Last time on 'Boy, Applejack Sure Is Mad' Quest:
>More or less got kicked out of Sugar Cube Corner, but not before they gave you 30 bits.
>Ran into Derpy, who wanted to say hi and talk about the party.
>Went to Rarity to get new clothes.
>Still hates you and slammed the door in your face.
>Wandered around town.
>Got hungry.
>Decided to go to Sweet Apple Acres to work for some free food.
>Could find anyone, so looked in the orchard.
>Tried to climb a tree to get a look around.
>Fell down.
>GOT MAD AND THREW A BIG STICK.
>Accidentally hit Applejack.
>Apologized and convinced her to get some work for food.
Applejack leads you deeper into the apple orchard. You still think she's still upset about you hitting her with a branch. Eventually, you come to some apple trees with a lot of fresh apples all over the ground. Applebloom is there, sorting them out and putting them into big bushels. As the two of you walk closer, she sees you and lights up.
"Rusty!" Applebloom cheers and runs over. She slams into your knees and gives you a big hug. "It's nice to see again!"
"Alright Rusty, you want to work?" Applejack asks, still clearly miffed. "You can either help me buck or help Applebloom gather up the apples."
"I guess I'll help gather the apples. I don’t think I'm good at... bucking."
"Yay! This is going to be great!" Applebloom says, letting go of you. She's beaming a big wide smile.
"Fine." Applejack get pokes you in the chest with her hoof. "But we work hard here. No slacking off. Either of you."
"Alright." Applebloom says looking down at her hooves, clearly a little deflated. Applejack trots off a ways and starts to kick a tree hard with her hind legs. A cascade of red and green apples plummet to the ground all around.
"C'mon Rusty!" Applebloom says, grabbing a bushel in her teeth. "Ets et oing!"
This seems easy enough. Gather up apples and put them in the bucket. HOW HARD CAN THIS POSSIBLY BE?
By the time you and the small pony get to the apples, Applejack has already moved on to a new tree. She's clearly setting a quick pace for the two of you.
Together with Applebloom, you get to work and gently toss apples into the bushels. Applebloom shows you which apples are good and which are too rotten or beaten or just no good, and should just be left on the ground.
You decide it's best to stay quiet. Applejack is in a sour apple mood and you DID bonk her good, so you guess it's better to just keep quiet.
However, Applebloom seems to be brimming with questions and keeps pestering you as you both trudge along.
"Psst, Rusty!" Applebloom whispers, as the two of you move on to a new tree. "Hey Rusty! Do you have fingers down on your bottom hooves too?"
"Uh, yeah." You explain to Applebloom about toes and basic human anatomy. At least what you can think of. Soon the two of you are happily talking and working along together.
"Hey, Applebloom. Do you know how Sweetie Belle is?" You ask, filling you buck to the top with apples. "I went by her sisters place earlier and she still seems to hate my guts. I wish I could have done a better job protecting her."
"Uhh, no." Applebloom says, looking sad. "Things have been real busy here at the farm. Applejack is..."
She seems hesitant about what to say.
"Your sister is in a bit of a bad mood. Is this something that can wait until later?"
"Yeah, ah guess." Applebloom says, getting back to work with gusto. "She'd probably wouldn’t like me talking about it."
"It probably didn’t help that I beaned her with a tree branch....."
"You what!" Applebloom shouts, looking at you shocked.
"Well, it was an accident, I didn’t see her and I w-"
"Pffft ahahahahahaha!" Applebloom falls backwards, laughing. "Y-y-you ahahaha!"
"APPLEBLOOM!" You hear Applejack yell from somewhere up ahead. She's made some distance on the two of you. ""YOU BETTER BE WORKIN'!"
"SORRY!" Applebloom calls back and gets back to work faster. She looks back up at you, giggling. You grin back at Applebloom and the two of you continue working and sharing stories.
After what feels like hours, the two of you must have harvest what feels like a ton of apples each, loading full loads onto a cart. But with Applebloom, things went along quickly and you genuinely enjoy each others company. You and the little filly are becoming fast friends.
"And then, as I was carrying this HUGE cake from the kitchen, I trip... and the whole thing lands on Mrs. Cake AND her babies, right there in the store."
"Pfffft eheheh!" Applebloom snickers, clearly trying to keep her laughter down to a minimum or risk her sister's wrath again. "Jeez Rusty, you've been in Ponyville all of one day and you've mad a mess of everything!"
"Tell me about it." You load up your full bushel and Appleblooms into the cart. There’s so many apples. Applebloom looks up at the sky, near the sun.
"I'mma gussing its about lunch time. Ahm sure Applejack wont mind if you have some apples. We've been working all morning."
"I'd like to get her permission first. With my luck she'll just get mad."
"All right," Applebloom says, rolling her eyes. "She's probably cooled down by now."
You and Applebloom trot of and look for Applejack. You're still clearly lost in this orchard, but Applebloom is an expert guide. Following her, you find Applejack in no time at all, despite how far away from the two of you she was. She's clearly working hard; as she sees the two of you, she pauses from bucking, takes of her hat and wipes her brow.
"Applejack! Me and Rusty filled the cart! Can we have lunch now?"
"Uhh," Applejack looks up at the sun just like Applebloom did earlier. "Sure, I guess we earned ourselves a break. Help yourself, Rusty."
The two ponies sit down at the base of the Apple tree AJ just bucked and start snacking on fresh apples. Applebloom motions you to sit next to her.
You sit down on the ground with you pony pals in the shade and share in the bounty of ripe, fresh from the tree apples. They're absolutely delicious; crisp, crunchy, sweet and so juicy. You forgot how hungry you were and devour two apples in a millisecond.
"Thanks for letting work for lunch, Applejack. And, uh, sorry about the branch earlier."
Applebloom giggles. Applejack gives her a stern looks and the little filly focuses back on her apple.
"You are very welcome, Rusty." Applejack says, politely.
"Oh, and the jelly cube the other day."
"You're still welcome."
"Speaking of which," You say, starting on your fourth apple, sticky juice running down your chin. "I'm still having problems with your friend Rarity. Every time I go to talk to here, she slams the door on me. And I feel that I may be giving the town a bad impression of me."
"Hmmm," Applejack ponders what you said for a minute or two, chewing on an apple. "Well, you gutta understand. Us in Ponyville ain’t used to having a non-pony like you around. You're... strange to everyone."
Applebloom nods in agreement, her mouth full of apple.
"And you should see things from Rarity's perspective. When we found you, Sweetie Belle couldn’t even get up on her own. It's not so strange that she blames you. Heck, if it was Applebloom there instead of Sweetie, ah'd probably be acting the same way."
"But what do you think I should do about Rarity?" You ask, starting on a seventh apple. "I don't want her to go on hating me. Plus, I kinda need some new clothes and it'd be best if I make nice with her."
"Hmmm," Applejack ponders again. "Well, if ah was you, I'd try a gesture of kindness, mainly for Sweetie. If you can show you mean no harm, she might feel better about you. Maybe if yo-"
Suddenly, you hear shouting.
"Applebloom! APPLEBLOOM!"
Applebloom's other friend, Scootaloo, runs in to view. She spots the three of you and runs over, her small wings buzzing like a giant mosquito's, lightly carrying her a bit off the ground in her run.
"Scootaloo?" Applebloom gets up and runs over to the other filly. "What is it?!"
"I was heading to the club house but there was a commotion in town so I went to see and and AND"
"What is it, sugarcube?" Applejack asks, walking over.
"There’s another monster in town!" Scootaloo shouts.
Applejack immediately snaps into action.
"Applebloom," She orders. "You and Scootaloo stay at the house. Don't leave for anything. Do you understand me?"
"Bu-"
"Do you understand me?" She repeats, much more stern this time.
"Yes, sis." Applebloom looks down at the ground, kicking her hoof in the dirt. Before anything else, Applejack kicks up her hat onto her head is already galloping off, presumably towards town.
Meanwhile, you're half up a tree and snap off a sizable branch for a makeshift club. Since you were intentionally doing it this time, you don’t fall on your butt. Instead, you hop down next to the two little fillies.
"Scootaloo, what did the monster look like?"
"Oh it was HUGE!" She expressing everything waving her hooves around, buzzing a her wings frantically. "It was as big as a house and had BIG long legs and MASSIVE scary jaws that were dripping and it was spraying EVERYTHING with this icky looking stuff! I only saw it from far away but it's HUGE!"
"Alright, you two do what Applejack said and stay in the house." You say to the little fillies and follow after Applejack, who is long gone.
"But, what are you going to do Rusty?" Applebloom calls after you. You turn back for a moment.
"I'm going to be a hero!"
You leave the two little ponies back in the orchard and run back to town. Luckily you don’t get lost following where you think Applejack went. She went in more or less a straight line back to the road. Soon enough you're back in Ponyville.
It's quiet. There’s no sign of any ponies or monster. All the doors and windows are shut tight. You hear the wind and little else. An honest to goodness tumbleweed rolls across the street.
You don’t want to get jumped like last time, so you take a moment to just try and listen for danger.
You hear the wind blowing and... that’s about it. It's practically a ghost town as far as you can tell.
So you go on and start searching around as quietly as you can manage. Every house looks locked up tight. There’s not a soul around, not even a sign of Applejack.
Soon you come to a cross roads in town. You can go FORWARD, LEFT OR RIGHT. You can also go to a specific area in town if you want. You're FAIRLY sure you know your way around town now.
You figure that, if monsters are coming from the forest, it makes sense that there would be signs of an attacking monsters on the forest facing side of town. You get to the other side of down without incident.
It is EERILY quiet. You're sure that most of the ponies are hiding in their homes, but even that jelly cube made some commotion by now. There’s nothing, not even a bird chirping.
You look around. The area around the forest looks calm, no obvious sign of trouble there. And houses look OK but... there’s some weird white strands covering on a bit. And there’s some... dents in the ground. Footprints?
You first look at the weird white strands partially covering one of the buildings. From what you can tell, it a lot of really small white silky strands that are stuck right on the side of the building. The building looks undamaged, but this stuff is stuck on good, even against the mild breeze. You make sure not to touch any of it.
The then footprints. Or, at least you think they're foot prints. Its more like a series of oddly, unevenly placed round holes that looks like they were PUNCHED into the ground. They all seem to be at least a few inches deep, even in the hard packed dirt street.
Following them is difficult. Besides the fact that they're really far spaced, they're planted along unevenly all over the place and sometimes disappear altogether. But you're sure you can follow them if you keep at it.
You can hear something up head, around the next corner. Some kind of commotion or rustling.
Cautiously, you slide along the side of the building and take a slow, tentative peek around the corner. Beyond, the street is empty, save for a few wooden crates stacked up next to the same building.
And some weird, squirming white wormy looking thing. It's huge, roughly the size of a pony. It's kicking around wildly around the boxes, making that commotion you heard a moment ago. It's also making some kind of other muffled noise itself.
Applejack's hat lays on the ground near by.
You sneak closer to the thing. Its doesn’t appear to notice you. Upon closer inspection, you think that it is more or less as big as a pony. And you think its covered in the same silky material you saw earlier.
It keeps kicking around. "Mhmhm!" You can hear its muffled sound more clearly. "Mhhmhmhhmm!"
Slowly, the gears are turning in your head.
You are fairly sure that Applejack got cocooned or something by the monster... where ever it may be. You decide to help and cut out of the thing.
You get a hold of her, but shes still wriggling like mad. Putting down your branch, you take out your simple pocket knife and carefully try to tear her out of the it. But it's really hard. Besides her struggling, the actual silky material is REALLY strong and sticky. It's harder then tearing through fabric and its sticking to you like wet cotton candy. If you didn’t have your knife you don’t know what you'd do.
After a few minutes work, you manage to get some of Applejack's face uncovered; you can see her eyes, one of her ears and her nose. But her mouth still seems to be completely bound in it.