Ponyville [Sweet Apple Acres] The Apple Barn Contract

[Hippo]

One day, in Ponyville, Twilight tried to get Applejack's attention. "Con Sarnit!" Applejack had just realized she forgot her engagement with Twilight Sparkle. But she had no time for it now, for she had to get back to the farm for something urgent. "I'm real sorry, Twilight. I need to hurry about somethin'. Don't worry, heh, I'll be right back"

Applejack hurried herself over to Sweet Apple Acres. How could she be so forgetful? She was so worried about Granny Smith's whereabouts that she completely forgot to pull her apple cake from the oven. The cake was surely burnt. But Applejack was just hoping that that was all the trouble her day would have. She was not prepared for the moments that would soon to pass. For on this day where Applejack seemed to forget everything, the events would soon turn to unforgettable.

As she ran up the hill on the south side of Ponyville where she can get a glimpse of the farm from afar, she saw a pillar of black smoke rising from the top of the barn. "Land sakes! There's a fire in the barn!" Applejack hurried towards the farm to try to savior the estate's most prominent building. "We already had to cut a big whole in our budget rebuilding the barn after those pesky parasprites ate it all. I'm not gonna lose the barn this time," she determined. She had hoped that Big Macintosh was already trying to put the fire out. But since the fire has already started, it was possible he was away on business as well.

As Applejack pulled around the front of the entryway to the farm, she could see the damage already done. The barn had yet to be engulfed. But it was gonna take a strong effort to keep the fire from spreading to the rest of the property. The fire was spreading from the second floor of the barn, where they had a storage area with the normal fixin's a farming family would have. Fortunately, the place where the family members sleep, the Carrot Cottage, was untouched.

Map of Sweet Apple Acres: http://fc08.devianta...esh-d3ki8nj.png courtesy of Aurebesh from deviantART.

[Mojo]

Granny Smith hadn't been lost at all. The lime green elderly mare went to town to pick up some sewing supplies and just missed Applejack who's been searching in Ponyville for her. The wily gray maned mare used a little known short cut in the woods near the farm to travel to and from town without tiring herself out. After getting her supplies, Granny Smith took the short cut back to the farm only to discover that the big barn was on fire.

"FIRE! FIRE!" she cried out, trying to run over to the barn to help put it out, but even trying with all her might, Granny Smith only managed to inch her way towards the burning barn.

"APPLEJACK! BIG MAC! THE BARN'S ON FIRE! WE GOTTA GIT IT OUT!"

[knight]

Holly Dash, a non-resident fruit vendor, and a friend of Applejack, had had a visit planned with her friend--this was going to be the weekend when they sold fruit together! She had been busy getting lost throughout Ponyville, and finally managed to find her way to Sweet Apple Acres--clearly, she must've misinterpreted the directions Applejack had given her, for she had wound up at nearly ever farm surrounding Ponyville EXCEPT Sweet Apple Acres.

She was ill-prepared for what met her when she arrived to the site. At first, all she saw was the billowing curls of smoke in the sky, but too soon, the billows were pushed about and spread wider, as their source grew larger and larger, blazing up in the hay loft of the barn.

"FIRE! FIRE!APPLEJACK! BIG MAC! THE BARN'S ON FIRE! WE GOTTA GIT IT OUT!"

She turned to see an elderly pony barely inching towards the barn, and she knew that she MUST help! She reared up onto her hind hooves and whipped around, heading for the well near the entrance of the farmyard. She looked down into the well at the steadily flowing watersource. She had never magicked so much water before--but this was no time to be 'learning' using every ounce of magic she had within her, she pulled at the water. At first, it plopped back down into the well. She looked back, and cringed as a portion of the roof fell, releasing a plume of embers. She did not see her friend, but that didn't matter. She concentrated harder, and forced her magic even harder, forming a tight orb of water, and pulling it out of the well. She bit her lip as she strained the magic, but with a fiery determination, started galloping to the barn.

[SunsetSombra]

Big Macintosh galloped towards the barn in a hurry, a large bucket of water clamped hard between his teeth as he made his way hurriedly towards the burning barn - great galloping gala's, this was a total disaster.

They had to do something to get this fire out somehow.

" Dangit all, ah dun know if we've got enough buckets for this! " Mac thought to himself as he stomped quickly over to where the barn was, grimacing at the sheer thought that this was going to take a heck of a lot of work to prevent it from causing any severe amounts of damage - Mac was never averse to hard work, that much was already known to most of Ponyville, but the problem mostly lay in that they just didn't have the direct means to get a fire out quickly...and in a building like the Barn, time was definately not on their side before it became impossible to tend to.

He makes his way towards the door of the barn, bucking the door open as he prepared himself to make his way to where the fire was.

if anypony was gonna risk their flank puttin' this out without risking anypony else first, it was gonna be Mac!

[RCTwilightSparkle]

As Twilight got closer to Sweet Apple Acres she could no longer deny that the smoke in the distance was definitely coming from the farm! Twi had been waiting in town for AJ to get back but when her friend didn't return in over an hour she decided to go find her. "oh no..." Twi muttered to herself as she raced past rows of apple trees trying to locate the smoke. As she got to the main part of the farm the barn came into clear view and there was smoke pouring out of it!

By the time Twi got to the scene, Big Mac was just about to run inside. The purple unicorn frantically looked around for something, anything, with some water in it that she could try to dump on the fire. It looked like she was too late for that and all of the immediate water was already being put to use. Twilight saw a few empty buckets sitting next to a nearby apple tree and using her magic she picked them up and raced over to the water pump to fill them.

[Chonico]

Klondike had been standing outside his repair shop, The Jingling Satchel Repair Shop, finishing up the touches on one of his windows. A few days back, a couple of foals were playing a game of hoofball and accidently took out said window with the ball. Of course, Klondike being, well, Klondike, he had been busy with a particularly difficult repair job and was too focused on it to notice the window or the brave little foal, with huge watery eyes, that had come in to take responsibility for it. He ended up having to go behind the counter and poke Klondike until he snapped out of his head. Klondike simply pat him on the head, offered him cookies, and sent him on his way telling him it was no big deal mainly because for him, it really wasn’t.

Now, as he finished setting the glass pane, he could not help but notice something was off about it.

“Celestia, that’s one big smudge on it.” He grabbed a rag in his mouth and began to try and wipe away the smudge. It wasn’t working.

“What the hay? Now it’s spreading to the top window pane…” He was not vigorously trying to wipe the smudge away before it spread further. A minute passed before he gave up.

“Why can’t I clean it off?! It’s almost as if its…” Klondike turned to look behind him and immediately dropped the rag he had in his mouth as surprise took hold.

“OH… That would be why. Ponyfeathers! Apple orchard from the RTL is that way, is it a forest fire?!” He immediately thought back to the race and all the things he had learned from it and the ponies he had met. He wanted to do it again next year. But without trees with leaves to knock down...

Not wasting a second longer, Klondike ran into his shop and came out again holding a makeshift fire extinguisher of his in his mouth. A repair pony had to be prepared and it had come in handy a couple of times before. Looking at the billowing smoke though, his brows furrowed and he ran back inside only to reemerge out the door at full gallop with two additional fire extinguishers strapped to his back while he did his best not to trip with the one that dangled from his muzzle.

It took him a few minutes to make it to the source of the smoke and he was shocked to see it was not a forest fire but a barn fire. He noticed a purple unicorn levitating a bunch of buckets and filling them from a pump while another unicorn with a pinkish coat focused on a well.

He quickly spotted the big red coated pony with the harness from the RTL race head into the burning barn. Klondike galloped across the open yard and through the door after the stallion who was already on his way up to the second floor.

“MR. HARNESS!” Klondike never did catch the giant stallion’s name during the race.

He quickly galloped up to him on the stairs and placed the makeshift extinguisher on one of the steps in front of him before pulling out one of the other two that were strapped to his back.

“They’re too small to put out the fire but we can slow it down while the ponies outside fetch the water! Aim at the base of the flame and squeeze the handle with your muzzle!”

Makeshift fire extinguisher in his muzzle, Klondike waited for Big Mac to make his way up the stairs so that he could follow.

[SunsetSombra]

Big Mac was a little confused by the sudden appearance of the strange pony with the device - he'd seen the inventor here and there, of course, and sold the occasional apple to him...but that was pretty much as far as regular conversation had ever gone.

Well, looked like that was going to have to change...but hardly under the best circumstances!

" Guess ah don't have a choice... " The red stallion says, picking up the nozzle between his teeth before facing the pony with a mildly confused expression, not entirely sure if such a device could really be of any use in these circumstances. It wasn't like there was much else the red Stallion could do at the moment though...and his bucket of water really didn't seem to be likely to do the trick on it's own.

He heads on into the barn - bracing himself against the potential heat of the flames, which had reached a fair size...and in all honesty, Mac knew his sister would disapprove of him trying to do all this with just one crazy pony and some fancy hodgepodge device. However, given that this was all that he had to work with right now, he just had to trust in both...

The stallion just sincerely hoped that this all worked - the barn was a costly thing to repair, and they just couldn't repeat that right now!

[Mojo]

(ooc): Had to edit this entry

"Don't fret y'all! Granny's a-comin'!" Granny Smith shouted as she made her way over to a bench where a wooden bucket sat. Putting the handle in her mouth, the gray maned mare began to move towards a near the well to draw out water. After filling her bucket with water, Granny turned her head towards the burning barn.

"I'm gonna do my share to help put out this fire!" She shouted as she began to move as fast as her legs would carry her. Unfortunately, in her case, those old, wobbly legs couldn't move any faster than a snail's pace. It took her twenty minutes to walk from the well to the front door of the barn, where she dumped her water. Her effort, though noble, really didn't do much to put out the large spreading fire.

"Every little bit helps, by thunder!" Granny Smith shouted as she continued her one pony bucket brigade.

[Hippo]

As she approached the barn, Applejack could see her brother kick the barn door open. Applejack also saw Klondike make his way afterwords. "Yeah!, use the fire extinguishers!" She had remembered seeing him, but she wasn't expecting this much extra help on such short notice. Applejack concerned to herself when she thought quickly about the situation. "Oh, I sure that isn't one of Pinkie Pie's joke fire extinguishers."

As Applejack turned her head again in haste, she also saw Holly Dash running with an orb of water, squinting her eyes showing all kinds of effort put into levitating that much liquid. Applejack sure was grateful of all the help. She had just hoped that they all didn't help put out a fire that could not be put out.

Applejack saw Twilight start pumping water into buckets. "I got it!" With a stroke of genius, Applejack grabbed a long garden hose lying near the carrot lot and carried it over to the water pump. "Thanks for yer help Twilight! I'm sorry, but I think may hafta cancel our lunch. But I have an idea! Take this here end of the hose with your fancy levitatin' magic and hover it over the fire and I'll run the water through this pump from the other end." Applejack plugged one end of the hose onto the water pump spout and began using her natural earth pony strength to pump the water as fast as she could.

While she pumped, she noticed the windows in the carrot cottage getting smokey. "Oh my!" She realized that her cake really was burning. But then what caused the barn to catch fire? She saw Granny Smith inching her way towards the barn with some water, but she figured that Granny couldn't help as fast. Then, Applejack saw Holly Dash attempt her best with the fire, but saw it her as helping in some other way, since the oven had to be tended to and the pump had to be pumped. "Holly! I need you over here! I need ya te turn mah oven off and make sure there ain't no fire in the house!"

[Chonico]

" Guess ah don't have a choice... "

With makeshift fire extinguisher in his muzzle and another strapped to his back, Klondike simply smiled and gave a determined nod as he followed Big Mac further into the burning barn. His right ear began twitching as voices from the outside reached it. The notion of what he was doing was not lost on him. Mere minutes ago he was finishing the touches on one of his windows and now, he was inside a burning barn.

“Darn smudge on the window had to be a fire. At least the window is extra clean now. I should ask that little filly to break my other windows. Maybe then I’ll finally get around to cleaning them every wow this is really a nice barn, very spacious. Bet they have the best parties in here. Hope we can put it out before - what the hay?!”

They had reached the second floor of the barn. To say the heat inside was suffocating would had been an understatement. Klondike could not help but become immediately uncomfortable in his own coat as he began sweating profusely and his coat became matted to his skin. Every acidic breath he took of the smoke that had gathered made his throat and eyes burn. His right ear was twitching furiously, demanding he head out immediately and forget the endeavor, but as usual, Klondike was oblivious to everything but the task at hand. His eyes were darting left and right as an overpowering sense of fear began clawing into him, causing him to immediately drop the fire extinguisher he had in his muzzle.

“MR. HARNESS! WHY DOES YOUR BARN LOOK LIKE SOMEPONY LIVES HERE!?”

Klondike called out through the smoke. Incredibly, he had lost sight of the giant red pony who mere moments ago had been in front of him, and instead, had caught sight of the arrangement of the second floor of the barn. It looked like a sort of living space, perhaps a guest room of sorts. He was currently standing in what he assumed was a living room or lounge area. Not too far off, he could see the flames eating through the walls and ceiling as it spread further from what he assumed had once been a kitchen.

“Sweet Luna! I hope nopony was living here right now…” Klondike’s growing fear was becoming apparent. He was hoping nopony would become homeless because of this.

Quickly picking up the fire extinguisher he had dropped, Klondike ran towards the huge fiery hole that had once been the kitchen entrance. Through it he could see the charred remains of appliances and scorched walls. He could see small burning pieces of timber falling from above, clear indications the ceiling was already being eaten away by the hungry flames. Whether the fire started here, he could not tell. The only thing he could tell was that with his two fire extinguishers, he was grossly under-prepared for such a task.

“Hope those ponies outside get that water flowing soon cause some of my hairs are starting to synch. Plus, this horrible heat is making me thirsty and - *SMACK* ” Klondike hoofed himself across the face. Whether somepony lived here or not, that didn’t matter. Either way, now was not the time to let his thoughts wonder.

Klondike immediately began squeezing the handle and sprayed white heavy smoke from the bottom up on some of the surfaces with fire licking at them. If him and Big Mac could prevent the fire from spreading and finding new fuel, they could starve it long enough for the water to come and do its job.

[knight]

"Holly! I nee...over here! I n...a te turn.....oven off....make sure.....no fire..... house!"

Holly, just plopping her floating water orb onto the fire--and putting out a decent amount of the flames, when she heard Applejack's call. She turned to her friend, barely able to hear her over the roar of the flames, but she got the gist of what the orange earth pony was asking. There was another fire danger in the house, and she needed somepony to turn it off-and lickity split-like. Holly, proud to be the third place pony of the Running of the Leaves this year, reared up and jetted off, horn-first towards the house, and barreled in to see the oven lightly smoking--but no flames had been produced yet.

She rushed over to the oven and after turning it off quickly with her teeth, magicked the door open, and gagged and sputtered as smoke billowed into her face. Unable to grab the oven's contents without choking, she ran to the front windows, pushing them all open, the smoke escaping enough for her to make her way back to get the black log of a cake out of the oven. Coughing as she set the deformity down, she began to fan at the smoke with the oven mitt she had used.

With a sudden thought that maybe the increase of smoke might lead to somepony thinking there WAS a fire, she spit out the oven mitt and galloped out of the house, and called as loud as she could--using the common voice-increase spell to a sure she was heard, and her voice boomed as her scream was combined with the megaphone spell, "NO FIRE HERE. JUST A BURNT CAKE."

[RCTwilightSparkle]

Twilight tried her best to stay focused on the task at hand and just keep filling the buckets. She wasn't paying attention to all of the chaos around her because she knew that just wouldn't help anything, it would only distract her. There was one pump so the unicorn did her best to get everything filled quickly. Unfortunately, filling up one bucket at a time was taking way too long and the fire was spreading, not that Twilight even noticed right now.

The quiet concentration in Twi's mind was broken by AppleJack who had a great idea to get things going faster. By working with AppleJack they could get a constant stream of water on that fire, that should do a lot to put it out or at least keep it from spreading. "AppleJack, I think it's ok if we reschedule our lunch date." she said with a little smile as she levitated the hose over by the fire, almost effortlessly. "Don't worry, we won't let you lose the barn" Twi said as reassuringly as she possibly could. After a few seconds of adjusting her placement the hose was ready to go, she looked at her friend and said "Alright, ready when you are!"

[Hippo]

Applejack had hoped that things would soon be under control and that the fire would be extinguished. As she pumped the water into the hose that twilight was aiming at the fire, she questioned to herself whether of not Twilight could hold the hose steady enough for the water to flow out accurately onto the flames. "Git ready Twi! There's a big heap of water comin'!" Pumping the water, the lumps in the hose could be seen as they were traveling through the hose at the same pace Applejack was pumping. The water was rapidly reaching the other end like a snake regurgitating a series of bad eggs.

Whilst pumping, Applejack looked over her shoulder at the cottage to see it covered in a smoke screen. Holly Dash had run out with her lightly colored pelt and hair now blackened, assuring that the cottage was safe and that the worst part of all the smoke was the ruined cake. Applejack was relieved. But it still baffled her that the fire came from somewhere she wasn't expecting. Why on earth would a random fire occur in the barn? What started the fire? Applejack knew that as soon as the fire was put out, she would be able to tell. Her years of being team leader of the plant team during every year's Winter Wrap Up had given her good knowledge about forest fires and the like.

[Mojo]

Granny Smith was still hard at it, mozying as fast as her elderly legs could move, bucket handle with her mouth. After dumping her first bucket in the barn, the gray maned matriarch of the Apple family moved slowly towards the well. Since this well was a different well than the one Twilight and her friends were using, poor Granny Smith was unaware of the other events unfolding all around her. The lime green mare was focused like a laser beam on her own one pony 'bucket brigade.' In the back of her mind, she vaguely remembered tap dancing with a cane, and wondered why her elderly body didn't have the same agility and durability that it had that day. Of course, she also thought she saw her grandson Big MacIntosh acting like an excited puppy dog that day too. Maybe it was her old memory playing tricks on her.

"Got to... keep movin'... " she said as she was panting hard. "Got to... save the... barn... can't let.... my grandkids..... down......"

She put every bit of energy and heart into her efforts, as feeble as they were, to do her best to help put out this fire.

[Chonico]

Klondike was doing his best to try and contain the fire to one area. Wherever the flames began to lick at new surfaces, he immediately sprayed the contents of his fire extinguisher on it in an effort to prevent it from spreading. Even though he had only been in there for a few minutes, his coat was already covered in black smudges of ash. He was starting to look more like a dark blue panda bear than an actual pony.

“Ponyfeathers, this one is almost empty and I haven’t even made a sizable dent with it. We could really use that water… Hmm, guess I should be glad I’m not making actual dents. Those would be hard to explain and I-“

Suddenly a downpour of water broke through the roof above sending charred pieces of roof falling down and opening portion of the charred kitchen to the sky above. Klondike stood in the middle, soaked to the bone with his mane covering his eyes and tail dripping water. His coat was now covered in wet ash and small annoying pieces of charcoaled wood. Holly’s huge glob of water had done the trick and put out a sizable portion of the fire while being rather refreshing to the ponies inside trying to prevent the spread of it.

*PFFFFTTH* “Well, I wanted water and I got water…”

Klondike spat some more water and brushed his mane away from his eyes before looking around and taking in the sight of the room he stood in. Part of it was still ablaze while scattered areas were nothing more than wet burnt out wood. One whole wall plus part of the roof had been consumed by the fire. He approached the edge and looked out the gaping hole, he could see the ponies outside preparing a hose and an elderly mare doing her best to help. They almost had this thing wrapped up and under control.

“Right, now’s not the time to admire their handy work…”

Quickly shaking himself off, Klondike strapped the now empty fire extinguisher to his back and took out the next and final one. With a renewed determination, he turned around to face the inferno behind him and began to spray at the flames that still refused to die down.

Little did he know that a torrent of water was about to shoot out of that hose. Maybe he should have moved a bit further away from the hole that now adorned the side of the barn.

[SunsetSombra]

Meanwhile, Big Mac was finding the smoke and heat becoming more of a bother than he'd anticipated - he had found himself supressing the need to cough more than once, and was starting to find that he couldn't see all that well around him thanks to the thick dark smoke that threaten to still overwhelm both ponies sooner or later if the situation wasn't fully resolved quickly enough!

However there was a fortunate temporary respite in the water thrown in their direction by Holly Dash,unknown to Mac since he was too busy fighting back fires. It had helped make their vision a little clearer and things were temporarily a lot easier to get an idea as to how best deal with the situation at hand...

Even though there was still a fair amount to control and to extinguish, it truly seemed like they would be done soon.

Still, it seemed as though the damages were going to be pretty extensive no matter how quickly they dealt with it and that was going to be quite a pain to have to take care of - Mac remembered the costs of the parasprite incident and shuddered, knowing that this wasn't going to be cheap.

He tried squeezing the handle again of the device, and found that nothing came out anymore - he was out of the substance within...

" Oh, Horseapples! " Big Mac mutters with his mouth full as he looks for Klondike in the midst of the still-rising smoke tendrils currently wafting around the red pony, giving a stomp on the ground with a hoof in annoyance as he looks around for the inventor pony. " Where is he? "

The red stallion was hoping that things would swing fortunes in their direction and that they could put an end to the fire soon!

[knight]

That hose just won't work....Holly Dash looked around, trying to think of a solution. Then it hit her. Twilight Sparkle. Duh!

"Hey, you! Twilight Sparkle!" She rushed up as the purple unicorn lifted her head, the hose still levitated in her magic, "Yur special ability is magic, right? Then surely you can manage a storm cloud! I've seen 'the Great and Powerful Trixie' do it at a show in Canterlot--and she's a big show-off pony, who can't even do real magic to save her hide!"

She looked up at the puffy white clouds in the air, "If we had a pegasus here to help, they could move clouds, but we don't have that luxury--can you make one? This hose is gonna take too long--the fire will spread, plus the water pressure out here ain't too good. Ah'd do it mahself, but I ain't no talent for magic...."

She turned her gaze to Twilight Sparkle hopefully.

[RCTwilightSparkle]

Twilight listened to her friend's advice and braced herself for the flood of water that was about to shoot out of the hose. The first burst of water caused the hose to shudder and shoot water in the wrong direction, but with a few quick adjustments Twilight had everything going smoothly. She was very slowly but surely keeping the fire from spreading out and engulfing more of the barn's roof. This was better than nothing but it wasn't helping put out much of the original fire, it wasn't going to be what saved the barn.

As Twilight and Applejack did what they could, another mare who Twi didn't quite recognize came up to her and asked Twilight to make a storm cloud. "A storm cloud..." Twilight's voice trailed off at the end of the statement as she thought about a way to do that. She did know one weather control spell that she learned a while back, shortly after she got to Ponyville. She only tried it once before because the one and only time she cast it, she accidentally ruined a cloud formation that Dash had spent all morning working on.

Twilight looked back at the mare "Well... I do know one spell that I can try" Twilight looked over at AppleJack and gave her a slight nod, the hose Twi had been using coiled up neatly next to her as AJ stopped pumping water. The fire took full advantage of their momentary lack of attention and began to spread across the roof again.

Twi knew she didn't have any time to waste so she closed her eyes and focused on the spell. The sky grew dark over the barn as Twi's horn glowed bright pink, but there was no rain. The unicorn kept quietly concentrating on her spell and after what seemed like hours but was really only a minute at most, it finally started raining over the barn. The raincloud would certainly not do much to affect the fire that was ravaging the inside of the Apple family barn, but the external structure wouldn't be completely destroyed as long as the spell kept up.

[knight]

Holly Dash reared up and gave a hoot of approval to Twilight Sparkle's magical abilities, "Woohoo! You go girl! Now only one thing left..."

Holly magicked a bucket of water over to herself and dumped it onto her body, soaking herself with cool water, "Woo! That's chilly!" She grabbed the hose with her own magic and turned to Applejack, "Can you keep that water pumpin? Ah'm gonna go inside and stop the fire at its source!"

Before Applejack could respond or testify, Holly was off and crashing into the barn, the hose held in her magic, showing a blind confidence and trust in Applejack to get the water flowing.

[Hippo]

Applejack took her hat off and held it to her chest for a prayer. "Common' Twilight. Get'er done!" Applejack waited patiently as Twilight's spell began to take shape. Seconds seemed like hours as the fire received a break from the firefighting ponies. Applejack's nerves were being tested to the end of their lengths. Until, finally, rain began falling from an artificial cloud from above the barn, slowly at first, but then started falling more and more rapidly. "Yeehaw! Twilight, you did it!" But as Applejack could see with her eyes like everypony else, the fight was still not over. Smoke was billowing from the inside from an isolated fire that was burning near the two stallions Big Macintosh and Klondike. The male ponies had been so brave, maybe too brave.

"Hold on there Macintosh!" Applejack ran to the barn doors, ignoring Holly Dash's suggestion. And when Applejack came to the front doors of the barn, she could see the two male ponies inching their way on the edges of the loft that hadn't been burned yet. Holly Dash, who was successfully lifting a dead hose, aimed at point blank range towards the enclosed flames. Applejack screamed, "Get your keister outta there! We need to end this now!"

http://soundcloud.com/riverhippo/winonabarks

Coming from behind the cottage, Winona came running towards the barn as if she was to save the day. "That's right Winona! Let's rope it down!" Applejack stepped inside the furnace of a barn and yelled up at the ponies inside. "Get down from up there, we need to plug this fire up!" Applejack had a plan that was going to work, but it was risky having her brother and Klondike in the middle of all the action. Stepping up to Applejack with a rope in her mouth, Winona barked almost playfully as she understood her master's commands. Winona pulled her end of the rope inside the barn and raced around the two vertical beams that held the loft up. Dodging falling embers and molten wood, she jumped her way through loops, tying the rope around the poles, and then barked.

Applejack grabbed her end of the rope and tied it around an anvil that randomly fell from the sky one day. "I knew this would come in handy one day." After she successfully tied her end and heard that Winona tied hers, Applejack kicked her rear legs back against the anvil, pushing it down into the Apple cellar that the anvil was placed next to. As the anvil fell, the vertical support beams snapped and the loft fell into a cloud of dust that formed at the barn floor. The fire that raged the loft was extinguished by the dust pickup and the lack of oxygen the collapse ensued. As the loft fell, Winona and other ponies were scattering away from the debris. However, the fire wasn't completely out. A small wooden plank that was fueling its own fire was kindling just outside the barn. And no pony was closer to it than Granny Smith and her pale of water.

Applejack wasted no time asking for the ponies' well being. "Is everypony OK? Hay! Where's Big Macintosh!?" Applejack ran into the dusty, still smokey barn. "Big Macintosh are you alright?" As she looked for her beloved brother she saw nothing but ash and partially burnt wood. As the dust stopped picking up, Applejack could see a little better, and she was able to see a piece of paper on the burnt pile.

With a disappointed face, Applejack couldn't believe what she saw. Apparently, it was her own sister and her friends that got a little too curious. In her frustration, she snorted out a puff of smoke and exclaimed aloud, "Con-sarnit, Apple Bloom!" She then turned toward the whereabouts of her brother, in hopes that he was okay.

[Chonico]

The fire inside was putting up a fight against the two ponies that were trying to subdue it. It was a losing fight though in favor of the two ponies. As far as Klondike could judge, while he continued spraying the contents of his fire extinguisher at the dying flames, the fire had consumed most of what had once been a kitchen and had left a huge hole in the wall and roof. But, thanks to the efforts of both Klondike and Big Mac, the spreading had been contained to a bare minimum, effectively starving it from new fuel. A lot of the fire had been pushed back to only mere specks of flames here and there. Klondike had underestimated his makeshift fire extinguisher and still had a little over half left, more than enough to subdue the few flames that still lingered in the kitchen.

“HA! I’m no inventor but these worked out great! I give myself too little credit and actually, hmm… maybe I could start selling these at my store or give’em out as a bonus for when I fix-“ Klondike’s train of thought was cut short as his right ear twitched once and caused him to turn around and look out the hole in the wall.

*SPLOOOSH*

The initial rogue torrent of water from Twilight’s hose shot clear through the hole on the side of the building and threw Klondike off his hooves and into the next room. He came to skidding stop on his back, soaked to the bone once again and his hooves dangling over him as he still held the fire extinguisher in his muzzle and a shocked wide eyed expression across his face. He was laying in a puddle of water on the floor right in front of Big Mac.

“Mr. Harnerss!” Klondike managed to mumble through the extinguisher he held in his mouth before letting go of it and allowing it to roll off to the side a few inches. “I’m sorry to tell you this, but your barn is definitely on fire…”

Klondike paused for a second as he took in the sight of the room he currently lay in. Parts of it were still ablaze. He lifted his neck up to look over his belly and managed to see into the kitchen. The rogue burst of water that had knocked him flat had put out the remainder of the kitchen fire. Also, through the hole in the wall, he could see that it was raining outside now.

“Fire in the kitchen is out though. Also… is seems to be raining outside now.”

Klondike quickly rolled onto his side and stood back up again and gave himself a little shake to get rid of the water and throw his mane out of his eyes. Quickly spotting a piece of soaked cloth on the floor, probably a drape or such, he picked it up and began to smack it against the burning surfaces.

“Mr. Harness, take the last fire extinguisher and let’s end this.” He said with an encouraging smile as he continued to slap his wet cloth at the burning surfaces.

"Get down from up there, we need to plug this fire up!"

Klondike’s right ear suddenly twitched furiously as the voice from bellow reached it. He paused and shot a questioning glance at Big Mac before realization of what was about to happen sank in. He made a motion towards the stairs just as the creaking and snapping sound of the support being taken out reached him.

“…Ah Ponyfeath-“ For a fraction of a second, Klondike could have sworn he was flying as the floor disappeared underneath him.

A pillowing cloud of smoke, ash and dust later, Klondike once more found himself laying on his back with three of his hooves dangling over him. Something was pinning one of his hind legs. That aside though, his coat was soaked, dirtied, and synched from the flames, but most importantly, he was uninjured.

“Maybe I should have just kept trying to clean that smudge on my window…” Klondike tiredly commented to himself.

"Is everypony OK? Hay! Where's Big Macintosh!?"

“Klondike checking in… I’m fine.” He managed to raise a hoof into view. If he had thumbs, he’d be giving a thumb up.

Klondike suddenly realized something was pinning one of his hind legs and his tail. Taking a look at it, he noticed it had a red coat and a harness.

“I found him, I think... He's heavy. Might be a giant sofa minus the quills though...” Klondike called out as he continued to lay on his back, feeling his hind leg go to sleep under the weight of what he assumed was Big Mac. It had been a long day, so he couldn't help but daydream about going back to his shop, closing early, and taking a nice warm bath.

[SunsetSombra]

Ow...

The whole thing had happened so fast that Bog Mac had barely had anytime to comprehend that perhaps everything wasn't going to go well...and as is normal in a situation where one's life was on the line in unpredictable situations, it pretty much didn't really go anywhere but downhill. And it turned out to be a painful slide, too!

All he could remember upon waking up was Klondike being beneath him...or at least one of his legs - Mac tries to get up, but found that everything ached too darn much for him to do anything more than stumble and fall back down on the other pony, cursing himself for not having seen this coming...and then realising that he probably should accept the fact that this was probably the only real solution that he had at the time. He was also aware that he was starting to feel both growing pain as he lay, but that he was also feeling a tad woozy from both the smoke and the fall - horseapples...he wasn't feeling all that well at all, and he hadn't taken an offday in...well...forever, now that he thought about it.

" Ah CAN'T...*Grunts as he tries to push himself back to his hooves* have let mahself git injured! " the stallion growls at himself, trying a couple more times to get to his hooves.

Unfortunately it was a fruitless attempt as he found himself stepping on loose wood and slipping again, or simply stepping on whatever injury he'd incurred on himself...

" Gadangit...HORSEAPPLES! " Big Macintosh yelled out loud, trying to cope with the current rising levels of both pain and humiliation on being felled in such a way...

" Ah had fields t'plough today, consarn it! " the Red stallion lamented, barely even thinking about his own state. " An;..there's Applejack too....! "

His eyes widened a little - both with frustration that Applejack would probably be looking for him right now, and that at the realization that perhaps he should probably be taking advantage of that fact - indeed, he could just faintly hear them above, probably trying to figure out what was going on...and that meant he had to do something.

He turns to Klondike, who he'd neglected to acknowledge in his pain/worry addled state, trying to keep as cool a head as possible...

" Ah...*He groans at a wave of pain washing over him* Ah'm gonna holler for AJ...if ya'all could lend a hoof... " the Injured and struggling Stallion states as clearly as he can in between grunts of pain and nausea. " I figure if we both holler up at 'em, they'll probably hear us better... "

Sure, it wasn't the best idea in the world...but really, what else could they do at this moment in time?

Big Mac takes a deep breath, turned his head towards the hole they had fallen through...and bellowed as hard as he could - humiliated and bruised as he was.

"APPLEJAAAAAAAACK!"

[Chonico]

Klondike was relieved to see that in was in fact Big Mac that currently lay on his hind leg and not a giant red sofa with a harness. As Big Mac tried to get up for the first time, Klondike tried to get his bearings and figure out just how far down they had fallen.

“Good, your okay, don’t think I could have lifted you of me. Umm, don’t remember this part of the barn when we came in… is this a celOH SWEET CELESTIA *OOF*…”

Klondike had turned around just in time to see Big Mac’s attempt to stand up for the first time fail and cause him to fall down on him, knocking the wind out of him. Now he was really pinned down by a heavy object.

"Ah CAN'T...*grunt* have let mahself git injured!"

“That’s… okay…*huff* could have happened to anypo-*OOF*” Klondike’s had the wind knocked out of him again as Big Mac fell on him again. Big Mac’s continued attempts to get back up ended with him having the giant red coated stallion fall back down on him over and over again, each time eliciting a less audible *oof* from Klondike.

"Gadangit...HORSEAPPLES! Ah had fields t'plough today, consarn it! An;..there's Applejack too....!"

“Don’t worry… *wince*… I don’t think *huff*…either of us will be plowing anything for… a while…Vacation… yay…Sweet Luna, mercy… stop trying to get up.” Klondike’s hooves twitched slightly as he strained to speak up under the weight, and continued assault with said weight, of the giant red coated pony on top of him.

"Ah...*groan* Ah'm gonna holler for AJ...if ya'all could lend a hoof... I figure if we both holler up at 'em, they'll probably hear us better..."

“Great…*huff*… idea…What was… her nam-oh… right, I remember…” Klondike agreed with Big Mac as he took a giant, but strained, deep breath. He couldn’t help think that an actual sofa landing on him would have been more merciful in the long run.

"APPLEJAAAAAAAACK!"

“FLAPLEJAAAAAAACK!”

He was tired and had been Big Mac slammed repeatedly. He was lucky he could remember his own name.

[Mojo]

"What's all this ruckus?" Granny Smith asked as the elderly lime green mare moved slowly towards the direction of Big Mac and Klondike's yelling. The gray maned mare was carrying a water bucket handle in her mouth as she made her way into the barn and spotted the situation, dropping her bucket of water in stunned disbelief.

"Land's sake, Big Mac! Klondike! What happened to ya?" she shouted. "I better git y'all some help!"

Granny Smith turned around surprisingly fast as she slowly moved her way back out of the barn.

"HELP HELP! TWO PONIES DOWN! THEY LOOK HURT! IN HERE! HURRY!"

[RCTwilightSparkle]

Twilight stood outside of the barn concentrating on her spell. if she didn't maintain her attention on it, the rain cloud would quickly disintegrate into thin air. Without the rain pouring down onto the roof the barn there wasn't anything to prevent the flames from devouring the rest of the structure.

Everypony but Twilight started to rush into the barn to take care of the fire inside. From where she was standing, Twi was unable to see into the barn so all she could do was listen to the sounds of her friends yelling and the fire crackling inside. Being left in the dark was making it hard for Twilight to maintain her focus. Somewhere inside she really wanted to dismiss the cloud and help her friends more directly.

Although she felt helpless standing outside, she knew she wasn't being useless so she continued to maintain her concentration and did what she did best, her magic. At least until she heard Granny yell that somepony inside was injured. Now Twilight really wasn't sure what to do because she had no idea if the fire was completely put out or not. She looked over at Granny Smith and yelled "Granny, is it safe to stop the rain?". Twi's voice sounded strained because without at least some of her attention on the cloud it would have fallen apart and she just wasn't sure if she'd be able to cast the spell again.