Cheerilee sat in her bed looking over her books, planning her next day’s lesson, trying to keep herself distracted from the Apple ponies; and their intimidation at the guard house.

There was a sharp knock on her door.

“Who the hay could that be?” she grunted as she got up and answered it. It was a town guard mare with an azure blue coat and flax-gold mane, wearing the signature blue sash and badge.around her neck.
“Miss Cheerilee?”
“...yes?”
“I have a letter for you. It’s to be hoof stamped by you and returned to the guard house.”
She pulled an envelope from her side bag, and hoofed it to her.

Cheerilee opened and read it, she did a double take. The note read:

“I do require a hoof stamp from you, confirming you received this letter,” the town guard mare said, producing an ink pad. Cheerilee realised she had no choice but to stamp it. Normally, orders could be disputed, and most of the times the related matters resolved, but with all these power hungry Apple ponies in charge, she wondered if she could even appeal the order. Still, this officer, who she knew to be an Apple pony, was standing outside her door could arrest her and drag her back the guard house if she refused to stamp it.

She pressed a hoof into the officer’s ink pad, then pressed it on the paper.

“Thank you, Miss Cheerilee,” the mare said as she stuffed the paper back into the envelope and back into her side bag.

“Wait, don’t I get a copy?” Cheerilee asked.
“You may purchase one from us for 25 bits. It’s your job to remember anyway.”
“Wait, that’s illegal! And you know it, Sundowner.” Cheerilee called her out. She knew Sundowner for years and decided to use their friendship to take her off her power trip.

“Ugh,” Sundowner grunted in frustration, “Look, you want me to wait while you write out your own copy? I’ve got a lot to do now that...Anna and Turner are my bosses. I asked for an extra copy, and they refused to give it to me. Look, all you have to do is stay away from Big Mac, got it? It’s not that hard to do. I’m sorry. nothing ponysonal, I’m just doing my job.”

Cheerilee knew Sundowner for years. She was an Apple mare, born in a town called Apple Stone, and moved to Ponyville, where she grew up, and got a job with the town guard. In a relatively crime free town, town guard night shift was one of the easiest decent paying jobs around, and it worked out well for ponies with insomnia, like Sundowner.

Often Cheerilee passed her on the way home from late nights at the school, and the two greeted one another or briefly chatted. Unlike Applejack, Sundowner showed no noticeable objection to her and Big Mac. One time she even asked the two of them if they planned to marry, producing an awkward moment for the two, but no harm. Sundowner wasn’t the kind to power trip and dictate other ponies’ business unless she had to deal with troublesome ponies while on duty.

Cheerilee wanted to know more, about how and why a bunch of bigot Apples took up powerful positions in the town guard. She hoped their friendship would help.
“Sundowner, since when have your relatives been working for the town guard? With all due respect, I find their...duties...to be invasive...”

Sundowner was about to turn and walk away but she stopped, She and Cheerilee exchanged glances, and Cheerilee knew that the sky-blue mare with her wheat-gold mane wasn’t too happy about the situation either. She nervously glanced around, then hissed, “Can I come in? Nopony’s looking.”
“Uh, sure,” Cheerilee said, opening the door enough to let her in, then she quickly closed and locked it, and slid the curtains shut.

“Applejack’s losing her shit, and I don’t think we’ve seen the worst of it yet.” Sundowner blurted. “She’s trying to control all of us with an iron hoof. She’s been mailing out letters like crazy to every Apple family address she can find, calling in ponies from Nightmare Moon-knows-where.”

“Calling in ponies?” Cheerilee asked, perplexed, “For what-”

“She’s extremely paranoid, about everything,” Sundowner continued, trying to keep calm. “She thinks Sweet Apple Acres is about to become a massive agricultural wreck, with rotten apples everywhere, business is gonna dry up, and Celestia’s going to rain down a big sack full of plagues on all of us.”

“What the hay for?” Cheerilee prompted the shivering mare, “Please keep calm, you’re safe,”

“She thinks it’s because of what Big Mac and Granny Smith did at Nimbuscait back before winter, and she thinks that unicorn filly living at the farm is cursing everypony.”

“What did Big Mac and Granny Smith do at Nimbuscait?”

“They stopped a dehorning. Right in front of the priests. Father Grimes owns Nimbuscait, and he rules the entire county with an iron hoof. He has the Apples in his hoof basket. The priests were about to dehorn this...Apple Belle, or Sweetie Belle, whatever her name is, and Granny Smith attacked them. They somehow bailed out of there alive, but now the Apples living in Nimbuscait hate Applejack and the rest of us. Applejack thinks the unicorn made it all happen, and she’s expecting- a-a meteor to hit the farm or something like that.”

Cheerilee remembered the things Sweetie Belle told her. “And so Applejack’s calling in relatives for-”

“To beef up our numbers, and expand Sweet Apple Acres. She’s been buying up unoccupied fields everywhere just outside of town to the west. Over the last 20 years, ponies have been moving out of Sweet Apple Acres, and she is calling in a lot to replace them and keep the apples rolling out. She’s been trying to get me to move back, and I like my home here in town. On top of that, Applejack’s become a hater, and a racist. She was brainwashed by some Nimbuscait mare named Applegem Frost Apple, who comes down here once every few weeks, apparently she’s the only one of them who will talk to her. She fears and hates unicorns, and she thinks they’re causing her perceived downfall.

Cheerilee was surprised, “So now she’s got her family coming in-”

“It’s a consolidation of power, Cheerilee.” Appledowner interrupted, “Applejack bribed the town guard vice chief to hire all of her relatives. You see, in the town guard, you make less than at a shop or somewhere else. It’s a government thing, and our wages depend on the town’s taxes and treasury...most of it comes, or used to come from the Sweet Apples’ profits. These Apples, who none of me or the others know are on some kind of religious trip, and they’re all joining the town guard. They don’t care if they get paid less. And Anna and Turner are the new higher ups. The town guard chief has been gone for weeks, and the vice chief is making a killing off of Applejack’s bribes-”

“Hold on,” Cheerilee stopped her, “How do you know all this?”

Sundowner sighed, “Sometimes I work the desks at the guard house. The chief’s secretary got fired, and I took her place. This big stallion, Vigilance. He’s the vice chief. When Chief Tibbs is not in Ponyville, Vigilance calls the shots. I overheard him and Applejack talking about him becoming the chief. I’ve no idea how they’re going to get rid of Tibbs, but in short, Vigilance becomes chief, Applejack pays him the bits, and she becomes the real chief of the town guard.”

“Sundowner, let me stop you right there. Is all of this true?” Cheerilee said, looking her dead in the eye, trying to fish out a lie. Ponies exaggerate stories all the time. She mastered the art in fishing the truth and lies out of her students, she didn’t have many problems doing so with adult ponies. Sundowner, being almost ten years younger than her, was actually a student of her mother, Cherry Blossom.

Appledowner gulped and nodded, and almost started crying. “Yes, it’s true, I wish I was drunk on cider and talking out of my flank right now! If you don’t believe me, I can get a memory crystal from Twilight Sparkle, and show you.”

“That won’t be necessary. Back to what you were saying,” she prompted the town guard mare.

“...Applejack’s undecided who she wants to install as town guard chief, be it some Apple pony from, Roundbottom or I don’t know; or Vigilance. She said she’d like to have Apple Turner take over...anyways, some pony she wants in place to do as she says, and then Applejack will be in command of the town guard.”

“Why is she doing this?” Cheerilee asked.

“I don’t know, I don’t want to know. Anna Apple said having Apples in the town guard would let the Sweet Apples freely govern themselves, and to stop the town guard from snooping around the farm. But now if Applejack gets her way, she, the family, and the town guard become a real problem for the rest of Ponyville. Applejack will have everypony fired and replaced with Apples and other ponies they trust.”

“This still doesn’t make sense to me.” Cheerilee said in disbelief. She knew from her run-ins with Applejack over the last several moons since Granny Smith’s death that Applejack wasn’t all together in the head. It was one thing to have a few Apples in the town guard, as per the norm for nearly a hundred years, but to take over the town guard completely, it didn’t make sense without an ulterior motive, one Sundowner was too eager to supply:

“This won’t bode well with the unicorns, Cheerilee. Apples hate unicorns, plain and simple. Sure most of them will act nice so the unicorns buy their apples, and do business with them, but I overheard Applejack saying she’d have no problem burning them all. She even talked about having the Nimbuscait ponyfolk come down here. I been to Nimbuscait, they are all dangerous, psychotic freaks! Especially their priests.

“If Applejack starts messing with the unicorns and tries to force them out of Ponyville, and brings down all the earth ponies who want to kill them, then that big war between the earth ponies and unicorns will blow up all over town! Then the unicorns will get their back up and zapfry us all to kingdom come!”

Sundowner lost it and started crying. She was known for being a paranoid stressball, and when she was younger she had been in and out of the hospital following recurring meltdowns. She had been through stress relief and relaxation programs, and until recently, Sundowner had been doing well.

She collapsed in a heap on the floor and Cheerilee had to get her to stand up and sit on the couch. When she was younger, her mother had Appledowner at their home to mellow out following bad days at school. The poor mare’s mind raced a million trots a second, and stacked up on her a massive pile of doubts, worries, and fears, and before she could get a hold of herself, it all came down on her like a massive bomb.

But something in the back of Cheerilee’s mind told her Sundowner’s paranoid stories couldn’t be entirely ignored. Perhaps a memory crystal recording was necessary to root out the facts.

“Applejack’s batshit insane...” she weeped... “She had them take my family away...”

“Wait, what? How’s that possible? Isn’t Applejack your-”

Sundowner looked up at Cheerilee with tear-filled eyes and told her what else happened:

Sundowner had been in a steady relationship with some other ponies, unicorns and pegasi in a group relationship, not exactly orthodox, but they had been the closest family Sundowner had had since she came to Ponyville. Prior to that she had been under the hooves of the Apples in a olden town called Apple Stone, up in Abille County on the Hashbro River. She relocated with her sister to Ponyville, and experienced a few years under Applejack’s then unknown brutal authority. A few days prior, Applejack sent some cousins to trash the home she shared with her boyfriends and girlfriends. Applejack dragged her back to Sweet Apple Acres. Since then, she was urged to stay at the farm.

She cried all that out too, then said, “I hate being an Apple pony. I wish i was never born into this stupid family-cult!”

“I can see that,” Cheerilee said, as she held her like her mother used to do. She knew Sundowner wasn’t socially adept like most ponies, and she got punished for finding a way to build up a good life and family she enjoyed, instead of living normally. Since Applejack and her cousins took Sundowner from their home, she tried to pull as many shifts as possible and slept in the barracks at the town guard house.

She told Cheerilee how the Apples disguised themselves as regular goons and thieves. One of them bit the unicorn mare by the horn and dragged her off. The pegasus mare flew away and the earth pony mare and stallion were hauled off to jail on phony charges. They were released with harsh orders to leave Ponyville.

The problem in Ponyville was that very few ponies actually knew their rights under the local and county charters, and national law. Lawyer ponies knew their law, but they were few and far between. Like in most towns, most ponies are led to believe that the town council and the town guard are ultimately in control. Which is true, but not without some due process.

In the last few weeks since Applejack hoofbeat Sweetie Belle within an inch of her life, she brought in all her relatives from various places in Equestria, and she managed to get them into positions within the town guard. When stubborn ponies refused to go out with a few extra bits and a kiss on the cheek, the meaner Apple ponies sent them out with bruises.

Applejack, being the Element of Honesty, clearly mastered the art of everything opposite of her Element role. When somepony refused to give up his or position in the town council or town guard, she sent in her cousins disguised as thugs and hooligans to rough them up during the night.

To keep from being seen by the other ponies, they carried out their carefully planned and selected attacks at night. In all cases, some cart, or train heading away from Ponyville in any direction carried some extra sorry passengers.

Those who did oblige and take the bribe received extra apples, apple cider, bits, or a new job set up by the Apples, and if they were willing to relocate, the Apples even paid part or full for their train tickets.

As for the growing violence, the town guard published a message in their designated page in the Ponyville Express. The news of ‘mysterious hooligans abound’ and put the town on alert and soon, on edge. Ponies retreated indoors at night, and locked their doors and windows, however, only those in a direct disagreement with the Apples were paid a painful visit.

Where did Applejack get all the money? She contacted a successful Apple clan known for growing giant apples of a rare breed in a region known for its hardy plants that grew from rock, amidst the fertile soil, fertilized by centuries of war, death and bloodshed. This clan, the Blood Apples, had influence and power over the towns in their region, a good 500 day-trots (thousands of miles) away from Ponyville, and certainly not on any local map. And they were eager to set up in new areas, especially where fellow Apple clans were experiencing agricultural and economic difficulties. The Blood Apples mailed back a reply, stating they were sending Applejack 45 ponies. 28 stallions, ten mares, and seven foals, along with a train-car full of the three-foot wide blood apples that would be expensive out here, some blood apple trees, and several sacks of blood appleseed.

Applejack went to work plotting a brand new area for the blood apples to grow without disturbing the other crops. Employing her family hooligans, Applejack took over several adjacent fields, driving out most of the farmers, unless they agreed to pull out their crops and plant the blood apple seeds and give her family most of the money and let some of the Blood Apples occupy the fields and tend to the crops.

The town guard trumped up all sorts of charges to have unwanted ponies jailed or removed, but most of the time, a hoof beating was enough.

And Sundowner was taken along for the ride as she served as Applejack’s personal assistant during the last three weeks until Applejack suddenly left for Manehattan.

Last week, during a ‘test run’ on a closed off field near the fenced Everfree border, Applejack, wearing a protective sleeve on her hoof, planted some of the blood apple seeds. They grew at a seemingly accelerated rate. Within days, the plants emerged, and looked nothing like young apple saplings. But even as the plant was still a sprout, it grew apples instantly.

The ‘package’ as described by these Blood Apples in their letter, was to be delivered by train and cart (Applejack consulted the rail company and arranged to have the train stopped five miles out of town. Within a week, fresh blood apples were said to grow, dropp and hit the ground. bucking these trees was not safe, and for obvious reasons. In the letters she received, Sundowner read that the trees themselves were extremely toxic. The bark could burn the skin, and the sap was lethal. The blood apple trees sucked the life out of the surrounding soil, and killed everything within two trots of the roots. The trees had other effects: Blood apples at the top were NOT to be picked- they were the tree’s nutrient reserve, used to extend roots further and further into the ground.

The whole blood apple thing was still yet to happen.

For over an hour, Sundowner explained all this to Cheerilee. Then the chime on her necklace started beeping.

“Oh buck...I-I gotta get back the guard house.”

“Right,” Cheerilee said in disbelief. She wanted to take her to Twilight to get memory crystal records of all this. She was convinced Sundowner’s imagination was running wild, but when the nervous mare left her house, she wasn’t so sure.

The following Saturday, Cheerilee ventured out of town towards Sweet Apple Acres. She left early in the morning. First she stopped at the train station, and saw carts being wheeled out of the boxcars and into town, along with groups of Apple ponies nopony had met before. Their accents and differences of words were strange to the local ponyfolk. She observed silently and walked down the length of the platform. Only two of the box-cars were being unloaded but towards the rear end of the train, the flatbed cars had large unnatural trees strapped to them-

“Mornin’ Cheerilee!”

She spun around, completely startled to hear that voice. It was Applejack.

“Uhh, hi, top of the morning to you,” she replied nervously. The restraining order was still fresh in her mind, but after hearing Sundowner’s stories, she didn’t dare bring it up.

“W-what is all this, AJ?”

“Them’s the new blood apple trees we just got. Our relatives in Thorn Valley sent me a bunch o’ these trees. Ah hear them apples that grow from them are as big as a pony’s head.”

“I see...” Cheerilee said, gazing at the huge, black-bronze-ish trees. Three were stacked up, their roots folded inward and bound by chains.

“Um what are you unloading down there?” Cheerilee pointed a hoof to the ponies and the carts.

“That’s all the new apple seed and blood apples they sent us. A bunch of mah apple trees are sickening and some have even died already. These blood apple trees are supposed to be impervious to the diseases, and unicorn magic hexes and what not. Ah hate to lose mah crop, but these blood apples will make up fer’ all of it. They’re real juicy and full of nutrients of a hundred zap apples each. Jus’ you wait till Ah get all these planted and growin’. Ponyville will never have an apple shortage problem again. This’ll keep them dang Flim Flam Brothers and their phony apple startup outta mah town.”

“I see...” Cheerilee said, not showing any emotion. “You...you going to have enough ponies to take care of all these?”

“You betcha, hon. Lots o’ relatives is comin’ in from all sorts of parts of Equestria to help us out. Ah’m gonna make sure we Sweet Apples and all the Apple ponies livin’ and workin’ in this here county are big and well known, jus’ like back in the old days.”

The whistle was blown and the train began to move. A box car with its doors half open passed them. “Well, what are ya waiting for, hop on. Ah’ll show you the tree plant’n!” Applejack said as she jumped into the box car. Cheerilee hesitated at first, but then she leapt and joined Applejack inside the box car. Wheels squeaked and metal clicked and screeched as the train rolled through the station westward.

Two degrees later, the train reached an open area between the farmlands on both sides of the tracks. In the distance to the south, Cheerilee could see the barns and silos of Sweet Apple Acres in the early morning sunlight. It was only 45°, and the sun was already rising.
The train screeched to a stop, and the two mares jumped off and trotted along the rocky gravel lining the tracks.

There Cheerilee gasped when she saw the army of stallion laborers moving out along the train’s length. They laid logs and wood planks and cut the chains. Using ropes, the ponies gently rolled the large trees onto logs and rolled them along down the dirt road to the designated field. The field was barren, and devoid of plant life. Just weeks ago, it was ploughed and lined with plants. She remembered Sundowner’s account of other farm ponies being driven off their own land and their crops removed. Cheerilee counted over a hundred ponies at work. Then the magnitude of Sundowner’s story took hold.

This shit just got real. Sundowner was telling the truth.

The trees were huge. A single trot was the measure distance between the flank, and nose of a typical stallion the size of Big Mac (she and him made jokes about trots being measured after him). On the old human imperial scale that she obviously never knew about, a trot easily measured over eight feet. These trees were at least ten trots long, and on average a full trot wide by the trunk alone. They were dense and very heavy. The stallions, all with apple cutie marks on them, were covered with leather sheets to keep from being burned by the sap or the bark.

“Come along, Cheer!” Applejack called as she trotted ahead. On the train there were at least fifteen trees. Cheerilee figured this operation would take at least a whole day, but much to her surprise, they already had six out of the train and moving down the road. Ponies frantically dragged logs from the rear to the front to be rolled over again.

At the field, massive holes dug out before waited for the trees. It took at least twenty stallions and a lot of rope to hoist the tree into its upright position, into the hole. The tree raisings were long, slow, and tedious. Then she saw Big Mac among them.

“Ah wouldn’t talk to him no more,” Applejack said, with that knowing tone of voice that Cheerilee knew all too well. “Ah need him to help plant all these trees, and harvest them blood apples when they hatch.”

“Hatch?...What do you mean hatch?” Cheerilee asked, curious as to why Applejack said it like that.

“Just when these things are ripe, they drop from the ground. They keep fer’ two whole days, then the sap in the ground makes’ em decompose and the tree will use them to grow new apples. They’s pretty heavy from what Ah’m told.”

“How...how many more of these trees are you going to plant?”

“As many as it takes to fill up these here fields. These trees take a full year to grow before they can hatch decent blood apples. Ah need blood apples before then, to make up fer’ all the apples Ah lost this year. And on top o’ that, Ah already got demands and Ah ain’t even got the supply into th’ ground yet.”

“Demands? Like buyers?”

“You betcha. These things take forever to be transported from the Thorn Valleys, and they rot before they even reach the markets. Those that keep go for hunnards of bits each. Ah can make a killing sellin’ these blood apples. This place is surrounded by markets. And there’s places in Equestria with real bad food shortages. Ponies tryin’ to ship food bucked up and now there’s mountains o’food rottin’ on the trains. These things will keep fer at least two weeks if not exposed to the sap, soil, or bark. Sundowner!”

Applejack and Cheerilee approached a group of ponies.
Sundowner had a notepad and a pen and was standing and sitting so she could quickly take notes as the important ponies talked.

“Y-yes, AJ?” Sundowner stuttered nervously.
“Is them special orders in yet?”
“One yes, the other no.” the blue mare pointed to another train that pulled up alongside the one carrying the trees.
“Well then, we best get them to work, then.”

“Ah, so you’re the hard working Applejack Sweet Apple, we’ve all been hearing about.” another earth pony commented. His coat was crimson red, and his mane a darker shade of red. He was among some ponies dressed in business suits. From Nimbuscait.

“Why, howdy, and thank you. Well, Miss Cheerilee, Ah’m sorry but Ah got to cut off the tour here. Ah got work to tend to. Downer! Take Miss Cheerilee an’ get her outta here! See if y’ can flag down a cart that will take her back into town.”

“Yes, AJ. This way,” Sundowner said as she began walking.

Cheerilee went with her but the two mares walked slowly, and Cheerilee’s ears tuned into Applejack’s conversation with the others. She was brilliant at hearing things from a distance, much like a cat.

“....gettin all these here fields freed up fer’ more tree plantin’”
“...use of...prisoners....don’t worry...quite intoxicated and obedient...”
“...pay a fraction of your otherwise costs and we’ll have them plant the whole valley....”

The hairs on Cheerilee’s neck stood on end.

The two mares walked back north along the dirt road. The road was packed hard, but ponies still kicked up dust as they rolled the logs past them. Half a kilometer ahead was the new train, which the doors of the box cars all flung open and a horde of ponies began piling out.
“What’s going on? Where are they all coming from?” Cheerilee asked.

“That’s the first special order,” Sundowner explained, “prison labor.”

Cheerilee gasped. “Are you serious? How the- where- where did they all come from?”

“From Nimbuscait. Not the city by the river, but deep within Nimbuscait. They have a massive prison that holds thousands of earth ponies. It’s an unspoken hellhole. Applejack struck a deal with the ponies that run the place. They want to experiment on their prisoners by forcing them to work and plant the trees. Applejack pays them a very small fraction of the costs she’d even pay her own family to work.”

“But..I thought she had no connection to the Nimbuscait ponies-”

“No,” Sundowner explained, “But they are very well involved in all this. It’s the Blood Apples who are brokering the deals around here-”

“Get out of the way!” somepony shouted and the two mares had to dash out of the way to avoid being run over by the crazed stallion as he sped past them, pulling a cart full of blood apples. The wooden wheel of a cart hit a rock and the cart bounced. One of the strange alien fruits fell out, bounced on the ground and came to a stop.

“That,” Sundowner said as she pointed, “is a blood apple.”

The two approached it. The large apple, much bigger than any apple Cherilee had seen before, was mostly black with random red spots scattered about its skin. It reminded her of what black widow spiders look like. Her instinct immediately told her that the blood apple was likely very toxic.

“Check this out. Here’s what makes it a blood apple,” Sundowner said as she pulled a hoof shoe with a knife attached to it from her side bag. She slid the hoof shoe on and on 3 hooves she walked over to the blood apple, and made a cut. She made 3 incisions. Already, a thick liquid, no different than actual blood in resemblance, began dripping out. Sundowner pulled out the piece with her knife. The apple juice was thick red, like blood. The ‘meat’ of the fruit, the hypanthium, was pinkish in color. Apple hypanthium is supposed to be white, with a clear juice coming out of it.

Then Cheerilee saw something else as Sundowner cut closer to the center. There were roundish chunks that looked like animal flesh.

“What the hay are those?” she asked, pointing a hoof at the anomalies that couldn’t exist in a normal fruit.

“Heck if I know, Miss Cheerilee,” Sundowner explained, “But ponies have already been eating these, and they seem fine to me- wait...I should know this. I went to the Agricultural Academy in Canterlot during a class trip. The tourguide showed us this, among a whole bunch of exotic and rare fruits. He said...yes, he said the original blood apples did not come from natural origins. These things were created during the Second Era, thousands of years before our history, by the Pegasi, back when they were big into science and stuff. They made these by planting genes of beasts into apples and several kinds of other fruits. Then these things started growing on their own and they made the Thorn Valleys their native habitat. Believe it or not, that is actual animal meat, growing as part of the apple.”

“Sundowner, I am not in the mood for your creative stories right now...” Cheerilee said with frustration.

“What? I lied about all this on Mariday night?” the young mare shot back with annoyance. “Why the hell would I make this all up? It’s already real, and much easier to tell you about it than making something else up!”

“Okay, okay, fine,” Cheerilee said, regretting what she said. “So it’s safe to eat?” She didn’t like the idea of Applejack planting thousands of alien genetically modified fruits in Ponyville’s backyard not knowing if the blood apples were going to kill everypony or not.

“Lots of the Blood Apple ponies now here have been eating them no problem and they didn’t get sick. I sure as hell won’t eat it, though. Edible or not, it looks freaking gross.”

The two mares left the blood apple on the ground and kept walking, and began passing the line of prisoner ponies, all bound with chains by the hooves. They marched triple file down the road towards the field. Cheerilee got a good look at all of them and felt nothing less than horror. Most of their faces drooped, their eyes blank and lifeless, hell, not even the irises had color anymore. They shuffled to and fro as they made their way down. Armored guards walked past them, whipping the slower ones with clubs, shouting and swearing at them.

“The first special order,” Sundowner reminded Cheerilee, “inmate labor, drugged up. The business partners are the jailponies, and all the alchemists in Nimbuscait. These inmate ponies have spent most of their lives underground, locked up in dungeons. This has gotta be their first exposure to sunlight in years. The whole inmate labor thing is an experiment. The jail hopes they can be useful as free or very cheap labor, the alchemists who drugged them all up hope they will remain drugged and prove the quality of their concoctions.”

“By Celestia’s light...this is horrible....what have they done to deserve this?”

Sundowner shrugged, “Probably everything and nothing. In Nimbuscait, you can get life in prison for not paying a merchant fast enough. And look, here come the unicorns. They are their own experiment.” Appledowner explained.

“....” Cheerilee didn’t even respond.

Sundowner kept talking, “I was in the room when Applejack met with all the ponies in charge of this, and the Blood Apples. A long, tense six hour meeting. Apparently the blood apples contain chemicals that are highly explosive if exposed to magic.”

“Wait...so the unicorns will die...or explode if they eat blood apples?” Cheerilee asked in disbelief. She somehow already stopped believing Sundowner’s explanations.

“The first blood apples were intended as a weapon created by the Pegasi to reduce unicorn numbers during the Second Era. They had a more potent strain of blood apples, which they gave to unicorns during armistice times.

“Those unicorns who ate these would instantaneously combust and explode, but that volatile strain didn’t hold up in natural conditions. These blood apples are the natural result, the surviving descendents of the real bad ones the Pegasi made.

“Applejack thought to hold a series of experiments and even meetings with prominent unicorns who could determine the level of toxicity of the fruits and whether unicorns can or can’t eat them, but she put that plan on hold, I wonder why. Right now she wants to sell as many as she can to whoever will buy and eat. Perhaps these things are deadly toxic to unicorns, and Applejack wants to sell them to fake charities set up by the ponies in Nimbuscait to distribute them to unicorns short on food...”

Yup, Cheerilee stopped believing Sundowner long ago. She wanted to get the hell out of here, go back home and sleep this off like a bad nightmare. But at the same time, she wanted to take Sundowner to Twilight Sparkle, and get a memory crystal recorded. Then she wondered, how the hell could something this big go by Twilight Sparkle unnoticed.

“I don’t want to be here anymore.” Sundowner said, “I am really freaked out about all of this...”

“I agree,” Cheerilee said-

“And I know you don’t believe me,” Sundowner said, “I want to get a memory crystal so you will.”

“Well then, I think we can do that. If you can sneak away from these ponies, I’ll take you to see Twilight Sparkle.”

“Really?”

Cheerilee nodded.

“Thanks. I’ll do that and knock on your door?”

The schoolteacher nodded again.

“I don’t want to stay here anymore. I want to leave Ponyville and get as far away from this place as I can. Somewhere where there’s no Apple ponies.”

They continued walking as the sun rose and the blistering summer heat came back.
“What is the second special order?” Cheerilee asked as the two walked along a road back to town.

“You don’t want to know.”

“Maybe I do, tell me.”

“Okay, fine. Do you know where dead ponies go?”

“Sundowner! What kind of question is that?”

“A serious question.” Appledowner looked Cheerilee right in the eye with a dead serious gaze.

“Okay,” Cheerilee bit the bait, irritated. “Where do dead ponies go?”

“Well,” Sundowner began, “In normal places where normal ponies live, the dead are simply buried in a cemetery outside of town. But in other places, the dead are viewed as a resource, and not something to respect and pass on to the ground. I was there when Applejack met with a bunch of strange ponies the Blood Apple family put her in contact with. I took notes of the meeting. I even drafted some of these contracts for them.

“In the Thorn Valleys, and in Nimbuscait, among so many other places in Equestria, dead ponies are ground up into mush and made into fertilizer. In disaster areas, and where wars and fighting still goes on, there’s no shortage of dead ponies. These fertilizer makers travel the country from place to place scraping up the dead wherever they go, and transport them by train or cart back to their towns where the processing plants are. And that’s where they are made into fertilizer, along with manure, and remains of whatever else they can find. Circle of life, no moral opposition, the dead make crops grow, and lots of ponies make money. I think its horrible.”

“No shit,” Cheerilee gasped, forgetting to watch her own language, “That’s...that’s a violation of Princess Celestia’s law! All ponies who die are to be buried with dignity!”

“Tell that to them,” Sundowner pointed in the direction from where they came. “And Applejack speaks of Celestia’s wrath and what not. She’ll piss off Celestia real good and get this whole town blown to oblivion. That, and pretty much everything else is why I want out. out of Ponyville, out of the Apple family, and everything else they’re involved in.”

Cheerilee looked back the way they came. In the distance, the freight train she and Applejack were on was still stationary. But after this tour of the new expansion of Sweet Apple Acres, she felt a real fear creeping in. They were at the eastern edge of the fields, and Apple ponies patrolled the edge of the newly acquired farmland. The two mares kept hidden behind a grassy knoll. Neither of them felt like being seen by the Apple patrols.

The buzzer on Sundowner's townguard badge necklace began beeping, and the poor young mare looked back, then at Cheerilee and began to quiver with fear. "I...I...gotta go..."

"You listen to me," Cheerilee said strongly, "Do not think for a quarter of a degree that you have much of an ability endure this...terror. Sooner or later, Applejack and her mob will see right through you and they will not be happy to see you full of fear instead of their twisted Apple pride. Come with me to Twilight's. Now."

Sundowner gulped. She was still under the impression of painful retribution from her family. Somehow she thought there was no escape. She was also just as afraid of Twilight Sparkle. "I...I...can't, they'll know..."

"Alright, alright fine then," Cheerilee said with frustration, then she pulled a new tactic with the stressball mare:

"You owe me and my family for everything we've done for you ever since you were a filly. Now I am calling in a return favor. Princess Celestia expects ponies to return the charity and favors given them. I demand you to come to the library and get a memory crystal test done, not just for me, not just for you, or Twilight, but for all of Ponyville. There more than what we see at stake here. Ponyville is our home, for corn sakes. How would you like the idea of a race war exploding right here? All because you failed to seek out the unicorn who could actually do something about this? Twilight Sparkle has a direct connection to Princess Celestia, and she can get Celestia to deal with these Apple ponies once and for all. And do not be afraid of her being a unicorn or her magic. I'm an earth pony, just like yourself, and I've known and worked with Twilight on and off for the last four years. She will not hurt you or hex you, so please disregard all that crap they told you about her, got it?"

Suddenly struck with guilt or demand from a completely different direction, Sundowner merely nodded. She wanted to escape. She also knew if she was caught by the Apple patrol or another townguard pony, she'd get it for sure. But she felt something had to be done first, and a question came up:

"Miss Cheerilee, I do want out, but...I want something in return, I know it's too much to ask, but...I want to go somewhere safe, and never come back here again, not to Sweet Apple Acres or even Ponyville. I don't want to get burned alive at the stake for what I'm about to do. Can Twilight Sparkle gaurantee for me a safe way out here to somewhere else I can live normally for once?"

"No, that isn't too much to ask," Cheerilee assured her, "And I don't see how or why she wouldn't help you out there. Look, worst case scenario, I give you some bits, you get on the train, and go wherever the hay you want-"

"I...I want to go to Canterlot."

Cheerilee couldn't help but scoff. It was not realistic for any rural pony to ask for a place to live in the grand capital city of Equestria. Ponies needed hard-to-get permits just to visit the city. The royal guards at Canterlot were always checking ponies and turning them away; not even letting them leave the train station there. Somehow Sundowner speculated Twilight could use her connections to get her in-

"Sundowner, I don't even know if that is possible. And surely Canterlot isn't the only place in Equestria not occupied by Apple ponies. Look, let's just take the first step, talk to Twilight, then when that's done, we'll move onto the next one. But are you sure you want to go back and join the Apples?"

"I...I gotta...need proof..." Sundowner said-

"Hey you!"

Both mares spun around and saw two other townguard Apples looking up at them from the perimeter path. "What the hell are you doing, Sundowner?" it was Apple Bread.

"I...I...was just...escorting this mare back to the main road. Applejack invited her over and asked me to show her the way back."

"Your badge is beeping, and Applejack expected you back a degree ago, now move it!" the larger stallion, Apple Shiner, shouted.

"We'll take her back to the main road," Apple Bread said, "Just get back to Applejack before she gets mad."

"Y-yes, sir," Sundowner stuttered as Cheerilee took one last glance at her before walking down to join the other two. Clearly their conversation was over, and as the three ponies walked away, Cheerilee cast one glance at her. Sundowner didn't really know what Cheerilee really meant, but to her, the look on the school teacher mare's face read, Come back alive.

Author's Notes:

Quarter of a degree = 2.5 (2m 30s) minutes in human time.
Blood apple: A fruit invented by the Pegasi during the race wars of the 2nd Era, many thousands of years ago. [Classified]