Last time on 'Rarity Fucking Hates You Forever, Why Do You Even Bother God Damn' Quest:
>Returned to Ponyville with Pinkie Pie.
>Decided to check on Twilight and Spike.
>They were still fast asleep, so you decided to leave them alone.
>Went to Rarity's to try and see how Sweetie was doing and maybe get some new clothes.
>OH GOD OH NO HOW DID THIS HAPPEN I'M NO GOOD WITH MONEY.
>Punched Rarity in the face by accident.
>She got mad and slammed the door on you, again.
>Ended up losing half your bits in the confusion.
Your name is Rusty Shackleford, a human who has no memory of his past or identity, who has found himself in the land of Equestria for the last few days. In the few days you've been here, you've (sorta) helped Ponyville fend off not one but two attacks from monsters from the Everfree Forest.
Currently, however, you are sulking on Rarity's door step with Pinkie Pie. She's leaning against you, trying to be supportive with you're TERRIBLE LUCK.
"It's OK Rusty," Pinkie says, leaning on your shoulder. "What do you want to do now?"
"Let's check with the Apples," You say, getting to your feet, brushing yourself off and pocketing what little money you have left. "She was involved with that spider too. Best to see if she's OK."
"OK!" Pinkie says, bouncing up to your full height. "I'mma take off. Since you are back, it's a great time to have a PARTY! See you later, Rusty!"
The pink pony bounces on her way, no doubt back to Sugar Cube Corner to get everything for a party. You're starting to wonder what her obsession is with parties, but brush it off and head toward the farm. Since you have a good bearing on how to get around town now, it doesn’t take you long at all.
The orchard and farm seem more or less the same since you left it yesterday. As you walk down the main dirt path to the familiar big farm house, you spy Applejack and that big red pony that tackled you that one time a few nights ago, moving some barrels. They see you as you walk up. Applejack stops working and waves you over.
"Howdy Rusty," Applejack says with a smile. The other pony seems indifferent. "Good to see you're fine. What can we do ya for?"
"I just wanted to stop by and see how you and Applebloom were doing. That spider was a real monster."
"That's awfully kind of ya. Me and Applebloom are just fine, although she's not allowed to leave her room for a month!" Applejack says, raising her voice for the second half of that sentence.
"Ah said I was sorry!" You hear Applebloom call back from inside the house.
"Don't you talk back, Applebloom! You know what you did!"
"Ayep." The other pony adds in.
"Anyhow," Applejack says, turning back to you. "How'd you even handle that spider, Rusty? Last I saw you was hightailing it out of town with it nearly on top of ya."
You relate to the two ponies you little adventure with the spider, how it chased you in the woods, meeting with Zecora, the incident with the Poison Joke and your eventually recovery. The two ponies seem reasonably impressed.
"And that’s how I got here. I only just got back into town an hour or two ago."
"Well hot dang, Rusty, you done good!" Applejack says with a grin, tipping her hat.
"Ayup."
"Thanks," You say, feeling a smile creep up on your own face. "Anyway, I was hoping that I might be able to help out again on the farm. Maybe earn myself a place to bunk for the night."
"Shoot Rusty, after what you did you're plenty welcome on this farm." Applejack says. "And we could really use the extra labor about now. But we're already full up here in the house... hmmm. Ya might be able to catch some Z's in the barn. It's not fancy but it's clean and will keep the rain off your head."
"Oh that sounds great, thank you. I'm just happy to have a place to sleep."
"Fantastic." Applejack seems happy.
"So, what needs doing? More apple picking?"
"Normally not today, but with your help, Big Macintosh here can get a head start on tomorrows harvest," Applejack says, nudging the big red pony. He rolls his eyes and then trots off into the orchard, you presume to go gather apples. "You and me will be bringing some apples and jams an' such to sell to stores in town."
Applejack gestures over to the side of the house, were there’s a cart half full of fresh apples and wood barrels. "It's a two pony job, but with your help things should go fast."
Your pants are still pretty bad, though, with the rips and burn marks.
You and Applejack walk over to the cart. There’s a few heavy looking barrels and bushels of fresh red apples gathered around it.
"Alright, Rusty," Applejack says, nudging you in the side. "I need you to lift all this and up it in the cart. And when we get to town, I'll need your help unloading it. I need to take care of a few things inside. Think ya can handle it?"
"Uhh, sure." You say, imagining all the horrible ways you can screw this up. Oh no are you sweating?
"Good. Be back in a few." Applejack heads inside the house through the back door.
OK. This should be simple. Just need to lift some barrels and put them in the cart. Easy. No problem.
You pick up the fist barrel and lift. You misjudged the weight and its a lot heavier then you were expecting. You muscle through it, trying to get it up to the cart. You get it on the edge with a huff, but it's off balance. Before you can react, the big barrel falls to the ground, right on your foot.
Damn it! Your foot hurts. You really hope you didn’t break anything.
The barrel look OK. It was sealed, so what ever was inside didn’t spill out. You hope you didn’t break anything there too.
You then remember that bag of leafs Zecora gave you "to give you strength." You're not sure if she meant that literally, but hopefully they can do something for the pain. You open the little cloth bag. It's full of little dried green leafs. They don’t looks any different from other leafs, but what do you know about botanical?
You pop one in your mouth and chew it. Minty, with some kind of subtle zest to it. The parts where it touches the inside of your mouth it gives you a numbing, tingling sensation, almost like it's electric. Almost immediately, you feel your heart beating harder and the muscles in your body tighten. Your foot also stops to hurt so much. It's pretty good.
OK, round two. This time, you know the weight of the barrel and you lift with your legs. It's still pretty heavy, which makes you wonder how the heck these ponies do it on their own. You barely manage to finally get the barrel back up to cart, but it's up there and you push it back to a more secure spot in the back.
That’s one.
You keep at it using your new found strength. It takes you what feels like forever to get just a few of these barrels on the cart. Soon enough, Applejack returns.
"How ya doing Rusty?" She says, look at all the stuff still not loaded. "Err, need a hoof?"
"Thanks Applejack. These things are pretty heavy." You pant, as the pony helps you lift a barrel on to the cart. "Jeeze, how do you ponies even lift these things?"
"Ahaha," Applejack chuckles, hopping onto the cart so she's up to your height. "You must be a city colt. Never done a REAL days work before."
"Uhh," You are starting to feel embarrassed, being mocked by a little pony. "I really wouldn’t know. I don’t really remember..."
"Ah can tell, mmhmm." Applejack says smugly, pocking you in the stomach. "Soft. But that’s fine. You're working hard. Couple of days working here and you'll be a regular iron pony."
With Applejack's help, you load up the rest of the goods into the cart without incident. You're already sweating, but she seems to have energy to spare. Once everything is tied down, Applejack goes to the front end of the cart and gets into the harness.
"All right, lets mosey." Applejack calls back to you, pulling the whole cart forward herself... somehow. These ponies are stronger then they look. "I wanna get back before dark."
You follow alongside as you make your way steadily towards town. It might be a while.
"So..." You start trying to make some conversation as the two of you walk together. "Do you know where I might be able to get some new clothes?"
"Rarity still not talking to ya?" Applejack says knowingly.
"Yeah..." You tell her about you latest incident where you ended up punching her in the face by mistake.
"You WHAT?!"
"I-It was an accident! I was trying juggle the money and I kinda fell an-"
"Ahahahaha!," Applejack stops walking and is laughing hysterically. "Oh Celestia, Rusty, what are we gunna do with you? You are a walking disaster."
"You don't have to rub it in. I feel awful as it is."
"Ah sorry." Applejack says, suppressing a snerk and keeps walking. "And I'm afraid you're out of luck. Rarity is the pony to go to in this town if you want some new duds."
"Great." You say, a little bitter.
"Oh, anyone hear anything from Princess Celestia? From what I heard Twilight hasn’t been able to get a hold of her for a while and that seems bad."
"No. That does seem bad," Applejack says slowly. "And it's the first I'm hearing of it. Haven't had much time to talk with Twilight. Been real busy here at the farm. I wonder if this has anything to do with why all the guards left town..."
"Hmmm," You mull this over for a while. "I may be new and all, but a lot of this seems strange. All these monster attacks that you say aren’t normal, your town guards have been mysteriously called out of town with no explanation and no one can get a hold of your Princess. Do you think someone... or something might deliberately be trying to hurt your town?"
"Huh," Applejack stops in her tacks. "I never thought of that. It is all mighty suspicious."
She lets out a long sigh and keeps pulling the cart. "I'll be honest with you Rusty. If someone IS trying to hurt Ponyville, they're doing a pretty good job of it. No one's been too seriously hurt, aside from maybe poor Sweetie Belle, but I feel its only a matter of time. And ever since the monster attacks became an issue, there’s been very little trade going on between town. Even the trains stopped. This is usually my busy season, but with things as bad as they are, we're working at all hours and barely scrapping by..."
"Jeeze, I didn’t realize things were that bad."
"Well you've seen how it is. No one in town is talking about it out loud, but we all feel it. Heck, most ponies are too scared to leave their homes half the time."
"Couldn’t a pony just walk to Canterlot and talk with your Princess? I mean, yeah, its probably quite a journey, but if things are so bad, shouldn’t you get word to your Princess somehow?"
"Its... possible," Applejack concedes reluctantly. "But you don’t get it Rusty; all of Ponyville is scared. Some are too scared to go outside. I could count the number of ponies that feel brave enough to leave town on one hoof. And that’s not to say they're wrong; it IS dangerous to go alone anywhere nowhere days, even in town."
"Hmmmm... but what about the flying ponies? Dash seems pretty fast. Shouldn’t one or more of them be able to zip over and back safety?"
Applejack shakes her head. "Not particularly. We've had more then one monster fly into town. Besides, you remember how easily that spider grounded Dash?"
"Yeah, point taken."
"And no offense to Dash. She's good at what she does, but she wouldn’t be my first choice to send to the Princess on our behalf."
"Dang Applejack, if things are really so bad, maybe you ponies should form a militia since all the guards are gone. You know, defend yourselves."
"That Rusty," Applejack says matter of factly. "Is the first good idea I've heard in a good while. Right now, everyone's expecting me and my close friends to take care of everything by ourselves since we're good at it. But I'll tell you what, it's driving me mad, risking our lives all on our own like that. And it's nearly run me out of business, juggling that and the farm. AND on top of all that, it's wearing our friendship thin."
"Dang Applejack, I'm so sorry about all this."
"It's not your fault." Applejack says, letting out another long sign. "The fact you're trying to help means a lot. But yeah, when we're done with this, you an' me are gunna go to the mayor and see about that militia idea. Oh, we're already here."
You were so engrossed in your conversation with Applejack, you didn’t realize how far you walked. You suddenly find yourself at Sugar Cube Corner.
There’s some tables set up outside on the street in front of the shop, as well as some balloons. Looks like Pinkie is planning for a bigger party then last time. Applejack gets out of her harness and stretches a bit.
"OK Rusty, you unload half of the stuff and bring them over to the door. I'mma go and get someone." Applejack disappears into the store.
"Uh... OK." You say, turning back to the barrels. Oh god. The barrels. You were expecting Applejack to help you unload them too. But you said you'd help...
Being careful, you lift up one of the barrels. Yup, still really heavy. Sweating hard, you struggle and waddle over with the heavy load over to the door.
"Hiya Rusty!" Pinkie shouts, hopping in front of you from seemingly no where. Where the heck did she come from?!
"Oh. Hi. Pinkie." You speak between hard breaths. Oh god your hands are so sweaty.
"What'cha doing?"
You try to say: "I've got to move these barrels, but they're VERY HEAVY. I already dropped one on my foot earlier, so stand back."
But what comes out is more like:
"Barrels. Pinkie. Heavy. Foot" You breath heavy between each word, sweat dripping in your eyes. But it's all just too much for you and you buckles. Your knees fold from under you and the barrel slams to the ground with a thud, still in your arms. Thankfully, Pinkie wasn’t so close that she got squished. That would be a terrible thing to have happen.
"Rusty, you're so silly." Pinkie says, giggling.
"Pinkie, please." You say frustrated, trying not to snap at the pony. "These barrels are really heavy. You're not helping."
"No it's not." Pinkie says. "You're just making it really hard. Watch. This is how I do it."
Pinkie takes you barrel and pushes it over on its side. She then rolls it over to the store front and pushes it back up. She looks back at you, grinning.
You sit there, kneeling in the dirt, feeling stupid.
You then proceed, with Pinkie's help, to unload the barrels and then simply roll them over to the entrance. Since you're just unloading the barrels and not carrying them, this is much easier and the two of you get done fast.
"Thanks Pinkie," You say as you get the last barrel over to the door.
"No problem." She says, chipper as always. "I got to go now. Lots of party stuff to do. See you later."
You say good bye to the pink pony just as Applejack returns with Mr. Cake.
"Oh good, you're all done." Applejack says, satisfied.
"I had some help from Pinkie. Hello, Mr. Cake. It's nice to see you again."
"Oh. Hello. Rusty." Mr. Cake stutters out. You... don't think he's blinking.
"Something the matter, Mr. Cake?" You ask politely.
"What? Oh no no. Of course... not." He says, slowly turning back to face Applejack, his eyes looking back at you as long as physically possible. "So... we're agreed then, Applejack?"
"Y'all sure there nothing more you can do?" Applejack says, looking a little distraught.
"I'm sorry, but it's the best we can do right now." Mr. Cake doesn’t seem happy either.
"Alright," Applejack reluctantly says and they shake hoofs. "Thank you for your business. Come on, Rusty. We got a few more stops to make."