all start to slither on her. She screams into the ground struggling to get out but once she fall backwards onto a shovel "Welp at least that thieving mole didn't get away with more than one app-" her statement gets jinxed by said mole throwing not 1, not 2 but 5 bitten or rotten apples.
***
"Might as well get back to work." Apple Bloom sighed in acceptance, climbing up a ladder going to replace some apples on a tree only to drop the one she was about to replace onto the tree which started rolling towards the forest.
"I'll get it Sugarcube!" Applejack assured her sister running after the apple which stopped at what she first assumed was a small plant but when she stood up she found herself staring at a wooden sign pointing to the right "Hey sis you might wanna check this out."
Casino this way
"I think we just found something to do sis!" Apple Bloom exclaimed "Apple Bloom! You know what Granny Smith said about gambling, it is dangerous, addictive, risky rigged you know what most ponies say the house always wins." Applejack explains "Well Granny Smith never had a rule against sneaking out and we can always settle for an arcade." Blossom points to a sign pointing to the left.
Arcade this way
"Would you consider an arcade a casino for young ponies Applejack?"
"Not really at least you can actually win something for all your underage 'gambling' so I don't see why not."
The sisters look forward and notice how beautiful, majestic and almost magical the forest looked. Apple Bloom goes to pick a flower only to get her hand smacked seemingly out of nowhere which came courtesy of a green earth pony with a reddish mane and wearing a gardener like outfit.
"Hey this is private property! Don't touch the plants or step on the grass!"
"But this is a forest a single pony can't own a entire forest." Apple Bloom points out and counters, "I'm renting it but that's besides the point! My main point is that don't you care about nature and the wonderful life it creates like Cuck-coos a subspecies of Cockatrices, now if you excuse i'm gonna go chain myself to a tree."
The 2 apple ponies watch as the gardener walks over a gardening bag, pull out some chains and start to tie them around herself and a nearby tree. Confused and a bit uncomfortable from their sudden encounter the continue along the trail to the not so majestic part of the forest.
"Hey is it just me or is there a huge increase in vegetables?" Applejack asked fondling a almost ripe carrot. The sisters had memories of playing in this part of the forest which was growing a few unripe and sometimes rotten vegetables luckily none of these dead vegetables had a powerful enough smell to drive them away.
"Must've been the work of that tree hugger." Apple Bloom responded pointing a thumb back. It not even a few more steps along the trail when they're confronted by a dark blue pegasus with a white mane dressed in a glimmering suit "Hi there could I interest you 2 lovely mares in my Las Pegasus hotel? It offers amazing services at a reasonable price."
The sisters cringed a little and together they say "We're good"
***
The siblings were glad that was the last random encounter as they eventually reached the arcade but rather than it being on the side of the trail it was instead at the end of it another, even more peculiar they noticed was that the building itself looked very rundown and the building was styled like a 2nd generation one aka the time period when their parents were still alive.
"You think anyone could be inside?"
"Maybe" Apple Bloom simply responded walking up to the door and pressing her body against it in hopes of opening it to no avail "Locked!"
"It's a pull door Apple Bloom." Applejack pointed out pulling on the handle and revealing that the interior of the building was completely different than the exterior while it still kept the second generation retro look it was in way better condition, with a colorful carpet, some classic arcade cabinets and a few modern arcade games. Speaking of the devil the small amount of patrons occupying these games were strange to say the least they all wore excessive amounts of accessories.
The duo were so caught up in the sight that they didn't notice that they were in front of with 2 doors on either side. "Hello welcome to Try Your Luck arcade!" a pink pegasus with a light blue mane tied in curls and about Apple Bloom's greeted the sisters at the entrance "My name's Cozy Glow!"
"Sure you're a legitimate business? What's your slogan?" Applejack asked raising an eyebrow already suspicious of this place "Um? At this arcade you can test how lucky you really are!" Cozy's somewhat delayed response luckily for her only got her a weird look from both Apple ponies.
"Hands please" The earth ponies reached their hands out which the pegasus then stamped with clearly visible red ink, leaving them with each a 3 digit number respectively. Cozy opened and let the earth ponies through one of the gates and into the gameroom.
"Cool they have a token machine!" Apple Bloom inserts a bit into the machine only for said object to spit it out. She tries again stupidly deciding to look into the bit slot. The slightly younger sibling played a dumb game and won a dumb price in the form of the bit poking her in the eye briefly blinding her.
"How about I give it a try sis" Applejack inserts a bit and covers the slot with her palm but this doesn't have a affect on the machine rejecting the coin.
"Sorry probably should've put an out of order sign there." The sisters heard a strange pitched almost awkward sounding voice say. The sisters looked over to find a earth blue pony with a black mane which looked like another emplelyee at this rundown arcade "I'll take those."
The Apple sisters give the employee their bits and in exchange he gave them each 4 tokens except they didn't feel like actual tokens they felt a bit plastic and cheap.
"Hey any reason why these tokens feel fake and we got clearly visible numbers on our hands...Crystal Hoof?" Applejack asked squinting to read his name tag
"Budget cuts alright this place has been open for...let's see here." Crystal starts counting his fingers and then the tiles on the ceiling? "I lost track, a long time okay."
"Well that was strange." Applejack muttered as she walked over to a retro arcade cabinet game called Stack A Cake the art on it showing a light blue earth pony with a pink mane decorating a cake. The demo gameplay showed 3 cake layers of combined flavors being stacked but topples over die to the last layer being placed badly.
She pops a token in and starts playing, the first layer was vanilla she pressed a red button, the only control on the cabinet knowing the first layer didn't require any skill. The next layer was chocolate, the apple pony squinted a little and placed down the second layer, which was slightly off. Although she swore she saw it slide into place.
Following that layer was a strawberry one which was placed almost identically to the last one. After that was a coconut one but due to how focused Applejack was on the screen she mispressed the button which placed the layer very badly. The earth pony expected the cake to topple over and get a game over only for the layer to slide into place and somehow this gets her a new high score as not only does the message appear but it also transitions to the initial screen with APJK being what she decides to place.
A bit shook up at her incredible luck or glitch in the game she backs away from the retro cabinet only to bump her back into a claw machine. She goes to insert a token only to find not only an out of order sign but also demo gameplay? The inside of the machine showed what looked like a passed out black, bug like equine dressed in a suit, holding cymbals held up by the claw and being moved around the glass box.
On the other hand Apple Bloom approached a more modern looking arcade game called Everfree Stand the demo gameplay showing roots developing the screen resulting in a game over screen. As for the game itself the only controller was below the token slot which was a plastic majestic looking axe. She inserts a token and picks up the axe which starts the game up.
The opening scene shows a first person view of a root wall forming in front of the player and then around them. She started waving the axe around slicing right though the thin roots, she got a double, triple and quartet slice and a super slice when a extra big root came on screen. This gave Apple Bloom memories of she and Applejack playing Fruit Ninja with Big Mac where he has to slice all the fruit they threw except the apples with one game ending in their older brother accidentally slicing his own arm which brought this activity to an end.
This basically was Fruit Ninja except with no feature to stop her from getting slice happy. It was a few more bigger roots later when she accidentally hit a patron breaking a lens off their sunglasses glasses she help them up when she notices that right before they covered their eye with their hand she swore they had a non reflective blue insect like eye.
"Sorry about that" Apple Bloom apologizes to the patron who doesn't say anything but also doesn'y sjow any signs of bitterness or anger with the earth pony. She looks back at the arcade game which had displayed a game over but also new high score and initial screen.
She put in APBLM and looked for another game when she found a very out of place coming soon area containing many deactivated arcade machines like Appleloosa Duel, Stalk Stalker, Sugar Dash, Volcanic Digger & Scrapable Art just to name a few. Feeling a bit uneasy she backs away from it.
She shortly meets back up with her sister and both settle on a game that was a mix of a retro arcade cabinet and modern setup called Jacks Of All Fruits the art on the cabinet being a mare collecting pears and a stallion collecting apples. It made the Apple sisters a little emotional as it reminded them of their parents.
They picked their characters both settling on mare apple farmers. The duo then had to choose a game mode split screen or co-op. They settle on co-op and grip their respective joystick, it starts raining a variety of fruit but the sisters knew to only collect the red apples.
Curious to see if there were any bonus points in this game she collects a green apple and surprisingy to her it gives her some extra points. This eventually escalates to the sisters pushing each other around the screen, attempting to nab green or golden apples ultimately resulting in 3 strikes in the form of non apple fruits.
"I need a breather." Applejack admitted walking over to skee ball, she pops a token in and lazily throws the first ball surprisingly it lands right in the 10000 point hole in the corner, she shakes her head and rubs her eyes to make sure she wasn't hallucinating as the 10000 points on the scoreboard was very real.
"Let me give a shot big sis!" Apple Bloom exclaims grabbing the next skee ball and to her surprise she scored another 10000 points hole in the opposite corner. They both went back and forth with scoring 100000 points and by the end they had accumulated a total of 100000 points.
"By golly! Haven't seen any luck like this in an entire generation!" A hole in the crowd of patrons formed and Cozy Glow walked through "Looks like your luck test did really well! You know what i'll take you to my manager come along!" Cozy leads the apple sisters through a door which led to a room with a table. On the table was a board game with 2 dice and piles of tokens. Sitting at the table was a few patrons identical to the game room ones but the one who stuck out like a sore thumb was a green unicorn with a brown mane, wearing a photographer like outfit.
"Oh you 2 must be the lucky patrons" Is all the unicorn said before a green flash of light surrounded her and when it disappeared revealed a black creature with insect like wings, teal mane holes in her horn legs and arms. She wore teal armor over a dress of the same color which the duo found as a very strange fashion choice.
Speaking of which once they've processed the unnatural sight they screamed, tripped and crawled backwards "What's wrong she's only my manager." Cozy said revealing that she was a pink and blue bug looking creature, this only fueled their panic fire causing them to accidentally crash into a patron knocking all their accessories off revealing a similar appearance to Cozy's manager and proving Apple Bloom's suspicion.
The manager approached them pulling something out of her pocket. Applejack and Bloom close their eyes hoping for the worst fate only for it to never come, they slowly open their eyes to find that the manager had actually offered them 2 red dice
"Oh sorry guess I forgot to introduce myself the name Queen Chrysalis i'm the one who really test one's luck." she randomly dumps a bunch of playing cards from her left wrist armor to the right one, before taking that off and dumping it back into the left one.
"What's the deal with Cozy and that patron having similar looks to you?" Applejack asked "And why can only you and her transform?" Apple Bloom added
"Simple those powers are only given to the higher ups which includes..." Chrysalis trails off leaving the room and coming back with Crystal Hoof which prompts him to drop the now obvious disguise revealing a similar appearance to Cozy except he was lime green with orange antlers "Thorax Cozy's co worker the henchbugs if you may."
"Don't you mean your henchbugs?" AJ pointed out
"Queen is just a title" Is all the Apple sisters were given to ponder which was interrupted by Chrysalis reoffering the dice "Come on test your luck." she said showing no sign of malicious or evil intent, they each respectively take a die, approach the table and blindly throw the dice and open their eyes to find a 5 on the first die and a 4 on the second.
"Impressive." Chrysalis compliments before pushing her medium pile of tokens towards the duo signaling they've won. "I bet my entire stock!" Cozy declares betting her slightly bigger stack of tokens, she rolls and gets a 6 on the first die and a 3 on the second.
Applejack grabs the 2 dice encasing them in hands, she does a little breathing exercise before tossing them onto the table landing a 5 on both. Cozy didn't say anything or show any emotion as the Apple sisters took her stock of tokens. They went on to beat every other patron at the table including Thorax who had the biggest token pile at the table.
"Truly impressive! I can't believe it! These 2 can't lose!" As soon as the 'Queen' said that a puff of smoke appeared at the edge of the table
"Nice run you 2....apple ponies I presume. Haven't seen patrons like you in a entire generation." The duo look up to find a creature very similar to the illustrations of demons with red skin and horns except this one had a black torso, bull like head features, completely dark eyes with yellow pupils and a goat like beard.
"I'm the owner of this establish, the name's Lord Tirek or as outsiders called me The Surface Devil." Tirek then rolls a pair of dice getting a 3 and a 2 "How about we raise the stakes? Beat my roll and i'll make a 1 million bit donation to your family but fail and i'll get your souls. So do we have a deal?"
Applejack was a bit skeptical about this idea of losing their souls to this Lord Tirek Devil creature but knew that with her luck she shouldn't worry. Apple Bloom on the other hand was completely worried about this deal not wanting to know what will happen if they lose their souls.
"Um sis maybe we should back out of this d- DEAL!" Blossom's whisper of worry was easily overpowered by her slightly older sister's exclamation. Applejack didn't even hesitate immediately throwing the pair of dice onto the table, Apple Bloom's world seems to go in slow motion from a mixture of nauseousness and worry as the dice bounce around the table and ends with each landing with a 1.
"SNAKE EYES!" Applejack didn't even get time to process her massive loss when Tirek yells the latter slamming the table knocking back Chrysalis, Thorax, Cozy and the other patrons at the table
"Now about those souls..." He trails off, the apple sisters close their eyes expecting the Devil to suck their souls out only to feel a claw against their backs now expecting him to rip it out of them. Tirek does seem to rip something out of them but they don't seem to feel their consciousness or spirits being moved.
The duo open their eyes to find 2 the demon holding 2 pieces of paper, more accurately contracts with their names at the top in bold letters.
"Those are our souls?" Applejack questions
"You mean we have pieces of paper in our bodies?"
"It's not as complicated or demonic as other outsiders say it to be." Tirek expected them to ask something like that but didn't expect was for the 2 earth ponies to fall to their knees in a begging postilion.
"Please Lord Tirek The Surface Devil there's gotta be some other way" Applejack begged "We'll do anything just please don't take our souls." Apple Bloom added
"Well since you did refer to me as Lord..." He trails off giving the 2 pony farmers their souls back followed by spawning in a Notice Of Repossess
"Here's a new deal. You see almost all my clients have cheated on their side of the deals, many of these runaway debtors could be captured within a few hours or days but sometimes it could take up to a few weeks or months. But that doesn't mean every debtor has been captured there are still a select few that none of my employees or I can catch which is why I'm giving you 2 the task of retrieving their souls."
Applejack takes the Notice Of Repossess and finds out it was more of a list than a actual notice and reads a few names from different parts of the list "Rockhoof, Tree Hugger, Gladmane, Flim & Flam, King Grover there is no way you expect us, 2 simple earth ponies to retrieve all these souls."
"You want to raise the stakes? Alright you 2 now have only 48 hours and-"
"Alright! Alright!" Apple Bloom interrupts "We'll do it! Don't want you to raise the stakes even more."
"Do we have a deal?"
"Deal!" Both Apple family members declare each respectively shaking the demon's hands.
"What happens if we don't collect all the souls within the time limit?" Applejack asks which Tirek answers by spawning in 2 dolls similar to the duo and slices off the heads with a finger which lands right in front of the 2 apples.
"I'll not only have your souls but also your heads!" Out of nowhere, out of the blue, very randomly the demon turns his lower half into a horse body becoming a centaur and bucks the Apple sisters knocking them through a wall, leaving a hole which Cozy and Thorax immediately start fixing "Now get to it! Remember 48 hours!"
They've just dealed with the literal Devil
Both literally and as a figure of speech
Author's Note
I'm gonna be honest I made lots of last minutes changes to this story (While writing the chapter)
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Training For A Forest Frolic/Between A Rock And Hard Place
The apple sisters ended up steeping on multiple vegetable plants like tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplants and cabbage were stepped on along with a bag of plant grow. Both earth ponies were overtaken with panic and disbelief as they ran along the woods "What are we gonna do big sis?"
"Let's find Granny Smith she'll know what to do!" Applejack responded both were in a state of panic unsure if their granny would be able to help and in disbelief that they were now victims of some kind of tyrannical demon known as Lord Tirek. "HEY WATCH THE PLANTS!"
That loud reminder came courtesy of the tree hugginh earth pony gardener who, speaking of tree hugging had somehow managed to successfully chain herself to a tree. Apple Bloom nearly stepped on a blossom while dashing through the field both sisters not bothering to take the trail and were basically trespassing onto the gardener's property.
Eventually both made it back to the orchard swiftly running through it, Applejack stepped on honey from the broken beehive which she paid little to no attention to. They ran into the barnhouse with a loud crash waking Granny Smith from her nap "YOU'LL NEVER TAKE MY SOUL! Oh it's just you 2 again...Applejack! What did I tell you about dragging mud into the house!"
"Mud what are you-oh." Applejack grabs a rag and starts wiping the honey Granny Smith mistook as mud making Apple Bloom the one to tell their parental figure "Hey Granny Smith what would you say if we by chance had made a deal with the literal devil?"
"Well I would say that's a fine pickle dipped in jam you've gotten yourselves into as for what I would do typically I would try to defend what was his part of the deal?" she asked assuring Apple Bloom that she can drop the whole 'what if' act and that she fully understands their situation
"Here's the thing we didn't ask for anything we lost our souls in a bet, resulting in another deal." The younger pony explained "Well if you're not gaining anything might as well try to go through with it, what's the deal?"
"We've gotta collect the souls of the Devil's runaway debtors but were just earth ponies and we don't know how. We earth ponies have no magic besides our spiritual kind" she explained
"Well hot diggity dogs never thought I would ever find a use for this."
"Use for what Granny?" AJ asked finally done cleaning the honey dragged onto the floor, Granny Smith walked over to a old dusty cabinet, opens it, reaches in and pulls out a book "A old friend from my younger days gave me this book guide, How to learn Optic Energy Peashot in a week!"
"Lord Tirek only gave us 48 hours!" Applejack informed
"Luckily for you they gave me another edition of the same guide called How To Learn The Optic Energy Peashot in 24 hours!"
"We're not gonna spend half our time limit learning that." Apple Bloom added
"They gave me the final edition of the guide How to Learn The Optic Energy Peashot In An Hour!" Granny Smith then reached further into the cabinet and pulled out an old dusty bottle containing a bright blue liquid "This potion should start your powers!"
"Uh Granny how long has that potion been sitting in that cabinet?" Apple Bloom asked concerned about the potion potentially dangerous effects "Oh I don't know maybe a entire family generation or 2, my friend only gave me this to use in case the Devil or any of this close allies managed to bypass my defenses none of them ever came close so I never used it."
Applejack popped the cap off and took a sniff of the bottle's sketchy looking liquid "Doesn't seem to smell like anything." she took a sip of it "Tastes like a very sugary energy drink! Yum!"
The slightly older sibling took a few more sips consuming half of the bottle's contents "Save some for me sis!" the slightly younger sibling took the bottle, taking an experimental sip to savor the potion sweet taste before gulping down the remaining liquid.
"So what now? Do we shoot it out of our foreheads like unicorns?" Applejack tried out the latter to no avail "Let's see here..." Smith trails off opening the 1 hour guide book only to see something very disappointing "Oh guess books don't last a family generation." she shows her granddaughters one of the pages revealing that all the words have completely or nearly faded away
"Looks like you're gonna have to go off memory. My memory isn't what it used to be but if I remember correctly they said it comes out of a hand." the Apple sisters tried many different hand positions like a fist, index finger, palm, pinkie none of them showing any signs of the Peashot.
"Wait now I remember it was a finger gun position!"
"Now what? Wait for it to charge up?" AB asked
"Now I remember that it required something before the finger gun..." AJ and AB didn't bother trying anything and opted to just wait for their grandmother to remember "A snap that's what it is!"
"Snapping seriously?" Applejack complained, growing up with a country pony lifestyle made it hard for them to modernize or as modern ponies say it 'get with the times' this include trends like drinking competitions, video game consoles or as mentioned snapping.
"We can at least try sis." Apple Bloom assured, while both had seen other ponies snap they were always unsure of which finger they used with their thumb each then snapped with their index finger and surprisingly as soon as they performed the action and switched to the finger gun a blue projectile came out of the index's fingertip, the duo took it one Peashot at a time and eventually got the hang of it managing to rapidly fire multiple Peashots like a automatic firearm.
"Now that you've got the hang of it time for the side effects to come in!"
"Side effects!?" Both siblings said in union
"By side effects I mean other abilities the potions give you 2 and don't worry my old friend was an expert brewer, they always tests the potions on plants to not only improve the potion but to check for side effects...THINK FAST!" she throws an entire glass jar of apple sauce towards the duo and reflectively both move out the way except they ended up way further than they expected.
"That's called dashing! Have you 2 tried jumping yet?" Although jumping wasn't really a move or skill the siblings used especially when it came to apple farming they both jumped and were reflectively rolled up into balls "Expected more but you know what they say work with what you have, could come in useful in certain situations" Granny Smith advised who then placed 2 scarecrows down.
"Time to test your powers! Hit the scarecrows!" Both look then shrug at each other before shooting their respective scarecrow which turn into a cloud of smoke and after it disappears leaves a pile of hay behind "There's one perk of your powers, won't have a witness taking a creature out." Granny Smith said followed by grabbing a homemade mace, a wooden club with a bunch of nails attached, off the wall and hits Apple Bloom on the head which for some reason produced a cracking noise
"Ow what was that fo-*CRACK* that really-" the final blow produced a glass shattering which knocked out Apple Bloom but it seems to do more then that as Applejack witnessed her sister's spirit start to rise out of her body. The slightly older's state of shock is interrupted by her parental figure tossing her into the air, circling her up into a ball and causing her manetail to smack the spirit's heart turning it and her read mane braid pink for a second.
"Thank you!" Is what AJ heard a ghostly voice say as AB's spirit turns into an orb and go back into her body bringing her back to life.
"What happened?" Blossom asked before feeling around her own body "I'm alive? I'm alive!"
"That's parrying! Hey Apple Bloom parry this large pink ball!" Apple Bloom jumped only to bounce off it and fall to the floor
"Parrying works on any pink object with this move including a dead spirit, you see the potions seems to make you 2 extremely powerful but extremely fragile like cups if you may." Granny Smith explained
"Ya know granny you could've shown the pink ball example and then the spirit example and I thought you said there wasn't any negative or dangerous side effects."
"My memory isn't what it used to be and that's what the parry's for." the elderly mare countered, checking her digital wrist watch
"Well what do ya know 30 minutes not even an hour of training but i'm sure you 2 should get going if you want to collect all the souls! In fact..." Granny SMith ends up handing Applejack the watch which she puts on her wrist revealing 47.5 hours left rather than the actual time
"See ya Granny Smith!" Apple Bloom waved as she along with her sister were heading to the front door "Hang on my little ponies!" Is what made the Apple sisters stop at the front door.
"Almost forgot this part, it's the most powerful part of the Peashot reach into your pockets." Both siblings reach into a pocket and pull out a glowing playing card
"Uh granny what are these cards for?" Applejack asked
"Use one! Fire a Peashot!"
The latter earth pony hits the glowing card and goes to fire a peashot but instead ends up clapping her hands which releases a massive blue Peashot luckily it doesn't hit anything and fizzles out.
"I don't think we can handle this much power." Apple Bloom worried
"You'll be fine it's just called a Ex Shot, before ya leave I wanna give you one last piece of wisdom...Do the right thing you may be pawns to the Devil right now but I know you can turn the tables on him and his forces along with freeing all those runaway debtors no creature deserves to have their souls taken by him, don't sell out."
"Wow granny just realized that you sure know a lot about the Devil!" Applejack complimented
***
Most of the barnhouse had been boarded up, covered in barb/razor wire and barricaded from both the inside and out. A young Granny Smith had encased herself in a metal box with nothing but a peephole to watch out for any dangers. She then heard a knock and voice "Hello anyone home?"
She very cautiously stepped out of her metal base, through the dangerous wire and removed most of the barricade at the front door "Oh it's just you...Hang on! how do I know it's really you, give me a fact only you know!"
"You keep other types of jam under a floorboard in your kitchen."
"Guess it is really you-"
"Uh Granny you zoned out and you didn't answer my question." Applejack said breaking the flashback "Oh you know it's just part of growing up." is what the duo of apples chalked up to one of their grandmother's kooky statements, doubting that every family generation from their granny to them dealt with the devil.
"Alright Apple Bloom time to collect the souls, you've got the list right?"
"The list oh right the list yeah...got the list right here our first victim, I mean debtor is a pony named Rockhoof and it says he lives somewhere in the Everfree forest." Applejack took notice of another debtor on the list Tree Hugger who lived in the same area as Rockhoof.
"Hey you don't think that the gardener could be Tree Hugger?" the latter brought into question "Worth a shot" her sister responded
"Finding her should be no problem." Applejack assured as the duo walked from the orchad to the forest where she picked up a random oversized bit "Who would leave a perfectly valuable bit here?" Apple Bloom on the other hand noticed something strange.
You're Up!
"Hey big sis I honestly had no idea meteor showers could happen during the day." she spotted these supposed meteors between the many trees "Meteor showers? during the-IT'S NOT A METEOR SHOWER THEY'RE HEADING TOWARDS US!" both manage to dash out the way right as the first green 'meteor' landed which turned out to be a massive mosquito which they both stepped right over.
A few more mosquito meteors landed around them including one right into front of them which they poofed out of existence with their combined Peashots. The duo jumped over a large fallen tree thinking they were safe from the oversized pests only for one to jump over the obstacle luckily a few more rounds of Peashots took it out.
"Think we've lost them." Apple Bloom's statement is immediately jinxed by a mushroom coming out of the ground and shooting a puff of purple gas at the sisters cracking Apple Bloom which catches Jack off guard and causing her to crash into a mosquito that jumped over the tree cracking her.
Apple Bloom goes to shoot the fungi only for it to retrieve back into the ground, she continues along the path as Applejack fires another round of Peashots managing to destroy the last few mosquitoes in the first area. She ran to catch up to her sister as the mushroom popped back up and shot another puff of smoke. This one was pink which AJ successfully parried it, shooting the mushroom away in the process.
“Hey check it out sis got an oversized bit of my own!” Apple Bloom said showing said item which her sister marveled at which gets interrupted by a mosquito landing and cracking both of them a second time by stepping right over them.
“Why are my ears ringing!” Apple Bloom angrily thought inserting her pinky into her ear in an attempt to stop the ringing “I don’t it’s coming from our ears sugarcube.” Applejack informed revealing that she too was experiencing the same thing “And it not ringing your hearing it’s beeping must be a warning that only have 1 hit point left.”
“Wait are we waiting for let get out of this part of the forest before anything else tries to kill is!” Apple Bloom ushered they ran across another fallen tree using like a bridge, shot through a few more mosquitoes only for Apple Bloom to step on a small smooze shattering her. Luckily her slightly older sister managed to jump and parried her spirit before it went out of range
Thank you
Applejack shot the slime reverting it into a liquid form and parried a pink spike ball right as Apple Bloom came back to life only to hear the same beeping noise “Oh horseapples still have 1 hp.”
Right as the duo were near the end of the bridge the smooze reformed back into a liquid and ran into Applejack right as she was at the edge shattering her. Apple Bloom was quick to react and parried her ghost.
Thank you
With both earth ponies at risk of permanent shattering they shot right through a small pine cone tree, shortly after they poofed it away they looked back to see the pine cone blew up like a grenade with a fairly big radius making thankful left ran right pass it. Once AJ picked up another bit they fired another round of Peashots stunning another smooze with Apple Bloom parrying a pink spike ball.
They made their way down another fallen log, shooting right through a smooze and then up another one this time destroying a mushroom grown into a log before it had a chance to attack. The duo were almost hit by a grenade pinecone but were able to dash out the way, destroy the tree and dash against to avoid the blast radius.
Nest was another fallen log with a pink spike ball except this one had a bit on top. Wanting to test her parry and timing skills AB waited a while and once the parryable object was about in max jumping range went for it successfully parrying it give her a jump boost to collect the valuable.
The duo dash across a large gap only for the younger one to feel the slight brush of a feather against her arms.
"Hey sis did you brush a feather against me?"
"Why you ask Sugarcube?" Applejack's question is answered by a crow swooping in and almost hitting her, exploding into back feathers which prompts them to look up and find a whole murder of crows heading towards them.
"ACT LIKE A SCARECROW!" AJ stands still but this proves useless as the crows directly hit her shattering her, luckily her sister who ran away from the murder came back and revived her.
Thank you They fire more Peashots attempting to murder as much of the murder as possible only for Bloom to almost crash into a mosquito, she shot it poofing it away while Applejack ran away from the swooping crows and collected another bit.
They seem to lose the murder of crows as they dash across another gap only to find a large old tree which turned out to be the source of the murder. Now with the goal of murdering this murder maker they fire another round of Peashots. Out of curiously Apple Bloom checks her pocket to find 2 glowing cards, she uses one clapping out one Ex Shot, she fires another one with her sister following suit with a Ex Shot from her single glowing card successfully cutting down the tree and sending the murder of crows away. Once the duo had jumped over the stump and Apple Bloom collected a another bit they started dashing across multiple small gaps, eventually reaching the final one "Applejack think I see the exit!"
"Well what are we waiting for?" Both jumped into the air and went to dash only for a massive flower resembling a mouth with sharp spikes as teeth consumed them in one bite shattering both of them permanently.
You Died!: Your Souls Are Now For Everfree In The Bad Afterlife!
it seems you 2 souls have met an unfortunate fate is the voice/sound Applejack woke up to she looks down at her hands and rather than finding a spirit blue appearance she finds herself still orange with a shiny appearance and spirit like transparency.
"What in tarnation?" Her environment only created more questions than answers she doesn't find the Pearly Gates, Stairway to Heaven, Pits of fire or extreme temperatures but instead finds herself in this weird green lvoid with stars and what appears to be fog in the distance.
"AJ where are we?" Apple Bloom asks bearing the same appearance as her sis and just as confused
"I have no idea but one thing's for certain we aren't in Equestria no more or alive" as soon as she said that the same voice Applejack woke up to spoke again.
I don't typically send spirits to this realm or even rarer give them this privilege but I sense your services are needed. There's a catch to this but i'll make an exception just this time the duo couldn't even process the voice's words when both start glowing white and are blinded by a flash.
***
Apple Bloom rubs the back of her head only to see that the hand she was using was back to its normal state. She yelped, standing back up and feeling around her body to make sure he was alive again.
"I'm gonna be honest Apple Bloom..." Applejack started who had already processed her situation "I have no idea what the voice meant by catch, exception, realm?"
"Maybe we'll come back to life but with 1 hp or weaker firepower?" Apple Bloom suggested "I don't hear any beeping so it's not the latter." her sister responded, the duo ultimately decided not to overthink it or worry about it, the carnivorous flower popped back up then down allowing the Apples to dash across the gap and exit the patch.
Bravo!!
The Apple ponies expect to find the green thumb still chained still chained to the tree but only find the latter as the gardener had replaced herself with a sign reading 'Gone to stop fishing' which makes Apple Bloom chuckle "For a tree hugger she sure does a mighty nice sense of humor."
"Nice play on the classic Gone Fishin" Applejack added "Welp might as well face the facts." she sighed as she and Blossom made their way and by made their way, fired Peashots and shot through multiple overgrown vines "Maybe we can find another open patch in this forest."
Apple Bloom started scanning the area for anything that looked like or could lead to another clearing when she noticed a trail of weirdly shaped rocks "Hey sis do those boulders look natural to you?" she asked "Apple Bloom boulders are round, rocks are fla-" These rocks in question are what was left Applejack puzzled they were in the almost perfect shape of a cone, tooth, duck, face, donut and most noticeably a shovel "There! That shovel must be a sign like the Zebra tribes."
They shot through the vines creating an entrance to the trail which not only revealed moreweirdly shaped rocks but also that said trail went downhill. Despite the duo's attempt to carefully make their way down the hill Apple Bloom tripped on a rock crashing into her sister and sending both tumbling down the hill and by some miracle no parts of their body hit the rocks so no damage was endured.
Applejack panted a few times to process the miracle "Wow we somehow fell down the hill without cracking a single time." Apple Bloom dusted herself off "Must've been dumb luck or something bigger..." the slightly younger sibling pondered, remembering the voice's words.
"Looks these rocks have been carved out recently.Someone’s gotta be around here" Applejack said examining a small piece of rock along with traces of dust in the dirt. Deciding to be cautious the duo sneak through the trail of carved rocks and carefully move aside the vines to reveal a small earth pony holding a shovel which was taller than his whole body and using it to carve into a rock. This is when the Apple sisters came across their first and biggest moral dilemma "I say we take his soul!" AJ whispered
"Are you crazy Applejack?! The Devil only told us to collect the souls he never told us how or what method we should use! I say we should just ask him or maybe help him and make him agree to hand over his soul contract."
"He's the Devil what method do you think he wants just to use...alright fine here's the plan we try your method and if that fails we'll do minds deal?" AJ whispers holding a hand out
"Deal!" AB whispers back as both shake on it
"Hello you must-" The slightly older sibling gets cut off by the small pony yelling clearly startled by the duo's sudden appearance "Oh sorry about that I don't get many visitors around here." the pony admitted his voice revealing that he was a colt. "My name's Rockhoof! Nice to meet you."
"Nice to meet you too didn't expect you to be so-"
"Short" he interrupted completing AJ statement "Yeah got that from the few visitors i've had...you're farm ponies right?"
"Were only farm hands on the biggest apple orchard in Ponyville!" Apple Bloom answered "We've been doing farm work since we were fillies!" Applejack added
"Simple ponies it seems! Natural talent for hard labor...you know I have a talent rock carving but I do have this big project that’s might require a little help.”
“Sure anything for a lonely colt like you” AB assures as the colt leads them over to a old statue of a gargoyle, bits of it had chipped off and it was covered in a few vines. The gargoyle wasn’t what Rockhoof was focused on and instead it was what was around the statue which was 6 slabs, 4 of them already carved and one chipped a little.
“I never got the chance to perfect these 4, if I did it would’ve taken years which is why I had to take a lot of shortcuts or budget cuts as civilized ponies say it.” Rock demonstrates this shortcut by backing up to the gargoyle statue before running up and crashing into the chipped slab.
"This shortcut takes a while but not as long as practically carving it." He informs the duo in a slightly dazed tone "I'll give it a try!" Apple Bloom backs up a little but once colliding with the slab causes it to crack and falls to pieces catching Rockahoof completely off guard "Sorry guess I don't know I own strength!"
"Gotta pull this thing out again" The colt grumbles pulling out a bit which gets flipped into the air and lands back in his palm "Tails...That's alright always keep backup slabs" he cleans up the mess, walks off and a few moments later is seen pushing a replacement slab.
"Here use this!" He hands the duo a stone hammer and spike respectively. He picks his shovel back up and starts carving away at the slightly chipped slab Applejack and Bloom following suit "So what's gonna be the theme of these last 2 pillars?" AJ asks attempting to start a conversation with this debtor.
"I'm thinking a more ancient architecture like a tiki pillar."
"What are you planning to call this artpiece?" AB brings up "I was first thinking Pillars Of Equestria but that sounds too big then I thought Gargoyle Guardians, too on the nose I eventually settled on calling this art piece Ponhenge!" the colt explains "Hey Rock one more question what the deal with the bit?"
"Oh you noticed my bit! Well this the first and only bit I ever picked up and it just happens to have writing on it saying 1 bit. I use it to make decisions and just as a simple pastime game."
"Whoa! Not even our granny owns a bit like that and we've only heard stories of bits and their rarity you should consider selling it!"
"This single bit is priceless to me and no amount of unlabeled bits is ever gonna change my mind!" He declares flipping said bit again which lands on head "Heads! Time to relax!"
Flashback
"Come on! Come on!" Rockahoof strains as he attempts to lift a small rock only to lose his grip resulting in him landing on his back and hitting himself with both his hands.
"I really need to know I own strength." he mutters to himself staring at his dust covered hands "I'll do anything to feel bigger in this unfair world!" As soon as he said that a giant boulder claw bursts out of the ground and grabs him into a portal before he could even process anything. He suddenly find himself in a room full of caged hybrid creatures, a few normal creatures and a sign reading Welcome To Tartarus
"I've gotta be dreaming!" Rockhoof tells himself rubbing his eyes only to come face to facee with a black bug like
"Rockhoof is it?" the demon asks
"How do you know that!"
"Oh I know every weak-minded creature in this random land!" He heard a more menacing voice say which turned out to be Lord Tirek sitting in a stone throne. The colt was immediately overwhelmed by the Devil's presence "No need to worry little stallion I know exactly how to make your wish come true."
"You do?"
"Watch me!" With a snap of his fingers the colt is surrounded by a pillar of orange fire and when it clears reveals no change in Rockhoof's appearance "Hey! I asked to feel bigger!"
"I did make you feel bigger you now know your own strength!" Confused the colt picks up at heavy looking rock, with his left hand and finds it to be as light as a pebble. Wanting to see what else his strength is capable of he digs into the ground his the right ahdns and finds out his hands had been figuratively turned into shovels "This is gonna make rock carving a lot more hard"
"Now for your part of the deal...your soul for all eternity!" This caught the colt who hesitantly reached behind his back and pulled out his soul contract. He goes to hand it to the Devil but at the last second throws the large rock he was still holding at him before he had a chance to counter it. He gets blinded for a second and once it vision clears up finds that the colt had seemingly escaped through a hole in the ground
"DON'T LET HIM ESCAPE!" He commands to demon guards who all jump down the hole which is followed by a geyser of lava and a nearly melted helmet coming back to the surface revealing that this was a trap. He grabs the helmet and in frustration crushes it like a tin can.
"My Lord! I'm picking up a strange magic anomaly from the algorithm. Haven't seen this in a while" Cozy the demon informs "Looks like we've got another runaway debtor! Send out a search party!" he commands which the pink demon salutes to.
"Huh this slab looks a bit loose" Applejack thought nothing the replacement slab was a bit out of line with the dirt outline. She adjusts it a little which causes it to fall over crashing into another completed slab knocking it over and creating a domino effect which ends with all the Ponhenge slabs cracking and breaking.
Rockhoof's eye twitches a little and he goes to flip his bit only for a orb to hit him like a snowball which turns his eyes blue "LOOK WHAT YOU'VE DONE TO MY HARD WORK!"
"Sorry guess we apples don't know our own streng-" AJ is cut off by the colt bringing a fist to her cracking giving her both a back eye and a crack in her HP.
"We've tried your plan now it's time for my plan!" Applejack whispered to Blossom followed by Rookhoof jumping into the air and landing with a loud stomp sending a shock wave knocking back the duo but not enough to crack them "I'll squish you like rotten apples!"
A Brawl Is Surely Brewing! Here It's Goes!
Applejack and Apple Bloom respectively adjust their head accessories before firing Peashots at the colt who doesn't seem to be bothered by them at all That's weird Granny Smith said they should poof away shots." both sisters thought as Rockhoof jumped into the air landing with another stomp except this one wasn't as powerful.
He stomps to the remains of the left slab and starts stomping to the right. Apple Bloom manages to get close to him when he lands in the middle only to be cracked by one of his fists when he goes to stomp further to the right. Applejack expects him to stop at the far right only for him to wall jump off a tree and land where she was standing, before continuing to jump to the left leaving AJ at beeping level.
The Apple sisters continue to snap and fire their Peashots at the stomping colt by either running or dashing out the way when it was a close call. He suddenly stop which allowed them to get close and fire away only for the debtor to launch a forward attack in the form of his shovel shattering Applejack and bringing Apple Bloom to 1 HP. She slightly younger sibling goes to parry her sister bust instead jumps on Rockhoof right as he's in the air shattering her.
You Died!: Guess It's time to know your own strength which is little to none!
***
Apple Bloom wakes up to find herself in the same crystal-like form "Oh horse apples what are we doing here again!"
I sense you're services are needed i'll revive you 2 but here's the catch you'll have to restart this encounter don't worry none of your actions here will or could affect the future is what the sisters heard the voice say when they were blinded by the same white flash.
***
Before either sibling they could process their current state Rockhoof attacked confirming to the sisters that they were not only brought back to life but also back to the start of their battle. They fired another round of the Peashots and decided to be even more cautious by dashing away. When it came time for the colt to launch his shovel forward attack Apple Bloom dashed away only for her sister to discover that they could just duck under the rock carving tool.
Starting to feel some pain Rockhoof knew he had to change tactics so as a result he dug into the ground disappearing into it and a lump to form, which moved left to right. The sisters attempted to fire at it but it didn't seem to do any damage, confused they tried to jump on it, Blossom activating her parry, only for both to get cracked.
"What now AJ?" Apple Bloom asked as she and her sister jumped over the lump in the ground
"Not sure AB maybe we wait for him to let his guard down?" Applejack's statement gets jinxed when the lump is between the sisters followed by Rockhoof's shovel suddenly bursting out of the ground, with so much force that it causes spikes of rocks to burst from either side cracking them again, bringing them to danger level.
They didn't get a chance to fire Peashot as the shovel retreats back into the ground recreating the lump except this one had accumulated a few worms. Applejack jumped, parryed one and reached into her pocket only to find 3 glowing cards except. Apple Bloom who did the same checked her own pocket and found the same thing.
"We can also gets cards by doing damage?" AJ rhetorically asked "Guess that something Granny Smith forgot to mention" AB answered as she attempted to parry another worm only to mistake a root for one resulting in her shattering. Applejack managed to parry her spirit only to fall right onto the lump.
Thank you
Apple Bloom couldn't even revive her sister as she somehow also managed to fall right onto the lump
You Died!: You can now relax 6 feet under!
***
Each earth pony parryed their final third pink worm followed by the shovel bursting out the ground again except this time the duo were quick enough to dash away before the spikes could reach them. They each pop a Ex shot directly hitting the shovel and causing it to fall apart something the sisters expected. Something they didn't expect was for something magical to happen in this case blue energy comes from underground resulting in Rockhoof resurfacing now no longer a colt and now 5 times his original size.
"Now I truly feel bigger!" He remarks in a much deeper full grown stallion voice. He starts stomping to the right now requiring the earth ponies to dash in order to avoid him. "This is a downgrade if you ask me." Apple Bloom informs her sister as Rockhoof reaches the far right and wall jumps off a tree but instead of skipping a single stomp he skips quite a few landing in the middle cracking the sisters.
"You call that a downgrade?" Applejack rhetorically asks as they simultaneously fire Peashots followed by both popping an Ex card. The colt turned stallion pauses his stomping signaling a forward attack, the ponies expecting a fist duck only for Rock to stomp the ground creating spikes of rocks which reach and crack them resulting in beeping.
"There's another upgrade!" AJ remarks as they continue to dash away from the stallion only for Applejack to make the same mistake her slightly younger sis did in the first phase, when Rock got to the far left Apple Bloom got too close resulting in a direct punch from Rockhoof shattering her. He wall jumps to the middle before Applejack could even get to the far left, crushing her.
You DIed!: Looks like your egos and confidence got a bit too big
***
They dashed away from the spikes of rock AB popping an Ex card/move which seem to be all it took for Rockhoof to get dizzy and stop stomping, allowing the duo to pop the last of their ex moves
"I think we did Sugarcube!"
A Knocko- a sudden blue strike of the lightning which directly hits the stallion sparks an entire storm, the rain turning the ground to mud but more importantly the strike turns the stallion to stone with the mud bringing him behind the other 2 earth ponies and causing it to slide from side to side now requiring the earth ponies to follow it around.
"You've gotta be kidding me! Shooting a statue?" Apple Bloom complains as she starts firing more rounds of Peashots alongside her sister "I don't think it's the statue you should be worried about." Applejack finds it very hard to run around in the mud. Her latter statement gets jinxed by a sudden strong gust of wind pushing the stone encased stallion over crushing the duo.
"Guess you do have to worry about the statue!" Apple Bloom observes which is further supported by another blue strike of lightning that hits the Rockhoof statue shocking both sisters. They follow the statue to the middle as another strike of lighting hits the statue luckily the duo were able to dash away before they could be shocked only to get trapped at the far left as the statue falls over.
You Died!: I didn't even have to move a limb to beat you!
***
Being extra cautious now the Apple siblings make to stay at the edge of the statue and dash whenever they were anywhere else in case it decided to fall over. They dodged another shock before Applejack fired a Ex shot, Apple Bloom fired a few more Peashots before getting a Ex card which allowed her to deliver the final blow.
A Knockout! the Rockhoof statue starts cracking and falls apart with his soul contract directly landing into Applejack hand
"Cool! The watch's even waterproof!" Both siblings were surprised to learn that the watch had somehow survived all that rain.
"That entire forest frolic and Rookhoof encounter only took another 30 minutes!" Applejack informed the watch now reading 47 hours.
Author's Note
Goopy isn't the most interesting boss so which Is why I gave his MLP counterpart a pretty simple
During my playthrough of Cuphead I found Goopy easier than the Root Pack (Always thought Goopy flipped a coin to transition to his 2nd phase)
My main mission
Environmentalist To A Whole Another Level
“Alright AB 1 down about 30 or 40 more to go!” AJ informed crossing Rockhoof’s name off the list with red marker, as they walked along the forest trail “Alright sis we can either go for Tree Hugger or Fluttershy ah say we go back to see if Tree Hugger’s back.”
“You sure Applejack it’s only been 30 minutes I doubt she’s back in her nature reserve. I say we go for Fluttershy, with a name looks like it won’t be that hard to get her soul contract.” Apple Bloom reasoned “There’s also the chance that the name could be a red herring we won’t know till we get there.”
“I’m sticking with Fluttershy”
“Well I’m not changing my mind about this Tree Hugger and plus wouldn’t simple ponies like us be organized and follow the chronological order of this list.” Applejack brought up “I got a better idea sis! How about we split the list and each of us can go for one half of the debtors.”
“That actually not a bad idea lil sis” The sister grab one half of the list and go to rip it only for a burst of green fire to appear before them, causing both to scream and the flames turning into Queen Chrysalis.
“YOU 2 REALLY THINK YOU CAN CHEAT THE DEAL!? She rhetorically asked “You’re lucky the Devil has this measure in place or else he would’ve taken your heads by now. Don’t try anything else, play by the terms, this your first and only warning!” And with that the Queen disappeared in the same way she entered.
“Well that happened” Apple Bloom started “And guess what it didn’t help use decide I say Tree Hugger!”
“Fluttershy!”
“Tree Hugger!”
“Fluttershy!”
“Tree Hugger!”
The sisters place there hands on each and things are about start getting physical when a wagon drops oversized bit lands in front of them. Applejack notices it to be identical to the bits they collected in their Forest ‘Frolic.’
“Hey I’ve heard of you and look like you’ve found my bit and if you’re wondering yes it is legit.” The duo look up to find a Zebra dressed in native looking clothing but more noticeably gold earrings and golden rings around her neck.
“Oh sorry did you lose these in the forest?” Applejack asked as she and her sister took 6 of the tokens out. “Ah yes my emotions towards these are worth a potion.”
“Two things first of all why are these bits so important to you and second did you say potion?” Apple Bloom questioned
“Almost forgot to introduce myself my name’s Zecora I’m sure Granny Smith told you 2 about me. The bits belonged to my mother which were given to her as a tokens of appreciation.”
“Your mother knew our Granny? We’ve never knew about you, your mother or our family’s history with zebras.” Applejack questioned “Hey you stopped your rhyming scheme 2 sentences ago.” Apple Bloom pointed out
“Eh it gets boring fast. You really expect me to come up with rhymes right on the spot. Back on topic allow to tell you a story my mother.”
Flashback
"Guess it is really you Zaza.” A young Granny Smith said relived that this wasn’t one of the Devil’s tricks or illusions “What’s the deal with all these added defences to your barn?”
“You gotta help me Zaza! The literal devil and his minions after me they’re gonna take my soul!” The apple pony exclaimed only for the front door to fall off spilling some of the inside defences out. “Don’t worry I’ve delt with the devil before.” The Zebra reaches into the wagon she was pulling along and pulled out a very small bowl of contains about a single pinch of black dust.
“This is a powder made from a crushed up rare ancient dark stone that soaks up outside magic it how I protect myself from Tirek observe…” she trails off reaching into her wagon to pull out a staff and fires a beam at herself but as soon as it makes contact the energy turns to smoke.
“Okay you might be a witch doctor but you are a friend.” Smith presents her forehead to the Zebra who sprinkles and then spreads the remaining dust across it. She closes her eyes when Zara uses the staff half expecting pain but gets the other half of her expectation as when she reopens her eyes she sees smoke flying away.
“You’ve help me multiple times but I think this deserves a token of appreciation!” The apple mare goes back inside and comes out with a wagon full of oversized bits “They’re not worth much but it’s one of the of my most valued possessions next to my own soul and life.”
“Here take this!” Zaza takes the wagon and in exchange hands Smith a potion bottle full of blue liquid
“Oh I don’t want anything else like I said they’re tokens of appreciation.”
“I know you’re gonna need this one day. If the Devil or any of his goons ever find a way through the magic blocking powder use this these books will teach you how to use it.” Zaza hands the pony a stack of three books the thickest at the bottom at thinnest at the top
“They’re were passed on to me and I try to keep them in pristine condition.” Zecora explained which is empathized by the zebra wiping some mud off the oversized bit she was holding.
“Hey didn’t you say a bit was worth a potion do you have and optic blast ones.” Apple Bloom brought up pointing to her wagon “Think I do…Ah ha! I’ll sell you this other optic energy blast potion I called the Spread for 3 bits.” She shows them earth ponies a brown bottle with a red label with has the logo of bullet trails resembling an arrow. In response the duo hand her the amount and in exchange give them the Spread bottle.
“Thank you! Goodbye!” Zecora waves as she pulls her wagon along the trail and eventually out of sight of the duo. Both gulp down the liquid which tasted a lot like a strawberry milkshake.
“Spread deals high damage but has very low range.” Applejack said reading off the label of the bottle “Hopefully that’s the case for Tree Hugger.”
“Now we decide to agree on one?”
Another Flashback
A young Granny Smith now free of any worry of getting her soul taken had decided to take a trip to the forest and was currently trying to make a fire. She rubbed two sticks together for the 6th time before giving up, throwing the pair of sticks down which lights a spark and a fire.
“Finally! Wait a second that’s not the right colo-“ She gets cut off by the small green fire bursting into a bigger one and out came Queen Chrysalis lacking holes “Annie Granny Smith you’ve evaded your side of the deal for too long! I’m here for your sou! HAND IT OVER!” She demands
“No way I’m not giving anything away!”
“Guess I’ll have to take it then!” The Queen fires a beam of green magic at the green pony only for it to turn to smoke. She rubs her eyes to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating before grabbing the young mare in her grasp.
“Strong will? Not a problem for me!” She attempts to cast a spell that takes the soul out of a host only for it to deflect and hit Chrysalis in the face like a plain beam. Starting to get fed up she attempts a more strategic method in this case being to cast a spell to read her mind in hopes of learning her secret.
When she does cast the spell the demon gets an extreme headache which even makes her pupils go crazy before collapsing. “Welp I’m out of here!”
Smith starts walking down the trail back to Sweet Apple Acres when she’s stopped by a Pegasus mare Royal Guard “Alright hand it over!”
“Uh what the problem officer?”
“You know what you did hand over the evidence!”
“What will be the charges?”
“It will be disorderly conduct if you don’t hand it over.”
“Alright fine!” Annie reaches into her bag and pulls out a jar of pear jam, orange jam and strawberry jam “I have a serious problem officer.”
“Is there anything else you have on you?”
“I’m all out, I like other fruits okay!” Not wanting to put up with her uncooperative behaviour the guard gives up “Charges dismissed you can go!”
“Good day officer!” The guard growls revealing herself to be Chrysalis in disguise.
***
Annie goes to enter Sweet Apple Acres only to be stopped by a toll booth barrier. Which is operated by a unicorn mare “Sorry can’t let you pass unless you show me your soul contract.”
“I’ve done these things before and never has they’ve asked me for my soul contract…wait a second you’re that no good Queen Chrysalis aren’t you.” The booth blows up revealing an angry Chrysalis “I’m getting really tired of all your foolishness so why don’t you just hand over your soul!”
“As long as I have this magic dust made of a crushed ancient stone that soaks up magic protecting me I’m not handing over anything!” In response the demon twists her neck and limbs which creeps the pony out “You know what stronger than a magic dust made of a magic soaking stone…FEAR!” She goes to send green electric rays into the earth pony only for them to reroute and electrocute Chrysalis revealing her nervous system.
“You know with that changeling magic why don’t you try changing yourself into someone who doesn’t fail all the time!” She ends up laughing at her own joke prompting Chrysalis to fire another beam only for it to deflect and hit her back revealing it to be a teleportation spell.
She’s about to scream in frustration only for her action to be stopped and replaced by holding her breath when she finds herself in the middle of space which also causes her head to inflate a little and to make matters worse she gets a called from Tirek.
“Chrysalis? Where is Granny Smith’s Soul?!”
“I can’t..” she breaths out
“Give me one good reason why you can’t.” Chrysalis managed to gather enough energy to cast another teleportation which brings her back to Equestria. She’s about to answer her Lord’s question only to find herself surrounded by a pack of timber wolves “I’ll call you back.”
She ends up getting mauled by the pack and once she gets holes in her horn, legs and arms “Hope this isn’t permanent.” She thought poking a hole in her horn.
If that wasn’t enough she gets teleported away again. “Phew took me a long time but it finally did it.” Cozy sighs having finally organized the Craps table only for Chrysalis to land right on the table messing the entire thing up. The demon completely ignores her as she starts sweeping up the poker chips.
Present
Walking along the forest trail in hopes of finding the debtor, the duo find the path with a lot of excess vines than they remember. Wanting to save their new weapon for the next fight the earth ponies end up getting rid of vines by hand. Only for them to come across the gardener from earliar.
“What did I tell you 2 about hurting the environment!” The pony they presumed was Tree Hugger said picking up the severed vines
“You’re Tree Hugger right?” AJ asked “Oh you heard the news too yeah didn’t think bringing a Smooze to the Gala would get be banned and blacklisted from any party for life.” Tree responded rubbing the back of her head
I remember that headline both earth ponies thought remembering the Everyday Equestria headline from a week ago.
“You know Tree Hugger we’re farmer ponies and we support your ideology if we don’t preserve the environment we won’t be able to farm apples.” Applejack brought up
“Do you use Pesticides or GMOs?”
“Nope it’s all organic!” Apple Bloom answered
“Well in that case why don’t you help with my nature preserve you can start by watering the flowers.” The green thumb pointed to 4 red backpack sprayers. The sisters each pick up a sprayer, put it on and each spray a flower only for both plants to wilt away.
“WHY DID YOU USE THE WEED KILLER?” The gardener yelled desperately pressing a thumb against one of the flower’s stem to no avail.
“You never told use there was weed kill-“ the older sister gets cut off by Tree suddenly yanking the spray hose tip “You can clearly tell the difference the weed killer is slightly more bent than the water.”
***
“You 2 are lucky it takes a lot to make me mad and that you only killed one plant before I noticed. The next task I’ll give you is feeding a rare creature known as Cuckoos. Deforestation can also harm to population of rare creatures.” She hands each of the apple ponies a tray of grains.
“Sounds simple enough” Apple Bloom thought as she entered the pen, despite being a little intimidated by the rare chicken’s fully red eyes she easily came up to one offering the grains which it gladly started eating.
“Eat up little critter” she said to the Cucco and goes to pet it. It ends up taking that as a threat as bites her hand knocking her to the dirt.
“Apple Bloom!” The older sister runs over to help sister only to be attacked by the trio of Cuccos she was feeding causing her to fall and destroy the pen’s fence resulting in the flock running off into the woods.
“Not again” Tree grumbled walking into the woods
***
“Fine here’s something you 2 can’t possibly mess up.”
“Hey! It wasn’t our fault we picked the weed killer or that the Cuccos took my jester as a threat.” Apple Bloom reasoned “That’s beside the point! All I want you to do is water this sunflower and place fertilizer.”
Applejack grabs the watering can and pours its contents onto the plant followed by Blossom placing the fertilizer. Something they didn’t expect was for the sunflower to suddenly grow in height, becoming as tall as a tree and sprouting a bunch of vines similar to a thorn bush minus the thorns. “What in tarnation is in this fertilizer.” Applejack asked checking the bag only to find it’s actually called Instant Grow.
“How did you-“ Tree Hugger cuts herself off and with a swift of her hands enveloped the oversized flower in a green aura and which a few more
“Woah didn’t know you could do that!” Apple Bloom exclaimed “This is why it takes a lot to make me angry cause I can just reverse everything you do to the environment.”
“How did you get these powers anyway?” Applejack asked
“I’m quite the green thumb.” Tree then shows the duo her thumbs and a closer look reveals a patch of grass growing on the tip of each thumb which blends in with her coat “Well more accurately it’s a side effect of my powers.”
Flashback
A very tired, dirty and black eyed Tree Hugger with one half of a hand cuff on her wrist with the other half dangling, sits down on her couch.
“These protest are just getting more and more ridiculous.” She said to herself grabbing and looking at a framed picture of a forest from her couch side table. This protest in question was breaking into town hall which got her punched in the eye by a Royal Guard and almost arrested if it wasn’t for all the chaos.
The environmentalist looks out her window at the exact patch of forest in her framed photo to find it with less trees, less plants and overall looked less majestic.
“I’ve put my own heart and soul into preserving the environment and haven’t made any progress.” She grabs and looks at a small potted plant on her couch side table only for it to suddenly grow and engulfs the earth pony in it’s petals.
Once she manages to find her way out she find herself in front of a bunch of caged hybrid creatures “What type of rare creatures are these?!” She ends up bumping into something and turns out to find a demon which makes her scream and scram only to trip on a small rock. Tree Hugger looks up to find herself before Lord Tirek.
“You’ve put your heart and soul in environmentalism Tree Hugger?” the way he say her name creeps out “Yes and a I haven’t made much progress. All I want is to be a better protector of nature.”
“I’ve had another similar request but if you insist.” The Devil snaps and once the pillar of orange fire disappears nothing about the pony’s appearance changes “You can now grow plants on any land including ones without fertile soil.”
Tree Hugger swiftly moves her hand which sprouts a flower in the rocky soil “Now for your soul!”
“Oh you were being serious?” She asks nervously backing up as Tirek goes to grab her soul contract “That was just a figure of speech…” she makes another swift movement with her hand which sprouts a few large vines which manages to hold Tirek long enough for her to grow a beanstalk below herself and escape.
“My lord I’ve picked up another anomaly.” Thorax informs “Darn it! Second time this month. You know what to do.” He strains struggling to rip through the vines.
Back To The Present
“But how did you exactly-“ Applejack ends up getting rudely cut off by Tree Hugger.
“This is a bit off topic but I’m pretty sure I missed a Cucco in the woo-“ speak of the Devil her statement gets jinxed by said rare chicken jumping her from behind and mainly attacking her mane. This is followed by something even more random in form of an energy orb hitting her like a snowball turning her eyes green.
“Your incompetence has proved that you don’t care about the environment! I’ll wilt you both away like you did to the flowers!” With a swipe of her hand she grows then kicks a pink mushroom, luckily Apple Bloom manages to parry it but neither sister is fast to enough to avoid being encased in a ball of vines, luckily the latter uses a glowing card which manages to tear a hole in vines if enough for both to escape before it regenerates.
“Google luck finding me!” The gardener taunts followed by a large wall of vines and plants forming in front of her blocking the duo off. Both fire a round of Spread at the wall which get rid of the plants long enough to get by. They run into the woods only to find themselves at the entrance of a massive fallen and standing tree.
“Guess it’s not just leaves and vines she can grow.” Applejack informs her sisters “There’s no way around looks like were gonna have to go through.”
Right as the Apple sisters step a hoof into the tree they’re almost hit by an over sized Roly Poly which they jump over.
“Woah haven’t see one of those since our foalhood.” AB commented
“Don’t remember them being that big.” Her sister added her first comment gets out done by another roly poly bouncing like a ball towards them luckily this one goes over their heads. Blossom attempts to jump over another bouncing poly only to be cracked by it. Another poly aims for where she’s standing but the earth pony is smart enough to move back then forward when it bounces up. The apple sisters continue forward deciding to shoot through the wave of straight and bouncing roly polys with a round of Spread.
Applejack sees a bouncing pink roly and parrys it when it comes down giving her enough of a boost to collect one of Zecora’s token
“Keep a sharp out eye Apple Bloo-AHH!” Applejack ends up cutting herself off by accidentally falling into a hole in the tree but rather than falling to a shattering demise she instead feels a pain in her tail resulting in a sudden massive leap which lands her back onto the wooden floor.
“What was that?” Apple Bloom asked
“Must be another side effect or feature from the potion Granny Smith gave us.” Applejack theorized
“Better keep going before we get another unexpected sup-“ It’s Apple Bloom’s turn to cut herself off as a massive anteater tongue comes out of a hole on the tree’s ceiling cracking her, bringing her to danger level.
“You’ve gotta be kidding!” Apple Bloom walks past the hole when it retreats and when the tongue comes back down attempts to shoot it but doesn’t seem to do any damage to it.
“Looks like it too big to feel any pain from your Spread.” Applejack theorized walking past the tongue. The duo stop before running into another anteater tongue but when it starts retreating Apple Bloom sees that it had grabbed another oversized bit and without thinking jump for it managing to grab without shattering.
The Apple sisters seemingly find themselves at a dead, with the only thing there being an oversized bit Applejack collects.
All of a sudden an oversized mosquito from the forest ‘frolic’ cracked Applejack from behind bringing her to potential shattering level but prompts both to look up to find where they should be headed next.
Applejack grabs onto a tree platform and once on it helps her sister up, right as another oversized mosquito revealed to be going in a zigzag pattern fly at them which they take out with a small round of spread.
They jump to another platform defeating another mosquito but as soon as they jumped to a third one a somehow sentient totem pole fires a cannon ball at then shattering them
You Died!: This treehosue doesn’t allow any ponies like you
The Apple sisters wake up and find themselves back at the entrance of the fallen treehouse “Seriously no checkpoints?”
“Guess the catch also applies to these Run n Guns Apple Bllom.” Both run back inside only to forget and get cracked by the first Roly Poly.
Besides that setback they make their way through the first part fairly easy. They start climbing up the tree, jumping from one platform to another. They get back to the third platform and when the totem pole fires at the duo ducks avoiding the cannonball and allowing them to destroy with the Spread the totem while it’s reloading.
They Spread out a few more mosquitos jumping from platform to platform finding this tree to be a lot taller than they thought.
They duck just in time to avoid another cannonball from another totem pole which is revealed to have 2 projectile shooting heads. The next 2 cannonballs are pink and Apple Bloom take this opportunity as an another opportunity to test her parrying skill.
She jumps up parrying the first projectile boosting her up enough to parry the second one allowing her to not only get over the totem pole but also grab another token behind the enemy. She defeats the sentient decoration allowing her older sister to jump onto the platform.
And with another Spread out oversized mosquito reached the last paltform spotting a exit, with Applejack nabbing another bit from behind a pair of large leaves.
Apple Bloom ends off walking the edge of the tree platform and rather than falling all the way down after 3 seconds Blossom gets the pain in her tail which boosts her up to a large leaf held by a equally large mosquito which gives up after a few seconds and after 3 more seconds shatters. Luckily Applejack manages to catch her sister in time and after she does dashes to another leaf
Thank you
Apple Bloom hits the same area where she broke but seem to have so kind of invincibility as she’s boosted to the leaf Applejack is on only for that platform to give way resulting in AB shattering again, AJ uses her invincibility boost to parry her sister.
Thank you
Applejack fails to land on another leaf platform and ends up shattering with Apple Bloom missing the parry her invincibility boost just shy or reaching her sister, and due to her focus on this goal she also fails to land on another leaf.
You Died!
***
The sister reach the exit part, this time making sure to watch for the edge. They jump on one leaf making sure to get off and only another before the mosquitoes holding it up gave up. They then found themselves before this massive dragonfly at least 3 times their size, starts breathing literal fireballs out of its mouth. It destroys the leaf both are standing on but lucky both jump to separate platforms and since Applejack was in range fired a round of Spread.
The next fireball is pink which AJ parrys allowing her to the the token on top of the dragonfly’s head before dashing back to her platform.
Another fireball burns the leaf Appleajack is on but she manages to jump to another one on the far left , where Apple Bloom joins her. They manage to bait the dragonfly into firing a fireball at the leaf allowing them to get to closer platforms and Spread the fly out.
They both use a glowing card firing a ex shot which comes in the form of a circle of large red arrows and although about only half of the arrows hit the dragonfly it’s enough to defeat it making it spin and dizzy before falling to the forest floor.
The duo make the final jump entering into another tree.
Bravo!!
Both find the tree to actually be a slide which they go down and land in some mud.
“Oh horse apples!” Apple Bloom says only to for sister to throw a mud ball at her which sparks some kind of foalhood charm between them as then started playing in the mud, and having a mudball fight.
This charm is brief as Applejack accidentally throws a mudball which seems to have some hard inside evident by Apple Bloom’s reaction.
“Ow what is in th-“ the mud slides off the object revealing a 6th oversized bit.
The Apple seem to have gone on the right trail as they now find themselves in a field full of oversized plants and flowers.
“So you’ve made past all the treetop trouble no matter the powers of nature should take care of you.” They look over to find Tree Hugger eyes still glowing green, 10 times her original size, coat now with a texture similar to a flower stem with thorns, hooves tips now resemble roots, mane’s similar to tree leaves and adorned with flowers.
This match will get red hot! Now go!
Applejack steps on flower with a bee on it to assure dominance and Apple Bloom blows a dandelion. Both sisters jump on 1 of 3 which is nearest to Tree to hit her with their Spread. Apple Bloom stands near the edge of the platform which proves to be a mistake as she gets cracked by one of Tree’s thorns.
The duo back up when she releases some projectiles from her mane Applejack gets hit by one luckily the others aren’t a problem for them.
The projectiles are revealed to be seeds as vines sprout from the ground releasing heat seeking chompers which prove to be no problem for the sister.
Tree Hugger releases another round of seeds, 2 of them being pink Aj ends up parrying one. And once they take out the chompers, the other pink seed sprouts into a flying flower who opens it’s petals to fire a pink projectile which AB parrys.
Both continue to Spread out Tree Hugger who seems ready to shoot out her thorn covered arms. Applejack’s suspicion is proven right pulling herself and her sister off the platform right as the environmentalist shoots her vines over the flower platforms which give the Apple sisters the opportunity to increase their Spread dps.
Tree Hugger gets ready to do this attack again, the earth ponies play little attention to this continuing to fire Spread at the debtor who ends up extending the vines under the platforms cracking both, which is followed by the seedling attack, bringing both to danger level
Applejack gets hit with a seed shattering her Apple Bloom goes to revive but ends up partying the flying flowers pink projectile over her sister resulting the AJ going out of range and AB getting hit by a chomper.
You Died!: Nature isn’t just a beautiful sight
***
“Quick tip sis pay attention to what direction she’s aiming her vines.” Apple Bloom advises, as both ponies jump to the platforms seeing Tree’s arms aiming downwards, which go under the platforms
The half plant, half earth pony seems to change tactics as she gets ready to fire some thorns off her vine arms, Applejack jumps while Apple Bloom duck both actions prove to be a mistake as a thorn shoots up cracking AJ and another fires down cracking AB. Both jump back on top of the platforms as Tree Hugger closes her vines before opening them revealing a V shaped root which they jump over, before going under the flowers only for the root to crack them from behind revealing to be a boomerang. She uses the thorn missiles again except this time the duo manage to manoeuvre around them.
They dodge the boomerang staying on the platforms, then another few thorns only for Tree Hugger to immediately sent out another boomerang which ends up shattering Applejack, AB misses the parry jumping under the platforms where she avoids the boomerang, forcing her to continue without her sister.
Thorns are sent out again, AB jumps over the thorns coming for her only to be shattered by the one going straight.
You Died!: How about you eat my thorns and push up some daisies while you’re at it.
***
Applejack pops a ex card a few arrows hitting the plant pony, and one hitting the flying flower when it opened it mouth defeating it with Apple Bloom parrying the projectile.
Apple Bloom fires an ex shot and a few large arrows seem to be enough to wear Tree out as she suddenly starts scratching her hair, which at first doesn’t seem to do anything as the sisters continued to fire Spread but after a few seconds releases a yellow-ish green-ish gas.
“Got a pollen allergy?” Tree Hugger rhetorically asked
“Doesn’t matter this can still do a number of you.” Although neither sister had a pollen allergy, the pollen blurred their vision and caused lots of coughing.
AB and AJ ended up crashing right into the half plant, half pony luckily some kind of invincibility dash saved them from cracking a second time. Suddenly another flying flower sprouted from a seed the duo don’t recall seeing, except this one rather than shooting pink projectiles shot glowing blue projectiles and instead of shooting at the sister it shot at and damaged Tree.
Apple Bloom goes to shoot it when it’s vulnerable but Applejack stops her “Hang on sis that flower is helping us!”
AJ points to the glowing effect of the projectile which allowed the Apples to briefly see through the cloud of pollen. Both get close to Tree Hugger but make the mistake of getting in the projectile’s way, resulting in another crack.
The Apple sisters have to rely solely on their Spread since they couldn’t risk accidentally destroying the helpful flower. They couldn’t jump, either not wanting to risk jumping into the debtor.
Luckily Apple Bloom notices the environmentalists about to slam her thorn arms, managing to dash out the way, Applejacks ends up getting shattered by the thorns on the tips of the tree’s arms luckily her slightly younger sister catches her thanks to the blue glowing projectile.
Thank you!
Immediately after that, Apple Bloom ends up jumping right into Tree Hugger’s thorns, luckily Applejack blindly parry her.
Thank you!
The continue to blindly Spread out Tree only for AJ to get in the way of the projectile, AB goes to revive her only to accidentally parry jump into the plant pony.
You Died!: Even with some help you still fall to my extreme pollination.
***
Both sisters quickly dash away to avoid the thorn slam attack one final glowing blue projectile manages to cause Tree’s leaves to fall out, piling at her stem, revealing branches that resembled nerves.
The pollen clears up, the duo find themselves in the back of the battlefield, Tree Hugger roars in anger blowing the helpful flower away. Tree reaches for something far beyond the battlefield, the ponies duck expecting something to get thrown but instead a green substance start flowing onto the ground.
Luckily both sisters jump onto the last flower platform before it can reach them. The liquid starts bubbling and out jumps a familiar foe.
It was a Smooze from their forest ‘frolic’ it easily take it out before it can reach them.The duo jump to the first platform nearest to Tree Hugger and pop each pop a ex card.
2 Smoozes jump out of the slime Applejack gets cracked by one and Blossom attempts to dash to the next platform but the gap is too large resulting in a crack but rather than gets stuck to the slime she uses her invincibility boost, to get back on the platform.
Apple Bloom suspecting another Smooze coming jumps right as it appears unfortunately it jumps at the earth pony’s exact height.
Tree Hugger throws a flower at them like a ninja star Applejack dodges it only to accidentally fall into the slime and Apple Bloom is directly hit by it shattering in the process.
Applejack goes to parry only to be blocked by a Smooze.
You Died!: I take my environmentalism to a whole another level
***
The Apple Sisters dodge another ninja flower this one being pink which Apple Bloom parrys and uses the ex card to not only damage Treethe half plant half pony but also take out the trio of Smoozes jumping at them.
Applejack jumps to another the platform second nearest to Tree just barely avoiding the Smooze which Apple Bloom takes care of, allowing AJ to come back
Out the nowhere 5 Smoozes jump out go to attack both-
A Knockout! the slime clears up as Tree Hugger start wilting away screaming the entire way until looking a dried out and dehydrated evident by a brownish color.
AJ and AB climb off the platform and slowly approach her and a single poke is enough to cause the remains of the gardener to crack, break and for a passed out Tree Hugger to fall out with her soul contract on top her head which Apple Bloom grabs
“Wow this smells like freshly cut grass…how long do we have now sis!”
“Woah took use a whole hour!” AJ shows her sis the watch now reading 46 hours.
Author's Note
Made lots of last minute changes (As I was writing the chapter) one of those being finally finding a trio for the Root Pack
Chrysalis’ warning is basically the equivalent of King Dice’s reminder to play in normal mode
This chapter might seem a bit dull to you readers, with the relatively low word counter on a early chapter (even I found it a bit dull either that or I’m just bored thanks to my summer vacation) but the next chapter will be more exciting
Update: Started writing this chapter during my last ever month of middle school ended up finishing a few weeks into my summer vacation
Note: The helpful flower was a scrapped enemy in the Cagney fight which could fire a blue projectile that could damage the boss, while it was most likely just gonna randomly spawn during the seed attack I decided to reuse it for a extra phase.
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Stop Being/If Only You Weren’t So Wishy Washy!
“Well that takes Tree Hugger off the list.” Applejack said crossing the gardener’s name off the list with red marker as Apple Bloom put her soul contract in a sack.
“Guess we should be heading to Flu-“ AJ cuts herself off/trails off her eyes widening which also stare at something else, worrying her sister “What’s wrong AJ?”
Apple Bloom sees someone on the list named The Washouts “How in tarnation did someone get the name Washouts?” AB asked as AJ taps the name which reveals a list of names made of 6 different creatures named Lightning Dust, Bulk Biceps, Rumble, Scootaloo, Featherweight and Thunder Clap.
“Huh guess well off after them” Applejack declared “But how are we gonna find them?” Apple Bloom asked
“You know sis I should’ve asked you the same thing when we were debating on Fluttershy or Tree Hugger at least for the latter we know were she was and had an idea of who she could be.”
“What’s the plan now?”
“Guess we’ll just around.” AJ declared they they see and start to follow a sign to Ponyville which is a few miles away. It’s not even a few minutes later when, Apple Bloom finds and picks up a surprisingly shiny apple, all of a sudden her sister pulls her towards herself just barely avoiding a nose diving plane that crashes into and knocks down a tree. If that wasn’t enough the plane starts leaking oil which catches on fire and explodes.
“Welp test 64 is another major failure.” The duo see a pegasus flying down towards them marking something off her clipboard. The pegasus in question was sky blue with a rainbow coloured mane she was dressed in classic aviation, goggles above her eyes and a blue scarf with yellow marks.
“Wait a second I know you! You were apart of that show called the darn it forgot the name…” Applejack trailed off
“The Wonderbolts yeah I remember those days…the name’s Rainbow Dash, once the Wonderbolts had disbanded I tried getting into other stuff like treasure hunting, reading, medical school and even the royal guard.
“But once all those had failed I visited Equestria’s history museum which sparked an interest in classic aviation the days when other ponies were trying to achieve flight without the help of pegasi. It inspired me to purchase classic aviation clothing, well except for my scarf and goggles they’re just part of my Wonderbolt uniform.” Rainbow takes off her scarf revealing the yellow marks to be bolts of lightning, before re wrapping it around her neck. She takes her goggles off revealing a Wonderbolts logo, another lightning bolt, followed by place it back above her eyes.
“I learned to engineer planes and right now I’m working on recreating classic earth pony plane which I’ve done in only 1 year.”
“You learned engineering in 1 year?” AJ asked “Not exactly, I tried the different hobbies and learned engineering all in a year. I’m not just fast flight wise you know.”
“Well nice to meet you Rainbow Dash. I’m Apple Bloom and this is my sister Applejack.” Apple Bloom introduced “Say did you see a group of ponies who go by the group name the Washouts?”
“The Washouts? You mean those Wonderbolts wannabes? I’ve heard all about them while they did form after the Wonderbolts disbanded they’re still trying to take over the legacy of the Wonderbolts claiming to be 20 thousand percent cooler than us with insane over exaggeratied stuns over flight formations and shows.”
“Well have you seen them?” Applejack brought up again
“Why you ask?” The aviator asked starting to sound pushy “Okay fine this might sound crazy but we’re currently trying to save our own souls from the literal devil known as Lord Tirek, by collecting the souls of his debtors.” AJ explained
“And so far the debtors we have fought have all gotten angry and attacked us, when we mess up too many tasks.” AB added
“Well knowing the overall nature of the Washouts you 2 might need attack planes with turrets, good thing I’m a quite the egghead when it comes to engineering.”
“When should we be expecting our planes?” AJ squinted “Well considering I’m starting with slightly dismantled planes and my speed I should say about 30 minutes yeah I’m that fast. Call me Ms 30 Minutes Flat!” She jokes before flying off briefly leaving a rainbow trail behind.
“Okay that last part was strange but we better get-“ Applejack ends up getting her hoof stuck under a piece of the failed plane causing her to collide with her sister and sending them both down the charred hill and despite Apple Bloom hitting her head on a rock she doesn’t crack.
“Well would you look at that!” Apple Bloom said, while rubbing her head and adjusting her bow. She points to an open mausoleum, covered with vines and some fallen debris.
“There’s seems to be a trail leading inside!” Applejack added spotting a trail of blank white pages “Oh no AJ there’s no way I’m going in there I’ve seen enough movies and read enough Daring Do books to know there’s never anything good inside an abandoned building.” Apple Bloom explained crossing her arms, turning her head and closing her eyes.
“Come on Apple Bloom we’re not fillies anymore plus he have these.” Applejack reminded pointing at her index finger as she walked into the mausoleum. Despite looking big on the outside it was really only one room big and wasn’t much of an actual mausoleum as it had abandoned bookshelves on either side each somehow still lined with book. The main eye catcher though was an urn on top of a counter with a curtain like pattern on it.
“Hang on sis don’t grab it, it might set off a booby trap!”
“Like I said sis we’re not fillies anymore!” The slightly older sister goes to grab the urn but it only seem to slightly budge, she tries again this time stepping onto the counter “Darn it! I can shake it but it won’t come off! It’s bolted to this counter top!”
“So what are we doing here?” The slightly younger one brings into question.
Here Comes A Spooky Bunch! Here Goes!
A book suddenly flies off one of the shelves and starts snapping it jaws like a rabid animal scaring Apple Bloom to join her sister on the counter top. Applejack attempts to shoot it with her Spread but it phases through. Apple Bloom tries with another ghostly book on her side of the counter getting the same result.
Confused the earth ponies jump off the counter finding out the books are actually aiming for the urn. As soon as both books touch it the duo suddenly collapse
You Failed! You Died: Maybe try doing it by the book.
“HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE!” Applejack yelled i the middle of the mysterious realm.
“Maybe the urn was cursed and if something haunted made contact it would shatter anyone near by.” Apple Bloom suggested
“Maybe good thing we’re always brought back.”
The Apple sisters stand on either side of the counter top as the first 2 books arrive “Hey sis both books have a pink gem on them!” The younger one points out.
“Parrying time!” AJ responds as she and her sis jump at the book successfully parrying them causing each book respectively to fall to the ground releasing a pink ghost which flies off.
“Protect the urn!” AB comments
They don’t have anytime to process this though as another pair of ghosts appear, luckily thanks to them being a duo they each manage to keep the haunted objects at bay in each respective side.
One book came from the corner Applejack jumps to early missing the parry but luckily Apple Bloom lands the hit as her sister takes the book on her side out.
They have a wait a few moments before parrying books that come from the corner. Apple Bloom faces a new challenge which is in the form of a pair of books on her side. She lands the first parry giving her a boost high enough to reach the second unfortunately see misses getting cracked by the book, luckily Applejack makes up the parry.
“Woah that one’s fast!” the latter comments as a green book moving surprisingly fast heads for the urn luckily, AJ easily parrys it.
Apple Bloom takes a pair of books and get very good luck when she parrys a fast one before it could even fully get off the shelf as Applejack takes down one last fast one, the ghost possessing it flying off.
Victory!
The cap of the urn suddenly pops off releasing a purple ball of energy which then transform into a purple unicorn with wings, it has a transparent, sparkling almost crystal like appearance. She was dressed in a pink dressed with gold lining and sashes.
“Oh why hello they’re my name’s Princess Twilight Sparkle top student of-“
“Oh so you wanna be that kind of pony?” AJ asks “Oh you figured out.” Twilight congratulates sounding amused “Not many creatures see me as a bookworm, yapper, egghead nerd etc.”
“Well Twilight what’s the deal with the horn and wings, and more importantly how did you end up inside the urn.” AB questions.
“Simple I’m a alicorn a species only seen in my dimension and a privilege only given to the best of the best in the real, while there exists a few ponies in my realm, I’m a princess more specifically the Princess Of Wisdom 1 of 5 alicorns in Equestrian history. Although 1 did get their status revoked but that’s besides the point. My main point that my job as Princess Of Wisdom is to provide support and guidance to those who deserve it.”
“Oh yeah almost forgot I was wandering this reality but I ended up getting caught by the wandering spirits who trapped me in that urn. And speaking of deserving support you 2 defiently deserve some.” Using her magic Twilight spawns in 3 objects, a pair of gold necklaces with a gem in the middle and a quesadilla with the same appearance as the alicorn.
“This is a quesadilla I was gifted which I never bothered eating as it was just to cheesy, so I made some magical adjustments and made an Astral Quesadilla. Don’t worry it’s not bitten, even if it was it auto generates and cleanse itself of any germs. Meaning even if a sick creature took a bite it’ll still be good and you can eat it in one bite and it will just respawn.”
Twilight offers the snack to Apple Bloom who expects it to just phase through her hands but instead she touches and grabs it, but it felt more like a hollow vase than an actual quesadilla. She then takes bite only to suddenly collapse “Don’t worry that’s normal!” Twilight tells Applejack before the latter could say anything.
All of a sudden a portal with a familiar background opened up as AB is turned into her spirit form and Twilight takes her place gaining a physical still retaining her horn and wings.
“Ta-da! Don’t worry I’m an upgrade from your normal moveset!” The alicorn demonstrates this by jumping before gaining a boost by flapping her wings basically doing a double jump. “I can parry by dashing instead of jumping, I can teleport out of a sticky situation but it has a very long cooldown and it isn’t guaranteed I’ll be in a safe spot.”
The alicorn then returns to the portal bringing Apple Bloom back to life “Don’t worry it has no time limit, you can use me as long as it takes a defeat a debtor.”
“I wonder…” Apple Bloom trails off, she splits the Astral Quesadilla with Applejack manages to throw the half into her mouth, but when the other Apple also goes to take one it slips out of her hands and lands shattering like a vase once it hits the floor.
“I thought of that…” The alicorn in her physical form says “If you both try to use the quesadilla there’s a 50/50 chance of one of you dropping and using it.”
Twilight reverts back to her original form, prompting the sisters to test out this half and half chance. Apple Bloom re halves the snack and, takes a bite but when Applejack goes to throw it into her mouth it hits her upper lip and shatters.
“Can you teach us about those necklaces now?” AJ asks
“Oh right!” Twilight brings Apple Bloom back to life and offers the 2 golden necklaces to the duo “This is Super Element 1. Typically it takes an entire set of spells to activate but it seems to be compatible with your powers.” When the alicorn places the element near to the sisters the gem glows pink but when she places it into the portal the stone reverts to white.
Applejack takes puts the element but as soon as she does, the earth pony feels something in her pocket, she reaches and finds 5 spinning glowing cards. She intends to use only one but ends up using all 5 as she slams her hooves down sending a massive orange energy wave which destroys the counter top but somehow doesn’t shatter the urn.
“Huh guess it is really magic…I think it even works in mid air.”
Apple Bloom tests this theory out, putting on the necklace before jumping and activating Super Element 1 which makes her slam her hooves into a invisible floor and send a massive yellow energy wave, which fizzles out after it hits a wall.
“I have a feeling Super Element 1 is somehow connected with those cards.” Twilight points out
“Which we get from parrying!” AJ adds
“And typically use to fire Ex shots!” AB concludes
“Well in that case guess you can parry to charge up your Super Elements 1.”
***
Applejack and Apple Bloom thanks to their farm pony strength manage to easily block off the entrance to the mausoleum by rolling a boulder over it “Phew don’t want any other wandering spirits getting trapped in there.” AJ tells Twily
“By the way you 2 as the Princess of Wisdom unless it and absolute realm threatening emergency I cannot help you in spirit form the only things I can do is observe and give tip. Or else I might get a strike.”
“Strike? Towards what?” AB asks
“A strike go towards getting my status revoked it was enforced after that one alicorn got their status revoked but unlike that former alicorn I actually get to stick around…welp se ya later!” And with that Twilight reopens and disappears into the portal.
***
The Apples had finally made it into Ponyville when they both realized something.
“We forgot to ask Rainbow for the location of the Washouts.” The duo said in union, looking at each other which ends with them crashing into a wagon pulled by a hooded creature.
The creature takes off its hood revealing itself to be Zecora “Welcome back Apples may I interest you in more additions to your artillery?”
“I don’t see why not.” Applejack shrugs before reaching into the wagon and pulls out a bottle with the same color scheme as the spread but logo had an angle with sparks coming out. The other was a green glass bottle with a green sticker showing a yellow target like logo.
“I’ll sell you both of these for 6 bits!”
The Apples hand the zebra the 2 sets of 3 oversized bits allowing them to take the weapons.
“Let see here Crackshot, if able to hit a target directly does a good amount of damage but if it misses homes in on the intended target but does relatively less damage.” Applejack reads
“Chaser as the name implies it always chases and follows the target however this weapon does below average damage.” Apple Bloom reads
“Oh yeah almost forgot you can also switch weapons by snapping your other hand.” Zecora informs
“Really?” The slightly younger sister snaps her other finger and when she fires out comes the Peashot.
“Well that could’ve been helpful earlier.” The slightly older one grumbles as it would’ve been helpful when the duo had to land on the farthest platform during the Tree Hugger fight.
“Lime? I wanted green apple!” Apple Bloom fillyish complains as she gulps down half the Spread bottle.
“At least this one tastes like cherry!” Applejack comments gulping down half the Crackshot before both sisters exchange bottles.
“Thank you! Goodbye!” Zecora waves “Wait one more thing Zecora!” Apple Bloom exclaims “By chance have you seen a group known as the Washouts?”
“Oh yeah I think I saw them by Ponyville runway.”
“Then that’s where we’re heading!” Applejack declares
“Thank you! Goodbye!” The sisters say and wave back to Zecora.
***
“You 3 go far!” A young Washout member says as they hop onto their scooter before hitting the croquet ball with the mallet.
Another young Washout member she along with the rest of the group was dressed in the traditional uniform with a black flightsuit, with green marking, complete with a helmet with safety visors and breathing mask.
This Washout hits the ball with their mallet only for it to complete miss all 6 rings and instead hit the thrower’s goggles cracking them.
“Seriously Rumble?” The thrower said discarding the damaged goggles for a spare.
“Not my fault I’m don’t know my own strength Scootaloo.” Rumble responds as another croquet rolls past the 2 foals, through the 6 rings.
“That one point for you Featherweight!” The final young Washout told the latter, who just smiles in response.
“If you think that’s nice check this out!” The other tells Featherweight as they hit the croquet ball off the ground and through the rings somehow not disturbing any of the hoops.
“Nice job Thunder Clap!” Rumble comments
“Alright you 4 playtime’s over time for the daily stunt rehearsal!” The Washouts leader Lightning Dust announced, despite Thunder Clap being younger had the same fur color as her sister.
“Do we have to?” Thunder fillyish asked her older sister “Why don’t we ask Featherweight’s older brother Bulk Biceps.”
“YEAH!” The latter responded
“Fair enough” Scootaloo accepted
“Alright Washouts for this stunt, one of you will have to go off that large ramp and jump over 10 boxes of fireworks. 3 boxes of dynamite and 20 piles paper by riding a scooter carrying a few candles!” Lightning informed pointing at said objects as she was explaining “Any questions?”
“Are they suppose to be here?” Rumble asked pointing to the Apples who had just arrived, the leader slightly annoyed, she takes off her helmet and flies over to the duo
“Hey you 2 get lost! The next Washouts show isn’t until next week and in case you’re one of those Wonderbolt supporters and want to calls us cheap copies you can also get lost!” The Washouts have faced their fair share of Wonderbolt supporters who had mainly arrived during practice to berate them luckily nothing to major ever happened during one of these rallies.
Applejack immediately sees how rude the Washouts’ leader is “We’re actually here to collect your s-“ she gets interrupted by her sister covering her mouth.
“What my sister meant to say is that we’re here to hang out with you all!” Apple Bloom said still standing by her peaceful approach.
“Alrighty then if you want to hang out with ponies as cools as us you’re gonna need to do something equally cool…like that stunt!” Lightning declared pointing at the daily stunt.
“Can we back out now?” Apple Bloom asked
“Too late!” Both earth ponies sigh and climb to the top of the ramp and are placed on the candle filled scooter with the leader putting a large firework on each of their backs “For a little extra boost a earth pony bonus if you may!”
Both are then sent down the ramp but barely make it past the fireworks as they crash between thefinal box full of the latter item and the first box of dynamite sparking each box one by one prompting the Washouts of hid behind a scrap metal barrier, which is followed by a explosion
“Welp there 2 full body hoof and head casts along with drinking through straws.” Lightning Dust said jotting that down on a notepad.
“Was that cool enough?” Applejack asked as she along with her sister, besides some soot mark, were completely fine. The Washouts all had to rub their eyes to make sure they weren’t hallucinating. Since all the explosives ended up going off all at the same time it only counted as 1 hit point lost from the sisters.
“Okay? That was spectacular! No pony can ever recover from a blast that big can survive you got our bill! Lightning Dust sticks her hand out in a curved position much to the confusion of the Apples “Don’t leave me hanging dap me up!”
Applejack manages to curve the opposite hand the same way and collides it with the pegasus’ who squeezes it slightly.
“You’re cool in our eyes!” Scootaloo says prompting Apple Bloom with the same gesture which the latter takes.
“The name Lightning Dust, this is Rumble, Scootaloo and Thunder Clap…then there’s Featherweight he a pony of no words, can still make noises speaking of which that’s Bulk Biceps.”
“YEAH!”
“That’s about all he can say.” Although AB and AJ already knew the names of all the Washouts it was good to know who is who.
“You know we Washouts are currently working on a massive plane named the Super-Dragon 9000 and what to know the best part…we built it can use it in the next show cause what’s the fun in doing test flights!”
“And in the mean time perhaps your sister can hang out with us?” Thunder Clap suggested
“She’s right Apple Bloom I think it’s about time you start hanging out with ponies your age.”
“Fair enough sis!” The latter responds as the leader leads the eldest Apple sister to their garage where the Super-Dragon was currently being worked on.
It was not what the earth pony expected, rather than a carefully constructed plane with organized tools instead it was a bunch of scrap metal, tools all over the floor and a massive oil spill.
“How in tarnation do you call this a plane, furthermore a super one, it’s like none of you know anything in engineering.”
“That another thing what’s the fun in learning all the boring stuff in engineering when we make create an awesome plane without studying!”
This is gonna be a long process Applejack thought as reached inside the scrap metal carcass and started repairing a oil leaking engine.
***
“So what do ya like doing for fun?” Apple Bloom asks the same aged ponies
“While Lightning Dust recommends practice stunts…” Scootaloo trails off
“We play croquet!” Rumble exclaims pulling out the mallet and 6 ring hoops.
“Well how do ya play? Is it like horseshoe?” Blossom assumed as the hoops were horseshoe shaped, she threw one which ended up spinning around Featherweight’s surprisingly skinny neck the latter simply laughing in response.
“We don’t throw the hoops we place them down.” Thunder informs removing the hoop from Featherweight’s neck and planting it into the ground.
“Here’s an example for you it’s like cricket, which is basically baseball but you uppercut the ball, what I’m saying is that it’s basically uppercutting baseball but softer.” Rumble explains planting the rest of the hoops down.
“Something like this!” Scootaloo explains before hitting one ball with her mallet sending it through all 6 hoops “That’s one point for me! Should be simple enough for you!”
Scootaloo offers the mallet to the earth pony who gladly takes it. Bloom lines up her shot and with a simple tap to the ball it rolls past all 6 hoops gaining a single point “Well what do ya know I did it!”
Flashback
Lightning Dust was currently laying on her cloud bed, staring at the ceiling and with nothing else to do like joining her sister’s croquet game she decided to reflect on her life. She still remembered the day she was disqualified from Wonderbolt tryouts due to her reckless behaviour and her rival since foalhood made the official team.
Apparently the Wonderbolts weren’t these cool and dangerous group of pegasi performed stunts instead they were these very strict and organized group of pegasi who performed equally organized flight formations.
Turns out that a few other Wonderbolt candidates shared the same view as Dust but knew that she had to be the first one to actually do something to support her cause. Her plan was to create a flight team of her own but immediately recognized 2 problems with her plot.
The first was fairly small being no cool name for the rival team that didn’t scream cheap Wonderbolt copy but the second much bigger problem was the publicity this team would get and not the good type. She could already see the amount of haters and booers at their shows
She continued to reflect on all the choices good and bad she had made in her life when a paper ball suddenly flew into her room.
“Sorry sis hit all the croquet balls off the clouds had to improvise with newspapers.” Thunder Clap said as Lightning picks up and goes to throw the makeshift ball back only to notice a bold Wonder as some kind of headline. She uncrumbles the paper revealing the full headline
Wonderbolts Officially Disbanding: Last Team In Equestrian History, End Of A Era! Legacy Will Live On!
“I think it’s time for a new era of flight shows!” Dust thought only to get a small rock thrown at her through the window courtesy of Clap “Thought rocks will make good croquet balls?” The younger sibling asked rhetorically “Yeah I didn’t think either.”
***
“Sis are you sure this is a good idea?” Thunder asks as Lightning gives her some flight goggles “This is my best idea yet! Call up your friends and tell them to bring their sibling!”
“Only one of my friends has a sibling.”
“One extra member will work!”
“You’ve seen how Featherweight acts and his older brother Bulk Biceps is no different…well aside from only saying one word.”
“Even better he’ll be more focused!”
***
Once she had given the new ‘members ’ off brand and cheap flight goggles Lightning decided to test out her first stun.
“Alright Scootaloo using your scooter you’ll go off the hill onto that ramp and jump over all 10 of these boxes filled with glue and feathers.
“Is this safe?” The latter asked “What’s the fun in that!?” She exclaimed given the young pegasus a push which is enough to send her down the cloud hill but she doesn’t even go off the ramp when asked wheel somehow dislodges causing Scootaloo falling off.
“Should’ve used a newer model!” Rumble comments
“I bet all of souls we’ll make it big one day.” Lighting mutters walking over to the rest of the team. Suddenly despite they seem to start losing their cloud walking abilities as their hooves start sinking into the cloud surface and eventually falling through but rather than going into free fall they instead almost instantly hit a hard surface.
Lightning Dust is the first to get up and looks up to find that the group had fallen from a thunder cloud into a place full of cages hybrid creatures and black bug looking demons. Which sparks fear in the Bulk Biceps.
“For such a ripped pony he sure if cowardly.” She thought only to stop causing the rest of the group of crash into each other one by one.
“So you say you want to make it big?” Tirek asked Lightning Dust who wasn’t in the slightest intimated by the demon unlike the rest of the group shaking in fear.
“Yeah I bet all our souls! We want to be as cool as the Wonderbolts!”
“Sounds simple enough.” Tirek creates 7 small orange orbs between his horns and before any of the group could react they’re all zapped by a respective beam.
When each open their eyes they find themselves in the middle of Ponyville Runway with empty bleachers “Hey where are all the fans?”
“Simple you asked to be as cool as the Wonderbolts not as famous now you’re known as the Washouts trademark included…Now for your souls!” Tirek reached both his hands towards the group “Oh no you don’t you tricked us…BAIL OUT!” And with that all 6 members dash away.
“How did even…oh I’ll find the-“ the Devil gets caught off by Bulk Biceps, revealing where he went, hidden to the lord being a black cloud which he steps on, getting the demon struck by lightning and covered in rain.
“There here’s a proper engine!” Applejack said showing the object to Lightning Dust
“If you’re wondering it was a process of-“ she gets cut off by a cooking timer going ding.
“Oh break time! Pizza’s done!” with a single swoop Lightning Dust somehow manages to get every pony to a table in the middle of the garage
“Hope you 2 earth ponies are okay with pineapple pizza!” She places the pizza on the table, takes off her oven mittens and lifts the lid revealing a cheer pizza topped with ham and pineapple.
The Apple sister cringe at the sight of the socially wrong meal as the Washouts each grab a slice “I’m starting to get second thought about these ‘friends’ I just made.” AB informs AJ which prompts the latter to speak up
The earth pony gets cut off by the pegasus loudly groaning in boredom “Boring! Like I said what the fun I learning every single boring detail in engineering when you can do something without studyng.”
“You know me and my sis have been trying to be nice to yall but with you giving me a rude attitude and seeing how weird you really are I say you just GIVES YOUR SOULS!” Applejack empathizes her point by knocking the remains slices of pizza onto the oil filled floor.
“Our souls what are you-“ Lightning Dusty gets cut off by a getting hit in the back of the head with an energy snowball the pieces of it hitting the other members, all their eyes start glowing teal.
“Where’s the fun in fighting when we can shatter you 2!” A strike of teal lighting turns a small pile of scrap metal into a plane which Bulk Biceps hops into the pilot seat and the 4 young members into the 4 storage areas.
Another strike of energy turns the ruins of the Super Dragon 9000 into an actual massive super plane made out of metal. Lightning Dust hops into the dragon vehicle and crushes the duo with one of the dragon’s claws, cracking them.
“Good luck catching us now!” Dust taunts flying off
“YEAH!” Bulk adds before flying off the 4 young members laughing at the pair of earth ponies.
***
“Hey I’m not quite done with your attack planes!”
“The planes can wait don’t you have some kind of super plane to help us catch up with those Washouts?” AB asks
“You know I do! Quite experienced with it too!” She opens up a door in her workshop revealing a blue fighter jet with yellow stripes on the tip of each wing.
With a tap of her hoof to the glass dome it opens
“There’s only room for one creature in the cockpit so looks you 2 will need these.” Rainbow hands the duo straps they attach to the plane that once they’re strapped in should help them stay on the plane.
“Well we do need to attack the Washouts with our new weapons!” Apple Bloom admits as she along with her sister start attaching themselves to the
***
“How is your hat not falling off we’re going over 100 max?” Rainbow asks noticing that the older Apple’s cowpony hat is simply blowing in the sonic wind as the latter is walking on the wings “I honestly have no idea.”
“Don’t worry the Washouts should come into view soon, and those straps should give you 2 enough flexibility to perform your signature moves.
“YEAH!” The trio heard Bulk Biceps yell as he flew the plane under the fighter jet.
Here’s a real high-class bout! It’s on!
Applejack fixes her still somehow failing in the wind cowpony hat and Apple Bloom fixes a loose strap as Rumble comes out and then back into one of the storage tanks and throws out 4 large metal bolts which the duo easily dodge.
Applejack start firing her Crackshot and Apple Bloom her Chaser both projectiles by default seem to only hit Bulk.
Applejack didn’t expect the first high damaging shot to hit by the space between the 2 planes was just barely enough.
A thunder bolt projectile start homing in on the duo, which they easily destroy only for it to split off in 3 circular projectile which hits both of them at the same time.
You Died: Young Members: These earth ponies aren’t cool in our eyes? YEAH!
“Darn it forgot we had 1 hp left.” Applejack said rubbing the back of her head
“Almost forgot what the beeping meant.” Apple Bloom admitted
“Do you need my help?” Twilight asked approaching the 2 for now dead earth ponies “Twilight what are you doing here? Can you traverse dimensions?” AJ asked
“While that is something I can do this is actually my dimension or realm as I like to call it.”
“Your realm!?” Both exclaimed in union “Yeah I mean wasn’t it obvious? Anyway I think you should return to your battle maybe trying using the Astral Quesadilla.”
***
The Apple sisters were now at full 3 hp
Scootaloo popped out of another storage tank throwing the same number of rocks as Rumble. Bulk puts the plane on autopilot as he flies out of the cockpit revealing to have a jetpack and throws 3 weights 2 of them being pink Applejack parrys one but when Apple Bloom goes to parry one she misses getting damaged by the pink weight. The grey and unparry pink weight boomerang back but both manage to jump over them just in time Blossom not even bothering to parry it.
Both sisters manage to get a few more Cracks and Chases at Bulk before he flies back to the cockpit as Feathetweight pops out throwing 4 horseshoes into the mix one of them being pink which Apple Bloom parrys.
Thunder Clap pops outs throwing 4 croquet balls, as Bulk once again jumps out of the pilot seat this time shooting 3 exercise ball from some kind of bazooka which the ponies dodge easily but unlike the weights they don’t boomerang back.
Another homing lightning projectile goes after them, Apple Bloom stops firing and baits it by jumping and once it breaks she dashes out they way her bow slightly grazing the circular projectile.
They dodge another round of 3 all grey weights, immediately followed by the exercise ball bazooka, one on of them being pink which Applejack parrys.
As soon as the ripped pegasus gets back to his pilot seat something going wrong the plane exploding.
“NOOO!” Bulk Biceps yell as the wind current blows him into the distance, his soul contract flies out which Applejack collects.
“Doing good you 2!” Rainbow compliments giving the duo a thumbs up
“Thanks Dash now all we have to do now is find that Super Dragon plane and defeat Lightnin-“ Applejack is tapped on the shoulder and when she turns around Thunder Clap goes to hit her with a croquet hammer. The earth pony dodges the mallet slipping out of the peagsus hand when it strikes AJ’s hat both objects flying off into the distance.
Seriously that what knocks it off? Applejack thought as the 4 young Washouts starts circling the fighter jet clockwise. Interesting enough Scootaloo and Thunder Clap are revealed to need Jetpack unlike Featherweight and Rumble who just flap their wings.
The first ball thrown by Scootaloo is pink which Apple Bloom tries to parry it only to miss cracking, her sister parrying it instead.
They both fire the Chaser and Crackshot respectively the projectiles occasionally switching target due to the 4 moving damageable enemies
Applejack switches to Spread and tries to do as much damage as possible by getting close which ends up causing to walk off the wing cracking and hitting the invisible barrier which gives her the invincibility boost to get back up. Luckily she did enough dps to cause Scootaloo’s jetpack to start releasing grey smoke.
“I think we have a prob-“ a few more Chaser projectiles are enough to cause the flightless peagsus’ jetpack to spaz out sending her off in the distance, allowing Apple Bloom to nab her soul contract
“One down!” Dash comments and speaking of which while the constant sound of croquet balls being thrown at her plane was annoying the projectiles didn’t do a lot of damage to the jet.
“How about a bouncy ball for some spice!?” Rumble asks before throwing a red bouncy ball which directly hits Applejack and bounces onto Apple Bloom bring them to danger level.
“Darn already down to one h-“ Out of nowhere Feathetweight throws a bowling landing in Apple Bloom’s head shattering her.
“Uh oh!” Applejack jumps and manages to parry her sister’s spirit
Thank you
Unfortunately AJ didn’t see where she was landing and hit the invisible barrier shattering. Apple Bloom goes to return the favour but jumps into Thunder Clap pitching another croquet ball and ironically this one was parryable.
You Died!: Flightless or not these Washouts can sure cleanse you out of our system
“Great now I feel like I’m missing a part of myself.” Applejack said sarcastically rubbing the place where her cowpony hat should be.
“Now do you think you need me?” Twilight asks which Apple Bloom goes to answer only for Applejack to cover her mouth “Apple Bloom this isn’t we’re just making it harder on ourselves.”
“Nice piece of advice sis!”
***
Scootaloo’s jetpack send her out of control and into the distance.
“One down!”
Apple Bloom ends up missing another parryable ball cracking her. Applejack on the other hand parrys the bowling ball Featherweight threw at them. When Rumble threw the bouncy ball the duo swiftly dodge it letting it eventually bounce off the plane.
Thunder Clap’s jetpack unlike Scootaloo’s explodes but like Scootaloo, Clap is sent into the distance, with AB collecting the soul contract
“There’s another!” Rainbow comments
A few more Crackshots and Chasers later, Rumble seems to get dizzy which causes him to crash into Feathetweight, sending them both into the distance, allowing Applejack to collect the final 2 young souls.
“Phase well done!” Rainbow congratulates
The Super Dragon 9000 ends up flying from behind them its dragon claws on either side of the plane.
“I could just clap the claws and crush you all but what’s the fun in that when I can properly wash you out!” Lightning Dust said over a speaker followed by deploying a water cannon out of a claw tip on the left one, which the duo started laughing at.
“A water cannon what is this a plane wash?” AJ quipped through her laughter as Lightning Dust pops out of one of the claw tips “Oh you haven’t seen anything yet as she turns a dial up to red which the Apples new wasn’t a good sign.
The water ended up shooting through them like an actual master beam enough to crack them. The first water cannon goes away replaced by 2 on either claw aiming downwards. Both jump right as the high pressure cannons fire.
Another set appear one aiming straight the other aiming down. As the Apples were firing at the cannons they manage to stay in the air long enough to avoid the high pressure liquid.
A single massive water cannon appear on the left claw but the duo were safe from it due to being under it allowing them to get a little more homing shots in.
“High pressure soap is missing from this plane wash!” 2 pink cannons appear from either claw on the lowest claw tip aiming straight Applejack jumps and parrys the same colored beam but Apple Bloom misses and gets hit.
All of a sudden a tractor beam emerges from between the dragon plane’s horns turning the plane sideways, bringing it into it’s mouth and making the jet’s occupants nauseous.
“I think I have a headache!” Rainbow comments, Applejack just as dizzy walks off the wing losing a hit point.
“Hah! Now you don’t even know which direction you’re walking.” A stationed there Lightning Dust taunts Although the duo could now directly fire at Lightning Dust they didn’t get many shots in when large sparks started coming out of the dragon’s engine nose, one shattering Apple Bloom her sister not even bothering to try and save her.
The jet is then put back in its original place only for the tractor beam to turn it upside down. Applejack does her best to use her Crackshot only to be hit by the single massive water cannon.
You Died!: Perhaps you could actually have a chance at beating me if your attempts weren’t so wishy-washy!
“Um Twilight I think I may need your help after all.” Apple Bloom admits her sister attempts to defend her lacking parrying skills “Come on Apple Bloom don’t say that you’re just not as reactive as me.”
“It’s fine Applejack it’s okay to for someone to not feel confident especially if the situation is your lives on the line.” Twilight says which manages to make AJ shed a tear.
***
Apple Bloom takes a bite of the Astral Quesadilla, swapping herself out with Twilight, Dash not really paying attention. In fact it’s not until they get the souls of Bulk and the 4 young Washouts when she finally notices
“Hey AJ who’s your new friend here?”
“Oh this is Twilight an alicorn she’s covering for Apple Bloom and helping us on our quest.” The earth pony explains as the first water cannon is fired. Both jump out the way Twilight does a double jump for extra air time.
The massive single cannon comes out, Applejack walks out the way but Twilight is right under it when it fires luckily she manages to teleport to the earth pony right as the cannon would’ve hit her.
“Ta-Da! Somewhat controlled teleportation.” This gets jinxed by the tractor beam turning the jet upside down and bringing it to its mouth.
When the sparks start coming out the alicorn attempts to teleport out the way I y to forget about the cooldown and walk off the jet getting the invincibility boost. This is all for nothing as she along with Applejack are hit by a spark.
The plane is turned upside down as the high pressure water cannons come back. Twilight is hit by the first pair aiming down luckily Applejack actually makes an effort and succeeds in parrying her.
Thank You
Applejack ends missing the parryable beams, cracking her but Twilight manages to dash parry them. Finally managing to get enough cards to use her own version of Super Element 1.
She struggles to aim it at the single water cannon, but eventually releases a large red beam with lots of colours from her horn which just barely hits and slows down the cannon from firing.
“Wait how did that not…”
“Guess the move set we got from the potion isn’t as powerful as your alicorn magic.” Applejack reasons. Speaking of Super Element 1 Applejack aims her super stomp only to get hit with by a pair of cannons.
Twilight goes to parry but ends up meeting the same fate.
You Died!
“Wow never thought you’ll shatter at the same phase twice.” Apple Bloom comments “Is it a good time to say that I’m ready for battle again?”
“You can go along that tractor beam gave me quite the headache.” Twilight admitted rubbing the side of her head.
***
The 4 peagsi start attacking, a little dodging and a few Crackshots and Chasers later they manage to make Scootaloo’s jetpack start emitting grey smoke and so does Thunder Clap’s
“Uh oh!” Rumble pulls out a walkie talkie “We’ve got a problem retreat!”
Apple Bloom and Applejack watch as the 4 young Washouts fly into the mouth of the Super Dragon 9000 which then flies behind the plane it’s claws on either side, except this time Lightning Dust along with the remaining Washouts appear out of the claw tips, 2 on one side, 2 on the other and Dust on the top left.
Rumble throws a box of 500 pounds of bricks which cracks Applejack on the head. Featherweight follows this up by throwing a box of containing 500 pounds of feathers, which Appplejack’s head again.
“How does that hurt as much as the bricks?” She says out loud
“They technically weigh the same.” Rumble responds. The Apple Sisters fire their respective weapons but rather than homing in on Lightning Dust the only Washout not attacking they target the 4 other pegasi.
Thunder Clap throws a vase which shatters and send shards into Apple Bloom’s face cracking her.
Rumble throws a pineapple pizza which breaks off into slices that travel horizontally after colliding with the plane. Scootaloo dumps a carton of eggs, Featherweight throws a croquet hoop.
Although Applejack and Apple Bloom were dodging the last few items their shots kept on hitting the younger Washouts over the older one. In fact they got so desperate to hit Lightning Dust Applejack walked off the edge of the plane Apple Bloom tried to help only to get shattered by a cup being thrown at her courtesy of Thunder Clap.
You Died!: We’ve just wash you out along with all the other worthless things in storage.
***
Having enough of her Crackshot hitting Rumble over Lightning Dust she switched to spread this time careful about not walking off. Rumble threw a pink bouncy ball which she parrys. Dust retreats back into the plane along the other 4 following. The young pegasi simply switch sides while Lightning Dust appear on the bottom left allowing the sisters to fire their Spread at her.
Rumble throws another pineapple pizza, the duo manage to avoid the horizontal slices. Scootaloo pulls out a controller which summons a drone which rapidly starts getting closer and closer to them.
Once it gets to close for comfort, Apple Bloom quickly destroy it with her Spread. Another 500 pounds of feathers is thrown by Featherweight which is is revealed to not be a threat if they simply walk out the way. Thunder Clap throws a a large pile of magazines which while doesn’t damage the earth ponies blinds them and allows all of them to re position, Lightning Dust now on the middle right.
Apple Bloom manages to parry a pink vase being thrown at her by Scootaloo and with that finally manages to get enough cards to activate her Super Element 1, right as Dust is about to retreat Apple Bloom jumps, stomps the invisible floor and releases the yellow energy wave which does a lot of damage, and slows down all the Washouts.
The Washouts reposition again and hopefully for a final time. Thunder Clap throws a boomerang that completely misses but almost Applejack on its way back. Scootaloo redumps the carton of eggs which if it didn’t hit the earth ponies it should make the jet wings slippery but due to the straps it barely noticeable to the duo.
Applejack manages to gather enough damage to get 5 cards and uses her Super Element 1 she jumps, slams the invisible floor and sends a giant orange energy wave, although she didn’t aim it exactly right with most of it hitting Featherweight and Thunder Clap, it just barely hit Lightning Dust
A Knockout! Lightning Dust grits her teeth In frustration, dropping her soul contract onto the jet and the 4 young Washouts start throwing fillyish/coltish tantrums also dropping their souls.
The Super Dragon 9000 lands and Rainbow’s fighter jet back in Ponyville runway “RIVALS FOR LIFE!” Dust yells only for the Super Dragon to revert back to it scrap metal form falls on top off the 5 pegasi.
“Nice work you 2! That was awesome you’re definitely 20% cooler in my eyes!” Rainbow congratulates hopping out of her jet offering to dap up the 2 earth ponies which they gladly take.
“Mane was that battle way easier without the tractor beam and constant headaches.” Apple Bloom admitted
“I know right!” Dash added
“Another hour down for a contract!” Applejack exclaimed showing her watch now reading 45 hours.
“Sorry that you lost your hat sis know how much it meant to you.” Apple Bloom sus “It’s alright right I mean-“ with a streak of Rainbow, Dash comes back and take off her goggles holding the cowpony hat.
“Do you mean this one?”
Applejack touches the hat and feels a connection “Eyup sure has the same connection thanks Rain..I mean Ms 30 Seconds Flat!”
“Why thank you too, you’re very welcome come back when you actually need your plane! See ya!” Rainbow puts on her former Wonderbolt goggles and flies off with leaving a brief streak of rainbow.
Author's Note
Didn’t expect a DLC boss this early (or at all for that matter)
Also thought it would make sense to include a reason why it gives you the You Died! Message despite the announcer saying you failed
This should be (hopefully) be the last introduction chapter
Super Element 1 is based on a comment from Battle Ponies the Battle Begins
Rainbow Dash piloting a fighter jet (correct me if my wrong) technically makes sense as the Wonderbolts are based on the Blue Angles and the USA Air Force
And since you can technically go to Inkwell Isle 4 after completing the first mausoleum I say it checks out (although you can’t immediately access the Howling Aces correct me if I’m wrong)
And yes I used to be a Peanuts fan (have mostly left that fandom by now)
