Actions Have Consequences (side story by ScipioSmith)

Jacqueline Apple, Applejack to those who knew her and Spurs to her comrades in the Atlesian military, touched the brim of her hat with two of her fingers. "Thank you kindly for letting us use the backroom like this; we won't trespass on you too long."

"Oh, it's no trouble at all," declared Mrs Cake, as she smiled fondly at her guests, whom she had allowed to borrow her office at the back of Sugarcube Corner. "This place always rings with laughter whenever you're all here, and then whenever anyh of you are away on one of your missions it...it almost seems gloomy by comparison. Take as long as you need, and just give me a holler if you need anything else."

Thanks, Mrs C, will do," Rainbow 'Boomer' Dash said as the plump old woman shut the door behind her, enclosing the three of them inside the office space.

"So, um, why are we in here again?" Twilight asked. "It's much more comfortable in the cafe."

"Eeyup," Applejack agreed. "But it's more private in here."

"Private?" Twilight said. She frowned. "This isn't just tea and cake, is it? Should I call you Spurs and Boomer for this?"

Applejack smiled. "Applejack will do just fine, Twilight. Why don't you sit down?" She gestured to the seat behind Mr Cake's desk, while Applejack and Rainbow Dash took seats around the corner of said desk, almost as if they were there to interview Twilight, not spend time with her. Hot drinks - a Vacuan tea for Twilight, hot chocolate with whipped cream for Rainbow, black coffee for Applejack - sat in front of them in large mugs, while a tray of cupcakes freshly made by Pinkie this morning sat on a large plate between them.

"So," Twilight said. "What's up, you guys?"

The two of them didn't immediately answer. Rainbow then made herself unable to answer by snatching a frosted cupcake off the plate and stuffing it into her mouth.

Applejack spared a moment to give Rainbow a dose of stinkeye before turning her attention back to Twilight. "Twilight...Weiss Schnee was caught sneaking around Park Place yesterday."

Twilight gasped. "Oh my goodness! Is she okay?"

"She's fine," Applejack said quickly. "Only...some people are asking questions about what she was doing there...and how she knew to go looking around there in the first place. She came to see you, didn't she?"

"We're old friends," Twilight said. "I mean...I think she's my friend, and she came to see me and I...I mentioned that Park Place had become restricted. I said that I used to run tests there, but that it went off limits second semester last year."

"Second semester," Applejack muttered. "Every darned thing around here and it started second semester of last year."

Rainbow swallowed her cupcake. "That's not all, Twi," she said. "There's...The computer thing."

"Yeah," Applejack said. "The, uh, the computer thing."

"But that was all within my clearance," Twilight said.

"Was it in hers?" Rainbow asked.

"Well, no, but...you two don't actually understand what she was looking for, do you?"

"Not a clue," Applejack admitted.

"Do you understand it?" Rainbow asked.

"A little, it was mostly logistical reports and manifests, I didn't really analyse it; it wasn't my business."

"You can say that again," Rainbow said.

"All I did was...am I in some kind of trouble?" Twilight asked.

"Twilight, if you were in real trouble you'd be talking to some mook from counter-intel, and they wouldn't be talking to you in the office at Sugarcube Corner." Rainbow sipped her hot chocolate, and got a moustache of cream on her lip. She licked it off. "The General asked us to talk to you, as your friends."

Applejack reached across the table to take Twilight by the hand. "We're worried about you, Sugarcube."

"Worried?"

"Us includes General Ironwood," Rainbow said.

"The General is...worried?"

"We don't know what's going on at that base," Rainbow said. "I hope the General knows but he isn't telling us. But somebody is asking questions about how Weiss Schnee knew to go there to snoop around and some of the answers point to you."

"But I didn't know what Weiss was going to do," Twilight said. "I didn't ask."

"We know, Twilight," Applejack said.

"But someone's started asking questions about you," Rainbow said. "Who you are, what you know, whether they need to shut you up."

Twilight stared at them both in abject, wide eyed disbelief. "That...come on, girls, this is Atlas; people don't just get disappeared around here. What you're suggesting-"

"Is that there are some scary people out there, people who scare General Ironwood and that scares me, Twi," Rainbow said. "I don't know what they're hiding at that base, I don't know whose got the General running scared but the idea that somebody like that might put you in their crosshairs that...that scares me more than anything."

Rainbow Dash considered herself to be brave. She considered herself one of the bravest soldiers of Atlas as well as the most awesome. She could have down a whole pride of Manticores without flinching, but the thought of something happening to Twilight Sparkle...it could make a coward of her.

"Am I in danger?" Twilight whispered.

"We don't think so, Sugarcube," Applejack said. "The General said he'd made it clear to...whoever it was that you weren't involved, and in any case it was all just a big misunderstandin' with no harm done. But...he said he didn't think they bought it, not wholly anyhow. He's afraid they might have an eye on you from now on."

"And he also said that if...whoever decides that you are up to something then...then not even the fact that the General likes you and your folks know folks on the council is gonna help you. These guys don't mess around," Rainbow said. "Now you know I'd do anything for you, right Twi? I'd fight the while world and the SDC to keep you safe. But I've got no idea what we're up against here and I..."

"What she's trying to say is be careful, Twilight," Applejack said. "Cause we all gotta watch our step a little more these days, and we love you too much to want to see nothing happen to you."

Twilight drank her tea in silence as her mind processed all that she had learned in all its horrifying implications. Atlas, it seemed, had made a deal with a demon, and a demon whose power was great and whose reach was long and whose eye had turned, however briefly, upon Twilight Sparkle. She was afraid, but more than fear she felt right now determination. The truth was...the truth was that now she wanted more than ever to find out what was going on, why Weiss actions had triggered a response like this, what Weiss had already know that had caused her to go to Park Place looking for answers; who could scare General Ironwood.

"All I wanted to do was help a friend," Twilight said.

"We know that," Applejack said.

"But now," Twilight said. "I want to shine a light into all the shadows."

Rainbow nearly choked on a cupcake. "Twilight! Did you not just hear-"

"Yes," Twilight said. "I heard. I heard everything. Can you honestly say that people like that, whoever they are, sound like good news for Atlas? Do you think that this kingdom has changed for the better since second semester? Do you think our friends are safer with people like this on the loose, who threaten to murder anyone who inconveniences them as easily as…easily?"

Rainbow and Applejack looked at one another.

"Did General Ironwood play us?" Rainbow asked.

"I'm wondering that myself," Applejack muttered. "You can't say he doesn't know us pretty well, and Twilight better than most. It ain't like him to be all sneaky like, but-"

"But everything's eight kinds of unusual right now," Rainbow said.

Twilight frowned. "You think that General Ironwood sent you here because…because he knew that I'd get fired up?"

"That's what we're thinking, right enough," Applejack said.

Rainbow snorted. "Man. So, Twilight, do you have a plan to do this without getting on the radar of these guys?"

"I'm working on it," Twilight said. "But I might need your help."

"We're with you Twilight," Applejack said.

"All the way to the end of the line," Rainbow added.