Friends or Foes

Prologue

Yet another excellent day, like any other day these past weeks: The sky is clear, the sun shines, and there is practically no wind at all. Summer has begun and brings plenty of wonderful days to be used for fun. In this nearly unbearable heat, nopony even thinks about working. Instead, most ponies spend their day by lying in the sun, getting a tan on a balcony, in the town square, or in the fields just outside the town. Or they are having a picnic on the grassy hills, enjoying the cloudless sky while a cool breeze  flows along their manes. And playful little ponies play games in the shadow of the forests, avoiding the energy-draining rays. Every pony has their own ways of enjoying this day.

As to be expected: Twilight Sparkle, personal student of Princess Celestia, uses this opportunity (like any other opportunity) to enjoy reading a good book inside the library. Using a little fan with her levitation magic, she keeps herself cooled.

'Hey Twilight. If you're going to read a book anyway, isn't it best to do that in the sunlight? Better make use of it while it lasts,' a young voice tells her from outside the room that Twilight sits in.

Twilight's draconic assistant: Spike. Of course he has taken any action required to enjoy the sun to the fullest. With a comfy chair, a pair of sunglasses, and a cold drink he works on his tan on the balcony of the library.

'Oh Spike, I'm sure that there will be more sun coming these weeks,' Twilight tells him, without even looking away from her novel. 'It's just past the Sun Summer Celebration. There's no rush for me to read a book in this heatwave yet. Besides, I will take a walk outside later today anyway.'

'Meh, suit yourself,' Spike shrugs and carries on back to his own business.

***

The boiling heat is not good for everypony though. A pink pony in the town square has a hard time to keep her happy mood up. She started very cheerful in the morning, jumping around as happy as can be. But now she's running out of steam, breathing deeply from thrist.

'Couldn't he have chosen to write about a less warm day?!' she pants exhausted as she slowly moves through the town square.

***

But even under these circumstances there are some ponies that keep working no matter what. On Sweet Apple Acres in specific. Even with this unbearable heat, the residents keep working to keep the trees from dehydrating, buck apples out into many numbered barrels, and plowing the field. Heat is no reason for a day off to them.

'Yow, Big Mac!' a voice yells from the hills, to the working stallion.

'Hm?' Big Macintosh looks up with a sweaty head to his sister.

'Have you seen apple barrel #86 somewhere? I can't find it anywhere!'

'Nope,' he bluntly responds and carries on back to plowing the field.

'What ya' mean 'no'? Did you see anypony? Barrels don't just disappear by themselves!' Applejack says agitated.

But then she stops yelling at her brother, who is too busy to plow the field and ignores her. Applejack reconsiders the situation and realizes another possibility. The most common reason of multiple troubles that have happened before on sweet Apple Acres:

'APPLEBLOOM!'

***

'Hey, did you girls hear that?' a filly with a bow in her mane asks as she looks up in the air.

'Hm? Heard what, Applebloom?' one of her two friends asks her.

'Oh, nothing. Probably my imagination. Anyway, are you really really REALLY sure that Applejack won't notice that we took a barrel of apples?' she asks anxiously.

'Don't worry! There are hundreds of these barrels. You really think your big sister can keep track of one barrel disappearing?' the white unicorn filly assures her.

'How else are we going to find out if we're cut out to be applejuice salesmares or not if we don't even have any apples?' the pegasus filly adds to Sweetie Bell's statement.

'Yup! You're right, Scootaloo.' Applebloom admits.

The 3 fillies are stationed at a shaded forest road that connects  leads from Ponyville to places like Canterlot. It's the perfect place to set up a crudely build wooden vendor and sell applejuice made from fresh apples to weary travelers.

'It's done!' Scootaloo cheerfully tells them after she spat out the hammer, which she used to strike nails in the construction.

'Beautiful,' Sweetie Bell compliments. 'If we won't be successful in selling juice, we can always try carpenting again.'

The 3 of them jump behind the counter and put a large bowl with applejuice on it. It has a lot of apple residue in it, considering they didn't truly know how to properly make it. But with an attitude of thinking that applejuice is applejuice, they will try it out anyway.

'Vendor? Check. Applejuice? Check. Customers?'

They remain quiet when they realize that not a single pony has passed them the entire time while they were building. Nevertheless, they will remain idle and patiently wait for the line of customers they anticipate.

Alas for them: They don't know that the road isn't used very often.

3 hours later

The fillies sigh together, leaning on the wooden counter. Several hours have passed and there has been nopony that even came by.

'I start to think that this may not be our best idea, girls. We got everything... except customers,' Sweetie Bell sighs.

'Let's wait a little longer... Somepony is bound to show up,' the pegasus foolhardly doesn't want to give in.

'How much longer do you want to wait?' Sweetie Bell asks. 'We've been here for hours now and nopony has yet to show up, let alone buy our juice!'

Her words strike the hard truth into their young minds. Maybe this idea sounded better in their head than it actually is.

'Wait! Look over there!' Applebloom gasps and points to the horizon of the road.

A little shadow on the road is starting to move closer to them. It was certainly not there a moment ago, and it's shaped like a pony. Finaly the customer they waited so long for!

Though it seems as if the shadow isn't getting much bigger. The pony is almost there and he's only as tall as the girls.

The pony has a light-brown color and a spiky red mane, just like his tail. Two tiny wings are resting on his sides.

The pony that they hoped to be their 1st customer turns out to be a colt pegasus, probably not much older than them, complete with an empty spot on his flank.

'Yow,' he greets the girls without much attention. He doesn't even pay notice to their vendor, since he's simply walking on without pause. Of course, the Cutie Mark Crusaders won't just let a possible customer escape.

'Hay there! You look thirsty!' Applebloom says as she jumps into his way with a smile, surprising the colt a little by the sudden response.

'Eh, hey? Not really, thanks,' he answers, hoping to continue on now. But Scootaloo and Sweetie Bell jump to his sides.

'C'mon. A restless traveller such as yourself can't be walking this whole time and not get thirsty?' Sweetie Bell asks with the same grin as Applebloom.

'Nope,' the pegasus bluntly agrees.

'See? Try some CMC applejuice: the best thristbuster in Equestria!' Scootaloo sticks her hoof out in front of him, holding a cup of applejuice.

'Made from fresh apples!' Sweetie Bell adds.

'But please don't tell my sister about it. She's -eh- too busy,' Applebloom anxiously adds as well.

The colt gets a little tired from this pushy behavior and refuses the offer. 'Seriously, I'm not thirsty,' he tells them.

'Why not?' Sweetie Bell asks dissapointed.

'Because I just drank some water at a different vendor, a mile back...,' he grunts.

The fillies feel like they are shot with stupidity. The never knew about another vendor this close, with the same idea as they had about this road. How could they sell anything like this?

'But... weren't those last meters tiring enough for the need of some applejuice?' Sweetie Bell tries to hold on to the sale.

'C'mon! One blanc-flank to another: It won't kill you to try some!' Scootaloo starts to get more pushy.

'Yea. How much does it hurt to buy some?' Applebloom rhetorically asks him, while remaining a friendly salesmare.

The little colt gets more uncomfortable by these pushy fillies. They don't seem to leave him alone until he's out of the picture or buys their applejuice.

'Gimme a break, I gotta keep moving. I'm on family visit!' he tells them angry. He pushes them out of his way and tries to continue along the road.

Applebloom and Sweetie Bell feel like this sale is a bust, forcing them to give up. But just when the colt is about to walk away and the girls are heading back to their stand, Scootaloo jumps in front of him.

'You're not going anywhere just yet, buddy!' she threatens grumpy.

'Oh for the love of... Out of my way!' the colt threatens just the same.

Scootaloo has waited with her friends for hours, waiting for a customer. She won't let this one get away this easy now. Narrowing her eyes to glare, she attempts to beat him through sheer willpower. 'Make me...' she whispers.

Both Scootaloo's friends are a little surprised to see their friend starts to go hostile on a 'customer', noticing how they are both glaring each other's eyes out.

'Wait! Scootaloo!' Applebloom gasps.

The two pegasi are struck in a duel of wits. While Scootaloo tries to prevent the stranger from passing by jumping in every direction her tries to take, the stranger tries to get past Scootaloo to continue his way to Ponyville.

The male pegasus tries to go left and right of her, which she quickly blocks. Even an attempt to jump over her is stopped by a head butt against his skull.

'Ehm,  Scootaloo? I... think we should try something else than selling juice,' Sweetie Bell mumbles to her, knowing that things are getting out of hand.

But Scootaloo ignores her friends completely. The only thing that's on her mind is this ridiculous fight. The 2 pegasi keep yelling threats and push each other violently.

'Step aside!'

'Forget it!'

'Don't push me! You'll be sorry!'

'Oh yea? Try me!'

'Grrr!'

'Grrr!'

The colt is slowly getting more and more aggravated, enough to take some serious action. He starts to take a few steps backwards, making Scootaloo think that he's giving up.

'Alright then... Prepare your brain for astonishment! I didn't want to have to do this, but you made me force my hoof!' he tells her, feeling very confident about himself all of the sudden. He prepares his little wings for action, stretching them as far as he can. It doesn't impress Scootaloo. It's just another desperate effort to get past her, in her opinion. And with wings like his, he won't get high enough to fly over her.

He starts to run towards her and bends through his legs at the last moment, ready for take-off.

'BANZAI!' he yells as battlecry.

Completely unexpected to anypony: Their customer is gone! The only glimpse they caught was that he jumped up at a much higher speed than they expected.

'What in the hay?' Scootaloo looks defeated at the spot where he stood, unable to grasp the reality.

'Hah! What'ya think about THEM apples?' they suddenly hear from above. They look towards where the voice came from. Shining from pride, the pegasus stands on a treebranch high in the treetops.

'H-How did you do that?! That was amazing!' Scootaloo gasps, clearly impressed by the colt's move.

The colt chuckles, gladly accepting the praise.'I know, I know. I Came up with it myself. Since I can't fly so well yet, I just had to improvise on my jumps!'

Instead of using a jump as a kick-start to fly, he used his flightless wings as a bonus to his jump:, making him jump much further and faster than normally. Simple to come up with, yet difficult to preform.

'I can also use it to tackle someone. But I didn't wanted to make you cry,' he laughs, literary looking down on the three fillies now. But Scootaloo doesn't care. She is still overthrown by the impressively useful technique he performed that doesn't require actual flight. They all forget about the business they had in mind and now truly get to meet each other.

'Who are you anyway?' Sweetie Bell asks him.

'Who am I?' he chuckles at the question. 'I Am Dusty Gust: kamikaze colt and ghosthunter in-training! But I usually go by my nickname: "The Guster!"

That last part sounded the most odd to the girls. Not his nickname, but his ghosthunting thing. The most common thing that an energic Pegasus like him would want to become is a member of the Wonderbolts. Yet he wishes to hunt things that probably don't even exist?

'Ghost hunter? Are you saying that ghosts real?' Applebloom asks him carefully.

'Of course they are real! I've seen them with my own eyes!' he responds insulted. 'I may not be a full fledged hunter just yet, though. But my brother is! He's the best ghost hunter in Equestria and I will work hard to follow in his hoofsteps! I haven't got my Cutie Mark yet, but I already know it's going to be a ghosthunter mark!'

His long story about his devotion to hunting mythical things has caught some interest from the fillies. 'That DOES sound pretty cool,' Sweetie Bell admits.

Dusty smiles, glad to hear the respect he thinks it deserves. 'I came here to visit him, since I heard from mom and dad that he moved to Ponyville. So I came on my own and take a look,' he tells them. '...Though I never got to hear WHERE he's living in town,' Dusty sighs, feeling a little embarrassed.

Applebloom thinks deeply and comes up with an idea. 'Girls, Cutie Mark Crusader meeting, now,' she whispers to her friends to come over to her. Putting their heads close, they start to whisper out of Dusty's range of hearing.

'Have we ever done something like ghost-hunting before?' she asks them.

Sweetie Bell grabs a list filled with words of professions and talents, marking what kind of stunts and jobs they have tried to see what they're good at. After she searches down to the bottom of the list, she rolls it back up.

'Eh.... monster hunting is the only thing that comes close, I suppose. Does that count?' she asks them.

'Monsters and ghosts aren't the same, right? We shouldn't take any risks in missing out anything,' Applebloom backs-up. 'What say y'all if we join up with this colt's search for his pegasus brother? And in the meantime we may find out if we're any good of ghost-hunters!'

Sweetie Bell and Scootaloo look at each other in excitement. It sounds to them like a good plan to them. 'Good idea! Either we get our Cutie Mark as professional ghost hunter.... or we get Cutie Marks of being tourguides!'

They giggle happily, while the colt is simply lying on the branch and waits until the fillies are done with their whispers. The little crusaders turn around to him when they stopped laughing.

'Maybe we can help you. We come from Ponyville, so we can be your guides!' Applebloom yells to the treetop.

Dusty hadn't come up with that idea yet. If anypony should know where his brother is, it should be residents from the town itself. 'You would?' he asks them, discarding his ego. 'That would be awesome!'

'And hey, maybe you can show me that move again!' Scootaloo brings up, still wanting to see more of that flightless technique he showed.

'Sure thing!' he gladly replies. 'But... I need to ask for a favor first...'

The fillies look up, curious of what the colt wants. 'What is it?'

'...Could you help me get down from this tree? I can leap into it... but not out.'