Twilight followed from the back of the group as Tom stayed close to the two farm ponies while they showed him into the house. Upon taking a look around the living room, the purple mare was appalled at the disheveled appearance of the place.

Several notable decorations she had remembered such as pictures or vases were missing from where they originally sat. Some of the more sharp objects had been secured with tape in an attempt to prevent them from flying around. Amid the chaotic ruins of the formerly warm and inviting room, a few glass shards littered the floor from where the noise they heard just moments ago most likely originated.

Applejack seemed distraught at the appearance of her once proud home. She sighed and looked to Tom and Twilight. “The only other person here right now is Applebloom… thankfully Granny is out of town this week on one of her errands. Ah shudder to think about what could happen to her if she were here.” The orange pony looked down sadly.

Twilight walked up to her and put a hoof on her good shoulder. “Don’t worry Applejack, I’m sure that Tom will be able to help you.” The unicorn looked to her friend lovingly with an optimistically bright smile.

Applejack smiled weakly, still being unable to let go of her frustrations enough to offer a complete smile. “Ah just don’t know Twilight, anything we try seems to just make it madder.” Applejack sighed in despair as she looked to Tom. “Applebloom is upstairs in her room… follow me. Big Mac, you stay down here with Twilight. The less people gathered in one place the better.” She instructed gloomily.

“Eeyup…” Big Mac shrugged sadly.

The orange pony beckoned the human to follow her as she walked up the stairs. She stared ahead blankly as her thought process was reduced to a tired jumble of mush. Tom looked around the house as he followed Applejack, half to admire the homey atmosphere and half to survey the area for any possible clues that could serve his purpose. The cowpony suddenly stopped at a door and put her head up to it to listen. She knocked a few times on the door and raised her voice to be heard through the wooden frame.

“Applebloom… you okay in there sugarcube?” Applejack asked with an inflection of sisterly care in her voice. The two could hear muffled sounds of something moving around inside before they suddenly heard the young filly reply.

“Ah’m fine sis. You want something?” Applebloom asked curiously. Tom could hear the soft southern accent even though the sound was muffled heavily by the door.

Satisfied that her sister was still safe, Applejack spoke up again through the door. “We found someone who might be able to help us out. Can we come in and introduce you?” Applejack put her ear to the door and listened intently. The filly was silent for a moment before speaking again with a hopeful tone in her voice.

“Come on in.” Applebloom said with a friendly tone.

Applejack opened the door and stepped into the room while looking around. All of the small objects in the room had been taken down and put somewhere safe. The room looked barren and empty, save for a few pieces of furniture and the bed, which had Applebloom laying on it wearing what appeared to be two pillows strapped to her body.

The odd suit seemed to be very restrictive of motion as it sandwiched the young filly tightly. The suit didn’t obscure the many scratches and bruises covering Applebloom’s body, however. Applejack found it difficult to look at her sister in this beaten up state.

The farm pony stood by the bed and looked at her sister lovingly while talking to her eye to eye. “Applebloom, this is the human Ah told you about… the one that saved my life last night along with everyone else’s. He is here to try and help us, but he said that he needed to meet everyone first.” Applejack explained while trying to sound as cheerful as her exhaustion would allow. Applebloom looked at the human with a doubtful yet curious expression. She loosened up a little bit as Tom bent down to her level and smiled at her.

“Hi there Applebloom… my name is Thomas, but you can call me Tom if you want.” Tom said in a friendly tone.

The filly looked at him for a moment and thought about his name. She then slowly returned his smile before looking at him in a lighthearted manner. “Tom huh? That sounds like an odd name.” Applebloom stated in a half joking half serious kind of way without seeming harsh. The human chuckled warmly. He had not expected to be criticized on his name in a place like this.

“Well where I come from, Applebloom would be an odd name. Tom is actually pretty standard fare as far as names go for humans.” Tom spoke softly in a friendly manner. He looked puzzled as the filly frowned at him.

“Ah’m glad that my name isn’t odd around here. Ah have enough problems at school without being made fun of for my name.” Applebloom looked down sadly as she sulked internally. Tom and Applejack looked at her sympathetically.

The human looked to the filly in a puzzled sort of way. He couldn’t imagine why a young girl would be made fun of in this seemingly peaceful society. “What problems could you possibly have at school? You seem pretty enough for a little pony, and everyone I have met in this place so far has been mostly nice to me.” The human observed while thinking back to everyone he had interacted with.

Applebloom sighed and took off the pillow suit she was wearing. Tom expected her to show him the rest of her cuts and bruises, but instead, she turned sideways and pointed to her blank flank. “Ah don’t have a cutie mark yet… that alone is reason enough for me to be made fun of at school… and now Ah look like even more of a mess.” The filly huffed in dismay as she noted her numerous scratches and bruises.

The human scratched his head curiously. Of all the strange terms he had heard thus far, cutie mark had to be the strangest sounding one. “What is a cutie mark? Twilight failed to explain that one to me.” Tom looked to Applejack in the hopes that she could fill him in. The farm pony looked at him with surprise and turned so he could see her cutie mark better.

“Oh right! Humans must not have cutie marks then Ah suppose... A cutie mark is something a pony gets when they find out what skill they are good at.” Applejack pointed to her own cutie mark. “Eventually, what you end up with is a symbol on yer flank that is unique to every pony. It gives you a clue as to what that pony is good at, and sometimes can give you a hint as to what they are like.” The orange mare explained the concept as best as she could.

The human looked at the mark on the farm pony’s flank and exclaimed in revelation. It made much more sense now than when he first noticed the strange designs. “Oh, so that’s a cutie mark. I was beginning to wonder why everyone had strange pictures on their side. I assume that yours represents how you work on an apple farm?” Tom pondered out loud. The orange mare smiled and nodded as the human caught on.

“Yep, Ah love working with apples. But it can represent a lot more than that, like how Ah enjoy working in general. Ah think that with hard work and determination, anything is possible.” Applejack explained cheerfully. Tom nodded as he thought about how important determination was for him considering his powers.

Applebloom sighed in frustration. Tom looked back at her with a puzzled expression. He had no idea why the filly would have been tormented for such a trivial reason. “So why do people make fun of you for not having one yet? From the sound of it, you will get yours soon enough.” Tom asked quizzically. She looked up to him and pondered about it for a moment.

“Ah don’t know why they do it, but there are a couple of mean fillies in my school that already have their cutie marks. They like to tease us and call us blank flanks, and now they are probably going to laugh at me even more now that Ah look so beaten up and tired.” Applebloom shuddered as she thought about the harsh comments she would undoubtedly hear at school tomorrow.

Tom thought for a moment before smirking at the filly. “Well you might not have a cutie mark, but I can think of something you have that all those mean pony’s don’t.” The human stated confidently.

Applebloom looked at him with doubt and curiosity. “What’s that?” The filly looked at herself as she thought about what unique qualities she could have that her classmates did not share. The human smiled warmly while giving her a confident expression.

“The next time someone makes fun of you for not having a cutie mark or anything else, tell them that you are friends with a human. And not just a regular human, a human that beats up monsters and other mean things for a hobby.” Tom eyed her deviously. She chuckled and smiled devilishly as she pictured the scenario in her head.

The human took a final look at the filly before getting up and shrugging. Now that he was better acquainted with the orange mare’s family, he had to get down to business and find out a way to help them.

“Alright then Applebloom, let’s see about dealing with your problem here. Can you tell me your own experience with this… thing?” Tom asked quizzically while looking around the room. Applebloom put a hoof up to her chin and trailed her eyes off in thought.

“Weeell, Ah guess it started a little while after Applejack left with Twilight and the others to go see Zecora last night. Ah was about to get in bed and go to sleep, when suddenly Ah heard Big Mac hollering from downstairs. Ah was kind of scared, because Ah could hear things breaking against the wall. Ah went down to check out what was happening, and Ah found Big Mac trying to dodge things that were flying at him.” The filly motioned with her hooves in an animated fashion as she told her story. Tom listened intently while Applejack frowned upon hearing about what happened after she left. “Me and Big Mac tried our best to sleep after about an hour of dealing with things flying against the wall. Ah was in my room trying to shut out the noise with my pillow, when suddenly everything got really quiet. Ah could have sworn that Ah heard something walking up the stairs and outside my room. Ah thought it was Big Mac coming to check in on me, but the door never opened and the sound stopped. Ah sat there for a while staring at the door, when all of a sudden I felt something smack me across the face.” Applebloom grew more fearful as she described what happened to her. She was on the verge of breaking down into tears as she thought back to her terrifying experience. Applejack sat on the bed with her and looked at her sadly. She wrapped her hoof around the filly while pulling her close. The filly cried into her sister’s side for a minute before wiping her tears and continuing. “A... Ah was so scared. Ah hid under the blankets and tried to convince myself that Ah imagined it, but then it started scratching me. Ah yelled for Big Mac and didn’t stop until he came running in. The thing didn’t even stop smacking me around when Big Mac picked me up and took me downstairs. He yelled at it to stop and leave me alone. After that, it was off and on between it picking up things and throwing them at us or the wall, making scratching and banging noises on the floors and ceilings, and scratching and hitting me and Big Mac until Applejack came home.” Applebloom explained in a sad tone.

Applebloom sobbed in fear and buried her head into her sister’s coat. Applejack held her closely while rubbing her head gently. She looked up to Tom sadly and sighed. “Once Ah got home, the only thing that changed was that it started attacking me too. We hardly got a wink of sleep last night. This morning we tried to keep Applebloom close to us and out of the house, but it followed us to the barn. That’s where I got this cut on my shoulder here.” Applejack looked to the laceration and shrugged. She then turned to Tom and looked at him pleadingly. “Is there anything you can do to help us, Tom? Ah’m at my wit’s end here.”

Tom looked to the two sisters embracing on the bed. He felt sorry for all the trouble they had been through. He took in a deep breath and smiled to try and cheer the farm pony up. “I think I know just what is going on here. Lucky for you guys I should be able to take care of this with no prob-” The boy was cut off mid-sentence by a high pitched scream coming from downstairs. Applejack jumped to her feet and joined Tom in staring at the door with a concerned expression.

“That sounded like Twilight! Come on Tom, let’s get down there!” The farm pony exclaimed in a panic. She motioned for Applebloom to stay put and ran to the door with Tom right on her tail.

Applejack ran in front of the human as she scrambled down the stairs. No amount of exhaustion or fatigue was going to stop the orange mare from helping out a friend in trouble. She stopped at the bottom of the stairs and gasped as she took in the scene before her.

Big Mac was on the ground with glass broken near his head. He groaned in pain as he writhed on the floor. Twilight was pinned in a corner with a terrified expression. Zipping around the room were several household objects that were of various sizes.

The objects seemed to swirl around in a cloud as they hovered menacingly through the air. Every so often, an object would break free of the circle of projectiles and hurl itself near Twilight. The unicorn was bleeding badly from a wound on her chest that still had glass sticking out of it.

“Twilight!” Applejack stuck out a hoof as she shouted to her friend in terror. The unicorn uncovered her face and looked at her friend. She suddenly grew pale and her eyes widened in shock.

“Applejack look out!” Twilight exclaimed frantically while pointing behind the farm pony. Applejack darted her head around to look in the direction she was pointing. She gasped as she saw a knife from the kitchen had apparently been picked up and added to the cloud of objects. The knife pointed at her menacingly as it hovered in the air just outside of the swirling mass.

“AHH!” The orange pony cried out in surprise as the knife flew at her face in a blur. She closed her eyes and prepared for the pain to come to her, but was surprised when she felt nothing happening.

Applejack squinted one eye open partially to see if she had been killed instantly and was now in the afterlife. To the pony’s excitement, she saw that she was still in her living room. She then gasped and backed up in surprise as she saw the knife being held an inch away from her face. She turned to see Tom holding onto the knife tightly while looking at her with a serious expression.

“Quick! Grab your brother and pull him over to the door. Twilight, Make a break for it! I will deal with this.” The human instructed urgently. Applejack and Twilight nodded as they rushed to do as they were instructed. Applejack swiftly ran to her brother and shook him to see if he could walk. He got to his feet and started staggering while relying on his sister to guide him in the right direction. Twilight got low to the floor and rushed behind the two as they made a beeline for the door.

Tom looked to the swirling cloud of objects as it threw a few plates at the group of escaping ponies. One of the plates hit Twilight in the back, sending her to the floor as she cried out in pain and surprise. The human used his senses a few times to see if his suspicions were true.

Before he could get a solid reading, however, he widened his eyes in shock as he saw several more knives break off from the cloud at the same time. They pointed to Twilight while she struggled to get up and shook in the air as they prepared to plunge into the helpless unicorn.

“Alright, that’s enough out of you!” Tom exclaimed angrily. He then lifted his arm to point straight at the center of the mass of flying objects and fired off a quick flash of light. The light completely filled the room, blinding the ponies for a brief moment before it disappeared. After the light faded, the objects suddenly crashed to the floor as they stopped floating, causing a deafening wave of sound to ring out. The ponies looked around in shock before settling their eyes on Tom, who was panting quietly as he tried to regain his breath.

“You did it, Tom! You made it stop! Thank goodness fer that.” Applejack let out a sigh of relief before wiping the sweat from her brow. She looked at the human with a puzzled expression as he shook his head.

“Don’t get too excited just yet. I only stopped it temporarily… it will be back once it gets its strength back up and it decides the time is right. But don’t worry, I should be able to stop it for good once it comes back and I can sense what it is for sure.” Tom explained in a reassuring tone.

“Aww horsefeathers.” Applejack cursed under her breath at her misfortune. She was glad that Tom had intervened before anypony got hurt, but she also felt a sense of defeat, almost like she was expecting the human to fail at ridding her house of the affliction. “Do you know what it is at least Tom?” She asked while trying not to sound too harsh and cold. She did not want her gratitude to be lost amid her tired and frustrated exterior.

“Yeah, it’s a poltergeist.” The boy gave them a matter of fact explanation as he observed the broken objects littering the floor. The ponies looked at each other in confusion.

“What in the hay is a polter... whatever you just said?” Applejack asked and eagerly awaited a simplified explanation.

The human stopped himself from going off on a more complicated tangent. He then sighed at his own thought process before turning to the ponies. “Poltergeist is a word from a language that was spoken half way across the world from my country. It translates to noisy ghost, and means just that.” Tom said while recalling the details of the entity in question. The ponies gasped upon hearing the explanation.

“A… a ghost? But nobody has died on the property from what Ah know.” Applejack stammered in surprise as she tried to think of why a ghost would be in her house.

Tom shrugged before shaking his head at her to halt her terrifying thought process. He didn’t want her to get too fearful of something before she even knew what it was. “Wait, wait… hold on before you jump to any conclusions. A poltergeist doesn’t necessarily have to be the ghost of a dead person. It can also appear if a large amount of spiritual energy in an area suddenly comes to life… which is probably what we’re dealing with, because once I shot a blast of positive energy at it, it stopped.” The human tried to alleviate the cowpony’s growing fears with his explanation.

Applejack shook her head in frustration and growled under her breath. “Ah don’t care what it is anymore. Ah just want to be able to sit in our house for a few minutes without something flying at me!” She huffed in an upset manner. Twilight looked at her friend sympathetically as she steadied her brother against a wall. Big Mac seemed dazed, but he looked like he would recover.

The purple unicorn cringed as she looked down at her own wound. She grabbed the piece of glass stuck in her and pulled it out. The unicorn cried out in pain as she pulled the large fragment out of her body. Applejack looked at her with sympathy and concern. She put a hoof on her shoulder for support as Twilight threw the glass shard on the floor in frustration.

“I think at this rate I’m going to start looking like Swiss cheese if I keep getting cut up.” Twilight looked at her wound sadly and held back a painful tear from leaving her eye. Meanwhile, Tom pondered as to how Swiss cheese could exist still if Switzerland no longer did. His thoughts were interrupted by the unicorn shooting him a serious look. “Tom, you said that thing will be coming back right? So when do you think it will return?” Twilight asked fiercely. The unicorn seemed hell-bent on helping her friend to be rid of this horrible thing plaguing her. The human admired her spirit before adopting a more serious look himself.

“It depends... It could be back in a few minutes, or it could be back in a few hours. I doubt it’s still regaining its energy by now with how strong it seemed, but it’s probably biding its time while waiting for an opportunity.” Tom shrugged upon delivering the news. As he expected, Applejack did not seem happy to hear that the thing might be around for a while.

“Oh for cryin’ out loud! Ah swear if Ah could touch it, Ah would give it the worst beating of its life! Its… non-life… Daww you know what Ah mean.” The orange mare fumed with frustration. Suddenly a high pitched shriek erupted from upstairs. The sound of the scream drove her blood cold as she paled with dread.

“Applebloom!” Applejack exclaimed fearfully as she recognized the terrified shriek to be her little sister.