My Little Terminator, Chapter 2

It was another day during the season for Big Macintosh: Wake up, breakfast, buck apples, lunch, break, buck more apple, dinner, and sleep. His favorite part: Bucking the apples. It was always so easy and relaxing. His body build and strength allowed him to just kick the apple trees and watch apples fall. They all manage to fall on Big Mac’s apple carriage. If some apples missed it, he’d pick up the apples. If he needed a snack, he ate an apple. If he got thirsty, he ate an apple too. If he missed some sleep, he’d sometimes stare at the apples, or even play a strange apple version of dollhouse with the apples. Apples, more apples, and too many apples were his life.

Big Mac traveled across his wonderland of red and green, approaching the next tree to buck. In a moment, his little sister, Applejack, popped into his mind.

“Darn lil’ sis, I hope ye don’t get yerself in any mess,” he whispered under his breath. Big Mac recalls Applejack having left in the morning for an ‘emergency’. Although, since it meant not bucking apples for the day, it probably really was an emergency.

He finally got close to his next tree, but before he could turn around to buck, he noticed a quick blue spark on the tree.

“Mah word, what’s em stat’c electris’ty doin’ on mah tree?”

The tree started to spark into shades of blue even more. Then the ground around the tree started to get the same sparks over it. Big Mac quickly retreated in great intimidation, feeling a slight shaking on the earth getting stronger.

The sparks turned into growing embers. Next thing he knew, there was a hemisphere of blue energy on the floor. The tree it devoured fell down and incinerated into ashes that Big Macintosh could feel landing on his face.

“I should get the heck outa here.”

But before he could run, he noticed the hemisphere shrink down… smaller… and start to take a form.  The strange blue energy started to morph into… a pony on the ground.

“Now what’n the world?”

After the form appeared to stiffen, the blue energy seemed to dissipate and leave a color. The result was an unconscious pony where his tree used to stand, surrounded by dead, blackened grasses and their ashes. The pony was apparently a unicorn, shaded a dark, soothing sky-blue, almost like pure water. The pony, in fact, had what appeared to be a river as its cutie mark, lighter in tone than the rest of its fur.

It was not long before the pony regained consciousness. He quickly went into a panic and stood up to face Big Mac.

“Mah great Celestia! Mah tree turned into a pony!!!”

“… You must be Big Mac,” he replied. He took a look at this surroundings, finding that he did apparently destroy a tree. “I’m not your tree, I just kinda pulverized it since it was in the way of the time travel force field.”  Big Mac was quickly baffled by his reply.

“Wha? How’d you know mah name?” he asked, “And time travel? Pulverize mah tree? That ain’t nice, but time travel?! Well… it might make sens an’ways since y’just popped outta nowhere an’ killed mah tree.”

“And I am sorry about your tree,” replied the pony. “My name is Aquarius and I am here because your sister might be in danger.”

“Oh my, I knew Apple Bloom and ‘er friends would get countries at war with each other sooner or later,” replied Big Mac.

“Not Apple Bloom, Applejack!  I need you to tell me right now what the exact time and date is!”

“Well, Aquarius, you are standin’ in the sev’nth day of the sixth month of the year one-thousand-one Ann’-Solars. By the sun’s position, I’d say it’s almost lunch time. But what’s gonna happen with Applejack?”

Aquarius hesitated dialogue after Big Mac’s question.

“Applejack and their son, in the future, told me not to tell you that at all and tell you to stay in the farm for the rest of the day.”

“Now wait, I can prob’ly trust you time trav’ld ‘n’ all, but how can I trust you’re tellin’ me the truth?”

Aquarius looked at Big Mac, appearing stressed and desperate.

“You’re right. You’re the family of the Element of Honesty,” he replied, “You can’t exactly trust me immediately…”

Aquarius’s unicorn started to glow a light pink.

“Hey, what’r yeh—OOOFF!!”

The unicorn unleashed, from his horn, a swift and strong zap that landed on Big Mac’s forehead.  Big Mac dropped to the ground with a hard THUMP! He was unconscious before he felt anything.

“…which is why they actually told me to do this.”

** ** **

There it was: A lifeless, half-bitten Carousel Boutique. Twilight and Applejack could only stare in astonishment at the destruction while Sweetie Belle was on the threshold of tears. Besides it was a number of large tents being occupied by Police Ponies, as Officer Gary had told them.

“Looks like sum light’ng tornado just struck dis place!”  commented Applejack.

“Alright Sweetie Belle,” said Twilight, “Before we go with the police, can you tell what exactly you saw?”

Sweetie Belle was still sobbing and appeared to be shaking somewhat.

“Well…” she began, “I just heard and felt the explosion while I was sleeping in my room upstairs. I went to check out what was happening and then…” Sweetie Belle felt her throat close up for attempting to recalling every second of the moment the white horse was going after her sister, all of which she remembered clearly.

“Huf, kets! Tzz bah… a crime scene!” A familiar, loud, and creepy voice shouted out to them. “You fillies get out and play with your pony-dolls now, ey?”

Twilight turned to see Officer Gary calling out to them. He had donuts basically overflowing out of his saddlebag and carried on to grab and eat another one.

“Officer Gary, it’s us!” said Twilight, “You told us you wanted us to bring Sweetie Belle here.”

Suddenly, Officer Gary started to leer Twilight. He took a few steps toward her, still leering. Twilight started to feel slightly uncomfortable.

“Errm… Officer?”

“Yeah, I remember you,” he finally said, “But I only do because of your stupid cutie mark. Seriously, what’s that supposed to mean? You growin’ up to be on the bomb squad or something? Last I remember bombs aren’t colored purple. Heck, that thing’s dumber than the SPOON I saw on this kiddo’s flank this morning. Seriously! A spoon! My great grand-daddy’s generation had respectable cutie marks like swords or shoes or iron! What’s all this crap going on around nowadays? Half the Equestrian cop force has a plain ol’ donut as their cutie mark!”

After his rant, he grabbed and ate another donut. Twilight, Applejack, and Sweetie Belle only became confused by his carefree talking.

“Mine, for you kid’s info, is a chocolate-sugar-glazed donut,” he continued, “You can’t ever see it since I’m wearing the upper rank uniform. Now what the heck was I talking about before donuts… ehhh… before cutie marks, spoony girl, Barney the Dinosaur on the bomb squad?...”

“Errm… Officer Gary,” said Twilight, “You wanted to talk to Sweetie Belle, Rarity’s sister?”

“Ey! That’s right!” he exclaimed, “Now I totally remember. Well, we have no time to waste! Time is donuts and every second of my time you kids waste is half a donut I don’t digest. To the questioning room!”

Officer Gary began trotting to the police tents… then quickly stopped on his tracks.

“Officer Gary, what’s wrong?” asked Twilight.

“Ehh… I just remembered this is just temporary base… we ain’t got no questioning room! We’re gonna have to improvise here…”

** ** **

“Ehh… yeah, I don’t think the fire dep’ll mind if we use their break room. They’re never around.”

Twilight, Applejack, and Sweetie Belle had a little trouble enduring Officer’s Gary quest for an isolated questioning room, but the fire department had plenty of rooms that were isolated and empty, and the lieutenant allowed Officer Gary to carry out his questioning within the premises. Out of all the possible bedrooms, meeting rooms, and heavily sound insulated rooms, Officer Gary chose a break room. A coffee machine, a fridge, and a low table with a few hardened haystacks for sitting were the few features of the empty room.

“Very well,” said Officer Gary, “Why don’t you fillies have a seat over there? It’s time to play cop.”

One by one, the fillies sat down by the table. Officer Gary proceeded to the coffee machine.

“Now, I’mma just need a little coffee before we begin.”

Twilight then felt Sweetie Belle nudge her.

“Twilight, I’m kinda nervous,” she whispered.

“It’ll be ok,” she replied, “just answer with the complete truth and try your best.”

They were quickly caught by surprise with a sort of blistering noise then a strange aroma Twilight had never smelled before.”

“What is that smell?” asked Twilight.

“That’s the smell of coffee, sugarcube,” replied Applejack, “Big Mac likes t’ drink it once in a while.”

“That is correct, filly,” said Officer Gary. “When your mornings are crap, coffee is there,” he continued poetically, “When your coworkers get a hangover, coffee is there.  When you need to stay guard all night, Coltumbian coffee is always there. Coffee is bitter and hot as hell. Only the brave dare drink it in its full, pure glory.”

Officer Gary made his return to the table with a cup-almost-mug of coffee in his hand.

“Sir, do yeh even know our names?” asked Applejack.

“I can go my whole life just calling you two fillies.”

“Well, allow us to finally introduce ourselves,” said Twilight, “I’m Twilight Sparkle and this is Applejack. I suppose you’d already know Sweetie Belle since you called for her?”

Officer Gary took a sip of his coffee.

“All right, Twilight-doll and Apple-doll, let us begin. I require you to step away from the witness just a little bit.”

Twilight and Applejack did as Officer Gary said and moved their seats.  Officer Gary sat down directly in front of Sweetie Belle.

“Sir, why are you so relaxed all of a sudden?” asked Sweetie Belle, “You were totally crazy a few minutes ago!”

“It’s the coffee’s aroma, sugarcube,” said Applejack, “Big Mac also gets all chill ‘n’ stuff when he drinks coffee, especially when it’s Coltumbian.”

“You’re doing it wrong, little filly,” said Officer Gary, “I’m the one who’s supposed to be doing the asking.”

Somehow, out of his donut saddlebag, Officer Gary took out a few papers he started to read.

“He are the facts,” he started, “Somepony randomly blew up half your house and stabbed Rarity in the lower abdomen with a piece of ivory. Can you describe the attacker?”

Sweetie Belle was clearly having trouble talking, only being able to whimper for a while.

“Well, he was super big and white! He was about… twice of Rarity’s size.”

“Did you observe his cutie mark?” asked Officer Gary.

“I couldn’t,” said Sweetie Belle, “I was just too shocked at him being about to get my sister.”

“And did you witness the moment of the stabbing?”

“No, Rarity screamed for me to run away. I did hear her scream as I was running.”

“Do you know where to the attacker went?”

“No…”

Sweetie Belle was feeling sadder and guiltier each passing question the cop asked. Why couldn’t she have stayed and saved her sister? Why did she have to be a coward? She was barely standing the weight her unpleasant thoughts forced upon her.

“Sweetie Belle, you were right in not being a hero,” said Officer Gary, “Better to have a half-dead pony than one and a half dead ponies. The lucky thing is your sis is still alive, and you shouldn’t feel like ‘em crap for still having your sister.”

Officer Gary took a nice, long sip of his coffee while Sweetie Belle contemplated.  He then quickly took out a pencil from his saddlebag and used his mouth to jot down some notes on his paper.

“Well, although I know guys aren’t too common around these parts, you’d be surprised at just how many of ‘em are white or white-ish, since that has to be a possibility due to how dark the night was, and without a cutie mark to go on, I’d say this investigation might take a while.  That is, unless, the docs let us see your sister soon enough so she can tell us what she knows.

“Anyways, I’ll have to keep you under the custody of the police, Sweetie Belle. If the attacker had somethin’ against Rarity, you’d definitely be a prime target for him.”

“What?!” proclaimed Sweetie Belle, “Why do I have to? Can’t I be with my friend’s parents or something? Or I’ll also be safe with Applejack!”

“No can do. You’re life’s in danger here and it’s much more shocking because crimes never occur here in Ponyville…” Officer Gary took a look down at his coffee mug. “… I’ll be damned, I’m out of coffee already.”

“Alrrighty officer, I’mma brew some more for you,” said Applejack, “I really like you much better when yer not without coffee ‘n’ munchin’ ‘em donuts ‘n’ talking with yer mouth—“

BANG! Something loud and crisp suddenly exploded from far off. Everypony took a look outside the nearest window.”

“Hoitee tarnation wuz that?!”

Officer Gary appeared dumbfounded. “Damn it… that was a gunshot. Not a good sign. We were explicitly instructed by Princess Celestia herself not to open fire here unless it’s an extreme situation.”

He turned to look at Applejack. “Appledoll, I’m gonna need you to carry a strapped-gun.”

“Yeh want m’to wat now?!”

“What? You don’t know how to use one?”

“Well, ‘course I do, mah uncle taught me, but it’s been a while ‘n’ I didn’t really like it much.”

Officer Gary quickly examined the saddlebag separate from his donut bag. He pulled out what appeared to be a small arm band. Stuck to the band’s side was a gun with a slightly enlarged grip and trigger guard to fit hooves. He handed the strapped-gun to Applejack.

“Strap that on to your left limb, then,” he said, “If things get dirty, you stand on your hind legs, pull the strap out into your left hoof with your right, and aim it, you hear me? As for you, Twilight-doll, be prepared to use your unicorn magic with mortal intent.”

“WHAT! I can’t kill anybody with my magic!” protested Twilight, “That is completely wrong!”

“Not necessarily kill, but I’m tellin’ you, don’t be afraid to get on the threshold to that. It is completely legal to use your magic in self-defense and in defense to others. In fact, you, as a unicorn, have an obligation to kill or assist in a kill if a community is at large risk. I’m invoking that obligation to you under my supervision, you hear? Now you take care of Sweetie Belle and don’t take her off your sights. We have to go back to camp.”

Twilight did not like the ugly ‘obligation’ she knew that she had from the beginning. She hastily followed Officer Gary and Applejack out of the break room, keeping Sweetie Belle next to her.

“Now THAT cop’s pretty cool! Don’t ya think, Twilight? He’s all ready to freaking. Kick. ASS!”

“Sweetie Belle! Don’t you use that language!” exclaimed Twilight.

“What makes you think you can convince me otherwise if Rarity hasn’t?” said Sweetie Belle.

“I’m going to take you with Fluttershy after all this, then, you little spoiled brat.”

Immediately, Sweetie Belle shut up.