Apple Jack walks into the house with Winona, and the newspaper in her hooves. She heads for the kitchen for breakfast and to greet her family for the morning.
" Mornin' Apple Jack!" Apple Blossom cheerily greets as she eats her apple jelly toast.
"Hey Sugarcube! How's it goin'? Good breakfast?" Apple Jack replied, winking at Granny Smith, who winked back.
Apple Blossom giggled "Oh it sure is, but it's nothin' compared to the treats I've been havin' at Miss Pinkie Pie's place."
Apple Jack held her stomach, remembering the multiple and various treats she had eaten last night. " Yall sure do make so many, who are you even selling them to?" Apple Jack eyed the updated missing ponies list in the newspaper.
"Well we've mostly been eatin' em, but Pinkie likes to do door to door delivers to keep everyone happy." Apple Blossom giggles.
"Well ain't that nice of her. Wonder why she hasn't delivered to us." Apple Jack bit into her toast. Big Mac comes in from the side house and joins the breakfast table.
"Mornin'." He says and grabs some toast.
"Mornin' big brother! How was yer trip? Did you deliver everything for the ponies?" Apple Blossom bombarded him.
Big Mac tussled the fillies mane. "Yuuup!" He replied with a chuckle. " Just a bit tired." He bit into his second piece of toast.
"I wouldn't mind goin' in your place next time! You'd be able to take a proper rest!" Apple Jack piped in enthusiastically.
Granny Smith interjected " Now now, I'm sure you'd be up to it on your own but, maybe you should go together first." She started gathering dishes from the table. " Maybe bring a nice treat home" She said.
Apple Blossom jumped out of her seat. " Ooh a treat! What kinda treat?" she asked excitedly.
"Now don't you worry about that, besides you've been havin' plenty of treats with Pinkie Pie." Granny snorted. " Now get on to school!" She pushed the filly on . Apple Blossom groaned and left the house. Granny turned around and faced her other grandfillies. " Yall two can set out late this evenin'. So you should go and get some rest Big Mac, and Apple Jack be a dear and help me 'round the farm." She says starting the dishes in the sink.
Big Mac heads upstairs while Apple Jack steps outside. As Apple Jack started to make her rounds she couldn't help but be excited and nervous at the same time. She was gonna get to deliver what she harvested yesterday and meet their clientele. She bucked another apple tree, apples falling into the grass. She would also get the chance to lure home some unlucky pony to hold here at the farm as product. She bucked and bucked and bucked every tree she came across, daydreaming about the night ahead of her. She'd been bucking and gathering apples for hours when Granny Smith approached her.
" Well hey AJ! How's it goin'?"
Apple Jack chuckled, wiping sweat from her brow. " Just workin' hard Granny. Its too bad we don't have more help doin' this part of the farm work."
Granny Smiths eyes lit up with Apple Jacks response and smiled at her. " Well have I something to show you then." She motioned for Apple Jack to follow her as she walked toward the barn. She turns and pulls a lever hidden by the shadows in the barn. Hay flies throughout the room revealing a large trapdoor in the floor with a long set of stairs leading into darkness inside.
Apple Jacks mouth sits agape. Surprise written on her face. Granny Smith hoofs Apple Jack a torch and walks down into the abyss and stops looking back up at Apple Jack who stands holding the torch.
"You comin' or not?" Granny Smith asks.
Apple Jack gulps and steps down with Granny Smith. " Sorry Granny, I just didn't think there would be anything else round' here that I didn't know about ." Apple Jack said feeling a bit hurt from all the secret keeping.
Granny Smith locks the trapdoor on the inside and she begins to walk down the stairs. Apple Jack follows her lighting the surrounding area.
"What's down here, Granny?" She asks, as they reach the bottom of the flight of stair looking down an abyss of a hallway. Apple Jack trudges along, lighting up the the dirt walls with Granny Smith by her side. Apple Jack gazes upon a door with more locks than she'd ever seen.
Granny Smith sighs. "Well down here..." She starts to take locks off the door. " Is where we hold..." The last lock falls to the floor and the door opens. "The Infantry." Granny Smith finally says.
Apple Jack starts down the flight of stairs, with each step down hearing the wails of little fillies.
"Hey I could use some light up here!" Granny Smith shouts.
Apple Jack chuckles sheepishly, heading back up the stairs with the torch. "Sorry Granny, I guess I got a little too excited." She says.
"Oh don't worry about it dear. I don't blame ya." Granny Smith says locking the locks on the inside door. The ponies walk down the infantry hallway passing multiple doors all locked from the outside.
"Those little fillies aren't in there all by themselves are they?" Apple Jack asked.
"Oh no, of course not." Granny Smith replied reaching the door at the end of the hall way with significantly less locks than the last door. "I've got ponies taking care of em'."
Granny Smith opens the door shoving the locks into the next room. Apple Jack shines the torch down another set of stairs. After Granny relocks the door, the pair walk down the stairs. Apple Jack was astonished by how well hidden Granny had kept all this, Apple Jack had no idea about this for years.
As they reach the bottom step and continue down the hall, lined with locked doors like the last, Apple Jack asks, "What's this floor, Granny?"
Granny Smith doesn't respond. The hall is surrounded by an eerie silence, but if you listen hard enough, you can here the soft wails and cries of ponies emanating from the locked rooms.
"This is where you breed the ponies..." Apple Jack realizes out loud. She then thought to herself of what it would look like and started to feel herself become excited.
"Yes...it is. I try not to go in these rooms very often." Granny states.
The ponies reached yet another door, which was more heavily locked than the last one, but not as much as the first door. There was so much to the farm, Apple Jack couldn't think of anything else there could possibly be, but as Granny Smith opened the last door she was met with yet another flight of stairs leading deeper into the earth. The ponies descended, being met with a long empty hallway.
"You sure worked hard today on the farm, AJ." Granny Smith started. " And I'd like to show you that its not just you working hard around here for the benefit of the farm. " They reach another door with two large iron locks. Granny unlocks one, letting it fall to the ground.
"This is where a good lot of our product comes from." The second locks falls the ground and Granny Smith opens the door, letting light shine into Apple Jacks face.
"Woah..." Apple Jack lets out as she stares at the farm in front of her, Granny locking the door back. Orchards of apple trees fill up the land in the room, wide fields of corn and even rows and patches of carrots, all being illuminated by bright light emanating from the celling acting as a false sun.
" This is where those fillies get to grow up." Granny Smith said with a smile as she gazed upon the artificial outside.
That's when Apple Jack noticed all the filles and foals starting at her, doing miscellaneous farm chores. None of which looked to be older than 14.
"I put the young'uns here until their old enough to be moved out and..." Granny looks around and then whispers to Apple Jack. " Harvested...and taken to the hole to wait out their days there."
Apple Jack and Granny Smith walk around the perimeter of the land, Granny waving to fillies as they pass them.
" This sure seems like a lot, they really all stay here? This isn't too much work for you Granny?" Apple Jack asks worriedly.
Granny Smith chuckles. " They really do stay here, In fact it seems that everyone is here as they should be, and even if they somehow miraculously found a way out, any way that's not the way came will leave em' stranded in the Ever Free Forest for dead. These young'uns know nothing outside these walls, I don't they'd ever have any interest in it anyways. Now grab some of these baskets." She says pointing to a basket filled with apples.
"Its about time we get out of here so you can get some rest before your big trip with Big Mac tonight. " Granny says grabbing a small basket of carrots.
Once the ponies are back inside the barn, Granny Smith locks the trapdoor and covers it back with hay. Apple Jack sets and arranges all of the collected produce.
"No wonder we always had so much fruit and veggies to sell..." Apple Jack said to herself. she took an apple and bit into it, the juices squirting out and dribbling down her chin. "This is delicious!" She exclaims greedily taking another bite.
" Oh it better be!" Granny Smith says. " I take the pig waste down there to fertilize those crops...and you know what we feed the pigs." Granny smith cackles walking into the house.